There appears to be a new and deliciously devious internet trend. It's called Scambaiting. To play first you need an email from one of those Nigerian scammers telling you that they will deposit millions of pounds in your bank, but first they need your bank details which they won't misuse, honest govner. (If you don't know already, this is probably the oldest scam on the net. You don't get trich you just get robbed.)
You reply to your email and enter into a dialogue with the would-be scammer. Then you start to persuade them to do stuff for you. The most orthodox 'trophy' is a photo of your scammer holding a piece of paper with a juvenile and humiliating statement on it. Usually eluding to the fact that the scammer likes to suck on other men’s penises, though I prefer to more imaginative varieties, such as this one:
One of the more remarkable things to come out of the whole thing is that someone persuaded these scammers to do the whole dead parrot sketch:
Want to know more, read a report by a pro from The Times
A while back a couple of friends of mine bought a whole load of knives from a salesman in Lewisham Shopping Centre. The guy demonstrates the power of his amazing knives by cutting a steel hammer. The girls were drunk and they end up with the whole set of knives and a couple of extras chucked in thanks to their flirtatious charms.
(Should selling knives to drunken people be legal? No that's my non-drinking puritan speaking again. Shut up you frigid, 16th century, German fucker).
When they get home excited with their purchases I challenge them to cut my axe. My axe featured previously in this blog when it cut into the authors flesh. The axe, once again, prevails; the axe is unharmed but the knife loses its edge.
Drunk with the victory, and aided by my hand, the axe starts hitting the knife and, to be fair, the axe doesn't cause a hell of allot of damage. It bends it a bit and breaks off the tip, but that's O.K. because the salesman had made it clear to the girls the knife has a lifetimes guarantee!
so as the axe wielder it’s my job to post the knife back to the company amd provide teh cheque for £2 postage and packing (always read the small print). I’d thought you might like to see the letter I enclosed:
Twin Towers Trading Limited
European Headquarters
Unit 4A
Norman Hensher Buildings
Continental Approach
Westwood Industrial Estate
Margate
Kent
CT9 4JG
Dear Sir/Madam
LIFETIME GUARANTEE, TV KNIFE
I broke my T.V. knife! I was distraught, as I’m sure you can imagine. I was trying to cut an axe with my TV Knife when I slipped and started hitting the knife with the axe. Curse my foolhardy ways I thought.
Then I remembered your lifetime guarantee, and your clause to replace the knife should it become damaged, free of charge, regardless of the cause.
Phewee!
I promise not to do it again.
Yours faithfully
Philip Knight
P.S. What an unfortunate company name, I hope you didn’t guarantee the Twin Towers too!
I've discovered that there are a number of videos of people catapulting squirrels on Youtube. Novel idea, not something I've tried myself.
I've chosen to feature this one as it stars a Grey squirrel as the one with the red squirrel seemed wrong.
If anyone thinks this is wrong you should see the video of a gang of squirrels catapulting a human baby. Now that's sick, I couldn't feature it for the sake of common decency.]
People keep removing this video from Youtube. I think it might be considered cruel; whatever!
Try searching for it yourself, if your that way inclined.
People are just starting to wake up to the fact that squirrels, the squirrels that had been happily living amongst us, are becoming increasingly violent and perhaps even evil. An examination of the global news media yields an alarming number of reports; some of the attacks are described as “VICIOUS”.
American news channel CBS5 ran this report on a gang of violent squirrels in Cuesta Park in California. The latest victim was four-year-old Hayley Allard. (There is a great video clip on this website, I wanted to import it to this blog but was thwarted, watch it.)
Squirrels in Cuesta Park have attacked at least 20 people since last spring. Hayley had to get a tetanus shot.
The Swindon Advertiser ran this report of a VICIOUS squirrel attack on a small boy and his mum. The Mum received wounds:
“There was blood everywhere all down my arms and over my clothes”
And of course there is the now infamous and widely reported case of the Russian squirrels killing and devouring a stray dog in December 05. This blog reported it as did the BBC among other organisations.
USA today posted this report in January 06. A postal worker in a place called Oil City Pa. was attacked.
"It was a freak thing. It was traumatic," Dougherty told The Derrick in Oil City. "I saw it there on the porch, put the mail in the box and turned to walk away and it jumped on me."
An ambulance took Dougherty to the hospital, where she was treated for cuts and scratches. The squirrel was killed with a BB gun and sent to a lab to be tested for rabies.
A quick search of Blogland seems to confirm the phenomenon with a growing body of anecdotal evidence.
An American called John Miglautsch was attacked while hunting.
"He took off, leaping right up at my face".
Blog.co.uk's Janey Godley,
“Then they rushed towards my legs and jumped around looking at me as if saying, ‘O.K. Fatty where are the nuts and raisins’?”
