[Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"]

I hate gofundme. 

A 17-year-old champion cyclocross bike racer got killed on Sunday when he was run over by a car, while training before heading for Glasgow for a competition.  (The killer is a 23-year-old woman who "moved to the shoulder" on the highway. Excessive speed, alcohol, and drugs are not suspected.  So probably looking at her phone--a rant for another day.)

So a gofundme has been set up for the kid's family.  The story I read said the initial goal was $75,000 but it had already received $86,000 by early Monday afternoon, about 24 hours after the accident.  I just checked the page and the goal has been raised to $100,000, and the amount is currently $99,833.  (Edit--it went to $100,058 while I was writing this post.)  (2nd edit:  $100,603.)

They wasted no time setting up the gofundme page--it was up on the same day he unexpectedly died.  (Set up by a friend with permission of the family.)  And what will the money be used for?  "The family will use any contributions as needed for support of moving through this tragic period and to honor his legacy."

Whatever happened to people giving memorial donations to a charity to "honor" the deceased?  We're now just throwing money at the survivors?   Everybody needs help moving through a tragedy, but not everyone is in the position of having people give them $100,000 to do so in a little over 24 hours. 

AND when I was handling memorial donations for a nonprofit, we would never divulge the amount of any gifts--people would never know if Person X donated $5 or $500.  (Families would sometimes ask, but we'd just say it's our policy not to divulge anything, including the total amount.) 

But you don't have to be anonymous on gofundme, and people can even click on "top donations" to see who cares the most about the family.  And if you choose to be anonymous, nobody, including the family, will know you shelled out at all. 

[The Bachelor in the Media]

On 7/20/2023 at 5:06 PM, hyacinth said:

He wants to find a woman who enjoys both pickleball and golf, and thinks that playing pickleball or golf with someone reveals their character.     (Um, what character traits would be revealed?  I don't even have a working theory.)         

I'm with you on pickleball, but golfers keep their own score, and that can reveal an enormous amount about one's character.  In fact, this guy's white-around-the-eyes spray tan makes him remind me of a notorious golf cheater.

[House Hunters - General Discussion]

1 hour ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

I think the voice being the same on radio and on the episode could be him using his 'radio voice'. 

That's interesting because his commentary got on my nerves, and I think it was mainly his voice, not the content.  About halfway through, I was thinking, "Shuuuuttt uuuuuuuppp."  I thought it was ironic, given his profession, but I've grown to detest radio voices, so if he was using his, it kind of makes sense.  Or maybe I was set up to be annoyed by their doing their pre-house hunt conversation in the studio with headphones on.

I was amused how whenever they showed an overview of Lubbock, they'd start with that arrangement of planted trees.  It's not exactly known for its vegetation.  At least they showed him mentioning "dust" in his forecast.  They got that right.

[House Hunters - General Discussion]

18 minutes ago, chediavolo said:

That was strange, but I was assuming maybe it had something to do with how tall he was.

Maybe.  He defended it by saying that you don't have to aim as carefully with a urinal, and the aim point in the toilet would be farther away for a tall person.

But that brings up my eternal question:  why do men have to urinate standing up?  Is there some physiological issue that makes it so they can't urinate while seated?  When they defecate, do they do that while seated but switch to standing to urinate if done during the same "event"? 

I can see in a public bathroom at a stadium where you've got to churn through thousands of people at halftime--urinals are quicker.  But in your own home?

 

[Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"]

20 hours ago, emma675 said:

Oh, that's obnoxious. Like they are using psychological manipulation to get bigger tips.

Um, like they're using psychological manipulation?

Quote

If you order to go and get out of your car to go inside the restaurant to pick it up (meaning, not curbside), do you typically tip and how much? I do, but I worry that it doesn't go to the people who actually did the work, the cooks.

THIS IS WHY TIPPING IS A RIDICULOUS SYSTEM.  Food service employers?  Pay your own goddamn employees, and charge customers a price that covers it.  Like every other business.

19 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I only tip at the places where the people making $2.13 an hour plus tips are the ones responsible for my order or when the packaging of my order is complicated. 

