Story time!
I forget the origin of the beef, but I remember a guy who grew up with another dude who was just a complete tool to my friend. It wasn’t outright bullying, but general arseholery and making his life difficult when it really didn’t need to be.
Anyway, my friend has a long memory and a longer grudge streak. I was finishing college at a time when print media was still king but social media was exploding in popularity.
My friend has decided “fuck this, I’m going to ruin this dude’s life for a bit”. He put an advert in the local paper or freeads (for non UK spuds: the freeads or classifieds is a newspaper-style private advertisements in one place - like a print version of a snapshot of Facebook Marketplace or Vinted for a local area).
Free TV. Call 07000100100 for details.
Anyone to this day knows that anything advertised for free attracts the most annoying, persistent, and unhinged type of people on earth. The freeads was published the following week. I didn’t socialise with the guy on the business end of my friend’s wrath on account of him being a massive cockwomble, but I understand his phone started to go wild with texts and phone calls asking about a free television - bear in mind that cheap consumer TVs weren’t really a thing and a TV purchase was a “buy it for life” thing at the time, so a free TV was just an amazing deal.
It would appear the demand for a free television was too much for the guy. In true mid 2000’s fashion, a social media message went up from the clearly annoyed guy, to the tune of:
Hi all, I’ve started to get loads of prank calls, so I’ve changed my number. It’s 07000200200 now.
With the internet and social interactions online still in the wild west era, this was fairly common. My friend chuckled to himself. The plan worked. Not satisfied with that though, he put another advert in the following week’s freeads:
Free TV. Call 07000200200 for details.
The publication date rolls around a few days later, and tens of thousands of this newspaper gets delivered to stores across the region. Obviously, mere hours after the thin yellow paper booklets are released to the public, the idiot’s phone starts going banzai. Dozens of calls a day from all corners of society, relentlessly asking about collection and delivery of a television at no charge.
The guy was livid.
Livid, but not smart. He had gotten pissed off with the calls, and was unable to stop the barrage of bargain hunters hitting his digits to get a gogglebox gratis. He went back to his phone network operator and makes the appropriate changes. Not one for releasing his number in a private, carefully controlled manner - the gist of the following was posted to social media a few weeks later:
Not sure why I’m getting so many prank calls, and my mobile network are useless. My new number is 07000300300. Let me know if someone asks you for it because I’m getting annoyed.
Most normal folk wouldn’t have risked being burned a third time and released their number in person or by SMS message. That said, I suspect the Venn diagram of twats like this guy who had spent an elder childhood making people’s lives difficult; and those who don’t appreciate the drawbacks of one-to-many communication, aren’t far off a circle.
My friend sees this status update or whatever it was called back then, cuts out the reply slip of the freeads, enclosed his payment, and sends in the following for publication the following week:
Free TV. Call 07000300300 for details. Shout “camel” when I answer so I know you’re genuine.
Hilarity likely ensued. My friend found immense satisfaction that the guy who tried to socially ostracise him and physically manhandle him for “fun” was now getting Guantanamo Bay levels of psychological torture, and 90% of calls that he answered started with someone hollering the name of a type of Saharan quardraped species.
The guy never posted anything after that. Not his new number, not any angry rants, nothing at all.
I respected my pal for that stunt. So much mental torture for so little effort. I lost touch with the friend but I still think of him now and then, and I hope that he still chuckles to himself with that prank under his belt, because I certainly do.
this was a great read, HAHAHA!
Cheers. It also made me think of a bit of newspaper advert abuse that an old colleague of mine told me.
Another pair of people, another spat over something minor, but one wasn’t to be outdone. In the first week of January, he put an advert into a local popular newspaper, saying something similar to:
Leave your old Christmas trees with me for a charity project! Bring your Christmas trees to 45 Smith Drive, Newport*, if I’m not in then leave them on my lawn!
The net results was days worth of Christmas trees being drive-by yeeted into his garden. Said it was the best 50p per word they’d ever spent.
*edit: I’m sorry if you live at 45 Smith Drive in Newport, and I hope the Christmas tree gods are unkind to you!
wow! i will definitely be reaching out to you for spiteful ideas in the future XD
i have a certain building management company (shit landlords) in mind
Totally completely unrelated to anything you said. Just a hookup between arborists and people who need an entire dump truck load of free wood chips unceremoniously unloaded in their driveway at a random future time.
Wow, love this and could totally use it in the future. Thanks for the link!
Back around this time I was in the military and each base had Public Folders in Outlook where people could post stuff for sale. I left my computer unlocked one day and one of my colleagues posted my car for free on there. This was also back when you would have like 25 MB mailbox limits. Needless to say my inbox got filled up in minutes.
Wow, I want a book written by you, you have a great style of writing! This was hilarious
Almon Brown Strowger was an undertaker and suspected that a rival buisness used their wife’s position as a switchboard operator to steal customers.
So he invented the automatic switchboard and put his competitors wife out of a job.
Came here to comment this. Are you a fellow Lateral Podcast listener?
Are you a fellow Lateral Podcast listener?
Indeed, though I have the feeling that I’ve known about this story longer then that. Maybe it was on QI?
QI could be right, I couldn’t have recalled that fact but I also learned it and I watch QI but not lateral.
Maybe I should be checking it out though
Lamborghini was a tractor company before they made cars. Ferruccio Lamborghini was successful and bought 2 Ferraris, one for him and one for his wife. He would drive his business partners to lunch in hhem, but he tended to burn up the clutches. He eventually discovered that they used a same inexpensive part as his tractors, but Ferrari charged 100 times the money for the same part. He spoke to Enzo Ferrari about it and the conversation did not go well. Lamborghini was so insulted by the reply that he started his own car company.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a25169632/lamborghini-supercars-exist-because-of-a-tractor/
We have Enzo Ferrari being a prick to thank for the birth of Lamborghini, the Shelby Cobra AC, and the Ford GT40
Tricking people to pay 100x its normal cost is pure unadulterated capitalism.
When we were kids, my brother would get mean when bored. Low-grade physical stuff, hard pinches, pulled hair, coming into my room to harass me and break toys, enough to cause pain without evidence if I were to complain. I asked my mom to intervene, she didn’t want to deal with it, so she gave me the old phrase, “if you don’t know what to do, spit in a shoe and do it again at half past two”.
So I spat in my brothers shoe every time he messed with me. And for good measure, I spat in my mom’s shoe too for letting him continue to abuse me.
But did you do it again at half past 2?
because useless family knowledge has to be easy to repeat in order to make it down the generations
Fidel Castro offering to send election observers to the US in 2004.
In the same vein, Joseph Broz Tito sending a letter to the Kremlin addressed to Stalin to stop sending assassins, because they always bungled their ops. He added “If you do, I’ll send one to Moscow and I won’t have to send a second”.
Stalin left him the fuck alone after that.
Tito smoking Cuban cigars in the White House while sitting down with Nixon is also hilarious.
Nixon told him, “Mr. President, we don’t smoke in the White House.”
Tito laughed and said, “Lucky you!” and finished his cigar and no one attempted again to make him stop.
The time I won at craps.
I don’t gamble. I’ll bet on things or play games of chance for money on occasion, but putting my money on a losing proposition isn’t my idea of a good time. When I go to a casino I go to the poker tables and that’s it.
The whole culture about it just seems so self-defeating and depressing. The superstition, chasing the high of that one-in-a-million lucky event. It’s not for me.
My older brother is mostly the same way, with one notable exception: craps. He’d been talking it up to me for years, telling me how it’s the most fun he’s ever had in a casino, and I should just try it with him and see what it’s like.
It seems too complicated, I told him. He said that you can just bet the Pass Line, which basically means you’re betting that whoever is rolling the dice doesn’t roll a seven. It’s a social activity, he explained, because the whole table is betting the Pass Line and rooting for each other.
The way he described it, a group of a strangers drinking, cheering for each other on their wins, commiserating with each other on their losses, I could almost start to see the appeal.
I downloaded an app and started asking him questions, which he answered patiently. Eagerly even.
Then I saw it.
“What’s the ‘Don’t Pass Line’?”
“It’s a bet against the person rolling the dice. Nobody really bets the Don’t Pass Line. It’s a dick move.”
A plan formed in my mind. “Ok, I’ll play.”
That night, I’m sitting at the craps table. To my right, my brother. To his right, our little sister. They sit me on the far left so I can get a feel for it before it’s my turn to roll.
The rest of the table is a smattering of dead-eyed gamblers. They looked preemptively disappointed, but ready to be amazed. Like they were ready to get caught up in a run of good luck, but they weren’t going to bring it themselves. Not the party I was promised, but there was some promise there.
