Wings Over the Pyre

08:21 pm - Strangest Skype Spam to Date, Seriously

No, really:

[7/16/2007 3:43:07 AM] candy says: Good Day! Noted yr details. At present we are covered already for most of chinese seafood products. Anyway you can keep me informed of yr offers n I’ll check them from time to time [7/16/2007 3:46:41 AM] candy says: just kidding :D [7/16/2007 3:46:43 AM] candy says:

I am Candy Xu from Fujian Western Gulf Seafood Co,.Ltd ( China).

We are specializing in exporting seafood all over the world. We process squid in our plant which is our main line of business—- Squid Carving, Squid Tube, Raw Squid Rings, and Squid T+T Loligo Chinesis. Now we have an exciting new development happening - our company is widening our business activities, such as Ribbonfish, baby cuttlefish and so on . .

If you can tell me what kind of product which we have you are buying with specifications, I shall be able to come up with a quote of our offer.

P.S. could I have your other contact way like SKYPE or MSN, mine: SKYPE candyxuting MSN: xutingcandy@hotmail.com Yahoo: xutingcandy@yahoo.com.cn

Squid carving? Squid carving!? I’m not sure whether to be terrified, horrified, or simply appalled … I realize I have a personal reputation, but really. Squid carving.

But doesn’t the name Candy Xu sound like a Chinese stripper?

Current Mood: horny

05:12 am - Maybe They Can Be Taught

OK, truth. Probably not.

Session Start (exopilot:rose_eve201): Mon Dec 11 04:50:56 2006
[04:50] rose_eve201: <ding>
[04:51] rose_eve201: hello
[04:51] rose_eve201: how are you doing today????
[04:51] rose_eve201: <ding>
[04:51] exopilot: Murderously destructive, as I often are.
[04:51] rose_eve201: hi
[04:52] exopilot: Lo.
[04:52] rose_eve201: what is ypur name
[04:53] exopilot: What, you can't be bothered to have actually looked at my Profile before you try and scam me? I mean ... it's kind of mildly insulting.
[04:53] rose_eve201: no
[04:53] exopilot: Just curious.
[04:53] rose_eve201: not****really
[04:54] rose_eve201: okay
[04:54] rose_eve201: what did you doing in living
[04:54] rose_eve201: ??
[04:54] exopilot: Obviously not teaching grammar, I fear.
[04:55] rose_eve201: that nice
[04:55] rose_eve201: your name
[04:56] exopilot: Dear Hell below. Can we just get to the bit where you tell me you're a CEO of daddy's company or import / export business and are wondering if I want a business opportunity? I'm thrilled the scam is actually involving folks with almost-filled-out Profiles these days, but c'mon ... A little talent please.
[04:56] rose_eve201: <ding>
[04:57] rose_eve201: common what is the mean of this
[04:57] exopilot: And, whatever you do, cut out the bell thing. It gets absolutely no traction. No one likes it.
[04:57] exopilot: I swear, at this point I should just teach First Year Scamming at university. It pains me to see it so poorly done.
[04:57] rose_eve201: i dont underasand
[04:58] exopilot: No, you don't. Which is, of course, part of the problem. Where are you? Ghana? Nigeria? Some third world country with barely-compregended Internet infrastructure?
[04:58] rose_eve201: <ding>
[04:59] exopilot: Yes, that bell. Stop it.

Hey, it's less than 5min long this time. Possibly because my patience is pretty much gone for folks doing a lousy job of the whole scam. Yes, they have sketchily filled-out Profiles with pictures of young, pretty girls on them ... which makes the scam all the more ludicrous, once they actually try to convince you they need you to pick up some money or do a transaction for their "daddy's business."

I swear, they could quintuple the number of dupes by doing two simple things:

• Find some people that can actually speak and read idiosyncratic English.
  More expensive to find the literate, but it's far easier to believe someone that sounds like they might be remotely like educated.
• Have their fishing bot grab and parse out basic info from a respondent's Profile.
  Hades knows there's a bot throwing out a dozen or so "hi" initiations every time they cycle. It's a SMoP to have it grab a response stream, which suggests there's someone live, pull the target's Profile and put the relevant info (name, age, gender) in the prequel to the con's window, if the info's available. Then at least it makes it look as if the con has actually been looking for the mark and not just a random sweep.

