Phonecalls From The Ledge

*This is a recent republish from late '08, and again from mid '10, and yet again in recognition of Greece and the markets in '15...*

Like many of you, my 401k feels like it's been riding a porcupine bareback for the past five quarters. Especially this last one, as the statement I received indicated (imagine a nice, big, fat, RED ARROW POINTING SOUTH).

I was originally planning to retire in 15 years. I may have to recalculate that in Galapagos Tortoise years, but I digress.

Anyway, when I perused the statement and the resulting dry heaves subsided, I decided to call my 401k funds management company, to make some temporary changes that the current market suggests need making, before my 401k -- now a 100.25 c- -- had further help from market 'speculators'.

*Ringing phone followed by a recorded voice*"...Hello, you have reached Howard, Fine and Howard Financial Clusterflocks UnInc...for English, please press 1...for Spanish, press dos...for Islamofascist, press Kaboom...for all others, press "0"...all of our representatives are standing on ledges right now, but your call is very important to us, so please continue to hold, and the first representative we can talk down will take your call in the order received...by the way, the Dow is down 384 points...have a nice day...nyuk nyuk nyuk *BONK*..ow!".

I knowd this was gonna be a long phone call. After a few minutes of "elevator music" -- Queen bellowing their Another One Bites The Dust -- the recording continued..."We appreciate your patience and giving you the business at Howard, Fine and Howard Financial Clusterflocks, UnInc...all representatives continue to be on the ledge...oops, we just had another vacancy...please continue to hold as giving you the business is very important to us. Negotiators will keep trying to get a representative off the ledge in working condition, and your call will be answered in the order received, sometime after that...*how many?...I see two...EYE POKE*...ow".

Now the "elevator music" in between messages was of a 60s vintage, with Blood Sweat and Tears doing Spinning Wheel: "What goes up...must come down...splat..."

With that, I knowd why I was doing business with this 401k service...my kinda sense of humor. I've always laughed in the face of poverty, having been there three times in my life, equal to my concussion count. Wonder which is gonna hit four first?

The hold messages continue: We continue to depreciate your patience and assets...here at Howard, Fine and Howard Financial Clusterflock, UnInc, where the customer is always somewhere on our priority list. Negotiators still haven't talked any representatives down, though we are going to be holding a job fair for some openings in about a week. Got a resume? Financial experience is helpful but isn't necessary here at Howard, Fine and Howard, a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac fan and protege...please continue to hold, and the first available representative that leaves the ledge in working condition will answer your call in the order received....see that...*SLAP..BONK*...ow".

Now the "elevator music" is playing something 70s-ish...the group I don't recall, but the song is something akin to Our Fund's In Jeopardy, Baby...yep...I like how these guys think, if not invest.

35 minutes later, I get this: "your continued patience is astonishing. Really. We here at Howard, Fine and Howard Financial Clusterflocks, UnInc, would have thought you'd have given up by now. We really like your style. And just as soon as we get one representative to leave the ledge in working condition, we promise he or she's going to come talk to you. Really".

I begin to wonder about that, when Loudan Wainwright III comes on the "elevator music" with Dead Skunk In The Middle of the Road. Now holding for 45 minutes, and this is the message: "Still holding? Damn, you're a trouper. They say that patience is a virtue and money is a vice, so it's good you're blessed with the former, since you don't have much of the latter left. Our negotiators thought they had a representative talked down, until the Dow fell another 250 points, so please continue to exercise that reservoir of virtue that you have, and the next or perhaps only remaining representative to leave the ledge in working condition will take your call in the order received...nyuk nyuk nyuk".

It was then that I took a close look at my statement, and realized I'd called the wrong number, just as Bruce Springsteen completed bellowing his earthly Goin' Down Down Down and the recording came back yet again: "Your patience is greatly appreciated here at Howard, Fine and Howard Financial Clusterflock, UnInc, a party animal with AIG Insurance..our negotiators have finally talked one of two remaining representatives down from the ledge, and she is answering calls while on a Valium IV drip, in the order received...you are caller number 995, please wait to be connected...".

*Click*

So I called the right company, and salvaged what little was left in about 10 minutes.

Meantime, any unemployed out there? There's at least one funds firm that's looking for financial representatives. A fear of heights is probably an asset, I reckon...

Bonco's Unusual Holiday Gift Ideas

*A reprint from 2009, and a suggestion for last minute Christmas shoppers who are looking for something they can't find. This is definitely one of those. Sixth in the series of three *suspended disbelief* products by Bonco, almost ready for your gift giving needs this holiday season...and yes, we know we can't count. Please note the *suspended disbelief*

"Necessity is the mother of invention" -- Plato.

An intellectually stimulating way to start a column about the newest product in development by the folks at Bonco, UnInc., the same folks who brought you useful* things like the ABDOMINATION-IZER, PHFFFT Asure, and the EZ-Nav One!

"What mothuh thought it necessary to invent THIS?" -- me.

A back-to-reality way to prepare you for the rest of the story.

While winter's in the air, spring isn't all that far off, and with spring comes that itch to get to gardening, farming, etc. Of course, for any kind of agricultural activity to be successful, Ma Nature's benevolent cooperation is always a plus.

One can assume that benevolence, but as Captain Queeg loved to observe, you can't assume a gawddang thing about the Navy, Ma Nature, or much else in life. One ill-timed visit by mesocyclonic supercell thunderstorms, and those waves of amber grain, so laboriously sown, are reduced to the botanical equivalent of Kenny on South Park.

Without this in mind, I and a couple Bonco technicians were re-watching a pathetically laughable scene from the movie Twister: the scene where two stormchasers had just sacrificed his new truck with a jury-rigged tornado laboratory aboard, to an F-5 tornado in a cornfield. And just as the two 'chasers were pondering finding a Motel 6 to celebrate, the twister shifts track, and begins harvesting corn in their direction.

Before I could comment on the abject absurdity of the scene -- a real F-5 would have run them both down in seconds -- I saw the lightbulb of sudden inspiration appear and explode over the head of one of the techs.

This was an "uh-oh" moment, if ever I saw one.

Well, after months of secret research and design, the brains at Bonco are ready to let me in on their latest endeavor: one that brings together an invention of Man, a mother of a natural monstrosity, the necessity of Nature, and the thoroughly ludicrous notion that Bonco can somehow combine the three into a controlled, benevolent, productive invention, user-friendly and agriculturally viable.

They call it The Cyclonic Harvester by Bonco.

I call it the equivalent of a porcupine enema at 150 mph. Not sure which could prove worse.

On a restricted access** preserve in NE Colorado, the (mad) scientists at Bonco have been raising crops -- and then razing crops -- in a Pyrrhic effort to train fauxnados (the laboratory equivalents to the real things), in the intricacies of the harvest. Yes, that's right: they are training one of Ma Nature's most random and savage leviathans, to harvest and deliver crops for the benefit of Mankind.

The theory they labor under -- that of it they revealed to me -- is that, like in the movie Jurassic Park, if a fauxnado is artificially conceived under lab conditions, upon birth it will 'bond' with it's creator. In this case, a flock of lab-coated, absent-minded professor types. And from this first 'bonding', the transformation from awesome natural force of destruction, to benevolent, Man-loving contributor for the greater good, can be crafted.

I seem to recall a different result from the aforementioned movie -- the hatchlings tried to eat their creators -- but my negative waves weren't buying any second-thought capital at this point.

While Bonco won't discuss the patented*** and highly technical details of how they've managed to delu..er..achieve the uncredible progress they claim thus far, unnamed and scattered sources have revealed some..er...'pre-production issues' on the road to marketing. For example:

- a novice F-3 that was assigned to harvest, bale and stack a 200 acre field of hay. Net result: they found only some of the baling twine. 70 miles away, in Nebraska.

- when a gifted F-4 successfully harvested and shucked 100 acres of seed corn; it then got cornfused, and offloaded the shucked cobs into and through the designated holding structures, while decorating and perforating property outbuildings over two successive counties with billions of imbedded kernels. Litigation pending.

- an eager and willing but clumsy F-3, had to be told, via a rather pricey tornado whisperer, to put down the farm house, gently, and back away carefully. It didn't work, and the F-3 is now in therapy. What's left of the house is in Kansas.

- a rather immature F-2 that simply couldn't resist levitating and playing dominos with dairy cows on a nearby farm, and is now on time-out (how they're managing that, they're not saying and I'm not buying).

