Things I'm thankful for...

That I'm not too old to enjoy a kids story like "Harry Potter."






And that I'm old enough to enjoy it with a cold beer.

Happy Harry Potter Day to all!

Transformers = OMFGSPLOSION!!!!

Jen and I just saw the new Transformers movie. It...it was incredible. I could have sucked, or just been a lame action/superhero movie but it was stunning. Go see it. Go see it now.

Cell phones are the new cigarettes

I realized something today while watching the umpteenth cell phone ad on TV during "Deadliest Catch" (awesome show BTW). Cell phones are quickly gaining many of the cultural stigmas and traits that cigarettes have enjoyed (endured?) over the years. First, there are many studies (though nothing conclusive) that show that extended cell phone use for long periods of time can lead to brain cancer. Just like cigarettes can lead to lung cancer. Also, more and more restaurants are banning cell phone use in their dining areas so as to not disrupt the non-cell phone using customers. If that wasn't enough, cell phones are becoming so ubiquitous in every day life, that they are becoming a natural and even expected detail in TV and film. They are at the same time status symbols, social instrument, and, for some, an addiction.

Cell phones are the new cigarettes.

Think about that last parallel I mentioned. How many of you saw "The Departed"? Everyone? No? Well stop what you're doing, go rent it /add it to your queue and come back when you're done. No really, I'll wait. (BTW, every time you don't watch a Martin Scorsese film, he misses another Oscar).

Done? Good. Now where was I? Ah yes: Cell phones in movies. Cell phones play an important, nigh indispensable, role in "The Departed." Seriously, take cell phones out of the movie. What do you have? Now think back to any movie you've seen pre-1955 or so. Everybody smoked. Even the doctors and patients in hospitals smoked! Shit, without smoking, 90% of film noir films would basically be title and credits. Maybe some drinking. Maybe. And then there's movies like "Cellular" that, while not exactly Oscar-worthy, depend almost entirely on the prevalence of cell phones in modern society.

Not convinced? Then think about the last concert you went to where the average age was no greater than 30 (i.e. Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance, The Strokes, Brittney Spears*, etc.), or, hell, just about any concert where people don't wear Grateful Dead T-shirts. When it got to one of those songs, what did everyone hold up? (You know the ones I mean.) Lighters? Nope. Cell phones. Even if you smoke you probably hold up your cell phone. That's just how it's done these days. Instead of a sea of flickering orange flames during Metallica's Nothing Else Matters, now we get the steady blue-green glow of cell phone screens.

Interesting, is it not? Now if you'll excuse me, I have a call.

*If you have ever been to a Brittney Spears concert and you are not an 11-year old girl (and if you are, you need burn all your Brittney CDs and reassess your life), please slam your nuts in the nearest door or filing cabinet. If you do not have nuts due to your being female or a eunuch, beating yourself senseless with your own arms will suffice.

PRESS 'A', BITCH!

Japan Pics

Well everyone pretty much knows we're back from Japan and so, here is you've all been waiting for: The pictures! I recently switched from Flickr to SmugMug and I haven't yet figured out how to use all the tools yet so bear with me for awhile.

So without further ado, the Japan pics (I recommend the slideshow)!

Sayonara

Well tomorrow's the day! Tomorrow we leave for adventure and enlightenment in a foreign land. Tomorrow we leave for Japan! I don't know if I'll be blogging while I'm over there, but stay tuned! I just might post a few updates :-) If not, be sure that I'll have a ton of stuff to say once we get back.

Phucking Phishers

It seems I just got a very convincing phishing e-mail trying to get me to give away my Paypal information. The e-mail itself was not that convincing, but the link to the "Paypal site" was very well done, and the site itself was an almost perfect forgery.

This is what it looked like:

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the
PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your
account.We requested information from you for the following reason:

Our system requires further account verification.

Case ID Number: PP-140-076-751

Please confirm your Paypal account,click the URL below:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-submit

This is a second reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible. Once
you log in, you will be provided with steps to restore your account
access.

Once you log in, you will be provided with steps to
restore your account access. We appreciate your understanding as we work to
ensure account safety.

