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Thread: The Random Pointless Observations about Things You Did Today Thread

  1. #101
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    Well, some warmer weather and rain cleared things up.

    Unfortunately, I was stuck outside for the two and a half hours when it was freezing rain, gentle snowflakes, and a few hardened ice particulates. I didn't know in advance that was to be my role today, for if I had, I would have brought my raincoat and umbrella in from the parking lot.

    But, there was another guy out there as well, so I just decided to man up and not complain.

    I: WTF is wrong with these private "Flex" drivers? They get paid, literally, to run errands for me. And some septuagenarian actually questions what I tell her to do? Just do it, lady. I don't have the time or inclination to talk you down from whatever bad brown acid you ate, you crazy cunt.

    II: Just because road conditions are a bit more favorable, if you ride my ass on the highway when I'm going home, not only do I enjoy brake-checking you for about three-miles, but when I followed you home, I think you should be very frightened. Do not fuck with me. I will not murder you, but I will take as few minutes of my time as is necessary to make you believe you are the prey of a demented psychopath.

    III: "You need to find yourself a woman!" —"Yeah, well, maybe a pet. I shouldn't have said that..." "Well, a pet can't do everything for you a woman can." —"Well, ..." All good-natured conversation.

    IV: It really is true that pretty intense sweating in an environment with humidity potential sort of makes you smell of shit. I showered this morning, with soap, and wore clean clothes, but it's an upsetting phenomenon, I find. ETAThat's meant to be an analogy between electrical potential and humidity potential — I think it's true, at least from what I experienced today, but it might not be the right analogy. HOWEVER, there is a reason the USN has these things called "poopie suits."
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 11 Feb 2019 at 10:25 PM.

  2. #102
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    —"Well there has to be an order."
    —"No, [unspoken: you're a half-hour early to do my company's errands], just find a place where you're comfortable being parked."
    —"What's the order?"
    —"There isn't any real order, just wherever you feel comfortable waiting a bit."
    —"Yes, but what's the order!"
    —"There isn't any order."
    —"But there has to be an order."
    —"I know. Just go over there or go over there and talk to somebody inside. [There's no way she'd be admitted inside the warehouse without safety gear, and there's no entrance for errand-people on foot.]"

    One of two people today who seemed to think there's some "order" for when they show up early to run my errands.

    No. There isn't. You fucked up and got here early. Good for you.

    Just sit in the fucking parking lot until I radio in that I want you.

    Or fucking deliver pizzas instead. We don't want your shit — there are plenty of good drivers who aren't going to get "accidentally" have a bad experience inside the warehouse.

    Really.

    You're delivering a pizza.

    Be glad I let you do that much, you wormy little piece of shit.

  3. #103
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    They call me Mister Tibbs.

    I'm not a fucking fry cook or hamburger-flipper.

    What the hell planet does some errand-boy come from flipping me shit?

    This is not a customer-service job, and you work for me.

    So do what I say, and none of that sass-mouth.

  4. #104
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    I am really having a hard time getting over having to treat these errand-runners as "customers."

    They're not my customers, and, in fact, I'm doing them a favor by allowing them into my warehouse. Don't like it? Go deliver pizzas, or whatever makes you feel like you're not on death's door. Or whatever the hell reason they do an errand-boy's job at the age of eighty or whatever. Too bad you sucked at life: my portfolio has been growing since I was twenty years old, and my life hasn't suffered by saving up for retirement. Younger people never give me any static — they're glad to get a small paycheck, same as me, and seem to be adequately socialized.

    That said, I'm really good at people.

    95+% of them.

    I don't understand the small number of people who somehow think they are not errand delivery people.

    And, trust me, there is no "old money" in PDX. The closest there is, I know them all by name, and they know me.

    So you got a nice car. Good for you. Just get in line and deliver what I tell you to. Yuppie fucking assholes, good luck with your McDonald's franchise, or your failing (or prosperous, relatively) sole-proprietor shop. Bunch of nitwits.

    And, no, some peanut-head cheese-eating white bitch with lamentable property holdings and a lack of pedigree, education. Sorry, you dried up old cunt, you just don't belong in the world.

    Time to die.

  5. #105
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    Goddammit. Fucking son of a bitch.

    I thought Carhartt work pants were supposed to fucking last. Doing some grunt detail, fucking crotch split as I was fisting a loose board from one of those crappy wooden pallets.

    Not too bad, I can still wear them, and I have some extras to rotate through the week. But, still.

    But it ALSO annoys me that it seems most of my jockey boxer-briefs have odd holes in them. The usual between-the-thighs/balls holes, but also just random holes in odd places.

    Fucking A. I don't want to drive out to fucking WalMart or Target just to get some more shorts. BUT, it is worth it, I suppose, to not have to fish around in the "clean clothes" pile to find undergarments every fucking morning.

    What they need is something like those old "Tuffskins" pants for adults: clearly, my usual garments are not lasting like I want them to. Bitches be sewing the clothes wrong. That's all there is to it.

  6. #106
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    Quote Originally posted by Jizzelbin View post
    III: "You need to find yourself a woman!" —"Yeah, well, maybe a pet. I shouldn't have said that..." "Well, a pet can't do everything for you a woman can." —"Well, ..." All good-natured conversation.
    Oh, this one. Friendly gal. Process of divorcing. Has kids. Is kind of ... not my type... but I like her as a work-buddy and as a person, and is the only other practicing Catholic I know on this shift (well, she's about as practicing as I am, given she hasn't mention annulment, but apparently she sends her kids to a parochial school in a different parish; for all I know, she's knee-deep in the whole religion stuff, but probably not).

    I think she might be getting the wrong idea about me.

    I hope I'm wrong.

    Well, I can deal with any "advances" from women who don't interest me — they just use me for my husky body.

  7. #107
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    Nice Marmot, Dude.

    Christ on a motherfucking cross, fucking got half a toe bleeding off stubbing my toe on that idiotic attempt to take a piss and got my toe temporarily stuck in the space heater.

    Fucking A.

    Looks like a goddamned crucifix.

    Fucking A.

    Yeah, well dude, at least I got hydrogen peroxide and some gauze, which is more than my buddies got lying face down in the muck in Viet-Nam.

    Dude.

    fuckers fuck shit.

  8. #108
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    This is not today, but of Ash Wednesday.

    Yeah, I bothered to attend the 0730 service at my parish and get "ashed," and I am not at all ashamed to have washed off the mark when I went to work two hours later that day.

    But, I am proud to say that I got to pass Waregirl as she was ending her shift and I was starting mine. Pretty sure she noticed I had some shit on my forehead.

    I probably saw two hundred people that day, and maybe five seemed to not say, "Hey, you have something on your forehead!"

    Judas priest, I find it barely believable that 99.99% of people don't know what Ash Wednesday is.

    And, yes, while I attend mass every single goddamned week, or appropriately confess, I admit I only do it for more fornication opportunities. Putain de merde ma foi ce n'est qu'un riposte et bien un tentatif bien pâle mais soutenu.

  9. #109
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    Son of bitch.

    Not one but two pairs of the same model of Carhartt "work" pants split in the crotch at about the same time after four months of wear. And I don't mean they just had some slight fraying at the perineum. Full on ass-less chaps, basically. To be cut up and used as rags at home.

    SO, I ordered two pairs of "gussetted" crotch pants. One pair of blue "work" jeans, from Timberland's "PRO" line, and a pair of Wrangler "Riggs" ranger pants.

    They seem fine and all. I even went a size up on the canvas pants, as suggested. The blue jeans I just got my regular 36 waist, 34 length.

    Neither of them can I button.

    BUT, I found the back of my home office chair is wide enough that I can attempt to stretch them out overnight. Still probably have to leave the button undone and wear an untucked shirt (plus belt, natch), but I guess I have until the end of Lent to drop some inches off my waist line.

    I swear I wear 36 waist recently, which isn't all that huge a size.

    But apparently a year of drinking three or four liters of wine every day sort of makes you a fatty.

    I have noticed I've stopped sweating profusely every day at work since quitting drinking wine (not a Lent thing, just a prudent thing), even though I still have a few beers after work some days.

    Carharrt my ass. Bull shit. I really liked those pants too: they fit good, they looked well, and were comfortable.

  10. #110
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    "Taxpayer, I cannot hear you. Taxpayer, we must have a bad reception. Taxpayer, I cannot hear you. I suggest you call back at another time."

    Stupid fucking mobile phones and goddamned fuck shit.

    Second time in a row after waiting on hold to "verify" my identity.

    I bet that's what really set Ted Kaczynski off, not the rape of the natural world.

  11. #111
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    No, nothing yet. Trying to set my sleep to pick up an extra eight hours today by waking up at 0130, then sleep at about 1100 until 2000.

    I think the only reason I like to work is that I get to meet girls. It's like a disco, but I also get paid for it.

    I also found the most ridiculously apropos crotchety olman thread that existed.

    I only found it by accident when I was noticing that I happen to have "The Club" (steering-wheel-locking anti-theft device) and was thinking about getting rid of the mountain of trash in my passenger-side footwell and how it would be good to be able to stop the car, open the door, and pick up the device the next time someone honks their horn when I'm letting a pedestrian cross, as is their right.

    N.B. They have the right, de facto et de jure, except when they don't. In the USA, automobilists do not have any right to occupy any bit of asphalt or macadam, unless they are granted some kind of certificate.

  12. #112
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    Judas priest, "The Who" at Tanglewood July of 1970.

    Holy shit, so, like everybody, I've seen This is Spinal Tap more times than should be allowed.

    This is the shit.

    And Benadryl (house brand) was on sale for $4 USD per 100-ct bottles, so before I take a nap of six hours, I just saved a whole bunch of money [on my sleep aid] ready to start at 2015 this PM.

  13. #113
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    Judas priest, "The Who" at Tanglewood July of 1970.

    Holy shit, so, like everybody, I've seen This is Spinal Tap more times than should be allowed.

    This is the shit.

    And Benadryl (house brand) was on sale for $4 USD per 100-ct bottles, so before I take a nap of six hours, I just saved a whole bunch of money [on my sleep aid] ready to start at 2015 this PM.

  14. #114
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    Well, I tried but I could not. I can't do an impromptu graveyard shift without adequate sleep. I thought I could beat the devil and do 3.5 hours sleep, walk up at 0130, then go for a walk with my middle nephew and his grandmother at 0800, then grab five hours sleep during the day.

    No.

    I did last four hours through the shift, but the sorting shift is not just awful. It is gawdawful. First of all, it's a sausage-fest: while the crew seemed nice and the atmosphere was relaxed, and <gasp!> they actually self-policed the timing of the break after two hours, trusting everybody to get down to business after ten or fifteen minutes (which is nice).

    The work itself is the worst I've ever done, as a job. Remember in Cool Hand Luke when Luke is digging holes in the ground and filling them back in? Exactly the same. Picture a fifteen foot aisle, and you're "in charge of," say, six or seven of those. A Laverne-and-Shirley-style conveyer belt is running constantly and people are picking up boxes and envelopes off the belt and sorting them into the aisles you're working.

    You walk back and forth, maybe fifteen feet, picking up one box at a time, finding the correct bag it goes into, stoop down to scan the often besmirched QR codes to indicate the package is sorted, then go back and grab another one.

    And there's no end in sight. I think 35,000 packages (including envelopes) was tonight's load. But the belt never stops.

    You walk up and down, turn over, bend down, stand up right, walk ten feet, rinse, repeat.

    It's digging ditches, is exactly what that shift is like. Or shoveling shit.

    After four hours I just said "fuck it," but I did the responsible thing and told the shift supervisor that "I just can't stay awake and continue to be safe and accurate. Just as a courtesy, I thought I'd let you know rather than just walk off."

    Honestly, I was dizzy from walking to-and-fro rapidly in circles, every article of clothing I had was soaked with sweat, and I basically was a non-hacker who did not pack the gear necessary to serve in that shift.

    Good crew, had some good mini-conversations to get the feel of the shift, but some things just aren't worth working after midnight for on very little sleep.

    Just getting old, I guess.

    Great workout, though! Four hours of stooping, fetching, stepping, and sweating!

    I'm never going to complain about my comparatively cushy shift again....we even got some new meat to break in! Plus I can wake up at six or seven in the morning instead of trying to be a goddamned Special Ops grunt stressing the limits of endurance.

  15. #115
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    About the "new meat": there's some guy named "Zane." He's OK. Young kid, sort of like me, prefers doing the grunt manual labor, just to stay busy. Natalie. She's about good for me — she won me over when she said "Balls!" as an expletive, and seemed to "get" my little comment which was, "Hey, what are you, Sid Vicious?" I haven't seen Abdullahi in the past week: I tried some of my few bits of Somali with him (I just guessed he was Somali, and I was right), and he taught me a new phrase which I forgot. No, I don't know any Somali, just "what's up?" "thank you!" "yes" and "no."

    I hope he comes back to the shift, though — I like shooting the shit with East Africans, for some reason. They're not what I would call "chilled out" people, as a rule (rather, pretty guarded for good reasons) but me and them seem to get along OK, in general.

    And, Dan got negged from his "Ambassador" position (he's a total neckbeard nerd, but he has a good sense of humor and is competent and straightforward), and I like having somebody in my crew who actually gets shit done so we don't have to be scrambling at the last minute. We work good together. BTW an "Ambassador" is....sort of like one of many sub-supervisors. They don't get paid anymore than us regulars, but .... I don't know. They get a special safety vest. Basically they're just grunts who do the same stuff as anybody else but with a touch more bling and nothing else.

    Yeah, that's the best thing about working with "my" crew — just we all know exactly what to do and automatically cover each other's backs using shorthand, like a nod of the head or so forth.

  16. #116
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    Yep. Nothing like spending about half your paycheck at a bar drinking beer and dealing with your bitch-ass uncle.

    But it's nobody's fault but mine — I was, indeed, the one who called him from the bar after my graveyard shift and, as is my way, was insistent that he join me for a few beers (he lives in downtown, and "my" bar is not far from there, but it might as well be a hundred miles for all the PITA driving through downtown is).

    It wasn't all bad — I picked up some 2mm "B" pencil lead for my clutch pencil at ths art "mega-store" called Blick's, and I insisted Jerry try it out using both the HB and the B lead. He's a pretty good drawer, so that was amusing for a while.

    I don't know what it is about him, but the bartender looked askance a bit abut him after we'd had a few (I mean that literally, just a few beers of PBR).

    But somehow the bartender seemed to take my word for it it was fine — I guess that's what you get after coming to the same place five days a week for over a year and not being a total knob.

    That was an amazing show of trust and faith the bartender put in me — her license woiuld have been in jeopardy if she indeed did overserve some rummies and they ran a schoolbus off the road or whatever.

    So that was nice.

    I sort of bullied/persuaded JJ to come back to my place, only so that I wouldn't have to drive downtown again and could have delayed The Trip until the morning.

    The good: he showed me a little trick on piano for Frankie Laine/Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles — namely, like, let's see we're in the model key of C and as a preparation for the dominant, you hit a Bb triad (really, I think that's a Vm7 in disguise). Of course we got in a minor little Felix/Oscar bitch-fight after it.

    But I put him in his place a bit by doing the tune in all kinds of weird keys, like C# or whatever. Which are not "weird" keys: The only weird keys for improvising American music IMHO are B major and F#

    And,of course, I get to deal with his whining "Hey Jack, can we go out and get some more beer?"

    My response: "What did I take 90 minutes ago for the express purpose of going to sleep? Benadryl, Steinberg! And did I take my pants off a bit ago? Does it look like I want to go to the grocery store wearing my undershorts?" Just chill, dude.

    Real edgy guy. He's really the very model of a modern man-child. Christ, he can't act like a person!

    And he tried his hand at acting down in Hollywood, so I'm confused why he can't/won't apply some of that technique to interacting with the world.

    More later, I guess. Honestly, I'd rather just forget about the whole thing and be glad I woke up in one piece, but I doin't trust that guy. It's no fun going to sleep with your wallet and other valuables on your nightstand, with the door closed, wondering if this jerk is going to burn the place down.

  17. #117
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    Oh, and we did watch the The Who concert from Tangelwood in 1970. So we got to have some good light chatter about the musicians' abilities as performers/entertainers as well as bickering about the exact chords used.

  18. #118
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    Well, I wouldn't it say it was pointless, but after several hundred yards of e-braking while maintaining speed to back this tail-gating motherfucker off my ass, I did get a wild hair to cram the e-brake HARD, and make an immediate right turn, after checking to clear the intersection of other vehicles and their betters, pedestrians.

    Nicely executed, I would say. Fish-tail, laid a ton of rubber on the asphalt, and yet ended up where I desired.

    My real desire was that the offender would have crashed, and maimed or killed the occupants of his or her vehicle, including any children born of such a creature.

    No, apparently they survived, but IMHO that's too bad.

    It was a pretty sweet turn, though, I made.

  19. #119
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    Well, I've gotten my disgust for that pap they play — this is the fucking archdiocese of Portland, you know, which happens to be my paish church.

    Whatever, the music is shit. It's .... I can't even say.

    People like this George Winston bullshit?

    Fuck them.

    I don't go to mass to sing fucking Vince Guaraldi shit — fucking A. And Vince Guaraldi was an actual musician, not like this shit.

    Yeah, OK "Pop contemporary adult worship."

    Are you shitting me? (A) I don't sing for nobody and (B) IF I sang for somebody, at least it'd be fucking good.

    ON THE GOOD NOTE, I'm liking this new gal on my shift. No, I didnt say "shaft" so stop saying that. She's not that good prima facie, but she could be. Seems smart, quick to have a laugh, and probably would debase herself with me if I gave her some gelt.

    Good enough.

    ETA And don't tell her that I deliberately try to do FBI-style J-turns using the emergency brake to try to eliminate tail-gaters. Or do. I don't care. I'm not even that great at eating pussy — short tongue, don't you know.

    But she doesn't have to know that: IME enthusiasm goes a long way, so to speak.

    All right, so I'm a pig, but just don't tell her that.

    She'll find out on her own.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 21 Apr 2019 at 11:24 PM.

  20. #120
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    Yeah, this counts as an "observation": jeez, OK, fine, lady behind me. Fine. You're a mega-super-ultra Christian. Who happens to be Catholic.

    I don't want to hear your bleating in my ear with your fucking bullshit songs.

    And I'm going to PRETEND I didn't just see you doing the orans (open palms extended outward), which I've seen a number of people do during that one part of mass. That's the celebrant's/priest's job, and I think it's a garish mockery and a huge affectation to think "this is what we can do too!"

    Yeah, I'm sorry, but this isn't some hippie new age mass where you just kind of "do your own thing, man!"

    I don't have a problem with members of a family (I assume the hispanic group in front of me were a family — some younger kids, and probably the papa and maybe an uncle) holding hands during the Pater noster. Or anyone, really. It is, after all, called communion for a reason, and there need not be a biological kinship. I'm just glad no one tried to touch me other than during the sign of peace.

    It's quaint, but if it makes them happy, then it certainly doesn't bother me. It seems pretty common, in fact. It's fine. Whatever makes you happy.

    More the "m'as-tu-vu?"-ism of some of the more "upright" types. That just means the "look-at-me!" type person. Which may not be their motivation, but it is certainly the effect.

    Lack of humility, I would say.

    WHICH, BTW. Fucking stop saying "peace be with you" across many pews? The cathedral was designed for pretty good acoustics: one needn't even raise one's voice, let alone shriek. And, maybe just keep it to yourself if you're not sitting with your "special friends."

    ////

    CONCLUSION. I think I might need to find a different time of mass or commute to a different parish which is a little more subdued and more traditional. No, it's true I made the effort to learn the rosary and the spoken parts of mass in Latin, but I certainly don't speak the words in more than a very subdued voice, because in my view, that would be contrary to the purpose of the celebration of the mass and the participation in the communion of the faithful.

    I think the next nearest church with regular masses is St. Cecilia's in a nearby town, which has a largely Spanish-speaking flock, and, somehow, I think I would be less annoyed by people there. No, I don't speak Spanish, but the language is not that important. Anyway, there's always the universal language of the RCC, which suits me fine.

    Although, I was reading from Luke today in the Vulgate and I admit I had only about 60% comprehension of the words. So, use it or lose it, I guess.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 22 Apr 2019 at 09:39 AM.

  21. #121
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    Oh, here's a sort of witty explanation of why I'm right and these other people are wrong and should be ashamed of their abuses and liberties taken during the concelebration of the mass.

  22. #122
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    WOW. I've got a nice one, from just now (just got home and took off my shoes+socks).

    So, I'm turning into my "condo community" which shares partly one part of a street with a big rental complex.

    Naturally, I hew to the fifteen MPH limit by downshifting into first.

    Yep. Some motherfucking did what I thought they were doing. For about fifty yards. Could have been accidental.

    No. I don't have that happen to me without my best effort to kill the tailgater.

    I recalled I have one of those red "club" car-theft devices in my front passenger seat footspace, buried under all the coffee cups and shit.
    No, sir.

    Not in my neighborhood.

    Took me a while to dig it out of the rubble, too.

    I put "The Club" on the roof of my car and drove slowly through every inch of the rental drivelanes.

    Yes, that was pretty psycho. And, no, it did not make me or anyone else feel better.

    BUT, one does what one must.
    /////////

    Oh, I had a few extra dollars these week so I bought, rare for me, some "fun" books: The Order of Mass in Nine Languages and Liber Psalmorum: The Vulgate Latin Psalter (Latin Edition) .

    In other words, the first is just a missal with side-by-each translations in a few languages. I know the Latin, the English, and sometimes I can remember the French, but I might switch parishes to a predominantly Spanish (Mexican)-speaking one. No, I have no interest in learning the Tagalog or the Portgueuse, but it might be a handy text.

    The Latin Psalter will be of amusement to me — I use the Vulgate New Testament when I want to look something up, but I don't own the OT in the Vulgate, and the Psalter is a good one to consult, perhaps, from time to time. There's no doubt I'll need to use a dictionary, even often, but I find it to be a convenient text to have at hand.

    If it turns out the Missal is not that useful a text to own, it may be of interest to the nephews — the two eldest seem to enjoy figuring stuff out, so that's a good primer, regardless of religious intent, of which I have none.

    I don't think anyone but me in the family will be interested in the Psalter, but that's OK.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 24 Apr 2019 at 07:04 PM.

  23. #123
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    Huh. No kidding. UPS just delivered the small paperback "Liber psalmorum" (the Psalter, or just the book of Psalms in Latin).

    Tiny book. It reminds me of the Edmond Jabès novel .... I can't remember the title...something like "Small book held in the crook of one's arm": it was supposed to be a reference to one of the great purges of Jews from Europe — Spain, basically, this time. When Jews would hold a small book in their sleeves to...I don't remember.

    Wow. It's a spooky looking book, though. Matte black, with the only text on the cover in white saying Liber Psalmorum. And the text is nothing but wall-to-wall Vulgate Latin.

    ANYWAY, while I am still considering if I can bring this book out in public without being burned as a witch or something, YESTERDAY the Alfred edition of Bk 2 of Debussy's Préludes arrived.

    I was expecting a spiral-comb bound thing, but I find the text/notes legible, and there's something interesting in the commentary. And, it's nicely bound, so it's not going to fall apart anytime soon.

    Frankly, a lot of these préludes are beastly difficult, so it needs to hold up to a lot of abuse.

    HOWEVER, I sort of regret not holding out for the Henle edition of Bk 2 (the Henle of Bk 1 is beautiful, and the cream-colored pages are much easier to read, and, there's some editorial rationale given for various choices, as well as some interesting prefatorial reading). But, the Alfred edition was I think 9.95 USD and those préludes that interest me I already have photocopies of, so it's a matter of convenience as well as frugality.

  24. #124
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    I should have mentioned that the editorial choices in, for example, the Henle of the Debussy are kind of beside the point — after all, Debussy composed his préludes, both books, well into the twentieth century, and really, if there is an "urtext," it's most certainly the version personally approved and overseen by Debussy himself, published by Durand &cie.

    But, still, it's interesting to read some of the paralipomena even if there's no or little doubt what Debussy wanted.

    NEW. The postman/lady/whatever delivered just now The Order of Mass in Nine Languages. No, I'm not going to read the Tagalog, the Vietnamese, the Polish, the Portugeuse.

    Even though it is "published with the approval of the US conference of Catholic Bishops," I find it odd that they don't have a "nihil obstat" on the publication page.

    But, yes, I find it an amusing slim text, and could come in handy, even though every church I've been to has some kinds of little paper/placard aides-mémoires in the pews.

    Still, I want some "nihil obstat" if not an imprimatur on the book, dammit!

    No, it's just the usual stuff, nothing outrageous I can see. They should have put the various tunes in the Gregorian chant notation, though — I think a slightly more expensive version claimed to do that, but whatever. I still ain't singing no shit, no where, no time.

  25. #125
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    No to the Alfred edition of the Debussy.

    The shock-white paper is hard on the eyes, and just now was playing through "General Lavine, Eccentric" (sp?) and it's terrible for sight-reading.

    Yes, the three staves (normally piano music just has two staves — more or less kind of bass and treble) doesn't make it easier, but I can deal with that. It's really mostly Debussy wanting an extra inch and using the "sostenuto" pedal on the modern piano (the middle pedal on a modern grand piano or some digital pianos). Not too hard to see at a glance how to get the effect.

    Just an odd way of engraving/typesetting the notes.

    Did I mention the shock-white paper yet? It's really hard on the eyes when you're reading a lot of information at one glance, and looking several bars/measures ahead to not be surprised by some odd cross-hands stuff or a key-signature change.

    Is that particular prelude a ball-buster? No, not necessarily. The rhythm is straight-forward, and while there are some large chords with improbable clusters, it's not so bad. Reminds me quite a bit of "Minstrels" from Bk. 1.

    Oh well.

    Should have done it proper and got the Henle edition, but this is good enough.

    Barely.

  26. #126
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    Very entertaining, jackass.

    Put me in sole charge of the two busiest drivelanes, presumably for the amusement of watching me do my "Charlie Kelly" impersonation from the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Bah.

    Well, my team helped out, but I'm sure it was amusing imagining me chain smoking cigarettes and obsessively checking every detail while simultaneously walking at a thirteen-minute mile regularly fetching missing pieces.

    For the past two days.

    Oh well. This is the life we chose. I didn't get upset, I didn't ask questions. There isn't even a plaque in that city Jack built.

    No, I don't want any tuna sandwiches.

    But the chubbier girls are looking a little better to me these days. What is that? Fever dementia? I don't know.

    And forget about the PM flex team who supposedly are supposed to relieve us completely at 1300.

    They're as useful as a dug up corpse.

  27. #127
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    I think I outlined one minor (hour-long?) task I was given today in that "Questions?" thread. Namely fill up an empty semi-truck trailer with full pallets of dubious wrapping quality and various amounts of lopsided-ness, each of which weighed (I estimate) between eight hundred and maybe as much as fifteen-hundred pounds in weight, using a hand-tool called a "pallet-jack."

    And the trailer is at an incline when parked at one of the freight bays, so not only are you pushing this shit uphill (as much as....maybe fifteen degrees), it's a lot of other bullshit.

    Yeah, I had a helper, but these pallet jacks are not exactly designed for precision work. It's like driving a vehicle with +1 qt. of corn liquor, for the amount of control. There are a few tricks and it gets easier once you get the hang of it, but it is the very definition of brute forcing your way into a solution. And, obviously, there's very little room for error or wasted space due to any errors.

    I suppose I should be proud I was "selected" by the shift supervisor as one of the "strong" people who could do the job, but it's fucking difficult.

    AND, I really think there's a better way to load trucks. This way is bullshit. UpHILL, pushing these loads? Surely not.

    However, there's an upside, I guess: either all the women either think I'm some kind of Conan Barbarian, or else a fat rummy who is always at risk of having a stroke at any moment.

    But, I'm pretty sure if they start firing people, I'm going to be one of the last to be let go.

    Because I'm fucking crazy and will just do whatever crazy shit they want no matter what, so long as they pay me.

  28. #128
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    I'm very much more angered by the edition of Bk. 2 of Debussy's Préludes than I thought possible, because when sight-reading the "Feuilles mortes" prélude, I was both struck by how much a debt "post-bop" (let's pretend that's a thing) piano owes to Debussy's voicing of chords on piano, and how upsetting it is to not be able to have an edition which is easier to read.

    Yes, I'm sure someone has written a dissertation on Debussy's chord voicings for piano, and, yes, there are certainly simpler examples within Debussy's music which are easier to read. I find it mentally exhausting to read at tempo a tune such as this without the benefit of a nicer-colored paper than stark white. Since, after all, when one sight-reads, one is not just looking at one chord, but scanning ahead and seeing what else.

    But, I felt the same way about Bach's music, and I gave his works for keyboard the benefit of the doubt and re-wrote in pencil various iterations of the various works.

    Still, Debussy can be difficult to sight-read at any proper speed, when he is creating the denser clusters of chords.

    Yes, I'm now firmly committed to the idea that Debussy was as much an "atonal"-oriented composer as our infamous Schönberg and others.

    I'm sure people have tried to shoe-horn the harmonies of Debussy into roman numeral analysis (i.e., functional harmony), but, aside from some clumsy attempts by "jazz" theorists, pertinent to their own field, I don't see the point.

    I see very elaborate vertical structures, which tend to move at will in parallel, built over generally strong bass notes suggesting one tonality or key, proviso temporary modulations, and generally tuneful gestures in the soprano voice.

    What happens in between the bass and the soprano is, as far as I'm concerned, more or less a kind of controlled chaos which probably shouldn't be analyzed according to the same tools we use to look at Mozart's music or Haydn's.

  29. #129
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    Yes, that's all very nice, but the latest news I "did" today is surely the most surprising. Sure, some nicer weather, so I decide to open up my home office window. I like fresh air. The blinds are busted, so I have this neat system where I balance one end of the bottom plane of the blinds on top of the "dictionaries" shelf, and a piece of cardboard underneath the other.

    Apparently, since things come in bundles, while I was doing one of my least favorite tasks (laundering clothes) the whole thing came undone and shattered the glass lamp on my desk.

    Mind you, the LED bulb still works like a champ.

    However, also mind you, apparently glass .... blown or however they make these things.... not really great.

    Well, it's one more excuse for me to not have women with children or pets ever visit me. The asthmatics are already out, because of the pungent aroma of my pipe.

    Really.

    Small shards of glass everywhere within a two foot radius circle of the lamp, I suppose. Probably more inside than out, because of the screen and what.

    I suppose having small shards of glass be "discovered" in my feet will give me something to complain about for the next few months.

    Can't be helped.

    Well, I do have a vacuum cleaner, but I'm not sure whether to set it at "sucks" or "blows." Besides, that's a lot of effort and ... well, it's .... some effort.

    //////////////////////

    And, ETA, yes, I remember why I kept this window closed during the rainy season here. Goddamned fucking idiots. To their dogs, apparently, yelling "No, no, I told you no going around in the blackberries!" WTF??????

    And it goes on and on.

    But, now I have a reason to go to the local Target and buy a bike pump, since I can't seem to find mine, to refill my rechargeable marine air-horn.

    Seems to quiet them down.

    I should also buy about three dozen more pairs of undershorts, so I don't have to do laundry that often.

    That really cheeses me off, boyo.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 10 May 2019 at 07:35 PM.

  30. #130
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    Oh, god damned it, mother fucker.

    Just when I was about to say you shouldn't eat four servings of "Italian sub sandwich" with some triscuits, a few slices of cheese, and about three and a half...checks weight...four and a half liters of wine, because you might vomit.

    Yes, copious amounts.

    Sure. That's fine. That's why one has indoor plumbing.

    No, the icing on the cake is after I got it all "out of my system," I dropped the butter knife I was using to unclog my bathroom sink down the hole.

    Dude, I don't even...I just can't...

    I was so happy when I unclogged the sink ...

    And then...

    So sad.

    No. I have pliers right here, but I'm not going to do it.

    The tune that caused all, apparently, this jostling about? "Hey Nineteen" by the Steely Dan on or K-Rock classic hits of the golden years. Yes, no shit, I was literally playing it and hitting pause on my computer.

    I supose this all makes sense with this dream I had last night, extremely detailed about Dean Martin, and Jeannie and houseguests.

    No, not really, but I thought I should have some say over what has been the prettuy much crappiest ordnary day in an ordinary guy's life on a day off from the mines.

    Yeah, but really I'm not complaining, but everything that could have gone wrong did.

    The final blow? Actually coming so close to fixing the problem and I lose the tool down the dmned drain.

    Well, at least it's early in the week and I've got my whole paycheck to blow on utilities and, maybe some charity ass from the local bar;

    I don't care.

  31. #131
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    Well, it's about 2115 or so, and I think I'm about to sack out, as usual, take some Benadryl as a sleep aid (yes, 75 mg qd is perfecty safe, that's my usual dose even when drinking much more than q diem istem, and for years now it's not been any tolerance I've noticed).

    Wake up tomorrow, get the ... yeah, that took about a minute flat to fish the table knife out of the drain in the bathroom.

    So, apparently, some people can drink five liters of wine in nine hours and be functional, to th extent of repairing damages to one's domicile, and so forth.

    And I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up right as rain after eight hours of sleep, buy some stupid pencil lead, have a quick beer at the local, and wonder "why haven't I been studying my Red Hat Enterprise Linux" textbook.

    Meh, I don't care. I want results and some pecker-wood from The Company is not going to ...

    Eh.

    Insert the last few bars from Debussy's "Feux d'artifice [sic]" from the bk.2 Préludes, or, for that matter, Liszt's outrageous arrangement of the same theme.

    When I go, it's going to be anything to write "home" about: if it's in Bb and people can vamp up and down to the submediant and back to the tonic, ad infin., that's fine. But A's as sharp a key as I want to go. Db? Great. Ab? Excellent. None of this B major or E major. Says the person who probably grew a tenth of a millimeter in forearm muscles by playing blues in all those keys especially the sharp ones today in forty minutes or less.

    You try it! Go ahead, play "Tipitina" or "Big Chief" or whatever regular tune in E or in B on a piano. It's a workout, both mentally and physically. I mean, it's the same tunes, but it takes a little bit of stretching and thinking. In that respect, jazz and Debussy should be a great encouragement to pianists and organists who don't want to just play the identical patterns in whatever key (yeah, it can be done, but it's a PITA many times: people invented those things on the keyboard in a specific key for a reason you know): namely, just go full melody and full harmony and, ideally, just go where the lead voice is going.

  32. #132
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    Hunh.

    Apparently the better part of my judgment and looked at himself in the mirror, after cleaning up the oily T-zone, and decided, "No, I don't think we're going to drive the half mile to the grocery store," instead seeing: "WTF dude, it's the beginning of a Friday evening, and you look like fucking Nick Nolte right down to the tropical floral shirt, and what fucking reasonable person, even at the grocery store you visit like five sevenths of a week would sell you even beer?"

    And still, I may resemble Nick Nolte's infamous mugshot, but I know how to...oh shit, all of my clothes are still in the laundry basket because I was too lazy to hang them all....w

    Oh.

    Well, scratch all that.

    I sure do like them french fried pertaters, um-hunh.

    To think, but a simple man, could do so little as to put on pants and a shirt and go buy some beer.

    And yet, there is a man.

    A Nick Nolte.

    Shut up get out the way of my raccoon meat and pudding pie! I smell beer, who's holding! People magazine ain't what it was, sexiest man alive! Get off me, varmints, go find your own hole, because this is the way of the Nick.

    Commander Riker, I'll thank you to confine your leisure activities to your own quarters, is that understood?
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 11 May 2019 at 01:08 AM. Reason: add photo

  33. #133
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    Well, apparently not much news.

    I was glad to have four and a half pints of Pabst in cans, but only felt like getting up and woke to have a fifth of Old Crow at about 1100 or just after.

    I haven't quite finished the "bottle," but I'm looking into it at the moment.

    About seventeen units of alcohol, so that means I cut my alcohol intake from yesterday by 100%.

    On the good note, I discovered that it's quite a bit more tricky to improvise a bassline and some simple harmonies in a minor key than one had thought. Vide, "Rawhide" sung by Frankie Laine, or the tune that Mia and Vincent danced to in PF, in C-minor.