- lastly, there is another unanticipated problem: the "call of the wild" effect. When a real tornado happens by (and here, May-July, it can be often), the human-friendly assimilative training the fauxnados undergo is mildly**** undermined. A tornado is, after all, hardwired to roam free and at random, scattering terra firma and mobile homes like a bored cat does with pieces on a gaming board. A fauxnado, though man-made and at least as smart as a politician, still operates from a similar meteorological dynamic template.

To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm, "Nature finds a way".

Ever undeterred by technical setbacks, pick-ups, unsubtle put-downs, warnings and lots of debris, the Bonco folks are determined to have their Cyclonic Harvester ready for the annual Farm Implements and Technologies Show***** in Omaha, NE, in the spring of 2012.

Omaha, I've given you all the warning you'll ever need.

* a claim/allegation yet to be substantiated in a lab or court

** like an asylum, families can come and visit the inmates at the 'preserve', too. Few have; small wonder why..

*** nonsense

**** more like humongus...

***** Disclaimer: if Bonco, UnInc., sets up a booth at the aforementioned show, it is hoped that the folks running the show have the sense to have Bonco conduct demonstrations of the Cyclonic Harvester at a site well away from the show, the city, and any populations. After all, we ARE dealing with a product that combines innovative technology with a force of Nature that, er, isn't easily amused with or corralled by innovative technology. Bonco only guarantees that the results of using the Cyclonic Harvester will be, in the words of one survivor, "absolutely f***ing stupdefying". FTC Disclaimer: no recompense of any kind changed hands at this stage of development; one of these Cyclonic Harvesters experiencing 'technical difficulties' could have all sorts of appendages changing geographic locations, but that's for future litigation and storm chasers to sort out.

SeaQuest -- The Musical

A few days ago, it was the idea that some theatre group had for a musical about Middle Eastern terrorism.

I can see Broadway on opening night: tuxedos and bomb-sniffing dogs, all waiting for the fat lady to blow up.

Silly or revolting as that idea sounds, news of late gets better: now some sea-going treasure hunter -- Bill Warren -- wants to find and retrieve the buried-at-sea corpse of Osama Bin Laden.

His stated purpose (in my paraphrasing): to confirm it really is Bin Laden (for the benefit of the conspiracy buffs, which is a complete waste of time: a true conspiracy buff would believe the retrieved sample was a set up, and that Bin Laden is still living in luxury in Dearborn, funded by Dubya and supplied through secret corporation agreements by Walmart). And -- better still -- to sell him back to his relatives, of corpse.

*Ducking boos and throwd whatever was handy*

So Warren's going to prowl the Arabian Sea, intent on finding and retrieving the body of Osama Bin Laden.

It must be nice to be both of those kind of means, and a moron by choice.

But why let it stop there...*TOING*...note to theatrics, looking for a musical begging to be writ: Saving Osama's Privates -- The Musical.

What with musical adaptations of such songs as Ahab The Arab, Midnight At the Oasis (take your camel to bed, perv), Orinoco Flow, Dragging The Line, Farewell and Adieu, Sea Cruise, Rubber Ducky, Sail On Sailor, Ride Captain Ride...and so much more, something like this could revive defunct paid programming giants like K-Tel, Ronco and Time-Warner! Who needs The Clapper or Pocket Fisherman, when you can market the greatest musical hits from Saving Bin Laden's Privates -- The Musical?

Don't even get me started on lyrics...

Whatever -- The Musical

At an unnamed location, I recently learned that a local theatre group was doing research and working on a potential musical about Middle East terrorism.

I know where I could go with that, but why end this post on that note? Let's play a little, first.

I'm not much for musicals, I must admit. About as far as I ever got into musicals was a local dinner theatre that always slanted to the side of improvisational funny.

And unlike their musical operatic counterparts, they never looked like disheveled Vikings from Nordland, or Capital One ads.

More classical music operas would probably bore me to tears, if not see me going over like a fart in a diver's suit when I laughed during the fat lady singing.

I'm not called a cultural barbarian for nothing.

As this subject got discussed at work -- and as frequently happens to any conversation I'm a part of, there or anywhere else -- it devolved into musicals made out of movies. Titanic The Musical came out on Broadway before Titanic the movie (and I had my own fun with the musical version about 15 years ago, but I digress). The bomb of a movie Little Shop Of Horrors went on to become, in the minds of some, a much more widely heralded musical.

I've always wondered why some movie ideas never wound up as Broadway fodder. For example, Jaws -- The Musical. Just imagine a moving, poignant duet of Quint and Jaws, singing Saying Something Stupid Like I Bite You.

I've had three concussions, so this crap isn't hard for me to imagine. And I don't have to worry about how Frank Sinatra might not like it.

Why didn't Rambo ever go Broadway? Imagine the town sheriff, doing a heartful rendition of the Doors Light My (Town On) Fire.

As I said...I've had three concussions, so this crap comes easy for me.

I suppose that anything Broadway wants to adapt from Hollyweird, could be constrained by what can be fit on a stage. *BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER* It didn't stop them from doing Titanic The Musical.

So why not Star Wars -- The Musical? Why not Indiana Jones And The Last Musical? Why not Pearl Harbor -- The Badly Written Musical by the same director that trashed the subject in a movie?

I'll bet Gremlins would make one helluva musical, right? A little tweaking, and I'll bet a rewrite of the bubble gum hit Yummy Yummy Yummy I've Got You In My Tummy, sung by the entire Stripe Gremlins Choir, would bring the house down, just like it did the movie theater in the movie.

Think of what kind of musical mileage you could get out of Meg Ryan's faked orgasm with the musical When Harry Met Sally. That one would be tailor made for the fat lady to beller.

At any rate, Broadway doesn't need my help to come up with musicals. Nor would the theater group with their notion of a musical based on terrorists. They don't need me to suggest that their musical can't end until the fat lady blows up.

Sooplies, Sooplies!

I love it when a scammers asks me in email to do something, and I exceed his/her expectations in such a way as to leave him/her near speechless.

Actually, I tend to leave them totally speechless most of the time, so when they're able to say at least something, it's a bit more fun.

A recent email of note from an alleged "doctor" -- Dr. Justice Iheme, dr.justiceiheme@yahoo.co.uk -- came with the title of SUPPLY ORDER
and wanted me to provide him with a "catalogue of supplies" that I could arrange to send to him to sell for me in Ghana.

For an advanced commission fee, of course. A little different approach. End results the same ;-)

Now, I have a product list, of a sort: my totally made-up, completely unworkable product list from Bonco, UnInc, makers of things beyond merely ridiculous. But it was apparent that for Iheme's "needs", I would have to have more.

So I thunk up some, suitable for offering to Iheme, and 25 of his email scamming peers and colleagues. This is the rewritten email that went back under Iheme's name and email addy, to him and his colleagues:

DEAR SIR/MADAM/ANY VARIATIONS LEFT OUT,

I NEED SUPPLIES. ANY SUPPLIES. F***, I WOULD TAKE A SHIPMENT OF DEFECTIVE DILDOS, JUST TO RECEIVE SOMETHING. LIFE HERE IN GHANA SUCKS ANYTHING IMAGINABLE. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE THAT, JUST ASK KWESI ASSOCIATE, AKA AAUSTAINO ON YAHOO CHAT...HE LOST HIS DORK HERE. AND THAT WAS A GOOD DAY FOR HIM.

THINGS WE NEED IN GHANA INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

BRASS SPONGES

VIRGINS

PORCUPINE ENEMA REMOVAL TOOLS

PAINFUL RECTAL ITCH SCRATCHERS

NOSE PICKERS

ROLLED TOILET PAPER TO SUBSTITUTE FOR FAX PAPER (WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE GOOD FOR?)

JACKALOPE ANTLER COAT RACKS

SHRUNKEN HEAD REVERSAL KITS

BIG HEAD TODD AND THE CANNIBALS MUSIC CDS

HIPPO LIPOSUCTION KITS

ARMY ANT DRILL TEAM UNIFORMS

ANY UNWORKABLE PRODUCT BY BONCO, UNINC

LEOPARD SPOT REMOVER

ANY 'FOR DUMMIES' BOOK ON HOW TO WRITE EFFECTIVE EMAIL SCAM LETTERS

BOTTLED PICKLED MEERKAT DORKS

CUPHOLDERS FOR KOMODO DRAGON SADDLES

ARTIFICIAL TEETH HAIR REMOVER

OZARKS HENS TEETH

AUTHENTIC SNAKE BREASTS

TARANTULA EARS BY THE PAIR

HUGO CHAVEZ HALLOWEEN MASKS

Like I said, we'll take ANY-F***ING-THING. YOU CAN CONTACT US AT:

JUSTICE CONSOR LTD, 69 KUMASI ROAD, ACCRA, GHANA

PHONE 233 268 645 733 (CALL ME BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND 4AM MY TIME, CUZ I LOVE WORKING NIGHTS)

EMAIL: OFFICDESK@GMAIL.COM

Ask, and ye shall receive.

