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


Banshee

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So there's a fine, in addition to the actual costs?  As far as I've heard, there's nothing like that here.  You do need to convince a judge that you have a reasonable reason for changing your name, so presumably there are court costs, plus as you say, the cost of changing the documents.  The details presumably vary from state to state.  OK, looked it up, and according to this site, the fees generally run around $400, which equates to a few hundred euros.

It used to be a heck of a lot easier.  All you really had to do was start using your new name, then get it changed on your your bank accounts, ID's , etc.  They would usually ask for proof that you'd actually been using that name, but the proof could consist of things like library cards and phone bills.  That was before 9/11, of course.

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I bet a lot was different. I managed to visit DC in 2000 and believe me, with all that openness I have wondered how nothing had happened yet - and that many times. If we now tried to get to the Andrews Air Force Base (it was the idea of my host), we would both end in Guantanamo :D

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12 hours ago, J.P. said:

We've had the chance to change it after moving to Germany, but nobody told us. I did ask about the process several years after, and alone the looks I've got from the clerks, discouraged me effectively. And I think I've had heard a four-digit number of old German Marks I've heard, but it's "depending on your income". The costs for changing all your documents etc. not included. 🙄

Is it customary over there for married women to use their husband's surname?  Do they have to go through that same unwieldy process?

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It is, but it's not obligatory. Sometimes men uses the wife's name or both keep their own names. The marriage is a valid reason for the name change, so you don't have to beg for it. But I bet - if they would like to use a completely different name, it would be much more difficult.

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Interesting point here...I notice jourmalists(possibly trying to be politically correct)constantly refer to Sophie as Sophie Hunter.

But as I understand it, she has officially changed her name to Cumberbatch...I assume partly to be in line with her sons as well as her husband.

Then again I suppose an actor can still use a stage name in their work...I wonder what name is on her Equity card?

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@Carol the Dabbler Holy smoke! I thought this kind of incompetence is not common, so yes, I understand your frustration!   I used to get annoyed by people who say things over ans over again, but then I found out that I have to do that as well in my work, and everyday life, replays broken record, and yet, they still miss instruction. Sometimes I'm so pissed at myself for repeating things, but then again, most time it doesn't feel enough.  But I assume at least you get a 'live' person on the other end of the line. Did you need to go through thousand of steps to get there? I find it suspicious that, more than couple of times, when I managed to get someone on the line, they would need to 'check' something, put you on annoying tone, and then it's disconnected just like that. Or they never ever have your record eventhough I had the case number, so I had to repeat my complain over and over again.

I also find some service are very rude in their way of hard marketing. So this bank had been calling me to offer something that I'm eligible for, after multiple rejects, it's not a good time..when is the good time,... never, I'll call you when I need it...  I had to write to the bank to complain and ask them to take me out of their anything promotion or crank call list. I hardly get call from anyone, so any call would be annoying, hassle, and worrisome for me. It stopped for a while then apparently I'm eligible for another thing, and after my hard reject to ask them not to call me regarding this again, I'm not interested, I'll be the one who call, the next day during Avenger watching I received ten missed calls and couple of text. TEN! I put my phone in soft vibrate so everytime I needed to peek into my bag (just in case it's emergency). It was way too much so the next working day I drove to the bank and moved my fund to another, but couldn't close the account yet as  I use it for work.

 

P.S I feel the need to separate my post because I quoted FL from another page. When I click 'Quote Selection' it deletes my previous text. 

 

 

 

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On 5/4/2019 at 3:33 AM, Fantasy Lover said:

Back on topic, does anyone hates their name? To the point of seriously considering changing if it wasn't such a hasle or expensive? I do, I've always hated my name. People teased me about it in elementary school, now I'm older everyone has trouble with either the pronunciation or the spelling and it genuinely pisses me off. What definitely doesn't help is that there are people who tell me that it is a beautiful name, I'm just like try having your name butchered for the majority of your life and then tell me how beautiful it is.

People can't pronounce my official name as well, especially foreigners. So I use 'home' name, how do I explain; It's my proper name, given by my parents, but not the one that is registered formally. It's still easily mispronounced but much simpler. I am also teased until I'm this old because it carries multiple meaning. But then again, I think, impo, it makes it special. Now I enjoy how people get confused by it, it sort of giving me little power over their lack of confidence in knowing how to pronounce my name properly. For example, in any way people want to address me in rude manner, I would keep correcting it to make them lose their cool. I don't want to be another John, Smith, Jane, a name that everyone can pronounce or write correctly the first time. In fact I take a step further and change all my online presence to user name that appear to be something gibberish so that I'm not easily found (it's not gibberish to me, I picked it up my a childhood comic book when a character utter something everytime they went nuts. It's very complicated and long but I know exactly how to write and pronounce it. It's my little own secret). In fact, the user name I use here is my most normal one. All in all, I've come to cherish all those weird names. I guess I just embrace any way to feel different. 