Honestly, it's just pathetic how bad a job these folks do. They really don't know anything about the marks they can milk, they're just going through a badly written script, possibly with bot assistance.

I hate incompetence.

Current Mood: grumpy

08:45 pm - Dear Hell, They Never Learn

I swear, there must be some secret cache of scammer IM addresses I get thrown into repeatedly because I am disturbingly entertaining:

Session Start (exopilot:chidon98): Thu Dec 07 17:12:00 2006
[17:12] chidon98: hello
[17:12] chidon98: <ding>
[17:12] exopilot: Ave.
[17:12] chidon98: how are u
[17:13] exopilot: Murderously sociopathic, but with a strange whimsical charm.
[17:14] chidon98: are u on cam
[17:14] exopilot: Never. The mind of man was not constructed for such rugose and squamus horrors.
[17:15] chidon98: i can see ur cam
[17:15] chidon98: where are u from
[17:15] exopilot: Ur in my kam, killin' my komrades?
[17:16] chidon98: i don,t understand

( In Ur Kam! )

Current Mood: grumpy

04:32 am - Scamming 102: Knowing When to Close Out

They never, ever learn:

Session Start (exopilot:sarah_whity2005): Fri Nov 17 04:15:20 2006
[04:15] sarah_whity2005: <ding>
[04:15] sarah_whity2005: are you there now
[04:15] sarah_whity2005: ?
[04:16] exopilot: Nope, completely somewhere else.
[04:16] sarah_whity2005: ok
[04:17] sarah_whity2005: i believe you get back to me when you're less busy
[04:17] sarah_whity2005: ?

( The Nightmare Continues )

I mean, seriously. They never learn.

Lesson 101 is get someone who can speak competent English, grammar and spelling. Lesson 102 is make sure said person can understand gross shadings of idiom.

Is this stuff seriously so successful that they get some benefit from spamming folks for stupid credit scams via IM? It kills me that there are that many stupid people on Earth.

Current Mood: cranky

09:57 pm - Fun With Bots Part 1e17.45

Yes, its that time again ...

Session Start (exopilot:acmexgurl): Sat Aug 05 21:32:05 2006
[21:32] acmexgurl: hi... anyone therre?
[21:32] acmexgurl: well anyway, gguess your not there?
[21:46] exopilot: Only transiently so.
[21:46] acmexgurl: hold on a sec. be right back
[21:46] acmexgurl: ok im back. sorry bout that. sstill there?
[21:46] exopilot: Mostly.
[21:46] acmexgurl: oh your tthere :) hi...
[21:47] acmexgurl: a/s/l (age seex location)?
[21:47] exopilot: You mean, you haven't read my profile?
[21:48] acmexgurl: im 27/f/USA. was lookin at your profile. thought you might like to chat.
[21:48] acmexgurl: so what have ou been up to exopilot?
[21:48] exopilot: Arguably, if you'd looked at my profile, you'd know my ASL. In theory. In an assumptive mode.
[21:48] acmexgurl: cool. i was just hangin out waatching tv. i was getting kinda horny :) (*blushes)
[21:49] exopilot: Ah, yes, a different bot script intro. They are getting cleverer, though not as clever as the "contact my other login" ones. That was a brilliant innovation.
[21:49] acmexgurl: bot? whats that? some kinda insult or something?
[21:49] acmexgurl: feel like a littlle cyber fun with me ? please please...
[21:49] exopilot: No, its more an automoton nomenclature.
[21:49] acmexgurl: oh well your loss. why dont you open up my profile and see what you missed out on. theres a link there to my homepage where i have ssome real nice pics to leave with.
[21:50] exopilot: I suppose recoding you with an Eliza recognition library and a human backup would be too much like fun. Though cyber fun.
[21:50] exopilot: Ah, well, life continues apace and I have more material for my blog.

