View From the Bushes

I was talking with someone last night and they complimented me on my blog, to which I responded with something to the effect of "Are you serious?" To which they responded that they admired the dedication it took (presumably more than the actual writing). I guess that's sort of a compliment. Speaking of compliments, I wonder how many of my readers are familiar with the term "trade-last"?

As you can see if you follow the link, a trade-last is a sort of compliment rationing scheme. Initially I had been lead to believe, by my wife in particular but by friends in general, that this barbarity was something peculiar just to my family, but as you can see (once again by following the link to the definition), it's actually widespread enough to have made it into a dictionary. For myself, I've become a little bit weary of the system. I hear lots of nice things about other people, but when I offer these to them as a trade-last, the beads of sweat which form on their furrowed brow as they strain to think of something, anything, which under the most favorable light could be construed as a nice comment about me is truly depressing.

Speaking of depressing, some researchers discovered that it takes on average four minutes for a machine running Windows XP Service Pack 1 to be taken over by a hacker after it's plugged into the internet. Apparently the record was 30 seconds. It takes most people 30 seconds to realize that they successfully connected to the internet for the first time.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross