Category: Crankypantsing

Crankypantsing, Pets

The Search Is On

Shelly

I’ve been trawling for a cat or kitten. I swore I wouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. There was a litter posted to Freecycle this morning. I emailed the woman, to ask how old they were. Five and a half weeks. FIVE AND A HALF WEEKS! That is way too young.

I replied, trying to be as tactful as possible, telling her that they shouldn’t be separated from their mamma until they’re at least 8 weeks old, and preferably 10-12 weeks old.

Sometimes, I just want to smack people upside the head. There are six kittens in the litter, which means that six people are going to end up with cats that weren’t properly socialized by their mother and littermates. That’s a recipe for disaster, or at the very least a giant pain in the ass.

Crankypantsing

Dear Freecycle People

Shelly

If you send me an email with the subject line stripped and nothing in the body but “Interested!” then I have absolutely no idea what on earth you are, indeed, “Interested!” in. Would you like a crappy-assed resin table with two mismatched resin chairs, or a laser printer from the paleolithic era? Not that it matters, because both items have been claimed, and I posted messages to that effect about three hours ago.

Reading is Fundamental.

Crankypantsing

I Am a Bad Person

Shelly

I’ve been waffling back and forth about calling the office to complain about the neighbors in No. 5. I’m really irritated by their complete disregard for other people, but at the same time, I’m not okay with being vindictive. I figure the folks in No. 5 have enough problems without me adding to them. I finally had enough on Friday, though. Every morning last week, the wife’s minivan was parked in the fire lane, and several nights in a row, the husband woke me up with his car stereo. I’m telling ya’, people, it’s all fun and games, until someone wakes me up!

So I called the office and tried to explain the problem. It’s kind of complicated, which is one of the reasons I’ve been waffling. The husband lost his license a couple of years ago, and so his car has been unregistered since then. It doesn’t even have plates anymore, so they park it right in front of their apartment, facing out. That way, you can’t tell it’s unregistered. Our lease says that all cars must be registered, and that you can only park one car in the front sections. If you’ve got more than one car, the second car must be parked in the middle section, so that you don’t hog all the good spots. So far, so good, except that the wife thinks she needs to park her car close to the apartment. And who can blame her? I prefer to park close, too! The difference is that, when all the front spaces are taken, I park in the middle, NOT IN THE FIRE LANE!

The easy solution would be to move the husband’s car to the center section, leaving a spot open for the wife’s minivan. They can’t do that, though, because then people will notice that the husband’s car is not registered. Oopsie! Even worse, the wife’s minivan has a handicapped hang-tag. I assume the management company would gladly give her a dedicated handicapped spot (they’ve done so for other tenants), only, they’d use the space the husband’s unregistered car is parked in. Oopsie again!

So, I tried to explain all of that to the office worker when I called on Friday. The property manager was on vacation, but she’s supposed to be back in the office today. It’ll be interesting to see this evening if the husband’s car has been tagged for towing.

Crankypantsing

Dyscalculia

Shelly

I joke about being bad at math (really, truly, spectacularly bad) and about being generally no good with numbers. Usually, it works against me, so on the rare occasion when it turns out in my favor, I like to savor the moment.

I’m in the process of setting up my old computer for my mom. Her ancient iMac is limping along on its last leg, and though my old desktop is not as spiffy as it could be, there’s a lot of good life left in it. Job #1 was upgrading the RAM. That turned out to be easier said than done. The first time I ordered it, I got the wrong kind and had to send it back (I read PC4200 as PC3200). The second time I ordered, I tried to be more careful, but when I got the shipping confirmation, I noticed that I’d ordered 240 pin RAM, instead of 184 pin. Yikes! It was too late to do anything about it, so I was resigned to sending yet another shipment back.

It arrived today, and I thought I would at least look at it, to see if it would fit. Guess what? I had originally written down the size incorrectly, so when I ordered the “incorrect” size, it was actually exactly what I needed.

Oops.

So now I’m in the process of uninstalling programs my mom doesn’t need and installing stuff she does. That, I should be able to manage without too many math errors, though I did have a moment of panic when my Windows license code didn’t work, because I’d transposed two numbers.

Crankypantsing

Adventures in Shopping

Shelly

I went to Target, looking for fold top sandwich bags, a wall mounted paper towel holder, and cheap, plastic food storage containers. Big fail! They had nothing but Ziploc baggies, nothing but counter top paper towel dispensers (what is the purpose of those?), and their plastic food storage containers were not cheap enough.

So I went next-door to Kmart. Still no fold top sandwich bags, but I got a great deal on Ziploc containers (two packages for $5 plus $1 off coupon for each). I also found a paper towel holder, but when I got home and took it out of the box, it was obvious that it had not only been used, but thoroughly abused. So now I have to take it back. Hrmf.

