The "Powered by Hot Pockets" Complaint Thread
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I believe you are referring to the "Bearskin Hats"... Traditionally the bearskin was the the headgear of Grenadiers and would contain a large number of coconuts that the grenadier could lob at the enemy should he run out of grenades which are similar in appearance to old timey grenades which looked like those cartoon bombs (black ball with a fuse)... Eventually the bearskin hat would be adopted by military units assigned to guard palaces and other important places like shopping malls and pastry shops... The hats worn by guards differed from those worn by grenadiers in that each one contained a midget ninja assassin who should the need arise would leap forward and attack an intruder. Eventually by the 1890s due to the popularity of Dickens novels, the ninjas were replaced with orphans trained to attack and pester an intruder for more gruel... Of course by the mid 1960s stuffing orphans in hats had been outlawed by parliament and the orphans were replaced by surly penguins... to this day each member of the Queen's Guard has a seething angry penguin under their hat, just waiting to attack an intruder or obnoxious tourist. In 2005, the Ministry of Defense began a two-year test of artificial fur and rubber penguins for the hats. The army has already replaced beaver hats [1] and leopard skins, worn by some of its soldiers, with glammy sequin and fake neon fur patterns.
[1] Traditionally "beaver hats" refers to hats made of "felted" beaver fur. Many of the popular hat styles of the Victorian era were made of this material. This is not to be confused with the beaver hats worn by the Masonic Knights Templar which feature an actual stuffed beaver sitting atop a pile of small logs (correctly referred to as the "Beaver and Log" hat). Nor should it be confused with the rather indecent "Beaver Cap" worn by the guards at the Ministry of Euphemisms and Rude Connotations.
I'd love that on a shirt
The "Powered by Hamster Wheels" Complaint Thread
You wrote about this as if you're feeling guilty. Stop that, it does you no good. Just fine-tune your email spam filter and move on with your life.
I did that just to see for myself. She wasn't irritated, but she sure did school me!
You've been out of business for awhile. I can have 60 emails before my first cup of coffee.
To me, this thing "Giving Tuesday" is a non-issue. I don't think about it and I ignore, decline, and reject any and all calls made by any charity asking for money. I have my donations to give and that's it. I refuse to let "Giving Tuesday" be anything more than any other Tuesday, and I refuse to feel guilty when telling somebody "no".
I believe that at least 75% of the mail, email, phone, and texting beggars I get are part of a scam anyway. Just this week I got two more calls from "the warranty department" (no company name given), warning me that the callers have been trying to get ahold of me and this is my last warning that my car's warranty is about to expire. If these people were telling the truth, then they would know that my car is over 15 years old. And if they were a legitimate business, they would not be offering to warranty any car of that age. But I'll tell you this: They wouldn't hesitate to take my money, and they wouldn't feel guilty in the least when they rejected my claim for service. So why should I feel guilty?
My advice? Stop feeling guilty, all of you!
If you want to feel guilty about something, then feel guilty that you don't floss your teeth enough. Or learn to play the blues and sing songs about how guilty you wish you could feel. If you can't live with yourself guilt-free and you are desperate to find something to feel guilty about, then call your mom and ask her to hit you hard with a fastball guilt trip. Personally, I like the teeth-flossing option, myself. 
Well, I don't bite for the "Giving Tuesday" thing but this year I did actually make a small donation to Wikipedia to slightly assuage my guilt for umpteen times a day for the last many years, using the incredible service it provides, and never giving anything back. But mostly I Scrooge through this season not answering unrecognized phone calls, tossing begging mail, and avoiding store bell ringers. And of course Google and YouTube can take care of themselves without me needing a subscription.
I was interrupted while making this post. Police Benefit Association called again and for some reason, despite me knowing it was an unrecognized call that I was going to hang up on, I answered and after about 3 "Hello"s, and just before I was going to terminate, the live person finally got on the phone and opened with "Boy, you're harder to get ahold of than the last pickle at the bottom of the jar." (Really?
) And although I groked the simile it didn't make me smile. So, after he said who he was with, I gave a quick "Sorry. Not interested. Bye! [click]" I'm not proud of my phone etiquette, just tired of beggers too lazy to come to me in person to get the door slammed in their face.
I have that one!
Dana
I wore platform shoes for a while. Damned dangerous! Almost twisted my ankle good a few times. I don't miss those.
