Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

CJ said:

Karacticus said:

Beer Baron said:

"I think it's really important that we take care of this one issue..."

Okay. Well, I'm currently focused on this other task that has a very hard deadline of Wednesday. If we want me to change what I'm focused on, the owner can give me direction to cancel things that are already scheduled for this week.

 

Can't you just spread you're priorities more evenly? 

"If everything is the highest priority, nothing is actually a priority"

Me

Update: this ended up stressing me out, leading to another bout of insomnia, only for everything to be fine.

Thanks for stressing me out about not cleaning up someone's else's mess faster.

Shadeux said:

In reply to DarkMonohue :

You have a way with words.

Kind of you to say. Probably because I don't have a way with life, and grousing about things is a skill I have developed in lieu of actually improving my situation.

The dryer, as previously mentioned, pooped the bed sometime between the evening of Sunday the 3rd and the morning of Monday the 4th. Naturally, I have multiple new thermostats and thermal fuses on hand, but this code is for the thermistor, which I don't have. Our good appliance parts house moved from five minutes away to the other end of Shelbyville, which is a solid and unpleasant 30 minutes each way. Wife groaned at the prospect of making that trip so I placed an order on eBay for a listing offering expedited shipping and an ETA of Friday or Saturday. One day after shipping that changed to Monday. So my Monday night is hosed as hell and we are without laundry facilities until at least Tuesday. Thankfully, we run laundry, like everything else in our lives, on the Toyota Just-In-Time model, so we had at least a day or two of clean clothes ready to last the rest of the week. Great success.

Mrs Monohue has a jury duty notice for Tuesday hanging on the fridge. Her plan, if called, was to request deferral because we have no child care options. When I asked if she'd read the jury summons, where they state that deferral requests must be made in writing two weeks prior, she blasted me with, "of course I didn't read it!", in the same indignant tone she'd take if asked whether she had shot JFK or maybe stolen the Pope's kidneys. Well, how the hell do I counter a grown woman who, as a firm policy, patently refuses to make more than zero effort to cover her own backside? What do you do with that?

Neighbor kid (who has become a much better neighbor than he started out as, incidentally) asked me months ago if I wouldn't mind employing my hydraulic press to push the hubs apart and replace the wheel bearings on his AW11. Sure, no problem. So Thursday he caught me coming home from work and wanted to know if there was any way I could do it that night or maybe Friday. Uhhh not... not likely... maybe over the weekend, set 'em over there and I'll pull 'em inside later. So here it is Sunday and I'm looking at these filthy knuckles with the hub nuts still on them and circlips in place, and suddenly the hard and dirty work is my problem, too, with the garage still as hostile as it has been ever since I stopped wrenching regularly and it became a catch-all for household overflow and lost all semblance of organization. Cool.

She tried to give me soup for dinner again last night. Soup is food water. She loves it, because it's a one-pot bowl-and-spoon meal with All Foods Combined. Everything she likes is All Foods Combined, every single thing, with extra points for bowl-and-spoon delivery. I've had it up to here with that. Had it. But I can't complain, because then cooking will be my problem. Let me just sneak that in between a 40-hour week and mandatory time keeping the kid out of her hair and neighbor kid car favors and unscheduled appliance repair and the dirty looks I get when I have to excuse myself for an off-schedule poop. Or we can have soup and casseroles for the rest of my life. 

My sinuses have gone from a stinking fountain of fluorescent construction adhesive with pain behind the eyes and teeth to just plain locked up solid, so I guess that's an improvement. 

It's Christmas music in the house now whenever there's nothing else on the TV. I'm not a Christmas person. Never have been. Yeah, I'm that guy - fights at the bike racks at the usual time, go ahead and get in line if you really feel it's your manifest destiny to force your sickly-sweet Great Big Happy Family propaganda down my throat. Mrs Monohue doesn't, and tries pretty hard not to overdo it, but relentlessly plink-tastic jazz piano and the warbling, audibly smiling, squeep-doodling likes of your various Ella Fitzgeralds cooing about how wonderfully wonderful things are is just a little much.

