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

[bilgistic]

My former boss insisted we hand-sign 200 Christmas cards that we sent out. (There was an option to upload and print digital images of our signatures.) Of course, I would start reminding him in early November that we needed to order them. He'd finally get around to reviewing and approving the recipient list by the second week in December. I'd get return-to-sender cards for bad addresses in January that I could've fixed had we sent them out more timely.

Businesspeople don't keep Christmas cards. They are a waste of paper. The Atlanta office sent a jokey Christmas group photo email and ex-boss thought it was the greatest thing ever (after we sent our cards). THANK GOD I don't have to acquiesce to whatever harebrained scheme he's cooked up to try to top them this year.

[Mountainair]

1 hour ago, DeLurker said:

That was my thought.  Alternatively, I would leave the individual items unwrapped, but wrap the entire stocking.

Note:  Taking marital advice from me is probably not the bestest of ideas.

Oh, I like that idea :) Maybe I’ll just wrap his since he’s the one that insists everything be wrapped! 

Honestly, I don’t mind him not helping. He plays his computer game and keeps and ear out for kiddos and keeps them at bay and I honestly cherish the quiet alone time. My two oldest have been out of school since before Thanksgiving so alone time has been hard to come by.  I wouldn’t mind the wrapping so much if it didn’t cause so much pain! 

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, bmasters9 said:

Truth! Doesn't he realize how much of an effort it would be to wrap stocking stuffers?! Regular presents, I can see wrapping, but things that go in a stocking don't need to be (at least IMO).

We had a rule at our house that Santa doesn't wrap. So we didn't wrap the big Santa gift or the stocking stuffers.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 12/18/2017 at 0:17 PM, Katy M said:

I hate when on websites, they have those picture tests to make sure you're 100% human.  As opposed to 50% human, I guess.  Anyway, apparently, I am not, because sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 tries to get it right.  Aargh.

And what the fuck is a "street sign"?  To me, a street sign is on a pole on the corner and has Elm on one side and Main on the other.  But all the captcha has are the overhead signs on an interstate.  Does captcha think those are street signs?  Why is this so hard?   

Or storefronts.  What exactly is a storefront?  I got one the other day asking me to identify photos with cars.  Hallelujah.

 

6 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I dislike the fakery of everybody getting along and the saccharine sweetness of the holidays. Some people are only nice for the month of December as they are trying for a good present. The rest of the year they are a waste of skin.

Not just trying for a good present, but just being nice in general, and it bugs the shit out of me that they have to have an external, calendar-dictated reason to do it.  I have an idea--just be a nice person, year-round. 

I think I've bitched here before about end-of-the-year generosity.  Yes, it's better than nothing, I suppose, but it's actually a burden on the people who have to process an avalanche of donations at the end of the year, when everybody else is out being merry.  Because people get pissy if their generosity isn't promptly acknowledged.

 

On 12/18/2017 at 6:33 AM, Qoass said:

My family no longer exchanges gifts (which is awesome) so I only had to prepare two packages. One went into a bag and the other fit in an envelope. Done!

It is awesome.  I'm giving zero gifts this year, and I'm receiving zero gifts this year, and I couldn't be happier about it.

 

45 minutes ago, GoodieGirl said:

My family has an acquaintance who sends one of the most self-centered, self-absorbed, self-important holiday letters I have ever read. I get being proud of your kids and your husband, and especially yourself, but do I really need to see 3 pages of 10pt font espousing every event that occurred in the last 365 days? Thankfully I got crossed off her Christmas card list at some point, directly relating to when I stopped sending her a card. Merry Christmas to me!!!

I hate the reciprocity of cards.  Back when I'd send them out, I'd do it really late so nobody would have a chance to send one back to me just because I sent one to them.  Hey, if I want to send a card, let me.  If you want to send a card to me, do it.  If you didn't think of me until my card arrived in the mail, then maybe that should tell you something about whether you want to send me a card.

I started loving holiday letters, and the more obnoxious the better.  But it was a once-a-year thing, which I could read at my leisure, and the person did have to make an effort to write it up.  I think that's why I hate Facebook--it's like one big holiday letter 24/7, but without any curating.

And I further hate Facebook because I think it's led to the demise of holiday letters.

[Bastet]

7 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

We had a rule at our house that Santa doesn't wrap.

Same here, which is why I still get presents from Santa in front of the tree each year -- it's the stuff my mom didn't want to wrap. 

(I'd never heard of anyone wrapping stocking stuffers.  I guess it would slow kids down.)

I hate Christmas cards as a waste of paper.  I really hate photo cards, because they're not even recyclable.  And I really, really hate photo cards with not one personalized word written on them; just printed off and mailed out.  Gee, thanks for thinking of me.