I disagree with tipping because the packaging was complicated--that's their job, and sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's easy. 

But you're right: there ARE people whose pay is based on receiving tips, and they're called "tipped employees" by the IRS.  And many of them DO make $2.13 an hour.  But nowadays, everybody is becoming a tipped employee and the public doesn't understand the difference.

The Chicago city council is considering eliminating the "sub-minimum wage" for tipped employees.  That will result in a $6/hour increase in tipped employees' hourly pay, and paid for by the employer and not via tips, so I'm (in theory) in favor of it. 

However...people.  People aren't going to understand this.  Currently, tips that waiters receive serve only to take the burden off their employers to pay them minimum wage.  Tips that counter-service employees receive are all gravy--they're already paid at least minimum wage.  That's why I don't think they should be tipped, or at least any tipping should be completely independent of tipping customs for sub-minimum wage waiters, and correspond to tipping employees at Best Buy, for example.

What should happen is that when waiters become "regular" employees, tipping should become optional, because the rationale for tipping (to make up for the sub-minimum wage they're paid) is no longer there.  But you know nobody's going to understand that, and will continue to tip 20% at table-service restaurants.  Plus, the restaurant will have to raise its prices to make up for the $6/hour extra they're having to pay the waitstaff, and people will be tipping even more because they base the tip on a percentage.

The waitstaff will benefit greatly, which I generally don't have a problem with at all, except when it's based on people's ignorance.

20 hours ago, Quof said:

In this place, you placed your order through the QR code too, no server came to explain any specials, or see if you had any questions.   Since it was table service, I felt obligated to add my usual 20% when I ordered.  Eventually a runner brought my food to the table, then disappeared.  There was no water offered, but there was a stand with pitchers and cups where customers served themselves. 

I think you need to adjust your definition of "table service."  Typically the differentiator is whether you order at the table and pay for your meal afterward, or order at a counter.  But now we have an evil hybrid--QR code at your table.  What you need to know is whether the employees are paid as "tipped employees," with a base pay that is less than minimum wage.  I would bet a bunch of money that at this place, they're not, in which case they're no different from employees at Taco Bell.  Is there a custom of tipping them 20%? 

Quote

My gut reaction was to not leave a tip at all, because that's obnoxious. But I did hit the "other amount" and leave a more appropriate amount for the kids working there. 

I disagree that it's obnoxious.  It's resisting the psychological manipulation (by a computer, no less), and until everybody resists, people's wages in this one segment of the economy are going to continue to be dependent on how their skin color matches up with a customer's bias (could be good, could be bad), whether their big tits are attractive to a customer, the customer's mood at that moment, etc.

I freely admit that employers aren't necessarily paragons of fairness when it comes to paying their employees, but it has to be better than letting the whims and biases of individual customers determine people's pay.

18 hours ago, Quof said:

As I said, any restaurant I have been to that had a QR code menu also had paper menus if you wanted one.

But you also said customers place their orders via the QR code.  Those of us without smartphones don't have that ability. 

FWIW, Costco now has you order your $1.50 hot dog and soda via a kiosk, but the other day I saw someone go to the counter and have the person ring up his order and he paid cash.  But until I saw that happen, I assumed that if you didn't have a credit card, you just couldn't order. 

And one more thing about pricing.  It drives me crazy when I end up paying less than I expected.  If I take an item to the register that has a price tag of $24.99 on it and there's some undisclosed discount that brings it down to $15.99, at first I'm happy but then I'm mad because I was willing to pay $24.99. The store has given up $9 that I had "agreed" to give them. 

How many sales did they lose because someone saw $24.99 and didn't buy it, but would have if they knew the price was $15.99? 

Discounts are a way of driving sales, and when I paid $15.99 for something I was willing and expecting to pay $24.99 for, the discount served no purpose whatsoever.  Except for the store to lose money it would otherwise have earned.  And, ironically, to make me mad.

I think this feeds into why tipping irritates me so much.  Set a price for your goods based on your costs (including the wages YOU pay YOUR employees), tell the customers that price, and if the customer chooses to buy, they pay that price.  I just don't see what's wrong with this system.

