me, to a group of scientologists in front of their building last night: “excuse me, i’m lost, do you know how to get to……xenu?” yeowza
here’s a wikipedia delight:
a kids’ train in finland. why is it driven by a normal-looking middle aged man and ridden by nice scandinavian families, but plastered with ’666′?
most people have at some point gotten or heard about nigerian 419 emails/advance fee fraud, where some deposed african prince has 5 million dollars that he needs help getting out of the country and will cut you in for 10% or something like that. sometime last year i noticed that included with the 500+ spam emails i get every week, i usually have one or two 419 emails. i started responding back to them, giving them fake information and messing around with them a little. sometime at the end of may i got more involved.
i set up a fake identity, with a new email address, an address in new york city, two functioning phone numbers, and a nonexistent bank. the email is unassuming and suggests that i have money, the “office” phone number goes straight to voicemail (i am emailed a copy of any messages that are left) and the “mobile” number is an SIP number routed through g5 so it rings on my computer (and is free). the home address exists and is visible on google maps, but is undeliverable/condemned. i don’t know what happened but one time a ‘lad’ mailed me a fake cheque and it was undeliverable for two days until “FINO” signed for it, according to the UPS tracking number.
i respond to all the 419 emails i get feigning interest, surprise, and enthusiasm. when the scammer eventually drops the “send me money” line, i go along with it, fumbling and “sending” the money to the wrong place, the wrong name, using the wrong service, and making use of fake western-union ripoff sites that make the scammer click a whole bunch of boxes for nothing. i have them call my free computer phone number, let them talk while i read a book and occasionally agree or say “what?” (their phones and english are awful), costing them a significant amount of money. phones over here may be ‘expensive’ to call overseas, but when you live in a third world country, even ignoring infrastructure overheads and assuming similar pricing, imagine how much more expensive an overseas phone call is when you’re destitute.
the less patient scammers get angry within a couple weeks, but the greedier and stupider they are, the more ridiculous excuses and outlandish requests they will put up with. i’ve learned to slow things down: before i really got into this, i would straight up ask for trophies, but now i’m taking advantage of the investment effect. they have next to no money, so they use internet cafes and calling cards. every email sent and phone call made costs them tangible amounts of money. the longer they are working on me, trying to have me western union them between $150 and $7500 (the actual range of requested ‘monies’ so far), the more they have actually invested in me. the more invested, the less they’re willing to simply give up and move on – they never stop thinking of their payday.
i’ve had a couple of my lads for almost two months, and some for just a couple weeks. right now there are 21 labels in that gmail account, and only two of those are actively ignoring me. i used to trawl mailinator inboxes for new ones every week or two, but when i started having to spend more than 30 minutes a day replying to all of them i stopped taking on new clients. it’s very satisfying to get emails like these:
WHAT THE HELL YOU THINK YOU DOING? I WENT TO THE BANK AND THE REFRENCE NUMBER IS NOT VALID? You dont know how far it is to wast my gas to the money gram store.
how could you be doing that are you a con? how could you be doing that to fellow human being like you it really hurt me,you have not send me any money.
please leave me a lone now because you have cause me pain . i hate you for putting me in this troubles.
ATTIMES I WONDER HOW STUPID SOME PEOPLE CAN BE BY THINKING THAT THE ARE DEALING WITH A GOAT HEAD.
OK I WILL GIVE YOU A BRIEF CALL BECAUSE IT COST ME SO MUCH CALL YOU,
YOU SHOULD TRY TO CALL ME FOR ONCE.
Brother i don’t have a lot of calling card on my phone try to call me
or email me let wait until Monday
one of my favorite things is ‘slapping’ them – if they get out of line, you let them know who’s boss.
him:
I do not tell you to send money to Ghana agene I ask to send the transfer fees to your country there in American in Pennsylvania, his that not the reasons I have you this information, I have give you the officer number, and Email that you can you to get him, you are now telling me shit?
me:
I am trying to send this money to you, $650, which is a sizeable amount, and you are swearing at me. I will not tolerate abuse so you must be kinder to me. I demand that you apologize.
him:
I am very sorry, for writing you that Email, but you need to forlorn my instructions, I want you to send the fees to your country true Money Gram Transfer, below are the information you will use, I believe know baldly will ask you any question so you go now and do it and get back to us
this last one is a lad who was given explicit instructions to call me at a certain time. i told him if i didn’t answer, keep calling over and over for as long as it takes for me to come to the phone because i sometimes take long naps and my phone is not very loud. i got home one time to find 61 missed calls (most calling cards subtract a minute every time even if you hang up as soon as the answering machine picks up) and this email:
i must say you have cost me so much by not peaking your call, now you said that you are leaving to new york any time from now that fine for you because i don’t think that you real want to do this transaction with me because right from the first day you are not peaking your call and there is no way the diplomat will contact you withhout you peaking your call so if you want to leave thats ok, but if is true that you want to complete this transaction with me i want you to call any of the numbers that i sent to you in my past mail now or you peak my own call now
so much fun. in work news my hands are stained green because a crazy old bat of a woman spilled some paint and an old biker couple screamed at me and punched the door because they wanted to get into the store 10 minutes after we closed.
