The opening salvo of World (cyber) War I

Cyber Command Central, located in a secure underground location in Montana.

It began with an excited, almost hysterical call from a Miz Kelly Park of Frisco, Tx.  She reported that the internet was down.  Not just Facebook, but Google, Pintrest and all the rest were black, too.  An immediate check with CNN, Fox News, and the Home Shopping Network mentioned nothing about the attack, leading Miz Park to believe re-runs had been inserted to make it appear all was normal.  

"It's started", said Air Force Maj. Gen. Ralphie Jordan, head of Cyber Command.

"The Event" had been widely anticipated for quite some time.  China's Peoples Liberation Army Unit 61398, their crack unit of government sanctioned hackers, was immediately suspect.  In past bank hacking incidents the origin had been traced back to a non-descript office building in Bejing, and this is where Cyber Warriors loyal to President Brick O'Bama immediately focused their attention.

Efforts were made to inform the President who is currently traveling in Africa, but nobody in Washington could find the area code for Senegal, and the only State Department official who actually knows where Senegal is was with the President, acting as his guide and food and water taster.  Using Constitutional protocol, Vice President Biden assumed command in Washington during the crisis.

Cyber-nerd reservists were immediately activated and ordered to report to their mother's basements and man their computers.  Auxiliary internet channel 6 was powered up, which fortunately was found to be unfazed by the hostilities.

It was assumed there was chaos in the streets all across America, and perhaps even Europe and Australia, too, but as Twitter was knocked off the broadband no one could be sure.  The fear now is that in 9 months there will be one or more babies born to nerd couples who were so bored without their internet they actually tried sex.

One hour and 38 minutes after it began, Reserve Cyber Officer Sheldon Sakowitz phoned Miz Park and asked her to try tightening the coaxial cable connection to her router.  She did, and the internet surged back to life.  

The investigation continues this morning with forensic cyber-scientists trying to figure out how Chinese infiltrators made it across the border and on to Frisco, TX where they Beta tested their newest internet-crashing technology.

Miz Park is currently negotiating a book deal with the Kindle division of Amazon to digitize her riveting, near-disastrous brush with internet death.   You can pre-order your copy now for WiFi delivery on July 8, 2013.

S

*Under duress (by Miz Park) I must report portions of this re-creation were slightly enhanced for effect.  But only "slightly". ;)

  

Just sayin'

It's politically correct these days to point out that not all Muslims are terrorist.  Of course this is 100% correct, but have you noticed that, worldwide, almost all terrorists are Muslim?  True.  There are very, very few exceptions.  Timothy McVeigh comes to mind.  Any others?

Just a tidbit of trivia from my somewhat strange mind.  Make of it what you will.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think I have begun to see the value of Twitter.  When it was first explained to me I was told Twitter was a way for you to tell your friends in a very few words what you were doing.  I wondered, "Why would anyone want to know I'm eating a bowl of cereal?"

But last night as we were eating at Fuzzy's Tacos, with all the TV's tuned to soccer *gag*, K was keeping up with the second-by-second breaking news from Boston.  She knew within seconds that  Dzhekalto Tsrkilckicopev (sp?) had been captured, a full 5 minutes before the news outlets reported it.  And can you imagine a faster way to get the word out when you're looking for someone, whether it be a terrorist or a lost child?

I'm still not going to be a Twitterer myself, but if there's a news story I want to follow, I'm going to Twitter first.  Another nail in ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN's coffin.

Good day to you all.  :)

S

Me vs TXU Energy....Epilogue

To clarify, that would be me (metaphorically speaking) on the right, foreground.  ;)

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I posted a rant here against TXU Energy over the final bill they sent me saying that for just 12 days service I owed $153.34, nearly 3 1/2 times as much (average daily consumption) as I used the previous entire month.  NO WAY!  I called TXU's 800 Customer Service number and spoke with a guy whose training apparently consisted of little more than learning to say "NO" in several languages.  I kept demanding to go upstream and was finally told a higher-up would call me the next day.

In the meantime "Lauren", a TXU social media service rep (many large companies have such people who monitor Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, etc, looking for mentions of their company) commented that I could contact her and she would see if she could help.  I did, forwarding the facts and also photos of evidence of "meter room" door tampering, which raised yet another red flag in my mind.

The bottom line:  TXU requested a meter re-read from Oncor, the electric distribution company who actually owns and reads the meters, and guess what?....I was right!  They notified me yesterday my revised bill is $29.69.  BIG difference!

So what have I learned from this experience?  First, as the old saying goes, "Never accept 'NO' from someone not authorized to say 'YES'".  If you honestly feel you're right, and you have some logic / evidence on your side, KEEP PUSHING!  Principle matters.

Second, TXU Energy is firm, but fair.  They probably have hundreds (thousands?) of scams aimed at them every day, and their natural instinct seems to be to just say "NO", but if you're adamant, they will listen.  Thank you Lauren.  :)

S