The [Disco Chives] Misplaced Parrot Complaint Thread
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Not the chicken. He's mean.
So, all of the modern electronics are kind of a selling point for me. I like lots of buttons, touchscreens, features, and whatnot. There is no chance all of this stuff is going to stop working at the same time exactly at the end of the warranty period. I turn everything on, including those lights on the side mirrors that tell you when there's a car in the blind spot. The one thing I turned off is the thing that reads the text messages because apparently the phone sends a name and phone number to the car like "Nylon<18165554090>" and the car tries to announce this by saying something like "Text message from Nylon less than one billion eight hundred sixteen million five hundred fifty five thousand you can't afford a 4090 let alone this car greater than". And if the message was sent to a list of phone numbers, you'll never get past it listing who the number was sent to in a completely unusable way. And it's supposed to be able to show me events from my phone calendar but it has never actually done this.
But I like how it has both touchscreen buttons and physical buttons for the entertainment stuff, which is good because then you have a version that works with claws in and another that works with claws out. And the amount of automation is impressive. The parking brake is indeed a switch very much like the one that would put a window up or down. Sometimes the car just decides to put the parking brake on by itself because it detected too much movement. Sometimes it decides to turn the window defogger on by itself. It decides when to turn the lights on or off, and when to use high beams. Of course it steers and goes and stops by itself. And I like how it warns me of a person or car coming behind me and seconds later, I see them going by. I've never had so much time to think while driving as I do now. I'm pretty sure at least once or twice it said "go ahead and put half of your body outside of the sunroof. I'll take the wheel". But I didn't because I don't want to lose that hat with the big M on it.
...a friend of mine recently bought one of the top end Kia's that can parallel park by itself.
I first learned to parallel park in a 1969 4-door Buick LeSabre. No backup cameras, no warning sensors, no robotic parking system. not even "curb feelers".
just a metalic thump to let you know when you hit the car in front and behind
Complaint: I've been out of bread for days.
Non-complaint: I finally got around to baking a loaf of bread today. Between the dog and I, we finished it off while it was still warm. It was delicious!
Complaint: I still have no bread
I learned to parallel park in a late 50's Dodge Power Wagon (the shop truck) when Mr. Millette decided I neeed to learn how to drive...(scariest lesson was on the shop dump truck with a multi range manual gearbox and how to use it...)
...I find it amusing when I see someone in a small car make several attempts to parallel park in a space I could easily put a 1963 Lincoln Continental, give up and leave, Most often they start by nosing into the space and get frustrated jockeying back & forth multiple times trying to get the car parallel with the curb I guess schools don't teach the technique in Drivers Ed anymore (do they even have Drivers Ed in high school these days?).
Speaking of ineptitude behind the wheel, today was one of those days where it seemed just about every other motorist I saw was driving more stupidly and aggressively than usual. It;s not a full moon (actually in the "new" phase today) so that can't be the reason. Must be holiday shopping angst or something like that.
...ugh yet another bad gateway error it seems the frequency of them happening is gwetting worse.again.
I will never understand why some people think it's perfectly acceptable to play with their phones at full volume in public. I don't want to hear your music, the Youtube video/Twitch channel/TikTok/TV show you're watching or the game you're playing. Headphones cost almost nothing.
My mother made bread, a lot. White bread, wheat bread, rye bread, orange bread, cranberry bread, mmmm!
Her dark rye bread, fresh from the oven, cut into thick 1 inch (2.54cm) slices, so warm, soft, fragrant and sweet. MMmmm!
I've been invited to a holiday party tonight. Was worried about the weather, especially riding in someone else's car. But fortunately the current forecast is for rain beginning at 9:00PM at 50F. Yay, no snow or (*shudder*) ice.
I hate travelling in snow. Much rather sit in my chair, watch out the window, sipping hot cocoa, and snicker at the news showing people who decided to go out in a blizzard and are now parking on the Interstate.
Not around here... some really rich schools on the North side of Long Island might, but I don't think it's part of the school per se... some of the private high schools also might, but that's probably not even an official thing either and more of a "partnership" with a driving school, or something like that... like after school, they will pick the kids up, drive around and then drop them back off...
