Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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HAR HAR HAR

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I’m used to you jackasses signing me up for email lists, but this was well played. At around noon today, I got a call from a company who stated that someone had purchased an “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” device, and that I just needed to give my address and they would come and install it.

Real funny, guys.

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  2. 2.

    Shana

    Oh man, I just scared the crap out of my cat laughing at that. Sorry about your recent fall John, but when you’ve calmed down you must admit it’s pretty funny.

  4. 4.

    Dee Loralei

    I honestly don’t think it was anyone here John. Though for you it might be an appropriate device, Mr. Klutz. We’ve been getting the same calls here for most of a year. I swear it sounds like a real human being on the other end, and not an automated voice activated bot. ” Hi this is John, in shipping, I need to confirm a few things before we can send you the product you signed up for.” Etc. A few times I tried talking back to the guy informing him that no we hadn’t ordered it. Then I realized it must just be a really, really good bot. My mother yells at the guy, knowing he’s not real.

    But yea, as klutzy as you are, and with the pranksters that are on here, I can see why you’d think someone did it to you.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Steve has been busy. Not only ordering cat toys (you can’t return them because they’ve got spit all over them) but also ordering stuff like this.

    Steve RULZ!

  6. 6.

    jl

    @Martin: Sorry to hear it’s a scam. I hoped that some kindly loving commenter had bought him one for the Holidays, and Cole would be safe.

    Edit: though, not sure a standard issue thingee would be enough. Those things only go off after Cole falls down. Might be too late then. Do they have a more advanced version with real time tracking and sudden motion detectors, or something?

  9. 9.

    jl

    How big are those things they put on new cars that warn of an impending impact? Could buy Cole one of those. Have to figure out a way to strap it on.

  14. 14.

    Anniecat45

    Cole, we’re all just afraid that if you do fall, Steve will eat you before you can get up. Not that I ordered it, but one of my cats has started to push the covers off me in the morning if I don’t get up and serve the kibble early enough to suit him, so I figure he’s going to start gnawing on me soon.

  15. 15.

    Dead Ernest

    I guess the Flubber vest & headband I ordered for you haven’t arrived yet.
    They have Flubberized pants as well but I thought, ‘Nope. John won’t wear em.’

  16. 16.

    TooManyJens

    Wanna get really pissed off?

    College: “Men’s Rights” Trolls Spammed Us With 400 Fake Rape Reports

    “Late Monday, the 16th we started seeing a stream of what we would call suspicious reports that were being submitted” to Occidental’s Google-based assault reporting form, said Jim Tranquada, director of communications for the Los Angeles college, which has faced scrutiny in recent months for underreporting sex assaults involving its students.

    That’s about the same time that commenters on Reddit’s r/MensRights subreddit began discussing plans to spam the college’s reporting system with phony accusations.

  18. 18.

    jl

    @Comrade Jake: No, this way over the head of a clapper. I mean, rely on Cole being able to clap after a mishap when he needs help. C’mon! Get oudda here. Gotta automate it.

    And need a false alarm filter so Villago Delenda Est doesn’t go insane inside the Cole Safety Monitoring Module Bunker (CSMMB).

    Some of the engineering mavens here need to get cracking on this.

    Anniecat45: The late Tunch would eat him. From what I’ve read, Steve would rip him to shreds, with joyous abandon, just for fun.

  21. 21.

    Violet

    Maybe what Cole needs is a service dog. The dog would keep him from falling off sidewalks and running into things, plus if it was really trained it could keep him from doing stupid stuff. Like, if Cole starts naked mopping, the dog would take the mop away from him.

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    @Dee Loralei:

    When I was in a particularly bad mood one day, I tried to press “1” or whatever and wait around for an operator to help me just so I could cuss them out. Interestingly, it puts you right to a voicemail box where you can’t leave a message. It really is just voicemail spam.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @TooManyJens:

    I’d be curious to find out if that counts as filing a false police report, which is a misdemeanor. Conservatives seem to have a weird quirk where they think they should be allowed to break the law if they do it to prove the law can be broken — I remember there were some morons who committed election fraud and then were shocked at being charged with the crime because they were just trying to show that it could be done.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne:

    then were shocked at being charged with the crime because they were just trying to show that it could be done.

