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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
The Old Hack

Things that make you MAD

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2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

And I find out about it while trying to order flowers for MY GRANDMOTHER'S FUNERAL, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

I am losing my cool in the worst way possible. I posted this on Facebook. God, I know there are worse things happening just 300 miles southeast of me, but can you please back off for all of us for a while?

If only. *sigh*

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Last night I was in a chatroom I occasionally frequent. While it is moderated, it is not heavily so and things have a tendency to go off the rail at times. Homophobia, misogyny, you name it. But this time one particular winner started going on about how bad Muslims were and how Jews were worse and that he would like to shoot them -- as a 'joke', of course. I got hold of the head mod and he shut the guy down. But still.

I've mentioned bits and pieces of my family history before. It may be readily apparent why I do not think that genocide is particularly good 'joke' material -- that is, if one is willing to accept that "I want to shoot people" is a good basis for a joke. Especially not now when politics in my homeland are being skewed by so much hatemongering and we have actual bollocking Nazis prancing about on the streets. There may be such a thing as freedom of speech, but there is also such a thing as consequences for your actions. And if someone preaches about how much he would like to kill me and my family, I DO NOT SEE HOW THERE CAN BE TWO SIDES TO THAT ISSUE.

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4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

And if someone preaches about how much he would like to kill me and my family, I DO NOT SEE HOW THERE CAN BE TWO SIDES TO THAT ISSUE.

The odd thing I've noticed in the US is that the large majority of statements that certain types of people ought to be killed, come from people who are quite proud of being unarmed and threaten people who, among other attributes, tend to be relatively well-armed.

Somehow I don't see that working out quite the way the threateners expect. Particularly since they generally include the military and police as targets for their hatred.

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Sorry to necrorage, but my wife just got a call from the fraud department at Wells Fargo. Someone got hold of her credit card info and went on a spree. We're both going to have to get new cards now. How the hell did they get the numbers?

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1 minute ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Sorry to necrorage, but my wife just got a call from the fraud department at Wells Fargo. Someone got hold of her credit card info and went on a spree. We're both going to have to get new cards now. How the hell did they get the numbers?

Most likely a security screwup somewhere. These days it seems that barely a handful of months passes between instances of some big company having all their customer information stolen.

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15 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Most likely a security screwup somewhere. These days it seems that barely a handful of months passes between instances of some big company having all their customer information stolen.

Possibly. She has a hatred for receipts, though. She might have inadvertently dropped or trashed one. Along comes a scavenger, and *poof*! There goes our credit card.

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7 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Possibly. She has a hatred for receipts, though. She might have inadvertently dropped or trashed one. Along comes a scavenger, and *poof*! There goes our credit card.

They don't usually put the whole credit card number on the receipt, only the last four digits.

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21 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

They don't usually put the whole credit card number on the receipt, only the last four digits.

I don't know what it is, then, other than irritating.

You know what really burns my ass? A flame about three feet high.

B)

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Makes me mad when people abuse the systems developed to help people with genuine disabilities, and wind up spoiling things for those who really need them.

They just had someone who brought their "emotional support dog" on an airplane, and a child was bitten by it.  The airline is "now rethinking their policy" on support and service animals.

For those of you who don't know, there is no central registration or official legal recognition for service and support animals.  There are a great many organizations who will do everything from offer extensive training and socialization for skilled service animals, to web sites selling vests and letters from supposed shrinks to anyone who will pay their fee and fill out an online questionnaire and claim they feel sad without their beloved pet.

The law says that a service animal must be trained to do at least one specific thing related to the owner's disability.  That can be alerting them of an impending seizure, waking them when their blood sugar gets too low during the night, guiding the blind or alerting the deaf to a knock at the door or a fire alarm going off.  Service animals can accompany their human pretty much anywhere, including restaurants and airplanes, by law.  Emotional support animals only have rights when it comes to housing -- an apartment or hotel cannot refuse them even if they normally have a no-pets policy.  (Can't remember if airline flights are by the law or just by policy for them.)  They don't have the right to go into restaurants, motels, grocery stores, etc.

What is true of both categories is that they must behave themselves.  If a "service" or "support" animal pees or poops inside, or jumps on someone, or barks incessantly, or heaven forbid bites someone, then they can and should be asked to leave.  They do not have the right to be wherever they want no matter how they behave.  That is why Seeing Eye dogs and Hearing Ear dogs go through extensive training and socialization.

My own papillon and I did a course called Canine Good Citizen.  It involved learning how to behave around other dogs, other people, in crowds, etc.  It was around eight classes, once a week, and seemed like a good criteria for whether a dog should be out and about in crowded public places.

Is it practical for airlines, grocery stores, etc. to be allowed to require proof of at least mininal training?  Maybe, maybe not.  But just letting anyone who wants to, to buy a vest and assert that they have the right to bring Muffy into a crowd of people or places where food is prepared and handled, doesn't seem to be working any more.

It used to be only the worst, most despicable creep would dream of slapping a harness on their pet and trying to claim they were a Seeing Eye dog when it wasn't true.  I've had clients whose pets have saved their lives or kept them out of the hospital, and I'm glad to do what I can to help them.  I wrote a health certificate for a girl's rat after her shrink officially asserted that she needed him for emotional support, so the dorm will have to let her keep him in her room.  I fully support when people follow the rules, in spirit as well as letter.  It pisses me off that so many people are trying to cheat the system, and now the rights of people who really do need their animals with them are going to pay the price.

 

It also pisses me off when delivery people park in or blocking the handicapped parking, but that's another rant....

