junking Archives - Tales of the Aggronaut

Disker Du

I want to start off this mornings post with a bit of a public service announcement. There is a big of a troublesome malware circulating through the WoW player community and wreaking havoc with compromised accounts. At this point there is not a lot of absolute hard facts about it. You can check out the full thread on the wow forums for more details. According to support it seems to be occurring on systems that…

Are New or Newly Formatted
New WoW installs
Have Recently Downloaded and Installed Addons

If you follow the rest of the thread there is a lot of blaming going on with the Curse Client again. I do not really believe that this is directly involved as I personally use it and seem to be free of the malware. The worst part about this is that it seems to be really hard to detect. In order to check your own system you need to create an MSInfo file export. You can get into MSInfo by opening a run prompt in windows and typing “MSInfo32”. This will bring up the system diagnostics window, and under the File menu there is an option to Export. Once you have created this file, open it in a text editor like Notepad or my personal favorite choice Notepad++ and search for the string “Disker”.

So far on infected systems they have add the following entries that pop up in the search…

Disker rundll32.exe c:\users\name\appdata\local\temp\w_win.dll,dw Name-PC\Name Startup
Disker64 rundll32.exe c:\users\name\appdata\local\temp\w_64.dll,dw Name-PC\Name Startup

It is presently uncertain how the infection is happening. However there is lots of talk in the wow forum thread about potentially compromised ads on the wowhead website. Others complain that they got it while running the Curse Client. So right now there is just a bunch of speculation. One of the Blizzard forum MVPs Ressie has posted a really great guide for removing it from your system. The virus definition has been sent to the various malware scanner providers so hopefully it will start catching the pattern soon. While this is far from a zero day infection, it has been slipping through the cracks and malware software has been failing to detect it.

I highly suggest you take a moment this morning to create the MSInfo dump file and search it to see if you are infected. Currently this seems to be limited to the WoW Community but due to the nature of the trojan it could in theory compromise many of the authenticator based game clients. So even if you are not a wow player, I suggest you check your system just to make sure.

Junking Continued

Yesterday we did in fact leave town and head up to Muskogee for the purpose of hitting as many of the little junkshops as we could find. In theory we have been mostly looking for a very narrow cabinet to go behind the bathroom door and serve as a jewelry box, and lingerie and scarf storage. We only have about 26 inches to work with, so it is one of those situations where we will know it when we see it. As a result we are doing a lot of looking around. At the local hastings I found the above Tardis Jewelry box that I submitted as an alternative… but my wife didn’t really think that was the best option.

Additionally to this furniture search my wife is always on the lockout for interesting antique jewelry and scarves, whereas I am mostly interested in finding Legos and other interesting toys. While I have not broken into the bag yet, I think I may have found the mother lode or at least the best I have found so far. I don’t have pictures yet, but I will likely post some tomorrow. At one of the junk shops I found a huge bag of Legos. The bag itself is I believe is one of those ziploc “big bags” so far larger than a gallon… filled to the brim with Lego pieces. I got it for $20 and it seems to have the remnants of several sets I remember from the late 80s/early 90s.

Based on the pieces I can see it seems to contain most if not all of the above Lego ship the Caribbean Clipper from 1989. Additionally from what I can tell there seems to be pieces from the pretty epic Black Monarch’s Castle mixed in with it. There might be a few other sets mingled in, but immediate those are the two with iconic pieces that stood out to me. I remembered both sets from my childhood I just did not know them by name until looking them up this morning. At first glance I do not see any minifigures, which would be disappointing but regardless it seemed like a really good deal on some pretty old legos for only $20. We unfortunately are no closer to finding a workable cabinet than we were before we started. However the journey so far has been really enjoyable. Sifting through these junk stores is kinda like going to a really odd hands on museum. I keep snapping photos of the various nifty things we find.

And here are some of the oddities from yesterday…

Early Cartridge System

Not that these will mean much to anyone, but once upon a time there was a dark age of video gaming history ruled by Pong. In the second generation of home gaming systems there was an interesting entry called the RCA Studio II. At face value it was another Pong clone, but it offered the ability to have interchangeable cartridges to play other games. All of these were essentially just as primitive as pong as, but it offered some variety. While I didn’t see the actual Studio II base unit laying around they did have a wide assortment of the cartridges yesterday which was not really something I was expecting to see in a local area junk shop.

Pre-dazzler?

