If you saw an item on eBay titled “$$ NEW IN BOX WII VIDEO GAME CONSOLE WHOLESALE LIST $$” that was listed for $99 USD would you buy one?

Likely you would if you are as smart as the average pet rock.

The seller (derek34786) posts big headlines such as “SAVE HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS WITH THIS WHOLESALE LIST FOR WII VIDEO GAME CONSOLES”.

Here is the posting: don’t bother with this stupid offer.

The best part is reading the fine print towards the end of the listing. Statements such as “You are not getting what is pictured in the photo” and “Ignorance is not an excuse if you did not read or misread this auction” are strong indications of predatory behavior yet I suspect eBay will be powerless to stop such stupidity due to their own acceptable use policies.

As of 9pm there were nine bidders, with less than 10 minutes remaining. Idiots.

We were fortunate enough to attend the Vancouver Canucks vs. Dallas Stars Game 2 here in Vancouver but are relegated to watching CBC for today’s game.

The Dallas Stars are really strong defensively and appear to be winning the majority of face-offs. And the Canucks can’t stay out of the penalty box. Sigh. Let’s hope it doesn’t take four overtimes to win this time, but if that is what it takes to win then I’m all for it!

The other series I’ve been following include Detroit vs. Calgary and Ottawa vs. Pittsburgh. Yay the Flames are already down by two games; with some luck they’ll be out in five games. The Penguins probably don’t have what it takes to win their series but so far its been fun to watch.

I don’t know exactly when I started to really follow the NHL so closely. I didn’t grow up a huge fan of hockey. I can even recall not knowing much about hockey when we moved to Vancouver. But in the last few years both Eileen and I have really acquired a strong interest, even a passion, for the sport. And this time of year is so much fun, even watching teams I wouldn’t normally follow.

Been following the games? Got any picks to offer for the various Round 1 series?

The playoffs have started and (against all predictions back in October) the Canucks are looking like a real hockey team with potential to go at least two rounds. There are also many other interesting match-ups this year too. I think the Ottawa-Pittsburgh series will be fun, as will the Detroit-Calgary series.

The Canucks-Dallas game tonight turned out to be very, very exciting to watch. It was not exactly the dull, defensive game predicted by the pundits. Lots of offense and defense, four overtime periods, what else could a fan ask for? How about a win? The Sedin brothers deliver the winning goal to win 5-4. I wonder if anyone will have any strength left for Friday’s game?

It was really quite nice to see the whole game in high definition on CBC too, although we are looking forward to seeing the next game in person!

Just finished watching the finale to Battlestar Galactica season three and once again the writers have outdone themselves. I actually find this cliff-hanger even better than the one from last year.

I thought the introduction of the next four Cylon models was very well done; the whole episode had a tense, unsettling, gritty feeling and yet the last few minutes got the adrenaline pumping to new levels.

So there is still one more Cylon model yet to be revealed and the speculation has started: is it the president? or Starbuck? My money is on Baltar’s defense attorney, he was too good of a character to let slip by without a deeper back story and future appearances.

Of course nothing prevents the introduction of a new Cylon model or two, one that even the regular Cylons don’t know about yet, so maybe we are in for more than one!

More excellent news from Wikipedia: the series has been picked up for another season for 22 new episodes, including a two-hour direct-to-video movie.

What are your thoughts about season three? Any hopes for season four?

Today I received a spam that neither SpamAssassin or Mozilla Thunderbird caught. The title is “Business proposal for SHARE owners”. It contains the usual random word gibberish on the first and last lines but none of the image spam that has become so popular.

The primary text in this little gem contains an offer to create a “pump and dump” stock spam scheme for my company. The sender claims they have been operating in the U.S. market for three years with huge success, but “now it is getting harder and harder to work on US market”.

The spam’s claim of 200% increase seems wild until you read what the SEC is saying about these schemes. Remember this article? Joel Spolsky wrote an interesting article about this phenomenon a while back; its worth reading if you haven’t seen it before.

Back to the spam under the microscope: it also outlined their handling fee for such an amazing service: 10% of closing price times daily volume. There is no indication of how long this fee applies; maybe indefinitely, sort of like paying protection money to the mafia? There isn’t any offer of a refund the day-over-day share price decreases, but at least (I was assured) there was no upfront payment required.

The spam originated from the networks of ITnet S.p.A. of Genova, Italy. Most likely a hijacked computer that is relaying email.

Have you seen any really unusual or interesting spam recently?