Wow. I am just speechless right now. I’ll let you read the response that MySpace’s technical support gave me regarding the cancellation of my account:

Hello,

If you wish to terminate your MySpace Account, start by clicking on "Home" in the top navigation menu from any MySpace web page. Once on your personal home page, click on "Account Settings," appearing in the upper left portion of the page, next to your picture. Click on the "Cancel Account" link. You can find it above the "My Account Settings" box. This will link you to the "Cancel My Account" page. There click on the "Cancel My Account" button. Your MySpace Account has now been deleted. Keep in mind, canceling your MySpace account will permanently remove all of your profile information from MySpace, including your photographs, comments, journals, and your personal network of friends. This information cannot be restored. You may re-register your current email address after canceling, but you will need to rebuild your personal network from scratch.

If for some reason you should be unable to delete the account, provide the email plus password for your profile and we will cancel it for you. If you don't remember the password or it has been changed, please send us a salute as verification and we can remove the account.

To send a salute, please do the following:

Create a hand written sign that says MySpace.com and your friend ID. Your friend ID is the number between ID= and &mytoken in your profile's URL.

Get an image, or digital picture of yourself with this hand written sign.

This is image is a salute. Next, reply to this e-mail with the salute as an e-mail attachment, or as an e-mail link to where it is uploaded.

If this does not answer your question, please click:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contact

Thank you,
MySpace.com

What the.. so let me get this straight. I can’t use the automatic function to cancel my account, which is what I e-mailed support in the first place with; indicating that this is a standard response letter. Okay, no biggie. They say I need to e-mail them my password and e-mail address, and they’ll delete it. Okay, I already e-mailed you from that specific e-mail address, asking to be deleted. Why do you need my password too? Ugh.

Furthermore, if you forgot your password, you’re supposed to take a picture of yourself, holding up a sign with “MySpace.Com” and your profile ID? Wow. That just blows my mind. I won’t even get into privacy implications.. why they need a picture of yourself.. and who recieves/views/stores these photos.

I’m reminded of Vinny’s fun time at trying to cancel his father’s AOL account. JUST CANCEL MY ACCOUNT.

MySpace is scum. Block it from your computers, especially if you have young children. If you’re running the network at a business and haven’t blocked it yet, shame on you.

I tried to delete my account. They send you an e-mail with some sort of confirmation link, which of course, I never receive... probably the same broken e-mail logic that doesn't send me an e-mail when I want to change my e-mail address. So, in their support section it says to e-mail them directly from the e-mail address the account is under, and they'll cancel it manually. It's been a week, and still no deletion!

So I decided to just make my account "dead"; remove everything from it, remove all my friends, remove my "real name" so people can't find me on there, etc... After I'm done with all that, I go back to my home page and see:

Apparently I "haven't added any friends yet", but I have 13 friends.

And that, my friends, is reason #46835 why MySpace sucks.

Okay, I get like a million people a day hitting my old blog post about Fergie's "London Bridge" song and it's lame lyrics.

Let's set the record straight. Of course the song has it's own Wikipedia page, so here goes.

According to Fergie herself, the song refers to a sex act whereby two women and two men form a bridge-like shape during intercourse

Of course. Thanks Fergie. You're charming and sophisticated!

While I'm ranting about her lameness, has anyone heard her new "single", Fergalicious? Just how many songs can she steal on one track? I heard at least 3 freestyle beats, including J.J. Fad's "Super Sonic" and Afro-Rican's "Give It All You Got". This just proves she's a talentless hack riding on the success of Black Eyed Peas, and using mostly sex to sell records.

Okay, this is my last video post of the night. Sorry!

I couldn't find any detailed links about these, but they seem a bit dangerous. But then again, I'm sure there are giant warning signs and such saying to stay away unless you have the proper dood-dad to lower them.

Reminds me of the hundreds of tiny toll-road pop-up things here in the US, to block off toll roads when they aren't in use. But they are flexible...

