I have somewhat unique glasses …. if you look at the standard bifocals currently, you get a tiny thumbnail flake of ‘reading’ space at the absolute bottom of the lense … my ‘reading’ grind is still a thimbnail, but halfway up my glasses, centered so that I do NOT have to tilt my head up uncomfortably to read my laptop screen … if one sits at my bed desk, the top third of my glasses work for distance [watching tv] with the middle of my glasses being the close work part, and the bottom of my glasses is same as the nonreading portion. If I didn’t localize the reading bit, I would have to tilt my head all the way back to peer out of the little thumbnail bit which sort of kills the reason for having close reading, and distance viewing - I suppose I could flip between 2 different glasses ….
Anti-rant; today has been a great NFG (No Fucks’ Giving). We went to see Wicked: For Good, and it was enjoyable as expected.
Then we had our dinner and it was great. A breakdown:
Chicken wings with Salt and Vinergar seasoning.
Huge Texas-style rolls baked in the oven.
Suddenly Pasta Salad (Bacon ranch flavor).
Stove Top stuffing (in the microwave; my 11-year-old made it with my wife’s help and was very proud).
Deviled eggs (an entire dozen eggs’ worth).
Chili dip (goes with the rolls and/or chips).
Chili dip recipe
Take one can of no bean chili, put in a microwave safe container. Take one block of cream cheese. Cube the cream cheese and drop the cubes in the chili. Nuke the mix one minute at a time, stir it up after each minute until it is well-blended and hot. Total of 3 minutes in our case.
It was delicious. Every component was delicious and comforting on its own. It was also all very easy to fix; the deviled eggs were the most complicated, but I’ve made them so many times I could fix it in my sleep.
Just a fun, easy-going holiday.
That sounds absolutely lovely – what a great anti-rant!
Sometimes the simplest things really are the best.
Speaking of deviled eggs, I love them but I rarely go to the trouble unless I’m having guests. It’s not that hard, it’s just that – just like making a decent spaghetti dinner – all the little steps add up.
Well I’ll be damned, the trained chimpanzees have quickly fixed the problem that they created, and which the CSR tried to blame on my browser. Hopefully a firing or demotion of some IT incompetent was also in the cards.
I pit the lying, cheating fuckers who make Bounty paper towels.
I’ve always bought the ones that happened to be on sale, and lately it was the “double-roll” version – buy 6, get the equivalent of 12!
Bullshit! I know it’s bullshit because I have a measuring tool that they never anticipated anyone would have. It’s a hand-carved wood paper towel holder that I bought at a farmers’ market, in the shape of a puppy wearing a cute ribbon. The two wooden sides means it’s always been limited to holding only a “single” roll of paper towels. But now it can hold a supposed “double roll” with no problem. How come, Procter & Gamble? You wouldn’t possibly be shortchanging the consumer, would you, with misleading product claims?
Damnit, it’s always something. Wednesday I was in the bathroom and noticed that the water in the toilet bowl was slowly stirring. I took a look in the tank and water was bubbling up from somewhere. I tried adjusting the float but that didn’t make any difference. It was too late then to call for a plumber and of course yesterday was Thanksgiving. I called today for an appointment on Monday. Then I got a letter from the utility company this afternoon. It says my water usage is continuous and I should check for a leak. Shit. That means it’s been happening for a while now. They reminded me that water usage is how the sewer charge is computed so I should expect that charge to also be high. I usually get the bill around the first of the month. I don’t even want to think of how high it’s going to be. Fortunately, plumbing work is part of my HVAC service contract so I’ll only have to pay for parts. But fuck. Money has just been pouring out of my bank account lately.
Lotta water utilities will give you a credit for a leak. At least the first time. If the money matters, ask them for help. you might well be pleasantly surprised.
But yeah, dribbling toilets are the worst.
As the month winds down my only real rant is that Fall and Winter andearly Spring are useless seasons.
Why does it ever have to be not August where I live? How many places to I have to reside to live in perpetual northern hemisphere near-equatorial August?
Aren’t you in Florida?
Checking Google for Miami, highs for this week are 26-28C (80-81F) which absolutely is August weather as far as I’m concerned.
Mini anti rant:
I work fully remote and my employer doesn’t do parties because they suck (not parties which are fun, my employer sucks for this, to be clear!) so no holiday parties for me. My husband has his big downtown corporate shindigs tonight, so I decided to go to a restaurant with my son. He was chatting with a friend of his from school via a game they play online when I finished working so I invited his friend to join us. The boys had a blast at the restaurant, I enjoyed watching them be happy, the food was good, and his friend was super polite with sincere thank-yous. We get along with the parents and the boy has been here before to play (and vice versa), but I’ve never taken him out to a restaurant with us.
Finished the night watching some YouTube channels with my son and enjoying time together.
I’m happy.
