thisis The 200th Post

Hello ScoFans!

Welcome to what is the 200th post of.. well.. this URL at least. The title of the blog has changed. The layout has changed. The greeting has changed. There's not much that's stayed the same in the last 200 posts. But like I said, the URL stays the same.. so I guess this post is a tribute to the URL which has remained unchanged through all the other changes (and if I could change it easily, I probably would have.)

Oh.. what's that?

That's something I posted on Twitter the other night. I just had to post it here to reassure you that even though I'm 200 posts down, I've still got plenty of fresh stuff to keep you coming back. I mean, if I can do THAT with 146 characters or less, imagine what I can do with my next 100 posts.

And yes, when I'm as bursting with scosomeness as I was when I was writing that, I do tend to get a bit excited and there is a typo or two there. And unfortunately, I don't spell check my tweets like I spell check my blog.

But on the subject of my next 100 posts, I am planning my first ever "Wordless Wednesday" (because it looks easy and fun) and I am also planning a giveaway sometime in the next few months. Hopefully that's enough to keep you coming back.

Finally, thank you to those of you who have read and commented on the previous 199 posts, as well as those of whose blogs I have stalked over the past.. however long I've been stalking blogs.. whether you've been here a week or whether you've been here 20 months, chances are you've made me smile or you've shaped this blog in some way, so thank you all again.

Thinking of you always


ScoMan

'Cos It Feels Empty.. Without Me

Well I'm back nananananananananana
Eminem- Without Me

Hello ScoFans!

Did you miss me? I've missed all of you. I've missed you so much I'm sitting here at 7 in the morning to let you all know I'm back.. back again.

Some of you know this already but for those of you who haven't heard, I've been battling with Google for the last week.

They locked me out of my email account, out of my blog, out of my reader, out of... no wait, it was just those three.

So, I had to email Google and basically ask the question that had to be asked... "WTF?"

Dear Google,

I tried to sign into my account this morning only to learn that my account has been disabled. Apparently I've violated some "Terms of Service"

I'm not sure what I did, but when Facebook told me I violated their terms of service it's because I made fun of Andrew G. Is this your issue also? I didn't realise he was so powerful.

Not only has my email access been disabled, but my blog has been disabled as well, which I'm sure is causing distress among my many followers. I have dozens of followers. Baker's dozens (They come in thirteens)

So far I have had one of my followers write to me on Twitter and tell me how upset they are. I hope you'll pay for any counselling they require. I don't want to announce publicly what has happened for fear it might cause stress among my other readers.

And Google, I like you. I mean, obviously gmail isn't as cool as Hotmail and your search engine isn't as awesome as Bing, but your blogger website is far better than Microsoft's "spaces". Have you seen it? It's very lame.

Plus Microsoft want to charge me to download a new team into my Blood Bowl game on my Xbox, where if I'd bought the game on PC I wouldn't be charged for that team. I think I will still pay for the download though, because the team is the "Dark Elves". Usually I play as the "Wood Elves", but I find people make fun of "Wood Elves" for being weak ass tree huggers. Nobody messes with Dark Elves though. I hope they have magic powers. Then I will definetely download them.

Wait.. is that how I violated your terms of service? When I posted on that one blog about the Microsoft Songsmith ad? In my defense, that ad is pretty poor, and it deserves to be made fun of.

Anyway, if you could please let me know exactly what term I have violated I would be thankful so I will not violate it again in the future. Not like Microsoft violated me as a consumer by trying to make me pay for the Dark Elves.

I hope we can resolve the matter shortly,

ScoMan

That was last Friday morning (exactly one week ago).

When it came to Sunday and I still hadn't heard from them, I had to email them again, and I was furious, as I'm sure you'll tell by this next email..

Dear Google,

It has been two days since I last contacted you about my disabled account, and I am starting to worry you are using this time to build up a super strong team of Orcs to beat my measly Dark Elves in Blood Bowl, rather than working on a solution to our problem.

People are now becoming frustrated that they cannot access my blog. I have now received up to four Tweets crying out at the injustice of my blog being deactivated, not to mention my email account and access to my Google Reader, which remembers all of their blog addresses so that I don't have to.

I want to know three things.

1/ Why was my account deactivated?

2/ Will my account being reactivated any time in the future?

3/ When is the series Four of Dexter being released in region four?

I hope that we can resolve this matter promptly.

Thinking of you always,

ScoMan

A few more days have rolled by since then and I hadn't heard anything, so this morning when I saw there was one new email in my spam folder I didn't dare hope it was finally a response from Google. I'd been disappointed before. So when it was a response from Google you can imagine how excited I was (I believe my exact words were "BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I'm back baby!")

So what did Google have to say for themselves? What was it that has kept me locked off the bloggosphere for over a week now?

Hello,

Thank you for your report. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have
experienced. The issue you described should now be resolved.

If you're still having trouble accessing your Gmail account, you can reset your
password on the following page, as long as you still have access to the email
address you listed while creating your Gmail account:
https://www.google.com/accounts/ForgotPasswd.