In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will
remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if
access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it
may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We
encourage you to log in to your PayPal account as soon as possible to help
avoid this.

To review your account and some or all of the information that PayPal
used to make its decision to limit your account access, please visit the
Resolution Center. If, after reviewing your account information, you
seek further clarification regarding your account access, please contact
PayPal by visiting the Help Center and clicking "Contact Us".

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please
understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your
account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department

PayPal Email ID PP638

But if look at the email in raw HTTP, you see that the actual site the link directs you too is this:

http://maxipriest.com/loggin/

Yeah, not exactly confidence inspiring. See, they spoof the URL to appear to be the Paypal site in your address bar. This is fairly simple. And if you click the link (I wouldn't recommend it), it takes you to a page that looks EXACTLY like the Paypal page. Here's a comparison:

Left, the real Paypal page; on the right, the fake.

Well done, eh? If you didn't know what to look for, you'd never be able to tell. And that could be disastrous. So how can you tell? It's all in the URL. Take a look at the real page URL here:


If the login page doesn't match what I have here, don't put any login info in. Now the fake page has the wrong URL, but it still looks like it could be legitimate. Ah! But if you view the page source, you see it's actually a frame (sort of a Web page within a Web page). And the page that is being displayed? Well, take a look:


So the address on the left is what the spoofer wants you to see. Notice no "https." On the right, is the actual URL of the spoofed site. And if you put in your login and password? Well, you are definitely SOL then. The wost part of this spoof? The links from the page are the actual links to Paypal stuff! They are essentially copying the PayPal page, and just running their own login script to grab your ID rather than the Paypal system. Insidious, no?

So here's a few simple rules that you can follow that, if you follow them, will give you 100% protection against phishing attacks.

1. First, most legitimate companies will NEVER ask you to update account information by posting a direct link to their site in the e-mail, so become immediately suspicious if they do.
   
2. If an e-mail gives you a link to take regarding your account information, check the URL by copying it (right-click and then choose Copy Link) and pasting it in Notepad or some other text editor. This will give you the real URL that you will be following. If it doesn't match, don't follow it.
3. Legitimate sites will always use secure "https" pages for logins. Phishers will almost never bother with attempting to use secure connections.
4. Never, ever, EVER put any login or personal information directly into any text fields in an e-mail! No one will ever ask for info this way as there is no way to make this secure.
5. If you use Gmail, they have a "Report phishing email" option just like spam reporting. Use it. Even if you think it's real, let the ubbersmart guys at Google take a look just to make sure.
6. If you are even a little bit suspicious about an e-mail, report it and then trash it. If you want to make sure your account is OK, go to the site directly (don't use any links) and login, or even contact customer service and ask if there is anything wrong.
   

Well that's about it. Just thought everyone should be aware of things like this.

Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Looks like Kevin Rose got his priorities straight:

"But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be."



read more | digg story

A day that will live in hilarity

Wow. I've never seen anything like this before. Digg
, (yes that Digg) was HIJACKED! Not by malicious hackers, not by lame-ass script kiddies; no. It was hacked by it's own users. Yes, the very people who make Digg what is it, a user-driven news site, rose up and revolted against the Digg bourgise.

What happened? Well, in the last week or so several stories popped up on Digg about the HD DVD decryption key that has been wandering about the interweb. They were posting the key to protest the force-feeding of DRM-infested media to the public. I've never seen a more twisted relationship between an industry and it's customers that that between the RIAA/MPAA and John Q. Public. They seem to both love and despise, distrust and adore us all at the same time. It's really pathetic.

So what does this have to do with Digg? Well, apparently at the behest of the HD DVD group, all stories showing the decryption key were mysteriously removed from Digg. You can read about it here. As a result, the Digg community revolted and began flooding the Digg servers with hundreds of stories that included the decryption key. And to get them on the front page, the rabid hordes began digging up EVERY HD DVD STORY! So that before long, all the stories on the front page of Digg were, in some form or another, about HD DVD and the key. As you can see, I took a screen shot just to prove how hilarious and awesome this was.

