The Clubhouse Has Been Spammed Like a MoFo

I'm lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, when I hear my MSN Messenger going nuts. I'm getting e-mail after e-mail after e-mail after e-mail, and they're all comments to my blog.

My first reaction, lame and unrealistic as it may be, was that someone somewhere with a popular site listed my blog and I was all of a sudden getting mad hits. This pipe dream was fueled by the fact that a couple days ago I got my first comment from someone that wasn't a close personal friend (props to Meowkaat for the kind words).

The anonymous posts I received this evening (there were 17 total) were all very kind and encouraging, if not repetitive:
"Great site loved it alot, will come back and visit again."
"Greets to the webmaster of this wonderful site! Keep up the good work. Thanks."
"I love your website. It has a lot of great pictures and is very informative."
"Hi! Just want to say what a nice site. Bye, see you soon."
"Nice idea with this site its better than most of the rubbish I come across."
"Your site is on top of my favourites - Great work I like it."
"Very best site. Keep working. Will return in the near future."

Judging by the timestamps, it appears they were all posted within a matter of seconds. Oh, and they all also included links to pages that would supposedly lead you to gambling websites, health insurance, gambling websites, college loans, gambling websites, life insurance... and more gambling websites.

And all the links ended in .be or .pl, instead of .com. I don't know what country those are from, but this blog has already publicly declared its allegiance to the (Northeastern) United States of America, thank you very much! (N.E.)U.S.A.! (N.E.)U.S.A.! (N.E.)U.S.A.!

So, if you're trolling around and see a bunch of comments deleted by the blog administrator, you'll know why. And for a little while at least, you now have to register with blogger.com in order to post a comment. Sucks, I know, but I hope it won't discourage you.

I can't imagine how many of these things I would have been peppered with if I hadn't been able to change the comments settings as soon as they started coming.

Damn spammers.

By the way, click this link.

I Bet That Won't Happen in Tennessee

I was leaving the apartment with my roommate Copenhaver this evening, and as we were walking down the stairs he commented on the pungent dead-mouse odor that exists as you walk down from the third to second floor. I said I heard that there were no mice in Nashville, and he said he heard that there were no mice on the Upper East Side, which is where he's moving in a couple weeks.

As Cope went to push open the door to the outside, he met some resistance. He pushed again, still the door wouldn't budge more than a few inches. I looked down through the window to see what might be preventing us from getting outside, and saw a drunk/druggie/sleepy/dopey/whatever man lying on his side in the 9-to-12 inches in front of our door. Presumably he considered that a good place to nap during the downpour earlier in the evening.

And napping he was. Big time. We gave a couple more pushes, trying to nudge him out of his stupor, to no avail. Then we enlisted the assistance of a couple passersby, asking, "Hey, can you help us wake this guy up?" Some more nudging from the other side, along with some verbal encouragement, didn't get any kind of response, but we were assured that he didn't appear to be dead.

We couldn't get him awake enough to leave the area, but the man-on-the-street was kind enough to use his foot to move the drunk guy's legs far enough for us to open the door just wide enough to ooch outside.

He was still there (no big surprise) when we returned. Cope lost rock-paper-scissors* and it fell to him to try to move the legs again because he had shoes on and I had flip-flops.

A couple memorable quotes on the way back inside and up the stairs to our apartment:

Me: "Oh god, his face is on the ground now."
Cope: "Well, he is lying on the ground."

Cope: "I bet that won't happen in Tennessee... unless it's you."

*Editor's note: I used poetic license there (What, my blog isn't poetry? Whatever) in order to make the post easier to understand to the average reader. We did not in fact decide using rock-paper-scissors. We used a system called ham-and-eggs whereby the last person to put their finger on their nose has to accept the responsibility of a usually somewhat-odious task. (It usually involves more than two people) The most frequent usage is at dinner when the loser has to take the check and take responsibility for figuring what to tip and what people need to pay. I tried to find out if this game is called ham-and-eggs by anyone else outside my group of friends but couldn't find any usages on the web that weren't referring to the actual food. If anyone knows the backstory, please enlighten us via the comment section.

