2009 - The year of stupid nominations

In 2009 it seems that anyone could and win anything. For instance;

• In the middle of 2 wars and sitting on a big load of nuclear bombs Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Following a global meltdown of the banking system Ben Bernanke wins Time Person of the Year.
• Taylor Swift won best female video at the VMAs. Even Kanye disagreed.
  
• Michelle Obama is named Most Interesting Person of 2009. Cause she has a dog or something.
• Some one else won the Irish Blog awards that wasn't me.
• A woman won the Man Booker Prize.
• The popular vote won the election in the US.
• And I won a tenner on the Lotto.
  

A new Paypal scam

We're trying to sell our Beetle (nice, red, and yours for about $7500), so we put it on Craigslist and I got this email;

Hi there ,
I'm John Krugger from Calgary, i will like to make an offer of $7000 for this Vehicle,and please i can only pay using PayPal, and after payments has been made ,i will arrange for pick up of the car.Will more than appreciate your
reply. Thanks and God bless

N.B-please attach some pictures,if any.

John

Now, obviously this is a scam. Bad punctuation and wont appear in person. And the God Bless - if that doesn't assure me of an honest Christian then I don't know what will. And why ask for pictures, they're on the ad.
But...
But he's using paypal? Isn't that secure and stuff?
I wanted to find out how this worked, so I played dumb and emailed back.

Hello Gerry,
thanks for mailing back,i am an oceanographer and i am buying this Car for my dad, i am at sea right now,and I can only pay through Paypal and you can put the Paypal charges on me because as at present, i don't have access to my bank account online,but i have it attached to my Paypal account,and this is why i insisted on using Paypal to pay,all i will need is your paypal email address to make the payments,i have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted and will also handle the paper works. Be rest assured of a secured transaction because i am a serious buyer and i will only take the car after payments has been sorted out.Thanks and God bless. John

Ah, what a nice guy, buying the car for this dad. And I can `rest assured of a secured transaction because i am a serious buyer and i will only take the car after payments has been sorted out`.

Next email - oh no, there`s a problem.

Hi Gerry,

I was just about to make the payments when i had this little problem with the picking up of the car , I am currently on sea and i am buying the car for my Dad as i explained earlier on and i tried to book pick up with my pick up agent, but they asked me to pay first before they can make the booking, and they only accept Western Union Money Transfer for payments and they dont accept paypal or Bank transfer and I tried to send the money online but i couldnt and I am on sea and there is no way i can find a western union agent to make the transfer to my pick up agent, so i wanted to ask if it was ok for me to include my pick up agent's fees in the payments I am about to send through paypal, my pick up agent charged $650 plus insurance and all of that, please can i include their money in the payments I want to send then after i have made the payments you will help me forward the $650 to my pick up agent through western union money transfer ,this I would have done myself and not bother you but the for the fact that I am currently on sea, so after I have made the payments you will help me send $650 to my pick up agent through western union money transfer, I just wanted to seek your consent before going ahead with the payments,I will more than appreciate if you mail me back, and I will be making the payments shortly. Thanks and God bless. John

PS: the shipping company's Head quarters is in England and any pick up fees to be paid is sent to their head quarters by the payee, so the money for pick up will be sent to their head quarters in England through western union money transfer(this can be done from any post office) or you can do it online at www.westernunion.com

Ah, now I see. I send money via western union to your shipping company in England. And you can use paypal online `on sea` but not western union online. Good stuff. So I offered to drive the car to his dad in Calgary since I would be there anyway and save him the shipping cost. No, not possible. Or have my made up office in England go and pay his shipping company in cash. No, they don`t accept cash for security reasons. Ok I said, I`ll go for it.

So he sent a verification email from PayPal (well from a mail2pay.com address) to an email account (that`s not associated with any paypal account) for $7750. Paypal however wont relase such a large sum until I send the money to his shippers (via western union - the dodgiest method around).

So that`s how it works. You can scam people by buying stuff through paypal. I have replied with this, but have little faith in it working (and here I`m an honest Christian too);

Hi John

thanks for sending that. It sucks that Paypal wont release the money immediately.

As you can understand with the recession and Christmas cash flow is limited at the moment and without Paypal releasing the $650 I cannot send it on via western union. The lack of cash is the reason I am selling my car in the first place. Anyway I checked with my bank and I have $350 I can use to help you pay your shipping company. If you could send me the other $300 dollars either via paypal with the funds released, or via western union online then I can send the $650 to your shippers.

When they come to pick up the car I will then leave your $300 in cash locked in the cars glove compartment. I trust you will be able to help me with this and then you can have your new car.

God bless and merry christmas

Gerry


Update
John emailed me back to say that if I sent the $350 then paypal would release the cash and I could then send on the rest of the money. I sent him the confirmation code (a link to the nastiest virus ridden site I could find) but I haven't heard from him since.

56 bottles of beer on the wall

I just finished bottling a batch of bitter so here's 56 bottles of beer on the wall. I can't take one down and pass it around just yet, but in about 2 weeks it should be good.



Before this I made a dark ale, so here's one I made earlier.



Of course not everything is put in nameless brown bottles. Urs arranged for me to spend a day in Dead Frog Brewry to get a chance to help make beer on a large scale. And the nice guys there sent on a sample of the results.


Cheers.

My new favourite Christmas song

After I found I could stream radio via the internet on my iphone through an fm transmitter to my car radio I've been listening to a bit of TodayFM (havn't figured out LMFM yet). And thanks to Alison on Today FM there is Silent Night from Sweet Jane. I love the drums on this.

You can check out their blog here - > Sweet Jane
And listen to the song on myspace here -> Silent Night

Now to try and find them on itunes.

