Random Thoughts That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Go Here

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Kodos

A couple is two; a few is three.

What if I've had a couple of drinks, but a few too many? Reconcile that.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by AlexB

Sorry it had to come out this way, but make that twice...

It's possible you're my dad, ya know.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

Given the types of roles she's known for, I might be more worried about the how.

Show some respect for the odd looking lady I'm strangely attracted to.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

What if I've had a couple of drinks, but a few too many? Reconcile that.

Sounds like you are a lightweight!

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I use the term "couple" a lot. As in, "I will take a couple of salt packets please" or "they are down by a couple runs."

To me, it is very clear what a couple means. It means two. Consider a romantic couple, probably the most common usage of the term. In that context, a couple is two people.

This always seems clear to me, and I use it that way.

But almost every time now, when I say I want a couple somethings or use couple to replace some version of two of something, I get confused looks and people asking me "how many?" or just handing me three, four or more of whatever it is. It's mostly younger people, I think.

Did I miss something? Did the definition of couple change?

It's because all of those people you've asked for a couple from have had someone else ask for a couple of something and then ask for more or get upset when they only get two.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I am too f'n old for this shit.

And by "this shit" I mean pulling all-nighters to get work crap out the door.

Went to bed around 10p Tues,thinking I'd get an early start on Wed.
Instead, woke up four times between 200 & 330a, when I finally gave up, got up, and started on this tedious crap.

So that was 330 Wednesday morning. It's now just short of 6am Thursday (I think), I've got maybe 3 more hours to go before it's done. Fuck a second wind, I'm on the wrong side of about my fifth. Tried twice to grab at least an hour nap or so in the past 26 hours, both times calls I needed to take interrupted that plan.

I repeat, I am too fucking old for this shit. I feel like I'm damned near dead.

[CrescentMoonie]

Billy Bob Thornton being a cousin of Terry (and Dory) Funk might be the most believable surprising thing I've learned.

[Easy Mac]

I'd like to apologize to America. I feel the past 2 weeks were mostly my fault.

I won a trip to Thailand and finally took it from the 5th through the 12th. Immediately prior or during my trip the following happened:

The Cubs won the World Series (my most hated baseball team).
Trump won the presidency (my most hated candidate).
US lost to Mexico (my most hated national team).

Needless to say, too many good vibes went into my trip, so the world had to balance things out for me. So again, I apologize for everything that has happened since the start of November.

[Coffee Warlord]

If one of those three events was mostly your fault, I'd like to thank you for going on vacation, Mac.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

If one of those three events was mostly your fault, I'd like to thank you for going on vacation, Mac.

Ooooh, I want to guess. I assume its the same one my Illinois native mother loves... although she is Mexican...

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Show some respect for the odd looking lady I'm strangely attracted to.

I have a great deal of respect for her.

.
.
.
Fear's a type of respect, right?

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by AlexB

Sorry it had to come out this way, but make that twice...

this deserves way more love

[Chief Rum]

You know, outside of you're going to prison for a long long time violent criminal, there aren't many worse human beings than the asshole who drops chewed up gum in a urinal, especially a waterless one.

[Critch]

I had a days vacation yesterday (well deserved, even if I do say so myself) so we went to Barnes and Noble in the afternoon to avoid any calls at home from work.

Picked up "Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game" to flick through with my venti latte, skimmed milk obviously. Interesting stuff, I've always been a bit of a soccer numbers geek, but $25 is more than I'd like to pay for a book, or pretty much anything else not essential. Wifey suggested using my phone and checking Amazon.com. $19. But then I noticed the kindle version was $1.99.

So now I have the book on my kindle, and I feel the happy glow of a minor criminal after a successful heist. I'm assuming the $1.99 is a mistake, but it's all mine now.

[CrescentMoonie]

Originally Posted by Critch

I had a days vacation yesterday (well deserved, even if I do say so myself) so we went to Barnes and Noble in the afternoon to avoid any calls at home from work.

Picked up "Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game" to flick through with my venti latte, skimmed milk obviously. Interesting stuff, I've always been a bit of a soccer numbers geek, but $25 is more than I'd like to pay for a book, or pretty much anything else not essential. Wifey suggested using my phone and checking Amazon.com. $19. But then I noticed the kindle version was $1.99.

So now I have the book on my kindle, and I feel the happy glow of a minor criminal after a successful heist. I'm assuming the $1.99 is a mistake, but it's all mine now.

Depends on the publisher and the age of the book. Kindle prices are usually only a few dollars less, at first, but eventually they do bottom out. It could just be a temporary price as Amazon occasionally does that with some Kindle books. Even better is Prime Reading, where you download a book, read it, and then remove it from your device for another book. That's free with a Prime membership.

[CrescentMoonie]

Whoever came up with the idea of Lindor truffles deserves the Nobel Prize for dramatically improving things that were already great.

[JonInMiddleGA]

In case you wondered ...

'Ain't No Party': Examining the Origins of a Ubiquitous Phrase - The Atlantic

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

In case you wondered ...

