Haunted Hooves (October 2023 scapegoat blame thread)

@werehatrack Hahaha I rent. Water heaters are not my problem. Nor are foundation problems, other water issues, electrical issues… unfortunately the coach roach problem isn’t supposed to be my problem either but management having pest control coming once every 3 months makes it my problem. I am currently roach free again after about a 2 year battle (when they fixed the foundation I was reinfested after eradicating them several years earlier). Hope it stays that way.

19 years is a good run. Our last one lasted 15 years and I was happy with that.

@werehatrack nice. Mine is a power vent I assume they put in in 1999. If I could get at the rod id check it but not without disassembling the vent… so I’m pretty set on just leaving it alone till there’s a problem…

IDK why but I always see way low life expectations for tanked gas… they seem to last forever to me

@Cerridwyn I blame the AI for that, but still take the credit.

@Cerridwyn @ExtraMedium I blame you for using AI to “take errr jobs”

@Cerridwyn @unksol Now I’m debating leaving a “coming soon” image each month and letting you guys figure out the best graphic. If you don’t want the AI taking that job, bring it!

@Cerridwyn @ExtraMedium there’s probably some sort of shirt based outlet people that could be featured. You don’t want my stick figures

@tinamarie1974 Those look delicious!

@Kyeh thanks, they are amazing. Found the recipe here

https://dirndlkitchen.com/german-pretzel-recipe/

@tinamarie1974 gnoms the warped one

@Cerridwyn not warped, half eaten

@tinamarie1974 That sounds complicated! Did you use lye?

@Kyeh that was my only divergance from the recipe. No lye and I didn’t want to wait an hour to bake my baking soda. Just did regular baking soda in water. Checked out lye on amazon for possible future batch but it is kinda pricey

@tinamarie1974 Sounds a little scary too!

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 It actually isn’t that hard – I’ve done it a handful of times and had no issues. Thanks for the recipe link – I can’t wait to try it!

@cf1 @Kyeh it wasnt bad, just time consuming.

@Cerridwyn … I mean I expect that to be a sandwich of goat meat. So…

@ironcheftoni well that sucks big time.

@ironcheftoni well means it wasn’t meant to be so you just need to hunt for a better birthday trip. Maybe one that doesn’t involve a cruise ship which is a covid nightmare or a Norovirus nightmare or any other infection nightmare

@Cerridwyn @ironcheftoni on the one hand . Mehbe… but if that was the way to see the places they wanted at a reasonable cost. And people and they were vaccinated. Hard to call on 2025

A plane is a concentrated can of air. So. If you want to go outside the country and can’t drive there…

@lisaviolet Texas will make me retake the driving test in 2028 when I turn 75. Meanwhile, surprisingly, I passed the eye test on my last renewal. I’m legal to drive without glasses. And it actually works.

@lisaviolet so sorry about Charlie. Always tough to loose a fur baby. Sending hugs

Congrats on passing the test. I can only imagine how nervous you were!

@lisaviolet I am sorry you have lost another cat. At least it was clear his time had come and you weren’t left wondering if you were being premature. I know it is hard regardless of when or why they die.

@lisaviolet Really sorry about Charlie.
Happy the pup is better, though. And congratulations on the driving test. Whew!

@lisaviolet sorry about charlie. They all want to start as Aholes. Praying for some mellowing around here.

Regarding licensing… thats a hard one. I feel like if you have been a good driver your whole life and you can pass the written. You’ll be fine on the driving test. They are really easy on the written anyway. Just do the driver test/rank the written lower. but I also get what a huge hit that would be if some bureaucrat yanked your license.

On the other hand. I think my grandma is 90 and had been fine but maybe not now that shes sick.

My friends mom is in her 60-70s and has had issues to where he won’t let her drive his kids anymore, and her response was “well it’s no big deal it’s just me if I die”

Which. Yes big deal. Also big deal to the people you might kill. But to take the car away or get her license revoked would be an ugly internal family fight in the courts so…

IDK. There are so many bad drivers to start with. And people are given one at such a young age on a studied to test they immediately ignore… And only get revoked after something happens.

I don’t think some retesting across the board would be … that bad. Driving is state privaled after all.

