# ...Bring May Glowers (Monthly Mini-Rants) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** monthly-mini-rant\ **Created:** [May 1, 2025, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737 "2025-05-01T05:11:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/21 "2025-05-01T23:59:55Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > but I don’t get this, and by _this_, I mean the existence of remote starting. Winter! Not that we have extreme winters in North Carolina, but remote start helps tremendously when you go out to scrape the windows. Often it’s enough to melt the ice completely. (Of course, this assumes that you remembered to leave the heat or the defrost on the last time you drove.) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/22 "2025-05-02T00:27:22Z")
Aftermarket remote starting kits date back to the 1960s and the inimitable J.C. Whitney catalog. The demand for that pre-heat / pre-cool capability is _huge_ and has been since forever. My newish car has a feature that every time you shut it down the screen offers an input box where you can set the time of day for it to start itself and warm/cool the cabin as necessary. And defrost the windows. And heat or cool the seats. Or I can do it on-demand with a few taps at my phone. Mine’s an ICE, but EVs are especially good at this remote capability stuff. Where I live now it’s not much needed. But I’ve certainly lived in climates where pre-starting the car 10 or 15 minutes before wanting to drive was my norm a sizeable fraction of the year. Too hot _and_ too cold. ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/23 "2025-05-02T00:34:00Z")
This is why you’re supposed to know where your towel is. In the summer, mine is draped over my steering wheel. Every little bit helps. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/24 "2025-05-02T00:42:45Z")
Back then I had all the gear. Steering wheel cover & towel. Dash mat. Reflective foil windshield cover. Gloves to touch the door handles. It was fun while it lasted, but I’m not thinking I’d enjoy going back to live there again as much as all that. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/25 "2025-05-02T01:47:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > We’re probably just a few weeks away from the Big Test of turning it on for the season! So soon all the way up there in the nice cool climate of the 51st state? > [@Atamasama](#): > > However, it’s not nearly cool enough for my wife. When I think the temperature is perfect, she’s dying of heat. My ex would put the A/C on & sleep under a comforter. I’m not paying to be that miserably cold. That was a constant battle between us. Current SO likes fresh air, to the point she’ll open bedroom windows a bit in the winter; that’s why I try to go up after her, so I can close the windows before crawling into bed. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > 2022 Kia Telluride. Apparently they had an issue with spoofed remote starting that made a few years/models easy to steal, but this was corrected in a recall. One could use a [USB cable](https://www.thedrive.com/news/how-thieves-are-stealing-hyundais-and-kias-with-just-a-usb-cable) to steal the vehicles, & if you weren’t sure how to do it, there were tons of TikTok videos showing you how. Twas a big problem for Kia’s Hyundai’s. @LSLGuy, contact brokerage Compliance Dept; they should be _very_ interested in resolving your issue. If they don’t _jump_ on it, contact FINRA or one of the other gubmint TLA regulators. I’m not sure what they’ll do now but I can tell you that 102 days ago (or Jan 10th) they would have been all over it. > [@Atamasama](#): > > It doesn’t need to be very hot outdoors for a dark plastic/rubber steering wheel to get dangerously hot in direct sunlight after it sits for hours. I’ve literally burned my hands in the past. A light-colored memory foam cover is cheap, comfortable, and solves the problem. I’ve never had remote start but I have owned a couple of cars where the remote would lower the windows/open the sunroof. It’s amazing how bearable the car would be by letting the excess heat out from 30’ away. Years ago I owned a hatchback that wasn’t so much a car as it was a greenhouse on wheels. Of course I had to leave the car locked up during the day in the train station parking lot because of the persistent chance of thuderstorms. One day I got off the train & drove the 2½ miles home. Trying to gather all of my stuff to go inside, I pulled the key out of the ignition & put it in my mouth as I don’t have octopus arms. I burned my tongue! In 2½ miles the key, that had been with me in my pocket all day got enough from touching the other metal in the steering column ignition that it was able to freakin’ burn me! ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/26 "2025-05-02T02:53:40Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Trying to gather all of my stuff to go inside, I pulled the key out of the ignition & put it in my mouth as I don’t have octopus arms. I burned my tongue! Holy freaking crap!!! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/27 "2025-05-02T02:59:27Z")
It might be worth pointing out that, by continuing to use an address they know to be incorrect (as evidenced by the occasional use of your correct address), they are violating banking regulations, and you are looking into how to report that. That might result in an actual fix. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/28 "2025-05-02T06:54:49Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > We’re probably just a few weeks away from the Big Test of turning it on for the season! > > So soon all the way up there in the nice cool climate of the 51st state? Hey, southern Ontario is a lot farther from the North Pole than you might think! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/29 "2025-05-02T13:48:55Z")
