Yahoo account hacked

My Yahoo email account (which had what I considered a fairly strong password, with having both letters and numbers and being longer than eight characters) got hacked today by a spammer, who then scanned my contacts and started furiously sending links to NSFW merchandise and dodgy pharmaceutical sites. The account now has a new password and the contacts list has been completely cleared out. Fortunately, I avoided spamming our ALL-WORK email lists by the grace of God and LISTSERV-required confirmation before sending (said confirmation was not granted.) The embarassment factor was high, our security officer was calling, and I’ve now gotten the chance to re-connect with some old aquaintences whom I haven’t talked with in a while.

His and Hers Pumpkins

La and I carved our pumpkins last night.

Moved to a new home.

I’ve been futzing on and off with my home-based WordPress blog for a while now, as I started having a number of speed issues with PHP. Since WordPress offers free space, I decided to make the move over to their digs. My new address (if you’re still using the old
http://www.taomechworks.net/blog
address) is
http://derflounder.wordpress.com

My good deed of the day – re-registering the family on the National Do Not Call list.

With the news that it was time to re-up my phone numbers on the National Do Not Call list today, I decided to go ahead and re-register my immediate family as well:

Everyone’s home and mobile phone should now be taken care of, God willing.

Only time I’ve ever seen one of these….

Yup, it’s a Pringles vending machine. I’ve never seen another one, anywhere else in my travels throughout the United States and Europe.

Heading to WWDC 2007.

As I have done every summer since 2004, I’m getting ready this week to pack up and head out for Apple’s WWDC conference in beautiful San Francisco. Anybody wants to look me up, I’ll be one of the people with the red MacBook Pro.

ACSA!

I unexpectedly passed Apple’s Directory Services Integration and Administration v10.4 Exam this past weekend. That exam, combined with the Security Best Practices v10.4 Exam that I had passed earlier, gave me seven credits or enough credits to get my Apple Certified Systems Administrator certification.

I say “unexpected” because I hadn’t really expected to pass. I hadn’t studied for it, and I was using a voucher for a free exam that I’d received from the Apple Certification Alliance in exchange for filling out a long survey. Essentially, I was going to use this voucher for a cost-free practice exam, where I could figure out what was going to be on the exam and study accordingly. Then, after studying, I’d retake the test and pass it. Instead, surprise! Passed it on the first go.

It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least. I’ve been working towards this certification for the past couple of years, and now I’ve achieved it. I’ll be one of 14 listed ACSAs in Maryland and one of only 28 in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Brazil vs Argentina in pictures.

Before a recent soccer match between Argentina and Brazil (an archrivalry), an Argentinean condom company posted an ad to let the Brazilians know what will presumably happen to them at the upcoming bout. The ad’s mildly NSFW, so I’m posting it below the jump.

First snowfall of winter

It looks like the DC area’s getting its first snow of the winter season. I’m glad, it was weird to go so far into winter without any snow at all.

Watching my cat sleep.

Josie likes to nest when she sleeps. I don’t know if all cats do this, but she definitely likes to find something soft and warm that she can curl up in. La and I have taken to arranging blankets on the couches just for her.

She also likes to be near one or both of us, if she can, while she sleeps. Tonight’s a good example. She’s curled up in a bedsheet that came out of the laundry, about two feet away from where I’m sitting and composing this entry. I’m sure that when I finally pack it in for the night and turn off the lights, she’ll wake up and eventually follow me up to bed. She may not sleep on our bed (she’s unpredictable like that) but if I get up in the middle of the night I know I’ll find her either on our bed or curled up somewhere on our bedroom floor.

I never had a cat before. I don’t know how I got along before without her.