I will remember this every time my financial aid goes haywire, when my professors act like douchebags, and when I get my semi-annual “what am I going to do with my life” bouts of the blues. 
I don’t know how I’m going to take another Christmas season of the same music, the same commercials, the same stresses, the same annoyances, the same unendurable shit every year. And it’s going to start in JUNE?!? I think the Christmas hoopla should start December 23. That’s enough for me. A long weekend of Christmas cheer.
I’ll be over in the corner, whimpering.
- featherlou, your real-life Christmas elf :mad: :rolleyes: :mad:
Whatever did become of the whole pool via your backyard fiasco? I’m guessing you still don’t have a fence as they seem do have driven through again.
Dear Family & Friends,
Yes, I am an academic.
Yes, it is summer, and I do not have to go into the “office” for another few months.
No, I AM NOT ON VACATION. There is a certain amount of research and writing that I am required to do, and this is really the only time I have to do it. I understand that you had summers off when you were a student, and that you think I’m some sort of never-grown-up version of that, but it’s not. true. Especially if I want that ever-more-elusive tenure-track job, which I won’t get just by showing up to work and being pleasant (talking to you, Mom).
You are of course excused. You have justification for your action.
A little background on my rant though.
The building is a hospital built about 15 years ago. The elevators are serviced monthly by Mr Otis himself. They are always in perfect working order, and when they aren’t, Mr Otis on onsite within 24 hours. A couple of them are possibly the slowest elevators in the county, but that’s another rant. They are more reliable than Old Faithful nonetheless.
Asswipe in question is a doctor that has worked there for at least as many years as I have. [Insert favorite anecdote/stereotypical brash asshole doctor reference here.] The stereotype is based on him. His only redeeming feature is that he is damn good at what he does. Unfortunately that only nourishes his sense of entitlement and og complex.
This was simply a rant upon an asswipe reveling in his nature.
Is there any parent out there who hasn’t needed to pit their kids?
I came home this afternoon and sat down to do some classwork and get caught up on SDMB.
(10 minutes) Damn mosquito. CLAP Peel mosquito off hand and drop it in the trash can
(15 minutes) Nother one. Repeat
(10 minutes) Where are these things coming from? SLAP! Missed dammit.
(5 minute) He’s back. SLAM book on it Peel off page. Deposit in trash
(15 minutes) Now I’m getting pissed. SLAP! Peel
Did the kids open a window or something? I make the rounds and find the back door STANDING WIDE OPEN!! The A/C has been going all day. I am NOT a happy camper. They should be thanking whatever angel is looking over them that they are with their mother tonight.
It is now 6 hours later and I am still staking vampire gnats.
2 weeks ago, got myself a shiny new copy of Tomb Raider Anniversary (shut up, I’m a loser, I know).
Got it home, straight into the PS2. Where it has lived for the last 2 weeks, nobody has touched it. Nobody has touched the PS2. It’s all as it was the day I got it home.
I’ve played it a few times in the last few weeks, when I’ve had some time. It’s been good, though the loading’s been a bit sluggish. Mmm. May be coded a bit badly.
Then today I go to turn it on. Checking memory card, good. Loading opening credits/fmv, good. Press “start” or “x” - black screen.
Black screen with no loady. WTF? Sit there for 15 minutes, no change. You’re kidding, right?
The game hasn’t been anywhere but in my PS2 for a fortnight. I take it out, check the bottom. Minute scratch. Surely this can’t be the problem? Put in Eye Toy Kinetic Combat. Loads first time.
Now I am crying. My shiny new game, with advanced jubblytronics and I can’t play because it hates the PS2 or the PS2 hates it. And can I find the receipt? Noooo, of course not.
Preach it! This is what I’ve sometimes encountered when trying to register at various sites:
Choose a password
I enter one of my standard passwords
Confirm password
I re-enter password
Your password must contain at least six characters
(It would have been too hard for you to tell me that at the start?) Okay, I revise password to six characters
Your password must contain at least one capital letter
Fuckers. I revise password so it’s six characters with one capital letter
Your password contains symbols which are not permitted.
Fuck it. I’ll find what I need at another website.
I understand security. But is it really too much to ask that they say “Please choose a password, which must be at least six characters, contain at least one numeral and at least one capital letter, and may not contain symbols”?? Is it really too much to ask??
Bastards.
They took it down again.
It seems to be a yearly thing with them.
You got the advanced jubblytronics? OOoooooh.
(Just as an aside, my husband calls his boy parts his jubblies. Now you’ve got me thinking about what “jubblytronics” would be. 
)
Since the only use of “jubblies” I know of is from Austin Powers movies, this amuses me highly.
Now to mini-rant!
Boy I dated until I didn’t want to anymore–I don’t want to go out with you anymore. Please don’t call me again, and don’t have your sister call me for you. She’s not your procurer.
Boss–your dog is cute. She’s a nice dog. Sometimes it’s nice to have company while I am typing up yet another long, boring report. However, she shits on the floor and barks at the clients. Leave her at home!
Dad–wipe up your own damn spills for once.
Adorable underage file girl–break up with your boyfriend, please, or stop complaining about him to me.
I am incredibly tempted to call up my grandparents and give them a piece of my mind.
