Twins
Sometimes you plan the day ahead what you two should wear.
Sometimes, you call each other that morning and coordinate clothes.
And sometimes you just roll over and say, "Keegan, let's have a twins day."
Sometimes, you call each other that morning and coordinate clothes.
And sometimes you just roll over and say, "Keegan, let's have a twins day."
General Motors CEO announces "Financial problems fixed with one phone call to number on telephone pole sign"
DETROIT, Mi (HJ)- In a surprising turn of events, General Motors Corp. CEO Fritz Henderson announced today that GM would be avoiding bankruptcy and possibly even be retuning the $15.4 billion in federal loans it received. Mark LaNeve, GM vice president of sales, service and marketing, said in a statement, “By golly, it’s a frickin’ miracle.”
While Wall Street’s reaction has been one of shock and surprise, Mr. Henderson said
all it took was a simple call. “I was being driven home at 2:00pm after a long day at the office. I had Westerly take the long way home and in doing so, we passed a telephone pole with a sign stating ‘Fix Your Credit’. I decided to give it a go.” Within a few moments and presses of the keypad, Mr. Henderson was connected with a helpful sales associate named Ramón Greschchi. “In just a few minutes, we were able to restructure GM’s loans and spread the debt out over 3,134,554 credit cards with a 23.9% interest rate."
While many stockholders are wary of the deal, Mr. Henderson was ecstatic about the future of the company and the details of the restructuring, "I’m also getting a free name brand computer with monitor and printer!”
Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/
While Wall Street’s reaction has been one of shock and surprise, Mr. Henderson said
all it took was a simple call. “I was being driven home at 2:00pm after a long day at the office. I had Westerly take the long way home and in doing so, we passed a telephone pole with a sign stating ‘Fix Your Credit’. I decided to give it a go.” Within a few moments and presses of the keypad, Mr. Henderson was connected with a helpful sales associate named Ramón Greschchi. “In just a few minutes, we were able to restructure GM’s loans and spread the debt out over 3,134,554 credit cards with a 23.9% interest rate."While many stockholders are wary of the deal, Mr. Henderson was ecstatic about the future of the company and the details of the restructuring, "I’m also getting a free name brand computer with monitor and printer!”
Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/
Google Voice Transcription Service Experiment: What I Learned
A few months ago, I signed up for a free Grand Central phone number. A wonderful service where a user could receive phone calls on their personal phone without giving out their private number and manage them in various ways that would be useful for selling items on Craig’s List or for internet guys, like myself, to pull pranks and scam Nigerians. Recently, Grand Central was purchased by Google, renamed Google Voice and several features were added. One of those features was message transcription where Google would turn your caller's voice into text.
Yesterday, I put my Google Voice phone number (614-429-4365 or 614-GAY-IDOL) on reddit.com and asked people to call my number and leave a message. I said I would copy and paste what Google Voice transcribed and then I would type in what I heard below the transcription so that we could all compare the two. I did not expect the flood of voice mails nor the varied, creative messages.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Google Voice does not like compressed audio or you yelling about your privates
If Google does not like what you said due to background noise or screaming or a bad connection, it will state, “Transcript not available.” Before I started receiving a call every minute, I would listen to the “Transcript not available” messages to see why they would not come through. Sometimes it was because some dude would scream, “PENIS PENIS PENIS!” A few times it would be because someone was holding up their phone to the television so that I could hear a line from Monty Python or Family Guy. Most the time it was because their phone sounded compressed, like they were using Skype or an internet phone. I could hear them fine, but if they sounded like they were calling from the bottom of a fish tank and Google didn’t like it.
2. Google likes you to say “hi” and “bye.”
The Google people are pretty smart because they assume that most phone calls start with a “hello” and end with a “bye”. Whatever logarithm or logic chart they use, it makes some very broad assumptions. I assume it would work with a lot of phone calls, but not when you are dealing with people dropping “The Prince of Bel-Air” in your message box.
Speaking of Bel-Air, you must check out the translation tanscript by Google and the audio file created by jayssite that follows immediately after. Brilliant work, jayssite.
3. Google Voice is good with numbers
If you can leave most your messages as numbers, you’ll love the accuracy!
