Random Rants

[MalcolmR]

My weather forecast is showing a 0% chance of rain right now.

It is absolutely pissing it down.

[Dan]

May 9, 2020 13:12:39 GMT -5 Jim said:

My mom's expecting up to 8" worth of snow today.

My date was canceled last night because of the snow that was forecasted. Didn't see any white stuff here, but, 3" was expected where we were going.

Date? Cool!

[Gimpy]

I've been driving 65 years and covered over 1,000,000 miles in my own vehicles. For the first time in my life I had a muffler replaced in a shop. No pipes, just the muffler and reuse my exhaust tip. Took and hour and a half and they used a cutting torch and welder! It's pure hell to be old and arthritic enough that you can't do what you know how to do!

[Juli]

It must be nice to be the kind of transcriptionist who can have the words go in the ears and out the fingers without going through the brain.

[graham]

Jul 17, 2020 13:42:44 GMT -5 Juli said:

It must be nice to be the kind of transcriptionist who can have the words go in the ears and out the fingers without going through the brain.

I thought that was the definition of the word "Lecture"

[Juli]

We have one who is fast, but I have to spend twice as long fixing her errors. She has admitted that she has dyslexia and problems with homophones, and she has a hard time with the fact that for actual dictations, especially letters and reports, contractions are to be spelled out, but for conversations we type what the parties say. So, today I was proofing a police interview, and for one line the transcriptionist wrote "The Crime Scene Unit will be down to get pictures of you are injuries." In another doc, "...you are not allowed to..." was typed as "...you are not aloud to..." If the audio is poor or the dictator doesn't enunciate perfectly, she'll type what she hears without thinking if a particular word or phrase makes sense.

[Stan]

New fires in my neck of the woods.

Jamestown evacuated

Jamestown is about 5 miles away, Calwood about 3. I live south of the "B" in Bald Mountain and just off the road indicated on the map.

[frodi]

The local resident committee (of which I'm a member) has been notifying folk all week that we plan to take down the xmas lights today. If anybody wants to keep them up until the end of Jan they were to put fresh batteries in them and let us know.
Well this afternoon a number of us were out in the freezing cold taking down the lights. We left a number up as requested. any with the original batteries were taken down. This evening the messages came in. "Why did you take my lights down?"
I suggested putting out a message acknowledging their "hurt" and apologising throgh gritted teeth but telling them that they were already put away and that they should notify us next year if they wish to keep then on.
I apologise for the lack of cuss words in this rant but the wine has only just warmed me back up.

[mank]

Not sure where else to put this not really a rant but sort of...

My 36 year old son, a radiologist had a TIA, sort of a mini-stroke today. He is now a patient in his own hospital. He is married and has three kids, my three grandsons. There is a 30% chance that he will have a major stroke within the next three months. This is unusual for a young man.
Needless to say my family is worried and praying.

[martycanuck]

Jan 31, 2021 17:38:33 GMT -5 mank said:

Not sure where else to put this not really a rant but sort of...

My 36 year old son, a radiologist had a TIA, sort of a mini-stroke today. He is now a patient in his own hospital. He is married and has three kids, my three grandsons. There is a 30% chance that he will have a major stroke within the next three months. This is unusual for a young man.
Needless to say my family is worried and praying.

Sorry to hear this Mank and I hope things work out for the best. Hopefully the Doc’s can figure it out and help him.

[mank]

Thank you Marty. He is scared since he knew he had an episode droopy face, couldn't talk. His wife, who is a doctor immediately recoginized the signs and called 911. It is somewhat ironic he, besides neurologists and other doctors, is reveiwing his own CT scans, MRI results. He has to get scanned again tomorrow because they and he knows that a mini-stroke takes 24 hours to appear in the brain. The thing that is strange is he is only 36 years old, works out everyday, and doesn't eat meat. He is the epitome of health but yet you never know.

And let me say even though we disagree politically I bet if we ever sat down and had a beer together we would get along just fine. The same goes for getting along with Graham.

[David]

Damn that sucks.

[Jeannette]

Sorry to hear that Mank, sending good thoughts your way.

