the Strangeness that is my life

[Black Jack Rackham]

Just so you know Dave, I'm patiently awaiting Tales from Retail Hell 2012 Edition...

[salamanca]

Mall took bids for new roof and heating systems thursday. So they shut the heat off to allow contractors to have a good look...on the coldest day we have had all year. Temps inside peaked at 52. Same director also approved janitors to only staff one employee christmas eve. And he keeps trying to explain to me that fewer customers and lower sales numbers that I am seeing are not true.

[salamanca]

Ok, I just got finished being yelled at by a woman in her mid-fifties because I do not have the game her mother wants. Said lady also decided it was partly because I am obviously too young to know what I am doing or anything about what she wants. She also has been looking for this game for some time but everyone seems to be sold out. So what did she want?. A board game edition of "the Match Game". Yep, the game show from the early to mid 70's. I just could not get her to understand the concept of "out of print". Worst of all, I am far, far old enough to know what she was talking about.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Ok, I just got finished being yelled at by a woman in her mid-fifties because I do not have the game her mother wants. Said lady also decided it was partly because I am obviously too young to know what I am doing or anything about what she wants. She also has been looking for this game for some time but everyone seems to be sold out. So what did she want?. A board game edition of "the Match Game". Yep, the game show from the early to mid 70's. I just could not get her to understand the concept of "out of print". Worst of all, I am far, far old enough to know what she was talking about.

Me too.

Here you go you old biddy http://www.ebay.com/itm/1963-THE-MATCH-GAME-BOARD-GAME-/230690390147?pt=Games_US&hash=item35b6380083

[salamanca]

For the record... it was last produced in 1978 as a boardgame. And it had a dvd edition in the mid 90's (but nothing for the wii) as the lady said they had.

It is soo slow today that i have time to post here. I think i have had bigger sales days randomly endorsing stuff in the origins dealer room.

[Lady Grace]

Dumb Dora is sooooooooooo dumb...

[salamanca]

ok 3 unrelated things bugging me this week.

1- It's tax time. I have no problem paying my share (and reaping a nice refund from what they took) but I would like a little bit of courtesy from the state government. I get that the feds can't afford to mail out millions of forms and instead makes nice piles available in certain locations. Like the post office... oops, the post offices in this area no longer distribute federal forms despite being a federal agency with an office in every town (which would make things easy) Now I need to go to the library.

but the local library is also the school library and only open to the public twice a week for 4 hours... looks like I am driving to the library in the next county over.

But at least they also carry the state forms. Except they don't. the state of Ohio appears to not be including forms with the instruction books anymore to save themselves the cost of a sheet of paper. apparently I need to go online to download a copy now.

What do the senior citizens do?

If you want my money, information and cooperation, have th courtesy to send me the damn form. The electric company and my phone carrier both manage to do it 12 times a year and still make profit. If you want money, you need to send me forms. (don't get me started on the local school tax, for that one you need to actually search the web to find if your local district has a tax, then find the forms)

2- Walmart has it's display up in the DVD section for Mother's day. Full of vids you can buy as gifts for mom to enjoy complete with special pink bordered packaging at low, low prices. The DVD I noticed on this shelf... "Magic Mike". Any of you think you can get away with giving mom a DVD about male strippers? me neither.

3- The local restaurant I frequent (it's close but not all that good) has a handful of TVs to entertain the guests. All of them set to close caption so the noise does not disturb dinners or interfere with the radio set to "light pop mix favorites" station. Every time I have wandered in in the last 3 weeks, they have been airing episodes of the same reality show.

I have been subjected to watching "The Voice" in close caption. I guess it could be worse, they could put the sound on...

[salamanca]

Ok, the one guy that I have been friends with longer than anybody else. The one guy that I don't call my best friend because he is more a brother after 25 years of friendship. The reliable pal who shares my birthday (even if he has been using it 6 years longer). That guy called me while I'm driving to his house and cancelled on our plans to hang out. For no better reason than his doctor finding him a new kidney after 8+ years of looking. Best reason ever to spend an evening with nothing to do.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Ok, the one guy that I have been friends with longer than anybody else. The one guy that I don't call my best friend because he is more a brother after 25 years of friendship. The reliable pal who shares my birthday (even if he has been using it 6 years longer). That guy called me while I'm driving to his house and cancelled on our plans to hang out. For no better reason than his doctor finding him a new kidney after 8+ years of looking. Best reason ever to spend an evening with nothing to do.

I couldn't agree more.

[salamanca]

I know, right?. The nerve of some people. BTW, if you have a friend with the same birthday and an obvious age difference, go eat together to celebrate. If you get a young server tell them you are twins and show your IDs to her. They never remember to look at the year. (they will note the names and we generally tell them we have different dads).

[salamanca]

The universe is conspiring to remind me I am old this spring. A.waitress asked if I was single... because she was looking for a guy to date her mom. In a discussion about the Tim Burton Batman movie, somebody responded, "i like those classic era movies". Last week, the oldies music station played nirvana. And to top it all off, yesterday I saw a Pontiac Fiero with a "historical vehicle" liscense plate.

[spizio]

I'll be sure to stay off your lawn

[Lord_Nabu]

2- Walmart has it's display up in the DVD section for Mother's day. Full of vids you can buy as gifts for mom to enjoy complete with special pink bordered packaging at low, low prices. The DVD I noticed on this shelf... "Magic Mike". Any of you think you can get away with giving mom a DVD about male strippers? me neither.

didn't notice this one earlier I just have to say, I could and I would, though my mom would probably be disappointed by the lack of actual dangly bits (so would my mother-in-law actually, she would just be less embarrassing about it) of course this is my mom who thought Lars von Trier's "the idiots" reminded her of the parties they had in her youth.

[salamanca]

ok, helping out a customer that just had surgery. He asked if I could swing by and change the oil in his lawn tractor and maybe mow the lawn.

first off, the damn tractor is brand spanking new. It literally had less than 10 hours on it but this guy is a bit high strung about following operating instructions which apparently recommend changing the oil after 8 hours of break in use. So I dump 2 quarts of near pristine oil into a pan and go to change the filter...

and the guy at the tractor store sold him the wrong filter.

Did I mention this guy just had surgery this week and has a stomach being held together with staples?

Guess who is driving 26 miles round trip for the right part?

So i get back and this brand new lawn tractor has been engineered for efficiency by a guy who will never, ever change his own oil filter. It is installed in a recessed space exactly 1/4 of an inch bigger than it is with a small 2 inch gap on one side. There is no possible way to get a grip on it or a wrench. I end up having to wrap it with a rubber bungee strap several times and twist excessively to get the thing loose.

Finally get it all done. now he wants me to mow the yard.

Did I mention he is a bit high strung?

It has to be mowed in a certain pattern and in a certain order. and at the end of a pass one cannot simply make a turn. One must shut off the mower deck, turn, line up the tractor for the next pass and then engage the mower again.

He also is convinced the thing should not be run faster than half throttle and never have the accelerator peddle more than half engaged.

Ok, I'm used to using professional grade large span equipment. My normal mower sets are 10-15 feet wide. this thing has a 40 inch wide deck. He has 5 acres of yard and he wants to mow it with a mower that is not much wider than I am. How do you civilians do this without going mad? I keep making passes and no area gets cut. just endless turns.

then, when I have maybe 15 minutes of yard left to do, it pours down rain. and a very particular individual doesn't want wet grass getting cut so I need to swing by tomorrow to finish this off.

All told, I got maybe two hours of time in this project right now. This guy is insisting he fills my tank for making the filter return run, and pay me 40 bucks (which I refused up front) for cutting the grass which is a ridiculous amount for the effort. (plus it totally goes against my Rose and Cross oath to help the guy out in a pinch)

So now he is mad that I refused the money.

and he's going to expect I can swing by regularly to do this a couple times a week.

Still don't get why his star high school athlete grandson can't run the machine (outside of the fact he probably does it "wrong")

Moral of the story kids: don't do favors.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Have I mentioned how much I look forward to these stories?

[salamanca]

Go read this guy's threads on RPG.net
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?346326-Harrowed-s-Life-One-of-those-moments

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?351911-Harrowed-s-Life-One-of-those-moments-Pt-II

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?354570-Harrowed-s-Life-One-of-those-moments-Pt-III

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?393215-Harrowed-s-Life-One-of-those-moments-Pt-IV

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?689033-Harrowed-s-Life-One-of-Those-Moments-Pt-V

Mind you he is not very worksafe so the sensitive readers be warned.

