"Better than Cosmo! Others just recite facts, but I like your posts best because of the in-depth analysis."
"Great work! Your stuff is a sight for sore eyes in this wash of dumbed down crap for the masses I see all the time on the internet."
"Greg is a dapper gent, intelligent, and easy to hang with. He made me feel right at home in his film noir-esque lair. We talked at great length about books, influences (we both write), and on a broad range of topics that might cause one to raise an eye brow while pondering. He was great fun to roam the city with. I'm looking forward to another round of pursuing art exhibits and deep dialog over late night coffees the next time we cross paths."
"Greg! Thank you so much! I will not forget this! Your help will make it easier for me to secure a job when I get back home from Switzerland!"
"Dude I hate to write you about this again but those nutrition tips you sent me were a fucking godsend. Anyway, I do appreciate ya... you're a good egg."
"Dear Mr. Greg: You are creative and amusing... two things I find irresistible. If I didn't live so far away, I'd go after you myself! Thanks for all the laughs."
"Hey thanks for all the stuff on girls and relationships. I was up reading last night for like 3 hours. We had an earthquake not too long ago here in California, but man, some of the stuff you wrote shook me more than the quake!"
"I have to say, you provided several hours of entertainment for me just now. It is a great thing to know there are other people with similarly twisted senses of humor and intelligence. Thank you very much Greg Thompson, and good luck with the woman of your dreams. Should you ever feel the need to entertain me again, please feel free to do so, I'll take it any way I can get it."The Scariest Phone Number In The World
July 24, 2010
Once upon a time in 1984, there was a young man in the northwest who loved to play with telephones.
One day he was exploring the 804 area code in Virginia and discovered the strangest thing. Every time he dialed up any number on the 840 exchange, he’d get a recording as if the exchange didn’t exist. However, if he dialed 804-840- and then 4 rather predictable numbers, a lonely ring sounded on the other end.
After a few seconds, somebody picked up.
Being the experienced phone enthusiast he was, he could tell the call didn’t “supervise”, meaning, no charges were being incurred for calling this number. He knew calls that get you an error message or some special operator generally don’t supervise.
A female voice, with a hint of Southern accent said, “Operator, can I help you?”
“Yes,” he said. “What number have I reached?”
“What number did you dial, sir?”
He made up a number that was similar.
“I’m sorry, that’s not the number you reached.” Click.
Fascinating. What in the hell was this? He knew he was going to call back, but before he did, some info-gathering experiments were in order. He tried the 840 exchange in several other area codes. In some, it came up as a valid exchange. In others, exactly the same thing happened – the same last four digits, the same Southern belle. Even stranger, the areas it worked in seemed to travel in a beeline from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, PA.
He called back from a payphone. “Operator, can I help you?”
“Yes, this is the phone company. I’m testing this line and we don’t seem to have an identification on your circuit. What office is this, please?”
“What number are you trying to reach?”
“I’m not trying to reach any number. I’m trying to identify this circuit.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
“Ma’am, if I don’t get an ID on this line, I’ll have to disconnect it. We show no record of it here.”
“Hold on a moment, sir.”
After about a minute, she came back. “Sir, I can have someone speak to you. Would you give me your number, please?”
He had anticipated this and he had the payphone number ready. After he gave it, she said, “Mr. XXX will get right back to you.”
“Thanks.” He hung up the phone. It rang. …Instantly! “Oh my God,” he thought, “they weren’t asking for my number – they were confirming it!”
“Hello,” he said, trying to sound authoritative.
“This is Mr. XXX. Did you just make an inquiry to my office concerning a phone number?”
“Yes. I need an identi—“
“What you need is advice.” The man almost spat the words, “Don’t ever call that number again. Don’t even think about calling that number again. Forget you ever knew it.”
At this point our friend got so nervous he just hang up. He expected the phone to ring back again… but it didn’t.
Over the next few days he racked his brains trying to figure out what this creepy number was. He knew it was something big – that was for certain. But what? It was so big, the number was programmed into every central office in the country. He knew this because if he tried to dial any other number in that exchange, he’d get a local error message from his central office, as if the exchange didn’t exist.
Finally, it came to him. He had an uncle who worked in a federal agency. He had a feeling that this was government related, and… if it was… his uncle could probably get to the bottom of it. He asked the next day and his uncle promosed to look into the matter.
The next time he saw his uncle, something was wrong. He was visibly trembling. “Where did you get that number?!” he shouted. “Do you know I almost got FIRED for asking about it?!? They kept wanting to know where I got it!”
Our friend couldn’t contain his excitement. “What is it?” he pleaded. “What’s the number?!”
“It’s the President’s bomb shelter!”
He never called the number again. He figured he could probably cause quite a stir by calling with a line like, “The weather’s not good in Washington. We’re coming over for a visit.” But our friend was smart. He knew there were some things that were better left unsaid… and undone.
Tags: exploring, government, hacking, phone calls, phones, phreaking
Email this postTopics: Strange & Unknown | No Comments »
3 Reasons Why I Never Get Sick
September 14, 2009
I can’t remember the last time I was sick.
Seriously.
Not even a sniffle.
It was at least 12 years ago since I had a cold and even longer since I came down with the flu. And except for a couple checkups, I haven’t been to the doctor in a decade.
Normally I don’t think about stuff like this, but looking over my notes today I was reminded of an old blog post written by my friend Jason where he talked about how a lot of people have commented to me that I’m “lucky” or that “nothing bad ever happens” to me. Sickness and disease are often among those “bad things” they mention.
