Peter came over today asking for help with his laptop. He was complaining that he needed a cd key for office 2003. I couldn’t find one, so we went the long route and downloaded office 2007 for him.

While we waited for the download, we just sat around and had a chat. I noticed early on that he had taken a little glance at my ipod. I ignored it, and figured he was just checking it out to compare it to the one he has at home.

Then I remembered that I needed $5 to send a shirt back to LA for a return. So, I asked peter for $5. He said he didn’t have on him, but he would go to the ATM to get it. I said “ohh, forget it.” then he insisted, and left.

As he left, i noticed he started driving towards his house, instead of the ATM location. I then looked up and noticed my ipod was gone. He had left his laptop sitting there on my desk, so he had no choice but to come back. Sure enough, he returned 15 minutes later.

As he entered the door, I put on my serious voice and asked him where my ipod was;

Mikey: Where is my ipod peter?
Peter: Ohh, you mean this one? (pulls ipod out of pocket)
Mikey: Why is my ipod in your pocket peter?
Peter: Ohh, I just wanted to check it out.
Mikey: I didn’t tell you you could have it.
Peter: ohh, it’s no big deal. Here man, here’s your ipod (handing me an ipod)
Mikey: (looking over ipod, it’s extremely scratched up, the screen is extremely messed up, and it’s filled with a lot of rap music that i would never listen to, not even if you paid me) This isn’t my ipod peter. Can you go get my ipod please?
Peter: Sure man, oh wait, I don’t have an ipod. What would I need an ipod for? my phone has a cell phone camera
Mikey: You have an ipod. I saw it the last time I was at your house. You told me it had a dead battery.
Peter: What? When did you see my ipod? I don’t have an ipod
Mikey: yes you do peter. Can you go get my ipod?
Peter: (stands there for 3 minutes, silently looking at his ipod)
Mikey: Go get my ipod.
Peter: Okay

Another 10 minutes pass. Laptop is still on my desk, I’m happy with how i’m handling the situation. Peter finally returns.

Mikey: Do you have my ipod?
Peter: yeah man, I’m sorry. (handing me ipod)
Mikey: Why does my screen turn on?
Peter: ohh, the battery isn’t charged
Mikey: (plugging in portable charger), looks like you’re right.
Peter: Look man, I’m really sorry. i wanted to give you this (hands me some $20 watch, probably also stolen). It needs some batteries, but It is my favorite watch.
Mikey: That’s great. Thanks. You can leave now
Peter: What? What do you mean?
Mikey: I’m not going to fix your computer for you. You tried to rob me.
Peter: Uhhh, uhhh, uhh, (he needs this fix for his college class which is in a few hours)
Mikey: I’ll tell you what, I’ll do this if you give me another $10.
Peter: (Throws $10 and other $5 onto desk)
Mikey: Thanks peter.
Peter: (10 minutes worth of awkward silence)
Mikey: You know, everyone in high school knew you were a liar.
Peter: (shell shocked)

Peter didn’t talk for the rest of the trip. I did the 15 minutes worth of work, and his computer now has office 2007. It was a pretty nice adventure. I started the day with no money, and now I have $15, enough to buy the packaging stuff to send my shirt return back. If it weren’t for peter, I would have no money now.

I told the family about it, and they were pretty livid. I had already decided to ban him from the house, and they reinforced it.

I’m pretty happy.

Earlier tonight my grandmother called my mom up and told her about how my aunt chris thinks she found a website in which i tell people “how to trash women”. Mom asked me about it, and i just laughed and asked “what?”. Then the conversation progressed, and I guess grandma convinced my mom that I had made this website, and was instructing the masses, despite the fact that ‘i have no women’.

After mom got off the phone she started badgering me, saying “chris knows all about computers”, when it’s obvious that she doesn’t know anything. Dad woke up in the middle of this badgering, and start sticking up for me. That erupted into a big screaming match with the three of us.

I can understand grandma maybe thinking I started the website, since she doesn’t really know anything about the internet. She probably believes I’m the only person running the internet. However, I don’t really get why aunt chris would start going after me.

Chris has some recent history with this family which relates to her leaving uncle brian, and getting him sent to jail. Dad thinks she going after me to help gain some credibility with the rest of the family, but I don’t understand why she picked me out of everyone else.

I don’t get it. I guess I’ll try and call aunt chris to figure out what she thinks she found, if she even found anything.

I’ve been getting a lot of search engine traffic from people searching for “united collections bureau”. The first instances of this traffic came back when i wrote a little post about them contacting me, and harassing me whilst believing I was my father. After noticing the hits tonight, I did a little grep, and found that they were still hitting the blog, and this time I found that they actually have their own swip’d block of ip addresses.

Here’s a little information for the nerds out there who are looking for information about them:

root@bonkers[/home/imikey] $ jwhois “UNITED COLLECTION BUREAU” @whois.arin.net -n
[Querying whois.arin.net]
[whois.arin.net]
UNITED COLLECTION BUREAU INC (UCB-12)
UNITED COLLECTION BUREAU INC SPRINTLINK (NET-65-168-38-176-1) 65.168.38.176 - 65.168.38.191
UNITED COLLECTION BUREAU INC SPRINTLINK (NET-63-175-135-128-1) 63.175.135.128 - 63.175.135.255

root@bonkers[/home/imikey] $ jwhois UCB-12 @whois.arin.net -n
[Querying whois.arin.net]
[whois.arin.net]

OrgName: UNITED COLLECTION BUREAU INC
OrgID: UCB-12
Address: 5620 SOUTHWYCK BLVD
City: TOLEDO
StateProv: OH
PostalCode: 43614
Country: US
Comment:
RegDate: 2004-08-11
Updated: 2004-08-11

AdminHandle: GLU6-ARIN
AdminName: lucas, gb
AdminPhone: +1-419-725-5353
AdminEmail: gblucas@ucbinc.com

TechHandle: GLU6-ARIN
TechName: lucas, gb
TechPhone: +1-419-725-5353
TechEmail: gblucas@ucbinc.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-01-23 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.