First up, my sister. She rolls to set the point. We all put our chips on the Pass Line. Some of the gamblers make more specific bets.
She rolls again, and we win! She rolls again and again, and we keep winning. I see the spirits lifting around the table. There’s talking, laughing, cheering, free liquor, free money, and suddenly I get it.
Eventually my sister rolls a seven and her turn ends, but that’s ok because she already won the table a shitload of money. I’m up like $150 myself.
The table knows us a little by now. I’m new, we’re all siblings, and surely my brother will continue the hot streak.
But a plan is a plan.
My brother takes the dice and rolls the point. Everyone places their chips. I place my chips.
The dealer asks me, “Did you mean to put your chips on the Don’t Pass Line?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I meant to do.”
Silence. Then my sister: “You’re an asshole.”
My brother rolls again: seven. The Don’t Pass Line wins me a couple bucks.
I take the dice and proceed to go on a mini hot streak myself. I win like another fifty bucks, but the table never recovers. The mood is dead. I killed it.
That was probably twelve years ago. To this day, if it comes up, my sister will only call me an asshole again. My brother won’t talk about it at all.
Is that part of the superstition of it? Why are you an asshole for making a different bet? Surely it would’ve been 7 anyway, so at least you got something.
I don’t think it’s because the bet is different so much as it’s because the bet is against the person rolling. I’m betting that that person is going to “lose”. It’s just bad vibes.
But yeah, obviously my bet didn’t affect the outcome. That just makes it funnier that it worked out that way.
Craps is almost a team game.
If everyone plays the Pass Line (Shooter, the person throwing the dice has to play it) then everyone wins/loses together.
Everyone at the table playing the Pass Line is pulling for the shooter to make his point.
Now imagine if you have one person out of 8 playing the Don’t Pass. The person playing Don’t Pass line is hoping the other 7 players lose so that they can win.
It’s almost equivalent to everyone at the roulette table playing black. And you walk up and say “I hope it comes red”. Like why don’t you just hope it comes black so you can win when everyone wins?
My brother takes the dice and rolls the point. Everyone places their chips. I place my chips. The dealer asks me, “Did you mean to put your chips on the Don’t Pass Line?” “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant to do.” Silence. Then my sister: “You’re an asshole.” My brother rolls again: seven. The Don’t Pass Line wins me a couple bucks.
This doesn’t make any sense
- Once the point is established by the shooter on the come out roll, you cannot play Pass or Don’t Pass lines.
So after your brother takes the dice and rolls the point. You cannot place your chips on Pass/Don’t Pass. Maybe why dealer was confused?
- Don’t Pass Line pays on shooter rolling 2 or 3 on come out roll. You’d lose if he rolled a 7. Pass Line wins if shooter rolls a 7 on come out roll.
Second roll was a 7?
You’d have bet Don’t Pass before your brother ever rolled the dice for a second roll 7 to win the Don’t Pass
Bets after the shooter’s first come out roll are usually Come/Don’t Come bets.
If you made a Don’t Come bet instead of a Don’t Pass (Dealer was confused from your illegal play and considered it a Don’t Come bet.) You’d still lose if a 7 were rolled second. So that doesn’t make sense.
If your first bet was after your brother rolled once. The only way you’d win with him rolling a 7 on his second roll would be to play a SEVEN bet. Which would be an even bigger dick move than Don’t Pass because it’s a one turn bet that your brother was going to roll a 7.
I guess most likely you played the don’t pass before your brother ever rolled
It was years ago and I probably misremembered that part. I only skimmed your comment because craps is so boring, but yeah it’s probably whatever you said.
Thanks for the correction.
King Harald of Norway, when asked by Trump about getting invited to talk about a Nobel Peace prize, decided to host Obama instead.
My landlord was sexually harassing my neighbor with threats to raise rents if she didn’t ‘give it up’
So me and 4 of my friends took apart his car and broke into his apartment and mostly reassembled it in his living room
Cars are unibody these days. You and four of your friends carried an entire chassis through a human-sized door? Did you remove the doors? Did you remove the windshield? Did you move the engine and trans too? Did you carry the whole subframe together, or? How’d you get the lift in the house? Did you rent any tools?
