Wise advice, but hard to follow! We definitely will not give him the rent money, nor let him stay with us when he gets evicted, but I sure hope we don’t have to go through those scenarios.
Anti-rant: After many emails and phone calls, the grill parts I ordered last month finally shipped yesterday! (^o^)/ I hope they managed to ship the right parts.
Mini-rant: Sweetie, Microsoft isn’t trying to get you to contact them by displaying a garish pop-up window with a Michigan phone number. >.<
You know what has annoyed me several times in the last 12 hours? I turn on the TV briefly, maybe I am having a snack or waking up to a cup of coffee. Something going on in the world, perhaps? Who got dumped by the admin, how many shot, who’s a pedophile, you know, all the normal stuff.
Ok, so it is the hurricane disaster. That’s a mess all right. Fine. But EVERY TIME they show footage out of New Orleans, they feed it from a camera that is mounted on something very flimsy so that it vibrates with every little baby’s breath of breeze.
For God’s sake. Yeah, things looks soggy, but it does not even appear to be raining. The trees aren’t writhing about in gale-force winds- in fact, they are barely even rustling. They are jerking me around with this shaky-camera drama. DAMMIT! :mad::mad:
I pit the hamsters. I posted here and in the sidewalk thread last night, saw my posts, got distracted and did other stuff for a while. Came back and both well thought out and highly articulate posts were gone!
Purple, my heart hurts for you. Grief is grief, don’t let anyone try to tell you what you should be feeling, your feelings are your own. My BB’s wife of 40 years died 8 years ago. He cries at odd times because he misses her so much. He takes flowers to her grave 3 or 4 times a year. I don’t go with him because he likes to sit by her grave and talk to her. I feel that this is a normal part of love and grief, not a slap in the face to me.
Mr Ralph Huge is going to have to learn how to pee outside pretty soon. He’s almost outgrown the kitty door going into the catio and outgrew the litter robots a month ago. It’s actually very entertaining watching him try to go out the kitty door now, he has to lay on his belly and push himself in with his back legs.
I don’t blame Ralph. Steve’s Kitten aka Shadow was the one who “house trained” him. When he was small enough for her to move, she would grab him by the back of the neck and pull/drag him to the litter box. Once he got too big for her to move, she started hissing, slapping and biting the back of his legs to move him in the right direction. Now that he has had all of his puppy shots, I am taking him to the dog park. Hopefully, he will influenced by peer pressure to start doing his business like a dog.
We had a severe windstorm here that knocked over a section of the fence between me and a neighbor. They have a couple of older kids who, to their credit, temporarily propped it up by hammering a stake into the yard on my side of the fence (winds are almost consistently from the west) and bracing the fence with a 2x4 against the stake. Works great. They said they’d dig up the broken fence post and install a new one “next week”.
My problem? This was 10 months ago, in the summer of 2018. They’re cheerfully enjoying their yard while my side of the fence looks like the ass end of a hillbilly-country billboard. No, I don’t socialize with them much, so I haven’t brought it up. Plus their air conditioner is starting to sound like an industrial grinder. Municipal bylaws require that A/Cs and pool pumps be “maintained in proper working order”. I was at a friend’s house the other day and both their air conditioner and their neighbor’s are so quiet you can hardly tell they’re running. Mine is louder because it’s older, but at least it has the even drone of an ordinary air conditioner and not the aforementioned industrial grinder. I believe I need to propose a little business meeting with the patriarch next door to sort out a couple of issues. They’re actually very nice people but somehow just oblivious to a lot of stuff.
I had that problem several years ago. I:
a) cleaned the trap
b) used a bottle brush on the sprayer arms
c) took out and hand washed the racks
d) wiped down the interior
e) put a cup of vinegar in an upright mug on the top rack
Worked like a charm–Good luck!
I wish to lodge a complaint about people who put their pet charities linked to their birthdays on Facebook. Yeah, I know, I don’t have to contribute. I also know I don’t have to even acknowledge their birthdays. But it still pisses me off.
I was taught that one does not request gifts, and that includes donations in lieu of gifts. I’m glad people have causes that they support, but if I’m not sending you a card, I’m certainly not going to donate to your charity.
