April 2006 Archives

Here are the photos I took from Kelly and Christopher's Engagement party at our house on April 29, 2006. 

Ah, those spammers and scammers never give up, do they?  I just got another scam email today telling me I'd won 300,000 euros in a lottery of Internet users.  Here's the letter:

FROM: MR.MARK PINTO, 'e_eulotto22@virgilio.it'
Date: Tue, Apr 25, 2006 5:16 am

FROM: MR.MARK PINTO,

E.U LOTTERY ONLINE.
LOTTERY AND GAMING
CORPORATION,

MONTH OF APRIL LOTTERY,

WINNING NUMBER: FLO-06315369

DEAR WINNER,

YOU WON THE SUM OF (THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND EUROS) FROM E.
U LOTTERY AND GAMING CORPORATION. THE WINNING TICKET WAS SELECTED FROM A DATA BASE OF INTERNET E-MAIL USERS, WHICH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS WAS ONE OF THE WINNER OF THE PRIZE AMOUNT,

WE THEREBY CONTACT YOU TO CLAIM  YOUR WINNING AMOUNT QUICKLY AS THIS IS A MONTHLY LOTTERY. FAILURE TO CLAIM YOUR WIN WILL RESULT INTO THE REVERSION OF THE WINNING SUM TO OUR FOLLOWING MONTH LOTTERY. PLEASE CONTACT OUR APPROVED AGENT FOR THE
CLAIM AND TRANSFER OF YOUR WINNING PRIZE TO YOUR NOMINATED ACCOUNT.

E.U LOTTERY ONLINE AGENCY.
MISS. LILLIAN MORGAN.
DIRECTOR OF WINNING
CLAIMS DEPARTMENT.
TEL: 31-623-868-256
Fax- +31-84-757-0390
Email:
eulotteryagent11@netscape.net

REGARDS,
MR. MARK PINTO.
DIRECTOR OF E.
U LOTTERY ONLINE.

If you're not looking at this and already saying to yourself that this is obviously a scam, let's take a closer look at it, shall we?  Here's what we see in a very cursory scan:

• As is typical of spam and scam emails, the return address on this message ("e_eulotto22@virgilio.it") doesn't match up to the address they want me to use to contact them ("eulotteryagent11@netscape.net").  The address they want me to use is a free Netscape email address, which seems very dubious for any kind of business to use to contact someone.
  
• Next, this thing is done almost entirely in capital letters. I've never received a professional email that is all caps, so that makes me pretty suspicious of this already.  The line breaks are also in weird places, which looks highly unprofessional.
  
• A quick Google search of "Mr. Mark Pinto" shows that a LOT of people have gotten these emails, word for word.  If this is really a lottery, you'd think there wouldn't be that many winners out there.
  
• A Google search of the "eulotteryagent11@netscape.net" address turns up that this is an address blacklisted by anti-Spam software.  This, by itself, should be reason enough for you to doubt that the message is genuine.
  
• Then, of course, there's the question "If this is a real lottery, what is this company getting from me?"  For instance, you play your state lottery, your state got money from you in exchange for a chance to win more money.  In a contest sponsored by a major corporation, you've usually had to look at advertising, agree to receive some promotional email, watch a video, etc., to be entered.  These guys are claiming you won simply because you're an Internet user.  Does that seem even remotely likely?
  
• Last, but not least, I looked up "www.virgilo.it", the site where our Mr. Pinto's return address is allegedly located.  It's an Internet portal site, in Italian, which looks to me like another free email provider.  If this contest collects enough money to be able to give out 300,000 euros a month, you'd think they could afford their own email server so that they and their agents could use a REAL return address.

I got a new twist on the old "Nigerian scam" email today. This one claims to be from a soldier in Iraq who's captured money and wants to get it out of the country. He claims you'll get 20% of the $20 million they've got. What you'll really get is scammed out of everything they can get.

It's at this point that I usually go into the reasons why I know this is a scam, but let's start with a different tactic this time. Let's pretend for a moment that this message was real. First off, our "friend" Sgt. Williams Baker (Ever heard of anyone with the first name "Williams"? I haven't.) is supposed to turn over any money he confiscates from the Iraqis to his superiors.   If he didn't do that, he's in violation of military and probably international laws. If he's caught, he's going to prison for a very long time.  If you're part of his little scheme, you can be sure you're going to jail, too.   For that kind of cash, the U.S. government will go to great lengths to hunt you down and extradite you. Trust me, it ain't worth it! I'd say the odds are really good that this guy would be caught.