    For some reason, I never played a lot in C minor — I mean, it comes up, like in standards in Eb and some of the sad standards like "My Funny Valentine" and stuff, but it never seemed like the go-to key if...I don't know, somebody wanted to sing a "St James Infirmary" or something, it wouldn't be my first choice.

    But, I think it's good as a "model key," and now that I have my pencil loaded with B lead, I'll probably just fool around with the sets of pitches.


    No, C minor never occurred to me to use as a model key for regular circle-of-fifth tunes like "Green Leaves of Summer" or "Yesterdays" and stuff, but now I should probably think about it.

  34. #134
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    "Well it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel, now, is it?"

    How long has this pattern of easy morning routes, full of inexplicable 4.5 hour routes, plus an afternoon packed of full-boat 46 on one side, 28 on the other, missing six on B, so we improvise staging at the top and improvise faking like we're improvising the remaining five at the top of A.

    And yet, I am good at that one very thing — getting stuff where it needs to be, and picking up the slack where it's wanting.

    And yet, where does that motherfucker put me today? On checkout, doing the computer scanner machine, where I still help where I can except I've got a fucking laptop around my neck like a need a bag on my hip.

    I don't even know how this fucking computer machine works.

    Way to go, dickhead.

    I'm spending five minutes pushing a stalled car out of the warehouse, by myself, another five minutes rushing to get some cunt her damned safety vest which she forgot, the other five minutes of the same five minutes trying to get these motherfuckers out of the door before they start plugging the diners, and the same five minutes scanning some magical fucking fairy packages that aren't where there supposed to be.

    And the next five minutes of the same five minutes, I'm grabbing a fucking flaming orange flag and trying to get the people in the damned door.

    What a fucking convenient week for everybody to start showing up "sick," i.e., not showing up.

    And I need this fucking PM flex crew like I need an asshole up my ass.

    You know, I've never been so fucking hungover for months or maybe years the last few days.

    Like, I'm telling you, it was a challenge shaving and putting on pants. That kind of hungover. Yeah, as opposed to the good kind, I know.

    Fucking A.

    I'm going to fucking love to hear what kind of stories everybody and his or her mother came up with this shit.

    And fuck you, asshole: I don't work computer/check-out. If I ever feel like saying "OK, looks like you're good to go! Have a good one! Yep, you too!" in private, please just fucking shoot me.

    What the fuck is that? These drivers aren't my goddamned customers: they deliver whatever the fuck I and my team says they do.

    No there's no rulebook that says I have to be Mr. Friendly to them: managers don't give a fuck about that.

    But, as a decent enough person, that's just my own rulebook. You know, just be nice.

    Like I'm a fucking girl wearing pinafores socialized for this shit.

    It just takes a lot out of me being some kind of "deal with this crappy driver who doesn't what the fuck she's doing," primarily because I do care, and I don't have it in me to put up a stonewall face.

    But, fuck you Jason, you bastard.

    You should have known goddamned better than to put me in that role for today. Sure, I can figure out the computer and whatever. Still, there are some limits.

    Fucking motherfucker. Shit. Eat shit.

  35. #135
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    I mean, really.

    The whole pattern for the past week and, it looks like, the coming week is a heavy assail of full-boat double and triple-staging, and yet the shift supervisor thinks his best scheduling play is to put me behind a rolling cart checking to see if the flex drivers are one or two packages light?

    No.

    Especially since I'm going to be doing a fair bit of prep-work myself.

    No.

    You get somebody who's happy to move heavy freight, especially when we're understaffed, you damned well use him or her. Pu____ima and Des__ée are just fine at checkout, as is that geek who is into R and SAS data analysis.

    I suppose, cross-training is fine, but then again I also suppose my shift supervisor is an ancient pot-head who should probably get his head out of the 1970s.

  36. #136
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    So, not only is the job starting to include me, it seems, along with most everyone else, getting saddled with the added stress of having to play nursemaid to this crew of dipsht dumbass kids who are supposed to take over, with an hour of overlap, for the afternoon flex routes, but it seems Raet____a is on a forced paid "leave of absence" because she playfully gave a little slap to some supervisor, who apparently is a giant puss and decided to escalate it to some kind of "investigation."

    From what I heard, they were pretty buddy-buddy and I guarantee Raet____a didn't have any evil intent.

    It sucks, not just for her, but for the rest of us, because we're already short-staffed, and she was kind of a "glue" element that helped us feel like a complete team.

    Not only was she always ready with a light-hearted joke, she was damned good at the job, and she had a lot of knowledge of the ins-and-outs of stuff about The Company as a whole.

    And I liked her as a person, as did everybody, except apparently that dickless sonofabitch. Well, maybe not everybody, but she had a good way of bonding with people who were on her wavelength.

    And it's raining.

    And my desk lamp broke. And my office chair fell apart. And I haven't been sleeping well or eating well. And I'm going to be almost flat broke for the next few weeks due to some poor financial planning to cover utilities, car insurance, gas, and all that good stuff.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 14 May 2019 at 05:12 PM.

  37. #137
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    Goddammit, yet another thrilling example of the "new kids" on the PM "team" — who gave them the fucking idea that they just jerk off doing piddly little shit when they've got routes to go out?

    And where's their fucking supervisors setting them straight?

    I understand it takes a while to figure out what apparently is a new environment (well, a month now, if not longer), but you have us, including all of our supervisors, each of whom knows as much as me or any other regular person on the AM crew, soaked with sweat, busting ass all morning, making it work.

    Supposedly, at some point, the PM team is supposed to take over, while the AM team takes care of housekeeping and getting things set up for "their" afternoon.

    Which, if they're doing it right, they're not going to have time for.

    Because they're supposed to be working on getting these flex motherfuckers in and out.

    No. Apparently AM team does everything until PM team feels like they are somehow able to shuffle their feet a little faster and do their shit.

    They're as useful as a dug up corpse.

    As is management.

    Bunch of flaming idiots.

  38. #138
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    I haven't union-bait in a long time. For one, some dickhead used some permanent marker on one of the men's room's stalls to scrawl some idiotic screed, and I suspect some people thought it was me, even though, while crass, I'm not going to make more work for the janitors. And some stupid posters on some outside walls.

    That's all ridiculous.

    However, while "work-to-rule" is obviously a non-starter, being unaffiliated workers, I think it might be a good idea if our AM team just held mgmt to their dictum and said "Fine, if PM team takes over at one PM, we'll spend from one to two PM doing prep-work. And if they get stuck, well, maybe they should have considered that."

    Fuck it.

    I'm done being in stress hours after work for stuff that isn't my problem.

    The problem is that like all of my AM team, we do care.

    But, just resist the urge and, when appropriate, carefully suggest that, "Since PM team can't handle from 1300 to 1400, why don't we just continue, and then at 1355:01, let them sink their own damn boats."

    All right, tomorrow morning, assuming someone else doesn't bring it up first, I'll suggest that (i) PM team needs non-greenhorn supervisors or that (ii) AM team needs to cover for PM team for another hour while they're fucking around with their heads up their asses.

  39. #139
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    And yet, somehow by magic or force of will or something, AM team manages to stage 50+ routes in the fifteen minutes before the first flex drivers enter the warehouse.

    Without the benefit of having other people take care of all the fucked-up carts in the drivelanes or stray bullshit.

    Almost like we work together and get shit done.

    Granted, it's not exactly music theory, or graph theory, or topology, but it's almost as though we manage to cooperate and work together. We do have a mentally-impaired person with us — I don't know if it's autism or something, but it's pretty severe, but I'd put him up against anyone as far as being where he's supposed to be and doing the right thing at the right time.

