Winterwood Investment

Very amusing. Look at the email I found in my Gmail inbox today (it’s an obvious scam, of course):

Winterwood Investment
32 Newman Street
London ,United Kingdom
E-mail: winterwinfo@gmail.com

RE: Employment Opportunities At Winterwood Investment

My name is Bishop Gate I work with Winterwood Investment we came about your email address and your brief profile through an email listing affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce.

This is to seek your employment as a representative to this honorable company Winterwood Investment we take delight in supplying of products such as Building materials, Toys, Amusement equipments world wide.

Presently we are experiencing difficulties in receiving payment from our overseas customers in Australia, Canada and USA. However if you are the type that like or prefer working from the house you can grab this opportunity by becoming one of our privilege directors.

Your duty will be base on clearing and receiving our due payments in your location have it noted that for every transfer to your account that is cleared or payment receive by you, you will be entitle to 10 percentage of the total sum.

If this part time employment invitation meets your acceptance indicate your interest by furnishing this office with the understated information’s:

Full Name:
Full Address:( not p.o.box):
City:
State:
Zip code:
Phone Number(s):
Fax number:
Age:
Sex:
Current job:
Email Address:

Note that your responsibility is to receive payment from our customers in Australia, Canada and USA in your account and deduct your payment of 10% and you send the balance.

Do email the above information via this email address: winterwinfo@gmail.com

Thanks as we look towards a positive response.

Sincerely,
Mr. Bishop Gate
For: Winterwood Investment

Looks like the Nigerian kings and governments are extending their business relationships into the United Kingdom and have created Winterwood Investment, an “honorable company” that “take delight in supplying of products such as Building materials, Toys, Amusement equipments world wide”. Good to know that…

• the US Chamber of Commerce maintains a huge database of Gmail addresses, including mine!
• “Mr. Bishop Gate” doesn’t have a firm grip of correct punctuation, capitalization and or basic spelling, but still wants my help.
• the official company email is on Gmail. Really, no top level domain? Maybe that’s how they got my Gmail account when signing up at the US Chamber of Commerce themselves!
• I can “grab this opportunity by becoming one of our privilege directors” if I am “the type that like or prefer working from the house”. A privilege director? Sounds important! Where do I sign up? Oh…
• there’s no request for my bank account information? I have to wait for a reply from your email address to be scammed? That sounds like too much work, to be honest.

I halfway tempted to reply to the email with some fake information, just to see what the next steps would be. But I’m too busy washing my hair today…

C64 Assembly

When I visited Germany this year I found that my mom had dug up a few of my really old computer books. The original Amiga manuals hold marginal interest to me now, but there was one book that stirs some seriously cool memories: “Commodore 64&128 – Maschinensprache für Einsteiger”. It’s a book about programming the C64 In 6502 assembly, and that’s how I spent most of 1988!

Even though I never turned into a professional programmer, my first real contact with the computer (other playing than games, of course) was programming the C64. My dad had bought the system under the usual pretense; we were going to use it for bookkeeping and other useful tasks, of course, and he even took a BASIC programming course. But in the end, it was I who got the most use out of the machine, and I used his coursework to program various simple games in BASIC myself. This all happened when I was only 9 or 10 years old, so the programs were simple. But the first ever English words that I ever learned were “if”, “then” and “print”.

A couple of years later I had met an older neighbor kid who had a few connections to the local cracker scene. That’s how I learned about this newly released book, “Maschinensprache für Einsteiger”, advertised as the ultimate way of learning to program the C64 at its core level, Assembly. My friend was all over it; so I saved my allowance, bought the book, and found myself programming C64 assembly when I was about 12 years old. The young age was very much reflected in the complexity of the programs I wrote – apart from pushing various register values around and creating loops, the most I ever got onto the screen where simple raster loops that created 16-color rainbows. And after a while, I moved on to different things… probably the Amiga.

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Essen, die Einkaufshalle?

