Mother Grizzly's in the hospital again, and I'm getting pretty fed up with Big Brother. I keep getting calls from her various caregivers: "She didn't show up to physical therapy and we can't get in touch with your brothers." "We need permission to take her to the ER and neither of your brothers are answering their phones."
Unfortunately, this time it seems fairly serious. But I managed to spend an hour on the phone getting her care organized, so at least she's in the best care I can get her on the phone while we await hearing what's wrong with her.
Here's hoping she makes yet another full recovery.
Today, we introduced the new guy on the crew (I say "new"- he's got pretty much the same experience I do, he just switched over from a different company) to a time-honored tradition when doing grading or excavation work:
Me: "Hey, Kid, I found you a new wrench."
The Kid: "Sweet, just gotta soak it in some rust remover, then I'll put it in my toolbox."
New Guy: "What's that all about?"
Me: "Me and The Kid have a deal going-- if we find any tools, they're all his, and I get to keep any silverware we find."
New Guy: "Y'all are some weird-ass white people..."
How is that deal going for your so far?
How is that deal going for your so far?Today, we introduced the new guy on the crew (I say "new"- he's got pretty much the same experience I do, he just switched over from a different company) to a time-honored tradition when doing grading or excavation work:
Me: "Hey, Kid, I found you a new wrench."
The Kid: "Sweet, just gotta soak it in some rust remover, then I'll put it in my toolbox."
New Guy: "What's that all about?"
Me: "Me and The Kid have a deal going-- if we find any tools, they're all his, and I get to keep any silverware we find."
New Guy: "Y'all are some weird-ass white people..."
Pretty good, honestly. I've got a whole drawer full of silverware I've found on job sites over the last few years, and just in the last couple weeks The Kid has gotten a handful of sockets, two wrenches, and a hammer.
I think this says a lot about Albany, though I have no idea what: During yesterday's hailstorm Impus Major ran for a nearby friend's house. He knocked at the door but no one was home, so he let himself in and waited out the rain until I got there.
Because, just like many of the other people in this area, locking the front door is more inconvenience than it's worth. And that doesn't surprise me nor worry me in the slightest.
And yet if they were to leave their car unlocked in their driveway, I'd be concerned because I'd know someone would go through it.
Very, very odd...
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Update on Mother Grizzly: I tracked down both brothers, we had a conference call, and we got her a week of 24/7 care. Plus it turns out Younger Brother is still in Seattle so he can check in on her regularly until older brother returns.
And her issue was "critically low sodium levels", which annoys me because she's in an assisted care facility where they monitor her diet, so that's a major strike for them. It's pretty hard to get too little sodium in an American diet...
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Update on Mother Grizzly: I tracked down both brothers, we had a conference call, and we got her a week of 24/7 care. Plus it turns out Younger Brother is still in Seattle so he can check in on her regularly until older brother returns.
And her issue was "critically low sodium levels", which annoys me because she's in an assisted care facility where they monitor her diet, so that's a major strike for them. It's pretty hard to get too little sodium in an American diet...
No, that's only for fast food. Once you're in assisted living nearly everyone is sodium restricted. Man was that difficult at the last job.
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OK. I've finally experienced shrinkflation first hand, and I must say, am not a fan.
I use Flonase for my horrific hay fever. I usually get it at Costco, but I wasn't scheduled for a Costco run for weeks so I bought a bottle at the drug store. Instead of lasting for most of the hay fever season, it ran out.
I did my Costco run this morning and compared the bottles. They appear absolutely identical in size and labeling. The drug store bottle was $21.99. The Costco bottles are $17.66 a bottle, which seems like about the right sort of Costco discount.
Except since the drug store bottle seemed defective or deficient, I checked the labeling.
Drug store: 0.38 fl oz, or $57.87 per ounce.
Costco: 0.62 fl oz, or $28.48 per ounce.
It's suddenly more than a factor of two in price difference, and the only difference between the labels is net weight and number of doses.
Am displeased.
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Meanwhile, in Upstate New York...
