Entries by tag: ranting
I realize the world has much bigger problems right now, but let me take a break to mention that I hate today's flashlights.
I have too many lights... flashlights, bike lights, keychain lights, where somebody thought it'd be a good idea to use a single pushbutton to cycle through 87 different exciting modes of what a flashlight can do.
In the old days, you'd press a button and the light turned on. Then you'd press the button again and the light turned off.
Now, you press a button and the light turns on. But if you want to turn it off you're screwed.
You press the button and it goes to dim mode.
Press it again, it flashes.
Press it again, it turns on each LED sequentially like knight rider (this is a mode on my bike light, not kidding)
Press it again, thinking surely this will be OFF, but no then it's left side right side alternating...
With every press you hope you're near the end and you start pressing faster and faster, and that's when the worst thing happens, you get it OFF finally but you don't notice and press the button again and then you're right back around to ON because you MISSED IT and now you have to do it all again.
I have a cheap little flashlight from harbor freight that has a red glowy light on the back, so its modes are main white light on, then red light, then both, then flashing, then it calls for a pizza, then it sings the star spangled banner, then it asks for a glass of water... to this day I'm not sure how I left it or what it's doing.
I'm an electrical engineer so I SHOULD be thankful for LEDs and microchips and smart components, and usually I am, but someone used their power for evil. Some intern thought he'd get paid per flashlight mode or something, and just dreamed up a million. But he only had room for one button.
Who knows what it's going to do?
I have too many lights... flashlights, bike lights, keychain lights, where somebody thought it'd be a good idea to use a single pushbutton to cycle through 87 different exciting modes of what a flashlight can do.
In the old days, you'd press a button and the light turned on. Then you'd press the button again and the light turned off.
Now, you press a button and the light turns on. But if you want to turn it off you're screwed.
You press the button and it goes to dim mode.
Press it again, it flashes.
Press it again, it turns on each LED sequentially like knight rider (this is a mode on my bike light, not kidding)
Press it again, thinking surely this will be OFF, but no then it's left side right side alternating...
With every press you hope you're near the end and you start pressing faster and faster, and that's when the worst thing happens, you get it OFF finally but you don't notice and press the button again and then you're right back around to ON because you MISSED IT and now you have to do it all again.
I have a cheap little flashlight from harbor freight that has a red glowy light on the back, so its modes are main white light on, then red light, then both, then flashing, then it calls for a pizza, then it sings the star spangled banner, then it asks for a glass of water... to this day I'm not sure how I left it or what it's doing.
I'm an electrical engineer so I SHOULD be thankful for LEDs and microchips and smart components, and usually I am, but someone used their power for evil. Some intern thought he'd get paid per flashlight mode or something, and just dreamed up a million. But he only had room for one button.
Who knows what it's going to do?
I walked into a bathroom my first year of college and had to step around a very overflowing trash can. Families moving college students in had grabbed fast food, and if their kid didn't have a personal trash can yet, they found the bathroom trash can, found it to be full, and set their fast food trash and cups around the trash. I was furious. There were dumpsters out back. Most students eventually would get a little trash can for their room, which they'd empty into the dumpster. But these parents and students alike had decided that they deserved to be able to use the first trash can they saw, which happened to be the one in the bathroom. The cleaning staff member who comes in once a day would have to not only take the trash out but pick up all the trash on the floor, too. It would take a while.
Entitlement: "Not should someone pick up my shit, but in special circumstances, on a busy day when the established system doesn't work, someone else should still pick up my shit."
How often do we stop and think about how pampered our lives are, that our trash is magically whisked away to a landfill we never have to think about. That's nice, just by itself. Go camping in the wilderness where you're expected to haul your own trash back home with you in your car... really makes you think about it.
Overflowing trash cans became my pet peeve, forever. Is the trash full? Then take it out. If you can't, then go find another one! Setting your trash next to the trash can is the worst thing you can do. You're a real asshole if you think that's okay. It sends a message that you think someone failed you, they weren't there to take the trash out fast enough so they deserve to be punished. Their punishment is more important than you taking a few more steps to find another place.
The next year at college I was the RA so I was in charge of the floor. I removed all trash cans from the bathroom and hid them for the first three days. It forced people to ask where trash belonged. I told them about the dumpsters outside.
They survived.
Entitlement: "Not should someone pick up my shit, but in special circumstances, on a busy day when the established system doesn't work, someone else should still pick up my shit."
How often do we stop and think about how pampered our lives are, that our trash is magically whisked away to a landfill we never have to think about. That's nice, just by itself. Go camping in the wilderness where you're expected to haul your own trash back home with you in your car... really makes you think about it.
Overflowing trash cans became my pet peeve, forever. Is the trash full? Then take it out. If you can't, then go find another one! Setting your trash next to the trash can is the worst thing you can do. You're a real asshole if you think that's okay. It sends a message that you think someone failed you, they weren't there to take the trash out fast enough so they deserve to be punished. Their punishment is more important than you taking a few more steps to find another place.
The next year at college I was the RA so I was in charge of the floor. I removed all trash cans from the bathroom and hid them for the first three days. It forced people to ask where trash belonged. I told them about the dumpsters outside.
They survived.
I haven't ranted about raffle tickets in 2-3 years, time to rerun this topic. Poorly run raffle ticket events are a pet peeve of mine. I just got to thinking about it AGAIN this week because... I obsess.
Prize raffles work well at events where everyone comes in, sits down, has a table to set their ticket so it doesn't get lost, and has nothing else to pay attention to except someone calling out a number.
Prize raffles work miserably at come and go events where people are milling about losing their tickets in the bag they're using to carry 800 other handouts.
It's very annoying to be at an otherwise fun event when someone is yelling over a speaker at you, "This is the third time we're calling for 1000892137! If you have ticket 1000892137 please come get your prize! That's 1000892137! Does anyone have 1000892137? Check your pockets people! 1000892137! Someone has to have 1000892137! Who has 1000892137? Okay, well... 1000892137 I guess you're out of luck. We're going to draw a new number! Ready everyone? Ready? 1... zero zero zero... 892... 093! Okay now who's got 1000892093! 1000892093? 1000892093? Surely someone has 1000892093... Dammit people this is for a MINI SAILBOAT, and we have 35 to give out!"
I've always thought it'd be fun to just call out one or two digits and play the odds on multiples. I've never had a chance to test this out, but if you give out 1000 tickets, do the math... 10 people will have 37 as their last two digits. 100 people will have 7 as their last digit. Just say "the first person to make it up here with 7 as their last digit gets this prize!" and see what happens. This might make the come-and-go event work somewhat okay because you'd hope that the last 100 or so people haven't totally lost their ticket, maybe? I've suggested this at several events but the speaker always doesn't get what I'm saying, they're blankly staring out in the crowd for 1000892093 to come through for them after all.
Prize raffles work well at events where everyone comes in, sits down, has a table to set their ticket so it doesn't get lost, and has nothing else to pay attention to except someone calling out a number.
Prize raffles work miserably at come and go events where people are milling about losing their tickets in the bag they're using to carry 800 other handouts.
It's very annoying to be at an otherwise fun event when someone is yelling over a speaker at you, "This is the third time we're calling for 1000892137! If you have ticket 1000892137 please come get your prize! That's 1000892137! Does anyone have 1000892137? Check your pockets people! 1000892137! Someone has to have 1000892137! Who has 1000892137? Okay, well... 1000892137 I guess you're out of luck. We're going to draw a new number! Ready everyone? Ready? 1... zero zero zero... 892... 093! Okay now who's got 1000892093! 1000892093? 1000892093? Surely someone has 1000892093... Dammit people this is for a MINI SAILBOAT, and we have 35 to give out!"
