Archived News starting from 09-19-2006 and earlier
BlogIn part two of my credit fraud
saga, I find my
other credit card receiving a 10¢ validation charge from the
Islamic Center of Irving, TX. A text message indicating I was close to my limit prompted me to check and discover the initial 10¢ charge, along with two subsequent
Western Union charges for $521 each. Upon calling Western Union I learned my money went to Peru, but they quickly got tight-lipped about the email or phone number the person used once I told them it was fraudulent. I was told to file a police report for further information, which I did. I'm sure it will rot at the bottom of a pile of similar reports for all eternity, but at least I have proof of filing for my credit card company. Unsettled about the whole thing, I also activated a
fraud alert and recommend anyone else who has this happen do the same.
You read my blog, you loaded my Disc Golf album, then you left. Our time together was so short, but it was good. It could have ended there, on good terms, but 10 hours later you came back, and that's when you got nasty. With your Firefox 1.5.0.7 on Windows XP browser. When you came back, you requested
login.aspx and
post.aspx and were greeted with 404's. These requests were not from links! They were from your H@x0r mind! You had malicious intent! Betrayal was unleashed, our mutual trust broken! You were not interested in karaoke videos with off-tune people, or photos of my water pump. You were intending to do harm! Your next move: a comment with no content! Just "test"! What insanity was this? A feeling of fear washed over me, my trust in random internet visitors/bots shaken. Seeking justice, I found your logs, and your IP. Mr. 71.79.122.54, I shall strike you........ wait. That's my IP address. DAMN YOU
MORLOCK PRIME!
An
evening with the
Kelley's found us at Cass Benton for some Disc Golf followed by an intense session of
Karaoke Revolution. Here's a
video that sums up the shenanigans.
Ron hosted a
Cougar Mod Meet today and I took the opportunity to replace the water pump in my
Cougar. After removing it I could see the bearing seal
had been leaking for quite some time. The supercharger made the job significantly more difficult, but fortunatley I had plenty of help.
Mark took over removal and installation procedures,
Josh helped with hose management, and
Ron provided tools and coolant once I realized the coolant in my engine was now on his driveway. A round of
Lisa battles followed by dinner and a movie on Ron's
80" (correction: 152") screen ended with a successful startup and operation of my cooling system. Puma and I could have done without the hour long wait at the border afterwards though.
Less than a week after my
last camping trip, Lisa got the urge for more. Our destination:
my back yard. After she scouted the location, purchased the food and organized the supplies I tried to keep up by making a fire. Shortly after we setup a
wild animal made off with some food and liquor, then sat down and joined Camp Lisa. During our campfire conversation Lisa suggested a part of my anatomy was less than average, which began nonstop innuendos until we passed out from smores.
Tuesday at my company's
all company meeting I was tasked with shooting rolled t-shirts from the
Fox theatre stage with a three person slingshot (the mouse in the
article is the corporate mascot for the
application I launched). The slingshot team consisted of me,
Duane and Dan, and while we waited backstage we had an opportunity to see all the
signatures in the green room. Today we had a group photo at
Northville Downs in the middle of the field. I still don't know how horses and information technology relate, but standing in the middle of a horse racing field I realized I would never have predicted myself being in either location. Needless to say I made appropriate obnoxious gestures at opportune moments in both locations.
After eyeing the
Xbox Media Center conversion for a few months now, I got all the required hardware for about $20 off ebay. The final push came from Lisa when I couldn't explain why the
Xbox Media Center Extender couldn't display photos from my network share (it can only extend photos on the media center hard drive). Add to that the fact that the retail xbox can't play DiVX or any other useful format excpet DVD and MP3 and you can see why it becomes a "need" rather than a "want." My hackable game choice was "007: Agent Under Fire" since the MechAssault game has 4 different versions out, only one of which is hackable. After loading the save game from the Action Replay memory card in my 007 game the xbox blinked and a typical l33t h@x0r screen appeared. A hack this easy that doesn't require any hardware modifications always feels great. I quickly used the l33t h@x0r screen to back up the EEPROM and MSLOAD and replace them with the hacked versions. After rebooting the xbox I was greeted with FTP settings that allowed me to copy the media center software over the network. 20 minutes later I rebooted a second time and was greeted with my new
Xbox Media Center Experience. I can even play the recorded TV .DVR-MS files on my media center via a file share. Now Lisa can enjoy DiVX, photos, music and emulated games on either television, which is why I did the hack. Not because I'm an obsessive techno nerd that can't leave well enough alone.
Yesterday I got a call from
American Express asking if I authorized a $1 charge to my card. Typically I get these calls and remember making the charge, but this time it was a mystery. I hung up, called back, and requested a replacement card. Today I received another call asking about a $1,000 charge from WalMart.com. I explained I had already cancelled the card and they assured me it was, but apparently they leave it open for more fraudulent charge attempts. After confirming it wasn't me making the charge, they hung up and probably activated their FraudFinder nanobot to seek out and give cancer to the person who stole my card information. Being a cheap bastard, I'm sure they got it from any number of shady websites I buy from in search of a good deal. Fortunately it was caught before I was in a position to fight an uphill battle. I checked my account and found another charge after the WalMart one, so apparently whoever got the info went on a charging spree after the $1 went through. If you get a fraudulent usage call from your credit card company, thank them for me, and ask them not to activate the nanobot if they suspect me.br />
My dream of mega-fast storage for my
primary machine was
realized not too long ago. It was so fast, I had to
upgrade my CPU to keep up with it. I was confident my storage speed was cutting edge until I installed a
Seagate Barracuda drive into my
media machine today. I of course immediately ran a
benchmark comparison and discovered the single new drive had a higher burst speed than my dual-drive RAID.
This was not surprising since the new drive was SATA/300 vs. the SATA/150
WD Raptor drives in my RAID, so the bus capacity between processor and the new drive was double that between processor and my RAID drives. For burst speeds at least, 7,200RPM really is faster than 10,000RPM if it's stuck on a SATA/150 short bus. However, since I don't access files sequentially on my hard drive, the higher random access should net me better real-world performance. Interpreting the results this way also enables me to adjust reality back to the belief that my RAID is a mega-fast storage device unparalleled by any non-SCSI setups. The transitive property wins again!
Despite freezing weather and bouts of rain, my annual
camping trip in Ipperwash was a success. Two nights of intoxicated fun yielded such memories as the
search for the Gnome,
butter from a creamer,
suggestive photos, and
all
kinds
of
meat. This year was also the most attended with representatives from California, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Toronto. Unfortunately the weather prevented me from becoming as intoxicated as I'd have liked, but there's always next year.
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