Scam with a touch of humour

We are all familiar with the email based scams where they write to you saying that you have won some lottery or the rich widow is dying and has decided to leave you her inheritence. I sometimes stop to admire these emails - the sense of irony and humour they sometimes contain is absolutely marvellous. I Especially remember some of the emails originating in Nigeria!

Here is an example that I found in my mailbox today:

"Attn: Beneficiary,

I am John Dagogo Chairman Debt recovery and settlement mainly on lotto, inheritance and contract payments. The recent meeting of world economic leaders in Davos Switzerland agreed with African leaders present that there is need to pay compensation to the above category of victims in other to qualify African countries for debt forgiveness from the G20 and G8 countries,

The compensation is to be made by the Federal Government of Nigeria and some other bodies like the Nigeria National Petroleum Co-operation (NNPC), Dagote Group of Companies (DGC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Ministry of Finance, due to the scam the citizens of Nigeria and other West African countries has done on the internet.

The selection of the people to be compensated was made randomly via internet, so if you receive this mail that means you have been selected among the lucky ones to receive the sum of FIVE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS (US5,000,000.00).

Note that all necessary documentation to make the withdrawal of the fund legal and free from any breach of the law will be your responsibility. Kindly contact me with the following information for the claim of your fund.
<removed>

I will advise you make sure your fund gets to you through the normal process to avoid any problem in future, so please you have to abide to all information as directed.

Thanks

John Dagogo"

I love the references in this scam-email to Davos, G8, G20 and promises of debt forgiveness. And I really love the reference to compensation for the scams carried out by Nigerian citizens - it is a masterpiece! Is this email an example of a sense of self-deprecating humour or is a scammer from another country pulling the leg of his Nigerian brother/sister?

I really don't know who would believe such a letter but perhaps some of us do and immagining millions in our bank account, fall in this honey-trap. I do not believe in such messages and my recommendation is that when you receive such messages, cancel them straightaway and never write back.

However, at the same time I can smile and express my appreciation at the scammer's sense of humour!

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For what?

A friend has sent this message about a consideration made by the Brazilian nobel prize winner Dr. Drauzio Varella:

"En el mundo actual, se está invirtiendo cinco veces mÃis en medicamentos para la virilidad masculina y silicona para mujeres, que en la cura del Alzheimer.
De aquí a algunos anos, tendremos viejas de tetas grandes y viejos con pene duro, pero ninguno de ellos se acordará para que sirven".

It means:

"In today's world, they spend five times more for virility medicines for men and silicone for women, than for curing Alzheimer. In a few years, there will be women with big tits and men with hard dicks, but they won't remember, these are for doing what!"

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Nigerian email hackers have souls

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Nigeria. I was wondering if I should take my laptop with me or if it was better to leave it at home? In my mind, Nigeria is full of hackers who can steal things effortlessly from your computers just by looking at it! Then I received an email and it changed the way I look at Nigeria and Nigerians.

Yesterday I received a "different" spam message from alicesary2(at)gmail.com. It made me aware about the tough jobs poor email hackers in Nigeria have to do. Sending countless emails to people who don't believe in their crying stories, about being stranded in foreign lands needing emergency money or widows of millionnaires wishing your help in getting at their millions, must be tough and job-satisfaction must be low, apart from pangs of guilty-consciousness for duping poor sods who believe in fairy tales.

OK guys, next time I put your message in the dump-box, I won't curse you, I will smile and think about your tough lives! Here is the message:

Hello Dear,

Since you aren't falling for my African romance scam, let me be up front with you. Because I am actually a Nigerian man, you owe me something.  I am entitled to reparations from the rest of the world, including you, due to the misdeeds of my forefathers who sold their family members and neighbors into slavery.

I am also entitled to handouts since my nation is rife with corruption and graft and has no hope of ever creating a decent civilization for itself.  Since you have not sufficiently helped us, that is your fault, not ours.

Most of all, you owe me for all of your unfounded prejudice against us.So start paying up now, by Western Union.  I will accept $12,000 USD from you over a one year period in monthly installments of $1000 USD.

Otherwise I will emigrate to your country and never cease to be a social problem for you.  A word to the wise is sufficient.

Regards,

"Alice Sary", as good a name as any

Climate change and dwindling arm-pit forests

There was an article on the international year of astronomy. It had beautifully illustrated pictures of different shapes of galaxies that have been photographed with potent telescopes. The pictures show specks of lights joining together to make shapes like rings, caps, spirals, etc.