    Thus demonstrating that John Stuart Mill was really on to something.

  27. 27.

    Litlebritdiftrnt

    @Anniecat45: One of mine starts chewing on my ankles in the morning if I am not opening the can of evaporated milk fast enough. This of course is after the smell of my ciggie smoke wakes them from their slumber in the bedroom and they all line up on the bottom of the bed and GLARE at me because they want their CRAAAAAAACK Bitch! If anything ever happened to me I do not think they would think twice about eating me to survive.

  28. 28.

    Seanly

    @TooManyJens:

    I liked what the Occidental professor had to say:

    The men targeting Occidental’s anonymous report form are mad that women are being listened to, that men’s voices are no longer given so much power that they can effectively drown out the voices of women. They’re mad because they’re not the only ones that matter anymore. I get it. To them, it really does feel unfair. Something really is changing. They ARE being demoted — from a superior to an equal — and it feels wrong to them because they’re so used to being privileged, to being the most specialest girl in the whole world.

  29. 29.

    jl

    @KG: Maybe Rosie and Steve. I can’t believe that Lily would be part of suborning the service dog. But, Roise and Steve would turn it in a second.

    Would be good for blog, more hilarious stories. Hell for Cole, but, hey, what can be done anyway?

  30. 30.

    just one more canuck on a phone

    Love the Steve Martin reference VDE

    FYWP won’t let me reply from my crappy phone

  33. 33.

    TooManyJens

    @Mnemosyne: Unfortunately, since they were filing the false reports with the school, I suspect it doesn’t count. They’ll probably suffer nothing more than having everyone know that /r/MensRights is full of shitstains, which isn’t exactly a change from the status quo.

  36. 36.

    Valdivia

    funny! I would be curious to know what you make of the device as I am making inquiries about them for my dad. a first hand review would be useful ;)

  38. 38.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Yeah I doubt it was a prank, anyone here signing you up would have obviously gone for the “I’ve tripped on a dog while mopping the kitchen naked and fell into the curtains somehow tangling myself in them and rolling out the door gathering four of the other pets along the way and now I’m lying in the street wrapped up like a giant human hair ball with all my yowling animals and I can’t get out” product.

    It’s their newest line.

    “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get up” is for pikers. Entry level, way too basic for you.

  41. 41.

    JPL

    The plan worked. It’s the perfect foil. Most BJ readers have received those calls for months, so it’s the perfect time for one of us to notify the company about your mishaps. How do you know that you are just not being robo called.. hehehehe

  42. 42.

    Valdivia

    I must add that we too get these calls all the time. I assumed they started calling because for the last few months at least every two weeks we had an ambulance here helping get my dad up. I guess marketing is not *that* advanced.

  43. 43.

    Eric U.

    @Mnemosyne: I got tired of all the scammers calling, and started talking to them. One guy got all pissed off and said, mostly to himself, “why can’t some people just not answer the phone.” Not quite as good as when the guy selling burial plots got incensed with me and hung up, but almost as good.

  44. 44.

    MattR

    Disappointed to hear it was probably a random telemarketing call. I had thought about sending John a set of crutches, just in case. But then I figured he probably already had a custom set..

  46. 46.

    WaterGIrl

    @Violet: I laughed out loud for real, too. I’m actually kind of disappointed to find that it’s just random voicemail spam. Laughed out loud at Omnes yesterday, too. Glad that life is back to normal enough for me to be reading BJ again.

  47. 47.

    Violet

    @Eric U.: I have a great time with the Indian-accented callers who call to tell me my Windows computer is telling them it has a virus. I thank them effusively for calling and tell them I’m following their instructions to the letter, while doing nothing of the kind of course. I pretend I can’t find the power button or use a mouse. Tell them I’d love to go to their website but can’t figure out how to type in its address. “Does it have a zip code?” Etc. Every dumb computer user cliche I can think of I put to use. Eventually they hang up on me. At least it’s entertaining. For awhile they were calling me every fifteen minutes, so I had to do something.

  48. 48.

    Turbulence

    @Mnemosyne: I’d be curious to find out if that counts as filing a false police report, which is a misdemeanor.