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Peacocks are noisy and if they're male those tails take up a lot of room.  They're also hard to housetrain.  I don't think a peacock could pass a Good Citizen test.

Snakes, on the other hand, are fairly low-key, unlikely to bite, and much less dangerous when they do (assuming poisonous snakes are still forbidden).  A snake will usually wrap itself around the nice warm human's shoulders or waist and then settle in for a nice nap.  They're relatively easy to restrain/keep contained.  They're nice and dry and clean, don't slobber, only poop as often as they eat, usually when given water to soak in, and don't knock people over out of enthusiasm.

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37 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Peacocks are noisy and if they're male those tails take up a lot of room.  They're also hard to housetrain.  I don't think a peacock could pass a Good Citizen test.

Snakes, on the other hand, are fairly low-key, unlikely to bite, and much less dangerous when they do (assuming poisonous snakes are still forbidden).  A snake will usually wrap itself around the nice warm human's shoulders or waist and then settle in for a nice nap.  They're relatively easy to restrain/keep contained.  They're nice and dry and clean, don't slobber, only poop as often as they eat, usually when given water to soak in, and don't knock people over out of enthusiasm.

Definite asterisk concerning some of the larger constrictors...  And snakes on aircraft is a situation definitely not Samuel L Johnson approved.

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Okay. Prepare for a full bore rant. As well as movie spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok. You have been warned.

 

 

 

 

***** SPOILERS AHEAD *****

 

 

 

 

 

I finally had a chance to see Thor: Ragnarok. To quote Spoony from his review of Breaking Dawn:

PIECE OF SHIT. THIS MOVIE WAS A PIECE OF SHIT.

I will freely admit, I am on record as having said that as a Scandinavian, I do not at all mind the Thor superhero franchise. It might only have born a vague resemblance to the actual Thor and Asgard but at least Jack Kirby did an excellent job of creating a very entertaining world. And many of his followers, especially Walt Simonson, have added ideas of lasting value to it. Even the first two Thor movies did nothing to shift my opinion. While in my opinion neither could be called a masterpiece, they at least served as quite decent popcorn movie entertainment.

And now we have Thor: Ragnarok.

A few words of explanation. Ragnarok was also known as the Twilight of the Gods. It was the doom that awaited Asgard and that All-Father Odin spent so much time preparing for and mustering forces and troops against. It was the epic battle where the bravest of the Gods would take up arms to defend their home so that some might survive and build something new. Odin would fall in battle with the Fenris Wolf, Thor himself would at long last slay the Midgard Serpent only to be fatally poisoned by cascades of its venom falling into his wounds. It was an epic tragedy and Wagner wrote an entire opera about it. Ragnarok is part and parcel of Scandinavian legends and is at the heart of the myths I grew up with and loved as a child.

For all the above reasons, when I sit down to watch a movie titled Thor: Ragnarok, I do not expect to be met with a pratfall comedy. For that matter, I do not particularly want one, either.

I will give certain spoilers. They can do little harm in any case as there is about as much left to spoil as there would be in a horse's carcass which had been left in the sun for a week. What I will say is that right away the movie gives us its entire theme and content: Bad jokes. Lots and lots of bad jokes. Thor is confronting one of the most dreaded foes of Asgard of legend, one that was the focus of many a tale in his own right, and Thor deals about as seriously with him as Spider-Man would deal with a mugger. Except that in the latter case it might actually be funny. Just to be sure that there is no tension at all in the movie, we are immediately treated to a detailed explanation of how the movie's plot will be resolved. By the time we are about one third of the way into the movie, it gets underlined again just in case we missed it. Or in case we had lost track of it amidst all the horrible bad jokes.

Odin, All-Father and most powerful of the Gods, dies because the manuscript says so and if he didn't there wouldn't be a movie. Hela appears, played by Cate Blanchett, whose acting talents are entirely wasted as all she does is cackle villainously and chew the scenery. Thor and Loki both get hurled into infinite space and coincidentally both arrive on the same planet. That was lucky. They also meet the Hulk there. They pick up a random valkyrie, come up with a stupid story explaining why she is the only valkyrie we have only seen, conveniently give her cause to hate Hela and they all four go home to Asgard to kick Hela's arse. The End.

Yeah, there was more to it than that. I will give exactly what now. It was bad jokes, bad jokes, incredibly bad jokes and plagiarised cool scenes from comics ten thousand times better than this movie. Only here they fall flat instead of coming across as dramatic. Oh yeah, lest I forget, there was also some bad jokes. They kinda sorta try to become serious one third of the way before the end but it is way too late. And even then, what little drama is left in the ending is undermined by -- you guessed it -- bad jokes.

I actually spent money on this movie. And two hours of my life watching it. I am so mad.

Grrrrrrr.

I am going to go try to calm down now.

~tOH.

 

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I want to declare how brilliant TVTropes are.

I attempt to register myself. First it doesn't like my username and asks me to fix it. Done.

Then it says the Captcha text didn't match. The 'text' being clicking "I am not a robot."

I try to reset, and it tells me the e-mail I am registering under is already in use.

Desperately I try to ask for a new password. It tells me that it does not recognise my e-mail.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH.

Rot in Hell, TVTropes.

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10 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I want to declare how brilliant TVTropes are.

I attempt to register myself. First it doesn't like my username and asks me to fix it. Done.

Then it says the Captcha text didn't match. The 'text' being clicking "I am not a robot."

I try to reset, and it tells me the e-mail I am registering under is already in use.

Desperately I try to ask for a new password. It tells me that it does not recognise my e-mail.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH.

Rot in Hell, TVTropes.

Ack!  Please don't give up, we need sane, eloquent, knowledgable tropers like you!

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