Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I'm so angst-ridden: yet another e-mail asking me for help!

Why me, I ask you? Huh? I just this very minute... Okay five minutes ago...received this e-mail and am so fraught with indecision. I mean - the sender even addressed me by my first name!

"Dear Eleanor,"

Not just Eleanor mind you, but dear Eleanor.

"Please, do not be offended as this came to you without your permission. Which ever way you may look at it may it please you to repond either negatively or positively, so that i will know what next to do."

Respond either...negatively or...positively... Uh-huh...no neutral response for this person!

"I am Mr. Blah-blah, thirty two years of age and the fifth son of the reknowned Gambian industralist and the director general of D Sawmill, Chief Blah-blah-blah, who has companies and industries all over West Africa ."

So at this point - I'm impressed. Here somebody who obviously recognized my fame as a writer/wanna-be playwright/aspiring artist etc. etc. is a man of wealth and power. The man owns a sawmill! I've never known a sawmill owner before and better still - he's rich.

"As it may interest you to know, i got your contact through the internet professional data base by divine inspiration as i made this operation my only way of survival and i decided to contact you in order to tackle this without delay."

Ohmyohmy... Divine inspiration no less!

"My father Chief, Chief Blah is a victim of polygamy and womanizing married to twenty eight wives with sixty three children, very stingy and brutal to all of us, but mine is different as i have no brother or sister of the same father and mother due to the premature death of my mother in child birth on the 24th jan 1979 when i was only six years old, remaining under the brutal care of my wicked father who turned me to a slave istead of a son.."

Now things get a little confusing for me, here. His dad was a victim of polygamy and a womanizer married to 28 wives and has 63 children... Mr. Blah-blah has no brother or sister of the same(?) father and mother due to the death of his mother... Uh-huh... So that's 28 woman times... No divide that by... Forgetaboutit. Math never was my strong subject in school.

"With all his wealth, he could only make me the assistant sales manger in one of his alliance wood industries (D SAWMILL) republic of the Gambia with seviere maltretment and underation, irregular and poor salary , after depriving me of proper education and insisting that i must work under him. Being under my father gives no future to any ambitious young man , so for the purpose of my own progress and to liberate myself, i managed to make away with his THREE MILLION FIVE HUNDREND THOUSAND USA DOLLARS in a safe box when he was on holidays and came to republic of Togo where i deposited it in one security company."

Well...Mr. Blah-blah didn't do too badly all things considered squirreling away 3,500,000 USD, which he appears to have stored in a safe box. Right?

"Here in Lome iam like a refugee , no place of my own to lay my head, always hidding from people who may know me or my father, Please, iam here begging you to assist me urgently in the release and transfer of the fund to your account , then you invite me to come ,invest and live in your country as a partner or any way you may want it providing i get out quickly from here because of my shylock father."

That's it! All I hav'ta do! Allow Mr. Blah-blah to deposit money in my account! So as a good will gesture, I'm gonna send Mr. Blah-blah a return e-mail inviting him to invest in my ice-making company in Labrador. I mean, it's the least I can do.

"I am Waiting in hope for your urgent reply."

Me too.


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Monday, February 11, 2008

HEATHER AND PAUL (OR PAUL AND HEATHER) back in court

And so the melodrama continues... Heather (McCartney) Mills and Paul McCartney were back in divorce court for yet another round of "he-did she-did" etc.

Paul McCartney arrived at the High Court in London ahead of his divorce hearing. The fight over the wealth of the former Beatle, who is estimated to be worth up to $1.6 billion(!), could result in Britain's biggest divorce settlement. According to media reports it could be worth between $20 million and £100 million.

Mills, 40, said nothing as she entered a courtroom at London's Royal Courts of Justice. McCartney, 65, arrived at court after his estranged wife. He (Paul) said "good morning" as he entered court carrying a black case.Divorce proceedings in Britain are heard in private, and the door of Court 34 carried a sign saying "No Admittance -- Strictly Private," according to the Press Association.

A media frenzy accompanied the couple's first court hearing in October as they tried to reach a settlement. Since then, Mills has fired her lawyers and lashed out at the media during television interviews, after sections of the British press portrayed her as a gold-digger.

Mills intends to represent herself, according to British media, at the expected weeklong hearings.McCartney, meanwhile, has kept silent about their split, with speculation that he is hoping Mills will do the same by signing a divorce settlement that will forbid her from talking about their relationship in the future.The terms of any settlement would not become public unless the case reached the appeals court.

The couple, who have a four-year-old daughter, Beatrice Milly, married in 2002 after meeting at a charity event.At the time of their split, they insisted it was "amicable" despite widespread reports of a tempestuous relationship between McCartney and Mills, an ex-model. In an emotional outburst in a television interview late last year, Mills said she had been driven to the brink of suicide by the media treatment of her.

"Eighteen months of abuse, worse than a murderer or a pedophile," she told British morning television."

This leads one to wonder why she had a child with somebody who is "...worse than a murderer of pedophile." While nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors in a marriage, I remember a few years back when Heather and Sir Paul were guests on Larry King Live. Being an advocate of seals and land mines she went on...and on...and on... about how bad the Canadian government was especially one particular province's attitude towards the seal hunt. On his part Sir Paul said absolutely nothing but looked like he was very embarrassed and was cringing internally.

I also watched her on "Dancing With the Stars" and there is something definitely amiss (IMHO) with that woman. She is just not likeable. I think she was hoping that somebody - anybody - would use her as a guest star and her advocacy on behalf of land mines/seals etc. etc. or even hire her as an entertainment anchor. Nobody has and given the popularity of Paul, nobody will. She should quit while she's ahead, take the money she's offered in the divorce settlement and move on with her life. That's the best offer she's gonna get.

Surf on over here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/paul-mccartney-heather-mills for more details on the proceedings but also a juicy bit of info. about her affair while married to Paul.

Monday, February 04, 2008

NOT JUST YOUR ORDINARY SNAKE (PYTHON) IN THE GRASS

There are friendships between a boy and his pet that make memories for a life time. Then there are those special relationships that make one wonder, "huh?" In this case the special friendship is between a boy and his pet python.

No misprint. A boy and his pet python.

Pythons have a reputation for being very huggable, huge reptiles that require their meals live, as in live chickens...live rabbits... It comes as a surprise - more like a shock - to learn that a young Cambodian boy is currently sharing his life with a five metre long python named Chamreun that weighs in at 100 kg.

The 7 year old boy named, Sambath Uorn, who sleeps with his "friend" rides on the snake's back and pats it down with baby powder. The snake enjoys nothing more than allowing her young friend to curl up inside her coils.

I bet, uttered the cynic.

The best friends became acquainted when both were small when the snake visited the house. Sambath's mother moved the snake to a river bank but a few weeks later, the snake paid a return visit. The rest as they say is history and Chamreun has earned a place in the family's heart and home. Let's hope not in the snake's stomach.

It even has its own two-by-three-metre room with a spirit house at which Khuorn Sam Ol prays for the python to keep his family happy and healthy. In Cambodian culture, they believe that the reptile protects the family and could be reincarnated.

Thing is...can you trust a snake especially a python, whose nature is to give realllly big hugs and then some?

Chamroeun - whom it takes three adults to carry - eats about 10 kilograms of chicken meat every week, posing a heavy financial burden on the family. Be that as it may, the family have no intention of giving up their "pet" - at least for the time being.

Wildlife and police officials used to come by to try to take the snake away and put it in a zoo. But they relented after seeing Uorn Sambath lovingly cuddling the reptile. They left with some pictures they took of the boy and the snake together, Khuorn Sam Ol said.

"I will not let anyone take her away from me, either. I love her very much," declared his son, Uorn Sambath, kissing his pet on the head. The snake can grow up to be 8 metres long and can weigh up to 180kg.

To see family photos of best pals, Sambath and Chamteun:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/29/wsnake129.xml


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Friday, February 01, 2008

OF LOST EYEBALL...DEFLATED DOLL...AND OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF

Came accross two interesting tales of loss worth passing on. Maybe it's just my quirkie sense of humor but they did make me smile. That's life!


Let's say...you're staying at a hotel in this case in Tasmania and somebody knocks on your hotel room door to deliver a box. Let's say...you open it and staring down at the contents, are greeted with an eye ball staring back.

That's exactly what happened to a hotel guest in Tasmania when he received a foam cold box containing a single human eyeball. The box marked 'Live human organs for transplant' was delivered by mistake to a hotel in Hobart by a taxi driver.

Hotel worker Gabriel Winner, who requested the name of the hotel not be used (I bet!), says the agitated guest brought the box to reception.

"The guy left with me with a box with an eyeball in it,'" he said. "I thought this is just too weird. I went and put it in the fridge because I didn't know what else to do with it. It was more than a little disconcerting."

So this leaves one to wonder why Mr. Winner (interesting name is this case) would assume that one of his guests was waiting for the delivery of an eyeball. I mean, it's not something that most if not all people would order. Even more interesting that he put it in the fridge along with other "normal" food. Can you imagine the shock a hotel employee would receive when opening the fridge to take a prepared sandwich for lunch?It's something out of a horror movie!

MAD SCIENTIST
Igor...go deliver this eyeball

IGOR
Where master?

MAD SCIENTIST
Let me check the destination... The Provincial Hospital

IGOR
Sorry? Could you repeat that?

MAD SCIENTIST
When are you going to get a hearing aid? I said, 'Provincial Hospital'

IGOR
Of course, master. Provincial Hotel...

And the rest as they say, is history.

An Australian Air Express spokeswoman confirmed a "failure in an internal handover process'" and apologized.

To say the least.

"As soon as we discovered the error we quickly rectified that and delivered the consignment within the appropriate timeframe,'" she said.Queensland Health spokeswoman Penny Geraghty said tissue from the eye was recovered and successfully transferred to a patient. "Nobody missed their operation. The tissue wasn't compromised," she said.

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Sometimes you can't win for losing. Take the case of this Romanian guy who recently registered a complaint with officials that his inflatable doll has lost its moan. Not knowing anyone who has ever encountered this - um - situation or problem, I would imagine that - um - a moan-less adult doll would be kind of...demoralizing.

"Moan, damn you, Isla!" the man probably/could have/might have said as he... Never mind.

A sex shop in Brasov, Transylvania, was fined 600£ and ordered to provide the man, said to be in his 40s, with a new doll.

The man had also complained that the rubber doll deflated too quickly(!), according to local media.

Well... I'm no scientist or physicist but perhaps - um - the doll's owner was a little bit too - how shall we say - active with his vinyl "friend?"

Iulian Mara, head of the local Consumer Protection Office, said: "No matter how strange it sounded to us, we went to the sex-shop from where the man bought the object of complaint and found out he was justified.

So...like...how did Mr. Mara et al discover that the complaint was justified, one asks/ponders.

"The doll was losing air very quickly and due to a faulty electrical circuit it didn't make the expected specific sounds."Oh gawd! Electricity is involved? I mean, what about shocks? Did the doll operate on batteries or was she a plug-in, one wonders...

There is no mention you will note, about what type of sounds were uttered.

Never a dull moment in Transylvania...