Trivial Annoyances

[pig pen]

For those of you annoyed by your weather, you can be annoyed by this message too: I'm in Honolulu for a month. My annoyance is that the three weeks I've been here already I've averaged 107 work hours a week on contract (no overtime). I've only been in three buildings: hotel, office, Don Quijote grocery store.

Christ, that's a lot of hours!! I hope your hourly rate is high enough to make it worthwhile.

At least if I work that many hours I'm not missing anything. I think that is just torture.

[BeBop]

For those of you annoyed by your weather, you can be annoyed by this message too: I'm in Honolulu for a month. My annoyance is that the three weeks I've been here already I've averaged 107 work hours a week on contract (no overtime). I've only been in three buildings: hotel, office, Don Quijote grocery store.

Christ, that's a lot of hours!! I hope your hourly rate is high enough to make it worthwhile.

At least if I work that many hours I'm not missing anything. I think that is just torture.

I work in not-for-profits. So no, the hourly wage (for the first 40) is low. After that, pro bono. But I like havimg work...any kind of work.

[bluenoter]

I had mail.

Sat, 29 Mar 2014 8:00 AM

From: "Meds-Discounter" <reasonable_drugstore15@freenet.com.ua>

Subject: Viagra, Tastes Great, More Filling. $1.8/pill

[mjb]

That I will never to able to do this:

[LennyH]

That I will never to able to do this:

You are talking about the maneuver, right?

I did power yoga for 4 years, mjb, and I was never in any danger of being able to do that. It kept me in good shape but my gains in flexibility were moderate and I did little in the way of impressive acrobatics.

120 minutes is excessive! I was good for 60+ plus that's about it.

[stonemonkts]

Asparagus P

[walto]

Our bed is about 100 years old and has been slowly falling apart for a long time. The last time it collapsed, about a year ago, we removed the foot board. Now, with nothing keeping the sides in on the bottom, the slats have begun to fall through on that end. So last night I figured I'd drill a couple of holes and screw the bottom slat to each side. You know, get a few more years out of the thing. The wood was really hard, and I ended up burning not one, but both, thumbs touching screws before they'd cooled off. Just imbecilic.

[NB: It was hard to find a way to write about this "bed issue" without saying things like "hot screws" or "burning drill head."]

[pig pen]

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Many supermarkets provide little motorized scooters for disabled customers. Over the years I couldn't help but notice that the majority of "disabled" customers using these scooter are hugely overweight (pun intended). I can't prove it but I suspect that many, if not most, of the scooter people use these things because they choose to sit on their ass and take the free ride, not because they are truly disabled. I mean, they barrel down the aisles full speed ahead. Don't get in their way or they'll run your ass down.

Anyway, the other day while walking through the supermarket I noticed one of these scooter people tearing down the aisle along with a companion who was walking along side her. Apparently the walker was there to pluck the grocery items off the shelves for the "disabled" friend. I had to laugh out loud when the scooter lady barked out loudly to the walker, "WE NEED TO PICK UP SODA AND POTATO CHIPS!"

[moldyfigg]

More and more I see people bring their kids to the market and don't try to control them as they treat the place like a playground.

Lock 'em in the hot car!

[mjb]

I misplaced my business Visa card so I called my Bank (which shall remain nameless, i.e. TD Canada Trust) to have the card deactivated. I had to, understandably, answer some security type questions (the much shortened version):

Bank Person (BP): "Approximately when did you open this account?"

Me: "It was 1992."

BP: "Yes."

Me: "22 years ago."

BP: "Yes. Approximately which month?"

Me: "August or September, I think."

BP: "Is your answer August or September?"

Me: "But you said 'approximately' surely August or September is sufficient?"

BP: "Is that your final answer?"

Me: "It is my best answer. It was 22 years ago."

BP: "And approximately what was the date?"

Me: "I give up."

