Polska Brain Jelly

It amazes me the number of scams out there.  Not so much that there are scammers, that part I accept.  The part that amazes me is the fact that to support so many scams there have to be people that fall for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m against scams and scammers.  Scam artists are life forms just above that slimy brown algae that forms in a fish tank filter.

I have to wonder though who the people are that fall for some of these scams.  Many of them are so obvious that’s it almost seems like a spoof on scams.

Take for instance SatelliteDirect.

I was first made aware of SatelliteDirect from a comment on this blog.  The comment read:

I really like this blog. I’m thinking of utilizing A similar format for my own. I’ll keep an eye out for your following postings since I definitely liked visiting. Thank You

My first thought was yay!  Someone found something useful on my site.

Then I read it again, and the stinkings of spam started to penetrate my senses.

Notice the very generic tone.  Now notice how complimentary they are, even thinking of mimicking their blog based on mine.  However they never say what they like or what they want to duplicate.

I get several of these a week, however this is actually the first one that has come from the States and not Russia (no, I have nothing against Russia.  When someone comments on my blog I get a WHOIS trace on the comment.)

Out of curiosity I check out the link attached to the comment.  It takes me to an actual blog that was created on Tripod of all places (I didn’t even realize they still existed).  There was a long blog post about watching satellite TV on your computer for a low price.

Again, warning bells go off.

This being a hobby of mine, I decide to check this out further.  Oddly enough they don’t drop the name of the software on the Tripod page.  At the bottom there are two more links, one to another blog on WordPress and one to a Blogspot blog.

The Blogspot blog shows paydirt.  There is a banner ad right in the middle of the post for SatelliteDirect.

I head to their site.  It’s not a bad looking site, professional and even legit looking.  They have a “product review” at the top.  According to Interactive Media Magazine, SatelliteDirect is “[u]nequivocally the best TV to PC software on the Net!”  They also have some award badges for fake internet awards at the bottom (note to scammers, if you are going to give yourself fake awards, at least make a fake award site to link to).

What really should set off alarms are the promises of 3,500 HD channels for only $49.95.

Right.

The U.S. alone apparently has over 700 HD channels.  I don’t think the U.S. has 700 channels alone, much less in HD.

A quick search for Interactive Media Magazine leads me to a site that basically says SatelliteDirect is a scam.  I haven’t fully studied that site or the site it directs to (No Bull TV on PC Reviews), so I’m not linking them here.  However, a quick search will get you there if you are curious, however tread lightly.  Like I said, I haven’t checked them out so I don’t know if they carry any malicious code.

A further search on SatelliteDirect shows some very disgruntled customers.

Yep, people have paid the approximately fifty dollars for the promise of free TV.  They aren’t happy with the returns, citing unresponsive customer service and broken promises.

Who would’ve thunk it.

Satellite TV is not to be had for a one time cost of fifty bucks.  There are plenty of free options to watch TV on the internet for free on top of that.  I, in fact, have a dear friend who has found the wonders of Chinese fed Internet TV.  Even if you don’t want to wade through pages of Chinese characters to watch your favorite TV shows, most are offered online by the networks that broadcast them or sites like Hulu.  There is usually a time delay, but hey, it’s free.

I’m still confused.  ”Too good to be true” didn’t become a cliche because it wasn’t accurate.  I think the drive to get something for nothing has ended up costing many people a lot more than they were trying to save.  Especially if the scam ends up harvesting credit information for fraud or identity theft.

Update: The site for SatelliteDirect is registered to ETV Corp out of Miami, FL.  I’m curious if “Corp” is a protected term in Florida and if the company is an actual registered corporation.

On a non-related and very morbid note, I saw someone literally run over by a car today.  It’s not something I would recommend.

I’ve mentioned a few times the ten page term paper due at the end of the semester.

Yeah, it’s due April 11th.

Oops.

Entering panic mode in 10… 9… 8…

I’m finally able to walk again.

My legs have recovered from the elliptical torture device training extravaganza.  They aren’t sore and I don’t feel like every step might make my face intimately familiar with the ground.

So I wake up this morning and head to the gym.  It’s another day of weight training.  This time the instructor has printed out a workout routine for us to use for the next two weeks.  It only includes Tuesday and Thursday on mine, so either he a) hasn’t read my email (I couldn’t be that lucky), b) realizes that I’m old and out of shape and that my email probably bit off more than I could ever begin to chew (again, not that lucky), or c) just made the same routine for everyone.  Since the guy that arrived at around the same time I did got the same routine, I’m voting for c.

I scan over the routine while he’s explaining some of the workout and I breathe a sigh of relief to see that an elliptical machine is nowhere to be found.

Is it bad when you have nightmares about ellipticals chasing you only to find you have no legs to run with?  I think I hate ellipticals more than I hate clowns.

Great, now I’m probably going to have nightmares about being chased by clowns on ellipticals.

Anyway, today the sheet says I get to warm up on a stationary bike.  To my surprise, I find one available.  The class must be thinning out already.

Warm up and most of the routine go great.  It’s mostly upper body with a few leg exercises.  I take it a little easy on the legs.  They have made it clear that if I mess them up again they will pack up and leave.

I finish all of the machine exercises which leaves just the core workout left.  It’s abs and obliques today, and I mull over which to start with.

In my younger days, I was the sit-up master.  I could do sit-ups all day.  I could out-sit-up just about everyone.  I did sit-ups on the ground, in an incline or even upside down.  I was fast, I was good at it.  Sitting-up was my thing.

Again, I stress that I’m no longer young.