I

@lisaviolet
So sorry to hear Charlie had to be put down. Even when we know it’s time it’s still the hardest thing ever.
Glad you passed your test! Freedom of the road is a great thing! Vroom Vroom

In advance, sorry for being so long winded, it’s the only way I know, it’s what I do!
Funny story!
My Nana had to be retested for her driver’s license (about 30 years ago in Massachusetts) after having a heart attack, she was in her 70s then. I was helping her during her recovery and somehow I ended up in the backseat for her driving test. I was certain that the 20 something instructor was going to fail her! He kept telling her again and again that she needed to use her mirrors instead of turning around or maybe it was vise versa, I can’t remember which one is even correct. But anyway, all he was doing was making her more nervous and neither one of us thought she’d be driving legally ever again! I’m not sure why she didn’t give it to him with her sharp tongue. I wasn’t used of hearing her hold back but I guess she knew it wouldn’t have helped the cause. Smart woman! Needless to say we were both surprised and super thrilled when he told her she’d passed.
I think it’s a good thing for people to be retested at a certain age and definitely after a life changing illness such as a heart attack or stroke. I’m always thinking how crazy it is when I see a little blue haired geriatric person driving so slow that a turtle could cross the road in front of them while they’re hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life, AND, they’re looking THROUGH the steering wheel instead of over it like most people!
Those seniors need to be stopped on the spot before they kill someone!

@lisaviolet @Lynnerizer Where I live we had a 92 year old driving. Parking near him was dangerous as he would back up until he gently hit cars. At least he went slowly when he did that. His family though it was OK since he was “only” going to the VA which was about a mile away. OMG. Right. And he had to cross a 4 lane street with a center median that was really busy, flip a u turn, cross campus, and then park his tank at the other end. Or “only” going to the grocery store. That involved the highway for one exit and then a 3-4 lane access road for several blocks where you had to merge onto that too and cross over 4 lanes. That grocery store is about 4 miles away. He’d keep “testing” the brakes as he drove. He never got into an accident but I am not sure if he didn’t nearly cause wrecks.

@lisaviolet @Lynnerizer Fifty years ago in the Miami area, one if the common bits of descriptive slang for those aged drivers was “q tip”. There were loads of them.

@unksol My mom was an alcoholic and she died when she was 76. I asked Brian last night how on earth did she pass. He said “lots of hundred dollar bills”.

Funny guy. But she did have a valid license.

It’s only a written test. There were fifteen questions and I got three wrong. And I’m still questioning exactly how I got two of them wrong. One was a stopped school bus, one was emergency crews on the freeway and the other about passing work crews (I am obviously overly cautious on all of these - when the right answer showed (test was electronic), I was thinking “that doesn’t sound safe enough”).

Brian’s mom was in her early seventies, on her way to pick up a grandson from school and she backed into our truck, which was just parked to the side of her driveway, even though Brian was yelling at her to watch out.

It wasn’t long after that she gave up driving. But her sons lived close enough (next door, around the corner) and her granddaughter spent a lot of time taking her places, so it wasn’t a huge issue.

Now, we have walmart and amazon and lots of places to order online and have delivered.

@Lynnerizer @werehatrack I updated my description and for hair chose white. Maybe I’ll wear a hat when driving so the whippersnappers don’t call me a qtip.

@Kidsandliz @Lynnerizer That’s scary. I don’t get the mentality that driving is a “right”. It’s a privilege.

One night we were at a buffet restaurant (long before Covid - duh) and there was this old man, hunched over, carrying a bowl of soup and shaking like crazy. He could barely walk.

When we left the restaurant, we saw him driving a car with his wife (?) next to him.

Maybe this is another reason we have to show up in person. So our physical selves can be observed. If anyone should have gotten a behind-the-wheel test, it was that guy.

@Lynnerizer I agree about the testing. But, man, it hurts to realize that I’m one of those people.

Hubby will tell me about people he sees when he’s out and he often says “this old man” or “that old woman” and I just look at him and say “older than us?”

@lisaviolet might be the cancer treatments messing with his mom. Not sure. Seems to just blank out a little and then it’s not a big deal to her. But they would help her so. Idk. Stubborn.

Written test blah. They get me on a question or two sometimes on stupid work compliance test because they word the question/answer very strangely and give you a false option.

Granted if you don’t do what everyone else in traffic expects you to do… that could be a hazard. But a whole bunch of people don’t do what they are supposed to in actually dangerous ways. And a whole bunch are probably more cautious so. Meh

@lisaviolet @unksol My wife’s step-dad turned 95 last March. He still drives around the local rural area and small town, but he doesn’t drive in the big cities any more. (In fact, as I type this, my wife is driving them to the medical center for some tests he had scheduled.)
But he’s in amazing shape for his age - he still maintains his acreage - mowing, gardening, cutting wood, etc. Last week he told me he wanted to clean and re-finish his wood deck before the weather gets too bad. I hope to be as active as he is in my 70’s or 80’s, let alone 90’s!

