Ryan McFadden

For some idiotic reason, I joined the Nazi party. Here in London, they keep trying to tell me that it’s actually called ‘personal training’ (I say it’s all semantics) – and I pay for someone to abuse, ridicule, and taunt me.

However, today, I got to measure myself to record my progress (because you’re only allowed to measure yourself there…to make it official…) and I’ve lost two inches off my waistline and an inch off my thighs.

I’ve increased my strength 25% across many of the bench-marks (push-ups, squats, bench) and today…

I did my first true chin-up in 15 years.

Yay me (okay, that sounded gay…how about a manly ‘thumbs up’?)

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Health

Received a rejection from Aberrant Dreams. From Duotrope ‘s Digest they are listed as one of the ‘Top 25 Most Challenging Markets’ (out of 2200 listed markets).

This rejection: Thank you for submitting DEAD LETTER OFFICE, but we’re going to pass on this one. I liked the tension and worldbuilding in this one, but in the end, I didn’t think the story’s protagonist was sufficiently likeable to carry the tale. But please do submit your work to us again soon…you’ve got a professional storeytelling voice and we’d like to see more.

Of course, I can’t disagree. They didn’t like the main character, then, well, they didn’t like the main character. He was, after all, a killer. I guess the point was that even though he was a killer, he still was much like us (the old thing about ‘never being able to go home again’).

But this is a continuing trend — knocking but not quite able to get through that door. Feels like I’m missing something.

When I got back from Banff, I knew I had to work on my writing — not the storytelling, but the actual writing. Sentence composition, word choice, editing, tightness…and I think I’m doing pretty well and it has gotten me to this next stage.

But now it seems like I’m missing something else. Something to get me over that hump. I don’t think it’s the actual stories — I think they’re fairly original, with some fun ideas, and creative (hey, I can find the positive). But I’m missing something.

Somehow, I have to find out what.

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Writing

I sent Lady Luck to Podcastle…a fantasy-based podcast. I sent it today at 4:03pm. I got it back (rejected) at 4:23.

I would’ve preferred an acceptance…but a 20-minute rejection at least allows me to send out…immediately.

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Writing

Timbit gate. The war of the doughnuts.

A timbit has grabbed the media’s attention.

London Free Press today. The headline reads: Woman fired from Tim Hortons for giving Timbit to Baby. This is a local story (local to London, that is) about one of those ‘damn, how could they do that’ moments. My guess is that they were looking to terminate this employee — and this was the way to do it.

Everyone knows they give Timbits to dogs and little kids. It’s just what they do. Of course, if you read the story as a stand-alone, it seems harsh… and paints Tim Hortons in a very bad light. The fact that the protagonist is a single mom of four (FOUR!) makes the story all the more bitter (ie good TV).

This was front page news of the London Free Press. I wondered: how the hell did they find out about this? Who contacted the paper? Does she have a friend at the LFP that knows about this? Because this kind of story happens to all of us at one time or another (just change Timbit to underage-hooker for me, I suppose).

Yet then I went to the Toronto Sun. Guess what was on the front page? Same headline. Okay, okay, they’re both owned by the same publisher. Then I went to the Toronto Star. Guess what they have on the front page? The Timbit fiasco.

Did a google search — Toronto Sun, Star, National Post, London Free Press…all with the story of this woman losing her job.

How did this happen? What drew the media to this story? Is it that Tim Horton’s has become a corporate villain? That this woman is in a minimum wage job and was fired? Free Timbits (mmm, timbits).

But then small businesses will take it upon themselves to capitalize on this media frenzy — and hire the woman.

Will they then fire her three months down the road for giving away company computers?

Stay tuned.

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Computers

The past three weeks have been hell — and not for the reason that you think. It seems that the Chinese are quite upset over the West protesting the Olympics. So upset that Chinese Nationalists (we usually call them the Government) decided to attack websites across the Western World.

My websites: teamsales.ca, refgear.ca, and forcesports.com are all in the Western World — and fell prey to something called a SQL Injection Attack. What the hell is a SQL injectino attack? It means that someone has royally screwed my websites.

ALL the information was compromised. Hundreds of records, thousands of fields of the database — ruined.

Late last night, after three weeks of HELL, I finally found the code. It looks something like this: DECLARE%20@S%20NVARCHAR(4000);SET%20@S=CAST(0×440045004300
4C00410052004500200040005400200076006100720063006800610072
00280032003500350029002C0040004300200076006100720063006800

Wow, isn’t that impressive. That code (while incomplete…hey, I’m not completely stupid) was written by the devil.

I’ve learned more about security in the past 2-3 weeks than I did in my previous 35 years (well, considering I didn’t know anything, that really isn’t impressive at all).

First rule of security — the Chinese SUCK

Second rule of security — never give your Vietnamese workers the passwords to your database (because they’ll surrender them to the Chinese at the first hint of trouble).

Third rule of security — as if you can bomb them back into the stone age, make sure they’re already not living in the bamboo age.

Fourth rule of security — never bring a knife to a gun fight.

There, you follow those rules, and your website will be secure.

Free Tibet (where ever the hell it is).

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Computers