current playlist

m.i.a. - boyz - kala
how we operate - gomez - live session, kcrw
don dinero - aterciopelados - oye
una hoja una raiz - aterciopelados - red hot and latin redux
a million babies - owusu & hannibal - living with...
medusa - ulirch schnauss - goodbye
young pilgrams - the shins - chutes too narrow
das spiegel - chemical brothers - we are the night
que bom - mocean worker - cinco de mowo
peacock tail - boards of canada - campfire headphase
twilight - UNKLE feat. 3d - war stories

jacked bank account, illustrated

i've worked in security for a very longggggggggg time. it's often hard to explain to people the impact of online threats. i've found that statistics don't mean much to people in this area other than biznesses trying to justify corp expenditures. the only things that have really driven consumer purchases in info security have been massive worms which crippled computers and then spyware & adware which also had a direct, visible impact. well, both of those have gone away to be replaced by silent crimeware which steals data. so what happens when your bank account gets jacked by the baddies in belarus? the photo here was taken from our online fraud community monitoring tool and is still available online from a photo sharing site. the thief was either bragging or showing off the wares for purchase.
my basic advice? keep your system & apps (esp. internet explorer) up-to-date, use security s/w, and anything that looks to good to be true most certainly is trying to pull one over on you. if you need sec s/w, ping me.

socal livin' snippets

i felt my first real earthquake last week here in socal. it was a 4.6 shaker centered out of chatsworth. of all irony, my earthquake policy on our condo had just run out a couple days beforehand. while it messed with my head a little (i was doing some late evening work when it hit) and woke jane up out of bed, nothing seemed to be much affected. after a few days of mulling it over, i'm thinking of cancelling the policy on the new place :-) tectonic plates, is that all you got baby?!

this shot is from the window looking out the back of our new place. you'd think we were moving to backwoods alabama, eh? instead, this is lovely santa monica. 2 houses down is a beautiful new 2 unit condo with modern stylings and the like. right behind us? sanford and sons. on the left of the new casa? pit bull in the all-dirt backyard with an F150. choloville, amigo. all of this for the price of stifling mortgage that would make my midwestern family blush, if not faint. i'm not one to keep up with the joneses, but i don't necessarily want to raise kids in front of a methlab either. if anyone knows the patron saint of gentrification, let me know and i'll offer up an old testament style burnt sacrifice in hopes of neighbor displacement.

on a lighter note, jane and i went to see reggae night VI at the bowl this past sunday. wailing souls were playing along with sly and robbie as well as burning spear. wailing souls were boring and burning spear was unimpressive. sly and robbie didn't disappoint, especially their numbers with cherine anderson (taxi gang). where the hell was horace andy though?

ah well, the event of the evening were the colorful characters sitting in front of us. the lady in yellow highlighted an, uh, interesting new trend: bluetooth headset as fashion piece. while she didn't get a call during the show (how could you with the noise and bad reception?) the little red motorola headset was in her ear the whole time. i looked around the bowl and sure enough, saw a handful of other people doing the same. am i missing something here? bluetooth headset = fannypack. even if it matches your shirt and finger nail polish.

uneasy street

well, i've been pretty lame about blogging lately but i have really good excuses. first off, i'm in the midst of taking on a new job. won't be in it officially until mid-sept but i'm starting to ramp up now. big learnings ahead! should be fun. next up is our new house which closed a couple of weeks ago. while this would normally be really exciting, we've been on the market for about 2 months now with our condo with no offers. yikes!

anyways, enough with the excuses. i thought i'd share a view of what i see when i drive into the rampart district of LA (west of downtown) to pick up my pal jonathan on sundays. most ppl don't know this but the rampart district has the 2nd highest population density in the US, next to manhattan. and it isn't due to the high rises, it's largely attributable to the masses of latino immigrants crowding their familes into tiny apartments.

elcome to uneasy street. this is a shot looking down the alleyway into a nearby park that is infamous for aggressive street people and thugs. tagging and gang violence is normal here. since i've known jonathan, 3 of his acquaintances and pals have been shot and killed. for someone under 18, that's insane.
this was laying on the side of the street in front of me while i waited for jonathan. anyone else find dolls a little creepy? especially when their heads are poking out of abandoned suitcases? they were gone from the suitcase when i returned that evening. apparently someone found them more interesting than disturbing.
iraq or LA? this is the entrance to the apt bldg next door.
i hope our politicians, mission workers and other global do-gooders realize that we have serious needs here at home. time to focus on cleaning our own house for a change?