Random Rants LXIX: Life is a Dismal Chore

[Snerk]

Hmm, I sense a cold coming my way, slightly sore throat + headachey symptoms. Timing is quite terrible due to plans for tomorrow. With my luck I'll wake up tomorrow with a fever and be useless.

 

[Takhisis]

Wesnoth though. What kind of name is that. It looks somewhat interesting, so I'm not discounting it outright, but I don't know if that's really my thing

I don't know if you're man enough to play it, but here goes: wesnoth.org. Just sayin'!

 

[Lemon Merchant]

There's a stupid teenager riding a dirt bike (illegally) up and down my street at very high speed, at all hours of the day and night, doing wheelies and the like. One of these days he's going to wipe out and hurt himself badly.

Even worse than the noise and danger to everyone from this effing little jerk, is the fact that he'll probably wipe out in front of my house when I'm home, and I'll have to go out and patch him up til the ambulance gets there.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I waited an hour for a hair cut from a little Japanese lady around the corner. I've been to her before, no problems. It's difficult to communicate with her but she does a good job.

Today she refused to cut my hair because I didn't want a buzz or a Nazi cut. Straight up she wouldn't cut my hair unless I let her use an electric shaver on the sides.

What the hell

There's a stupid teenager riding a dirt bike (illegally) up and down my street at very high speed, at all hours of the day and night, doing wheelies and the like. One of these days he's going to wipe out and hurt himself badly.

Even worse than the noise and danger to everyone from this effing little jerk, is the fact that he'll probably wipe out in front of my house when I'm home, and I'll have to go out and patch him up til the ambulance gets there.

Call the cops

Moderator Action: Sequential posts merged. ~ Arakhor

 

[Synobun]

I waited an hour for a hair cut from a little Japanese lady around the corner. I've been to her before, no problems. It's difficult to communicate with her but she does a good job.

Today she refused to cut my hair because I didn't want a buzz or a Nazi cut. Straight up she wouldn't cut my hair unless I let her use an electric shaver on the sides.

What the hell

Time to whip out the trusty self-done mushroom cut.

 

[shadowplay]

Were you wearing a brown shirt?

 

[Synobun]

Rant: I want to dislike the new Taylor Swift song but I like it a little more each time I listen to it.

Maybe rave: Also gives me hope that she might be the first pop singer who suddenly decides they need a rebrand... and not immediately get a pixie cut with off-the-deep-end songs.

 

[Snerk]

No geese

 

[Takhisis]

I listen to [Taylor Swift]

Why?

 

[Lohrenswald]

 

[Synobun]

Why?

Good stuff, man. Shake it off.

This is my aesthetic.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You know this is a point that makes me not understand how the online shopping thing has taken off. Most people with money to spend work 9 - 5 or thereabouts. Most deliveries come between 9 and 5. If you are not there you have to go to the depot, which is usually harder than going to a shop. How do people solve this?

Parcel lockers, if it's Canada Post that's delivering. Thank goodness our building got one of those, so unless what I order is really large or heavy, I don't need to worry about being home when the mail comes.

I used to have to constantly fight with Canada Post over deliveries. I order a lot of stuff from Amazon, London Drugs, Walmart, and a few other places. Some of the drivers were really good about buzzing my suite and bringing the parcel(s) like they were supposed to. But every so often there'd be a new person or a sub who would get on their high horse of "I don't have to go any farther than the lobby" and they'd happily spend more minutes arguing that they "don't have time" to bring the book or other thing to my door than it would take to just bring the thing to my door in the first place.

And then there were the ones who never even tried to contact me. They'd just leave a card in the mailbox, without buzzing my suite, knocking on the door, or even hollering from the parking lot. That's not how it's supposed to happen - I checked the Canada Post website and they're required to make at least one attempt to deliver, which means trying to contact the addressee. This would lead to me phoning the postal outlet where I was told to pick up the parcel, the person answering getting huffy that she couldn't deliver it to me, and me saying, "I know that - just give me the phone number of the supervisor at the sorting plant so I can complain to them and arrange for a re-delivery."

The drivers are not happy about re-deliveries. One of them threatened to just always leave cards in my mailbox, and I said that would mean I'd be constantly making complaints against him. Then he said he'd just throw my parcels down the stairs and if something broke, too bad. I told him I'd still complain, only this time it would be more serious (I lived in the basement then, in the building before this one; it was a bad part of town). One of the people who delivered here and pulled this trick looked very confused when he finally turned up with my stuff. "I didn't know I was supposed to bring it up here," he whined. This led to me having another conversation with the supervisor, asking if the new drivers were told they had to actually deliver the parcels. The way I put it was, "They're driving around all day with a van full of parcels. What did they think they were supposed to do with them - take them all out for ice cream?"

The last one really took the bakery, though. He got verbally abusive, yelling at me that he did NOT have to come up to my suite, he was NOT happy that I complained, he tried to shout me down when I explained that he hadn't even tried to contact me to let me know he was here, and then he started making threats of just putting the card in the box every time. The last thing he said as he stomped down the hall to the elevator (still shouting) was, "And don't you dare call and complain about this!"

