guapacha.com

Random thoughts of a Brit living in the Imperial Valley of California

Archive for January, 2005

Stupid Spammers

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Had to spend some time this evening implementing some hacks to the MINI blog website, after a period of no comment spam the onl*ne p*k*r dickheads were back in force. Hopefully I have them this time – I renamed the comment script and put a dummy form in the page which mentions the original filename but doesn’t appear on the screen. Well, I am sure it will hold them for a little while longer. Next up will be blacklists! Kinda over the top for a pointless little site like mine.

Tuesday morning update: here’s something new…. trackback spam? This morning this website had a bunch of trackback’s from the dickheads, I’ve not seen that before.

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January 31st, 2005 at 10:23 pm

Posted in Computing,Rants

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Wake up and Smell the Flowers

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We’ve had so much rain in the last couple of months that the desert floor is a sea of green right now, I’ve never seen it look anything but barren (excepting the ocotillos and cacti). This has also meant the desert wildflowers are blooming like never before. This weekend, Teri and I went out to the Anza Borrego State Park to have a look see and we were amazed at the colour and volume of the flowers that are out. Snapped a few pictures that you can see at my photo website but here’s a pretty dune evening primrose to tempt ya to go see for yourself.


Dune Evening Primrose

Make sure you head for Coyote Canyon and Henderson Canyon for the best sightings. And be sure to stop at the park headquarters for a wildflower identification map that can be had for the princely sum of just one United States dollar.

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January 31st, 2005 at 11:59 am

Some Excellent News!

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More proof that the Imperial Valley is growing hugely – there are two El Pollo Loco’s opening here later this year. One will be only a few miles away, mmmm mmmm good!

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January 29th, 2005 at 5:02 pm

Posted in Imperial Valley

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Finally, a reason to go to Nebraska

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To see the flaming pile of poo of course!

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January 28th, 2005 at 2:17 pm

Posted in General

Waiter Rant

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I love it when you follow a chain of blogs (note, there must be a geek term for this) and find a gem. In this case, the chain wasn’t real long, only had to look at eSchwa to discover Waiter Rant. Priceless, totally priceless, and worthy of a place in my links list.

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January 27th, 2005 at 12:37 pm

Posted in General

Benefits of Driving a Small Car

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This morning on the way to San Diego, the area near the border patrol station was buzzing. For about a mile I was paralleled by a helicopter and I saw many border patrol vehicles off the freeway, parked in various ‘ready to go’ locations. At the station everyone was being stopped and officers were having a very good look in the windows and, in some cases, the boot too. However, when I pulled up in the MINI I was waved straight on – I guess they knew the people they were looking for couldn’t possibly be hiding anywhere in my car. One more benefit of driving a small car.

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January 24th, 2005 at 9:35 am

Posted in California,MINI

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My head is exploding

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UPop is playing this song all the time and I can’t get it out of my head. The urge to kill is growing stronger. Coincidence or related?

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January 21st, 2005 at 9:09 am

Posted in General

States I’ve Visited

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For no reason other than I think this page would look better with some images on it to break up all the text, here is a graphic showing the US states that I have visited. I need to get in the middle there, I think.



create your own visited states map

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January 18th, 2005 at 9:47 am

Posted in America

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Forget Education, Get a Job as a Stripper

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Have to post this article from CNN. At a recent career day at a middle school in Palo Alto, the speaker included stripping as a career choice, saying that you could make $250,000 a year depending on your bust size. According to one student, they were told that every 2 inches added $50,000 to your earning potential. Oddly, the principal of the school says that the consultant may not be back next year.

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January 14th, 2005 at 11:01 am

Posted in America

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Steel Gone Bad

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I bought a bottle of wine Weds night from a 7/11 near Montgomery Fielld airport (premium gas was only $2.06!!!), got it home and was screwing my cork screw into the cork when the metal just sheared in half. It took no effort, I was twisting it and without warning the metal piece just broke in half. I tried all manner of things to push the cork in the bottle but wasn’t able to do it. I put the bottle in the fridge whilst I thought about it some more.

On the way home last night I remembered that I had another corkscrew in the MINI! I found a space in the top of the cork where I could get the corkscrew in, was twisting it in nicely and, bam, the damn thing twisted in half again. So this cork destroyed two strips of metal and I gave up and went alcohol free. I wish I’d had my leatherman tool with me, that horse’s hoof dealie might have been just the ticket!

In other news the world is getting much hotter due to global dimming. No, not the intelligence of SUV drivers, but we’re getting less sunlight apparantly and this is making the world hotter. Go check it out.

Written by admin

January 14th, 2005 at 8:25 am

Posted in General