Hmmm, let's see. The article gives the actual number to these people.

Factor in the following:

"A Caller ID is nowhere to be found in the Pierce residence, and would prove unnecessary because when at home the Pierces answer all incoming calls."

And:

"We don't screen calls because we think it's rude."

Sounds like a sure fire recipe for hilarity. Or something.

Oh, and just to make it perfectly clear - I am not advocating, or even suggesting, anything improper. From the FArq:

... however, posts containing email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, credit card numbers, etc. are not allowed.

Not looking to get my arse banned

The chirpiness in that article and the utter inanity of those two old people is just another reason why the cult of Mormon scares the shiat out of me sometimes. What is wrong with these people?

//That south park episode about Mormons was great.

Utah: that's biuble-thumping fundamentalist country right?

errrr... bible-thumping of course

BYU is like... crazy religious. They put out a lot of good football players, oddly enough.

They have a "wives" stand for their players, since most of them are married before they graduate.

way too much information.

I shouldn't have changed my number to 1-800-DUI-INFO. What was I thinking?

I call shenanigans - I've just called 0207-298-4636 (London BYU Info) and I didn't get anyone!!!

"It's their nickel.!"

Who the hell gives these people phone service? Is there some sort of special discount for Mormons that I've been missing out on...or is she just senile?

/cue Grandpa Simpson

Gah, how did I manage to put both a period and an exclamation point in there?

Good thing it's not my number . . . I sure wouldn't be giving the callers any sort of "helpful" information.

Which reminds me - this one time, years ago, my friend called some wrong number and ordered a pizza, and then used his last outgoing call feature to call the guy back *again* at the wrong number to ask where our pizza was. The guy was really nice about it, though - took our order and gave us a total and everything. What a sweetheart.

Venge
Probably by typing them? Admittedly they're not that close on the keyboard, or have you exceptionally fat fingers?

Talking of which, how did Lord Belborough's butler dial on the telephone when:
a) the phone had no holes in the dial
and
b) he had no fingers, just a palm
eh?
eh?
tell me that, Mr SmartyPants...

I'm going to call that number to see if it's true

BTW, Props to anyone who knows who Lord Belborough was...

It was busy

You people need to preview before posting.



Two Utah links in a couple of hours...maybe it's me.

No, it really isn't.

"The chirpiness in that article and the utter inanity of those two old people is just another reason why the cult of Mormon scares the shiat out of me sometimes. What is wrong with these people?"

Great, first we're scary and bad for oppressing women and nonesuch, and now we're scary and bad for being too nice. Is there a safe, nonoffensive happy medium, or are we just generally screwed?

I used to hang out with a guy who'd buy an international phone card, and dial random country codes from a pay phone, and just talk to them for a couple of minutes. How's the weather and so on. Even if they couldn't speak English. It was funny at the time.

Does anyone eles wonder if the old lady has a cat named Slyvester and a canary called Tweety Pie?

And you *know* your a bad grandson when your sweet old lady grandma disses you on the Internet. I think he better stop screening those calls for a while.

It's nice these people found a calling (!), but I'm fairly certain that if I live to a point in my life when all I'm looking to do is "pass the time" ("until I die" is implied, I think), I'd just end it. When there's nothing left to look forward to, why bother? I'm not saying that old people should all kill themselves, I'm just saying that if all you have left to do in life is find something to keep you occupied until you die, just cut out the intervening time. If you've found something that makes you happy, like these people, keep going, by all means. But if you're just trying to beat the boredom, go traumatize some children by doing yourself in at an amusement park, or something.

I say this now, but I'll pussy out in 70 years.

Maybe I've watched too many Kurosawa movies. Or too many Worf episodes. Stupid farking honour codes.

Heh. Old people doing something funny and productive. Strangely enough, here on Fark, we can find plenty of folks to call them scary or something else otherwise offensive.

If Ananova is the anus of the internet, we truly are its armpit...

What the FARK is BYU?

Bag your urine?
Blow your uretha?
Boring Yellow Umbrella?
Bloody Yank (e)uphemisms?

We don't screen calls because we think it's rude.

Rude?? RUDE?!? It is "rude" for me to decide whether or not I want to answer the phone, or talk to a specific person? So the mere fact that someone has elected to call me makes me morally obligated to pick up the phone?

/asshats

I find it funny when people block caller ID from showing their info. When I get UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER on my caller ID, I just pick up and hang up. farker, if you're too good to have visible ID, you're not talking to me.

To all Limeys, Ozzies and other non Yanks:
BYU=Brigham Young University.

Its the Official University of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) religion. It was founded by Mr Brigham Young, right hand man to the founding prophet of the Mormons and second president of the church. So big credentials in the history of the church department.

Its notorious stateside for its uber-puritan code of ethics and remarkable American Football legacy. It gets bonus points for incorporating all of the ideosyncracies of the Mormon church with all of the issues of a major college.

KRAMER: Boy this new telephone number's driving me crazy; wrong numbers, every five minutes!

JERRY: What is it?

KRAMER: Well, it's 555-3455.

JERRY: 555-3455.

KRAMER: Yeah.

KRAMER: (picks up the phone on the coffee table) 555-3455. Well, wait a second, don't you see? That's 555-FILK.

KRAMER: What's Filk?

JERRY: Filks nothing, but 555-FILM is Movie Phone.

KRAMER: Oh, Movie Phone...

JERRY: Yes, so people are just dialing it by mistake and getting you.

KRAMER: So, Im Filk?

JERRY: You're Filk.

KRAMER: Oh, Mama.

--

KRAMER: Hello, and welcome to Movie Phone! If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, press one.

