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Culture Google Random

Google Street View Is Fun

For some reason Google’s maps of Japan show the locations of 7 Eleven stores.

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Culture

The Love of God…won’t get me to fall for your scam

I received this confusing email the other day. I’m pretty sure this was in response to a question I posted to an advertiser on a kijiji.ca property rental listing.

I think this email represents a change in the way Nigerian 419 victims are being lured in. A few interesting things are happening in this email:
1) The premise of the scam is not mentioned in the email at all. Are scammers counting on their charisma to win over feeble minds? Seems like a long shot…
2) The scammer essentially admits he’s from Nigeria. He mentions “west africa” and the +234 country code is Nigeria.
3) The email contains very specific and accurate local information. “355 MAGNUS AVE” is a valid residential address located in “Winnipeg (North West)Manitoba”. Also $690 for rent in that area of town is pretty close to the mark, albeit somewhat suspiciously low when you consider that it includes an “electric cooker.”

Granted all of this information could be gathered/verified via google. I think this idicates that these scammers are putting a lot more effort into finding victims, which hopefully means they’re having a harder time ripping people off.

Here’s the email:

from    the love of god <thelove.ofgod@yahoo.com>
to    ryan.neudorf@gmail.com,
date    Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:58 PM
subject    house for rent

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

I am new to this internet stuff and probably I am newer to renting out  houses.My name is Rev Michael Savage, I am the owner of the house you responded to the advert I placed online I lived in the house with my Wife Katherine and my daughter Lisa before I was transfered to California to head the Halfane Mission house branch,hence the reason I placed the advert .

The house is complete with hydro washer,internal heater and electric cooker and all other ammenities to make life comfortable the rent goes for $690 and it is available for immediate occupancy.

The house holds lots of memeories for us and we would like someone that would take good care of it and keep it neat and clean at all times.I started building an indoor fountain for the living room last month if you are someworth of a handy person it would give me great joy if you could complete it.I am presently in West africa Lecturing in a six week theology seminar on the divinity and godliness of Lucifer an intresting topic by the way i would love to share it with you if you might be intrested.

You can call me on +2348029684719 if there are any details you would like to clarify.The house is located on 355 MAGNUS AVE Winnipeg (North West)Manitoba you can go and view it and get back to me if you find the place suitable so i can forward you an application form.

God Bless you,

Rev Michael Savage

Categories
Culture From The Archives Review

Episode III: RotS (litterally?)

Egad, I’m glad that debacle is finally over. Star Wars episodes I-III has got to be one of the worst trilogies of movies ever. As a moderate Star Wars nerd, I’ve been waiting a good 8 or 10 years (since the first rumours of EPI) for this moment. I can honestly say my teenage boy dreams are feeling a little shattered. I need to use my next day off to purge myself, who wants to come over for an EP IV,V,VI marathon Friday?

I started writing the post a few days ago, i was going to talk about how much I hated episode III right here. But I keep changing my mind. I need to watch it one more time. My only comment at this point will be that the last half of the movie seemed like a checklist of things that had to be covered by episode IV. Lucas seemed to go through this list without much thought. Other than that, action and effects were awesome!

I’ve done some thinking about the differences between the original trilogy (OT) and the prequel trilogy (PT). The main difference has got to be childhood. Watching star wars as a kid i was fully engrossed by everything about it, everything was new and completely amazing. The OT literally brings a young boy’s imagination to life. Also, even when I first watched the movies in ’86 or so, the technology was still quite groundbreaking. Much fresher than the current effects. There is also something about the presentation of the Star Wars Universe in the OT, everything is thrown at the audience at face value. For example, we don’t: understand R2D2, know what “e chu ta” means, know who yoda used to be, care who built ATATs, understand the nature of the force in scientific detail, etc. The PT trilogy spends far too much time on exposition, but again, this could be a product of my age.

That’s all for now.
I will probably launching the php section later on today or tomorrow, in anticipation of a few hits from potential employers

Categories
Culture From The Archives

F.O.O.D.

I cannot believe the only php related job (that is, with the keyword ‘php’ ) listed on the Government of Canada Job Bank pays $8.75/hr for 10hrs/week and is only open to students of the U of M. Absolute bullshit. Looking for work seems like too much work when I already have a full time job, even though it’s a crappy one. It could be worse. On a related matter, I’m pretty sure cocoon branding is the coolest place to work in winnipeg. I had an interview with them a few year ago, when they were called Gator Design. They were cool then, now they’re cool AND award winning. *swoon* Sometimes I like to send them my resume, they don’t ever respond. I should probably work on the php section of the site and send out some resumes. My web ninja skills have got to be in the top 5% of everyone else in Winnipeg, I know it. There are too many horrible web development companies in this city for it to be any other way.

As you can see (if you’re viewing my site in a modern browser) css experiment 1.0 is complete. I’ve successfully created a completely new layout using only css. The internet is amazing, css is amazing. I ripped the css switching javascript off A List Apart. Next I will be creating a handheld stylesheet, but before I can do that i’ll have to compartmentalize my layout quite a bit more.