Ranty McRant Thread 2

Observe · Post by **Observe** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 18:41

I think we should have a Rave McRave thread. Sometimes I want to say something more the opposite of rant. Anyway, that's my beef for the day. Tough life huh?

BugMeister · Post by **BugMeister** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 18:53

mis-treatment of animals and the general lack of consideration for the ecology of planet earth bothers me..
- for what it's worth..

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 20:23

Observe wrote:I think we should have a Rave McRave thread. Sometimes I want to say something more the opposite of rant. Anyway, that's my beef for the day. Tough life huh?

I immediately backed out of the thread and looked to see where you had started a "Rave McRave" thread...

Aaand, that's my rant for today.

BugMeister wrote:mis-treatment of animals and the general lack of consideration for the ecology of planet earth bothers me..

/agreed

Though, what really gripes my gump is the people who say "you shouldn't do the thing you do, but it's fine for me to do the thing I do."

"You shouldn't eat meat because animals are people, too,." said the lady, while wearing a nice pair of leather shoes.

"You shouldn't smoke cigarettes," says the 350 lb neckbeard furiously vaping away as I listen to his arteries hardening from the nicotine and his last overdose of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Heck, I know I shouldn't smoke, but he needs to hire a spokesperson or something...

"Those politicians are stupid," says the lady who just told her pediatrician not to vaccinate her children because vaccines cause kids to become Communists or some such.

I dunno.. Everyone loves to hold the moral high-ground, just so long as it doesn't require too much self-examination to maintain it.

Observe · Post by **Observe** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 20:31

Morkonan wrote:I dunno.. Everyone loves to hold the moral high-ground, just so long as it doesn't require too much self-examination to maintain it.

I don't need to examine myself. That's your job.

clakclak · Post by **clakclak** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 20:38

Morkonan wrote:...

"Those politicians are stupid," says the lady who just told her pediatrician not to vaccinate her children because vaccines cause kids to become Communists or some such.

Ah so that is how communists are born. I always assumed that they just grew from soil wherever Lenin once set foot.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 20:38

Observe wrote:
Morkonan wrote:I dunno.. Everyone loves to hold the moral high-ground, just so long as it doesn't require too much self-examination to maintain it.
I don't need to examine myself. That's your job.

I say the same thing to the mirror every morning. Luckily, I only see that guy briefly each day, so I don't have to hang around listening to his constant criticism.

felter · Post by **felter** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 20:43

I don't get smokers nowadays, it's so darn expensive. Example: we had a family of three, one just passed away smoking related death too. Anyway the three of them smoked at least 20 cigarettes per day, which roughly relates to £24 per day between the three of them, or £8,760 per year. Meanwhile while they are spending all of that cash on cigarettes, they drive around in a ratty old car. So every three years the £26,280 or so they spend could buy them a really good car and a good holiday to boot. Not just that, when they open the door it's like sticking your face in an ashtray, the place stinks.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Thu, 26. Jul 18, 22:49

felter wrote:I don't get smokers nowadays, it's so darn expensive.

It's also so darned addictive! My mother knows she could save money by not smoking, but she's been doing it for more than sixty years and its claws are deep within her. She at least cut down after her heart attack last year, but stop entirely? I fear that will only happen when everything else stops for her as well.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Fri, 27. Jul 18, 00:27

pjknibbs commented:

My mother knows she could save money by not smoking.

My Mother: 1938 - 2016
Died of lung cancer.

I should of been more forceful in my telling her to quit.
Not that it would have done a bit of good. I inherited her
hard head, but not the habit. It simply would have mitigated
the regret about not trying harder.

felter · Post by **felter** » Fri, 27. Jul 18, 00:38

pjknibbs wrote:
felter wrote:I don't get smokers nowadays, it's so darn expensive.
It's also so darned addictive!

Yeah I know, I did smoke till one day I had no money so I couldn't afford to buy any, so I had no choice but stop and that was just over 13 years ago. If I did still smoke, I doubt I would have the computer that I have right now.

Chips · Post by **Chips** » Fri, 27. Jul 18, 01:59

felter wrote:So every three years the £26,280 or so they spend could buy them a really good car.

They could, lovely consumerism - "must have new shiny". They could also save the money and spend it on better things, or having a decent amount for "rainy days".

Anyway, it's 1am and my neighbours just turned on some pounding base... so considerate.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Fri, 27. Jul 18, 06:36

Hank001 wrote:...I should of been more forceful in my telling her to quit.
Not that it would have done a bit of good. I inherited her
hard head, but not the habit. It simply would have mitigated
the regret about not trying harder.

It's important for you to read this and, I'm sure you know it. But, still, it's important: It had nothing to do with what you did or didn't do.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Fri, 27. Jul 18, 08:34

Hank001 wrote: My Mother: 1938 - 2016
Died of lung cancer.

I should of been more forceful in my telling her to quit.

Condolences on your loss. However, I've been plenty forceful about telling her she should give up--there comes a time where you realise it's useless to keep belabouring the point. Especially when she's 81 and is pretty much of the opinion that "I've had a good innings even if I go now".

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Sun, 29. Jul 18, 08:30

pjknibbs:

"I've had a good innings even if I go now".

