This must be what Hell is like...

Cookie is aghast. 

Simply, aghast. 

Seriously, what the hell was in the water in Bryan, Ohio, that led the makers of Etch-A-Sketch down this path? 

The toy is not the issue.  It's a record player with an attached mic.  A white mic.   One that Mike Douglas would be comfortable holding. 

But the horrible sound quality of the commercial!  The stilted verbiage!.  The off-key singing!  The sugared-up children!

I mean what creative mind came up with "It's a record player with a microphone, but without the record."

Would it have been so hard to write "It's a record player with an attachable microphone," and at the end state "records not included"?

And in what pop tart powdered sugared world DJ need a Mike Douglas-styled microphone? 

Seriously, what the fuck?

Of course, now I must possess one...

They want me so bad. Well, their gonna have to wait, forever.

 

When we moved to Baltimore, we had to get a landline phone.  There were a variety of reasons, but it boiled down to two things.  First, the husband is on call 24/7 for work, so we have to have a guaranteed way for his coworkers to reach him.  The second reason is that we have owned two large houses, and Cookie refuses to become one of the people who carry their cell phones 24/7.   The cell phone only is in use when I leave the house for a period of time, or travel, period.  

As a result, we get all manner of whack-a-doodle robocalls all day long.  You learn to live with that. 

I also get a lot of odd calls from our old area code, which is where the cell phones have their numbers based, based in Central Ohio.  One caller, "Bob" from the "electronic company" that and that he was "coming to turn our power off in your Columbus abode unless you give me your credit card number NOW and pay the $3,000 balance this very minute."  I laughed.  "Thees is not humorous," said "Bob".  I told him I had a thick juicy steak to eat, and that he was free to knock his socks off while trying to cut my "electronic".

We don't get many spammy text messages because we don't give out our cell phone numbers. But this morning, which making coffee,  I got a very odd text message through the cell phone from a dealer who bills themselves as Ford Superstore.  And Son of a Tallahassee Bitch, the dealership is for real.  How about that?

"Mr. COOKIE COOKIE" it begins...
"We have buyers for your used Ford F-150..."

This gave me pause for a number of reasons.   First, they had my full name. Which I found odd.  Secondly, they had my full name with my correct cell phone number. Thirdly, I don't own a F-150. 

So I called said dealership and said: "Why am I getting these from you when I have no business relationship with you?"

The operator said she would connect me to the right person. 

Eventually, Mr. Right Person picked up and said "Mr. Cookie - Yes, we would like you to bring in your truck and give you a premium on your trade-in amount."

So she put me on hold and transferred the call to the person who was up next to be the Right Person. 

This guy explained that this was part of a batch broadcast fax (which I call SPAM) from customer profiles drawn from their service department.  "You brought your Ford F-150 in last fall to have the tires rotated. It had Ohio plates."

"Now that intrigues me," says I.  And then I explain to him why:

1) I do not own a currently own a Ford.

2) I haven't owned a Ford since 1982 when I junked a 1973 Ford LTD that the engine seized up on leaving me stranded at college.

2) I do not now own, lease, rent, or drive a Ford F-150 pick-up, now or ever. (I know who I am, and someone living in a big city has no need for such. Or for a fragile self-esteem reason that many men buy such trucks.) 

3) I have never considered owning such a vehicle.

4) Until today, I had never heard of this Florida town where said dealership is located.   And If I have never heard of it, it isn't possible for me to have been there last fall when we were in Baltimore - ALL FALL WITH NO TRAVEL because of COVID.

5) I would never take any vehicle to a dealership out of warranty and based on their text message said truck was way out of any new car warranty, for a tire rotation.

6) I haven't set foot in Florida since 2011 and have no intention of doing so in the future.

And finally: I haven't lived in Ohio for a decade. 

"So if  I have never been in the corner of the state where you are, or heard of the city where you are, or own the vehicle that I have never owned, leased, or driven, and thus I cannot rotate its tires, how did my name, and phone number get into your dealer's service logs on a vehicle that as far as I am concerned doesn't exist?"

Dead silence. 

Now, he did promise to take me out of their rotation of broadcast (SPAMMY) messages. 

Either this dealership has had a customer that used my name, my cell phone number, and someone else's VIN in their system. You'd think that would get kicked out, don't you? Or the person at the dealership made some fantastical (as in "I call bullshit") story up. 

