So I went to Florida for two weeks. It was the first time I've been there since I was 2. The first week, the weather was kinda cold. Too cold to do much biking. The second week was much better weather, 80s every day. One day we rented a boat and drove all up and down the canals in Ft Lauderdale. It was awesome, I even got a tiny little bit of color! It's so nice not being cold. I can't wait till summer. I almost wanna move to Florida. The only problem is there is NO PLACE to do ANY kind of good biking. Not even urban free-rides. Nothing but flat sidewalks to drive up and down. So maybe I won't move there. But I'll definitely go down there more often.

Oh so the trip.... The train ride down was horrible. It was so cramped, and the food wasn't that great. And the train car wasn't very clean. And it was SOOOOOO LOOOOOOOONG! And the bouncing. The normal rocking of a train wasn't so bad, but this car also has a bounce to it. A sort of rapid up and down movement that made it almost impossible for me to sleep. I was going out of my mind for a little while, so much sleep depravation, and being stuck in a into little room. But once I did get some sleep it wasn't so bad. I was able to connect my MacBook to my iPhone and get on the internet. So I went ahead and canceled my ticket home, and bought a ticket home on JetBlue. JetBlue was $109 vs Amtrak's $440, plus it was less than 3 hours to get home. It was great, I couldn't even finish my movie because I was home already. AND the plane was WAY cleaner than the train too. But for ~$200 round trip, I can go all the time realistically.

I have 202 pictures from the vacation, they're on my MobileMe and Facebook...

So a week before I left for Florida, I met this girl named Elizabeth. We hung out twice that week. I really liked her. She was very cute and funny. She eats all kind of weird food, so we were definitely opposites there. BUT by the time I got back from Florida, I could tell something was up, so I asked her what was up and she said she just wanted to be friends. Yeah. Ouch. That really sucks, the whole time I was in Florida, I couldn't wait to get back and see her again.

I got my first fake money order from a scammer today. Usually these are easy to get, but because I use a PO BOX for my scams, it becomes very difficult. Most scammers send things through [probably stolen] UPS accounts. UPS won't send to a PO BOX, so eventually the scammer gives up on me.

But this scammer was resourceful enough to get me my money order! Note the name it was sent to. That's my HILARIOUS alias. If you don't get it, try saying it out loud a few times. You'll get it.

Now this money order was sent by this Nigerian guy's public relations officer. He sent it to me and I'm sending his son my bike. But due to a clerical error, he over paid me, so he wants me to ship him my bike AND about $1500 cash.

The return address on the envelope is some medial office building in Ohio. The name... who knows, could be a real person, could just be a made up name. If it's a real person, it could be someone in on the scam, or it could be someone that thinks they have a work-at-home type internet job and doesn't realize that they are part of a scam.

I like to repeat this part over and over again:
Money Orders are MORE Dangerous Than Personal Checks!
It's true! With a personal check, you deposit it, wait for it to clear, and it either clears or bounces. If it bounces, you don't send goods.

Money orders are sneaky. Because they are a money order, they always clear instantly. If they are fake, like this one, what happens is the money order will bounce weeks from the cashing. The your bank comes after you looking for the money. AND there is no way to verify if a money order is real. I called my bank, they said they have no way I have to call the bank that issued it. So I called the bank that issued it and they said they have no way either, only way to see if it's real is to cash it and see what happens.

So the years-old public knowledge of "don't accept personal checks, only money orders" has now been reversed. A personal check is much safer, you just have to wait for it to clear.

I found this neat website that has all sort of USB items. I decided to place an order cause it all looked good. Turns out the website is in Hong Kong and everything they sell is junk. I bought a "Plasma Ball" and a playstation style game controller. The Plasma Ball actually works great. Its one of those ones that you touch and the streams of energy go to your hand, very cool. The game controller doesn't work at all. The up and down, left and right buttons don't work. Plus all of the buttons are way to stiff for a game controller. So rather than go on and on about how www.usbgeek.com is a cheap, shitty hack of a website, i'd rather talk about the packaging my two items came in.

The words written on them are English. But the people who write it clearly had no idea what they were talking about.

From the Plasma Ball's box:

   • Plasma Ball with USB Operated

OK that wasn't that funny, but the other box is covered with these amazing statements:

   • For USB Double Shock 2

   • Classical Series for Game Controllers

   • Imitate the mode to convert with normal regulations mode arbitrarity

   • 12 function keys satisfy your game action

   • The shape is special, feeling comfortable the shocking function is strong

   • The reasonable human body construction design felling is more comfortable

   • The rubberized and textured operation parts defend the sweat antiskid

   • Avoid high temperature, aquosity and direct sunlight

   • Don't let liquid into the product

   • Don't pull the connection line hardly

   • Don't use the causticity liquid clear the product surface

   • Private to dismantle the product does not belong to protect fix the scope

   • Pay attention to the use method and avoid long time play


Made me laugh. There's a whole website of this kind of stuff called Engrish