Huh?

The other day a woman emailed me for an article she's writing about blogging; she wanted to know if I had gotten any really weird contacts, or alternately if anyone had sent me free stuff (something you guys are totally welcome to do anytime, BTW.) I was going to write back saying I didn't have anything for her, although someone did offer to send me a bottle of cane syrup one time, but he never came through.
Then, today, I got the world's most random email EVAR. I will reproduce it here with suitable deletions. The subject line is "Koolit: Soul, Funk and Jazz Go Latin."

Hello:

 

My name is X and I am writing you about the above referenced CD.

 

Is it possible for you to call me at 888.xxx.xxxx and play the song Fever performed by La Lupe.

 

I know this sounds like a weird request but if you call me I can explain everything.

 

I am giving you my toll free number so it does not cost you anything to call me.

 

Thanks.

Ummmm. I mean, I don't really see any harm in doing so. It wouldn't cost me any money after all, and the song is only 2:53. And I've never heard of anyone having a sexual fetish involving getting bloggers to play Latin Soul for you on the phone, and I read Dan Savage all the time. But then...I can't really think of another reason to ask for this but be unwilling to explain it except on the phone. I guess I'll email him to ask what the super-secret reason is. What do you guys think? Tim, you've got a non-creepy blog-crush on me, does this strike you as more of the creepy?

Comments

[Abigail]

That's pretty good, but I'm not sure it beats the spam letter I received a few months ago, which began, 'We have learned from the internet that you are interested in tents...'

[Bob]

Could be a telemarketer fishing for phone numbers. You call that toll-free number, and they have your number. (If you're calling from the US, though, maybe.) Also, because you called them first, it doesn't matter if you're listed on the telemarketing no-call list. Just a guess.

[Anthony]

It's a bit of a specific request for a telemarketer, I would have thought. Unless it's a telemarketer with that blogger/Latin sexual fetish thing.
Do you at least have the song in question? And if so, how is this public knowledge?

[David Weman]

"That's pretty good, but I'm not sure it beats the spam letter I received a few months ago, which began, 'We have learned from the internet that you are interested in tents...'"

Oh, everyone's gotten that one.

[kim]

i'd call from a pay phone. if i could find one. whatever little that costs wouldn't hurt much, and then you'd know. something.

[SomeCallMeTim]

I'm not sure if I'm the Tim referenced, but "non-creepy blog crush" does sound like me, and I (along with all of blogdom) do have a non-etc., so...definitely creepy. Anything psuedo-sensual (which I'd guess Latin music falls into) is creepy. But not as creepy as a knee fetish.

[Andrew Lawrence]

I've heard of scams where you call an 800 number, then get forwarded to a 900 number, but I don't remember the details of how they work.

[belle waring]

yes, I do have this CD, so I must have mentioned it on the blog sometime. it seems to pointless for a scam to read people's blogs really carefully checking for references to songs and then emailing them to ask you to play them. I mean, mre trouble that it's worth, obviously. he's piqued my curiousity now, though.

[Andrew]

I think he just wants to hear the song without needing to buy the CD. I mean, it just seems like that's the obvious thing going on here.

[Carlos]

Yeah, but how did he get the toll-free number?

If it is a sexual fetish, Belle can always write to Dan Savage about it.

[belle waring]

good point carlos! I think I'm gonna do it.

[Anthony]

Yep, I think you should. And you should also record yourself playing the song to this guy (I assume it's a guy) and then offer to play that recording to people who call your toll-free number. And Dan Savage.

[belle waring]

duh, yeah, it's totally a guy.

[Anthony]

Well, you never can tell on the internets.

[Anthony]

I mean it might be an attractive libertarian woman. You just never know.

[Barry Freed]

I think he just wants to hear the song without needing to buy the CD. I mean, it just seems like that's the obvious thing going on here.

Perhaps you should notify the RIAA. What will those dastardly P2P pirates think of next?

[Julian Elson]

*rummages through the junk in his room*

Belle, I have an extra copy of Fallout 2 laying around, because I originally got Fallout 2, then got the original Fallout afterwards, and found that it came with Fallout 2 as well. Somehow, though, you don't strike me as a post-apoc cRPG type. I also have a great many receipts with coupons on the back that I never got around to throwing away. Furthermore, I have a statistics textbook called Statistics: Principles and Methods by Richard Johnson and Gouri Bhattacharyya. I'm willing to part with it because, well, it's a totally non-rigorous textbook whose discussion of the central limit theorem is simply to state the result without even an outline of the proof. The class I took that used that book was basically about how to use the "stat" section of a graphing calculator.

I also have this sorta... tube of cocoa butter. I originally got cocoa butter lip balm, then I ran out, and went to the store, and found that they didn't have any this time, so I got a tube of cocoa butter, and found it was nothing like the lip balm, so... if you want a 1/8th used stick o' cocoa butter.

Anyway, I have all this junk that I'd be wiillng to part with, but I'm not sure it's worth it to actually ship it to you. However, if you could just come from Singapore, clean out all the junk from my room, and maybe empty my trash, make my bed, and vacuum my rug as well, then I'd be delighted to give you the free gift of my excess CDs/worthless scraps of paper/etc, out of the magnanimity of my heart and admiration for your blogging, of course.

[Anthony]

Anyhoo...
Didja call him yet?