4. Google Voice wants to save your marriage
I listened to a message that said, “Cindy, you dirty whore. I'm divorcing you.” Google felt compassion and transcribed it as: cindy and very on the work something out bye
5. Google allowed callers to sneak through
Late in the afternoon as my voice mailbox was on fire, calls started to come in on my cell phone with the number 000-000-0000. I let them go to voicemail and when I checked, the messages were the same quotes from the "The Big Lebowski" I’d been receiving all day. This was disturbing because they were going into my personal voice mail which gives my real name. Google Voice is supposed to give you an opportunity to remain anonymous so that the people from the local roofing company you pissed off on consumerist.com can’t track you down and flatten your tires. I sent Google a note and hope they fix that.
6. Google Voice believes in conspiracies
Message: 9-11 was an inside job. Wake up sheeple.
Transcript: nine eleven with the inside job we cox you pull
Truthers like Google Voice. “You can clearly hear Google Voice saying “pull.”
7. Google Voice doesn’t think you should swear
Message: What the fuck.
Transcript: what the phone
We think Google Voice did the TV version of “Snakes on a Plane” (via Vortex22222)
“I've had it with these monkey-phoning snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”
8. Google Voice gets it right… rarely
I’m not going to beat Google Voice up that badly. They are in a kind of beta testing. But here was the first message it got 100% correct: hi honey
The second was:
Transcript not available.
9. Google Voice lets you post messages on line
This creepy message is interesting for two reasons: one, because it is creepy. And two, because I never though of the word “beauty” as B O T. When Google voice gets something stuck in its head, it runs with it. If it hears a letter, it listens for more. This is also to show you that Google Voice allows you to post messages on your website.
Transcript by Google: B O T as in the heart mobile to work around that
The actual message:
10. Well, here are some things that you can learn from all this:
a. I do not work for Google
b. I got over 500 voice mails
c. 50% of them were “Transcript not available.”
d. There are a lot of funny people out there
e. There are just as many crazy people
f. Most spoken word in the messages seemed to be “um.”
g. No, I do not have any gVoice invites.
h. No, I will not hurry up and post your message
i. No, I will not post your political opinion
j. Yes, I am gay (the colleague one is day)
k. The whispering people were the creepiest
l. There were some very depressing voices out there: like the girl who got deodorant for a birthday present from her boss.
m. I did not listen to all the messages. After the first 50 “Transcript not available” messages, I quit listening and just started deleting. Sorry to all of you that did not get posted.
n. Yes, Google Voice does track your phone number and logs it in the inbox.
o. No, I deleted all the messages except the one in this e-mail.
p. Thanks to reddit.com and all the redditors that helped with this completely unscientific experiment.
q. Yes, I picked 614-gay-idol on purpose
r. No, I will not be using the whole alphabet
Yesterday, I put my Google Voice phone number (614-429-4365 or 614-GAY-IDOL) on reddit.com and asked people to call my number and leave a message. I said I would copy and paste what Google Voice transcribed and then I would type in what I heard below the transcription so that we could all compare the two. I did not expect the flood of voice mails nor the varied, creative messages.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Google Voice does not like compressed audio or you yelling about your privates
If Google does not like what you said due to background noise or screaming or a bad connection, it will state, “Transcript not available.” Before I started receiving a call every minute, I would listen to the “Transcript not available” messages to see why they would not come through. Sometimes it was because some dude would scream, “PENIS PENIS PENIS!” A few times it would be because someone was holding up their phone to the television so that I could hear a line from Monty Python or Family Guy. Most the time it was because their phone sounded compressed, like they were using Skype or an internet phone. I could hear them fine, but if they sounded like they were calling from the bottom of a fish tank and Google didn’t like it.
2. Google likes you to say “hi” and “bye.”
The Google people are pretty smart because they assume that most phone calls start with a “hello” and end with a “bye”. Whatever logarithm or logic chart they use, it makes some very broad assumptions. I assume it would work with a lot of phone calls, but not when you are dealing with people dropping “The Prince of Bel-Air” in your message box.
Speaking of Bel-Air, you must check out the translation tanscript by Google and the audio file created by jayssite that follows immediately after. Brilliant work, jayssite.
3. Google Voice is good with numbers
If you can leave most your messages as numbers, you’ll love the accuracy!
4. Google Voice wants to save your marriage
I listened to a message that said, “Cindy, you dirty whore. I'm divorcing you.” Google felt compassion and transcribed it as: cindy and very on the work something out bye
5. Google allowed callers to sneak through
Late in the afternoon as my voice mailbox was on fire, calls started to come in on my cell phone with the number 000-000-0000. I let them go to voicemail and when I checked, the messages were the same quotes from the "The Big Lebowski" I’d been receiving all day. This was disturbing because they were going into my personal voice mail which gives my real name. Google Voice is supposed to give you an opportunity to remain anonymous so that the people from the local roofing company you pissed off on consumerist.com can’t track you down and flatten your tires. I sent Google a note and hope they fix that.
