If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen some of my tweets relating to a movie I have rented called Hard Candy. Starring Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson, I loved this movie so much I felt I had to write about it. You can sum this blog post up in just a few words,

“YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!”

Seriously, I’m not just typing this, I want everyone and anyone who reads this post to go out and buy, rent, steal or use some other means to get your hands on a copy of this movie. 

I really want to write a lot about how this movie made me feel, but just in case you do go out and buy it, I’ll try and avoid spoilers. 

The basic premise of the movie is that Hayley (Ellen Page) meets up with a guy she has been chatting with on the internet called Jeff (Patrick Wilson). At first, you get the impression that they are both consensual in their meeting and with their ‘attraction’ towards each other. Let me say at this point that Hayley is 14 years old, whilst Jeff is much older. Now considering the plot revolves around issues of pedophilia, I found myself at some points of the movie, being annoyed with myself at how I felt about the characters. A review I read said that I would be ‘pissed-off with myself” for feeling the way I do during the movie and I can honestly say I do. 
Jeff gets the tables turned on him in the movie, with Hayley getting her ‘own-back’ as it was. If your male and watching this film, be prepared for about 40 minutes worth of grimacing and squinting at the screen as it contains the most gruesome ‘castration’ torture scene ever.

 This movie is so subtle and yet so powerful, it’s left me thinking about it an hour after I’ve finished watching it. I’m not the best at writing movie reviews, so I’ll leave the final remark to the Director of the movie;

Roughly 50% of our audience love this film, around 25% come out of the theatre wondering what they thought and the other 25% hate us for making it.

You MUST watch this movie. You MUST!

Andrew.

How are you all? Enjoy the nice weather last week? Exams going okay? Sound off in the comments.

Its Sunday 13th April 2008, about 6 months since my last blog post. 

This week seems to have been quite chaotic for me and for many people I know, don’t know why but people seem to be rushing around, stressed, tense and up to their eyeballs in work. The totally crap weather doesn’t seem to be helping either. Hearing today about the tragic death of Mark Speight got me thinking about the ‘good old days’ of children’s television in the early 90s. I used to watch CBBC every day after school (a choice which seemed odd to many of my friends as the majority of them liked to watch CITV, I thought I was cool because of this ) Either way, both channels provided great programs and something which gets me annoyed nowadays, great presenters in between shows. If you switch on CBBC or ITV after school days now, you’ll see that CITV has practically disappeared and CBBC doesn’t use live segway presenters like it used to do. I suppose its all down to the huge number of kids channels on sky etc which we didn’t really have access to when I was younger.

Right now, it’s 11pm, I’m home for the weekend and enjoying my bed, so I thought I’d give a quick update as I’ve been a bit busy this last week to bother updating.

Uni Life is much more different than I expected. I thought with me being a total antisocialite, that I would crawl up in my room and sway to the sound of everyone else having fun.
Granted, I’m still not one for going out at night and attending all the Freshers events, but I have found that it is easier to talk to people than I thought. I’ve met a few people from withing my course who I hope will become better friends as time goes on.

Registration was also relatively painless. I only queued for about half an hour, and got a shiny new student card (with a really bad photo on!). To get into the library on campus and other services at the uni, you have to scan the barcode that is printed on the card. So I thought, now I have one, Ill check out the library, check my emails etc whilst I was there.
I spent about five minutes rotating my card in every way possible on this damn barcode scanner so the doors would open, before a woman came out and told me (with a grin on her face) that my card isnt actually active yet. Never mind, eh. She let me in regardless which was nice of her.

There are some rather random teachers/lecturers at the business school. The ones which I’ve met all seem crazy (in a good way). The Gregmeister, as she will now be called, makes terrible jokes and Benson (my Accounting lecturer) tells his students where to get the cheapest booze in town.

I miss Taylor!

Claire pointed out today that freedom at uni is a weird thing. After being at Wath with forbidden corridors, one way systems and Taylor on the gates; being able to walk around in and out of random buildings with a coffee in one hand seems surreal (once again in a good way). I was in the Biological sciences building the other day for a talk and i saw a stuffed badger on display, next to a vole, several whale bones and a pickled mouse.

Thats it for today. Once again, I realise this post should really be in my @Uni blog, but I think I may combine the two for the time being.