If someone sent out a holiday newsletter that detailed all the ways in which their life had been shit this year, concluding with "hope yours was better," I might not hate holiday newsletters so much.  (And one of the many reasons I don't use Facebook is it seems like a daily version of the holiday newsletter.)

I either call or email people, depending on how close we are (hint: I don't make too many calls).  I have three people who are really into getting old-school cards, so I send cards to them, though (I just put them in the mail five minutes ago).

[KittyMom4]

1 minute ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I hate the reciprocity of cards.  Back when I'd send them out, I'd do it really late so nobody would have a chance to send one back to me just because I sent one to them.  Hey, if I want to send a card, let me.  If you want to send a card to me, do it.  If you didn't think of me until my card arrived in the mail, then maybe that should tell you something about whether you want to send me a card.

I started loving holiday letters, and the more obnoxious the better.  But it was a once-a-year thing, which I could read at my leisure, and the person did have to make an effort to write it up.  I think that's why I hate Facebook--it's like one big holiday letter 24/7, but without any curating.

And I further hate Facebook because I think it's led to the demise of holiday letters.

I love holiday letters where the writer is fun and unpretentious and gives some fun anecdotes and experiences from their year, the person I'm referencing would refer to herself in 3rd person, and regal her readers with long boring paragraphs about each member of the family. The last letter I remember reading the paragraph about herself was an entire page where she bragged about her job, her new car and her new haircut. 

I had stopped sending cards for a few years when I was having a rough time and just didn't want to put forth the effort but I was so glad people continued to send them to me!  

[backformore]

I haven't sent cards for a long time.  Of all the Christmas tasks, -shopping, wrapping, cooking, decorating, baking - writing cards is my least favorite.

When I changed "I really should send Christmas cards, but I didn't have the time this year" to "I don't send cards because I don't like doing it," it freed me from a lot of guilt.

[Mindthinkr]

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

We had a rule at our house that Santa doesn't wrap. So we didn't wrap the big Santa gift or the stocking stuffers.

Santa used recycled newspaper cartoon sections in my house. As a single parent working full time and going to nursing school full time I couldn't afford wrapping paper so saved all the comics and got a few of my neighbors to save them for me as well. I think I've told you all the story about the year I could only afford 3 presents for my child. I got a bag of 100 balloons and blew them up. That way the tree looked way full and she had a blast diving through all the balloons to find her gifts. She still recalls it as one of her best Christmas's. Speaking of her...Santa doesn't wrap at all in their house either. Just the small token gifts from Mom and Dad as well as what we grandparents contribute. 

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, GoodieGirl said:

I love holiday letters where the writer is fun and unpretentious and gives some fun anecdotes and experiences from their year, the person I'm referencing would refer to herself in 3rd person, and regal her readers with long boring paragraphs about each member of the family. The last letter I remember reading the paragraph about herself was an entire page where she bragged about her job, her new car and her new haircut. 

I had stopped sending cards for a few years when I was having a rough time and just didn't want to put forth the effort but I was so glad people continued to send them to me!  

If they only knew. We have a niece in law who sent those holiday letters regaling everyone with glory that is her three perfect (not) children and her brilliant (really not) husband and of course her perfect (yeah, right) self. Oh, how we used to sit around the tree and take turns reading those things out loud and we'd use funny voices and laugh and laugh.

[Katy M]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I think I've bitched here before about end-of-the-year generosity.  Yes, it's better than nothing, I suppose, but it's actually a burden on the people who have to process an avalanche of donations at the end of the year, when everybody else is out being merry.  Because people get pissy if their generosity isn't promptly acknowledged.

On a related note, why do charities have to flood me with requests at the end of the year.  I don't miraculously have 6 million dollars at the end of the year, which I feel would be $1 per request.  OK, I may be exaggerating.  TBH, I would give more, if I got fewer requests.  I feel so overwhelmed, most of them go in the trash.  Ask me in June.

[StatisticalOutlier]

19 minutes ago, Katy M said:

On a related note, why do charities have to flood me with requests at the end of the year. 

Because it works.  Our end-of-the-year appeal was always had the most response.  I've wondered if it's because people want a last-minute tax deduction, but frankly, most of the donations weren't big enough to matter in that respect.  I think a lot of people just feel more generous then, much to my annoyance.

[Random Noise]

5 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

And what the fuck is a "street sign"?  To me, a street sign is on a pole on the corner and has Elm on one side and Main on the other.  But all the captcha has are the overhead signs on an interstate.  Does captcha think those are street signs?  Why is this so hard?   

Or storefronts.  What exactly is a storefront?  I got one the other day asking me to identify photos with cars.  Hallelujah.

I run what's called a "honeypot," which is part of a volunteer cybersecurity network among web administrators. Unless you run or maintain a server, you can't really appreciate the number of attacks on a system.

A decade ago they would simply scarf up any email addresses they could find and you'd end up with an inbox full of spam, but spam blockers made that ineffective so now they crawl the web looking for anything that has a login, online shopping cart, or something that requires your input, and flood it with web links to various sites, mostly porn. I think a lot of overseas porn sites pay people to draw in traffic.

As annoying as they are, the "are you human" boxes are designed to protect the system you're accessing, and the fact that you see them much more often is an indication as to how many sites get attacked on a regular basis. It's also a protection for you, because a single link that you may find interesting could land you on some malicious code, ransomware, or spyware. 

What's bothersome about it for me is I generally have to go through the links to determine whether the site is harmful or not, so I may have to solve anywhere between 100 to 200 of those in a day. The other one is the "horny women" one which was probably misconstrued and I should have elaborated more on at the time, but I've gone through 300 to 400 of those on some days. The code is obfuscated so the process can't be automated. I have to manually go through each one.

If you have an ad blocker on your browser that blocks various sites, or you get a "this site may cause harm to your computer" message, that's from data we collect with a honeypot. Eventually the "are you human" boxes will be replaced with something better but for now it's a fact of life and that's why you keep getting them.

Peeve On.

[Random Noise]

This would probably be a good time to mention, if you ever do land on a website that tells you your system is infected and to call a number to have it unlocked, it's a spoof.

It's really just a web page with the warning garbage, a bunch of phone numbers, and a small snippet of javascript designed to keep the browser so busy that it can't do anything else. If you close the browser, then restart it and clear the cache, then everything is good. It doesn't really damage your data.

[Zola]

1 hour ago, Random Noise said:

This would probably be a good time to mention, if you ever do land on a website that tells you your system is infected and to call a number to have it unlocked, it's a spoof.

It's really just a web page with the warning garbage, a bunch of phone numbers, and a small snippet of javascript designed to keep the browser so busy that it can't do anything else. If you close the browser, then restart it and clear the cache, then everything is good. It doesn't really damage your data.

 

Good points, although I would also add to be careful how you close your browser or browser tab, as some java scripts run in such a way that it will detect your mouse hovering and clicking over the little "x" of your browser tab, and will either launch another "infected system" tab, or actually trigger a cookie that could actually infect your browser settings (i.e. by adding irritating toolbars, messing up your proxy/vpn/security settings, disabling some or all of your browser extensions etc.)

Personally I launch Task Manager and close/kill the "infected" browser tab from there, which normally does the trick. But again, there's no 100% guarantee it will work.

[Zola]

14 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

@Zola FYI They make very cute and funny Grinch Christmas cards. Bah Humbug cards perhaps? 

Nice idea, but ultimately I wrote him a "nice" card after all.

Despite being a PITA, he is still a customer and a pretty decent one too in terms of work (but tends not to pay up on time, lol)

However, I dressed up in my best witch's costume and cast a spell of a thousand embarrassing itches on his card ;-)

[Random Noise]

2 hours ago, Zola said:

 

Good points, although I would also add to be careful how you close your browser or browser tab, as some java scripts run in such a way that it will detect your mouse hovering and clicking over the little "x" of your browser tab, and will either launch another "infected system" tab, or actually trigger a cookie that could actually infect your browser settings (i.e. by adding irritating toolbars, messing up your proxy/vpn/security settings, disabling some or all of your browser extensions etc.)

Personally I launch Task Manager and close/kill the "infected" browser tab from there, which normally does the trick. But again, there's no 100% guarantee it will work.

Thanks for adding that. My brain tends to always think in terms of linux so I forget stuff like task manager in Windows.

[Zola]

1 minute ago, Random Noise said:

Thanks for adding that. My brain tends to always think in terms of linux so I forget stuff like task manager in Windows.

Likewise, I am seriously lacking in Linux experience - will make it one of my resolutions for the new year :)

[Random Noise]

I was just thinking back to a gag we used to pull in the late '80s that went like:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
* W A R N I N G *
Your computer has just been infected with a Virus.
Unfortunately our programmers are not experienced so
we require you to manually delete all the files on your
computer.
We're going by the honor system here.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Everyone thought it was a great joke, and what made it even better was we actually had someone ask "what should I do?"

[Katy M]

28 minutes ago, Random Noise said:

I was just thinking back to a gag we used to pull in the late '80s that went like:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
* W A R N I N G *
Your computer has just been infected with a Virus.
Unfortunately our programmers are not experienced so
we require you to manually delete all the files on your
computer.
We're going by the honor system here.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Everyone thought it was a great joke, and what made it even better was we actually had someone ask "what should I do?"

I totally delted all my files.  It's the honor system.  You can't not follow the honor system.

[Zola]

3 hours ago, Random Noise said:

I was just thinking back to a gag we used to pull in the late '80s that went like:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
* W A R N I N G *
Your computer has just been infected with a Virus.
Unfortunately our programmers are not experienced so
we require you to manually delete all the files on your
computer.
We're going by the honor system here.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Everyone thought it was a great joke, and what made it even better was we actually had someone ask "what should I do?"