Then the coup d' grace. I asked what number he had just taken out of the system.  He says "Well, the one you are calling from," and he rattles off my landline in Baltimore.  

"Guess again, son."

Now, I am not saying that this dealership isn't above board and all, but something here ain't right.  And had he just come out and said "Sir, I do not have any idea how this happened," it would be a closed book. 

But this story about me being someplace I was not, doing something that I did not do, and driving something I wouldn't drive, now that gets to me. 

And I will get to the bottom of it.  Because my question is, have other people fallen for this?  Or who in their right mind would want to be me.  (I should add that Life Lock hasn't ever sent me a warning that someone was trying to be me.)

But one thing is for sure, I'll never buy a car from them, new, used, leased, or otherwise made up.

There two kinds of people. Which are you?

 Cookie begs the question, are you someone who looks at the obvious, or do you see the big picture? 

Because you could be missing out on the lie that tells the truth.

And someone could get embarrassed. 

Or Cookie could post the picture on his blog. 

A new computer means new angst...

 

Over the last several years, Cookie has been plagued with computer woes.  And its all my fault. 

Now, before you read further, do not comment by throwing Apple love at my bitterness. I too love Apple machines.  But they don't work well with what I work with. 

ANYWAY...In 2010 I built through Dell an amazing machine - in fact, I overbuilt it.  I did not want to go through the process of having to buy and then a couple years later, jettison a computer because it was struggling to keep up.  And this machine was the answer.  I loved it so much, I named it, Endora because it felt effortless, and like I could do anything.

I built it so well, that except for a bump in RAM, it ran beautifully for eight years - a record for me. Endora never let me down.  Alas, the processor was aging, and I determined it was time to say goodbye. 

So like an idiot, instead of doing my own homework, I listened to the sales reps at MicroCenter and bought a Dell that they had customized. (Normally, I love Microcenter, having never been led astray before this purchase.)  The operating system was on a small SSD, and the former C drive was repositioned as a "D" drive for my documents and pictures.  They claimed that I could load programs to the D drive and they would run just fine. Well, I had problem after problem after problem and the machines just locked up, so they replaced them. There were three replacements in a six-month period.   I was not happy with Microcenter and they were tired of me, but the fourth machine stuck, kind of.

First off, some programs didn't like being on one drive and the operating system on another.  Photoshop kicked up the worst fuss. But the other issue was that for whatever reason, there never seemed to be enough resources or cooling power.   And no amount of upgrades seemed to help.

Idiosyncrasies that we intermittent  - like the mouse freezing up for a second once in a great while, or the computer pausing like it had a momentary lapse in memory happened, but they were the rule, until...

Last year it started behaving wonky and when 32g of ram didn't help, we upped it to 64g.  But the performance was declining. It was like Esmerelda had taken control of the machine.

This past December things became dire, and we entered the AUNT CLARA stage right after Microsoft uploaded one of the pesky Windows11 updates, and I didn't install it.  That was when the mouse pausing went into overdrive, the screen started flickering and flashing, and Photoshop started crashing. 

We decided to replace it with another one built directly with Dell.  Then we would slip out the D drive and install it in the new machine.  Wouldn't that be easy? 

In the middle of February, New Dell arrived, shiny, nice case, and in a pleasant surprise, the 500mg SSD drive was upgraded by the manufacturer to a 1000tb SSD. 

Then I turned it on and there it was, Windows11 Professional.   That first couple of hours wrestling with the new operating system was pretty hellish. I developed one of my sick headaches, and we set the new machine aside. 

I started doing some homework and soon learned that Windows11 is a mother fucking pain in the arse, and I am not alone in my opinion.  So much so that a whole cottage industry exists making apps to make the thing work for you better, rather than you working on it as it demands. 

And don't even get me started on how "flat" (cheap) it looks.

One example is that Cookie does not "chat" through Microsoft, or other platforms.  I do use IOS messenger, but I have no need to "chat" unless you call me on the landline.  But you cannot get rid of the Chat button on the toolbar.  For that matter, the ersatz Apple IOS-looking toolbar takes up a bit of room on the screen, too.

But change is coming.  I have to get the new computer up and running, AND, I understand that Microsoft will be unleashing so many changes to meet with consumer complaints in the fall.  

Mid-March looks like a beast, but I'll make it.  Then after this machine is completely ended of anything usable, I reformat the C drive and take it to be recycled.  It's not that I dislike it, but no one else shall be burdened with it.