Small Talk: Ughngnggh! Ugghhnnn!

[OoohMaggie]

On 8/7/2020 at 8:12 PM, Nashville said:

Not sure how you mean;

You’re quite right, I seem to have taken the long winded approach in getting to the question I really meant to ask 🙄, at what age could a person legally own a firearm and have it on open display in a vehicle which was being driven generally around town, or parked in the school car park etc? 
I understand things vary from state to state, and I don’t mean people who are ‘out hunting’, it’s more the, I think you call it open carry / display, apologies if these questions sound idiotic but it’s a world of mystery for us over here.
If a 17 year old here had driven into the school with a rifle in the back window of their vehicle,  the entire place would have been surrounded with snipers and armoured vehicles 😆

Edited August 9, 2020 by OoohMaggie

[nachomama]

I’m guessing that at the time the rifles were registered to the fathers. I do not honestly know how young a person can have their own registered Guns. I hope it’s at least 18. Registering guns didn’t stop the columbine kids. Obviously no kid would be driving up anywhere with a visible gun now. And no tolerance policies have gone so far that a little 8 year old girl got in trouble for a butter knife. So no one at my old high school would still be able to get away with that. Personally, I don’t think any individual needs to have an ar-15. If your purpose is hunting or self defense you can certainly do that with a rifle or pistol. I understand that Americans go nuts over the gun issue. And they think that as long as we can arm ourselves we will never be a dictatorship. Unfortunately if marshall law is declared no matter how many guns you have, your gun will not go overthrow guns, tanks, planes and bombs. I am not anti-gun but I’m definitely for heftier gun control. Here in Georgia people can get guns at gun shows. Which bypasses the whole registration/application. So it’s a “private” sale between 2 people. You only have to be approved and get a license if you go to a dealer. You can buy a gun out of the trunk of someone’s car. Which I don’t think should be legal anywhere. I’m in favor of waiting periods. Back ground checks and even a psych evaluation if necessary. I also wouldn’t care if registering guns became like a drivers license if you had to renew your registration every few years. But that’s me. I am in the minority on that front. The NRA is opposed to ANY gun regulation. They insist someone is coming for all guns. I am in favor of taking guns from violent felons. Or in cases of domestic violence. I do not have the answers. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, nachomama said:

I do not have the answers. 

You said a lot of stuff I agree with. But don't you live in New Mexico? 

[nachomama]

4 hours ago, Superclam said:

You said a lot of stuff I agree with. But don't you live in New Mexico? 

From New Mexico. Currently living in Georgia. But red necks in both. 😄 

[OoohMaggie]

On 8/8/2020 at 11:21 PM, nachomama said:

I understand that Americans go nuts over the gun issue. And they think that as long as we can arm ourselves we will never be a dictatorship. Unfortunately if marshall law is declared no matter how many guns you have, your gun will not go overthrow guns, tanks, planes and bombs.

I think the hope is that there would be so many good people within the police / armed forces, who would absolutely refuse to turn their weapons on their fellow citizens, that such events could never happen. I know people can be very sensitive about supposed ‘false flag’ operations, but gun control has been at the very heart of several ‘tragic’ events around the world, my country included.

Edited August 10, 2020 by OoohMaggie

[nachomama]

56 minutes ago, OoohMaggie said:

I think the hope is that there would be so many good people within the police / armed forces, who would absolutely refuse to turn their weapons on their fellow citizens, that such events could never happen. I know people can be very sensitive about supposed ‘false flag’ operations, but gun control has been at the very heart of several ‘tragic’ events around the world, my country included.

If anything about the last few months has taught me anything, it's that, oh fuck no, the police are shooting my ass. It isn't funny but I laugh every time (and it's daily) that another kerfluffle has gone down between citizens and the cops. The wall of moms in Oregon, they thought that their "white privilege" would protect protesters in the BLM movement. Nope I saw some moms absolutely brutalized. One dude was former military and had his hands up in the air and they kept hitting him with batons. Don't know what that guy was made of but he didn't flinch and he wasn't wearing protective gear, he didn't fall and he took the hits and then just turned around. Have no idea how he wasn't on the ground in pain.

https://blacksportsonline.com/2020/08/video-homeless-man-attacks-3-black-teens-with-knife-cops-called-to-help-kids-cops-arrive-point-ar-15s-at-the-kids-in-santa-clarita-ca/

Today, TODAY in Santa Clarita, Ca, 3 black kids were being harassed by a homeless guy so witnesses called the cops. The cops drew their guns on the kids. instead of actually trying to do better it's almost like the cops doubled down on the racism since George Floyd. When I screw up at work, if I forgot to print something 2 sided, I have a mantra going through my head "don't forget 2 sided" on repeat. One would think a cop shouldn't have to be repeating in his head "Don't shoot the black kid" but fucking hell these are the times we are living in.

