Ho Fucking Ho - December Mini-Rants

The BBQ Pit
121

I have that habit, too, but it’s a tactile rather than verbal check – I pat the three areas containing my car keys, regular wallet, and credit card wallet. I originally got a credit card wallet decades ago to slim down the regular wallet and avoid crushing plastic cards in my back pocket. I had it so long that I literally wore out the leather and replaced it a couple of years ago. That thing turned out to be a lifesaver. It contains bank cards, credit cards, loyalty cards, and pretty much anything that’s a plastic card. If all those things had been in my now-missing regular wallet I’d have been in a much greater panic than I am. I just got back from getting a replacement driver’s license, which was probably just about the only really vital thing in the regular wallet – that I can remember, at least. I also discovered in this panicked flurry that my car insurance certificate had expired, so I had to go hunting through old mail to find the current one (yes, I’m that disorganized!). So I wasn’t legal even when I had my wallet and driver’s license. Now I am.

I now live in fear that I’ll suddenly remember something really important that was in the regular wallet, but I really don’t think there was. As I recall, there was very little cash in there, either, because I never use it except to pay the lad who mows my lawn.

122

I can certainly one-up you in the disorganized department;
The other day I walked up behind our second car and noticed the registration sticker on the licence plate was expired. Told my husband (he’s in charge of car related stuff). He promptly went on-line to renew the registration and inexplicably was turned down - go to ServiceNB it said. No big deal, it’s our second car and the main car, the one we were going to the States for Thanksgiving was fine. We’d be back a week later and were planning a trip to town anyway.
I dropped him off with all his paperwork at the ServiceNB office and settled down to wait in the car. When he emerged an hour and 1/2 later he informed me that actually, second car was registered (he did get a replacement sticker - lord only knows where the first one went) but the main car - the one we happily crossed the border with - was expired and the paperwork he’d brought with him was for the utility trailer.
It took the poor person behind the desk an hour to sort him out.
The following week I discovered half way (of a 90 minute drive) that I’d left my purse at home - no wallet, no SIN card, no credit or bank cards, no license, no money. But I had my phone and somehow, all that stuff is on it more or less.
I feel your pain.

123

Sympathies to your hubs for enduring an hour and a half in a government license office, and to you for waiting. I hate those places, although they’re much faster and friendlier now that I’ve moved out of the Big City into Distant Suburbs. When I went there this morning to get my driver’s license replaced there was literally no one else there.

Expired insurance certificates have been a constant problem with me. It was worse when the renewal period was biannual, but now that it’s annual it’s a little easier but apparently I still can’t manage it! :grinning:

But this inspires the subject of a different mini-rant!

Car insurance was much worse back in Ye Olden Dayes when I got an invoice every six months and had to mail them the payment. I would often forget, resulting in a notice of insurance cancellation. So then I would pay them, and discover that my rates had significantly increased. This was a very profitable scam they ran wherein, if you let a policy lapse, they suddenly had Corporate Amnesia, had no idea who you were, and considered you a brand new customer and therefore a Potential High Risk.

Funny how Corporate Amnesia is completely immune to the effects of a bad driving record. Bad record, man, your rates are going to be incredible. Good driving record? Sorry, we don’t know you, even if you were previously insured with us.

Thank you, State Farm.

124

so just after Thanksgiving, I went on a cruise. I ise a CPAP at night and canot sleep without it. I am pretty careful about making sure that i get all of the pieces packed along with my meds. I drive to a town halfway (about 3 hours) so that i can go to a museum exhibit the next day and discover that I had left the power cord behind. I had to drive 3 hours back home grabbed the cord, and drove three hours back so drove 9 hours that day. Mueum exhibit was great as was the cruise.

125

Facebook occasionally shows you “sites you may like”. The one today was Neil DeGrasse Tyson (whether it’s actually his site is unknown). I thought: that might be interesting. Luckily I looked at it before joining, as it’s full of nutjobs and religious whackos.

126

Sure it’s Samsung DVG41A3000W I think. I’m not home right now; I’m at the rehab hospital with hubster. They let him eat today! Yay!

127

I’m happy for both of you (ask if the kitchen can give you a meal, too. You need to take care of yourself. When kaylasmom spent time in this type of facility, they would often feed me too, if I was there at mealtimes)!

Anyway, I plugged your model number into google, and while I couldn’t get a parts list for the gas version, I did find one for the electric dryer. Since they have the same basic build (except for heat source), I’m confident that this is your part. The Amazon page I linked to mentions several different dryer models, none of which matches yours, but I called Parts Support and confirmed that this is the one for you.

Good luck!

