2005 Nov 24, 1:17SNL Life Insurance Commerical Parody
web humor snl robots tv for:jozhik 2005 Oct 30, 5:24rss xml reference 2005 Jul 15, 8:09A Gentle Introduction to SGML
sgml html xml w3c reference 2005 Apr 3, 4:47The business I worked at previously during college
calpoly slo me projects professional old 2005 Mar 27, 5:54Introduction of the Bad Boys of Punctuation
comic penny-arcade punctuation humor 2004 Aug 19, 2:52I received an email from verification@citibank.com the other day with the subject "Fraud Check Verification". Or at least that's what someone at the jumphk2.net domain would have me believe. The
whole official looking email was very convincing at first glance. There's the Citibank logo image up in the left corner, the reassuring TrustE image in the opposite corner, and just the right amount
of legal-ese on the bottom. The text requested me to follow a link in the email to update and verify my information. At closer examination however it becomes apparent that this is a scam. Little
things start to catch your eye. The TrustE image is hosted on ebay and the Citibank logo is hosted at 65.108.92.50. Both images one might expect to be hosted on Citibank's site. The link in the email
looks like its taking you to https://www.citibank.com/saw-cgi/citibankISAPI.dll?PlaceCCInfo but in fact its taking you to a page hosted at 65.108.92.50 again. The following sentence appears in the
email:
If your account information is not updated within 48 hours then your ability to sell or bid on Citibank will become restricted.
Oh shit! My bid on Citibank might not go through! Seriously, they might have gone to a little more effort than just copying and pasting a scam letter meant for EBay. And the number one fact
revealing the email for what it is -- I don't have a Citibank account. I had received an email exactly like this several months ago and just deleted it, but for some reason, perhaps I was in a foul
mood, I decided to do something this time around. I emailed abuse at my domain, the ISP controlling their IP address, and Citibank. My domain told me there was nothing they could do. Citibank has yet
to respond. As for their ISP, the following day I received an email from Leon at Alabanza's Abuse department informing me:
This account has been locked down and is now on schedule for deletion. If we can further assist you please let us know.
Fuck yeah! This was a lot better than anything I had expected. I anticipated no response from any of the letters I sent. The page is gone now. Leon rocks!
2004 Apr 22, 6:44My interview was scheduled for Monday starting at 8am, so when I signed up for the trip and MS suggested a departure time of 4:30pm on Monday I thought that'd be good. Unfortunately the entire
process ended at 4:15pm and it takes a little more than 15 minutes to get from Redmond to Seattle and then through the whole airport deal. So after the taxi ride to the airport and waiting in line
for like 20 minutes its 5:30pm and I'm at the front of the line asking this woman for a new ticket.
Woman: *typing* Well I can get you to LA... Me: Yeah well that's the right state. Woman: *still typing* Oh... Hmm... Uhoh... *other non-words* Me: *waiting patiently* ... Woman: Are you ready
to run? Here's your ticket. Gate C11.
I look at the ticket and the plane's boarding at, what do you know?, 5:30pm. So yeah I start running. I hit the security check point line and I know all about this. I take off my belt and shoes
and empty my pockets into my backpack, my only luggage. I am Mr. Prepared, or maybe Prepared-ness is my middle name, whatever. I get through the line with no problem, put on my backpack and holding
my shoes and belt in one hand I notice a big old clock just to my left. While I'm staring at it, it changes from 5:42 to 5:43. "Oh shit!" I think, so I start running again. I finally get to the
appropriate gate and get on the plane all out of breath. I'm walking down the aisle with shoes and belt in hand, and I guess I look a bit out of sorts. I sit in my seat and I'm telling the guy next
to me about my whole deal: "Ha. Yeah. I was late and with the running and the security checkpoint..." into incoherent mumbling and gesturing. So it turns out the pilot and copilot's incoming flight
was way late and I ended up sitting in my seat for another 15 minutes before we could take off. All that wasted running. What a shame. Coming into LA we've been "landing" for like 20 minutes. We
finally get on the ground and its 30 minutes passed the boarding time of my connecting flight. I start thinking about anyone I know who lives in LA. All the other passengers stand up and block the
aisle. Then, an announcement "Will Daniel Riesney please come to the front of the plane." OK I can tell that's supposed to be my name, but how the hell am I supposed to get to the front of the plane?