Dana
Boy, I don't know if the telescammers are get dumber or lazier... probably lazier because people seem to be getting dumber, but I got this voicemail on my cellphone...
"...Chris mess drop down your bills Press one or press two to hang up to listen to this message again press three..."
Now try reading that in an evil 1980s cyborg voice and remember the gaps are long pauses.
"press two to hang up"?... that's a new one... also not sure who Chris Mess is... sounds like some weather forecaster... "Now here's your local tornado forecast with meteorologist Chris Mess..."
I keep getting a robot CRA agent leaving me important messages @.@
c-c-c-c-c-oold
Google and YouTube certainly CAN take care of themselves. YouTube is part of Google anyhow.
And Wikipedia isn't a charitable donation. It's more of a volunteer support model, which I'm usually happy to participate in. But lately, I've become concerned that Wikipedia is not unbiased. The worst thing for all of us is for Wikipedia to succumb to bias, so I will be withholding my donation this year to see if they are willing to reverse course.
This is common. They all use call routing software for efficiency in their call centers. The computer calls you, and when it thinks a live person has answered, then the computer rings an available sales agent at their desk. It usually takes about 3 "hellos" to allow the machine to complete the transfer and bring a salesman on the call.
That's actually a very funny colloquialism!
Smart man. The so-called Police Benevolent Association, at least in my area, is not at all associated with any law enforcement agency, nor any benevolence, either. In this part of the US, it's likely a phone scammer. If you don't believe me, just plug this into a Google search box.
police benevolent association scam
If the search above doesn't cure you of your phone ettiquette shame, then you should just give me all of your money right now. I promise I'll put it to the best use possible, magically removing all of your shame along with all of your money.
I have two of those and two heavier-duty ones. They are great when I'm having a bad knee or bad back day. I can pick up my dirty socks and undies without pain! The worst is when I drop a piece of paper or a plastic card on the floor, ow, ow, ow!
It might have been "press 2 to be added to our do not call list". In the US, various state legislatures are going after some of the worst telescammers. They may eventually be held accountable for finanical penalties if they don't leave alone a person who has put them on notice that they are to stop calling that person. So I've begun hearing exactly that, a prompt to press a button to be added to their Do Not Call list.
hum bug spent the last 7 hours trying to make particles look like snow. didnt want to sleep without a render rendering.
...as long as the penguins didn't explode. which was a situation when they were too close in the vicinity of a television set. Particularly one tuned to BBC Four.
Actually the whole call is typical of a foreign perpetrator... the use of diction or text to speech software with bad translation like "Chis Mess" and "drop down bills" etc is usually a clue the caller is not familiar with English and most likely not located where the U.S. legal system can touch them...
In the past and still on occasion, scammers have used a ploy where they have tricked individuals into paying a one time small fee by saying "yes"... for example, by asking "hello, is this John Smith?" To which the victim will answer "Yes, what do you want"... the yes is all they wanted because they used that as proof of acceptance... this was used primarily for "slamming" where the victim's phone service (or even gas or electric service in some areas) would be switched... Variants of this scam resurface every now and then... although now, usually the perpetrators have to possess some other information on the victim for it to work, but with all the data being stolen it's not hard and most people won't notice a $15 charge. Usually the charge is billed like a call to a psychic hotline, porn calls or some scam "help center"...
Responding in any way to a robo call is not advisable... one because it could be a variant of the above scam where you are approving a charge, or more than likely "tagging" the call as a "live" number, adding it to a list shared by other scammers. There are actually "services" that scammers use, who's sole purpose is to "tag" live numbers where individuals actually respond... When you get a call where the robo voice spiel is something like " ...have been informed to this is special for your new convenience now can have special new back brace as recommended by your bone doctor for low now price... do now for happy price press one... press two for no... press thee to receive no more calls..." it's a safe bet the person isn't familiar with English and doesn't do their homework on their translation bit, probably isn't anywhere where they are prosecutable and seem fairly interested in you pressing at least one button on the phone...
The best bet is don't pick up the phone for strange numbers and never respond by pressing keys, regardless of the promise of being removed from a list, because 90% of those calls add you to a sucker list. One Eastern European scam master who was nabbed a while back claimed that they deliberately made their messages lame so they could weed out smarter people... reasoning if they would respond to a promise to be removed from a caller list on a poorly worded obviously fake call, they probably were worth calling back with a live scammer so they could be phished.
