Behold The Dread Scammer Horde

You can block their email addresses to no end. They just show up in your junk email three days later with the same crap and a brand new email address. You can report perpetual spammers who actually do sign a name to their comments (unlike spammers who remain anonymous and yet want to get in touch with you in their comments) in your spam comments files, and yet those same spammers keep coming back around, leaving one wondering if there's much of a point in reporting at all. Yes, the spammers are an irritation of the first magnitude, more obnoxious than the flesh eating virus. And then there are their cousins once removed, the internet scammer, sending out grammar-challenged emails to millions of people with the hopes of landing someone gullible enough to believe complete strangers want to give them huge amounts of money. Such as the following.

Hello

My name is Jason, a Trader, Auditor, Mentor, Investment Manager, Logistics Expert and General Business Man. I contact you in respect of establishing a business relationship with you.

There is a certain amount of money that belongs to me. I intend to take the money out of Germany to another location and bring back the money on a later date for investment and my own personal use. I made this money in the course of auditing a big Oil Firm in Germany and discovered this money as some excesses. 

When I discovered these funds, I discussed the issue with the Company's accountant General as well as their personal relationship banker/adviser. This company in question is a very huge company and has been doing business for a very long time, since 1950s.

In the course of genuine business over this period, the money described above has been floating in the banking system and was recently made known to the Company's Accountant General by me. The Company's Accountant General has been a close friend of mine over time. I've been one of this company's Official Auditor General for over 25 years. 

You may now understand why we need to sanitize this money by having to take it safely out of the country before spending it. Here's our plan, we intend to get a neutral individual who is willing and able to receive this money in form of investment funds to be used by the individual in infrastructural projects, real estate investment or trade etc. 

This is just to get the funds out of The Bank where it is presently, to the receiver's bank only. However, the deal is that the funds would be shared into 4 equal places and each of us would be entitled to equal parts of the funds after you receive. I'm talking about Me, You, The Company's Accountant General and The Senior Officer at The Bank who is their personal relationship banker/adviser.

We do not require any complicated paperwork or lawyer agreements etc to get this work done. Our agreement would be between 4 of us only as we require utmost confidentiality in this matter. You do not have to tell your bank the details being given in respect of these funds. All we require from you is your willingness and ability to receive the funds in question.

With all these in place, The Bank will initiate wire transfer of the funds to your account. We expect that we act according to the agreement we shall get to in respect of this. This isn't a risky operation or money laundering. Its just a simple opportunity which we intend to exploit using an absolute stranger.

Let me know if this is something you would like to be a part of. If you have any questions, please ask. We would be very glad to move forward on this immediately but require utmost and absolute confidentiality. I'm very willing to furnish you every information you might require so long you promise not to betray privileged information getting to you as a result of this communication.

Thanks for your time. I await your response.

Regards,

Jason Flatt.

Well, well, well. Where do we begin? Perhaps with the name- Jason Flatt. If you Google that name, you come up with two items of note. Posts about an internet scammer are in the minority. Most of the items that show first are about a young athlete who committed suicide.

Yes, our scamming scammer just happens to be that tasteless.

Spelling isn't as much an issue as you so often see with these scam emails, but there are other tell-tales. Way too much capitalization where it's not needed- "Me, You, The Company's Accountant General and The Senior Officer at The Bank", for example. And some of the phrasing just feels off, as if we're not actually dealing with someone whose first language actually is English. Which this person is not.

He claims the usual- big amount of money he wishes to share with a complete stranger, money he found that just happens to be floating about in a company's coffers that he's been auditing. He doesn't mention how much or which company, mind you, he just says it's been in business a very long time, "since 1950s". He claims he wants to take the money out of Germany safely (as if money's not safe in Germany), and that "we need to sanitize this money". Excuse me? Sanitize the money? 

The only people who talk about sanitizing money are money launderers.

Oh, he claims this "isn't a risky operation or money laundering" while explaining his technique of trying to coax the gullible into going along with this. And then he says what is, with the exception of one word, about the only honest thing he says in this whole con job: it's "just a simple opportunity which we intend to exploit using an absolute stranger." Remove using from that phrase, and their mission statement is clear: "a simple opportunity which we intend to exploit an absolute stranger." The absolute stranger in this case being the dimwit who actually buys into this attempt at a con.

Nice try.

I've got a better idea. Why don't we take you in a helicopter somewhere far up north, far from any settlement, deep in grizzly country. We can drop you off with just the clothes on your back and fly away. Let's see how long you last.

My expectation is that you'll be a fast lunch for a bear inside forty eight hours.

