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Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)


Banshee

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Yep, they have to go. It's right outside my office window and I'm worried it'll do damage to my ceiling as it expands. 

I've never had a wasp sting, but knowing how I usually react to insect bites I could well be allergic. I got a sand flea bite a couple of years ago and my entire thigh swelled up, I should probably get tested. Anyway, yea, I can't open the window without getting a room full of flying devils - ours seem to like chasing people. So it's nasty to think about, but bye bye waspies. 

Do wasps eat grubs?! I thought they just ate nectar. 

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Sounds like you might have something akin to our yellowjackets, which are very fond of sugar.  It can be dangerous to walk around an orchard where half-rotten fruit is lying on the ground, or to take a drink from a can of soda-pop that's been sitting outside, open, for any length of time.

Fortunately (*knock on wood*) our house seems to attract mostly paper wasps and mud-daubers.

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Not to make you uncomfortable. My friend was stung by a wasp and puss enough to fill a chicken egg had to be removed from the swollen leg. The wasp was hidden in his shoe and attacked when he tried to wear it. According to him, he didn't see nest around (geez, could be in his roof?)

On the other hand, there is a big wasp nest just outside my office, along the path I'm walking everyday. Yet, they don't seem to be aggressive or actively invading our space. But of course I keep an eyeball on them everytime I pass.

 

Anyway, soon I'd be left behind by technology. Not sure if I told this story before.

So, one day during work meeting I was trying to take a picture of something but couldn't, because my phone screen was all green. I tried to on and off the camera and even restart my phone, but it didn't work. I asked one person next to me, he also couldn't figure out why.

Anyway, it was a whole day meeting, during the day, there was a time when it went back to normal but on the afternoon it switched back to green. Anyway, i just asked someone else to take the picture and send it to me without wasting too much time trying to find out the problem although I did check all the settings and it seemed fine.

It remained a mystery for couple of days and I didn't give a lot of thoughts since it's already went back to normal after that day.

Then one day, I twirled the phone absentmindedly, and bam, solved the case in one second. Sweet fancy moses.

So you see, I belong to those that some would call paranoid (it's not paranoid if they are out to get you :P) . I use my back camera very often for personal and work purposes, but I had never used my front camera, which is mainly meant for selfie, I had never taken any selfies. And I put those funny stickers on laptop camera and this front camera because I never use them anyway. The one on laptop stays splendidly, but the sticker on my phone kept falling off so most time I switch to other mode of cover, like band-aid XD and yes, green masking tape I normally use for work. I must had accidentally press the button that flip my back camera to the front multiple times that day. So yah. Mystery solved. One second!!! Better than Sherl's SIB eight second eh.. unless you count those passing days and frigging obvious answer in front of my face all the time... :D

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I wish someone could explain why my iPod suddenly won't play on my car stereo … again. This happened once before, I tried every setting I could think of, even took the iPod to a repair shop … nothing worked. The radio and CD player were fine, but no sound would come out when I plugged in the iPod. Finally gave up and did without for about 6 maddening months … and suddenly it started working again. For about 6 months. The other day the blamed thing went out again. Is this a seasonal thing? Grrrrr.

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Hm, can't help with that. I have an adapter that plays my iPod through the radio, maybe you could get one of those? Mine only cost a couple of quid.

My car battery was dead again this morning, no idea WTF is going on there. Luckily I have my portable jump starter which I now know works perfectly. 

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4 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

My car battery was dead again this morning, no idea WTF is going on there.

Had it been working OK since the last time this happened?

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Yep. It's really weird, was driving around in it fine on Saturday, got in today, so dead I couldn't even unlock it with the key fob. 

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Living the lights on could be the culprit? it would drain the battery.

