I had a call this afternoon from a very perky recording telling me that my online ballot was drawn and I’d won a vacation worth about $2400.  All I had to do was press 0 to learn more.

Should you receive one of these calls you should hang up.  Immediately.  Whatever you do, do not press 0.  Or any other button.  Let’s repeat that:

DO NOT PRESS 0 OR ANY OTHER BUTTON.

Pressing 0 will basically grant them the ability to fraudulently charge your phone bill.

How do I know that I really didn’t win a big vacation?  Well, it was an autodialer calling with a pre-recorded announcement that didn’t say who they were.  And, they were calling my Bell phone number which I keep around as a backup to my VoIP line — I don’t use it for anything else.  And my parents mentioned that they had the same thing call them up at the cottage.

So, just hang up on it.  And check your phone bill closely next time it arrives.

I noticed the following stories on the BBC ticker this morning, listed in chronological order:

• Guantanamo suicides ‘acts of war’
• Guantanamo suicides a ‘PR move’

Has the American government inadvertantly implied that ‘acts of war’ are ‘PR moves’?  This would explain a lot.

Once again, I’m taking part in the Nortel Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival. Unlike past years, however, I am steering for the PCL Singapore Slings rather than Paddle By Numbers. (We couldn’t get enough people to put together Paddle By Numbers by the deadline. Oh well.)

The Singapore Slings have been paddling in the festival almost since the first year. We’re practising twice a week until race weekend (June 24-25).

If you’d like to sponsor me, you’ll find a button marked “Donate” at the top of the column on the righthand side of the screen. Clicking it will take you to the ODBRF website where you can make an online donation. This year, the Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation is supporting the following local charities:

• Ottawa Senators Foundation & Roger’s House
• Centretown Laundry Co-op
• Junior Achievement of Eastern Ontario (JAEO)
• Special Olympics Ontario – Ottawa District

Thank you in advance to everyone who makes a donation! 🙂

Wired is reporting that a hacker has been sentenced to two years in prison followed by three years of electronic monitoring under the U.S. Economic Espionage Act for selling a copy of the source for the Windows operating system.

The guy isn’t exactly new to the wonderful world of illicit computer use. At the time he was arrested, he was “on probation for computer trespass and eavesdropping after breaking into some private computers and installing keystroke-logging software.”

It struck me as rather ironic that the government is going to install monitoring software, which almost certainly would include keystroke-logging software, on the system of a guy already convicted for exactly the same thing.

Today is my 37th birthday. To celebrate, I went to the Keg Manor this evening with Kathy, my parents and my Granddad. (He’s going to be 98 tomorrow and we tend to do the joint birthday thing, especially when our birthdays fall on the weekend.)

Dinner was amazing, I received some great presents and had a wonderful time. 🙂

Happy New Year, everybody!

2005 had its ups and downs for me. The “downs” list includes: waay too much overtime (it can be measured in terms of months) and not enough diving (because of the overtime). The “ups” list includes: meeting Kathy :); travelling to Florida last summer (with Kathy); and spending more time at the cottage (also with Kathy).

2006 is shaping up to be a better year: I start a new job at Statistics Canada in March; planning a trip somewhere warm in February (with Kathy) and maybe a UK trip (or two).

Well, it’s that time of year again…

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 🙂