It's the Great Minirants, Charlie Brown! (October minirants)

Now it’s liquid amoxicillin. Wrap the guy in blanket , scruff him but the furry ‘money pit’ ( l like that) squirmed slipped the trap. Now he’s on to us.

I have friends who have had good luck with putting their anxiety ridden, obsessive grooming cats into onsies. I don’t think it stops the grooming, but it does prevent them from actually licking their hair and skin.

Thanks both of you. I know on an intellectual level that I’m not the actual worst human being on the planet but convincing the rest of me is hard. I’m feeling much more functional today but I still feel like I’m an empty shell of a human, just going through the motions. Hopefully this doesn’t last too much longer. I miss enjoying things.

This isn’t worthy of its own thread, but Google Play Music stopped working for me today. I knew Google was going to retire Play Music, so I migrated my music over to YouTube Music this month. But God, YouTube Music is absolutely the dog’s breakfast.

My rant of the day is about my aging body. We usually get the kids takeout on Wednesdays - gives them something small to look forward to and gets me off the hook for cooking during work. My stupid self decided, “Oh! They want Chinese! I haven’t had in forever! Today is my day. Besides, I have to make sure I eat something before taking my mom to the doctor.”

Today is not my day. Not remotely. The older I’ve gotten, the less my body tolerates pretty much everything I used to love eating. Fried food, cheese, ice cream, wine. Fortunately we ordered early and my body will have a chance to, ah, complete its cycle of getting this food the heck out of my body before we leave. But I should’ve known better. I also haven’t prioritized running this week so my hips hurt. Boo hoo.

The site for A Girl and Her Fed (webcomic) has been down for a few days, now. Sometimes it just says it’s not available. Sometimes it says I don’t have access. I hate missing my comics.

I have a terrible cold! I’ve never been so happy to have one in my life!

(Hit me three days after we’d felt obligated to attend a family wedding…so everyone assumed it was Covid)

She’s made it visible on Patreon, at least until they either migrate to a new server or the people providing her current server get it fixed.

https://t.co/GD3IFYddTb?amp=1

Thank you!

Oh, gosh, suicidal friends are the worse! I still have scars from the time I tried to dress our cats up for Halloween.

When I started having our money pit treated for this issue, I thought he had PTSD from being homeless and needed some kitty zanax. Atopica, which is what he is on isn’t an anti anxiety med, but seems to be doing the trick. Dosing him with this just seems so much easier than changing little kitty diapers.

Today was errand day so I was listening to an audio book on the drive in when suddenly my phone and stereo got into a fight and stopped talking to each other. Not only did the book refuse to play, my stereo wouldn’t play music either. I had to do the entire trip in silence, which sucked. Stereo is working now, but it still is mad at my phone. Oh well, I have a week to figure it out before next errand day.

I get along fine with my little brother and sister. He is probably the most liberal person I know, while she is the most conservative person I interact with. They chat back and forth and are always getting into arguments that get heated.

Last night I got a text from my sister, worried about our brother’s sanity. She forwarded some recent conversations to me. I then contacted him, explaining what I was dealing with and how I’d rather be doing anything else. Then I messaged her and told her that our brother’s rant was all pretty much normal for him and I agreed with many of his points.

Then I silenced my phone and went to bed.

Well, the name of this thread just got incredibly relevant.

The three Peanuts holiday specials, a staple on broadcast TV for DECADES, will not be on broadcast TV this year. Instead, you will have to watch them on Apple TV+ if you want to see them. There’s a brief period when you can watch for free, but (a) I haven’t found where that may be, and (b) I have the sneaking suspicion that you’d have to sign up for Apple TV+ to see them anyway.

At this point those shows are practically national treasures. I am not happy.

I’m genuinely surprised that no one around me has started screeching about the “War on CHRISTmas” regarding this announcement… I’m guessing that it hasn’t fully clicked with some people that the Charlie Brown Christmas special will be moving to Apple TV along with the Halloween and Thanksgiving specials.

