Presenting the weirdest spam message ever:

Subject: We have hijacked your baby

From: “cornellis xinghao”
Date: Wed, August 27, 2008 5:06 am
To: daryl@daryllang.com

Hey We have hijacked your baby but you must pay once to us $50 000. The details we will send later…

We has attached photo of your fume

Attachment: photo.zip

Let’s break this down. First, I have no baby. Second, hijacked? Could “baby” refer to a vehicle, as in, “Let’s get this baby in the air!” or “Let’s go captain, we’re sailing this baby to Panama!”? Third, there’s that intriguing use of the word fume. Can you take a photo of something that is, by definition, a vapor?

Until I solve this riddle, guess what attachment I’m not opening?

Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal story about how bars and restaurants are ripping off beer drinkers: A Pint-Size Problem. As Nancy Keates reports:

“Beer prices at bars and restaurants have risen over the past few months, as prices of hops and barley have skyrocketed and retail business has slowed alongside the economy.

“Some restaurants have replaced 16-ounce pint glasses with 14 ouncers — a type of glassware one bartender called a ‘falsie.’

“And customers are complaining that bartenders are increasingly putting less than 16 ounces of beer in a pint glass, filling up the extra space with foam.”

To me, the most surprising part of this story is the outrage from beer fans the reporter quoted. Some people will actually send back a beer if they don’t think they got enough in the glass. I find the idea of getting ripped off to be, well, part of what a bar is all about. Why do we pack into some crowded dive to pay $5 for a bottle of Amstel Light, then tip even the most inattentive bartender 20 percent for uncapping it? I dunno. Because that’s the social order of things?

Right now, I think our entire economy is driven by sales of HD television sets.

I was in Kmart yesterday buying batteries and I overheard a conversation that started when a customer asked about flat-screen TVs. What’s the difference between the two kinds of TVs?, the customer shouted to the clerk at the register.

The clerk shouted back that one had a sharper picture.

Before the customer could ponder the difference, a grey-haired customer with a gravely voice waiting at the register added his opinion.

“You need a special cable to get the good picture!” the guy said. “It’s another $50. They’ll try to sell it to you as soon as you’re about to walk out with the TV box!”

The clerk added, yes, you do need the cable — but now they’ve started selling a short version of that cable for $25. Guilty!

Every place that sells consumer electronics should have a crotchety know-it-all walking the floor to warn his fellow customers customers about this sort of thing. (”Extended warranty? What are you, some kind of sap?!”)

Related: The DTV transition is one year away: Feb. 17, 2009. This will cause mayhem and unrest like nothing seen since the 1960s! See DTV2009.gov.