Rant: My belly looks like I just had an abortion the hard way, holy crap I am bruised! Rave: Last day of training. Thank baby jesus, because I can't sit on my ass anymore. I'm not used to all this sitting.
RAVE: Big boss was less than pleased with how severely his assistant managers shat on my hours. To quote, "I don't know what the hell they were thinking." More hours, more money. Now I'm just praying the previous job doesn't fuck me over on my W-2 (because they probably will).* *I don't expect the form itself to be somehow falsified, but some companies, rather than mass-mailing from the corporate office, let each individual store do the final step of mailing the forms to the employees. If the place in question sends the form through the store, it is almost guaranteed to be "improperly addressed" or "lost".
Rave for teh lulz: A conversation I had at work today: Middle Aged Fat Lady With a Cane: "Hey, you know computer stuff. Why cant I see the Google logo?" Me: "Its part of a blackout over SOPA" MAFLWAC: "Whats that?" Me: "Its a virus I think, you better call the Helpdesk." MAFLWAC: "Really? Oh boy thanks for warning me." -She puts the call on speaker like every god damn call she makes - [Bring Bring] Helpdesk: "Hi, IT Helpdesk, whats your workstation ID and whats the issue youre having?" MAFLWAC: "When I try to go to Google the banner is blacked out, I think I may have a virus!" 2 to 3 guys at the helpdesk begin laughing wildly over the phone. Spoiler
RANT: Just finished the last season of The Wire. I'll never see another new episode. In the words of Clay Davis, "sheeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiit." The world is suddenly a cold, empty place. RAVE: What a fucking show. And while I hate for it to be over, the ending felt right... I feel like they told their story without rushing or drawing it out. Anyway, if you're looking for a great show, watch this bitch. Unless you're the guy who posted about The Wire in the "let's complain about things most people like" thread. You can get fucked, sir.
Rave: I'm reading a resume for a Japanese subcontractor. It includes the phrase "I am married - one child. I am in excellent health. I have no disease". This is a resume for a dude who has 25 years experience in Japanese regulatory affairs. Hilarious. "I have no disease". Raver: Hot chocolate, hot cider and cookies at work this afternoon. Best afternoon ever.
Saving your company the awkwardness of illegal questions in one bound! Rave: Smoked meat on pumperknickle with good mustard is always a good lunch
Rave: Lots of time off work. Rant: Closing on a house and dealing with the bank, my lawyer and my real estate agent is a huge pain in the ass.
RantWhich will hopefully transition into a rave) Last night on my way home from work I hit what I assumed to be a pothole in the middle of no where. Something blew out on my car and by the smell of it, I assumed it was a tire. I immediately pulled over and looked at all of my tires, which were all fine. What I did find was the frame of my (2001 Honda CR-V) was sitting on my front right tire. The spring holding it up collapsed completely. I called a tow service thanks to an awesome 17 year old guy who lived near by and had access to a phone with reception in the middle of nowhere. Got the vehicle towed by a company that could also fix the car. Great, one fell swoop get everything done. Well, roughly two weeks ago I got all 4 struts on my crv replaced, which ended up running me about $1070. Apparently once the tow place put up the vehicle on the lift, they found out that the strut collapsed internally. To cut to the chase: The original car place that replaced the struts is towing it to their garage. If they find out it was the part, or human error on their part of the installation of the struts, they are paying for the tow/repairs. If it wasn't their fault I have to pay the (250$ tow) as well as what it is going to cost for them to replace the strut and whatnot. I am really fucking hoping I don't have to pay for this.
RANT: Car needs a new exhaust system. It's 9 years old and going to cost me $560 to fix. I don't have the money for a new car. Options: 1. Repair and use it through the rest of winter when I can get my bike back on the road. Sell car independently for $2-3k and get a new one before something else breaks. 2. Trade in now for probably $1500 and lease a new car I'm leaning towards option 1 because I think it will be a waste to make monthly payments on a lease that will sit parked for 80% of the summer.
Rave: I'm not one for home repair projects beyond replacing light bulbs, but I just painted an entire bedroom without any outside assistance, and it came out perfect. I feel like a champ. It may have took me 6 1/2 hours just for one 9' x 9' room, but goddammit, it looks awesome!
Rant: I think I can officially consider myself old. I was sitting at work today, chin in the palm of my hand, elbow resting on desk, quoting orders when all of a sudden I sneezed. And, in that one motion, screwed up my neck so badly that I cannot turn my head to the left and my upper back/shoulders/lower jaw all ache in such an unpleasant way I can't even laugh at myself. Double Rant: Winter has fucking arrived. -32*C (-26*F) right now. It's so cold we have to leave the forklifts running all day and park them inside at night or else they'll never start. Same thing happened with a girl I work with...after nine hours in the parking lot, her diesel truck gave up the ghost and had to be towed into one of our bays to sit and thaw overnight. Small Rave: I work at a place where the people are willing to stay after work in the bitter freezing cold, try to get someone else's car started, and failing that we have the capacity to tow it, thaw it and fix it the next day.
Rave: Graduation present arrived today. Spoiler So, a few decades ago, there was a bit of a conflict between the USA and Germany. A dad of a family friend went over there to help settle things, liberated a camp, and came back with a souvenir. A Wehrmacht Officer's dagger, with the swastika snapped off. The handle's not in the best condition, and the silver's quite varnished, but that missing swastika makes it absolutely beautiful. Nazis: 0. Allies: Significantly more than 0. NSFW
RAVE: Chased a freight train with my friend for about 80 miles from Gorham, NH to Stanhope, Quebec this past weekend in subzero snowy weather. Caught tons of chase footage in the snowstorm and made for some insane driving. What an experience. RANT: My friend's '87 Wrangler is a piece of shit (no shit, I know). The driver's side door doesn't stay closed, at all, so we rigged it to operate on a rope latch. We also spun out into a snowdrift on marshland in the middle of East Bumfuck, Nowhere, New Hampshire (aka outside of Groveton), but we got out of it relatively easily. We were both scared shitless (we were doing 50+ in a snowstorm, and that stretch of road turned to be a sheet of black ice). edit: Did I mention this was at around 2am that we were doing this? We didn't get back home to Conway until 7:30. This was done completely on a whim.
RANT I missed winning the Florida Lotto by one number yesterday. ONE NUMBER! RAVE I woke up this morning realizing I am $10k* richer than when I went to bed. I never have this kind of good fortune. *Before Taxes
Rant: For the second time in two weeks, I fucked my back up doing something incredibly trivial. The first time I was putting on foul weather bibs over a pair of boots. The boot got stuck inside so I leaned down to pull on the bibs to get the boot to push through. Apparently this upset my easily-agitated sacroiliac joint, and I felt it go--and fell on the ground. Such a proud moment--I was hurting for two days. Yesterday, I bent over to pick up a small water pump and the same thing happened. Then, I worked for about four hours lifting heavy shit. That was awesome. Aleve didn't touch it, my girlfriend's leftover pain killers didn't touch it, special stretching/ alignment exercises helped a little, but I'm still sore as shit. I can't put on fucking socks without groaning like an 80 year old. Rave: Nothing to do this weekend. Thank God.
RANT: We're hitting a slow time at work. I had Thursday and today off, and possibly Monday. This isn't good, but alot of electrical contractors right now are slow. We have work, but weeks to months away due to circumstances out of our control.
Rave: Completely disregarded all professional advice on writing a resume and created one for fun that's highly informal but eye catching and entertaining to read. Guess which resume has been getting immediate responses from internships? Fuck you, university career center.
Rant: Woke up monday morning to brush my teeth, and there was no water. Great fuck me. Checked the weather dropped below -20C. FUCK you global warming where the fuck are you. Last time it has been this cold was 1994. So my pipe are frozen in the ground. Looked at the weather report and it wasn't going to get above 0 until Monday. Left my bathroom sink on just a little bit encase I got water back, it wouldn't refreeze. Rave: Running water today. RANT: Walked in the front door at lunch and all i heard was water spraying. Guess when the pipes froze, it dislodged some mineral content from the pipes. Plugged the screen, and was spraying water every where. There was a nice pool of water in the bathroom. Go check downstairs which is under construction(all the dry-wall is up) and i have a contractor over to mud and tape. Guess what was nice and wet? All my nice new dry-wall, lets hope it didn't get wet enough, that i will have to re dry-wall the bathroom i am installing downstairs.
Huge Rave: I fly back up to Queensland in 32 days for a week, and it's only going to be 330 round trip(before taxes, but still). Apparently I'm in for a week of vodka/tequila, sex, cuddling pregnant woman and eating Mac 'n' Cheese. I love my friends, so much. Bonus rave: There is nothing to rant about currently. I have a job, with bosses that appreciate how hard I work and so are very flexible with my travel plans, being as I'm one of the only team members they can call in every day and I won't complain, awesome friends, get to travel and planning my road trip at the end of the year that might end up in a permanent move for me again. Two of the guys from here explained the FWB thing to me, so that cleared up my confusion a lot, so thanks heaps for that guys. So, no rant for me.