What annoyed you today?

[MatthewV]

And to show the beauty of simple guitar playing and singing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UirHLG_ANM8

The official music video has some other random elements that get in the way of the song. So if you like watching to things while listening to music stare really hard and see if the leaves move.

[Scurra]

[MatthewV]

And back to being Annoyed... that youtube video is blocked in this country.

(use a proxy server)

[Jedo the Jedi]

Well, I don't know about annoyance, but it is really stressful trying to move across country without every visiting the place. I find all kinds of rental listings and cross-check with review sites and such, and it's all very depressing and causing feelings of unease because I don't know what the truth is.

Ugh. Here's to six months in a hopefully good location. At least then I'll be there and can look more thoroughly if necessary.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Mackay]

To where are you moving, Jedo?

[Jedo the Jedi]

Durham, NC to attend Duke University. It's about 1500 miles from my current location.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Deception]

There are places in NC where there is tons of fun and a lot (a lot) of boring land. You're going to Duke though so I don't think you'll have any trouble finding the fun.

Just dont' sell out and root for the Panthers.

[Trojan Horse]

[The Ragin' South Asian]

Well, he'll be posting here about basketball on November 13th.

[Trojan Horse]

We must be getting close to autumn. I spotted the first cricket of the season in my apartment this morning.



Over the next several months, my apartment will be invaded by an army of crickets. And this army will have just one mission: to keep me awake all night. (And they are quite good at that mission, too.) I had to deal with a similar invasion last fall, and the fall before that, and the fall before that. This fall will be no different.

If anyone has any tips for repelling a cricket invasion, let me know. I would be most appreciative.

Edit: actually, it looks like I had this conversation with you guys already. Three years ago, in fact. Oh well. I'll just keep doing what I've been doing, I guess.

[Courk]

Four years in a row? Well, that's just not cricket.



.

.

.


Thank you, I'm here all night.

[Death Mage]

Since you asked last year, I'm sure all the "normal" answers came up - pesticides, exterminators, little ultrasonic devices you plug in the wall and look like the lumps on the wall they are, so obviously a more drastic plan is required.

Obviously, you must learn to speak their language, so you can convince them you are their queen. Your size alone ought to convince them. Then you will ave an army of crickets at your command, and while telling them to leave you alone is one option, the potential to rule the world is another. Think about it.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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[Zag]

DM, you fool! They already believe he is their queen! If he ever learns to communicate with them, humanity is done for!

TH, seriously, you MUST use this power for good.
_________________

[The Great Crep'er]

Found out today that the career website my college provides won't let you upload and send your resume to prospective employers unless they approve of your resume format. Even for the most menial of tasks...-_- Looks like this is going to take some fenaglin'.

[Jedo*]

The Internet technician calls and says they had the wrong address, so I'll have to correct that before they can come to my actual address and set up the hardware. :/

In other news, we complained enough that supposedly AT&T is specially wiring our apartment for UVerse which was apparently another problem. Here's hoping, though I still have to travel to find Internet for another few days.

[Jedo the Jedi]

And somehow the address is messed up again causing a further delay.

I'll just take the silver lining that we at least found the library, though it isn't very convenient.

Edit (to avoid unnecessarily increasing the number of posts in the thread): My apartment complex is apparently contracted to a specific cable company, though nobody told us. The AT&T people finally figured out this was the case, though never mind all of the other mistakes they were continually making. So, Time Warner it is, the company we were told to avoid like the plague if we could. Supposedly, we will have access next Tuesday, but after what we've been through so far, I'm far from optimistic.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[mv*]

I can check out but never leave


Thank you to those who wished me well.

[Mackay]

( :_ )

[Mackay]

Not "today", but within the last 24 hours.

Last night I got to both begin and end my shift at work cleaning up vomit. (I semi-volunteered myself as I have a strong stomach. Better me than someone who is going to get sick from doing it.)

The first one was a kid who had too many sugary drinks or something, it was one of those very impressive kid-spews that manage to explode all over everything. Lovely.

The second one is what upgrades this from "slightly unpleasant but forgettable" to "still pissing me off the next day". A bunch of young (18-21) girls were in the club, a couple of whom are regulars with an excellent rapport with the staff. In fact, one of them is staff, though she left well before any of this stuff went down. Sometime during the last hour-and-a-half of trading, the remaining girls decided to take some pills. Without knowing what was in them. After drinking for several hours and apparently not eating anything.

