Opening paragraphs of my Glamour entry
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: Incubus
Topic: Miscellaneous goings-on
I'm a posting fool, aren't I? And I'll probably post more when I get home, too!

I wanted to cut & paste this before I went home tonight so that I could work on it when I got home. I'm entering an essay contest that Glamour magazine is sponsoring.. I'll give all the details when I get home and find the magazine. Anyway, here is how it starts... opinions please!

My story is one of self-improvement and resilience, but also dumb luck. I say dumb luck because it is amazing that I've survived to be 24 years old, which I turned on the 19th of April. In my 24 years, I've experienced more than some (sheltered) people have in their lifetime. It is miraculous that I arrive at this point in time unscathed by the events that shaped me into the person I am today. I can't change the past and wouldn't want to, since I would be someone entirely different. Two years ago I would have given anything to be someone else, but lately I have realized that being me isn't so bad.

I grew up on the outskirts of a small town on the eastern shore of Maryland: an urban retiree's dream, but a teenager's nightmare. My parents decided to move to Denton from their house in Glen Burnie; a suburb of Baltimore. I've spent much of my life trying to get away from Denton. If I weren't actually plotting my escape, I was daydreaming of the freedom that would soon be mine: to hang out whenever I wanted at Marley Station. Hey, everyone needs dreams, right? I had two unsuccessful attempts fleeing Denton, once by car and once with my friend via bicycle. On my first try, I made it twelve miles to what was then a shop that sold seafood and is now a place that is now Cutesy Country Crap. I'm sure that it's a front for the KKK and they just spelled it with C's to be politically correct. That first time attempted was with my best friend Stefani in eighth grade. For reasons now beyond my understanding, Stef and I were inspired to ride our bikes to Annapolis by the then-popular song "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum. Oh, now I get it! "Wrong way on a one-way track" meant that you shouldn't run away, right? "Run away, but it always seems the same" meant that you can't run away from your problems. We did make it pretty far considering the forces working against us; a group of quacking ducks threatening to wake up her parents and a cold drizzly night. On my second attempt at 17, I made it all the way to the Americana Circle apartments across from Marley Station mall: only a five minute trip from where I live now. As a matter of fact, during the same time period, I had my first car (an '84 Toyota Supra) break down right in front of where I now work! Now that's definitely weird.

Some clarification on the Uche thing
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer
A lot of people have asked me, "Has he sent the check yet?" "You're never going to get the check, are you?"

Let me explain the usual scam that these people play. Someone (me included) would list their vehicle on a website offering it for sale (i.e. Autotrader.com, cars.com, Autoweb.com, craigslist.org, etc.). The scam artist then contacts the person saying that they would like to buy the car -- usually without even asking for pictures, not asking any questions about maintenance the vehicle has had, etc... you know, usual things that a buyer would ask including price negotiating. They'll just say, "Okay, I'll send you a check." So they'll send you a check... but it will be for a few thousand over (or few hundred, however much they feel like ripping you off for) the asking price. They will say that they goofed and sent you too much or ask you to forward the balance to a 3rd party (usually a shipper or someone they supposedly owe money to in the U.S.). So you cash the check, the bank gives you the okay that it has cleared and you forward the extra money to the third party. Several weeks later, the check comes up as a fraud and you're left with the short end of the stick -- the bank will hold you liable! Of course, the scammer has disappeared and there is no way that you can get your money back.

I haven't gotten the check and I never WILL get the check, because I had the big dummy send it to the Financial Crimes Division of the Secret Service. I'm hoping that they will track the guy down, but I doubt it will happen.

If you have any questions about how this scam works, post a comment on this topic and I'll answer any questions you have.

Uche and Lawrencejoe/Mr. Brown/Sister Sharon
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Tori Amos - Winter
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer

Wednesday March 24, 2004 response to Uche
Hi Uche
I did get the email from Mr. Brown, I apologize for the late response. I was in Nigeria for a long weekend staying with relatives and had no computer access. When I returned, I found that Smeagol has been causing mischief, I'm sorry for his rudeness. I'll ask him to send you a personal apology. I still have not received the check; I do hope that it has not gotten lost. What service did you use to send it? Did you do anything for St. Patrick's Day? I know that holiday is quite popular in England! I ate the roasted babies in celebration of St. Patty's Day, they were quite tasty!

I'm afraid that over the weekend that my Ferrari was sideswiped by a donkey, is that alright with you? It didn't cause too much damage, it's just missing the engine... but I'm getting an estimate from the grocery store to fix it just in case. I've sent your friend Lawrencejoe a check for $4,000 for the children at the orphanage. Do you think that is a good sum or should I have sent more? I can still send another check! Well, I have to get back to consuming my llama. I hope that you are having a good week and I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Your friend,
Jenny

Wednesday March 24, 2004 response to Gavin Brown (lawrencejoe)
Dear Lawrencejoe,
How are the children? I hope that they are doing well. I just sent in the mail this morning a check in the sum of $4,000 for the children. I do hope that this will provide some support for the children. I had asked your friend Uche about adoption, but he did not provide me any answer. When I visit the orphanage, would it be possible to take some children home with me? I would like to send them with Michael Jackson on his upcoming world tour. I bet they would love that, especially the little boys! Anyway, do you think that you could send me a receipt (through email is fine) for the donation, so that I may use it as a deduction for my taxes? How is the weather in London? I was visiting family in Nigeria over the weekend (that's why I haven't emailed in a few days) and it was pretty hot - at least compared to here in the U.S. - adjusting to 90 degrees after below freezing weather is pretty tough! Have you ever visited Nigeria? Well, Mr. Brown, I would love to keep chatting, but I have children to toast.. take care, now!
With love for the babies,
Jenny

From 'The Daily Whisper'
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Weird shit
Ozzy Voted Alien Ambassador
Where there's water, there must be life, therefore Mars must have aliens. Internet pollsters recently voted Ozzy Osbourne as the favorite to represent Earth to our alien brethren. Other top choices included Tony Blair, George Bush, and Simon Cowell. What a bizarre perspective aliens would get of humanity!

Yep, I think they would all be a great representative of us earthlings! Well Tiffer just IM'd me, so I'm going to chat with her for a lil bit then hopefully catch Idol tonight.

Fair thee well, loyal readers!!

Uche and Mr. Brown/Lawrencejoe emails
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: Tori Amos -- China
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer
Here are the latest:


Friday March 19th received from Uche
Hello Jenny,
Have you received a mail from Mr gavin and the check will get you soon just
keep looking out for it, it will come in good time.
Uche..


Friday March 19th received from "Gavin Brown"
Hello Jenny,
We did not received your mail, because we were told by Mr uche that you have
sent us a mail but will did not received any mail form you that that is why will
did not sent you a mail but you can help us with any thing and the children will
be happy for that which you have done and you will never be forgetting in a long
time by the children.
FROM THE CHILDREN,
God bless you.


I think the next time I email either of them, I'll screw up their names and see if they notice.

cut & pasted from an email
Mood:  d'oh
Now Playing: Jason Mraz
Topic: Work
I'm cut & pasting from an email that I sent a few minutes ago to Kurtis and Brenda. I've changed the names to protect the identity of the guilty party. I'm working on my weekend entries and I'll also give you my newest emails from Uche and Gavin, of course. I haven't emailed either of them back yet, I haven't had time. Neither of them emailed "Smeagol Stoors" (gollumofgladdenfields@yahoo.com) back. I think that I'm going to keep that email address, though... it might be something fun to play with!

Anyway, see my cut & paste below.

Captain Jackass is a moron. (as if we didn't know)

He comes over here, "Lauren, where do you keep the pending proposals, you know, the ones that haven't been signed." (Gee, I didn't know what that meant)

Funny that he's found them before without my assistance!

Anyway, I showed him the drawer and I said, "See, I sorted it by PM, so you have your own little folder right here with everything in it." (it was just done by proposal # before and they were all together)

He comes over and goes, "Well, it's not in there." So I look it up in the system and try to figure out why it isn't in there. I see in my chart that it's pending and that it should be in the pending folder. So thinking that perhaps a mistake was made, I pull the job folder. Of course the change order isn't in there. So he comes over and stands really close to me while I open the pending drawer to see if it was miss-filed. I say, "EXCUSE ME, JACKASS!"(<--boy do I wish that I could have said that!!) Thankfully he stepped back and I didn't have to kick him in the balls! So I look under his name (which I showed him in the first place) and what is the first thing in the folder?! What he was looking for! What an idiot. So I was understandably annoyed.

I go back to my desk and sit down. He comes over with the job folder a minute ago and says "Now, why do we keep these in this folder (referencing the proposal and change order 1 - both of which had been verbally approved) and this in the other drawer?"

"Well, Jackass... if you'll notice, the (invisible) change order is PENDING as well as the other proposals and change orders in the PENDING drawer, and everything in the job folder has been approved." Apparently this business with pending work is all new to him!

So then he says, "So... what do you mean by verbal? How do you know that it's been verbally approved?"

You've got to be kidding me. "Um... gee, you tell me, Jackass!"