That reminds me of when I was studying for my computer sciences degree at university 5 or 6 years ago. There was a fellow undergrad in one of our classes who really shouldn't have been anywhere near a computer because she thought the message on her computer screen "go to sleep" was directed at her, and she decided to fold her arms on the desk and rest her head on them!

I am still not sure whether she was fooling around or just genuinely didn't understand what "sleep" meant.

[Qoass]

I was watching a Food Network competition show last night and a contestant was concerned that because her cookie dough was thick it might take longer to "cook". Maybe I'm overly picky but if you are making something in an oven, I feel you're baking (or less often broiling) it. If it's on the stove, you're cooking. If it's raw, you're preparing and if it's in a microwave you're nuking.

[KittyMom4]

22 hours ago, bilgistic said:

Businesspeople don't keep Christmas cards. They are a waste of paper. The Atlanta office sent a jokey Christmas group photo email and ex-boss thought it was the greatest thing ever (after we sent our cards). THANK GOD I don't have to acquiesce to whatever harebrained scheme he's cooked up to try to top them this year.

No they don't, I am one of 4 assistants in the executive office, we get at least 80-100 cards every year, the ones my boss receives get hung up on a wall, she never looks at them, another assistant piles her boss' cards on her desk and then tosses them after New Year's and yet another assistant barely opens them before they end up in the recycle bin. I've always wanted to tell companies not to waste their money, or at least send them directly to the department you work with instead of the CEO/President/COB of the company who has no clue who you are. Some of the cards are beautiful though.

Edited December 20, 2017 by GoodieGirl

[Zola]

10 minutes ago, GoodieGirl said:

No they don't, I am one of 4 assistants in the executive office, we get at least 80-100 cards every year, the ones my boss receives get hung up on a wall, she never looks at them, another assistant piles her boss' cards on her desk and then tosses them after New Year's and yet another assistant barely opens them before they end up in the recycle bin. I've always wanted to tell companies not to waste their money, or at least send them directly to the department you work with instead of the CEO/President/COB of the company who has no clue who you are. Some of the cars are beautiful though.

The IT manager of the company I used to work for only opened and displayed cards that came from fellow managers or senior directors. Any cards from his own department he never bothered with other than from his own secretary. And he never gave the department any cards either, other than sending out a global email which said something like "Happy Christmas. Don't forget the office is back open on the 3rd at 8am. And those on-call make sure your phones are switched on over the holiday period. Greg."

A real ray of sunshine he was.

[StatisticalOutlier]

Peeve?  Scammers!  I don't have to deal with the often (but with my advancing age...). 

I called DirecTV to cancel HBO (I sign up only for Curb Your Enthusiasm, and waited a little to see if any good documentaries were on) and misdialed.  Phone was answered "Solutions Center," which I assumed was DirecTV's touchy-feely new name for customer service.  I said, "I want to cancel HBO." 

The woman started in on a spiel about some sort of warranty, and after I figured that out, I interrupted her and said, "No thanks," but she persisted.  I've heard that DirecTV will make all kinds of offers when you call to cancel, so I assumed this was part of it, but she wouldn't stop!  So I kept saying, "No" and she said, "Why would you want to pay $7.95/month for a warranty when you can pay $100 at one time and get 3 years of coverage" and I said, "Because I don't understand what you're trying to sell me, so I'm not going to buy it."  So then she explained it the same way she'd already explained it, and once again asked why I wanted to throw away money when I can get three years for the price of one, and I finally said, "Because I'm stupid with my money, which is evidenced by how much I pay DirecTV every month" and she then said, "We're not DirecTV."  What?!?  So I hung up.

So I looked, and sure enough, I was one digit off.  Checked the internet, and apparently they prey on people who misdial DirecTV.  So now I'm remembering that when I called, she asked for a phone number.  That always bugs because I know they can see it.  So I told her.  And I'm now remembering that when she asked for the phone number, she said, "So we can call or text you."  But, ha!  The number I was using, and that I gave her, is a Vonage number so it can't get texts, and it's never hooked up to a ringer so all it ever gets are voice mails.  Dodged a bullet on that one.

Then she asked for my zip code, and I honestly don't know what zip code is on the DirecTV account because we've had it since 2003, and used Mr. Outlier's office address for the service, and I can't remember what that zip code was.  So I said, "Oh, I don't know.  XXXX3?"  She paused, and I said, "Or maybe my mailing address, XXXX4?"  I assumed she was trying to match it to her records, but now I know that's not the case.  Anyway, it probably worked out for the best because when I said I was stupid with my money, she seemed to believe me, probably because I'm just overall stupid if I don't know my own zip code.

What low lifes. 

