#54: Clay is like a box of chocolates (with a pickle on the side)

[keepingfaith]

Wow, Clay fans have really gotten serious about voting in that Twitterwall poll. I haven't been going there very often, but the few times I have during the past week Clay has consistently trailed by 1,500 - 2,000 votes. This morning he's less than 500 votes short of the lead. A lot of fans are obviously working this one hard. I can't deny I would love to see Clay take this thing, and it's amazing to me that out of all the Idol contestants from around the world, Adam and Clay are leaving the others far behind.

Love the winner today, LdyJ.

In just a few minutes I'm leaving for the Texans opener against the Jets. Yea, FOOTBALL SEASON!!

[aikim]

I long for the day when Clay has finally cut the AI umbilical cord and I don't have to see him on any more AI polls of who is the bestest...detest these kinds of polls and refuse to vote on them. I don't really think they prove anything and just encourage competition and fan wars...be glad when this one is over and it isn't the main topic of conversation on some of the Clay boards.

Hoping for real Clay news this week so the poll will fade into the background.

Kim

[canfly172]

Close your eyes Aikim, lol...

Wow, Clay fans have really gotten serious about voting in that Twitterwall poll. I haven't been going there very often, but the few times I have during the past week Clay has consistently trailed by 1,500 - 2,000 votes. This morning he's less than 500 votes short of the lead. A lot of fans are obviously working this one hard. I can't deny I would love to see Clay take this thing, and it's amazing to me that out of all the Idol contestants from around the world, Adam and Clay are leaving the others far behind.

I think that's what's intriguing to me also. Obviously Clay and Adam are the only two Idol alums in the poll, who have a REALLY devoted following of fans (yeah, OK...obsessed, lol). Today, they both have over 100,000 votes and have left the others in the dust, so to speak. I think that it's reassuring me in some way because there has been a lot of talk in the past year about how many fans Clay has lost and I have to admit that it concerned me as far as concert tours. I guess this is showing me that even thought he's been out of the limelight for bit, Clay still has a big enough following, to keep him neck-and-neck for top spot with the current "hot item".

Adam 103886 Votes

Clay 103466 Votes

The rest? In the dust.

The guy in 5th is a German Idol. Might check him out. I'm hoping his fans will check out Clay also. There are about 10 other non-American Idols on the page. I'm going to have a look on youtube if I have time later today and see what they're like. I keep throwing a vote in for Kalan Porter now and then too. *g*

All that being said....yeah, I wish we had some current news about Clay. That'll all change as the gala approaches and once we get Gala clack!

[luckiest1]

I very rarely waste my time voting in online polls, because I think they are, for the most part, useless. They don't mean anything, they just pit fans against fans, especially in a poll where repeat voting is encouraged.

Someone call me when there's Clay news.

[ldyjocelyn]

Here's my whole take on the AI thing, and polls, and such... Of course, it's just my opinion...

I think Clay will never fully ever be able to lose the AI tag. IMO, the show was MADE during his season -- ratings through the roof, the tour consistently sold out. I also believe that Clay realizes that if not for the show, he probably wouldn't have the career his has now...which led to so much more in his life as well, such as the National Inclusion Project. Therefore, I've given up wishing for the day when his name and AI aren't in the same sentence consistently, because I just don't feel it will happen.

However...

The competition aspect of the whole thing, for me, ended the week after the TITN/BOTW sales came in. I have to admit I got caught up in the "beat Ruben" thing at that point. Past that, though -- well, sure, music is a competitive business. But there's room for liking more than one person in music at the same time, and sometimes these polls feel to me like "MY favorite is better than YOUR favorite."

I'm not begrudging those of you who are voting. Many seem to be happy at the idea of the fandom "pulling together" once again to vote for this. That's fine. I never was much of a voting fool though, so...eh.

[claycherie]

I voted on the other pictures, but these two are gorgeous, do we get to vote on them too? Although I don't know which one I would choose!

I am still voting like crazy on the Adam/Clay poll. I love Kalan Porter. In my opinion he is the only other idol who could hold a candle to Clay. How is he doing?

Kim I know what you mean about the polls, I hope this is the last Idol one I will have to vote on.

[FromClaygary]

Changed my mind....

[treenuts]

canfly, you done now? Just checking to see if it's safe to post yet

Keeping Sparky in my thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery!!

Personally I love how well we have done on the twitterwall poll! I am surprised AL doesn't have more votes than he has because he sure has a lot more followers on his twitter account. But I'm not sure what one has to do with the other Yes, I am clueless!

Yea, FOOTBALL SEASON!!

[claylove]

Well, I've been voting in the poll as much as I can and as often as possible and will continue to do so. Many times I think popularity polls are meaningless but this one has much higher visability especially on Twitter. I think it would be cool for Clay's new label to see his fans carry him to the top of it, whether that be 1st or 2nd place (though I'd much prefer 1st!). I also like how the fandom is pulling together for Clay. JMO. YMMV.

