Monday, September 19, 2005

Avast, mates! 'Tis Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Ahoy, landlubbers! If ye happen to see many pirates in yer town today, it be because September 19 be Talk Like A Pirate Day.

So be a mate, lads and lasses, and talk like a pirate today! Arrr!
:)

Saturday, September 03, 2005

All Writers Are Liars, Especially If They Claim To Be Exiled Nigerians

I get a load of Nigerian Banking Scam e-mails every day... today I received the first one which actually used my name.

I was insulted and annoyed, that a fellow writer of outrageous fictions could think I wouldn't be able to tell a fiction from the truth. How unprofessional! How gauche!

Now, I'm not saying the "Banking Scam" people aren't gifted writers, in their narrow field. They have a certain skill in coming up with variations on the tired theme "I can make you rich tomorrow if you send me money today." And it's hard to really feel sorry for the fools who are greedy enough to fall for such an obvious lie.

I even wrote a satire of the email scam, in the horror story "The Last Weblog Of Jonathan Lippincott."

But I would never go so far as to suggest, as in this bizarre tale, that a paid agent should seek out the scammers and... make them go away.

No, I'm convinced that a little voodoo curse I picked up from my relatives in Kap Verde will suffice. Soon, grave and inexplicable misfortune will befall the Nigerian Banking scammers who tried to approach me. Their teeth will rot and fall out. Their children will fall sick. Their parents will die in mysterious accidents. The scammer who wrote the email to me will suffer the greatest curse of all: his genitals will shrivel and die away, and his body will emit a disgusting smell which drives away all people around him.

This will happen, and nothing can stop it. Would I lie to a con artist?