Naquada

As if last weeks Bank and Credit Card fraud wasn’t enough it seems that this week someone decided that they would help themselves to the contents of my car.

Now we’re all adults and we live in an adult world, so it always completely fails amaze me how people seem to forget the basics of being an adult… that is.. respect for others, understanding of right from wrong, and common decency..

The car is just metal, its a physical thing, and the inconvenience of not having it is a pain, but its all replaceable. The incredible mess in my car, the bent door and frame, the cut leather seats, the scraped and torn trim are all repairable. The glove-box hanging sorry and wounded from the dash board… will get better.. The Road Angel ripped from its hiding hole at the back of the glove-box.. is now completely useless as its been blocked by Road Angel and will self-destruct on its next update, and I’m really sorry if my prescription Police Sunglasses are actually any good to you, for you must be as blind as I am.. All these things are fixable, replaceable and very small in the big picture

What bothers me is two fold. Firstly why do people assume they have the right to take what is not theirs, because you have something I don’t or I cannot afford, doesn’t give me the right to take it from you. Secondly, why should I be the one inconvenienced by your selfishness and greed? Why is it me that needs to talk to the police, the insurers, my home insurance, my optician, why should i give up my time to sort out something that someone else forced on me, when I could be using that time for something that is important to me?

Unlike my online fraud from last week, I wont get all my costs back here.. both in money terms and peace of mind, I wont feel comfortable leaving anything in my car now, and I wont trust where I park my car..

Nobody won in this act of self centred stealing… The person (if you can call them that) who decided to attack my car has nothing of value, and I certainly now don’t have anything of value in there any more, so what was the point, a worthless exchange of things resulting in the lost to both sides..

On the plus side, I preserved the car in plastic wrap overnight, and the Scene of Crime Officers (SoCo) went over it with a fine tooth-comb this morning.. They got some partial finger prints, and took a number of items away.. the bag you picked up from the car.. the items you picked up and threw into the back of the car.. The CD’s you pulled out.. the broken glass you leant over.. They all have you on them… The video footage of you… all comes full circle..

I bide my time… and yours will come..

Well the last 24 hours have been interesting… It seems somehow, and I’m still confused as to how (given I’m very careful with passwords and phishing emails) someone broke into my paypal account and started to help themselves to my money, the money in my paypal account, my credit card and bank account.. with a good days worth of ringing round emails password changes, reports to the police, checks with Experian, more calls to the police, the bank, Paypal, ebay and even the IFCC (internet fraud complaint centre) an FBI run organisation to help deal with internet defraudment, I now seem to have most of my money back, and its only the fact I have no bank cards or credit cards until the new ones arrive that a bit of an inconvenience.

As to how I actually feel, suffering an online theft is a bit strange. I feel a bit violated.. its like being mugged or burgled, without the mess or bruises.. I find it quite unsettling that someone was sniffing through my accounts and happily just helping themselves to my money.. Its not nice.. But it looks sorted now.. and if your reading….

Dear Mr xxxxxx,

I’m drew.. you may remember me from such transactions as I’m gonna get you little fraudster, and Who’s Account Is It Anyhow.. and recently I’m Going To Bend You Over The Payment Fee .. You recently withdrew a large amount from my bank account, which was very flattering to think I actually had that much.. but still I’ve sure your intentions were good..

How is Singapore these days.. I believe thats where your IP address was traced to.. My Apple Mac says its raining there today.. maybe you needed the funds to buy a umbrella or something.. I’m sorry the funds didnt reach you in time..

Those nice people at paypal have put all money you were looking after for me back into my account, they also seem to have placed the last transaction for £500 that was stopped by the bank back in as well. I think, and forgive me if my maths are wrong here.. thats £500 more than you stole.. I assume you wont mind this little administration fee…

Anyhow.. I must cut this short as I’m currently enjoying the battered Chinese you just brought me (no pun intended) and a glass or two of wine..

..and one last thing before we bid farewell… There is a Chinese proverb that says.. A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom or roughly translated.. you fucked with the wrong geek..

love and kisses….

Drew

and my last thought.. Lets be careful out there…

Its still officially our birthday week, which starts with mine on the 13th and ending after Michelle’s tomorrow. Officially we are still allowed to celebrate, which is great if you like a week long birthday!!

Saturday, after my Digital Master Class in Dover on Saturday I raced back to get ready for our evening of curry and drinks with some of our friends.

The Digital Master Class was in fact very very good, and I’m still working on the photos I took during the day, ready to post up to Flickr later this week.. I learned an awful lot that day, and I’m definitely thinking of doing one of the e-learning courses they do..

With regard to the evening out.. We’re surrounded by some amazing friends. Friends that we hold very dear, and make us laugh and smile, Friends that are just as ‘normal’ as us!! And there’s absolutely nothing better than being about to call together a bunch of your friends for a really great evening out.