I did finally find baggies, at the grocery store. Third time’s a charm, yes?

Crankypantsing

“My Google Changed”

Shelly

I wonder sometimes how the people I work with manage to dress themselves in the mornings. Over the weekend, LIT pushed down an update for Firefox. No problem for those of us who use Firefox instead of IE, nor for those who are moderately clueful about software. And by moderately clueful, I mean, they know what a web browser is. Apparently some of my coworkers do not.

Now, I realize that there are plenty of folks who manage to find their way around a computer without overstuffing their brains with information they don’t really need to have on tap. So if I asked my mom what a web browser is, she is unlikely to know what the hell I’m talking about. That’s fine. My coworkers, though? We all had to go through a web 2.0 workshop, so they ought to bloody well know what a web browser is, right?

Twice now, I’ve had someone come to my cubicle to tell me, “My Google changed.” Now, I had no idea how to unpack that statement. What the hell were they talking about? Knowing about the Firefox update, I asked which web browser they were using. “What’s a web browser?” Uh-oh. I asked if they were using Firefox or IE, and coworker A said, “I’m using Google.” Um, no. I explained that they had to be using either Firefox or IE (there are no other options on our workstations). “Oh, definitely IE, then, because I never use Firefox.” (Any guesses as to which browser was open when I went to their workstations?) Lordy!

Apparently, when the new Firefox update was pushed down, it made itself king of the mountain (“All ur shortcuts R belong to us!”). Folks who usually use IE as the default browser now found that Firefox was the default. Some folks–including coworkers A and B–litter their desktops with shortcuts to websites, instead of bookmarking them. Because of the update, clicking on any of those shortcuts launched Firefox, not IE. Folks realized that things looked a little different, but couldn’t figure out why, so their explanation was that Google–which LIT has automatically set as the default homepage in both IE and Firefox–had changed.

If I wanted to hold people’s hands and help them sort out their lives, I’d work in tech support. But I don’t, so I don’t.

Crankypantsing

Not Cool Enough

Shelly

This was posted to BoingBoing Gadgets. I ended up with the very same computer, for exactly the same reasons. There’s the expected Windows-bashing in the comments thread over there, with the same asinine arguments:

  • Windows is too expensive (From people who think you should pay $2000 for a Mac vs. $700 for a PC.)
  • Your PC will be full of viruses in no time (Um, no, some Windows users are actually smart enough to operate anti-virus software.)
  • Macs are great for non-tech savvy people. No, wait, only non-tech savvy fools use Windows. M’kaythen!
  • Use Linux! (As if the OS–the cheapest part of the equation–were the sole reason for buying a PC, and besides, Windows Vista Home Premium only costs me $20 through my job. Twenty dollars vs. a free OS that none of my programs will work with? No, thanks.)
  • And how on earth has a company that sells just a handful of flavors of computer become the icon of hip, cool, diversity, when PCs come in a million different sizes, shapes, and prices?
Crankypantsing

Recycling Fail

Shelly

One of my coworkers has a bunch of recycling bins at her desk, in which people dump their paperboard, plastic, and aluminum. Aluminum cans have to have the pull tabs removed, because she saves those for Ronald McDonald House[1]. Plastic bottles must be a 1 or 2 and must have the lids removed. Paper board must have any plastic bits removed.

People, of course, being people, are bound to make recycling mistakes. Instead of just fixing them, this coworker hunts down the offender and explains to them, in excruciating detail–like they’re two year olds–just how they screwed up.

The result? I, for one, prefer not to get a lecture from her, so I don’t use her recycling bins. This is, I assume, not the result she’s aiming for.

Recycling: Ur doin it rong.
_______________________________
1. Ronald McDonald House, bless their hearts, decided to make it easy for people who saved up pull tabs for mythical kidney dialysis credits to recycle their tabs. So, RMH will take tabs, but they don’t get anything extra for them. Aluminum tabs get recycled just like cans, at the same rate. Why the hell can’t we just save cans for RMH, then, instead of pull tabs? RMH would get a lot more money out of the deal, then, and we wouldn’t have to screw around with removing tabs. Better yet, we wouldn’t get a visit from The Tab Police when we inevitably forget to remove the tabs.

Crankypantsing

That New Math

Shelly

I started a new cat sitting job on Saturday, so I stopped by the bank on my way home from the first visit to deposit the $125 check. I just checked my account, and for some unfathomable reason, the deposit is showing up as only $100. It must be that new math, right?

Hopefully the deposit amount will be corrected, because I really don’t want to have to mess with going over there and arguing with them.