Right now, I am sitting at school waiting for my brother to get done with what he is doing but about five minutes ago I got this call on my cell phone from a 602 number. I pick it up and it says, “Hi guys, this is Dorothy from the mortgage company…” I quickly hung up thinking it was a scam or they had a wrong number. I deduced that it was a scam because of the lack of pauses that “Dorothy” took.
Two thoughts went through my head right then. The first was, “Damn, if this is a computer, they did a pretty good job with it. This sounds real.” The other was me wishing there was a whois type database for phone numbers so I could figure out what was going on.
I did a quick google search on the number to reveal just the service I was looking for. whocalled.us is a place where people go and record their experiences with calls from a certain number.
I found out that the number I was called from is in Arizona and that everybody has had the same “Hi guys…” message. I also learned that if you listen long enough and press 1, you can actually talk to one of these people. Finally, this number has been known to call back many times so I think I may mess with them next time they call.
Technorati Tags: phone, scam
From the wikipedia article on rubber bands:
Rubber bands can be used as projectiles. The easiest way of doing this is to place one end on the thumb or index finger and stretch the other with the opposite hand. When the latter end is let go, the band will release. Rubber band guns also exist to fire rubber bands, and are generally more accurate. Rubber bands sting if shot at point-blank range against bare skin, but are generally harmless. However, it is best to avoid firing them at another person’s face or eyes, bare skin, or at close range. As projectiles, rubber bands are sometimes used in intra-office or school pranks, involving employees or students with many dozens of rubber bands being shot at or between other various employees or students.
I had the most peculiar seatmate on the bus today. I’m sitting in a seat next to the window and this woman gets on with an armful of laundry and copies of blueprints. She stops next to me and I’m thinking, “Great, my stop is just three away and I’m going to have this woman sitting next to me holding laundry and blueprints. It’s going to be impossible to get out.” However, instead of her sitting next to me, she placed her laundry on the seat along with the blueprints and stood next to it. Could this win some award for the weirdest thing sat next to on the bus?
Since I’m not allowed to talk about the actual test, I will instead talk about my experiences taking the SAT. The SAT is a test with no face. This is kind of a hard concept for me to explain but I will try.
I took the SAT this morning at the University of San Diego. I walked into the hall where the exam was supposed to be. There was nobody there to greet me. Instead, there were pieces of paper with room assignments based on last name. There was a “barrier” of desks that said things like “Show your ID” and “No cell phones beyond this point” but nobody sitting in the desks to enforce these rules.
I walked past the barrier and turn off my cell phone, expecting some sort of penalty for refusing. However, the only people beyond the barrier were high school students. I expected some sort of SAT administrator to be directing us but no, we had to find our rooms by ourselves.
It ended up that my room was towards the end of a narrow hallway filled with high school students. I cannot stress enough how much there was not somebody from the SAT telling us what to do. We were just forced to wait. Finally, after a few minutes of waiting, some students from USD showed up and let us into the room. For all of the stringent rules that are given to you before you take the test, you would expect it to be more structured but I guess finding your room is part of the first test.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a conference for high school students about Counter Terrorism and other global issues at the University of San Diego. Before I go more in depth, let me just disclose that I interned over the summer for the program that put the conference on on, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.
The day started off with a sort of keynote panel on torture that had lawyers and professors who study the subject. The first lawyer wrote Amnesty International’s report on torture and had a very clear line, “No torture”. There was one woman however, that used her alloted seven minutes to give a soapbox speech on the War in Iraq. I feel that this sort of thing is kind of low. Sure, we have found torture occurring in Iraq but this woman talked about such random things as cluster bombs and depleted uranium bombs.
Throughout the day, all the speakers made one thing extremely clear. Terrorism transcends all religious and political boundaries. Anybody of any race or religion can be a terrorist and, as such the religion and terrorism should be more clearly separated. Also, it is quite difficult to declare war on an idea. We have no clear identity for terrorists and we should thus take a different approach when combatting it.
Overall, I gained some perspective on religion and where it fits in our new world, something I’m very interested in. I felt a little sorry for the less informed students though because they were being fed clearly biased ideas and did not have the ability to discern whether the speaker was telling the truth or not. It was a fun day however and it was amazing to hear new ideas about global issues.
Call it a major hurdle but for the last week I haven’t been able to blog simply because I did not feel like writing this single entry. Why? Because this is my 300th entry in this very weblog. It’s been a long 299 entries but I’ve finally made it. It’s crazy to see how far I’ve come… now I have a grand total of 3 readers besides myself! So sit back, relax, and grab a pint (’cause I can’t) for another 300 entries going strong!
Out of my new encyclopedia of quotations:
Pensées, no. 680. “Pascal’s Wager”:
Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate the two chances. If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that He is!
Pensées, no. 894:
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction
