The pet peeve thread

[1776]

7 hours ago, chasfh said:

I wonder whether any state governments or unions toy around with road closures as leverage to get at each other during disputes.

Wasn’t there a spat some years back involving NJ Governor Christie regarding a bridge closing that was making life difficult for some people?
I don’t recall specifics but I think it originated in political differences.

[oblong]

22 minutes ago, 1776 said:

Wasn’t there a spat some years back involving NJ Governor Christie regarding a bridge closing that was making life difficult for some people?
I don’t recall specifics but I think it originated in political differences.

yes

[gehringer_2]

21 minutes ago, oblong said:

yes

indeed -  investigations and all kinds of noise.  IIRC Christie aide(s?) was even convicted but in the end Christie was never indicted.

[smr-nj]

5 hours ago, 1776 said:

Wasn’t there a spat some years back involving NJ Governor Christie regarding a bridge closing that was making life difficult for some people?
I don’t recall specifics but I think it originated in political differences.

“Spat” , “bridge”, and “difficult for some people”  are really under-stated. lol 😁

the bridge was the George Washington Bridge during rush hour…. And difficult for “some” people were THOUSANDS, including any that were in ambulances.

Data:The George Washington Bridge (GWB), linking Manhattan to New Jersey, is one of the most heavily used bridges in the world, with daily traffic between 275,000 and 300,000 vehicles.

It was a really despicable political payback for Christie not getting a democratic mayor to support his re-election.

And, yeah, he got away with it by making some underlings his scapegoats.

[chasfh]

It’s very nice when you’re on vacation at a site and someone agrees to take a picture of you and your wife in front of the site, although it is annoying when they hand the phone back to you after and you see they have taken fourteen of the same picture, so you have to delete thirteen of them.

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

It’s very nice when you’re on vacation at a site and someone agrees to take a picture of you and your wife in front of the site, although it is annoying when they hand the phone back to you after and you see they have taken fourteen of the same picture, so you have to delete thirteen of them.

We did a park trip a couple of years ago and at Arches, we watched - and then participated in a completely self organized system where each person or couple set up their camera - handed it to the next person in line, took their pose in the arch, got their shot and so on it went for as long as we were there. Humans can do OK, once in a while.

[LaceyLou]

On 10/8/2024 at 8:25 PM, smr-nj said:

“Spat” , “bridge”, and “difficult for some people”  are really under-stated. lol 😁

the bridge was the George Washington Bridge during rush hour…. And difficult for “some” people were THOUSANDS, including any that were in ambulances.

Data:The George Washington Bridge (GWB), linking Manhattan to New Jersey, is one of the most heavily used bridges in the world, with daily traffic between 275,000 and 300,000 vehicles.

It was a really despicable political payback for Christie not getting a democratic mayor to support his re-election.

And, yeah, he got away with it by making some underlings his scapegoats.

I remember hearing shortly after his underlings took the punishment that the newspaper who first broke the story was going to gut the department that did the research work to do this... I believe it was Maddow, and she urged people to subscribe to their local papers to try to preserve these types of investigations. Sadly, I believe not enough of us did this.

[chasfh]

No matter how carefully you enunciate into the iPhone microphone, you cannot make the text come out as “pitcher”. It is always “picture”.

[smr-nj]

That damn World Series has totally screwed up my already horrible sleep routine.  (and it doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with my team the Yankees losing. First of all they played like **** and did not deserve to win. The Dodgers were the better team. And this last game was a comedy of almost ridiculous number of errors, that strangely enough had me letting go in my head of any delusions of winning, so by game 5’s end, I was actually ready to erase it from my existence. The only player I actually actually feel sorry for is Garritt Cole. He didn’t deserve that debacle on the fifth inning.  But, it is what it is. This is the team they’ve been all year. When they’re good they’re very good and when they’re bad they’re horrid.  And boring. Did I mention boring? That’s the biggest sin of all.)