Yep. Why isn't older brother around to take care of Grizzly Mom? He's in Niagara Falls for the eclipse.
It's funny -- I was talking to GothBard about how we descended on eastern Oregon like a plague of locusts for the 2017 eclipse and they didn't feel the need to declare a state of emergency, even though we likely quintupled the population.
But GothBard pointed out that there's a difference between going to the middle of a$$-nowhere where there's tons of open space and everyone's expected to bring their own food, water, and fuel, and having an eclipse in an even-reasonably-urban area. The worst "crises" we faced were the local shops running out of everything: Food, gas, sunscreen. You could find a quaint local store on a byway, walk in, and get nothing but an enjoyable conversation with a shopkeep who'd been cleaned out. My favorite was the guy who was rationing his gas to 5 gallons per vehicle. I pulled up in my giant RV, did my lawful 5 gallons of gas, didn't argue, and he invited me in to his restaurant for "whatever they had left".
It was a darned good meal. And everyone up there knew we were in the middle of nowhere, so it was a jovial crowd that didn't mind the lack of anything and understood perfectly well it would take 10-12 hours to drive out.
I heard it was much worse in western Oregon where they have actual cities 'n' such. Maybe upstate New York is more like that. Don't know. Never been.
All I know is Dallas is packed with [explosive redacted] tourists this weekend. There were so many gawkers in Dealey Plaza when Teensy Valeros and I drove past this morning that he asked me if there was going to be a parade. I'm assuming they're here for the eclipse and just making a long weekend of it, because there's not really anything else going on.
Yeah, I can see that. We were showing up in rancher's fields and paying them $200 a vehicle to park for a couple of days. Given the size of their land, they were pulling in tens of thousands of dollars for a couple weeks' work and were probably pretty darned happy to see us. A city would have absorbed us with nary a blip, and the locals would have hated us for ruining traffic.
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OK. I've finally experienced shrinkflation first hand, and I must say, am not a fan.
we'll all be billionaires, ere long, and not a one of us able to buy a 4-pack of eggs for breakfast.
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Fantasy NPC: Livya Arna, Failed Golddigger
Her prospects for marrying rich aren't particularly good right now...
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Fantasy NPC: Livya Arna, Failed Golddigger
Her prospects for marrying rich aren't particularly good right now...
I really really like this one. Evil people need to have personalities to really work as villains...or victims.
I heard it was much worse in western Oregon where they have actual cities 'n' such. Maybe upstate New York is more like that. Don't know. Never been.
The link I posted was from Essex County, where I grew up. There's somewhere around 30,000 people in the whole county. The biggest "city" is Ticonderoga, which has maybe 3 or 4 thousand.
I'm not that far from nyc so 94%ish percent will have to be good enough. Should probably find the glasses i bought last week...
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I really really like this one.Of course. She's a milkmaid
..an EVIL milkmaid.
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It's a double cicada brood year up around my parts. They're due to crawl out in about a month give or take a week depending on the weather/temperature if I understand correctly and apparently, it's going to be a LOUD one this time around since it's one batch of more regular 13-year bugs and another 17-year species that lined up together this time around.
Clock that with the total eclipse that will be visible here and it's going to be a weird spring.
It's a double cicada brood year up around my parts. They're due to crawl out in about a month give or take a week depending on the weather/temperature if I understand correctly and apparently, it's going to be a LOUD one this time around since it's one batch of more regular 13-year bugs and another 17-year species that lined up together this time around.
Clock that with the total eclipse that will be visible here and it's going to be a weird spring.
My favorite response I've seen to the people who are saying it's a sign/omen/punishment for poor behavior: "Scientists predicted all of this over 300 years ago. How can it possibly suddenly be related to current events?"
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earthquake, check. Locusts check. Eclipse check. Flood.. eh getting there. Tourists cause a state of emergency though...
