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Ironically, as much as I love building things IRL, you put building subsystems in a video game and I'm out.
Relatively, I do like how Skyrim did it where you basically pick s*@~ out.
Ironically, as much as I love building things IRL, you put building subsystems in a video game and I'm out.
Relatively, I do like how Skyrim did it where you basically pick s%!! out.
Including picking nothing, apparently.
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I have installed Valheim again...I really want to like this game, but there is a lot of subsystems and elements that feel inconvenient for inconvenience sake...
Building in Valheim has always been a chore since it first came out on Steam. Nothing ever snaps where it should.
I feel like I am constantly struggling against control.
Welcome to Valheim!
A few weeks ago, V Rising had free access days so I played for... 60% of the game over a weekend?
I'm sorry. But at least it wasn't Redfall bad. It just got boring really quickly.
And the base building felt much better there - much less customizable and more restricted...
Yeah, it was so easy I don't remember having any issues.
and you can actually jump (which is apparently a skill beyond capabilities of ancient vampires, who can only jump down from cliffs).
Don't. Get. Me. Started. We tried to play through one of the Ghost Recon games. Being flummoxed by chain link fences or even knee-high roadside barriers broke immersion so hard we couldn't take the game seriously. And now in any game where you can jump or climb we exclaim, "Hey! These random characters are better than the U.S. Black Ops team!"
Both could really use an option for "automated storage space" allowing me to craft items in camp from whatever is in storage,
Amen. ALL GAMES SHOULD DO THIS.
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I took the (double-decker) bus to school before we moved to The Town from The Village, and I remember the driver taking it up on two wheels around corners, to the great delight of the kids - or I think I do, since I'm not sure a school bus driver could reaaly get away with that, not even in the early 90s.
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Sometimes, the world just cooperates with you.
The Cranky Calico has dropped another pound in the last couple of weeks; she's down to 4.5 pounds, which is very much like finding out that your grandmother is weighing in at around 70 pounds. She's started behaving very oddly, purring and coming to us for pets and attention, and even going to far as to put her paws up on my chair to get picked up and petted. Totally unlike her. Impus Major was sure she'd had another stroke that rewrote her personality, but combining that with the weight loss I think she's not long for this world (though this is what? The third? Fourth? time I'm making this prediction?).
So the weather suddenly warmed up into the high 70s, and she's outside basking in the late afternoon sun in complete bliss. Happiness is a cat on a warm Autumn afternoon on an unfinished hardwood deck.
I'm happy for her. As I told GothBard, I really want her to die, but I want her to die peacefully in our house on her favorite pillow, in relative comfort. Death comes for us all, but death can be polite, and I'd prefer to have at least one cat in my lifetime die politely.
EDIT: And yes, I'm sure grammarians wince and type, "You don't capitalize the seasons," then decide better of it and don't post, but if March is a proper noun, I'm going to stubbornly insist that Autumn is as well, and autocorrect can go to heck.
I have installed Valheim again...I really want to like this game, but there is a lot of subsystems and elements that feel inconvenient for inconvenience sake...Building in Valheim has always been a chore since it first came out on Steam. Nothing ever snaps where it should.
I think it would help immensely, if it had design mode, where you create your intended building, step by step, and once you see that you like the look and it does work, you then click to proceed with actual construction.
A few weeks ago, V Rising had free access days so I played for... 60% of the game over a weekend?I'm sorry. But at least it wasn't Redfall bad. It just got boring really quickly.
I liked the castle design part, didn't care much for the resource harvesting (discovering that you can change your server setting to "ignore restriction on teleporting while carrying anything remotely useful" was enormous help to keep me longer than the first two hours).
The regular combat felt flat and the boss fights were tedious - I ended switching to easier combat settings after some time, just to explore more before the free access ends.
Exploration and growth looked promising, but really, they were very linear in practice (yay, I can pick which blood carrier I want to fight, but the things they unlock require you to have access to workshop/material/item that boss/blood carrier I skipped unlocks...)
After this game play, I have zero incentive to buy the game for full price... or even half quarter price... Maybe if it ever goes at 90% off.
Feels like a loot of great potential that was, maybe not wasted, strictly speaking, but definitely not used to its fullest.
Both could really use an option for "automated storage space" allowing me to craft items in camp from whatever is in storage,Amen. ALL GAMES SHOULD DO THIS.
