A Day In The Life Of A Dog

It is time once again for the point of view of the dog and the cat, and as always I start with the hound...

7:03 AM. Waking up at home. For once, I didn’t sleep that well. Strange dreams. Dreamed of being chased by a giant squirrel. I wonder what that means.

7:06 AM. Staring out window. Rain falling. It’s doing even more of a number to the remaining snow. This could be problematic. Yes, of course, the human will let me out for my run, but I’ll be out there, I’ll no doubt get rather drenched, and she will thus subject me to the trials of the Towel of Torment. Unless I can find a way to rush in past her. Well, we’ll figure that out as we go along.

7:12 AM. The human comes downstairs. Well, hello, human! Have you seen all the rain out there yet? Are we all stocked up in case the road gets washed out? Because you know what I’m like when I run out of dog kibbles. Speaking of dog kibbles, how about some breakfast?

7:16 AM. The human has provided me with a big bowl of kibbles. I am in the process of devouring the whole lot, but suspect I’ll fall short of my all time fastest breakfast eaten record.

7:17 AM. Yes, at forty three seconds, by my count, I’m a good eighteen seconds shy of breaking my quickest time to eat a breakfast record. Oh well, better luck tomorrow.

7:19 AM. Say, human, how about you open the back door so I can go out and have a run? The exercise will do me some good.

7:20 AM. Out the door and running around the back yard. Barking my head off. Feels good to be out and about, even if it is raining.

7:23 AM. Dashing among the back fields, splashing around in the puddles. Woof woof woof!

7:32 AM. Pausing in my steps. I have just detected movement up ahead on the path. It’s that infernal squirrel. And he hasn’t seen me! Okay, Loki, calm down, don’t start barking, we’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime right here. Don’t blow it...

7:33 AM. Stalking forward, ever silent, closing in on my quarry, five metres closer. Just three more seconds... and... oh crap! He’s turned and seen me! Now it’s a footrace! The squirrel’s sprinting for a nearby tree! I break out into a run, barking my head off! So close! So close........ blast! He’s made it up the tree. Curse my inability to climb trees!

7:34 AM. Circling around the tree, barking furiously. The squirrel’s staring down at me, laughing his squirrel head off. Oh, sure, you think it’s funny now, but just wait! One day your luck is going to run out. It nearly ran out here just now. 

7:39 AM. Continuing to pace around the tree. The irritating squirrel is still up there, chattering away at me in that infernal way squirrels speak. Whatever you say, squirrel, but don’t forget- the day will come when I will end you.

7:42 AM. Taking my leave of the scene. Frustrated beyond belief. Two seconds, all I needed were two seconds more to close in on him, and he would have been mine. Do you know what that does to a dog? Two seconds? I feel like Apollo Creed after he lost the belt to Rocky. Two seconds!

7:55 AM. Heading for home. Feeling quite thoroughly drenched. I wonder if the human’s had her breakfast yet. Because if she hasn’t, I might have a chance to mooch something.

8:02 AM. Arriving at home. Barking to let the human know I’m present and accounted for.

8:03 AM. The human opens the door. I sprint in past her, hearing her call out, and make it to the living room, giving myself a good shake to get the excess dampness out of my fur. I turn around and see the human glaring at me. What?

8:04 AM. The human is tut-tutting me with disapproval over shaking all that water out of my fur, and now applying the Towel of Torment to me. Come on, human! The moisture will dry up sooner or later, you know...

8:05 AM. Wagging my tail to disarm the human’s annoyance with me. She smiles regardless.  Works every time.

8:25 AM. Circling around three times on the carpet by the fireplace as preparations to settle down for a nap. As always, it must be three times. Two times is too few, and four times is too many. Three is just right.

12:10 PM. Waking up. Big stretch. Slept well. To be fair, being out in that cold rain did tucker me out, so I needed the sleep. Am pleased to find that my irritation at not catching that squirrel is gone. Well, as they always say, tomorrow is another day.

