We're taking this thing back, dammit.
Friday, April 1st, 2022
Earlier this week, I mailed out a card to a few dozen friends. But you, dear reader? You deserve a card too.
Why look, it’s a card for you! With a lovely matching stamp, affixed at a jaunty angle!
It’s so festive!
Well, that’s very nice. But wait, what the hell holiday are we celebrating?
There is a definitive answer to that question, and you can find it in the third image. When you come acrostic across it, you’ll know.
Click to reveal the answer.
My fingers are crossed. Toes too.
Wednesday, March 16th, 2022
One of my least favorite things about living in Boston are the winter sunsets, which occur as early as 4:13 PM. That’s simply too damned early for the sun to be setting. Meanwhile, at the far west end of the Eastern time zone, Detroit gets summer sunsets as late as 9:15 PM. That is excessively late! Now, the truth of the matter is that Boston should be in the Atlantic time zone, and Detroit should be in the Central time zone. However, the sway of the east coast is strong, and it’s unlikely anyone’s going to make a switch.
In the past, I’ve proposed various schemes to improve things, from reversing the rotation of the Earth (so Boston would be at the end of the time zone, not the beginning) to cutting the middle of the US out and floating it to the Pacific, then jamming the coasts together (beneficial for oh so many reasons). Alas, science has yet to come through for me on these fronts. So, more realistically, fiddling with timekeeping will have to do for now.
That’s why I’m glad to finally see progress on a bill I’ve been tracking for several years now: the Sunshine Protection Act. This bill would put the United States on permanent Daylight Saving Time, providing more daylight in the evening. Now, obviously we’re not magically creating more daylight, so that would also mean later sunrises. To me, and many others, that seems like a good trade-off. On Sunday, after setting my analog clocks ahead, I took time to contact my representatives to urge them to move this bill forward. Though this timely action felt like a good thing to do, I certainly didn’t expect much to come of it.
You can thus imagine my surprise when yesterday, the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act by unanimous consent. Progress! The bill still needs to pass the House, and be signed into law by President Biden, but it’s delightful to see it moving forward.
Of course, there will be winners and losers if this change occurs. In the depths of winter, the aforementioned Detroit wouldn’t see the sun rise until 9 AM, which would be rough. Still, on balance, it certainly seems like it would be a net win. I’m hopeful that in the future, I’ll be spared the scourge of pitch darkness before it’s even quitting time.
I think I used to have dozens of numbers memorized. Maybe even hundreds?
Tuesday, March 15th, 2022
When a friend’s parents ended service on the home phone number they’d had for decades, an interesting question came up in conversation. How many phone numbers do you have memorized?
My own cell phone
It’s been the same for over two decades.
My mother’s landline
It’s been the same for coming up on four decades.
My mother’s cell phone
This number, previously my father’s, has been in the family for at least a decade. Still, it might be the newest number I’ve managed to commit to memory.
The old, no-longer-functional number for the library where my mother works
This will not come in handy at all.
My middle school girlfriend landline
This will presumably will not reach Kerry 25+ years later, but it ended in -0749, and 7 squared is 49, so that one’s never going to leave my brain.
My current partner’s cell phone
So now you know I’ve had at least two girlfriends. Humblebrag!
Mattress retailer (1-800-MATTRES)
Leave off the last “S” for “Savings”.
Car donation organization (1-877-KARS-4-KIDS)
That is not how you spell “cars”. Why use a misspelled mneomnic? Everything about this is awful.
The former number to get tickets to Yakov Smirnoff’s Branson Missouri show (1-800-WHA-TACO)
The full number was “1-800-WHAT-A-COUNTRY”, but that’s an absurd five extra digits, and it’s fun to say “Whaaaaa Taco”.
It would seem my count is nine. I have nine phone numbers memorized, at least one-third of which are non-functional or out-of-date. Keep up the work, brain.
The value of that ball sure deflated quickly.
Monday, March 14th, 2022
Two things related to NFL quarterback Tom Brady happened yesterday, and together, they add up to hilarity. First, the football from Brady’s final touchdown pass sold at auction for over half a million dollars. The ball was thrown 55 yards to receiver Mike Evans during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ divisional playoff game against the eventual Super Bowl champion L.A. Rams, and wound up with a fan.