[salamanca]

So monday found me with zero web access. Since I use the trusty phone for all that now, it was obviously a phone issue. T Mobile activated something called "Webguard" on my account under the assumption that every 43 year old on earth wants his phone to block any and all website that may contain "adult or objectionable material". I am going to guess it has a rather wide set of parameters for this phrase as blocked sites included this site, the local newspaper, the local radar, google, youtube, hotmail, and...the T Mobile site. That is right, their parental protection software blocks their own site. Now, according to the graphic, all I needed to do was to log into their site, access the "pay us via the web" section and toggle the thing off. Except it BLOCKS access to the site!. So I call customer service and they have no easy solution because to troubleshoot this, they need me on a different phone. (so somebody lied when they assured me that by using TMobile I could consolidate all my needs into ONE handy device. After an hour, we finally get it resolved. Everything works and I can go back to browsing all those naughty sites like CNN, ESPN, and Wil Wheaton's blog. Of course, curiousity got the better of me and I tried to log into TMobile to see what I should have clicked to fix it (for future reference). TURNS OUT TMOBILE HAS A WEBSITE THAT IS TOO LARGE IN FILE SIZE TO LOAD ON A MOBILE DEVICE. I can't access their site using their product. I swear I would switch carriers if anybody else had a signal in my neighborhood. But I am stuck with this horrible system of stupidity.

[smafdi]

I have an easy 2 part solution.
1 move to columbus
2 get verizon

or a simpler 1 step solution
1 kill everyone

your call which to run

[Sister Sonya]

I have an easy 2 part solution.
1 move to columbus
2 get verizon

I have an alternate easy 2 part solutioin.
1 buy 50.1% of the company
2 fire everyone

[salamanca]

Two problems with that Steve... 1- cannot move the business to Columbus as they frown on people dropping 100 acres of property on top of their stuff. 2- everytime I walk into a Verizon store, money in hand, demanding they take my business,. The guy has looked at me and said "we can't give you a good rate because you don't qualify for a company discount" or "i'm sorry but I don't feel like doing the paperwork on a new account". So if they are now willing to take my money (or more than a fair share of my money) I just cannot give it to them. Yes, their commission based employees are so lazy up here, they refuse to earn the commission when offered on a silver platter. As for Mike's idea... I like that plan.

[smafdi]

Wow that literally makes no sense to me, who wouldn't want to make money especially when you are commission based......

[salamanca]

Yeah, up here they take the job then leave the store unattended to stand outside smoking all day long. One would think with employment still being an issue in the area that people willing to do the work could be found. Total topic switch!. Played Elder Signs tonight with Bravada and her husband, Bill. Game one we got two turns each, failed every adventure and were horribly killed in record time. In game 2, the dice took mercy on us, we only failed in two adventure attempts the whole game and Hastur never saw us coming. (i collected 9 elder signs myself in that one.). Then we played a couple rounds of 7 wonders and I managed to score 53 points in each session (which is the same total I hit in our session at Origins). So it looks like that is my number in that game. I played Rhodes in game one and Athens in game 2 (an odd game, I had 2 production cards, lucked into the right merchant cards and a string of civilian victory points that paid for themselves.

[salamanca]

Saturday, I attended a little soiree for Mander's one year old child.

It was hosted at the child's father's grandparent's place right up on the shore of Lake Erie. Nice little summer cottage built by some fellow named John Rockefeller... yeah, the very famous and well to do one. And it is not at all an ostentatious palace. It's simply a very nice summer bungalow with a really nice view of the Lake.

Unfortunately, there was a pretty heavy rainfall the night before so pretty much every direct route there was closed from flooding so there was a small detour of about 15 miles.

Now, dad's side of the family is fairly extensive. a brother, couple sisters, numerous cousins, aunts and uncles all of whom showed up with a couple of blond children each (all under the age of 7) and at least one yip dog apiece (all of whom were off the leash and aggressive towards strangers)

then Uncle John wanders down from his place a couple doors down with his beagle. The dog was very pretty, nice reddish brown coat, very active and eager to run around at top speed. The problem is that this dog happens to be COMPLETELY BLIND!!!! And the little kids don't comprehend that running up and "patting" the dog on the head or face is not good when he can't see it coming.

