Got a new one today:

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

                 

 CENTRAL BANK OF  NIGERIA
    TINUBU SQUARE LAGOS
                 
  

                                              

From the Desk Of:
Prof Charles Soludo
Executive Governor

(CBN) PRIVATE EMAIL: prof_soludo_cbngov@yahoo.com

 

ATTENTION: HONOURABLE CONTRACTOR,                                     DATE:20/01/006

 

IMMEDIATE CONTRACT PAYMENT                CONTRACT NO: MAV/NNPC/FGN/MIN/009

 

We
Apologies, for the delay of your payment and all the Inconveniences and
Inflict that we might have indulge you through. However, we were having
some minor problems with our payment system, which is Inexplicable, and
have held us stranded and Indolent, not having the Aspiration to devote
our 100% Assiduity in accrediting foreign contract payments. We
Apologies once again.

 

From the Records of outstanding contractors due for
payment with the federal government of Nigeria, your name and company
was discovered as next on the list of the outstanding contractors who
have not yet received
their payments.

 

I wish to inform you now that the square peg is now in
square whole and can be voguish for that your payment is being
processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this
letter. Also note that from my record in my file your outstanding
contract payment is US$15,500,000.00 (Fifteen million five hundred
thousand United States dollars).

 

Re-confirm to me if this is Online with what you have in your record and also

 

Kindly re-confirm to me the followings:

 

(1) Your full name.
(2) Phone, fax and mobile #.
(3) company's name,position and address.
(4)profession, age and marital status.
(5) Copy of int'l passport or any scanned identity to prove yourself.

 

As
soon as this information is received, your payment will be made to you
in a certified bank draft or wired to your nominated bank account
directly from central bank of Nigeria.

 

As soon as you receive this letter for further discussion, get back to me
on this e-mail address: prof_soludo_cbngov@yahoo.com

 

YOURS SINCERELY,

 

 

 

PROFESSOR CHARLES C. SOLUDO,
GOVERNOR, CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN)

CONTACT PHONE NO: 234-806-2562889

http://www.outpostnine.com/editorials/newhell.html

Seems I'm not the only one who hates Dell tech support. At least his idiot techies weren't in Bombay.

Finally got my entry into the SIYE Hogwarts Discovery challenge posted, at precisely fortyish minutes past the deadline. more to the point, long before Sir Ollivander had time to wake up to close the challenge, which is the important thing.

The "completed" (but, as I mention in the A/N, not finished) fic is here

Well, I've heard that the notice I blu-tacked up on the loo door has garnered a reaction. The cleaners thought it must have been one of them, but no one knew who. And chatting to Julie in the college office revealed that there have been some... comments. Mostly supportive, but apparently one of the students was terribly offended by it.

I can't see why, it very clearly is directed only at those uncivilised dregs who leave the seat up, leave disgusting tangles of suspiciously coarse hair in the shower, leave urine spatter all over the place, and so on. I can't imagine why anyone civilised should feel targetted.

Of course, if they feel targetted because they recognise any of the behaviour... well, then their opinion on the matter really isn't worth an awful lot, is it?

I currently live in halls in college.

It is a postgrad corridor, yet my neighbours still seem inexplicably flummoxed by advanced technology.

Now, I realise that a hinge is a very complicated and confusing piece of equipment, but is it really that hard to PUT THE BLOODY LID DOWN?

I mean, OK, it might actually take some effort and perhaps a whole three or four seconds if they were to grab a wad of paper and wipe off the seat, but surely moving the lid from vertical to horizontal can't be that bloody difficult?

A couple of weeks ago, therefore, I applied the following poster to the bathroom door (and whose bright idea, by the way, was it to not have a washbasin in there? That only leaves two options for handwashing: a mostly defective shower with buggerall pressure, and walking back - through three doors - with dirty hands to the sinks in our rooms. Delightful.):

If you are incapable of:
• Flushing the toilet;
• Closing the lid;
• Removing your tangles of hair from the shower;
• Wiping away any “spillage” on or around the toilet;
• Or generally leaving the bathroom in the state that the next user would like to find it,
then please use a different bathroom.

it worked for a few days. But now it's back to chewing gum in the corner of the shower, spatter on the (poorly fitting and wobbly) seat, dribbles on the floor and suspicious damp spots on the door handles.

Bloody students.

I've been listening to a bunch of my old CDs, and there are lots of bits I hadn't noticed before. Or, in the case of the Kiss Me Kate soundtrack, I'd noticed before but then forgotten all about.

First up, "The Best Of The Rat Pack". Perhaps I'm being silly, but isn't there a rather unpleasant undercurrent in those live recordings? In Swedish I'd use the word "olustigt", but "unpleasant is about as close as English will get. The banter between Frank and Dean feels chummy and is pretty amusing, but there's a rather nasty edge to the banter aimed at Sammy Davis Jr. Can't quite put my finger on it, but I've started skipping them when those tunes crop up on my playlist.

Kiss Me Kate, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. Great tunes, fun lyrics... but is it just me, or are they really mucky when you actually listen to them? From Too Darn Hot, for instance:

According to the latest Report

Ev'ry average girl you know

Much prefers her lovely doggie to court

When the temperature is low,

Particularly when some productions sing "According to the Kinsey report"...

Or what about I Hate Men (which, by the way, contains the marvellous line "He may have hair upon his chest, but sister, so has Lassie"):

If thou shouldst wed a businessman, be wary, oh, be wary.

He'll tell you he's detained in town on business necessary,

His bus'ness is the bus'ness with his pretty secretary,

Some versions use instead "His business is the business that he gives his secretary", which sounds even more dubious....

But then we get to Always True To You (In My Fashion), which was obviously written on the assumption that the intermission would mark the watershed...

