SEND IN THE CLOWNS....

SEND IN THE CLOWNS….

I don’t consider myself to be a Republican or a Democrat, I am an Independent.

So, today’s rant is not directed to any particular political party but to the institution of politics and government in general.  When I see or read about various politicians of both parties getting indicted for various criminal acts but there isn’t any closure to the issue and it just seems to fall though the cracks, it hacks me off.

Those of you reading this would all be tried, convicted and put in prison if we committed these sorts of crimes. No questions asked, just do not pass go, just go to jail.

How many of us have received calls from folks pretending to be IRS agents or some law enforcement officer who has a warrant for our arrest unless we send them money or gift cards? Most of us, I would assume. How many elderly people lose their savings and endure grief over these frauds with very few of the total being arrested for their acts?

In 2024 there were over 850,000 reports of imposter fraud and scams reported to the government. There were 24 arrests made as a result. They could have gotten that many from just the calls made to my cell phone. Those ‘piracy’ notices you see in from of movies you watch at home? All those fake Gucci bags you see at the flea market? Resulted in 80 total arrests nationwide. 80?

In 2020 there were 1,571 arrests for IRS tax fraud in the whole country. They could have gotten more than that from our congress and government members.

Everyone knows it’s a federal crime to impersonate an FBI agent, but there isn’t any record of anybody getting convicted of doing this. They don’t post anything with their numbers.

Last year I was almost scammed by a guy in Chicago trying to buy a jeep I had for sale. He sent me a cashier’s check for the money but the whole deal looked and smelled suspicious. By the time I got through with it I found the check was a forgery and I would have lost the jeep. I took all of the information to the FBI in Fort Worth. Needless to say, I was not well received and did not feel as if they had time for an interstate auto scam. The FBI agent took all of my evidence (about 25 pages) supposedly to make a copy. I had paper-clipped all of these together and they were returned to me with the paper clip  in exactly the same position, obviously they had not been copied. I asked him for his name so I could send him any later evidence. He said he was forbidden to give it out. I never heard from them again.

On several of these issues I have taken the time to write to my congressional representatives. Their letters in return are totally useless and say nothing. I assume some clerk mails these out daily with the content being so bland and vague as to cover every possibility you can name. I doubt any of you have ever received a letter from anyone in the government with any real answers to your inquiry.

My point is this, we elected them and we must deal with the results. These are our clowns, we did it to ourselves.

See you next week…Peary Perry

 

Ai SUCKS!!!

 

Ai SUCKS!!!!

As you may know I am an octogenarian (someone over the age of 80) and proud of it. I asked Google what you would be called if you were in your 90’s and they replied ‘dead’.

Not the answer I was looking for, actually you can be called a nonagenarian’. I object to the first 3 letters of this word being the pronoun ‘non’. As in, not here or doesn’t exist.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste and unfortunately once you pass 50 years of age, you start the downward slide into the black hole of life. Your brain starts to shrink as you get older. This means you have less volume to store stuff into. So for me, it’s like I had a huge warehouse for all of my stuff and now I’m in an efficiency apartment.

You have stuff in there you may never need again, but we all realize that if you throw any of it away or try to forget it, you will certainly need it next week. Like that old tube of caulk that you had around for several years and threw it away last week and now you need a dab of it to fix a hole where a nail for a picture used to be.

With my brain shrinking, I’m afraid to put much more into it for fear I might push something out that was really important. Like that guy that kept the number for his 200 million bitcoin account on his computer and then forgot his password. If I had an account with 200 million in it I’d have that sucker written down in several places. On a rafter in my attic or in my sock drawer. Maybe write it on a bunch of pages in my bible. Note to readers who are part time or full robbers…I don’t have anything like this, so don’t come to my house.

To give you an example of how easy it is to lose your information, I bet most of you cannot remember all of the phone numbers you had to memorize before cell phones. Now we just know them as a voice prompt like ‘call office’ or you hit #4. My grandmother’s number was JA-22675, but I’m telling you I can’t for the life of me remember my kids cell numbers. Gone, just gone.

