I was at the cricket and there were two guys sitting nearby. One threw something like a jaffa (solid choclate with a hard shell) into the crowd in front and hit someone. A dick move but unlikely to do any lasting damage. A security guard and then police officer got involved, said he threw a golf ball or something along those lines (similar but worse). He accurately said he didn’t but got thrown out anyway.
His friend sat there for a few minutes then tried to start a Mexican wave. He didn’t the first few tries but was determined and eventually got one going. I didn’t realise until the wave had done a lap of the cricket ground, but during this time he had filled his hand with as much sunscreen as he could, then as it went past he splattered it all over the back of the security guards hair and back before disappearing into the crowd.
Most of the 40,000 people who took part in the Mexican wave had no idea what they were just a part of.
Fidel Castro offering to send election observers to the US in 2004.
In the same vein, Joseph Broz Tito sending a letter to the Kremlin addressed to Stalin to stop sending assassins, because they always bungled their ops. He added “If you do, I’ll send one to Moscow and I won’t have to send a second”.
Stalin left him the fuck alone after that.
Tito smoking Cuban cigars in the White House while sitting down with Nixon is also hilarious.
Nixon told him, “Mr. President, we don’t smoke in the White House.”
Tito laughed and said, “Lucky you!” and finished his cigar and no one attempted again to make him stop.
One particular spite house in Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinny_House_(Boston)#History
According to local legend, the structure was built as a “spite house” shortly after the Civil War:
… two brothers inherited land from their deceased father. While one brother was away serving in the military, the other built a large home, leaving the soldier only a shred of property that he felt certain was too tiny to build on. When the soldier returned, he found his inheritance depleted and built the narrow house to spite his brother by blocking the sunlight and ruining his view.
Another source states:
Not much is known about the city’s narrowest house. Legend has it that … its unnamed builder erected it to shut off air and light from the home of a hostile neighbor (also nameless) with whom he had a dispute. … Believed to have been built after 1874
There’s a Spite House in Seattle, WA, too. Spite from coast-to-coast!!
Space Ghost approved
Those were some nearly useless photos shown
I quite liked the internet vs hedgefunds (gamestop) case
That was great, wish it had turned out different. I almost bought some too, knowing I’d lose it, just to claim to have been a part of it.
I got off of robinhood because of that. I didn’t participate, I just didn’t like that they would shut off trading on a stock. Moved to Fidelity instead.
Same.
I did. No regrets!
Heemeyer held various grudges against town officials, neighbors of his muffler shop, the local press, and other Granby residents. Over about eighteen months, Heemeyer secretly armored a Komatsu D355A bulldozer with layers of steel and concrete.
On Friday, June 4, 2004, Heemeyer used the bulldozer to demolish the Granby town hall, the house of a former mayor, and several other buildings. He killed himself after the bulldozer became stuck in a hardware store he was destroying. No one else was injured or killed.
The townspeople play so innocent in this story. I’ve lived in small towns and see right through their bullshit. The only reason they get away with it is the other party is dead and can’t defend himself.
I know he’s Australian. I was suggesting he use his talents on another dictator. And yeah, I’m pretty sure the world DOES revolve around the US. That’s the problem. But thanks for the passive aggressive response.
You might have answered in general thread instead of answering Maalus in the thread about Australian comedian
My bad.
Almon Brown Strowger was an undertaker and suspected that a rival buisness used their wife’s position as a switchboard operator to steal customers.
So he invented the automatic switchboard and put his competitors wife out of a job.
Came here to comment this. Are you a fellow Lateral Podcast listener?
Are you a fellow Lateral Podcast listener?
Indeed, though I have the feeling that I’ve known about this story longer then that. Maybe it was on QI?
QI could be right, I couldn’t have recalled that fact but I also learned it and I watch QI but not lateral.
Maybe I should be checking it out though
I have the best answer ever. FriendlyJordies ‘bruz’ saga. A corrupt politician (essentially the top person of power in 1/4th of ALL of Australia) pissed off a political comedian and the comedian locked in so fucking hard and exposed so much corruption that the politician made a special task force to spy on him and arrested his camera man illegally.
This only caused the comedian to become even MORE determined to get revenge. He exposed so much corruption the super powerful politician ended up QUITTING HIS JOB because of ““bullying”” and his camera man walked free.
Also, hes a comedian so the video is HILARIOUS and there’s an AMAZING punchline like 3/4ths of the way in that’s a power move so fucking massive it’s INSANE I don’t want to spoil it but HOLY SHIT it was sooo good.
This is only like the stuff that I remember from watching it a few months ago, there’s even MORE. Dudes house got firebombed for his political advocacy.
10/10 AMAZING video. If you get a ‘justice boner’ you better cover your belongings in fucking tarps, it’s THAT good. If you have ANY time at all it is 1,000% worth a watch.
Actually his entire channel is worth a watch. Dude does AMAZING work and even as an American it is SO good to watch. Even his non political videos are HILARIOUS and will have you wheezing with laughter.