The garlic frosting on this dog turd cake: I'm scheduled to turn fifty this week. That's provided I don't die of old age first.

Grumble.

eastsideTim said:

Washing machine has not been fully draining all the time lately.  Got it apart, and cleaned the trap to see if that was the problem.  Getting it back together took freaking forever, because the vent tube connection is jammed up close to the side of the machine, and partially behind the drain assembly.  Had to try multiple wrenches multiple times.  Even the spring clip wrench didn't work.  If I ever have to do that job again, I may just use a hole saw and drill a hole in the machine to get extra access.

Ah yes. The old GMT400 fuel pump repair technique. 

volvoclearinghouse said:

eastsideTim said:

Washing machine has not been fully draining all the time lately.  Got it apart, and cleaned the trap to see if that was the problem.  Getting it back together took freaking forever, because the vent tube connection is jammed up close to the side of the machine, and partially behind the drain assembly.  Had to try multiple wrenches multiple times.  Even the spring clip wrench didn't work.  If I ever have to do that job again, I may just use a hole saw and drill a hole in the machine to get extra access.

Ah yes. The old GMT400 fuel pump repair technique. 

Yup, pretty much.

The saga continues.  While running a load around lunchtime, an entire container of detergent vibrated off the top of the washer and broke open.  EastsideWife is now in the process of multiple rinse and spin cycles of the towels she used to sop up the mess with.  Regular laundry may be a bit delayed again this week.

In reply to eastsideTim :

But the towels will be very clean.

Today's rant.  Burlington opened a store near my house.  I went to their website to see what they have in stock.  The website literally has no useful content other than some non clickable slideshows.

Look do you guys sell Levi's or not.  

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I thought Burlington was kind of a closeout place, so could have any brand at random times?

It looks like what I thought was a drainage issue is more likely the machine not being able to spin the drum fast enough.  Guess it's time to order a belt.  House has a small laundry room, so I'll have to pull the machine out as far as possible, then likely climb over it and wedge myself between it and the wall to change it out.

I hate it when people say orientated instead of oriented. Especially when it's some YouTuber trying to sound smart. Listen bro, you're not James Burke.

How can a group of people be so incompetent? Does the government train them that way? Or does working for the government just kill off brain cells?

Case in point:

Ten years ago you paved this road and left every manhole cover 2" below grade. I've been dodging them ever since. 

3 months ago you came through, dug up every manhole cover, and moved them up to grade. Yay! It took ten years but you finally fixed the man-made potholes. For once the road was reasonably smooth. No more weaving and lane changes to miss the craters. 

Why in hell did you berkeley-nuts come back and pave the berkeleying road. Every berkeleying manhole cover is now 2" below grade. 

What a bunch of overpaid E36 M3-for-brains. 

In reply to Toyman! :

US50 in Cincinnati deals with heavy traffic and shifting soil, since it is right along the Ohio river.  Invariably, they'll repave it, and less than a year later, do major sewer work, tearing it up.  This cycle has been happening pretty much my entire life.

And again.

I'm digging up the whole thing and moving it this time. 

In reply to eastsideTim :

The main road that runs through my small city is technically a state highway. The city has a repaving plan and was trying to get the state to cover the mile or so of this road. The state actually required them to replace all of the 50+ year old sewer and water lines before they would pay for the repaving. I was shocked. I don't think I've ever seen this amount of forethought in a road project around here before or since.

In reply to CAinCA :

Our city has a lot of lead water supply lines, and the infrastructure is just in general very old. Any time a new home goes up, which is quite often (teardowns!), they have to replace the lead water supply lines for that house. Which means cutting into the street and repaving a 10x3 patch. It is terrible driving on our streets. We're supposed to get our street repaved next summer. I asked if they would be replacing all of the water supply lines so that we don't have to have 3x10 patches every time that a home gets torn down and rebuilt. Nope. 

I hate this city. 

when i believe i have a rant to post, i read the most recent couple pages and realize that i can pretty much just chuckle about my situation and move on with what would seem to 99.3% of the population to be a pretty charmed life.