'Ain't No Party': Examining the Origins of a Ubiquitous Phrase - The Atlantic

I don't buy that. Aaaand 5 minutes of fact checking reveals that Master P released a song called "No Limit Party" in Mar. 1994, a year and a half before that Coolio record....and I surely wouldn't bet on Master P originating jack-shit either.

The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me - Wikipedia

[thesloppy]

..and here's Vanilla Ice using the phrase in '92.

Vanilla Ice - Ice man party live 1992 - YouTube

Nice job, Atlantic....it does make me wonder who actually was the first to use the phrase, but I wouldn't be surprised if the origin was 15 years before that Coolio song.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Can't let a black man have nothin', can we?

and and other assorted emoticons

[thesloppy]

Heh. Vanilla Ice, Coolio, and Master P is one hell of a motley rap crew....I wouldn't necessarily want to go on record attributing an original thought to any one of those three. I swear I also remember Snoop and/or Dre using "Ain't no party" in the days of 'The Chronic'....which might point towards the phrase being invented by George Clinton, just like everything else on that record.

[sabotai]

We want the funk! Give up the funk!

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by sabotai

We want the funk! Give up the funk!

[Suicane75]

My mom said Bootsy Collins.

[Suicane75]

But that's her answer to everything.

[thesloppy]

YABBA DABBA DOOZA BUBBA, BOOTZILLA IS HERE!

[Coffee Warlord]

I have officially sold my soul to Google's Project Fi.

Which means I've pried myself away from Verizon! Huzzah!

[PilotMan]

When I hear about the Vive, all I can think about is a sex toy? Why is Steam selling a sex toy?

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

When I hear about the Vive, all I can think about is a sex toy? Why is Steam selling a sex toy?

With a Steam backlog like mine, who has time for meaningful human companionship?

[Easy Mac]

Marital rant:

My wife borrowed the key card for my work's parking garage yesterday, as it's right next to the sports arena in town. She took my daughter to a hockey game with some school friends.

Evidently, when she got home she decided to place the keycard on the outside of my card wedged into the corner of the driver's side window. She had keys for my car on her keychain.

I obviously forget when I take the car to the store last night, and then I get to work this morning and remember that, oh yeah, she said something about the window and the keycard. I thought she meant she slipped it in through the window or something. I search all over the car and can't find it.

I call to ask her about it and I get berated about how she's busy at work and where she left it.

I have to ask, in what world does it make sense to leave the keycard sitting on the outside part of a car, when you have keys to open the car, or could just bring it inside and sit it on my keys or wallet?

Now I'm at work being charged a dollar by the hour, and will have to drive 1/2 home at lunch so that I can search the garage. Hopefully its still in there and didn't randomly hang on for a while when I went to the store and just fall off on some street.

[Suicane75]

Diagnosis Murder, with special guest star Bo Jackson. Playing a nanny.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

Marital rant:

I actually read this at least three times, thinking there HAD to be SOME sort of logic to what she did.

Nope.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I actually read this at least three times, thinking there HAD to be SOME sort of logic to what she did.

Nope.

She said she thought I would see it. I have to assume this means my wife has never actually observed me for the past 15 years. I did get a sorry about the card though, so that's a positive step.

The good news is, I didn't find the card in the garage.

How is that good news you say? Because the bad news is I have to buy a new card for $25.

So positive, we saved $5 for parking for the hockey game. Negative, we had to buy a new keycard for $25.

I also walked around the neighborhood yesterday in the pouring rain retracing my driving steps. Decided not to walk along the four lane road without a sidewalk that leads to the grocery store.

[AENeuman]

What has happened to the Post Office? Have they gone all sub/private contracts?

We regularly get our often wrong mail delivered after 8pm. Last night they delivered a package at 11:30pm, ringing the doorbell twice!

If this keeps up I'm going to pull a Kramer and cancel my mail

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

She said she thought I would see it. I have to assume this means my wife has never actually observed me for the past 15 years. I did get a sorry about the card though, so that's a positive step.

The good news is, I didn't find the card in the garage.

How is that good news you say? Because the bad news is I have to buy a new card for $25.

So positive, we saved $5 for parking for the hockey game. Negative, we had to buy a new keycard for $25.

I also walked around the neighborhood yesterday in the pouring rain retracing my driving steps. Decided not to walk along the four lane road without a sidewalk that leads to the grocery store.

A lot of guys would happily sign up for a wife that only costs them $20/day.

[PilotMan]

For $25, there are bigger things worth hanging a marriage on. Hey, you got a card.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

What has happened to the Post Office? Have they gone all sub/private contracts?

We regularly get our often wrong mail delivered after 8pm. Last night they delivered a package at 11:30pm, ringing the doorbell twice!

Those late deliveries seem to have become more frequent ever since they starting delivering ground shipments for other carriers (like FedEx).

Ours from sometime yesterday was delivered ... left on the front porch, in the rain. Top notch work.

[CrescentMoonie]

Originally Posted by AENeuman

What has happened to the Post Office? Have they gone all sub/private contracts?

