Random Rants ΟΔ: broken record

[MaryKB]

Oh dear, I took my car for a car wash today, and when I was finished this guy told me I had to go back around because some parts got missed or something, and so as I was trying to go again I was told I had to back out because they're very sorry but they didn't realize I was having my car washed and they started shutting down for maintenance. So he was nice enough to give me a voucher for a free one later, but I think something might've gone wrong or something because it's not done (you know how you feel when you don't get all your shampoo out of your hair?) and my windshield wipers are making a strange noise when at the end of their sweep, like a grinding rubber sound like there's too much friction or something (can that happen from wax that's not washed off properly?)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The bit of the 10 years prior to the Civil War were a Congressman beat a Senator half to death in the Senate chamber, or the bit were paramilitary groups engaged in open warfare in Kansas?

Both. Substitute "political adherent" and "baseball field" in the first one and expand "open warfare" to include violent riots and we're right there.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Oh dear, I took my car for a car wash today, and when I was finished this guy told me I had to go back around because some parts got missed or something, and so as I was trying to go again I was told I had to back out because they're very sorry but they didn't realize I was having my car washed and they started shutting down for maintenance. So he was nice enough to give me a voucher for a free one later, but I think something might've gone wrong or something because it's not done (you know how you feel when you don't get all your shampoo out of your hair?) and my windshield wipers are making a strange noise when at the end of their sweep, like a grinding rubber sound like there's too much friction or something (can that happen from wax that's not washed off properly?)

Wax buildup can change the sound, but it won't do any harm. Save your voucher for a couple weeks and enjoy the free car wash. You SCORED!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

This morning I went and bought news shoes for my mother and myself. (The sole was falling off of the shoes she likes to wear for physical therapy. I have not been able to find my athletic shoes in years. I think my dad, who has terrible toenail fungus, confused them for his and had been wearing them. When I don't need my steel toe work boots or nice dress shoes I've been wearing an old pair of loafers, whose sole is wearing out and which were never good for running.)

The prices were not as good as I would like at the place we went but mom was in a hurry to get some before her in hoe physical therapy begins today, so I went ahead and got the most comfortable ones that were on sale.

For mom I got the second most comfortable pair, as they were a bit cheaper and have non-slip oil resistant soles that might prevent falls that could be dangerous due to her blood thinners.

When I got home and looked at the receipt I noticed that my pair cost $5 more than advertised.

My new shoes were super comfortable in the store, but after wearing them a few hours I feel like they don't have enough arch support.

----


We are still waiting for the physical therapist to arrive. She was supposed to come yesterday but never called or showed up. This morning she did call and said she would be here at 1pm, but she is about 50 minutes late so far.

My mom really wanted the therapy to be over before General Hospital starts and is now upset that she will miss her favorite show.

---

I finally got Civ IV to work properly on my computer after the reset, but my modmod is still experiencing inexplicable random crashes. I think that is still due to something in Tholal's DLL, which no one had been able to fix in the past year since he disappeared from the forums.

---

I had a short video call on Facebook Messenger with my sister about an hour ago, after she had suggested we set up Skype to communicate that way. The sound quality was poor and cut out completely from time to time, but I heard enough to learn some bad news.

A social worker from the Department of Family and Child Services showed up again yesterday at a very inconvenient time. My sister did not handle the stress well and did not come across as someone who could handle the baby on her own. They still had not found anyone else able to stay with them full time to help out. Her mother in law Her mother-in-law had fairly firm plans to return to Michigan yesterday. She had thought my sister could handle the baby alone until the DFCS worker stopped by, but then changed her mind. She ended up taking my niece to Michigan with her.

My sister does not think this is going to be long term but remains hopeful that she can go get the baby to bring home after a week or two, once they are confident that her psychiatric meds are properly adjusted.

My mom was in the room and heard the news when I did, and started crying about her granddaughter being taken away.

 

[MaryKB]

I'm really very sorry @MagisterCultuum, your story about your sister and your niece is very heartbreaking I really hope your sister is able to get all the help she needs and she'll have her daughter back soon.

