Just an FYI. From now through December 25, Christmas music only here at twc. A different music video–sometimes more–daily starting tomorrow and running through Christmas morning.
The 12 Days of Winter
*heh*
Tightwaddery Is…
Update#5: Well, 10 days late, it’s here. BTW, that “10 days late” is a generous estimate from the PO’s own records showing when it first received the package, reluctantly confirmed by PO customer “service” person “Grace”(less). Any attempt to compensate me for the PO’s graceless, disgusting lack of service? Of course not. Any apology for sitting on the package for at least 10 days, scanning and re-scanning it but NOT simply putting it on the truck for delivery? Of course not!
*sheesh* Any wonder I hate the normative union “workers” found in POs? (Our local gals were a bit sheepish when I told ’em the circumstances. I told them I was very sorry they worked at the sharp end of the stick for such a disgustingly mickey mouse operation.)
Update#4: Gee, after doing some more cage-rattling at USPS and Fedex, amazingly, the USPS says it’s finally “processed” the package it’s been sitting on for nine days. Shipped on December 1st. Been in USPS hands for 9 days now–10 if one were to accept the word of the first “customer service representative” from the USPS I talked to today–languishing in a PO center 90 miles away. Maybe, maybe, it’s finally on its way here. But I’ll probably not know anything until Monday. My paternal grandfather worked for the post office before it became the “postal service”. He’d probably have a few choice words to say about now were he still around… And Congress and The Zero want another bunch organized by the federal government to manage health care? “Yeh, he’s been in the emergency room for 10 days now. We should get him ‘processed’ by tomorrow or the next day or whenever. He may have bled out by then, but we’ll deliver the corpse.”
Update #3: As of 12-17-10, according to “Grace”–laughingly called a “customer service representative” at the USPS–the USPS acknowledges receipt of the package on 12-7-10 (?!?) and shows NO information on where it may be now. She said to call back tomorrow if it’s not here by 2:00 p.m. and the USPS will try to locate it. Of course, she wouldn’t even try today, because… she works for the Postal “Service”. And, also of course, our third world county post office closes at 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays, so what this really means is that Monday is the first time I can even check to find out if it’s been delivered or is somewhere becoming munchies for reindeer.
Update#2: As of 12-16-10, a Fedex phone rep asserts that Fedex has indeed tendered the package to USPS and I ought to have it by now. I’m assured that a Fedex rep will track down and let me know the score in the next couple of days. Imagine trying to do that with the USPS. I’d probably have to wait til the 12th of Never to get a callback.
Update: As of 12-15-10, my package, according to USPS is nowhere, mon frere:
——————————————————————————–
Electronic Shipping 12/07/10
Info
Received
——————————————————————————–
Although Fedex says,
Dec 8, 2010 6:14 AM
At U.S. Postal Service facility
KANSAS CITY, KS
Tendered to U.S. Postal Service for delivery – Allow one to two additional days for delivery
Now, which one do you believe?
A very good, and in today’s economic climate probably essential, approach to take toward life in general, but sometimes it’s a pain in the neck (by “pain in the neck” you may take me to indicate that the pain is somewhere much lower down on one’s anatomy). Take for example the “free” shipping option at Amazon.com on orders that exceed $25.
Nice, but. (No, not “Nice butt!”) They’ve taken to shipping certain of those “free” shipping orders by Fedex “Smartpost” which would be all right I suppose but for one irritating factor: USPS. Yeh, Fedex delivers to USPS which then applies the marvelous efficiency of the Post Office system to slowing down the delivery of the package.
I’ve had a package just sitting in Kansas City for five days now. And the post office delivery system can’t seem to find a record of anything about it save for the fact that it’s been electronically informed by Fedex that they are to receive a package.
OTOH, Fedex says it’s left the package with the PO twice, so…
Oh, for the days when we used to get calls from Fedex asking where the heck we were, asking for directions to our house, or even for the days of an even earlier time when we had to call Fedex to ask ’em how they’d missed us since we were here when they supposedly tried to deliver, then giving directions to the lost driver. At least in those days we got our packages in a far more timely fashion.
