USA Green Card Lottery Scam

This is a really horrible scam. People that sign up for the USA green card lottery are sent emails saying they have won a green card. They just have to send in $800 for processing. It is not true. It is a scam. It is a lie. I hope innocent people that don’t know much English understand this. It’s not true.

The US Department of State has a scam warning here:
http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1749.html

This email is being sent to people that actually entered the real US green card lottery (Yes, there is such a thing.) The REAL United States green card lottery from the US Department of State is located here:
http://www.dvlottery.state.gov

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Steps to Secure VBulletin

Since 2001 I’ve run online discussion forums. PhpBB was my first software but they had a major software exploitation back in December 2004 that brought down my forum network. The release of Phpbb 2 and 3 seemed to alleviate a lot of the problems, but in the meantime I switched many forums over to VBulletin.

I haven’t had my phpBB 2.x sites hacked but have had several hacks on VBulletin. They seem to have increased in 2011 with an almost monthly hack on one of my forums. Normally just kids having fun and reading instructions on how to hack using the latest software vulnerability in VBulletin 4.x. But in July 2011, for the first time, I had a hacker use one of my websites as a phishing site.

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Actor’s Equity Staged Reading Guidelines

I was looking up information about setting up a staged reading for a new musical. Found these staged reading guidelines from Actor’s Equity.

Click to access Stage_Reading_Guidelines.pdf

Actors’ Equity Association will permit Equity Actors (“Actors”) to participate in Stage Readings upon completion of the attached forms and under the following guidelines:

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Varekai in Manila 2011

June 23, 2011 I had the experience of watching Cirque Du Soleil’s show VAREKAI in Manila, Philippines. I’m familiar with the music and had seen videos of the show but to watch it in person was electrifying.

My favorite parts were of course the music (another Violaine Corradi creation), the guy with the lightbulb on his head (you’d think since I work for Cirque I could look up the characters name) and the clown act with the spotlight (I’ve heard about that act for years, was fantastic to finally see it – very minimalistic and clever). Of course there were so many wonderful elements to the show I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’ll leave a professional reviewer to do that.

A big shout out to my friends and Varekai artists Isabelle Corradi (vocals) and Paul Bannerman (drums).

Varekai Opening (Charivari) Cirque du Soleil

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2HBTxyz9uU

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Changes in Music Production from 2001 to 2011

I’m really amazed at the changes in music production software and gear over the past 20 years, especially the ten years from 2001 to 2011. Long story short: I can do almost as much with about $8,000 of gear in 2011 that it took me $50,000 of gear in 2001.

Let’s go back to 1988 when I started with a four track recorder and a single Yamaha keyboard (DX10?). My first jobs were people wanting piano backup tracks which was fine. But very quickly clients would want a little more like strings or a drum beat. So then you purchased a drum machine. Then you need better strings (back then Kurzweil was king of strings) so you bought a string tone module ($1,000 at the time on special – a great deal).

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Sesame Street roasts Spiderman Musical

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR1DdMeVqTw

Sesame Street roasts the Spiderman Musical with their own “Spidermonster”. They make light of the many technical problems and also a reference that the music is Bono’s first Broadway musical. Spider Man: Turn Off The Dark opened on Broadway to bad reviews, then closed for a revamp and reopened to somewhat better reviews.