The [Disco Chives] Misplaced Parrot Complaint Thread
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Complaint: OK, OK, Norton has had bad times, but I've been a Norton fanboi for about a quarter century.
I've always used Norton anti-virus of some sort on my many personal machines. But Norton, kept increasing their price.
But they've got a flaw in their marketing for people like me.
Once or twice a year, they offer their anti-virus products for a deep discount(~75%) for a couple days, through Amazon and/or NewEgg. I wait for those times of year, checking my Amazon & NewEgg e-mail every day. When it arrives I can get a 5-license of Norton360-Deluxe for about $30 or sometimes even just $25. Cool!
However, the problem is that when installed, it automatically "opts-in" to automatic payment for next year's subscription renewal. And when the time comes they will automatically and happily re-subscribe me for $130 on my credit card.
But I, being an intelligent animal, figured out their ploy and for years have been manually "opting-out" of the automatic renewal. And when renewal time comes, I just get another $30 copy from Amazon and change the key or reinstall if necessary. Clever huh?
But I'm getting old, I forget things more than when I was young and studly. This year I forgot to opt-out of the Norton subscription, but had a bug in my brain that kept telling me that I had opted out already. So, when the polite e-mail from Norton came reminding me of the upcoming charge to my credit card, I ignored it. And sure enough, in the next e-mail from Norton they crowed about the fact that they had taken my $130. Arghhh....
Non-complaint: I could absorb the cost if absolutely no other way out, but it would hurt, especially right now, because of reasons.
So, instead of fuming and crying and thinking negative thoughts, I tweaked up my patience and decided to try to get Norton to return my money and cancel my renewed subscription. (I already have an unused 5-license copy that I bought 6 months ago for $30.). I figured it would be an uphill battle so I was on my best behavior in my phone calls and emails. But within 4 days, it was all settled, and 3.9 of those days were waiting for Norton to respond. I just got off the phone with them and there was no pushback, no arguments, no "please stay with us", attitudes. Just one question, "would you like a less expensive option?". I just politely said "no, just cancel it". And that was it.
Two minutes later he said it was done. Wheee... I get my $130 back(in a few days), so I can afford groceries again this month. Wheee...
And the unexpected bonus was that the person on the phone with me had an American accent and I actually believed that his name was really "Kevin".
I am going to a Metro by T-Mobile store today to see what my options for ACP phone service.
I swear, every time I go to the store, everything is a dollar more than the last time... I just went to buy exterior grade wood glue and it's $2 more than it was a couple of months ago... I just don't see any of this as being market demand, supply chain issues or adjustments for oil/delivery prices... it's not long before we all end up like the Monty Python Holy Grail peasants digging around in the mud quibbling over dirt.
I do big grocery shops, and generally the same things, so I know how much it should be. But I only do this every 3 months perhaps, so I'm very aware of how much the increases are. News outlets here have consistently reported increases in food prices as X%, when in fact most people report it to be much higher, up to 50% increase on some items within 18 months, same store, same item. I know that every time I go, the prices have increased substantially. I had to buy a couple of bolts and a few washers and it came to almost 7 bucks. Crazy! I ended up not buying them and digging around at home instead until I found something "good enough" to do the job.
@ McGyver: But, but, ... if people stopped buying glue, the prices would come down. So, it's your own fault.
Logic much like people complaining of the DAZ catalog being full of floozywear. They make it because it sells.
Nails, switch to nails.
Or perhaps the glue manufacturers are running out of hooves of dead horses to make the glue from.
Maybe all glue is imported now? Domestic glue not being in fashion right now?
Staples work well for most puncturable things except when mending Jello.
Very amateur cosmologists might suggest that price inflation is directly linked to the expansion rate of the Universe.
It had to be a bolt because it had to go into a threaded "sleeve" on my metal outdoor swing. The one I found at home was a touch too long, but no one sees it and it's rock solid now. I have to rebuild a portion of my back fence and it's going to be with whatever I have on hand
I made a white sauce glue in a saucepan on my stove from flour, water and vinegar and stuck some wallpaper up with it
My mother was a wallpaper hanger. She worked alone. She would often take on jobs that a team of men would turn down. Places like tall commercial stairwells, old Victorian high-ceiling mansions. At 5' 8" she was a 130 pound dynamo. I've helped stir big buckets of wallpaper paste and set up some of the ladders & planks, but she did all the paper handling. Hard work.
Complaint: Not liking the new interface for loading a new scene in Daz 4.22. Too busy and too many you want to buy these ads.
I never use templates, so the new scene dialogue is just an extra button press for me.
Well you can bet that I, or one of your other imaginary DAZ family members, will remind you about this in late October of 2024. Unless I get banned from the forum for what I have to say about something. And you can believe that I have an American accent and my name is Nylon, but I wouldn't bet on either of those.
Yep, seems utterly futile to me. If I'm going to use a blank scene, I want it blank. If I want a scene with template bits in it, what's wrong with the library and dropping stuff into the blank scene?
Complaint: Once in a while I think of a question about events in my childhood, but there's nobody left who can answer them.
Non-complaint: The leaves continue to drop. A row of trees that block my view up the road toward the center of town, are thinning out, and now that the old building next door is completely gone, I can, for the first time in 15 years, through my kitchen window, see vehicles much of the way from the the far edge of town to past this house. And even the trees on the other side of the road and through the corner of the swamp are dropping their leaves so that I can see across the creek to the road heading south out of town from the main intersection. Wheee... free entertainment.
Yes! This happens to me often, not only about events from childhood, but also family history and relations.
