What Grinds Your Gears? :)

[Leo656]

So to follow up on my issue, I was finally able to get someone on the phone today by going through the main Microsoft website rather than the Xbox Live Support website; the latter was what I was directed to go through, but as mentioned previously that got me nowhere. So by doing it the other way I finally got someone on the phone.

So the first person, I was on the phone with for about a half hour, but she had to transfer me to someone else. That time, the call ended up taking almost TWO HOURS, but we more or less seem to have resolved the issue. Hopefully.

Long story short, there's some kind of error on their end that a few other people are having but they have not been able to completely figure out yet, and lucky me, I'm the first one to have This Specific Version of the problem.

The game I tried to buy a few weeks ago, they were finally able to get me to download, but I had to jump through a few hoops to get there. Absolutely nothing they tried would let me download it to my Xbox 360, so they had me download it to my Xbox One after giving me a credit (since I'd technically already bought it a few weeks go; their information confirmed that the transaction went through but they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't actually put the game through, nor why my account was blocked from making purchases). Even then, I had to purchase the game on my laptop through the Microsoft website and direct them to apply it to my Xbox One; THAT finally worked, and once it was purchased I was able to download it to my Xbox 360 as well, so now I have it on both.

They couldn't explain exactly what the problem was, nor could they assure me that it won't continue to be a problem in the future. But they said that if it does happen, I should be able to do the same thing to resolve it, simply get the DLC using my laptop and all that. They also said that they *think* it's mostly a 360 problem, but that if I run into it using the Xbox One then the same work-around should resolve it.

I haven't tried to make any purchases since then, so I guess we'll see what happens. Hopefully no more issues.

[IndigoErth]

Have a tiny oak I intend on trying to make a bonsai and bought a legit bonsai pot for it some weeks ago. Think it's been having a rough time in the sun since it was recently put out, and yesterday noticed it seemed weirdly...loose. Decided today to go ahead and repot it and come to find the looseness is because it was somehow completely broken off from its roots.

Not a clue how that happened and the break doesn't look fresh. Maybe when I found it knocked over a bit ago (possibly the work of a squirrel?) but I wouldn't have thought it would have actually broken it. Though maybe the wind from Friday but hat seems too recent for a break that doesn't look new enough. I really don't want to think that someone may have done it on purpose, but it's rather hard to fathom how this even happened.

Poor little thing has been looking a little droopy (no wonder...), but still green (a little possible sun scald aside). Does have one thin little root I suspect it may have put out after the fact, since it's above the break unlike the rest, and the tree is still tiny and around/less than a year old, so maybe there is still some hope.

Just makes me quite sad that this somehow even happened.

Back inside and kept the roots in the old pot as well on the off chance that side decides to regrow should the rest give up... We shall see, I guess.



5/2 -- On the phone issue it seems there are others, also former Virgin Mobile customers, with the same complaints. I see them being replied to, but of course their staff never gave me answers and have stopped replying to me. Yeah, that's cute. Haven't gotten any new charges of that sort for a few days, so maybe they corrected something, but wish they'd actually tell me if they had.

[IndigoErth]

Today's grind is a story about how I kind of hate the entitled form of pedestrians who don't think their own safety and well being is any bit their responsibly, only yours.

Could have hit this stupid girl today. Went to turn into a grocery store parking lot, in an entrance lane that from the road angle the view is initially partly obscured by a bush at the start of the turn... so unexpectedly here was this stupid woman just walking right down the middle of entrance lane, in a very bad and dangerous spot for anyone to be on foot. It is not only an entrance into the parking lot but it is also a cut through to an adjacent road so cars go through there frequently.

You would think any normal person would have reacted. You'd think most would move over to protect their own life after realizing they are in a bad spot. This one? Nah. Didn't move, didn't react, didn't even look at my car. She just kept looking right past me, still walking right toward me in the middle. What is wrong with her exactly.

