What You've Done Today - Keep Dreaming...

[Hurlshort]

I'm not paying for her to go lick banana slugs in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Actually I have no idea how I'm going to pay for any of this. But San Francisco State has the film production programs she wants, so I can figure that one out. Cal would require a decent Field Hockey scholarship, and she would best fit an engineering program there, given her construction aptitude. I do love the Cal campus though. 

[Gromnir]

22 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

But San Francisco State has the film production programs she wants, so I can figure that one out.

film

not a lotta down sides to Cal, but am sad to share that berkeley is not all that safe so am highly recommending on-campus housing. murder is low in berkeley, but violent crime in general is disturbing high and over the decades female students in particular has been disproportionate targeted w/o real efforts by UC or local police to fix the problems. am suspecting a considerable number o' assaults o' female students has gone unreported. 

am not trying to scare you unnecessarily, but am admitting we would personal be concerned to send a daughter to berkeley. while it should be obvious, avoid being alone at night is probable the best advice we may offer.

on the positive side, even back in the 80s/90s, the Cal student body were extreme open-minded 'bout lgbt.

HA! Good Fun!

[Gfted1]

16 hours ago, ShadySands said:

The water heater went out in my condo 2 months ago and yesterday the HVAC system died. Really regretting not selling this place back during Summer.

It depends on if you replace just the furnace or the whole HVAC. A new furnace will probably run around 5k, more for the whole system. Since its probably all original to the condo I recommend the latter.

[majestic]

Tried to pick up my parcel from an UPS Access Station™. Now, as it turns out, the station where my parcel was dropped off isn't an UPS Access Station™, but one that serves many parcel services, which generally would be fine, but invalidates UPS' information that I need to bring my tracking number and my ID. Basically, press "UPS" on screen, then scan collection code. What collection code? The display tries to be helpful, telling me I received the collection code via e-mail or text message.

Except, of course, I did not.

Sigh.

[Gorth]

10 hours ago, majestic said:

Tried to pick up my parcel from an UPS Access Station™. Now, as it turns out, the station where my parcel was dropped off isn't an UPS Access Station™, but one that serves many parcel services, which generally would be fine, but invalidates UPS' information that I need to bring my tracking number and my ID. Basically, press "UPS" on screen, then scan collection code. What collection code? The display tries to be helpful, telling me I received the collection code via e-mail or text message.

Except, of course, I did not.

Sigh.

Hey, you can always complain to the fully automated customer service!

 

Some of my most frustrating experiences ever are those "chat robots" that the local telecom company "Telstra" uses. Contact support, one of our consultants will be with you shortly and this most unhelpful bot shows up and can't help you with anything, keeps going in circles and when you tell it to **** off, it suggests I should try customer support, which leads to this chat bot. You just feel like punching something. Then again for good measure.

(no, I am not a Telstra customer anymore, happy to be rid of it, using a telco with human support now)

[Raithe]

It's a bitterly chill Sunday morning here.

My father's gone in for fresh scans at the hospital, so with the consultant appointment in January, based on the results they get they'll narrow down how far into next year they expect him to last before popping his clogs.

Been poking vaguely at mortgage and general financial matters. Been a few discussions with my sister on the feasibility of who could buy who out, or whether we just have to sell the house together.  Trouble is, while we both like it, there's lots of bits and pieces that need fixing and those costs start adding  up..  £5 grand here, £10 grand there...

On other matters, I've been balancing budget vs temptation and have to go in to get a new suit. I discovered that the only suits I have that fit me properly are steampunk ones. Which while might cause some amusement at quinceneara's, funerals, and such like, probably won't go down so well at formal civil service meetings and such like.  However, my team leader did put me down for a "Development Achievement" award, so I have a small cash bonus coming in. So I might use that to splash out on a decent suit.