P.S.  I told you not to get me started.  😀

[The Miracle Club (2023)]

This is the sort of movie I'd go see if it's in the vicinity, but the closest theater was an hour away so I did some vetting to see if I wanted to make the trek.  Metacritic's score of 51 caused me to actually read the blurbs, and even a couple of the full reviews to be sure, and I decided to pass.

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-miracle-club/critic-reviews

 

 

 

[Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"]

Do NOT get me started on tipping.  Seriously.  If you care about my mental health, do NOT get me started on tipping.  People don't even think about tipping McDonald's employees, and even if they did, the employees can't accept them.  Starbucks employees aren't paid "tipped" wages of like $2 an hour that anticipate tips--everything customers voluntarily pay just goes to Starbucks' bottom line. 

And don't forget how Door Dash got caught using customers' tips to fulfill Door Dash's minimum pay commitment to the drivers--if Door Dash was going to have to pay $5 to a driver but its fee structure has resulted in having only $3 going to the driver and Door Dash having to come up with $2 out of its own pocket, if the customer gave a $1 tip, the driver wouldn't get any "extra"--the only result was that instead of Door Dash having to come up with $2 to meet its obligation, it had to come up with $1.  The driver gets the guaranteed $5, with Door Dash paying $4 and the customer paying $1, not $5 plus the customer's $1 tip. 

A while back I ran across this brew pub's discussion of tipping and why they "made the decision to convert to a 100% tip-free culture in the taproom."  Tipping is racist, sexist, classist, and doesn't even ensure good service. 

https://www.switchyardbrewing.com/tipping-policy/

It made such an impression that I told Mr. Outlier that if we're ever in Bloomington, Indiana, I want to go there just to support them.  Well, we were in Bloomington, Indiana, a few months ago.  (It's a surprisingly nice town--the home of Indiana University and the film Breaking Away.)

So we go to Switchyard Brewing and order a couple of beers and insert the credit card in the machine and...we get that god damn tip screen.  I guess that's what they mean at the end of their page about tipping that "the option will still be there, because we know, some habits are hard to break."

I guess I thought that meant if you gave a tip they wouldn't throw it back at you.  Suffice to say I was rather disappointed that this "no tipping culture" establishment's tip screen looked exactly like the one at every other business that uses that interface.

3 hours ago, stewedsquash said:

Work out your pay with your employer/IRS

Actually, they have.  True "tipped workers" make less than minimum wage, with tips expected to make up any shortfall below minimum wage.  With that in mind, if you go to a table service restaurant with tipped workers, tips are expected as part of the wage scheme.  So if I go to one, I tip as expected.

But I bristle at supporting the tipping industry, so I've almost entirely quit going to anywhere but counter-service places, where the "tip" screen is annoying but I can with good conscience check "no tip" because I believe people's pay should be the employer's responsibility, not mine.  And definitely not left to the whims of people (especially given my dim view of people).

The only thing that keeps me from going ballistic on this whole thing is knowing that as long as dupes keep tipping "regular" employees and nothing changes because of it, they're voluntarily subsidizing every purchase I make.

[Thrive Without Janelle: The Accountability Group]

12 hours ago, Yeah No said:

It was actually a post you made on the subject months ago that got me to make that appointment in the first place. 

Thanks for confirming that.  I knew I'd posted about UFE before, but searched and all I could find was one in a Real Housewives discussion that wasn't the one I remembered, so as with all things internet I assumed it was me losing my mind.  But in the middle of the night last night, I remembered that a general health thread got completely disappeared a few months ago, and I was thinking that's where it was.  And now I'm sure.

12 hours ago, Yeah No said:

She also told me that hysterectomy would prevent any chance of uterine cancer and if I had the ovaries removed too, ovarian cancer. 

Grrrrr. 

13 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I have looked online to find a specialist that does UAE for fibroids in my area with no success so far.  I see lots of them in other states, but I'm not going to travel that far and there has to be someone closer to home.  I just haven't found them yet.