now that i’m out of school, properly airconditioned, and on a good sleep schedule i want to get back into working out a lot. stupidly, i tried doing 200 pushups (what i used to do daily) yesterday after not really doing any for 5 months. i finished it ok, but today my entire torso hurts. at least i can do that thing christian bale does in batman begins where you just fall down straight forward and catch yourself by doing a pushup. feels cool
looked after my cousin, who was really sick and exhausted yesterday, but very excited and fun today. climbed a huge tree in dufferin grove.
got my graduation picture. they shepherded us through so fast that i was pretty sure i had a weird confused face on for the picture, but i look normal, maybe better than normal even. unexpected!
set up my dsl with a new wireless router – until today i had been using neighbors’ wep-protected networks. breaking wep is fun and easy, but dealing with their broken cable modems that drop me for an hour once every two hours is not. it feels so nice having a personal/stable connection that i can use in the bathroom.
paid all my bills and pretty much all of my credit card, feels great not owing anything!
bike saga: in november, my bike’s brake cables both snapped when it froze very quickly after being soaked on one of the worst commutes ever. i had enough time and resources to fix the front cable, but never bothered with the back. this became a problem when, two weeks ago, i was stopping at a red light and the left front brake post (the entire assembly) just fell off the bike, dangling by the frayed cable. i took it to the bike shop i use yesterday, duke’s, expecting $150 of repairs and another week of downtime. nope, it’s finished tonight and costs $70. amazing.
it’s going to be super weird riding a bike that’s in good shape. i can’t wait!
lobby of an apartment building:
concierge (to girlfriend): “hi miss, good day.”
concierge (to me): “hi boss, how are you today boss! you look like good boss. (to girlfriend) is he good boss?”
at dinner with girlfriend:
her : “what do you want to get after dinner?”
me : “some fruit maybe.”
her : “what are you into?”
me : “you”
her : “but fruit-wise, what are you into?”
me : “christian bale”
i just celebrated in one party: my graduation, my 22nd birthday, my dad’s 50th birthday, father’s day. it was a big party. my uncle and i put together a band for my dad’s 50th and we played a few of his favorite songs as a big surprise, the first being rapper’s delight. we played the hook which is pretty unrecognizable while my dad was handed the (six pages of) lyrics, and the crowd reaction when we jumped into the actual song was amazing.
why did i have to do the electric slide for so many things in elementary school?
what’s the deal with that song, “i’m proud to be an american”?
why are groups of japanese businessmen so awesome?
i walked my graduation thing, that’s over with. no more school.
after 10000 years here i am; i think what happened is that i generally write in this to procrastinate, and since school is over and any work i’m doing is enjoyable now, i don’t have very much procrastinating to get done.
i got my official final transcript, i’m graduated with a bachelor of art in music performance. i was a little bit worried because i didn’t really watch any of the 20-something movies we had studied over the entire year in my film elective (that i needed to graduate), but i passed that. i also turned in my astronomy term paper (30% of the final mark) a week late for a total of 25% off. i passed with 6 As, a B, and 2 Ds. sick.
my latest project has been getting video editing going on my new macbook. i’m going to continue to edit in vegas 8, using parallels, because i don’t need a lot of power (all my source video is NTSC-DV widescreen, 720x480p) and i know the program. the problem was getting the video off of the minidv tapes – the new macbooks don’t have firewire, there’s literally zero hardware support for getting video off of panasonic cameras via usb2 in osx, and all of the windows programs either don’t behave in parallels or are terrible (dropped frames like crazy). i eventually settled on ripping to an external drive through another computer with firewire, a more than adequate solution. now i can process all these recital videos i’ve been shooting and free up all seven of my full tapes.
some fun stuff from weekend work in the past month:
(older guy picking out some paper) “it needs to be stiff. being stiff is a good thing in life. i’m not going to elaborate. yes i am. viagra is good for that.”
(different older guy getting cashed out by someone else) (to me:) “have you ever weight trained?” “yes, i work out” “you just have the bone structure for it. you know what i’m talking about. i bet you get great results.”
during a big sale, fat 30-something with his mother (???) buys the last of a product that was supposedly put on hold for an old bargain-hunting princess. BHP sees this after the purchase is finished and grabs onto it as he’s walking out the door and starts screaming. he doesn’t let go and starts yelling in a super whiny voice “STOP IT! YOU’RE HURTING ME! MOM!”. i love it, two people with a combined age of 100 acting like they’re both 5.
i saw star trek 2 weeks ago and terminator last week. star trek was probably the best looking movie i’ve ever seen, i mean supposedly there are ridiculous lens flares but somehow it didn’t bother me. terminator had the best sound of any movie that i can remember – the sound for all the robots was sooo perfect.
last weekend i took sunday off and drove with a couple other graduates of my program for a gig at michael stätlander’s farm/restaurant in collingwood (actually singhampton) for the wild leek festival. we played hand drums in the middle of a forest a little ways off from the festival. that might have been the best (high gourmet) food i’ve ever eaten? 12 famous/amazing chefs each prepared one dish. jamie kennedy made a water buffalo yogurt & sweet potato curry thing that was incredible. one of the members of nexus (robin) came and played with us for a bit.
over the past couple weeks i’ve started to see new street signs around the city.
they look like this:
awful! i think they’re disgusting, and i suspect they’re meant to match the horrible 1998-style trash bins that are also being installed all over. textured beige plastic belongs on children’s playgrounds and nothing else.
i’ll miss the old signs very much:
a fun time:
driving back from a gig in oakville (with my girlfriend and her harp in the car, she also played) last week, in a borrowed car. the car’s brakes had been really noisy for the past couple days, just making a scraping sound like they need new pads. something new happens when i’m backing out of the performance venue – when going in reverse, it’s like driving with the brakes on. it feels like i’m hitting something and it’s extremely loud. ok, that’s bad, whatever, don’t go in reverse.
i get on the QEW (arterial highway) heading back downtown at 11pm on a rainy night. as i’m getting up to speed, there’s a little bit of a “clunk” sound from the back of the car. i don’t think this is an issue. there aren’t many cars and the weather isn’t terrible, so i do 120 all the way.
around the kipling exit (20 minutes along), i slow down a little as traffic is increasing a bit. i say ‘slow down’, but i mean ‘try to’, because when i press the brake pedal NOTHING HAPPENS. i press it all the way down, and feel the front brakes respond a tiny bit, this is a bad thing. since cars steer with the front wheels only, braking with the front wheels only (especially on a wet road) would make the car spin out. i feel myself losing a little bit of control even trying to slow with the front wheels only, so i give that up.
i have only one recurring nightmare: driving a car with brakes that barely work. i get it about once every two months, and i always wake up all sweaty with my heart beating fast, like hayden christensen in “star wars 2″.
now this is happening in real life, i’m on a big highway with no brakes going 120, and my easily excited girlfriend is in the car. i decide to just not tell her what’s going on and get off at the next exit, assuming i can slow down enough. i carefully get in the left lane and completely stop using the accelerator. by the time i get to the lakeshore exit (before jameson) i’m going about 55 on the highway, and people are passing me angrily, and i don’t care. i’ve never taken this exit but luckily there was no crazy curve or sudden stoplight. i then proceeded to get all green lights on lakeshore all the way down to bay street. by the time i get down to about 20km/h, the front brakes are serviceable and i can stop with enough warning. i drop the harp off and take the car back to its mortified owners. “at least i got home faster!”
after my heart rate dropped back to normal and the adrenaline went away i felt awesome for surviving something like that.
tomorrow afternoon i have my last exam! assuming i pass everything, i’ll have this degree and be done with the hundreds of unpaid gigs and all the uneducational busy work. i have learned a lot, completely changed as a person/grown up, done a ton of fun things, and met some awesome folks, but i will be glad to be done, and have no intention of any further education anytime soon.
a couple things were especially cool in the last month: my final project for music recording was just “make an album, and write about the process”. that was it, open-ended. i recorded a classical harp album which i had a lot of fun doing, and for the writeup ended up writing about two pages on what i did, why, and what i thought of it. it was satisfying to write, and it took no time at all. this was in sharp contrast to the three research papers i wrote in the couple weeks preceding – writing about something i enjoy and know a lot about is GREAT. such a refreshing feeling after that crap.
speaking of research papers, one of my three non-performance classes posted the grades tonight. i turned it in one day late (10% off), had done it the night before, and it was two pages below the quota. i was pretty nervous about the grade. imagine my surprise when i see that i got a 78, AFTER the lateness penalty. that’s 25% of my grade and i got a similarly high mark on the midterm, i’m going to do well in that course!
the other unmusical courses are film and astronomy. the film exam i was SUPER worried about, because i hadn’t been to class or seen any of the movies since early january. i was expecting them to screen a few films and ask us to identify and discuss the segments, which i would have completely bombed, but there was NO screening whatsoever! i had never written for 3 hours straight, but that’s what the exam was. i smoked the two long essay questions (i think), so i feel like i did pretty well on that exam. last film exam i was petrified about and i got a high B, so that bodes well.
astronomy was amazing – every couple weeks i get on a big space kick, and spend a few hours reading about space. this combined with my good memory paid off well – in a class of 300 people, i was the first one out of the two hour exam. the proctor had to run and get the class roster for me to sign, and then read through my whole exam to make sure i didn’t actually skip a section. awesome. i felt great about that exam, and that doesn’t usually happen!
