funny stories, karma, law, stupid people

“Guido” and “The Giving Tree”…

This morning’s news has been downright entertaining. It’s not too often that I start the morning off with a hearty laugh, but I sure have done that today.

First, I read about a woman who is going to go to prison for at least nine years because she used a bogus Web site called RentAHitman.com to try to get her ex-husband murdered. Then, I read about a man who has cleverly rewritten the ending to the awful children’s story, The Giving Tree. Tuesday has gotten off to a good start!

She fell into a “honeypot”, trying to get her ex “waxed”… now she’s headed for the jug!

In July 2020, Wendy Wein was resolved to take the ultimate revenge on her former spouse. She waited in a cafe in Michigan, preparing herself to talk business with a man she thought was a professional killer. She hoped to hire him to murder ex-husband. Unfortunately for Wendy, the supposed hitman was actually a Michigan state trooper who had been alerted to her diabolical and illegal plans when Wendy filled out a request form on RentAHitman.com.

Wein had been fooled by the fake Web site, which she thought was genuine business, run by a guy named “Guido Fanelli”. According to the Washington Post:

What Wein found was presumably reassuring. The website promised her confidentiality. It boasted of industry awards. It showed off testimonials of satisfied customers, including one from Laura S., who had “caught my husband cheating with the babysitter.” The website bragged about complying with HIPPA, which it said was “the Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964,” a nod to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the law passed in 1996 to protect patients’ medical information.

Honestly, I don’t know why Wein wasn’t tipped off by the name “Guido”, but she obviously thought someone would be stupid enough to have a real Web site dedicated to murdering people. And she was… sorry… pretty stupid herself for actually filling out a request form with her real name, email address, and phone number so that a “field operator” (cop) could contact her about the deal. The form also required information about the person she wanted “taken out”.

Wein, who at 52 years old, hasn’t aged like fine wine, really thought the field operator she spoke to in her gray Ford EcoSport was a hitman. She accused her ex of being a “pedophile” and gave the cop his address, place of employment and the times he left for work and got home. Then she provided a down payment of $200 and promised to pay another $5000 when the job was done.

A few days later, Wein was arrested a few days later for seeking out an assassin. According to the Washington Post, she “pleaded guilty earlier this month to solicitation of murder and using a computer to commit a crime. Under her plea agreement, she faces at least nine years in prison when she is sentenced in January.”

RentAHitman.com was started in 2005 by a businessman in Northern California named Bob Innes. At the time he created his site, Innes was newly graduated from a network security program and thought he might like to start a business testing companies’ online infrastructures for vulnerabilities. “RentAHitman” was a play on words– Innes wasn’t thinking about “hitman” as a person who kills people for money. He was thinking of Internet hits. You know that word “hits”–which can refer to attacking a system as well as online views– not “hitting” a person and taking them out of commission.

The business venture failed, so when Innes finished his network security course, he put the domain up for auction. It didn’t sell, so he just let it go dormant and forgot all about it. Then in 2008, Innes evidently rediscovered the site and decided to check all of the emails. He was amazed by the number of messages he got asking how much he charged for services rendered. He was absolutely flabbergasted that people thought the site was really offering murder for hire and people not only wanted to hire a hitman, but some were looking for employment as hitmen!

Innes didn’t act at the time, since none of the queries he’d received seemed real. But then in 2010, he got a message from a British woman in Canada named Helen who wanted three family members murdered because she claimed they had “bilked her out of her father’s inheritance.” Innes didn’t take the request seriously at first, but when she wrote to him again, he decided to check out the people she wanted axed. He could tell that she was very serious about having them murdered.

Since the British woman in Canada was so serious about intending to kill her relatives, Innes forwarded the information to a cop friend of his, who then called the authorities in Canada. The Canadian cops found Helen, arrested her, and she wound up spending four months locked up for soliciting to commit murder. Then, once she was released from the jug, she was deported back to Britain.

The requests kept coming, so Innes decided to make the site into something that would actually do some good and save lives. He added the service request form in 2014. Seven years later, the site is still going, and still attracting “business” from the clueless. Innes even tries to give people an out before he turns them in. He sends each serious inquirer an email with two questions: Do you still require our services? And do you want me to place you in contact with a field operator? If they answer “yes”, he forwards the information to the cops.

One might think that this article about RentAHitman.com will render the site obsolete, since savvy people will know it’s a bogus site. However, it’s my experience that a lot of people are really stupid… and a lot of people don’t bother to read. And even more people don’t want to pay for newspaper subscriptions. So, it’s my guess that Innes will stay in business for awhile longer.

Moving on… someone has finally done something about the GODAWFUL children’s story, The Giving Tree

In the past, I’ve written a couple of times about how my husband’s ex wife ruined a number of children’s stories and albums with her toxic bullshit. One story that Ex really ruined for Bill was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Ex had a habit of comparing herself to the tree, and Bill to the selfish boy who keeps taking and taking until the tree is reduced to nothing. This is, of course, classic projection, as Bill is one of the least selfish and most decent people I know. But anyway, she used that story to mindfuck Bill, as well as at least one of her children (and really, probably all of them).

