March 2006

30-Mar-2006 - Best Nigerian scam so far!

As you might know I have a flashing tshirt biz.. and on my page is my email address. But its an image. So anyone sending me an email about flashing tshirts must have physically seen my page (with the flashing images).

Every now and then I get a Nigerian scammer send me an email, but todays one is by far the best!! Just look what they plan on doing with 'flashing tshirts'...

ATTENTION THE PRESIDENT

WE ARE DISTRIBUTOR/AGENTS LOCATED IN THE EASTERN PART OF NIGERIA, WE ARE ALSO ACREDITTED AGENTS TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA ON CONTRACT ALOCATION TO FOREIGN COMPANIES.

WE GOT YOUR COMPANY'S INFORMATION OVER THE INTERNET IN OUR SEARCH FOR RELIABLE COMPANY WE CAN ENTER INTO BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH FOR THE BENEFITS OF BOTH COMPANIES.

THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT AN OFFER IS OPEN TO SUPPLY 1 MILLION PCS OF T,SHIRT FOR THE REHABILITATION OF THE NIGERIAN PRISON AND REFEGEE CAMPS IN THE COUNTRY.

PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOUR COMPANY IS CAPABLE TO MAKE THE SUPPLY SO THAT WE CAN DISCUSS TERMS AND PROCEDURES FOR THE ACTUALIZATION OF THIS GREAT TRANSACTION.

SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE T-SHIRT:

1. STYLE: ROUND NECK T-SHIRTS, SHORT SLEEVE

2. YARN: 100% COTTON

3. SIZE: NORMAL SIZE (M3:L3:XL2) (EUROPEAN SIZE)

4. COLOR: WHITE, BLACK AND BLUE IN EQUAL RATIO (NO PRINTING, NO EMBROIDERY)

5. PACKING: 1 DOZE / 1 POLY BAG

TERMS OF PAYMENT: 100% BANK TT IN ADVANCE BEFORE SHIPMENT

TARGET PRICES: USD5/PC

QUOTATION: FOB

DELIVERY: OCEAN FREIGHT

DELIVERY TIME: 120 DAYS AFTER RECEIPT OF PAYMENT.

GSM: 185

QUANTITY: ONE MILLION PCS ONLY

ONLY SERIOUS EXPORTER WILL BE CONSIDERED.

REGARDS,
MR. KALU,

MANAGERING DIRECTOR,
CONSULTANT COMPANY LIMITED,
PLOT 187 ABA OWERRI RAOD,
ABA.

Refugee camps.. what a classic! :-)

27-Mar-2006 - Ahhh.. Kings Cross

Had a pretty busy weekend. While I was awake that is. Spent most of it sleeping!

On friday, jules came over and we watched some Chaser episodes and a bit of Little Britain. Dust Anybody?

Despite not staying out long I ended up sleeping in until around 12:30 the next day, got up and watched some tv shows, then went back to bed for another 2 or 3 hours!!! Such a lazy bum.

Later that night I went out for dinner at restaurant Twelve in newtown with Ben, Jules, Kate, Laura, Steph, and Heather and then it was off to 3D Worlds 800th issue party. This was a pretty awesome night. They had hired out the entire World Bar at Kings X, and had 4 rooms across 3 levels. We managed to get in on the night for free because we had RSVP'd to 3D World via the website. There was a house room downstairs and a mixed bongos/rnb/everything-else room. On the second level was drum and bass which was awesome. Had lots of fun with Jules dancing there for ages. Ben ended up feeling sick and went home after a while. On the top level was a trance room which was also great, but it kept getting overly crowded, so after having a bit of a dance up there we gave up on it.

At around 3am, me and jules (hmm.. i never say "jules and i" cos it sounds dumb, even though its correct!) went out to the main street of Kings X and noticed the police where blocking off the entire street. Always curious, we wandered down the main street and saw police tape sectioning off the entire road where McDonalds is. We couldnt walk past but I could see inside the tattoo parlour across the road from maccas, and there was blood all over the floor and on the walls and door. I found out from the news the next day that there had been a shooting and a nightclub. They must have stumbled into the tattoo parlour afterwards. And to think I had walked past that tattoo place and looked inside only about an hour earlier.

Its not the only major incident i've seen at Kings X either. A few years ago when Icebox was open, I came out for a break at the side of the road then noticed a bit of a push and shove happening with the bouncer. I didnt pay much attention to it since these things happen often, but a few minutes later an ambulance turned up and we found out that a bouncer had been stabbed. And it all happened about 10 or 20 metres in front of us without us realising.

Ahhh Kings Cross... what a lovely place!

I heard that on the same night some guy went down oxford st with a baseball bat and tried to crack a few heads. He got arrested apparently. Missed all the action!

Spent most of Sunday sleeping too, and watched National Treasure. Its the first time i've seen that movie and it was great. It was kind of like Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code. Worth watching!

Went ten pin bowling afterwards and Andrew M came along and John W and Ben C were there too. I managed to get a record (for me) score of 171!!! Gonna be hard to beat but i'm getting better with each week. It was off to coffee and clubbing after that as usual. And so ends yet another blog entry by Raymon Scott!

22-Mar-2006 - Monzurs lunch extravaganza

The weekend seemed to go by very quickly this week. I was going to take a day off work on Monday but I forgot to put my form in, so its a 5 day week for me.