 

so anyway, here it is 2:20 in the morning, yesterday was closer to 330 in the morning, and bond day was also 3:30 in the morning. That’s when I only begin to feel drowsy. Sometimes I stay in bed, sometimes I get up and watch TV, sometimes I get a book to read, sometimes I argue with my cat.( He really hates that.)

I could get up and do laundry now I suppose, there’s at least three loads waiting for me. Nah….. I don’t want to do that. Something inherently wrong with doing laundry in the middle of the night. Feels like the opening scene of either murder mystery or a horror story.
 

Anyway, chances are it’ll probably be a week before I can straighten out this particular pattern of sleep and revert to a better one anyway.  I strangely find that if I put on a podcast of “my favorite murders- the mini episodes “, that sometimes act like a magic spell.  
maybe I need to find one to try in about an hour.

For sure, I’m not tired at all now.

Maybe Wordle. & the other games can jump-start the tiredness. 

I think i Might be losing my mind.

 

 

[oblong]

My sister is about your age and she has trouble sleeping too.  

[LaceyLou]

I've been watching reruns of Emergency, which I remember loving as a little kid. And I'm happy to say that seasons 1-6 were ones I still liked.

After season 6, there were 3 2 hour movies and a retrospective. FETV is in the middle of showing these movies.

The second and third movie have been....underwhelming. One of the best parts of the series was that the focus was mostly on the rescues, with very little family drama. This is what inspired a lot of people at the time to become paramedics.

Movies 2 and 3, on the other hand, have a full hour of soap opera type buildup before showing the rescues. In other words-boring.

 

[Deleterious]

5 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

I've been watching reruns of Emergency, which I remember loving as a little kid. And I'm happy to say that seasons 1-6 were ones I still liked.

After season 6, there were 3 2 hour movies and a retrospective. FETV is in the middle of showing these movies.

The second and third movie have been....underwhelming. One of the best parts of the series was that the focus was mostly on the rescues, with very little family drama. This is what inspired a lot of people at the time to become paramedics.

Movies 2 and 3, on the other hand, have a full hour of soap opera type buildup before showing the rescues. In other words-boring.

 

My mom said I had a huge crush on Dixie as a kid.  Maybe it's not a coincidence that I live with a former nurse.  

 

[Motor City Sonics]

14 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

I've been watching reruns of Emergency, which I remember loving as a little kid. And I'm happy to say that seasons 1-6 were ones I still liked.

After season 6, there were 3 2 hour movies and a retrospective. FETV is in the middle of showing these movies.

The second and third movie have been....underwhelming. One of the best parts of the series was that the focus was mostly on the rescues, with very little family drama. This is what inspired a lot of people at the time to become paramedics.

Movies 2 and 3, on the other hand, have a full hour of soap opera type buildup before showing the rescues. In other words-boring.

 

It's funny.  I watched Emergency as a kid.   I had to watch it on the little black & white TV in my room because my mom could not stand all the sirens.    But I never though that in my 50's I would be watching these shows again and REMEMBERING lines and plots from when I was 7 years old. 

Anyway,  a lot of aspects of the show aged very poorly - especially their depiction of women.  It's very cringe-y.   I know they weren't the only show that showed women that way, but it does make me a bit uneasy.  They're often portrayed as dumb or hysterical, when in my adult life I realize that women are not only smarter than men, they lap us and as far as being hysterical goes, that while yes, women may allow themselves to cry more than men do, it's merely because women are more open.   And I have also learned that women are mentally tougher too.   One of the reasons is that they have to put up with men all the time.  We're mostly a bunch of overgrown children.   Remember, single moms continue to get bashed in certain circles, but it was the moms who stayed & toughed it out while the dads took off  (in more cases, not all). 

 

Anyway, still watch it if I find myself at home sick during the day or on the rare work-from-home day (which I don't like doing).    Randolph Mantooth is the most awesome name of all time.  