If you're not familiar with the old "Nigerian scam" it goes something like this. Someone claims to have tons of money that they need to get out of their country.  They need someone in the U.S. to help them get this money out of the country and somehow "legitimize" it. If you express an interest in helping them, they'll tell you they need you to set up an account somewhere. They'll suggest a particular bank and an amount to deposit in it. They'll offer to help set that account up for you if you mail/wire/PayPal/etc. the funds to them. Then they'll either disappear or come up with some other reason they need money, like paying the courier service, taxes, or something. If you stop sending money, they vanish. If you keep sending money, they keep asking for more until you eventually wise up or go broke. You'll never see that $20 million because it never existed. The scams are called "Nigerian scams"  because that's where they used to originate. Lately they're cropping up all over the world.

I'm a big fan of the User Friendly comic strip.  While it's a bit geeky for most folks, it usually manages to give me a good chuckle several times a week.  This Sunday's strip is no different:

I've been saying for YEARS to anyone who would listen that Rick Berman is the whole problem with Star Trek since Gene Roddenberry died.  I've heard him interviewed, publicly saying that Gene's vision of a future when mankind would evolve past greed, racism, and the like is a lame idea.  He may be right. We may not evolve beyond those things.  But we'd like to THINK that we will.  We'd like to see how much better life could be if we weren't petty, back-stabbig, scheming little monsters.  That's what Star Trek showed us... a future where the human race has gotten its collective act together and is helping others do the same.  It's what Star Trek hasn't been since Gene passed on.

I recently started playing "The DaVinci Code Quest on Google", which is a contest promoting the movie for Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" book. If you have a Google account and use their customized homepage, you can add the contest content to your Google homepage and become immediately aware of new puzzles when they become available.

If you haven't been playing the Da Vinci Code Quest on Google, don't worry. You can play all the previous puzzles you've missed, catching up immediately to today's puzzle.  Fortunately, you should be able to catch up pretty quick with all the Da Vinci Code Quest solutions on this page.

Update 05/15/2006:

Yes, folks, I did it! I'm in the final 10,000!  Here are some photos of my cryptex! 

Update 05/11/2006:

The puzzles and their answers/solutions are provided below.

Day 24 - The Final Observation Challenge:

The video of Sophie Neveu is shown and you are asked 3 questions, the answers to which are:

2 books were shown in the scene where they're reading together.

"so dark the con of man" was the phrase Langdon asked Sophie about.

"Madonna of the Rocks" is the picture's name that the above phrase unscrambles to.

{mosimage}

I think I made it into the final round, folks!  After I completed the last puzzle I was sent to a page where they asked for name, address, phone number, etc.  After I submitted it, I was told something along the lines of "congratulations, we'll be in touch".  Out of curiosity I went back a second time and it said that the contest was over.  If I do make it into the final round, I'll know May 18when they're supposed to have delivered the cryptex.  Naturally, if I do make it into that final round of 10,000 people, I'll tell you all about it here on the site... so please keep dropping by to check in with me - and wish me luck (unless of course I'm competing against you - in which case that's optional).

If you made it into the final stage, congratulations and good luck to you also!

Here are some photos I took while walking around Gifford Pinchot State Park lake with my father and my sister's Basset Hound "Jezebel"...  (If these interest you, you may also want to look at my photos of the Toboggan Run Rocks, also located in Gifford Pinchot State Park.)

Earlier this week I was in York County, Pennsylvania, visiting my parents. During the visit, my dad took my sister's Basset Hound (named "Jezebel" or "Jez" for short) to the lake at Gifford Pinchot State Park. As we walked around the park, we encountered the "Old Toboggan Run Rocks". The following sign appears on the hill below them:

In case your browser has images turned off or there is some sort of problem reading the above picture, it says "The trail to your right goes up to Toboggan Run Rocks. The toboggan run was built in 1963 and operated for five years. The lack of good wintery conditions prohibited the run from being used after 1968. The ramp was removed in 1973, but the concrete pillars that supported the run remain." Here is a shot of the concrete pillars the sign refers to:

This is what it looks like from the top of the run. I would imagine that you'd be going pretty darned fast by the time your toboggan reached the bottom of this run!