Truer words friend. I wish she'd followed her father's example and just stopped living in between bites of jello at age 96. It just wasn't in the cards. Don't expect me to rant against smoking. I could shout at a wall with better results.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Mon, 30. Jul 18, 02:33

Double post because this is a whole new rant.

How would you feel about having to travel miles just to pick up your mail because you can't keep a mailbox outside you home?

Oh you could. If you wanted to walk outside and find the post it used to set on bent and the crushed mailbox 25 feet away over a fence and in a neighbor's cornfield? And if you buy a new one it will happen again, and again, and again. Welcome to a rural pastime called mailbox baseball.

Now how silly is leaving a mailbox out there across the road..(we drive on the right side of the road and mail delivery vans have the steering wheel on right side like you Brits so the don't have to scoot over to stuff mail into them) ... the road if you know it's going to get smacked with a baseball bat by somebody hanging out of the passenger side window of a vehicle going 50 miles an hour?

A combination of Postal regulations and state and county laws.
1. Rural mailboxes must meet US Postal service regulations.

2. Thanks to a few people getting killed in pursuit of this vandalistic sport it's against the law to make a mailbox that's "A fixed structure that might post a hazard to life and limb or would cause great damage to a vehicle if struck." (This stemmed from lawsuits won my practitioners of said sport being injured or killed when the bat hit something harder than their heads. Like one case where a regulation mailbox and post were milled out of one billet of stainless steel.)

3. Some set up cameras, caught licence plate numbers and the county sheriffs made arrests only to loose the cases in court because it seems only regulated police agencies can take legal action from a photographed licence plate and the people who set up the cameras were in violation of the law. The state couldn't agree on a bill to change the law.

So I have to travel eight miles to pick up my mail at what used to be my mother's trailer before I inherited it. It at least has a row of lockboxes under a shelter.

Now to add to the lunicy, if you do set up a mail box out here it can't be locked and more than once mailmen (or women) have watched cars following them and pulling mail out of boxes right after they put it in. Blacked out front license plates give them away and some mail deliverers called the sheriffs on cell phones and a few were arrested, but also a few mail deliverers where shot at so now if they see this happen the mail carrier is to turn around and head back to the Post Office and file a report. No mail that day. No mail until a sheriff or state police car follows the carrier. Which means the crooks see it and nust don't follow until the law goes away.

All in all the rural mailbox is a thing of the past and everyone out here rents boxes at the Post Office.

Me I tossed the bashed mailboxes in the barn. At five I gave up early in the madness.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Mon, 30. Jul 18, 07:16

What a romantic picture Hank001 paints of rural America....

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Mon, 30. Jul 18, 20:10

birdtable wrote:What a romantic picture Hank001 paints of rural America....

Not just "rural" America. If you live in a neighborhood with a lot of teenagers and you don't have kids that might hang out with them, you'll be "on the hit list" at least once, if not more often. I thought hard about ruggedizing my mailbox.

Then, I moved to a slightly more laid-back neighborhood. Older, quiet, a bit different region of the country, nice and quiet. Still urban, just a lot more laid back.

A 90-something year-old neighbor ran over my mailbox because he didn't want to mix his daily breakfast run to a local family restaurant while there was half-a-foot of snow on the ground.

He never said anything, never apologized, didn't offer to help fix it, etc.. Likely because he was afraid of losing his license, which I can understand. So, since I experienced a portion of the terror that the elderly go through when confronted with that inevitability, thanks to caring for an elderly relative for awhile, I don't begrudge him that bit of anxiety-induced indifference.

But, it still pisses me off...

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Mon, 30. Jul 18, 20:29

Morkonan states:

But, it still pisses me off...

Well the old Rural Free Delivery days went away. I suppose you just can't have ann unlocked mailbox without somebody see an easy score. Same as "Porch Pirates" snagging delivery boxes right off if you don't grab them as soon as they're dropped off. Had to sets of college kids in town put each other in the hospital after one car rammed another over who got to follow the UPS truck. Cops got them both and as it was the Christmas rush both cars were stacked with other people's boxes. Me when I expect an order to come in I camp near the door!

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Mon, 30. Jul 18, 21:12

All these images .... never saw Bob Ross paint one image of a trailed UPS truck (maybe a couple of shotgun outriders sat on the roof would deter) or a ravaged mail box .. Maybe he lived a sheltered life not experienced by most Americans ... Good old UK not so bad, mail gets delivered through letterbox or a neighbour takes in a larger parcel,, unless you live really rural, in that case delivery man leaves a note of where you can find parcel... In some cases we get updates from delivery van showing how far away he is and how many drops he has before you get the knock on the door (so you can put the kettle on for chat and a cuppa).... No baseball bat swinging bandidos hot on his heels... not the done thing old boy, well not in Southern England not sure about up North, they have all sorts of unsavoury practises up there...

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Mon, 30. Jul 18, 21:26

birdtable says:

All these images .... never saw Bob Ross paint one image of a trailed UPS truck

There was literally a story a night frim our Thanksgiving (Nov 25) to Christmas with some porch camera footage of porch pirates and the sad part was stories about people setting out booby traped boxes and getting busted when they did thing like spray the thief with dye .

Heck I looked up "Porch Pirate" on YouTube and there's more videos of them than I cared to count.

Just so you get the idea I'm not overblowing "Mailbox Baseball" there's tons of vids on it too:

https://youtu.be/_3uqkFhnmb0

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Ranty McRant Thread 2