199: Kicking and Screaming

[Nick Postagulous]

Originally Posted by william

BTW, when are you gonna bring back the todder pants? That's my favorite avatar.

Ya know, people say that. It'll come back around.

Re: Hey, my info on foster parenting was read
Keith did leave off the last sentence, which was "But adopting is cool." And, by the sound of it, that is what Chemda is looking for, not foster care. Adoption is a tricky business. There are two countries you cannot trust at all as far as adoption go, the United States and Russia (and all the little russian bits that surround it). In the states, yes, like Chemda said, people can get their kid back. In CA, as long as 90 days after the adoption. I've had friends who adopted a biracial little boy and he was taken back by his birth mother after three days.

Those of you who are parents know, three days caring for a baby is a long time. It broke their heart, but they stuck with it and adopted another biracial boy.

We went with China. Since it's illegal to have a kid without govt permission, and you're only allowed one, and it's illegal to abandon a child (male sons = social security, female daughters = take care of their inlaws and you starve when you're old), there is no dealing with the birth mother. this is a plus and a minus. The Chinese govt is, oddly, about 1000 times more efficient than ours.

Where people get into trouble adopting is being lil racists and wanting whitey. The russians will screw you over as fast as possible. The states will go for the slow burn, and then you'll never have the kid. Russians lie about the kid, give you a picture of a healthy kid from years ago, and then you get over there and they're all bordering on death and have been kept in baskets on shelves their whole life. AKA, attachment disorders.

Best thing to do, and if we adopt again we will, just get a biracial kid. Black people always take care of their own kids who are full blooded. Usually an aunt or grandmother takes care of them. White people either get paid to have a kid (which if another country did that it would be called slavery, aka what Cambodia did) or screw their kids up and they end up in foster care.

Also, not ranting about adoption, is there another online place, like yahoo games or something, where I can practice Texas Holdem? I don't want to just throw my money away. (In fact, I'm not playing until we get another freeroll.)

There was another thing. I don't remember what it was, but I said out loud "That's not what that means" at some point during the show.

[Nick Postagulous]

Ruh roh.

There weren't no mouse burned down no house.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/5973746/detail.html

FORT SUMNER, N.M. -- A small -town rumor that sparked world -wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been found to be untrue.

After 81-year-old Chano Mares's house burned down Saturday in Fort Sumner, news services picked up the quirky story.

"Flaming Mouse Burns Down House" read the headline over an Associated Press story that appeared on WSBTV.com, for example.

According to the initial report, Mares threw the critter in a pile of burning leaves near his home, but it ran back to the house on fire.

A local firefighter said the mouse ran to just beneath a window and the flames spread up the window and throughout the house.

All contents of the home were destroyed, but no one was injured.

Interest in fires has been high lately. Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.

The mouse story, however, has been doused by Mares.

"It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," he told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves.

Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire.

The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds.

Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire.

Mares lost everything -- and has no insurance -- but the mouse story still makes him smile.

"I started laughing, and I'll be laughing from now on," he said. "It's silly."

(what a moron)

[perclissigi]

Originally Posted by scottperezfox

Doesn't Spooky sound a bit like Cleveland from "Family Guy"? What a great character. (on both accounts).

Totally! I so get that.

Next time he's on he has to say "Oh, that's nasty"

[Brew]

Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

Mice and Robots

[Jeffa]

Keith,

Your right about these billion dollar companys knowing exactly what they are doing, but its not so much the company as a whole but the highly paid directors and executives, who come up with ingenious ideas to scam money, lower the quality of products and customer service and cutting jobs.

By doing this the company is making larger profits therefore the share price goes up, making shareholders happy and the the execs look good. Meanwhile the company is gaining a bad reputation and is being run into the ground.

Smart directors and executives dont stay with one company for too long, they wait until they raise the share price, which looks good on their resume and by the time the company starts to feel the effects, they've long gone taking with them large somes of money in payouts and they can walk straight in to another company to do the same thing.

The company, shareholders and customers all lose out, whilst the directors are making huge amounts of money!

[william]

Originally Posted by Jeffa

Your right about these billion dollar companys knowing exactly what they are doing, but its not so much the company as whole but the highly paid directors and executives, who come up with ingenious ideas to scam money, lower the quality of products and customer service and cutting jobs.

Believe me, you're giving them a lot more credit than they deserve. Granted in most cases if you don't ask for a price adjustment or rebate, you aren't going to get one, but most of these fuck-ups aren't that well thought out; they just happen to benefit the company and this kills any incentive to systematically correct the issue. Most multi-nationals have such an amazing diversity of product lines that a CEO could never tell you what each product they sell is, how they are priced, what they do, let alone a derive a scam pricing scheme. Its easier if you have just a handful of products. In the AOL-Time Warner case that Chemda spoke of, they dont have any excuse for not giving her money back. What I think may have happened and Chemda can chime in if Im right, is that back when she bough her laptop there may have been one of those free AOL deals, or if she signed up for a cable-modem she may have opted inadvertently to use AOL as her underlying ISP. In either case part of the model is a projection of how many users will sign up and never use the service and who dont get around to turning it off for months. Customers like that are gravy. They pay for the service but dont incur costs. Is it unethical to continue to offer the service even though you know your customer doesnt use it? Not at all. Who knows why a customer wants it. Maybe theyre paying for contingency. Maybe they just havent gotten around to using it. But in the end its no excuse for not giving Chemda good customer service or her money back.

