Anybody out there?

Well change of pace today, in case any aliens are dropping in. On the left is a pictorial depiction of the Arecibo radio message beamed in to outer space in 1974. It will take 25000 light years to reach its destination and 25000 light years for any response to come back to earth. OK. I'm wondering if there will be anyone left down here to pick up the phone in 50000 years. I'm thinking of beaming this message to our local free newspapers providers as clearly they are from another planet.


On that subject, there is good news. There have been no free daily newspaper deliveries for a week in our neighbourhood, you'll be pleased to know. I don't think this has anything to do my complaints. I'm not privy to their littering strategy but I'm ready if they come back. Wow this picture is blurry, anyway I counted 16 newspaper boxes outside the blog station. In addition, each morning, there are at least five or six people trying to hand me a free newspaper. Some of them are getting a tad aggressive, jockeying each other to get in a good position in front of the commuters. The JimmyBlog distributor I chewed out the other week hasn't appeared for at least a week. I wonder if she has decided on an alternative occupation.

Steven hasn't been found. That's the young man who disappeared on the island of Crete without a trace on September 1st. Family and friends handed out 20,000 leaflets at a Liverpool soccer match to try and raise awareness. A lot of folks go to Crete on vacation so it was hoped it would jog someone's memory. It seems strange that he would vanish with no sign. There are rumours swirling around about aggressive security guards around Malia, the resort he was staying at. Apparently he is not the kind of person to do a runner. It turns out he was on a pub crawl the night he disappeared. A side of me is less sympathic when I read that but then I think that he's a young man, whose parents are going out of their minds with worry. It would be good to know what has happened to him.

One of my favourite websites is Craiglist, originally started in San Francisco but now available for numerous cities across the world. Its intended as a forum for people to connect, barter, exchange, you name it, without being bombarded with advertising content. I like its simple, easy to use format, with no frills. So for example if you want a lot of free pinecones in Nashville, a bicycle in Lima, or a printer with suspected feline damage in Milan, then this might be the place for you. It also has a best of section, though be warned, some of the entries in there are a tad raunchy. Ah, so that didn't stop you...!

I have taken down the rant about SPAM from my blog description as clearly a lot of the spam is automated, with no live person on the other end. I still nuke those spam comments with links as soon as I see them. I read some useful information about it on Wiki. Typically I get 3 or 4 for every posting, which although tiresome, is not that much of an inconvenience as I'm getting a dab hand at hitting the delete key.

STOP PRESS! I found an option in the blogger template settings which is word verification for comments, which hopefully will stop the automated spam comments. If you're leaving comments, this will involve a minor extra step, but hopefully will not be much of an inconvenience. Comments, as always, are very welcome.