So I got a new bike today

Rode it home from the store. It goes alright, has quite low gearing at the start, but once its going its fine.

Gonna go for a longer ride tomorrow, will see how I go.

So I’ve been to three shows so far from the Comedy Festival.

I saw Tom Gleeson – very refreshing. In the past, he’s used the same material, but this time, it was excellent. Almost all new material and I was laughing through the whole show.

Last night, I saw Dave Jorey in his show “Dave Jorey Likes Cats” and Daniel Townes.

Daniel Townes was excellent, he is the best comedian I’ve seen. I’ve seen him about 5 or 6 times in total now, mostly in Sydney, but last year and again this year at the comedy festival.

Its great – his material is great.

I hope I can still see Nick Sun, might take my sister to see Daniel Townes again.

Malaysian Satay chicken with vegies and noodles. Quite good, huge serve for $9.

So the score is:

Tom: 1
Spammers: > 1

So, we’ve been getting hammered by spam, bigtime. More and more users picking up what seems to be a virus or trojan and they’re spamming like crazy.

Its been in the news that Psyb0t was out there, but hey, it didn’t say anything about spamming, so, we didn’t entertain it too much as being the cause. When customers who only have Macs turned them off and were still spamming, it meant there had to be something else or the user was lying.

I did a portscan of one “infected” user:

Not shown: 1671 closed ports

PORT      STATE    SERVICE
21/tcp    open     ftp
22/tcp    open     ssh
23/tcp    open     telnet
32/tcp    filtered unknown
80/tcp    open     http
135/tcp   filtered msrpc
445/tcp   filtered microsoft-ds
12345/tcp filtered NetBus
54320/tcp filtered bo2k

What the hell? Port 32? Cannot telnet to port 32, it seems filtered. I tried to remove the block from this customer and tried to telnet to port 32.

# telnet <infected IP> 32
Trying <infected IP>…
Connected to <infected IP>.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
220 mailproxy1 ESMTP Gday mate
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.

Shit, thats our mail server. Wait, port 80, 23, 22 are also open and thats all going to the customers NB5 modem, dammit.

So it seems these modems have been picked up by Psyb0t and the psyb0t botnet. Waiting in IRC channels for commands, in this case, the modem has been running a DNAT rule to be a mailproxy, allowing the spammer to relay through us, coz hey, we trust our users.

So we’ve shut down the impacted users but we’re still getting hit. After I blocked the bad ones, the spammers picked one who hadn’t been detected yet and spammed hard. 30,000+ messages an hour. Pricks.

Anyway – We’ve won this battle and this botnet is going down.

I really hate spam.

Some changes done, we’ll see how they perform. I hate backscatter also.

Going to work on a Nagios plugin to check delivery to remote hosts.

Thailand government calls state of emergency

“THAI protesters seized at least one army tank deployed to enforce a state of emergency in Bangkok.

“The protest has spread to many parts of Bangkok. Protesters have seized tanks and armoured cars,” Major General Suporn Phansua, spokesman for Bangkok Metropolitan Police, told AFP.

He added they were still tallying up how many had been taken by protesters.

Minutes earlier protest leader Hweng Tojirakarn announced to supporters outside government offices that the group had taken two tanks and one armoured car in the heart of Bangkok’s shopping district.

Authorities have declared a state of emergency across the capital and surrounding areas, state television announced, following political protests that closed a regional summit.

Earlier police arrested the leader of anti-government protesters who stormed the ASEAN summit, forcing it to be cancelled.”

The Thai better sort it out before I go there in November! I don’t want to be stuck in Thailand or have to cancel my tavel!

Having a look at Smart Traveller, the Australian Government initative for information regarding travel for Australians overseas has the level as “High Degree of Caution” for travel to Thailand, with a note:

“We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution because of the high threat of terrorist attack and because of political instability in Thailand.

A State of Emergency was declared in Bangkok and surrounding provinces on 12 April 2009. The duration of the State of Emergency is not yet known. The State of Emergency bans the gathering of more than five people. The military may become involved in enforcing the decree.“

Damn, this government has only been in power for 4 months or so, they better hurry and stabilise things before I get there!

After discussing with Krudboy on favorite albums while dining at the Shot Tower Steakhouse,  I’ve been thinking about my favorite Albums.

According to my Last.fm, my favorite albums are:

All – Problematic

Goldfinger – Hang-Ups

Goldfinger – Disconnection Notice

Kisschasy – United Paper People

All – Mass Nerder

Now, this may be the case in terms of how much I listen to which has been tagged, but I dont think these Albums have the most importance to me and how I came to like the music I do.

