Post here if you want to be a brat

[Gegenji]

Driving: One of the best and worst things humanity ever came up with.

 

I think my biggest issue is that you're a captive audience in a vehicle. Stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic or just behind two idiots who decide to take up both lanes going below the speed limit? There's... not a lot you can DO. You basically HAVE to deal with it.

 

Or you try to circumvent and risk either physical harm or fines for breaking the law. Squeezing through as soon as a space opens between cars could lead to a crash, deciding your above the law and going up on the curb will (hopefully) get you pulled over.

 

And if you're traveling long enough distances (which is a common enough case these days), there's not a lot of options. Taking the Metro, maybe, but that also precludes the proximity of a station both at where you're starting and where you're getting off. And then you're at other peoples' mercy there too: bus schedules, trains running late, and so on.

 

Not to mention how goddamn COSTLY a car is. Just buying one is a major money sink unless you get a used clunker, and repairs can get ridiculously costly. Some guy in front of you kicks up a rock and damages your windshield? Couple hundred dollars if the crack's large enough. Someone scrapes the side of your car because they can't park properly? More cash spent at a body repair shop.

 

I had a WINDOW MOTOR die on me on my last car and it cost $500 FOR JUST THE MOTOR.

[FreelanceWizard]

Window motor? That's a fun one. My other favorites are the ignition switch ($1k easy, possibly upwards of $2.5k depending on the make) and the head gasket (a popular failure item on Subarus especially, and about $2k to have replaced). What's really fun is replacing an automatic transmission. $2,000 at a minimum, and that's if it's a commonly available, old transmission. When I had a transmission replaced in a 1996 Subaru, it was $3,800 using a used Japanese import transmission.

 

The particularly fun stuff is in the newer cars. Your dual-clutch transmission went out and it's more than just a clutchplate replacement? $12k minimum (so if you're not in a BMW or Mercedes, time to buy a new car).

 

This is why I vastly prefer manual transmissions, besides the visceral fun factor of shifting gears (and not having to worry about the car being stolen, given how few people can drive them these days ). A clutchplate replacement in an MT is about $700. The clutchplate replacement on a DCT -- which will happen, as it's a wear item -- is about $5k. Unfortunately, the poor MT is on its way out; AMG hasn't used them for years, Porsche just dropped them, BMW is talking about dropping them, and even at the low end, it's a special order option if it's available at all. A co-worker had to special order a Civic with an MT for his kid, since no dealer carried it in anything but an automatic. Sure, you've still got the Golf R and the WRX STi (which only come in the MT), but the MT in the States is a dying breed.

 

All that said, I wouldn't want to give up being able to do 0 to 60 mph in the mid-4s with the roof down while playing some Final Fantasy battle music...

[Kage]

I've become super gungho about checking my battery terminals. I once had a 2001 Toyota Camry. One of the major repairs was the battery corrosion on the terminals. Everything had to be replaced and it took over 2 weeks. Not to mention that at the same time while I was being dropped off by my family to a mentor's house for FIRST robotics, the last fucking day I messed up on stripping gauge 8 electrical wire and just gouged a large portion of my thumb. BLOOD YAY

 

2001 Toyota Camry's also had something wrong with the ignition (not quite it) but it would flutter and not actually have ignition. Something like an air valve that generally died in that car after like 10 years

[C'kayah Polaali]

Whilst I won't post my rant about commuting by bike, I will be smug about the amount of maintenance my chosen steed takes. I'd say I spend under $50 a year, most of which is in tires and inner tubes. There's also the extra benefit that my ass is fantastic!

[Gegenji]

Whilst I won't post my rant about commuting by bike, I will be smug about the amount of maintenance my chosen steed takes. I'd say I spend under $50 a year, most of which is in tires and inner tubes. There's also the extra benefit that my ass is fantastic!

 

And I will be smug about having my air conditioning and heating for when the weather's less than fantastic.

 

Seriously, though, I wish I could walk/bike to work, but it's a 15/16 mile trip... mostly taking major freeways. I'd have to get up even earlier and I'd arrive to work/home completely worn out, I'm sure.

[C'kayah Polaali]

Whilst I won't post my rant about commuting by bike, I will be smug about the amount of maintenance my chosen steed takes. I'd say I spend under $50 a year, most of which is in tires and inner tubes. There's also the extra benefit that my ass is fantastic!

 

And I will be smug about having my air conditioning and heating for when the weather's less than fantastic.

 

Seriously, though, I wish I could walk/bike to work, but it's a 15/16 mile trip... mostly taking major freeways. I'd have to get up even earlier and I'd arrive to work/home completely worn out, I'm sure.

 

The funny thing about commuting by bike? After a few days, you realize that it's really not that bad if you're hot, cold, or wet.

 

My current commute is pretty short, but when I was at Microsoft, it was a 20+ mile trip. It took longer than if I would have sat on my ass in traffic, but when you factor in not going to the gym as often (along with that fabulous ass!), it was a win.

[Zhavi]

Some guy in front of you kicks up a rock and damages your windshield?

 

Where I live, it's winter eight months of the year, and gravel is mostly used for traction. Finding a car with a windshield that doesn't have a crack or chip in it is pretty much a miracle (but doesn't stop me from think ill thoughts about the person in front of me when a rock or two or three hits my windshield or the front of my car).

