chinese are invading

someone or something tried to get admin privilages on my FTP server. the good news is that they failed, other news is, i am shutting down the FTP server because i dont use it and in fact had forgotten it was running. i checked my system logs this morning to see what had made the server reboot a few days ago (nothing to worry about there) but i found about 50 of these in there:
Jan 15 09:35:46 linuxsrv1 pure-ftpd: (?@60.191.0.157) [WARNING] Authentication failed for user [Administrator]

i looked up the IP and here you go http://whois.domaintools.com/60.191.0.157 . this IP is blacklisted from my server now and i have a script set up to send me a tweet if i get more entries like this :)

blackend

In the black desert, a single flower grew. The pale white stem and leaves standing is stark contrast to the black sand that shifted in the burning winds. The flowers shone red in the setting sunlight, the blistering heat would soon change to blistering cold.
A pale hand reached down, slender fingers wrapped around the stem, caressing it for just a moment before squeezing the base and pulling. Bits of black sand fell from the white roots, the white stem began to brown and shrivel, the flower seemed to brighten and grow. The stem of the plant was now black and turning to powder in her hand. She raised the flower to her lips and tilted back with her head, a few drops of red liquid dripped onto her tongue causing her lips to flare red and her skin to glow in the last rays of the sun.
The flower turned to dust in her hand, she let her arm fall to her side and the red dust from the flower was blown away into the dark. Her eyes fixed on the stars as the liquid invaded her blood stream and made it’s way to her brain. She shivered, the heat had faded from the air but not the sand.
The first of the 2 moons was rising to the south east, it’s blue glow igniting her skin with an iridescent glow.
Her clothing was white and flowing, long tendrils of thin fabric swirled in the wind behind her and she began to walk. A hole formed in the sand before her and stairs were visible leading into the black depths. There was no light below except for the glow of her skin. The opening began to close behind her and as she seemed to drift away, a pale swirling ghost, the doors sealed themselves closed.
It would be several hundred years before she came back to drink the flower again. It would grow from the dust of the old one and drink the sunlight itself, refining it to the pure liquid the needed to live. She had been here longer than she could remember, the black desert was made of the stems of the life flower, it’s dust petrifying and becoming sand with time.
She waited, she forgot what she waited for. She only remembered that it would come from the sky, it would scorch the sky and shake the world. The sand drifted across the doors and covered all traces of it’s existence. The desert stretched off in all directions as far as could be seen. She had waited since the beginning of this world, she could wait till the end.

hippy attack

This morning started around 3am when i woke up and could not get back to sleep. as i normally do, i checked the world news on the internet and saw that a ‘Sea Shepherd’ ship was sunk near Antarctica. For those who don’t know, Sea Shephard is similar to green peace in that they harass and damage whaling ships from japan. I don’t care for the killing of whales but i also don’t condone terrorist organizations. I used twitter to express my feelings in 140 characters or less and was almost immediately attacked by a hippy, and not just any hippy, a wannabe indy film critic hippy from Australia. he informed me that is was those “annoying fuckers”(those were my words) who change the world. I want to point out that this is completely wrong, they haven’t changed anything other than the size of the fleets that go out to kill the whales. The whaling ships now need the protection of 1 or more security boats and also need to be equipped with weapons! so the only real change here is that more than twice the amount of fuel is now being used to kill whales. Another thing that caught my attention in this video http://bit.ly/6aMJtU of the anti-whaling boat getting hit is that they are flying a pirate flag! In international waters! These people are lucky that all they lost was their 1.5 million dollar (donation money from this year BTW) boat and not their lives. Anyway, when I pointed out to this hippy that he was a hypocrite there was really nothing else that he could say. The whole conversation went as follows:

dagamant
whaling protest ship sunk for being a bunch of annoying fuckers http://bit.ly/5X2g8N

BolexH16
it’s the “annoying fuckers” who change the world! Continue sit on your arse and be one of drones, Go Sea Shepherd!

dagamant
@BolexH16 their not changing the world, they are inciting violence and wasting money, that $1.5mil boat was just bought this year and wasted

dagamant
@BolexH16 also, your a hypocrite, you are not changing the world. You have a blog about what you ate at what film festival you went to.

