Is anyone else seeing a dramatic increase in spam in their gmail account? I typically get between 150-200 spams a day, but the last two days I’ve gotten around 550. The overwhelming majority of them are the postmaster bounce messages, which leads me to suspect someone is using my address in a massive spam campaign.
One of my coworkers is also seeing this on his account, so I was wondering if it was happening to anyone else. The one nice thing is that gmail’s fantastic spam filter isn’t having any trouble – I had three spams in my inbox this morning, and all the rest were properly filtered.
Due to a decent tax refund, we’ve finally decided to get around to all the home improvement and decorating we’ve been meaning to do since moving into this house two years ago. This past weekend, I did the following:
Go to Ikea, purchase things
Assemble the file cabinet that came in like eight boxes
Assemble the new bookcase
Move Zoe’s bookcase to the living room
Rearrange all the bookcases in the living room
Unclog the bathroom sink
Hang coat hooks in Zoe’s room
Sort through comic boxes before we donate the comics to a shelter
Add to this list the curtains and shelves we purchased and hung up last weekend, and I’m about sick of home improvement projects. Good thing this next week will bring Grand Theft Auto 4 for game night and Iron Man for the twins’ birthday over the weekend!
“…Not because I’m some patchouli-scented, fuzzy-headed, ‘information wants to be free’ info-hippie. I’m at it because I want to fill my bathtub with money and rub my hands and laugh and laugh and laugh.”
–Cory Doctorow, from the forward of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
I’ve mentioned before that Zoe loves reading, but it’s really become one of her favorite things recently. She will happily sit on the floor paging through one of her picture books for ten minutes, quietly turning the pages, and pointing at things she likes. (Based on how often she points to their photos, her favorite things right now are kittens, puppies, and little babies.) I like to refer to this as “reading for comprehension,” and it marks a big change from just a month or two ago when books existed mostly to be manipulated. She would chuckle at the photos sometimes, or chew on the spine, but what she really liked was turning the pages. If you tried to read with her, and you didn’t let her just turn the pages as fast as she could, you would end up with a cranky little girl. Now, though, she’s all about the content. She’ll open a book to a page and spend a minute or two admiring the subject matter, and then turn to the next page.
She even knows which way is up — the other night, I watched her grab one of her books, and when she realized it was upside down, she set it down, stared at it for a second like she was figuring out the best approach, and then crawled in a circle around to the other side of the book.
The best part is her reading voice. Like most one-year-olds, Zoe spends all day long babbling and chattering away. Since she just repeats the same baby syllables over and over, the only real meaning that gets expressed is in tone of voice. When she’s upset, she get shrill and loud. When she wants attention, she gives short, sharp cries. When she’s happy, she quietly burbles, and when she’s excited she tends to shriek with joy. But she has a whole different tone of voice that she only uses when she’s reading to herself. It’s kind of cheerful and sing-songy, and Annie got a nice video of it the other night.