"BuTT the cHaLlLenge!"
EDIT: And yes, I'm sure grammarians wince and type, "You don't capitalize the seasons," then decide better of it and don't post, but if March is a proper noun, I'm going to stubbornly insist that Autumn is as well, and autocorrect can go to heck.
You can say you are channeling your German ancestors.
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Val's school is 90% Hispanic (predominantly Mexican-American), so his Big Project for the quarter in his World Cultures class is to choose a dead loved one and make a shoebox diorama of an ofrenda for that person.
So we spent the evening sketching out our design and talking about making miniature flowers and pastries and choosing photographs.
The person he chose (his godfather, who died earlier this year) loved his backyard garden, so we're cutting windows into the back wall of the diorama and printing out a garden backdrop to paste behind it.
Val doesn't usually put this much effort into school projects, but he's really going all out. Which is good. He's had trouble talking about his grief. I think this is helping him.
Val's school is 90% Hispanic (predominantly Mexican-American), so his Big Project for the quarter in his World Cultures class is to choose a dead loved one and make a shoebox diorama of an ofrenda for that person.
So we spent the evening sketching out our design and talking about making miniature flowers and pastries and choosing photographs.
The person he chose (his godfather, who died earlier this year) loved his backyard garden, so we're cutting windows into the back wall of the diorama and printing out a garden backdrop to paste behind it.
Val doesn't usually put this much effort into school projects, but he's really going all out. Which is good. He's had trouble talking about his grief. I think this is helping him.
That's WAAAAY better than the kids' annual assignment of, "Choose something unique to your culture or your family that you celebrate every year."
We are so White it's terrifying. GothBard's family came over on the Mayflower (and has the docs to prove it). My family fled to California from the South during the Civil War. We do Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and that's about it. The closest things we had to "traditions" were Disneyland every Fourth of July or the Fake Russian's every new year. So they'd try to write about one of those things and their teachers would say, "Not good enough."
Please don't insist that my kids have a "unique" culture, then grade them down because you don't think anything they do is "unique" enough.
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Val's school is 90% Hispanic (predominantly Mexican-American), so his Big Project for the quarter in his World Cultures class is to choose a dead loved one and make a shoebox diorama of an ofrenda for that person.
So we spent the evening sketching out our design and talking about making miniature flowers and pastries and choosing photographs.
The person he chose (his godfather, who died earlier this year) loved his backyard garden, so we're cutting windows into the back wall of the diorama and printing out a garden backdrop to paste behind it.
Val doesn't usually put this much effort into school projects, but he's really going all out. Which is good. He's had trouble talking about his grief. I think this is helping him.That's WAAAAY better than the kids' annual assignment of, "Choose something unique to your culture or your family that you celebrate every year."
We are so White it's terrifying. GothBard's family came over on the Mayflower (and has the docs to prove it). My family fled to California from the South during the Civil War. We do Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and that's about it. The closest things we had to "traditions" were Disneyland every Fourth of July or the Fake Russian's every new year. So they'd try to write about one of those things and their teachers would say, "Not good enough."
Please don't insist that my kids have a "unique" culture, then grade them down because you don't think anything they do is "unique" enough.
We're direct descendants of Vlad The Impaler so all my kids had to do was put a bunch of Barbie heads on toothpicks on a field of green felt with a castle wall in back and call it a day.
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Val's school is 90% Hispanic (predominantly Mexican-American), so his Big Project for the quarter in his World Cultures class is to choose a dead loved one and make a shoebox diorama of an ofrenda for that person.
So we spent the evening sketching out our design and talking about making miniature flowers and pastries and choosing photographs.
The person he chose (his godfather, who died earlier this year) loved his backyard garden, so we're cutting windows into the back wall of the diorama and printing out a garden backdrop to paste behind it.
Val doesn't usually put this much effort into school projects, but he's really going all out. Which is good. He's had trouble talking about his grief. I think this is helping him.That's WAAAAY better than the kids' annual assignment of, "Choose something unique to your culture or your family that you celebrate every year."
We are so White it's terrifying. GothBard's family came over on the Mayflower (and has the docs to prove it). My family fled to California from the South during the Civil War. We do Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and that's about it. The closest things we had to "traditions" were Disneyland every Fourth of July or the Fake Russian's every new year. So they'd try to write about one of those things and their teachers would say, "Not good enough."
