As you may remember from Foto Friday #1, #2, and #3, the concept here is pretty simple: we post a pic and leave the bitching up to you. Here’s today’s pic, don’t forget to comment and submit your Foto Friday pics to FotoFriday@listentomebitch.com for consideration. 

Yes, I know stupid is spelled with a U and not two Os, but email scammers don’t and the post title was addressed to them. With that out of the way, I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I have an AOL account. It’s my tether back to the 1990′s when I (along with everyone else) actually used AOL. Don’t worry though, i just keep the (now free) email address alive, but don’t actually use it or AOL for anything.

For years AOL sent out emails ad nauseam saying that any official correspondence from them will have a blue envelope icon in your inbox. The purpose was so that anyone who doesn’t have their head in the game when it comes to email scams would be able to easily spot fraudulent emails.  This never made any sense to me because in my experience, they’ve always been easy to spot, even for me a dumb kid of two Latin American immigrants. Nonetheless, there must be people who either don’t watch enough TV or spend too much time smoking something illegal that still can’t spot the scams.

Here’s an edited copy of the email I received with my comments in orange, hopefully it will provide people with a droplet of common sense.

I was originally worried about scammers using my tips to improve their email scams, but lets be honest, they won’t understand anyways. Let it be a guide of common sense things to look for (in an email that should seem like a scam to anyone with half a brain) before sending them your credit card or banking info.

Ciao,
Juan Luis

Has anyone else had enough of all the stupid Digital Television stuff being advertised? From the federal government advertising the switch from analog to digital, to the infomercial style 3rd party commercials and news media portraying the DTV switch as being the upcoming apocalypse. For those of you who aren’t from the states, or are unfamiliar with this issue, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that all  stations begin broadcasting using a digital frequency (instead of analogue) effective this coming February.

Most of the propaganda makes it seem like on a certain day in February in 2009, your TV will cease to function. Well I have news for you, in most cases it doesn’t mean anything. That’s right, it’s all a bunch of wasted energy, unless of course you actually watch broadcast television – no cable, no satellite.

I for one don’t know a single person who falls into that category. I’m sure that if I did, they would  have already heard enough about it and taken the proper precautions illustrated in the hilarious video below:

The most ironic thing, is that I have seen a plethora of infomercials, advertisements, and other marketing implements warning poor innocent Americans about the upcoming switch to digital on cable only stations, which means one of two things: either the guys buying ad space in marketing should be fired, or the company is trying to exploit people who don’t understand technology…

Jason

Chances are good that if you’re receiving calls from bill collectors then you likely don’t have the money to pay them in the first place. The economy is bad and many people are falling on hard times.

I would venture to guess that anyone having money issues doesn’t want to be reminded of them by frequent calls (or emails) by obnoxious bill collectors. It’s like adding insult to injury, rubbing salt in the wound, or any other appropriate saying…the point is that it’s unnecessary and if you don’t have the money in the first place, it’s a lost cause.

My theory with respect to telemarketers has always been that anyone can hang up on them so why not try to get them to hang up on me. I figured if they were going to try to waste my time and generally speaking interrupt my dinner, I might as well return the favor by wasting their time while simultaneously amusing myself.

On that note, David Thorne of 27bslash6.com has a brilliant method for dealing with these potentially uncomfortable, and certainly annoying situations:

Credit to David Thorne of 27bslash6.com

You know what really grinds my gears? Heated seats. Here are my top 3 reasons why:

1.) Women Love Them - most guys I know think they’re “okay” or “nice when it’s subzero outside to keep you at a temperature capable of sustaining life until your car heats up enough to take over the job”. Women, however, seem to think they’re “the best thing since sliced bread” and they “wouldn’t own a car without them”.

Why does this aggravate me? Simple, it’s just one more reason women differ from men. Why does that matter? Because the more women differ from men, the less I understand them and consequently the more I want to kill myself every time I try to.

2.) They remind me of heated steering wheels, an option that should be available on every car in the world but isn’t (even though heated seats are available on most)

Think about it, you’re wearing underwear – hell maybe even long underwear in addition to your pants, but chances are you’re not wearing any gloves now are you? Ever tried driving with 0.5″ thick ski gloves on? If you live in a climate cold enough to justify having heated anything then chances are the answer is yes. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that when you tried it, you likely either A) hit something in the snow or B) came close enough to hitting something that you vowed never to do it again (yet still try it out once or twice every winter).

First BMW got it, introducing it as an option on select cars as part of the cold weather package in the ’90s, now even Cadillac and VW are on board, offering heated steering wheels as an option in some models. ATTENTION CAR COMPANIES: the “people’s car” can now be purchased with a heated steering wheel, why can’t yours? As for BMW, Cadillac, and VW, why not roll it out across your whole product line? I mean for the love of god you ALREADY HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

3.) Chances are good that “heated seats” leave your back cold while at the same time make you feel like your ass is going to melt

Why is it that car manufacturers cannot under any circumstances achieve the appropriate ratio between back and butt heating? In the winter time (you know when these things actually get used) people generally wear thick jackets and more layers up top, so heat up the top more than the bottom to compensate. In most cars the back and bottom seat heaters are operated as one. The only exception I can think of is the Cadillac DeVille DTS which features a “back only” button but we’ll get to that later.

