simbalion

I feel for you, and remember the days of working for places where "it be like that".  So dehumanizing.  I am lucky enough these days to work for a place where they recognize that shit happens and deal with it, so long as it's not constant and clearly bullshit, and/or so long as you don't fudge your timesheet to get paid for time you didn't work / don't take it as PTO.

You are probably quite aware of this but just a reminder... if your place of work doesn't allow normal occasional sick days, and/or wants you to risk your life in severe weather to get to work...it's time to try something else or at least dust off the ol' resume.

Always got to make sure you are getting more out of the job than the job is getting out of you.

Oh and a funny story I love to remember... I was feeling really sick with some kind of low level bug and migraines at work many years ago, at a job where I took around 100 calls a day.  I kept having to go to the bathroom for a variety of gross reasons, but I was powering through in order to be able to help out when I could during a super busy time.  My supervisor started harassing me about my time in the bathroom / away from my desk as I'd taken 20 minutes once instead of the allowed 15 minute break.  I took a LONG look at her with the most extreme stink eye I'd given in a long time....thought it through, and said yeah, I'm very ill, and I'm going home.  "So sorry".

And I did, and called in the next day even though I didn't have to (and only had 10 "PTO" days/year).  Not sure if she ever saw the big picture on that one or not, but hopefully.   Make the rules work for you when you can.

It's one of the pitfalls of the American work environment and culture I've never understood. Countless studies have shown that the idea of "only be absent when you're unequivocally completely sick but otherwise come in if you're just under the weather or getting sick" leads to significant lost productivity overall, as the chances of infection of others is substantially increased.

Businesses don't seem to grasp this concept that "losing one person for one day while they're not 100% and saving everyone else a week from now from getting it"  is actually not only better for morale but actually is MORE efficient. Short-sightedness at its best....

Damn, I hope that no horrific fire hits Slidell.

how is that going to reach Louisiana exactly? I can't find Slidell Ohio... odd thing that.

So sorry simbalion.

@simbalion As a man that dealt with Leukemia, you have my deepest sympathies Simbalion. God rest his soul, and feel free to ask us if you need anything. Will be here to help as much as possible bro. Believe me, we would do our best to assist.

Anthony...

Thanks, everyone.

Sadly, I can't say too much more because it drops into the political realm like so much does now. Basically, there was a decade long fight to try and save the building, but in the end the school board and state refused to listen. Before the final vote that finally passed for the new school, state officials came in and told us point blank that there would be no support for renovating the school and no permission for any repairs. Either we accepted the new school or the old one would be allowed to basically collapse on the kids. Yeah, it got that dirty and barely 25% of the voters turned out for that last vote. Hope this doesn't get me in trouble, but it's the only way to explain things. Oh, the new school is barely a year old and already won an Architecture Award. Don't worry, change is already happening with most that forced the new school on us at local level already replaced.

My old junior high was rebuilt a year or 2 back and ya know, it looks like mishmashed LEGOs too!

Seems to be the way with modern architecture. We have made many technical leaps, but they are literally crappy, throw away structures that look like crap.

Those look like quite the workout.

Neat!  They're >$100 elsewhere.

I will say it's a neat novelty, but you're not going to be playing long games on it. It's an awkward position to play for me and forget precise control. Pacman is easier with a 5200 controller for me than this!

 Where I live, folks seem to have embraced this as a way of life.  uggggh lol

Around here, people's driving has gotten worse and more aggressive once traffic picked up after some of the pandemic shutdowns. I take two highways to get to work, and forget about trying to pass anyone in the left lane... 85-90 mph speed in that lane. The tail gating is pretty bad too. These problems existed before the pandemic, but it has gone from a few idiots to flag dropping at the Daytona 500.

I've noticed a similar drop in driving skill in the last two years.  I think that people who used to drive daily to work are now working from home due to the pandemic, and just aren't getting behind the wheel as much.  When they finally do go for a drive, they've forgotten what few skills they did have.

Agreed.  In the late 80's, don't say to yourself "I wish they'd make some more Star Wars movies!" !!!!

100% agreed @simbalion.  Though the remake of Moore's BSG was really special imo.

Also, "Buy Intel and Apple.  And Google when it comes out.  And don't buy stupid sports cars even though they are awesome."

I'd rather be playing golf than watch football.

Watching the Game is Fine.  Once in a while, in the right mood...But who watches once the game is over?  Not me!  Other than to get the score of the Raiders game last week since they only show Broncos here...

I was trying to find some music on the radio and almost all the stations were swamped with the game and post game shows except the country western ones. From Friday through Sunday, Ohio is all football, football, football on the airwaves. The curse of being the state where pro football began.

We really didn't want to upgrade from 7 here, but found out Verizon was shutting down our current Jetpack (Only way to get internet for us) and the new one would not work with Mom's computer as it had a slightly older wireless card. Also, the monitor on my HP laptop was getting flaky and for some reason the computer was suddenly like a furnace all the time. You could cook with the air coming out the cooling vents!

Older computers start running hot when the CPU has to use hundreds of old instructions to "make up" for those high-level languages that are geared toward new CPUs that have new instruction sets which do the job in less cycles. Fucking java shit and overbloated APIs.