Edited August 10, 2020 by nachomama

[OoohMaggie]

21 hours ago, nachomama said:

One would think a cop shouldn't have to be repeating in his head "Don't shoot the black kid" but fucking hell these are the times we are living in.

They are indeed, I hate the fact that I now don’t take any event on face value, each and every situation has to be analysed intricately, most people laugh and mock at such perceived insanity, but we’ll see..........

[Nashville]

On 8/8/2020 at 11:59 PM, nachomama said:

From New Mexico. Currently living in Georgia. But red necks in both. 😄 

No shit.  Ever spend a weekend in Chama?  I did once - and I even remember a fair bit of it, which is totally surprising.  

[nachomama]

6 hours ago, Nashville said:

No shit.  Ever spend a weekend in Chama?  I did once - and I even remember a fair bit of it, which is totally surprising.  

wtf were you doin in Chama?! We used to occasionally play Chama in various sporting events. Technically my town is much huger than Chama, we had about 2000 people, Chama gots 1000. So suck it, Chama. Although one year we had our Varsity team play a nearby junior varsity team for our homecoming game in order to try and win the game, we still got beat like 42-0. GO HAWKS!

I applied for another job within the company, this time staying in my department. So my same boss would still be my boss. I didn't hear anything and started to think maybe nothing but yesterday got an email that I have an interview tonight, 9 pm. I know that sounds weird but since the shift is from 5-11 then it's basically mid-shift and I just have to log off and call my boss. I'm talking much less about this one. You're welcome.

[Nashville]

9 hours ago, nachomama said:

wtf were you doin in Chama?!

Several friends/co-workers work up around northern Navajo/Southern Ute reservations and live in Chama.  A while back some other co-workers and I were in ABQ for a week-long conference, and some of them invited some of us up to Chama for the weekend.  Lots of drinking, hot-tubbing, trail-biking, drinking, and prairie dog plinking.

Oh, and did I mention drinking?  We did a LOT of drinking.

Because there’s not a lot to do in Chama NM other than drink.

[nachomama]

8 hours ago, Nashville said:

Because there’s not a lot to do in Chama NM other than drink.

You didn’t visit the cumbres and Toltec railroad? 
that’s all we did in my hometown was drink. Gallup New Mexico (I’m from near Gallup but not quite) has the highest blood alcohol ratio on earth. We kick errbody ass. Scotland. Ireland. Australia. Germany. Places that think they can drink, we say hold my beer. We used to sit on the overpass and spit on trains for entertainment. Think about that for a second. We spit on trains. 
stupid question...when did normal people get answering machines? I know Rockford files had em earku 80’s but when did average people get them? I don’t think we ever had one as a kid. I don’t think I had one in college. I don’t think I ever had one until like 1995 which i know is very late. As a kid we were one of the earliest people I know who got a microwave or a vcr. We had a monstrous behemoth of a vcr that popped up the tape out of the top. Honestly my father would have spent any amount of money for bacon or porn. So we got a microwave to cook bacon faster and well porn. I believe those first vcrs were over $1000 and that was late 70’s early 80’s. 

[Nashville]

29 minutes ago, nachomama said:

You didn’t visit the cumbres and Toltec railroad? 

No, although we did go mountain biking up around La Manga Pass - one of my friends had a yurt up there he wanted to check on.  That was about the only side trip we did, though; any others would’ve cut into our drinking time.

[Mr. Sparkle]

9 hours ago, nachomama said:

stupid question...when did normal people get answering machines? I know Rockford files had em earku 80’s but when did average people get them? I don’t think we ever had one as a kid. I don’t think I had one in college. I don’t think I ever had one until like 1995 which i know is very late. As a kid we were one of the earliest people I know who got a microwave or a vcr. We had a monstrous behemoth of a vcr that popped up the tape out of the top. Honestly my father would have spent any amount of money for bacon or porn. So we got a microwave to cook bacon faster and well porn. I believe those first vcrs were over $1000 and that was late 70’s early 80’s. 

