If your computer running Chrome suddenly locks up and you get these display screens:
do NOT under any circumstances call the number shown (888-710-4402). You’ll be connected to scammers in India who will tell you all sorts of incomprehensible things about your machine and ask you to let them connect with your computer.
Look at how bad the English is – practically incomprehensible. This is NOT the number for Microsoft Technical Support. These folks are liars, criminals, and all-round Very Bad People. Allow these drones to access your machine and you’re likely to end up with all your files encrypted by ransomware, or have your machine turned into part of a spamming robot network, or have your financial data stolen, or something equally insidious.
Kill Chrome using the Task Manager and re-launch. These exploits are usually encountered when malicious code is run from an ad somewhere on a page you visited, and is usually not the fault of the page itself.
It’s Christmas, and if you haven’t ever seen this you deserve to. We all deserve to. I first heard this read at an office Christmas party; the reader, one of the loveliest people I have known, read this with an absolute deadpan delivery – and they almost had to carry me out on a stretcher.
I have no idea who the original author is, despite exhaustive searching. If anyone knows, please leave a comment and I’ll add the appropriate credit.
Funny, Funny Mother
See Mother, see Mother laugh. Mother is happy.
Mother is happy about Christmas.
Mother has many plans. Mother has many plans for Christmas.
Mother is organized. Mother smiles all the time.
Funny, funny Mother.
See Mother. See Mother smile. Mother is happy.
The shopping is all done. See the children watch TV.
Watch, children, watch.
See the children change their minds.
See them ask Santa for different toys.
Look, look. Mother is not smiling.
Funny, funny Mother.
See Mother. See Mother sew.
Mother will make dresses.
Mother will make robes.
Mother will make shirts.
See Mother put in the zipper wrong.
See Mother sew the dress on the wrong side.
See Mother cut the skirt too short.
See Mother put the material away until January.
Look. Look. See Mother take a tranquilizer.
Funny, funny Mother.
See Mother. See Mother buy raisins and nuts.
See Mother buy candied pineapple and powdered sugar.
See Mother buy flour, and dates, and pecans, and brown sugar,
bananas, and spices, and vanilla.
Look. Look. Mother is mixing everything together.
See the children press out cookies.
See the flour on their elbows.
See the cookies burn.
See the cake fall.
See the children pull the taffy. See Mother pull her hair.
See Mother clean the kitchen with the garden hose.
Funny, funny Mother.
See Mother. See Mother wrap presents.
See Mother look for the end of the Scotch tape roll.
See Mother bite her fingernails.
See Mother go. See Mother go to the store 12 times in one hour.
Go, Mother, go. See Mother run faster. Run, Mother, run.
See Mother trim the tree. See Mother have a party.
See Mother make popcorn. See Mother wash the walls.
See Mother scrub the rug. See Mother tear up the organized plan.
See Mother forget the gift for Uncle Harold.
See Mother get hives. Go, Mother, go. See the far-away look in Mother’s eyes.
Mother is disoriented.
Funny, funny Mother.
It is finally Christmas morning. See the happy family.
See Father smile. Father is happy. Smile, Father, smile.
Father loves fruit cake. Father loves Christmas pudding.
Father loves all his new neckties.
Look. Look. See the happy children. See the children’s toys.
Santa was very good to the children.
The children will remember this Christmas.
See Mother. Mother is slumped in a chair. Mother is crying uncontrollably.
Mother does not look well. Mother has dark ugly circles under
her bloodshot eyes.
Everyone helps Mother to her bed.
See Mother sleep quietly under heavy sedation.
See Mother smile.
Funny, funny Mother.
Companies spend large money developing a logo that speaks to the world. They are an integral part of brand recognition – who in the world doesn’t recognize the Coca Cola logo, even if they don’t speak English or use Roman script?
Who in the world doesn’t see the “golden arches” and immediately know that McDonald’s is close by?
These logos and these brands are worth millions if not billions of dollars, and they are ferociously protected and actively marketed around the world.
Some logos, however, are more than eye-catching; they’re supremely clever, some from equally powerful companies and some from local enterprises.
