#wanted to download a game. downloaded the installer ran a scan because I scan Everything

[ff2-soda-pop]

why does my antivirus have to do everything at fucking snail speed

[canalstreetbaker]

Sixth World Storytime

Sit back kids, and get comfortable.  I’m going to tell you about Dozer.

Shadowrun, as most of you are aware, is a cyberpunk hypercapitalist dystopia which we’re slouching to even today, with a bevy of guns, cars, sweet-ass cybernetic implants, corporations larger than any country today with yearly profits in the trillions, and absolutely everything being for sale.  Food is mostly soy and corn reconstituted into a myriad of things and treated with a flavor faucet.  Surveillance is omnipresent but the analysis systems are so bad that those without ID numbers just kind of slide through the spaces between.  Those without System Identification Numbers - without SIN - do not exist.  This is good, and bad.  

Shadowrun also has magic.  And fantasy races.  Specifically it has Orks.  This is important, because Dozer is an Ork in a Human’s world.

(Below the cut we get a little nasty.  Disclaimer for the admins when they eventually fall upon this depravity - this is a fictional event in a fictional world based upon a tabletop roleplaying game.  Back the fuck off.)

In the Underground of Seattle rests a community of Trolls, Orks, and Dwarves no that’s all.  Until recently in 6W canon, the Underground was not recognized as an official District of the Seattle Metroplex - and the Orks liked that just fine.  The Trolls didn’t care much, since they tended to hang with the Orks or their own kind, shared Hurlg (a hyper-IPA with plenty of nutmeg and a caustic that could burn an Elf’s stomach to pieces) and plenty of meatlike substances at bars and restaurants that catered to them.  In short, the Ork Underground was its own little city, with businesses, religion, medicine, and police.

Dozer, an Ork, was a member of the Underground’s police force - the Skraacha. An Or’zet term meaning ‘Scorcher’, the Skraacha handled neighborhood watch, ne’er-do-well training into ‘functional’ members of society.  They kept the peace, supported metahuman rights rallies, beat the fuck out of the local neo-Nazi human supremacists in town (Humanis) and in their off time ran protection rackets and smuggled wepaons.  They loved young, angry Orks with a bone to pick and a chip on their shoulder.  Dozer fit in perfectly.

An aside, this is 5th Edition Shadowrun.  Dozer was built as a cybered ‘street samurai’ specializing in close-encounters of the murderous kind.  His muscles were cybernetic, he had a blade the length of his forearm concealed in his forearm, and he’d somehow begged, borrowed, and stole enough nuyen to install a bespoke Synaptic Booster, which - coupled with an Adrenaline Surge to make sure he always went first - ensured anyone who crossed his fist had a very bad day.  

By the time he retired (a wonderful story in itself, but not the focus of today), Dozer had about 350 karma, 4 Street Cred (after faking his death, a story I’ll tell later), 4 Notoriety, and managed to stay out of the Public Eye until the very end when he stole a nuclear submarine.  Again, a story I’ll tell later.

Dozer had quit the Skraacha after a terrible fight between a lieutenant of the group (Eybyu) and another pipe-thumping patrolman which left both patrolman and lieutenant dead, and Dozer in critical condition with massive damage to his face.  Upon recovery, he promptly quit the force and went into business for himself - running a food truck he’d bought with the “insurance money” that he called C2T Solutions.

(Because you can solve any problem with a Cyberspur 2 the Throat.)

You see, Dozer had also installed a Suprathyroid Gland, which is pretty much what it says on the tin - it’s a carefully engineered runaway growth problem which confers increased strength, speed, and toughness.  It also makes one the terror of buffets everywhere, and after Dozer had been thrown out of the fourth one he decided he was going to start cooking.  And if he was going to cook, then by Dunkelzahn he was going to make enough for everyone.  

Plus nobody looked at the cook unless he had a ponytail and a storied Naval career, so he could use it for information gathering.  Only...things didn’t go that way.

Dozer’s first use of the food truck was when he and a team of pipehitters was hired to cross off a list of names - with bonuses for those made to look like accidents.  There were six names on the list:

* A Federated-Boeing executive

* A Stuffer Shack employee

* An IT goon in a corporate enclave

* A retiree on the state dole

* A city employee with the Parks Department

* A ten-year-old trustafarian in a ritzy enclave

Dozer drew the short straw (or stole them while the rest of the crew argued) and took the city employee, the Stuffer Shack employee, and in a move that disgusted the rest of the team, the ten-year old. How can an Ork just cruelly kill a ten-year old kid?

With cupcakes, Dozer reasoned.  Kids love cupcakes.

In a stunningly macabre display of chemistry and culinary science, Dozer whipped up a pair of dark chocolate cupcakes one would expect to find at a boutique patisserie, both frosted with chocolate buttercream icing. Special icing.

Because icing doesn’t burn off the alcohol content of spiced rum - and Chloral Hydrate (Shadowrun’s version of Rophynol) has double potency when mixed with said rum.

Add in a gaily-wrapped box from an actual boutique patisserie with an Augmented Reality tag noting they were offering gift boxes as a ‘thank you’ to the community they served, and Dozer had created the perfect lure to ensnare anyone with a sweet tooth.  