I've always thought it'd be fun to just call out one or two digits and play the odds on multiples. I've never had a chance to test this out, but if you give out 1000 tickets, do the math... 10 people will have 37 as their last two digits. 100 people will have 7 as their last digit. Just say "the first person to make it up here with 7 as their last digit gets this prize!" and see what happens. This might make the come-and-go event work somewhat okay because you'd hope that the last 100 or so people haven't totally lost their ticket, maybe? I've suggested this at several events but the speaker always doesn't get what I'm saying, they're blankly staring out in the crowd for 1000892093 to come through for them after all.
Last week I went to menard's to buy some craft wood to cut in the laser cutter at makeict and it was pretty much like every hardware store adventure where I spend 10 seconds buying something, 20 minutes looking for it. Why isn't there an electronic aisle search yet? Or at least a search employees can access quickly? Of all the stores to make into mega big box stores, hardware stores were the worst. They have a million items in two million categories - it's not like grocery stores where you can group foods into "baking" and "pasta". Hardware stores are anybody's guess.
So I find some kid who works there and ask where's the balsa wood, because that's the simplest craft wood everybody knows about (I'm not going to be a confusing a-hole and ask about beech veneer plywood). He is stumped. "How thick do you need it?"
That's what I love about hardware help... irrelevant question land. As if they have different thicknesses of balsa wood in different sections. People don't make livingroom tables with this stuff, dude.
My favorite ever story about this was a few years ago when I went to a hardware store looking for magnets, preferably hook magnets, but basically just magnets. The store clerk said, "Let's see... you're wanting it to stick to... something metal?"
No, I said. A tree.
So anyway back to this week... poor kid is dumbfounded about balsa wood. So I said, "Sometimes it's by the dowel rods."
He just said "Sometimes."
As in, just you sit back, I know many things that you do not! He didn't. We're wandering aisles with no direction at all. I feel like I'm following the Israelites in the desert.
Finally he walked past the registers and found a coworker who actually knew what balsa wood was and the guy said, "It's by the dowel rods."
NO JOKE. SEE? SEE?!
Of course the kid says, "And dowel rods are in aisle... " yeah.
43, says the guy who does know something, thank goodness. We found dowel rods together, sure enough the craft wood was right there, and I got what I needed somehow by chance.
Just once I'd like to have a store clerk say, "I honestly don't know where that is but we can ask!" or "Hey spacefem, you were right!" or "I won't waste your time by asking stalling, irrelavent questions in hopes that a light bulb goes off, I will make practical suggestions!"
Whatever, hardware store people, anything.
So I find some kid who works there and ask where's the balsa wood, because that's the simplest craft wood everybody knows about (I'm not going to be a confusing a-hole and ask about beech veneer plywood). He is stumped. "How thick do you need it?"
That's what I love about hardware help... irrelevant question land. As if they have different thicknesses of balsa wood in different sections. People don't make livingroom tables with this stuff, dude.
My favorite ever story about this was a few years ago when I went to a hardware store looking for magnets, preferably hook magnets, but basically just magnets. The store clerk said, "Let's see... you're wanting it to stick to... something metal?"
No, I said. A tree.
So anyway back to this week... poor kid is dumbfounded about balsa wood. So I said, "Sometimes it's by the dowel rods."
He just said "Sometimes."
As in, just you sit back, I know many things that you do not! He didn't. We're wandering aisles with no direction at all. I feel like I'm following the Israelites in the desert.
Finally he walked past the registers and found a coworker who actually knew what balsa wood was and the guy said, "It's by the dowel rods."
NO JOKE. SEE? SEE?!
Of course the kid says, "And dowel rods are in aisle... " yeah.
43, says the guy who does know something, thank goodness. We found dowel rods together, sure enough the craft wood was right there, and I got what I needed somehow by chance.
Just once I'd like to have a store clerk say, "I honestly don't know where that is but we can ask!" or "Hey spacefem, you were right!" or "I won't waste your time by asking stalling, irrelavent questions in hopes that a light bulb goes off, I will make practical suggestions!"
Whatever, hardware store people, anything.
GAADS I'm so frustrated!
I'm on amazon looking for used books. Some of them say they are former library books with markings... I skip those, I want something nice I can display on my shelf. Some of them say they're in poor condition.
And then you get to the ones that are "like new" or "very good" and sure they're a little more, and sure maybe they have some highlighting on the inside, but that's it.
So you order the book.
You receive your book and see that it's a first edition hardcover, published 30 years ago with its jacket still perfectly intact, it made it through life unchanged since the early 80s, except...
THE USED BOOKSELLER ON AMAZON SLAPPED THEIR LOGO STICKER RIGHT ON THE SPINE.
and it doesn't come off without ripping the book jacket.
what level of hell do these assholes belong in, really? On what planet is it okay to vandalize an otherwise beautiful book? Do you really think my bookshelf needs to be full of advertisements for your stupid business, is that why I bought this book?
If you MUST... put your sticker on the back. Or the inside. Or your asshole. I don't care. But you're getting shitty feedback from me for not disclosing this.
Put down the condition as, "WAS like new, but we're idiots who want our company name stuck to everything so we ruined it". Then I'll know to skip your listing.
JUST LEAVE IT OFF MY BOOK.
I'm on amazon looking for used books. Some of them say they are former library books with markings... I skip those, I want something nice I can display on my shelf. Some of them say they're in poor condition.
And then you get to the ones that are "like new" or "very good" and sure they're a little more, and sure maybe they have some highlighting on the inside, but that's it.
So you order the book.
You receive your book and see that it's a first edition hardcover, published 30 years ago with its jacket still perfectly intact, it made it through life unchanged since the early 80s, except...
THE USED BOOKSELLER ON AMAZON SLAPPED THEIR LOGO STICKER RIGHT ON THE SPINE.
and it doesn't come off without ripping the book jacket.
what level of hell do these assholes belong in, really? On what planet is it okay to vandalize an otherwise beautiful book? Do you really think my bookshelf needs to be full of advertisements for your stupid business, is that why I bought this book?
If you MUST... put your sticker on the back. Or the inside. Or your asshole. I don't care. But you're getting shitty feedback from me for not disclosing this.
Put down the condition as, "WAS like new, but we're idiots who want our company name stuck to everything so we ruined it". Then I'll know to skip your listing.
JUST LEAVE IT OFF MY BOOK.
Someone posted this to my facebook wall, I sighed heavily:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center debate comes to conclusion that Pluto IS a planet
Basically a bunch of people got together because they're STILL mad that Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. They held a debate. One guy said "Well I think round things that orbit our sun are planets! So Pluto is a planet!" The people there voted and decided they liked his definition and then said that Pluto is a planet again, just like Earth and Jupiter.
The obvious problem with that is that the "round things" definition means that there could now be now hundreds of "planets" in our solar system. In fact that's why Pluto was reclassified in the first place - we discovered new objects that were a lot like Pluto, even bigger than Pluto. I've written about this before and it still frustrates me.
Overland Park Kansas even just opened a brand new natural history museum with a solar system painted on the wall of the kids area, showing eight planets plus pluto. They did not show Eris, Ceres, or any other dwarf planets. When I asked them about this, they said that they wanted to show the view of the solar system that "people grew up with and felt comfortable seeing". so apparently my kids also have to grow up with whatever you grew up with? is that what we want to teach kids about how science works?
I didn't blog about this when I first visited because I was honestly just so ashamed to have Overland Park contribute to the running joke that is science in Kansas. I thought things were better there.
But what the hell.
One of the great things that Bill Nye said in his debate with the creationists was that if they could show him evidence that they were right, he would change his mind. And that's where most people said he won the debate. Because he was willing to change, he showed that his opinions were not based on dogma, they were built on discovery. An amazing thing about science is that we get to reclassify things based on new things we learn.
If you feel sentimental about pluto, why not feel sentimental about science instead, and how beautiful it is that we can change our views based on the new wonderful things we find every day?
