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

Three extra people in my house since this past Thursday, SIL and her two kids, 3 years and a 3 month old. I had to watch the total six kids while they went out together because SIL can't drive a minivan. I guess. The 3 year old "broke his foot" by jumping off of a bed over and over again. I have to go home to watch my kids for the afternoon so she and SWMBO can both bring him to the ER.

They had guests yesterday at our house, parents and three kids. One of them threw up all over my family room.

Parent's in-law coming tomorrow. They hate everything I do, and have a dog who gets privileges like an Oil Barron. My kid has asthmatic reactions to dogs, but the dog is supreme over all.

Two more adults and one more young one coming Wednesday or Thursday or something.

Grandfather-in-law thankfully decided to use the resources available at a local hotel.

I suddenly have the urge for a necessary and immediate business trip.

In reply to fasted58:

It's something about Chinese rubber, I swear. That stink comes from everything rubber in the store, from the trailer tires to the floor mats. If I worked there, it would kill me.

fasted58 wrote: I hate the smell of HF and the people there rival 'The People of Wal-Mart', clerks included. ... Wonder if the brass at HF ever considered the olfactory aspect at their stores? Popcorn ala RK as a cover scent maybe?

I bought a set of HF rubber wheel chocks. Smelliest things in the store, even surpassing the tires. Because of the smell, I can't keep even them in the trunk. What do they use for filler? Fermented dissidents?

slantvaliant wrote:

fasted58 wrote: I hate the smell of HF and the people there rival 'The People of Wal-Mart', clerks included. ... Wonder if the brass at HF ever considered the olfactory aspect at their stores? Popcorn ala RK as a cover scent maybe?

I bought a set of HF rubber wheel chocks. Smelliest things in the store, even surpassing the tires. Because of the smell, I can't keep even them in the trunk. What do they use for filler? Fermented dissidents?

aka Soylent Green

slantvaliant wrote:

fasted58 wrote: I hate the smell of HF and the people there rival 'The People of Wal-Mart', clerks included. ... Wonder if the brass at HF ever considered the olfactory aspect at their stores? Popcorn ala RK as a cover scent maybe?

I bought a set of HF rubber wheel chocks. Smelliest things in the store, even surpassing the tires. Because of the smell, I can't keep even them in the trunk. What do they use for filler? Fermented dissidents?

No, that's where plastinated corpses come from. Consider this, though: China doesn't have any "superfund" sites, and you have some unusually smelly wheel chocks

I used to work for HF.

We had to include verbiage in our purchase agreements of leather goods to “Not Cure with Urine”. Yep, your circa 1980’s and before HF welding gloves got their nice supple texture from pee.

You know what a construction worker would call the lot of you for whining about the smell of a tool store? Bob Costas.

Appleseed wrote: You know what a construction worker would call the lot of you for whining about the smell of a tool store? Bob Costas.

I'd wager a construction worker would not be buying tools at HF, he'd be a Grainger or someplace like that buying things which were not going to be hammers.

RX Reven' wrote: I used to work for HF. We had to include verbiage in our purchase agreements of leather goods to “Not Cure with Urine”. Yep, your circa 1980’s and before HF welding gloves got their nice supple texture from pee.

I used to work for Rohm & Haas. Their first product was artificial dog E36 M3 used to tan leather.

In reply to tuna55:

Grainger had a funk to it as well. Just as bad as HF. He would still call you a Bob Costas for bitching about the smell there, too.

In reply to Appleseed:

HF is a retail store not a third world industrial site, they could do a lot better.

Bob Costas yur ass.

Don't work in construction is all I'll say. I've smelled things that makes HF seem like ambrosia.

150 for a pair of calipers without brackets or pads. No kiss on the cheek or even dinner beforehand.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

I think the ones for my Volvo were $160 a pop.

What is irksome is that it's almost identical to the VW We-Put-It-on-Everything caliper (Lucas?) except the Volvo part is iron, not aluminum, and the handbrake cable fitment is juuuust different enough that I'd have to do more hackery than I feel like doing for something that I'll have to replace every year or so.