Ten-year old Trudy stepped out of the schoolyard gate, savoring the fine Bellevue weather as she walked along the road towards home.  She didn’t *need* to walk, but it had been a nice day at school and Trudy felt even better about the day as she could remember the highest points of it while getting that last bit of exercise before the afternoon homework session began.

The sun was shining, the roads were quiet save the occasional yellow bus or GridGuided car taking her classmates to *their* homes.  Allison had suggested Trudy come over to her house for a group study session, but the last time that had happened Allison’s homework looked suspiciously similar (okay, they were exactly the same) as hers.  

“Afternoon, Ms. Appleton!”

The voice caused Trudy to turn and wave with a bright smile, her DocWagon bracelet jangling against her pale wrist.  Two Knight Errant patrol officers leaned against their car, waving back before scanning the area for potential suspects to question and search.  

“Good afternoon Officer Cortez!” she yelled.  “Hi Sergeant Weber!”

The two officers were well known in the neighborhood, and Trudy’s parents had noted with pride the discount they had received on their insurance premiums by agreeing to the surcharge for having physical patrols in the area during and after school hours.  Really, they had said, it was leaving nuyen on the table if they hadn’t, and having security services available during their 12-hour workdays meant they could put in the extra hours at the office but still sleep easy at night.

As she walked past manicured lawns, a smelly groundskeeper trimming hedges, and Augmented Reality picket fence property indicators to her own modest home, Trudy’s day got even better as she spied a specialty cardboard container from her favorite bakery on the doorstep.  She’d never thought that Le Petite Sweet would send a delivery, but someone must have really been thinking of her today to send over such a treat!  Trudy picked up the box before sending the unlock code to the house’s front door via her bedazzled trode patch on her temple - right where her Datajack would be, she thought.

The cool air of the perfectly-adjusted central heating and cooling system brushed against her face as Trudy stepped inside, her commlink downloading personal messages from the corporate grid once her PAN interfaced with the wider house network.  There were two more messages from Allison, one of which was a repeated offer for Trudy to come visit today and do homework, and a second one that her Nixdorf Sekretar agent indicated was a phishing attempt via a picture of a cat playing a piano.  Trudy thought the picture was funny, but not funny enough to allow Allison access to copy her homework directly. Besides, there were much more important things to consider.

Trudy set the box on the dining room table and opened her prize, finding a pair of chocolate cupcakes with a dark chocolate icing.  They smelled freshly baked and sweet - not as sweet as she liked, and without the chocolate sprinkles she always wanted when she would get her weekly treat at Le Petite.  In fact, they didn’t even look quite like the bakery’s signature cupcake - but her stomach growled in anticipation anyway, so she took a bite while going through her homework questions for the day.  The rich flavor of the chocolate was slightly offset by the spiciness in the icing.  Trudy was confused for a moment, then took another bite.  

There was rum in the icing.  Trudy knew because she had stolen a drink from her father’s liquor cabinet, and the dark liquid in the bottle tasted just like this.  The icing, however, was much better than that terrible alcohol.

In no time at all, the first cupcake was gone, and Trudy yawned while sending a message to the fridge unit to pour her a glass of milk.  She felt oh-so tired all of a sudden.  Maybe the nice groundskeeper opening the back door could help her get her milk.

Shaking his head, Dozer gently took poor Trudy upstairs to the bathtub, ran the water, and laid her inside.  He took the box and the detritus from the cupcake, and let himself out the door he entered.

The payment hit his account fifteen minutes later, as medical services screamed towards the house where a drowning had occurred.

There are, of course, several other stories I have involving Dozer and his food truck, Dozer and his old patrolman buddy Stamp, Dozer being thrown off a ten-story building and hitting the pool with nothing more than a bruise, Dozer inventing the term ‘dumptrucking’ as it refers to lateral strategy, and finally Dozer stealing a nuclear submarine and becoming a pirate king with a mage and a decker he’d run with on that last score.

But for today, we’ll leave it with poor Trudy.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll talk about how Dozer changed the outcome of a re-enactment of the historic Battle of Helm’s Deep.

[travelingtheusa]

NEW YORK

14 Nov 2019 (Thu) – I was invited to participate in the Veteran’s Day ceremony on November 11th with the American Legion post.  We went to two sites to perform a formal ceremony then held a public ceremony at the Veterans Park next to town hall.  About 50 people showed up; mostly veterans.  There was a young man from the high school who sang the National Anthem that had the most beautiful, angelic voice.  After the ceremony, everyone was invited to the Post for hot dogs and hamburgers.

     On Wednesday, November 13th, members of the Post were invited to the local schools. First, we went to the high school and participated in a panel.  We each described our service experience but ran out of time for questions from the kids. The students all came in with jackets and back packs which made me think they were getting off the bus and immediately directed to the auditorium.

     After an hour at the high school, we went to the Maud Sherwood elementary school. We were directed to the end of a long hallway while the students (grades 2 through 5) lined up along the walls. Then we walked down the hall with the kids clapping, waving flags, and giving us high fives.  I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.  It was great!  We had a continental breakfast (courtesy of the PTA), then we split up into groups of three (there were nine of us there), and we went into 5th grade classrooms to talk with the kids.  They had prepared questions followed by freewheeling questions.  Some were very insightful.  The day was quite delightful.

