A Larry Hagman Quiet

07.12.2004

Years ago, back in the 80's sometime, I saw an interview with Larry Hagman and heard something that has always stuck with me. One day a week, Larry doesn't speak. It's a test of his self discipline, not some religious or spiritual practice. I remember thinking at the time that it was a neat thing to try, and must be somewhat calming. It was something I would have to try!

I then learned how amazingly difficult it is to go a day without speaking. A day without talking to someone on the phone. A day without speaking to someone while out shopping. Most difficult is a day without muttering some under your breath curse when you've done something stupid. I've tried this off and on, as opportunity would present itself, over the past 15 years at least, and never have I managed a day of not speaking.

This weekend that finally changed. I got home around 7:30 Friday night and decided this would be my weekend. Most people that I regularly talk to on the weekend would be out of town. I had lots of little house projects to keep me busy. I could do it!

Friday night goes by until I finally go to bed around 2:30 AM (those little house projects were getting on a roll). Saturday managed to also go off without a hitch. By 8:00 Saturday night I realized I had made it a day and gave a silent, mental cheer. I wondered how long I could keep it up? I doubt I could keep it up for 8 years, like James Earl Jones had as a child. But could I do it for another day?

On Sunday, I kept quiet until 1:30 in the afternoon, where I made my way to Wendy's for lunch (I was tired of microwaving everything!). As I ordered, I brought to an end my 42 hours of quality quiet time. I had managed to get a lot done at home - I think it worked out well for me. Maybe this will help me learn the best times to keep quiet?

Permalink

Spam 4668

07.09.2004

The other day I was telling of my spam accumulation project, to see how much spam I get. 3 days ago, I hit 4000 pieces of spam after a little more than a month of not deleting it. This morning, the count has made it to 4668. 668 pieces of garbage in 3 days.

Once again, I'm surprised by the lack of penis enlarging hot women that want me now prescriptionless viagra emails. Here's the latest of what I've been sent:

• RUSS Boost your child's grades this summer I think step 1 would have to be "make child"
• Here's how to get 1000 visits to your web site tonight Click "reload" 1000 times!
• Lose up to 19% total body weight I bet they're selling a saw that'll cut your arm off!
• Russ Never Repay What You Owe, Legally It's legal until you get caught.
• The Construction Industry Wants YOU! The construction industry has implemented the draft?

I may have to move to Canada to avoid the construction industry now, though.

Permalink

Even More Rich Email!

07.08.2004

I originally got mail in January that offered to cut me in on part of $10.5 million. In March, somebody else died and I was eligible for $12 million. Within 2 days of each other last week, I got 2 more emails, one for $17 million, the other for $10.4 million. That means that since the beginning of the year, there's over $49 million waiting for me. In Nigeria.

The latest 2 emails hit a little closer to home, since they refer to the deaths of Roy Spears and Robert Spears. It's obvious that Nigeria is no longer safe for anyone named Spears, especially if they have more than $10 million. I'm in a quandry, since if I went to Nigeria to pick up my earmarked $49 million, and I have a last name of Spears, I would definitley be dead. Curse you, my quandry!

For the joy of those that like reading these things (and picking them apart in your spare time), I present my latest additions to my personalized Nigerian scam letters:

---

Email #1:

International remittance Dept,
Global Bank Nig. Plc,
Corporate Office,
136 Adeola Odeku road,
Victoria Island,
Lagos - Nigeria.
29th june, 2004

Hello, YOU CAN REPLY TO dr_simon01@yahoo.com

I am Dr. SIMON OBIORA a banker, staff in the office of the director international remittance department, Global Bank of Nigeria Plc, Lagos -Nigeria .I have urgent and very confidential business proposition for you.On June 2001,an American Oil consultant/contractor with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,engr. ROY SPEARS made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at US$17,000,000.00(seventeen million Dollars ) in my branch.Upon maturity,I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply.

After a month,we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that Engr. Roy died from an automobile accident with his wife and three children.On further investigation,I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless I therefore made further investigation and discovered that He did not declare any kin or relations in all his official documents, including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of US$17,000,000.00 is still sitting in my Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year. No one will ever come forward to claim it.

According to Nigerian Law, at the expiration of 5(five) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the Nigerian Government if nobody applies to claim the fund.Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as the next of kin to him so that the fruits of this old man's labour will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials. This is simple, I will like you to provide immediately your full name and address so that the Attorney will prepare the necessary documents and affidavits which will put you in place as the next of kin, your direct phone number for easy communication.