Ronco was notorious for hawking all manner of cheap stuff on the airwaves during the 70s. Apparently one of these was a Rhinestone and Stud setter. While I technically I was born in the 70s I did not remember this product at all. I do however very vividly remember the 80s version of this known as the “bedazzler” which at its core looks like exactly the same machine. So the question is… did is this then the “Pre-dazzler”? I snapped a photo because I think it was quirky, but the absolute best thing is I managed to dig up the original TV commercial on youtube. So much campy 70s goodness. Who wouldn’t want to wear rhinestones on their ass?

Unbearable

The other day I snapped a picture of a really creepy life sized Native American doll that was guarding one of the booths. When I stepped into that booth I literally jumped a little bit. Well it happened again yesterday. Yup you are seeing that right, it is quite literally a bearskin rug, strung out across a bed. From what I could tell it was in fact an actual bear, and not some sort of fake thing. It looked like real taxidermy, and was creepy in so many ways. Kinda makes me a bit sad to see such a pretty animal flayed open like that.

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against hunting, I grew up here in Oklahoma and as a boy scout went through my hunters education class. I know how to shoot a rifle and could go hunting at any given point… I just choose not to. I do however love the taste of “game meats” and appreciate the folks that go out and fetch them for me. I have just never really found the notion of going out and shooting an animal enjoyable. If I faced this in the woods… I would more than likely want to pet it… and wind up mauled horribly.

Something Fruity

This one I just don’t really have words for. I could see having a single wooden pear with a break away section as a conversation piece or for decoration. However why would you ever need three of them? I personally find them fairly ugly, but I find it even more bizarre that someone obviously bought these at one point. You could create some sort of a pear tri-force I guess, and maybe have a Pear-Link try and rescue the Pear-Zelda? I am trying to make sense of this… and failing miserably. I figure we will end up going to a few more places today, so hopefully they give me some equally bizarre blog fodder in the process. I got home around 8 last night, so I really did not have much time to do anything of significance game wise.

Junktown Trader

Yesterday did not end the way I think either myself or my wife intended it to. Since I had been vehemently opposed to getting out Saturday or Sunday, I knew I would need to make amends and run around yesterday. Namely she had been wanting to hit a bunch of the areas Goodwill stores to see if she could find this one specific type of pant that she liked… that Old Navy no longer makes or sells. I also wanted to check out a new game store… and by new… it just celebrated its first anniversary but this was the first time I had been to it.

Thrillhouse games was pretty sweet to be honest. It was pretty small and had limited stock but it was quite literally the first time in a decade I had seen packaged Turbografx 16 games on a shelf. I asked about the two consoles I have always wanted to own. Turns out they had a NeoGeo AES when they shop opened but it sold about a year later for $500. Additionally they have had in a few TurboDuo systems, but they go pretty fast. I looked around the store but sadly saw nothing I absolutely had to have. I am mostly in a mode of looking for a place to buy reasonably priced DS/3DS games… and while their prices were extremely reasonable I just didn’t see anything in their stock that I actually wanted.

After hitting a Salvation Army store, we shifted focus to an alternate mission. My wife has been looking for two things where we go… firstly a new cabinet for the bedroom for her to store her jewelry and scarves in, and second antique pendants to be made into necklaces, or even completed jewelry. I on the other hand have been on the lookout as always for anything nifty and LEGO, and more lately I have been looking for any sort of geeky coffee mugs. I currently have a Star Wars mug and it is my absolute favorite… if my wife doesn’t watch me like a hawk I will rinse it out each day and reuse it. So she has been wanting me to find more coffee mugs that I like using, so mostly I have been looking for any geeky movie tie-ins or comic book stuff.

While we didn’t end up buying anything we had a good time sifting through the memories of other people. Oklahoma has tons of these “Antique Malls” that are basically just junk stores neatly cordoned off into rentable stalls. They tend to go into any large building like a Wal-Mart or grocery store that is in a crappy part of town, and as such is “low rent”. They chop them up into vendor booth and then charge rent. What you find in them is essentially anything the people can get their hands on. In one of the booths we literally saw a single lollipop with a 25 cent price tag on it. Most of the stuff seems to come from estate sales. Rather than purchase the stuff I found interesting, I have just started taking pictures. The next bit of the blog is me posting a picture or pictures and talking about it.

