Mom is trying to recover from her leg fracture, but has somehow caught COVID for the 4th(?) time. So, that's fun.
Hope she recovers soon, Gran.
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In other news, why does the ratty little shop down the road have two blue pipes leading out of the walls into a catering-sized tub of mayonnaise in their front yard?
Is it, as my colleague Ms. Marplears thinks, connected to a dehumidifier, or does it have a more sinister, mayonnaise-themed purpose?
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*snip*
I sure as heck know you wouldn't get that kind of service from the Oakland or San Francisco police...Oh, the laughter could probably be heard in the Midwest.
After they called for a tow to some lot for 'blocking traffic' that'd cost a month's pay to recover the vehicle from IF it wasn't crushed or resold 'by accident'.
I was gonna say-- if you tried that in Syracuse, one of two things would happen:
Option 1: You call the police. They show up eight hours later and arrest you.
Option 2: You call the police. They show up never, and you get robbed.
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Oh right. Like you or the car are going to be visible under 8 hours of snow.
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I have finished Wonderlands. It was fun. It was silly. It had some great moments and not-so-great ones.
I ended the game with Level 40 (level cap) plus 50 Mythic Ranks.
It definitely isn't the best Borderlands game, and while some aspects are fine, the story wasn't the strong point. The quality of gameplay was a rollercoaster, based on randomness of level-adequate gear. The RNG loves to throw tons of trash gear at you you wouldn't use at half your current level, and of course, the best things came when nearing the end.
It was fun, but I am definitely not sticking around to check the repetitive grind post-end.
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Freehold hungers.
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Freehold hungers.
For marmite?!?!!? What's wrong with you?!?!?!!?
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Ah, nothing like waking up to a sickly brownish sunrise to know you're in California in the fall.
What surprises me is the number of people whose approach to the pollution is, "Meh, life goes on. I'm not going to worry about damaging my lungs now, because I'd miss a day of jogging!"
Yesterday was so bad I had to quit work early and take a nap to due the headache, sore throat, and lethargy brought on by the smoke. Impus Major got home from school and went straight to bed for three hours. Yet this morning I opened the curtains and saw the typical slew of joggers, unmasked, happily pumping that crap in and out of their lungs as if there was no tomorrow.
It's a life choice. But if your goal for jogging is to be healthier, shouldn't you pay some attention to whether or not going on a jog on a particular day is going to be healthy or unhealthy in the long run?
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The have a Ratatouille inspired marmite factory in there, and that's the output. The mayonnaise tub is to fool the cops.In other news, why does the ratty little shop down the road have two blue pipes leading out of the walls into a catering-sized tub of mayonnaise in their front yard?
Is it, as my colleague Ms. Marplears thinks, connected to a dehumidifier, or does it have a more sinister, mayonnaise-themed purpose?
I certainly hope they're not bootlegging Marmite. People have been immolated inside a giant bamboo goose in the town square in front of the Lady Mayoress, her consort, and the current steering committee of the local Rotary Club for similar offences against decency.
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Freehold hungers.For marmite?!?!!? What's wrong with you?!?!?!!?
Nothing. He's a man of refined palate who wishes to mantain a proper intake of B vitamins.
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Well, after all my complaints about the useless guy at the body shop, it turns out he had created an estimate and he had been calling around, he'd just neglected to tell anyone. I found out because I was hanging around with his manager because he wasn't around (she and I go back 15 or 20 years) and talking about my complaints, and she didn't think it sounded like him so she started searching around and found everything we needed.
So estimate signed, parts dropped off, and somehow the shop's prioritizing my job... as if I'm old friends with the manager and she knows they really dropped the ball with me or something...
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Had to look up Marmite… sigh. I didn’t need to know that.
Freehold hungers.For marmite?!?!!? What's wrong with you?!?!?!!?
Ok, first rule of dealing with a pod person is you don't let on that you know they're a pod person. Nothing is wrong....step away. Step away....
Had to look up Marmite… sigh. I didn’t need to know that.
I could understand that attitude towards Bovril, the Potable Beef of the Alchemists, but Marmite shouldn't be controversial. Maybe use it as the filling in a doughnut, or deep-fry bratwurst in it.
*sigh*
I need to get used to the new mouse..
We had a company awayday today, with team-building exercises and such. Ai! Ai!
Actually, it wasn't as deadly as it might have been, and I still got home on time. The highlights of my day were getting quite a lot of fried chicken in return for £3.50, and finding a cheap copy of 'From The Mars Hotel' by the Grateful Dead.
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It doesn't get any easier.
Impus Major is 22. He's shown amazing judgement. He acts as the designated driver for his friends. He's even gone through the, "Calling 911 because my friend thinks she's overdosing," life achievement.
Yet again tonight his "we can't go home yet! It's only 3:00 am! We can't hang out at someone's house! We need to be OUT!" friends are taking him out on a wild ride.
And I'll be stressing all night.
Not because I don't trust him. Not because I don't trust his friends to intentionally cause issues. But because I don't trust the rest of the world at that hour, and his friends are exactly the sort of loud, boisterous, clueless know-nothings we used to "hunt" when I was a teen reprobate: They draw a huge amount of attention to themselves, and they pay no attention to the world around them. Not a great recipe at 3:00 in the morning.
But then I keep reminding myself that I'm a child of the 80's. No matter what people say about crime these days, in my heyday of 1990 the "gross crime rate" was 5.8%, and in 2019 it was 2.5%, and that's not including that Berkeley and Albany have become MUCH safer.
Still, old habits die hard. "If you're out after midnight, don't make a ton of noise unless you're looking for a fight," was pretty much the mantra of Berkeley in the 1980s. So watching them do it when they're not looking for a fight is... hard.
And yep. I get the "worried mother hen" treatment. "I don't mind you guys being out that late, but avoid the freeways and don't draw attention to yourself because you never know who'll be watching."
"You worry too much! It's not like it was when you were a kid, Dad!"
EDIT: And for those who wonder what "hunt" means, I was the moral compass/conscience of my group, so while they loved finding and terrifying such groups of young adults, when said groups fled I made sure my friends didn't pursue them nor cause them harm. So it was far more, "Shooing them out of our territory in an intimidating but harmless manner," than causing any physical harm...
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But then I keep reminding myself that I'm a child of the 80's. No matter what people say about crime these days, in my heyday of 1990 the "gross crime rate" was 5.8%, and in 2019 it was 2.5%, and that's not including that Berkeleyand Albanyhave become MUCH safer.
Yeah, I can't really get myself to get back there and finish Watch Dogs_2...
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But then I keep reminding myself that I'm a child of the 80's. No matter what people say about crime these days, in my heyday of 1990 the "gross crime rate" was 5.8%, and in 2019 it was 2.5%, and that's not including that BerkeleyYeah, I can't really get myself to get back there and finish Watch Dogs_2...and Albanyhave become MUCH safer.
OMG. I looked at the cover art and thought, "Hey, they're hanging out in the Marin bunkers! Fun!"
But then I look across the bridge and it's not San Francisco... it's... er... the Hayward hills?
Where the heck are they, and what happened to reality?
EDIT: Oh, geez. It's multiplayer and it butchers the Bay Area. We may have to buy it and giggle our way through it...
EDIT 2: Otherwise they're in a REALLY stylized version of Fort Mason and they're looking at a weird version of the Marin headlands. That's probably what they were going for...
And of course just now I have heard one of those f-tards speeding through the city at 1 am at twice the speed limit...
Earlier this year a bunch of such dumbasses killed themselves (there was a recording from the city monitoring) by going at 3 to 4 times the speed limit, losing control, tumbling out of the road and crashing into the wall.
The irony? The monitoring shown that they stopped just a few minutes earlier, and the only sober guy (according to the autopsy reports) who was driving up to that moment switched with the driver that killed them all (who was very drunk according to toxicology report).