My family was always last for all technology. Cable, microwave, VCR, answering machine. Mostly in the 90s. My mother just got flat screen TVs. 

[OoohMaggie]

12 hours ago, nachomama said:

As a kid we were one of the earliest people I know who got a microwave or a vcr. We had a monstrous behemoth of a vcr that popped up the tape out of the top.

My father, being the tightest git on planet earth, meant as a child I listened in awe at what wonderful technology the other kids had access to in their homes. 
It was only because my mother worked for a TV rental company, that we amazingly ended up with a VCR machine in the house, I think it was the one pictured below. It did come with a remote control, on the end of a cable, which after previously having to get off your ass and actually walk to the TV in order to change the Chanel, or alter the volume, seemed like a modern miracle 😆

[OoohMaggie]

1 hour ago, OoohMaggie said:

It did come with a remote control, on the end of a cable, which after previously having to get off your ass and actually walk to the TV in order to change the Chanel, or alter the volume ..........

I hasten to add that before this wonderful invention, ‘I’ was the remote control for the TV, as happy as I was playing on the floor with my Lego or plastic soldiers, if the chanel needed changing, I was ordered to do it, and these modern psychiatrists struggle to understand me 🤔

[Mr. Sparkle]

Ha! Totally! Think "C'mere and turn on MASH!" in a thick Brooklyn accent, and that was my childhood. 

[nachomama]

On 8/14/2020 at 2:28 PM, OoohMaggie said:

My father, being the tightest git on planet earth, meant as a child I listened in awe at what wonderful technology the other kids had access to in their homes. 
It was only because my mother worked for a TV rental company, that we amazingly ended up with a VCR machine in the house, I think it was the one pictured below. It did come with a remote control, on the end of a cable, which after previously having to get off your ass and actually walk to the TV in order to change the Chanel, or alter the volume, seemed like a modern miracle 😆

That looks like pretty much it, and yes indeed the remote was a new fangled thing, so much so, that as the idiots that we were, when we heard "you can skip commercials with this new invention" we would sit there recording our shows and hit the remote "pause" button because we assumed it did it right then and there (like how you can ff a dvr right now) but we sat there through a "white screen" on the tv for the same length of time as the commercials. Obviously when you played the tape back you had removed the commercials but not live tv. D'oh! But yes, us kids were the remote and the antannae prior to such luxuries. We had a tv that you didn't turn a knob you had to punch in the numbers for the channels. 13 was cbs 22 was nbc etc. We were screwed when it was 04 because the zero button had fallen off and I was the only noob with a small enough finger to poke in the socket to get the zero key punched. sigh

Guess what? I got my DNA tests back. there's a fairly good likelihood that the mystery grandma story has some truth to it. in 5 generations I'm 97% european (40 ger 15 italian 15 british isles 7 finland, iberia (spain) blah blah blah) and then...DUN DUN DUN 3% african. hahahha Upon the further inspection (up to 23 generations back DUN DUN DUN bengali 2.7% (!) chinese .2% <-- why bother (!) and smattered bits of asian.

[OoohMaggie]

On 8/15/2020 at 12:16 AM, Superclam said:

Ha! Totally! Think "C'mere and turn on MASH!" in a thick Brooklyn accent, and that was my childhood. 

I suppose I should count myself lucky, for at the time in the UK we only had three channels to choose from 😲

2 hours ago, nachomama said:

Guess what? I got my DNA tests back. there's a fairly good likelihood that the mystery grandma story has some truth to it. in 5 generations I'm 97% european (40 ger 15 italian 15 british isles 7 finland, iberia (spain) blah blah blah) and then...DUN DUN DUN 3% african. hahahha Upon the further inspection (up to 23 generations back DUN DUN DUN bengali 2.7% (!) chinese .2% <-- why bother (!) and smattered bits of asian.

Wow, you should be a hell of a cook 😆

[nachomama]

On 8/14/2020 at 7:16 PM, Superclam said:

Ha! Totally! Think "C'mere and turn on MASH!" in a thick Brooklyn accent, and that was my childhood. 