6. Google Voice believes in conspiracies
Message: 9-11 was an inside job. Wake up sheeple.
Transcript: nine eleven with the inside job we cox you pull
Truthers like Google Voice. “You can clearly hear Google Voice saying “pull.”
7. Google Voice doesn’t think you should swear
Message: What the fuck.
Transcript: what the phone
We think Google Voice did the TV version of “Snakes on a Plane” (via Vortex22222)
“I've had it with these monkey-phoning snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”
8. Google Voice gets it right… rarely
I’m not going to beat Google Voice up that badly. They are in a kind of beta testing. But here was the first message it got 100% correct: hi honey
The second was:
Transcript not available.
9. Google Voice lets you post messages on line
This creepy message is interesting for two reasons: one, because it is creepy. And two, because I never though of the word “beauty” as B O T. When Google voice gets something stuck in its head, it runs with it. If it hears a letter, it listens for more. This is also to show you that Google Voice allows you to post messages on your website.
Transcript by Google: B O T as in the heart mobile to work around that
The actual message:
10. Well, here are some things that you can learn from all this:
a. I do not work for Google
b. I got over 500 voice mails
c. 50% of them were “Transcript not available.”
d. There are a lot of funny people out there
e. There are just as many crazy people
f. Most spoken word in the messages seemed to be “um.”
g. No, I do not have any gVoice invites.
h. No, I will not hurry up and post your message
i. No, I will not post your political opinion
j. Yes, I am gay (the colleague one is day)
k. The whispering people were the creepiest
l. There were some very depressing voices out there: like the girl who got deodorant for a birthday present from her boss.
m. I did not listen to all the messages. After the first 50 “Transcript not available” messages, I quit listening and just started deleting. Sorry to all of you that did not get posted.
n. Yes, Google Voice does track your phone number and logs it in the inbox.
o. No, I deleted all the messages except the one in this e-mail.
p. Thanks to reddit.com and all the redditors that helped with this completely unscientific experiment.
q. Yes, I picked 614-gay-idol on purpose
r. No, I will not be using the whole alphabet
Five things I want to get rid of
The Penny
Someday we will get rid of the penny and when we finally do, we’ll look back and say, “Why didn’t we do that sooner.” Well? Let’s get rid of it now! Old ladies in
front of you in line won’t need to dig for dark, dirty pennies when they can clearly see the large shiny nickels. Think about the poor Burger King employee that screws up the register and can sing the Schoolhouse Rock - Ready or Not, Here I Come (Count By Fives) Song while counting your change out! And we can get rid of that dirty, stinking Need A Penny – Take a Penny dish, the universal coin ashtray.
Get rid of the stinking penny. Check out this high-tech website for more information.
Daylight Savings Time
Remember back in the 90’s and 00’s when CEOs were getting 90 million dollar golden parachutes and when someone would raise their head above the din and suggest that was bullshit, we’d all shrug our shoulders and say, “That’s just the way it is?” Well now we know different. The same goes for Daylight Savings Time. Twice a year we get beat upside the head with sixty minutes of unnecessary agrarian adjustment. People suggest, “Well, farmers and retailers can use the extra sunlight and there are less accidents. It’s just the way it is.” Bullshit. Farmer gets up when rooster says git up. Retailers will make up any lost time on the back end. I have kids and every time the clock changes, I have to re-wire my kids’ schedules over seven days to get them back on track. Let's just pick one or the other-forward or back- and stick with it. I assume one is better than the other. I just think that once a year the bars should stay open an hour later and everyone would be happy with that. Get rid of DST change. Here’s a site where you can pretend you care.
9/10 Gas Prices
What really pisses me off about the 9/10 gas prices is that you cannot get the pump
to give you the 9/10 price… it rounds up for you. That’s why whenever I go into the station to pay, I take a penny from the dirty, stinking Need A Penny – Take a Penny dish. If we can’t get rid of the 1/10th of a cent, I don’t see how we are going to get rid of the penny. So let’s start small. No prices shall be posted unless there is an increment of change in that denomination. I think everyone knows that Richard Pryor faked his own death and is on a remote desert island somewhere collecting the 1/10th of a cent from every gallon of your gas purchase. {photo from The Truth About... on Flickr}
Corks
I was recently stuck on a deserted island with Richard Pryor. During my “note in the bottle” project, I had the choice of putting an air tight screw cap on the bottle or shoving some tree bark (cork) in the top of the bottle to safely secure the note within the bottle. Being a romantic, I chose tree bark. As I watched the bottle fill with water and sink, I had to ask myself, “does the cork industry really have this much influence on my life?” Screw caps work better than corks. You can actually keep a bottle of wine for 24 hours with a cap and not have it littered with cork shrapnel. Get over yourself and let’s get rid of corks.
