Oh, I found this kinda funny... In a... "My car is bigger than your car", or a "my dad could beat up your dad" sort of way. I was browsing some blogs and found a post that said they must be soooo popular because Akismet had blocked 100 spam in a month.

If spam is popularity (which is honestly the first time I've heard that), then I must be rivaling Google here, because I'm raking in 100 spams blocked in a single DAY. One time, I kid you not, I had 1000 spam comments blocked in a day. That hasn't happened since, but that's the day I decided to add the Akismet icon to my side bar. You can scroll down a little and see how many total spam comments have been blocked. At the time of this writing? 23,187 comments blocked.

Honestly, I would suggest you get Akismet if you have a blog. It's designed for WordPress, but there's a few other plugins available for other journaling software. It's a community driven spam blocker that has literally never failed me. Basically, there's a massive central database of spam comments and it'll check each comment you get against the database. If you happen to get a spam that isn't part of the database, when you mark the comment as spam, it'll add the comment to a sort of queue where it'll wait to see how many other people have received the same comment. Then, it gets added to the database and you never have to worry about it again.

It does, however, required registration, but it's pretty painless. You just have to apply for a unique identifier code so they know you're someone new.

But I'm telling ya', Akismet paired with one-time moderated comments? ZERO spam shows up on your blog, and the known spams automatically get added to a little Akismet filter that will automatically delete them in 30 days, in case you want to be REALLY responsible and go through the list for legitimate comments that it might have tagged. But, honestly, it's worked flawlessly for me. I don't go through the list anymore. I probably wouldn't have a choice, either, since I get so much junk everyday.

http://au.gear.ign.com/articles/799/799262p1.html

Sony is at it again! Take a look at that article. You don't have to read it... Just take a peek at the three pictures. Do you notice anything... Familiar? About this controller set that is being heralded as "innovative"? That's right. It's a mouse. A mouse for the PS3. Innovative means something new that changes the way you do something. This isn't innovative, this is a lousy attempt to get PC players to feel the PS3 is best to play first person shooters on now. (Face it, nothing beats keyboard/mouse for FPS.)

Okay, so the mouse isn't innovative, clearly. But what's that other controller? The black nunchuk. Oops, sorry, it's not a nunchuk, is it. It's an overclocked Wii Nunchuk. Just... Look at it. Joystick, a bazillion buttons. Bet it's not motion sensitive, though. So is the nunchuk half the part that's innovative? I mean, really, if the mouse isn't innovative, but you call this set innovative, then it must be the nunchuk. Which, I might add, Nintendo designed something similar FIRST, and everyone's laughing at the controller set that will become old and boring in 6 months.

So, okay. Judging by Sony fanboy rants, the nunchuk isn't innovative, either, since they're laughing at Nintendo's nunchuk (THAT CAME FIRST). So what does that leave? Hmm...

That's right, folks. The mouse pad. The mouse pad is innovative. See that little arm rest in the first picture? The mouse pad clearly sports a convenient cradle for the nunchuk. I've never seen anything like it before in my life! It could very well change the face of console gaming as we know it. Because... Uhm... You could... Like... Put stuff on there... Within easy reach of your other hand?

Ah, who is anybody kidding? This is a rehash of existing controller sets that Sony copied. It's not innovative in the least bit. Is it useful? Sure! I mean, if I bought a PS3 (like when hell has snow), I'd get this. It WOULD make FPS games easier to play... Maybe. It would take a lot of time getting used to. But it could be useful! But innovative? Come on, Sony... Innovative in your own little world, maybe. But you just copied everyone else... Again.

So, I love werewolves. They're the coolest things on the planet... Too bad that nobody in the history of movie making has made them look like PROPER walking wolfies. They always look like some... Creepy, furless beast. Even the wargs in the LotR movies weren't the big fuzzy wolves described in the books. That's right. They're big fuzzy wolves. Remember in the Hobbit? When the wolves chased the dwarves up into the trees and Gandalf lit pinecones on fire, threw them down, and their fur caught fire and they howled? That's right. They're wolves. Not... those things in the movie. Harry Potter movie-werewolf? A big skinny rat that roared and scared everyone.