An American Cyclist,
". . . a KS [Killer Squirrel] darted straight out from the side of the road and threw itself right into the right-hand peddle. The force of impact was considerably greater than one might imagine, and a hole was torn in the shoe."
And on YouTube this video clip of an actual attack inside the home of a young American Couple.
The evidence is overwhelming, but why. We used to live harmoniously and now it’s war. Why has this situation arisen? This post was in fact triggered by an observation of a friend. Lindsay noted that the squirrels that live in the large Oak behind his house had not hibernated this year.
My hypothesis is that lack of sleep is making squirrels violent. I realise I am in danger of being accused of anthropomorphism, but I put it to you, could the lack of sleep be affecting the squirrel’s ability to make moral judgements.
The U.S. army was recently faced with a similar problem. Their heavily armed and trained to kill soldiers had committed a number of horrifically violent war crimes in the war zone that is Iraq. Could it be lack of sleep that is causing our all American heros to become VICIOUS arseholes? This was their hypothesise and low and behold it was true, as this study reported on the BBC suggests.
The BBC reports, “The US military is currently investigating how little sleep soldiers can safely get by on and whether drugs can help them to stay alert for longer without sleep.” (Heavily armed soldiers on drugs, does this sound like a good idea to anyone?)
Could the same phenomenon be causing squirrels to turn evil and attack humans?
The evidence would suggest there are grounds for further study. Perhaps we could give squirrels drugs and see if they attack less people?
Of course it could be the crack they are all addicted to which is causing the violence in the first place!
Well I found Richard Dawkin's website and I've sent them an email. I do hope it reaches him. I made a screenshot of it, see below. In the email I attempt to answer a question he asked in a lecture, you can hear him ask this question in my previous blog.
O.K. so my name's not Martin Johnson, I wasn't going to put a pseudonym to a discovery like this. I’ve inserted my answer to Dawkin’s question into this blog for you to Enjoy:
I've been listening to one of the Ted Talks I advocated below and something Richard Dawkins said in his talk entitled, Mind-Bending Nature, struck me as so achingly profound that I set myself to the task of isolating it for posterity and publishing it here.
Yes Richard Dawkin Hypothesising the existence of something so queer that no being or deity could dream them.
I'm afraid I’ve already had a dream about Graham Norton so that rules him out.
Check out the response this journalist got to an article about homicides (that means murder and it has nothing to do with gays) in Oakland California, the city with the eigth highest rate of homicide in the U.S. in 2006.
I haven’t discussed sobriety for a while, this isn’t because I’ve been getting drunk. I can assure you I’ve been as sober as a judge officer. My friend Kate squirted beer in my mouth with a little water pistol, but this doesn’t count as it was beyond my control and most of it just went in my face. She has since apologised and assures me that this was not a deliberate attempt to knock me from my wagon she just forgot I was on one.
In fact everyone seems to be forgetting that I’ve stopped drinking. I told my flatmate Tom that I had a headache this morning and he said the usual, “well you did drink a lot last night”. I didn’t, he should know he was there. Sods law that I get a headache Sunday morning. Perhaps headaches the next day aren’t the booze after all; maybe it’s something you catch from the urinals!
Now allow me to rant a little about the drinks on offer to the non drinker. Lime and soda has been my tipple of choice, however it has disadvantages. Other than the fact that I suspect it’s bringing me out in a rash it is highly variable in both price and quality. Last night I paid over £3 for half a pint of almost undrinkable lime and soda in one pub. It was made up of 2 small bottles of what I suspect were tonic water, the type you use as mixers, and about 100 ml of lime cordial over a couple of ice cubes.
The most annoying thing was the pints in this pub were only £2.50 and by the look and lovely smell of them were really yummy. (Oh beer how I pine for your delicious smell and lovely taste.) The pub was a charming East End boozer close to my friend’s house in Stepney Green. The bar maids were all really brown in a freckly, been under a sun bed too long, way and everyone was so friendly that I didn’t want to make a scene about the quality of their soda mixing. They mustn’t get many non-drinkers in there, but if they do then they must be subsidising the price of a pint.
I thought I would take advantage of today’s lovely weather by heading up to Blackheath in S.E. London for some afternoon kite flying. What do you do when you're bored of trying to dive bomb your mate? tie your phone to the kite with a piece of string and record an in-flight movie. The intention was an interesting aerial view of Blackheath; the result was total digital chaos, you can just about make out that there's not a cloud in the sky. If I’ve done this right you should be able to see for yourself:
If you actually want an aerial view of Blackheath, you can always use Google! (The arrow shows the site of the film).
I came across a most thought provoking website. TED, as far as I understand it's a kind of Glastonbury for thinkers (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design). On the website you can Watch Video Clips of some of the speakers.
