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January 31, 2006

My Response to Dr Oil

Here's my response to Dr Oil asking him about the validity of his "banker's" email to me. I mean, Merideth. I mean, Meat.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I Thought Dr Oil Gave Up on Me

I thought Dr Oil had given up on Merideth. I thought maybe he got scared off and stopped emailing her, but then I got a message from Dr Oil's "banker."
It looks like things are back on with Dr Oil.
I've got to write back to Dr Oil and to his banker now.

>From: ken franklin
>To: calculatoronfire@hotmail.com
>Subject: Payment of Contract Entitlement
>Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:30:46 +0000 (GMT)
>
> Merideth Zdenka,
>
> We have been authorised to effect immediate payment totalling US$29.6 million to you as payments, in full and final settlement with referrence to your Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation's contract number: 043/NNPC/WR-PH/01.
>
> Our Houston, texas US offices have duly been notified same and so you are hereby directed to make available the procurement fee of $1,850.00 (One Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty United States Dollars Only) via Western Union International Money Transfer in order that we can commence promptly with your relevant claims processes and settlement.
>
>Kindly proceed to the nearest Western Union outlet and send the required fee through our accounts clerk in the United States as under:
>
> NAME: Mr. Alton Smith
>ADDRESS: 6901 Woodridge Drive
> Houston, TX 77087, USA.
>AMOUNT TO BE SENT: US$1,850
>
>Do act timely as directed above today and then send us a copy of the payment order/receipt. Upon the receipt of this amount, your entitlement would be freighted to you within 48 hours.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Ken Franklin - Procurement Manager
>OVERSEAS FINANCE SECURITIES
>27 Lufield Road
>Abbey Wood, London
>SE2 9JN
>Tel.: +44 704 010 6608
>Fax: +44 870 139 8960
>email: overseasfinancesec@yahoo.co.uk

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 25, 2006

Crusty Punks and the Age of Consent Pt 1

I think it was 1998; my friends and I decided that it was time for us to start milking our school for activity funds.
See, the school charged every student about $50 a semester for "activities." They then gave that money to student organizations to spend when they organized activities. You know, like a homecoming parade through our 2 block-long campus before a volleyball game, since didn't have a football team. Or snacks for the meetings when concerned (read: grade grubbing) students got together to talk about whether the school should start giving +/- grades instead of the (potentially GPA damaging!) traditional A B C D F system. Or bringing De La Soul to the campus home to students more familiar with Hu Qin than turn-tables.

After De La Soul made its largely ignored appearance rumors swept the mostly parking lot covered campus that the activity fund was low and the school was considering raising the fee the upcoming semester.
"Activity fee? Who cares. I don't pay that."
"Yeah you do, it's included in your tuition." Some know it all frat boy in my calculus class said. "That stupid De La Soul concert sucked up the fund and now we might have enough for a formal this semester."
"Formal?"
Mistaking my shock that there were people so unhappy with life they felt they needed to have a "formal" coupled with the realization that I was paying for it the frat boy continued as if I was a kindred spirit. "Yeah. That concert cost over $35,000. And Union council is planning another concert for next semester."
"Who?"

The frat boy went on to explain the inner workings of the student organization finance system. It was then a light went on.
I'd start my own student organization.
My roommate burst my bubble later on that day, "You need other people in your student organization. Otherwise it's just you. And you're not even organized."
"Well you'd join, right?"
"Ok. So two of us."
"Dude, it'll be so punk rock." Everything was "punk rock" that year. It all started when, in the first week I, making fun of my roommate's use of the word, wrote it in huge letters on our dorm room ceiling. Ok, I was a little drunk, too. "We'll get the school to give us money and we'll give it to our friends and stuff."
"How would we do that? We can't just give away money."
"We'll have concerts. With punk bands, you know. We'll get our friends bands to play and pay them for it."
"I don't think so. No one here is into punk rock."
"We can get Stef, and Dan is always singing Descendants songs. That's already four of us."
"And there's that one Christian punk rocker guy. That's five."
"Four. I don't like that guy."
"I thought we're going for numbers. We don't have to like them."

Soon we decided members of our organization didn't even have to like punk rock. First, there were some people that lived in our dorm that would join. They were Creed fans, but they would never stand in the way on our path to world domination. Then things slowly started evolving. We decided our membership could be any students' names we could get our hand on.
"We'll have a meeting and if people show up and sign their names they're members -- All we need are names."

We held a meeting, offered FREE PIZZA! And watched our membership rise.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 23, 2006

My New House

Not too long ago I decided to buy a house in a different neighborhood in the city. After a little searching I found a nice house for $7,500.
With a little elbow grease and a couple things like a new roof and some floors I thought it would come together rather nicely.

I haven't closed on it yet, but I will next month. And I'm excited. I'd love to tell you all about the house and the neighborhood, but I'm afraid I'm not that good with words.