But sometimes, the scam letter originator isn't quite sure how to react when he gets more than he bargained on:

What is meaning of this? this is not what i sended you? what?

I love when a scammer's plan comes phfffft:

Whaddaya mean h'yah? You axed for sooplies. I send you big sooplies. Sooplies, sooplies. I sooplies you, yes?

u leav me alon u asshol.

What? You no like the sooplies, sooplies I sended you? You said you'd take anything.

But he didn't mean it; he wouldn't take any more repartee.

No 'sooplies' here ;-)

Couldn't Read The Signs

In our last little expose into silly scambaiting-dumb, I left you with Kwesi Associate, and his desire to "buy my box". Though, when I tried to engage him on Yahoo Chat, he was most unresponsive.

He didn't stay that way, tho'. However, with what would ultimately transpire, I reckon he wished he had.

The very next day, I saw his icon lit up while checking my email, so I prodded him again:

u wat my box to cell very mush or wat?

This time, Kwesi was all over me for it, even giving me his phone number in Ghana, so I could call him and we could discuss "cell the box".

I wasn't quite sure what the gerbil snot he meant, but eventually I was able to get from his illiterate ramblings that he wanted me to give him access to my email address, including "passwold", so he could make use of it for his currently chosen trade.

Granted...he's in Ghana...and he's not the sharpest tool in the box. But the yutz could simply go to any free email provider and git hisself a box. Just like the one he writ me from.

But nawp....he wanted mine.

After an hour of increasingly desperate and silly riposte on Yahoo Chat -- his desperate, vs my silly -- Kwesi turned very surly, and began insulting me in what I gathered was his own language:

ebu mama gi gi. Ebi timtoto.

..and other such crapola.

So for about 10 minutes, we carried on like two four year olds, trying to one-up each other on the English-Ashanti insult meter. Though I guess I was quicker to pick up on, and incorporate, his Ashanti insults with my own, than he was able to incorporate, interpret, or even spell, mine. After I sent him a line, as I remember, that went something like this:

Ebu yo mama gi gi ga ga unga bunga bunnnggggaaaa, twatwaffle.

Kwesi got very pouty and fauxsinister sounding:

ok u insolt me to mach. i will get u box from u my way u see. bye bye. dont wrot me none more.

Okay, class...what effect does "dont wrot me none more", written by a scammer to me, tend to have with yours truly?

That's right...*TOING*

So the next three new email scams I received, I rewrote in honor of my pouty 'broda' (that's what he called me, before he got mad), with him as the subject line. And sent them to him and 29 more of his scamming peers and colleagues.

I won't recap all three: suffice it to say, I took a faux lottery win email, a "I'm dying and I want to give you my estate" email, and a 'we have your shipment and are waiting on you' email, which were made all about Kwesi, and how his 'thang' fell off after he got 'thang'-eating crotch crickets late in '10, due to unsavory sexual practices.

And how he wanted a new 'thang', so he wouldn't have to cross-dress with the tribe.

Just one of the rewrites will give you an ideer:

WTF??? Granted, we were waiting for you to contact us for your Confirmed Package that is registered with us for shipping to your residential location, but we were quite unprepared for what was the contents of the package. A new penis???

Are you for f***ing real???

Don't mind my asking, but what the hell were you doing that you now require a replacement penis??? Are you one of those Third World perverts from Ghana who do goat anuses and get carnivorous crotch crickets as a result? We thought the 'WANG' sticker on the box referred to replacement computer parts!!!

Anyway, if this isn't what we thought, you'd better expedite the shipping...dry ice doesn't last forever. Assuming, that is, that the shipper was smart enough to pack your replacement penis IN dry ice???

Get this..this 'thing' picked up ASAP. We don't want a wilting winkee, stinking up our facility.

Yours laughing at you,

MR. John Horton (the original scammer before the re-write of his letter)

FedUpEx Online Team MisManagement

An hour after sending that, Kwesi/Aaustaino (his Yahoo Chat ID) sent me a chat message:

u die 2nite. i kill u. u see.

Kewl...I could have two unkept promises in the same week, the other being the Rapture:

LMAO. How is a dickless eunuch from Ghana gonna kill me tonight? You make me laugh.

u die 2nite. u see u wife u kids u all die.

LMAO...how is a dickless eunuch from Ghana gonna do that? You can't even FIND Iowa on a map (the Yahoo profile on this particular email account sez my character lives in Iowa)!

i find u. u die. u see.

Well, u die of embarrassment when u get to airport in Ghana, and everyone sees you look like a Ken doll, genitally speaking! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

u stop that!!!!!

Everyone at Ghana airport point and say "Kwesi looks like Ken doll, Kwesi looks like Ken doll!" Go ahead, Kwesi...find your way past airport, dickless. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Apparently, my inner four year old won the argument. No more chat from Kwesi. And no dickless visitors that night, either. Perhaps the laughter at the airport in Ghana was too much for him ;-)

The UN Does Ever'thang

Dawgs will sniff each others butts, but there are some things that a dawg will simply draw the line at.

With email scammers....uhm....not so much.

As y'all know, I've been in the mode recently of rewriting email scam emails -- the sillier and more disgusting, the better -- and shooting them back to the scammer what sent it to me, along with 25 or so of his/her fellow scammers.

Once in a while, it gets me a death threat from an unamused scammer. Or my being told to procreate off, in less eloquent syntax.

But I have to say, I found me a real door knob of a scammer h'yar. And I think we can all agree: a door knob's pretty dumb.

'Cept when compared with Bill Maher. But I digress.

I recently received an email scam that advised I was being awarded a grant by "the UNDP Grant Program", one of those numerous thangs that email scammers love to attribute to the 'tits on a boar' United Nations.

Well...I re-writ it a tad, widda new twist, as follers:

Joshua.Robinson@arbor.edu did(n't) write:

UNDerPants Grant Program

This is to notify all you cretins out there that your email has been granted a free change of clean underpants, since we understand from your pervert proctologist, Dr. Samuel Okoronji (a two-time death threater to me, so I just keep pourin' it on that twatwaffle), that you haven't yet changed your underpants or wiped your f***ing ass after a sh** in more than 10 years.

Clearly, you have anal retention issues, but we digress.

The UN Foundation Program for the Changing of Soiled UnderPants By F***ing Moron Third World Skanks, is funding this program, because they're sick of smelling your foul, unclean asses! To claim your clean underpants, contact our designated (this week) UNderPants secretary, Mrs. Shannon Maris at ( ).

Now, that went out to "Mrs Maris", and 25 of her recent email scamming reprobates, at email addresses that are, for now, still working. Most times, I get nothing back, including from the originator of the scam: they're almost smart enough to read that their ploy didn't work h'yar, and move onto stupider responders.

But one lil' feller -- identified as Kwesi Associate, from email addy kwesiasso1@qatar.io -- did respond. And more than once.

Funny...he didn't respond when I rewrote HIS email scam; or to about a dozen others I've sent him in the past week. But THIS one drew his response.

And we began something of a dialogue. Such as it was.

Here is Kwesi's reply:

My brother pls give me box i what wolk wilt you pls add me wilt this id aaustaino so will can chart thank you so mush.

When I got done laughing my ass off, I finally managed to translate this to mean that he wanted my Yahoo chat ID (via the mail) to "chart about wolking wilt me".

I didn't provide thus right away; instead, I responded in a vernacular it appeared that he could understand:

Willy you wolk wilt me can chart so mush?

30 minutes later, I gets this h'yar ree-ply:

My brother tell me how mush you will cell this your box for me pls i will pay you just tell me, thank you so mush

Okay....it's May, but someone's trying a belated April Fools joke on me, right? My response back, staying in character:

Cell this my box? Nevah been axed that afore. How mush you want pay for this my box?

His response didn't even take 30 minutes this time:

my brother add me for rust to tuk abut it this is my id aaustaino so will can chart thank you so mush

You knowd that I just gotta keep goin' h'yar:

Okey with dokey let me rust to tuk abut it with this my box, i add you id so we can chart thank you so mush.

And before he can respond further, I go ahead and add his Yahoo IM id to my account, and wha la, the icon comes up that sez he's "available". So I start in:

i r ready for chart now. you as mush ready to discuss cell of that my box?

Danged if he didn't respond. I try again:

my chart time for with box is short, yes? Rust up or very mush miss tuk abut it my box.

Dang...still, his icon sez he's there, but he ain't responding. One more try:

Hey, rust tuk abut to go mush mush my box, y'know? Vewy tink siwwy here tuk wilt this accent. U sabe?

And with that, his icon changed to 'offline'.

Y'don' suppose I hut his feewings wilt that tuk of mine? Either that...or maybe, he got around to checking his underpants. And discovered I was right ;-)

Well, Crap...

Another Saturday night and I ain't got no-body,
I had a date, but she just got rap-tured...
A Califorlornia-based evangelical -- Rev. Harold Egbert Camping -- says that, without a doubt, the Rapture will happen on May 21, 2011, about 6pm, with the 'end of days' occurring on October 21, 2011, for those left out of the 'Rapture'.

And he says that, unlike in 1994, when he says he made the same claim -- only to have a 'mathematical error' make it NOT so -- this time it's gonna happen.

And he says he has the math to prove it.

Which I have found and provided for y'all here, 'cuz I am (un)impressed with this kind of mathema-tatical calculus-ination. 'Specially from someone widda middle name of Egbert.

Not that I don't know what the Rapture is, biblically; I just know I ain't gonna git an invite. Certainly none of the scammers I've screwed with think I deserve it. Neither do some of my ex-gal pals, but I digress.

Fact is, most folks I know -- and good folks all, by my reckoning -- will probably still be around at 6:01pm Saturday, May 21, 2011. And the next day. And the next day, etc...

HOWEVER...I have been knowd to be wrong. I proved that with my March Madness picks. So, let's entertain for a moment, that something is going to happen on Saturday, May 21, 2011.

And as you'll see, Rev. Camping and a noted C&W singer of sorts from the '70s -- C. W. McCall -- kinda sorta have something in common, mathema-tatically-wise.

Here is, in brief, Camping's mathama-tatical formula, biblically endorsed he sez, to prove that May 21, 2011, is THE Rapture:

- the number 5 means "atonement"

- the number 10 means "completeness"

- the number 17 means "heaven" (I'm already lost)

- Christ was hung on a cross on April 1, 33AD

- the difference between 4-1-33 and 4-1-2011 is 1,978 years

- multiply 1978 by 365.2422 (a solar year)

- the difference between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days; add 51 to what you got in the previous calculation, and you come up with.....*drum roll* 722,500

- (5x10x17) x (5x10x17) = 722,500 OR

(atonement x completeness x heaven) squared

Thus -- according to Camping -- "five times ten times 17 is telling you a story. It's the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you're completely saved".

Well alrighty then. This algebraic-sorta-looking formula guarantees that the Rapture is in five days from h'yar.

You didn't hear it here first, unless you didn't hear it prior to here and now. In the latter case, where the (oops) have you been?

I was okay in math in my day. But this h'yar math, as used by this feller, kinda cornfused me. So I went home, and dug out my abacus that I use to balance my check book on. After more than an hour of trying, I couldn't get my checkbook to 'wallenda' on the danged abacus.

Truth be told, I had the same luck with Camping's cornvoluted mathamatology.

So I turned to another noted mathamatologist from my earlier years, when he was calculating rate of descent, sorta. He based his calculation on counting telephone poles, noting "I started counting telephone poles going by at rate of 4 to the 7th power. Ah put two and two together, added 12 and carried 5, and came up with 22,000 telephone poles an hour".

The formula -- and lyrics -- had more relevance about a runaway truck hitting a feed store in downtown Pagosa Springs, than about the Rapture; but perhaps you see my point, if I have one.

And I'm not sure I do.

Just for the heck of it, I asked my pet rock, Seymour about it; he told me that I was wasting my time waiting on the coming of a raptor, 'cause they're extinct and petrified.

Millions of comedic pet rocks outta work, and I have just one more.

Bottom line: if something confounding happens around 6pm your time, Saturday night, May 21, 2011...count on the fact that I ain't invited.

Which is fine, 'cuz Sunday's my day off. And like most of us, I'd hate to lose a day off.

A Hard Cell

Hate when that happens...got me a cell phone.

No, not one I bought; given to me by my employer.

Dagnabbit.

And no, it ain't a fancy schmancy one that can access the 'Net, flush toilets, compute time warps or launch missiles.

It's a pretty simple phone. It can call and be called (except where I live). It can text and be texted. Tho', danged if I know how, with them lil' keys and my big fangers.

Anyway, that's about all it can do.

The problem widdit is...it came with no user's manual. Dang.

But I knowd where I could get one: online. So I went online to get it.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER*

The user's manual online is in Adobe format. Yes, I have Adobe on my 'puter. But apparently, not an updated-enough version of it. So it bade me to update my Adobe version.

Sh**.

So I went to update my Adobe version. Apparently, I haven't done this in a while. In quite the while. Since my home desk top computer is on dinosaur dial-up, it told me that it could complete a download of all Adobe updates, since the last time I apparently did this, by June 30, 2011.

If I started now.

THEN -- and only THEN -- could I download the user's manual. All 17.75 megs of it.

A dink phone like this needs War & Peace to 'splain how to use it???

To put it in terms that my computer and employer-issued cell phone will understand ... byte me. If I accidentally launch missiles against Iran this weekend while trying to figger out my phone, my bad. Blame Adobe ;-) I know I will...

Contest To End ALL Contests

A fitting day for this particular post -- May Day.

At least some of you will see what I just did there.

In one rather unspectacular night in April -- during one of my bouts with insomnia -- I received three rapid-fire notifications via email, that I had 'won' three online lottos. My collective 'win' was just short of 7 Million Pounds (UK), between the three. I had 'won' lottos from the UK National, Shell Oil and Microsoft, EU.

*Yawn*

Insomnia's a funny thing, 'cept when you have it. But it wasn't you that had it. It was me.

And that, sometimes, can be funny. Or not. Depends on how your sense of humor trends, in warped relation to my own.

As has been my habit, despite nun protests, I re-wrote all three contests, and sent them back to their originators, along with to a very select group of email scammers (ie., their email addresses are, for now, still working).

Not that I got anything in return that readers would find amusing on this go around; but you might find some strange kind of amusement in what I did with one of the re-writes, which will fit in the the accompanying photo/calendar for next year's widely-anticipated *apocalypse* on The History Channel.

'Prolly just like Y2K.

At any rate, a scammer flying under the guise of Barrister David Green (claim_dptupdate@live.com), and his internet scam ho' Rose Wood -- they threw in a 'Mrs' in parentheses, just to legitimize her -- sent me email notification that I had won the UK NATIONAL LOTTERY.

I returned it to him/her/it, along with over a dozen of their respective peers this way, along with amended dates, times, and outcomes: *Blogger's Note: if you are offended by making fun of 'The End', you might only wince at what's to come; trust me, you're really smirking, and about to lapse into LYAO....really*

SUBJ: MAYAN CALENDAR APOCALYPSE LOTTERY

TO: THE PITIFULLY FEW SURVIVORS

DATE: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2012

Dear Email User,

You're F***ED! Guess what time it is? THAT'S RIGHT: IT'S THE END OF THE MAYAN CALENDAR, AND YOU'RE TEE-TOTALLY F***ED!

Whacking great time for a contest, we thought.

Our Mayan Calendar APOCALYPSE LOTTERY has selected YOUR EMAIL to have WON the sum of...oh hell, what the f*** does it matter? After all, you can't take it with you, right? So just print this notification and take THAT with you, so you can show everyone you know in the afterlife that you went out a WINNER!

To the official sh**: Your email has won the sum of 5,014,478 GBP in cash credited to a file in the just concluded by the Mayan Calendar APOCALYPSE LOTTERY. Programme held on Draw Date Thursday, December 20, 2012. Sorry we didn't notify you a tad quicker. Eh....f***ing sue us. Our attorneys will see yours in Heckydarnpoo and probably do lunch on your dime.

