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TrueTomHarley

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  1. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Arauna in JW OPPOSERS GROUPS   
    NO! I forbid it!
    Do not cross me on this.
  2. Like
    TrueTomHarley reacted to Arauna in JW OPPOSERS GROUPS   
    It is the bad schooling and the way they are taught to reason.  UNESCO  has given guidelines for about 30 years for schools and universities.
    This is why there currently are so many useless generic degrees at universities and such unscientific studies in gender studies etc.... all pushed by UN to forward their Agenda 21 goals.
    (I worked for an umbrella organization which restructured 15 technical universities to comply with UN regulations in Africa..... 24 years ago.... 
    They ruined a perfectly good system while chancellors and vice-chancellors accepted all new guidelines - because the "holy" UN was giving instructions.)
    Most of the problems in society today can be traced back to the post modern progressive thinking in education for the past 30 years. 
  3. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in 2019 Annual Meeting wishes   
    Oh, I probably bump it up a notch, as I do most things. Maybe it is not “typical.” But I have seen it. And the ones “atypical” often do not stray too far from it.
    It is not effective because it gives the impression that we are one-dimensional people who eat “Bible sandwiches.” For some of us, that is not too far from the truth. Don’t misunderstand—it is not such a terrible thing to be that way, but it does limit one’s range in the ministry.
  4. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Melinda Mills in 2019 Annual Meeting wishes   
    Oh, I probably bump it up a notch, as I do most things. Maybe it is not “typical.” But I have seen it. And the ones “atypical” often do not stray too far from it.
    It is not effective because it gives the impression that we are one-dimensional people who eat “Bible sandwiches.” For some of us, that is not too far from the truth. Don’t misunderstand—it is not such a terrible thing to be that way, but it does limit one’s range in the ministry.
  5. Like
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Melinda Mills in 2019 Annual Meeting wishes   
    It can happen. But there is constant counsel for it not to happen—continual counsel that pioneers not exalt themselves about others. Some do—I have seen it—but most do not. And sometimes merely acknowledging that one has taken the Nazarite vow comes across to others as acting superior, even though that is neither the intention nor motive. Some things are a matter of perception.
    I don’t like everything about it. But there is the old saw about “going out in service just enough to hate it.” I think the intent is to help publishers get over that hump.
    Yes, but you are (forgive me) old, like I am. Your motto is as true for the young as it is for the old, but there are more distractions for them that would sap their will to do what they know is a good idea. The pioneer arrangement addresses that. I don’t see why people couldn’t have objected to the Nazarite vow—Jehovah instituted it nonetheless—just as much as the pioneer program modeled after it. 
    There is also the very tangible benefit of offering people a career in sacred service. It roughly correlates with how, in the regular sense, people can have a job or a career. The two terms overlap, but the first carries the flavor of being not a person’s true interest—rather it is something that he does, watching the time-clock all the while, because he knows it has to be done. He often does not like it. The second term carries the flavor of something the person truly identifies with—something that defines him as a person—something that he does like and chose in preference to other activities. 
    Primarily, I note with some discouragement how “hours” do not necessarily correlate with “people.” Someone once put down those who harp on JWs “counting hours instead of people.” The hours ARE people, he countered. They should be. They often are. But sometimes they are just hours. “Are you counting your time or making your time count?” is another old saw that obviously nudges in the right direction, but the fact that it exists indicates that hours can become a goal in themselves if allowed.
    I would be happy if the concept of hours was looked at anew.  I know myself. If I were to regular pioneer, I know that I would not be engaging in the ministry at what I consider the most productive times—evenings, Sundays—because you cannot get enough hours that way. I would feel the pressure—and probably yield to it—of putting in long stretches of time where you can get lots of hours, but not necessarily people, and then being too tired to go out during more productive times.
    There is nothing like contacting people in the evening. The day is done. They are winding down. They are no more enthused about seeing you approach as they would be during the day, but the chemistry is different. With matters of the day put to bed, for better or worse, they are more inclined to take a few moments to chat.
    In fact, coming back to the distinction between “job” and “career,” maybe that identifies a basic incongruity. Pioneering is a “career,” and yet counting time suggests a timeclock—a stratagem more in keeping with a “job.” When you have a career, you are largely unconcerned with the time-clock. If you tally up your hours, you find that they are numerous, but you never think about tallying up your hours, for it is you career, not your job.
    (I am getting carried away here, because I am writing what will most likely become a post somewhere)
    ”Counting time,” a completely separate concept from pioneering—or at least it would be nice if it were made that way—leads to curious notions of being “on-duty” and “off-duty.” You are either witnessing or you are not. In contrast, recall the video of the school-age girl who determined from day one in the new school year that she would be very open about being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, rather than being “outed” by it at an awkward time. From that first day onward, everything she does becomes a witness, and yet she would never count her time for it. Classmates began approaching her with their problems, she said.
    I have a Twitter profile that should be commonplace, and yet to my dismay I find that it is unique.  I mix Witness and non-Witness concerns and activities so thoroughly that it would be hard to draw a line between when I am witnessing and when I am not. I wouldn’t know how to do it, and so I do not try. The typical JW online profile is incredible for its ineffectiveness. “Hi. I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you have a question about the origin of the cross? Ask me.” Does anyone have such a question about the cross? No. Irreligious people don’t care and religious people don’t wonder about it. At most, the brother or sister finds someone to argue with. And yet he may be counting his time, both in posting, and responding, hopefully not in waiting for a reply. The whole concept of counting time introduces so many screwy offshoots that sometime I wish we would just chuck it.
  6. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in 2019 Annual Meeting wishes   
    I did oversee the food line for a time. One of the prepackaged items was “a pasta salad.”
    Way back then, without any inkling as to what I would be doing today, I used to refer to them as “apostasy salads.”
  7. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Melinda Mills in 2019 Annual Meeting wishes   
    Or maybe he’d show up at the zoo in his rhinoceros suit and step on someone’s toe.
