We’re Number One!

This is hysterical. Blue Crab Boulevard has always been at the forefront in bringing timely advice, but we had no idea how popular we were until today. We had brought our readers important safety advice here and here regarding 40mm cannon shells. Specifically, we strongly advise people not to swat flies with live ammunition. Or keep these things lying about the house.

It turns out that if you Google "40mm cannon shell", guess who comes up at number one? That's right, none other than Blue Crab Boulevard! (We found this out by backtracking a hit that Sitemeter registered).

Which brings us to yet another story involving 40mm cannon shells. From the Vanuatu Daily Post comes this interesting story.

Concerns have been raised over cruise ship passengers purchasing potentially lethal World War 2 anti aircraft ammunition and bullets from Vanuatu and then taking them on board the ships as souvenirs. Claes Bjornum advised that in Luganville a passenger on board Pacific Star attempted to bring on board live ammunition as World War 2 souvenirs and was stopped by security.

It goes on to detail how some vendors on Vanuatu are selling recovered World War Two live ammunition, in various states of decay, to cruise ship passengers. There is a lot of this stuff in the waters off Vanuatu.

Blue Crab Boulevard offers yet another word of advice here, folks. Don't buy ammunition as souvenirs. Especially 40mm cannon shells. Military ammunition remains dangerous basically forever and unless a shell has been specifically disarmed for sale, it should be treated as live. Ok? We'd hate to lose a reader over a souvenir.

By the way, that gives us the trifecta we mentioned in the second post listed above! We're number one! With a bullet!

Da Vinci Code Not A Hit At Cannes

Well, this looks like a rocky start for the anticipated, and much ballyhooed, movie The Da Vinci Code. Cannes is supposed to be a very, very tough place to premiere a film. The audience is notoriously tough to please. But some reviewer's comments don't bode well for the film. I'm sure it will be a money-maker since it's directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks.

Frankly, I hated the book. Not only was it based on a wild-eyed conspiracy theory - or actually a lot of wild-eyed theories, it also was horribly written. Clumsy dialog and completely implausible scenarios abounded. I slogged through it, but wouldn't re-read it.

Now if Howard had wanted a positive reaction to the film at Cannes, all he had to do would be put some anti-Bush stuff into the film. The French would have gone wild with praise.

UPDATE: THe movie isn't a hit with albinos, either. I'm sorry guys, this is a silly thing to raise an objection to.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

Now that I planted an earworm in readers - you'll be hearing Monty Python all day long now, won't you? It seems the company that tried to fight spam with spam, Blue Security, Inc., will cease operations in the wake of a massive counterattack by a Russian spammer. After some initial successes with it's methods, the Russian spammer's overwhelming response along with threats of cyberblackmail, convinced Blue Security it was in a bad spot.

Then, earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to Bluesecurity.com, as well as to other Web sites. The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.

Today, Reshef will wave a virtual white flag and surrender. The company will shut down this morning and its Web site will display a message informing its customers about the closure.

The Russian spammer's counterattack produced a significant amount of collateral damage as well:

The spammer's counterattack generated so much Internet traffic that it also affected other sites, including Six Apart Ltd., a San Francisco-based company that runs millions of Web sites through its TypePad and LiveJournal blogging services. The attack also shut down operations for roughly 12 hours at Tucows Inc., a Toronto-based Internet services company that helped manage Blue Security's site.

Tucows chief executive Elliot Noss called the attack "by far the largest the company had ever seen," and said that only a handful of companies have the infrastructure in place to withstand such an assault, much less a more powerful one.

(Which is why Cathy Seipp's blog was down all weekend, apparently.) I'm not sure what the answer is to spam at this point. Other than people refusing to open spam and drying up the revenue, I don't see what else to do. Some of my email accounts in various places get many times more spam than legitimate email these days.

Well, enough of that. Back to humming along with Monty Python. Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam.

Lovely spam, wonderful spa-a-m,
Lovely spam, wonderful S Spam,
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am,
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am,
SPA-A-A-A-A-A-A-AM,
SPA-A-A-A-A-A-A-AM,
LOVELY SPAM, LOVELY SPAM,
LOVELY SPAM, LOVELY SPAM,
LOVELY SPA-A-A-A-AM…
SPA-AM, SPA-AM, SPA-AM, SPA-A-A-AM