thanks to paula for reminding me that my website seemed to have been infected by malwares. i thought nothing if it last night when i first noticed it, but i grew curious and checked my code. there at the bottom was a new line of html that embedded an iframe pointing to an external URL designed to secretly install spyware on your pc. i erased it right away but felt kind of violated. how hackers got access to my website i don't know, but i only have the most rudimentary of security; i'm sure if they used a brute force attack they could eventually guess my password. so if you checked my weblog anytime between last night to this morning (monday), make sure nothing malicious got installed on your system. fortunately the site is safe now (until the next time i get hacked).

i spent the early part of the morning calling insurance companies. i called mine first, which was entirely unnecessary, since there was nothing they could do for me. i just have the basic bare-bones policy on my motorcycle which doesn't even include any collision coverage. my agent told me to call the other party's insurance company and file a claim with them (shouldn't it be their job to do this for me?). it was weird calling the other insurance, because they don't represent me, and it's in their best interest to somehow find their client not at fault so they wouldn't have to pay anything. i felt like i was asking money from the from the wrong people. despite it all, the agent i got (based in texas, with a nice southern accent) was really nice and told me a claim's adjustor should be contacting me this week to take a look at the motorcycle and get a courtesy estimate pending the final outcome of the claim.

afterwards i got in touch with the mail order pharmacy i'm trying out for the first time. since i pretty much have to take my high blood pressure medication for the foreseeable future, it makes sense to buy my drugs in bulk and save money. when i checked my order online, it said i couldn't get my refill until november. turns out they went ahead and filled out my prescription and had already mailed the drugs, with an expected delivery date sometime this week.

i left for belmont in the afternoon. the weather this morning was cold and gloomy, but as the day wore on, the clouds disappeared to reveal the blue sky. i was outside at the moment of transition, and the clouds up above were pretty trippy. the rest of this week looks to be dry with temperature in the 70's, the unofficial start of the autumn season.

i believe some of the sweet corn are ready to eat, but i heard not to pick them off the stalks until ready to use in order to maximize their sweetness.

two currently flowering plants attract pollinating insects like none other: the chinese chives and the mint. both plants are naturally fragrant to humans, but they produce some much tiny flowers that flying insects spend all day just feeding off of the nectar. i personally prefer the chinese chive flowers, borne on a tall slender green stalk with a ball of small star-shaped flowers. i'm amazed by the number of honey bees visiting the garden. it'd be fun to paint them a certain color (say, pink), so when they return to the hive, the beekeeper will see all these pink bees. i'd only do it if it doesn't harm the bees. note to self: google "insect safe paints." if honeybees are the most amount flying insects in the garden, then green bottle flies are a close second. if you can get over the fact that these are flies and they'll just as readily drink from a flower as well as fresh excrement, they're not all that bad. the other remaining pollinators include flower flies, drone flies, metallic green bees (which prefer sunflowers and cypress vines), and the occasional cabbage white butterflies.

a large moth had somehow gotten inside the house and was fluttering in the kitchen. i sprung to action, thinking it was possibly the elusive tobacco hornworm moth i'd been praying i'd get to see again. once i trapped it underneath a glass pyrex bowl, i knew right away it was just an underwing moth. pretty, yes, but no tobacco hornworm moth. this particular underwing (darling underwing) was a good size, about 3" long (a tobacco hornworm moth can reach 5"). after i snapped a few photos, i released it into the dark backyard with the hopes they it might go pollinate some night blooming bottle gourds.

my roommate wasn't home yet when i got back around 9:00. on my doorstep was a boxed package and wedged in my mail slot was another package. the box contained my wasabi zero wii mod chip. it came with zero documentation (hence the name?), not even an invoice slip. fortunately the chip is pretty straight-forward to install (instructions can be found online anyway). i was dismayed that it came with a complimentary tri-wing screwdriver, which meant i didn't need to rush out and buy one last week. i didn't want to install the chip until i had something to test it with (like a copied game). the other package - the one wedged in the mail slot - were my HBP medication. i was happy to see it come in a non-child-proof container (which was what i asked for, the adult bottle).

when my roommate came home, i was telling him about the mod chip but soon we fired up the wii so i could show him what i was talking about. we played for an hour, rocking the tennis, bowling, and finally golfing. i beat him in all 3 events, even though i tried to throw the game so he could win at least once. i guess i don't know my own wii strength.