Just need to vent...

I keep wondering whether these sellers all use the same random-letters generating app to name their storefronts.

 

I know...I've noticed many Chinese "stores" are there one day and gone the next....I'm wondering if I should stock up on those wipers, great prices for all three...even if they only last a year.

 

Yeah... been these PRC biz' MO for many years now... because we still buy them.

Partially-develop product at spendthrift, chiseler-std cost and effort. Sell on Amazon to esp American consumers, who tolerate the fewest common-sense regulations enforced to protect us. If there's a real problem, you typically won't hear from US customers unless it's a real maiming showstopper... as we still think in 2026, cheaper means value. If it affects their revenue stream, shipments are halted and storefront taken down literally before your eyes.

If legal action's ever threatened, would only affect Amazon, as these fronts are quick to drop off the face and start up selling almost exactly the same product under another gibberish name elsewhere on Amazon. In many cases there's no way to tell what connection several storefronts selling near-identical products have behind the curtain... so several betas of said product can be tested at the same time, wif known problems... to see if US buyers will actually care enough to demand a refund, that they're not to stds they'd sell to themselves... all wif little risk to the seller. That's what Amazon's become nowadays, field R&D for biz from a regime with zero accountability.

Tbf not all of them are like this -- one in particular I sort of wish would become the model for PRC biz in general on AMZN (never happen, too much greed + ilk for least-content inertia for them), is Anker*. They only make tech products but all of my interactions with genuine problems brought to them, have resulted in fair, swift, and painless resolution -- which is all I effing ask from a company hawking goods >$100 on Amazon. They indeed still aren't tested to the same stds as competitor products from a company like JVC or Phillips, so not perfect. But Anker at least offsets the risk with deep cuts to pricing, which does boost value for non-showstopper problems (have done this wif their earbuds and chargers, and do evolve them w/o ludicrous, post-covid profit bloat)

But the fly-by-night, hoodwinking 'Jill Deaaaa's and 'Pincuttee's and 'Plumeet's are the rule, not the exception... and as long as they can't be punished for selling garbage that lasts months at best, will never be the exception

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* would also like to acknowledge Batoca, which makes my cordless orbital buffer for car waxing. Excellent design, execution, battery life, features -- got it nearly flawless, esp for the price. If you need a driveway weekend wash-&-wax buffer, get that one. Also comes in its own cordura tote bag to boot (wif an extra battery!) -- don't want to set your microfibre buffer bonnet down on any surface, when it could be protected in a free bag

 

Having to repeatedly discourage the same garter snake from hiding in my intended mowing path.

Apparently I do not know how to say "no, sweet pea, that's exactly where I'm going on the next pass" in Parseltongue.

I suppose it's traumatized for life now that I've chased it away so many times.

 

There are three solutions.

1. Go over two rows to around the snake. When you get to the row the snake is at in the end, there isn't any high grass left for it to flee to.
2. Stop mowing.
3. Replace grass with astroturf, gravel, etc.

 

Sister-in-law's (gopher, not garter) snakes come slithering out from the corn on occasion & asks yours truly to deal with it. LOL



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For whatever reason, whenever I've startled a snake out of the lawn onto the sidewalk, it seems to engage in this really inefficient (for locomotion anyway) exaggerated side-to-side undulation. A lot of work but very slow forward progress. Almost looks like a physics demonstration of a standing wave.

So I've always assumed it's some kind of display meant for me (hey tall animal! Look down here! I'm definitely a SNAKE!). It works well.

But I've just got done looking through a whole page of snake defensive behaviors and displays that never mentioned that one.

So is that not it? Is it, like, really that difficult for a snake to travel on hard concrete?

 

If the concrete is very smooth, it could be a problem, or it's panicked and mistakes concrete for sand. Crawling with belly scales alone is less efficient and slower, so snakes will prefer to push off stuff for motion. From your description, it sounds like the snake was trying to move in a loose substrate. They push down and away to form a ridge of dirt, sand, etc. to push away from.

Or it isn't a snake.
Slender glass lizard - Wikipedia
These might be in your area. Legless lizards don't have the belly scales snakes use for movement. So they flounder on flat surfaces.

 

Huh. That could've been it, actually. If I saw something like that protesting my mowing, I might easily call it a snake.

That could also explain it not understanding my pidgin Parseltongue.

 

Cute snake! I used to play with snakes out in the woods when we lived at Fort Gordon, Georgia in the 70's!!

Okay, vent of the day....my former son-in-law has had our old 2008 Corolla since we gave it to them and, now, is looking to buy something bigger....looking for a 6-10 year-old Rav 4 or Highlander or Subaru SUV.

Anyway, I checked the book price for the old Corolla....about $2,600. During my searches for a used car for him, I came upon not one but two 2008 Corolla's for sale....$8,000 and $11,000! WHAT? Who would pay $11,000 for a Corolla that's almost 20-years old??? (Yes, also had high-mileage like ours, over 150,000)

Sometimes, the whole car industry can really tick you off!!!

 

Yeah, as a rule avoid all snakes until you know by heart which ones'll ruin your year.

No snakes in Hawai'i... yet The only snakes I've seen in person, were the opposite ends of the spectrum: a ground snake more like an earthworm (think it's the Western desert threadsnake -- kinda reddish-brown literally like a dead earthworm), and a rattler, both in AZ. Careful on hikes, esp in the Superstition Mountains* -- didn't see the thing until I heard its rattle... literally ~2m away

Apparently three different species of rattler ranges overlap there... but didn't stick around long enough to ask it which it was

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* oh... btw I don't recommend hiking thru the Superstition Mountains. That hike (the only one I'd take in >10y of living there) was spooky in a way I've never felt before -- and have had several spooky paranormal encounters. Go with a tour, never by yourself -- that range is full of dead treasure seekers who underestimated the desert (and other treasure seekers). And apparently big rattlers too

 

Buy here pay here used car lot for people with no credit.

The kid that bought it then goes online with great ideas on how to reengineer it with Chinese lithium modules as "a service to the community".

 

Cause of the rattle roundups that go on in some locales, the snakes are becoming less likely to rattle as a warning in those regions.

 

Ah, the rattlesnake roundups! I have regrets from when I lived in West Texas (San Angelo) (1990-1995) and some pals in church would invite me to head out into the desert to collect rattlesnake venom with them. We had a local pharmaceutical company that developed antivenom and would pay around $600 for a milligram. (About 3 ounces) They had some good stories and said the younger rattlers were especially dangerous because they were extra scared and bite a lot more faster.
I remember gas prices, around 1998, hitting a record low....actually saw $0.99 a gallon....I miss those days!

 

lol...yep.....I tried to convert my ounce to millilieters for you Canadians....crashed and burned! They paid about $200 an ounce which is 29.5 milliliters.....$600 for 3-ounces or 88.7 mL.

I hate the metric system for fluids!!! I remember when we drove up to Alaska and went to fill-up in Canada...folks told me it was much more expensive but saw the cheap prices...SWEET! Until I filled it up and saw it was 3 times what I paid in the USA!!

No wonder Canadians who live near the border drive down here for gasoline....why do Canadians put up with such high gas prices???? I remember the cheapest I've ever paid for gasoline......$.03 (yep, 3 CENTS) a liter in Saudi Arabia!! (That was in 1990) I just looked, way up to $0.58 SAR/liter....they always have the lowest prices in the world