April Annoyances (mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
261

I Pit the physical limitations that come with pregnancy. I’ll be 26 weeks along tomorrow.

Stupid bladder, making me have to pee all the goddamn time.

I hate how I feel if I get down on the floor or sit in a too-soft chair. I feel like I need one of those slings they used to move the humpback whales in Star Trek IV if I’m going to get back up.

Fuck whatever receptors in the brain that cause pregnancy moodiness. I understand why my hormones have to be different right now. What I don’t understand is why my brain has to pick up on those and get weepy or angry for no good reason.

262

Noise canceling headphones.

But 10PM isnt that late, the police etc, wont care. Now if it was really late, then maybe.

263

Thanks for teaching me a new word, SpazCat. I never knew those things were caltrops. I guess if some of them found their way onto EmilyG’s road, it might help her sleep. By accident. Of course.

264

I also had to look up what caltrops are.

Maybe I can just get some ice cubes and throw them onto the road, causing a bit of slipperiness without doing much damage to anything. (Though in reality, I’ll probably end up just doing nothing.)

265

Unsafe driving practices only become an issue after a certain time at night?

Must be some weird Canadian thing.

266

“…making a fucking hell of a lot of noise.”. Since I think EmilyG indicates she hears more than sees the driving, the noise seems to be the primary issue. of course, if they are driving illegally fast, etc, then perhaps the police might do something. However, since many Police dept like the San Jose PD wont do anything about any crime short of a felony unless it is commuted in front of them (due to budget issues) it’s unlikly that mere infractions will generate much police action.

267

Just did my taxes. I had some capital gains this year, but the glow of that victory has long faded, so writing a couple of swingeing checks to the Feds and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has me, very, very briefly, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the Republican viewpoint on tax cuts and capital gains. Although in my case, it’s thinking ithat maybe we could offset those tax cuts by spending a teensy bit less on next generation fighter bombers and tanks the military doesn’t want. I would have been perfectly willing to generate economic stimulus with that money myself, but I guess the house didn’t really need painting this year.

268

We’re paying the Feds 2k this year. Eh. It’s better than giving them an interest-free loan.

On a slightly related topic (as in cleaning up poop), youngest will be four next week and she still isn’t potty trained damn it.

269

I think that I’ve got all the ferals from the colony. I doubt that this advice would work for you LavenderBlue but what I do with trapped cats is put the traps on blocks of wood with plastic and litter underneath. That way their poop and pee just fall out onto easy to clean up stuff. Roll up the garbage bags and toss them in the trash. Easy peasy. Probably not the best way to deal with a young human, but there are larger cages available…

270

But the military needs those things to replace the ones that are being given to the police forces.

271

This is a super-long shot, but the local municipality (whoever runs the town, village, what-have-you) may be willing to consider a suggestion for adding speed bumps to that road.

ETA: shame about that handful of thumbtacks that wound up lying in the middle of the road. Damn shame. How they wound up there late at night after most folks had gone home to bed, we’ll never know …

272

Speed bumps damage everyones car.

And those tacks could give some resident a flat, a resident who is a safe and courteous driver.

ideas like this are really stupid.

273

I would not actually put tacks on the road, and I’m sure purplehorseshoe was joking, as was anyone who joked about putting stuff on the road.

274

A mild rant on trade show “early bird” attendees after I almost ran over a customer with a heavy cart this morning:

We apreciate your attendance. But here is how you can make the trade show better for you, and the exhibitors.

See the sign? It says the trade show starts at 11am. Not 10am. Not 1015am. Not 1035am.

By sneaking into the exhibit hall early to start asking questions of exhibitors while they are getting ready for said trade show, you are causing nothing but problems:

  1. Many displays are heavy, and labor intensive to set up, and often theres limited time to set them up. So not only are you annoying the miserable exhibitor, you are increasing the likelihood he/she wont be ready in time for the trade show to start.

  2. If you are standing in their booth while asking your “early-bird” questions, you are in the exhibitors way. No problem, Ill stand in the aisle and harrass the exhibitor. Guess what? Now you are in EVERYONE ELSES way as other vendors are rushing and climbing on top of each other, trying feverishly to get their booths set up. You are also creating a safety hazard as alluded to at the top of this rant.