     Following the school, I went directly to Toast Coffeehouse in Patchogue to meet my sister, Susan, for lunch.  The food in that place is awesome! We had a very pleasant visit and said our goodbyes.  She invited me to stay with her when I come back to New York for a checkup.

      At 6:00 p.m., we had Miranda, Kenny, and Caiden come over for a Thanksgiving dinner. Since we won’t be here on Thanksgiving Day, we took an opportunity to celebrate together early.  The food and company were all very nice.  Caiden is such a delightful little boy.

     Today, I had a visit with the oncologist.  I took a CT scan on Tuesday and this visit was to find out the results. It was great news!  Many of the lymph nodes are half their size now.  I am responding beautifully to the chemotherapy.  The nurse did a nose swab because I said I thought I had something brewing.  They wanted to make sure I don’t have the flu or pneumonia.  The doctor then gave me three months before coming back for a checkup. Woohoo!!!  We are cleared to hit the road!

9 Nov 2019 (Sat) – We took Caiden and a friend to an amusement area today. We wanted to take him to BounceU in Nesconset but when we arrived, they had birthday parties going on and no open play. So we drove another half hour to Huntington only to discover we were in the wrong town.  After a total of about an hour’s driving time with two very impatient six years olds in the back seat, we arrived at @Play Adventures in Farmingdale. It was a delightful afternoon for the boys – three hours of bounces, rides, and games.  Afterward, we stopped at McDonald’s for lunch.  The boys had a great time.

     Miranda’s best friend’s grandmother passed away.  She had the funeral and lunch this morning (hence, we were watching Caiden).  Later, she went back to the house for a memorial dinner with the family.  I went back into the house to watch Caiden until she and Kenny got back home.

     Yesterday, we went shopping at Kohl’s.  They were advertising 30% discount for veterans.  We spent too much money and it turned out that some items were not eligible for the discount.  Apparently, the manufacturer tells the store they can’t discount their products. Somehow, that seems dishonest. Kohl’s advertises taking the discount but then doesn’t do it.  We bought a new toaster oven with 11 functions (will I really ever use all of them?) that was advertised at $249.99.  The clerk rang it up at $349.99 at the register.  We had to go to customer service for the correction and it turned out we bought the Pro, with was $100 more.  AND there was no 30% discount on it!!

6 November 2019 (Wed – Paul’s Birthday) – It’s been a busy week.  We saw a lawyer to have our wills updated.  She gave us homework to do – lol.  It is hard to decide who your health care proxy and power of attorney should be.  Doing a will is an eye-opening event.  It makes you face your mortality.  Ugh.

     The American Legion post hosted their annual Law & Order dinner.  They honored firemen, two harbormasters, and a police officer who pulled a car off the train tracks minutes before a train rolled through.  One of the firemen was honored for 70 years of service as a volunteer fire fighter with Islip.  It turned out that he was Paul’s cousin! He knew Paul’s mother in high school and served with Paul’s grandfather in the department (his grandfather was a fire chief).  We exchanged information and promised to look each other up this winter when we are down in Florida.

     I took my laptop to Best Buy for tweaking. The tech did not find any viruses.  I saw a gastroenterologist on Monday and had a mammogram on Wednesday.  I took Paul to the Irish Coffee Pub for his birthday. They make the very best potato soup anywhere.

31 October 2019 (Thu - HALLOWEEN) – I had lunch with my daughter, Gina, on Tuesday.  We went to a place called Tula’s Kitchen.  It’s one of those very eclectic health food restaurants that are popping up all over the country.  The food was quite good.  On Wednesday, I had lunch with my sister, Susan.  We went to another eclectic place called Tiger Lily.  Again, the food was very good.

     We had Angel Fence Company come by and we signed a contract for a fence installation along the back of the property.  This it to replace the fence that was damaged during the thunderstorm that rolled through in August.  I sent the estimate to USAA and they already paid off on it – BEFORE we had the work done. I sent a note reminding them it was an estimate and it could wind up costing more depending on what they find when they do the actual installation.

     I spent over two and half hours on the phone in the last two days with Carbonite.  It is a cloud storage service where they back up our computer to the cloud.  When my computer was reset, we lost the program. It would not reinstall properly and I had to get techs to work on the problem.  Apparently, it wasn’t such an easy fix but they finally got it done.

     Today, Paul and I went to the movies to see “The Current Wars.”  It was about the competition among Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, and Thomas Edison.  The movie was very interesting and we would highly recommend it.

27 October 2019 (Sun) – It was a busy week.  I watched Lincoln two days this week so Sam could get some extra time in at work.  He is such a pleasant baby.  Always smiling.  Travis started his new job on Wednesday.  Hope it goes well for him.  Also on Wednesday, we went to the ophthalmologist for eye exams.  Paul and I both tested out at 20/25.  The doctor saw some pressure behind my left eye and wants me back in six months.  I’ll see if I can align an appointment with a Sloan Kettering checkup down the road.

     We went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with friends from the American Legion on Wednesday.  Then we went to dinner at Carrabba’s on Friday with my brother, Dennis, and his lady, Denise.  We had planned to meet them at their apartment before going to dinner but the plans changed.  Dennis & Denise recently moved into their new place and we still want to see it.