I think you're in Connecticut.  I just did a quick search and found several places in Connecticut that do UFE.  These are just search results and I haven't investigated them at all.  But they exist. 

https://health.uconn.edu/radiology/our-services/interventional-radiology/

https://www.waterburyhospital.org/newsroom/press-releases-2023/chest-pain-center-accreditation2/ir-services/?q=Health+Resources

https://www.azuravascularcare.com/center/connecticut-access-carect-image-guided-surgery/

https://www.ynhh.org/services/heart-and-vascular/interventional-radiology

https://www.stamfordhealth.org/care-treatment/radiology/interventional-radiology/

 

[Thrive Without Janelle: The Accountability Group]

On 7/15/2023 at 11:40 PM, Yeah No said:

I've been to two gynecologist specialists that tell me that I'm not a candidate for fibroid removal.  If I wanted to get rid of the fibroids I'd have to get a hysterectomy.

Only if you want them to rid you of the fibroids.  It's not the only option.  Or, rather, it's the only option they can do. 

Quote

The second link talks about UAE (Uterine Artery Embolization), which is something I might consider but so far both gyns. I saw weren't fans of it and told me it might not work. 

Fuckers. 

Quote

Of course even UAE isn't without its potential risks.  I just can't seem to find the right doctor that can really help me with this. 

Interventional radiologists are the doctors who perform UFEs. 

I had a UFE 20 years ago, when it was a new procedure for fibroids (it had been used for years for hemorrhaging).  My uterus was the size of a 20-week pregnancy.  (It was generally called UAE back then, but UFE has become more prevalent.)

I was in the hospital overnight, although I think they might not do that any more.  I spent the next few days at home in bed, taking huge (prescribed) doses of over-the-counter ibuprofen for inflammation.  The fibroids died, and stayed dead.

Back then it was really really hard to find a gynecologist who was okay with UFE.  There was a Yahoo group that was THE go-to place for information about UFE, and people would give names of cooperative gynecologists, like the fucking underground railroad or something, and reports of which insurance companies didn't refuse to cover it because it was "experimental."  It was absolutely ridiculous, and in the intervening years I've heard of more and more gynecologists who view UFE as an option, and some who actually embrace it, but apparently some of them persist in bad-mouthing the procedure they can't do.

I could almost kind of maybe possibly try to understand it 20 years ago, but god knows how many people have had it since then.  It is a safe, minimally invasive, generally effective procedure, period.  And the fact that it's not brought up as a possible alternative to myomectomy and hysterectomy every single time fibroids are an issue is a crime against women--by gynecologists, no less.  Fuck them. 

I got a tip on an interventional radiologist 100 miles away, and went to see him.  I met him at the hospital--he didn't even have an office.  He required me to have a doctor on board in case aftercare became necessary.  One gynecologist said I should have a hysterectomy and refused to discuss UFE at all.  Another bad-mouthed the procedure to the nth degree and said if I went ahead and had it, he would refuse to see me as a patient ever again.  I gave up and went it alone.

(Meanwhile, a woman I know who had a myomectomy by the doctor who fired me had to have a repeat myomectomy a few years later.)

UFE was the best decision I ever made.  It killed the fibroids and all my bulk symptoms disappeared and my pants all fit again.  I was 45 and didn't want kids, so the scare stories about UFE destroying fertility didn't affect me (and have turned out not to be particularly true).  Then there were the scare stories that UFE would throw me into menopause; ha ha ha on that--I was 60 years old when one year had elapsed since my last period.  And the scare stories that it didn't work on big fibroids--not true. 

All that said, I thought fibroids tend to shrink when you hit menopause (waiting it out until menopause is one way to deal with them).  My IR made me get an MRI in addition to the ultrasound I'd already gotten--maybe that could be your first step, to verify the current size of the fibroids.  (Although in the waning days of the Yahoo Group, a long-time member said she was having to get a second UFE many years after her first one, because fibroids grew back after menopause--it was a rare case but it can happen.)

I'm really not familiar with the landscape these days (because, see, I had my fibroids permanently cured 20 years ago by UFE against gynecologists' advice).  But in just poking around the internet, I found a bunch of websites by IRs who do UFE, so it shouldn't be hard to get a lead on one.  Get the info from the horse's mouth.

 

[TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel]

Thanks.  I couldn't quite place her, and the person in the .gif looked like Isabelle Huppert to me.

[TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel]

3 hours ago, mariah23 said:

This lady!

Sorry, but who is that?

[Family Ties: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly]

3 hours ago, BlueSkies said:

Since she likes babies ( well who doesn’t?)

I don't.

[Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"]

On 7/19/2023 at 12:28 PM, partofme said:

I didn't ask you to sign up, I don't see why I need to thank you.

I feel the same way about police and firefighters.  Last time I checked, they get paid, and nobody forced them to go into that profession.  Yes, it's dangerous, but so is working in a slaughterhouse or a cobalt mine and nobody thanks them. 

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could put all jobs up for auction.  I imagine the pay scales would look very different.  Garbagemen would finally be making the money they deserve.

On 7/19/2023 at 4:50 PM, Bastet said:

Yeah, I take a pretty dim view of the military in general, and its recruiting tactics - especially in high schools - are one of the reasons why.

I wish we had mandatory military service for everyone.  Maybe branch it out a little so not everyone is turned into a killing machine, but it sure would be nice to have a "we're all in this together" experience, rubbing shoulders with all sorts of people, AND we'd have parents with voices whose children are put in harm's way if there's a war.

[Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar]

On 7/18/2023 at 3:53 PM, JTMacc99 said:

It's not like fentanyl was a word that you would run across in literature or your SAT vocabulary studies when you were growing up.

Here's a not-new word for you:  anti-semitic.  The majority of people pronounce it so it rhymes with "phonetic," and I don't know why. 

Maybe Ta-Nehisi Coates can shed some light on it. 

[Past Lives (2023)]

3 hours ago, hendersonrocks said:

I just kind of sat there with tears streaming down my face as it ended, even though I wasn’t entirely sure why. 

Exactly the same for me, both times I saw it.  I had to think about it a bit afterward.  I'm not sure the ending is conclusive, and when I put myself in her shoes I just feel...melancholy?  We all make choices in our lives that result in closing off the other path permanently, but for some reason I really feel it in this movie.

[S02.E03: Head Shots and Thick Plots]

12 hours ago, kassandra8286 said:

Dale Earnhardt jr was wildly popular and a great driver but he never won the cup championship.

Aah, I didn't know that. 

Mr. Outlier looked at it and said "Trophy racer."  I replied, "That would be Jeff Gordon."  🤣

[Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar]

3 hours ago, Browncoat said:

Does pronunciation count as grammar?  The constant mispronunciation of "fentanyl" is driving me insane.  

Thank you thank you thank you.  It's gotten to the point that if a story about it is coming up, I have to gird myself for the assault.  And it's all too common among people at the top of the food chain who should know better.  Have none of these people ever seen the word written down?

But I think it's going to be a "nuclear" "nucular" thing, and we're gonna lose.

[S02.E03: Head Shots and Thick Plots]

In Karsyn's clue, where y'all are seeing "champion" I'm seeing "cup"--a picture of a loving cup.  And NASCAR is called the Cup Series.

[House Hunters - General Discussion]

On 7/16/2023 at 11:58 AM, chessiegal said:

You have to use marine toilet paper. Regular single ply tp will muck it up.

I don't know what kind of toilets boats have, but Scott single ply toilet paper breaks down quickly enough to work in RV holding tanks.  But what's great for the plumbing isn't so great for the human.

18 hours ago, Johannah said:

Was this the one with a pass-through in the kitchen where the all the connectors for holding the wall to the counter were on the top and in clear view?  Weird.

I noticed that too--those little plastic L-brackets holding up a vertical piece of wood about 5" high in the pass-through.  It was that area she said she could put bar stools at, even though there was no overhang on the counter.

I think maybe stuff on that area of the counter kept getting shoved through the pass-through and fell down to the floor in the living room, so they (inelegantly) put up a little retaining wall. 

I harped on putting bar stools there because I had a similar pass-through with an overhang of just a few inches and quickly realized that you can't comfortably sit there on a bar stool AND be close enough to actually use the counter.