Winning numbers: 10, 26, 28, 34, 35, 39 and bonus 17

Ticket number: 8603775966738

Secret number: ....you realize, of course, that providing you all this info is just a f***ing waste of time, right? ...089188/10

Please submit the following informations, not that it will make much difference, because it's the END OF THE CALENDAR AND YOU'RE F***ING DEAD! But, what the f***: just in case you happened to avoid dying from the big ass asteroid that obliterated your, Mr. Rogers, and everyone elses' neighborhoods, then you can fight it out with the zombies that have to survive to make this a worthwhile project for what's left of Hollyweird to make a movie out of.

Just don't look for it on the 2013 Oscars; zombies eat anything remotely Oscar. Nyuk.

Please email your informations (full name, address, physical description, marks, scars, tattoos, other identifying features) to Fiduciary agent Barrister David Green at email claim_dptupdate@live.com

Note: All Responses should be sent to Agent via email, since everyone will be running around and screaming, as they see the giant space rock about to wipe their sorry asses out of existence; Barrister Green will have his 4G phone with him, to record your winning information while he's running and screaming. That's right, Barrister: you work to the bloody f***ing end.

Congratulations from the MAYAN CALENDAR APOCALYPSE LOTTERY!

Do you think that Barrister Green, or any of his over a dozen peers, appreciated the irony here? It would have been nice, had they dropped me a line to let me know.

Eh..perhaps they're too busy running and screaming already.

Feng Shui Meets Feng Scammui

*Blogger's note: this is a test of the feng shui interruptus network. Had this been an actual disruption to the flow of feng shui -- aka, feng ptui -- qi ers would have been instructed on where to 'aaa-uhmmmm' to reconnect with their qi. More or less. Probably less. We return you now to something less qi-able*

What is feng shui? Simply put, it is "an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics believed to use laws of Heaven and Earth to help one improve life by receiving positive qi (aka, energy flow)". When used by scammers, it tends to drift and weeble-wobble into something more obfuscational, which -- when expressed in the higher literary Mandarin Chinese dialect -- is closer to Feng Ptui, or "Nah shunar du wa na?".

English translation in a spell.

My online feng shui continues to be unabately interrupted and very unharmonious. My flatulence is probably part of that, but I digress.

Amongst my latest qi abusers was a dubious antecedic character going by the name of Ming Mui, and claiming to be a VP and Manager of the Bank of East Asia, located in NYC.

"NYC????" Das what he writ.

Mui wished to have speaks with me -- renowned the world over, apparently, as 'unclosed recipients' -- over a matter of one of his dead clients, $58 Million USD, and Mui's desire to have me help him "confidentially and 100% risk free", access this fund. I was, in my 'undisclosed recipient' guise, to become the qi of Mui's Feng Scammui.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER-san*

Instead, my 'undisclosed recipient' persona, operating on the parallel parking theory of feng ptui, undertook to throw a little ripple in Mui's qi field of 'give the business to the round eye'. So sawwy not-san.

His email, titled Did You Recieved My Earlier Notification?, ran about seven paragraphs. I simply replied to it with a "uh...I didn't receive your first email. Did it read like this one, in the manner of Nah shunar du wa na?"

And promptly rewrote significant passages of it for him, helping to achieve a qi comparable to that of a planet that was just hit by a moon-sized asteroid. How's that for Heavenly influence?

Here's what I sent back to Mui (mingmui111@yahoo.com), and renamed for my purposes, Feng Shui, and included to about a dozen of his peers and colleagues:

Mr. Feng Shui
Vaginal President
Stank of East Asia
Anal Street Main Debauche
202 Anal Street NYC, NY 10013

Internal would not have been the breast way to reach you without getting slapped but since this letter is highly contagious and the Interpol seems to be the most secord and fascist way of comingling. I derided to beach you by this means.

I am Mr. Feng Shui, Vaginal resident of the Stank of East Asia, where it all comes together. Kindly not that this massage is offal and penile and as such should be kept highly buttressed in vaseline, so I peed with you once at a pubic urinal to keep things in tuna with the ebb and flow of Eddie.

I am contracting you basely on a repent meeting held by the miasma of my stank which an account of the late Samuel Anderson-Okoronji (diseased with crotch crickets), who was prostrated by a candor (large carnivourous bird of the hamster family), and went to Florida to defoliate. I was his supplier of sexual trysts with farm animals and various fowl. Before his diseased sabbatical, he concealed to me a secret trollope account worth the sum of $58 Million USD in collectible urine samples.

The mismanagement of my stank has made serious efforts to locate any of the sample's hibiscus, but all efforts came to botanicus flopstemicus. That is why I have contracted you in lieu of a salad shooter. My stank in a short pile would deplore the accredited daschund, consecrated in Gaines Burgers, and the fund would be sent to the offices of Goat F***ers Anonymous, for the reprogramming of disseminators to prevent unwarted pregnancys or nellies, and even possibly natalies.

I will not let such happen because I know a good goat f*** when I feel one, and so do a few nancys, nellies and natalies I know. I will never forgive myself, nor forgoat the looks of unsatisfaction across the stockyards, of unrequited three-peckered goats who spent a life in a ewe convent.

Thus, I need you to act as benef***iary to bring this sordid tale of bestiality to the big screen in time for an Oscar nomination in 2013. Would ya couldya wouldya, and make all the other undisclosed recipients herein as happy as I would be to know that this matter has been handled in the manure that you know I am driven to contemplate before my chronic colitis collapses my colossal conglomerated mass of fecal mucus membranes, leeching their contents into my taste buds? Umm-ummm good golly, Miss Molly.

I have the honor to be, all that I can be, until then whenst I'm not cuz I can't,
Mr. Feng Shui

I didn't get a reply from Ming Mui, nor any of his peers. Prolly cuz -- at least in the case of Ming Mui -- the aforementioned phrase Nah shunar du wa na, was well understood by Mui. English translation: what is this bull you're handing me?

Feng ptui: never underestimate it. Oh-qi?

How To Apply For An Online Loan

...that you don't want.

Banker Cat -- aka in this case, Lee Yong of Global Loan Firm, Inc, an (ill) Fortuned 5 Million company -- didn't approve me, either.

So if you've been turned down for a loan, worry not...you're in good company. Unless you don't consider me 'good company', like Lee and some of his peers do.

Granted, I didn't exactly 'apply' in the manure that Lee hoped I woulda.

It started with a spam-diverted email to one of my less-targetted accounts. With a header like this -- 3% Interest Rate Loan** Apply Now** -- it begged for my further attention. And a little pre-response internet research, to see how many fraud entries had been already recorded for Global Loan Firm, Inc.

I didn't bother counting 'em; I just did what I've been doing a lot of lately. 'Massaging' the email a tad, and sending it back with a 'filled out' application. As well as forwarding it to all the current scammer email addresses I had on hand.

The gist of the original scam email was offering the recipient -- and here I was, wunst agin categorized as one of those pesky 'undisclosed recipients' -- a loan at between 2-3%, up to 10,000,000 UK pound sterling, for terms up to 25 years. All I'd have to do was fill out a quick and easy application, email it in, and loan approval would be within a day or so.

Guaranteed.

Of course, THEN, I'd have to pay fees for the loan and application process, as well as insurance fees for the transfer, all under the guise of a 'diplomatic courier delivery service'. Therein wuz the *TOING*.

But we didn't git that fer. Seems my re-write and application kinda took Lee Yong offen his game. More on that in a mo'. First, what I 'tweaked' and sent back to Lee and about a dozen of his peers:

Dear Esteemed Customer,

You are welcome to LEE LONG DONG DUNG GLOBAL LOAN FIRM INC. We are currently needing some venture capital so we are venturing to get into some of yours by way of offering to give out loans to any part of the world at 125% interest rate, compounded daily. If that didn't cause you immediate onset of cardio vaporlock, please contact Mr. Mason Scout with the email address bellow: leeyong50@gmail.com, before it does. We allege to give out loans between 5000 pounds and 10,000,000 pounds as the case may allege to be, at interest rates competitive with the best of any organized crime or loan shark operation. To any part of the world. With a duration of up to 25 years, cuz the way we work, we can say just about anything. If you believe an amoeba spit of it, we're in. Also, we only gives out loans to applicants between the ages of internet accesible and above. We have many satisfied customers to choose from, like Dr. Samuel Okoronji, who write, "you make my loan and I get all the f***able goats I can fornicate with in one week. Thank you, Global Loan Firm Inc!". And Barrister Stacy Miller, who write us that "thanks to your agreeable terms and conditions, I am totally f***ing destitute, and Dr. Samuel Okoronji got all my f***able goats Thanks loads!" To join our growing list of satisfied us customers, please fill out the application bellow and provide us with your informations and goat f***ing proposal:

(in the original, the application was titled 'Data Form', with the instructions that "essential fields are marked *", of which apparently every field was considered essential to screw with by moi).

