My day started with my face and hair being peed on, and stepping in cat puke as I bolted for the shower. Of course that woke my husband up too so now he’s up and chatty. 
How’s your day going?
Slightly better than yous! That sounds frustrating.
To be clearer, one of my cats got a bit overwhelmed by his love and protection for me and decided that marking me was a smart move.
It wasn’t.
I thought that “marking” was a territorial/possessive move that only dogs did. But dogs don’t pee on their caregivers. Cats will be cats, I suppose! Maybe after a few more million years of evolution they, too, will stop peeing on their beneficent providers!
Regards,
A Dog.
Oh fuck no. Cats can “spray” and it’s foul. I’ve dealt with cats and dogs marking things and at least in my experience, cats are nastier about it. (Not that it’s a peach if a dog does it.)
With a dog, it’s like, what’s that smell, and you notice it over time. With cats it’s immediate and overpowering. Though maybe that’s a difference with the specific dogs and cats I’ve dealt with.
ETA: I turned to Google and found an explanation… Cats usually stand up when they do it, dogs sit down, so if a cat does it, it tends to travel more. That makes sense.
Maybe female dogs. But when I mark my territory, I just lift a hind leg and spray! Contrary to popular opinion that calls out fire hydrants as a typical spot for marking, we dogs actually prefer trees and other natural formations!
I pit this unseasonable warm weather and freaking rain. Today was a nice sunny day, but tonight may be my last opportunity of the season to use my garage as a cooler, even a mild one. Come on, Mother Nature, is 70F highs at this time of year in the Great White North your idea of a prank?
Plus, this is all associated with some major front moving through. Here are the terrific forecasts for the next five days, and I quote: “periods of rain”, “showers”, “periods of rain”, “30% chance of showers”, and finally, to round it all off, “60% chance of showers”.
They may as well just say, get out there and build a freaking ark, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, as prescribed in the Book of Genesis, and populate it with all the creatures of the earth, a male and a female of each species.
We needed new tires on my wife’s car, and my “car guy” recommended Michelin CrossClimate2. I knew they often scored the highest for bad weather, and wondered out loud if I could afford them. He suggested I buy them on sale from TireRack.com and have them shipped to him.
“If it were my car, I’d go with something cheaper, but for Maggie’s car…” (I know his wife from school).
We get a LOT of snow, and those “CC2’s” have also done the job of good snow tires. Especially handy with all these random “back to winter” snow dumps.
Glad you’re driving again!
“It once was lost, but now is found…”
But, as a fellow “sprained brain” sufferer, you really need to think of every possible mistake that can be made because of an unreliable memory.
And then take steps to fix those BEFORE they happen. Losing wallet/keys/car? Get some trackers and a good app that’ll find anything for you.
Forgetting appointments? I now immediately put them on my phone’s calendar WITH an alert that’ll sound half an hour beforehand.
I even upgraded to a modern iPhone because of my memory… with a premium calendar app - I can even input appointments verbally.
(And of course when the alert goes off I think “What fresh hell is this? Coffee at Realfine at 9? Who put this on my phone?”)
Time for another COF (Certified Old Fart) rant. For a while a number of my financial-related websites have been trying to get me to use a passkey instead of a user ID and password. I have refused to do so, primarily because it seems to be dependent on using my mobile phone as a means of verifying my login. I do all of my financial business on my desktop computer, and outside of one or two websites which insist on sending me text message with a verification code this has always worked for me.
Until now. I tried to log onto a website that I only use occasionally and was told that I was now required to use a passkey to get in. After a few choice words regarding the ancestry and sexual habits of whoever was responsible for this policy I set about following the suggested procedures for getting a passkey. These seemed to operating on the assumption that I was using my cellphone to try to log on, as it required me to scan a QR code (very hard to do on a desktop computer). I pulled out my cellphone and opened a QR scanner that I haven’t used in years; This led to me having to pay $1.99 for an app, which I still couldn’t figure out how to use to access the original website. After a few more detailed opinions being expressed about the aforementioned ancestry and sexual habits I dug out a customer service number and spoke to someone who, while sympathetic to my plight, said she needed to refer me to a tech person. Of course, it being the weekend there was going to be a long wait. After awhile, however, Ms Helpful came back on the line and offered me a direct number I could call tomorrow when the wait time may be shorter.
