How to Choose a Password

When I was trying to decide on a password for my WordPress account, I noticed the helpful “password meter” which gauges the strength of your password of choice, both with a little colored bar that fills up incrementally, and an assessment of your current password’s merits. My default password received a “Bad”.
Really? Sure, it’s only six characters, but nobody’s ever guessed it (Yes, my name is six letters, but I’ll bet you that’s usually pretty close to the top of the list). The phishers on myspace have yet to successfully convert me into an automated Webcam advertisement or Macy’s gift card dispenser.
But apparently my proposed password is as hard to guess as “12345″, which also earns a “Bad”.

So I decided, lead by WordPress Password Consultancy, to choose a password more suitable to their liking.

Let’s go back to the number example. What if my password was one thing over and over again, the theory being the same as rock/paper/scissors.

 

Travel Report: Cry of the Loonies

This weekend, I drove about three and half hours upstate to the “Cry of the Loon” lodge, for the annual Creative Writing department September retreat (and, this is the second to last retreat EVAH, which is sad). The cabins were right on the lake: i.e., the lake was mere steps away, unlike my family’s cabin in Canada, where the lake is located down a perilous slope. Minnesota is, famously, the land of a thousand lakes

 

From the Sadness Desk: Presenting, The Saddest Conversation in the World

My new apartment is on the ground floor. I love this in many ways, as it means I have lots of windows and light, plus it’s easy to get things in and out of my apartment. However, this also means that I always have to have my blinds and curtains down, if I don’t wish the guys drinking beer in the alley at 9 am in the morning to see me in my underwear.

It also means I’m privy to lots of noise and conversations. My apartment is also right near the dumpster, meaning that homeless people are frequently looking through the dumpster for cans and bottles. I awoke the other morning, to over hear this conversation:

 

Concert Review: The Flaming Lips

Last night I went to a free Flaming Lips concert. I have to acknowledge Southern Comfort for providing the free music, and for sharing the lime SoCo smoothies. Thanks for bringing me back to freshman year where Watson (my dorm) 707’s official drink was SoCo and Lemonade. “It tastes like bubble-gum!” Sorry, back to the music.

 

Travel Report from the Retirement Community

My precocious parents retired early at 55 and moved into a New Jersey retirement community (sorry, “55+ active adult community”) by 58.  I shouldn’t have been as surprised since our house mantras were “There’s only so much time!” and “Always be prepared.”  Like a cross between an anxious military and a group of boy scouts, our family was always early and could adapt to most situations.  I just didn’t anticipate dealing with this move while I was still in college.  The housing market was hot, though, so my parents made the plunge into active adult living a week before I turned 21. 

 

Belated Concert Report: Fountains of Wayne at the State Fair

I discovered Fountains of Wayne when I was a freshman in high school. I loved their first, self-titled album with a fervent passion intensified by the fact that they felt like a secret club only me and my best friend, Mary, belonged to. No one had heard of Fountains of Wayne. And that had never happened to me before — I had always felt behind the curve, music-wise. I listened to the old rock music my parents liked.

But there was nothing about the band that was inaccessible — the songs on that album are guitar-heavy, middle-period-Beatles-esque pop with insanely catchy hooks and lyrics that tell small stories about weirdos (or beg a beautiful woman to leave her biker boyfriend). It seemed incredible to me that everyone in the world wasn’t humming these songs. What more could you want? How could you not listen to these funny, smart, hummable songs over and over?

 

Welcome back to Alphaville

It’s a quarter to one, morning time, and the sky is a sickly shade of yellow. I’m back in the city. One more time around, grab that handle and give it a spin. See how long I can hold on before internal forces overcome external sociology and I am once again thrown out to the wilds. Somehow I keep dragging myself back into these hives of human ingenuity and waste, looking for the golden key that will let me into the healthy, balanced lifestyle everyone told me to expect when I was Accomplishing Something in school. Hey, teach, I ain’t found it yet.

Having already gone bowling with friends and surfed porn on “borrowed” wi-fi, I’m left to wonder what more the city has to offer. I don’t mean that in a satisfied way.  I mean Why do people come to cities in the first place? Jobs and social interaction. If you are the type that would rather avoid both, what then? Can the coffee shops and museums compensate for the sweltering press of a hundred thousand egos, appetites, dreams, and petty misgivings that bears down on you every minute of the day? People in the country drink to beat boredom and depression. People in the city drink to beat stress and depression. It’s a good thing we’ve got this system of living figured out so well, or the future of our society might really look bleak. And thank God we’ve got ANWAR to fall back if things ever get really rough. Once we’ve got that tapped, it’ll pull us through any hard times. 

 

From the kitchen: Food, duh.

One of my new favorite activities since graduating from college is cooking. I’ve been helping my mom cook dinner since high school, but I never really paid attention to what I was doing. I’d stir while she chopped, and we’d gossip about the latest drama in my world. Thus, my stirring skills are top notch, while my chopping skills are practically non-existent. So, in order to survive on my own cooking (basically a necessity if you want to be able to save any money in grad school), I started watching the Food Network to learn. Seriously.

 

Travel Report: The Pursuit of Praguer Things

I’ve told this story a few times, so forgive me if you’ve heard it:

 

Musings from the Mistress of Moles: DC to Madison in only nineteen hours

I visited several good friends this past weekend in DC, and we considered whether consumers have become desensitized toward product dissatisfaction. My favorite example is how I now expect delays when I fly Northwest. In the past two months, I’ve flown Northwest three times, and I’ve faced sizeable delays on each trip. Allow me to vent.