Saturday, March 15, 2008
Ashley Alexandra Dupre New York Post Video
The New York Post has gotten hold of a video featuring Ashley Alexandra Dupre, Spitzer's hooker "Kristen", on the set of a music video shoot.
Apparently, Ashley partied with hip-hop artists like Sean "Diddy" Combs while working in New York as a hostess, bartender, and, need we mention, high-class prostitute.
Like we speculated, she was recruited sometime in 2006 by the Emperor's Club VIP after inquiring about an advertisement looking for girls to party with "deep-pocketed men." Little did she know.
Naturally, she quickly accepted to fuel her high-maintenance lifestyle:
"Nobody knew she was a prostitute," the club source said. "Everyone assumes it goes on, but you never know which girls are involved. Now it makes sense where her Cartier watch, her Louis Vuitton bathing suit and her trips to St.-Tropez came from."
In the video, Ashley is taped opening the door of a car and privately adjusting the fitting of what looks like a bullet-proof vest.
You can watch Ashley's behind the scenes video below:
The Lost Ring: Beijing Olympics Alternate Reality Game
You receive a package in your mailbox containing a ball of string, a poster, and a deck of postcards of the 1920 Olympic games. There's also a piece of paper with a web address on it. If you're a massive gamer, you know that you've just been invited to play an alternate reality game, or ARG.
Lost Ring Mystery Box - Despoiler.org
In this case, the ARG is "The Lost Ring", a game based around the upcoming Beijing Summer Olympics. Your goal is to help five people, who wake up with amnesia in Korea, Argentina, England, South Africa, and Japan, uncover a lost secret from the original Olympic Games thousands of years ago. As their only clue, they each have a tattoo that reads "find the lost ring" in Esperanto.
The most intriguing part is that each of the five characters blog in their native languages, meaning that to play the game, you must have help from players around the world. This ties in well with the exciting mission statement that lead designer Jane McGonigal has posted for The Lost Ring:
" a game that changes people’s lives and brings the world together"
"an epic story that the whole world discovers and brings to life... a months-long adventure players will remember for the rest of their lives"
"the chance to be a part of something huge... a truly epic scale... to get to know people in 100 countries and make lifelong friends with them...."
"be a global force for fun, turnplayers into real-world superheroes... "
"fill the real world with magic... the whole world, every corner of it..."
Begin Your Quest Here
There are four main websites officially tied into the game currently:
1. The Lost Ring
Start here so you can watch a trailer introducing you to the ARG.
2. The Lost Games
Learn more about the Olympics by watching a collection of video podcasts by Eli Hunt, author of "The Lost Games."
3. Find the Lost Ring
http://www.findthelostring.com
Pick up clues by reading the blogs of the five characters in "The Lost Ring" who will be writing in eight different languages.
4. The Lost Ring Wiki
http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Home
Report your findings as well as get an update on what other players have discovered.
You might also want to check out the unfiction forum on "The Lost Ring."
Labels: Technology
Tutela Valui: Ashley Alexandra Dupre's Tattoo
Spitzer's hooker girlfriend, "Kristen" now revealed to be Ashley Alexandra Dupre, has a belly tattoo that reads "tutela valui", a Latin phrase which has been translated to mean "fair value" by the NY Post. But the tattoo may have even more relevance for the Emperor's Club VIP escort.
Contradicting the Post's translation, the WSJ Law Blog and Yahoo Answers both say that "tutela valui" might refer in an oblique way to "safe sex." Here's the full explanation:
valui = 1st person singular, perfect indicative active of "valere" (to be healthy/well/strong)
tutela = nominative or ablative singular of "tutela" (guardianship or protector, as context dictates)
Thus, if tutela is indeed ablative, the sentence could be tranlated:
"I have been well thanks to/because of/by means of my protector."
Remember that when Ashley was asked by Spitzer to do things that might not be "safe", she replied, "I have a way of dealing with that..I'd be like listen dude, you really want the sex?...You know what I mean."
We know what you mean now.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Ashley Dupre High School Yearbook Pictures
Ashley Dupre's MySpace page isn't the only place to find pictures of Eliot Spitzer's hooker girlfriend.
There are a total of 13 Facebook groups dedicated to the Ashley Dupre phenomenon with some calling for her to go on "American Idol" and some accusing her of being a "house wrecker".
On the Facebook group "Ashley Alexandra Dupre (Ashley Youmans) was in my Class!", one of Ashley's former classmates, Mike Grossman from Jersey Shore, NJ, has even posted her high school yearbook photos along with the obligatory St. Tropez bikini photo.