Unbeknownst to any of the staff on duty, one of the girls became extremely ill and vomited all over the ladies' toilets. She then fell unconscious and was just barely responsive. This group of girls decided to just stick it out and hang out in the ladies' toilets trying to 'help' her. When she got worse, they STILL did not leave the toilets and notify the staff on duty (nor did anyone else!), nor did they call an ambulance, but instead rang the girl's father. The very first thing we heard about it was from a worried dad rushing into the club looking for his sick daughter. As soon as he saw her, he notified us that we needed to call an ambulance. The girls tried to lie to both the father and the staff about whether she had taken any illicit substances, further impeding her ability to receive the medical attention she required.

She is going to be okay as far as I know - no thanks to her friends. It's just... well, on a personal level it makes us look SO BAD. It was the winding down period of an extremely busy night and all, so we were all cleaning furiously any time we weren't serving drinks, and these idiots went to great lengths to hide the fact that there was a girl possibly ODing in our toilets from us - there are justifications for why we didn't notice but it still makes us look so negligent.

But more rage-inducingly, how DAMN STUPID do you have to be to try to ride out a potential drug overdose? The idea of these dickheads being scared enough of getting into trouble that they risked their friend's life is so infuriating to me. Especially as the girls are so friendly with the staff and are people we would have EXPECTED to come to us for assistance, or at least notified us that there was a possible medical emergency occurring.

Argh.

I'll get to find out what happened to her tonight when I go back in to work. It looked like she was going to be alright. I hope so.

I'm actually getting very close to being in a position where I am able to get out of hospitality for good (or at least for a long time). This will be good for my mental health. Wish me luck for my current job application! They're looking for accountants, but expressed interest in all experience levels - including "partway through degree"! I'm very hopeful, but even if it doesn't work out, now that I'm a few classes in I can start looking pretty seriously at the accounting cadetships that most of the local firms offer. Seeing this particular job ad just gave me the kick in the pants I needed to start hunting in earnest. (Shitty nights at the club help in their way, too.)

[The Great Crep'er]

I feel bad for the woman who had to pee after all that happened.

Hope the new application works out!

[Zag]

Wow, Mackay! What a nightmare!

Good luck on the job application! Hopefully you'll get out of that environment where you're known as the puke cleaner.

I made this offer to TGC, and it goes for you, too, and for anybody here: If you are applying for jobs and would to have a practice interview with someone who has a lot of experience interviewing and hiring people, I'd be glad to do one with you. (...or get my wife to -- she has hired hundreds of people and is really good at it.)

You would be surprised how many of the people I have interviewed who don't seem to have basic interviewing skills. Many don't seem to understand what is really going on. I have hired people with bad interviewing skills (and turned down people with really great interviewing ability), but that's because I am experienced enough to see through the facade; but most interviewers you're likely to run into aren't that knowledgeable.

[Mackay]

Thanks, Creper and Zag.

The job itself can be a lot of fun, and the puke thing doesn't happen too often. The regulars are mostly awesome, though given that the demographic is overwhelmingly middle-aged and older white men in a rural area, I often have to tolerate sexist jokes, or smile when someone calls me a "good girl" in a slightly surprised tone because I am capable of telling them the total price of their drinks without using the till, etc. Heh. The regulars who are in every day know better than to pull that shit though. I really quite like the majority of them.

I've just been at it for too long now, I think. And the last place I worked was large enough that I worked exclusively in gaming, meaning in this case just servicing slot machines (performing payouts, repairs, bringing out drinks). Before that job it was a lot easier to overlook the effect that gaming machines have on society. Getting promoted to counting the money made it even worse, as I was able to see how much money we were taking out of the pockets of the regulars I'd gotten to know and (mostly) like. It was a lot.

Zag, I think I interview well, though it's hard to say for sure. I've been hired for every job for which I've interviewed, but I work in an industry where there is always something going, and where someone who is experienced and knowledgable is almost always going to get hired. HR people often comment that I am extremely "well-spoken", though. Bar work has trained me to be able to keep a smile on my face and to avoid getting too badly flustered (or at least to avoid showing it).

The one I'm now applying for is in an industry in which I've had no experience, though the ad specified that they were happy to take on people who were partway through their degree, and I know that it's a local firm that takes on cadets even when they're not actively looking for extra personnel - so I assume there is a place for someone with my lack of practical knowledge. I'd love for your or your wife's input on what kinds of things I should mention or highlight.