But if you think your name affects you in negative way and make you unhappy,  do change it. It's little thing that we can take control so why not. My mom changed her name in her thirties for political and safety reason. But back then, paperwork was a bit simpler (I guess), she also lost all her school certifications so at that time, she had nothing to her name. I believe she just obtained new birth certificate that states her former and new name.

Anyway, for your reference of popular sitcom in my time XD, Friends, one of the character changed her name to Princess Consuela Banana Hammock, to which her husband responded (played by Paul Rudd, good god, he doesn't age!) by changing his own name to Crap Bag. First name Crap, last name Bag. :) I like Crap Bag!

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16 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

@Carol the Dabbler ... I assume at least you get a 'live' person on the other end of the line. Did you need to go through thousand of steps to get there? I find it suspicious that, more than couple of times, when I managed to get someone on the line, they would need to 'check' something, put you on annoying tone, and then it's disconnected just like that. Or they never ever have your record eventhough I had the case number, so I had to repeat my complain over and over again.

Good heavens, yes -- I hate that.  If I call our phone company's main number, I get a very polite recording that gives me limited options (but will connect me with a live person if I'm obstinate enough).  But they also have direct lines that take you straight to a live person (at least if you didn't misplace the paper that you wrote the number on *grumble*).

And even though the recording can tell what number I'm calling from, so it knows my account number etc., I have to repeat that information every time I'm connected to someone else.  I suppose they're required to verify that they're talking to a person who has the right to be given information regarding this account, so I won't complain too awfully much, but it's definitely a nuisance.

Quote

P.S I feel the need to separate my post because I quoted FL from another page. When I click 'Quote Selection' it deletes my previous text.

Not sure I'm following you there, VBS.  Oh, wait, this is the thing where you highlight a portion of someone's post, and it allows you to turn it into a quote in your post?  That used to work beautifully for me, but now I can hardly ever get it to offer making a quote.  But when it did work, I could quote one person, reply to them, then go get another quote, reply to it, and so on indefinitely, as long as I was careful to keep my cursor in the right place.  I'm apparently the wrong person for you to ask.

Is anyone else having this problem?

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Today I went ballistic at my boss. Okay, my probably-not-anymore-boss (he's suing the company over reducing his rank and salary, so he's a kind of Schrödinger's Boss now) but it felt… liberating. A collegue said she thought I would bite his head off, so maybe I should do it more often. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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3 hours ago, J.P. said:

Today I went ballistic at my boss. Okay, my probably-not-anymore-boss....

When I first read that, I thought you'd been fired for yelling at him.  Glad to know that's not the case (though I do feel sorry for the poor guy, sitting there in limbo).

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I have nothing to add to this conversation, just thought I'd let you all know I'd been here. :D 

Oh, here's something I can rant about … it just starting raining again. Almost every night about sundown. I could almost believe I'm living in Camelot.

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On 5/6/2019 at 10:27 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Not sure I'm following you there, VBS.  Oh, wait, this is the thing where you highlight a portion of someone's post, and it allows you to turn it into a quote in your post?  That used to work beautifully for me, but now I can hardly ever get it to offer making a quote.  But when it did work, I could quote one person, reply to them, then go get another quote, reply to it, and so on indefinitely, as long as I was careful to keep my cursor in the right place.

It still works okay, technically.

For example I want to quote your post in page 20, but the last page is 21. So I'm typing my reply in 21, last page but mid way I want to include your post, so I open another tab to show 20 and do the quote stuff but the quote would appear in my reply box in page 20, ignoring what I had typed in page 21. And I'm to chicken to open 20 from the window I was in, worried that I 'd lose what I had typed. Hope that explains.

 

On 5/9/2019 at 6:15 AM, J.P. said:

Today I went ballistic at my boss. Okay, my probably-not-anymore-boss (he's suing the company over reducing his rank and salary, so he's a kind of Schrödinger's Boss now) but it felt… liberating. A collegue said she thought I would bite his head off, so maybe I should do it more often.

Good for you! Hope it works well. Just a warning though, that head is nasty thing. Depends on his hygiene's level, those scalps are nasty.

 

On 5/12/2019 at 8:50 AM, Arcadia said:

Oh, here's something I can rant about … it just starting raining again. Almost every night about sundown

At least it saves you some gardening effort? :P

 

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7 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

It still works okay, technically.

