Remember When There Wasn’t All This Hacking of Emails?

This was published earlier at Markkaplowitz.com.

I recently received a message saying that my email account “has been implicated in a security breach.” After I calmed down and stopped pacing around with my hands in the air, asking “Why me?”, I wondered what these hackers could possibly have wanted with my emails….

“Captain, what have we found, if anything, from the emails?”

“Well, sir, we have discovered that his sister is coming over to visit in a few weeks, and that he has a 20% off coupon to Target.”

“Hmm. Not sure what I’m going to do with that yet. But go on. What else did you find?”

“He is delinquent in reading all emails from The Wooden Spoon Store.”

“Well, that is interesting. Do you know what that means?”

“No, sir.”

“Obviously the account custodian is involved in a ideological battle with this retailer. Run with it!”

The story that The Wooden Spoon Store along with other online retailers was involved in an ideological battle with me tarnished its squeaky clean image and hurt sales. I was interviewed several times about my thoughts on the store.

They shoved microphones in my face, and asked, “Why did you not read those emails from the Wooden Spoon Store?”

“Because I don’t use wooden spoons,” I replied.

Then the FBI announced in an unsigned letter that they were “taking a closer look at a few emails that merit a closer look” and I had to testify before Congress.

“Mr. Kaplowitz, it says here according to this email dated…ah, where is the date. Excuse me,” turning to his right, “Senator, can you help me? Where is that email I was going to talk about?”

“Um, I don’t know, Senator. You had all your papers on your table.”

“I did? Well, anyway. Mr. Kaplowitz, I understand that you believe that the Wooden Spoon Store is manipulating the market for wooden spoons. What evidence do you have to back that up?”

“I don’t have any evidence. And I never said that the store was manipulating anything.”

“You didn’t?”

“Well, it was taken out of context.”

At my sentencing for violation of the Fancy Kitchen Wares in Lawful Commerce Act and a slew of other fraud and obstruction of justice charges, I was given the opportunity to address the judge and all three employees of the Wooden Spoon Store.

“To my fellow human beings, I am sorry that I never read the emails you sent me, advising me of specials and other deals. I should have taken the Terms of Service more seriously. This was grievous error and I am glad that I am going to be punished for it.”

I served my time in a special prison for hackers, computer fraudsters, and people who post on Facebook about their long distance running. These fellow inmates taught me how to read online newspapers without paying. Upon my release for good hygiene, I put this skill to use and today I read upwards of four articles a day without paying for them.

Have I traded one kind of fraud for another? Perhaps. But a man’s got to make a living somehow.

Posted on 29 November 2016 by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember When People Didn’t Grow Plants on Their Heads?

I cannot believe that this blog is five years old. I’ll never know what moved me that day to write a few hundred words about the early 90s show Beavis and Butthead and publish the piece on a WordPress blog called “Schlabadoo.” But whatever it was, be it muse or daemon or the ancient Babylonian god Marduk, the same force is moving me to start blogging on a self-hosted site with my own name in the URL. Five years ago I thought blogging on a site named after myself would be too vain. And then, later on, when I started getting a lot of followers, I thought, “Well, maybe I don’t care about being too vain, but I don’t want to lose all my followers and all that Google juice I’ve built up.”

I’ve given this a lot of thought. 3,860 followers is a lot of people to inconvenience, and pulling a switch on Google is not something one does lightly. But I have a plan, and moving to this new site is part of that plan. I really hope you understand.

Thank you everyone who has read and followed and commented and shared. And thank you WordPress, for letting me blog here for free; y0u run one heckuva platform. Blogging has been great here at Schlabadoo, and the blogging is going to continue. It is just going to continue somewhere else. From now on, markkaplowitz.com is where new blog posts shall be posted. A link to the new posts will still be posted here, but I hope to see you over there. All the best – MK

And here’s the link to today’s post:

Remember When People Didn’t Grow Plants on Their Heads?

Posted on 11 October 2015 by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember When You Could Send a Spaceship to Mars for Only $75 million?

So I’m sure you’ve heard by now of the orbiter that India sent to Mars for only $75 million, and seen it compared to the U.S. Mars orbiter that cost $672 million. Whatever the reasons for the difference in price, my main concern is that the two orbiters will start orbiting the planet in the same path at the same time, and they’ll be fighting over the armrest, and we’ll have to turn the spaceship around.

