The "Complaints 'R' Us, complaint thread"

TJohn · March 2018

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

Mistara said:

NVIATWAS said:

ALLIEKATBLUE said:

Another nor'easter on Tuesday. This makes 3 in about 2 weeks. First one knocked out power for 5 days and came on just in time for the 2nd one. I'm so over winter already.

Someon has ticked off Mother Nature... :-/

it not nice to fool mother nature.

heard a mourning dove this morning, was a mournful complaint about the cold.

Mourning doves are very successful birds around here. There's a large tree outside my window that is a favorite location, right before dawn I get 3-4 of them cooing away. Very pretty birds, as well. :-)

...I miss the sound of their cooing, very comforting. Heard only one in all the time I've lived here and it was near the business park where I used to work on the far west side of the metro area.

Awww. :-( Right now (8:05am) I hear mourning doves, a hawk in the distance, and a few crabby grackles. The grackles ruin everything... :-/

They're kind of cool looking, with that irridecent blue, green or purple...but they swarm and eat all the seed in my bird feeder. They seem to go away for the winter, but they're back now.

Dana

Ours here in Austin make odd noises, like shorting elecrical transformers. Very alarming! Bzzzzt crackle CAW! :-O

Yes, sort of a metallic kind of klink. Very odd. They scare away nicer looking and smaller birds from the feeder. But they scare easily themselves. I just go to the kitchen window and wave an arm, off they go. Once I saved one that was caught in my neighbor's stockade fence. He apparently slipped off his perch on top of one of the pickets ans down between two of them. His leg was caught. I tried to reach for him to lift him up, but it pecked at me and tried to scratch me with the loose foot. So I came back, got a table knife and a piece of cardboard (as a blinder) and slid his foot up and out from between the pickets. Off he went, withough even a thank you!

Dana

Dana

Here we just shoot grackles with a BB gun.

TJohn · March 2018

The old milwaukee architecture I'm most familiar with.

NVIATWAS · March 2018

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

Mistara said:

NVIATWAS said:

ALLIEKATBLUE said:

Another nor'easter on Tuesday. This makes 3 in about 2 weeks. First one knocked out power for 5 days and came on just in time for the 2nd one. I'm so over winter already.

Someon has ticked off Mother Nature... :-/

it not nice to fool mother nature.

heard a mourning dove this morning, was a mournful complaint about the cold.

Mourning doves are very successful birds around here. There's a large tree outside my window that is a favorite location, right before dawn I get 3-4 of them cooing away. Very pretty birds, as well. :-)

...I miss the sound of their cooing, very comforting. Heard only one in all the time I've lived here and it was near the business park where I used to work on the far west side of the metro area.

Awww. :-( Right now (8:05am) I hear mourning doves, a hawk in the distance, and a few crabby grackles. The grackles ruin everything... :-/

They're kind of cool looking, with that irridecent blue, green or purple...but they swarm and eat all the seed in my bird feeder. They seem to go away for the winter, but they're back now.

Dana

Ours here in Austin make odd noises, like shorting elecrical transformers. Very alarming! Bzzzzt crackle CAW! :-O

Yes, sort of a metallic kind of klink. Very odd. They scare away nicer looking and smaller birds from the feeder. But they scare easily themselves. I just go to the kitchen window and wave an arm, off they go. Once I saved one that was caught in my neighbor's stockade fence. He apparently slipped off his perch on top of one of the pickets ans down between two of them. His leg was caught. I tried to reach for him to lift him up, but it pecked at me and tried to scratch me with the loose foot. So I came back, got a table knife and a piece of cardboard (as a blinder) and slid his foot up and out from between the pickets. Off he went, withough even a thank you!

Dana

Dana

Grackles are rude and manerless birds!!!

NVIATWAS · March 2018

DanaTA said:

Our refrigerator has a water tap that gives pretty cold water, filtered, and an ice maker...crushed or cubes (well, not really cubes, sort of partial slices of a cylinder). I like it crushed. Never been a big ice person. But I like water best very cold.

Dana

I like cubes in iced tea and water. I chew on them... :-/

NVIATWAS · March 2018

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

Somewhat overcast this morning at 8:15am. 67f, should hit mid-80f's today. Time to make more ice cubes, iced coffee already chilling in the fridge!

Complaint: sore legs and hips. Very annoying.

Non-complaint: Tostadas for breakfast!! So yummy... :-)

...been feeling that for the last couple days now. hence been not getting out of bed as early as I usually do.

Ugh. I hope things improve soonest!!! :-)

LeatherGryphon · March 2018

kyoto kid said:

...hey hey hey kids it's that day again.