If you've never done the "match wizard of Oz up to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon" trick... someone did it for you on Google Video. It's about 2 seconds off, though. But no biggie. You get the point.

I love MythBusters. They remind me of Mr. Wizard. If you know who that is, you get a cookie. Anyways, here's some video I found on YouTube of MythBuster bloopers, as well as some more "flatus" myths that didn't make it to air, such as "Do Girls Pass Gas?" and "Can You Light Your Farts On Fire?" Hah.

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

 

And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

 

If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

 

Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

 

But at least there will be a chance.

 

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.

 

But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

 

To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide.

Link to Civilization Watch - October 29, 2006 - The Only Issue This Election Day - The Ornery American

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been lately, since I haven’t been updating my blog… then I suggest you get out a bit more. There’s more to life than my blog!

Hah, just kidding.

Anyways, she is going to kill me for posting that photo of us, but it’s all I have right now. Heather and I have been dating for two months now, and it’s been amazing. I love her!

This is coming from a guy who thought he’d never date anyone and be alone for the rest of his life. This just proves it… girls can find geeks sexy too!

While we’re on the topic of Halloween, check out these costumes from ILM (yes, that ILM)’s Halloween party. I have to say I’m fairly partial to the Serenity-themed outfits these two are wearing. And who could resist some Monty Python knights?

Oh yeah, found this video on YouTube of an “amateur” fireworks display placed to snippets of the Haunted Mansion’s narratives and Halloween-themed music. Awesome!

Ahh, Michael Jackson – Thriller. This was before he went psycho. Check out the Wikipedia page about the video.. pretty interesting. Check out all those pop culture references.

I know the subject is kind of stating the obvious, but I’ve reached the snapping point.

A few days ago, I realized my entire inbox contained all the mail I had ever received. It wasn’t that surprising (and was what I was expecting), I just didn’t think MySpace would work that way, and instead would clear it out after xx days, like they do with bulletins, etc.. anyhow, since there’s no “delete all” (???) I had to manually delete hundreds of e-mails.

After clearing out about half of my mail, it would come back with “Page 1” and there would be no mail on the screen, just the “next page” link. Huh? Clicking “next page” took me to another page of e-mail, this time with actual mail on it to delete. I repeat this, until I get to about 6 pages or so left, but each page is completely blank. This leads me to conclude that:

1) MySpace doesn’t actually delete the e-mail permanently, and is instead setting a flag or something (DeletedFlag?) in the database that indicates the mail is deleted.
2) MySpace’s inbox “pager” which generates page numbers and forward/back links is most likely not factoring in the DeletedFlag.

So that’s one issue to report to the support department.. as well as another issue I’ve been having involving changing my e-mail address— I simply can’t do it. MySpace claims it sends my new e-mail address a confirmation number, but I don’t get it. MySpace’s mail servers never even connect to my mail server.

So anyhow, I send the e-mail to support, expecting to never hear back, but surprisingly, I got an e-mail yesterday with just “We’re working on it. Thanks, MySpace Support”. Wow, thanks for the detailed and professional response. And what are you working on exactly? My InBox problem or the e-mail thing? *shrug* It looks like they meant the InBox problem, because the page numbers are gone today from my InBox, and it truly looks empty.

Moving on, this is what set me off tonight:

This problem has been happening since MySpace started, and Tom’s just now making it an announcement? Nevermind how unprofessional it is. (all lowercase??)

If you read his blog entry, he talks about how people are making fake MySpace login pages (sometimes even using a MySpace profile itself to fake a login screen.. hahahaha!)

Look at the right hand side.. “check her for latest info” ? Did you mean check HERE, Tom? Or perhaps I am indeed supposed to check “her” for latest info?