It seems amazing to me that there weren't enough "wintery conditions" in PA to make the run worthwhile during winter months.

Regardless, it's an interesting thing to encounter in the park.   I'll have some more photos from the park up later.

What is a Domain Name?

If you look at your web browser's address or location bar, you'll usually see in it a URL like "http://www.mikesalsbury.com" (the URL for this site). The "domain name" for this site is therefore "mikesalsbury.com". Since that domain name is already registered to me (and will be for some time), you can't register that one for your own site, even if your name happens to match mine. But you could register some other domain name that you like, such as "mike-s.com" if that's available. All that domain names really do is make it easier for human beings to remember the address of your web site.   Without domain names, we'd have to give people URLs like "199.205.42.113" to find our sites, which wouldn't be as easy to remember as "mikesalsbury.com" or "gamerhotsheet.com".

How Do You Get a Domain Name?

Getting a domain name is actually pretty easy. You find a company that has the authority to register domain names with one of the Internet authorities, pay them a small fee, and they'll register the name for you. This assumes that the name you want is not already registered to someone else.

Once you've registered a domain name, it's yours for at least one year. Some registrars allow you to register the domain name for several years in advance. Pricing can vary greatly. Some registrars will allow you to register a ".com" domain name for as little as $2.99. For example, Yahoo Small Business is currently allowing new customers to register domain names for $2.99 for the first year. GoDaddy.com offers domain registration for $1.99 if you purchase some other product, such as their web hosting services. A quick Internet search should reveal any number of registrars and prices.

The K. Hansotia Signature 101 cigar reviewed here is described as an "unbelievable new blend" by Cigars International.

The cigar's wrapper is a darker Costa Rican Maduro leaf. The filler blend was supposedly created by Mr. Hansotia himself for his own personal enjoyment. The filler contains Honduran, Dominican, and Jamaican long-leaf tobaccos. It's a fine-looking cigar, made a bit more special looking by the addition of its "signed" silver band.

The Hansotia Signature 101 lit very easily and burned very slowly and evenly to the end. It stayed lit quite well even as I moved about from task to task as I smoked it. If you smoke one of these, I recommend using a punch cutter or a "V" cutter rather than a straight slice across the head. The reason I suggest this is that the wrapper wanted to unravel after I sliced it.   I was able to prevent that from happening by moistening the end, but it did tend to want to still unravel a bit.

The flavor of the cigar to me had a strong chocolate note to it, more like cocoa powder or very dark chocolate than a Hershey bar. Although described as a complex and full-bodied flavor, all I could say that I picked up was the chocolate flavor and a very mild peppery note. The flavor seemed fairly consistent to me throughout.

The smoke coming from the Hansotia Signature 101 was very thin and wispy when exhaled. When drawn into the mouth it was sometimes hard for me to tell the smoke was there. The aroma of the smoke was bitingly sharp and my nose definitely knew it was there when I inhaled some that way.

The Hansotia Signature 101's strength was very mild initially, but picked up significantly during the last third of the burn. I would describe it as a slightly above-average strength.   I definitely felt it by the end of the cigar, but it wasn't quite as potent as the Gurkha Vintage Seriest (also made by Hansotia).

All things considered, I liked the Hansotia Signature 101 but don't feel it was quite as special as some do. Still, it is quite a good cigar and I am not disparaging it here. On a 1-10 rating, the cigar deserves about a 6.5 - perhaps leaning more toward 6 than 7.

Cigars International refers to Gurkha as the "Rolls Royce of cigars". They tell us that Gurkha is "known for offering some of the most prestigious and highly-rated blends in the world". The Gurkha Vintage Series is one of Gurkha's milder cigars.

The wrapper of the Gurkha Vintage Series (as you can see in the image below) is a slightly oily Connecticut shade. It's a very firm cigar.   The Toro size measures 6 inches long with a solid 50 ring gauge. It's firmly rolled and feels quite solid and sturdy in your hand.

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I had the opportunity to purchase 12 Rum Runner Buccaneer cigars from Cigarbid.com in late March. This weekend I lit one of them up to try it out. I'd heard a lot of people really like Rum Runners, perhaps because they were infused with real Caribbean Rum.

The Rum Runner Buccaneer is a hand-made cigar with 100% Dominican filler, an Indonesian binder and Indonesian Wrapper. The cigar is a 42 ring gauge size approximately 4.7 inches long. It'll last the better part of an hour depending on how often and how hard you draw.

