I’m on a lot of political (and other) spam lists as either Thomas or Lesley Rodgers.
I once got a political call from a local(ish) number. I snapped “You’re a scammer” and hung up. A couple minutes later, I got a TEXT from that same number, basically saying “not a scammer, local candidate”.
From several counties away. I replied to the text saying “you’ve got the wrong number. You clearly bought my number from a source that was outdated at best. Please take me off your list”.
I can only assume that Thomas and/or Lesley may have once had this phone number. I’ve had it for something like 15 years though.
Try Stanfields briefs as a Canadian-source replacement for Jockeys. I got several packs from The Bay a number of years ago, and will get more if these ever wear out.
My work cell phone number was apparently previously held by someone with credit issues, as I get 2-5 automated calls a day for a guy named Stephane from a collections agency (or possible many, not sure; the phone number changes but the message is the same). I block them, but a few end up filling my voicemail anyways.
The iPhone’s message transcripts are hilarious though, since it doesn’t understand that the messages are in French. One set of instructions for what button to press for different responses got transcribed as “yeah children don’t you get big with this big video? You are really children”.
“Julie, nothing don’t show Lucy she’s 12 12 thanks sit sit sit meet sit down call me Sophia did you stick to? She said to sit on you set set set…”
I’m not going to transcribe the French myself, but many of those are meant to be numbers to call back and a reference file number. Sit sit sit = six six six.
The new sewer line from my basement out to the curb was installed yesterday.
'Nuff said.
My Australian Siri does wonders with Portuguese on my iPhone.
When my wife arrives she will text cheguei, meaning “I arrived”
And Siri dutifully narrates “CHEGway”, butchering the real pronunciation.
The funny thing is, if I say to Australian Siri “How do I say ‘I arrived’ in Portuguese” she enlists the help of her Brazilian friend who replies “In Brazilian Portuguese ‘I arrived’ is cheguei”, nailing the pronunciation perfectly.
This isn’t spoken by Siri, just the transcript in the voicemail part of the phone app. I’ve done very little customization of that phone, it’s exclusively for work. I don’t have it talk to me, and I don’t really talk to it lol.
But language recognition is definitely something that software seems to struggle with. English language GPS in Montreal is (or was, I actually turned off the voice) hilarious.
So a bit over a week ago, my dog flew through the house, showing off something he was chewing and intending to swallow before I could catch him. He does this whenever he wants to be chased, which he thinks is a fun game. I would love to give up this game, but it’s too dangerous to ignore. I’ve caught him in the nick of time with shards of glass, strips of plastic and other dangerous items.
This time it was one of my hair scrunchies. I chased, but I couldn’t catch him. I hoped he had dropped it somewhere I was unable to locate after it disappeared from his mouth.
Nope. It came up today during a trip to have his nails trimmed. This is good news, of course, but damn, I wish I could figure out how to keep this idiot dog from trying to eat whatever he can get his jaws around! It will be the death of one or the other of us one of these days. And I don’t fancy his chances over mine.
I’ve had my current mobile number since the summer of 2000…yet over the last few years, I’ve suddenly started getting texts for Lashada. A few of them are organizations I’ve donated to, so I’m wondering if it’s some kind of mix-up, but Lashada also shows up sometimes if I do a Google search for my number.
To add several more words: Dogs are like fun-loving children, always wanting to play, children who never grow old and have no concept of worry about either present or future, and whose eternal optimism brings joy to our own worry-filled lives.
I’ve become a big fan of chicken wings since getting an air fryer recently, but today I learned that President’s Choice™ frozen wings, which all come in similar pretty boxes, are not all intended to be prepared the same way. Having stocked up on my favourites – Buffalo wings – yesterday I picked up a box of Jamaican jerk wings. It came with the usual little packet of what I thought was dipping sauce that I usually throw out because I prefer ranch or blue cheese dressing as a dip.
Imagine my surprise to read the directions and discover that this big and fairly expensive box of wings was intended to be prepared completely differently. The sauce was not a dipping sauce, it was something to be thawed and then the wings were supposed to be tossed in it and then grilled on an outdoor grill, and occasionally brushed with more sauce. Which also implies thawing all the sauce and doing all the wings at once.
I think I have a legitimate rant against said president of “President’s Choice” fame for producing such different products under the same label. But the president is forgiven. Needing a late-night snack, and interested to know if I should just throw the whole thing out, I put a few wings with no further anointment in the air fryer for the usual time, and they turned out great – much like Buffalo wings but with a slightly spicier kick (the ingredients list mentions habanero peppers). So spicy that they definitely needed a bit of ranch dressing and vodka martinis for cooling.
These might even turn out to be an interesting ongoing option to Buffalo wings. And the basting sauce for it may or may not be used as a dipping sauce, or may just go in the garbage with the others. The moral of the story is that one should always feel free to ignore the cooking directions printed on a box.
I admired Dave Nichol as the guy who travelled the world sampling the best foods that the world had to offer, and then recreating the flavours in his company’s own products. His “President’s Choice” sauces were the stuff of legend. He subsequently spun off many other products, “President’s Choice” being the premium store brand about which Nichols once famously said that every PC product was one that he would proudly have in his own home. (The lesser brand in the Loblaws family of stores was “No-Name”, and actually some of those are OK, too.)
The mystique of “President’s Choice” dimmed considerably after Nichol left, mostly in the lack of interesting innovation, but PC-branded products still offer better value and often better quality than competing major brands.
What I particularly notice is “The Decadent” description of chocolate chip cookies. That was (and I believe still is) the PC description of some of their dessert items. Unless there’s some inside story that I don’t know about, sounds to me like Loblaws should sue the hell out of these plagiarizing trademark-infringing fuckers.
No, as I understand things (from Sis and from looking at the products on her kitchen shelf), it was some sort of licensing deal. All on the up-and-up, though buried in the fine print on the cookie bags and cans of AC diet cola. Never got to look at a can of AC Cola; Sis only drank the diet stuff (bleargh, though she did give me a place to stay while I was there, so I shouldn’t complain).