     
  8. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from admin in One Infuriating Day in the World of Technology   
    the blog that I have in mind starting will be primarily non-religious. Not completely, maybe, but primarily.
    Reasons for putting it here:
    I believe you on Google ranking (I think) Plus, I like the template and robustness here. I think it is probably much more versatile than where I am and has greater visibility. 
    Reasons for not putting it here. 
    The blog outfit that I use is adequate. I can scale with it to fit any devise. (Seemingly an essential requirement today, but there are still bloggers who don’t have that option.)
    they do offer good technical support where I am. To what extent are you here to support me? I mean, if I say that I want this here and that there can you tell me how to do it. I have to be able to hawk my books.
    The biggest reason not to migrate here is that I want to accommodate ads on the new blog. It’s about time that it pays for itself and even turns a buck, if possible.  I assume that I do not benefit from the ads here.
    Tech is not my forte.  
    Decisions decisions.
    It’s a good thought. Thank you for calling it to my attention.
  9. Like
  10. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Juan Rivera in JW OPPOSERS GROUPS   
    “Let’s go surfing now, everybody’s learning how, come on and safari with meeeee” - Brian Wilson (probably)
  11. Like
    TrueTomHarley reacted to admin in One Infuriating Day in the World of Technology   
    You had me here! ;-)
    Love the writing. 
    You may even want to start your own blog on here. ;-)
  12. Like
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from admin in One Infuriating Day in the World of Technology   
    The Bluetooth keyboard won’t connect. The printer won’t print. As though in a conspiracy to infuriate me, they both rebel at the same time. So as to thwart them, I will deal with them just one at a time.
    The pre-installed batteries that power the keyboard couldn’t possibly be bad. I know this because all the online reviews say that they last four years—essentially, the life of the iPad—and I have only had this thing for 6 months. Besides, when I ask the geek at the store whether it is the batteries, he says “no”—it is the keyboard itself. “You think so?” I ask. “I know so,” he says. 
    He must know what he is talking about. The online reviews tell me the same—the batteries are supposed to last 4 years, not 6 months. It must be the Slim Folio keyboard. I buy another—the are not too expensive. When I get it home, I discover (so I thought) what was wrong with the first one. There is a Bluetooth key on the upper row. When I hit it, it makes a connection. I didn’t know there was such a key. It must also have been preset. I must have switched it off by mistake. 
    I take the purchased keyboard back to the Best Buy. Do I have the receipt? No. The clerk with the tattoos hadn’t given me one, and I didn’t say anything because I know that they send receipts by email these days. They searched and couldn’t find it. Why not? Because they had on file the old Juno email account that I haven’t used since Jesus was born, and for whatever reason, can’t get into anymore. I think I changed the once-simple password to something more intricate and then forgot it. As I recall, retrieval proved near impossible due to an archaic interface and a since-replaced laptop that crashed if you looked at it wrong.* At last, the salesperson finds it and the return is made.
    Back home, I find that my fix—the Bluetooth key—was just a red herring. Yes, I did get more life out of it for a few minutes, but it presently started to act up as before. It’s going to be embarrassing buying the keyboard again, and I am starting to think that maybe I should try batteries before I spring for a new board after all. They are the little coin-like batteries that I never use, and another reason that I just bought a new keyboard—now returned—is that I figured they probably cost as much as a Prius battery. 
    Amazon can get me the batteries I need, also the printer ink, but it will take two days. I want them both now. I want the keyboard battery so that I can type on my iPad, not on my laptop as though a caveman. My wife wants the printer to work so that she can print out a letter from an expert saying that another refurbishing job that she paid through the nose for is no good and that she should get her money back. 
    The Best Buy has those particular coin-type batteries, but only in a package of eight. They are not nearly as pricey as I thought—I found that out via Amazon—but I don’t need a 20 year supply of them. Wasn’t there a Steve Martin movie featuring him being hauled to the police station because, thinking that the world was out to get him, he had torn open either a hot dog package or a hot dog roll package so as to buy only the matching number of each that he wanted? And batteries are more expensive that hot dogs or hot dog rolls!
    If Best Buy doesn’t have them, with all of the electronics that they sell, there is no way that Target will have them. But the Target is right next door—it is silly not to at least check. Target does have them, and in just the number (2) that I need. The battery display says $4.60, only a dollar more than Amazon, and I can get them right now, even though I may not need them and have no other use for them should that be the case. The self-service kiosk rings it up for $6.99. I must have picked up the wrong pack, I suppose, and I go fetch another one. No, I did not pick up the wrong pack. It, too, rings up for $6.99. I return to the display. It turns out that the battery is being re-introduced in a new package alongside the old and both are ringing up at the new price that only the new one is supposed to ring up at. I don’t want the new. I want the old, and the old price. 
    You wouldn’t think that one could get paralyzed over two dollars. But it is not two dollars paralyzing me—it is the thought of being played for a chump. “Forget it!” I mutter after a few trips back and forth to the register kiosk. I can get it through Amazon—why don’t I use them all the time, since aggravations like this so frequently happen?—and in the meantime I can make do with the laptop. I mean, for years and years I typed on the laptop, perfectly content. I can do it again for two days. Upon making this resolution, I leave to pick up some groceries at Aldies. The batteries might not solve the problem anyway—the geek told me they would not solve the problem—so if I am going to chance just throwing money away, it should be as little as possible, not the $6.99 Target wants just because they put them in a fancier package.
    After grocery shopping, I return to Target. In the greater overall scheme of life, two dollars is not the end of the world, and it is worth two dollars to use my iPad today and not my laptop because, long ago, I ripped the laptop cord from the laptop one too many times while removing it from my lap, and it will now only stay connected if I firmly tape the cord in place with duct tape. The repair will cost over $200! Forget it. Taping the way I now do is enough to power it, but not enough to keep its battery (another battery!) recharged, so I have acquiesced to the laptop being no more portable than a desktop, because if I even look at the thing wrong, the cord connection breaks even with the duct tape and, having no battery, the machine crashes and I lose anything I have not saved—the only benefit being that I have learned to save after virtually every sentence. So I want to use my iPad, which is portable, and I will pay two extra dollars to do that. 