I've watched Eve Ensler, the writer of The Vagina Monologues; she talks about some of her experiences and the woman she has met. She was very interesting.
I've watched Steven Levitt, who talks about the economics of 1990s Crack gangs in Chicago. He is the author of the book Freakonomics, which I've read, this is basically one of the chapters. It was entertaining.
I've also watched Bjorn Lomborg, he talked about something called the Copenhagen Consencus which is basically an attempt to prioritise the worlds major problems.
I also started watching a lady called Mena Trott talk about Blogs, she was dull so I stopped. Typical fucking blogger!
I went to work today and told everyone that I’d spent Saturday night watching the eclipse. I described how I had tracked the shadow of the earth as it spread across the face of our nearest celestial neighbour; i.e. I had spent Saturday night in the garden with a cup of tea staring at the moon for about 2 hours.
My, 40 something mother of three, colleague was the first to point out that I’m really sad and this, it appears, is the general consensus.
I didn’t shame myself, but I don’t think I did my reputation any favours either!
The other slightly disparaging event that occurred this weekend was a conversation I had in the pub on Sunday night. I was ordering my fourth pint of lime and soda when the lady serving me asked, “So you don’t drink then?”
“No I’ve given up for lent” (O.K. so I’ve given up for 30 days, I lied for simplicities sake; also I’ve dropped the joke about the devil tempting me with a ski holiday as it repeatedly misses the mark.) She went on to tell me,
“There’s a fella that comes in here all the time that gives up every year for lent, I've know him for the last six years and he does it every year without fail. He usually drinks 10/15 pints of Guinness a day, but every lent, no problem, he just stops drinking.”
”Does he still come in when he's given up?” I ask
”Yer, he was in the other day because he was doing some work for us, but he
hasn't been in for a while as he's down the hospital having a heart bypass
done.”
This confirms my suspicions that this endevour is more usefull as an exercise in self control than a health drive.
In other news Dixon Bainbridge and Bob Fossil have collaborated on a new sketch show called Snuff Box and it’s on BBC three. Now I’ve only just found out about this. Has it already been on, is it coming soon? I don’t know. I’m no expert. I’ve checked out clips on the BBC and it seems most promising. This is my favourite.
Today is day eleven and I have to confess I’ve hit the wall. I’ve been grouchy for about three days. I’m hoping to put this down to the lunar eclipse which is ongoing as we speak. Nothing spectacular has happened as yet, but later on I shall be howling my frustrations out at the blood moon.
I completed a quiz on a webpage to find out how much of a drinker I was, here is their verdict:
Your score is 60%. According to the Office of Health Care Programs, Johns Hopkins University Hospital, developers of this screening quiz, if you answered as few as 3 of these questions with a Yes it is a definite sign that your drinking patterns are harmful and considered alcohol dependent or alcoholic. Since you answered more than half of these questions Yes you should definitely seek an evaluation by a healthcare professional as soon as possible.
Pretty damming! I know I wasn't that bad and before you say it I’m not in denial, I’m not, I SAID I’M NOT IN DENIAL. What am I denying then! WHAT!
It was when I was answering the questions, is drinking affecting your reputation? And have you ever felt remorse after drinking? That I started to think about the things that I probably shouldn’t have done and how they may have affected my reputation. Then I started thinking just perhaps the things I’ve done might be alright and some of the things I’ve done when drunk which I’m actually very proud of.
Take this example; at the last work function I hatched a plan to attach people’s nametags to members of the board. I managed to attach a discarded nametag to the back of the chief financial officer. I got away with it, but I then went on to promote the game enthusiastically to other colleagues. No one else was willing to risk their jobs and follow me, except one guy from finance in whose eyes for a short while I became a hero.
Should I be ashamed of this: While drunk I once convinced a man in a pub in Bath that I had eaten BBQ Panda while on holiday in China. I was so convincing he attacked me. Now that’s not nice, upsetting frankly stupid people on a night out?
How about this: I once smoked a cigarette made from the pubes of all the people sat at my table in the pub. (I wasn’t the only one to smoke it, we passed it round). Now that surely is shameful?
Other shameful events include the usual puking in cars during my teens, dancing/karaoke, getting my arse out at weddings, losing my bike in Tokyo and going to a fancy dress party without a costume with a potato sellotaped to my face as a pseudo costume (?).
Of course there are things to be proud of too: I once leapfrogged a post box, (yes a big red one it was breathtaking, this was part of an impromptu song and dance routine a group of friends and I broke into when we realised we were in Gay Street.) I also once put a whole scarf in my mouth!
So it’s a mixed bunch really, hang my head in shame and get down the doctors for some serious therapy, or don’t worry your life is rich and far from being the kind of hell usually associated with alcoholism, but you really should display a little control while around members of the board.
