I hadn’t received one of those awesome 419 spammy, scammy emails for AGES – i looked in my scams folder, and the last one is dated 2008! I thought to myself “there must have been some sent in the last two years!” so i visited my Gmail spam box and hey presto – 12 minutes ago this beauty arrived;

Attn:
An Iraqi made a fixed deposit of $18.5m usd in my bank branch and he died with his entire family leaving behind no next of kin, am ready to share 50/50 with you if you choose to stand as my deceased client next of kin. Pls indicate your interest to my below secured private email for further details: jianguozha66@yahoo.com.hk
Waiting for your kind response.
Sincerely,
Jianguo Zhang.
NOTE: Once again to confirm your full interest, kindly respond to this email address for further details; jianguozha66@yahoo.com.hk

Now lets look at this one in comparison to the normal “essays” you get sent.

The first thing that i noticed was obviously the length of the email – like i stated they are normally a massive email with some sob story in them about how the person is ill, or how they are the only person left alive in their family or that they are trying to do the work of God (or some other storybook character) and cant because of dictators or something like the inability to draw the money out because of some made-up bullshit reason.

The second thing I noticed is how the people doing these scams SEEM to be originating from the far east now, as opposed to Nigeria and places like that. I wonder if this is a global thing or if i was just lucky to get one of the ones from Hong Kong?

The third thing i noticed was how they are using more modern facts. They mentioned Iraq which is something that will make many more people pay attention to this, probably aimed at Americans.

The last little things i noticed were the use of text style talk – Pls instead of please – and the fact it was actually sent from the email it tells you to reply to – whereas most of them are sent from one email address, but tell you to respond to another.

I have of course baited the little  bastard – lets see if I get a bite!

————-

Update – 09/08/10

He replied!

Dear Friend,
First I wish to thank you for your kind response.
I sincerely appreciate your interest in this transaction, however I would like to be sure of your willingness, trustworthiness and commitment to execute this project with me, I cannot afford to compromise these virtues and none of your personal information will be shared with anybody whatsoever, this is the opportunity i have been waiting for in my Bank,hence the time has come for me to strike to move out the said funds out immediately, and you have to be very serious with me because this not a hoax, I have my principles.
About me and the said funds: I am Zhang Jianguo (President) of China Construction Bank Corporation Hong Kong Branch (“CCBHK”). A customer of our bank who is a national {citizen} of Iraq named Eng. Adil A. Nasir a business Merchant, who unfortunately died in the December 2005 in Iraq, he made a fixed deposit with a value of $18.5M USD with my bank. Upon maturity several notices was sent to him but we did not hear from him or any of his relatives. It was later discovered that he and his family were killed in Iraqi war with NO living witness to this fund. Now, what I want to do is to place you as the legal next of kin to my late client since he had none and have the funds released to you for the both of us to share in the ratio 50/50.
In my search, I got hold of your email through the web directories and I had decided to contact you since I needed a reliable foreigner that can help me pull the funds out of my bank as I cannot do it myself because of my position in my bank and I do not want anyone around me (family, friends and my bank) to be aware that the action is from me.
You should not have anything to worry about, as I want you to know that I have had everything planned out so that we shall come out successful. I have contacted an attorney that will prepare the necessary document that will back you up as the legal next of kin to Eng. Adil A. Nasir, and all that is required from you at this stage is to build up trust and understand between us, If you feel comfortable to work out this transaction with me, hence to enable my lawyer start up the paper work that would place you as the legal beneficiary to my deceased client funds, then it will be necessary you send me the following information;
1.YOUR NAME 2.YOUR RESIDENT ADDRESS 3.YOUR OCCUPATION 4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER/FAX 5.DATE OF BIRTH
*) Furthermore, I would appreciate if you could tell me more about your self diligently and to enable me be sure of your capability to handle the said transaction with me, because I wouldn’t want to jeopardize this opportunity to attain the said funds rather than allowing the funds to be reverted to the hands of our corrupt Hong Kong Government. We are in a corrupt world, if you are in the system you have to do the best you can do to have your way in life.
As soon as confirm the above information from you, hence my attorney will commence his job in perfecting the documents that would place you as the legal beneficiary to the said. The attorney will prepare the Affidavits which shall legally put you in place as next of kin; he will obtain the necessary clearances which will cover all the aspects involved in this transaction from the Hong Kong authorities including the Justice department. This transaction will be 100% risk free and our safety is guarantee.
What you need to understand about this transaction is that I will make sure that it passes through all international banking laws regards to this I will take care of the cost of retaining the service of the Attorney to give the transaction the proper documentation that is required to perfect the finishing of this transaction which is going to cost me alot of funds, all that’s required from your side is to set up an account with my principal Finance firm ABROAD that has same TELEX TYPE with my bank (China Construction Bank Corporation) and the transaction will be seen as an IN-HOUSE transaction which guaranteed the transaction safe and 100% risk free. Please you have to take this transaction seriously because this a great opportunity I have been waiting for to have this funds diverted before it will be turn over the hands of Hong Kong Government that would be shared within the top officials.
What I expect from you is trust and commitment;I want this huge sum of money (Eighteen Million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars) transferred with your full coperation. Hence, I want us to act fast and get this funds transferred in our favor and with my position, I know that if we follow up this transaction diligently it would be completed within 12 working days.
I want you to assure me that you will follow up this business seriously and as soon as I hear from you with your confirmation message to move ahead to execute this transaction with me, I shall give the Attorney a go-ahead to start the preparation of the documents in your name. I shall be waiting for your response and assurance in this regards.
I await your response, and I would appreciate your genuine interest with full co-operation to carry out this transaction with me to attain success in this transaction. Kindly keep this transaction strictly confidential to your self for the sake of our safety and i assure you 100% risk free in this transaction.
Sincerely,
Zhang Jianguo

