Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Where I complain about stuff

- Fuck winter. Just, fuck winter. I know, I should be grateful that I've gotten by with barely any snow so far, but instead of snow it's nothing but arctic cold. Every. Single. Day. This is especially frustrating since this is the first winter where I have a remote starter, and it's often so cold in the morning that I can't use it because my car would stall if I did, forcing me to come down and start it the old-fashioned way. Remote starters are handy not just because your engine is all heated up when you're ready to go, but also because either you get rid of the ice on the windshield, or it's considerably easier to scrape off. When I got mine installed, I thought I'd be more or less done with that shit. I was really looking forward to having an easier time with my car, but troll winter decided otherwise.

- One thing I really hate about my local supermarket is that they keep swapping the locations of each item in the produce section. One week I could want grapes and a cucumber and find them in one place, then the next week they could be elsewhere entirely, causing me to walk around like an idiot all over the place trying to find them. Now, my mother works in a store (a clothing store, but still), so she knows all the secrets of the trade. When I asked her why they did that, she told me it was to encourage impulse buying. I didn't even need to let that sink in, my first, immediate reaction was, WHO THE FUCK IMPULSE BUYS PRODUCE?!? No, seriously, who ever says "oh my god, I want this celery so bad"? Pretty sure the salary they pay the poor employees to do all that moving stuff around doesn't even pay for itself.

- Speaking of my mother's workplace, she once told me that inspectors representing our friends at the Office Québécois de la Langue Française (I don't think I need to translate that for you) came to the store, inspected the snot out of everything, and eventually complained that the buttons on the photocopier were in English, and asked that French stickers be put over them, including the on/off switch. That's literally the worst thing they could find there. The goddamn photocopier. Meanwhile, people in Montreal have a hard time getting businesses to communicate with them in French, and they focus on a photocopier in a store in the middle of nowhere. Hell, you're allowed to sell stuff like this (which I found in a Canadian Tire) and get off scot-free, probably because even though it's a complete word salad, at least those are French words, who cares whether people can understand them or not. Now, most of you don't understand French, so you might not be able to tell, but I'm pretty sure Google Translate would do infinitely better than this. This is honest to God the worst translation I have ever seen, and a great reason to strive to be bilingual.

- People are still butthurt over Tingle making it into Hyrule Warriors after all this time. How does the song go again? Let it go? I mean, seriously... I thought the Skull Kid was going to be the other character, but I was absolutely 100% certain Tingle was going to make it in, if only because he's popular in Japan (why?). But I never see anyone mention that little fact, because SK0LL KIDD N MAJORA R SO MUCH KEWL4R.

8 comments:

  1. We have the bitter cold AND almost 5 feet of snow, so I feel you. It's usually -10 (-23C) in the mornings at best, though some days we get all the way up to 15 (-9C). It's cold enough that walking to my car in the morning causes enough pain to my hands and face that I need to consider protection (which I usually don't use because I'm very tolerant of cold). My car is also intolerable for 10-15 minutes after I start it up. I also have to scrape ice off the windows every morning, inside and out.

    This winter is making me reconsider winter being my favorite season.

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  2. I'm guessing you don't have real winter gloves. -25 degrees Celsius isn't so bad as to cause pain, at least for me. As long as you don't stay outside too long, of course I don't recommend that.

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    1. Well, I say -23C because that's with without windchill factored in. Windchill has been bringing actual temperatures down to -40C at times. I'm sure you're used to even colder weather though. I live in Maine, so you're farther north than I am.

      I also walk to classes from my car, and that can be anywhere from 5-10 minutes or so. I only have one pair of heavy gloves, and I mostly use them for shoveling and cleaning off the car, but I have had to use them just for walking recently. I don't have a ski mask, but I'm starting to think that's almost necessary as well. It's definitely dangerous to be outside for anything more than 20 minutes, I'd say.

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    2. Oh, yeah, windchill is the worst part. I don't think I've ever dealt with lower than -40, though. And at that point the car probably won't start manually either, so I can at least wait indoors for a taxi.

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  3. We haven't gotten that much snow in NJ this year, but its the coldest winter I've ever experienced here. It was -20 Farenheit without a windchill a few days ago, and New Jersey doesn't even hit the negatives at all most Winters. In any case, I prefer the cold to a shitton of snow. My driveway is perfectly set up so when they plow the street I get barricaded in by 5 feet of snow.

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  4. Winter is my favorite season, for sure, but that's assuming there's actually snow. Just it being cold isn't very enjoyable, I'll agree to that.

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    1. la chaleur est sur lorsque vous site sur une nouvelle
      Was also what I got out of GT. I don't speak French, but a relatively basic understanding of Romance languages would indicate that GT can, in fact, do a better job.

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    2. For that specific part, I'm not sold on that. Then again, idioms like "the heat's on" tend to not agree with automatic translation very well.

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