Nighty night.

Andrew
(missing you all)

I have been amazingly bored today, one of those days where the boredom overcomes any willingness to actually do something. So, today all I’ve done is sat on the settee with my computer watching TV and movies.

After finishing my cheese and bacon omlette (I’m trying new food ideas for uni), and the second movie of the day, The Island, I switched over to Sky News to see what was happening in the world.
Well, apart from Alastair Darling and the twitching of his ridiculously black eyebrows – mostly nothing. It did mention a new feature they have in which they broadcast certain interviews via a computer chat room thingy, called Second Life.

I’ve heard of Second Life before this, but never tried it, so I downloaded a copy, created an account and…… well, that was about it really. Call me a complete dunce, but I had no idea what to do apart from walk around this empty space with nobody else there. So, after wasting time doing that, I uninstalled it.

Paris Hilton. Yes, you know her. Whether you love her or hate her – something everyone has in common is that you most certainly will have an opinion of her. What I admire about the woman is how she has gone through life having absolutely no discernable talent whatsoever, and still managing to be one of the richest. But, my overwhelming opinion of her being a complete slitch (slut/bitch, like it?) supercedes that.

Why mention her? Well, I read this quote today from Dave Grohl (who I now absolutely respect as being a ‘good guy’), which is so blunt, yet true, it made me laugh;

“She’s a total, raging, disgusting, rich, lazy party slut. I pray that my daughter will not turn out like her.
“Paris is f**king lame, she’s more offensive to me than anything.”

Thats it for now.

Anyone watch Skins? Is it any good, I might watch it tonight.

Andrew

Quote from here.

The Lord of The Rings – I really want to like it, but for some reason am unable to. I’ve turned to reading the book before watching the films because quite frankly, they bore me.

Smeagol = Gollum, didn’t know that.

I went to visit my uni house for the first time on Friday. I know they say that you get all types of people at university but the accommodation office at Hull needed some kind of award for cultural diversity. When I got there, there was the most emo-ish girl you’ve ever seen with the tightest black skinny jeans I’ve ever seen (she had amazingly cool hair though, think Hayley Williams but fire-engine red). Next in line, was the biggest (weight, height and width) chav ever! A chav at university!!! Damn, and here’s me thinking I was rid of them.

Anyway, when I got the keys to my accommodation, I was the only one there. Checked out the sitting area and the kitchen (the fridges absolutely stunk and my mum started washing it instinctively), went up to my room (surprisingly huge compared to some of the rooms I’d visited on open days).
I moved most of my stuff in, then realised that I had come way too early and didn’t really want to spend a week living on my own in a house considering freshers week didn’t actually start till the 24th. So, whilst I did move most of my stuff in to my room, I’m now back home. I’m off (for good this time) on Friday again, and hopefully my ‘housemates’ will have arrived.

[After typing that, I realise this post should be on my @Uni Blog, nevermind.]

I recently applied for a HSBC student account, and while all went well, I got a call from HSBC the other day (note: they phoned me), and after answering the phone the polite yet obviously ‘English challenged’ woman said,
“How may I help you?” Deary me, the future does not look good for my student banking life with HSBC.

A couple of other random things and thoughts;

• Is it wrong that I should be addicted to this song?
• How should I decorate my room at uni?
• The iPod touch is a waste of money and utterly ridiculous.

That’s it for now.

Good night

{WOW, thats a big spider!!!}

Andrew

[As always, if you scroll down you'll find some music to enjoy while you read]

I know I’ve been very fuzzy in my writing style and explanations. I’m sorry.

But first,

Nu Metal and KoRn fans, there is a new KoRn album coming out at some point in the near future.
It has been leaked, but I know you would never resort to downloading an illegal copy, right?

If you’re interested, there are preview songs on their official MySpace.
[Evolution is awesome.]

Also, check out the Simpsons Movie Soundtrack.
The SpiderPig song is great.
There’s also a more hardcore, orchestral version of the main theme song.

And now the final installment.

[read the legal blurb in the first blog (2 down) before preceding]

There is a very simple way to block your info [on MySpace] from unwanted viewer – set your account to private. That way only your ‘friends’ will be able to see it.