The whole AOL-Time Warner mishmash goes to show you how after a few years they never got around to integrating their back ends (and now it'll never happen). Not surprising. Different business lines offering distinct, though related services.

And yes, theres a lot of crappy stuff that happens, but often its not due to some elaborate scheme. Its more do to poor planning or incompetence. Sometimes the cards are dealt so that they favor a companys bottom line. When they dont, a wise company reshuffles the deck. So long as its not unethical or illegal, a good deal becomes a business advantage. Its like the little guy who can sell carpets at a 500% mark-up. Is that fair to his customers? I wouldnt think so, but hey! He sold his first carpet at an incredible mark-up and is now selling them at what the market will bear. Unless the guy down the street sells the same carpets for a 300% mark-up, he has no incentive to lower his price. Such is capitalism.

Blah!

[Jeffa]

Originally Posted by william

Believe me, you're giving them a lot more credit than they deserve. Granted in most cases if you don't ask for a price adjustment or rebate, you aren't going to get one, but most of these fuck-ups aren't that well thought out; they just happen to benefit the company and this kills any incentive to systematically correct the issue. Most multi-nationals have such an amazing diversity of product lines that a CEO could never tell you what each product they sell is, how they are priced, what they do, let alone a derive a scam pricing scheme. Its easier if you have just a handful of products. In the AOL-Time Warner case that Chemda spoke of, they dont have any excuse for not giving her money back. What I think may have happened and Chemda can chime in if Im right, is that back when she bough her laptop there may have been one of those free AOL deals, or if she signed up for a cable-modem she may have opted inadvertently to use AOL as her underlying ISP. In either case part of the model is a projection of how many users will sign up and never use the service and who dont get around to turning it off for months. Customers like that are gravy. They pay for the service but dont incur costs. Is it unethical to continue to offer the service even though you know your customer doesnt use it? Not at all. Who knows why a customer wants it. Maybe theyre paying for contingency. Maybe they just havent gotten around to using it. But in the end its no excuse for not giving Chemda good customer service or her money back.

The whole AOL-Time Warner mishmash goes to show you how after a few years they never got around to integrating their back ends (and now it'll never happen). Not surprising. Different business lines offering distinct, though related services.

And yes, theres a lot of crappy stuff that happens, but often its not due to some elaborate scheme. Its more do to poor planning or incompetence. Sometimes the cards are dealt so that they favor a companys bottom line. When they dont, a wise company reshuffles the deck. So long as its not unethical or illegal, a good deal becomes a business advantage. Its like the little guy who can sell carpets at a 500% mark-up. Is that fair to his customers? I wouldnt think so, but hey! He sold his first carpet at an incredible mark-up and is now selling them at what the market will bear. Unless the guy down the street sells the same carpets for a 300% mark-up, he has no incentive to lower his price. Such is capitalism.

Blah!

Yes, large companies make such a shitload of money simply through incometence, but the execs still come up with the ideas such as the free AOL CD, which is an invitation to be fucked in the ass, they will say that it is just a promotion, but they know full well that they could be unethically dooping money from thousands of people, and most of them wont even know.

[william]

Originally Posted by Jeffa

Yes, large companies make such a shitload of money simply through incometence, but the execs still come up with the ideas such as the free AOL CD, which is an invitation to be fucked in the ass, they will say that it is just a promotion, but they know full well that they could be unethically dooping money from thousands of people, and most of them wont even know.

Dude - how is that unethical? I offer you a free trial and after X number of days if you wish you can either cancel it or keep the serivce. That's the same model that magazines and a zillion other industries follow. AOL asks for payment information up-front so as to prevent people from signing up for free accounts over and over again and never paying for them. You give them your credit card number and then if after six months you decide to drop the service, you can't go back out and re-sign up on their dime. If you sign up for a service knowing that it's going to cost you after a few months and you don't discontinue it, whose fault is that?

You know what bait scheme annoyed me? The old Record/CD clubs. Get 10 free CDs for a penny and then you only have to buy six more CDs at the regular price. Everyone signs up for this thinking they're going to come out ahead until you find yourself faced with a shitty selection of CDs not even worth $1 and having to pay $17.99 for them just so you can complete your contract.

[Jeffa]

I'm just saying that these types of companies are taking a lot of money off people, that either dont understand, are too lazy or just plain stupid. Everyone should read the small print, but who does?

Even when you do want to ring up to cancel or change some kind of contract, you could be on the phone for hours before you get anywhere, they dont make it easy!

[spooky]

Originally Posted by william

You know what bait scheme annoyed me? The old Record/CD clubs. Get 10 free CDs for a penny and then you only have to buy six more CDs at the regular price. Everyone signs up for this thinking they're going to come out ahead until you find yourself faced with a shitty selection of CDs not even worth $1 and having to pay $17.99 for them just so you can complete your contract.

I, Parakeet Wilson, loved the 10 CDs for a penny, though i never got around to actually buying any at full price. strangely, they sent Parakeet Wilson like 4 CDs a month, too, i just had to return them if i didnt want them, or just pay the bill if i did, sadly, Parakeet Wilson never returned and never paid, either. even sadder, Parakeet Wilson probably now has such a horrible credit rating that Parakeet Wilson will likely never be able to get a good interest rate on a mortgage because of his poor poor credit rating.

on a happy note, Spooky still has good credit!