But in these days, putting up with PO inefficiency is still better than paying money we don’t have to pay for delivery, I suppose.
That’s just sound economic policy*. 🙂
But patience and deferred gratification are difficult virtues to practice at times.
* As Poor Richard put it, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
Note: yes, we do pay shipping costs when necessary, like for time-sensitive things such as course materials for one of my Wonder Woman’s courses. In that case, though, I really would prefer that some professors gave adequate notice of textbook requirements…
A Not So Petty Peeve
No, really, it’s not! *heh*
Authors and proof readers and editors who get paid to write and proof read and edit copy that people then buy from them really have a duty to use words properly. I’ve been struggling through another work that could have used some due diligence from each of these classes of people. The straw that broke the back of my patience was, “…jeopardize it with undo stress…”
That’s “undue stress,” folks. *sigh* Just the last straw (of many) for this book. On the “rejects” pile, now. Time is just too short and my red pencil is wearing to a nubbin. *heh*
I think I lost 3 IQ points trying to give the book a chance. That’s three of nine books that proved to be wasted time this week so far. Not a good set of numbers.
OK, perhaps I was hasty. Lack of sleep? Well, that’s no excuse; I should allow for that. The book with all the absolutely stupid errors of usage, etc., is an advance reader copy and hasn’t been through a final proof for publication yet, so I really need to cut ’em some slack. Or maybe I should offer my “proofed” copy to save ’em some time? *heh* Nah. Only if they pay as piece work for corrections (but then they might lose money on the book… ;-)).
Buying a Clue–With Cash
Some folks are finally waking up to “Less is more”. Less use of credit cards, that is. More sensible behavior. So what if Christmas isn’t filled to the brim with crap one has gone (further) into debt to NOT (yet) own? Here’s hoping that more and more Americans–maybe, gasp! even congresscritters–twig to the fact that borrowing money to get things is usually a monumentally stupid thing to do, and that the things thus gotten have been bought and paid for with other people’s money, money that comes more than a few strings attached.
Borrow to buy something new and shiny (when what one has that is old and dull *heh* is still perfectly serviceable)? The act of a fool.
OS Wars
I’ve written pretty often in the last year about Windows 7. That’s not necessarily because I feel it’s the best answer out there for everyone but because I pretty much need to use it and previous versions frequently enough to be able to offer help to users and because I have one application (yes one) that both has no suitable replacement in a ‘nix OS and only almost runs w/o a hitch using WINE under a ‘nix OS. Oh, and Windows Media Center beats the socks off any ‘nix offering in the category for tuning TV.
That said (that I need to use Windows for my own reasons), I really prefer either Linux Mint 10 or PC-BSD 8.1, the two slickest, most complete ‘nix OSes that don’t come with an Apple Tax and Apple Straitjacket attached. For most folks, Linux Mint 10 would be all they’d need in an operating system, since most folks use their computers for
- web surfing
- watching and listening to various media
- generating graphic/video files
- “office” type use (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, datasbases, etc.
One 1/2 One (Again) Fewer Petty Pet Peeve
Yeh, I couldn’t resist the alliteration.
Well, I marked one of my two gripes about Opera 11 off my list. Turning off the “Visual Mouse Gestures” helper thing. *gah* What a waste. Apparently intended to “help” those users who should live in an Assisted Computing Facility (“Here. dearie; let me make that mouse gesture for you… “), it was nothing but an annoyance to me.
So, I finally stopped griping about it and intermittently looking for a place to switch it off in Preferences, which has only a subset of Opera configuration options, and searched for a solution. Of course, what I found only pointed me to where I ought to have been looking all along, though it pointed inaccurately.
The tipster pointed to opera:config, but mistakenly suggested disabling “Show Gesture UI”, which doesn’t exist, instead of “Show Gesture inf”. Unticking the checkbox by “Show Gesture inf” did the trick.
