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:

1. In the military. 
2. Stationed overseas. 
3. '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. 

via GIPHY

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.

via GIPHY

And 1970s Kenny is DA BOMB!

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. 

Smell ya later, lamesauce!

   

ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING, PT. III:

ROWSDOWER. ZAP ROWSDOWER.

This scam bait is an eclectic hodge podge of themes: Mystery Science Theater 3000, Led Zeppelin, Brett Kavanaugh, Lorenzo Lamas, Pauly Shore, and The Red Green Show, to name a few. I don't plan these out in advance, I just go with the shit that pops into my head when I'm messaging with these morons. Spontaneity is the spice of life. (So is variety, I guess.) 

This guy puzzled me, because he seemed to be a native English speaker and his grammar didn't make my brain all hurty. That's faint praise, but still, he was something of a rarity. 

Zap Rowsdower is a character from The Final Sacrifice, a Canadian film that was riffed by the guys on Mystery Science Theater back in the '90s. The movie is a big steaming pile of poo until about 25 minutes in, when Zap Rowsdower shows up. Then, it becomes awesome. (Plot in a nutshell: nerdy kid finds out his dead father was in a cult, cult comes after nerdy kid, nerdy kid meets Zap Rowsdower, a mustachioed, beer swilling, bemulleted drifter and he and nerdy kid battle the cult and discover shit, blah blah blah.) But ladies and gentlemen, Zap Rowsdower is the true reason for the season.

OMG, some awesome MST3K fan made a Rowsdower action figure. 

Is it too late to add this to my Christmas list?  

The guy compliments me on my beautiful name. I should've just said my full first name was Zap, but I feminized it to Zapressa (which is a name that actually exists, according to the internet).

Below: Zeppelin song lyrics: "I come from the land of the ice and snow....." If I'd quoted lyrics from some Ariana Grande Latte song (do her songs even have lyrics?) he'd probably catch on, but he's too dumb to recognize Zeppelin. My youngest nephew is well-versed in Led Zeppelin, and he was born in 2002. I thought Zeppelin was just part of the collective consciousness by now?

Yes, "Over the Hills and Far Away," another Zeppelin song dumbass! I guess he's too busy pretending to be taken with my name to notice. 

I had to throw in some references to Rowsdower's love of beer. It's a running joke in the MST3K episode. 

Above: a mashup. "I wonder if there's beer on the sun," (a Rowsdowerism from the show), and "Yes, we drank beer. My friends and I, the boys and girls. Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. Still like beer. We drank beer." I'm quoting that bitchy old boozebag Brett Kavanaugh, of course.

Below: yes, The Festival of Trout, that sacred Canadian holiday. I almost wrote The Festival of Flannel, but I thought that would sound too ridiculous. He probably wouldn't have noticed.  

Above: somewhere in Hollywood, Lorenzo Lamas is beaming with pride at being called the greatest actor alive today, because that sentence has never been written until now. 

Below: I hope the guy just consulted imdb.com and didn't really know all those Lorenzo Lamas movie titles by heart. My Grease joke sailed right over his head, anyway; Lorenzo Lamas played a big dumb football player who didn't have any lines. 

Below: The cultural impact of Pauly Shore movies in the late 20th century. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of that one. 

Above: UGH, Liberty University? If you're not familiar, it's a Christian college founded by Jerry fucking Falwell, which tells you all you need to know about it. I don't understand, the guy's an internet scammer, he could've claimed to be an alumnus of any college. Why not some Ivy League establishment, if he's trying to sound impressive? 

Above: thanks for the sermon, freak. Just my luck, I get a scammer who's also a God-botherer?

Below: More Zeppelin lyrics in response to his "are you married?" question. Again, it's a question that could be answered with a minimal amount of digging on my Instagram, but the guy's too lazy. Ah well, Zap Rowsdower likes to be mysterious anyhoo.

Below: I'm starting to get tired of the guy, so I try to provoke him. I was actually impressed by his English skills, though, so that comment was genuine. His spelling sucks ass, but I guess you can't have it all. (Again, faint praise, but English as a first language is uncommon among these dickheads.)

Below: has he not been paying attention? Zap Rowsdower is as Canadian as it gets!

Above and Below: asking me about kids. Dude, I'm 45 years old. If I wanted kids, I'd have procreated a long, long time ago. It's not like I never had any chances. And for the record I DO like kids, I have stepchildren and stepgrandchildren and nieces and nephews and I adore them all. And it's not limited to kids I'm related to through blood or marriage, either. I've babysat many times for friends who have kids, and I happened to love it. In fact, I was just talking to a friend from Minneapolis about babysitting her daughters (aged 4 and 6 at the time), and all the fun we had singing songs and making up dances and running outside to meet the ice cream truck. (Those kids are in high school now, unbelievably. Where does the time go?)

Oh yeah, I got him to chat about music. One Direction and Maroon 5? No wonder he didn't know any Zeppelin. He listens to musical diarrhea.

I listed all Canadian bands as my favorites, because why not, eh? Fun fact: I actually saw two of those artists in concert back in the '80s. Can you guess which ones? Bet you can't! ;-)  

A few days passed between the messages above and below. I'd all but forgotten about the guy, and then he messages me with some more bullshit.

Obviously, I was no longer in the mood to entertain his ridiculousness with fake answers. So I cut the crap and started asking him some questions. 

Below: oopsie, did I hit a nerve? I think maybe I did. So this is where it ends. The dream of Lorenzo and Zap is no more. I decided to close it out with some Rowsdower humor and, lastly, a quote from the Canadian national treasure that is Red Green. 

via GIPHY

ADVENTURES IN SCAM BAITING, PT. II: 

THE LEGEND OF BALLSACK GIRL

Well, at least he's not pretending to be Rod Stewart, but he's still a trolling POS. 

This one messaged me out of the blue under the pretext of "Nice Guy looking for love." If you haven't seen my Instagram--and there's not much reason for you to follow it unless you know me in real life--it's just photos of my cats, John and me, and whatever else I feel like posting. This guy obviously didn't look at my Instagram before messaging me, which is typical; I've deduced that most scammers just message several random women without looking at their profiles, then wait to see who bites. Lucky for robert_paul124, it was me. 

This is where I decided the theme for this one would be lyrics to John Mellencamp's Small Town, hence my name-checking Seymour, Indiana. 

It's pretty clear from my Instagram pics that I'm married. Lazy ass can't even be bothered to check. But whatever, I'll play along with some confusing responses. 

I think this asshat just copied and pasted a bunch of words. That's still no excuse for that hideous sentence structure.

Below: yes, I used "Nail Polish Tester" as my job title again. I pulled that out of my ass, thinking it couldn't possibly be a real job. Then I Googled it and turns out that it actually is, according to spammy clickbait site Mashable. 

ALSO, note that he claims to be a badass bomb disposal specialist in the army. What is it with these jackasses pretending to be in the military? 

Yes, I have a special man, you nipplehead. He's called MY HUSBAND and if you'd bothered to scroll down on my Insta, you'd see the evidence. And nice question about whether I rent or own. That's not obvious at all. 

Below: buckle up for the best part, "I invented Post-Its"! It's a reference to Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, because that movie is fabulous as all hell and I happen to love it. 

If you haven't seen it, a bit of background: Romy and Michele are two ditsy L.A. girls who travel to their hometown for their 10 year high school reunion. At the last minute, they decide their lives are not cool enough to impress the popular douchebags who harassed them back in the day, so they cook up a story about how they invented Post-It notes and (presumably) became multi-millionaires. No one at the reunion buys it, of course, but the girls still triumph in the end, and it's awesome. There's also some flashback scenes with everyone sporting hilarious '80s hair and clothes, an insane dream sequence, and a choreographed dance to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time."

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

Word to the wise: never trust anyone who can't have fun watching Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. 

And now, back to our story.

And here are some more Mellencamp "Small Town" references. I love the notion of someone becoming hugely rich off their invention and choosing to stay in a cow town like Seymour, IN. "Welcome to my estate. It's so peaceful here, most days you can barely smell the hog farms! Would you like to see the tennis courts?" 

There are some quaint, picturesque towns in Indiana--Ferdinand, for example, and James Dean's hometown of Fairmount--but Seymour ain't one of them.

***BTW, that song is misleading, because Mellencamp didn't stay there as the lyrics imply. I know he's got a place outside Bloomington, Indiana, and probably Beverly Hills or somewhere, too, but not Seymour. But anyway....

"Dancing to the oldest music." Yeah, I don't know what the fuck he means by that, but it gave me something to riff on.

Re: "Shadow Chant" below--that was an autocorrect gaffe--the oldest known song is actually the "Shaduf Chant." I learned this from Duran Duran's "Planet Earth" video. (Everything I needed to know, I learned from Duran Duran.) 

Sure, Wayne Newton, Nine Inch Nails, and The Osmonds. I'm wasting all my smartass answers on this guy, he's not even reading them. 

Asking for a photo of me because, AGAIN, he hasn't looked at my photos on Instagram. That's really a good thing, though. I don't think I want him rooting around in there.

So I Googled "weird model photos" and found this meme:

I cropped out the poor girl's hair, trying to make it look like a "selfie" (although it still doesn't look like a selfie, the angle is all wrong). 

And here's where the story ends. He never replied after seeing this pic, like he's too good for Ballsack Girl? It's not her fault some asshole hairstylist decided to give her that nasty 'do for a runway show. I feel strangely protective of Ballsack Girl. Sure, her hair sucks but she's got nice skin and her bone structure is poppin'.

I got news for robert_paul124. Ballsack Girl wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. She is still miles out of your league, with or without ballsack hair. Besides, she heard from her sister's ex-boyfriend's brother that you have gross backne and your breath smells like French onion soup. 

So there. 

Oh yeah, this is also the point where I blocked this guy and reported him for spam, natch. 

***OMG, you guys, I just remembered that John Mellencamp is dating Meg Ryan. What a weird, random celebrity coupling that is, no? Although, I can see their '80s versions hooking up: 

Oh yeah, DEFINITELY.