by ·0 Comments

Bob Tait invited me to his Halloween Party and I was excited to one, try a costume, two see Bob Tait for the first time in several years. Since last we saw each other, he switched jobs, got married, rented a house, and apparently developed a love for high end bourbon. Suzie was an impressive zombie Pikachu, I was Spiderman, Jeff was… Jeff and we headed over.

The theme for the party was Arnold Swartzenegger movies and roughly half of the costumed attendees met this requirement. A few people picked up on the fact that I was Spiderman including a couple dressed as characters from The Hangover. We got talking and they commented on my costume.

Him: Hey, you’re a camera guy, what do you think about having a wedding where we just pass out disposable cameras?
Me: That can turn out well, but it’s usually good to have someone there dedicated to getting certain group shots.
Him: But I don’t care about those.
Me: But your family does.
Her: See, listen to Spiderman.
Him: But photographers are so expensive.
Me: How much are you paying if I may ask?
Him: .
Me: I’d do it for about $500 less and that includes with my assistant.
Him: You have an assistant?
Me: Zombie Pikachu.
Her: We could have Pikachu and Spiderman as our wedding photographers?
Me: Yes, here’s my card.
Him: What are you doing in this picture?
Me: Riding a concrete sheep. I look forward to working with you.

by ·2 Comments

I got a call from a friend today from a friend who needed help with his computer.  He had somehow gotten “Antivir Solutions Pro” installed on his machine so every program was “infected” which could be “solved” by buying the software, thus this software’s nom de guerre of ‘ransomware’.  I booted the computer into safe mode with networking, turned off the tricky proxy the software installed and then virus-scanned the shit out of his computer.  As red “INFECTED FILE FOUND” warnings flashed I started poking around his room and found this under his nightstand:

Image courtesy of Amazon.com and Seventh Circle Leather

Me: So, where’d you pick up this gem?
Him: I can explain.
Me: Ok.
Him: It was for a costume.
Me: Ok.
Him: Well, not for me, I was making it for a friend.
Me: Ok.
Him: I thought there was going to be more and this was all I got.
Me: Ok
Him: That’s it, ‘ok’?
Me: Yep.

I’m much happier thinking that this was part of an intricate scheme to walk four dogs simultaneously or trot several horses at once than any possible use he could come up with it for a “costume”.

The virus scan finished removing seemingly all the traces of the unwanted software.  If only there were a similar to tool for mental images.