The more I think about it, even $75 million starts to sound like a lot. Maybe the first space trip would cost a lot. But that was decades ago, back when there was an evening paper and people had milk delivered to them in a glass bottle. There should have been more cost-effective innovation by now, like what they’ve done with coffee.

There are plenty of places where money can be saved on the Mars orbiter. I hope they didn’t bother installing air conditioning. I’ve found that a good fan well-positioned can cool as quickly, if not more quickly, than central air conditioning, albeit with a plug that can be a trip hazard, especially when one is using a plate with a turkey sandwich on it to balance a large glass of soda.

We shouldn’t be paying for ice either. Space is very cold. All the spaceship has to do is hold a pitcher of water outside the cabin for a few seconds, and poof! Instant ice cubes. The ice cubes would, of course, be in those annoying half-moon shapes that come out of refrigerators. You can’t have everything in life.

The biggest cost-saver would have to be cable and internet. The price that NASA pays to have cable and internet on every one of its spaceships was probably, in the beginning, quite modest. And after a few months, NASA got accustomed to the price, and the astronauts were too tired from walking in slo-mo in those bulky suits to read the monthly cable bill very closely anymore.

In fact, I’m sure that NASA at this point feels rather powerless to do anything against the cable company. But the company is expecting you to do nothing! I wish I could say. Just call up, and say that you heard that other large and inefficient agencies are paying less for cable and internet, and that you as a loyal customer demand the same low price. The cable company will grant your wish. And do you know why? Because they don’t want to lose you as a customer.

Friends, it has been over two days since I shamelessly plugged The Issue Box on this blog, and I suspect that many of you have not had the opportunity to check it out. I know, I know. They’ve been showing episodes of Roseanne. I get it. TV marathons happen. But still there are commercials. So feel free to stop by during a commercial break. Unless it is one of those commercials that is better than the program you were watching. It’s fun when that happens.

Posted on 17 October 2014 by Mark Kaplowitz 0

Remember When the World Cup Wasn’t On?

I was walking down the street, with my headphones on, listening to Sir John Gielgud’s performance of the “To Be, Or Not To Be” soliloquy from Hamlet. Suddenly a long black car pulled up to the curb beside me, and two large men with black suits got out and pulled me into the car. They blindfolded me, I imagine so that I could not see their faces, or perhaps they wanted to surprise me with a gift, the way parents would do after we lit the Hanukkah candles.

Then someone spoke to me.

“We heard that you said football was boring.”

I protested and said that I never said such a thing, that I love football and cherish every tackle as if it was happening to me or someone I loved. There was some whispering, and then the man who spoke cleared his throat and spoke again.

“I mean, we heard that you said that soccer was boring.”

I tried to remember if I ever said that soccer was boring.

“Well, I certainly remember thinking it,” I admitted. “But saying it? I’m afraid I don’t remember. I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t say it. I’m saying I just don’t remember if I said it or not.”

The car stopped moving and the door opened and someone led me out of the car. We walked for a while and I wondered if I was going to be killed for thinking or perhaps even saying that soccer was boring. Then I remembered that many great people had died for a deeply held belief, and I was comforted.

Then someone stopped me, and removed my blindfold. I was standing in the middle of a field. It was a sunny day, and I felt around for my prescription sunglasses, and realized that I had left them at home. Then someone called to me from my left.

I turned and a large man in a black suit, perhaps one of the pair who had kidnapped me, was standing by a soccer ball.

“We are going to show you how much fun soccer is!” And he kicked the ball over to me.

“Now kick it back,” he said cheerfully. I kicked it back. I admit it was a little fun, kicking a ball. I’ve never been able to hit a baseball or throw a perfect spiral. But kicking a soccer ball? It’s just like kicking a TV that doesn’t work, except it rolls.

The man kicked the soccer ball in different direction, and I saw that the person he had kicked it to looked as confused and out of place as I did. Without a word, he kicked the ball back to the kidnapper, who then gracefully kicked the ball in yet another direction to yet another person looking confused and out of place. I turned my body around a full 360 degrees, and saw many other people standing around, looking confused and out of place, all with a look that said, “I can’t believe I’m standing here playing soccer.” I was apparently part of a soccer game designed to expose soccer to people who were rumored to have said that soccer was boring.