In reply to Toyman! :

It doesn't matter if competent people are there or not. An elected official or powerful community board member with no knowledge or experience can generally throw a tantrum an upend any well thought out plan. Welcome to my day. 

In reply to Toyman! :

Sometimes there are specifications in place by the DOT - yes, I know another giant rant in and of itself - that stipulate the manhole being countersunk.  But, being in SC I don't see why they would need to be below surface.  Since they did this prior to repaving, there could be a reason they did.  Here in PA, it's very intentional that the manholes are below surface in order to reduce damage from snow plows.  But just like you, I still grumble when I either have to swerve or hit them with a single tire which bounces me around. 

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

Time to think outside the mailbox it seems.  I'll see myself out. 

Scotty Con Queso said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Sometimes there are specifications in place by the DOT - yes, I know another giant rant in and of itself - that stipulate the manhole being countersunk.  But, being in SC I don't see why they would need to be below surface.  Since they did this prior to repaving, there could be a reason they did.  Here in PA, it's very intentional that the manholes are below surface in order to reduce damage from snow plows.  But just like you, I still grumble when I either have to swerve or hit them with a single tire which bounces me around. 

Our last significant snow was in 2018. Previous to that was the Christmas snow of 1989. The only other deep, (>5") snow in my lifetime (56 years) was in 1973. 

Sinking the manhole covers for snow plows makes perfect sense since we probably end up paving the roads more often than we plow them. Brilliant! 

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

I would suggest something a little stronger.

My last mailbox was one I picked up at Lowes. It was 3/16" steel. I welded it to a 8' long piece of 4-1/2" box and sunk that into the ground. It also had the 20" bronze propeller and the bell from my grandfather's old wood boat on it. All in it probably weighed about 300 pounds. Durable is a good way to describe it. It was there for a long time without budging. I did have to paint it every couple of years to keep the rust at bay. I wish I had better pictures of it. 

Hey Brett why not a steal post sunken concrete. Leave about a foot stub sticking up out of the dirt. Then put a hole in your wooden mailbox post that slides down over the stub of steel. Use a shear pin. Then when the next jackass hits it it just breaks the shear pin and Spins the mailbox around

You're not saving any trees when you send a dozen copies of the same bill, so send me something useful like a book with all the doctors, specialists, and providers in your plan you extortionate useless berkeleys. 

I can barely berkeleying walk, but I have to play phone tag all berkeleying day long to find a chiropractor because God for berkeleying bid you put all your providers in an easy to search directory. 

berkeleying extortionate useless berkeleying vajajays. Maybe take a few of those millions in executive bonuses and replant a forest or two so you can send out directories again, or hire a couple of trained monkeys to type up a proper database. 

I was hired almost 2 years ago for a weekday 830am to 500pm shift.  That works great with my life.

Now work is saying that everybody is going to a shift bid system. Every quarter, work will use our somewhat secretive metrics and have people bid on shifts that cover operational hours from 800am to 800pm. Berkeley that.

I am not working past 500pm. I made it clear that I was hired for a particular shift and that I will not entertain working anything else. Work responds with blah blah, operational needs, blah blah, team player, blah blah, customer service. Hey dickheads, you've hired like 10 people after me. They should have been told that they are on late shifts as per your coverage goals. 

Looks like I'm going to be quitting soon.

In reply to jimbob_racing :

First job I had was in purchasing for a distributor. They wanted us to be there for sales so we worked from 8am-6pm.   Being the new guy I got assigned the 9am-6pm shift and it sucked. 

1. everyone got in at 8am and was ramped up when I arrived at 9am.  

2. everyone bailed at 5pm on Friday and I was stuck there until 6pm wanting to start my weekend.

Trust me, I've worked enough retail hours that I will not be putting up with this E36 M3 from a professional WFH job.

My state once had a perfectly functional online service where you could renew vehicle registration and stuff. It was great and saved me a bunch of trips to the dmv.

A few years ago a new Secretary of State was elected, and then she decided we needed a whole new online system.  How is the new system? I don't know because I've never actually been able to successfully log in.

I'd tell you to stop acting like a giant ,  cranky shiny happy person all the berkeleying time, but I'm beginning to think it's not an act.