Random thing you loathe right now.

Getting tired of the phrase, "well into 2022." Always in the context of chips and other shortages, of course. It's an empty phrase that means nothing. Could mean April, could mean November, could actually mean, "don't ask until 2023." Nobody knows, but we can't just say nobody knows, so we have this tortured language.

It's because it leaves room for people to pretend that it's only temporary. "For the foreseeable future" scares investors more.

I plan to live well into 2022.

Soylent Green was set in 2022.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Soylent Green was set in 2022.

IMAGE(https://miro.medium.com/max/716/1*LHP4gobzu5bJxM2P23bO4Q.jpeg)

I'm sick in the brain so I just spent one an hour disaster/poverty pron viewing Go Fund me pages. I loathe myself for that. I can't think of a note appropriate place to share some thoughts.

- The wealthiest organisers get the most funds, for the most part. Professional photo of family next to a backyard pool in front of an expensive house? $43,765 raised out of $30,000 goal. Close up of a printed photo of a staffy taken with a not great phone camera? $250/$5,000.
- Raising funds for a destroyed business that oops, didn't have their insurance paid up? Forget it, no-one's interested
- Donations for "living expenses" are not very popular, unless it's to be with a sick kid or as widow. Cost of living goes on indefinitely and people prefer to add to achieving an immediate goal, and/or expect people to make their own living.
- "help me achieve my dream of going to the Olympics 2023" really mixed results.
- So many transition surgery funds with next to no funds raised. The various healthcare systems of the world can't offer better support for this soon enough. Even if it's not feasible for it to be free, a no interest loan scheme a la university fees here and in other countries (not you, US) seems like it could go a long way.

Just got hit with snow and some doorknob has been stealing manhole covers. Man I hate people sometimes.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Just got hit with snow and some doorknob has been stealing manhole covers. Man I hate people sometimes.

Why in the world would anybody just steal a manhole cover? Surely it's not that easy to do, and what are you going to do with the thing? Sell it for scrap?

WellAdjusted wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

Just got hit with snow and some doorknob has been stealing manhole covers. Man I hate people sometimes.

Why in the world would anybody just steal a manhole cover? Surely it's not that easy to do, and what are you going to do with the thing? Sell it for scrap?

Not likely. At the current value of iron I think most manhole covers would come in around $21 and that's assuming they don't call the cops on you. At my last construction-type job my foreman and I found a massive iron grate that was left in the field above the gas line we were excavating. It was around 400lbs, and we had to yank it out with the truck. We considered taking it in for scrap until I looked it up and found that we would only get about $35, and at that value it wasn't worth it for us to lift it into the back of the truck and drive over there.

Some smiths work with wrought iron, but they tend to prefer 19th century stuff as the composition was different.

I loathe that the Xbox app that is my PC Game Pass launcher doesn't have a "sort by recently played" feature.

You give me a bajionty games - how am I supposed to remember which of them I'm currently playing?

Neighbours again. So bad I might move but I dunno.

My last loathe was how hot this holiday period was forecast to be over here. It's been even hotter than that, for a longer period of time. Most days have been somewhere between 39°C/102°F and 45°C/113°F. Tomorrow is forecast to bring some 'relief' at 31°C/87°F.

As a fairly predictable result, we've had bushfires. This happened about 1km away from my house:
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/tyvzIVh.jpg)
That's a pic I took while coming home from an outing for my eldest. The fire was only going for a little bit at that time, but emergency crew were on scene. We were lucky to go through there when we did - I saw a clip from someone else who was only 5-10 minutes behind us and it looked like they were driving through some sort of scene from The Road or something - the fire had jumped the road onto the median strip, so they were engulfed in smoke. We're in deep suburbia (though maybe kind of on the outskirts?), so it's a bit of a surprise this even happens, but it's certainly not the first time.

Our fireries are amazing though. So quick to respond that it's almost ludicrous. They do such an amazing job. There's no doubt in my mind that I would have lost my house were it not for how brilliant they are.

