Now that the OWU 2006-07 Fiscal Year has begun, we (the Annual Fund Staff) have started to contact all of the Annual Fund volunteers. The most recent contact has been an e-mail from OWU containing the following (the names and passwords have been changed):

Welcome Joe Schmoe,

Your application has been approved by our administration team.

Your account with the following details:
Email : joeschmoe@whatever.snort
User Name : #)@#*)*
Password : $&@(T^

has been activated. We welcome you to our online community
and trust that together we will grow.

Enjoy the experience!

Kind Regards,
The Ohio Wesleyan Annual Giving Staff

NOTE: This email was automatically generated from Ohio
Wesleyan Annual Fund Volunteers Resource Site (http://owuannualfund.net/site).

Some people may have received this and thought "why is Ohio Wesleyan using one of those phishing schemes to get my information? I thought only Chase and eBay did these things. I'll make my gift- they don't have to stoop this low."

We weren't trying to steal information (yet). What happened was that while I was filling in the current volunteer's information, the website was generating an e-mail response to each e-mail address I entered. I didn't realize it until I was informed by a volunteer.

And yes, I do have a degree in Computer Science- it just isn't that obvious because the Volunteer Website never seems to work. I should have just gotten a degree in Awesome Blogs.

Shameless Plug
Having to pay for everything on the Internet is beginning to become a disturbing trend- at least for me. I grew up when the Internet was just coming into its own, and one could find everything for free. Now you have to pay to watch sports highlights or read stories about the Browns (stupid ESPN Insider- as if ESPN and SportsCenter already hadn't sold out enough, now you have to pay a premium for horrible opinions. If I wanted those, I would talk to a Steelers fan).

Not only that, but now if you download songs, you can be arrested and sued. You mean to tell me that I could go to jail for downloading (I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight by Cutting Crew? It is a cold, hard world we are living in.

The same is true with Internet radio- many of the best stations are now pay to listen. But there is hope. If you go to http://www.woxy.com, you can listen to a great station with no commercials for free. The music is from indie bands and small labels, the DJs aren't all that bad, and it's FREE.

Gender Bending
After sitting in a meeting for a couple of hours, sometimes my mind begins to wander. I can't help it. In those times of imaging myself hitting a homerun in Jacobs Field or saving the world from certain destruction that I may only hear part of a conversation or sentence. Then, out of nowhere, my ears pick up something- then I take that fragment completely out of context.

Yesterday, a majority of the Development staff was in a meeting with a representative from the OWU database vendor (and yes, it was a rip-snorter of a good time). When the topic of discussion moved to table maintenance, the moderator of the discussion asked if anyone in the meeting was able to change records. Everyone was silent (and this is where my mind started to wander) until an unnamed Champion of the Annual Fund (you know who you are) said "I can change gender whenever I want."

This statement snapped me back into reality. I'm sure that the Champion meant that she (or he, dependant on her/his mood at that particular moment) could change a person's gender on their Ohio Wesleyan record, but all that I heard was "I can change gender whenever I want," which to me, in my state of spacing out, sounded like "I can change gender whenever I want." So I replied "You mean like one of those jungle frogs in the rain forest?"- which made me laugh.

No one else seemed to have this reaction.

I don't care, I still think it was funny.

Below is a picture of sex-changing frogs: