Zippo

Through the looking glass

I see taxis in my future

The groovy thing about riding a motorcycle is that you're constantly in a tug-of-war with Newton. Steering the thing requires overcoming intertia; just staying upright is a mystery. I sort of understand how a gyroscope works, but all these things remain a beyond the scope of my full understanding.

And so it was only a matter of time before a deceptively flat patch of road got the better of me.

Gravity 1 : Stuart 0

Result: Bent handle bars; bent gear level; distended thigh muscle; swollen calf; the elbow we won't even talk about; roasties all over; and a couple of weeks of taking taxis.

The case of the 12 and a half mil

The 419-ers apparently arrived in the country On Tuesday morning carrying a steamer trunk containing US$12.5. I knw this, because I received a phone call on my cell. They must have phoned my work number (I gave it to them) and gotten hold of my mobile number from the company secretary. Needless to say I was surprised.

I cannot figure out whetehr someone had actually travelled all the way from The UAE, or wherever, with the casement, of if they actually have operatives here in Malaysia, ready to fleece unsuspecting people out of their cash.

Weird. And quite nerve wracking at the same time.

Scam scum

My latest scam baiting effort is yielding some really amusing results. The mind boggles. My next trick is to try to get them to send me the actual paperwork. So far, however, they're not biting.

What else did you bring?

I just want to say one thing about the situation with miners trapped underground in Australia. They've been there for 8 days (approximately) and what do the resuers offer them to eat? Egg sandwiches. For god's sake. Where's the pizza? The cheeseburgers? The tubes of amberfrosty?

Egg sandwiches? In a confined space?

Haven't they suffered enough?

Beans, bean, the musical fruit...

Is this the end of an era? According to the BBC's news website, scientists in Venezuela have invented fart-free beans. What's the point, I ask, if you can't let rip with a "loud but proud," or a "silent but violent," or a "slinky but stinky?"

See the article here

PLaying the 419 game

Ther have been people with a lot more patience than me, who have baited these 419-ers. One person even claims to have got US$3 out of one of them.

Very amusing. Check out the link by clicking --->here<---

I just had to post this

I was surfing the web, trying my hardest not to do any work - as you do - and I came across something really groovy. Rolex has released an anniversary edition Submariner.

It's green.

Which is ubelievably groovy in my opinion.

Do you think it might be fake

Seems like Nwinyer has given up since I asked him to send me an airticket - as a matter of good faith, you understand. But he was getting boring anyway. What appeared in my inbox this morning, on the other hand...well why don't you just see for yourself.



From Engr Zeid.
Hello friend.

Engr Zeid Al-hajahmad is my name 48 years from Jordan but in Africa,I am a business partner to late president Eyadema of Togo who died some months ago actually we deal on gold and diamond.

Then this is to introduce you into my project of transfering the sum of ($38million) that now into a security company in Ivory Coast due to the political crisis here.

Please if my proposal accepted kindly send your informations to further you in more details as I want you to stand and have the fund into your account before my leaving here find attached of my passport.

Best regards
Engr,Zeid Al-hajahmad

Nwinyer again

Here is round 2 from Nwinyer

dear.Stuart Godwin

frankly speaking my heart is filled with excitment while reading your email ok.

I want you to understand that i dont know anybody that will faithfuly abide with me in this transaction after my late father's blood relatives humiliated me by selling all my father's acquired properties.It was because of that their wicked act that made me to swear for not entrusting any among them just as i was informed by my late father saying to ensure i invested this money without any of his relatives geting closer to my life .It was because of this act that i arrived here in dakar senegal and handed these documents to the company's lawyer so that he will help me to protect these documents as i dont know who is who as uptill now i am so confused that i cant figure thos that conived and see to my father's agony death. Therefore what i want you to do for me now is to kindly arrange and come down here in dakar senegal so that both of us will see in person and could be bale to sitdown and discuss all modelities about this transaction in details please. I dont have any other person except you and for this reason i want you to kindly be with me in whatever that should be done to have this money out of the security company to you*r own bank account.

Other reasons why i want your being here is to help me to get this money lodged in a bank here on your name as i dont have any document that wil enable me have this money deposited here because of my status here as refugee.It is when you are here and we get this my inheritance retrieved from the security company, lodged in any bank of our general acceptability on your name and retransfer the whole money on your name that my mind can be relaxed.

I want you to kindly understand that i want you to help me relocate there in your country as soon as this money is confirmed retransfered and accepted there in your bank by either yourself or your next of kin or your bank.

The best thing i need from you is to be faithful with me and ready to help me to the core.

Best wishes.
Nwinyer Williams.

My response...

Nwinyer

I'm not understanding what it is that you need me to do. Maybe you can explain further.

Stuart

The only child of late Dr.Solomon Williams

This morning my inbox contained 2 emails of the kind that assumes one is a complete cretin. I decided to play along, and have included the transcript of the email below. I'll keep you posted on how things pan out.

