Piss/Moan & Rant Thread, 2008

[Adam]

I'M JUST GIVING YOU CHEERFUL BITCHES SOMETHING TO PISS AND MOAN ABOUT!

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by Uthgar the Brazen

And why the hell do you carry CD's and DVD's? In case you haven't noticed, the big box outfits sell them for a lot less, so all this merchandise does is take up space. Space that used to be for BOOKS. I don't really like using Amazon.com for book-browsing and purchases, but I do that now more often than not because one of my few places of public refuge has turned into a fucking Romper Room for Ritalin Retards.

Hey! I found my copy of "Hogfather" at a Borders! That justifies their carrying DVDs/CDs, in my book!

[JamesBannon]

Gah! My electricity is about to run out AGAIN! That's £80 in less than a friggin' month! Damn this bloody cold weather when you're short of cash!

[Garnet]

To my soon to be former co-workers:

It is never appropriate to greet me and my fellow female cubby mate with the phrase, "Mornin' hos." It is particularly pathetic to use this greeting when you are a 50ish white woman from South Carolina.

Yes, it is my lunch. Yes, it does taste good. Yes, my husband is a good cook and NO YOU CAN'T FUCKING HAVE ANY.

I don't care if you have a doctorate in Economics, that doesn't make you qualified to be a business analyst. You should not write use cases like English is your second language. Further, you should never, ever, EVER attempt to write in psuedo-code...particularly in a functional design document. Moron.

It is not acceptable to touch my face...EVER. I don't care if that's how you show affection. I'm not your fucking sister and the next time you do that I may actually rip off your head and shit down your neck.

The next time you need to have a three-hour conversation with developers on a speaker phone at top volume GET A FUCKING CONFERENCE ROOM. Don't do this in the cubicle space you share with me...every day...for 4 fucking weeks.

When I am sitting at my desk, with a furrowed brow, typing furiously, with ear plugs in, late in the evening before a deliverable deadline, it is NOT a good time to tap me on the shoulder to tell me the stupid joke du jour.

If you have a very thick foreign accent, speaking louder will not help me to understand you. Trust me on that one.

I don't know means exactly that. It is not an invitation to re-phrase the question 8 or 9 different ways.

Similarly, no means no. Do not proceed to ask me over and over and over again in hopes I will change my mind and say yes. I've only got 2 days left on this job. Do not tempt me to pop you in the snoot.

Two more days...I just have two more days...

[JamesBannon]

Good one Garnet. I enjoyed reading that one, especially the bit about writing code in a functional specification: functional specifications describe what things do, not how they do them

[godfry n. glad]

Ah, yes...coworkers. That other four-letter word.

It sounds to me like you need to piss in somebody's coke/coffee.

This:

It is never appropriate to greet me and my fellow female cubby mate with the phrase, "Mornin' hos." It is particularly pathetic to use this greeting when you are a 50ish white woman from South Carolina.

at my employment, would be considered "sexual harrassment" and the perp would by disciplined, forced into training, and threatened with dismissal, under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, without recourse to any kind of confrontation with accusers, or even know who the accusers were. A real "Star Chamber" experience. Have you tried reporting this to HR? It'd be better than smacking her one in the snoot, which could garner you a battery charge. It's the new censorship! Get in on it while it lasts!

Or, just respond with, "Morning, Coprophagia."

[Garnet]

I've been tempted...believe me.

[Garnet]

Originally Posted by JamesBannon

Good one Garnet. I enjoyed reading that one, especially the bit about writing code in a functional specification: functional specifications describe what things do, not how they do them

Bing-fucking-o

[Dingfod]

I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with me and me alone because it seems like everyone else but me "stopped" at traffic lights always creep forward little by little, often so far forward they're blocking the crosswalks or their front bumper is inches away from the vehicle in front of them. Don't they know that if they would allow a little space between their vehicle and the one in front of them, the could actually start going forward when the light turns green much sooner than waiting for the others all to start going first? Don't they realize that if the vehicle in front of them stalls out and they have to go around them, but they can't because they're too damn close to the other vehicle's bumper just to steer around them? Don't the realize that if they get hit from behind, being really close to the one in front of them makes it far more likely their vehicle will in turn hit that one from behind? Am I the only one that understands this? Or am I the weird one, not conforming to what appears to be "the standard" of stoplight behavior?

[Master Taran]

Originally Posted by Garnet

Yes, it is my lunch. Yes, it does taste good. Yes, my husband is a good cook and NO YOU CAN'T FUCKING HAVE ANY.