Ashley's High School Yearbook Photo
Discovering Ashley Dupre
We might also have a lead on how the Emperor's Club VIP discovered and recruited Ashley.
ExploreTalent.com, a modeling and audition site, has a profile of an "Ashley DiPietro", which was Ashley's legal name up to 2006. It describes the 22-year-old as having an athletic body type with brown hair and brown eyes. The only inconsistency is that her height is listed as 5' 3". Except in the FBI wiretap transcript, she's described as a "very pretty brunette" at 5' 5" and 105 pounds. Closer to Spitzer's type?
Is ExploreTalent.com where the Emperor's Club VIP recruited Ashley's "talent"? We know she only changed her name in 2006. Her ExploreTalent.com profile lists her old name so it must have been posted sometime before 2006. Could Ashley have been working for a high-class prostitution agency for over 2 years?
A shot from talent search site, ExploreTalent.com
Ashley Alexandra Dupré Picture Gallery
"Kristen", Eliot Spitzer's a.k.a. "Client 9's" call girl date in Room 871 of the Mayflower Hotel, has been identified as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, a 22-year-old aspiring singer living in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. Scroll down for the picture gallery.
Dupré has also been know as Ashley R. Youmans, which she changed legally to Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro in 2006. If that sounds confusing, and a little Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it is, because she has 4 names - if you count "Kristen."
"I know what my purpose is."
The FBI affidavit shows that "Kristen," a.k.a. Ashley Alexandra Dupré, charged $1000 an hour for her time with Spitzer. The "high-end" call girls of the Emperor's Club VIP were ranked from 3 diamonds at $1000 an hour up to $3100 for a 7 diamond model, indicating that she was on the lower end of the scale. We can only imagine the qualifications for a 7 diamond model.
Records show that "Kristen" may have simply been trying to make some rent money when she inadvertently bumped into Governor Eliot Spitzer. She is currently living at the Chelsea Landmark (55 West 25th Street), a luxury skyscraper where rents start at $3500 a month. If her now ex-boyfriend hadn't been paying for the rent, she would have needed more than a few Starbucks jobs to cover it! Fortunately, her one night stand with Spitzer netted $4300, more than enough for rent money.
Paris Hilton Wannabe?
The slogan on Ashley's MySpace Music page says it all, "what destroys me, strengthens me." As a formerly unknown artist, Ashley has really turned adversity into opportunity. In just a few days, she has gotten over 2 million MySpace profile views, and her Myspace profile features a song called "What We Want", which has been played over a million times. Now, fans actually seem to care that her favorite artists are Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Alicia Keys, and Aerosmith among others. She describes her music and herself:
I am all about my music, and my music is all about me… It flows from what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen and how I feel.
She also writes about her odyssey leaving a broken home at 17, being alone, doing drugs, and deciding on a career in music in New York.
Is this enough drama and publicity to pull a Paris Hilton?
Positive Energy Attracts Positive Energy?
Asheley's first MySpace blog entry on the "Law of Attraction", which has received almost 1000 comments, talks about her views on relationships. She lists four relationship criteria:
*Does that person make you feel good?
*Does that person drive you to be better?
*Is that person right there behind you when things arent that good, or even if they are??
*Will that person be an asset to your life...(will that person have value): doesn’t have to be financial, i am talking respect, courage, and umm RESPECT.
This was posted in August 2007. Did she change her mind and become a call girl?
What's next for "Kristen"?
Now that her main(?) source of income has decisively dried up, Ashley's deciding whether to work in a friend's restaurant or move back in with her family in New Jersey since her boyfriend moved out after she discovered he had two kids.
"Kristen" will also be testifying against the four defendants in the Emperor's Club VIP case.
Ashley Alexandra Dupré Picture Gallery
It's telling that "Kristen" hasn't removed any of her MySpace pictures from her profile. More telling evidence she may be trying to take the Paris Hilton route to stardom.
Ashley Alexandra Dupré in St. Tropez, 2007
Ashley Dupré with sunglasses
Ashley, Two Fingers Up
Ashley in Las Vegas, 2006
Ashley's Black and White Glamour Shot
Ashley Asks for Silence
Ashley Smiling
Ashley Passed Out, A Self-Professed Frequent Occurrence
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Spitzer Scandal: Pictures of Room 871 of Mayflower Hotel
A day before Valentine's Day, Gov. Eliot Spitzer checked into the now-infamous Renaissance Mayflower Hotel and effectively ended his career. Room 871 is where he met with "Kristen", a model provided by the Emperor's Club VIP (click for pictures) for the princely sum of $4300.