Tiny Kitchen

I just thought this thing was amazing. I am guessing it is an artifact of the 50s or 60s since it is almost entirely metal construction. Any later than that and I expect you would start to see some plastics involved. What is interesting about it is this is doll furniture, but on a scale sized for larger dolls and not so much for Barbie sized ones. The detail that went into it is just insane. Like every little dial is screen printed on in high resolution. Which makes me wonder if this is a product of the 60s and not the 50s. The craftsmanship that went into this is just mind boggling, especially when considering just how small the piece is. This was a really expensive toy in its day, and I am sure it was not something the average kid could have even imagined playing with.

To a Nunnery

The previous one… I have nothing but respect for the craftsmanship… this one however I simply do not get. There was this entire shelf of tiny nuns. Why on earth would someone need an entire shelf of tiny nuns? Is this a thing that people collect? I am trying to wrap my head around how someone started down this path… and obviously they were made by the same person. There was an entire virtual convent on this on shelf, with nun-cooks and nun-teachers and all sorts of things. Maybe in areas of the country with catholic schools… nuns are looked on as sweet doting aunt like figures. For me even though I was raised catholic… nuns kinda freak me the hell out. The really odd thing here was… they were individually priced. You would think if you were selling this item that you would want to try and move the entire shelf together. I can’t see as this being a “fast seller”.

Rotten Fruit

No real reason for this one other than the fact I thought it was kind of ugly. One of the things you see a lot of in these places is what I can only charitably call “folk art”. I do not discourage anyone’s choice of expression, if you want to pick up a brush and paint something that matters to you, then I salute you. This pear has never mattered anything to anyone. This is the trite kind of thing that people paint expecting to sell it to someone looking for something red, green or yellow for their home decor. So not only is it somewhat ugly, it is completely devoid of meaning. It doesn’t even really qualify as still life since the pear is kind of just floating there suspended in a blood red sea. This is far from the worst I have seen but the thing that really bugged me about it is that the pear is just squeezed into the frame as an after thought. It drove me a little bit nuts that you had works of space on one side of he pear but nothing on the top, bottom or right. I kept wanting to try and center the pear since the object was way the hell too big to be a piss poor attempt at the “rule of thirds”

Freaky Indian

I was walking from cubical to cubical rifling through their goods when I damned near jumped and screamed because this thing freaked me the hell out. Similar to the shelf full of little nun figures… I cannot think of a single occasion where the gift of a life sized Native American man would ever be appropriate. Granted I realize we live in Oklahoma… aka Indian Territory, but man there is never a case where I would be comfortable in the same house as this thing. I don’t get dolls in the first place, and I am so happy that my wife does not have a collection of those freaky china dolls with their dead eyes… but this would just be over the top for me. I would keep putting a sheet or blanket over it. All the while I was in the booth it felt like the damned thing was watching me. I am sure someone out there is dying to have this thing in their house, but count me out. It does make me wonder where exactly it came from. I feel like it is intended to be a doll and not some sort of a mannequin.

Wall of Photographic History

This photo is not that good, because I was trying to take it on the downlow. This wall of cameras was a few feet away from the booth full of people running the place. I never know for certain how they would feel about someone snapping photos, so I try and do it without drawing too much attention. As a result I used my phones crappy “digital zoom” option to take this photo standing down another one of the isles and out of site from the junktown overlords. I wanted to end this on a positive note, since a lot of these were me boggling that anyone would ever buy such a thing. This wall was like a tour through photographic history. It got a little nostalgic because they had a version of my first camera sitting there on the white shelf.

Growing up my dad was a professional portrait photographer and was constantly doing weddings, senior pictures or little league ball teams. I essentially grew up in the darkroom, so me not being a photographer was never really an option. I have a love and deep nostalgia towards cameras because they remind me of happy times with my dad. I don’t do it as often as I should, but I have even called him up on the weekend to see if he wants to go on a photo shoot. While each item was for sale, it was more impressive to me as a collection. This represented a lot of work collecting “ancient history”. I would be interested to see if the seller has a collection themselves and these are just the castoffs that didn’t make the cut.

More Junking

I doubt we will make it out today, but we both had quite a good time sifting through other peoples stuff. Granted we didn’t walk away with anything but going to one of these antique malls is like visiting a really weird museum. I figure we will do some more of this as we each search for our own things. I did manage to find some Legos but they were priced more than I was willing to pay for them. This was just one town and two different stores, and there are probably a dozen of these locations surrounding us each loaded up with similar Malls and Flea Markets. Not to mention you can drive in any direction from the Tulsa metro area and find little towns with similar locations. I figure this is going to be a thing we do more often.