There you go! Maybe something in a purple tint. That should really shake up the parents! 
Shit, that’s exactly where my mind went! (been reading a lot of black twitter feeds recently)
I think there are perhaps four strips that I read with any regularity: Bizarro, Rhymes With Orange, Nonsequitur, and Pearls. And I print out the crossword for the Ms and me. This paper employs some 200 people, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what they do.
From your location I can guess the newspaper you are referring to. It’s too bad, I used to work there (35 years ago, before I moved to SF). I’ll bet a lot of those employees are involved in printing and distribution, which still requires people even when there aren’t many pages.
I worked for newspapers for 40 years before I retired, and they are all struggling with getting enough revenue to cover the costs of printing and distribution. The internet has eaten their lunch, their dinner and their holiday turkey. I know it’s the ineluctable force of history at work, but I still think it’s a shame.
My husband does this a lot, though he does it for a semi-legitimate reason. He’s usually trying to stay out of the way. That said, what I wish he’d stay out of the way by taking the kids somewhere else so I can visit with my mom while we cook instead of constantly saying, “I know sweetie - I’m sorry I can’t play right now. I’m trying to cook. Want to help? No, I know you want to play. But I can’t right now. You’ve got toys in the next room or you can go outside.”
Walking into the bedroom to find him riveted to videos on his Nook while I’m navigating two kids, trying to talk to mom and have already been cooking for 2 hours with the expectation I’ll be cooking for at least another 2 or 3 makes me want to kick him in the shin.
Let’s inject a little bit of rank stupidity into chizzuk’s credit card fraud story. So I woke up this morning to an email from Wells Fargo confirming that I’d changed some contact information for my online banking. What? I didn’t change any contact information! This fraud is more serious than I thought!
So I logged in and discovered that there was a third phone number on the account. No money missing, no other information changed, but ACK! And what an odd coincidence, a Google search traced the number back to my college town! Someone at my alma mater has stolen my identity, I thought!
So I called up Wells Fargo again, reported the issue, and they closed my checking account and moved everything to a new one. And changed my banking password. Which means I now have the pain in the ass of changing over my auto-debit for my student loan and my car insurance, as well as notifying my employer to change my direct deposit info, etc. A big pain in the ass, but at least this nefarious criminal’s little test foray into my online banking has been halted! Ha ha!
But that “new” phone number that had been added is niggling at me. And after about half an hour, it finally occurs to me, and I confirm, after combing through some really old bills and emails, that the suspicious number was actually my old cell phone number from 10 years ago and that yes, it definitely was on the account at some point, and no, I really can’t remember but what it might have still been on the account the whole time as a secondary line and I just never took it off when I changed carriers or even bothered to look.
So the nefarious hacker is just me, with big holes in my memory. And now I’ve caused a huge hassle for myself. I’ve got one Amex card left standing and I’ll probably drop it down a storm drain tomorrow.
Yeah, it’s too bad. Some papers allow the reporters to write the headlines, because they get bonuses for the number of clicks. Just wrong, IMO. The Oregonian used to do that (we were told on a tour of the paper’s offices), but new management stopped it. I think most reporters were relieved, as that’s an editor’s job. For some reason, they still print a paper every day, which is available at vending machines. It’s only a matter of time before they go to strictly online, though.
By the way, the Oregonian is no longer where you remember it. They now occupy a more modern space with open floor plans and rows of computers that are assigned to whomever sits down there first. What’s really weird is that the copy editors are in a different building. Everything has been digitized and is searchable online, so no more stacks of paper and endless filing cabinets.
The way my family communicates (or rather, doesn’t), sitting around talking is a lot less painful than trying to help and getting someone angry at you because you failed to read their mind and do what they wanted you to do.
Last time I volunteered to do dishes, I got snapped at 3 times in like 5 minutes for various inconsequential bullshit* and ended up walking away to let my sister do it all like she apparently wanted (or she wouldn’t have been a royal ass about everything).
- Like setting some utensils I dried in a convenient place on the counter next to me before sorting out which drawers they went into. Because all of a sudden she NEEDED that space.
Have you ever suggested to him that he do this?
Not knowing how old your children are, aren’t there chores you can order them to do?
Got an automated phone message today from a rental car company demanding their car back. I turned it in last Sunday.
Tried to call back the security department, they if course are on holiday. When I tried to find the phone number of the specific branch in Chicago, I noticed all of the really shitty reviews. Needless to say, they didn’t answer the phone and all of their voice mailboxes were full. I have a bad feeling about this.
I didn’t steal it, promise. And I’m sure as shit not going to pay any more, just because you guys couldn’t seem to find it.
My housemates have been drinking all day, every day, for the past two weeks solid. I have no recourse, I just have to tolerate it.
This sucks.
Leaving for Germany and Italy Tuesday, for a month.
Get letter from IRS this Friday. The tax authorities want us to explain a securities issue before Dec 24. Or pay a HUGE fine.:eek: financial advisor out until Monday . Way to bugger up your weekend. That being said the people at the IRS were nice on the phone.
