Christmas and Crafts

What does your Dining Room table look like this holiday season? Do you have a beautiful centerpiece? Some fun place settings? A beautiful tablecloth and matching napkins?

Mine currently looks like this:

And I cleaned it up a bit before I took the pic too!

Crafting is such a messy business. At least there's a giant collapsed box protecting the surface of the table. What's that you see? An Incredible's cup holding sharpies and paintbrushes? More terracotta pots? Hmmm.... I'll have details about what I've been scrambling to get done in a few days.

On the opposite side of the room though, is a bit of Christmas:

Notice the cat? See what she did to the garland?

This was a sappy sentimental purchase on my part. Growing up, my grandparents had a silver tinsel tree with blue ornaments. So I wanted one. I put a peacock in place of the star though and added some teal blue ornaments to tie it together. And let me tell you, Widget the cat is very pleased. She loves the garland and the silver on the tree, not to mention the dangling ornaments. Luckily, the Youngest has left this one mostly alone. Alas, the large traditional tree has not quite fared as well from the little terror.

knitting gremlins and toupees

Sometime between last night and this afternoon, gremlins got into my knitting bag. Here is the current and proper state of my sock knitting. Can you see how the needles are laid out? One needle is for the cabled side and one needle is for the stockinette side and when laid down, everything should be flat. Can ya see that?

Click to enlarge

Now, last night when I put the knitting down everything was fine. When I picked it back up this afternoon though, oh boy. One of the needles, instead of having both sides pointing away from each other, were pointing in! How the heck did this happen? I have no clue. Nothing is wrong with the socks or stitches. Why? and while we're at it, Why Me? I had to pull the needle out from one end and re-do it. Now I'm back at the above proper knitting with 2 circs configuration. It had to be gremlins!

I've been working on a time intensive project lately. I'll have to show you it later when it's closer to completion. It's not knitting, but it is crafty. Anyway, I was working with some fun fur and the Youngest got a hold of it, put it on his head and proudly yelled "hat!" You can see his new toupee below.

Daddy's got a new rug!

Nigerian scam email breakdown

I promise I'll start putting photos back into the blog, but I couldn't pass this up!

I received an email today that amused me to no end. It was one of those Nigerian scam emails that you hear about in the news so often. The spelling and grammar are blatantly horrible. It kills me that so many gullible and obviously illiterate people have been taken in on these things. Why? Why does this work?

Here is the email in it's totality with some additional comments from yours truly:

ATM CARD PAYMENT FOR FUND BENEFICIARIES

INTERNATIONAL CREDIT SETTLEMENT
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
OF OPERATIONS

CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA.

ATTENTION BENEFICIARY: (Why is this moron screaming at me in upper case letters?)

THIS IS TO OFFICIALY INFORM YOU THAT WE HAVE VERIFIED YOUR
CONTRACT /INHERITANCE FILE AND FOUND OUT THAT WHY YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR PAYMENT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOT FUFILLED (shouldn't this be fulfilled?) THE OBLIGATIONS GIVEN TO YOU IN RESPECT OF YOUR CONTRACT / INHERITANCE (make up your mind. Is it an inheritance or a contract. Do I have to pay or get paid? I'm so confused) PAYMENT.

SECONDLY ( Wait, where was the firstly?) WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOU ARE STILL DEALING WITH THE NONE OFFICIALS IN THE BANK ALL YOUR ATTEMPT TO SECURE THE RELEASE OF THE FUND TO YOU. (I'm sorry, but that whole damn sentence was gibberish. Could you please speak/write the Queens English?) WE WISH TO ADVIVE (advive? Did you just say advive?) YOU THAT SUCH AN ILEGAL (um, just like this letter it's illegal dumba$$) ACT LIKE THIS HAVE (has) TO STOP IF YOU WISHES (why is this plural?) TO RECEIVE YOUR PAYMENT SINCE WE HAVE DECIDED TO BRING A SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM. (Typical man. Did I freakin' ask you to solve my problems? Can't you just listen for a change?)