    IANAL but it might. My university’s campus police are all deputized by the police department of the surrounding city, so they’re “real” cops in every sense of the word. If you call the campus police office and file a false report, it seems like it should be treated the same way as filing a false report with a city police officer.

    But I don’t know if Occidental’s campus police are deputized.

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    OT but I just got my first invoice for my new health care premium–and I’m crying. OMG I can’t believe how good it is!! I have insurance! My kids are covered! Hooray!

    PEACE OF MIND!!

  52. 52.

    KG

    @jl: lots of Christians in the Confederacy.

    On a slightly related note, saw a motorcycle today, in Southern California was a confederate battle flag flying on the back and a decal of another one on its fairings. Still don’t understand how people think it is acceptable to fly the stars and bars.

  55. 55.

    Fuzzy

    I located the company and phone # called and raised hell about a month ago and the calls stopped. I was getting the calls twice a week. Sorry forgot the name but you cab google it.

  58. 58.

    aimai

    @Eric U.: I actually knew a woman who paid her way through college about 30 years ago cold calling people and selling cemetery plots. She told me she found it incredibly easy–she called people right out of the phone book and offered them a free plot, showed up at their house and then persuaded them to buy the plot next to their free plot for their spouse. It was, from the cemeterys point of view, basically a buy one, get one free sale but you reversed the sales format. She was a very strange woman and she said she found it very easy.

  59. 59.

    skerry

    @KG: I was in a mall northeast of Pittsburgh this fall. There was a store selling tapestry-sized confederate flags. In Pennsylvania. I don’t understand it.

  60. 60.

    dmsilev

    @Violet: Did you complain that the cupholder on the front of your computer broke? Ask them where the ‘any’ key is on the keyboard?

    Sometimes, the classics work the best.

  61. 61.

    MikeJ

    @Eric U.:

    Not quite as good as when the guy selling burial plots got incensed with me and hung up, but almost as good.

    I had a guy selling burial plots call me once. I told him we already had a pawn shop that my family had been dealing with for years. You see, most reputable pawn shops, the good, bonded ones, do a little taxidermy work on the side. Mainly just to get them through the slow patches, but even when times are good they like to keep their hand in, just for the practice you understand. One of the ways you can tall a good pawn shop is if they have a large taxidermy display in one of the windows. Back right after the war when my grandpa had just got out of the army, he was looking for an engagement ring for my grandma. So he goes to the pawn shop that had the biggest display of stuffed animals you’d ever seen.It turned out that the owner’s uncle had owned the farm right across the creek from where granddad had grown up, and whenever they had trouble with animals prowling around, they would ask grandpa and his brothers to come over with their dogs and help get rid of the fox or bobcat or whathaveyou. Gradpa and his brothers had the best hunting dogs in the county. Blue tick hounds they were called. Could always take you right to the place where the critters were holed up. Takes a long time to train a good hunting dog though. Have to breed them right too. Anyway, after they would track the animal down gradpa and his brothers would kill it, and give the carcass to the neighbor who would take care of getting it stuffed. So when the war came most of the men fold went off to fight, except for the neighbor who was too old so he stayed behind. He didn’t have many people bringing him animals for taxidermy, but there were people who needed to sell things around the house to make ends meet.

    You don’t have time to hear the rest? Well you just call back any time and I can just pick it up from there.

  64. 64.

    JaneE

    I have gotten two or three of those calls. They really don’t want to take no for an answer. Last time I told the guy I was going to call the police when I hung up.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @aimai:

    Slightly O/T, but whenever I hear about people selling cemetery plots I think of my father. Usually when he got one of those phone calls he would demur, saying “We cremate in our family” or something similar, but one night a cemetery salesperson phoned and my dad couldn’t remember the word “cremation” and told her “We prefer to show up in powdered form.”

    It’s been a family catchphrase ever since.

  67. 67.

    dmsilev

    @SiubhanDuinne: I wonder what would happen if you told the sales rep “Sorry, in our family we eat our dead”. Might actually get you removed from the call list.

  71. 71.

    kc

    @jl:

    I have the impression those “Duck Dynasty” douchebags have let the wingnut adulation go to their pointy heads.

  72. 72.

