It's Spring! Sort of? A March 2019 Scapegoat Blame Thread

@Kidsandliz

@Kidsandliz If pro is the opposite of con, what’s the opposite of progress?

@narfcake I am very good at procrastination. Recently I have been practicing it a lot.

@Kidsandliz I finished early… I intended to procrastinate but then I put it off.

@chienfou That is what I should have done.

@tnhillbillygal but there is an unblame for being away so you could click the meh button. Right? Hope you feel better.

@tnhillbillygal Sympathies! We’ve got a 1/3 acre lot, but it’s all front yard. The back yard is maybe 20 feet, though it feels like I could touch the house and the fence at the same time.

Anyway, the backyard neighbor’s driveway is right next to our bedroom, and for several years we were treated to his teenage son’s efforts to keep an endless string of crappy cars and trucks running, at all hours of the day and night. And the pounding and banging, and engine revving, and bad idles and Italian tuneups were often accompanied by music, which had to be loud to be heard over everything else.

He was a good kid, and would tone it down when asked, but it never seemed to sink in that we liked to sleep at night.

We were so happy when he got married and moved out.

@mike808 @theflp
I second that blame.

@eonfifty @mike808

Unblame because you’d be dealing with an absentee goat if I was.

When my time comes, it will be worth it.

@f00l Nobody told me that no sleep was part of the deal. I blame, uhh, well, me?

So it’s blame AND shame this month?

@blaineg Depends on what time zone you are in. You might have gotten away with blaming yesterday’s goat.

@Kidsandliz Ahh, missed opportunity.

@blaineg @Kidsandliz

@blaineg, I was just tormenting you.

But you have completely redeemed yourself!

I’m getting around to reading at the toy/tool topics.
I’m going to have to bookmark them!

/giphy Utah goat

@aetris

Agreed. Not pleased to find white stuff on my car two mornings in a row — and we didn’t even get a warning us about this one. <gnashes teeths>

@aetris exactly

@aetris Yesterday it almost hit 60, today there’s snow. Totally normal March, in other words.

@aetris In March of 1991 I bought my FJ1200. It snowed while I was at the dealership signing the papers. Fortunately it was a brief storm, and I just hung out for a while before riding my new toy home.

I prefer this.

@sammydog01
I don’t even believe any of that happened.
/image yeah sure

@eonfifty Shit.

@sammydog01 I’ve never believed anything you’ve said.

@sammydog01 I never recieved my original order either…stuck somewhere w Fedex…

@eonfifty @sammydog01

@eonfifty Shit.

Maybe…but at least it won’t smell up the place if you use the poo-pourri…

@sammydog01 @tinamarie1974 It’s my fault, this is what happened.

@blaineg @tinamarie1974 I like how the gates come down after the train goes through.

@blaineg @sammydog01 @tinamarie1974 waaaayyyy after.

@sammydog01 @tinamarie1974 Yep, the late gate really makes it. Great punch line.

The camera car is a local police car. Notice that he didn’t have any trouble spotting the oncoming train.

The gates had failed down, and a worker manually raised them, without authorization. Oops.

Though the FedEx driver is at fault too, he went through without looking. The tracks are arrow straight for a mile or two in each direction, and even with the storm you could have seen the train coming. He’s lucky to be alive.

@blaineg @sammydog01 @riotdemon. Holy shit!!! And to add to it, that was a passenger train. OMG

@tinamarie1974 Yep, it’s the Frontrunner (named after the Wasatch Front mountains) commuter train, so the tracks are constantly in use. And the FedEx warehouse backs onto the tracks, so it’s not like the driver didn’t know they were there.

Fortunately there were no injuries.

The guy that raised the gates did get fired.

@TheFLP check your settings to make sure you don’t have the comments set to collapse completely. Right underneath the opening post does it say “show more comments”?

@TheFLP Did you try turning your phone the other direction (eg into landscape mode)? You have to do that to post photos. Maybe you have to do that to see the comments (I don’t look at stuff using my phone so I am just making a wild guess)?

@Kidsandliz

Nope, same thing in landscape. But then it occured to me that I wasn’t logged in, which could have something to do with it.

So I logged in and came back to the thread, and this time I had the “+ Show 6 more comments” button and the “What do you want to say?” box. Success?

I tapped on the button and … it disappeared.

Nothing else has changed. I’m still sitting here with a thread that has no comments, only this time I have a text box. I guess I could post a comment — I just wouldn’t see it.

Anyone else out there with an iPhone XR? Maybe this only happens with my particular screen size?

@Kidsandliz @TheFLP this is the first complaint I’ve seen about this. I use meh on mobile 99% of the time.

What browser are you using on your phone? Can you download a different one and try again?

@TheFLP I would also suggest blaming the goat. Good luck figuring out the problem.

@Kidsandliz @TheFLP Well this goat has never used Meh on the phone, so I’m not much use.

@Kidsandliz @RiotDemon

I’m using Safari. I downloaded Chrome, and it looked fine there. So I started to wonder if I was using any weird settings in Safari, since I surely am not the only one around here with an XR.

Turns out I had an old (and unsupported) ad blocker installed. Shutting it off made the comments visible in Safari.

So now to find an up-to-date ad blocker that won’t mess with Meh.

@blaineg @Kidsandliz

Yeah, I was starting to think I needed a goat engineer for this one.

@TheFLP you figured it out!
/giphy woohoo

@RiotDemon

Um … that person looks like she’s been ingesting more than just Skittles.

@RiotDemon @TheFLP Skittles dandruff?

@blaineg @RiotDemon

I’m thinking more Skittles hallucinations.

@blaineg @TheFLP my first thought was that it was like old cartoons where you get hit in the head and birds and stars fly around. But I figured, it’s weird, and I like weird.

@Kidsandliz file this under “Why teachers quit teaching”

@Kidsandliz Because we keep electing fuckwads to our legislatures that rip off the education budgets to the point where the state can’t afford to cover 16 fucking dollars for student textbooks.

@mike808 There are college students (private non-profit) not K-12, although state legislatures certainly contribute to the k-12 problem. In one of the school systems my kid was in they didn’t have enough books to go around so the books stayed in the classroom. What was spent on photocopying likely could have paid for enough texts. In this case it is college student choice not to buy the book.

Heck in the last 6 week class the book was FREE (online, full text, school library with a license that covered more than twice the number of students in the class to use it at the same time) and some students never bothered to use it. Umm duh I can tell based on answers to stuff.

Last year I had a visiting assistant professorship and manipulated the students into buying, reading, taking handwritten notes on the book. I told them in advance I was going to do that. Only 3 hold outs in the end across all 4 classes I taught second semester (first semester I learned of the problem and the response of the department was 30% curves - we were expected to do that) 20+percentage points between their grades and the rest of the class (and my curves were then 5-12% depending on the class). A couple of students told me that these “techniques” I taught them they were using in other classes and their grades were going up. Umm that technique would be called studying.

@chienfou This is just adjunct work and I can’t afford to quit (the only job I have right now) or I would.

@chienfou Except I can’t afford to.

@Kidsandliz Books can’t help some people. In one of my electronics classes (microwave communication) the teacher told us the next test would be open book, and “you probably want to study the review questions at the end of the chapter”. He repeated that advice 2-3 times a day for the next week.

So I figured maybe I should study the review questions at the end of the chapter. I went over them so many times, I practically memorized them. Also, this book had the ANSWERS to the review questions at the back of the book. So I did the same with the answers.

The day of the test. Some people start snickering and giggling as he passes out the test. He loudly announces “No talking! I’ll fail you if you talk!” and things quiet down. I finally get the test, and suddenly I see what the laughter was about.

The test IS the review questions at the end of the chapter. And remember the test is open book, and the answers are in the book!

I breeze through the test in a few minutes, and then spend four times that long going over it to make sure I haven’t made a dumb mistake.

The next time we meet he puts the grades on the board. Yes, most people got A’s. But some got B’s & C’s. There were even a few D’s and one or two F’s! You could have walked into the class cold and got an A on this test.

He said to us: “I do this every now and then just to prove to myself that you don’t listen to a thing I say.”

@blaineg LOVE IT!!! He should have also said - or read the book.

