Okay going a bit out of my depth here, here goes:
1. Yes, do a few "Portfolio projects". You know you will feel like $hit but that's what they are there for, to do a few things to help (feebly) that you are not a scammer.
2. Wide range of "problems" here. The first few are way too technical for me. The last few ring alarm bells. "Will it be ready by the weekend?" Really?! No. That's just managers being jerks. It takes a bit of poker playing I can't do myself but the answer is basically "you work office hours, why can't I?"
3. "Do you have an IM account I can contact you with? "
Now GRANTED that my limited experience is with less awesome people than you, but in my modest experience contracting stuff out, you NEED live chat because I want you to feed me a "piece of shit Sub-Alpha" that proves you didn't fall for one of the 10 foreseen traps sloppy devs walk into. So yes, I want you on live chat. I can't wait 6 hours for you to send me a note only for you to have missed the point and then we sorta lose a "business day" (because one of us is in a weird time zone.)
(Rant) And by not using IM/similar to fix a "specific / local problem" but instead you sent me something later, DON'T charge me for the extra 3 hours it takes you to fix it because you missed the point and your submission has a bad flaw.
(/Rant)