[mank]

Thanks Jeannette

[martycanuck]

Jan 31, 2021 23:15:07 GMT -5 mank said:

Thank you Marty. He is scared since he knew he had an episode droopy face, couldn't talk. His wife, who is a doctor immediately recoginized the signs and called 911. It is somewhat ironic he, besides neurologists and other doctors, is reveiwing his own CT scans, MRI results. He has to get scanned again tomorrow because they and he knows that a mini-stroke takes 24 hours to appear in the brain. The thing that is strange is he is only 36 years old, works out everyday, and doesn't eat meat. He is the epitome of health but yet you never know.

And let me say even though we disagree politically I bet if we ever sat down and had a beer together we would get along just fine. The same goes for getting along with Graham.

Probably would Mank. Politics is always a divisive subject and people do have strong feelings about them. 

[martycanuck]

Motherfuck! I’m stupid busy with work and my MacBook went kablooey!

On my way to Apple store in 10 min to pick up a brand new one. Killer specs and killer price.

MBP Pro 16”
Intel i9 8 core cpu
32 GB ram
2 TB SSD
Radeon 5500 video with 8 GB ram on board.

It’’s gonna rock but so does the price. CA$6k with Applecare and sales tax added. Yikes!

But can’t wait for repairs on my current 5 YO laptop. Will get it fixed and resell later.

[brandon]

Why is everything so damn expensive right now? All the things I need/want are just insanely priced! My 5 year old GPU is now going for double what I paid for it new! I need some plywood to fix some things around the house, prices have tripled! Electrical wire? 4x what I paid a year and a half ago! Not to mention staples like eggs, milk, flour, etc all going up in price! Somewhere in the supply chain, someone is making a lot of money! My budgets are in shambles and there is nothing I can do about it. Bills keep coming in, loans have to be paid, but somehow, money is not increasing coming in.

Sigh. I really just want the world to go back to the old normal, I could deal with that.

[martycanuck]

May 7, 2021 13:46:55 GMT -5 brandon said:

Why is everything so damn expensive right now? All the things I need/want are just insanely priced! My 5 year old GPU is now going for double what I paid for it new! I need some plywood to fix some things around the house, prices have tripled! Electrical wire? 4x what I paid a year and a half ago! Not to mention staples like eggs, milk, flour, etc all going up in price! Somewhere in the supply chain, someone is making a lot of money! My budgets are in shambles and there is nothing I can do about it. Bills keep coming in, loans have to be paid, but somehow, money is not increasing coming in.

Sigh. I really just want the world to go back to the old normal, I could deal with that.

Hey there Brandon! Hope you are doing well! 

It’s the Covids and the Texas power outages because it snowed. People have been stuck at home so doing all the projects they never had time to tackle and now the global shipping container system is a chaotic mess and nobody can ship anything anywhere when they need it. The refinery outages made everything that comes from Oil scarce and expensive. 

[Stan]

Have you seen a car lot lately? It's a horrible time to buy a car. They don't have any to sell.

[brandon]

Oh, I totally get it, but I just want my stuff at a reasonable price again! I guess I am just going to have to wait a year or two to rebuild the barn. :/

[martycanuck]

May 7, 2021 20:11:35 GMT -5 Stan said:

Have you seen a car lot lately? It's a horrible time to buy a car. They don't have any to sell.

The plan on my Mercedes is up this year. I wanted to get something bigger (would have kept my car, given it to the wife and traded hers in for a truck again) but I think we’ll just keep both for a while longer. It isn’t urgent. I just have to re-fin the balance on my Mercedes. I love the car so no issue with keeping it. Just wanted something bigger for cottage trips again but this is not time.

[Stan]

You have to be willing to accept what they have and not negotiate at the moment. Debbie totaled her car, we didn't really have a choice. It took a lot of hunting to find something she liked.

[Juli]

Thousands of new Ford pickups parked at Kentucky Speedway, can’t be sold

[martycanuck]

May 8, 2021 17:58:15 GMT -5 Juli said:

Thousands of new Ford pickups parked at Kentucky Speedway, can’t be sold

My Plant Manager’s son works at the Ford HD truck factory and they were pulling computers out of trucks on the lot to put into trucks still coming off the line so they could be driven out. 