I really hated Mash as a kid. Not only did I have to turn the channel over there to it but my dad was making me turn off Brady Bunch, or gilligans Island or cartoons to go watch that damn boring program about doctors. I've come to appreciate it more but it meant the end of cartoons and the beginning of the news and boring stuff. I was so dumb that I'd hear the Carol Burnett theme song and I'd come running in the room because the opening was a cartoon. The "show" according to me was over as soon as the cartoon was over, so I'd watch the credits and leave. that was the whole Carol Burnett show for me. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, OoohMaggie said:

I suppose I should count myself lucky, for at the time in the UK we only had three channels to choose from 😲

At the time, we had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 & 13. 2, 4, 7 were networks, 5 eventually became Fox, 9 & 11 were local and 13 was PBS. 5 & 11 had the cartoons I wanted to watch. 

[Nashville]

@nachomama - maybe you mentioned it before and I missed it, but which DNA testing outfit did you use?

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Superclam:

On the WW diet is there a limit to how much sparkling water you can drink?

No, as long as it's not sweetened. On another note, diet sodas are also 0 points, and I think those are crap and should be avoided. 

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

The one game that was a little expensive that I remember receiving was the Tudor Electric Football game.  It was like a vibrating ironing board with plastic players on it.   Unfortunately, some of the plastic players were molded in a way that they locked arms and spent more time dancing than playing football.  It was the cheaper generic version, not the NFL player version.

I remember these! They really weren't that much fun. Later I had those hand-held ones like football and basketball that had little blips shooting smaller blips. 

[nachomama]

6 hours ago, Nashville said:

@nachomama - maybe you mentioned it before and I missed it, but which DNA testing outfit did you use?

CRI it was recommended as top 3. I’m going to do the ancestry one too to see if they match. Been noodling on ancestry and I found a bunch of stuff. 

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, nachomama said:

CRI it was recommended as top 3. I’m going to do the ancestry one too to see if they match. Been noodling on ancestry and I found a bunch of stuff. 

I’ve been toying around with the notion of 23andMe for a while, but I’ll freely admit to some nervousness on the subject; a Michael Crichton novel I read a while back made me more than a little paranoid about putting any of my genetic info out in the world where others might get their hands on it.

[nachomama]

4 hours ago, Nashville said:

I’ve been toying around with the notion of 23andMe for a while, but I’ll freely admit to some nervousness on the subject; a Michael Crichton novel I read a while back made me more than a little paranoid about putting any of my genetic info out in the world where others might get their hands on it.

My old boss is super paranoid that if he puts his dna in the system it will result in all kinds of shenanigans. Part of me wanted to do the CRI because they don't upload your DNA to the "cloud" or whatever so the FBI  can't track killers you might be related to (I'm assuming thou art not the killer) I know part of what brought down the Golden State Killer was partial DNA matches. Whats funny is that I believe he was in law enforcement in some way and I think now all cops/firemen/hospital workers all have to have DNA on file so he would have been found 20 years ago if the DNA testing existed the way it does now.

I'm up to 7 generations back on my family tree on ancestry. Most of that is educated guesses because they'll supply a "hint" and provide a "potential" and I was remembering long lost names. I have a George washington, benjamin franklin and thomas jefferson in my history. Those are middle names not last names so thus far it's not "the" george, benji and thomas that I'm related to. I came up with a "potential" mother for my mystery grandma. I have no way of knowing if that's the "adoptive" doorstep mother (I'm thinking yes because she was married to an "Imes" which was gramma's last name

[OoohMaggie]

23 hours ago, Superclam said:

At the time, we had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 & 13. 2, 4, 7 were networks, 5 eventually became Fox, 9 & 11 were local and 13 was PBS. 5 & 11 had the cartoons I wanted to watch. 

We had BBC1, BBC2 and ITV,  I feel your pain 😆

 

17 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Yeah, my parents didn't spend a lot of money either.  They were so tight that if you shoved coal up their asses they would have shit diamonds.

I remember coming home from school one day, must have been around 1979 / 80 ish, and there was a Telecoms van parked outside the house, I thought there was no way they were visiting us, but lo and behold we actually had our very first telephone installed on that day.

It was one of the phones with the circular dial , and true to form, tight assed father actually put a key operated lock on the dialling mechanism 😱 

Edited August 18, 2020 by OoohMaggie

[nachomama]

5 minutes ago, OoohMaggie said:

We had BBC1, BBC2 and ITV,  I feel your pain 😆

 

I remember coming home from school one day, must have been around 1979 / 80 ish, and there was a Telecoms van parked outside the house, I thought there was no way they were visiting us, but lo and behold we actually had our very first telephone installed on that day.

It was one of the phones with the circular dial , and true to form, tight assed father actually put a key operated lock on the dialling mechanism 😱 

Sincerely you had no phone until 1980?????? I find it hard to remember what life was like when you had a home phone but I don't remember what it was like to have no phone. We had a party line for a while (and yes my mom listened to errbody's calls) and I remember my mom setting timers to call her sisters long distance and she could  only talk for so long because of how expensive it was. But then my mom discovered a work phone at my dad's that she could talk allllll she wanted and no bill. We'd spend hours in a warehouse while my mom chatted it up and I have no idea who in the company would have never caught on about the phone bill. If your business is an oil pipeline I understand you may have to call another plant down the line but 4-5 hours?

When I lived in Utah we had only 1 channel. It was monument valley where a lot of old westerns were filmed, so only 1 station came in and I'm like 3 and we see commercials for the Wizard of Oz coming on. So we are all excited as heck about this and on the day, we lost the channel. So my dad packed us up and we went to "town" (90 miles)* and rented a motel room to watch the Wizard of Oz. Now for as mean as my dad was, that was a very good dad thing to do, however, it was also my right to not actually remember the experience so when he would throw "Don't say I never did anything for you! I drove you 90 miles to watch the Wizard of Oz" I was not impressed.

*We went to the grocery store once a month. We bought milk in small quarts and would freeze it. We'd buy probably $300 worth of groceries and anything fresh was gone in a week so it was heavily frozen and canned/pantry stuff. We had to pack dry ice for the ride home and when we got home we'd put the dry ice in the sink and run water on it and make it all foggy and then put a fork on it and it would "squeal". Also we in haled the smoke with straws because it tasted like root beer. I know my parents weren't rocket scientists because we were essentially huffing carbon monoxide/dioxide? basically not good for you.

[Nashville]

7 hours ago, nachomama said:

My old boss is super paranoid that if he puts his dna in the system it will result in all kinds of shenanigans.

That was pretty much the core plot of the Crichton novel I was talking about; a bioengineering company buying hospital’s genetic waste material and testing it for usable/marketable traits finds a guy whose genetic makeup presents unprecedented resistance to certain types of cancer.  The bio outfit immediately applies for a patent on his DNA, gets it, then takes him to court to compel him (AND any/all descendants) to submit to biopsy surgery so the company can recover what they now legally consider THEIR property for further testing/R&D.  
Not Crichton’s best novel in terms of style or plot - but at the time (mid-2000s) genetic engineering firms were already actively involved in the process of gene patenting with scant attention paid to potential ethical/privacy considerations, and Crichton’s worst-case scenarios were not very far beyond what was already playing out in real-world courts.  If I recall correctly, though, a couple of senators who read the novel were concerned enough about the real-world possibilities it presented to pass legislation prohibiting the issuance of U. S. patents for naturally occurring DNA sequences.  The spook has stayed with me for a while, though; guess I was always nervous about a biogen company finding a loophole. 😬

Quote

Part of me wanted to do the CRI because they don't upload your DNA to the "cloud" or whatever so the FBI  can't track killers you might be related to (I'm assuming thou art not the killer)

Not to the best of your knowledge.

Quote

I know part of what brought down the Golden State Killer was partial DNA matches. Whats funny is that I believe he was in law enforcement in some way and I think now all cops/firemen/hospital workers all have to have DNA on file so he would have been found 20 years ago if the DNA testing existed the way it does now.

Besides the corporate aspect, that’s a prospect which concerns me; some sort of future Patriot Act v2.0 type legislatIon might open  up to law enforcement records and data which were never submitted with the intention of such use - and frankly put, my blind faith in the integrity of law enforcement went out the window a LONG time ago.

Quote

I'm up to 7 generations back on my family tree on ancestry. Most of that is educated guesses because they'll supply a "hint" and provide a "potential" and I was remembering long lost names. I have a George washington, benjamin franklin and thomas jefferson in my history. Those are middle names not last names so thus far it's not "the" george, benji and thomas that I'm related to. I came up with a "potential" mother for my mystery grandma. I have no way of knowing if that's the "adoptive" doorstep mother (I'm thinking yes because she was married to an "Imes" which was gramma's last name

I’m my family’s primary genealogist as well - so yeah, I’m struggling.  🙂 

[Nashville]

On 8/17/2020 at 11:53 AM, Superclam said:

At the time, we had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 & 13. 2, 4, 7 were networks, 5 eventually became Fox, 9 & 11 were local and 13 was PBS. 5 & 11 had the cartoons I wanted to watch. 

Grew up with four VHF stations; 2 (ABC), 4 (NBC), 5 (CBS), and 8 (PBS).  When a local independent outfit fired up the first UHF channel in the Nashville broadcast area, you’d have thought it was the Moon Landing all over again.

3 hours ago, nachomama said:

my mom discovered a work phone at my dad's that she could talk allllll she wanted and no bill. We'd spend hours in a warehouse while my mom chatted it up and I have no idea who in the company would have never caught on about the phone bill. If your business is an oil pipeline I understand you may have to call another plant down the line but 4-5 hours?

If it was one of the old old WATS lines, they may not have been able to tell.  Companies paid old Ma Bell a single flat rate for unlimited use on one of those lines, so those bills generally weren’t itemized; it didn’t affect the amount of the bill, so it didn’t matter.

[Nashville]

6 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Jarts (I wanted this)

A local kid in the neighborhood had a set of those.  I have no idea how the game’s “real” rules went; all we did with them was throw them at each other’s feet, seeing who could get the closest without sticking them in somebody.

6 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Klackers (I remember those)

Broke more than a few pairs of those in my time - but once I got up a good head of steam, by god I could make a machine gun flinch.  😎

[OoohMaggie]

4 hours ago, nachomama said:

Sincerely you had no phone until 1980??????

Absolutely and totally honestly, as with most things over here, compared to what you guys pay for things we get right royally screwed over, whether it’s a can of coke, an I-Pad or a gallon of gas. I probably criticise my Father more than is fair, he was undoubtedly a tight so and so, but I think times were pretty lean back then, he didn’t have a great job and we weren’t exactly in the ‘Beverly hills set’.

 

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

So how did you communicate before using a rotary phone?   Did you use two tin cans with a string tied to them?  Did you just open up the window and yell?

Well if it wasn’t too far, I was sent on my bike to deliver a message, we did have a pay phone box at the end of the road, or if someone was bleeding to death we could call on one of the snobby neighbours who had a phone to call an ambulance 🚑

[Mr. Sparkle]

6 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Growing up we had an all metal rotary phone with a cord at least twenty feet long.   You could bounce that phone down the stairs and the stairs were more likely to break than the phone.

We had a yellow rotary phone mounted to the kitchen wall. It had a long cord that was always tangled despite my father's best efforts. 

7 hours ago, OoohMaggie said:

t was one of the phones with the circular dial , and true to form, tight assed father actually put a key operated lock on the dialling mechanism 😱 

I have never seen a phone with a lock before! 

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Is that why it was banned?

Yep.  They were never anything more than two spheres of hard translucent acrylic on a length of string, and QC wasn’t necessarily a big thing with toy companies at the time - which led to some Clackers with internally flawed spheres shattering into thousands of bits of razor-sharp acrylic shrapnel when some kids got them going full speed.  Not the best marketing strategy, that.

Note: mine never shattered THAT catastrophically - usually, they’d simply crack into two half-spheres along an internal grain fault - but the news stories about the shrapnel ones scared every parent in creation.  So they got pulled off the market.

 

[OoohMaggie]

15 hours ago, Superclam said:

I have never seen a phone with a lock before!

Welcome to my world 🤗
It always puzzled me why they chose 999 to call our emergency services, on a rotary phone it took the longest possible time to dial, that’s if you were lucky enough not to have a lock on the damn thing.

Edited August 19, 2020 by OoohMaggie

[nachomama]

19 hours ago, Nashville said:

If it was one of the old old WATS lines, they may not have been able to tell.  Companies paid old Ma Bell a single flat rate for unlimited use on one of those lines, so those bills generally weren’t itemized; it didn’t affect the amount of the bill, so it didn’t matter.

Pretty sure and my mom wasn't the only one using it. Pretty sure every wife/mom had a day or appointment and the head honcho didn't care.

16 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I was surprised that they allowed me to have two Water Wiggles.  Now that thing was dangerous.

 

Is that the weiner tube thing that slips through your hands and looks very dirty?

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I didn't get prescription sports glasses (Rec Specs) until I was seventeen.  I had broken more than my share of regular prescription glasses while playing sports from first grade on.  Without glasses I couldn't play sports at all.  Severely nearsighted since the first grade.  The problem with the Rec Specs that I had is that the lenses didn't wrap around.  As a result I had no peripheral vision which is a huge problem when playing sports.