If she had at least LOOKED AT MY CAR and reacted like she realized this was a bad spot then fine, it's forgivable. But entitled people who act as if their well being is 100% YOUR responsibility, not theirs, kind of piss me off. Dangerous for her and quite rude to drivers who shouldn't have to risk another car hitting them because they have to suddenly stop because you are where you should not even be. I also don't want to have to peel them off the front of my car, thanks, or upset my own plans by trying to tend to them and call for help.

Here is a nice Google street image of a senior lady conveniently walking in the same damn spot as this girl today.



A senior with a walker I can sort of understand, albeit still problematic and dangerous... but notice there is a frigging SIDEWALK that even she isn't even attempting to use, or at least stay close to if the bush is blocking a portion of it. Nope, middle of the road it is.

But this able bodied dumbass today really has no excuse, unlike a senior who needs a flat surface for that walker. For you see... there is a rather small grassy embankment right between the parking lot and the road that people cross all the time because there is a commonly used bus stop right across from it on the other side of the road... or rather in between in the median.



This girl is lucky I did not run her over. Though if she ever gets herself hit doing this crap one day, well she worked hard to earn it. Clearly this one is looking for a Darwin award.

[Leo656]

"New Jersey Speed Bumps", we call 'em.

Seriously, ones like that are where we either pull over, or at least just slowly pull up next to them and be like, "The F*CK exactly do you think you're doing?" Shakes 'em up a bit but they gotta learn sometime, and if it ain't That Way it'll be The Hard Way.

[IMJ]

For all you know that was a veiled suicide attempt.

[Sage Ninja]

I had a guy friend ask me if it is homophobic to get offended if you get angry at someone for assuming you are gay? He said that because he is a male nurse this happens to him a lot. He got angry when someone he recently became friends with asked him if he could hook him up with his cousin and he was open to the idea until he was told his cousin was another dude. He said he got really annoyed and it became a fight where he got called homophobic for getting mad. But he said he is getting a little tired of people assuming he is gay because he is a male nurse. Personally I make it a point not to assume anyone's sexual orientation, especially not to make assumptions do to their occupation. I don't think anyone should do that. So I guess I want ask this question here too. Was he out of line to get pissed at this?

[Leo656]

Nah, I think he was pretty justified. It's not fair to make assumptions of a person based on career, although I will confess that certain vocations, like "nurse" or "nanny", unavoidably carry with them the stigma of being staffed by either women or gay dudes.

But yeah, stigma or not, and regardless of how prevalent (or even occasionally accurate) that stigma may be, it's still unfair to jump to assumptions of a person's sexual orientation over it.

Assumptions in general are kinda sh*tty. Like I once had a girl I was talking on the phone with ask me if I was fat after I mentioned that I play video games a lot. Like alright, sometimes that's true, but not in my case and not in a lot of other peoples' case, either.

As for what qualifies as "homophobic", that much is kind of a gray area that seems to vary by individual. A girl I was friends with tried to play a "thought game" with me one time, and asked me what I'd do if a gay guy grabbed my junk. I was a lot younger and saltier, then, so my default response was "I'd punch 'em out," and she was like "See? You're homophobic!" And I was like "Not really," and declared my opinion that if a guy grabbed a woman's breast unsolicited then she wouldn't be out of line in reacting the exact same way, that it wasn't the orientation of the "grabber" that was the issue but rather the unsolicited and overly-forward attempt at contact. She accused me of trying to skirt the issue and insisted that I was, indeed, homophobic, but I still kinda think she was just full of sh*t. Pretty sure I'm not.

But what is and isn't "homophobic" these days seems to mostly be an oft-changing and ultimately personal definition that varies by the individual.

[IndigoErth]

I've never been too fond of people wanting to play matchmaker to begin with, as if they assume they actually somehow know what really does it for you about a potential partner... but to also assume someone's orientation without proof? And based on their employment? Wow. No, I agree, that's quite insulting in general. I think jumping to those conclusions just leaps right over the "homophobic or not" part and doesn't even matter. Intrusive assumptions were made and it's rude to do that, that's all that matters, imo.