So glad you are safe, halfwaywrong.

Thanks, it's much appreciated! It sure does something to you when you realise that every single thing you own could possibly, literally, go up in smoke. The old cliché of 'at least we have each other' is very much true. Very grateful that the worst thing that happened was a bit of a scratchy throat!

Believe me, I understand.

My credit union has taken to sending out "account updates" or "account benefits notifications" by mail, using their trade dress and letterhead, to try and sell me third-party life insurance and other junk. One of the reasons I picked a credit union was to avoid that kind of big-bank upselling and commodification of my account, but now I'm still getting this deceptive crap from them too.

My FCU has done that since the 80's and I just throw them away. It does not detract at all from their *excellent* service and security, and there are probably a few percent of their customers who could actually use the products. The lack of abusive practices of the big banks greatly outweighs a little junk mail.

Yeah, I know it's not that big a deal; I just find the deceptive-looking advertising annoying. They're going out of their way to make it look 'official' or even like it's some kind of benefit they've added to the account.

Neighbour had turned the volume all the way up and had the music on until past 2am, and now it's 8:30am and it's back on. I had to put loud music on in headphones which still wasn't enough to block it out, and try and sleep.

It's too loud for me to watch tv even.

It's a 39°C day today plus pandemic, so it's not like I can go anywhere else. It's going back down to twenties tomorrow and late this week so on that front I don't have it as bad as halfwaywrong and the West Australians.

Having an unhappy new year.

One of you forgot to put the basil in the stew last night. I am not going to name names, but come on.

I need to take a break from listening to the news for a while. I've done it a few times in the past two years, but I always go back for some reason. This time, I need to stick to it for at least a month.

bobbywatson wrote:

I need to take a break from listening to the news for a while. I've done it a few times in the past two years, but I always go back for some reason. This time, I need to stick to it for at least a month.

I had a similar loath here before, and limiting it and other social media helped a ton for my peace of mind. I had to use some apps on my pc/phone to enforce, but it works for me.

I think I am going to have to get a new car much sooner than I wanted. My last car, a 1998 Nissan Maxima, lasted for 200,000 miles and I was hoping to get that out of my current 2012 Altima, but at 110,000 miles it has gotten to the point where we don't trust it for long trips anymore and I barely even trust it to get me back and forth to work. If it comes down to spending a couple of grand to fix it up to make it dependable again or getting something newer I think I prefer option B.

We had the same thing happen with our 2009 nissan versa. (175k - 200k miles) The catalytic converter was gone and the choice was either pay $1300 minimum (and then who knows what going forward) or buy as new car.

We bought a hyundai ioniq and absolutely love it! Go hybrid for sure. It is such a game changer. My only regret is we couldn't go plugin hybrid because we live in an apartment with no reliable way to plugin.

Rykin wrote:

I think I am going to have to get a new car much sooner than I wanted. My last car, a 1998 Nissan Maxima, lasted for 200,000 miles and I was hoping to get that out of my current 2012 Altima, but at 110,000 miles it has gotten to the point where we don't trust it for long trips anymore and I barely even trust it to get me back and forth to work. If it comes down to spending a couple of grand to fix it up to make it dependable again or getting something newer I think I prefer option B.

FWIW, $2,000/year in maintenance and fixes is a lot less then a new car payment, increased insurance costs, increased registration costs etc.

Being on call and getting 3 calls in the first 24 hours of starting my week long rotation.

I am burned out something fierce

Antichulius wrote:

I am burned out something fierce

Sorry to hear Anti. Saw your post on Corona tales and if it's any help this internet stranger is pulling for you.

Hobear wrote:
Antichulius wrote:

I am burned out something fierce

Sorry to hear Anti. Saw your post on Corona tales and if it's any help this internet stranger is pulling for you.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I actually put this here in between my two posts over there. I didn’t yet know about the results…