 

How blind are you is the only game I regularly win. How blind are you?

[nachomama]

Ok water wiggle is the thing that would clock you in the head and depending on pressure wave around like the wind blowy dancy guys. We could never get him to stay upright. Our water wiggle went limp. I was thinking of the water weiny which was still kinda limp

I am a -9/10 depending on which eye.

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, nachomama said:

Is that the weiner tube thing that slips through your hands and looks very dirty?

Must... not... reply.....  😶

Quote

How blind are you is the only game I regularly win. How blind are you?

I was severely nearsighted when I was younger - 20/100 in one eye, 20/200 in the other - and I never got tested for glasses until I was in 4th grade, which accounts (partly, anyway) for all the trouble I got into in 1st-3rd grades.

One good thing about getting older, though; instead of getting farsighted, I’m getting less nearsighted.

At its current rate my vision should be 20/20 by the time I’m oh, say, around 94 or so.  
So I’ll be able to see everything clearly; I just won’t be able to do anything about it.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I was like 20/600 before I got Lasik. I couldn't even make it to the bathroom at night without my glasses. I got the Lasik in 2006. It's kind of failed; I could use glasses again. I can drive or watch TV without glasses, but when I wear my kid's glasses, everything is clear. I don't have the $3k to get Lasik again, and if I did I probably wouldn't in these times. 

[nachomama]

I've heard that Lasik wears off after a while, I don't think I'm a candidate anyway. I have weird calcium in my eyeballs. Eye drs. get real excited to see me. I can't see my hand in front of my face without glasses but I can find my way to the bathroom just because I don't ever turn on any lights so I just mesmerize everything in preparation for my actual blindness which I know is coming. I still trip on stuff but I blame that on my lack of picking stuff up not on lack of seeing it. :D

[nachomama]

I did not get the job I applied for. My friend did get it and I am happy about that. Technically it opens up her spot in the daytime that I could move into, which would be full time. It's an odd shift, 1-9 but Monday-Friday which would give me whole weekends off which I haven't had in over 12 years. I could offer my current boss a few hours in the morning but I feel like if I point out that they give me more money and actual benefits that he will get defensive and escort me out. The one brother hates me and they have zero trust. I've never been allowed a key to this building and I don't think I've ever demonstrated untrustworthiness, my old boss not only did I have a key, I STILL have a key and I haven't worked for him in over a decade.

I have now traced my ancestry back to 1555. I don't guarantee its 100% accurate. Years ago I had seen a genealogy book that my uncle got from a patient at the Swedish Hospital in Seattle, he was an accountant. It showed us going back to William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. William Penn was best buds with my 8th generation granpa and 1 married a Jasper sister and the other married a Jasper sister, so I was in-laws with the Penns. I couldn't make that leap going back in time from me. So I grabbed William Penn and tried connecting forward. I DID IT!!!!!!!! There are entirely too many Williams, Benjamins and Silaseses in my family. Keeping each generation of William or Benjamin was a PITA and whooo boy them wives and 19 kids each of them had, one of my dudes married his uncles' widow. Then randomly learned that Alexander Hamilton's daughters each married an uncle/cousin. He married one, she died so he married the other one. I'm like "Son! there's other chicks out there!" (very briefly I thought I was related to Aaron Burr, I came across the name but phew, not related.)

[HeShallBMySquishy]

On 11/18/2019 at 12:43 AM, Mu Shu said:

No you’re not. I really liked it and have seen it a few times. But I also think Showgirls is a great movie so there’s that. 

Oh my God, where is the forum for Showgirls? The 25th anniversary is coming up (September 22), which is also the same day Se7en opened.

[Mu Shu]

On 8/28/2020 at 12:59 AM, HeShallBMySquishy said:

Oh my God, where is the forum for Showgirls? The 25th anniversary is coming up (September 22), which is also the same day Se7en opened.

“I’m not a whore!!!

[nachomama]

On 8/29/2020 at 2:03 PM, Mu Shu said:

On 8/28/2020 at 12:59 AM, HeShallBMySquishy said: (September 22), which is also the same day Se7en opened.

I celebrate Se7en day because every day Gwynneth's head comes home in a box is a good day.

