Macro-whine: Yet another round of layoffs at work. I survived, but several friends did not. They’re not trimming “fat” anymore (not that there was much fat), they’re cutting out muscle. The acquiring CEO wasn’t popular before today, and I rather think he’s lost a few more points.
Mini-whine the first: I think I need to replace my wireless modem/router. My connection to the 'net keeps dropping.
Mini-whine the second: My tissue box landed on the remote for my audio system, and now I’m not getting sound out for the cable box/TV. I know the receiver is still working since I’m getting sound from CDs and the receiver. It may be another case of reboot the cable box, which means moving furniture. BAH.
I wish The Onion would stop including auto-playing videos on all their article pages. I don’t want to watch a video; I want to read this week’s horoscopes or the latest “American Voices”.
Unless you are demonstrating how to actually do something that requires specific steps and where visual aids are necessary (like replacing a dryer belt or braiding a mane), please just stop with the cutesy videos. Or, if you must put videos up for those too lazy to read, then also give me the text version somewhere. I would rather scan a wall o’ text for the tidbit I need than sit through endless useless videos. I might watch a video if it’s actually a slideshow with helpful descriptive text and no annoying tune or blather, but otherwise I prefer nice, quiet, unobtrusive reading.
Thank you,
She Who Is Easily Overstimulated (and not in a good way)
I moved wrong somehow at the gym and have a major mega-pain in my back. It’s just above my right hip, feels like a pulled muscle. And if I bend to the right or try to sleep on my right side (my usual place) or cough or sneeze, it stabs me. This happened on Friday. It’s only a little better today. I’m taking mega-Tylenol (too bad for my liver this week!) and using the heat pad and wondering why getting old has to suck so bad. I had to sit down in order to put the kitties’ food dishes on the floor this morning. They aren’t very sympathetic.
We are pet sitting for some friends of ours. He’s a cute little doggie, but so far has refused to poop outside on his leash and has, instead, crapped in the house twice. They have a fenced in back yard so they can just let him out for as long as they want whenever they want. We do not. So he is going out 6-8 times a day for 5-15 minutes at a time while here, and has yet to poop outside. Grr.
Avarie537, are you taking the dog where there’s grass to poop on? Some friends have a dog who won’t poop anywhere but grass under a tree. Maybe this guy is choosy like that.
I totally agree. I read faster than videos dole out the actual content, could do without having my bandwidth needlessly devoured (especially on my phone), and most online video picture/sound quality leaves at least a bit to be desired.
I’ve one of those big 3-piece entertainment system/cabinet thingies, and the cable box/DVR is on the nice, built-in, this-is-where-the-cable-box-goes shelf right over the TV set, which is in the middle cabinet. I can reach the front of it on tiptoe (I is short-ish), but unplugging it to reset it involves moving one of the flanking cabinets so I can get to the power cable (too short to reach around behind, and the power cable isn’t long enough for me to pull the box forward to unplug it if I want to also be able to plug it back in).
Luckily, I was clever enough to put those stick-on furniture sliders on the feet of all three cabinets, and the floor is wood, so moving it is more of a PITA than an actual pain. My major gripe is that, damnit, I shouldn’t have to reset the cable box at all, much less once every month or so. The issue with the sound is a new trick, too. This is only the second time it’s happened, but the last one was only about a month ago (see, much less once every month or so, above).
Ah. Just FYI, you can reboot most cable boxes (definitely Samsung and Scientific American) by holding down the standby button on the front for ~10 seconds.
The contestants have 25 minutes to make a meal. They have to do so while holding a 1 year old child. They can set the child down but then he cries so loudly that the audience can’t hear any commentary.
After 25 minutes the child refuses to eat the food and the contestant has 3 minutes to making something else, all while the child cries.
Bonus points if leftovers can be packed for lunch the next day.
My iPhone quit connecting to the web on 3G last night. On Straight Talk’s BYOP plan. I left it until this morning to call customer support. After about 15 minutes on hold (par for the course for these things) I got connected to a representative. After being told to turn the phone on and off a few times and try to connect, she had me turn the phone off one more time while she adjusted some settings on my account. I turned the phone on again and got my 3G data back. So this is one of the good customer service stories. Not a lot of time on hold and got my problem fixed over the phone in just a few minutes without too much effort.
After-school care program - why does my son need to find a “potty buddy” before he can access the bathroom? Is it really your policy that he is at the mercy of some other kid taking pity on him to visit the bathroom before he poops in his pants like he did yesterday? Why? What possible purpose could this serve, other than to socially humiliate children?
This doesn’t go in the workplace ranting thread, because I work so I can do rescue…or maybe it should because someone called my “boss” to try to get me fired.
My boss asked me to pick up a cat from someone who claimed he was too poor to take care of her and didn’t have a car and gas money to take her to our rescue vet. When I got to his very nice house and saw not one vehicle, but TWO, both of them newer vehicles I started steaming. I knocked on the door and saw him get up from the table. He opened the door and I told him that I was there to pick up his cat. I could see that the cat was in one of our carriers already, all he would have had to do was hand it over and I would have left. Instead, he told me that he was eating his breakfast and that I needed to wait until he was done and closed the door in my face.
I left.
As I was leaving, I saw a housekeeping service van show up. So, he can buy a new truck, pay housekeepers but can’t afford to feed one cat? I call bullshit.
Anyhow, I called my boss and told her what had happened. She said she would call him and tell him to take the cat to the vet for intake and would blacklist him because she suspects he just wanted to get rid of an elderly cat because of the vet bills.
Before she called him, he called her ranting and raving about how wrong it was that I didn’t wait for him to finish his breakfast before it got cold and demanded that I be fired lest he never donated another penny to our cause. Seeing as how we don’t think he ever donated anything, my boss just told him that she would fire me and send someone else out to pick up the cat.
Oh he has plenty of options. When I’m doing a fast trip outside, we take 3-4 trips around the back yard. Gravel, grass, mulch … full sun, partial shade, full shade. On a long trip, we go down the block and around the corner. Plenty of places to go.
If he’s used to going out by himself, he may just be freaked to have someone standing with him while he tries to poop, and is used to some “privacy.” He might do better in the back yard on a really long leash. We used to stake our dog out in the front yard with a 15’ lead where he spent lots of happy hours lounging and pooping in what he considered privacy.
We were told at work that all of the Powers That Be would be in the office today, and asked to wear real business clothing. Sigh. So we did.
TPTB didn’t show up. We didn’t hear that they weren’t coming, but the head of HR did last night. She wore jeans to work. Did she send an email to anyone last night? Nope, the bitch didn’t.
So we all wore our nice clothes on a shitty raw cold rainy day.
A shitty raw cold rainy day on which a fucking fire drill was held.
And yes, we all had to troop outside in the rain, in our nice clothes. And we all got wet. Even wearing my raincoat, I got wet. And cold. And my feet were soaked, which I hate.
After that, there was an all-employee meeting, which is bad enough when it’s business, but some bozo decided that all of us watching a movie together would be a great team building idea. The movie? “Perfect Pitch”. After 20 minutes, it appeared to be a sophomoric comedy that was made up of equal parts “Mean Girls” and “Glee”.
So I said fuck it. My feet were still wet. I was cold. I went home.
I’m officially done with the day, and now I’m going to go read in bed.
“Pitch Perfect,” I think you meant. And it’s a shame you couldn’t have had an opportunity to watch it just for pleasure, because it’s a really good movie. I heart Anna Kendrick.