[Quailman]

Last week there was a story on national network news about west nile virus in Texas. They went on location to the airport about two miles from my house where the aerial spraying program for Harris County is based. That same day my wife called (I was out of town) to tell me there was a dead Bluejay in the back yard. Jays and Crows are the most susceptible birds. She hadn't made the connection, but we never have dead birds in the yard.

This is going to be a record year for the SC Johnson Company, makers of Off mosquito repellent.

[itisally]

I caught students in my class looking at porn today. Well no wonder they are 2 weeks behind on homework and failing. that is some expensive porn.
_________________
I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

The completely random firewall at work. When in the lab, we sometimes listen to Pandora. Half the time it is blocked for me, rarely for anyone else. Today I listened to one song, then got blocked, all while someone on the other end of the room was happily listening to her own channel. And the most likely result of bitching about it to IT is them getting their act in order. Then I still don't have music and pissed off coworkers.

[Jack_Ian]

IT people like puzzles.
Present the problem to them as a conundrum and challenge them to solve it.

[Zag]

His point was that they will "solve" it by figuring out why their firewall blocking isn't working all the time, like it's supposed to.

[Quailman]

How do you know it's working for your coworker? Do both of you listen with speakers? If so, maybe she has a connection in IT whom she periodically asks to bolck yours so it doesn't interfere with hers.

[Jack_Ian]

Ahh! That explains it.

Socially inept nerdy IT guy flexes IT muscles to impress female co-worker.

She repays him by winking at him once.

He converts that into a fantasy realm where he has rescued the fair damsel in distress and lives happily after.

You have no hope against the womanly wiles of this enchantress. Bring in an MP3 player.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

Bah. I'm a socially inept nerd and she's never winked at me. In my fantasy realm, the distress would be far more dire, my rescue far more heroic, and the ever after more happily, er, happy.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Latin.

The problem is I learned Greek in a reading format which is similar to how people learn their native language. It was a really good and easy experience. I assumed I would be equally good at Latin (and I am), but it's harder to integrate because the teacher is focusing on memorization.

Veniet.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 19 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Death Mage]

Primeval Titan has been banned in Commander/EDH. Green will never be the same.
_________________
* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
[YOUR AD HERE!]

[Trojan Horse]

Back to the cricket invasion.

I have a heater on a wall of my living room, and it has a vent on the bedroom side of the wall. That way, when I turn on the heater, both the living room and the bedroom warm up. Well, there's a cricket chirping just inside the bedroom vent. And the vent is acting like a speaker. I've never seen a cricket use this tactic before.

Getting woken up at 4AM is bad enough. What am I going to do tonight? Moving my bed into the living room is not going to help; while the cricket will be slightly less loud there, I'll still be able to hear it through the heater. And there's no way I'm going to spray my bug spray into the vent; I'll kill myself along with the cricket.

This is going to be a LONG weekend. Expect plenty of posts from me in the "Insomniac" thread.

[Courk]

Let's call him Jiminy.

[3iff]

Your heater has turned into a Trojan horse...oh, the irony!

[Trojan Horse]

Whew. What a relief.

I guess this cricket wasn't so smart after all. While I wasn't looking, it moved under my dresser and started chirping again.

And while moving a dresser is a pain, it's very doable.

There's now one less cricket in the world.

[courk*]

BUT HE WAS YOUR CONSCIENCE!

[groza528]

No big loss, if he was going to let his own murder slip...

[The Great Crep'er]

Speaking of bugs, went to take a piddle, finished, found a giant roach on my shoulder and immediately freaked out. Felt it crawl around my body before it finally fell off and Raid'd the little bugger before it could crawl away. To think it was just a few inches from my mouth. *shudder*

Bugs in general annoy me, if they don't have an immediately useful purpose for myself, like making honey or a good wall decoration.

[Beartalon]

I like children, I really do, but the couple across the hall do nOt know how to make them stop being loud. Slamming doors, running on this floor's hallway, swinging back and forth on the laundry room door which screams like nails on chalkboard are all in a day's work.

Last night they started a load of wash, the mother and all three kids, and by night I mean 4AM. One of them had unfortunately peed the bed, but really, you might try to instill some decorum that time of morning. Had I not been too warm to move and, um, relatively unclothed, I would have gone out to say something. The other grumpy bear guy at the other end of the hall did it for us all.

35 minutes later, they all trooped out to switch fabrics to the dryer and at 5:30, again to get their drying.

I left a pleasant but firm note on their door today. So far, the situation is unchanged.