Please don't insist that my kids have a "unique" culture, then grade them down because you don't think anything they do is "unique" enough.
Eve's second ex-fiance, when his son was in a similar predicament, helped him invent an outlandish "tradition", complete with song. He never got asked to do the project again.
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We're direct descendants of Vlad The Impaler so all my kids had to do was put a bunch of Barbie heads on toothpicks on a field of green felt with a castle wall in back and call it a day.Val's school is 90% Hispanic (predominantly Mexican-American), so his Big Project for the quarter in his World Cultures class is to choose a dead loved one and make a shoebox diorama of an ofrenda for that person.
So we spent the evening sketching out our design and talking about making miniature flowers and pastries and choosing photographs.
The person he chose (his godfather, who died earlier this year) loved his backyard garden, so we're cutting windows into the back wall of the diorama and printing out a garden backdrop to paste behind it.
Val doesn't usually put this much effort into school projects, but he's really going all out. Which is good. He's had trouble talking about his grief. I think this is helping him.That's WAAAAY better than the kids' annual assignment of, "Choose something unique to your culture or your family that you celebrate every year."
We are so White it's terrifying. GothBard's family came over on the Mayflower (and has the docs to prove it). My family fled to California from the South during the Civil War. We do Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and that's about it. The closest things we had to "traditions" were Disneyland every Fourth of July or the Fake Russian's every new year. So they'd try to write about one of those things and their teachers would say, "Not good enough."
Please don't insist that my kids have a "unique" culture, then grade them down because you don't think anything they do is "unique" enough.
Family history would be easy -- we had all kinds of interesting ancestors. But year after year it had to be an annual "tradition" -- some rite that we performed every year that was unique to our family. Somehow I think that your kids claiming an annual beheading-and-impaling festival would have been met with skepticism...
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It's Halloween! Can I burn my IT department at the stake?
For the last few weeks, my internet connection has been flaky. I thought it was just something about AT&T messing with us, as they always do. (TL;DR version: Our ISP is Sonic, but they have to lease their lines through AT&T, so somehow whenever an AT&T salesperson comes through the neighborhood our internet gets flaky and the salesperson asks whether we've been having trouble and says, "Oh, yes. I hear a lot of people have trouble with Sonic that way.")
But the last couple of days have been awful so I went in to check my internet settings.
Yep. Another update. Another, "We re-enabled WiFi for you. Aren't you happy with us?"
Grr...
And special torment for the Microsoft devs who wrote code to preferentially use WiFi even if there's a hardwired connection. That's just... peachy...
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Family history would be easy -- we had all kinds of interesting ancestors. But year after year it had to be an annual "tradition" -- some rite that we performed every year that was unique to our family. Somehow I think that your kids claiming an...We're direct descendants of Vlad The Impaler so all my kids had to do was put a bunch of Barbie heads on toothpicks on a field of green felt with a castle wall in back and call it a day.Val's school is 90% Hispanic (predominantly Mexican-American), so his Big Project for the quarter in his World Cultures class is to choose a dead loved one and make a shoebox diorama of an ofrenda for that person.
So we spent the evening sketching out our design and talking about making miniature flowers and pastries and choosing photographs.
The person he chose (his godfather, who died earlier this year) loved his backyard garden, so we're cutting windows into the back wall of the diorama and printing out a garden backdrop to paste behind it.
Val doesn't usually put this much effort into school projects, but he's really going all out. Which is good. He's had trouble talking about his grief. I think this is helping him.That's WAAAAY better than the kids' annual assignment of, "Choose something unique to your culture or your family that you celebrate every year."
We are so White it's terrifying. GothBard's family came over on the Mayflower (and has the docs to prove it). My family fled to California from the South during the Civil War. We do Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and that's about it. The closest things we had to "traditions" were Disneyland every Fourth of July or the Fake Russian's every new year. So they'd try to write about one of those things and their teachers would say, "Not good enough."
Please don't insist that my kids have a "unique" culture, then grade them down because you don't think anything they do is "unique" enough.
Every year we added on to the tower we were building in the garden.
We hadn't decided if it was going to be a wizard tower or a castle tower before the divorce.
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It's Halloween! Can I burn my IT department at the stake?