*First Name: Jack N.

*Last Name: Ewehoff

*Prefix: Grand Exalted Poobah Emeritus Connundrum

*Age: Good thang ah ain't a woman...you'd git *bonked* fer askin' that

*Address: 161 Gregory Street Central City

*State: Jefferson (well it WUZ, once..briefly)

*Country: stolen many moons ago via wars of conquest and bad wampum trading

*Business name: Trysum Artificially Inseminated Earwig Farms

*Loan Amount Needed: $5,000,000 USD...don' need none of that pound sh**

*Purpose of Loan: To diversify farm to add artificially inseminated Smart Cars and f***able goats, which seems to have a growing market

*Duration: fer as long as I kin keep y'all funded me h'yar or 12/21/12 when the Mayan Calendar goes phfffffft, whichever happens first

*Date of Birth: 4/1/60

*Gender: I engenders many admirable traits I don' happen ta use

*Marital Status: depends on who's tryin' ta serve me what papers

*Next of Kin: me baby brudder, Beat N. Ewehoff

*Monthly Income: are we including the legal part?

*Phone: (used my good ol' fax machine to nowhere)

*Email: (my usual one for this kinda sh**)

All modes of Fund Reception will be Diplomatic Courier Delivery Service, with all fees, excise taxes, duties, tariffs, I shot the tariff but I diddunt shoot da deputy, kickbacks and government officials palm-greasings, the responsibility of the applicant. In acknowledgements of these detail, we shall send you our terms along with repayment schedule predicated on prevailing winds carrying lethal wildebeest methane across vast tracts of Newark, NJ. The rest is up to your honesty and diligence, and four dozen other acronyms not herein twittered. I am resolved to be, for I know none else who TO be or not,

Mr. Lee Long Dong Dung

Sent back to Yong and a chosen dozen of his scamming peers, I eagerly awaited anything.

All I got back was a reply from Yong: no text, just a blank reply that contained the aforementioned 'tweaked' application.

Danged if I didn't leave the wanker speechless.

Which I can understand: 125% interest rate? That'd take the starch out of most intestinal fortitudes, I reckon.

Another One Rides Da Bus

I had a simple little errand to run into da big city. A place where you have no idea whether men are men, or whether you need to take out a mortgage for the parking fees, assuming you can find a place to park.

It was a Monday morning, and morning rush hour. My car was willing. My patience...was not.

Since I've been paying taxes for our local bus service -- aka, RTD, Regional Transit District -- I decided to leave the driving into the maelstrom of downtown on a Monday morning rush hour, to them. Granted, I was a re-constituted virgin, bus riding-wise; I hadn't used RTD since 1993, and then from the northern 'burbs of the Denver Metro. I ignored the strains of the Kingston Trio's MTA song I recalled from years ago, and expected I'd find my way back before the next rent payment was due.

Now, when I did this bus thing in '93, I didn't have internet to research the route, the fares, the time schedules, or the connections, if any. I had to call RTD and ask what, where and how. Now, I had all of that at my finger tips, via my home computer. Which I chose not to use; I'd wing it, instead.

This could leave a mark.

First, to the nearest RTD transportation 'hub' near me: a large park-n-ride at a major thruway on the west side of 'da Metro. As I followed the more experienced 'herd' toward the generously-termed 'gate' (a sign on a curb that marked where the bus picked up), I noted that they, almost without exception, were audibly equipped with the latest in distraction: ipods, blackberries and blue tooths. I drew a few odd stares, having none of the above, when I tried to fit in, and held my hand to my ear, simulating a spirited wireless conversation with my pet rock.

Suddenly, I had more space in the line than I had heretothen.

The bus arrives. The bus route's designator means nothing to me -- ES -- but it does indicate it's going downtown. Somewhere. I hope to the right 'where'. I board, pay my fee -- luckily, I had the exact change that Admiral Kirk and Capt. Spock lacked -- and I found me a seat. A moment later, the bus was off.

My first indicator that the ride would be less than epic, was that no where amongst the passengers, did I see Sandra Bullock. Next, I noted a list of bus-riding prohibitive signs on the bulkhead above the driver, discouraging a whole host of activities being brought on or done on the bus: no standing forward of the white line. No food or drink. No littering. No playing loud music. No firearms or weapons of mass destruction. No remotely-triggered bombs allowed on the bus, set to activate at 50 mph. No mooning cars on 6th Avenue.

Small wonder the ride into downtown was so quiet. In a mere 30 minutes, I was exiting the bus in a sub-ground terminal called Civic Center Station.

From there, I assumed me to be within walking distance of my destination. I just hadn't bothered to figure out which direction it was, from where I disembarked. So I wandered out to the nearest main arterial that ran east-west. That and 50 cents told me nothing.

Now, being a male, I am not supposed to be practical and stop to ask for directions. Not part of my gender's psychology. I mean, where would Lewis & Clark be today, had they stopped and asked directions? Same place they're buried, I reckon, and I digress.

So I picked a direction and started walking. I knew the place had to be close by. Within 2 blocks, I saw what I reckoned had to be the place: a line of folks stretched out the front doors, waiting. I entered, and went through the security check point. Three times. By the third -- stripped to my skivvies -- I quit triggering the danged metal detector. From there, I waddled over to the "Wherezits" sign, tryin' to hitch up me trousers, to find my destination. I didn't find it. Phffft.

I wandered down the hall to an office widda sign "Information". I waited in that line, and while doing so, literally watched Time flying by: the clock on the wall's minute and hour hand were moving at the speed of faster than seconds. The second hand...was dead. I ignored the clerk's five o'clock shadow growing before my eyes, and asked about my destination; with a primal *grunt*, he pointed at the wall and mumbled "next buildin' over". Afterwhich, I pointed out the wall clock; he turned -- audibly creaking as he did so -- and mumbled "yeah, we know".

So back to the door I'd originally entered -- 'cuz the wall he pointed at, didn't have one -- and onto the next building over. Another security check point, with a slightly more agreeable metal detector: I only hadda go through twice, and got to keep my pants on.

Finally, I made my destination. In one of the most shocking experiences of my adult life, the licensing process I was sent to do, took 15 minutes. Period. Let me say that again: I went to a city and county government building, to go through a license application process with governmental bureaucrats, and it only took 15 minutes. That was more surreal than the ticking crock.

So now it was time to go back to catch a bus. Which -- after wandering several blocks to reacquaint myself with a sense of direction -- I found the terminal. And discovered that the bus I needed wouldn't be returning there until mid afternoon.

WT-RTD-F?

But, I was told, I could wander out the door, walk over to the corner of the main east-west arterial, and catch a bus what would git me where I wanted to go, via every stop betwixt here and Timbuck-ptui. The person giving me those directions did NOT look like Dennis Hopper, so I reckoned I'd try it, just this once.

At the corner of east-west Mayhem, I was swept up by the suction of a throng boarding a bus; luckily, the very one that the un-Dennis Hopper directed me to. I had just spotted me a vacant seat, when the bus lunged forward like a bull leaving the gates at a rodeo; good thing the floor broke my fall. The bus riders were blissfully unawares of my momentary conversion from upright motoring to aisle crawler.

I managed to get into the seat, just as I heard the bus driver make an overhead announcement that was as clear as Ozzy Osbourne, followed instantaneously by the bus almost standing on its nose to halt. As I wondered what we'd managed to avoid hitting, the doors opened, and a soon-to-be familiar routine took place: people got off, and people got on. And with each cycle, people staying on the bus moved around, opting for better seating with better bracing.

But not me. I kept my ass anchored right where I'd belatedly managed to land it. The stops along the east-west arterial were so fast and furious, by the time mine eyes had seen the glory of a better seat, the opportunity for it had already passed.

Each accompanied by the bus driver's best imitation of Son of Cheeseburger on the overhead.

Never heard one recognizeable syllable. Gradually, the geography became more and more familiar, until -- with one nose-standing, 90 degree pirouette -- the bus slammed to a stop in the very place from whenst I'd begunst this odyssey, two hours prior. My car and I were never so glad to see each other.

But I might tempt more fate: maybe next time, I'll wander a bit further afield, and try the light rail train. Long as I'm not sharing it with Dennis Hopper and/or Steven Seagal.

Bottom Of The Barrel

I am beginning to think that I have found it, scammer-wise.

