Sometimes you need to compile a package as superuser (root), or test a package upgrade, or test a complete system upgrade. Doing so is a risky operation and could (and has) cause(d) severe damage. If there are no other options but doing this on production system (for instance the production system is the only remaining system with exactly that combination of hardware, OS, compiler, and so on), following procedure can be used to do it more or less safe.

There are different methods to achieve this, depending on how the system is configured. This instruction will be based on Logical Volume Management in Linux. I relies on that LVM is able to create RW-snapshots of LV. Same thing can probably be accomplished using similar filesystem features on different OS-es and architectures.

The base for this operation is creating a chroot-environment for our process, and a snapshot copy of our filesystems. We will enter a chroot-shell, do our operations on the snapshot-filesystem, extract our result to the ”real” filesystem if applicable, and then destroy the snapshot.

So, let’s create snapshot for our operation:

[root@titania ~]# lvcreate -s -L 1G -n root-mirror -p rw /dev/vgr01/root
Logical volume "root-mirror" created

This will create a rw snapshot LV called ”root-mirror” from ”root” LV in our ”vgr01″ volume group. This snapshot will contain 1Gb of free space for our changes. If you know you will need more, substitute 1G to whatever you might need, given that your volume group has enough unallocated space.

In similar manner, create any additional partitions that might be needed (for example /var, /tmp, /opt, /usr if they are not on same partition as /).

Remember: on Linux system, /boot can’t reside on a LV. In this tutorial, we will not mount it, and in our chroot-environment it will be empty. If you need it for some reason (to test upgrade of kernel or grub), and you happen to have it on a md-mirror, you could split the mirror and use that. But this is beyond the scope of this tutorial and also a very risky operation.

Now we mount our ”snapshot”:

[root@titania ~]# mkdir /mirror
[root@titania ~]# mount /dev/vgr01/root-mirror /mirror


Make sure it’s really mounted. If your system consists of several partitions (/var,/usr and so on), you need to mount them in consecutive order. ”/” needs to be mounted first and following partitions need to be mounted properly relative to the ”/”. Now we ”chroot” to it:

[root@titania /]# chroot /mirror
[root@titania /]# pwd
/
[root@titania /]# ls
bin dev export lib matrix misc net proc sbin software sys usr
boot etc home lost+found media mnt opt root selinux srv tmp var
[root@titania /]#


The output does not reveal whether we succeeded or not, but if we create a file in our ”mirror” and exit the chroot-environment we can see that it’s working:

[root@titania /]# touch test.chroot
[root@titania /]# ls /
bin dev export lib matrix misc net proc sbin software sys tmp var
boot etc home lost+found media mnt opt root selinux srv test.chroot usr
[root@titania /]# exit
exit
[root@titania /]# ls /
bin dev export lib matrix mirror mnt opt root selinux srv tmp var
boot etc home lost+found media misc net proc sbin software sys usr
[root@titania /]# ls /mirror
bin dev export lib matrix misc net proc sbin software sys tmp var
boot etc home lost+found media mnt opt root selinux srv test.chroot usr
[root@titania /]#


Now we can go back to our chroot-environment and start building/testing:

[root@titania /]# chroot /mirror
[root@titania /]#
.... DO OUR BUILDING STUFF HERE....
[root@titania /]#
[root@titania /]# exit
exit
[root@titania /]#


Your build/test is ready. Any changes/results/files are found in /mirror-directory. Make sure you copy it to the real filesystem before you destroy the snapshot LV.

Now it’s safe to unmount and remove our snapshot LV (and of course, WARNING FOR TYPOS HERE!!!!):

[root@titania /]# umount /mirror
[root@titania /]# lvremove /dev/vgr01/root-mirror
Do you really want to remove active logical volume "root-mirror"? [y/n]: y
Logical volume "root-mirror" successfully removed
[root@titania /]#


DISCLAMER:This tutorial is for people who know what they are doing and know LVM. This method works for me on my systems and I believe it will work on most of the systems out there. However I’m not offering any guarantee that it will work on yours, or not make your system unusable. You have been warned!

