For the third time in the past 6 to 8 months I've had a fraudulent charge on my credit card. Actually it was four times, but one was only $9 and I let it slide to avoid the inconvenience of having to get a new card. Unfortunately this time it was a $50 charge to iTunes from China and I could not abide. The worst part in all of this is that it is just fucking impossible to tell which company is leaking my information. Shit, it could be a skimmer at a random gas station for all I know. This is my only credit card, but I've thought about signing up for more just to try to disperse them to at least get an idea of which group of companies might be responsible. One for bills, one for online retail, and another for brick-and-mortar retail. Shit, maybe it's my fucking bank (wouldn't surprise me).

This is just fucking retarded. So it's just fucking dandy to run around blowing the living shit out of anything that moves in many a video game, but having your avatar carry a gun is crossing the line? Maybe they should hire Steven Spielberg to digitally alter all the guns into walkie talkies, and instead of shooting your enemies you can just politely invite them over for a cup of tea and call it a draw.

Never get between a nigger and his shoes.

So the HP TouchPad firesale on eBay was on December 11. Many people, including myself, had problems with the servers and failed to obtain one. Then on December 21 I get a message from eBay apologizing for the inconvenience and offering a 10% (max of $10) off coupon on my next purchase through eBay. Given that they didn't have to do anything that's a nice gesture. Unfortunately, the coupon expires December 28. What the fuck, man. I'd rather get nothing than a token gesture that expires in a few days. Lame.

Hung got cancelled :(

Homeland was pretty decent, though it kind of plateaued after the bunker scene. There were a few plot issues brought up on some forums, but nothing major in my opinion. The recollection of Brody mentioning Isa in his sleep at the end was a nice touch. The only concern I have is how the fuck is Carrie going to get back in the game? The only possibility seems to be for Saul to blackmail Estes with the missile strike, but he already tried that and backed off. I'm not sure what they're going to do, but I hope like fuck that they don't go the 24 route where they set up their own operation (which wouldn't even make sense in this type of series).

Terra Nova's finale was probably the best episode of the season, but that's not really saying much. Like the rest of the series, the finale was pretty mediocre. At least they fucking finally had a couple of guys get eaten by a dinosaur. Cheesy at times and I actually laughed out loud inappropriately, but that's Terra Nova for you. They actually did a decent job of wrapping everything up, though with the portal broken I guess they're going to be fighting the Phoenix guys? Don't really know where they're planning on going with that, but I'm not sure I'm going to go with them.

I saw this post on Reddit about voting for the top movies of 2011, and I've got to say 2011 was a pretty shitty year for movies. Saw the most recent incarnation of Pirates of the Caribbean; it wasn't quite dreck, but it was certainly just going through the motions. Saw Bridesmaids as well. Kind of a cute little movie, but I probably only laughed once or twice; definitely didn't live up to the hype. Though I will say that I find Kristen Wiig to be uniquely beautiful. First saw her in Whip It and thought she was tremendous. Captain America was meh, Thor was slightly better, X-Men: First Class impressed me. The only movie that I really enjoyed was Super and technically that movie was from 2010.

All I can say is ho lee shit. Carrie just totally lost her shit and is getting thrown out; I feel terrible for her. Of course the series was renewed a while ago so she's got to get back in the game in some fashion. Can't wait for the finale on Sunday.

Very interesting. Nucky is going to be pissed with Margaret, but somehow I think he'll get over it. I was a bit surprised at the situation with Jimmy, but he seemed to be expecting it; also it's in Nucky's nature to do that. Kind of a bummer as he was one of the more interesting characters; I wonder what's in store for his mother and right hand man.

There are a lot of different views on Slashdot, but I'm glad we can all agree on something: Verizon sucks!

In other news, it was only a matter of time. The only surprising thing about this is that it didn't happen sooner. Hard to turn down free money...

..start your refreshing! Also 32GB model.

Acer makes fairly shitty products in my experience, but their recent laptops seem decent enough. I've been thinking of replacing my aging Dell Latitude D600 and this guy is a great deal. Very tempted to get it, though I would have to find an Acer in a retail store first to try out the chiclet keyboard. I've used the previous floating island keyboard and it is passable; in truth the two keyboard styles (at least Acer's implementations of them) are not all that different so it would probably be decent enough. Including shipping my used Dell Latitude D600 cost $325 or so just over 3 years ago. $450 for this new Acer with considerable hardware improvements is a pretty good deal.

I am selling my first item on eBay - my original Xbox 360. I recently got the Gears of War special edition console (love it) and am looking to dump my old one. I thought of going the craigslist route, but I absolutely loathe physically interacting with people (especially total strangers). I also considered trading it in at Best Buy or GameStop, but their offers are a joke. Hope I don't get fucked by eBay / PayPal / buyer.

The most noticeable change made by the update will be to swap the Xbox's familiar tabbed interface for the so-called Metro look that is based around "tiles".

Batman aside, I'm not normally all that into these superhero moves. However, I just saw Thor and Captain America and they both set up The Avengers beautifully. Obviously Robert Downey, Jr.'s Iron Man is the main draw, but the supporting cast of characters is strong in their own right. Hopefully Samuel L. Jackson will have a nice supporting role instead of these short (but cute) cameos after the credits. Speaking of cameos, Stan Lee always has the cheesiest line; I love it. Anyway, I have total faith in Joss Whedon's direction and expect this movie to be enormous. I'm not big into going to the theater, but I may slum it for this one.