Pearl Harbor and worms.

From a NYT article about the latest computer worm thingy:

Worms like Conficker not only ricochet around the Internet at lightning speed, they harness infected computers into unified systems called botnets, which can then accept programming instructions from their clandestine masters. “If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships steaming toward us on the horizon,” said Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer security consulting firm based in San Francisco.

Is this just a mangled metaphor, or does this guy really not understand that Pearl Harbor was an air attack? And yes, I do hate being this picky.

Food

I've been away with my sons, staying with my friend Y (a very lovely friend indeed) and her kids at the beach. At one point she and I said we were going food shopping, and my oldest son, who's 12, enquired skeptically "what's 'food shopping'?"

Hard Game.

Where exactly?

I was on the 0600 flight this morning and I kept myself busy by reading the papers and then a book and having something to eat. Then, as the plane was coming in to land I looked out the window and remarked to myself how sometimes when you come in to land at Sydney it looks very flat and dry, sometimes the angle means you can't see the harbour or the coast and it looks quite different. These thoughts ran through my head without any real purpose; I was addled from lack of sleep and bit racey from having had two cups of strong tea.

Then I looked at the video display, where it showed that we were, in fact, coming to land in Melbourne. So that explains it.

Image

I was randomly following links today when I stumbled upon a posting about how to be successful if you're in a band. I so love this, and I don't think it's a parody.

You need an image. Some go for the "I hate my dad" look, others go for the "I love Satan" look. Personally, I prefer the "I hate my dad and love Satan" look. This one is up to you.

It's just not right.

Number one son, who's 12 and about to start secondary school is about to embark on a huge life-changing event. No, I don't mean puberty, it's bigger than that. He's going to switch his football allegiance.

(Those of you who are in Ukraine, Texas or Queensland will have to stop reading now because none of this will make any sense to you.)

There's a pretty decent rule of thumb that says that after the age of 10 you can't change teams. There's a few exceptions: if you move cities you can change, or if you are severely mentally disturbed you can (my cousin, for example, went from being a life-long Melbourne supporter to being a rabid Collingwood supporter at the age of about 40. But that just shows you how unbalanced he is).

So Number One Son really should stick with his current choice. But after a fair amount of soul-searching on my part I've worked out that he gets a dispensation from the rule. We were living in London when he decided to go for Brisbane and so I think he can be excused on the grounds of poor information. Unless you're in Melbourne you can't possibly know enough about the teams and, more importantly, the cultural stereotypes around their supporters to make an informed choice. (Pies fans don't have their own teeth, Demons supporters live in map59 and go to Falls Creek, Dogs supporters are pessimistic and long-suffering, St Kilda supporters don't really follow football at all, and so on..)

On the weekend he said he was going to go for Hawthorn. I suspect this was just done for effect because he knows how I feel about the Hawks, but I did point out to him that if he goes to Scotch AND barracks for Hawthorn he'll be a walking stereotype and everyone's going to hate him.

Mad

Quote of the day (so far): Number 2 son's face suddenly lit up, and apropos of nothing in particular, he said "And I got a new cricket helmet, from Santa. It's mad!"

Which I like because 2) he doesn't believe in Santa, and 2) the way he suddenly came out with it and started the sentence with "and" made it sound like we'd stumbled midway into some private conversation.