Octopus Overlords

Why do installing and repairing things take three times as long for me. Yes I'm olde and mostly incompetent but really.
I had to install a new phone for my wife today. Because of it's location and the fact the 20 zillion wire were all twisted together it took me forever.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

coopasonic wrote:

Daehawk wrote:I used to sell Kirby vacuums. A nuke couldn't kill one. They last forever and in 1987 for the price of $800 they damn well better. I used to sell one a day I was so good. The only downsides to them were they were heavy and the belts broke often. But those things worked better than any vac you could buy.

We finally retired my mother-in-laws Kirby 7 years back when we moved to a two story house. Hauling that thing upstairs on a regular basis was just not going to happen. We've been through several vacuums since. Nothing compares.

The house I lived in previously had an outstanding ducted central vacuum cleaner. Now that was the dog's bollocks.

Used to have to wire for those central vacs with my dad. Always thought it was a strange thing. It was handy but what if it stopped up? That was the 80s.

Why do I have to wait 14 seconds to brace myself after I enter my name? Why can't I brace myself before entering my name? And why 14 seconds? Why not 13? Or 15?

I went in for a routine follow-up with my oncologist today. Still no signs of the cancer. He did schedule me for some other tests for tomorrow, though, that make me nervous as hell, despite the fact that they're completely routine tests and not triggered by any signs or symptoms.

The first is a chest x-ray to check for cancer due to all of the radiation I received, which seriously ups my chances of getting a different cancer in the future. Since both of my parents died from lung cancer, this scares the crap out of me.

The second is a blood test for lipids and blood sugar. Perfectly routine at my age. I eat fairly well. I avoid red meat most of the time, I don't fry many foods, I don't add salt to anything, I eat a fair amount of fruits and vegetables, I don't eat much sugar (no soft drinks at all), and I pay attention to fiber intake. My blood pressure and heart rate have always been excellent. That said, I'm also seriously overweight and, being stuck in the house, pretty sedentary. (And then there's a 10-15% chance that my thyroid is just going to quit due to the radiation.)

I've made a real effort over the last couple of years to be healthier, but I'm always worried that I started too late, and unknown problems have already taken root. On the one hand, I'm really glad I'm getting the tests to ensure that there aren't any problems. On the other, though, I'm worried as hell that they'll find something.

...and I went and did that one thing that you never do: I read up on the symptoms of thyroid damage online. Most likely is hypothyroidism. I have probably 2/3 of them, stuff that has never bothered me before that's shown up in the last couple of years that I've been fighting with. I'm not just talking about common ones like fatigue, but some distinct ones, like intolerance to cold (I've been really cold the last couple of winters) and low heart rate (I'm normally in the high 60s/low 70s, but in the last year my resting heart rate has dropped into the mid 50s.)

I take meds for that. or I did before I ran out a year ago and haven't been to the doc to get more. Taking meds makes me feel so old. When I was young I was perfect.

Keep fighting, Blackhawk! Glad to hear there are no new symptoms.

Daehawk wrote:I take meds for that. or I did before I ran out a year ago and haven't been to the doc to get more. Taking meds makes me feel so old. When I was young I was perfect.

Refusing to take medication now won't make you young again. It'll just make you broken and more expensive to maintain later.

I'm pretty sure it's a cost issue for him.

While I was listening to Bat Country, my girlfriend said, "Did you know that song is about "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas?"

I have seen the film, but did not know the song was based on it (or the book).

And while I had heard of Hunter S. Thompson, I have never read anything authored by him. Which is my loss, because I found the book online in its entirety right here on Rolling Stone's website.

I'm just getting started, maybe 10 pages in, but I can tell I am in for a real treat. This is great stuff, and I'd certainly recommend it if you have been under a rock like I was. Seriously, start reading it, and I bet you won't be able to stop. It just flows, man. I'm finding that reading it aloud in Johnny Depp's voice from the movie adds to it.

Thompson basically invented "gonzo journalism" in that book. The style, characterized by first-person subjective reportage, went mainstream after Fear & Loathing came out. It was radical in its day.

Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga might be my favorite HST book and I've read them all, some of them several times.

His death still weighs on me and I wish we had him around to comment on these times and the direction the country is going.

Z-Corn wrote:Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga might be my favorite HST book and I've read them all, some of them several times.

His death still weighs on me and I wish we had him around to comment on these times and the direction the country is going.

George Carlin would be nice too!

Pyperkub wrote:

Z-Corn wrote:Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga might be my favorite HST book and I've read them all, some of them several times.

His death still weighs on me and I wish we had him around to comment on these times and the direction the country is going.

George Carlin would be nice too!

Agreed.

All domestic Delta flights grounded tonight due to computer glitch. Glad I'm not traveling tonight.

Unlike my boss, who is scheduled to fly into JFK first thing tomorrow morning. I'm sure that'll go smoothly.

TIL that a Kia Sorrento has about the brightest brake lights I've ever seen. You could spot those things from orbit.