     We took Travis and the family to a pumpkin farm yesterday.  It was a small farm but not very busy considering this is the last weekend before Halloween.  They had a play area with bouncy houses and lots of pumpkins to choose from.  There was also a hay ride and a pony taking kids for a ride.

     We went to church this morning.  It was laity Sunday so the service was run by the lay leader. Several of us took part in the service doing readings and leading prayer.  I gave a five minute sermon.  It was a nice service.

21 October 2019 (Mon) – I went to the audiologist at the Northport VA on the 18th.  The doctor found a mild hearing loss in my right ear and a moderate hearing loss in my left ear.  She said it was unusual to have a greater loss in one ear over the other and that I needed to see a doctor to be sure there was not a medical reason for the difference.  She offered to make an appointment at the VA but said I probably wouldn’t get an appointment for two or three months.  We agreed that I would go to a civilian doctor because I could get an appointment sooner.  In the meantime, she would order one hearing aid for my left ear (she said I don’t need one for the right ear).  She also gave me information to download an app for the hearing aid onto my iPhone.  

     I saw a civilian audiologist yesterday.  He insisted on giving me another hearing test.  The results were more symmetrical and he cleared me for the hearing aid.  He suggested I get aids for both ears; the VA doctor refuses to do that.  If I bought the hearing aids at the civilian audiology office, it would cost me $6,000.  Actually, $3,000.  My insurance would pay $3,000 toward the cost.  If I got the hearing aids at the VA, it will cost me nothing.  Guess what I’m doing?

     Miranda and Kenny went to Philly for the weekend and we watched Caiden. We took him to Rise of the Jack O’Lanterns at Old Westbury Gardens on Friday.  They carve 5,000 pumpkins every week for six weeks.  Visitors walk down a trail lined with thousands of pumpkins on display along the walkway.  Several pumpkins had projections that had them singing Halloween songs.  The craftsmanship was simply amazing!

     On Saturday, we went over to the American Legion Hall where we met Samantha and her mother, Sharon.  Together, we set up tables and arranged everything for Lincoln’s baptism party the next day.  On Sunday, Lincoln Alexander Thomas was baptized.  Afterward, we enjoyed a party at the legion hall.  Lincoln was SO good.  He smiled and laughed all day and then just quietly went to sleep in my arms. Not one little tear or fuss escaped him all day.

16 October 2019 (Weds) – Another visit to the doctor brought mixed results.  The bloodwork continues to show a decrease in the cancer cells.  However, I am having some adverse effects from the chemo.  I have a rash on my leg and a drying out of my fingertips.  Neuropathy and cellulitis are common side effects.  The doctor told me to stop the Imbruvica for 3 days.  If the rash hasn’t improved, stay off the medication for 5 days. If there is still no improvement, I have to go back and have him treat me topically.  I’ve been doing so well that I find this to be something of a disappointment.  The rash has been getting better so that keeps me hopeful.

     My birthday was on Monday (October 14) and Paul took me to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  I took a picture with a margarita at an angle that made the drink look very large.  We have kind of developed a reputation with the margaritas and now find we have to post pictures of these drinks.  It’s kind of funny.

     We are still waiting for the guy behind us to take down two trees that threaten our property.  Three fence companies have given us quotes for a new fence but we won’t do anything until those trees are taken down.  A good windstorm will blow them down and damage the new fence.  We’ll have to go over there for a third time to ask them to take down those trees.  I don’t want to get into sending registered letters threatening legal action like the insurance company is suggesting we do.  Paul thinks the neighbor just can’t afford to pay for a tree removal.  Hmmmm,  what to do. What to do?

 13 October 2019 (Sun) - We took Caiden to church with us today. Afterward, Paul worked with a crew to take apart a piano that needed to be thrown out.  Jan has been advertising the piano for free to anyone but no one has claimed it so it was time to just throw it out.  Caiden and I played in the nursery area until they were finished.

     It was not a good day for me.  I woke feeling exhausted and nauseous.  At 3:00 p.m., Paul spelled me for an hour and I took a nap.  That was probably one of the best naps I have ever had. I really needed that!  After I woke, I made dinner then took Caiden into the house and gave him a bath.  

     On Friday, we went to an optometrist for eye exams.  I got annoyed with the whole thing.  The doctor was pushy and it seemed like his equipment was rigged so he could do more tests.  You cover one eye, stare at a red spot, and click a switch every time you see a green light.  Everything went fine with the left eye covered.  But when he covered my right eye, I couldn’t really see the red spot. It was faded and disappeared a lot so I just looked around and clicked on the green lights.  When the doctor came back to the room, I said he couldn’t trust the test because I couldn’t see the red light.  He told me not to worry about it.  That didn’t seem right at all.  When I checked with Paul about his test, he had the same experience.  We said we would wait on glasses and left. We won’t go back to him.  I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist.  

10 October 2019 (Thu) – Paul got the heater fixed.  That’s good because the weather has been cool – in the 40s at night.  

     I had an appointment at the VA today.  It is basically a perfunctory checkup.  The doctor knows I am being treated at Sloan Kettering and really just want a backup with the VA in the event I have trouble getting my medication.  She is a very pleasant doctor and completely understands my motivations.  She did make an appointment for me to see someone in dermatology.  I have a small spot on my bottom lip that I thought was chapped lips.  But it has been there a couple of months and now has started to change color.  My sister was just diagnosed with skin cancer and that made me think I should probably get my lip checked out.