Because Brady had not given any indication that he would retire, and at that point, there were only rumors that he was contemplating hanging it up, Evans threw the ball into the stands. The fan who caught the ball consigned the item.
$518,000 is too much money to pay for any football, even the last touchdown pass thrown by a future Hall of Famer. But let’s accept that this price could perhaps be worth it, that some future person will be willing to pay that much or more. Even if that were true when the auction ended, it soon was not.
That’s because just a few hours after the final bid, in a beautifully comedic feat of timing, Tom Brady unretired. It’s now a virtual certainty that the ball this fan purchased will simply be one of hundreds of touchdown balls thrown by Brady, not the last in a long string. As such, it will be worth much, much less than it sold for.
The really stupid part of all of this is that the possibility that Brady would do exactly what he did and come out of retirement, was anything but remote. His stats in 2021 were not “time to retire” numbers, they were “near MVP”. But hey, fools and money.
Update (April 16, 2022): Alas, this auction was voided after Brady un-retired.
It's just so romantical.
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022
Recently, on not a day of Christmas, some scammer gave to me about five bucks in cryptocurrency.1 That $4.41 worth of bitcoin is currently valued at $3.76, down 15% in under two weeks, so I guess I won’t be retiring quite yet. Nevertheless, it’s been fun to check on this free “money”, which lives inside the Bitcoin.com app.
Even more fun is what I espied when I happened to open the app shortly before Valentine’s Day. That’s when I was presented with this ad:
I don’t know about you, but that certainly sounds like a sexy Valentine’s Day to me.
Footnotes:
I do a pretty good job of unsubscribing from nonsense, but it never stops completely.
Tuesday, February 15th, 2022
Long ago, I signed up for JetBlue’s “TrueBlue Dining” program, which doles out a few frequent flier miles when I pay via credit card at certain restaurants. These rewards are sporadic and random, but it’s all free, so why not?
Recently, I got some food from a small pizza joint called Hot Box, which can be found on the web at EatHotBox.com. Risky click!
Anyhow, a few days after enjoying those slices, I received the following in my inbox:
Greetings, Human. We are aware that you ate <PIZZA>. Here are some <PIZZA> restaurants in your state of <MASSACHUSETTS>.
This useless email contained a list of 16 different pizza places, only 1 of which I’d ever even heard of before, and most of which were quite some distance from me. I live in downtown Boston, and I have dozens of pizza shops within a 15 minute radius. I don’t know who this braindead recommendation would help, but it isn’t me.
“savePro™” really cracks me up.
Wednesday, February 9th, 2022
Recently, I encountered a fun little swindle involving cryptocurrency. It started with this piece of spam I spotted in my email quarantine:
Hi Rob Hoffman,
As requested, we have now deposited 19 BTC which amount to ($789,431.38 USD) into your bitcoin portfolio at http://www.bitcount.net/signin
Customer Id: 43789495
Customer Password: TGG3423TG
Now, while I am not Rob Hoffman, I would be glad to be in possession of almost a million dollars’ worth of bitcoins. Sadly, rather than a misdirected email, this was undoubtedly a scam. I decided to poke around, in an effort to determine the nature of the scheme. To begin, I visited bitcount.net (using a virtual environment):
Bitcount.net, as it appeared in early February, 2022
Overall, the site looked legitimate enough.1 Further, when I tried to sign in with completely fake credentials, I was denied access. Using the information received via email, however, I was able to log in. At that point, I was prompted to change my password. My initial thought was that they may be attempting to catch folks who are reusing passwords, but this seems like a lot of work for that. In this case, I entered a never-before-used dummy password
Once in the account, I could indeed see a supposed balance of 19 BTC. Since the time of the email, BTC was up enough to put the value at well over $800,000. Not bad! If only it actually existed.
My next move was to see what I could do with this supposed windfall. The system offered to let me withdraw, so I attempted to take out a single bitcoin. Hey, I’m not greedy. To do this, I set up a brand-new bitcoin wallet, and gave the system that dummy information. It immediately rejected my request, informing me my first withdrawal was limited to 0.0001 BTC, for “security reasons”. Sure, Jan.
I modified my request down to 0.0001 BTC, and that did show success, though the site informed me that it could take up up to 30 minutes to appear. I was more than a little skeptical, but eventually, there it was!