    Still, I grumble at the self-service line over the two dollars. “Do you want me to look it up for you?” the attendant who oversees four of these kiosks asks. I tell her no—it is just a price change, that I know this sort of thing happens—it is irritating but it is not her fault—why make trouble for her? Still, she can look it up if she likes, I tell her, mostly just so that she will get out of my hair and let me get on with shelling out the $6.99 that heaven has decreed I must before I change my mind again. 
    She DOES look it up. She scans my package with her phone. She has software (I think) that permits her to see the display, and she sees the original price. Nah—that can’t be—still, she somehow figures the original price. She changes it for me right there at the kiosk, punching in some codes—using her powers. Finally! A hero in a world of villains! When she is busy doing something else, I double back to tell her that she truly made my day, that she didn’t have to do it at all, that I never expected her to, and that she would never know how much such a gesture of service meant unless I told her, which is why I did.
    At home, I put in the new batteries and the old keyboard works good as new. Even though the geek had said he KNEW that batteries were not the problem! Even though the online reviews said it, too, with batteries supposedly lasting the life of the iPad! (To be sure, I use it a lot.)
    One problem down—only one more to go: the printer that won’t print. I know it is not out of ink because it has an icon that keeps track of ink, discoverable in several different ways, albeit with effort, and each of those ways returns the same result—there is still 3/8 of a tank left. So I spend three years pouring over online documentation as to how to fix the sullen thing. Cleaning the heads does nothing. The store geek who does not know a dead battery from a keyboard is not going to try his hand at my printer—I refuse to even think of taking it there—even if he will do it for less than a million dollars. As a last ditch attempt before escalation, even though gauges say that there is no way that is it out of ink, I buy some more ink. Of course, I buy the wrong package, a package number that came up when I searched the printer model on Amazon. 
    Why has not someone taken a stand on the biggest scam of all time—printer ink? Why are there dozens and dozens of printers, each one of which will take only a single specific pricey cartridge out of the dozens and dozens available? It is as though every single can of Campbells soup is unique and you will die if you eat any other than one out of 100. The politician that runs his platform on blowing the lid off this scam wins, as far as I am concerned.
    Funny, the printer model itself is not on the cartridge package that Amazon says should work, I note at the Best Buy, though every other model on the planet is. “Ah, well, if it is not the right one, I can always take it back,” I say, and indeed I do take it back the next day. I pop the new cartridge into the machine that insisted it did not need one, and it immediately prints like the New York Times running down Trump.
    Total price in money? Twenty six dollars
    Total price in time? Twenty six years
    Total price in aggravation? Twenty six thousand grey hairs.
    Total number of heroes? One—the kiosk monitor at Target.
    (Best Buy emerges from this post with a mild black eye, so I should point out that I have nothing against them. Their sales associates are polite, not pushy, and invariably will answer whatever you ask them. The point I am making instead is that tech is complicated and nobody knows everything. It was even a Best Buy sales associate who answered to my satisfaction why Microsoft gives me so much trouble (I have had updates that take hours) whereas Apple does not (I don’t think I have ever had an update lasting more that a minute or three). Microsoft is much more ambitious in the scope of what they offer, she told me, plus they have low price points that Apple does not. That satisfied me. 
    It is annoying, though, that when you grouse about Microsoft online, thieves immediately show up insisting that they are them and ask for all sorts of access so that they can help you, and when they follow up with a phone call later, their English is indecipherable. One would think that Microsoft would shut them down, since it tarnishes their reputation. Later, I read that Microsoft did shut them down—it was an operation out of India—but later I saw that they had resurfaced—it is probably next to impossible to eliminate. Some less scrupulous companies have been known to kneecap scoundrels who tarnish their good name, but Microsoft is apparently too ethical to do that.)
    —————-
    *The old laptop: Modified from my book: “No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash”—the most autobiographical of them all:
     
    “The stupid thing is always pestering me that is nearly out of disk space. How can that be? It’s new—and I haven’t used it for anything other than writing this book! [Tom Irregardless and Me] The suggested tool to handle the error message launches into a circus of undiscovered galaxies! It’s like that Black Friday netbook I bought last year - another scoundrel! It harangued me unceasingly about loading Windows 10. Finally, I said ‘All right all right’ - load the stupid thing!’ It wheeled and cranked and whirred like Dr. Who’s spaceship, only to declare at last: ‘You don’t have enough disk space!’ and then launched a tool which took me to another planet! 
    ***~~~***
    “Just puttering along editing my document. Save a tweak and I get the message: ‘A file error has occurred.’ So? There’s no clue what to do about it. Or the consequences. Will a bomb detonate with the next keystroke? Or is just some tiny worthless snippet of software somewhere that feels it has to speak up from time to time so as to justify its existence? Aha! Close the document. Then re-open. I have saved every tweak up to that point, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But when I reopen it, the changes I have saved have not been saved! No wonder people go mad! Before closing, it says a temporary file will be available! Where? On Jupiter? Open Word from scratch – it’s nowhere to be found! I have to re-treat the whole chapter! 
    ***~~~***
    “Okay, it doesn’t exist. That reassuring fix they were cooing about last night? That ‘solve-all’ dialogue box? It doesn’t exist! Or rather, it probably does, but only inside the 3rd module of the 15th lobe of the program designers brain. It’s impossible to find! Sure, I could find it in three days, possibly, but I don’t want to do that! I could have fixed the chapter by now by just writing it again! And I knew that’s what I should have done, I knew it! But, noooo – here’s some fine instructions – let’s follow them! See where it gets me!