    Violet

    @dmsilev: Oh, yes, I mentioned the cupholder. Didn’t get to the “any” key. Funnily, they haven’t called back since I did that.

  74. 74.

    raven

    Anyone check out the SIU b-ball coaches presser?

    “I got a bunch of momma’s boys right now.”

    “I’ve been telling my wife this for years, size doesn’t matter.” (Hinson was referring to his team’s problems with rebounding.)

    “(Guard) Marcus (Fillyaw) was absolutely awful, that’s about as PG-rated as I can say it. He was awful. Our guards are awful. Our three starting guards had one assist and and seven turnovers. They must think it’s a tax credit. It’s unbelievable how our starting guards played.”

    “My wife — my wife! — can score more than two buckets on 11 shots, because I know my wife will at least shot fake one time.” (Hinson talking about his big men.)

    “There was a sniper in the gym. Didn’t you see that? We had guys falling down. I would have thought Navy SEAL Team 6 was out there.”

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @MikeJ:
    @Violet:

    Yep — wasting their time by keeping them on the phone is by far the best way to prevent a call-back. Most of those call centers are on a very strict schedule and they’ll get in trouble if they’re on the phone too long. Insist on a 10-minute conversation and they’ll drop you from the list.

  76. 76.

    jl

    @raven:

    In possession of neither meat nor motion. No wonder he is angry.

    Edit: Though his apparent ‘man security’ problems don’t justify the sniper crack. Fine example, he is.

  77. 77.

    MattR

    @raven: I respect that the one thing he apologized for was calling out Marcus Fillyaw by name. And when he was asked about one of the players who tweeted and then later deleted, “I can’t believe the little man had the nerve to call us mama’s boys. Smh. I guess this is where Our team learns to point the finger.” he responded by saying “If I have the right as a coach to go into a press conference and talk about our team, I can’t get upset at a player that wants to fire back on a tweet either,”

  80. 80.

    JoyfulA

    Ha! Just today, my SO took a phone call from someone who wanted to talk about his Mastercard account. He asked for which bank was he calling, and requested a phone number to call back to assure legitimacy.

    The caller said, “Shut up!” My SO said, “Excuse me?” The caller said, “Fcuk you!” and hung up.

  84. 84.

    Violet

    @Ash Can: And a new wingnut martyr is born.

    Edit: Just checked the comments on your link and they’re running strong in support of the Duck Dynasty guy and against the TV channel for “taking away his freedom of speech.” Jeez, people are so stupid. Ever heard of a contract? He can say what he wants, but if it violates his contract, they can remove him from the show.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ash Can:

    You know, I honestly don’t understand why homophobes are so obsessed with specific sexual details. They sound like third-graders who just found out that Daddy sticks his wee-wee in Mommy’s hoo-ha … eeeeewwwwwwwww!

  89. 89.

    Violet

    @Ash Can: Coaches are not in the field of education. They’re coaches and it just so happens their team is from a school. Not education at all. It’s sports.

  90. 90.

    Anne Laurie

    Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, our Bloghost has it.

    Check out Driven to Distraction, dude. The doctors who wrote it have ADD, so it’s written in small, compact sections with easily visible headers breaking up the text!

  98. 98.

    Nancy Gillard

    I agree, You weren’t signed up. We get that call at least once a day and there is no way to get prevent it (that we have been able to figure out). Sorry they’ve got your number.

  104. 104.

    steverino

    I have been looking at alternatives to the “button”– my MIL could use it, but she would call several times a day just to chat with the operator.

    I have seen, in both Radio Shack and Target, a cordless phone with a base/cordless handset and a simple button on a lanyard, for about $100-$120. The button is actually another phoneset that allows you to speed-dial two numbers (plus 911? I forget), and acts as a speakerphone. So you can fall, and use the speeddial to call your neighbor, or 911, or your kid. And no subscription– it’s just a normal landline phone.

    She has a cell phone we got her, but she doesn’t carry it, just leaves it plugged in for when the power/phone fails, which is does 2-3 times/year.

  106. 106.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    I will freely admit that I signed a few friends up for the Hair Club For Men intro videos back in the ’90s, but I didn’t do this. Not a bad idea, though.

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