For the last few weeks, my internet connection has been flaky. I thought it was just something about AT&T messing with us, as they always do. (TL;DR version: Our ISP is Sonic, but they have to lease their lines through AT&T, so somehow whenever an AT&T salesperson comes through the neighborhood our internet gets flaky and the salesperson asks whether we've been having trouble and says, "Oh, yes. I hear a lot of people have trouble with Sonic that way.")
But the last couple of days have been awful so I went in to check my internet settings.
Yep. Another update. Another, "We re-enabled WiFi for you. Aren't you happy with us?"
Grr...
And special torment for the Microsoft devs who wrote code to preferentially use WiFi even if there's a hardwired connection. That's just... peachy...
Ironically if you have your Xbox hooked up to a LAN it'll ask you at least twice if you're sure if you accidentally try switching it to Wifi.
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Had to go to a client site yesterday to replace a PC and I was supposed to have a conversation with the owner about their former IT guy and the server replacement project she hired him to perform.
<cough>
So I ended up driving 101 miles for a client visit whose offices are located 9 miles from my house.
"How?" I hear you ask. "Why?" I also hear. "Vany, please stop talking."
Yeah, I know.
Because they threw away the VGA to Display Port monitor cable I had previously left there and told them "Don't throw this away. You're going to need it the next time I have to replace a computer. Where can I put it where it won't get thrown away?"
Drove from my home to the office to pick up the PC, approx 10 miles in the opposite direction.
Drove to the client. Had a minor stroke when I found out they threw away the cable.
Drove back to the office to grab another one, which I later found out was stolen from a different client. Sigh.
Drove back to the client, finished up, and the owner had left without having the conversation I was promised.
Drove back to the office to dump all the garbage.
Back home.
About 45 minutes later I get a rage-fueled phone call because her British application guru that lives in Cancun Mexico can't get a 20-yr-old piece of software to install on a brand-new PC and I need to go back and hook up the old computer right now. Also, he's having issues with Office on this new PC. I start to say "Ok, he needs to si-" and she cuts me off before I can finish "-gn in with the correct account" by saying "He's already done that and it's not working!"
She doesn't understand anything of what she's saying, and I say that because she told me that. "He's firing off questions to me and I don't have the answers, and I don't understand anything of what's going on!"
But she also won't let me explain what's going on. Or answer her questions. She just insists that I call a guy in Mexico. Right now.
Speak with him for an hour. Have to install .NET Framework 2.0 to get their 20-yr-old software to work. I ask why they haven't upgraded to a newer version. "She paid for a perpetual license a long time ago and refuses to spend any more money on this as long as it's still working." You realize that you failed a penetration test last year, right? Installing .NET 2.0 and unpatched 20-yr-old software won't help your case.
Also found out that there's a specific 365 account they're supposed to be using on this computer. Great. Except it's not licensed properly for what they want it to be doing, and she won't pay for it to be licensed properly. Just use somebody else's license instead and sign in with that account. Yeah...ok...except now anybody using this computer with a generic username and a password that's taped to the monitor can read her email whenever they feel like it. You understand that, right?
They call me again right at 5pm. Still having issues. I work until 6:30pm to straighten it all out.
And then...today...
So...apparently the former IT guy was supposed to let us know when it was ok for us to take over and monitor the new servers. Except he didn't. So today the owner told me to do so. They're completely using the new servers, she tells me. Because that's what their former IT guy told her.
Except they're not. In fact, one of the new servers isn't even on the right operating system and is licensed with an evaluation edition.
I send her an email completely calling him out on everything I found. I didn't throw him under the bus. I launched a volley of buses out of a trebuchet at him in this email.
She forwards him the email. I don't care.
He tells her "Oh, that server isn't permanent. It's just a stepping stone and it's going to go away."
Oh? Then how come you made it a domain controller? And there isn't any other new domain controller?
Did I mention that this guy was her former IT guy? That she fired him before hiring him to replace the server infrastructure? I feel like that might be important.
I need whisky.
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You're going to pour it on the server and then put a match to it?
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Because they threw away the VGA to Display Port monitor cable I had previously left there and told them "Don't throw this away. You're going to need it the next time I have to replace a computer. Where can I put it where it won't get thrown away?"[/ooc]
I have reached the point with adapters that every time one isn't in our adapter drawer, I immediately order two more. I've spent close to $1000 on adapters. And yet somehow we still find we're missing some type of adapter about once a month or so. When we move out, this place will be a valuable copper mine. Because people fundamentally don't understand just how precious adapters are.