Nobody has anything like auto shop classes anymore either... there is a program of seprate classes you can take for certain vocational training as early as Junior year (11th grade), they are for fields like medical, mechanical or technical, but you either have to have high grades or a recommendation from a teacher to get into the program... one of my daughters wanted to get into a Certified Medical Assistant program and it was a pain to set up as only one teacher followed through without prodding, plus since it's not technically part of the standard school curriculum, you have to pay for it separately, (it's not super expensive, but a few of the other kids could barely afford it, so for lower income families it's pretty hard)... but the school did provide buses to the place, the sucky thing is it's an official program, but it's considered something separate, even though it's during class hours... so for some inexplicable reason there is no scholarship or financial aid for the less fortunate kids... it's literally pay to play, no matter how gifted or smart you are, and if you don't have the money... TFB... sucks to be you.
Also the way it works is all over the place... you can earn credits for the technical program that can be used in college, but the medical classes only allow you to take college courses early, there is no transference of credit... so like with my daughter, she got her CMA certification in junior year, and then was able to use that to take a college EMT course in senior year... but, that course only transferred some of the credits to her present college after she graduated... technically some credits were not transferred because it's a different state, which is semi-understandable, but she was barely able to transfer her EMT certification, even though she passed both the state and national certification tests, but that was more of an age related issue because she was too young for Connecticut, but not too young on a national level...
When esteemed individuals wearing fancy suits get in front of a microphone and the cameras and say that since they went to college and had a job, there is no reason young people today can't do the same, they are full of delusional cookies or just plain old shoveling the bull patties... it's nothing like when my parents generation did it and it's not even like when I was a kid, because that was more or less when it started get harder (financially and technically) than ever before... you'd think with all the wonders of the internet age and all the promising technology that should make everything easier, it hasn't... it's literally just as bad as the 80s where every printed bit of information on paper contradicted the other page... all that's different is they are glowing pixels on a screen instead of ink... and you are just as likely to end up having to talk to a misinformed nincompoop on the phone as ever... in fact it's probably worse because now everyone's answer is the same when they don't want to bother... "it's on the website".
My mom baked a lot too and worked full-time in her own labour-intensive business and half-time at another job. Sounds a bit like your mom. I recall you mentioning she hung wallpaper. No easy feat, that. I only did borders once and that was enough for me, although I've removed a fair of wallpaper. I did learn to bake when I was a kid, but didn't really start myself until Covid. Now I almost never buy bread except when it's too hot to bake.
Half the time they don't even know what's on the website, and if you ask a question that isn't answered on the website, you're pretty much up the creek. It's gotten utterly ridiculous.
Yesterday it rained all day here, which froze, and then it snowed all night. Just walking out the front door is treacherous. Cars are sliding all over the place right now. I volunteered to work at a community Christmas party with 200 children attending. Bad weather makes crabby parents and whiney kids. I'm regretting my life choices right now. On the plus side, there will be hot food.
if you get a living human that is
albeit in a call centre in Mumbai
otherwise you could be talking to a chat bot
My car doesn't park by itself. But I've been having a great time with the backup camera. I'm one of those people who would park with about a lot of space in the back and front of the car because I don't know how close I am to anything. Now I can get within an inch of whatever is behind me without hitting it. I still always have 3 feet of space in front of me though. Except in the garage where I use landmarks to help me determine how close I am to utter destruction.
I could parallel park beautifully when I used to drive but I was always aware not everyone else shared my skillset especially when one bent my personalised number plate exiting from his spot.
Thus I did not seek out tight spots.
Too many careless crooked carpark users for whom the white lines are a mere suggestion are inclined to dent your car with their doors too.
Parking further away is great exercise.
Now I get more exercise walking instead.
...a similar experience I had yesterday with getting a new router activated (I changed to a new plan that cost as much as I currently pay but was twice as fast, however it required I get an router from them. SO instead of paying for shipping I went to the provider's local office (hence my comment yesterday about insane motorists).
After I got home I hooked everything up and I went to their site and a page appeared that mentioned I needed to download their app to activate the modem. Now I'm on a desktop not phone and the app doesn't work on desktops. Finding no way around that, I acquiesced picked up the phone and went to Google Play to download said app. Well, after 15 minutes the download was 12% complete (which by my calculations would have taken a full 75 minutes to download before it installed) so I cancelled that an called them directly. Now this is Comcast/XFinity which, as I may have mentioned in the past, has this very annoying yet persistence and totally dumb bot that can't deal with anything even slightly complex yet is extremely difficult to get around to talk to a real live person (sometimes it even hangs up on you with a condescending "goodbye"). I feared being run around in circles for several minutes as usual, however when I verified my account it said it noticed the new hardware and surprisingly connected me to live technical support.
