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Summit Up

Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world’s only daily column hoping to not get itself caught in an info-tech quandary.

The staff here at the Mothership is learning a new software program, one that will bring you, faithful readers, all the news you didn’t know you needed to know – and then some.

It has some really neat features, like color and spellcheck, but it also has the capability of letting reporters write down “notes” embedded in their stories for editors to see.



Unfortunately, it also allows the reporter to forget to remove those notes before sending a story to Ye Olde Editor, thus cracking open the door for things to get in the paper that aren’t supposed to be there. And any time that door gets cracked …

You’ve seen these kinds of things before: “At a pubic meeting last Tuesday …” or “County, Frisco buttheads,” or “Stanford Women’ sCrew” Wait. That one was a T-shirt.



But this could be worse.

We envision something like this: “Councilmember Bartholomew Spiel said Tuesday that he will support a smoking ban everywhere except in his hometown.

STAFF REPORTER NAME – NOTES: Fellow councilmember Cory Ander said: This guy’s a bum, he only got in office because he’s sleeping with the police chief. END NOTES

And the next thing you know, it’s in print the next day if we don’t do certain things in a proper order. We certainly are going to try hard to keep these kinds of things out of the paper! But remember, we are the only industry that publishes its mistakes on a daily basis.

***

Boy, just when we thought we couldn’t be receiving any more spam-mails from people who believe our sex life is pretty incredibly dull and would be enhanced by their products, or from people who want us to give them their bank account numbers so they can share their millions they’ve inherited from their uncle’s South African mining operation, we get this:

“Dear U.S. Bank account holder,

We regret to inform you, that we had to block your U.S. Bank account because we have been notified that your account may have been compromised by outside parties.

“Our terms and conditions you agreed to state that your account must always be under your control or those you designate at all times. We have noticed some activity related to your account that indicates that other parties may have access and or control of your information in your account. These parties have in the past been involved with money laundering, illegal drugs, terrorism and various Federal Title 18 violations.

“In order that you may access your account we must verify your identity by clicking on the link below.”

Ha! Just what kind of dummies do they take us for!? We gave permission to those people to access our account!

Anyway, it continues:

“Please be aware that until we can verify your identity no further access to your account will be allowed and we will have no other liability for your account or any transactions that may have occurred as a result of your failure to reactivate your account as instructed below.

“Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.”

You’re welcome.

***

We’re out jotting down notes REPORTER NAME NOTES: What a JERK that guy is. I can’t believe they let him out of the house alone! END NOTES to put in tomorrow’s paper.


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