RIGHT NOW WE HAVE ARRANGED YOUR PAYMENT THROUGH OUR SWIFT CARD PAYMENT ENTER ASIA PACIFIC (So what exactly is a swift card payment enter asia? Is that some newfangled electronic funds transfer that is done in Japanese B-movie speak?), THAT IS THE LATEST INSTRUCTION BY THE PRESIDENT CHIEF ALHAJI UMAR MUSA YAR-ADUA (say that ten times fast) (GCFR FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA. (hello? dummy? where's your end quote?)

THIS CARD CENTER WILL SEND YOU AN ATM CARD WHICH YOU WILL USE TO WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY IN ANY ATM MACHINE IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD, BUT (There's always a BUT isn't there?) THE MAXIMUM IS ONE THOUSAND FIVE DOLLARS PER DAY (cause God knows, we wouldn't want to take more from you that day, we might get caught by some Government watchdog agency), SO IF YOU LIKE TO RECIEVE (I before E except after C - gee, your grammar teacher sucked.) YOUR FUND THIS WAY (So am I giving or receiving? It's not quite clear enough for me.) PLEASE LET US KNOW BY CONTACTING THE CARD PAYMENT CENTER AND ALSO SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:


1.YOUR FULL NAME
2. PHONE AND FAX NUMBER, (why is there a comma here?)
3. ADDRESS WERE (obviously this person has spent time here in the deep south. It's fairly common to substitute were for where. IE: Were ya'll goin' fer lunch?) YOU WANT THEM TO SEND THE ATM CARD
4. YOUR AGE AND CURRENT OCCUPATION
5. A COPY OF YOUR IDENTITY ATTACHED TO E-MAIL (Will a clone of me fit in an envelope?)

MR IGNATIUS IMALA (Love. the. name. love. it.)

INTEGRATED (Just underwent a merger of Nigerian jerks and panhandlers) PAYMENT DEPARTMENT
EMAIL:drignatius1@yahoo.com


THE ATM CARD PAYMENT CENTER HAS BEEN MANDATED (Sure they have)TO ISSUE OUT
$8,300,000.00 AS PART PAYMENT FOR THIS FISCAL YEAR 2007.


ALSO FOR YOUR INFORMATION YOU HAVE TO STOP ANY FURTHER COMMINUCATION (Again, more deep south speak. What we have here, is a failure in comminucation.) WITH ANY OTHER PERSON(S) OR OFFICE(s).

THIS IS TO AVOID ANY HITCHES (Now that, my friend, is some fantastic legalese. Do legal departments use the word hitches?) IN FINALIZING YOUR PAYMENT. AS SOON AS YOU REPLY TO THIS IMPORTANT M ESSAGE (m essage in case you missed it) FOR FURTHER DIRECTION IN THIS REGARDS (more unnecessary plurality) AND ALSO UPDATE ME ON ANY DEVELOPMENT FROM THE ABOVE MENTIONED OFFICE.

NOTE: THAT BECAUSE OF IMPOSTORS (and people who can't spell), WE HEREBY ISSUED (God, the grammar mistakes are killing me) YOU OUR CODE OF
CONDUCT, WHICH IS (811) (you can call 911 later when you realize you've been scammed) SO YOU HAVE TO INDICATE THIS CODE WHEN CONTACTING
THE CARD CENTER. (That way we'll know which moronic American is forking over their hard earned cash to us.)

PERSON IN CONTACT OF THE CARD CENTER. (In case you couldn't figure this out from the dude's title below)

(Mr Musa Bello)

CHIEF AUDITOR TO THE PRESIDENT (Thank goodness someone is auditing the president in Nigeria, wish someone would do that in the USA.)
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
ATM CARD PAYMENT FOR FUND BENEFICIARIES

EMAIL ADD:mrmusabello@gawab.com