Author: Snoskred

Sunday Selections Week 48

21 Comments Posted on November 29, 2015November 28, 2015 by Snoskred

Christmas at Domayne can be very sparkly!

It can also be somewhat costly. This Christmas Deer was $34.95.

I really love the whole look, the white tree, the gold sequin balls, the sparkly pastel teal leaves.

The deer jars were quite awesome. The small teal feather wreaths would be awesome on my front door. In fact my Mother who strongly dislikes Christmas almost bought one.

Who would not love a sparkly deer?

These peacock feather Swarovski crystal tree ornaments are stunning!

It is worth remembering, this time next month, Christmas will be over for another year. :) Are you looking forward to Christmas? Got any big plans?

Sunday Selections

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Also Linking Up With

Sunday Snap @ JibberJabberUK

Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

Word Bubbles

7 Comments Posted on November 27, 2015November 21, 2015 by Snoskred

There are three different versions of Word Bubbles available on Lumosity. My favourite one is the newest one which is still in Beta mode, but truthfully they are all great. I’m just having a lot more success with the newest one.

How does this game work?

There are three levels involved in word bubbles. To begin with, you are given two starting letters for a word, and you have to try to make as many words as you can out of those starting letters. There is a timer which ticks down. I am not sure how long it is, maybe 30 seconds or so.

On level 2, the starter is 3 letters long, and halfway through the timer the third letter drops away.

This means while I am making words with the 3 letter start, I can also be thinking about words with just the 2 letters.

For level 3, it is a 4 letter start with two drop aways during the level.

Why do I love it?

This game helps me with my vocabulary skills and also I personally believe it helps me with that word on the tip of your tongue but you can’t find it thing that happens. That happens to me much less often than it used to.

Also, it is just plain fun. Which helps when you are playing a game. I sometimes get a weird urge to play it and pause whatever else I am doing for a few minutes so I can indulge that urge. Some days I might play it 3-4 times, some days just once. It isn’t included in the daily training yet so I have to seek it out myself.

I keep getting better and better at this game, so I’ll keep playing.. :)

Over To You –

How is your vocabulary? :) Do you play any word games?

Gaming, Lumosity

LKT Company Job Scam

120 Comments Posted on November 26, 2015December 1, 2015 by Snoskred

With thanks to Reg and Dayton Ohio who posted these details on the RNT Company Scam post – these scammers have now changed their name, again! It appears that one of the email address being used is julie.mills@lktwork.com, there is also juliemills@lkt-career.com – I am sure there will be more.

With the usual apologies to my regular readers however over 20,000 people have viewed these job scam posts in the past 5 months and many of them have not been scammed as a result of these posts. These posts are important!

We would like to offer position of Administrative Assistant at our company. Please, find more information about us and this position below.

LKT is a leading distributor of finest designer goods. Currently it is one of the most important specializing in online sales. With more than 5 years of experience in the designer goods industry. We offer a continuous renovation in our collections, following the latest trends in each country and season, thus satisfying the demand of clients. We always keep in mind that prices are an important factor when it comes to sales.

We are looking for a responsible person in Australia who will be ready to incur all necessary activities. Our candidate should be highly motivated. We believe that the experience is not the most important thing. The key to success is a fresh look and bold ideas!

The main duties of Administrative Assistant:

– Helping Entity’s Sales Department as a special projects support
– Data entry and other functions as specified in the instruction
– Running reports for all completed deals and wire transfers
– Providing overall administrative maintenance such as making of letters, processing purchase orders and transaction reports etc.
– Emailing correspondence every day

Hours: Full-time or part-time schedule possible. Your schedule can be irregular. For a part time variant – you will spend 3 hours per day average, from Monday to Friday.

Salary: Essential pay for a part time job is 840AUD on a weekly basis
plus 5 percent commission. Full-time job pay is 1300AUD on a weekly basis plus commission.

You will be on Probation period for your first month.

I’m sending you Application Form and short presentation of LKT(you can
find it attached to this email). You can find full job description in
the brochure(pages: 9-18). Please read it carefully, complete and send
it back to me via email or by fax +1-832-584-0420. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Thank you,
Julie Mill

PLEASE Don’t Tell Them!

It seems these scammers were using a template from LMP Company and they have switched names because the very first result for LMP Company now leads to scamwarners. Now, LCN Company leads to my post that it is a scam. So then they changed their name to RNT Company, and now after a couple of months using that name, they have changed it to to LKT Company.

