The One. (Scapegoat Blame Thread Feb 2019)

@shahnm Thank you!
/giphy it’s great to be here goat

@TheFLP Thank you for the unblame.
/giphy unblame goat

@mike808 Thank you for the blame. I’m still doing good, holding at -1 blames for the month.
/giphy hang in there goat

@eonfifty Look in the speaker dock thread.

@eonfifty You will be branded for life now…

@jst1ofknd Thank you!
/giphy goat thanks

@f00l I was so excited to see @MuppetOfMeh. I hope she stops by once in a while.

@sammydog01
/image raining golf balls

@sammydog01 Graupel?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel
Graupel, also called soft hail or snow pellets, is precipitation that forms when supercooled water droplets are collected and freeze on falling snowflakes, forming 2–5 mm (0.08–0.20 in) balls of rime.
/image graupel

@eonfifty That’s it! Cool! It was supposed to be 40 but it’s 30 and the roads look all icy. I meant to go to the grocery store but I guess the pizza in the freezer will have to do.

@eonfifty I watched the news to check on road conditions. The weather guy said “Some areas even had graupel… looks like Dippin Dots”. It was pretty funny.

@sammydog01 That is neat!
/image neat goat

@therealjrn Thank you!
/giphy goat thank you goat

@therealjrn
If you need one, you need one. Glad it’s going pretty well.

@f00l Yep. That’s the only attitude to have. I just want to get some unbroken sleep.
/giphy go to fucking sleep

@f00l @therealjrn You could make one of these…

@mike808 Yeah.

No.

@f00l @mike808 @therealjrn that’s…horrendous. And brilliant. And Nope.

@UncleVinny Well, if they are ok with .3333… = 1/3, and .3333… * 3 = .9999…, then they just proved that 1/3 * 3 is NOT 1. It’s .9999…
Can’t have it both ways. Thus, if you carry the 1, .999… = 1. Et Voilà!

@mike808

/giphy dead-eyed stare

@UncleVinny Run this one by your friend:
Assume a and b, where:

a = b.

Multiply both sides by a.

a² = ab

Subtract b² from both sides.

a² - b² = ab - b²

Factor the left side (FOIL), and b from the right

(a + b)(a - b) = b(a - b)

Cancel (a - b) from both sides.

a + b = b

Remember we started with a = b?
Substitute b for a.

b + b = b

Combinine the left side.

2b = b

Divide both sides by b.

2 = 1

Q.E.D.

@mike808 honk! If a = b, then we can’t very well divide both sides by (a - b), can we, hmmmmmmmm? Hoooooonnnnnnnnk!

@mike808 I mean…we’re not ANIMALS, this isn’t the JUNGLE!

@UncleVinny The question isn’t if you know this, it’s if your friend knows it.

@UncleVinny

How can I drive a nail or a spike or a jackhammer through his thick fucking skull, and/or otherwise win him over to the mainstream mathematical view that’s been well-established for centuries?

He’s hung up on this (notational issues, infinities, limits, and more). You’re going to have to let him convince himself someday.

Until he sees it for himself, after reading up (if he cares enough to do that), he will never be convinced.

@mike808 @UncleVinny

Assume a and b, where:

a = b.

Multiply both sides by a.

a² = ab

Subtract b² from both sides.

a² - b² = ab - b²

Factor the left side (FOIL), and b from the right

(a + b)(a - b) = b(a - b)

Cancel (a - b) from both sides.

a + b = b

…

Dividing by zero is one of my favorites things.

/giphy “divide by zero”

“my favorite things”

@mike808 @UncleVinny
Wow, that scene is so badly staged, I cringe.

Still an over-the-top sugary-sweet fun movie tho.

@UncleVinny
That’s easy! Or not. I would try telling your friend that the universe in which we exist is infinite space with a fixed amount of stuff, and that stuff can be broken down to its most basic components, and when you do that, you’ll find that the number of the most basic stuff off existence is a whole number and realize that decimals and fractions are just human constructs to make math easier (because there’s too much stuff for us to calculate it all in a reasonable about of time).
Or wait until he’s asleep
/giphy ezpz goat

@f00l @mike808 @UncleVinny
I love dividing by zero too!
/giphy division by zero goat

@eonfifty @UncleVinny

the universe in which we exist is infinite space with a fixed amount of stuff (hardly proven), and that stuff can be broken down to its most basic components

Nope.

But that explan might work for @UncleVinny’s friend.

@f00l @UncleVinny

< Blockquote> But that explan might work for @UncleVinny’s friend.

I hope so!
/giphy hopeful goat

@mike808 @UncleVinny

@llangley @mike808 that reminds me, I gotta start work on my Halloween costume. This year I’m going as a square root symbol, and I’m gonna have a whole skateboarder routine about how radical I am. It’s gonna have em rolling in the aisles!

@UncleVinny

/image “wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings”

@f00l atlas holds up the earth, and wild geese apparently carry the moon around on their wings?! I never knew.

@UncleVinny

I’m rooting for Helios (or whoever the Sun God is) to bring

/image “raindrops on roses”

And herald the finale of

/image “Silver-white winters that melt into springs”

@f00l @UncleVinny
I thought a turtle holds the world.
/image world turtle

@eonfifty @UncleVinny

And here I always thought it was
Cream-colored ponies

/image “white pony”

Doing all the work

@therealjrn
Thank you, thank you!
/image goat thanks

/image goat thank you goat

@f00l

Here it is 3 hours later and I am STILL grading. it is now 11:37am. What a waste of a day. Well I need to do it, but OMG I hate grading. BLAME BLAME BLAME

And now it is 2:19am. I just finished. BLAME that it is so late and I am tired. Unblame in that I am finally done.

@Kidsandliz Extra blame that the previous post should have been pm.

@narfcake Good point. BLAME!!! for forcing me to have to use the wrong alphabet letter in all of this.

@Kidsandliz
/image wrong alphabet

Oh yeah and blame that the yet to be named small, yellow furry thing woke me up after only 4 or so hours of sleep because according to him it was breakfast time despite food in the food dish already.

@Kidsandliz

@narfcake Yeah that is about right for cats aged 2ish and under for fitness training and most of my cats on the food if it is past 6am.

@mfladd One of my BOCs last year was equally defective. Both the shirt and the jacket were in my size.

My January one was as advertised, though.

@TheFLP I’m sure there’s a 12 step program for that…

@Kidsandliz

I can only handle ten steps at one time. More than that and I’ll slide back down the stairs.

@TheFLP So go up the stairs two steps at a time. Then it is a 6 step program. Problem solved. You are welcome.

@Kidsandliz

I won’t even make it half way at that rate. (When I am sleepy, it turns into a 24 step program because neither foot wants to be responsible for me breaking my skull.)

@f00l There is a Pomeranian in today’s product photos!

@thismyusername

You got a species-appropriate unblame right there.

@tnhillbillygal
/giphy this is your brain on consumerism

@mike808 isn’t that why we’re all here though? (On meh, not Earth in general.)

/giphy ponderings

@mike808 @tnhillbillygal
I’m here to click the meh button and vote in polls.
/giphy pushing buttons

@eonfifty @mike808
/giphy cheap thrills

@walarney Is it used or new oil?

@eonfifty Little bit of old, where the stream from the drain plug missed the hole in the skid plate and went everywhere. Mostly new, where the old filter gasket stuck to the block and caused the new filter to not seal. (Which I might have noticed if I wasn’t doing it in the dark after having to run out to the store to get the correct filter.)

@walarney Buy the gallon can of WD40 and some sawdust or cheap cat litter. Pour the WD40 on the oil stain, then spread some sawdust or cat litter on it. Cover that with a garbage can lid or some plastic and bricks or something to weight it down. Wait a week. Clean it up. Repeat if necessary.
/image awesome driveway oil stain removal

@cinoclav Sorry about your windshield.

@cinoclav It’s way better for something to hit your windshield and leave a 2" crack so you can watch it expand day by day until it reaches the edge.

@cinoclav @sammydog01 Last winter I had a tiny, repaired rock chip (MS roads suck too) and while driving down the highway with my mom up north in the winter we watched it suddenly turn into a crack that went all the way across the windshield right at eye level. I am presuming turning the defroster on caused sufficient temperature differential that away it went.

@sammydog01 You’ll be happy to know it was longer when I left work. My car has a tech package, rain sensor, and what Mazda calls ‘i-Activesense’ which is all the safety features with the camera, lasers, etc… I called the dealership for a price. Total with installation is around $950. Needless to say, my next phone call will be to my insurance company.

@cinoclav Holy crap. Makes me glad I have a low tech car. Replacing my windshield was $200 something - basic glass and nothing else. Of course the tech was so low in that thing that a remote to lock and unlock the doors was it.

@cinoclav

Good lord. I think I’d settle for @Kidsandliz’s $200 “dumb” windshield and call it a day.

I still remember the time I borrowed my mom’s car on a brutally cold day and cracked the windshield because the defroster was cranked all the way up. I don’t do that anymore.