They’re probably going to come across this post some time soon. I’d just like to tell the guys that this info is available to anyone with internet access, and absolutely no laws were broken while obtaining this information.

TV On The Radio is the best new band I’ve come across. Here’s the video that made me a fan:

I ordered the cd tonight. I recommend you do the same.

Last night I was flipping through the channels, and I caught an infomercial in which Peter Popoff, a multi-generational scam artist, proclaimed that he wanted to give everyone his “Miracle Spring Water”. This immediately grabbed my attention, and I really had no choice but to watch, and let my rage grow.

During the infomercial, clips of him running his scam to large groups of mostly-obese people in some kind of southern convention hall were shown. He would walk up to people who were obviously pre-screened, state their problems, and then put his hand on their head, and scream some random catch phrase. Then a few seconds, or a few minutes later the person would show or just tell peter that he or she was cured. Among the things peter has cured are:

• Cancer
• Blindness
• Deafness
• Bad Lungs / Asthma
• Crippled Legs
• Any Disability that stems from old age
• Probably Everything except aids

In addition to the brainwashing footage, peter and his wife also read through poorly written, cracked-out letters from people who were apparently cured of all their problems, except for the one that prevents them from writing a decent letter. A few can be found at peter’s website. Here’s one for starters:

[quote]I laid my hands on yours through the television. You looked right in my eyes and began to tell the financial burden that was depressing me and making me sick to go in the name of Jesus and I felt it leave. You also said I would receive money with the next four days. Well Praise God! Three days later I received enough money to make a house payment. Thank you so much for letting God use you!
–Sister B. Bowen, Constantine, MI[/quote]

It’s no secret that those who aren’t confident in their selves tend to sacrifice their lives to other causes, and that’s just fine. If they feel going to church is going to improve their self esteem, that’s great. However, what peter popoff is doing is complete exploitation. He is using lies to manipulate these people into lining his pockets.

This isn’t even the first time peter popoff has been involved in this racket. During the 80s, Peter did the exact same stuff, and his plans were foiled by a guy named James Randi who did an expose on popoff which aired on the tonight show. In the expose, James proved that his wife was relaying interview data via a radio to him for use in his faith healing stunts. Less than a year after the expose, Peter was forced into bankruptcy.

Peter Popoff needs to be stopped. This asshole should not be as rich as he is, and I won’t be happy until he is publicly humiliated, again.

A few weeks ago, I was looking for enhancements for my Canon Powershot a620 camera. While digging around, I found a spectacular hack which will make the camera shoot in Raw Format, instead of Jpg. However, after hacking around with it, I found that the directions are a little flawed, due to the writer of the page being russian. So, here’s the new directions:

1) Download this file, and extract it anywhere.

2) Take camera, and format your sdcard completely

3) Take out your sdcard, and put it into your computer’s card reader. If you don’t have one, you might have some good luck using This uploader, though I never tried the ladder. Uploading via usb connection to the camera will not work, because the sd-reader in the camera rejects it.

4) Navigate to the card via ‘my computer’, and put the PS_A620.FIR file into the root of your sdcard, after that’s done, turn the camera on in ‘playback’, or ‘view’ mode.

5) Hit your ‘menu button’, and navigate to the tools section (middle tab), and go down to “File No. Reset”, toggle this from off to on, or just hit the “func set” button to ensure things are cool

6) go back up to the main menu (first tab), and scroll down to the bottom. There should be a “firm update” option. Select it using the func/set button, and click okay to apply it.

7) After that, the camera will reboot. Pay attention to your printer button. It should blink blue once. This is the camera telling you that the raw shooting software was loaded. Flip the camera into shooting mode, and your lens should expand out. Take three or more demo shots, and the first one may or may not shoot in raw format. The two+ after that should be in raw format, you can tell if they are shooting in raw format by looking at the printer button. It will blink blue if you are shooting in raw format.

With each photo you take, one raw format shot will be created, and one jpg format shot will be created. The raw format photos will be up around 8MB, while the jpg format photos will be around 1.5MB. For managing your raw photos, i have had a good time using Adobe Bridge. You won’t be able to use the regular windows picture and fax viewer for these files.

With each set of photos you take between power cycles, you will need to re-load the firmware hack, this can be done by following these directions:

1) Turn camera on in view mode
2) Verify your file no. reset thing, hit the func set button to verify it
3) Navigate to play menu, go to “firm update”, say OK to everything, the camera will reboot, everything after that will be shooting in raw/jpg format.

The files will be wrote to the “100CANON” directory. If you get another directory, for instance: “102CANON”, you may be able to ignore it. However, I think the photos will get wrote to the 100canon directory whenever the hack is loaded. In your 100CANON directory, raw format photos will be named IMG_1001.jpg, while jpg should be somethin’ like IMG_0001.jpg.

If you have any questions related to the hack, I might be able to help if you comment. I got some good feedback from this guy who’s email is vitalyvb [@@@ttttt] ukr.net .