Author Topic: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?  (Read 158042 times)

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #60 on: December 07, 2015, 06:15:46 PM »

Trying to get rid of an old engine.  Called 6 salvage yards so far today.  3 are permanently closed, 1 only takes whole cars, 1 was a scam, and 1 isn't open today.

Have you tried scrap metal dealers?

Talked to one just now.  Iron and steel go for about $40 a ton, so it's not even worth the gas to drive it over.

y'know ... :plotting ... I was thinkin' about a redneck fire pit.
V8 or V6 block, take the heads off, but leave the intake on,
cut a decent size hole in the bottom of the oil pan,
Put smallish logs almost kindling sized in each piston
put some scrub/kindling in the oil pan hole, and light it.

Regular log fires don't get to the normal 500o to 600o
engine combustion temps, so it won't hurt the structure at all.
Kinda like this, but more intentional and personable:
http://gtspirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/video_corvette_c6_z06_engine_catches_fire.jpg
« Last Edit: December 07, 2015, 06:18:26 PM by awaken_D_M_golem »
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Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #61 on: December 07, 2015, 11:10:30 PM »
Just don't try to cook anything on it. :rolleyes
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Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #62 on: December 07, 2015, 11:34:02 PM »
Just don't try to cook anything on it. :rolleyes

This is why skillets exist

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #63 on: December 08, 2015, 12:41:17 AM »
Just don't try to cook anything on it. :rolleyes
You cooked it with so much oil the USA is trying to invade my plate!

Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #64 on: December 08, 2015, 12:57:31 AM »
Just don't try to cook anything on it. :rolleyes

This is why skillets exist

True, but trying to stick an open grill over it would not be healthy. Honestly I'd worry about the fumes as well.
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Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #66 on: December 08, 2015, 02:47:52 AM »
Gah, you'd better de-grease the hell outta that thing first. Motor oil and gasoline residue do not mix with food preparation.
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Offline bhu

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #67 on: December 08, 2015, 02:49:59 AM »
hence why i said holy crap.  He's a braaveman.  A lil too brave...

Offline linklord231

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #68 on: December 08, 2015, 03:42:51 AM »
Ended up selling it to the scrap dealer, just to be rid of the thing.  Got a whopping $5, which I promptly spent on a couple new minis at the grand opening of the new FLGS  :birthday

It still galls me knowing that he'll be able to sell it for at least a couple hundred bucks.  The intake manifold alone goes for about $100.  It's the last year they used aluminum, after that they switched to plastic which cracks all the time.

I would have sold it myself, but I would end up paying more for storage than I could get out of it. 
I'm not arguing, I'm explaining why I'm right.

Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #69 on: December 08, 2015, 11:41:27 AM »
It still galls me knowing that he'll be able to sell it for at least a couple hundred bucks.  The intake manifold alone goes for about $100.  It's the last year they used aluminum, after that they switched to plastic which cracks all the time.

Could be worse.

The wife and I are still recovering financially from a fiasco that ended with us having to sell our car. The asking price was 15k when we bought it, we put down 5k initially that I got from my grandmother (apparently she'd been saving it in an account for me since I was little), made several thousand in payments over the next couple years at some bullshit interest rate and had it almost paid off...

...when we found out the housing authority had lied when we asked if they would count financial aid against us as income. We'd tried to go back to college to get degrees/better jobs/dig ourselves out of abject poverty, which turned out to be a disaster for various reasons. Not the least of which was that financial aid only covered a fraction of our costs. We had to limp through two semesters without all of our textbooks because we ran out of money after tuition, material fees, parking fees, and the ridiculous amount of gas it took to drive all the way out there and back each day. Then we find out our rent is being doubled because of our "increased income," despite the fact that we actually had less money each month than we had before we went back to school.

We still could have managed if my mother in law (who had co-signed on the car the loan) had been willing to cover the payments for just one more month until the rent hike dropped back down, but instead she decided to flip her shit, act like she didn't understand why we weren't making the payments (we'd explained several times what had happened, that it was only temporary and we'd be able to take over again on XX date, and she'd agreed to take the fricking car and use it since hers was in the shop and make the payments until then) and demanded that we sell it immediately.

We'd put around 12,000 into that car between the down payment, monthlies, and the smog/registration. (Which we'd just had renewed.)

We got back a little over 3,000.

It was out on the lot for damn near 15,000 again the next day.
A little madness goes a long way...

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #70 on: December 08, 2015, 04:28:28 PM »
Ouch

That's outright brutal.
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Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #71 on: December 08, 2015, 05:36:35 PM »
Yeah. The real bitch and a half of it was that we knew the housing authority might count the financial aid as income, so we specifically asked them before enrolling to make sure this was a thing we could do without getting completely screwed. And they told us that it would have no effect on our rent.