(This goes for other exhibotors as well. Congratulations that your booth consists of a table and a stack of brochures, and you put 5 minutes effort into setting it up. Now is not the time to chat it up with those of us who are putting a modicum of effort into our displays. We have 2 days to stand around and chew the fat, once the show is completely set up.)

The world does not owe you your own private trade show, If you want to sneak in and get a personal preview, thats fine, walk around and look about, but STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY.

Otherwise, the sign says the trade show opens at 11. After which, if a vendor booth isn’t ready for you, then its on them. But most likely vendors will be set up, relaxed and eager to proudly show off their displays to you, and spend as much time with you as you like.

Once the show opens. NOT before. Now beat it, I’m trying to hang this banner.

275

OK, the April showers of stupidity from Apple continues.

The tl;dr situation is that my iPod uses for its Apple ID a very old email address that has apparently been co-opted by some other person with my name. Even though the Apple ID is itself an email address, the actual email address associated with that account goes elsewhere, making conventional password recovery impossible.

Fine…at some other time we can discuss the stupidity of allowing email addresses to be hijacked by people who don’t own them, or in allowing iPods to set themselves up using an Apple ID for which there is no known password – that’s all idiotic, but it’s not the issue right now.

  I finally got sick of endless prompts for an iCloud password I don't actually have and called Apple Support yesterday. I got a woman who could not have been more helpful.   She understood the problem, verified my ID, and did whatever esoteric magic was necessary to override the default email address on the account and send me a reset email.   But here's where the stupidity becomes unbelievably manifest (and I want to emphasize that this is in no way the Apple Customer support person's fault).

When you ask to reset the password, the software immediately sends you an email saying that you’ve asked to reset the password. Then, at some random time in the next 24 hours or so, they get around to sending you the email with the actual link to be used to reset the password. Why not immediately? Who knows? If I were a less generous person, I’d assume that person responsible is out molesting goats in some unseemly fashion. But I can wait 24 hours.

24 hours later, roughly noon, the email finally arrives. I am, of course, at work. I get home, open the email, and at the bottom, it reads:

 **Please note that the link will expire three hours after this email was sent.**.

*What. The. Fuck. * I mean literally, what the fucking fuck? You arrogant bastards can send me an email at any random time within 24 hours and I have exactly three hours to respond or I’m shit out of luck? Note that the preliminary email does not, at any point, specify that there will be a deadline for responding to the actual reset email. Apple has decided to let it be just one wonderful surprise.

Out of curiosity, what kind of security risk would a 24 hour window represent that a three hour window does not? Or rather, how is a 24 hour window any riskier than my having to call Apple yet again and go through the whole ID verification process, including disclosure of credit card numbers and double secret questions that I and only I could know?

TL;DR. Apple sent vital link with a three hour expiration date six hours before I usually get home. Everything’s still broken. I’m mega pissed.

276

I think what I am writing fits in the category of an annoyance, so here goes:

I’ve been watching with a combination of minor amusement, horror and disgust as the Britt McHenry saga has played out today on social media, and I feel compelled to express my thoughts as best as they have coagulated:

I am horrified and disgusted by the actions of this individual in her rant at the tow clerk - funny thing is I haven’t actually watched it and don’t intend to. Enough quotes have been circulated for me to form my opinions. On the human scale it’s just wrong to mistreat another human being no matter how bad your day is. No excuses.

I work in the same industry as Britt and have worked some of the same sports events over the years, didn’t know her or think much of her. One of many, many ‘I wanna be on tv’ types. I work 98% in news, not sports. I meet real people, with real problems, and real stories about their lives. I love to learn the stories of my fellow humans whoever they are.

Much (but certainly not all of) sports coverage smacks of celebrity worship to me, kinda like a Sweaty Entertainment Tonight. I don’t like the people or their stories about 95% of the time. Sometimes when I am exposed to a person who rose to the occasion vrs horrible odds, or some other socially redeeming quality I can get into it, otherwise no fucks are given.

So I despise how Britt behaved, I’m offended by her higher-than-though attitude, I dislike her apparent belief that her occupation has any real value to society, and I am more than thoroughly pissed that her rant will help tar the rest of us as assholes. Rest assured there are assholes in my industry everywhere, but believe it or not there are not many of them. The few there are fucking ruin it for the rest of us (a fact no doubt shared by many industries in one form or another).

