Jason Pearce

This morning, I found a few hundered emails directed to my jasonpearce.com server. It appears there’s a new virus in town:

Wired News: Tricky E-Mail Worm Spreads Fast

“A malicious program attached to seemingly innocuous e-mails was spreading quickly over the Internet on Monday, clogging network traffic and potentially leaving hackers an open door to infected personal computers.

The worm, called ‘Mydoom’ or ‘Novarg’ by antivirus companies, disguises itself as an e-mail error message. A small file is attached that, when launched on computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, can send out 100 infected e-mail messages in 30 seconds to e-mail addresses stored in the computer’s address book and other documents.”

The roommates Adam, Scott, and I drove up to Vermont this weekend to do a little snowboarding. A friend of Adam’s at work has a time-share cabin near Mount Snow, so we took advantage of the free place to stay.

Snow conditions were great on Saturday. But despite a sunny day, it was just bitter cold. At the summit, the temperature was -8 degrees with moderate wind. Who knows how cold it was with wind chill. Every part of skin had to be covered or you risked frostbite.

Boarding, however, was fun. I’m still a beginner, so I spent all of my time on greens and blues. Though I fell a few times, not once did I have a big fall.

Two weekends from now, the three of us and a few others will head up to Maine to go skiing. Having never visited Maine, I’m looking forward to the trip. I hope, however, that things might warm up a bit before then.

Sadly, the Experience Music Project, Paul G. Allen’s rock-and-roll museum, just experienced its third round of layoffs. This is one of the best museums I’ve ever visited, so get to Seattle and support it while it still lasts.

Rock Museum Singing the Blues

SEATTLE — Even the pet projects of one of the world’s richest men are not immune to the effects of the continuing recession here. More than a third of the work force at the Experience Music Project, billionaire Paul G. Allen’s rock-and-roll museum, got pink slips late last week.

Thanks to the Northeast freeze, I have discovered that iPods are not designed for cold weather.

For starters, the buttons on the iPod cannot be operated while wearing gloves for they are touch/heat sensitive. This greatly changes my listening behavior, for if I hear a song that I don’t like or is too loud, I’m more likely to tolerate the inconvenience much the way I tolerate my bladder in the morning as a try to catch a few more minutes of sleep.

The other problem is static electricity. If you are wearing fleece, your inner ear might be in for a big static-electricity shock as you unbundle yourself from your gloves, scarf, jacket, etc. Twice I have zapped myself. The static travels from the iPod’s stainless-steel body, up the earphone’s cord, and right into your ear. Ouch.

Though I’ve known about Plaxo.com for several months now, it wasn’t until this week that I decided to give it a try. This means, of course, that I soon will be subjecting each and every one of you with a request to update your contact information.

Plaxo is a downloadable tool that you install and use with MS Outlook to help you manage your contacts (e.g. address book). Once install, Plaxo reviews your entire address book to see if any of your contacts are also Plaxo members. If they are, it automatically updates your address book with their most recent records. For these individuals, I never have to update my address book when they move because Plaxo does it for me.

Of course, the more people who use Plaxo the more useful it will become. But for those who don’t want to become a Plaxo member, I can still get their address updates by having Plaxo send them an email asking if the information I have on them is still correct.

Like it our not, you’ll soon get such a request from me, for it has been a long time since I updated my address book. A little help from Plaxo is most welcomed.