Most cars offer no provision to operate the back independently from the bottom, but that doesn’t matter because even if you have a “back only” button you’re still miserable. With only the back heated, your ass gets cold, with both heated on the same setting (as in most cars) your butt boils and your back freezes. It’s lose/lose. I propose separate switches for the back and bottom of the seat.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of switches, for the love of got please make the low mode actually function as such. There are plenty of us guys out there who may like to have children someday, and boiling their balls can’t possibly be doing them any favors. Do whatever you want with the high setting, but keep the low setting at about 70-75 degrees fahrenheit, you know room temperature. The goal is to warm us up to normal temperature, not cook us. Believe me, we understand that women are always cold and that they love heated seats…but that’s what the higher setting is for, right?

J. L’Monaco

I moved into a new house about 6 months ago and began shopping for TV providers. I called 4 providers (cable and sattelite) and ended up choosing one of the cable companies.

Part of the quotation process is providing them with your home phone number so that they can determine exactly where you are geographically and thus provide you with the right information. They do not, however, always ask for your name.

So here it is 6 months later and I’ve recieved 3 of the letters pictured below. Look who it’s addressed to: not only is it impersonal, but what are the odds that I’d still be in the market?

Return to Sender, Dfdfd Dfdfd Doesn't Live Here

No I don’t really think this is the cause of economic downturn..but I did think it was funny that I keep getting these letters which are obviously nothing more than wasted money on their end so I figured I would share as a contrast to all of the Obama/McCain/Election BS on every other site I’ve visited today.

Get out there and vote, if you can, if you want to,

J.L.

I have about 500 friends on Facebook, I would say of that number 150 are good friends/family of mine, another 250 are acquaintances — not quite friends, but certainly friendly. The remaining 50 are likely to be girls or other people whose friendship I accepted in order to see their profiles and/or pictures.

For some reason, people I know barely or sometimes not at all insist on adding me as their friend on facebook. Lets be clear, I’m not talking about the guy you met through a mutual friend at a group dinner last week who you spent a good hour talking to about cars/watches/sports/whatever and are friendly and, on the fast track to becoming friends. Nor am I talking about the girl you met while out at the bar yesterday night that you spent 2 hours talking to/hitting on/making out with.

I’m talking about a month ago when you went to your friend’s birthday party with a female friend of yours and were introduced to a girl who you didn’t want to talk to. You answered her repeated questions with one word responses, all the time trying to pull away from her; you weren’t interested, hell you were even there with another girl! Yet magically when you finally did pull away, “What’s your last name so I can add you on Facebook?” she asked. You’ve had more than enough by now, and throw her a fake, but memorable last name. Yet amazingly after conveying nothing but disinterest and providing half a fake name when you friend tags her birthday pictures on Facebook 2 weeks later, she finds you and insists on adding you as a friend.

I’m also talking about the guy who happens to be a member of an internet forum you frequent. He finds your profile through someone else on the forum who you actually are friends with and assumes that since he knows who you are and you may even know him by his username, that you know his first and last name and consider him to be a friend of yours.

Even better than that guy, is the guy who doesn’t know you at all, but adds you because you have a common friend, and they insist on having 17,345 “friends“ on Facebook. You deny him, and what does he do? Adds you again 3weeks later, then another 3 weeks later, then 2 months later because clearly you must have made a mistake….twice. By the way, a thank you to Facebook for finally adding a “block” option; (as can be seen in the picture below) it is much appreciated and has not gone unnoticed.

This is how the friend request screen should look...no offense Nicholas

To those of you who have been using Facebook since it’s inception, or at least for a long time remember that once upon a time ago when someone requested your friendship you were given two options: Accept and Deny (which functioned as ignore). Recently, Facebook changed this to the more politically correct sounding ignore. I propose a change to the Facebook friend approval options: Accept, Ignore, and Deny, only this time deny should not only deny the request, but also feature a blank for you to inform the sender of the denial (like every other denial in society: credit applications, health insurance, etc). I would also like the opportunity to cite a specific reason such as: I don’t know who you are, you’re an annoyance, it says friends…which we’re not, yea I know we slept together but it just wasn’t good enough to repeat, etc.

Your Friend,
Jason

Since I get to bitch and you don’t, you’ll either agree with my bitching and join my various causes against stupidity everywhere, or you’ll hate my rants so much that you will get the general public to stop being complete morons so I don’t have anything more to bitch about. Pick your poison, I really don’t care so long as you Listen To Me Bitch.

Now with that out of the way…

One thing that has been prominently pissing me off lately is the general disrespect for English words in their entirety. To my dismay, some people find it necessary to bring abbreviations and/or internet slang into normal, face to face conversation wherever possible. Just this week I have heard sentences such as:

• Totes yo that was a seds pross, nevs again.

(Translated: That was totally a serious process that I would never like to experience again.)

• Don’t hate cause I like hella abbrevs, lolz 

(Translated: Don’t make fun of me because I like to sound like a complete moron for no good reason, (and then proceed to pronounce “lolz”))

Are you so incredibly lazy that you can’t even speak complete words and sentences? If so, I hereby take away your right to bitch about Latin American immigrants coming in and not speaking English. I know enough Spanish to realize Read the rest of this entry »