    What is that, Monty Python, "well, it's getting better!"

    Supposedly they "promoted" some of the PM crew to what they call "Ambassadors" (it's not a pay-raise, but they're supposedly people who know a bunch — that is not, actually, the case, because .... well, never mind, but many people just prefer to not take the added responsibility, unless they are trying to become a "shift supervisor" or something, or unless they don't know any better and are like "sure, I'll do that!"), but from what I observe of the PM crew's floor-level supervisors aka "Ambassadors," they don't know shit and make the barest of all efforts to control their crew.

    AM crew's Ambassadors are...well, it's a mixed bag, depending on who you talk with and some personality conflicts...but at least they've been there a while and if I don't know the answer to a question, they or somebody else will, and since we've been working together a while we have that kind of rapport. And I'm a relative n00b to this crew, but the newer additions are getting the same consideration.

    Except for K___en. Nobody likes her: she smells and is obnoxious and holier-than-thou about her previous shift. But she's OK.

    Nat___lie, though! Yeah, baby. She's on the button. It's kind of funny, the lesbians on the crew have been over the past month or more sort of sniffing around, testing out where she's at. No, that's not a put-down, just me noticing on break, if she's in her car and see who comes over and asks her for a light for a cigarette, that kind of thing. I don't know, but she seems to like me well enough: eye contact, jokes, and things like that.

    And she's pretty good at the job — at least it seems to me she picked things up quickly.

    Open question as to where her "sympathies" lie, but AFAIC, she's just there to punch the clock and is, probably wisely, not interested in emotional connection with her coworkers.

  40. #140
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    OK, here's a good analogy that illustrates why I (and WVO Quine and any other reasonably literate person) detest the absurd faux-mis-pronunciation of "prah-sess-eez."

    Does one say "divergen-SEEZ"? No.

    One does not.

    It doesn't matter the reason why this abomination occurs, just a neat analogy that popped into my head. I've never heard anyone say "divergences" that way IRL, but that's precisely the point.

    Oh, and for reference or for those who are unfamiliar with this genial book, I'll note Quine's (liberal arts major, despite what that turd who writes that scum-sucking piece of shit cartoon claims) entry in his Quiddities : an intermittently philosophical dictionary [sic] under "Plurals":

    Quote Originally posted by Liberal Arts Major Quine
    An ignorant refinement that has unaccountably infested academic circles in recent decades is prŏcessēs, or prōcessēs....Why in God's name? It is not something these people grew up with. Do they think they are being scholarly about a Greco-Latin plural, as in basēs, crisēs, and proboscēs? Will they venture a singular processis? Or will they move on to horsēs and assēs?
    And, yes, that took me forever to figure out how to reproduce the "ŏ" (inverted circumflex or unstressed or whatever the name is) symbol on the keyboard, but it was worth it.

  41. #141
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    Yeah. Next time I see this fucking silver-haired patrician-looking PM flex "Ambassador" just wandering around, I have one thing to say:

    "How's your team doing so far, chief?"

    I'm fucking getting older too, and maybe I got lucky that my hair isn't shock white like Ray Wise in Twin Peaks.

    You better be fucking doing something for me other than looking like a token "old guy," you fucking crumble-cake. I know people with thirty years on you who can eat your lunch and come back for more.

    Or else go back to fucking sort or pick packages out in Troutdale.

    Fucking people with fucking attitudes.

    Like a fucking bag up, in, and on my urethra do I need this.

    Do something, you fucking empty sack.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 18 May 2019 at 04:21 AM. Reason: added consideration for people who are seventy+ years old and who rock

  42. #142
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    Oh, well I guess it turns out in my timezone it is a new day.

    I haven't been awake this long since a long time.

    This is a silly observation, but since it just now happened, I suppose this is a good place for it.

    For some reason I was just now playing that old tune "For Auld Lang Syne."

    Trust me, you know it. Everyone knows it.

    I have no idea what the words mean, but I was just going up through the keys at the keyboard.

    All of a sudden, when I hit Bb, it struck me like a bolt of lightning!

    Yeah, it was pretty miraculous — I was just making it sound good in odd keys like Gb and A and Db, and the whole key, so to speak, is just head down to the submediant (e.g., in Bb, just pretend you're playing "Didn't He Ramble" or, in a less oracular fashion, just prepare via the dominant chord for the Gm, i.e., the submediant key).

    I don't know if that's the correct terminology, but it's certainly the right idea, and it makes playing intervals of a tenth a lot easier in the LH, since you can invert them to match the bassline descending motion.

    Anyway, so that's good to remember for next time: when in doubt, just play it in Bb and just do it in all twelve keys on that basis.

    Really not a tune that requires a lot of thought, but it can be uncomfortable to make it sound fluent with full chords and bassline in the LH in all of the keys.

    When in doubt, invert it out. Or something.

  43. #143
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    Well, I'm not going to talk about work, which was a disaster, thanks to a number of imbecile civilians driving routes in their own shit cars. You deliver what I tell you, and that's final. And if your fucking car won't start back up after your done filling it with pizzas and kitty litter or whatever, that's not my fucking problem. We'll push it into the parking lot and say, "lots of luck, pal."

    BUT, I did just now have an amusing thought. For some reason I was trying to remember the prominent Situationist author of Societé du spéctacle and finally remembered, "Guy Debord." Yes, it took me almost a minute of me snapping my fingers and staring off into space at my desk, but I remembered.

    What is funny is that I never realized the several homophones his name has for regular English phrases.

    I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader, but it amused me, sort of.

  44. #144
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    Well, that was good times. The one time I put in earplugs (actually just wetted pieces of paper — had to improvise — on account of some asshole playing EDM over the top PA speakers (tche, it's ridiculous), I do the unthinkable. Actually turned a cart over on it's side. It was empty, and new hire for the crew T-S, Ike (as, I suppose, he likes to be called, according to his name) picked up the slack and got my attention.

    Strange fellow — he actually winked at me the first time we had a down time and I was like, "Hey, Ike, my names Jizzesondirtyundies, good to meet you." So, that was weird, but it's OK w me if he thinks I'm sort of some underground cabal or thinks ... couldn't say. Well, whatever, but I was lucky the cart didn't capsize onto some delivery person's car or someone's torso.

    Well, whatever. I sure as hell hope the PM flex crew is finally getting the picture that, after 1300, I'm not doing shit to help them. Fuck 'em. All I know is whatever time of day it is, when I start it actually doing stuff. Hell, we've got a guy on our crew who happens to have some pretty severe cognitive disabilities, but he's at least he's actually doing stuff and he's not in the way and he generally has a good attitude. I'd put him up against ten of the slimy little cocksucking communist twinkle-toed shithead fairies...wait...well. at least he could do as our mascot.

    Srsly, I wonder how some of these pickers for Flex manage to cross the fucking street.

    All hopped on those EDM Grammy awards and dancing.

    No, I am serious: about forty percent of the pickers are not doing jack shit except being punker rockers.

    Fuck. Yeah, I did pick up an extra shift for tomorrow a 0500, and our respective picking teams will overlap for a little while.

    So, yeah, I'm bringing four spare dry shirts and blah blah blah.

    Fortunately, if some piece of rugburned stained-Hanes shitbird wiseass shift supervisor says one word to me about measuring breaks in terms of seconds, all I have to do is just disappear, reappear and submit via the browser on the phone (Microsoft Edge! Woohoo!) the hours as "sick time," and go wait out the shift in my car listening to Joe Henderson, waiting for the next shift to start.

