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Episode #13: Martin Mannerless - 7/24/05 Welcome to another episode of When The Internet Attacks!. First, take a moment to appreciate our new artwork. Ain't it great? Thanks to Shaolin for that. Now then, in our most recent shows, I've posted emails found during my day-to-day duties at Rogue Amoeba. However, today I'm sharing two personal emails I received, in the tradition of the original seal emails seen in Episodes 1 through 5. The internet began its most recent attack on me at 6 am on Saturday morning, the 23rd, when my phone rang and woke me up. I didn't answer it ("Good news waits till noon", as my buddy Drew said when I related part of this tale to him) but when I awoke at about 10 am, I had a message. A man named Martin (with whom I've never spoken. Hell, I don't think I know a single "Martin") had left me a message asking me about my trip to Aruba, specifically my snorkeling adventure on the Octopus. I couldn't imagine what this was about, but he said he was emailing me and sending me an IM too, so I deleted the message. As I thought about it, I figured he was looking for a recommendation on snorkeling or perhaps some tragedy had befallen the boat. I hopped over to my laptop and checked my email. I didn't see anything from Martin Mannerless in my inbox, nor did I have any new IMs. However, I realized that I had 2 messages from him that were tagged as spam. I'd say my spam filter was pretty spot-on, but you be the judge. Here are the emails in all the typographical-error filled glory. Let me just preface the whole damned thing with one giant [sic]. Email #1
Email #2
Oh good god, where do I start? From the excessive question marks in the first emails subject to the inability to spell, capitalize, and punctuate "Thank you for your time." in the last email, it's all just one giant mass of awfulness. Don't even get me started on his AIM nickname (RippedHerOpen? What the HELL!) I don't know if it was the incredibly bad writing or me simply being groggy, but I must confess that it took me a few minutes to compose myself after this onslaught. But fear not, gentle reader, for I persevered. For your entertainment, I weather such storms of senseless stupidity. Once I slapped myself awake, I realized this was a person who was obsessed with the Natalee Holloway case. You know, that attractrive white American girl who disappeared, that the media has been screaming about for nigh two months now? Right, the one no one really cares about, except for the journalists hyping the story. Don't get me wrong, it's terrible, but if these statistics are correct, around 2500 Americans disappear every day. But apparently, this one, "this Aruba case", is the one that counts. So I did just a bit of web searching, and quickly found that the old website for the Octopus, at http://www.octopus-aruba.com, was gone. However, I rapidly found their new site, at http://www.octopusaruba.com, was up. Lo and behold, pictures of Jethro and Jeff, who were fine guys, and didn't even kidnap a single passenger on my trip. Oh yeah, and they don't look a damned thing like these guys. A bit more searching turned up some overzealous internet posters playing detective - see here and here. It would seem that someone decided that a changed phone number and a missing website meant a missing boat, and a missing boat meant a kidnapping. Note that multiple people confirmed that Jethro was still around (and others refused to believe this), and that no one had any real way of tying this together. Yet here I am, getting phone calls from Maryland at six in the goddamned morning. Look, I know full well that when I post things on my site, they're public. Any idiot in the world can read my site, and occasionally, they do. But for fuck's sake people, have some manners. Don't call me, email me, and then IM me just because you want to feel important. This "Martin" had no credentials, he had no reason to be contacting me. I can only hope that he's hoping to get the $200,000 reward money. Greed I can understand. Zealotry for no reason, that's just a waste of time. Anyhow, I sent Martin a reply castigating him for his lack of manners and providing a link to the website for the Octopus. I also stressed that I did not wish to hear from him again. I haven't heard back, so this should be the end of it. Oh, and one more thing. I think these are pretty much the worst thing ever. Raising money for her family, I suppose that's fine. But who the hell wants to wear these, besides her actual friends and family? If you don't know her, you need to stop obsessing over her, just because she's a pretty white woman. Anyway, that's it for this episode of When The Internet Attacks!, but never fear - we'll be back soon with more stupidity. Want to call Martin at odd hours of the night? You might be able to reach him here: 443-392-5492 | ||||||||||||
