My friend Carl, who is a talented illustrator, has drawn me a series of fantastic pictures to use for The Catchpenny Club variety night I run each month.
The magician is my favourite…
The crooner with the skull and axe is named Carl Catchpenny but the other four characters still need names…
A couple of days ago, a lot of my Australian friends changed their facebook status to:
All I want for Christmas is a Westfield Gift Card!
They’d added an application that is meant to give them a chance to with $10,000 from Westfield.
However, a few hours later, many more of my friends has a new status:
THE WESTFIELD GIFT CARD APPLICATION IS FAKE AND IF YOU ENTER THIS SITE THEY CAN HACK INTO YOUR PROFILE AND USING IT TO LOAD TROJON VIRUSES. FACEBOOK R IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING TO CLOSE THIS APPLICATION DO NOT ADD UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR IDENTITY STOLEN OR A CRASHED COMPUTER……COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR STATUS.
So what’s the story?
Westfield is indeed running a promotion through facebook. You can find the offical link here.
It’s the latest in a long history of fake virus warnings and phony fear mongering.
Of course, you have little chance of winning and you’ll annoy all your friends when the crass message shows up on their home page probably leading to them ‘hiding’ you as a friend in the future.
But if you want to sell out that’s your business.
Stamp Font. Awesome.
One of the perks of being back in Australia (for the time being) is that I can start up The Catchpenny Club again.
In case you don’t remember (or you’ve blocked all memories of the show from your memory) The Catchpenny Club is a variety show that I produce. Essentially, it’s my way of scamming all my favourites acts to come and perform for me.
For the first show on Tuesday night (24th November) I’ve got coming along vaudevillian The Birdmann, NICA students Steph and Brady Wills, musical comedians Elbow Skin, actor/comedian Charles Barrington and magic by my old friend Simon Coronel.
The show starts at 8pm at The Penny Black at 420 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Come early and grab a $6 pizza at the bar.
Call me on 0409461776 to book!
AS FEATURED ON ABC RADIO WITH KATHY BEDFORD
In recent years, fictional con artists have taken a slick turn.
Con artists are either depicted as suave and sophisticated characters such as in the TV shows Hustle and White Collar.
Or we have the grim dose of reality in Nine Queens and Matchstick Men.
So it’s nice that a film like Brothers Bloom comes along, bringing back the classic caper con man last seen in films like The Sting or Paper Moon.
Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo play Bloom and Stephen, two brothers and con artists who reunite for ‘one last scam’ enlisting the help of eccentric heiress Penelope (Rachael Weiss) along the way.
Directed by Rian Johnson whose debut, the brooding and stylized teenager noir thriller Brick, is one of my favourites, Brothers Bloom, brings the fun back to the con artist film.
It feels like a Wes Anderson film, with the story packed with kooky characters and odd situations.
Like most con artists films, the swindle itself is overly complex to the point of leaving me a little disinterested but such great characters to watch and fantastic dialouge, I just don’t care.
FACTOID - The film was shot in Romania, the home to more con artists the most swindley country in Europe.
Swindley is a word. Look it up.
I’ve reached an age where all my friends are getting married. I’ve got half a dozen to attend in the next six months.
And the big problem for most of my friends is how to pay for the damn thing. Their baby boomer parents would rather blow the cash on self indulgent holidays and plasma TVs rather than pay out dowries.
A bride in the UK has figured out how to pay for her big day, by scamming her employer out of half a million pounds.
Joanne Kent of Kent has been charged with allegedly swindling 477,000 pounds from her employer Walsall in 2007
It’s odd that a company with only a 10 million pound turnover could not miss 5% of it’s income for two years.
Half a million dollars spent on the dress, flowers and deep fried mars bars.
AS FEATURED ON ABC RADIO WITH KATHY BEDFORD
Call me stupid but always though the idea of being sent to jail was to learn how to be a law abiding citizen. (and maybe learn a few things about how far your willing to go for a packet of cigarettes.)
Sure, I understand that criminals learn from each other and many people come out of jail with a few extra criminal skills.
But I was always under the impression they wouldn’t use these skills until AFTER THEY GOT OUT OF PRISON.
In Miami, phone users have reported a rash of *72 scams. A polite man calls them victim, claiming to be from a nearby hospital and that a loved one had been injured.
However, if they hang up the phone and dial *72 and then a long phone number, they’ll be put through to the doctor in charge who can answer all their questions.
In reality, the victim has just activated call forwarding and all ingoing and outgoing calls have been rerouted to a new number. The con artist can then run up expensive calls at the victim’s cost.
When police traced the calls they found that they originated from a nearby prison. Prisoners had been using the prison phones to run the simple scam.
Why can prisoners make phone calls at all? Let alone complicated, extra charges, three way calls?
Surely, the idea is to remove people from society when they do something wrong?
Had a pearler of a night last night. Came home early from dinner with friends to watch QI on ABC, my favourite show.
For those yet to experience this brilliant UK show, the quiz show, hosted by Stephen Fry, is based around the idea that the questions are almost impossible and so contestants are given points for funny answers rather than incorrect answers.
Contestants only lose points if their answers are wrong AND predictable.
It made my night when I sat down to see that the theme for the show was Fakes and Frauds. Instead of scratching my head, I knew all the answers.
What did Count Victor Lustig do to the Eiffel Tower? He sold it.
Where did the trio of phone box thieves hide their stash? In their bras.
Why did Robert McCulloch of Arizona buy the Old London Bridge? No, he didn’t think he was buying Tower bridge. He bought it to relocate it to Arizona is 1967.
For once in my life, I felt smart watching a quiz show.
enjoy some classic Qi
AS FEATURED ON ‘SCAM OF THE WEEK’ ON ABC’s STATEWIDE DRIVE
If you could get away with a crime would you do it?
Most of my friends download movies illegally because they know they can get away with it.
Most people speed on quiet roads because they think the police are not around.
Most people shoplift from the women’s underpants section if no one is watching…or is that just me?
But how far would you take it?
Tony Muslin, a French van driver, has raised the bar when it comes to crimes of opportunity. While his colleagues stepped out of the van for a few minutes, Tony decided to take advantage and steal the contents of the truck….$19 million.
Three hours later, the truck turned up empty and Muslin was on the run with almost 50 sacks of cash. He hasn’t been seen since.
Following his impulsive crime, Tony has become some what of an internet sensation with fan sites and facebook groups popping up congratulating the everyday Joe for sticking it to the man.
If you want to become a fan of Tony, click here.
la merde photshop aux photographie
