I really wish sometimes that nobody was gullible enough to fall for robocall scams. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist. Clearly, someone must be taking them seriously if they're still around.
Today's call was from "WCA", talking about health insurance. Looking up their opening line ("Hello, this is WCA calling") shows me that this group, like most of the others, has been active for at least a couple of years and nobody seems to be able to find them and arrest them. Looking at search results, WCA has also tried several of the other pitches other robocall scam rings use, like Home Protection's security systems and Cardholder Services' credit card debt assistance.
It's becoming increasingly obvious that there is not a single legit telemarketer left in the country. Non-criminal money is made on the Internet now... not to say that the Internet doesn't have any crime. Heck, just look at my previous blog entry. Stay smart and ignore robocalls.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
How to Avoid Advance Fee Fraud
It used to be a frequent thing to see news stories about people who were scammed out of hundreds or thousands of dollars by online fraudsters who promised huge amounts of money. Most often called the "Nigerian banker scam", these dirty tricks affected hundreds of people every year, and undoubtedly even more went unreported due to the victims feeling ashamed that they fell for it. If you can believe it, these scams are still ongoing even today, and people are still taking the bait. Here's what I know about Nigerian banker scams - or, their proper name, "advance fee fraud".
The basic idea behind advance fee fraud is to promise a massive reward in exchange for just a small amount of money up front. Obviously, there is no reward, and the scammer cuts and runs after milking the victim. The scam is called the "Nigerian banker" scam because the most famous version of advance fee fraud is a claim that a rich man in Nigeria has died and his massive wealth is supposed to be split between the writer (scammer) and the helper (victim). The victim is supposedly needed because the scammer needs to move the money from one account to another, or some other nebulous reason. As for the "Nigerian" part being so frequent? The majority of advance fee fraud cases come from Nigeria. The country is a hotbed of crime, online and off.
So how does it work? First the scammer trawls the Internet for email addresses. Comments pages and message boards are common methods of getting emails. He then sends all of the addresses a form letter that lays out the details of how the victim can get a whole lot of money for very little work. If they reply and seem hooked, the scammer will start asking for money. For whatever reason, there are suddenly all sorts of fees that can't be paid with the huge stockpile of cash, or can't wait until after the money is free. Sometimes the scammer claims to be very poor and needs some money to stay safe. Other times the money is locked behind deposit fees or customs charges. The scammer hopes the victim will consider it an easy choice to pay a little money now to get a big pile of money later. But since there's no big pile of money, the scammer just strings the victim along until they catch on or go bankrupt. There are cases of victims borrowing from friends and selling possessions in desperation, constantly thinking that the prize is just around the corner. There are even cases of people actually flying to Nigeria to collect the money, and getting robbed or even murdered once there by the very person they were communicating with via email.
There are other, similar scams, too. Some scammers use fake websites that look like popular online stores to get people to enter their credit card numbers or passwords. Others pretend to be charities, soliciting money from generous people who think they're helping the poor when they're only lining the pockets of a crook.
Fortunately, if you have any idea what you're doing, you can easily avoid advance fee fraud. Here's a simple list of tips on what to look for.
1: Is the email from Nigeria? While not all scams are Nigerian, many are, and it's likely you wouldn't be contacted legitimately by Nigeria.
2: Is the email in ALL-CAPS, or does it use lots and lots of caps for emphasis? Professional people do not use all caps when trying to negotiate major business deals. It looks silly and is hard to read.
3: Are you being promised something for nothing, or a huge reward for very little work? If so, you're basically guaranteed to be looking at a scam.
4: If you reply to such an offer and are asked to give money or personal information, IMMEDIATELY stop contact and do not provide anything.
5: Be wary if the email throws around lots of religious phrases like "Greetings in Christ" and "May God be with you". Scammers will frequently pretend to be deeply religious to try and convince victims that they are legit. A victim may believe that someone so pious must be telling the truth. However, religion is very easily faked over the Internet. These people do not have the values they claim to. Stay away.
6: Scammers can't even send you an email if you don't post your address anywhere. A good piece of advice is to have two email accounts. Give one to only friends, and use the other whenever a website needs it. This will keep your personal address from getting any spam at all, not just scams. The other can use the Junk feature of most email services to keep suspicious mail quarantined.
7: Oh, and by the way: If somebody wants to give somebody else millions of dollars, they're not going to pick email addresses at random. That's stupid.
The basic idea behind advance fee fraud is to promise a massive reward in exchange for just a small amount of money up front. Obviously, there is no reward, and the scammer cuts and runs after milking the victim. The scam is called the "Nigerian banker" scam because the most famous version of advance fee fraud is a claim that a rich man in Nigeria has died and his massive wealth is supposed to be split between the writer (scammer) and the helper (victim). The victim is supposedly needed because the scammer needs to move the money from one account to another, or some other nebulous reason. As for the "Nigerian" part being so frequent? The majority of advance fee fraud cases come from Nigeria. The country is a hotbed of crime, online and off.