@sammydog01 If you broke each piece in half twice, you’d have 100 pieces.
/image 3 doodler arts crafts

@eonfifty Nice skull!

@msklzannie Did it help to wake you up?
/giphy that good old mountain dew

@eonfifty It managed to give me a mild headache. The event occurred only 20 minutes after my shift started. I didn’t even like Mt. Dew to begin with. I doubt it knocked any sense into me either.

@eonfifty @msklzannie Try it in your coffee instead of sugar. Half-and-half with some half & half creamer. I call it my “Sweet Caroline” blend.

@mike808 I don’t like coffee either.

/image Mr. Yuck

@mike808 @msklzannie I tried it, and it’s pretty good! I didn’t measure how much I put in, but it was just a splash, and it wiped out any bitterness my instant coffee had If you don’t like coffee, maybe you should try it with a teaspoon of MD.
/giphy teaspoon of mountain dew

@eonfifty I don’t like Mt. Dew or coffee so I doubt I’d like them combined. Any amount of either is enough to ruin something for me.

@msklzannie That makes sense. Although, I don’t like sodium and chlorine individually (the burning and the smell/suffocating), but I’m ok with salt

@sammydog01

/8ball Is Amazon Warehouse a scam?
It is decidedly so

@sammydog01 Did you take it up with CS first? On the most part, they’ve taken care of their screwups on multiple occasions.

BTW, I’ll be blaming the goat if they mess up my shipment of that 32gb SD card … that was 11 cents including tax.

@narfcake I just hit the return button with wrong item, packaged it up, and put it in one of those fancy drop boxes. If it happens again maybe I should call them.

I ordered the same exact thing twice before- the first time it was cancelled. The second time is was listed as very good with cosmetic damages. It actually was missing enough plastic that I couldn’t finish the project and the template was messed up. On the plus side instead of the original packaging it was jammed in a 3Doodler pen box with the pen, accessories, and extra plastic in there. The pen was completely jammed with the plastic I needed for the project. I unjammed it but it jammed again and I think I broke it. I didn’t complain though.

@narfcake And I bought a book not long ago- it was The Talilsman by Peter Straub. Except it wasn’t. Not even close. There wasn’t a place to report fraud when I returned it.

@narfcake
/giphy fingers crossed

@eonfifty It arrived. Unblame.

Also it wasn’t even used, as the contacts were completely clean. Double unblame.

@sammydog01 Is the temperature around freezing? It might be damp snow flakes that clump together on their way down. Or maybe polycrystal snow?
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/snow/science/types.html
/giphy huge snow flakes

@eonfifty The temperature is close to freezing and it alternates between giant fluffy clumps and sleet. It’s kind of awesome.

FOOLS! TOOLS! JEWELS! AWESOME!

@eonfifty @sammydog01 Like cow pats, but white?

POKER! JOKER! NOT MEDIOCRE! AWESOME!

@mediocrebot

That’s awesome!

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

@f00l It’s been pretty nice around here temperature wise.

@mfladd Holy cow. All those shoes you’ve bought look like new!

@f00l Aww. That’s a bummer
/giphy bummer

@mfladd

My bed sheets smell like lemongrass and they are heavenly!

@compunaut pfft…roll your eyes all you want. They are heavenly.

@narfcake Earlier replacement may be for the best. Those tires look pretty old and dry.
/image Pomeranian tire

@eonfifty Yep, hence I was already expecting to replace them. SoCal weather (aka sun and heat) accelerates the degradation of the rubber.

@msklzannie Warranty applies from date of purchase, not date of manufacture.

(Not that I know what having a warranty is like. My truck is nearing 300k miles now.)

@msklzannie @narfcake Warranties are also limited by mileage. If you get the vehicle in before the mileage limit, you’re covered. Over, and you risk denial. Note that if you’ve had recent warranty work, the warranty could be extended based on the warranty on the warrantied parts/labor.

Hyundai did that and covered an entire engine a little over 100K miles due to continuous dealer warranty work over the life of the car. Major unblame for doing that, @eonfifty.

@msklzannie If you have a chain auto parts store nearby, they will usually tell you what the check engine light means for free. If there are no noticeable changes in the vehicle’s performance, you might have a simple repair. My guess is that your car needs the transmission filter and fluid changed.
/image Pomeranian mechanic

@narfcake @eonfifty @mike808 I bought it used this summer so I’m not sure when the original purchase was. It’s a 2016 Malibu so has the 3 years/36000 mile factory warranty. The car only has 34k miles on it so mileage is okay, but not sure about the years part.