Long story, but I’m being screwed out of money I was supposed to receive, and I’m not entirely sure how to fix it, and it’s very hard to contact people who can help me. Damn it!
Some men, perhaps. I spend the day cooking.
I did. She specifically wanted me to use it to change my locks on him. I chose otherwise (and dammit, New Guy, don’t make me regret that.) She’s also buying me a bunch of new clothes and doing my laundry for me and wants to take me out next week to buy me a pair of boots.
I kinda feel like a whore.
On the other hand, I could really use new tops, having purged so much old stuff during The Move following The Other Shoe’s death and typically of me didn’t replace much.
The laundry thing, in particular, is a mixed blessing: on-site laundry is both crappy and unreliable, and I don’t have wheels ATM to go to an off-site laundromat, so she’s saving me both money and effort, but on the other hand I ALREADY have heard comments on which shirts I am or am not wearing, how often I change my bra, etc.
ETA GuanoLad, are they celebrating or drowning their sorrows? Happy drunks can be annoying enough …
Rant I posted on Thursday on my Facebook:
Today’s rant: My mother, the bargain hunter, strikes again. Her method of saving money on food generally involves
[ol]
[li]Buy food on sale, regardless of whether one needs that food.[/li][li]Go back to store, buy more of that sale item.[/li][li]Leave food items in pantry until they’re at least six months past their “best before” date.[/li][li]Decide that it’s time to clean out the pantry, because two retirees just won’t eat THAT much pudding, ever, especially since one is lactose intolerant.[/li][li]Send food to daughter’s house, so that she can dispose of it.[/li][/ol]
Does anyone have any recommendations for the use of (not exaggerating here) two dozen random boxes of Jello pudding, all 6+ months past their stamped date? I’m not really worried about safety for an item like this - I really doubt that there are enough perishable ingredients in a box of pudding to cause health problems - but WTF does the average person use boxed pudding for? I’m not a food snob, but if I want pudding, I make it from scratch, because it’s really no more trouble to mix it up from my own ingredients than to follow the directions on a box…
Today’s bonus items were a basket of clothing items that fit exactly no one in my home, with a couple of things that make me wonder whether Ma has suffered a head injury or has undiagnosed dementia. (Seriously: a reversible vest, with a moonlit snow scene on one side, and howling wolves on the other, in a size 2XL. And a pair of very nice Eddie Bauer jeans, ladies’ size 6, with an inseam that I’m guessing at about 36". My daughter wears a size 2, and about a 29 or 30 inch inseam. I wear a size 12, with a 33 inch inseam. Back when I wore a size six - two kids ago - I’d have hemmed the hell out of them and been happy, because it’s hard to find smallish sizes with long legs, but believe me, size six isn’t on my radar any time soon! And, even if I were to gain enough weight to wear that vest? Short of a traumatic brain injury, I can’t imagine any circumstance that would make me want to!)
I only put up with this shit because, if I don’t let Ma send it here for proper disposal? Someday down the road, I’ll be digging through a whole house full of this crap. At least this way, I can just toss or donate a little at the time.
And really, except for matters of (no) taste on this last batch of clothes, this is not a change of behavior for my mom. This is her normal. For very small values of normal.
I wonder if GuanoLad’s roommates would pass the bottle…
I like pudding. 
Not sure I need two dozen boxes, though. Is it not ok to donate them to a food pantry on account of the date? Or any of the other stuff your mom has been storing? There are a bunch of food drives this time of year, wouldn’t be hard to find one convenient for you.
Woman-time rant ahead, skip if you don’t like reading that vaginas do stuff:
I’ve been spotting steadily all week, and I normally don’t have that problem often. I think my girly things are protesting the lack of sex since breaking up with New Guy.
I sometimes picture my body parts all hanging out together while I’m asleep, and I had a clear vision earlier today of my organs all meeting up for a beer. Liver is in a corner alone nursing a Shirley Temple and complaining bitterly to anyone who will listen about being the designated driver, while Clit grabs Brain and drags it off to a private corner: “Listen, I know you and his brain didn’t get along too well, but those of us down here? We got along really REALLY well. So whatever beef you and Heart had with his parts, you better fix that shit up in a hurry, okay? Cuz I’m sick and tired of listening to Vagina whine, whine, whine and weeping bloody tears all the damn time. You hear me? Go make nice with the owner of the Magical Penis TM for Chrissakes.” Meanwhile Right Hand is thinking, “Oh, you think YOU’RE tired?”
Unfortunately, for liability reasons, the local food pantries would just toss this stuff - I’ve asked before. My friend who owns and operates a daycare can’t serve it either. I’m sure it’s not dangerous, but I don’t know what to do with it, and I can’t bring myself to just throw it away…
I do live in a college town. Maybe I should just go abandon it on the doorsteps of some student - they’ll eat anything, right?
I haven’t asked, but I don’t think it’s either. They’re just alcoholics.
Craig’s List, including a caveat about the date. Someone will be happy to take them off your hands.