BolexH16
@dagamant Sad aren’t you

dagamant
@BolexH16 yeah, sad that you cant think of anything else after i called you out.

BolexH16
@dagamant ooh!

dagamant
@BolexH16 name one thing you have done to change the world, when is the last time you planted a tree or adopted an animal, or helped someone

dagamant
@BolexH16 when is the last time you donated money to a charity? you people are so quick to attack and never ready for the rebuttal.

dagamant
@BolexH16 here you go, http://bit.ly/6aMJtU your precious ship is flying a pirate flag while attacking with sonic weapons.

end

the point I’m trying to make here is if your going to attack someone for saying something you think is wrong, be prepared to follow through. I’m glad you feel smug and superior but your really not. Your just some wannabe film fag who feels important because you have a blog. Well guess what, I have one too so you can suck it!

Conundrum

Now I need to find a way to decide if I post to my tumblr which no one reads or my wordpress install which even less people will read. There may be a plugin to pull tumblr entries into wordpress or vice versa. Any way, I am at a doctors office with the wife, having her foot and legs looked at after her accident. Tapping away on the iPod and not writing bad fiction in the bathroom for once.

Fun times

One of the worst ways to wake up is via phone call from a police officer informing me that my wife had been an accident. It happened at a little after 9 in the morning today. My wife was on her way to work when she decided to switch lanes and didn’t see the metal pole in between the lanes. The pole is a part of a tow truck that had fallen off, 3 feet of metal with a plate on the end. Her car passes over the pole portion of the thing, but the flat plate caught on the frame of the car and began to push on the floor board right between her feet. The pole angled itself and caught on the road and erupted through the floor narrowly missing both legs and the seat. As it went through the floor, it also cut the break lines, Angie wrestled the car to the side of the road and had to hit the gaurdrail to stop the car. The story ends with a broken foot and a huge bruise on each leg and possibly a totaled minivan. The good news is that no one was seriously hurt and everything that needed to be taken care of was handled. The bad news is that Angie has to stay off her feet for another few days and no longer has a car.

Not a fun way to die.

The air was burning in his lungs. His heart was racing and ready to burst. Hands bound behind his back, another blow fell on his head, knocking him over. They were shouting in a language he didn’t understand, brandishing eight inch knives with serrated edges. The end was near; all he could do was steel himself for the coming pain. Three of his comrades already lay dead several feet away. Blood still spurting into the dirt from the most recent to have his throat slit, his arms were unbound and weakly trying to lift his body, there was a rushing sound as his lungs fought to take in air that could no longer reach the brain. Another fist caught him on the side of his head and he fell forward into the dirt again. A hand grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back up and another knife was shown to him. ‘Why is this taking so damn long’ he thought as he stared at the knife. Soon he would feel what his comrades had felt, the blade would be held against his neck and then sawed back and forth until the jugular vein on each side of the neck was severed and his life ran out onto the already wet ground. He glanced at the other two lying on the ground; arms tied behind their backs and wondered what they were thinking. He looked at the three already dead, all quiet and still now, and wondered what their last thought was. A hand gripped his forehead, unable to get a hold of his short hair, and pulled his head back. His eyes squeezed shut and he felt the first bite of the blade as the point was shoved into the side of his neck. A half scream of pain escaped before the blade bit through his windpipe and turned it into a gurgle. He felt each vein and tendon snap and pop and the blade was dragged back and forth through his flesh. Heat rushed from his neck and ran down the front of his shirt. The blade was taken away and he fell forward, hands unbound once he was on the ground. The same noises that he had heard from his friends he now heard from himself. There was no pain, pain had left with the knife and only the sound of his lungs sucking air and blood was left. His eyes were open and his head was in the grass. Everything was so green, the ridges on each blade of grass stood out against the backdrop of dirt and sky. The ridges on the grass had tiny hairs that pointed toward the ground, they we’re a slightly different color then the whole blade. Small droplets of blood hung on the grass, the blood was mixed with water and dirt, sliding down the blade of grass, pausing at each bump or changing direction slightly as it slid. The drop reached the ground and sat against the base of the blade of grass, unable to move. His eyes closed and he began his own slide downward, everything was so green, then nothing was so green.