The only possible plus I can see is that we probably won’t be treated to any attempts to pad out the time slot with Peanuts shows that didn’t hold up so well.

As I said when I first learned of this, I had not planned on signing up for Apple TV+, and I certainly hope the folks at Apple don’t think this is the way to entice people to the service.

So my fiancee Jen and I bought a house together rather than get married* and she’s in the process of selling her condo. (I sold mine months ago.) She was in the home stretch, with the closing scheduled for next week.

Until the buyer went for a mandatory but ostensibly routine meeting with the management company (which I’ll call H for reasons that will become apparent) and was told out of the blue that the hardwood floors in the unit were a violation and would have to be removed because they were installed without board permission, and the association would not issue a letter that all assessments were paid until it was done. Buyer called her attorney, who called Jen’s attorney, who called Jen. Jen made it clear that the floors were hardwood when she bought the unit in the early 2000s, including the old real-estate listing describing hardwood floors, so she didn’t need board permission to install them because she didn’t install them. Her attorney told this to H.

Which insisted in writing that Jen prove she had board permission to install the floors. Her attorney told H again, in a polite but firm letter, that she didn’t install the floors and reminded them that withholding the assessments-paid letter could screw up the pending sale.

So H immediately sent a letter on behalf of the board formally ordering Jen to remove the hardwood floors within seven days. And if she wants to appeal to the board, they’ll be meeting sometime in November. Which is after the closing date H is well aware of.

As a cherry on top of this shit sundae, the guy at H who Jen and her attorney were dealing with is threatening to sue Jen’s agent Gary (for what, defamation?) because Gary spoke with him back in September about the unit being in compliance and ready for sale but the H mook is insisting that no such phone call ever happened. WTF, as if Gary doesn’t have phone records showing a phone call to H or the mook!

Fuck H and their vindictive attitude! Double-secret FUCK with oak-leaf clusters for insisting on replacing the floors in a two-bedroom condo within seven fucking days instead of a reasonable timeframe, which jacks up the price for expedited work to no profit of H.

*First wedding date was in June 2020. Rescheduled for Oct. 2020 on the logic that “it’ll all be over by then.” :thinking: Now scheduled for Oct. 2021.

Dear Apple,

If you think this is going to get me to subscribe to Apple TV, you are very much mistaken. All it’s going to do is either get me to find my old DVDs if necessary, although all three are probably already in my online video library because I probably ripped them a long time ago. Incidentally, fuck you. With a wire brush.

Love,
Wolfpup

That’s appalling almost beyond belief. On top of everything else, the mook at H is basically asking Jen to devalue a condo she has already sold by ripping up valuable flooring and replacing it with less valuable shit. This puts her in the position of potentially being sued by the buyer for misrepresentation and theft. If I were the buyer, I’d certainly sue if I found the hardwood floors I had been expecting had mysteriously disappeared.

Too bad you’re not in my town. I know a real estate lawyer who would eat the aforementioned mook for breakfast, raw, and spit out the bones.

I assume the lawyer checked the bylaws of the association to confirm that board permission was required to change out the floors? I ask because, generally speaking, what you do inside the condo’s four walls aren’t any of their damn business. It sounds to me like the mook is hoping for a bribe.

The hardwood thing is particularly ridiculous because the association considers it a noise-control matter but Jen didn’t get any noise complaints in over a decade of living in the condo with hardwood floors.

I don’t think Jen’s worried the buyer will drop out because of the floors, but because H’s intransigence (1) will delay the closing, and buyer needs a home, and (2) would dissuade buyer from buying a condo where H will be the management. If H would issue the assessments-paid letter, Jen could give the buyer a credit for new flooring and pursue the board appeal without time pressure. However, buyer will still know that H is a pain in the ass.

Jen got a referral from her closing attorney for a litigator to do just that. :imp:

First - boo!

BUT! I bought my wife a new (replacement) iPhone, which came with a free one-year subscription to Apple+. So Yay! for me (at least).