Today's junk-mail pitch from Visa: "Most credit card companies know you as a number. Sean, we know you by name."


Six Replies to Give Me a Little Credit Here

Lori Lancaster | August 4, 2007
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Matthew Preston | August 4, 2007
Heheh! I'm curious though, would you have signed up if they called you "Scott"?

Tony Peters | August 4, 2007
yes well my home phone number is listed under my cat's names, Zipper and Sketch Peters. In the last month Zipper's credit has gotten very good....she is eligible for a $500,000 home loan, in addition to receiving Visa, Discover, AMEX and Diners club cards in the mail (real cards not fake ones) we have taken to shutting our computers down in fear that the little furball might try to use her credit cards on "Kitty Porn"

Lori Lancaster | August 4, 2007
[hidden by author request]

Amy Austin | August 5, 2007
Heheheh... yeah, I started using my other family members' names, too (though not as funny as "Sketch" or "Zipper") for filling out questionable fields online ever since the last time you mentioned this brilliant practice.

Jackie Mason | August 5, 2007
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Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

That's All I Have to Say About That

Remember those somber anti-piracy messages before theatrical movies a couple of years ago? Like the near-weepy set painter whose wife and kids were going to live in the poorhouse if you illegally downloaded The Big Chill? They must have had an effect on me, because instead of sadness or sympathy, they were all I could think about when I read that the make-up artist for Forrest Gump killed herself and her husband. Go »

So Long, NCSA Primer

Someone asked me for help learning HTML today. I turned to my trusted traditional source, the good old primer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, but alas, it has finally been removed after all these years. This was one of the major how-to guides in the early years of the web, and it's the very guide that I used to teach myself HTML one weekend in 1996, from which this very site you're reading has since evolved. Go »

Moved In

We are moved in and settled, or as settled as we can be with little money and way too much stuff for a two-bedroom apartment. The final move will come in April when we transfer to a house. We have our eye on a house in Ruskin, 30 minutes from here – four bedrooms, two-car garage, cable included, never lived in, all for $50 less a month than I pay now. Go »

Operation Chillax

Today begins a week-long vacation from work, my first break since GooCon last October. Well, not quite begins, since I still have more work to do tomorrow. But then I'm free! Go »

Illinois 2013

Ten highlights of my just-concluded road trip to northern Illinois with Kelly, in chronological order: - Seeing lots of friends and family at our engagement party in St. Charles, our old hometown. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone there, and also glad that I now recognize almost everyone in Kelly's large family on sight. Go »

Rambling Phone Post

Does it make sense for me to keep my phone? Work has provided me with a cell phone. I broke my home phone last weekend, and I could buy another one at Target for ten bucks, but I wonder if I should finally kick the $45 monthly bill and stick to either the cell phone or something like Skype (for which I'd have to buy a mic). Go »