Random Rants 94 I rant at the thread title and shake my fist menacingly.

[Kaitzilla]

First I said I would toast Betty White's 100th birthday.

Then I said I would celebrate Prince Phillip's 100th birthday.

After they both died at 99, I swore off ever mentioning a 100th birthday out loud.


Yesterday I said "Bob Barker is still alive? Wow, 99. I hope he makes it to 100."

President Jimmy Carter made it to 100!

Jimmy Carter and his hometown of Plains celebrate the 39th president's 100th birthday

Jimmy Carter is preparing to celebrate his 100th birthday on Tuesday, the first time an American president has lived a full century.

apnews.com

Was biting my tongue and crossing my fingers.

 

[Takhisis]

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER?!

 

[warpus]

I glanced at the forum and thought I read one of the threads as "Ask a Time Travel Question Here!". I had this brief moment where I considered this as a concept and slowly realized that I had misread it. It was a unique state of being that I can't quite describe, maybe there's a German compound word that would do it

 

[Gori the Grey]

Just beam yourself back a minute or two, and when you re-read the title, you'll get it right.

 

[Takhisis]

I glanced at the forum and thought I read one of the threads as "Ask a Time Travel Question Here!". I had this brief moment where I considered this as a concept and slowly realized that I had misread it. It was a unique state of being that I can't quite describe, maybe there's a German compound word that would do it

Well, obviously ‘Zeitfahren’ should be in there somewhere.

 

[r16]

no , you can't whack Adolf somewhere along .

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Start by asking the actual experts first before dismissing your own chances.

The scanner is no longer under warranty and even if I had bought the extended 3 year warranty that's no guarantee that Canon would repair the scanner as the problem isn't a manufacturing fault but my own fault and even if it was a manufacturing fault Canon could just claim to no longer repair that model and instead ask me to buy a newer model instead.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Power was restored at 6:35 pm Saturday. It was out for about 30 hours.

My neighbor claimed ATT was supposed to send a crew to fix the internet yesterday afternoon, but no one has come yet. We are back at the library again.

Last time we were here I convinced mom to pick up a large print book to read, even though she had insisted that she couldn't see well enough to read since the strokes 7 years ago and hadn't been willing to try when I offering to get large print books for her before, even after I got her an illuminated magnifier last year. She started Dolly Parton and James Patterson's "Run, Rose, Run" at 2pm Saturday (using the magnifier after struggling with the first 2 chapters without it) and finished at 8pm Sunday. It took almost exactly as long for her to finish the book as for the power company to clear the tree and restore the electric service.

ATT had several trucks at our street yesterday fixing the main lines, but even though they could see exactly where the line that should lead to our house broke they said they couldn't do anything for us without an official call from us in their system. (I had assumed the neighbor's call would be good enough, as the problem shared an obvious cause in the fallen tree.) It took me over an hour and a half to get through to someone who could schedule a tech to come here, since my cell phone gets poor reception and the call was dropped 6 times.


I had thought that 4-8pm today was the range of time in which the tech might arrive, but it ended up basically being the whole timeframe at which they were at our house.

I was away doing some drywall repair at work when I got the call that they were on the way and the texts that they had arrived. Since I told him the issue and we assumed the whole problem was in the lines outside, he told me I probably did not need to be there of the repair. I tried to finish up quickly and get home anyway, but didn't get bac until a quarter to 6pm.

When I arrived, they were finishing up the replacing the lines broken by the tree fall and stringing a new fiber optic cable to our house. When the guy with the bucket truck left he said the other tech out to have out internet up and running in just a few minutes, but it took almost 2 hours more. Eventually he decided that the modem/router was defective, even though it had been working just fine before the tree fell. Once he replaced it with a new model everything started working fine.