Someone at Entertainment Weekly is Reading My Blog

Last week I posted about the movie Road House and the impending straight-to-DVD sequel. Well you can imagine my surprise when I flipped open this week's Entertainment Weekly and found an article about both movies.

The best nugget from the review is that Kelly Lynch apparently says in the DVD commentary, "Patrick's mullet defied gravity and martial arts and explosions and sex — and probably water and hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes."

The most incriminating piece of evidence that proves the EW editors are ripping off my blog is that in the print magazine there's a little sidebar box labeled "Backstory." This info is basically stolen 100% from my blog: "Road House 2 isn't the only subpar sequel Schaech (above) has starred in. In 1996, he appeared with Alyssa Milano in the ill-fated Poison Ivy 2: Lily, and in 2005 he headlined the second-rate 8MM 2."

Saturday Smorgasbord

Road House Trivia
Road House was directed by a guy named Rowdy. How appropriate. That movie may have the strangest last line of dialogue in the history of movies: "A polar bear fell on me." I swear.

In looking up the IMDB link for Road House I discovered there is a Road House 2: Last Call!! Coming straight to DVD this month, only 17 years after the original movie. No Patrick Swayze to be found, but it stars one of the dudes from That Thing You Do!, who has starred in some of the more unnecessary sequels since co-starring with Tom Hanks. I think it's safe to say that's gonna be the pinnacle of his career. He's actually credited as the screenwriter for Road House 2, and I guess it's because he's got the experience of starring in Poison Ivy II and 8MM 2.

Funny Link of the Day
When I say stupid things, people laugh at my expense. Now it's my turn to laugh.

Thoughts on Anonymity
I am that guy. The one walking down the street listening to his Ipod and singing out loud. (Note that I said "out loud" and not "loudly.") That may rub some people the wrong way, but what the hell do I care? I like singing and I don't know any of them. I walk past hundreds of people on the street every day that I don't know, will never know, and don't care what they think of me. It's something unique about New York City that I'll miss. It's tough to qualify it as strictly "good" or "bad," but I'll definitely miss it while I'm at Vanderbilt.

In New York if I wanna bop down the street singing Morrissey out loud, it doesn't matter. If I wanna head out looking like moldy hell*, it doesn't matter. In a college setting, and in a small town like Nashville (with a population of only 1.4 million people), chances increase significantly that, even with a short jaunt out of the apartment, I'm gonna bump into someone I know.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

*Editor's Note: the phrase "moldy hell" was created by combining two words from my random negative word generator, but just you wait-- it's gonna be catching on. Be the first on your block to use it!

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3... Is This Thing On?

Check it out, I have a blog.

I've mentioned to a couple people the possibility of sending e-mails so people know when I've updated my blog, and some have had a viscerally negative reaction to that, perhaps due to some past bad experiences (I'm looking your way, Tacos N' Tonic).

But others have said they would like that, and given my penchant for going a couple weeks without posting anything, it would be helpful to know when there's actually something new to read on the site (other than comments).

So, I'm trying something. I've set up a "Google Group" that will allow anyone who is so inclined to join the group of people receiving updates on the blog. It's new to me, so there may be some kinks, but it should be pretty effective. You can opt in whenever you want, and unsubscribe any time you want. And the e-mails will have the full text of the latest post, so you won't even have to visit the site, you can just read your e-mail (unless you want to make a comment on the site).

I'd like it if people signed up. I think that while I'm away at school and out of sight, my blog will be a way to prevent me from being out of mind as well. Also, it works out really well for me because I'm super-lazy and I'd love to be able to share my thoughts with all the different people in my life with one click of the mouse.

If you're interested in signing up for the group and receiving blog-update e-mails, go to http://groups.google.com/group/veitblog/subscribe.

Also, while we're being self-referential here, I'd like to point out that just because you can make anonymous comments doesn't mean you have to remain anonymous. It cuts down on the confusion factor if you register with blogger or at least create a screen name.