Also been getting my head around some of the different tricks between the Resin printer and the FDM printer. Got a nice version of Boba Fett's survival knife printed out in Resin once I got the orientation of printing correct, then had to sand the point and edges off because it could do a little pokey sharp holes in things. Had the stl's for a vibroblade in parts, but that took about 4 goes before I could get a successful print due to some of the thinner parts to it kept flexing off where i had the orientation wrong.

 

[Gfted1]

4 hours ago, Raithe said:

My father's gone in for fresh scans at the hospital, so with the consultant appointment in January, based on the results they get they'll narrow down how far into next year they expect him to last before popping his clogs.

I had to look that up, but my condolences. Nothing more that can be done? Maybe even volunteer for some experimental CRISPR?

[Raithe]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

I had to look that up, but my condolences. Nothing more that can be done? Maybe even volunteer for some experimental CRISPR?

We had the talk with the consultant in September where he gave us the "Think months, not years" conversation.  Awkward placement of the main cancer, my fathers age, signs of other spots of cancer in his lungs. Any potential operation on the main cancer would be along the lines of a 12 hour plus surgery and have a high chance of leaving him partially paralysed, and that's if he was in a fitter condition than he is currently so it's not something they want to risk.

 

Edit: And I have now spent ALLL the money on the new suit. Taking advantage of the miserable weather and the world cup to go in when it's quiet, and getting the firm reminder that going into a purpose shop with helpful tailors and assistants in store to subtly advise and help you through things is something you miss with online ordering.

Still, spending silly cash on a suit is worthwhile because unless I massively change shape it's going to last for bloody ages.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Raithe

[Malcador]

Neighbours have BT speakers on, so I decided to connect my MP3 player to a couple.  Did seem it worked for one, hope they enjoyed Limp Bizkit

[ShadySands]

Ugh, UPS. I was so mad at them I don't think I ever said what happened. A package was sent to my old address and they wouldn't deliver it to my new address, which is fine, but they wouldn't even hold it at the warehouse until they attempted delivery 3 times. I'm like are you serious, you're going to try to deliver it twice more after I've told you I don't live there??? I even got the vendor/shipper on the line and they confirmed the mistake but UPS was unswayed. I had to hope nobody actually signed for the package(not like they check IDs) for the next 2 days or our only recourse would be filling a claim on a missing package.

I did end up getting the package on Friday when they finally stopped trying to deliver it to the wrong address. At least my wife hated the gift once she found out what it was so it was all totally worth it. 

[Gorth]

19 hours ago, Raithe said:

Still, spending silly cash on a suit is worthwhile because unless I massively change shape it's going to last for bloody ages.

The only time i remember wearing a suit, was about 3-4 years ago (I think) at some friends wedding. Since I expected everyone else to wear a black suit, guess who showed up in a white suit

Looked rather stylish though if I have to be completely immodest about it. Fancy brown formal leather shoes and leather belt, silver tie clip and those cuff thingies I can't remember what's called (cufflinks?)

The only thing I forgot was a white fedora

Ah well, live and learn...

 

Edit: I did ask the bride and groom first if it was Ok, because it's exactly the kind of thing the groom would do. He decided on a purple jacket instead, so it was all good. The other guests... boring

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, Gorth said:

The only time i remember wearing a suit, was about 3-4 years ago (I think) at some friends wedding. Since I expected everyone else to wear a black suit, guess who showed up in a white suit

Looked rather stylish though if I have to be completely immodest about it. Fancy brown formal leather shoes and leather belt, silver tie clip and those cuff thingies I can't remember what's called (cufflinks?)

The only thing I forgot was a white fedora

Ah well, live and learn...

 

Edit: I did ask the bride and groom first if it was Ok, because it's exactly the kind of thing the groom would do. He decided on a purple jacket instead, so it was all good. The other guests... boring

While I don't think we should normalize wearing suits, if we are going to wear them do something besides the standard black or dark blue. Look snazzy god damn it.

[Gromnir]

we got one odd suit and it were gifted to us as a joke. a few o' our colleagues got tired o' our simple country lawyer schtick, so they bought us a seersucker suit.