When I got home mom said that she had finished the last of the library books we picked out Monday. She read Gulliver's Travels on Monday, Walt Witman's "Leaves of Grass" (and a few chapters of one John Grisham novel) on Tuesday, and finished 4 novels today. Together they came up to 3,380 pages since Saturday. Yesterday she read 808 pages in just under 10 hours and today she read over 1500 pages in under 10 hours.

That is a lot even for someone who didn't believe she was unable to read books at all last week.

 

[warpus]

I visited a new barber today, cuts my hair very well for a good price, and the location is super convenient.

We had a conversation about the history of his people, the Assyrians. I learned a lot of interesting stuff about them during our conversation, during which my barber recommended a youtube video in which the author of a book about ancient Assyrian history talks about some sort of prophecy.

I returned the next day to get some touchups done, and he asked if I watched the video yet. I tried to play it cool and try to impress him that I remembered what he was talking about, and mentioned the word "miracle" which is in the same sort of ballpark as "prophecy", but not quite it.. I remembered wrong. My barber looked disappointed. He pulled out his phone and looked up the video to show me what it looks like.

I really like my haircut, the price, and the convenience, and he's a good conversationalist, and Assyrian history is fascinating to me, but now I have haircut homework. I am pretty sure he is going to ask me about the video next time I go. He owns the barbershop too. He's going to be there for the forseeable future. I am pretty sure I need to watch this video, he is going to quiz me on it next time I go, and some part of me knows that it's in my best interest to actually impress him next time with my Assyrian prophecy knowledge.

 

[Takhisis]

Clearly you should start with the TVTropes page on Assyria.

 

[choxorn]

And make sure you know what the capital of Assyria is too, both to impress the barber and in case you run into any old men guarding a bridge asking you questions.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, yes, you have to know those things when you're a king.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And don't forget the Assyrian connection to Carl Sagan's novel Contact. They didn't include most of it in the movie, but there's mention of Esarhaddon in the novel, and... oh, what a coincidence. The character who funds Ellie's time on the Very Large Array (what she's using when she discovers the Message) is S.R. Haddon, who's into all this other Assyrian themed stuff the novel gets into but the movie doesn't.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I washed my coffee mug out today. I've not let it sit empty for three months. Upon inspection, it appeared to be gathering some sort of biofilm at the bottom.

Given reproductive rates of bacteria, some evolution may have occurred. I may have unintentionally incubated an exceedingly well caffeinated form of life only indigenous to my coffee cup.

I wiped it out. This was a mistake. Tastes like Ajax now, and I can't get the taste out no matter the rinsing. Smooth rich biofilm is missed indeed

 

[Takhisis]

So you IRL are a crossover between Wally from Dilbert and Ethan McManus.

 

[Narz]

My first baby momma's dumbass didn't evacuate for hurricane. Category 5 no joke, hopefully it reduces.

Can't wait til my baby out of that house in uni

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Not evacuating could be considered child endangerment. Are you trying to get custody?

 

[Narz]

Spent too much time & money already & I'm not in the country rn, my daughter knows she can come live with me anytime she wants with no notice & we'll make it work but she's in school there now. Just looking forward to when she moves out.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I booked my flu shot today. That's not the rant.

The rant is that I also wanted to book my covid shot (there's nothing medically problematic about getting both on the same day).

The actual problem? The government here in Alberta prefers to pretend covid doesn't exist, so they allowed the contract with the previous distributor (that gets the vaccines to the clinics and pharmacies) to lapse and didn't bother to get another one in its place in time for October 15. The Minister Of Gutting Health Care (also my MLA; she's so many negative adjectives that I'd need a thesaurus to cover them all AND would get infracted for inappropriate language) mumbled some excuse and vague thing that she's "concerned" and is "looking into it".

The pharmacist said maybe it would be available next week. In reality, we'll be lucky to get them before Christmas (I'm trying to get my appointments done before the snow comes, since trying to get around through the snow with my walker is a headache and safety hazard).

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The Minister Of Gutting Health Care

Ah, gutting public healthcare so that the masses will more easily accept gradual privatization of it? My province is doing it too.