Scammers

Wasn't that the name of Ron's Rat?
No, really, I'm talking about scammers. I got two different e-mails today for two different nigerian scams. The first one was the "UK Lottery" which I thought was just some sort of silly spam, until I noticed the mention of africa. Now I'm not an expert, but I'd think a legitimate lottery in the UK would be based in the UK. So I did a search, and there it was in the listing of known Nigerian scams. "The UK Lottery scam" which is just like most of the other scams. Before I go on, I'll mention the second e-mail, in which the hapless citizen explained to me how her husband had been a treasurer for some government office, and had been a freedom fighter within the bounds of his position, and had been killed by the government. She then went on to tell me about how he had set aside 20.7 million dollars gained off of interest which was to be hers, except that he hadn't finished some sort of legal processing which would for some reason require my signature and for which help I would recieve 20% of the total sum.

The way these scams work is they bait you with the idea of lots and lots of money and then try to convince you that you'll have to pay some upfront fees to get it. Some fools actually send them a couple thousand dollars believing that they will, in return, receive some hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some people reverse-scam them into giving enough information to help authorities catch them, but I just sent them e-mails expressing my disgust with what they do, and my hopes that they would get caught or at least would have to suffer lots and lots of poverty, hopefully due to being scammed out of their money by someone trickier than them.

Perhaps this seems harsh, but I think it would be no more than they deserve.

In other news, I was sick for a long time, all last week, but since monday I've been feeling great. My daughter, on the other hand, threw up this morning, and hopefully isn't at the start of some detestable illness. I hope all is well with you

J

ants

I was rather productive today. I mounted a paper towel holder and a handi-vac charging base on the wall. S's new shark is a handy vac indeed. I baked bread, including a foccacia I made up, and I made some beef stroganoff, or something like it. Actually, it was like making a beef veloute and putting in some sauteed beef strips and green peppers and putting it over shells.
Today in class I made lobster bisque. I often thought that sounded really good. I think shrimp bisque would be better. Lobster bisque was good, but not nearly worth all the trouble of making it. I liked eating it all the same, but the cream of broccoli I made was better.
This thanksgiving I'm looking forward to making croissant pudding and maybe a strawberry chiffon pie. I'm not sure, but I think I might top the strawberry chiffon with a choco-meringue. That would be pretty fun. My wife is going to make a soft, fluffy pumpkin pie.
I hope someone makes dinner to go with all this desert.

J