I did find a nice picture of the neighborhood, however, in an article in the City Paper. You can read the article on-line, it's called Murder by Numbers: A Look Behind The Sad Statistics Of Baltimore’s 2005 Homicide Toll.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:53 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 18, 2006

A Little Late

This morning when my alarm went I rolled over, turned it off and went back to sleep.
When I came to I realized I wanted to sleep a little more, rolled over, and went to sleep.

Finally, I woke up. I hopped in my car and drove down to work knowing the entire drive I was going to be late. It was no big deal, I thought, I didn't have class until the afternoon.

As soon as I walked through the door I saw my bosses boss. The woman that made the rule about me having to show up for work at a certain time. She won't know I'm just coming in now, I thought. She'll just think I went outside for something. Shit. Not carrying my lunch like this.
So I quickly jumped behind some tall guy walking in the same direction. This way she'll never see me.

I made it up to the third floor and down to my office without anyone seeing me -- the bell just rang for class, so most people where in class. I strolled around leisurely. I got some coffee. I checked my email. I was checking out this picture my dad sent me when a couple of my students came to my door.
"Come on in," I said. "What's going on?"
Neither of them made any move like they were contemplating coming in. "What do you guys need?" I asked.
"Sir, umm, we have class right now."
"What? Now? Shit!"

I missed the first 20 minutes of class. I was a little embarrassed about that.

I was more embarrassed that it was the second time it happened.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 08:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Lost Oil Doctor

I think I've waited long enough.
I give up.
He's not writing back.

What did I do? Was I too over the top?
How could I have scared off a Nigerian Email Scammer? What could I have done to make him stop writing?

Should I have sent him a picture?

Posted by calculatoronfire at 08:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 16, 2006

Email from Dad

Tonight I called my parents. I had only spoken to them once since I saw them around christmas-time and decided it was time.
I talked to my dad first, then my mom. As she was getting all teary, just after telling me she loves more than I "could ever know" My dad demanded the phone back. He needed felt an urgent need to tell me that the Decemberists really sucked but James Blunt was his new favorite musician.
"I'm really hip. He's number one in Britain. I'll send some of his mp3s from the same address."
We talked earlier about some pictures I was going to send him. Pictures of my house being torn apart.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2006

Tuna? Do I Smell Tuna?

Last night after work I decided I was going to eat a tuna sandwich. I opened up a can and started draining out the liquid. I decided it was a little too slow just letting it drip out so I pushed down on the lid of the can. I figured the pressure would force the liquid out.

I didn't count on the fishy smelling stuff exploding out onto my pants.

I took it in stride, however. It had been a long day at work and I was tired. it really wasn't worth fussing about. I wiped the tuna juice up and carried on.

This morning, without even thinking about it, I put on the same pair of pants and headed out to work.

Now, sitting in my office, smelling a bit of tuna in the air I wonder if anyone else notices.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 04, 2006

Merideth's 3rd Reply to Dr Oil

I'm not sure what this NES wants from me. He asks for a picture of my drivers license and then doesn't bother asking again. He hardly even hounds me for my bank account number.
It sounds like all he wants is my phone number.
I mena Merideth's phone number.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 03, 2006

Two Emails from the NES

The Nigerian email scammer has really outdone himself. He's created a fake business for Merideth, the fictious American, and involved a second email address, this one belonging to a fictitious lawyer looking to legally represent Merideth.

This morning I had two emails waiting for me in my inbox. the first from the lawyer, the second from the address the Nes uses as "his own."

And this one from the NES himself:


Posted by calculatoronfire at 04:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Wonderful Tenants

December 31st I woke up to somebody knocking at my front door. I thought it was either one of two people, the little spazzy kid from next door come to beg me to shoot my BB gun with him or the little junkie from down the street come to beg me to buy some stolen level or something. I hoped that it was my tenants come to weigh me down with the piles of money they owe and, more importantly, the key to their front door.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the face of my tenant, complete with rotten grey stubs where her teeth used to be. She turned in the key the house and begged me to overlook that she left a mattress inside. I told her it was fine and stumbled back into my house.
Sure I was excited to have my house back, but I was also hung over. I had been warming up for new year's eve the night before.

When I finally got up and checked out the house I was shocked. Aside from the mattress in one of the bedrooms every surface was clean. The fridge and stove scrubbed the floors swept.
Although it was nice it didn't last. Last night a couple friends and I began smashing down walls and throwing hammers through doors.

The relative silence didn't last either.

Though I didn't wake up to the tenants screaming at each other at 3am like usual I woke up on New Year's day when someone was banging on my front door.
Or maybe it was early afternoon.
I don't remember. I just know there was an old woman standing on my stoop crying asking to use my phone. I, of course, let her, and after a little coaching she dialed 911.
It seems she took in my tenants. She lives down the block from me and as a friendly gesture allowed them to stay in her house until they found a place. She was calling the police because they, along with her daughter, kicked the woman out of her own house and refused to let her back in.

I'm not too saddened by my loss of such wonderful tenants.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 01:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Empty row house

This past weekend my tenants moved out of their beautiful house.
I took a few pictures.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack