newest employment skill: stripping

So I just got home from my day with the oral surgeon. Pretty sore, but good to go otherwise. Anyway, that's not the point of this posting.

Since I have nothing better to do, I'm online. I saw another job listed for Vanderbilt University so am in the process of applying for it using their online application system. There is a section of the application where you may choose applicable job skills from a long list. Not too many on the list apply to me, mostly just computer applications. However, I ran across one gem of a skill: stripping. I'm really not exactly sure what they mean by this. My initial reaction was a giggle and then my sensible grown-up reaction went something like: "hmm, stripping paint and finishes I suppose? maybe even wax from floors?" but then I went a step further and thought "well, this is an affluent school, in the South, maybe they have gentleman's clubs on campus?" Can they use student employees? Are faculty allowed to go? There spews forth a slew of awkward but fascinating questions in this hypothetical situation. I'm pretty entertained by myself, but then, it could just be the schedule II narcotics (oxycodone) talking.

salmon, trout, coho got your IM?

So I've had this weird thing happen to me a few times over the past year or so. I'll be logged in to my AIM account minding my own business and then I get some crazy message from someone with a username containing the words "salmon," "trout," or "coho." They have happened chronologically in that order. My most recent is named "spiedoncoho." Fun, right? I just assumed it was someone who knew me and was having a good time at my expense when I would respond "umm, who are you?"

I finally smartened up and decided I needed to do some searching and find out just what is going on. My MLS is coming in slightly handy and I got to the dirt on my first Google search. I have been the victim of an IM "bot." Essentially an internet robot that is faking conversations between people. These particular bots send a message to a user, with the sending username one of these fish names. Then when I reply, they connect the reply to another actual IM user, who gets my message seemingly randomly. Crazy, huh? So then they ask why I'm messaging them, and I say no, you messaged me first. Hah.

You can read more about this, what has been called on the net "The Great Hatsby." This is kind of irritating, and luckily on this wikipedia page it tells you how to opt out. All you have to do is type in $optout and it gives you the instructions, it worked perfectly! The article also goes on to say that the usernames were commonly harvested from Livejournal, Xanga, and deviantART accounts.

One mystery solved, dozens to go!