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But then I keep reminding myself that I'm a child of the 80's. No matter what people say about crime these days, in my heyday of 1990 the "gross crime rate" was 5.8%, and in 2019 it was 2.5%, and that's not including that BerkeleyYeah, I can't really get myself to get back there and finish Watch Dogs_2...and Albanyhave become MUCH safer.OMG. I looked at the cover art and thought, "Hey, they're hanging out in the Marin bunkers! Fun!"
But then I look across the bridge and it's not San Francisco... it's... er... the Hayward hills?
Where the heck are they, and what happened to reality?
EDIT: Oh, geez. It's multiplayer and it butchers the Bay Area. We may have to buy it and giggle our way through it...
EDIT 2: Otherwise they're in a REALLY stylized version of Fort Mason and they're looking at a weird version of the Marin headlands. That's probably what they were going for...
While there is sort of Berkeley, Albany is completely non-existent in that game.
EDIT: Oh, geez. It's multiplayer and it butchers the Bay Area. We may have to buy it and giggle our way through it...
Nope. I don't have a spare key for that one :/
And of course just now I have heard one of those f-tards speeding through the city at 1 am at twice the speed limit...
Earlier this year a bunch of such dumbasses killed themselves (there was a recording from the city monitoring) by going at 3 to 4 times the speed limit, losing control, tumbling out of the road and crashing into the wall.
The irony? The monitoring shown that they stopped just a few minutes earlier, and the only sober guy (according to the autopsy reports) who was driving up to that moment switched with the driver that killed them all (who was very drunk according to toxicology report).
Unfortunately, I've heard similar stories all too often -- the designated driver gets dropped off, and the rest of them total the car and give the DD survivor's guilt for the rest of their lives. Kind of astonished that they switched drivers with the DD still there. That I can't explain.
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Of all the places one would guess you'd get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for two hours, "rural Minnesota" was not on my bingo card. But, here we are...
And of course just now I have heard one of those f-tards speeding through the city at 1 am at twice the speed limit...
Earlier this year a bunch of such dumbasses killed themselves (there was a recording from the city monitoring) by going at 3 to 4 times the speed limit, losing control, tumbling out of the road and crashing into the wall.
The irony? The monitoring shown that they stopped just a few minutes earlier, and the only sober guy (according to the autopsy reports) who was driving up to that moment switched with the driver that killed them all (who was very drunk according to toxicology report).
Unfortunately, I've heard similar stories all too often -- the designated driver gets dropped off, and the rest of them total the car and give the DD survivor's guilt for the rest of their lives. Kind of astonished that they switched drivers with the DD still there. That I can't explain.
As far as I understand, he wasn't designated driver in a traditional sense of that word. Those weren't careless kids who happened to crash while driving back from party drunk. We have a plague of 20-something who drive around at high speed for hours for the sake of thrill of high speeds. The car owner (the drunk driver) was know to the police for past speeding. His mother is supposedly some kind of local pseudo-celebrity (that I have never heard of, but the press made referred to her as if she is actually known for being known) who allegedly had issues with drunk driving and speed too, or at least was very understanding toward her son's pastimes.
Of all the places one would guess you'd get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for two hours, "rural Minnesota" was not on my bingo card. But, here we are...Tractors, man. Gotta respect their lack of speed.
Or, more likely, a massive accident.
Nope. Road construction. Or, rather, an area where no construction was currently taking place, but was still choked down to a single lane with miles of concrete Jersey barriers.
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I learned to drive stick with a very drunken explanation that i was now the designated driver and about 15 forestry students piled into and on an old pickup truck.
I managed to get it to second gear and.. that was enough. We didn't need to go far and that place brings a new meaning to the word de populated. The only thing to hit were deer and bears and those were out pacing us.
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I never learned how to drive stick and I'm fine with that.
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I'll be driving stick up to CY's later today.
Nothing like actual full-time work to adjust everyone's hours. Instead of going out, the kids hung out here for a quiet evening of tabletop games, then wrapped up at 10:00 pm. Why? Because one of them now works full-time and doesn't want to mess with his sleep schedule by staying up too late or going out too much. It was a very relaxing evening.