How Al's Camera Phone Will Cure What Ails Ya

Not surprisingly, Al Katz was up early on the morning of Saturday, July 1st. A little more surprising was his decision to snap a photo of me sleeping with his camera phone because he thought I was sleeping funny:

Indeed I was sleeping funny, but not as funny as I have been sleeping over the last few weeks, which is with my arms crossed and hands tucked into my chest. Al witnessed this a little later in the morning and snapped another shot:


For some reason it took Al's photographs for me to realize (a) this looks kinda strange and uncomfortable, although I wouldn't sleep like this if it wasn't comfortable, and (b) this totally explains why my left wrist has been killing me recently. It's extremely unnatural for my wrist to be bent like that for six hours straight, and, thanks to Al's camera-phone, I know I have to find a new way to sleep. That's the kind of research I can get down with.

Funnily enough, though, it wasn't my wrist that hurt me the most that morning. It was my pounding, aching head, resulting from a game of Three-Man late into the night and an early wake-up call for golf on Saturday morning. Al actually snapped another photo of me, just as I was waking up:

That about sums up how I felt that morning.

Props to Rotante for nursing me back to health, or at least whatever level of "health" I had before I drank all that beer, in a mere half-hour in order to get me onto the golf course, where I took money off Elis Davis and Chris Copenhaver with my unerring accuracy on par-3's (closest to the pin) and my "tactical rolling" philosophy, which allowed me to win the most Skins.

Am I Not a Moral Person? Wait, Don't Answer That...

One of the fun things I get to do as a Legal Assistant at a law firm is compare documents (or different versions of the same document) using a program called DeltaView. It's usually referred to as redlining or blacklining documents, and it's a very convenient program-- it shows what text has been deleted and what text has been added to a document.

One of the other fun things I get to do as a Legal Assistant is look on the server for documents that probably shouldn't have been saved there, or should have been saved their with some security to prevent schmoes like me from seeing them. This includes letters of recommendation.

I recently asked a partner for whom I've been working for a letter of recommendation to send to the law schools that relegated me to their waitlist. The letter he sent was saved to the system, as was the letter he sent on behalf of Josh, one of my former co-workers, who's also going to be going to law school in the fall. So, being the underhanded and naturally inquisitive person that I am, I blacklined my letter against Josh's letter.

For the most part, it was the same. Some phrases were slightly different, or had been moved from one part of the letter to the other, but it was basically the same letter.

With one exception: Josh's letter said that he had "a solid moral foundation," and there was no mention of anything like that in my letter.

Huh? A couple things pop to mind here. The first is that with this type of letter, the partner almost definitely doesn't write a word of it and probably doesn't even provide much input. It's his secretary who has the most influence. The second thing is, who cares? What a random thing to include in one letter and not in another. It's not like Josh is a priest or something. Was it the beard that I had for nine months? I know I should have trimmed it more often and sometimes I looked like a mountain man, but I don't think that's a proper benchmark to gauge morality.

Coincidentally, I've been wondering recently what kind of person I am. Am I a fundamentally good person that does some bad things? Or am I a fundamentally bad person that does some good things? I've known myself for 28 years and I can't figure it out one way or the other, but either this partner or his secretary has got me pinned in the 18 months I've been working here.

By the way, I'd like to think that I'm a fundamentally good person, but I don't know. What I do know is that it's good that I ask these kinds of questions of myself.

Keen Observation

Overheard during fireworks show in Rhode Island:

"There are few things cooler in this world than the discrepancy between the speed of light and the speed of sound."

The Law of Syllogism, or, How Canoni's Car Will Get Sold

p -> q
q -> r
therefore, p -> r

whereas:
p = a gentle sander
q = 600 dollars
r = the torture chamber

I'd really like to explain this for those of you who are confused, and that's probably most of you. Unfortunately all I can say is that this is what happens when you combine a long day in the sun, a large number of beers, and the intellectual prowess of me, Copenhaver and Mr. and Mrs. Rotante.

Celebrate the Birth of Your Nation by Blowing Up a Small Portion of it

This 4th of July, in the great American tradition of open-ended "wars" that it isn't possible to ever truly win (see the War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Poverty), I am declaring war. I am rising up in defense of the Northeastern United States.

My hand has been forced. It's not something I wanted to do, to make enemies of my brothers and sisters (both figurative and literal). But more and more people have moved out of the Northeast or made known their intentions to do so.

