May 2003

The most enjoyable spam I've ever received.

The new mintchaos.com email server is running Spam Assassin. I’ve never been able to play with it before, but I got my first tagged spam message today. A whopping 37.4 points out of a required 5. Granted that’s not as high as some people’s but not bad for the first time. The analysis details are way more fun that the spam itself.

Content analysis details: (37.40 points, 5 required)
RATWARE_EGROUPS (4.3 points) Bulk email software fingerprint (eGroups) found in headers
WE_HONOR_ALL (4.3 points) BODY: Claims to honor removal requests
REVERSE_AGING (2.1 points) BODY: Reverses Aging
AS_SEEN_ON (1.9 points) BODY: As seen on national TV!
BANG_GUARANTEE (0.5 points) BODY: Something is emphatically guaranteed
WRINKLES (2.9 points) BODY: Removes Wrinkles
BANG_OPRAH (4.3 points) BODY: Talks about Oprah with an exclamation!
WHILE_YOU_SLEEP (1.7 points) BODY: While you Sleep
BANG_EXERCISE (2.5 points) BODY: Talks about exercise with an exclamation!
OPT_IN_CAPS (0.2 points) BODY: Talks about opting in (capitalized version)
COMPLETELY_FREE (1.1 points) BODY: No such thing as a free lunch (2)
HTML_30_40 (0.9 points) BODY: Message is 30% to 40% HTML
HTML_FONT_COLOR_RED (0.1 points) BODY: HTML font color is red
HTML_FONT_COLOR_GREEN (0.8 points) BODY: HTML font color is green
HTML_MESSAGE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML included in message
HTML_FONT_COLOR_BLUE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML font color is blue
HTML_LINK_CLICK_HERE (0.1 points) BODY: HTML link text says “click here”
HTML_SHOUTING6 (2.9 points) BODY: HTML has very strong “shouting” markup
MIME_HTML_NO_CHARSET (0.8 points) RAW: Message text in HTML without specified charset
HTTP_USERNAME_USED (0.7 points) URI: Uses a username in a URL
USERPASS (1.5 points) URI: URL contains username and (optional) password
FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD (2.3 points) ‘From’ yahoo.com does not match ‘Received’ headers
MIME_HTML_ONLY (0.1 points) Message only has text/html MIME parts
MISSING_MIMEOLE (0.5 points) Message has X-MSMail-Priority, but no X-MimeOLE
CLICK_BELOW (0.1 points) Asks you to click below
MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.6 points) Message looks like Outlook, but isn’t

Xian 06:30 PM - p-link - talk (2)

A rechristening.

Jimmy has been offically renamed. Allow me to handle introductions.

Everyone, Pogo.
Pogo, everyone.

:)

Xian 06:18 PM - p-link - talk (0)

Jimmy's got game.

Most everything is set up and working on the new server. There are some DNS things that still need to be hashed out. Subdomains aren’t working properly yet (which means my photos link in the navbar doesn’t work right now) But that’ll be all worked out sometime next week. I’ll be running my own name servers on Jimmy but I’ve got to wait for my name servers’ DNS to propagate before I can set up subdmains and things and then those have to propagate. Which is all just a big opportunity for me to flex my patience.

I’m also thinking that Jimmy isn’t quite the right name for it. My iBook is named Rupert which works very well for him. Thankfully Jimmy isn’t old enough to know the difference if I change it on him. ;)

Xian 03:30 AM - p-link - talk (3)

mintBloggers.append(sister)

I have a sister named Meg. She’s older than me. She sells shoes for fun and profit. She lives in Utah. She went to school for theatre, she isn’t doing that now but she is going to school to teach people to do that. She has a mintblog. Yippie.

Xian 02:10 AM - p-link - talk (0)

A new better gun.

So I retook that darned what kind of gun are you quiz. I don’t remember what I checked last time, but I think I did it more truthfully this time. And the gun is way cooler. I don’t know what the crap it is but it looks like fun. :)

Xian 01:53 AM - p-link - talk (2)

New machine.

Exciting things are afoot. Much to talk about but right now I am busy moving MintChaos over to a new server. My own machine which I have named Jimmy. Details to come. Watch this space.

Here are some shiny things to distract you while I try to make everything work around here again.

• An amazing 360 degree panoramic view from the top of Mt. Everest.
• A 23 minute, 600mb tech demo/trailer for Half-Life 2. I haven’t cared about gaming on a computer since my Voodoo 2 card stopped being the coolest thing ever but this is incredible. I’ve already set up a date with jon to go to michigan and play through it with him the weekend it comes out.

Xian 08:02 PM - p-link - talk (0)

What is it about my friends?

I find it odd that Darren, Chris, Kristen & Jon are all the same kind of gun.

Xian 05:35 PM - p-link - talk (2)

Well hello Dolly.

Dolly and her llama have been added to the list of recent hosted blogs over on the left. And yes this is the same “Michael’s first date to the prom” Dolly.

Xian 01:38 AM - p-link - talk (0)

My brother is a playa.

Michael went to the prom tonight. When he got back we had this conversation.

