One Up Comment Spammers' Asses

The comment spam scourge has for the most part not affected me for the past year that it has been happening however last week saw a sudden influx of comment spam.

I took comments offline and tried to find a way to if not stop it outright, at least make it difficult for the comment spammers as it is for me to delete these comments once they put them on here.

I've got a partial solution now for which i wont go into its technicalities... but now you're required to enter a random number which is generated whenever you try to post a comment.

This at least will stop an automated bot from automatically submitting scores of comments advertising drugs without prescription. It wont stop a spammer who wants to personally visit the site just to post comments, but at least they'll know it isnt worth it cos i'll delete it right after.

One up yours!!

Ghanaians Like Voting

There's one country America wont be invading anytime soon. We dont have any oil. We love abusing freedoms (of speech and of the media). And we absolutely like voting. Go Ghana!!

Ghanians are voting today, and by god i've never seen such fanaticm since... well since people queued up to buy copies of Halo 2.

A few excerpts from Ghanaweb's article of the election:

Awww... shame.

Another thing that is uncanilly not African is the fact that there doesnt seem to be a lot of fears regarding violence relating to the election. There seem to be a lot more fears regarding sporting violence than election violence cos i remember hearing a meet that was supposed to happen between Accra Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko being cancelled.

Y'all learn from that. Fight for your football team, not for politicians. It's more fulfilling!

Oh i'll live you with something to ponder over:

When you see a bunch of guys standing under a tree in Ghana, seemingly at each other's throat, talking over each other they are most likely discussing the folloing (in that order):

1. Football (reall football, [only girls touch the ball!!])
2. Politics
3. Highly unlikely, but the may actually be fighting. Steer clear.

Uni Dropout: Bye Bye Kingston Uni

I've been mulling over this for a few weeks and I've finally decided being in University right now is holding me back more than helping me.

I work Carphone Warehouse doing a lot of low level programming and general project management. It's really so surprising that of the skills i require for this job, most of it was learned from before i started Uni.

I cant say for sure how i've benefitted intelllectually from being in Uni the past year and a half. I've had to turn down a few positions that will fit me perfectly over the year and a half that i've been in uni cos obviously i didnt have the time.

I'm looking at other options where i go back to work pseudo-full-time. That is keep a day free to work on self-learning.

On my own, i can go thru Java programming faster than the whole year it'll take for Uni to NOT teach me much. I'll instead concentrate on working on professional courses if i have to to build up credentials.

Uni was just sucking and sucking effort out of me, with no returns, and looking at other people as examples.. it doesnt seem like there are any immediate returns on completion of the course though.

So yeah... for the at least the next 2 years. I'm a Uni drop-out. Its good though that i'm getting out of this on a high and didnt slack off and get kicked out or anything, cos i can just transfer my points from the first year and hop on back where i left of if i decide to for a BSc degree in the short long-run.

If I know anyone that's bound to be pleased about this... it's be a bunch of managers at work that have been trying to poach me over the last coupla years. I havent told them at work yet, but i suppose by the start of the new year, i'd be working my schedule and slowly sever ties with Uni. Bye bye Kingston Uni.

This is a major deviation from what my "unspoken" master plan for my life had always been, but i think being flexible with a 15year old plan and moving things around can only ultimately work to my advantage.

Consider this a lanced boiled. One less source of pressure in my life. Maybe i can actually start gaining some weight now. Yay!

My Back Hurts

Yeah it is a silly entry, but it's just an excuse to say i can now blog from my phone.

Normally means i cant say much but if i have to blog from my fone, i assume it'd be because i'm dying to say something and waitn to get to a computer isnt an option i wanna consider.

Anyway, just so you know, my back hurts from using two pillows stacked on each other... But am i gonna stop doing that probably not.

that my bit of inane Sunday info.

oh yeah... Who's watchin Arsenal vs Chelsea today? Cant wait. I dont do much football but i dont miss big matches either. Halo 2 and Faf TV can wait.

umm... Do i have anything else to say? Yeah... Happy Chrismahanukwanzakheidukfetr

Rhian Benson

I definitely would! Wouldnt you?

That's Rhian Benson by the way. Check her out on Yahoo! Launch

Airplane Food

Did i just say "airplane"? I tihnk i'm turning American. Been told of a few times of late for using American spellings and saying ... mom instead of mum. I ask for favors.... anyway... that's not the point.

I'm having a free lunc at work. It's not my usual sausage roll with chips and a big dollop of mayonaise. It's my free Xmas lunch.. courtesy of the Carphone Warehouse.

It's rather too hot and it just reminds me of airplane food. Why do they make the darn things so hot? Its one thing it being shit... it gotta bee too hot to heat as well?

Yeah so I'm having some turkey... jacket potatos... a sausage with bacon wrapped around it... and blergh! carrots. I hate vegetables but it looked so bland without the carrots.

Oh yeah... this years Carphone Warehouse Christmas gifts came in today.. i should know cos i went to help unload them from the truck (Not an easy job but it was a change from sitting in front of the computer)... i sneaked a peak in one of the cartons. I think the ladies are getting some cospetic packs of some sort. I dunno what they men are getting. It looks though that they're going cheap this year.