    ***~~~***
    “I have one book to write on my new laptop. Just one book! So I didn’t buy the $14,000 model. I bought the basic model, the cheap one. I’m not gaming with it. I’m not putting movies on it, or music, or photos, or even tweets! Just one book! One! And that’s not even on the hard drive, it’s in the cloud, and on thumb drive updates every two seconds, because you can’t trust this ‘Save’ feature as far as you can Spit! So why does it tell me every two seconds my hard drive is getting full? It just wants to make me mad! It didn’t say ‘Sucker Model’ at the store. It didn’t say ‘Gotcha’ Model. I asked the clerk if there were electronics inside the case, and he said there were! ‘Are you sure it’s not just gerbil cage shavings inside?’ I asked. He said he was sure! What a liar!”
    (Originally posted on my own blog)
  13. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from James Thomas Rook Jr. in One Infuriating Day in the World of Technology   
    The Bluetooth keyboard won’t connect. The printer won’t print. As though in a conspiracy to infuriate me, they both rebel at the same time. So as to thwart them, I will deal with them just one at a time.
    The pre-installed batteries that power the keyboard couldn’t possibly be bad. I know this because all the online reviews say that they last four years—essentially, the life of the iPad—and I have only had this thing for 6 months. Besides, when I ask the geek at the store whether it is the batteries, he says “no”—it is the keyboard itself. “You think so?” I ask. “I know so,” he says. 
    He must know what he is talking about. The online reviews tell me the same—the batteries are supposed to last 4 years, not 6 months. It must be the Slim Folio keyboard. I buy another—the are not too expensive. When I get it home, I discover (so I thought) what was wrong with the first one. There is a Bluetooth key on the upper row. When I hit it, it makes a connection. I didn’t know there was such a key. It must also have been preset. I must have switched it off by mistake. 
    I take the purchased keyboard back to the Best Buy. Do I have the receipt? No. The clerk with the tattoos hadn’t given me one, and I didn’t say anything because I know that they send receipts by email these days. They searched and couldn’t find it. Why not? Because they had on file the old Juno email account that I haven’t used since Jesus was born, and for whatever reason, can’t get into anymore. I think I changed the once-simple password to something more intricate and then forgot it. As I recall, retrieval proved near impossible due to an archaic interface and a since-replaced laptop that crashed if you looked at it wrong.* At last, the salesperson finds it and the return is made.
    Back home, I find that my fix—the Bluetooth key—was just a red herring. Yes, I did get more life out of it for a few minutes, but it presently started to act up as before. It’s going to be embarrassing buying the keyboard again, and I am starting to think that maybe I should try batteries before I spring for a new board after all. They are the little coin-like batteries that I never use, and another reason that I just bought a new keyboard—now returned—is that I figured they probably cost as much as a Prius battery. 
    Amazon can get me the batteries I need, also the printer ink, but it will take two days. I want them both now. I want the keyboard battery so that I can type on my iPad, not on my laptop as though a caveman. My wife wants the printer to work so that she can print out a letter from an expert saying that another refurbishing job that she paid through the nose for is no good and that she should get her money back. 
    The Best Buy has those particular coin-type batteries, but only in a package of eight. They are not nearly as pricey as I thought—I found that out via Amazon—but I don’t need a 20 year supply of them. Wasn’t there a Steve Martin movie featuring him being hauled to the police station because, thinking that the world was out to get him, he had torn open either a hot dog package or a hot dog roll package so as to buy only the matching number of each that he wanted? And batteries are more expensive that hot dogs or hot dog rolls!
    If Best Buy doesn’t have them, with all of the electronics that they sell, there is no way that Target will have them. But the Target is right next door—it is silly not to at least check. Target does have them, and in just the number (2) that I need. The battery display says $4.60, only a dollar more than Amazon, and I can get them right now, even though I may not need them and have no other use for them should that be the case. The self-service kiosk rings it up for $6.99. I must have picked up the wrong pack, I suppose, and I go fetch another one. No, I did not pick up the wrong pack. It, too, rings up for $6.99. I return to the display. It turns out that the battery is being re-introduced in a new package alongside the old and both are ringing up at the new price that only the new one is supposed to ring up at. I don’t want the new. I want the old, and the old price. 
    You wouldn’t think that one could get paralyzed over two dollars. But it is not two dollars paralyzing me—it is the thought of being played for a chump. “Forget it!” I mutter after a few trips back and forth to the register kiosk. I can get it through Amazon—why don’t I use them all the time, since aggravations like this so frequently happen?—and in the meantime I can make do with the laptop. I mean, for years and years I typed on the laptop, perfectly content. I can do it again for two days. Upon making this resolution, I leave to pick up some groceries at Aldies. The batteries might not solve the problem anyway—the geek told me they would not solve the problem—so if I am going to chance just throwing money away, it should be as little as possible, not the $6.99 Target wants just because they put them in a fancier package.
    After grocery shopping, I return to Target. In the greater overall scheme of life, two dollars is not the end of the world, and it is worth two dollars to use my iPad today and not my laptop because, long ago, I ripped the laptop cord from the laptop one too many times while removing it from my lap, and it will now only stay connected if I firmly tape the cord in place with duct tape. The repair will cost over $200! Forget it. Taping the way I now do is enough to power it, but not enough to keep its battery (another battery!) recharged, so I have acquiesced to the laptop being no more portable than a desktop, because if I even look at the thing wrong, the cord connection breaks even with the duct tape and, having no battery, the machine crashes and I lose anything I have not saved—the only benefit being that I have learned to save after virtually every sentence. So I want to use my iPad, which is portable, and I will pay two extra dollars to do that. 
    Still, I grumble at the self-service line over the two dollars. “Do you want me to look it up for you?” the attendant who oversees four of these kiosks asks. I tell her no—it is just a price change, that I know this sort of thing happens—it is irritating but it is not her fault—why make trouble for her? Still, she can look it up if she likes, I tell her, mostly just so that she will get out of my hair and let me get on with shelling out the $6.99 that heaven has decreed I must before I change my mind again. 