As I wrote in my previous post, I’ve got a classified ad on Eniro where I sell a Dell workstation. Prevously I got replies to that ad that were obviously generated by spam-bots.

Yesterday, I’ve got a reply that said:

””"

Hej!
Detta är en intresseanmälan från Eniro Köp & Sälj!

Hej,
       Jag såg din annons och jag är verkligen intresserad av
att köpa ditt objekt, priset 3500,00 Sek är väl okej för mig.
Vänligen gå tillbaka till mig för att slutföra överföringen.
Hoppas att läsa från dig soonest.

Tack.

””"”

I noticed directly that this was obviously translated by google or babelfish, so in order to avoid revealing my email address, I copied this to my Windows-Live account and replied from there.

””"

Hej,

Kan du berätta var du finns i Sverige så jag kan kolla
vilka fraktmöjligheter det finns?

Dessutom kan jag inte skicka maskinen förän tisdag
tidigast, men troligtvis onsdag. Är det OK?

Med vänliga hälsningar
Zoran

””"

Just couple of minutes later, I got another reply, this time in english:

””"
Hello,
My Name is Dallas Martins, i will like to buy and ship the laptop to my son internationally. Get back to me with the following information so that i can make the payment immediately via Bank transfer:
Name:
Address:
Bank Name:
Account Number:
IBAN:
BIC:
Name of the Item:
Cost of the item including shipping cost through TNT Global Express (EMS Speed Post) or Swedish Registered Priority post:
This is the address of my son who will receive the item in internationally
Name: Kabir.A.Martins
Address:No. 10 Iremo Road,
P.O.Box 20,
Ile-Ife,
Osun State,
Nigeria (234036)
I’ll wait for your reply
Thanks
Hope to read from you soonest.
””"

Lovely. Googling for ”Kabir.A.Martins” gave some really interesting hits. Most of those hits were describing replies to classifieds that looked exactly like this one. A good thing about having his direct email was that I was able to retrieve the IP-address of the computer that was origin of the email.

””"

X-Message-Delivery: Vj0xLjE7RD0wO2w9MQ==

X-Message-Info: JGTYoYF78jEHjJx36Oi8+Z3TmmkSEdPt3Mi6GgUSv7y
YKHQgGfDe+2wCW4LegkYQav29Pp7Mm4E=

Received: from snt0-omc3-s2.snt0.hotmail.com ([65.55.90.141])
 by snt0-hmmc2-f9.Snt0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);

	 Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:28:42 -0700

Received: from SNT113-W64 ([65.55.90.135]) by snt0-omc3-s2.snt0.hotmail.com
 with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);

	 Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:28:42 -0700

Message-ID: <SNT113-W64C06439DFB5BCA00E8F5AA63E0@phx.gbl>

Return-Path: dallasmartins@hotmail.com

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

	boundary="_aa5c44ab-eab9-406f-b016-58519758cd99_"

X-Originating-IP: [213.239.234.53]
                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

””"

Now I checked that IP:

[root@matrix ~]# host 213.239.234.53
53.234.239.213.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 213-239-234-53.clients.your-server.de.

Looks like some german computer with broadband connection.


[root@matrix ~]# whois 213.239.234.53
[Querying whois.ripe.net]
[whois.ripe.net]
% This is the RIPE Whois query server #2.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

% Note: This output has been filtered.
% To receive output for a database update, use the ”-B” flag

