how to cheat at everything~NOT

Simon Lovell is a magician, former con man, and professional card cheat. Currently he stars in the one-man Off Broadway show Strange and Unusual Hobbies. He is the author of seventeen books, has produced fourteen videos and five DVDs on the subject of cheating, and has lectured to both police and casino operatives on the subject according the back of How to Cheat at Everything: A Con Man Reveals the Secrets of the Esoteric Trade of Cheating, Scams, and Hustles, a book which showed up on the new cart the other day and looked rather interesting so i thought i'd give it a read (actually it was in my collection area, and seeing as how we are a small library with a limited budget i kind of wondered what the hell i was thinking when i purchased the thing and if it was worth it.)

It was an okay book. The subtitle was definitely more accurate than the title (but then again how could you cover everything?) It did seem a little dated, like i was reading about something from the 50s or something and many of the scams i had already heard about. Only cursory coverage is given to internet schemes, and if you haven't heard of pigeon drops with little old ladies and such, or stopping by to give estimates on work for your house maybe this is the book for you. And for the random consumer? Where was the advise for cheating on taxes (which i have never knowingly done myself, but tis said 50% of the population does and the title does say EVERYTHING does it not?) It does offer advice for mailing letter free (fill in the mailing address in the return address space and your address in the mailing address space and the post office will return it postage due) but that's about the only non-con-game scam advice there~not that i was looking to cheat the system or anything...

It did bring back a few random memories for me though~like when we were at a party back in college and an ex was trying to teach us how to play threeman (a dice/drinking game) and my best friend was convinced he was making up rules as he was going along but i was actually beginning to catch on and realized that there were Actual Rules to the game~and my best friend and i were trying to determine the sexual orientation of this guy i had gone to high school with (who had somehow become much more attractive in the intervening years) and, after making said determination, decide which one of us (he or i) should most appropriately continue our flirtation (ever the more enraging my ex as a bonus), when all of a sudden a man comes flying headfirst down the stairs and goes crashing into the front door with his head. My friend and i look at each other, both thinking~wow that seems just like something GuySeenAt EveryTheatreParty would do, when the man stumbled to his feet and, lo and behold, it was GuySeenAt EveryTheatreParty even though this wasn't a theatre party, and the world grew ever so much smaller. But i don't think anyone was cheating at that dice game...(my friend wasn't so sure) And i gave the guy i went to high school with a ride home though nothing happened even though i'm pretty sure he was straight~so much for my charms...

Then there was the time i lived in a big house (and no CaptStrange NOT THAT House) with many roommates and we decided to have our first house party. A number of guys showed up looking for a guy named "Bud" which none of our roommates were named, but we weren't quite sure if anyone by that name was coming or if that wasn't a rather obvious codename for something else they we were looking for which we definitely weren't looking to market. But it being the beginning of the evening, and the beginning of our house party (even though we were located next to The Party House on the block~which we kindly pointed out to them~they still wanted to come into our house) and us wanting to be hospitable and all, we invited them in.

They came in, sat themselves down at our dining room table, and proceeded to play poker, with their own set of cards, which they had brought, and for money, amongst themselves. We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to draw someone into their game, and to cheat them out of money, to drink all our alcohol, to rob us, for something to happen, but it never did. They brought their own beer, played against each other all night, were quite friendly to us, and left at the end of the evening. Well actually i'm lying a little, with a bit of inebriation and boredom with other party-goers one roommate and i got rather friendly with one of the poker players and he ended up spending the night in my room...