The recently remodeled Mayflower Hotel is located just four blocks away from the White House. Besides the great location, the Mayflower has also been the hotel of choice for prominent guests like Monica Lewinsky, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt (who stayed in room 776), and even Walt Disney. It's no surprise that a governor of New York would choose to stay there.
Travel guide Frommers has this to say about rooms at the Mayflower:
individual refuges of elegance: silvery green bed coverings, embroidered drapes, silk wall coverings, pillow-topped mattresses, and sink-into armchairs are some of the finer touches. Certain gracious appointments remain: Each guest room still has its own marble foyer, high ceiling, mahogany reproduction furnishings (Queen Anne, Sheraton, Chippendale, and Hepplewhite), and Italian marble bathroom.
If that's not enough for you to visualize the scene, now you can actually see pictures of Room 871 where "Client 9" and "Kristen" met:
Room 871 Nameplate
Inside Room 871 with a glimpse of the bedroom
Inside Room 871, window view
The room certainly looks spacious and luxurious enough for a secret assignation, especially if "Client 9" asks "you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe - you know - I mean that...very basic things."
Cecil Suwal, Temeka Rachelle Lewis & Tanya Hollander, Defendants in Eliot Spitzer's Prostitution Scandal
For a picture tour of the Emperor's Club VIP, click here.
The Accused
Let's take a look at the defendants tied to Eliot Spitzer's a.k.a. Client 9's hooker scandal. The four are:
Cecil Suwal, 23, in charge of model recruitment (Mark Brener's girlfriend) a.k.a. "Katie" or "Kate"
Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32-year-old booker number one a.k.a. "Rachelle"
Tanya Hollander, 36, nutritionist by day and booker number two by night (see picture below) a.k.a. "Tania Hollander"
Mark Brener, 62, the leader of the Emperor's Club VIP, who was found with 2 Israeli and 1 US passports in his possession a.k.a. "Michael"
How much can you make running a high-end prostitution ring?
According to the FBI affidavit, which makes for surprisingly good reading, the four defendants who ran the Emperor's Club VIP raked in only a paltry $1 million during their four years of operations. The money (cash, wire transfers, money orders, and American Express charges) was deposited in two bank accounts registered to QAT Consulting Group, Inc. and QAT Group, Inc.
If so, they are probably the most poorly paid "consultants" in the world.
However, some of their proceeds were kept at home, with $600,000 and 19,000 euros in cash seized when authorities raided Brener's home.
How much did the models make?
Checks and wire transfers were made out to 50 prostitutes in the US and Europe totaling more than $400,000. At an average of $8,000 per model over four years, it shows that the job paid surprisingly poorly despite the supposedly high-end clintele. Of course, it's possible that the bulk of payments were done using cash.
How much time can you serve?
Brener and Suwal face up to 25 years while Lewis and Hollander are looking at 5 years if convicted. Definitely not a good ROI investment.
Mug Shots
It's been difficult finding pictures of the defendants. So far only Hollander seems to have been spotted (she's on the left, lawyer on right):
We'll update with pictures of the other defendants as we find them.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Emperor's Club VIP Picture Tour
Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, has been caught in the middle of an FBI investigation into a prostitution ring called the Emperor's Club VIP, which had operations in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Scroll down for the picture tour.
The New York Times says:
The man described as Client 9 in the affidavit arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.
The affidavit says that Client 9 met with the woman in hotel room 871 but does not identify the hotel. Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, according to a source who was told of his travel arrangements. Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel that evening was registered under the name George Fox.
Here's what the Club's now-defunct website (archive) had to say for themselves (complete with misspellings):
Emperors’ Club vip is the most preferred international club for those accustomed to excellence. We offer a convenient variety of services globally. Specializing in deluxe concierge, model introduction, contemporary art and Investment services is our expertise. We act for a select group of educated, refined and successful international clients who give their best in all they do and who, in return, only wish to receive the best. Catering to clients who will not compromise in any area of their life.
Our distinctive standards ensure that you always experience the quality you’ve come to expect in a world-class service when working with Emperors’ Club vip. With direct connection to internationally acclaimed artists, we offer access to some of the most captivating, authentic contemporary art available. Our Concierge service provides extraordinary benefits that enhance life immeasurably, impress companions and enhance business ventures. Best of all, our innovative social introduction / dating services allow you a luxuriously enjoyable dating / travel experience with some of the wolrd's most exclusive companions. We match our customers with the most compatible models, most competitive contemporary art leads, and finest concierge luxuries for both their personal preferences and the occasion. Our services are professional, reliable and luxuriously pleasurable.
