Auld Lang Sighin' (January mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
141

Now that is not a sentence fragment I ever expected to encounter.

Where in the hell do you live to have both hurricanes and ice storms? I sure don’t want to live there. I have lived in ice country and now live in hurricane country. One threat is quite enough; I don’t really want two. Especially not two diametrically opposed ones.

As they say on Monty Python: Run away! Run away!

Seriously, I’m sorry you’re suffering the slings and arrow of outrageous Mother Nature. And of infrastructure outrageously designed for fair weather cheapitude, not for foul weather robustness.

142

I’m in South Carolina. We got hammered by Helene, and now we just got the edges of the latest winter storm moving west to east, and have had 24 hrs or so of mixed rain, sleet, snow, and more sleet. Not unusual, and they don’t last long generally. It’s warming up again and will be mid 40s to 50 tomorrow.

But in the meantime it’s a giant pain in the ass, despite the luxury of a generator.

143

I found that you can protect yourself against winter storms by sending money to my Snowplow Guy. His “snowplowing contract” isn’t really for snowplowing. Once it’s paid, he utters some kind of mystical incantation that prevents it from snowing all winter. Of course, if I ever refuse him, I’m sure he has other mystical incantations that will bring on the Storm of the Century.

He has, in fact, shown up a few times this winter pretending to clear my driveway, but it’s just for show. He has to show up quickly after the thing euphemistically called “a snowfall” before the wind blows it away. I don’t think we’ve had more than 1 cm in at least the past five years. For all I know Snowplow Guy is vacationing in Jamaica right now – it wouldn’t make any difference, because of the mystical incantation.

144

Is his last name “Miser” by chance?

145

That’s a great word!

146

For anyone wondering why I’m neither ranting about problems with my new laptop nor issuing anti-rants about how wonderful it is, it’s because I haven’t powered it on yet. Yes, I’ve unpacked it, and when you lift the cover it has that wonderful smell of “new”. That is all I have to report for now.

OK, I’m a little bit nuts, but not quite as insane as might appear. Having helped a friend recently set up a new Dell laptop, I know what happens when you power it on. It goes into a Windows setup/configuration mode that probably cannot be interrupted without creating major chaos. And I have reasons for concern and appropriate preparedness, all of it stemming from my antiquated Luddite technologies.

Mainly because of an outdated ancient Ethernet bridge I have downstairs, my wireless network uses ancient protocols that Windows 11 doesn’t support. Windows 11 will not install without an internet connection. So just plug it into an Ethernet port, you say? New-fangled laptops don’t even have Ethernet ports because Kids These Days™ never use them. I do have a USB-to-Ethernet adapter but I’m not sure if it will work out-of-the-box without a driver install. And there is no way to install a driver until Windows is up and running. And Windows won’t get up and running without an internet connection. A Catch-22: the story of my antiquated life!

Obviously I can, at least temporarily, change my wireless configuration, but this whole thing is clearly not going to be the kind of joyful experience you see on TV commercials. So I gaze at my new laptop, sniff its aroma, and have another Caesar. I know that one way or another, it will file my 2024 taxes, and will thereby pay for itself. But I also know that it will be subject to Murphy’s Law Corollary #728: “nothing is ever as simple as it should be”.

So I’m just trying for maximum preparedness, knowing that the whole Modern World is allied against me, even in this pathetic attempt to try to accommodate it. I am an Old Dog. I have no need or desire for New Tricks.

147

Car insurance renewal time. The email regarding renewal tells me how I can get an explanation of my increase…by sending a letter by mail to their Boston address.

Really? You can email me the increase notice, but any explanation requires regular mail? I guess it’s time to complain to the insurance commissioner about this unnecessary requirement designed to discourage people from getting information.

148

After my MIL died last month, along with sympathy cards, we had 2 people give us plants. One is a hyacinth bulb in a clear glass vase that needs to be at least 3/4 full of water. The other is a huge Peace Lily plant which, I suspect, is too big for its container.

Thoughtful gestures, but, frankly, just another chore for me. I have houseplants that are pretty happy with water every week or so. These new ones, however, don’t fit that pattern. The bulb is on the window sill and since the vase is clear, it’s easy to see when it needs a drink - pretty much every other day.

But the monster peace lily!!! First, I had to find a place for it and something to sit it on. I had to bring up a small end table from the basement and set it in the foyer so it would get light but not direct sun (well, not much) and so it would be out of the way of normal living. I suspect it’s too big for its pot because every 3-4 days, the leaves get all droopy and I have to water it. It should be transplanted to a bigger pot, but that means I’d have to buy a bigger pot as well as a bag of dirt, then spread papers on the kitchen counter to contain the mess while I transplant it. Then clean up the mess and dispose of the smaller pot and the basket it sits in.