@lisaviolet @macromeh I would love to be. I doubt I will. Grandpa was going at it pretty hard till cancer got him. I think upper 80s.

Got Dad last year in his 60s. Different types. No smoking/drinking. Trend is less than positive. Somewhere I have a genetic test they took from him that shows elevated risk

He’s more active than I am that’s for sure. “Old” age is all over the place

@lisaviolet @unksol OTOH, a couple weeks ago I got a call from them asking if I could come over (25 miles RT) and take a look at their TV. The TV is (unfortunately) a “Smart” TV that one of their kids got them, with way too many viewing options, and they couldn’t figure out how to get to their favorite channel. (I have to admit, not being familiar with that particular model, I was a little lost at first.) I finally got it straightened out and they were able to watch Matt Dillon save the day once again. I just chuckled on my drive home.

@lisaviolet @macromeh dad got the hang of the computer fine. Had to beg for that first Compaq with the AMD K6. And the switch to digital TV he had all those converter boxes and dvd recorders for the whole 5 channels we got. Andike 2 cellphones

Grandma the cell phone was always a challenge
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If I ever have kids I’m sure they’ll make fun of me for my metro and not tossing my stuff in the trash every year. Or something

@macromeh @unksol I think the important part is staying active. Physically and mentally.

My FIL died younger than you’d expect because he just gave up. He had outlived his younger brothers, he had been a very church-oriented man until the cult he was in turned out to be a bunch of crooks (Garner Ted Armstrong) and that broke his heart.

He had no hobbies.

He just sat in his chair in the driveway watching the world go by.

My mother died at 76. She sat in her corner of the couch, watching a news channel (thank gawd it wasn’t fox), smoking her cigarettes and drinking her beer. That’s all she did.

My MIL took an active roll in the lives around her. She read, she watched television (fox news, dammit) and she did small things like sweeping the driveway. She passed in her sleep at 88 years old.

@macromeh @unksol Isn’t that funny? Way back when (I think around 2003), we drove to Colorado to see Brian’s brother and SIL. They had one of the pizza dishes for television viewing.

They couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the closed captioning. I tried with the pizza dish control, then asked for the remote for the television. (Television remote?) And disabled the closed captioning.

They had no idea.

Some of us take to technology like a duck to water. I feel fortunate to be one.

@lisaviolet @macromeh oh I fixed their computer issues. A lot. I was the one begging for the computer. But once we got it he was definitely on it. Getting at the library catalog a lot. Our Internet was AOL trial disk for a while then 40 hours of NetZero was free. Cause that’s dad. I was long gone before they got DSL or whatever.

Was still the one fixing it/they got tablets so mostly maintenance free.

@lisaviolet @macromeh @unksol My lost S.O.'s father asked her what kind of computer he should get; he was in his seventies, and had zero clue about much of anything, but her specific statement was “If you want me to be able to give you any help with it, get something that runs Windows.”

So he bought an Apple PowerPC.

Yeah, it ran Windows, more or less, but not by default.

When she inherited it after his death, we both tried to see if it could be useful for us. The answer was “Oh, hell no.”

@Kidsandliz @lisaviolet
Yeah, that’s awful! And his family thinks it’s ok, he’s ONLY going down the road!
I’d always heard that most accidents happen a quarter mile from home. (unfortunately, I’m one of those statistics )
I looked it up and this is what it says…

According to the NHTSA, (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) more than half of auto accidents that cause serious injury or death occur within 25 miles of home, 52% of accidents occur within five miles of home.

https://hutzlerlaw.com/what-percentage-of-car-accidents-happen-close-to-home/#:~:text=According to the NHTSA%2C more,within five miles of home.

@lisaviolet

@lisaviolet @macromeh @werehatrack yeah. When apple was using Intel and bootcamp was a thing… it was workable. Not ideal and why would you overpay for apple hardware then buy a windows license…

But whatever

@lisaviolet I’m here with you. My fuzz the orange tabby has been missing since Sunday . He’s 16 and has been a scrapper and an ahole all his life. I think he finally met his match out there somewhere. Raised him from a feral kitten that we found in a state park. I miss him so much

@tentalces1349 I am so sorry to hear that. It is so hard not to know what happened to missing pets. Post on Nextdoor for your area. That social media groups seems pretty good at helping people find their animals.

@tentalces1349 I’m sorry! I hope he surprises you and shows up.

@OldCatLady I have no clue what it has in its mouth but isn’t really any of a better image than the first one

@Cerridwyn @OldCatLady he’s getting ready to spit at you lol

@macromeh
Ulp. Rent’s going to go up?

@macromeh ouch.

Though I kinda wish I had a guy. They never put gutters on this house and that’s a whole drainage thing. I know for a fact the roof needs completely redone. I can see some sliding in places and almost 25 years on a shingle roof.

Metal is the way to go up here. Have to find some decent places to get estimates… I’m tempted to wait till spring though… although a board on the back porch roof rotted out… Think it was squirrels though

@unksol Yeah, this will be the 3rd re-roof on this house. My carpenter buddy and I did the first one in the 80’s while my mom was living there. (That was enough for me to know that I didn’t want to do another one myself. )
The second re-roof was contracted out in the early 2000’s (after it became a rental property).
One more to go! By the time it needs another roof, I expect to be out of the picture (one way or another ).
Too bad we didn’t go with metal on that house early on. My current home has a metal roof - we are 25 years into a 50-year warranty. No problems/complaints so far.

@macromeh most of this one is 45 degrees and I’m not suicidal. Especially with the back being 30 feet down. At least.

@Felton10 OMG - that looks divine! Enormous slabs of prime rib - wow!!!
When’s your actual BD?

@Kyeh 10/16

@Felton10 So will you celebrate every night up to and including the 16th?

@Felton10
That does look delicious and it’s nice to see Mrs Felton feeling better and up to going out to celebrate a early BD dinner. (I’ll be back on the 16th with HBD wishes!)
BTW, how’s your featherd friend doing these days?

@Felton10 Well happy early birthday joining the rest of us with October birthdays, myself included (12th). We know what our parents were doing during those dark winter days.

@Felton10 @Kyeh So is @lisaviolet’s BD.

@Lynnerizer @kyeh Thanks for asking about Princess. Still pretty much a clump. Set up her travel cage beside her house one so she could get used to it for her stay at the pet resort while we take our first vacation in 4 years. Didn’t take long-first day she went in it and hangs out on top of it.

@Kyeh Naw-maybe one more dinner out later next week. Have our three times rescheduled 50th anniversary cruise coming up soon.

@Felton10 Oh, the cruise! I hope that goes well.

@Felton10 @Kyeh Hey, have you ever been mistaken for Strother Martin?

@Kyeh @macromeh Not in this life.

@Felton10 @Kyeh @macromeh I was thinking Pappy Yokum:

But Mrs. doesn’t look like Mammy.

But, Happy upcoming Birthday!

@Kyeh @macromeh @phendrick We both know she looks a lot better than me. Both the Mrs. and the bird.

@Felton10 @Kyeh @macromeh @phendrick an early very happy birthday my friend. Looks like things are going well for the Felton clan these days

@Felton10 @Kyeh
Princess might be a clump but shes sure is the most beautiful clump ever! I bet they treat their guests fantastic at the pet resort, looks like she’ll be styling in her new cage! You guys are going to have a blast on your long awaited cruise! ENJOY!

Hey @Kidsandliz -

@Kyeh THANK YOU!!!

@tinamarie1974 Ugh. That does sound ominous.

@tinamarie1974 guess what, it didnt arrive and now it wont deliver till tomorrow. But I can cancel my order (aww how sweet), but I have to call, been on the phone w CS just to get the order cancelled for 40 min now. Still not done.

In the meantime logged onto the WalMart app. Ordered a replacement, paid for expedited delivery. Will arrive w/n the next 5 min.
Hate Amazon!!

I should add that after some back and forth Amazon is paying for my expedited delivery from the other guys by way of an extra refund. So that is good, and Charlie is alerting me that the WalMart guy has arrived. Still mad at Amazon

Deep breaths…

@tinamarie1974 Wow! Your tenacity paid off - but what a nuisance.