Complaint: We had abnormal October weather that is continuing in November, with above-normal precipitation and wonky temperatures. We have had daily rain/snow/ice pellets/some other kind of precipitation for two weeks, with melting during the day and freezing into a skating rink overnight. Every morning the gates are frozen shut, the lids on the garbage and recycling bins are frozen shut, etc. I slipped and fell, hard, smashing my elbow, upper arm, and hip onto the metal rim surrounding the basement window well. The neighbourhood learned some creative combinations of swear words once the stars abated and I was able to catch my breath. I am black and blue, on top of my arthritis being an insufferable nag in this weather. To add insult to injury, I was sanding the walkway when it happened.
Complaint: I have consequently missed putting the bins out for garbage/recycling collection day. I find this irksome.
Non-complaint: I have beaten my personal record of days never having broken a large bone and also managed to avoid hitting my head on the concrete. YAY!
Non-complaint: Freshly fallen snow is pretty.
You're supposed to walk on the spots you've already sanded.
Absolutely! I keep the sand container close to the most treacherous spot, but the big bag is in the garage. I was tossing it around like I was feeding the poultry, instead of sanding a path to the garage. It happened on the way back for a refill. There will be no more pre-caffeine sanding lol.
Generally, where there is one, there are many more close by. They are very social and one female can produce anywhere from 40 to 90 pups a year. I'm not sure if it's available where you are, but there is a rat fertility control product called ContraPest. It essentially sterilizes them, without the dangers of rat poison to pets, wildlife, and the environment, and without creating bait aversion.
As far as I know, only approved for rats, although being rodents, it might be effective on mice.
I have had to revert back to using traps as EU made buying rat poison require a license.
Rat poison was the most effective way to get rid of the mice that invade the house every autumn when temperatures fall below freezing, if one uses the stuff meant for mice, the mice just carry it away and hide it in some drawer or a box. Rat poison they ate and the invaders were gone in a week.
Been trapping for weeks now, getting one almost every night, hopefully getting rid of them before Christmas.
I worked in a warehouse that became overrun with mice. My employer decided poison was the best strategy, but there were so many that we were finding literal "cemetaries" of dead mice. They were in the walls, by the fridge compressor in the lunch room, behind my employer's monitor on his desk (he was always leaving half-eaten food and candies on his desk), in the bathroom cupboard, you name it. The stench of rotting mouse carcasses throughout the warehouse became unbearable. I was quite happy to leave that place.
The stuff I used to use dried them up and there was no smell, but there may be 'some' sceletons hiding in the structures of this 80 year old house
Oh well. Back to traps, I guess. Thank you, though.
Ah, small animal skeletons in infrequently visited places: Back in the last quarter of the last century I happened upon more than one critter skeleton decorating the floor of vacated offices of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center
. Picture it, Florida, mid '70s, the Apollo moon shots were over, Skylab was over, and the Shuttle era hadn't yet properly begun. Thousands of people had been laid off. The VAB, (essentially six 42 story skyscrapers arranged in a 2x3 pattern with "streets" between them where HUGE rockets were assembled, all wrapped in a shroud of white aluminum). Lots and lots of offices for all the people who used to work there, now empty. Only the first three floors were still occupied when I started working in the Launch Control Center (LCC) at the VAB/LCC complex (I was hired for early Shuttle research tasks). My lunch break was often occupied with a walkabout in the upper levels of the VAB (until Shuttle security got implemented). All those hundreds of offices above the 3rd floor of each of the internal towers of the VAB, were empty, dusty, spiderwebby, and, now and then, decorated with a cat skeleton.
Non-complaint: Working at the Kennedy Space Center, lucky. Riding the glass express elevators up and down inside the 42 story VAB, priceless! Wheee... I can fly...
Riding the glass elevators in the VAB was like being within the great Krell machine.
(Except that the VAB didn't have 80 foot lightning in it.)
A Ponderable: I've been worried about those cats. Do you think it possible that moon mice got them?
Or maybe the spiders. Florida has some big spiders.
Nah, probably just starved to death when the last guy out closed the door, and the cats couldn't figure out the elevator.
Many years ago I had a cat who came from such a situation. A family of cats was abandoned in a locked house. The mother and father had starved to death as had three of their kittens. I took the sole survivor. He was in horrible condition and it was determined he had organ damage. When he was found he was trying to suckle his dead mother. Miraculously, he survived, but he did succumb to complications from the organ damage at 7 years old. I named him Ambush, because that was his favourite thing to do.
That's one of those stories where you're trying to be happy about it but you just can't.
You need one of these to talk them into moving out on their own.
...glad I saw this as I wasn't sure if I had already cancelled the auto renew or not (which would be billed to my card fairly soon) so I wnet to my Norton account to check and yes, I had already done so. Also have a new "boxed" version of 360 Deluxe I got at Amazon for 25$ .
I've also received a couple phishing emails recently concerning my renewal status that looked remarkably genuine until I checked the sender's email addy (ny usual SOP). One of them said I'd only have to pay 59$ instead of the normal 130$.
...that's been happening at the Safeway in my neighbourhood. A couple months ago when I was shopping there and went to get a bag of shredded hash browns in the frozen food asile, I was shocked to see the price had skyrocketed (compared to the last time I bought them less than 2 weeks beforehand) from 3.49$ to 5.99$ (and this was for the normal Safeway "house brand").. Meanwhile at the other major grocery market in eh area (a much longer walk or two bus transfer if the weather is bad) that store's house brand of sahredded ptoatoes is stll 3.49$.
I've also noticed at teh Safeway the discounts for coupons as well as for loyalty card members there have been shrinking to where it's almost not worth it, while prices for many items (besides frozen potatoes) keep going up. Crikey, a box of Wheaties is 8$, (while a box of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes - not on sale - is only 3.99$). I remember when cereals like Wheaties Wheat Chex, and the "Big Biscuit" Shredded Wheat were among the least expensive ones and the sugar coated kids rubbish were the more expensive ones. It makes no sense anymore.