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Quiet.
Someone must be hunting Wabbits...
Sometimes the news baffles me. While Swainsons Court is an upper-tier neighborhood in Concord (3000 sq. ft., 2-story houses), it's not an area full of mansions or swimming pools.
So when the huge news of the East Bay is a $300,000 theft from one of those homes, I have to wonder what the heck is actually happening at that home. Who keeps $100,000 in cash in their house? I'm not as surprised by the $200,000 in jewelry including a Rolex, but still... someone robbing my house could probably get a bit over $3,000 if they could manage to sell a bunch of used computers, but not a heck of a lot more than that.
I'd love to see a lot more cultural analyses of burglaries like this one -- I know we have a persistent issue with southeast Asian immigrants who come from countries where banks are little more than fronts for stealing your money, so they keep all their worldly wealth in the house with them, making them a ripe target for burglars who know their culture. But this is a solid order of magnitude above that kind of theft, and my mind boggles at the amount of material wealth they had lying around their home...
All very interesting and alien to me, since my concept of a "valuable" is "something that encourages someone else to rob you". But then, I grew up with Silent Generation parents so I think there's a huge amount of cultural influence on me as well.
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All very interesting and alien to me, since my concept of a "valuable" is "something that encourages someone else to rob you". But then, I grew up with Silent Generation parents so I think there's a huge amount of cultural influence on me as well.
I'd wager it's more cultural than generational. My grandfather (1928-2016) was from the Silent Generation, but he was also a third-generation American who grew up in an Irish immigrant community in New York City. After he died, we all spent several days cleaning half a century's worth of accumulated stuff out of the house, which included numerous little envelopes of cash and loaded firearms stashed in various hidey-holes.
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All very interesting and alien to me, since my concept of a "valuable" is "something that encourages someone else to rob you". But then, I grew up with Silent Generation parents so I think there's a huge amount of cultural influence on me as well.I'd wager it's more cultural than generational. My grandfather (1928-2016) was from the Silent Generation, but he was also a third-generation American who grew up in an Irish immigrant community in New York City. After he died, we all spent several days cleaning half a century's worth of accumulated stuff out of the house, which included numerous little envelopes of cash and loaded firearms stashed in various hidey-holes.
This. WW is his crazy uncle's executor, also primary beneficiary. Crazy Uncle has had a checkered past and has somehow managed to avoid the law. Every few weeks, Crazy Uncle will call him (usually in the middle of the night) to tell him where various guns, illegal substances, and stacks of bills are stored so he can make notes and deal with things when the time comes.
He also wants WW to take stacks of cash and buy gold with it to circumvent inheritance taxes.
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I will note that, unlike NH, WW is *not* Lawful Good.
I'm not exactly sure how NH would deal with Crazy Uncle. WW deals with it by procrastinating and promising to get to it later.
I will note that, unlike NH, WW is *not* Lawful Good.
I'm not exactly sure how NH would deal with Crazy Uncle. WW deals with it by procrastinating and promising to get to it later.
LOL. There is a 100% legal way to avoid inheritance taxes and probate, *and* you get interest on your money instead of having it sit there in cash form losing value over time. It's called a "trust" and it costs only a few hundred bucks to set one up.
EDIT: And don't forget Oakland and Richmond routinely do gun buy-backs, so all the hidden firearms would just be a nice little windfall after the next buy-back.
EDIT 2: Honestly, it's yet another extremely political frustration: Those whose parents have money are taught how to manage that money in order to make more. Those who grow up with little to nothing are frequently taught generation after generation that the best thing to do is stash it away so the government can't find it and take it away, when the reality is that doing that is even worse in the long run than letting the government take some of it.
EDIT 3: Which is why a year of Home Ec should be a requirement of every high school graduate in the country.
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A construct made of force fields and dedication to hunting ghosts.
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In lighter news, I finally tried my industrial sheet aluminum griddle this morning and it was everything I hoped and dreamed: The pancakes were golden brown, light and fluffy, and tasted strongly of the butter used to season the griddle.
It was indeed the griddle, and not that I'd lost my touch. Even a master chef can't boil water without a container.
I was also thinking that all the religions that set aside a "day of rest" were amazingly prescient: I would love it if we had one designated day a week where no one was allowed to use a power tool. Once you get there, you think, "Well, I don't want the contractors to be out of work," so it's either Saturday or Sunday. But given ANOTHER day of leaf blowers all afternoon, I'd really love a day off... and not one that I get "off" because it's cold and cloudy and too miserable to do yard work.
Drill a hole in it and rivet some handles on it?
My employer is talking about giving us every other Friday off. The down side is: We would have to work 9 hour days. Except for the Friday that’s not off. It sounds horrible.
Might be because the job I had, that was supposed to be 4 tens turned out to be 4 10s and 8 hours on Friday. Those 10 hour days got long.
Then we went to 5 eight hour days and I never got a Friday off. ‘Course the OT was nice.
When you shovel snow in the winter, 10 hour days during spring-summer-fall feels pretty short. Even working 5 tens.
I will note that, unlike NH, WW is *not* Lawful Good.
I'm not exactly sure how NH would deal with Crazy Uncle. WW deals with it by procrastinating and promising to get to it later.LOL. There is a 100% legal way to avoid inheritance taxes and probate, *and* you get interest on your money instead of having it sit there in cash form losing value over time. It's called a "trust" and it costs only a few hundred bucks to set one up.
EDIT 2: Honestly, it's yet another extremely political frustration: Those whose parents have money are taught how to manage that money in order to make more. Those who grow up with little to nothing are frequently taught generation after generation that the best thing to do is stash it away so the government can't find it and take it away, when the reality is that doing that is even worse in the long run than letting the government take some of it.
That's the funny thing: WW's grandparents were well-off, and Crazy Uncle was their youngest child and only son. He went to the best schools in town, had everything he wanted, lived for years in Hawaii, was spoiled rotten. And was a complete ne'er-do-well.
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Drill a hole in it and rivet some handles on it?
Nah. My father spent his whole life with his stupid aluminum plate, and the lack of any handles or edges or anything else turned out to be great: You could store it anywhere, take it on backpacking trips and throw it on the campfire, etc., etc., etc.
Sometimes, stuff that's there for your "convenience" actually isn't.
When you shovel snow in the winter, 10 hour days during spring-summer-fall feels pretty short. Even working 5 tens.
Yeah, my life is not so bad. I guess that’s the point. I’d like to keep it that way. Also, one of the county inspectors I used to know died less than a year after he retired. So I like to get my time off now, while I’m alive.
Redfall is 75% off and it is still far too expensive.
Redfall is 75% off and it is still far too expensive.
...and is still an incredibly crappy game... I strongly recommend not bothering, even if it hits 99% off.
Redfall is 75% off and it is still far too expensive....and is still an incredibly crappy game... I strongly recommend not bothering, even if it hits 99% off.
...not a fan, I take it.
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...not a fan, I take it.Redfall is 75% off and it is still far too expensive....and is still an incredibly crappy game... I strongly recommend not bothering, even if it hits 99% off.
Well, the as-short-as-possible version:
(1) It was a Bethesda game, meaning we had to deal with countless bugs and crashes from the onset. It literally took two nights of trying before we actually got a working game. Let's assume they've fixed that.(2) The save system is intolerable. You can only save at outposts that there is otherwise no reason to visit, so if you realize you want to save, you need to stop what you're doing and search around for the nearest outpost, then spend whatever time it takes to get there.
(3) The fight mechanics are terrible.
(4) Even on the highest difficulty level the game was way too easy. I've heard that precisely because of the poor fight mechanics they haven't been able to fix this.
(5) The story, the plotline, and the characters are all boring.
In short, once you get past all the technical issues you realize that you've got an incredibly boring paint-by-numbers game that fundamentally isn't fun.
So yeah, would not recommend.
Well, that puts stuff into perspective in a big way:
Today there are two guys repairing the neighbor's deck. They've got a portable electric table saw and a circular saw, but they're doing all the hammering manually. (I suspect it's faster than setting up a compressor and dealing with a nail gun.)
And they are massively quieter than the gas-powered leaf blowers and edgers. There's constant sawing and hammering going on next door and with the windows closed it's barely noticeable.
The web says that table saws (92 db) are louder than leaf blowers (80-90 db). Considering I do audio recordings and am very sensitive to outside noise levels, I beg to disagree. At least in the case of the guys doing the work next door right now.
EDIT: Yes, I'm nerdy enough to have a decibel meter at my desk. No, I'm not rude enough to go next door and ask the guys if I can measure their noise levels as part of an experiment in curiosity.
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LOL. I should really learn.
I mentioned that the guys next door were pleasantly quiet. Along came two full trucks with a cherry picker, chipper-shredder, and guys with chainsaws and leaf blowers, and they all said, "Hold our beers."
The apocalypse is happening across the street and two doors down, and I get front row seats.
Thank goodness for noise canceling headphones.