Of course, I was on the phone less than 10 seconds later. They must have given him one hell of a talking-to, since the next time he turned up he was very polite. "Good morning, how are you today?" as he handed me my parcels. I haven't had any problems with him since.

(before anyone asks, it's very difficult for a Canada Post employee to screw up so badly that they get fired; they have to do something illegal like steal or destroy mail or have a serious traffic violation - being rude to the customers isn't usually a firing offense)

So back to the parcel locker. If I'm home to accept the parcel, fine. If not, the mailman will leave a key to one of the compartments of the locker in my mailbox and I will have to get it myself. Then I just drop the key in the return slot in the locker for the mailman to pick up the next time he's there. It's a solution that works beautifully - when the mailman knows he's supposed to use it. One of the subs didn't; he just left the card, and when I called to complain, they tried to cover for him: "Well, you weren't home." So I said, "Why didn't he just put it in the locker and leave me the key?"

They said, "Maybe he didn't see the locker or know it was there." I informed them that since the locker is bigger than the average pop or snack machine and prominently placed in the lobby across from the individual mailboxes, it's impossible not to see it. So they told him to deliver the parcel the next day.


And all that rigamarole is just for Canada Post. Walmart has been using Loomis lately, in addition to Canada Post. There's no locker for the non-CP parcels, so I do have to be home. The problem is, I don't always know which courier or delivery service the store is going to use.

I would certainly not want them to just leave stuff outside my door. I'm on the main floor, where there are a lot of kids and more likelihood of just anyone being in the vicinity who could walk off with something.

 

[Takhisis]

Good stuff, man. Shake it off.

Do you need me to educate you in terms of music?

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Call the cops

We have. They even set up a road block to catch him and he rode around it. The cops even know who he is and where he lives, but they can't do anything unless they actually catch him in the act.

A couple of the people on my street are apparently contemplating some vigilante action which I doubt will end well for anyone.

 

[Synobun]

Do you need me to educate you in terms of music?

When you do, can you open it with "Look at what you made me do"?

 

[Arakhor]

We have. They even set up a road block to catch him and he rode around it. The cops even know who he is and where he lives, but they can't do anything unless they actually catch him in the act.

Well then they just need to set up another road block, this time with a video camera to record his antics.

 

[Synobun]

Well then they just need to set up another road block, this time with a video camera to record his antics.

I agree. We should set up a roadblock and record Takh.

 

[Synobun]

People are shooting off fireworks because of this MacGregor/Mayweather fight. I don't get it.

It also won't stop. Please stop.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

We have. They even set up a road block to catch him and he rode around it. The cops even know who he is and where he lives, but they can't do anything unless they actually catch him in the act.

A couple of the people on my street are apparently contemplating some vigilante action which I doubt will end well for anyone.

Take a video. That's all the evidence I think they should need to act. Really it sounds like the cops are lazy, think the problem isn't worth pursuing or some combination of the two.

I hope the kids hasn't cut the exhaust off the end of his ride. I knew of a guy who did that because it made the engine sound louder and meaner and being a 16 year old guy that was just the greatest thing. He also took to joy riding around the neighborhood and pissing everyone off.

 

[Commodore]

I haven't played the game, but maybe it would have been better to have a glorious near-win (i.e. umltimately a failure) be the canon ending? That way you already have the sequel hook for an ME4 in which you fight these Reapers, whatever they are.

That would involve playing as a species other than humanity or any of the other established species and advancing the timeline 50,000 years into the future. A Reaper victory would result in the complete annihilation of all space-faring species since the Reapers engage in a cycle of destruction in which they show up roughly every 50,000 years to destroy all advanced space-faring life. I won't spoil why they do it though just in case you ever do decide to play the games.

Unlike, say, the ME3 ending controversy, this is an issue where it's clearly EA at fault, rather than Bioware.

I would use the word "decision" rather than "fault". The poor reception Mass Effect Andromeda received among gamers makes any future titles or DLC too big of a financial risk for EA. So it only makes sense from a business perspective for them to pull the plug now and move on to more profitable ventures. As for the shutting studios down thing: All they did was shut down Bioware Montreal, which was only ever a support studio anyway. Mass Effect Andromeda was their chance to prove they could be more than a support studio and they screwed it up big time. Bioware Edmonton (their main studio) is still fine and there's no indication EA has lost faith in them yet. If they release another poorly received game though, that could change very quickly.

Someone from the management company the bank hires to safeguard the places came by and talked/threatened them into leaving. Hopefully they stay gone.

Glad to hear it. Squatters have a way of bringing down a neighborhood.

I'm definitely switching games for a while after I am finished playing through this KSP career save.

You like giant robots? If so and you have a 360, I could use a teammate for Armored Core Verdict Day multiplayer. The servers are still up after all these years and they are still doing the persistent online war, which is quite fun.

Moderator Action: Sequential posts merged. ~ Arakhor