OK, that was a relief...well...until the person who came on the line had a thick accent andspoke real fast which made it difficult to understand her as well as a lot of chatter in the background typical of a call centre which only made matters worse.. So I asked her to speak slowly and repeat what she had said. after whuch we started the process only to run into another roadblock, the built in WI-Fi network which needed a name and password. I live in a small studio apartment basically a hotel room with kitchenette only slighly larger than a galley of a Boeing 707 and a separate loo, I don't need WiFi as both of my desktop systems are on a hardwired network and I have no wifi devices other than my phone. I asked her if there was any way around the wifi activation telling her I had no use for it. She checked with her supervisor but found that it had to be done in order to activate the modem. Gotta love "progress"...right.
So I had to come up with a name and password for a wifi network I'll never use. Now I do have a system I use to generate very cryptic passwords, and told her it would take a few moments, but she began rattling off passwords that a 12 year old could crack from the mini mart across the street (apparently English is not her best second language). After I had a satisfactory one generated, I went as slow as I could reciting each character clearly and then had her repeat it back to me When she did I had to correct her on a few of the characters (she seemed to not have a grasp of the various "special" characters like "!" or "&"). So I repeated each one slowly again, this time mentioning "shift and the appropriate number" key for the symbols. After all that I am still not sure she got it right but it still is likely be cryptic enough for my needs until I could change it afterwards. Yes, there are people who sit in places like coffee shops (like the one over on the corner) who look for wifi networks to hack.
When I activated to original router they gave me several years ago, I didn't need to go through all this nonsense.
Definitely an adventure into the absurd.
On the bright side of all this, I now have 400 mbps (twice what I had before) and it is wonderful.
I've had a very strange morning...
First Complaint - My son's birthday was the 8th. I'm in NY. He's in Michigan so I ordered cake and ice cream via Instacart as a surprise. Well - they overcharged me so I called to straighten it out, but the service rep was being a b*tch so I asked for a supervisor. She told me she couldn't connect me and I'd have to call back, but BEFORE I COULD EVEN CALL BACK I get a notice on my phone. I was charged $99 by Instacart for a subscription!!! I could not even believe it. I called by bank and I DID call Instacart again and the new rep apologized profusely and got it straightened out immediately but I was still furious - and in shock! Literally, WTF?
Then - (2nd kind of complaint/sort of)
I couldn't get the Advent Calendar to work for me this morning. My cart showed I have 3 punches from making purchases each day, but the sale page said my card was inactive and wasn't even showing the options from yesterday. Clicking the card did nothing. BUT - I could access it from my phone, only I couldn't see what the options were cuz everything was scrunched together, so I just chose the freebie "side" just being glad it worked... But I WISH I HAD TAKEN THE $2.99 DEAL because it ended being something I actually really wanted and would have chosen had I known. *sigh* Not that I'm ungrateful or disliked the free option. It was really nice too... But I REALLY wanted the other thing and now... it's too late. I shouldn't have jumped so quick for the freebie, but I was just so glad it was working.
So yeah -- weird morning. And the thing is - I might deserve it on some Karmic level because I recently got something (in my favor) that I did not deserve. And even though I tried to make it right -- the Universe is just not going to let me get away with bupkis... *more sighs* I think I'll stay inside today in case the sky decides to fall.
...I know he feeling. Almost makes me fear having good things happen.
Yeah, the backup camera... that's another thing about the stupid rental car I'm not fond of... So when you back up, there's the standard wide angle view on the main infotainment screen (I hate that word because it sounds like something I'd make up satirically, but it's being serious), overlaid on the rear view is a tapering, faint red "ladder" indicating your distance to whatever it is you don't want to back over... but 1)... it's pretty faint, almost red-brown, so it's not so much a guide as a confusing distraction... 2) it "bends" as you turn the wheel... so like if you jink the wheel left and right it swings back and forth like a noodlie licorice ladder swinging to and fro... so say you are backing up and you can see the car isn't aimed properly and you turn the wheel a bit to correct, the ladder bends in that direction, but unrealistically and distractingly... I've driven a ton of vehicles (technically most vehicles weight a lot more than a ton, so that's not a great simile) with variants of the perspective/distance ladder, most just tilt the ladder in the direction you are headed, the curve/bend idea is awful... most cars have distinct range indicators... like the ladder will have different colors for distance (green-"safe zone", yellow-"getting close" and red-"poor old Fido")... some it's a set overlay, on others the ladder actually changes color and size to indicate proximity... (my friend's car does it brilliantly), this thing does it so awfully because the bend isn't so much where you are aiming, it's where you'd end up if you floored it, whereas with others it's more attuned to the speed you are backing up at... Yesterday my wife actually agreed with me that while the big screen is nice, the execution of the graphics is terrible.