I haven't been as frequent a poster or visitor to other blogs, due to job change *stuff* that's thrown my normal schedule askew for the last couple, and next couple weeks. BUT...in the past 10 days, I have received a dozen scams of recognized and assorted variety.

Not having the time to devote to them right now, I still can't forget my manures and NOT respond to something that someone put such effort into crafting. That'd be so ill-manured and gauche. So, I have crafted particularly non sequitur replies to the Ditzy Dozen, in a half-dozen or so slaughtered languages.

I thought that maybe -- as has been my experience over 11 years of this crap -- I'd get one or two responses at best.

But nawp...it is obvious that I am seeing the bottom of the barrel in scammer quality and reading comprehension. I got 7 replies. And not a one of which acknowledged my initial response.

For example: from Mr. Kasimu Jattah (kasimu.jattah2@att.net), I received this brief toe in the water:

Hello, we are sellers of Rough Uncut Diamond stones, gold dust and bar. We can supply you as many as you and your buyer can want buy from us. Right now we have our Rough Uncut Diamond and gold dust bar in the bank of Accra where buyers are allow to view and test. We shall wait to hear soonest from you so we can send our FCO. Regards.

For this one, I responded with no name, in my version of Francais:

Messy bird coup, Monsewer. We we, save ze bone le pastry resistant! Bonechance du jour! Alloiwettah! Viva le crepe Suzette!

That drew a page and a half response that began with: I am gratify to have from you a affirm response of interest to our offer... and continued on with the offer to give me the business, via paying Western Union fees of a few hundred dollars for authentication documents.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZER*....FAIL.

Or, from Cristina Wallace (cw.royalhouseserv@att.net), I get an offer to give me the business through HSBC Private Clients/Royal House Services (UK), involving several million UK pound sterling, by my assuming the next of kin status of a deceased and unnamed client of said bank. Uh huh.

So, as one nameless person to another, I respond in my best Deutsch sprechen:

Ach tu livers! Bitte flieger schiesse undt das hundsfott sprechen barken undt bitten das ankles undt schtuff midde snarlen undt voofen? Awpeterstain, mein Schotzie.

*TOING*...I get another page and a half of explanation of the scam, begunst by I thank you for your positive response to my inquiry which makes for trust in proceeding...

I know that if Cristina Wallace were fluent in Deutsch, she'd not find something positive in references to dirty dogs and flying sh**. *BUZZZZZZZZZZER* Another FAIL.

And here we have a *Proposition* from Barrister Fong Chong (przedszkole.sp@neostrada.pl) that he presents as a repeat of a previous offer that I never got: I am Fong Chong. I am contacting you again to confirm you received my previous email regarding My consent in distributing an amount of 10.6 Million (usd) Kindly revert to this email if you will like to proceed.

What better response to 'revert' than in a lingo that Fong Chong will understand:

Moo goo gai pan, chong dok toyo fung pingu guppy sushi? Gyaaaaaaa!

His response was two pages, begun with I thank you for your revert to my previous offer and assure you that this is 100% risk free to a trusted partner that you have shown yourself to be with your respond.

WT eggroll F? *BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER*...FAIL!

Then we have Mr. Kumar Solomons -- (solomonkumar@hotmail.com) -- who seeks an international partner to join him and his two partners for investing embezzled funds from the Bank of Gambia (he didn't call them 'embezzled', but overbillings to contractors have to be called something). To him, I roll out my best espanoel:

Boneless nachos, Senor. Que llama no questa los libros en chiapet? Chinga tu madre! Adios.

For those who know Spanish, y'all know how unnice I was here, once past the gibberish. But apparently Kumar didn't:

we are excited to have your reply! followed by a page and a half of how I figure into their giving me the business. Yeah, I know they're (allegedly) from Gambia. But still...*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZER*...El FAIL.

Then I have a guy who isn't sure just who he is...the email arrives from an Alfred Mzanzi (alfred202@att.net), but the name changes in the original offer: I am Mr. Larry Hendrick, a member of Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (ICEP), South Africa. Attached to this email is my proposal. kindly read through?

Ooooh, of COURSE I'm going to open an email attachment from an imperfect stranger! I see *REKCUS* tattooed to my forehead every morning in the mirror (it looks different in the mirror). But, I didn't want to disappoint him, so, in more simple English, I gratify him widdis:

WT painful viral itching F??? What was in that attachment, colon crickets? My computer just developed elephant ears and there's hair growing from my tusks...oh crap, now my nose is a trunk.....mastodon CRAP!!! I'm gonna RIP YOUR NOSE HAIRS OUT, you water buffalo nose-boner!!!

Did Alfred/Larry pay any mind to my response? HA....I get a page plus-long response that begins with Thanks for you response to my proposal which is more like a deal between us...

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER* FAIL of elephantine proportions.

Of course, an alleged Nigerian had to slip one in here somewhere -- the genesis country of email scams -- and Engineer Shola Williams (engrsholawilly@hotmail.com) doesn't disappoint, with the usual money left behind by a contractor in 2004, who was killed with his whole family when his plane crashed into a flying rhinoceros over Nigeria...and of course, I (as an 'undisclosed recipient') have been singled out to help him to secure that money for more personal use. To his two paragraph opening gambit, I try a little of a language I am abysmal with, Russian:

Tovarich, balaklava peredishka borscht, Olga Volga, das vadanya!

That gets me a full page response, led off by Thanks for your e mail that i have just received and the contents are well understood. WTFski????

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER-SKI* FAILski!

And finally -- what has to be the creme de la creme of reading incomprehension -- there is this from Jennifer Williams -- jeniferwilliams01@ladyfire.com -- I get the I am a dying widow who seeks a trustworthy person of God to do my last request for church, the poor, widows and orphans load of crap. She has $5.2 million Usd and need you to act as my agent in doing good with my last earthly wishes, etc. By this time, I am becoming amusingly jaded, and send back a response worded to, I am sure, convey my thoughts on her condition and offer, that leaves little room for ambiguity whatsoever:

About f***ing time, Jennifer. Die already. The 1st Battalion of your local garrison has been wanting to upgrade whores to someone younger and racier, and not endowed with an ass so big that you have to sit down in shifts. Hell, one of their men is still stuck between your cheeks, which is why he hasn't been sought as a deserter. They know where he's stuck, and no one wants to try to rescue him. They will be celebrating when you breathe your last. In the words of our president regarding his own hellthscare plan, "just take a pill" and get it over with, okay?

You're going to say, "you're kidding us, right?" when I say that after I sent that, I expected no reply. But I got one, and it began with I received your email with gratitude to God and I am impressed with you and th ework of God you are doing to serve God by helping me in my final hours.

*BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER* *AHOOOOOOOOOOOOOGA* Mondo FAIL.

Yup...there was a time where those kinds of replies to scammers would get me almost nothing in return. How quality has deteriorated over the years...now, I can write whatever I want in reply, and get more than a 50% response to insult and utter gibberish.

Scammers just ain't what they used to be. Either their quality control has gone union, or...maybe all those scammers were edu-macated in the District of Columbia Public Schools?

Spagettios, Ignite!

I'm tellin' ya, nothing is sacred online anymore.

Good thing I can't access an online kitchen, and I digress...sorta.

During the period of my involuntary career redeployment, I made a good faith effort at making myself a marketable asset, via the various online job search sites. I filled out the information each site required of me, made clear my career preferences, and posted a resume, befitting and representative of my years of recycleable experience.

With one exception, it has availed me job offers of the irrevelant, dubious, and insincere kind.

For instance, let's take this 'un, from Dillon X. Garner at bettoalmeida@hotmail.com, that came to me via CareerBuilder.com. I am going to quote this email perxactly as it was (de)composed and sent to me, so's y'all can share in the ample oversupply of incredulity it delivered me to:

Header: Vacancy for *my name*

To whom it may concern, *my name*.

Our establishment is happy to put forward you the capacity of Restaurant Critic in Market Force . after coming across on your resume at CareerBuilder online. Our personaell department did its best to scrutinize your autobiography and remained to be pleased. We rely that your knowledge will be among our most valuable assets.

NECESARY CRITERIE for be employed:

1. Age: older than 24

2. Internet access

3. 3-5 hours of free time every day for carrying out your professional dutys

4. Certificate of good conduct (I ain't gotz one a them; more on that in a bit).

JOB BENEFIT:

As it goes, Food Writer is an ideal way for employees to gain income in the process of providing feedbag, making comments, making of, commenting out to organization. This is a real challenge for you to ge tto the top of the career rejoicing at things you like above all. For instance, one may eat in restaurant or purchase things in shops reveling in life and helping firm at some time.