I notice that my scrollbar on this blog entry is tiny.. the page must have tons of comments on it. Scroll down.. nope, only showing 48 per page. Turns out it’s the ENTIRE list of “Who Gives Kudos”, on each comment page. Like anyone cares. Why must it show the entire list? Why not show like the first 10, and then have a “show the rest” link, like the rest of the web does?

I posted a comment/reply to his blog, but it’s doubtful that he’ll respond. Here goes:

Tom,

Why not implement something like Yahoo does, that shows a custom piece of text or image on the login form (set by the user) in order to prove it's from Yahoo.com's login service.

Also, why are you letting profiles get created/modified in order to look like a log-in page? Some simple HTML filtering would take care of that. Or perhaps you could add a "report this profile" link to the page somewhere-- I've run across numerous profiles that violate the terms of use, either with pornography or other things, yet I have no way of easily reporting them.

And while I'm rambling, why do you allow sites to place their tags/crap all over the auto-generated profile code? Why not clean that up or disallow it completely? That's where most extra advertisements, tracking cookies and other "iffy" things come from..

And finally, I hope you guys fixed the cross-site scripting problems? Otherwise, that would explain why bulletins automatically get posted to people's accounts just by visiting another "bad" site while being still logged into MySpace.

Are you looking for an ASP.Net developer in Southern California who can help? Send me some mail.

I recently had to fix a friend’s computer because they let one of their daughters view MySpace on their computer, which was running Windows XP and for some reason wasn’t running automatic updates. An advertisement, either from MySpace’s ad pool or one of the profiles she viewed exploited a flaw in Internet Explorer, and downloaded/executed a program that proceeded to download about 20 to 30 pieces of spyware, toolbars, etc. — joy! The fact that someone can put code like that on their profile is reason enough to block MySpace from your network, and not let your children near it.

The Yahoo idea I mention is actually pretty darn cool. They call it a “sign-in seal”, and it’s a user-chosen piece of text or image that will appear in the upper right corner of the login box whenever it’s an “official” Yahoo.com login accessed via your computer. The downside is that this is not “automatic” and requires the user to set it up before they get the benefit of it.. but hey, if you’re worried about your personal information, you’d want to be on top of something like this, right?

I think it makes sense, and I hope other sites start to adopt something similiar. Now, if only we could educate people on what a strong password looks like..

Update: I did a quick search on Google's blog searching engine, and found these other bloggers who seem to agree with me:

http://darkmotion.com/blog/2006/10/24/why-myspace-sucks-ass/
http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2006/10/myspace_sucks.html
http://onlinecomics.blogspot.com/2006/10/myspace-sucks.html
http://josepho.wordpress.com/2006/09/09/myspace-sucks-the-saga-continues/
http://www.leliathomas.com/2006/10/16/testing-my-myspace-theory-post-3/

This is hilarious. David Zucker directed it, who also did Airplane, Naked Gun, Scary Movie..

[if you’re viewing this in a feed, click here to see the video]

Ugh. I was looking forward to UPN and WB merging, but the CW is junk. I won’t even get started on the programming (it’s bad enough on its own) but my main beef is with their “HD” content. They take standard definition shows and zoom in on them slightly, leaving small black lines on the left and right.

Lame.

Another thing… the only two shows I watch on “The CW” are Smallville (don’t make fun of me!) and Veronica Mars. Both are filmed and broadcast in HD… when The CW feels like it. I’m not sure if it’s a problem with my local carrier/affiliate, but half the time the shows remain in standard definition, with the “Available in HD” flashing at the bottom of the screen, mocking me.

Arg!

I wrote a letter to their network site, and my local affiliate, and haven’t heard back. Didn’t think they’d write me back, anyhow. What do they care? They’re getting their advertising dollars, right?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20349888-2,00.html

Wow, bummer. I even went and saw his Crocodile Hunter movie with Jason.. he seemed like a great guy who had a big vision for educating the world about animals, often misunderstood ones.

Man, the fun never stops around them wacky MySpace offices!

