My Pixel phone has decided to automatically transcribe voicemail messages. It’s a less than perfect system, based on the following puzzling message that showed up in my box:
“It was your phone that was it was calling, but I called you a accident. Alright, just be okay. Yeah, then we get the Bree Walnut Bree. I got they got it right in Corona assholes. I know that’s a German festival and then [555-2117] okay.”
I’m intrigued by the idea of going to the Corona Asshole Festival. Beer and wiener schnitzel, what could go wrong (except for the assholes)?
I have had transcription turned on for my phone for quite awhile (I had a Nexus before the Pixel I just got a few months ago and they both did/do it). Some people who call me have pretty strong regional accents and if they leave a message the transcriptions can be … quite something.
My mom called to let me know - because she knew I’d be tickled - that my dad went to go get yet. another. test. and the doctor sent him home! Said to him, “You’re getting tested too often and we need these for other patients.”
I told her I’d like to send that man some flowers or something.
Well, this week just got worse. My husband’s mother has cancer and its terminal. We visited her over Christmas. It felt like it might be the last time we would see her. But, as we were leaving, it seemed like her spirits had lifted a bit, that see her son and his family helped her rally a bit. Well, today, she was dealt a blow that might have erased all of that. Her long time friend, close enough that my husband calls her Aunty, died of Covid today.
My son is abruptly homeless after his girlfriend knocked one of his teeth out last night. She spent the night in jail, but will be released today because he isn’t going to press charges.
I don’t know what I can do to help him.
My 25 year old cooktop (original to the house; the old ceramic coil style that you basically can’t even FIND any more) is finally dying. The right front burner - the big one, that gets used the most - was wonky for a while and is now completely inoperable. The left rear burner - i.e. the other large one - is getting wonky, especially if we put anything really heavy (like a big soup pot) on it.
Annoying, but since I’d been lusting after an induction cooktop for years, it serves as an excuse to order a replacement… which is backordered for at least 3 months!! I assume this is part of the general COVID-based appliance shortage. I hope that left rear burner lasts until then.
Jenn-air is shipping in a timely fashion–we got our package in a few weeks. Good induction top, although it pulls a LOT of power. Might have to run new wire.
We bought a new car in November. They filled the tank at the dealership, and the display claimed we had a range of nearly 500 miles on it.
We drove it very little, due to COVID, and it was just a few days before Christmas before it finally got low enough that we had to fill it. The display was at the “you can go 20 miles, but I really don’t recommend you try for 30” level when I topped it off.
I got less than 11 gallons in the 14 gallon tank. And the range was less than 400 miles.
A couple days later, we went on a 280-mile drive. The range at that point said “360 miles” or some such. Now, that is on a hybrid, which gets better mileage in city driving, and I think the calculator assumes some percentage of city driving, so I wasn’t ALL that surprised when the range kept dropping - though I was annoyed when it got to that “better feed me, you fool” level 40 miles from our destination.
And I filled it… and again got less than 11 gallons in the tank.
I filled it just before the next 280 mile drive, and the pump handle kicked off, and I gradually added another gallon without any spillage. A friend told me that doing that risked some kind of vapor issues that would do Bad Things to the car’s ability to handle expanding vapors in the future.
So: either the manufacturer lies about the capacity, or fuel pumps are set to quit well before the tank is anywhere CLOSE to being full, or the dealer risked damaging the car by overfilling it, or the car actually has a LOT more gas left when the display says “feed me or you’re SCREWED”, or some combination of the above.
Hah - yeah, that’s something we checked out beforehand. I think I saw that the cooktop needed a 40 amp circuit, and ours happens to be 50 amp. Years back, we had an electrician out shortly before we needed to replace our oven; he was shocked that the oven and cooktop were on the same circuit. I don’t recall why we had him out, actually - may have specifically been that issue; since they were on the same circuit, we had to leave the circuit off, meaning no access to the cooktop, or listen to nonstop beeping from the oven.
Anyway, he ran the extra wires so each was on its own circuit, and we’re good with that.
The real fun will be that we will have to find someone to install it whenever it arrives; even Best Buy was not offering installation services (presumably due to COVID).
I’m sure it’s this. My car’s “low fuel” light comes on when I have 120 miles of range left. It is documented as a 14 gallon tank, it takes 10 or so gallons when I fill it immediately. I’ve driven it far enough to have to put in 12+ gallons, but haven’t been brave enough to push it farther.
I’m sure that my gauge (and yours) crab early because they’d get a lot more hate if you ran out of gas then they do if you have to fill up early.
Hark it’s the sound of the plow coming by, but wait he stopped and backed up and left leaving a 3 ft ridge of packed snow and ice across the road. Gimme dispatch stat!
Mine too. I’ve had cars with bad gas gauges in the past, so tend to go by my odometer. My current car was bought new and the gas gauge lied from the start. It starts whining at 4 gallons left (120+miles) and lights get annoying at 2 gallons left.
You’re going to need to go for an experiment drive, where you convoy with another car (carrying a spare gallon of gas), and drive until you run out of fuel. THEN get to a filling station, and find out your tank’s capacity.
My Prius supposedly has an 11-gallon tank, and I’ve never been able to put much more than about eight gallons in it, even if I’m getting the panic message.
I just now got a call on my cell phone (which I did not accept). The prefix on the caller ID shows that it’s from work. Today is my day off (so is tomorrow, for what it’s worth). I am aware that the crew is short-staffed, but there’s a reason that I took myself off the overtime desired list five years ago. It’s because I don’t desire to work overtime any more. Maybe I’ll put myself back on after I get my left hip replaced (probably not before May), but not before.
And, yes, even though I’m not going to listen to the voicemail (or read the transcript), I’m confident that they called to have me go in and work an extra shift.
Yesterday, my left eye was feeling kinda scratchy, like there was a foreign body in it. Though I tried, I couldn’t find anything. This morning, I woke up and my eye was glued shut with discharge and feeling VERY scratchy and somewhat painful. When I could finally open it a little, all I saw was red.
I called the ophthalmologist immediately, and luckily he could see me today. Turns out to be viral conjunctivitis. I have to use prescription eye drops in each eye, 4x a day.
I told him I knew I had to see him in 2020. Just made it!
I have no idea how I could have caught such a thing.
I ordered a 2021 calendar online from the US last week, and received an email from FedEx that it had been delivered this morning, which confirmed what the large white thing sticking out of my mailbox was. When I finally stepped out to collect it, it turned out to be my favourite hobby magazine, very welcome, but not a calendar, and there was no sign of any other package.
The FedEx tracking site said it had been delivered at 9:45 with a “signature on file”. Odd, as the sender’s delivery instructions were that no signature was required. Anything left at our door or on the porch was not visible from the street, and the fresh snow on the walk showed only one set of footprints - the mailman’s.
So I contacted FedEx and went through their automated phone process to create an inquiry into the missing package. Half an hour later I heard the mailbox rattle and, Surprise!, my package was there. I suspect the FedEx driver was cheating on his delivery time quota reports and got caught.