2.7

Just upgraded to 2.7. It hosed my photos and archives. I’ll reupload tonight. Other than that, I’m diggin the new admin interface.

Good Signs

Every once in a while, someone will say something or do something that, while slightly ambiguous, let’s you know that you’re doing a good job at work or that they appreciate your effort. This also extends, due to our times, into realms of “job security”. A kind of “I guess they like me” sort of feeling. These are all good signs and provide brief moments of satisfaction and happiness. Your boss taking you out to lunch for example. That’s a good sign. The office refrigerator being stocked with primarily your favorite kind of beverage, also a good sign.

In my case, it was a purchase order that was placed on my desk. A fairly scary looking document with lots of PR numbers, inventory numbers, serial numbers, etc. On the surface, it looked like more work. However, once I realized what it was a purchase order for, there was no elevator that could move fast enough to get me downstairs to turn in said paper work. What my boss had left on my desk was a purchase order for this, with my name on it for the “receiving person”. I guess it’s a good sign. They apparently like me.

My first thought was utter surprise, “Holy crap, I’m getting a laptop.” Which was quickly followed by “Oh no, now I’ll be one of those people.” Which eventually turned back into “wait a minute, I don’t care, cause holy crap, I’m getting a laptop!” Then it was relief when I realized the rest of you yahoos have Mac laptops and you’re completely normal…

*pause*

…ok, well, at least you DO have Mac laptops.

*pause*

…I’ll take pictures when it gets here. I’m going to name her Audrey.

lol.

King of the Ramen people

I’m a frugal mother-fucker. I don’t like to spend money on myself, with the notable exception of video games, which I consider “therapeutic entertainment”. I wear jeans that have been “busted” because I don’t want to buy new ones for myself. The same goes for shoes. I buy shoes once every five years. The same can be said about lunch. I rarely go out to lunch (on my own dime) because I don’t see it as nessisary. Yes, food itself is necessary, but I don’t see why I need a “nice lunch” when a simple PB&J will do. Or Ramen noodles.

I ate ramen in highschool, college, and now at the office. I’ve sampled every flavor from every major manufacturer. I’ve had ramen in packets, cups, bowls, trays and even frozen “gourmet” ramen in cute little mock-Chinese tack-out containers. I can say, with near perfect certainty, that I’ve had whatever variety of noodle you’re currently thinking of.

So much so, I’ve started rating them. What better way to remind myself which ones I like, than to give them a number. I won’t bore you with a long list, but I can give you some examples. For starters, I can tell you that I prefer the premium “noodles in a tray” variety from Nissin’s Chow Mein line over the more traditional Maruchan. When it comes to dry noodle packets though, Maruchan is still king. In the more obscure categories, containing things like Thai or Vietnamese noodles, I prefer the Simply Asia brand of Pad Thai over things like Thai Kitchen or Taste of Thai. Frozen entrees are also an interesting category, even within brands there can be huge discrepancies between flavors. For example, in the Tai Pei frozen meals product line, the Teriyaki Chicken is quite eatable. The General Tso and Cashew Chicken are absolutely not.

The upside to all this is that even the most expensive asian dish I’ve purchased over the years is cheaper than going down the street and getting a hamburger. I think the “premium” dishes run about $2-2.50. The packets of dry ramen will run your about $0.15. In economic hard times, you can’t beat lunch for $0.15. I think stock in a noodle company is about the only stock I’d buy these days.

(PS: If anyone is vaguely interested, I could actually make a list, complete with ratings, but I’ll hold off unless there is a demand for vast amounts of noodle knowledge that I don’t know about)

Matt out.

Savvy

The Nation is back under my control. Yahoo was actually fairly helpful. I called their Small Business/Domains 1-800 number, got right to a person, explained what was going on and about 20 minutes later it was back under my account. I changed the DNS servers, locked the domain and now we just wait for it to propagate across the interwebs. Not that there’s anything there to see since I had to wipe the whole directory, but it’s the principal of the thing.

Anyway, I hope everyone’s turkey day was good. I’m still full 24 hours later, and the History chanel is making me sleepy. I think I might just nap until Monday.

Matt out.

Sneaky Russian Fucks

Well, with a little help from JTN, no help whatsoever from my web host and a little digging, I figured out what was going on. Some Russian script kiddies were injecting PHP files laden with proxies and redirects into my site in nearly every single directory, including WordPress. Since the melicious files were named things like “admin.php”, “config.php”, etc, it screwed up my WordPress install when it overwrote the normal files with the same names.

My host basically told me it was my own fault for running an insecure PHP application (wordpress) and that I’d just have to clean up the mess myself.

I’m typically very careful with my permissions and settings, so I’m still trying to work out how they got in, again with no help from my host. Luckily I had a nearly complete WordPress backup (which you’re seeing now) so I’m OK in terms of data loss. I’m still pretty pissed about it, but there’s not much I can do except try and prevent it in the future.

Also, SavvyNation is gone. That’s the more pressing of the two problems. My DNS settings were changed and it’s now pointing to a parked Yahoo page. I’ve sent multiple emails to my host and haven’t gotten a response yet. The owner/admin information is still mine, but the DNS servers are changed. I don’t know what the point of that would be. I would figure if someone is trying to steal or hijack the page, they’d just take the whole thing. Why change the DNS to Yahoo and leave everything else the same? It’s really starting to piss me off that I can’t get a hold of anyone at my host either. I realize it’s the day before Thanksgiving, but seriously, if someone steals my domain because someone took today off, there will be death.

So, to you dickless vodka soaked fucks in Russia, I hope you freeze to death you fucking sacks of sub-human garbage. Rot in your fucking fur hats. Douche-Nozzles.