What ever happened to Saturday mornings when every self-respecting American kid sat on the floor in pajamas watching cartoon predators unsuccessfully chase roadrunners; or a musclebound loutish bully made unwanted advances on a bolemic woman only to be violently trounced by an incoherently mumbling, pipe smokin', wirey dude with tattoos and swollen forearms (I often wonder what was in that pipe); or a smartalec rabbit and a dumb as s**t duck battled a psychotic Martian in a dress intent on destroying the Earth? You know, back when the world made sense.

NVIATWAS · March 2018

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

SAGA ALERT

When I was younger (5 years ago) I never thought that a trip to the grocery store on foot would be a death-defying ride or nightmarish terror! PREPARE FOR A SAGA!!

The day dawned dim and overcast, perfect weather for my eyes - light enough to see, but no direct sun to blind my one semi-iffy eye. Weather said overcast all morning, so I sucked down a cup of coffee and munched some kielbasa to fuel myself. Little did I know what was in store for me...

About an hour after waking, I suited up (Levis, prosthesis, hoodie) and prepared to head out. Popped on my backpack and went to close th window while I was gone. Much to my dismay, I discovered that the clouds had burned off and the outdoors was lit with a stark, laser-bright light! Well, I was too low on food to survive being stuck at home, so I put on y cowboy hat, girded my loins, screwed my courage to the sticking-place and headed out.

Note that sunglasses don't work for me. First, they're not prescription or snap-on so everything is a massive blur without y high-magnification readers. Not to mention light comes in the sides and wipes out my vision. Feh.

Now, in the morning the Sun blasts in directly from my direction of travel. This means that all the way to the grocery store light is blasting in from the left, above the houss but below the brim of my hat, or right into my face. In this situation I have to hold one hand up to block the Sun for close to a mile, with a few small spots of bright light that I can't seem to block.

Even in perfect circumstances modestly clear vision range is from 3 to 5 feet, after that it's ranging from blurry to acid nightmare kaleidoscope.

So, every road and driveway crossing is a potential trip to the ground. There's almost no depth perception so I have to tap my cane around to fine strp-offs and curbs. Crossing a busy street, even with lights, is pants-wettingly frightening. Plus, s KK has known for some time, a lot of drivers are <expletive deleted>.

But somehow, despite the depressing reality of it all, I made it there and back in the same shape I woke up in.

Non-complaints from the trip:

- Whomever invented those dark colored knobby ramps to/from the street should be knighted. So easy to tell where there's no curb to deal with.

- Those crossings with beeps on both sides are a blessing since I can't see the walk/don't walk signs.

- The newfangled crossings that say 'ok to cross' as voice, despite sounding smarmy, are a wonderful invention.

- Helpful employees at the grocery store. Several times I couldn't find what I was looking for, an employee came by to help without me asking! When you have to use a magnifying glass just to read prices and labels, this kind of thing is seriously appreciated.

- Kneeling buses. 'Nuff said.

I guess it's not so bad. Even 10 years ago I'd be in a State nursing home, but here I am still puttering around on my own, at least for now.

So endeth todays saga.

...glad it ended up a safe journey even with the frightening parts. Sad when heading to the market seems almost fraught with as much danger as going into the wilds as one gets older and less mobile these days.

Those knobby things we have at intersections here are bright yellow, but just as welcome. For me, I need my sight as I have terrible tinnitus and thus have lost a fair amount of spatial recognition and directional hearing. I can still listen to music fine, but certain frequencies tend to blend into the cacophony of ambient city noise and those audible crosswalk signals are one of them. I'd need those ones like in Bladerunner that actually talk and tell which the street has the green light (we have a few but not many here). Sadly they still don't help when there are cars with the green light that make turns (or those scofflaw cyclists that think stop signs and red lights don't apply to them).

Speaking of two wheel moving hazards, because of the heavier traffic in this area and a number of one way streets, there is a greater profusion of cyclists who take to the sidewalks, again none of whom warn you they are coming up from behind. There are also many areas (particularly to the west of where I am) with outdoor cafe seating or sale tables which makes for less walking space (Northwest 21st and 23rd having the most) so dodging them can become an exercise of extreme agility (something that as you grow older, diminishes measurably). Between them, the impatient uncaring mouth breathing motorists (often on their phones), and high population of hyper skittish ankle biters (I miss all my kitty friends on the old 'hood), being an older pedestrian here with declining mobility can be a real challenge.

I feel a need to start a 'Lesser Portland" campaign to discourage any more people from moving here so it doesn't become any worse.

At least my bus fare is cheap. Oh and our transit system's entire fleet are now the low rider types which can lower even more.

...just needs custom wheels and dingleballs around the windscreen

Nice bus! Ours are decently modern, last update the city added double-long express buses, super comfy.

We had the yellow markers in California, I like the yellow better but I'll take brown.

Arrogant cyclists were a plague in California. They'd organiz e 'protest rides' in San Francisco where they'd block streets and ride slow. Tons of arrests, when the city sued the orrganization for the cost of police time, it stopped. Here in Austin 2/3 of the cyclists are decent, the other 1/3 are raging <expletive deleted>s. Thankfully in this neighborhood most riders are decent folk, many older people.

The danger here is street racing. We had a hit--and-run a few weeks ago, a street racer hit a pedestrian crossing and took off. This area has a large Hispanic population and there's a deep fear of the cops, I've read reports of fenderbenders where the Hispanic driver simply abandons the car and runs. A very sad state of affairs, but the police here have well-documented issues (many of which have made national news, sigh). :-(

..actually not one of our buses, I just posted that as I was amused that the driver was doing his best to "hop" the bus with it's hydraulics.

These are the ones we have and are getting more of (built by Gillig) Actually pretty nice to ride as they have a few more seats and are use brighter colours for the interior. The front end also lowers as well.

These are the lightly older ones (New Flyer). Some are still in the old fleet colours with dark somewhat depressing interiors, but those are slowly being retired. The front ends of these also lower as well.

No "Bendies" (articulated buses) though we could really use them. The last ones we had were these but they were very poorly built and the commission actually won a suit against the company regarding serious manufacturing defects. They were eventually retired in 1999.

60' bendies will return but only on a BRT line that will go though the previous neighbourhood I lived in (Richmond on the SE side) from Downtown to the eastern suburb of Gresham. Most likely this will be the type they will use (New Flyer).

Yeah, these could be useful and so welcome on a number of routes I've ridden where overcrowding has become chronic issue, even on weekends. While it is good to see people riding instead of driving, it would be nice if an old codger like me could get a seat instead of have to stand.

Your buses (new) look a lot like ours. Th bendies we have are wild, electronic ticketing, multiple entry/exit, wireless.. muust have cost a fortune!

It;s funny.. the crappy bendies you have, we had in Silicon Valley! Not fun to ride as they spent a lot of time broken down. Glad the company got sued.

NVIATWAS · March 2018

LeatherGryphon said:

NVIATWAS said:

LeatherGryphon said:

Dust, I don't believe, was my problem. Although it's been 6 months since I moved my primary computer, it sits on top of the desk and had actually only a little dust on top of it, and none visible inside. I think the issue was resolved by any or all of the following actions: a) moving the CPU fan blades manually, b) removing/replacing the power plug, c) turning off/on, the powersupply switch, d) jiggling the CPU fan connection, e) petting the case lovingly and talking to the spirit of the machine or f) emanating concentrated forceful mental waves.

Maybe Mercury is retrograde! :-P

No, mercury is still in the thermometer.

Well, let him out! It's cramped in there!!

NVIATWAS · March 2018

kyoto kid said:

LeatherGryphon said:

NVIATWAS said:

LeatherGryphon said:

Dust, I don't believe, was my problem. Although it's been 6 months since I moved my primary computer, it sits on top of the desk and had actually only a little dust on top of it, and none visible inside. I think the issue was resolved by any or all of the following actions: a) moving the CPU fan blades manually, b) removing/replacing the power plug, c) turning off/on, the powersupply switch, d) jiggling the CPU fan connection, e) petting the case lovingly and talking to the spirit of the machine or f) emanating concentrated forceful mental waves.

Maybe Mercury is retrograde! :-P

No, mercury is still in the thermometer.

...I thought it was a division of Ford.

I was sure he was a Greek deity or something, winged feet or shoes or summat...

NVIATWAS · March 2018

@KK:

That's some impressive architecture! The only place I've lived like that was near D.C., Austin doesn't have anything large and impressive.

Very cool stuff. :-)

LeatherGryphon · March 2018

That Federal Building looks just like the Old Post Office in Washington, DC. Unfortunately it's now the (*cringe*) Trump hotel within sight of the White House.

NVIATWAS · March 2018

Today dawned bright and cool, currently 71f and laser-bright, no clouds anywhere to be seen. Weather report says rain, I call bull on that.

Fridge full of ice, lots of soup and tostada fixings, hot dogs and kinds of bbq sauce. No real complaints... yet...