My wife answers the telephone this morning. She can barely hear and understands even less. She calls me to the phone. I say....Hello, I'm DBT. Who am I yelling at? It was a machine of course.

My mother-in-law almost got scammed out of $3000. Last week me and the wife went to St Croix (had a blast) and my wife's niece house/pet-sat for us. My mother-in-law knew this. Well she gets a call from someone she thinks is said niece (her grand daughter) all hysterical. She said she was in an accident, rear-ending an off-duty police officer who is going to throw the book at her cause he claimed he saw her on the phone before she ran into him. She said not to call her mom or dad and that she needed $3000.
She is then was put on the phone with a professional-sounding "public defender" who explained all the charges and how they could not take credit card information as payment, instead needing a gift cards from somewhere like best buy. So the MIL tells her son (bum who still lives with her) this as she heads to best buy. The son calls the dad of the niece and tells him the situation. The dad rushes to best buy and stops MIL from buying the gift cards (MIL does not have a cell phone). Disaster avoided, but only barely.

Before making a show of charitably swiping your card at the register to pay for a family's groceries - maybe you should ask if they want to have their groceries paid for?

Just because I have I have a kid in a wheelchair, two others in a fire engine shopping cart, and am pulling a regular shopping cart behind me doesn't mean I'm lacking in money or looking for a handout. If I had been asked, I would have politely turned her down and suggested she donate to United Cerebral Palsy or the Epilepsy Foundation or Make-A-Wish instead. But I guess it's all right if she got to look generous in public and make my family uncomfortable.

(On the bright side, it was a really expensive grocery week, so we got $380 in free groceries.)

Take half of it and donate it to charity, and the other half of it for toys.

Pro tip: If you answer the phone and there is a pause where you can hear boiler room chatter in the background, there is a good chance it is not for you.

I've only ever picked up the tab for someone who got to the register, didn't appear to be a substance abuser of some kind, and genuinely was shocked to discover they didn't have their method of payment on them - and only up to about $100. Even then, I offer payment if they don't mind me doing it first. It doesn't happen often.

The one time I tried to pick up a WW2 vet's lunch tab (very old, alone, and proudly wearing his "WW2 Vet" hat), I was cautioned by the waitress. She told me people kept doing that to him (a regular there), and he HATED it. She said she'd do it if I insisted, but I backed down.

Paingod wrote:I've only ever picked up the tab for someone who got to the register, didn't appear to be a substance abuser of some kind, and genuinely was shocked to discover they didn't have their method of payment on them - and only up to about $100. Even then, I offer payment if they don't mind me doing it first. It doesn't happen often.

Too rich for my blood. I might (and have) done it for someone getting a few "necessities" for like $20 or less and I'm looking at someone trying to get a gallon of milk and loaf of bread sort of thing. $100 is simply too meaningful for me to give to a stranger.

That's the limit I set in my head a long time ago. It's certainly not an amount I've come up against.

ImLawBoy wrote:Before making a show of charitably swiping your card at the register to pay for a family's groceries - maybe you should ask if they want to have their groceries paid for?

Just because I have I have a kid in a wheelchair, two others in a fire engine shopping cart, and am pulling a regular shopping cart behind me doesn't mean I'm lacking in money or looking for a handout. If I had been asked, I would have politely turned her down and suggested she donate to United Cerebral Palsy or the Epilepsy Foundation or Make-A-Wish instead. But I guess it's all right if she got to look generous in public and make my family uncomfortable.

(On the bright side, it was a really expensive grocery week, so we got $380 in free groceries.)

Sweet! Can I babysit this weekend? And can I take the kids to Binny's?

I went to the Force Awakens (or was it Deadpool? Same theater, seen with in a week or two of each other after not seeing a movie since A Dark Knight, so now the memory is conflated) and the lady in front of me tried to pay for my ticket. Just a spirit of kindness thing. I totally freaked out, outside of my comfort zone, and I wouldn't let her pay for my ticket and then kept apologizing to her. I didn't know how to handle the pay it forward generosity of a stranger.

Isgrimnur wrote:Take half of it and donate it to charity, and the other half of it for toys.

I think the ACLU is getting a chunk of it.

hepcat wrote:Sweet! Can I babysit this weekend? And can I take the kids to Binny's?

That would be so funny that it might actually be worth it just to trail you around as you try to wrangle my kids.

LordMortis wrote:I went to the Force Awakens (or was it Deadpool? Same theater, seen with in a week or two of each other after not seeing a movie since A Dark Knight, so now the memory is conflated) and the lady in front of me tried to pay for my ticket. Just a spirit of kindness thing. I totally freaked out, outside of my comfort zone, and I wouldn't let her pay for my ticket and then kept apologizing to her. I didn't know how to handle the pay it forward generosity of a stranger.

It can be extremely off-putting. I don't even like it when an acquaintance offers to buy my coffee at a Starbucks or something. It's like, what is it about me that makes you think I can't pay for myself and/or provide for my family? And it's worse when the person is doing it publicly. They get to feel good about themselves and make sure everyone knows how good they are while I get to be embarrassed by something I didn't want or need. We once had someone pay for our bill at a restaurant, but at least they had the courtesy to be anonymous so that only they, our waitress, and we knew.