We took this photo, and it actually really captures how the evening was, lots of smiles, laughing, and fun. Although the original photo wasn’t quite as good as this one, the waiter decided to obscure most of the flash with his finger, and it was only after some clever editing by passant to provide some fill in flash..

In my quest to possibly buy every Crumpler bag out there, I went out and got a The Champ (XL). I’ve long looked at getting a backpack that can hold my Macbook, Camera (Canon 350D) and my daily condiments.

Ok, Ok.. I admit it.. I’m a Crumpler Slut.. I’m a Crumpler Addict, My names ‘Drew.. and I own Crumplers.. and this is my fourth bag.. I love everything about Crumpler, not just its crazy ideas (such as the Beer for Bags Promo; bring in beer.. we swap it for bags.. and of course the beer party afterwards) or its bizarre and weird marketing, but just because these bags are cool, pretty, sexy, funky and pretty indestructible.. Once you’ve married your bag (that’s registering your bag to normal people) your bag is guaranteed for life.. they are strong.. and I mean strong.. hand made and fit all your life neatly in their ChickenTex Supreme fabric (no clicking around with wishy washy thin nylon here)

So I got my Champ ready for my Digital Masterclass tomorrow down in Dover at Kearnsey Abbey. The Champ neatly fits my Macbook (and possibly room for another laptop), has a bottom section that easily fits my Canon 350D and room for two 350mm lenses, in fact the bottom section is big enough to take out the Velcro dividers, and put my Crumpler Bens Pizza directly in (there’s nothing like extra padding!).

There’s enough pockets and slots to fit almost everything you’d possibly want to, or not want to take out with you, side pockets, bottom pockets, back pockets and even hidden pockets, and it’s got a a very nice side loop for popping a tripod leg through and holding it firm to the side of your backpack..

In fact I’m so impressed by this Crumpler, its willed me on to get another for work to replace the failing IBM rucksack..

Quite a while ago I brought Jason Palter’s Third Degree Burn. The effect is great and probably one of the most versatile and mysterious, free choice blister effects you can do.

You approach a group of people, and ask someone to just think of a card, any card they like, and they can change their minds as many times as they like, it can truly be any card they wish.

They are then asked to truly visualize the card in their head-to burn this into their mind, you give them a lighter or position a candle, and after igniting the lighter, they are asked to visualize their card in the dancing flame.

You briefly thrust your fingers into the flame, wincing with pain, trying to pull the thought of their card out of the heat, you can then slowly turn your fingers around, to reveal the skin on your thumb and finger is now blistered in the shape of their freely-chosen card!!

I love this effect, and perform it quite often, as its easy to do when you don’t have cards or gear on you and someone wants to see something special..

Jason asked for further ideas and thoughts on the effect to include in an additional book on the subject, which he’s now published. I submitted some ideas and thankfully he’s included my thoughts on the trick and faster ways to hit the correct cards in the publication..

nice one Jason…

Today I’m 34.. and its six weeks until Christmas to the day.. I say that every year like its some magical thing, past birthdays have always been a bit.. err.. different to say the least, mostly because nothings ever really been a surprise, and I’ve tended to work, or just pass the day by like any other..

This years quite different, in that I’m just following instructions on keep the day free and relaxing.. Also having probably had far to much drink (and sleep) this weekend, the three day extravaganza of chilling, drinking, relaxing and enjoying myself has come to a head.

As one of those things you just don’t expect, Michelle brought me a Digital Photography Course down in Dover, Kent, through Digital Master Class, something I’d not even thought about let alone found.. It looks like a really good course, and I’m pretty excited about it. I get to take my Macbook along and work on the photos down there as well, although I’m not sure part of the plan was to immediately order 2 Gb of extra ram for the mac book!!

It’s just really amazing when someone spends time understanding the stuff you like, looking into things and going to the effort of getting something that means something to you, just like when she got me tickets to see Jeff and Eugene in Falmouth.. The little things like that mean so much more than anything else..

In a moment we’re off for a walk and a picnic, its nice and cold, but quite sunny, and the rains holding off.. and then tonight we’re off to the Pot Kiln – a wonderful country pub in a beautiful corner of rural England, the kind of English country pub of which dreams are made (apparently!), it’s owned and run by Mike Robinson, a regular presenter and guest chef on UKTV Food’s daily live show Great Food Live, and also presents numerous mini series for UKTV Food. Mike took over the Pot Kiln, a rural country pub, back in March 2005, and it underwent some major refurbishment to improve the kitchen facilities and to increase the seating area for food and now seats around 45 in informal and cosy surroundings. I’m really looking forward to eating there, as I’m a great fan of Mikes cooking, and locally sourced ingredients.