Drove back to the office to grab another one, which I later found out was stolen from a different client. Sigh.
We had to build our own file server for backup and it kept going offline. Every time I went out, I found that someone had stolen the ethernet cable from it from where it was sitting in a secure room. We finally put it into our director's office with instructions, "If anyone other than NobodysHome touches that box. Fire them."
Suddenly we never had any down time.Coincidentally, this is the same director who just approved my file transfers. Did I mention she's always been Good People?
About 45 minutes later I get a rage-fueled phone call because her British application guru that lives in Cancun Mexico can't get a 20-yr-old piece of software to install on a brand-new PC and I need to go back and hook up the old computer right now.
Been there. You should be able to hang up, quit, and never speak to them again at that point.
"She paid for a perpetual license a long time ago and refuses to spend any more money on this as long as it's still working." You realize that you failed a penetration test last year, right? Installing .NET 2.0 and unpatched 20-yr-old software won't help your case.
Also found out that there's a specific 365 account they're supposed to be using on this computer. Great. Except it's not licensed properly for what they want it to be doing, and she won't pay for it to be licensed properly. Just use somebody else's license instead and sign in with that account.
At this point I forward all communications to Microsoft and any other involved companies to report corporate license fraud.
You earned that whiskey, Sir!
"How?" I hear you ask. "Why?" I also hear. "Vany, please stop talking."
No, no, please continue...
Hearing about the IT f... screw-ups is always entertaining as long as those are things that happened to other people (and even some of own IT screwups are funny once the dust has settled...)
He tells her "Oh, that server isn't permanent. It's just a stepping stone and it's going to go away."
Oh? Then how come you made it a domain controller? And there isn't any other new domain controller?
Did I mention that this guy was her former IT guy? That she fired him before hiring him to replace the server infrastructure? I feel like that might be important.
Was he twirling his mustache and gloating about how he will take his vengeance on the whole company, and they will be sorry for daring to fire him?
That sounds like a good start for the ex-IT guy's revenge...
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We had to build our own file server for backup and it kept going offline. Every time I went out, I found that someone had stolen the ethernet cable from it from where it was sitting in a secure room. We finally put it into our director's office with instructions, "If anyone other than NobodysHome touches that box. Fire them."
Suddenly we never had any down time.
Plot twist: It was her all the time, but she knew that when it would be obvious it's either her or you, no one would believe that you did it.
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He tells her "Oh, that server isn't permanent. It's just a stepping stone and it's going to go away."
Oh? Then how come you made it a domain controller? And there isn't any other new domain controller?
Did I mention that this guy was her former IT guy? That she fired him before hiring him to replace the server infrastructure? I feel like that might be important.
Was he twirling his mustache and gloating about how he will take his vengeance on the whole company, and they will be sorry for daring to fire him?
That sounds like a good start for the ex-IT guy's revenge...
One of Hi's worst job experiences in IT: He built a redundant server cluster for a company. UPS. Continual offsite backup. Absolutely bulletproof. Spared no expense.
So, after three months of 0% downtime, the boss called him in and said, "I really don't know that you do anything around here any more, so we're going to have to let you go."
He was fired for doing TOO good of a job.
Ironically if you have your Xbox hooked up to a LAN it'll ask you at least twice if you're sure if you accidentally try switching it to Wifi.It's Halloween! Can I burn my IT department at the stake?
For the last few weeks, my internet connection has been flaky. I thought it was just something about AT&T messing with us, as they always do. (TL;DR version: Our ISP is Sonic, but they have to lease their lines through AT&T, so somehow whenever an AT&T salesperson comes through the neighborhood our internet gets flaky and the salesperson asks whether we've been having trouble and says, "Oh, yes. I hear a lot of people have trouble with Sonic that way.")
But the last couple of days have been awful so I went in to check my internet settings.
Yep. Another update. Another, "We re-enabled WiFi for you. Aren't you happy with us?"
Grr...
And special torment for the Microsoft devs who wrote code to preferentially use WiFi even if there's a hardwired connection. That's just... peachy...
which xbox?
He tells her "Oh, that server isn't permanent. It's just a stepping stone and it's going to go away."
Oh? Then how come you made it a domain controller? And there isn't any other new domain controller?
Did I mention that this guy was her former IT guy? That she fired him before hiring him to replace the server infrastructure? I feel like that might be important.
