You can tell it’s Autumn around here by the increased frequency of “butter” appearing on the grocery list.
By the re-appearance of dirty socks on the floor.
By the stacks of books next to the chair. Oh wait, that’s year-round.
By the unfoldedness of the various afghans and throws on chairs and couches.
By the smell of cinnamon.
What are your signs of autumn?
Hello,
You have not responded to my previous letter sent two weeks ago by regular mail in which I expressed my grave concerns about an investment of a member of your family.
As you already know, I am the Information Analyst at the SNS Bank of Netherlands and presently in London, the United Kingdom on official assignments. I am contacting you via email because you have not responded to my previous letter and I do hope you will give this matter a priority attention it truly deserved.
I would respectfully request that you treat the contents of this mail as privileged and proprietary and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this correspondence because am contacting you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication. Hence, I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you and mutually beneficial if pursued to its conclusion with the necessary speed and determination.
The bank is at the verge to closing an investment account of high value belonging apparently to your family member who reportedly died intestate five years ago leaving behind an estate/capital with interest of a substantial amount of money in a now bonded account at the SNS Bank of Netherlands and till date nobody has come forward or put application for the claim. In line with our internal processes for account holders who have passed away, we officially instituted our own investigations in good faith to determine who should have right to claim the estate. This investigation has for the past months been unfruitful. Hence, my official capacity dictates that I am the only party to supervise the investigation and just recently, it occurred to me that you and I could work on this matter and share the proceeds equally being that you both share the same last name which put you in the right position to be the only suitable apparent heir of the estate though you may not be biological
ly related to him.However, to maintain some level of security/confidentiality, I have intentionally left out some privileged information and urge you to contact me today and let’s discuss the modalities/logistics of realizing this goal.
In compliance with the standard requirements and to double-check with my record and ensure that you are indeed the addressee of this mail, I need you to reconfirming your details which include but not limited to your contact information, your full names (no initial please) and your age range, (Date of Birth) as prove of maturity to handle a project of this magnitude. I will provide you with all the privileged information/legal documents relating to the deceased customer and his bonded investment account when I receive your information and double-checked same satisfactorily. I will also guide you through the entire process of the transaction and ensure that the deal is consummated without the breach of the laws.
I am aware of the consequences of this proposal and humbly request that you discard this mail if you find no interest in this project. I ask that you should not be vindictive if you are not interested in taking this further. Please notify me and delete this message and forget I ever contacted you. Do not ruin my career by contacting the management of my bank simply because you are not interested in my proposal. You may not know this but people like me who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector in the banking industry. I am not a criminal and neither will you be one by working with me on this deal. This may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move. Opportunities like this seldom come and therefore I am committed to realizing this goal in spite of all odds. I need your courage and commitment to actualize this transaction and together we can make it happen.
I do expect your prompt response. Or feel free to call me anytime on this number: +44 - 70 430 20619 while I am still here in London and let’s examine the possibility of a lasting business relationship.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Ewald de Bever (Mr),
Oracle Database Analyst,
SNS Bank of Netherlands.
According to my iTunes statistics, I’ve got 10896 songs in my music library, including the 455 songs on albums in the “Christmas” genre.
I have been listening almost exclusively to “Genius” generated playlists. The common complaint about the “Genius” algorithm is that it sucks for pretty much anything except rock and pop. However, it’s not so good for that, either. I picked “One Week” by Barenaked Ladies and got tons of “Alternative” hit songs, but in 50 songs there are 37 artists represented. I have 162 “Alternative” albums, by 91 artists. Many of them are popular! Why don’t they show up in my list?
Some artists who I should be able to use as a “Genius” seed “are unavailable”, Al DiMeola, for instance. Also Wendy Carlos, PDQ Bach, Tomita, Ravi Shankar, Astor Piazzolla, and The Beastie Boys. (I can understand not finding Beatmistress, but The Beastie Boys?!)
These are just at random. It could be that I’m just choosing songs that aren’t available, rather than artists. But if one song by an artist is available, why doesn’t it do better extrapolation?
What I want is something between “Genius” and “Shuffle” — something that will pick a random song and decide if there is something that keeps it from following the currently playing song. Sort of the best of both worlds.
By the way, I’ve played 250 songs all the way through since “Genius” debuted, from 165 albums and 112 artists. (It doesn’t seem like a lot but I don’t have iTunes running all the time; also since I don’t sync music my iPod based play counts are lost.) The most frequently played song is “Loser” by Beck because I used it as a “Genius” list starter.
“Rain is an awful houseguest,” says I. “’Cause we begged it to come visit, because all our flowers were dyin’ and stuff, and Rain was all like ‘Oh no, I got other commitments’ and then when it finally showed up it stayed so long that it killed all the ’maters.”
A couple of months ago, I posted about what I put on my iPod Touch. I thought it might be informative, if not particularly interesting to give an update as to what’s on my iPod now.
One thing I’d like to point out: I am not particularly frugal (geez, I own lots of Apple gear — frugal it ain’t), but I am cheap and I really don’t like the iTunes store. This stems from the early days, when I bought a few albums and then had a drive crash and oooops! no more music and no way to get it back from Apple. I suppose it’s a little better now with the “DRM-free” tracks, but frankly I have enough music (over 10k songs) that I seldom buy any. And since I never was big on movie rentals or TV… Anyway, this cheaposity has transferred over to the App Store. The $25 iTunes credit I got with my iPod Touch case tends to be used for software updates, but I have bought a couple of games.
All that long-winded paragraph to say that not everything in this list is free, but it is all pretty cheap.
And, like before, there are mostly games. I’m not a “productivity” kind of person, so most of the business &c. apps are wasted on me. When I was poking about the App Store yesterday, it was interesting to note that games are often free or low-cost, but “lifestyle” apps are nearly always spendy. Finance apps fall slightly more expensive than games, and business apps are all over the place, but are often quite pricey.
Looking at my “Applications” library in iTunes, I see I’ve downloaded 43 items. Not all of these have remained on my iPod Touch, but I don’t bother deleting them. In fact, I have fewer on than off.
What causes me to keep something? A game that passes the time and that isn’t too easy or too hard; or an application that does some occasional (and usually simple) task well that I can’t do by other means.
Because of the length of the lists (17 on, 26 off), I’ve moved them below the fold.
