All good things…

Sadly it appears the game is up. Michel Robert is not playing my games any longer. Or so it would seem.

He sent me an obscure email – with the subject line YES A JOKER.

I told him in no uncertain terms that I was not. And he responded:

“WHERE ARE YOU NOW?. I WAS EXPECTING TO RECEIVE THE MONEY SO I CAN GET THE DOCUMENTS”

I responded, unwilling to give up, requesting the photo…

How can I send you the money?

I need your photo.

Get back to me with the details for the transfer and the photo as soon
as possible.

He wasn’t receptive to my response…

“NO THE LAWYER WANT ME TO COME TO HIS OFFICE WITH THE MONEY AND HE SAID HE WILL CONTACT YOU AS SOON AS HE GOT THOSE DOCUMENTS READY”

I smelled a rat. Perhaps his uncles had caught up with him. I had to be sure…

You need to get me the photo. As soon as possible. And I will send you the money – you are acting strangely. Prove to me that you are for real. I have $10,000 to wire you to get you out of the country and into safety. BUT I MUST SEE THAT YOU ARE OK. That your uncles haven’t taken over your account. AND THAT YOU ARE PREPARED TO FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS.

His response took me by surprise…

I TOLD YOU YESTERDAY TO SEND ME THE MONEY THROUGH WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER ON MY NAME AND ADDRESS

MICHEL ROBERT
12 BP 4010 ABIDJAN 12
ABIDJAN
COTE D’IVOIRE
WEST AFRICA.

SEND ME THE TRANSFER CONTROL NUMBER AS SOON AS YOU SEND THE MONEY.

MICHEL.

He had done no such thing. So I called him out on this lie…

“No you didn’t. I’ve checked my emails – I have no record of that request.

I don’t think you are Michel.

I think you are his uncles – and I think you’ve killed him. I am going
to go to the police without proof that you are really Michel. I
understand you are under stress and might not be keeping track of the
emails you send.

I will send you 10,000 when I get the photo. Not before. Otherwise I
will go to the police, and the lawyer, and the security company and
inform them that Michel Robert has been murdered by his uncles. Run
away uncles. While you have the chance.

I will come for you – you have killed my Michel.”

And he brushed me off…

” which instruction do you want me to follow?. I told you how important it is for me to leave here but you are asking me to send you photo. in the first place, i have started wondering if you are telling me the truth because it seems you are lying to me or you may want to play with me. i do not have money to snap the picture and dont ever ask me to send you the picture again because i have no means to snap the photo. if you dont want to help me, please go with you $10,000 and i dont need it. not intrested in your games”

May 30, 2009

Sad

Nothing makes me sadder than this post on “the friendly atheist” and the tales of “deconversion” shared in the comments.

In short, he was much happier being religious. I think anyone would expect this, but the problem is that I don’t think he has found anything positive in atheism yet, and I think he’s finding it very depressing that there might not be a god. I don’t think that “better moral guidelines” and “seeing the universe as it is” can outweigh what could well be the loss of his entire family, at least not at this stage.

It’s sad that these atheists (the blogger in particular) – make it their life’s ambition to bring misery to people in the form of “enlightenment” – if they truly believe there’s no God – why proselytise aiming to deconvert someone and disrupt their family?

It’s also sad hearing tales of broken lives driven by broken understandings of Christianity perpetuated by broken people. There’s so much anger and anguish underpinning the genuine hurt many of these “deconverted” atheists feel having “wasted their lives”. It also seems many of them have been ostracised by their “Christian” families for doing so.

It’s stories like this, repeated time and time again, that make me angry and sad. For all parties involved.

I come from an Evangelical Southern Baptist strand of Christianity so I think our situations may be similar. I was truly a warrior for Christ – daily Bible readings coupled with prayer, tri-weekly Church visits and I made every decision in my life based on the Truth I knew from the Bible. Of course I was still a teenager at the zenith of my faith so my decisions can’t truly compare to those made about a spouse or career.

I was 22 when I told my mother that I no longer believed Christianity was valid and it initiated the single hardest time in my life. She effectively disowned me and we did not speak for several months. In her rage she told our extended family of my betrayal and even “outed” one of my friends to his own family. I was told that I was to no longer speak with my own brother.

