Octopus Overlords

This week, I sent the parents $800, bringing my busted AC loan down from $5800 to $4k.

Dad tells me this evening that he's retiring in April and they're closing on a house in Florida. Then he flat asks me for the other $4k to cover his moving expenses. I told him that I already sent him what I could afford to send him.

I'm also without a working oven and garage door opener, but I should totally be able to come up with it in short order, right? I mean, it's only been seven months since I needed it and have already paid ~1/3 of it back.

I'm really beginning to not like who my parents are turning into.

Isgrimnur wrote:This week, I sent the parents $800, bringing my busted AC loan down from $5800 to $4k.

Dad tells me this evening that he's retiring in April and they're closing on a house in Florida. Then he flat asks me for the other $4k to cover his moving expenses. I told him that I already sent him what I could afford to send him.

I'm also without a working oven and garage door opener, but I should totally be able to come up with it in short order, right? I mean, it's only been seven months since I needed it and have already paid ~1/3 of it back.

I'm really beginning to not like who my parents are turning into.

I don't know why he let's you pay it back at all. He should just be collecting his 2 pts vig every week.

He'd eat it up in gas driving the 4hr round trip to collect.

Garage door opener is expendable assuming that you have functioning arms.

My parents loaned us a few thousand bucks when we bought our house 26 years ago and a few thousand bucks was still serious money. Mom sent me a notebook with the formula for figuring interest on the first page. We could skip payments whenever necessary, but interest would accrue. It took us a few years to repay them and I didn't skip but one or two payments. The process was smooth because we all knew the terms up front. Mom just wanted the same interest rate that she would've gotten on her money from passbook savings.

Years later I loaned a friend some money and gave him an identical notebook with a token interest rate. He acted put out, but he repaid me early because he hated paying interest.

In my experience personal loans can work when both parties consider it strictly business. Except I don't know that formula anymore.

At the time, when we told them that we would pay them back, we were told not to worry about it. But since then, they've treated it like a loan. We always planned on paying it back anyway, but given that there were no terms attached, it chaps a little.

Mandatory company-wide meeting on what is a financial institution holiday to finish personality training.

The theme? My actions, my choice.

The irony, it stings. I'll note that they've left out 'our repercussions'.

Isgrimnur wrote:Mandatory company-wide meeting...to finish personality training.

Try not to move during the nerve stapling process.

Smoove_B wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:Mandatory company-wide meeting...to finish personality training.

Try not to move during the nerve stapling process.

Isgrimnur wrote:it stings.

I actually don't understand any of what Izzy said, but I'm not a very good drone, other than I get things done.



Today has lasted for over 7 years now.

LordMortis wrote:Today has lasted for over 7 years now.

As soon as you survived the first month, proof of concept (1:3) was realized and your fate was sealed. 7 years? People kill other people and do less time in jail.

Smoove_B wrote:

LordMortis wrote:Today has lasted for over 7 years now.

As soon as you survived the first month, proof of concept (1:3) was realized and your fate was sealed. 7 years? People kill other people and do less time in jail.

To be fair, the first three years were during an economic downturn and recovery. It's been the last three years that have destroyed my body and soul.

Awhile back my stepson told me he didn't pay me back regularly for his loan from me because there was no consequence for not doing it.
Guess who's never getting a loan from me again? As a matter of fact I've had the pleasure of telling him so once when he tried to borrow some more.

Without a concrete plan for returning the money a loan is more of a gift. I don't tend to loan money out because my assumption going in is that I won't be getting it back. Loaning money is a different beast than loaning out books or games or DVDs.

I do spot people enough. For little crap, it all comes out in the wash, though I probably owe chaosraven about two cartons or smokes or more and I need to do something about that. For big crap like $70 concert tickets, I keep a mental note as best as my broken brain can keep it and if someone gets to asking for and being spotted on (gifting is not the same as spotting) two or three big things without pay back then get put mentally on the "Do no spot" list... Again, I need to get raven back. I am bad person. If someone else bummed as many cigarettes off me as I have bummed of him, I'd be all mentally

So, we just had an earthquake here. No idea how big or where it was centered.

According to Twitter:

2.9 magnitude #earthquake. 7 mi from Big Pine, CA

5.3 magnitude #earthquake. 7 mi from ##BigPine, CA, United States

Hopefully not a foreshock.

http://bnonews.com/news/index.php/news/id3630

I am surprised I felt an earthquake from the east side of the Sierra Nevada's. They have them in Mammoth quite often and we don't feel them here. Last one I really remember feeling was maybe 1980 something centered near Coalinga. That was a pretty big one. I didn't feel the the 1989 SF quake.

Scuzz wrote:I am surprised I felt an earthquake from the east side of the Sierra Nevada's. They have them in Mammoth quite often and we don't feel them here. Last one I really remember feeling was maybe 1980 something centered near Coalinga. That was a pretty big one. I didn't feel the the 1989 SF quake.

I still remember feeling the 80-something in Reno.

Out of alcohol and now I'm too sober to play the blues.

Default wrote:Out of alcohol and now I'm too sober to play the blues.

How about the No Beer Blues?

And they delivered the cat litter. This time another contractor at 9pm. They buzzed and dropped left it on the sidewalk. Which would have been fine in the first place. It's a mystery.

LordMortis wrote:

Today has lasted for over 7 years now.

