Dopey Dad

Thing is, when your children are adults, they get to see that their "adult" parents aren't as bright as they should be. Viz:

 

I Am *NOT* Selling Any Cars, I Promise

April 23, an item:

Twice today a very excited yet hard to understand woman from Pennsylvania has called to inquire about the PT Cruiser I have for sale.

I don't have one to sell or give away.

I don't know what's worse: Knowing she's dialed the wrong number twice, knowing she'll probably call again, or that she's looking to buy a PT Cruiser.

Whow knows what's going on? I chalked it up to a misdial, or at least a phone number written down incorrectly.

Then yesterday/today:

I got another call yesterday - this time from Oregon - from another difficult-to-understand woman confused why I denied all knowledge of the car I have for sale.

Whether or not she, too, was in search of a PT Cruiser is unknown.

Someone else from Oregon just called. I had Google screen the call.

And called again. I talked with her a bit this time. She told me "Red Line Auto Sales" on Highway 99 gave her my number.

There is such a business, in Vancouver, Washington . . .

Once, I could chalk it up as a fluke and/or mistake. But with this many calls, I have to wonder: Why are they getting my phone number?

A commonality: Those who have called have thick what I'd call Asian accents, and all are women. I think someone is jerking their chain in possibly a racist manner. Or not. Who knows?

But maybe *this* is why they want PT Cruisers, or at least why the first lady wanted one.

But ChatGPT's Got A New Hat!

 I believe this is fundamentally true.

But, as a friend pointed out when I posted this on Facebook:

How the average person will react, reading this:

Raising Steam, and an Impossible Task

So I'm trying to read Terry Pratchett's "Raising Steam."

I really want to like it. I know it came near the end of his life as he struggled with Alzheimers disease. I know how ugly that disease can be; we just lost my mother-in-law to the disease earlier this year.

I am going to finish the book. But it's going to be tough.

It feels as if it were written by a committee. A committee that really wanted to help Pratchett out, but probably shouldn't have.

He left enormous shoes to fill, so I don't envy this committee's job one bit. I mean, I can see a path forward on finishing the book once started, but the committee really needed to re-read "Going Postal" and "Making Money" to get a feel for a Moist von Lipwig novel. I'll keep reading with an open mind, but I have the general feeling that the committee knew the elements of Pratchett's style but just wans't able to use the tools correctly for final assembly. And really, they had an impossible task. Pratchett has a very distinct style that he honed over decades, so there's no reason at all to think someone else, or even a few someone elses, could pick it up and make it work on the first go.

I say this as a writer still struggling to find my own voice. It's tough, but for those who find it and write with the productivity Pratchett did, it becomes natural and innate and in many ways inimitable, particulary by those under pressure who were left to finish things when the master wasn't able to do so.

Countersigned by Pierre Andre! In *Ink*!

Not far from our credit union is another place of business bearing the name of "Apline Castle Lake Insurance." Every time I see it, I wonder how much they had to pay per adjective.

Probably got the same deal these folks on on nouns, touting their "Proton Lottery Raffle Draw."

I mean, I guess people fall for this crap. I imagine if I'd followed through I'd be taken down one of two popular scam primrose paths (if I can also pile on the modifiers):

Path 1: Be prompted to surrender bank information so the lottery raffle draw prize money can be deposited into my account without them touching even a single penny that's there,

OR

Path 2: Be promped to pay a trickle of custom duty funds release fees (I got all of *those* modifiers for free) in the hopes they'll eventually send me my funds, on the pinky promise that once I pay just one more fee, the money will be in my lap, thus:

I'm too cynical, first of all, to believe this is real. Also, I'm not stupid.

Dreng Has No PT Cruiser

Twice today a very excited yet hard to understand woman from Pennsylvania has called to inquire about the PT Cruiser I have for sale.

I don't have one to sell or give away.

I don't know what's worse: Knowing she's dialed the wrong number twice, knowing she'll probably call again, or that she's looking to buy a PT Cruiser.

Wingus and Dingus, Listen Up

I just wanted to see how much this fancy dog food cost ($2.16 a day, they say, which is pretty expensive) but I didn't want to use my real name. Or the real names of our dogs. So these names came to mind.

I anticipate a lot of email from these folks over the next few weeks.

Do our dogs care? Not really. They eat their kibble and enjoy it. They get the occasional cheese tax, and other things. They're not overweight -- one of them is downright skinny -- and they're healthy enough for both being senior dogs.

They're always game when ol' Zapp wants to tell them the plan.

Excited Much?

I have seen a grand total of two of his posts. I shared one of them. Man, are they excited about that.

Today, I Was An Electrician

Today's adventure: Lots of switches. And a few outlets.

Michelle is painting the entry and living room. For the entry at least that meant moving from almond-colored switches and such to white. Which is just as well, as a few of the switches were showing their age.

As you can see in the picture, the boxes were sunk into the wall as well. That meant yet another trip to Home Depot for box extenders, but I figured since I had the boxes apart, doing them right was the best thing.

I did get one shock -- working in a switch box I forgot was fed by two breakers.

And I displayed my typical lack of brain in another box -- also fed by two breakers -- when I got frustrated that one of the switches wasn't working until I noticed I hadn't turned the second breaker back on. And I still had the wiring screwed up, since I jiggered with the wiring before I noticed the breaker thing.

I also put in a new light fixture, replacing one that I noticed was broken when I took it down, so also a good thing. The new one:

Got a few shots of Michelle painting, this time in the stairwell:

Everything I know about sketchy scaffolding I learned from Dad and Albert, and applied it here copiously. Note I am not on the scaffold I built -- but it did work, and we'll reassemble things for the second coat tomorrow.

Not to be outdone, Isaac helped me with my breaker wiring diagram:

For those not paying attention, he got his addition from this:

Got to go about 11:02 for the joke. Then pull the plug.

And about 9:46 for the tractor beam joke.

What, *My* iCloud Account?

I've been getting a TON of emails like this one, warning me my iCloud storage is going to be shut down:

I appreciate that these folks, whoever they are, keep kicking that deadline down the road, because at this point I'm convinced my nonexistent iCloud account will never be shut down, no matter how many emails I ignore.

Aside from the "from" addresses being total gobbledygook (they're not even trying to spoof anymore) there are enough tells here for me to know instantly this is a fake. Aside from the fact I don't have an iCloud account I actually care about.

They must get enough hits to keep trying, though. Could wish I wasn't on full blast for their scams.