% Information related to ’213.239.234.48 – 213.239.234.63′

inetnum: 213.239.234.48 – 213.239.234.63
netname: ROQUE-HOLDINGS-NET
descr: Roque Holdings Inc
country: DE
admin-c: BSR5-RIPE
tech-c: BSR5-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
remarks: MeshMX.com Anonymizing Network
mnt-by: HOS-GUN
mnt-lower: HOS-GUN
mnt-routes: HOS-GUN
source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Brianda Sanchez Rodriguez
address: Seism Technology S.A
address: La Uruca de el Banco Cuscatlan 3000
address: San Jose, COSTA RICA
phone: +4913122123419
e-mail: support@metropipe.net
nic-hdl: BSR5-RIPE
remarks: Anonymizing networks, all abuse to abuse@metropipe.net
mnt-by: HOS-GUN
source: RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to ’213.239.192.0/18AS24940′

route: 213.239.192.0/18
descr: HETZNER-RZ-NBG-BLK2
origin: AS24940
mnt-by: HOS-GUN
source: RIPE # Filtered

[root@matrix ~]#

So, we got a german IP for a customer in San Jose, that ”sells” anonymization.  OR? Now, whois gives me MeshMX.com Anonymization Network. We can lookup that too:


[root@matrix ~]# whois 88.198.74.14
[Querying whois.ripe.net]
[whois.ripe.net]
% This is the RIPE Whois query server #2.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

[root@matrix ~]#


Hey, we have at least a name, email and telephone of the person we can bug about this. A german company that provides anonymization to it’s customers have probably targeted ”porn-hiding-husbands” and might not feel the same about internet fraud. Who knows.

In the meanwhile, I replied to the scamer again. As you might have noticed, he said ”laptop” in his email. I’m not selling laptop. I’m selling a workstation. So I replied kindly that I’m unfortunately selling a professional workstation, not laptop. An hour later, I got another reply, identical to previous, with the word ”laptop” changed to ”Dell”. The good thing with this exercise was that I could find out that he isn’t changing proxys, but uses same one.

However we are not likely to reveal the real IP-address of the scammer. Question is if I can find a way to trick him to give it up. Scammers migh know how to scam people, but hopefully they aren’t that familiar with TCP/IP and can make a mistake.

A quick portscan of the server revealed few open ports of the proxy:

[root@matrix ~]# nmap 213.239.234.53

Starting Nmap 4.20 ( http://insecure.org ) at 2009-06-15 11:02 CEST
Interesting ports on 213-239-234-53.clients.your-server.de (213.239.234.53):
Not shown: 1673 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
24/tcp closed priv-mail
80/tcp open http
81/tcp closed hosts2-ns
82/tcp closed xfer
84/tcp closed ctf
110/tcp open pop3
113/tcp closed auth
143/tcp closed imap
443/tcp open https
444/tcp closed snpp
447/tcp closed ddm-dfm
465/tcp closed smtps
666/tcp closed doom
993/tcp closed imaps
995/tcp closed pop3s
1000/tcp open cadlock
1022/tcp open unknown
1026/tcp closed LSA-or-nterm
1080/tcp closed socks
3128/tcp closed squid-http
8000/tcp closed http-alt
8080/tcp closed http-proxy

Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 147.369 seconds
[root@matrix ~]#

Also, making a bogus http-request might give up some more information:

[root@matrix ~]# telnet 213.239.234.53 80
Trying 213.239.234.53...
Connected to 213-239-234-53.clients.your-server.de (213.239.234.53).
Escape character is '^]'.
Hello there

400 Bad Request
<h1>Bad Request</h1>
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.

Invalid URI in request Hello there

<hr />
<address>Apache/1.3.34 Server at fastbankaccounts.com Port 80
</address>

Connection closed by foreign host.
[root@matrix ~]#

Unfortunately ”fastbaknaccounts.com” is non-existent domain, so this test didn’t show more than version of the web server. Going to http://213.239.234.53 reveals some weird company that can help you out with creating offshore accounts, credit and debit cards, western union quickpay accounts. It appears that they are in Riga, and that they expertise lies in ripping you off.

I’m not sure how this hangs together with the German company yet, but. Who knows, I might find out (hopefully not from the scammer knocking on my door)

To be continued…

I have a classified where I’m selling a computer I no longer need on few sites in Sweden. Today I got a reply to the classified from one of the sites. The content was just ”What is your final price” (In english actually).