May 29, 2009

Be Alert, and alarmed

Snooze buttons are a non-morning person’s worst nightmare. Particularly if you’re a non-morning person with a 9-5 job or perhaps an 8.30 to 5 job that you’ve reinterpreted as a 9-5 job… anyway…

Here’s an alarm clock that you actually have to stand on (as some sort of proof of life) for it to turn off. Fantastic. And clever.

May 29, 2009

You can LED a horse to water

Shower time would be much easier without the tentative dipping of a toe into the water as a thermometer. Which is why this idea is so cool (or hot)… it’s a showerhead with inbuilt LEDs that change colour as the temperature increases.

It’s about $US40 – much cheaper than this £2,799.00 alternative.

Found here. And here.

May 29, 2009

A bunch of links – May 29, 2009

May 29, 2009

Acrobatricks

Some people are physically capable of doing amazing things. Like this guy.

May 29, 2009

Holiday Pac-ing

Think Pacman is the pinnacle of 80s design? So do Disney. Apparently. They’ve just “retro”-fitted an 80s themed resort with a Pacman exterior.

May 29, 2009

Balanced diet

Ever wondered just how much your daily output weighs? Or your input? Here’s a nice graphical representation…

May 29, 2009

Stache your drinks somewere special

Perhaps like me you suffer from an inferiority complex because you can’t grow a moustache – probably not if you’re female – here’s something that will help me, and those of my hirsutely challenged ilk… A nice clip-on moustache for your drink bottle, so that whenever a drink is pressed to your lips you feel properly manly.

May 29, 2009

Most unpointless USB drive ever

You know what this is? The most awesome USB drive ever – even cooler than the guy who turned his finger into a thumb drive… it’s a shuriken. For your ninja themed office.

It’ll only set you back ¥10500 for 2GB of storage and comes with this warning:

Please note that this product is not a “real’ Shuriken, and cannot be used as such, also we would like to remind you that this product may be dangerous due to its sharp edgez and MUST be handle with care.

May 29, 2009

Chicken feed

Next time you’re having a BBQ featuring charcoal chicken, or indeed any occasion when you’re serving any sort of chicken, liven up the party (almost literally) with these ceramic chicken heads… a bargain at amazon – $US14.95 for the set of three.

May 29, 2009

Herbal Tetris

For those of you looking for some other Tetris inspired design – perhaps to complement the Tetris dining set or Tetris shelving I’ve mentioned before – here’s a little set of herb pots, or perhaps coloured dishes for keeping safety pins and stuff in…

May 29, 2009

Keeping the dream alive

Those of you worried about my safety while I play with the heart and mind of a vulnerable young man in Cote D’Ivoire who is trying to steal all my money should take some solace from this website… or this one…

This is my goal people. To one day receive a larger than life Commodore 64 Keyboard in the mail. In this case I’ll settle for a John 3:16 photo and a good chance to reprimand the toerag for trying to steal my money (while also coming clean that I’m not a 57 year old businessman)… that seems the ethically appropriate thing to do.

My African friend has withdrawn a little since I told him that I would have difficulty raising funds without his cooperation. But I’ll keep you posted.

May 29, 2009

Wave goodbye to the past

There’ll be a couple of links in my links post later today about Google’s latest innovation – Wave – which is being billed as “the way we would have invented email if it was invented now”… or something like that.

It raises an interesting question – what other things do we do that would be done completely differently were they thought of now? There are heaps of examples I can think of where ideas are refined and developed rather than being groundbreaking.

But I’m wondering more about church – particularly in the context of my ongoing discussion with Izaac.

My question is this… if Sydney’s Anglican church (or in fact any church/diocese/denomination anywhere) were starting from scratch today would they go about things with their church in every suburb (exaggeration)/saturate the market geographically strategy?

Is what we do in any situation ever the best model just because it’s been developed from experience? Or should we step back and reinvent the wheel at every turn. And do you need Google’s billions to do that?

This isn’t a groundbreaking concept by any means, I just haven’t really thought it through with regards to everything I do before. We tend to be so keen on natural progression that it rules out lateral decision making at every step of our processes.

May 29, 2009

Reinventing the classics

Gizmodo has a great gallery of classic art being “ruined by technology” – a lot of them are clever.

May 29, 2009