There is no way for me to know how old any of you are that read what I write each week. Obviously, I don’t do this for a living but just a hobby and to keep the old brain working on something all the time. A lot of my weekly rants are to fill you in on what is happening in the life and lives of us that are now old. I hope you don’t mind if I share these things I am experiencing with you. You won’t find any info here about hip-hop or the latest songs. You will only hear from me about this process I am going through.

One I hope you get an opportunity to enjoy yourself as well.

I just have to remember not to put too much information into my shrinking brain which might cause me to forget where I live.

See you next week….Peary Perry

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JUST KICK ME.....

 

JUST KICK ME…..

 

As part of my civic responsibility, I feel it is my obligation to advise those of you much younger than myself of possible pitfalls they may encounter as they grow older. I consider these  bon mots to be form of a ‘public service announcement’ and thus they are tax deductions as well.

So, here it is: under no circumstances, and I mean zero, zip, nada, nein should you ever consider doing the following at one time:

Purchase a new cell phone, buy a new computer and new hearing aids all in the same month. In order not to waste any of your time, I will shorten each of these to CP, COM, HA. You should be able to figure out each from now on without much trouble.

Each of these devices operate on a multitude of Satan inspired little programs or doors called ‘apps’. Which is short for APPLICATIONS or God knows what. The CP, COM, HA all have these little ‘doors’ which require you to use a password to enter them and actually be able use them.

None of these are compatible with one another. I have had my old computer for over 8 years. One of the computer gurus in some place called Silicon Valley decided that since it was working entirely too well, they needed to change it all up and generate some huge profits so they could afford another mega-yacht for their mega wealthy friends and relatives. You can see these photos of perfectly muscled young men and bo-toxed women in various degrees of undress lounging in the sun on one of their many decks scheming of a new method to drive us crazy trying to operate their new systems. You never, ever see any photos of their overweight uncle Fred in a Speedo or their 89-year-old grandmothers in a bikini on their boats, do you? No, never. And you never will.

So, back to my problem. All of the ‘apps’ have their own special requirement for entry into their little app doors. Some want only a set of numbers, some want a capital letter and a series of numbers, some need a capital letter, a small caps letter and a number and finally, some want a symbol, a capital letter, a small caps letter and a number.

Ok, so you think to yourself… ‘I can do this’. So, you enter #345Mainstreet, that should do it, right?

Wrong, it says that you can’t use a password that you used 5 years ago. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, how am I supposed to remember what I used 5 years ago? So you keep trying until you get one that works, but the problem then becomes…how do I remember it since it doesn’t make sense or is tied to something I can remember. So what do you do?

You get little book and write it down. But wait, this could fall into the hands of the enemy (your brother-in-law) and wipe you out. What to do?

So, you write it in code. Backwards or not using the first 3 letters or numbers. But then you forget the code and have to write the instructions to the code down but that could fall into someone’s hands as well.

This practice leads to your attempting to memorize these many different code words which you need so you can hear (HA) or call someone (CP) or pay a bill or get an email (COM). Not using the absolutely correct password then requires you to change your password at which time they will send you an OTP (one time password) to your cell phone which you can’t open since you don’t have a password yet. So, you send this OTP to your wife’s phone. This number might be 4 numbers or 8 numbers and you have about 23 seconds after it is received to enter it into the space on your phone or it will become invalid. This number can be resubmitted to you in the next 5 minutes, not any sooner. Meanwhile nothing gets accomplished in any way shape or form.

At the same time, those mega rich guys with their perfect mates are ordering more lobster and have their yacht moved to take advantage of the sun.

Later tonight at dinner, they will decide to change to password requirements to include a smiley face of some sort.

And they just lay back in their lounge chairs and laugh and laugh.

I hate these guys.

See you next week…Peary Perry