I has a virus :_(
No, no…not the pig flu kind. I was browsing Google Images earlier, and I apparently clicked on sumpin’ I shouldn’t’ve. Next thing I know, my screen explodes in a cascade of adorable Japanamations and ladies with ginormous breasteses.
It’s a bad mamajama, this one. It made SuperAntiSpyware run home bawling to its mama. It stole Trend Micro’s lunchmoney. Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware wouldn’t even come out of its own setup icon when I double clicked it.
Using a combination of Safe Mode and Autoruns by Sysinternals, I’ve managed to wipe two of the bastards (b.exe and msa.exe), but there’s something bad still in there. Every five minutes or so, some damn thing disables Task Manager and Regedit. Every ten, an Explorer window pops up and reaches for the internet. There’s nothing obviously virusy in the process list, so it’s something masquerading as a legit component.
Oh, well. Screw it. It’s Friday night and I have this here Linux rig. It runs hotter’n a firecracker, but it’s clean as a whistle. I have Firefox and Freecell; I am golden.
Have a better weekend than mine, everyone. Let’s hope I get it sorted by Monday…
August 7, 2009 — 7:04 pm
Comments: 37
Visible from space
Here at Stoatiweaselco, we believe in going the extra mile. Giving a little more. Being there for you.
Sure, it took the Sun to break the story, and Drudge to disseminate it around the world. But only sweasel.com searched Google maps, tirelessly explored the neighborhood and ultimately discovered the Surrey rooftop on which some schoolboys years ago spelled out “COCK” in bricks. Just to bring you this URL.
Don’t thank us. It’s what we’re here for.
June 15, 2009 — 7:00 pm
Comments: 13
The weekend of schmooze…
w00t! Stolen internet connection! I ain’t forking over £6 an hour to read twenty Indonesian penis enlargement offers and spend quality time on my own damn blog. I love you guys, but I’m not paying to hang around with you.
We’re in Ye Olde Docklands, where Uncle B has to do a touch of professional schmoozing for a few days. I took this picture out the window at a cocktail party.
Yep, that there’s the Dome in the background — the Boil on the Bum of Greenwich. I’ve only been there once, when it was still just a building site. There was a sort of shed with the architect’s rendering of what the thing was going to look like, plus a guestbook to sign. Somebody before us had written, “why don’t you fuck off back to America and take your ugly building with you?”
So, so unfair.
Cocktail party. Heh. Not to worry. Weasel isn’t selling out to adulthood. I drank beer and wore jeans and shared my recipe for pan-fried rattlesnake. It’s handy, being able to use my immigrantness to mask my hopeless inadequacy as a grownup.
June 12, 2009 — 8:10 am
Comments: 25
Things that make you go OMGWTF?!
When I recently asked one of Sullivan’s colleagues at the Atlantic why it abides Sullivan’s disgrace of the magazine, he simply referred to the traffic Sullivan generates for the Atlantic online.
A Drudge link. Rule of thumb, it’s worth a quarter of a million hits. I didn’t realize a permalink on his page is worth about the same, each and every day. Sheeee-it, as they say at Harvard.
I didn’t even realize Sullivan had a Drudge link until Ace mentioned it. So I took a look at Drudge’s static links for the first time in, like, a decade. What an assortment of mixed nuts! Most of them make sense, but…well…Helen Thomas? Does she actually write stuff? I thought she existed simply to rasp impertinent questions at White House press secretaries. And frighten small children. And annihilate erections.
I dug around Google for a while to see if anyone knows how Drudge chooses his links, but I didn’t find anything good. You can imagine how much pointless crap a search of “Drudge” and “links” turns up. I remember Free Republic lost their Drudge link for a long time, back in the days of their lawsuit with the Washington Post. They worked that out somehow; they’re back on the front page.
I wonder what a quarter million hits looks like, in plain monetary terms. I’m fuzzy on the concept (I couldn’t monetize this blog; it would ruin my color scheme). He could sell linkage, for all I know. He would be well within his rights to do so. Drudge has become such an institution, it’s easy to forget it’s just dude’s personal website and he can haul coal in it if he wants to.
This I do know: AndrewSullivan.com and his 280K hits a day goes directly to The Atlantic. Per the American Digest article I linked yesterday, The Atlantic is currently losing $5M a year. Ergo, Sullivan can be as balls-out, bug-fuck crazy as he likes, and the Atlantic will put up with it.
And don’t even think about trying to get Sullivan de-linked from Drudge. That much I did learn: Sullivan has crawled so far up Matt Drudge’s ass, Lemmiwinks couldn’t reach him.
September 16, 2008 — 9:47 am
Comments: 59
Officially: worse than Hitler!
DAMN it! If you noticed the marked absence of Weasel today, it’s because I made the Internet Naughty List.
I thought it was just my local IT department noticing the suspicious stream of traffic going to one small weblog, but Enas says sweasel.com is blocked for him, too. The reason given him was “tasteless” — which, you know, I’d happily cop to if it weren’t for all the egregiously tastlesser stuff out there that isn’t on the list. Like, the whole rest of the Internet, not counting porn, guns and neo-Nazi sites. And I’m not positive about neo-Nazi sites.
