British comedy is an artform unto itself. I know people who are crazy about it and others who don’t find it funny at all. It really is an acquired taste.

I was introduced to British comedy in early 1990. Monty Python’s Holy Grail had experienced a resurgence in popularity amongst my highschool classmates. I soon saw other tapes of their works: Life of Brian, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, various episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I bought videos and tapes of their shows, and later, CD’s. Still, Monty Python was all the exposure I had to humor from the U.K.

In 1992 while I was away at college, my family came across Blackadder while watching PBS. (Dad still refuses to get cable.) Unfortunately, the series had finished it’s run by the time I visited home next, but Are You Being Served? had taken it’s time slot. I was hooked! PBS also ran episodes of some other British sitcoms, May to December, Keeping up Appearances, and Waiting for God, to name a few.

Within the past few years, I’ve spent less and less time watching TV, so I haven’t been able to chase down many of these shows on TV. I did find a great PBS store in Albuquerque, NM, where my family purchased all the Blackadder tapes we could find, including Blackadder’s Christmas Carol. The same shop did also carry episodes from Are You Being Served?, but I neglected to buy any of the tapes (something I still regret).

I had heard of several other British series which were supposed to be quite funny. When I worked at a video store a while back, I took advantage of the employee discount to pick up a tape of Red Dwarf. I was VERY impressed! The show hooked me immediately, and I picked up every episode I could find. (I was rather baffled as to why Series IV was released on video AFTER Series V.) About a year later on a whim, I picked up a copy of Absolutely Fabulous, one of the rudest, most irreverent, and funniest shows I have ever seen. Most recently, I’ve started collecting Mr. Bean videos.

More information on British programming can be found at BBCi.

This evening, I found myself two lanes over from a fellow in an small blue car. The white sign taped to the passenger door stood out quite well. After pondering for a moment, I put down my window and hollered at him (his passenger window was partially down).

Pamela: *pointing* There’s a sign taped to your car.

Guy: *puzzled expression*

Pamela: It says, “I sleep with sheep.”

Guy: *blinks* *laughs*

He said something, but I couldn’t quite catch it, then the light turned green and we had to go.

I’ll bet he’ll be questioning his buddies to find out which one was the prankster.

Jish is back!

On a nice, sunny day a few months back, Dale and I went out for a ride on his bike. I’d acquired a disposable camera, so I decided to take it along with us. It’s pretty hard to take pictures from the back of a bike that’s going 30-45 mph when you can’t even look through the viewfinder. Out of the 15 or so pictures on the camera, only 4-5 came out decently. These are my favorites.

helmet heads

my usual view

on the road

look ma, no hands!

I had some photos I wanted to upload and post, but it seems Gallery got broken when my web host switched servers. So until that’s fixed, no neat photo uploading for me.

If you have an email account, then you’ve most likely received spam. And if you’ve gotten spam, you’ve very likely gotten a 419 scam, also known as “Nigerian scams” (because many many many of them originate from Nigeria) or “advance fee fraud,” at one time or another. Hopefully, you didn’t fall for it. But enough people have fallen for 419 scams to total a loss of more than $5 billion US dollars¹ (so far), and the US Secret Service even has a task force devoted to dealing with 419 scams².

According to Snopes.com, the basis of a 419 scam is “A wealthy foreigner needs your help moving millions of dollars from his homeland to yours and will reward you with a hefty percentage of this fortune if you agree to assist him.” Once a sucker is hooked, the scammer’s formula is usually to secure a deposit, claim some kind of trouble in regards to completing the transaction, secure more money to help speed things along, and so on until the sucker is either out of money or has realize the trick and refuses to pay any more. Either way, once the money has been sent, the poor victim is S.O.L. Chances of recovering any money sent are slim, as are the odds that the scammers will be caught or prosecuted.

But, once in a while, these scammers will target the wrong person - someone who’s not only wise to these scams, but who in turn enjoys messing with the scammers. These people will respond to the scammer, wholeheartedly agreeing to whatever is proposed, then string along the scammer for as long as possible. On a few rare occasions, people have even been able to get the scammer to send them money! More recently, scam baiters have been trying to get scammers to prove their sincerity by sending photographs of themselves, often doing something silly.

Scam baiting has become a real hobby for some people. Web sites and message boards are devoted to the activity, stories of scammer scamming are growing.

I found out about this because one of my husband’s friends is a scam baiter. He sent us a copy of one his latest endeavors where he managed to convince the scammer to send a picture of himself with pencils stuck in his ears. “Drew” was nice enough to let me post their correspondence here. It is long and, annoyingly, the scammer likes to type in all caps, but overall it makes for an amusing read and the photo at the end is worth the price of admission.

“Drew” scams a scammer

‘Yo, can u plz help me write English?’

Carl Sharp knew there was a problem when he spotted his 15-year-old son’s summer job application: “i want 2 b a counselor because i love 2 work with kids.”

That night, the father in Phoenix removed the AOL Instant Messenger program from the family computer and informed both his children they were no longer to chat with friends online.