Amazon, of course, ships everything from A to Z and a lot of stuff in between. The arrow, in addition, looks very much like a smile, suggesting how pleased you’ll be with your order. Just don’t talk to the people who work there – they’re not terribly happy with their job conditions.
Baskin-Robbins prides itself on its 31 flavors (seen above in the logo) but not on their value as health food. Duh. John Robbins, son of founder and owner, left the empire for more wholesome pastures, and encouraged his father to step away from the inevitable when he got him to live a healthier lifestyle after the father had been diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Years before, partner Burt Baskin had died from a heart attack.
Anyone who grew up with black-and-white televisions and saw color for the first time probably saw the NBC “proud as a peacock” logo:
Today’s stylized logo retains the peacock, even if you have to look for a bit to find it:
One of the cleverest logo inclusions is the one FedEx (or their designer) came up with. They want you to know that your package is on the way, and so that little subliminal arrow helps you understand that they move stuff, and quickly.
Never seen that arrow? Here it is:
Spartan golf clubs are represented by a man with a powerful swing – but if you look at the entire picture in a different light, you see a Spartan warrior in profile with his iconic helmet.
This is one of the most delightful recent designs I’ve seen, with a very creative use of positive and negative space – the swan, the mallard, and the ampersand (&) all combined into a very pleasing and evocative image. Artwork was created by John Randall.
Ever look closely at the Toblerone logo? Seen the bear in that mountain? Berne, Switzerland, is notable for its bears, icon of the city.
But wait, there’s more!
Yes, the home city of Toblerone is also found in the name.
Then there’s the Tostitos logo. Look closely and you’ll see two folks sitting at a table with salsa, sharing a tortilla chip.
Le Tour de France logo clearly represents a person on a bicycle, with one wheel yellow, probably evoking the yellow jersey that the winner gets to wear. Unless he’s outed for massive doping, but that’s another story.
The official Toyota explanation of their logo is as follows:
In 1990, Toyota debuted the three overlapping Ellipses logo on American vehicles. The Toyota Ellipses symbolize the unification of the hearts of our customers and the heart of Toyota products. The background space represents Toyota’s technological advancement and the boundless opportunities ahead.
But whether or not they intended it, the image has an additional fillip of intrigue:
One of my earliest PC-type computers was a Vaio – and their logo is a brilliant blending of the analog computers of the past (represented by the sine wave seen on an oscilloscope ( and the digital computers of today, represented by the “1” and “0” of binary bits.
Yoga Australia managed to work the shape of their homeland into the image of a young lady in a yoga pose – Oi oi oi, mates!
Lastly – and there are many others that I haven’t touched on in this post, but these were some of my favorites – is the logo for Hitachi, which I have written about in detail.
Hitachi was once one of the most well-known brands in electronics; for more about this fascinating logo, click through.
Naturally, there is the other end of the scale – logos which are awful for any number of reasons.
This one just hurts to look at because of the clashing colors.
Many of the ones which have been called out can’t be shared here, as I try to keep this blog on a family-friendly plane – but if you’re interested, just do an image search on “the world’s worst logos” and you’ll see what I mean.
Logos, like domain names, can contribute to the success or failure of an enterprise, which is why companies are willing to spend significant amounts having their logos designed. If the stars align, a logo can be a tremendous and memorable success.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing cans of Hominy in the grocery store.
The fact that it looked like alien bloated corn that had been exposed to gamma rays and gotten very sick (oh wait, that’s huitlacoche) didn’t do much for my desire to ever try it.
I became more aware of its presence because I worked at the Daitch Shopwell on 1st Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets in New York, and had to price cans with these stamps and purple ink:
But time heals all things… or at the very least tends to change things, particularly one’s tastes. You can visit my Banquet from Hell, and see why I was awarded the honorary title of “Grand High Culinary Inquisitor” by Howard Tayler, author of Schlock Mercenary.
I am passionately fond of Menudo, a wonderful, hearty Mexican dish which includes both tripe and hominy, and later fell deeply in love with grits, a porridge made with ground hominy and very popular in the south. Again, I had heard of this as a kid and had no desire to try it because it sounded like eating finely crushed gravel. Fool that I was.
