There’s something about school that leaves you at a dead run, no matter what kind of classes you’re taking. With me, it’s been no exception.

I really wanted to do so much over Christmas break, but instead I found myself in over my head. I wanted to fix Asher’s account, still haven’t done it. I need to e-mail my new mods with instructions, but I can’t figure out what to say. Yeah, I’m great — aren’t I?

We’re discussing blogs in class right now. I don’t know, part of me has to agree with my instructor — Blogs are a huge fad. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to help someone create a Blogger account or set up GreyMatter or Wordpress because they’ve wanted one too. (Even after only knowing about Blogs less than 30 seconds.) But on the other hand, they’re cheaper than a long-distance call. I don’t know how I could keep up to date with some of you otherwise. I certainly wouldn’t be able to keep up with Theresa or Nicole.

Those of you with domains, expect a few strange references in your site stats. It’ll probably be something ending in “baker.edu.”

And before I’m asked — yes, my site was defaced earlier this weekend. I know how they did it and I took care of it. (”Public service” my ass.)

Anyroad…

Christmas was… happier than I thought it was. Even if there wasn’t much, aside from my family, to be happy about. Mom loosing her job just in time for the Holidays really put the kaibosh on that. Frankly, it’s been depressing to the point I really didn’t want to even think about decorating, cards, or even the holiday layout for Lunaescence. (Sorry, everyone.) Jodi gave me the new Enya album, which was shocking. Poppa gave me a gift certificate for Penzey’s, a bear from the American Diabetes Association, and a new sweater. These were probably the first Christmas gifts I’ve actually cried over since Mom bought me my telescope back when I was 16. I honestly didn’t expect to actually get anything.

Anyway, we’re still babysitting Kenzie; frankly there’s no way we could make ends meet without the $100 we keep making every week.

We’re preparing to sell the trailer. There, I said it. I can’t even pretend we’re in a manufactured housing community anymore either. It’s a trailer park. Barely been here a year and we’re preparing to move out. Problem is, they’ve raised the rent once again. We just can’t afford it anymore. It doesn’t even feel all that safe anymore either or like it did when we moved in. I found a man’s footprints stopping right under my bedroom window.

We found another park, near the place were we grew up and they’re asking for $100 less than they’re asking here and don’t demand a pet deposit if you own the trailer. So we’re having a trailer realtor stop by tomorrow afternoon to discuss selling this place.

I know I’ve never been one to discuss my religion since I’ve lost friends over it. (Long story.) But — Please, God… just let us get through this.

Well, after much hunting, I finally discovered what had happened.

Apparently, someone had hacked into Jasson’s Gutter Club and had created a hidden directory. Inside that hidden directory was the spam form.

So, I’m sorry Jass — but it had to go. The gutter directory has been completely nuked.

Frankly, I’m about ready to hand off my Flea fanlisting to someone too. I can’t afford to have some idiot hacking into my site, just for the purpose of sending spam. Since they use the same system (PHPfanbase 2.0), Flea is at risk too. Though probably not as much risk as the idea of an Adult Humor fanlisting.

What’s more, I visit the site to see if maybe there’s a patch and I discover a rather cryptic post set right around the time I had all those hacking problems declaring that there’s security issues, but they won’t go into any details.

Well, screw it. Netbunch never did get back to me, they deleted my support ticket and have basically ignored every request for help I made. I need a new host…

My host is on the fast track to being fired / reported to the BBB.

In November, I had a bunch of hackers trying to break into my copy of eFiction. I managed to get the archive updated, patched, and remodified so it works fairly decently.

Now, I have some spammer using my domain’s catch all e-mail address for his spam campaign. He’s put it as the return address for his current campaign, so all returned e-mails are going to MY account.

I found out because my e-mail was slow and I needed to send a quick note to Bender. Thinking something was up, I opened up my browser and noticed my site was acting buggy. I went to my Webmail and BOOM. 7000 returned e-mails.

Thinking it was the hackers exploiting my site again, I deleted all contact forms. Nope, didn’t touch it. Put them back up. I managed to slow it down my installing some e-mail blockers and filters on my Webmail, but I still easily end up deleting 1000 e-mails a day.

So behold - well over 10,000 returned e-mails in 48 hours. ( I lost count after 10,000) My bandwidth is being eaten alive (I’m up to a whole gig) and it’s only the 9th of December. I’ve removed all downloads and extras to help protect my bandwidth, as well as further compressing my images to make them smaller.

On the 7th, I wrote a very panicked e-mail post to the Netbunch support forums begging for help in stemming this flood. Nothing. I send in a support ticket the next morning - nothing.

I repost a less panicked version of my post and bump my old one as well as submitting a new ticket with more information. I finally get a response: I get yelled at for spamming. My first support ticket is deleted, my first post is locked, my second post is deleted. It’s been 2 days since I heard from anyone and the e-mails keep coming.

I’m going to wait until tomorrow morning before I post a followup to my support ticket and inform them that I still need help. Then, if nothing else happens I’m submitting a complaint to the BBB regarding this shit. As soon as tax returns come back, Mom and Jass are talking very seriously about moving the site to a new host.

Sure, it’s a cliche, but I have to wonder when I became flypaper for freaks.