Around eighteen months ago, comedian Lawrence Leung had me as a guest on his radio show.
At the time, he mentioned that he was working a new, top secret television show for ABC television.
Since there, I’ve heard whispers about the show from those involved.
Mentalist Banachek said he had a small role. Magician Tim Ellis admitted to being involved in a scene in Thai restaurant. I kept getting updates from Lawrence saying he was in San Fransisco and then Las Vegas and then Scotland.
After his last, TV series, Choose Your Own Adventure, I was excited.
Now, finally, the show has been revealed, it is called Unbelievable and it’s a six part comedy series in which Lawrence investigates psychics, UFOs, haunted houses and magic.
I went to the launch party last night and the crowd went wild for it. The show screens every Wednesday at 9:30 on ABC.
If you love the show, you might also enjoy my show about critical thinking for high school students, The Bad Science Show.
I’m hosting a fantastic show on Wednesday night Open Studio in Northcote.
The show features the following great performers:-
EL BELLA - Who promises to bring her staple gun.
JACK DAN - Who promises NOT to do his one man naked ukulele act.
LUKE HOCKING - Who promises to perform some awesome magic.
TOSH GREENSLADE - Who promises to be very funny.
As we all know by now, the Playstation Network was hacked a few weeks ago resulting in millions of customers personal information going missing. The question is, while we’ve been playing games with our PS3s, has Playstation being playing games with our data?
Here is the timeline.
September 21, 2006:Playstation announce downloadable content will be available on their new network for a small fee.
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2006-2011: Millions of gamers hand over names, addresses, credit card numbers and other personal information to Sony to access the content.
- 17 April, 2011: Hackers gain access to the PlayStation network.
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20 April, 2011: Sony announce that “certain functions of the PlayStation Network are down.”
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22 April, 2011: Playstation admit an “An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network.”
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27 April, 2011: PlayStation finally reveal that 75 million users have had their personal information stolen.
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2 May, 2011: An additional 24.7 million users are revealed to have their information stolen. Reuters call it the “the biggest Internet security break-in ever.”
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15 May, 2011: PlayStation network is back online in some countries. Also, every gets two free games including “LittleBigPlanet” and the ever popular “Seriously? Two free games? In exchange for all my data?”
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18 May, 2011: Spoke too soon. The network is offline again.
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19 July, 2012: The new PlayStation Network becomes self aware. Sony admits it was mistake to enlist Cyberdyne Systems to rebuild the network.
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16 August, 2012: Judgment Day. The machines strike back. The missiles are in the air.
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3 March, 2029: Resistance leader John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to stop the PlayStation Network. Also to see what he can do about the Super Mario Brothers Movie.
please can u tell me if Golden glow holidays at 9 Marion Walk, hoppers crossing Phone 0399886329 is a genuine travel organisation or is this another con. They wanted to send me a $1000 voucher & lifetime travel discounts, bu I refused to give them the number of my creditcard as verification.
This email came through today from a reader in Victoria.
The company is called Golden Globe rather than Golden Glow.
They are a worldwide company who tele-market in Australia, UK, Europe and US.
The idea is that they offer you $1000 worth of free holidays. It is not until you agree and give them your credit card number that you find out you will be charge £299 to join the program.
The deals that you are given are usually packed full of qualifying conditions. For example, people swindled by similar deals have claimed they had to spend a minimum of $100 per day in the hotel restaurant.
Suffice to say, they are not based in Hopper Crossing. The address given is actually for a company called Unisoft.
The promo for my new DVD project on the street scam Three Disk Monte.
Very little has been written about this scam and it has rarely been captured on camera.
In this DVD, I’ll not only explain how it works but also show hidden camera footage of the real deal.
Here are some questions I’ve been asked.
WHY SO LONG?
I originally planned the project early in 2010. However, we had to work through the legal aspects of showing criminals act work in the hidden camera footage. Also, I wanted to provide the disks that the con artists use in the game. .
IT COMES WITH THE DISKS?
Yep. These are the real deal, based on the design used by European con men. It took me a while to source the correct materials to make them the exact same size, shape and weight as you’ll see on the streets. I, like other people, have tried making my own but they have not work as well as these fine disks. Also - these babies are INDESTRUCTIBLE.
WHEN IS IT COMING OUT?
We are currently editing the final video, including a special routine for magicians and entertainers who want to use the disks for good instead of evil. I’m working with television producer Robert Mond who is a perfectionist.
I’ll let you know as soon as we have a release date.
HOW MANY SETS WILL YOU MAKE?
Initially, I will be producing one hundred sets. Since I have fifty people in the waiting list, they won’t last long. I have no decided if it is worth printing more.
If you want to join the waiting list, email me or comment below.
But after reading James Morton and Susanna Lobez’s book Kings of Stings, I’m having second thoughts.
The book, about the history of Australian scams insists on using the words conman and conmen over and over.
And the book is so well researched and exhaustive, it’s hard not to assume they’ve got the spelling right as well.
From the arrival of European con man criminals (con-victs?) to Christopher Skase and Brenton Jarrett, Kings of Stings is an easy to read yet encyclopedic tome dedicated to Australia swindlers.
The two authors have not only included all of the famous stories we know and love but have delved deep in newspaper archives, finding obscure tit-bits of information long since forgotton.
There isn’t a lot written about the history of Australian con artists (Hoax Nation and Rich Uncle aside) and it’s great to see such this incredible book finally in print.
My only complaint, and it is a small one, is that the prose can be a little dry. The authors are lawyers and journalists and it shows. It often feels like you are reading court reports.
I, like most readers, want to know what drives the Australian con man. How does he differ from other swindlers?
But this is a minor quibble.
Kings of Stings is a great book that makes me want to be a better con man.
I was reading a bit of Danny Wallace’s 2004 book Join Me on the toilet this morning. But you didn’t need to know that.
The true story is a great one. Wallace, a comedian and writer, decided in a fit of boredom to start a cult. He put an advertisement in the paper seeking people to “Join” him. All they had to do was send a photo to an address.
With no other information, people started to Join. Soon, Wallace had over 300 joinees and nothing to do with them.
So he sent them out to do ‘good deeds’. Every Friday, his cult members would hit the streets to help out.
One afternoon, a group of five joinees helped a man named Raymond Price who was lost in London, money stolen. They joinees gave him a huge amount of cash, their good deed for the day.
the floating head of raymond price
It was only later that the group discovered that Mr Price was in fact, a wanted con man, who had been pulling the same stunt all over the UK.
But the Joinees had the last laugh. Because of the book, Raymond is now a minor celebrity and is constantly being stopped from perpetrating his scams by the books tens of thousands of fans and joinees who recognise him and want to have their photo taken.
