Bunky and I like to give. Well not really, but that Chevy that used to be our primary mode of transportation has to go. Between the moldy cottage and the fume spewing SUV, it’s a wonder I still have lungs. Anyway, Bunky still has an emotional attachment to the vehicle, so we are going to donate the vehicle to a worthy charity instead of just junking it. The car isn’t that old, so if the non-profit can scam some mechanics into donating their time, the Blazer can probably be fixed on the cheap. As a free gift, I think there is some kind of furry woodland creature living in the car now. It tried to make a nest out of the tissue box, and ate all the bird seed we were storing in the Blazer. Bonus!
Only one thing stands in our way: the Blazer doesn’t run. Actually, make that two things; the cottage is nestled deep within an impenetrable forest of thorns. When I had to drive a U-Haul this weekend (which totally sucked, BTW), I basically had to run over tons of vegetation just to get into the yard. So there’s no way the tow truck is going to be able to get into the driveway to get the Blazer (with the way the Blazer is parked). We’re going to have to jump the SUV first, and get it to somewhere where the tow truck can get to it. Dang, it’s not easy being generous.
Wow, excellent writeup from Dr. Dave about the state of the war against spam comments. It seems that some more capable coders have dived into the fray on the side of evil, and this post details ongoing plans to fight spam and analysis of what has/has not worked.
As it is now, SK2 and Akismet seem to work fine, but are not nearly as invincible as they were about a year ago. Dr. Dave does point out that Bad Behavior seems to be weakening at a faster rate, as it does not account for the more clever spambots. Really interesting, and a good look forward, since even a small percentage of spam comments coming in can result in a really annoying cleanup operation.
He also mentions a legendary remedy:
That last idea is on I have been thinking through for a looong time now. I have some confidence that it may hold the key to the End of Blog Spam as We Know It… A definite +50 on our scale…
ZOMG +50 resistance?! Haxx!
The one thing standing in the way of total apartment nirvana was the fact that the router wasn’t working with the new Cox broadband service. I had no clue why, but after chatting with Ender, it seems that perhaps Cox might give some routers trouble, and I needed to get my router to spoof my computer’s MAC address. Here’s what I did:
- Get the computer’s MAC address: Go to Start Menu, Run, type in cmd. Then enter in ipconfig /all. The MAC address is the 12 character string that is referred to as the “Physical Address”.
- Adjust Router Settings: Go into the admin panel of your router and find the option to clone the MAC address you just found.
Yup, it’s that easy. My Netgear router had a place in the basic settings that let me change from using the default MAC address to my computer’s MAC address. Once Ender clued me in to what the problem was, my victory was inevitable.
Today is the Chinese New Year! I’m hoping for a whole on of good luck, even though I was born in the year of the Rooster. I just want good luck. And happiness. And money. And a freakin’ shark with a freakin’ “laser” on its head.
General | Kabitzin 1/31/2006 | 
Comments (2) 