Yeah, I know - it’s my personal issue. But I’m still allowed to hate it and bitch about it, right??
I have never really looked into Amazon Prime Day deals, figuring that it’s probably a pretty good way to save a whole lot of money on stuff I don’t really need, but that’s fine.
I opened the USA Today app to read the latest doom and gloom, and scrolled top to bottom checking out the latest hyperbole.
I noticed a few articles mentioning Prime Day, then a few more, then a few more.
I counted the articles that referenced Amazon Prime Day on the “front page” of the app and counted 24.
Nothing deserves 24 articles in the same newspaper.
To be fair, one of the articles was about striking workers, but the rest were all thinly disguised adverts.
In no particular order of importance, except the first: (((horseshoe))). It’s not enough, but it’s sincere.
Also, it looks like you and I went on similar length walkabouts, flatlined. Glad you’re back, and still a riot.
Re: the dishwasher. Mine developed a bad case of The Stank, and I discovered a secondary filter. Even with prewashed dishes, the level of ugh was pretty bad. (I just Googled "how to clean filter + make and model of dishwasher.)
Finally… Wear your seatbelts, people. Just do it. Friday night, I heard something pretty catastrophic on the highway near my house. I couldn’t see it, because there’s a thick stand of trees. Figuring that, if someone needed help fast, I should just call 911 with my “earwitness” account. Sirens began arriving more quickly than I could have driven around the block to check, so all good. The ambulance arrived noisy, but left quiet, so I thought it was good news. Maybe someone dropped a trailer or something, right?
I saw the obituary today. My neighbor took the curve too fast, and was ejected when his truck rolled. Only 42. Great guy. The ambulance wasn’t in a hurry leaving because he was dead at the scene.
I am growing weary of charity requests in general. Stuff like the cash register asking me to round off my change and donate the excess to … some cause.
I have certain organizations I trust and donate to. I don’t have the time nor desire to vet random organizations for effectiveness and percentage of administrative costs, so I turn all others down. But I still feel guilty when I say no.
Ah summer in Minnesota.
Rain. Every. Day. Highs in the upper 80’s to mid 90’s. Air so thick you could cut it into cubes and sell it.
Mosquitoes. Lots of gnats and biting flies this year.
So what was the issue with not being able to get out of the house when it was 20 below? I don’t find this any less unpleasant.
Hey, all the green is nice to look at, but I can look at it out of a window. Call me back in the fall when I can go outside again.
Come home, wife says, “hey the back yard is looking a little shaggy”. I think (and say) “no problem, I’ll mow it since I’m home early” (this was all a few hours ago).
2 rounds from done, feel a sharp pain on my neck. Then a few on my arm. Then one on my leg. Oh shit!
Fucking yellow jackets. We counted 16 stings. 10 on my back, 3 on my arm, 1 on my leg, 1 right over my left eye, and 1 on my upper lip.
I waited until after dark, killed the nest (I hope). I’ll get the mower out of the middle of the yard tomorrow. I hate yellow jackets. :mad:
Benadryl and a few beers, night night!
Dear music streaming services. I’ve done nothing in selecting tracks and making playlists to even hint that I might like Bon Iver. That’s because I really don’t like them at all. Please quit suggesting them. I hate them more than the motherfucking Beatles.
Ah, I feel better already. Carry on.
One of my Facebook friends is stealing other photographers’ photos, photoshopping them up a bit to make them look more like they belong on some Christian inspiration calendar, and presenting them as her own.
She’s done this for a while. I noticed a few months ago that some of her photos looked way beyond her abilities, but didn’t jump to plagiarism until someone actually called her out for using his photo. Her friends all jumped to her defense even though the guy posted a side-by-side comparison. It was definitely altered, but also definitely the same original photo. I reverse searched a bunch of her photos at that time because I’m petty and secretly love drama if I’m not involved in it and I’m even-more-secretly kind of competitive, so when I think we’re about the same skill level and then she posts a brilliant nightscape with the sky a million shades of blue and purple and I’m over here just trying to figure out how to use my flash, I get jealous… and then feel vindicated when it turns out she cheated.