Mighty sad about Chadwick Boseman, I had already set up my dvr to record the James Brown movie he did "Get on Up" but I did end up watching it this weekend. The movie is good, but dayum James Brown was an asshole. He overcame a lot but good lord he screwed over every person he ever worked with. I get it, in order to be somebody like that and achieve what he did you have to be as narcissistic as that. see also Paltrow, Gwynneth. :D

[AngelaHunter]

On 8/28/2020 at 12:59 AM, HeShallBMySquishy said:

Oh my God, where is the forum for Showgirls? The 25th anniversary is coming up (September 22), which is also the same day Se7en opened.

I have never seen "Showgirls." If there is a noteworthy anniversary for it, maybe I should.

1 hour ago, nachomama said:

what he did you have to be as narcissistic as that. see also Paltrow, Gwynneth.

Is she narcissistic or just plain nutso? And crude and disgusting. Ugh.

I bet her mom is not thrilled with those antics.

[nachomama]

2 hours ago, AngelaHunter said:

Is she narcissistic or just plain nutso? And crude and disgusting. Ugh.

I been saying for years that she's nutso. I know we are all just jealous that we don't have virginia candles named after us though.

I've been having very odd dreams lately. Mostly involving architecture or square footage. I dreamed that I went home to my parents house and they had an awesome shower. (In real life no awesome shower existed) Most of the dream involves me not having showered for 3 days to get there and then the ethereal moment of seeing the shower which had stairs and intricate lighting.  Somebody in the dream told me they loved me even though I was stinky for not having showered but they'd hug me after. But I kept getting close to taking the shower but somehow had to calculate the square footage first. Last night I was dreaming of attic square footage. Am I thinking of where to hide bodies??

My friend texted me that she had dreamed she was coming to visit for my bachelorette party. She's had this dream a couple of times, I said she always dreams it but she doesn't produce a hunky dude for me. So I said just come visit, we'll get a bride-to-be sash and just go out taking turns wearing it to get people to buy us drinks. I think I've stumbled onto a genius idea.

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Has anyone here ever had something that you thought was incredibly funny but crude run through your mind, and the little voice in your head says "keep it to yourself", so you just don't post it?

Only a few hundred times a day.

[AngelaHunter]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Has anyone here ever had something that you thought was incredibly funny but crude run through your mind, and the little voice in your head says "keep it to yourself", so you just don't post it?

Yes. Yes, indeedy.

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Has anyone here ever had something that you thought was incredibly funny but crude run through your mind, and the little voice in your head says "keep it to yourself", so you just don't post it?

Regularly. It would be better if I could do it when I talk. 

[nachomama]

Oh defnitely, Pretty much everything goes to a very dark place in my head, on one hand it's very hard to offend me but I gotta keep it in check because wowza I can put people off quick.

Most of what I say is pretty mild but people still don't get it. This weekend we had IT trouble and the supervisor man kept saying "we're on a bridge with IT trying to work it out" and I said "don't fall" which isn't particularly clever and it's clearly not a literal bridge but for whatever reason I thought it was hilarious. One time they were discussing pets and one dude said "my mom can't have cats" which he meant at her apartment but I chimed in with "well I should hope not, I hope she stuck to having people" actually he did laugh at that one. In real life I tell everyone feel free to slap me cuz of the stupid things I say.

Our long running punchline (which is only funny to people working at call centers) is about how no one will ever just answer with a number. Our questions are all "On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate yada, yada?" and the say "one or two" and we have to repeat "would that be more of a 1 or a 2?" because I can't give or suggest the answer. So one girls says the man on the phone told her he couldn't take the survey because he had to go to the bathroom. So in the chat I wrote "did you ask him if that was a 1 or a 2?" and I nearly made one of the supervisors choke.

[nachomama]

Getting all the scoop from my girl who got the job I applied for. My name came up and *spoiler alert* my training officer/person who grades me loves me. haha She says the days I'm not there are just not the same. She would like to hang out with me. They were talking about the lady who goes to the bathroom all the time (she has explained she has stomach issues could be IBS could be Crohns) this is a very sweet lady but holy moses dumb as a box of hair. She talks way too much (I know you think I talk too much but too too much) We are expressly forbidden from asking "how are you today?" type things on our calls because, duh, we aren't there to start conversation. They sometimes ask us and we are allowed to say where we are (if they ask) or 1 word answers type thing. Apparently this lady is all over the map, "how are you? oh, my grandpa was from St. Louis" which, again, very nice, but aggravating in the job side. She's the one who once typed in our chat that her dog was a "chewala" (chihuahua) and I responded "I have a chewbaca" and she said "oh he must be so cute". :/