The Sign ;-)

'Nuff said  ;-)

City On The Edge Of Self-Deprecation

There's plenty in life that needs being taken seriously.  But even the most serious amongst us have to have those moments  where they can laugh at themselves for something they've said and/or done in a moment of being 'human'.  Indeed, it never hurts to find things to laugh at yourself about.

So when a community can do so, well...

I've worked in Central City, Colorado, for many years.  Small town.  Former mining town.  It's seen its share of booms and busts.

It's a town that's had kind of a 'love-hate' relationship with the latest "gold rush" for the local economy:  gaming.  From the time that the state of Colorado voters approved a ballot initiative in 1990 -- and limited stakes gaming opened up in Central City, neighboring Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek, west of Colorado Springs -- residents have loved the civic improvements that gaming revenue has brought to the town.  But not EVERYTHING that gaming has brought to the town.

Which has been, and will be again, another subject for another time and place.

My focus here is on one particular sign that is posted in Central City.  One that visitors, tourists, passers-through, usually like to stop and take note of when driving through historical areas.  Signs that mark historical places, historical events and local factoids of interest.

This sign is kinda like that.  And yet, not like one I've seen much of, here or anywhere else.

I haven't done a lot of research on the sign as yet; I only noticed it earlier this week.  It doesn't jump out at you.  It's easy to miss, driving down Gregory Street, on the way to Black Hawk, and either back toward Denver, or on up Colorado 119 to the Roosevelt National Forest, and on north towards Boulder.

I don't know who is behind putting it up; I was told that it went up in the summer of 2011.

This sign is meant to be a factoid snapshot of Central City.  One with an eye toward some good-natured municipal education and self-deprecation.  Here's what the sign reads like:

Central City
County Seat of Gilpin County

- Founded                                 1859
- Elevation                                8496
- Mile High                                 1.6
- Area (Rich Square Miles)       2.5
- Pop.                                          663
- Average IQ                              101
- Houses of Worship                    3
- Gambling Houses                      7
- Bears                                          4 (in 2012, 3 more may have joined the club)
- Bars                                           19
- Faces On Barroom Floor           1
- Opera Houses                            1
- Museums & Galleries               5
- Newspapers                                1
- Breweries                                   1
- Troublemakers                           3
- Big Shots                                    0
Total                                       11,168.1

Yep...that's what the sign reads.  And yeah, that's what it totals up to.

Gotta like a town that can laugh at itself.  When I go back to work, I'll get a photo of the sign.  It's simple.  And priceless.

A Time For All Things

Christian Bale and friend visit victims of the shootings. 

I haven't said anything about this on the blog.  Until now.

I don't need to recap what happened at the Aurora Mall movie theatre in the early hours of July 20, 2012.  Only someone living beyond the reach of the cyberworld, doesn't know.

And while I have responded to some stupid comments in Facebook about it -- perhaps with my own version of counterstupidity -- I won't indulge those sorts of thoughts here.

Though, it was a comment in Facebook that brought me to write this.

A local radio host -- who has covered many a horrendous news stories in his still-young career -- posted about the opening of NFL training camp at the Broncos training facility.  My response:  "ah, the onset of my favorite season of the year!".

The next commenter thanked us for living the "heaviness of this summer" with a post about something light and refreshing.

Perhaps a few upcoming comments won't be so kind.  But you know...it is right that we talk of other things, too.

While I didn't know anyone who was personally affected by what happened at the movie theatre, I think I can say of some of the heroes therein that died to save others...they wouldn't want their girlfriends to live the rest of their lives in grief and regret.  They didn't save their lives for that.  They'd want them to grieve, reflect, remember...and then move on. 

Because Life goes on.

I thought some about the four young men who died, protecting someone(s) they loved.  The ultimate act of love and of courage, is sacrifice.  Not everyone who has that courage within them, is ever faced with having to use it.

We owe a lot to those who do, though.

But more:  we owe a lot to those who, though never having to do what these four young men did on July 20, are in positions that, on any given day, could put them into that very spot.  Police.  Firefighters.  Paramedics.  Any nature of first responder.

And of course, our very own young men and women of our nation's military.  The best of the best.