[FearofH2O]

Well, I've been voting in the poll as much as I can and as often as possible and will continue to do so. Many times I think popularity polls are meaningless but this one has much higher visability especially on Twitter. I think it would be cool for Clay's new label to see his fans carry him to the top of it, whether that be 1st or 2nd place (though I'd much prefer 1st!). I also like how the fandom is pulling together for Clay. JMO. YMMV.

[clayzedover]

Been voting on the poll because I want people who go there to know Clay has devoted fans -- also hope Decca notices. It has been a joy to see fans pull together for Clay.

Most of us consider this the last Idol poll we will vote on so they want him to make a great showing.

So far we know fans of Allison and Kaylan Porter have joined forces to vote for Adam and both their numbers have gone up. Sad really. Many Adam votes are not from his own fans.

It has been as much fun voting for Rube and bypassing Klo as anything else...even threw some votes in for Trenyce. We sure could use more help.

[jmh123]

It's possible that you haven't heard from someone who had a problem because they can't use their computers to tell you.

Nope.

If someone doesn't know you, she can't call you to tell you, you know what I mean? My concern all along has been lurkers or unconnected or uninformed fans.

Wherever Strummer picked up the virus, I personally don't believe that the virus came from clicking to vote for Clay

A bunch of people at CH have posted today that they received the invitation to download that virus at the Tweeterwall site; Caro also did several times. Why is it so hard to believe strummer just made a mistake and clicked on the wrong thing (like maybe cancel?) and got infected?

Thanks for the warning and instructions along with your link!!

Kimiye posted this on the computer security thread at CH:

Copied from Main:

If the pop-ups are coming from VirusDoctor Online, and it wants you to download a program called GreenAV-Install.exe, it's the latest browser hijacker and trojan/scam trying to scare you into buying it. It's associated with many popular websites, but doesn't seem to be consistent, so I suspect a URL redirector. That means one person will get the popup from a site but the next person will not.

The hijacker tries to get around your virus protection by asking you to install it, sort of like how a vampire can only come in your house if you invite it. Then it keeps telling you you're infected every time you reboot, but promises to clean you up if you buy the licensed version.

Now, the bad thing is I have read that this hijacker attacks both IE and Firefox, and also will pop up using those browsers on a Mac. The program may not run on a Mac, however.

Here's one web site that tells how to remove the program if you've installed it. You should be able to stop it from popping up by blocking the web sites that are serving the software, but I'm sure the hackers will be switching those around. I'll keep researching that.

It also installs itself if you ask it not to install it, say by clicking "cancel," as far as I know.

Well, I've been voting in the poll as much as I can and as often as possible and will continue to do so. Many times I think popularity polls are meaningless but this one has much higher visability especially on Twitter.

Still don't get this, but maybe it's because I haven't been there. Tweeterwall has no relationship to twitter. Its domain is mallstore.com. The name just sounds like twitterwall. Maybe the site itself links to twitter, but it isn't associated with twitter, so Decca isn't going there just because Clay has a twitter account via Decca. Maybe people are tweeting to Decca/Clay about how they are voting??

Anyway, I'm glad y'all are having fun. Just post a warning and instructions with the link, preferably right with the link, and I'm good with it.

[Scarlett]

I don't read anything into these polls, especially those that can be spammed, but sometimes they can be fun so I'd like to send good luck & happy thoughts to those who ware voting on this one. Have fun!!! *also sending y'all virtual goodies, encouragement, pillows, coffee, hugs, chocolate, a virtual masseuse, cheering squad, portable jacuzzi, ... and more!*

ETA: Can't believe I got paged again and may have to drive in to work... *tucks away some of the above goodies, just in case*

[aikim]

Just back from "tea" with two of my girls...we went to a little tea room in the next town over called The Pickwick Portfolio...the owner was a big fan of Little Women so the tea room is based on the novel...we had "Jo's Plate"... a selection of tea sandwiches, scones and desserts, plus tea, of course. It was quite charming...it is housed in old house and we had a table on the back porch...just lovely. Afterwards we walked across the street to the Farmer's Market...bought some veggies. Beautiful day here after the fog this morning, so we had a lovely day and it was great hanging out with my girls.

My apologies if I stepped on any toes regarding the poll; never have been into polls and voting. I think I would find them much more legitimate if it was one vote per person instead of being spammable. Not sure in the long run how this will benefit Clay...don't know that Decca really pays much attention to these things...but everyone is free to support Clay in the manner they choose and I should not have been so blunt in my remarks.

Kim

[canfly172]

I am still voting like crazy on the Adam/Clay poll. I love Kalan Porter. In my opinion he is the only other idol who could hold a candle to Clay. How is he doing?

re: Kalan...still not in the same ballpark as Clay vocally but damn, he's talented.

