Oh no, worm writers are getting smarter!

Early this morning, I got a mail from Mariko, with this as the body:

"Hi, I have some cool joke - worms so have a look at it (no virus)

mariko"

and a file attached.

Since the English wasn't too bad, and her name was at the bottom, I thought this was probably not a Trojan. After running it, weird coloured worms went across my screen and there was some message about having to restart my computer to close the application.

Later, being suspicious, I used msconfig to check the startup programs and found something mildly suspicious - Kernel Loader, C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnl.exe -LOADDRIVERS=TRUE, so I disabled it.

And now I've gotten a message back. She didn't send me anything. Oops.

Worm writers are getting better. This does not bode well for the future, if even people such as I were fooled. Bleah.


Mr Lim on GP 8005:

"application q not that easy. even us teachers are figuring how to teach it as it's new." Ugh.


Ooo, my guestbook got signed for the first time in 2 months. Unfortunately, it was with a criticism:

"Name: Conscience
Comments: it's national service, not slavery. you're selfish."

Bah.


Things you learn from referrer information: Searching "Shuqi" with Lycos brings my page as the first hit. Woo.


Was out again for a substantial period of time today. Lunch at Neptune (the place where they have topless dancers at night. And where the spring rolls are almost all skin and no filling - gah) and then went to stone while waiting for Kheng Hwa to come and watch the Count of Monte Cristo.

In a shop at Lucky Plaza, I saw an optical mouse that can read and write memory sticks. Made by Sony, naturally. Gah. Beside that outlet was a clothing joint which had mannikins more realistic than those normally seen (both male and female).

I noticed that the 'House Of Condom' is for those aged 18 years & above only, so the dare Zhongyong offered me in 1998 or 1999, when we were on a AVU trip, to go in and ask, "Auntie, zhe4 ge4 you3 mei2 you3 hong2 se4, ribbed de4" (Auntie, is this available in Red and Ribbed?) couldn't have been accomplished. I was actually offered 7 MacDonalds Adult Ice Cream Cones ($1.40 in value), not bad indeed.

People watching is quite fun. I had to wait almost 2 hours so that was how I killed time. So I went around with an amused look, scribbling feverishly on my hard Graffiti area. And there were some unpublishable observations :) There are a lot of couples walking around, I never really took notice. And there were a lot of lians. Yeech.

Near there was a sight not often seen, an old man busking. The type with action, not just pithy singing or playing of an instrument. He was on red clogs and shuffling forward with his clogs making tap sounds, while repeatedly throwing a tennis ball in the air and catching it and playing the harmonica. After he finished his act, he took out a box with 2 photos to pray to them, wore a red beret and walked off.

At Cineleisure, I overheard these 2 guys' conversation:
'Do you think guys can wear these?'
'Cannot lah'
They were talking about floral printed Hot Shorts, with white flowers on a light green background.

It's quite inspiring how much energy and exuberance some older folks have.

Giant cardboard movie displays are amazingly useful to sit behind and SMS.

There was this 2nd Lieutenant in Smart 4, who was having somewhat intimate contact with his girlfriend. Tut tut.

The Count of Monte Cristo was a bit Hollywood-ised. They cast a few blacks for political correctness, and one, the titular Count's sworn servant, was inserted for comic relief. Oh, and the gunshot wound Mercedes sustained on her shoulder miraculously healed without a scar, so she could stride on the top of Chateau d'If at the end of the movie with a flawless shoulder. [NB: Trailers are evil. I just downloaded the trailer for my sister and the line, "In return, I offer you something priceless. Knowledge." became "In return, I offer you something priceless. The treasure of Monte Cristo."]

I love Planet Hollywood, they update their menu quite often. The food is nice and not unreasonably priced, though the merchandise is expensive and dumb. It's the only place in Singapore which hires so many Filippinos. We took a walk off beaten trail and ordered Oysters Rockefeller and Stuffed Mushrooms (which were tiny). The other appetisers are much better, which is why they are the ones on the Appetiser Sampler. And now I know why the chain's losing money - they have a Restroom Assistant. A man in the washroom to press tap for you and hand you paper towels. And now they provide you with hair mousse, styling gel and spray deodourant. I was bemused, so I tipped the guy $0.50. I think if he was female he'd get tipped more actually.


Signs Power Rangers has matured:
- The set has become more convincing and the budget has gone up
- Someone actually *died*. Albeit a villain, Scorpius. But later in the season Kendrix is going to die too. Good way to get rid of unavailable characters, instead of lame excuses like them being sent to a Teen World Peace Conference in Geneva
- A villain (Villamax) actually kept his word this time, and let the others go in exchange for Leo's surrender. But the other things they added in to show his 'honour', like his giving Deviot a dagger as a token of, friendship (?).
- They had one episode without any zords, without any of the traditional foes. One whole episode just to introduce a plot device, the Galaxy Book.

This almost makes up for the plot loopholes, the most niggling of which are why Terra Venture is so big (They don't -need- to look for a new world after all, they already have it!), how come Terra Venture is so easily infiltrated by monsters, how the rangers holding important posts in the space station manage to escape their duties to go and fight the monsters without eliciting suspicion, how the Astro Megaship manages to fly in and out of Terra Venture without suspicion on the part of the authorities and why Terra Venture is not destroyed with all the combat taking place, especially combat between giant sized monsters and zords. If Scorpius wanted to destroy Terra Venture, or at least cripple it, all he needed to do was to instruct one monster to shoot the 'sky' (the top of the dome).