And I keep telling her that she needs to tell these people that I cook for 2. And they ain't one of them.

[Shelli]

Dingfod, my husband and I were just commenting about that as we waited at a light coming back from grocery shopping last weekend. Tards.

[Qingdai]

Originally Posted by lisarea

CDC - Influenza (Flu) | Weekly Report: U.S. Map, Influenza Summary Update- Week 49, 2007-2008 Season

See that brown rectangle in the middle of the vast expanse of health and vigor? That's us. Not just Colorado. Our house specifically. Seriously, that's how sick we are that we alone qualify the state as Sick Guy Land.

See the obnoxious plaid state in the far left corner? You know why it says "sporadic"? It's because we were too sick to get out of bed to "report" that we had the flu.

By the way if you live in my apartment building, that's great you want to get rid of your ugly crap. If you leave it outside again on the corner with a free sign, during the first rainy day, again, I'm going to fucking huck it in your closed window.

[Caligulette]

"Free Wet Junk". Great.

[Qingdai]

Free wet junk blocking the driveway, so every bugger who walks by has to check it out when I am trying to turn around and park.

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Ooh. Possibly the most utilitarian of the shaking-stuff series.

Why do satellite dishes always go out of alignment when it's twenty below? What the hell are we doing not just maintaining them, but setting them up in the black and bitter cold? I swear I've done more satellite work in winter parkas than short sleeves. And that's when we can get to them. At least I managed to convince my boss that laptops work less than well in twenty below, hence that snowmobile maintenance is a stupid idea.

[Angakuk]

Scalloped corn and scalloped pineapple and other scalloped shit that ain't scallop shaped. Scallops are tasty little sea critters and stuff that is shaped like them. Period. Veal scallopini, chicken scallopini and scalloped potatoes are scalloped because the veal, the chicken and the potatoes are cut into a scallop shape, not because they are baked in sauce with bread crumbs sprinkled on top. So just when did scalloped start to mean any cassarole baked in a sauce with bread crumbs sprinkled on top? Don't get me wrong, I like scalloped corn and scalloped pineapple, but for God's sake, please call them something else. This really pisses me off.

* Angakuk doesn't have enough important stuff to be angry about.

[Farren]

I keep thinking of stuff I'd like to write essays about and file under various categories for easy browsing and share with the world so I started a blog. Now I can't think of a single goddamn thing I wanted to write about. I'm just drawing a complete blank. Which is what my blog is. Completely blank.

Grrr..

[JamesBannon]

Gah! Couldn't sleep last night, just finished a 2-hour therapy session & now I'm damn well exhausted Now I have to go buy electricity before my meter runs out and get something for dinner. I'll do that in an hour or so.

[Watser?]

Why the fuck is it that my fucking keyboard decides to change at the drop of a hat? So that all the non-letters and non-figures are located somewhere else? And I have to close the word page, browser page or whatever it is that I am working on and re-open it to get it to work properly again?
Well? Huh?
Bah!
Also: why is it that when I go for what is supposed to be a quiet walk around the waterfront that there are people driving cars everywhere? Don't they have a better place to be like somewhere in the vacuum of outer space? Grrrrrrr!

[Shelli]

People that bitch and moan all the time. Except for myself, of course.

[Nullifidian]

Since I couldn't get anyone to take me up on the correspondence chess thread, I went to a correspondence chess site Angakuk recommended to me. Everyone there is given a provisional rating of 1200, which is carefully designed to make sure you never play chess with anybody. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Here's the lineup of games to join right as I'm writing right now:

1. Let's play chess zepeixe (1928, W) 4 days min rating: 1850
2. Play chess with me ryvvo (827, B) 3 days max rating: 900
3. Let's play chess zepeixe (1928, W) 4 days min rating: 1850
4. Let's play chess zepeixe (1928, W) 4 days min rating: 1850
5. Let's play chess d977 (1695, B) 3 days min rating: 1600
6. Let's play chess mehti_1 (1593, W) 6 days min rating: 1500

Everyone has their minimum rating set higher than mine, or their maximum rating set lower than mine.

Aside from one person who preys on inexperienced players in order to push up his ratings—and is in for a shock—the only other people I'm playing are other 1200 provisionally rated players. And now that I've won my first game, it's now telling me that my matches against these provisionally rated people will give me 0 points in the case of a win, -100 in the case of a draw, and -200 points in the case of a loss. I'm about the chess rather than points-mongering, but I think my points should be more than zero in the case of a win, when I'm playing practically the only people I can play.

