I got assigned cake duty for my friend's birthday party today. She likes the color yellow and lemon flavors. I made a citrus sunshine cake and decorated it with flowers from my garden. I totally went off on my own program on the cake recipe. Trust Sally when she says not to scale it up for a bigger cake. Anyway, the icing hides all sins and I hope the flowers last til we get to where we are going in the car. This cake is gonna be delicious.
Yesterday was my 50th birthday. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, I started off the day with a sense of melancholy that went away as the day progressed and I was with my friends and family. I asked my wife to not throw a big party for me. Partly because I don't like being the center of attention like that. But also a couple of my closest friends didn't come to my 40th and I suspect they wouldn't have been here yesterday either. But mostly because of the attention thing. After I got home from the lodge, I noticed a lot of food on the counter. Turns out my parents, brothers and their wives came for a small party. I enjoyed it a lot, and they spoiled me. Although being able to have them all here was enough of a present, they kinda spoiled me with gifts as well. This one being the "holy shit" gift: The shelf my Dad made when I started collecting was packed full, so my wife, seeing this design online, asked if he could make this for me. So he did, and apparently it took months to finish. My brother did the laser engraving of Luke and Vader, and helped with the "unfinished Death Star" look. My mother painted the lightsabers. Every one signed it yesterday before we hung it on the wall. It's 36" in diameter and kinda heavy. You wood workers may appreciate this: Dad said he was pretty proud of the perfect circle with the router. But then my brother told him he had to cut into it! He built a French cleat on the back for the best support on a plaster and lathe wall. I don't want to put all my figures on it and cover up the design. I was absolutely amazed when I opened it.
Every now and then, for my business address, legitimate emails get sent to my Spam, so I check my spam folder and quickly deleted the obvious ones. Occasionally, the email address looks like something legit. I've had the same work email address for 20 years and do have old clients pass on contact to other folks, or former State employees or something. So, I clicked on one today to see what it was, and this is how the the email opens: I have questions. Who is this working on? What is the goal? Do they send out emails to 50 million addresses? What percentage of those do they get what they consider a success with a response? 1%? Who believes they could get an inheritance of some kind from a Chinese bank? Are they hoping to get $20 from all the emails? Or $2000? Do they just need one person to sucker for it to be a success? I swear, I live in a different reality. And, some of these people are walking around the same grocery store I'm in?
Have you seen Qanon or watched people claiming vaccines made them magnetic? There are a lot of complete fucking morons out there.
Old people with diminished capacity. It’s fucking criminal that US authorities do jack shit about it. I’m kinda hoping Biden gets taken by the “your son is in jail scam” to draw some national attention to it.
That is incredibly cool! You obviously have a family that cares a lot for you. Congrats on hitting half a century!
Every so often you see a news article about people who got scammed and how they want to warn others about it. Well no shit, you fucking idiot, everyone else already knew not to do this. You’re not educating people, you’re just publicly informing everyone that you’re a moron.
We fire people that fall for a number of phishing emails within a certain period of time to filtered out the knuckledraggers.
@walt that is a ridiculously awesome gift. The reality is that the cost here is just so low to send the emails. Old people with diminished capacity are the primary target, and since the cost is so low to engage in it, all they need is one old guy who isn't thinking clearly and had Chinese relatives or something. What are you proposing the US authorities do about email spam?
Allow me to introduce you to my father in law. He believe that everyone in the world has conspired to make his life miserable, and that eventually every successful person will meet their doom and he will be rewarded in order to balance things out. This 100% would work on him.
My parents, no young chicks themselves, have adopted their elderly neighbor. She has no living relatives and never had children. She is starting to develop dementia. Even before this point, she was just so trusting and forthcoming with private details and scammers have gotten her over the phone a few times. My mom has had to shut down CCs, talk to the bank about her checks being forged, holds power of attorney for her, helps her with the Dr appointments, trips to the grocery store and senior center, and got all her end of life things set up for her. They are involved with her almost every day. How many people, just like their neighbor, exist but have no one trustworthy to help them? Shit, I have a great aunt in my family that my parents and aunts helped with all the end of life financial planning etc, but her shitbag druggie granddaughter still got her talons into my great aunt and basically stole all her money. The elderly are so vulnerable.
Have seal team six raid the phone banks in India and shoot everyone in the head? My guess is like how they miraculously cleaned up San Francisco when ji came, after decades of claiming the homeless situation was too multi faceted to fix, if someone in power actually had the will they could apply pressure on these countries to prosecute these criminals.
Me and the kid, and the goat and the dogs, got back from a long boat ride. My mind said it wanted to drink beer, my taste buds and stomach did not. I struggled through the first two IPAs, they just did not go down good or fast. This third one, though, my stomach and taste buds have gotten with the program, or admitted defeat, whichever.
there is a certain politician who pays his legal fees by praying off/scamming the elderly and vulnerable so there is certainly a good segment of society who are susceptible to it. If it works it works.