RENUMBERATION:

Your every month wages may reach $1,500-2,000.

TIME LIMITATION OF POSITION:

On account of the great amount of entrants for this position, this job is time-bound. So, it is strongly recommended for you to provide us the necessary informations about yourself asAP.

TO BECOME THE MEMBER OF OUR BUSINESS:

1. Please go to our site (it was hyperlinked as Market Force)

2. Register yousel

3. Download *TOING* read examine accurately a agreement and sign it on a compulsory basis (of COURSE I'm going to click on an unknown link for such a well-written email, and download something dubious into my 'puter).

In underwriting this application, you certify that your work will be on at-will basis and abandon any appeals against Market Force and its team (another *TOING* for this poorly-worded disclaimer, and one I find it interesting that they would include before we even get started giving me the business).

ABOUT MARKET FORCE:

Our firm is drawn in collaboration with other coprorations to improve capacity on an international scale by applying anonymous resources. We deal in a team with over 300 organizations internationally. Our main work includes marketing research and cooperation with merchandicing firms, private investigative companies, training organizaitons and other establishments that are drawn in Restaurant Critic services. Our member corporation deal with their clients in order to fix the system of perfecting level of offices (WTF?).

Sounds like a helluva fine career opportunity for one whose spent nearly 35 years in the rather diverse career field of security, eh?

Now, I dunno about you, but I don' much like this unemployment stuff. Zero income contributes to zero bills gettin' paid. And zero bills gettin' paid contributes to lots of phone calls that drives even my voice mail to distraction. So, I reckoned -- yeah, I honestly did do that -- that I had nothing to lose by accepting their kind offer, in the manure to which you've come to expect from yours truly. Here is my professional response:

I am very much please-d to receive your forward of Restaurant Critic in Market Farce. I can see how, after you came across my resume in CareerBuilder online, you would indeed, remain to be pleased. Since -- and herein I note this with speculivity, but am quite soitenty -- to remain to be unpleased, would make for a less than desirable remainance. I think you'd agree. Wag your tail once for yes, twice for no.

As for your employment requirements, I can assert that I am older than 24 by a full and thensome; that I do have internet access, as I am not in Libya; that I have sufficient time to respond herein; and that I can purchase a Certificate of Good Conduct, somewhere. I plan to write off its cost as a 'getting the business' expense.

Personally I would make a helluva Food Writer. With cooked spagetti, I can spell almost anything, given enough space and do-overs. Although...I probably should tell you: I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to select me as a restaurant food critic, before you know the truth: among my unlisted (on the resume) talents, I once blew up a can of Spagettios. There were no survivors.

Really.

My nickname amongst the family is "Chef Boy-R-Dee-structive". I ignite my kitchen so often, my smoke detectors have speed dialing to both the local Fire Department, AND Culinary Barbarians Anonymous. I have more ignitions and lift-offs than NASA. I've actually had an uncooked, headless chicken run from my abode, screaming.

I thought I oughta be up front about that. It's apparent that we'll get along fine, 'cuz I'm as up front about things as you obviously are.

If after reading and digesting all this -- don't wait for the complete digestive process...ewwww -- you still want me to criticize restaurants, I am here to tell you, I'll be happy to. Once I start monumentally bellyaching, I'll bet they give me free food just to get rid of me.

Dang, I like this more and more.

When do I start?

Sometimes, candor's good. Sometimes...it ain't. Guess this time, it ain't: I didn't get the job. Or the business ;-)

Does That Come With Derivery?

As has been my experience in the realm of email scammers, those allegedly writing from the Far East, tend to be better writers, and more adept at figuring out when they're having their chains yanked by someone not buying their 'rice bowl'.

But not always-san.

Via one of the online job-hunting sites I'm currently using for interests more gainful (aka, pay bills), I received the following email:

MESSAGE

Dear friend,

I am Mr. Liu Wang, an official with the International bank of Taipei, Taiwan. I have a very sensitive and confidential brief for you from the International Bank of Taipei, Taiwan. I aske for your partnership in re-profiling funds. I will give you the details but in summary: the funds are coming via Bank of Taipei in Taiwan (they apparently love everything in triplicate there). This is a legitimate transaction (aka, no, it ain't) and you will be paid 30% of your management fee. If you are interested, please write back and send me your confidential phone and fax numbers, and I will give details and instructions. Please keep this confidential, we can't afford to have any political problems (where do you think we are, Wisconsin?). Finally, please note that it must be concluded within two weeks. Please write back promptly via this confidential email address liu_wang1@9.cn for more information.

Well, it WAS confidential ;-)

Usually, any kind of a smart-ass reply to one of these, tends to end it. So here was my reply to Mr. Liu Wang of the triplicated Bank of Taipei, Taiwan, and his sensitive, confidential offer:

pupu w/moo goo gai pan. *yum-san*

And I included the secondary phone number to my personal favorite chinese restaurant (my bad). But I digress.

A day later, I discovered I was dealing with one of the lesser intelligent alleged Asian scammers:

MORE DETAIL

Dear Intending Partner,

Thank you much for your mail....and he goes on to tell me about how a client of his bank -- yes, the triplicated International Bank of Taipei, Taiwan -- took on a fund from a Muhannad Al-Hakim, an Iraqi crude oil merchant. A fund amounting to $1.5 BILLION Taiwanese New Dollars, which in USD amounts to $44.5 Million. Apparently, ol Muhannad 'bought it' during the war, getting blowd up along with his house, creosoted toilet and oil well, in 2004. Naturally, Muhannad had no next of kin. And equally naturally, within a very short time, if no one claims the money, it goes to the government of Taiwan. Finders keepers-san.

SO...I am expected -- because I am well reputed in the Chambers of Commerce, Taipei, Taiwan, which is a tofu-load of news to me -- to be an honest and trustworthy partner to Mr. Liu Wang, and stand in as Muhannad's long-lost next of kin. And for doing so, I git is 30% of 44.5 Million USD.

Of course, it's all perfectly legal and 100% risk-free. All that's missing is the '*' for the undisclosed Disclaimer, that sez a kimshi load of udderwise.

All I need to do to take the next step-san, is provide my full name, address, and occupation.

So I reply thus:

crispy duck egg foo yung w/egg rolls

Whoever's receiving these replies, it becomes apparent, is NOT reading them well, if at all:

QUESTION

Dear Intending Partner,

Is there something here you not understand? Please provide the information needed for next step forward. And pleased to remember that this is sensitive and confidential. Time is not on our side, so please to provide necessary information at once.

Grabbing my handy chinese delivery menu, I craft a suitable reply:

Sesame chicken w/vegetables egg drop soup mongolian pork ... *yum-san* I pay cash, you sabi?

Two things become clear: whoever it is is NOT grasping my replies, and I'm not going to get the order I just placed, delivered:

QUESTION

Dear Intended Partner,

I still wait impatiently for your bona fides. Please not to waste more time. This transaction is sensitive, confidential, and must be act upon now. Please provide informations at once.

Hmmmm...how to make my order-san clear:

Kung pao chicken w/pyi par crispy tofu fried crab cheese wontons and fortune cookie famiry pack. I pay cash. *yum-san* You deriver to (and I gave them the address I use in a Colorado mountain town, where no one lives). I tip derivery driver. Hokay-san? Probrems, you make phone ring at number I give you, hokay-san?

FINALLY, I get an email that tells me (a) someone FINALLY read what I writ and (B) it's about over:

NOT GAME

Dear Intended Partner,

What manner of game is this you play? This is serious business. If you not wish to participate, no more stop writing and waste my time.

Ooops...a grammatical *gaffe*, and one I am all too eager to indulge:

No more stop writing-san? Hokay-dokay, plick, I no stop writing-san. You ask me waste your time, I rike waste your time. Besides, you screw pooch by not deriver one order I prace with you. Your restaurant suck filthy turtle eggs! Oh, an' I send copy of your originar emair to Internationar Bank of Taipei, Taiwan, for verify your boner findees, hokay?

Unress you make derivery of pupu pratter w/side order combination fried rice, we no more do tickee washee, yes-san?

Amusingly, I got one more email repry from "Liu Wang"...but it was blank ;-)

Guess I ain't gettin' my pupu. At least not from him. But his email addy is getting the next week's worth of spam emails from my one account. Nyuk nyuk-san.