Digital Cowboy

I just saw back to back Chevy commercials while watching the Texas Rangers game. It seems that I’m now a GM employee and, as a result, I can get a wannabe SUV, the 2WD Tahoe for “just” $28,274. That’s a little rich for my blood, but the next commercial told me that after “my employee discount,” I can get a 2WD pickup for “just” $23,358.

Thank God for the UAW. If it wasn’t for them I couldn’t afford anything that they make. Oh. Wait. I’m not a member of the UAW and because of them I can’t afford anything they make.

Yet, unlike them, I still have to show up for work every day sober and actually have a skill to make the kind of money that would allow me to be able to afford what they make.

If I pissed you off, good. Don’t even try to defend unions to me. I’ve actually met Jimmy Hoffa. I’m not kiddin’ teasin’, either. I met him at a Teamsters picnic. I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut. I was only able to because: 1) I was the date of the daughter of the president of the local. (She was also quite hot and a stripper.) 2) Jimmy Hoffa was passin’ out the bootleg moonshine himself.

When Jimmy Hoffa hands you a glass of shine that he poured out of a jug in the trunk of a car and you have a pretty girl on your arm, you lose all principles. Well, I did, anyway. At least for that moment. I was young and stupid.

Even if you don’t lose your principles the easy way, it’s not a good idea to tell Jimmy Hoffa, “no, thanks” after he invited you to the “moonshine car.” Lots of people at that picnic were connivin’ to get there and didn’t get the invite. Besides that, he was drunk. You tell Jimmy Hoffa, “no” and then get back to me.

Anyway. I’ve been sidetracked. We were talking about the UAW, not the Teamsters. I like my 1992 Silverado. It’s got it’s problems, but it’s now almost 16 years old and I’ve owned it for 12 of those years. It has over 130,000 miles on it and it still gets me where I wanna go. It needs front brake pads, but that’s $10 and an hour (without power tools).

Maybe they were too good back then and got too greedy. I see no need to replace it. When it finally dies, I’ll probably replace it with an older truck, not a newer one. Gimme a ’72 Chevy pickup in good condition and I might never buy another vehicle as long as I live.

I just got a spam email. Actually, I get a few dozen a day but I don’t see very many unless I choose to. Sometimes I read them just for fun.

(Though I have five active email accounts and sometimes get upwards of 100 emails a day, I don’t see very many spam emails because:
A) three of my active accounts are coming from a mail server that I run. (I highly recommend Spam Assassin. It catches almost everything and I’ve never had it give me a false positive for spam.)
B) my mail client also has very good spam filtering that is “trainable” and I have it well trained.)

Anyway, I just read one that I found fascinating. Here is the body of the message:

Hello my hope!
I am not sure you get this message but if you got I want you to know that I want to travel to your country to work in two weeks and I just want to meet right man.I live in Russia and my goal is to leave this country because it is impossible to live here for young pretty woman. if you have not wife or girlfriend ,maybe we could try to meet? I am Tayana ,I am 25 years old ,please write to me directly to my mail – lapa201@pochta.ru See you soon!!!!

That’s preposterous on its face but that’s not the really fun part. The email headers (even the part that wasn’t spoofed) shows the email as being from “Vera Goodson” who presumably sent the email from “YNUBEZUL@oorong.co.jp.”

Now, then. I’m a lonely, desperate guy. Should I just hit reply and send an email to Japan telling Vera Goodson that I would love to meet “young pretty woman” who’s also desperate to escape tyranny. Should I “write [her] directly to [her] mail” which is in Russia? Should I ask her why she says she is Tayana from Russia but is sending email from Vera Goodson’s Japanese email account?

It’s all so perplexing. In addition, she said right in the first sentence that she just wants to meet “right man.” I could be “right man.” But how would I know? Is she talking about right for her? Right on the political spectrum? (That opens a new can of worms – the American political spectrum or someone else’s?) Am I a man that’s just plain right? I “have not wife or girlfriend.” Does that make me right? (In 21st century America, it makes me smart, but I’m trying to figure out what she’s getting at.)

At the end she says, “See you soon!!!!”

She seems confident, this Vera/Tayana person.

I’m pretty sure if she sees me soon, she’ll be looking down the barrel of a gun.