Update: only sorta kinda halfway. If I pause in mid-gesture for whatever reason, the thing does still show up… in the latest beta. Irritating. Works fine in the first beta. Have to put this 1/2 back on my “petty pet peeves” list.
Update-Update: Two betas later (three in one week), and this peeve is dead, dead, dead, I am happy to report. Now, just watching out for regressions in the future. *heh*
I really ought to have looked there sooner, as I have long used opera:config for other minor tweaks, but hey, lazy, forgetful? Early Olde Tymers’ Disease?
“Fewer” not “Less”? Use “fewer” for things that are/can be counted; “less” for things that are/can be measured. I suppose one could measure my peeves, but I wasn’t talking about the relative sizes of my peeves but a reduction in number. 🙂
And yes, using “less” when “fewer” is better is another of my peeves, but one not so petty, IMO.
Well, At Least It Feels Wintry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzlJRjXSGY
So, if you see falling snow on the screen here at twc, well, just let it snow.
Oh, the Difference a Preposition Makes
I’ve been captured, recently, by the paraphrase of Romans 8:31-39, as found in the Scottish Psalter, “Let Christian faith and hope dispel,” particularly the last line of the first verse, which sets the tone for the entire song with its adherence to clear exegesis of its scriptural antecedent:
Let Christian faith and hope dispel
The fears from which we hide,
For who would dare oppose us now
That God is at our side?
Many people, reading their own agendas into Romans 8:31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” argue that God is ON their side in some area of conflict. But the whole of Romans 8:31-39 is subject to its context especially but not only the eighth chapter of Romans, which makes it pretty clear that God is not so much ON the side of those who follow Him but AT their side to comfort, cheer, aid, encourage, etc., as they are on His side.
Big difference.
And this is especially important as those who are labeled–by the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and even by themselves at times–the “religious right” assert their own “traditional values”. If those values are not clearly godly values, claiming that God is on their side passes hubris on into slander. I’d just caution such folks to be careful, to examine those “traditional values” (such a stupid term; whose traditions, specifically what values?) and only claim to be trying to seek godly values as those things they assert have solid scriptural basis.
Just an observation from an amateur armchair (yeh, the redundancy is necessary :-)) historian/theologian/social-political observer.
BTW, this is the basis of just one of many reasons that Mike Huckabee gives me the heebie-jeebies. He cloaks his Phariseeism on political speech, but he just makes my skin crawl.
Nanny State 101
So, a woman throws a newspaper in a trash can marked, “Litter Only” and is slapped with a $100 fine by a nanny-state “Sanitation Cop” (WTF?!? “Sanitation Cop”?!?). Because it hadn’t been found on the ground and thus was “litter”? Cwazy stuff, folks.
I suppose the woman could have avoided the fine by first throwing the paper on the ground, but then the “Sanitation Cop” would probably have cited her for littering, even if she had then picked the paper up and thrown it in the litter receptacle. Or cited her for both actions, I suppose. Anything goes with nanny-state, anarcho-tyrannical bureaucraps.
But worse, the so-called “Sanitation Cop” is reported to have said the citation was for throwing “garbage” in the litter can. The “Sanitation Cop” ought to have a $1,000 fine thrown at her for verbal littering. Blurring useful distinctions of meaning by using a word that’s generally for application to wet refuse–garbage–for something that’s obviously dry refuse–trash–is inexcusable in a public employee and should be punishable by more than simple fines, though.
Oh, then there’s my other gripe with the report. The whiny, useless, stupid argument-from-sympathy invoked by the NY Post writers pushing the “80-year-old woman on Social Security” button. Right is right and wrong is wrong and ad hominem arguments (they cut both ways–appeals for sympathy are ad hominem arguments just as much as attempt to illegitimately impeach a person’s argument by referring to personal circumstances, etc., are) make no difference in whether an act is right or wrong. The “80-year-old woman on Social Security” could as easily have been Donald Trump for all I care. Citing someone with a $100 fine for throwing a newspaper in a litter receptacle is just wrong no matter who they are or what their circumstances.