Topics

31

Off Topic / Well XR just screwed himself over today [rant]

« on: May 10, 2016, 12:30:01 AM »

Have you ever had one of those days that would normally pop up in a very bad dream? That happened to me today, as I actually did miss one of my finals. And of course, it happened in the class that I had the very lowest grade in (public speaking).

So the final project was a two-sided speech where two partners take different sides on a controversial subject, present their arguments and justifications, and then hold a short debate afterwards. I sent a text to my partner on Sunday night asking if he knew how far we'd gone through the speakers, considering we were dead last (13th place with 26 people in the class, so 13 sessions total) and one session alone could take as long as 25 minutes. I'd been skipping the classes because I'd been going off the syllabus, and our final speeches clearly say on the syllabus that "Final speeches and paper submissions" run all the way through the final week "May 8-11". Of course, going dead last, I'm prepared to present on May 11 (this coming Wednesday). Anyway, I text my partner and get no response. At that point, I just brush it off and continue as normal expecting to present on May 11.

This is where the confusion and panic sets in. I show at my campus this morning expecting my Ecology & Environmental Conservation final which is supposed to take place at 10:00am. Being my first class of course, that's what I'd expected to be on Monday. However, I show up in the auditorium and no one is in there. Befuddled, I walk around the building hoping that the final wasn't moved to another room, but find no leads. I pull out my phone to check my school email and what I see completely smacks me in the face. There was an email from my Public Speaking professor reading "See you in class for the final today!" stamped right before 8:00am. That final had taken place at 9:00am (they apparently stretched the class time to accommodate all the rest of the speeches, which I didn't even know they were allowed to do).

I frantically typed out an email asking for some leeway and explaining that the syllabus is apparently wrong, but I got no mercy. She just said that she'd told everyone multiple times that all the speeches were to be finished on Monday. This was totally new to me, and I don't know if I just somehow wasn't there every single time that she said that (not likely) or that I wasn't paying close attention when she said it (possible, but once again I think I would've received the memo at least one of the many times). I'm definitely going to have to retake Public Speaking now, and I don't want to show my face in front of that professor again because I'm pretty freaking embarrassed about the whole situation and I never liked her in the first place. I'm also hoping that with this ugly grade showing up on my college transcript that my GPA isn't tarnished enough to make it harder for me to switch to university.

This is all such a big mess now. I found out that my Ecology & Environmental Conservation class final was also this coming Wednesday....so I apparently had them swapped around :(

32

Off Topic / I need loud upbeat jazz

« on: May 02, 2016, 10:23:16 PM »

/title

I'm talking that type of jazz that just makes people feel motivated and [some people] feel like dancing (I'm not one of those people JUST TO CLARIFY). I'm speaking about full-blown instrumentals and fast piano playing. Blues Brothers are pretty good but I already have gone through their stuff; it's just an example. I'm trying to collect jazz that I can listen to while I'm driving because I find it to be spirited and happy. Recommend good jazz.

dis is good

33

Off Topic / 04/27 - XR does it again! And at night.

« on: April 27, 2016, 01:50:47 AM »

Probably the most eventful storm that I've ever been affiliated with so far.

First two videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsSLfSmQNJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy5AvJorVwY

34

Off Topic / I am destined to be a wanderer

« on: April 22, 2016, 11:48:14 PM »

Or maybe it's just a phase I'm going through.

Recently, I've been in a pretty gloomy state and I've basically taken up wandering as a hobby to entertain myself. I get bored and before I know it, I'm over 100 miles from home with no particular goals or reasons to have traveled so far. Last week, I ended up traveling across the Missouri border into Illinois and just sat in a parking lot for a while listening to music. On Wednesday, I ended up near the Kentucky border and just drove around by the Mississippi riverfront before work. I left my "home area" at 11:00am, traveled 120 miles, loafed around, traveled 120 miles back to my "home area", and was at work for my shift at 2:00 (took some pretty darn high speed 90mph cruising). Over the past week, I've covered more than 700 miles and used almost two entire tanks of gas.