Me: “Hey Micheal, who’d you take to the prom?”
Michael: “Dolly.”
Me: “So who’d you bring back from the prom?”
Michael: “Tina. She’s spending the night.”

So… Yeah. And I hear he is taking Reneah to florida with him in a couple of weeks. That’s his life. Sigh. Kids these days. ;)

Xian 01:26 AM - p-link - talk (0)

Is all that really necessary.

Epson’s OS X driver for the Stylus C82 takes the cake for asinine install procedures. The download is a self extracting .smi that unpacks a folder. Inside this folder is a .dmg file that mounts a virtual disk. Inside this disk in a install .pkg that runs the actual install program and then it requires you to reboot. Sigh.

On the plus side it works flawlessly once installed.

Xian 11:19 PM - p-link - talk (0)

Woah. Bombful.

Just for the record I didn’t do anything like this when I lived at home. No sir.

Xian 11:42 PM - p-link - talk (12)

I'm a gun.

Which firearm are you? Brought to you by Stan Ryker

Inspired by Tim I decided to go and find out what kind of firearm I am. And well... I'm a H&K MP5 Sub-Machine Gun. And yes, I am a geek and I fixed all of the crappy code that they give out. No tables, not font tags and no upper case tags.

Xian 08:56 PM - p-link - talk (0)

We all loves it. It wakes our inner wind.

Waferbaby weighs in on The Ledgend of Zelda: Wind Waker:

I am in love with the most amazing console game in the universe and when I grow up we are going to get married and have lots of little sequels.

Amen to that. And yes Michael, Ann should be finished soon so you can borrow it this weekend.

Xian 03:26 PM - p-link - talk (2)

A special day.

Word to my mother.

Yours too.

Xian 01:23 AM - p-link - talk (0)

Things to look at.

• Kristen as returned (to her extended vacation to Japan) from her vacation to Italy, Germany and various other Europish places. She has posted a whole slew of pictures. And by slew I mean a whole freaking lot.
• If you haven’t noticed yet, it’s Faerie Month over at the shop.
• The Zen Garden is a beautiful exercise webdesign. Try loading different designs and notice that it is the same exact HTML code with just a different CSS file. Most impressive.

Xian 02:55 AM - p-link - talk (0)

Sleep is for pansies.

I’ve slept 3 of the last 40 hours. I would like to sleep now but I’m not at all tired. Deep down inside where it doesn’t even know it I’m certain my body hates me.

Xian 02:32 AM - p-link - talk (3)

Salem's back.

Salam Pax the famed Baghdad blogger has returned from his month long absence with a month’s worth of back posts. Here are a few of excerpts.

The good:

The truth is, if it weren’t for intervention this would never have happened. When we were watching the Saddam statue being pulled down, one of my aunts was saying that she never thought she would see this day during her lifetime.

The bad:

Was watching a report on Al-jazeera a while ago about Mosul and its preparations. The reporter interviewed someone from “fedayeen saddam” he said that he is in Mosul to “kill the Americans and kill anybody who does not fight the Americans”, there in one short sentence you have the whole situation in Basra, and most probably many Iraqi cities, explained. Fear is deep and trust in the people-from-foreign is not high.

And the amusing:

Too much has happened the last couple of days but my head is as heavy as a lead boulder. Hay fever time. The sexual life of palm trees makes me weep.

Xian 08:23 AM - p-link - talk (0)

Of galactic conquest.

In my current game of VGA Planets, my race, the Lizards, were asked to surrender by the Crystal People. I politely declined:

Dear the Crystal People,

We regret to inform you that we can not accept your application to surrender at this time. However we did enjoy meeting with you and will keep your resume on file for 18 months. We will let you know if there are any openings that fit your skills. You do not need to re-submit your application. We will contact you.

Sincerely,
Xian, I'm a newt!

Xian 07:45 PM - p-link - talk (3)

Matchmaker.

Acting like a man shortly before he gets married, Mark Pilgrim has automated insanity. “98 are unique, 2 are identical. Find the matching patterns.”

I found the match in the 4×4 model. Didn’t even bother trying the larger sizes.

Xian 02:45 PM - p-link - talk (0)

The new coolest OSX toy ever.

SpirographX Is a brilliant digital remake of the old pen and paper spirograph. When I was but a wee child I would go over to Darren’s house all the time and insist we play with the Spirograph. I could play with it for hours. And now I can play with this for hours. In fact, I just did! Oops. Time to get back to work.

Via Blog-Fu

Xian 02:30 PM - p-link - talk (2)

Blog-Fu.

I have added Tony’s Blog-Fu to my collection of sites I read. Some of the reasons I like Tony:

• He’s into most of the same geeky stuff I am.
• He linked to a tutorial on making blood in PhotoShop.
• He likes StrongBad
• He has an entire category of schadenfreude

And most importantly he showed me a most incredible online kalidescope.

Xian 12:53 AM - p-link - talk (1)

Happy Birthday!

Please to be wishing Ann a happy birthday!

Xian 06:20 PM - p-link - talk (0)

A picture of my cat.

Xian 04:05 PM - p-link - talk (4)