HOW WAS YOUR DAY

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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 15, 2018 12:57 am

Caithness wrote:How can you tell when your landline is receiving texts?

Because it rings and you get a robo-voice which says "You have a text from [#]" and then robo-reads the text as best it can. It's a thing several of the mobile providers include for free up here.

Yes, this is as dumb as it sounds.
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Yoji
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Yoji » Mon Oct 15, 2018 2:53 am

Does it read aloud regardless of whether you pick up? Because having to hear a robot advertiser might make me answer the phone with a Scottish claymore.
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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 15, 2018 3:20 am

Well, I guess you can hear it on the voicemail as it picks up.
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mharr
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby mharr » Mon Oct 15, 2018 10:41 am

Depends on your telephone network. In the UK, a BT robot phones you up and tries to read the text at you. This is about as useful as you're imagining.

Okay, that post was super delayed.

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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:24 pm

Mom calls me to ask me to google and see if she has a brain tumour.

Lady, you got brain problems alright, but a tumour ain't one of them (probably). GO. SEE. YOUR. DOCTOR.

"But I hate that doctor."

Well he's not even your regular doctor, he's just the guy at the closest clinic to your house. So GO. SEE. *A*. DOCTOR. I AM NOT A DOCTOR. THE INTERNET IS NOT A DOCTOR.
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Silversong
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Silversong » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:51 am

Mongrel wrote:Our ragey downstairs neighbour who enjoys pounding walls etc. to vent his spleen is having a pound/stomp wall war with some other neighbour adjacent to or below him and it's fucking hilarious.


Mongrel, was just listening to this and it made me think of your housing situation.


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Thad
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Thad » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:44 pm

The area around my house has smelled like wood is burning since before I left for work this morning.

No houses appear to be on fire, I don't see any smoke, and I don't smell any meat cooking, so my best guess is someone is using their fireplace for some damn reason.

(I mean, I guess I know the reason; they're from back east, they're homesick, and it has cooled down slightly*. There's really no other reason to be using a fireplace.)

I don't know why the houses here even have fireplaces. My house has one. We boarded it up and put shelves in front of it so that we could do something with the space that is actually useful.

* and when I say "cooled down slightly" I mean it is currently 84 degrees, what are you even doing

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Silversong
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Silversong » Sun Oct 21, 2018 6:43 pm

I was in an antique shop with my mom today, and in a jumble of overturned wooden things I recognized a vintage hat block!! Marked down to $22. I'd been looking at them online a while ago, so i knew one with the brim would cost ~$150 online. It's even my head size!

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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:10 pm

Toronto city elections today.

From now on, I can say "Don't blame me, I voted for Sauron!"
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WingSounds
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby WingSounds » Tue Oct 23, 2018 8:06 am

Cool find, Silversong..!
I miss antiquing, but it's always wonderful finding hidden treasures!

Hmn, me. Was busy tending to the falls and problems of older parents this week, and I'm no medical wunderkind myself.
... It's righteous though, so there's no problem. Finished up budgeting, and my mango tree continues to desire life and blood. I'll sing to it every night until it's happy, but it's time to get started on the other planters. I need to decide on a cherry cultivar, and I want to try for persimmons, but I know they've no nutritional content, so... Probably not...

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nosimpleway
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby nosimpleway » Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:50 am

There are better things to eat, nutritionally, but if you're growing and eating your own fruit that puts you pretty far ahead of most peoples' diets. And with a steady supply of fresh persimmons you'll never rum short on, uh, dietary manganese.

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WingSounds
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby WingSounds » Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:56 am

Hehe, you're not wrong! Actually, part of the reason I want to grow them is something else. I like whittling and fiddling with wood, and persimmon wood is technically an ebony. The heartwood is sparse, but beautiful, and the bulk wood is quite resilient. If flowers and trees are my children, it's only natural to go Kronos on them, from time to time... Right?

(And thank you. Even if there were no benefits at all, growing things is the most satisfying thing in the world.)