EvanR wrote: In reply to fasted58: It's something about Chinese rubber, I swear. That stink comes from everything rubber in the store, from the trailer tires to the floor mats. If I worked there, it would kill me.

We ordered a container of rubber hose from China and whatever they used in the curing process stunk for weeks including our office.

Sometimes it smells like money to me.

Insomnia. Yaaay!

Datsun310Guy wrote:

EvanR wrote: In reply to fasted58: It's something about Chinese rubber, I swear. That stink comes from everything rubber in the store, from the trailer tires to the floor mats. If I worked there, it would kill me.

We ordered a container of rubber hose from China and whatever they used in the curing process stunk for weeks including our office. Sometimes it smells like money to me.

I suppose the awful smell of Chinese rubbers would explain why there are a billion people there. Ba-dum-dum

Remember to tip your waitresses they have to listen to this tomorrow too.

You know you're getting old when you can buy a 32GB Micro SD card that's the size of your pinkie nail and your first computer had 4 MB of RAM and a 212 MB hard drive.

In reply to 1988RedT2:

My first computer had a cassette tape player as its only storage and 16k memory. I was a kid, but my memories of programming it are very clear.

The first computer I bought myself had a 5.25" floppy drive and 640k memory and a 10mb hard drive. And a monochrome (amber) monitor! I thought it was the shiznit.

You ain't seen old! ;-)

dculberson wrote: In reply to 1988RedT2: My first computer had a cassette tape player as its only storage and 16k memory. I was a kid, but my memories of programming it are very clear. The first computer I bought myself had a 5.25" floppy drive and 640k memory and a 10mb hard drive. And a monochrome (amber) monitor! I thought it was the shiznit. You ain't seen old! ;-)

My family's first computer was a Trash-80 with a cassette tape drive. The first computer that was purely 'mine' was a Timex-Sinclair 1000- which also used a cassette tape drive. The floppy-disk upgrade to the TRS-80 cost more than I've paid for cars- by a factor of 2. Yeah, computers have come a LOOOONG way in my 40 years of life...

1988RedT2 wrote: You know you're getting old when you can buy a 32GB Micro SD card for the price of lunch that's the size of your pinkie nail and your first computer had 512 kB of RAM and dual 800 kB floppy drives.

If we're going there, my first hard drive was 100 MB and cost $1100. And I wasn't even that early an adopter in the history of personal computer ownership - 1987 or so.

1988RedT2 wrote: You know you're getting old when you can buy a 32GB Micro SD card that's the size of your pinkie nail and your first computer had 4 MB of RAM and a 212 MB hard drive.

Yea, that's not much. My first computer was an Apple 2+, and like dculberson, we had to use a tape player for storage. But we had to get it on our own, and use our own TV for it. Plus, it cost $1200 back in the late 70s (that's $4100 in today's dollars). All of 4k of memory, and blazing fast 1MHz of speed.

That's when programming was really efficient- and it mattered that you had to use single characters for stuff- like n for engine speed. And comments were kept to a bare minimum.

I played with that a lot, learned how to program Basic.

My first was a Packard-Bell 386SX-16 w/1meg ram and 40meg HD. Bought with funds my wife stashed away while I was deployed to desert storm (combat pay). Chose it over a Moto Guzzi so kids could use it also. The sacrifices you make for children. Shortly after that I picked up a TI-99 that used a cassette tape for storage to learn basic on and the kids to trash.

mine was a commodore vic 20 with the cassette storage. Then came a 64, a 128, and finally an Amiga 1000.

today I am pricing video cards with more memory than all of them put together

This was the first computer we had in the family

Franklin PC 8000

" Not well known but interesting was Franklin's efforts in the field of IBM clones. This included the Franklin PC6000 and PC8000. Pictured here is the Franklin PC8000. This was an 8088 machine with 640K, 2 built in 360K floppies, built in parallel and serial ports. It came with MSDOS 3.1 and ran the software of the time...WordStar, dBase III, etc.

It sold for around $2500 depending on what extras you wanted. "

I still have it and the monitor in my basement.