    She DOES look it up. She scans my package with her phone. She has software (I think) that permits her to see the display, and she sees the original price. Nah—that can’t be—still, she somehow figures the original price. She changes it for me right there at the kiosk, punching in some codes—using her powers. Finally! A hero in a world of villains! When she is busy doing something else, I double back to tell her that she truly made my day, that she didn’t have to do it at all, that I never expected her to, and that she would never know how much such a gesture of service meant unless I told her, which is why I did.
    At home, I put in the new batteries and the old keyboard works good as new. Even though the geek had said he KNEW that batteries were not the problem! Even though the online reviews said it, too, with batteries supposedly lasting the life of the iPad! (To be sure, I use it a lot.)
    One problem down—only one more to go: the printer that won’t print. I know it is not out of ink because it has an icon that keeps track of ink, discoverable in several different ways, albeit with effort, and each of those ways returns the same result—there is still 3/8 of a tank left. So I spend three years pouring over online documentation as to how to fix the sullen thing. Cleaning the heads does nothing. The store geek who does not know a dead battery from a keyboard is not going to try his hand at my printer—I refuse to even think of taking it there—even if he will do it for less than a million dollars. As a last ditch attempt before escalation, even though gauges say that there is no way that is it out of ink, I buy some more ink. Of course, I buy the wrong package, a package number that came up when I searched the printer model on Amazon. 
    Why has not someone taken a stand on the biggest scam of all time—printer ink? Why are there dozens and dozens of printers, each one of which will take only a single specific pricey cartridge out of the dozens and dozens available? It is as though every single can of Campbells soup is unique and you will die if you eat any other than one out of 100. The politician that runs his platform on blowing the lid off this scam wins, as far as I am concerned.
    Funny, the printer model itself is not on the cartridge package that Amazon says should work, I note at the Best Buy, though every other model on the planet is. “Ah, well, if it is not the right one, I can always take it back,” I say, and indeed I do take it back the next day. I pop the new cartridge into the machine that insisted it did not need one, and it immediately prints like the New York Times running down Trump.
    Total price in money? Twenty six dollars
    Total price in time? Twenty six years
    Total price in aggravation? Twenty six thousand grey hairs.
    Total number of heroes? One—the kiosk monitor at Target.
    (Best Buy emerges from this post with a mild black eye, so I should point out that I have nothing against them. Their sales associates are polite, not pushy, and invariably will answer whatever you ask them. The point I am making instead is that tech is complicated and nobody knows everything. It was even a Best Buy sales associate who answered to my satisfaction why Microsoft gives me so much trouble (I have had updates that take hours) whereas Apple does not (I don’t think I have ever had an update lasting more that a minute or three). Microsoft is much more ambitious in the scope of what they offer, she told me, plus they have low price points that Apple does not. That satisfied me. 
    It is annoying, though, that when you grouse about Microsoft online, thieves immediately show up insisting that they are them and ask for all sorts of access so that they can help you, and when they follow up with a phone call later, their English is indecipherable. One would think that Microsoft would shut them down, since it tarnishes their reputation. Later, I read that Microsoft did shut them down—it was an operation out of India—but later I saw that they had resurfaced—it is probably next to impossible to eliminate. Some less scrupulous companies have been known to kneecap scoundrels who tarnish their good name, but Microsoft is apparently too ethical to do that.)
    —————-
    *The old laptop: Modified from my book: “No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash”—the most autobiographical of them all:
     
    “The stupid thing is always pestering me that is nearly out of disk space. How can that be? It’s new—and I haven’t used it for anything other than writing this book! [Tom Irregardless and Me] The suggested tool to handle the error message launches into a circus of undiscovered galaxies! It’s like that Black Friday netbook I bought last year - another scoundrel! It harangued me unceasingly about loading Windows 10. Finally, I said ‘All right all right’ - load the stupid thing!’ It wheeled and cranked and whirred like Dr. Who’s spaceship, only to declare at last: ‘You don’t have enough disk space!’ and then launched a tool which took me to another planet! 
    ***~~~***
    “Just puttering along editing my document. Save a tweak and I get the message: ‘A file error has occurred.’ So? There’s no clue what to do about it. Or the consequences. Will a bomb detonate with the next keystroke? Or is just some tiny worthless snippet of software somewhere that feels it has to speak up from time to time so as to justify its existence? Aha! Close the document. Then re-open. I have saved every tweak up to that point, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But when I reopen it, the changes I have saved have not been saved! No wonder people go mad! Before closing, it says a temporary file will be available! Where? On Jupiter? Open Word from scratch – it’s nowhere to be found! I have to re-treat the whole chapter! 
    ***~~~***
    “Okay, it doesn’t exist. That reassuring fix they were cooing about last night? That ‘solve-all’ dialogue box? It doesn’t exist! Or rather, it probably does, but only inside the 3rd module of the 15th lobe of the program designers brain. It’s impossible to find! Sure, I could find it in three days, possibly, but I don’t want to do that! I could have fixed the chapter by now by just writing it again! And I knew that’s what I should have done, I knew it! But, noooo – here’s some fine instructions – let’s follow them! See where it gets me!
    ***~~~***
    “I have one book to write on my new laptop. Just one book! So I didn’t buy the $14,000 model. I bought the basic model, the cheap one. I’m not gaming with it. I’m not putting movies on it, or music, or photos, or even tweets! Just one book! One! And that’s not even on the hard drive, it’s in the cloud, and on thumb drive updates every two seconds, because you can’t trust this ‘Save’ feature as far as you can Spit! So why does it tell me every two seconds my hard drive is getting full? It just wants to make me mad! It didn’t say ‘Sucker Model’ at the store. It didn’t say ‘Gotcha’ Model. I asked the clerk if there were electronics inside the case, and he said there were! ‘Are you sure it’s not just gerbil cage shavings inside?’ I asked. He said he was sure! What a liar!”
    (Originally posted on my own blog)
  14. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in One Infuriating Day in the World of Technology   
    The Bluetooth keyboard won’t connect. The printer won’t print. As though in a conspiracy to infuriate me, they both rebel at the same time. So as to thwart them, I will deal with them just one at a time.