Nothing But the Best for the Governor?
According to the affidavit, "Kristen", Spitzer's appointment at the $229-a-night Mayflower Hotel, was "an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds."
Spitzer's encounter with "Kristen" cost $4300, but depending on the number of diamonds assigned to a model, the cost could rise quite considerably. This rate page shows that a 3 diamond model's time went for $1000 an hour up to $3100 for a 7 diamond model.
Spitzer scheduled a four hour "appointment" so we can deduce that "Kristen" was a 3 diamond model priced at about $1000 an hour plus "extras". Of course, it's always possible he got a customer loyalty discount.
Emperor's Club VIP Picture Tour
Emperor's Club VIP Homepage:
They even had handy phone numbers listed:
(US) 212. 812. 2114 // 310. 691. 5163 // (UK) 0207. 096. 0879
Here's the portfolio page with about 32 models listed (notice the number of diamonds below each picture):
Fiona, a graduate of top London university, who's guiltiest indulgence is the opera:
Los Angeles-based Maya Kate aka "Katie" with an impressive 7 diamonds, which we speculate is Cecil Kuwal, the madam running the operation.
London-based Maureen (or is it Marina?):
Sadly, it doesn't look like "Kristen" is listed among the models.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Free PDF to Word Converter
Want to convert a PDF file into a more user-friendly Word document? Need to edit a PDF document or extract text and images, but can't afford Adobe Acrobat?
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter can help and does just what is says, letting you convert PDF files to Microsoft Word documents. You can choose to convert the entire file or just selected pages from it. It even opens the Word file for you after it finishes converting.
Best of all, the software retains the formatting of the PDF file and extracts the graphics and images in the original into the Word file.
The only downside is that the resulting Word file can sometimes be quite large, and there isn't a batch conversion option. Otherwise, it's a very useful tool for office workers, translators, and anyone else who works with PDFs a lot.
Direct Download:
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter
Labels: Technology
How to Find and Buy Foreclosed Homes with Web 2.0 Services
With the subprime mortgage meltdown, home prices across the US have been dramatically pruned. If you were lucky enough to steer clear of the prior easy lending environment, now might be a good time to get into real estate with the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Composite-20 Index showing a drop of over 9% in the past year.
But how do you even begin to find foreclosed or soon-to-be foreclosed homes?
While it's definitely a good idea to look in your local newspaper for listings, you can also turn to a number of Web 2.0 sites to turn up more buying ideas.
Searching Yahoo! Real Estate
Helpfully, Yahoo! Real Estate has a search tool that lets you hone in on houses facing foreclosure. All you need to do is enter the location you are interested in, select "Foreclosures" as your listing type, and, optionally, specify price range and number of beds and baths.
According to Yahoo, the median price for foreclosures is about $126,000 compared to new homes, which are going for more than twice as much. Las Vegas home prices have fallen almost 15.34% in the past year according to the Case-Shiller Index so it makes sense as a good place to begin our search.
We find 830 foreclosed homes in our Yahoo search of one particular zip code in the Las Vegas area. Each listing comes complete with price and a satellite photo of the property along with square footage, foreclosure status, and listing date. For instance, a 30,000 square-foot home in Las Vegas is going for $1.9 million at the moment. The only downside is that you often have to contact the listing agent for more detail.
Zillow's Zestimates
You can also turn to Zillow, the data-rich real estate site that realtors hate for making an end-run around their information monopoly. Zillow claims to have "Zestimates" for the valuations of over 80 million homes and helps bring buyers and sellers together.
In our Las Vegas zip code, we find 971 matching results although it isn't possible to narrow it down to homes facing foreclosure. Still, Zillow provides a good alternative to the monopoly of Multiple Listing Services (MLS), which only members of the Association of Realtors can list homes on. For instance, if you were trying to sell your own home without going through a registered realtor, you wouldn't be able to list your home in one of the MLS databases making it harder for potential buyers to contact you.
Zillow also offers other unique features. If you click on a particular listing, you can dig deeper and get comparables for a home's valuation compared to its neighbors. In addition, Zillow lets you track the change in market value of a home over time under the "Zestimate & Charts" tab. This is definitely a useful tool if you want to get a sense of whether you're getting a bargain basement price.
More Real Estate Data
Letting you access more than 100 million property records, the Fidelity National Financial-backed Cyberhomes offers detailed, proprietary data on home sales nationwide.
It's not enough just to find a house for sale. You also need to figure out if it's in the right neighborhood. With Cyberhomes, you can access fundamental information like average price per bedroom, unemployment rate, and rental vacancy along with other indicators to decide whether the local market is strong enough to bounce back once the subprime mess is cleaned up.