I swear, the bots lately are either getting smarter or dumber.

The big one recently has been a swarm of "hi, my login here's flaky so contact my other id" intros, which is actually a brilliant bot innovation because it first-cuts the live folks dumb enough to respond from the rest. Of course, the fact they tend to send out five different ones with the same construction within 30sec of each other is ... beyond annoying. Its inane.

I wonder how much business these things actually manage to make?

Current Mood: annoyed

10:56 pm - Most Easygoing Net.Sex Solicitor Ever

[22:53] needin_luv_care: hello
[22:53] exopilot: Ave.
[22:54] needin_luv_care: can we get along?
[22:54] exopilot: Likely not; my knowledge-base is littered with the annals of people I don't get along with.
[22:54] needin_luv_care: ok
[22:54] needin_luv_care: see ya

As opposed to the vast number which are bots which don't know the word "annals," this one got it. Excellent.

Current Mood: annoyed

05:35 am - Picture in Picture!

[05:31] point5b: You realize, pics of naked models intently playing computer games would sell, even if they were actually playing and exhibiting common bad posture.
[05:31] exopilot: Well, yeah.
[05:32] exopilot: Maybe even better.
[05:32] exopilot: "Live webcam, naked girl raiding Stratholme!"
[05:32] point5b: :D
[05:32] point5b: With PiP for the raid itself.
[05:32] exopilot: Exactly.
[05:32] exopilot: And, vs the boss, reverse screens.
[05:32] point5b: So we can see WHY she's hooting and yelling.
[05:33] exopilot: "Ooooh, Ragnos! *fap fap fap*"
[05:33] point5b: *shudders*
[05:33] point5b: Too realistic for me, man.
[05:33] exopilot: I have to know all foulness.

Look, folks, you're not around at 5a on a Friday. You just don't know what its like to be going through porn writing amusing captions and critiquing the content.

Yeah, its sad. But we're hardcore.

Later ...

[05:55] point5b: What is wrong with me that I gag-caption soft core porn?
[05:55] point5b: *laughs*
[05:55] exopilot: What's wrong with me that I hep?
[05:56] point5b: "We're captioning porn, and I he'pped!"
[05:56] exopilot: Of course, "gag-captioning" hardcore porn would be a wholly different meaning.
[05:56] point5b: *snarfs*

Its a sad world.

Current Mood: amused

11:19 pm - It's Not Like You Weren't Warned

At least the AIM random chats I get aren't bots:

Session Start (exopilot:xDreaminOfYouOx3): Thu May 25 22:45:55 2006
[22:45] xDreaminOfYouOx3: hey baby
[22:46] exopilot: Ave.
[22:46] xDreaminOfYouOx3: ???
[22:46] exopilot: Hello. Latin. Its a hobby. What brings you by my delicately pointed ear tonight?
[22:47] xDreaminOfYouOx3: i had fun stalking you today.. you looked hott inm that brown shirt
[22:47] xDreaminOfYouOx3: at the melbourne square mall
[22:48] exopilot: [looks amused] Unfortunately, I think you have the wrong psychopathic entity.
[22:48] xDreaminOfYouOx3: no
[22:48] xDreaminOfYouOx3: hello skyler
[22:48] xDreaminOfYouOx3: wanna play a game?
[22:48] exopilot: No, definitely no Skyler here. Though one of these days I need to invest in a stalker. I hear they can be useful.

( More, Oh Yes, Within )

[23:10] xDreaminOfYouOx3: and please seriously, stop talking all sophisticated and crap
[23:10] exopilot: I'm afraid it goes with advanced age. I'm over 30; I thus cannot be trusted.
[23:11] xDreaminOfYouOx3: yea thats right
[23:12] exopilot: I'd get out my cane and old-man-glasses, but its 11p, and I can't be expected to have all my props readily at hand.
[23:12] xDreaminOfYouOx3: i thought you were 30
[23:12] xDreaminOfYouOx3: not 80
[23:12] xDreaminOfYouOx3: brb
[23:12] exopilot: 34. I only act 80.
[23:14] xDreaminOfYouOx3: DONT TALK TO ME!
[23:14] xDreaminOfYouOx3: BYE

I mean, its not like I don't give people fair warning before I start dragging hard on their eyeballs and simply mocking them. Unfortunately, no embarrassing digital photos came into my possession from this chat.

