So long and thanks for all the rants! (November mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
1

Yes, it’s still a little early in my time zone. Oh well.

No, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. :wink:

My junior cat, as dearly as I love him, has a couple of really obnoxious habits. He likes to walk from the hutch on my desk to the top of the bird cage next to it (only place we can really put the bird cage in this living room). Fortunately, this does not seem to worry the bird much (sometimes I wonder if she understands what predators are), and her cage is solid enough that she’s safe from any actual threat. Mounting that bulletin board on the side of my desk next to the bird cage so it sticks up a good foot from the tops of the desk and bird cage SEEMED like a useful solution to that, but Buddy just goes right over it. He’s also decided that the cork side (which faces the actual desk work area) is a dandy scratching post, and has utterly trashed it. Before I flip the bulletin board (there’s an undamaged half of the cork area at this point), gotta figure out how to prevent a recurrence.

I’d never realized before just how much easier than the average cat my senior cat, Allie, or her predecessor, Felix (RB), are/were to live with.

2

Argh! I had what I thought is a great mini-rant title for this month. Alas! I was pre-occupied and what the hey? I’ll have to hope I beat you to the punch next November. :smiley:

3

Better make a note in your calendar and remind me. :wink:

What was yours, out of curiosity?

4

I’ll send you a message.

5

If you apply chilli oil, it may change the colour of the cork slightly but will certainly stop the cat.

6

May well be worth a shot, if it wouldn’t harm the bird (remember, her cage is very close to the bulletin board in question).

7

Birds are not able to taste chilli, or at least are extremely tolerant of the heat.

8

We have hybrid work patterns following covid, very nice as I get three days on campus and two days at home. Working out the cost of travel, it’s cheapest for me to buy a flexible season ticket for the local railway network which comes as a smartcard. I buy a bundle of 8 journeys (have to specify start and finishing stations) and have to use them within 28 days.

On any day of travel, I can claim compensation if my journey is delayed by 15 minutes or more. I have had some small successes getting a refund and just as many have been rejected. My mini rant is that every time I put in a claim, I select the type of ticket as a smartcard (from the drop-down options) and every single time, I get a request for additional information asking what type of ticket and the smartcard number. Why can’t they put that in the claim application so I don’t have to keep going back to it to add information that they should already have?

9

I considered giving this its own post, but a mini-rant is sufficient.

Okay, I get it, I’m not as young as I used to be. And as such, some folks in my cohort are legendary for our tendency to eschew advances in technology (deliberate understatement). But, seriously, are we wrong?

In that spirit, WTF is up with stuff nowadays that requires one to go through a thousand step process of downloading, registering, updating, providing your CC, connecting to WI-FI, and Bluetooth, and access to all other devices on the network, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum?

IT’S A F*CKING BATHROOM SCALE!!!

Okay, okay, yes, one can certainly purchase a conventional bathroom scale that does not have these features. I attribute this to (blame) my beloved, who suffers from “chronic spendiness” where every purchase must be top-of-the-line, because…well, BECAUSE!!

But, honestly, product designers really need to dial it back with the “smart” crap. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. ISTM that there is a lot of wasted time/money/resources/programming skills going into all this. Shouldn’t these folks be working on something more useful? Yeah, yeah, they got our money, so I guess that’s the ultimate measure. :roll_eyes:

And everyone else needs to dial back the “download our app!” crap too.

10

Heh. Last week I was cooking dinner when my phone chimed to let me know my washing machine was finished washing. I ran down to move clothes to the dryer, only to get chimed again; my phone letting me know my sous vide was doing just fine.

11

My town is run by a bunch of clowns.

Clown #1, the Town Manager (think Mayor, but a hired administrator rather than an elected official). This guy has mismanaged multiple major projects in the town. We have the park upgrades that were supposed to be done by end of June, that are still not complete, and caused the closure of 2/3rds of our town pools, basketball courts and tennis courts for the entire summer. We have the bungled implementation of marijuana dispensaries, taking months to do what other towns in the area did in weeks. We have the brand spanking new parking deck in the middle of town that supposed to open February, but is still closed because of a failed inspection. The final shitburger this guy gave us were two lawsuits filed by former staffers for the hostile and sexist work environment he created. He’s now on his way out, maybe, with a cushy paid administrative leave until our feckless Town Council finishes an “investigation”.