So – please – do not tell scammers that their company name is listed here or anywhere else on the web as a scam – it will take them mere seconds to change their fake details and their new details will not be easily searchable for any future victims to find.

How Do You Know This Job Is A Scam?

This is a fake job scam. You can read more about how these scams work at Scamwatch.

In this case it seems they are direct depositing stolen or fraudulent funds into the bank accounts of scam victims. The money will appear to be legit to begin with. They will ask you to transfer funds to them via Western Union or Moneygram. It may take up to a year for the transaction to be reversed but it WILL be reversed and when it is, you will be required to pay the money back to the bank.

A Note From The Legit LKT Consulting

LKT Consulting (not the company in this email) is actually fielding calls and emails for this now. We’ve had a small number of calls and a lot of emails that have been forwarded. The original emails that we have been forwarded are coming from free email addresses rather than the domains listed above. Unfortunately (or fortunately, whichever way you look at it) they are Googling “LKT” and coming up with us. We’re having to tell them it’s a scam as we would not be hiring in this fashion. One of the recipients forwarded us this link. Thanks again for posting it.

Mega Important Note!!

If you got this email from a different name and email address, please leave a comment asap, you can use a fake name and email address to post the comment if you like. I’ll regularly add in other names, email addresses, website addresses, and any other info you can provide in to the post. It will help other people who are searching for the names. Thanks everyone who leaves a comment, it WILL stop people from getting scammed. :)

If your email was slightly different, or you have further emails from these scammers, please post them in the comments. Your comment will go to moderation and I will double check before it is posted to make sure there is no identifying information eg your email address or your details.

I expect they will be spamming their scam posts out to a multitude of email addresses over coming days, so please help out and give us the email address they are using, so that other people searching for that email address can find this post.

I gave them my bank account details?

If you gave them the account name, BSB and account number, they can easily print fake cheques with that information. You definitely need to speak to your bank about this ASAP.

In this particular instance, you may find they deposit a sum into your account – or they may send your account a payment from a stolen credit card. If that happens, DO NOT touch that money, because eventually the bank will reverse that payment.

If it were my bank details, I would close that account as a matter of great urgency. Speak to your bank as soon as you can, and they will likely advise you to do that.

I would advise anyone caught out by this scam to make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman and also to Scamwatch via this form. The scam victim may be able to sort out a deal with the bank where the bank pays some – or all – of the losses.

More About Scams

You can see my collection of fake cheques collected from fake job scams here – Snoskred made 5 MILLION DOLLARS online this year!

You can read more about internet safety and scams here – Internet Safety & Scams – What You Need To Know.

The LCN Post –

Since it was posted on June 4th 2015, almost 9,000 people arrived at my website specifically by searching for words and email addresses that appeared in the LCN Company Team Scam post. That post received nearly 300 comments and I personally received and replied to hundreds of emails and contact forms with email addresses, URLs, further emails, and other important information which helped people find out that was a scam.

The RNT Post

Since it was posted on September 16, 2015, over 11,500 people have viewed the RNT Company Scam post. It has received over 200 comments plus many people have contacted me privately in regard to that scam.

Thank You

For reading this post. Thank you for leaving a comment if you have any further information which will help other potential scam victims to find this post as well. :) You can contact me privately via this page if you like, I will reply – usually within 24 hours – if you provide a valid email address.

job scams, scams

Simone & Sipowicz Says #2

2 Comments Posted on November 25, 2015August 21, 2015 by Snoskred

Russian Woman: How could this happen? What’s wrong with this country?

Det. Andy Sipowicz: What’s wrong with this country? What’s wrong with it is too many people from other countries screw it up.

Det. Bobby Simone: Detective Sipowicz here is one of the few Native American Poles.

NYPD Blue

My Aspie Limitations

14 Comments Posted on November 23, 2015November 21, 2015 by Snoskred

Last time I discussed My Aspie Super Powers. Every Aspie gets some super powers but with those super powers you also get some limitations. I’m still discovering what those are but today I want to talk about the ones I have found so far.

The Fake Struggle

There are some people in this world who are just fake and who tell lies 99% of the time. I’m not talking about little things, either. Here is an actual example. I had a team leader who would be so lovey dovey with people but the minute they left the room, she would grab her shovel of bitchery and dig into them.