If a custom-tailored vet

Asks me out for something wet,

When the vet begins to pet, I cry "Hooray!"

...
What about that Mister Thorne

Calls you up from night 'til morn?

LOIS:

Mister Thorne once cornered corn and that ain't hay.

...
I could never curl my lip

At a dazzlin' diamond clip,

S'pose the clip meant "let 'er rip,"

I'd not say "Nay!"

I don't get the Thorne bit, but the rest of it sounds pretty dodgy.

And then probably my favourite song from the whole show, just because I always liked the idea of tap-dancing gangsters:

If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er

Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer,

And if still, to be shocked, she pretends well,

Just remind her that "All's Well That Ends Well."

...
If your goil is a Washington Heights dream

Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night Dream."

If she fights when her clothes you are mussing,

What are clothes? "Much Ado About Nussing."

If she says your behavior is heinous

Kick her right in the "Coriolanus."

Great tune, but sounds very dubious... Of course, it could just be that I've been around students for too long.


Anyway, moving on, how come I like such dreadful music? Really cheesy tunes, like "5, 6, 7, 8", "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", "Follow Me", "Heaven Is A Half-Pipe" (which in addition quite explicitly glorifies drugs, but I don't mind because it's a fun, bouncy tune), "Achy Breaky Song Heart" and so on. Okay, so much of the time I listen to Weird Al's versions instead, but still. Ah well, it's university. Cheese is good, right.

Well, at least in musical terms. Can't stand the dairy type.

It takes a lot for me to think ill of people and companies. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt as far as possible - too far, some would say. And I've always been very kindly disposed towards Alienware.

So when my just-delivered, brand-new system was dead out of the box, I put it down to bad luck; anyone can make a mistake. And if their support department can fix it, no harm done, right?

So I called tech support. I spent 38 minutes and £16 on mobile charges talking to a support bod. "The computer doesn't do anything," I said. I pointed out that I was at uni, with no work surface, no ESD kit, and no tools apart from my Leatherman Wave tool, but still he had me almost take the system apart and put it back together again. He wanted me to take the graphics cards out despite the fact that I couldn't safely reach the latch, but there I drew the line. So he set up a return-to-factory which was eventually collected (after DHL had tried to collect it once but failed because they hadn't read the instructions properly) and so my shiny new system was on its way back to Ireland before it had even started.

Now, a week later, they've fixed it. But do they ship it to the right address? Nooo... They ship it to my home address even when they've been told that it should come here, to the university. At the moment my system's sitting in DHL's Edinburgh depot after my parents (quite rightly) refused delivery yesterday, and it can't get to me before bloody Monday because Alienware can't be arsed to pull their collective thumbs out and pay the extra £25 for DHL's same-day delivery.

The original order-to-delivery time was estimated at 10 business days. As of today, it's been FIVE BLOODY WEEKS. All right, so it arrived after four, but it didn't work.

At the moment, Alienware (famed for their friendly and helpful tech support) are being useless. They won't even consider fixing their own delivery errors, and all our requests for reimbursement have been fobbed off.

But one thing's for sure.

When this is sorted I'll be sending them a demand to cover my costs; phone bills, extra delivery charges, and I reckon I ought to be able to get the original delivery cost refunded as well. And that's before we get started on the loss of earnings for all the hours Dad's lost trying to get through to the buggers.

I always used to like Alienware. I want to like Alienware. How the hell does a company manage to lose a devoted fan like that? Bloody idiots...

Yup, I reckon we'll have snow by the 13th. It's -1.2°C on my indoor windowsill (I've been airing my room), and that's right above the radiator, so it's probably around -2, -3 outside. Lots of frost, relatively high humidity... and my winter hats are still in Scotland. Oh joy.

Still, the weather should be getting interesting from now on. Let's see if the Brits panic at an inch of snow as they usually do....

Equity Chambers & Solicitors
56 Northumland Avenue,
London,WC 2N5bX
UNITED KINGDOM.


Dear  Perry,

This e-mail message from the law firm of Equity Chambers & Solicitors .

Equity Chambers & Solicitors  is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s)
and may contain confidential and privileged information.Any
review,use,distribution or disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you
are not the intended recipient (orauthorized to receive for the recipient),
please contact the sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message.


I am Barrister Kenneth Compbell, solicitor and personal attorney to Mr.John
Perry, who worked with Shell Petroleum Development Company here in the U.K, here
in after referred to as my client.On the 21st of April 2003, my client, his wife
and their only son were involved in a car accident along the Donaghadee Road on
his way going work and all occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their
lives. Since then, several enquiries to locate any of my clients extended
relatives have also proved abortive. Hence after these several unsuccessful
attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any
member of his family hence I contacted you.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left
behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the
finance firm in Europe where this huge deposit was lodged. The finance firm,
where the deceased had an accountvalued at about U.S $ 17.3 million dollars has
issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated
within the next twenty one official working days.


Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2 months now,
I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that
the proceeds of this account valued at U.S $17.3 million dollars can be paid to
you and then we both can share the money, 60% to me and 40% to you.I have all
necessary legal documents that can be used to back-up any claim we may make. All
I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal through and I
believe in god that you will never let me down in this deal.your full contact
information phone and number ,name will be necessary for this effect .

I guarantee that this will be executed under a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you from
any breach of the law.


Best regards,
Kenneth Compbell
I await your urgent mail.Gosh. I'm rich. Yay.

Does anyone ever fall for those?

Well, the Alienware just arrived. For once things were going my way - so I suppose it's not terribly surprising that it all went bollocks up.

Yeah, it doesn't do anything. The box lights up and whirrs along, but nothing comes through to the screen. I spend 38 minutes and £16 on the phone to tech support, took the whole thing halfway apart and back again, and still nothing.

Bollocks.