NobodysHome's page

I watched a humdinger of a film last night - The Lost Empire

It has a plot suspiciously similar to 'Enter The Dragon', a budget of pennies, and also features:

1) CLEAVAGE (though arse-cheeks are blurred out to protect the tender sensibilities of the viewer)
2) Toe-curling ethnic stereotypes
3) Ron Burgundy playing an FBI special agent (nb: not Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy - Ron Burgundy)
4) Rubber Skeletor
5) Some lovely perms

The soundtrack was actually quite good; my wife seemed to think I'd been watching porn when I told her about it

You were staring at cleavage while nekkid and listening to 80s music. What was she supposed to think?

And honestly, I wouldn't tirade about it nearly so much if it weren't such a confluence of stupid:

(1) "Smart" phone manufacturers: In 2000 I wrote a course on designing network stacks for real time operating systems. Rule #1: If you have multiple interfaces, check them and use the fastest. Rule #2: Set up a heartbeat to re-confirm connectivity every xx seconds. Smart phones utterly fail this. They preferentially try to use cell phone data for anything they consider "phone-y"; for example, calls. As I tested on both an iPhone and an Android at my house, turning ON cellular data dropped the network speed on our phones by a factor of 2. Having multiple active interfaces should never slow you down. But go ahead and test it yourself in a bad cellular area: It does. And what do I mean by "bad cellular area"?

(2) Brain cancer idiots: In spite of the fact that a billion-person decades-long case study on cell phone use shows a very strong indication that cell phones are not linked to brain cancer (rates have in fact been declining since 2019 with no corresponding decline in cell phone use or power), we live near Berkeley, so every proposed cell phone tower anywhere near us has been blocked. In our home we get a signal strength of maybe 5%. In the front window or back yard we can manage to get 18-20%.

So, combining (1) and (2), it's actually almost impossible for us to make or receive calls on our cell phones at the house. The phones will use cell data exclusively if there's a signal at all, and the weakness of the signal ensures poor call quality and plenty of drops. If we know we're going to be making a call on our cell phones, we have to remember to turn off cellular data in order to be able to receive the call. But then of course if we go out, we then need to remember to turn cell data back on.

(3) "But everybody has a cell phone now" idiots: 2025 data shows 98% of Americans have cell phones, with 91% having smart phones. Those who don't are the poor or the elderly. Um, cornea replacement? I think you're right in the, "I don't have a smart phone" wheelhouse here.

As you can tell, I get really, really frustrated by incompetent design, people who don't believe in science, and people who don't understand their customers. And here I'm dealing with all three.

EDIT: And to be clear, we've had other cell towers blocked by "aesthetics enforcers" who consider them ugly and don't want them in their neighborhoods. I may not appreciate them, but I won't call them "idiots". But the people who blocked a new tower near our house specifically cited "brain cancer" as their reason for blocking it, and I will happily call them "idiots".

In today's episode of "People Who Need to be Fired", we get the web designers for Northern California Cornea Associates.

It's time for my lens replacement surgery so I went there and filled out all the forms. I was pleasantly surprised that they were still old-school enough to have two separate lines, "Home phone number" and "cell phone number". Filled everything out, went home, received an email asking me to set up my patient portal. Attempted to sign on, and I know you know where this is going: The portal sign-on requires a confirmation code sent by SMS to your Home telephone number.

Um, why do you even have a "Home Phone" entry if you expect it to be a cell phone?

Impus Minor managed to find an 11-second explanation of the entire U.S. tax code.

Merry Christmas!

Apparently the massive storm front that was supposed to hit us decided to go to Disneyland, so last night's "storm" was downright disappointing; there's nothing quite as pleasant as sitting in the living room watching TV with the family while a storm batters against the windows outside and you're all safe and warm.

So we had all 8 of us in the living room (4 hoomans, 4 kitties) eating Costco make-your-own tacos and finishing the One Piece CP9 arc and it was all incredibly pleasant. But the slight pattering of rain against the window and the occasional wind gust just didn't cut it as a "storm".

Sounds like SoCal got hammered, though.

...But I *do* have a box of shelf-stable heavy whipping cream...

Where where where? I've been trying to get GothBard an emergency supply of shelf-stable half-and-half but in spite of all the local stores claiming they have "mini moos", not a single one actually carries them.

And it's started...

Got a letter from Waste Management informing me that I was being charged for an overfull recycle bin, complete with a picture... of my neighbor's recycling bin.

Yes, they fixed it. But after telling them they were guaranteed to be charging innocent people, it was nice/enraging to get vindicated.

Wow... I guess something is coming for Christmas eve! For tonight we have a high wind advisory, a tornado warning(!!) (2% chance of one touching down somewhere in the greater Bay Area), and heavy rains. I even got a text from Global Megacorporation, "There is a severe weather incident in your area. Please text us back to confirm you're safe and well."

Think I'll sit at home with the family and the cats and watch One Piece. Oh, wait! That was my plan anyway! :-P

I know I shouldn't be complaining about the nice weather, but 77°F is much too warm for 2 days before Christmas. I'll definitely take it over the sub-zero windchills I dealt with for over a decade, but it being this warm now just feels wrong.

It's 63˚F and cloudy here and I'm complaining because winter break is when I do most of my hard physical labor because cool weather and no sunshine.

63˚ is not "cool"!

(Cue Freehold: "But 69 is!")

And I thought *I* was bad.

Cleaning lady is here so all the girls are in the studio. (Mephisto follows her around and monitors her every move, much to her delight. Their broom battles have become a source of much joy for both of them.) GothBard had to go out and didn't want the girls to get lonely.

So the three of them are in there, heat cranked up, listening to Patrick Stewart read Christmas stories to them.

I begin to worry our cats may be spoiled.

EDIT: And for you, "Kirk forever! Picard Never!" die-hards (if any), I'll just double-dog dare you to sit down and listen to a podcast of William Shatner reading Christmas stories. Any takers? ...Anyone?...
...actually I think it's against the Geneva conventions.

For you furriners, here's a wonderful little microcosm of health care in the U.S.: I am on multiple maintenance drugs. All are FDA-approved. All are generic. My insurance company won't cover one of them for... reasons. So I have to pay out-of-pocket. How much does it cost me?

Safeway Pharmacy: $15.68 for a 30-day supply.
Health Insurance Mail Order Provider: $120 for a 90-day supply, but they won't actually sell it to me. (Yes, they'll give me the price, but because it's not a covered drug they won't actually give it to me.)
CVS Pharmacy: $224 for a 30-day supply.

Same drug. Same manufacturer. Same amount. Almost a 15x price difference depending on which store on Solano I go to. (They're both in Albany, and located maybe 1/3 of a mile apart from each other.)

My simple fix: If a prescription drug is FDA-approved and prescribed by an M.D., health insurance must cover it at a $0.20 per day co-pay. I'm sure insurance companies could make it work and still make a tidy profit.

Things you hate and love at the same time: Morrigan has decided that my shoulders are the Best Place Ever right after I get out of the shower (mmm... warm). It only took her a day or two to learn that bare skin isn't good for claws. But she hasn't figured out "t-shirt vs. sweatshirt" yet, so she jumps on up while I'm getting dressed and sits there and purrs and purrs and rubs against me and is absolutely irresistible... .while using her claws for balance.

And yeah, I'm a sucker. I tolerate it 'cause love.

NobodysHome wrote:

gran rey de los mono wrote:

Well, my oven stopped working on Thursday night, and the repair man just came. The igniter was out. And he didn't have one with him, so he'll be back either tomorrow or Wednesday. While this is annoying, it's made less so by the fact that they replaced the igniter in March, and it had a 1 year warranty. So, I won't have to pay a penny to get it fixed again.

While I understand that pilot lights waste a small amount of gas, considering that every appliance I've owned with an igniter has seen it fail, whereas every appliance I've owned with a pilot (except one) has gone 30+ years problem-free, I'm not a fan of igniters.

Personally, I don't like pilot lights because I'm nervous about a) there always being a flame, no matter how small and contained, and b) I would get randomly very nervous about "Did the pilot light go out? Is gas leaking into the house? How do I check? How do I light it if it does go out," etc. Even if I didn't worry about any of that, that would require me to buy a new oven, which I don't want to do.

Oh, just work on a malfunctioning gas heater for a while and you'll feel MUCH more comfortable:

(1) All of the gas (main and pilot) is controlled by a thermocouple, a device that turns heat into electricity. The pilot light heats the thermocouple and the generated electricity activates an electromagnet that opens the gas valve. So no pilot = no gas at all. The only possible danger is if the gas valve gets locked in the open position.

(2) So... the main gas also has an "iris valve" that works using the heat expansion of metal. It's thus fairly indestructible. Even if the main gas valve gets locked into the open position, the only gas that'll come through is the pilot gas.

How do I know this? A lot of work trying to get our heater working. But the proof in the pudding: Our gas valve is "sticky" and the thermocouple doesn't provide enough power to open it, so I use a variable power supply to provide that extra "oomph". After a lot of experimentation, everything seemed safe so I left the power supply permanently attached instead of only touching it when I needed the heat on. Worked beautifully... until the pilot went out. Then we got a permanent gas leak from the pilot light. Which wasn't particularly dangerous unless we left it running for a week in a sealed room, but which we definitely smelled.

Why not just use your kitchen flame thrower to start the stove?

That's what we do, though that' s not the exact same model.

OK. That's hilarious. Shiro was eating one of his breakfast bars and noticed it had 120 calories and 19 grams of sugar. He thought, "That's a lot of sugar."

His son's visiting so he bought a box of Rice Krispy Treat bars. 90 calories. 8 grams of sugar.

Yep. I knew that breakfast bars were a scam. But wooooow...

Well, my oven stopped working on Thursday night, and the repair man just came. The igniter was out. And he didn't have one with him, so he'll be back either tomorrow or Wednesday. While this is annoying, it's made less so by the fact that they replaced the igniter in March, and it had a 1 year warranty. So, I won't have to pay a penny to get it fixed again.

While I understand that pilot lights waste a small amount of gas, considering that every appliance I've owned with an igniter has seen it fail, whereas every appliance I've owned with a pilot (except one) has gone 30+ years problem-free, I'm not a fan of igniters.

This morning, Impus Major made me proud.

He was going to a friend's cookout (yes. California. We can do cookouts on the winter solstice), and, as per his tradition he was making deviled eggs to bring.

Recipe: And then add some thyme or Worcestershire sauce or something else to make this recipe your own!
Impus Major: No. Everyone knows what deviled eggs are. Everyone expects deviled eggs to taste like deviled eggs. I'm not going to ruin them my making them "my own". I refuse!

He got surprisingly heated about it. I was proud.

If you're making a classic, make it classically.

Ok. This is getting to be really kind of terrifying. Normally, cats are fundamentally selfish; if something scares them and you intervene, they just keep running. "Good luck, hooman! I ain't stickin' around to see the outcome!"

Mephisto was playing in the Christmas lights (of course) and did somethingorother that scared the living p**s out of Morrigan. She got as boofed as I've ever seen her, crouched low, and looked like she was ready to fight for her life. I couldn't see what was scaring her so I got ahead of her so she still had visibility but I could block for her. And she promptly went into, "Yeah, my hooman's going to tear your arms and legs off!" mode. Stayed right at my heel, slightly behind me, tracking her "enemy" as I advanced. An absolute, abject trust and faith in me I've heard of, but I've never had in a cat before.

Love the little menace, even if she is an engine of destruction.

Happy Solstice, everyone!
Happy Birthday, Freehold!

I may be slowly sliding to the dark side.

While rearranging furniture after the kids' game, I put the wheel on the floor. Morrigan stepped into it. I showed her how to propel the wheel freely around the house. The first time she hit something she got upset. Then she found it delightful. And now every time the family isn't looking I take the wheel off the stand so Morrigan can crash around the house in it.

I am convinced that cats quickly learn which one among their number is "most adorable". Morrigan's small size, kinked tail, and big eyes make her eternally kittenish. So when the cats need to steal something to play with, she gets sent to perform the deed.

So this morning there are Mephisto and Lenore sitting on the floor looking up as Morrigan pops up to the table, finds Impus Minor's dice tray, and carefully reaches in a paw to pluck out the most attractive one.

And she is so d**ned cute doing it I'm helpless to stop her. If it had been Mephisto, I would have tossed him off the table. If it'd been Lenore, I would've said, "Lenore, stop that."
But Morrigan's abject cuteness is too much for me to bear.

NobodysHome wrote:

I swear, watching my brother act as executor of my mother's estate is an out-and-out terrifying embarrassment. You'd expect that if you were named executor of a decent-sized estate, you'd at least do *some* reading up on it before the person passed away. Instead my brother's doing his utmost to get us in legal trouble as quickly as possible:

(1) He took the death certificates straight to the banks and had her removed from all the accounts. Since she was the sole owner of one account, they transferred all the money into his account.

(2) He's been cheerfully dipping into her checking account to pay for all his expenses on an ongoing basis.

(3) Even after we got an attorney and he said, "The funds are locked for 4 months," he said, "Oh, that must only be the trust; I'll keep paying for stuff out of her individual account."

The *one* thing I knew about estates was that all the money in them gets legally locked up for a LOOOOONG time once the person dies. My brother didn't even know that much, and may be getting us into trouble.

Fortunately, no one involved is the suing type.

This sounds... nauseating.

"Nauseating" is an odd phrase. My entire family is disturbingly honest. I will get every penny of my inheritance at some point. But it IS "enraging" because as soon as her death certificate reaches a court or whatever and they check the accounts and see that they've been dipped into, I'm expecting a summons. And you'd better believe that if I have to go to court to explain that my brother's an idiot, I'm going to bill him for the time.

Fortunately, none of the withdrawals are malicious so I think worst-case scenario we'll end up having to pay some kind of fine. But my guess is that that fine'll run around $5,000 and I'm sure as heck making my brother pay it for being an idiot.

NobodysHome wrote:

I swear, watching my brother act as executor of my mother's estate is an out-and-out terrifying embarrassment. You'd expect that if you were named executor of a decent-sized estate, you'd at least do *some* reading up on it before the person passed away. Instead my brother's doing his utmost to get us in legal trouble as quickly as possible:

I was an only child, sole heir, and executor for my mother's estate. It was 2 years before I was able to touch any of it.

That's what I've heard -- you create a trust to bypass most of the wait and the ludicrous probate fees, but the moment I talked to an attorney he said, "Oh, the trust is locked for 4 months. Don't expect this to be resolved before April."

So, my brother's the executor, but I'm the one sitting here with a lawyer mapping out the proper steps we need to follow. Grr...

EDIT: And I think that's the worst part: I retained us a lawyer. He's on the clock and we're paying him to answer our questions and take care of our paperwork. And my brother apparently doesn't want to bother him.

Oh, and speaking of the corner store, this epitomizes what it's been reduced to: GothBard went there for some urgent staples, and picked me up one head of garlic since I needed it. She chose as carefully as she could. It was still partially rotten and I had to throw half the head out.

A store that sells rotten produce is of no use to me.

I swear, watching my brother act as executor of my mother's estate is an out-and-out terrifying embarrassment. You'd expect that if you were named executor of a decent-sized estate, you'd at least do *some* reading up on it before the person passed away. Instead my brother's doing his utmost to get us in legal trouble as quickly as possible:

(1) He took the death certificates straight to the banks and had her removed from all the accounts. Since she was the sole owner of one account, they transferred all the money into his account.

(2) He's been cheerfully dipping into her checking account to pay for all his expenses on an ongoing basis.

(3) Even after we got an attorney and he said, "The funds are locked for 4 months," he said, "Oh, that must only be the trust; I'll keep paying for stuff out of her individual account."

The *one* thing I knew about estates was that all the money in them gets legally locked up for a LOOOOONG time once the person dies. My brother didn't even know that much, and may be getting us into trouble.

Fortunately, no one involved is the suing type.

Talk about frustrated delight.

Impus Minor's girlfriend gave him a ring. He lost it. We even went so far as to disassemble the gear shift of the Celica and to take out the seats in the Prius trying to find it. He finally gave up and bought a new one.

That one disappeared. As did a third one.

The light finally dawned. He 3D printed a model ring. Within a couple of hours, Morrigan crept into his room, leapt up to the holder, carefully removed the ring, and ran out of the room with it.

Yep. We got a genius. I love her soooooo much.

*SIGH*

After 7 months of looking, Impus Minor was finally able to find a part-time job.

Doing what, you may ask?

Labeling images for AI training data.

Yep. AI will enslave us all.

I swear.

(1) Corporations love layoffs. Every company I've ever worked for has conducted significant layoffs about once every three years.

(2) Another all-hands with hundreds of people, another presenter who didn't Mute All at the beginning of their presentation, another participant taking a call while on the meeting and drowning out the presenter.

And there are two people I'd flag for the next round of layoffs...

EDIT: OMG, just as I hit "Submit Post" a SECOND person started their own call. AFTER we all had to listen to the first person. For me, that's an immediate firing. You don't go out and try to one-up the last person who disrupted the meeting.

EDIT 2: And I'm not talking the people where their kid or their dog runs in and starts making noise and they take a second to mute themselves; I'm talking people who are sitting there with the mic right in front of their mouths conducting other business during the meeting and drowning out the rest of the presenters.

On a lighter note, I forgot just how much having an intelligent cat is a blessing and a curse. Morrigan has figured out how to open all the ornament boxes, goes through them, finds the "most fun" ones, and brings them to her friends. She's also learned to pull them off the tree, no maatter how far onto the branches they go. So little gold baskets, ornaments with belts, and OMG a poor felt reindeer have all garnered her interest and been sacrificed to the Black Death. I think she enjoys watching him eviscerate things.

Wow. Whether or not of your own making, that still sucks.

It's petty and meaningless, but when I need to set up in the bedroom because Impus Minor has friends over (Fridays) or I'm sick enough to have to lie down all day (today), I break out the 42" "smart" TV that I use as a monitor. (You'd be surprised how hard it is to see print on a monitor just 6' away from you).

And every time I start it up, the TV whines at me. "I don't have an internet connection1 You haven't accepted any license agreements! Please do SOMETHING!"
And I change input to HDMI and continue using it as a glorified monitor. Which brings me satisfaction in two ways:

(1) My "mart" TV is not spying on me. With no cell phone signal here in the house and no network connectivity, the TV is effectively isolated from the world. I suppose it would have a GPS signal, but "this TV is being used at this address" isn't exactly useful data; you could get that from the shipping address on the order.

(2 I keep thinking, "Brain the size of a planet, and I'm just a glorified monitor". Yep.

'Sup, FaWtLfolk?

o/

NobodysHome wrote:

...

I would normally celebrate this but it seems GothBard is attached to her account.

Let me disavow you of that notion. She's ignored the account for years, but when she started getting messages about password resets she decided to delete it, THEN ran into the scam nonsense.

It did not make her less happy to delete her account.

OK. I think we have now moved on to "bats**t crazy cat owners".

Mephisto and Morrigan love the wheel. They love it even more if *we* spin it for them. Morrigan will come in, sit on the wheel, and scream at me 'til I spin it. Once it's going, she'll happily toodle along.

So, what happens?
- GothBard jokingly suggests adding a little motor to the wheel with a cat-pushable button so they can spin themselves.
- NobodysHome realizes it's an incredibly easy project and suggests it to Impus Minor.
- Impus Minor loves the idea and thinks he'll take care of it over break.

Yep. We may be building our cats their own motorized wheel.

I find it sad and amusing that I've started referring to Morrigan as "Lil' Screamer" and nobody's even batted an eye or asked, "Who?"

I swear, as if I couldn't think any less of Facebook.

Today's scam:
(1) GothBard got a series of email notifications that someone was trying to change her Facebook password.
(2) Being a reasonable person, she went directly to Facebook and signed in. She didn't click a single link because she knows better.
(3) On signing in, she got a pop-up from Facebook Security that suspicious activity had been detected on her account. Since she uses AdBlock, there was no reason in the world for her to suspect the notification was fraudulent. She had been getting suspicious activity, and the notification was a perfect copy of a real Facebook notification.
(4) So of course, clicking "Dismiss" on the notification brought up a screen-locking, obviously fake and stupid page stating that Windows Defender had disabled her machine due to "fraudulent Facebook activity" and she should call an 800 number to unlock her machine.

And it's just so classic Facebook: "Oh, someone's feeding AdBlock-dodging pop-ups that exactly mimic our notifications and try to scam users? Not our problem! Let the buyer beware!"

One NoScript login later and GothBard's Facebook account has been deleted.

I swear, Facebook...

I regret/am happy to report that the kitty exercise wheel may be the third-best cat item we've ever bought (behind our two well-loved cat trees).

Mephisto finally realized that he can release all his frustration on it. Can't get Nefret's food? Run on the wheel. Brought inside too early? Run on the wheel. NobodysHome is up but it's dark outside so you can't go out? Run on the wheel.

We even got Morrigan and Mephisto running on the wheel in tandem for a few seconds, though yes, cats, so they quickly got out of sync and Morrigan went flying off the wheel. Much to her delight.

If Impus Major works really hard, Lenore will walk a few feet on the wheel, just to please him. But she does not see the point in moving other than to get food, warmth, or love.

It's pretty telling that everyone I know can tell I'm not a happy camper right now. Impus Major keeps walking by, stopping, looking at me, and giving me hugs. My manager reminds me daily that I get up to two weeks for bereavement. My online FFXIV buddy, who thinks I'm a middle-aged woman and calls me "Mom" (and yes, LM, you KNOW I Love it), checks in with me every morning to see whether I'm OK.

And it's funny; it's not so much that my mother's death is emotionally devastating me. I can tell there's some depression; my body's asking for 9-10 hours of sleep instead of its usual 6. But there is *SO* much else going on. At work, all of our jobs are uncertain and at the moment I'm working on an idiot project that never should have been assigned to me. (My manager and I finally worked it out today and it turns out that assigning it to my Indian colleague probably would have resolved the whole thing in half a day. India does payroll in a really weird way, and gee, assigning it to the native Indian might have been wiser, y'know?). My brother is utterly botching executing the estate and I need to set up appointments to try to clean things up. And the Celica needs its annual smog and oil change. While Nefret is refusing to eat.

So not so much "depressed" as "I was already near my limit and everyone started needing stuff at once".

And this, too, shall pass.

So, Clipper, the public transit fare card system where NobodysHome and I live, switched to their new 2.0 system yesterday. One of the transit agencies forcibly upgraded every college pass user who had the Clipper App on their phone to 2.0, which, as it turns out, breaks the transit pass. So a bunch of students lost their passes with no warning right in the middle of finals, and the transit agency isn't talking to the schools.

Guess who is acting manager of the department that oversees transit passes at one of the affected universities?

We have fun here.

Woooow...

Multiple people should lose their jobs over this. But they won't. Only the students will suffer. (And support staff who are there to help the students. Which is better than a lot of teachers, apparently.)

New digital only computer games on Steam/GoG/whatever-is-your-platform-of-choice are perfect solution!

A present given, and yet, no physical clutter...

I tried to buy you Solasta but Steam said it wouldn't do the currency exchange.

I was lost to that long ago. I try to declutter, but then I see new minis and am defeated.

Minis aren't clutter -- I have racks of them, set up in cases and displayed for use during games.

If you use it on a regular basis, even for recreation, it's not clutter.

The kids' giant case full of Nerf guns and ammo wasn't clutter 15 years ago. Now it is.

Speaking of Gen X bitterness that the generations "above" us can't possibly seem to learn anything: The holiday season.

Ever since I had to empty my parents' house in 2013, I've been battling the mountain of useless crap that all families accumulate over generations. And I have been vehement and adamant with the family: Don't bring useless crap into the house. Ever. It's a waste of money, it clutters the house, and it contributes to the destruction of the environment around us.

And yet no matter how many times I ask members of the older generations to please respect our wishes, it doesn't matter. Mother-in-law saw a set of Thanksgiving crackers (the British kind) that she simply had to give us, and now the floor is littered with cheap little wind-up plastic turkeys (the cracker toys). Every day she's finding some new, useless, cutesy "thing" that we simply "must" have. And requests for her to stop fall on deaf ears. GothBard's attitude is, "It brings her joy and she won't stop, so might as well just deal with it."

And somehow, I don't find the pointless generation of clutter and waste to be something I should just have to "deal with".

Grr...

EDIT: And I think that's the one that kills me the most: "But we can't get you nothing for Christmas!"
Why not? Everyone else got what they wanted. Why can't I?

613. In 1997, corporate executives worldwide embraced Clippy, invested billions in Clippy-assisted applications, and mandated that their employees use Clippy in all their day-to-day tasks.

