Well, I did manage to stay awake and I was rewarded - the Caps beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 at MCI Center last night to remain three points clear of Tampa Bay, who also won last night. The Caps' next game is against Tampa Bay on February 4th - a must win game for the Caps.
After being in work from 6am this morning till 2pm this afternoon, I've no idea how on earth I'm going to manage to stay awake for the Caps' game against the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight. It's an important game, and one the Caps must win in order to keep a few points clear of Tampa Bay Lightning!
I am sad to announce that I have received an order for the termination of a website. So, as of February 7th, the website I designed a few years ago, Equiguard Safetywear, will disappear from the web for good - so please make sure you drop by before February 7th to pay your last respects!
I've lots to write about today, so this update will be a big one, with lots of links for good measure. Two days ago, I decided to let the professionals create a CV for me - it's about time I started looking for a proper job - working at this place doesn't look good when you have an honours degree in computing!
My beloved Aston Villa absolutely hammered Middlesbrough last night! They beat them 5-2 to earn their first away win of the season! Over the other side of the pond, the Caps threw away a 3-1 lead and lost 5-3 to the St. Louis Blues at MCI Center - this was made worse by Tampa Bay beating the Flyers.
My Caps T-Shirt and Mouse Pad arrived today. And yesterday, my new Game Pad also arrived to replace the one that broke! I also bought Ad-Aware 6 Professional yesterday too, and it picked up where the last version left off by zapping some nasty data mining cookies that had crept on to my machine!
I sure hope this doesn't happen when I eventually get round to finishing off learning to drive - thanks to Vishal for the excellent link! There's an interesting article on the BBC News website about how the web is leaving itself open to attack by not handling address queries more efficiently.
Remember the worm that was causing havoc on the web a few days ago by taking advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server software? Well, would you believe that Microsoft didn't even apply its own patch to fix the vulnerability the worm exploits, and as a result, its systems were also crippled!
Finally for today, the owners of the spyware ridden Kazaa file sharing network are suing the movie and recording industries - good luck to them, I very much doubt they'll win. On a related note, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) website was knocked offline by hackers last Friday.
They did it and they did it with style. After killing a 5 minute penalty only 51 seconds into the game, the Caps hammered the New York Rangers 7-2 at MCI Center yesterday to go five points clear at the top of the southeast division. They face the St. Louis Blues at home tomorrow night.
Of course, the only thing on everybody's mind yesterday (well, in America at least) was the big game in San Diego, California - the Super Bowl. It looks like it was pretty much a one sided affair, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers routing the Oakland Raiders 48-21 for their first ever championship!
After yesterdays initial outburst, the effects of the worm known as W32.SQLExp.Worm, seem to have died down now. I'm still seeing the odd entry or two in my firewall logs today, but no where near the amount of entries that were logged yesterday, so I think we can safely say that the danger is over (for now).
Today is Super Bowl day with the Oakland Raiders taking on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in San Diego, California. Last years game was a thriller (New England beat St. Louis with a last minute field goal) so hopefully this one will be just as good. Also today, the Caps take on the New York Rangers.
The Caps came from behind and tied 1-1 with the Montreal Canadiens last night to earn a point. Tampa Bay Lightning on the other hand, lost 3-2 to the Nashville Predators, so a tie wasn't such a bad result for the Caps - they're now three points clear of Tampa, and have a chance to go five clear with a win today!
I've been wondering why my firewall has been going crazy over some persistent inbound UDP packet wanting to access port 1434 on my machine - and now I know why. I've just discovered that some nasty little worm, W32.SQLExp.Worm, has been causing havoc on the Internet early this morning!
The worm takes advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server software. However, since I don't have SQL Server on my machine, I'm pretty much safe from it. Still, the probes to port 1434 were driving me nuts, so I cooked up a quick firewall rule to auto-block any more UDP connections to that port.
I bought a brand new game controller today from the PC World online store. So very soon I'll be able to get back to guiding the Caps to the playoffs and the Stanley Cup in NHL 2003! Speaking of the Caps, they're in action tonight against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Here's a quote from a BBC News article that should serve as a warning should you ever try to arrest a woman market trader in Swaziland: "The police officers stared in disbelief at the array of bottoms of all different shapes and sizes, and the colourful array of underwear on display". Thanks to Vishal for the link!
I received my five years service certificate and a silver badge from this place yesterday - how embarrassing! In other news, specifically hockey news, the Caps thumped the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 at MCI Center on Wednesday night. They face the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
"A travel agency that specialises in clothing optional vacations has chartered a 172 seat Boeing 727 for a flight from Miami to Cancun in May. Once the plane reaches its cruising altitude, passengers will be invited to disrobe". There's a certain person I know that would pay good money for a flight like this abroad!
I cancelled my order of music singles today from Amazon UK because they were taking far too long. I've took my money elsewhere and ordered from HMV instead. Staying on the subject of music, would you buy a CD of music made entirely out of human DNA? It would make interesting listening I'm sure.
Here's a snippet from a hilarious article I came across today: "A man who erased his drunken-driving record from a police computer and replaced it with a winking smiley face graphic ended up with a suspended license and a fine when police failed to see the funny side". Read the whole article here.
I've broken my game controller, which means I won't be able to play any games until I get a new one - I think I'm going to cry! Perhaps I wore my poor controller out by playing NHL 2003 too much? Probably. However, contrary to popular opinion, I am not a computer games addict!
If your hockey team needs a lesson in how to squander a two goal lead, the Washington Capitals will teach them all they need to know. In an excellent game of hockey, the Caps were ahead 2-0 and 3-1 before the Boston Bruins tied the game 3-3 to take it to overtime. The Caps face Carolina tomorrow night.
