PeopleareParked.com

I don’t know if you are familiar with the Monty Python play, Spamelot, but it was an awesomely funny Broadway spoof. But that’s not what I want to write about today. It’s about the increasing amount of SPAM that’s going around. Not too many years ago, I was aware of SPAM, but didn’t really have to deal with it too much. Would merely delete the occasional offender. Now, it’s a daily occurrence, many times over - an ingrained part of the emailing world.

The titles, for the most part, give it away. Anything with Viagra, Britney Spears, sex, dieting, or “great deals” are good clues that it’s SPAM. Even if you’re interested in any of these, DON’T open them! Others are less blatant, but still dead giveaways. Misspellings, bad grammar, an out of place capital letter are some of my favorites. Anything that looks wrong, probably is wrong. Here are some actual subject lines of spammers:

grate deal you
hi you guy
get on this before Opening bell
Re: you’re request
Recipet #71100112136

Even worse are phishing schemes. For example, I received an email with the subject link, “Bank of America - Sitekey”. Now I didn’t open it, but I’m sure they would have asked me for my account number or login information. If you fall prey to this, they can access your bank accounts. They are looking to not only steal your money, but also your identity. A big DON’T OPEN here.

Curiosity is not an excuse! Even if you think it might be from your long lost friend, and the subject is “A friend has sent you an ecard”, don’t open it. Delete, delete, delete - I can’t say it enough. If you open these SPAM emails, you are helping to spread them throughout the world. Then they may grab all the email addresses in your address book and pass on the SPAM.

I don’t know who’s more parked here - the spammers or the spam-ees . The spammers are just plain evil and the spam-ees are ignorant. Let’s do what we can to stop the spread. Besides the original SPAM authors, don’t blame anyone else for your SPAM. It is everyone’s responsibility who uses email to learn about and put into place the necessary safeguards.

For the past week all I have been listening to everyone “trash” Bill Belichick for video taping the defensive calls of the New York Jets.  So I figure it’s time I add my two cents.  Here we go!  What Belichick did was wrong - that’s for sure.  I do not condone it, support it or suggest that what he did is in the best interest of the game, but let’s also get real about a couple of things.

First he is not alone in “cheating”.  If you really listened to the all the commentators then you heard the honest ones talk about how getting an edge or “cheating” was not uncommon in an industry where lots of money is there to be made.   You heard stories about guys renting rooms that had views of opposing teams practice fields, mouth reading, soft footballs and all kinds of tactics to get one step ahead of the other guy. 

So why is Belichick taking the brunt of the cheating frenzy?  Because he is good and the team is number one.  Why not try to knock them down a peg or two?  Tarnish the whole team because they have it on tape.  Hey Chris Collingsworth, Jerome Bettis, LT and everyone else that wanted to hang the guy and the team, you should never throw stones when you live in a glass house.  Your envy was clearly evident in calling for suspensions and more.

Mr. Goodell here’s your chance to really clean up the league by asking every team for their secret videos and cheating ways.  You have a great opportunity to ask them all because no one’s going to lie - at least for the next week or two. 

The second thing I want to talk about is Eric Mangini.  The guy is Parked.  Clearly the color green suits him.  I never thought he would stoop so low that he would ”tattle” on his former boss, mentor and teacher.   Is he so insecure that the only way to get even was to rat on the guy?  What did you do all those years you worked for Belichick………clearly you “cheated” too.  So are you telling me that you are an innocent and that you don’t try to get in edge in the game - if that is the case then I suspect your NY Jets will be 2 and 14.  It’s a shame you would bring that to a hard working bunch of guys.

So what do we do?  We move on.  Belichick’s been trashed enough.  Besides next week there will be another sports scandal………….everyone is so parked today.

So what’s the accepted etiquette for IM’ing? I’m still learning and I guess it depends on whether you’re talking to friends, co-workers or whoever. Of course, the usual politeness applies, as it would for talking on the phone or in person. Depending on how well you know your friends, sometimes anything goes.

Here’s some of the things I’ve learned:

1. If you IM someone and they don’t get right back to you, you don’t really know the reason. I’ve assumed that they are busy, chatting with someone else or just plain don’t want to chat with me. As for the latter choice, I’m shocked that it would ever be the case! Since I’ve wrongly assumed the reasons before, I now just try to be patient and wait and there’s usually a logical reason.
2. I use Pidgin (formerly GAIM) and it cracks me up when I see other people in my list that are online with the status of being “Invisible”. But I can see you! Why bother logging on in the first place? Are you a voyeur? Maybe someone can explain that to me.
3. Sometimes I feel silly using those cutesy little emoticons. It does help get your emotions across, but I do wonder if I overuse them sometimes or look silly. Not that I need to use them everyday. I do have some willpower, for God’s sake.
4. It is NOT a good idea to have clients on your Buddy List. Won’t say anymore on that one.
5. I don’t know all those word abbreviations, so I mostly type, type, type everything out. I know, that’s pretty parked, but I’m getting better. Like I know the basic ones - cya, ttyl, bfn - all good-byes, so ttyl.

Help spread the word that people are parked… you know it and we know it. Wear this t-shirt for fun mixed with a little bit of attitude.

Get this great looking t-shirt, available in black or white. Mugs also available. Visit http://www.cafepress.com/peopleareparked for more information.

Or you can get t-shirts with our urparked.com logo at our other online store, http://www.cafepress.com/urparked.

Don’t ask me what I was thinking when I came up with this saying! “You can’t get blood from a stone, but you can get shit from an asshole.” Catchy, huh? Oddly enough, it makes sense. You can’t get what you really want, but you get plenty of shit handed to you, especially from an asshole. If you’re into humor along with a bit of shock factor, this t-shirt is perfect. Good for a few laughs among friends.

Visit our online store at http://www.cafepress.com/stone_saying. T-shirts available in black, white, or the ever popular brown.

Do people look at lane markers or what?  At our local dump, there are 3 lanes along the right side of the dumpsters.  The left two are for cars to park and make their garbage deposit and the right lane is a traveling lane.  What parked people don’t understand is that traveling lane, means forward movement is allowed.  Instead of using this lane, many people wait in line in only the left-most lane and the backup of cars block the middle and “travel” lanes. 

They act like it is a line that will constantly move forward in succession.  For the parked people to know, this does not happen.  Some people actually have more than one trash bag to drop off and take longer.  Therefore, it is not a “wait for everyone in front of you” kind of thing.   These people need to stop parking in a non-existent lane and start traveling with the flow.