Though, lest I forget, there are everyday heroes.  Unremarkable people to those who don't know them, but on any given day and time, step up when danger and disaster rears its ugly head, and remind us that the human race -- for all it's peculiarities and eccentricities -- is made of some damned fine, courageous, unselfish stuff.

I've never been through a situation like July 20.  I suppose that the closest I've come -- and it doesn't count, because only those inside can know the true horrors of what the rest of us were horrified to watch -- is Columbine.  I was 5 miles away, and as far removed from the events therein, as if I'd been on the Moon at the time.

I've had a pretty unremarkable life.  Most of us have. 

Most of us will never face a crazed sniper in a tower on a college campus.  An Oklahoma City.  A Columbine or Virginia Tech.  A 9/11.  A Flight 93.  Or a Minneapolis or Aurora mall massacre.

We should count our blessings.

But there will always be those who serve to respond, whenever and wherever it happens.  They know the potential risks, each time they respond.  They do it, anyway.

And there will always be those 'innocent bystanders' at a Ground Zero who will step up, even knowing that a lesser act might allow them more time on this insignificant cosmic ball we call Earth.  They'll not have time to rationalize it; they'll just do, in a moment, something that ends their lives, in an effort that they hope will save others.

And I believe that they don't do it so that their loved ones can live the rest of their own lives mired in grief, guilt and regret.

Our heroes act, so that the rest of us can carry on.

And we honor those heroes, by doing just that.

The 'Writes' Of Scammer

Perhaps the scammer that started this is now, at this minute, emulating the animated graphic to the right.

If so, my apology to the wall, tree, pole, whatever, this scammer is using.

A lot of scammers start their scams from templates that are pretty intelligently written.  Once taken off a template, however, they tend to reveal their lack of, or limited knowledge, of English especially in written form.

But a good number -- I reckon them to be free-lancers -- don't have access to a starting template.  So they take whatever they might have, and 'wing' it.

Such was the case of one of my recent scammers, as the opening paragraph here will suggest; it came titled In Need Of Assistants:

i hope these e-mail get's to you in good state of health, my names is Mrs. Effat Moghaddam Waworundeng, i'm women who was married to Late Mr.F.JOLE Waworundeng from indonesa of blessed memory who was an oil explorter in Kuwait and Comodoro Rivadavia , a city in the Patagonian province of Chubut in southern Argentine for twelve years before he died in the year 21 Apr 2010,Pampanga, Phillipines Interiland Airline,Antonov An-12BP UP-AN216.
If this is from a template, it's from a very bad one.  The whole letter was seven paragraphs in length, and all pretty much like this.

*TOING*

So my edit simply built upon that which was already provided herein; I just made the scammer sound even more grammatically inept:

Subject: IN NEED OF SOMETHING

Greetings to you, Komodo Lips,
i hope these e-mail get's to you in whatever state you're in.  and pleased not to pay much attentions to how badly i write, because i is pretty stupid as you can sees here.  my names is Mrs. Effat Moghaddam Waworundeng, i'm women who was formerly a mans until I not reply to email from Prem MP, and my penis fell off, so i goes to clinics to become womens where they makes me a vagina out of playdoh and bondo.

 

you can reads about it at Pampanga, Philippines Interisland Airlines,Antonov An-12BP UP-AN216.

i still not yet have child because i cant not get my vagina to work  i think i got a faulty one and now i want sue someone for my faulty vagina but i not knows whose to sue or how to sues them.  should i sues everones named sues?  this is news to me and i never watched news before.  it like me discover toilet paper for first times in 2011 but i not yet find out what it makes for.  is it fors writing on? 

 

i asks friend with print press to make moneys out of it and he does this before roving band of Moro hamsters come through village and eat his penis.  he run off in jungle never to be able to sodomize his goat Ethel once more.  it sad.

 

anyways, he leave behind with me heres a bunches of moneys he make on toilet papers.  i think moneys worth USD 90,000,000 (Ninety Million U.S Dollars).  it still on rolls it print on.

 

Recently my doctor telled me that creamed corns is bad for anal polyps, so i stops eating anal polyps.  anal polyps grows like weeds, depending on the area of infestation caused by the wide spread of the anal polyps i have in my anal which i dont not know because i not look there for my missing keys since i looked everplaces else.  i think my penis might be lodge in there when it fells off but i not finds it.