This isn't really the best idea considering my car's integrity, but traveling further and further from home is becoming almost an obsession for me. Not sure if it's a normal thing that any of the older people here have gone through.

35

Off Topic / Who is cuter, me or Torgwad? [We have a winner!]

« on: April 20, 2016, 11:45:06 PM »

There's only one way to find out that I'm cuter than Trogwash, and that's by voting for me.

36

Off Topic / [Blogland] My dad almost died.

« on: April 19, 2016, 11:38:58 PM »

Wasn't gonna share this but I'm bored so may as well.

I got off work last night and went out to my car. I then pulled out my phone to check my messages:

Mom: "At ER with Dad. Had to call EMTs, but I brought him in. Please call when you can."

Apparently, my dad collapsed and was unresponsive while fishing with my sister. Although he's only 40, he suffered from a brief stroke as a part of the lining in his carotid artery dislodged and became stuck temporarily blocking the blood flow to his brain. The remains broke apart and it appears he's going to be alright, but he's still hospitalized right now.

37

Off Topic / My car died and won't run. What do?

« on: April 14, 2016, 01:42:38 PM »

Hi forums. I am sitting in my super reliable car that has decided it wants to sleep for a while. The funny part is that i am 20 miles from home. What do?

38

April Fools 2016 / ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm having love affairs with three other forum users.

« on: April 01, 2016, 02:45:18 AM »

Maxwell.

I'm leaving you to guess. Hint: They are all men.

39

Off Topic / [Rant] I think I now have a reason to be worried about my work situation

« on: April 01, 2016, 12:45:54 AM »

Normally I try not to have more than one thread about real life problems on the first page at once, but this takes cake.

I don't know what you guys know, but I've been working two part-time jobs while also being a full-time college student. I'm making a killing in paychecks which is nice, but I just don't have free time anymore aside from late at night (it's 12:23AM as I type this anecdote). Over spring break, I did not change my schedule at all and ended up working 62 hours in that week alone.

[Rant paragraph] Now I've been getting a lot of heat from my original general manager (Hardee's) who is always wanting me to work every waking moment that I'm not in class or working at Walgreens across the street, and I've so far just been putting up with it. For example, between tomorrow afternoon and Sunday night, I'm working 24 hours in a fast food restaurant taking orders on drive thru and I'm making minimum wage with no raises in the 9 months to the date that I've worked there. Clearly I'm not well respected by the GM despite being one of only three team members who can effectively work the drive thru at all. On top of that, the assistant managers are either overbearing and bossy, or else laidback and lazy. At that point, I'm effectively running the whole centerpost of the restaurant by myself (with a cook making the food of course) so my drive thru time is never very good (taking as much as five to seven minutes to push cars from menu board to away from drive window, which is considered very slow). The job is also getting extremely stressful to the point that I'm having hallucinations at night (See: Previous Topic), getting irrationally angry at work to the point that I'm being borderline rude to customers, and feeling more and more antisocial to coworkers that I previously had no issues with.

That last paragraph actually turned out to be a pointless rant that has nothing to do with my new problem. Today, I was closing up the store and Walgreens and the shift leader asked me when my general manager at Hardee's is usually at the restaurant. Mistaking her request for genuine curiosity, I basically outlined my GM's entire usual work schedule. I started to walk away when she then followed up with, "Okay thanks, because I'm going to need to call her."

I reeled back a bit in my mind trying to imagine why she would possibly want to contact my general manager at my other job. I still have no idea. What has me worried is that my GM at Hardee's tends to have a hostility towards my job at Walgreens that I only picked up because I was getting next to no hours at Hardee's. As soon as she heard I got another job, she immediately starts bombarding me with hours that are harming my academic performance and has me rushing around spending gallons and gallons of gas commuting all over the place on short notice (See: Another Thread). I'm kind of worried about what could happen if she gets contacted by Walgreens because of a matter regarding me. I'm very certain that I won't lose my job at Hardee's since we are so horrendously short staffed that it's not even funny, but I'm definitely worried about some sort of confrontation, snide remarks, or further competition between my jobs trying to win me over (e.g. getting new shirts from Hardee's, getting raises at Walgreens, offers for more employment and both locations, etc have all happened).

If something negative arises from this, I'm probably going to cash in my two week's notice at Hardee's to quit my job. I really don't want to do that because there are people there who I really love to hang around who I could almost call my "squad" (definitely more friendly to them than anyone in my entire high school "career") plus I'm going to feel terrible leaving after we are already extremely short staffed due to many other "long-time" employees have split in just the past couple months, but I simply can't take anymore brash behavior at work.

40

Off Topic / Trying to keep an "electrohypersensitive" woman from suing the restaurant

« on: March 31, 2016, 01:02:27 AM »

Indeed.

Just the other day, I was at work and my shift was drawing to a close. It was maybe 9:15PM and a woman and her presumed husband came into the deserted lobby. I took their order and then the woman just kinda casually asked me if I would completely shut down the WiFi system because she is "electrohypersensitive" (she said something along those lines). Clearly, she's got something going on, otherwise she wouldn't know we have WiFi. I didn't really take her seriously and hoped that ignoring the problem would make it go away (works about 80% of the time).

Before their food was even prepared, she came back up the counter to ask when I'd do something about the WiFi. Trying to buy myself more time, I told her that I wasn't in any position to do something about it (which isn't a lie) and told her that I'd discuss it with my manager and we'd let her know later. She then started to get impatient saying that I better do something about it because the WiFi gives her a headache and forces her to wear a scarf on her head. Once again, I reiterated that I would talk to my manager and we would see what we could do about it. This time, I got the manager and told her about it. She kinda scoffed but told me that she didn't know how to disable the WiFi.

When I brought the food out, the woman was going hysterical. She was totally pissed off and asked why the WiFi was still on. I told her that I had talked to my manager about it and told her that nobody in the restaurant was in a position or possessed the knowhow to shut off the WiFi transmitter. She started telling me how she would have a legal right to sue us for not obeying her and taking her "request" seriously. Her husband kept trying to chime in lowkey for me to not worry about it and encouraged the woman to sit down and eat to little avail.

I quickly let my manager know and she was getting nervous. She had no idea how to disable the WiFi and that even if she did, it would render all our computers used for taking orders useless (they run on Windows 7 and update/keep time/etc with WiFi). The woman left the restaurant soon after with no further confrontation, but I really don't think that it'd be fair for us to shut down the entire restaurant because one picky woman with a weird uncommon problem wants to eat in the dining room.

41

Games / [thehunter] Help me name my dog

« on: March 27, 2016, 03:15:33 PM »

Hi forums, I need you to help me name my hunting dog on theHunter. My dog is a white male (not accentuated for any particular reason) Labrador Retriever. Clearly the Blockland forums are the first sense of guidance I would turn towards for naming a dog on an unrelated game that has its own forum, so I'm leaving ideas in your hands.

RULES:

>Must be one word (<name>-<name>-<name>-etc as well as <word><word><word><etc> does not count)
>Must not be inappropriate or profane

Other than that, you guys are on your own. I'll make a poll and let you guys vote if I get enough suggestions.

42

Off Topic / Ever been conscious while sleepwalking?

« on: March 11, 2016, 01:17:44 PM »

That's probably the best description of what was happening to me last night. As I've said before, I'm typically working around 50 hours a week and I think it's starting to turn my brain into slush. I kept waking up overnight after hearing the DING from the drive thru headset at my job at Hardee's, or from seeing a customer approaching me at my register at Walgreens.

For one instance, I was watching a show where these people were stealing 10,000lbs of silver, but I was only semi-conscious. What I was actually seeing was my view from my register at Walgreens and my shift leader was telling me to stock umbrellas, put away shopping carts, and bring her 10,000lbs of silver. Understandably, I was confused. When I woke up this morning, my computer was paused on the scene where the men were standing around all the silver, but I do not remember pausing it.