Harvard-Smithsonian Center debate comes to conclusion that Pluto IS a planet
Basically a bunch of people got together because they're STILL mad that Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. They held a debate. One guy said "Well I think round things that orbit our sun are planets! So Pluto is a planet!" The people there voted and decided they liked his definition and then said that Pluto is a planet again, just like Earth and Jupiter.
The obvious problem with that is that the "round things" definition means that there could now be now hundreds of "planets" in our solar system. In fact that's why Pluto was reclassified in the first place - we discovered new objects that were a lot like Pluto, even bigger than Pluto. I've written about this before and it still frustrates me.
Overland Park Kansas even just opened a brand new natural history museum with a solar system painted on the wall of the kids area, showing eight planets plus pluto. They did not show Eris, Ceres, or any other dwarf planets. When I asked them about this, they said that they wanted to show the view of the solar system that "people grew up with and felt comfortable seeing". so apparently my kids also have to grow up with whatever you grew up with? is that what we want to teach kids about how science works?
I didn't blog about this when I first visited because I was honestly just so ashamed to have Overland Park contribute to the running joke that is science in Kansas. I thought things were better there.
But what the hell.
One of the great things that Bill Nye said in his debate with the creationists was that if they could show him evidence that they were right, he would change his mind. And that's where most people said he won the debate. Because he was willing to change, he showed that his opinions were not based on dogma, they were built on discovery. An amazing thing about science is that we get to reclassify things based on new things we learn.
If you feel sentimental about pluto, why not feel sentimental about science instead, and how beautiful it is that we can change our views based on the new wonderful things we find every day?
I sew all the time, but lately I've been running into an awful fact: it is really hard to measure kids for a sewing pattern. It's hard enough to measure an adult, but with the kids patterns there is WAY more variation, and to make it worse, the pattern companies are not helping. at all.
Last year I sewed my 3-year-old a bunny costume from a simplicity pattern. The size was way off, it was for kids but even the smallest size was too big, it was HUGE on her, way too long, dragging on the floor, we had to sew/pin it up all over the place, totally weird. But she loves it and I figure she can wear it for a while.
This year I wanted to make my 1-year-old a sheep costume. mccall's patterns were on sale at joann's and I liked 6105
I was like okay, lesson learned from last year, get the size right! Usually you buy a pattern and it contains sizes 1-4 or something, so I vowed to lay it all out and measure the heck out of the pieces to make sure they'd line up with parts of by kid.
BUT guess what... this pattern contains one size and one size only.
And you buy the size based on only a breast and waist measurement - every inch difference is a size you go up.
This is a baby! She's like 80% squishy fat, how the hell am I supposed to get a waist measurement within 1 inch when I know full well that the most important thing about this pattern is to not have it too long and dragging on the floor? I want a length measurement, somewhere!
I started to grab a size, tear open the pattern, and unfold the whole damn thing in the store so I could measure. I mean I can easily measure the distance between her shoulders and the floor, and there's a pattern piece that makes that run, that's what I'd like to know the length of! But of course that piece was buried, because the package includes the pieces to make an entire zoo of baby costumes (in that ONE size). So I said fuck it and walked out.
Seriously McCall's, waist measurement of my baby within 1 inch? really? has anyone designing these pattern packages ever seen a baby?
I give up. I'll just make a big rectangle out of fur with arm holes and call it good. boooo.
----------------
UPDATE:
I had a promising exchange this morning with @McCallPatternCo on twitter in which they informed me to simply contact customer service with my query. I almost had to backtrack this whole rant to say sorry, because they're right I should contact them directly before smack-talking on the internet like a crazy person right?
So I emailed them a polite inquiry about the finished length of this pattern, and quickly received this response:
Well that went well.
Well McCalls, I also work for a big company so I know sometimes the social media folks and customer service department don't exactly sit by each other, so no harm done. But you did get my hopes up.
Last year I sewed my 3-year-old a bunny costume from a simplicity pattern. The size was way off, it was for kids but even the smallest size was too big, it was HUGE on her, way too long, dragging on the floor, we had to sew/pin it up all over the place, totally weird. But she loves it and I figure she can wear it for a while.
This year I wanted to make my 1-year-old a sheep costume. mccall's patterns were on sale at joann's and I liked 6105
I was like okay, lesson learned from last year, get the size right! Usually you buy a pattern and it contains sizes 1-4 or something, so I vowed to lay it all out and measure the heck out of the pieces to make sure they'd line up with parts of by kid.
BUT guess what... this pattern contains one size and one size only.
And you buy the size based on only a breast and waist measurement - every inch difference is a size you go up.
This is a baby! She's like 80% squishy fat, how the hell am I supposed to get a waist measurement within 1 inch when I know full well that the most important thing about this pattern is to not have it too long and dragging on the floor? I want a length measurement, somewhere!
I started to grab a size, tear open the pattern, and unfold the whole damn thing in the store so I could measure. I mean I can easily measure the distance between her shoulders and the floor, and there's a pattern piece that makes that run, that's what I'd like to know the length of! But of course that piece was buried, because the package includes the pieces to make an entire zoo of baby costumes (in that ONE size). So I said fuck it and walked out.
Seriously McCall's, waist measurement of my baby within 1 inch? really? has anyone designing these pattern packages ever seen a baby?
I give up. I'll just make a big rectangle out of fur with arm holes and call it good. boooo.
----------------
UPDATE:
I had a promising exchange this morning with @McCallPatternCo on twitter in which they informed me to simply contact customer service with my query. I almost had to backtrack this whole rant to say sorry, because they're right I should contact them directly before smack-talking on the internet like a crazy person right?
So I emailed them a polite inquiry about the finished length of this pattern, and quickly received this response:
> Thank you for your email concerning McCall Patterns. Whenever possible we try
> to provide our home sewers with the information they desire. Regrettably no.
> You will need to use the measurement chart to determine the size; toddlers are
> size according to chest and waist.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Laurie
Well that went well.
Well McCalls, I also work for a big company so I know sometimes the social media folks and customer service department don't exactly sit by each other, so no harm done. But you did get my hopes up.
Here are websites that I refuse to click on, no matter how tempting the title seems.
E-How - they make you think they have THE ANSWER for, say, how to oil your Kenmore 423G sewing machine. But you click the article and after three paragraphs selling you sewing machine oil, the "final" step will turn out to be something like "get out the Kenmore 423G user manual and oil wherever it says to." AHGGG!
Parents magazine - Every article will be a list. Every list will be a "slideshow". Every "slide" will take ten minutes to load. I have internet and computers fast enough to stream all the lord of the rings movies at once but I'll never be able to get through a parents magazine article in less than two hours. so, screw them.
About.com - Crusty navigation, a maze of text your eyes can never follow, more ads than content.
and today's new one... upworthy
Share their links on facebook friends, I don't give a shit anymore. I am so sick of seeing headlines like "this blue circle will amaze you!" or "you will never guess what this alligator is hiding!", and you click the page and there's a ten minute video to watch, and buried somewhere after seven minutes of shaky cell phone nothingness there's something that sort of resembles the title. I don't care if they're cool and feministy. Upworthy sucks.
And while I'm at it, whenever I see anything on the internet with the caption "mind = blown", it's a pretty fair bet my mind will not really be blown. I'm talking to you, stupid facts on pinterest.
E-How - they make you think they have THE ANSWER for, say, how to oil your Kenmore 423G sewing machine. But you click the article and after three paragraphs selling you sewing machine oil, the "final" step will turn out to be something like "get out the Kenmore 423G user manual and oil wherever it says to." AHGGG!
Parents magazine - Every article will be a list. Every list will be a "slideshow". Every "slide" will take ten minutes to load. I have internet and computers fast enough to stream all the lord of the rings movies at once but I'll never be able to get through a parents magazine article in less than two hours. so, screw them.