A whole 1/10,000 of a bitcoin
This minute fraction of a bitcoin was now fully in my possession, and as far as I could see, I had traded a dummy password and dummy bitcoin wallet address for about $5. I’d take that deal any day, but what I really wanted was to understand the nature of the ruse here. Thus, I returned to the site, and again attempted to withdraw an entire bitcoin. Hey, I’m still not greedy.
With this request, the curtain fell, and the scam was revealed. The system wouldn’t allow me to take out 1 BTC, as you can see:
This is right on the cusp of making sense, but, nope, utter nonsense.
Instead, I was told that I was being limited by the portfolio’s “savePro™” functionality.2 That “feature” meant the minimum withdrawal amount was 19.007 BTC.
At this point, you can hopefully see where this is going. The system was indicating that if I deposited 0.0071 BTC (worth about $315), it would then allow the full 19.007 BTC to be withdrawn back out. Of course, in actuality it would definitely disappear with that 0.0071 BTC entirely. Cryptocurrency is the Wild West, and there are no sheriffs.
Ultimately, in an effort to rope me in, this scam site gave me about five bucks. Some basic math indicates that if they get more than 1 out of 63 people to fall for this bizarre “minimum withdrawal limit”, they’ll come out ahead. Further, once someone does make a deposit, they’ll have identified themselves as a real mark to be soaked. It’s possible the site would then work to bilk the sucker out of even more, say with some of that deposit being lost to “fees”, necessitating another deposit.
At this point, however, I’m satisfied that I’ve figured out their trickery. It’s a good thing, too, because my continued poking around and experimenting eventually led the site to log me out and stop responding to my credentials. Alas, it seems I’ll never manage to retrieve that other 18.9999 BTC which doesn’t actually exist.
Footnotes:
This “Sign Up” page might make one at least a little suspicious.
As well, if you actually read the text throughout the site, it lacks the ring of authenticity. ↩︎
I’m ever so tickled that “savePro” is a trademark (™), but not a registered (®) one. You wouldn’t want this whole thing to crumble when someone checks the USPTO database for savePro, only to find it missing. ↩︎
It sounds like an awful lot of human interaction.
Thursday, February 3rd, 2022
Long-time readers know of my affinity for Square Block’s “Cash” app, a useful tool for transferring money to and from folks you know. If you don’t already have multiple ways to do that, or even if you do, you can get $5 with this very blatant referral link: https://cash.app/app/SDMRNHB. I use the service frequently, and I find it vastly less awful than the needlessly “social” Venmo.
Recently, the Cash app showed me this screen, which left me flummoxed for at least half a second:
My thought process was something like “OK, so I scan the bill’s serial number, and then…”, before I realized the absurdity. What am I going to do, write “VOID” on the front of it, hold it for 7-10 days until it clears, and then rip it up?
While that would be pretty neat, and also an amusingly on-the-nose way for a startup company to (nearly literally) burn venture capital funding, Square Block is a publicly traded company.1
I just don’t think it would fly, because no amount of volume can make that profitable. Instead, it’s the last line of this little ad that betrays how this will really work. I think I get it, and this whole “store” thing sure makes it seem like I’m going to need to go somewhere. Worse, I’m probably going to have to talk to someone. That sounds awful.
As you might imagine, I quickly tapped “Dismiss” and moved on with my life.
Footnotes:
As of this writing, Block’s stock symbol is still “SQ”. ↩︎
It beats a kick in the pants, but not much else.
Tuesday, January 25th, 2022
For several years now, Target has sent me a birthday “gift”. Specifically, it comes from “Target Circle™”, their loyalty program I apparently signed up for at some point in 2019.1 While writing this post, I checked in to see just how much I’ve used Target Circle™:
Apparently, I used it $0.00 worth.
I don’t shop at Target very often, but I’ve certainly spent a bit of money there in the past three years, That said, I’ve also never done anything to make sure my reward information is linked to those few purchases I did make. Nevertheless! Despite my obvious disinterest (or perhaps because of it), each year Target emails me near my birthday with this offer:
This is superior to only four discounts they might provide.