I believe people in the media are obligated to hold themselves at a higher standard in every respect: personal and professional. The job is too important not to, it’s a profession that should be about the truth and that is a sacred trust. It’s already been battered about for ages and there are far too many out there who do not believe a word we say.

So when crap like this happens I find myself saddened by the act and angry at the actor. It isn’t just an pathetic whiny rant, it’s far more damaging to people who honestly give a fuck, and I’m one of them.

277

Well, I hadnt heard of this until your post here. OTOH, I will note that Tow companies are scum of the worst sort, preying off drivers, and holding them for ransom.

278

Note this article
:Britt McHenry vs. Advanced Towing: Which side are you on?
*But here’s the thing: Did the tow truck employee sort of deserve a takedown, albeit one with a lot less entitlement and a little more, shall we say, creativity than the one McHenry offered up?

A quick glance at Advanced Towing Arlington’s Yelp page reveals a bit of a trend: apparently they lurk around area parking lots, waiting for the owners to leave, then swoop in to tow cars that are “illegally” parked for various reasons.

That’s sort of what happened to McHenry, who according to various reports had her car towed from the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. The tow truck company claims she left her car there for two hours after the place closed, making it illegally parked.

[

“They towed my car one minute after Golds Gym closed,” one person wrote on Yelp in March.

There are a bunch of posts about people parking in store parking lots, only to return minutes later to find their cars gone.

There’s even a story about the time a woman’s car was towed with her dog in it.

The word “predatory” is used over and over again to describe the company. And of the 89 reviews on Yelp, 80 of them are 1 star. Not saying a tow truck company is going to be anyone’s favorite, but 80 of 89?*

and here:

Advanced Towing, the Arlington, Va. firm whose clerk was berated by ESPN reporter Britt McHenry, has an ‘F’ rating with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB has received 40 complaints about the company in the past three years, of which Advanced did not respond to 37.

and here:http://www.consumeraffairs.com/auto_towing/advanced_towing_va.html
*I was towed from the property of Shell gas on Edsall Road, VA by Advanced Towing Co. who stakes out the property and is possibly committing violations in the way they do business. I went back to take pictures of the goings on of their activities. I was chased and pursued by one of the tow drivers who drove around in front of me in the middle of the road off the property and attempted to jack me up in the middle of the road. I drove around him when he threw open his door as I went around and jumped out and approached my open window and called me a *! I told him I had recorded him and he jumped back into his truck and took off. Minutes later, I watched someone get out of their car and shut the door, walked a few feet away and their car was jacked up and taken as they watched. I

279

Unfortunately for Britt even if she had been victimized by a scamming tow company, she crosses a line severely when she uses phrases such as (quotes listed from news article):

  • “I’m in the news, sweetheart.”
  • “I will fucking sue this place.”
  • “That’s why I have a degree and you don’t.”
  • “I wouldn’t work in a scumbag place like this.”
  • “Makes my skin crawl even being here.”
  • “Yep, that’s all you care about is just taking people’s money. With no education, no skill set, just wanted to clarify that.”
  • “Do you feel good about your job?
  • “So I can be a college dropout and do the same thing?”
  • “Why? Because I have a brain? And you don’t?”
  • “Maybe if I was missing some teeth they would hire me, huh?”
  • “‘Cause they [the employee’s teeth] look so stunning … ‘Cause I’m on television and you’re in a fucking trailer, honey.”
  • “Lose some weight, baby girl.”

for the reasons I listed above.

Her car was towed in Arlington, VA. She was likely in town covering the Caps vrs Islanders hockey playoffs. Before ESPN she worked for the local ABC affiliate WJLA, and assuming she still had a few friends there (which if she is not a total POS she should) then a call is made to here folks back there and *they *start digging into the story.

If her version of events was truthful then when a news operation starts asking questions the tow company is very likely going to offer an apology and a refund real fast. That’s how consumer units in local tv ops work.

So no, not much pity from me.

280

[QUOTE=Steve Goodman]
The streetlamps are on in Chicago tonight,
And lovers a’gazin’ at stars;
The stores are all closin’, and Daley is dozin’,
And the fat man is counting the cars…
And there’s more cars than places to put 'em, he says,
But I’ve got room for them all;
So 'round 'em up boys, 'cause I want some more toys,
Hit the lot by the grocery store…
To me, way, hey, tow them away,

[/QUOTE]

From “Lincoln Park Pirates” by Steve Goodman