- 01.07.2002 -

Today I spoke to someone that deserves the title 'as thick as pigshit'. I had received some mail from EGG offering car insurance. Last week I'd been calling around trying to get cheap car insurance. I'm starting to think its not possible.

The conversation usually goes:
"How much?" I usually shout down the phone as yet another company quotes more than half the value of my car for a years TPF&T policy insurance.
"Well you live in Middlesbrough which is a high risk area for car theft sir. And your car is a group 16." they say.
"And group 16 is high is it?" I reply.
"They only go up to 20 sir".
"I see. However my last policy was only X amount which is 200 pounds cheaper than your quote".
"Ah but insurance has gone up by as much as 30% over the last year sir. The insurance industry took a hit last winter."
"Did it? I didn't know that."
"Yes it did sir. It was in all the papers and on the TV. Where were you?"
"Funny you should ask that.."

And so on goes the conversation. Meanwhile my car is still in the shop getting essential work done to pass an MOT. Luckily its only the brakes and new tyres that failed as the mechanics are still pretty sound. Soon it will be back and I'll need insurance to be able to drive it. So back to the EGG offer..

I get through after being on hold for ages and get this guy who sounds 60 and has a farmer giles accent (not that that's bad or anything. I'm just setting the scene). Twenty minutes later and we haven't got past my postcode. "Was that an F or S at the end sir?" I even use the callsigns like 'S for Sierra' but this guy comes back with "Nope the computer still doesn't like it sir. Funny sometimes these computers are sir" he says as he quotes the postcode completely wrong again. I hang up as this call is costing me. I resisted the urge to ask whether the computer is giving him an error message of the type "Problem detected between the chair and the keyboard".

- 03.07.2002 -

When I was travelling, all my worldly possessions were on my back. Before I left England I had given away my TV to my nephew, my stereo to my neice and my VCR to my folks. So I used to joke that when I got back all I'd own was the gear I had with me, a car, a computer and a wardrobe full of clothes. Its a nice thought for a wannabe minimalist like me. However, upon my return I realise that that is not that case and that I have lots of stuff.

So when I had a moment I decided to sort through it all. When I helped Slim and his family move house in New Zealand they were deciding on what was useful and what was not. The latter was binned. It made me realise what a hoarder I am. So I sorted through my belongings with an eye for what I really needed. Well I don't have a VCR so my Dad and sister would make better use of my 400 video titles and 350 anime titles. I never watch them anyway. I chucked old paperwork from 1997 - 1999 and all my T3/Metal Hammer/Maxim/Mens Health magazines.

The next day I sorted out the two sheds for my folks. There were spare car parts for my first three cars in there which I no longer own. I remember hearing about a guy who tidied out his attic recently and instead of going through the old procedure of sort out what you don't want, take it to the incinerator plant, he photographed it and put some of it on ebay. He made a few quid from his old junk. One mans garbage is anothers treasure as they say.

There was no point advertising this lot on ebay though. For one, the roof had a leak so most of the parts had rusted. For another, I couldn't be arsed.

Sorting out my folks junk didn't go as well as planned. Whereas I was looking for reasons to bin stuff, they kept coming up for reasons to keep it. I guess there is this little thought at the back of your mind making you think that you once paid X amount for this thing and that you'll be damned if you are not going to at least try to get some use out of it before discarding it. But thats when your possesions own you and not vice versa.

The next day I started on the loft. We threw away old carpet and two pairs of large speakers that I never got around to using. They were freebies so I wasn't to fussed about chucking them. Besides, you get a nice feeling when you chuck away stuff you no longer need as if a little weight is being lifted off your shoulders.

In need of more good feelings I chucked some old posters of the type 'babes wearing very little' as technically by my age you no longer should own these. I have a laminated one of Buffy free to the first person who asks for it.

I found some old annuals like Bonanza, Rawhide and Johnnie Quest as well as Superman from 1969. Hand-me-down reading material as I recall. Maybe I should set up an account on ebay? I'm keeping a hold on my Action Man and Star Wars toys for a rainy day. There's about a hundred sci-fi novels in a box that I should get rid of too but they are in excellant condition. Maybe I could trade them in for some I haven't read?

Today I sorted out the spare bedroom. In here is my guitar, a spare PC in bits, a Russian photographic enlarger that I have never used and my LP collection. I don't even own a record player anymore. Well, I don't even own a stereo either.

Finally finished clearing out my old stuff and we went to the incerator plant and chucked it all in. It felt good.

- 12.07.2002 -

For some reason I haven't felt the urge to write anything in this journal for a few days. So here's a kind of update on what I've been up to.