I ended up spending Saturday with Tim at his place and then driving around taking photos. We went to some dodgy looking tunnel in Petersham, and as I was taking a photo of Tim in front of some cool looking graffitti some old woman (who looked like she was one of those tattoo wearing, yellow tooth dole bludgers) behind us yelled out "You are'nt fucking that up are you!!". I think she had been off the crack for a few days, and was probably on her way to stock up. We politely informed her we were taking photos, and she was hesitantly back on her way to her dealer.

Still in Petersham, we went up to the water tower and had a bit of a look. We were both curious what was in the grounds of the water tower - which were fenced off. So we had a quick look around and when there was noone about we jumped the fence! Naughty naughty I know, but we got to see a few huge pipes entering the water tower and took some photos. Thankfully we got out of there before we were arrested for terrorism offences.

We drove to Peace Park at Ashfield to take some more photos, and then down to Cooks River which stunk as usual.

On Sunday it was Monzurs lunchtime extravaganza! Monzur is a guy from work who is always bringing in different curries from home to eat for lunch. So some of the guys from the dev team went for lunch at his place to taste some of the offerings :-). Lots of nice food, a bit of debating, and finally some cards games. Andrew turned up, who we havent seen in quite a while as he is now living in Newcastle. Brian didnt get out of bed in time :-)

We used to play "5, 10, King" in the old office and it was a lot of fun so it was me and Andrew verse Monzur and Peter. Much to our delight (and subsequent gloating) me and Andrew won most of the games, leaving the others in the dust. Monzur said he was just being hospitable :-)

Sunday night I went out with the boys, and met someone who's name was "You're Fucking Fabulous". I kid you not. He had changed it by deed poll. Ben knew him from a course he had done. Amazingly, he was in fact heterosexual. Go figure.

Me and Julian also know a guy called "Indiana Jones". I have seen his drivers license. It must be difficult to ring up a place on the phone and organise an appointment with these names. They must get hung up on all the time :-)

15-Mar-2006 - Ubiquoss - worst ISP ever?

In January my 18 month contract with Netspace finally ended. There was a company providing VDSL, a new technology, for my building called Ubiquoss which was going to allow me to keep my same internet speed of 512/128kbps while at the same time getting rid of my home phone line. All at a cheaper rate!

I would save money from my home phone line which I never use, and also save money from the cheaper internet. Awesome! So I signed up. BIG MISTAKE.

I should have noticed the warning signs right from the beginning. First of all, a guy had emailed me from ubiquoss saying that I could get a $39.95/month plan with Unlimited usage. When I called up mentioning the offer they said there was no such offer available, and they only had a $44.95/month, 30GB limit plan available. That was my one and only warning sign, but I signed up anyway.

The only good thing about this company is that they turned up on time to install the modem. Everything after that has been a nightmare.

The first thing I noticed is that my p2p software did not work properly and downloads were really slow. Over 5 times slower than before! After doing a bit of testing I realised that I did not have a public IP address, and was only given a LAN address. Then I discovered all my incoming ports are blocked. This is not an internet connection as advertised, it is a LAN connection which is on the internet. Blocking incoming ports cripples p2p software, and prevents any service from being used on my machine!

I think I am behind some kind of firewall or misconfiguration. Anyway after repeatedly contacting ubiquoss weeks ago nothing has been done about it and I have given up.

Another problem I get is occasional high ping rates. Doesnt happen often, but every now and then I will get something like a 1 second ping rate. This has happened a few times while i've been playing Counter Strike Source online, and i've had to stop playing because it became unplayable.

And about a week ago I realised when I upload stuff to the internet it takes longer than usual. I have since run an internet download/upload speed checker for different times of the day for the last week and have discovered that I only have 64kbps upload instead of 128kbps!!! Bloody hell!! The upload rate never went past 62kbps which you would expect on a 64kbps connection because of overheads. Then I discovered that as a result of this tiny upload speed, my upload was being maxed out when I use Teamspeak and Counter Strike at the same time, preventing me from playing in wars properly. Yet another damn problem!

And finally to top it all off, the guys at Ubiquoss said they will give me free internet until they sort out my incoming port problem. But only a day or two later I get charged some random $113 or something amount to my credit card. I have no idea where this figure comes from - there was a $40 installation fee, and $44.95 a month. Where the hell do they get $113 from, and why are they charging me when they said they wouldnt.

Oh one more thing - even though i've been charged stuff to my credit card (almost a month ago), I have not received any invoice or anything at all in the mail from Ubiquoss. There is nothing on the website to check downloads, or see account information or anything.

My god I wish I had stayed with Netspace. Cant go back now - it will cost me a $99 termination fee with Ubiquoss (stuck for 6 months..), and I will have to pay installation fees and join a long contract all over again with Netspace, even though everything is set up.

Netspace was a great ISP.. almost no problems. And just to kick me in the guts while i'm down, Netspace upgraded all their packages to provide more downloads... just a couple of days after I left them.

14-Mar-2006 - Monday morning

As if monday mornings arent bad enough, I got to work yesterday only to find my PC had died as a result of a power failure on the weekend. It wouldnt boot, and it was going to be a long day.

After hours and hours of mucking around, reinstalling windows and disc scanning, I finally got my computer up and running. But it crashed every few minutes. So after another lot of mucking around I finally fixed the problems and got it running stably again. It was 4pm at this point, almost time to go home. Ahhhh.. computers.

Spent the weekend haning out with Julian, Ben, Tim, and the guys at bowling. Just bought my transmission tickets for May. Should be fun :-)