This blog gets tons of spam posted to the comments, so I’ve got the prefs set up so that all comments have to be approved by me before posting unless they’re from a user I’ve previously approved.  So your first comment won’t show up immediately.

In addition, I auto-trash any comment post that includes key words that are common in spam posts. Unfortunately, it’s possible that a genuine comment might get filtered that way, and I’d never see it and have a way to approve it.  So if you want to post a comment including a mention of Paris Hilton or something, best to email it to me directly (joe at deltatao.com), and I’ll post it somehow.

Here’s my spam word filter list.  I wish my filters kept track of how often each of this was triggered.

hotmail.com
gmail.com
viagra
cialis
hydrocodone
pamela anderson
sex video
amoxicillin
xanax
percocet
adderal
soma
ambien
vicodin
ephedra
valium
tramadol
phentermine
animal sex
fioricet
ultram
animal porn
dog sex
ritalin
lolita
incest
forced rape
tylenol
wellbutrin
fucking
sex toy
rape
zoloft
ephedrine
acomplia
horse sex
nicole richie
propecia
lindsay lohan
selina watkins
paris hilton
zoo sex
anal insertions
hardcore
multilocular
ringtones
payday loans
pseudomembrane
sex with
online pharmacy
penis

Since filtering all those words, the number of comments I’ve had to deal with has dropped markedly.  I have no idea why pseudomembrane and multilocular show up as spam words all the time.

Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire includes quite a few Easter eggs (holiday card backs and the like), but the one that causes the most consternation (even more than the black invasion of Martin Luther King day) is on Friday the 13th.

Ultimate’s cards normally fly to their destination on a graceful sweeping curve, settling into their spot with a satisfying thunk. But on Friday the 13th (about twice a year), the cards fly in sort of an S curve, overshooting slightly before veering back and hitting their spot.

We thought it was funny and cute, but we get dozens of calls every time it happens.  “My cards are going crazy!”  And there must be thousands more who are concerned, but don’t call.

When I tell people that it’s Friday the 13th, most of the time they are delighted and laugh. This morning one man said, “Do you really believe that?  You are a superstitious fool.”  I wonder if he’ll be superstitious once it fixes itself tomorrow.

I’ve always found it strange that when you book a nonstop flight, the cost is often higher than the cost to a further destination that stops at your true destination halfway.

For example, Mary’s flying to Charlotte, North Carolina this summer.  To go direct from Sacramento to Charlotte costs $509 one-way.  But to go from Sacramento to Boston, with a stop in Charlotte, is only $219 from the same airline (US Airways).  Oops, I missed my connection!

Hardly seems efficient.  I found the same thing in Hong Kong.  I wanted to fly to Vietnam, but it annoyed me that a flight to Bangkok with a stop in Vietnam was a third the price of the flight straight to Vietnam.

I got this shirt for four Pop Tarts box tops (not even any shipping charge!).  I love it, but I’m pretty confused about exactly what the tarts are doing.  The Rambo tart in the tree seems to have frightened the island tarts.

Mary says the Rambo tart only has one testicle.

We were at a candy shop in Sacramento this weekend, where we found candy underwear:

That’s just not right.  Maybe it’s just me, but the thought of candy touching my unit gives me the creeps.

Hi there! Today, I went skydiving for the first time. Joe has wanted to go for a while now, and I always gave some kind of “snuh” response…

Well, yesterday, I ran into Mira’s 3rd grade teacher, and he had gone skydiving this past weekend. He’s 57, and seems about the same level of risk-taker as myself. Heck! If he can do it, so can I.

He went to a place in Lodi, where jumps are 100 bucks a shot. So, we went there.

I researched the risks of skydiving, and they are practically nil if you go tandem with an instructor. However, knowing that rationally is not the same as believing it, viscerally.

Joe invited Nancy to go with us. She’s his mom, and she’s totally awesome. She’s also 60 + years old. (It had to be told, Nance!) She was ready in a heartbeat. Would have been heartbroken if we hadn’t taken her.

We got to Lodi, paid, saw a video, and signed some forms. I questioned whether I could make myself go when I saw the footage of what the ground looks like from a plane 13,000 feet above the ground. It’s TINY!

My cute young instructor got me into a harness, and Nance and Joe got into theirs. On to the plane!

It was so cute. Like a plane, but smaller. The ceiling looked like hammered tin, and had stickers on it. Getting in the plane, I looked around for seat belts, and there weren’t any. Because we were going to jump out of the thing.