Dear,Good day.
I know that this mail might be a surpriseing to you but do consider it as an emergency. In a nut shell, My name Nwinyer Williams, from the republic of Sierria-Leone in west Africa. The only child of late Dr.Solomon Williams, I am looking for someone who can take me as a child or friend I promise to be obidient to you and I will bring happiness to your life,My late father was the managing director of Rainbow Gold and Diamond company in (KENEMA)Sierra-Leone.But he was poisoned to death alongside with my mother by his business associate, On one of their outing to discuss a business deal in oversea,

However, after their death I managed to stay alone and when the war broke out in my country. I escape to near by village here,with every important files of my father.He has the sum of (US$15.2M)Fifteene million two hundred thousand U.S Dollars only. This amount was deposited by my late father in one of the leading security company, Presently, I am saddled with the problem of securing a trust worthy foriegn personality to help me. I will map out 15% for you.and i will mapped out 10% for any miscellaneous expenses that you may incur during the transferring of the money over to your country (1) you will Stand on my behalf as the beneficiary for the claim of the inheritance from the company since the management of the company adviced that I should solicit for an individual or corporate organization to claim the deposit for me as they cannot release it directly to me due to my status right now.

(2)you will Help me secure my travelling documents to meet you as soon as my money is released to you. Furthermore,

you can contact the company for confirmation so that the company will know that you are my partner,that will enable the company correspond with you on my behalf.I am giving you this offers as mentioned with every confidence on your acceptance to assist me or adopt me as your Child or business partner if possible and manage the money for me.

My regard to your family.
Yours sincerely.
Nwinyer Williams.
nwinyer_williams48@yahoo.co.uk

200 year old constitution, 200 year old thinking

A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that the USA has one of the oldest constitutions in the world (if not the oldest). And while other countries seem to rewrite their's on a regular basis following various revolutions, that of the USA remains intact, with only amendments. Good point, I guess.

So it surprises me that Americans are still arguing about the right to abortiion, when the europeans are already discussion the ethics of in-vitro fertilisation, and the right of one partner to use frozen embryos without the other's consent.

It seems that our American cousins are still stuck in medieval times. Shame. Open up your guilted cage and have a housewarming party, whydontcha.

What does the shade smell like over there?

Here it smells damp. Not soggy-dog damp, but kinda cold damp. It's as though the small change in ambient temerature between the sunny bits and the shady bits is enough to literally squeeze molecules of water out of the air and up your nose.

I noticed this for the first time a couple of days ago when I was riding along on my motorcycle. The highway I was travelling along splits into a double decker section for a while, and I just happened to be on the lower level. Anyway, that's when I noticed it.

Just thought I'd mention this. Use it, don't use it. Whatever.

Phi Phi

SO here I am on Phi Phi, trying to look like I know what I'm doing. There is a lot of info to absorb. Already I have done 2 courses - rescue and emergency response. Damn, there's a lot to get into my head.

Yesterday I ate chicken feet for the first time...not bad. Don't ask how that happened. They were actually quite good. Check out TransportCaff for a recipe of sorts.

Anotehr thing. This keyboard has Thai writing on it, which makes me long for the Das Keyboard.

A-41 (collected)

Episode 2 of the Visa saga saw me returning to the Royal Thai Consulate to collect my passport, which now contained the royal chop. That only took 2 minutes.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

What I do want to yammer on about is the amount of space the visas end up taking in one's passport. You can get 10 or so chops on a page under normal circumstances, but a visa requires an entire leaf unto itself. What a waste. I'd like my microchip now please. Just embed the thing in pip and let me get on with it.

Das Fingentypenconfusen

The mind boggles. Here's a keyboard that doesn't have any letter on it. The inventors claim that it turns you into a superduper fast typist because you don't have to think about the letters.

Check out the Das website here.

Number A-41

If you ever want to remind yourself of your place in the universe, all you have to is wait in one of those diabolical queueing systems for your number to come up.

There were 20 people in front of me at the Royal Thai Consulate this morning, and I waited over 2 hours before I could hand ion my Visa application. When my turn finally came, my request was processed in under 3 minutes. Sign. Pay. Hand over photograph. Receipt. Chop. Thank you. Which makes me wonder what the people who seem to be engaged in discussion for half an hour at a time are up to. Endless discussions, rifling through papers, dropping things, rooting in bags, pressing of ears against the bullet proof glass to hear properly.

In certain circles we talk about those who are constitutionally incapable. I give you the Visa queue as proof.

And speaking of embassies and consulates; it's inetresting that you can literally walk into the grounds of most of the sovereign buildings - say hello to the guard, state your business and proceed. Not so the American Consulate. At leat 2 layers of fencing, dogs, armed guards, armoured cars. Whatever happened to "bring me your weak, your downtrodden, etc?" Not sure who's foot the down trodding boot is on these days.

There's a lizard living in my motorcycle

I kid you not. This morning as I was thundering along, I espeyed a small lizard clinging to the fairing of my bike. At first I thought a piece of grass had become lodged there, but on closer inpection it was indeed a lizard.

The poor bugger was clinging on for dear life in the 80km/h headwinds. As I stopped at a traffic light, he found better footing below the rim of the fairing, and then managed to creep into the gap betwen the dials and the front of the fairing. I slowed down by then to give him a more comfortable ride.

I hope he's still there. One more reason not to wash the machine.

Open sauce

Frankly I couldn't give 2 shits about the browser wars. Back in the day I used Netscape 3 - simply becasue IE 3 was dodgy. But from IE 4 onwards, Bill's browser was better. What I dug most about the good ol' days was that there were a zillion little useless apps that you could plug in.

Firefox has returned us to those heady days. My browser now sports the ability to have coloured tabs, close buttons on each tab, an image and text zoom function, an IP address capturer, a colour picker, FTP client (not just file view like IE), an RSS reader...infact endless numbers of really groovy meaningless functionality.

Now all I need is a broadband service provider with an actual working line and a willingness to respond to problems in les than 6 weeks.