Australia is the New Nigeria?

An email I got in response to my craigslist room-for-rent ad:

Hi,

Thanks for the response to my introductory mail,i will like you to know the full information about me. I was born and razed in Australia,i am quiet and easy going person to live with. I'm 26 years of age, I am extremely clean,quiet and respectful, I am a sensitive, intelligent, patient and caring person, have a good sense of humor and am easy to get on with. I am a faithful and committed person, who is very considerate of other people's feelings. I don't drug, I don't smoke and i don't drink.. I enjoy going out with my friends to movies, plays, parks, hikes, anything to do with the ocean and horses but i'm cool living with people.I really do appreciate the breakdown details of the room.I must confess i'm comfortable with the cost of the room and its quite reasonable and affordable . I will like to make the payment for the first month ahead of my arrival, and then i will make subsequent payment thereafter as i plan to stay for 12months,'ve told my boss about this and he promised to make sure that he will meet up with the payment so that I can depart from here as scheduled.He also said I will have the advantage to make payment for deposit .I should arrive to US on or before the 12th of september, so pls keep room for me till my arrival.He also said my mode of payment will be the Most acceptable,safer and reliable means of payment which is United state certified money order,so get back to me with your name and address so that i can send you the payment as early as possible.

Kindest Regards,

Trich.

Cat Bite

I found a cat wandering in my backyard.

Somehow, I managed to convince the cat to let me scratch it. The cat seemed to be enjoying itself. It was moving its head around in order to let me know where to scratch. Then suddenly, with no warning, it jumped up and bit my hand!

I felt used and betrayed. I'm afraid I can never trust another cat again.

Enormous Spider

I just found a huge-ass spider on my carpet. Killing it required a ton of paper towels. I sure hope it wasn't poisonous...

No More 300 Page Bills From AT&T

I got this text message from AT&T today explaining how they were simplifying my paper bill. This is funny because I had already signed up for paperless billing several weeks ago.

NDS Game Overload

After several weeks of mediocre releases, there seems to be a deluge of awesome NDS games that came out within the last week:

Glory Days 2
Luminous Arc
Rune Factory
Heroes of Mana
Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Phoenix Wright 3)

Trying to find time to play all of these is going to be difficult though...

Boeing Future of Flight Museum

When we arrived at the Future of Flight museum, we discovered that the only tour that had enough space for all of us had already stared 10 minutes ago. However, we could still catch it if we hurried. I was on the phone frantically trying to tell two other people who got off at the wrong bus stop how to get to the museum. Security wouldn't let me take my phone with me even when I explained my situation to them. The tour bus was about to leave and everyone else was waiting for me. Not knowing what else to do, I handed over my phone and asked the receptionist to give my friends directions, and ran off to the tour bus.

The tour consisted of watching a 10 minute film (that we missed because we were late), a bus ride to the factory, walking through an underground tunnel, taking an industrial elevator up to a viewing level, walking around and looking at the factory, walking back through the tunnel, and taking the bus back to the museum. The whole thing took about an hour.

As soon as I got my phone back I called my friends to see what had happened. In the end, they never got directions and just took the bus back.

Don't Feed the Animals

This is what happens when you start feeding the animals at Olympic National Park.

Seattle Ferry Seagulls

Seagulls like to fly across the Pudget Sound with the ferries. For some reason, they don't like to land and ride on the ferry, but would rather just fly near the ferry.

Don't Drink the Water

While Olympic National Park is very beautiful, with its lush green forests and misty ridges, it's not without dangers. For example, while the water in Lake Crescent may appear unnaturally clear, it's actually infested with parasites.

When we were hiking back from Marymere Falls, we stopped by this little creek to drink the water, not knowing that it was dangerous. As we were cupping the water with our hands, another hiker saw what we were doing and ran over to our group, literally screaming for us to stop. Thanks to one good Samaritan's quick actions, we could have all been saved trips to the hospital.

Good Unsolicited Mail

I got some unsolicited mail that's useful for once: sticky address labels with my name and address. Oh, and there's pictures of flowers too.

Hi, Me 5¢

I think my drink is trying to tell me something...

Seafair

I arrived at my first Seafair not knowing what to expect, but left quite content after thoroughly enjoying myself with the airshows, hydroplane races, and fair activities.

The airshows were amazing. The first round started soon after I arrived at 1pm. The Patriots Jet Demonstration Team and the US Navy Blue Angels performances both dazzled the audience with their tight formation flying and their intense maneuvers. A second round of airshows started at around 4pm, beginning with some amazing aerial acrobatics by Team Oracle pilot Sean Tucker, and continuing with a variety of other equally awesome aerial acrobatic demonstrations.

The hydroplane races began with a very dramatic start when one of the boats flipped over in the air and crashed upside-down in the water on the very first lap. The rescue boats, which were standing by, quickly arrived and the driver, Chris Bertram, was thankfully alright. The three remaining boats continued the races.

I don't think I've been to a fair where people were giving away more free stuff. Every other booth had some attraction or swag that they were giving away. The Capri Sun booth even had its own half-pipe and had hired four professionals to perform extreme sports for the crowd; they were also giving away free Capri Sun juice drinks to boot!

iPhone Backup - Missing Items

Software update 1.0.1 came out for the iPhone yesterday. It was mainly a security update with no really noticeable changes. However, I did notice that Apple fixed the UI problem on the usage screen where the text for the current period call time was being cut off.

Unfortunately, the update process didn't go smoothly for me. Since I had hacked my iPhone just a few days prior, I had to do a full system restore, which wipes all the data and settings. After the system restore, iTunes will offer to restore your settings from a backup. While most settings got restored, there were a few that did not. The most important and irritating of these missing items was the camera roll photos. I lost about 20 photos that I took with my iPhone. The other things that didn't get restored were my YouTube bookmarks and saved passwords (voicemail, email, and wifi).