Thanks to @Spiderman & @Dr.Drake for their suggestions about rattling the broker’s cage. Here’s the update. First thing yesterday = Thu I called my advisory firm. They sorta knew this form had been sent to many of their customers, but had never seen one themselves; they’re a middleman deliberately being left out of the middle of this transition by the brokerage. And yet they’re the only entity I and the other customers can contact. Anyhow, they call the brokerage and a couple hours later a new Docusign arrives from the brokerage. They fixed my address. They changed one of the options I wanted changed. But not the other one. WTF? Can’t anyone do anything right? Call my advisor back. They’d noticed that discrepancy and had called the brokerage again. At which point the brokerage said that even they could not change that option; the form came from the clearing broker that way, but they’d check into it. Now the clearing broker invented this form explicitly for this transition. So why does it contain a question with several multiple choice answers when they preselected ‘A’ and nobody can select anything else? Gaah! Now, here early Fri I still have the almost-right DocuSign & no new one. We shall see. The option I can’t change is not a critical one; I can live with their pre-selected choice if I have to. So worst case I send in that form as-is and we’ll eventually fiddle with the other option(s) at our leisure. The only good news is this whole process doesn’t need to complete for another 60 days or so. For once they did not wait to the last minute to send stuff out to clients needing it back the day after it was snail-mailed. Oh yeah, and the fact my address is now correct on this one form gives me exactly zero confidence it’s been changed in whatever source database keeps welling up the obsolete address from time to time. Would it surprise anyone to learn that the ultimate back-end supplier = clearing brokerage has initials almost identical to **W** t **F**? I didn’t think so. :snarl: ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/30 "2025-05-02T13:56:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Hey, southern Ontario is a lot farther from the North Pole than you might think! 😉 Now this makes me sad. I had always hoped that if Rump tried to invade Canada that you’d take The North Pole and… take his temperature. ( Because that would mean that Rump was obviously ill. ) ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/31 "2025-05-02T13:59:07Z")
Cut out the middleman, go to **W** t **F** ’s compliance dept or, given how many other shady things they’ve done in the past couple of years right to a gubmint regulator. Just like anything else in the world of enforcement the party who’s squeeky clean gets a warning but the one with a history gets to squirm a lot more uncomfortably as they go thru everything with a finer toothed comb & come up with more things to cite. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/32 "2025-05-02T14:11:23Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Would it surprise anyone to learn that the ultimate back-end supplier = clearing brokerage has initials almost identical to **W** t **F**? I didn’t think so. :snarl: That is hilarious. But sorry for all the troubles you have endured and hope it resolves. In my experience every system I deal with lately has been malfunctioning at some level. Maybe it’s the disconnected layers. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/33 "2025-05-02T17:45:03Z")
Oh holy fuck. My mom texted me early this morning with an ominous sounding message she didn’t explain. I tried texting other relatives who might know and both my parents, but nobody responded. I got worried enough to call mom, despite the fact that it’s 7:30 am for her. I finally got an explanation, and although it was serious, it wasn’t the health or arrest related thing I was starting to get worried about. And she texted me this, the first I heard of any of this, “just in case” I overheard her talking about it and happened to know, so I didn’t tell anyone else. But I didn’t, and she didn’t explain, _but texted me as if I definitely did_, and I still wouldn’t know in the first place if she hadn’t said anything, and I freaked out over something a lot less serious than I was assuming. I do love her, but I think she’s getting more worried about random shit as she ages. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/34 "2025-05-02T22:49:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Reflective foil windshield cover. My mom had a cardboard one with a Snoopy beach scene on one side and “EMERGENCY DIAL 911” in big red letters on the other. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2025, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/35 "2025-05-04T18:21:03Z")
I see that Bacardi is back on the shelves and also available for ordering from the liquor board website, although the boycott on US liquor continues. They appear to have concluded that Puerto Rico is not actually part of the United States, which I guess in a technical sense it isn’t. I’ve gotten to prefer Cuban Havana Club anyway. I had initially half-expected that Puerto Rican products might be exempt, and now they’ve apparently decided that they should be. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/36 "2025-05-04T23:59:24Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > They appear to have concluded that Puerto Rico is not actually part of the United States, which I guess in a technical sense it isn’t. PR has very little representation at the federal level. No electoral votes. No senators or representatives in the House (except one non-voting “Resident Commissioner”). And I don’t think its economy is large enough to have any impact on the rest of the US. Canada making an exemption for them makes sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/37 "2025-05-05T02:29:32Z")
There were four ‘races’\* I would have liked to do today. I did one. With some logistical planning, I might have been able to do two of them; starting one early & then skedaddling off to the next one; but all four, in three different states? Impossible! I’ve done all of the races before, but the one I did do today was pushed back two weeks from when it was the first couple of years. .\* A charity bike ride, even if the participants are wearing # is _ **not** _ a race, it is a ride. There is no timing, there is no winner, there are medals/awards for placing, just (possibly) a finisher medal. News Media - please call it a ride & not a race. In reality, it was three races & one ride. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/38 "2025-05-05T13:14:13Z")
I got an email this morning that they Star Wars related item I ordered will be delivered today, one day _after_ May the Fourth (be with you). It’s totally indulgent & unnecessary & I already own a similar article of clothing that I _did_ wear yesterday so it’s not like I missed out on the ‘holiday’ but damnit, I wanted the _new_ one for yesterday instead of waiting 364 days for it to be _really_ appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/39 "2025-05-05T14:10:12Z")
Wear it today. Tell everyone you’re a Storm Trooper and you missed the target date. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737/40 "2025-05-05T14:15:03Z")
I won’t get it until this evening when I get home so my first opportunity to wear it out will be _two_ days late. 😭 _IF_ I got it on Sat, I could have worn it today on the theory that today is the closest weekday to 5/4. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bring-may-glowers-monthly-mini-rants/1017737.md?page=3)