I managed to get cheapish insurance for my car followed by not so cheap road tax. However I have since discovered that since all I use it for is town driving i.e. taking my nieces and nephew to school, I do about 59miles to a tenner. Now that's just not funny.

I finished sorting through my paperwork and updated my CV. A few possible jobs on the horizon so things are looking up. Meanwhile I'm enjoying the easy life.

I spent a few minutes here and there on my PC toying with the new layout for this web site. No drastic changes just less pages and easier navigation. Plus I removed a lot of redundant code and images stored on this site from previous versions. It's freed up enough space hopefully to allow my RTW photo gallery to be uploaded.

I was house sitting for my cousin recently. They had some workmen over but couldn't get any time off work. I arrived with my book ready to spend the day drinking coffee and reading. However I discovered a PS2 lying there in front of the TV and a pile of games with Silent Hill 2 on the top. Hmm. I originally wanted to buy a PS2 just to play that particular game.

Ten minutes into the game and I was bored. It was weird but I'd rather be reading my book so I switched off the PS2.

A few days later the kids were nagging me to play Tomb Raider but I have so far not been able to find anyone with a copy of the original TR2 for the PS1. I was in my room (well it's the store room/dads office/library with a bed in it) sorting out my PCCD collection as most of it is so old that I'll never use it anymore. I noticed that one of the CDs had 'TR2GGM' written on it. It turned out to be 'Tomb Raider 2: The Golden Mask'. Core Design released add-on packs for each previous TR game just before the release of the next one.

So I installed the game and tested it so that I knew it worked. Next time the kids came around I started to play it. It was boring at first but I managed to get into it. After all, its TR my favourite game. The kids went home and I carried on with other things but later I felt the need to return to the PC. I finished the game several hours later.

Oops. Well firstly, does this mean my addiction to computer games is back? Nope. I don't fancy playing any other games just TR. Secondly what are the kids going to watch tomorrow as I finished the game?

I went on-line and got a listing of all the TR games for the PC platform. These are:

Tomb Raider 1: The Atlantean Scion	c
Tomb Raider Gold: The Shadow of the Cat	c
Tomb Raider Gold: Unfinished Business	g
Tomb Raider 2: The Dagger of Xian	c
Tomb Raider 2 Gold: The Golden Mask of Tornarsuk	c
Tomb Raider 3: Adventures of Lara Croft	c
Tomb Raider 3 Gold: The Lost Artefact	g
Tomb Raider: The Times Expedition	.
Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation	c
Tomb Raider 5: Chronicles	c

All the ones with a 'c' at the end I have completed. Those with a 'g' I have found in my CD collection and I have already installed them ready for the kids. In fact we are already onto unfinished business. The remaining game I have yet to download. Its 32MBs though so may take some time over a modem.

Another thing I haven't really felt the urge to do is to go shopping. Well, to go out shopping physically. So I've taken to buying stuff on-line. I bought a photo album from John Lewis to house my RTW photos but what they sent me was crap quality and not worth the money so I am returning it. If anyone out there has and recommendations for on-line sellers that you have used and found reliable, send me the URLs as my bookmarks are out of date and I have a small selection of sites that don't really seem to be that competitive.

I met my University buddy Jeff the other day. We both drove out to Teesside Park to grab a KFC and catch up. It appears that I'm not the only one whose life has changed recently. He quit his job, moved out of his parent's house and into his girlfriend's place and scored a much better job. Plus he's been travelling himself. The shocker was that he's engaged. Man, it seems like everyone is getting married these days.

Hing paid me a visit as well. It was good to catch up on events back in Ipswich.

Hopefully there will be a comic strip up today. PSP5 is still conflicting with my printer and I hate having to uninstall one to use the other so if there's one its because I've finished using the printer.

Its Wes's stag night tomorrow in Nottingham so the gas-guzzler and me will be heading south so no comics over the weekend. As it is, I am hoping to get the comic back up to being a daily one but I won't promise anything at this early stage. What I can promise is that I will only release comic strips when I am happy with the quality and content.

- 19.07.2002 -

I'm just recovering from a bug that is going around. It was a pretty nasty one that incapacitated me for a few days. And not a nice few days either. Think of scenes from the exorcist and you'll be close.

So I have the perfect excuse for not doing any comics, illness. To be honest, that's not the real reason. The real reason is lack of ideas. Nothing is happening here that I can use to generate strip ideas. It was much easier when I was working and was surrounded by lots of friends. There was so much material begging to be used. And some which I was not allowed to. ;o)

I did say though in my last journal entry that I would not create a comic strip unless I was happy with it so don't expect one every day until I get my mojo back.