In my personal life, I can avoid those people. When it comes to work, that is not always an option. I find it very difficult not to call these people out for their lies and fakeness. I also find it hard to pretend that I like them. I’m not good at being two faced. I don’t have a great poker face. I’m also a terrible liar.

I’m Done When I Say I’m Done

I had a huge argument with this one girl at work and I told her straight up to her face – we are not friends, I’m done with you, never speak to me again unless it is work related. After that argument, I only spoke to her if I had something work related to say. No hellos, no goodbyes, no chit chat.. She tried really hard to get me to chit chat with her and all she got from me was dead silence in return.

You would think that my silence would be a sign to her that I meant what I said.. apparently not. After 6 months of trying to get me to talk to her, I finally snapped and went off. No, I don’t want to hear about your life. I told you before – do not talk to me ever again unless it is work related. Believe me, after what she had done, she deserved this treatment from me. She finally got the message.

I Prefer Clear Lines

I hate having any kind of grey area in my life. I prefer yes or no, black or white, done or not done, will or won’t, can or can’t. Maybes are not a fun experience for me. If I say I am going, I am going unless there is a medical reason or my car breaks down. If I say no, I mean it and there will be no changing of my mind.

Sound Sensitivity

Along with Super Hearing comes the limitation of sound sensitivity. This limitation is truly bizarre because some sounds I will be perfectly fine with, and others make me want to drill holes into my skull without any anaesthetic just to drown that noise out. The worst part is – none of it makes actual sense – things are very contradictory.

If you were to park a car and leave the engine running outside my house, I will lose my ability to focus on my present task. It is almost like part of me wants to tune into that tasty white noise and really enjoy it. A car engine running would be considered white noise in most cases, and yet other forms of white noise like rain or a fan do not have that same effect on me.

Random and ongoing noises like a barking dog I find quite irritating, but I enjoy the sound of crickets at night or birds chirping. Running water is fine but a water drip will have me losing.my.shiznit. I can handle a ringing phone – you have to be ok with that in a call centre. But if there is a phone that rings and never gets answered, that irritates me.

One of the call centres had a phone that would ring when calls were waiting to be answered – at a low volume and a decent distance from me, that was fine – closer and/or at a higher volume it made me want to dead people. I’d have to turn it down or else I found it difficult to function.

Remember this post – Don’t Cross The Streams – I sometimes feel that way about sound streams. If I am having a serious conversation with someone, I prefer no other noise to be present so that I can focus on what we are saying. If music is playing, that is a “sound stream” my mind will try to focus on. I have to mentally work against it and this can be exhausting.

Light Sensitivity

Similar to the sound sensitivity, this limitation can be very contradictory. I do not like a light above my head 99% of the time, especially when watching television. I prefer for a light to be behind me. Lights in my peripheral vision can be very distracting and I might have to do something to fix it, like close a blind or turn off a light.

Bad Human Interactions

What is a bad human interaction? That will be different for everyone. For me, it is when someone misunderstands my meaning, or takes something I said in a way I did not mean it. Even if they listen to my explanation and accept what I have said, the interaction has sapped my strength a little. If they will not listen, I find it very frustrating – and in very occasional cases this can cause me to go into full on meltdown mode.

My Cup Is Full

Some of these issues mentioned are known as sensory sensitivity. All of these limitations can be tiring, sometimes exhausting. They are the kinds of things that fill up my “cup of human interaction” quickly. That cup is a much larger concept I want to talk about more next time.

Previous posts in this series – I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, then we talked about My Aspie Super Powers.

Asperger Syndrome

Sunday Selections Week 47

17 Comments Posted on November 22, 2015November 24, 2015 by Snoskred

Today I am sharing some Adelaide Zoo pics from 2004 with you. First up, some lion cubs.

Look Mum, here are all my toes!

When the lion cubs were getting a lot of attention, Amani the other female lion took to tree climbing around feeding time, drawing a huge crowd to her and away from the cubs.

People loved to watch her..

We used to love going to the zoo every weekend, but we now live too far away from any of the zoos for regular visits.

If you live anywhere near Adelaide Zoo, you might want to check out their memberships, starting from $43 for kids, $68.50 for pensioners/concession, and $99.90 for adults – plus a $25 joining fee per family.

The benefits of membership are huge – the biggest one being – you can visit both Adelaide and Monarto zoos 365 days a year for free you want, plus you can visit the zoos in Melbourne, Werribee, Healesville, Taronga, Dubbo, Perth for free. If you are planning a trip to Sydney, a single visit can be over $50 now.

