The Long Road

Archives: August 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

Something pretty strange happened the other day. This story begins like many others classics:

So I was doing my laundry...

and this old man comes in to do his and then hands me an envelope. The envelope contains a letter, which at first glance is asking for donations for the 31 people who've recently lost their homes in the Sumerset street fire. Upon closer inspection, the letter states that he would like to find 6 people to donate 297$ each, with himself putting in another 350$. With this sum, he will help any one of the homeless familes to invest it and earn money at the rate of 1000$/month minimum.

So I ask him if he's affiliated with any of the charities currently helping out? No. Does he know any of the people affected by the fire? No. "so what do you do?" Says I, curious about how someone can earn an extra 1000$/month. So he goes to his old Hyundai Accent and brings back a binder and shows me a few pictures of a cruise he went on in 2004. All the while describing it as a cruise from 2002, and saying he's been on around 17 cruises. He says he actually makes money on these cruises because they're good places to recruit members of the staff into his investment opportunities and that if he ever saw some of these people again, they would more than likely kiss his feet in joy because of how much good it has done for them. A little hyperbolic, perhaps. He talked about some pretty sound principles: its easier to make money when you have money, when you have others making it for you, etc. But I was getting frustrated because this was very low on details and just promised results. A very non-linear presentation.

After a bit more probing he went on to discuss how his normal first presentation is to potential investors. He brings in groups of 4, shows them a video, tells them that they can recuperate their investment (from 70$ to 1000$) within a month. But that, honestly, their investment will have already cost-recovered during the time it takes for them to hear the presentation, but he doesnt want people to promise such incredible results so quickly. And if people want, they can just put their 1000$ investment on credit card and pay the 28$ interest fee at no risk and pay it back when their first check comes in.

Okay, i say. But how does it work? Where does the money come from? This is where things get very sketchy. He says there's no work involved!! That the system just works! When people see the video that explains things will show them the money coming in and they will be convinced. Again, incredibly vague on the actual money making process.

To make a long story short, he lets slip a few details here and there. For your initial investment, you get access to a website, and hundreds of dollars worth of software. He doesn't tell just anyone what the website's address is, and he does not bother to "help" those who ask too many questions because they don't "BELIEVE". OKAY, so I figured it was a piramid scheme. Where there IS work involved because you have to sell software and the people who recruit you all the way up the piramid get a piece of the pie. But then he says its NOT a pyramid scam because the initial investment can be as little as 70$ and because unlike pyramid scams, the person at the top isn't taking a huge percentage of your money!!

The worst part of all this, I think is that the whole scam is based around him trying to sell people on helping those hit by the fires. He doesn't know any of the victims, isn't affiliated with a charitable organization, and probably has no way of contacting the victims to set something like this up in the first place. Besides, what's a guy who's supposedly making THOUSANDS of dollars a month doing washing his laundry at a laundromat, driving an old accent, and living on Empress street?

But still, there's always that lingering doubt...what if I COULD make 1000$ a month doing nothing?

Posted by Long @ 01:25 PM EST [Link] [Karma: 0 (+/-)] [2 comments]

Monday, August 20, 2007

Hollywood loves to overdo things. Thats why every year in the last decade we've had several fantasy film SERIES. There's the Harry Potters, the Narnias, the Eragons, the His Dark Materials, the The Dark is Risings AND SO ON. There're more big-budget fantasy movies being made now than ever before (hyperbolic, unresearched statement. Many more to follow). And all it took to get this particular ball rolling was the mega success of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies.

In comparison, there've only been two sci-fi trilogies "recently", the Star Wars prequels and The Matrix films. Star Wars is sort of its own beast and the later Matrices are considered to be not too sucessfull. And Star Trek..well..the less said, the better. There were a couple of recent attempts at new space-based, futuristic, sci-fi epics: Serenity and Chronicles of Riddick. Both pretty much flopped. There's just something about huge Capital Ships blasting one another that doesn't seem to appeal to the maintream moviegoer. But goddamn, if it doesn't appeal to me!

You know what sci-fi lacks that all those previously mentioned fantasy series have? A point of view character that is a young, white child of a very normal world that gets swept up and into strange and unknown lands of adventure. That's the role played by Dorothy, Alice, Luke, Anakin, Harry, Frodo, and the Pevencie siblings. You need to have a character have things explained to them so that things get explained to you. You need a character who's normal enough to say "whoa" every once in while. It's retarded, but it works.

Somewhere along the way, Hollywood or its consumers decided that things needed to be explained and that people just couldn't accept the fantastic (or science fictional) at face value and run with it. Along the same lines, movies need to be personal. People just can't seem relate to borg, elves, or ethiopians. They have an understanding of the personal danger Theoden faces when he charges into Pellenor fields. Things are a bit harder to grasp when photon torpedoes hit the Enterprise and all you see is the camera shake.

As much as I hate the old cliche, sci-fi needs a new Point of View character to show that its a financially feasible genre. It needs a young white boy to be this generation's Luke Skywalker. It needs Ender Wiggin.

...

Well, at least I'm not a fan of Westerns. Those guys have it rough.

Posted by Long @ 03:44 PM EST [Link] [Karma: 5 (+/-)] [2 comments]

Friday, August 10, 2007

I don't know why it happens, but it does. The most annoying part of my life. It's like there's a camera into my world and they are watching. Waiting. For that most perfect moment to strike. To disturb my 10 minutes of peace. To break the flow. It is shocking, aggravating, disturbing, and downright frustrating.

People require attention at the worst of times and I can't stand it! This isn't funny anymore!!!! I swear, without fail, every time I'm on the toilet, someone HAS to call me.

Posted by Long @ 08:29 AM EST [Link] [Karma: 0 (+/-)] [3 comments]

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