Ha!

Sail, how did the unsecured wireless contribute?

1) I have encrypted wireless at home.

2) The only place I've been where it was not a secure internet connection was Border's on Monday.

3) The order against my Paypal account was on Wednesday, and I hadn't been receiving any e-mail since at least Wednesday.

4) When I investigated the e-mail problem, I found that someone had forwarded all my e-mail to another account, placed a filter on the e-mail that screened out anything with e-bay or Paypal in the subject line and blocked all e-mail from e-bay.com, paypal.com and the e-bay vendor's e-mail acct.

I can think of no other way for them to have gotten that info unless they were able to hack the unsecure Border's connection.

Javacat,

Thank you so much for all my Christmas Goodies! You rock! I love the curious collection of things you found for me - the lovely sock yarn, the Hello Kitty notebook, the crazy yet cool horse head bottle opener. I'm wearing the comfy socks RIGHT now!

So 2009 has been a year of changes.

It marked the 1 year anniversary of my current job. I'm doing good, we had some layoffs (which was bad), I got more responsibilities, (which I'm struggling with, but so is everyone else) but overall I get great feedback and I like my job.

I had to put my sweet kitty Anna to sleep, she was 20 1/2 years old and her little body was just shutting down. I had her my whole life and it was very very sad. I still miss her. But I've added Dean the Rouge and Maddie to my life, brother and sister kitties that are very sweet.

Also moved out of my apartment and back in with my mom. Not because I had to, but because she wants to move to be closer to my brother, SIL, and Cutest Nephew Ever! at some point this spring and I'll be renting her place when she does. Plus since I've moved in she's been up there most of the time.

In my love life SLNRLBF aka Will and I are doing great! He came down on Memorial Weekend and then we spent a week together at the beginning of November and it was AWESOME! I'm going up to Vermont to visit next fall (I think) and we're trying to figure out when I can move up there. We'll see when that happens.

And I'm very close to paying off my credit card so that's exciting.

Oh and I'm dealing with some illness that I don't know what it is, 2 CT Scans and 2 ultrasounds later I'm scheduled for a cystoscopy in Jan. I'm hoping that will shed some light on what is going on.

Got it, Sail. Does seem to be too much of a coincidence to have it not be the case. I've been the victim (10 years ago) of a serious stalker/identity thief who simply knew enough about me to guess my hotmail password. He did the same sort of thing, once he hacked my account, but the damage wasn't just financial. Anyway, thank god it was 10 years ago and dealt with and over (he's dead).

I think that would be even scarier, javachik. Knowing it was someone close to you. I'm glad it's over and done for you.

It was. Some day, now that it's so long ago I can be fairly objective, I'll write about it. Actually, to be thread-related, 2009 being a pretty good year was very therapeutic. It felt very satisfying to mark the 10 year anniversary of the worst year of my life.

I've bought my Slacker Santa gifts, but haven't yet posted them - so, clearly not going to be there by Christmas or New Year, but should insh'allah arrive in January.

crosses fingers. tells self not to procrastinate like a procrastinaty thing, as is her wont.

I should do it today, shouldn't I? Right. Right, I'll do it today, and now I've said so here that means I HAVE to do it, so I can come back and report it done. Must drag self out of apartment. Ahem.

Meanwhile, I blame askye for the fact that this past week I seem to have just sort of stumbled into Second Life, pretty much on a demonic whim of curiosity out of in nowhere (...er, unless I can blame The Guild. Which, actually, is closer to the truth, iirc my chain of thought) and, OMG, I can see how this could be a real time-eater. Real time open mic poetry readings, and steampunk worlds, and karaoke clubs, and I seem to have (1) acquired an EFL job teaching people in China via SL, and (2) auditioned for & got the role of Magenta in a forthcoming "live" SL production of The Rocky Horror Show. Um. So - yeah, I can totally understand how askye came to be sucked in! And I'm delighted it's had such a lovely RL consequence for her and for SLNRLBF.

Right. Backing away from the internet now. (I'll do a proper rundown of 2009 later, I swear - just wanted to say I've got the pressie, and try to guilt myself into getting on with the all-important posting bit now.)

I think I've given up on the missing piece for my secret santa so I'm hoping to wrap and ship today. Might have to push til tomorrow depending on what today brings.

But I got a lovely package of packages yesterday! I'm trying to hold out on opening until the day, but that's also going to depend on how today goes. Wheee!