About.com - Crusty navigation, a maze of text your eyes can never follow, more ads than content.
and today's new one... upworthy
Share their links on facebook friends, I don't give a shit anymore. I am so sick of seeing headlines like "this blue circle will amaze you!" or "you will never guess what this alligator is hiding!", and you click the page and there's a ten minute video to watch, and buried somewhere after seven minutes of shaky cell phone nothingness there's something that sort of resembles the title. I don't care if they're cool and feministy. Upworthy sucks.
And while I'm at it, whenever I see anything on the internet with the caption "mind = blown", it's a pretty fair bet my mind will not really be blown. I'm talking to you, stupid facts on pinterest.
I had a package from amazon that was scheduled for delivery on a day we'd be out of town. So I went to the UPS website with my tracking number.
I'm used to Fedex since that's where my big spoonflower orders come through most of the time. Fedex is nice... I have an account to order prints online but I don't log in for normal package tracking, you just say "hold for delivery", and if anything confusing comes up you give them a call, talk to a person within minutes and it's resolved.
UPS? Not so much.
I clicked "change delivery options" from the tracking page and just got this popup about HAVE YOU HEARD HOW AWESOME IT IS TO REGISTER WITH US!!!
Okay fine. I registered. Like an eight step process, had to confirm my identity, choose a password with over eight characters mixed upper and lowercase, etc. I think this is a bit much considering the worst a hacker could do to me through this site is to ask for a package to be held at a UPS store, where they'll require an ID for pickup anyway.
Go back to the tracking page, click "change options"... and there's the same damn popup! "YOU SHOULD REGISTER IT'S AWESOME!"
I'm flipping off my screen saying "I DID REGISTER YOU ASSHOLES, LOOK AT THE TOP OF THE DAMN PAGE IT SAYS WELCOME SPACEFEM, WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!"
The "help" screen just explains what it means to have a package held. "See, that's when you go to the store to pick it up." AHHGGG!
I find a "contact us" page buried someplace, a live chat for help, and suddenly there's some small print that says when you start a new account you can't do anything or change any package options for 90 minutes.
...
so I leave my house to calm down and run errands.
In the afternoon I remember my package, log onto the UPS website, and the "change delivery" button is grayed out because now the package is too close to the scheduled date to change anything.
Texted my neighbor and asked her to check my porch this week. Decided to leave out my other details and emotions, that's what lj is for.
I'm used to Fedex since that's where my big spoonflower orders come through most of the time. Fedex is nice... I have an account to order prints online but I don't log in for normal package tracking, you just say "hold for delivery", and if anything confusing comes up you give them a call, talk to a person within minutes and it's resolved.
UPS? Not so much.
I clicked "change delivery options" from the tracking page and just got this popup about HAVE YOU HEARD HOW AWESOME IT IS TO REGISTER WITH US!!!
Okay fine. I registered. Like an eight step process, had to confirm my identity, choose a password with over eight characters mixed upper and lowercase, etc. I think this is a bit much considering the worst a hacker could do to me through this site is to ask for a package to be held at a UPS store, where they'll require an ID for pickup anyway.
Go back to the tracking page, click "change options"... and there's the same damn popup! "YOU SHOULD REGISTER IT'S AWESOME!"
I'm flipping off my screen saying "I DID REGISTER YOU ASSHOLES, LOOK AT THE TOP OF THE DAMN PAGE IT SAYS WELCOME SPACEFEM, WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!"
The "help" screen just explains what it means to have a package held. "See, that's when you go to the store to pick it up." AHHGGG!
I find a "contact us" page buried someplace, a live chat for help, and suddenly there's some small print that says when you start a new account you can't do anything or change any package options for 90 minutes.
...
so I leave my house to calm down and run errands.
In the afternoon I remember my package, log onto the UPS website, and the "change delivery" button is grayed out because now the package is too close to the scheduled date to change anything.
Texted my neighbor and asked her to check my porch this week. Decided to leave out my other details and emotions, that's what lj is for.
According to CNN the US could save $150 million a year if we used coins for US dollars instead of bills. We print dollar bills because... I dunno, we just do. But the wear out so quickly we have to print more, and it's expensive. And it's a pain that they don't work well in vending machines. Coins would be great for that!
Instead, we still waste gobs of money making pennies which I've always said are a total waste of space and source of frustration.
Dollar coins are rare now. We kind of experimented with them, but with no plan to phase out dollar bills people didn't randomly opt-in for the change, not a huge shock. I wanted to support them though. They'd be good for us.
So friends, if you see a dollar coin, rejoice. Don't complain about the machine that kicked it out to you. Use it, spend it, keep it in circulation, it's saving us money!
Instead, we still waste gobs of money making pennies which I've always said are a total waste of space and source of frustration.
Dollar coins are rare now. We kind of experimented with them, but with no plan to phase out dollar bills people didn't randomly opt-in for the change, not a huge shock. I wanted to support them though. They'd be good for us.
So friends, if you see a dollar coin, rejoice. Don't complain about the machine that kicked it out to you. Use it, spend it, keep it in circulation, it's saving us money!
When I was pregnant I bought some clothes at Motherhood Maternity. They asked if I was "in their system" and I was like "what?!" because I don't like being in anyone's system - especially one that asks my DUE DATE, isn't that sort of a personal question? And they really wanted a due date. Like, she acted like she couldn't complete the transaction without one.
I balked, but the clerk said that they ask for due dates because they obviously don't want to keep extending offers & coupons to women after they're not even pregnant anymore. I was like okay, that's the first ever explaination I've heard that may justify asking for personal information on me. And I do like coupons. So I signed up, since hey, pregnancy is temporary, and presumably so will my existance in this system.
Turns out no. I'm still getting emails, eight months after the due date I gave them (which was fake early, just to spite them). I finally unsubscribed. We'll see how that goes.
I'm never trusting another store again. I already get really offended when stores ask for my phone number, I glare and say "I don't have one." I give the grocery store nothing but fake info in exchange for those discount cards.
But motherhood and destination maternity in general: you suck.
I balked, but the clerk said that they ask for due dates because they obviously don't want to keep extending offers & coupons to women after they're not even pregnant anymore. I was like okay, that's the first ever explaination I've heard that may justify asking for personal information on me. And I do like coupons. So I signed up, since hey, pregnancy is temporary, and presumably so will my existance in this system.
Turns out no. I'm still getting emails, eight months after the due date I gave them (which was fake early, just to spite them). I finally unsubscribed. We'll see how that goes.
I'm never trusting another store again. I already get really offended when stores ask for my phone number, I glare and say "I don't have one." I give the grocery store nothing but fake info in exchange for those discount cards.
But motherhood and destination maternity in general: you suck.
Last spring at our early cinco de mayo party I had a really nice chat with a former neighbor, we caught up a bit and found out we were both selling stuff on the internet so we shared about that, I showed her my mini photo booth, we talked about profit margin goals, it was very bourgeois fabulous.
A few months later I find out through facebook that she's also representing a line of cosmetics and skin care products that slow down the effects of aging with amazing results (sigh) and this weekend I'm invited to her demonstration party, which I am SOOO not interested in. In fact I'm basically anti-interested in it, I go beyond not wanting this stuff for myself and into wishing that no woman would be interested in it. We should be proud to be aging. Hell, 100 years ago an embarassingly large percentage of women died in childbirth before they hit the ripe old age of 25, just the fact that we all hit 40 should be a "you've come a long way baby" moment. We should have an aging party to celebrate feminists who legalized birth control and pushed for maternal health standards.
I digress.
Years ago I declared that I was generally against parties that are about women selling crap to each other. I used to attend politely if I had nothing better to do, until one Saturday I found myself at a party where presenter/seller interrupted the hour-long jewelry commercial to tell us how being saved by the blood of Christ was really what got her going, and this necklace business was just something she could do to make sure her family had the money for her to stay home with the kiddos like Jesus intended. How each day she dwelled on the fact that Christ was nailed to the cross for her sins, proving that God had a plan, and surely that plan involves imported silver plated bracelets. Those weren't her exact words but that's what I gathered, and I also had a God moment, which felt like He was telling me to never go to one of these pyramid-scheme selling crap parties again.
I'll go to cooking show events, since I buy kitchen stuff anyway and there's usually pretty good food. But only if the host is someone who I've hung out with for non-commercial reasons in the past year. Seriously.
Digressed again. This is why my journal sucks.
I think too many women are pretending like these shopping parties are fun and we need to be honest with ourselves and each other, especially when our friends act excited about anti-aging lotion. I hoped we'd all see how ridiculous we looked when we saw Uncle Rico's "natural enhancement solution" in Napoleon Dynamite. But no, my neighbor not only invited me to her party, she's sending me facebook messages about how she would love to catch up with me and really hopes I show up on Saturday. The question to you friends: how honest should I be?
I know, I know. Don't be "that feminist" who has to be all crazy and go on a soapbox about a simple facebook invite. I can't help it. It's not like a switch I can turn off, people.
A few months later I find out through facebook that she's also representing a line of cosmetics and skin care products that slow down the effects of aging with amazing results (sigh) and this weekend I'm invited to her demonstration party, which I am SOOO not interested in. In fact I'm basically anti-interested in it, I go beyond not wanting this stuff for myself and into wishing that no woman would be interested in it. We should be proud to be aging. Hell, 100 years ago an embarassingly large percentage of women died in childbirth before they hit the ripe old age of 25, just the fact that we all hit 40 should be a "you've come a long way baby" moment. We should have an aging party to celebrate feminists who legalized birth control and pushed for maternal health standards.
I digress.
Years ago I declared that I was generally against parties that are about women selling crap to each other. I used to attend politely if I had nothing better to do, until one Saturday I found myself at a party where presenter/seller interrupted the hour-long jewelry commercial to tell us how being saved by the blood of Christ was really what got her going, and this necklace business was just something she could do to make sure her family had the money for her to stay home with the kiddos like Jesus intended. How each day she dwelled on the fact that Christ was nailed to the cross for her sins, proving that God had a plan, and surely that plan involves imported silver plated bracelets. Those weren't her exact words but that's what I gathered, and I also had a God moment, which felt like He was telling me to never go to one of these pyramid-scheme selling crap parties again.
I'll go to cooking show events, since I buy kitchen stuff anyway and there's usually pretty good food. But only if the host is someone who I've hung out with for non-commercial reasons in the past year. Seriously.
Digressed again. This is why my journal sucks.
I think too many women are pretending like these shopping parties are fun and we need to be honest with ourselves and each other, especially when our friends act excited about anti-aging lotion. I hoped we'd all see how ridiculous we looked when we saw Uncle Rico's "natural enhancement solution" in Napoleon Dynamite. But no, my neighbor not only invited me to her party, she's sending me facebook messages about how she would love to catch up with me and really hopes I show up on Saturday. The question to you friends: how honest should I be?
Correct party invite response is...
No response, just don't show up.
5(10.4%)
Say I'm busy/washing my hair
6(12.5%)
Be honest. Product is not for me.
32(66.7%)
Be really honest. Entire plan is bad for SOCIETY AS A WHOLE
5(10.4%)
I know, I know. Don't be "that feminist" who has to be all crazy and go on a soapbox about a simple facebook invite. I can't help it. It's not like a switch I can turn off, people.
Finally got around to watching “the Pluto files” on Netflix, about planetary classification and recent controversies, and I think it does a good job telling the whole story and talking to people with differing opinions. But honestly I’m still bothered that most of America really wants to dig in and live in a “solar system with NINE PLANETS” forever. They aren’t really understanding the issue.
I mean sure I thought it was a little weird when Pluto was declassified but when I learned why… the fact that we’d found all these other objects in the Kuiper belt that were the larger or at least of comparable size to Pluto, it made perfect sense. Eris certainly deserves to be a planet every but as much as Pluto does. But we want to cling to Pluto purely for sentimental value. People in the documentary said things like “aren’t some things about the world supposed to be certain? Isn’t science supposed to be certain? How could a whole PLANET change to "not a planet"? Is gravity not a force now, does an atom not have a nucleus?!”
Well actually, science isn’t supposed to be certain. It’s never been certain. That’s the POINT of science. You keep exploring and reshaping with every discovery.
If you want certainty, that’s what religion is for, and a lot of the Pluto arguments strongly resemble religious debates to me. Here’s how religion works:
1) Your personal gut feeling matters. You as an individual receive guidance from your creator that you must hold in your heart and trust, and it's every bit as important as what the "experts" tell you.
2) Certain things are not for debate. There is a God, despite the lack of evidence because “evidence” is something we see with our eyes, and God is above all that.
3) Faith is a prize, and earns rewards. One who believes without seeing has virtue above someone who insists on concrete signs.
4) We must agree to disagree, because our God is one who is above earthly things and can’t be proven, what’s true for you can just remain true for you and I will go on with my opinion without being disturbed.
Honestly, as a religious person, I’m totally cool with all this. I will totally admit that I believe in God because of my gut feeling, not because He’s spoken to me, and that although my understanding and religious feelings have evolved the core beliefs have not.
But that’s not how science works, and that’s why I think a lot of Americans have a problem with stuff like planetary definitions. Hey, we found more stuff out there. We need to rethink our universe. IT’S ALL GONNA BE OKAY.
We learned that Pluto isn’t terribly special… the big gas giant planets are special, the first four planets are special, but Pluto is just one of a lot of tiny ice balls out there in a belt of junk, just like Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Ceres, etc. These guys are smaller than our earth’s moon and clearly very different from the other eight planets. We could call them all planets, if you really like the word planet, but the more you learn about them the more you might feel like it’s just not right.
Saying “there are nine planets in the solar system” would be like saying you have 11 fingers… ten on your hand, and your second toe on your left foot counts because it’s clearly a digit with a nail at the end of it. And someone could say, “what about those other toes?” And you’d have to say “Well I didn’t notice those until a few years ago and I’m used to saying I have eleven fingers, so let’s go with it… I mean damn, asshole, what have you got against my eleventh finger? It’s awesome, I let a kid name it and there’s a whole dog cartoon and everything!”
Don’t be crazy, America.
I mean sure I thought it was a little weird when Pluto was declassified but when I learned why… the fact that we’d found all these other objects in the Kuiper belt that were the larger or at least of comparable size to Pluto, it made perfect sense. Eris certainly deserves to be a planet every but as much as Pluto does. But we want to cling to Pluto purely for sentimental value. People in the documentary said things like “aren’t some things about the world supposed to be certain? Isn’t science supposed to be certain? How could a whole PLANET change to "not a planet"? Is gravity not a force now, does an atom not have a nucleus?!”
Well actually, science isn’t supposed to be certain. It’s never been certain. That’s the POINT of science. You keep exploring and reshaping with every discovery.
If you want certainty, that’s what religion is for, and a lot of the Pluto arguments strongly resemble religious debates to me. Here’s how religion works:
1) Your personal gut feeling matters. You as an individual receive guidance from your creator that you must hold in your heart and trust, and it's every bit as important as what the "experts" tell you.
2) Certain things are not for debate. There is a God, despite the lack of evidence because “evidence” is something we see with our eyes, and God is above all that.
3) Faith is a prize, and earns rewards. One who believes without seeing has virtue above someone who insists on concrete signs.
4) We must agree to disagree, because our God is one who is above earthly things and can’t be proven, what’s true for you can just remain true for you and I will go on with my opinion without being disturbed.
Honestly, as a religious person, I’m totally cool with all this. I will totally admit that I believe in God because of my gut feeling, not because He’s spoken to me, and that although my understanding and religious feelings have evolved the core beliefs have not.
But that’s not how science works, and that’s why I think a lot of Americans have a problem with stuff like planetary definitions. Hey, we found more stuff out there. We need to rethink our universe. IT’S ALL GONNA BE OKAY.
We learned that Pluto isn’t terribly special… the big gas giant planets are special, the first four planets are special, but Pluto is just one of a lot of tiny ice balls out there in a belt of junk, just like Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Ceres, etc. These guys are smaller than our earth’s moon and clearly very different from the other eight planets. We could call them all planets, if you really like the word planet, but the more you learn about them the more you might feel like it’s just not right.
Saying “there are nine planets in the solar system” would be like saying you have 11 fingers… ten on your hand, and your second toe on your left foot counts because it’s clearly a digit with a nail at the end of it. And someone could say, “what about those other toes?” And you’d have to say “Well I didn’t notice those until a few years ago and I’m used to saying I have eleven fingers, so let’s go with it… I mean damn, asshole, what have you got against my eleventh finger? It’s awesome, I let a kid name it and there’s a whole dog cartoon and everything!”
Don’t be crazy, America.
Last week we had a staff meeting with some new people so we were asked to go around the room and introduce ourselves with our names and "something interesting about you". For the first time in my engineering career, I'm in a really chatty group this year, we already know everything about each other. I hadn't thought about it, but that's weird! In all my previous groups there was always at least one person, usually more, who was a quiet, contemplative, hang back and keep your head down type. We'd hear little tidbits about them, but never the whole story... where they'd been, who they lived with, what they were like. In fact one guy was so private, we theorized that he was in witness protection or something... he had a generic-sounding name and everything. But I digress.
In order to introduce myself to chatty group (with three new people) I said I was an electrical engineer, been with the company ten years (!), I had a two-year-old, a dog, four guinea pigs, and a husband... people asked if I'd just named those in the order I care about them, I had to think about what made me say it that way but after some consideration I said they were in "ability to take care of themselves, in reverse order". I can leave the husband alone for probably a week, the guinea pigs for three days, the dog for 12 hours, the baby for twenty seconds.
And then for the interesting thing about myself, I said that I really hate it when I call a company and their phone message says "please listen closely as our menu items have changed." OH WHO CARES I JUST WANT TO PUNCH A NUMBER! Why do they take the time to demean us with this stupid request? Do they really think I memorized the options from the last time I called, and am just going to punch with reckless abandon? What's the consequence for them if I punch the wrong number, anyway? And here's the real kicker... I bet you anything the options have NOT changed! I mean, what if I just called this morning? It's not like they mix them up for funzies after every caller!
The only time the menu items have changed is in the ten seconds right after the person recorded that message, and yes, I'm sure the voice provider really did think s/he was making an earth-shattering impact on the world of that recording. But the message stays the same, long after the impact is over. Feelings are temporary, data is forever. I tried to convince a fellow engineer of this once... he'd created a folder in a directory called "new reports" and I complained that as soon as we got a next version, that folder would be out of date. Why not make a folder for "old reports" and move old ones there? After all, old reports stay old forever. New reports are only new right now. He didn't get me.
Anyway I just wanted you all to dwell on that a bit, and now you can be as angry as I am when you call someplace and they waste your time with an idiotic voice prompt message that assumes you planned on ignoring their FANCY NEW OPTIONS.
In order to introduce myself to chatty group (with three new people) I said I was an electrical engineer, been with the company ten years (!), I had a two-year-old, a dog, four guinea pigs, and a husband... people asked if I'd just named those in the order I care about them, I had to think about what made me say it that way but after some consideration I said they were in "ability to take care of themselves, in reverse order". I can leave the husband alone for probably a week, the guinea pigs for three days, the dog for 12 hours, the baby for twenty seconds.
And then for the interesting thing about myself, I said that I really hate it when I call a company and their phone message says "please listen closely as our menu items have changed." OH WHO CARES I JUST WANT TO PUNCH A NUMBER! Why do they take the time to demean us with this stupid request? Do they really think I memorized the options from the last time I called, and am just going to punch with reckless abandon? What's the consequence for them if I punch the wrong number, anyway? And here's the real kicker... I bet you anything the options have NOT changed! I mean, what if I just called this morning? It's not like they mix them up for funzies after every caller!
The only time the menu items have changed is in the ten seconds right after the person recorded that message, and yes, I'm sure the voice provider really did think s/he was making an earth-shattering impact on the world of that recording. But the message stays the same, long after the impact is over. Feelings are temporary, data is forever. I tried to convince a fellow engineer of this once... he'd created a folder in a directory called "new reports" and I complained that as soon as we got a next version, that folder would be out of date. Why not make a folder for "old reports" and move old ones there? After all, old reports stay old forever. New reports are only new right now. He didn't get me.
Anyway I just wanted you all to dwell on that a bit, and now you can be as angry as I am when you call someplace and they waste your time with an idiotic voice prompt message that assumes you planned on ignoring their FANCY NEW OPTIONS.
I must sound like the angriest person in my lj sometimes... I swear I'm not, I'm really very happy with life, I love all sorts of little things... morning walks with the dog, cream cheese sprout avocado salsa sandwiches, coffee, musicals, road trips, crafts. So many things, I'd just never be able to list them.
But I really fucking hate clocks that do not tell the correct time.
This has almost caused problems in my marriage because marc is one of those people who thinks it's okay to set a clock 10 minutes fast now and then because then he'll see the time, think he's late for something, rush to get ready, but not really be late. To me this is a stupid strategy because eventually you adapt, you know the clock is fast, and you go back to your time-pushing ways. We've sort of agreed to disagree on this one... as long as every clock in the house is okay, I try to ignore the one in his car.
I have some friends who hold a game night and rotate between each other's houses, and one of them uses clocks purely for decoration. Drives me up a freaking wall. They're all just there, showing times, and I'm obsessive about time, I need to see a clock wherever I'm at and know what time it is, and seeing WRONG clocks makes it even worse.
But the clock that really upsets me, the one inspiring this firstworldproblem entry, is our coffee maker. It has a slider on the left side to turn it on, and on the right side it has three buttons: hour, minute, and program. No "time lock" function... just whoever hits one of those hour or minute buttons bumps the time up, including my darling child, who scales her way to the kitchen counters like a some kind of super-sonic mountain goat and just looves those coffee maker buttons. But it's not always even her fault, it's everybody, my father-in-law makes coffee when he comes over (he's one of those guys who drinks it 24x7) and I swear I think he hits the hour button by mistake all the time. Or it just gets bumped, or maybe it hits itself, who knows?
Either way, if the clock is correct and someone bumps the hour button once, the only way for me to make it correct again is to hit it 23 times so it cycles back around. WHO DESIGNED THIS ATROCITY? It could be anything, at any time, I just want to make coffee but there's this damn clock that's never right.
I've actually considered buying a timer that turns it off every day, then on again at midnight. Or we could unplug it all the time, and plug it in every morning to make coffee, but we like to leave the coffee on for a few hours so we'd have that clock definitely wrong every day, right when I'm trying to get ready for work, the worst time.
Or I could buy a whole new coffee maker... one with no clock, since we don't program it! But that's a waste. The thing makes coffee just fine, it's that "bonus feature" I can't take. I know... don't let the little things ruin the big things, right? I can't help it. It drives me insane.
But I really fucking hate clocks that do not tell the correct time.
This has almost caused problems in my marriage because marc is one of those people who thinks it's okay to set a clock 10 minutes fast now and then because then he'll see the time, think he's late for something, rush to get ready, but not really be late. To me this is a stupid strategy because eventually you adapt, you know the clock is fast, and you go back to your time-pushing ways. We've sort of agreed to disagree on this one... as long as every clock in the house is okay, I try to ignore the one in his car.
I have some friends who hold a game night and rotate between each other's houses, and one of them uses clocks purely for decoration. Drives me up a freaking wall. They're all just there, showing times, and I'm obsessive about time, I need to see a clock wherever I'm at and know what time it is, and seeing WRONG clocks makes it even worse.