The construction of the cigar was solid but it felt a bit "mushy" compared to others like the Macanudo or Cohiba. This didn't detract from my enjoyment of the Rum Runner buccaneer cigar, but I note it here because some folks don't like a cigar that isn't rock-hard firm.

In the shot below, you can compare the Rum Runner Buccaneer to the stubs from the Macanudo Vintage 1997 and the Cohiba Red Dot Pequeno in the ashtray...

This cigar review discusses the Macanudo Vintage 1997 Demi Corona Cigar.  I picked up a (wooden) box of 5 of these little gems at the CigarBid.com auction site. I didn't expect to get as good a deal on them as I got. They normally retail for $49.95 a box on Cigars International's site (the parent/sister of CigarBid).  

They're shipped in a very attractive wooden box:

Over the weekend I received an interesting scam email, claiming that I'd won a new Honda Accord and a half-million dollars in a contest Honda had sponsored. It was quite obviously a fake, but I'm concerned that some people could fall for it.   If so, I'm hoping you do a web search and find this article on my blog.

Before I explain how I know it's a fake and a scam, I'll share the contents of the message here...

To: undisclosed-recipients:;

From: <hondalotterywin@universia.net.mx>

Subject: [PMX:SPAM] HONDA CAR LOTTERY (HEADQUARTERS) 

HONDA CAR LOTTERY (HEADQUARTERS) An Affiliate of Honda UK. 28 TANFIELD ROAD, CROYDON, LONDON FROM: HONDA COMPANY UK. ATTENTION: WINNER! TICKET NUMBER: 2752246896 SERIAL NUMBER: 652-662 BATCH NUMBER : AT-040SB06-03 AWARD FINAL NOTIFICATION We are pleased to inform you of the release of the long awaited results of the HONDA CAR INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION PROGRAM held on the 1 april,2006.You were entered as dependent clients with; Reference Serial Number:652-662 and Batch number AT-040SB06-03. Your email address attached to the ticket number: 2752246896 that drew the lucky winning number, which consequently won the sweepstake in the second category, in four parts. You have been approved for a payment of 500,000.00 US DOLLARS (FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US$ DOLLARS) in cash credited to file reference number: IPL/4249859609/WP1.This is from a total cash prize of FIVE MILLION US$ DOLLARS shared among the ten international winners in second categories, along with a BRAND NEW HONDA ACCORD CAR (2005 model). Congratulations! All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 50,000 (Fifty thousand) names of email users around the world, as part of our international promotion program. Due to mixed up of some names and addresses, we ask that you keep this award personal, tillyour claims has been processed and your funds remitted to you. This is part of our security measures to avoid double claiming or unwarranted taking advantage of the situation by other participants or impersonators. You are contact our accredited agent for your claim. Name: Mr. BENSON. E-mail: mrbensonsmack02@yahoo.com HONDA CLAIMING SECURITY AGENCY. He is your agent, and responsible for the processing and transfer of your winnings to you. YOUR SECURITY FILE NUMBER IS W-91237-H67/B4 (keep personal).Remember, your winning must be claimed not later than (31th March 2006). You are required to forward the following details to help facilitate the processing of -snipped from here on-

This message displays some obvious signs that it's a fake, so let's start with those:

• First, the fact that this message wasn't sent directly to me at my email address raises a red flag.   If they were sending out a contest win announcement for something of this size, I'm pretty sure they'd be individual messages - especially for a company with the clout and finances of Honda.

As I've discussed before, I'm a fan of the artist Morrissey from back when he was still the lead vocalist for The Smiths. Although I don't always agree with his politics or his take on life, I do very much appreciate his vocal performances and his songwriting skill. Few artists are able to convincingly discuss the subjects he does with a touch that is poetic in nature.

"Ringleader of the Tormentors"  is Morrissey's newest album, scheduled to be released on April 4th. Because I pre-purchased it through Amazon.com (click here to buy your copy), I was given the ability to listen to the entire album in advance through the Amazon Digital Locker service.

This album seems a little bit of a departure for Morrissey in that there are orchestral bits, backing vocals, and some different instruments in the background that I don't think I've heard in his recordings before. It "updates"  his sound a little, while still keeping that sound very clearly "Morrissey".