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Since my children refuse to eat coleslaw anyway, I decided to experiment last night and with a pound bag of shredded cabbage, I threw in a cup of finely-chopped kimchi, a quarter-cup of rice vinegar, a splash of fish sauce and tamari, a tiny bit of mayo to smooth it out, and the zest and juice of one lime. Then I let it meld for a few hours to really let the citrus come through.
It needed more heat, but the flavor was good.
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earthquake, check. Locusts check. Eclipse check. Flood.. eh getting there. Tourists cause a state of emergency though...
All we need is a pregnant and hallucinating Demi Moore.
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It's a double cicada brood year up around my parts. They're due to crawl out in about a month give or take a week depending on the weather/temperature if I understand correctly and apparently, it's going to be a LOUD one this time around since it's one batch of more regular 13-year bugs and another 17-year species that lined up together this time around.
Clock that with the total eclipse that will be visible here and it's going to be a weird spring.
My favorite response I've seen to the people who are saying it's a sign/omen/punishment for poor behavior: "Scientists predicted all of this over 300 years ago. How can it possibly suddenly be related to current events?"
I really appreciate the breakdown of how many earthquakes there are every day, along with the fact that a total eclipse happens every 18 months, just most of them are over the ocean where no one is around.
Heck, wouldn’t the Babylonians have been able to do it, if they had had the geography to know which were the lands *over there*, past the scorpion-men? :) (I’m too lazy to look up the star catalogues right now.)
I am looking forward to it, though! Fortunately, I’m in a place I could get a reasonable train ticket to somewhere I should get a decent view without needing to drive, and hopefully in a small enough town that I won’t need to wade through crowds. The nearest metropolis is just out of the path of totality, but hopefully most of the folks there will be content to go no further than one of the suitable suburbs. I am not a party girl. The plan is to maybe check out a local museum or two, but mainly camp out at the local library with some work until it’s time to hike out to a park where I can make myself comfortable.
That said, I think I will miss the banging of brasses and all that, as is traditional. ~ “when the assistant bronze resounds in vain for the moon.” (More or less.)
*Looks up at the sun.* “We’re gonna need bigger cymbals.” XD
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! Volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
Alas, I doubt that when I’ve gone to my final reward that anyone will ask, “Who now will know how to draw down the Moon with a Thessalian wheel?” (Martial 9.29.9)
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The powers-that-be just canceled a video project I'd already put a week into. On the bright side, that makes this a MUCH lighter week at work.
I blame the eclipse.
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And yes: I told GothBard that for everything that happens to me, whether good or bad, before or after, it's all going to be the eclipse's fault. I look forward to a fate-driven day.
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Fate, thy name is Celica?
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"So, what's The Great Gatsby about?"
"Simping."
Another reason to hate our modern phone society: As a lifelong skier/backpacker, ALL of my sunglasses are polarized. It takes 3-4 layers of polarization to be able to look directly at the eclipse. I grabbed my 2 pairs of sunglasses, then went through the massive pile by the front door (roughly 8 pairs) and not a single pair is polarized. I mentioned it to GothBard, and she replied, "Oh, yeah. I stopped buying polarized sunglasses when I couldn't walk with my phone while wearing them."
So, 8 pairs of sunglasses and then my polarized glasses give me about 0.5 seconds of looking at the sun. Enough to see that we're around 5% obscured right now, but unless I can find at least one more polarized pair I'm not going to see much more.
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Well, we survived peak eclipse here in the Bay Area. At 34% it was pretty darned boring, especially after doing the total eclipse in Oregon in 2017. But GothBard is proudly wearing her, "I survived the eclipse" shirt today, so we're happy she didn't turn her shirt into a lie.
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There's also i survived the 2024 NY earthquake shirt. With a picture of 1/4 pieces of lawn furniture tipped over.
Next up, locusts!
Only got 90% coverage here, it was cool but you absolutely needed the glasses to really see anything. The sun otherwise just looked slightly cloudy. I may have looked for another effect a liiitle too long.
"So, what's The Great Gatsby about?"
"Simping."
What is "simping"?
Wow... the San Francisco Chronicle just released an interactive map of where State Farm is choosing not to renew homeowner's policies.