@tinamarie1974 Well that was epic in not a good way. Thanks for the info on what you got Amazon to do though. Others might find that useful. Amazon would probably charge you to breathe the air while you are on their website if they could figure out how. I guess they are taking their cue from many medical systems now charging for mychart messages if you need something from the doctor that takes more than a couple of minutes of being answered by the nurse - in some respects that makes sense however if Amazon is even remotely thinking they have enough of a monopoly to head down that path they may find they are unpleasantly surprised. And if they are successful I hate to think of that becoming the new norm for businesses - eg the screw up and we pay for them to fix it.

@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 That has been the standard for malpractice for entirely too long, already.

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack what standard?

@tinamarie1974 I can add to that. I’ve got an Amazon item that was supposed to arrive via UPS by 9PM CDT today (Sunday, and yes, UPS delivers some AMZ stuff on Sundays, just like USPS), and UPS still does not show the item as being in their possession. In fact, they don’t even show the tracking number as being active.

@tinamarie1974 @werehatrack we all know don’t you the Bezos is a much bigger goat then I am. I think we should just blame him for everything that’s gone wrong in the whole world since the day he was born. I’ll take the blame for today he can have the rest of it. I’m going to blame myself for the fact that I’m so f****** tired. I’m really tired of driving back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and 4th and back

@werehatrack If UPS doesnt show the tracking number that means Amazon has not tendered it to them for a scan OR UPS took an entire truck back to their depot, but have not unloaded, scanned and added it to their supply chain.

The good news for you is if UPS does not show it in their system you have a good argument for Amazon and/or your credit card company.

@Cerridwyn are you at least close to finished?

@tinamarie1974 The problem is that what is supposed to be coming is a replacement part not readily available locally, to fix a friend’s vehicle. What makes it worse is that without that part, I can’t finish the troubleshooting to find out if they blew the head gaskets on their engine. I’m about 80% sure they have, but that other 20% is the difference between error mode one and error mode two. Mode one is me getting all happy-clappy when the part gets here, slapping it in and finding out shortly thereafter that - oops - the heads and maybe the block are now warped. The engine was running okay in the failure mode, but had been overheated. Error mode two is me assuming that the front head at the very least has a failed gasket, tearing most of the engine down to fix it, and discovering that I’d misdiagnosed the issue and just wasted a day and a half of work. Possible success modes all derive from correctly diagnosing the failure mode before proceeding past the point I’m stuck at now. And absent the part, I’m going to stay stuck.

@werehatrack your stuck. Maybe call and complain…and you know who to blame

@tinamarie1974 The Jeffster, 'cause it’s his show, and the shipper, 'cause they choose how it gets shipped, and maybe UPS, 'cause they might have the box and have no idea where it is. (But honestly, if the shipper didn’t notify UPS electronically that it was entering the stream, I’m pretty sure that’s where the real problem lies.)

@tinamarie1974 I dunno
I’ll know Tuesday, after I get the real cost, not the on the phone estimate where you forget so many things they count, like I know I forgot the bench at the end of my bed. Probably going to go with them unless the dollars are way more. I’ve been impressed with all the contacts so far.

Then hopefully week after next they do the job, if they still have an overnight opening. I guess they have one crew that does the overnight runs.

Then i have to come back here one more time for any last minute stuffs and to turn in keys. I don’t want to try to do all that and rush a 6.5-7 hour drive south, rather make a second trip.

So closer yeah, but on the home stretch, i hope so.

Then my dad’s place, the cleaners hope to have it ready for the realtor to price and list. That shit show is on the May, June, July, August and September GOATs

PSA. No matter your age, if you own anything of value, even a house/condo with little or no equity, have all your ducks in a row, then check they guess and swans to make sure they are ready too. Oh, and feed your goat

@werehatrack they can notify UPS, but until it is physically scanned you are not getting anywhere with them.

But, uh, you are trying to hard. It is the GOATS fault

@Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack
Kinda makes you appreciate Meh’s customer service people even more, hunh?
I know they are the best at such that I have dealt with.

@phendrick 100%

@werehatrack Well your friend might just have to pay for a decent car shop to run the diagnostic if they are in a hurry for you to fix their car for them.

@tinamarie1974 I think I pissed a driver off one time when I’d ordered same day delivery cat meds for a certain cat, I tried cancelling the order within an hour (the cat wasn’t going to make it - Chloe).

Amazon told me to just refuse the order when the driver got here. I did, he had a strong accent and he didn’t understand “refusing” the order. He put it in as I wasn’t home.

Well, it was out for delivery the next day. Again. The thing about this was the policy is no returns on medicine. This was over $30 for something I wouldn’t use. They ended up letting me keep it and I did get the refund. (I gave the meds to the vet’s office, they’ll give them to clients who have tight money situations.)

Anyway, I think the driver who put “not home” as the reason it wasn’t delivered got in trouble.

A few weeks later I was waiting for an order that was supposed to be delivered on a Sunday. I got the notice it was 10 stops away. I followed the progress. It was getting late (after 9:30) and the truck was finally at the corner up the street according to the tracker. I was the next stop. I watched as the truck turned right, not left. Not a good sign. I watched as it went down to the main road, four lanes, two each way. It turned right.

I watched the tracker as the vehicle went down to the first stop light, then the second, all the way down to the freeway. I watched as it got onto the freeway and passed the town next to us. I watched as it went west, towards the coast. Then I saw it go north on the interchange, towards Los Angeles (I’m inland San Diego).

I watched it leave my area for an hour and a half. I wanted to see how far it was tracking, but finally just went to bed.

I’m not sure it was that driver who brought the meds here, but I kinda think maybe it was and this was payback.

I cancelled that order.

@lisaviolet well that is terrible. If it makes you feel better, Ive had that experience LOTS. Actually one time, had a friend who lived downtown. He and I were on the phone and his background was LOUD. When I asked why he said he was waiting for an amazon delivery (expensive item, needed it desperately, etc) and didnt want to have the driver leave it sit in the lobby. He was teacking progress, saw it was close, started looking for the van/truck. Watched it drive past him, down the street, turn the corner…back to the app…driver went back to the DC after blowing past him.

FWIW, drivers have very strict hours of service rules which dictate how long they can be behind the wheel. More than likely the driver had more deliveries than could be completed and had to go back to the DC to not break the law. Just really stinks when they are so close!!

@Kidsandliz I ran it; I just had to get a couple of rubber stoppers to seal the coolant ports for the missing oil cooler. The head gaskets are toast. While it might be just one side that’s gone far enough to actively leak, they’ve both been overstressed, so this just turned into an all-week project. Yank the heads (which involves dismantling the timing system, necessitating removal of damn near everything on that end of the engine), check the deck of the block to make sure it’s still straight, and haul the heads to the machine shop to have them milled flat. Until I get this done, I’m on Nofunitol.

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack
“Nofunitol”
I think I’ve had some of that slipped into my breakfast coffee several times lately.

@lisaviolet Oh, NO. Poor little guy!
I hope he heals completely and soon.

@Kyeh Well, at least his eye doesn’t seem to bother him anymore, so that’s good. On that link I left, it has pictures of befores and afters. The one with the corneal ulcer is what his problem is.

Thank you.

@lisaviolet HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

@Kyeh Thanks!

@lisaviolet

/giphy kitty cat happy birthday

@unksol How can you hate people who make you laugh?

@macromeh because they intentionally remove strut bolts to run lighting, refuse “repairs” and are allowed to drive on the same roads.

I’m normally glad we don’t have state inspections but some people are apparently too dumb

@macromeh @unksol And that’s not even getting into the ones that use screws into the fuel tank to run the wiring for their lights.

@macromeh @unksol Just Rolled In has additional examples.

@macromeh @werehatrack yeah. This compilation just seemed bleaker that the usual roundup. They are always bad

Your car doesn’t have this/you plugged USBA into USBC… Spray paint. I just. Ugh

@unksol @werehatrack Somebody has to populate the left half of the bell curve.

@macromeh @unksol @werehatrack On a (somewhat) related note, I once covered a prison class for a fellow instructor who couldn’t make it that night. The meeting was solely for an exam which I passed out and then looked for a way to kill the time. It was an open-book test in a sociology class, so I didn’t even have to watch for potential cheaters. I had his copy of the sociology text and was leafing through it.
I was amazed when I read a discussion of the poverty level and what the government was doing about it. The way the poverty level was defined - at least then, maybe still - (similar to a point on the bell curve) was such that if the government were to give the ENTIRE U.S. population a check for $100,000 each, that would not take a single person out of the below-poverty-line designation. The only effect would have been to shift the point for the designation up by $100,000.
Since then I make my charitable donations only through organizations I have some faith in to vet the recipients for true need and don’t willingly support any government programs (I do hope my Soc Sec payments continue, a lot of my money went into that).
The almost 60 year old “War on Poverty” seems to be a complete, and expensive, failure. Spent more on that war than on our military wars. What percentage lower of people now in poverty? YGAW (Your Government At Work).

@macromeh @phendrick @unksol The point of the WOP was not to lift people out, but to provide a tightly controlled conduit of assistance funds that could only end up in the right hands at the end.

@macromeh @unksol @werehatrack

The point of the WOP was not to lift people out

That’s not what the founder of the program, and the Great Society [sic] said:
Per Wikipedia,
"Johnson stated, “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_poverty

@macromeh @phendrick @unksol Johnson had a good idea. He wasn’t there to make sure it wasn’t perverted into it’s many other forms after that.

@Kidsandliz
Wow - I thought I had a backlog!
Congratulations!

@Kyeh Yeah well filing/tossing out electronic files (I do better with paper as you can see it) is not my best skill. When it comes to dealing with that procrastination is my best skill as I practice it a lot. Of course this was done under what I’d call “productive procrastination” as I had something more important to do that I didn’t want to do that has been tedious and time consuming - nearly done but still have about 4 hours left with that so of course dealing with nearly full notices with email was more important. Right?

@Kidsandliz Oh, yes - I’m very familiar with that! My kitchen cabinets were never cleaner than at finals time. And my closets more organized.

@Kidsandliz since you cleaned up your email, did you also clean your texts?
I cleaned up my text space last week, I had texts going back 7 years! Some from people who have passed away.
Now I am procrastinating at cleaning up, editing my contacts, as several of them have also, sadly passed.

@lonocat umm no on the text messages. I’ll get to those at the next big productive procrastination session.

@Felton10 Suite deal!

@Felton10 So did you go for it?

@Kidsandliz yes-verdict still out due to not all perks they advertised on our ship but still a level of service we are not used to. Still at less than half the usual rate a great deal especially all the room in the cabin

@Felton10 idk, id go for it. Why not

@unksol I bought it. Probably never get a chance for a suite at that price again. Probably spoil us if we ever take another cruise.

@Felton10 I was going to ask who’s taking princess but I missed a thread. Hope it’s a good one. Put down the phone. Might be a shame ships have Internet now

@unksol She’s at the Ace pet resort where Walter went more than 30 times so hopefully she is well taken care of.

@Felton10

Probably spoil us if we ever take another cruise.

From your post down below it sounds like the cruise line knew exactly what they were doing and it did spoil you (grin). You do realize you can’t blame the goat in the future at the standard price of reserving that level of room again. Right?

PS Glad you had a good anniversary cruise.

@Kidsandliz Hey - it was your birthday - you’re entitled to live it up! Yum, now I want brownies.

@Kyeh Made two pans. The first pan had half a bag of chocolate chips in it. The second pan suffered from an alien force that made my hand go into the bag, take out some chocolate chips, forced my hand to my mouth to eat them… (my oven only has one rack and is apartment size and I am too cheap to buy a second one so I had to make them one at a time). You have to cook them longer with chocolate chips in them or the end up too gooey due to melted chocolate. The one with fewer chocolate chips were chewier than the first batch that had more. Both were good.

@Kidsandliz
Those pesky alien forces!
I like butterscotch chips too.

@Kidsandliz So how was the fried chicken rooster, afterwards?

@phendrick Nope she didn’t kill him to eat him. She was temporarily transporting her creatures to her daughter’s house as she just put her 5 bedroom house on sale to downsize. The realtor finally convinced her that her house would sell better/faster if the backyard wasn’t full of chickens and roosters. I am sure the neighbors are happy not to hear the crowing all the time too. That particular rooster that trashed my arm is bonded with a specific chicken who is also bonded to him. They are always within a foot of each other. He she could not not eat. Now several of the others, yes, they were eventually slated to be dinner. I prefer not to know the chickens/roosters I eat so I don’t think I’d accept an invitation to have dinner at her house then.

@Kidsandliz @phendrick
"Nope she didn’t kill him to eat him. "

Sounds like she just killed him for fun lol. I’m assuming she just didn’t kill him.

Normally if you are rasing chickens to eat you have a bunch of broilers for the summer then slaughter them. You want an experienced rooster around because they sort of guard dog the rest/alert them of predators/are aggressive if threatened. Then your layers you over winter group.

Disclaimer: I have never had chickens. But backyardchickens and other sites are a rabbithole.

@phendrick @unksol I don’t think so (kill for fun). She has a fairly high level of ignorance about a number of things. She buys baby chicks where the sex is unknown. For the 13 she has now 5 are roosters. She bought them for fresh eggs. I was surprised to hear chickens can live 10 years (have not checked her facts on that). All her roosters are young from the chicks she bought last spring. Not sure if she eats everyone eventually and just buys more chicks or not (didn’t ask as I don’t want to know).

@Kidsandliz @phendrick probably should have just butchered most of the rooosters. Didn’t mean “for fun” but they are livestock. That’s technically what they are for. I can’t imagine she wanted fertilized fresh eggs…

@Kidsandliz @unksol 5 males to 8 females; sounds like my odds in high school => lots of competition. (Especially with about most of the females not even interested in us guys, but rather the bigger secular school’s dudes.)
I bet there is a bit of rooster fighting going on there.

@Kidsandliz @phendrick @unksol We used to have a much larger flock of chickens with a surfeit of roosters. We tried butchering a few, but the results were barely edible and not worth the effort. My wife took a few to a local auction and was surprised to find that some would pay $8-12 for an adult rooster. ?!? I mean, you can buy a whole chicken, killed, cleaned and cooked at Costco for $5!
I don’t know what they wanted them for. Add genetic diversity to their flock? (Or maybe for fighting?) Dumped the clucks, took the bucks and didn’t ask too many questions.

@Kidsandliz @phendrick roosters do flocks like a lot of species. You usually only want one if any and you keep them away from the eggs, but let them out if you have predators so they will guard the ladies. You don’t really need any but. They can be useful.

Sounds like she just got a dozen from rural King without thinking it through and let them lose lol.

Which is kinda like broilers. They’re just. Chickens you need to grow and slaughter so you don’t care. Vs a selected bunch for eggs

@unksol A friend noted that when ordering hatchlings of any species, if the quantity was less than what would fill the box, the supplier would use rooster chicks as padding. (Occasionally, the padding would be male turkeys.) They weren’t thrilled about having to process them when they reached broiler/fryer size, but if they didn’t, there were worse problems.

They have since begun to embrace my early observation that the vast majority of livestock is more trouble than it’s worth above small populations. (Yes, I know, eleven cats is a violation of this precept as well. We’re working on it.)

@werehatrack there’s pretty efficient ways to butcher chickens if you’re able to deal with the blood/guts. Just skinning them avoids the plucking problem. Again lots on backyardchickens. My backyard is technically 12 acres and all the neighbors do chickens.
Not sure who’s it was. I asked. Buff orpingtons are pretty

@unksol @werehatrack I hope you did not eat that chicken that was on your porch rail.

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack well I wouldn’t go eating a chicken that’s not mine. Plus looked like a layer. I asked the neighbors across the street. It hung around for a few days/slept on the garage roof peak than was gone. Out in the open like that a raccoon could have got it at night. May have just wandered home

@Kidsandliz @unksol @werehatrack If you change your mind, here is a good recipe for poached chicken.
https://www.recipetineats.com/poached-chicken/

@Felton10 Glad you liked it and it was worth that odd decision the cruise made to upgrade you in this manner but charging you more to do so. I’ve never been on a cruise but have worked on tall ships where quarters are not private, everyone eats whatever the cook prepares, but you can be 10-15 feet from whales as they feed around the boat and surface, where your face can get damp from a whale blowing. Tradeoffs (grin).

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz I’ve never been on a tall ship except in static display at a dock, but my X2 and I got so bored during one of the ‘dinner cruise’ (tourist trap) things out of Kailua that we got up and headed for the rail to just look at the moon over the water. And that meant we had the chance to watch hundreds of flying fish skimming the water ahead and alongside the vessel while everyone else did the hokey pokey back in the illuminated central area of the deck. We both felt that we’d had more fun that the rest of those aboard.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @werehatrack When I was 5, my family traveled from New Zealand to the US on a passenger ship. One of the clearer memories I have of the trip was when they would shine spotlights over the water at night and the flying fish would come sailing by. Pretty exciting for a kid!

@Felton10 @macromeh @werehatrack Pretty exciting for an adult in my opinion too.

@Kidsandliz You could have asked for a cut, er, finder’s fee. (Then taken a plea agreement as further down the chain…)

@phendrick I told the manager and assistant manager about this and joked about a “commission” and asked if that would be considered “income” for rent purposes; I’d give them a cut if it was “overlooked”. They were laughing hard over that.

@Kidsandliz @phendrick

laughing hard

ISWYDT!!