On top of that, financial aid kept dragging their heels about paying us--the first semester we signed up in the spring and didn't get our aid money until summer break--which forced us to go deep into debt by not paying bills and accepting some really bad credit offers because it was the only way to even stay afloat.

Two and a half semesters later, and SSI is claiming they overpaid us because we didn't turn in all of my wife's paystubs from a job she worked over a year ago--even though we did turn them in and this was the third damn time we'd been over this because those idiots can't manage to update their records. (Seriously, I've had to update my phone number with them every damn time I go in for the past 5+ years.) Financial aid was dragging their heels about our aid payments again even though we got all the paperwork in well in advance, and then the housing authority hit us with the rent increase.

End result: SSI decides to take a chunk out of my check for the next two years to repay an overpayment that never happened, the housing authority doubles our rent at the same damn time, and we're forced to drop out in the tail end of our third semester because we can't afford to eat or make the car payments let alone the $200 a month in gas it took to get there and back, and we're significantly worse off financially than when we started.

This is why I have to bite my tongue whenever someone starts that spiel about lazy poor people who refuse to do anything to improve their situation. We tried that and got kicked repeatedly in the balls for it. So now I stay home, collect my ~$850 a month in disability, and play video games. If we'd just stuck with that in the first place maybe we'd still have a goddamn car. :banghead
A little madness goes a long way...

Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #72 on: December 09, 2015, 12:32:43 AM »
The cat is puking. Why is the cat puking? Oh god the cat is puking everywhere.
A little madness goes a long way...

Offline stanprollyright

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #73 on: December 09, 2015, 01:27:20 AM »
After years of waiting, I'm too broke to see Star Wars next week (as a big lifelong fan, this is a more crushing blow to my psyche than it might appear).


Mental health institutions piss me off to no end.  It's all fucking pseudoscience and placebos.  Like, my brother has a brain tumor and my mother has had chronic migraines her entire life and I have a mental illness, yet no one has ever given me an x-ray or brain scan or whatever to look at my head to see if there's something physically wrong in there.  Or maybe a blood test, to see what vitamins I'm deficient in.  I mean, is it too much to ask for you to have some real evidence before you give me an official diagnosis and proscribe me a drug?  Evidence other than the self-report of a mentally ill person?  Send me home with one of those FitBit things for a week, monitor my sleep and exercise habits, body temp, heartrate.  Maybe stick a mic in there so you can hear the sorts of things that are going on in my life.  There is a wealth of information you could be gathering to get an accurate depiction of what is wrong and how to correct it, but no one uses it.  And if your drugs take a fucking month or two to show results, maybe they aren't actually effective.  I mean, a lot can happen in a month that would make it seem like it's working, not the least of which is the placebo effect, or hey, maybe my circumstances get better and I feel better.  And then you chalk it up as the drug "working" so you can milk me for drug money for the next several years... Some of them have actual addictive properties, and you wonder why people are different when they come off of them.  Hint: it's not because it was "working."  Oh, and fucking therapy?  What a goddamn joke.  Please, take my money so I can vent about my problems to you and you can give me platitudes like a goddamn fortune-cookie dispenser.  Oh, you want me to come up with my own personal treatment plan and stick to it?  If I could actually do that I wouldn't need someone with a fucking degree in psychology.  Oh yeah, give me a fucking handout to read, as if I didn't already know what negative thoughts are.  And what if I need something more invasive than a simple "show up every week for an hour and bitch"?  And not something so invasive as locking me in a secure hospital wing where you're simultaneously treated like a child and a danger to everyone around you.  That will make me feel better about myself, won't it?  Doesn't anyone make house calls?  If I don't show up to an appointment maybe it's because I'M MENTALLY ILL AND COULDN'T GET OUT OF BED TODAY.  Or treat it like physical therapy where the therapist comes up with the treatment plan and we do mental exercises to strengthen my brain back into something useful?  FUCK.  I shouldn't even be surprised.  The system is set up so that they're incentivized to keep me coming back for more drugs and weekly therapy sessions until I either die by own hand or say "FUCK THIS FUCK YOU FUCK ALL THE THINGS I DON'T NEED YOU AND NEVER DID."
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Offline bhu

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #74 on: December 09, 2015, 01:34:27 AM »
The cat is puking. Why is the cat puking? Oh god the cat is puking everywhere.

http://pets.webmd.com/cats/what-causes-cats-vomit

Might be he ate something bad.  If it keeps happening though its vet time

also, hugs for Stan  :hug
« Last Edit: December 09, 2015, 01:36:01 AM by bhu »

Offline stanprollyright

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #75 on: December 09, 2015, 11:32:33 AM »
also, hugs for Stan  :hug

Thanks bhu  :hug
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If you shoot a duck I'm scared of toasters