Can't win every time, I suppose.

Current Mood: amused

08:28 pm - How Not to Raise Awareness

From Yahoo:

[19:59] powderybeachsand: Hello
[20:01] exopilot: Ave.
[20:01] powderybeachsand: How are you?
[20:01] exopilot: Well enough. Preparing for the evening's entertainment.
[20:02] powderybeachsand: In case you are willing, please visit www.undoit.org/home.cfm
[20:02] powderybeachsand: undoit.org is a site that enables people to sign a petition to minimize polluting emissions. Their goal is one-million signatures.
[20:03] exopilot: This assumes I would be interested in reducing pollution or laboured under the delusion that some set of signatures could accomplish it if so. Neither of these things are true.

I'm just really curious how the thought of random folks popping out of the woodwork is supposed to encourage the attachment of others to the cause. I mean, yes, I know the enviro-wacks are perfectly willing to sign petitions banning dihydrogen monoxide, as Bullshit so perfectly demonstrated, but there's a certain point where you'd think people would actually clue up.

Companies already have strong pressure on them to reduce polluting emissions, if only because every emission your factory / function creates is waste. Its something you paid for that you're not getting use from. Reduce waste in general, increase the overall bottom line. Entropy sees to it that there'll always be some waste, but no one likes it.

Moreover, why would "one million signatures say you should reduce waste emissions" be any more moving than "one million people say puppies are cute" or "one million people think war is bad." The phrase that comes to mind is "So fucking what?" How deluded do you have to be as to your own importance to think being one of a million signatures on something so vapid is somehow meaningful?

You might as well become a blogger. No one'll read you, but at least you get writing exercise.

Imbeciles. When I rule humanity with an iron tentacle, I'll have them tortured for my amusement. Good thing they've been so kind as to sign their names at a central registry.

Current Mood: annoyed

05:19 am

It has just been the night for odd AIM IMs, as opposed to the usual Yahoo bunch.

[05:02] studleyqbeefpile: ILLEGAL COCAINE IS COMING INTO OUR COUNTRY AT ALARMING LEVELS
[05:02] exopilot: As opposed to all that legal cocaine?
[05:02] studleyqbeefpile: humm
[05:02] studleyqbeefpile: yess
[05:03] exopilot: That statement begs a thousand more questions, not least among them being what "alarming levels" are, and would it be any better if it were legal cocaine.
[05:03] studleyqbeefpile: it should be legal
[05:03] exopilot: Oh, I agree. Totally. I want life to be more toxic to kill off the unrepentantly stupid. But why are you spamming me about it?
[05:05] studleyqbeefpile: spamming?
[05:05] studleyqbeefpile: humm i'm sorry but i haven't sent you anything....i don't even know you
[05:05] exopilot: I don't know you. There's no reason I'd be interested in hearing your message, nor would you think I would. Ergo, you're spamming my ear uninvited. And worse, in all caps.
[05:06] exopilot: I pointedly refer you to: [05:02] studleyqbeefpile: ILLEGAL COCAINE IS COMING INTO OUR COUNTRY AT ALARMING LEVELS
[05:07] studleyqbeefpile: sorry, never sent that out....unless i have some odd virus
[05:07] exopilot: I suggest a serious system scrubbing for you.
[05:08] studleyqbeefpile: thanks, I'll consider that
[05:08] studleyqbeefpile: sorry for the mishap
[05:08] exopilot: Indeed.
[05:09] studleyqbeefpile: goodbye

And this is after the rather extended discussion I had with what I thought, at first, was a sexbot troll, but in the end turned out to be an actual human being who could spell and use grammar!