Meanwhile, I did go to Wes's stag night. It was quite fun and I'm sure everyone enjoyed themselves. JP for the first time was allowed to use the word 'wench' in public and not get slapped. But that's all I'm saying as I was told I could not generate any comics from any events that occurred that day.

One thing about the stag night was that a friend of Wes said that he liked reading the comics. A perfect stranger! To me anyway. As I don't advertise the comic and mainly do it for my own amusement and that of my friends, I find my self, curious as to who else out there is reading this site. So to satisfy my curiosity, I'd appreciate it if you just dropped me an email (the address is clickable on the main page) to say 'hi I read your comic'. I'd appreciate it. It may even inspire me to create some more strips.

- 21.07.2002 -

Ah boredom my old enemy. It hit big time yesterday and in the search for something to do I found myself in the attic again routing around. I came across my A1200 and remembered a task I had set myself some years ago now that has been lying dormant on my hard drive all this time. To back up everything that my old Amiga demo scene group Carnage had produced (and its previous name iterations of High Heaven and CyberDreams).

So I spent the rest of the afternoon going through all my old Amiga disks before its too late. Floppies tend to be volatile so the sooner I complete my task and burn the CDs the better. The task should be complete by tonight.

So if anyone wants a CDR containing everything that I still have and managed to get my hands on from Carnage then click on the link below to email me to find out how to get one. I am not doing this for profit but to ensure that the software survives. Therefore the cost will be minimal. Probably 1.50ukp for the CD and postage and packaging. Or 50p if you send me a stamped address envelope.

Those of you that know my Middlesbrough address already can write to me immediately. In fact the best bet would be to choose a padded envelope and post your 50p and return postage (about 50p) and return address details inside the envelope and I'll just reuse the parcel to send the CD back to you.

Click here to email me if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the Carnage CD.

Click here for a summary of what is on the CD.

- 27.07.2002 -

I finally got around to visiting my Dads place of work recently. He works down a mine and I mentioned that I'd like to have a visit at some point. Normally there is a 2-year waiting list but he pulled some strings and I hooked up with a group that was one man short.

We watched a video about the company and what it does (it is not a coal mine). Then we were issued safety belts, hats and protective gear. We went to a steel cage, got in and then dropped over 1,100ft. The drop was so fast that if I had been standing on a pair of scales I'm sure my weight would have dropped.

At the bottom we walked a short distance to a modified ford transit. The tour group got in the back and I rode up front. We cruised down mine roads for about 5.5miles going up and down, left and right beeping at crossroads. It felt a bit weird being this far underground out under the sea driving along underground roads that few have been privileged enough to traverse.

At the rock face I met my Dad and his crew and we were shown the mining equipment and the processes involved in securing the ceiling and walls and mining the ore. It was pretty informative. At least now I have an idea of what my Dad does each day when he goes to work.

- 30.07.2002 -

A nasty virus

I have had one hell of a weekend. And it's all down to a virus that the virus community rated as 'low risk'.

It started last week. I would be uploading Detox or checking out my favourite web sites when my internet connection would disconnect then try to reconnect. A pop up warning was all that showed that something was not quite right. I tried to kill the dial up window but it would not have it. Internet Explorer would not close down either and CTRL-ALT-DEL popped up behind the dialler window and was locked in place. So I turned the modem off.

Everything locked up and I had to restart the machine. A close inspection after reboot showed that I had something called 'Webdialer' installed on my machine. It sticks shortcuts all over your desktop in the form 11-25-83.exe. Random numbers every time. I uninstalled it and continued to surf.

It happened a few more times. I'd disconnect and then try to reconnect. Each time I had to kill the modem by physically switching it off.

I scoured the net for information and came across 'TROJ_DIALER_B' on the Trend Micro web site. Webdialer is a trojan virus. It is embedded into web site code and if you allow third party plug-ins access to your browser it installs itself on your PC and tries to connect you to an 0909 number at 1.50ukp a minute!

Paranoid I hit a catch 22 situation. I need a virus killer yet do I connect to the net? I was using InoculateIT and left it on my PC for my sister to use while I was away with instructions on how to perform auto downloads of DAT updates while I was away. CAI decided to stop support of InoculateIT while I was away and I foolishly had not gotten around to getting a replacement virus killer when I was infected. I was still running InoculateIT but with an out-of-date DAT file.

