So...
First off, happy April Fool's Day. If you've been pranked today, all I have to say is, "What the hell!?" Come on people! It's April 1st. It comes around every year. You shouldn't be surprised. Anything someone tries to tell you, sell you, or do to you today should be taken with skepticism and disbelief. Every "I'm pregnant", $100,000 scratch ticket, and "I'm having a heart attack" should be ignored. Make your woman cry (you're bound to sometime today anyway). Disregard the money (you were broke when you woke). Let your father-in-law die (he secretly hates you and you know it). At least you won't look like a fool on a day intended to make everyone look like a fool. Instead, spend your time trying to think of new ways to screw with people today. Because today, you get a free pass as long as you invoke the "It's April Fool's Day!"
Which leads me to my own thoughts about screwing with people. I would bet that where ever you are, at least if you're in the United States, you have a store that has its own loyalty card. For those of you who don't, loyalty cards are designed to keep you shopping at that particular store or chain of stores. They offer sales, double coupons, points for crap you don't need or want. Whatever they can think of. The grocery store chain in my neck of the woods has its own gas stations. For every $100 you spend on groceries, you get ten cents off each gallon of gas on your next fill up with your loyalty card. You can rack up your points and earn up to a buck off each gallon on one fill up. If you don't happen to have your card with you at the pump, you can punch in your phone number and it will give you the discount based on your points.
A colleague of mine mentioned that she was buying gas and knew that she did not have enough points to get the ten cent discount, so she entered her parents' phone number and scored a thirty cent per gallon discount off of their points. She said that they don't use that brand of gas so their points are usually wasted. Made sense to me and it got me thinking. I would bet that almost anyone in town would have a loyalty card...
Which brings me back to screwing with people. I wonder how many random phone numbers I could pull from the phone book would yield some cool discounts for me at the pump? Now with that said, I could really only do it today and invoke the "April Fool's Day" rule. If I continued it throughout the year, it would become my own ethically challenged curiosity experiment. Besides, I only have two cars and I just filled both of them up. To make this into a cool April Fool's prank, I would need to enlist thousands of people to try this today and report back on their results. Seeing as this blog only has one follower at this moment, it doesn't look as if this will be the year.
Maybe next year...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Is eBay Broken?
So...
There is a big concert coming to town and as any good parent would do, I tried to purchase two $70 tickets so my daughter could go. As we all know, these concerts sell out in 15 minutes so I was left without any tickets. I spent the next week scanning the radio dial listening for contests to win some tickets. I found a radio station that played a three second montage of three song clips by the artist. You had to be the 15th caller and correctly identify all three songs. I figured that I had no chance in hell of being the 15th caller much less identifying all three songs.
Luckily for me, the radio station had teamed up with a local news station and if you watched the late night news, they would give you the answer to all three song titles that would be played for the next morning's contest. So, like any good parent, I stayed up and watched the news, wrote down the song titles, and set my alarm so I would not miss the contest. So I woke up the next morning and battled it out with 500,000 other people all trying to be the 15th caller. And wouldn't ya know it? I got through. So I'm on the phone with the DJ, I give him all three song titles, he tells me I've won, I do my happy parent dance and life is good. Woo hoo! That was in December. Fast forward to last night.
My home phone rings and check the caller ID. I don't recognize the number. I got an unlisted number 'cause there are just too many crazies in the world. So I'm thinking it's got be a friend of my daughter's. The guy on the other end asks if it's me and I say yes. He tells me his name and I can't quite make it out. Obviously, this guy knows who I am and I'm supposed to know who he is. Now I don't want to be a jerk or an ass and tell this guy that I can't remember who he is so I play along like a Hardy boy piecing together clues in a lame attempt not to hurt this guy's feelings. The first thing he asks is if I'm going to the concert. I say my daughter is and he goes on to tell me how he heard me on the radio three months ago winning the tickets. As he continues, he mentions his wife's name and some other info that sets off a light bulb in my head and I now know who I'm talking to.
The guy on the other end used to be a good friend but through starting families, moving and life we lost touch. I haven't seen or heard from this guy in literally five years. Now he calls me up out of the blue asking if I'm going to a concert. Then it happens. The reason he called. He wants to know if I would pick up some souvenir crap from the concert for his daughter and meet up with him sometime later so he could get the stuff and pay me back. In all of my excitement of figuring out who the hell was on the other end of the phone without sounding like a jackass, I said sure. Then it occurred to me that I had never given this guy my new unlisted number so I asked how he got it. He tells me he contacted his mother who contacted my mother-in-law who relayed the number to him. The guy went through some trouble to get my number. Obviously he really wants some souvenir crap. We hung up after I told him I'd call him later to set up a time to give him the stuff.