Not to mention the rudeness of making knee jerk reactions (i.e. yelling "phobic!") when someone doesn't agree with what you want to do... That idiot overstepped personal boundaries with someone they hardly know, so they were sort of asking for that argument.

I hope that other person who assumed things about male nurses learned something.




Grind... people who leave things to nearly last minute that should have been scheduled far enough in advance. I hate anything being last minute.

Since it's the week after a major card related holiday, one of the biggest selling holidays in fact, that means a heck of a lot of work changing everything over to the next upcoming season. (Hence my silence here.) Yesterday should have been easier since all my big ones were done Monday through Thursday and Friday was just going to be my "normal" post office and Walmart visits. Worn out from the rest of the week and was looking forward to an easier day...

But nah. After 8:30pm Thursday night, while still at one of my stores (though cleaning up and close to leaving) my supervisor messages me and asks me if I could cover another store. Which would have to be the next day.

And why? Because it was her son's college graduation...

She's still new to me, having taken over this zone early this year and only met her once so far... and she's nice... but wtf, a graduation? Woman you knew that was coming up. We should have scheduled this a week and a half ago.

I do feel for her as she's covering two areas right now and we're short on people, so she's got to cover most of those vacancies herself, on top of personal family things after a recent fire in their garage that injured her husband, but still... I could have been asked to cover an extra sooner than 8:30 the night before. She's lucky I was still at it or I might not even have gotten her message until the next morning.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Nah, I think he was pretty justified. It's not fair to make assumptions of a person based on career, although I will confess that certain vocations, like "nurse" or "nanny", unavoidably carry with them the stigma of being staffed by either women or gay dudes.

But yeah, stigma or not, and regardless of how prevalent (or even occasionally accurate) that stigma may be, it's still unfair to jump to assumptions of a person's sexual orientation over it.

Assumptions in general are kinda sh*tty. Like I once had a girl I was talking on the phone with ask me if I was fat after I mentioned that I play video games a lot. Like alright, sometimes that's true, but not in my case and not in a lot of other peoples' case, either.

As for what qualifies as "homophobic", that much is kind of a gray area that seems to vary by individual. A girl I was friends with tried to play a "thought game" with me one time, and asked me what I'd do if a gay guy grabbed my junk. I was a lot younger and saltier, then, so my default response was "I'd punch 'em out," and she was like "See? You're homophobic!" And I was like "Not really," and declared my opinion that if a guy grabbed a woman's breast unsolicited then she wouldn't be out of line in reacting the exact same way, that it wasn't the orientation of the "grabber" that was the issue but rather the unsolicited and overly-forward attempt at contact. She accused me of trying to skirt the issue and insisted that I was, indeed, homophobic, but I still kinda think she was just full of sh*t. Pretty sure I'm not.

But what is and isn't "homophobic" these days seems to mostly be an oft-changing and ultimately personal definition that varies by the individual.

Kinda wish you got a girl to roughly grab her ass, like give that cheek a firm squeeze, and when she instinctively shoves her off like 'HEY WTF?!' You can casually be there and say "hey, let's not get all homophobic now'. Then give her that Kevin Nash 'see what I mean' eyebrow.

[Vegita-San]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Kinda wish you got a girl to roughly grab her ass, like give that cheek a firm squeeze, and when she instinctively shoves her off like 'HEY WTF?!' You can casually be there and say "hey, let's not get all homophobic now'. Then give her that Kevin Nash 'see what I mean' eyebrow.

if someone is crazy enough to think everything is homophobic, then even an 'example' of why it's not, pointed out and spelled out wouldn't help.

personally, I don't think 'trans' is a thing...and more of a mental issue or a genetic one that can be corrected with meds...rather than simply 'a feeling'. that would make me extremely homophobic and un educated to some. and then they'd demand i'd use pronouns to prove otherwise.. rather than simply my opinion on a complicated matter.

so yeah, I agree. what is or isn't basically is in the eye of the beholder these days.