     After the VA, I met my sister, Susan, and her daughter, Shay, for lunch at Tula Kitchen.  It is an eclectic restaurant with vegetarian dishes that are very different.  Susan, her husband, Bill, Shay and her boyfriend, Pat, just returned from a trip to Scandinavia.  Susan’s friend, Ronnie, passed away and left Susan and Bill to handle his affairs. Ronnie’s body was cremated and they took the ashes to Sweden where Ronnie was born.  After Sweden, they went to Norway and Iceland.  It was a great trip.

    Travis lost his job.  He has had such rotten luck with work.  Hope he finds a new one quickly.  They are in the middle of having their mortgage modified and this will certainly have an impact.  Lincoln will be baptized on October 20.  I coordinated with the American Legion Post to have a party there after the christening. The commander initially told me I had to pay $300.  When I told him commanders (past and present) were allowed one free rental a year and a second at half price when I was commander, he relented and will let us use the hall at no charge.  That was very nice of him.  We coordinated times to open the building.

8 October 2019 (Tue) – We took Caiden to church with us on Sunday. It was a pretty busy day with him. His father worked from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.  I gave Caiden his bath, read his books, and sang some songs.  He didn’t want to eat steak for dinner.  When I told him that was it for the night.  He didn’t have to eat it but there wouldn’t be anything else. We then went about eating and quietly watched while he ate his steak and a piece of potato.  It was amusing to watch the quiet surrender.

     Kenny was home on Monday so we did not watch Caiden but we did have them come in for dinner.  We had burgers, fries, and corn.  Caiden ate about half his burger, some fries, and made a token effort at the corn then was done.  I gave him chocolate ice cream for dessert.  That sure pumped him up! The sugar rush kept him running back and forth for an hour.

     Today, Kenny worked from 10 to 4.  Paul and I ran some errands.  I picked Kenny up at 4:15 and Paul got Caiden from the bus.  At 5 p.m., Paul and I went down to the church to help clean up after the yard sale.  There were several pieces of furniture (desks, dressers, couches, loveseats) left over that we had to break up and put in the dumpster.  Several of us turned out for the job and it took just over an hour to get it all done.  

 5 October 2019 (Sat) – We returned to New York on September 30 from the SMART National Muster in Urbanna, VA.  We stopped two nights in Washington, D.C. staying on Joint Base Andrews AFB.  The campground certainly could use some TLC.  Everything is run down and looking worn.  It seems weird that they would let it look like that since the President’s plane is kept there.  You’d think since it was a flagship airfield that they would keep it up better.  Paul thinks the only reason Andrews AFB is kept open is because it’s close to D.C.

     Well, I goofed big time.  I was trying to update our travel journal and I got an error message from the computer.  I inadvertently clicked on a RESET button and the computer reset itself back to its default mode.  All the programs and apps that we have loaded on the computer since we bought it six years ago were wiped off.  The version of Word that I have using (Word 2010) was removed and a docx file replaced it. That updated version would not open the older version.  Ugh. Poor Paul has spent hours reloading all those lost programs.  At least when the computer reset itself, it made a list of all those programs that were removed.  There is a list to follow in reestablishing the programs.

     Miranda is in Maine this week.  We have been driving Kenny back and forth to work and watching Caiden in between work and school.  He is a very energetic little boy!

     The church had a yard sale yesterday.  The weather was beautiful and there were yard sales all over town.  I drove down Brook Street (a small back street that cuts between two main roads) and there were four yard sales on that street alone.  It was a long day.  We went down to the church at 8 am and helped set up, then helped with the fair all day until it ended at 3 pm.  I picked Caiden up at noon and he enjoyed visiting at the fair.  At the end of the fair, all the stuff that didn’t sell went into the dumpster.  It was awful! We were throwing new or barely used items away – CDs, DVDs, glassware, toys, games, electronics, furniture, everything!  It all went into the garbage.  It sure seemed like all that stuff could have gone somewhere.  Oh, well.  

[jonathanraychapman]

Mister Experience So Far.

I picked up everything I needed to have a full Mister setup over the last couple of weeks.  I didn’t realize how expensive this would all be until I got through ordering it all.  Expect to pay upwards of $300 at this time (although maybe less depending on what you need for your own setup).  The reasons I jumped on this now are that some of the main cores are pretty mature and also I’m really hoping that the Neogeo core comes to fruition this year and wanted to donate and be part of that.

DE10-Nano Kit (apparently this FPGA is also being used in the Analogue Genesis/SNES consoles - though the cores are their own of course)

SD Card (I went with a 200gb card for now)

USB Hub (suggested by 3D case maker for that enclosure)

Case Fan (also suggested by 3D case maker)

HDMI Audio Splitter (because the a HDMI to DVI cable wouldn’t work for some reason without this box)

3D Printed Case / IO Board / Real Time Clock / RAM - keep in mind that you need to supply your own battery for the clock (which I just happened to have lying around already)

Heat Sink (I just looked for a tall 22mm square version)

So there was a little learning curve on the setup.  Thinking this would be easy, I downloaded Smokemonster’s project from github and the UI python script (in lieu of using the command line).  Despite having over a terrabyte of roms at my disposal, his script (which seems to look at hashsums) didn’t seem to pick many (any really) up from that repository (and this was after scanning folders and subfolders for nearly a day - albeit on a network drive).  After that, I went to the forums and found a download based on an earlier pack Smokemonster had put up (a download with actual roms that some fans put together - not Smokemonster himself).  This definitely helped (although it didn’t contain roms for SNES/Genesis/so-on - though I could provide those) and after installing that older pack and running just the setup script for the Smokemonster up-to-date github pack (after unpacking it over the top of the other) to get the cores up to date, I was in business.

