general life update, in five parts

[edenfalling]

1. I have two more Dreamwidth invite codes. Leave a comment if you want one!

2. On Tuesday my LJ was friended by not one, not two, but four Russian spambots. I reported them and they have since been deleted. The spammers seem to be trying a new strategy where they create the account, post four to seven entries (in Cyrillic), wait three or four months, and then friend a couple hundred people.

You can still tell they're fishy, though, because there is no pattern to their friends lists, and they have no community affiliations, no real interests, and no people who have friended them back.

*makes face* I hate spam. I used to have my email publicly visible on my LJ profile, but after the first wave of these jerks found my journal, I started getting abominable quantities of email spam, so I had to hide my address. This annoys me, because I dislike feeling as though I have to hide myself any more than I already do by using different parts of my name to compartmentalize my fannish activities from the rest of my life.

3. Thursday and Friday are for apartment hunting. God. I am going to have to cold call people all day long, and trek around town until my feet are ready to fall off. I mind the phone calls more.

I hate calling people who aren't friends or family. I can fake self-possession reasonably well during the actual call, but I am always jittery as hell and I forget to ask for useful information like, oh, say, the name of the person I'm talking to. Which is kind of awkward when it's a business call and you need to call back a week later to report an issue and they ask you who you spoke to the first time, and you're stuck saying things like, "Um... a man? Kind of a high tenor? He speaks fast, no particular accent, maybe a little nasal? Probably not too old..." and the person on the other end of the line sighs and you know she's thinking, 'My god, what an idiot.'

Or maybe that's just me. But anyway, I hate making business calls. Especially when the business is personal instead of just stuff I'm doing for the store.

4. PM is going camping this weekend, to a private music festival thing one of her friends holds every spring up at his cabin. This means I will (nominally) be in charge at work, and because PM got rid of the pager of doom, everyone is supposed to call my cell phone if there's an emergency.

I think I may skip church, just to be sure I don't accidentally repeat the 'forgetting to turn the ringer back on' incident from this past Sunday. *headdesk*

5. I have not written anything for a week now. I meant to, really I did -- I have "Secrets" ch. 14 open on my computer and everything! -- but I have fallen down the rabbit hole into Star Trek fanfiction and I think it will take another week to climb back out into something approximating functionality. *sigh* I do like the rush of a new fandom (I have only dabbled in various Star Treks hitherto), but the glee is somewhat dampened by the empty feeling I get when I haven't been actively creative for a while.

Hmm. Maybe I should try writing Trek fic...? *ponders*

Comments

[redwolf]

LJ is worse than useless at removing spammers.

I find a heap of them spamming LJ, then spamming their LJ spam accounts on another site I use. The morons in the abuse department are so stupid they will actually argue with me over spam accounts. I can produce evidence a mile long, but it's not good enough for those brain donors.

They keep this up and LJ will be rendered useless by the weight of spammers.

[edenfalling]

It's really frustrating -- and I never had this problem until the past three months, so it's been like a slap in the face out of nowhere. *sour face*

[romyra]

I've been having the same problem with these Russian Bots. I one day I was friended by 6 of them. I reported them and they were suspended but there is still one that hasn't been dealt with... zakpost

If you wouldn't mind, could you also report this person.

Thanks so much.

[edenfalling]

Sure! Can you report yourfindit, which is totally an advertising bot thingy?

[redwolf]

Both reported. The LJ abuse team is worthless.

These are my still live morons, half their usernames scream spam:

loansfornonhome
instantloancash
loanforteachers
msantivirus
leonardao69u
fatimahrpk1
savannaty3x
annetta1kwu
marybelle4ugo
getfun
playingpolicy
ulamemila
bettysbetters
arettffe
boristorriebt
charlesboylecb
buddyboltonbb
flatt33
rydermanning

[edenfalling]

I reported them, for all the good it may do. Wow, most of them are obvious advertising ploys -- and some are even publicly hawking pirated movie downloads! In fact, the only one that has even a hint of subtlety is ulamemila, and even there the dates of the journal entries are very oddly clumped.

[redwolf]

One of them was spamming on community journals. The same cut and paste crap (in English when their LJ was Russian) advertising some dodgy business.

[redwolf]

Must have done some good. That's two gone.

[edenfalling]

I sent the code in an LJ message.

Yeah, I really should have started looking several weeks ago, but I kept hoping my landlords would change their minds and I wouldn't have to move, because apartment hunting and moving are such a pain. I've been in my current place for four years, come June, and that was such a relief after five years of moving every summer.

[edenfalling]

You should have an LJ message with the code; if that didn't get through, I can send it via email.

Spambots are of the devil. True fact. ;-)

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

:O Trek fic from you would be so awesome

The world should use email instead of phones :|

[edenfalling]

Yes, email is so much less stressful!