P.S. — I now have a “MySpace” category on my blog. Be afraid.

I am convinced that MySpace’s “technical group” consists of a single man, a workstation, and a 24–pack of Mountain Dew.

It’s amazing the site even runs at all. They need to fire whoever is heading up their technical staff; and I seriously doubt it’s “Tom” working on it— it is worth at least $580 mil, right? I feel like we’re back in the hayday of the dot-com era here. Just waiting for the bubble to burst, and if the error messages, spyware-laden advertisements, sexy not-safe-for-kids advertisements, exploits (hi Samy!) and more are any indication.. it will be bursting very soon. Check out the Wikipedia article on MySpace, it’s hilarious.

Also, good luck contacting their support department. I still haven’t been able to change my account’s e-mail address..

If you are in charge of running IT at your company, you owe it to yourself to block MySpace.com from your networks at all costs. I don’t even want to get started about how many people I see at my work goofing off with it when they’re supposed to be working.

In case you didn’t catch the Emmys last night, it opened with a parody/skit of many different Emmy nominees. They spoofed Lost up front, with Conan crashing on the island (mind you, they don’t show an actual plane crashing..) and running into Hurley, who leads him to a hatch, which leads him to the Office… just watch and see.

Anyhow, there was a real plane crash in Kentucky a few hours before the Emmys aired, and people are calling the Emmy spoof insensitive. Look, I’m sorry the plane crash happened, that sucks (and I’m still trying to figure out how that happened.. talk about a stupid mistake), but come on, it’s clearly spoofing LOST, a show about plane crash survivors. Also, I doubt the network is going to ditch an entire opening segment (which they probably spent numerous hours/dollars on) just because of an accident.

Nikki Finke over at the Deadline Hollywood daily rants how poor taste it was, blah blah here, asking “What was NBC/Conan thinking?” I’ll tell you what they were thinking.. that 99.99999% of the country would find it FUNNY, genius.

People just need to lighten up. It was a hilarious opening. Not that I really care about the Emmys, though.. 

This stinks.

Nickel Creek was one of my favorite bands, and they will definitely be missed collectively. They are all immensely talented individuals, and here’s hoping they find success in their own ways. Just won’t be the same..

I guess I was lucky to see them when they stopped by Borders last August, and get my CD autographed.

Hey everyone, I made an initial design of the site. Let me know what you think, if it looks good on your browser/screen, etc.. any feedback is appreciated!

http://www.mickeyrevealed.com/

Don’t make fun of the opening text too much. I wrote it at 3am. Want to write something interesting for it? Let me know.

Thanks!

This is somewhat bittersweet for me. I’ve loved this show, and it’s been one of my favorite sci-fi series, next to Farscape. But you really do have to admit it’s been on a reaaally long time. I’m just bummed that Ben Browder and Claudia Black will be disappearing so soon as well. The show just had it’s 200th episode, which is unheard of in most television series. I believe it sets a world record..

Source: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=2&id=37607

P.S. — If you’ve never seen the show, and/or you didn’t watch the 200th episode.. the image to the right is going to be verrry confusing.

http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah1277.shtml

Get a little liquor in her, and wow, off she goes… click on the link, then follow the link on the bottom that says “Click here to watch Kelly get crazy”. Gotta love the fake flashing, rubbing of her nipples and drinking Jack on stage. Wheeee! Isn’t celebrity life grand?

That might be the longest subject ever to grace my blog.

• Fergie’s “London Bridge” song is one of the worst songs I have ever heard in my life, hands down. The lyrics boggle the mind. What the heck does “my london bridge wanna go down” mean? Ugh. First you talk about your “humps” and now your “bridge”. Update: If you want to know what the song means, GO HERE.
  