 

I realize that half of my time at work is trying to explain things in very plain way so that others understand. Well, it's true they have different skill background, but most of the things are general enough that sometimes I fell like I am drawing diagram for primary school kids. Sometimes the idea they voice out are so ridiculous that I can't fathom why they thought it's worth saying on the first place. For example, when we try to simplify things, they suggest something so over the top, impractical and not feasible that should be obvious miles away. It drives me nuts because I waste a lot of time instead of doing actual work. Not sure if I have to be grateful or frustrated, because maybe they don't need me that much if they understand everything, but pretty sure trying to explain things they should know that much is not in my job scope.

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Maybe you're too good at it? If you weren't, they wouldn't come to you for explanations. Hint hint. :smile:

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I wish that is the case. But no, many others seem to understand fine enough. But these couple of people, that coincidentally I have to work with most of the time, need much extra efforts to lay everything for them. And they are not dumb people, they are smarter than average, I would say. I think. And when I decided to let them and just explain in general way, which should be clear enough (it is!), they act like they understand and then screw up things. I'd rather that they ask!

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I've been converting one of my spare rooms into an office ready to start studying when term starts in October. I love my new desk, it's the width of the room, I always wanted a huge desk! I'm now just putting up some inspiring prints so that when I'm stressed and wondering why the hell I'm putting myself through so much work I can look at them and remember. I have a poster that was bought from a Greenpeace stand almost thirty years ago and has been well loved ever since - from being on loads of walls the corners are a big raggedy, there is a rip at the bottom, it's in a sorry state and also a bit small. I tracked down and emailed the artist to see if he did prints, I wasn't hopeful but he said he could get one ordered for me, which wouldn't be cheap but would be doable. I knew I wanted it but after discovering the wasps nest I thought I'd better pay for that first. Anyway, after researching it turns out the wasps will die off on their own in a month or so, so having had a refund back from pest control I emailed the artist to buy my print... and he hasn't answered. So annoying! I'm literally saying 'send me a Paypal invoice and I'll pay' and nada. I'm assuming he's just taking his time, but you think he'd jump on the chance to be paid, I made my living as an artist for a few years and I know how unreliable pay can be. 

 

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I hear mice scittering about in my ceiling again.  I think one of them is bringing a seed or nut to its nest, because I heard something else rolling around up there.  I've been trying to keep these mice out all year, unsuccessfully.

 

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Are you going to school, Pseud?  What are you studying?

 

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Yup, decided I'm sick of working dead end jobs and I'm not willing to do it for the next thirty years. So I'll still be working full time and studying for an environmental science degree part time. 

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That's great news, best of luck to you!  What would you like to do with your degree?

I'm at a similar spot in my life right now.  Somehow I got it into my head that starting a new career in IT would be a good idea, because I need to make more money, and that's currently where the money's at.  So I've been back in school part time, earning a technical degree.  There's only one problem: I hate it, and I suck at it.  (I guess that's two problems, isn't it?)  Apparently I have no aptitude for tech, which is a bummer, because I paid a pretty penny for this degree.  I'm trying to decide what to do now, feeling a bit demoralized.

 

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I want to get into conservation, with cetaceans ideally. Luckily this is one of the degrees that is government approved, they want to get more people trained in science, so I *should* be able to get a grant to cover my fees, I've got my fingers crossed whilst I'm waiting for my funding application to go through. 

That's not good if you hate it, is there anything you can transfer to? I'm not sure about with you, but here you can sometimes transfer credits onto another course if it's still related. 

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Ooooo interesting!  I've always had an interest in that sort of thing myself, and conservation is something I really care about.  I studied a lot of the sciences in school, but after a certain point the required math courses started to trip me up.  Math is my weakest subject, and after Calculus I, Statistics I, and Trig I, it gets too difficult for me to keep up.  Sometimes I have to repeat courses, and that's more $$ and time down the drain.  (I was just one course away from a Bachelor of Science instead of a Bachelor of Arts, dagnabbit.)  So I just study science for fun on my own time, without all the unnecessary math, lol.

