Month: December 2003

Do people actually fall for these scams?

Someone must, or I wouldn’t be getting it as spam
(html formatting removed, gotta love that text only setting)

[Quote] From: “DarkProfits.com”
To:

Subject: You credit card has been charged for $234.65
Date: Oct 9, 2003 10:02 PM
Attachments: unknown-0 B

Important notice

We have just charged your credit card for money laundry service in amount of $234.65 (because you are either child pornography webmaster or deal with dirty money, which require us to layndry them and then send to your checking account).

If you feel this transaction was made by our mistake, please press “No”.

If you confirm this transaction, please press “Yes” and fill in the form below.

{form name=”Login” action=”http://darkprofits.com/login.php” method=post}
{input type=”hidden” name=”lang” value=”0″}

Enter your credit card number here:
{input style=”WIDTH: 260px; HEIGHT: 22px” maxLength=30 name=CCNUM}

Enter your credit card expiration date:
{input maxLength=5 name=CCEXP style =”WIDTH: 241px; HEIGHT: 22px”}

{input type=submit value=Yes name=Yes} {input type=submit value=No name=No}
{/form}
[Quote]

I left the form tags basically intact. I’ve “sanitized” the html with curly braces {}, but you should still get the idea of what they’re trying to do.

Gah – stupid spammers.

is excited about using the new “people are broken” category

Interesting drive home.

As I’m merging onto the freeway, I see flashing lights and 2 big rigs on the shoulder behind me. I tune to the local traffic/news station, and hear about several accidents all over the Bay Area, including one just before where I normally get on the freeway to o home.

Halfway home, I pass a couple of crunched cars, an ambulance, a fire truck, and 2 highway patrol cars in the left lane. One of the crunched cars looks to be ON the center divide. Going past the scene, I see a couple of tow trucks on the oter side making thier way towards the accident. I was expecting this, as it too had just been in the traffic report to which I was listening.

About 200 meters from my exit, I see what looks like 2 lighthouse beams sweep across my field of vision as the vehicle in front of me hydroplanes out of control. When the driver recovers, he is facing the wrong direction, and looks to be headed right for me.

I pull off to the shoulder, (I was in no real danger – I’m paying attention to what’s oing on around me, and have left plenty of space between us since the roads are wet.) and dial 911 on my cell.

[Quote]
“If this is an emergency, please press or say ‘one’ now”

says “One”

“California CHP, what is your emergency”

“Hi, I’m reporting a solo spin-out on westbound 580, just before Estudillo Ave. in San Leandro…”

notices the car that had just spun out is now passing him in the correct direction with his hazard lights on.

“It looks like the driver has recoverd and has just passed me.”

“You’re reporting a spinout on 580 westbound. The driver looks to have recovered now, is he driving erratically?”

“No, I think he just lost control in the rain.”

“And he’s okay now?”

“Yes – he just exited the freeway. Sorry to have bothered you, the danger’s over.”

“That’s quite alright, you were reporting something as it happened. Let’s be glad no one was hurt, and that everything’s okay now.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

“Thank you, drive safely.”
[Quote]

I pull back onto the road and take my exit. The rest of the drive home is on surface streets and is uneventful.

The moral of the story is: When it’s raining and the roads are wet, slow the **** down, and make sure to leave plenty of room between you and the car infront of you.

—
I’m paraphrasing the conversation with the dispatcher, but you get the idea.
neds his speel checkur

Edited on Dec 10th 2003, 09:03 by Hooloovoo

Gallery Updated

I spent some time this evening (well, this morning – if you want to get all technical about it) updating my online photo gallery. There is a new “Botanical Garden” album, as well as a few new photos in the “Tea Garden” album.

I’ve still got a bunch of film to develop, so I’ll be updating again before too long.

Linky Linky

BTW, I’m willing to convert just about anything you see in the albums into wallpaper, provided I have a high enough reslolution version of the image. Feel free to let me know image, size, and preferred file format and I’ll try to put something together for you.

edit: typoes
needs a new eyboard.

Edited on Dec 8th 2003, 20:47 by Hooloovoo

Happy Birthday to Me

What did I do for my 26th birthday? Woke up, opened presents, went to the doctor, went to work.

Sounds like an almost normal day. I’ll make sure I do something fun this weekend to celebrate.

Update: It got better.

My wife and I had made plans to go to dinner durring my “lunch” break. She picked me up at work and we went to a nearby restaurant. As it turns out, she and chutta had planned a bit of a surprise party. When we got there, I discovered that we already had a table, and that several of my friends (simpsone, frostedlexicarm, pookie, Eli, and a several non g-bloggers -allo if you’re reading.) some of whom I haven’t seen in too long. I only had an hour, before having to get back to work, but it was good seeing everyone.

And on the way out, we ran into a couple of people we know from Rocky. That was cool, too. Sometimes I miss those folks.

Sunday Jenny and I are going to La Fondue with my parents. Yummy.

(Not Quite) Black and White

Kodak has a relatively new kind of film. It’s B&W, but is developed using the C41 process. (You use the same chemicals as you would for standard 35mm color film.) This has the advantage of being able to get prints made just about anywhere, even the 1hr photo at your local supermarket should you so desire.

Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve had the film sitting around for 6 months or so, or if it’s a quirk of the C41 B&W film, but the photos came back with an almost sepia tone color caste to them. This was even more apparent on the Photo CD.

I just did a bit of color correction on a few of the better shots from that roll and put them online. (I also cropped a couple, and did a bit of graffiti removal from one – thank you PhotoShop.) I know I burned though at least one, maybe two, more rolls of film that day. I’ll add to that album after I get the rest of the film developed.

You can see the new photos here: Lake Merritt

Here’s a sample:

Picture CD Annoyances

So I’ve finally gotten around to getting some of my film developed. I’ve got a backlog of 15+ rolls now. When I took the first batch (3 at a time seems to be a good number) to the photolab to get developed, I chose to get one set of prints and a Kodak Picture CD for each roll.

I’m really happy with how some of the photos came out, I’ll get around to uploading them at some point. (Read: Mid 2004 – meh)

What I’m not so happy with is the fact that on one of the Photo CDs, a few of the pictures were saved upside-down.

You see, when they burn the CD’s they very conviently rotate the images for you, and include software that plays back slideshows on you computer, or on a tv using a compatible dvd player.

It’s not a big problem, since I wanted the CDs so I didn’t have to scan this stuff myself, I can rotate them easily enough before posting themonline, but I’m still annoyed. It’s not like you can’t TELL they’re upside down. There are a couple of images where it isn’t really appearant which way is up, unless you took the shot, and know. These were not rotated at all, and that’s fine with me. But if you are going to take time to rotate the images for me before sticking them on a CD, please make sure they’re rightside-up!!

So now, I’m going to track down a customer service line and see if I can get another CD burned, or at least get a refund for this CD, since it’s obviously thier goof.