Heeeeere fishy fishy fishy...

Every once in a while we get phishing emails at work, and last week I got the first one I’ve had in months. It was someone posing as a senior member of staff requesting a change to that employee’s direct deposit information. Now, since the real employee’s photo didn’t come up in Outlook, and though the “From” email address had the employee’s name attached to it, it wasn’t the format we use for corporate emails, and the domain was something totally random, so I knew after about 1.6 seconds that it wasn’t legitimate. My first thought was to just delete it and let everyone know that I’d got it and they should keep an eye out in case there were any more.

My second thought was, “You know what? No. Two can play at this game.”

The original email (complete with typos etc.) read:
Elizabeth,
I have recently changed bank and would like to have direct deposit change to new account. I need your prompt assistance on this matter.

I replied:
Thank you, [Name]. I will attend to this immediately upon receipt of your new bank information. I will need the routing and account numbers, and the name of the bank.

S/He replied:
Below is my account new information to effect change of direct deposit of my 100% net pay.
Here's my new DD information ;
Bank name: XXXXX Bank
Bank Routing #:
XXXXXXXXXXX
Account #:
XXXXXXXXXXX
Type: XXXXXX
Let me know as soon as this is updated and also kindly confirm exact pay date if changes for my reference.
Your prompt response will be gladly appreciated.

At this point I thought WOW. Okay, cool, I know what to do with this. I looked up the routing number and found out the bank attached to it, gave their Fraud Squad a call, and got the account shut down. I was pretty pleased with myself by this point because, you know, civic duty and whatnot, so I decided to respond in the affirmative and wait to see if this doofus said anything when the money didn’t show up in the account on the 19th.

I replied:
I have made the necessary changes. The next deposit will occur this Friday, April 19th. If for some reason the deposit does not come through, please contact me immediately.

I figured this would probably be the end of it for a while, so I was rather surprised when I got the next email.

S/He replied:
Thanks , can i have copy of my last pay stub?

This was a ballsy move. I had to go into a meeting, so I ignored the request until I was finished with that and then I replied:
Sorry, I was in a meeting. My side of the portal is down at the moment, but I just spoke to Kelly and she says the employee side is working fine. You can access your stubs from there—that way you don't have to wait for me to be back online.

As with most HR & payroll systems, our employees can access all their own information and paperwork through a staff portal, so this wasn’t too outlandish an answer, even if the admin-side technical difficulties and “Kelly” were fictional. I wasn’t sure what sort of a response I’d get from this.

S/He replied:
Having a technical problems.

Well, now what? Fake a pay stub, that’s what. Oh, the things you can do in Excel… I replied:
Please see attached.



At this point I was immensely pleased with myself, but also figured that this would have to clue the person in to the fact that I was trolling...right? Apparently not.

S/He replied:
I just got a call from my bank that my account is blocked some people try to hack into my account, my paycheck won't able to go through into my previous account for my pay on Friday. Can I send you my other account for my pay for April 19th can go through it and my future payments.
Please advise.

Oh. Okay. We’re doing this again? Sure thing, Boss.

I replied:
Yes, please send me the alternate account information (routing & account numbers).

So the person sends me another set of account numbers. And I call another bank to have the account flagged as fraudulent. And then I get another email.

S/He replied:
Sorry my bad but there was an error in the account number i sent to you , my bank say's the paycheck money will be returned back and is there anyway you can reprocess it again?
Please Advise.

At this point, I’m wondering if this person has ever mastered the concept of ‘cause and effect’. Like, if I drop a glass on the floor, it shatters, right? So you would think that this person would make the connection. “If I send this person account info, and then the account gets blocked, maybe this person is calling these in as I send them and getting them closed.”

Apparently I’m giving them too much credit.

At this point I was kind of over the whole thing, so I faked an ‘out of office’ reply, figuring that if they responded to the email address I said should be used in the case of urgent matters (the generic HR email address) that I could pick things up again by pretending to be someone else when I got back into work from the weekend (on Tuesday, because I decided to take Monday off just because.)

8:24 AM this morning when I returned to the office:
I didn't get my check pay on Friday , can you make a wire transfer to my preferable bank account?

It’s Tuesday, 4/23, as I write this. I’m debating what to do now. I could ask for more account info and see if I get it, and then I could get yet another account closed. Civic duty and all that, you know. Alternately, I could write back that I have, in fact, been trolling this whole time, and tell this person just how braindead I think they are. It wouldn’t accomplish much. The really annoying thing about all of this is that the FBI won’t touch cases like this because they’d end up doing exactly what I’m doing--endlessly emailing and calling, rinse, repeat--and these phishers open new accounts and move their money around so quick that the minute you shut one down another is ready to go, so there’s not much actual progress. I was having fun with it to begin with, but now it’s just really, really repetitive and time-consuming and pointless.

::sigh::

But I still kind of feel like I ought to bill Uncle Sam for my time. Just sayin’.

Fire: The Original ‘Do-Over’ Button

At this point we’ve all heard about the fire at Notre Dame in Paris. It is a very sad thing to watch something so beautiful be destroyed, and a great many people have shared their memories of the building and their feelings having seen it brought down by one of nature’s most volatile and unpredictable forces. But while it is certainly tragic, and at the moment emotions are running high, one thing is definite: it will be rebuilt.



Fire terrifies me. ‘Things that burn’ hold the number one spot on the list of Things Elizabeth Really Doesn’t Like. I was five during the Oakland Firestorm, and as a result of constant news coverage I somehow got it into my child-sized brain that by the time I got home from kindergarten each day my house would have been burned to the ground. I was terrified of this every. Single. Day. For a long time. I refused to light matches until I was 15 or 16. I avoided ovens and stoves and irons. (Heck, I still get nervous ironing.) However, with age (supposedly) comes wisdom, and though it’s still not my favorite thing, I have come to respect the regenerative possibilities fire can offer--like clearing the underbrush in order for forests to be healthier in the long run--and that’s really much healthier than being anxious about wildfires ravaging the place since I live in California and the whole state is scheduled to be on fire from May to November every year...

In this instance, of course, a piece of historical architecture has been damaged, and while it won’t be replaced with something different, it will certainly be replaced with newer methods and failsafes to help ensure that this sort of disaster is less likely to occur in the future. The rebuilding will start as soon as is feasible and will likely be a top news item for some time to come. Everybody is going to have an opinion or a theory or a suggestion. Some of them will be good. Some of them will be purposefully silly. Some of them will be inflammatory.* There will be plenty of detractors--there already are. The Internet being the delectable cesspool of societal dregs it is, it wasn’t long after news of the fire broke that the ‘debaters’ started to come out of the woodwork.

“It’s just a building, who cares? It’s burned down before. Big whoop.”

“There are twelve gazillion other churches/religious sites that have burned down in the last 16 seconds, why doesn’t anyone care about them?!”

“The Catholic church has so much money and yet everyone is running toward them with their checkbooks out to give them more--why not put those funds toward [name worthy cause]?! Clearly if you have that much to spare you could solve a few real problems!”

Number one, yes, on the face of it, it’s ‘just a building’. But it is a beautiful, architectural marvel of a building with a long and fascinating history, and now this fire will be a part of that. You don’t have to be a dick about it.

Number two, simple: the coverage of the fire at Notre Dame got pushed up to the top of the list because it is a well-known location. People travel from all over the world to see it. It’s not that no one cares about the other places that have suffered the same fate in recent times, it’s simply that the coverage of those events has likely been localized. You can’t shout at people who live in Alaska for saying how sad they are that Notre-freaking-Dame has been damaged by a fire but not offering the same for a church in, say, the greater Columbus, Ohio area which didn’t get national news coverage. I know that they say that ignorance is no excuse, but no one can devote their life to searching for every single tragic happening in the world at all times in order to be appropriately upset about them. Everyone who responded to the fire in Paris with, “Hey, you didn’t care about all these things. You’re a terrible person,” needs to take it down a notch, m’kay? It is absolutely sad that the events not receiving the same level of coverage have occurred! It’s likely that the people closest to those events or in possession of knowledge of those events have expressed feelings as deeply moving as those being expressed for Notre Dame. You don’t. Have to be. A dick. About. It.