I automatically hit the ”Reply”-button and started to write an answer. Then it hit me, this COULD be a spambot that filled out the form on the classifieds site and sent it out.

Let me break this down.

1. You fill in a classified, selling something. All serious sites will not show your email on the web. As spambots (programs that crawl the web and search for publicly visible email-addresses) probably search their site regularly. However, a visitor must be able to respond to your classified, and for that there is usually a simple form available.

2. As email addresses are not directly available on the web site, there is only one option left to collect it, and that is when YOU reply to the spammer.

3. The only thing left to do is to make a program that will fill out a form and send a simple question to which majority will reply and then make it crawl the site and post replies to all forms it can find. That question needs to be generic to apply to a variety of classifieds and also variety of sites. A spammer is NOT going to make a program that only targets car-selling sites, but more generic. The question I got was ”What is your final price”. That question is very generic and will apply to virtually every classified.

The sender of the email I got was a @gmail.com-address. This makes it more believeable that real human is behind it then a robot-program. However, it’s very simple to construct another program that will use IMAP-protocol to talk to that particular inbox on Gmail and simply collect the email-addresses and store them to a spammer-database.

Conclusion:
To avoid getting your mailbox spammed senseless, keeping your email address off the web isn’t sufficient. You need to pay attention to what you are replying to.

In my case, this letter could have been legitimate, from a real person. That’s why I replied anonymously, without revealing my real email address and telling him to contact me again through the form on the site.

After giving advice to numerous friends and acquaintances about what to be afraid of Internet and what not, I decided to make a list for those who don’t already know this stuff.

VIRUS VS HOAX
(Can you warm 2 houses by NOT forwarding hoax? read on…)

First of all, I’ll address one big problem most of my friends have. That is numerous warnings about all that terrible viruses that will delete everything on their hard drive and cause the motherboard to catch fire. All my friends are aware of the word ”virus”, a small program made to do something unwanted on the victims computer and made to reproduce itself by copying itself through email or some other security vulnerability. Viruses are usually made by guys who want to leave a ”footprint” on the Internet. A kind of wicked legacy, by which they will be noticed and remembered. They find it ”cool” to see everybody trying to fight their creation. However kinds of viruses that have another purposes have been increasing in number. These kind try to collect data, such as your passwords or credit card numbers (trojans) or just wait there to get orders about what to do (for instance attack another computer on the Internet (DDOS-trojans).  There is one thing they have in common and that all viruses rely on a vulnerability to be able to spread. Often it is not question about vulnerability of your computer, but yourself. Viruses rely on humans to activate malicious programs, open malicious emails or go to malicious web-pages to execute viruses.

Hoaxes are similar to viruses, however much more simple than ”real” viruses. A hoax is an email, specially crafted to encourage you or to scare you to forward it to your friends. A hoax wouldn’t be a threat if it didn’t use one of the most wide spread vulnerabilities, and that’s humans. Hoaxes can tell you about that terrible virus that is spreading and urges you to warn everybody you know. It can also tell you (a fictional story) about a missing child that you have to find. The one thing every hoax has in common is that it relies upon you to spread. So, how bad is it to forward an email? So what if it’s not true, it’s better to be safe then sound? Well no. First, you annoy your friends and contribute to spreading of the hoax (which encourages hoax-makers to make new ones). Second, do some calculations. A standard hoax I receive have been forwarded 10-20 times before it reaches me. Each time to 20-30 users. Lets calculate a bit. We calculate how many mails it generates to forward 10 times, and let’s say that 10 of 30 recipients do actually forward.

10^10 = 10 000 000 000 emails. Now, lets say that each email is 8kb big. That is 80 000 000 000 kB, roughly 80 000 000 MB, roughly 80 000 GB, roughly 80 TB. A brand new computer, today, has about 500GB storage space. That means, one simple hoax would fill the space of 160 new computer hard drives.