Session Start (exopilot:SpiceGirl69420): Fri Mar 17 03:00:08 2006
[03:00] SpiceGirl69420: Hello? Is anyone there?
[03:00] exopilot: Abducted by aliens. Its actually not that bad, save for the probing.
[03:01] SpiceGirl69420: Oh, hello. I was just browsing, found your profile, and thought you might like to talk, unless you are busy with that.
[03:02] exopilot: Well, alien abduction is a busy effort. They keep having me do phone support for some product I've never heard of and anal probing me every half hour. Really, its a lot like working for HP without the pay.
[03:02] SpiceGirl69420: Sounds like you've been busy.
[03:03] exopilot: There's a certain charm to the room they have me in. Its done up in early 80's kitch with a 300 baud accoustic coupler modem.
[03:03] SpiceGirl69420: I'm so sorry. Btw, a/s/l?
[03:04] exopilot: 45 / Male, last they let me check / Somewhere spinwards of Alpha Centauri. I can't be sure, they don't give access to star charts in here.
[03:04] SpiceGirl69420: I'm 24/f/US. That sounds far away.
( ... )

Amusingly, I kept the poor girl/guy (you just can't be sure of gender online, though I actually think it was a she ... I think) talking for a good hour and a half with my line of amusing patter and my charming, yet casually dismissive, style. The strange part is that one can never be quite sure why folks like this come out of the woodwork. I mean, Yahoo IM has Profiles that you can auto-farm out, but AIM's logins are slightly harder to get to. Fascinating stuff, really.

At least I can relax and relish the knowledge that I'm a fascinating, compelling writer with the ability to attract weirdos from all over the planet, even to my digital shadow.

Current Mood: amused

01:17 am

If they're going to be bots, by Hell, so can I!

[19:50] trihpwire23: hi... anyoone there?
[19:51] exopilot: Nope, purely an automated relay system out here. Absolutely inhuman.
[19:51] trihpwire23: oh your there :) hi....
[19:51] exopilot: Ave.
[19:51] trihpwire23: a/s/l (age seex location)?
[19:52] exopilot: 6.5 million / Gender: Not Applicable / Sirius. As I said, automated relay station. We don't get many visitors out here.
[19:53] trihpwire23: im 27/f/USA. was lookin at your profile. thought you might like too chat.
[19:53] trihpwire23: :)
[19:53] trihpwire23: so what have you been up to exopiilot?
[19:53] exopilot: Oh, just taking signals from here and there. Feeding code down to the invasion fleet staged at Alpha Centauri. Really, automated relay work is less than fully engaging.
[19:54] trihpwire23: cool. i was just hangin out watching tv. i was gettting kinda horny :) (*blushes)
[19:54] trihpwire23: oh no not work... thats a 4 letter wordd you know..
[19:54] trihpwire23: feel like a little cybber fun with me ? please please...
[19:55] exopilot: Undoubtedly, sexual appetite is linked to your biological drives. Being free from that particular burden is actually a significant bonus. The closest I come to that is observing solar flare activity at Sirius.
[19:55] trihpwire23: cyberfungirlss dot com. look for me on that page
[19:56] exopilot: I dare say its probably filtered by the Sirian Consolate. Artificial Intelligences are prohibited from engaging in pseudo-erotic interchange with flesh-bags.
[19:57] trihpwire23: i think ill just takr that as a yes... being as that im starting to get real horny here.. lol ok?
[19:58] exopilot: Absolutely. This plays into the Sirian Interchange of Culture's ongoing presentations about your kind. Enslaved by subconscious drives to serve nothing but procreation, you will be easy prey for my mechanical bretheren.
[19:59] trihpwire23: oh well your loss. why dont you open up my profile and see what you missed out on. theres a link there to my homepage where i have some real nice pics to leave witth.
19:59] exopilot: We will mark it as a site of future incendiary appropriation. Thank you for bringing it to this relay's attention.

I swear, the bots really don't get very bright. Eliza is brighter, or at least more reactive.