So how does it work? First the scammer trawls the Internet for email addresses. Comments pages and message boards are common methods of getting emails. He then sends all of the addresses a form letter that lays out the details of how the victim can get a whole lot of money for very little work. If they reply and seem hooked, the scammer will start asking for money. For whatever reason, there are suddenly all sorts of fees that can't be paid with the huge stockpile of cash, or can't wait until after the money is free. Sometimes the scammer claims to be very poor and needs some money to stay safe. Other times the money is locked behind deposit fees or customs charges. The scammer hopes the victim will consider it an easy choice to pay a little money now to get a big pile of money later. But since there's no big pile of money, the scammer just strings the victim along until they catch on or go bankrupt. There are cases of victims borrowing from friends and selling possessions in desperation, constantly thinking that the prize is just around the corner. There are even cases of people actually flying to Nigeria to collect the money, and getting robbed or even murdered once there by the very person they were communicating with via email.
There are other, similar scams, too. Some scammers use fake websites that look like popular online stores to get people to enter their credit card numbers or passwords. Others pretend to be charities, soliciting money from generous people who think they're helping the poor when they're only lining the pockets of a crook.
Fortunately, if you have any idea what you're doing, you can easily avoid advance fee fraud. Here's a simple list of tips on what to look for.
1: Is the email from Nigeria? While not all scams are Nigerian, many are, and it's likely you wouldn't be contacted legitimately by Nigeria.
2: Is the email in ALL-CAPS, or does it use lots and lots of caps for emphasis? Professional people do not use all caps when trying to negotiate major business deals. It looks silly and is hard to read.
3: Are you being promised something for nothing, or a huge reward for very little work? If so, you're basically guaranteed to be looking at a scam.
4: If you reply to such an offer and are asked to give money or personal information, IMMEDIATELY stop contact and do not provide anything.
5: Be wary if the email throws around lots of religious phrases like "Greetings in Christ" and "May God be with you". Scammers will frequently pretend to be deeply religious to try and convince victims that they are legit. A victim may believe that someone so pious must be telling the truth. However, religion is very easily faked over the Internet. These people do not have the values they claim to. Stay away.
6: Scammers can't even send you an email if you don't post your address anywhere. A good piece of advice is to have two email accounts. Give one to only friends, and use the other whenever a website needs it. This will keep your personal address from getting any spam at all, not just scams. The other can use the Junk feature of most email services to keep suspicious mail quarantined.
7: Oh, and by the way: If somebody wants to give somebody else millions of dollars, they're not going to pick email addresses at random. That's stupid.
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Magazine Onslaught
Magazines used to be a nifty media form - every month, you'd get a book in the mail all about a certain topic, and you'd keep getting new issues throughout the year. It was a nice feeling of familiarity. You'd get to know the authors' names and look forward to recurring sections with excitement. You'd learn new things. You'd discover stuff you'd never heard of, and find out more about things you did.
Today, the Internet has neutered magazines much the same way it has newspapers. For magazines, the situation is actually worse - even the most frequently published magazines are weekly, while newspapers are daily. This means newspapers are more nimble than magazines when it comes to news. Of course, the Internet obliterates them both in speed and scope.
When I was a kid, I loved magazines. I subscribed to quite a few over the years. Here's a quick look at what I grew up reading.
Your Big Backyard
This was my first magazine. Your Big Backyard is aimed at young kids, and is about animals and nature. My mom correctly guessed that I'd enjoy the subject. I don't remember much about Your Big Backyard since I was so young when I received it.
Ranger Rick
This is the "big kid" version of Your Big Backyard. Once I'd proven my reading ability, I was upgraded to it. I subscribed to Ranger Rick for several years and loved every issue. I remember one night one of my teachers visited my house. She'd been cleaning out her home and had found a whole bunch of Ranger Rick magazines from the late 1980s. They were in great shape, and I eagerly claimed them. The magazines stayed with me for years.
Highlights
1996 was the Year of the Magazine for me. While I had only Ranger Rick before this time, in 1996 I suddenly was subscribed to a half-dozen magazines. I can't recall exactly why my mom enjoyed giving me so many, but I'll guess that it was lots of cheap and fun reading material - and I always loved reading.
Highlights is a classic children's magazine. Memorable for including a wide variety of content, from standalone short stories to modern-day news pieces to the guidance offered by Goofus and Gallant, Highlights was a grab bag of stuff that could vary wildly in terms of catching my interest from issue to issue.
Boys' Life
The only one of my magazines that catered exclusively to my gender was always viewed by me as the most "adult" of the lot. While it was certainly well within my reading level, it talked about some slightly more advanced subjects and included stories about things like the novel Brian's Winter - which is about a boy stranded alone fending for himself.
The two regular sections I recall best are the comics and the section near the back filled with old-school advertisements similar to those from old comic books, where gimmicky toys like x-ray specs are peddled to the kids. I never ordered anything, but I sometimes daydreamed about it.
