Lottery Lunacy

There is a big ad in the paper today about how I can buy lottery tickets on line. I am too lazy to go to the store, so of course this is appealing.

I sign up, it sends a confirmation e-mail and I click on the link to log in. But I can't do this. You have to have Location Services turned on in your cel phone -- to prove you are in BC, I guess.

I am totally clueless about all this, until I phone the lottery help line. Normally if you have to have Location Services turned on, the app or site (this was a mobile site) will tell you to do that in simple language. You have to have Safari's Location Services turned on, since that is the app the phone uses while doing all this. There is nothing to tell you about all this ahead of time.

Having done this, I can log in. I choose the lottery I want and then choose the numbers. I go to "purchase" the lottery ticket that I have created, and I can't do it. You have to have money in your "account" first and you cannot go back to the main screen without destroying everything you have done so far (again, there is nothing to warn you in advance this will happen).

So I do that. Once I get to the place where I can put $5 in my account, I enter the credit card information and try to pay for this princely sum. Can't do that, it says the credit card (which I used previously at the very beginning of all this to "verify" that I was old enough to do all this crap in the first place) is declined. I try this twice. Finally, I phone the credit card company. There is nothing wrong with the card, but the company won't let you use the card for "gambling" and "betting" sites. Another company's credit card has no such problems.

What a fucking hassle!

WOW! Amazing new Facebook polls!

Does anyone find these name-mining Facebook polls where people categorize themselves to be VERY tiresome? You know, stuff like "Which Game of Thrones character are you," "Which adorable breed of pussy cat are you," "Which 1990's heavy metal group are you," etc.?

There are some such polls that people don't know about.

For example:

Which long-standing international conflict are you?

One person who participated commented: "Wow, I am the South Sudanese conflict ... but I was hoping for 'Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia'!"

Then there is "Which Nazi concentration camp commandant are you?"

Someone was seriously disappointed: "Darn, I am only Franz Stangl, commandant of Treblinka!"

And finally, there is "Which famous child molester are you?"

Yes, women can participate in this poll too ... don't forget Mary Kay Letourneau, Pamela Rogers Turner or Lisa Biron!

Would people be more sympathetic to Mike Duffy if he was not fat? Probably not...

[Old news article]

http://news.nationalpost.com/.../

Sen. Mike Duffy charged the Senate for travel and daily expenses during the last federal election when he was campaigning for the Conservatives, new RCMP court documents allege.

===

[From comments on CBC story yesterday]

Duffy complaining about losing a nice cushy government pay cheque is tawdry. The man is retired, did he not plan for his elder years? Oh and please stop using the heart card, it doesn't play, as from his portly appearance one can guess that the man has not taken the time to participate in heart health rehabilitation. That included walking 3 miles at least 5 times a week.

Facebook essentials

If you took these away from Facebook, what would there be left?

• pictures of cats and dogs
• pictures of food
• comments about things people agree with
• comments about things people want to promote
• quotations that people think are clever

Oxymoronic headline of the day

Squamish boater turns up missing.

DUH!

I got this e-mail today entitled "How To Feel A Little Bit Less Stupid." It is a joke file, containing stupid things people have said, accompanied by graphics and pictures. The entire body of the message (which in total was 336538 bytes long) was repeated twice. Suggestion on "how to feel a little bit less stupid" -- edit joke e-mails before you forward them!

Samsung Customer Support = STUPID!

I can't believe how stupid Samsung is (well, I should know this, I have a Samsung smart [sic] phone).

I wanted to contact them about a problem with my SCX-4600 printer. I went to their WWW site where I had registered my printer and had set up an account. Because I couldn't remember my password for this account, I sent myself an e-mail via this WWW site which I duly received a few seconds later. This e-mail has a link in it to reset your password. So I click on this, which goes to another WWW page. Which says "this link is broken." WTF! Talk about stupid.

So I phoned their customer service number in the e-mail to complain about this. The guy there (who was very polite and spoke perfect English) was totally useless, saying that he had no control over passwords (I pointed out I didn't want him to get involved with my password in the security sense, I was telling him that the MECHANISM to deal with passwords was BROKEN ... but he didn't get that either).

Then he asked what I wanted to contact them about.

So I told him. I got this pop-up window from Samsung when I started up my computer today, saying that there was new firmware available for my printer. So I clicked on a button in the pop-up, and the firmware is downloaded. But the instructions tell me that I have to turn on my printer to install it. Well -- DUH -- the bloody printer is ALWAYS ON (unless there is some mysterious meaning to the word "ON" which I am not getting). So I proceeded with this installation and it DOES NOT WORK. Sheesh!

The guy then told me that there was NO FIRMWARE UPDATE FOR THIS PRINTER, despite the fact that I told him the firmare upgrade number from the initial screen of the pop-up. So I suggested to him that maybe whatever mechanism that is causing this pop-up for a nonexistent firmware upgrade should be dealt with. He didn't seem to get this either.

What is the point of a "support" line if they can't "support" the customers?