"Oh."


Fun, fun! It's definitely a Monday here at Harms & Associates! Now time for my Uche update.

hehehe!! this is getting fun again!!
Mood:  party time!
Now Playing: the night the lights went out in GA
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer
Uche emailed me today:

Hello Lauren,
The check was sent to your work address and as soon as you recived the
check do let me know as soon as possible.
Uche..

Pretty lame, right? Well, I decided to make up a false address and send him something from "Smeagol Stoors". For those who don't know, Smeagol is a character from Lord of the Rings -- he's also called Gollum. But anyway, you should see the movie if you want to know more -- right, mom?? I want the world to know that my mother walked out in the middle of Return of the King!! You know, that movie that just won 11 oscars?? Oh well, there's no accounting for taste, right?? ;-)

As I was composing my email from "Smeagol", I was delighted to get an email from the "Lawrencejoe" people. Now, I didn't want my hard work to go to waste, so as I had already composed my email, I sent it on to dear Uche. You can read the email that I sent Mr. Chima below.


-----Original Message-----
From: Smeagol Stoors [mailto:gollumofgladdenfields@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 2:14 PM
To: marcus1780@fastermail.com
Subject: motherless crunchy babies

Uche, my love,

We emails it to serves our master Jenny Craig. Our master Jenny asksed us to email it some questionses. It's friendses Mr. Brown has not emailed us yet. Does it not like us? We wants it to emails us as soon as possible so that we may send it's precious moneyses. Our master asks us to give you this message - we loves the babies, we needs the babies, we must have the babies! Sweet, crunchable babies! Please tell your friends Gavin Brown to sends us information to Mordor. If it does not, we must asks our friends Frodo to helps us. Please hurry before the lands is covered in shadow!!

We thanks you,

Smeagol Stoors


Then I got a chance to read the mail from the motherless babies home... lol...

Hello Jenny,
Sorry for getting back to you lately. How was health? Hope you are very okay now? We will be very grateful to see you in our mist when you come for the visting in uk to visit 30 children (ages 4-15) and 12 babies. about the picture of the children i will be sending that to you later. As you said about the sending check to us it will easier for us to received cash than check. Please try your possible best to send it through western union money tranfer. Whatever you want to send, send it to the address i sent to you.
Thank you for your concern may God rewards you abundantly (Amen).
WITH LOVE FROM THE HOMES AND THE CHILDREN WE WELCOME YOU.
Regards,
Mr Brown & Sister Sharon.


ROTFLMAO!!!! Yes, may God rewards me abundantly, AMEN!!!! Gee, it would be easier to send them cash, go figure! I can't believe that they are so stupid. I'm glad that they emailed me, because I was beginning to lose interest. :-P~

Sent another email to Uche
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Jack Johnson
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer
First time I've sent him something in quite a few days. Hope that he responds! I'm having a creative block, though... it just seems that no matter what I write, it isn't that funny this time. He's so stupid that it takes the fun out of it.



Hi Uche

Viruses are no fun, are they? My computer came down with a nasty case of Mononucleosis a few weeks ago. Norton can't do anything to help that, you know! Luckily, it can't be transferred to humans or I would be in an even worse state than I am in now.

I emailed Mr. Brown yesterday, but I have not heard from him yet. I hope that all is well with him. I know that children sometimes turn into flesh-eating bacteria when you're not looking!

My hospital stay was unpleasant at the least, but I am out now. I returned to work yesterday but was running to and from the bathroom all day. I was confined to the bathroom stall for several hours and one time I didn't quite make it. Not fun. Last night I bathed in margaritas and I feel much better today, I am happy to report. I no longer think that I will die. So when can I come visit? My bags are packed and I'm ready to go! I will have to take my zoo with me, I hope that won't be a problem. There should be plenty of room for my ferrets, monkeys and llama. They could room with the children, I suppose... especially the monkeys. Their names are Rabies and Lice, named of course for what they carry. But don't let that bother you!

Do you have a tracking number for the check that you sent me? Which address did you send it to, my home or work address? You know I have to tie my neighbors up and leave them in the trunk of my car for a few days to make sure that they won't come near my mailbox. If you sent them to my work address, I'll leave them alone.

Hope that you're having a good week!

XOXO,
Jen

P.S. Do you have plans for St. Patrick's Day? I am planning on roasting some babies in a red wine sauce!

Don't have any definite plans for tonight... we may go to an Irish place in downtown Annapolis. Not into the corned beef & cabbage. An Irish guy (who is older, he only works once a week, really laid back) at work told me this morning that corned beef isn't correct -- most people eat ham & cabbage, not corned beef.

