Category Archives: General

General

I Got Scammed Today!!

That's right – someone thought they could scam me a bunch of money!!

Here's the deal:

I posted the pump toilet that I original bought for the basement (but can't use) online with hopes that someone would buy it. At first I didn't get any bites; then I got this message:

Hello Seller,
Am Susan Anthony and am highly interested in buying your item i will like to know the present condition of your itemt and if you still have it for sale, also the total amount you are willing to sell it kindly get back to me preferably my private email address which is *********** and i will get back to you with immediate effect.

Susan Anthony.

Thinking I had a legitimate buyer, I responded to her Facebook message giving her the price of the toilet and basically letting her know that it was still for her. That was a few days ago… this morning, I check my email book and find this:[@more@]

Thanks for the reply,

I am okay with details given on the unit, am ready to pay for the item,I will like you to know that am purchasing this for my client..The payment method will be by certified cashiers check drawn from a U.S bank.I have a shipping agent who will take good care of the shipment.The check that will be send to you will include the shipping fee,all you need to do is to get the check deposited at your bank after the check have fully cleared your bank,deduct your item fee and you will send the remaining funds through western union money transfer to the shipping agent information that will be provided for you later on due course of this transaction..Hope i can trust you with this funds?If you are okay with the following terms,i will like you to kindly get back to me with your FULL NAME AND CONTACT ADDRESS INCLUDING YOUR MOBILE PHONE NUMBER WITH THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU ARE WILLING TO SELL YOUR ITEM for the immediate payment issuance.

Hope to read from you today.

Susan Anthony.

Did you get it? It took me a bit as at first I was giving "her" the benefit of the doubt.

Here's the breakdown:

  1. "purchasing this for my client" – red flag number one. If the buyer had the money to pay for an agent, they would be buying a brand new toilet. I'm not giving that much of a discount.
  2. "drawn from a U.S bank" – what? Your international?! BIG flag…
  3. "include the shipping fee" – this wouldn't be so bad except that the add said that the buyer is responsible for shipping, not me.
  4. "check have fully cleared your bank" – this phrase is thrown in to try to but the victim at ease. After all, if your bank cleared the check it must be good, right? WRONG!! It talks weeks to fully process a check – by that time, you have already been scammed.
  5. "send the remaining funds through western union money transfer" – HUGE flag!! Never act as an intermediate person for money transfers! The buyer should be the one to wire money to the shipping agent – not you (or me, in this case).
  6. "Hope i can trust you with this funds" – the scammer is appealing to your sense of trust and heart.

How the scam works:

  • The scammer sends you a bogus cashier check.
  • You cash it at your bank.
  • Since you trust the "buyer" and you want to move your item, you wire some of the funds to the "shipping agency" – keeping part of the cash for yourself.
  • The "shipping agency" never connects you for the item the "buyer" bought
  • The bank comes back in a week or so with the information that the cashier check was bogus.
  • The bank wants their money back…only you don't have it any more.
  • You have to pay the bank back for the bogus check that you past.
  • The scammer get's away with your money.

A TOTAL SCAM!!!

And someone tried it on me!! That's so awesome!!! I've never had anyone do this before!! It's kind of cool. Smile

Ok, I'm strange. Tongue out

Just remember, don't send out any money nor given out your personal information. Play it safe.

General, Theology Thoughts

Christianity without Christ

Sound crazy right? But not to Canadian pastor Gretta Vosper. She part of a "Christ-less Christian theology" movement:

Vosper’s Christianity…[is] a sort of next step (the final step?) in a progression to build up a church without “a god,” Jesus, any traditions or catechism or moral absolutes. It’s already common among American youth; 61 percent of respondents to this 2007 LifeWay Research survey said the God of the Bible is “no different from the gods or spiritual beings” of other world religions. [worldontheweb.com]

This is just one more step into folks trying to turn the "church" into a social gathering. It is because of this that the true church (ie. those who have made a personal decision to follow JC; those with a relationship and not a 'religion') needs to step up and be the Bride of Christ. [@more@]

For too long we (the greater church) have sat back in our little "Christian" houses, read our "Christian" books, listened to our "Christian" music, watched our "Christian" TV and films, and did our "Christian" duty – all without doing crap!!

Let's stop throwing rocks over the wall and start living our faith. Jesus only gave us seven commandments – let's do them!!

  1. Love God with all of our being
  2. Love others
  3. Heal the sick
  4. Cleanse leapers
  5. Raise the dead
  6. Cast out demons
  7. Proclaim the Kingdom of God

Yeah – there's only seven. It's not that hard. Let us do what the Father does.