12:11 PM. Dismayed to find the human washing the lunchtime dishes. Drat, I missed the chance to mooch.

1:40 PM. Sitting looking out the front window, barking my head off as the mailman drops off some mail at the box. Yeah, get lost! You’d better drive out of here fast, because if you don’t, you’re gonna be dealing with me! You hear me? You’re gonna be dealing with me!!!!!

2:58 PM. A glance at the calendar indicates that it’s Easter this weekend. Well, that explains why the human has been stockpiling chocolate eggs and bunnies. They claim chocolate’s bad for us dogs, but if you ask me, I think they’re lying just so they can have all the chocolate to themselves.

6:26 PM. Dinner with the human. Some nice chunks of stewing beef for me hits the spot. I don’t know why the human insists on adding broccoli with hers. Broccoli tastes... what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, right... ickkkkk!

8:40 PM. Lying on my back in the living room while the human’s reading. Contemplating life’s great mysteries. What if chasing squirrels is the meaning of life?

11:44 PM. The human is off to bed. Well, good night, human, sleep well. If you happen to hear any bangs downstairs overnight, just ignore them. I swear I’m not trying to break into the pantry where you’ve stashed the Easter chocolate. And if I’m lying, may lightning strike the mailman.

Catapulting Spammers Into The Sun

They're never far away. They always come back. The internet spammers and scammers. Just yesterday I got a notice in my junk mail from Ashley Madison. You know, that website that caters to cheaters (as a matter of fact, I've poked fun at them in a previous post after their little public relations fiasco). But oddly enough what they were spamming was "white teeth". Have they branched out into dental services, or is this one of those things I really, really, really don't want to know?

And then there's this typical scammer letter, which appeared in my junk email recently. I could swear I've gotten this one before, but after awhile, all of these scammer letters kind of end up sounding alike.

Dear Beloved ,

As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me I am mrs Corazon Abaya sister to the ex-president of Phillipines and merchant in Dubai .I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer and It has defiled all forms of medical treatment right now I have only about a few months to live according to medical experts.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself) but my business.

Though I am quite successfull in life and mostly my business I was never generous,I focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for.

Now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world. I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it.

Now that God has called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well  I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul hence I have decided to give alms to charity organizations I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E and some countries in Africa and i discovered the funds endede up in the hands of directors of these organisation with little or nothing for those how this generous donations are meant for.

Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan, they refused and kept money to themselves.

Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them. The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit I have with a Security Company abroad.

I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations. I have set aside 10% for you, your time and also any expenses incured during this Great task.

Thanks and God Be With You as you respond

Hopefully,

Mrs Abaya Corazon

Well, she starts out by calling me Beloved. Which I rather resent. Nobody calls me Beloved, especially internet scammers out to score on a dimwitted mark. It's taking liberties, scammer, a term of endearment I don't particularly like in the first place, but especially when it's coming from you.

We've got the standard scammer tell tales. The sob story about cancer. The grammar, punctuation, and spacing issues common to scammers. I mean, she claims to be successful in life, but can't spell successful without adding an extra l to the end of the word. Not what we expect in someone who's successful. 

She also claims to be the sister of a former president of the Philippines. That's curious, because she can't get her name right in the first line, reversing her first and last name (before getting it right in the sign off). Well, I had a look, and while the late former president of the Philippines had siblings, none of them were named Abaya.

She claims that after a life of being successful and dedicating herself to business, now that she's dying (she's not), she wants her funds to go to good works. This is another one of those tell tales we can often see in the scammer. They dangle a sob story and a fee for you if you only buy their line, oh, excuse me, go in with them on this worthy endeavour. 

I particularly like the bit about the cancer having had "defiled all forms of medical treatment" and that she has only a few months left to live. First off, it's defied, moron, not defile. Learn the difference. If there's anyone defiling anything here, it's you. Speaking as someone who's lost too many people to the disease, it's too bad you don't really have cancer. If you did, it'd be a certain karmic justice for you to go in as agonizing a way as possible.