Need to sell my MIDI controller and guitar. Fingers definitely starting to flake out on me, I can pick up a hot tortilla from the air fryer and feel no pain. Probably a bad sign...

Regardless, right now it's beautiful out so the window and curtains are open. All the morning birds have flown the coop and it's all traffic noises right now. Not even a grackle, weird... :-|

Need more coffee. My sleeping hours are returning to normal, in bed by 11pm and up around 8-9am. Setting the alarm for 8:30am now. Wheeeeee! :-/

Rewatching Top Chep. They made the chefs cook rattlesnake. The host, Padma Lakshmi, said "I want to see some m*****f**** snakes on a m*****f**** plate" and I literally almost fell off my chair laughing! Padma is an incredibly beautiful Indian woman and almost never swears, so there was a lot of shock value there too. Good times! :-O

carrie58 · March 2018

Watching reruns of the Monkees and the songs still evoke warm feelings .......

NVIATWAS · March 2018

Tjohn said:

The old milwaukee architecture I'm most familiar with.

RRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFLLLLLLLL

Mistara · March 2018

epsom salt foot soak ahhhh

NVIATWAS · March 2018

Mistara said:

epsom salt foot soak ahhhh

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! :-)

Mistara · March 2018

tee hee heee

DanaTA · March 2018

Tjohn said:

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

Mistara said:

NVIATWAS said:

ALLIEKATBLUE said:

Another nor'easter on Tuesday. This makes 3 in about 2 weeks. First one knocked out power for 5 days and came on just in time for the 2nd one. I'm so over winter already.

Someon has ticked off Mother Nature... :-/

it not nice to fool mother nature.

heard a mourning dove this morning, was a mournful complaint about the cold.

Mourning doves are very successful birds around here. There's a large tree outside my window that is a favorite location, right before dawn I get 3-4 of them cooing away. Very pretty birds, as well. :-)

...I miss the sound of their cooing, very comforting. Heard only one in all the time I've lived here and it was near the business park where I used to work on the far west side of the metro area.

Awww. :-( Right now (8:05am) I hear mourning doves, a hawk in the distance, and a few crabby grackles. The grackles ruin everything... :-/

They're kind of cool looking, with that irridecent blue, green or purple...but they swarm and eat all the seed in my bird feeder. They seem to go away for the winter, but they're back now.

Dana

Ours here in Austin make odd noises, like shorting elecrical transformers. Very alarming! Bzzzzt crackle CAW! :-O

Yes, sort of a metallic kind of klink. Very odd. They scare away nicer looking and smaller birds from the feeder. But they scare easily themselves. I just go to the kitchen window and wave an arm, off they go. Once I saved one that was caught in my neighbor's stockade fence. He apparently slipped off his perch on top of one of the pickets ans down between two of them. His leg was caught. I tried to reach for him to lift him up, but it pecked at me and tried to scratch me with the loose foot. So I came back, got a table knife and a piece of cardboard (as a blinder) and slid his foot up and out from between the pickets. Off he went, withough even a thank you!

Dana

Dana

Here we just shoot grackles with a BB gun.

Dana

DanaTA · March 2018

NVIATWAS said:

DanaTA said:

Our refrigerator has a water tap that gives pretty cold water, filtered, and an ice maker...crushed or cubes (well, not really cubes, sort of partial slices of a cylinder). I like it crushed. Never been a big ice person. But I like water best very cold.

Dana

I like cubes in iced tea and water. I chew on them... :-/

That's not good for your teeth. It creates micro-fractures.

Dana

Mistara · March 2018

this grackles?

is kinda scary

NVIATWAS · March 2018

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

DanaTA said:

Our refrigerator has a water tap that gives pretty cold water, filtered, and an ice maker...crushed or cubes (well, not really cubes, sort of partial slices of a cylinder). I like it crushed. Never been a big ice person. But I like water best very cold.

Dana

I like cubes in iced tea and water. I chew on them... :-/

That's not good for your teeth. It creates micro-fractures.

Dana

What teeth? I actually just gum them apart... :-|

TSasha Smith · March 2018

If I download Content via DIM and connect would there be duplicates?