General

FireFox Warnings

If you're running FireFox (and I hope you are), please note that hackers are turning their attention towards us. This is one of those dubious awards that you really don't want, even those you want it…  In other words, FireFox is becoming a big enough player in the market that the bad guys are starting to target it.  *sigh*

The good news is that Mozilla has released patches for all five security holes. All you need to do is download the newest version of FireFox (2.0.0.13) and you're good to go. Get it here.

Safari isn't safe either… hackers found 13 holes in it for the Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Windows Vista operating systems. The solution: check for updates. Safari 3.1 fixes everything.

If you're still running IE – I'm sorry. That's the worse browser out there – bar none. Join the revolution; run FireFox.

General

A test of eight green bathroom-cleaning products

Let’s face it; bathrooms can be the most tricky and most dirty room to clean, but they don’t have to be with the right products. For example, there are several tried and tested cleaning products that are loved by commercial cleaning companies all over the world. In case you were not already aware phs Direct are the UK leader of commercial cleaning supplies and you can find plenty of commercial-grade cleaning products by taking a look at some of the resources on their website.

Ultimately, there is no denying that the cleaning products and tools you use can make a huge difference. For instance, floors are easily cleaned with a steam cleaner for tile floors and bleach is loved for the bathroom. However, the real question is… Pure Baking Soda? Bon Ami Polishing Cleanser? 20 Mule Team Borax? Or some other green cleaning product? Which products are best?

Sarah van Schagen of Grist.org decided to help us out and put eight green bathroom-cleaning products to the test. I picked a random three to share. Check out the full article to see all eight.

Pure Baking Soda

16 oz. powder, $1.15
Eco-claims: Safe, effective cleaning and deodorizing
Ingredients: Sodium bicarbonate (an antacid)
Cleaning instructions: Sprinkle baking soda on a damp sponge or cloth for cleaning of all countertops, appliances, metal cabinets, and tile. For the latter, you may wish to contact a Charlottesville tile cleaner to make sure this is the most suitable form of cleaning tiles.
Smell: No scent. At all.
Elbow grease required: elbow injury imminent
Resulting sparkle: a glint

Buy one little box of this stuff and you’re set for litterbox odor control, tooth whitening, laundry, household cleaning, minor skin irritations, fridge freshening, and upset stomachs — not to mention baking, of course! It was a little messy sprinkling the powder onto the damp sponge, and I had to reapply it a number of times, but the baking soda’s grit did get some of the grime out. This one required a lot of elbow grease though — for not as much return as some of the other products.

[@more@]Bon Ami Polishing Cleanser

14 oz. powder, $1.29
Eco-claims: No chlorine, perfume, or dye; contains no phosphorus; biodegradable
Ingredients: Calcium carbonate
Cleaning instructions: Wet surface. Sprinkle on Bon Ami. Rub with wet sponge or cloth.
Smell: Slight flour-y scent, though hardly noticeable
Elbow grease required: scrub-a-dub and then some
Resulting sparkle: ooh! shiny

The holes at the top of this cylindrical container are grouped in the center, which made for messy pouring onto the sponge — meaning I had to clean twice (once on the tile, and once on the floor where I spilled). The upside, though, is that this stuff has barely a scent and barely an ingredient — so by default, there’s no ooky stuff inside. It required some elbow grease, but did a pretty good job cleaning off the muck.

20 Mule Team Borax

4 lbs. 12 oz. powder, $4.49
Eco-claims: Does not contain phosphates or chlorine; safe for septic tanks
Ingredients: sodium tetraborate decahydrate (a chemical compound and mineral)
Cleaning instructions: Sprinkle on damp sponge or cloth and wipe.
Smell: Almost none — a very slight soapy scent
Elbow grease required: a little scrub’ll do ya
Resulting sparkle: blinding bling

Sign me up to be on Team Borax … aside from the messiness of it being a powder and the big, heavy box, this product was amazing! I tested it because you readers recommended it, and I have to say — y’all know what you’re talking about. Using Borax, I was able to get the shower twice as clean in half the time — almost no effort for a sparkling clean. I’m a convert! Next up: washing those soiled t-shirts in this stuff.

General

Prayer Request – Yeah, One of those…

Some of you know that I have been fighting a crazy strep throat bug. Well, it's still hanging on – like a Japanese warrior in Guam.