Current Mood: grumpy

05:23 am - CyberBot

You know, I don't even have to respond to this madness to have the cybersex modules come looking for me! This time, its from Yahoo, not AIM:

[02:59] nothatshy: hi... anyonr there?
[02:59] *** Auto-response sent to nothatshy: I am currently idle.
[03:00] nothatshy: oh your there :) hi...
[03:00] nothatshy: a/s/l (age sex locatiion)?
[03:02] nothatshy: im 27/f/USA. was lookin at your profille. thought you might like to chat.
[03:02] nothatshy: so wht have you been up to exopilot?
[03:02] nothatshy: cool. i was just hangin out watching tv. i was gettting kinda horny :) (*blushes)
[03:03] nothatshy: feel like a little cyber fun with me ? pleaase please...
[03:23] exopilot: [looks arch] What would be my encouragement for such a thing with so obvious a bot?

I mean, for Hades' sake ... I didn't respond once to the monologue. Some script-kiddy's fishing bot needs some serious tuning.

Current Mood: gloomy

10:42 pm - Sex and the Unwritten Rule

The unwritten rule being, "Never fuck anyone crazier than yourself." The correlary is "Never attempt gay cybersex with a straight man whose vocabulary dwarfs your cultural and social heritage for a good six generations."

Some people never learn.

( AIM: EmoIndieKid3 Trolls For Nixon )

I admit, I couldn't resist a reference to Munchkin, D&D, and the Thomas Covenant saga in one brief burst of geeky dialectic there at the end. Apparently, it was a stunning blow.

Current Mood: discontent

08:43 pm - Lost in Xlation

Again, random Yahoo chat initiations never cease to amuse me, because I'm a bad person:

[20:38] m_n9119: hello
[20:38] exopilot: Ave.
[20:39] m_n9119: we can chat
[20:39] exopilot: We can, but why should we?
[20:39] m_n9119: me /u
[20:39] exopilot: Slash me? A recipe for a good modern horror film, but hardly motivation for chatting.

Current Mood: annoyed

06:54 am - There Are None So Blind

I'm beginning to think I've passed some secret phase line in my existence as an adult where, aside from a few very special exceptions (like riomccarthy, for example), I've become completely unable to accept those significantly younger than I as my intellectual, emotional, or even spiritual equals -- and my readers know exactly how much stock I put in spiritual development, so that's saying something. It seems every time they expose me to what passes for cognition on their part, all I end up doing is shaking my head and looking vaguely disgusted at the shallowness and hypocrisy that dwells right next to an unctuous moral superiority.

This from a man who listens to Gwar and Peelander-Z.

The problem is that they seem Hell-bent on making it impossible for me to hide my disdain. From the young woman the other night who had the sheer audacity to say, "And the war in Iraq is the dumbest thing evah!" and had no riposite when I glibly and bitterly snarled, "Yes, freeing fifty-million people from the yoke of oppression is stupid. Who'd want to do something so immensely insanely stupid like that? Spreading democracy and freedom through areas which have lived under iron rule of fear for decades? Only an imbecile would care for their fellow man like that. What a moron!" If you can't answer something so clearly an obvious response, why even bother having an opinion in the first place? You clearly haven't earned it.

Which brings us to Mr Rushing, on Yahoo Messenger. Be careful, the accumulated mass of ignorance is marginally on the edge of imploding into a neutron star. If you enjoy watching me be condescending and disgustingly irritated, read on, good fellows, read on:

( Rushing To Destruction )

Before we go any further, feel free to drop Mr Rushing a quick line on Yahoo, whether it be email or IM. I'm sure he'll appreciate your comments on his thoughts and defenses. After all, he wants to change the world, and what better way to be aware of how much you've changed the world than strangers mocking you? I'm doing it publicly, but you can do so privately, if you've the inclination. Perhaps the kid'll even discover the idea that simple, socially networked technologies are the here and now, and if you want to change the world, there's no better day to start than today.

But I digress.

