San Jose Plutonium News

San Jose Mercury News: Thank you for choosing text. May I have the phone number and address associated with your MERCURY NEWS account?  How may I assist you today?

b1-66er:

<phone number and address elided>

I would like to cancel my trial subscription, thank you.

SJMN: Thank you for your text.  Unfortunately we cannot stop the paper via text. Please call customer service.

b1-66er: It's not the paper I'm trying to stop, it's the digital subscription.

SJMN: unfortunately I have no authorization to cancel an account via text

b1: This seems (almost intentionally) difficult.  I can always do it the other way and tell my credit card to deny everything to you.

Which is fine by me.

I'm trying to be nice, but you guys aren't.  There's a trap door to subscribing, but no obvious exit once i have.

Or is that what's meant by "trial?"

SJMN: I do apologize, unfortunately I have no authorization to cancel an account via text, please call customer service, but I will pass the feedback to my superiors.

b1: The reason i started TXTing you was because the phone voice prompt suggested it due to interminable waits.

How many rings do i have to jump through to say "no?"

I worked on customer service stuff at AAPL.  It's super clear that no one has ever tried walking through this tree as a customer.

SJMN: Thank you for texting. Customer Service is now closed. You will receive a response during our regular business hours.

<No follow-up TXT was ever sent.  I called my credit card the next day telling them to deny.

A couple days ago i got a postcard from the SJMN telling me they were charging my "account" $9.95.  The next day i got a letter from my credit card saying the "paper" had attempted to charge 99 cents to the card.

Such are the tribulations of life.

And to think that I've done some writing for them.>

Sucker!

b1-66er: Green Munchkin (Lollipop Guild) died. Last one. Age 99. 

b1-67er: Man that is old for a midget!  In our hearts aren't we all members of the lollipop guild?

b1-66er: We are.  It's POSSIBLE that's actually the whole lesson, and point, of life.

Yeah, but can you get an icee?

Proof that Long Beach sold its soul to the devil, in 3 photos:

Caption 1:

Old Long Beach looked like this...

Caption 2:

This could be Hell, or merely a refinery on the beach

Caption 3:

This ices it: look what they're hauling around in tanker trucks down there 

Skulls of Romaine

b1-66er: Skull in salad!

That HAS to be a good omen.  Right?

D4rw1n: Don't believe in omens 

But that's fucking awesome 

The Actore: Wow!… I, yeah… I'm going to go with a good omen… Ha ha, ha ha… Ha ha… Uneasy breath

Gumby: Yes! One of the best omens there is. 

I saw that skull in a dream I had about salad 3 days ago. You were verbally abusing the skull, and it just laughed and laughed- Nervously. 

b1-66er: SO DID I!

Lettuce prey

b1-66er: I'm interested in any comments you have.

https://www.thepacker.com/article/what-you-need-know-about-outbreak-linked-romaine

b1-67er: The Packer is the Pravda of the lettuce industry.   Surprisingly this piece seems fairly reasonable.

Nearly all the winter Romaine in the US would be coming from Yuma as of a few weeks ago. 

Consumer reports messed up but saying stop eating all Romain in my opinion.

If it's a contaminated field, the whole field will probably be used for the same purpose (chopped,  hearts,or whole heads)

This is because the extent of leaf burn, over growth, under growth, mildew, etc favors different fields for given products.

If out of 40 cases none get traced to whole heads, then the whole heads should be considered as safe as they ever have been.

Also the products touch different machinery, so if a chopped production line is contaminated, it's not going to contaminate whole heads.

I think the packing industry is right in using different language for product that might have a problem vs product that definitely has a problem.

It's pretty odd that they can't get it down to a brand.

b1-66er: great answer.

b1-67er: Consumer reports has done a poor job in the few cases where I knew something about what they were complaining about.

It's only good for them when someone else has a problem. So I don't think there are any tempering forces in their organization.

b1-66er: Another shrewd observation!

You had me at "slime"

From the flyer:

'Thanks for calling the ASPCA poison control hotline, how can I help you?'

'My dog ate my daughters slime.'

'What's the recipe?'

'Well, she's not sure but likely borax, white glue, shaving cream, and the insides of a stress ball that was made of some kind of clay.'

'Do you see hm eat it?

'Not really. she came back in the room and was looking for where her slime went and saw it dripping from his mouth.'

Fan-mail from some flounder