The good news is that I dialed more carefully and got DirecTV, and was girding for a battle but I said I wanted to drop HBO and Cinemax, and the guy pointed out that the Cinemax free trial was good through January 4, and did I want to go ahead and cancel it anyway?  I said I did, and poof!  It's gone.  When we got HBO, they also offered a free month of Starz, which we took, as well as this 3 months of free Cinemax (Thank GOD because I had no idea Mike Judge had a new series on Cinemax and it was fabulous--right up with with "I'll pay for that if it comes back around" Curb Your Enthusiasm).  And when Mr. O called to cancel the Starz portion of the free trial, they gave him all kinds of crap, put him on hold to talk to supervisors, and mightily pissed him off.  So I was expecting that, and got no pushback whatsoever, which I'm now lording over him.

But I digress.  As if I don't already have a sufficiently low opinion of humanity, I have to encounter this obvious scam?  How can those people sleep at night?  I'm just grateful that I've never had to have a job like that in order to survive because I just don't know what I'd do.

[ParadoxLost]

11 hours ago, Qoass said:

I was watching a Food Network competition show last night and a contestant was concerned that because her cookie dough was thick it might take longer to "cook". Maybe I'm overly picky but if you are making something in an oven, I feel you're baking (or less often broiling) it. If it's on the stove, you're cooking. If it's raw, you're preparing and if it's in a microwave you're nuking.

Cooking is a more broadly defined word than baking.  Cooking includes baking, broiling, roasting, etc.

I don't think I've ever heard of cooking as being something relating to being on a stovetop.  I'm more likely to say baking, frying, boiling, and use cooking to apply to any of these generically.  I avoid the word nuking for the microwave on general principle because, as a word, I just don't like it.

Edited December 21, 2017 by ParadoxLost

[walnutqueen]

18 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Peeve?  Scammers!  I don't have to deal with the often (but with my advancing age...). 

I called DirecTV to cancel HBO (I sign up only for Curb Your Enthusiasm, and waited a little to see if any good documentaries were on) and misdialed.  Phone was answered "Solutions Center," which I assumed was DirecTV's touchy-feely new name for customer service.  I said, "I want to cancel HBO." 

The woman started in on a spiel about some sort of warranty, and after I figured that out, I interrupted her and said, "No thanks," but she persisted.  I've heard that DirecTV will make all kinds of offers when you call to cancel, so I assumed this was part of it, but she wouldn't stop!  So I kept saying, "No" and she said, "Why would you want to pay $7.95/month for a warranty when you can pay $100 at one time and get 3 years of coverage" and I said, "Because I don't understand what you're trying to sell me, so I'm not going to buy it."  So then she explained it the same way she'd already explained it, and once again asked why I wanted to throw away money when I can get three years for the price of one, and I finally said, "Because I'm stupid with my money, which is evidenced by how much I pay DirecTV every month" and she then said, "We're not DirecTV."  What?!?  So I hung up.

So I looked, and sure enough, I was one digit off.  Checked the internet, and apparently they prey on people who misdial DirecTV.  So now I'm remembering that when I called, she asked for a phone number.  That always bugs because I know they can see it.  So I told her.  And I'm now remembering that when she asked for the phone number, she said, "So we can call or text you."  But, ha!  The number I was using, and that I gave her, is a Vonage number so it can't get texts, and it's never hooked up to a ringer so all it ever gets are voice mails.  Dodged a bullet on that one.

Then she asked for my zip code, and I honestly don't know what zip code is on the DirecTV account because we've had it since 2003, and used Mr. Outlier's office address for the service, and I can't remember what that zip code was.  So I said, "Oh, I don't know.  XXXX3?"  She paused, and I said, "Or maybe my mailing address, XXXX4?"  I assumed she was trying to match it to her records, but now I know that's not the case.  Anyway, it probably worked out for the best because when I said I was stupid with my money, she seemed to believe me, probably because I'm just overall stupid if I don't know my own zip code.

What low lifes. 

The good news is that I dialed more carefully and got DirecTV, and was girding for a battle but I said I wanted to drop HBO and Cinemax, and the guy pointed out that the Cinemax free trial was good through January 4, and did I want to go ahead and cancel it anyway?  I said I did, and poof!  It's gone.  When we got HBO, they also offered a free month of Starz, which we took, as well as this 3 months of free Cinemax (Thank GOD because I had no idea Mike Judge had a new series on Cinemax and it was fabulous--right up with with "I'll pay for that if it comes back around" Curb Your Enthusiasm).  And when Mr. O called to cancel the Starz portion of the free trial, they gave him all kinds of crap, put him on hold to talk to supervisors, and mightily pissed him off.  So I was expecting that, and got no pushback whatsoever, which I'm now lording over him.

But I digress.  As if I don't already have a sufficiently low opinion of humanity, I have to encounter this obvious scam?  How can those people sleep at night?  I'm just grateful that I've never had to have a job like that in order to survive because I just don't know what I'd do.