I already owned a Mist box for Amiga that I bought years ago so I was familiar with the UI for the most part (using F12 to get to the menu - which I also set up as Select+Start on the pad).  The filters and scalers available are very nice for the most part.  I mostly just use the 15% scanlines custom filter (though you would be just fine using no filter).  I’m running this out on an old 4:3 aspect ratio Dell monitor and everything looks really nice and crisp with very little lag (which I’m not overly sensitive to, but can still notice for games with tight gameplay).  For some reason I ended up having to change the aspect ratio to 16:9 on the Mister box to have the HDMI box output correctly (though maybe I need to play around with it more).  Having the HDMI audio splitter box in the pipeline shouldn’t really be necessary for most people, since the IO board also outputs audio through a jack.  But I use other HDMI input with this monitor already, so it’s convenient to have it in the pipeline (and it’s velcroed to the back of the monitor).  Despite input/output manipulation, the output is really nice and crisp and I couldn’t tell that anything had been resized.

As far as the gaming experience itself, I’m really happy with the cores and the overall features (such as being able to use both analog and control pad on the same games).  The real test for me was playing SNES and Dracula X in particular to see if the flames on the first level looked OK.  I also played through Super Mario World on the first level to see if there was any lag when throwing the turtle shell.  There was none that I could see.  I tried games like F-Zero and Star Fox and everything seems just fine.  I tried to get games with MSU-1 audio patches to play and that doesn’t seem to be functional in the default Mister core (there’s apparently a fork of that core - which I may play around with).  On the NES, I played Castlevania III and enabled the audio expansion to make sure that sounded fine (which it did). 

The Genesis and PC Engine cores also ran just fine and were already available on my older Mist box (as they apparently don’t need the additional speed or RAM that SNES did.  Interestingly, before adding the RAM add-on, I couldn’t get the NES core to function (though the core on Mist runs just fine).  I’m guessing that the pre-existing cores have added RAM-hungry features for the Mister project.

The more-retro consoles like Atari 2600 all did fine as well (and I used the vertical scanlines for those games).  From what I tried of the arcade cores (really just Galaga), everything seems fine there as well.  I haven’t really tried the computer cores besides booting up the DOS core (I was blocked at the boot-up since I need to create or find a disk with the operating system).  From what I could gather online, the game Doom runs rather slowly on Mister but perhaps this could be useful for older DOS games (apparently this really gives the FPGA a workout, so the cooling is very necessary).

All in all this was definitely worthwhile for me and I can’t wait for the CPS-1 and the Neogeo cores to come out.  For now, I’m really happy to own this setup and be able to sit down and play some SNES games on this little monitor upstairs (which looks fantastic).  I bought a cable to convert the VGA port out to component, but haven’t used it yet (I’m a little afraid it might damage my legacy TVs to be honest).  I also having tried using the VGA output yet, but if I find a nice VGA CRT monitor out in the wild, I may give that a go (for now the LCD monitor is just fine).

[pupinpants]

Vulnhub Challenge 2 Electric Boogaloo: Goldeneye-v1

So this time I’m working on Vulnhub challenge based on the James Bond Goldeneye game. It explores web vulnerabilties and obtaining privilege escalations in root systems, similar to Mr Robot vulnhub challenge. 

Just want to provide a reminder that this isn’t a walkthrough but more of a recount of my experience when attempting this challenge.

First, since we already know that we set our target ip as 10.133.1.3, we perform a quick nmap scan.

We see that port 80 and port 25 is open. Port 25 means that its something to do with mails. However, since a web IP is open, we will go check that out.

So, it brings me to a page which tells me to navigate to /sev-home/ to log in. After entering that to the url, it brings me to a pop up for authentication. Since we don’t actually have any username or password to work off with, I took a look at the html code of the website instead for potential tools.

In the html code, there was a section that was commented out. Essentially, it was a message for a person called Boris and that they have provided a password in this format:

So since I didn’t know what this encodes to, I decided to paste the first section of the password to google to see what it will provide. I then stumble upon a bunch of stackoverflow questions about html code string. Thus, I assume that the numbers and symbols indicate a html code string and need to be put into a html decoder.

It gives me a password: InvincibleHack3r.

So I went back to the authentication popup and put in Boris as the username and InvincibleHack3r as the password. This failed, so I tried to do it with lowercase.

It brings me to this page in which constantly plays a video. Even when inspecting the page, nothing could be found. However it mentions that it uses pop3. So i took a look at what that meant. Turns out it was some mailing system but it wasn’t related to Port25 that was open earlier. Hence, there must be more ports that are opened in that provide access through POP3. On the website, it also mentioned that POP3 could be open in really large ports so I tried to read through all ports up from 1 to 1 thousand to test.

