I know that “me too” posts are generally frowned upon but dear Lord yes. I can’t find anything I can’t set things like my calculator on my desktop so I ca find it easy and I refuse to get thier stupid email address so that all of the other stuff works. :mad:
One of my small amusements is proving that parking & walking is better than sitting in your car for ‘convenience’& ‘fast service’. When I go to McD’s or something and the drive through line is huge, I take note of the car that I would have been behind. When I’ve got my order and get back in my car it gives me distinct pleasure when I see they haven’t made it to the window yet 
LOL! I’ll have to try that some time.
My thing with idiots in parking lots waiting a long time to nab the closest spot, or driving in endless circles looking for one, is this;
You’re going to walk a lot farther than that getting into and walking around the store.
Annnnd…you probably should be walking, anyway.
I still remember the time maybe 15 years ago when I walked out of Menards and found this pickup truck parked behind my car because he was waiting for this family to get themselves situated in their van and then pull out of a spot. Meanwhile, THREE WHOLE SPOTS FARTHER AWAY was an empty spot.
I asked him to move as I approached my car. He swore at me. I pointed to the empty spot and called him a name. He stepped out of his car and threatened to kick my ass. I just glared at him and got in my car. Just then the van started backing up and he was all over getting in that spot as fast as he could, then shaking his fist and yelling at me (in front of his kid) as I drove away.
Because, you know, being asked to stop blocking someone’s car or having it pointed out that you could have already parked in a spot a mere 30’ farther away is worth threats and profanity in front of your child. :rolleyes:
That’s one of those things that is relative - walking an extra 20 feet is really, truly, not a big deal, but once you get into a parking lot, somehow an extra 20 feet becomes something to go to war over. I think we have to shake ourselves out of that mentality or we end up being one of those people who get too focused on getting the “best” spot.
Not that I’m justifying them in any way - I just think I have a bit of an explanation for that particular lunacy. 
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16573458&postcount=146
In the above post Gatoescapado seems to feel that the tragedy of Hannah Anderson is overblown in the news because she’s young, attractive and white. I think it’s also about the mom and kid brother who were murdered after the house they were in was set on fire.
I know some folks think that news of missing white females is given more coverage than that of any other demographic. But does that mean such a sad story then should get less coverage? It was the news and the Amber Alert that helped find Hannah and saved her life.
It works every single time.
Except for at the one slowest Burger King on earth that is conveniently located on a main road near me, across the street from the racetrack, and conveniently near the courthouse for when I take husband to probation and go and get breakfast then go back to the track to watch the horses work out and wait for him to get done. (Usually about 45 minutes - I drop him off at the courthouse, go get breakfast, then go to the track to watch the horses work out. When he’s done he walks across the street and then we go home - good for everyone. And I don’t have to deal with the idiots at the courthouse. But that’s a diffferent rant.) There is also a McDonald’s right next door to the Burger King.
Normally, I drop him off, go to the McDonald’s next to the Burger King and get myself some breakfast - sausage biscuit with cheese and a large iced tea or a sausage McMuffin (it comes with cheese) and a large iced tea. Total cost - between $2.27 and $2.77 each and every time - time spent, maybe two minutes. Then I go back to the track, watch the horses work out, eat my breakfast and wait for the husband to walk across the street and we go home.
This last Tuesday, I really, really wanted a sausage croissant with sausage and cheese (no egg) and a cup of coffee. So I went to the Burger King next door to the McDonald’s. Figuring (this is where I am the idiot) that it would be almost as fast and almost the same price.
Pulled in and parked - cause I never ever use drive throughs - going inside is, IME, always faster.
Walked in - no one was there behind the counter. I looked at the menu, figured this was going to be far more expensive as BK doesn’t have a valu menu (or if they do this particular one wasn’t playing nice and including it) and waited.
For ten minutes. While the person who was actually assembling food said, “Hi” but never went to get whomever was supposed to be getting orders from wherever they were.
After ten minutes, (and at this piont, yes, I should have left, but I was invested at this point and was really jonesing for a croissant with sausage and no egg and coffee), the counter person returned!
Yay, thought I. Until the counter person took my order, then someone actually pulled up to the drive through and ordered. So I had just finished paying and they (drive through customer) got first dibs (as I watched a clock click next to the drive through window click how many minutes between order placed and order received - yes I know they have targets - my son used to work at McDonald’s.) Their food got made first - their food got made correctly. Guess what I got? Yup. A cold croissant with no sausage, but egg and cheese. And coffee that tasted about ten years old it was so burnt - it was AWFUL. I am lucky that I checked my sandwich before I left - so I was able to get them to fix it right away but total time expended on this nonsense - 26 minutes.
I did this excercise this last Tuesday.