[frank_one]

Assumption based on stereotypes are never a good thing. You are a nurse? You are gay. You wear glasses? You are a nerd. You still care about ninja turtles at 35? You are a man-child who spends lots of money on toys. People who base their opinions only on stereotypes are gonna be very disappointed at some point in their life. It's good to have your own opinions but not all opinions are worth listening.

[IndigoErth]

To throw one out there based on job assumptions...

At the new hire orientation for my previous employer it was just a handful of women there. Mostly a couple for my position on the floor and some new cashiers, the usual sort of store jobs and those that would be assumed that women would be doing.

However, there was one young woman, and the only black new hire there, who was being hired as a new mechanic in the auto center. Needless to say I think most of us were surprised, but nothing seemed "masculine" about her or anything, she just seemed like a regular lady...who happened to know about cars. Only assumption I ever made was that this is a girl breaking the mold a bit, so go her.

The world needs female mechanics who might relate more to female customers just as much as male nurses are beneficial for their own strengths (including in the literal sense of heavy patients).

Discouraging people from the work by assuming and pushing a message that people like them don't or shouldn't be doing it will only hurt the world in the long run...



5/22 -- Well damn... Always hate the sound of chainsaws and wondering what tree is being killed now, and resent anyone who takes down a healthy one. But didn't expect it to be the big oldie in another yard behind us. The canopy has looked perfectly fine, no signs of it doing poorly from this perspective, so I'm really surprised to see this happening. I hope it's only because something is wrong with it that we can't see from here, because that's just too sad to lose another of the older ones. The skyline is just going to look so wrong now.

[Leo656]

Y'know what really chaps my ass? Incomplete action figure checklists.

So "news flash", I buy a lot of toys (and movies, and video games, and comics, etc. etc.). For the sake of organization, as well as to ensure I don't accidentally double-dip things, I keep detailed checklists on both what I own as well as what I'm looking to buy.

Now, some action figure lines are quite extensive, and there are very few that I even hope or plan to ever "complete". There's always variants, chase figures, exclusives, and so on, to ensure that I'll never have a full run of anything, but that doesn't discourage me since I just buy what I like, anyway. But even then, I like to have a full list of what exists within a line so I can plan my purchases accordingly.

Problem is, too often no matter WHAT resources I use, I end up with an incomplete checklist on even some of the "smaller" and more manageable lines I collect. I generally use a combination of Figure Realm and Wikipedia (since one usually fills in most of the gaps from the other, and there are ALWAYS gaps either way). But even then, far too often I discover figures (or box sets) that I never knew about, and absolutely need to buy for my collection, yet they're not listed in any of my resources and I only end up discovering them when buying something else and then eBay gives me a "Recommended Item" notification.

This happens far too often for as much time I spend researching and checklisting. Like I discovered a whole bunch of "DC Infinite Heroes" multi-packs (from three-packs of figures all the way up to 8-packs) on eBay that weren't listed on any of the "official and comprehensive" online resources I use. And just today, after spending days updating my Mattel "DC Universe Classics" checklist wave-by-wave (including the build-a-figures), I came across an entire Wave I didn't even know existed, completely by accident - the Target-exclusive "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" Wave. A loose Silver Banshee just happened to show up under "Recommended", and I'm like "I've been doing this list for two days, I don't remember Silver Banshee on it", then a Google search smartened me up about it with an article from friggin' 2009. So I picked up a couple of 'em, but I might never have known about them if not for happenstance.

Just annoying, is all.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

My gear grind is having to work an extra day during a holiday weekend, just because we had 11 people who requested off either for the holiday or for graduation, or both, and THEN having a raging migraine all day on the ONE day I still had off! And this on the weekend of our 21st anniversary, which meant that not only did I not get much of anything done, but couldn't even really enjoy our anniversary. The dinner was good, but I could barely even eat since my stomach was rolling from the dizziness brought on by the migraine.

