Now that the gallery has over 17,000 images, I've been meaning to write something pseudo-creative using them. I'm pretty happy with the results.

The page automatically refreshes every 3 minutes, changing one image in the collage each time. My first attempt used ImageMagick to composite the images together into one image before sending it to the browser, but it put too much load on okcomputer. Instead, I decided to let the browser do all the work.

This video (10 MB) of Steve Ballmer is strangely enthralling. As far as I can tell, the video came from here, but it's not there anymore and the music is from here.

Those dirty bastards at MBNA Canada called again. Or at least, I think they did. It was another automated system calling for the deadbeat Wally whose phone number I had the bad luck of inheriting, so it may well have been a second company. *69 gave the number 604 661 7999 but, as expected, there's no listing for that in the reverse number lookup.

I called Telus to see about just changing numbers or something, but it was already past their hours of operation for residential phone service. They have this new automated system where you have to speak to a voice recognition bot to navigate your way around - all the hassle of a touch-tone voicemail system and none of the convenience of pushing buttons for defined actions. I'm sure some C*O approved a few million for this piece of junk and then fired a call centre's worth of tech support people.

At any rate, I'll call the Better Business Bureau when they open on Monday. Does it warrant contacting the police?

The scumbags at MBNA Canada seem to think I'm some guy named Wally who owes them money. Soon after I moved in and got a telephone line from Telus, I started getting messages on my answering machine from an MBNA auto-dialer leaving no information except a phone number and hours of business.

Out of curiosity, I called them to find out why they were calling. The operator asked for my last name to check against their records, but I refused and told him to just look up the phone number. He seemed personally offended that I didn't trust him, a complete stranger from a company I'd never heard of, with my personal information. He looked up the number and said there were a bunch of names associated with it (Telus has no doubt assigned the number to many apartment dwellers over the past few years), so he asked for my name again so that he could narrow it down. Forget it, buddy. I've never done business with your company (apparently, they issue MasterCards, which I don't have), so update your records. This number doesn't belong to your deadbeat customer any more. He wasn't at all happy with that.

So I got a couple more calls from their phonebot and called them back in frustration.

MBNA jerk: "Is this Wally?"
Me: "Nope."
MBNAJ: "Do you even know a Wally?"
Me: "Nope."
MBNAJ: "So you're saying we've got the wrong number."
Me: "Yep."
MBNAJ: "Sorry about that. I'll update our records."

I thought that was the end of it, but a third MBNA jerk called me last night asking for Wally. This time I got a little angry and told him that, for the third time, there is no Wally here. He apologized, but said it takes four months for names to be removed from the database. (Note to self: thank God I followed my Schneier-inspired practical paranoia and didn't give them my name last time.) That's disgusting, I said. Call Telus. They'll tell you the number was reassigned. I'll never do business with your company. Don't ever call me again.

Sadly, I'm pretty sure they'll call again and there's not much I can do about it. Damned Big Brother companies have too much power and basically no accountability.

My notice to appear for my citizenship test arrived this week, only 6.5 months after I sent my application. To be fair, I did get a notice to appear in Edmonton a few weeks ago, but had to change the location for obvious reasons.

I am to appear on December 1, which lines up nicely with my final exam schedule. If I pass, I should hopefully become a citizen early next year. Time to start cramming with A Look At Canada, which they sent me in hard copy.

Everyone's favourite search engine Google is up to something.

Item 1: The antiflux mail server is being flooded with mail from 216-239-45-4.google.com (216.239.45.4). Below is the MRTG chart showing 11,600 emails/hour at peak. Evan dispatched an email to Google and started blocking the connections with a helpful "FUCK OFF" message. Haven't heard anything back yet.

Item 2: The Register reports that Google is trawling IRC chat rooms.

Item 3: The Register story links to a web page noting the IRC bot comes from the same IP as the mail bomb we're experiencing.

Conspiracy theories?