Edited November 3, 2024 by Motor City Sonics

[CMRivdogs]

9 hours ago, Deleterious said:

My mom said I had a huge crush on Dixie as a kid.  Maybe it's not a coincidence that I live with a former nurse.  

 

Julie London was a looker and a decent crooner. She was also married to Jack Webb and Bobby Troupe. Troupe played one of the ER doctors, Webb produced the show.

[LaceyLou]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

It's funny.  I watched Emergency as a kid.   I had to watch it on the little black & white TV in my room because my mom could not stand all the sirens.    But I never though that in my 50's I would be watching these shows again and REMEMBERING lines and plots from when I was 7 years old. 

Anyway,  a lot of aspects of the show aged very poorly - especially their depiction of women.  It's very cringe-y.   I know they weren't the only show that showed women that way, but it does make me a bit uneasy.  They're often portrayed as dumb or hysterical, when in my adult life I realize that women are not only smarter than men, they lap us and as far as being hysterical goes, that while yes, women may allow themselves to cry more than men do, it's merely because women are more open.   And I have also learned that women are mentally tougher too.   One of the reasons is that they have to put up with men all the time.  We're mostly a bunch of overgrown children.   Remember, single moms continue to get bashed in certain circles, but it was the moms who stayed & toughed it out while the dads took off  (in more cases, not all). 

 

Anyway, still watch it if I find myself at home sick during the day or on the rare work-from-home day (which I don't like doing).    Randolph Mantooth is the most awesome name of all time.  

I agree about the portrayal of women-as you said though it was in just about all shows from the time (even MASH, which was considered progressive). I've been home the past couple of months it's pretty sobering to see how women were portrayed in older movies and television shows. At least Dixie was portrayed as a steady, capable woman.

[oblong]

Gas powered lawn care equipment should be banned for home use.  Anything that requires the use of ear protection by its operator should be permit based, meaning rare. For special projects.  I’m  sitting in my house and unable to watch TV because my neighbor just has to do it now. It’s damp and raining and the leaves are heavy and they just picked up our leaves last week. But dammit the lawn has to look like a putting green AT ALL TIMES.  I took a vacation day today since tomorrow is a holiday for us. Just want to watch The Thing, man…. 

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, oblong said:

Gas powered lawn care equipment should be banned for home use.  Anything that requires the use of ear protection by its operator should be permit based, meaning rare. For special projects.  I’m  sitting in my house and unable to watch TV because my neighbor just has to do it now. It’s damp and raining and the leaves are heavy and they just picked up our leaves last week. But dammit the lawn has to look like a putting green AT ALL TIMES.  I took a vacation day today since tomorrow is a holiday for us. Just want to watch The Thing, man…. 

LOL - I hate them also, but it's not as easy as it sounds. Ann Arbor passed an ordinance about gas powered leaf blowers but has already had to make a bunch of backtracks. I have an EGO electric blower which is supposedly one of the better electric brands. I use it on the driveway and the walks but there is no way it could do my lawn (10 trees). The thing that is stupid is the commercial backpack style blowers are big enough you could put a decent muffler system on them, the manufacturers just don't.

Related: Neighbor across the street has a hard lawn to mow. It's on a hill with several trees and a terrace to work around. He's a pretty green kind of guy and he bought an electric mower a few years ago. I'd watch him struggle get the lawn mowed, usually over two days. So over the last two summers he has now mulched over more than half the grass on his lot. I've never seen so much mulch.

Edited November 4, 2024 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

25 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL - I hate them also, but it's not as easy as it sounds. Ann Arbor passed an ordinance about gas powered leaf blowers but has already had to make a bunch of backtracks. I have an EGO electric blower which is supposedly one of the better electric brands. I use it on the driveway and the walks but there is no way it could do my lawn (10 trees). The thing that is stupid is the commercial backpack style blowers are big enough you could put a decent muffler system on them, the manufacturers just don't.