-Once ive managed to read it all – im gonna reply and wind him up  abit more

Well, things have really turned a corner since the last time i blogged about my life. Gem and I have managed to give our bank balance a kick up the arse, and that is a lot more positive now thanks to selling anything we didn’t need, and replacing gems car with a 1.4 TD fiesta (From £120 (max) down to £20 per week on fuel!)

Work has turned a corner too, Dave and I are now pretty much salesmen – ive spent more time sending quotes out over the last two weeks than I ever have before in my life. Its fab through because we have enquiries and quotes bouncing all over the place, and im now lining work up for weeks in the future as we are getting very busy.

The new starters are doing amazingly too, Sian is getting on well with her Admin tasks, Danny is now a social media wizard, and Ashley is becoming a SEO expert overnight! I really hope that by the time their 6 months is up we can give them all a job as they are 3 switched on young people!

My aim in life now is simply to become financially stable, so that if something happens that i need £500 for, i pay for it out my bank, then save that £500 back up again. Whereas at the mo, i’d have to wait for the £500 to be saved before i could rectify the problem.

We’re not thinking about houses, marriages, new cars, expensive holidays…. None of that! Just to become financially stable. Thats it!

We’re off to a brilliant start, though

I was totally stoked when Adam introduced me to the Spartacus Blood and Sand series – it was everything i like in a TV show

Then when I found out lead man Andy Whitfield had blood cancer, I was gutted! Not only for him, but for all the fans of the series as they couldn’t just leave it at season 1  – its only just got started!

Anyway, i decided to check out IMDB and i noticed at the bottom of the Spartacus page there were some forum posts, and one stated…

Spartacus star Andy Whitfield, 35, has been given a clean bill of health and is already training for his return to the set of the hit Starz series.

“I’m raring to go,” Whitfield told Deadline.com in a phone interview from New Zealand.

Whitfield was diagnosed with treatable Stage 1 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in early March. “After the initial shock — I was a healthy young man and had no idea that this could happen — it was frustrating that the first season was ending on such a high note and we could’ve been rolling into season 2.”

He began treatment immediately while production was put on hold. About five weeks ago, he was told he was cancer free.

Before production begins on Season 2 of Spartacus later this year, Whitfield told Deadline.com he’s planning to be at next month’s Comic Con in San Diego along with other Spartacus cast members and producers.

Source

Bangin’ news for everyone!

Roll on Spartacus Blood and Sand Season 2!!!!!!!!