Melbourne Zoo and Sydney Taronga Zoo both have memberships available with the same benefits – Sydney is a little pricey.

Join In With Sunday Selections

Also Linking Up With

Sunday Snap @ JibberJabberUK & Maple Hill Hop

Hello

If you are looking for a rock version of Hello by Adele, look no further. Lukas Rossi has you covered. You might remember him from Rockstar Supernova.

Bread Tags

I had no idea these were not a worldwide phenomenon, until I read this post by Kathy G.

Speaking Of Baking

It has been a hot week here in Snoskredland. Daytime temperatures have hovered somewhere between 30-45C (86-113F) so there has been plenty of ice making going on inside, and ice melting going on in the chook pen. I’m using the ice spheres and the large square ice cubes. I’m also keeping water cold in the fridge to go into the chook pen. When the water is cold and a couple of ice spheres are used, even in the big heat of the day the ice lasts a good couple of hours.

The frozen water bottle in the chook water was an experiment – I was not sure how that would go. I used water out of the tap – it was cool but not cold – and placed the frozen water bottle in it. Within a few minutes the water began to get cold. I went back to check on it an hour later and found the water was icy cold and the water inside the bottle was back to water, so I put it back in the freezer for use another day.

On super hot days I do not let the chooks out of the pen until the major heat of the day has passed – somewhere around 3-4pm – because left in the pen, they will spend more time dustbathing which is something that cools them down. When I let them out, they eat the grass, chase bugs, look for interesting things to eat, and run back and forth in the sun. These are not behaviours that keep the temperature down.

Chickens, Sunday Selections, weekly wrap up

Snoskred Snacks #6

6 Comments Posted on November 20, 2015November 13, 2015 by Snoskred

And now for something completely different, and a little bit posh. I’m going to talk about taking a dinner item and saving it for the next days snack, but in order to do this I need to tell you about the dinner, and a little trick my Chinese Aunt taught me involving prawns/shrimp. Be warned, you are about to see some uncooked shrimp here!

So I took my Chinese Aunt and my Uncle to the fish shop a few weeks back when their car had been shipped to Adelaide and they needed to go shopping. They had some uncooked prawns that were from Australia which had their shells. They had uncooked prawns completely shelled and de-veined which were from China. They were the exact same price.

I said get the Chinese ones – less work for the same money. My uncle was adamant that the Australian ones must be purchased. I said “That’s perfectly fine for you to say, but you won’t be the one doing the work, will you?” Of course he did not. But I am grateful he insisted purely because of the trick she taught me – you use scissors! Here is an internet tutorial. (note – next time I won’t cut off the tail tips – I was doing it exactly how she did it which is slightly different from the tutorial)

So after they moved to Adelaide and I had a prawn craving, I picked up half a kilo of large Aussie green prawns, having dishwashed my scissors beforehand so they were spotlessly clean, and I got to work. After they were shelled, de-veined and rinsed, I marinated them in some lemon and lime juice. I did the same with some chicken for The Other Half, then they all went for a quick dip into the salt and pepper seasoning.

The pack seen above comes from Aldi – they have a Caesar one which we’ve had before and loved. This was our first time with the lime chili pack. We would definitely have this again – they do a Peri Peri and I think kebab? pack as well which we will be trying eventually. However the Caesar one is our favourite thus far.

After the marinade and the salt and pepper seasoning, the prawns and then the chicken were cooked in a frypan. I cut up and washed some Cos lettuce, added some cheese, and dinner was served. I could have added tomato and avocado to these for myself however I am the only one who eats those things so I generally save them for lunches. This was pretty quick and easy. I had both chicken and prawns, and I saved some prawns for my lunch the next day. Here they are.

And here is the lunch – I must say this happened during my two week no avocado time. I would highly recommend using sliced avocado as the base for this snack. That is what I wanted to do, however, tomato it was.

These prawns were super large so I only made 2 snacks this day. They were delicious! I will be trying this again with avocado soon.

Snoskred Snacks

Don’t Cross The Streams

8 Comments Posted on November 18, 2015November 10, 2015 by Snoskred

Egon : There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.

Venkman : What?

Egon : Don’t cross the streams.

Venkman : Why?

Egon : It would be bad.

Venkman : I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean bad?

Egon : Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Spengler : Total Protonic Reversal.