So.. Today’s my Birthday, I’m 34.. I’m older, I’m balder, I’m wiser, I’m more forgetful but I’m happier than I’ve ever been.. and I now have someone I’m with who will remind me of all the stuff I’m going to forget in my later years then I start to get (more) forgetful.

Now, I love crumpler bags, not only are they cool to look at, they are rough, tough, and protect all my geek stuff really well. My IBM laptop bag is now really on its last legs, having transported my Thinkpads and my TabletPC for about a year, its starting to fray round the edges and groan under it own weight.

I very rarely carry my backpack in ‘backpack’ mode, that is, I always sling the bag over one shoulder rather than two. So I’ve been thinking about trading it in and getting a messenger type side bag. The problem being that IBM don’t do those, and secondly thats gotta be a big bag to carry both my laptops and my stuff when I’m on the road for IBM..

I was reading a blog on macbooks recently and saw crumpler now do a messenger bag called The Horseman, quite fitting for the mammoth storage space this bag seems to have (14 litres!). rewl has a great review on Kvet.ch and a great photoset on Flickr

The Horseman seems to be the ultimate messenger style satchel really with ‘kitchen sink’ features. Like all crumplers the bags fully padded for maximum protection and neat shape. The horseman has a plethora of pockets, both zippered and Velcro, and holds several folders and magazines, laptop and accessories as well as daily essentials, in fact you’d expect nothing more from such a huge bag.

Like all crumplers, its fully padded, offering great protection for your gear (its not going to split and vomit your gear like other bags that could be mentioned..)

The gun metal and gray version looks very ‘suit’-able, but still streetably acceptable in looks.. one to add to the list I think…

So in the world of paid adverts, click throughs, and content based advertising, the world of making money form you blog or websites become very complicated. I’ve used a number of methods to try and make a little money from my blog, namely google, and amazon. However the success of these has been varied, making really only a small amount of money each quarter.

I was reading Alans blog today and saw a great post about a new system that really seems to make much more sense. ReviewMe.com is a site which allows advertisers to review blogs and websites in the system (i.e. potentially yours) and offer the chance to review stuff for a fee from them. Basically, as a blogger, you register and describe your blog using tags that describe the content. ReviewMe check out your ranking through a number of ranking systems (technorati, alexa etc) and as long as your reasonably popular, your accepted to take ‘jobs’ to review products or services, for cash. The cash can either be paid through paypal or by cheque (I opted for paypal).

Your review must state that you reviewed the item for cash, but the review doesn’t have to be positive, only honest. Much more pleasant and legitimate than the nasty PayPerPost non-disclosure debacle where some advertisers require a positive review and won’t allow you to disclose that it’s a paid-for post. With reviewme you can be as critical as you want.

As a first review your offered the chance to review ReviewMe.com (for a $20 reward), and I guess its really going to rely on who the advertisers are and how much control they are willing to pay, and if they are happy to get honest reviews.

The system itself looks pretty good, and I’ll be updating as I go on the way it performs, but I would at the moment, wholeheartedly recommend that you pop over there, register and get $20 for a review.

This post is brought to you by reviewme.com and was part of a paid review system. The review is honest and reflects my views and not the fact I was paid to review it!

So (and apparently I start almost every post on here with the words ’so…’) another weekend, and great fun again.. We all headed out to the fireworks at wellington country park, Elf, SmileySmile, Pol and and the better half.

The fireworks were are always very good, although no hydro-explosives this year, which was a bit of a shame, theres nothing like scaring the fish in lake.. but as the banner over the entrance to the park said ‘..now with 25% more fireworks”, so Iguess the water based ones cost a bit then..!

I’m sat in heathrow airport on my thinkpad waiting for a few million rows of data to profile.. quite a dull task anyway you look at it.. This is to try and prove to a major utility company that their data is a little bit iffy and they should really invest some time in our software to help correct it.. Issue is, as well as being quite dull to look at, it seems to be taking an age to complete, draining my battery at an alarming rate, its been running since about 9am yesterday morning..

The flight to dublin hasnt called its gate yet, and I’m sat looking at a rather bland ham and cheese hot toasty, rather it would be more described as slightly warm / possibly not cold than ‘hot’.. Still watching the profiling status bar slowly (and I mean slowly) plod across the screen and thinking about my next trip down to Swansea.. another 6 hours travelling, and I would assume more of the watching of the status bar past-time..

Its often weird how things turn out, and how some weeks can be quiet, and others completely mad.. at least one thing is certain, I only need to get through to Friday, and then I have a long weekend off for my birthday.. a wonderful relaxed weekend with the one I love, a tidy house, surprises and excitement (and pressies of course..!!)