Husband was done with his probation officer before I managed to finish the breakfast and I didn’t get to watch the horses - by the time I finally got back to the track (from four freaking blocks away) he was done, had seen his probation officer and was walking across the street.
And no - husband is not a master criminal or anything - he was driving wtihout a license last year when some bitch on a cellphone hit him and he got caught. There’s a whole backstory too which I’m sure no one cares about so I won’t go into it.
But hell - next time, I will go to the Subway down the street from the courthouse. Added bonus - there’s a light there and I won’t have to turn left into rush hour traffic. I can deal with a spicy italian 6" sub at 8:45 AM - no problem. 
TL/DR version - yes sometimes walking in is WAY faster than drive through, unless it’s at a really, really awful Burger King. Go to McDonald’s or Subway.
Subway actually makes truly awesome breakfast sandwiches (or at least the one down the street here does). I highly recommend them!
Cheap too, you just gotta know about it. They have a sign down low near the register at the one in the Walmart near me. 6" breakfast sandwich and a beverage for $3. They always seem kind of surprised/disappointed when I point it out as I order. Like “Oh, you know about the cheap special. Damn.” And despite the signs always showing it on the flatbread, you can get it on the regular bread if you want.
I finally managed to transfer my out-of-state title and registration today.
Total cost: $100 excise tax + $100 titling fee + $100 registration fee + $30 miscellaneous tax + $75 driver’s license + $85 inspection + $270 brake job + $25 re-inspection = $785. And that’s with an excise tax credit of $850 because the car was bought in California with much higher sales tax.
Total time: 4.5 hours at Driver Licensing Services + 2 hours at inspection + 1 hour at dealership + 0.5 hours at independent auto shop + 1 hour at reinspection + 1.5 hours at Vehicle Services = 10.5 hours of my life gone.
So, 10.5 hours and $785. I haven’t even gone into Nissan denying warranty coverage on the brakes and wanting to charge $1100 for a job the independent shop did for 1/4 of that. Next time I’ll just torch the car and buy a new one in-state.
My mother is being…well, herself…again. I’ve gotten no reply to my long, well-reasoned email about how she should get here, what she should bring and the fact that she will need to use Euros here- except that she wants to know why she can’t just buy things in US dollars.
Also, apparently, my great aunt has died and I was supposed to glean this from the international news. It was in the paper, she said. Not even my local,hometown paper, but the paper from two states away. Whose obits I was clearly supposed to be keeping an eye on from across the Atlantic.
Finally noticed that an old gamer buddy de-friended me on Facebook. Probably happened a couple of months ago and I didn’t notice at the time. We had a falling out about how he was running the game last fall and the game ended in fire and blood. Had been pretty quiet about it, but I still game with all of the other players and two of them still make cracks about what an asshole he turned into.
Went digging and found that he had radically cut back his friends list from @80-ish to about 25, including de-friending his former brother-in-law (his ex-wife’s brother), who had recently gotten divorced.
Oh well, won’t miss the creepy bi-monthly “I’m so blessed to have a wife who is so patient with me and who teaches me so much!” status updates. Also won’t miss the occasional hypocritical disapproval usually combined with the superior attitude.
I had a horrible night last night. I’m on two separate meds for high blood pressure. Despite this, I had terrible heart palpitations. They wouldn’t stop. I’ve been getting them once in a while over the last few months (once or twice a week) but it was almost unbearable last night. I made an appointment to discuss this problem with a cardiologist I was seeing a few times for this issue during my pregnancy. Unfortunately they switched around my appointment with him to a date that does not work for me. At this point I’m just desperate for relief so I’m going to go to a local medical practice that takes walk ins tomorrow morning.
I’m really scared this is going to be a serious problem. Even before my pregnancies (when I was skinnier), my readings always came up high and no doctor could tell me why. They would just put me on meds that sometimes worked and sometimes did not. I’m terrified this is going to be something really serious with heaven knows what kind of consequences to try and fix.
{{{ LavenderBlue }}}
I was in the mood for pickles and horseradish last night but I was out of horseradish and the store nearest me doesn’t have the right brand so I had to drive across town to get the good stuff.
I am really tired of that cliche about how so-and-so “feels comfortable in his/her own skin”.
Like Buffalo Bill, I’m most comfortable in other people’s skins. 
Just an update on my “scumbag, kitten-abandoning assholes” rant. The kitten that had gotten trapped in a car was retrieved. Amazingly she spent almost 24 hours in the bumper well and was unharmed. She went to a good home yesterday. We still haven’t seen any sign of the 6th kitten but I hope it was found by folks at some other business. So, once again in closing, fuck you scumbag, kitten-abandoning assholes.
On that note, I found out that there were once several (3 or 4) kittens wandering around the little wooded area near my sister’s friend’s house, and the one I got was the last remaining one. They have no idea what happened to the others. They’d been out there nearly a month.