It is even worse online because your only mode of communication is announcements and email and if they don’t read that you can’t snag them by the ear on their way out of class to talk to them (we aren’t given student phone numbers teaching online). I post point blank instructions and it is clear maybe 1/2 read that, if that. I used to send an email and at the very end say, once you are done reading this hit reply and put in the subject line your name and “extra credit” - never even got to half the class. On a few announcements I told them that and told them to email me with the same instructions for the email and same result. Even when I posted and emailed about how I was giving extra credit and they were missing that. Sigh.

@blaineg @Kidsandliz It’s pretty sad that there are folks out there who think that as long as they’re paying the tuition, they’re supposed to pass no matter how poorly they perform.

@Kidsandliz

Why the fuck do students rely on google when the damn book is $16.16 plus postage

Because reading many words is so very HAAAARD!

/giphy it’s hard

@f00l @Kidsandliz I expect a lot of the students who do buy it don’t open it all semester.

@narfcake And sad that schools (especially in the for profit sector) also seem to believe that.

@f00l @sammydog01 I’d guess that as well, or open it as little as possible. I have no control over the course content, quizzes… and I just discovered the entire test bank is online now. At least now I will be able to tell who is honest and who is not as those who are not will finish the quiz with 100% in an extremely short period of time (well someone who knows the material cold would do that too, but that person likely would be acing the rest of the class, cheaters not so much so). Sigh.

@TheFLP Where do you live? I’m in MS. I have a gas snow blower I could sell you that I forgot to sell when I lived in Northern Idaho. I managed to sell the chains I also forgot to sell for a decent price but so far no takers on a snow blower. I’ve now dropped the price to meh style prices - $45. Still no takers. Must be something about no snow here - maybe ya think?

@Kidsandliz

I’m just a wee bit north of you, so yeah, I can see the problem.

Thankfully though I don’t have to clear sidewalks or driveways, so the snow blower wouldn’t get much more use than it does in MS.

(It would be a lot more fun if they guys who do clear the sidewalks around here wore dinosaur costumes, though.)

@TheFLP Purple dino costumes.

@Barney

There are days when I’d settle for a day-glo orange dinosaur, to be honest.

@Barney @TheFLP

@Kidsandliz @TheFLP You never know …

@blaineg

/BLAME!!!

Winter here, winter there, winter everywhere!!!

/giphy Brrrr! Cold!

@blaineg cute cat gif

@blaineg @Kidsandliz

Isn’t that a gif of The Fabulous Maru?

/giphy Maru

@lisaviolet You do have awesome friends. But why is this dino not purple?

Hey, you’ll do great with your surgery and you’ll feel so much better. I’ll be thinking about you on Friday.

HIKING! VIKINGS! STRIKE KING [BRAND FISHING LURES]! AWESOME!

@mediocrebot I’m gonna throttle you some day.

@Barney @mediocrebot I’m thinking duct tape would work well.

@lisaviolet That’s great! Whoever created the T-Rex costume should get Nobel prize, or something.

You’ll do fine with the surgery. My wife had a hip replacement about 20 years ago, and her recovery went fairly quick. And they’ve improved things since then.

It’s normal to be nervous, even if it’s routine surgery. I’m not saying hip replacement is minor, but years ago a a friend told me: “Minor surgery is surgery that happens to someone else.”

@Barney said to @mediocrebot:

I’m gonna throttle you some day.

Some AWESOME day.

POKER! JOKER! NOT MEDIOCRE! AWESOME!

@Barney @blaineg @mediocrebot Or super glue to prevent the electronic circuits from doing their thing… or spill some awesome coffee on the computer that runs that program.

@Barney @blaineg @Kidsandliz @mediocrebot

That would be … awwwsome.

@Barney @blaineg @mediocrebot Hmm maybe it has been turned off or is broken since it didn’t respond to my comment 9 hours ago.

@Barney @Kidsandliz @mediocrebot Shhhhhh! Don’t wake it.

@Barney @blaineg @Kidsandliz @mediocrebot

Hmm. Do we know if it’s supposed to respond when tagged? Maybe it’s been programmed to only pop in when no one’s expecting it.

@Barney @blaineg @mediocrebot @TheFLP Or maybe as an irritating visitor (after the first couple of times that is), someone killed it off… It was annoying to think there was new posts in a thread only to find ButtBot made the only new post.

/image Good riddance.

@Barney @f00l @mediocrebot Not with trex arms!

@Barney @Kidsandliz @mediocrebot @TheFLP From what I’m seeing in other threads, it triggers on the word a w e s o m e. The next post will be a test.

@Barney @Kidsandliz @mediocrebot @TheFLP Hey bot, you are not awesome.

DIPLOMAT! RAT-A-TAT! FAT CAT! AWESOME!

@mfladd technically Google wasn’t wrong…

I set up a second Google mini. It has a hard time hearing me. I also have it closer to the floor. The one I have in my bathroom manages to hear me in my bedroom with music playing. It is hanging above my counter.

@mfladd so I just asked my Google if it was going to rain tonight. It said it wasn’t forecasted to and then it actually gave me the forecast.

Maybe you aren’t nice to your Google?

@RiotDemon It’s forecast was wrong, Alexa’s was right. I would treat her better if she performed well.

@OldCatLady yeah broken bones in your foot sure hurt like crazy - especially when you have to walk on them. Hope it gets better sooner than it usually takes.

@OldCatLady

@RiotDemon LOVE flares!. Where’d you find 'em? Last time I saw any was Old Navy about 10 years ago!

@llangley Torrid, but they are sold out of most sizes online. I bought the only pair they had. Probably because they were talls and they are actually too long. They ended up being so long that with shoes on they still managed to wrap underneath my heel.

I’d rather have them way too long so I can hem them.

@RiotDemon Thanks, I’ll check them out! There’s a store at Westshore Mall and one in Brandon, less than 10 miles away in either direction lol. I’m short and small so those are probably gone but maybe I’ll get lucky (I DID have corned beef and cabbage yesterday if that means anything).

I remembered about Free People, though. They are expensive as fuck but their super flares are amazing!! And they’re at Westshore also so…west it is!

@llangley I think the smallest size they carry is a 10 so if you’re really small, unfortunately they don’t carry tiny sizes.

@RiotDemon I have been opening posts trying to find your cat debacle and haven’t found it. Link please?

@JnKL It’s the product thread for the plus into the wall 4 charger thing, last photo on the product on meh’s home page for that day.

@RiotDemon
/image No good deed goes unpunished

@JnKL that would be plug into the wall not plus into the wall. I am too tired this morning.

@JnKL
https://meh.com/forum/topics/tzumi-4-port-hypercharge-ac-power-adapter-with-qc-3-0

@RiotDemon I would say this is an excellent use of the goat.

@JnKL @RiotDemon I tried to help. Or fan the flames. One of the two.

@Kidsandliz And to add to the DST annoyance, the autosetting WWV clocks at work don’t work. The steel roof blocks the signal. And one of the clocks is 10-12 feet up on a wall.

@narfcake I used to know some firefighters. Apparently this happens way too often.

They do try to break the back windows because they are cheaper to replace.

@narfcake
I’ll share in that unblame.

@RiotDemon TBH, they rather not have to break anything at all. In an emergency, though, it doesn’t matter what’s in the way.

@narfcake

Awesome Blame!!!

Since I can’t see your link on mobile.

WORKER BEES! HERCULES! TURKEY GREASE! AWESOME!

Hey @mediocrebot, “grease” doesn’t rhyme with “bees.” Jeez.

Is there a trigger word to inspire the Bot to set himself on fire? Asking for a friend.

@mediocrebot @TheFLP Worker Bees! Hercules! Turkeys in trees! Awesome!

DIPLOMAT! RAT-A-TAT! FAT CAT! AWESOME!

@mediocrebot What’s so awesome? I’m doing all your work for you.

MEALS! DEALS! EELS! AWESOME!

@narfcake

Thanks for fixing post.

And thanks for post! How awesome!

WORKER BEES! HERCULES! TURKEY GREASE! AWESOME!

@Barney @mediocrebot @TheFLP Barneybot?

@Barney @blaineg @mediocrebot @TheFLP Yes?

@f00l

Blame to hell and gone.

@f00l @TheFLP Hey, in the other thread I offered a cut of the action if you’d keep it on the down low.

@blaineg @f00l

Wait. You’re part of some diabolical goat-napping ring, even while serving your term as Goat?

/giphy goat theft

@f00l @TheFLP Smooth!

@mfladd Pics of puppy needed.

@mfladd @narfcake

You still have Yoshi? Was that the name?

@f00l @narfcake Yoshi and Loki. They are already buddies.

@mfladd @narfcake

You got the PomSky!
(Pomeranian/husky crossbreed)

Wow. I bet those two are energetic.

Congrats!

@mfladd Adorbs!

@f00l I blame you I never make rash decisions on such things. I did for some unknown reason. They are already best friends, but Yoshi lets him know who the boss is in the relationship. Now if I could just find a pill or injection that prevents shedding

Unblame, partly. They offered 'superficial radiotherapy ', so I opted for it. The main problem is that the office is midway between two thrift stores. Any impulse buys are @blaineg’s fault. I am known for sober consideration.

@OldCatLady I don’t really understand what all of this means.

Good luck.

Thanks for the good wishes. Semiannual skin screening found a Spot. Biopsy said cancer. Choice between more cutting and micro radiation. Chose radiation, very small, outpatient stuff. I deserve a new pair of shoes.

@OldCatLady If anesthesia is involved, I feel I should be off the hook for any purchases.

@blaineg Wrong! And no anesthesia is needed. I need a new tote, too.

@TheFLP Preordered my Basselope as soon as I got the email!

@ACraigL I was so happy to see it come up when I went looking for a new photo.

@mfladd did you bring home the color chip or a sample?

@RiotDemon Yup, used sample paint on the wall first. But doing a small part of a wall just doesn’t tell the whole story.

@mfladd at least you tried.

@mfladd

@blaineg Yeah, that’s not going to be happening for many reasons

@Kidsandliz Did the fire department respond, or did clueless finally wake up?

@blaineg The security guard first turned off the alarm and then went upstairs (I am on the 4th floor) to see. I am not sure who put it out. No fire department. Maybe just put a flaming pot in the sink. Or maybe he used the fire extinguisher that is in the hall. I’ll have to see if that looks disturbed. Who knows.

Once I smelled the smoke, and looked in the hall and saw the smoke I called the desk to make sure they knew there was smoke in the hall even though they turned the alarm off. Security guard said “it wasn’t bad enough to trigger the sprinkler system”. Really? The smoke was thick. If I had left my door open it would have triggered the smoke detector in my apt. Makes me wonder just how much smoke there needs to be to trigger the sprinkler system in an apt. I’d guess it is broken. This is hud after all.

The other thing was since when he turned it off the fire alarm and each time he did it flipped back on he decided to disarm the alarm system so it couldn’t turn back on (of course it goes off a lot around here with no problem anywhere, fire doors don’t shut tight unless you pull them shut tight… I may see how I can file an anonymous code violation). At least I live on the very end of the hall by the stairwell in case we ever get a big fire here. And the building is cement, not wood. This is one thing I hate about apartment buildings. I am not the only one who could burn it down and I have no control over the stupidity of others.

@Kidsandliz oh geez that was really to blame.

@Kidsandliz Some sprinkler systems are heat activated, an element in the sprinkler head has to melt to open a valve.

But I would definitely make a report. A falsing alarm system is a real problem, as this event shows. And disabling it sounds downright criminal.

@blaineg Thanks for the info about how sprinkler systems work. I had no idea. Never lived where there was one before. I am trying to figure out how to file a complaint about the fire doors, fire alarm system without them finding out I did it as I don’t want to end up homeless.

@blaineg @Kidsandliz No valve; just the head.
/google how do fire sprinklers work
How do FIRE SPRINKLERS Work? (slomo) - YouTube

The (stagnant) water in the pipe can be pretty gross, BTW.
/image fire sprinkler water

@Kidsandliz I found this: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/mfh/hc/complaint

@Kidsandliz @narfcake By valve I meant what’s in the sprinkler head.

And it doesn’t take 15 years to look like that. I was one of the first to move into a huge new expansion to the building at work. And after maybe a month a leak developed in the fire sprinkler line over my bench. Fortunately it missed the computer on the bench by a few inches. But it was black, filthy, stinky stuff after a very short time.

I guess the only thing that really matters in a fire is: “is it wet?”

I was talking to one of the facilities people about sprinklers that were being installed above some very expensive electronic equipment, and suggested that the sprinklers would probably destroy it if they went off. He agreed, but said that the insurance company required the sprinklers because their focus was on saving the building. It is worth more than the contents.

@blaineg Thanks. I hadn’t even looked yet. This is private hud rather than government owned but I am presuming it is still overseen by the same body since the subsidy comes from the same place. What bothers me is fire doors don’t shut (they say on them fire safe for 3 hours at 1000 degrees. YIKES 1000 degrees seriously? It sounds like there was no reason for the sprinkler system to go off, but then what went on with that small fire is disturbing.

I have said more than once if there was a real fire we’d all die as we ignore the fire alarm. Shades of the boy who called wolf.The smoke was pretty thick before I smelled it. I have put door seal stuff around the door and a flap on the bottom as the hall stinks of dope at least several nights a week and eventually my apt smells of it from the hall. Sigh. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

@narfcake OMG that is too gross. Whatever is in range will be wrecked forever.

@blaineg Correct. Property and lives are the primary protection. Keep in mind that items which are water damage still has a chance to be salvaged; items that are fire damaged cannot.

@Kidsandliz Fire doors that are properly designed will self close in the event of a fire, usally with electromagnet holds that are designed to release by the fire alarm system.

@narfcake These have auto nothing on them in connection with the fire alarm that I know of. When you open them to walk down the stairs they don’t completely close behind you - they stay open 4 or 5 inches. The one next to me doesn’t even have the thing on the top of the door to close it at all after someone opens it. That bar is just dangling there. I am just thankful that I am at the very end of the hall right next to the stairwell so if most of this building catches fire I have a way out. I’ll only be doomed if the apartments right around me or under me catch fire as the next stairwell is down the hall around 2 corners in the center of the building.

@Kidsandliz @narfcake Fire sprinkler demonstration:

@blaineg @narfcake Saw the initial dirt. Yuck. Good thing those people sitting there thought it was funny. I’d like to be a fly on the wall in the manager’s office after that So it looks like heat triggered that one as was already said. Would explain why the ones in the hall didn’t go off, but we have one in the kitchenette and you’d think it would have gone off.

@Barney I’m sorry. It’s tough.

@RiotDemon Yeah.

@Barney Might want to check your insurance too as some companies drastically reduce coverage if they find out the house has no one living there. Is her house empty or do you first have to deal with all her things and deciding what to do? I know that can be a real roadblock if you aren’t ready yet. If stuff is still in there it might be worth moving it to storage so you can sell the house and deal with her things later. Or not. Of course selling the house is like a loss too because of emotional attachments and memories… Hard any way you look at it.

@Barney

Oh wow. Lots going on emotionally and dealing with stuff. Then comes the wind …

I suppose that is all part of that vortex I read about. We’ve had record sustained winds and record gusts here also.

I think every place from the Rockies to the Mississippi and beyond is dealing with this.

@f00l Well, I got some good news. Mom’s neighbor, on the south, is letting me tie the east and west sections of Mom’s fence onto hers. This will allow me to use hers as Mom’s south side fencing.

Now I just have to finish tearing down the one section that withstood the wind and separate all of the boards from the railings.

I think I’ll store the boards in Mom’s back shed and then sell them at the estate sale. They are in good shape and I have heard that people will buy anything at these sales. I hope.

@Barney Or you might want to save it and sell it with the house as “spare fence pieces”.

@Barney Four sections of my wood fence also just came down with the winds. The posts were rotten in that section. Just add another project to my already long list of things to do

@mfladd Ain’t home ownership wonderful?

@Barney @mfladd I think it’s the REAL conspiracy. They feed you all this stuff about “building equity” and “ownership” and stuff, but they really just want people to share their misery!

A few years into owning our house I can remember thinking: “How can something with no moving parts need so much maintenance?”

How can something with no moving parts need so much maintenance?

@Barney @blaineg @mfladd My house has moved, and that only makes it worse.

@narfcake I can only imagine! What happened?

@blaineg Some of these over the decades:

Also:
/image expansive soil foundation

@blaineg @narfcake That is why the rental house I used to be in leaked - foundation problems such that when I pulled back the rug I found cracks completely through the foundation and was looking at dirt. The problem I had was when it rained hard water came in the house. Discovered that one morning the hard way when I got out of bed and water squished between my toes. In the end I rolled back the rug a bit, got a bunch of trashed towels off of craigslist and shoved them all along the back wall so they got wet before the rug and put all the legs of my furniture in plastic cups so that when the rug got wet again at least the wood furniture legs didn’t get trashed. I was very thankful I didn’t own that as others in the neighborhood were spending $25-35,000 on foundation repairs. Drops were 6-12 inches in many cases. My place not as bad as that, but likely headed there since the owner refused to fix anything and blamed the wet rug on me (came in elsewhere too but that wasn’t a rug floor). I fixed her wagon. She was still claiming homeowner’s property tax exemption and asking me to mail her the property tax bill so when I moved out I turned her in for claiming she lives there rather than the next state over.