As for my tech degree, I can't transfer any credits.  But I'm not even sure what I'd transfer to, if I could.  If I were to pursue a different degree in the future, it'd be a Master's or PhD, and they don't normally accept many (if any) transfer credits.  I've always wanted to get my PhD, but the job market doesn't look too kindly on PhD's these days (all they see is an expensive employee), so career-wise it wouldn't be the smartest move.  In any case, first I need to figure out what I can/want to/can afford to do.  Currently all the good jobs are in STEM, med, or finance/sales/business; which, unfortunately, are all fields that I don't belong in, lol.  Most of my best skills and strengths are in dying fields, or fields that really don't pay a living wage, or come with some insurmountable complication.  It's frustrating.  :bemused:   I have to figure something out, though.

 

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By the way, if you ever need an online study buddy, or just someone to rant to and remind you how smart you are, let me know.  :happy: 

 

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At least you know what you're *not* suited for, and that's very important.

A friend of mine finished an entire master's degree in oceanography.  His class celebrated by taking a dinner cruise out into the open ocean.  And that's when he found out that he gets horribly, violently seasick.  :(

So he went into computers, of course.  Maybe you could transfer to oceanography. ;)

 

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1 hour ago, Artemis said:

By the way, if you ever need an online study buddy, or just someone to rant to and remind you how smart you are, let me know.  :happy: 

 

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll be needing to rant a fair bit after a few weeks of no free time!

I hate maths too, but I passed the basic maths entrance test so fingers crossed I'll be able to handle what's needed. I started doing a maths refresher course yesterday that was mostly about ratios written as formulas and it really annoyed and confused me.

Carol, didn't he have to go on a boat earlier in the course?!

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4 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

... didn't he have to go on a boat earlier in the course?!

Apparently not, or at least not on the open sea -- maybe in Massachusetts Bay?  Last time I saw him, he was refurbishing a very nice sailboat, but I'm assuming he restricts it to smaller bodies of water.

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Do you ever get so frustrated you feel like you might start rage-crying?

The reason is that my car saga continues. I've not had it for long and It keeps dying for no reason, it's been to a garage they checked the obvious culprits, put a (second) new battery in, then a couple of weeks later it was dead again. So I bought a portable jump-starter, thinking it's not ideal but at least I can jump it if necessary. Last Monday I try to go to work... it's dead. My folks were staying with me so Dad came out to check I was doing it right and we jumped it from the jump-starter. It was a bit touch and go but did the job. This evening I decide to try to start it so that I don't have to faff in the morning... it's dead again. I try to jump it, it doesn't work at all, just making a loud clicking and not even trying to turn over. The jump-starter itself doesn't have long enough leads to sit on the floor so I have to have it precariously balanced whilst I go around to the ignition - it fell off once and nearly did every time I tried to start it. 

So I've got work in the morning, which I'm expecting to be a really busy day because Mondays always are, and I can't f***ing get there because my car is dead. I have a jump-starter that is refusing to jump-start. And I'm so stressed that rage-tears keep threatening. 

The only way I can get to work at a decent time is to get up hideously early, get a taxi to the train station, a train to where I work, and then walk about a mile. Then ditto it all to get back home again. 

As for the car, I'm going to have to add 'home start' onto my breakdown service, which is £40 off the bat, wait a few days so it's not obvious the car was dead when I joined (or they charge you a fortune), get them to jump it, take it to an auto electrician... and then f**k knows how much that is going to cost me. I can't afford all this shit, the time or the money!

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Just off hand, it sounds like a short to ground, constantly draining your battery.

As for the rage tears, I do that now and then, usually when I'm ranting to someone -- and it spoils the entire effect!  :blowmytop:

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That's the thing though, it doesn't do it consistently, which rules out most things. One day it'll be fine, the next it'll be dead. Then it'll be fine for weeks... then dead again. 😡😪😡😪

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Ah, that's what we call an intermittent failure -- when we're being polite.  Hardest kind to track down, of course.  Presumably a loose wire or a cold solder joint -- somewhere.

Good plan, taking it to an electrical specialist.

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