All posts by Normal Bob

Artist, Atheist, Anthropologist http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/nyregion/26union.html?_r=2&

Someone on the Internets is lookin’ out for me

This is kinda weird. This morning I got a whole bunch of emails telling me that I needed to update my personal credit card information for my ebay account. They seemed to be having problems there, and it was obvious from their tone, and the number of emails sent (3 dozen or so) that this was a real emergency! Someone was attempting to change my passwords and pin numbers and they needed the four digits off the back of all my credit cards, along with the account numbers, expiration dates, mother’s madden name, social security, etc.

So I clicked on the link that took me to their web pages. All I had to do was go to the page they linked me to and enter in all the information there, in just one shot! The link took me to ebay/Visa’s security update URL at “visacc253.net,” where I’m guessing all of their top secret account files are stored. Luckily I had all my credit cards handy, and my Social Security card and pin numbers memorized. This saved me a lot of hassle! It took like 2 minutes! 🙂

You know, I love the internet! It’s so handy now, with the World Wide Web, to take care of all these things all at once. It makes everything so easy. I was relieved that they gave me a “heads-up” before I was taken advantage of.

It looks like I got there just in the nick of time, because as soon as I clicked on the button that said “SECURE ACCOUNT INFO NOW,” it took me to a page that said everything was all right and I didn’t have to contact Visa or ebay (or any of my credit card companies) directly about the matter. Such a relief! Now I’m just going to spend the rest of the day relaxing, knowing that at least someone’s looking out for me!

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Action @ Alt

3pm

Alt Coffee
Alt Coffee

Hahaha… okay, I’m in ALT and this homeless junky girl asked this guy here sitting across from her to use his cell phone. So he lends it to her (something I’d never do, nor would any New Yorker in his/her right mind). And she makes her call. Then she gave it back to him.

Then he starts yelling at her for calling South Carolina or some shit. Now he’s up telling the guy who works here, I don’t know what. I’m not exactly sure what he’s tattling on her for, but the guy who works here is comin’ around to talk with her.

Now it’s a shouting match, she’s gotten up and sat somewhere else. The guy who works here now is shouting and telling them, “I’m gonna ask both of you to leave if you don’t shut up!”

Now they’ve both sat down on opposite ends on the place. The guy is still mumbling to himself, peering over his shoulder at her. She’s looking around and pretending to read something, her own cell phone?

I’m guessing he has one of those prepay phones. I’m not familiar with those, but from how he’s behaving it’s cost him around fifty bucks. It’s so funny. He’s acting as if it’s outrageous for some homeless junky squatter chick to take advantage of someone like that.

During the altercation she yelled at him, “I don’t know why it is that italian guys are always yelling at me!”

Then he retorted, “I’m not Italian! And maybe it’s because you use their cell phones to make calls to South Carolina without permission!”

I don’t know. It struck me as a funny line.

This guy isn’t through with this thing yet. He keep looking over his shoulder at her, I’m guessing this is what one would call “Sending bad vibes in her direction.” Not sure if it’s working.

Wait. Maybe it is! Because now she’s looking over her shoulder at him and mouthing words like “dickhead” and “asshole.”

If anything more develops I’ll be sure to give an update.

3:14

Yay! The guy is getting up, packing his things. (C’mon, start shit with her man! She USED you!) Now he’s walking to her…. and he’s said he’s gonna tell the owner or something? Goddammit! I couldn’t hear all of what he said, but Christ, he gave her a tongue lashing and walked out. Both her and the guy who works here are shaking their heads at him as he leaves. It’s funny how something like that can make you think one person is nuts, then it turns out that both people are actually nuts!

Rochelle Hires a Hitman

“HIRING A HIT MAN THESE DAYS IS JUST SO EXPENSIVE BUT ITS WORTH IT.”