[Autbot_Benz]

Bought a Marvel Legends 2 pack from Ebay same day Ebay removes listing of the item claiming concern with seller. Its been 2 days since I ordered it no response from seller item isn't shipped. So I think I got hoodwinked. Gotta wait till Saturday to get a refund though.

I hate scammy ebay sellers.

[Jephael]

So I got this sorta friend at work who's a manager. For privacy reasons I'll call him Stretch. Anyways Stretch is a good 15 years younger than me, stands about 6 feet tall, loves chatting with everybody and sharing his life stories, but man is the guy full of himself! I can never get a word in edgewise. Whenever I try to relate to him, like talking about dating issues or a favorite TV program, he's never that interested in my personal experiences or point of view on things, and it just frustrates the living hell outta me! He used to be cool and we would chat all the time over things, but he's become a bit of a d*ck as of late. Bums me out when people pull that 180 nonsense, but what're you gonna do?

[IndigoErth]

That's weird if he didn't used to be that way and somehow became that full of himself. Maybe someone someday will tell him he isn't as interesting as he thinks. lol Or he'll figure it out when he realizes his audience is gone.



Grind... Sad to have just learned that the reason I can't find the Cheese Nips crackers is because they were discontinued last year. (Of course 2020 would kill that too.) Was starting to worry that was the case, but I mostly figured my stores were just once again failing to carry something. Why would Nabisco even do that... I love Cheez-its as well because the flavors of the two brands are different and also really liked the tangy tone of Cheese Nips

[MsMarvelDuckie]

My latest gear grind is health related. So, this past week I've been having some bad dizzy spells with headaches, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, and fatigue for three days, so Friday I checked my bo, which was 159/101 (within 10 minutes of waking up) so I called in from work and went with Mr D on the bus to his treatment so I could go to the Dr across the street. Had some labs done, and an ekg, everything came back normal, but they want me to keep a blood pressure log for the next couple of weeks. It has been consistently over 120/80 every time I've checked it since Friday. In the past, I've always run below 120 unless doing strenuous exercise. So this is new- and a little worrisome.

[IndigoErth]

Sorry to hear that, hope it's just a fluke and clears up on it's own. Could lack of sleep (like you mentioned in another tread) have anything to do with it? I know that can supposedly impact blood pressure.




Grind... Just how dumb are people? I've got a few Father's Day cards at a couple of my stores that are more or less a pop-up type of "card" that open up into some kind of thingy that can be displayed. They're packaged in a cardboard envelop along with an oversized envelop that fits them... so of course people love to open these things, pull the contents out, and be inconsiderate and not put it back the way they found it.

There are a few designs for this holiday, though just one has a display example in the store on a little shelf in front of them, so of course some genius opens THAT one, which is already sitting right in front of their face. There's always at least one nitwit that does this. And no, of course they couldn't be bothered to put it back in the envelope, they just tossed it aside and made me waste more of my limited time. Plus, most people aren't going to buy one that's opened like that and pulled apart, and most weeks I'm only there one day, so they also stupidly impact the ability for it to even sell.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Highly doubtful. If it was just lack of sleep, I'd have been having this issue LOOOONG ago. I have always been a light/short type of sleeper. Seriously, my whole life I've been a night owl, as well as someone who would wake up if a fly farted in the room. My own personal theory is menopause. Ever since my cycle started revving faster, the migraines and other symptoms have escalated, particularly hit flashes, night sweats, and bloating/gas issues. This just seems to be another lovely side effect. And apparently, a fairly common one. Seems hormonal changes, especially lower levels of progesterone, can cause high bp, which then causes other problems. So I'm kind of leaning toward "Mother Nature finally just decided to throw the whole damn book at me for funsies". Because why the heck not.