Scam

Hey everybody. I bought tickets from Fandango.com a while back, and one of their advertisers asked if I wanted to get a 10 dollar rebate in exchange for filling out some info. So I figured, "sure I do" and gave them my spam-only email account. It turned out that the rebate required far more work than the ten dollars was worth, so I ignored it.

Then, today while going over my bank records I noticed a ten dollar charge from WRI*ReservationRewards. I wasn't sure what that was, so I googled it, and found, among other webpages, this site: Watch out for this online credit card fraud via Fandango.com!!.

They advertise with online retailers, and when you click to get the rebate, they get your credit card info from the "legitimate" retailer (in this case, fandango). Then they charge you 10 bucks a month.
I called the company, and they said that they would refund the money and cancel the account. I'll keep you posted, but beware.
Also, it makes me not want to do business with any company that lets these bozos advertise on their site. No more Fandango for me.

Exam

Dear internet,

I took my first prelim exam yesterday, and it was ok.

I think I did well on 2 out of the 3 questions, but by the time I started in on the last question, I had been writing for about 4 and a half hours, and my brain was mostly fried. I think I bombed that one question.
Now I get to surf the web (do people still call it that?) without feeling guilty, head to Boston to catch up with some people, read something just because I want to read it (a trashy pulp detective novel called Night Walker, followed by Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls), and start preparing for my second exam in September.

Another reason to get off the grid

Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites: "Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites"