A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)
if we don’t start hanging these people from the fucking lampposts right the fuck now.
Jesus wept.
(H/T.)
(Oh, and if that’s racist — make the most of it. I’m really sick to death of blacks accusing whites of racism when the fact is that most such blacks need to tend to their own knittin’ in that department.)
It’s just that most of the rest of the world seems to want to piss me off most of the time.
For instance, when you decide to buy something you need online from a new-to-you retailer — and by doing so you are automagically signed up for their thrice-daily email bulletins.*
Son of a bitch.
Yeah, I get that it’s not technically spam; I have a business relationship with you. But it IS spam — because it is unwanted, unasked-for, and unexpected. (Well, the last, these days, is hyperbole — of course I expect it.)
I receive literally hundreds of emails every day on half a dozen accounts. One is my work account, that very nearly predates the Green Card Spam, and of course is on every CD of “millions of verified email addresses!” that Eastern European mobs sell to unscrupulous e-mail marketers.
I don’t NEED more email. And certainly not unwanted email in French and Spanish, which seems to be most of the crap I dump out of my work account every day. (Plus I had to simply block anything coming from a .RU TLD.) For instance, my inbox folder in my Unread Mail this morning contains 30 items, 27 of which are spam. Holee shite. And it stays like that ALL FREAKING DAY.
So most of it goes right into the bit bucket without even being opened. Which costs the mailer nothing and costs me time, effort, sanity, and hair. And people wonder why I’m bald.
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* I may be exaggerating. But not by much. Never buy anything from a certain online fine china replacement/fill-in service unless you want daily emails regarding what they have in stock. How the fuck often do their customers break shit, anyway? All I needed was four bowls to fill in our wedding china that we never completed…jeebus.
this story doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
How does that old saw go? “For every good-looking woman out there, there is someone at home who is sick of her shit.” (Undoubtedly applies to men as well.)
Customer with what appears to be a PEBCAK problem on the part of his local users writes:
These customers are pro’s on [our product – ed.], how can they be mistaken that they [performed the operation that the logs say never happened] and all ???
Oh. My.
I LOL’ed.
I have worked with this product for nearly a quarter century. I wrote most of the documentation. And I still make stupid mistakes with it.
It’s a very complex software program. It’s easy to screw up if you’re not careful — even if you’re a “pro”. Chill, grasshopper.
This has been an interminable week. Today should have been Friday. It seems, however, that tomorrow, sadly enough, is actually Friday.
I’m sitting here listening out on 2 meters, 146.700 — the most popular local repeater — on the Yaesu FT-7900 “base station”, and 146.625* on the Baofeng UV-5R HT just in case someone decides to use it. Most of the evening on .700 has been pretty much a wasteland…there’s a guy who spends a lot of time on there throughout the day who just absolutely drives me up a wall, and I figured out why — he reminds me of someone else I know who used to absolutely drive me up the wall, but worse. Most of the other “regulars” seem to be off doing other things tonight. Am I talking? No, I’m lurking. I don’t feel comfortable talking yet.
It seems like nobody uses the other 2-meter repeaters. Lord knows why, there are a dozen of them listed on the Indianapolis Repeater Association website. And the other thing that is somewhat irritating is that two guys who were sitting just a couple of blocks apart were monopolizing the .700 repeater this evening…I thought that when you were that close, you were supposed to go simplex and let other people use the repeater who might be too far apart to go simplex. I guess their local conversation was important enough to be heard across 9+ counties, or so they thought anyway.
Someone opined this evening that there wasn’t much traffic even on .700 tonight. Someone else stated their opinion that it’s due to the fact that the old hams are dying off. I think that’s probably right. It’s a shame we can’t get more people interested in old-fashioned amateur radio instead of Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet crap that rots your brain. Including blogs. Like this one. And I think my brain just rotted a bit when I typed that.
Oh, but wait. You have to take a test to be a ham. And if you don’t have a technical background, it’s kind of hard. And there’s math. Not much. But there is math.
Internet: No test, no math. It’s a no-brainer.
FWIW I’m trying to get a friend of mine — who has a deep, long-term, abiding interest in emergency management, fire-fighting, and suchlike — to get a ham license. I tried to give him my ARRL Technician book last Saturday, but he left it here. He’d be a natural for ARES, damn it.
Enough yack yack from me. Oh, and I finally got a call from Coal Creek, they’re sending my 1911 back with some basic repair done, and they wanted money. Not too much; I’m happy. I might have it back in time to take it to the range on Sunday, depending on whether priority mail gets here from there by Saturday.
Damn I need to feed the cats. I am wifeless until Sunday, and that’s normally her job.
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* Edited 5/6/2013 to note that I actually don’t listen on the 625 repeater from home now, because I discovered that I can’t reach it from here with the Baofeng. I ‘ve been listening to the 146.970 repeater instead, as it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from my house, and I can hit it reliably with the Baofeng. Not that anyone seems to use the 146.970 repeater for much.
I did hit the 700 repeater with the Baofeng from North and Illinois last week during the ARES net, which surprised me because there was a ton of static in the reception. I guess standing outside the west entrance of the Scottish Rite Cathedral doesn’t give one much of a shot at the repeater up north…maybe I should have gone up in the bell tower 🙂
Shamelessly stolen from Facebook.
My dearest darlingest pseudo-niece commented earlier on Facebook:
If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job. ~Donald D. Quinn
To which I responded:
On the other hand, doctors have to deal with querulous old people, squalling babies who can’t tell them where it hurts, hypochondriacs, people who read sites like WebMD and think they know exactly what’s wrong with them (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing), and drug salesmen, not to mention that they don’t get paid for a lot of work till Medicare decides to arse itself and pay them six months after the fact.
The door swings both ways 🙂
UPDATE: A friend of hers chimed in after I commented. The friend’s considered response was to tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about and to shut up. Twice. (In so many words.) My response was that anyone who uses “shut up” as a debating point has lost the argument.
I have only this to say: No truly red-blooded American could possibly give a particular shit about a game that is so FUCKING boring and tedious as soccer.
On the other hand, I think curling is teh bomb. Takes all kinds I suppose.
When finding oneself in a hole, stop digging.