We regularly get our often wrong mail delivered after 8pm. Last night they delivered a package at 11:30pm, ringing the doorbell twice!

If this keeps up I'm going to pull a Kramer and cancel my mail

I've got an old college friend who took a rural PO job in Montana. It was working the desk, not deliveries, but he decided he didn't like it after a month or so and stopped showing up. He's been working at a little hardware store he opened months ago and yet he still gets his PO pay deposited into his account every two weeks. He hasn't heard a word from anyone about not showing up and hasn't gotten any indication that his pay will be stopped anytime soon. It seems like a rather inefficient operation.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

I've got an old college friend who took a rural PO job in Montana. It was working the desk, not deliveries, but he decided he didn't like it after a month or so and stopped showing up. He's been working at a little hardware store he opened months ago and yet he still gets his PO pay deposited into his account every two weeks. He hasn't heard a word from anyone about not showing up and hasn't gotten any indication that his pay will be stopped anytime soon. It seems like a rather inefficient operation.

I would be careful if I were your friend. They will discover that at some point and expect him to repay it. I have even heard it considered theft if he receives it knowing he hasn't earned the money and doesn't immediately return it. Charges might be filed against him.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

I've got an old college friend who took a rural PO job in Montana. It was working the desk, not deliveries, but he decided he didn't like it after a month or so and stopped showing up. He's been working at a little hardware store he opened months ago and yet he still gets his PO pay deposited into his account every two weeks. He hasn't heard a word from anyone about not showing up and hasn't gotten any indication that his pay will be stopped anytime soon. It seems like a rather inefficient operation.

I have a friend who started carrying mail a couple years ago here in Portland. Here in PDX the problems are pretty easy to diagnose, as there's just lots of holiday mail and many of the local PO's are also currently understaffed.

It does sound like an organization that is rife with unfettered bureaucracy, though. He described to me that every day, every manager of every single post-office in the city meet up downtown with their superiors, and every single day they have a discussion similar to the police captains in "The Wire": "These numbers aren't good enough!" "There's no excuse for why these numbers are so low!" "Don't come back to this meeting with numbers this low ever again!"...but they don't ever discuss or change any policies or actionable ideas, they just have a one-way discussion about the unsuitable numbers EVERY GODDAMN DAY.

[CrescentMoonie]

Yeah, I doubt my friend would care if the government did come after him. The job never made sense as he's definitely become Big Brother is out to get you, Montana mountain hideout prepper type.

I'm not sure the last time I actually shipped anything through the post office, so I'm not really aware of how efficient they are.

[Easy Mac]

So he's anti government, while getting money from the government for nothing. Makes sense.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

getting money from the government for nothing

Probably gets his chicks for free, too...

[CrescentMoonie]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

So he's anti government, while getting money from the government for nothing. Makes sense.

Yeah. Logical consistency has never been his strong point.

[CU Tiger]

[digamma]

No it isn't. It's an independent federal agency established by the Constitution.

[molson]

It's kind of crazy that I can hire somebody to do $2,300 of work in my house and they just do it before I pay anything. I'm sure they could small claim me if I didn't pay, but that would take time and money and there's no guarantee they'd ever get it from me. I do know solo practice lawyers who tell me how hard it is to collect money, and that if only they could get paid for everything they did, they'd be rich. I wonder what % of various home service outfits lose out on just from deadbeats that don't pay. CU Tiger may know that.

Same with restaurants. I could get a $200 meal in town, and pretty easily just walk out. I've heard of a few theft of services-type prosecutions in those scenarios, but if I wore a vague disguise and was somewhere maybe far from where I live, I'd probably get away with it.

There's a lot of trust in our society.

[cuervo72]

Hey, if it works...

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by molson

It's kind of crazy that I can hire somebody to do $2,300 of work in my house and they just do it before I pay anything. I'm sure they could small claim me if I didn't pay, but that would take time and money and there's no guarantee they'd ever get it from me. I do know solo practice lawyers who tell me how hard it is to collect money, and that if only they could get paid for everything they did, they'd be rich. I wonder what % of various home service outfits lose out on just from deadbeats that don't pay. CU Tiger may know that.

Same with restaurants. I could get a $200 meal in town, and pretty easily just walk out. I've heard of a few theft of services-type prosecutions in those scenarios, but if I wore a vague disguise and was somewhere maybe far from where I live, I'd probably get away with it.

There's a lot of trust in our society.

If have a written contact and you don't pay me as a licensed contractor, I can lien your house and then foreclose on you. I'd gladly take ownership of your home for $2,300 and you still are responsible for your mortgage... hg course the mortgage company would buy me out... it if they didn't...

[molson]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

If have a written contact and you don't pay me as a licensed contractor, I can lien your house and then foreclose on you. I'd gladly take ownership of your home for $2,300 and you still are responsible for your mortgage... hg course the mortgage company would buy me out... it if they didn't...

Did that ever happen?

I figure you can probably do an eyeball test and know who's a potential problem customer.