The people near me who have heard me talking to the guy next to me about this let me past easily enough. But now I have to explain this to each person out of ear shot to further my progress. "Hi.
Excuse me. They called me to the front of the plane. Pardon me. Can I get by." And so on. Its getting more hostile the closer I get to first class. Up to this one guy. He's trying to talk on his cell
phone but its not working because everybody is trying to talk on their cell phone now that we've landed. His phone connection has failed. I can't guess at what else has happened to him today but he's
decided to make his Custerian last stand here between me and the rest of the plane.
Me: *continuing from previous passengers* Excuse me. Pardon me. Guy: *spinning around* WHAT!? Me: Can I please get by? Guy: What? Why? Were not going anywhere! This whole time I've been
forcing my way past him. Guy: There OK your past me now! Your several feet ahead of me! Congratulations! Me: Dude, I'm sorry they called me to the front of the plane. Guy: I find that highly
unlikely!
Whatever. I keep walking and like 7 people past the asshole I guess the flight attendants give up on me and start letting people off the plane. Now who feels like an asshole? Its me. I get off
the plane and some airport guy has a new schedule for me. Oh good I'm thinking, I've got an hour until the next flight's boarding time at 10:30pm. So I get on a tram to travel to the other side of
LAX. I wait for oncoming traffic to stop so I can climb up a stopped escalator (Incidentally right next to it is another escalator which has been closed off. Why would they do that? Escalators cannot
break they just become stairs.) I get up there and wait in line for an extreeeeme amount of time and finally get up to claim my ticket. Its 10:20. I get my ticket and, yeah, the departure time is
10:30, the boarding time is 10:10. So I start running again. More security check fun. I finally find my boarding gate. I rush up...
Me: *breathing heavy* Here's my ticket Lady: Oh good your finally here. Just go right out that door, *points* down the stairs, *more pointing* and wait for the tram.
WHAT? Isn't there supposed to be a PLANE somewhere? This is what I'm thinking not what I'm saying. So I walk outside and down these steps. And I'm waiting. The lady from inside joins me.
*awkward silence* Lady: The bus should be here pretty soon. Me: So... I'm going to miss my plane huh? Lady: Oh no, see here? *points at my ticket* Your ticket is confirmed so they can't leave
without you. Me: Oh good... I hope they didn't tell the other passengers that.
Lets see how many passengers I can piss off in one night. Eventually this bus shows up. I get in and the guy starts driving. "Do you know where I'm going?" I ask. "Yeah" the guy says. Great.
Fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore. So we drive back around to the OTHER SIDE of the airport. You know, the side I started on. Yeah that side. So I get off the bus and walk into the small building
set aside for smaller airlines. I see the frantic looking ladies manning another of these gates. They see me, check my ID and ticket, and one of them ushers me out the door next to the gate. Out the
door and into a small gated area outside. So me and this new lady are just standing here. Even had I the energy to ask her what was going on its very loud what with all the planes. So we just stand
here at this gate facing the planes for a while. I look at her trying to make eye contact and get some sort of acknowledgment that we are in fact waiting for SOMETHING. Eventually one of the day-glow
guys appears from between some planes and saunters up. The lady hands him a paper and walks away. At the time I was kind of offended but looking back on it, maybe the lady was a deaf mute and I'm the
one being insensitive. So now I follow this guy through a bunch of planes. I'm yelling "San Luis Obispo?" trying to be heard over all the ambient noise and this guy is somehow responding to me with
an even tone no yelling required. I don't know how he did that. We finally get to the plane and its 10:40. So I delayed the flight ten minutes. I'm thinking its going to be really awkward when I sit
down and we immediately leave. Its going to be suspicious even. But, not to worry, we wait while the flight attendant argues with the guy who brought me to the plane for another ten minutes about how
many people are supposed to be on the plane. Whatever.
