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

[Pseudonym]

No they are specially weighted so they don't blow away. 'Tis a mystery.

[T.o.b.y]

Trash can be a big pain in the butt. Germany is big on recycling in theory, but in practice, many people are terrible at it. My current neighbors are the worst. We live in a house with two other parties and so share trash cans and I am sick and tired of picking plastic out of the garbage and various trash out of the plastic. Also, the yellow bags the town gives out for plastic keep getting misused as regular trash bags - and then they wonder why they run out of them all the time. I really don't want to be the anal woman upstairs who constantly digs through the bins but on the other hand, it really, really bothers me that they don't care to learn such very basic things. Our recycling system is really not that complicated.

 

The people who had our apartment before us got so fed up they tried to establish separate trash cans for each family. The labels they put on are still visible, but I would have to secure "our" containers with a padlock and chains if I wanted to enforce that system and the last thing I want is to piss anybody off because living on that property is only bearable if we all get along - too many shared responsibilities and arrangements that depend entirely on good will.

[J.P.]

The same. I was even talking to a woman from the office and she told me that separating the biological trash actually makes no sense, because people are to dumb or lazy to do it properly. And I alos heard that not all stuff in the recycling bags will really recycled and ends with the rest of the waste.

[Caya]

Yeah, same here - we used to have communal bio waste bins but the city scrapped them again after a couple years. I called the magistrate and they said that the quality of the waste was, on average, so bad that they couldn't use it (bio waste is turned into compost here and you can then get that compost for free at the communal waste centres). Instead, they gave us garden owners individual bio bins with the instruction to only use it for garden waste (lawn clippings and such) and apparently that worked out a lot better.

[Carol the Dabbler]

People presumably take a lot more care when they're the ones who will have to deal with the end product.  It's a lot harder to say "what difference does it make" in that case.

[Van Buren Supernova]

I had my recycle bags stolen as well, for years I suppose, it's actually just a thicker nicer green colored trash bag style. I remember we used to have it, but hadn't seen them for a loooong time I thought they stopped it. One time we had collected a lot of newspaper, clothes etc so I called the town council and they said they still leave the bag regularly on every unit every month.

 

 

Regarding the trash, I witnessed multiple times, although this might be isolated idiocy in that particular place, the trash collector comes, then empty the three or more different types of bins (those plastic, paper, cans etc) into one collection container. So yah, they practically undo all the efforts.

[Arcadia]

Yea, it's handy but not attractive. Pink and woven plastic. Or at least it was. *sigh* I'm hoping someone will realise it has my house number on it and it'll be in my garden tomorrow. Sorry this is not the most thrilling topic of conversation but I just can't get over someone being sad enough to nick my bin bag. It's bizarre.

Maybe Mrs. Hudson took it to stuff Sherlock into it the next time he acts up.

 

I don't mean to brag, but here, we don't have any of those problems with recycling. I don't know why -- partly because it's more suburban, I guess, so not as many people? But here and in Maine ... especially in Maine ... people are really religious about recycling. Of course, up in Maine they won't even pick up your trash if you don't do it right. In my immediate neighborhood, most of us take our own trash to the landfill rather than pay for a service, so that's a factor too.

 

And, I'm told, our local landfill has actually won awards for being so well run! So maybe I will brag a bit, after all. It's actually kind of a cool place to visit. I have a friend who used it as the subject for her final project to get her masters in art ... she got a grand tour. She was telling me all kinds of stuff I never knew that they do to keep toxins from getting into the ground water, to keep animals out, and things like that. (They fire off "cannons" periodically to scare off seagulls, for example. I always wondered what that sound was!) We're so good, other districts actually ship their trash here to dispose of, which helps pay for it. Awesome. :d

[Fantasy Lover]

Carol mentioned how much she hates taxes a while ago and I hate something similar: bills! I have spent 119,08 today! And there's a convention this weekend and asdfghjkl.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Carol mentioned how much she hates taxes a while ago and I hate something similar: bills! I have spent 119,08 today! And there's a convention this weekend and asdfghjkl.

That's one hundred nineteen (Euros?) and eight one-hundredths, right? In the US, we use a dot for that, whereas a comma separates hundreds from thousands, from millions, etc., So at first glance I thought Wow, she sure has some huge bills! But then I remembered. I'm glad, 'cause one hundred nineteen and some is plenty bad enough!