I just discovered that Kalan was on there and have started voting for him also. He's down pretty far. He only has like 1400 votes. He's behind Justin Guarini. There's something decidely wrong with that picture.

Changed my mind....

Can I do that about yesterday?

canfly, you done now? Just checking to see if it's safe to post yet

Keeping Sparky in my thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery!!

Personally I love how well we have done on the twitterwall poll! I am surprised AL doesn't have more votes than he has because he sure has a lot more followers on his twitter account. But I'm not sure what one has to do with the other Yes, I am clueless!

A) Who me? :innocent: (edited cuz I read it as "What have you done now?" the first time, lol)

B ) I think so. :chair:

C) I's worried about Sparky. She was sent home from the hospital with painkillers and a tube stuck in her to drain the crap from the ruptured appendix out. Stubborn wench went around with a ruptured appendix for 3 weeks before seeking a second opinion at a hospital. No way they can operate until they clean it up with antibiotics. I haven't heard from her in 3 days and it's not like the post-ho to not post, so that means she's in bad shape. I've likely been a tad more touchy this week due to Back-to-school stress and worrying about her. Apologies. Not sure if I'm supposed to be posting this publicly but ah well, she can suck it up.

D) I love hanging around with clueless people. It makes me feel snart and all.

Well, I've been voting in the poll as much as I can and as often as possible and will continue to do so. Many times I think popularity polls are meaningless but this one has much higher visability especially on Twitter. I think it would be cool for Clay's new label to see his fans carry him to the top of it, whether that be 1st or 2nd place (though I'd much prefer 1st!). I also like how the fandom is pulling together for Clay. JMO. YMMV.

I do like the OFC thread. It's 99% positive and is all about rooting for Clay and there's no slamming of the "opposition".

[treenuts]

*waves to the snartass above*

Taking a quick break from the game to vote for Clay and say GO 49ers!!! Keeping my fingers crossed but I don't want to jinx it. I just want them to win their season opener in the worst way. *bites nails*

[canfly172]

Just saw this:

A bunch of people at CH have posted today that they received the invitation to download that virus at the Tweeterwall site; Caro also did several times. Why is it so hard to believe strummer just made a mistake and clicked on the wrong thing (like maybe cancel?) and got infected?

My only concern before was that people might be getting scared away from voting due to something picked up elsewhere. I did see the pop-up early on re: my computer being infected. I see pop-ups like that all the time when on sites looking for song titles, etc...when playing in games threads both here and at my board. I just rolled my eyes and did ctrl, alt, delete as usual...no harm, no foul. Apparently, that pop-up is likely what Strummer clicked on. Mea culpa. Uncle.

It also installs itself if you ask it not to install it, say by clicking "cancel," as far as I know.

Yup. Never click "cancel" or "don't install" or anything like that in a pop-up like that. Evil people wanting to install something nasty on your computer aren't going to give you a button with an option of opting out

I did a bit of checking. From what I understand, those pop-ups have NOT been appearing for several days. What does Caro say?

Once again, that type of virus can't hurt you if you don't let it.

Never click within a pop-up window warning you about your computer being infected. That's the bait. Never click on anything within one of those pop-up windows, even if the choice is "delete" or "don't install" or anything like that. To be completely safe, don't touch the pop-up window at all. Close it out at the bottom of your task bar with a right click and delete if you can and if not, then control + alt + delete and then end task. Never download an anti-virus or anti-spyware program that seeks YOU out. That's a huge red flag. It's easy enough to close out the warning window as outlined above and then go open up your anti-virus/anti-spyware program and run a scan.

How'd I do? Am I keeping out of trouble today, lol?

[jmh123]

How'd I do? Am I keeping out of trouble today, lol?

Bwah! You're doing great! (Twirls my Gene Shalit moustache)

I'm worried about Sparky too. I guess sending her home is a good sign that she isn't on death's door, but 3 weeks with a ruptured appendix! :yikes: (there ought be a yikes emotie, but there ain't)

[Desertrose]

WOW! I don't know about landing in tiny squares in the middle of the ocean. Exciting, but scary to me. Complaining is almost always a good thing if the complaint is legitimate. Glad it went your way this time!

BTW, I work closely with our Safety groups and I seem to remember how last year you were rather concerned about your means to evacuate if the need arises during a hurricane. Have things improved by now? It's the height of the season so I hope you have made contacts and/or arrangements since then. We were worried about you and were watching for you to call in after Ike.