Well, I need to set the record straight: bad things happen to me all the time. The only reason most people don’t notice is because I’m often fairly well prepared when Lady Fate drops by to sprinkle some shit on my parade.
Like a hitman silently slitting the President’s throat, it is preparation and prevention that lets me deal with my problems quickly, quietly and without fuss.
Since nature trapped us in these damn bodies of ours, we’d better take good care of them for as long as possible. Even if you’re a worshiped genius who uses $100-dollar-bills as toilet paper, life’s no fun when you’re fat, sick, and ugly.
So here are 3 things that slimmed me up, sculpted my body, and beefed my immune system into a cigar-chomping badass motherfucker.
What are they? Click Here To Read On… »
Tags: anti-aging, antioxidants, bodybuilding, disease, healthy living, minerals, nutrition, preparation, prevention, sick, sickness, vitamin supplements, vitamins
Topics: Health | 7 Comments »
4 More Sneaky Tricks That Influence Your Decisions
August 26, 2009
1. Blatant Indicators of Positive Reputation Beat Subtle Luxury
Consider a face-off between the Toyota Prius and… a stylish Lexus.
Even Lucifer Himself couldn’t make me drive a dorky Prius.
But a recent split-test between these 2 cars revealed that when shopping in public, people are willing to spend more on a product they don’t really want as long as it makes them look like positive contributors to the greater good of society.
When the whole world’s looking (and can see the “green” eco-conscious logo) people buy the doe-eyed Prius. Then as you lock ‘em up in a room with no one to judge, they turn into me… a shameless consumer of pretentious luxury. The heated steering wheel. The baby seal skin leather seats. Plumes of toxic exhaust from a rumbling engine. Sickeningly delicious cheeseburgers in non-biodegradable containers.
Oh yes. We consumers are a dastardly lot.
And for the same reason, this is why clothes and other products with big, blatant logos sell better than those with more concealed identities:
Louis Vuitton’s classic “LV” on their bags. Abercrombie & Fitch’s garish tags. Polo Ralph Lauren’s pony. Apple’s glowing chrome apple.
People seek out the brands that best display their own particular set of personality traits. Regardless of what “flavor of the month” personality analysis books you may have read (not your fault, publishers barf up more of them than any sane person can handle), all human traits can be summed up as a measure of these 6 characteristics:
What are they? Click Here To Read On… »
Tags: advertising, business, crowd manipulation, decision making, decisions, desires, james bond, marketing, money, personality, psychology, purchase decision, segmentation, shopping
Topics: Money & Business | 2 Comments »
The Big Money Secret People Will Kill You For
August 13, 2009
Dean Kamen spent 10 years of life and $100,000,000 developing the Segway, a gyroscopically balanced transportation device.
Investors predicted it would crush golf carts, wipe out global warming, and render cars obsolete in big cities. It was hyped through the roof as some kind of “mystery transportation device” that would “revolutionize how we travel.”
They invested in factories to crank out 480,000 Segways per year to make way for what would surely be an explosive phenomenon.
Personally I too was excited at the time, thinking someone had at long last invented the hover board from one of my favorite movies, Back To The Future 2.
Imagine my complete disappointment when, in 2001, the Segway was released… to the thrill of no one. Consumers took one look at it and yawned. It was nothing more than a $3,000 glorified scooter… and one that made you look like a total dork at that.
Eight years later now in 2009, sales just passed 50,000… TOTAL. It’s target customers are fat mall cops.
(Since then, Dean has moved on, working to invent a water purifier that runs on bull shit… literally.)
I mention this catastrophic failure because it demonstrates in gory detail THE biggest money secret of all time.
…A secret so valuable that once you truly figure it out and put it to work, you will be envied… you will be hated… and men and women from all walks of life may even seek to murder you for it.
What is it? Click here to Read On… »
Tags: business, de beers, dean kamen, demand, drug companies, google, joe sugarman, life lessons, marketers, marketing, michael dell, money, napoleon hill, secret, segway, success, the secret
Topics: Money & Business | No Comments »
Weird Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
August 9, 2009
I was in the mall yesterday when a sterile female voice echoed through the PA:
“…And remember, please drive home safely. We want you to be our customer for a long time, so we do care about your safety,” she ended suddenly chipper,“Thank you!”
At first blush the recorded fembot’s words would fly over my head, barely noticed among a sea of commercial background noise. But this time, for whatever reason, I paid attention… and could scarcely believe what I’d just heard.
She might as well have said:
“…And remember, get back to work soon. We want to suck as much value out of your pathetic average lifespan of 78 years as possible. That’s our logical justification for your safety. Thank you!”
A month ago, I turned 27 years old… am I really getting this cynical already? Geezus, what would I be like as an old man? Or am I finally waking up to some sort of Matrix-like Truth?
Or maybe… I just think too damn much.
Whatever the case, my sleepwalk was disturbed and what I discovered gnawed on my mind. As a marketer, if I’m trained to keep an eagle eye on these hidden forces that direct our thoughts every day and many still fly right over my head… what must it be like for the average person to whom these messages are aimed?
Damn.
Subtle influences are all around us. In the next couple posts, I’ll share some of the most useful and interesting I’ve discovered during the past few months.
Deceptively tricky… click here to Read On… »
Tags: advertising, decision making, decisions, hidden causes, hidden desire, hidden desires, influences, money, purchasing, sales, segmentation, segments, why we buy
Topics: Philosophy | No Comments »