Another zombie story (part of one I wrote a few months ago) I will call it white worms:

“We have found the cause of the infection” the man in a white lab coat said as he changed slides on the presentation. The new slide showed a small white worm with a bundle of tendrils hanging from one end. “The Lazarus worm, name for the man who came back from the dead for obvious reasons. You’ll note the bundle of tendrils on the anterior end,” a small red light from a laser pointer circled the part on the board. “This is a clump of long nerves; they invade the brain and spine and hijack the bodily functions of the infected host. This includes breathing, the five senses and stimulus response.” the slide changed again to a corpse tied down to a table face down, its back was cut open and there were several clamps sticking out. “This is a dissected corpse that wad affected by the worm”. The slide changed again to a close up of the spinal column. “As you can see there is a worm here,” the red dot circled an area just to the right of the bone. “and here is a cyst where the worm has deposited larva that will soon burst into the stomach.” the red light moved to the left and pointed to a lump about six inches across. “once the larva are in the stomach the host is more aggressive, they hunger for fresh meat and the controlling worm triggers the host to eat and causes pain when the wrong substance is eaten, this leads to the host hunting live prey.” the slide changed again to a picture of another corpse, this one with large swollen spots covering the shoulders and upper back. “This is what has been termed a “puffer” you see the areas on the back are filled with pheromones produced by the male Lazarus worm, they are used to attract females to a fresh food supply where the male worm will distribute its seed to all that appear. At this stage the worm is over a foot long and has taken over most of the hosts body, if you look closely you can see it’s tendrils hanging out of the skin.” the laser traced a pale white line that hung from the shoulder. “ we have not found a way to remove the worm without killing the host, and even if we did there is irreparable brain and nerve damage caused by the tendrils and the worms habit of eating the parts of the brain that it does not need.” the next slide, a man in a jail cell, eyes red and face bruised. “This is a man recently infected; the worm entered through the skin on his foot and was not detected until the man was unable to complete a sentence due to brain damage. He was then locked up for observation. As you can see in this picture, there is almost nothing human in his eyes, his only for of communication left at this point is grunts, this is thirty-six hours after infection. In this next slide, he appears dead, in fact his vitals dropped to near zero at fifty-seven hours and a coma like state lasted for the next forty-eight hours. Next slide, the infected stood up and began walking around. At this point the worm has complete control and is learning how to move the body. Eight hours later he became violent and started to developed welts on his back. He was put down to prevent further progress, the worm left his body by creating an opening on the back and wiggling out. It was recaptured for study.” the last slide shows the white worm in a plastic container, its tendrils reaching out along the sides. The scientist begins to pack he’s presentation away and the watching medical staff stir restlessly in their seats, eager to leave. Amy leaned over to Marcus and spoke quietly, “what does this mean for treatment?” Marcus looked at her grinned “just prescribe one bullet to be taken orally and tell them to call in the morning! Ha!” she smacked him in the arm and looked at the large folder everyone had been handed; it contained all the information about the infection that was currently available. Amy stood and followed Marcus to the door and could already hear the yells from outside where the base was always on high alert. It was hard to maintain mobile stronghold with hoards of zombie like creatures attacking, spraying pheromones that attracted more, the ammonia helped but only so much, once the wind took hold of the puff it would travel miles. Amy stopped outside the conference tent and Marcus stood next to her. “What are we going to do Marcus?” “The same thing we did to end up here. Survive.”