Some of the stories were just commenting on the situation, but others were downright ridiculous. Here are a couple of my favorites:


Yeah, that's right.

Hell, even Wikipedia has an article about this. They are calling it "HDDVD Night". Of course, it's been deleted and then protected to prevent recreation, so that's no good. Nothing like a good old fashioned Wikipedia burning.

Maybe we should call this HDDVDnacht.

Brilliant.

By the way, 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0. VIVA LA RÉSISTANCE!!!

Fuck Blogspot

Sometimes, free sucks. I guess Blogger.com decided that squidwarrior.blogspot.com was just too full of awesome to be allowed to live, and moved me to squidwarrior4.blogspot.com. Without telling me. However, squidwarrior4.anything contains at least 4 times less awesome than squidwarrior.anythingelse. I mean, I don't mind having my blog shunned to the realm of the unimaginitive Internet denizens that can't think of something original to use for their avatars, so they resort to something painfully dull and attach a string of numbers to the end to make it unique. I just mind that they didn't have the balls to tell me about it. So I updated the address to be the title of my blog.

And all you anti-Harry Potter types can just keep you sarcastic comments to yourselves, thank you very much. I'm a Harry Potter nerd, and damn proud of that fact.

Anyway, sorry to have to make everyone change their links/bookmarks/homepage, but it really was through no fault of my own. And when all the craziness dies down, I'll start posting again. Really. I mean it. Posting. With wit, humor, and vicious, viscous prose. I don't know what vicious viscous prose is exactly, but it was a chance to use the words viscous and vicious in the same sentence. With alliteration no less.

On second thought, go ahead and post your pathetic and feeble attacks on Harry Potter. What do I have to fear? I have vicious, viscous prose at my disposal! Tremble before the vale of my viciously viscous and voluminously viper-like volumes of voluptuous, virile prose.

...

I think I just hurt my brain.

Oh and by the way, my Xbox Gamercard shows up in Japanese and it takes me to the Japanese version of Xbox.com. Stupid Camino browser. Stupid Blogspot.

Update: Fixed the Camino problem. If you use Camino and Xbox.com redirects you to the Japanese site, go to here and click on your country. Fixed it for me.

Anyone checked on Hell lately?

Tucson froze Sunday night. Literally. A cold winter storm blew in and dumped
quite a bit of rain on the city. Then it got REALLY cold, and that rain turned
to ice and snow. I remember Jen and I were sitting in the living room and she
just happened to look out and said "Um...there's snow on my car." To which I
replied "...FTW!"

Going to work the next day was surreal. Everything was coated in anywhere from
0.5-2" of snow and a lot of the trees were completely frozen over. It was quite
beautiful actually. I took some pictures of the Catalina mountains, and some of
the scenery around my office. Enjoy!

Update: Apparently, Josh is not l337 enough to know what FTW means. See my response to his comment. Josh, FTW.

Picacho Peak

Jen, her brother Jeff, her dad Bob, and I hiked Picacho Peak this last Saturday. All the way to the top. Oh. My. God. That is one brutal hike. That was one of the hardest and most challengins hikes I've ever been on. But I hauled my new Pentax all the way to the top, and managed to get some great photos! Check 'em out! Oh and BTW, I'm about 1/3 of the way done with my first book review, Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash". Look for it in about a week or two. :-)

New toy II

Hooray! It's finally here! I got my new digital SLR! For those not in the know, that's a camera. :-P I'm so excited! This is the first camera I've had since high school, and my first digital camera EVER! It's not the top of the line, but it has more than enough for me right now. Plus it's a bit smaller and lighter than the big professional-grade cameras like the Nikon D200 or the Canon 30D so it should travel much better. Which is good for Japan. Expect to see some great shots from over there!

I uploaded my first batch of pictures onto my Flickr account. Just click the little photostream thingy in the sidebar. If you want information about ISO, exposure, shutter speed, etc. let me know and I can pull the metadata from the pics.

Update: Josh pointed out to me that Flickr saves the metadata when you upload the pictures. Sweet!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2007 to all! We had a kick-ass party at my parent's house. Pics to come.

