first world problems

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Lot of weird stuff bubbling in the pot this morning.

Sooooo, I pick up 1099 work through a service occasionally, mostly IT stuff. It's sort of nice to be able to stick my toe in but if things get hairy there's no danger of the rest of me being sucked in - like the good old days. I really don't care if your __ isn't working, not really my problem anymore. I look at it like a box of chocolates; when I'm in the mood I can pick one that looks tasty.

The ones that pay the best are mechanical assembly gigs. I've done jewelry displays, Craftmatic adjustable beds, big TVs. Sort of interesting, more so than IT/Telecom crap that's for sure.

Yesterday was a big honkin' treadmill. I look at a couple about my age, both grown terribly obese. They have the financial means to whistle up an expensive piece of hardware and when you start thinking about the journey that treadmill had to take to get here it's daunting. We're all a little more aware of supply chain these days. But here it is, all three hundred pounds of it waiting for assembly. I can understand lacking mechanical ability but not being able to get around the swinging bag of fat to do anything is less likely to induce any empathy from me. So I show up and take care of it, nice folks. I know for a fact that inside two or three months it'll be sitting idle with crap piled on top of it. The only thing missing was them hiring someone to use it.

Compare that to some of the hard, lean bastards I work with that come from parts of the world that consider that level of pure crapulence to be attractive and revolting at the same time.

I'm with them.

Seeing what I saw yesterday makes me believe we've hit that tipping point all cultures get to and will start in the other direction soon enough. Many will have to stop for a snack along the way.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
We have a neighborhood drunk, 68 years old and so frail and thin, you would think a slight breeze would take him away...That's because he drinks and smokes more than he eats, in fact, since he's been retired, he wakes early in the morning and refrigerator is opened to get a fresh can of beer...The frig is opened more times to get beer than to get food, he will go a few days before eating just a frozen hamburger or a hotdog, then back to drinking...He gets on a whiskey binge that will last months at a time until he falls down too many times bruising himself up or breaking something...He lives kind of close to my house, on the same street, really nice guy but locked into drinking the rest of his life away, he never leaves the house, his sister gets food for him, that he never eats and gets thrown away, she won't by his liquor so he has another neighbor make a whiskey, beer, and cigarette run for him...

I've been over his place randomly, he will call me up when something needs fixing, he fell over his portable infrared heater one afternoon trying to get to his couch and called me over to fix it when it just tripped the breaker, simple things but he is clueless...Took his TV out one day by falling over on it, called me to get him another one at Walmart, just pulls out a few hundred and tells me to get something the same size, no matter the brand lol...He's always got cash on him and 4 guns in the house he reminds me of when I tell him he shouldn't be telling people he's got cash in the house...He can trust me but saying that to the wrong person would not be so good...

One late night I drove down the the creek at the end of our road to hike a bit with Kobi, its all woods down there and Kobi likes walking through the water, not enough there to swim...Anyway driving back I hear someone faintly yelling out for help near the old man's house...I stopped the car and let Kobi out too, I'm in his front yard and hear it again around the right side of his house....There he was laying in the bushes off the side his porch, drunk as hell, he said he been laying there for a couple hours or so and can't get up...Grabbing him up to help and he yelled out louder than he was calling for help...He broke his arm when he fell off the porch, just didn't know it until I grabbed him...So getting him in the car I took him to the hospital and they got him all fixed up and I took him back home...He hands my a couple benjamins but I refused it then asked if I could pick him up a bottle of whiskey for him tomorrow morning, it was late that night when I got him back from the hospital...Sure no problem and handed me one benjamin for that and told me to get something for myself...lol

...
 

Standingstones

Celestial
We have a friend who is a diabetic and takes insulin. When we would go out to dinner with with him and his wife he will always order a few drinks for himself. His wife gets pissed because this will always spike his sugar level. It’s gotten to the point where he will blank out from time to time and not know where he is or what has been going on. He is in his late seventies and I often wonder how much time he has left.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Definitely a first world problem here along with a 'you hate it when' rant...

Godaddy is moving their email client from Workspace to MICROSOFT...b008

I received an email from them stating that my email addresses that I use in Workspace, those tied to my domains will be moved to Microsoft 365 on December 4th coming...

Then the second foot drops...I will get a 60 day trial on Microsoft 365 and if I wish to keep using that client I will have to pay a minimum of $1.99 a month per user account (or more depending in storage sizes) or lose those email addresses...What the hell, I don't pay anything right now, I get credits for that because they are email accounts tied to all of my domains, like alienexpanse.com emails are...I get a 10gig storage quota that comes with the domain and create email accounts using that quota and no more unless I pay for it, right now I don't pay extra for these email accounts...My personal business domain name is with Godaddy and I've had that domain for over 20 years with a main email account I regularly use, comes with the domain...

Now I have to pay for it in three months, and worst part, I have to pay Microsoft!...One dollar and ninty-nine cents per month isn't much, it isnt so much about the money as it is the point...Everyone and everything in our society is nickel and dimeing us to hell and it seems things are going to get worse before better...I saved a couple items in Amazon's shopping cart as a save for later item and every week one of those two has had a price increase...A small wood stove i have saved went up 12 dollars yesterday, Amazon sends me an email (that I will soon have to start paying for) every time there's a change in the product saved, lately it's all price increases...ugh

...
 

Standingstones

Celestial
My wife went into a Michael’s art supply store. She was looking for a picture frame 8x10. She said that most of the framing was sold out. I looked online at an art supply store. It was sold out as well. Supposedly they will be re-supplied on November 15. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
 
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