Honestly if I hadn’t switched to Linux 10 years ago I would’ve said that this would be the thing to set me off and switch. (This was my work computer, and even though Ubuntu is available, Linux users are second-class citizens in my shop…all sorts of weird issues and not nearly enough support because it’s a very limited offering)

It’s incredibly frustrating. It’s more than muscle memory at this point, it’s practically instinct. It’s so anti-user and there’s no reason to do it except to bring paint into the fold of all the other ribbon office apps, as if people haven’t been complaining about everything wrong about ribbon for what, 8 years now?

I went to go disable my nic.

It needed a reboot to take effect.

The fuck? I only want to turn it off because I’m testing something and I need a change of ip to test an application and I’m feeling lazy, so I turn off the nic to go to wifi. Good enough? Nope.

So stand up and unplug the cord.

Cool. Switched over. Test didn’t work as expected. Plug cord back in.

Next day computer reboots for updates and I’ve got no internet. Go crazy trying to figure out what it was then remember it needed a reboot to disable the nic.

I went to go disable my nic.

It needed a reboot to take effect.

The fuck? I only want to turn it off because I’m testing something and I need a change of ip to test an application and I’m feeling lazy, so I turn off the nic to go to wifi. Good enough? Nope.

So stand up and unplug the cord.

Cool. Switched over. Test didn’t work as expected. Plug cord back in.

Next day computer reboots for updates and I’ve got no internet. Go crazy trying to figure out what it was then remember it needed a reboot to disable the nic.

Dude I got fucking livid yesterday because Alt keyboard shortcuts no longer work in Paint.

You have to interact with the ribbon before the alt key works.

And then there’s no key shortcut for “Save As” or “Exit”.

The fuck Microsoft. They weren’t hurting anyone and you’re wrecking 30 years of muscle memory. You know how frustrating that is?

On the windshield I’m totally okay with this type of vandalism. It cleans up easily with alcohol and everyone will know this guys a douche canoe until he can do it.

Blood. And thunder.

As an American, we can laugh at tragedy sometimes.

For example, that my 7yos phone was probably made by people younger than him. And one of those kids probably killed themselves jumping off a factory building so my kid could be safe from a school shooting.

See? Absolutely hysterical.

Boston suburb. Barely…outside the 495 belt. Closer to Providence.

The belt used to be the dividing line for commuters and where housing costs started to skyrocket. It slowly moved outside the belt until 2020. So everybody around me is a Boston commuter with Boston wages and costs of living reflect that. Nobody is moving in since everyone is WFH, so our house value stagnated while houses further outside the commuter zone went up.

We actually would love to live somewhere a bit cheaper, but with that shift in the market, and the higher rates (we refi’d near the bottom), it’d be cost prohibitive to say the least.

Samesies. Nearly 200k gross between my wife and I. Wouldn’t know it after taxes, insurance, 401k, and HSA get taken out.

At least I’m fortunate enough to have those things. I’m quickly realizing that our weekly grocery bill alone for a family of 4 is almost as much as what I was taking home every week just 12 years ago. What fucking happened? Like, yeah, more mouths to feed, and we’re eating “better” (less prepared food, more plant based, etc).

How the hell do families get by? We are double the median household income for our area and our savings has stayed flat since our last vacation 2 years ago. We live rather modestly, one car payment, don’t buy a lot for ourselves, no major vices. Everything goes on credit cards that get paid off every month. Seems life just started nickel-and-diming us nonstop for a decade.

Proxies aren’t bad they are just dated.

Ironically the big problem with proxies is really that software doesn’t support them properly, usually due to lazy or unknowing devs.

A fridge keeping track of inventory is a massive PITA until all food has NFC chips in it and that raises further concerns.

I’d rather have a barcode scanner over the trash can if I’m gonna connect that much. Or even better, a full on camera. Then I can use it to scan barcodes on stuff as I throw it in the trash, plus semi-important mail and receipts.

That’s actually a cool little gimmick of some of the smart features. Downloading extra finish jingles.

Of course these are only a few bytes (or so I’d hope). And limited to what they do. Still sometimes they have seasonal selections. It’s cute and gimmicky and totally unnecessary, sure. But that’s the charm.

Push notifications are nice. Especially when the washer is uneven. But especially nice just to get a notification when it’s done.

Maintenance reminders too.

Best is when you leave the house with a blanket and a hoodie in the dryer on “remote start” mode. Turn it on when your 10-15 minutes from home and have a hot blanket and hoodie to snuggle up in as soon as you walk in the door.

Notepad is supposed to be the simplest most basic way to view a text file in Windows.

Yet if I have a large text file (like a log), it’s usually faster for me to just fire up WSL and use less. How is this still a fucking problem?

Were you looking for straight cherry flavor, like a Jones Soda?

But where is Cheerwine?

If there’s one reason to go to the Carolinas…Cheerwine.

I went for a Solar Eclipse but that won’t happen there for a while.

He’s still pumping out Goosebumps novels and had a brief YA Horror podcast?

His teenage-goosebumps, Fear Street, had a film trilogy on Netflix that was well received?

Please let me know. I hadn’t been following but my kid is getting to the age to enjoy goosebumps. I’d really like to know.

Yes, this is a fair point. The wait between episodes was just as important as the episodes themselves. All the community buildup, discussion, fan theories, etc.

That may not be the majority of viewers, but they certainly are your shows “free” hype men. They’re the ones that’ll tell everyone they know who would be interested (pre-qualified leads!) all about their favorite new obsession. They’re also the ones that’ll buy merch, or name their kid after Daenerys Targaryen (they say that Danielle is an old family name and they just call their girl Danni for short but you know it’s because they were heavy GoT watchers).

Maybe that’s part of why streaming services are going back to weekly (i.e. Handsmaid Tale) or split-season (i.e. Stranger Things) releases. It’s not just for profit…the suspense between the episodes can be just as, if not more, valuable and enjoyable as the episodes themselves.

I wouldn’t say it’s completely insane.

It’s a modification of the trolley problem. The “do nothing” path goes downhill and has a hell of a lot more bodies. The switched path still has bodies but at least it’s uphill and you’ll have a chance to slow it down or stop it.

That’s lame and easy to figure out.

Switch to wireless mice. Maybe Logitech Unifying. Then one day pull all the dongles out and put them in a bucket.

First person to figure out how to download and install the unifying software and re-pair their mouse without using it gets a bonus.

But most people nowadays are lost without mice so they’d probably cycle through all the dongles on the laptop plugged into the projector and all move their mice until they figure out which is whose.