Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only

[altered]

 

Surface Pro died for good after... 3 hours of YouTube videos.

Yeah.

I'm having a good ol goddamn time now.

[Juana]

It's just one thing after another with you, jeez. ☹️


California continues to be smoky hell. We got a little rain last night, surprisingly, and it knocked some shit out of the air so it's not currently sunset honey gold at 3p like it has been for the last couple days. but that will not hold bc there's still not enough prison slaves to fight the umpteen fires, the valley is pretty much in a ring of fucking fire, and dry thunderstorms predicted for sacramento. 🙃 I need to move out of the state at the very least

[chaotic neutral observer]

Sometimes living in the future is fun.

I want to set up an outdoor temperature sensor, but (1) it can't be too close to the house, (2) I want it to be wired, and (3) I don't want to trip over the cable.  So I surfed youtube for a bit, starting out with horizontal boring augers, and somehow progressing to DIY hydraulic mining.  Then I took a trip to Home Despot.

BOM:

10ft 1/2 in. conduit ($4.78)
    (Not pressure rated, but I'd rather pressurize conduit temporarily than run cable through a water pipe (even if it's just 2 mA at 5V)).

1/2 in. PVC cap ($0.93)
    (I cement this to one end of the conduit, and drill a small hole to make a "nozzle")

1/2 in. PVC threaded adapter ($0.48)
1/2 in. to 3/4 in. swivel adapter ($3.64)
    (These are to hook up the garden hose to the other end of the conduit)

Grey PVC cement ($6.20)
    (But no primer, because fuck you).

So, after $16.03 (plus tax) and about 15 minutes of work in somewhat muddy conditions, I've run ten foot of conduit from a shady spot under a pine tree, beneath a brick wall, under a concrete-slab walkway, and out under the deck attached to the house.

That was way easier than it had any right to be.

Feel free to get all pedantic about how the evaporative cooling from the pine trees will affect measurement accuracy.

[Cramulus]

I'm trying to find this gif... I know it originally came from SomethingAwful forums but it was seen here sometimes too

it was basically like this  <- but with one big eye, and it slowly got bigger and bigger and bigger


somebody must remember where to find this gem of a gif

[Cramulus]

[Faust]

I'm trying to find this gif... I know it originally came from SomethingAwful forums but it was seen here sometimes too

it was basically like this  <- but with one big eye, and it slowly got bigger and bigger and bigger


somebody must remember where to find this gem of a gif

This is the original, if you can reverse image search might get it

[Cramulus]

no luck, I'll probably have to dig up an old computer to find it. I swore I had it in the old wompvault.



DIFFERENT TOPIC

I'm halfway through HBO's Watchmen - this may be the best TV show I've seen in years

[Cain]

It's a very interesting take, isn't it? I like that they went with a sequel, rather than just rehashing the comic - as much as I think Watchmen would work best as a televised miniseries I would prefer to watch something new - and this series was very new in several ways.

[Cramulus]

yeah -- without spoiling anything ---

The way the show discusses the whitewashing of history, and how power structures morph and adopt their attackers tactics in order to preserve themselves ... it's a good telling of history, but it also feels prophetic



Like, look at this screenshot -- this was made in 2019! How did they capture feeling of 2020 so perfectly?



The spirit of the Watchmen includes the whole narrative surrounding "good guys" and "bad guys" (the very bones of superhero fiction) always ends up twisting into a defense of state power and the status quo. Batman never actually fights wealth inequality, he fights its exaggerated cartoonish symptoms. Superman never fought the KKK. (except for on the old timey radio show) Most superhero fiction measleads us into thinking that crime comes from "bad guys" - and by doing that, it protects institutional failure and injustice.


SO GOOD

just a really smart and well-produced show

[Cain]

And in addition to all of that, it has Jeremy Irons chewing the scenery in a way that makes his stint as Rodrigo Borgia/Pope Alexander VI look restrained by comparison.

[LMNO]

That was an AMAZING show.

If you're not watching "Lovecraft Country", you should.

[Cramulus]

And in addition to all of that, it has Jeremy Irons chewing the scenery in a way that makes his stint as Rodrigo Borgia/Pope Alexander VI look restrained by comparison.

True! But the peak of his acting career was clearly the D&D movie

That was an AMAZING show.

If you're not watching "Lovecraft Country", you should.

Yeah I am absolutely putting that show into my face that as soon as I finish Watchmen

[altered]

I've contracted some sort of plague (possibly the plague it's own self, even though I've been obsessive, but I'll get to that) and feel so shitty today that I bowed out of some forum mafia games I'm in.

And it turns out that this roommate who moved in with my friend and I is just so far from a good fit that it's unreal, and as a result I AND my friend might end up homeless again if this fucker does what he's planning — planning without telling us, and playing the solid stonewall dipshit when we confront him about it.

He's selling his brand new TV and all his furniture to buy an RV. I.e., moving out.

We were not consulted. We have not been told about anything we have done. We were not ... anything.

How much not anything?

My friend was blocked from viewing the Facebook post about selling these things. He found out about it from his boyfriend. The post is up, we have confirmed it, but my friend was literally blocked from seeing it.

When confronted, he said he was only selling "knick-knacks" and he couldn't possibly know why my friend would be unable to see it. My friend gave up on pressing the matter. Which is foolishness, but I suppose unavoidable: If I had been pressing I might have ended up squeezing his lying eyeballs out.

If this kid moves out and refuses to pay his last month of rent (or fucks off right before it's due) we are utterly fucked, and cannot make rent. At that point we have no choice but a brittle smile, a quiet shrug, and moving out.

It's all I can do to not have a screaming meltdown at this disrespectful sociopathic bullshit. I haven't so much as said "hi" since I found out because it would come out as "fuck you".

And now I am seriously ill. Crohn's flare up, nausea that outdoes food poisoning, shakiness, exhaustion. No respiratory issues, but those aren't guaranteed anyway.

So let's say I have the plague somehow. I haven't left the apartment in a month.

How would I get it?

Fuckstick, that's how.

Dipshit goes out to hang out with friends and go browse at Wal-Mart all the time, never consulting or informing us beforehand. He's a massive spread risk and I am at high risk for contracting it.

If it turns out I have the 2020 Deathitis, I'm going to strangle this little monster with my last breath, I swear to fucking god, because we both told him a hundred times that his going out and playing like his little cloth mask is perfect protection is UNACCEPTABLE in this household.

We told him! If you aren't wearing MOPP-3 and decontaminating everything before you hit the stairs, you're putting my life at risk, particularly with a recent cardiac event and a history of smoking, and now I have an unknown and unknowable illness that I can't figure out how I could have contracted given I have been nowhere but my room, the kitchen and the bathroom in weeks. I'm livid and I'm too sick to take it out on anyone.

[altered]

Actually, sorry, I have been one place outside of the house in recent times: Best Buy, dropping off my busted laptop. I was wearing my respirator with N99 filters and nonvented goggles, and I slathered everything in hand sanitizer, changed my clothes and got a shower as soon as I returned.

I did not even have anyone get closer than 5 feet by /accident/ the entire time I was there, and the one invasion of my 6 foot bubble I held my breath for the duration of. (And that person was masked up like I was, thank god.)

My risk from Best Buy seems extremely small. Extremely. Meanwhile his cloth mask and unprotected eyes and hanging out at Walmart and in restaurants with friends seems absurdly high risk. So, you know.

[Trivial]

Fuck, kid's platelet count is lower than last years and it's still at the "we don't fucking know what's wrong" phase.