If you zoom in, you'll notice that Albany (94706) is still covered, whereas the North Berkeley Hills (94707) aren't. Quite literally our back yard neighbor over the fence can't renew (in theory), whereas we can.
I'd normally not particularly care (our lot is worth much more than our house), but our mortgage requires us to carry homeowner's insurance, so that's a bit of a scare. And it makes me wonder how many corporate single family home sales are being driven by houses being uninsurable...
What is "simping"?"So, what's The Great Gatsby about?"
"Simping."
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If thou tapest togethere ii speares to make an MEGA-SPEARE, and fyghteth with it against anothere MEGA-SPEARE, thou hast only thineselfe to blayme when thou dost get MEGA-SPEAREDETH in ye Crotch.
If thou tapest togethere ii speares to make an MEGA-SPEARE, and fyghteth with it against anothere MEGA-SPEARE, thou hast only thineselfe to blayme when thou dost get MEGA-SPEAREDETH in ye Crotch.
I already have a mega spear in my crotch.
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Popped in to post something. Saw Freehold's response. Need to pause a bit to recover...
What is "simping"?"So, what's The Great Gatsby about?"
"Simping."
Desperately trying anything and everything in a usually futile effort to get senpai to notice you.
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Moving on, it's really interesting to watch anti-performance psychological tactics work incredibly well against one of your friends, even after you explain to him what's happening.
As briefly as possible, Helldivers 2 rewards you for successfully completing missions, completing them quickly, finding hidden items, and getting everyone out alive. Notice the fundamental missing thing: Killing enemies. Not only is it a "worthless" activity, but getting into a firefight with enemies causes spawns to happen, bogging you down and increasing your time to complete the mission.
In short, killing the baddies very concretely decreases your overall score and rewards. It's a pretty clever design, because at the end of every level, the top 3 stats are enemies killed, shots fired, and accuracy.
Needless to say, <anonymous> is absolutely obsessed with getting the highest kill count on the team. So he shoots everything in sight. Generating spawns. Getting us all killed. Increasing our mission time. And generally making the game so much harder that we've reached the point that the other three of us can casually do "Suicide" missions (a difficulty level, not a goal) without any trouble, but as soon as <anonymous> joins us we have to reduce the difficulty by two levels to "Challenging" just to have a chance of surviving.
And we explain over and over again that shooting the bad guys is the wrong thing to do in this game.
But he sees that "Number of enemies killed" as the first stat listed after every match, and if he's not #1 he gets upset, and goes back to shooting everything in sight.
It's a very interesting psychological study.
Judging from the videos, killing enemies in Helldivers 2 seems to be extreme fun, even if it is counterproductive, goal-wise.
Popped in to post something. Saw Freehold's response. Need to pause a bit to recover...
Hey someone had to say it.
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If thou tapest togethere ii speares to make an MEGA-SPEARE, and fyghteth with it against anothere MEGA-SPEARE, thou hast only thineselfe to blayme when thou dost get MEGA-SPEAREDETH in ye Crotch.I already have a mega spear in my crotch.
Having just reread the Iliad, quite a few men died that way.
Judging from the videos, killing enemies in Helldivers 2 seems to be extreme fun, even if it is counterproductive, goal-wise.
It's fun to drop a strike on an enemy base and mop up the rest. It's not fun when some unmentionable idiot sees a random patrol and drops a mortar turret, causing 4-5 spawns in a circle around you...
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Judging from the videos, killing enemies in Helldivers 2 seems to be extreme fun, even if it is counterproductive, goal-wise.It's fun to drop a strike on an enemy base and mop up the rest. It's not fun when some unmentionable idiot sees a random patrol and drops a mortar turret, causing 4-5 spawns in a circle around you...
Not to be That Guy, but I would absolutely be That Guy. I don't play video games to clear checkpoints and whatever you said, I'm here to blow shit up.
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Surrounded? You mean a target rich environment. MUAHAHAHAHAH
I heard rumors that helldivers 2 was a play-against-type game, I guess this is how.