That actually says a lot, because she thinks I'm too much of a perfectionist about stuff.
Then there's the stupid suspension... driving, its a little stiff... in back, it's painful. I'm pretty sure I've ridden in horse carts that had cushier suspensions... the shocks feel like they are just solid rods welded to the frame... Yesterday night we went out to the east end and my wife drove and my daughter sat up front, I sat in back getting bumped around... I literally had to fold down the center arm rest and lean on it because I kept banging my head into the "D" pillar* (rear roof pillar) if I sat upright... I'm not even talking ruts in the road or potholes, just road seams made it feel like you were driving over a curb.
The thing that I find ridiculous is the brand is one that was traditionally the tier below Cadillac, known for its cushy ride... either the stiffness is a compensation for it being top heavy, to keep it from flipping over or the engineers are actively seeking revenge on their parents generation for being mean to them when they were kids.
And on top of that... Most vehicles have ceiling mounted grab handles... some retract, flush with the ceiling, like this one... only with this one the designer thought placing the rear passenger dome light in the center of where the handle lays would be a fantastic idea... the light has a touch sensor, so every time your knuckle touches it, it turns on or off... so going down a rough road (with that car, any road) holding the handle, it's going on and off like disco chive delight 1979...
Bad auto design... Boooo.
*For "non-automotive enthusiasts"... Roof support pillars are lettered... "A pillar" is the front windshield post, "B" is usually the center support on a four door or the rear post on a short coup... and so on... only the structural support posts on the body count, so if a door has two windows, the divider doesn't count as a pillar. Most cars have at least three pillars, some like SUVs can have five.
Non-complaint: I went to a holiday party. Yay! And it was loaded with only gay men! Wheee...
Y'know how long it's been since I've been to a gay party? Eighteen years!
At the party last night, there were sixteen or more, old, burly, and/or grizzled guys playing silly party games in one room, and watching porn on the big screen, discussing recipes, describing house modifications, and telling tales of old adventures in another. And everywhere little snippets of gay banter that I hadn't heard in years.
And the food! OMG!
My other-half and I were great party goers and givers, in Washington during the 80s & early 90s. I left Washington DC (jobless) in 2002 a few years after my other-half died. Went to Florida and lived with my aunt, until she died. During that time I was a frequent visitor of the Parliament House in Orlando and the Suncoast Resort in St. Petersburg. Both big gay resorts(both now defunct), but I had no gay friends in Melbourne where I lived with my aunt. I'd left all our gay friends in Washington. Then in 2008 I retired to my little, rural hometown, up here in western NY State but until now, never found any gay men around here who weren't three or four decades younger than me
. I've been a lonely boy for far too long. Nice to have a couple new names in my address book. People I don't have to watch my comments around.
Finally, a clique that I click into.
Edited to add: I've been mentioning my "other-half", but struggled on how to refer to him. Decades ago during the height of the AIDs issue, after many of us had lost so many friends and partners, someone once mentioned to me, at a funeral, that we really need a single word for "my dead lover" that gives the correct closeness meaning without appearing either dismissive or maudlin.
Edited several times for completeness, spelling and flow.
very stormy and scary down here, had hail earlier now much lightning and thunder
went back to bed after the power went off briefly while using my PC ending that activity
(interupting program I was using not ending the PC)
Ending the PC by the application of thunder is not unknown - either by voltage spike or EMP (though PC's are better against EMP than they were). Take care.
Regards,
Richard.
yes aware and foolishly risking it because I still haven't got a surge guard for that powerpoint, will be my own fault if more than a power outage occurs
Hmmm so I know some of those people who put the funny air in their tires have this thing called "adaptive suspension". You put the car in "Comfort Mode" and it's like you can drive over a railroad track without feeling a bump. Put it in "Sport Mode" and you can feel everything. Put it in "Corsa Mode" or whatever, and if you drive over a Roman coin you get launched halfway through your sunroof. And then the car says "don't worry, I'll take the wheel".
I went to the Race track and couldn't even get my car over five miles an hour. Everyone else would get to track the speed in front of me.
It's like this had something to do with it.
No matter how old cats get. They will always love boxes. My oldest cat we got in 2008, found in a tree during a flood.