Meh.

Only reason I’m posting now is so I don’t have two blank days in a row. See the introductory entry of the blog for more.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

7pm EDT, FSN Pittsburgh (DirecTV 659, Dish 428, Comcast Morgantown 37(SD)/843(HD)): Cubs @ Pirates

Pirates go for the sweep tonight. (Pic yoinked from Chris Connelly Online.)

8pm EDT, Versus (DirecTV 603, Dish 151, Comcast Morgantown 19 (SD)/848 (HD): Stanley Cup Finals Game 3. Blackhawks lead Flyers 2-0.

Does anyone know who that whistling idiot was at United Center Monday night?

9pm EDT, Discovery (DirecTV 278, Dish 182, Comcast Morgantown 53(SD)/779 (HD)): Mythbusters – Fireball Stun Gun

“On this explosive episode of MythBusters, the whole team gets hot under the collar of what is no doubt a pyromaniac's dream. That's because while Adam and Jamie literally play with fire, Kari, Grant and Tory are playing with fireworks.”

I. Am. A. Pirates. Fan.

Why? I couldn’t tell you if I had a year. But Brendan’s Baseball Blog puts it perfectly:

‘nuff said.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Adobe Contribute choked on my trying to post the Buccos Hop pic from yesterday’s game. Let’s see if Windows Live Writer fares any better with a similar action.

Pirates fans, you may want to avert your eyes from that image.

We Win

Raise the Jolly Roger.

Why Chrome is a Great Big Ball of Fail

In a word, ads. In another, prontexi.

I was one of the multitudes seduced by the speed and elegance of Google's Chrome browser. I'd given it a shot first on the ancient Linux box, where nothing I tried could keep Firefox from crashing if I so much as looked at it wrong. Chrome doesn't crash anywhere near as much on that box, but when it does, it takes the whole computer with it.

That's not enough for me to give it the old heave-ho and proclaim it's craptitude to the world. No, it takes a whole new level of suck before I go looking for the nearest available soapbox.

I found that level of suck, and it's name is prontexi. Prontexi is malware served up by poisoned ads from a compromised adserver. The end user does not need to click on the ad or even mouseover. Just having the ad load is sufficient to be infected if your security suite isn't up to snuff.

And this is where Chome falls flat on it's face and breaks it's nose. Chrome has extensions like AdBlock and AdThwart, which may look good on the surface, but they only hide ads after they've been fetched. This means although you may not see the ads, if there's a poison payload in that ad AdBlock is hiding, Chrome has dutifuly gone to retrieve it. You'd better hope whatever antivirus software you're running is up to the task. Fortunately for me, Avast! was able to catch an attempted infection when I was innocently browsing a baseball forum of impeccable reputation.

I am not a computer professional or an IT security expert, but I know when something doesn't belong on my system. And Chrome does not belong on my system.

I have a manufacturing wing? I have a staff?

The average readership of your average blog is 1. In some cases not even that. This will likely prove to be no exception. This is at least the fourth attempt in the last six years to have a blog of my own.

They've all withered and died for one very simple reason. I've really got nothing worth saying to an audience. I'm not a writer and never really have been. The only reason I'm even trying this time is I've got yet another set of toys to try out.

So will this attempt escape the fate that met it's brothers? Vegas has refused to set a line, but feel free to place your bets anyway.