Now, remember also that each email will also be sent, which involves network resources and cpu resources. The cpu and network use electrical power to function, which means that you are contributing in wasting valuable resources in times where we should save them. Wanna play more? I found that each email takes about 5 cal to be sent (let’s say that’s correct). That’s about 21 joules. That translates to 0.0000055 kWh. Total for our hoax, it would be 55 000 kWh. (0.0000055×10 000 000 000). Standard Swedish house is using about 25 000 kWh per year. That finally means, that sending that hoax for 10 times to 10 friends, would actually warm 2 standard Swedish houses for whole year!!!! Or you could take that 15 000 SEK worth of electricity, and give it to charity. Still think it’s no harm? Don’t believe me? Do your own calculations and correct me, please!!!!

SPAM VS NIGERIA LETTERS AKA 419-LETTERS

Now, how about those annoying emails that keep bugging you about your erectile problems? Are they dangerous? Well, apart from taking your computer resources they are not. However there are few things you need to be aware of. Spamers, usualy don’t know if your email address is correct. They usually have programs that assemble possible addresses and send out LARGE amounts of email. If you recieve what you suspect to be spam, the very best thing is to delete it immediately. There are in fact, ways for spammers to se if your email account is active and if someone is reading the emails. It is quite simple, they put an image or a link in the email, with unique ID that is connected with ”guessed” (your) email address. If your email client is NOT well behaved and opens those, or if you are foolish enough to click on the image or the link, you will tell the spammer that you just read the email, and mark your own address as active. Now embrace yourself for a SHITLOAD of SPAM.

The other ways for spammers to get ”real” addresses is simply browsing the web. Try now to google for your address! Did you find it on Google? Well, spammers did that too. No, they are not browsing like you and me, and copy-pasting into an email client. They are more advanced than so. They have ”harvesters”, a programs that will browse the web automatically, like spiders, and follow all links, scanning and identifying everything that looks like an email-address and storing it into a big ”sucker”-database. These databases can be used directly or sold further to other spammers.

Let me enlighten the gravity of this. On our company’s web-page, I put a bogus email-address hidden in the web page code. The email address wasn’t visible in a browser nor accessible through any links. It was actually commented out (means the browsers should disregard from that part of the page). The address was something like youbastardshouldntmailme@ourcompany.com. The last part, the domain part (after the @) was correct. Then I configured our email systems to ban all servers that would send email to this address. I knew that no humans would send anything to this address, but if it was harvested by a spam-bot it wouldn’t take long for spam to arrive. Guess how long it took before our systems started to recieve spam to this address (and banning those systems clean out)? 2 days.

That means, if you can google your email address and find it, you are in spammers database.

So, how do you avoid winding up on Google? First of all, don’t put your email address on a web-page. This one is no brainer. That means, do not leave your address on guest books, forums, blogs. Most of these have option of hiding your email-address when you leave a post. Make sure you don’t include your email address in the text. Basically, think of your email address as something that should be kept private. Only people that you would like to communicate to you should have it.

This goes for registrations on different sites on Internet, communities and so on. You can never know who will get your address after you filled in the registration form. Myself, I use this following method. I have 2 email addresses. One is my spam-free email-address. I never EVER use it in registrations anywhere. I do not allow it to appear on any web page. The second one, is a hotmail-address. This one is not that important, and I use it when I want to register somewhere. I don’t mind if I get spam to that address.

So what about Nigeria letters? Nigeria letters are those letter that claim that you won a lottery and you just need to collect it, or that you are carefully selected to help out with transferring LARGE amount of funds from another country for what you will be rewarded with $$$$$! Originally those letters were usually from people claiming that they were descendants of Nigerian oil businessmen. These rely on you to reply and send them a ”small fee” to be able to ”unlock the account”, ”bribe the lawyer”, ”prove that you exist” and what not.