Or you could lie and fill your account with false details, but that’s a bit drastic.

But what about outside of MySpace?

If you’re signed up to lots of web sites, there’s going to be more details about you scattered across the Internet.

A simple google search can turn up a lot. For example, search for me – oatzy – a lot of what you find will be about or relating to me.

But for other people it’s not so easy. Again, the more you already know about a person, the more you can find about them.
If you only knew my name – Chris Oates – you’d get plenty of results, but non in the first five pages (at least) are about me.

You’d get:
Chris Oates, National Director of Tax Risk Management at Ernst & Young
“The Haunted Welly” by Chris Oates
ABCD: Chronic Poetry, Christopher Oates
OldRacingCars.com
Dr Chris Oates of Australia
Chris Oates is one of six physicists… [I like that one]
etc, etc.

But knowing I came from Wath (which you could get from my MySpace)

The first result is me!
There’s also PurpleOranges.com on the first page, which I was affiliated with.

But more importantly, the first result is a profile.
I haven’t been very helpful by putting my age as 102. But if you click on links to friends, you will find their age is between 17 and 18. Which should lead you to believe that I too am in this age range – I am.
You also note from the blogs I’m connected with, which university I will be going to.

And of course, the other thing you get from that profile is my screen name (also on MySpace)

And as I said above, searching that name will get you a lot of sites connected with me and a lot of extra details on me (possibly including e-mail addresses).

The other thing is, if a person has a wishlist (for Amazon, for example), it may be possible to reap an address from that (you may have to buy something for them).
The other advantage of the wishlist is, you don’t have to know their address to send them a birthday present.

Next, how do you get hold of someone’s mobile number?

I know of no easy ways or trick. Your best bet is, as always, ask around.
I’d also suggest reading blogs and checking profiles (specifically MySpace, Facebook etc).
Some people are careless with their number (yes even I did once).
It’s really just a matter of perusing.

And while on the subject of mobile phones.
I’m not entirely sure (I saw it in Jekyll) but I think there is a way of tracking someone by their mobile. You would of course need the persons mobile number or would need to connect to them or intercept a call, but once you’ve found them you’re in.

It might be worth looking it up on google, but I’m not going to bother.

[anyone scared yet]

And of course there are phones themselves.
New technologies, bluetooth, wi-fi etc open up new doors to stealing info from phone – steal a persons phone book and you’re laughing.

But that would be illegal, so we’ll stay away.

So how do you avoid being track?

The Simple answer – Be careful about what you put on the Internet.

I’ll just give a quick mention of this – anonymous browsing, proxies etc will keep your identity hidden while you browse, but that’s a bit of an extreme measure.

The first thing you could try is creating a fake identity for certain sites

Fake Name Generator is an amazing site.
Pick a gender, country and nationality and the site will give you a name, address, DoB, email, phone number, mother’s maiden name and a fake credit card [will not work in the real world!].

All you could ever need to sign up to a site.

The other thing is the disposable email address, good for staving off unwanted spam and probably lots of other uses.

If you need to get into a site that wants you to register, Bug Me Not might be able to help.
It lets you get into a site without having to sign up, so you don’t have to leave any personal details behind.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of.

Play safe, and don’t give away more than you need to.

[anyone paranoid yet?]

Anyhow, here’s your music.

Anyone else in the mood for a bit of jazz/big band.

Here’s some Michael Bublé.

You gotta love him. Love Moondance, you’ve got to listen to the Spideman Theme cover and all in all, just enjoy.

Sleep well, don’t have nightmares,

Matthew A. Johnson.

[I identity thefted your ass, mwahahahaha!]

Forward message to Sally – Happy 17th Birthday, hope the Next sales didn’t spoil it for you.

Hi, my name’s Chris O. and I’m a blogging whore.

But that’s a whole other story.

[Today, I'm treating you to some Santana & Friends. Scroll down]

But first – How to Give a Back Massage

Sources tell me, if word gets out you can give a damn good back massage, women (or men if you prefer) will be falling all over you.

Score.

For for those who were wondering, HSM 2 will be shown of the 17th of August on the Disney Channel (the day after Results day) at about 9pm.