Was he twirling his mustache and gloating about how he will take his vengeance on the whole company, and they will be sorry for daring to fire him?
That sounds like a good start for the ex-IT guy's revenge...
One of Hi's worst job experiences in IT: He built a redundant server cluster for a company. UPS. Continual offsite backup. Absolutely bulletproof. Spared no expense.
So, after three months of 0% downtime, the boss called him in and said, "I really don't know that you do anything around here any more, so we're going to have to let you go."
He was fired for doing TOO good of a job.
that happens sometimes.
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Somehow I think that your kids claiming an annual beheading-and-impaling festival would have been met with skepticism...
Skepticism or "that explains so. So much...." ?
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My neighbor invited me over for some heavy lifting. It was great, we loaded his ladder rack onto the truck and bolted it down. Good times, good times.
It's one thing to look at every government entity being ruled by apathy, greed, or corruption, sigh, and say, "It is what it is."
It's another thing entirely to watch it happening in real time and see how easily it evolves.
A few years ago, Impus Major was "hired" by an "organization" to help neurodivergent teens. The reason I put everything in quotes is because it was one woman who started her own one-person nonprofit and parents paid her and she then paid Impus Major to take a group of teens out and teach them how to interact with the world and read social cues. So a typical week might be, "OK, now we're going to a fast food/counter restaurant. Here's how you place an order and interact with the staff. Next week we'll go to a sit-down restaurant."
It's been years and the situation has devolved. The woman no longer shows up. It's turned all online. As Impus Major describes it, "I'm being paid to spend an hour each week playing online games with a couple of friends. I think if the parents knew what was going on they'd feel they were being ripped off."
So, the woman ran out of ideas, her own child grew to adulthood, she lost interest, but she's still collecting money from parents to provide a service that's likely utterly useless to their kids.
Even though she's not a government agency, it really seems like this is how government apathy works.
I find it amusing that our division's Slack channel is filled with pictures of all the free pancake breakfasts that were offered at offices worldwide to "reward" employees for coming in to meet in person for the quarterly All Hands meeting.
I'm such an introvert that even if I worked daily in one of those offices, I wouldn't go to such a breakfast unless forced to. Dining hall breakfasts with co-workers? No thanks.
Is it possible that for her parents, it is a tax deduction, write-off, or what's it's called?
Is it possible that for her parents, it is a tax deduction, write-off, or what's it's called?
The whole thing is extremely tax-iffy; Impus Major is paid "under the table" using VenMo and never gets a payslip nor end-of-year earnings summary. At under $750/year in gross income he never had to bother filing, and I'd be really curious as to the founder's dubious taxes. We're almost certainly going to have to file for Impus Major this year (he made several thousand doing his baby-sitting job, so he's probably hit the minimum reportable income since he's self-employed and that bar is ludicrously low), and I'll be interested how nonprofit lady reacts.
And people seriously misunderstand tax write-offs: There are only three reasons for a tax write-off:
(1) You get to keep whatever it is you're paying for. For example, you buy a house and the mortgage payments are tax-deductible. You're saving taxes on something you bought and own.
(2) You were going to pay the money anyway. Back when they were getting what they considered a worthwhile service, getting the service through a nonprofit was vastly preferable. But if the service is worthless, you're better off not paying at all, unless...
(3) ...the tax write-off drops you into a lower tax bracket. We're working in the realm of hundreds of dollars a year. It isn't going to touch their tax bracket.
So if they knew they were getting a useless service, my belief is that they would stop paying.
Random data points because obsessive-compulsive: The lows are dropping into the 40s this week, so it's about time to turn on the heat. I've tracked the date I turned it on every year since 2014. And in spite of the Bay Area's infamously variable climate, the data's remarkable in its consistency: (U.S. date format for your furriners, but it actually seems like the better format for once.)
.
11/13/14
11/04/15
10/12/16
10/29/17
10/23/18
11/07/19
11/06/20
12/06/21
10/21/22
11/09/23
10/26/24
The consistency is pretty impressive; other than the 2016 and 2021 outliers, you can pretty much expect I'm going to turn on the heat within a week or two of Halloween.
Well, I find it interesting...
Is that the current photo of Sonic and his sister on the Mrs. Longears profile?
...
I have to say, that now I'd like to see what would happen if Domestic Tyrant Longearsp did not countermand the bowl cut order...
I suspect it would be a trainwreck, but at least, it would be entertaining trainwreck. At least for the viewers...
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I find it amusing that our division's Slack channel is filled with pictures of all the free pancake breakfasts that were offered at offices worldwide to "reward" employees for coming in to meet in person for the quarterly All Hands meeting.
I'm such an introvert that even if I worked daily in one of those offices, I wouldn't go to such a breakfast unless forced to. Dining hall breakfasts with co-workers? No thanks.
Dear NobodysHome Corp,
Please mail NobodysHome's share of pancakes to:
Freehold Abscondi-cave
XXXX Absconding Way
Anytown, USA, 86753[09]
Thank you.
Is it possible that for her parents, it is a tax deduction, write-off, or what's it's called?The whole thing is extremely tax-iffy; Impus Major is paid "under the table" using VenMo and never gets a payslip nor end-of-year earnings summary.
Pull him out. Venmo for paying regular employees under the table is incredibly suspicious.
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Random data points because obsessive-compulsive: The lows are dropping into the 40s this week, so it's about time to turn on the heat. I've tracked the date I turned it on every year since 2014. And in spite of the Bay Area's infamously variable climate, the data's remarkable in its consistency: (U.S. date format for your furriners, but it actually seems like the better format for once.)
.
11/13/14
11/04/15
10/12/16
10/29/17
10/23/18
11/07/19
11/06/20
12/06/21
10/21/22
11/09/23
10/26/24The consistency is pretty impressive; other than the 2016 and 2021 outliers, you can pretty much expect I'm going to turn on the heat within a week or two of Halloween.
Well, I find it interesting...
Yeah we usually get our first snowfall and cold spell within a week of Halloween and our first measurable snow within a week of Thanksgiving.
Pull him out. Venmo for paying regular employees under the table is incredibly suspicious.Is it possible that for her parents, it is a tax deduction, write-off, or what's it's called?The whole thing is extremely tax-iffy; Impus Major is paid "under the table" using VenMo and never gets a payslip nor end-of-year earnings summary.
I don't think you realize how low-key this is. He gets $15 an hour for one hour of "work" per week. Which has been reduced to playing online games with two kids.
I've talked to my accountant about it, and Impus Major isn't in any danger because his income is so low that he's far below the reporting threshold, and there is no "Requirement to report" law where he'd get in trouble for not reporting his employer.
If she ever gets audited, I think she'll find the IRS is... displeased with her operations.
EDIT: On the other hand, his babysitting gig is $50/week so we're going to report it, and the parents are being absolutely meticulous in their record-keeping: Every session is paid for by check, and they want a copy of every cashed check as proof-of-payment.
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Is that the current photo of Sonic and his sister on the Mrs. Longears profile?
...
I have to say, that now I'd like to see what would happen if Domestic Tyrant Longearsp did not countermand the bowl cut order...
I suspect it would be a trainwreck, but at least, it would be entertaining trainwreck. At least for the viewers...
It is him, and what would happen in that situation is that Mme. Longears would be reaching for the clippers the moment he set foot in the door. I would be exiled to the couch at night for some time.
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I don't think you realize how low-key this is. He gets $15 an hour for one hour of "work" per week. Which has been reduced to playing online games with two kids.
It was in person but role playing games are how I moved from "kill all humans" to "eh fine I'll save the humans too some of them. If we have time " It was certainly a lot more effective than other methods in my case.
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The guitar players amongst us may remember taking the little rubber seals off the necks of Grolsch bottles for use as strap retainers. Whoever brews Grolsch these days has made them irremovable, the rascals, but rejoice, as Heart Brewery in North Yorks is still doing things the old-fashioned way, and you get a free bottle of beer (that is actually nice to drink) with each one, as well.
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Debate tournaments are great. I've gotten caught up on grading writing prompts, wrote four worksheets and a quiz, got the next couple chapters read for my master's class, and wrote my response up for this week's discussion board assignment. Still got at least another hour to go.
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A lone cottage at the edge of forest...
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How much do I miss my duplex in Davis that abutted an elementary school?
This morning New Neighbor's 7-year-old daughter has a few friends over, and they're all being baby-sat by 15-year-old daughter. There is much screaming, giggling, and delight.
So I opened all the windows so I can hear them throughout the house.