It is getting to the point that my doctor has referred me to a throat specialist. Sounds scary…. =/

If you guys could drop a prayer up to the Big Man for me, it would rock. I need my energy now more then ever as I prepare for Paraguay, lead LTTG, and work a day job…  

Onward and upward – one step at a time.

General

Biofuels – the good, the bad and the ugly

With the 2007 ethanol law, biofuels hit the mainstream – in a way… The problem with this seemly environmental friendly law is that it is taking corn away from food producers to fuel vehicles (ie. ethanol). With the UN reporting a 37% in global food prices, this is the bad part of biofuels.

"Poor people may spend 80 to 90 percent of their household income on food." – Ford Runge, Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul (nationalgeographic.com)

In addition, there has been a recent study that mentioned that the growth of biofuels may accelerate global warming. Sounds far fetched? Well, it seems people are clearing forests or grasslands grow crops for biofuels. These forests and grasslands remove more carbon dioxide from the air then the biofuel crops prevent over their lifetime. This is the ugly.

Now for the good.

There is more then one biofuel crop – say, Jatropha curcas. This unpronounceable plant is a shrub / tree whose seeds contain 30 to 40% oil. Oil – that can be used to make biofuels for your car.

Wait. It gets better.

The residue from the crushed seeds can be used as "organic fertilizer or be burnt for power generation."

[@more@]Then there is the cool fact that the jatropha is drought-resistant. This means that it can be grown on "primarily on nonagricultural or marginal land in Africa and India."

"We're reforesting areas which were really barren and where the local people had a difficulty making a living before." -Lord Ronald Oxburgh, head of D1 Oils (nationalgeographic.com)

Of course, there are some questions concerning jatropha like the long-term impact of a non-native plant… but overall, I like the sound of the jatropha curcas.

We shall see.

General

"The Universe Is Out To Get You"

As quoted from my wife's mouth this morning. Yelp – my sweet, loving, caring, wonderful wife told me that the "universe is out to get" me.  Makes you wonder, don't it? Undecided

Did I marry an axe murder? Or someone who is tune with the ways of the universe?  I tend to lean towards the latter as the facts supports her loving ways:

  • Four days ago I replaced our snow tires with street tires
  • Three days ago I moved the car out of the garage for a time so I could use the space for sheetrock and motorcycle repair
  • Yesterday I washed the car, removing months of road grime

Today – today, it snowed.  Surprised

That's right, it snowed. Not small flakes. Big, huge flakes that covered the earth.

Did I mention that my street tires are mostly bald?  Undecided

It's so stereotypically that it's funny.[@more@]
Yet, as my bride reminded me, the universe forgot about the 50 or so English muffins in the freezer. No – I don't like English muffins. We just like to keep the freezer full. 

If you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sell…

The Universe also forgot to about the Little Bit of Sunlight pouring through the clouds.  

I won a book. About a lady longing to have a sizzling affair…. with her husband. It sounded like a good book to have at the house. Innocent

Searching for Spice by Megan DiMaria – read the review with A Little Bit of Sunlight

I just love making puns with that blog name. Yes – their bad puns. But Steve isn't here…. Tongue out

Current Events, General

Robot Dinner?

Forget roller-skates or drive through windows. The Germans have created a restaurant with no servers – except gravity. Yelp. Gravity. They took old Newton's apple and created a suckling pig and carp dinner plate.

The tracks run all the way from the kitchen, high up in the roof, down to the tables, twisting and turning as they go. And down the tracks – in little pots with wheels fixed to the bottom – speeds food….One pot is spiralling down so fast, it looks like an Olympic bobsleigh (but it's only Bratwurst).

To further save cost and efficiently, customers at 's Baggers order using a flat screen monitor. Free email and text messaging allows while you wait…..

I guess it's all well in good – and kinda cool, as long as the bratwurst doesn't go airborne.. Undecided

In the end, I only have one question: will the restaurant doors carry this sign?[@more@] 

 

General

Iconic Images and Legos

Some of the world most iconic images have been re-created using Legos – yes, Legos.  You know, the little building blocks you played with as a kid?

The cool part is that Mike Stimpson, the UK man who reconstructed the images, did an amazing job!!  While I posted a few of my favorites below, you can see all of them at his flickr website or read about them at News.com.au.

The Lego Version:

 

The Original (by Charles C. Ebbets in 1932):

 [@more@]The Lego Version:

 

 The Original (Marc Riboud's famous 1967 photograph taken at an anti-Vietnam protest in Washington):

 

The Lego Version:

 The Original (Jeff Widener's 1989 photograph of "The unknown rebel"):