Nice try, whatever the hell your real name is. In an ideal world, we could catapult you into the sun. Of course, that would require a bloody big catapult capable of breaching the atmosphere. We could just make it easy on ourselves, have NASA design a rocket to take payloads filled with internet scammers up into space... and drop them into the sun's gravitational pull.

A Super Villain And Masterminded Heists

Thieves Steal Enormous Million Dollar Coin Before Meeting A Bad End

Berlin (CP) A brazen heist caught the world’s attention in recent days after a million dollar coin, minted by the Royal Canadian Mint as one of six in 2007, was stolen from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany. The coin, on display at the museum since 2010, was taken in the early hours of March 27^th, a challenge, given that the coin weighs 100 kilograms. Reportedly as near to pure gold as it gets, the coin had a real value of four million American dollars.

Officials at the Bode were baffled by the theft, and characteristically close lipped about answering questions from the press about the burglary. Rumours out of the museum suggest blame is being placed on a sleepy guard, nicknamed Big Jurgen, on duty the night of the burglary. A police official, speaking on anonymity, confirmed that the guard had been found curled up in his office snoring by his relief the following morning. “While it’s true that a guard might not have been able to do anything to stop a determined thief or thieves, it doesn’t look good when your overnight guard is snoozing during a major robbery.”

In the days following the theft, law enforcement agencies across the globe pursued leads. There were grave fears that the coin had already been melted down into new gold bars. Memes were mounted on the internet featuring Homer Simpson trying to use the coin in a vending machine.

Suspects came to light. Three individuals who bear a striking resemblance to major Hollywood actors, and who have been suspected in heists for years, denied having anything to do with the operation. “Rusty and Linus and I were in Sydney, which the police have already confirmed when they asked,” scoundrel and former convict Danny Ocean claimed when found by reporters at his residence in upper New York state. “By the way, purely hypothetically speaking, if any of us had wanted to pull a job, we’d have wanted a bigger payoff than four million dollars.”

And yet the thieves eluded the long arm of the law. German authorities underwent a massive manhunt and investigation not seen in the country since David Hasselhoff disappeared while on a bender three years ago (for some reason Germans love Hasselhoff, which strikes the outsider as peculiar).

Four days after the theft, the mastermind behind the theft revealed himself to the world via social media in a video across multiple platforms. First appearing in silhouette in a dark room, the man was silent for several seconds as the video began, and then started to speak, a hint of high cultured German in his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen of the world, you have seen my latest endeavour. I, with the aid of my henchmen, masterminded the theft of the million dollar coin from the Bode. Only a mind of sheer criminal genius like mine could have brought it all together. Only I, Magnus Von Malice, could do it.”

Von Malice, for those who might not be aware, is the nefarious mad scientist and super-villain who escaped from prison in Canada last year. Von Malice is most noted for his temporal experiments that brought several washed up celebrities back from the dead some time back, and had been imprisoned since being brought down by the world’s most feared (and cranky) lawman, the legendary RCMP Inspector Lars Ulrich. He’s been in hiding ever since his escape, one step ahead of the law.

After his revelation, the lights came up around the mad scientist on the video, and Von Malice smiled in that malevolent way that might make one think he was walking over your grave. “It could only be done by someone of the most devastating sinister mindset, stealing this coin. And it is the first step in my master plan of world domination. You will all bow before the magnificence that is Magnus Von Malice!” The video went on for another thirty five minutes of self absorbed nonsense and bragging, leaving one wondering why super-villains were so fond of endless monologues, before ending with a threat about melting down the gold unless his demands were met, including ten trillion dollars in unmarked bills, the nation of France handed over to him post haste, and a nuclear bomb “so I can destroy Mars!” He gave the world one week to carry out his demands.