It is difficult for us to imagine the distances to stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. The idea of travelling with the speed of light for a thousand years to reach a star in our own galaxy is difficult enough to grasp. Try to think of millions of other such galaxies, each expanding out forever or getting sucked back in to black holes and the distances that separate them from us, then you can understand the limits of our own imagination and understanding.

Can there be beings that are thousand light years larger to us humans in size, who inhabit this universe and walk around, taking giant strides, and for them the galaxies are like flats in an apartment building, that they pass while going to the office? At the end, it is just a question of proportions!

Because our earth is so tiny in comparison, smaller than a small pinhead compared to this universe of galaxies, and on that tiny little pinhead of earth, to those giant beings we humans would be like sub-atomic particles. Who knows if they can see us in their microscopes? or may be they have not discovered us yet?

That started me thinking about the bacteria and viruses, those tiny sub-microscopic living things that we can’t see but we can sneeze them out to pass on swine and avian flu to our fellow humans or eat in millions mixed in our yogurt. Like for us the distances to all those galaxies are unimaginable, perhaps to the bacteria that live on our bodies, we human beings are like planets or galaxies?

Like a bacteria living on our foot thinks that the little toe where s/he lives is his/her country, our body the earth, the other persons in our house the solar system and doesn’t know if there is life at those far away stars that are the apartments we can see from our window. Who knows if they have passport checks for going to other toes? And the catastrophs like we taking shower or an oil massage or getting licked by dogs or our lovemaking, that occasionally destroys all the living bacterial dinosaurs and makes for "breaking news" of the bacterial news channels. "Another cyclone is going to hit toeland, residents are request to evacuate!"

For them the distance between my house and my office must be like thousands of light years away.

Actually our bodies are like complex ecological systems as mentioned in an article on The Week recently.

"What I found most surprising was the great diversity of bacteria living on the skin," said Julia Segre of the US National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the research. According to the first big census of microbes, parts of the body such as the moist armpits were akin to tropical rainforests in terms of the type of ecosystem the bacteria inhabit, whilst other areas of skin were like dry deserts.

"The second most surprising finding was that the skin was like a desert with moist areas like streams such as the armpits, and isolated oases of life where there are rich reservoirs of deep diversity, such as the navel," said genetics specialist Segre, whose study is published in the journal Science.

The human bodies are ecosystems, believed home to trillions of bacteria, fungi and other microbes that naturally coexist in the skin, the digestive tract and other spots.

And for millions of those living beings, climate change means your new deodorant or the antibiotic pill you pop in. Try imagining yourself submerged and surrounded by a living complex ecological system and you will understand that all those antiseptics and disinfectant sprays, cloth washers, dishwashers that marketing guys want you to buy from all the TV screens and ads, are actually all ecological disasters, killing millions of yet undiscovered bacterial and virus species and probably promoting scourges like antibiotic resistance, killer viruses, new kinds of allergies, etc.

Perhaps we human beings are also one of those killer viruses that sprang out and colonized the whole earth because one unthinking giant being killed all the dinosaurs because a dust particle hit him?

So please, don’t shave your armpits. And don’t put deodorants or other lotions. I don’t mind the smell. I prefer a living world on my body-planet. Down with artifical "civilization" and back to nature.

Funny chocolates cause scandal in Bologna

Bologna has rightly the reputation of being a very progressive and tolerant city, but occasionally something comes out and starts a scandal.

That is what happened, day before yesterday, in the main city square. There was the annual chocolate fair that brings chocolate makers and people who love eating chocolates from all over Italy to Bologna for three days. It is a unique opportunity to taste special handmade chocolates in special tastes that you can't find in shops and superstores selling packaged factory made chocolates.

Among the different chocolate makers was also "Rocco-cicco chocolate company" from a small city called Cento near Bologna. Cristina Merlin the chocolate maker along with her pastry maker husband likes making funny shaped chocolates, among which a special version of penis shaped chocolates called Rocco, named after the Italian porno star Rocco Siffredi. Cristina claimed that those chocolates are modelled after the real penis specimen of the pornostar though they are reduced in dimensions.

Walking through the shops in the chocolate fair, I noticed the crowd in front of Cristina's Roccociocco shop. She had a much bigger varieties of chocolates compared to the other shops, with specialities like chocolate covered cheese in different colours, Bugs-bunny shaped chocolates, etc. However, the most popular product of her shop were those penis shaped chocolates costing 10 Euro each. Couples wanted to get photographed in front of them, girls were holding them in front to get their pictures taken, giggling and laughing all the time. It seemed like innocent fun.