For the first 6000 feet of ascension, I wasn’t connected to anything that would keep me safe. The instructor had the parachute, and I wasn’t strapped to him, yet. The instructor told me that my harness wasn’t tight enough, and that equipment failures like that are the most dangerous thing in skydiving. He assured me that we could watch everyone jump, and then take the next plane. He waited about 30 seconds, and then told me he was kidding. I would have killed him, but he had the parachute, and I didn’t know how to operate it.

At 13,000 feet, the pilot did something that sounded like cutting the engine. It didn’t really stop, but it felt like it. My jolting body caused my instructor to nod at the pilot, who gave me a high-five. Ah, to be young, crazy, and a thrill seeker! The next thing, the door opened, and my husband, the father of my children, jumped out of the plane with his instructor strapped to his back. Next, a bunch of people jumped out of the plane: a cute, slim young woman, and a bunch of cute, crazy-looking young guys. Nance went right before me, and next thing I knew, I was at the edge of the plane, with my arms crossed on my chest. Jump!

We were in the air, and my eyes were shut tight. I couldn’t open them for a while. There was just the wind against our bodies, and the air rushing in my ears. My internal soundtrack was, “Oh God oh God oh God oh God…” After some time, my instructor took my hand, and I held it as he pulled the cord. Whoosh! We were floating, and my hands were on his while we steered, to the right, to the left…

I finally dared to open my eyes in small segments. The beautiful, beautiful earth, with its fields, trees, grass and downright earthiness was laid out like a blanket to the horizon. We seemed suspended indefinitely, and I closed my eyes again, this time to savor the feel of total weightlessness. When I opened them again, my instructor told me to bend my knees, and extend my legs straight out. There was the ground! He told me to stand up, and we landed like feathers.

OK. Yes, I did kiss the sweet ground and spend a second in the fetal position, but that was mostly for drama.

Afterwards, we had lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant. Crazy! They use this big, pancake-like bread for plates, and it’s some kind of fermented sourdough. The food is spicy and exotic. Big deal. An hour before, I had jumped out of a plane.

9 AM: Mary and I are going skydiving today. (The sissy tandem way; not solo.) If I don’t post soon, I hope it doesn’t mean that I bounced. Wish us luck!

2PM update: Back from skydiving.  Lived.  What a rush!

The scariest (and most fun!) part was tumbling immediately after leaving the airplane.  The view was plane, ground, plane, ground, plane, ground — until the streamer came out and we got pointed in the right direction.   It was also a rush when the chute finally opened, because I wasn’t expecting it, and the sudden clicky noises of the straps rattling and weird tugs and stuff made me think briefly that I was coming unfastened, which would probably be bad.

Mary and my mom jumped, too, but they can’t have had as much fun as me.

It seems rare that I support W. on anything, since I think he’s the least competent and thoughtful president in my memory.  It seems especially unlikely that I would side with him against both Democratic candidates — and John McCain, too.  But I agree with Bush that it’s dumb to hurt our nation’s strategic reserve of oil to drop the price of gas a couple of cents a gallon.

Of course, I think we should tax gas harder and increase its price, as I’ve been saying since 1991 when Perot suggested it.  If we’d done it then, we’d certainly be in less trouble today.

Unfortunately, we can count on Congress to be even more shortsighted than Bush when it comes to gas prices — the Senate voted 97-1 against Bush.

Near as I can tell, the only reason the reserve isn’t full is because Bush already tapped into it for no good reason, so maybe I shouldn’t give him too much in the way of kudos.

I predicted a couple of weeks ago that Hillary would withdraw from the race today, and it looks like I was wrong.  She’s tenacious!

Back then, she had to win every remaining contest by an implausible 44 points to pull even with Obama, but now if she wins every remaining contest by 70 points — that’s 85-15 — she’ll still end up 18 delegates short. Even my suggestion that she limit voters to white, catholic women over 70 won’t lead to those kind of numbers.

I can understand when you’ve plunked $15 million of your own money into your campaign it’s difficult to call it quits, but at some point you have to do some math.

MoveOn made a snarky quiz to test your ability to tell the difference between Bush and McCain.  I got three out of five, and I theoretically pay attention to this stuff.

I said that quiz was snarky, but it’s nowhere near as much so as the follow-on quiz comparing McCain to a carrot.

By the way, I predicted back during Republican primary season that all the right-wingers who said McCain was the antichrist would do a quick 180 once he won the nomination.  Has it happened?  Obviously that’s not speaking poorly on those who said it — I expect Hillary supporters saying the same thing will change their tune once Obama wins the nomination.  It makes sense to fight hard, but at some point you have to do what you believe is in your best interest.