All I can say is, Meghan...for shame. ;-)

Panic! At Jobbing.com Arena

Since I seem to be on a blogging binge lately, I totally forgot about some concerts I've seen/I'm going to see. First off, last week we saw "Panic! At the Disco", along with "Cobra Starship" and "Jack's Manaquinn." Now before I talk about this concert let me repeat something I said in a previous post. "Unwritten Law" is the worst live band I've ever seen. Period. I've seen high-school bands perform better. "Cobra Starship" came in just a little, tiny bit above "Unwritten Law." And that's really all I can say about that. They don't even get a picture. ;-)

"Jack's Mannequin" is a different story. Ok, ok. Their cover of U2's "With or Without You" probably caused cancer in at least 30% of the audience, but the rest of the music was pretty damn good. They had the soulfulness of "Train" without all the whining and touchy-feely lyrics, mixed with the edgier sounds of "Acceptance." If only the lead singer could decide if he wanted to sit or stand while singing and playing the piano. He had a sit-down piano, but he would half-stand to sing and ended up looking like he was having a seizure. When he sat his twitchy, flailing ass down it was much better and less epileptastic. Other than that, their music was quite good.

Which brings me to "Panic! At the Disco." Hands down, one of the best live shows I have ever seen. The sets were amazing! They did this whole circus theme (but dark and Victorian-looking) that was just awesome. They even had dancers that were acrobats and tumblers. Very cool. As for the music, it was stellar. "Panic" is one of the most musically talented bands I've seen in a long time. I can't even describe what their music is like, it's just so unique. Not to mention that have incredible stage presence. They did this really cool percussion number that was part "Stomp" (they had trash can lid cymbals and everything) and part drum-line. After that, they played a sweet cover of Queen's "Killer Queen." Wow. Damn good show indeed.

Today I'm going back to the same place (Glendale Arena, aka Jobbing.com Arena) to see "AFI", "Taking Back Sunday", "Plain White T's", and a few others. Show's called the "How the Edge Stole Chritmas." Should be a good one. I saw "AFI" last year at KFMA day (where I saw the Worst Live Band Ever the previous year) and really enjoyed their show. I've been itching to see them again. Should be fun! Check Josh's blog/Flickr feed for pics. He's into all that "photography" stuff. Wait...I used to be into that too. Damn.

Update: I too seem to be into all that "photography" stuff. I figured out what I hadn't been: I had no camera! Would've thought, eh?

Tremble mortals

Behold the mighty Cylon Snowbot!



Yes that's a sweeping Cylon eye. Yes it also makes scary Cylon sounds. And yes, it's being powered by my Xbox 360. That's right: The Xbox 360 is Cylon technology. w00t.

Now if only I can get it to make me a Number Six...



God I love Battlestar Galactica.

A foreword

I love literature. Ever since I was little I've always be reading something. Be it a book, a magazine, the newspaper, hell even cereal boxes. I liked comic books to a limited degree, but they had too many pictures and not enough words for my taste. Given the choice of "X-men" or "Of Mice and Men", I'd take the latter every time. This love of books was one of the reasons I decided to do an English minor. I figured as long as I enjoy reading and to a certain degree, writing, I might as well get some sort of recognition for doing things I like to do anyway.

My dad once commented that I would probably end up as an English professor one day. I knew that would never happen, but he can be forgiven this flight of fancy for his progeny as I had brought Paradise Lost as my book of choice along with me on a family ski trip. While it wasn't for a class so much as my own enjoyment (in a semi-masochistic way; it is Milton after all), it did have some practical applications: 340-year old poetry about Heaven, Hell, and Satan makes for good taunts for Counter-Strike.

With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire
who durst defy th' omnipotent to arms.

Heh, very Pulp Fiction. Useful for scaring "teh n00bs", or at least distracting them long enough with words like "omnipotent" to stab them in the back.