 

i don't need any telephone communication in this regard because i dont have gots telephone communications with no ones since Moro hamsters eat the lines too.  i know how send smoke signals yes?  you read smoke signals yes?  if you says no, f**k you, i cant not communicate with yous since my smoke signals yes are in Azerbijani.

 

i want you to always prays for me to get phone back because i dont not knows Azerbijani not eithers.

please contact someones with ability to reads this massage sos it possible that someone make senses of what i writed here because as this massage goes on i cant not remembers how it was what i wished i might get sayed here, and i knowed once time that somethings i sayed here was meant to mean somethings sayed of some kinds of value i thinks.

 

my artificials vagina will rest squarely on your shoulders.  i hopes this dont not gross you much out.

you replies to assist me, yes?  if no then f**ks you.

remark: pleased if you do reply me with your informations to the following email:

 

effatwaworundeng@aol.com

remains wary of moro hamsters bearing telephone parts,

Mrs. Effat Moghaddam Waworundeng, formerly Mr. Wang Duk Fat Soong Dung

Email: effatwaworundeng@aol.com

The scammer -- perhaps NOT a free-lancer, perhaps with handlers about as dumb as him/her/it -- didn't take kindly to my edit:

 

to who you are.  this is not funy.  my male is real and you make jest of me.  my atorney say i can have legal act to stop you do this.  do you understand me ok?

Oh, indeed I do, my ignorant litigious one:

LMBFAO....am I to understand that you are threatening to take me to court over your scam letter, and what liberties I took with it?  Have your aturkey email me his/her/its legal precedence from which he/she/it is preparing a brief from, whereupon and in so far as your aturkey prepares a tort, I shall have a retort adjudicatible in any litigious venue prepared for expedient jurisimprudence on the part of your aturkey, forthwith and theretofore upon timely submission thereof, therebyfromwhich a writ of habeas corpus christie may be ruled upon not withstanding prima ribbie media rare.

I guess that response was more than his/her/its 'atorney' was prepared to prepare a 'brief' on.  Unless a supeona is on the way?  ;-)

Scams and Political Fundraising

With a recent email scam that was sent me by persons of dubious antecedence, claiming to represent scam victims (that they hoped to create LOL), it reminded me of a recent and rather shameless episode in presidential campaigns that I'd never heard of in my lifetime, prior to the current worst potus in history.

And that is, asking people to donate their wedding, anniversary, and birthday gifts to the re-election campaign of the current worst potus in history.

I'm sure that, before they're through -- which we hope they are when legal and fed-up voters and taxpayers toss them out on November 6 -- they'll get lower.

Fundraising campaigns overseas -- for money from marxists and socialists around the world -- seems another step in that direction.

So it didn't seem to me much of a stretch that the campaign of the worst potus in history, would even seek out internet scammers for help.

Thus, the most recent email scam sent me from Nigeria, was crafted as if it was edited for the potus' re-election campaign, BY his re-election campaign.

While this might offend my more liberal readers, it contains a little bit of humor, and a lot of bit of truth, from a regime that sees insisting on legal ID to register and vote as racism....while requiring attendees of their campaign events to provide legal ID for access to same.  If that don't make you go "hmmmm", there is something wrong within your common sense workings.

I'll return to my more usual brand of humor in my next post.  Meantime, read a scam letter edit as if it came from the re-election campaign of the worst potus in history:

From Desk Of Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde

Office of Economic & Financial Crimes Commission

Head Office,5 Fomella Street. Wuse II.

Federal Capital Territory, Abuja-Nigeria

Attention: Scam Victim-to-be,

I am Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde. The chairman of the Office of ECONOMIC & FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION (EFCC) in alliance with Internet Cafe Organization of Scammers In West African States (ICOoSIWAS) with head Office here in Nigeria. We have been working for years towards the expansion of fraudsters and scam artists in Western part of Africa, because it's easy money, it doesn't require any manual labor -- apart from minor typing skills -- and it's FUN.  We have a great time in our internet cafe, even though it's full of flies and animals wander through it. 