This morning, I read that an enterprising playwright and writer named Topher Payne has rewritten the terrible ending to The Giving Tree so that it’s less toxic and fucked up. Payne has a series called Topher Fixed It, and he’s redone a number of children’s stories with questionable messages. I read Topher’s rewrite to Bill and, sure enough, he got all verklempt. He said Ex has also compared their daughter to the Boy in the story.

I remember that she used another children’s book called The Little Soul and the Sun: A Children’s Parable to shame Bill before he deployed to Iraq, and she actually sent the book to him before he left. I got really pissed off because she was, once again, using children’s literature to promote her false toxic agenda. It was very inappropriate for her to do that before he went to war, too. Especially since she refused to let him speak to their daughters. I told him to get rid of the book so I didn’t have to see it, because every time I saw it, I felt the urge to throw it away. So he sent the book back to her with a note that read, “I’m not the one who needs this.”

I’m not actually familiar with the book Ex sent, since it wasn’t one from my childhood. I think it’s about forgiveness. Bill was very hurt that she sent it to him. Anyway, there’s no reason why Bill should not have been allowed to speak to his daughters before he went to war. At the time, one of them was 16, and the other was 13. He could have died over there.

I just want to offer many kudos and congratulations to Topher Payne for his epic project, fixing the more fucked up children’s stories. In our case, it’s personal. Now, Bill might be able to enjoy what should have been an enjoyable and healthy story for children instead of thinking of his mentally ill Ex. I see on Amazon that The Little Soul and the Sun mostly gets good ratings. I suspect that as is the case with The Giving Tree, a lot of people fail to see the damaging message and how it can be used to hurt, rather than heal. One reviewer gets it, though, and posted this:

I found Conversation with God inspirational, but this children’s book is wrong. It gives an example of hurting another being as an act of great love. From “Conversations with God” I understood that hurtful acts are never prearranged agreements, but acts of free choice based on a level of “remembrance of who we are” on a physical plane.

The children’s book went astray. It sends an awfully dangerous message.

Yep. And another person wrote:

The premise of this book is that you wanted to experience individuality, and decided to incarnate with someone else who “loves” you so much they will be cruel to you, so that you can learn how to forgive them.

Isn’t it actually the other way around?

When your loved ones incarnated, somehow along the way they forgot that this reality is supposed to be loving, playful, and creative. So you decided to incarnate and remind them, even if doing so might hurt you, and then you’d go on to live that better reality for yourself and others.

Yeah… real cool of Ex to send this crap to Bill before he went to a war zone. What a bitch. There are so many beloved relics from childhood that Ex has ruined, because she’s used it to promote her toxic agenda and quest to control everyone.

Sorry… anyway, it’s time to close this post. The sun is out, and the boys need a walk, and my mouse needs to recharge… and I need to stop thinking about things that are upsetting. I do love what Topher Payne is doing, though.

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celebrities, dogs, funny stories, music, true crime

Shit happens.

I decided to take yesterday off from writing. It was mainly because in the wee hours of Friday morning, I awoke at about 2:00am and had trouble getting back to sleep. I had been having an erotic dream. I don’t have a lot of those anymore, so I was disappointed when I woke up. Weirdly enough, I dreamt I was having sex with Wil Wheaton. I have never even thought about having sex with him, so I’m not sure where that came from. Maybe it’s because I was recently triggered on his page. He’s definitely cute, but we’re both happily married to other people, so I doubt that’s a dream that will ever come to fruition.

Once my eyes cracked open, I got up to go to the bathroom. And then– sorry for the TMI– but I got a case of the shits. After I was finished, I left the bathroom and noticed I smelled it in another room, only it wasn’t of the human variety. Arran, bless his heart, sometimes poops when he sleeps, so I thought maybe that was the issue. But I didn’t see any evidence of that, so I checked on Noyzi, who was in his bed. The smell of poop also faded downstairs, so I could tell he wasn’t the culprit. Noyzi still doesn’t venture upstairs on his own.

Then I went into my office and, though I wasn’t wearing my contacts, I could see a fuzzy, stinky, brown puddle on one of my nice rugs. It’s one that doesn’t get walked on a lot, so it’s still pretty pristine. Arran had gone in there and dropped some diarrhea. Bill got up and cleaned up the mess while I let the dogs out. Noyzi went out and pooped, too… and it was at that point that I realized we all must have eaten something bad. Later on, Bill also had a touch of the shits. My guess is was the chicken from the chicken man, who sells his wares on Thursdays. This has never happened before, so I count it as a “one off”, as the Brits would put it.

In any case, I was kind of tired yesterday and not in the mood to write. I also find that when I take a day or two off, it’s good for my brain. Gives me a chance to refresh. Gives my readers a chance to catch up, if they want to… not that many people do. Right now, it appears I have lots of folks interested in my posts about Jocelyn Zichterman, Scott Drummond, Richard Jahnke, and Erin McCay George. These are all mostly book reviews, which rarely get a lot of attention when I first post them, but later attract readers. That’s one reason why I’ve been reposting stuff from my original blog. The book reviews are fairly “evergreen”– as in they attract views and money, if this blog were monetized, which it’s not. I post the book reviews as a “service” for the interested. Sometimes I read and review books that others are interested in but may not want to buy or can’t borrow.