Venkman : Right, that’s bad. Ok, important safety tip. Thanks Egon.

(Quotes from the movie Ghostbusters)

Asperger Syndrome, movies

Oops You Did It Again, WordPress!

4 Comments Posted on November 17, 2015 by Snoskred

Today after many complaints and a lot of feedback which told them nobody wanted this change to occur, WordPress rolled out their new editor.

It is total shite, of course. Looking at the feedback thread, it seems like half the stuff people use on a regular basis does not work, and they have removed the ability for people to easily get back to the old screen they are used to. A quick scan of the support forums shows that some people are Not Happy, Jan.

DO.NOT.WANT.

If you are like me and you DO.NOT.WANT, and you are stuck on wordpress.com, you might want to check out this thread.

Newsflash – people do not enjoy change! The rest of the world knows this, but apparently when you work for WordPress, that one simple fact is removed from your brain. :(

wordpress

Our Grande Dame Chicken Rosie

22 Comments Posted on November 16, 2015November 13, 2015 by Snoskred

Rosie Rosecomb is the sister of a prize winning show chicken. When we first got her, she knew nothing about being a chicken. If I had to guess, I would guess she spent her previous life in a small enclosure with sawdust on the ground and a small amount of food and water available. She certainly had not lived in a flock situation before.

You might be able to spot it in the photo – her nails were incredibly long and so was her beak. There was the terrible time I tried to cut her nails – following the correct instructions – which resulted in a bit of a disaster as it was very difficult to spot the quick in Rosie’s nails..

Thank the deities for the internet, where I discovered step number 3. Lucky I had some corn starch handy! That was the one and only time I ever trimmed her nails – soon she was keeping them the right length on her own. The beak is also now kept to the correct length without any assistance from me. Amazing what happens when a chook can be a chook!

When Rosie arrived here, she quickly took up her place at the very bottom of the pecking order. She did not mind being there. She was just happy to be a part of the flock. And so the process of learning how to be a chicken began.

She started out by watching the other chooks. The first truly chicken-like thing she did was learning how to dust bathe. Chooks prefer dirt to any other ground surface, it is a fact. If you give them a grassy enclosure, they will not be truly happy until all the grass is gone.

Rosie took her time mastering the dust bath. She much prefers it to the *other* kind of bath she was used to, which would have been the water bath with soap and probably a hair dryer, to get ready for shows. Rosie does not enjoy water – she is always the first one to take cover when it rains and the last one to walk into a puddle on the ground looking for bugs.

When Redcomb was nearly taken by a hawk, Rosie was nearby to her. We are very lucky the hawk did not grab Rosie because everything I know about her personality tells me that she would not have put up a fight like Redcomb did. At that moment, Rosie became the look out chook. When any kind of bird appears in the sky, Rosie squawks up a storm.

Rosie was already a very talkative chicken – whenever I would see her, she would be making this little bup-bup-bup-bup noise. You can bup-bup-bup back to her, and hold a real bup-bup conversation. I have no idea what she is trying to say to me, but I always enjoy our conversations.

After Redcomb was lowered in the pecking order due to being injured, the two of them became very close friends for a while. They went everywhere together. They had happy bup-bup chats. They shared treats. Rosie would keep the look out while Redcomb explored the garden, looking for bugs. They are still friends, though not quite as close. Rosie made a couple of new friends once the Pekins arrived.

It was apparent to the Pekins that Rosie is a Grande Dame chicken. They took Rosie into their confidence and accepted her as an equal, even though she is considerably smaller than they are. This could be partly due to the fact that the three game hens look alike, and Rosie has black feathers like Lizzie does.

Rosie eventually stepped up to third in the pecking order with the three game hens at the bottom. This does not mean a lot to her general lifestyle, though it does mean she will take a treat and hold her ground if one of the Pekins tries to steal it from her. Rosie does not peck at those below her. She is not that kind of girl.

Rosie is always the first one to put herself to bed at night. She has laid one egg in her lifetime that we are certain of. It was the size of a pigeon egg. She is a very small chook so this was not surprising.

She always loves to tell the world one of the other girls is in the nest laying an egg. She is a lovely chook and I paid $10 for her, so she was also quite a bargain. She was worth every cent and then some. Watching her learn to be a chicken while I was learning about chickens has been an amazing experience.

I hope to have many more years of bup-bup conversation with this particular Grand Dame.

Chickens, country life