For example I want to quote your post in page 20, but the last page is 21. So I'm typing my reply in 21, last page but mid way I want to include your post, so I open another tab to show 20 and do the quote stuff but the quote would appear in my reply box in page 20, ignoring what I had typed in page 21. And I'm to chicken to open 20 from the window I was in, worried that I 'd lose what I had typed. Hope that explains.

I think you're talking about the lovely option where you highlight something in a post and it offers to turn that bit into a quote for you.  That isn't currently working for me, so I can't experiment.

But in your example, if you realize ahead of time that you want to quote something on page 20, you can start your post in the reply box at the bottom of page 20.  Or if you think you might also want to quote something on page 21, it's probably easiest to use multi-quote (the "+" button to the left of Quote) to select the posts as you go along (though then you'll need to erase whatever you don't want included in the quotes).

Or if you started typing your post before you realized that you wanted to quote something from another page, you can copy the current contents of your reply box as insurance, then go to the other page, and if the stuff doesn't automatically reappear in that page's reply box, you can just paste it in.  (The software seems to be pretty good about saving the contents of the reply box, but I haven't yet figured out when it'll work and when it won't.)

Sorry not to have more specific information for you.  Maybe somebody else -- somebody whose reply/edit function works more normally -- can help.

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On 5/12/2019 at 2:50 AM, Arcadia said:

Oh, here's something I can rant about … it just starting raining again. Almost every night about sundown. I could almost believe I'm living in Camelot.

Here it was raining almost 24/7 for much too long already and it's beeping COLD as if St. Peter tried to make even with last year when we've had a summer from April to November. So far for "average seasonal temperatures"

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18 minutes ago, J.P. said:

... it's beeping COLD as if St. Peter tried to make even with last year when we've had a summer from April to November. So far for "average seasonal temperatures"

But that's what "average" means -- sometimes it's warmer than that, and sometimes it's cooler.

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I know. :D But it's MUCH too cold for the season for too long (since some summer days in February). We have two short periods of cold, usually in the middle of May and then in June, but they supposed to be short periods.

It's snowing in the mountains so an event planned by my company for years now, will have a problem.

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9 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

It still works okay, technically.

For example I want to quote your post in page 20, but the last page is 21. So I'm typing my reply in 21, last page but mid way I want to include your post, so I open another tab to show 20 and do the quote stuff but the quote would appear in my reply box in page 20, ignoring what I had typed in page 21. And I'm to chicken to open 20 from the window I was in, worried that I 'd lose what I had typed. Hope that explains.

What you're too chicken to do is exactly how I do it … it doesn't matter how many pages I go back, I can still highlight something, quote it, and the quote will appear in the box I was typing in, even if it's on another page. For example, right now I'm on page 194, but I'm going back to the rest of your comment, which is on page 193......

9 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:
On ‎5‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 8:50 PM, Arcadia said:

Oh, here's something I can rant about … it just starting raining again. Almost every night about sundown

At least it saves you some gardening effort? :P

And voila, there you are. It works a charm.

And no, it does not save me any gardening effort because the !@#$%^&*()(*&^%$ weeds LOVE the rain! But it's too wet to go out there and pull them, so they're taking over … my yard's a MESS. I'm so embarrassed by it.

 

1 hour ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Or if you started typing your post before you realized that you wanted to quote something from another page, you can copy the current contents of your reply box as insurance, then go to the other page, and if the stuff doesn't automatically reappear in that page's reply box, you can just paste it in.  (The software seems to be pretty good about saving the contents of the reply box, but I haven't yet figured out when it'll work and when it won't.)

Good tip! I knew the content would still be there if I went back a few pages, then returned to the page where I started typing my comment. But I didn't realize that what I typed on one page would also appear in the comment box if I went to another page. Cool. I just tried it … went back and forth a couple times, and I'm now two pages before where I started … and everything's working fine.

I have the latest version of Explorer on a brand new laptop (late birthday present from my lovely nephew) and the forum works great on it. Better even than on my previous laptop, which also had the latest version of Explorer, but the machine itself was a few years old. Poor baby. It up and died about a week after the new one arrived. Fit of jealousy, I presume. :D 

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Okay, it took a little longer to save than usual, and I had an alarming white screen for a split moment … but not only did that last post save, but the software also dumped me back onto the last page, even though I was two pages before this before I hit "Submit Reply." So it had to work a little harder, but it got me back where I started.

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11 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

(The software seems to be pretty good about saving the contents of the reply box, but I haven't yet figured out when it'll work and when it won't.)

Exactly. I have trust issue so if I'd copy first just in case.

I do those suggestions you mentioned too.

10 hours ago, Arcadia said:

And no, it does not save me any gardening effort because the !@#$%^&*()(*&^%$ weeds LOVE the rain! But it's too wet to go out there and pull them, so they're taking over … my yard's a MESS. I'm so embarrassed by it.

