Category Archives: Weird

Culinary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

Holy Chilole

4 Comments

I like me some chiles, but these people are nuts:

Mr. Bosland claims to have broken the two million Scoville mark in February 2012 with his Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. That is the same strength as police-grade pepper spray — a substance no sensible person would let travel through his digestive tract. Mr. Bosland hasn’t yet submitted paperwork to Guinness for the official record, and his claim really burns up Mr. de Wit, who insists his pepper is still the hottest. Only chemical chromatography that measures several samples for their average level of capsaicin, the chemical that gives peppers their bite, can establish a record claim. But Mr. Scott, one of the few people on Earth who has tasted both varieties, says the Moruga Scorpion is clearly hotter.

I used to grow habaneros on the patio (and I still have a container of dried ones, years old, to spice up a chili), but I hadn’t realized that they were now growing peppers in the mega-Scoville range.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Weird

The New Civility

5 Comments

Yeah, that national conversation about guns is coming along just fine:

Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to state legislators at 10:54 p.m. on Jan. 27, warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law.

Mitchell responded from his public, ALHouse.gov email account at 11:59 p.m., telling Maxwell: “Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk.”

“That’s not the type of reply I expect to receive from a state legislator,” Maxwell replied on Feb. 11.

Obviously his expectations are too high.

Business, Technology and Society, Weird

Amazon Advantage

7 Comments

So, I’ve been trying to set up a page for my book at Amazon. So far, color me very unimpressed.

The Advantage site has a form to fill out with book description, author bio, and three reviews. It very clearly states:

You don’t need to use HTML to fill out the edit boxes below – just type normally. However, if you’d like to use advanced formatting, you may use HTML to indicate breaks, boldface or italics.
<P> = a paragraph break <BR> = a line break
<b> </b> = boldface <i> </i> = italics.
Example: The <b>quick</b> brown fox <i>jumped over</i> the lazy dog.<BR>

Well, I kind of like paragraphs. Call me crazy, but that’s just how I roll. So I put in some <p>s, and bolded the names of the reviewers.

When I saved my work, it didn’t display the HTML properly, instead showing the code. Moreover, it had removed the second two reviews, and attributed the first one to the second reviewer.

I scratched my head, and went back int to edit, reinserting the other two reviews, and straightening out the reviewer names. I hit “View” and got exactly the same thing. HTML still in the code, no graf breaks, and the second two reviews disappeared, with the wrong reviewer name on the first.

I send a complaint to Amazon (via a web form, so I have no record of it, unless I had the foresight to copy it somewhere, which I didn’t). Here is the response:

Dear Vendor,

I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Please be informed that when you update any information using update item content and then click submit button, everything will get disappear. However please be informed that the same will appear on the website in 5-7 days.

I request you to update the information without using HTML tags.

As you have the limit to add only 3 reviews, I request you to write back to us with the reviews that you wish to add and we will do the needful.

Thank you for selling with Amazon,

Sowjanya Reddy T.
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

So, they can’t show me what the page is actually going to look like until it goes live, and despite the fact that they clearly invite me to use HTML, they then request that I not do so. Which means that I can’t do so much as break paragraphs.

I’m kind of gobsmacked. I mean, this is fricking’ Amazon.

Business, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

Auto Insurance Spam

6 Comments

Every day my inbox (or rather, my spam box) is flooded with spam telling me about how “auto rates” are going down (presumably it means insurance, though the word is often not mentioned). Usually, the subject is something like “The president has passed a new law reducing your rates,” or “Washington has passed a new law…”

Well, today, I got my first Pope auto-rate spam:

Subject: New Pope Equals Lower Auto Rates? Yes – See Why.

– – – – New Pope Announcement Has Major Impact On Your Auto Rates – – – –

The new pontiff – Francis The 1st is already having a dramatic impact on auto rates. Did you know the month a new pope is elected is always the safest month to drive of the year? This is why major auto insurers have come together to lower auto rates to $3.75/month for drivers who sign up during the month of March who reside in low-risk driving zip codes

See if your area qualifies for the new rates by visiting the link below and entering your zip code. Should you qualify, expect your rates to drop and budget accordingly.

Needless to say, I didn’t click on the link below, but you have to give them marks for creativity in coming up with idiot bait.