Our town extended a shared Fire services agreement with a neighboring town, where the other town pays my town less next year than they paid for the same services 20 years ago. Turns out that our CFO was cut out of the process (as noted in her lawsuit against the town) and she thought it was a bad deal, just like 90% of the citizenry.

Last, but not least, our High School Football team has had its entire season vacated, and is out of the playoffs because our Athletic Director shit the bed and didn’t identify an ineligible player. Thankfully, he won’t be working for us anymore… because he got a new job somewhere else about 3 days before the news broke. We don’t even get the pleasure of firing his ass.

12

I stopped to fill my Jeep’s gas tank, which I put off until I’m nearly out. I purposely went to a new gas station, because they are a few cents cheaper per gallon than the cheapest station around.

As I scan my card and prepare to pump, I notice a bright red sticker on the pump. Every gas pump in my state has a green sticker from the weights&measures people letting consumers know the device is accurate. This pump has a red sticker that tells the consumer that they tested the device and it was not accurate.

So, I pumped my gas and hoped for the best. I pumped until the pump hit $50 and then I stopped and drove away. I’ve been buying $50 worth each time and getting my tank about 3/4 full. This time I was totally full. I assume the pump was inaccurate, but in my favor. WTF?

13

I am trying to get rid of a truck as scrap/parts. None of the “We buy shitty cars” places will take it without tires. The tires are worth at least $800 and you’re offering me less than $400 so why would I leave the old tires on? What you want me to buy 3 tires and pay to have them mounted so you can offer (checks notes) less than $400? No thanks." I have had that exact same conversation now 4 times with the same company because they keep harassing me via text and calls. Public Radio, although they advertise taking all cars running or not as donations, won’t even take it without tires. Whatever happened to, “We’ll load it on our flatbed and offer you $500 because the scrap is worth at least $800”?

14

And we thought it was bad when we needed a degree in electrical engineering to run a microwave.

15

Go to local tire shop and see if they will let you buy four used tires cheap. You can keep your good tires and they have four fewer tires to dispose of.

16

TOP OFF YOUR TANK IF YOU LIVE IN FLORIDA-HUGE GAS PRICE HIKE IN PROCESS

I’D DO SO IF YOU LIVE IN ANOTHER STATE TOO

[can keep track here]

Now I’ll explain why this is going here. Florida is one of the places that does gas price cycling, where they will periodically raise prices all at once, and for close to a week you’ll see the same regular price everywhere. Then competitors will then try to undercut the competition by 1-3 cents per day, until they all get too far below wholesale, at which point they will jack it back up again.

Of course, by “they” I mean a specific gasoline brand. Gate Petroleum. They will most commonly do this on a Tuesday afternoon, typically every 2 weeks, often to the tune of 10-15 cents or more. Annnnd when they do, every other chain in the state will inevitably follow suit, presumably so that they don’t lose too many sales to Gate. Ok, a couple of times in the past several years Gate has attempted such, only to have the competition not follow suit, yay. I’ve learned to anticipate these jacks and will usually top off before it hits (as I did 2 days ago). [If everyone did Gate would stop doing it of course]

This is going here (tho I’ll crosspost it into the gasoline thread in MPSIMS) because the timing stinks to high hell. Typically if Gate doesn’t pull the trigger one week the other stations will start edging back upward on their own. This didn’t happen last week (when I fully expected Gate to do their thang), note.

Oh, did I note that there is a big election in the state next week? And that the local Gate stations have set their prices at 3.51 (some @ 3.55), a massive 26 cent increase over yesterday’s local average? That will be one of the biggest ones I’ve seen since I started noticing this trend.

How much you wanna bet the Gate owners are doing this for the benefit of Messrs DeSantis and Rubio? I checked our closest neighbor, Georgia, and they are up 2/10th of a cent today. The timing truly stinks. National is up about 2 cents too. Yeah, oil is up 2 bucks today, but it’s been around $85 for close to 2 weeks with no movement until today.

17

I saw a commercial for an oven recently; one of the ‘features’ being promoted was the oven’s ability to connect to the internet to download new features. They appeared to show the oven upgrading itself to have air frying abilities.

W.T.F.

I’m assuming there’s a fee involved with these ‘features’…but if I’m buying an appliance with the built-in ability to perform a function, it damn well better perform that function without requiring the purchase of extra ‘upgrades’.

18

Hell, go to a junkyard!

19

I got pissed enough to start a thread about my Halloween rant. 2022 Henri David Ball And Storebought Costumes

20

Like BMW making you pay a monthly fee for heated seats?