We have been able to track down many of the best and brightest scam artists in various parts of west African countries which includes NIGERIA, REPUBLIC OF BENIN, TOGO, GHANA CAMEROUN AND SENEGAL, and they are all in our employ here in Lagos, Nigeria. Business has been so good, we are preparing to offer benefits, a retirement and 401k plan, and even paid vacations and holidays to our more successful scammers.

The United Nations Anti-crime commission and the Nigerian Government have been totally unsuccessful in stopping us; in fact, the UN has leased us office space and scheduled training classes for us to teach their other Third World nations about our successful scam program.  We're having a seminar at the UN in New York in August, and it's being funded by US taxpayers, thanks to their dubious potus, in return for voter registration cards from all of our scammers, to help get him re-elected.

This email is being directed to you because your email address was found in one of the scam Artists file and computer hard disk in our custody here in Nigeria, under the category of "yet to be scammed". 

We have filed a lawsuit with the World Court and in NY state district court to require you to submit to one or more of our scams, because we are every bit as entitled to your money, as your welfare cheats, unemployment cheats, illegal immigrants and other lowlifes who, if not milking your system there, would be potential candidates to join our scam operations, here.  Even your potus agrees that we are entitled to your money.  He recently said that if you started a business, you didn't build it. 

He affirms and agrees with us.  That's why we contribute to his campaign for re-election, via his fundraiser in Switzerland.  Haha.

You are therefore being notified, by us, not to wait until the World Court, the UN, or your own state's district court ORDERS YOU TO SEND US MONEY.  Don't make us have to send Department of Justice activists from your own communities to shake you down in public.  Just contact us with your personal informations, and follow our instructions to send us money.  It's really that simple.

Otherwise, we will have your own system prosecute you for it.  Which, of course, we will enjoy, because as criminals ourselves, we love having top politicians in your own country, and in the UN, do some of our work for us, in return for our illegal votes in your presidential election.  Your democrats are our kind of criminals.

So you are advised to contact the processing officer.  Feel free to contact  the Processing office The Central Bank Of Nigeria .So you are advised to contact the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor with your provided informations required.

Contact Person: Mallam Sanusi Lamido

Email Address: Mallamsanusi.cbn@sify.com

Provide the information bellow to enable him to debit your bank account:

1) Your full name:

2) Residential address:

3) Phone/fax numbers:

4) Profession:

5) Scan copy of id/age:

Understand that, even if you delete this email, we have send copy of this to your potus, and he will tax you for what you owe us.

We love criminal marxism,

Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde.

CHAIRMAN (EFCC).

Who knows...the potus re-election campaign may copy and paste this scammer email for use in future fund raising.  That wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Wunst Upon A Scam...

I don't know if it was the coffee, the melancholy of the night, lingering afteraffects of three concussions, or a moment of comedic banality, but a recent scammer and I just couldn't mentally 'connect'.

Of course, a scammer with a name like Margaret Leung Ko May Yee, might be a tad difficult to connect with.

Especially when I went off on the 'Twilight Zonesque' tangent I did.

Her opening gambit to me was simple:

I have secure business transaction for you.  Please reply me soonest for detail.

Here is how my editing and expanding of her email went:

It is of great importance for you to take care and understand every word which I have written down below; please be patient and read the explanation in my email.

I am Mrs Margaret LEUNG KO May Yee Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive of HANG SENG BANK LTD. here in Hong Kong attached in Primate Banking Services.

I used to be Hei Fuk Yu Dongdong, a chairman of great dubious character and much onerous body odor.  Then one day I tried to have unnatural sex with a panda bear that was less gratified with my attempt of sodomy than I anticipated, and the f**king beast turned me into a eunuch.

I am offering a bounty for that f**cking bear, but I digress.

Last night I had an apostrophe that I originally took to be a rogue eye lash, when suddenly I awakened in a land so unlike that I had known since giving up crystal meth in my morning sake.  I was in a town that looked animated, and rather badly so; and characters of sorts, walking by me that appeared poorly drawn, speaking English, with four particularly badly drawn 8 year olds, all with potty mouths and of dubious creationcedence.  They called this strange place South Park, and they were about to be inundated by a river of sh** as a result of Hollywood celebrities bringing their brand of narcissism to the sleeply, badly-drawn town.