[moldyfigg]

In over a half century dealing with bankers and bank employees, my business necessitated my dealing with them, I came to the conclusion that banks only hire the bottom 3% of the class.

[bluenoter]

I wanted to read about an upcoming jazz festival in Frankfurt whose website has no English version. Good thing I had Google to translate from German to English for me!

Look what a fine job it does---

MARY QUINTET Halvorson

"It's great for a woman!" - These and similar sayings smug Mary Halvorson had to listen to already abound. She plays when it comes to originality and perseverance, so long ago some male fretboard wizard light hand on the wall.

[stonemonkts]

Fairly valid observation, considering.

[mjb]

Out driving in Toronto yesterday.

Quite a cool day.

In traffic. A substantial SUV pulls up and stops next to me. Inbred troglodyte driver has its front windows down and some ear shattering sinewave/pulse playing through its subwoofer.

Right (I think to myself) - payback time.

Lesson quickly learned. Pyramid by The Modern Jazz Quartet at full volume gets no respect.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

There are a few things that I don't want the cashier doing while he/she is doing business with me.

1) Please, don't blow your nose.
2) Please, don't sneeze into your hand.
3) And last but not least, do not, I repeat, do not...lick your fingers while counting my change back to me!

[moldyfigg]

Drivers who don't use turn signals or understand right of way. Actually they are not trivial but dangerous.

[Gentle Giant]

I just had a very annoying conversation with my urologist's scheduler. I need to have a laser lithotripsy to zap a kidney stone that's been turning me into a Percocet-muncher for nearly four weeks now. Every date she suggested I had a conflict with. Every date I gave her was booked. Most annoying was that literally after every sentence I spoke, she put me on hold to consult her vast scheduling resources.

It's finally scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon - not that convenient for me but if not then, I would have to wait until the 3rd week of September, when my urologist returns from a "conference."

All of which masks the REALLY annoying fact that a guy is going to shove a skinny tube in my schmeckle and play laser tag with a piece of calcium oxalate.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Schmeckle, gotta remember that. Next time someone annoys me I'm gonna say, "Kiss my schmeckle." Yiddish rules.

[bluenoter]

This was part of an article I posted in JT's ECM Records forum:



Like, I should need to fact-check and correct the caption of a photo posted by a major media outlet that's supposedly an expert on the arts? NPR.org, get your act together! Feh.

P.S.--- The names weren't reversed re L-to-R vs. R-to-L order, either. If they had been, I might have thought, "Screw it!" and flipped the photo horizontally.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Reluctantly, I recently opened an account on facebook. The first thing I did was to reach out to certain friends and family by making friend requests. As a result I have been inundated with friend requests from people that I suspect did not personally send me these requests. This is pretty much pissing me off because it confirms that facebook, for whatever reason, feels it's necessary to shove things down people's throats. How is one to know for sure when people actually initiate contact with you as opposed to it being the powers that be at facebook "drumming up business"? Very exasperating.

[Ron Thorne]

I plead guilty for sending you some of those suggestions, Jimmy. I saw some former JC members I thought you'd like to re-connect with. I agree that some of the FB auto-send stuff can be exasperating, though.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

No problem, Ron. I did notice that your name was attached to some of the "suggestions" and I appreciate it. However, as much as I would like to connect to some of those people I don't want to seem too pushy so I will probably take a wait and see attitude. It's too bad the young knuckleheads that run facebook don't have a clue about actual human interaction. Case in point; When filling out my profile, for place of work I put "Happily Retired". As a result my profile says "Works at Happily Retired". Duh, a totally generic and plug-in mentality. Apparently there are robots running the store.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

facebook has a list of "people I may know". One of those "people I may know" is Yankee Stadium. Btw, shouldn't it be "people you might know"? Help me out here, Rita.

[Ron Thorne]

facebook has a list of "people I may know". One of those "people I may know" is Yankee Stadium. Btw, shouldn't it be "people you might know"? Help me out here, Rita.