So the nmap scanned failed since it couldn’t read 1000. However, it did end up finding more open ports namely 55006 and 55007. I had no idea what that meant so I tried to check if there’s anyway of accessing pop3. Then, I stumbled on a potential script on NMAP that allows me to guess what the username and password was for pop3 since I didn’t really have anything to go on. However it ultimately failed since I wasn’t even sure what I had to do

So unfortunately, I had to admit defeat for now and look at the walkthrough. They seemed to use hydra to bruteforce a potential password with the username boris and used telnet to access the pop3 terminal through 10.133.1.3:55007. I was unsure why that 55006 port didn’t work so I took their advice and tried to find a potential password for boris from a common password list.

So the hydra command found a password called secret1!. So now I had to enter the username and password into pop3. This stumped me a long time because I didn’t know how to put in username and password through terminal given by telnet 10.133.1.3:55007. 

Eventually I ended up discovering that I was suppose to use pop3 commands and hence got access into the pop3 email:

(I really hate how every text looks so small)

So the email states that the admin has sent a code to boris however the code can only be cracked by an individual called Natalya. Since I didn’t have a password for natalya, I assumed that her account can be similarly found with the method we had to use to find boris so I used hydra again to find a potential password for natalya.

I gained access to the emails of Natalya in which the admin provided a username and password for natalya to access through a certain website called severnaya-station.com. However, to gain access to severnaya-station, the admin tells us to change our host file such that the IP address points to that website, hence accessing that website through the target ip rather than the internet. 

This brings me to a moodle page which requires me to put a username and password to log in. I used the username and password provided in the email for natalya and managed to enter the moodle page as user Xenia. I then start searching through the account for potential clues such as private files and anything else they can have access to. I quickly found that I wasn’t given alot of access to anything except Xenia’s private message which I found this.

So I managed to get Dr Doaks account since for some reason he decided to give his username away. However, since he didn’t provide a password, I thought maybe it’s the exact same method of password extraction.

I access his pop3 email to find him to just provide a username and password for the moodle. So I access the moodle page as Dr Doak. Similarly, he doesn’t have alot of access to moodle utilities except his private messages and files. When I inspected his private files, I found this text message.

I knew that the moment he provided a potential file link, it was related to the target ip. I access the image location.

Since only an image existed on the page, I had to search online on ways to potentially decode an image as I was unsure whether or not the image contained a hidden string of code or if the file name was decodable to something else. Then I found steganography which is a way of hiding a message in the image and hence I used a steganography decoder online to decode the image.

For some reason, it wouldn’t give anything except random symbols. But that meant that something could be read from the image and I needed another way to decode the image. Since Kali literally has almost every hacking tool, I searched online whether or not there was something that already existed to decode the image. Then I found exif.

So I stored the image from the htmll code to my desktop and used EXIF on it. It gave a weird code in the storage description but the equal sign at the end of the string immediately indicates that it is a base64 string.

So I found the password, but for who? I looked through the emails again for a potential user as I may have missed a username somewhere but I couldn’t find anything except the admin. So I searched through potential contacts in each account. Then, in Dr Doak’s messages, he had a contact with Admin User. Thus I guessed maybe that was the username.

Sure enough it was.

Now everything after this point, I had no idea what to do. I wasn’t sure how exploit moodle so I looked online for a potential tool.

I didn’t quite understand this so I ended up looking at the walkthrough again. However, no matter what I did, I couldn’t create a reverse shell through moodle. I had to go through many walkthrough until I realised that none of them mentioned the need to change a setting to actually allow a reverse shell.

After I changed the spell engine from Google Spell to PSpellShell, I decided to follow the walkthroughs again. I decided to use metasploit since it was mentioned in Week 7 lectures from a COMP6841 presentation. It was insanely useful as it basically simulates the environment and perform all possible exploitations towards a system that is vulnerable. It knows what exploits to do since you have to state what type of system you are breaking into in which this case it is moodle_cmd_exec.

So it opened up a shell instance in which I was able to access to some files and directories but nothing related to root. The walkthrough then told me to get information about the system I’m in. This can be done through executing a meterpretor which upgrades the session such that it reads system information.

I then found that the Operating system it was running was Linux 3.13. Still having no idea what that meant, I thought maybe there is an exploit for this as operating system as well. Sure enough there was.

However, despite knowing the exploit and knowing what code to run, I was unable to download anything onto my Kali Box. For some reason, it wouldn’t connect to the internet, so I had to consult the walkthroughs again outside of the Kali box.

 Then I was given a tool called Searchsploit. 

This was insanely useful as it contains all the possible exploit commands for vulnerable operating systems. In this case, I realised that the c program 37292.c was really similar to the name of the exploit file I was trying to download from the internet. Once again, I had to follow the guide.

I realised that the guide wanted me to copy the c program as a file called shell in root and then through meterpreter, copy the shell file into the session I created from the moodle spellcheck exploit. It also mentions that an error should occur where it won’t successfully copy since gcc isn’t actually installed into the target system. Hence, we need to change it to another compiler version in which this case would be cc.

Then we do the same thing again.

Did a quick check to see if managed to perform privilege escalation successfully.