Last two years it was some mini fridges.. i sold mine on ebay. Even got another one to sell... there were excesses. Last year it was some portable CD/casette player. I gave it away to my big bro's step-daughter Nicky. You cant really blame them if they go cheaper this year.. they've been employing quite a lot of people.

Happy new year people.

Comment Spammers Are Their Own Undoing

One can hardly browse to any weblog without encountering some rant about how comment spammers are making the blogger's life hell. I saw someone somewhere refer to spammers as the lowest form intelligence on the planet. Or should that be the highest form of stupidity?

It doesnt matter either way cos it seems these guys are essentially making what could have been a lucrative way of advertising go bad because they dont know where and when to stop.

My own personal example. Last week, whiles away in Nottingham, my website was supended my my hosting company suddenly and i had to send a few emails back and forth trying to figure out why i'd been suspended.

The worst i thought would be if somehow someone had gained access to my account and was using it to spam. That according to their policy means no second chances. No questions asked, your account is disabled.

So i was quite glad when i was told it had been turned off due to my account using too much processing power. Precisely "too many open connections to mySQL" databases.

They re-instated my account and gave me a log with a sublte warning saying to fix it before the 29th. Firt thing i thought of was some changes i made a coupla weeks back in other to combat comment spam.

What it tuned out to be? Well I had some hostees on my account a while back who've as at now moved to their own servers... thing is, i never got round to deleteing thier installation of Movable Type and spammers have been slowly adding comments over the best part of a year...

Then one spammer decides to send a comment every second. The point being? Makes no sense. They could've done one every hour over two weeks and would've had the same effect without anyone batting an eyelid. Well now obviously i fixed the problem and no more comments spam on that MT install.

Applying this same analogy to other people's blog. It looks like people dont care so much about one or two comment spam inserted into old posts.. they might even ignore it.

The problems start when people start getting more comment spam than real comments from readers. When they have to spend more time deleting comments than blogging. Some may take drastic steps like deleting their blog altogether. Disabling commnents for a while until a solution to stop the comment spam is also another option.

Comment spam is viral in nature... but it goes against a basic rule in being a virus. Dont kill your host cos you'll die too.

Comment spammers, go back to the drawing board. Back to the days of a spam comment a day and maybe we'll let you survive.

Leading The Smoker Haters

Seem's my newly founded hate for smokers has sent me right to the top for a google search for "I hate smokers" without or without the quotes.

Fumephobic Everywhere... lets gather and kick an ass or two of smokers [or is there an existing word for people that hate smokers? oh wait there is.. sensible people]

Christmas Eve Party 2004

Cant beleive i considered not going to Bediako and George's Xmas Eve party on the 24th. I was the designated DJ and boy do i do it in style.

I wasnt gonna be the kindda DJ that plays crap music and stays behind the table all night anyway. I'm talking techy DJ here. Even though i couldnt take my laptop with me, i managed to find a DVD player that could read Windows Media playlists. I created all my playlists and mini mixes of the PC and burn it on a disk.

I was kindda surprise how it all worked out. The most popular genre was "Bashment" which a lot of Beenie Man and Elephant man fell under. And the Ghanaian tracks didnt even come into play till the second half of the party.

Anyway, so this party was in Degenham, East London. My mates from Accra Academy (George and Bediako) organised the whole thing and left the music up to my and my Shareaza.

Since i had agreed to go to Abe's on Christmas day, i ot a lot of complaints from that angle seeing as the was no public transport in Christmas day and she didnt want me to be late for the Cristmas breakfast at hers. I'll give u a lil' spoiler now and just say i made it.

Back to the party. So i got there about 10 and these guys we playing some hardcore hiphop stuff that they only enjoyed. Needless to say everyone at the party seemed bored but the two of them. And NEEDING saying... everyone at the party looked young and 16-ish. A bunch of lil' short girls sturtting their stuff around making u feel guilty for looking at them.

Turns out Georg'e lil' sis had invited a few people from school who'd then invited their whole crew. ooks like this was gonna the party of the year for them and the didnt seem to be letting up. But when i got in, they were all hugging the walls.

I made a few rounds and ascertained that Bashment and Garage was the only thing that was gonna get them away from the walls. So i set up my playlist specifically to play some musci that wasnt garage or bashment for the next coupla minutes while i sorted out how many of those kinds of songs i had.

Didnt wanna play all 15 of them in the first hour and ruin the rest of the party. So eventually when their kindda music started to play and the dancing began and the meat started getting passed around, i jumped in there myself and did a few moves... y'know the type that gets one too much attention.

Then we finally got hold of an Xbox with Halo 2 , Halo 1 and Dead or Alive 3 on it. As well as a PS2 with some dancemats and set them up in the Boys and Girls rooms respectively. We even got the girls some mirros for if the decided to make up or some shit like that in there.

