Someone’s been having fun.

Jester was setting up spam assassin on the server and checked the running processes to verify that it was working. What he saw caused him concern.

Apparently, someone had gotten into the server and had left a few goodies: IRC bots, mail relay clients, etc. They were all running under the same rights as apache, so they didn’t get root access, but it was a wakeup call to us.

We upgraded all applications to the latest, greatest versions and did some research. We found that there was a security update a few days ago to one of the applications I run that fixed this kind of security hole (so we’re pretty sure that’s how they got in). Jester removed all the offending applications (which were spread all over the system in hidden directories) and a quick reboot got rid of all the zombie processes (all 53 of them).

Crap like this makes me really cranky.

Things look good for now, but I’ll be keeping a much closer eye on it in the future.

I’m out sick today. Actually… I’ve been out sick for the last few days.

I left work about mid day on tuesday because my manager expressed concerns over my incessant and constant coughing (hell… I was attempting to barf up a lung). She asked if it might be better if I went home. “Why… I’ll still be sick there” I answered. She replied with “yeah, but at least you won’t share whatever plague you have with us”.

Fair ’nuff.

I saw the doctor that day and he took x-rays of the old breathing bags (aka: lungs). All looked fairly good there (read: not pneumonia this time!) so he put me on an inhaler and wrote me a prescription for some cough syrup (mmmm… codeine!) and some antibiotics if it doesn’t clear up by friday.

Well… it’s thursday, and I’m still hacking away. The deep cough that makes your lungs burn like fire.

Good times!

I did, however, grab my laptop before I left the office, so at least I’ll get some work done from home.

I’m hoping that it clears up at least some by this evening as my eldest son has a christmas concert at his high school and I’d really like to see it (he plays the bass clarinet and he’s quite good at it).

Every year I listen to my wife.

I try to discern what she wants for Christmas from our conversations. I pay attention to the things she looks at in the store when I’m with her. I’m usually pretty good at getting her what she wants (well… if you don’t count last years fiasco).

And every year she knows what I got her before she sees the package under the tree.

This year is no different.

I got her the 35″ Fire Bowl from Target last Friday.

Yesterday, it went on sale for $88.88 (I only knew this because my mother-in-law called me from Tucson and told me about it). So… I found my receipt, went back to Target, and got a refund of $33.63.

Of course, my mother-in-law was watching the price because she wanted one too. I tried to order one online for her, but couldn’t find anyplace that sold this exact item except for Target, and they’re not taking online orders for it. I tried to pay for one here and have her pick it up there, but was flatly told “you can’t do that”. Then I called the Target store closest to her house in Tucson, AZ and tried to buy it over the phone as well. Still no dice.

Finally… I called her up and told her to go down and buy one for herself… I’d send her a check for $100.

She’s a very happy lady. And a happy mother-in-law means a happy me!

I’ve been going through the old blog, cleaning up a thing or two.

Apparently my switching between blog apps broke a few things (missing graphics, bad tables, etc.). I went through the past 2 years or so and fixed the obvious errors.

This also gave me a chance to read back through the past 2 years of my life. Wow! What a pathetic website! It’s been nothing but a bitch-fest for the past couple years. I’ll try to do better (or at least be somewhat entertaining).

I’m taking tomorrow off from work. Yay! If anyone needs me, I’ll be on the couch, in a dirty undershirt, eating corn chips and masturbating.

If you were a Super Hero… what would you look like?

Make you own here