BillBakerBlog.com

Internet Email Scam Goes Upscale and Retro

We have all been getting those emails for years:

"Dearest:

I am deposed princess in Uganda and I need help to getting my money out of country. Please email your social number, bank account and copy of birth certificate so I can wire money to you soonest so you can wire back to me.

With great affection for your help."

Or something like that.

Today, I received another one, except it came from a "lawyer" in London and it was delivered... BY SNAIL MAIL! I just love it when worlds collide.

This one is especially silly, since I was targeted because I have the same last name as the "deceased" so I get to inherent his millions. Sweet!

(Click on image for full-size)

An Open Letter to Nike Chairman Phil Knight

 

Dear Phil:

Nice move! In a perfect, synergistic, life-imitates-art campaign, you have dug up the rotting corpse of Tiger Woods dad and combined it with Tiger's whoring to become a whore yourself! Well-played!

As a runner, triathlete and cyclist, I have been using Nike products for the better part of three decades. Not anymore. Because, while I too believe in the power of capitalism and support the notion that you have the right to market your products any way you like, it (capitalism) is a two-way street. You get to behave like a crass scumbag and I get to vote with my feet (pun intended.)

I do not know much about the advertising and branding game that Nike has so brilliantly played over the years, so I will defer to your wisdom and experience that the new Tiger Woods commercial, featuring the philandering Tiger Woods staring blankly into the camera while his dead father talks, has some sort of higher meaning that will drive millions of people who are smarter than I to run out and buy a set of Nike golf balls.

You're the expert, so good luck with that.

I just don't get how using a lying, cheating hypocrite as a spokesperson helps your brand. I think about my friends who have to explain to their school-age kids why Tiger Woods is in the news all the time and I don't think "Yeah! That makes for a great ad campaign!"

Let us not forget that Tiger Woods has an entire foundation that claims to support kids. He built himself up as a paragon of virtue and family values. A good chunk of his endorsement fortune is based on that false image. So his private life is relevant here, because he chose to make it so. He is not just an athlete.

I can understand standing by a flawed human who made (multiple) mistakes, but I can't understand why you would want to flaunt it for marketing purposes.

So goodbye, Mr. Knight and hello Asics, Adidas, Zoot, Brooks, Reebok, Puma, K-Swiss, New Balance, Saucony and all the others that do NOT use celebrity dicks like Tiger Woods to promote your brand. I look forward to getting to know your shoes, your clothing and everything else you make. And if anyone wants to buy some slightly used Nike crap, drop me a note.

Scary Fun with the National Debt

Want to scare your kids into spending less and saving more? Show them the national debt clock.

I was inspired by my friend Charlie Cooper's column over on CBS News.com to take a look at it. Charlie points out that the Republicans are looking increasingly like a bunch of asshats (my words, not his) by ignoring the genuine signs of economic recovery in their singular and quixotic desire to puke all over President Obama, no matter how good the news is.

And while I am thrilled that we do seem to be on the road to some sort of recovery, we still have a $12 trillion dollar credit card bill to pay off. Or, I should say, your kids have to pay it off. (And let me remind my Republican friends that President Bush took over the country with a budget surplus and then spent us back into deficits like a drunken frat boy might if he were elected president.)

So, I went over the debt counter and hit "Refresh" on my browser. Thirty seconds later, I hit refresh again. In that time span, the national debt increased by about $1.5 million dollars. So that's $3 million per minute or $180 million per hour or $4.3 billion per day or about $1.6 trillion per year.

Seriously - gather the kids around the iPad and try it for yourself. Then say "Timmy - we can buy you that new Nintendo game now, or you can live somewhere other than a Chinese refrigerator box when you are 21. Take your pick."

The Ballad of Bill's iPad: Will We Ever Be As One?

 

In December, I sent an Apple iTunes gift card to my 12-year-old niece as a holiday gift. (I know - not the most creative gift, but she's 12 and I'm 45 and I was afraid that if I tied to buy her something, you know, cool, she would have ended up with a new Barbie doll or an electric toothbrush.)

I changed the shipping address in my iTunes account to her address and then never changed it back.

When I ordered my iPad in March, I never bothered to pay half a second of attention to the shipping address and sure enough, it ended up at my sister's house. Yesterday, she was kind enough to FedEx it to me here in Connecticut. She dropped it off around 1:00 PM and it has not been heard from since.

Tracking shows it was dropped off at a FedEx Office location. That's it. FedEx has no idea where it is or why tracking has not been updated. It was due here two hours ago, but that didn't happen.

My poor little iPad has traveled all the way from China to Pennsylvania and it was sooooo close to its new home and now, I fear, it has been kidnapped by a band of rogue Pennsylvania Dutch, who will no doubt be asking it to do unspeakable things like access the Bible on the Internet and display plans for a barn raising (thanks to my friend Todd Weiss for that grisly image.)

One can only hope that it will eventually find its way to my loving embrace, where it can take up its true destiny of surfing bicycle and porn web sites.

(Updates as they become available)

***April 7, 2010 UPDATE***

It's on the truck and heading for my front door. Apparently it ended up in the FedEx Ground system instead of the FedEx Overnight system. You would think that FedEx could figure that out pretty quickly, but it appears hat FedEx Overnight and FedEx Ground speak the equivalent of Mandarin and Serbo-Croatian respectively, thus the confusion.

***April 7, 2010 UPDATE #2***

It arrived and is now syncing with iTunes. It looks like I thought: a giant iPod touch. Can I send it back? I'm bored.

You Never Forget Your First Time

She was new in my life. She was young, fast, a real thoroughbred. I am older, wiser, more experienced, but could I live up to the months of anticipation and unspoken expectations?

I was nervous. I wanted our first time to be special.

I took her outside and mounted her. We started slowly, so as not to "crash and burn" right out of the starting gate. The early going was a bit awkward, but we soon settled in and moved together in a synchronous, choreographed dance. As I pumped harder, she responded instantly. At times, I had to stand up and ride her as hard as I could.

At the end, I was tired, but utterly satisfied. She was silent. She knew what she was capable of and she quietly, almost smugly, delivered.

I hung her from a hook in the garage and went inside for a nice dinner with my beautiful wife.

My first ride with my new Cannondale Slice bicycle was a huge success. We look forward to many happy years together.