Friday, October 17, 2008

The Great Chili Contest

I won. Watch the competition's reaction to the news:

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Stochastic Drivel

This entry is about nothing.. so far anyway. I am writing it with absolutely no goal in mind, and I'm hoping that in a few sentences I'll have something to write about.

Let's see.. Today I went to Sunny Noodle, one of the best lunch destinations in downtown Calgary, only I no longer work in the core so it makes it a little difficult to get to, but I will always make the pilgrimage when invited. Thanks for the invite Gord.

Quite a wind blew through Calgary this afternoon, I see chunks of plastic missing from gas station signs and stuff, and I have to think, I mean, so many leaves left the trees today in that blow.. and if you think of the trillions of leaves in this city, where do they all go? You would think we would be knee deep in leaves, but scarcely a few of them on the streets.. maybe they made it all the way to Saskabush.

For the last few weeks, I hated washing my hair cause the stupid shampoo bottle I use has this flip lid that is really really hard to open, like kryptonite hard. I curse and swear at the pain of the near departure of my thumbnail every time I open that piece of crap. Then, a dim light bulb lit up, and a solution came to me like a laser guided bomb.. So.. i'm gonna start just leaving the stupid lid open. (duh?)


Now this is interesting. Ford has this new gadget called "MyKey" which is a special car key a parent gives to their kid which puts a max speed limit of 80km/h and the stereo volume to max of 44%. It will also let out a loud annoying squeal until the seat belt is on. Available soon.. I wonder if future versions will start honking the horn when it detects back seat activities?

Mail goggles by gmail. A feature on gmail which you can enable to prevent you from sending a drunk email. If the feature is enabled on your account it will ask you a bunch of questions which will be very difficult to answer when in a nimptopsical state. Feature is enabled at late hours and on weekends only.

G4 Tech TV is awesome. A show with a contest of who can eat the most peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then the top three move on to the merry go round, then an ambrosia salad contest.. and the one who pukes the least wins.

Oh yea, my Chili is better than Darren's.. My new name for it is Xhili. X for AleX, X for Xtreme. X for Don't screw with the chili master.

Peace. Especially to the cast and crew of "Quarantine"

AS

Monday, October 6, 2008

Telemarketer Time Waster

I gotta phone call on saturday afternoon.. decided to have a chat..


Friday, October 3, 2008

Anatomy of a Scam - Part III

This is part 3 of a feature I am writing about called "Anatomy of a Scam". You can find part 1 here.

Update. Van Dick wrote back already.. this is quite interesting as he gave me a number to call him instead of trying to call me.

Here it is..

----------------------

Carl,

below is the information of the bank copy and send to the email below.and you can reach me on this number ,any time (number blocked)



Bank:SNS BANK
WEB:WWW. SNSBANK.NL
Email.(email blocked)
TEL:(Number Blocked)
Fax:(Number Blocked)

Dear Sir/Madam

Application as next of kin to the holder of account number :# (Blocked). ,I Carl Meyer of (Address Blocked) Seattle, WA 98121 USA humbly apply to this bank this today the 03-10-2008 as next of kin to your deceased customer Late Mr.David meyer ,I humbly apply putting claim over his balance with this bank valued at $18M , Left in account number; # (Blocked)

I also wish my application will be given an urgent attention as I wish this balance be released and Re-transferred into my account which i will provide once the confirm of the the received on this mail .

Accept my apologies for the late application, it was due to some family problems which have just been settled.

Thanks in anticipation of your cooperation.

Yours Faithfully,

Carl Meyer

-------------------------------------------------

So basically he wants me to send this pre-made email (signed with my name) to the new email address supposedly belonging to a bank in the Netherlands called SNS Bank. Included in the email is an apology for the "late application" nice touch.

I did some analysis on the email, and found it to be originating in Haarlem NL through an Internet Service Provider called "UPCLive".

