Good Deed?

Yes, I was a cub scout at one time, I think the year was 1962? I was also Catholic at that time having been raised in a somewhat Catholic home and going to a Catholic school. Doing good deeds was something that was encouraged and expected to a great extent. I don't know if it was being Catholic or being a cub scout, but good deeds were a part of life.

Today I'm no longer scout nor Catholic. I follow my own path of Eclectic Wicca. But good deeds are still a part of life for me. Whether it's making a favourite dish, letting someone back out of their parking spot without cutting them off, cleaning up the house or buying my wife a bag a chips it's still a good deed.

I don't know if it's just me but after being around for over 50 years I sort of think that the world has become more selfish and self centred. Impatience, greed and a general lack of concern for anyone but the self is prevalent from where I stand.

My theory is that it's a parenting problem. Yes I said parenting problem! Obviously this problem didn't just happen yesterday but has been growing for one or two generations.

I am not a psychiatrist or even a psychologist, but I have spent over 20 years working in the health care field and for the most part in psychiatry watching and observing. My conclusion is that we are all born into this world as little helpless babies, who are fighting for life with every breath. So naturally we're a little selfish and self centred by nature. But as we grow and become more and more self sufficient we should become less selfish and self centred. But we don't... that's up to our parents to teach us.

If we don't teach our children to share, be polite, be courteous, be generous then they grow up to be little personality disorders that commit road rage, vandalism, swarming, bullying and the list goes on. As adults they can become serial killers, domestic violent abusers, your daughters boyfriend or your sons wife. Think about what you're doing to the next generation before you let your kids raise each other. It's not their job, it's yours. Lead by example and maybe it won't be too late.

Your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to do a good deed today. Show someone you care more than just for yourself. "Pay it forward" was a good example of what I'm talking about. Maybe you should watch this movie too.
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Telephone Spam part 2

Out of frustration I wrote to my MP in Nepean Ontario regarding Telephone Spam calls. This is an excerpt from his reply.

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As of Dec. 2007 Bell Canada Inc. has been awarded a contract to put together a national “do not call” list. The company was the only bidder that was compliant with the requirements of the Request for Proposal. Bell Canada will be responsible for registering numbers, providing telemarketers with up-to-date versions of the list, and receiving consumer complaints about telemarketing calls. I

In addition, Bell Canada will operate the “do not call list” using the fees that telemarketers will pay to subscribe to the list. The contract stipulates that the list should be launched by September 30, 2008. If you wish to be added to this list feel free to sign up at Bell Canada’s website “http://www.bell.ca/enterprise/EntPrd_Vce_DoNotCall” or by contacting BELL directly at 310-BELL (2355).

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Unfortunately the link to Bell doesn't work. Perhaps one day it will.

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Telephone Spam

I guess email spam isn’t enough, and telephone spam is becoming a nuisance too. At least with email spam we have some solutions such as spam assassin and other protocols that can be used to delete, block or identify spam email. How does one stop or even identify spam telephone calls?

I get hundreds if not a thousand spam email a month on my email software. I use Thunderbird and it’s built in spam filter that learns what is spam and what isn’t by what you teach it about your incoming mail. It’s great but it doesn’t get it all and the fact is the spammer changes their email addresses every week so it still gets by.

Telephone spam is on the rise in my house too and to tell you the truth I’ve thought about just not answering the phone unless I know the caller. I have an answering machine that will take a message if I miss a call but why the hell should I answer a call that says unknown or private number? Most likely it’s a prerecorded message telling me I’m paying too high an interest rate on my credit cards or my car is due for an oil change or I’ve won a free holiday in Florida, all I have to do is get there. (Why would I want to go to Florida?) I don’t get many phone calls so I would have to guess that 50% are spam. At least 5 spam calls a week. I had two spam calls already today and it’s only 1:15 pm.

I don’t have any other solution to telephone spam, no filters, no junk phone box and no telephone spam assassin. What do you do other than not pick up? There ought to be a law against Telephone Spam!

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Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has a happy holiday, whether you celebrate Yule, Christmas or Hanukkah or some other festival of lights.

Being a country that is striving for political correctness isn't easy. As a matter of fact it is failing miserably I feel.

As long as our statutory holidays remain Christian, meaning time off at Christmas and Easter but not Samhain we have failed.

Comments? Especially from those who still feel that it's their right to wish absolutely everyone a Merry Christmas.

Yahoo 360 is Closing?

That's the rumour I've been hearing too. Well it's true... There are changes underway at Yahoo community and here's were you can get some info on it.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/product_360

I don't know, I think Facebook has something to do with all of this.

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MSNBOT has the munchies

As you know I run a pagan online store SacredKiln.com
This week we had a morning shutdown by our hosting company for going over our bandwidth. I was shocked since we don't ever use half of the bandwidth we're allowed in a month. (We could use more traffic here folks!) I sent off an email to our host and found out that the culprit is MSNBOT spidering or crawling our site. Now normally this is a good thing. Robots as they're called crawl your site going from link to link indexing what you have and putting you up on their search engines for all to find. BUT, and it's a big but, when they use 12.46 GB at a visit it puts you way over your bandwidth and shuts you down until your month is up and you get your new allowance.

My hosting company was sympathetic when he let me know the problem and generously gave us extra bandwidth for the month and promptly blocked MSNBOT from coming back anytime soon.

MSN, can you not run your bots with less bandwidth munching?
I compared this to Google for the same day and Google used 53 MB compared to MSN using 12.46 GB A huge difference.
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Scott Shewchuk, R.I.P.

This is about my cousin Scott who passed away this past week. He was loved by many and will be missed deeply.

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On October 14th, Canadian snowboarding lost one of its most colourful characters. Scott Shewchuk, well known to anyone who’s entered or attended a major contest in the last 15 years, passed away at his home in Oakville, ON. Known not only for being the most friendly face at every contest—from the early days of the Snowboard Canada Jam Tour to the current World Ski and Snowboard Festival—it was guaranteed that one of the first people you’d see (or hear) on site was Scott Shewchuk. It was this fun-loving personality that garnered him the huge number of friends he made in his short life. He will be sorely and forever missed. A Facebook group page has been created to share stories, photos and videos of Scott at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7731586787 and the Scott Shewchuk Celebration of Life is this Sunday, starting at 1 p.m. at The Firehall in Oakville, ON. Our heartfelt thoughts go out to his family, friends and loved ones.