    I'm here to solve problems. If my help is not appreciated, then, well, lots of luck, fellas.

    Yes, my basic approach to this job is that shared by Winston Wolf and everybody who had to be in charge of herding cattle, and getting them out, in a timely fashion.

    Emotions are for pussies.

    ETA The point I was trying to end up on was that I remember what damages I caused by being a FNG, and that it's hard to remember making rookie mistakes, but at the (literal) end of the day (def: whenever work stops), (no, I'm not going to make a formal recursive definition), but I didn't quite be able to do or make a good post.

    Take it or leave it, I don't care. It's stil random and pointless.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 28 May 2019 at 09:44 PM. Reason: fu, that's why

  45. #145
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    You know, even though I dip into the well and take extra early morning shifts to keep my "skills" at having abraded fingertips, I'm fucking done with that.

    Here's a little exchange between some gold-plated, copper-bottomed piece of shit. She used to work on the floor. So, it was free burritos (actually, they were good, and I generally don't eat at work or during the day).

    She had the acumen to say, "No, you guys don't get burritos yet."

    The short-bus acumen.

    My response: "Wrong." (Literally). She seemed surprised at my curt dismissal of her problem. Fuck her. She's a shift supervisor

    Her: "Oh, you're doing an extra time in the morning."

    Me: "Right."

    Only words you can say to those fucking fascist ego-trippers are: "Right," "Wrong," and "Let's see."

    I hope she kills herself today. Waste of human sperm even if most of it ran down the crack of her mothers ass.

  46. #146
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    Heh.

    I didn't think anything would come of this junket into network engineering, and I'm still not sure if what <insert owner's name> wants is a network/hardware engineer vs. more a marketing/web design person.

    But, it seems like, according to my intermediary contact, who put in a good word for me — which counts, in this situation, what with this being (i) a small town and (ii) the owner's desire to keep people working at his "shop" to come from "inside the house," namely, regular people whom he doesn't have to vet or do background checks on (more or less he wants people from within "his" community, instead of just grabbing some names out of a phonebook) — at least I can look over his basic network design.

    Meh. It's not really much, but I'll have a one-sheet of how to segment his internet traffic, and strongly suggest using quality of service (QoS) methods to inspect traffic and guarantee connectivity for things like POS and maybe all the video poker (I believe the OLCC governs video poker/keno, but I don't know how deep into internal networks they go — they may well have their own ISP dedicated to their little enterprise).

    Meh. I'll type out a page with my contact info and a few qualifications/certs, some bullet points of what should be done, and probably draw in pencil or pen a rough sketch of what a good design would look like.

    One page, maximum, and not my whole life history or anything like that: just the facts. Here's what you need, and here's how to do it.
    ETA
    And he's blind, and, apparently he knows who I am, probably from asking the bartenders and regulars.

    And, I have zero idea of what he wants, so I'll just lay out on paper how his existing network should work, and account for any unexpected additions to the number of hosts and subnets/VLANs he may need in the future.

    So, just a blank page with some stuff on it.

    Such that someone can read it to him and tell him what's what.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 03 Jun 2019 at 07:52 PM.

  47. #147
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    Well, my experience with my newly-acquired wet wipes was a success.

    The only part of my body that really reeks after a few days of just sitting around is the groin (specifically, the spot between the balls and the thighs — it is a very bad smell). Surprisingly, the actual ass left no visible residue, but the front-groin left a disturbingly yellowed mixture of...I have no idea, but it's not good.

    Armpits, no problem. The wet wipes seemed to do as good a job as a washcloth with soap, plus liberal application of underarm deodorant. It's fine.

    Naturally, I always wash my face with hot water and soap.

    So, I feel pretty good to have another tool in my arsenal.

    And, no, this isn't some philosophical or biological experiment — I just despise getting wet, towelling off, the noise of the bathroom fan.

    It's an unpleasant chore to me, and I really don't like to do things like that aren't strictly necessary, or which have convenient shortcuts.

    My hair probably stinks, but likely more of tobacco smoke than anything else, and it just looks better IMHO without having to apply "product" (alcohol-based hair gel) each time after washing.

    So, I conclude that a whore's bath is just about as good as a wet-wipe bath, both of which are functionally (outwardly) equivalent to drowning yourself in a torrent of aerated water every day for two or three minutes.

    Which has its place, but in frequency, not as often as many others seem to find for themselves.

    I reserve showers for washing hair, scrubbing the back with one of those bristle-brushes with a wooden handle, without scruples or shame.

    And that is what I did this morning.

    If it looks good, smells good, and is combined with good grooming of hair, stubble, and dental hygiene, that is the complete set of desiderata.
    Last edited by Jizzelbin; 09 Jun 2019 at 10:40 AM.

  48. #148
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    A good day. To return some stuff to a Target I had the bright idea of going to the downtown Target after work, upon finding they validate parking. And was able to buy some 2B and 4B pencil leads at the big art supply store nearby.

    AND, Target posted the credit to my debit card the very same day.

    Which is nice.

    And I ate fried chicken and a pretty good sandwich and only had three beers.

  49. #149
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    Hmmm.

    Got about the most abbreviated, yet good haircut on a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

    Well, I needed/wanted a haircut anyway: we can't all be as cool as Nick Nolte hiding in a place where a raccoon built a real cool nest where you can stash your GHB while waiting to make some burritos out of squirrel meat.

    It was after work and my face was sweaty/oily and my hair wasn't clean, but no one ever complained before at a Great Clips about that.

    The lady didn't complain either, although she did try to upsell me on a shampoo and rinse.

    Fuck that, bitch — I'm going to wash my hair and shower afterwards to get all the loose hairs and whatever super-poly-grip product she slathered onto my hair afterwards.

    Shit, motherfuck. The grey hairs at the roots are getting a little more foncés.

    Meh, fuck all that.

    Oh, but I think the cut was $18 US, and I tipped her two bucks.

    I usually go a little bit more, but I realize that's a little over 11%. I felt a bit cheap.

    But fuck that, five minutes in a chair while she reads the instructions from my last cut, plus her bitching at my to let her shampoo my hair.

    Anyway, that's the chain's fault for pricing a stupid men's haircut so high.

    I mean, she was nice and everything, but she wasn't anything special.

    What's special? Take you in the back and suck your dick?

    I'd go over twelve percent for that!

    </gratuitous Reservoir Dogs quotes>

  50. #150
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    Oh, and my big genius revelation of the day:

    one reason I dislike showering is that I don't trust the non-slip pad I have over the enamel.

    I mean, it's just a false sense of security, and I don't trust it.

    I trust my bare feet more, but enough soap and...it's like I spend most of my effort ensuring my foothold.

    Trust me, I've used plenty of different showers, I know how to maintain balance.

    I walk barefoot outdoors on gravel and hot asphalt all the time.

    But still, it's a detail that perturbs me and uses up part of my brain that I should be using to get in and out of the shower PDQ.

    BUT, GENIUS IDEA!!!!

    So, I go to wherever they sell this kind of thing, buy some flip-flop sandals with a nice spongy, rubberized sole, then come shower time (which, honestly, could be every day for the amount of each day I spend soaked in sweat), pop those suckers on, and ba-bing, my showering task is about 500% easier.

    Yeah, I know.

    Hold your applause until I acquire such footwear.

    But there will be applause.

    Because that fucking cures all the problems.

    QED.

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