I’m generally an easy-going, even-keeled kind of guy. It usually takes quite a lot to get me riled up or angry about something.

But here’s a few for the books:

• Punk-ass teenagers who think they own the sidewalk and won’t squeeze to one side, especially when there are banks of snow on either side. One of these times I’m gonna knock one of those ass-clowns down on their bitch-ass and then laugh my ass off. And I wrote “ass” way too many times there. See what I mean? Riled up…
• Cyclists who think they own the sidewalk. I don’t care how treacherous the street is; it’s called a sidewalk for a reason, you jackholes! And then to yell, “Excuse me,” like you have any rights whatsoever. All that does is make me move to the middle and slow down.
• Drivers that don’t signal. Those little levers on your steering column and those little lights on the corners of your vehicle aren’t just for other drivers, you know. You people make me late getting to places, waiting for your dumb-ass selves to make your move.
• Drivers that don’t look for pedestrians when turning on a red light.
• Drivers that stop in the middle of a crosswalk. You ass-monkeys force me to either walk dangerously close to oncoming traffic (which is probably chock full of more idiots like you), or behind you where I run the chance of getting crushed at the knees by a tailgater or smoked off by someone who didn’t see me because of you. Stopped at an intersection is not the time you should be using to finish your pudding! (Yes, this actually happened.)
• Places that close before their posted hours. Whether I want to come in at 8:05AM or 9:55PM, I’m still a damn customer. If you don’t want me coming in 5 minutes before closing then don’t say you’re open that late.

I’ll add more if I think of them.

My non-blogging site, rjmaguire.com, that mainly hosts my genealogy stuff, was hacked recently. The perp found an underground published security hole in the 3rd party genealogy software I use called TNG: The Next Generation. I found a message on their support forums that describes how to close the hole and now it has. I’ve also replaced the damaged file (as they at least were kind enough to only do a minimal amount of damage).

I don’t blame the author of the software or the PHP programming language. It was an easy mistake to make. I still intend on using the software (and upgrade to the newest version even). It was my own fault for not keeping a closer eye on the server logs and on the TNG mailing list to notice that this kind of thing was going on.

I haven’t actually been able to pinpoint the exact day or time when the hack occurred. The first attempts began in mid-March. I don’t think the hack actually occurred until just a few days ago, when I noticed the page on my site was posted in a Spanish-language forum as a badge of honour as it were. Thankfully, the kids trying this stuff out aren’t really that bright, as witnessed by a lot of failures to even copy and paste correctly.

One of them actually managed to copy a couple of executables that looked like IRC server software or something, but was undoubtedly stopped cold when it had no chance of running on my server’s architecture.

(more…)

Spotted on John Gruber’s blog.

At first I didn’t notice what was happening until half way through. I had to go back and rewatch it. But then I was laughing for five minutes straight. It still makes me laugh now, even after watching it for probably my tenth time.

A higher quality version is available at their site. There are also others available. Dynasty, Golden Girls, Designing Women, and Cheers, I thought were also well done. The remaining were a little more mature or risqué, and IMHO not quite as funny.

…OTHF is on your ass!

This is a couple years old, but I’m not sure how much exposure it got, so I’m presenting it here. Still funny as hell.

The original version:

The amped up version:

The song used, as if you didn’t know, is America, Fuck Yeah* from Team America: World Police.

* Warning: contains coarse language