September's shot already (mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. White male born in the US goes on a shooting spree. What is the reaction? “Let’s not talk about gun control” and “Let’s pray some more”. And let’s not forget how much these gun fanatics bitch about how it’s unconstitutional to take away their guns, but Heaven forbid the same nuts actually honor the rest of the constitution.

Any other news item which happens to have a “non-standard” name (as in, “Hey, Bubba Joe Jim Bob, I don’t reckon that there name is a 'Merican name. What you think? Damn dirty foreigners.”) is automatically polluted with comments and reactions, both online and in real life, by bigots wishing for odd things like mass deportations and even mass executions.

I’m teaching three classes for Year 12 (the classes run for 3 semesters, oddly enough), two of which are firmly convinced they do not need to study, let alone practice, for their upcoming online assessment which they must pass to graduate. Guess how many are going to pass. Go ahead, guess. I dare you.

The third class just started two weeks ago (yeah, I know; right smack dab in the middle of August–next clown that tells me the school year begins in September is going to land on the Moon) and although they’re a bit more academic than the other two classes, they’re already convinced that English is not something they need to take seriously. I guess someone in Australia lied to them about the language of instruction there. While it’s not English (I kid!), it’s close enough.

The temperature is now 25 and the high is projected to be 34. (Those are degrees C, in case you were wondering). And, yes, it’s humid as Hell.

Oh, more fun. My Georgia state driver license expires in November. I cannot renew it online because Georgia took too damn long to get around to being RealID compliant. Whoopee! And how will they be sure I’m really me the next time I’m in Georgia and apply for a driver license? Why, I’ll show them my passport, the same damn document I showed to get my current license.

So, to avoid that nonsense, I’m prepping to take the China driver license test before my GA license dies. Damn thing is 100 questions, and I must get 90 correct to pass. 90%? WTF? Judging by what I see with my own eyes here, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the majority of drivers are driving without a license. There’s no way they passed that test given the way they drive.

Whew! That’s enough for now. I hate fucking bureaucracy.

2

Perhaps they are constantly checking the source material while they drive?

3

One of my car’s headlights burnt out recently. I don’t know exactly when; with daylight lasting so late, I don’t drive after dark often. Being a newer vehicle, I figured I’d just open the back of the light, twist out the old bulb, twist in the new one, replace the cap. Except the bulb wouldn’t budge. They guy at Autozone couldn’t get it out either. Damn!

YouTube showed some people twisting it out. Liars! Others removed the whole assembly which would give plenty of access to remove the bulb. It looked fairly easy. Turns out, it was. I probably spent more time initially trying to remove the bulb itself than it took to remove the whole assembly. I replaced both sides’ bulbs to hopefully forestall having to do this again for a while.

Question: did I waste money buying contact lubrication? I hope it’ll make removal easier next time.

4

I swear my children are going to drive me into an insane asylum or an early grave. This morning my older son was irritated with me because, and I’m not making this up, I did not punish his brother for retaliating against him. Yes, you read that correctly - retaliate.

5

In an anti-rant sorta way, tomorrow is the start of our school year… and the first day in over forty years I won’t have to be there!

Fellow retired teachers kept telling me that I wouldn’t notice over the summer: “Oh, this summer doesn’t really count, you won’t FEEL retired until classes start”. Well, bring it on, Universe, I’m ready to FEEEEEEL…
Oh, you want a rant? Daughter’s getting married in a few weeks. They want “everything handmade”, from decor to flowers to potluck rehearsal dinner… which means SO much is still unplanned (and not-even-thought-about yet), AND she just lost her phone which won’t help with that… oh, and the fiancé decided to keep playing dangerous sports until the wedding…

…which he will now be attending in a cast.

6

My oldest son came home from I think kindergarten and explained to me in that earnest way small children have when they are sharing some deep truth they have uncovered, that it is OK to hit someone if they hit you back.

7

My nephew came home from kindergarten angrily indignant. “Well, if I can’t hit anybody, how am I supposed to make them do what I want them to do?!!!”

