Category Archives: Freakin’ Idiots!

May 29, 2025 · 23:33

Proof Of Life – May 29th

SOOOOO angry tonight. Or frustrated. Or both.

Our payroll is due tonight and I just found out that they’ve COMPLETELY redesigned their data entry interface with zero warning, and it SUCKS!!! I always thought that the early implementations of QuickBooks Online was the worst program I’ve ever seen or used – this is giving it a run for its money.

The data entry that usually takes 30-45 minutes has already taken over an hour and I’m only a third of the way through it – at this pace it will be 1:30 or 2:00 AM or later before I’m done. And that assumes that there aren’t any more surprises or re-designs or other complications later, like when I want to get a report to verify that I’ve entered all of the data correctly.

WTF were they thinking??!!

Meanwhile, for reasons that make no sense at all to me, I got to thinking about how I don’t know how to stand for pictures without looking incredibly awkward. For example:

This has always been a favorite in this category. Prague, 2006. Calling Dork Central! What exactly am I doing with my arms, and why does it look like they’re both broken?

This is a little better. At least I found something to do with my hands. And these days I’m about 50 pounds lighter, so that helps…

Back to battle with the “new & improved” payroll software or I’ll NEVER get to bed tonight!

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Paul, Photography, Travel

May 16, 2025 · 23:29

Silence Unknown Callers

And THIS would be why.

The best feature on an iPhone. (And probably on Android phones as well, but I haven’t ever owned one of those.) The best feature on modern cellphones.

If our late-stage capitalistic hellhole is going to make it so trivial for every asshole on the planet with a bot app to illegally call and scam everyone on the planet, it’s good that there’s at leas one little thing that helps us fight back against the evil bastards.

My answering machine messages makes it clear that if someone from an unknown number gets sent to voicemail but has a legitimate reason to be calling, LEAVE A VOICE MAIL and I will return the call.

See how many of these low life bastards left a voicemail?

There are times when, usually due to an expected and critical call regarding work, I have to turn this feature off for a couple of days. It’s Hell.

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Filed under Computers, Freakin' Idiots!, Paul

May 11, 2025 · 23:56

Valet Musings

At the Ahmanson last night, dealing with the huge crowds for the Gold House Gala there, we used the valet parking. This is also a considerably easier arrangement for The Long Suffering Wife.

The play, “Life of Pi,” was very good, and the staging and animation of the animal characters was astonishing. We enjoyed ourselves.

When the play was over, the Gala was also letting out. Valet parking had quite the lineup waiting for cars to be delivered. While I expected to wait 20-30 minutes (or more) we only waited maybe ten minutes.

Two observations:

  1. In the long line of limos, Mercedes, Jaguars, BMW’s, and six-figure luxury cars of every description, it was a joy to see our little Hissy, our Honda Fit, pop up. She brought some much needed humility and real world class to the chaos.
  2. It was amazing how long some cars sat there waiting for their owners to pick them up. You turn in your ticket and then wait, so presumably if they show up with your vehicle, you’ve been there for a few minutes or more and are looking for your car so you can leave. Apparently not for the hoity and the toity amongst us. In particular, while waiting for Hissy, a Jaguar pulled up at the curb right in front of us (three lanes of cars moving through) and the valet driver shouted and honked and ran around asking folks to check their tickets for at least five minutes. Meanwhile, one of the three lanes is completely blocked. Suddenly this couple sitting on the benches right next to us startles to their feet and recognizes their car, not three feet away from them. REALLY??!! And then when they walk over and open the doors, NOW they see some friends and stand there blocking the sidewalk (and continue to block 1/3 of the valet lanes) while they schmooze. Really REALLY??!!! The entitlement and cluelessness was AWESOME! Or they were too drunk to recognize their own car and were now going to go get on the LA Freeways at 22:30. Or both.

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Filed under Entertainment, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Photography

April 27, 2024 · 23:06

Stupid Design & Stupider Design

I ran into this one twice on my Texas trip.

One of the ways hotels try to spruce up their rooms in an “upgrade” is to replace the bathroom fixtures. They like things that are stylish and “modern,” “artsy,’ or “fashionable” or “trendy.” Anyone else see the problem with this?

