HOW WAS YOUR DAY

[nosimpleway]

Three months ago: laid off
Three weeks ago: "Hey do you wanna come pick up your check or should we mail it?" does direct deposit not work anymore "Nope"
Two weeks ago: "Are you coming or what?" my daughter had a cold and I was busy with that, what mailing address do you have on file, wouldn't trust you chucklefucks to have that updated
Today: "Hey where do you want this check sent?" Okay fine Jesus I'll go get it, you guys created a problem out of something that worked for years, waited two months to address it, then spent three weeks badgering me into going out of my way to fix it for you. I don't miss working there too much, why do you ask?

[Thad]

Looks like my hosting provider's shutting down.

Feeling kinda weirdly melancholy about that, actually.

That hosting provider was my first Real Job -- the one where I moved out of my grandparents' house and got my own place.

It was a lousy job and the pay was shit -- I'm making more than 3x as much now for a job that's nowhere near as stressful -- but my brain still associates it with a pivotal moment in my life.

And I was kinda off in the middle of North Bumfuck and didn't know anybody on that side of town, and it was lonely sometimes, but I had friends around the valley who'd come visit. So I also associate it with old friends. Including an old girlfriend.

It had its moments, y'know? It was my first real taste of adulting.

[Silversong]

Saw a car with the bumper sticker:
WIZARD BUTTS
DRIVE ME NUTS

[Niku]

that's odd, it's usually the pirates that do that

[Mongrel]

that's odd, it's usually the pirates that do that

I was trying to figure out how to put this, so thank you.

[Newbie]

Accidentally left my phone in the laundry and didn't catch it when loading the washing machine. I have to fly out of town on Wednesday, so it's a real question whether I can get my replacement and activate it before I have to board the plane...

[Mongrel]

Well, a sparrow (or a couple?) have decided that our window A/C unit would make the perfect winter nest. Didn't think there would be room in there (or an opening, for that matter), but it turns out that's wrong. Which is okay I guess... deal with that in the spring.

But Jake has a new 24-hour-a-day hobby sitting next to the window and S T A R I N G as only a cat with a thin (but solid) wall between him and a small scrabbly critter can.

[Sharkey]

No sir, you're the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. I ought to know. I've always been here.

[Mongrel]

Ordered dinner from the local pho place, second time this week.

Last time was fine, nothing happened, guy came up to our apt, knocked, and left it as we needed (still sick) and specified in the comments. We been making sure to leave a good tip too. But today I had to call after two hours of no-show (they're only a block away), thought maybe it was a mistake, or maybe the guy left the food somewhere else.

Nah, someone pretended it was their order, intercepted the delivery guy and stole our dinner?! "Hey are you the guy from Pho Challenge?" "Yeah." "That's my order, thanks."

I mean, I could see a mistake where someone else was actually waiting for a different order... but they had no other orders for our building. At least they believed us; the note explicitly saying couldn't leave the apt made that a lot more credible.

Not anything all that bizarre, much less impossible, but a little odd to actually have happen to you.

[Yoji]

So, this tumbled out of a Lego bin the other day. Had to clean it with steel wool to see it more clearly.



There's a few different Golflands around, but I'm almost certain this came from the arcade in Stanton. My late aunt used to take us there, where I'd rock at Point Blank 2 and stink at Oratorio Tangram.

The place got torn down and turned into tract houses, so there are feelings in this dingy old thing.

[Thad]

Repeating my reply from Mastodon:

I haven't been to the Mesa, AZ Golfland in...probably decades, but I hear they still have a good arcade. I keep meaning to check it out one of these days, but I'm still mostly isolating due to COVID.

Fun fact: the Mesa Golfland/Sunsplash is probably most recognizable as "Waterloo", the water park Napoleon attends in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. (I think that and Tempe Lanes Bowling Alley may be the last remaining shooting locations from the film. The Circle K closed last year.)

AIUI before it closed last year you could still walk into that Circle K and ask when the Mongols ruled China and the clerk would respond "I don't know, I just work here."

As for Golfland, my favorite memory of that place is going there for New Year's Eve with my friends Brad and Greg back in the late '90s. The arcade was free-play; I remember I played through all of Chronicles of Mystara. We went mini-golfing and Greg managed to whack his putter on one of the obstacles and snap the end off it. He threw it in the bushes and we ran.

[nosimpleway]

Went to my daughter's Kindergarten to drop off a registration fee, got a quick tour in the two K classrooms so my daughter could get hype about it.

Afterwards we stepped outside and I pulled the admin giving the tour in, sotto voce like

"okay

listen

I know this kind of thing happens by accident. The teacher was so proud of starting the next geography unit for the kids, I could tell there's no malice here. But if I'm not the only parent coming in to see these classrooms, you are going to have a problem if the displayed books on the 'animals of Africa' is elephants, lions, cheetahs, zebras, giraffes, and Martin Luther King Jr."

[Büge]

So uh.

My wife got a job offer.

In Seattle.

We're probably moving to Seattle.

[Mongrel]

Well... I'm always going to default to telling people to stay out of the US, but if you have to hide out in MURRICA, that's probably one of the least-bad places to do it in.

[Mazian]

Boldly moving further north in the middle of winter!

Don't know who you know here, but I'm one of the relatively few people in my social circles with a car, so let me know if it's needed.

[Yoji]

Man, I can't remember the last time I had an actual wife-and-manlike date.

Lexi and I saw Tig Notaro last night. I don't normally go out for that kind of thing, but it was super close and one of her favorite comedians, so I felt I had to go for it. I was worried since we'd developed a head cold the week before, but the manageable end of it came just in time for us to go out in public safely.

I'm kind of a rubbish audience member, though. I don't seem to laugh out loud very much, and when I do it seems to be at really stupid stuff. But the show was good! Parental stuff that was a bit too relatable, realizations about sexuality that were a bit too relatable, and a long fakeout bit about how she doesn't know how to play piano. That last one was fun because her playing actually almost sounded like music; I told Lexi afterward it was a blurry jpg of jazz piano. But I was a little freaked out when she started taking "requests" and one member of the audience, who apparently rode over in a party bus with Notaro, got way too loud for way too long. Same when she started talking to the guy in the sound room, who acted like he was sleeping through the show. I kept looking back and forth like "is this part of the act?"

On the way home, Lexi asked if I was going to take her out for drinks. Record scratch sound. Bars are about my least favorite places to go and I don't know where any are. "Who wants to go out for self-poisoning and auditory damage and pay a lot for it!?" So I went uhhhh the Thai sushi place we seem to order for birthdays now. It turned out to be a pretty good call. She got a mojito thingy and mango sticky rice, and I got embarrassingly tipsy off a mai tai (I was scared by the price at first, but my late aunt's birthday is this week and it seemed appropriate).

And by some miracle, the kids slept through the whole thing! I wish more things went this smoothly.

[Thad]

"Hey Ya" now holds the record for the newest song I have ever heard on the oldies station.

I've gotten used to hearing them play songs from when I was in high school. I think this is the first time I've heard them play one from when I was in college.

[KingRoyal]

[Thad]

Spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out why our federal taxes this year were coming up as $1300 higher than last year even though we only made about $6000 more than last year, before figuring out we're in the 22% marginal tax bracket.

I'm not mad about the tax bracket I'm in. But it'd sure be nice if filling out taxes in the US wasn't a convoluted mess designed to prop up the accounting industry.

And, y'know, I may have a couple of disagreements with the government's choice of spending priorities.

[Thad]

The song I heard on the oldies station postdates this Simpsons reference by seven years.