While I sort of understand that the purpose of passkeys is increased security and fraud prevention, I don’t like it. I envision a future where I’m not going to be able to access any of my financial info without jumping through more hoops. It’s times like this when I’m almost looking forward to death relieving me of having to deal with things.
I just bought air tickets to Europe for this summer. The “taxes and fees” were 62% as large as the fare. So the “taxes and fees” were 38% of the total cost of (fare + taxes and fees).
The airline helpfully provided a breakdown of those taxes and fees. Which was a ~20-item list of niggledy taxes levied by the three governments involved in this itinerary. Then at the bottom of the list they had one last entry in their “breakdown”. Helpfully labeled “Other taxes and fees”. Which line item was 80% of the total “taxes and fees”.
Holy non-disclosing disclosure, Batman! Fuck that noise.
Of course the real issue is the amount of airline-defined “fee” (you want a seat with that flight?) hidden amongst the taxes they have no control over. Good bet almost all of that “Other taxes and fees” is really their cockamamie charges, with a few cents of taxes included so they can label it “Other taxes and fees” without that being a complete lie. Just a 99.9% lie.
We’re going to Europe, as well. I feel lucky that we bought our plane tickets long ago, but I’ll be traveling with a niggling dread that we’ll get to the airport (Chuck DeGaulle) for our flight home, and they’ll say “Tant pis, jerque! You owe us 2000 Euros in fuel surcharges!”
(or “Désolé, we have no petrol for your plane.”)
Most modern cell phones can read a QR code natively in the OS without needing an app; just use the built-in camera app. Both Appke iOS and Android can do it. I think your phone would have to be many years out-of-date to need an extra app.
These things go in cycles. It’s a pendulum, not a slope. It will be a pain in the ass until someone develops an easier way to do it, which will be great until bad actors find a way around it, then it will start becoming a pain in the ass again.
Just as it’s easier and safer than ever to tap to pay with a phone at a store, compared to having to worry about having enough cash or all the time it takes to write a check at a register, provide an ID, wait for them to validate it, etc. Until someone finds a way to exploit tap to pay, so then we’ll need more steps to prevent fraud…
At one time, Air Canada was notorious for that sort of practice when redeeming points for “free” flights. You’d redeem a bunch of points, get your “free” flight, and then they’d say, and now, just $200 or whatever for miscellaneous fees and taxes, and you’re all set!
Fortunately, in a refreshing change from ongoing enshittification of everything, there were policy changes for the better as the ownership and management of the points system changed, and the last time I used Aeroplan points they included all fees. But who knows, it may have all changed again.
Right now I think in many countries airlines are being hit with higher fuel costs in a really big way. Fortunately for the Trump voters who mainly caused this, they don’t go anywhere that their jacked-up pickups with tin-can mufflers can’t take them.
It’s pretty typical that hotels and airlines won’t let you redeem points to pay for actual factual government-imposed taxes. I’ve actually never seen it any other way.
My issue was entirely with undefined fees = airline-imposed charges that amount to a hefty fraction of the total bill. Taxes we gotta live with. BS fees ought to be something we can legislate (or compete) out of existence.
I looked at the booking confirmation for the last booking I did with points on Air Canada, and you have the option of paying cash for the government-imposed and other surcharges, or using points. I chose to use points, so on the invoice all the charges were listed and then the grand total was expressed in points. May not have been the optimal use of points, but there wasn’t a cent extra to pay.
ETA: I had forgotten that little detail. Yes, there are still government tax type surcharges on top of the ticket price, but you can optionally choose to pay those with points, too, along with the basic ticket price.
Yikes that sucks. I’ll be making flight arrangements soon for our UK trip we have planned for the fall. This weekend I was booking flights for a trip to Seattle in July and the prices for those were nuts. I’m sure I will wind up with severe sticker shock for London flights.
Here’s my mini-rant that’s the size of a tooth. Just like the one that fell out of my mouth. This is the second time it’s fallen out. Why can’t you just stay in my mouth, you stupid tooth?!
The taxes and fees mess is distinct from the price itself. Which was, yes, eye-watering.
Maybe get it a little pendant??