Number three--okay, this one has some merit. (But you still don’t have to be a dick about it.)

You know, what with fire erasing everything and giving you a clean slate to start over, I wonder if it might not be a good idea to incinerate the Internet. Just a thought.



*I wrote this without noticing the pun. I am leaving it in because I have no shame.

Thirty-::COUGH::

Well, it’s coming. The timestamp of my existence, the ceremonial observance of my entrance into this universe, the day you’ve all been waiting for--it’s (almost) my birthday.

::regards the word ‘birthday’ with complete ambivalence::

The more birthdays I have, the less I’m really that bothered about them. On the one hand, this is because I am by nature an avoider of excess attention. On the other, yes, okay, it is kind of nice to have a whole day seemingly devoted to oneself.



One of the perks of being the keeper of the personnel information at work is that when the admin staff asks for the monthly birthday report so that they can inform the entire world that people are getting older, I can pull myself off the list before publication. We have a small contingent who really dig the whole birthday thing, and they love to deck out people’s cubicles and offices with celebratory foofaraw. They’re really good at it, actually. It always looks very festive and cheerful, but while I think that guerilla birthday decorating is a very nice gesture, I personally want nothing to do with it when my time comes around. It’s simply a personal preference. Another thing is the obligatory card, signed by the entire staff in an obligatory fashion--you know, add your message, cross out your name on the list, pass it to the next person. You sign them because you feel like you’re supposed to. I don’t want people to feel like they’re supposed to do anything to commemorate my natal day. It would be one thing if it was a small, quiet “Happy birthday!” from anyone who remembered, but that doesn’t seem to be an option. It’s all or nothing, feast or famine, over-the-top felicitations with confetti fountains or ::cricket noises::, and since those are my options I’ll opt for the insect choir every time.

There’s another facet to this, which is that for some reason everyone seems to feel slighted if you don’t let them make a fuss over you for your birthday, and I can complain about these people because I used to be these people. “OMG, you can’t not celebrate your birthday, that’s just wrong! We all want to do something!” Hang on, hold up, stop the presses--whose birthday is it, exactly? Oh, that’s right, it’s mine. Not yours. Mine. And I can do or not do anything that I want with it, thank you very much. I don’t understand why you think it’s my duty to let you celebrate my day in the way you want. That, my friends, is bass-ackward.



Also, a little side-note here to the people I’ve done this to in the past: I AM SO, SO, SO SORRY. I UNDERSTAND NOW.

Now, the upside of a birthday is, of course, that you get catered to a bit, and that can be a delightful experience--if the people doing it are attentive to your personal style of celebration. I once knew someone who loved the birthday limelight. She wanted to go to Chevy’s, wear the sombrero, and have the whole place sing to her. That gave her immense joy, and that is how she chose to mark the occasion. The last few years I’ve hosted a small-ish get-together with some close friends, snacks, booze, and Cards Against Humanity, and that was infinitely enjoyable to me. This year I’m going even smaller--it’s just going to be me and two ‘friends from the mists of time’ and we’re going to hang out and eat and drink and whatever else we feel like doing. Maybe we’ll go out. Maybe we’ll stay in. Maybe in our attempt to make pupusas we’ll burn the house down. Who knows? But whatever happens it will be low-key, and that’s just fine by me.

Oh, and cake. There will be cake. Cake or death. Not in the Eddie Izzard sense of choosing between “cake or death”, but rather in the sense of “there will be cake, or I’mma shank a bitch”.

I think maybe it’s a good thing that I’m making my own cake. (Chocolate with Nutella filling and Rainbow Chip icing. Because I’m a child.)

So yes, I’ve managed another trip around the sun. Things have happened. Things haven’t happened. I’ve learned things. I’m sure I’ve forgotten other things (though since I’ve forgotten them, I can’t really be sure, can I?). I’ve been new places and revisited old ones, made new friends and somehow miraculously managed to keep the ones I already had. I have written a lot of words. There have been changes and personal growth and whatever else is supposed to happen as one plods determinedly through this quagmire we call an existence. I have seen some shit, kids, but I’m still here. Well, most of the time, anyway.