I live in Greater Miami. Today the overnight low was ~65 and the high was ~75 under mostly cloudy skies. So little direct solar radiation to warm one’s soul. I’m wearing long sleeves, warm clothes, and layers of long underwear to compensate for the extremely miserable chill in our air.
When I lived in Las Vegas I used to comment that I would only complain when the temps fell down into the double digits F. Over 100F/38C was fine. Less was not. Indoors everywhere all the time sucketh greatly.
It might be a curse, but it’s my curse and I own it.
Those temperatures sound perfect for me! The Vegas temperatures …nope! Even as someone who runs cold (hoodie, extra thick socks and two throw blankets on the couch as I write this) those temperatures just are too much!
If you can’t survive a week outdoors naked, it’s not a climate humans were meant to live in. In fact you oughta be comfortable that whole week, not merely existing in misery, but not quite killed by it.
Well, I had composed a nice post about how easy a leaky toilet is to fix yourself if it’s a problem with the flapper thingie, but I guess it’s unnecessary now that I see you have a service contract! If that is indeed the problem, the cost of the flapper thingie is just a few bucks. The “universal” ones work just fine as long as you get the right size (there are two standard sizes) and properly adjust the chain length.
Tell that to the guy (me) who just paid for a new-to-me car, new fridge, Snowplow Guy, and a bunch of other unexpected expenses. It’s driving me to drink and the high cost of decent rum and vodka is making everything worse!
But still, it could be even worse. A good friend approximately my age got into a major accident with his almost-new car, and the insurance company declared it a write-off. New driving laws here require Old Farts to retake a driving exam if they get into an accident past a certain age, which he had to do but fortunately passed it. Also fortunately for him, he’s rich enough to get another new car with no major impact to his finances. I guess the moral of the story is that, in general, life sucks.
But it could be even worse than that. My lifelong best friend died a couple of years ago from an incurable brain tumour. That’s probably about as bad as it gets. Celebrate your good fortune with a mere toilet leak and household expenses!
Bounty quality has turned to shit of late.
I’ve switched to the Viva brand recently. They’re cheaper and feel like cloth. They’re also pretty tough, even stretchy, and absorb better now (Bounty doesn’t seem to absorb like it used to, it’s thinner and feels cheap).
I used Bounty faithfully for decades and only switched this year.
Freaking Christmas tree lights are a nightmare. We must have 50 strands and they are all either:
..burned out
..tangled
…some god-awful supernova bright blinding siezure-inducing white
…all red
All I want is a few single strands of warm white lights. A basement full of so-called indoor Christmas lights and not one of these to be found? Where the heck did all these other versions from hell come from??
Our tree has the lights built in. You just plug the tree in and turn it on. It’s the best thing ever.
Here’s my rant of the day… I dropped my dog off at the groomer and Jack in the Box was on the way home. I decided to order a Sourdough Jack, which I haven’t had in a long time. It’s one of my all time favorite fast food burgers. It was pricey for a fast food burger but I wanted to splurge a bit and treat myself.
I got home and it wasn’t toasted. At all. It is always toasted, with a crispy, buttery sourdough bread like a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s the reason why it’s so good. It should look like this:
Instead the bread was just plain, cold, untoasted bread. Like it was pulled out of a loaf of bread from a bag from the grocery store. It was awful. The fucking thing was ruined.
I was going to complain about the store fucking up y overpriced burger, but I decided out of curiosity to Google it. Apparently they did not screw it up at the store. That’s just how they’re made now. It’s fucking idiotic. There is no point in it now.
What’s next, serving their tacos on a cold, uncooked tortilla?
ETA: Reddit thread I found.
I guess it changed a couple of years ago.
Sorry, any toasted bread is 100x better than untoasted.
I was so excited when I found out there’s Irrefutable Science behind it:
I’ve been cutting back on carbs and alcohol… except during “the holidays”. And of course that includes today (which I call “The Boxing Day of Thanksgiving”). So I’m off to toast a cardamom roll and slather it in real butter.
Fuck yeah!
I realized that the plate of leftovers I’m having, after the dozen guests have left our tiny house was deliciouser, because it could be lingered over in solitude.
My brother is hosting Christmas this year, together with his partner and small kids. My parents, his partner’s parents, his partner’s sister and her partner and their kids are all coming, so he suggested we do a secret Santa for the adults, to simplify things.
That’s not the rant.
The rant is that, rather than just giving people a name, he’s organised this secret Santa using some godwaful app, which couldn’t be more obvious that it’s collecting info and interests in order to sell the data. It’s also shamelessly marketing ‘AI generated’ suggestions, which it strongly implies were chosen by the person without actually saying it. I’m saying that as I sincerely doubt that my mother, who has no interest in cooking and has yet to meet a food she cannot burn, has been bottling up the secret desire for a load of kitchen gear for the last 70 years.