start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3

going from 11am to 12pm never made much sense to me. We should all just switch to a 24 hour clock.

have some stupid collection agency bothering my folks and then they started calling me (no idea how they got my number). they always ask for my dad and won't tell me what it's about. dad can barely speak, they won't talk to me, they just want me to find him.

my folks have no debt that has gone to collections (or been sent any documents about any). I finally filed a BBB complaint since I saw they actually reply to them, asking wtf the debt is, and saying if there are documents, they need to send them to us

They reply saying there's no record of any debt on file for my dad and asking me for an account number

IF I HAD AN ACCOUNT NUMBER....oh neverfuckin mind

(or a zero-based 12 hour clock if that's easier for people, nobody would misunderstand 0:00pm)

xp to myself

Counterpoint: people who use military time in civilian life are often dicks.

Ex-military guy: "Let's meet at fourteen hundred."

The rest of us: "Um, okay, I guess. When is that?"

24-hour clock? Yes. And the USA should just switch to the metric system, too, while we're at it. But Esperanto can wait. There are limits on what people will stand for.

I think we can simultaneously admire the elegance and precision of the metric system, 24-hour time, and Esperanto... while also thinking that certain smug and supercilious advocates of those systems can be tone-deaf assholes.

"Yeah just turn left in about two point three kilometers."

For lots of people, you might as well have used versts, or furlongs per fortnight. Read the room.

going from a 12 to 24 hour clock seems much easier than switching to metric, which is something that takes multiple generations

the people I teach would probably screw it up.

"why did you show up at 11 pm for training class"

"you said the class was at 13:00, and I subtracted 13 from 24".

The entirety of Europe and the UK manage the 24h click just fine, get with the fucking program my fellow Americans.

you're talking to a nation that screams in anger that they have to press 1 to speak to an English-speaking representative on the phone

And any mention of doing something "like in Europe" gets met with cries of "Socialism!"

like why people refuse to watch soccer to "own the Brits"

OTM. After the last five years (and especially 2020), I don't think it is a stretch at all to say there would be guaranteed at least one armed protest somewhere in the country if we tried to mandate the 24-hour clock or the metric system.

"My Meters Don't Kilo"

Canadians also don't know the 24 hr clock ime.

Oh, man, you want to hear a fight we've had here so many times? Today is Monday, in a few days it will be Friday. So is that "this Friday" or "next Friday?" I think it's "this" Friday, because "next" Friday is next week, a la ..."next week."

The best way to sell the metric system to the US is to start referring to it as the tactical system.

Americans switched to 2-liter bottles of Coca-Cola in the blink of an eye. You have to make us care about it somehow.

that's mainly because most consumers of two liter bottles of Coca-Cola mentally translate "two liter bottle of Coke" as "a buttload of Coke".

Yes ideally you want to make an American think they're getting a good deal

the Guy Fieri system

Our big secret is pssst, we do know how to use the Metric system. We just don't tell anyone that we do.

Cooking in metric produces better results. Baking, particularly so.

confusing Celsius with Fahrenheit results in some hilarious cooking results

Yes ideally you want to make an American think they're getting a good deal

you get more kilometres per hour than you do miles, going at the same speed. job done.

every American only knows "kilo" in terms of drug buys

Brits work in fluid variations of half-arsed metrimperial hybrids depending on age, location, school and general disposition towards our European mainland cousins.

One thing I liked some places in Japan, was how they sometimes even extended the 24 hour clock into the small hours, so that e.g. a bar open from say eight in the morning on a Saturday to three hours past the next midnight would have the opening times "Saturdays: 08:00 to 27:00" on the doors rather than the somewhat illogical hybrid "Saturdays: 08:00 to 03:00", signalling those final hours as really late Saturday, rather than really early Sunday. Haven't seen this anywhere else.

this really tickles me, particularly as one of my previous jobs involved documenting bar opening hours and having to explain to various officials that 02.00 was the next day

There used to be this loophole here, where there are still blue laws for liquor stores.

Liquor stores are allowed to stay open until 1 a.m. on weekdays, until midnight (of fuck, 11:59:59 p.m.) on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays.

Which meant there were certain establishments who'd throw open their doors at 12:01 a.m. Monday, after being closed 24 hours, to serve thirsty customers for exactly 59 minutes.

xxp There were protests against the adoption of the metric system 40 years ago, IIRC.

lol @ the logo for the United States Metric Board (1975-1982).

https://i.imgur.com/ps8ryUe.png

ripoff of logo for Missionary Position Association

The Wonder Woman Doing A Handstand Foundation.

This is how I use my bluetooth speaker with my laptop

1. Turn on speaker
2. Turn off bluetooth on my phone to stop it connecting
3. Click the search button on the taskbar
4. Wait for about 10 seconds
5. Write "bluetooth"
6. Wait another 15 seconds
7. No results for "bluetooth" - ah yes, but I know this now, no worries
8. Click the settings tab and select 'bluetooth and other system settings'
9. Wait for what feels like about half an hour
10. Click the button to turn on bluetooth
11. Click another button to connect to the speaker
12. Play and enjoy music for a few minutes until the devices belonging to my wife and kids decide that actually they would like to use the speaker instead, tell them to turn off bluetooth please
13. At this point the computer kicks back in, but the computer now thinks the speaker is a communications device and switches to very quiet low-bitrate sound.
14. If I can be bothered, reset everything to make it work again

checks out

my bluetooth headphones announce “low battery” and then turn off 20 seconds later. thanks for the warning! ffs

yup, with additional "would ye just fuckin..." pleas which are interrupted by short beeps of false hope

xp

Yeah my laptop also pops up a low battery warning to "plug in now" about 20 seconds before turning off, which I have definitely established is not enough time to go and get the cable.

Have just had a look whether this was a problem with my power settings. Short answer is no, longer answer is no idea.

I am gonna fucking garrotte the next person who shares that they were "humbled" by receiving an award. That is literally the opposite of what receiving an award means to you, don't treat me like an idiot.

seriously who started that shit. also award reception and awards shows in particular belong in the irrationally embarrassed thread

I felt very aroused when i got this award

has anyone ever recieved an award and said something like "that thing I made was worthless shit, you must be complete idiots to like it"?

I was up for a theatre award and cared so little i went to go see Black Sabbath instead, and then i wound up winning and i left the trophy for two months before claiming it and had friends accept on my behalf

Mostly i didn't care cos i felt like everyone in that community theatre was so focused on the awards ceremony they let it impact their performances and tried to collude to get their friends to give them perfect scores on ballots.

RIGGED

The mail in ballots did it

aaargh just misssed half a webinar with Steve McQueen because i didn't [roperly bookmark my time and started rinking early.
well what I saw was good hope I do get a link to a recording.
Bah humbug

Shitty music algorithms have been driving me nuts lately. We had to drive somewhere, so my wife put on some music. First four songs: "Welcome to the Jungle," "Under Pressure," "Carry On Wayward Son," "Africa."

What playlist is this, I asked?

A Tom Petty station, she answered.