• My coworker showed me MGM Grand’s new website. Wow. Talk about your sweet Flash designs, and a genius navigation to boot.
• [via HDBeat] If you’re lucky enough to get HDTV, namely the UniversalHD channel, and you’re a fan of Firefly, Joss Whedon’s prematurely cancelled series, you’ll be in heaven in September. UniversalHD will be running the series in 1080i format, starting September 24th. Browncoats, schedule your DVRs!
• Snakes on a Plane may look like the worst movie ever made, but it’s actually the best. Make sure you get Samuel L Jackson to send a personalized e-mail or phone to your friends to tell them to go see it with you. Yes, seriously, Samuel will call them for you! And no, you can’t do it to me now; I’ve already been called.
• Do you use Outlook or Thunderbird to check e-mail? Tired of spam? In the past, I used the free and excellente Spambayes, but it has not been updated in some time, and is starting to catch less and less of the newer tricks (such as “image only”) mail. The other day I stumbled across a new free/open-source application called Spamato. This program uses many different types of “spam checks”, and has really impressed me. Give it a try!

Study: Raunchy Lyrics Prompt Teens To Have Sex. No kidding. Start dabbling with sexual things and you're going to start thinking about them more and more… I’m amazed that teens constantly listen to music (particularly rap/pop) that degrades women. Even women do the degrading sometimes (*cough*Fergie*cough*) Goes for any form of media or entertainment, really..

The timing couldn’t be better for this rant from Stanley Crouch about the MTV generation that is accepting of the black culture portrayed by MTV.

When did it become cool to be a sexist pig?

If you could pick only a handful of CDs to take with you on a desert island, what would they be?

For me, I’d have to say..

1) October Project – October Project [only $10 at Amazon!!]
2) Live – Throwing Copper
3) Loreena McKennitt – The Mask and Mirror
4) No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom

Pretty random, I know. You probably recognize Live and No Doubt, but wonder who the heck October Project is, and Loreena McKennitt for that matter. I’ll save Loreena for another time, but let’s just talk October Project. It’s really a struggle to describe what type of music they are, so you’re better off just listening/watching a few clips to get the gist. Mary Fahl has a truly unique voice and it’s a perfect match to the rest of the band.

I think the album means even more to me having been recommended by my father to me.. he would purchase random cassettes at K-Mart and try them out. Found October Project, and it became his favorite band. There’s really something there for anyone, as the songs go through a range of emotions and journeys. “Bury My Lovely” still puts me in this peaceful mood every time I hear it.

It’s a shame that they were only able to make two albums in their time together. The followup, “Falling Further In” is almost as good as their first album. Shortly after that, they were dropped from their label, and the lead singer left the band. They tried to re-form with a different singer, but really.. Mary was the core of the “sound” of the band, and things just weren’t the same…

Ahh, I could ramble forever about this band.. but I’ll spare you. Just check ‘em out, you may like them. You may not. My friends don’t seem to care for them, but I take no personal offense. Everyone has their tastes!

[ Now playing: October Project - Bury My Lovely ]

A lot of my blog hits from Google are coming for my Astro Blaster’s secrets/hints post, as well as my Pirates and Disney Logo posts.

I’ve been playing with the idea lately of opening a Disney ‘secrets’ site, where people can post any trivia they know about various Disney properties, such as the films and theme parks. I remember visiting Hidden Mickeys a lot growing up, but the site is really stale now, loaded with ads.. etc.. I remember e-mailing the webmaster and offering to help convert it to a better design, database driven and all, and our conversation never really went anywhere.

I want to do better than HiddenMickeys— have it be more community-driven and personalized, as well as modern and fast. I’ve started to sketch out a site/features map, and will probably talk more about this soon, but just wanted to get everyone’s feedback on the idea in general. The site wouldn’t be completely about “secrets”, mind you, and would have sections to review Disney rides, films, post your own photos from visits, discussion forums…

I’m still debating a name… nothing fancy has come to mind yet.

August 27th, 2006 Update: Please check out my new site, MickeyRevealed.com for more Disney trivia/secrets!