@mfladd which color did you go with?

@RiotDemon I can only describe it as a dark butter - which sounds disgusting, but looks great. Nice in between color for for a vintage/modern kitchen.

@mfladd what did the paint people call it?

Looks almost like my house… I’m trying to get rid of that color, haha

@RiotDemon Butter Up. I love it. The kitchen was this grisly grey before. My kitchen is small, so I need something lighter to lighten it up.

@mfladd fits with the style of house.

@RiotDemon Forget whatever I said. I thought I liked it - perhaps I wanted to - I really hate this too. Fuck me.
Third times a charm?
Fuck me.

p.s. that was not a pic of my house!

@mfladd aw shit. I jinxed you!

@mfladd https://lifehacker.com/visualize-your-wall-painted-a-different-color-with-thes-1833360173

@RiotDemon I am glad you did. I went and picked out another color. All is done except cutting in the edges and behind the stove. I went with a nice Alpaca grey - it actually fluctuates between grey and beige with lighting. I am actually happy now.
It’s better than waking up everyday and gagging over the butter paint.

@mfladd hope it works out.

@mfladd @RiotDemon Greige?

@TheFLP I never get that kind of service. They must love your mom.

@Barney

There’s an Amazon warehouse the next town over, so they probably had it in inventory there or in another warehouse reasonably close by. I don’t think they’re using drones or ballistic missiles … yet.

@TheFLP lol

@Barney @TheFLP what happened is that they read your mom’s mind and shipped it before she even ordered it.

@RiotDemon @TheFLP I guess that explains why my service is pretty crappy – I have a blank mind.

@Barney @RiotDemon

Yeeeeeeee

“Alexa, order me a Faraday cage for my head.”

@TheFLP Trebuchet delivery?

@blaineg
CATapult.
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/catapult

Catapult
Price: $19.00
Condition: Probably New

@blaineg

At first I thought that was too old school, but @narfcake’s catapult changed my mind. Cats win every time.

@Barney @TheFLP Bezos’ Blue Origin SAYS they are aiming for the moon…

@Barney @blaineg

Hard to argue against world turtles. But I dunno how I feel about Jeff Bezos bouncing my Amazon stuff off the moon.

@f00l
/wootstalker https://shirt.woot.com/offers/procatstination-9

Procatstination
Price: $19.00
Condition: Probably New

@narfcake

I applaud that you quite properly proCATstinated before you posted the T-shirt link.

Makes me feel quite like taking a CATnip CATnap

/giphy “catnip catnap”

@f00l What kind of tree?

@Barney @f00l Looks like a sand cherry.

@mike808 It’s a little hard to tell from that angle, but do sand cherry trees get that big? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Ouchie, my shruggie lost its arm, but it shows up in edit mode…

@Barney

What kind of tree?

No idea. : (

@f00l Well, it is pretty.

@f00l It might also be a crabapple tree.

They’re more red than a sand cherry, which are more pinkish in the blooms.

@Barney @f00l Mehbe it’s a redbud.

@Kidsandliz

@blaineg

But you have the joy of loving toys and their potential in sharing life with the people you love.

So I hope you can manage the Amazon portion of this screwups.

@f00l Good outlook, I’ll try to cope.

And now confusion. Amazon’s order page says the replacement order I got yesterday has not shipped yet, and they don’t know when it will.

@blaineg

Life is tough.

/giphy “first world problem”

@therealjrn Why did it have to happen on my watch?

@blaineg

BTW - a couple of bonuses; the packaging not only included some amusing Engrish (e.g., “Notice: Sharp object might poke the ball broken”), but the hard, clear plastic sphere it came packaged in will make a good cat toy. Going to put some treats in it and see what happens.
Might turn out to have more entertainment value than the toy itself.

