Unknown Caller Rage

I’m retired and have a lot of time on my hands.

I’m going collect as many phone numbers as I can, legally or not. I will then call these phone numbers every day and evening, often multiple times, using an unlisted phone number. I will change this unlisted number often. If you answer I will try to sell you insurance, or an old TV, or maybe a magazine subscription. I will keep calling, whether you answer or not. If I get voice mail, I will leave you as long a tiring message as I can, every time. After a month or two, my voice mail will offer to stop calling if you wire a monthly fee to an account I provide.

How long would you put up with this? Would you call the police? Would you try to have me fined, or arrested?

You would probably succeed. And deservedly so. So why can’t we citizens, harassed daily by unknown callers, call the police and get THEM arrested?

Adding insult to injury, the Telcos make money providing these miscreants the bandwidth they use, and then have the audacity to offer us a priced, monthly service to stop just some of the calls.

Think about that for a while.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Revisited

The sale of my condo and subsequent move is no longer the plan. The underlying reasons I thought of moving became clearer and I’ve decided to stay in the condo and make some improvements and needed repairs. I like my condo and the town I’m living in, and have made some new friends on my daily exercise walks around the complex.

Another reason for the change is that the stress of dealing with the open questions and planning around that move started ruining my days. So home I stay, with some changes, and all the joyful memories.

Elon Musk Need Not Worry.

Friends and relatives know me as a no-shame lover of small cars. I’ve had quite a few over the past 50 years: 1965 Volkswagen Beetle, 1966 Opel Kadette, 1994 Ford Festiva, and a 2012 Scion iQ (the smallest so far). And I’m still craving a Smart Car and plan to buy a used one as soon as I can.

But unless I get really rich, really fast, I think I’ll pass on the Corbin Sparrow. I would need to be so freakin’ rich to even consider it, as much as it appeals to my adoration of clown cars.

This 3 wheel electric car from Myers Motors NmG sells for $30,000. It’s advertised as being designed specifically for commuting and city driving. Efficiency claims put the driving range between battery charges for the AC electric motor, from 20 to 40 miles, or up to 60 miles due to the update to lithium batteries.

If I had one of these cars where I currently live, I assume the battery life would be cut in half due to the number of hills I go up and down just to get to the grocery store. And where the hell would I put the groceries?

It’s reported that several Sparrows were used in the Austin Powers movies.

But if I do hit the lottery for a high 6 figures or more, I promise to zip by your house with one and beep the horn. If you live in my neighborhood. And I have enough battery life to get home.

Information courtesy of WikiPedia.

Didn’t Wait Long Enough…

I have no complaints with the Mac Mini that I purchased last November. It’s a speedy and dependable machine, and I’m still impressed with the local storage transfer speeds and the number of memory sucking apps I can run simultaneously.

But I didn’t wait long enough. Apple’s recent announcement on March 25 included a spanking new line of iMacs. What a surprise.

Maybe they just wanted to see how many Mac Mini’s they could sell to people like me who were waiting for this news for about the last 2 years. The ones who listened to the Tech bloggers reporting that if Apple didn’t announce new iMacs at their previous new product announcement, the iMac line was probably dead (except for the one that starts at $4,999).

Sour grapes, eh? Admittedly, yeah. But like I said, the beefed up Mini performs very well and I have no complaints. But for the money I spent on it and the 3rd party monitor, I could have purchased a new iMac for the same money or slightly less, and have even better performance and longevity. And a hell of a lot better graphics.

HA! Shut up, ol’ man. Just shut up. And quit your whining. You done ok.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.