Today I received one of those hoax emails forwarded on. This one was "A Father's Letter", and after a list of "Just for today I will .." all being loving things a father would do with his daughter because she's so special, announced that the originator's baby daughter had "brain cancer", the only cure being an operation they could not afford, but that AOL would be tracking the email and would donate 32c for everyone who opens and forwards it on to at least 3 people. A quick check on Snopes reveals it is of course a hoax, in circulation for 9 years in various guises. But the really cruel thing is that this version which purports to originate from Brian Swim, a police officer in Oklahoma and has been circulating since 2006, has actually used a real person. Brian Swim IS a serving police officer in OK, at the time had no children, but he and his wife were expecting a child at the time .. I've no idea what motivates these idiots to launch these emails onto the internet .. they make no money from them, seek no information for fraud (whilst those are not excusable at least I can understand the dishonesty which prompts them!) .. and seem completely pointless .. apart from the fact they will make others feel bad at the start of their day, or bring back a flood of awful memories to those who genuinely HAVE had a sick child who didn't survive :( It says early on .. "This will hit where it hurts" in huge capital letters .. well it did with me, and will doubtless do so with many others .. just pointless nastiness on the part of some really pathetic idiot no doubt snickering up his/her sleeve at how clever they are in duping decent people, with no glimmer of appreciation probably of the difficulties some people have to del with ..
However .. putting that crass idiocy to one side .. today looks set to be a fine sunny day. We have a firm comig today to re-tarmac or seal the balconies on the upstairs flats .. I have an ujpstairs flat which I had linked to my ground floor one to make a duplex, and I had the balcony off my bedroom (which was the living room in the original flat) tiled .. so I need to keep a weather eye open to make sure they don't throw tarmac down on that! .. lol ..
Watched the finals at Wimbledon yesterday .. the only sport I generally watch as it's one I understand .. lol .. and one which is played without trying to knock the wind out of an opponent! A very close match only decided in the 30th game of the fifth set. I was torn between wanting the gutsy Roddick to win through and seeing Federer to achieve his Grand Slam record .. which is what finally happened. The place was peppered with famous names .. saw Russell Crowe, Woody Allen and Kissinger sitting in the stands, and in the Royal Box Borg, Laver, Santana, Nastase and Samprass (until last night the current record holder) were all in the front row. It was a landmark match I guess .. but not as exciting as matches from years ago when players like MacEnroe would come to the net, give us a display of volleys and fast and furious rallies, rather than slog it out from the back of the court .. John might have been a bit mouthy on court, but he was a really exciting player to watch! And he always played doubles too .. something the hugely determined singles players no longer do .. and was an absolute marvel to watch in those. Samprass had flown in just yesterday morning to watch the match, looked a bit jet-lagged and was returning home this morning .. quite a trip to make, and he was very gracious to Federer. He still holds the record for wins at Wimbledon .. but probably reckons not for more than a year or so the way Federer plays.
Enjoy your day .. and as for Himself .. guess it's back to the creative grindstone (vertigo permitting) .. and hopefully a tweet or two tonight :)
Caryl ..
-- Edited by Caryl on Monday 6th of July 2009 01:38:41 PM
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Meat Loaf for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let's help him get there!
I've received some of those hoax emails too Caryl and just ignore them. But our current affairs shows are full of stories of gullible people who hand over life savings to these scams, the Nigerian ones are the worse. Well a year ago today I was at the Romsey concert. Pity the weather wasn't like it's been over there this year, you seem to be having a decent summer this year. Hopefully there'll be another few tweets tomorrow when I get up.
Ahhh, Monday after a long weekend...today wasn't so bad. I thought I'd have a case of the Monday Blues...but after a very busy weekend, I welcomed the standard routine.
I attained a great sense of accomplishment this morning at about 7:30 a.m. I stepped on the scale and busted through a milestone I set for myself. I needed two pounds to overtake my arch rival nemesis thick black line and I shed 4 pounds this week. That line has been pesky forever. I usually plateau at that line and then I slide into bad habits. But not today, no sir. I am looking forward to my next goal..which happens to be another thick black line. However, I know I am stronger as I am working harder and harder at the gym. Tonight is Hip Hop class and I'll be doing some weights afterwards. When I get home tonight I'm hoping for at least one Meat tweet as a reward for my hard work. Only part about the long weekend is that I missed Meat's tweets.
I agree with both of you about those pesky emails. The latest ones I've been getting are the ones that people want to deposit $ into my account. That it's untraceable and blah, blah, blah. It's usually fraudulently correstponded by a "soldier" fighting a good fight. And blah, blah, blah. I tried to report these scammers but I don't know what becomes of the situations. They are a pain in the tookus though.