While the President of France publicly mused about handing over the keys of the country to Von Malice, thus carrying on a national tradition of knuckling under and running away from a fight, other world leaders had different reactions to the crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin shrugged. “You know, Magnus, he is not, how do you say, bad guy? He’s just misunderstood. You know, a man gets ambitious and starts threatening everyone around him, and before he knows it, everyone thinks he’s the villain.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May, busy blowing up the country’s relations with the rest of Europe, paused to comment. “You know, it might have been nice of Cameron and that buffoon Boris Johnson to stick around and deal with the consequences of their little referendum, but that would be expecting too much of them. Now we’ve got a super-villain who’s threatening the world and stealing valuable coins? At least he didn’t steal the Crown Jewels. Wait, don’t quote me on that, it might give the jackass an idea or two.”

Former London mayor and ex-Member of Parliament Boris Johnson, the aforementioned buffoon, who was a strong advocate for Brexit, was busy tumbling down a staircase near the Thames when reporters told him about May calling him a buffoon. “That’s an outrage!” the dimwitted buffoon said. “Why, it makes me want to.... whooooaaaaa!” He was cut off, falling backwards and rolling down the stairs, breaking five ribs and an arm before he hit the bottom. In between wails of agony that suggest he doesn’t tolerate pain very well, Johnson called out, “Um, a little help?”

In the Oval Office, the President tweeted, “Fake news shaming Magnus Von Malice! Sad!” It was followed by seventeen other tweets extolling the mad scientist’s golf game, suggesting Von Malice be given the Nobel Peace Prize, and blaming Paul Ryan for the whole affair.

The German chancellor, meanwhile, recommended bringing in some outside help, and so a discreet call was made to her counterpart in Canada, who readily agreed to the request. The aforementioned cranky Mountie was sent overseas to aid in the investigation, given his previous experience with the villain. Within twenty four hours, Lars Ulrich had succeeded in tracking down Von Malice to his secret hidden lair in the Bavarian Alps, engaging each of his forty eight henchmen in hand to hand combat, leaving them weeping, bloody, and battered. German officers came in his wake to cuff suspects and bring in paramedics.

The super-villain himself got the worst of it, cornered by Ulrich, cut off from his Death Ray device. According to German officers who witnessed the confrontation, the super-villain, trying desperately to find some way to escape (despite having a granite wall at his back and a grouchy Mountie advancing at him), muttered, “why can’t you just spend all your time playing the drums and leave me alone?”

“I am not that Lars Ulrich,” the Mountie declared, delivering a punch that knocked Von Malice into the wall, followed by a thrashing that left him with broken ribs, fractured arms and legs, and a battered face. As well as the removal by yanking of the villain’s Van Dyke beard. Von Malice and his minions have all been charged with criminal conspiracy, theft, fraud, extortion, and dozens of other charges. They are now in custody awaiting trial.

The coin has been recovered and will be returned back to the museum as soon as possible. Von Malice, under police guard in hospital and confined to a body cast, spoke to this reporter after negotiations with German prosecutors and his attorney. His voice suggesting he was in terrible pain, the super-villain managed to mutter, “No matter how long it takes... no matter how many things I have to do to make this happen, no matter who I have to stomp on to get it done... I swear before all I hold sacred and despicable... that I’m going to kill Lars Ulrich.”

We finish with the reaction of two Lars Ulrichs to the threat. The Metallica drummer, deafened by decades of bad living and loud noise, read the statement when reporters found him at his California mansion. He looked up from the printed page, seeming confused. “Look, I’ve done a lot of crap down through the years, man, but I don’t deserve getting threatened by guys with weird names. I mean, who names their kid Magnus?”

The other Lars Ulrich was back at his detachment in Alberta, fresh from the satisfaction of beating up a super-villain and his associates. This reporter sought him out, assured him that he was fully aware he was not the other Lars Ulrich, and asked about the threat. It seems a hollow threat to a lawman who's beaten back dark cabals, other super-villains, giant monsters, and thousands of angry people in brawls. The Inspector shrugged, and smiled in a cold way. That smile matched the coldness of the words that followed.  “He’s welcome to try.”