...

gotta admit, the seersucker is extreme comfortable. 

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

I've got one dark blue suit from Mervyn's and one black suit from Sears. I think I wore my dress blues more than I wore those two suits combined and I only wore my dress blues maybe three or four times

dress blues for reference

I don't have the white pants though because I bought mine when I first joined and you only get white pants as an officer, staff NCO, or special billet and generally only in the summer. I eventually got to the rank that I could wear them but by then I didn't care to. You start out with the blue pants and get a red stripe (called a blood stripe) on them when you become an NCO (E-4).

E: Bonus uniform that I've never actually seen after 5 years in the Marines. It's only required for Majors (O-4) and above but SNCOs (E-6 and up) also have a version and it's the butler looking version on the far left. We can wear that kickass cloak though.

Edited December 19, 2022 by ShadySands

[Gfted1]

Heh, I still have, and fit into, my Navy dress blues and dress whites.

 

Protip: The pants have 14 buttons, so we would only button the top corners and middle button, for faster pants removal.

[Malcador]

Why so many buttons ?

[Gfted1]

My guess is simply tradition, but I dont know the genesis. All our pants (dress and working) still had bellbottoms too, for when sailors used to pull up their pant legs to scrub the decks: This is why the Navy wears bell bottoms, and it's not for fashion - We Are The Mighty

EDIT: Google says the 13 main buttons are for the original 13 colonies.

[ShadySands]

and is the back a thong or am I just seeing what I want to see?

e: Yep, pretty sure that's just some white fabric and not a cutout lol

Edited December 19, 2022 by ShadySands

[majestic]

Got my parcel. Wrote an e-mail to UPS yesterday evening, got my code today after two separate callcenter agents with curiously Indian looking names told me they forwarded it to the party 'responsible' for my package. Either way, it worked. As I am, at times, merciful, UPS may consider me placated. For the moment.

[Gfted1]

Thats your new gamepad, right? w00t!

[majestic]

5 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Thats your new gamepad, right? w00t!

It is indeed. Currently not sure if it's working properly as I've tried two games and one of them reacts really strangely to the left stick input (walking). The other works normally. Might just be the game, it's been a while since I've played it. Will have to plug in my old Xbox Elite at some point to see what's what, if I can wrestle the controller from my nephew somhow.

Edited December 19, 2022 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

May be up to the input mode as well. You're presumably using the USB cable, which should default to XInput, but the controller is capable of more than that and some games are sensitive and others aren't.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

24 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

May be up to the input mode as well. You're presumably using the USB cable, which should default to XInput, but the controller is capable of more than that and some games are sensitive and others aren't.

No, I'm just an idiot whose brain went into "This is different, something's wrong!" mode and made me freak out for no reason.

I plugged the XBox Elite back in and tried to play Shadows of Mordor, and it controls exactly the same way, just with less precision and with damaged buttons - the game just controls like a drunk donkey as there's apparently only one way to move when not holding down the sprint button: slowly (might as well use digital controls for all the good analog does when there's two modes, no momentum and slow momentum, good job game). I also tried NieR: Automata for good measure, and they sticks are behaving exactly the same way. Well, not exactly the same, as the GuliKit King Kong 2 Pro feels a good deal better to play with.

Crisis averted. *sigh*

Edited December 19, 2022 by majestic

[Gromnir]

On 12/19/2022 at 10:30 AM, ShadySands said:

E: Bonus uniform that I've never actually seen after 5 years in the Marines. It's only required for Majors (O-4) and above but SNCOs (E-6 and up) also have a version and it's the butler looking version on the far left. We can wear that kickass cloak though.

hmmm. am thinking there is only a handful o' excuses for wearing the cape:

1) you are an opera villain

2) you are, in fact, liberace, elvis, or evel knievel

3) you just suffered a concussion

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

3 for 3

Drats! Foiled again!