the original 'white worms' story

Her pulse beat heavy through her brain as she ran. The heat of the summer night was not alleviated by the clouds in the sky. Her sweat ran in rivulets and soaked her cloths. She wanted to stop but couldn’t or else the zombies would locate her and a swarm might start.
Running still, the gun strapped across her back, a well used but reliable shotgun felt heavy and had started chafing her shoulder. She was almost there, the grocery store loomed a huge dark mass off to the side of the street. Once inside, she would have only moments to scout the store for supplies before the zombie collective could find her.
When the zombies came, it wasn’t like the movies predicted, it wasn’t a virus that reanimated dead flesh, and looking back everyone left knew that was impossible. It was a parasite, a worm. It got into the brain and ate all the humanity out of its victim, reducing them to a mindless machine. In advanced stages, the worm started to grow and integrate with the brain itself, causing the zombie to give off pheromones that attracted others. The worm had spread fast across America, where it was developed in a lab as a biological weapon. It spread to Mexico and Canada but couldn’t cross into the arctic because of the cold, and couldn’t reach the equator because of the heat. But everything in between was taken over. The worms biggest strength was their ability to communicate, once prey was found a pheromone cloud was released and other infected would rush to the site, the only defense was speed.
She reached the building and looked back the way she had come, no swarm could be seen, that was good, she had been undetected. She pulled out her radio and pressed the button “base, this is Mary, I’m at the store.” she waited a moment for the reply before going in, buildings sometimes caused a loss of reception with these short range radios.
“This is base, be careful in there, James hasn’t reported back yet.” the radio went silent and Mary knew that Richard was on radio tonight and hoped that he would be of some use if things got rough.
“Be ready to send backup, I’m going to scout for food and keep an eye out for James” she hooked the radio back on her belt and unslung the shotgun. The front doors had been smashed in months ago when the worm had first been reported and panicked people had rushed to gather all the food they could. The smell in the store was terrible, all the fruit and meat rotting in the isles, she took a small tube of lotion and smeared some under her nose to help mask the smell, but it barley worked. She switched on the flashlight attached to the gun and another strapped to her head so she could see where she was looking and where she was shooting if she needed to.
Moving into the store, everything was quiet, she could hear the flies buzzing, still feeding on all the meat and produce. She spotted the canned foods isle and headed toward it checking all the shadows for any infected laying in wait. When she got to the isle, it was empty except for a few smashed cans left by people who were rushed by the mob. She continued on and checked the other isles. The pet food isle was almost full, she hated eating dog and cat food but it was normally the best they could get and after a while you get used to the taste. She kept walking until she got to the frozen foods where she stopped, the doors to most of the freezers were left open and the smell was stronger in this section, the still air in the store seemed to smolder with flies and stink. There was no sign of James.
Mary left the store and switched off the lights, better not to be seen from a distance. She shouldered her shotgun and picked up the radio. “Base, Mary reporting, seems all clear. Nothing in the canned foods, but the pet food is still stocked, we’ll need a truck to pick it up” she waited a moment and Richards voice came back.
“Truck is inbound; did you check the liqueur isle?” Richards’s voice was hopeful
“we can check it when the truck gets here, next time you can go on a mission and spend some time in a stink box.”
“You know I’ve done my share of looting doll. Just run back in and check the isle, everyone here wants to know if we can have some fun tonight.” his voice was starting to get condescending but Mary couldn’t argue with him too much, he was one of the few immune who hadn’t been rendered sterile by the worm like most survivors had.
“Damn it Richard, we can check it when they get here, it will be ten minuets and then 15 to load everything.” frustration showing in her voice.
“you’ll do it now because I said so, it will make it that much faster for the crew if they know weather or not they have to load it or not” Richard was a step away from pulling rank on her.
“Fine, ill let you know.” she put the radio away and went back into the store. Switching on her lights she looked for the liqueur section. She spotted it and walked over, in her frustration she was not as careful as she had been the first time in the store and missed a few shadowy areas in her sweeps. She made it to the isle and looked down it, sweeping across the shelves; she saw several bottles, some broken on the floor, some full on the shelves. One thing the mobs normally left was liqueur, no one thought of the medicinal and psychological benefits of having it handy. She started to turn and saw something crumpled in a corner. She focused both lights on it and saw a leg sticking out from under a blanket. She stepped slowly backwards and kept an eye on the form, it didn’t move. Inching slowly back she moved her light so it was not directly on it, better not to wake it if it was sleeping. She was twenty feet away; she turned and headed toward the door. From behind her she heard a small noise and a moan, she snapped around and saw the form starting to stand, it wasn’t James, it stood then bent over and its back started to puff up in three places, the glands that released the pheromone cloud. Mary fired a single shot at the zombie and it collapsed, the shotgun doing too much damage for it to continue to function. The bulged on its back released their stored gasses in a puff of green. She continued toward the door and made it outside. She tore the radio off her belt and pressed the button.
