“Card scam rips off 400 people”

Interesting article from the Edmonton Journal, but people have been hacking ATMs and card readers for a while now. Rather than merely relaying information about the scams and the dark, mysterious machinations of “the underground crime world,” maybe some information as to what is being done to address these issues should be placed front and center. What are businesses doing to address this recent discovery? What is their strategy to curb future scams? Can we apply lessons learned from other locations? Say Montreal? New York? Throw me a bone!

The former homicide detective said this is the fourth time in the past eight months he has seen such a fraud scheme carried out. To the untrained eye, he said, the PIN pad almost never looks as though it’s been tampered with.

Care to share the worldly knowledge with the rest of us?

Dates with Disaster

It may very well be due to the changing of the seasons, but my road experiences have been rather treacherous as of late. Two weeks ago I was nearly t-boned while crossing an intersection by two little old ladies, both of whom failed to notice that the light was still green for me. Hey, whatever, no hard feelings. It’s not everyday I get to contemplate becoming the victim of a car accident. A trip to the hospital, a visit with Death maybe…I couldn’t really imagine what else could happen after Death. PAIN? Gruesome, indiscriminate pain?

This week, a public transit bus tore a path into my lane. At first I thought this man must not be looking because, if he did, he would see that the bus was moving too close to my car for comfort. But, a careful examination of the driver revealed that he was indeed aware of my presence. He just seemed to have better things to do than care about driving safely. Last time it was just another vehicle, this time it’s a bus. What’s next? Ford F-150? MAC truck? Caterpillar? Exposed power line? Drive-by? Baby stroller??

What – have – I – gone – done – wrong?!

Good ‘Ol Days

My family often tells me that the younger days are always the good ones. You know, the days where there are no worries other than to study? Well…maybe not.

I suppose I can understand the carefree life of going to school, enjoying recess. What I am going through right now is pretty similar to my elementary school days. But, maybe the only difference is that, while I was in elementary school, I didn’t quite understand the world. The carefree life only seemed to exist because I didn’t appreciate all of it. Once malice was introduced, once I started to piece together my troubles…and my friends’ troubles, my ‘younger days’ were somewhat rougher – but not in a physical sense, of course. It was more like I woke up one day and people suddenly had agendas, backgrounds, histories even.

During my shorty days, the chains that bind each and every one of us became frightfully vivid. It was at that time I began to appreciate how the idea of freedom, that silly concept that was introduced to me at school, was not as straightforward as previously claimed.

The Meaning of Life

I woke up, concluded the meaning of life with as much certainty as human affairs can require, restored my bed to proper order, brushed my teeth, and walked out the door.  I now realise that I have forgotten my conclusion from this morning.  I’m doomed.

23 Minutes

Ah, 23 minutes of running…23 minutes of wonder. Sometimes I think of some crazy stuff while I push myself to my new limit. What? Like, what I’m doing on a treadmill, life, you know, that junk. Then it occurs to me how some things in this world can only be done by one person. How one person must decide to reach for new limits in order to maintain that fragile hold on what has come to be known as sanity. Then I realise I’m thinking about myself. That’s not so good. I don’t need sanity! I want to be a beast! A self-sustaining, self-motivating, auto-actualising monster of cold, terrifying consequences.

But I require other people to act as my standard.

OH GOD WHY AM I SO WEAK!?! So blessedly pathetic? SO HOT?

I’ll leave it at that.

There is peace in my world for one more night

I stay up, do the chores, lock the doors

And all the while, in my messy domicile

I run and explores the path, in my mind

Method of loci, and doin the hokey pokey

Why is it that it’s all so damn smokey?

I burned the bacon. I hates the bacon.

Mnemonics sometimes, but not while cooking.

PEACE, peace, peace, peice?

ATi R600

I once thought cross-fire and sli was somewhat extreme. Can you imagine installing this thing into your tower?

Shots surface of ATI’s R600 — and boy is she a big one

I don’t consider myself a gamer anymore. I’m more of a bystander at this level.

My Cranky Laptop

For a good long while I have struggled with my laptop, a lovely HP Pavilion N5495 with Ubuntu 6.10 inside. I would describe our relationship as a love-hate type. I hate it when it’s cranky, I love it when it works…and deep down inside I know the feeling is mutual. Each morning, when I start it up, there is a strong chance that it will freeze just after I log in and the splash screen finishes loading. Sometimes I am unlucky and even alt-r,s,e,i,u,b-prt scr does not elicit a response. I run fsck to check if the hard drive is okay and the results turn up positive so why does my laptop freeze on the first start of the day?

At this point I am very suspicious of the RAM so I run memtest overnight. The tests are passed numerous times and there are no problems with the RAM. I then reboot the computer and everything loads up well with no freezes or program crashes. Why?? It is at this moment when I thought of another absurd possibility: Can it be that the RAM needs to be warmed up before I start my laptop?

I suppose the sounds the fan makes when it revs up makes me think of my laptop as more of a lawn mower or a car than an actual PC; and the thought of “warming” up the memory before trying to start Ubuntu doesn’t seem too far out there in nonsense ville…as long as I keep thinking within the engine analogy. So, before my laptop’s first start of the day, I ran memtest for a few minutes. Guess what? My laptop starts with no problems.

N5495, I hate you.

Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

I found this “game” while trolling internet forums. At first, I glossed over the link without expecting very much, but two words caught my eye: Chaos Dunk. It was at that very moment that I realised it was all over for me…my life was no longer my own as my eyes proceeded to read the game description…

The Great B-Ball Purge of 2041, a day so painful to some that it is referred to only as the “B-Ballnacht”. Thousands upon thousands of the world’s greatest ballers were massacred in a swath of violence and sports bigotry as the game was outlawed worldwide. The reason: the Chaos Dunk, a jam so powerful its mere existence threatens the balance of chaos and order. Among the few ballers and fans that survived the basketball genocide was Charles Barkley, the man capable of performing the “Verboten Jam”…

Flash forward 12 years to the post-cyberpocalyptic ruins of Neo New York, 2053. A Chaos Dunk rocks the island of Manhattan, killing 15 million. When the finger is put on the aging Charles Barkley, he must evade the capture of the B-Ball Removal Department, led by former friend and baller Michael Jordan, and disappear into the dangerous underground of the post-cyberpocalypse to clear his name and find out the mysterious truth behind the Chaos Dunk. Joined by allies along the way, including his son Hoopz, Barkley must face the dangers of a life he thought he gave up a long time ago and discover the secrets behind the terrorist organization B.L.O.O.D.M.O.S.E.S.

A tale of zaubers, b-balls, and atonement; brave dangers unheard of, face spectacular challenges that even the greatest ballers could not overcome, and maybe… just maybe… redeem basketball once and for all in Tales of Game’s Studios Presents Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.

There’s no way I’m going to even think about starting this game now so I’ll leave it here on my blog for future reference. Enjoy the trailer.

Buddha Call…Booty Call

Desi woman catches husband cheating.

The whole scene goes down courtesy of a Kiss FM radio talk show host somewhere in the U.S.  If you have already come across this recording, then forgive me as I tend to catch on to the fruits of the internet much slower than others.