… … … I got nuthin’.

Let’s talk about the bane of every creative person’s existence: a creative block! In this instance, writer’s block! Because I sure as heck have it right now, holy cow.

For weeks now it’s been like pulling teeth for me to churn out anything. Comic reviews, my monthly op-ed, this cockamaimie thing...I’m struggling to find topics and concentration and just words in general, and let me tell you, it sucks. I just sit there and stare at a blank screen and my brain is equally blank and it’s annoying and it makes my noggin hurt. I stress myself out trying to formulate an idea and then I get frustrated because I can’t and then I get annoyed with myself and I start putting things off and then deadlines get closer and closer and I start to panic. I always manage to get things done on time, but the quality of the work suffers. Though it’s not like I could have saved it by getting it done earlier, because earlier was full of no ideas. Talk about drain-circling.

Things I do to try to shake the Block Monster/put off having to deal with the Block Monster:

• Coffee!
• Nap
• Unnecessary research
• Add things to my Amazon wishlist
• Take things off of my Amazon wishlist
• Internet ‘window shopping’
• Watch the autoplay previews of YouTube videos on the home screen but never actually watch the videos with sound
• Text people
• Clean things
• Contemplate the futility of existence
• Pester the rats
• Refresh Twitter every 4.6 seconds
• Whine
• Pout
• Curse the world
• Make lists

I have just sat here staring at the blinking cursor for twenty minutes. That’s pretty demoralizing. I feel like I should just close this and come back to it later with fresh eyes. Creativity shouldn’t be forced. Shouldn’t. Sometimes it has to be. Deadlines are a real thing.

I just ignored this for three days. One of those days was a Saturday, and I basically slept through it. Productivity: you’re doing it wrong.

It’s a Monday, and I’m pining for Hawai’i, not gonna lie. I’m missing the weather and the food and the relaxed pace of life. You’d think, for all I’ve been staving off finishing this post because my brain is stalwartly refusing to churn out anything useful in the ‘interesting things for people to read’ department, that I was already indulging in the aloha mindset, but you’d be mistaken. The creative wasteland gives me the willies. That barren landscape freaks me out. Logic dictates that it’s only temporary, but my little Shoulder Devil keeps saying, “What if it isn’t, though? What if this is it? What if you’ve squeezed the last drops of your imaginative self out over the last year-and-a-bit with all this writing you’re suddenly doing and you’ve ruined it for yourself forever?”

Well, that was a cheerful line of thinking.

I still owe you another ~300 words on this thing. Not gonna lie, that may not happen. My brain is empty. Even the cobwebs have already been put to use. It’s a giant echo chamber of nothingness.



That. That’s what’s happening right now. Endless screaming and echoing and nothing-coming-of-it-ing.

Let’s try the Choose Your Own Adventure tactic. Pick an option, read the corresponding result.

You’re an evenings-and-weekends writer trying to squeeze out a blog post by your self-imposed deadline, but you’re completely stuck. Writer’s Block has you in its gnarled, scaly grasp, and you’re fighting tooth and nail to escape. There are three options open to you:

1. You succumb to the beast.
2. You resort to reporting the ingredients in your morning smoothie as a way to meet your word count and just get the heck done.
3. You attempt a reader-decided scenario, possibly to mixed results.

Have you chosen? Very well. Your endings are below:

1. ::cricket noises:: Maybe come back next week?
2. Tuesday’s smoothie consisted of: bananas, peaches, cherries, kale, yogurt, and milk I was trying to get rid of before it went off. It wasn’t very good--too heavy on the dairy.
3. Your readers, if they’ve stuck with you this far and not written you off as a head case, have elected to indulge your attempt at making your post into something marginally entertaining and are behind you all the way in your bid to slay the creativity-sucking monster currently in residence in your brainbox. The battle is fierce, the casualties many, but the whole thing ends in a draw and then everyone sits around sharing a bag of Cheetos and lamenting the ten minutes of life they lost trying to read your lousy blog post because even though they like you, your pathetic attempt at eight hundred words this week was just that--pathetic.