@msklzannie I think the CarFax company can tell you every time the car was sold. You might even be able to just do a web search of your car’s VIN.

@eonfifty @msklzannie That’s exactly why I bought an inexpensive OBDII reader and spent a couple bucks for the Torque app.

@eonfifty @msklzannie Fluid and filter could trigger a service light, but unlikely a check engine light. A loose gas cap will trigger it, though, as that relates to the emissions system.

@msklzannie @narfcake I’m thinking transmission filter because of the “An issue with the Engine and Transmission System in your [insert vehicle] has been detected. Please service your vehicle within 7 days.” message and there being no noticeable performance issues.

@mfladd That app is cool!

@eonfifty @narfcake @mfladd I checked the gas cap that night. It was properly tightened but to be on the safe side I went ahead and loosened and re-tightened it. The check engine light stayed on at that point. After my dad and I got back home (dinner and a play), he checked it with an OBDII reader but it didn’t give anything other than a code and a generic category. I’ve forgotten the code since then. Checking the code cleared the light, but my car didn’t email me until after the code had cleared. There’s way too much electronic stuff in newer cars for me to want to take it anywhere other than the dealer (plus the possibility of a problem falling under warranty).

After the light came on initially, my car accelerated a little more stiffly and slowly. But on the bright side, I was going slower so didn’t end up personally making the acquaintance of the deer that decided to stand in the middle of the road.

The light hasn’t come back on yet, but I’ve only driven to/from work once since which is 1.4 miles round-trip. I was further than that from home when it originally came on. I guess we’ll see if it comes back on in the approximately 17-mile drive to the dealership.

@eonfifty @mfladd @narfcake The light still hasn’t come back on and Dad completely cleared out the code so

I did get my oil changed and tires rotated for free. I’m not going to argue with them that the car was not in fact a CPO although it may still have been entitled to 2 oil changes/tire rotations for free. I was informed that 2 of my tires may need to be replaced soonish.

@f00l The future.

@f00l That was a good read.

Also:

(Thrift store find a little while back.)

@f00l You told me to stop there with my annual trip to Houston to increase my radiation exposure and continue trashing my kidneys with contrast fluid. Nice cheap gas. Didn’t buy anything but my gosh that place is full of truly weird stuff.

@Kidsandliz

They like to build stores about 1-2 hours or so out of the big cities. First or last stop on a big trip for many.

And, quite differently from normally gas stations or “travel centers”, this is just a pleasant place to walk around or stretch one’s legs.

Always cheap fuel, cheap ice, cheap fountain drunks and coffee.

Far better good than one normally find at a C-store, tho no better than the better types of drive thru food.

Their own BBQ, fudge (tons of flavors, they will let you taste-test anything), humorous swag.

Tons of locally made kitsch and a slightly “local rural feel” to each store. Usually quite pretty stuff.

V fast checkout lines.

Pleasant staff (paid far better than typical C-store wages, they post their starting wage and employee vacation offers publicly).
Low employee turnover.

No 18-wheelers and bobtails allowed. They don’t want to deal with autos dodging big trucks, and they want a kid-and-family-friendly atmosphere.

Even when the place is packed, there’s almost no waiting.

One person I know described it as “like your crazy-but-fun rural relative’s overstuffed kitschy place with good food and a good atmosphere”. Fun to visit.

@lisaviolet So sorry for your loss

@lisaviolet

Such beautiful eyes.

I’m so sorry to hear.

@lisaviolet I’m sorry.

@lisaviolet I’m so very sorry

@lisaviolet So sorry to hear.

@lisaviolet Gosh… so many…so recently…so hard.

@tnhillbillygal Remember, your job is to be the parent, not their friend. And why do you, as an adult, need the approval of your children? They’ll be fine.

If their genetics fail them, you’re only half the problem at most.

@tnhillbillygal Just tell them you have entered the meanest mom in the whole wide world contest and you plan to win. A friend and I tortured our respective brat children by talking as if they weren’t listening and got into a fake argument about who was going to win that contest. Horrified that we both wanted the trophy (we started off by discussing that we had entered the contest, etc.) they actually straightened up for the rest of the afternoon.

@Kidsandliz @tnhillbillygal
/giphy smh

@eonfifty @tnhillbillygal Hey what fun it is being a parent if you can’t do shit like this to straighten up their behavior? So much more fun than putting them in time out especially when they decide to clean up their act on their own.

Mine would mumble nasty stuff aimed at me and instead of reacting to that I’d say, “Thank you for volunteering to clean the cat dirt boxes” - something she hated. She’d insist she didn’t say that and I’d say, “That’s what I heard you say. Next time you might want to speak up”. I’d have trouble not laughing.