I pay extra for all those channels, just so I can once again ignore "Curb Your Enthusiasm".  Possibly THE worst show on HBO.

Hey, we all have different tastes ... ;-)

Back to your topic - I was recently (and inadvertently, I'm sure) hooked up with a dulcet toned UVerse rep named Sylvia.  Who magically dropped my monthly rate by about 40 bucks.  She enjoyed me shushing her to a whisper while I fed the raccoons begging at my back door.  But it was the baby raccoon impersonating Stevie Wonder while encountering my windchimes story that sent her over the cliff.

[Zola]

Today (21st December), is the Winter Solstice, and the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Which means the days will gradually become lighter - both in the morning and evening.

I suffer with a mild case of S.A.D. (or, Winter Depression); and I really hate this time of year purely because it is cold, dark and just generally depressing. As  a consequence my moods swing at the slightest moment; and my motivation to do anything requires a huge amount of effort. In some respects it is like having a period daily for about 3 or 4 months continuously, such is my moodiness and irritability.

I realise there are still 2 or 3 months to go before the lighter mornings/evenings really kick in in terms of sunlight and natural warmth, and therefore my moods probably won't change much during that time. But at least today is a bit of a landmark, and things will start looking up now, with Spring just round the corner :)

Edited December 21, 2017 by Zola

[Random Noise]

1 hour ago, Zola said:

Today (21st December), is the Winter Solstice, and the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Which means the days will gradually become lighter - both in the morning and evening.

 

I look forward to the passing of the 21st as well.

It doesn't start getting light out until 8 AM and it starts getting dark around 3:30 in the afternoon. It's also -17° C (1° F) here right now so I don't really go out much unless I need to.

[AuntieL]

Honestly that's one of the reasons I always put up Christmas decorations and lights, even though I live alone and am never here Christmas Day. All the pretty lights, especially at night cheer me up. And I leave them up until usually the middle of January, which is about when the clutter gets on my nerves. 

[JTMacc99]

9 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

But, ha!  The number I was using, and that I gave her, is a Vonage number so it can't get texts, and it's never hooked up to a ringer so all it ever gets are voice mails. 

I have a land line number just like that. It is the number I use for everything that asks for a phone number. I'm assuming the voice mail box has been full since 2008. I even got to pick the number myself, so I picked a nice catchy sounding number that is fun to say when clerks look up my rewards card at the register.

9 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

The good news is that I dialed more carefully and got DirecTV, and was girding for a battle

DirecTV, and really any TV provider, shouldn't have much issue with you dropping HBO at any time. Generally speaking, and DirecTV might have a slightly better deal because they have so many customers, HBO gets the same $15/month from them that it would get if you signed up for HBO Now and paid them directly. 

So if DirecTV was charging you something like $18 for it, they're only keeping $3. They're better off with you lowering your bill by $18 a month and feeling better about how much you're paying them than they are trying to convince you to keep it. 

All of the free trials and things like that are usually deals worked out with HBO/Cinemax, Showtime and Starz, where they get like half of their monthly fee to encourage DirecTV to include them in packages and offers like you got. Most people drop them when they have to pay, but some people keep it and that's one of the biggest ways they get paying customers.

[Qoass]

Hear, hear @Zola. I consider the winter solstice to be my winter holiday. In fact, this morning a store clerk wished me (an atheist) a Merry Christmas and I responded with "Warm Solstice!" but I don't think he "got" it.

[Moose135]

8 hours ago, Zola said:

Today (21st December), is the Winter Solstice, and the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Which means the days will gradually become lighter - both in the morning and evening.

The best part of this time of year is the ability to take sunrise shots without having to get up in the middle of the night!  Now I just need some decent weather...

[Zola]

45 minutes ago, Moose135 said:

The best part of this time of year is the ability to take sunrise shots without having to get up in the middle of the night!  Now I just need some decent weather...

Actually, there is an upside for these dark winter nights for me, in that it makes for good star-gazing weather. Despite light pollution I can still see the planets, nebula and the odd galaxy from where I live as I am a keen amateur astronomer.  So winter isn't all that bad I guess

[KittyMom4]

6 hours ago, AuntieL said:

Honestly that's one of the reasons I always put up Christmas decorations and lights, even though I live alone and am never here Christmas Day. All the pretty lights, especially at night cheer me up. And I leave them up until usually the middle of January, which is about when the clutter gets on my nerves. 

Me too!