Just before a muddled character called either "Kenny" or "those bastards" was killed by stampeding platypus on Main Street -- trying to flee the river of sh** I thought -- I found myself floating in a fog of an alien world, looking at a spaceship from Earth.  Inside the craft was a badly-acting William Shatner; outside, clawing at the oval glass window, was a rather ominous-looking sock puppet, that kept empathing the message "gloooooballlllll warrrrrrrrrmmmmmminnnnnnggggg", making Shatner scream like a five year old in a dream about having to eat creamed beets with AlGore.

Then magically, a remote control appeared in my hand, only to have the sock puppet turn on me and engage me in a tug of war over it; I won, but wound up changing to a place even stranger than fiction, where people wore berkinstocks, sandals, smelled like an outhouse, all accompanied by drums pounded irrhythmicly, and badly-written signs that made no sense.  I learned that I was at Occupy San Francisco, and wished to return to the hot, foggy planet, where I could let the sock puppet have the remote control to wind up here.

Then, mercifully, I woke up, and I was in my usual, Third World dump of a hovel.  Was I ever relieved.

So much so, I forgot why I wrote to you.  Never mind.

None of the copied recipients bothered to respond to this rather unique email.  The scammer -- or their handlers -- read this edit with unequal degrees of all kinds of words that they didn't know and/or couldn't pronounce, because they replied to me thus:

who r u and wat is meaning?

Knowing who i r, without necessarily having a specific meaning in mind, I wasn't sure how to answer this inquiry from the original scammer, so I just did a little buck 'n wing improv:

I yam who I yam.  And I hate yams.  But I digress.  Wat has meaning, and meaning has meaning.  Wat meaning are u meaning me to define?  Do you want to know the meaning of wat, or the meaning of meaning?  Is this rhetorical in nature, or is nature itself rhetorical?  A question...since the beginning of time, and long before your Sun burned in the sky, I have awaited a question.  Did you just ask me one, or did I miss the meaning of wat here?

Whomsoever was on the other end of this, wasn't ready to let it go:

r u interest in the bussness transaction i write u abot? 

Mebbe:

u write abot bussness transaction?  Really?  Abot wat bussness transaction u write?  Aminal?  Milneral?  Vaginal?  Quadralateral?

Perhaps they weren't getting any other replies to their scam email, and I was the only 'game' in town:

i not understand wat u r say hear.  r u interest in bussness deal?

i understand wat u say hear.  i underhear wat u stand there.  Whyfor u not understand wat i reply?  How can bussness be without understand wat say hear?  Oh, and abot that sock puppet...do it still have remote?

Either they found another schlep to play, or found someone who could read and somewhat comprehend what I was writing, 'cuz no more they write me abot their bussness.

Sock puppet, you're on your own...

When Rocks Stampede

Yeah, I know:  animals stampede.  People stampede, especially in flash mobs and at post Christmas sales.  Centipede.  Perhaps the US Postal Service came out with a stamp that peed. 

But rocks don't stampede.

Or maybe they do.  Just ask my pet rock, Seymour.

Here is photo evidence of (in)famous rock stampedes from the not-so-distant past, and localized to my neighborhood, so to speak.

I can't remember the exact date of the top photo, though it was after the second photo, which was June of 2005.  Lots of rain had been falling prior, and something 'spooked' one rock, causing a chain reaction in about a thousand or so tons of them, causing about 100 yards of heretothen placid, grazing rocks to break for Clear Creek in a sudden flash mob with designs of skinny dipping, panning for gold, or chasing trout for the sheer delight of it.

Someone forgot to tell the crazed rock herd about certain facts of life, nature and mobility; few, if any of the rocks made it to Clear Creek.  But they soitenly made a mess of highway US 6, west of Golden, CO.

Engineers and geologists chose to refer to this as "a massive slope failure".  A spokesstone for the herd responded with a "yeah, whatever" wink and nod. 

And a scant couple-three years later, a lad of rock-climbing inclinations -- see what I just did there? -- returned from an invigorating exercise of climbing on and over rocks, to find that one took a special liking to his heretothen chosen mode of automotive transportation (top photo).

Like it's prior stampeders, this rather impressive rock took for granite certain facts of nature and science.  Perhaps it had seen ads by certain sports luminaries who espoused the virtues and joys of life behind the wheel of a GM product, back before it became Government Motors.

