Ben
Well, his name isn't really Ben, but for the purposes of this story, it is.

I met Ben at college. First impression - just another person you meet on the first day of college. (Although I didn't fail to notice he was attired in a Slipknot “hoodie”, and bore an odd looking mole on the left side of his neck.)

After a few weeks, I got to know Ben a little better. I talked to him at lunch time a fair amount, and we got to know each other reasonably well. One of the prominent topics Ben would speak about was the band “Slipknot” and/or various other bands of the same genre. (Most of which I had never heard of, and never wish to hear of again.) Death metal isn’t really my scene; however Ben was fundamentally obsessed with the idea of bands eating dead pigeons on stage and the like. He also seemed to like bringing to college photographs of people who had died in horrific ways. (Most of which I suspect he obtained from sites such as rotten.com (NSFW, obviously))

One of the first claims that Ben made to me, was that he was in a death metal band himself. Of course at this point, I had no reason to disbelieve him. I had known him only a few weeks, and the thought he might be a pathological liar never even crossed my mind. As the weeks went on, Ben would tell me of rehearsals with his band, how they nearly came to be signed, and how they were on their way to the “big time”. One thing niggled me about this – he never rehearsed nor played a gig in our hometown of Sheffield. My friends and I thought this was odd, but put it down to him not wanting to perform in front of his friends, rather than the fact that his band didn’t exist. A month or so into the first term of college, the first major porkie was told – Ben came to school looking rather depressed on this day, as he confided in my friends and I that the drummer in his band had hung himself the night before. This not being the kind of thing you like to accuse someone of lying about, I left the situation alone, not really knowing whether or not it was true.

A few weeks after the “drummer suicide” episode, Ben proclaimed he had a new girlfriend – A female wrestler by the name of “Belladonna”. On one particular Friday night, my friends and I went to the pub. We invited Ben along. After about twenty minutes, Ben pointed to the other side of the pub, telling us he’d spotted his girlfriend and he was going over to talk to her. I said I would come with him to meet her, but he told me she was really shy and didn’t like meeting new people unexpectedly. Ben navigated the crowds to the other side of the pub, and was not seen again that night. Over the course of three of four months, Ben had many “girlfriends”, all of which had some unique trait, such as “female wrestler”, “gynaecologist”, or “left arm torn off in an horrific car accident”. Of course by now, I wasn’t believing a word of it.

Ben’s final fabrication before I confronted him came in the form of an MSN conversation we had during the summer holidays. In the morning, he told me (On MSN) that he was at home, and was preparing to travel to America to work with his uncle who was a pathologist. He said goodbye to me on MSN, at around eleven o’clock in the morning. Three o’clock in the afternoon he logged back in, with the MSN name “Just solved my first pathology case, now time for some REAL gore!!!”. I then asked him (Over MSN) for his IP address. I cant remember what excuse I gave for wanting it, but he pressed the “publish IP address” button on MSN. I took the address and worked out where he was…..

Grimsby.

I told him I knew where he was and that he must be lying to me. I wish I had saved this MSN conversation, but his reply was something along the lines of…

“YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN ME!!! YOU HAVE TO TAKE A FUCKING LEAP OF FAITH, I AM IN AMERICA I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU THINK, YOUR WRONG, YOU’RE A FUCKING SHITHEAD I HOPE YOU HANG YOURSELF…” etc etc.”

That about wraps It up for Ben, who apparently IS in a band now, and is no longer a pathological liar…

Many, many, many, APLs
( FreudianSlap, Sun 2 Dec 2007, 16:51, 3 replies)

I've got MSN open now
And where's the 'publish IP address' button?
(Son of Sam-i-am We're all as mad as hatters here, Sun 2 Dec 2007, 17:37, closed)

Publish IP address
Theres a button when you use MSN plus, but that's about it...

I usually send them a file, do a "netstat -an" before and after, compare the results then look at the ip on ripe.net

Cheers ;)
( Axai is in Montréal, Canada O.o, Sun 2 Dec 2007, 18:40, closed)

also
Slipknot is not so much "death metal" as "utter shite".
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Mon 3 Dec 2007, 10:23, closed)