After about 3 hours of chaos, cake was served and gifts were opened and then i was free to drive Jeremy's mom home (after stopping at his work where he conveniently was "scheduled and unable to switch shifts" to drop off cake).

and then I got a phone call from Grandma...

[salamanca]

So Grandma calls me Saturday evening.

Turns out that at just this very moment, she has decided that she likes reading books on my sister's Nook simple touch.

she likes it a lot and her sister had a Kindle when she dropped in last weekend. so that means she suddenly wants one for herself... now.

So, sunday morning, I drag mine over to show her the difference between the simple touch and the color version (with whistles) and we establish that she does not need it to look at pictures, play games or touch the internets (which would be a whole other ball of grief as we would need to upgrade her house to wireless signal)

We also work out that it would be a good idea to stick to the Nook brand so that she can share stuff my sister or I buy should she want to read it (doubtful in my case, possible in my sister's case)

So as soon as work slows down I jump in the car, drive 30 miles to civilization and start looking for a nook simple touch to purchase.

Now I get to argue with no less than 4 clerks who are insistent that I instead purchase a Kindle fire on the basis of "but it's better". Not a single one can clarify on that point. they can't give me one reason it's a better choice. they don't even have the brains to point out that it has a color, backlit screen, net access, cloud storage or any of a dozen other qualities I DO NOT WANT.

So it's 10 more miles up the road to Barnes and Noble itself. the kid there is very helpful. he throws in a clip on light, wall charger, and protective covers for free. He hands me a print out instruction guide to download from the library the easy way. all in all, he is really helpful and useful...

except when I get home, he neglected to tell me that the nook DEMANDS a wireless connection to register and start using. We had talked about her not having wireless and he had explained how to use the wired connection to get stuff loaded in (hell, he even drug one down to the service desk and showed me how to do it) but he forgot about the registration.

So
I have to jump back in the car, drive 7 miles to Mcdonalds and sit in their parking lot to use the wifi for 15 seconds. That is right, it took 15 seconds.

and now, all I have to do is get grandma to decide what the hell she wants to read.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Now I get to argue with no less than 4 clerks who are insistent that I instead purchase a Kindle fire on the basis of "but it's better". Not a single one can clarify on that point. they can't give me one reason it's a better choice. they don't even have the brains to point out that it has a color, backlit screen, net access, cloud storage or any of a dozen other qualities I DO NOT WANT.

I can give you some VERY GOOD reasons you don't want the Kindle Fire. It is a 100% bona-fide POS. First, getting it on/off, browsing and all the basic functions are designed to be completely counterintuitive to how you'd think they are. You will never know whether it simply recognizes that there is wireless signal but needs to connect, or has already given the protocols and merely waiting for your 'say-so' to connect, or simply has been connected long enough it decided to shut the whole thing down without removing the symbol which indicates wireless is nearby. Oh and as a bonus, you will need to shut the whole thing down at least twice before you can be sure that any one of the above options is the incorrect one. Next, you cannot EVER delete anything off it. Oh I know you'll THINK you did but nope, the next time you reboot (see the above discussion for a hint at how often you'll need to reboot) the old programs/books/music/random spam crapola will be right back on (and you can thank their brilliant idea of not having much storage but instead to use online storage for your gizmo for that). The power cord is designed specifically (and I believe maliciously) to be very easy to break so much so in fact, that my son (who got said Kindle from my father-in-law whom I suspect hates me) has had to replace his charger cord three times (before he finally got so fed up with it breaking he just stopped using it). And finally, (and most amusingly) the battery will make your life a living hell. A glitch in the programming causes the kindle to believe the battery is nearly out of charge and as a result goes into emergency power mode even if it is currently plugged in. Kindle has known about this issue since before there was a Fire but has, thus far, done nothing about it (cause after all, you already bought it, you poor sap). Getting the glitch fixed takes about 3 hours and requires no less than five (yes FIVE) hard-reboots of the system (each of which takes around 20 minutes to complete). At the end of this time you will learn whether or not your attempt was successful (and it is BY NO MEANS guaranteed). If it wasn't, you get to do it all over again. And even if it was successful, you can only expect it to work for about a month at best.

But I'm not bitter or anything...