Now… a promised list

1. Have an antivirus software installed on your computer and updated with latest virus definitions.

2. Do not click on executables found on internet, if you are not 100% sure what you are doing.

3. Do not open emails from unknown senders with suspicious subjects.

4. Be careful when opening emails from KNOWN senders with suspicious subjects or suspicious attachments.

5. Do not forward any emails that state that you should forward them.

SPAM

1. Do not leave your email address visible on the internet.

2. Never EVER reply to a spam

3. Never EVER click on a link in a spam email

4. Never EVER click on image in a spam email (or allow your email client to ”download images”)

5. Use ”junk-address” for registration on various web sites, not your real one

This one is for all AC/DC fans all over the world. This one is for those who like Bon Scott more than Brian Johnson (Sorry Brian, we like you, but Bon is the legend).

Ever since Bon died, we missed his voice. The music isn’t like it used to be, it reminds of AC/DC, but it’s too modern for my taste. Too commercial.

I searched Spotify for some AC/DC music today. Not one single song was there to be found. Too bad I thought and clicked on ”Live Wire” (Live Wire perform the best of AC/DC). Wondering how that would sound, I listened to familiar guitarr riffs comming from my speakers. Thinking that this would be an instrumental (I didn’t dare to hope that someone would try to sing Bon Scotts song and make fool of himself), I waited untill a familiar voice started to sing. Allright, did these guys just put an AC/DC song on Spotify claiming they do it? After a minute it came to me that they are simply that good. Chris (their lead singer) is AMAZING. If you listen carefully, you will eventually detect that he is not Bon, but he is VERY ALIKE. He is at least as good as he is. And that is the point.

I got goose bumps instantly. It was as someone resurected my old legend from my youth. I even could listen Chris sing Brian Johnson’s songs and see how it would sound if they were done by Bon Scott trying to sound like Brian Johnson. It’s perverted I know, but I promise you, Chris does them MUCH BETTER than Brian himself.

If they ever come to Sweden to play, the only thing that will stop me from seeing them is if someone shoots me in the head. Well, maybe not even that.

If you are AC/DC-fan, listen to Live Wire, they are amazing. Can’t even express that in words.

http://www.acdctributeband.com/

Just read a funny ad on Facebook.

”Shaving with a knife?

Is there anything more manly? ”.

Well, for starters, what about not needing to use knife for shaving just to feel manly? What is up with all those people that need compensation for their lack of Testosterone? I’m quite satisfied with my penis, and now I can wear pink t-shirts without feeling like a woman. I can even shave my brest and my armpits (using simple pink womans razor), without being robbed of my manhood.

Why can’t you see ads like ”Need more manliness? Get a fucking job you ass hole and sell you freaking shaving knife”. 

But, I hope this ad was for lesbians.

Clint Eastwood, you freaking fuck!

He did it again. I don’t know what’s wrong with this guy, but after Million Dollar Baby I’ve should have known better then watch this movie. Changeling is a movie about true events that took place in late 1920′s in Los Angeles. Christine Collins, played by Angelina Jolie, is a single mother who has a 9 year old son that she takes care of while trying to make a living. One day, when she comes back from work, her son is missing. Worried she calls police but they insist on her waiting at least 24 hours before she can report him missing. After several months of searching for her son, and bad publicity in news papers, the police turns up and tell her that they found her son. Together with reporters and photographers, they take her to her reunion with her son. When she sees the boy, she realizes that the boy isn’t her son at all.

This movie is one of those movies that starts off quite calm, and suddenly traps you. You realize that you DON’T want to see the rest, but you MUST see it to see if everybody end up OK on the end. If you are a parent or sensitive, I don’t recommend watching this movie.

This movie turns into a something that grabs you in a way that you didn’t think was possible. Angelina, who has crap movies like Thumb Raider in her portfolio, is bedazzling in this movie. She manages to make you feel, what a mother in that position would feel. I couldn’t sit there for 2.5 hours and watch it in one turn. You would simply go mad. Well, yeah, a bit of you really goes mad.