…now, I’m not calling you a liar, but barring a 90’s Miata, I dunno, bro. I just don’t know, bro.
edit: missed a spot, .world snowflakes
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So no response to “this is impossible, four dudes would need to carry the entire chassis in through a residential door” other than insults. Gotcha.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And your story has a huge gaping hole in the middle of it that you cannot explain.
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I hoped you’ve done some reflection on this thread as your outburst seemed unnecessary.
His username checks out though.
How would you even do this? Hilarious though.
One of my friends was a car guy and he brought a pair of compressors and some air tools. Mostly it was just us carrying away what he and his gf kept pulling off.
I know there’s been a few cases of people paying fines with wheelbarrows full of loose pennies.
Obligatory caution that that can backfire if the recipient insists that the debtor counts the pennies. Or if the creditor refuses the pennies entirely, which is legal in some jurisdictions. (e.g. in the UK, pennies and 2p coins are legal tender up to amounts of only 20 pence. Anything beyond that is left to the discretion of the recipient.)
In the US, pennies are legal tender and have to be accepted as payment for debts owed. This tactic usually ended up in the fine being dismissed.
Pennies only have to be accepted if there is a state law saying so. For example in California if a landlord refuses a cash payment (pennies or otherwise) then the tenant basically gets free rent that month. Businesses generally set their own rules as to what is accepted. Just like you see signs saying “No bills over $20” - 50’s and 100’s are legal tender, but they can refuse them just like a bucket of pennies can be refused.
Title 31 (Money and Finance), Subtitle IV (Money), Chapter 51 (Coins and Currency), Subchapter I (Monetary System), Section 5103 (Legal Tender) of the United States Code states:
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
Since you feel like quoting things is conducive to proper discusion:
Is it legal for a business in the United States to refuse cash as a form of payment?
There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.
Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled “Legal tender,” states: “United States coins and currency [including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” This statute means that all U.S. money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.
Yes, you’re correct. That’s where the “debt” part comes in. If it’s before you incur the debt, they can refuse to accept any legal tender.
are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues
There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services
Goods or services ≠ debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.
A retail store, a restaurant etc. can refuse currency from a customer but a loan/lien holder, a public utility company, a government entity or an HOA must all accept any legal tender.
You’re confusing two separate situations.
No, you’re confusing two separate issues.
If it’s before the point of sale, they can refuse any form of payment. If you’ve already accrued the debt, they can’t refuse it.
At no point in this entire chain was I talking about payment for goods and services. My original statement was about fines levied by the city or state, which is a debt that the debtor legally has to accept pennies for, or discharge the debt.
There is no federal statute requiring private lendors to accept payment in the form of coins. The coins are legal tender but they dont have to be accepted.
The discussion is about fines. I’m not sure why you’re talking about lenders.
Also, Title 31 (Money and Finance), Subtitle IV (Money), Chapter 51 (Coins and Currency), Subchapter I (Monetary System), Section 5103 (Legal Tender) of the United States Code states:
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
So yes, there is a federal statue requiring private lenders accept coins as payment.
I don’t think that says what you think it does. Just because they are legal tender does not inherently mean (nor does that snippet say) that they cannot be denied as a form of payment.
Yes it does. It’s a legal form of payment, and if a lender denies it, you can sue to have the entire debt discharged because the lender is refusing legal tender.
If you’re a debt holder, you’re required by federal law to accept any form of legal tender as payment, which includes coins.
You really should read down to the bottom of that article, where it says that businesses are allowed to set the terms of what forms of payment they’ll accept as long as they do so before the deal is made or the sale is done. Your own source contradicts what you said.
Don’t quit your day job to start giving people legal advice.
If payment offered in legal tender is refused, the debt would be cancelled.
There’s no requirement to accept cash for pre payments, but for debts cash must be accepted.
I see child comments turning into some debate. lol
Wasn’t there a case somewhere where someone tried to pay a settlement in pennies, and then they themselves were fined?
Edit: maybe I’m thinking of this story https://www.costanzo-law.com/angry-employer-pays-in-pennies-then-gets-in-deep-legal-trouble/
Though it’s not entirely clear to me what law this violates regarding legal tender. Seems more to do with employer / employee labor relations.
My grandmother furnished an entire house with quarters in the 80s, all in one go. It was apparently around $1,000 worth of quarters.