But I digress. The real reason for this post is this: I'm testing the waters with writing some book reviews. Nothing fancy. Just my thoughts on some books I've read. It'll mostly be stuff that I like, maybe even some commentary on a series as a whole. Maybe I can also get suggestions on new books for me to read. I've been kinda slacking on my reading for awhile, partially because I've just been busy and distracted but mostly because I just haven't branched out in a while. I tend to get really focused on an author I enjoy, and while I find that focus is wonderful for absorbing the whole of an author's works, it also means that once I'm done I have trouble pulling myself out of one dreamworld and plunging into another.

You'll mostly see sci-fi and fantasy books here. That's because I like fantasy and sci-fi. Sure I enjoy the fascinating look at a man's descent into madness in Heart of Darkness or the dark, brooding musings on the nature of crime and suffering in Crime and Punishment as much as the next person, but give me the sweeping battles and rich detail of Lord of the Rings or the mind-blowing dystopian view of the future in the cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer and Snow Crash.

Will I actually manage to review anything? Maybe. But for now, has anyone read any good books lately?

MPAA Press Release -

The following comments (censored for the safety of the viewing public) appeared on a community-driven news site known as Digg.com this afternoon in response to an article outlining the new strategy of the MPAA in combating the growing threat of home theater pirates:

"I violated (CENSORED) at least 5 times (CENSORED) my family...." – mainfr4me

This kind of reprehensible behavior is indicative of what the MPAA has become aware is normal behavior for this new breed of movie pirate. The MPAA will do all in it's power to crackdown on these violations by introducing new legislation to allow the installation of equipment that will monitor all home theater owners.

All movie viewing sessions will record the IDs of all viewers, along with recording their behavior and movements in case of suspicious behavior or defamatory comments about the MPAA, it's members, or the work produced by the member studios. The data will be sent to the MPAA's Special UnderCover Knowledge Enforcement Regimental Service (SUCKERS), which will then dispatch teams to homes in violation of copyrights. Such violations include, but are not limited to, viewing of films by those not owning a licensed copy of the work, including friends, enemies, lovers, teammates, strangers, coworkers, spouses, partners, children between the ages of 6 months and 150 years, family pets (of any type that have eyes, ears, or any other light or sound sensing organs), light-sensitive plants, people from any country containing the letters A, E, I, O, U, or Y or whose name contains any combination of said letters, and pests or insects that are present within 100 yards of the theater.

Any person or object found in violation of copyright laws, will be fined a minimum of $500,000 per movie viewing. Such persons will be labeled “enemy combatants” and will be dealt with accordingly by SUCKERS teams.

The viewing of copyrighted works without obtaining a license via the proper channels is a crime and is a "gateway" to harder violations such as music piracy, removing the "DO NOT REMOVE" tags from mattresses, jaywalking, speeding, walking on the grass, drug use, child molestation, organ harvesting, terrorism, and even full-scale illegal movie downloading and DVD copying for backup purposes.

The MPAA takes these matters very seriously because if such behavior is allowed to grow unchecked, it could threaten the very fabric of society and the family values upon which America is built. Unlicensed viewing of copyrighted works not only funds terrorism (as been proven by the Independent Department In Orthodox Terrorist Studies (IDIOTS)), but actually causes cancer in puppies and is a major contributing factor to global warming.

Original Digg post

HD-DVDland

Picture of my new toy: The Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive. That's right: HD-DVD baby! I can't wait!

The great thing is it will only cost about $100-140, even though the retail price is $199. How? Behold my fuzzy math:

+ $199 -- Price of HD-DVD drive
- $30 -- Discount for getting an Amazon.com credit card
- $30 -- Money from selling the free Universal Remote that is included
- $40 -- Money from selling the free HD-DVD copy of "King Kong" that is included

Total: $99

However I don't know if "King Kong" comes with the one I ordered, so it might only be a savings of $60 rather than $100, but we'll see. Either way it's the cheapest HD-DVD player you can get! Anyone care to join me for a innagural HD movie watching session? Maybe Friday?

OMFGSPLOSION!!!!!!! I'M F*CKING ENGAGED!!!!

That's right, Jen and I are tying the knot! I can't believe I actually proposed! I was so nervous and just kinda blurted it out, but she said YES!!! That's why she's the greatest person on the planet and I love her so much! w00000000t!!!!!!!