I learned a lot about parenting taking adjudicated youth canoeing across the state of Florida. Probably the most important thing I learned was to not let kids get under my skin, push my buttons… I somehow learned how to step back from that. My kid, from middle school through her teen years, used to scream at me, “I hate it when you use your calm voice when I’m trying to make you mad”.

@Kidsandliz
/giphy evil plan

@tnhillbillygal Well of course. BTW I saw that ninja edit (grin).

@Kidsandliz lol, yeah. I didn’t want it to seem like I was calling my kids that.

@Kidsandliz Give them all a grade of A.
Also, that’s an oddly timed deadline
/image Pomeranian school

@eonfifty F’ing micromanagement online crap. Gotta have all of last week graded by Friday at midnight Central time. Even one minute late and you get dinged. Fail to do that and you risk not being given another adjunct contract (yeah they actually look, count the number of times you respond to students… measure what you can easily measure as opposed to what is meaningful.

@TheFLP To blame the goat for forgetting what you came in for?

@TheFLP You can try searching for it. Except there is no search term you can use to find your self-starred posts to fix them.

@mike808 @TheFLP
Yes, you can search. Though it can be tough. I still have three self likes, but there used to be more. Every so often I go searching through the forums searching for them, but I’m worried the topics in which I self liked have been deleted
/image self like Pomeranian

@TheFLP So what they need to do next is a search function for all posts you liked. @shawn?

@Kidsandliz @shawn @TheFLP
I don’t think that is necessary, as your profile will show all your forum activity. But profiles only show the past 30 days of activity, so if profiles showed all activity from the day a user signed up, then it would be easy to undo self likes.
/giphy beginning of time Pomeranian dog

@eonfifty @Kidsandliz @shawn @TheFLP A “showing all activity” may bring the system to a grinding halt. Too many posts!

@Kidsandliz @narfcake @shawn @TheFLP
What about an “export to…” kind of thing where a user can have their activity history turned into a downloadable text file or spreadsheet?

@eonfifty @shawn @TheFLP I think @narfcake is right. Some of us post way too much and need to get a life.

@eonfifty @Kidsandliz @narfcake @shawn

And a file of my likes would be ridiculously long.

@Kidsandliz @narfcake @shawn @TheFLP
If it’s just a text file, just Ctrl-F it.
/giphy control f it Pomeranian

@eonfifty @Kidsandliz @narfcake @shawn

“Ctrl-F it” should be the answer to everything in life.

@eonfifty @narfcake @shawn @TheFLP You mean control fuck it? LOL

@TheFLP
/image rimshot

@eonfifty @Kidsandliz @narfcake

Yup. As in Control-Fuck-Delete.

@sammydog01
Ask if they can issue a new one and cancel the old one.
/giphy relaxed Pomeranian

@f00l so ask someone to move it for you…

@Kidsandliz
More complex than that for various reasons.

TPTB decided to leave error unfixed.

@narfcake On the other hand I’m saving money.

@sammydog01 That is true. Fine, you get an unblame, @eonfifty.

Also seeing how I already have just about have all the TeeTurtle shirts I’m interested, I didn’t purchase anything from their 7th birthday sale either. So have another unblame.

@TheFLP Wrong month.

@mike808

Growl. Don’t remind me.

@TheFLP Order up.

@TheFLP For a guy that throws around blame a lot, you should lean in to the opportunity your impending goatdom presents.

VOTE FOR @TheFLP

@mike808

Hey, I’m just making proper use of the goat. Even when the goat doesn’t cooperate.

(I saw that, @Barney.)

@TheFLP

@mike808 are you sure you shouldn’t have posted that on our, appears to be annual, idiot school assignment why don’t kids zip their winter jackets thread? .

As kids we used to go out in the snow in bare feet to try to turn the front walk (house to street, on a small hill) into ice by sliding down it (and throwing water on it). Hats, mittens, zipped jackets and nothing on our feet. And sometimes even with snow pants on.

@narfcake it is only 11:15 in my time zone so it is legal in central, mountain and pacific times as it isn’t midnight yet, thus tomorrow in those time zones… just sayin’

@narfcake
OMG. So much last minute blame. Good thing I was sleeping

@eonfifty Well then you can be blamed written up for shirking your duty by sleeping. Sheesh. Skipping out on your last few hours. What’s this world coming to?

@Kidsandliz
It’s going to heck in a handbag, or a power bank clutch.
/giphy power bank clutch