Vitriolic Humor

Zilli (Sagebrush Zillionaire) was my first dog that was my own. We literally raised him as if he were our child. He never wanted for anything and usually got a lot more than he needed, whether it was love, toys, cookies, or attention.

The last year had been really rough on Zilli. We fought a long and arduous battle with chronic ear infections, then epileptic seizures, and finally Pemphigus (additional link), an auto-immune disorder where his immune system starts attacking and destroying his skin. We decided to do everything we could to possibly beat or at least come to a truce with these diseases and after several months we (all) lost the battle. Zilli was the consummate trooper to the end.

I'll always remember that beautiful puppy we picked up in Idaho and the strong, good-natured dog he grew into. We will always have those good memories he gave us, the lessons he taught us, and I'm a better person after having him in my life.

Zilli may you have all the water you want now, feel no more pain, and I hope you always catch whatever you are chasing, cowboy.

Update: (December 30, 2005) We spread Zilli's ashes in a sunset ceremony at Mount Sunflower in western Kansas today.

Tags: zillionaire - zilli - spinoni - spinone - dog - hunting - italian - italiano - italiani - sagebrush

Posted by speedeep at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Photo originally posted on Flickr, used with
permission of the photographer, Niznoz.

Recent news articles indicate that the wrecking ball of change has started swinging to bring the chimneys down. The stated goal is to demolish the chimneys (citing structural instability) and then rebuild them. In order to understand the entire issue, it should be noted that the developer, Parkview International, is based in the British Virgin Islands and is outside the reach of the Wandsworth Council should there be needs for legal recourse during the renovation. This means that the plans to demolish the chimneys as they exist now and rebuild them could very well stop with their demolition and nothing could be done to force the developer to rebuild. Some are suggesting that demolishing the chimneys is the first step in demolishing the entire structure, preparing the site for luxury condos the developer plans to build.

There are a couple community groups who follow the status of the planning on the property. You may want to check out Battersea Power Station Community Group or The Brain-Damage.co.uk Campaign to save Battersea Power Station.

More information on Pink Floyd.

More information on Storm Thorgerson.

Flickr photos tagged with 'battersea' (Most Popular)

If you'd like to keep track of the chimneys' current status you can take a peek via this live cam of London. (Someone post a comment if you notice the chimneys are missing between the London Eye and Big Ben in the background.)

Tags: rockandroll pink battersea pigs thogerson floyd pink floyd powerstation london flying

Posted by speedeep at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the battle of e-mail users vs. spammers, the spammers have again raised the bar slightly with an elegant new solution to bypass spam blocking engines. Note that the charachters appear to be random so there is no pattern matching defense to this issue. They also format the message to look like a valid failure notice to a non-existant e-mail on my domain. Maybe it's time to add some more restrictive DNS RBLs again. Sigh...

27265888  79     42    775    11548488  59     98    235     733955  25    55           
25     89 69     96   89 42   66     55 168   427   26 26   46    62  18  63
44     22 88     68  98   84  88     52 4349 7281  65   53  33         9542
49223943  127257493 61     95 56548777  62 211 17 59     64 79          37
63        85     34 447778224 65   36   18     86 389413719 98          56
66        75     45 73     19 49    76  21     92 65     75 88    14    65
96        67     18 73     21 72     95 12     59 68     41  423983     91

http://their.link.here/xmasdrugs

Anyone worked out a good approach towards blocking this?

email spam attack spammer spamming prevention blocking spamassassin e-mail mail annoyance evasion

Posted by speedeep at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)