Which way do you turn this for hot water and which way for cold water when you’re adjusting the shower? I know that usually it’s hot to the left, or clockwise, but given that hot water takes a while to start after you turn it on, you can screw around for quite a while, either scalding or freezing parts of your naked anatomy you would prefer to not be scalded or frozen.

Then on the way home, ther was this gem:

Same problem with a new problem to boot. Would it really be THAT hard to engrave or stamp a little “H” and “C” onto the handle? Or just a little dot glued on with blue on one side, red on the other (for the international crowd)?

And this sink fixture is on the side, not on the back of the sink. Cool! Trendy! Stylish! NOT!!

Right up until the point where I want to brush my teeth and I normally rinse by running water into my hand and ducking my head to the left or right of the faucet. But here there is no left or right without either being a contortionist or doing that “drop-from-the-ceiling-like-Ethan-Hunt-at-the-CIA-thing” from the first “Mission Impossible” movie.

For us more normal humans it just left me wanting to take a baseball bat to it for kicks. And revenge. And general principles.

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January 5, 2024 · 23:39

Disappointment

I really, REALLY need that part for my printer. And I double checked, and, YES!, I ordered a new one..

To their credit, when I called they passed me straight to a supervisor who immediately refunded my money as well as asked for pictures so he could go see who in the warehouse had so obviously messed up.

But they don’t have an actual new one. Office Depot will let me order one, says it’s “in stock,” but when I try to order says its expected delivery is in March. I called to verify and had the most fascinating discussion about the meaning of the term “in stock.”

The end is near! Or at least that’s what the maintenance daemon in the printer driver tells me.

Planned obselescence raised to the Nth degree!

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August 23, 2023 · 23:16

A Special Level Of Hell

There truly should be a special level of Hell reserved for software executives who make major upgrades to perfectly functional software with zero warning.

I’m looking at you, Adobe Acrobat.

A program that I use dozens and dozens and dozens of times a day. If I’m churning out reports, easily 100+ files a day. I’ve used it for years, it’s all muscle memory for 99% of what I do, and for that other 1% I’ve got a pretty good grip on how Acrobat is organized so it doesn’t take long to figure out where to go to get something new done.

Until it’s…not.

Until I get a bunch of windows telling me how *new* and *wonderful* and *user friendly* the new version is and how it will make my work so much faster!

Maybe. Maybe once I put a few hundred hours into using it. Maybe once I sit down with some tutorials or “play” with it to first learn how to do the same tasks I already need to do a thousand times a day, then figure out what the *new* and *wonderful* version has that will let me do things so much more efficiently. Design my own menus? Great! (Later!) Set up custom commands and macros? Fantastic! (Later!) Design my own pages! Amazing! (Later!)

Right this second? I need to get my work done and I’m already under enough time pressure so I could swallow a lump of coal and shit out a diamond. So when tasks that normally take 3-4 minute now take 8-10 (or more) minutes, I’m not happy. When I have to stop and think and hunt and learn with almost every keystroke to do even the most fundamental tasks all freakin’ day long, I’m less than impressed.

The one and only saving grace, and thank god I glimpsed something about it and I remembered seeing it so I had a chance of hunting for it and finding where it was hidden, was a command something like “Turn off new version.” Hit that, pray for the best, and suddenly my fingers don’t feel broken and useless and misguided anymore.

So today went better, at least on that front. And then when I was working through something this evening my screen was hijacked and Adobe wanted to know if pretty please, wouldn’t I like to take a short survey to tell them *WHY* I was foolish and blind enough to roll back their interface, why I was so much of a Luddite that I would abandon the spectacular, new, and wonderful benefits of the new version? This was critical! They needed to know!

Boy, did I tell them!

They had limits on how much text I could put into the response boxes, so they didn’t get ALL of the comments above. Just the highlights. Maybe a little more swearing.

Do I want to leave them my phone number and email address so they can contact me if they have any follow up questions? Sure.

I’m praying they have follow up questions!