 

[Takhisis]

I seriously cannot tell whether it's good that the social worker is finally taking your sister's problems seriously or that it's bad happened because of a fluke.
Her mother-in-law taking her child away is bad either way.
I hesitate but will ask where her husband is.

Rant: I lost track of the last day I could see the sun. For easily the last two weeks it has been cold and damp. Must be what Scotland feels like.

I didn't know you'd moved to Seattle.

The only bright side to this is that there was no personally identifying information attached to the keychain.

Wouldn't that, in Germany, result in somebody walking up to the door and telling you that here is your stuff?

Because if you're in an area where it wouldn't then you'd better change your lock.

Ironically, we've had an unusually sunny day, for mid-October.

Naturally, we are suspicious, and assume that the English are up to their usual tricks.

It's the Catholics.

The bit of the 10 years prior to the Civil War were a Congressman beat a Senator half to death in the Senate chamber, or the bit were paramilitary groups engaged in open warfare in Kansas?

Both. Substitute "political adherent" and "baseball field" in the first one and expand "open warfare" to include violent riots and we're right there.

Does random shootings of blacks and gays count as a sort of internal proto-war?

 

[cardgame]

I've never taken my car in to a car wash.

I washed my first one by hand a couple times. That made sense, because I had a driveway and it was my first car, I wanted it to look better. Just been neglecting my poor Camry for 4 years now, it's an A->B car only.

 

[Cutlass]

Ironically, we've had an unusually sunny day, for mid-October.

Naturally, we are suspicious, and assume that the English are up to their usual tricks.


The bit of the 10 years prior to the Civil War were a Congressman beat a Senator half to death in the Senate chamber, or the bit were paramilitary groups engaged in open warfare in Kansas?

The bit where conservatives whipped themselves into a frenzy about all sorts of radical evils their opponents were up to, which for the most part they essentially all made up.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I seriously cannot tell whether it's good that the social worker is finally taking your sister's problems seriously or that it's bad happened because of a fluke.
Her mother-in-law taking her child away is bad either way.
I hesitate but will ask where her husband is.

Her husband works as a Latin teacher at a charter high school, and sometimes tutors kids after his main job. He is probably back at their home now. We spoke to her on a Facebook Messenger Video call for about an hour, ending at 5:26pm. He was not home when we got off, but she expected him back around 5:30pm. Some people from his work wanted to bring them food, so she did not need to cook dinner, but he said he still wanted her to have the table set and a drink ready when he got home.

For much of the call she seemed distracted by trying to figure out what to do with a bag of potatoes that had gotten wet (if friends were not bringing food she would have gone ahead and cooked them before they have a chance to go bad) and then trying to find the missing USB receiver for her wireless mouse, which she was afraid one of their 3 cats might try to eat. She was also trying to do laundry while we talked, and in the previous call was trying to catch a spider.

My sister said she has no idea who called the Division of Family and Child Services or why, and wishes they had not gotten involved. She did not understand why the lady was asking the sort of questions she asked, and her mother-in-law did not know how to answer them either. She did not say what any of the questions were though, and gave no hint that they related to her husband. She seemed to think it all had to do with her having been institutionalized and having just started a new antipsychotic medicine to help her sleep.

It could be my fault for taking the advice of people here and sharing my concerns about how her husband spoke to her with a social worker at the institution.


---

Mom's physical therapist still never showed up today. I mentioned this to the occupational therapist who called to make an appointment for tomorrow, who said she would bring it up with their boss.

Mom was really upset about having had to stay dressed all day for a therapist who never came and is afraid tomorrow will be just the same. She was crying about it. I honestly think her mood might be more related to having heard about her granddaughter being taken away, but with the neurological damage from the stroke she did not seem able to concentrate on that fact for long enough to consciously realize that it was what was really bothering her.

 

[Takhisis]

It could be my fault for taking the advice of people here and sharing my concerns about how her husband spoke to her with a social worker at the institution.

