Success Warrior: The Blog That Embraces ADHD

M-Spam Taken To New Heights

 
So,

In the category of, "So sadly ironic that it must be business as usual in Washington DC," the Great and Powerful Oz is setting up a new PLAN that will allow him to send a text message to everyone with a cell phone.  The battle against spam is an ongoing problem and the president is jumping in on the side of evil.  No surprise there really but doesn't he have better things to do with his time like play another round of golf or plan the next illegal war or something.

The president is just following through on the nefarious plot of his handlers, doing exactly what they (and I) expect of him, so I won't malign him today.  Instead I will turn my attention to the media, which has given up all pretense at attempting plausible spin. 

The LA Times had this piece of shite in their article, like phone carriers were doing us a favor:

"Consumers do not need to sign up for the service; their carrier will automatically sign them up, and they won't be charged for receiving any PLAN text alerts, the agencies said."

How convenient is that?  You don't have to do anything at all.  You're going to be signed up for the plan.  Yes, for those that are asking, even if you don't want the service.

"Consumers will have the option, through their wireless carrier, to block all PLAN alerts except for those issued by the president."

Someone better figure out a way to filter spam out of text messages so we don't have to get this garbage.

There is a possible sliver of hope.  Cnet.UK says that to pull off his king of spam act, the president is going to have put special chips into cell phones.  Phones with these chips will be available next year.  This brings up a very important question. 

How long can my current cell phone last?

I've Won The Lottery

                   AWARD WINNING NOTIFICATION / FINAL NOTICE

Sir/Madam,

We happily announce to you the draw of the EURO MILLIONS SPANISH LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL  WINNINGS PROGRAM PROMOTIONS INCONJUNCTION WITH -LOTTERY held on the 15TH FEBUARY 2008 in SPAIN. Your company or your personal e-mail address attached to ticket number 653-908-321-675 with serial main number 345-790-241-671 drew lucky star  winning numbers 34-32-90-43-32 which consequently won in the 2ND category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of 960.000.00 Euros.(NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND EUROS).
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
 
The online draws was conducted by a random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of 29,031 E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet all the continents of the world.
.No ticket were sold but all email addresses were assigned to different ticket numbers for representation and privacy.

This lottery was promoted and sponsored by  Spanish European Lottery Board in line with the King Of Spain (REY) for it's annual promotion in order to enhance and promote the use of Internet Explorer Users around the globe. This promotional program takes place once in three years. Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims has been processed and your award remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.

To claim your winning prize, you should contact the assigned office by e-mail OR telephone for Processing and remittance of your winning funds to you.
CONOSUR
seguros & reaseguros Company
MADRID ESPAÑA
Contact persons:MRS GISELA WILLIAMS
                DR TOM J.LAGE

Email:[email protected]
Email :  [email protected]
DIR/TEL: 0034 606 711 372
TEL/FAX: 0034 912 919 802

Remember, all winning must be claimed not later than two weeks, after this date all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake.Please note in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your Reference number and Batch numbers in all correspondence with the claims officer. 
Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.We hope with part of your winning you will take part in our end of year 50 millions Euro International lottery.

Sincerely yours,
MRS,CARLOTA GUILLERMO.
Director Online International Promotions Unit/Lottery Co-ordinator.

N.B
............................................DISCLAIMER.....................................
This message is confidential. It may also be privileged or otherwise protected by work product immunity or other legal rules. If you have received it please let us know by reply it from your system; you should not copy it or disclose its contents to anyone. All messages sent to and from Seguros Mapfre S.A España may be monitored to ensure compliance with internal policies and to protect your winning from the Euro Million Spanish Lottery Award Promotion.
The contents of any e-mail addressed to our clients are subject to our usual terms of business; anything which does not relate to the official business of the firm is neither given nor endorsed by it.

I think I must have amazing luck to have won a lottery that I never entered.  Booyah!

I've Been Approved For A Loan

In fact, I'm approved for a loan nearly every single day.  I know, I'm too cool for words and you're all jealous.  I'll tell you what though, if you want, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll forward along the emails telling me that I've been approved to you.  You can respond and very likely, the person that sent me the response to my application spam will do business with you as well.

I check the stuff that gets filtered into my spam file because every once in a while, something I actually want that I have forgotten to add to my address book goes there. 