At this point Cranky Calico is off her food, down to 4.1 pounds, and seems barely cognizant of the world around her. But she still purrs when we pet her, seems content sleeping on her pillow, and doesn't seem to be in any significant distress, so I'm still hopeful that we're finally going to have a cat who:
(1) Lives a long life. Check. 18.5 years is a good lifespan.
(2) Dies peacefully at home. Jury's still out, but losing nearly 10% of your body mass a week when you're in your 90s is a bad sign for your longevity...
It really does strike me that I work for a tech company and I frequently have to interact with support personnel, and their reading comprehension is appalling. How can they possibly do their jobs if they can't even understand the questions they're being asked?
Question 1: I'm trying to do this video for you but the application behavior doesn't match docs. Here's a table showing what docs says should happen vs. what actually happens.
Answer 1: Here's a link to the documentation that explains what happens in these situations.
And this is the person for whom I'm doing the video!
Question 2: You asked for this video but as of the current release this feature is obsolete. Here are the steps I followed and what I saw.
Answer 2: You need to follow these steps.
Is it any wonder that people worldwide loathe tech support?
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How much do I miss my duplex in Davis that abutted an elementary school?
This morning New Neighbor's 7-year-old daughter has a few friends over, and they're all being baby-sat by 15-year-old daughter. There is much screaming, giggling, and delight.
So I opened all the windows so I can hear them throughout the house.
I think one of two of those youngsters may be edging closer to your lawn.
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At this point Cranky Calico is off her food, down to 4.1 pounds, and seems barely cognizant of the world around her. But she still purrs when we pet her, seems content sleeping on her pillow, and doesn't seem to be in any significant distress, so I'm still hopeful that we're finally going to have a cat who:
(1) Lives a long life. Check. 18.5 years is a good lifespan.
(2) Dies peacefully at home. Jury's still out, but losing nearly 10% of your body mass a week when you're in your 90s is a bad sign for your longevity...
She has lived a long long long time. 19 years almost. I would give much to have that much time with Pebbles.
On the one hand, I realize that this election is going to be especially hard on election workers nationwide. On the other, these are the things that give conspiracy theories legs:
On Monday (the 21st), as I've done since the start of COVID in 2019, I drove to city hall and dropped off our ballots in the blue voting box. Every election since then we've received a, "Your vote has been received email". Even in March of this year for the primaries. This time we didn't.
So I went online and our ballots are all missing.
Yeah, I have time. I'm going to call city hall once they open and ask them what the heck is up, and worst-case I'll get provisional ballots for the family, but this is NOT the election to be making dumb mistakes like that. Especially since this is Albany. We're not exactly "radical election conspiracy" central.
EDIT: Having ranks in bureaucracy helps immensely. I called Albany City Hall first, because I know they always answer. They told me to call the Registrar of Voters, but gave me a direct number. The guy there picked up after two rings, quickly looked up my records, and said, "Yep, we got it on the 21st. I don't know why you haven't seen any notifications yet, but this election has so much going on that I know they're slower than usual."
So our votes counted, for all that matters.
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Yet over the last few days as I've watched her become nothing but a shadow, it's tearing my heart out. In the morning I get up and put out the food bowl. She comes to it, "looks" at it listlessly (I believe she may have gone blind, or nearly blind), and stands there until I put her back on her pillow and cover her with a blanket to keep her warm. Once it's light, I let her out and she puts her head in the outdoor water dish and stands there motionlessly until I get her. In the evening when I cook, she comes into the kitchen to get scraps, but even if I put some down she doesn't touch them. She's spending her final days going through the motions of her previous life, like some kind of haunting from a horror movie, and it's horrible to witness. Impus Minor saw what she's like and had to excuse himself.
And all I can do is keep her safe, keep her warm, keep her comfortable, pet her whenever she's conscious, and wait for her departure.
We've already picked a grave site under Impus Minor's window. It's where she spent most of her days when she was younger and it's on the sunny side of the house away from all the other cats' graves. Were she able to judge it, I'm sure she'd hate it.
Anyway, I'll stop talking about her until she passes. It's just cathartic to type about it because even though she's been a pain in the a$$ for nearly two decades, I hate to see any creature go through the final stages like this. But better she die on her own terms at peace than accelerate the process just to make myself comfortable. Unless she shows signs of being unhappy, she gets to keep doing this until she's done.
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Dammit man, you're making me cry.