My mechanic local didn’t tell my my winter tires were shot when he pulled them off this spring so when I went to have them mounted remounted, (at a different shop, the place across from work), I’m told I’m in for new ones. They’ll be in on Wednesday - so unexpected expense, yay! Also the first snow of the season is falling so I might not get to limp into work tomorrow.
Also working on a new fireplace surround. Did the shaping of the mantel piece and set up the mounting system. The wood was being finished today. Of course having wrestled the 8’ hunk of fir beam up and down the stairs eleventy times yesterday and boring giant holes partway through and so forth, my no-longer twenty year old back decided to register its protests today with the occasional spasm and twinge.
I can live with the Xmas music. It is what it is. But what the fuck is up with TVs in public spaces?!
Today I was in a hotel lounge and there were no less than three TVs, all set up strategically such that you could not be facing away from one. Volumes up, no remotes around. The goddam things were sunk into the wall so you couldn’t even get at the buttons on them to turn them down or off.
I’m running into this more and more. Who decided we have to be watching TV everywhere? I wouldn’t complain about this in a sports bar or a few other types of spots. But lately it feels like I am just inundated with TVs, and there’s no way to mute them or turn them off. I bought one of those TV B-Gone gizmos, but it doesn’t work very well. Might have to invest in a hammer.
I’ve just arranged for flights to visit my folks in Michigan in late January - I live in Australia.
The rant is not about the cost, nor about the change from midsummer to midwinter. They’re looking forward to seeing me, and I them. I’m used to the long flights, and even economy is fine. It’s just…
I called them up once I finished booking flights, and they both sound so…old, and tired. I don’t know how long they’ll be around.
I’ve been really depressed all year but, now, I’m finally able to crochet and enjoy it again. But it just hit me that I’m working on a baby blanket… and the baby it was for was born a year ago. And I just had a miscarriage so asking around for fresh babies isn’t a great idea for me. So now I’m sad about this baby-less baby blanket and my baby-less me. Double fail on my part for that one.
Hospitals and homeless shelters are always very happy to get baby blankets.
Hats and gloves are good for using up all the left over bits and pieces you have hanging around to allow you to start something new. Of course, this means you will have to go out and look at yarn and tools and socialize with fellow crafty folks, which might not be a bad thing either.
Dude, I don’t know who advised you to e-mail all of your professors asking for last-minute extra credit assignments (I know SOMEONE advised you to do this, because you forgot to delete the “Send this to all your professors” part before copying and pasting), but it’s very, very bad advice. First of all, I’m not about to give one student an extra credit opportunity without extending it to the whole class (and given that 85% of the class has outperformed you on the REGULAR credit assignments, the same thing would likely happen on any hypothetical extra credit assignment). Secondly, why on God’s green earth would I give myself another thing to grade at this point in the semester?
One of the first things I tell my students at the beginning of the semester is, “I don’t offer extra credit.” I’ve learned that getting it out of the way during the very first class meeting can save me from a lot of begging emails and office visits in Week 13.
[ul]Conversation I had with one of the worst teachers I’ve ever encountered (about three years ago)
Horrible teacher: Don’t you want to give extra credit assignments to your class? Here are some ideas for you if…
Me interrupting him: I don’t give extra credit to groups who don’t do regular credit. Got it?[/ul]
Yeah, I wasn’t sad at all when he left. Oh, and I’m with you: extra credit opportunities get listed in the syllabus, along with a very clear statement: these are opportunities for those who have submitted all of the regular work.
I know this sounds like first-world, privileged elitism at its worst, but we’re on hols in Bali at the moment and there is a driver who is giving us the shits. He sits outside the hotel entrance and badgers us when we dare to go anywhere without him. One morning he hassled us as we were eating breakfast, demanding to know our plans for the day.
Fuck off Brooksie, you could have earned yourself a shitload of rupiah if you hadn’t been such an arse about it.
I’m sorry, baby rhinos need baby blankets?!? Well, now I have a new project for my scraps. Project codename big warm babies is a go!
When I was in college, I found extra credit wasn’t really a thing. Of course, I also went to engineering school, where I barely had time to wipe my own ass, let alone do extra credit work.
The cold is progressing. I’m losing my voice and I’m just generally miserable.
We spent Saturday drinkshopping***** in Ligonier and this topic came up. Huge televisions have become lightweight and dirt cheap. Mounting brackets make it easy-peasy to hang a tv anywhere. And cable!
I remember sitting in a bar, watching local sports on a tiny portable black&white tv with rabbit ears, precariously balanced on a shelf alongside top-shelf liquor bottles. But, hell, Willie Stargell!
***** drinkshopping: my gf has devised this scheme whereby I do not complain about accompanying her on shopping trips. We arrive in Ligonier and first stop is at Wicked Googly for Bloodies. Then we walk to a clothing store, where she shops and I sit outside on a bench, sneaking tokes on my pen. She buys stuff. Then we go to Joe’s for drafts. Then we go to a store. Rinse-repeat.
I’ll be damned. I’ve been put in Twitter prison for hoping that Devin Nunes would be slapped silly. Mind you, I was responding to a tweet about a move in VA to *severely *limit SLAPP lawsuits, like his lawsuit against the Twitter account of Devin Nunes’ Cow. It was a pun. But I’ve violated their standards against targeting harassment and threatening harm. I strongly suspect multiple Nunes’ fans are to blame for this.
I follow a woman who is actively anti-racist. She gets tweeted DEATH THREATS, and as far as I can tell, Twitter has done nothing about the threateners. I make a joke and get hobbled for 12 hours. Seriously?
I decided not to appeal, because technically it is a violation, but I’m steamed.
Opened a new carton of milk this morning, poured it on The Boy’s and my cereal. We took simultaneous bites and then simultaneously spit it out. Mouthful of spoiled milk. two hours later I can still taste it.
And I swear, they look like something designed by an anime artist. Their ears look like they’re almost as big as once they’re grown up, but of course the rest of them is a lot smaller, and I mean a lot, and no horns. They kind of look like baby hippos with large rhomboidal ears. And yeah, baby hippos count as cute overdose, I mean, hippos are absurdly cute for something that big…
I’m sorry for your loss, slalexan, and I hope you feel better soon (from your cold; having lost a baby who would’ve been 8 next month, I know that doesn’t get “better”). If you do make a blanket for a baby rhino, you’ll need to post some pics or it didn’t happen.
My mini-rant is about one of my coworkers (soon to be former b/c she’s mercifully switching teams). She’s ok on a personal level, but on a professional level she is a hot damn mess. Her biggest issue is that everything she says she says in really obnoxious corporate speak that sounds like utter bullshit. It’s so bad someone called me about it after being copied on the below email (some items changed to protect the witless).
Hi, overly,
We are still discussioning the architect solution for X with our innovation counterparts to identify optimized times for solutioning. In the meantime, relative to this initiative, would you please correspond with your agreement with respect to moving the needle on this critical moonshot project in advance of EOW?
Employee
The first sentence alone is jaw-dropping, which is ironic coming from someone with my handle. I’m still trying to figure out how long that would take to write or if it’s possible that someone thinks in those terms.
Hey, you’re overly verbose, not overly I Ate A Corposhit Dicshonary For Breakfast. Those sentences aren’t just full of two-dollar words, they contain two-dollar words used wrong.