In my second example, I saw a customer approaching me at Walgreens. Suddenly, I jolted and was back in my dark room. Nevertheless, I started frantically looking around for a price scanner. I was fully aware of my surroundings and that I was in my room, but I somehow thought there was a price scanner in my room and that I needed to find it quickly. I was rummaging around in my bedsheets, got out of bed and moved my computer around, checked my desk, the floor, etc. Finally, I decided to let someone else take the customer because I saw it was 4:30am and we were supposed to be closed. I went back to sleep.

In my final example, I was ringing up merchandise at Walgreens and the total came out to $20.51. I sat up in my bed, once again aware of surroundings, and saw my cat sleeping at the end of the bed just sprawled out on his back. I felt bad disturbing him, and leaned in close and whispered "$20.51" to him. Somehow this all made sense to me in my semi-conscious and the fact that I can remember that is weird. My cat didn't even stir so I just sat there for a minute. I don't remember how I resolved it. I may have just given up and laid back down.

43

Off Topic / I used my car as a "technology detector" and rescued my tablet from death

« on: March 08, 2016, 02:51:38 PM »

This morning, I was supposed to be at class at 9:30AM but I woke up pretty early. I was ready to leave the house by 8:30 so I was walking around collecting all my necessities (backpack, phone, wallet, keys, tablet) but could not find my tablet anywhere. I knew that I'd had it the night before when I got home (around 10:30PM prior) but it was not in any of my usual places. I looked around in my car, the living room, the furniture around the family computers, my bed, the kitchen, etc. I even looked on the front porch because I'd found my cat outside the night before and carried him in so I wondered if I'd dropped it.

No such luck.

After about 20 minutes of extensive searching, I finally gave up and decided to leave and look for it later. I got in my car and turned on my radio. Strangely enough, it read "BT READY" (Bluetooth Ready). I rarely ever disable the Bluetooth on my tablet unless the battery is low. I pressed the PLAY button and sure enough, my Spotify playlist started playing. I was rather dumbfounded but figured that my tablet must be in the car and I just hadn't located it yet, so I started to turn around to leave my driveway.

As soon as I started reversing into the 90 degree corner on my driveway, the radio started going all static and jumping in and out. I shifted back into drive and crawled back towards the house and it became clear again. That did not make any sense to me. It meant that the tablet had to have either been in the garage (I hadn't been in there since the previous afternoon) or outside. I pointed my car like a metal detector looking for treasure at the deck where we have some grills, the water hose, and our street dumpsters. I remembered that I had thrown away some trash from my car the night before so I walked over to our three street dumpsters wondering if I had somehow inadvertently dropped it in one of the dumpsters (I've dropped my phones and wallet in trash cans multiple times when throwing away other items), but I still could not find it. I then looked over the concrete wall at the end of the driveway into the backyard to see if it'd fallen down there in case I'd set it on top of a dumpster lid and opened it (thereby knocking it off the wall). Finally, I looked up again and saw my lost tablet lying on the wooden shelf of our barbecue grill. I'd apparently set it there last night when my arms were full from throwing trash away and carrying my stuff into the house. It's a good thing I found it then, because by the time I came home, it was raining pretty steadily. Electronics don't mix well with water.

In other words (tl;dr), I left my tablet outside all night and rescued it from the incoming rain.

44

Off Topic / Nancy Reagan has died.

« on: March 06, 2016, 03:50:25 PM »

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/06/politics/nancy-reagan-dies-obit/

I knew it was inevitably happening soon but I'm thinking that this is the most famous person to have died this year so far.

45

Off Topic / XR just ordered his first smartphone

« on: February 25, 2016, 02:23:02 PM »

Ever since I was born, I've always been several years behind everybody else in terms of having modern things or getting special privileges. I don't think I've really cared either, but last night I managed to find a great deal on a Samsung Galaxy S5. Now I'll have Internet available everywhere that there is signal and I don't have to use my tablet to take photos/videos anymore.

And no, I'm not getting an S7 when it is released.