My wife is in this exact same boat. Her work keeps heaping it on and she keeps stepping it up. She's salaried and probably making about $7.25 an hour now for all the time she puts in. I keep telling her to just back off and let things fall to the floor and explode, but she doesn't know how. Right now she's literally doing the work of two people and they recently told her they needed her to step up and do another half a person's job.

I feel for her. It destroys your soul after a few years.

I was waiting for the bus heading home a few days ago and this guy comes stumbling up to the stop, clearly wasted. I braced for some spiel or other but he just nodded, said "Hi" and sat down on the bench behind me. I gave him a cautious smile and turned just enough so I could see him out of the corner of my eye behind me. The bus came, we both got on. He was having trouble with his card and almost fell when the bus started moving. He sat across from me and I sized him up. He had some small cuts on his hands and face, nothing really bad, just like he'd fallen a few times on an extended bender. His jacket was dirty, his jeans were worn, but he looked healthy, in good shape, had decent teeth. Not a career drunk yet. So, sadly, my first thought was that he was a vet.

A few stops later, he asked me which stop was McDonald's. I said I thought I saw one after Lawrence, which was a 10 or so stops up. He said thanks, and, slurred, said, "6 years in the Marines, I just got back two weeks ago. I swore that when I got back I'd just eat McDonald's and get drunk for a month. I haven't had my McDonald's yet..." I again braced for the spiel but it didn't come. He asked if I knew the trick to get the finicky transit cards to work, I explained my theories. He complained about how smokes were $13 bucks a pack, a 30-day pas was $100, and that beer was $6 or $7 everywhere. I commiserated about the prices and we compared notes on bars in the area. The whole time I'm really wanting to ask him if he's OK, if he wants to stop for a drink (probably a bad enabling idea) or if I can buy him his McDonald's. Or even just thank him for his 6 years in the Marines (if that was even true). But I never did. I mean where do you start? Just as i'm formulating something to say, we pull up past the McDonald's and he gets up, throws me a fist-bump, and stumbles off the bus.

It's been bothering me for two days.

The trick to validating military service is either an ID card, or a DD-214.

On the plus side, I went to see Star Wars again and still loved it.

On the minus side, I forgot my laptop bag in the theater and they can't find it.

I'm getting so sick and tired of my computers locking up on the web because of all the active crap going on from Adobe Flash to ads that change every few seconds to videos that start playing even tho I didn't I didn't push play. And these are major sites like CNN. I get tempted to drop the internet entirelry some times.

Uninstall flash and get some blockers installed.

Ghostery and AddBlockPlus are the 2 that I use.

miltonite wrote:Ghostery and AddBlockPlus are the 2 that I use.

Do this. They are addons for Firefox or Chrome, and turn off all instances of Flash unless you specifically tell it the site is allowed to use Flash.

FWIW, AdBlock Plus allows companies to pay to get their ads through its filters.

uBlock or uBlock Origin is a better option for those looking to keep advertising clutter to an absolute minimum with Chrome or Firefox browsers.

Oops, yes. I forgot about that - I switched to uBlock quite some time ago, but the whole process is so out-of-sight that I forget and keep calling it AdBlock.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:FWIW, AdBlock Plus allows companies to pay to get their ads through its filters.

uBlock or uBlock Origin is a better option for those looking to keep advertising clutter to an absolute minimum with Chrome or Firefox browsers.

uBlock works with Firefox for android too. Dunno about ios.

And with that I am now a uBlock user. Thanks guys.

"not" or "now"?

That was not now, this is now now.

The offspring of a male Lion and a female Tiger is a Liger.
The offspring of a male Tiger and a female Lion is a Tigon.
The offspring of a male Lion and a female Liger is a Liliger.
The offspring of a male Puma and a female Leopard is a Pumapard.
The offspring of a female Puma and a male Leopard is a Pumapard.
The offspring of a male Leopard and a female Jagupard is a Leojagupard.

I might be approaching the end of the internet.

Fatal error: 'Jagupard' is undefined.

Archinerd wrote:The offspring of a male Lion and a female Tiger is a Liger.
The offspring of a male Tiger and a female Lion is a Tigon.
The offspring of a male Lion and a female Liger is a Liliger.
The offspring of a male Puma and a female Leopard is a Pumapard.
The offspring of a female Puma and a male Leopard is a Pumapard.
The offspring of a male Leopard and a female Jagupard is a Leojagupard.

I might be approaching the end of the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PWQB_jGDkg

Such an under appreciated show.

DJ Jesús: Ah, this is a mountain?
Becky: It's a small mountain slash hill.
Devil: It's a mill. How would you say it?
DJ Jesús: I would probably not do it like that, I would probably say a himalountain.
Devil: Heh. Which is longer than...the whole purpose of smooshing would be to shorten the...
DJ Jesús: Is that the whole purpose, or is it to have fun?
Devil: That's the most awkward way to do it.
Becky: Wow one quarter scale diesel cog railway. Who's on board, guys? Chugga, chugga! Come on!
Devil: Chugga Chugga?
DJ Jesús: My problem is that you like to impose your opinion on how I want to do things.
Devil: What? What? No I would not.
DJ Jesús: You would do mill, I would do himalountain. The end.
Devil: I agree with you, I'm saying I agree with you.
DJ Jesús: The end.
Devil: What do you mean the end? It's not the end.
DJ Jesús: The end. You have your opinion, I have mine, so what else is there to talk about?

You'll have to look through the Thundercats geneology to determine what that is.

stessier wrote:"not" or "now"?

Now. Typing is hard. (for me)