May be if I was new to Bologna, I would have got scandalised, but with the Neptune statue right in the middle of the Bologna city square showing off the family jewels unashamedly and the story they tell about the prudish churchmen of sixteenth century wanting to cover it but citizens of Bologna voted to keep it that way, open and nude, perhaps I have also got used to similar sights.

Plus, in Italy, it is common to find penis shaped pasta, that is sometimes gifted for marriages & birthdays to the future brides and grooms. So I thought making chocolate in that shape was a nice commerical idea, also took a picture, moved ahead and forgot about it (Try to spot those penis shaped chocolates in the image below).

Next day morning when I read in the newspaper that one of our municipal council members, one Ms. Santandrea, had been to the fair, and had found those chocolates to be offensive and thus police was called, Cristina Merlin was asked to pay a fine of some 200 Euros and to remove those "penis chocolates" from her shop. As expected this has awakened some Bologna citizens who say that the chocolates are innocent and the council member is a hypocrite. Predictably, the church representatives have welcomed the "end to the depravity".

So if you want to have a chocolate copy of the Rocco Siffredi's mighty penis, you must now go to the city of Cento to Cristina's shop called Omar, because it will no longer be available in the chocolate fair in Bologna!

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Mercy killing

A friend sent this to me and I think that it is worth sharing:

We were talking about life and death.

I said to her, "Don't let me live like a vegetable, completely dependent upon a machine, getting fed from a bottle. If I ever come to that state, switch off all those machines and remove the bottle..."

She got up, switched off the TV and the computer and took away my beer bottle....

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Virtual holdup & hijacking

It has been sometime, while navigating on internet, suddenly a sign appears "Attention, the scanning of your system is not complete, your system is unsafe, if you want free scanning of your system to identify errors ...". I have tried to ignore it. I have tried to click on "cancel". I have tried to click on the cross at the right hand corner to close it.

No matter what I do, it takes over the webpage I am looking at and hijacks it to "www.it.bloodyerrorsafe.com", leaving me trembling with rage each time. (The "bloody" in the address has been added by me, I don't want them to claim that they are so popular that people are linking their blogs to them)!

I call the people running that site by all names possible. I walk around in the room to calm me down. And, of course, I close the internet explorer. Some times I disconnect and reconnect, hoping that they are gone. Cursing them all the time, scumbags, oro-genitally mixed up, òç*+#ò@... And I take deep breaths and tell myself, "This world is pure maya, no need to get so heated up son. Relax. It is hurting only you while those bastards, they must be smiling their way to the bank with all the money they can get from people clicking their site!"

I try to imagine where they can be based. They must have an office in Jersey island, with another hack who can't find anyone to love him hiding in Cayman island and their server running from Easter islands, with the boss sitting in Florida. Do you think I should go and apply to the international court of justice in the Hague to persecute them?

Or is it the duty of our Government to protect us from unwanted intrusers even if the gang is scattered in all the corners of the world and worse still, even if, the brother of the big boss is governing (ha, ha!) Florida!.

The list of modern stress syndromes is getting longer every day.

Like all those people sitting in their cars, stuck in the traffic and snarling with rage. Their stress has been recognised. Even people typing continuously on their keyboards have legitimate stress. And those looking at the computer moniters all day long, they are indeed stressed.

Perhaps it is time to add another stress diagnosis. Internet holdup and hijacking.

If you have gone through it, you will agree that there is no virtuality in this stress. You have no psychological pleasure in it like collecting the spam mail and throwing it in the rubbish bin and then watching it pass through the thrasher till the bits and bytes are flushed down the cyber-toilet.

So there is no other way, except to take deep breath, hold it and count up to seven, then exhale slowly. Repeat it five times.

How do you feel now brother, ready to forgive them?

Forgive those scumbags, éòù+è#@ ... Ok, let's do it five more time! Take a deep breath, hold it, count slowly upto seven and now exhale slowly.

Heaviest element known to science

Got this from a colleague in an email (I don't know who originally wrote it but it is wonderful):

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium". Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass." When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium - an element which radiates just as much energy as the Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

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Winter Talk

It is winter finally. I had been hearing that it was going to be the worst winter in the last twenty years but the temperatures in Bologna had continued to be good. It felt more like spring than winter. Then, ten days ago, finally the winter came. Still I was going out with a light jacket.

Acquaintances from our apartment block would slowly shake their heads and complain, “It is so cold”. Actually, I didn’t think so, but I played along and said, “It is time now for winter. Almost the end of November. It won’t be right if it was not cold!”