I'll try to call him later. (Recorded of course for your listening pleasure)

Anatomy of a Scam - Part II

This is part 2 of a feature I am writing about called "Anatomy of a Scam". You can find part 1 here.

Update: Yesterday Mr Dick found some time to send me (Carl Meyer) a reply.. here it is:

Dear Carl Meyer

This is to acknowledge the receipt of your mail with thanks.The last name is meyer and funds is in united states dollars in the bank

My late clients until his death was an oil contractor but unfortunately died inter estate i.e without a will. From my investigation, there is no known relative of my late client.

All I need now is your cooperation to file in your name as the next of kin because in the record there is no known successor to this deposit of ($18 million Dollars) the deceased who died without a will and based on the situation at hand due to time constraint, if this fund is not claimed the government will seize this fund.

All documents relating to this transaction will be given to you as we progress.
I want this done so that I can use a good part of my share for helping the poor and the needy and for charity works. You shall receive 45% of the total funds for your assistance.

However, I must assure you that this transaction is safe and all modalities is in place to ensure that this is done in a legitimate way without a single breach of law. Based on your maximum cooperation, we will finalise this transaction within ten working days.

I shall require your FULL NAME , CONTACT ADDRESS and PHONE NUMBER to enble file for the inheritance and start the process of claim in this regard.

Again I guarantee that all is under control and you have nothing to worry about, Just grant to me your full cooperation and keep this transaction close at heart.
.
Barr Van Dick
Attorney


Lets take a look at this in detail:

Dear Carl Meyer (that's me)

This is to acknowledge the receipt of your mail with thanks.(Your Welcome! So polite) The last name is meyer (No shit?) and funds is in united states dollars in the bank (Answers my two questions from the last mail, not very good english though)

My late clients until his death was an oil contractor but unfortunately died inter estate i.e without a will. From my investigation, there is no known relative of my late client. (Which is funny cause I purposely chose a very common name which when googled, produces over 40,000 hits)

All I need now is your cooperation to file in your name as the next of kin because in the record there is no known successor to this deposit of $18 million Dollars (That is a lot of money, scam directive of "Dazzle") the deceased who died without a will and based on the situation at hand due to time constraint, if this fund is not claimed the government will seize this fund. (Here is the classic scam directive of HURRY HURRY)

All documents relating to this transaction will be given to you as we progress.
I want this done so that I can use a good part of my share for helping the poor and the needy and for charity works. (scam directive: sympathy. Builds trust, awww must be a nice guy!) You shall receive 45% of the total funds for your assistance. (ok so 8 million.. not bad. Besides, a "good part" of the rest is going to the poor and needy)

However, I must assure you that this transaction is safe (Scam directive: Peace of Mind) and all modalities is (Dude has a problem with the word "are") in place to ensure that this is done in a legitimate way without a single breach of law. Based on your maximum cooperation, we will finalise this transaction within ten working days. (That's not bad, all this in 10 days? Better Hurry! Glad it's Safe.. WOW all that money!! Such a nice guy)

I shall require your FULL NAME , CONTACT ADDRESS and PHONE NUMBER to enble file for the inheritance and start the process of claim in this regard. (Yea, I might be able to comply with this)

Again I guarantee that all is under control and you have nothing to worry about, Just grant to me your full cooperation and keep this transaction close at heart. (As in, don't tell anyone? Ok... all those blog readers, please keep this to yourself.)
.
Barr Van Dick
Attorney



Here is my reply:

Barr Van Dick,

Thank you for your reply. I am excited about the possible outcome of this transaction as you could probably imagine!

Here is my Information:

Carl Meyer
(False contact information provided but removed from this post)

I look forward to hearing from you further!

Carl M
-------------------------------

It is quite possible that the scam will end at this point as I chose not to provide real contact information. I did provide a real world address and phone number which is easily google-able and will match with the local I chose (Seattle WA) but if Van DICK decides to make a phone call as his next phase, it will be over. Let's wait and see what happens.

CM. er.. AS.