Offline MrWolfe

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #76 on: December 09, 2015, 11:35:48 AM »
Mental health institutions piss me off to no end.  It's all fucking pseudoscience and placebos.  Like, my brother has a brain tumor and my mother has had chronic migraines her entire life and I have a mental illness, yet no one has ever given me an x-ray or brain scan or whatever to look at my head to see if there's something physically wrong in there.  Or maybe a blood test, to see what vitamins I'm deficient in.  I mean, is it too much to ask for you to have some real evidence before you give me an official diagnosis and proscribe me a drug?  Evidence other than the self-report of a mentally ill person?  Send me home with one of those FitBit things for a week, monitor my sleep and exercise habits, body temp, heartrate.  Maybe stick a mic in there so you can hear the sorts of things that are going on in my life.  There is a wealth of information you could be gathering to get an accurate depiction of what is wrong and how to correct it, but no one uses it.  And if your drugs take a fucking month or two to show results, maybe they aren't actually effective.  I mean, a lot can happen in a month that would make it seem like it's working, not the least of which is the placebo effect, or hey, maybe my circumstances get better and I feel better.  And then you chalk it up as the drug "working" so you can milk me for drug money for the next several years... Some of them have actual addictive properties, and you wonder why people are different when they come off of them.  Hint: it's not because it was "working."  Oh, and fucking therapy?  What a goddamn joke.  Please, take my money so I can vent about my problems to you and you can give me platitudes like a goddamn fortune-cookie dispenser.  Oh, you want me to come up with my own personal treatment plan and stick to it?  If I could actually do that I wouldn't need someone with a fucking degree in psychology.  Oh yeah, give me a fucking handout to read, as if I didn't already know what negative thoughts are.  And what if I need something more invasive than a simple "show up every week for an hour and bitch"?  And not something so invasive as locking me in a secure hospital wing where you're simultaneously treated like a child and a danger to everyone around you.  That will make me feel better about myself, won't it?  Doesn't anyone make house calls?  If I don't show up to an appointment maybe it's because I'M MENTALLY ILL AND COULDN'T GET OUT OF BED TODAY.  Or treat it like physical therapy where the therapist comes up with the treatment plan and we do mental exercises to strengthen my brain back into something useful?  FUCK.  I shouldn't even be surprised.  The system is set up so that they're incentivized to keep me coming back for more drugs and weekly therapy sessions until I either die by own hand or say "FUCK THIS FUCK YOU FUCK ALL THE THINGS I DON'T NEED YOU AND NEVER DID."

Pretty much.

I spent the majority of my childhood in the mental health system, because I was part of the generation they handed out ADHD and Manic-Depressive diagnoses to like some kind of really shit door prize. Then, after 12+ years of living in institutions and being pumped full of drugs, (not to mention physically abused by the staff to the point that I have chronic back problems now) I finally managed to get a private-sector therapist (rather than the bullshit ones who work for the county), who took a look at my situation and told me: "You know what, I don't think you're actually bi-polar--you've just got a lot of reasons to feel depressed and pissed off."

He referred me to a psychologist who wasn't just a drug pusher, (another non-county employee) and they slowly weaned me off the ridiculously high dose of physically addicting medications (which have since been shown to cause suicidal thoughts and sudden irrational rage in adolescents) and I've been drug and psychiatrist free ever since. Of course, medicaid only covers therapy sessions if you're also being prescribed drugs, so I had to stop seeing the one good therapist I'd found in over a decade as well.

Sometimes I'm temped to try to find another psychiatrist and say "Look, you go ahead and prescribe something so I can see a goddamn therapist and I'll just dump it in the toilet every month or something." But it would be hard to find one I trust (and that my insurance covers), and not taking your meds gets you labeled "a danger to yourself and/or others" and sent to the psych ward.

The cat is puking. Why is the cat puking? Oh god the cat is puking everywhere.

http://pets.webmd.com/cats/what-causes-cats-vomit

Might be he ate something bad.  If it keeps happening though its vet time

also, hugs for Stan  :hug

Yeah, she has a bad habit of eating things she really shouldn't. Probably just got into the ficus again. I try to keep her off the table it's on but we've gotta' sleep sometime. :rolleyes
A little madness goes a long way...

Offline Amechra

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #77 on: December 10, 2015, 02:40:39 AM »
It looks like we're getting our first green Christmas since I moved back to the US.

 :(
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Offline Gazzien

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #78 on: December 10, 2015, 05:57:42 AM »
Finally back on the boards after getting absolutely wrecked by finals.

And yet, now that I'm not flipping out about finals, I'm beating myself up over dropping PBPs here / other-forum things.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #79 on: December 10, 2015, 06:13:49 PM »
Hugs


... specially for that Green X-mas sad sad song dirge
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