In my younger days, I worked for U-Haul. They had these preloaded speeches you were supposed to adhere to when someone called. I am sure they felt it maximized sales. One for trailer/truck rental, another for storage, etc. I never liked acting as a robot, so I free-formed the calls (I’m a people person!). I was/and am quite customer focused, so I was good at answering the phone. Up until I got fired for not following the canned company diatribe. They had a call center dedicated to calling around the country to test employees. I failed twice.

The scavenging is making it more difficult looking for a SFF PC on fleaBay. More and more listings say “no RAM/no SSD” and the ones that have it are barebones or far more expensive. Even laptops are heading that way. Yuck.

“‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I apologize’ mean the same thing, except when you’re at a funeral”

• Demetri Martin

There was also an investigative reporter driving a Mercedes who died in an odd accident in SoCal in and around then. It was suspicious, but swept away quickly in the news. I remember believing that he was murdered.

Edit: It was Michael Hastings. He had discredited General McChrystal which resulted in his resignation (The Runaway General). “His last story, “Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans”, was published by BuzzFeed on June 7, 2013.” I love how Wikipedia mentions that his body tested positive for marijuana and methamphetamine, but leaves out that the coroner stated that it did not contribute to the crash. And of course the LAPD stating there was no foul play. Case closed!

Shovel AK is still a thing, but this is not about guns. That is just the cloak of fear (ie - protect the children!) for legislating away your right to own things. Corpos are pissed you can make and/or repair the things they’d rather you buy again.