Kits and Dogs

I wouldn't be surprised to find a clause in the local Kitsilano tenancy agreement that requires all people who move into the area to own at least one dog. Even walking the bare five minutes to the local video store to return a Dutch nature film yields three Alsations, two Pugs and a Boxer, with a decent chance of a Dachshund or shivering Chihuahua in a cute little tartan vest. A walk down by Kits Beach is like watching a greatly expanded version of Best in Show, particularly on the increasingly nice sunny days we've been having lately. What amazes me is how well-natured Canadian dogs are in such an open environment. A group of fifty Australian dogs in a park is like a couple of kilos of Uranium-235 in a spherical chunk. Scant minutes go by before the particles interact vigorously and a chain reaction occurs, resulting in a kind of canine thermonuclear detonation that devastates the surrounding area. The best theory I have about this phenomenon is that locking a naughty Canadian dog outside in winter is a terrible, bone-chilling punishment, whereas in Australia, it's an opportunity to dig up the garden and shred the chairs on the verandah. The obvious solution is to start locking Australian dogs in fridges when they misbehave, although this may have negative side effects on the local availability of sausages and other meat products.

Viruses and spam have always been a problem for any reasonable internet user, but recently things have been getting right out of hand. I've been receiving a constant stream of virus emails, from a non-existent administrator of my own domain. The emails are pure social engineering, being a message from "The Hamfisted.net Team" that tells me my email account has been hijacked and that I should quickly run this attachment to fix everything up. Completely reasonable really, except for the fact there is no such team, and if there was, I would be the one sending these emails. It all looks official though, which is usually enough to fool users into running the attachment and transforming their machines into zombie slaves, fountaining torrents of goat porn, viagra and spam messages across the world network. Hooray for the darker aspects of human nature, eh?