A very merry Christmas to everyone!
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
I'm such a bad friend. Haven't been "home" in 20 years. Have two buddies from high school asking for my phone number on Facebook, and I'm ignoring them. My oldest friend was sending me emails, and I ignored them, too. Decided not to play fantasy football with "the boys" from Baltimore this year. Don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just not interested anymore. Maybe I need to stop living in my computer.
I go through phases. I'll have periods where I just don't want to talk to anyone and just ignore the group text with all my friends. Friendships are just relationships and are work, just like any other, so you really need to be up for that and up to engage.
That said, seems to be worth it to keep it up. My friends introduce me to new stuff, which is nice, plus we have all that shared history, as well as the fact that one particular side of my personality can come out with that particular group, which I only hint at with other groups/people. I look at my parents, now in their 70's, who have no friends and it just seems so sad and it's no wonder they're constantly bickering with each other.
Thankful for a relax day today. Been on the run and having heaps of family/people over for what seems like a week (probably like 3-4 days, really) and now I'm just all done and excited to mostly sit on my butt today. Kids can play with their new toys, I'll let them watch TV or play games if they get bored with that and no one will be able to come over because it snowed a bunch last night.
While I'm ignoring snow removal right now, I'm also a little excited as I get to use my new snowblower for the first time; though shoveling was a nice bit of exercise, but I'm sick of shoveling my north facing driveway.
Zloth
Community Contributor
I remember getting my first snow blower. We then hit a warm-or-dry spell (I forget which) and didn't get more than about an inch of snow at a time for the whole season. I could have 'shoveled' with a broom! It took until January of the next season before I got anything worthy of a snow blower.
And don't worry, you can still get LOTS of exercise pushing a snow blower around.
Pretty much where I've been at! This is our fourth or fifth snow of the season and only now do I get to use it.
That said, I'm not super impressed so far. Looks like I need to adjust the shoes and the scraper, because there was still like half an inch left over where I ran the thing, which is just too much. So once it warms up again I'll get out there and mess with the thing.
Other problem is: Now I smell like exhaust after removing snow. Not the worst, but not my favorite thing either.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Two very brief family stories I picked up over Christmas.
My grandfather, the one who came over from Italy, used to take his own tomatoes with him to Italian restaurants in New York and make them use them to make his meal.
My dad has been technically AWOL from the US Army since the 60's. He worked in a lab at Fort Detrick in Maryland researching and inventing synthetic compounds for the military. He only had a few months of service left. They told him to create something which he's never talked about, never told what it was. He briefly worked on it, decided he wasn't going to do it and just walked out. Apparently someone was okay with it because they never tracked him down, and his military record is completely clean. His commanding officer even gave him a glowing recommendation when he applied to grad school in Boston. I can only assume whatever they wanted him to make must have been really bad, but exactly why they just let him go, I have no idea.
My grandfather, the one who came over from Italy, used to take his own tomatoes with him to Italian restaurants in New York and make them use them to make his meal.
My dad has been technically AWOL from the US Army since the 60's. He worked in a lab at Fort Detrick in Maryland researching and inventing synthetic compounds for the military. He only had a few months of service left. They told him to create something which he's never talked about, never told what it was. He briefly worked on it, decided he wasn't going to do it and just walked out. Apparently someone was okay with it because they never tracked him down, and his military record is completely clean. His commanding officer even gave him a glowing recommendation when he applied to grad school in Boston. I can only assume whatever they wanted him to make must have been really bad, but exactly why they just let him go, I have no idea.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
You could have been like this woman who lives in this apartment complex near my kids. She must have OCD. She is outside with a leaf blower for hours each day blowing things only she can see out of the parking lot,
Brian Boru
Moderator
Careful with that job—shoveling snow is a lot more strain on the heart than you might think.
Probably not your case, but holiday season is generally the most stressful time of year and leads to all sorts of personal social damage. More likely what Beardy said, a recovery phase where you need some time in your cave.
You've also had 3 major life changes in the space of a year—retiring, nest empty, alone with Mrs Zed for first time in over 20 years. If you're a big strong man who won't be affected by such silly little changes, your body has and will have news for you—maybe show that sucker who's boss and go talk to someone.
Chemist, right? Must've been Flubber—bad news, that.
That's what he told you. But he served his sentence all right—he had to rear this one particular son…
It's a mitochondrial thing—my SWIMPTO insists on hoovering the perfectly clean floor far too often.
That kind of happened to me, too. Where I live, we usually get a couple of decent snows a year, but not like blizzard type stuff. I don't have that much that needs shoveled, other than a little driveway in my back yard. I ended up getting one of those cheap corded electric snowblower things. It's pretty much completely made out of plastic, and it's not self-propelled. It was only like $126. But believe it or not, it actually does a great job for my purposes. It's much, much easier than shoveling.
But the year after I got it, I didn't need it at all. Then the next year, I did use it again for my drive, and also my mom's.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Significant Woman In My Personal <something> Obode... no that's spelled "abode." 🤔
(By the way, you can use those Windows emoji's in file names. I haven't dared use one in a save game name yet, but it's only a matter of time...)