I sound like a paid commenter from reddit hyping a movie or sthm but my God it’s just THAT GOOD
I like FriendlyJordies, appreciate his humour and admire the work he is doing to expose corruption in Australian government. But man, I cannot stand his voice, and his affectation and his mannerisms. I can’t watch his videos anymore, it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.
If people want to watch the video and get the full experience, here is a re-upload: https://youtu.be/dC_8IY6WlHU
I don’t know the full story, but in the comments on the original video I read that Jordies was court ordered to edit out some parts of the audio because of “harassment”.
oh yeah I forgot that he had to censor some of the insults
That was awesome. Wish he would do one on TACO.
He’s Australian. The world doesn’t revolve around the US - most people actually don’t care about it.
Story time!
I forget the origin of the beef, but I remember a guy who grew up with another dude who was just a complete tool to my friend. It wasn’t outright bullying, but general arseholery and making his life difficult when it really didn’t need to me.
Anyway, my friend has a long memory and a longer grudge streak. I was finishing college at a time when print media was still king but social media was exploding in popularity.
My friend has decided “fuck this, I’m going to ruin this dude’s life for a bit”. He put an advert in the local paper or freeads (for non UK spuds: the freeads or classifieds is a newspaper-style private advertisements in one place - like a print version of a snapshot of Facebook Marketplace or Vinted for a local area).
Free TV. Call 07000100100 for details.
Anyone to this day knows that anything advertised for free attracts the most annoying, persistent, and unhinged type of people on earth. The freeads was published the following week. I didn’t socialise with the guy on the business end of my friend’s wrath on account of him being a massive cockwomble, but I understand his phone started to go wild with texts and phone calls asking about a free television - bear in mind that cheap consumer TVs weren’t really a thing and a TV purchase was a “buy it for life” thing at the time, so a free TV was just an amazing deal.
It would appear the demand for a free television was too much for the guy. In true mid 2000’s fashion, a social media message went up from the clearly annoyed guy, to the tune of:
Hi all, I’ve started to get loads of prank calls, so I’ve changed my number. It’s 07000200200 now.
With the internet and social interactions online still in the wild west era, this was fairly common. My friend chuckled to himself. The plan worked. Not satisfied with that though, he put another advert in the following week’s freeads:
Free TV. Call 07000200200 for details.
The publication date rolls around a few days later, and tens of thousands of this newspaper gets delivered to stores across the region. Obviously, mere hours after the thin yellow paper booklets are released to the public, the idiot’s phone starts going banzai. Dozens of calls a day from all corners of society, relentlessly asking about collection and delivery of a television at no charge.
The guy was livid.
Livid, but not smart. He had gotten pissed off with the calls, and was unable to stop the barrage of bargain hunters hitting his digits to get a gogglebox gratis. He went back to his phone network operator and makes the appropriate changes. Not one for releasing his number in a private, carefully controlled manner - the gist of the following was posted to social media a few weeks later:
Not sure why I’m getting so many prank calls, and my mobile network are useless. My new number is 07000300300. Let me know if someone asks you for it because I’m getting annoyed.
Most normal folk wouldn’t have risked being burned a third time and released their number in person or by SMS message. That said, I suspect the Venn diagram of twats like this guy who had spent an elder childhood making people’s lives difficult; and those who don’t appreciate the drawbacks of one-to-many communication, aren’t far off a circle.
My friend sees this status update or whatever it was called back then, cuts out the reply slip of the freeads, enclosed his payment, and sends in the following for publication the following week:
Free TV. Call 07000300300 for details. Shout “camel” when I answer so I know you’re genuine.
Hilarity likely ensued. My friend found immense satisfaction that the guy who tried to socially ostracise him and physically manhandle him for “fun” was now getting Guantanamo Bay levels of psychological torture, and 90% of calls that he answered started with someone hollering the name of a type of Saharan quardraped species.
The guy never posted anything after that. Not his new number, not any angry rants, nothing at all.
I respected the guy. So much mental torture for so little effort. I lost touch with the friend but I still think of him now and then, and I hope that he still chuckles to himself with that prank under his belt, because I certainly do.
Wow, I want a book written by you, you have a great style of writing! This was hilarious
this was a great read, HAHAHA!
Cheers. It also made me think of a bit of newspaper advert abuse that an old colleague of mine told me.
Another pair of people, another spat over something minor, but one wasn’t to be outdone. In the first week of January, he put an advert into a local popular newspaper, saying something similar to:
Leave your old Christmas trees with me for a charity project! Bring your Christmas trees to 45 Smith Drive, Newport*, if I’m not in then leave them on my lawn!
The net results was days worth of Christmas trees being drive-by yeeted into his garden. Said it was the best 50p per word they’d ever spent.
*edit: I’m sorry if you live at 45 Smith Drive in Newport, and I hope the Christmas tree gods are unkind to you!
wow! i will definitely be reaching out to you for spiteful ideas in the future XD
i have a certain building management company (shit landlords) in mind
Totally completely unrelated to anything you said. Just a hookup between arborists and people who need an entire dump truck load of free wood chips unceremoniously unloaded in their driveway at a random future time.
Wow, love this and could totally use it in the future. Thanks for the link!