I was feeling good.  I had successfully completed a workout routine without killing myself and was feeling worked, but not exhausted.  I decided it was time to do what I did best: sit-ups

I’m laying down, feeling good, about to perform my pièce de résistance.

I do a sit-up.

Well, it was my intention to do a sit-up.  What happened was my upper body left the ground, hit a forty degree angle and stopped.  My feet soon thereafter proceeded to come up off the floor, which then threw off the whole process and I collapsed back down in a heap of disbelief.

I start wondering exactly how long it had been since I had last done a sit-up.

Okay, the square root of… carry the one… subtract by the angular momentum of Pluto…

Yeah, it’s been a while.

I figure that I’m just rusty.  My technique is a little off, but once I get started it will all come back to me.  I am the sit-up master, after all.

Take two.  I do a sit-up. I attempt to do a sit-up.  Again, my upper body leaves the ground, lower body leaves the ground, I collapse back to the ground.

Yet again, reality rears it’s ugly head.

I’m really beginning to hate reality.

At this point I realize that a sit-up is probably beyond me.  I’ve already flopped on the ground twice like non-sitting up fish, so to save face I continue to do some crunches like that was my intention all along.

I didn’t even attempt the obliques.  It involves balancing on one elbow and twisting my body.  I can’t even do a sit-up, how do I expect to hold myself up with one arm and twist my body towards the ground with out breaking something, curling up into a fetal position and dying.

I head home, defeated again.  This time by gravity and my apparent lack of abdominal muscles.

Stupid reality.

School is back in session.  One of the requirements by the state for a “well rounded” college education is a semester hour of physical education.  Since I’m on my next to last semester, I figured it was time to get rid of that requirement. One of the options available to me was bowling.  I’m not sure exactly how bowling qualifies as physical education, or even a sport for that matter.  Any “sport” that I get better at the more I drink I don’t think qualifies.  Anyway, taking that class would have probably been the smart, easy thing to do.

Why would I ever do the smart, easy thing?

My thought process was, “since I have to take a physical education class anyway, why not make it useful?”  I have gained some weight since I quit smoking around four years ago.  I figured I would take a class that would give me the chance to shed those pounds and get back to my fighting weight, so to speak.

Thinking, that was my first mistake.

I signed up for weight training.  I lifted when I was younger and sporty.  It was fun.  I was fit.

That was my second mistake.  I’m no longer young and fit.

First day (I’ll call that Day 0) was just the instructor (a basketball coach) giving us the run down on what the class entails (lifting weights) and that attendance was pretty much mandatory (can’t lift weights if you aren’t there). He then asked us to email him our goal for the class and sent us on our merry way.

Here comes mistake number three.

I should have waited until after the first day of “lifting” to send him my goal for the class.  I basically emailed him saying that I wanted to lose my non-smoking pounds and get into a five-day-a-week workout routine.

Oops.

Day 1:  Come into the weight room and the instructor takes roll.  He tells us to do ten minutes of a cardiovascular workout to warm up, either on a treadmill, a stationary bike or an elliptical.  The treadmills and bikes fill up instantly while I’m taking off my jacket and putting it up.

I’ve never been on an elliptical machine before, but I have to say whoever invented it hates me.

I get on.  It looks electronic with many lights but they are all dim.  This machine has no buttons, only touch sensors.  There’s also no on button.  I stare at the control panel for about a minute standing on these pedals wondering how to turn it on.  I shift my weight on the pedals, this shifts my feet to opposite positions and lights come on!  Oh, so this is motion activated. I start ellipting, or ellipticalling, or getting tortured, whatever the term is for the self abuse on this particular type of machine.

It’s a weird sensation.  I feel like I’m fighting the machine because I’m standing upright and with every movement I feel like I’m about to fall backwards.  There is nothing smooth about my gait, and I probably look like a spastic robot.  I notice after a few minutes that it’s getting more difficult to stay upright.  I start leaning forward a little and that helps, but there’s something else going on because I feel like I’m trying to climb a sixty degree slope at this point.

The default “workout” for this machine increases the inclination over time.  By “over time” I mean almost instantly.  I see this now because I’m leaning forward enough to almost rest my face on the control panel and it has a list of workouts detailed there.

Five minutes have passed so far and I’ve managed to figure out how to decrease the inclination to somewhat level.  My legs however are rebelling.  With every “step” they threaten to dump me off the machine.  How I managed to finish the last five minutes is beyond me, but I’m quite certain it wasn’t pretty.  I wasn’t “ellipticalling” so much as shuffling on an inquisition era torture device.

Warm up over, the instructor calls everyone over and gives us our routine for that day.  It’s an upper body workout, and for that I almost drop to my knees in thanks.

Actually, I almost drop to my knees because my legs won’t hold me up.  I’m not sure when my thigh muscles were replaced with egg noodles and rubber bands, but that’s all that’s holding me up at this point.

The upper body workout is fine.  I haven’t been winded or really even sweating the entire class, but my legs are nothing more than decoration by the end.

I stagger out to my truck, thankful that I didn’t ride my motorcycle to school, and head home wondering if I’ll ever be able to walk correctly again.

Class was on Thursday, it’s now Sunday.  My legs are just now able to hold me up without shaking when I walk.  Stairs were an exercise in futility this weekend.  They are still sore, but it’s not uncomfortable at this point.  Hopefully by Tuesday they will have recovered.

I’m not sure my stupidity will have recovered by then.

I’m going to document my progress here, since I’ve committed myself to this ridiculous plan of action.  This should help keep me on track and give everyone a chuckle at my expense in the process.