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

[Pseudonym]

Nope, there was one other person there - I carefully didn't make eye contact whilst watching him from the corner of my eye whenever he came too close! Just collected my mother's car for a lend so I'm mobile again for now. Wooo!

[Arcadia]

Whew.

 

 

 

I will go now and reassure my Toyota that it still has its forever home. :p

[Caya]

Maybe us Europeans should explain that (afaik) all countries here demand a (generally yearly or every two years) vehicle inspection that your car has to pass before you're allowed to drive or even park it on public roads. So while getting attached to a car that is held together mostly by love and duct tape is certainly possible, giving it a forever home is only an option if it never leaves your garage.

[Pseudonym]

Which is exactly why mine is not worth repairing, it's too rusted underneath to pass it's MOT this year, which is the yearly inspection. I thought they had a version of that everywhere? I watch Traffic Cops New Zealand and they have it there.

[Arcadia]

Oh, ours have to pass inspection every year too. But my baby's a long way off from failing one. It'll have to be well and truly dead before I get rid of it. :p But it sounds like yours has already passed over the rainbow bridge, Pseud. Condolences.

[Pseudonym]

Thanks. I'll have a wake for it next week if you want to come. 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Minnesota used to do emissions testing annually for a while when I was a young teenager, but we haven't had one in years. In the US, it all depends on which state you live in.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Right.  Massachusetts had one when I lived there, and California inspected cars that were brought into the state from elsewhere.  (The latter was a major rip-off, by the way.  They charged me a fee because my car had not been officially manufactured according to California emissions standards -- even though it tested *far* better than required by those same standards.)  Near as I recall, there was no testing required in Iowa or New York State, and there's none in Indiana.

 

Maybe us Europeans should explain that (afaik) all countries here demand a (generally yearly or every two years) vehicle inspection that your car has to pass before you're allowed to drive or even park it on public roads. So while getting attached to a car that is held together mostly by love and duct tape is certainly possible, giving it a forever home is only an option if it never leaves your garage.

 

How dare you imply that our baby is a rustbucket?!      I will admit it's no great beauty cosmetically, because we've been dealing with minor rust spots ourselves, but it's in really good mechanical condition, despite having, I think, around 250,000 miles on the odometer.  Alex is currently driving it half an hour (each way) to work every day.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

My car is currently at 222,327 miles. It's 11 years old. It might have more miles in it than my kid has traveled in his nearly 15 years. It needs to last long enough to be able to afford a new one.

[Van Buren Supernova]

At least car is 'stable' when there is something wrong in it. Motorbike is a b*tch, one time it's fine, but when I hit pothole (most times invisible from far), it could damage the wheel and the next thing you know the bike is shaking and swerving.

 

Sometimes I enjoy going at the edge or above speed limit (slightly) but then I realize I could send myself flying as easily. Luckily everytime I had wheel problems (9 times in 4 years in current place but much less with my other bike in other place thay has much better road) there was always reachable repair shops, and luckily I am light enough to be able to still ride the shaky bike at snail speed with two legs down instead of having to push it. Other times I had to hang around the road site waiting for tow.

 

Basically if there is enough buffer to move to the road side and get away from traffic without falling down is consider very lucky. Oh ya, I tried all kind of tyres, the road condition is just not desirable sometimes.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Speaking of tires, we blew a tire on the way to our chiropractor appointment yesterday evening.  Alex tried to put the spare on himself, but couldn't get the lug nuts loose (best guess: the garage had put them on with a power wrench), so I called the auto club.  It took about an hour for them to send someone, and in the meantime:

 

1.  A state trooper stopped by to see if we needed help (we told him we'd already called the auto club);

 

2.  A good samaritan stopped by, but also failed to get the wheel off (though he did get the lug nuts out by "powering" the wrench with a hammer);

 

3.  Even though we were fairly well off the road, the great majority of vehicles (including all the big rigs that I noticed) moved to the far lane while passing by (with the major exception being one jerk towing a rented trailer, who actually passed us with all his right-side wheels about a foot over the lane line); and

 

4.  Another state cop stopped by, following up on the first one's report, to see how things were coming.

 

Finally a guy from (apparently) the auto club arrived, got the wheel loose with a judicious kick, and had the spare on in no time.  All things considered, this was an amazingly positive experience (though we did have to reschedule our appointment).