At this stage we were getting quite good at the party organising thing and our only worried was whether the growups were gonna turn up which they did. Most of the guys jumped straight for the HALO 2 and Dead or Alove setup while the girls went to the dancefloor. Well with the exception of one busty girl that decided to stand in the hallways and look pissed off whenever some guy deliberately brushed himself against her chest. Awesome sight!

I sneaked around to the girls room and the PS2 was seemingly abandoned with the only girls in there just sitting around sipping on some drinks chatting with some 11 year old looking girl jumping around with her sis on the dancemat. I jumped around for a bit which caught the attention of the other girls.. then they all wanted to have a go suddenly so i slipped out back into the dance room.

It was here that i overheard a conversation on the fone about "better music and bear girls". This was around 2am. Next thing i know you could barely move around the rooms. There were over 50 people in the house already.

Two rooms, a sitting room a kitchen and one private room with the music setup. There was nowhere to go, and more people were trying to come in. We didnt have to worry about keeping at the party any more. We had to start bouncing people at the door. But they were having none of it.

The wrong person slipped in, the wrong person got kicked out and the party turned into a big brawl with people trying to force their way in. It was just crazy.

People got thumped on the nose with wooden planks. (Well Michael, another mate from Accra Aca was drunk and decided to go fight them outsdie.... serves him right). A few people got bottles broken over their heads and by 3am the party had to be stopped cos the police were involved.

These guys werent having any of it though and decided to camp outside for a bit hoping the police will leave so they can attack anyone that actually made it to the party.

It was hilarious. Girls shouting all over the place. Guy screaming their heads off with me the only calm person among them. Maybe cos i hadnt drunk anything (even non alcoholic) up till this point. I made a few jokes people started laughing. It was great cos i was actually playing the host role.

So by 4am there was only about 10 of us, and we turned the music on. A bit lower this time though. We partied for another hour or so.

All this while i was trynna hitch a ride in someone car back to Abe's but they all insisted i wait till the following morning, but seeing as it was almost 5am already, i didnt think i'd wake up early enuff to make it to Abe's by breakfast.

I got a £60 cab from Dagenham to Bexkleyheath in South London and thus made it to the breakfast.

I was holed up there for the next 4days or so, hence my only blogging this now.

Well i also learnt that theres another party planned for New Years Eve. What d'u think guys? Should i go?

A Search for the Perfect Girlfriend...

In case you haven't noticed this is not Faf writing this entry. Neither his decorated protege, BrownAngel.

I am what you may call as Abe, Stormy, Stormchild, owner of tristorm.org, gf, girlfriend or crazy possessive bitch who has issues with any female crossing Faf's path. Whichever label you prefer, stick with it. Before I continue onto the main subject, I'd like to state that I may come across as overly-possessive, mainly as a joke, but occasionally to scare some hopeful females (and gay ghanaians :P.. private joke) away. It can be a bit disturbing when there is a limitless list of girls who Faf keeps in contact* with, and certain conversations may cross the line of a harmless* platonic nature, particularly when some 16 yr old girl is shockingly descriptive about her sexual escapades and may as well be planning a Sex in the City: London comeback**. Yea, so all I'm saying is that I'm just doing my job with the filtering of potential threats and such, as many girls say, its not my man I'm worried about, its everybody else. And don't go thinking its a one-sided opinion; we've had our fair share of arguments!

Well back to these pictures I was gettin developed of Elton John naked.. oops.. wrong quote. (D12 anybody?)

Your beloved Faf and I were having a late night/early morning discussion about what his perfect girlfriend would be, and I have decided to compile a list of the following attributes from my point of view, hence he may not agree with all of them. If you know of anyone or think you hold the qualities for Faf's perfect girlfriend, please indicate in the comments and we will get back to you.

1. Genetically female


2. Live in the UK, preferably in close proximity to Tottenham, but not necessary


3. Any ethnic background is welcomed; East Asian or Ghanaian will win you brownie points. NB: Any persons of caribbean descent may lose brownie points with his mum


4. Age 20+, preferably older than 22! Any persons aged lower than this may have to provide a valid passport or visa for proof of age and identity.


5. Must be computer literate. (Does not include ability to type goggle.com and then pressing the go button in IE.. that stands for Internet Explorer!)


6. Likes all things Halo, and be able to enjoy playing and watching for hours on end.. particularly on relatively unimportant events such as birthdays, christmas or new years.


7. Lacks ability in curiosity: does not go about asking questions like inspector.


8. Enjoys watching Stargate SG1, Sopranos, The Daily Show, The Wire and any other american export she can get his hands on


9. Can call at unpredictably appropriate times


10. Can tolerate frequent bursts of intoxicating flatulence and is prepared to be awakened by them during the night


11. Does not drink beer or preferably any type of alcohol.


12. Has a(n older) sister :P


13. Be warm inside :P


14. Enjoy all genres of music; mainly hiphop (Busta Rhymes) and random Ghanaian music such as Reggie Rockstone


15. Doesn't plan ahead


16. Has a nice smelling pussy & a plentiful supply of juice wot comes wiv it

Well, thats all for now, when I think of more I'll add to the list. If you are interested in applying, please leave a comment.

*loose term
**not necessarily true