5% off is better than nothing, but it’s not really very enticing. However, what I do enjoy is the carve-outs listed in the fine print.2 Target excludes nearly 100 products and brands, including alcohol, Apple, Google, Hasbro, LG and Samsung TVs, video game consoles from Facebook, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, and even Weber grills. Basically, if you’re interested in it, you probably won’t get 5% off. But hey, feel free to stock up on, I don’t know, deodorant and toothpaste at a not-so-fabulous discount, unless those fall under “clinic & pharmacy”, which they very well might.3
HALO Baby, Honest Baby, and Hudson Baby
There’s no restriction listed for DEVIL Baby, Liar Baby, or East River Baby.
Galactic Snackin’ Grogu
“Grogu” is apparently the real name for “Baby Yoda”. And I guess he snacks, possibly even galactically.
Plan B
People in need of the morning-after pill are stressed enough. Does Target really need to add to their woes by not providing 5% off on this item?
Elf on the Shelf
I don’t think this little snitch belongs in children’s lives at even 95% off.
Dairy milk
This is interesting, as it indicates they have a better profit margin on the trendy alternative milks like almond, oat, and even pea milk (Yes, that’s a thing).
Polder
I’d never heard of this brand, which apparently makes home products that are “useful, beautiful and better”. I can’t say their name is very appealing.
Thomas Tranes (sic) & Cranes Super Tower
I like to imagine an alternate reality where Thomas is not a British tank engine, but an AC condenser with a Wisconsin accent. Or an Irish one. Or both!
Tylenol PM pain relief
This bizarre item stood out to three different people who skimmed the list. Is Tylenol PM a luxury brand, and if so, when the hell did that happen?
I hope I can remember to check on this next year, to see what’s hot and what’s not.
Footnotes:
Said program has a trademark the company seemingly hasn’t even registered, as indicated by their use of ™ rather than ®. ↩︎
Here’s the full list of excluded items:
Excludes alcohol, Apple products, Barbie (Camper, Dreamhouse, Dreamplane, Malibu House and Townhouse), Beats Fit Pro, Beats Flex, Beats Powerbeats Pro, Beats Studio Buds, Bose, Cards Against Humanity, Casper, clinic & pharmacy, Cricut, dairy milk, DockATot, Dockers, Disney Ultimate Princess Castle, Do-a-Dot, DSLR cameras & lenses, Dyson, Elf on the Shelf, Elvie, Facebook, Oculus and Portal, face masks (Dolan, Sanctuary & Sugar Fix brands), Fisher Price Laugh n Learn, Fisher Price Little People Frozen Elsa’s Enchanted Lights Palace, Fitbit, Galactic Snackin’ Grogu, gift cards, Google, HALO Baby, Hasbro Games (Classic Monopoly, Connect Four, Jenga, Rubik’s Cube, Sorry, Trouble), Hatch Maternity, Hot Wheels (Ultimate Garage, Action Massive Loop Mayhem, Mario Kart Rainbow Road Trackset, Volcano Arena Playset), Honest Baby, HP Inc., Hudson Baby, Imaginext Transforming Bat-Tech Batbot, Infant Optics, Instant Pot, JBL, Lamaze, LEGO, Levi’s Red Label, LG OLED TV, limited-time designer partnerships, Luvable Friends, Masters of the Universe Masterverse Ultimate Battle Cat, Mega Bloks, mobile contracts, Monica and Andy, Nerf Ultra and Hyper, Ninja, Nintendo hardware and Switch games, Polder, Peg Perego, Philips Avent, Plan B, power shave, power dental, prepaid cards, PlayStation consoles and accessories, Quincy Mae, Revival, Samsung TVs, Shark, simplehuman, Sonos, Sony Electronics, Take Action, Target Optical, Tempur-Sealy, Thomas Tranes & Cranes Super Tower, Touched by Nature, Trading Cards, Traeger, Tylenol PM pain relief, Ulta Beauty at Target Brands, Unlocked phones, Vera Bradley handbags, Weber, What Do You Meme?, Xbox consoles and accessories, and Zoe Doll. ↩︎
But not electric toothbrushes, if I understand what “power dental” means.↩︎
Get it together, CVS.
Tuesday, January 18th, 2022
This is a sign I recently saw in CVS, next to the pharmacy counter:
It clearly states that COVID-19 vaccines are available, but only by appointment. OK.
On the counter of the pharmacy itself, I saw this:
Things are getting less strict, with appointments now recommended but not required.
Finally, directly above the pharmacy, I saw this sign:
Now I don’t know what to believe!
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