Disney Adventures
As you might guess, this magazine (which was printed small, like how TV Guide used to be) had a Disney theme, although it talked about other things as well. The first issue I ever got featured Jurassic Park: The Lost World on it. There was a contest inside to win a life-size statue of the famous raptor dinosaurs featured in the series. I entered, and as you probably guessed, lost. I don't know where I would have put a life-size raptor anyway.
As time went on, the comics at the back of the magazine got bigger and bigger, eventually taking over roughly half or more of each issue. I mostly preferred the articles, and lost interest in the magazine as a result.
National Geographic Kids
This one was a little later than the others, I think - I remember getting issues from 1997, not 96. It was mostly about science and nature, as you'd expect from National Geographic. I don't remember too much about it, though.
Nickelodeon Magazine
This was the first of the tidal wave of magazines to show up on my doorstep. My first issue was from October 1995. Nickelodeon Magazine grew to become my favorite of the many magazines I subscribed to. It covered many different topics, had a comics section in the middle, and frequently featured some sort of punch-out gimmick or prank label to have fun with.
The Magazine Extinction
As time went on, I got fewer and fewer magazines. When 1997 rolled around, I elected to drop Highlights and Boys' Life but added National Geographic Kids. Before 1998, my mom came to me one day. She was hard up for money, and told me that to save money she had to cancel my magazine subscriptions. I could keep only one. It was easy to ditch Disney Adventures and National Geographic Kids, but that left two: Nickelodeon Magazine and Ranger Rick. After some thought, I decided it was time to say goodbye to Ranger Rick, leaving me with only Nickelodeon into the next year.
A couple years later I told my mom to cancel Nickelodeon Magazine as well. I don't remember why, but my guess is that I wanted to help save her money and was getting bored with the magazine, so I offered it as a sacrifice.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
In 2003, I was a young teenager with no magazine subscriptions. However, I'd gotten into the habit of buying EGM, a video game magazine, off of the shelf every now and then. First, I bought one in 2000 because it had a news story on a new Pokemon game. Then, in 2001, I got another that talked about Nintendo's new video game system, the Game Boy Advance. As time went on I bought issues more frequently before finally deciding to go for it and get a subscription as a birthday present.
For several years I looked forward to getting EGM in the mail, but I noticed a problem. Slowly, features were being removed from the magazine. First the cheats section vanished, with a note saying that it was on the EGM website now. Then, interviews were truncated with messages at the end saying that there were more questions on the website. When the monthly comic strip left as well in 2007 I grew disillusioned with the magazine and opted to take them up on the offer of just finding everything about video games online - except I didn't use their website because I had been a member of a different one since 2003. By the end of 2007, I was no longer a subscriber. Incredibly, EGM went out of business just a few issues later - although it was later brought back.
It's been a long time since I last subscribed to a magazine, but time and technology marches on. The age of magazines is over, and magazine companies are making the move to online - or dying out completely.
Today, the Internet has neutered magazines much the same way it has newspapers. For magazines, the situation is actually worse - even the most frequently published magazines are weekly, while newspapers are daily. This means newspapers are more nimble than magazines when it comes to news. Of course, the Internet obliterates them both in speed and scope.
When I was a kid, I loved magazines. I subscribed to quite a few over the years. Here's a quick look at what I grew up reading.
Your Big Backyard
This was my first magazine. Your Big Backyard is aimed at young kids, and is about animals and nature. My mom correctly guessed that I'd enjoy the subject. I don't remember much about Your Big Backyard since I was so young when I received it.
Ranger Rick
This is the "big kid" version of Your Big Backyard. Once I'd proven my reading ability, I was upgraded to it. I subscribed to Ranger Rick for several years and loved every issue. I remember one night one of my teachers visited my house. She'd been cleaning out her home and had found a whole bunch of Ranger Rick magazines from the late 1980s. They were in great shape, and I eagerly claimed them. The magazines stayed with me for years.
Highlights
1996 was the Year of the Magazine for me. While I had only Ranger Rick before this time, in 1996 I suddenly was subscribed to a half-dozen magazines. I can't recall exactly why my mom enjoyed giving me so many, but I'll guess that it was lots of cheap and fun reading material - and I always loved reading.
Highlights is a classic children's magazine. Memorable for including a wide variety of content, from standalone short stories to modern-day news pieces to the guidance offered by Goofus and Gallant, Highlights was a grab bag of stuff that could vary wildly in terms of catching my interest from issue to issue.
Boys' Life
The only one of my magazines that catered exclusively to my gender was always viewed by me as the most "adult" of the lot. While it was certainly well within my reading level, it talked about some slightly more advanced subjects and included stories about things like the novel Brian's Winter - which is about a boy stranded alone fending for himself.
The two regular sections I recall best are the comics and the section near the back filled with old-school advertisements similar to those from old comic books, where gimmicky toys like x-ray specs are peddled to the kids. I never ordered anything, but I sometimes daydreamed about it.
Disney Adventures
As you might guess, this magazine (which was printed small, like how TV Guide used to be) had a Disney theme, although it talked about other things as well. The first issue I ever got featured Jurassic Park: The Lost World on it. There was a contest inside to win a life-size statue of the famous raptor dinosaurs featured in the series. I entered, and as you probably guessed, lost. I don't know where I would have put a life-size raptor anyway.
As time went on, the comics at the back of the magazine got bigger and bigger, eventually taking over roughly half or more of each issue. I mostly preferred the articles, and lost interest in the magazine as a result.
National Geographic Kids
This one was a little later than the others, I think - I remember getting issues from 1997, not 96. It was mostly about science and nature, as you'd expect from National Geographic. I don't remember too much about it, though.
Nickelodeon Magazine
This was the first of the tidal wave of magazines to show up on my doorstep. My first issue was from October 1995. Nickelodeon Magazine grew to become my favorite of the many magazines I subscribed to. It covered many different topics, had a comics section in the middle, and frequently featured some sort of punch-out gimmick or prank label to have fun with.
The Magazine Extinction
As time went on, I got fewer and fewer magazines. When 1997 rolled around, I elected to drop Highlights and Boys' Life but added National Geographic Kids. Before 1998, my mom came to me one day. She was hard up for money, and told me that to save money she had to cancel my magazine subscriptions. I could keep only one. It was easy to ditch Disney Adventures and National Geographic Kids, but that left two: Nickelodeon Magazine and Ranger Rick. After some thought, I decided it was time to say goodbye to Ranger Rick, leaving me with only Nickelodeon into the next year.
A couple years later I told my mom to cancel Nickelodeon Magazine as well. I don't remember why, but my guess is that I wanted to help save her money and was getting bored with the magazine, so I offered it as a sacrifice.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
In 2003, I was a young teenager with no magazine subscriptions. However, I'd gotten into the habit of buying EGM, a video game magazine, off of the shelf every now and then. First, I bought one in 2000 because it had a news story on a new Pokemon game. Then, in 2001, I got another that talked about Nintendo's new video game system, the Game Boy Advance. As time went on I bought issues more frequently before finally deciding to go for it and get a subscription as a birthday present.
For several years I looked forward to getting EGM in the mail, but I noticed a problem. Slowly, features were being removed from the magazine. First the cheats section vanished, with a note saying that it was on the EGM website now. Then, interviews were truncated with messages at the end saying that there were more questions on the website. When the monthly comic strip left as well in 2007 I grew disillusioned with the magazine and opted to take them up on the offer of just finding everything about video games online - except I didn't use their website because I had been a member of a different one since 2003. By the end of 2007, I was no longer a subscriber. Incredibly, EGM went out of business just a few issues later - although it was later brought back.
It's been a long time since I last subscribed to a magazine, but time and technology marches on. The age of magazines is over, and magazine companies are making the move to online - or dying out completely.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Why I Use AdBlock
My Internet browser of choice is Mozilla Firefox. This browser allows downloading of "add-ons", special applications that add new functions and features to the browser. The most popular of these is AdBlock, a program that automatically removes and disables advertising on the Internet. Even the commercials played before some YouTube videos are taken out. Thanks to this, I have seen virtually no advertisements online for about three years now. Why did I do this? I have three reasons.
The first issue is a fairly personal one: I have been resistant to advertising since childhood. Through a few stumbling blocks in my early years where a toy seen on TV turns out to be not as fun in reality, I grew hardened against advertising claims, and began to treat ads as always lying and exaggerating in order to secure my money or my parents' money. For years now I have only trusted advertising to mean one thing: "This product exists". While sometimes impressed by given statistics, I prefer to research the product first to see if their claims are true. Since ads use fine print and exaggerated hype on every topic from usefulness to effectiveness to features to pricing, I can't trust them for anything except "this product exists".
While advertising may not work on me, that seemed like all the better reason to keep it around. It helped pay for the websites I visited, and some of them need the help. So why did I turn off the ads? There were two important things that made me use AdBlock. The first reason was that advertisers were trying too hard. Much of the advertising on the internet isn’t alluring, just annoying. Pop-up windows that take up most of the screen get in the way of your content. Pop-under windows make your taskbar flash with a new window alert, and require closing. Commercials interrupt your video experience and cause more loading and buffering. Flashing animated images can hurt your eyes and distract you from the website’s text. But worst of all, my absolute least favorite type of ad, is the ad with sound. Frequently I would be browsing a page, listening to music in another window, when my experience is ruined by a voice at high volume prattling on. "Congratulations! You've won a free Macbook Air." I knew darn well that I didn’t win anything and that the "free" Macbook was probably buried under a pile of nonsense "offer forms" and paying for shipping and handling, so in addition to interrupting my browsing and drowning out my music the ad was also insulting my intelligence. These ads frequently made me consider AdBlock, but I was always hesitant to finally pull the trigger.
The last straw was the proliferation of what are essentially cybercriminals in advertising. These are the ads that cause viruses to be downloaded onto your computer. Normally, they weren’t a problem, because all I needed to do was not click the advertisement. However, when browsing one of my regular web destinations, I noticed a news post where the administrators were apologizing for an ad their advertising service provided that could cause viruses to download to a user's computer just by them loading the ad, not even clicking it. With my computer at risk, that was the final straw, and I immediately got off the site and did not return until I had downloaded and tested AdBlock.
Through harassment, unwanted pitches, loud interruptions, and cybercrime, I was left with no option but to use AdBlock, preventing any website from ever getting advertising dollars from my visits. This is what happens when an industry seems to be built on frustrating and hurting its consumer base: The smart ones tune out entirely.
The first issue is a fairly personal one: I have been resistant to advertising since childhood. Through a few stumbling blocks in my early years where a toy seen on TV turns out to be not as fun in reality, I grew hardened against advertising claims, and began to treat ads as always lying and exaggerating in order to secure my money or my parents' money. For years now I have only trusted advertising to mean one thing: "This product exists". While sometimes impressed by given statistics, I prefer to research the product first to see if their claims are true. Since ads use fine print and exaggerated hype on every topic from usefulness to effectiveness to features to pricing, I can't trust them for anything except "this product exists".
While advertising may not work on me, that seemed like all the better reason to keep it around. It helped pay for the websites I visited, and some of them need the help. So why did I turn off the ads? There were two important things that made me use AdBlock. The first reason was that advertisers were trying too hard. Much of the advertising on the internet isn’t alluring, just annoying. Pop-up windows that take up most of the screen get in the way of your content. Pop-under windows make your taskbar flash with a new window alert, and require closing. Commercials interrupt your video experience and cause more loading and buffering. Flashing animated images can hurt your eyes and distract you from the website’s text. But worst of all, my absolute least favorite type of ad, is the ad with sound. Frequently I would be browsing a page, listening to music in another window, when my experience is ruined by a voice at high volume prattling on. "Congratulations! You've won a free Macbook Air." I knew darn well that I didn’t win anything and that the "free" Macbook was probably buried under a pile of nonsense "offer forms" and paying for shipping and handling, so in addition to interrupting my browsing and drowning out my music the ad was also insulting my intelligence. These ads frequently made me consider AdBlock, but I was always hesitant to finally pull the trigger.
The last straw was the proliferation of what are essentially cybercriminals in advertising. These are the ads that cause viruses to be downloaded onto your computer. Normally, they weren’t a problem, because all I needed to do was not click the advertisement. However, when browsing one of my regular web destinations, I noticed a news post where the administrators were apologizing for an ad their advertising service provided that could cause viruses to download to a user's computer just by them loading the ad, not even clicking it. With my computer at risk, that was the final straw, and I immediately got off the site and did not return until I had downloaded and tested AdBlock.
Through harassment, unwanted pitches, loud interruptions, and cybercrime, I was left with no option but to use AdBlock, preventing any website from ever getting advertising dollars from my visits. This is what happens when an industry seems to be built on frustrating and hurting its consumer base: The smart ones tune out entirely.
Friday, February 10, 2012
All About Game Shows
When I was a kid, I went through a lot of different phases. The Asperger's symptom of "special interests" applies to me in that I would get really into something for a while, then grow bored and try something else. While in the throes of an interest, I'd read about it, or watch it, or collect it, depending on what it was. Some interests I came back to over and over every so often, while others I've dropped. I've had many special interests over the years, from dinosaurs to politics. One of my shorter-lived interests was the game show. When I was around ten years old, I took a liking to watching game shows, trying to answer the questions, and hoping people could win big. Here are my thoughts and memories on some of the most memorable game shows of my childhood.
Legends of the Hidden Temple
I should clarify that my ten-year-old game show watching was not the first time I watched game shows. The difference was that the first game shows I watched were specifically targeted at kids - Nickelodeon used to show lots of game shows, and I followed most of them. Legends of the Hidden Temple was my favorite of the group. This game show had an awesome setting that looked like ancient ruins in the jungle. The two competing teams of kids were chosen from a pool of possible team names, so there were recurring teams, but you didn't see the same teams every time. I think there was a Purple Monkey team, a Silver Spider team, and a Green Parrot team, among others (all animals you'd find in jungle ruins, of course). Adding to the spectacle was the character Olmec, a giant talking tiki head who explained the rules of each game.
After one team got enough points to beat the other team, the main event happened - a kid from the winning team was sent into the "hidden temple" itself - an obstacle course with different paths every episode. Temple Guards (hired staff) lurked in the temple, and would try to catch the kid before they could reach the goal. Winning the earlier games gave the team medallions they could use as "extra lives" to hold off a guard attack. The whole thing was extremely reminiscent of a real-life video game, and that's why I was so interested in it. It was a hard game, too - kids escaped the temple rarely enough that it was really thrilling when they managed to win!
Jeopardy
This was probably the first "adult" game show I ever watched. I remember thinking the "phrase your answer in the form of a question" rule was weird, and chalked it up to being Jeopardy's attempt to stand out from the pack. I generally wasn't very good at playing along on Jeopardy, so I got really excited when I knew the answer to a question. Or is that the question to an answer? Silly Jeopardy.
Wheel of Fortune
I liked Wheel of Fortune because the puzzles, being word-based and gradually revealed, were fun to try and solve. I always got upset when someone hit Bankrupt, though. I felt so bad for them.
The other thing I remember from Wheel of Fortune is the constant applauding. Everybody would clap every time the wheel was spun. And the wheel spun a lot. I recall making fun of the overeager applause more than once.
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
This was the game show that got me into watching game shows in the first place. I heard a lot of excitement over it when it premiered around the turn of the millennium, and I followed it fairly regularly for a while. Although I didn't enjoy how drawn out the show sometimes got (especially when they had to end the show on a tough question because they were out of time), I loved the fun questions at the beginning, the excitement of watching people win big sums of money, and especially the atmosphere.
Out of all the "adult" game shows, Millionaire had bar none the best presentation. Jeopardy was studious and techy with its wall of screens. Wheel of Fortune was glitzy and fun. But Millionaire was serious business. The enormous stadium, the dramatic lighting, and the music. Goodness gracious, the music. It made you feel like the world was at stake. I got the idea to look for Millionaire's music on YouTube this morning, and I found it. It inspired me to write this post.
Here's a few tracks from Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
The 100- to 1000-dollar questions
The 2000-dollar question
The 64,000 dollar question (they actually use slightly different songs for these high-level questions, slowly increasing the pitch to make it more dramatic)
The million-dollar question
Contestant gets the million-dollar question correct
Contestant gets the million-dollar question wrong (it's suitably tragic)
Legends of the Hidden Temple
I should clarify that my ten-year-old game show watching was not the first time I watched game shows. The difference was that the first game shows I watched were specifically targeted at kids - Nickelodeon used to show lots of game shows, and I followed most of them. Legends of the Hidden Temple was my favorite of the group. This game show had an awesome setting that looked like ancient ruins in the jungle. The two competing teams of kids were chosen from a pool of possible team names, so there were recurring teams, but you didn't see the same teams every time. I think there was a Purple Monkey team, a Silver Spider team, and a Green Parrot team, among others (all animals you'd find in jungle ruins, of course). Adding to the spectacle was the character Olmec, a giant talking tiki head who explained the rules of each game.
After one team got enough points to beat the other team, the main event happened - a kid from the winning team was sent into the "hidden temple" itself - an obstacle course with different paths every episode. Temple Guards (hired staff) lurked in the temple, and would try to catch the kid before they could reach the goal. Winning the earlier games gave the team medallions they could use as "extra lives" to hold off a guard attack. The whole thing was extremely reminiscent of a real-life video game, and that's why I was so interested in it. It was a hard game, too - kids escaped the temple rarely enough that it was really thrilling when they managed to win!
Jeopardy
This was probably the first "adult" game show I ever watched. I remember thinking the "phrase your answer in the form of a question" rule was weird, and chalked it up to being Jeopardy's attempt to stand out from the pack. I generally wasn't very good at playing along on Jeopardy, so I got really excited when I knew the answer to a question. Or is that the question to an answer? Silly Jeopardy.
Wheel of Fortune
I liked Wheel of Fortune because the puzzles, being word-based and gradually revealed, were fun to try and solve. I always got upset when someone hit Bankrupt, though. I felt so bad for them.
The other thing I remember from Wheel of Fortune is the constant applauding. Everybody would clap every time the wheel was spun. And the wheel spun a lot. I recall making fun of the overeager applause more than once.
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
This was the game show that got me into watching game shows in the first place. I heard a lot of excitement over it when it premiered around the turn of the millennium, and I followed it fairly regularly for a while. Although I didn't enjoy how drawn out the show sometimes got (especially when they had to end the show on a tough question because they were out of time), I loved the fun questions at the beginning, the excitement of watching people win big sums of money, and especially the atmosphere.
Out of all the "adult" game shows, Millionaire had bar none the best presentation. Jeopardy was studious and techy with its wall of screens. Wheel of Fortune was glitzy and fun. But Millionaire was serious business. The enormous stadium, the dramatic lighting, and the music. Goodness gracious, the music. It made you feel like the world was at stake. I got the idea to look for Millionaire's music on YouTube this morning, and I found it. It inspired me to write this post.
Here's a few tracks from Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
The 100- to 1000-dollar questions
The 2000-dollar question
The 64,000 dollar question (they actually use slightly different songs for these high-level questions, slowly increasing the pitch to make it more dramatic)
The million-dollar question
Contestant gets the million-dollar question correct
Contestant gets the million-dollar question wrong (it's suitably tragic)
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
More Stores I Can Never Visit Again
I've always had an interest in the slowly changing landscape of my hometown and the surrounding area. I'm interested in the arrivals of new stores and the deaths of old stores. Last time I blogged about places I once shopped at but now no longer exist, I mentioned New England Video, Blockbuster, and Ames. Here are three more places from my past that are forever relegated to the world of my memory.
Shop n' Save
Back in the nineties, we had two big grocery stores to choose from: Shop n' Save and Grand Union. Since Shop n' Save shared a building with the almighty Ames, my family would frequently visit both stores in the same day to get all of our shopping done in just one trip. We had no loyalty to Shop n' Save, though, and visited Grand Union frequently too.
I remember walking into Shop n' Save. For all intents and purposes, it was your average grocery store - the automatic doors led past a corkboard with ads and bulletins posted on it, then you grabbed your shopping cart and made your way through the produce section before wandering through the aisles. Now, for whatever reason, I strongly associate Shop n' Save with high ceilings and the color silver. Whether other stores featured just as much silver or had ceilings just as high is irrelevant to my wild childhood imagination. That's the weird thing about memories.
Shop n' Save's death was a sudden one. After the falling of Ames, Shop n' Save plugged along on its own for a while. Then, when word spread that Shaw's Supermarkets was going to move into Ames' old space, I wondered what would become of Shop n' Save. Surely two grocery stores sharing the same building was an idea doomed to fail. Apparently Shop n' Save wasn't willing to compete, because they vanished at the exact same time Shaw's showed up.
Circuit City
This is a unique one - there was never a Circuit City in my hometown. You see, even after my family discovered how easy it was to buy things over the Internet, I still liked to occasionally shop in brick-and-mortar stores. My mom hates shopping, as does my brother, but I don't mind it much at all, despite my aversion of large crowds. Shopping in a physical building provides a unique feeling, and you get a different experience with different stores. They're also good for when I don't know what I want to buy - just browsing the shelves can turn up things I didn't know existed, whereas when I'm shopping online I usually have a single specific thing in mind, or at least a particular brand (Like, I may want "a Godzilla toy" but have no further specifics).
Anyway, since I still liked to shop in real stores, and especially in the first half of the 2000s, before my mom was totally comfortable with buying online, occasionally we'd go on a road trip to more populated areas with big stores. In the early and mid-2000s, we liked to shop at Wal-Mart in New Hampshire. A little later we started going to Williston, which boasted a Toys R Us and a Circuit City, among other things.
I realize I've been talking a lot and not really mentioning Circuit City, but that's because I don't have too much to say about Circuit City itself. I got a lot of GameCube games there, and the last time I went there I got some on deep discount when the system was on its way out, although due to the distance we missed the big liquidation sales. I don't miss it much, since on our next road trip, which I think happened before they went out of business, was to the nearby GameStop. I'd completely overlooked the place and I like it a lot for buying video games, especially used ones.
Dollar Depot
Next to Ames and New England Video, this is one of the stores I have the most fond memories of. Dollar Depot, which I always knew of as just "the dollar store", had a green dollar bill for a logo. True to its name, everything inside cost a buck. I remember visiting it many a time, impressed by the variety of things I could get for only one dollar. Generally, whenever I visited, I'd head straight to the back of the store, which was where the toys were. After poring over the shelves, I generally would move on to the right-hand side of the store. This was where the art supplies and books were, and I would frequently get something here as well. My most common purchases were plastic animal toys and notebooks to doodle on. I still have a couple old, worn, and doodle-filled notebooks from the Dollar Depot, as well as many of the toys I bought there.
The most memorable Dollar Depot acquisition for me is when they suddenly acquired a horde of Pokemon figurines. These 2-inch toys seemed like genuine official products (they may not have been, but they seemed equal in quality) and they were even imported from Japan (I recall the packaging being loaded with Japanese characters and very little English). My brother and I flipped out at this tremendous bargain (Ames charged a good bit more for Pokemon toys than a buck) and gathered up a bunch before they all sold out within a couple weeks.
The reason Dollar Depot went under is simple - in 2006, Dollar Tree took up residence in our town by moving in where Shop n' Save used to be. Dollar Depot was only a few miles away, and it couldn't compete with Dollar Tree's larger selection. Dollar Depot attempted to branch out by adding items that cost more than a dollar, but it didn't last long. In less than a year, Dollar Depot was wiped out. I love Dollar Tree, and Dollar Depot had been declining in terms of stuff I liked, but I still collected plenty of fond memories of the place.
Shop n' Save
Back in the nineties, we had two big grocery stores to choose from: Shop n' Save and Grand Union. Since Shop n' Save shared a building with the almighty Ames, my family would frequently visit both stores in the same day to get all of our shopping done in just one trip. We had no loyalty to Shop n' Save, though, and visited Grand Union frequently too.
I remember walking into Shop n' Save. For all intents and purposes, it was your average grocery store - the automatic doors led past a corkboard with ads and bulletins posted on it, then you grabbed your shopping cart and made your way through the produce section before wandering through the aisles. Now, for whatever reason, I strongly associate Shop n' Save with high ceilings and the color silver. Whether other stores featured just as much silver or had ceilings just as high is irrelevant to my wild childhood imagination. That's the weird thing about memories.
Shop n' Save's death was a sudden one. After the falling of Ames, Shop n' Save plugged along on its own for a while. Then, when word spread that Shaw's Supermarkets was going to move into Ames' old space, I wondered what would become of Shop n' Save. Surely two grocery stores sharing the same building was an idea doomed to fail. Apparently Shop n' Save wasn't willing to compete, because they vanished at the exact same time Shaw's showed up.
Circuit City
This is a unique one - there was never a Circuit City in my hometown. You see, even after my family discovered how easy it was to buy things over the Internet, I still liked to occasionally shop in brick-and-mortar stores. My mom hates shopping, as does my brother, but I don't mind it much at all, despite my aversion of large crowds. Shopping in a physical building provides a unique feeling, and you get a different experience with different stores. They're also good for when I don't know what I want to buy - just browsing the shelves can turn up things I didn't know existed, whereas when I'm shopping online I usually have a single specific thing in mind, or at least a particular brand (Like, I may want "a Godzilla toy" but have no further specifics).
Anyway, since I still liked to shop in real stores, and especially in the first half of the 2000s, before my mom was totally comfortable with buying online, occasionally we'd go on a road trip to more populated areas with big stores. In the early and mid-2000s, we liked to shop at Wal-Mart in New Hampshire. A little later we started going to Williston, which boasted a Toys R Us and a Circuit City, among other things.
I realize I've been talking a lot and not really mentioning Circuit City, but that's because I don't have too much to say about Circuit City itself. I got a lot of GameCube games there, and the last time I went there I got some on deep discount when the system was on its way out, although due to the distance we missed the big liquidation sales. I don't miss it much, since on our next road trip, which I think happened before they went out of business, was to the nearby GameStop. I'd completely overlooked the place and I like it a lot for buying video games, especially used ones.
Dollar Depot
Next to Ames and New England Video, this is one of the stores I have the most fond memories of. Dollar Depot, which I always knew of as just "the dollar store", had a green dollar bill for a logo. True to its name, everything inside cost a buck. I remember visiting it many a time, impressed by the variety of things I could get for only one dollar. Generally, whenever I visited, I'd head straight to the back of the store, which was where the toys were. After poring over the shelves, I generally would move on to the right-hand side of the store. This was where the art supplies and books were, and I would frequently get something here as well. My most common purchases were plastic animal toys and notebooks to doodle on. I still have a couple old, worn, and doodle-filled notebooks from the Dollar Depot, as well as many of the toys I bought there.
The most memorable Dollar Depot acquisition for me is when they suddenly acquired a horde of Pokemon figurines. These 2-inch toys seemed like genuine official products (they may not have been, but they seemed equal in quality) and they were even imported from Japan (I recall the packaging being loaded with Japanese characters and very little English). My brother and I flipped out at this tremendous bargain (Ames charged a good bit more for Pokemon toys than a buck) and gathered up a bunch before they all sold out within a couple weeks.
The reason Dollar Depot went under is simple - in 2006, Dollar Tree took up residence in our town by moving in where Shop n' Save used to be. Dollar Depot was only a few miles away, and it couldn't compete with Dollar Tree's larger selection. Dollar Depot attempted to branch out by adding items that cost more than a dollar, but it didn't last long. In less than a year, Dollar Depot was wiped out. I love Dollar Tree, and Dollar Depot had been declining in terms of stuff I liked, but I still collected plenty of fond memories of the place.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Safety Warning: "This is Your Second and Final Notice" Isn't Final
You've met Tom from Home Protection and Rachel from Cardholder Services, but there are even more robocallers running around out there, fleecing people without a care in the world.
I've just received another automated message. This one is a female voice who neglects to introduce herself and instead says "This is your second and final notice" and talks about lowering monthly credit card rates. Like all the other robocallers, these people are breaking the law and you should absolutely not respond to them. They will not help you, they will scam you.
I've also noticed that despite getting this same call many times, it's always my "second and final notice". There was never a first notice, and the "final" notices will keep repeating forevermore.
So, just another important reminder: Do not EVER believe a robocall that is trying to offer a service or product. There are much safer ways to purchase goods and services than over the phone (or through email, for that matter - I suppose I'll write a post about the Nigerian banker at some point).
Here's a newspaper article about a similar robocall dealing with extending warranties on cars:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=20090511&id=7nxdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VFwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=6296,1912987
I've just received another automated message. This one is a female voice who neglects to introduce herself and instead says "This is your second and final notice" and talks about lowering monthly credit card rates. Like all the other robocallers, these people are breaking the law and you should absolutely not respond to them. They will not help you, they will scam you.
I've also noticed that despite getting this same call many times, it's always my "second and final notice". There was never a first notice, and the "final" notices will keep repeating forevermore.
So, just another important reminder: Do not EVER believe a robocall that is trying to offer a service or product. There are much safer ways to purchase goods and services than over the phone (or through email, for that matter - I suppose I'll write a post about the Nigerian banker at some point).
Here's a newspaper article about a similar robocall dealing with extending warranties on cars:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=20090511&id=7nxdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VFwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=6296,1912987
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