Gone Phishing

Today I had an email exchange, seen below,  that provides a good glimpse of the power of a ‘your face’-related retort. And I must note that I did nothing beyond responding to the first email.

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— On Tue, 6/1/10, CIBC.Online.Request@cibc.com wrote:

From: CIBC.Online.Request@cibc.com
Subject: Your account is on restricted status !
To: booerns2005@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 5:46 AM

[http://8f1.j.hasvik.com/securite/c.png]

…………………..

From: booerns2005@yahoo.com
Sent: 01 Jun 10 16:36:08
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Your account is on restricted status !

Your face is on restricted status.

………………..

One last tryout will lead to embarrassment

Malewitz, seen here with beautiful girlfriend Katherine McMullen, will get one last chance to relive the glory days. He will come up short, but he'll be firing.

One year removed from weakly gounding out in his last collegiate at bat, unheralded and scoliosed Division III catcher-turned journalist Jim Malewitz still has nothing to prove. Really, he doesn’t.

But for one day this summer, he will put down his notebook, pick up a bat and pretend that he does.

He and star German baseball Spieler and fellow journalist, Christoph May, will futily try out for the  Detroit Tigers.

May, a native of Bad Hersfeld, Germany, looks to give Americans a clinic on their own pastime.

On June 23,  Malewitz and May will ditch the cornfields of Iowa for one last day in the sun, in the unedited, un-filmed and anticlimactic drama, “Post Script: For the hell of it.”

Will they injure their pride? Most likely. But they will certainly live to blog about it.

*This real life drama has been rated PG for mild bilingual swears and significant bromance.

All Aboard the Hawkeye Express

But give a shout out to Iowa too!

Two and a half months into my Iowa City stay, I have finally capitulated to the pressures of the masses. Today I hesitate to label myself a keenly focused Michigander. But maybe I shouldn’t worry. Perhaps my pragmatism has simply briefly overpowered my strangely intense – somewhat nationalistic – love of my home state.

After long resisting the siren calls of the town’s Hawkeye-saturated apparel market, I am now the reluctant owner of a simple gray, hooded sweatshirt with block letters “IOWA” painted across then front. I find myself just one stutter-step away from a leap onto the Iowa football bandwagon. But I promise – my new relationship with Iowa football is merely circumstantial.

Saying Yes to Michigan – Baptism to Confirmation

I never fully realized the strength of my love for Michigan until I stopped living there. Sure I cheered, often passionately, for the state’s major sports teams – the Tigers, Lions, Pistons, Redwings and Wolverines – while there. But just as a baptized youngster rarely questions the merits of attending mass while living under a devout Christian’s roof, I rarely thought about why I cheered; my love for Michigan teams was based solely upon circumstantial faith. With no basis for comparison, I could hardly consider the merits of fan-bases outside the Michigan bubble.