So... That being said. Anyone know of any good werewolf movies? Books, maybe? Something? Anything? Hopefully something that isn't terrible? Like the Underworld werewolves... Overgrown hairy humans with long noses? No... Just no. See, this is what a werewolf should look like. (DeviantArt link. Slight language warning, nothing too shocking, but don't read the comments. I give you no warning on that. You know how the internet can be.) And no, TW (or Ed or anyone else), the one on the leftis NOT how they're supposed to look.

I WANT WEREWOLF....... stuff. WEREWOLF ENTERTAINMENT. GOOD werewolf entertainment. Man, I almost want to get into the movie business JUST to make a GOOD werewolf movie. Except, even then, it'd probably be terrible, unless I wrote the script, directed the acting and cinematography, and led the special effects team.

Hey, remember this post? Way back in early 2006? Well, I have more exciting news for all you blog readers! It's sure to knock your socks off the sheer amount of... awesomeness. (I guess.) Pretty shocking that the crazy guy let his domain name expire, and then had some squatters pick it up, only to eventually let it go, too. Just think! This site has no monetary value whatsoever! Anyway, without further ado:

EDRICK HAS A NEW BLOG!!!!!!!!!!! VISIT IT HERE!

*throws a bunch of confetti (and enough animated GIFs to crash Firefox) around*

Ignore the creepy laughing cow at the beginning. Enjoy the greatest song to ever grace our overpopulated airwaves! Ahh... This was waaay back with the original classic Sesame Street. None of this stupid screaming Elmo junk... Pfft. Children's programming is horrible these days.

So some dude from Michigan posted a story to Digg around a month ago, stating that someone had stolen his $2000 Sony HD video camera, that he knew who did it, and that he'd gone to the police and that they're not doing anything about it. (What a shocker.) I guess he only posted a YouTube video about it, which is down now, so I can't actually hear what he had to say anymore. He wasn't getting any help from officials, so he decided to post the alleged robber's telephone number on Digg so the multitudes of bored, low-integrity geeks could harass the person as they saw fit.

The first time I heard about this was when I saw his SECOND post to Digg only a couple days ago, saying that he's been slapped with a felony for posting that telephone number. Right, so apparently, it's a felony to post someone's telephone number that results with them being contacted more than twice without their consent, despite the fact that telephones are... you know... listed publically in books and websites around the country. I'll bet Google doesn't know about this law, otherwise someone could try to cash in on some serious money.

Then today, this article reaches Digg. A nice unbiased (hahahaha) article about how the woman who allegedly stole the camera is being needlessly traumatized by the hordes of internet folks. How she's living in constant fear due to the actions of a crazy man. Good ol' unbiased news.

I'm not going to make any judgment about what's transpired, but I will make a few notes.

1. The man called the police department, his multiple insurance agencies and generally seemed to exhaust all official avenues for getting his property back, or at least the value of the property back. All around, he gets ignored or simply told that they won't help him. The police told him that they're not in the business of recovering stolen property... Okay... So what ARE you there for?
2. The woman was living with the man at the time of the camera being stolen. Really bad idea... Because stuff like this can happen. It's pretty much generally a really bad idea to live together like that when you're not married anyway.
3. It's a felony to post someone's telephone number and then have them be contacted more than twice without their consent. Can anyone say "DUMB LAW?" This is the state, though, that wanted to give all first-year college students free iPods for educational purposes, so I can't say I'm really surprised, but this guy might be going to prison simply because he posted a telephone number that's probably listed in so many places already. The person could have called her phone company and had the number changed if it was so "traumatizing". But, nah. The theft report is being ignored, but this guy is going to prison for posting a phone number. (Which I don't think I would ever do. I think it was pretty lame to post her phone number on Digg, but I also don't think it should be a "serious crime".)
4. Now the real news is picking up the story and spinning the entire event in the theft suspect's favor. I wasn't surprised about that, either. They probably saw a chance to report on a woman being harassed through the internet and decided to sensationalise the entire thing out the wazoo.

So let this be a lesson to ya'. Don't live with the opposite gender, and, if you do so anyway, don't make them angry, because they'll make your life miserable. It is interesting to read all the articles and blog posts, though. The guy's got some interesting evidence supporting the fact that he had really been stolen from, with some links to a couple of selling sites where his camera showed up under her usernames. (She denied it, of course.)

Anyway... Something to think about. I think I'll file this under politics, because what caught my eye was that horrible felony law.