Related: Neighbor across the street has a hard lawn to mow. It's on a hill with several trees and a terrace to work around. He's a pretty green kind of guy and he bought an electric mower a few years ago. I'd watch him struggle get the lawn mowed, usually over two days. So over the last two summers he has now mulched over more than half the grass on his lot. I've never seen so much mulch.

Yeah I had a neighbor get an electric a few years ago and I noticed this summer he switched back.  I didn’t ask why.   Our lots aren’t huge but not small either.  1800 sq ft ranches with attached garages and our parcels go back a bit. Not quite big enough for a riding mower I don’t think.  But it takes me probably 90 min to do it all. I usually split it over two days during peak seasons so I can make it tidy. Now?  I don’t care about trimming and all that. There’s leaves everywhere and I often just leave the clippings as the wind takes them off. 
 

I had a large maple taken down this spring and it’s saved me hours in work already.  It was dying and by this point I’d have already spent all that time cleaning up. Now I just cut over what’s on my yard from everywhere else. 

[LaceyLou]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

Gas powered lawn care equipment should be banned for home use.  Anything that requires the use of ear protection by its operator should be permit based, meaning rare. For special projects.  I’m  sitting in my house and unable to watch TV because my neighbor just has to do it now. It’s damp and raining and the leaves are heavy and they just picked up our leaves last week. But dammit the lawn has to look like a putting green AT ALL TIMES.  I took a vacation day today since tomorrow is a holiday for us. Just want to watch The Thing, man…. 

Ugh, that sounds annoying. 

[chasfh]

This happened to me twice on our just-completed long driving trip.

I'm in the left lane driving something like 14 over the speed limit (i.e., 84 in a 70). Seems to be a decent sweet spot speed at which highway patrol will let you keep going.

Typically speaking, I like to be as far right as possible, but if there are several cars in the lane to the right of me that I'm driving faster than, I will stay in the left lane until I pass them all, and then once there's a bunch of daylight ahead of them in their lane, I will move over.

On two separate occasions on this trip, a car behind me sped up to tail me closely. Seemed obvious to me that he wanted to pass me. But I was also passing a bunch of cars to the right of me, so not much opportunity to move over unless I squeezed in between two cars in a barely-safe manner. So I'm going to keep driving, while the car is tailing me, until I see the daylight in the other lane.

Once I see it, I move over, expecting the car that tailed to to zip past me. And darned if I didn't move over, and the tailing car keeps driving the same speed, instead of zipping past me. And I'm thinking, why the hell did you drive right up to me and tail me if you weren't signaling to me that you wanted to pass me?

I think it was G2 who articulated here the idea of the magnet driver, the driver who's most comfortable driving behind a target car and going as fast as the other car is going, whether it's driving 50 mph or 95 mph. I get that it's a thing, but I'll never understand the mindset. A friend of mine does that, I asked him about, and he either couldn't or wouldn't tell me why he does it. He just shrugs and says "i'n'know".

[Screwball]

5 hours ago, chasfh said:

This happened to me twice on our just-completed long driving trip.

I'm in the left lane driving something like 14 over the speed limit (i.e., 84 in a 70). Seems to be a decent sweet spot speed at which highway patrol will let you keep going.

Typically speaking, I like to be as far right as possible, but if there are several cars in the lane to the right of me that I'm driving faster than, I will stay in the left lane until I pass them all, and then once there's a bunch of daylight ahead of them in their lane, I will move over.

On two separate occasions on this trip, a car behind me sped up to tail me closely. Seemed obvious to me that he wanted to pass me. But I was also passing a bunch of cars to the right of me, so not much opportunity to move over unless I squeezed in between two cars in a barely-safe manner. So I'm going to keep driving, while the car is tailing me, until I see the daylight in the other lane.

Once I see it, I move over, expecting the car that tailed to to zip past me. And darned if I didn't move over, and the tailing car keeps driving the same speed, instead of zipping past me. And I'm thinking, why the hell did you drive right up to me and tail me if you weren't signaling to me that you wanted to pass me?