I don’t know how long I was out there. Time seemed to stand still as we kicked the ball to this person, then to that person, then to that person. It was too hot to run around, so we all just stood there kicking the ball. But after a while it was kind of fun. Just kick the ball. At some point someone asked the kidnapper how much time was left in the game. The kidnapper signaled to the sideline, and two other large men with black suits came onto the field, hit the person over the head with something, and dragged him off the field, his heels leaving tracks in the grass. He did not return to the game.

At some point the soccer ball disappeared, and we were blindfolded one at a time. I was led to the car, told to get in, and driven a distance. Then the car stopped, the door opened, the blindfold removed, and I’m let out of the car. The kidnapper who played with us was standing next to me.

“You see? Now you know how much fun foot – I mean, how much fun soccer is. Tell all your friends!”

The car drove off and I wandered down the street. I passed a bar where people were watching World Cup soccer, and I walked inside. The players on the screen were kicking the ball from one to another, just as I had been doing a short while before. I thought about how much fun I had been having. I remember the satisfying feeling of kicking the ball, and projected my feelings onto the players on the TV. No one in that bar was more focused on the game than I was, and soon I started to feel like I was actually in the game. I was living soccer! This is what they were talking about!

I lasted almost five minutes. Then I felt around for my headphones, put them on, walked out of the bar, and continued listening to Sir John Gielgud as the melancholy Prince of Denmark.

Posted on 30 June 2014 by Mark Kaplowitz 14

Remember When Extinction Was Permanent?

I read in the newspaper that scientists have figured out how to bring back extinct animals like passenger pigeons and woolly mammoths. So filled with possibilities was my brain that I kept giving customers incorrect change. As I rollerbladed home that evening the words in the article kept going through my head.

Thanks to advances in genomic sequencing, the woolly mammoth will once again roam the steppes of Asia.

The idea appealed to me in a way I could not yet describe. Bringing back extinct animals – yes, that was impressive and would certainly be a boon for the manufacturers of squishy toys. But the real potential here was something even greater. Over my usual dinner of Cheerios I had a vision.

I am eight years old and I am sitting at the kitchen table. The morning sun is shining and I am eating a bowl of something called Ghostbusters cereal. The cereal is made of multicolored Os of grain and little dense marshmallows that don’t seem quite like food but melt it my mouth nonetheless.

Suddenly my father comes by holding open a garbage bag.

“These sugary cereals are making you crazy,” he says, sweeping the nearly full box of Ghostbusters cereal into the large black plastic bag. I am devastated.

That was the last I saw of the great sugary cereals. Cereals made of pure sugar and oat-like structures with a commercial tie-in to a popular television show or movie. I blink back tears. Now I know why the article about un-extincting extinct animals moved me so.

I dress in all black and make sure there are batteries in my flashlight. The museum is a few miles but Mom is glad to drive me and doesn’t ask too many questions. Closing time was hours ago but I’ve seen enough movies to know how to cut a hole in the glass skylight and drop in like a spider.

In between the Monets and Caravaggios is the crowl jewel of the collection: extinct breakfast cereals, on loan from the Smithsonian. Behind heavy glass the boxes are lined up in diaramas. My eyes linger over each one. Mr. T Cereal, Smurf Berry Crunch, Nintendo Cereal System, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Cereal, and…oh yes…Ghostbusters Cereal (with Slimer inside).

These cereals have been off supermarket shelves for decades. These are last survivors, their genetic structures and free toys perfectly preserved for the viewing public, and a day when science fiction would finally become science.

The genomes of these cereals turned out to be not as complicated as I’d feared. All I really had to do was add milk, and the colored oats and marshmallows would distintegrate into an extremely sweet primordial soup. Then boil off the milk, implant the leftover cereal residue into boxes of newer cereals that are still in circulation, and voila – resurrection.

For days I was in a dream state. I was eating cereals that were supposed to be long dead. I pittied the poor fool that couldn’t eat Mr. T cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And then one morning I realized I had been up for days, functioning on nothing more than the sugar rush from the cereals. I wanted to stop but could not. I ate one bowl after another. Suddenly it was clear to me what was going on. These cereals had been created and marketed to kids in another time. Our present environment had no defenses against the glazed oats and marshmallows. If only I had not been so eager and fallen victim to human folly.

Just when I thought I would never be free of the sugar rush, my father appeared.

“Dad, you were right,” I said. “It’s too late for me, but you can still save yourself.”