[BooksRule]

I have a peeve with Christmas trees with the lights already on them that are supposed to be so much easier to put up than trees with no lights.  Maybe I'm missing something and am the only person who has the problem, but I just spent about an hour trying to get the stupid blasted lights to light.  The directions always sound so easy--simply put the three pieces together and connect the plugs to light up the tree.  There are always more ends of plugs that don't need to be used than there are plugs (I guess so that you can plug in ornaments that move or light up), but I kept on trying various combinations and the bottom would light up, or the bottom and the middle and it took that dadblasted hour to get a combination that would allow the top to light up.  I finally realized that I was trying to plug in two ends of a wire to itself, but had a time trying to figure out how to get the correct ends to connect when they seemed too short to connect.  I thought when I had the same trouble last year that I color-coded the plugs so I could know immediately what to plug into what, but I guess I didn't do it because there were no clues.  It didn't make it easier that I had two curious cats that kept getting underfoot because they were fascinated with what I was doing.  I'm definitely going to color code the plugs when I take the tree apart in January so I don't have this problem next year.  If I forget, then I plan to keep this tree stored and will just buy a new naked tree that will require me to drape lights on it.  I know how to plug those in!  Now I'm going to make my Wal-Mart run, because I know if I sit down to rest I won't get up for a while and I have to get some groceries today.  When I've rested and calmed down from my ordeal I'll straighten out the branches where I mashed them up while fishing for plugs and decorate.  (Wow! I said 'plugs' a lot, didn't I?  Hee!)

[StatisticalOutlier]

7 hours ago, JTMacc99 said:

DirecTV, and really any TV provider, shouldn't have much issue with you dropping HBO at any time. Generally speaking, and DirecTV might have a slightly better deal because they have so many customers, HBO gets the same $15/month from them that it would get if you signed up for HBO Now and paid them directly. 

So if DirecTV was charging you something like $18 for it, they're only keeping $3. They're better off with you lowering your bill by $18 a month and feeling better about how much you're paying them than they are trying to convince you to keep it. 

All of the free trials and things like that are usually deals worked out with HBO/Cinemax, Showtime and Starz, where they get like half of their monthly fee to encourage DirecTV to include them in packages and offers like you got. Most people drop them when they have to pay, but some people keep it and that's one of the biggest ways they get paying customers.

I guess that's why they were so much rougher on us when trying to cancel a free preview than when cancelling something we were paying for.

But if they're not going to hassle me, I wish they'd let me do it online instead of making me call to cancel, especially if a one-digit misdial leads me to a scam.  You know they know that's going on.

 

14 hours ago, Zola said:

I suffer with a mild case of S.A.D. (or, Winter Depression); and I really hate this time of year purely because it is cold, dark and just generally depressing.

I'm in Seattle and it gets dark well before 5:00, plus there's a giant tree between the setting sun and me, so I lose sunlight (if there was any that day) at around 2:30.  I don't have a job, so I'm home a lot and I really notice it, and it's depressing.  However, it does make for very long evenings.  I can't count how many times recently I've thought, "It's about time to go to bed" and looked at the clock and it's 7:30.  Well, it's been dark for 5 hours at that point. 

[JTMacc99]

7 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

But if they're not going to hassle me, I wish they'd let me do it online instead of making me call to cancel, especially if a one-digit misdial leads me to a scam.  You know they know that's going on.

Yes they do. My company typically finds out very quickly about a scam and does everything we can to protect our customers. It sucks to know that your customers are being targeted.

[Random Noise]

16 hours ago, Moose135 said:

The best part of this time of year is the ability to take sunrise shots without having to get up in the middle of the night!  Now I just need some decent weather...

You might like to visit Dawson Creek (the town, not the TV show), the sun never goes higher than sunrise this time of year.

Clear skies too, but dress warm. Very, very warm.

Alaska is good as well, but more coastal weatherwise. Kind of like Seattle but colder with lots of snow. And on a clear day, you can see Russia!

Edit: Sorry, I meant Whitehorse, Yukon, not Dawson Creek. Dawson is further south but still damn cold.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Random Noise

[TattleTeeny]

Post office lost not one, not two, but three separate packages of mine. Or, correction, two; one it won't deliver without a signature, even though the carrier left a form I could fill out saying that it's OK to leave it...which I did. Two separate times. It was supposed be (re)redelivered yesterday, It is not here. The website helps not at all, as when I fill in the form there, I get to the end and it tells me I didn't do it correctly--"invalid descriptions"--even though said descriptions are options from their drop-down menus. Waited on hold for literally two hours to no avail. Facebooked USPS and got a reply...saying my stuff was out of the country, even though, per the USPS website, two packages have been sitting still in Chicago and in two towns over from me in Jersey, respectively, since December 13. Screenshots proved nothing to the rude dolt on the other end of the message, who suggests that I...

check the website. After I just told him/her three times that that is where I got that info in the first place. This is extra peevey because there's an idiot one town over with the same street address as mine, who keeps having her crap sent here (because zip codes are hard, I guess?), and, with a little detective work, I contacted her through FB to let her know this. Yet no good postal karma for me! Ugh.