Not only was it an epic FAIL on the part of the rock, but it didn't earn it endorsements and photo ops from GM, either.

At least one rival auto manufacturer considered using the photo in their own ads ("It ain't one of ours under there!"), but a spokesperson for Yugo was curiously unavailable for follow up.

After a rather dry start to the spring and summer -- sparking fire to get the notion to stampede through areas that would rather not see fire stampede thus -- Colorado is getting some early season monsoonal relief.  This welcome relief has encouraged trees, grasses and other plants to not need to stampede, while discouraging fire from doing the same.

Unfortunately, it has had an opposite effect on the rocks.

Someone at the Discovery Channel might want to get up a documentary for the rocks of Clear Creek Canyon, clearing up a few misconceptions they've garnered down the years about stampeding, or attempting to imitate certain fish that migrate upstream to breed.

And while 'blowing tires' sounds erotic, it really isn't pleasurable to all involved parties.

Yes, I did ask Seymour to intercede with his canyon brethren, but despite my most eloquent efforts, he's turned to stone.

"PHHHFFFFFFFTTTT!"

Well, pretty much.

Yakety Yak

"Really?"

It must be that time of the scam season again:  all my emails are coming up oil related.

First it was the yardbird who wanted my 'product pricing list' for oil-related piping and such; to his regret, he got more than he bargained for.

Now it's this Mihai Andrei, alleged 'Accounts Manager' for Yukos Oil Company -- I assume a big Russian outfit -- trying to dupe me with $28 Million in funds from some nonsense or another.

Department of Justice:  instead of trying to intimidate states into keeping illegal voters on their rolls to help your current potus, why don't you put a little effort into running down these types of criminals, eh?

Silly question, I know.  That's why I've spent 13 years having fun with these buffoons.

Anyway...here is the email that I received that got this started down a road destined for scam:

Subject: ProposalPermit me to seek your attention in so informal a manner. I am Mr.MIHAI ANDREI, one of
the Account Director to MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY,Chairman CEO:YUKOS OIL (Russian Largest Oil
Company) Chairman CEO: Menatep SBP Bank.

Basically, I seek your partnership in an urgent financial business of $28 Million US
dollar. Should you be interested, please do contact me immediately via
email:mrmihaandrei@9.cn

Sincerely,
Mr MIHAI ANDREI

Fine...it took me all of about 30 seconds (yes, I'm slipping) to come up with an angle for the email rewrite.  One that takes Mihai Andrei off his chosen road, and puts him on the road less travelled by scammers, but becoming more and more familiar:

From: Mr Mihai Andrei <info@proposal.com>
To:
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 5:59 PM
Subject: Proposal

 

Permit me to seek your attention in so informal a manner. I am Mr.MIHAI ANDREI, one of
the Account Director to MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY,Chairman CEO of YUKOS YAK SPERM (Russian Largest Producer Of Yak Artificial Insemination Company).  I am also applied to be upcoming contestant on American Idol and America's Got Talent.  I am most hopeful, yes?

Basically, I seek your partnership in an urgent financial business plan I have to establish a franchise of chain stores that specialize in collecting yak sperm in America, and artificially inseminating goats with the yak sperm, to attempt to create a breed of super goak. 

Yes, this is what I really seek to do.  Ever since I see Yakov Schmirnov and Borat on pay-per-view, I think to myself, "Mihai Sonofbitchev Andrei, you too could do of this in great land of America!".  Here in Russia, all I get to do is masturbate yak to get sperm.  It get all over me, and it have properties not unlike super glue.  And it smell like...well...like yak sperm.  You know what it like to smell like yak sperm all the time?  To put in American terms, it suck.

All girls at house of prostitution and dental hygiene clinic here point and laugh at me, and run away holding their noses.  It most hurtful to what your libtard Americans call self esteem.

Anyway, I think this new breed of goak would be big hit in Middle East, where radicals there do really stupid things to get 72 virgins.  As Americans say, they ain't seed nuthin' yet, when they get into a herd of 72 virgin goaks!  I think the word is "Yowza!".  Or maybe it is "Hubba hubba"?  Or as a funny talking American, Larry The Cable Guy says, "Ah'll tell yew wha'..", and then he never do tell us what. 

I hope learn more about this, but I think I digress.