An Egomaniac And The Snowpocalypse

Self Absorbed Director Plots To Make Disaster Movie, Or Disaster Of A Movie

Los Angeles (AP) Reporters were summoned to the offices of Digital Domain  this week at the behest of an egomaniac out to announce his latest film project. The company is one of the production efforts of the infamous and self absorbed twit Michael Bay, director behind such explosion fests as Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, and the Transformers franchise. Thanks to the irritable disdain of this reporter’s cranky editor (editor: shut up!), this reporter was assigned to attend. And that meant attending in the presence of a few actual journalists, each of whom would have preferred to be somewhere else, and a legion of vacant headed entertainment reporters, all of whom would gladly gush and fawn over the subject of this press conference.

Reporters gathered in an auditorium, where the entertainment reporters were all abuzz with excitement over what the director might be ready to announce. This reporter conferred with a couple of proper reporters, who confirmed they were also on the outs with their editors. In this reporter’s opinion, news editors are a grouchy sort of... (editor: what did I tell you about shutting up?)

Needless to say, the few real reporters found ourselves rolling our eyes and sighing with dismay at having to put up with such brainless twits as entertainment reporters. We mused on the possibility of calling for the aid of a cranky Mountie with a known dislike for entertainment reporters, but had to admit that it would take him hours to get down here from Alberta.

A spokeswoman came out on stage, where a podium had been set up beside a full length mirror. She called for everyone’s attention, and spoke as people sat down. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present His Greatness, the one, the only... Michael Bay!”

The director came out on stage, waving. He was as you expect him to look- the dishevelled hair, three or four days of stubble. The jeans, the denim shirt, the sports jacket. And of course the vacant look and dumb grin of someone who doesn’t have much going on between his ears. “Hello!” he called out. The real reporters rolled their eyes. The entertainment reporters were busy giving Bay a standing ovation. “Thank you for coming out today!”

Bay strode up towards the podium, where he looked at his reflection in the mirror, smiled again, nodded, and winked at himself. Then he faced the crowd, oblivious to the disdain of the real reporters. “Good to see you! And of course you had to come see me! Because everyone loves me! Everyone wants to know what I’m up to. And that’s what we’re doing here today: announcing yet another big project in the Michael Bay film empire.”

This reporter sighed, irritated by the ordeal of having to attend a Michael Bay press conference (editor: hey! Michael Bay is a great director! Stop making fun of him!).  How many film projects had Bay announced down through time that were still on hold? And he was adding another to the mix?

Bay was blathering on at this point about his accomplishments. “.....and why it is I’ve never won an Oscar as Best Director is beyond me. I mean, the Transformers films were cinematic masterpieces. If you ask me, the Academy has it in for me. But they’ll have to give me all the Oscars I’m due sooner or later, right? Of course right. Ladies and gentlemen, over the past winter, we’ve seen stories in the news about snow storms, bad weather, cancelled air flights, all that stuff that we don’t have to deal with here in southern California. That gave me an idea. A disaster film to top all disaster films for once and for all time. Which is why I’m going to film what I’m calling Snowpocalypse: The Snowvenge. Isn’t that a great title?”

The entertainment reporters broke out into rapturous applause. The real reporters rolled their eyes. This reporter wondered how long it would be before the cranky editor who hates him would just give up and retire or drop off the planet without an explanation (editor: is that a threat? Is that a threat? Because if that’s a threat, I’ll kill you first! I’ll gut you and have you drawn and quartered and...) This reporter, suspecting that his editor might be out to kill him, wished to advise his readers that if anything bad might happen to him, the police should look squarely at his editor (publisher: the reporter’s editor has been put on leave effectively immediately for mental health counselling, and the reporter may rest assured that the publisher also thinks Michael Bay is a narcissistic wanker).

Bay continued to prattle on. “Think of it this way. We’ve got our hero, a courageous official in the weather bureau, warning about a really bad winter blizzard coming, one that could accidentally trigger a brand new ice age, and the disdain of officials who learn too late that he was right.”

This reporter spoke up. “So you’re doing a remake of The Day After Tomorrow?”