I find this completely unacceptable. There has been a tacit understanding, a covenant if you will, between and among those of us who have spent the majority of our lives in the Northeast. It's one of those important social contracts that separates us from the animals. It boils down to, "I'll stay in the Northeast, you'll stay in the Northeast, and we'll hang."

The great part is that it's not just a one-on-one arrangement; bunches and bunches of cool people are in the Northeast, giving us a degree of "Critical Mass" that no other region can match.

Recently, though, people have been flaunting this arrangement. Friends of mine and their siblings are under the mistaken impression that it's alright to leave the Northeast for Seattle, Atlanta, Kansas City, Virginia, and other places. They probably would not appreciate me naming them in this space, at the same time as I call for the heads of those who would leave the Northeast. I will, however, name Jeremy Veit, Sarah Veit and Anna Veit, all of whom have moved to the greater San Francisco area, as deserters. That's right. This war has truly turned brother against brother.

I don't think it'll ever be anything more than a Cold War though, because I don't own any weapons and can't see myself engaging in fisticuffs over it. And the comparison to a Cold War is appropriate on a couple other levels as well. It's not a fight for territory. We've already got the best territory there is, the Northeastern United States. It's more a fight for the hearts and minds of our friends and family members.

We're also fighting against a domino effect similar to what was feared during the Cold War period. If people start leaving the Northeast with impunity, others (i) start to consider the possibility that the Northeast may not continue to have its historical critical mass (a "critical mass gap," if you will), and (ii) think that it's okay to leave the Northeast.

Let me counter both of those misconceptions: (i) the Northeast will always have critical mass. Trust me, those of you who are living on the West Coast or down in the dirty South, you're going to be coming back to New York a lot more than any New Yorkers come visit you, and (ii) IT IS NOT OKAY TO LEAVE THE NORTHEAST. You will lose friends and loved ones.

There are a couple caveats that apply in narrow circumstances. If, as is the case with yours truly, you are leaving the Northeast to attend an institution of higher learning and you loudly profess your intention to return to the Northeast upon graduation, you are granted a temporary get-out-of-jail-free card. If your career path absolutely requires a stint outside the Northeast, you can go if you promise to come back as soon as it is professionally viable to do so.

There are probably some points I'm forgetting here, but you can be sure that I will re-visit this issue again in this space and in conversations with the people who visit this space.

Please join me in this important fight.

Andy Veit, Captain of Industry

Please see below a photo of me standing side-by-side (or side-by-side-by-side-by-side-by-side, as the case may be) with Teck Moh Phey, the President and CEO of Pacific Internet Ltd. on the momentous morning of June 15, 2006.

That day, those of us who are in the inner sanctum of close advisors to Mr. Phey gathered to open the Nasdaq stock market. Here's an action shot, from which I was unfortunately cut out (Mr. Phey had two people fired for that mistake):

This ceremony was broadcast live on the jumbotron in Times Square, as well as on the following TV networks: Bloomberg, Bloomberg Brazil, CNBC, Fox, CNBC India, KTVU, NDTV (New Delhi), Report on Business (Canada), and New Tang Dynasty TV.

You know you've made it when you make your first appearance on New Tang Dynasty TV. Hopefully it'll be the first of many for me.

The Story Behind The Story

I'd love to let the above story speak for itself, but (i) I'd get a boatload of e-mails asking me what the hell is going on, and (ii) as a former newsie, I can't let that kind of B.S. go.

What happened was my friend Alan Katz (we went to high school together) called me that morning with a problem: he had a client opening the Nasdaq market and they didn't have enough bodies wearing suits to stand behind him and clap. I happened to be wearing a suit because I was going to Todd Bender's rehearsal dinner that night, and I work around the corner from the Nasdaq. So of course I jumped in a cab, got there at 9:25, shook a couple hands (not Mr. Phey's) and stood as far off to the side as I could-- it's not a mistake that I was the first person cropped off when the camera pushed in.

They snapped some photos and then told us to clap and cheer for a couple minutes while we were taken live. The thing I was most pleased about was the fact that I snuck a couple "huzzah's" in while we were live. It seemed like an appropriate exclamation to me. What was I gonna say? "Woohoo?" Doesn't fit.