I can’t even imagine myself in that poor woman’s position. I would probably have started to do some serious serial killin’. Well maybe not. If I would be treated by the police detective like she was, I think capturing him in some way, taking him somewhere in the desert, supplying enough 0.9% NaCl solution, antibiotics, elephant shit for food (it’s quite rich on energy) and other life supportive stuff, some dentist and surgery tools, battery acid and what not, and then torturing him every day like after work recreation for few months, would be only thing to do. You know, instead of going bowling.

I’m really not sure what the purpose of this movie is. Is this some kind of tribute to Christine Collins or something else. It IS a movie about hope dough. I also know what it isn’t. It’s not entertainment. Unless you enjoy being sad. If that’s the case, send me all your money and be sad because you are broke. I don’t know what is wrong with Clint. I think he needs therapy. I don’t understand how one can go and make something like this. Don’t misunderstand me, his work is simply genial. I just don’t understand why he did this.

So, watch this movie if you want to see some serous acting. But don’t think you will be the same afterwards. This movie will make you despise the humanity.

Finally, I will give it 4 ani. If you were a robot and would score movies, you would give it highest score, but I’m a human, and I can’t think of watching it again. So it can not be a 5-er.

Quarantine is an American remake of the movie Rec (that was made just a year earlier), with Jennifer Carpenter known from Dexter as Dexter’s sister. For those who haven’t seen Rec yet, it’s a Spanish movie about tv-reporter and her camera man making a story about fire fighter’s life at a fire station. The movie is supposed to look like it is documentary, filmed with one camera. After following the fire fighters on a call to a building where supposedly a murder has been committed, they find themselves trapped in the building together with residents and fire crew, when authorities seal them off without any obvious reason. The ones that try to escape are shot immediately. As long as the movie goes it becomes apparent why they have been quarantined.

Rec isn’t that bad. We, horror junkies, have been on involuntary cold turkey for years. Horror movies simply aren’t what they used to be. All these special effects that are meant to enforce the feeling of the terror, but are making movies weak in my opinion. Rec isn’t reinventing the wheel by using ”pretend documentary”-style (The Blair Witch Project did it first I think), but it’s still quite refreshing to see. You can lean back in your sofa with a pleasant feeling of unease and jump up from time to time when you are supposed to. Rec isn’t the best horror movie ever, but it is worth seeing and very nicely done.

Now, this was supposed to be a review of Quarantine, isn’t it? First, when you sit in front of the TV and are taking out the popcorn, nacho chips, chocolate, cola, you aren’t aware that you will be watching a remake of Rec (Unless you read this review). You start the movie. First scene is shot in front of the fire station. Exactly one second later, you are aware that you’ve seen this already. Now, why would anyone make a remake just one year later? I could think of two reasons. 1. The first one was terrible executed, but the plot was good, so better execution is wanted. And 2, they forgot something crucial, which would make the film MUCH better.

But no, the only thing that appears to be the reason is that they simply wanted to do a remake. Quarantine is EXACTLY the same movie with different actors and different language. It’s completely like watching the same movie again. And I mean exactly, scene for scene. So why bother? If you can’t make it better then it is, don’t do it.

Note for you ex-Yu-people, Rade Šerbedžija has a part in the movie. (Boris The Bullet Dodger for you Snatch-lovers).

I will give it 3 ani. This is mainly because Rec deserves 4 and this IS exactly the same. However, I enjoy Rec better. It’s more original and the Spanish language is helping me a lot to get ”inside” the movie. I would love to give quarantine not more that 2 ani, but for those who haven’t seen Rec, it wouldn’t seem fair.

So here it is:

Outlander is a movie about a man who crash lands on Earth with his spaceship, and find himself in Iron-age where he has to survive among humans. The plot is weak. Very weak. I would say that the screenplay would be something that I would expect on afternoon-TV. Remove the worst blood, and you got a great childrens show.

