Go Ahead and Back Up! Protect Your Precious WordPress Files…

“Not long ago, when there were men on the bottling lines, this sort of thing didn’t happen!”

(The first lucky duck that can name the movie that line was quoted from gets a hats off and a virtual beer basket in their gmail  )

Recently my friend JD from I Do Things had her blog hacked by some loser, possibly one sporting a mullet and with a serious brain worm infestation. Fortunately,  JD was able to restore her site with relative ease. She warned us to make plenty of WordPress backups and upgrade our WordPress files. Some of her readers went so far as to make backups of their backups.

I took these prudent steps forthwith, and then I started thinking about that poor lost soul who maliciously hacks and stabs deep into the hearts of innocent files, corruptifying them and rendering them useless and unrecognizable. He (or she) obviously cares little for those files, viewing them as merely things to be manipulated. Does this modern mullet sporter have no shame? Are the brain worms in control now?

I think this dismisbegotten file crusher doesn’t play well with others. Probably not enough love as a child. Maybe Santa brought him a Brite Lite instead of the Operation Game. It could be his hampster’s upscale home was replaced with low income housing. Maybe he was chased about the house by an older sibling who was wearing Finger Forks, and yelling ” I’m Freddy Krueger, welcome to my nightmare!” This person obviously has little in common with a certified ethical hacker.

Whatever his problem is, I don’t understand the motivation for blog vandalization. He (or she) needs to chill out, crack open a Blue Beaver Beer and play some World of Warcraft or something. Or even better, get a life and for gosh darn sakes, get rid of the freakin’ mullet! An oh, yeah, if you need to borrow my ginormous tweezers to remove those brain worms, I have ‘em right here behind the bar.

November 27, 2008 | | Tags: , , , , , | 24 Comments »

Spam-a-Lam-a-Ding-Dong – Spametry Lives On

The Spam-Master giggled insanely as he fed keywords into his Spametrater Deluxe program, rubbing his hands together with glee. “This time I’ll make millions. Millions! Bow down before me, innocent bloggers! I will torment you for all eternity! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Spam is like mosquitoes. Annoying, frustrating, yet you can live with the bastards by crushing them with your mighty Akismet covered Fist of Justice. You never get back all the time you waste hunting down the buzzing little menaces and squashing them like easily squashable things, though. All you get is the amusement and amazement at the contents of the spametry.

Some of it is downright unpleasant. I hesitate to even get into what these foul minded spamheads come up with, and I won’t gross you out by reprinting their mind excrement. Unfortunately, there are those out there looking for what they have, but that’s another story. Some of it is confusing. And some of it is ridiculous, like this one:

to: Admin – If You want to delete your site from my spam list, please sent url of your domain to my e-mail: blah blah blah (removed by me for security reasons)
And I will remove your site from my base within 24 hours
webmastegz

I just don’t get this one. The guy is basically saying, “I’m the a$$hole who sends you all this spammy $hit. You probably are enjoying it immensely and want to thank me. But if by some chance you find it inappropriate, rude or bothersome, simply email me and I will stop forthwith!” If you actually answer the email, he most likely sells your email address on the open market, with Sucker in big letters beside it.

A while back we celebrated how We Finally Made it to 1000 Akismet crushed false comments. Now, we are up to over 14,000 spamtastic comments deleted! And once, I published a little Spametry (yes, that is a word!),compiled from bits I scraped out of the ‘ole Akismet dumpster. I thought I’d pick a few more pieces for everyone’s perusal. Enjoy!

Elizabeth had pretending madness erased
Brock said the deathbed urges him
Witted with and whored
Settler named and crushed grim promise
Duchess were more spectacula
This became but suspicion, as John sipped his followers.

November 16, 2008 | | Tags: , , , | 27 Comments »

How’s About Some Broccoli Bacon Salad?

I have had a few customers asking me, “Where’s Ernie? Who is this biker dude you have cooking in the back? Is Ernie gone for good?” And lately, I have been getting phone calls from concerned patrons who haven’t seen me lately either. Life has been more complicated for me, and less complicated for Ernie, so pull up a stump and I’ll let you in on our whereabouts.

Ernie has gone on hiatus indefinitely. He decided he needed a big change in his life, and went to live at a wilderness retreat in the Forest of Ubangme with no power, running water or internet. The only modern convenience he will have is a weekly shipment of Blue Beaver Beer, to be delivered by horse drawn wagon. I was sad to see him go, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. I told him he’s going to have to hike out and borrow the forest ranger’s laptop once a month or so and let us know how it is going out there.

Ernie whipped up a batch of salad before he left, and it was spectacular. Not quite to die for, but certainly all that and a bag of chips. Bacon and broccoli salad, with a tangy Balsamic tomato vinaigrette dressing.We had a little gathering at The Redneck to send him off, and his salad was a big hit. Apparently it is a great cure for yeast infection in dogs, although that’s just a rumour from Old Man karhoffer. I tend to let sleeping yeast infected dogs lie.

About this same time, I realized that my credit card debt was way out of control. According to my credit reports, I was headed for a major disaster. I have been frantically trying to keep up with all the Blue Beaver Beer Basket orders by purchasing on my mastercard. Now, it seems the card is indeed the master. In need of a quick fix, I took a job working away from home to make extra money on a major pipeline near the Alberta Saskatchewan border. I will be out here for a total of 60 days, working 11 hours a day. Hefty workload, but I’ll be out of debt in no time.

Meanwhile, some of you might be thinking, what the heck is going on down at The Redneck Bar and Grill? Is the place boarded up, with a couple hobos lighting fires on the floor and drinking all the beer? Of course not! Our buddy Robert Jones is working behind the bar. We found a cook to take Ernie’s place, and our waitress Jackie can handle most of you rowdies out there. I’ll be stopping by online to keep an eye on things. If you stop by, have a Blue Beaver for me!

November 13, 2008 | | Tags: , , , , , , | 21 Comments »