Edited December 22, 2017 by TattleTeeny

[KittyMom4]

21 hours ago, BooksRule said:

I have a peeve with Christmas trees with the lights already on them that are supposed to be so much easier to put up than trees with no lights.  Maybe I'm missing something and am the only person who has the problem, but I just spent about an hour trying to get the stupid blasted lights to light. 

Every time I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy one of those fancy pre-lit trees I hear a story about how they aren't all they are cracked up to be.  I have 2 regular ones that I string lights on every year, if a string isn't working I just throw it out and buy a new one. Good luck @BooksRule!

[peacheslatour]

36 minutes ago, GoodieGirl said:

Every time I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy one of those fancy pre-lit trees I hear a story about how they aren't all they are cracked up to be.  I have 2 regular ones that I string lights on every year, if a string isn't working I just throw it out and buy a new one. Good luck @BooksRule!

We got one last year and when he put it up this year my DH timed it. Took 8 minutes, he couldn't believe it. Normally we have to go out in the freezing rain (we're in Seattle) pick out a tree, lug it home and get out the chain saw to whack off a couple inches, wrangle it into the stand and drag it into the house, dropping needles as we go. The there's the watering, more needles to vacuum up and the removal, more chain saw, then stuff it into the recycle bin. Following year lather, rinse, repeat. We finally said fuck it. This tree will pay for itself by next year and we get to put it up whenever we want which this year was the week before Thanksgiving because my dad was coming for dinner. I love it.

[bilgistic]

I'm not positive, but my downstairs neighbor may have finally gotten the message that he needs to stop smoking pot in his apartment. I'm probably jinxing things by saying this.

He was smoking a couple weeks ago at 7:45 am, because I smelled it (like he was smoking in my place) when I woke up and went to the bathroom.

Every now and then, I get a whiff of it, but it's nothing like the stench of 1,000 skunks running through my place as it was before, so I wonder if he's using a vaper(?)/vaping device (I'm so hip to what the kids are into these days). I have a nose like a bloodhound, if you all haven't gathered that by now.

[BookWoman56]

I considered a pre-lit tree but opted instead for one that wasn't. When I bought it, though, I seriously misjudged my ceiling height and for two years had to leave off the top third section of the tree. Now that I'm in my new house, I have a 2-story ceiling in the living room so for the first time I have the entire tree up. As for lights, when I first bought lights for the tree, I was looking for multi-colored lights with fairly small bulbs. Almost all of what the stores had at that point were either all clear, or those lights with the fairly large bulbs, in both cases, the kind you have to string through the branches. I spotted some multi-colored ones, with small bulbs, but the package said they were intended for outdoor use. They are made in net style, like a fishing net. They work just fine on my tree; we just essentially throw them on the tree and tuck in a few places rather than having to walk around the tree multiple times to string the lights. 

[janestclair]

Bilgistic, I have a nose like a bloodhound too.  We once had an evacuation at the school where I work so we're standing outside in the freezing cold, and no one knew why.  I was like, "Doesn't anyone else smell gas?" but no one did. Sure enough, there was a gas leak.  Living next to your neighbor would make me insane.  I loathe the smell of pot.  I hope he finally did stop.  

I have a prelit tree too, and this year I couldn't even be bothered putting that up. I'm so lazy.  Oh well. 

[TattleTeeny]

Quote

I have a nose like a bloodhound, if you all haven't gathered that by now.

Me too. What a curse it is! I don't even hate the smell of pot; I just hate having any smell invade my place from outside!

Edited December 22, 2017 by TattleTeeny

[ABay]

My little tree came with lights and it's OK, but the price on larger ones is prohibitive. When I get a bigger tree next year, I'll go with unlit and provide my own lights for a lot less. A decent unlit tree is still pricey as all get out.

[Mindthinkr]

I got a Rosemary plant shaped like a Christmas tree. Used one string of little lights and some ornaments and voila.  If I was having a party or hosting my family I'd do bigger and better. 

[Mountainair]

Maybe when the kids are grown and out of the house we will get an artificial tree but for now we enjoy our real tree :) Every year the day after Thanksgiving we hike up to the farm of a family friend and choose our tree. The oldest tries his best to cut it by himself and gets closer each year. Next year I feel confident he’ll get it down himself! I enjoy having a different tree each year and all picking it out together. 

[Petunia13]

2 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I got a Rosemary plant shaped like a Christmas tree. Used one string of little lights and some ornaments and voila.  If I was having a party or hosting my family I'd do bigger and better. 

Is that cat black or dark gray? (Cough) I'm a big fan of black cats and dogs.

 I ❤️ your tree! 

 

This peeve weighs on me but I don't want to say it...but it's holiday related. Mind you I work retail and deal with a lot of people and some say ignorant things about holidays. 

[auntlada]

@Petunia13, you could probably just end that sentence after the word "things."