I can tell that you, American, are smiling at my proposal, yes?  I told my partner, Yuri Wankerpovitch Sharapenisova, that I find eager American entremanures who want get in on ground floor to this deal.  He think I affected by fumes of yak sperm.

We show him, huh?

C'mon-ski.  I know you want to.  You know you want to.  Write me back for more informations, and together we can make the world sit up and take notice when we begin our advertising blitz of "The Goaks Are Coming, The Goaks Are Coming".  Maybe we can defossilize Carl Reiner and Eva Marie Saint to do our promos?

I let you, the American, handle that much of the tawdry business.  And while you are at it, I want date with Jennifer Aniston.  Let me know if you get it, so I can wash all this yak sperm smell off me.

Please do contact me immediately via email: mrmihaandrei@9.cn

Sincerely,
Mr MIHAI ANDREI

Account Director
YUKOS YAK SPERM (Russian Largest Producer Of Yak Artificial Insemination Company)

I think I left everybody speechless with this one.  Even whatever schlep at DoJ gets stuck reading that 'report profiling' email address.  If they're going to come knocking here, they need to do it soon:  the donuts I bought them are starting to harden...

Pipes For All Occasions

Pipes For Plumbing

Scammers crack me up sometimes.

This one thinks he's going to use the "send me an oversized bogus check and have me return the balance via Western Union" ploy, by treating me as if I'm a product supplier that has what he needs.

Little did he know, I do.  Just not in the format he was countin' on.

Here was his gambit:

Dear Supplier,

Can you send me your Product price lists by email to cross check if you have any of the products that the Ghana Project  with  Contract & Procurement Services need so that I will visit their Office and give you full details of the supply.

We shall proceed when i hear from you.
Call me or mail  me okay.
EMAIL: procu3agent@gmail.com

MR.MARK ESSIEN.(AGENT)
MARK CONSOR OIL LTD
69 KUMASI ROAD, ACCRA GHANA
CALL NOW : +233 268 645 733.
EMAIL: procu3agent@gmail.com

I sent him an email back suggesting that I believed my *company* had all the kind of pipe products that his *company* could want.   And I followed that up by collecting a whole list of pipe *products* to forward for his purchasers to peruse:

We had pipes for symmetrical flow

We had pipes for suction and blow

We had pipes that could handle any kind of flow

We had pipes that could shoot...

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We had pipes that could sing



We had pipes that could vent mental feces

We had pipes that could scoot



We had pipes that had various stiffness and erection stresses

We had pipes that could help get you high...



We had pipes that could sound...




We had pipes that could fly

And we had pipes that could vent obnoxious substances



He was so impressed with our array of pipe products, he wrote back to me expressing genuine enthusiasm as only a scammer who just figured it out, could:

"this is serous bussness.  f**k you".

That's no way to act in a business-oriented scam.  Really.  But to show him that there were no hard feelings, I sent him an offer for a free pipe to vent his frustration with:

We even have special venting pipes, just for you.

He didn't bother to respond, though I suppose he could have responded with one of our special pipes for special vents:                                                                              

I would have arranged for a special discount for him on this one...

Or perhaps some reader of this post will  ;-)

Number 700

Who imagined I'd hit 700 posts here?

Not me.  Especially with posts like this 'un...

For those of you old enough to remember this cartoonish bug to the right, you'll remember it to be from a Raid Insect Killer Spray commercial back in the 1970s.  I kept a copy of this, thinking that it might be useful one day.

Back in '01, I worked at a place that had cameras as a part of what the place was about.  My department was primarily concerned with that aspect, but another department had limited access to some of our concern. 

One camera was positioned to as to be able to see into a window in one part of the facility.  Not that there was anything to see there; it just could.  And for some reason, the other department seemed to like to turn the camera to look there, even though there was nothing for them to see.

Well, I fixed that:  I taped a copy of the photo on the right inside the window, looking out.  From that day forward, it became 'the Henhouse Bug'.

I spent a lot of years at that facility, eventually changing jobs and responsibilities, until new ownership took over 15 months ago and decided to adjust staffing levels.  I was one such 'adjusted' staff. 

Eh.  Life happens.  I went on to find and experience other endeavors, with sitting on my duff collecting unemployment and expecting others to pay my way, not one of them.