[Fantasy Lover]

It's 119 euros and 8 cent :(.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Still working on tax forms (state and federal, our and Mom's), and noticed that the directions on Line 7 of Form CT-40 (county income tax) read "Enter total of line 4 minus line 6."  Is that even English?  Am I actually required to pay this tax, under the circumstances?

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Unfortunately it is English and as long as the number is above zero then you probably do.

[Carol the Dabbler]

But how does one calculate "the total of line 4 minus line 6"? I'm taking a wild guess that they meant something like "enter the difference of line 4 minus line 6" (which isn't quite correct terminology either, but is at least intelligible), or to be perfectly clear, "subtract line 6 from line 4 and enter the result in line 7" (which would be the federalese translation).

[Van Buren Supernova]

The good thing about only basic English understanding is, I get that straightaway that you are supposed to substract line 6 from line 4.

But I agree with you regarding tax ^#%#&$*.

 

Lock me up in a room and flood me with tax stuff and paperwork, it's probably a perfect form of torture that gets me (if you added in certain kind of music or whine I'd confess to anything) I actually love calculation stuff but tax and the paperworks..uh uh.. it's so annoying.

[Arcadia]

Good lord, no wonder the middle of the country is so angry. First you're not allowed to dress the way you want in a bank, and now you have to pay county income tax? I never heard of anything like that, either! (And my goodness, the snow on my screen is certainly thick at the moment ... it's a blizzard!)

 

Yeah, I read it as "subtract line 6 from line 4".

 

Okay, who's messing with the forum? Not only is the snow the thickest I've ever seen it, but it's disappearing before it reaches the bottom of the page. Is it spring at the bottom but winter at the top? In that case, I expect to see daffodils blooming on the footer soon...

[Arcadia]

Never mind, it heard me. Now it's snowing all the way to the bottom again. I love technology.....

[Van Buren Supernova]

If I didn't know you or this forum better, I would think that you are smoking something you grew on your backyard in Thailand and smuggled to US back then XD

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yeah, I read it as "subtract line 6 from line 4" too -- and then I read it. It's apparently been that way along (at least it was the same wording last year), but I read right over it, because it was so obvious what they wanted.

[Arcadia]

If I didn't know you or this forum better, I would think that you are smoking something you grew on your backyard in Thailand and smuggled to US back then XD

 

Nope. But it might be the Irish whiskey I had in my coffee for dessert.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Pass me some?

It seems like I can't tell my glove and my hat apart today, and unreasonable unjustifiable uninvited stomach cramp definitely doesn't help my Monday.

[Pseudonym]

Are you saying you tried to wedge a glove onto your head?

 

As for the line 4 minus line 6 palaver, I suspect once you're that deep into a tax form nothing makes sense. I can't remember if I asked this before, or just thought it (senility, at my age, really?) but does everyone have to fill in those tax forms or is it normally done by an employer? I've only had to do tax returns when I was self employed. 

[Fantasy Lover]

I'd say look at line 4, is there something that you had to calculate? If yes, use the end result and subtract that from the end result of line 6.

[Carol the Dabbler]

To all those who have been kind enough to explain what that tax-form instruction meant: Yes, I know what they meant, and have filled out the form accordingly. I'm just puzzled as to why they didn't *say* what they meant. You cannot get a total by subtracting.

 

Regarding filling out one's own tax forms, that is the norm here in the US. I've never heard of an employer doing it (though they do of course supply much of the necessary data on a "W-2" form. In order to fill out the "1040" and associated forms, one needs to supply a good deal of personal information that I doubt most people would care to divulge to their employers, even if said employers were willing to take on the responsibility.

 

So we basically have three options: 1) fill in the forms ourselves, 2) get a friend or relative to do it, or 3) pay an accountant to do it. There's software available nowadays that any of the above can use, but paper forms are still available.

 

I do the joint forms for Alex and me, on paper, and also do Mom's forms for her.

[Van Buren Supernova]

You know you are in good community when many of the members try to help you with your tax.

[Arcadia]

I'd pay an accountant to do mine, except that I still have to do all the prep work ... finding my receipts, categorizing them, collecting my W-2s, collecting my 1099's, figuring out my mileage, doing inventory ... I figure by the time I do all that, heck, I may as well plug all the numbers into their proper spaces and save myself the $200. And my mom's taxes are so easy they almost do themselves. I have started using accounting software, though ... it's free for people in my income bracket, and it sure does the math a lot faster.