Well – sometimes in life you get so carried away with what you are doing, that you stop looking a the bigger picture – and things start to slip!

Both Gemma and Myself have been busy working, living and enjoying ourselves that we let the maintenance of gemmas car slip, and it died again at a really awkward time! This lead to some serious decisions being made – some that we never thought we’d have to, but then every so often life catches up with you and reality bites – and it can hurt a lot!

We came to the conclusion, that i would have to sell My Caddy so we could buy a new car for gem, then sell her car and use the money to start our savings…

This put me in a deep (deep) state of depression.. I’ve honestly not felt as low as that since i was 19 and FLAT BROKE… It effected my life and mood so much we had to re-assess what we were doing. The day after we put a plan in place that outlined a more sensible way to get the money, and thankfully it didn’t involve selling my car. *phew*

We are currently selling gems Ronal Turbos and a load of other shit and we are living on a budget at the mo so that we can save as much as possible.

But until we can sort a new car, Gemma and Bonnie are having to stay at her Mum’s which means im home alone and that makes my mood even worse :’(

Then today i went to post some stuff we’ve sold, put our card into an ATM machine and it had no £10 notes – so in a bid to NOT spend money unnecessarily (i only needed a tenner) i pressed cancel…

“We have retained your card”

What the fuck??

So now im home alone.. with a broken car (2 actually).. no money.. No Gemma… No Bonnie.. :’(

Where the fuck is my silver lining this time? Eh?

For ages now my life has been running at 100 miles an hour, i go home every day feeling guilty that ive not done stuff i needed to do, but where do you draw the line?

I hear about other self employed people and how they do nothing but breathe and work, and how their social life was totally put on hold until they had “made it” – but should i go as far as this? Am i not working hard enough?

I do a full day, and from time to time i come home and work thru the evening right up until i go to sleep – but i probably only do that once a week.

Are you self employed? How much free time do you give yourself?

Its hard at the mo also as i dont have my own transport – so depending on other people for lifts means i cant really dictate my working hours at the mo.

Its a totally poo situation to be in, maybe i’ll never feel like im doing enough? Like thin people never think they are thin enough?

I am proud to announce my good friend Nez is now working for himself, and is offering a wide range of automotive services including pre-mot checks, MOT’s, servicing, modifications and more!

Presenting: Turners Auto Services

He’s brilliant at what he does, and can travel to your place of work or home and fix your car while you are working. Click the business card to view his form, or drop him a line on 07525 836 619.

Thats right folks, amongst the barrage of cool twitter apps that are available FREE – a newcomer has risen from the darkness and TOTALLY stolen the limelight.

Its called Touiteur (tweeter) and its made by the fine gents and ladies at Level Up Studios.

Here is a little list of cool features that Touiteur (Free) comes with

• Multiple Account Support – THANK GOD!! FINALLY!!!!
• Cool “Dropdown” new tweet dialogue
• Really intuitive layout
• Colour code option so you can distinguish between tweets from different accounts (it merges all tweets from all accounts onto one screen)

The only downside is that I would actually like NOT to have everything merged into one list – which is totally achievable if I pay $2.99 or whatever it is and buy the premium version.

My score – 8/10 (Would be 9 if I stopped being a tight-arse and bought the full app!!!)

This would be a 10/10 app if it refreshed when shook (Accelerometer support)

Official Site – http://levelupstudio.com/touiteur

Follow them on twitter – http://twitter.com/levelupstudio

Hello Friends

As you will probably know, we have been involved in the newest UK TOP 40 Website to grace the internet. We’ve tried to make it different, contain features that others dont – and so far, so good!

But we wanted to know what YOU would find useful on a charts website – as there is no point in carrying on and making it unless it will be of use to the general public.

So far we have;

• Top 40 Singles
• Top 40 Albums
• RSS Feed for Both

At present you can buy the tracks from iTunes and Amazon, and the charts are updated every week after Reggie Yates has told us all what’s going off.

What we will be implementing over the next day or so, is the following;

• Top 40 Urban Singles & Albums
• Top 40 Rock Singles & Albums
• Top 40 Downloads Singles & Albums
• FULL Track Previews
• Embedded Video Page for EVERY song

And we are also introducing some more text to help google with the relevancy, and a few styling tweaks such as a new logo etc.