I think it was G2 who articulated here the idea of the magnet driver, the driver who's most comfortable driving behind a target car and going as fast as the other car is going, whether it's driving 50 mph or 95 mph. I get that it's a thing, but I'll never understand the mindset. A friend of mine does that, I asked him about, and he either couldn't or wouldn't tell me why he does it. He just shrugs and says "i'n'know".

He was probably too young to ever watch Smokey and the Bandit. You follow the fastest car, but allow distance if you want to make time on the interstates. If you were in the way he didn't know what he was doing, or he wanted to screw with you.

The magnet thing is also true, and it works the other way as well. Tailgators. No matter how slow, they won't pass. I had to stop one time before they would go around. Then there is road construction and the Mad Max world.

[Dan Gilmore]

I think the magnet thing is to set your cruise control and forget about the speed, once you’ve identified another car going at your preferred rate. Really only works with sparse traffic levels (probably more common out here in the West.

[Screwball]

You need to be foot nimble at times. What really kills your time is getting stuck behind two trucks that take 5 miles to pass each other. Then you run into packs, and it gets worse. Out in the West is, or used to be, pretty wild. I know some lifelong truck drivers who ran coast to coast. They let it rip when possible. I saw it once.

I worked for a transmission company and drove a test truck (just the cab) from Toledo, Ohio to Midland Texas. It had a special transmission with a really long gear. Somewhere in Oklahoma the road was as flat and straight as the eye could see, and nobody around. Let's see what this prick will do. I got it up to about 95. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw another truck. What?

I kept it peeled and the next thing I knew this guy went by me like I just left a stoplight - with a trailer. Impressive. My buddies tell me some could get it up to 120 mph. Be a hell of a crash. Depends on where you are obviously.

[oblong]

I made a recent trip to TN and nowadays there's little chance to be able to do cruise control on 75 going down there.  Ohio offers a bit of a chance after Toledo.  But I like to do what Dan said....  set a comfortable speed, I like to do 4 over the limit, the put on adaptive cruise control and relax.  I only got a chance to do it for about 45 minutes though.

Coming back in KY, before the OH border (and that giant hill that you don't realize is that high until you go North) there were 3 trucks that did the "take 10 minutes to pass each other" and it was creating a backup as far back as I could seein the mirror.  I suspect 3 of them in the right  lane were doing about 65, 65.8 MPH, and 66.2 MPH.  And a work truck with trailer got sandwiched in between them.  I was getting worried as traffic was picking up.

[chasfh]

We've all been on hold for long stretches of time with utilities and retailers and doctor's offices and the like, and it's been like that for over a decade now, so the AI voice and the disclaimers about 911 and all that stuff at the beginning, there's no use whining about that. They do it because it's probably a liability issue or something. And we've all heard the music they play when you are on hold, probably taken from the list of the same four songs you hear being played no matter who you call. And that's fine, I accept that. And when we hear that hold music, I'm pretty sure that rather than hold the phone to our ears for however long it takes for them to field our call, we all put the phone down and let the music play while we continue working, until we hear a voice breaking in so we can finally talk to someone.

But I absolutely HATE HATE HATE when vendors and offices program in an interruption of the music every 30 or so seconds with promotional announcements trying to upsell us to something or other. Even doctors' offices do this now. The thing I most hate about it is, I can't concentrate on my work while I'm waiting because whenever a voice keeps breaking in, I have to break my concentration on my work to determine whether it's just another promotional announcement, or it's an actual person coming on the line that I need to talk to so we can address my issue.

Sometimes I wonder whether they purposely do this in order to annoy people so much that they just hang up, because customer service costs time and money and they want to provide as little of it as they can get away with. It does make sense because usually one of the announcements is how you can answer simple questions by going to their website, so they want people who are calling up just to get hours of operation or location information to stop wasting their time with that. That's not me, though. I'm calling specifically because I need help on an issue their website can't answer.

 

Edited November 7, 2024 by chasfh