Happy Hunting
Of course, buying foreclosures is a risky business even with all the information available online, but it never hurts to gather more data points (see below for more resources).
Additional Resources
1. Realtor.com
Realtor.com, the offical site of the National Associate of Realtors, lets you search over 3 million homes in their database. You can also see recent home sales in an area as well as locate a local realtor.
2. Trulia
Real estate search engine Trulia has recently updated its listings with foreclosures, making it even more useful than before. The site also features heat maps, which let you compare sales prices across a broad area, and Trulia Voices, which let users ask and answer questions about a neighborhood.
3. Redfin
Another Web 2.0 site is Redfin, which teams local real estate brokers with online real estate search. They actually employ these local agents and claim to help you save up to $10,000 in transaction fees. MLS listings are combined with historical data on a map that you can search with criteria like price, beds, and square feet.
The service is currently limited to selected areas of the country, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County, and Seattle, but that's still plenty of territory to mine for foreclosures.
Disclaimer: This post is purely for educational purposes. What you do with it is entirely your responsibility.
Labels: Technology
Sunday, March 09, 2008
The 14 Best Disposable & Temporary Email Services
Tired of spam in your inbox? Want to track down exactly which website sold you out?
Temporary, disposable email accounts can help you. Not only do they stop spam from reaching your primary email account, but they are usually free and require no registration to use.
You can use them when a website forces you to register to access content, on public forums, on your MySpace profile, or wherever you don't want to give out your real email address. If someone spams you using your temporary address, you can quickly cut them off by canceling that account.
Disposable Email Safety Tips
1. Remember that any email that is sent to a disposable email service can usually be accessed by anyone as long as they type in the same email address that you used. Some let you set passwords, but that's rarer. That means you want to choose a more creative email address that can't easily be guessed or replicated by someone else.
2. Similarly, don't use disposable email services for personal or sensitive emails. Usually, they're not run by big public corporations so you never know if someone is using them to collect information for identity theft.
That said, temporary email services are incredibly useful when used properly.
The Best Free Disposable Email Services
1. Mailinator
You don't have to sign up to use Mailinator. Just enter whatever email address you like as long as it ends in mailinator.com when you register for a site. You can also use the following alternate domains:
- mailinator2.com
- sogetthis.com
- mailin8r.com
- mailinator.net
- spamherelots.com
- thisisnotmyrealemail.com
Checking mail is also easy. You can access email using your browser, RSS, or even via a widget.
2. myTrashMail
The popular myTrashMail offers both secure and non-secure temporary email accounts. If you want a secure account protected by a password, you'll need to complete a very short registration form.
3. BugMeNot
Not only does BugMeNot let you bypass website registration, it also offers an instant, disposable email service. Emails get deleted every 24 hours.
4. 2Prong
Although currently offline, the open source 2Prong offered an innovative no-click disposable email system. Disposable email addresses were automatically copied to your clipboard so you could quickly paste them into the registration forms on websites. Email address domains were also changed frequently to bypass banning. See below for some good alternatives.
5. BlockFilter
Offering a variant of the 2Prong service, BlockFilter offers no-click disposable email that is automatically deleted every 2 hours.
6. spamgourmet
Spamgourmet offers a temporary email forwarding service. Just set up an account to get a temporary address that you can use to register for sites. Any email sent to that address is automatically forwarded to your real email address.
7. 10 Minute Mail
Don't need an email inbox with longevity? Try 10 Minute Mail, which offers accounts that expire after 10 minutes (with optional renewal).
8. MailEater
To use MailEater, just give out an email address like anything@maileater.com. Then check the website for any emails.
9. Temporary Inbox
Temporary Inbox offers both disposable email and email forwarding services with multiple domains you can choose from.
10. Spaml
Although it doesn't switch domains, Spaml has otherwise replicated the 2Prong disposable email service.
11. FakeEmailGenerator
http://www.fakemailgenerator.com/
A knock-off of 2Prong that implements the same domain-changing strategy.
12. mailexpire
The flexible mailexpire offers an email forwarding service that you can set to expire anywhere from 12 hours to 3 months.
13. Jetable
Choose an address, set a lifespan, and Jetable will automatically forward email from that address to your real mailbox for the duration you specify. A Firefox extension is also offered.
14. Guerrilla Mail
A well-optimized site that provides email addresses that expire after 15 minutes. You can extend it 15 minutes at a time. Currently for sale by owner.
Labels: Technology
