Next rant: 

My boss went to a country western concert. He and his date made their way to the front. My boss is a tall guy. The people behind them started complaining - and INSISTING he move to the back. 

This is a concert. It is "pit seating" which is just "up front festival seating". 

My boss is a nice guy and so he was accommodating. Also, evidently there were 3 or 4 dudes complaining, against him by himself. But this is some bullshit. You want a better view, push your way up front - or ask politely - what the hell is it with our society that people feel like they get special entitlement because they're fucking short? 

People piss me off. I wish I had been there. 

My answer would have been, 

I'm hear - there is no assigned seating, or rule that says "tall guys in back." We can push this, and security will throw us all out, and then a bunch of OTHER people will get to enjoy the show without ANY of us taking up space - or you can deal with it. Maybe next time you should bring a foot stool. 

Angry fucking entitled hobbits. 

Tue Jul 16 2019 15:59:06 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Multiple rants today. 

Godaddy called my office. The guy was acting slimy. I told him I needed more information to pass him on to the owners, that I was the technology and content manager. He said it was a confidential matter. I passed him on, the owner took it on speaker call. The guy instantly went into a sales pitch. The owner told him, "I don't make these decisions, Donovan did, I heard him tell you so. The guy kept trying to throw his pitch. The owner hung up on him. 

Today, same guy calls back - and acts as if nothing happened. When he realizes I remember who he is, he starts to try and justify it. I tell him, "you blew your chance." He gets aggressive, and I go, "I don't give a shit what you think," and he goes, "I think I expect you to act and talk professional with me!" 

I was like, "You were deceptive with me and wasted my time and my bosses time and we don't want anything you've got to offer." 

"You don't want anything we've got to offer?" 

And I hung up on him. 

So... Godaddy.com salespeople are doucheflutes, if you didn't know already. 

 

 

To add to that karmic sinkhole I once got Bob Parsons on the phone trying to sell him advertising on the then-new Yellowpages.com. I was respectful and, as always, tenacious but deferential. 

Yup. That is a personality thing. Some people are high in the personality trait called Conscientiousness. Some people aren't. My having low Conscientiousness doesn't make me less awesome than my high-Conscientiousness mother. I get plenty done and I find ways to save time on busywork. I've even written her some custom accounting software because she tends to just do things the hard way. Taking time off when it's available can be a healthy choice that high-Conscientiousness people overlook out of myopia or force of habit. On the other hand, I don't avail myself of the advantages of an organized life and I'm highly distractable, like the fact that I'm clocked in right now and dicking around on a BBS, lol. Still, there are maybe 1,000 people in the US who can do what I do so I have decent job security, but that's based on different personality traits.

tl:dr: everybody's different like TheDave said. The human admixture of personalities is itself an optimization vector.

Mon Jul 22 2019 09:46:48 MST from Wangiss

Yup. That is a personality thing. Some people are high in the personality trait called Conscientiousness. Some people aren't. My having low Conscientiousness doesn't make me less awesome than my high-Conscientiousness mother. I get plenty done and I find ways to save time on busywork. I've even written her some custom accounting software because she tends to just do things the hard way. Taking time off when it's available can be a healthy choice that high-Conscientiousness people overlook out of myopia or force of habit. On the other hand, I don't avail myself of the advantages of an organized life and I'm highly distractable, like the fact that I'm clocked in right now and dicking around on a BBS, lol. Still, there are maybe 1,000 people in the US who can do what I do so I have decent job security, but that's based on different personality traits.

 

tl:dr: everybody's different like TheDave said. The human admixture of personalities is itself an optimization vector.

This was in response to the rant about PD's wife setting up a training session for him, if that wasn't clear. I didn't see there was an unviewed page in between that convo and the above.

Mon Jul 22 2019 09:41:14 MST from Wangiss

  Yellowpages.com. 

The brother of someone I know purchased an existing pizza business when the original owner passed away. I noticed that the website which was maintained by yellowpages had the incorrect phone number listed on the page. Yes... the yellow pages company listed the wrong phone number.

The person I know, the brother of the owner, while wasn't the sales person who made the yellowpages sale for this pizza place, he was working for yellowpages for a few months.  He asked around for someone to correct the website, he could not find an answer.  His son runs a web hosting service, so he wanted to take possession of the business website and host it with his son's company. No one at yellowpages knew who was in charge of the website or who was in charge of holding the domain name.

I think they ended up renaming the pizza shop and getting a new domain name. 

Wow. That is annoying when one of the reasons you buy an existing company is for its established brand. I hate problems like that. My registrar sold WallofHate to someone else, then they sold it again (evidently no one wants to be authoritative for this domain name - who would have thought that...) 

Proving it was me that owned it was a fucking ordeal, when they're the ones passing it around like a hot potato. 

That phone number may have been a tracking number. But there's no excuse for them having no clue about how to reclaim the site. What a cf. 

For me it isn't about what I'm doing, but who is there to share the experience.  I'm codependent and I think I'm ok with that.

I think my son stole my backup cell phone and has it in his room. He sucks soooo bad at lying, and like Alan Turing I try not to let him know I know. I'm not going to say "I need you to give me my phone and stop lying to me." I did say "Hey, I got a notification that you're trying to set up your Mindstorms account and link it to Facebook. I'd be happy to help you with that." Not being a dick about it might encourage him to be more open with me, or it might not, but it's more fun being mysteriously informed.

There is a comedian who does a skit about finding a ruler in his son's bathroom and being obtuse about acting like he doesn't understand why it was in there and the kid is saying things like, 

"I was doing MATH!" 

"In the bathroom?!"

Some people do their best thinking in the shower.

Fri Aug 02 2019 12:55:13 MST from Wangiss

I think my son stole my backup cell phone and has it in his room. He sucks soooo bad at lying, and like Alan Turing I try not to let him know I know. I'm not going to say "I need you to give me my phone and stop lying to me." I did say "Hey, I got a notification that you're trying to set up your Mindstorms account and link it to Facebook. I'd be happy to help you with that." Not being a dick about it might encourage him to be more open with me, or it might not, but it's more fun being mysteriously informed.

Are they the same number, or would calling it work?

Day 3 without Facebook and Twitter. 

The left is "making lists of trump supporters" and calling for unity at the same time.  When the hell do we get to start the purges?

Thoughts on this coming up... 

Tue Nov 10 2020 19:42:26 MST from TheDave

The left is "making lists of trump supporters" and calling for unity at the same time.  When the hell do we get to start the purges?

At the moment, I prefer to be blissfully ignorant of any news regarding the election. Recounts, lost ballots, found ballots, legal action.. A little bit trickles in - I understand Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is on the attack with the Democrat Party, and the Democrats are going, "you're not the reason we barely WON the election, you're the reason we almost LOST it..." 

Which is the first reasonable thing I've heard the Democrats say in about 4 years. 

I know that Georgia has gone into a run off, and that the Republicans could still lose the Senate - and that is causing a lot of money to be spent - I'm not very happy to hear that. 

But basically, I've isolated myself from the news cycle almost completely. As much as I can avoid it, I am. 

The Matrix wins. Plug me back in, and I wanna be someone rich - you know, like a rock star. 

The Trump Reddit feed is something I have mixed emotions about. It does give me some information - kind of curates the noise about the election on Twitter, Facebook and the mainstream media... 

But I also wonder if they're just living in a reality distortion field. The Trump Reddit makes it sound like *significant* discoveries about fraud are going on - but it seems like the only pocket of the world that believes this. 

And I can't tell which side has it right - and at this point, I trust *no one*.