Hacked

I don’t know how it happened, or even IF it happened, but apparently someone got into my Hotmail account today or yesterday and sent out some spammy, poorly written and grammatically unsound emails touting some sort of phishing site.

If you received an email from my Hotmail account, please delete it without opening it. First of all, I do not use that account for anything except registration at Microsoft websites. Secondly, I haven’t actively sent an email out from that account since … oh, say about 2004. Maybe before. And finally, I would never say “electronical”, even if you paid me. (Well … okay, if you paid me enough, but it would hurt.)

I’d like to extend my thanks for Bryce and my buddy Raga sounding off and letting me know what was up. And please, except my apologies for the inconvenience and potential computer danger of the spam. I don’t, at this point, know whether or not the email contained a virus or malware, or whether it is produced as a result of one. I’m running AVG antivirus software, and it finds nothing it hasn’t found many times before on my computer. (There’s a program or two I have which trip it off, but those programs have been on my drive for months and months and don’t actually contain a virus or malware.) So at this point, all I can do is change the password on my Hotmail account (which I have), and hope nothing more comes of it.

What concerns me is not knowing where this comes from, where it originated. My PC? Did someone get hold of my account somehow? Did a spam bot crack the account somehow? This isn’t the first time this ever happened, but it’s been about 10 years since the last time.

Anyway, those of you who have had emails from me in the past may want to keep your eyes peeled from something coming from darkknyt (at) hotmail (d0t) com. Delete anything from that address even though the name associated with the account is mine. I guarantee it’s not from me.

Thanks for your patience.

-JDT-

Another One Down

Well, another year is behind me. And despite my circumstances, there wasn’t a lot of contemplation about who I am, where I should be, why I didn’t get there, and what I’ll do differently as I approach the 45th year marker of my life. That’s quite something. Over the last several years, my birthday more than the holidays and New Year brings with it a sense of reflection. None of it’s ever good, either. So it was a bit of a relief to wake up and realize my kids were a LOT more excited than I was about my birthday, my wife was willing to let me be spoiled, and I really didn’t have anything to complain about. I can usually find something, if I want, but what the heck. It’s always possible to have it worse, I suppose, no matter how much better it could be. Thinking about it wouldn’t make it different. Being angry or depressed won’t change my circumstances, and while I can’t always push things aside and forget them, I was able to do that yesterday.

I got some very nice birthday wishes from many of you, and if I didn’t thank you where and when you made them, let me thank you now. I so appreciate all of you and the gifts you’ve been to me. God bless you.

Other than that, I really don’t have much to say today. I’ve got a lot of work to do on a project I’ve had on my plate for way longer than I should have, so I won’t be posting any tomes as I usually do. And if I’m not around commenting on your blogs very often, please forgive me. I’ve really got to get busy on this thing and time is a precious commodity, especially when January will have to bring renewed efforts on my job search. Be patient; I’ll be back when I can.

Thanks for all your support and caring. I appreciate it, and all of you. I hope your holiday was happy, blessed, and filled with the warmth and love only rivaled in Courier and Ives prints.

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our beloved friends out there in the blogosphere and elsewhere. May your day be blessed, happy, love-filled and joyous.

God bless you all.

On Shaky Ground

I watched a movie today on FearNET called Unearthed. It’s about a small Arizona town cut off from the rest of the world when a tanker carrying the fuel for the only gas station has an accident and all the gas is burned. The town sheriff begins to determine something strange is going on when animals and people begin being mutilated.

The basic set-up isn’t complicated. The plot isn’t tough to figure out either. If you’ve seen Alien, Jaws, or pretty much any horror movie you know the premise. A small band of survivors isolated with a monster of tremendous power and frightening as all get-out.

The movie was pretty bad. I don’t need to tell you the sheriff is a drunk because of an incident a year before involving a little girl who died. The sheriff blames herself and drinks to forget or calm or insert-your-own-excuse here. Of course the

incident is played back in a series of ill-devised flashbacks of a couple seconds each. (Of course it was an accident and the sheriff wasn’t to blame. We learn this right before the end of the movie.)

What I will tell you is, I’m sick to death of this cinematographic trick of shaking the hell out of the camera during filming. Holding it by hand, deliberately rattling it, whatever they’re doing. I think it’s supposed to emulate the realistic feeling of being in the scene the way it did when Steven Spielberg used the device during the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, but all it does in these cases is make a bad movie worse. TV shows use it too and

I’m tired of it. JUST SHOOT THE SCENE, dammit! If you don’t want the audience to be able to see what the hell’s going on why make a movie at all?!

A lot of the movie is filmed in dim lighting too. Not a good choice. And the CGI looked like a couple of students from a local community college’s computer animation program did the work. The lighting didn’t match the environment, the monster was not believable (not to mention being pretty much a modification of the creature from Ridley Scott’s classic, the aforementioned Alien), and the characters? Well, let’s just say it’s not a good idea to use stereotypes as characters in fiction, either written or visual.

So I wasted a good hour and a half of my life watching this dog and all its fleas. I don’t recommend you do the same. *Sigh*

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

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Blog Experiment One

Do you know what you’re reading? You’re reading a post I made for my blog with Microsoft Office OneNote.

I’ve been hearing about this OneNote thing for a long time. Supposedly, it’s a real boon to students, who can take intuitive style notes and drop images, web links, all sorts of things like that right in, anywhere they want.

So, I can leave ALL this white space around what I’m working on and position stuff just so, all without having to worry about the program making me jump through any sort of properties hoops or any of that.

Really, it’s pretty cool.

Then again, you guys know me. I’m a software sleaze-ball. I’ll do ANY software if it’s cool enough, and this OneNote thing’s pretty cool. I can see applications for linear thinking, or for making templates and notes for new novel ideas, story outlines … almost anything a writer needs to do except, maybe, for the actual writing.

So, you know I’m a happy camper.

-JDT-

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