For us, it's also the pity element of it. People feel bad for us because of our son. We don't want people to feel bad for us. We want people to treat us and him like normal people.

I have no idea where to put this -

Upstate restaurant responds to 'Minorities Need Not Apply' on Help Wanted sign

The sign at Kenny's Home Cooking included the phrase "Minorities need not apply" in English and in Spanish.

A customer took a picture of the sign and shared it on social media over the weekend.

The post led to a firestorm of comments. People vowed to file complaints with the government. They also promised to stop eating at the restaurant and encouraged others to do the same.

....

After the controversy erupted, the owners took down the sign and replaced it with an apology.

The new sign reads: “Dear Customers. I am the owner Sue. I am really sorry for the sign that posted (earlier). I didn’t know what it meant. After I know, I took it off immediately. English is not my first language. And I never thought about it again. I sincerely apologize for (everything).”

"The thing about it is, there's all kind of minorities in here that work. Our owner, she's Japanese. We have Spanish cooks. We have a black dishwasher,” Henderson said. “All of our customers are different nationalities. We don't discriminate against nobody."

Feel bad for them - seems like an honest mistake. Hope they are able to get their customers back.

You'd think her staff would have told her. I assume she meant minors.

stessier wrote:Feel bad for them - seems like an honest mistake. Hope they are able to get their customers back.

They found a help wanted ad from the 50s in the back room? How do you even end up with a sign like that?

The restaurant’s owner, Sook “Sue” Shin, is Japanese. She said her husband, who is Korean, got the sign on eBay. She said they didn’t fully understand everything on the sign.
...
"They thought it meant minors, not minorities,” Henderson said.

LordMortis wrote: You'd think her staff would have told her. I assume she meant minors.

Staff enters through the back door, so they didn't see the sign.

ImLawBoy wrote: It can be extremely off-putting. I don't even like it when an acquaintance offers to buy my coffee at a Starbucks or something. It's like, what is it about me that makes you think I can't pay for myself and/or provide for my family?

Every once in a while, someone I'm around will suggest going out for dinner. I always have to decline, as I didn't budget for eating out, and can't afford it if it isn't in the budget (for the price of one meal out at a mediocre restaurant I can feed all three of us for a whole day or two at home.) That feels awkward as hell, as they usually know the reason (I don't bring it up, but me being poor is no secret.) It happens a lot with my D&D group, where every couple of sessions, someone will suggest chipping in for pizza. I have to decline, then eat fridge junk while they have pizza, which is even more uncomfortable.

Then if they offer to buy my dinner/cover my share of the pizza, I get to feel awkward all over, and refuse. I really wish someone would just invent the food pill.

Food pills = Hersey's Kisses

ImLawBoy wrote:

LordMortis wrote: You'd think her staff would have told her. I assume she meant minors.

Staff enters through the back door, so they didn't see the sign.

GreenGoo wrote:

ImLawBoy wrote:

LordMortis wrote: You'd think her staff would have told her. I assume she meant minors.

Staff enters through the back door, so they didn't see the sign.

That wasnt a joke, though I see why you think it might be. That was a quote from the article.

Oh shit. Sorry.

It's much less funny when it's reality.

Blackhawk wrote:

ImLawBoy wrote: It can be extremely off-putting. I don't even like it when an acquaintance offers to buy my coffee at a Starbucks or something. It's like, what is it about me that makes you think I can't pay for myself and/or provide for my family?

Every once in a while, someone I'm around will suggest going out for dinner. I always have to decline, as I didn't budget for eating out, and can't afford it if it isn't in the budget (for the price of one meal out at a mediocre restaurant I can feed all three of us for a whole day or two at home.) That feels awkward as hell, as they usually know the reason (I don't bring it up, but me being poor is no secret.) It happens a lot with my D&D group, where every couple of sessions, someone will suggest chipping in for pizza. I have to decline, then eat fridge junk while they have pizza, which is even more uncomfortable.

Then if they offer to buy my dinner/cover my share of the pizza, I get to feel awkward all over, and refuse. I really wish someone would just invent the food pill.

Many years ago, shortly after college, I spent a year traveling. When I got back I was broke. I was living in Vermont, and used to hang out with a close friend a lot. He had quite a bit of money. I ended up being in your position... he'd invite me to a movie, or to dinner, and I wouldn't have the money for it. I finally talked to him about it. He told me something that stuck with me ever since. He said that he wanted to do those things, but he also wanted to hang out with me. So he didn't care that I couldn't afford it. It was worth it for him to pay for me because he valued our time together. I've taken that to heart and tried to pass it on.

I assume your friends like being around you. They are well aware of your situation. I doubt that anyone thinks you are trying to take advantage. I guess my point is, it's okay to accept help from friends. It's tough, but sometimes it's okay to say thank you and let them help.

Oh, and Blackhawk, if you ever make it out this way (or I end up that'a way), I will buy you dinner. So