But the clock that really upsets me, the one inspiring this firstworldproblem entry, is our coffee maker. It has a slider on the left side to turn it on, and on the right side it has three buttons: hour, minute, and program. No "time lock" function... just whoever hits one of those hour or minute buttons bumps the time up, including my darling child, who scales her way to the kitchen counters like a some kind of super-sonic mountain goat and just looves those coffee maker buttons. But it's not always even her fault, it's everybody, my father-in-law makes coffee when he comes over (he's one of those guys who drinks it 24x7) and I swear I think he hits the hour button by mistake all the time. Or it just gets bumped, or maybe it hits itself, who knows?
Either way, if the clock is correct and someone bumps the hour button once, the only way for me to make it correct again is to hit it 23 times so it cycles back around. WHO DESIGNED THIS ATROCITY? It could be anything, at any time, I just want to make coffee but there's this damn clock that's never right.
I've actually considered buying a timer that turns it off every day, then on again at midnight. Or we could unplug it all the time, and plug it in every morning to make coffee, but we like to leave the coffee on for a few hours so we'd have that clock definitely wrong every day, right when I'm trying to get ready for work, the worst time.
Or I could buy a whole new coffee maker... one with no clock, since we don't program it! But that's a waste. The thing makes coffee just fine, it's that "bonus feature" I can't take. I know... don't let the little things ruin the big things, right? I can't help it. It drives me insane.
I realize that emotional trauma related to grocery store self-checkout is totally a first world problem but zomg I HATE SELF-CHECKOUT... the problem is my husband just loves them and says "these problems" never happen to him when he's alone. when we go together, he always convinces me they'll be okay because he'll do the checking out and I just have to stand there. and of course, when he does it, there's never any machine repeating in an endless loop "PLEASE PUT THE ITEM BACK IN THE BAG AN ATTENDANT HAS BEEN CALLED TO ASSIST YOU" like it does.
Oh but today I messed it up I guess. The only good thing about self checkout is that there's not a person waiting impatiently while you count out exact change, which is something I like to do... get rid of my small change. So our total was $9.62. It says put in coins first, so I count the coins out in my hand and put them in the coin slot in quick succession... a penny, another one, a dime, two quarters... then realize it's not counting ANY of it. My last quarter is stuck just where I can see it through the slot, we try pushing on it a little but finally just call the lady over and explain there's a problem. She bangs on the machine but nothing happens.
So she tells us to put our cash in and maybe that'll help (huh?) and I put in $9. It says I owe $0.62, of course. I'm like, "If I put in another dollar you'll get me change, right?" she says sure. So I put in a dollar. It spits out $0.38. She's like, "See? There, it gave you your change."
Whoh, double-take, how did this take a turn to misunderstandingland? I explain "But it owes me a dollar in change, because I put in $10.62, see, you can SEE my sixty two cents right there in the coin slot." Again, she repeats that I got change. I'm like "Well at least put something up for the next person about how the coin counter doesn't work on this one!" She's like "The next person won't get your sixty two cents is that what you're so worried about? Your measly sixty two cents? You got your change IT WORKS FINE!"
Ya know, before she said that I was about ready to call it good and just walk away but now screw it, but now I felt like she was basically accusing me of stealing. I took a stand and told her I wanted my sixty two cents BACK because I put it in there, this whole situation was established based on the fact that I'd put the change in.
She sighs and counts me out $.62 and I'm holding the $.38 in my hand (have been the whole time) and I'm like, "Can I please just give you this $.38 and you can give me a whole dollar?" She says NO YOU ARE GETTING SIXTY TWO CENTS IF YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT, DEFINITELY NOT A DOLLAR!"
dammit. I wanted to get rid of loose change, and walked out of there with more than I came in with.
I blame self checkout for this whole thing... kinda want to blame the dumbass lady who was assuming the worst in me too, but honestly the store registers make it a tiny bit easier for cashiers to just do their thing... you can't lose change in their hand, right?
I mean don't we all agree that self-checkout is just awful? Doesn't part of the price of my groceries go to pay someone to do this for me, so I don't have to scream at some machine or explain to someone who is CLEARLY NOT QUALIFIED TO TROUBLESHOOT what's happened to me over the past five minutes? My grocery prices don't go down, why do I have to scan my own crap with non-functioning equipment now?
And again as we're leaving Marc is shaking his head saying I'm just cursed.
Oh but today I messed it up I guess. The only good thing about self checkout is that there's not a person waiting impatiently while you count out exact change, which is something I like to do... get rid of my small change. So our total was $9.62. It says put in coins first, so I count the coins out in my hand and put them in the coin slot in quick succession... a penny, another one, a dime, two quarters... then realize it's not counting ANY of it. My last quarter is stuck just where I can see it through the slot, we try pushing on it a little but finally just call the lady over and explain there's a problem. She bangs on the machine but nothing happens.
So she tells us to put our cash in and maybe that'll help (huh?) and I put in $9. It says I owe $0.62, of course. I'm like, "If I put in another dollar you'll get me change, right?" she says sure. So I put in a dollar. It spits out $0.38. She's like, "See? There, it gave you your change."
Whoh, double-take, how did this take a turn to misunderstandingland? I explain "But it owes me a dollar in change, because I put in $10.62, see, you can SEE my sixty two cents right there in the coin slot." Again, she repeats that I got change. I'm like "Well at least put something up for the next person about how the coin counter doesn't work on this one!" She's like "The next person won't get your sixty two cents is that what you're so worried about? Your measly sixty two cents? You got your change IT WORKS FINE!"
Ya know, before she said that I was about ready to call it good and just walk away but now screw it, but now I felt like she was basically accusing me of stealing. I took a stand and told her I wanted my sixty two cents BACK because I put it in there, this whole situation was established based on the fact that I'd put the change in.
She sighs and counts me out $.62 and I'm holding the $.38 in my hand (have been the whole time) and I'm like, "Can I please just give you this $.38 and you can give me a whole dollar?" She says NO YOU ARE GETTING SIXTY TWO CENTS IF YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT, DEFINITELY NOT A DOLLAR!"
dammit. I wanted to get rid of loose change, and walked out of there with more than I came in with.
I blame self checkout for this whole thing... kinda want to blame the dumbass lady who was assuming the worst in me too, but honestly the store registers make it a tiny bit easier for cashiers to just do their thing... you can't lose change in their hand, right?
I mean don't we all agree that self-checkout is just awful? Doesn't part of the price of my groceries go to pay someone to do this for me, so I don't have to scream at some machine or explain to someone who is CLEARLY NOT QUALIFIED TO TROUBLESHOOT what's happened to me over the past five minutes? My grocery prices don't go down, why do I have to scan my own crap with non-functioning equipment now?
And again as we're leaving Marc is shaking his head saying I'm just cursed.
So remember a while back I posted about how it'd be a good idea to just phase out the penny as currency? Well now canada is going to stop making them and I say GO CANADA, they're joining many other countries, this is not a revolutionary idea. It's only "crazy" if you're a scared-of-new-things traditionalist who thinks every new idea is a threat to your existence (and unfortunately, we have lots of those in America).
Just to recap: "currency" is something that
1) Has value. Like, you'd stop to pick it up in the street.
2) Can buy you things, like sodas out of vending machines.
3) Most common use is to be exchanged for goods, not pressed into souvenir at one of those crank machines at tourist traps, which I think is the only thing anyone does with pennies.
4) DOESN'T ANNOY ME.
The topic of inflation comes up a lot in these discussions, apparently, because the purists remember the days when a penny really could buy something and in my last entry people suggested deflating the currency so pennies would gain value, which I think is an awful idea just to save a coin. We'd have to make a dollar worth 10 cents for the penny to be worth a dime. Your house would sell for 10 grand even if you owe $100K on it. We are where we are folks. Quit being nostalgic.