One particular spite house in Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinny_House_(Boston)#History
According to local legend, the structure was built as a “spite house” shortly after the Civil War:
… two brothers inherited land from their deceased father. While one brother was away serving in the military, the other built a large home, leaving the soldier only a shred of property that he felt certain was too tiny to build on. When the soldier returned, he found his inheritance depleted and built the narrow house to spite his brother by blocking the sunlight and ruining his view.
Another source states:
Not much is known about the city’s narrowest house. Legend has it that … its unnamed builder erected it to shut off air and light from the home of a hostile neighbor (also nameless) with whom he had a dispute. … Believed to have been built after 1874
There’s a Spite House in Seattle, WA, too. Spite from coast-to-coast!!
Space Ghost approved
Those were some nearly useless photos shown
That actually looks quite spacious for a big city. Where is the front door? Is there a site with more pics?
Stuart Semple hates Anish Kapoor. He hates him so much that he requires those who purchase his paints to sign that they are not Anish Kapoor, are not buying them for Anish Kapoor, and will do everything they can to make sure they do not end up in the possession of Anish Kapoor.
Semple is metal as fuck. He made the Pinkest Pink after Kapoor bought exclusive artistic rights to Vantablack, then after Kapoor taunted Semple with a picture of his middle finger dipped in Pink, Semple made Diamond Dust, which is glitter made out of literal glass shards. He also made Black 2.0 and later on Black 3.0 because fuck Anish Kapoor.
It’s not just Anish Kapoor he’s against; he’s against the whole monopolization of art materials and colours. He made TIFF Blue (versus Tiffany Blue), Easy Klein (versus International Klein Blue), and even Freetone (versus Adobe and Pantone).
Equality House, bought and painted to irritate Westboro Baptist Church. It’s a tie with Mott House, listed on the same page.
I’d be worried to live there, not knowing what the westboro people might do to it.
My mate painted the side of her house rainbow in a pretty progressive area, and it’s since been vandalized multiple times.
When it was first purchased, it was an office for a few years. Nobody lives there now.
I’d be worried about that too. In some places you cannot insure an unoccupied (residential) building. But if it’s an office, maybe that’s different. I’m guessing the westboro property is also an office.
My mate painted the side of her house rainbow in a pretty progressive area, and it’s since been vandalized multiple times.
A guy I used to know got annoyed with some student neighbours who were kind of arseholes, but he was mostly annoyed with them for their frequent late, loud parties - like partying until 04:00 in the morning, shouting and screaming, vomitting on the pavement in front of the houses, etc.
Phase 1 spite involved booking in lots of tradespeople to come and visit them early in the morning so, eg, carpet fitters coming to measure up a room in their house at 08:30 on a Saturday morning and so forth.
Phase 2 spite involved pissing in an empty washing up liquid bottle and then squeezing a little stream of piss in through their letter box whenever they weren’t home. Not enough that it wouldn’t dry in a couple of hours, but that was the aim. Their hallway carpet got smellier and smellier as more and more piss dried on it.
Eventually they moved out and the landlord has to replace the carpet. The only problem. was that no carpet fitters would come out to that property any more.
Sounds like he spited the tradespeople and the landlord. I bet the students didn’t care if their carpet smelled like piss.
However, if he had previously complained to the landlord, and the landlord didn’t do anything to fix the behavior of his tenants, from whom he is collecting money and allowing them to disturb neighbors where he himself does not live, then fuck that guy. Should have pissed on his carpet too.
I’ve had similar neighbors. I complained to the landlord, and those assholes don’t do shit.
2007 starbucks, AZ. If a customer was an asshole, the worker they were an asshole to would request a restock of the sugar free classic so the Barista on bar could hear. There was no sugar free classic syrup. The drink would be made decaf.
It’s petty, but…dont be a dick
The name of that barista was Satan.
Heemeyer held various grudges against town officials, neighbors of his muffler shop, the local press, and other Granby residents. Over about eighteen months, Heemeyer secretly armored a Komatsu D355A bulldozer with layers of steel and concrete.
On Friday, June 4, 2004, Heemeyer used the bulldozer to demolish the Granby town hall, the house of a former mayor, and several other buildings. He killed himself after the bulldozer became stuck in a hardware store he was destroying. No one else was injured or killed.
The townspeople play so innocent in this story. I’ve lived in small towns and see right through their bullshit. The only reason they get away with it is the other party is dead and can’t defend himself.