Quote

Didn't she also say one of the bedrooms wouldn't hold her king-sized bed?  That was in the RV?  (also, aren't they part of the RV and not removable - especially if she was planning on selling it?)

I caught that too.  Some RVs can accommodate a king bed, but her trailer is not among them.  So obviously she had a bunch of stuff in storage, or was living somewhere else and not in the trailer at all.

BTW,  in RVs the mattress sits on a platform, not on a frame.  So the "bed" isn't removable but the mattress part of the bed is.

[Fast Food: Do You Want Fries With That?]

I've never liked the iced tea that comes out of the Gold Leaf things (apparently it's called a "tea tower") where you push a button for one of four flavors.  And now I've confirmed that it's not brewed tea, although I would have staked my life on it just by the taste. 

The marketing materials tout that the dispenser is made to look like a traditional tea urn (in which tea is brewed).  I've jiggled them in the past and they don't weigh anything, and you can see the tubes coming out the back.

So it's bottled tea concentrate, which is why it tastes so crappy.

Five Guys has these tea towers--except in the South!  I went to a few Five Guys locations when I spent a few months down there, and they serve real, brewed iced tea.  But it's not nationwide--I just went to one in Illinois that has the Gold Leaf tea tower.  And I tried the sweet tea just to make sure I'm not imagining things, and it tastes like bottled tea.

I have to give props to the South for knowing their sweet tea, and for making Five Guys realize they couldn't get away with serving that Gold Leaf swill down there.

[House Hunters - General Discussion]

9 hours ago, laredhead said:

I thought the same thing about what type of towing vehicle she was using.  I think she was driving a Nissan Armada which is a big SUV, and it might have been able to tow a 32' travel trailer, but $60 a mile was a big stretch.

Apparently gas in South Carolina is about $500/gallon.  A little higher than I would have expected.

[Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"]

2 hours ago, annzeepark914 said:

I always envied the kids waiting for the bus to the Catholic h.s., wearing their smart looking uniforms.

The boys in my Catholic school wore khaki pants and khaki shirts.  I found out later that the kids in the public school across the field thought they were prisoners.

I don't know if those kids got a good look at the girls--only boys were allowed to play in the field; girls had to play on the knee-eating asphalt.

[House Hunters - General Discussion]

5 hours ago, buttersister said:

StatisticalOutlier, thanks again. This ep was recorded and will now be deleted.

Wait!  You don't want to miss Sister HH and her ball cap with some weird intentional fraying on it that she was so determined to wear on camera she allowed them to put gaffer tape over the logo.

[House Hunters - General Discussion]

3 minutes ago, BAForever said:

I hate when a HH of any age, but particularly a youngish one says they deserve a house because they've "worked hard".

So we've gone from participation medals to houses.  That didn't take long.

[Barbie (2023)]

4 hours ago, millennium said:

Movie tickets here are $17 on average, which doesn't include the $20 for popcorn and soda.   God bless those who have that kind of disposable income to see two movies in a row so they can participate in an internet meme.  

I'm not sure it's fair to include something optional, like popcorn and a soda, when discussing how much a movie costs.  And even if you include popcorn, surely you don't need a new batch for the second movie.  That's 20 bucks saved right there by going to a double feature. 

If I wanted to participate in an internet meme, which I most definitely do not, I could go to the theater closest to me, in the Chicago suburbs, on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of opening weekend, and see Oppenheimer at 12:00 noon for $8.69 and then Barbie at 3:30 for $8.69. 

I often go to two movies back-to-back, especially if I go to the art theater 30 miles away (where they charge $7 for matinees and $9 after 6:00), because it make sense from a money angle to drive there once instead of twice.

4 hours ago, millennium said:

I see one or two movies a year in the theater (partly because of the price, partly because most movies today suck) so they have to be pretty good ones. 

I'm guessing you're in a big city if movie tickets average $17, which means there are probably theaters that play independent and foreign movies.  My personal experience is that most of them that make it to theaters in the U.S. don't suck.  Maybe you could consider trying some of them if what mainsteam theaters offer doesn't appeal to you, or at least before declaring that most movies today suck.