I did way better not evacuating for Ike than I did with the evacuation for Rita. I have decided that up to a category 3, I am not going to evacuate. Even though I am in a mandatory evacuation area, I am 26 feet above sea level, so I should be safe up to a category 3. It was weird though because I was the only one in my neighborhood that did not evacuate. But the day after, everyone came back to the neighborhood, and it was kinda fun even though we had to live in the dark for a week. We would gather in the cul de sac every evening, someone brought their RV with a generator, and talk. All our fences got knocked down with the wind, so we all got to meet each other. No TV, no internet, just a blast from the past where neighbors visited with each other. When the lights started coming on in the surrounding neighborhoods and we were still in the dark, we would curse at them, but just in fun, not in an ugly way. Dealing with the damage Ike did was another story. I just had my gutters re-installed.

[canfly172]

*waves to the snartass above*

*waves back*

Why are we typing with asterisks, lol? works. I gots a better and more enthusiastic one: It's called... :wave Inventive huh?

Whenever anybody posts to me, I'm always waiting for it to do this:

How'd I do? Am I keeping out of trouble today, lol?

Bwah! You're doing great! (Twirls my Gene Shalit moustache)

(I have YWSOB going through my head now, lol)

I'm worried about Sparky too. I guess sending her home is a good sign that she isn't on death's door, but 3 weeks with a ruptured appendix! :yikes: (there ought be a yikes emotie, but there ain't)

works : yow:

[Desertrose]

I have been voting on this Ultimate World Idol poll every 20 minutes for days and have still not seen this pop up. I am so sleep deprived that I tried to turn the TV on with the phone and then could not figure out "why the remote was not working."

I have been having fun voting. Even though these polls might not make any real difference, it might show that Clay still has a strong fan base and has not lost as many fans as a lot of people think. I also ran across a Utube that has now been removed in which people voting for AL were calling Clay ugly. That is making me vote for Clay more! I survived Ike, and I hope I can survive this contest! Hee Hee I sure am tired though. Voting!

[Scarlett]

I did way better not evacuating for Ike than I did with the evacuation for Rita. I have decided that up to a category 3, I am not going to evacuate. Even though I am in a mandatory evacuation area, I am 26 feet above sea level, so I should be safe up to a category 3. It was weird though because I was the only one in my neighborhood that did not evacuate. But the day after, everyone came back to the neighborhood, and it was kinda fun even though we had to live in the dark for a week. We would gather in the cul de sac every evening, someone brought their RV with a generator, and talk. All our fences got knocked down with the wind, so we all got to meet each other. No TV, no internet, just a blast from the past where neighbors visited with each other. When the lights started coming on in the surrounding neighborhoods and we were still in the dark, we would curse at them, but just in fun, not in an ugly way. Dealing with the damage Ike did was another story. I just had my gutters re-installed.

That did sound better than the Rita evacuation. Yikes on the gutters, though. Since every storm is different, it's probably best to make sure you have our numbers in case you need someone to swoop over there and pick you up for any reason.

Yay, on the poll & good work!!!

ETA: Can't believe I'm at work at 6pm on a Sunday (and will be for hours if I don't take pry myself from the message boards), but at least they there are a lot of good connections to the Internet in case I need one, or two, or a few... thousand. Still miss the gigabit connection to the backbone from my office last year, though.

ETAA: The problem with having multiple monitors at work is that I forget where I am when I hit F5...

EYATA: Well, I'm going to be here for hours anyway. Probably should have browsed around longer..

ESOMT: How many times am I going to hit the wrong F5?

[keepingfaith]

FYI from the NYTimes.com

NOTE TO READERS:

An unauthorized advertisement

claiming to offer antivirus

software has been seen by

NYTimes.com readers, who are

advised not to click on it

And from MediaMemo:

Here’s a front page story the New York Times (NYT) would rather not be running: The paper is warning readers to be aware of bogus ads running on its Web site.

The paper says “some readers” have seen unauthorized pop-up ads promoting antivirus software on NYTimes.com, and warns visitors who see the ad not to click on it but to restart their browsers instead. While the Times doesn’t spell this out, it has likely had its site hijacked by a “malware” scammer who is trying to trick visitors into installing pernicious software onto their hard drives.

MediaMemo reader Tim Minter has passed along an image of the pop-up. Here’s his description of the way it appeared on his desktop:

The ad hijack[ed] my computer. Say I’m reading an article (the Clean Water Act was the one that caught me). It then redirects my browser involuntarily to sex-and-the-city.cn. That site then redirects to the ad.

At no time did I click anything. That’s what is so nefarious about this malware.

[ldyjocelyn]

From the CH:

Clay has a new picture on his personal facebook page as seen by anyone who is friends with Aron Hall on FB.

If anyone can make this picture bigger, I'd certainly appreciate it!

[Scarlett]

Hey, gg and luckiest!!! Can I give you a hug right nere on the thread, just because? It's hard to reach you sometimes.

ETA: ClayIzzaQT, I haven't contacted your friend yet because I'm working very late tonight but if you get to talk to her, please say it's a sure thing. Thanks for putting us in touch!