The Tow Files: Same Crap, Different Year.

[Shyla]

Poor Spitzilla. Each of these conversations takes away a few IQ points just trying to fathom the stupidity.

[Cia]

The Tow Files are the reason I asked my friend if my car needed a visitor permit when I visited her out in Seattle.

[Argabarga]

According to fairly recent pictures of the Bismark the crew scuttled it. British gunnery was very poor that day.

[history sperg] To be fair, nobody's gunnery was that "good" early in WW2. At the time, the most sophisticated forms of naval gunnery were still relying on WW1 era technology like visual rangefinders and adjusting your shots based on where the splashes from your misses were falling. Even the best crew generally needed 3 tries to hit a target: Too long, too short, BINGO.

In 1940/1941, gunnery boiled down to "throw enough s*it at the wall, some of it will stick"

By late in WW2 , radar had been invented and the first crude analog computers were appearing to plot firing solutions. Which is why it's called that, you plug numbers into the computer, you get the solution to the equation.

By contrast, in 1944 the USS West Virginia hit the IJN Yamashiro on her first salvo, at 23,000 yards , in the DARK.

Interestingly, the record for longest confirmed hit in WW2 was 26,000 yards, scored by, who else? HMS Warspite, the most decorated battleship in history, and it was in 1940 on mostly guesswork and grit. [/history sperg]

[Dytchdoctir]

The Tow Files are the reason I asked my friend if my car needed a visitor permit when I visited her out in Seattle.

Was she a good friend or a bad friend? Did she tell you "Oh just park anywhere, nobody will notice. And if Seattle's Friendly Neighborhood Towing does happen to show up, we'll just run outside and yell illogical bullshite at them, that'll stop 'em!"

[Argabarga]

I see you've played this game before....

[Cia]

Was she a good friend or a bad friend? Did she tell you "Oh just park anywhere, nobody will notice. And if Seattle's Friendly Neighborhood Towing does happen to show up, we'll just run outside and yell illogical bullshite at them, that'll stop 'em!"

Good friend.

The first couple of times I visited she lived in apt buildings and the last place was a duplex with on street parking. I was more worried about being towed from the on street parking since I had to park in front of other duplexes. Her neighborhood had a distinct lack of parking for everybody - it really needs a parking garage. Last year some idiot put a big dent in my Jeep and didn't leave a note and considering it was on the upper portion of the Jeep's hatch back it had to be intentional.

[Talon]

Tow Files is back! The Truth is out there, hopefully with a permit!

"Permit is in the mail"

And so is your ride.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I see you've played this game before....

And suddenly I’m imagining you making people pay for their tows and get their cars SAW style.

[Kit-Ginevra]

So out of interest,if we were to compose a Heroes'Gallery for those who have been told 'Yes,your ticket was valid/we didn't read the sign properly/you didn't actually need a permit to park there/you shouldn't have been towed-oops our bad' and were genuinely in the right,how many would it consist of?
I'm guessing not many....

[Slave to the Phone]

I once got a parking ticket that I thought was unfair (didn't get towed for it, though). I took pics of the badly faded and peeling red paint on the curb and went to court so I could show them to the judge. As I recall, the ticket wasn't that much, around 30 bucks or so, but I really didn't think it was my fault that I didn't see that the curb I parked by was red.

The judge agreed and a few weeks later, I was back at the same place and saw that the red paint was very new and bright!

Every other parking ticket I have ever gotten has been my fault and I've just sent payment in without complaining.

[Kittish]

So out of interest,if we were to compose a Heroes'Gallery for those who have been told 'Yes,your ticket was valid/we didn't read the sign properly/you didn't actually need a permit to park there/you shouldn't have been towed-oops our bad' and were genuinely in the right,how many would it consist of?
I'm guessing not many....

I'd put my money on very, very low single digits, keeping in mind that zero is a digit.

[SpyOne]

Was she a good friend or a bad friend? Did she tell you "Oh just park anywhere, nobody will notice. And if Seattle's Friendly Neighborhood Towing does happen to show up, we'll just run outside and yell illogical bullshite at them, that'll stop 'em!"

I think you've misidentified those categories.

I suppose a good person would tell you about the need for permits while a bad person would tell you it is fine when it isn't.
A good friend might tell you either of those. But if they told you that you could park there and you get towed because they were wrong, a good friend would pay for the tow.
A good friend would also join you in spouting illogical crap, or do it on your behalf.

The bad friend is the one whose answer to "do I need a permit to park there" is "I dunno", and whose response to learning your car has been towed is "sucks to be you".

Seriously, though, Argabarga:
While I understand the urge to not engage in conversation, to not do anything these people might misunderstand as an opportunity to argue*, I think when people say that they got "permission" to park there (from their friend or the mysterious "they"), you should suggest that THAT person may owe them money then, and you'd be willing to testify if needed.

As in:
"But Jimmy said I could park here."
"Well, that sounds like Jimmy may owe you for the cost of this tow. But that doesn't affect me: somebody has to give me $130 before I can give you the car. Plus $30 a day for storage if it doesn't happen today."

Not engaging with them when they say they got permission makes it feel like you are calling them a liar (which they often are), but pointing out that the person who "gave permission" (while not legally authorized to give that permission) might be at fault .... well, if "they" are fictional, you just told them to recover their losses from someone they just lied into existence. And if "they" are real, you just got them thinking about the quality of their friends.


*In my own line of work, the prime "arguement" with SCs centers around "I cannot legally sell you alcohol after midnight and it is currently after midnight".
"But I've been in line since 11:57"
"1) no, you haven't. and 2) even if you had, that wouldn't change anything, because I cannot legally sell you alcohol after midnight and it is currently after midnight

Sadly, many MANY SCs think that even mentioning point 1 means they can change my mind on point 2.

[Nunavut Pants]

...I think when people say that they got "permission" to park there (from their friend or the mysterious "they"), you should suggest that THAT person may owe them money then, and you'd be willing to testify if needed.

Nope, that is volunteering to get in the middle of someone else's disagreement. A good way to get dragged into something you don't want to be part of, and there's a decent possibility that the "he-said/he-said" raises enough doubts that you don't get anything.

It's like someone borrowing $5 from you, then telling you to get it from their brother who borrowed $5 from them. Nope, you borrowed the money, you pay me back.

In this case, it's "You were lied to, it costs you $130 for the drop. Get it back from 'them' if you can." The third party has nothing to do with you, and you don't get dragged into their crap.

[Ironclad Alibi]

According to fairly recent pictures of the Bismark the crew scuttled it. British gunnery was very poor that day.

British guns pummeled it, torpedoes rammed into it, and the crew scuttled it. But the Bismarck was unsinkable! It took a lot to make it go down.

[Nunavut Pants]

It seems like a lot of capital ships' final fate was to be scuttled by their own crew. The large ships were frequently too tough to actually sink in a short period of time, even after being effectively turned into scrap (as far as combat was concerned). But they contained stuff their owners didn't want the Other Side to see, and there may have been some possibility that they could have been fixed up and used by the Other Side against Their Side. So they were scuttled.