I decided to download PC-Cillin 2002 from the Trend Micro web site. Several hours later and about 7 attempts and it refused to install. It did not like ZoneAlarm. Even when I uninstalled ZA it refused to install. Damn. So I downloaded a trial version of the latest McAfee VirusScan software. Several hours later it was installed but found no virus. I needed the latest DAT file for it.

You can not download the DAT files from the McAfee web site unless you register the software. However you can download it from download.com and install it onto your unregistered copy that way. It found the virus along with a few others.

I felt a bit better until it happened again. WTF? I disconnected from the net and spent hours pouring through my system. It seems that it had installed two plug-ins in C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Program Files, which the virus killer ignored. I deleted these. This prevented more Webdialers from being downloaded from the internet (I really need ZoneAlarm Pro for better security).

I also performed a search on my hard drives using START>FIND searching for the strings '*webdial*' and '*dial*' and found several copies of it. I also performed these searches on my registry and found copies of keys there too.

By now I was pretty paranoid so I performed a system scan with ad-aware 5.83, which found several copies installed in weird locations but patched into my boot configuration. Then I ran a further virus scan and found a further OCX file which was deleted.

My computer was slowing down at this point so I rebooted into DOS and ran a full SCANDISK and went to watch a movie, as I needed a break. I came back later and defragged C: which was pretty fragmented and ran First Aid, which found a lot problems. These processes are not necessary; I was just employing overkill.

I rebooted the machine and searched and searched for the virus but there were no copies of it. Had I succeeded in removing it completely? Now all I was worried about was, was it successful in connecting at any point as there were several times when I left the PC on and went away to do something else as it downloaded new media updates and system software. Could the virus have connected while I was not there and ran up a huge phone bill?

I went to the computer fair on Sunday and hooked up with Dave and Jeff. They suggested that I run some AT commands on the modem to see what numbers it has been dialling and to create a completely new dialup-networking instance to access my ISP.

I tried calling our telecomms provider to see if the virus had connected to any 0909* numbers but I was not the bill payer so they would not tell me anything.

I created a new dialup-networking instance and ran some AT commands via HyperTerminal but the modem did not store anything in its memory.

Yesterday I got a call from my Dad who had phoned the phone company. No 0909* numbers are on record as having being dialled from this number. Phew! I felt like a great big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. In reality another had been put on. As the malicious bastards out there get better and better at what they do it means that we have to increase our efforts to protect ourselves while using the internet.

Of course there is one way to avoid this particular virus, do not access the internet via modem. Those of you using cable are perfectly safe as this virus cannot dial out or break your connection.

One point I'd like to make is that the virus killers out there do not remove this virus automatically. You have to scan for it, as the way it infects you is not detected by a virus killer. Only a really good commercial firewall will prevent it installing itself without your permission. In fact Trend Micro goes as far to say on its very own web site that its virus killer, PC-cillin will kill the virus but not prevent it. It then gives you a step-by-step list of instructions on how to clean your system and registry manually after you have performed a virus scan. These instructions I found left a lot to be desired as they did not include how to remove the plug-ins and the Webdialer software left on your system by the virus killer (it only removes the main executable).

Why have I written this and uploaded it to my web site? Well, to warn you that you should all be careful yourselves while accessing the internet and to ensure that you have adequate protection on your machine.

Now I can get back to creating some comics.

Note: One important note I'd like to make is a discovery I made while hunting down this virus in my system. I mentioned that my computer was beginning to slow down. In fact I was running out of Hard Disk space for no apparent reason.

About two months ago my recycle bin had developed a fault. When I deleted a lot of files and tried to empty the recycle bin I received an error '082_navcat_something' file not found. The recycle bin seemed to work though, as it was always empty afterwards.

While sitting in front of my PC watching McAfee VirusScan hunt for viruses I noticed that it was scanning sub-directory after sub-directory under C:\RECYCLED and there was a serious amount of files in there. WTF?

I ran command.com (I use Win98) and typed dir and found nothing, but LIST, an old freeware DOS program showed multiple directories with lots of contents including the navcat file. I ran dir/? And used the dir/ah command to discover that the recycle bin was full of hundreds of files in a myriad of directories. Why? I have no idea but I deleted them and I no longer have any recycle bin errors and my system is running faster than it has done for some time.

Now I know what most of you are saying right now. The same thing Jeff and Dave told me at the computer fair. That I should reinstall Windows, or better yet, a newer version. If you know me, you'll know that I am one stubborn bastard and I'll do anything to not have to reinstall an operating system. So far this version has been on my machine since I built it in 1999. Not bad.

David Kei

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