Back around this time I was in the military and each base had Public Folders in Outlook where people could post stuff for sale. I left my computer unlocked one day and one of my colleagues posted my car for free on there. This was also back when you would have like 25 MB mailbox limits. Needless to say my inbox got filled up in minutes.
King Harald of Norway, when asked by Trump about getting invited to talk about a Nobel Peace prize, decided to host Obama instead.
Lamborghini was a tractor company before they made cars. Ferruccio Lamborghini was successful and bought 2 Ferraris, one for him and one for his wife. He would drive his business partners to lunch in hhem, but he tended to burn up the clutches. He eventually discovered that they used a same inexpensive part as his tractors, but Ferrari charged 100 times the money for the same part. He spoke to Enzo Ferrari about it and the conversation did not go well. Lamborghini was so insulted by the reply that he started his own car company.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a25169632/lamborghini-supercars-exist-because-of-a-tractor/
We have Enzo Ferrari being a prick to thank for the birth of Lamborghini, the Shelby Cobra AC, and the Ford GT40
Tricking people to pay 100x its normal cost is pure unadulterated capitalism.
I know there’s been a few cases of people paying fines with wheelbarrows full of loose pennies.
Obligatory caution that that can backfire if the recipient insists that the debtor counts the pennies. Or if the creditor refuses the pennies entirely, which is legal in some jurisdictions. (e.g. in the UK, pennies and 2p coins are legal tender up to amounts of only 20 pence. Anything beyond that is left to the discretion of the recipient.)
In the US, pennies are legal tender and have to be accepted as payment for debts owed. This tactic usually ended up in the fine being dismissed.
Pennies only have to be accepted if there is a state law saying so. For example in California if a landlord refuses a cash payment (pennies or otherwise) then the tenant basically gets free rent that month. Businesses generally set their own rules as to what is accepted. Just like you see signs saying “No bills over $20” - 50’s and 100’s are legal tender, but they can refuse them just like a bucket of pennies can be refused.
Title 31 (Money and Finance), Subtitle IV (Money), Chapter 51 (Coins and Currency), Subchapter I (Monetary System), Section 5103 (Legal Tender) of the United States Code states:
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
Since you feel like quoting things is conducive to proper discusion:
Is it legal for a business in the United States to refuse cash as a form of payment?
There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.
Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled “Legal tender,” states: “United States coins and currency [including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” This statute means that all U.S. money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.
are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues
There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services
Goods or services ≠ debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.
A retail store, a restaurant etc. can refuse currency from a customer but a loan/lien holder, a public utility company, a government entity or an HOA must all accept any legal tender.
You’re confusing two separate situations.
No, you’re confusing two separate issues.
If it’s before the point of sale, they can refuse any form of payment. If you’ve already accrued the debt, they can’t refuse it.
At no point in this entire chain was I talking about payment for goods and services. My original statement was about fines levied by the city or state, which is a debt that the debtor legally has to accept pennies for, or discharge the debt.
Yes, you’re correct. That’s where the “debt” part comes in. If it’s before you incur the debt, they can refuse to accept any legal tender.
There is no federal statute requiring private lendors to accept payment in the form of coins. The coins are legal tender but they dont have to be accepted.
If payment offered in legal tender is refused, the debt would be cancelled.
There’s no requirement to accept cash for pre payments, but for debts cash must be accepted.
The discussion is about fines. I’m not sure why you’re talking about lenders.
Also, Title 31 (Money and Finance), Subtitle IV (Money), Chapter 51 (Coins and Currency), Subchapter I (Monetary System), Section 5103 (Legal Tender) of the United States Code states:
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
So yes, there is a federal statue requiring private lenders accept coins as payment.
I don’t think that says what you think it does. Just because they are legal tender does not inherently mean (nor does that snippet say) that they cannot be denied as a form of payment.
Yes it does. It’s a legal form of payment, and if a lender denies it, you can sue to have the entire debt discharged because the lender is refusing legal tender.
If you’re a debt holder, you’re required by federal law to accept any form of legal tender as payment, which includes coins.
You really should read down to the bottom of that article, where it says that businesses are allowed to set the terms of what forms of payment they’ll accept as long as they do so before the deal is made or the sale is done. Your own source contradicts what you said.
Don’t quit your day job to start giving people legal advice.
I see child comments turning into some debate. lol
Wasn’t there a case somewhere where someone tried to pay a settlement in pennies, and then they themselves were fined?
Edit: maybe I’m thinking of this story https://www.costanzo-law.com/angry-employer-pays-in-pennies-then-gets-in-deep-legal-trouble/
Though it’s not entirely clear to me what law this violates regarding legal tender. Seems more to do with employer / employee labor relations.
2007 starbucks, AZ. If a customer was an asshole, the worker they were an asshole to would request a restock of the sugar free classic so the Barista on bar could hear. There was no sugar free classic syrup. The drink would be made decaf.
It’s petty, but…dont be a dick
The name of that barista was Satan.
Warren Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway in part to spite its management. He had been buying shares for a while, and at one point offered them a chance to buy them back. They low-balled him on the price, he got pissed, took majority control of the stock, and fired the management.
Wish i har that kind of “fuck you” money haha
It sure does make it easy.