It got me to thinking about the concerts I've been to. I'll buy a t-shirt or whatever just because I'm there. But if I really want some souvenir crap I can always go to that person's website and buy it there. If not there, then on eBay. But not this guy. I've now got to send my family with extra money to buy his crap that they're expected to lug around through a crowed arena just so his daughter can have an 8x10 glossy because he didn't have the fortitude to watch the evening news, memorize the three songs, do the scavenger hunt, call up and sing the artist's songs in falsetto or whatever lame contest the radio stations run to crank up their ratings.
Don't get me wrong, I would have told him I would gotten the stuff anyway. It's for his daughter and this was his good parent act. I commend the man for that. But he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Resourceful, yes but not bright. If he figured out a way to get to me, how many of my other past friends might come out of the woodwork and try the same thing? Especially if they hear that I'm sending my family to this concert with a shopping list for this guy. What kind of friend would I be to deny their children some souvenir crap since I told this other guy I would?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you try to call me over the next couple of days... I'm not going to answer.
There is a big concert coming to town and as any good parent would do, I tried to purchase two $70 tickets so my daughter could go. As we all know, these concerts sell out in 15 minutes so I was left without any tickets. I spent the next week scanning the radio dial listening for contests to win some tickets. I found a radio station that played a three second montage of three song clips by the artist. You had to be the 15th caller and correctly identify all three songs. I figured that I had no chance in hell of being the 15th caller much less identifying all three songs.
Luckily for me, the radio station had teamed up with a local news station and if you watched the late night news, they would give you the answer to all three song titles that would be played for the next morning's contest. So, like any good parent, I stayed up and watched the news, wrote down the song titles, and set my alarm so I would not miss the contest. So I woke up the next morning and battled it out with 500,000 other people all trying to be the 15th caller. And wouldn't ya know it? I got through. So I'm on the phone with the DJ, I give him all three song titles, he tells me I've won, I do my happy parent dance and life is good. Woo hoo! That was in December. Fast forward to last night.
My home phone rings and check the caller ID. I don't recognize the number. I got an unlisted number 'cause there are just too many crazies in the world. So I'm thinking it's got be a friend of my daughter's. The guy on the other end asks if it's me and I say yes. He tells me his name and I can't quite make it out. Obviously, this guy knows who I am and I'm supposed to know who he is. Now I don't want to be a jerk or an ass and tell this guy that I can't remember who he is so I play along like a Hardy boy piecing together clues in a lame attempt not to hurt this guy's feelings. The first thing he asks is if I'm going to the concert. I say my daughter is and he goes on to tell me how he heard me on the radio three months ago winning the tickets. As he continues, he mentions his wife's name and some other info that sets off a light bulb in my head and I now know who I'm talking to.
The guy on the other end used to be a good friend but through starting families, moving and life we lost touch. I haven't seen or heard from this guy in literally five years. Now he calls me up out of the blue asking if I'm going to a concert. Then it happens. The reason he called. He wants to know if I would pick up some souvenir crap from the concert for his daughter and meet up with him sometime later so he could get the stuff and pay me back. In all of my excitement of figuring out who the hell was on the other end of the phone without sounding like a jackass, I said sure. Then it occurred to me that I had never given this guy my new unlisted number so I asked how he got it. He tells me he contacted his mother who contacted my mother-in-law who relayed the number to him. The guy went through some trouble to get my number. Obviously he really wants some souvenir crap. We hung up after I told him I'd call him later to set up a time to give him the stuff.
It got me to thinking about the concerts I've been to. I'll buy a t-shirt or whatever just because I'm there. But if I really want some souvenir crap I can always go to that person's website and buy it there. If not there, then on eBay. But not this guy. I've now got to send my family with extra money to buy his crap that they're expected to lug around through a crowed arena just so his daughter can have an 8x10 glossy because he didn't have the fortitude to watch the evening news, memorize the three songs, do the scavenger hunt, call up and sing the artist's songs in falsetto or whatever lame contest the radio stations run to crank up their ratings.
Don't get me wrong, I would have told him I would gotten the stuff anyway. It's for his daughter and this was his good parent act. I commend the man for that. But he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Resourceful, yes but not bright. If he figured out a way to get to me, how many of my other past friends might come out of the woodwork and try the same thing? Especially if they hear that I'm sending my family to this concert with a shopping list for this guy. What kind of friend would I be to deny their children some souvenir crap since I told this other guy I would?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you try to call me over the next couple of days... I'm not going to answer.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Bloging About Blogs
So...