Anybody know who I appeal to? Obviously, I can’t make inquiries at work — this would be an especially bad time to get my silky sable ass fired — but somebody somewhere must know how to work out what list your company is using.
If they think I’m going to knuckle under and do my job or some shit, they don’t know the meaning of “weasel.”
July 17, 2008 — 3:56 pm
Comments: 42
A delightful morning of murder and buggery
Oh, man, I love the internet. They’ve put the proceedings of the Old Bailey online! And it’s searchable!
It’s an excellent website, too: in addition to the 200,000+ documents (both scans and transcriptions) covering trials from 1674 to 1913, there’s a ton of good London history (and not much more politically correct than it absolutely has to be).
The Old Bailey is London’s Central Criminal Court and has been since…forever, amen. The current building (built in 1902) is on the site of the old Newgate Prison, but the two were originally side by side for the sake of convenience.
There is no better primary source of information about the lives ordinary people than trial transcripts. Where else can you learn what a murder victim had in his pockets in 1810, what a Victorian innkeeper keeps in the till, what timeless drunken ladies of the evening shout as they whale away on each other with a rum bottle and a tin teapot? Treasure, I tell you!
Naturally, murder trials are the besteses (the advanced search helpfully allows you to sort by crime). But permit me to draw your attention to sodomy offenses prior to 1790, where you will encounter what the site describes as “a vibrant, even joyful, world of men who pursued both homosexual experiences and a distinct lifestyle” — i.e. lots and lots of cross-dressing and buggery. (After 1790 the courts got squeamish and censored the transcripts).
If you have any pasty English genes floating around in your gene pool, I highly recommend plugging your surname into the thingie and seeing what your ancestors got up to. Hey, it’s England! There’s probably a coat of arms for cross-dressers!
See also: the complete Newgate Calendar, London’s Past Online. You can still visit the Old Bailey and attend a trial. I’ve always wanted to. But I made Uncle B take me to the Houses of Detention, the Old Operating Theatre and a fancy rat show so I’m not pushing my luck. I’d just as soon not be the subject of a trial at the Old Bailey, thenkyewverymuch.
June 10, 2008 — 10:23 am
Comments: 79
Y’all seen this? Flying by the pound!
I hate to step on the punchline, but in the interest of avoiding an unfortunate moronosphere blogswarm — yes, it’s a joke.
June 9, 2008 — 1:33 pm
Comments: 20
Tuesday is the new Monday
Oh-kay. I have just watched the entire run of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show — and you can, too, in less than an hour.
First impression: they’re trying too hard. But I snorted a few times. If you liked Pee Wee’s Playhouse, you’ll probably snort a few times, too. The hostess, Kiko — played by creator Kim Evey, a South Korean raised in America — cracks me up completely. The rest of the format…meh.
Per Wikipedia, this thing got started strictly as a YouTube self-upload a year or so ago and quickly went viral. Eventually, Sony picked it up for their C-Spot website, which they launched a couple of months ago. I gather the purpose is to scoop up these viral turds and put a bit of polish on ’em. Budgets balloon from, like, nothing to as much as ten grand an episode.
Mmmm…cheese!
May 27, 2008 — 12:13 pm
Comments: 48
Lost: adorable fluffy psychopath
What the heck. Might as well give the little knucklehead his own thread. I’m not panicked yet; it’s been about five days. It’s a record for him, but not for tomcats. Stupid testosterone.
I spent some time yesterday calling around various vets and rescue leagues. In fact, I screwed up my list-making activity and accidentally called Providence Animal Control twice in the space of about ten minutes. I didn’t realize it until the guy on the other end said, “call once a day, please.”
He must’ve thought I was the queen of all crazy cat ladies.
Anyhow, here’s the next great website idea: a lost and found pets registry. I know there’s Craig’s List, but that’s where civilians go to trade information about lost and found pets. Vets and rescue organizations don’t have any reporting mechanism. I know, because I asked them. I had to track down all the likely organizations in Damien’s territory and call them individually.
This could be big. I’m serial. You could entice vets and city organizations to participate by describing it as free advertising, and support it with paid advertising from, like, Petco. Write the occasional goopy cover article about people reunited with beloved mutts or the latest in chipping technology, and there you have it.
I’d do it myself, but I’m moving away. Also, I’m butt lazy.
May 6, 2008 — 8:30 am
Comments: 36
Happy birthday to Spam!
Spam turns thirty today! No, not the delicious potted luncheon meat from Hormel. And not me, either — I turn somewhat older a little later in the month (but you get extra points in the It’s All About Me sweepstakes if you remembered that Spam was once my online moniker).
Nope, the very first Usolicited Commercial Email (UCE) was sent thirty years ago today. And here it is:
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 – 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
LOS ANGELES, CATHURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 – 2 PM
DUNFEY’S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.
In honor of this exciting anniversary, my email service has shit the bed. Totally. If you’ve tried to email me in the last 24 hours, your message has gone into a big black hole in cyberspace. No bounce message, nothing. It’s all very mysterious.
Anyhoo, I haven’t got time to feex it. The maid comes in an hour, so I have to clean up!
May 3, 2008 — 7:27 am
Comments: 103