Talking about the temperatures with casual acquaintances is like a game. In the summer it goes like “It is so hot you know!” “This heat is unbearable.” “I wish this heat would end. I am tired of it.” And then it becomes, “It is so cold you know!” “This cold is so tiring and depressing.” “I am waiting for the spring.” Like steps of valtzer. Predictable. You say this, then I say this and then you say that and then we will shake our heads, smile at each other and go away happy, that we played our parts well.

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But now real winter has come. Before going to Geneva, I looked at the expected temperatures in Switzerland on the internet. Minus sixteen! I almost felt sick. Must have taken those temperatures outside the Algida ice-cream factory, I thought, but I was afraid. So off went the light jacket and out came the thick winter overcoat. It was a wise decision as it turned out. It was very cold and it snowed. And it was so windy, almost like London, with cold gale brushing over the bumpy waters of lake Leman, pushing hard at you.

“Katarina!”, I told myself. I was making joke of John Grisham when he had been startled with a frightened expression during a thunderstorm  during a meeting in Bologna some time ago. But every time, there was some wind in Geneva, it was the first thing that came to my mind, Katarina. Wonder what do all the Katarinas of the world think about the idea of giving names of girls to typhoons. Must have been some unhappily married man or a tormented father, who had come up with idea?

The journey back from Geneva was very eventful. I was coming through Munich, that looked like a big white wedding cake with lovely icing on the top. Actually more like a big thick white blanket that the town had pulled up to save itself from cold. The flight to Bologna started late and on the seat next to me, there was a grumpy man, who made faces when he had to get up to let me pass on to the window seat.

“What injustice, I have to share this row with others” he seemed to say. Said something in German, that I didn’t understand and perhaps it was better that way. When the flight started, he bullied the air-hostess to go to an empty row in business class. Good riddance, I thought.

I had my camera ready but the Alps were lost under the clouds. Bologna too was lost under the clouds and after going around in circles for some time, the pilot announced that Bologna airport was closed due to heavy snow and we were going to Pisa. The grumpy old man started fighting with the airhostess. “We should go to Rimini, that is closer”, he insisted. This time in Italian.

The airhostess smiled at him and told him nicely to sit down and put on the seat belt. “Ignorant bitch” he hissed, loudly enough. To punish him probably, the pilot started to rock the little aircraft, up and down it went.

God, I am going to miss Marco’s wedding, was my first thought. Probably they will cancel the marriage, I consoled myself.

But we didn’t crash. And it was raining in Pisa. It took us three hours of bus drive to reach Bologna, through the snow and all. And, all the time, I was thinking, we were in Pisa, they could have organised a small trip for us to go around the city. A picture in front of the leaning tower! That would have been lovely.

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Doing Yoga netis at the Brahmchari asharam

I had never thought that dogs can eat grass. But that was before, we had Brando and before I started taking him out on morning and evening walks.

Evening time in India is Gaudhooli in my mind, the dust raised by cows coming back to home from pastures lit by the rays of sinking sun. In our park, the evening time is kukur-pakhana time, all dog-owners are out with their dogs, no matter if it is raining or snowing. Coming back to vegetarian dogs, I felt amazed to see Brando munching green grass. Nadia explained to me that it is some mechanism for him to clean his stomach since it would make him vomit. So, if he eats lot of grass, that means we must search in the house for his vomits, to clean-up on the next morning.

Eating grass to vomit reminds me of going to Dhirendra Brahmchari's ashram near Gol daak-khana in Delhi in the early seventies. The yoga classes started around 5 in the morning. I used to go there by bicycle from Rajendra Nagar. There we had to do the netis - all the different techniques for cleaning the body. The first neti to be learned was that of vomiting for cleaning the stomach. Everyone there drank a few glasses of tepid water and then cheerfully vomited in the round space delimited by a low wall. Just watching others vomiting made me feel a wave of nausea initially.

Do proper vomiting beta, Bhramchari ji's assistants extorted. So fingers in the throat, I used to go ga-ga-ga, till tears came out of my eyes, trying to vomit. However, with practice, things had got much better. Just standing near the vomiting place, a quick contraction of tummy muscles, brought out every thing inside my stomach in a generous bout of vomit.

There were other netis to learn like taking strings of clothe, putting them in one side of nose, taking out of the other, swallowing the clothe-strings, meters and meters of it, and then bringing them out again (probably by mouth I think!). I never came around to doing those other netis, never progressing beyond the vomiting neti.

Just writing about it, has brought a bit of nostalgia for healthy vomiting. Wonder if I can try it again one of these days, may be when I am alone at home with only Brando (who I am sure would approve!).

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