Ick!

Not a big fan of cabbage. There may be some Irish blood flowing in my veins, but I don't have the same taste in food. I don't even like Guinness!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

And so it continues... my first email to
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: George Michael -- Freedom
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer
For those of you who haven't been keeping up, "Gavin Brown" is the account manager for the supposed motherless babies home. This is the email that I received from him last week...

From : lawrence joe
Sent : Thursday, March 11, 2004 11:16 AM
To : loveshoe@hotmail.com
Subject : Lawrencejoe Orphanage

Hello Jenny,
I know you will ask your self how do we get our E-mail
(Yes, I was actually wondering how you get your email!)
Mr Uche Chima gave also your E-mail that you will like to donate to the homes which is well come.
(Now it's more than one home or just bad English?)
You can send the funds to this information below by estern union money transfer today and the information are:
(Today? Demanding, isn't he?)

MR GAVIN BROWN (Wait... I thought this email was from Lawrence Joe? Aww, who cares?)
43 Prince Charles Crescent
Malinslee
Telford
TF3 2JY
UK

As soon as the money is transfer Via western union money transfer i will need the following information from you to collect the funds here, and they are:

SENDER'S NAME/ADDRESS:

RECEIVER'S NAME:
(Wouldn't you already have the receiver's name? Or you just have so many identities you have to remember which one to use!!)
TEST QUESTION AND ANSWER:

MCTN (CONTROL NUMBER):

As soon as will collect the funds a letter of thanks will be send to you from the homes to say thnaks for the help.
(So nice of them, isn't it?)
And the children we appericate all you have done for them for a long time, because Mr Uche Chima is doing the same for us right now.
(Mr. Uche Chima is such a nice guy, isn't he?)
Do get back at us.
(Oh, I will... and I am!!)
WITH LOVE FROM THE HOMES AND THE CHILDREN WE WELCOME YOU.
Regards,
Gavin Brown
Account Manager
Lawrence orhanage. (Was that Lawrence orphanage or Lawrencejoe orphanage??)


Now it's my turn!!! :)


Hello Mr. Brown,

I am incredibly sorry that it has taken me such a long time to respond to you. As Uche can tell you, I have been dreadfully sick for the past week. I fell ill after eating a tainted egg and ended up in the hospital over the weekend. Today is my first day back to work and let me tell you, it has not been pleasant. I have been running to and from the bathroom all day...my co-workers will not go near the toilet. This morning I didn't quite make it to the restroom and had quite an embarrassment pooping my pants. Can you relate to that experience? But that's enough about me; I am here to ask you about your sweet yummy babies and how I can help them. Where in London are you located, might I ask? I am planning a trip to the UK this summer and would love to see the children that I've helped. If that is not a possibility, would you be able to send me some pictures of them? I am also interested in adopting... my ideal child would have yellow eyes and red hair. I would love to send the sweet babies money through Western Union, but there are two problems: 1. The nearest Western Union is an hour away and 2. I need a receipt for my taxes. Is this contribution tax deductible? So I would prefer to send you a check. Could I send you a check to the 43 Prince Charles Crescent address? Is there an address for the orphanage so that I can send them cards? I would love to send the children cards - and chicken gizzards! I feed them to my ferrets, did Uche tell you that I have ferrets? I bet the children would like to play with them... perhaps I can bring them with me on my trip for the children to play with. After the UK I am planning to travel to Nigeria to visit some relatives, they live in Lagos, have you heard of it?
I forgot to ask, who at the orphanage will be receiving the Ferrari that I'm selling? I'm sorry to ramble on so long, but I don't have very many people to talk to. Well, it's time to go to the lavatory again, I'm afraid. I hope that I make it this time! I'm looking forward to speaking with you very soon.

Yours truly,

Jenny

P.S. Could you put in a good word about me to Uche, I find his generosity attractive and I'm wondering if he is married or dating anyone?


*sigh* I will be so bored when he stops playing!

posted by a cautiously optimistic Redskins fan at 3:51 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 4:43 PM EST

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I don't think he pays any attention to what I'm saying in my emails
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Sports Junkies - 99.1 HFS
Topic: Uche, the idiotic scammer
Hello Jenny,
Am sorry for get back at you late there was virus in my computer so it was
formated. I hope all is well with you now. As for the check is has been sent and
you will have it soon. The chlidren have you sen dthem any thing for the
development of the homes i believed you will have done by now and i know they
will be playing for you in my heart and i know the good lord we be with you. Do
get back as soon as you received this mail.
Regards,
Uche..



Is it possible for his English to get any worse???