Barbaric ritual number 18 - twice a year we enter a room where a person sits with a pile of sharp instruments, which they methodically scrape across our teeth and gums. Once every couple of years, the dentist comes in and looks around and says "uh-oh", and you brace yourself knowing that means drilling and sticking novacaine-filled needles into your jaw and worse. Today he said "uh-oh". Sigh...

Just got a rude awakening, let's hope this doesn't happen to you - my bank account got slammed for about 1500 bucks. Some offshore company called 'firecash.com' which is designed to collect credit card payments for online gambling. Well, actually they're designed to make completely untraceable credit card payments. All somebody needs is a number and they'll get the money for you. They hide behind the fact that each of their clients has a worthless 'certificate' proving only that they are collecting money for the organization they claim to be. So what if the organization is a shell for yet another organization who you'll never find. In this case they're collecting for some firm called Cyber Finance Investments, whose information is a recursive link back to firecash. Or to put it in terms you'll understand - "ain't no way in hell you're gonna' figure out who we are or why we stole fifteen hundred bucks from your bank account and got away with it". The question is how Cyber Finance Investments got my credit card number. I suspect it was via the little kiosk at the mall where I bought a new faceplate for my cell phone. Mostly because that's the only firm I've dealt with recently using that card who isn't a global multi-national that I've done business with for years. If it's a regular VISA card you have some recourse. If it's a VISA debit card, you're screwed. Care to take a guess which this was? On the firecash fraud alert site (yes there is such a thing) the typical scam is somebody picking up the carbon copies of your hotel receipts when you visit Malaysia.

I'd like to alert you to the fact that it could be the little kiosk selling cell phone faceplates at the mall. Actually the message is to not use a credit/debit card anywhere you don't trust completely. Oh, and don't trust anybody completely. Allright let me simplify this even more, don't buy shit with a card because somebody will steal your account info and pillage/plunder your bank account. So you think that's a bit harsh and you still want to buy shit with a card? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Just when the completion of the kitchen seemed so close, got the estimate on the countertops. 7 weeks. Sigh... This will be longer than a pregnancy before all is said and done.