I spent all day yesterday watching Snapped episodes from 2013. If I were still writing my old blog, I might write about some of the cases I saw on that show. Like, for instance, Nancy Gelber’s case… I found her a fascinating subject. She’s a wannabe author who self-published a novel called Temporary Amnesia, which boasts a very complicated storyline that she claims she dreamt up when she was a teenager. She said that’s where a lot of her ideas come from– her dreams– which are apparently even weirder than mine are.

Nancy’s book is on Amazon.com and it gets terrible reviews. I would probably hate it, and I sure don’t want to spend the amount of money they’re asking for it, especially since Nancy Gelber is a criminal. However, as someone who is interested in psychology, I found her very interesting to listen to. You can tell that beneath her cheerful, chatty demeanor, she’s a hot mess psychologically. Gelber tried to have her ex husband bumped off, but “hired” an undercover cop instead of a real hit man. Then, she claimed that she hadn’t known what she was doing.

This wasn’t what I watched on Snapped… it’s another program about Nancy Mancuso Gelber.

It’s actually interesting to watch this show, as opposed to the Snapped episode. It offers more of her ex husband’s viewpoint.

What a piece of work!

Nancy says she’s going to go to hell… and admits that having her husband offed is a “horrible” thing to do, as she laughs. On this show, she seems a lot more sinister than she appeared to be on Snapped. If you see her on Snapped, she seems a lot more pleasant and normal. How scary for Jody Gelber, her ex husband. I wish I were more of an expert in psychology. She seems like a fascinating subject. I’d love to know what her DSM V diagnosis is. My guess is narcissist, for sure.

Busted! If you listen to her fake reaction to the lie that her husband has died, she sounds like a really bad actress.

This morning, after I watched the YouTube videos about Nancy Gelber, I watched a couple more about Diana Lovejoy, who in 2017, fainted when she was found guilty of murder for hire. I’m not familiar with her case at all. I just found her reaction to the verdict fascinating.

Wow…
Off she goes to the hospital… complete with handcuffs.

I probably should get back into reading more true crime, now that I’m less interested in politics. To be clear, I’ve never been all that interested in politics. I was just horrified by four years of Donald Trump and his delusional political theater of the absurd. Trump is now reportedly refusing to refer to himself as a former president. His new legal team is referring him to as the 45th POTUS, which is technically correct. BUT– their main defense in the upcoming impeachment trial is that Trump is no longer president and therefore can’t be impeached. So which is it? Rachel Maddow has a good chuckle about it in the video clip directly below this paragraph. If you ever wanted a textbook example of grandiose malignant narcissism, Trump is your guy. By the way, as far as I’m concerned, Trump was never MY president. 😉

And finally, I probably could opine about the recent uproar regarding country singer Morgan Wallen, who was caught on video drunk and uttering racist epithets in the middle of the street with his rowdy friends. He’s facing a lot of backlash… more than the idiots who stormed the Capitol last month, actually. Looks like his fans are still buying his music, even though he’s no longer eligible for music awards and his label has suspended him. I remember when the Dixie Chicks pissed off their base by dissing former President George W. Bush at a concert. They were quickly canceled by a lot of their more redneck fans and country radio. Morgan Wallen uses the n-word and many of his fans are still fine with him.

I hadn’t heard of him before this happened. I do remember reading about Morgan Wallen being canceled from a gig on Saturday Night Live because he was caught on video partying with a bunch of people while unmasked. SNL canceled him because his appearance would put a lot of people at risk. And now, they have another reason not to have him play.

I’m not big on cancel culture. I think people should have the ability to redeem themselves. Morgan Wallen, at age 27, is probably too old to be acting like a drunken frat boy, and I did see and hear the video… and there is no excuse for his behavior. I don’t know that it should ruin his career forever, but I do think that if you’re lucky enough to be able to make a living in the arts, you owe it to yourself and everyone else to realize that with that platform comes responsibility. And, sad to say, it shows an ugly side of him. Clearly, he’s comfortable using that kind of language casually, which is too bad. It’s not the word itself that is offensive– it’s the attitude and meaning behind it. And the fact that so many people are protesting about Wallen’s “right” to free speech and missing the fact that with that right comes responsibility. Yes, he has the “right” to say what he wants. BUT that doesn’t excuse him from consequences. Wallen needs to grow up.

Last night, I was listening to old school Chicago and marveling. I can’t name most of the members of that band. I’m sure being in Chicago, which has been around for many decades now, paid off handsomely for a lot of the members. It occurred to me that is a band– along with so many others– like Earth, Wind, & Fire, Blood, Sweat, & Tears, and Three Dog Night– comprised of people who are passionate about music rather than just money and fame. It occurred to me how much time, dedication, effort, and TEAMWORK goes into making that tight sound. These are very talented people working together for something awesome, not to be rich and famous. I’d like to hear much more from people like them, as opposed to privileged, clueless, jackasses like Morgan Wallen. Just saying.

Well, that about does it for today. Gotta finish the laundry and practice guitar on this dreary Saturday.

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