My new friend Jacob.

Like most folk in the day and age, I get a serious amount of spam sent to me on a daily basis. Since this morning, sixty new messages have clogged up my spam filter. Every week or two I poke and prod through them. Gmail tends to be quite good at sorting this stuff out, and the messages in my spam folder tend to be just that, spam. But I worry that I might miss something. I slipped up a month ago and lost eighty million in the Ghanan lottery, that won't happen again.
So, a few nights ago, I scrolled down through my spam filter. I scrolled past claims to improve my vision, offers to help with my baldness and my one chance at earning a law degree online. I scrolled past private messages from nearby girls interested in ME, the five worst foods to eat for belly flab and pre approved credit cards.
I stopped at one from a Mr. Obi Jacob. The subject line was beautifully simple:
PLEASE READ THE ENCLOSED.
I figured "Let's give Jacob a spin, see what he has to say for himself" and opened it up.

Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division
FBI Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001

Attention: Beneficiary

Fuck. This can't be good.

This is the final warning you will receive from me. This notice has been sent to you in many occassions/ several times but you ignored it.

 You see? This is why I should go through my spam more often, and so should you.

I have warned you so many times and you decided to ignore my e-mails because you believe we have not been instructed to get you arrested, if you fail to respond back to us with the payment details below, then we would first send a letter to the MAYOR of the city where you reside and also direct the bank to close your account until you comply with our directives. Note that all your properties will be confiscated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We would also send a letter to the company/organization you work for so that they could get you fired until we are through with our investigations because a suspect is not supposed to be working for the government or any private organization.

They've not even told me what I've done yet and already they're threatening to rat me out to THE MAYOR of my city. The MAYOR of  Edinburgh. The-, wait, does Edinburgh have a mayor? There's a Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip. The man's 91, will he really care that much? Unless my crime was kneecapping the Queen herself I think he'll be throwing your message in the Royal Spam filter, Jacob. And as for notifying the company I work for? I haven't pulled a sickie since starting there, two and a half years ago. Some time off would go down nicely. You'll have to do more than that.

Your ID which we have in our database have been sent to all the crimes agencies in America for them to upload you in their website as an internet fraudsters and a terrorist (suicide bomber). Also to warn people from having any dealings or friendly communication with you anymore. This would have been solved all this while if you had gotten the CERTIFICATE ENDORSED AND STAMPED as you were instructed in the e-mail below. I, ROBERT S. MUELLER III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wish to inform you that there is no more time left to waste because you have been given enough grace therefore you have been mandated to comply immediately you read this e-mail if you don't want to be arrested. As stated earlier, to have the document endorsed and stamped without any delay, you must adhere to this directives to avoid you from blaming yourself at last when we must have arrested and sentence you to life imprisonment. Note that all your properties will be seized and bank account will be confiscated too.

 You're going to report ME as an internet fraudster? ME? Eh, hello, kettle? This is pot. We don't want you coming to our golf games anymore.
The rest of the paragraph is a little incomprehensible. I skimmed it. If I missed anything important, I'd appreciate being informed. I'm on the lam, here, like.

As a good Christian and a Honest man, I decided to see how i can be of help to you because i would not be happy to see you end up in jail and all your properties got confiscated because your information was used to carry out a fraudulent transactions. I called the EFCC NIGERIA and they directed me to a private attorney who can help you get the process done and he stated that he will endorse and stamp the document at the sum of $98 only and i believe this process is cheaper for you. You need to do everything possible to get this process done today or tomorrow because i have been informed by the ARREST WARRANT ISSUANCE DEPARTMENT that the warrant of arrest has been prepared against you and once is being signed by me as the FBI DIRECTOR, then the arrest will be carried out in the next 48hours. from our investigations, we learnt that you were the person that forwarded your identification to one impostor/ fraudster in Nigeria when he had a deal with you about the transfer of some illegal funds into your bank account which is valued at the sum of $10,500,000.00 only. You failed to comply with our directives/instruction, and that was the reason why we didn't hear from you. As i have already been notified about you getting the process completed yesterday and right now the WARRANT OF ARREST has been signed against you and it will be carried out in the next 48hours as strictly signed by the FBI director. We have investigated and found out that you don't have any idea when the fraudulent deal was conducted with your information's/identity and right now your ID is placed on our database as a wanted person. I believe you know that it will be a shame to you and your entire family. Also it will be announced in all the local channels that you are wanted by the FBI.

Now there's a paragraph. Finally, Jacob swings in the save the day.  He's willing to get in touch with his... friends in the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to help me out? How'd Nigeria come into this? Jacob, are you yanking my crank? He's asking for $98 to clear my name. $98? It'd be worth robbing a few cars and torching an orphanage most weekends if my man Jake can clear my name for under a hundred quid.
Oh, wait, I had to do this "today or tomorrow"... last Friday? And if I didn't, Jacob himself, the newly elected FBI Director (he got a promotion within the space of a paragraph), would issue a warrant for my arrest. After that, I'd be arrested within... 48 HOURS? Fuck! Better finish this quick.
At least I now know my crime... kinda. A Nigerian fraudster has transferred ten and a half million dollars into my account. Well take me outside and put me in the stocks. No, wait, announce it on local TV! Oh, you were going to do that anyway. Keep 'er lit, Jacob.

Note: All the crimes agencies have been contacted on this regards and we shall trace and arrest you if you disregard this instruction. You are advised to make the payment for the signing and stamping of the document today, failure to do that will attract a maximum arrest and finally we shall apply for litigation against you. Thereafter, you will appear in ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT COURT OF WASHINGTON D.C for terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking charges. Be warned, do not try anything funny because we are monitoring you  from our satellite.

MAXIMUM ARREST. Is that an actual term? Am I dealing with Robocop or something?
It's at this point I figured that something fidhy might be going on. Besides threatening me with "Maximum arrest", Jacob then goes so far as to warn me not to "try anything funny" (Shhh.) and then lets me know that they're monitoring me via satellite (which explains why I mooned the sky every 2 miles on my jog tonight).

Meanwhile, I pleaded on your behalf so that this agency could give you till 07/20/2012 so that you can get this process done. Bear it in mind that this is the only way that i can be able to help you at this moment. But if you fail to comply you will face the law and its consequences once it had befallen on you. You will have to make the payment through western union money transfer with the below information then Send the payment details to me as stated below.

  You pleaded on my behalf? Jacob, you're the fucking director of the fucking FB fucking I. Surely you could do more than plead. You know, I think you're pulling my leg. I think, THINK I'll not bother replying to you and cobble together a blog entry out of this, maybe get a couple of hits.

That said, if you do wake up beside some dead hookers anytime soon, you might wanna take down the following, fill it out and send it off to my man Jake. And wave your willy at the clouds every chance you get, he's probably watching you right now.

NAME: OBI JACOB

ADDRESS: LAGOS, NIGERIA

TEXT QUESTION: BETTER

ANSWER: BEST

AMOUNT: $98

SENDER'S FULL NAME:

SENDER'S FULL ADDRESS:

DIRECT PHONE NUMBER:

MTCN: 

Wee bag.

About two weeks ago, a Wednesday I think, I was hovering about the shop floor as I worked out in Cameron Toll shopping centre. An old man, mid seventies but in good shape, approached the front desk. I was just back from my lunch, my next appointment hadn't turned up so I walked over to him to see if I could help. He asked me if I'd be able to fix his glasses as the lens had fallen out. I smiled, lent forward to see the wreckage in his hand and told him I'd see what I could do.

I like fixing glasses. It's not hard, the only reason I can do it and you can't is because you don't have very small screwdrivers and screws. Good vision is handy too, it can be pretty tricky fixing your reading glasses if you've no glasses to help you see them in the first place. A few optometrists don't like this. I know of one or two who feel this kind of task is below them, that they've better things to do, maybe, but I like it. Tightening a screw, bending a side back into place or replacing a nose-pad, it gives me a few minutes of... peace. Serenity. I like, as well, going back to the person with their glasses, newly in one piece again, and telling them that "they'll last a few more battles if they have to". I like it when they offer to pay and I halfheartedly put my palms towards them and tell them not to bother, that it was "nothing major" or maybe to tell them to put a few coins in the next poor box they see. People who don't offer to pay for repairs I don't like. They get my mean squinty face as they turn to walk out (they don't ever see my mean, squinty face, but I'm guessing the back of their heads feel sore).

This repair was a little more difficult. This man's supra cord had snapped. Supra cord is what's used to secure lenses on what we call 'supra', or semi-rimmed, frames. If you've ever seen glasses or sunglasses with just a frame along the top of the lens, there's a very fine cord running along the lower edge of the lens too. It's kind of like fishing reel, invisible to the naked eye. 

Did you really need this picture? Fine, so let's zoom in on the cord.

You can't zoom in on the cord, I told you it's INVISIBLE.

If the cord is broke, and it can snap for a number of reasons, we usually rethread it, put in a new one altogether. I went back to the lab area of the shop and went looking for some replacement supra cord. I found about ten centimetres worth in a wee, see through, plastic bag and had the man's glasses fixed three or four minutes later. I handed them back to him, told him the try them on to make sure they still fitted nicely, pointed my palms at him as he offered to pay and advised him to buy a Big Issue next time someone offered him one (to balance out the Universe).

Back in the lab (I had to put the pliers back where I found them or Colin, who wasn't in that day, would hit me with the leg of a chair), I saw the wee bag the cord came in again. I picked it up and looked at it. I'd seen bags like this before. Lots of bags. But this one, hmm, this one looked useful. At the time, a wealth of uses came to mind.

Right now, I can only think of two. Firstly, I could store buttons in it. I imagined my nine spare buttons at home, from various suits and jackets, strewn across the bottom of my DIY/sewing/wires shoebox. This bag could bring order to the buttons. This wee bag could make my shoebox a better place to put things.

The second use, which I now realise isn't very useful, is for matchsticks. It's a resealable wee bag, matches would stay dry in it, I could go snorkling and light a cigar afterwards with no problems whatsoever. I now realise that, while I could indeed store matches in the wee bag, I'd have nothing to strike them against.

There were other uses at the time, I swear, but they all elude me right now. I took the wee bag. I put it in my wallet and there it stayed until today.

You want to see the wee bag, I know you do.

There you go. A wee, see through, resealable, plastic bag. There's ten million of them in the world today. But this one was going to be special, this one was going to make a difference.

Now, as I look at it, I can't find a use for it. I forgot that I threw out all my spare buttons (all nine) when I moved flat. I don't snorkel. I'm thinking of throwing the wee bag away.

Anyway, the reason I'm telling you, and the rest of the internet, this is so that if I ever get ran over by a bus (or shot, if I'm in Dublin) and the police go looking for ID in my wallet and find a wee bag folded up in a credit card slot that at least ONE OF YOU can convince them that I wasn't a crystal meth addict and that I just had a soft spot for a wee bag.

No meth for me, thanks, I'm high on LIFE.