Gift Cards
I’m not sure if your mom or Uncle Bob realize this, but cash is the best gift in the world. There is no better gift and there is absolutely nothing wrong or tacky or gauche about giving cash. A gift card is like buying dinner for your date and having the big box store under the table with their hands down your date’s pants eating the leftovers. Nothing good can come of a gift card. I have never spent exactly what was on a gift card. Either I left $1.89 on the card or spent more that what was on the card. Either way, the store wins. I still have an AppleBee’s $25 dollar gift card in my wallet. I assume that some day I will use it to try to jimmy a lock, otherwise I will never use it. Fuck it… I’m going to sell it on e-bay for $49.99. Anyone stupid enough to buy a gift card in the first place will be dumb enough to pay way too much for it in the second place. Buy it here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130306190376&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123
Someday we will get rid of the penny and when we finally do, we’ll look back and say, “Why didn’t we do that sooner.” Well? Let’s get rid of it now! Old ladies in
front of you in line won’t need to dig for dark, dirty pennies when they can clearly see the large shiny nickels. Think about the poor Burger King employee that screws up the register and can sing the Schoolhouse Rock - Ready or Not, Here I Come (Count By Fives) Song while counting your change out! And we can get rid of that dirty, stinking Need A Penny – Take a Penny dish, the universal coin ashtray.Get rid of the stinking penny. Check out this high-tech website for more information.
Daylight Savings Time
Remember back in the 90’s and 00’s when CEOs were getting 90 million dollar golden parachutes and when someone would raise their head above the din and suggest that was bullshit, we’d all shrug our shoulders and say, “That’s just the way it is?” Well now we know different. The same goes for Daylight Savings Time. Twice a year we get beat upside the head with sixty minutes of unnecessary agrarian adjustment. People suggest, “Well, farmers and retailers can use the extra sunlight and there are less accidents. It’s just the way it is.” Bullshit. Farmer gets up when rooster says git up. Retailers will make up any lost time on the back end. I have kids and every time the clock changes, I have to re-wire my kids’ schedules over seven days to get them back on track. Let's just pick one or the other-forward or back- and stick with it. I assume one is better than the other. I just think that once a year the bars should stay open an hour later and everyone would be happy with that. Get rid of DST change. Here’s a site where you can pretend you care.
9/10 Gas Prices
What really pisses me off about the 9/10 gas prices is that you cannot get the pump
to give you the 9/10 price… it rounds up for you. That’s why whenever I go into the station to pay, I take a penny from the dirty, stinking Need A Penny – Take a Penny dish. If we can’t get rid of the 1/10th of a cent, I don’t see how we are going to get rid of the penny. So let’s start small. No prices shall be posted unless there is an increment of change in that denomination. I think everyone knows that Richard Pryor faked his own death and is on a remote desert island somewhere collecting the 1/10th of a cent from every gallon of your gas purchase. {photo from The Truth About... on Flickr}Corks
I was recently stuck on a deserted island with Richard Pryor. During my “note in the bottle” project, I had the choice of putting an air tight screw cap on the bottle or shoving some tree bark (cork) in the top of the bottle to safely secure the note within the bottle. Being a romantic, I chose tree bark. As I watched the bottle fill with water and sink, I had to ask myself, “does the cork industry really have this much influence on my life?” Screw caps work better than corks. You can actually keep a bottle of wine for 24 hours with a cap and not have it littered with cork shrapnel. Get over yourself and let’s get rid of corks.
Gift Cards
I’m not sure if your mom or Uncle Bob realize this, but cash is the best gift in the world. There is no better gift and there is absolutely nothing wrong or tacky or gauche about giving cash. A gift card is like buying dinner for your date and having the big box store under the table with their hands down your date’s pants eating the leftovers. Nothing good can come of a gift card. I have never spent exactly what was on a gift card. Either I left $1.89 on the card or spent more that what was on the card. Either way, the store wins. I still have an AppleBee’s $25 dollar gift card in my wallet. I assume that some day I will use it to try to jimmy a lock, otherwise I will never use it. Fuck it… I’m going to sell it on e-bay for $49.99. Anyone stupid enough to buy a gift card in the first place will be dumb enough to pay way too much for it in the second place. Buy it here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130306190376&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123
Local Man Almost Commits Suicide when Twitter Goes Down
TOLEDO OH (HJ) - Hank Rufus (@hankepanky on Twitter) is a gentle, secluded man with very little outlet for his emotions. Though the medium for his hidden emotions were first revealed on AIM, his real love is Twitter. “I Twitter everything I am thinking about doing, what I am doing and what I do after what I did is done.”
On May 8th, Hank was preparing to share his dinner plans with his “followers” (Pizza Hut with ice cream at Baskin Robbins – Carmel Chocolate Crunch #doubledip) when he had trouble logging in to his Twitter account. Over the next twenty minutes, everything would change in Hank’s life.
“At first I thought my cookies had been deleted. I tried logging in for a full two minutes. I started to panic.” Hank suffers from several undiscovered social disorders which cause him to get agitated when he doesn’t get his way. “After about twenty failed attempts, I just knew that my life was over. So I decided to end it.”
Fortunately, Hank was unable to make any decisions without consulting his Twitter “followers” and he was helpless. Without their guidance, he just sat around and toyed with the loose cat5 cable under his desk. He tried consulting Wikipedia on suicide, but was unable to connect. After another ten minutes of going between playing Hearts (offline) and attempting to connect to the internet, Hank figured out what was wrong and plugged the cable back in the wall. In just a few short seconds, he forgot all about his suicidal plans and Tweeted his thanks to the Twitter community, “THXS for being there in my darkest times. Wo all f u I would be strnded on an islad w/o frinds or food 2 tlk about. I hav a new lv 4 life!”
Hank’s next goal is to accumulate ten more followers. "I've deleted all my other posts to start clean and fresh so that the people I have followed forget some of the things I said I wanted to do to them."
On May 8th, Hank was preparing to share his dinner plans with his “followers” (Pizza Hut with ice cream at Baskin Robbins – Carmel Chocolate Crunch #doubledip) when he had trouble logging in to his Twitter account. Over the next twenty minutes, everything would change in Hank’s life.
“At first I thought my cookies had been deleted. I tried logging in for a full two minutes. I started to panic.” Hank suffers from several undiscovered social disorders which cause him to get agitated when he doesn’t get his way. “After about twenty failed attempts, I just knew that my life was over. So I decided to end it.”
Fortunately, Hank was unable to make any decisions without consulting his Twitter “followers” and he was helpless. Without their guidance, he just sat around and toyed with the loose cat5 cable under his desk. He tried consulting Wikipedia on suicide, but was unable to connect. After another ten minutes of going between playing Hearts (offline) and attempting to connect to the internet, Hank figured out what was wrong and plugged the cable back in the wall. In just a few short seconds, he forgot all about his suicidal plans and Tweeted his thanks to the Twitter community, “THXS for being there in my darkest times. Wo all f u I would be strnded on an islad w/o frinds or food 2 tlk about. I hav a new lv 4 life!”
Hank’s next goal is to accumulate ten more followers. "I've deleted all my other posts to start clean and fresh so that the people I have followed forget some of the things I said I wanted to do to them."
Employee Smoking Area Helps Employees to Quit
I have actually seen the store workers smoking out there.
PalmerFest 2009 "riots?"
Well, sometimes this stuff happens when you mix alcohol and matches. The peaceful PalmerFest of years past got a little out of control last night. Setting fires is one thing, but it is egregious that stupid fucks would throw bottles at the firefighters.
I will suggest that when this kind of shit does happen, it is usually because of people from out of town who don't give a shit. 70% of arrests in Athens during the annual Halloween party are guests of student from out of town. But that is no excuse. I don't know the whole story, but I assume that PalmerFest will look a lot different next year.
Congrats.
Photos from the rough parts of the night by Andrew Spear The aftermath.
Article from The Post.
I will suggest that when this kind of shit does happen, it is usually because of people from out of town who don't give a shit. 70% of arrests in Athens during the annual Halloween party are guests of student from out of town. But that is no excuse. I don't know the whole story, but I assume that PalmerFest will look a lot different next year.
Congrats.
Photos from the rough parts of the night by Andrew Spear The aftermath.
Article from The Post.
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