I don’t actually have much of a rant, other than I can’t think why I thought I liked painting walls in the house - Ugh, SUCH a pain.
May this thread be very little used in this new year 
I quite like painting walls, especially with a roller.
What I don’t like is all the preparation - moving the furniture, putting down dropsheets and otherwise covering up areas not getting painted, getting the paint, stirring the paint, pouring the paint into a roller tray.
I don’t like cutting in the edges or doing fiddly bits either.
And I don’t like cleaning up the roller, and tray and stirrer and uncovering everything and putting the furniture back.
But the brief bit in the middle involving just rolling the paint on the wall is quite satisfying.
In 3 weeks, I’ll be 69 years old. So I have a year of dealing with snickering should my age come up. Because some people are so juvenile… 
Other than that, I’m hoping 2023 doesn’t suck too much.
iswydt
And so it begins…
Happy New Year.Thanks!
I’m still thrilled that my coworkers failed to realize I turned 40 last year. 
(There’s a bag full of black decorations and other ‘joke’ items in the storage room that typically winds up all over the office or cube of an employee who reaches such a milestone birthday.)
Me too (are we lost twins?)!
And every time someone asks my age, I’ll have to resist quoting Bill & Ted.
When they meet their past selves they say “Wait, if you’re us, what number are we thinking of?”
“Sixty-nine, dudes!”
So for a year, I’ll be mentally adding “…duuudes!” every time.
UNLESS… we just say “Pushing seventy.” Hmmm… I’ll try that.
Cousin and best friend had her car stolen last summer. They made a mess of it. Some of it straight up vandalism. The cops found it, said it was drivable. She went the the police impound lot to find it had no ignition system, and only two tires/wheels. Not particularly ‘drivable’.
She got it towed from the impound lot and fixed.
She then had to resign from work because of back problems. Still working on that. She had an MRI and has a video consultation this month.
She did tax preparation, but could not work from home. It’s a security issue with peoples paper work. The papers do not leave the office. Good thing the paper work was not in my cousins car for instance.
Then two days ago, she had her car stolen. Again. !!#$^%
Insurance probably won’t do jack shit about it. I donno. It was/is a 2001 Honda CRX, only 50,000 miles on it. Oh, they may give her a thousand or two, but used car prices are crazy.
New year off to a great start. Last night my UPS (backup power supply for my desktop) decided to commit suicide, and it looks like it took my desktop with it. Fortunately my AT&T U-verse, which was also plugged into the UPS, survived.
I had a spare power strip to plug everything into, but the desktop just won’t power up. Everything else plugged into the power strip works, so I’m not sure what the problem is. I’m in no mood to deal with it today, but tomorrow I’ll probably use an Uber to take it to Best Buy and see what the Geek Squad has to say about it.
So, I ranted in last years thread. That’s a rant in and of itself. Here it is/was:
We were at a favorite brewery last night. A small group of 30-somethings were being loud, trying to convince one guy in the group that he shouldn’t be driving home. He was arguing way too loudly that he was fine.
As he walked by me he grabbed my arm and asked if I thought he could drive. He’d really gotten on my nerves by that point. I stood and said (loud enough so everybody could hear), “you’re drunk enough that you don’t realize everyone thinks you’re an ass. I don’t care if you drive or not, but you’d better let go of my arm or I’m going to beat you senseless”.
He let go, then he started crying. Apparently I’d hurt his feelings?
Today, at an antique store I bought a small (It’s I think about 18 inches long) diggeridoo. They had a full size one for sale as well. My mini rant is that I find myself thinking “I shouldn’t have bought a diggeridoo. What a waste of money!” and simultaneously “I should have also bought the big one!”
I already one a pvc pipe lovingly made into a diggeridoo. It stays in Florida where I bought it because until recently I’ve been too broke to ship it from my mom’s condo to my place in Philly. Whether I can learn to play the diggeridoo remains to be seen.
Well, the New Year is off to a great start.
I got some stupid spam call on my cell phone this afternoon which I ignored. Then I went to delete the stupid call from my call log. I didn’t want it there taking up space. I have no idea what I did, but with a couple of fat-finger taps, I somehow managed to delete my entire call log of all incoming and outgoing calls. Which was useful for many purposes, including redialing calls that weren’t on my contacts list.
Stupid, stupid UI design to allow this to happen, with me realizing even how it happened!
Both my sisters are on my shit list right now. They’re both closer to 60 than to 50, we’re all way too old for this nonsense.
First is my eldest sister, her son is getting married and the wedding plans are underway. Second is the younger sister, still older than me but 2yrs younger than eldest. That one is divorced and is dating someone new. YS asked ES for her new beau to be her plus one to the wedding. ES said no, and YS is now crying to our mother about it. My mom is WAY WAY too old and infirm to be negotiating her kids problems.
Eldest Sister, JFC the wedding is months away, give your kid sister a plus one. I know damn well this isn’t some intimate event that you simply can’t shoehorn another guest into.
Younger Sister, it’s not fair to dump this sister/sister stuff onto your mother. Your big sister is being a dick, it’s happened before and it’ll probably happen again, so hike up your big girl undies and go stag to your nephew’s wedding.
Took the old computer to Best Buy today. Apparently there was some sort of power surge which took out the motherboard. Replacing or repairing it would cost as much as a new computer, so I looked over what they had available and chose one suitable to my needs. Since I had gotten their tech service option they said they would be able to transfer everything from the old computer to the new one, so I wouldn’t have to rely on my home backup.
The bad news: they were out of stock on the computer I wanted, so I had two choices. Order it to be shipped to my home, and then bring it in for the Geek Squad to do the data transfer, or request a store pickup, which wouldn’t be done until the 12th. As mentioned before, I don’t drive so the first choice would necessitate multiple Uber trips, versus having to wait until sometime after the 12th. I opted for the latter, and will work with my laptop until then.
You probably saved his life.
I mean, he couldn’t even find his car with all those tears in his eyes…
Aggravating Web Site Design #52237…
Far far too often I go to read some article, scroll down one page, only to see a video sitting there…
Typically tho it has NOTHING to do with the article I am reading. Why TF do all these sites do this?! It just makes me MORE likely to immediately close the tab.
Extra points off if the thing (A) autoplays, (B) scrolls down with you as you try to read the original article, thus blocking your view, and.or (C) has no easily locatable kill (X)) button. RRRRRRRrrrrrr @%&*^#%@%*@#%@$%…
Aggravating for sure.
Their interests are not our interests.
[meta-rant]
If only there was some way to pay a nickel to read the article completely advert-, nag-, and tracking-free. If only.
But free in dollars at the expense of anger, confusion, time, and malware is the American Way. Commerce! They don’t call them “commercials” for nothing.
[/meta-rant]
I pit my brain again for the umpteenth time and ask for honest advice.
I came into work today and found about 25 emails all needing my immediate attention and I went into a stress spiral of woe. I felt HORRIBLE. Like I was worthless because I couldn’t handle my emails while trying to handle my emails all at once. Then, I took a break and I breathed and then I handled my emails one at a time and it was fine. Nothing bad happened.
But that first reaction of pure chaotic horribleness was… well horrible. How do I skip that part? It consumed like an hour of my morning. It happens with more than just emails.