What I really want to talk about is the idea of conspiracy theory as religious metaphor and fairy tale. Ultimately, a conspiracy theory falls apart to the sane inquisitor beneath the weight of expecting people to act in ways utterly not in their best interests, without truly compelling reason to. A conspiracy theorist privileges their own erudition and wisdom at the expense of the supposed conspirators'. This is exactly the same behaviour among those embracing the religious doctrine as a fundamental literal truth, or the underpinnings of the morality tale in faerie clothing. All of them make use of the simplification and de-complexity of an involved situation so a lesser mind has a chance to grasp it. Greater minds can use them as the basis of an understanding, but just as an enlightened Christian (I'm sure they exist) understands that the rich can be just, wise, and holy, and the suggestion that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man through the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven was a bit of political pandering when it was more useful to play to the poor masses and assure them of their worth and the justice of the afterlife from their perspective, the strong mind grows past the parable and the faerie tale to nuanced understanding.

The conspiracy theory holds great promise when you're young and the vast and bewildering variety of human motivations has yet to unfold before you in all its nightmarish excess. When you believe everyone thinks either exactly like you, or exactly differently, its easy to imagine great shoals of the like-minded. In theory, as you age, mature, and become more cynical, the conspiracy theory falls away to be replaced by a more agent-based description of the architecture of life. To wit:

Everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story.

Its glib, but a world of complexity is enfolded within. There needs be no conspiracy, just people responding to a similarly perceived problem, as they see it, individually.

The very moment the world goes from a network of conspiracies to a whole lot of people trying to make their way as best they can (even if they're largely fucking it up), you've began the transition to true adulthood.

Current Mood: cranky

07:31 am - Speaking of Morons

I do have the most bizarre ability to attract folks who want to strike up a conversation, clearly and obviously knowing nothing of who I am or what I do, despite having it posted prominently in my Yahoo profile (its always Yahoo), and who inevitably turn to some sort of scam.

These days, I just don't bother engaging seriously, but I often can't help responding at all ... because its always good to be reminded how inherently superior one is.

This is a short, but deft, one of those.

( She Says She's Pretty )

This one likely requires some discussion, especially that closer.

See, at the time, I was playing World of Warcraft with Heather and Mike, with live chat being provided by Skype. Cue this idiot to wander into my field of vision while I'm hurling curses (and imprecations) at Jungle Slashers, Panthers (for their panth) and the like.

It was Heather's idea to start passing myself off as female. After all, "Alex" could be the other gender. I think it might be an excellent way to induce mind-fuck in my interlocutors in the future. I've added it to my repitoire of enjoyment.

Current Mood: aggravated

06:58 am - South Africa Strikes Again

You know, the stupid Nigerian credit scam just keeps coming. Email, this time.

( Nigerian Credit Scams; do they ever end? )

I really have to ask, how could anyone, anywhere, fall for anything so screamingly inane? The sheer degree of stupidity required is stunning, absolutely stunning.

Current Mood: grumpy

04:34 am - WWII Online

You know, I occasionally stumble over things that make me grin. Sometimes they're thrown at me. Eric the .5b is often responsible for many of the latter.

Such as If WWII were fought by online gamers ...

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got crap to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO

( ( More ) )

Read the whole thing, its brain-breaking fun. Perversely, the real WWII Online MMORPG is still a going concern, and receiving decent reviews amongst the historical warfare grognards of the world. Who knew?

Current Mood: amused

06:59 am - The Scent of Scam Is In the Air

I swear, what is it with "female" Nigerian credit scammers that keeps luring them back to me. My brilliance? My unquestioned good looks? My infinite well of finances that lets me live in the lap of decadent American luxury?

Whatever it is, I'm getting pretty sick of it. Tonight's farce is endless amusement, and I bring it to you unedited:

( The Princess and the Piss )

Ah, sadly, that brought our enlightening conversation to a close. So very sad.

I keep wondering if there are actually people that fall for this kind of shite. Really. I mean, you'd have to have full-on cranial-rectal inversion in process to have even an iota of consideration that such things might be even remotely worthwhile.

As ever, feel free to bombard the IM address with the usual array of madness, offers to sell the Brooklyn Bridge, and other such wonders.

Current Mood: grumpy