Revenge Of A Giant Cranky Lizard Part Two

Business to see to first. Yesterday was a Snippet Sunday, so check out the post by Norma at her blog and the joint blog for something from our manuscript. And Shelly has some advice for writers at her blog. Last time I reviewed an earlier movie in the Godzilla franchise. Today I'm taking on the new one just out in theatres.

"The arrogance of men is thinking nature is in their control and not the other way around." ~ Ichiro Serizawa

Rising up from the apocalyptic murk of nuclear testing, the new Godzilla opens with a bang and leads into a prologue years in the past involving a nuclear plant manager, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) having a bad day in Japan when a disaster strikes at the plant they work in. In the present day, their son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is in the Army, married to Elle (Elizabeth Olsen), and living in San Francisco. Fate draws Ford to his father in Japan, still searching for answers about what really happened all those years ago.

They make some discoveries, leading to two scientists, Ichiri Serizawa (Ken Watanabe, Batman Begins) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) who are overseeing something at the site of the plant. It's something big, and it being a monster (not the title character, mind you) soon conveniently breaks free, hungry for some nuclear radiation. And so the stage is set for a confrontation between monsters, one of which is a gigantic cranky lizard who hasn't had his morning cup of coffee.

The director of this new version is one Gareth Edwards, who previously debuted with a well regarded film called Monsters. Edwards gives the film a stylish feel, with a story delving into the arrogance of men, the power of nature, and the theme of family ties. There are times, mind you, when the spectacle of the monster overwhelms the human element, but that's to be expected in a monster film. The story presents the gigantic beast not as an out of control juggernaut that must be stopped, but more of as an antihero. It is neither friend or enemy to humanity so much as a reminder of what can happen when humanity disregards the limits of nature. Wisely, Edwards chooses not to give us a really good look at Godzilla until well into the film. It's a good decision to pace things like that, actually.

The special effects crew do better with this than the crews for the Emmerich version in 1998. Their design of the monsters that Godzilla duels with looks interesting on screen- the creatures are winged insects, but on a massive scale. They look creepy (those with phobias about insects might want to avoid this film), and the effects involved in bringing them to life actually work well. The same goes for Godzilla, who looks more like the classic version of the character without having to be a guy in a rubber suit as was so often seen in the Japanese films. When we finally see the big guy, and he starts to roar, we can feel the sound of the roar. The visual effects, in short, are stunning. I also liked the camera work- early scenes set in the past feel like period footage, in fact, but Edwards gives us enough of a distance that we can keep track of things as we go along. That's a good thing in an action film.

The human element of the story does get overwhelmed by the monsters, mind you, but that's to be expected. Humans in these kind of stories are merely there to bear witness or run for their lives. Cranston's a well respected character actor just coming off several years in Breaking Bad. I haven't seen that series myself, but I've seen him in a lot of other things down through the years, and I like what he's capable of. Here he plays a man obsessed, shattered by grief and consumed by the certainty that things are being hidden away. Juliette Binoche playing his wife (however briefly) is a good choice as well. Much of her work has been in France, but American audiences will know her best from Chocolat. They're both good actors, and I'd quite prefer to see them in something more conventional.

The same applies for another actor. David Strathairn (Lincoln, Good Night And Good Luck) has an excellent track record as an actor. Here he plays an admiral overseeing the hunt for the creatures, responding to a dire situation as you'd expect a military officer to react- with blunt force. He plays the part with gravitas and conviction, even though he has to blurt out some peculiar expository dialogue. That's also the case with Watanabe and Hawkins, both of whom are playing characters who are reluctant to give out information. They're believable as scientists, and burdened with expository dialogue.

Elizabeth Olsen happens to be the younger sister of a pair of nitwit twins who have grown up literally in the spotlight. Strangely, this is not a bad thing- this is the first thing I've seen her in, but she comes across as grounded, as opposed to flighty and self absorbed in the fashion of her sisters who got their start in that dreck called Full House. She's sympathetic and supportive of her husband. Strangely enough, the actor playing her husband will be playing her brother when the two co-star in the next Avengers film. Aaron Taylor-Johnson comes across as believable in the role of a military officer. He grounds his performance as a man who's had the effect of an absent father in his life, and his reactions emerge from that. His character is also asked, for the sake of the story, to be courageous (or reckless, depending on your point of view), and he accomplishes that.

The new Godzilla succeeds where the Emmerich version did not. While the human element of the story is overwhelmed at times by the monsters- to be expected in something of this scale, and while there is a somber tone to the story, Edwards has crafted a film that still touches on the central themes of the franchise- man's arrogance and the punishment nature can inflict in the face of that arrogance. It gives us a monster we can still cheer for, and as a disaster flick, it rampages gleefully. 

Somewhere, Roland Emmerich is no doubt wondering if he can have a do-over.