And how would somebody even make the connection? Don't go about punishing yourself on top of anything else.

 

[cardgame]

I am interested in about 4 long-running serial webcomics and have completely lost my place in all of them. It's not like there's a page number, you know? Just a URL that may or more likely may not contain any relevant information for tracking over periods of time. The pages usually don't even have the date on them, not that I could really remember when I looked them up. I'd like to go back and read them, but there doesn't seem to be a good solution besides starting over from the beginning. One in particular would take literally half a day to go through from the beginning. It's very long and I don't think it even has a friggin' archive. Just the next/previous buttons.

I wish RSS hadn't died so I could have just been notified every update. Pushbullet only works on a few things - xkcd and SMBC - unless you can add custom URLs? I don't think you can though.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Multi-layered rant:

I like this trackball way better than using a mouse. The tracking part never wears out, and back in the day a mouse was a short lived POS, but the buttons weren't really long lived (rant). For a long time you could pick up a mouse anywhere, and I could never find a trackball when I needed one (rant). Then it got to where brick and mortar stores didn't carry them at all (rant). Assuming that everyone can shop on line discriminates terribly against people who are far off the grid (rant). Anyway, early this year I had to get something else that I could only get on-line, and as long as I was arranging that I ordered a track ball for a spare. My gf griped about it taking up space here and there for a while, and I don't remember if I found a place for it, she "put it away," or I actually used it...but in any event I can't find it (rant). And my current trackball started acting up (rant). Same problem has taken down I can't even count how many of them (rant).

So today I decided to open it up and see what's what, and found that there was a fuzzball in the works between the actual switch and the shell button. If I wasn't so lazy I'd probably still be using the first one I got back in the nineties. (rant!)

 

[cardgame]

...you still use 1990 mice? Or like an independent stationary orb with no movement?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

...you still use 1990 mice? Or like an independent stationary orb with no movement?

A trackball. Simple Logitech trackball that hasn't changed since the nineties. Worked good then, works good now. The only improvement would be that I'd like one just like it, but wireless.

 

[Commodore]

Why do some managers have to get angry when you quit on them for a better job? It just seems so childish to me. I mean, I get that they are upset because now they have to find a way to get that employee's work covered as well as go through the process of hiring a replacement when they aren't really prepared to do so, but does that really warrant anger? And just to clarify, when I say anger, I mean my manager was acting like I just insulted his mother or something when I told him I was leaving for another job. He seemed to be taking it personally.

And this isn't the first time I've encountered a manager like this in my various jobs. It really bugs me because I try to keep the situation amicable and professional by doing the right thing and keeping them informed instead of just disappearing on them without warning, but then they ruin that by taking me quitting as if it were a personal attack against them.

 

[Hygro]

Their having that attitude keeps weak people in line.

 

[Zkribbler]

Question:

Why do some managers have to get angry when you quit on them for a better job?

Answer:

It just seems so childish to me.

Q.E.D.

 

[Hygro]

I'm getting a good response on social media recently, which should be a rave, but it's nigh exclusively from men.

!To member photos to demonstrate.

 

[Snerk]

I'm getting a good response on social media recently, which should be a rave, but it's nigh exclusively from men.

!To member photos to demonstrate.

Girls have weird taste. Man compliments are much more trustworthy.

 

[tjs282]

Wouldn't that, in Germany, result in somebody walking up to the door and telling you that here is your stuff?

It might, but lately I find myself increasingly losing faith in the inherent goodness of human nature (see current title)...

Because if you're in an area where it wouldn't then you'd better change your lock.

The town I live in has around 80,000-100,000 inhabitants (depending on whether or not you include the surrounding villages), and an urbanised diameter of ~9 km (~70 sq.km). The keys were lost in the town-centre, ~3 km as the crow flies (and more if it's walking) from our front door — which has proven difficult for e.g. food-delivery drivers to locate even after they have been given our street-address, and had the route to the door described to them over the phone (and GoogleMaps is also a thing...) — so I'm not too worried on that score...