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Well, that puts stuff into perspective in a big way:
Today there are two guys repairing the neighbor's deck. They've got a portable electric table saw and a circular saw, but they're doing all the hammering manually. (I suspect it's faster than setting up a compressor and dealing with a nail gun.)
And they are massively quieter than the gas-powered leaf blowers and edgers. There's constant sawing and hammering going on next door and with the windows closed it's barely noticeable.
The web says that table saws (92 db) are louder than leaf blowers (80-90 db). Considering I do audio recordings and am very sensitive to outside noise levels, I beg to disagree. At least in the case of the guys doing the work next door right now.
EDIT: Yes, I'm nerdy enough to have a decibel meter at my desk. No, I'm not rude enough to go next door and ask the guys if I can measure their noise levels as part of an experiment in curiosity.
To be honest I love it when nerdy people bring stuff over to measure s&~% like decibel levels or surface temperatures (this one actually happens more frequently than you'd expect) or what have you.
To be honest I love it when nerdy people bring stuff over to measure s#$% like decibel levels or surface temperatures (this one actually happens more frequently than you'd expect) or what have you.Well, that puts stuff into perspective in a big way:
Today there are two guys repairing the neighbor's deck. They've got a portable electric table saw and a circular saw, but they're doing all the hammering manually. (I suspect it's faster than setting up a compressor and dealing with a nail gun.)
And they are massively quieter than the gas-powered leaf blowers and edgers. There's constant sawing and hammering going on next door and with the windows closed it's barely noticeable.
The web says that table saws (92 db) are louder than leaf blowers (80-90 db). Considering I do audio recordings and am very sensitive to outside noise levels, I beg to disagree. At least in the case of the guys doing the work next door right now.
EDIT: Yes, I'm nerdy enough to have a decibel meter at my desk. No, I'm not rude enough to go next door and ask the guys if I can measure their noise levels as part of an experiment in curiosity.
What about when nerdy people throw bricks through your windshield out of sheer frustration?
Yeah, this morning we got the classic, "I'm going to pull in front of my friend's house to pick them up, not bother to pull over so I'm blocking the entire street, then honk every 5 seconds until they come out, even it that means a full minute of honking in the middle of the road."
After they fitted all cars with car alarms, they should've fitted them with horn cut-offs. "Sorry, you already honked twice in the last minute. Your horn is on silent for 5 minutes."
The work on the neighbor's house has become baffling.
It started off as a clear, "We're going to re-rent this place so we're having property managers take care of it because we're not local," situation: They re-painted, re-finished the floors, fixed the deck, pulled out all the foliage, etc. I even overheard one of the (presumed) property managers say, "C'mon, guys! We have to make this place look nice for the new tenants!"
But then a couple of days ago they started moving furniture into the house as if they were going to stage it. Yesterday they landscaped the front yard. Today they're back with more furniture.
Admittedly, it's been quite a while since I rented, and I've never rented a full house before, but is it typical to stage and landscape it?
I'm starting to think the owners changed their mind and now they're planning on selling.
I could be patient and wait two months and find out, but where's the fun in that?
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This year's weather theme is (apparently) Windy As F$$+.
Everyone knows it's Windy As F@~#!
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OK. Maybe it is a West Coast thing. I was talking to my housecleaner about service workers being forced to look busy all day to satisfy the whims of chintzy property managers (today's joy was some poor guy power washing the neighbor's 12'x12' wooden deck for 4 hours solid), and she started telling me some horror stories.
Her favorite:
"How much to clean my house?"
"$120."
"And how long will it take you?"
"About 3 hours."
"So you're charging $40 an hour?"
"I guess. Sure. That sounds about right."
She cleaned the house and informed the person she was done. It was two minutes before the 3-hour mark. So the person very carefully got out a calculator and paid her for 2 hours and 58 minutes. She didn't go back.
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She cleaned the house and informed the person she was done. It was two minutes before the 3-hour mark. So the person very carefully got out a calculator and paid her for 2 hours and 58 minutes. She didn't go back.
Yeah, that's f@*$ing bonkers. Never even heard of that happening to anyone I know east of the Rockies.
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Yet another reason to avoid commercial construction like it's the Black Death:
We busted our asses a few weeks ago working overtime to close out all of our small and/or mostly-finished projects in preparation for some big commercial jobs that were booked last year and scheduled for this month. And then... the big commercial jobs all called within a week of each other to say they were running behind schedule and weren't ready for us. Now the boss has us doing busywork just to get us close to 40 hours per week until the jobs we're supposed to be working on now actually let us start.