Stage THREE for the site, is to include Ringtone downloads, mobile phone applications and also a feature where you can type in your birthday, it shows what was number 1 when you were born and gives you some options to buy it.

We are also looking at getting the back catalogue of Charts fro day 1, and having it so that you enter a date range and you get the uk top 40 from that date.

So, what do you think?

What do YOU want from a charts website?

Please discuss below

It dawned on me a few weeks ago, that i have far too much junk littered about the internet. I set things up, forget about them, and then set some more shit up – and its gotten to the stage where I’m using a shit load of web-space, and not really doing anything with it.

So i started by pruning my Facebook friends list first – removing anyone who I didn’t actually know, and i was amazed at how many people were on there that id never met, never spoken to and never even heard of!

I’ve also been thinking a lot about who i am on the internet, or more like – what I’m referred to.

I want to standardise my “Handles” on the internet, but do i choose Olly, or olstar?

Here’s what’s standing in my way;

Twitter – I love twitter, and despite not using it that much over the last few weeks i still love using it and love how it works etc. However, I’ve had to create a new “persona” on there as my usual names were all taken.

I’d love the @olly twitter account as no one actually uses it – I’d even settle for @olstar which is also not used! In fact, nearly all the decent twitter aliases for people with my name are gone, and un-used! I wish the twitter peeps would sort it out and re-release all the inactive and unused names – IF YOU ARE READING THIS PLEASE SORT IT OUT!

Domain Names – Now, for ages i’ve been totally happy with my domain name – i mean, 0lly.co.uk? It couldn’t get much better, could it?

Well im afraid it could – thanks to the twitter generation, short domains and url shorteners have become a massive deal and some of them are tt.ly cool! (haha, see what I did there?) and it got me thinking about my name and my aliases and how I could use a international domain name to spell something cool.

I decided that I needed http://ol.ly as it was the shortest and coolest domain name any Olly in the world would be proud to have, so i looked into it and it was owned by a guy called Ollie (yea, obvious i know) However – he didn’t spell his name with a LY he spelt it with an IE…

So I started looking at it from a different perspective – What if I bought oll.ie, and swapped it with this guy who owned ol.ly?

I contacted him, he agreed – so now i’m trying to secure oll.ie – and you would not believe the hoops i’m having to jump through to get it!

Decisions, Decisions…

My conclusion is that i need to get everything in one place, on one domain name, and all tied up with cherries on top. Im not too fussed about having all my images and photos on the net – in fact some of them are probably quite damaging to my character, and in all fairness could land me in a lot of trouble.

So do i move everything over to olstar?

Do i pursue my quest to get ol.ly? Or will using a Libyan Domain Name balls up my placement in the UK search results?

Do i quit whining, leave everything on here and just forward my other domains to this one? (safely, of course  )

Footnote: I do have olstar.co.uk – and it would probably make sense to just try and get that twitter name then im sorted.

Ahhh dammit…

Wholly frickin’ shit, batman! – When Adam told me about a new series called Spartacus, and how it was a cross between Uber Violence, and Uber Porn – he instantly had my attention

He gave me the first series, and after a week or so i started watching it – and couldn’t stop! It was everything he had described, and more! My only gripe with it is the slight cheesyness in certain parts, and sometimes their language is hard to understand as its all supposedly a true representation of ancient Greece/Rome.

The violence and blood is very “animated” giving is a kinda comic book style edge – very over exaggerated in parts, but VERY cool none the less. If someone’s throat gets cut, you SEE it being cut and blood pouring everywhere! The sex scenes are very graphic for a TV show but are done in a way whereby you see no really dodgy stuff – but extremely dodgy stuff is suggested in every sex scene in the first series!

We watched the last episode last night -and it was an AMAZING end to the first series of a program i will most definitely be watching more of!

Just need to wait for the Second season (Season 2) of Spartacus Blood and Sand to be made so we can carry on enjoying it! I wonder if it will ever come to UK TV? As i feel it may be a bit much for the British viewers

10/10