But instead of running away, I saw that he was holding something. It was a large, black, plastic garbage bag. I rubbed my eyes.

In one motion my father swept the resurrected cereals into the bag, and tied it shut with the built-in plastic drawstring. I could see the boxes writhing inside. He ran out of the house, just in time to catch the garbage truck, which was techinically only supposed to pick up paper, but could be bribed into taking some extra baggage.

And as I watched the truck drive away, I soberly reflected on the danger of bringing back creatures long extinct. Sometimes your curiosity gets the best of you.

Posted on 28 February 2014 by Mark Kaplowitz 2

Remember When You Could Twerk and Not Cause a Worldwide Scandal?

I was setting the table, trying to decide whether to fold the napkins in the shape of a rectangle or a triangle, when my wife came home from work.

“Hi honey!” I said. “What do you think? Rectangle or triangle?” I asked, holding up an example of each.

“Did you hear about Miley Cyrus’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards?”

“No, I didn’t. What happened?”

“You didn’t hear about it! Do you live under a rock? All over the news, all over the internet, all over Facebook, it’s all anyone is talking about.”

“Really? There wasn’t anything in the Times about it.”

She rolled her eyes, and I made a mental note to never again come to dinner unprepared. There is certainly no lack of coverage of the event. Here are just some of the recent headlines:

“Miley Cyrus’s twerking routine was cultural appropriation at its worst” (The Guardian)

“Miley Cyrus, twerking, and the ‘sexual hazing’ of American pop stars” (Christian Science Monitor)

“Justin Timberlake Is Cool With Miley Cyrus Twerking” (Vibe)

“Miley Cyrus to Lead US Attack on Iran” (Bayard & Holmes)

Young people have always used dancing to meet other young people. I remember the dance scene from the 1987 film Can’t Buy Me Love, where Patrick Dempsey thinks he’s doing the latest dance from American Bandstand. He doesn’t know that he was watching some educational program instead of American Bandstand, and that it was the African Anteater ritual he was learning, and when he performs the ritual at his high school, all the other students think it’s just the latest dance that all the cool kids are doing, and soon they are all doing the African Anteater ritual. Miley Cyrus should have done that at the Video Music Awards.

When I was in middle school I learned something called the Chicken Dance. First you held your hands out in front of you and clapped your fingers and thumb together, like you had lobster claws. Next you tucked each fist into the adjacent armpit and flapped your elbows, like you had chicken wings and were trying to fly. Then you crouched down a little while simultaneously moving your rear end from side to side. Finally, you stood straight up and clapped your hands four times. There was a song that went with it so that you knew when to do the moves.

The venerable Oxford English Dictionary is apparently going to add “twerk” to its list, defining it as a verb meaning to “dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.” Based on my years of experience, I am comfortable saying that the third movement of the Chicken Dance qualifies as a kind of proto-twerk.

But when I think of dances that involve hip movements and squatting stances, the kind of dances that, pretty much, anyone can do, I think most fondly of the Macarena, which rocked the world around the year 1996. Like the Chicken Dance, the Macarena also involved a repetitive series of dance moves that progressed from putting the hands out, to placing the hands on the body, to rotating the hips with twerk-like elements, and then ending with a clap. But the Macarena, which was named after the song that inspired the well-structured, was far more complex than the Chicken Dance, and represented a great leap forward in the evolution of dignified group-dancing.

Like scientists seeking a purer form of a metal, the twerkers have stripped dancing of the unnecessary hand and arm movements and unduly formalistic sequences, and distilled what was really its essence all along. So when you watch Miley Cyrus again, squatting and thrusting and unfurling her tongue, know that you are not watching a garish display of celebrity sexuality in cable television’s race to the bottom, but natural selection at its finest.

Posted on 28 August 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 10

Remember When Restaurant Service in France Was Gruff?

Paris is apparently making an effort to make its restaurant staff more polite. It reminded me of the trip my wife and I took to Paris last year. For those of you contemplating a similar trip and who want the inside story from an experienced traveler who was there for nearly five days, here are a few tips for dining in the City of Light:

1. “Cheval” means horse.

2. Every member of the waitstaff I met was very polite and spoke fluent English. I didn’t even try to speak French. One restaurant even had an American server that was assigned to any American patrons that walked in the door. She reminded me of one of my classmates from high school.