Grits is related to the Austrian Grieß, although the latter is made with semolina and makes wonderful dumplings. Nothing is more warming and comforting on a cold morning than a steaming bowl of buttery, peppered grits:
You’ll notice that I use the singular when describing grits, and that’s because it’s not plural. Grits is singular, and grits is wonderful.
For authentic confirmation of this fact, I turn to a lovely oral essay by Kathryn Tucker Windham,¹ an American storyteller, author, photographer, folklorist, and journalist:
I never remember sitting down to breakfast in my childhood home in Thomasville without having grits. And it wasn’t the instant kind, either. My mother, before we went to bed at night, would put the grits on to soak, put the grits in the top of a double boiler, let the grits soak overnight, so it would be ready to cook in the morning. And oh, I guess it tasted… I was just accustomed to good grits.
And I will now stop a minute to carry on my campaign for trying to convince people that grits is a singular noun: you say “the grits is good, the grits is hot.” Just because it ends in an “s” doesn’t make it plural; it’s in the same category with “news” and “measles.” So bear that in mind.
But… on special occasions, sometimes for supper we’d have grits again. Cheese grits, sharp cheddar cheese, grated and stirred up and hot grits. Aah, it was marvelous. And if my brother had gone hunting and had come back with quail or dove we’d have grits with the dove and quail. There’s just no finer eating in the world than that on a cold weather’s day. And the baked sweet potatoes that were always better in the winter time. Just slathered with butter and baked until they were soft, and almost mushy inside. Slit ’em open and put butter that we got down at little Miz Anderson’s, bought butter from her, she had a good cow that had rich milk and wonderful butter.
And the soup that my mother used to make, vegetable soup, I’ve never had any as good as she made, and I don’t know how… I’m sure she didn’t have a recipe, she just used what was available – but sustaining, comfortable winter food and somebody would have a hog-killin’ and we’d get some of that fresh meat, the ribs and he pork chops, and the… oh, it was all so good, and that was … the hogs were killed only in the wintertime on a very cold day, and they were a treat to have, and I always looked forward to them. But it was the grits, that stuck to your ribs and was sustaining, comfort food. And if you want it really comforting, add cheddar cheese, sharp, and stir it up, and eat, and enjoy.
I heard this piece on NPR years ago, and you can still listen to it at WLRH in Huntsville. Add that beautiful, mellow southern accent and you can feel her joy in the memories of her childhood, and the rich goodness of the foods she relished… including grits.
Which is divine.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
¹ Many of Windham’s works, including audiobooks, are available over at Amazon.
The same scam continues to be played out, with people being taken advantage of by a deceptive solicitation implying free listing in a business directory, and then being charged €995 x 3, and harassed by a “global debt collection firm” if they decline to pay – simply because they missed the small print.
Today I received an excellent and welcome comment from reader CZECH_FIRM at one of the articles, and it’s valuable enough that I felt a full post was warranted. I have taken the liberty of cleaning up the translation from Dutch a bit (based on rules of grammar, but not having seen the source text.) This user contacted the Dutch police and received this definitive response:
Dear Sir/Madam:
If you have been defrauded by making a payment, you should report this to the police.
We have been warning people about this company since 2015. I cannot confirm that there have been any past investigations regarding this company. In any event, if you receive any invoices from this company, you can forward them by email to valse-email@fraudehelpdesk.nl.
Please see the warnings about this company below:
DECEPTIVE FORM FROM “WORLD BUSINESS DIRECTORY” March 4, 2015 Businesses receive a form from EU Business Services Ltd. The business gathers company data to be published in World Business Directory. It is implied that the update is free, but whoever responds ends up signing a three-year contract.
Advice: You do not have to do anything. You are not obliged to respond to these types of offers. You can simply throw the document away.
Have you also received a dubious mail? Let us know so that we can warn others.
Warning for World Business List emails
Be on the lookout for an e-mail about enrollment at the World Business List in Zeist. This e-mail is from the address: general.company@globalcompanies.online or info88@globalcompanies.online. and contains a PDF file where “the company” indicates that you can be in a list of companies when you fill out the form. If you return this you will be committing yourself to a three-year contract. It seems free, but costs 995 euros a year.