Subject: Hey You sick Fuck remeber Me

Hey Bobby Boy, Just to let you know hmm. It may not interest you but Your gonna die. NO No No JESUS isn’t gonna do it so don’t worry jesus isn’t gonna do it. But I know who is, You really wanna know ooops its a surprise, I like surprises do you well your gonna love this one. Cause I’m gonna send someone too trace you down and massacre you. OOOPS I JUST SPOILED THE SURPRISE OH ME OH MY. WELL NOW THAT YOU KNOW I’LL GIVE YOU A HEAD START TOO RUN, RUN AS FAST YOU CAN. CAUSE SOMONE IS COMING TO GET YOU AHAHAHA. DON’T YOU FIND THAT HIRING A HIT MAN THESE DAYS IS JUST SO EXPENSIVE BUT ITS WORTH IT. ANYWAYS SEE YOU ON THE NEWS OR SHOULD I SAY IN HELL.

Rochelle
hotness_2468@hotmail.com

Subject: Hey Rochelle

Fact is, someone who’s really hired a hitman wouldn’t give me a running head start, otherwise the hitman would be very mad at you and probably shoot you instead.

Go ahead and rewrite this if you want. I’ll pretend I didn’t see your mistake and give you a second chance to really scare me.

Bob

“i sure apologise for someone who use my email adress to threaten you”

Subject: I aplogise

i sure apologise for someone who use my email adress to threaten you i hope to talk to you sometimes i think you are quite interesting.

Rochelle

Subject: Oh, no problem.

Let’s just forget it ever happened. I mean, it was only a death threat instructing me to run RUN as fast as I can because a hitman’s been hired and he’s coming to hunt me down and kill me. What’s the big deal? Thanks for sending me that one sentence apology and that believable explanation. That clears everything up. Hey, why do you let other people use your HotMail account? Is it hard for them to get a HotMail account of their own?

I have another interesting question to ask you. You got my reply to your death threat that same evening. Okay, so here’s my question. Why didn’t you respond to it? I know that you read it (because you were “Chatting online with new friends” pretty late that night), so why did it take three days for you to clear up this situation? Don’t you think Jesus would have taken care of it that evening.

I have to admit, it sounds like you’re lying. Are you lying?
Bob

Aug 7, 2004

Subject: Hey, it’s me. The guy you’re murdering.

Maybe you could help me out with something. You said that someone else sent that email? Could you hook me up with that person’s contact information? I have a rather in-depth list of questions I’d like to ask this person. You know, about the hitman he hired and the death threat in general. In fact, I should probably just have all of the information on that person who used your email (better safe than sorry), so send me their name and email address and all of that info please.

Thanks in advance for sending me all of this, then we don’t have to get the police involved.

Bob

Aug 11, 2004

Subject: Where are you? Are you still killing me?

I still haven’t heard from you regarding the guy who snuck in, used your email and hired the hitman. Please get back to me regarding this.

It is quite important to me to get that information (because the hitman will kill me), so please send me anything you know about this immediately. If you really loved Jesus Christ you’d help save my life. Geesh, I really hate being a bother about all of this. I swear, if it wasn’t my life on the line I wouldn’t keep pestering you with this.

At least email me back so I can be assured that you weren’t simply lying to me and that you in fact are responsible for that death threat.Thank you for your time and patience.Maybe together we can get this maniac who emailed me behind bars!

Bob

Aug 22, 2004

Subject: Hey, just wondering. Am I a dead man?

Hey! I haven’t heard back from you ever again. I was wondering what’s going on? Is the hitman really from you? Are you just waiting for me to be bumped off so I’ll go away? I do not fully understand what’s going on.

At first I was a little worried about your safety seeing as how you have somebody hacking into your Hotmail account who hires hitmen to murder people, but now that you’re no longer replying to my emails I’m starting to think maybe the two of you are in on this together. Is that the case? Are you friends with the person who’s going to kill me? If it is then I’m definitely going to get the police involved.Please get back to me so that I know for sure if I should worry.Thank you for your quick and speedy reply. I’m not going away.

Bob


This is Rochelle. She’s the one who just threatened my life. She did not send this picture of herself to me. I had a source trace her email and find it, along with a lot of other information so that at the very least the authorities will know who to question. I debated what exactly to do in regards to this threat and decided that ignoring it just wasn’t on the list of options.

There are several things I want to illustrate by posting her death threat. First of all, I am not scared at all by an email. It turns out that there’s nothing emptier than the promises that come from strangers via the Internet. I also want to point out how stupid people can be and that those who do cave to threats like these are short changing themselves for no reason at all.