That explains a few things for sure. Got to the point where I had to be careful on certain sites or it would shut down from getting too hot, yet airflow was fine.

I rescanned my over the air digital TV converter and everything comes in so much more stable, and I now have 4x as many channels.  No idea what changed but it's been a few years since I rescanned.  As long as I've got MeTV and the Thanksgiving parade (mostly for my wife) it's all good. When they first converted to digital it really stank, nothing came in and the signal was very intermittent. I just put it away until a year or so ago.  I don't watch much TV but it's been kind of fun once in a while.  I've been out of the TV loop so long it feels a bit special.

Right before the switchover, we got quite a few digital channels. About a week or two later, poof! I've heard that the FCC slashed the maximum allowed broadcasting power by half after the change. Not sure if that is true, but something went bad.

Did the whole tree tip over or did it split?  One time, in a house we used to live in, two trees out back blew over roots and all.

I watched it happen and the wind wasn't even that strong.  The ground was saturated from a lot of rain we had been getting over the past month,

so it didn't take as much wind as it normally would.

A very large branch split off, almost a tree unto itself. Already had a tree company out here to check things out and give an estimate. Gonna be a little over $6000 to get it down and cleared up due to where it sits, but the guy said if he does things right, our insurance should cover it all. He has the same insurance company that covered the $70,000 repair to his house last year after a drunk driver drove through it.

The tropical storm Elsa should be on the Atlantic Coast, not Ohio ???

Single bearing Emersons are tanks, but trying to work on them can be a PITA. Whoever put the gearbox on mine must have summoned the power of Hercules to put the screws in! (Actually, it seems the finish used on these fans glues things together over time.) I sweat bullets trying to get the gearbox off for cleaning and repacking with grease, hoping not to strip the screw heads.

They don't make'em like they used to!

Just go DISH!   Pretty sure I could refer ya and we both win! 

What isn't helping is they are barely giving a month to do the upgrade for free or we have to pay for it. And we had to fight just to get them to put off doing it until next Thurs. They were wanting to come out Saturday and there was no way I'd have my mess ready in time. Thankfully other family members will be home as I don't even know my work schedule for next week yet!

Are you in Akron? Because if so, I saw the sign for that sale (they specifically touted the $1-$5 thing on it) but didn't go. (I was out and about hitting up thrifts on Saturday, but sort of ran out of time by the time I got home - I technically could have made it, but I had other obligations to meet and didn't want to push it, time-wise.)

This was in Strasburg, Ohio.

Ahhh, gotcha! Wacky coincidence then!

Thanks, eBay effect!

Sometimes I wish eBay would crash and burn.

Yes. Ebay effect my ass. Not paying 49 bucks for a Fortran manual. Especially if the PDF is online.

Those are probably price-gouging 3rd party sellers you're looking at.

It might be. Seems to be all I can find on Amazon right now and was just going by free shipping by Amazon tag on the products.

My MRS. Pacman ordered from Best Buy was 149 dollars. And the Centipede at Game stop was 149. 

It stars Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester) from Supernatural. I read Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester) was originally set to star, but his co-star/brother somehow stole the part. Now Jensen is guest starring in The Boys on Amazon. I don't see either part lasting more than a couple seasons, let alone 15.

I almost fell asleep watching the preview.

I had a Fender vintage tube bass amp and that sucker had such sustain when used with an electric solid body guitar!

IMO, the real reason tubes sound so good is that they are almost always Class A amplifiers. There are a few solid state amplifiers that are Class A as well like my Denon PMA-520. There was a Yamaha Pyramid amp from the late 70's that was Class A solid state and every one of these sound incredible to my ear. Steve Hoffman says: The big advantage of Class A is that designers can make simpler circuits that are very linear with low distortion at low power. Class AB designers have to make more complex circuits using feedback to get very low distortion levels.

Don't even get me started wit most modern movies. Most seem to be produced for the foreign market anymore and explosions translate easily. After doing some cleaning, I now have my 1936 Philco 116X console out. Let's see how this 11 tube beast handles things! It is already doing better at ironing out the extremes.

Is it even legal to play commercials louder then the music? I know TV stations are supposed to balance the audio, so commercials are no louder than the program. 

What they started to do was play the programs at lower volume which I guess exploits a loophole of some sort.

If there's a power supply issue in there anywhere, this might help.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/28-5-watt-ColecoVision-compatible-power-supply-The-best-quality-PS-every-made/114258620533?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=414515602632&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Or maybe someone can fix one or more of them?  And of course I gotta recommend you buy a Phoenix console,...Scratch that, it looks like they finished a second and final (?) run. (D'Oh!)

Sweet!! I am listening to Radio Dismuke. Internet radio station that plays early Jazz from the 1920's-1930's

So glad there's still AM stations that play music instead of just talk radio.

They are getting fewer and fewer though. I can just barely hear some more off in the distance, but I'm not in the right area to get them. Also, the noise from modern appliances and such is getting worse and worse as well.

I have often thought and dreamed of changing my job, but unfortunately and fortunately I didn't.!!!