I was reading my friend's blog the other day, the first and only blog I've ever read, and as I was discussing it with her, she mentioned that I should start my own blog. The first question I asked myself was "Why?" Why would I want to start a blog? The truth is that I don't totally get blogs.
I understand that blogs are like journals or diaries: a place where one can vent their thoughts and feelings in a healthy cathartic manner. Trust me, if blogging is your way to release enough stress and frustration that you stop choking your kid or stop donkey punching your girlfriend, then I'm all for it. But there's a technology piece added to blogging.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm behind in the world of technology. I hardly ever text for example. It takes me forever to type out and send my message. I feel it's a better use of my time to call the person, say what I need to say, get the response and respond back if need be. I hang up, and all is well. The other side of it is that, when I get a message, I have to use my secret decoder ring to decipher what it is they are trying to say. I caused a lot of problems reading my first text and misinterpreting lol for "lots of love." It ended awkwardly. It was probably how the term "bromance" came to be. But I digress.
Journals and diaries are personal and meant for the writer's eyes only. Blogs are intended for the world to read them and even respond to if someone felt led. This adds other layers such as, how may people are following your blog, do they like what you have to say, has your blog been nominated for anything and if so, how many votes do you have? I find it odd that this medium in which some people use to relieve stress could possibly be the source of stress. But that's just me.
The other thing that makes me scratch my head is the information age in which we live. The internet is a great source of information such as the betting line on sports or sexual fetishes from shoe sniffing to barn yard animals. The thing that gets me is that we have decided that all information is important. Take Twitter or Facebook updates for example. I came across a post of an acquaintance the other day that read, "Just dropped off my boyfriend, now I'm picking up my dogs." I wanted to reach through the computer, grab her by the collar and make her explain to me why I should give a flying fuck. It made me want to post an update of my own that read "I just had a bowl movement and am confused because I don't remember eating corn."
So I get the irony. I'm blogging about not understanding blogs. I'm posting my thoughts about too many people posting needless thoughts. It reminds me of the saying, opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and most of them stink. Blogs are our new assholes and they are now out there for all to smell and reply to.
To be continued... maybe.
I was reading my friend's blog the other day, the first and only blog I've ever read, and as I was discussing it with her, she mentioned that I should start my own blog. The first question I asked myself was "Why?" Why would I want to start a blog? The truth is that I don't totally get blogs.
I understand that blogs are like journals or diaries: a place where one can vent their thoughts and feelings in a healthy cathartic manner. Trust me, if blogging is your way to release enough stress and frustration that you stop choking your kid or stop donkey punching your girlfriend, then I'm all for it. But there's a technology piece added to blogging.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm behind in the world of technology. I hardly ever text for example. It takes me forever to type out and send my message. I feel it's a better use of my time to call the person, say what I need to say, get the response and respond back if need be. I hang up, and all is well. The other side of it is that, when I get a message, I have to use my secret decoder ring to decipher what it is they are trying to say. I caused a lot of problems reading my first text and misinterpreting lol for "lots of love." It ended awkwardly. It was probably how the term "bromance" came to be. But I digress.
Journals and diaries are personal and meant for the writer's eyes only. Blogs are intended for the world to read them and even respond to if someone felt led. This adds other layers such as, how may people are following your blog, do they like what you have to say, has your blog been nominated for anything and if so, how many votes do you have? I find it odd that this medium in which some people use to relieve stress could possibly be the source of stress. But that's just me.
The other thing that makes me scratch my head is the information age in which we live. The internet is a great source of information such as the betting line on sports or sexual fetishes from shoe sniffing to barn yard animals. The thing that gets me is that we have decided that all information is important. Take Twitter or Facebook updates for example. I came across a post of an acquaintance the other day that read, "Just dropped off my boyfriend, now I'm picking up my dogs." I wanted to reach through the computer, grab her by the collar and make her explain to me why I should give a flying fuck. It made me want to post an update of my own that read "I just had a bowl movement and am confused because I don't remember eating corn."
So I get the irony. I'm blogging about not understanding blogs. I'm posting my thoughts about too many people posting needless thoughts. It reminds me of the saying, opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and most of them stink. Blogs are our new assholes and they are now out there for all to smell and reply to.
To be continued... maybe.
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