Well, this one was certainly topical, I'll say that for him. Here's a hint: which famous shithead has been stinking up the news cycle over the past two weeks?
If your answer was THIS jackhole:
Congrats! You win a blue checkmark.
Use it in good health.
I was in a shitty, morose mood yesterday morning, having just learned of Andy Taylor's stage four cancer diagnosis. I was so psyched about Duran Duran's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and looking forward to watching Andy rock out with his former bandmates on the November 19th broadcast. Being blindsided with that horrible news about Andy sucked big time. And when I noticed I had an IG message from "creativeelon," well....I was a bit bitey, to say the least.
^^^^^ Yeah, this fuckface actually tried to call me through IG. Declined!
Guess I pissed him off.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, whatever. Time for some self-care, as the youngsters say. This song does it for me.
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING PART VII: PRICK SPRINGFIELD
I had so much trouble posting the screenshots from this one. They were really disorganized in my phone, and I think I inadvertently deleted a few of them, while a few others seem to be out of order. I blame my post-COVID brain fog. Whatever.
This wannabe scammer kept stalking me on Instagram using various accounts, all of them purporting to be the "private" account of Rick Springfield. I got several notifications that accounts with names like therealrickspringfield and rickspringfield456 were now following me, and I'd block and report them every time, but then a day later another new fake Rick Springfield account would pop up and follow me. I mean what the hell, and why me? Creepy fucker.
Below: notice how he ignores my comment about Nigerian scumbag scammers. Heh.
Below: Okay, this is where I think I must have deleted a screenshot or two, because he's suddenly talking about his "identification card." I asked for proof that he was Rick Springfield, and he sent a shot of a (fake) driver's license, but then he'd quickly delete it from the chat a few seconds later before I had time to scrutinize it.
But below you can see I was eventually able to take a screenshot before he deleted it again. I blacked out the info, because while I'm sure this is not Rick Springfield's ID, the Los Angeles address on the card no doubt belongs to someone, and I wanted to protect the privacy of whoever it is. I also noticed that the ID lists Rick Springfield as 5'8" tall, weighing in at 120 pounds. Riiiiiiiiight.
Below: fake Rick Springfield thinks I'm foxy. Funny coincidence, because....
....it's actually a photo of Rick Springfield's wife!
I think I put my finger on why these scammers irk me so much; they're a special blend
of stupid and evil, kind of like Donald Trump and his terrible children.
Above: while I think Rick Springfield looks amazing for being 70+ years old, I don't believe that hair is real. No septuagenarian has hair that lush. It's gotta be a hairpiece--at least in the front--hence my wig comment. Still, as hairpieces go, it's pretty convincing.
Wouldn't you agree?
Below: after I decline to show him an ID card, the guy vamooses, expressing doubts about my realness. Well, BYE BITCH! Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya! Then I blocked and deleted, natch.
While we're on the subject, I'm posting my favorite Rick Springfield song. The video is a complete mess, but Rick looks smokin' hot and there's no denying his fabulosity here. The song is from the 1984 flick "Hard To Hold," which is a really stinky movie and it should come as no surprise to anyone that I own it on DVD. Can't help it, I love me some '80s cheese. In Rick's memoir Late, Late at Night he wrote about how he knew "Hard To Hold" was a piece of shit and was so disgusted by the script that he threw it across the room after he read it, but then his agent said, "Dude, they want to pay you a million dollars," and then he reconsidered his opinion right quick. By the way, I definitely recommend his book, it's one of the funniest and most honest memoirs I've read.
Monday, March 30, 2020
ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING PART VI:
HOW CAN WE BE LOVERS IF WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS?
(OR: Love in the Time of COVID-19)
Just a quick one to give us all a few laughs while we wait out the Apocalypse.
This is a guy who contacted me on Instagram yesterday. The thing about this one was that it took me a while to notice that he was claiming to be a celebrity. I guess I wasn't really paying attention, I just accepted his message request and started right in quoting some Kate Bush lyrics at him.
Heh. I love that crazy ass song.
He's got a lot of chutzpah to call me out on a fake photo. How does he know I'm not Kate Bush?
Okay, below you can see the moment where I realized he was pretending to be Michael Bolton. The '90s balladeer, obviously. Not the character from Office Space.
An aside: I assumed that his bogus Instagram would be set to "Private" like 99% of these scam accounts are, so I was surprised when I checked and saw that the dude actually made an effort to swipe some pics from MB's official social media, like this one of homeboy wearing a scarf and enjoying a matcha. Poor Michael. I bet he had no idea that this very photo would one day be used by some random mouth-breather to try and dupe some unsuspecting soft rock aficionados.
So once I realized who the dude was claiming to be, I decided to hop on that pony and ride it into the dirt.
Okay I should provide some backstory on my OJ Simpson comment above. Paula Barbieri (C-list model/actress and OJ Simpson's paramour during the time of the infamous murders) wrote a book called The Other Woman: My Years With OJ Simpson. I tracked down a copy around the time of that OJ miniseries--I wrote about the show here BTW--(jeez, was that really four years ago?) and it was a tawdry but enjoyable read. Some of the random stuff from the book I remember is that Paula was with OJ in the early/mid-90s and while he wasn't physically abusive, he was given to throwing tantrums and acting like a petulant asshole if he didn't get his way (big surprise there). He also either cheated on her a lot or she suspected that he did, I can't recall which. OJ was also buddies with a certain pseudo-billionaire hanger-on by the name of Donald Trump, and there was a anecdote where Paula was with OJ at a golf tournament somewhere and Dumpcake creepily put the moves on her as soon as OJ turned his back. Paula told OJ about it later and instead of actually doing something constructive with his psychotic roid rage, OJ just sort of shrugged it off like, "yeah well, that's just Donald being Donald." Ugh. Wastes of oxygen, the both of them.
An image from the book:
Paula stands between a future murderer
and a future fascist cult leader.
Anyhoo the relevant bit here is that after a lot of on-and-offing with their relationship, Paula finally decided she'd had enough and, during the weekend of the murders, she told OJ sayonara and flew to Las Vegas for a rendezvous with Michael Bolton, as she had recently appeared in one of his music videos and had been digging his chili ever since. The song is called "Completely" by the way, and hoo boy, is this a giant gooey hunk of Velveeta right here.
Sorry, but why does he always sound so constipated? Dude, senna leaf tea. Natural and effective. Just sayin'.
So Paula's in Vegas all set to ride Michael's Bolt-on when news of the murders hits the airwaves, and in a fit of guilt she decides to return (oh gurl NO!) to stand by OJ, a misguided decision I'm sure she still regrets even though her relationship with him went down the toilet for good as soon as his trial was over.
And that brings us up to speed.
Come on, I don't really think Paula and MB's hookup--whether attempted or successful--had anything to do with OJ killing his ex-wife. I was just being facetious.
As above: I assume "Telegram" (?) is some sort of messaging app currently popular in the scamming community, but I've never heard of it.
So below: The dude kept me hanging for a while and I was itching to just block, report, and forget about him, so this is how I ended it.
It turns out that Michael Bolton is a man of many talents; while doing a search on his name I discovered that he wrote a children's book in 1997. It's available on Amazon, and the description makes the story sound suspiciously similar to that of Siddhartha Guatama:
"An award-winning singer and songwriter pens his first children's title in this charming story of a king's son who, disgusted with the greed that power can bring, leaves his father to travel the kingdom as a commoner."
I want a framed poster of this to hang up in my guest room.
Seriously. It's awesome.
It has mostly favorable reviews, too. Back in 2012 an Amazon user named Gail rated it five stars and wrote: "I got this for my granddaughter. Michael Bolton did a great job with this story and she loves reading it."
Really does sound like the perfect book to read to a youngster while you wait out the End of Days, doesn't it? And the good news is, you can get a used copy for under 10 bucks! Go for it.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING PART V:
THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR GENERAL
You know, 98% of the wannabe scammers I encounter make me long for mr.lorenzodaniel (the Rowsdower guy). At least that one was kinda sharp and had a few brain cells to rub together. Sigh. Don't know what ya got til it's gone. I think Bon Jovi said that. (Oops, my bad. It was this dude.) Ah well, I suppose that happens when you don't pick and choose your scammers. I believe in letting them come to me, because it's more fun that way. And because I'm just an old-fashioned girl.
This is what I got to work with, the latest scammer who contacted me about a month ago. And since he checked all the predictable boxes, he pretended to be:
In the military.
Stationed overseas.
'Murican, of course.
He's the very model of a modern major general! Funny, I wouldn't have figured this guy for a Gilbert & Sullivan fan. Incidentally, I thought I was quoting a song from H.M.S. Pinafore, which I actually saw live in Indianapolis about 25 years ago (it was good!) but turns out the Modern Major General song is from Pirates of Penzance, which I haven't seen--although fun fact!--I have actually been to Penzance, which should count for something but whatever. Both are Gilbert & Sullivan, both are comic operas, both have to do with seafaring type stuff. So my confusion is understandable I think, and should be forgiven.
Yemen. Yeah, right. I know shit's been going down in Yemen for a while but I also know that real military dudes aren't allowed to chat casually about where they're stationed and what they're doing there. In fact, a lot of times their loved ones don't even have the details. I was talking to my youngest cousin when I was in Tulsa back in May. She's married to a marine who was at the time deployed "somewhere" near the Persian Gulf (he's back now, thankfully). She didn't know exactly where he was and wasn't allowed to know. So yeah, I already knew this dude is full of shit, and now I get an idea of the degree to which he is full of shit. More on fecal matter in a minute.
Carry on.
Heh. Well, you know how I like to throw a little reality in there. John and I actually were having issues with a giant bush in the front garden that was all overgrown and blocking a window. So we hired a lawn crew, and they'd just shown up that minute to take care of it. Our giant bush. Heheheheheh.
Below: I'd just seen Airplane! on streaming a few nights earlier. I love that movie.
You would never ever EVER hear a line like that played for laughs in a movie nowadays. That makes it even funnier.
Below: I quoted more Gilbert & Sullivan at him and he didn't catch on, so I guess he's not actually a fan of the theater. Oh well, nobody's perfect.
Below: he said DUTY! I always love it when Howard Stern cracks up over that word. Immature, but funny. I remember one time he played a clip of Diane Sawyer pontificating on her "duties as a journalist," and Stern deadpanned, "Oh my God I don't believe it. She's talking about her doodies?" (Yeah I like Howard Stern. He makes me laugh. Sorry not sorry, as the kids say.)
Above: one of the hazards of screenshots. I think I must've deleted one of them, but it wasn't anything exciting. He was saying something about how he liked "cabege stew" (HURRRRLLLLLL!) and asking if I'd make it one day for him (!) and I asked him if he'd been to Texas and he said no.
Onward....
Above: yeah, blah blah blah whatever. Although not gonna lie, Kenny Rogers really is THE MAN.
Above: He's familiar with countries in Africa. Big fuckin' surprise there. (But not familiar with the Toto song. Philistine!)
Above: more blah blah blah, homoerotic banter that he doesn't catch, blah blah blah. This guy is so boring.
Above: Isn't it weird how everyone seems to know "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)"? Well, not this guy obviously, but everyone else, no matter when or where they were born. It's like seeped into the public consciousness.
Below: He hung in there with me for quite a while (and over the span of a few days, if I remember correctly) before asking for my info so we could do Hangout. They all want to do Hangout. It's so tiresome.
Also, "I am number 6" is from the awesome whacked out 1960's British show The Prisoner. If you haven't ever seen it, be sure to remedy that ASAP. Back in 2017 when we were in the UK for my sister-in-law's wedding, John took me to Portmeirion, this amazing little Welsh village where The Prisoner was filmed. No one lives there, and it's perfectly preserved and looks exactly like it does on the TV show. Seriously, like something out of Alice in Wonderland with a human sized chessboard and everything. And it is just an astoundingly beautiful area of the country. I love Wales.
ALSO also, 853-5937 happens to be the name of a Squeeze song I hadn't thought about for decades, and I forgot how much I love it. And the lyrics mention my name, (Angela, FYI) which is a bonus! It's from their later period and the album it came from was pretty Crowded House-y, which is always a good thing.
And that's where I ended it, with my little non sequitur re: horticulture club. The guy was taking too long to respond and I was on a gardening forum reading about horsemint. I decided to copy and paste someone's reply to someone else's question about weed control. I figured inserting it at the end there made about as much sense as the rest of my conversation with georgemorgan260, so why not. Plus I was thoroughly bored with him by then.
So I blocked him and reported his account for spam.