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Filed under Computers, Freakin' Idiots!, Paul

July 17, 2023 · 23:43

Darwin Award Nominees

There’s a new volcanic eruption in Iceland, with webcams set up:

and drones overhead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l4N5mdeLiw

(Isak Finnbogason’s drone work is spectacular, I recommend following his work on YouTube!)

The views can be spectacular, and I’m sure seeing it in person is a life-changing experience, much like seeing a total solar eclipse or a spectacular aurora display.

(Image from RUV.is)

When this volcanic field erupted a couple of years ago it became a hugely popular tourist attraction.

(Image from RUV.is)

Not entirely safe, to be sure, but once the eruption became more stable and they were reasonably sure that there weren’t going to be any toxic gasses emitted, the tourists were allowed to make a hike of a few kilometers in from the coast.

This eruption is more gassy, judging by all of the warnings that you see from the Icelandic authorities on various feeds, and tourists are supposed to be forbidden still.

(Image from RUV.is)

Not that that stops folks from walking in anyway. About once an hour or so today we would see someone wandering by the camera.

Which is annoying. Half a world away we’re wanting to see the volcano erupt, not someone who’s foolish enough to ignore all of the warnings to be there. And if you’re there, fine, good for you, but get out of the way! Don’t block the view of the camera!

(Image from RUV.is)

And risking your own daredevil butt is one thing, but bringing your kids along? Are you kidding me? That seems … reckless.

Then I think of some of the Christmas card pictures that get sent out from certain right-wing 2nd Amendment cultists who have younger children toting high-powered automatic weapons – maybe going hiking into an active volcano isn’t all that bad in comparison.

I’ve mentioned in the past (here and here) that WordPress gives out a little “atta boy!” if you post daily on your site. That daily streak continues.

Again, there were two days prior to this where consecutive day streaks were “broken” because I posted a few minutes after midnight – but I did post. If those streaks are added here, I would currently be at 1,192 days. That’s over 3.27 years. Not bad!

The next week may be challenging to keep that streak going. But the adventures should be epic!

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Travel

August 6, 2022 · 23:02

Late Afternoon Moon

Every now and then someone goes off on social media about how they’ve seen the moon during the day and it’s NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE (LIKE, EVER!!) so this is obviously a sign of the impending apocalypse or a glitch in the Matrix or a conspiracy by the Illuminati or something.

These people are usually mocked hideously (as they should be, because, jeez!) but it does make me wonder just how clueless some folks can be about the world around us. I understand that not everyone can have a college degree in the sciences or be the next “Jeopardy!” super champion. But where exactly do we set the bar for awareness of “common knowledge” facts about the reality that surrounds us 24/7/365?

I think it’s safe to assume that by their teenage years everyone should have noticed that the moon is often visible in the daylight hours. Water is wet, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, fire is hot, Darth Vader is Luke’s father, and the moon is often visible in the daylight hours.

(Too early for spoilers on the Luke thing?)

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Filed under Astronomy, Freakin' Idiots!, Photography, Space

June 16, 2022 · 23:42

No Context For You – June 16th

So, for last night’s post, were there zero likes because no one actually read it, or was it because folks read it and it didn’t make any damn sense?

What I truly love is waking up at about 02:30 with my brain going, “Knock, knock! You forgot the punchline!”

With that title referring to an old joke, I never mentioned which old joke. So, for the record after feeling good, having the computer issue, and then not feeling so good, the old joke in question was the one about discovering that the light at the end of the tunnel being an oncoming train.

I didn’t say it was a particularly good joke.

And once I powered down the system, let it sit for a few, and turning it back on, it powered up just fine. No worries.

Still not out of that tunnel, but maybe that actually is daylight. Stranger things have happened.

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May 3, 2022 · 23:41

No Context For You – May 03rd

I have few coherent words at the moment given the news of the past 24 hours and the rage it has ignited in me. And that doesn’t even take into account the ongoing horrors in Ukraine.

So take an odd picture without any context, because there isn’t any there to be had.

Meanwhile, while thinking about the 19-year-old, Eisenhower Republican, Midwestern, raised strict Catholic Paul who would be totally gobsmacked to see mid-60’s Paul sharing this, have some interesting and possibly extremely useful information for the days ahead…

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Moral Outrage, Paul, Photography, Politics