Current loathe: CoViD.
In the end, the loathe is that women in the game industry, and the world in general, still have to deal with things like what is described in this IGN article. It ain't right.
Heh. Business as usual. Having been an attending for 10 years, I can only say that things are getting worse. Not better. It’s like there’s a backlash in response to what little ground had been gained.
Yesterday I received an updated credit card from Capital One. On the paper that came with the new card, it said “Thank you for being a valuable customer!” Like I’m a financial asset.
I think I prefer to be seen as a “valued” customer.
I make it a practice of "cancelling" my card once a year so they will waive my annual fees.
I guess this is minor in the scheme of things but we’ve been trying to have a new appliance delivered and today was the 3rd time they’ve called us an hour into the delivery window saying they’d need to reschedule for a different day due to staffing issues. The delivery windows are always something like 7am-11am, but we both work late and are night owls, normally not even going to bed until around 4am, so 7 is just a ridiculous time for us and repeatedly having to rearrange our schedules for these missed deliveries f*cks up our ability to be functional for the rest of the day.
Speaking of appliances and delivery, be warned if you ever order an appliance for delivery from Home Depot or Lowe's (and probably some other places), make sure you are able to install and test the appliance immediately. Those places have only a 48 hour window for return - past that, you have to deal with the manufacturer instead.
Best Buy gives you 15 days. Costco gives you 90 days.
Something to keep in mind if you're ordering an appliance but having install done by someone else (or yourself) on a different day.
Long covid or something. It's like I'm sick again but at 50 percent strength from the first time. Sucks. Plus side car is back and fixed. So almost back to normal.
Get on that horse tranquilizer cure! All the best antivaxers use it.
Horse tranquilizers would probably have been a lot more fun than the anti-parasitic horse medicine the anti-vaxxers were taking. That caused many of them to shit out some of their intestinal lining.
A sick cat and car issues make for a very expensive month of August. Good thing I decided not to travel this weekend.
This morning my 81 year old Dad had a call from ‘Microsoft support’. He’s usually really good at that sort of thing, but for whatever reason this morning he fell for it. 2 hours later my Mum is on the phone to me in tears because he wouldn’t drop the call.
Thankfully by the time she held her phone to his ear and I got through to him they were a bunch of scammers, not too much damage had been done. I got my folks to immediately call their bank fraud line and they got it all sorted. It was just a few hundred pounds in the end (my parents don’t keep a lot of money in their current accounts) and the bank refunded it all. Tomorrow they go in to the bank to get new bank cards and everything else they need to put a little extra protection in place. They’ve had the shock of their lives, both my brother and I are worried to death and my Dad is completely mortified. I’ve not heard my Dad cry since his Sister died 27 years ago. Got that in full at lunchtime today on he realised what had happened.
His Computer is now locked in his shed and my Mum is keeping the key on pain of death. He’s never touching it again until I’ve got my hands on it and nuke it from orbit with extreme prejudice.
f*ck the people that do this. Evil shits the lot of them. Scum of the earth.
That sucks, Sorb. Glad there's no permanent damage.
I know many of the romance scammers are victims of human trafficking themselves, and definitely have my sympathy. I suspect the tech support scammers, being more savvy, are probably not. I wish there was a way for developed nations to do something more concrete about this.
This morning my 81 year old Dad had a call from ‘Microsoft support’.
Same happened to my 75 year old dad this morning. Luckily the call dropped, probably when they realized he was unable to do what they were asking (my dad is 90% blind, it makes guiding him on a computer very complicated). Still, I helped him disconnect his computer from the internet entirely. The problem is: I have no idea what they did/tried to do, and going back online is, IMHO, way too risky. Ideally I would reinstall everything from scratch, but since going to my dad's place is a 7-hour drive...
We were supposed to replace his computer next month. I will order the new one this weekend (and have it delivered to his place), but there's no way he can do the setup himself.
At least he called me as soon as he realized he messed up, so hopefully there was no damage, but who knows...
I can’t think of any of their names right now but there are some good Youtubers who focus on scamming or otherwise disrupting the scammers. Could make for some cathartic viewing perhaps.
Similar thing happened to my elderly aunt I'm very close to but had a funnier ending at least. She got a called by someone pretending to be her grandson saying there were in prison and needed money. It almost worked except that the person used the word grandma instead of babi. Which my aunt promptly followed by swears and insults at them then hanging up.
F*k scammers.
Sorbicol wrote:This morning my 81 year old Dad had a call from ‘Microsoft support’.
Same happened to my 75 year old dad this morning. Luckily the call dropped, probably when they realized he was unable to do what they were asking
I’d give his bank’s fraud line a call and let them know in case there are some weird transfers going on. They cancelled all my Dad’s cards and also reset his online account details so that all has to be set up again.
In the UK we have something called Action Fraud which is run by UK Police - I made them call them too and report it. They’ve been wonderful with my folks, reassured them they done all the right things and given them some simple advice tips for the future.
By and large it could have been a lot worse. My brother will be there tomorrow to sort out my Dad’s mobile provider. They don’t seem to understand that we want his number changed so he (hopefully) doesn’t get barraged with calls moving forward, but that’s relatively minor.