Der Essener Innenstadt eine kulturelle Neigung andichten zu wollen waere wahrscheinlich vermessen. Es war schon immer eine Konsummetropole – “Essen, die Einkaufsstadt”. Essen, das aus Polen und Holland ganze Reisebusse voller kauffreudiger Nachbarn anzieht. Aber irgendwie hatte die Innenstadt immer einen Reiz fuer mich. Hatte. Man mag mein Nasenrumpfen verzeihen – ich bin mit der Stadt aufgewachsen – aber der Reiz geht so langsam aber sicher floeten.

Heutzutage scheint Essen ja vor allem durch seine Geschaeftszentren glaenzen zu wollen. Erst kam das Essener City Center, die ueberdachte Einkaufsstrasse mit Geschaeften im Einheitslook  – welcher ja jetzt schon wieder geupdated und renoviert wird, damit auch ja alles konkurrenzfaehig bleibt. Und jetzt also der neue Limbecker Platz, das Mega-Einkaufszentrum, das ich zwar schon halbfertig im letzten Winter zu Gesicht bekam, aber dessen ganze Sterilitaet sich mir erst heute im sommerlichen Sonnenschein offenbarte.

Ich verstehe ja, woher die Anstrengungen ruehren. Erst kam das CentrO und drohte, den Essener Einkaufsplatzhirsch abzuschiessen; dann erwachte sogar das altehrwuerdige RheinRuhrZentrum aus seinem 70er-Jahre-Schlaf und putzte sich nochmal halbwegs fein heraus. Aber das sind Zentren, amerikanische “Malls”, die in der Mitte vom Nirgendwo stehen. Essen ist eine Stadt, und sie verliert zielstrebig ihre Identitaet als solche. Nicht, dass vor 10 Jahren noch jedes Geschaeft aus dem Anfang des Jahrhunderts stammte und in historischen Gebaueden mit mittelalterlichen Aussenverzierungen untergebracht gewesen waeren. Das waren schon immer grosse Kaufhaueser, die zu grossen Kaufhausketten gehoerten. Aber gegen die luftige Langeweile des neuen Karstadt Geschaeftes im Limbecker Platz war das alte, “historische” Gebaeude doch geradezu eine Offenbarung. Frueher waren die Geschaefte halt nicht so konzentriert, man konnte noch einen Trip von der HöLe bis zum Cinemaxx planen, und waehrend der Stippvisite bei Roskothen fand man tatsaechlich noch einen alten Spielzeugladen, anstatt billigen 1 Euro Ramsch. Und wenn ich mit dem Auto bei Horten oder an der Lichtburg vorbeifahren wollte, ja verdammt nochmal, dann konnte ich das auch!

Nunja, Ablagen “Grumpy Old Men” und “Frueher War Alles Besser”. Wahrscheinlich reagiere ich so empfindlich aus die Neuerungen, weil mich das alles zu sehr an die USA erinnert. Wie soll ich meiner amerikanischen Frau da noch den Unterschied zum traditionellen Europa zeigen? Das Prinzip “Mall” kriegt man doch auch “da drueben” alle paar Kilometer um die Ohren geballert – mit dem Unterschied, dass die Amis hoechstens ueber einen alten Indianerfriedhof zementierten, nicht aber gedenken, baldmoeglichst das ganze Geschaeftsviertel einer alten Ruhrpott Stadt ueberdacht zu haben. Scheint zumindest so…

“Essen das Konsumparadies”? Der Name mag durchaus noch zutreffen. Aber aus “Essen der Einkaufsstadt” wird irgendwie immer weniger.

NASCAR at Infineon Raceway 2009

I have more time on my hands now, so it’s time to catch up on a bunch of photos I meant to post months ago. Victoria and I visited the Toyota/Savemart 350 again this year, the big difference this year being my blown out knee. I couldn’t walk around a lot, and consequently didn’t film any footage. But we did take a few pictures again – a lot more touristy this year, but I wanted to post them anyway. Enjoy!

NASCAR Haulers 2009

Just like last year, here’s a gallery of 2009 NASCAR haulers from select drivers. Taken at Sears Point on the eve of the Toyota/Savemart 350 in June.

Elisabeth Gilbert on Creativity

The motto of TED is “Ideas Worth Spreading”. Who am I to resist?