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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Tue Oct 23, 2018 12:04 pm

There is certainly something wonderful about having trees you planted yourself around your home. At my folks' place, some of the trees we planted died from various causes, but the apple tree is still going strong and bears a ridiculous amount of fruit each year, and one of the cherry trees still produces (there were three, originally).

There's also a willow, a gigantic lilac, and a sort of threesome of tall fir trees, the latter being out front of the house planted far too close together by my brother and I some 25 years ago, with a plan to transplant them once they were a little bigger (they're also the only trees planted from actual tiny first-year saplings), which of course no one ever got around to doing. Now they are giant and have grown together and are probably far too near the garage, but they're huge, impressive things. It's nice to see them now and then, when I'm over that way.
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WingSounds
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby WingSounds » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:20 pm

Eee, I'm happy that they've brought you some joy!

I'm always reminded of Diocletian and his proud little cabbages. To me, even when my children-of-the-vine go on before me, if I was able to give them something akin to happiness, than I am happy. Better still when they bring someone else happiness. A friend gave me some orchids, and I was worried I'd overtend to them; but they've remained quite lively, and are a truly heartening sight.

No kidding about the apple trees, though! With my back, I can't harvest all the apples I have, but the compost likes them well enough. And though friends can't visit as often as I'd like, I love being able to give them away. Oh, and one thing I do prefer here are all the cedar trees, though none so close to home. Ahaha, sorry for rambling but - I'm really happy to hear all that. And even if they are a bit inconvenient, thank you for showing them love and affection. I pray that they continue to bring you and yours some degree of happiness!

(And for the daily thread. Love and honour plants! They're great! That's my daily advice, ahahaha...)

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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:06 pm

Yeah, my parents don't really tend to the apple tree aggressively, or at all some years, so most of its produce ends up feeding local wildlife either on the tree or dumped in the local greenspace/ravine after harvest. But even when untended there's so many that my mom can still find a half dozen edible ones for everyone in the family.

Two or three years ago there were enough in decent shape that I actually had to do something besides just eat them, and ended up making a big batch of apple butter.
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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Wed Oct 31, 2018 5:15 pm

After well over a year of asking for the building to send a plumber around, they finally did. Now all the sink taps are fixed and, MOST importantly, the crapper fucking works properly (this was after I tried various repairs myself - it had like 15+ years of calcium deposits and the internals were completely worn out).

It actually feels weird to not have to hang around the bathroom for a couple minutes to "manage" a flush and make sure shit goes where it's supposed to (literally!), that I can actually flush and... not have to do anything else to the toilet. I keep catching myself watching the toilet flush, my brain kicking in with "You don't actually have to watch that anymore, you know."
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mharr
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby mharr » Wed Oct 31, 2018 5:38 pm

Bask in the psychic joy of a million years of your ancestors looking over your shoulder and thinking "We made this!" - really it's everyone else flushing and walking away like it's nothing that are the crazy ones.

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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:14 pm

Mom calls me to ask "Do you know any place along Yonge street which has free parking."

Yonge Street is literally the longest street in the world. I'm afraid you'll have to be a little more specific.

("a little more specific" turned out to be "I don't know... somewhere around the 5000s or something?").

I'm not really upset about this or anything, it's just that even having known my mom for nearly 40 years, I'm still sort of agog at the train of thought that essentially goes "I need to find parking somewhere on an 86km long street. I'm not sure where, really... what should I do? I really have no idea, so I better call one of my sons."

That and it just makes me think of:



(0:50)
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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Wed Nov 21, 2018 6:43 pm

There was a random blotto-drunken white guy on the subway platform who was obviously looking for a fight and picked the first brown guy he saw (who was just standing there looking at his own phone). It was nice to see that just about everyone nearby either got closer to block anything from happening, started telling the drunk to take a hike, or went for help, instead of it being a typical episode of bystander effect.
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Mongrel
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Re: HOW WAS YOUR DAY

Postby Mongrel » Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:19 pm

Sign of the times: Walked by a bar today that had a sign up advertising "Misery Diminution Hour".
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