3. Despite the pervasive English fluency, if you ask for grog, and you don’t pronounce the “r” with a proper guttural roll, they won’t know what you’re talking about. Practice in front of a mirror before you leave, maybe while you’re waiting in the airport.

4. Believe the hype about the croissants. No matter how lost you get or what other frustrations you meet along the way, the croissants in Paris will take you to another dimension.

5. There were many cafes but nothing that had what I would count as coffee. I’m not talking about espresso or some other smidgen of brown liquid shoved into a cup from a dollhouse tea set, but a coffee that can bring me back to life every morning. The kind of coffee I drink every day before work, and as soon as I get to work, and after lunch so that I don’t pass out at my desk. They have something called “Cafe Americain” but it must be an inside joke. There was even a Starbucks across the street from our hotel. From the length of the line and the price of the coffee and the kilos of cardboard and plastic that clothed each serving, I said to myself, “Well, this must be authentic American coffee!” But I drank it and I still fell asleep on the train to Versailles. What the croissants giveth, the coffee taketh away.

And those are my tips for dining in Paris. Bon appetit!

Posted on 26 August 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 2

The Private Universe of Shopping Carts

Did you ever notice how a shopping cart in any place other than a supermarket or a supermarket parking lot looks extremely out of place and even a little disturbing? I saw one during my morning commute a few weeks ago. It was so near the road that I almost clipped it. It was there the next morning. And the next. And the next.

The evening commute takes me on a slightly different path that did not go past the shopping cart, and so I only saw the shopping cart in the morning. I did not the shopping at all until I passed it, and when I did, I would be reminded of all previous encounters. At first I was disturbed just by the sight of the shopping cart, but after a few days I became disturbed more by the fact that I only thought about the shopping cart when I passed it in the morning, and wouldn’t think about it again until the next encounter the following morning. It was like the shopping cart and I shared a universe for a few brief seconds and then separated into distinct realities.

Did the shopping cart feel the same way about me? “Every morning a car with Mark Kaplowitz inside drives by,” the shopping cart says to itself, “but I don’t see the car in the afternoon, and I don’t think about it until the next morning when it passes by again.” Did the shopping cart find the routine as unsettling as I did? I began think the shopping cart was looking at me when I passed it. I began to feel self-conscious during that stretch of road.

Then, a few mornings ago, as I approached the shopping cart spot and started anticipating its presence and steely gaze, I saw that the shopping cart was gone. Then I saw that it wasn’t gone, but merely pushed over on its side. Someone must have had the same feeling I had, and finally could no longer stand the stare of the shopping cart. It must have been dangerous to stop a car in the middle of a road to push over a shopping cart. Maybe it was done late at night when traffic was light.

Whatever the circumstances, the spell was broken. I can now think about the shopping cart at any time of the day. And I do. I picture it lying there, among the tall grass, enjoying the precious last days of summer.

Posted on 25 August 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 5

Remember When Stores Couldn’t Track You Within the Store?

I met a traveler from an antique land who said, “I read an article in the New York Times about how stores are now using their unwitting customers’ cell phone signals to track their movements within the store.”

I can picture it now. A major retailer is having its mid-July meeting, and the Director of Sales is going over old and new business.

“All right, let’s see where we are. Winston, are all the school supplies on the shelves?”

“Yes sir. As of 11:59 on the night of July 4th we started putting out the pens and pencils and notebooks of every size, shape, and cover material.”

“Good. And when is the Christmas merchandise going out?”

“We’re aiming for middle of next week, sir.”

“Excellent. Okay. Now, on to new business. I believe you were going to prepare a presentation for us on the new technology that allows us to track customers through the store using their cell phone signals.”

“Yes, sir. If you’ll direct your attention to the screen here, you’ll note the squiggly neon lines winding around the screen.”

“Yes, I see,” says the Director. “It looks like my kid drawing with crayons on the kitchen tile.”

“That’s an excellent analogy, sir. Now, each squiggly line represents a customer.”

“But I don’t understand. We’ve been using cameras to monitor the customers for years. How is this cell phone thing different?”

“Well, sir, a camera allows you watch the customer, but unless you are very attentive and don’t take any coffee or Facebook breaks you won’t know all of the products the customer looked at or for how long the customer looked. This technology bridges the gap. The customer’s odyssey through our aisles is tracked, and the longer a customer stays in one spot, the darker the line becomes at that point.”