My folks have had an almighty shock, but coming out of it well.
bobbywatson wrote:Sorbicol wrote:This morning my 81 year old Dad had a call from ‘Microsoft support’.
Same happened to my 75 year old dad this morning. Luckily the call dropped, probably when they realized he was unable to do what they were asking
I’d give his bank’s fraud line a call and let them know in case there are some weird transfers going on.
He already did that, thankfully.
I can’t think of any of their names right now but there are some good Youtubers who focus on scamming or otherwise disrupting the scammers. Could make for some cathartic viewing perhaps.
Kitboga, Scammer Payback (Pierogi) are the two I know.
Similar thing happened to my elderly aunt I'm very close to but had a funnier ending at least. She got a called by someone pretending to be her grandson saying there were in prison and needed money. It almost worked except that the person used the word grandma instead of babi. Which my aunt promptly followed by swears and insults at them then hanging up.
F*k scammers.
That was the one they tried on my grandmother years ago. Had my name and said they were me. Thankfully she knew enough to hang up and call my dad but she was really confused.
steinkrug wrote:I can’t think of any of their names right now but there are some good Youtubers who focus on scamming or otherwise disrupting the scammers. Could make for some cathartic viewing perhaps.
Kitboga, Scammer Payback (Pierogi) are the two I know.
I looked in my history. I did watch some Scammer Payback but looks like I watched a bunch of Jim Browning.
f*ck the people that do this. Evil sh*ts the lot of them. Scum of the earth.
I am a patient and passive man who would get so bent out of shape if I incidentally hurt someone in the slightest. The day of my mom's memorial, my wife and I would are petrified of spiders, grabbed a cup and threw one out into my dad's garden because I just couldn't harm or cause any more pain that day. (normal day = smashed and flushed immediately)
These guys? OMG I don't think you could get me off of them. Think Hulk + Wolverine. The image of me kneeling in their pasted remains gives me the chills. Deep in my heart, I want to believe that guy doesn't exist. That the blood boiling would cease and reason would reach my fists before they moved. The image exists though...
Re: anti scammers, both Kitboga and Pierogi have had me in stitches numerous times. There is something very cathartic hearing scammers get increasingly frustrated. And the glitter bomb videos are priceless.
Watch the Beekeeper for some good cathartic fun.
I’ve had 4 calls from my folks in the last 2 days about things their phones or my Mum’s laptop is doing.
All perfectly normal / fine actions, but that’s the level it’s got to them.
I obviously don’t mind and want them to call me, but it’s going to be a couple of weeks of this.
That's a good level to be at. Keep introducing new things, like password vaults and phishing and such. They are in a place to pay attention.
That's a good level to be at. Keep introducing new things, like password vaults and phishing and such. They are in a place to pay attention.
Yeah, Password vault will be the next thing I take them through. Not sure to use googles version or something like Bitwarden. It needs to be as simple as possible for them to use.
Sorbicol wrote:This morning my 81 year old Dad had a call from ‘Microsoft support’.
Same happened to my 75 year old dad this morning. Luckily the call dropped, probably when they realized he was unable to do what they were asking (my dad is 90% blind, it makes guiding him on a computer very complicated). Still, I helped him disconnect his computer from the internet entirely. The problem is: I have no idea what they did/tried to do, and going back online is, IMHO, way too risky. Ideally I would reinstall everything from scratch, but since going to my dad's place is a 7-hour drive...
We were supposed to replace his computer next month. I will order the new one this weekend (and have it delivered to his place), but there's no way he can do the setup himself.
At least he called me as soon as he realized he messed up, so hopefully there was no damage, but who knows...
Follow-up: My dad's computer was due for an upgrade, so I will go buy a new one this morning, do some setup here, install Windows updates, and then drive tomorrow (for 7 hours 
) to give it to him and finish the setup, and then come back on Tuesday. (Good thing I'm not working at the moment, otherwise he would have had to wait until Saturday.)
My brother and I called him yesterday and he was already on the internet doing God knows what, after I specifically told him 24 hours prior NOT to get on the internet (I had him turn off the wi-fi). I talked to him again this morning, and he complained about being bored, so hopefully he got the message (though I would not bet money on that).
"You'll be bored AND broke if you're not careful, Dad. Be patient, it's only a day to wait. Just like you told us when we were kids." 
"You'll be bored AND broke if you're not careful, Dad. Be patient, it's only a day to wait. Just like you told us when we were kids." :-)
I had the phone call I was expecting this morning "Are you sure I can't turn my computer on?"
"NO! AND I'M TELLING MUM!"
It's like dealing with mini-sorb again back when they were 5 years old.
Latest update.
My Dad is currently in hospital having a battery of tests done as he has had a suspected, if mild heart attack. He seems to be fine, just waiting on some blood test results to see if they can get a clearer picture of what’s happened.
The Docs have been great but they’ve said that the stress of it all might well be a contributor factor.
Oh man. That's rough, Sorbicol, but I'm glad he's okay. I know these events can be stressful, from personal experience with a relative. I'm happy it was not worse.
You can look at a mild heart attack as kind of a gift. You don't always get that.
I don't know how many dozens of times I have made pancakes in my life, but I am still unable to flip the fkrz without getting batter all over the spatula and the edges of the skillet.
Oh well. At least I don't burn them any more.
Pages