If it was up to me, I’d let it die, but my husband really likes it. I hate to think how much my SIL spent to send it. Her gesture has become my burden. But why couldn’t she just have sent a card, or a bouquet that would have the decency to die in a few days?? Maybe I’ll set it on the porch in the spring and hope the squirrels eat it or something.

149

@wolfpup it’s a laptop; does your library have wireless you can easily plug into w/o changing your configuration?

Got my car registration renewal, like always it came almost 3 months in advance of when the current one expires. There is a one year option & a two year option for exactly double the cost of a one year option. Why anyone would take the two year option is beyond me. There is both a time value to money, admittedly only a couple of pennies on $50 registration fee, but also if something happens to your car, totaled, stolen or traded in the first year they won’t reimburse you for the second year that you’ve already paid them.
Likewise, there is no advantage to renewing early when I get it & a potential disadvantage, if something happens to the car in the next 2½ months I don’t need to pay that registration. Why they send it out so ridiculously early I have no idea but they have been doing this for years.

150

LIVING ALONE:

PRO: I can fart without being embarrassed. (Couple of recent ones, I nearly embarrassed myself. Stinkeriffic AND loud.)

CON: I have an tiny itchy spot on the back of my upper thigh right by the crease of my ass, where no configuration of mirrors and contortions will allow me to see it … and absolutely noone I can ask to look at it for me.
Mosquito bite? Fleas? Ringworm? Who knows?? :upside_down_face:

151

There is also a value to your time - for me, not having to stand in line twice is worth the slight risk of totaling my car. I don’t think my state sends them out quite that early, but it makes it easier to find a less inconvenient time to do the line standing (assuming I don’t lose track of the damn thing before I get around to renewing).

152

Can you sit down on the floor with knees up, and hold a compact mirror behind your leg?

153

Who stands in line? I do it online, from home, any time of day or night.

154

I literally can’t remember if I’ve ever renewed a car registration in person. I don’t think I have.

Even before it was available online, I think they mailed out a renewal you could fill out and send back with a check. And I’ve done it online for at least 20 years.

155

Take a photo; you don’t have to see the spot to point your phone in the right general direction. [del]Burn[/del] Delete after viewing!

156

Taking a photo was how I monitored the small owie that abscessed at the intersection of my ass check / upper thigh a while back. That was a terrible experience that drove me to using a standing desk.

157

I’ve had that problem myself @John_Bredin has a good suggestion which I’ve used in the past, assuming that I can twist my body into a position where I can point the phone at the right spot. Taking multiple pictures to make sure you’ve hit the right spot helps.

I’ve also had a similar problem with trying to check something bothering me in the vicinity of my eyes. I can’t see it with my glasses on because they’re blocking the area I’m trying to look at, and with my glasses off I have to have my nose practically pressed against the mirror to see anything.

158

In PA if the plate still has registration time on it, you do not have to pay for a new one.

My state decided I needed an entirely new license plate this year and I still had another year or more to go on my registration. They sent me a new plate and a new registration card in the mail.

159

I rant from time to time, but this is going to be full metal jacket. Maybe not mini-rant material? Well. Let us see.

My fucking ex-wife, one day, left the fucking front door open, and a gentleman of dubious habits used the occasion to relieve her of her laptop. A nice Macbook Pro. He needed to scale the wall and face the two (admittedly useless) guard dogs. Still, not a hard problem for the average burglar.

It was shit, it was unfortunate, I was lucky in that I got a decent bonus that month so I could afford to buy her a new one. All OK, right?

No. Apparently now I am the fucker responsible for this shithead stealing the laptop, and it is totally my fault. Allegedly I was asleep in a hammock on the front porch and the cunt slipped past me! And then stole a laptop and escaped, without myself nor my dogs awakening.

The facts of the matter are no longer real, everything is now conjecture and misrepresentation. The “fog of divorce” has clouded our eyes.

The only “truth” is that a laptop was stolen. The only “truth” from my ex-wife is that that was my fault. The only truth she carefully omits, was that knowing she needed the fucking laptop for work, I immediately bought her a new, better model.

Oh, and the fact that the thief would have to have been unnaturally stealthy to sneak past my dogs, and past me, sitting in a way where I could see the entire front garden and the dogs, and the door. No fucking way.

Yes, the laptop got stolen. I’m not sure how. But not on my (and my dogs watch). And I bought her a fucking new one! Not even an insurance claim, she needed it, I had the money, sold.

No. Somehow, this is now coming round to bite me in the ass in the post-divorce for “not being security aware”. I know, this is bullshit and stinks of lawyers trying any fucking thing. But fucking christ, I am both broken and broke already! I bought you a fucking replacement! It was your fucking fault in the first place, don’t blame me!

Thus ends my rant. More to come, divorce is not pretty.

160

But it’s prettier than a horrid marriage, and what I was assuming was an ongoing “EVERYthing will be your fault for decades to come, one accusation a week for the rest of your life!”, and I was expecting the next ten posts would be advice along the lines of “Divorce would be less painful!”