I got one a little better, but only a little. Definitely electric - I didn't want to mess around with gasoline & oil. It can deal with snow up to 10" deep. When we get even more than that, I can either just do two passes or (much more likely) simply stay home.
My old neighbors came down from Minnesota and had a big, gas-powered snow blower. They would do everybody's driveway in the whole cul-de-sac in about an hour!
Kind of wondered about that! Though I suspect my wife is more at risk, as she has a family history of heart stuff.
I'm somewhat sedentary, but often moving around. My kids keep me moving constantly and really defeat my inertia.
Yeah, between asthma and blood pressure issues, shoveling snow is rough for me.
Brian Boru
Moderator
Nice try—did you ever get the GCHQ #8? I gave up.
SWIM PTO is not the parents' board of the school aquatic club, it's…
She Whom I Must Pretend To Obey
I'd be concerned about app and cross-platform compatibility, and longevity—ie will the thing still be around in 5-10 years?
Zloth
Community Contributor
I don't even know where to start on that one!
Cross platform? PAH! Let the Mac users wonder what they're looking at.
However, they are part of the Unicode list:
(website is pretty slow) (wow, there's even a middle finger emoji!?)
I'd been planning on hanging out with my friends more often for months, but we don't know what to do with our kid if we go to someone else's house, as she isn't very good at entertaining herself and can't be left alone during the night yet, and our own house is always a mess we can't seem to get organised.
Luckily one of our friends set up a D&D campaign and because he lives in my hometown close to my parents we can drop the kid off there for the afternoon and pick her up on the way back. It was the first time in months we were able to hang out with a group of friends again and it was really nice.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
For some reason my wife is always really invested in how much I like the presents she gets me. Obviously, I want people to like the presents I get them, too, but she just gets so excited that I end up wanting to use the present more
Zloth
Community Contributor
I find it harder to throw away presents. Never mind that the person who gave me the present doesn't remember it at all. Never mind that the person who gave me the present will not be reminded of it because s/he has been dead for a decade or two. It's a PRESENT! Somebody took time out specifically to get me something that they at least hoped I would enjoy/use. I can't just toss that into the garbage!!
Of course, I fully expect people to throw my presents away like normal. This is an emotion living entirely in the right brain - the left has nothing to do with it.
Of course, I fully expect people to throw my presents away like normal. This is an emotion living entirely in the right brain - the left has nothing to do with it.
Brian Boru
Moderator
I'm only splitting hairs here, but Unicode has quite a few versions of itself. I selected UTF-8 for my biz for widest compatibility, playing it safest. Doesn't matter for emojis of course, but for file names…
Oh what a tangled web we weave… but that's love for ya
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
My wife is so weird and hilarious. I recently discovered that she gets irritated any time I talk about Bruno Mars. I actually don't know anything about him, so I'm having to do research so I can just casually mention him every day. I say, "Did you know Bruno Mars is Jewish?" And BAM! she's irritated. Endless fun.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
It's snowing!
This is a big deal for Knoxville. Everywhere else in TN gets snow, but Knoxville has some weird sort of geographical thing where we almost never get any.
This is a big deal for Knoxville. Everywhere else in TN gets snow, but Knoxville has some weird sort of geographical thing where we almost never get any.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
So because I'm a classy gent I bought a bottle of Baileys for Xmas day. Mother In Law said they had two bottles in the cupboard already, and I found when I got home she'd sent one with me. Its unopened but went out of date in 2019!
Wife is insisting the forbidden Baileys is probably fine, I think shes nuts. Any of you drinking the 5 year out of date cream liquer?
Wife is insisting the forbidden Baileys is probably fine, I think shes nuts. Any of you drinking the 5 year out of date cream liquer?
Whatever sorcery they use to make it shelf stable and not needed to be refrigerated probably makes it just fine to drink in the long term.
That said, I'd start with a small amount and see how I feel.
But also, food poisoning sucks and Bailey's is not that expensive in the grand scheme...
I like my SteelSeries Rival 3 mouse; it feels good in the hand, it has enough buttons and I like the ability to adjust the DPI.
All that said: It's F-ing dumb that I cannot program the buttons within their software unless I use the USB dongle. I don't want to have to use the dongle in a laptop, because it tends to catch on stuff and generally just be annoying; not to mention, my new computer only has USB-C.
This especially considering I've been using this random program called Mouse Manager for like 10 years which allows me to program any mouse with a 4 and a 5 button. Why can I use this random third party software to reprogram this mouse, but can't use the official software? Stupid.
All that said: It's F-ing dumb that I cannot program the buttons within their software unless I use the USB dongle. I don't want to have to use the dongle in a laptop, because it tends to catch on stuff and generally just be annoying; not to mention, my new computer only has USB-C.
This especially considering I've been using this random program called Mouse Manager for like 10 years which allows me to program any mouse with a 4 and a 5 button. Why can I use this random third party software to reprogram this mouse, but can't use the official software? Stupid.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Yea I've had food poisoning twice and dont fancy it again. Imagine if it had gone bad it would smell and taste awful, but not going to risk it.
ZedClampet
Community Contributor
Because I trust CoPilot to be 100 percent accurate at all times, here is what it had to say....
So basically there's dairy that's been in that bottle since 2017.
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