So this a threetwofold rant and whine: 1) I didn't get anybody to respond in the correspondence chess thread, 2) I can't win even if I win by this points system now, and 3) I really, really hate players whose only means of pushing up their ratings is to play against people who are less skilled than themselves.

ETA: Pan Narrans is playing chess with me!

However, people who prey on the inexperienced and score ratings systems that make no objective sense still suck.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by JamesBannon

Gah! Couldn't sleep last night, just finished a 2-hour therapy session & now I'm damn well exhausted Now I have to go buy electricity before my meter runs out and get something for dinner. I'll do that in an hour or so.

You have to prepay for electricity? Man, it sucks to be you. Here they can't even legally shut off the power in the winter time, not even for nonpayment.

[godfry n. glad]

Dognamdit...

The new CEO at my place of employment has announced that the institution is too far in debt ($37 million beyond projected budgets accrued in the past two years) and lost a court case to the effect that their physicians and surgeons were protected by a $200,000 liability cap because we are a "state institution". We're in a fiscal nosedive.

This means a decrease in budgets equivalent to 15% cut, across the board. Will they approach it in that fashion, across the board cuts? Well, they have in the past. What it amounts to is crippling effective programs which operate within budget and save revenue loss programs that just aren't working and make them work even worse. Stupidity incarnate.

Of course, the institution just finished a major capital project that included a new wing on the hospital and an aerial tram to shuttle staff and patients between the main campus on the hillside and the new "health center" at the riverfront. The latter was projected to cost $12 million eight years back. I predicted then that by the time it was done, it would cost at least three times that. By the time they started construction on it two years back, they'd managed to suck the city to provide subsidies so that taxpayers in the city could enjoy paying their part of it, even if they had to pay to ride it. A very vocal element was demanding the termination of the project, or, at minimum, the extraction of city participation and funds. By the time the damned thing was done, it had outstripped even my inflated expectations...the total bill was $57 million dollars (almost five times the original estimates) and the city was picking up 15%, leaving $48.5 million for the university to pay.

There's the problem....

And you know what? Those who will suffer through the layoffs attendant to the belt-tightening WILL NOT BE THE SUMBITCHES WHO GOT US TO THIS POINT. No....They being executives of the institution, will continue and will continue to pull down six figure annual incomes, while nurses' aides, student assistants, clerical staff, lab assistants, and other support staff who will get pink slips. The numbnuts who was the university's point man and apologist on this project has been subsequently been promoted to executive vice president. The city engineer who sucked the city into involvement with lies has been terminated at the city and subsequently employed out of state by the private developer behind the whole nightmare, earning six times what he did working for the city.

Oh...and the price of health care will go up. Here, at least.

[Caligulette]

I want my own bed. I love everyone in this house, but I want them all out of my bed. I want to keep books under my pillow and not have some wimp cry about the corners poking them. Maybe if they were on their own darned side of the bed, this would not happen. And what's with all this breathing of my air? Honestly, I don't care if you have just brushed your teeth- the air that you expell was just in you and I don't want it on me. It makes my neck damp.

Now that I know I can put together such a thing I am on the verge of getting myself my own darned loft bed and setting it up cross-wise over the other bed. He can have the big under bed, and I would have the smaller uber bed. I think that's fair, but he keeps laughing, "Ho ho, you just need more cuddling". Not when I'm trying to sleep, I do not, and I will start choosing pointier books if you don't back off and breathe away from me!

(Yes, I do love him. But I love him better when we're not trying to sleep.)

Originally Posted by godfry n. glad

And you know what? Those who will suffer through the layoffs attendant to the belt-tightening WILL NOT BE THE SUMBITCHES WHO GOT US TO THIS POINT. No....They being executives of the institution, will continue and will continue to pull down six figure annual incomes, while nurses' aides, student assistants, clerical staff, lab assistants, and other support staff who will get pink slips. The numbnuts who was the university's point man and apologist on this project has been subsequently been promoted to executive vice president. The city engineer who sucked the city into involvement with lies has been terminated at the city and subsequently employed out of state by the private developer behind the whole nightmare, earning six times what he did working for the city.

They will also pull down a gigantic bonus equivalent to several "lesser" employees' annual pay for making the "hard decision" to make other people suffer. Also for which the stockholders will cheer and reward incompetence by improving share values.