Gmail Hijackers Ahoy!

Woke up this morning to an interesting email from my mother's address:

Pls reply me back

Happy New Year...

I'm sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent but it's  just because of the situation of things right now, i'm stuck in London, I came down here on vacation, i was robbed, worse  of it is that bags, cash and cards and my cell phone was stolen at GUN  POINT, it's such a crazy experience for me, i need help flying back home, the authorities are not being 100% supportive but the good thing is i still have my passport but don't have enough money to get my flight ticket back home, please i need you to loan me some money, will refund you as  soon as i'm back home, i promise.

Thank you Rand Winton

Hmmm. No. That's not real at all.

I replied to it and the hijackers further prompted me to provide help. So they are actively using her account. Great.

After texting her (she's been bombarded by all her contacts checking whether she's OK or letting her know she's been hacked) I tried to login. Of course her password didn't work. I tried the password retrieval mechanism and it said it was sending the change request email to an address that looks like ******@y****.**.uk -- also not my mother.

So, I have reported the problem to Google and am waiting for their response.

It looks like these people also deleted an announcement I posted to Mom's Facebook wall, too, so I assume they are in there also.

Sometimes the internet is such a jerk!

Update: She has managed to wrangle her Gmail out of the clutches of the baddies. Her Facebook account is currently locked down, but she's barely concerned about that.

Damn It, Merlin...

OK, fine. Forget everything I said about Merlin Mann's signal/noise ratio.

After reading this, I hereby issue a full retraction and would like to tell you all that kung fu grippe is my favoritest blog in the world right now.

When I emerged, my hands still gripping the wheel, I was perplexed but thrilled — happy to be alive, but also to be surrounded by the parties of this case, as well as the train’s lucky passengers. We were all in miraculously hale condition, considering the ordeal we’d just endured. We laughed openly.

But, even in the channel’s cool waters — and newly stricken with the permanent nerve damage that has frozen my face in a ghastly and stupefied stare — I could feel my blood begin to boil. My boat. My beautiful yellow boat. What had he done to her?

Merlin Mann is my goddamned hero.

Happy now?

Well said, Sir.

I love Merlin Mann. Even though his signal to noise ratio often gets a bit low for me to tolerate, without fail he eventually comes up with a gem that makes me want to resubscribe to all his feeds. Case in point:

Now that I’ve had it both ways, I can highly recommend choosing to make things you like with people you think are awesome. By comparison, the private consolations of doing otherwise turn out to be surprisingly modest.

Yes. Yes, indeed.

(I'm still not going to follow the guy on Twitter, though. The last time I tried it was like drinking from a fire hose.)

Long Shot

Thoughts upon viewing this super long, side-scrolling photo (actually a bunch of stitched photos):

Oi! Skin'ead!

Whoa, that guy has crazy opposite eyes!

Oh, that's inadvertently dirty... And the old guy looks like he thinks so, too!

What is up with the eye patches? Bet there's a story there.

That guy is intense! Why is his shirt open?

Good job, toughnuts.

Boy, the German girls love their Bettie hair do, eh?

Oh, hey! Jamiroquai!

(via Kottke)

Phew!

So, the big push was a fairly resounding success (as much as these things usually are), and I'm happy and relieved. Enough about me, though, really. How have you been?

Some topics for discussion:

  1. Have you seen the Big Picture blog at Boston.com? It's hot -- both in the "that's sexy" way and that all the cool kids are talking about it.
  2. Speaking of cool kids, my buddy and former coworker, Rod, got all internet famous last week with his fake script for Indy 4.
  3. This is totally ghey, but skip to the 3 minute mark and it's a least a little amusing.
  4. Speaking of ... erm... Yeah. Did you guys see the Turkish wrestling spread in ESPN the Magazine? Yeah, neither did I. I hear it's totally macho, though.
  5. More macho is Sasuke -- or as it's called on the G4 network, Ninja Warrior. Holy crap that show is awesome! Makoto Nagano is my hero.
  6. I like plurk a lot. The Interface is light years ahead of Twitter. And if you're into either of those jammies, check out ping.fm -- right this second "letmeping" should work as a beta code.

Other stuff of note:

  • My darling Ma has teamed up with some cohorts to start a giant dog rescue. We're talking Danes, Newfies, Mastiffs, Wolfies, and so on. Wow.
  • Think I'm gonna ride the motorcycle into work a least a couple days this week. Turn the stress dial back a couple clicks.
  • Oh, I am so getting an iPhone 3G in July. OMG!

G'night, kids.

Holy Cow

The Broom Game has to be one of the most (potentially) dangerous party past times I've seen in a while. Coworkers and I are working on death-defying variations, since our only spot to play it would be on a 3rd story stucco balcony. Here are a few others:

  1. My neighborhood (featuring a nice mix of ponds, streets, and prairie dog-infested open space)
  2. On a rowboat (sharks/piranhas/etc. for extra points)
  3. The grassy triangle in the crotch of a highway off-ramp.

Awesome.

Nerd Sexy

Today, Rod posted these rejected Star Wars products to our sooper-seekrit IRC channel, prompting the following:

  • Jake: and pants are optional!
  • Rod: hell yes
  • Rod: and then if you're at a halloween party and some girl opens up your sweaty suit to blow you, she can say "and i thought they smelled bad on the outside"
  • Rod: and then you can marry her because she's awesome

That's gold, people. Pure gold!

And then there was this exchange, as well...

Trsly

Andre points to Trsly.com, which may be a lot of fun. At the very least it should give me a place to put quick links to all the *boggle* I find on the intarwebs but choose not to post here. I'll need to see about hacking it into my WordPress theme, but in the mean time you can subscribe to my quotes with that wild feed reading technology. (Or not. The user-level feed link is actually busted at the moment, which sucks balls.)