 

We'd been meaning to get new tires on that car before winter anyhow (and we clearly needed one new tire NOW), so Alex drove it to work today and stopped by the tire place to get a new set all around.  :D

[Pseudonym]

I think I'd be scared to be on a bike all the time. I've only been on one once, and I liked the feeling of it, the speed, the fresh air etc, but I was so paranoid that something was going to happen. Plus I kept slipping about. 

[Arcadia]

Carol, your story reminds me of the time my parents car broke down in New Hampshire; we'd stopped for a meal, came out of the diner, and the car wouldn't start. While we're standing around trying to figure out how to get hold of AAA (this was well before cell phones) a guy comes out, sees the hood up, offers to help ... and had us back on the road in about 15 minutes. Some loose something or other.

 

I find most people are pretty kind and generous when it comes to that kind of thing. Well, depending on where you are ... city folk tend to be more hurried, harried, and wary. But not all of them.

[Pseudonym]

Around here if I was in a car park with the bonnet up someone might offer to help, but out on the road no one did - and I was hoping that no one would. I would have been really uncomfortable if someone had, or if someone did in a quiet car park. Though the road I was on was a motorway, which is the fastest and busiest roads we have here, I wouldn't have felt safe with anyone trying to be a good samaritan. Plus it was a really dangerous place to stop, so it would have been weird for someone to do it just to be helpful. It might just be because I am very, very untrusting though.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I was really wishing that first guy hadn't stopped, even though it was really nice of him to offer his help.  It seemed to be sort of a macho thing with him, so that when the wheel didn't come off, he tried prying at random things in the general vicinity.  (If you had to remove that in order to get the wheel off, sir, the manual would say so.)  But he did finally leave when we said we thought he'd already tried everything that could be tried, and now we'd rather just wait for the auto club people.

 

It was nice of him to offer, though, and it was nice of the cops to check on us, and it was nice of (most) people to keep their vehicles well away from us.  Plus the auto club guy was really cheerful.

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

I'm now staying in a place where there is high percentage of good people, but I certainly can relate when a seemingly Samaritan or a smile means different thing.

 

 

My rant for today, not sure how qualified is that.

I outsource most of my laundry (except more delicate and private stuffs), it's common thing to do here as it's actually much more affordable here than owning your own appliances and not having time to do them (also not staring at the sky at work with teary eyes everytime it rains while you laundries are out in process of drying at home, been there).

 

The problem is, I have to find the one using softener that I like (to me, smell really matters). I found one and stick to them eventhough I have moved my location further. Every time I change bedsheet it's a very nice experience with the smell that reminds me of home until... yesterday.

 

Somehow they changed the perfume (or whatever) of the particular dryclean for my bedsheet (I kept them wrapped until changing time so I was unaware) and gah, it smells different and in the category that I dislike.

 

Nothing much, it's not even a problem actually, I feel like a brat for complaining about it. Just sometimes I wish that I'm not that particular for smells.

 

:D you guys have anything particular in nose department?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, heavens yes! I prefer my laundry and such to be unscented and just smell clean. I sometimes buy used clothing at yard sales or a Good Will store, and of course the people have been nice enough to wash them -- and it can take months for me to get the perfumy smell out.

[Arcadia]

My mother used to apply perfume every time she got in the car. Urk.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Oh great, I was thinking I am too particular, and perfume in enclosed place? Gahhh..!

 

Speaking of which, I have another tale to torture you guys.

I was on a four-hours flight couple of days ago, and there were delays in the airport as the weather wasn't good. Flights were even suspended for, luckily, very short period.