Don't be. Same here.

Don't use Monsanto product for weed though!

10 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I have the latest version of Explorer on a brand new laptop (late birthday present from my lovely nephew) and the forum works great on it.

Hear hear! My almost teenager nephew, LOOK what that guy got for my fellow forum member! Go get a couple of part time jobs and make your auntie happy here! Study? Doesn't matter!! Trust us, it doesn't really matter. This is a payback for all the superhero underwear colors you asked me!

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10 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Poor baby. It up and died about a week after the new one arrived.

That is very good manner. My phone and fridge were not as polite. At all.

 

Technical: So I tried to edit my previous post to include the quote above, but it didn't let me and put it in the new post instead. And we can't copy a quote now, can we? Unlike using codes back then.

 

Anyway, might as well adding something else. Have you guys tried to do something not using your dominant hand?

My original rant is I'm annoyed about how slapstick my life is sometimes. I could knock off things anytime, and the one way to ensure that I knock off the loudest ones in domino effect is when I'm trying to sneak around a sleeping person. I'm either a survivor of multiple concussions or I have a very very thick skull, because I banged my forehead entering the car (multiple, I misjudged my height), I bruised my cheek, giving it nice blue color, closing the door ON MY FACE (I misjudged the distance), I banged my forehead on the basin doing push-up on the counter. I turned around and banged my face of half-opened door, that I opened myself. I knocked the behind of my head on upper part of the fridge after I took something from bottom compartment. I banged my forehead on counter because I tried to pick up something on the edge of it on the floor. Countless. I have no idea why I'm still alive.

I had just skinned my hand because I fell down (the dirt was out to get me :P), it is not serious but not a small wound so I'm trying to keep it dry. Something I really had to cling-wrap it but most time I try to work with the other hand for wet task like washing dishes etc. And man! Poor Jamie Lannister. Good God, imagine all the slapsticks multiple by two!

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2 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I tried to edit my previous post to include the quote above, but it didn't let me and put it in the new post instead. And we can't copy a quote now, can we? Unlike using codes back then.

You can still type the BBCode for a quote, though it doesn't seem to be possible to include the person's name any more, so it's just <quote> whatever you want to quote </quote> (only using square brackets instead of angle ones).  You could mention the person's name in some other way.

But you're unfortunately right, there doesn't seem to be any nice way now to make a quote go into a post when you're editing it.  I miss that!  I'm pretty sure, though, that you could act like you want to quote it in a new post, and then copy the whole thing (CTRL/A) and paste it into the post that you're editing.  I'll try that in a minute and then add my report here.

12 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Poor baby. It up and died about a week after the new one arrived.

Yup, looks like it worked.

Regarding your habits of self-battery -- wow, it's a wonder you're still alive!  And regarding your resultant need to use your "other" hand, some people have more trouble with that than others.  Someone once told me that when she had broken her right arm, she had trouble putting dishes into the cupboard.  I asked if they were heavy dishes that she needed both hands to lift, but she said no, they were fairly light.  I'm still trying to figure out how it could be a problem to do that with one's non-dominant hand.  But then I'm semi-ambidextrous, or rather, I do some things with my right hand and some things with my left hand anyhow.  But I think most people can learn to use their "other" hand if they really need (and want) to; it just takes time (and your hand will probably be healed before that).

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I don't think I'm innately semi-ambidextrous (or even very dexterous, for that matter) but the nature of my work requires that I use both hands a lot, and I find that I can do most things left-handed, if rather clumsily. (Same as using my right hand, actually. 😛) So yeah, I suspect it's just a matter of practice for most people. I'm trying to think of anything I simply cannot do with my left hand, but I'm drawing a blank.

I smashed myself in the face with the car door a few weeks back. Nosebleed, black eye, the works. That was fun. But not particularly unusual, for me. :rolleyes:  So … sorry, VBS, I'm not impressed. :P 

 

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Yeah, well, courtesy's not my strong suit either. Basically I'm clumsy, that's about the limit of my talents. 😛 

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Sorry, possibly a tad trivial when you are all engaged in this interesting discussion.

But anyway...

I have Google alerts for any news about Benedict.

It's bad enough having to tolerate the usual non- stories...mainly on the 'no news' of any possible  S5.

There was the 'no rift' non- stories about Benedict and Martin.

But honestly today's offering reached an all time low: one non story about a potential S5, one slagging off Benedict for being posh, another slagging him off for being Dr Strange and another relating to a personal slight, which I don't even want to draw attention to.

I mean I must confess I have limited sympathy for celebs moaning about their privacy, but really: I could never be one of these gutter press journalists that can cause so much pointless and unfair distress.

Click bait is vile.

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