    The pre-installed batteries that power the keyboard couldn’t possibly be bad. I know this because all the online reviews say that they last four years—essentially, the life of the iPad—and I have only had this thing for 6 months. Besides, when I ask the geek at the store whether it is the batteries, he says “no”—it is the keyboard itself. “You think so?” I ask. “I know so,” he says. 
    He must know what he is talking about. The online reviews tell me the same—the batteries are supposed to last 4 years, not 6 months. It must be the Slim Folio keyboard. I buy another—the are not too expensive. When I get it home, I discover (so I thought) what was wrong with the first one. There is a Bluetooth key on the upper row. When I hit it, it makes a connection. I didn’t know there was such a key. It must also have been preset. I must have switched it off by mistake. 
    I take the purchased keyboard back to the Best Buy. Do I have the receipt? No. The clerk with the tattoos hadn’t given me one, and I didn’t say anything because I know that they send receipts by email these days. They searched and couldn’t find it. Why not? Because they had on file the old Juno email account that I haven’t used since Jesus was born, and for whatever reason, can’t get into anymore. I think I changed the once-simple password to something more intricate and then forgot it. As I recall, retrieval proved near impossible due to an archaic interface and a since-replaced laptop that crashed if you looked at it wrong.* At last, the salesperson finds it and the return is made.
    Back home, I find that my fix—the Bluetooth key—was just a red herring. Yes, I did get more life out of it for a few minutes, but it presently started to act up as before. It’s going to be embarrassing buying the keyboard again, and I am starting to think that maybe I should try batteries before I spring for a new board after all. They are the little coin-like batteries that I never use, and another reason that I just bought a new keyboard—now returned—is that I figured they probably cost as much as a Prius battery. 
    Amazon can get me the batteries I need, also the printer ink, but it will take two days. I want them both now. I want the keyboard battery so that I can type on my iPad, not on my laptop as though a caveman. My wife wants the printer to work so that she can print out a letter from an expert saying that another refurbishing job that she paid through the nose for is no good and that she should get her money back. 
    The Best Buy has those particular coin-type batteries, but only in a package of eight. They are not nearly as pricey as I thought—I found that out via Amazon—but I don’t need a 20 year supply of them. Wasn’t there a Steve Martin movie featuring him being hauled to the police station because, thinking that the world was out to get him, he had torn open either a hot dog package or a hot dog roll package so as to buy only the matching number of each that he wanted? And batteries are more expensive that hot dogs or hot dog rolls!
    If Best Buy doesn’t have them, with all of the electronics that they sell, there is no way that Target will have them. But the Target is right next door—it is silly not to at least check. Target does have them, and in just the number (2) that I need. The battery display says $4.60, only a dollar more than Amazon, and I can get them right now, even though I may not need them and have no other use for them should that be the case. The self-service kiosk rings it up for $6.99. I must have picked up the wrong pack, I suppose, and I go fetch another one. No, I did not pick up the wrong pack. It, too, rings up for $6.99. I return to the display. It turns out that the battery is being re-introduced in a new package alongside the old and both are ringing up at the new price that only the new one is supposed to ring up at. I don’t want the new. I want the old, and the old price. 
    You wouldn’t think that one could get paralyzed over two dollars. But it is not two dollars paralyzing me—it is the thought of being played for a chump. “Forget it!” I mutter after a few trips back and forth to the register kiosk. I can get it through Amazon—why don’t I use them all the time, since aggravations like this so frequently happen?—and in the meantime I can make do with the laptop. I mean, for years and years I typed on the laptop, perfectly content. I can do it again for two days. Upon making this resolution, I leave to pick up some groceries at Aldies. The batteries might not solve the problem anyway—the geek told me they would not solve the problem—so if I am going to chance just throwing money away, it should be as little as possible, not the $6.99 Target wants just because they put them in a fancier package.
    After grocery shopping, I return to Target. In the greater overall scheme of life, two dollars is not the end of the world, and it is worth two dollars to use my iPad today and not my laptop because, long ago, I ripped the laptop cord from the laptop one too many times while removing it from my lap, and it will now only stay connected if I firmly tape the cord in place with duct tape. The repair will cost over $200! Forget it. Taping the way I now do is enough to power it, but not enough to keep its battery (another battery!) recharged, so I have acquiesced to the laptop being no more portable than a desktop, because if I even look at the thing wrong, the cord connection breaks even with the duct tape and, having no battery, the machine crashes and I lose anything I have not saved—the only benefit being that I have learned to save after virtually every sentence. So I want to use my iPad, which is portable, and I will pay two extra dollars to do that. 
    Still, I grumble at the self-service line over the two dollars. “Do you want me to look it up for you?” the attendant who oversees four of these kiosks asks. I tell her no—it is just a price change, that I know this sort of thing happens—it is irritating but it is not her fault—why make trouble for her? Still, she can look it up if she likes, I tell her, mostly just so that she will get out of my hair and let me get on with shelling out the $6.99 that heaven has decreed I must before I change my mind again. 
    She DOES look it up. She scans my package with her phone. She has software (I think) that permits her to see the display, and she sees the original price. Nah—that can’t be—still, she somehow figures the original price. She changes it for me right there at the kiosk, punching in some codes—using her powers. Finally! A hero in a world of villains! When she is busy doing something else, I double back to tell her that she truly made my day, that she didn’t have to do it at all, that I never expected her to, and that she would never know how much such a gesture of service meant unless I told her, which is why I did.
    At home, I put in the new batteries and the old keyboard works good as new. Even though the geek had said he KNEW that batteries were not the problem! Even though the online reviews said it, too, with batteries supposedly lasting the life of the iPad! (To be sure, I use it a lot.)