Bay looked confused. It’s a common expression for him. “I’ve never heard of that movie.”

“Dennis Quaid, global warming movie? Weather patterns generate an ice age across the planet? It’s only a few years old. Any of this ring a bell?” this reporter prompted, wondering if the figurative hamster on the wheel inside Bay’s head had passed away.

Bay shrugged. “Did that movie feature explosions? Because my movie is going to have lots of explosions just to make things more interesting. And because, let’s face it, I’m Michael Bay, and you can’t have a Michael Bay movie without blowing shit up.”

The entertainment reporters laughed. The real reporters checked their watches. Bay spoke again. “Without further ado, let me give you the cast of the soon to win Oscars masterpiece. First, as our hero, the courageous government researcher and the only man who can disarm a weather bomb, literally... playing Doctor Grover Hatfield, one of my favourite actors, the one, the only... Shia LaBeouf!"

LaBeouf came out on stage, waving, smiling in that vacant way that reminded one of a deer caught in the headlights. “Hello! Shia is happy to see you! And you have come to pay homage to Shia! But of course you have!” He made his way over to Bay, who shook his hand.

“And we can’t have a Michael Bay without a hottie waxing a car while in a bikini, even if it is in a blizzard. So of course we’ve got a love interest. Playing the brilliant but sexy professor Felicia McCoy, say hello to Megan Fox!”

The actress, if you want to call her that, came out on stage, in a low cut dress that emphasized her cleavage. She blew a kiss to no one in particular, while camera flashes went off. Smiling, she strode over to the others.

This reporter spoke up. “So your two main characters are named Hatfield and McCoy.”

Bay nodded, looking oblivious. “Great names, huh?”

“Like the Hatfield and McCoy families?” this reporter prompted.

Bay seemed confused. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

This reporter pressed on. “Nineteenth century, two families at war with each other down in Kentucky and West Virginia for a few years? An actual blood feud, and it actually happened.  People died. Hatfields and McCoys. None of this rings a bell?”

Bay shrugged. “Look, you’re distracting me from my announcement. If you keep doing that, I’m going to bar you from any further press conferences.”

“Is that a promise? Because that would make me very happy,” this reporter said.

Bay waved it off. “And the last casting announcement I have for today is one of my favourite actors to work with. He’s the legend you all love, playing the American president, the one, the only... give it up for Nicolas Cage!”

Cage stumbled out on stage, a bottle of rare Scotch in one hand, seeming to be drunk. “Man, I go through these bottles so fast,” he mumbled, paused, and seemed to focus. This reporter wondered, not for the first time, if Cage had ever considered that he might have a drinking problem. (editor: there is nothing wrong with drinking, unless it’s the battery acid I plan on making you drink when I catch up to you...).“Oh, hey! Yeah! Good to see you!” he called out.

The actor stumbled over to Bay, LaBeouf, and Fox. Bay grinned idiotically. (publisher: a note to the reporter- the editor briefly got away when the mental hospital attendants arrived. It won’t happen again). “Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the lead cast of Snowpocalypse: The Snowvenge! Coming soon to a theatre near you, as soon as I’m finished with the other three dozen projects I’ve got in the pipeline.”

Bay waved and strode off stage, followed by LaBeouf and Fox. Cage stared at everyone for a long moment. “Whoa, where did all of you come from?”

This reporter got up and walked out, content in the knowledge that his cranky editor might be out of the way for a good long while and that he wasn’t going to get assigned nonsense like this again anytime soon. This reporter also found himself wishing that a localized blizzard might descend on Michael Bay and dump forty feet of snow on his residence inside of six hours. (editor’s doctor: it is my professional opinion that my patient is fixated with loathing and hatred on one of his reporters and may pose a severe threat to his health and safety. Furthermore, I would note that my patient is, well, to use a technical term, batshit crazy).

Better A Witty Fool Than A Foolish Wit

It is the first of April, otherwise known as April Fools' Day. I have an image blog for the occasion, so enjoy... and whatever you do, don't trust anyone today. Not even yourself.