Scattegories

It is once again weekly update time. I like to try and write more than this, but on the skimpy 13 days of vacation time, I've been achieving absolutely nothing. It's everything I thought it could be.
So I've been reading this thing and have been absolutely astounded by people's stupidity. It's okay. Click the link. It's safe. No naked people at 419 Eater. If you don't believe me, read on and I will ease your mind.

419 is a scam. We've all gotten the e-mails about someone in Nigeria or overseas that has vast amounts of money and they're just begging to give it away. Yeah. Not.Likely. My daddy taught me better than that. He said "If something's too good to be true, it probably is." I will never forget this. I remember reading my first 419 scam e-mail. I scanned it, and just clicked "mark as spam."

What gets me, is people fall for this shit. I'm sure some letters are written quick convincingly. There are many many many different flavors of this scam. Someone's inheriting money and they need to move it out of the country. Someone's dying of AIDS and wants to set up a trust fund so you can take care of their children. More recently, in my gmail of all places, You've won the UK lottery that you never entered. I've never been to the UK. Shit. I've never left the US. I don't even play the Texas lottery. But, apparently, my email address is chosen at random every week. Along with a couple thousand other people, I'm sure.

If I ever know someone personally who falls for this bullshit, I will slap them. All these people are going to do is ask you for a lot of money to push their paperwork through, and when you want your money, there's going to be hang ups. I just can't see how some people could be so stupid.

In other news, I went to Schlitterbahn on Monday. Yes, during my exquisitely long and luxurious vacation I was dowsing off in a water park with rides that give enemas and pretzels that have enough salt to induce sodium poisoning. I loved every minute of it except the part where I freaked out on the soda straws, screamed bloody murder all the way down, forgot to breath, and took a very much not wanted forced breath under water. I'm so quiting smoking if that's what I have to look forward to in my fifties. I'm serious. I'm quitting smoking.
Other than that, it was a much needed break from everything. I took a friend with me that made me eat something like every two hours. Well, he didn't *make* me, but he suggested it. And I nibbled here and there. It's hard to eat while hot and wet and sweaty. We drank enough coffee to kill a whole tribe of small animals, and we walked around Texas State long enough to not have to think about exercising for the rest of the month. It's a nice campus. I'm excited. I'm going to make another trip down there very soon to get enrollment paper work started for next fall.

And tonight I'm going up to where I go to AA meetings, my home group, and I'm going to pick up my 9 year chip. I still can't believe I've been sober this long. When I first got sober, and keep in mind I was pretty fucked up emotionally, mentally, spiritually... I didn't think I was going to last six months. I didn't think I could live that long and not drink. I didn't want to live if I was going to drink. Effectively, I'd decided if AA didn't work I was going to kill myself.
I was 16.
Next month I'm going to turn 26. I finally think it's safe to say I've been sober longer than I drank.

All in all, life is pretty fuckin good.