It’s also important to show just how seriously some people take my site and how far some believe “God’s message” should be taken. But the most important point I hope to make here now is this: Girls, if you want to be with me before I am knocked off, you’d better get here quick! I mean, imagine if you coulda been one of the few who fucked Kurt Cobain or John Lennon, or Ronald Reagan? Okay, I’m not sayin’ I’m at that level yet, but you can bet if I’m hit my fame should at least double! Right?

C’mon! You’re going to be kickin’ yourself if you miss this opportunity! Last chance! Tick, tock, tick, tock…

Blackout

Stuck in hot train. Blackout begins!
Stuck in hot train. Blackout begins!

So Thursday was playin’ out just like every other day; art projects in the morning, jerk off, head to Manhattan around noon, write at the coffee shop until 3 then head over to Union Square to meet my friends. At about 4 I remembered an appointment I had in Williamsburg, so I got on the next eastbound L to Brooklyn.


I don’t know, I was probably sittin’ there thinkin’ about cleavage or something when suddenly the train came to a screeching halt, the lights went out and it was silent. Less than a minute later a voice told us that there had been a power outage and that’s all we were waiting for. It started to get hot as hell. This old black guy started sayin’: Can you feel it gettin’ hotter? Feel it? Feel it?” Everyone on the train felt it and his constant updates were the last things we needed so I told him to “eat shit and die”
… in my thoughts.

As we waited in the train car I realized that we could quite possibly be stuck there for hours. I looked around to see who it’d be that I’d choose to repopulate the world with… you know, in case it was the end of mankind out there and only our train car survived.
None of us knew what the hell was going on, and the same went for the conductors. A good 45 minutes passed and people were starting to get anxious. There were babies and old people on board and the rumor was circulating that we might be walkin’ back through the tunnel. We were under the Hudson river, “in the tube” as they call it, and no one had a clue how deep we’d traveled.

The doors between the cars were unlocked so people started to move back and forth between them. It seemed like a bad idea to climb out into the tunnel in case things started up again, but before I knew it bodies could be seen filing past the windows against the tunnel walls.

It was official then. We were walkin’ back to Manhattan. There was no way these cars were movin’ with people on the tracks. Oddly, there weren’t any giant rats, roaches or infected sewer-bums roamin’ around. In fact, firemen were on the tracks directing people on the path.
It turned out to be a fairly easy stroll. That’s when we got the news that New York was blacked out.

No traffic lights means traffic chaos!
No traffic lights means traffic chaos!

When we popped out into Manhattan and people were everywhere, crowding the sidewalks and streets, streaming out of businesses and crammed into buses and cabs. I was so happy to be stuck on the island. I quickly pushed my way towards Union Square where I knew my friends would be.

It was such a fuckin’ scene; New York turned off electrically, turned on emotionally. There at Union I met up with Skater Bob. It was clear that here was where the party would be tonight. All we had to do was chill.

The only light in the city
The only light in the city

When the sun went down, that’s when the reality of the blackout set in. The only lights in New York were from automobiles… and those shiny things in outer space. It was the first time those shiny thingies had shown themselves in decades over New York. And the first time public urination had been legal in centuries.
Peering down broadway from Union Square was wonderfully chilling. The street went south into a cave of buildings, traffic dissipated to almost nothing and people stayed in the parks leaving the sidewalks abandoned. 
”That’s what it’ll look like in the end times.” I told Skater Bob, “When Jesus returns to earth for His Second Coming.” 
Then I laughed historically for a good 6 minutes. It was really incredible.

There was a different feeling in the air. I was pickin’ up on girls, and even conned a kiss out of a blond with a great ass (Eva, if you’re reading this I handed out all of your smoothy coupons to every Union Square junky and told them to tell the staff “Eva sent me!”).

Bob and I hung out all night, strolled over to Tompkins Square to watch the idiots feed a bon fire with trash cans, bicycles, skateboards, bottles and their own flesh. The cops were being really cool, letting the idiots be idiots until they wore out or hurt themselves. Christ, I wanted so badly to find someone to have sex in public with before the sun came up. That dream still remains unfulfilled.

At 4:30 AM I caught a cab home. One of the most memorable sights I saw was over my shoulder on the 59th Street Bridge. Manhattan was black against the starry sky. I had to sing praises to the greatest city ever. Now if only it could get me laid.