While Americans snort and fall down laughing, this brings up several points:
First, the UK is very silly.
Second, the UK is a staging ground for what's coming.
Third, nothing changes.
Let's face it - we can pretty much replace knife with gun. This makes the panic more interesting and enlightening. You know the criminals are saying, "We can't stab him - we'll be locked out of Faceyspaces!" I'm sure we can agree that threats of punishment are useless, just as they are for most crime. You can get the death penalty for murder - does that stop anybody? I will admit that no one has ever proposed a social media ban for murder (or even shooting). How a social media ban would work is yet another interesting topic. Don't forget, the UK has made it 'illegal' to say Bad Things about people online... the police will visit. This also trips up the American concept of due process - you're punished before you're proven innocent or guilty... somewhat draconian, wouldn't you say?
This brings home that people will find a way to assault others, whether verbally or with implements. Banning any of them won't help - people will just use others. The problem goes deeper, a concept we won't bother discussing at the moment. Eventually people will be assaulting others with phasers, tasers, lasers, masers, ray guns, and invisibility beams. We'll see the same impotent responses too.
- Apparently there was a sale on candy.... three very large party packs of caramel M&Ms just appeared. The first one is almost done, because it's like crack to me. I'd think she wanted to kill me with chocolate, but we don't have enough life insurance to make it worthwhile for her (on purpose).
Dear lefty:
- Is there anything good about Philly?
- Yes, leaving it to get to the surrounding suburbs.
Washington state declared a state of emergency over an outbreak of measles.
Not to be outdone, Alabama declared a state of emergency over expected bad weather.
California is about to declare a state of emergency over a shortage of cosmetic plastic.
Florida (God's waiting room) has been hit hard with a shortage of waitresses for the 3-4pm dinner shift.
A homeless Georgia man is accused of breaking into a funeral home and raping a woman's corpse.
When asked why, he said that raping a man's corpse would be gay.
- for some reason I really want to be here right now. To play and to feel....
It was a new day. A new week. There was sun outside. The temps were above single digits.
The children, recently frozen to the ground, were being collected and taken inside.
The snow lost its battle with temperature, I lost my battle with the printer, and a lot of people continued to hate the president. The marital conversation with the baseball bats had taken a temporary break, and I got invited to perform at an album release party. I accepted before they told me how they wanted me to perform.
The children, recently frozen to the ground, were being collected and taken inside.
The snow lost its battle with temperature, I lost my battle with the printer, and a lot of people continued to hate the president. The marital conversation with the baseball bats had taken a temporary break, and I got invited to perform at an album release party. I accepted before they told me how they wanted me to perform.
- To the families of passengers on Flight 234: When we say we'll have you on the runway in 5 minutes, we're not kidding. We will let you know when we find the rest of the plane.
A 4 year old boy in Washington state found a handgun and shot his 8 months pregnant mother in the face. Fortunately her condition has improved, and the child, much to his disappointment, will not remain an only child.
- A Texas man was killed when his vape pen exploded. RIP.
- Nobody listens to me when I say smoking kills.
Dear lefty:
- Sonny Smellenbad, of Selma, San Francisco, asks why he has so much trouble smelling salts
- Because when you were born, your mother didn't know if you were hers or not.
President Trump gave his 2nd State of the Union speech recently.
Opposition boycotted the speech, saying Trump lied. Asked what he lied about, they said it didn't matter - whatever it is, they're against it.
- I hate to say this, but the 4th season of Monty Python suffered greatly from the absence of John Cleese. Reached for comment, Mr. Cleese said, "The season is dead. It's a stiff. It's bleedin demised."
Hey, it's been at least 5 minutes since my last rant, so here's another. We call this Let's Ship with UPS:
Some work equipment developed an attitude so they sent me replacements. They came with a UPS return label, which was their first mistake. I sealed the box up and went online to schedule a pickup. That was my first mistake. Like most of us, avoiding human contact is a bonus. Got through all the forms online with no grief, then it asked me for payment. It's a prepaid label, complete with tracking number. Naturally there is no way to indicate this, although I certainly tried.
Shit - human contact.
Well, maybe not. The phone sent me to a voice response system, to which I gave all my information again. I had no idea blood type was so important to shipping. Sure enough, it wanted payment too. So far this is two automated systems that wanted money. I need one of these, so whoever calls me has to pay, with no option not to pay before talking to me. I picked out random words to say to the system, including some rather interesting ones, and finally got shipped to an operator. I could understand most words she spoke, which worried me. At the end, she told me that since I scheduled a pickup, there would be a $20.17 charge for a pickup.
No there wouldn't.
Bill it to my employer. They sent me the bloody label. It's their friggin equipment. Believe me, they want it back in the region of NOW. They will pay the charge. They're a rather large organization. In fact, they're a really large organization. Bill them.
Nope. She kept with the script.
I wondered how far her training went and did they cover Master-level sarcasm.
She kept with the script, only worded differently.
She was good.
Even after I explained my company's budget, the fact they sent me the label to return it ($437 next day shipping), and read her home address to her, she asked me how I wanted to pay.
I didn't.
She suggested I could get the receiver to call her and tell her how they were going to pay. They wouldn't schedule the pickup until they heard from the company. You worked some jobs at some places - I know this. You had shipper/receivers. Nobody on the planet ever called your shipper/receivers to ask how they were going to pay for a package's pick up charge. Even if they had, the employees weren't about to give out their personal credit cards. Or blood type.
I shook my head in defeat, as I pulled out my card. That package was going nowhere until *I* paid the charge to have a truck come pick it up. By now those drones were starting to sound attractive, especially versus talking to UPS. The shipping instructions said PREPAID. They didn't say PREPAID except you have to go to a UPS location to drop it off. They also didn't say "you have to take off during work hours to go drop the package off." I was perfectly willing to give them my firstborn, but no....
Next time I have to call UPS, I'll save the trouble and call City Hall instead. Twice the pain in half the time, and no one will pick my package up anyway.
BUT WAIT!!!!
My company was not amused by this and rang UPS immediately. I got a phone number to get a refund immediately. The system gave me 3 choices, one of which it couldn't understand. Repeatedly. Eventually I continued in the system, reaching a Refund Person. Refund person took the details, said, Ohhhh" and had to send me somewhere else. Of course she did - I needed a refund and went to the refund department - how stupid could I be? Off to Billing, where I got to hear the same jaunty two chords for about 10 minutes, while they hoped beyond hope that I got fed up and hung up. The mean time for holding is 8 minutes, per a study on this kind of thing, so they wait at least 10 before answering.
Another nice lady answered and asked for my tracking number: a 34 digit imaginary code, including the day of the week, week of the year, the employee's employee number and nostril size. This number should have transferred with my call, but industry studies say pretending it didn't got people to hang up faster, avoiding any refund and buffing up the bottom line. Oh dear... the tracking number isn't in the system yet.
Not in the system.
No.
You delivered it this morning.
Yes.
You picked it up yesterday.
Yes.
And charged me for the privilege.
Yes. Think of it as an Uber.
It was prepaid.
Well, you don't prepay Uber. It's the original shipper's responsibility to tell us to pick up the package. You get a preprinted label.
I got a prepaid label. It said prepaid.
I see.
No you don't. These people have shipped a few parcels - they know what they're doing.
You will have to wait until it's 'in the system' for a refund.
You didn't have any trouble charging me when it wasn't in the system.
A refund can't be processed until it's billed, which only happens on a full moon in Decemburary, weekly. You can then request a refund. Or do it online, where you can't hear us laughing at you directly.
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