As for stick shifts, my father grew up driving in Michigan winters, so didn't believe in automatic transmissions because they're significantly worse on icy roads. All of his cars were sticks, so all of us learned to drive sticks. When we bought the Celica in 1996 I insisted on a stick as well, as I was still spending my winter breaks in the Sierras, and while GothBard had had cursory mandatory stick lessons from her stepfather, the Celica was so fun to drive that she quickly got adept with a stick.
Since we still have the Celica and stick shifts still exist in great numbers outside of the U.S., I taught both kids to drive a stick. Impus Major didn't care for it when he first got his license, but now he drives the Celica preferentially wherever he goes. Impus Minor did all of his training in the Celica and strongly prefers a stick. Which avails him quite well, because he's such a careful driver that he's become the "designated friends' car driver" and some of his friends have old-school parents who still drive sticks. And he can drive them all.
Learning to drive a stick is no longer a necessity. But it does open up possibilities, especially in some areas of the world where automatics are still a rarity.
Also, if you do leave US in unspecified future, you might need to show stick driving skills to get the local driving license.
My wife and I both learned on sticks, and my wife still actively prefers them. But I'm not even sure if our kids will ever even have the opportunity to drive a stick.
My dad insisted I learned how to drive stick, and I can do it, but I drive an automatic now because his method of "teaching" was to beat me every time I ground the gears.
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Meanwhile, they posted the cast list for Nutcracker. Hermione tried out for "party guest" in the first act but got "household maid" instead. So she gets to dance in a Victorian maid's uniform with a feather duster while the other girls are in frilly dresses. She's just happy she got cast.
They stopped trying to teach me when I went from 2nd to reverse.
If you've never accidentally dropped from 4th or 5th to reverse while on the freeway, you haven't lived.
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They stopped trying to teach me when I went from 2nd to reverse.If you've never accidentally dropped from 4th or 5th to reverse while on the freeway, you haven't lived.
i knew my life was incomplete . . . .
My dad insisted I learned how to drive stick, and I can do it, but I drive an automatic now because his method of "teaching" was to beat me every time I ground the gears.
Yeah, my dad was like that too. My first job after high school had a pick up truck with an automatic though. So I was able to gain confidence in my driving skills without pop being anywhere around. Much better that way. I drive a manual transmission by choice, they are just more fun. Automatics are so good these days there isn’t much reason other than that. Well, except for the ‘driving in countries other than the U.S.’ thing.
I ride motorcycles too, and those have a manual transmission as well. At least you don’t have to worry about hitting reverse.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My wife and I both learned on sticks, and my wife still actively prefers them. But I'm not even sure if our kids will ever even have the opportunity to drive a stick.
I tried that. It failed to move at all, no matter how much petrol I injected into it, so well done for making that work for you.
Second lesson with a stick shift years later at a wolf center. The place only had a stick shift truck, but almost no one knew how to drive it. I moved my left leg to hit the clutch and pushed the seat from "all the way back" to "the seat doesn't go that far back..."
The back gate didn't go down either. I had to get a dead doll sheep, frozen stiff, into the back at shoulder height. After about 3 attempts I stood it up, grabbed it by the neck and full WWF* style suplexed it into the back.
*wildlife wrestling federation.
They stopped trying to teach me when I went from 2nd to reverse.If you've never accidentally dropped from 4th or 5th to reverse while on the freeway, you haven't lived.
They have made that very difficult to accidentally accomplish now.
Subaru uses a lower ring just below the shift knob that you have to pull up to access the gate for reverse. My Mazda requires that you push the entire shifter down against a stiff spring to get there.
Foolproof? Absolutely not. Especially the Mazda. But in both cases it makes learning less prone to that particular accident.
Yeah, with my Tacoma you have to push the stick down to shift into reverse. Plus, reverse is to the left of 1st gear, so you would be trying the downshift into 1st gear, and not going terribly fast anyway.
Toyotas go one better: If your front wheels are going over 10 mph, you can't shift into reverse.
Which is good, because since the 1980s the 5-speeds have had reverse just to the right of 4th, so when you're trying to accelerate quickly and get into 4th it's an easy mistake to make.