So stick a blank DVD in the recorder, get some snacks and let Disney Channel cheer you up
[don't worry, you could always try again next year]

Back to the stalking.
[read the disclaimer in the previous post before proceeding]

The thing is, everything yesterday was ultimately trivial.
More an interesting game to play. A way to estimate a friends birth date [when you may have forgotten it] to know when to send a present.

[hint - have it send from an Internet site at around mid star-sign region. If you're out by More than a week, try blaming it on the website. Of course, you could just ask.]

But anyhow. This is where the interesting stuff comes in.

I know your first name, but what’s your surname?

Well first, I don’t remember exactly, but it’s worth looking at the persons blog [if they have one].
There is quite a bit about the person in the side bar. There may be some worth while stuff in there.
[I can't check now, because I've got as promise to live up to]

But secondly.

This isn’t a tried and tested technique, at this stage it’s more theoretical
(based on assumptions and experience).

It’s suggested you put your real name into MySpace so that your friends can find you.
From that, you can search for your friend by real name.
But, if you search for the persons username or screen name, do you get the persons full, real name listed next to their result? You do get a lot of other info, but I think most of that can be found on the profile page. You can always use this extra info to identify the result as the person you’re looking for.

And again, if all else fails, ask them or one of their friends or someone who’s likely to know their name (someone who’s in the same class as them).
Subtlety is the key of course, you make wish to think up a story/excuse for why you want it.

Now, I have looked into this and to track down a person’s ‘vitals’, you need two things:
A name (first and last), and
A region (within which they live), the more accurate the better.

So how can you work out where a person lives from MySpace?

Again, check the blog first.
But also, read the blog. If the person talks about their live a lot, there are likely to be clues – where they work, where they go to school, they may make plans with their friends giving locations etc.

The other thing is, on the persons profile age, there is often given education history and work history ie. I study/ied at… I work(ed) at…
This can give you a general region.

For example, my page will tell you that I studied at Wath Comprehensive School.
Look it up on google map and you’ll get a location.
It is fair to assume that a student at that school will live within a certain distance from it.
In this case, I’d go as far as to call the region Rotherham, and that may be enough to track the person down.

Also, take note of the dates. If they’re within the same year as the year they left the school, it’s safe to assume they will be in the same house.

Outside of this, take note of their age, they may have gone of to uni.

Now here’s the clever part. A lot of Schools will have a digital version of their prospectus on their website. Go specifically to the sixth form prospectus.
The is usually a list in the back of previous student, where they went and what they’re studying.
Provided they left the year before the prospectus was printed, they should be in there – score!

A persons current university (along with their name) can be very useful for info digging, because the more you know about a person, the more info you likely to find on them.

[note] – these technique are primarily for people in the UK.
There are lots of recourse for doing essentially the same thing in the US.
You can find some resources here.

So what can you do with a name and address/region?

Well, if they’re listed [in the phone book] finding them is simple as going to, for example, 118118.com. Person search-name-address, you’ll get a list of people matching that criteria with a phone number next to their name. It’s just a matter of deciding which (if any) of them is the person you’re looking for [address info is also given].

If they’re not listed, it’s a little harder [and more expensive].

This is where a more accurate address is needed – a post code is ideal, or a street name.

There are several sites [search UK people search], where you put in a name and address, and they search electoral rolls to give results like name, address, phone number, date of birth [and death if applicable].

So great. But there is a catch, you have to pay to get your hands on the results.
If you’re determined you’ll pay the price [I wouldn't].

I’d also suggest looking into the freedom of information act.
It may be possible to go to your local council type place and ask to see public records on a person. But that’s something you’d have to investigate.

Next time – extras, misc and how to avoid being tracked/stalked.

So that’s that, and here’s this:

Carlos Santana, guitar hero with an Latin vibe [this guy's been going since '66].
Aside from his solo music, he’s also perform with a lot of other famous acts [see Supernatural and Shaman albums].

You may think you haven’t hear any of his stuff, but you’d be surprised what you recognise.
Take the first in the play list, for example.

My favourite – ‘Why Don’t You And I’.
There are two versions. The album version features Chad Kroeger of Nickelback.
But due to legal complication, he couldn’t appear on the single version. So he suggested Alex Band of The Calling. They’re both essentially the same. It’s just a matter of who voice you prefer.

Anyway, here you go.