The above information also applies to texts... though more obvious, responding to texts like "are we still on for dinner and drinks tonight?" or "Stop texting me or I'm calling the police!" can lead to similar problems.
Non complaint for a 33F day
hot cinnamon mon mons yoms noms jammin linus and lucy at the BnN
can we still nott add pics from phone?
Disclaimer: The following is less of a response to the above post, than a general statement inspired by the topic and may be long and boring.
I never give to charities that call... 90% of the time you are speaking to an agent for a Fundraiser service, and depending on the fundraiser they can charge a fee to the charity that can be anywhere from 10% to 60%... Our dear state's office of the attorney general (last updated in 2013) used to have a list of fundraisers operating in the state and on that list was information on how much of the donation they kept for themselves... the average was 30% and the max was 60%... I can't find that list anymore and maybe it was finally done away with due to age or restructuring... the AG's office still has information guidelines on charities, but it's not as detailed or good as it used to be... mostly it comes across as one of those websites for clueless people, and the previous administration's was way better.
One can always go to sites like Charity Navigator to find a charity that distributes their funds in a reasonable manner... Comically, I was about to recommend a different site that used to be very good, but when I went to check that they are still around, I discovered they now have a paywall to access detailed information on the charities... you have to donate or $ubscribe to find out anything other than a score... Now that's rich, donate to find out who to donate to... Yeah, thanks...
One good reason to check out charities is to find out how well they distribute funds... Over the past couple of years a new trend in scammery has emerged where to get around the minimum donation levels to be considered a legitimate charity, a bunch of scammers will start a fundraising company and then separately, start fake charities (usually three or four at at a time), the fake charities then "hire" the scam fundraiser to collect money for them... whatever money is left from "fundraising" and "overhead costs" they donate to whatever the cause is... of course that's usually exactly the amount needed to still be considered a legitimate charity and qualify for 501(c) tax status. A scam charity operating out of Florida in a similar fashion a couple of years ago was hauling in several million dollars a year until they got greedy and dropped the ball and an investigative reporter spot lighted them... they closed shop and paid a small fine (in regards to the total collected) and moved to a different state... which is another M.O. of scammers, since the usual penalty is to be banned in the state they operate in... no biggie with millions in profits you can move every few years.
After confirmating the legitimacy of a charity, I prefer to donate direct to them... no money for the fundraisers... why give them money when you can give it ALL to the charity itself directly? I know it's necessary for some to use fundraisers, and many have a reasonable percentage they pay, but if I'm aware they exist, why bother with a jerk on the phone... which is what most of the callers tend to be... a while ago I got a call from a charity I donated to (as identified by my caller ID) about a week after I donated... thinking it was them and either a "thank you" or something else, I decided to pick up ready to be obnoxious if they were asking for more money... which of course they were... but the caller failed my first question after giving his speech... is this the actual charity or a fundraiser? He waffled and after I informed him he was legally obligated to answer that question (they are), he said yes... I then asked him what company he was from... (the charity used two, the most recent took 40%)... after beating around the bush, he told me and I informed him of the amount of their cut and asked why should I donate 40% of the amount to his bosses when he's getting a minimum wage cut... I actually informed him of the company's CEO's salary (I was looking all of it up as we talked) which he was definitely not aware of (I don't remember what the amount was but I was a bit surprised and he sounded very surprised)... after a bit I actually felt sorry for him because the pay thing took the wind out of his sails and he sounded genuinely bummed out, so I told him he would probably make a decent salesman for someone else, but he was wasting his time there and bid him farewell... I know that was a bit extreme, but I feel fundraisers that have ridiculously overpaid CEOs or take high fees are taking advantage of the concept of charity...
One other thing while I'm on my soapbox... (it's actually a small plastic stool from IKEA)... Another scam that's come around recently is faux donation bins... these are scam charities or in some instances bins set up to look like charities but are actually "recycling" bins that collect clothes or goods to be sold in poor countries, usually as bulk weight fees... sometimes they sold to be worn, mostly to be recycled for various uses... none of really benefits any poor people. Some scam charities sell the goods through their "thrift stores" (usually no-name ones in poor neighborhoods)... these places usually keep all the profits because somewhere hidden in all their hype is the disclaimer they are a "recycler" not a charity... this varies from state to state and depending on the laws, some are quite bold in their game.
