obstinate.org

Mike: dude, that jacket
Austin: you need one
Austin: custom made
Mike: i am actually considering it
Austin: you need to get your measurements taken
Austin: “The PERFECT Jacket for ALMOST any occasion”
Austin: i’ll say
Austin: i can’t help but think you will get p00n with that jacket
Austin: you would be a tropical peacock
Mike: i would be a laughing stock
Austin: unfortunately you would only pull crazy bitches
Mike: I couldn’t handle a woman that is as big of an attention whore as myself
Austin: i see you with a woman on each arm
Mike: i’d love to wear that to a wedding and have two of the hottest crazy bitches of all time in each arm.
Austin: that would be tasteless
Austin: think more christmas party

Austie Jonez: I just ordered my first and last California burrito
Mike Joyce: Was it stellar?
Austie Jonez: I feel like I am a chinese coal miner who just struck a simultaneous vein of gold, silver, and platinum. Wait I think I see a diamond!
Mike Joyce: You are smart to wait until you were certain that you would be forever out of range of another fix. You may think you can handle it, like heron. Once a month turns into 3 times a week and before you know it you are going to lunch alone to avoid judgement when you order a california burrito, carne asada fries, and a litre of gatoraide to feed the beast.

what is the difference between accounts payable and accounts receivable?
Accounts Receivable says “WHERE’S THE FUCKING MONEY LEBOWSKI?!”
Accounts Payable says “IT’S DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE, LET ME TAKE ANOTHER LOOK”

Well ladies and gents, another year another new series of useless attempts from Certfirst to discredit me. You see, a year and a half or so ago I attended a Certfirst PostgreSQL training for a previous employer. It was bad, real bad. I won’t bore you with the details here, as I summed it up pretty well in my previous postings

• http://obstinate.org/computing/full-review-of-postgresql-certfirst-training-course/
• http://obstinate.org/journal/an-update-on-certfirst-the-postgresql-training-company/

Back while I still worked at said company, Certfirst was pretty agressive in trying to get me to take down my blog posting by leveraging a refund contingent on them asking me to take down the above blog postings. I agreed, but after I left said company (ironically I wan’t fired!) I re-posted the above, very useful information about Certfirst. In the interest of full disclosure:

Today COMPNAY received a partial refund from CertFirst for its failed training. Together with this refund, each party agreed to use “reasonable efforts” to protect the reputation of the other. Part of COMPANY “reasonable effort” involves my notifying relevant parties that the agreement includes such a provision, and further urging you to be conscientious in any discussions you have re: CertFirst/SaiFirst with third parties.

Today, I noticed that over the past few months my fairly unnoticed blog has had a flurry of comment activity. Specifically lots of comments on my Certfirst postings! I thought I would share them with you:

Now, you may question the ability of the above person(s) to post in complete sentences, and without caps locks. However, you might not question their ability to use different computers, and to not be SaiFirst / Certfirst Employees:

Wow, they are both the same person! Souchon B, and Alice Martin! Never mind that they posted 4 minutes from one another! It should also be noted that this website has gotten maybe a dozen comments (including these) in the past 4 years.

So if we check out these IP’s that the submissions came from:

#host 24.12.109.172
172.109.12.24.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer c-24-12-109-172.hsd1.il.comcast.net.

#host 173.15.103.142
142.103.15.173.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 173-15-103-142-Illinois.hfc.comcastbusiness.net.

It is very interesting that both of these supposedly anonymous posters are either duplicates, or from the same region! It is also interesting that both are from the very same region associated with CertFirst!

Certfirst mentions on their website that they are located:

CertFirst
2215 York Road, Suite 108
Oak Brook, IL 60523
PHONE: (877) 724-3477 [USA]
PHONE: 1-(630) 684-0355 [INTERNATIONAL]
FAX: (630) 684-0344

Looking at the whois records for saifirst.com and certfirst.com results that the Administrative contact for both of these domains are:

Soni, Sonia  sonia.soni@comcast.net

This seems to be the Owner / President of Saifirst / Certfirst. She uses Comcast residential cable modem service, she lives in Illinois, and has an extreme interest in trying to discredit me. The bummer for her is that I have no credit to begin with!