2004 Apr 22, 3:52I actually have something to say which I thought would be appropriate for the LiveJournal format. Why I haven't posted to the LiveJournal for such a great length of time can be saved for later. I
spent Easter weekend and the Monday following, in Washington, the state. Microsoft paid for me to fly up and stay in Washington so I could do the technical portion of the interview with them. I hung
out with my friend Jeannie and she showed me all around Seattle on Saturday and Sunday. Each night we had somewhat expensive dinners, all paid for by Microsoft. It was cool. On Sunday I stayed at a
nice hotel in Redmond and the next morning I spent just short of eight hours being interviewed by five different people from different groups within Microsoft. Each sub interview consisted of two
portions. First there was the general portion where they would ask me why I wanted to work there, ask about my previous experience, and those sort of non technical questions. The second portion would
take the majority of the time and it would be me trying to solve some technical problem they'd present. By the end of the interview my hands were gray with dry erase marker ink because apparently
everybody's got a whiteboard and they all want me to write code on them. I have to go to class soon and I might post some more stories related to this trip, but mostly I wanted to say that last week
I received a great offer from them and I'll probably be moving up to Washington sometime (weeks or months?) after graduation. Also, I've changed my AIM name from SequelGuy to SequelDave. My email
address will also have to change soon, but I don't know to what it will change.
2003 Mar 23, 4:39My finals are finished and I'm on vacation! Yay! The past two weeks have been killer. I got very little sleep during dead week with various speeches and projects due. But that's all over with now.
Presently, I'm enjoying sitting and doing nothing. Perhaps I'll even work on my long neglected tetris game. Yay again!
2003 Mar 8, 8:15Finals week is closing in quickly. This quarter seemed to go by faster than usual. With the end of the quarter almost here I've got a variety of assignments to finish. Today is supposed to be the day
I work on them all, but I'm easily distracted. For instance, I had read Ken Thompson's
Reflections on Trusting Trust a few days ago. As the author
suggested, I tried writing
my own self-reproducing program. Rather than brevity, I went for clarity and good style. That was my intent
anyway. Now I'm avoiding work by writing in this journal. Last night I lost my money fairly early on during poker. After that Scott gave me a dollar which, surprisingly, lasted me much longer than
the previous five. Though despite that, It was a good time.
2003 Mar 1, 5:22Today will produce the Mardi Gras parade in my town. I haven't been the previous two years, but I'm considering it this time around. San Luis Obispo, as a college town, contains many teens and young
adults who enjoy occasional festivities accompanied with inebriation. San Luis Obispo, as relatively cheap beach front or at least near beach property, contains many vacationing elderly. As we all
know, voting increases proportionally with age and, as such, any person under the age of thirty in public after dark is arrested. Mardi Gras is yet another of the bouts in the battle between the
Youngsters and the Old-timers in the SLO ring. I will be very happy when this quarter is over. Chemistry may yet have a happy ending, but I don't know that Technical Writing can. I don't believe any
grade in that class would make me think, "I'm glad I spent all those weekends working on that report". The quarter's end will also mean I can devote some time to my attention starved
Polytope Tetris project. As a side note, I was tempted to, yet again, not write in the journal on account of my poor attitude tonight. However, a journal
of one entry does seems a bit slim.
2003 Feb 12, 1:35After much insisting and assisting from Jessica, I have a Live Journal account. Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to make it look respectable and add in more friends. Thanks for the code and
suggestions Jessica. This morning, I ran around collecting various forms from a plethora of offices in an attempt to figure out how to graduate. I had a modicum of success and I'm fairly happy, but
all this thinking about the future has left me feeling tired and little time to study for Chemistry, or, as I refer to it, the class I hope I don't have to take next quarter. Speaking of which, I
really should get back to that. Or maybe I'll just go to sleep.
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