She cleaned the house and informed the person she was done. It was two minutes before the 3-hour mark. So the person very carefully got out a calculator and paid her for 2 hours and 58 minutes. She didn't go back.Yeah, that's f&!~ing bonkers. Never even heard of that happening to anyone I know east of the Rockies.
Which is hilarious, because we've always blamed New Yorkers for that kind of attitude.
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Very niche unpopular opinion (contains spoilers for Stargate SG-1):
After 20 years of being a fan, though, I think I'm just going to have to come out and say it: Daniel Jackson should have stayed dead after season 5. His arc was pretty much done, and I actually really liked Jonas Quinn as a replacement. Bringing Daniel back from the dead for season 7 was a huge mistake, and the writers never really figured out what to do with him after that. Completely forgetting about Jonas for the rest of the series (except for one episode) just adds insult to injury.
(Note: I'm not actually angry about this--it's only a television show after all--it's just that I've been stewing over this since the early '00s, and it's taken me until now to form an opinion, that opinion being mild disappointment)
Which is hilarious, because we've always blamed New Yorkers for that kind of attitude.She cleaned the house and informed the person she was done. It was two minutes before the 3-hour mark. So the person very carefully got out a calculator and paid her for 2 hours and 58 minutes. She didn't go back.Yeah, that's f&!~ing bonkers. Never even heard of that happening to anyone I know east of the Rockies.
Unfriendliness and extreme impatience? I'd buy that. Haggling over two minutes' worth of payroll? That's absolutely bizarre. Honestly, you'd be more likely to get a tip for finishing early.
Granted, it would be something to the effect of "good job, here's ten bucks, now get the f@*+ out of my house," but still...
To be honest I love it when nerdy people bring stuff over to measure s@@$ like decibel levels or surface temperatures (this one actually happens more frequently than you'd expect) or what have you.Well, that puts stuff into perspective in a big way:
Today there are two guys repairing the neighbor's deck. They've got a portable electric table saw and a circular saw, but they're doing all the hammering manually. (I suspect it's faster than setting up a compressor and dealing with a nail gun.)
And they are massively quieter than the gas-powered leaf blowers and edgers. There's constant sawing and hammering going on next door and with the windows closed it's barely noticeable.
The web says that table saws (92 db) are louder than leaf blowers (80-90 db). Considering I do audio recordings and am very sensitive to outside noise levels, I beg to disagree. At least in the case of the guys doing the work next door right now.
EDIT: Yes, I'm nerdy enough to have a decibel meter at my desk. No, I'm not rude enough to go next door and ask the guys if I can measure their noise levels as part of an experiment in curiosity.
What about when nerdy people throw bricks through your windshield out of sheer frustration?
Yeah, this morning we got the classic, "I'm going to pull in front of my friend's house to pick them up, not bother to pull over so I'm blocking the entire street, then honk every 5 seconds until they come out, even it that means a full minute of honking in the middle of the road."
After they fitted all cars with car alarms, they should've fitted them with horn cut-offs. "Sorry, you already honked twice in the last minute. Your horn is on silent for 5 minutes."
You don't want to know what would happen to the person who came up with that idea around here.
Very niche unpopular opinion (contains spoilers for Stargate SG-1):
** spoiler omitted **
(Note: I'm not actually angry about this--it's only a television show after all--it's just that I've been stewing over this since the early '00s, and it's taken me until now to form an opinion, that opinion being mild disappointment)
Not the first time I have heard that one.
Unfriendliness and extreme impatience?Which is hilarious, because we've always blamed New Yorkers for that kind of attitude.She cleaned the house and informed the person she was done. It was two minutes before the 3-hour mark. So the person very carefully got out a calculator and paid her for 2 hours and 58 minutes. She didn't go back.Yeah, that's f&!~ing bonkers. Never even heard of that happening to anyone I know east of the Rockies.
Nonsense! We are super friendly and patient!
The blacktop trucks are running late. Blow the backpack over this so you look busy
Sweep it again! do the work twice. More noise!
2 o clock rolls around without a break
Why do you all look so tired?
The thing is we worked IN THE WOODS. The coyotes are not going to report us for lazing around under the trees. I could (cough. did. cough) vanish for two hours and be rested up for that slog. Nope. need to work on the appearance of appearances.
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On the way back from the site today, I saw a sign up in a window near downtown:
HAMSTER SPECIAL $16
It took me a few seconds to realize, "oh, that's a pet store, not a sandwich shop."