And the AI boom occurred 28 years early...

In today's episode of, "NobodysHome tries not to get fired..."

Our entire documentation flow is broken, and has been for the last 15 years. And I've complained about it vociferously, filed bugs, talked to managers, directors, and VPs about it, and the entire response has been that I'm a "Negative Nancy" and if I see something broken, I should fix it myself.

So here we go:
(1) PMs ask doc to add a flow to documentation. They have dev write up a quick set of step-by-step instructions. As far as I know, neither PM nor dev checks these steps because they don't have time, and that's the writer's job.

(2) The writer formats and publishes the steps verbatim, never once signing in to the application. The last time we checked, fewer than 10% of all our writers had ever accessed the application.

(3) The steps don't work as written. As curriculum developers, we write step-by-step practices that have to work, and that are extensively tested.

(4) We notify PMs and writers that their steps don't work as written. Their response is inevitably, "You're wrong."

So yep, going into a meeting with managers, directors, VPs, and PMs to do a live demo of the steps not working as written. And I have to do my utmost to bite my tongue and NOT say, "And this is standard operating procedure for our writing department."

Yeah, "Why I Am Not A Vet".

So, as far as I could tell, Nefret ate nothing whatsoever yesterday. This morning I weighed her to see how far gone she is...
...and she's gained weight since Monday.

Seems like she waits 'til I'm asleep, then gets up and binge eats.

My ancient old cat the frat boy...

Hey now, hey now, *I* didn't name names.

But yes, I was very much thinking of him...

EDIT: Do you remember when I finally snapped and pointed out to him that he was currently in a house with THREE other Ph.D.s, including an M.D./Ph.D., none of whom had so much as mentioned the fact during all his visits?

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Cyzzane has defended her dissertation. One more semester and an intership, then she will be a real doctor.

Like, allowed to cut up people, allowed to cut up paintings, or perform mad science under lightning storms?

The funniest part about becoming a "real" doctor is that you quickly learn that everyone who insists on being called "doctor" after the first few celebratory months is a complete so-and-so, so you end up not wanting to use the term yourself.

Outside of angry letters to global corporations, I haven't used the term "Dr. NobodysHome" in some twenty-five years now.

Many, many failed attempts at predicting Lily's demise notwithstanding, Nefret's weight has been uncomfortably unstable for weeks now, and she's been steadily eating less every day. Today she's refused all food and water, which isn't a good thing in an 18-year-old cat.

But she's curled up in her favorite spot on the bed, basking in the winter sun with the electric blanket turned on underneath her, and Mephisto's doing his usual, "lie down 3' away from her so she knows he's there but he's not intruding on her space", so all in all, if she's fading, she's fading about as well as a pet cat can hope to.

EDIT: And I can still get her to eat baby food, so at least I'll keep her going 'til GothBard gets home.

It's astonishing how much a sense of betrayal will alter your shopping habits. As I've mentioned, when the previous owner of the corner store retired and sold the store, the new owners did a lot of things people didn't like; they brought lottery tickets, hard liquor, and cigarettes to the fore. They redesigned the entire interior and changed what they stocked. But all of that I could have lived with if they hadn't absolutely ruined the produce section. I've mentioned that we've made multiple attempts to go back, and every single time we've tried to buy produce something has been rotten.

Leading to today's conversation.
NobodysHome: I need to do my walk after work anyway, so I'll toodle on up to Theftway and get the milk.
Impus Major: The corner store has milk.
NH: I also need eyedrops and lottery tickets.
IM: I guarantee the corner store has lottery tickets.
NH: Yeah, but they feel sleazy.
IM: I can't argue with that.

I'm amazed they're still in business.

...aaaand doing my 60-day password reset...
...aaaand cursing IT for a bunch of fools...

i might try their pizza.

As a new yorker, they will have no choice but to listen to me when I critique it.

Oh, don't. Get. Me. Started. On. Texans.

My friend moved there and put it really well. "It's really nice here. In California all you ever do is complain about what's wrong with your state. In Texas they're absolutely proud of everything about the state. Don't you dare criticize anything about Texas in front of a Texan or you'll be in for a fight."

I do not consider blind faith in anything to be an asset. (Stereotypical) Texans do. Beware criticizing even their pizza.