8

A frequent complaint about the written part of the Spanish test is that it’s more about deciphering convoluted grammar than about knowing what to do. Maybe the Chinese one is the same.

9

Surely the cast is handmade, one of those old plaster-of-paris types?

Is he the student or the teacher? :wink:

Would that it were. A couple of years ago, the government farmed out the translation to professional (and actually capable) translators. Now the language is perfectly understandable. The questions, though, are yanked from a database of over one thousand (the app I’m using to prep has 1,627 questions) and some of them are about fairly obscure things. Actually, it seems to me that anything done in English in this country is so difficult because China is peeved at the English language for using byzantine instead of Chinese to mean “complex or intricate”.

10

Finishing sixth grade turned out to be quite the chore, eh? :wink: :smiley:

11

First day of school for Chinese schools. Some loon kills eight elementary school students and injures two others. The culprit was released from prison after serving his sentence for attempted murder “last June” (I don’t know if they mean this past June or June last year).

12

When my daughter was in pre-school, she had a boy that wouldn’t quit tormenting her. Pushing, teasing, just being a pain.
So she clocked him.
When her teacher asked why, she responded with a quote from “The Aristocats”, which was almost on a loop at my house: “Ladies don’t start fights, but they can finish them!”
Her father and I were called in for a discussion that day.

13

PSA: if you find yourself telling a(n attractive) coworker that “the wife… she doesn’t understand me”…
Do not.

14

You would have been called in for a much longer discussion if her response had been a quote from “The Aristocrats”…

15

Dog got in the chicken coop yesterday and filled up on chicken feed. Woke me at 2 a.m. needing to go outside most urgently. Yet I still wound up removing mass quantities of dog vomit from the carpet before work this morning.

16

That’s precisely where my mind went. I had to reread the post, while thinking “Maybe the kids really liked Gilbert Gottfried from Alladin. But a loop? Naah, they wouldn’t have had that on a loop…”

Ha! I thought about counting my school days, which started in '59 (Oh, I did leave a note on the board: “No more teacher’s dirty looks…”)

17

Saturday evening I posted on Facebook expressing my disbelief that Trump didn’t believe Cat 5 hurricanes ever happened..i

Some people responded with things like “he’s a moron” and “he’s a racist” (that last from someone who lives in FL, but has family in PR who were devastated by Maria).

And in chimes my sister-in-law, pointing out that “only 3 of them have ever hit us”. And linking to a 2 year old article saying that only 3 cat-5 hurricanes had ever hit the US. Which was true enough at the time (this was as Irma was heading our way) but is no longer true (Michael, 2018).

Others chimed in with links to the fact that there have been a lot more than 3 cat-5 hurricanes. I responded by saying “may have been true at the time if filtering for ones that were still cat-5 when they hit the mainland”.

Her response: “Since none of you all will listen to facts that disagree with your preconceived expectations, I’m bowing out”.

Pot, meet kettle. Yes, those links were buried in a lot of “Trump’s a moron” posts, but still…

I actually messaged her saying pretty much what I posted above. and saying that it doesn’t have to be cat-5 at landfall to be devastating (e.g. Katrina, Sandy). I then followed up with “I wouldn’t have bothered to respond but you accused others of refusing to look at facts that disagreed with their preconceptions”. Probably shouldn’t have bothered with that last. But if she can throw a hissy fit, so can I.

Oh, and Trump’s quote this weekend?

He said virtually the IDENTICAL thing… 2 years ago.

18

I don’t understand celebrity obsession, especially on news sites. Specifically this: following the horrific fire aboard the Conception, Rob Lowe tweeted that he had been aboard that vessel many times.

OK. How, exactly, is that newsworthy? CNN certainly thought enough of it to put it on their home page. Well, a link to it with a small font headline. But it adds nothing to the story, so what’s the point?

My head hurts.

19

I don’t understand celebrity obsession. Full stop.

20

Set’s CHIN WHISKERS, cat, if you’re going to slide off the arm of the chair, don’t FUCKING USE ME AS YOUR RESCUE ANCHOR. It’s not that far down to the floor, you asshole, and you were headed there feet first anyway.

THAT HURT.