There is one bit of good news from what I can gather from the headlines: everyone's penis is now big enough.

Consumer Training - It Doesn't Just Come Naturally

Somehow I have ended up with a free subscription to Details magazine.  I don't know what I did to receive such an honor but I do know why they give it out for free.

It's not a magazine.

They say it's a magazine.  It looks like a magazine.  There are even some headlines on the cover for articles inside completing the deception.

I just received the first one and it's 218 pages long.  Of those 218 pages, 37 of them have writing on them.  Most of them are less than half a page with the rest of the page taken up by pictures.

The "articles" are about sex and clothes.  There's one about Justin Timberlake which might be about sex or clothes or both.  I don't know. I haven't read it.  I'll let you know when I get done reading it.  Please, don't hold your breath.  I have it on my reading list immediately following the consumer warnings on my toaster.

The rest of the catalog (did I say catalog?  I meant magazine) is ads for clothes, cologne, and personal hygiene products.  I saw one for Head & Shoulders which seemed out of character for the catalog.  I'd tell you more about the products that were being advertised but I already threw them out without taking a look at them.  Sorry.

I opened my new magazine up and was turning page after page trying to get to the writing.  The writing starts on page 111.  I tore the first 110 pages out and chucked them in the garbage.  Seemed like wasted effort to turn through those pages everytime I wanted to find an artcle (which turned out to be just the first time that I picked up the book and when I went through it just now to write this). 

So I can look forward to a full year of this catalog disguised as a magazine which is going to show me how I'm supposed to dress if I want to be in fashion.  I'm not sure who gets to pick what's in fashion or how people know what's in fashion.  I am so not-with-it that this catalog is lost on me.  I'm typing this now while wearing a pair of cheap black shorts made for exercise and a free t-shirt from bodybuilding.com.

Maybe in the coming year, I'll get to learn more about black men (Mandingos) that have sex with white women in front of their husbands, whether Ted Haggard was really cured by god and is now straight, and how superstar athletes are able to date super hot movie stars and supermodels.  Oh yeah, and I might learn more about Justin Timberlake.

If future magazines don't get chucked in the waiting garbage can with the scientology literature at the post office, I will be sure to pass on all of the valuable information that I learn.  I want to keep you in the know just in case someone asks you about these hot topics.

***

What do you think about how cops use tasers?  Join in the discussion at Chronicles.

What's in your wallet?

MY money!

Muahahahahahahahaa!

I don't give credit card companies a single dime and haven't for a long time.  The last time I did was a couple years ago when I signed up for one of those cards that has 0% interest for 6 months that you can transfer other accounts to.  I transferred my other accounts to the card and paid it off in less than 6 months.

And I haven't used a credit card since.

We keep a couple of credit cards because it helps your credit rating if you have them for over 2 years. 

It was pointed out yesterday that I didn't give the link for the credit card opt out program.  Here it is: https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t

I really can't see any point to receiving all the junk mail about credit cards.  It's like an all out assault.  Sometimes we got 4 ads for pre-approved credit cards in one day.  The next day there would be more and the next day even more.

Obviously the plan must work or they wouldn't be able to afford to send all that crap out.

This week I have noticed another good thing about the plan

Two things have combined here that I have really noticed this week.  The first thing factor is that my wife and I have paid off most of our bills.  The second factor is that my wife registered us on some kind of list that keeps people from sending us credit card applications.

Until this week, I never realized just how many applications we get sent.  There are days now where after I throw away the grocery store ads, the "have you seen me" ad, and the Scientology garbage, I have nothing left in my hands. 

Our post office is kind enough to keep giant garbage cans on hand to collect all the junk mail.  Those things get pretty full and it seems awfully wasteful.  On one side of the PO Boxes, they put the junk mail in.  On the other side, we take it out and put it in their garbage.  Then they empty the garbage a couple of times a day.  If we want to start saving the forests, we need to put an end to this cycle.

My wife found out about the credit card ad cancelling thing in her study for her research paper and signed us up.  It's been great.  Truly, does anyone need to get ads for credit cards when you have the internet.  If you need a credit card, all you have to do is google "credit card offers" and sort through the 40,200,000 listings (actual number I just received from my google).  With 40 million options at your fingertips, who needs more junk mail?