A few quick phone calls in the Telecom community would / will result in finding out who owns those IP addresses. Once I get a few moments to do so (luckily for me, I work in the Telecom Industry) I will report back!

mikey: *insert picture from Halloween*
mikey: she was a vampire
krisi: she’s very cute… but what about her outfit makes her a vampire? her boobs?
mike: right, i was going to comment: dressing like a slut and wearing ears makes not a kitty!
krisi: hahaha, to be fair, every girl does that
krisi: and most dudes like it
mikey: right
mikey: most girls are sluts, and most guys are retards when presented with boobs, a match made in heaven
krisi: you and I are the weirdos
mikey: seriously

austie: is it ok to mention things about your interviews that you read on their linkedin profile?

mikey: i would tone it down to mitigate stalker status

austie: i’m dying to ask this guy about hurricane katrina.

austie: his job in LA ended right when that hit.

austie: that could be a very touchy subject, better to skip.

austie: maybe his dog died or something.

mikey: or his wife

austie: ha

austie: that would suck

mikey: “NEXT!”

austie: “i’m going to hang up now.”

Over the past year there has been repeated news stories about the tightening budgets that the BBC would enforce on Top Gear production costs. Sunday night, Top Gear Season 13 came to a close with the Airing of Episode 7. In the closing episode of the series you go the sense that it would be the last, the last 5 minutes of the show was a cascade of Aston Martin V12Vantage visual-porn over the backdrop of some ridiculous British countryside. In this segment, the usually hyptertastic Clarkson only has a mere few sentences to say:

“Weeeelll.. it’s an Aston Martin Vantage…. With a V12 engine… what do you think it’s going to be like?”

“It is fantastic….. it’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful”

“What it makes me feel though…. is sad.”

“I just cant help thinking, that, thanks to all sorts of things: the environment, the economy, problems in the middle east, the relentless war on speed, that cars like this will be consigned to the history books.”

“I just have this horrible, dreadful feeling that what I am driving here, is an ending.”

“Good night.”

I have gotten the sense over the past year or so that this was coming, that Top Gear had slowly been losing it’s soul. With each season a bit of the sparkle had gone. With whatever has been happening behind the scenes it looks like there might be a final nail in the coffin. If Top Gear did come back for Season 14, and I think that really is a big if, that it would be souless and thoughtless that it might not even be worth watching.

I want my Season 10 & 11 back.

So this weekend I went out with the bestest of friends. One of the topics discussed over delicious seafood combined with a crisp, mineral white was the topic of my birthday. It is coming up, and I will very shortly be 26.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I thought I was in the market for a new car, or an upgrade to say the least. Specifically I was thinking about upgrading my Z4M to an M5. Used M5’s, and BMW M cars in general depreciate faster than a brick falling into a black hole. As such I was able to find a wonderful M5 with less than 20k miles on carmax for ~$45k. This is around half of the asking price at a dealer for a new model.

Anyways, I went down the the Carmax dealership that had this particular car to go for a test drive. Lucily for me, the person I was set up with was under the impression that this was  “5 Series BMW”. A few days earlier I had test drove a brand new 2010 M5 at a proper BMW dealership and they neutered the car with only 400hp. I had no problems putting the car into sport mode and then use all 500 hp.

Now after I explained to the sales woman that I was going to drive this car aggressively and that if she had any issue with this that she could politely ask me to slow down, she agreed and I nailed it and left 2 black stripes 1st gear long.

Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE! CertFirst posts fake comments on this blog claiming to be real customers!!! http://obstinate.org/journal/certfirst-and-saifirst-another-frontal-attack-by-sonia-soni/

As you may have read prior here. I attended a training seminar hosted by Certfirst / SaiFirst – a company that among other things, trains in PostgreSQL. I posted a full, and accurate review of the course prior on my site, which can be located here:

http://obstinate.org/computing/full-review-of-postgresql-certfirst-training-course/
http://obstinate.org/technology/certfirst-postgresql-training-course-avoid-at-all-costs/

The company I was working for was in negotiations with Certfirst in order to organize a refund. Certfirst located my original posting and demanded that what I had said was libelous and insisted on me removing my posting of my personal opinion, on my personal website, in order for them to agree to a refund on a failure to deliver services.

Certfirst and the company I was working for agreed, and asked me politely to take down my posting. In the effort of avoiding drama. I did such that.

However, I no longer work at said company and I am no longer obligated to keep my opinions off of the internets. As such – let this be a reminder to avoid the usage of Certfirst in any engagement at all costs. They failed to deliver on expectations set. So again, avoid doing business with them at all costs!