I got a call from my aunt yesterday, which is usually torture enough as she goes on for hours and is a really strong baptist, as well as being super-mom/wife/everything. She’s annoying.
She starts telling me how my grandparents are worried about me and she agrees. See, I’m starting my senior year of college this fall. I live a few hours away in the same state. I love it here, less crime, less racism, less hard-line conservatism, and my allergies don’t kill me anymore. I go home maybe twice a year, never for more than 3 days since I have a job and responsibilities and shit to do, you know?
Anyway, they’re worried because they think I don’t go home because I don’t like them and because my mom is engaged to a new man (never knew my dad, so this is one more in a long series of love interests) and because I don’t have a home church to go back to . They don’t understand because they’ve always kept a room for me at their house and always want me to stay with them when I’m in town, but I never do.
They are fucking stifling!! They’ve always lived under this delusion that they raised me. They babysat me in lieu of daycare; my mother raised me. Whenever I’m at their house its “here’s this cool diet thing” and “why don’t you cut your hair” “why would you want to read that” “I bet that’s God trying to get your attention” “don’t take that class” “here’s this cool book about (I kid you not) how The Jews helped us win the Revolutionary War” “why don’t you have a church” "how about you say grace :dubious: " and if I try to leave, its “where are you going” “when will you be back” “why don’t you see your old friends”.
On the other hand, at my mom’s I can come and go as I please and she treats me like a responsible and capable adult.
They also think I’m just going into the Peace Corps because I don’t have a bond at home, since my mom has moved in with her new dude and I didn’t keep in touch with my old friends. Guess what? I hate Visalia. It sucks ASS. And I’d sooner go into a homeless shelter than take that old room at their house. I’m a fucking adult!! I don’t need to be reminded to wash my hands and brush my teeth. Maybe I want to go into the peace corps to do some good in the world and find direction for myself. Maybe I don’t believe in your Southern Baptist shit anymore. God, sure, but not the part where women can’t be ministers and gays are horrible (in fact, I’m going to the SF Pride Parade this weekend) and we’re in the end times. I don’t have a church because I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about religion, but i can’t tell you that because you’ll start praying over me and tell me how I’ve strayed.
Just leave me the fuck alone and let me be an adult. I am not, nor was I ever, your child. I don’t hate you, I just hate that you won’t accept that.
CAN WE PLEASE GO BACK TO THIS. I nearly killed close family and friends over this subject this week. I’m thrilled to throw a party and entertain. I’m not suggesting my throwing a party means I think you’re burdening me. However, its VERY hard to plan a large party food and drink wise if I have no idea of numbers.
SO FUCKING RUDE I CAN NOT EVEN THINK STRAIGHT!!
This is directed at my salsa instructor last night. Your methodology sucks.
That is all.
Cripes, Visalia? You don’t have to say another thing.
Says the girl from Merced . . .
As Telperien mentioned, I’m using the Austin Powers meaning of jubblies (boobs)
See, in Tomb Raider the original Lara Croft’s boobs were rather rigid and pyramidal. In Anniversary, with all of the 2nd-gen graphics, shading and mapping her boobs are now rather more rounded, soft and somewhat bouncy. Hence advanced jubblytronics. Something lonely, sad videogame geeks everywhere have been waiting 10 years for.
Also, we have a happy ending and a kudos for EB Games, Salisbury South Australia. We took the game back with a print out of my mastercard statement showing I’d purchased it. They just swapped the game over for a new copy without even looking at my card statement - outside the 7 day returns policy, and without me having purchased their scratch guarantee. Good guys there.
Fuck you, you asshole. A red light means you’re supposed to fucking stop. Especially when there are pedestrians crossing the street, fuckstick.
And to my beloved furballs-STOP PUKING ALL OVER MY STUFF!!! Go hack it up in Baby Sis’s room, please.
“Scratch guarantee?” As far as I’m concerned, the fact that it’s new is my scratch guarantee. Damn, I’m feeling old and crotchety today.
Get off my lawn!
(Advance jubblytronics are boobs, eh? Learn something every day. )
ETA: Forgot my rant! I am working on making landscape design and consultation my business. I am getting a whole new appreciation for self-employed people who are constantly having family and friends asking them for just a little favour (for free, of course). My sister got over $100 worth of consulting today for free; I had a feeling that something wasn’t right, and I figured out that she was taking advantage of me (and I was reluctantly letting her, of course). That’s it - no more freebies. I paid my money and spent my time and effort learning about plants and designing - it didn’t come to me for free, and I’m not giving it away any more!
That is a separate rant entirely, EB games try to flog you a “guarantee” when you buy their games. For $5 you get a guarantee that for up to a year after you buy the game (or something like that) if you scratch it, regardless of how you scratch it, they’ll replace it free of charge.
For a game you only brought a week ago it’s pretty lame, but I can see where it’d be valuable if, say, 8mths down the track your kid took a key to the bottom of the DVD or something. My main concern was that outside their 7 day “no questions” return policy, they’d just turn around to me and say “Bugger off, you don’t have your receipt and anyway you didn’t buy your replacement guarantee so nyanyanyah.”
But they didn’t, it’s good, and I’m happy (yay cartoon boobs!)
Oh, okay. That makes a certain kind of sense.