But on top of being petty, jealous, competitive, and dramatic, I’m also cowardly, so I didn’t call her out at that time because I just didn’t have the energy to jump into a Facebook fight, especially when all her friends were defending her vociferously despite pretty clear evidence and it seemed unlikely anyone would be on my side. So I let it go.
She just posted another one, though, that was clearly not hers. Tineye confirms. It first showed up in 2007 and has been used a lot on religious blogs since then. And she posted it with this whole “Wow this one took a long time to get right! The light changes so fast and it was tough to get a clear shot of the sky without power lines in the way. But I guess patience pays off!” thing. Plus, she watermarks her photos, lists them on her “Photography by [name]” page, and sells them. So there’s no confusing her intentions.
So once again… do I want to be petty or cowardly? I’m leaning toward cowardly, but it still irritates me seeing all the fawning “omg this is amazing you’re sooooooo talented!” comments and all her “thank u it wasn’t easy” responses. :rolleyes:
Dear Marble Brewery. Stop over carbonating your beer. I tired of having to have a towel ready every time I open a can of barley pop.
(Pushing pretty close here to micro-rants I fear, but what the hell).
You could always report her to the original photographer. What’s she’s doing is committing intellectual property theft, and if she’s profiting from it then the actual owners would like to know so they can stop her and (hopefully) recover some of the money she’s essentially stolen from them. If she’s made enough money from it, it might even rise to the level of felony theft.
NB: I am not a lawyer nor an expert on IP law, but I do know it’s taken pretty damned seriously.
ETA: Bonus is that if she is charged and loses the court case, all the people who have defended her and attacked those who pointed out what she was doing will have rotten eggs all over their faces, and you can gloat (secretly) that you took her down. They will probably never admit it, but they’ll at least shut up about it.
I vote for petty. Drop the dime to Getty Images. If they own any of those images, they will set her straight toot suite, at about $750 per pilfered image. If she weren’t selling them I might feel differently, but she is so eff her.
I agree that it is pretty annoying, but I’d direct your ire at Facebook itself- it’s pushing it harder and harder, including saying that it’ll donate the first money to ‘get you started’ (a pathetic amount, £1 here) if you just tick ‘yes’ and pick a charity, especially for friends who’ve, say, recently lost someone to cancer, they’re going to feel bad turning down ‘free money’ for a charity which helped. Facebook are just being manipulative bastards, presumably they get some kind of a cut or kickback. One of my friends posted one last month saying ‘Please don’t donate, I just want to make Facebook cough up their quid’ 
I mean, it even tried to make me set up a Charity fundraiser when my last car started giving up the ghost and I posted asking friends to keep an eye out for any suitable replacements; it’s keyword monitoring for stuff like ‘terminal’ and ‘nearly dead’ then pushing fundraising crap on people.
Do this. NOW. She needs to be stopped.
And often the first step is that the photographer will send her a “cease and desist” email, basically “If you don’t take these down, there will be legal action.” Taking her to small claims court is easy, and if it’s a pro photographer, they’ve done it dozens of times with clients who don’t pay.
If she’s got any brains, she’ll stop, and that’ll be the end of it (and her over-the-top photos). A bit of humiliation, you feel righteous, but she won’t be bankrupt…
That was in case you’re hesitating to inflict real damage on her. If you’d love to, well then the sky’s the limit. I have a friend who’ll post “Doesn’t this look like this…?” on others’ artwork, and he avoids the drama while they sputter and make excuses (but everyone knows…) If you’re too cowardly for that, maybe there’s a way you can get others to call her out. Hmmm, just show some of your friends-in-common the originals, and let them do your dirty work?
Either way, report back.
Then she needs to learn how to revoke LinkedIn’s access to her email account.
Seriously. When you sign up for LinkedIn and any number of other “services” (pretty sure Facebook did this), they offer to send a message to all your contacts - only, this gives them access to your gmail or whatever. It seems (from LinkedIn’s help pages) that this is a one-time import of contacts - but until she manually removes them, LinkedIn has them stored. They claim they don’t spam people but really, who are you going to believe?