Kind regards,
Sandy Honders-Egter Medewerkster wijksecretariaat Politie I Midden-Nederland I Utrecht stad I wijkteam Centrum Kroonstraat 25, 3511 RC Utrecht Postbus 8300, 3503 RH Utrecht
T 0900-8844 Work days: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
So it appears that at long last, we have confirmation that the Dutch police are working on shutting down these drones. Reporting any invoices or interactions with these companies to the email address above ( valse-email@fraudehelpdesk.nl )will help them in their efforts.
So, like my wife and me, you love Christmas (or Hallowe’en houses) and you love to set up your Christmas village, and now – it happens more often than you’d like – you’ve pushed one of those never-sufficiently-to-be-accursed clips all the way into the house and you can’t get it out.
You’ve worked at it with tweezers and hemostats, and you’ve got one side out, but that other one is just unreachable. Yarg snarl yarg.
Here’s what I do, and I hope someone finds it useful.
1) The first thing to do is get one side out all the way. With a long tweezers or a hemostat, this is usually pretty easy.
2) With a thin piece of duct tape, pinch the metal clip to the body of the lightbulb.
3) Now you can push the lightbulb all the way back into the house and have enough room to grab the second clip.
4) Out it comes. Take off the duct tape, re-seat the bulb, and you’re good to go.
Despite assurances from the Gummint that the economic crash of 2008 is over, a lot of people are still unemployed or underemployed and are looking for ways to make a living.
Here’s a scam that I followed up with via email, just to see what’s involved. It turns out to be a new twist on the old “bogus check” scam, but this one is very well-crafted and could fool a lot of people who are not suspicious.
This is the letter I received from “Customer Impact” in Bryan, Texas:
Notice all the “Endorsements”… naturally all bogus. Enclosed was this evaluation form for the “Mystery Shopper” jobs:
And lastly, the bogus check. There is no such company, the check is simply printed out on a commercial form, and if you cash it and send any money to the scammers for whatever reason, your money is gone and you could be prosecuted for passing fraudulent documents. It’s happened.
NEVER send money via Western Union or Money Card or other means to someone you do not know. Just don’t.
You’re browsing along on your mobile, and suddenly this screen or one like it pops up. You can’t go back. Sometimes your device begins buzzing. Sometimes there’s an ominous computer-generated voice along with it.
You can usually quit your browser altogether, but you might lose where you were. If you click “OK”, you might get another warning:
Click the “Remove viruses” button and you’re taken to the Play Store where you can download the app that “removes viruses.”
Don’t do this. Just don’t.
If the authors of the application use this technique to terrify you into downloading their app, you can hardly trust software they’ve written.
If this is being done by an affiliate marketer, it could be legitimate, but I wouldn’t bet money on it.
Lastly, as a general rule Android devices don’t attract viruses. Many of these “cleaners” are devised to either put real malware on your device or generate more scare messages which will lead you to a paid cleaning service.
Best to stay away from all of them; here’s an excellent article on the subject from ExtremeTech.
On my mobile device, since FB Purity doesn’t work on handhelds, I have to scroll through a lot of real garbage – often every other post is “sponsored.”
Here’s a sample of things I’ve seen just in the last few days.
Obviously clickbait works, or companies wouldn’t do it – but it’s so annoying to see all these hackneyed “you won’t belive” and “this will shock you” attention-grabbers. The other part, of course, is that most of these articles are relatively valueless anyway, either [bad] opinion pieces or poorly-compiled lists.
It makes browsing Facebook on a mobile a less-than-fulfilling experience. I wish FB Purity were available for my Android, it really cleans things up on the desktop version.
From Mad™ Magazine issue 59, December 1960, comes one of my favorite features. While the illustrations are intended to be humorous, the text is lifted from real commercials that aired during the era.
Commercial breaks were rigorously timed back in those days, so it was difficult to spin the dial during a break and find a program instead of another ad.
Click the images for larger versions; Artist, Bob Clarke. Writer, Gary Belkin.
do NOT under any circumstances call the number shown (888-710-4402). You’ll be connected to scammers in India who will tell you all sorts of incomprehensible things about your machine and ask you to let them connect with your computer.
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Playing in the World Game 