Ne'er Do Well

It has been a pretty eventful week. After a weekend of grilling and chilling, Deb and I went to the Sox-Jays game Tuesday night. Unfortunately for me (but not for her and the nearly 37,000 other Sox fans in attendance), the Sox knocked off Toronto and Roy Halladay, 5-3. The following morning, Hannah had her first day in kindergarten. She had been kind of nervous about it on Tuesday, but she handled it well Wednesday morning. Deb and I both took her to her new school, which is about five minutes from our house. It didn't take Hannah long to make new friends and she seemed excited about the official start of her school career. Some of the other kids weren't as psyched to be there, but I'm sure they got over it.

My mornings have changed for pretty much the next umpteen years. Whereas previously, Deb would take the girls to Malden with her to go to preschool while I either worked out, watched TV, lounged, or went back to bed, now I've got to get Hannah ready to head out the door at 7:30 every day. And in two years, I'll be taking Lily, too. It's a big change, but I'm excited about it.

Pass the peas:

• I was part of an annoying Internet development earlier this week. I had received an invitation to check out a new social networking site called Quechup. Normally, I would just delete such an invite but I was sitting around bored over the weekend and decided to take a look. They make you create a profile and then check your email address book to see if anyone else you know is on the network; I didn't think anything of it because LinkedIn does that, so I stupidly entered my Gmail address and password. I think we were going out, so I just stopped there and didn't give it another thought. Then two days later, I heard on the Daily Source Code podcast that those Quechup bastards were adding to their email lists by basically spamming everyone in people's email addresses. Gmail users were especially vulnerable because Gmail automatically adds every email address you ever type to your address book. But the insidious part is the invites were made to look like they came from you, so hundreds of unsuspecting folks received stupid Quechup invites without my knowledge. I wasn't the only one who was victimized by this asinine tactic; these invites were popping up all over the InterPants over the weekend. As far as I can tell, it's a legitimate social network, but one that uses dickhead tricks to add to its user base. I deleted my profile and changed my Gmail password. Hopefully, the asshats at Quechup will go out of business.
• Steve Jobs announced the new line of iPods and a $200 price cut for the iPhone from $599 to $399, a move that pissed off the folks that shelled out the full price just 10 weeks ago. Can't say as I blame those people for being mad, but it's still too rich for my blood. The new Nanos look cool, are cheaper and play video, but my 2GB O.G. Nano still works fine, so I'll be satisfied with it for now.
• While Van Halen prepares to head out on its first tour with David Lee Roth in 22 years, original bassist Michael Anthony has been pushed aside in favor of Eddie VH's 16-year-old son Wolfgang. Anthony is handling EVH's dickishness with class, as he prepares to tour with former VH belter Sammy Hagar. Say what you will about his bass-playing abilities, but Anthony's backing vocals are an essential part of VH's sound and some are speculating that the band may use backing tracks to replace them. That would be truly lame.