Tag Archive for true stories of the internet

But I don’t want to be egotistical, neurotic, and drunk

December 27, 2010 Worky 4 comments

A stereotypical portrait of a writer isn’t very flattering. Shove aside the romantic cliches of nights in front of a typewriter and passionate-yet-destructive love affairs*, and usually we’re painted as egotistical, neurotic, and drunk. I’m not really any of those things. Not yet! You know what drives modern writers into bits of egotism, neurosis, and binge drinking? AMAZON.COM!

Amazon and my publisher have updated my book’s listing. Now when you pre-order the book, you can see it has a cover and was written by me and not by an African-American history scholar who made an abrupt career change. This is good. I registered as the author, so that I can respond to non-existent comments by non-existent readers whose non-existent purchases are graphed out for me on scary charts that show me a map of the country and how no one anywhere is buying my book. Right now this is OK, as my book hasn’t even finished printing. But in a few months, real people will (hopefully) buy the book and have things to say about it.

Right now DIY Cocktails is ranked **4,789,584. This means that 4,789,583 other books sell better than mine. I’m not worried about that. Soon, however, it will actually be printed, promoted, and available for sale. I don’t think I’ll become obsessed with the sales ranking, since I don’t have any illusions about out-selling Dan Brown, Stephen King … or even Dale DeGroff and other cocktail book authors.  But maybe I’m wrong, and I will compulsively check that number and compare it to other books and do some sort of math that has to do with royalties while I throw crumpled paper at the map graph and scream at Delaware because no one there bought a book.

I do dread customer reviews. Aside from my friends and family, I still find it hard to believe anyone will buy the book. And if they do somehow get tricked into buying it, I find it hard to believe they’ll have anything nice to say about it. Not because I think I suck, but because people usually don’t bother to say things on the internet unless they’re complaining. I know Amazon customers are not the same as YouTube commenters, but there has to be a pretty big center portion on that Venn diagram. I don’t want a bad review in a newspaper or magazine, but somehow I think I’d be able to stomach it and (after freaking out) convince myself “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” But Amazon reviews aren’t publicity. I don’t want to become depressed because Alice from Toluca Lake didn’t like my book. BUT I also don’t want to become a pretentious snob who makes myself feel better about the bad customer review by snarking on typos, where someone is from, their probable obesity and unflattering hairstyle, and their supposed ignorance about everything cultured and beautiful. This whole thought process is already neurotic and the book hasn’t come out yet. See? I am not a naturally neurotic person. LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE, AMAZON!

*I use a MacBook Pro and live alone with two cats. Right now I’m typing on the couch while watching old episodes of Family Ties. Remember when Alex took diet pills so he could study more?

**During the course of writing this post, my rank changed to #4,790,632. So in about 10 minutes, I looked at my sales rank twice. I guess some people bought books that weren’t mine.

Craigslist scams are weird

October 15, 2010 Ranty No comments

I can be overzealous in calling something a scam. But if my scam alarm goes off, at the very least something is sketchy. I saw an ad on Craigslist for a very large 3-bedroom, 2 -bathroom house for only $1000. (That is about $1500-$2000 less than what similar houses are going for.) Instead of thinking it was a typo, my first thought was that it was a scam. I didn’t have a good reason to think so. They could easily have mistyped. But there was something suspicious about the photos of the house. It was two identical outside photos that looked like they could be from Google Streetview. (I would link to it but it’s been removed)

I was curious, so I emailed and asked for details. This is what I got back:

Hello I can see you are interested in the ad I have pasted, I am currently in West Africa where I work as a volunteer with the [name of missionary group], here is the site for more details about why I am here in Africa [website]. I spent less time in the States so I could not get a hold on any Realtor to handle this rent issue, although it was when I knew how long we are going to stay in Africa that I decided to rent out the house. However, the initial plan was to sell out the house. which I tried, but sometimes the agents inflates the price and it takes longer to sell i am telling you this in case you find the house on another website, that is the old advert So I need a tenant to take care of it but since I am out of the state now, I have received some proposals regarding the rent because it is located in a very good area of Petaluma, but I still have to make sure it is rented out to someone who can take good care of it. It includes facilities such as water and heat laundry facilities, air condition, internet and telephone access and a car park and other necessary facilities, also comes with trash collection, pets are allowed as well as long as they are not destructive. So if you know you are capable of the task,So get back to me with this below information, Hope you are okay with the price $1000 and security deposit $800.

What followed was an application that asked for my pets’ names … something a landlord doesn’t need to know but that is a common security question. I could follow up asking to see the inside, but I already know what will happen. I encountered a similar scammer when I was selling my dad’s treadmill for him and they just have a lot of excuses and then offer to send you a money order that ends up involving you giving them money. (I have never lost money and always refuse to give money or sensitive info)

Why are they always in Africa or Russia? Couldn’t they pick something that isn’t notorious for online scams?

As it turns out, Sexy Marcia cannot keep a secret

February 20, 2007 Funny No comments


I was on MySpace at one point. As those of you with a vagina (or who pretend on the Internet to have one) know, this means I opened myself up to being propositioned by semi-literate deviants.

Rather than showering with bleach for an hour after getting the following letter, I decided to share it with you, Internet friends. I will call this guy “Tom,” mainly because his name is actually Thomas and that is a popular diminutive of that name. He has a mustache.

Leona wants me to link to his MySpace page, but I won’t. I have a feeling he sends like 90 of these letters a day in the hopes that one of them will lead to hot hot pervert cybersex.

Here it is, folks:

As beautiful as you look, sitting here thinking how can I just shock you and make you feel naughty in ways no one should know about. Maybe as long as no on knows and we are not judging each other here is a wild story just to tease your mind like no one would.

If I was your younger brother that just returned from a long over seas duty. Not having seen a real woman in ages. I came to visit you and seeing how sexy this big sister is and me being vulnerable to your looks because of need. If you were leaning over the dinning room table looking at the news paper late at night and you felt my eyes gazing at you and admiring you in your tight jeans. Knowing we are all alone and no one would ever know. Can you blame me for looking when you look so good?

Can you keep secrets when you need to Sexy Marcia?

Just in puppy lust with your amazing looks. Do you have yahoo or aim msngr?

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