Despite taking the lead in the first period, the Caps were beaten by the Ottawa Senators 5-2 at Corel Centre in Canada. Back over this side of the pond, my beloved Aston Villa were beaten 1-0 by Tottenham, who hadn't won a game against Villa at Villa Park for sixteen years until now.
But it's not that bad really. For a start, Tampa Bay Lightning were beaten 3-2 by the Philadelphia Flyers, so the Caps remain four points clear at the top of the southeast division. And, if you take a look at the Premiership table, Villa are three points ahead of Birmingham, which is always nice to see!
Oh well, it had to end sooner or later. The Caps lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1 last night at MCI Center, ending the Capitals' 14 game streak with at least one point (however, Tampa Bay also lost 3-2 to the Penguins, so it's not too bad). The Caps play the Ottawa Senators tonight in Canada.
At last, after weeks of brain aching puzzle solving, today I finally beat an old Commodore 64 game called Presumed Guilty. The game is fourteen years old, and if I were to make a top ten of my all time favourite games, Presumed Guilty would definitely be in it. Sadly, I don't think the sequel was ever released.
Don't you just hate losing in overtime? After the game finished tied at 1-1, the New York Rangers and the Caps headed into overtime, where the Rangers scored to make it 2-1 and win the game. The Caps still picked up a point for the overtime loss and are now four points clear at the top of the southeast division.
Watch out for the W32.Sobig.A@MM virus that is currently bouncing around the Internet - I received two copies of it in my e-mail today. This article spells bad news for Sharman Networks, the parent company of Kazaa, a popular (but spyware ridden) online file swapping service.
"You can certainly hear it and it echoes throughout the building, so you know when they've let one off". That quote comes from this absolutely hilarious article. It's probably the funniest thing you'll read all week - it certainly had me rolling around the floor with laughter! Thanks to Vishal for sending me the link.
That man Jaromir Jagr continued his points streak last night (two goals and two assists) as the Caps beat the New York Islanders 4-3 in overtime at MCI Center. The Caps are now three points clear at the top of the southeast division and face the New York Rangers at MCI Center tomorrow night.
It appears that I was wrong when I said that this place had been taken over. There's now a battle going on to see who the eventual new owner will be. I really don't care who wins the battle so long as my wages get paid each week. Though having said that, I really should start looking for a 'proper' job.
The Florida Panthers were atrocious. The Washington Capitals were, quite simply, magnificent. In a ruthless display of Ice Hockey, the Caps annihilated the Panthers 12-2 at MCI Center, with Jaromir Jagr scoring a hat trick and tallying a career high seven points (three goals, four assists).
It was a night where almost everything went right for the Caps. The power play came together nicely with the Caps converting three, and also doing a superb penalty kill job by not allowing any goals when Florida were on the power play. The Caps are now back on top of the southeast division!
I just had to post - at this moment in time, the Caps are beating the Florida Panthers 9-0 - and there's still another period to go! This is absolutely the best game I've ever had the pleasure of listening in on! Jaromir Jagr is having a superb game. How many will the Caps score?
The Caps kept the pressure on Tampa Bay last night with an excellent 4-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes! That win ties the Caps for first place in the southeast division. The Caps are back at MCI Center tonight to face the Florida Panthers, who lost 2-1 last night to the New Jersey Devils.
The Anti-Spam section of GazNET is continuing to grow at a furious pace - it has gone from a small personal project to an almost full time job fighting spam! It's the most popular part of GazNET by far, and it is also responsible for roughly 70% of all the e-mail I receive (the other 30% is personal and spam).
There's only another three months before the MLS starts again, and on Tuesday the 2003 schedules were announced. I personally can't wait. The MLS was great last year, and with an extra four weeks added to the regular season, it can only get even better this year - I'm looking forward to April 5th already!
Are you wondering why there's a lack of updates? Well, I've been working full time at work for the past three days, and I've been too tired to post anything - normal service shall resume shortly I promise. Incidentally, the place where I work has been taken over by a smaller rival - how embarrassing is that?!
Well, the reformat and reinstall has gone well (so far). I still haven't got my machine working quite how I'd like it, but slowly but surely, it's getting there. As for this site, you're bound to have noticed that I have taken down the Christmas background - but don't worry - it will return next Christmas!
I'm on a hot streak at the moment - I've managed to listen in on three Caps games in a row! In their last two games, the Caps tied 2-2 with Columbus on Friday and, last night, tied 2-2 with the New York Rangers. And after Tampa lost 5-1 to St. Louis last night, the Caps are now top of the southeast division!
Over this side of the pond, my beloved Aston Villa were knocked out of the FA Cup by Blackburn - who won 4-1 yesterday at Villa Park. At least Villa's league form seems to be improving - and they're above rivals Birmingham City (which is always nice to see), so it's not all bad news.
Is the Internet 33 or 20 years old? Read this article and decide for yourself. According to this article, spam is costing businesses billions of dollars a year. It's a good job there's people like myself out there trying to do something about it, because the cost will continue to rise if we just do nothing.
It was all going so well until the third period. After dominating the Phoenix Coyotes for pretty much the entire game, the Caps lost in overtime 2-1, despite out shooting Phoenix by 32 shots to 14. The Caps still got a point for the overtime loss, and are now only a point behind Tampa Bay, who are top of the division.
You simply must read this article from CNN's ever excellent Offbeat news section - thanks to Vishal for alerting me to it! In other news, a nasty e-mail worm called Yaha.K is beginning to spread rapidly across the web so, if you haven't already, make sure you update your anti-virus protection.
As I have the next two days off work, I am going to reformat my hard disk and do a clean install of Windows (and all other software) tomorrow. I've just got to shift all my personal data on to CD-RW tonight (and make sure I haven't missed anything), and then the reformat and reinstall will commence tomorrow.
Happy New Year!