But life likes to sometimes imitate a dog chasing its tail.  In so doing, I wound back up at the facility, doing what I'd used to do, and done well enough to wind back up there.

Never say "never", I suppose.

Imagine my amusement to find that 'the Henhouse Bug' was still there.

I wonder who'll get to retire first. 

Mebbe the DoJ Will Hep

What does an email scammer, the FBI, a faux Asian, and the Department of Justice have in common?

All depends on how it's being misconscrewed, I reckon.

It all starts with the following email scam I just received:

 A personal Attorney to our late client Mr. TAN SRI LIM GOH TONG who built a hilltop casino in Malaysia. before he died, he made a Will in our law firm stating that $3 Million should be donated to any Philanthropist of our choice outside Malaysia{Overseas.}

I am particularly interested in securing this money from the Bank, because they have issued a notice instructing us to produce the beneficiary of this Will, You are required to contact me immediately to start the process of transferring this money to any of your designated official account.
Please contact me urgently. Email: yousfmustafa497@yahoo.com.hk

Of course, Yousef Mustafa doesn't sound Asian.  Or perhaps it does in a revisionist geography class being taught at the DoJ these days.  They're teaching revisionist voter eligibility too, I hear.

Eh.

Anyway, I edited the scammer's original email -- with Asian enhancements, since it was Malaysian-oriented, with Turkish highlights -- and made sure that I sent a copy of the edit to the DoJ's email address for racial profiling complaints against Arizona:

From: MUSTAFA YOUSF
To:
Sent: Tuesday, July 3, 2012 12:18 PM
Subject: Assistance offer
Herro,

I craim to be a personar Atturkey to our rate crient Mr. TAN SRI RIM GOH TONG who buirt a hirrtop casino with frushing toirets in Maraysia. He then tried to cross-use one for a whirrpoor and got stuck in the suction.  He not very bright, but I digress-san.

Before he drown, he promise our raw firm $3,000,000 be donated to me.

I am particurarry interested in securing this money from Bank, because they -- the Bank -- don't berieve me when I say to them, "he reft me this money!".  So I need you to pray the beneficerary person of the first part and I pray the beneficerary of the second part, and between the two of us, one of us get the money, and one of us get screwed. 

Bet you can't guess what part you get to pray. Haha-san.

You are required to contact me immediatery to start the process of transferring this money to any of your designated officiar account. Prease don't catch on to fact-san that this money rearry don't exist, it just way for me to get you to send me regal fees to execute transfer of non-existent money, and have me raugh arr the way to bank with your money. Haha-san.

Prease contact me urgentry. Emair: yousfmustafa497@yahoo.com.hk

Prease not to pay attention what I write next; it is foreign gibberish. Porish, I think:

Bu mesaj ve onunla iletilen tum ekler gonderildigi kisi ya da kuruma ozel, gizlilik yukumlulugu tasiyor olabilir. Bu mesaj, hicbir sekilde, herhangi bir amac icin cogaltilamaz, yayinlanamaz ve para karsiligi satilamaz; mesajin yetkili alicisi veya alicisina iletmekten sorumlu kisi degilseniz, mesaj icerigini ya da eklerini kopyalamayiniz, yayinlamayiniz, baska kisilere yonlendirmeyiniz ve mesaji gonderen kisiyi derhal uyararak bu mesaji siliniz. Bu mesajin bilinen viruslere karsi kontrolleri yapilmistir. ISTANBUL UNIVERSITESI

This message (including any attachments) is intended onry for the use of anyone it gets to, so rong as you repry to me. If you don't you are prick. I was gonna write plick, but I can't type or pronounce "L", even if I just did-san. This emair contain information that is non-pubric, proprietary, privireged, confidentiar, and exempt from disclosure under appricable raw or may constitute as attorney work product. Or none of that rast sentence appries. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you just became the intended recipient, because I need to scam money outta someone, and it may as werr be you as anyone. If you have received this communication in error, prease respond to it anyway. ISTANBUR UNIVERSITY has no friggin' idea that I use them to try to scam others. Don't tell them, prease. http://www.istanbul.edu.tr/ 

Not sure what I'll get first:  an aggrieved response from the scammer, or a *knock* on my door ;-)