PSA - Be Wary of Phishing and Vishing Scams

From my workplace's IT helpdesk:

"Phishing" scams have evolved from email and instant-message notifications to voice mails and text messages. While "Phishing" directs victims to a fraudulent website that looks almost identical to a legitimate institution's site, "Vishing" (telephone Voice-Phishing) and "Text-Phishing" usually notify the victim to call a phone number and enter his/her personal information (e.g., account number, PIN, date of birth, etc.). Again, if you are the recipient of one of these messages, delete the message immediately and do not follow any of the instructions included within the message.

Below are a few key points to consider with any email you receive from what appears to be a valid financial or eCommerce service provider:

- Financial or eCommerce service providers will NEVER ask you to provide personal information via email.
- These service providers will NEVER ask you to confirm your account information by clicking on a link from an email message.
- If you receive a phone call (or text message) from a financial institution requesting information, hang up and contact the financial institution's customer service department directly instead of speaking to someone who initiated contact with you.

Cranky with a side of bacon...

Does anyone else find themselves editing as they read or is it just me? May be a side-effect of my job. Not that I'm an editor per se. Far from it as you can no doubt tell from my journal entries. But the last few weeks have made me hyper-aware of tone, wordiness, passive vs. active voice, and well commas (except in my lj entries apparently - that's the thing about writing, you can see the errors in others works far better than the errors in your own. I think it is a karmaic joke on writers - forcing us to acknowledge the fact that we need others to read and edit our work.). This is what happens when you take a business writing class followed by a quality control class. It makes you self-conscious and anal about the weirdest things. Next up is diversity training.

Cranky. Been cranky and irritable all week. And the week has drug like snail in slow-mo. And me feeling a lot like a jumpy hare, all scattered and unfocused. Oh well, did get crap done more or less. Should be happy about that.

Plotting a trip to Jim Thorpe, Pa or thereabouts to see my Aunt next weekend. Am renewing a relationship with family members. Or working on it. Bit by slow bit. We shall see if I make much progress. Also working on the old bode - which entailed much achey muscels these past two weeks. We're working on back, shoulders, abs, thighs, and triceps. Not sure I'm making any progress outside of aching. Although the personal trainer claims otherwise.

Advancing through Bram Stoker's Dracula. Which is rather interesting and much better than expected. My plodding progress has little to do with the book and everything to do with the time I am willing to commit to reading it. Stoker in some respects manages in Dracula, with the metaphor of vampirism, what Whedon is attempting in Dollhouse regarding zombies. Admittedly, I'm not much of a fan of the 19th Century novel - a tad too melodramatic for my taste. Much preferred the mid 20th Century, 18th Century and early 19th (a la Jane Austen circa early 1800s) over the Bronte's circa the mid 1800s. That said, Stoker keeps with Austen and Richardson and that guy who wrote Les Liasons Dangereux - letter/journal formal style of writing. All of Dracula is written through the use of journal entries, diaries, news reports, and letters. When one reads it - it feels a bit as if one were well reading a bunch of dusty old documents from a folder in the library. This adds an air of mystery and realism to the novel that is sorely lacking from most horror fiction. Methinks I'll pick up Mary Shelley's Frankenstein next then attempt, once again, the rather wordy and long-winded Henry James's, who may have been a solicitor in another life.

Goals over the weekend are...well, to read, write fiction, to edit fiction, to write query letter and snyopsis, and to clean. If I accomplish any of those things it will be a miracle, been procrastinating like crazy on the writing ones, which may be contributing to the crankiness. Am considering that nanowritemore thing - to see if I can crank out this bizarre sci-fi fantasy story I have percolating in my head about a bunch of people who lose themselves in a virtual reality role-playing game - to the extent that the role playing game is more real and where they want to be, and the world outside false and painful and not real. I wrote a horrible and somewhat different version of it in journals way back in 1996 and have come up with a way to make it work now. But...I keep getting scared off by fears of being inaccurate. The internet or rather my interaction with it has in some respects blocked me as a creative writer. I may need to go cold turkey from blogging to bring the stories back. Either that or figure out a way to block out the detractors and critical voices from the net that raise their ugly heads whenever I put pen to paper or fingers to keys.