When Kainan crashes into the lake, a terrible monster is onboard his vessel. It’s a some kind of fire-dragon, not the fire-breathing kind, but cool-lightning-effects-dragon. I guess they couldn’t afford REAL special effects director, but hired a pimpled teenager that wanted to explore what rendering software could do. The most annoying thing is that they present the monster as invincible, completely. In the beginning of the movie, they can barely see it before it chops off heads, drags people into dark, swallows them in one peace. As longer the movie progresses, the monster is slower, less precise and finally plain stupid. The scene where the monster is finally killed, wins the price. Kainan hangs on a cliff and the monster hangs beneath him holding his leg. Well, if the lizzard was 100 kg heavy, that could PERHAPS make sense, but, the freaking lizzard is a big as a freaking dinosaur. Also, the beast was almost imortal, and when it plunges down a waterfall, and simply dissapears into the water, main characters are satisfied with the result and don’t have a smallest doubt that the creature is dead. What about the urge to find the corps and chop it down to 1kg peaces and eat it to make sure it’s dead? The feeling I would have.

The other thing that amazes me is that the man from space is human, coming from another planet/world, with his high tech gear, and lands on Earth, in the iron-age. The Earth is also populated by humans. There is however no explanation on how this could happen. No time-travel is described in the movie.

And final stupidity is that after a week on Earth, the main character falls in love in the village princess. Also he become best friend with his rival (village’s future king, (who unfortunatelly dies on the end)). What’s up with that? People don’t get best buddies. They kill each other and live alone and in pain. But no, not this guy. He decides to stay on Earth. He destroys his beacon-gadget that would get him saved from Earth and settles in his new village as king. What the fuck is that. Would YOU give away a modern lifestyle, healthcare, space-travel, blue-ray-discs and home cinema, to go and live where you have to make your own arrows from animal bones and where your love ones die from a fucking flu?

Well, it’s not all bad, this movie. Effects are cool, and if you are interested in what can be done with computers today, this is a somewhat cool movie. If you don’t want to think about stuff, and just want to watch a movie, do it. Don’t expect you will remember it dough.

This movie is worth not more than 2 ani (anuses):

The cutest thing happened last night. You know, ever since my facial hair started to grow (aprx. since the age of 3), I had a beard. I usually vary shapes but it’s almost allways there. It’s kind of part of my personality. From time to time, I do shave it off to let it grow back again right away. This goes in 1 year cycles, roughly. Can’t say why, but it just feels that it’s in the way and I must shave it off. Kids usually find it very strange to see me without it, but it usually goes well. They want to touch my chin immediatelly after, but after few minutes it’s all back to normal. Now, I’m talking about the boys. Charli on the other hand, hasn’t seen me without a beard. She is roughly 1 year old. Untill, last night.

It was one of those moments, I was sitting on the balcony and it stroke me: ”It’s time to shave it off”. I went to the bathroom and shaved it off completely not thinking about any possible consequences.

When I entered the living room afterwards, I sat on the couch and Charli was standing in the middle of the room, completely perplexed by the sight in front of her. She was paralyzed. I took the remote and started browsing the channels and shorly noticed her paralysis. When I looked at her, I could see her apple-big, surprised eyes fill up with tears. Her face going red. Then I realized what was going on, at the same time a horrible scream spread out of the living room. I jumped up understanding that I ruined the picture of her ideal, her anchor point in her life, without thinking. With every step towards her, to comfort her, the screaming gained intensity. Demi rushed in and picked her up and comforted her. No matter how hard we tried to find a way to work us arround the problem and keep Charlis fokus on other things (like toys, food), her eyes were rigidly focused on my face. Her not screaming any more wasn’t a comfort for me because she did not want to be left alone with me in a room let alone wanted me to pick her up.

So I realized that there were nothing else to do but to restore the beard as it was. I went to Demis make up drawer and took a black mascara, and carefully drew the beard on to my face, as it looked before. I went back to the living room to test my work. Charli gave me a quick eye, decided it looked allright, and ran right into my arms. Everything good that ends good.

And finally here is a picture with Charli and me with my restored beard.

Drawn beard