Music Growth:

The first album: Greenday – Dookie

Now, as far as I can remember, this it the first album that I bought. Greenday were rather popular at the time and I was getting into the alternative music (started listening to Triple J).

Basket Case & Welcome to Paradise huge hits from this album. You still hear Basket Case now on commercial radio quite often!

This form of pop-punk eased me into the Genre. I haven’t actually listened to this album in quite a while and while I still appreachiate it, I wouldn’t enjoy it as much. Its still very important though for my music growth.

And Then There Was:  Pennywise – Full Circle

Now, I don’t actually remember how I got into this album, but just that I loved it. It was played constantly on my CD player, I would fall asleep listening to it.

After buying this album, I got heavy into Pennywise. I bought Straight Ahead, About Time, Unkown Road, Pennywise & Land of the Free?

Alien was a huge hit on the radio (Triple J) from Straight Ahead. Their cover of Land Down Under rocked on it also, but Full Circle is the better album.

I got a Pennywise t-shirt and wore it to school on most ever uniform free day. The other kids at school only went into punk as far as The Offspring or Greenday and teased me for being so into this band that no one knew; they were the ones missing out.

What If I? is my favorite song off the album. The album is dedicated to Jason Matthew Thirsk, who commited suicide, and finishes with a piano peice played after “bro hymn.”

Who’s that band?: NOFX – So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes.

I came to know the music of NOFX, the song “Monosyllabic Girl” because one of my friends had it on his MP3 Player (with 32mb of stroage!). This song got my hooked with its catchy tune and lyrics (and 1 minute length). Perfect for a late 90′s MP3 player.

I borrowed their album “White Trash, Two Heebs & A Bean” from a friend, it was cool, but not as cool as So Long.

The album is named after two things:

1) Douglas Adam’s Book – “So Long And Thanks For All The Fish” Fourth book from the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy.

2) Shoes. They get thrown at them a lot at shows.

I got really hooked to NOFX on this album and downloaded ones I couldn’t find the the record stores. This album is still one of their best. Punk Rock in french is just cool. Oh, ska is kinda cool too.

Oh god, he’s got a girlfriend now: The Ataris – Blue Skies, Broken Hearts… Next 12 Exits.

Ok, its true. I had a girlfriend. That girl actually loved The Ataris, but I got into them because I heard them on the radio (quite funny considering the ataris sing about how much the radio sucks). This song is pretty much all about love songs.

“I Won’t Spend Another Night Alone” & “Your Boyfriend Sucks” are still favorites till now. Infact, this is one album I can always listen to. Every song on it is great.

I actually bought “End is Forever” first, my girlfriend had 12 Skies, but wouldn’t let me borrow it, so I always listened to it at her place.

I still listen to this album all the time.

They’re not Emo!: Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American

I got this album almost straight after it was released and after hearing “Bleed American” on the radio. My girlfriend at the time loved this album.

I stopped listening to it for ages, then got their album “futures” after much hesitation. I loved that album also. I also bought “Chase this light”, but it took some time to get warmed into.

This album is still my favorite of the three Jimmy Eat World albums I own. Songs, “A Praise Chorus”,  “Sweetness”, “Cautioners” & “The Authority Song” are my favorites. If my iPod supported scrobbling, you’d see “The Authoirty Song” waaaay up there. (Honesty or Mystery, tell me, I’m not scared any more. I don’t seem obvious do I?)

A lot of people say they’re emo, the people that say that don’t understand music.

—–

So that’s it. My current music taste has changed a bit, but following some progression.  Last fm’s stats dont seem to capture every play, so I think the results could be a bit off.

Thats not to say I dont love All, I do, they’re one of my favorite bands, along with the descendents, but I’ve only liked them recently. Infact, I discovered the descendents by listening to The Ataris – Song For A Mix Tape (it has silly girl playing at the start) and another NOFX song has the lyric “the first time I saw the Descendents, they were the fastest band i’ve ever seen. No one in the crowd really cared for them, we were waiting for the Alley Cats to play. After a couple of months I heard “Kabuki Girl”, on Radney on the Raw one sunday night. That was enough for me I hopped the bus to Licorish Pizza and bought my all time favorite record”.  So I bought ‘Milo Goes to College’ and it is also one of my all time favorite records.

Super Mario defence: Mario has gotten hold of Bowsers duplicator machine and is duplicating himself to build an army against Bowser’s castle!

You must defend Bowser’s castle.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/490081

One of my favorite places to dine is Hong Kong Best Food Cafe, on Carrington road.

The serves are redicilious, way more than I can usually eat and costs under $10.  My favorite is a Beef Hor Fun (pictured below).

Service is usually quick, best to go with someone speaking cantonese for speedy service.