Personal

This is mostly for my mother’s sake. She asked! But, you know, if anyone else wants to take advantage of it that’s OK. (And Derek, I’m gonna take you up on that invitation post-Xmas.)

So here’s the thing. I’m sitting in a talk about spam, and the guy giving the talk is running over various HTML tricks spammers use to get spam past mail filters. A guy stands up and says “So obviously the trick is to block all email with HTML in it!” That’s just stupid. First off, it ignores reality. I don’t live in a world in which I can block all HTML email for all my users; neither do most sysadmins. Second, this is very clearly a talk for people who live in that world. If the context of the talk allowed for blocking all HTML email, then there would be an obvious solution and the talk would take about five minutes. ...

Yeah, I pretty much want all of this. Thanks!

I kinda think I haven’t found the heart of Atlanta yet. I took MARTA up to the Buckhead station, and found a wasteland of shopping malls, alleviated only by a Borders with a stunningly friendly woman behind the counter. Midtown was nicer this morning — the Flying Biscuit is a short walk from the train station, and they do an awesome breakfast. Even if they only have turkey bacon. So maybe Midtown is the right place to be, but there weren’t all that many pedestrians. Hard to figure. ...

My pal Jamie’s doing a music exchange — burn a CD with your favorite songs of all time on it, send it to everyone on the list, you know the drill. In one of those fleeting moments of personal revelation I sometimes indulge in, here’s mine. (Yeah, that’s a pretty weak excuse for personal revelation.)

I’m going to be in Atlanta for LISA from November 13th to the 19th. Anyone else gonna be there? Dinner?

My schedule for the BFFF appears to be something like this: Thursday, 10/14 Saw (9:30) Good buzz on this. (Buzzsaw. Heh.) It’s a low budget horror flick starring Cary Elwes with a claustrophobic one-room setup — the gimmick is a serial killer who always convinces his victims to kill themselves. I was hoping this would drift through Boston sometime. Friday, 10/15 Infernal Affairs (7:30) The hot Hong Kong police thriller of the moment. The premise: both the mob and the cops planted an undercover agent in the opposite ranks. Fifteen years later, violence ensues. This series replaced the Young and Dangerous movies as the top Hong Kong action series, which is kind of unsurprising since they share the same director. I liked Young and Dangerous a lot and I’m gonna like this too. It’s currently being remade by Martin Scorsese with Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio; the remake is set in Boston and centers on the Irish mob rather than the triads. You can feel the Boston mob movie trend juggernaut gaining steam, can’t you? ...

Gozu is playing down at the Brattle tonight at midnight. Anyone in the mood to see one of the oddest movies of the last few years?

A couple of years ago, I linked to Dave Barry on this date. That suits again. Also this, which makes me sad every time I look at it, and today makes me cry.