“What is that customer doing over there?”

“Looking at platinum bound notebooks.”

“Oh, those are a hot new item. Wait! Where is the customer going now?”

“Looks like the customer is heading over to the cheaper notebooks.”

“Did he, she or it take a platinum notebook?”

“Let me check out the video camera. No, it looks like her arms are empty.”

“We have to redirect her back to the more expensive notebooks. Captain Riker!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Use those things we bought from The Hunger Games auction to help our customer back to the overpriced school supplies.”

Captain Riker pushes a button, and suddenly the customer is met with a wall of fireballs heading directly towards her. She turns around and runs to the exit of the store, but then is met with a swarm of bees whose stingers dispense hallucinogenic poison. The customer runs from aisle to aisle. The Director watches the whole thing from a screen mounted next to the Keurig coffee dispenser. Eventually the customer finds refuge in the aisle with the platinum notebooks.

“Ex-cel-lent,” the Director says, blowing on his coffee. “Now she has no choice but to—wait, what is she doing?”

The screen shows the customer tying four of the notebooks together to create a platinum shield. Holding the shield squarely in front of her, she runs right through the wall of fireballs to the notebooks bound with soft cardboard, retailing at $1.29 apiece. She grabs a few and, still holding her shield aloft, runs to the checkout line while the fire behind her consumes erasable markers and glittered index cards and fish-shaped wastepaper baskets.

“I can’t believe she did that!” the Director screams. “Now how are we going to control the customers?”

“Well, sir,” says Winston, “did you ever see Inception?”

Posted on 18 July 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 11

Remember When You Didn’t Have to Create a Profile Everywhere You Go?

There is a support group for people who sign up for too many online profiles. The group meets once a week in the basement of an old church. I went to last week’s meeting.

The group is led by a woman who at one point held profiles from 157 different websites. “Each account had a unique password with at least one uppercase letter, one number, and one symbol,” she said to me as she introduced herself. “This was a great source of pride to me.” Then one day she couldn’t remember one of the passwords, and she had a nervous breakdown, and had to spend some time in an institution, where she was heavily medicated and had to re-learn how to say her own name without numbers or underscores. She eventually became rehabilitated enough to go into a group home and now her responsibilities are leading the weekly meetings and refilling the reservoir on the Keurig coffee dispenser.

We sat in a circle and one of the attendees, a young man, began to speak.

“I had a Google account and a Facebook account and a Twitter account. Then I joined LinkedIn, even though I didn’t have a job, and I had to borrow a coat and tie and pressed shirt from a friend for the profile photo, and because the t-shirt was mine you could still see the dinosaur design through the white shirt I borrowed.

“And then I joined Pinterest even though I had nothing to pin, and Goodreads even though I haven’t read a book in years. Frankly, I had thought they stopped making books.

“Then there was a site that advertised free music, and a site that counted calories.” He tapped his abdomen as he says this. “I had to pick a username and password for all these accounts, and I always picked the same password: RoseBud. I thought I was being smart. Turned out I wasn’t so smart, because it was the same username and password that I use for my online banking, and my identity was stolen. Luckily, I didn’t have any money. So I deleted all these accounts and now I’m much happier. I even tried to buy a book, but I had deleted my Amazon account.”

Next a young woman spoke. “I was on all those sites and apps that he was on, and more. Except I used a different username and password for each one. I was like a secret agent, walking the Earth with a stack of drivers’ licenses, trying to keep track of multiple identities. I didn’t know who I was. I created a document in Microsoft Word to keep track of all my usernames and passwords, but then I got worried that a hacker would be able to find the document. So I encrypted the usernames and passwords with a code of my own making. But I had to keep the code somewhere, and I was afraid to keep it on my computer. So I wrote the code with a pen and paper and hid it inside of a box of Cracklin’ Oat Bran.”

Suddenly all the eyes were on me. It was time to share my story. But I didn’t know what to say. I clearly didn’t have a problem. I was in attendance only because I needed a topic for my blog, a blog that I access with a password that I change every week because I’m worried that someone will hack my account and start posting unfunny blog posts. These people were the crazy ones. Not me. So I finished my cup of coffee and said that I wasn’t ready to talk about myself. And they smiled, and thanked me, and said to keep coming.

Posted on 30 April 2013 by Mark Kaplowitz 14