Give me your heart, Make it real, Or else forget about it,

Oatzy.

[still here]

[Scroll down to listen to music while you read]

The thing with addicts is, they go to any length to get their fix.

Being that my personal motto [or at least one of them] is ‘By any means necessary’,
I’m working around my pledge on a technicality.

[Hi Andrew. I'm back.]

As is often the case in life, you run out of things to say, then as soon as you try and stop your minds flooded with ideas.

But first, I don’t much care for it, but if you’re finding you can’t get hold of Harry Potter and you REALLY need to read it, you can ‘acquire’ a digital version on here.

Or the complete set on here.

And now, The Meat.

How To Stalk That Special Someone.

Legal Disclaimer
I will not be held accountable in any way for your actions as a result of reading this article.
It is for demonstrative purposes only, not a how guide to be followed and applied for [malicious] intent.

Here’s how it goes. I was reading an article earlier (in The Sun of all places) about ‘criminals’ using social networking site to harvest info for identity theft.

The Article make mention of Facebook and Bebo but not MySpace.
I have no experience of Either Facebook or Bebo. But since they’re mentioned I’ll assume it’s relatively easy to get the info you want. So that in mind, I’m going to focus on MySpace here (though there may be overlap in technique)

My first thought was, what info can you get about a person from their MySpace page(s)?

I could think of a few thing of the top of my head, but perhaps the more pertinent question would be, What do we want to know, and how can we get that from [the info on] MySpace?

So what do we want to know?

Name (first and last), date of birth, address, phone number, mobile number and email address.

[there may be other things I missed. Passwords and credit card numbers are a lot harder to get hold of - the only way you getting them is if the user's REALLY careless or you're willing to commit illegal acts (hacking, dumpster diving social engineering, general theft etc)]

[Given the size of this task, this article will be a multi-parter, spread over several blogs]

So I’ll start with Date of Birth.

The person’s age can be easily found on the persons profile page – assuming they’re telling the truth. Anyone who looks at my profile page will note my age as 100+.

So lying is a big road block. But, there are potential work around.

The first is complicated and unnecessary, read what they write on their page and in their blogs and use some bad ass deduction to try and fathom an age range.

The second way is much easier and shows wile.
Go to their friends pages. Ignoring bands, a huge percentage of a persons friends will be within a couple of years of their age. The possibility of all of their friends lying is relatively low, but be warned it is a possibility.

And of course, profile pictures can be a dead give away. Assuming they’re of the actual user, you can sort of guesstimate an age range.

It is also worth noting that your average MySpace user will be in the age range of about 16 to 30. Facebook seems to be more 30 to 50 [I lost the link]
[by average, I mean a huge chunk. That's not to say there aren't many outside of this range]

But then, if you know the person well enough (if you consider them that ’special someone’), all this shouldn’t be necessary.
But all in all, these should give you a reasonable approximation of age/birth year.

But there is wiggle room (so to speak).
It’s possible for two people with the same age to be born in two different years.

So the next step is to get a better estimate of the date of birth.

The date of birth is not (to the best of my knowledge) shown anywhere on MySpace.
[But you do tell MySpace what it is.]

There is one clue – Star Signs.

The star sign will give you a range of about 30 day, within which the persons birthday will fall.
This tells you which of the two years [see above] they were born in.

It’s a matter of the relative.
What time of the year where they born in relation to the current date.

For example, in late August, a person born in early August will be the same ‘age’ as a person born in September the previous year.

It’s a little complicated, but if you’re determined you’ll work it out.

But this is really only estimating.
There is a way to get an exact date of birth. It’s not directly from MySpace, but it requires some info from it.

For that reason, I’ll have to leave it there ’till that info is found.

Next time – Name, address and how to use them.

Anyway, here are some songs from musicals.

It’s by no means comprehensive, there are lots of things missing, lots of random things, some songs have been replaced with ‘updated’ versions.

I tried to put them in some sort of order – it’s an order that makes sense to me, comprising of putting related artists together and trying to maintain a flow of mood (not upbeat songs running into darker songs), although there may be exceptions.

I hope there’s something in there for everyone to enjoy.

So basically, enjoy it or get on with your life.

Lots of love,

Oatzy.

[Resurrecting a Dormant blog]