    One problem down—only one more to go: the printer that won’t print. I know it is not out of ink because it has an icon that keeps track of ink, discoverable in several different ways, albeit with effort, and each of those ways returns the same result—there is still 3/8 of a tank left. So I spend three years pouring over online documentation as to how to fix the sullen thing. Cleaning the heads does nothing. The store geek who does not know a dead battery from a keyboard is not going to try his hand at my printer—I refuse to even think of taking it there—even if he will do it for less than a million dollars. As a last ditch attempt before escalation, even though gauges say that there is no way that is it out of ink, I buy some more ink. Of course, I buy the wrong package, a package number that came up when I searched the printer model on Amazon. 
    Why has not someone taken a stand on the biggest scam of all time—printer ink? Why are there dozens and dozens of printers, each one of which will take only a single specific pricey cartridge out of the dozens and dozens available? It is as though every single can of Campbells soup is unique and you will die if you eat any other than one out of 100. The politician that runs his platform on blowing the lid off this scam wins, as far as I am concerned.
    Funny, the printer model itself is not on the cartridge package that Amazon says should work, I note at the Best Buy, though every other model on the planet is. “Ah, well, if it is not the right one, I can always take it back,” I say, and indeed I do take it back the next day. I pop the new cartridge into the machine that insisted it did not need one, and it immediately prints like the New York Times running down Trump.
    Total price in money? Twenty six dollars
    Total price in time? Twenty six years
    Total price in aggravation? Twenty six thousand grey hairs.
    Total number of heroes? One—the kiosk monitor at Target.
    (Best Buy emerges from this post with a mild black eye, so I should point out that I have nothing against them. Their sales associates are polite, not pushy, and invariably will answer whatever you ask them. The point I am making instead is that tech is complicated and nobody knows everything. It was even a Best Buy sales associate who answered to my satisfaction why Microsoft gives me so much trouble (I have had updates that take hours) whereas Apple does not (I don’t think I have ever had an update lasting more that a minute or three). Microsoft is much more ambitious in the scope of what they offer, she told me, plus they have low price points that Apple does not. That satisfied me. 
    It is annoying, though, that when you grouse about Microsoft online, thieves immediately show up insisting that they are them and ask for all sorts of access so that they can help you, and when they follow up with a phone call later, their English is indecipherable. One would think that Microsoft would shut them down, since it tarnishes their reputation. Later, I read that Microsoft did shut them down—it was an operation out of India—but later I saw that they had resurfaced—it is probably next to impossible to eliminate. Some less scrupulous companies have been known to kneecap scoundrels who tarnish their good name, but Microsoft is apparently too ethical to do that.)
    —————-
    *The old laptop: Modified from my book: “No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash”—the most autobiographical of them all:
     
    “The stupid thing is always pestering me that is nearly out of disk space. How can that be? It’s new—and I haven’t used it for anything other than writing this book! [Tom Irregardless and Me] The suggested tool to handle the error message launches into a circus of undiscovered galaxies! It’s like that Black Friday netbook I bought last year - another scoundrel! It harangued me unceasingly about loading Windows 10. Finally, I said ‘All right all right’ - load the stupid thing!’ It wheeled and cranked and whirred like Dr. Who’s spaceship, only to declare at last: ‘You don’t have enough disk space!’ and then launched a tool which took me to another planet! 
    ***~~~***
    “Just puttering along editing my document. Save a tweak and I get the message: ‘A file error has occurred.’ So? There’s no clue what to do about it. Or the consequences. Will a bomb detonate with the next keystroke? Or is just some tiny worthless snippet of software somewhere that feels it has to speak up from time to time so as to justify its existence? Aha! Close the document. Then re-open. I have saved every tweak up to that point, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. But when I reopen it, the changes I have saved have not been saved! No wonder people go mad! Before closing, it says a temporary file will be available! Where? On Jupiter? Open Word from scratch – it’s nowhere to be found! I have to re-treat the whole chapter! 
    ***~~~***
    “Okay, it doesn’t exist. That reassuring fix they were cooing about last night? That ‘solve-all’ dialogue box? It doesn’t exist! Or rather, it probably does, but only inside the 3rd module of the 15th lobe of the program designers brain. It’s impossible to find! Sure, I could find it in three days, possibly, but I don’t want to do that! I could have fixed the chapter by now by just writing it again! And I knew that’s what I should have done, I knew it! But, noooo – here’s some fine instructions – let’s follow them! See where it gets me!
    ***~~~***
    “I have one book to write on my new laptop. Just one book! So I didn’t buy the $14,000 model. I bought the basic model, the cheap one. I’m not gaming with it. I’m not putting movies on it, or music, or photos, or even tweets! Just one book! One! And that’s not even on the hard drive, it’s in the cloud, and on thumb drive updates every two seconds, because you can’t trust this ‘Save’ feature as far as you can Spit! So why does it tell me every two seconds my hard drive is getting full? It just wants to make me mad! It didn’t say ‘Sucker Model’ at the store. It didn’t say ‘Gotcha’ Model. I asked the clerk if there were electronics inside the case, and he said there were! ‘Are you sure it’s not just gerbil cage shavings inside?’ I asked. He said he was sure! What a liar!”
    (Originally posted on my own blog)
  15. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    When they asked Don McClain what his song meant, he answered that it meant he would never have to work another day in his life.
  16. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    You haven’t been around long enough to discern how it works here:
    CMP takes the snap and hands off to JWI. JWI looks for a receiver. TTH is way way out there, but usually flubs the catch.  JTR is also wide open, but he generally gets distracted in cursing out the coach. Melinda looks open. So is Aruana.  JWI throws, hoping for the best. 
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few such plays, JWI punts. Witness takes the catch and insists that she should have had the ball all along. Sometimes agent JackRyan takes it instead and calls up to a dozen plays at once. Either of them look for receivers. Matthew 457845 is open. So is Shiwiiiiiii. So is Srecko (hehehe). So is JTR, who technically is on the other team, but 85% of the time it is impossible to tell. 
    The thrower hesitates. All of these receivers are known to be distracted by Anna’s smiley face, and whenever that happens, they either miss the catch completely or run headlong into the goalposts. Hoping for the best, he or she throws anyway.