“We need a neutralizer with the truck, I bumped into a puffer and it went off when I shot it.”
“Already taken care of, how did the isle look?” Richard asked.
“About fifteen to twenty bottled that I could see right away.”
“Excellent, you’ll get a heroes welcome when you get back.” Richard was always happy to have booze, it made everyone loosen up and being a fertile he could damn near have his pick once the alcohol started flowing.
“Right, ill guard the store till they get here, Mary out” she put the radio back on her belt and slipped into the shadows next to the soda machines and waited.
The truck arrived, a large military vehicle used to transport goods and troops. It had been modified to allow it to break through barriers and move cars, it had a huge metal ‘V’ at the front and downward facing, six inch spikes welded to every surface to prevent a zombie swarm from climbing onto it. The back opened and five men and three women jumped out, one of the men carrying an insecticide sprayer filled with ammonia, the neutralizer, the ammonia would destroy the pheromone and kill the worms trying to escape the body. Mary told him where the puffer was and he and 2 others went inside to spray it down, if the pheromone got onto your clothing or skin, the infected would be drawn to you wherever you were so extra caution was taken to prevent contact.
The man with the neutralizer, Dominick, came back out and declared it safe. Mary looked at the team “OK guys, we have isles eight, twelve and two to clean out. Keep your guard up, that puffer did its thing about ten minuets ago so I’m not sure if anything got outside the store so lets make this quick.”
“Yes ma’am” they saluted as one, Mary liked having the ex military people around, they didn’t really care what they we’re doing as long as there was a command structure and something to do.
“Isle two is the liqueur isle, there is enough in there for a fun night and we get first pick for a good job so no one get killed and we can have some fun when we get back. Now go!” they filed into the store and flicked on their lights as they went in. From outside Mary could hear shopping carts being moved and filled. Fifteen minuets went by and the team started pushing carts out, they had found a few things that Mary had missed bags of rice and boxes of pasta, there was a lot of dag and cat food. When everything was loaded up the truck driver, who stayed locked in the truck at all times, made sure everyone was on board and pulled away from the building and headed back to base.
Base was a small camp of about 50 people; they were part of a network of survivor base across the state of Maryland. This camp was located south of Baltimore, in an area called Glen Bernie. They had taken over a large Wal-Mart and used that as their base. They had rigged the roof with generators, lights and radio equipment, as well as large signs proclaiming it a survivor base with a date that was updated daily. The truck pulled right through the front of the building and gates closed behind it. This was one of the bigger Wal-Mart’s that shared its building with other stores; it had a large entrance hallway similar to a mall. There were three main entrances, one on each side and one in the center. The back of the building had loading docks and fire escape doors, most of which had been blocked off and sealed. Inside the store, the shelving had been used to barricade the entrances and create a maze in the entrance area that people could walk across.
The fencing from the lawn and garden area had been used to make huge gates across the main entrance. These gates closed behind the truck and the team got out, the truck driver was unlocked and the supplies unloaded. It was a pretty good haul; the store had been away from residential areas so it hadn’t been hit as hard as others. Soon though they would have to start going through houses for food, but that wouldn’t be for a while.
Richard walked up and congratulated Mary with a hand shake; he then oversaw the unloading of the supplies. Mary stood next to him for a few moments then turned to him “I only saw the one Z in there, none on the way and none on the way back. Are they dying off?” she asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. Their moving. I’ve gotten word through the network that they are heading south. Their going where the worm can live best, no one has heard anything out of Florida, Georgia, or south Carolina for a few weeks, I think their heading there to breed or whatever else they were designed to do.” he sounded a bit worried.
“That’s good right? They wont be here so we can start to rebuild.” curiosity clear in her words.
“Good or bad, I’m not sure yet, from what the network has found at the old CDC building, I wouldn’t bet on it being a good thing. There is a third stage to the worm. The first two being parasite and then zombie, the third doesn’t involve a human host but the documents were so heavy with black marks that that’s about all we know.” he said
“so what do we do?” she asked.
“We do what we have been doing. We survive.” he turned and walked back into the camp.