Like this guy's bin...
I photographed that at the back of a Home Depot parking lot... Home Depot didn't even notice it was there and had it removed a few days later. In many cases the scammers don't even bother to get permission from the property owners before they dump their boxes there... though this bin is an extreme example, others can be very deceptive and look legitimate. But often the names are a giveaway because they lamely try to sound legit but gloam off an established name... "Kids Fund For Children With Childhood Diseases", "Cancer Fund For Cancer Patients With Cancer", "Goodwill Army Of Salvation" or something else dumb sounding... (Disclaimer: I just made those names up, any similarities to an actual dumbly named fake charity is purely coincidental and comically appropriate.)
Recycling is great, but if your intentions are to provide for the needy, please double check to be sure your donations are going to them not some greasy scam artist intercepting goods meant for the needy.
Thats all I guess... Sorry for the pontification, but I hate scammers and really hate scammers who rip off the needy.
Over and out y'all.
So many charities out there are bad. With donating a small percentage of what they take in to the cause they are supposed to be about. Nowadays, when I donate, it's to something local, like food bank or homeless shelter.
The heaters in my garage stopped working. Not a big deal, they're not actually needed, just helpful if you're trying to do a project in winter. The thermostat had always been a bit flaky, it never really seemed to get up to the correct temperature before the heaters shut off. I took the thermostat off the wall to see if it was going bad, and found the insulation on several wires bubbled and melted, and a wirenut melted completely off and a ground wire apparently with a notch in it near some obvious heat damage. I don't remember if the circuit breaker had tripped and I reset it weeks ago or not, but I don't remember it being tripped because that was the first thing I checked when they stopped working. So I guess good news, my house didn't burn down... but now I don't know if I can trust any of the wiring on that circuit or either of the heaters or the breaker. May need to have it all redone from scratch including running new wiring just for safety since I don't know the cause or where hidden damage may be, even if one or both of the heaters or wiring in the wall are actually still good. Or I could just call it an unheated garage now, although I'd still want to disconnect the wiring at least.
Thanks for the long talk about scam "charities". I loathe them!
Dana
sriesch, glad your house didn't burn down! Scary stuff, that.
Dana
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Wow, that one is even worse than the free candy one that got me when I was a wee lad.
Why is it cold around these parts of the woods when it is near Christmas? Why can Christmas not be during warm weather?
Immigrate to Australia
Naaa... noo, noo, no... I fell for the van with the "Free Candy" sign too many times... probably ain't happening again.
It probably was... some scholars believe Jesus was probably born in September... but I'm not getting into any of that.
Wish I could go to Australia. Right now talking to my boyfriend about my dream of going to Australia. He is afraid of flying.
...yeah as a senior I have been pretty wise to scams as my generation is frequently targeted. I don't bother with making any donations online in part because I don't care to spread my card number all over the Net considering how prevalent prevalent hacking and identity theft is today.
What I usually do is filter emails with keywords like "donate", "contribute", "gift" etc. and isolate those ones. If it is one that is obviously just a beg for money, I mark as "read". If it is also an informational newsletter or one that requests a signature on a petition or sending an email comment to a specific government office/official, I keep that one live and then go through those individually (I've become pretty good at reading the intent just by looking the title and the opening line which is displayed in the inbox). To have gone through all 617 of those emails I received last Tuesday one by one, I would have been up until the early hours of the next morning.
I killed my credit cards and only use a prepay I load up when I need to buy something after a hack/theft issue
[sport]
Well Wisconsin put on a pretty good show against Ohio State...in the first half...then seemed to have packed it in after halftime. They were up 21 - 7 at the end of the second quarter (scoring their third touchdown of the game in the last 45 seconds of the half), and then didn't put another point on the board afterwards while Ohio State put up 27 points on the scoreboard in the second half to win 34 - 21. It was as if a different team came out of the Wisconsin locker room for the third quarter. Miscues, bonehead penalties, a missed field goal, a fumble, and a dropped snap on a punt, gave Ohio State the advantage.
However, being the "runner up" in the Big Ten, and having soundly throttled MInnesota last week (who beat Penn State earlier in the season) they received the bid to the Rose Bowl to meet Oregon on January 1st. An excellent match up, and a chance to avenge a Rose Bowl loss to the Ducks in 2012 in a game that went down to the wire.
[/sport]