128

I’m having a “sad about my kid” day because we got the full final report from the AEC. Reports are always tough to read because they are so clinical. There’s nothing particularly new in there, just a lot of description of the lack of social and communication skills observed by the interviewer. Last night I had a dream that I had a conversation with my son. I remember he walked up to me and said, “Hey, Mama, I got a question for you.” I said, “What’s that?” Then he asked the question. I don’t remember the question, I just remember thinking it really happened until sometime over breakfast I realized it was just a dream.

I’m also really tired of drawing numbers on command, but since he’s being asked to work on all these skills all day long I feel like he deserves to play however he wants at home.

In other news, I’ve been writing fiction every chance I get, which feels amazing, but I’m also doing that thing I do where I fiddle with a scene endlessly and can’t stick a pin in it. I finally got a scene that worked, and went to bed happy, but this morning I looked at it, and thought, “You know what would make this better…?”

It would be funny if it didn’t leave me completely incapable of finishing anything. I probably owe a lot of my unique storytelling to ADHD, but that comes with complete paralysis as well. I’m just overwhelmed by all the things that could be. I’ve yet to figure out how to just get on with it.

I took the day off tomorrow for Bodhi Day, so that’s something. I’m telling myself that writing counts as spiritual practice.

129

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned.

130

I do the same damn thing. Not with writing (I haven’t done that in a long time) but the visual arts and web design. If I stare long enough at something I’ve created, I find something I want to change. I have to force myself to say, “It’s good enough now.” Otherwise it will never be finished.

It’s probably a good thing I don’t do that sort of thing for a living, it’s mostly a hobby. (I mean, I get paid to do web design but it’s just a tiny part of my job I only do every few months or so.) I recognized long ago that if I had to be creative on a deadline my life would be absolute Hell.

131

Oh my gosh thank you so much. I never got around to calling them today. You have superior google foo.

As for the meal? Usually they’ll offer or it’s on the menu. Though they do always ask if they can get me something. It’d have to be better than their cafeteria. I mean I was there after lunch/before dinner, but it was a lonnng walk from his room, and all they had was diet/zero Coke, and all the other drinks were the same. The associate there told me that the patients get regular or diet as preferred. Backwards I tell you.
Thank you again.

132

Oh, I know. I have a couple of writer friends who have had moderate success with publishing on Kindle Vella, but that meant publishing a chapter a week, with no plan. It sounds like an absolute nightmare. But now they have six books to market.

I am trying to keep that silly mantra in my head: “It’s better than good. It’s good enough.”

@Sylvanz , I’m glad to hear things are starting to turn around for you. I know how good that can feel.

Today I took the day off work for religious observance of Bodhi Day (so far “observance” has consisted of posting here… maybe I’ll get a meditation in later.) Naturally I woke up in a piss-poor mood with a painful, shall we say, personal problem, that is limiting my movement around the house.

Why did it have to be today? I swear to fucking God the universe does not want me to rest.

Um, I mean, life is suffering…

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134

Why is tea such a hard concept for many restaurants? If I have a big meal a nice hot beverage settles things down. I don’t drink coffee. My tea needs are simple. Black tea. A tea bag and hot water. A slice of lemon if you want to get fancy. Now I like a nice high end English breakfast tea or something similar but I would be satisfied with just a run of the mill Lipton tea bag. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked for a tea and been told “I’ll go check.” Then they come back with a vanilla cinnamon herbal green lemongrass jasmine basil chai. How hard is it to keep a box of Lipton in the back?

135

I use Google Maps to navigate. It’s handy, the data is pretty good since Google bought Waze and it uses the user data from that app as well as from other Google Maps users. It’s tied to my Google profile and my saved locations can move from device to device and it’s accessibly by browser. All good stuff.

But there was a very recent update (the last couple of weeks) that have added a terrible feature that’s so bad I may have to consider the painful step of moving to a different navigation app. It’s the “continue straight” notification. You can see someone griping about it here:

https://support.google.com/maps/thread/204557408/remove-continue-straight-prompt-on-road-that-goes-straight-anyway?hl=en

I would see that idiocy every once in a rare while, as in, well no shit I assume you want me to stay on the road unless you tell me otherwise you stupid app, that’s how this whole fucking thing works. I make turns or merge or whatever when you say so. I know the deal, you know the deal, so why are you telling me this, are you bored?! …But as I said, it was rare.

That changed with the last update. See, I drive on I-5 for work purposes. Every now and then the carpool lane will diverge from the rest of the road for a little bit. Google Maps now sees that as an exit apparently. So it will say to continue straight. Which is BS… Even if I was in that lane (and I’m not, I’m alone so that would be illegal) it’s not going anywhere, that lane is still part of the road.

The reason this is becoming a problem is that when I am traveling home there are multiple routes I can take. Multiple exits that get me to the same place. All fairly close together. Looking at the map, you can’t tell at a glance which way it wants you go to in order to avoid traffic issues because they are so close together. If you went step-by-step through the directions, I guess you could tell, but still. If I wanted to just memorize the route ahead of time I wouldn’t be using the app at all, the whole point is to have turn-by-turn instructions.

Anyway, I know that I’m getting close to where I would normally turn, but all my device says is, “In 2 miles continue straight to stay on I-5.” Okay… No shit Google. I need to know when and where I don’t stay on the road, that’s why you fucking exist. Then I get past that spot, and it says, “In 1 mile continue straight…” Again, no shit. Finally, after I pass that, it says, “In half a mile take exit blah blah…” So it tells me to take an exit right before it appears, when I might have to cross 5 lanes of traffic at high speed, because it has been telling me to “continue straight” for the past 5 fucking minutes and won’t tell me when my next real turn is.

Again, it has never behaved this way. It has only does this for the last couple of weeks. But this is making the app less than useless. It wants to SURPRISE me with my next turn at the last second. It’s like driving with a person giving you directions who falls asleep and wakes up right at the exit to say, “Oh you want to take that one.”

There is no way to change this behavior. I really don’t want to switch, it has all of my info in it and that’s a lot. But this is getting to the point where I don’t even want to use it anymore, and I’d rather just drive my regular route and gamble that I’m not going to run into some horrific slowdown that I should have avoided.

136

LOL, I just found this gem:

https://support.google.com/maps/thread/246677991/please-stop-telling-me-to-continue-straight?hl=en

Meanwhile if its uncomfortable for you, you can disable voice enabled map route guidance in your device. This may solve your issue currently.

Yeah, stop using Google Maps entirely. You are correct, that would solve the issue.

137

Is this only happening at this location, or does it happen elsewhere, too? I ask because I’ve had these unhelpful “Continue straight” instructions for quite a while, often in places where Maps seems to think an ordinary exit is a fork where there might be some question about which way to go.

If it’s only happening there, it’s possible that rather than being a Maps feature upgrade, it might be a change to the database, and the program now sees these interchanges in different ways. I’ve seen things like that seem to happen.

But this reminds me of my adjacent rant that also occurs while I’m using Maps in the car. I connect my phone to the car via bluetooth, and usually listen to podcasts (Car Talk, mostly) while getting instructions by Maps. The problem is that for some reason the volume for Maps is much higher than the podcast app. So if it’s comfortable to hear Click and Clack, when the driving directions come on, it’s deafening! Very annoying.

My solution has been what you found:

Meanwhile if its uncomfortable for you, you can disable voice enabled map route guidance in your device. This may solve your issue currently.

That is, I turn off the voice commands, and just keep my eyes the map for directions. Not ideal, and if my attention lapses, I can miss a turn. But better than being shocked by the loud Maps voice.

Why are the volumes so different all of a sudden? It wasn’t like this a while ago. It may be the inherent volume level of these podcast recordings. I haven’t bothered to check this theory.

And why can’t I adjust each app’s volume individually?

138

It has been most prominent in a particular location, but it hasn’t been exclusive to that place. I had the same problem traveling to one of the more remote offices I take care of yesterday, in a completely different county in another part of the state.

It’s not a new issue, in the sense that I’ve seen it before. It’s just more prominent now. I think the issue is that it now interprets any kind of divergence as a “turn”, when in the past it was only major things, such as when the whole freeway splits and half of the lanes go one way and half go the other, or a lane you wouldn’t expect to be an exit lane (like the left-most lane) becomes an exit.

These are lanes that aren’t even exits, they just split off briefly. I’m trying to find an image that shows it. This is the closest I can find, though it’s not truly the same:

That HOV lane on the left is actually an express lane, it’s not quite what’s happening on the freeways around here, but it’s similar. Here it’s just one lane that splits off for a mile or less than a mile before reattaching itself, with a small median and usually a barrier to prevent someone from getting onto or off the HOV lane until it merges back. There is no reason to warn someone to “stay on the road” when they occur because (1) they are still part of the same road and (2) the exit I need to take doesn’t show up during that split anyway. It’s a 100% useless piece of guidance. And that sort of thing just started.

In the past, it would warn you to stay on the road with a bigger split, one that functions as an actual exit because it takes you to a new road, like you see in this image (on the left):

And that is more understandable because it’s an unusual place for an off-ramp, and you want to be aware that you don’t want to be in that far left lane.

This new update has just really messed it up.

Funny thing is, you can with Google Maps. I can go into the app, go into Settings, go into Navigation, and for “Guidance Volume” set it to “Louder”, “Normal”, or “Softer”. Again, the app is really great, except this new “feature” which is ruining it.

139

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I haven’t tried it out yet, but this may be the solution to my problem. Sorry I wasn’t more helpful with yours.

140

It’s okay, this is the mini-rants thread, I’m not looking for a fix, I just want to shake my fist at the clouds. (Or maybe in this case, “The Cloud”.)