If you aren't receiving the password-assistance email after visiting the above page,
please check your inbox and spam/junk mail for an email from account-recovery-
noreply@google.com.

Finally, we've compiled a survey to better understand suspicious activity associated
with Gmail accounts, and we'd appreciate if you'd take a few minutes to answer the
questions. We are constantly working on ways to safeguard our systems, and the
information you provide will help us continue to protect our users' information:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=improve_detection.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

"Suspicious activity?"... I'm not sure, but I think Google just accused me of being a terrorist. Or maybe they think I'm suspiciously awesome.

And yeah, that survey sounds like a good idea. Tell you what, it took you a week to get my blog reactivated and I've got a lot of blogs to catch up one due to being locked out of my account, so I don't know Google, maybe I'll get to it one day. Plus you didn't even mention Dexter.

Anyway, I better keep getting ready for work, I just wanted to let you all know the crisis is over, I am back and I will be catching up with your blogs over the weekend (160 something in my reader.. It's going to be a blog filled weekend!)

Thinking of you always,

ScoMan

Throwing in the towel

Hello ScoFans!

Long time followers will know that I don't like failure. If I set out to accomplish something, then I accomplish it.. usually.

Today I had a simple goal for the last day of my holidays. To create a v-log (like e-media, not vlog.. like.. well..blog). Well, okay to give this place a bit of a general tidy up and then to create a v-log.

Well, after about two hours of trying my webcam and getting nowhere (it would just cut out half way through) I tried my digital camera. The first time round, the batteries died. Then when I did get it done and on the computer it was super blurry. Like, super really blurry.

So I guess what I'm saying is, I didn't fail. Stars, planets, clouds and monkies aligned which meant that it was destiny there will be no v-log here today. I might be great, but even I can't beat destiny.

So I guess what I'll do is provide you now with a brief summary of what I touched on in the awesome v-log that died somewhere between my camera and the internet.

Firstly I talked about how it's the first time in 20 years I've worn jeans. I don't like jeans. They're uncomfortable. I may never wear jeans again. I don't know why I bought them.

But when I did buy them, I was leaving the change room with the jeans and two pairs of pants in my left hand and my phone, wallet and keys in my right hand. I was about to open the door but I thought "I'll put my stuff in my pocket first", reached down and no pocket. I'd left the pants I'd worn to the store on the chair in the change room. So close to walking back out into the store in my underwear.. lucky for them, I pulled up in time.

Secondly, I thanked Nic from PinkNics Planet for deciding my comments were witty enough to award me a prize in her giveaway a month or two ago. Here's the cool stuff she sent me.

It's no secret I'm a huge Dexter fan, and I think Dexter Coasters must be one of the few Dexter items I hadn't got my hands on. Well, now I do, and my hands are happy.



But as much as I loved the coasters, it was the card that really got me.


I'm not sure what she's trying to say there. I'm just going to assume she's saying that I'm great, and not that I'm arrogant.

Then I talked about how JustSal from Just My Thoughts allowed me to have a read over her NanoWriMo novel over the holidays, which was very rad of her. Although I am anxiously awaiting the conclusion at the moment, maybe when it's finished I'll write up a review of it. Maybe. If she allows it. I haven't discussed it with her yet.

Point the fourth that I touched on was that I had been planning the v-log for a long time, and I had to cut certain things as time went on. One of the things I cut was the opening scene (oh yeah, it had scene's, that's how good it was) in which I was going to have a bunch of aliens surrounding me making a lot of noise and I was trying to get them to be quiet so I could do the v-log and they wouldn't and so to get them to be quiet, I gave them some Soylent Green.

But then because of the whole KFC Fiasco I thought that would be in poor taste, and so that scene got pulled. I know a lot of people aren't familiar with the KFC Fiasco. For example it seems like in England it wasn't a big story, but research showed that in America you probably won't know about it but your mother will. So if you want to, you can research it or if you can't be bothered researching, you can just assume KFC is serving Soylent Green now.

What I didn't do in the v-log was give you a look at the video that was pulled from Australian television because Internationally it was deemed racist...

In KFC's defense, that stereotype doesn't really exist in Australia. But I'm glad the ad is gone. That guy is such a tool.

The other thing I didn't do in the v-log was mention that I'm starting a new weekly segment on Tuesday called "thisisTuesday". One of you has volunteered to be the first participant. You don't know you've volunteered yet. You don't even have to do anything. Tune in Tuesday to see if it's you.

The last thing I did was give you a little nursery rhyme thing that my niece loves, and I'm sure your nieces, nephews, children and just random children from the neighbourhood will love as well.

Simple Simon met a pieman
Playing with a knife
The pieman said to Simple Simon
"Can I take your life?"
Said Simple Simon to the pieman
"When the time is right"
The pieman said to Simple Simon
"Then you'll die tonight"

I guess that's it. My holidays are over. Time to stop grinning like a fucking psycho and get back to work.

For those of you who haven't seen my other video post you can check out the time I lip synced to Eminem so that the whole thing wasn't a tease. And for those who have seen it, relive it why not?

I hate linking back to old posts, but I had to give you something...