NVIATWAS · March 2018

Mistara said:

this grackles?

is kinda scary

Looks like our local HEB grocery store parking lot. It has trees, phone lines, and power lines literally covered with grackles and sparrows and some kind of mid-sized fat featherball of a bird. I stopped counting at 200 last time. :-|

HITCHCOCK WAS RIGHT!!!! :-O

Chohole · March 2018

NVIATWAS said:

Mistara said:

this grackles?

is kinda scary

Looks like our local HEB grocery store parking lot. It has trees, phone lines, and power lines literally covered with grackles and sparrows and some kind of mid-sized fat featherball of a bird. I stopped counting at 200 last time. :-|

HITCHCOCK WAS RIGHT!!!! :-O

I wonder if they are related to our starlings

DanaTA · March 2018

I've seen swarms of Common Grackle, but not that many! Usually 20 to 50. European Starlings, on the other hand, I've seen maybe as many as 150. It's tough to count them, they keep moving. When I lived in Fall River, I remember seeing a flock over the Taunton River, moving in unison, doing that murmuration thing. They must be telepathically connected. It's mezmerizing, for sure.

Blackbirds, Cowbirds and Grackles are all listed in a grouping in the Sibley Guide to Birds, so I think there is some relation. I often see the Red-Winged Blackbirds and the Common Grackles at the same time, and sometimes the Brown-Headed Cowbirds join either.

Dana

DanaTA · March 2018

Sunny, but currently 37f, and it doesn't look like it will get much warmer today. Another possible Nor'Easter between Wednesday and Friday. It might miss us (please, please).

Dana

LeatherGryphon · March 2018

Tjohn said:

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

DanaTA said:

NVIATWAS said:

kyoto kid said:

NVIATWAS said:

Mistara said:

NVIATWAS said:

ALLIEKATBLUE said:

Another nor'easter on Tuesday. This makes 3 in about 2 weeks. First one knocked out power for 5 days and came on just in time for the 2nd one. I'm so over winter already.

Someon has ticked off Mother Nature... :-/

it not nice to fool mother nature.

heard a mourning dove this morning, was a mournful complaint about the cold.

Mourning doves are very successful birds around here. There's a large tree outside my window that is a favorite location, right before dawn I get 3-4 of them cooing away. Very pretty birds, as well. :-)

...I miss the sound of their cooing, very comforting. Heard only one in all the time I've lived here and it was near the business park where I used to work on the far west side of the metro area.

Awww. :-( Right now (8:05am) I hear mourning doves, a hawk in the distance, and a few crabby grackles. The grackles ruin everything... :-/

They're kind of cool looking, with that irridecent blue, green or purple...but they swarm and eat all the seed in my bird feeder. They seem to go away for the winter, but they're back now.

Dana

Ours here in Austin make odd noises, like shorting elecrical transformers. Very alarming! Bzzzzt crackle CAW! :-O

Yes, sort of a metallic kind of klink. Very odd. They scare away nicer looking and smaller birds from the feeder. But they scare easily themselves. I just go to the kitchen window and wave an arm, off they go. Once I saved one that was caught in my neighbor's stockade fence. He apparently slipped off his perch on top of one of the pickets ans down between two of them. His leg was caught. I tried to reach for him to lift him up, but it pecked at me and tried to scratch me with the loose foot. So I came back, got a table knife and a piece of cardboard (as a blinder) and slid his foot up and out from between the pickets. Off he went, withough even a thank you!

Dana

Dana

Here we just shoot grackles with a BB gun.

Not that I approve of it but when I was in college the powers that be in the University thought that it would be elegant to have peacocks wandering the campus grounds. They made beautiful photos for the brochures sent to the prospective students and parents. But anybody who has lived around peacocks any length of time knows they are worse than cockatoos and macaws, being 10 times bigger. Everything that comes out of them is bigger including the noise. They're like geese with a siren. The dorms of the college backed up to the Florida swamp which is where the peacocks went to roost at night up in the trees level with the 2nd and 3rd floor windows of the dorms. That would be OK if they just sat there silently but they apparently feel compelled to have conversations anytime they are awake. Finally someone (not me) had enough of the incessant screetching and we heard shotgun blasts and the screetching stopped. I don't believe the college ever restocked their peacocks.

kyoto kid · March 2018

Miss Bad Wolf said:

I wanted to sleep in today,

...same here still lots of aches and pain.

kyoto kid · March 2018

Tjohn said:

The old milwaukee architecture I'm most familiar with.

...one I keep trying to forget myself. We used to call it "Old Swillwaukee"

kyoto kid · March 2018

LeatherGryphon said:

That Federal Building looks just like the Old Post Office in Washington, DC. Unfortunately it's now the (*cringe*) Trump hotel within sight of the White House.

...yeah the old Gimbels department store building (lots of memories there from growing up) is also now a hotel, but at least it's a Marriot Residence hotel.

In it's original form...

After Marriot bought the building...

Notifications

The "Complaints 'R' Us, complaint thread"

Comments

Adding to Cart…