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few rounds of this, the Librarian, that old hen, blows the play dead, and calls for another one. Admin puts his head in his hands and cries. He once supposed that web hosting would be his path to respectability.
    Understand now?
  17. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    It can be awkward running into one of these characters. Sometimes they start fights with us. Sometimes (alas) we start fights with them.
    Recently I spoke with one fundamentalist type and it threatened to go that way. Finally learning, after all these years, I said: “Look, you think we’re doing it all wrong. We think you’re doing it all wrong. We’ll steal members from your church in a heartbeat if we can, and you’ll do the same to us. Let’s just agree on those things.
    That out of the way, we were able to enjoy a fine conversation on the importance of faith and the challenge of maintaining it today, knowing that we could always come back and haggle out those things later.
    With liberal clergy, I sometimes just ask them to describe what they do in the course of a day. I don’t assume, as I might have when I was younger, that the answer will be: “Nothing.”
    Not too long ago I hopped out of the car to do a minister’s home. A sister of the old school wanted to accompany me, but I said: “No, you’ll get in a fight with him.” She felt bad, so did I, and I did apologize. Still, I know how it would have gone:
    ”Interesting. Thank you for that. Now let’s see what the Bible has to say.”
  18. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    When they asked Don McClain what his song meant, he answered that it meant he would never have to work another day in his life.
  19. Like
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Melinda Mills in JW OPPOSERS GROUPS   
    Nothing sums up her work more than that, imo.
  20. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from James Thomas Rook Jr. in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    When they asked Don McClain what his song meant, he answered that it meant he would never have to work another day in his life.
  21. Like
    TrueTomHarley reacted to JW Insider in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    It landed foul on the grass
    The players tried for a forward pass
    With the jester on the sidelines in a cast Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
    While sergeants played a marching tune
    We all got up to dance
    Oh, but we never got the chance 'Cause the players tried to take the field
    The marching band refused to yield
    Do you recall what was revealed           --from link--
  22. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from James Thomas Rook Jr. in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    You haven’t been around long enough to discern how it works here:
    CMP takes the snap and hands off to JWI. JWI looks for a receiver. TTH is way way out there, but usually flubs the catch.  JTR is also wide open, but he generally gets distracted in cursing out the coach. Melinda looks open. So is Aruana.  JWI throws, hoping for the best. 
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few such plays, JWI punts. Witness takes the catch and insists that she should have had the ball all along. Sometimes agent JackRyan takes it instead and calls up to a dozen plays at once. Either of them look for receivers. Matthew 457845 is open. So is Shiwiiiiiii. So is Srecko (hehehe). So is JTR, who technically is on the other team, but 85% of the time it is impossible to tell. 
    The thrower hesitates. All of these receivers are known to be distracted by Anna’s smiley face, and whenever that happens, they either miss the catch completely or run headlong into the goalposts. Hoping for the best, he or she throws anyway.
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few rounds of this, the Librarian, that old hen, blows the play dead, and calls for another one. Admin puts his head in his hands and cries. He once supposed that web hosting would be his path to respectability.
    Understand now?
  23. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    You haven’t been around long enough to discern how it works here:
    CMP takes the snap and hands off to JWI. JWI looks for a receiver. TTH is way way out there, but usually flubs the catch.  JTR is also wide open, but he generally gets distracted in cursing out the coach. Melinda looks open. So is Aruana.  JWI throws, hoping for the best. 
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few such plays, JWI punts. Witness takes the catch and insists that she should have had the ball all along. Sometimes agent JackRyan takes it instead and calls up to a dozen plays at once. Either of them look for receivers. Matthew 457845 is open. So is Shiwiiiiiii. So is Srecko (hehehe). So is JTR, who technically is on the other team, but 85% of the time it is impossible to tell. 
    The thrower hesitates. All of these receivers are known to be distracted by Anna’s smiley face, and whenever that happens, they either miss the catch completely or run headlong into the goalposts. Hoping for the best, he or she throws anyway.
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few rounds of this, the Librarian, that old hen, blows the play dead, and calls for another one. Admin puts his head in his hands and cries. He once supposed that web hosting would be his path to respectability.
    Understand now?
  24. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from ComfortMyPeople in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    You haven’t been around long enough to discern how it works here:
    CMP takes the snap and hands off to JWI. JWI looks for a receiver. TTH is way way out there, but usually flubs the catch.  JTR is also wide open, but he generally gets distracted in cursing out the coach. Melinda looks open. So is Aruana.  JWI throws, hoping for the best. 
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few such plays, JWI punts. Witness takes the catch and insists that she should have had the ball all along. Sometimes agent JackRyan takes it instead and calls up to a dozen plays at once. Either of them look for receivers. Matthew 457845 is open. So is Shiwiiiiiii. So is Srecko (hehehe). So is JTR, who technically is on the other team, but 85% of the time it is impossible to tell. 
    The thrower hesitates. All of these receivers are known to be distracted by Anna’s smiley face, and whenever that happens, they either miss the catch completely or run headlong into the goalposts. Hoping for the best, he or she throws anyway.
    Allen Smith, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask so that you don’t know which one he is, intercepts. He charges headlong and bloodies anyone in his path. He gets ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
    After a few rounds of this, the Librarian, that old hen, blows the play dead, and calls for another one. Admin puts his head in his hands and cries. He once supposed that web hosting would be his path to respectability.
    Understand now?
  25. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in What good is an internet forum for JWs?   
    Doesn’t happen here. After all that I have said about the Librarian, that old hen, I am still here to talk about it.
    Mr. Admin takes his seat at the 17th Annual Conference of Internet Magificents. “Seen the latest stats for users on the WorldNewsMedia forum?” he casually mentions to the Reddit founder. “Pretty, impressive, isn’t it?”
    “Big deal, they’re all religious nuts,” the latter answers. Come back when you have people who don’t think the world is flat!”
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