 

After taking off, I fell asleep for a bit, but woke up by what I described as strong weird smell. My companions were sleeping, nothing seemed funny, the smell was not commonly something I identified with any cabin smell, but I recognized it. It's like coming from...someone's mouth. But so weird as even when I moved as much as I could in my seat or even leaning around (not much though as I was seated next to window), I couldn't escape the smell although nobody else seemed to have any reaction.

 

Finally I conclude it was indeed, ugh, someone's breath, because the person behind me sounded nervous, maybe she breathed too excessively (?!?), I wasn't sure. Shortly after that we had turbulance and lost a bit of altitude and she started screaming. It was quite bad but everyone else was calm. So yah, I believe she might have fear of flying. It was unpleasant and weird (imagine waking up from thinking you are in dragon's mouth :p), I do feel bad for her fear and stress but can't help to think that she probably made a lot of people felt worse because the scream was definitely terrifying compared to the mild turbulance.

[Pseudonym]

Urgh, that's the worst on a plane - no escape! I think I'm quite lucky that I don't have a great sense of smell, but one of the worst things I ever encountered was on a plane from London to New York. The bloke behind me was morbidly obese and absolutely reeked to the point that everyone in our part of the plane felt physically sick. Added to that the fact he was so huge that every time he got up he had to grab my seat to lever himself up, dragging my seat backwards... OMFG. He had a whole group of people with him, one of whom seemed to be his wife, and they were all respectable looking - surely something could have been done about the smell! And it wasn't like it developed slowly over the length of the flight either, it was like it the second he got on. Gross. 

[Caya]

Feel I have to strike a blow for a fellow obese person there - airports are huge these days, and even if I start off all dainty and freshly showered, by the time I've trekked the miles to the gate, yeah, I'm usually sweaty too. Wish I could avoid this somehow (and wish even more that there was an opportunity to freshen yourself up in an airplane) but don't get me started on all the things I wish were different about air travel. 

 

As for dragging your seat backwards, yeah, that's hella impolite without asking or at least excusing yourself afterwards. Again, pretty much unavoidable since if you're fat you basically need to shoehorn yourself into those torture devices that modern airplane seats have become, but the least you can do is annoying your environment as little as possible.

 

 

[Pseudonym]

I don't know there, there were plenty of other big people on the flight, but no one else smelt like that. I've never known anything like it. I thought he must have some sort of medical issue that was exacerbating it. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

... we had turbulance and lost a bit of altitude and she started screaming [....] I do feel bad for her fear and stress but can't help to think that she probably made a lot of people felt worse because the scream was definitely terrifying compared to the mild turbulance.

Alex and I used to go on organized nature hikes. They were normally quite enjoyable, but this one time a horrible thunder storm came up while we were miles from any shelter. It was scary because it was seriously dangerous.

 

But the worst part was​ this little boy (maybe about ten?) who kept shrieking "Make it STOP!!!" Yeah, kid, I'd love to. Right after I stuff a rag in your mouth.

[Arcadia]

Airplane seats are but thinly disguised torture devices.

 

I'm thinking about flying out to California to visit my sister. One thing that's deterring me is the thought of being in an airplane seat that long. I'm almost thinking that a flight with a long layover in the middle of the country might be a more attractive option .... except airport seats are even worse.

 

Except one place, I think maybe it was Newark? Boston? ... and they had all these big plushy beanbag chairs with ample outlets for your laptop and a lovely glass wall so you could watch the airplanes land, and a food court with real food in it, like apples and yogurt, nearby. Heaven, I could have stayed there all day.

[Pseudonym]

I don't find them comfortable but I don't have that much trouble with plane seats, possibly because I'm so short. How really tall people manage I don't know. The idea of long haul flights though (I'd love to go to New Zealand, but London to Auckland is 23 hours) absolutely horrifies me. That would definitely need a stop over!