[mank]

I just recently took delivery of my 2021 Kia Telluride EX AWD. That vehicle has made Car and Driver's 10-Best-Car list the last two years. Consumer reports rated it 97 out of 100, the highest they have ever rated an SUV. Car and Driver kept one for 40,000 and they had no complaints nothing went wrong. I ordered it in the first week in February and it just came in last Wednesday. I took delivery of it on Saturday. They can't keep the Telluride on the lots. In fact most dealers around the country are charging well above sticker price. There is NO negotiating. I paid sticker and the dealer I got it from has been selling Tellurides from people in the state of Washington, Maine, etc., because dealers are charging at least $4000 or $5000 above sticker. It is cheaper for the buyers to fly to Pittsburgh and drive the Telluride home than it is to pay for price gouging. The dealership I bought it from sold 37 Kia Tellurides in six days. All of them were accounted for in fact while I was at the dealership paying for my vehicle another salesman asked to borrow the keys and they wanted to show a customer the car and promised not to get in it (which they didn't). My saleslady told me they could literally sell 100 more of them tomorrow. The car is built in the state of Georgia. But, she went on to say that demand is outpacing supply.

If you would have told me 5-years ago I would own a Kia I would have told you you're nuts.

[Jim]

Kia and Hyundai have come a LONG way. I've strongly considered them the last few times I've gone car shopping. Unfortunately, the one car they have that I'm seriously interested in, the Stinger GT, is out of my budget.

[martycanuck]

May 12, 2021 6:03:59 GMT -5 mank said:

I just recently took delivery of my 2021 Kia Telluride EX AWD. That vehicle has made Car and Driver's 10-Best-Car list the last two years. Consumer reports rated it 97 out of 100, the highest they have ever rated an SUV. Car and Driver kept one for 40,000 and they had no complaints nothing went wrong. I ordered it in the first week in February and it just came in last Wednesday. I took delivery of it on Saturday. They can't keep the Telluride on the lots. In fact most dealers around the country are charging well above sticker price. There is NO negotiating. I paid sticker and the dealer I got it from has been selling Tellurides from people in the state of Washington, Maine, etc., because dealers are charging at least $4000 or $5000 above sticker. It is cheaper for the buyers to fly to Pittsburgh and drive the Telluride home than it is to pay for price gouging. The dealership I bought it from sold 37 Kia Tellurides in six days. All of them were accounted for in fact while I was at the dealership paying for my vehicle another salesman asked to borrow the keys and they wanted to show a customer the car and promised not to get in it (which they didn't). My saleslady told me they could literally sell 100 more of them tomorrow. The car is built in the state of Georgia. But, she went on to say that demand is outpacing supply.

If you would have told me 5-years ago I would own a Kia I would have told you you're nuts.

I had some interest in that vehicle but it’s not as big as I had hoped. I’m probably going to have to get a Silverado or similar again. Would have done so end of this year but the auto market is such a sellers market right now I’m going to let it ride instead most likely. I don’t know about in the US but paying sticker Means you paid at least $10K more than they would normally sell it for. 

[mank]

Marty,

$10k below sticker is unheard of in the US. The Telluride, depending on the configuration can seat 7 or 8. I don't need any of that but bought it more for the utility. with all the seats down you can haul a ton of cargo. My son has a Chevy Tahoe which is huge but it is based on a truck frame and the ride is not comfortable at all in my opinion.

[martycanuck]

May 12, 2021 11:38:53 GMT -5 mank said:

Marty,

$10k below sticker is unheard of in the US. The Telluride, depending on the configuration can seat 7 or 8. I don't need any of that but bought it more for the utility. with all the seats down you can haul a ton of cargo. My son has a Chevy Tahoe which is huge but it is based on a truck frame and the ride is not comfortable at all in my opinion.

I agree with you on the Telluride overall but it just isn’t meaningfully bigger than my Mercedes or my wife’s Ford Edge. We don’t need room for 7 or 8 passengers. We need more cargo room in at least one of our vehicles.

Sticker prices here are kind of a joke. Basically you sort of expect to pay the “sticker” price after taxes and we have a 13% sales tax. So if the sticker we’re 50K you’d buy the car for $44,250 and the tax would take it back up to the $50k region. (Just an example).

[Gimpy]

One of my hobbies is making chiming clocks with a theme of some type. I've made and given away over 60 clocks over the years. Today I went to Menard's for a piece of oak for a clock. I buy the good 4 sides stuff since I don't have the tools to work with raw wood. Normally board prices are $14 to $18 depending on oak, hickory or mahogany. Today a 1x6 6ft. long was $28.