A bank account in any part of the world which you will provide will then facilitate the transfer of this money to you as the beneficiary/next of kin.The money will be paid into your account for us to share in the ratio of 60% for me and 40% for you.There is no risk at all as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done by the attorney and my position with the bank guarantees the successful execution of this transaction.If you are interested, please send the informations to me. Upon your response,I shall then send to you an application which you will fill and forward to the bank requesting the release of the fund to you.Please observe utmost confidentiality, and be rest assured that this transaction would be most profitable for both of us. +234-8033053069

Best regards, YOU CAN REPLY TO dr_simon01@yahoo.com

Dr. Simon

---

Email #2
STEVE CHAMBERS
BARRISTER (REV.) STEVE KALU (SAN)
LEGAL PRACTITIONER, SOLICITOR & ADVOCATE
PLOT 9, YOUNIS BASHORUN STREET,
OFF AJOSE ADEOGUN STREET, VICTORIA ISLAND ANNEX
P.M.B. 1254, LAGOS, NIGERIA.


Dear Spears,

I am Barr. (Rev.) Steve Kalu (SAN) Solicitor & Advocate, personal attorney to Engineer Robert Spears, a national of your country, who used to work with Osusu Construction Company Nig. ltd. here in Nigeria herein after, shall be referred to as my client.

My client with his entire family (The wife and Two Children) were involved in the bomb explosion in Lagos, Nigeria, on January 27th, 2002 which, claim many lives and property. Unfortunately, my client and the family lost their lives in that disaster that needed not to have happened. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.

My purpose of contacting you is to assist in repatriating the fund (Estate) left behind by my client prior to his death before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the company where this huge deposit were lodged in, where the deceased had an account valued at about US$10.4 million. The company had issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated within the next 14 official working days. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over one year, now I seek your consent as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name/surname so that the proceeds of this account valued at US$10.4 million can be paid to you.

I will provide all the necessary official and legal documents that can be used to back up your claim. All I require is your honest co-operation to enable me as the legal attorney to the deceased in seeing that you receive your inheritance fund. I guarantee that this will be executed legitimately to protect you from any breach of the law.

You can find informations about the January 27th, 2002 Bomb Explosion on the website below.

http://www.disasterrelief.org/Disasters/020130Lagos3/

Please get back to me through my email address for further discussion.

Best regards,
Barr. (Rev.) Steve Kalu (SAN)

Permalink

Spam Tale

07.07.2004

I got spam from these people last week:

http://www.posrat.info/

I went to fill out all of their information (with fake info, of course), and then in the comments politely asked them to not send spam, to anybody, ever again or I would have to make it my life's goal to fill out their form multiple times every day, making sure to waste somebody's time as they went through and read everything while deciding whether or not it was legitimate.

I then looked at their source code, just to poke around, and saw their javascript to filter out some words from being submitted. While noticing that it was a very involved list, I saw that you could enter "fuckin'" into any of the fields and it would slip by. So to be nice, I pointed this out in my comments to them. Multiple times. Along with a suggestion that they may want to add it to their restrictive list. Even though they haven't yet.

It's so hard to be helpful to some people.

Permalink

Spam 4000

07.06.2004

Last month, Yahoo's mail service upped their storage space from 10 MB to 100 MB, mainly to compete with Google's G-Mail service (which offers 1GB of storage for free). I use my yahoo mail account as a catch-all, really using it more for my day-to-day mail than I do other mail accounts. I've had it longer than most of my other accounts, so it's more of a habit to use it than anything else.

Over the years, being my most used account, the amount of Spam I would get has been slightly growing ever so much. Whenever I would go a weekend without checking my mail, I would get about 100 spam emails, which Yahoo would graciously put in my "Bulk" folder so I wouldn't have to look at it unless I wanted. After the space upgrade, I decided I would would save the spam and see how much I was getting. 4 weeks ago I stopped deleting the spam. Today, the spam folder got spam #4000. (In the 3 minutes I've been typing, it's inched up to 4001).

I'm amazed there's that much spam floating around. What is it people are trying to talk me into? The latest topics are:

• Not enough time, Russ? (Well, lately I've had plenty of time)
• Tqygcsfy Ref1ll Your Rx 0rder (How dare you call me Tqygcsfy!)
• Enter To BE A WINNER Of The Sizzlin' Summer Sweeps (And miss my chance to be a LOSER Of The Sizzlin' Summer Sweeps?)
• Car Quotes - Compare & Save (BMWs are more than Yugos)
• Do you need to fix your computer? (Well, no.)
• Coffee's on! What are u waiting for? (I'm waiting to when I like the taste of coffee)
• Donate a car to improve taxes, reputation, and self-confidence! (I would have to gain the self-confidence to walk everywhere, since I've only got 1 car)

It's shocking, nowhere are there offers to increase my penis size, people telling me there are hot lesbians waiting for my call now, or how to get Viagra online. It's a new age of spam! More topics to ignore! But out of 4000 things I should ignore, shouldn't there be at least 1 that I secretly, really need?

Probably not.

Permalink