Damn I’m good ( I totally did this by myself).

Anyways, knowing that I am now root, finding the flag by myself should be simple enough now. I tried to access the root directory as the root user in which it seemed empty.

However from my Comp2041 abilities, I ran ls -a to look for hidden files. Unsurprisingly I found a conspicuous file called .flag.txt. Cat it and the flag appeared.

This box was extremely hard for me since I had no idea how to use metasploit or searchsploit or even how to copy a file into the shell through metasploit. Hence the entire ending part required me to look at a walkthrough to find the flag. However, I have learnt that metasploit and searchsploit are extremely useful tools especially when attempting CTF challenges that surround web vulnerabilities and will definitely use it for my next CTF challenge ( I don’t know when I will do it, probably after this term).

[son-of-a-duck]

July 21, 2017

This morning was so long ago.  I made it to work on time, despite once again ignoring my alarm clock.  I was awake enough to hear the radio DJ after reading the weather say “If anyone asks you to do something outside today, fight them.”  It was pretty funny.  And accurate, because it was around 108 degrees today and it probably felt much hotter.

My morning was spent working on a personalized reading list, which I managed to start and finish, and working on the idea for a physical Thank You card.  My boss showed me where the library Thank You cards are but it turns out they were all for Thanksgiving.  Not quite what I was going for, so I decided to make my own. I had the idea of using a picture of an old bookplate for the cover but that proved to be a bit tricky.  I had a picture of one but it was kind of blurry so I went out to the stacks to try and find one.  I looked through a bunch of old books and was eventually able to find one but it had tape over part of it so it didn't look very presentable.  I finally emailed the head of technical services and asked if she knew of a better way to find one.  Later in the morning she came down with a notebook that was basically a history of their department, and inside there was a copy of the bookplate.  Jackpot.

I was able to scan the picture and this afternoon I edited it and got it printed on cardstock.  I just had the thought that I needed to put something on the back, like the library logo and the date, so I'm going to do that on Monday and print it again.  The whole point of the card is to send a physical Thank You note to the historical society.  I already sent an email and got a response, but I want to get into the habit of physical Thank You notes.

I worked at the desk in the children's room for about a half an hour this morning but it was pretty uneventful.  There was a program happening so most of the people were in the storytime room.  I only got one question and it was about a free book program that I didn't know anything about so I passed it off to the children's staff person that actually knows what's going on down there.  I spent my time working on the personalized reading list, so I was at least productive.

When I got back from lunch one of the other librarians and I went on a shopping trip to find stuff for our cubicle.  The goal was to find Post-It notes and a big dry erase calendar.  And a card for our coworker whose last day is Monday.  We found the Post-It notes and dry erase markers, but they didn't have the calendar we were looking for so we're going to order it online.  We also managed to find a card but we weren't totally sold on it so we also went to the grocery store to look there.  Nothing there really jumped out at us so we went with the card we got at the office supply store.

A decent chunk of our shopping trip consisted of me on my phone trying to sort out my computer delivery.  The original delivery window was between 10:45AM and 12:45PM but that came and went and the window was extended to 2:45PM.  It also still showed my home address instead of my sister's.  Just in case, I asked my Mom if she could go over to my house and wait.  This was a good idea in theory but I forgot that my screen door was locked so she couldn't actually get into my house.  She waited until five minutes outside the window before driving around to see if she could see the truck and then she ran over to my sister's house real quick.  When she got back to my house she said it was less than three minutes until UPS finally showed up.  It wasn't the most secure of deliveries.  She asked him to put the box in her car, which he did, and he volunteered my sister's name when my Mom asked if she needed to sign something.  I told my Mom that I had put my sister's name down so my Mom wouldn't be caught off guard.  But she could just have easily been a complete stranger that just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  Thankfully that wasn't the case.

After work I went to my Mom's house to pick up my computer.  It was in the back of her car and when I went to pick it but I forgot that I wasn't tall enough to stand upright under her raised tailgate door. I slammed my head into the door, which knocked my head down and sent the edge of the box right into my Adam's apple.  My throat has been sore the rest of the night and it hurts to swallow and yawn.  It's pretty annoying.

I managed to get the box into the backseat of my car but only just barely.  It ended up being a slightly narrower box than the last time I got a desktop, so that was nice.  When I got home I unboxed it but decided to eat dinner before messing with it.  So I ate dinner.  And then got to messing.

I set it up in my office because I wanted to get everything up and running to make sure everything was good to go before taking it downstairs.  Then ended up being a good thing because it was immediately broken.  Sort of.  When I hit the power button the computer would blink on, then immediately turn off, wait a few seconds, and then start the process over.  I tried some troubleshooting and managed to narrow it down to the RAM.  The two sticks had been installed in the wrong slots.  Once I fixed that, it was smooth sailing.  I have only started to download stuff onto it, but I'm hoping I'll be able to start playing some games tomorrow.

After getting everything up and running I celebrated with a frozen hot chocolate and fries from Dairy Queen.  They were delicious.  I think I'm good for awhile on the frozen chocolate but the next time I get a craving for fries I'll probably go with Dairy Queen.

It is now after one o'clock in the morning because I have been very distracted while writing this.  I need to record my audio journal (fingers crossed my throat can handle that) and then go to bed.