GEORGE: Come on. Come on.

KRAMER: Using your touch-tone keypad, please enter the first three letters of the movie title, now.

(George presses 3 keys)

KRAMER: You have selected... Agent Zero? If that is correct, press one.

GEORGE: What??

KRAMER: Ah, you have selected... Brown-Eyed Girl! If that is correct, press one.

(George looks baffled)

KRAMER: Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you've selected?

GEORGE: Chunnel.

KRAMER: To find the theater nearest you, please enter your five digit zip-code, now.

(George enters his zip-code)

KRAMER: ...Why don't you just tell me where you want to see the movie?

GEORGE: Lowes Paragon, 84th and Broadway.

KRAMER: (picks up paper) Chunnel, is playing at the Paragon 84th Street cinema in the main theater at 9:30 PM.

GEORGE: Yeah, now I gotcha! (hangs up the phone and rushes out the door)

KRAMER: It's also playing in theater number two at 9:00.

2004-11-30 04:23:22 AM Manpace

Great, first we're scary and bad for oppressing women and nonesuch, and now we're scary and bad for being too nice. Is there a safe, nonoffensive happy medium, or are we just generally screwed?

I'd say no to the first, and yes to the second. Knowledge about Mormons/LDS/whatver else they (you?) are called is pretty slim everywhere but Utah. Most people just know those are some of those people who ride bikes, wear white dress shirts with black ties, and bother them at home. Oh yeah, and that whole polygamy thing, LOL!!11!

/I keed, at the end

now that's what I call hard-hitting journalism!

Alexis Boynton, about to celebrate her 16th birthday, is the youngest of the Pierce's grandchildren. Alexis, a Bountiful resident....

Bountiful 16-year-old girls? This article is useless without pics.

Bhruic is becoming bucolic. They feel rude, you and I do not. No problems.

I think it's neat. Yay for sappy stories for an early morning read.

My cell phone is one number off from large church. My home phone is oe number off from the state department of revenue unclaimed funds dept.

You can imagine the conversations I have. I've told people about church events that don't exist and people who died who didn't. I got personal information like SSN's credit card numbers and home addresses, drivers licence #s.

All pretty much unasked. People get it in their heads that THEY are right and I am wrong and they just blather on and on no matter what you tell them. I told an old woman once we were changing the church to Buddhist and eveyone would have to convert. I told someone that in order to collect their unclaimed funds from the state they'd have to move to this state and live here for one year. And so on.

My phone number used to be some real estate/landlord dealie. So I get people calling to ask about apartments. Oh, how I have been tempted to act out those "housing discrimination is illegal!" PSAs they have on the radio.

I'm holding out for a Utah/Mormon trifecta here. (Or lacking that, a pig wanker trifecta - if repeats count.)

When I was going to BYU we got the recently retired phone number of some Provo curtain shop, and I can assure you that I didn't have a map on the wall so I could track the calls' origins.

/sweet, lonely, crazy old people - bless their hearts...

If I was that bored and had that number, I would do something like in Survivor (the book) and give all sorts of wrong information

My parents phone number is 2 numbers off from the local Life Crisis Hotline that would run commercials late at night. Nothing like getting phone calls at 3 am from suicidal people and having to tell them they have the wrong number. (They already feel hopeless and now they find out they can't even dial a phone number correctly.)

I'd love to string a line to a pay phone in the Utah desert and assign that number to it. And I'd drive up there to answer it!

/long live the Mojave Phone Booth

Lets get someone from Louisiana and Maine to call them so they can at least add the pins to the map :)

Yes i am from Utah
Yes i know who they are
NO i am NOT Moron ... oops Mormon

I can definitely relate, we get calls for Duke University (the one that sucks!) at my work a fair bit, although not nearly 25 000. Our 800 number is one digit off of their's.

Wow. This family is being nice to people and it seems like most Farkers are against that.

Sad.

What kind of IDIOT would be NICE to people??? WTF?

Mormons are creepy. I was raised Mormon, and they gave me the heebie-jeebies since I was a kiddy. It is just as bad as Catholicism and every other guilt-based religion. They make you feel like you will dissappoint your entire family and family friends should you not feel like belonging to cult.

/also thoroughly enjoyed the South Park Mormon episode "DUM DUM DUM"

One more thing...that is not to say I think Mormons intentionally guilt people into belonging to their religion. I think they genuinely believe in their faith, just saying from the perspective of someone who doesn't and was subjected to it from birth, it sucks. And they generally tend to be exceptionally nice people.

Old Catholicism may be very superstitious and guilt-based, but you would be surprised how progressive it's become since Vatican II. Any church with a reasonable number of youth or young adults will be focused primarily on social work, fellowship, and theological theory. I went to a Jesuit high school, and it was far more progressive in most ways than any local public school.

Funny you should mention...I was actually also raised Catholic...My mother was Mormon, my father Catholic, I went to Catholic school for 9 years and was made to go also to all of the Mormon business of before school classes called seminary. So, I got a double dose. But, my Catholic upbringing wasn't so progressive...I went to a school with nuns, was taught Latin, was given guilt trips, the whole nine yards. I'm glad your school was better, though. And as it turns out, I find I identify more with the Catholic faith. I am intensly interested in the ritualistic and historical aspects of the church, where Mormons just seem sort of tacky to my sensibilities.

A county I once lived in had a public defender with the same name as mine. I was polite to wrong numbers during the daytime. But a lot of the clients who needed a public defender tended to call at night about their upcoming court case. I usually advised them to bring a toothbrush and soap on a rope with them to court.

/Had a job where I had to answer the phone at night.