From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 12:13 AM
To: eWEEK readers
Subject: Your message hair; open season on phishing; Microsoft shows colors
“Im gonna sell my body,” cried the Kitty, noting the multitude of folks who have offered their persons—for a fee—as billboards on eBay. “Ill set up an auction now, offering to shave any personal or corporate message into my fur for $271.37,” proclaimed the Puss, pricing his personage to match the outstanding balance on his corporate credit card. A crony wandered into the rumormongers cube, just as His Hirsuteness, razor in paw, was attempting to carve sample messages into his mange.
The crony, shielding his eyes, said that at the recent Linux Solutions Retail Conference in Chicago, Overstock.com CTO Shawn Schwegman couldnt give his PowerPoint presentation on Overstocks Linux efforts because his Windows laptop died before he hit the stage. “That must have garnered some Kattcalls from the penguinistas,” laughed the Lynx. Suddenly, the Lynxs land line heralded a caller who claimed that storing medical records on cell phones is not far off. According to the caller, several Nokia reps attended a recent conference in Utah held by the Medical Records Institute to start talks on the subject.
Later, the Katts cube crony asked if hed just shaved a crumpled leaf on his torso. “It was supposed to be the Adidas logo,” fretted the Furball. Suddenly, the KattPhones new ring tone, “London Calling,” turned up a babbler from Old Blighty who was attending the WiCon World show at the ExCel London conference center. Although the event was about wireless connectivity, attendee access to it was another story. It seems red-faced workers staffing the press room reported discovering that the metal walls and ceiling of the spacious ExCel convention hall blocked wireless signals. Luckily, said the tattler, a wired LAN saved the day.
Spence asked his workmate to snap a picture of the Red Sox logo hed just created on his corpus, but the cohort convinced him that it looked more like two dead snakes. Just then, the Furry Ones BlackBerry began vibrating more frantically than his electric razor. It was an IM from a pal that online vigilantes are targeting phishing operations by defacing faux banking or investment sites that innocent e-mail recipients may be lured to. “Geeks versus the Russian mob!” cackled the Kitty. “I want the movie rights!” Spence was soon crestfallen when his office mate pointed out that the walking-billboard plan seemed kaput since the Plush One had now carved way too many divots into his fur.
Spence then fielded an e-mail from a Redmond watcher who noted that Microsofts decision to back legislation banning discrimination against gays has quieted many of its critics on the subject. Now, possibly to make amends, the software giant is also a proud sponsor of a big upcoming Seattle gay pride festival. “I hope the celebrants realize that when Microsoft takes on a cause, it never does anything halfway,” mused the Mouser. “Im picturing Steve Ballmer with a rainbow flag around his waist doing the developer dance on a parade float.”