I was listening to a Weird Al song about prank calls and realized you can’t really do them anymore now. Also it was funny that he mentioned dialing 7 digit numbers instead of 10
my phone has been on silent mode since 2012
Because of my job I have to answer unknown numbers. My God is it ever irritating
We just called businesses instead, during lunch time at school, since they don’t block unknown numbers. We were starting on algebra and they showed us how to calculate the radius the area etc. So to us it was the funniest thing to call a pizza place and order a 4-2x(12π) sized pizza or something like that. That and calling completely unrelated businesses and ordering a pizza also
frank rizzo needs to eat did you think of frank rizzo?
In the US *67 still works, but people hardly answer unknown numbers anymore. It’s telemarketer’s fault
My younger brother and me used to call prostitutes and pretend to be clients. Not very proud, but to 13 year old me it was hilarious.
People still try. When I worked retail we’d get them often enough as you can’t just not answer an unknown number when someone is calling the store.
That said, if it’s an unknown number we’re already expecting a prank call and are just waiting for the first excuse to hang up.
I miss The Jerky Boys…
Al mentions 7 digits and not 10 because back in our day you had to pay long distance charges if you dialed a number outside of your area code. Therefore only the 7 digits were required because no one was dialing 1-xxx to get to another area code and have charges show up on their parents bill and then have to explain who you were calling and why.
RIP Jerky Boys
The natural evolution of prank calls is rickroll links.
Speaking of, did you know that there’s a Chrome extension that turns random links into rickrolls?
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/rickroll-extension/ljkcmgibdnmdjdfpbggohpophnkiajfmOr, if you’re a firefox user, maybe:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/rickrollifyI haven’t tried either of them, but I think the concept is neat. I’m a fan of doing a little self-pranking now and then.
I remember the shift to using area codes and how everyone was so upset at how difficult that would be. Then the smart phones came, and I wonder how many people now know many of the numbers they might regularly call with one tap,
we got a second area code on top of our existing one and had to start 10-digit dialing something like 15 years ago.
to this day i have yet to encounter anyone with a phone number in that new area code. even the scammers that spoof their cid don’t use that new area code.
before the switch we could 7-digit dial for 40 miles around us, even across an area code boundary. and, tbh i’d rather have had to switch to a new area code and kept the 7 digit dialing than have to deal with the 10 digit bullshit. it just seems so out of place here in the boonies, hours away from, well, pretty much everything.
Where I grew up, we only ever gave the last four digits of our number because the whole town and then some was the same. Later, they changed the area code since it was running out of numbers and then we moved to 10-digit dialing. I remember how weird it felt when things like long distance calls just kinda stopped being a thing
Long-distance calls being equivalent to local calls has been an incredibly good change.
Yes, I’m looking for an “exten dedwaranty” is there an “exten dedwaranty” here?
Back then “if it’s important they would call”. Recently, “they will call back if it’s important”. Now, “they will leave a message if it’s important.”
Now is just, “They will text if they are not trying to sell you a warranty extension for your car”
“They will text me why I should pick up”