Time to kill the American penny! Although I know now we'll have to wait another bunch of years, we wouldn't want to look like Canadians, we're Americans (fuck yeah!) and nobody can tell us what to do, blah blah blah. Oh but someday people, someday, I will no longer have to wait by the cash register while someone counts four pennies out to hand me to clog up my wallet.
Hell, let's just outdo canada, stop making nickels too.
Just to recap: "currency" is something that
1) Has value. Like, you'd stop to pick it up in the street.
2) Can buy you things, like sodas out of vending machines.
3) Most common use is to be exchanged for goods, not pressed into souvenir at one of those crank machines at tourist traps, which I think is the only thing anyone does with pennies.
4) DOESN'T ANNOY ME.
The topic of inflation comes up a lot in these discussions, apparently, because the purists remember the days when a penny really could buy something and in my last entry people suggested deflating the currency so pennies would gain value, which I think is an awful idea just to save a coin. We'd have to make a dollar worth 10 cents for the penny to be worth a dime. Your house would sell for 10 grand even if you owe $100K on it. We are where we are folks. Quit being nostalgic.
Time to kill the American penny! Although I know now we'll have to wait another bunch of years, we wouldn't want to look like Canadians, we're Americans (fuck yeah!) and nobody can tell us what to do, blah blah blah. Oh but someday people, someday, I will no longer have to wait by the cash register while someone counts four pennies out to hand me to clog up my wallet.
Hell, let's just outdo canada, stop making nickels too.
I'm a nerd and I have a child, therefore I buy her space toys. Right? Like, here she is drinking from her rocket ship sippy cup. 
The issue is that nearly everything for kids that has to do with the solar system has nine planets. And we all know that several years ago our understanding of that was supposed to change, because scientists got together and decided that there are eight planets and four dwarf planets. They had to draw that "planet" line, so they did.
There isn't nine of anything. There's not a category that starts with Mercury and ends with Pluto. If we make Pluto a planet we have to make all kinds of other crap out there a planet.
Science isn't like religion. You don't get to sit and think about how you feel about what's discovered, or come to your own personal conclusion through quiet private conversations with your maker. You can't say "broccoli is green for me but might be blue for you and that's okay I'm not going to push my beliefs!"
I totally had to crop Pluto out of this fabric picture just to put my guinea pig in space, boo
All these toys and fabric prints and stickers have pluto on there for purely sentimental reasons, that's all there is to it.
Dear manufacturers: do the right thing for the kids. Either remove Pluto, or add the host of other Trans-Neptunian objects that deserve the same recognition Pluto has: Haumea, Makemake, Eris, whatever else we might find out there, you'll have to be prepared! Just follow some guideline besides tradition.
The issue is that nearly everything for kids that has to do with the solar system has nine planets. And we all know that several years ago our understanding of that was supposed to change, because scientists got together and decided that there are eight planets and four dwarf planets. They had to draw that "planet" line, so they did.
There isn't nine of anything. There's not a category that starts with Mercury and ends with Pluto. If we make Pluto a planet we have to make all kinds of other crap out there a planet.
Science isn't like religion. You don't get to sit and think about how you feel about what's discovered, or come to your own personal conclusion through quiet private conversations with your maker. You can't say "broccoli is green for me but might be blue for you and that's okay I'm not going to push my beliefs!"
I totally had to crop Pluto out of this fabric picture just to put my guinea pig in space, boo
All these toys and fabric prints and stickers have pluto on there for purely sentimental reasons, that's all there is to it.
Dear manufacturers: do the right thing for the kids. Either remove Pluto, or add the host of other Trans-Neptunian objects that deserve the same recognition Pluto has: Haumea, Makemake, Eris, whatever else we might find out there, you'll have to be prepared! Just follow some guideline besides tradition.
So I sent this guy at work an email, and five minutes later my phone rings, and he wants to talk all about the email. I had to be very patient. Then I turn to my cubemate and say, "Don't people understand that the whole reason I send an email is to avoid talking?"
Then I was accused of being a "gen-y-er", aka a "kid these days", who can't handle people because I've spent too many hours of my life in front of a screen.
I protest. For one thing since the beginning of time there have been nerds who couldn't handle people, but now that we've got email and text messaging we can finally do some real good in society. right?
Times I want to talk to people:
1) I want to say something really offensive that should be never be stored as evidence to be brought up in a court of law.
2) There are lots of people involved in the conversation and we can just have it all at once.
That's it. Generally speaking I've found that talking is too easy for people, words just come out unfiltered, you can say the same damn thing ten times before anyone notices that you're being repetitive. Email is great because you're forced to be concise. If you yammer on forever, everyone will realize that you're a bad communicator. You do more cost-benefit analysis on your words. If I don't like what you're saying, I can stop reading. There are so many wonderful things about it!
I might be a tiny bit antisocial in the general population, but not compared to other engineers. They set the bar low. I could be their prom queen. So I don't think this is totally an introvert thing, or a generational thing. It's a "really, seriously, 'not talking' is a better way to do it" thing.
Then I was accused of being a "gen-y-er", aka a "kid these days", who can't handle people because I've spent too many hours of my life in front of a screen.
I protest. For one thing since the beginning of time there have been nerds who couldn't handle people, but now that we've got email and text messaging we can finally do some real good in society. right?
Times I want to talk to people:
1) I want to say something really offensive that should be never be stored as evidence to be brought up in a court of law.
2) There are lots of people involved in the conversation and we can just have it all at once.
That's it. Generally speaking I've found that talking is too easy for people, words just come out unfiltered, you can say the same damn thing ten times before anyone notices that you're being repetitive. Email is great because you're forced to be concise. If you yammer on forever, everyone will realize that you're a bad communicator. You do more cost-benefit analysis on your words. If I don't like what you're saying, I can stop reading. There are so many wonderful things about it!
I might be a tiny bit antisocial in the general population, but not compared to other engineers. They set the bar low. I could be their prom queen. So I don't think this is totally an introvert thing, or a generational thing. It's a "really, seriously, 'not talking' is a better way to do it" thing.
Target had huge chocolate bars on clearance so I bought a 4.25oz Hershey's Special Dark. It's a good size hunk of chocolate, but not what I'd call ridiculous. I get it to work and I notice it's seriously got a warning on it:
Oh hell people. Chocolate is now in the same category as alcohol, where we have to get told "enjoy responsibly!" because someone's afraid down 1/4lb of chocolate in one sitting on a regular basis and have a damn heart attack... there are worse ways to go, am I right? It kinda made me want to eat the whole thing just to spite them, even though I bought it thinking it'd last me a week in my desk.
Along those same lines, why does the ceramic travel mug I bought say "CAUTION BEVERAGE IS HOT" across the silicone lid? I'm the one who puts the beverage in there, shouldn't I know whether it's not hot? Can I fill it with cherry slushie instead, then sue the company when I chug it and get brain freeze because I thought it'd be hot per the warning?
Yeah, I sound like old-timer rantypants, I know.
Enjoy in moderation. One serving (5 blocks) contains 180 calories and 12g of fat.
Oh hell people. Chocolate is now in the same category as alcohol, where we have to get told "enjoy responsibly!" because someone's afraid down 1/4lb of chocolate in one sitting on a regular basis and have a damn heart attack... there are worse ways to go, am I right? It kinda made me want to eat the whole thing just to spite them, even though I bought it thinking it'd last me a week in my desk.
Along those same lines, why does the ceramic travel mug I bought say "CAUTION BEVERAGE IS HOT" across the silicone lid? I'm the one who puts the beverage in there, shouldn't I know whether it's not hot? Can I fill it with cherry slushie instead, then sue the company when I chug it and get brain freeze because I thought it'd be hot per the warning?
Yeah, I sound like old-timer rantypants, I know.
Comments
Double A
r d v a r k