Just give in

Maybe it's time for the government to just give up. At the moment CIE are among a number of unions threatening strike action if paycuts are mentioned. Maybe the government should give in, especially on the railways. Let's face it, the service has always been crap and overpriced and held to ransom by unions going on strike when ever some one wanted a day off.
Wash your hands of them, sell the company at a loss to whoever, sell it to the rail workers and the unions. Then open up the whole transport field to private companies. Let the unions run their own companies and face unemployment in the real world.
The country is not just falling apart, it has fallen apart. At least let the Irish Rail union be taken down along with the economy. See, every cloud can have a silver lining.

Still not getting it

It seems that some people still aren't understanding the whole global recession thing. Irish tourism for one. I got these offers in my inbox this morning.

Mazatlan - 7 nights all inclusive 5 star accomadation including flights, $777
Mexican cruise - 11 nights, all inclusive though no flights, $689 (here)
Ireland - 10 day tour, some meals, no airfare, $2035 (here)

Hmm, now given the exchange rate, where should I go?
In fact given the exchange rate, where should the Irish go? Hint. The answer to both questions is a sunny place. Is it just me our is Irish tourism pricing itself way out of the game? 5 star all inclusive or horribly expensive bus tour? Not much of a choice really.

I'm dreaming of a warm Christmas

The weather forecast is telling us it could snow at the weekend (here). It's bad enough that at 11 in the morning it's 3 degrees below but now I'll have to shovel the driveway.
I'm all for a white Christmas, but only when it starts snowing on the way home from the pub on Christmas eve and is gone by boxing day. It's nice to have it on the mountains so I can break many bones skiing (or trying to) but a few weeks with a snow shovel? Boo. Thank all the gods for a gas fire.

Christmas is for children

Fattened up and popped in a hot oven for about 20 mins per pound. Bear in mind that you'll need0 a large oven and children can take over a day to cook, so you'll need to put them in Christmas eve. You should baste them in their own juices every hour or so as well.

OK, maybe not. But here gingerbread houses are a Christmas thing instead of a witch trying to cook Hansel and Gretel thing, so I went and made one. It's sickeningly sweet, just hardened sugar really.

Merry Christmas already

I know I swore it would be Culchie Shopping Day (8th December) before I would put up the lights but we were starting to look like we were going to be the only house on the street without them so I went for it.
The tree went quite well, even if it is huge (about 8 feet though we only paid for 6 - 7).



The outside lights were more difficult. Never done this before and the hanging icicle things are hard to straighten out when you're trying to balance on the top step of a wobbly ladder. Also we were about 4m short on the line of lights. The lights on the tree out front are much brighter than anything else, but hell, I'll fix it tomorrow.

The Toy Show

A million kudos, whuffies and cool points to JH for providing me with this. Fantastic show.
Since I wont be home this Christmas this was about the best bit of tv I'll see this season.

Not so fit - Part 2

Mens Health recently had an article on 10 standards to assess your fitness. This isn't good news. I think I might pass 1, two if I'm lucky. If I get the chance I'll try others the next time I'm in the gym and have access to a 470lb weight to test. The 10 standards are:

1. Bench Press 1.5 times your body weight.
Nope. How about .5 times? Though as I guess this is a 1 rep thing I could probably go much higher, maybe my bodyweight, not 1.5.

2. Run 1.5 miles in 10 minutes.
9 miles an hour for 10 minutes? Are you fecking kidding me?

3. Touch the rim.
What kind of perverted fuc...? Oh you mean grab the hoop in basketball from a jump. Are trampolines allowed?

4. Leg press 2.25 times your own weight.
This one I think I could do, but then my own weight is pretty high. I'll need to get to a gym to try this one out since I don't have a 470lb barbell lying about.

5. Swim 700 yards in 12 minutes.
I'm a terrible swimmer. Last time I had to swim 200m (for a diving test) it took about 55 minutes. So no, 700 yards in 12 minutes is out.

6. Do 40 pushups.
Maybe. It might kill me. I know I can do 20 and if this was all I was doing that day maybe this is possible.

7. Measure up.
Yep, mine's bigger than yours. Oh you mean waist size. Yes, mine's bigger than yours there too, so this is a fail.

8. Run 300 yards sub 1 minute.
About 10.3mph? For a minute? Even 10 seconds. Feck off.

9. Touch your toes.
Maybe. On a good day. Yes.

10. Toss a basketball 75 ft kneeling.
I have no idea. You Americans have weird tests. Probably not.

So all in all I am not fit. Why isn't there a pill to fix this? It would sell almost as well as a H1N1 vaccine.

Not so fit - part 1

So I've been working out a bit more lately. Almost regularly. Running, weights etc. I've stopped smoking and dont drink near as much as I did when I was in Ireland. I even eat a lot more vegetables. Comes from marrying a vegetarian.
So why am I not so fit?
From perusing my Fat Bastard Stats on this blog (here and here) my stats have gone like


August 04 - Weight 200lbs Body Fat 24.5%
March 2005 - Body Fat 20%
January 2006 - Weight 211lbs Body Fat 29%
December 2009 - Weight 211lbs Body Fat 31.5%

Which means while my weight has gone up I've also dropped about 5.5lbs of muscle. Or bone. Though I'm pretty sure most of my ribs are still here.

Maybe I just need 20 Malboro light and a crate or two of dutch gold.

Scientists are dumb

It seems that scientists in Montreal were trying to find men in their 20's who hadn't watched porn. They couldn't find any (the story is here). Wow, they needed to go to university to find that out. For their next study I decided to help them save some money and time on research so here are the figures they're looking for.
99% of men masturbate, the other 1% are liars.