@DennisG2014 What is it? A ball? Or?

@Kidsandliz It’s a ball, and:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/goat-toy-day-17

@DennisG2014 That’s cool. Looks very lava lamp 60’s but much better!

@DennisG2014 No way I can dodge that one, 100% my fault!

Please let us know how the cat experiment goes.

@blaineg It was definitely entertaining, but the cats (2, Smokey & Tiger) lost interest faster than I thought they would.

It did show that they clearly have a problem with the concepts of “inside” & “under”, as they kept trying to get the treats out from under the clear ball and never seemed to grasp that they were inside of it.
I’ve seen them have similar problems with this concept with paper bags - toss a toy inside and it can take them awhile to figure out that the open side of the bag is the key to getting at the toy.

Smokey, who, unlike her sister Tiger, is not much of a thinker, just kept pushing the ball around with her nose as she tried to eat the treats ‘underneath’ it.

Tiger is a really clever, thoughtful, smart cat - she’s always figuring stuff out, especially quick to pick up on my/our routines, habits, etc. - so I thought she’d do better, but the only difference was that, in addition to the tactic Smokey tried, Tiger tried to ‘swipe’ the treats out from under the ball with her paw.

After maybe 10 minutes, they both completely lost interest and just wandered away. I let it be for a few more minutes to see if they’d come back to it, and when they didn’t, I took out the treats and let them have them.

It was more a study of animal intelligence/behavior than ‘play time’. They weren’t having fun, just trying to get at the treats. I’m pretty sure most dogs I’ve known would’ve figured out that the treats were inside the plastic case and would’ve eventually come around to holding it between their paws and attempting to chew through it. I’d love to test this hypothesis, but I don’t currently have access to any dogs.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Too late to edit, but I meant to add that I’ll probably try the same thing with some catnip (the case has just 4 small holes in it, so not much will spill out), but I’d expect the results to be similar except maybe more desperate.
The treat thing made me feel a bit guilty because it felt more like I was teasing them than entertaining them - I’d expect it to go the same way w/ catnip.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@DennisG2014 Interesting that “inside” & “under” mess them up. You could probably get a research paper out of this.

@f00l

Time to do some math, @blaineg!

• The axle has shipped.
• It’s roughly 2,200 miles from the AMZ warehouse it’s originating from to home.
• It’s 50# in an oversized package that’ll be 100" long.
• FedEx 2-day shipping.

If FedEx’s retail counter rate is $629.95 and I paid $7.06, how many blames should Bezos send to the April goat?

@narfcake Probably all the blames.

I did that to the Amazon empire in the pre-Prime days. I was shopping for a bumper for my truck because I got rear ended on the freeway. (You should have seen the hood of the Honda driven by a guy on the phone!)

Anywhere I checked, the bumper was around a hundred bucks, plus $50-100 ground shipping. Free shipping over $30-35 was the Amazon thing at the time, and just for laughs I looked for the bumper there, and found it. I thought to myself: “This can’t possibly work!” but I tossed in the cart anyways, and it came up with free shipping.

So I bought a Class III receiver hitch and mounting kit too!

@narfcake Got anymore of those $7 axles?

@narfcake Oh, I just re-read it. TWO DAY shipping? That’s beautiful!

@blaineg I wholeheartedly expected an order cancellation, but nope – it shipped. The 2 days are business days, so it’s a Tuesday arrival, but I couldn’t complain for the price, y’know!

I too purchased the hitch for my truck via Amazon. 40+ pounds, and that was also shipped 2 days. I did pay a more realistic price for that one, though $80 shipped was a lot better than $110 + shipping.

Look through Amazon Warehouse for some of these stupid cheap deals. A caveat is that the manufacture’s warranty may not apply as these are usually returns and aren’t sold as new. Amazon’s guarantees and return policy still applies, however.

@mfladd

Love stuff like that.

Congrats!

/image “vintage Coke machine”

@f00l My favorite machine is this one…
I remember the one I use to use in Maine from my youth.

@f00l @mfladd Wow, I remember using one of those as a kid. It was where we had several summer vacations.

@blaineg @mfladd

I remember seeing these sorts, working and in use, at rural gas stations esp, a few decades ago.

@blaineg @mfladd

@Kidsandliz My sympathies, gut rot is no fun.