 

I think I have around ten-fifteen chips in my windshield, and one little crack on the bottom. AS LONG AS YOU CAN STILL SEE, BABY.

[Warren Castille]

Writer's block.

 

I had an idea for a crime caper, started it, and am now petering out in the midpoint. I know where I want my story to go but keep running over plot holes, nonsensical decisions and keep getting the urge to just leap forward in time and get to the "Good" parts.

[LiveVoltage]

Ohgodno. It's the infamous writer's block. The bane of creativity.

[Zhavi]

Writer's block.

 

I had an idea for a crime caper, started it, and am now petering out in the midpoint. I know where I want my story to go but keep running over plot holes, nonsensical decisions and keep getting the urge to just leap forward in time and get to the "Good" parts.

 

I believe in you!

[Gegenji]

Writer's block.

 

I had an idea for a crime caper, started it, and am now petering out in the midpoint. I know where I want my story to go but keep running over plot holes, nonsensical decisions and keep getting the urge to just leap forward in time and get to the "Good" parts.

 

Oh oh, we can talk about the stuff we hate about ourselves, too? I could go on for days about the little nuances about myself I hate.

 

Seriously, though, I feel you on the writing thing. It's not so much writer's block for me as it is... petering out of motivation. A large part of it comes from hoping, begging for someone to look at it and let me know something - good or bad. If it's good, I'm perked up and energized to continue. If it's bad, then I can go "Oh, that needs to be fixed" and try to correct what I did wrong.

 

But if there's... nothing? That's when the petering out occurs. I start thinking that my work is so... blase that it isn't even worthy of attention. Then I start wondering if it's even worth it if no one is going to read it, and it all just snowballs from there. Which is why with my little Gogon story, I keep glancing at the number of views to see if it changed - seeing it tick up by even one or two helps negate that feeling just a little bit.

 

I've had several other writing projects that I started on that I just... gave up on because all desire and motivation for it evaporated from my own chronic worry that no one cared. It's kinda selfish, really.

[Zhavi]

Writer's block.

 

I had an idea for a crime caper, started it, and am now petering out in the midpoint. I know where I want my story to go but keep running over plot holes, nonsensical decisions and keep getting the urge to just leap forward in time and get to the "Good" parts.

 

Oh oh, we can talk about the stuff we hate about ourselves, too? I could go on for days about the little nuances about myself I hate.

 

Seriously, though, I feel you on the writing thing. It's not so much writer's block for me as it is... petering out of motivation. A large part of it comes from hoping, begging for someone to look at it and let me know something - good or bad. If it's good, I'm perked up and energized to continue. If it's bad, then I can go "Oh, that needs to be fixed" and try to correct what I did wrong.

 

But if there's... nothing? That's when the petering out occurs. I start thinking that my work is so... blase that it isn't even worthy of attention. Then I start wondering if it's even worth it if no one is going to read it, and it all just snowballs from there. Which is why with my little Gogon story, I keep glancing at the number of views to see if it changed - seeing it tick up by even one or two helps negate that feeling just a little bit.

 

I've had several other writing projects that I started on that I just... gave up on because all desire and motivation for it evaporated from my own chronic worry that no one cared. It's kinda selfish, really.

 

I think that it's a normal desire to want to share what you've created. We are social creatures, after all.

 

I get the same way. I like having feedback, especially with writing stuff, because while it's fun and nice to enjoy your work, it's so much better to experience it with someone else. And when you get nothing, you're right -- it does feel like, in some way, you're doing something terribly wrong and you have no idea how to fix it. It's easy to feel like there is no way to fix it, because it is just that bad.

 

Learning how to be a fair critic to yourself is pretty much the hardest thing ever, at least for me.

[Aya]

I like having feedback, especially with writing stuff, because while it's fun and nice to enjoy your work, it's so much better to experience it with someone else.

That's just because your writing is amazing Zhavi ^_~

 

(I get the writer's block issue more often with poetry than stories, I guess I usually write stories in a single sitting so I don't get the opportunity to lose myself, poems though I often find inspiration, get started, and then realize its all gone.. only to leave it unfinished until maybe I can come back to it with fresh inspiration in the future )

[Warren Castille]

Oh oh, we can talk about the stuff we hate about ourselves, too? I could go on for days about the little nuances about myself I hate.

 

Seriously, though, I feel you on the writing thing. It's not so much writer's block for me as it is... petering out of motivation. A large part of it comes from hoping, begging for someone to look at it and let me know something - good or bad. If it's good, I'm perked up and energized to continue. If it's bad, then I can go "Oh, that needs to be fixed" and try to correct what I did wrong.

 

But if there's... nothing? That's when the petering out occurs. I start thinking that my work is so... blase that it isn't even worthy of attention. Then I start wondering if it's even worth it if no one is going to read it, and it all just snowballs from there. Which is why with my little Gogon story, I keep glancing at the number of views to see if it changed - seeing it tick up by even one or two helps negate that feeling just a little bit.

 

I've had several other writing projects that I started on that I just... gave up on because all desire and motivation for it evaporated from my own chronic worry that no one cared. It's kinda selfish, really.

 

The evils of the view counter. You could do what I tend to do: completely unsolicited PMs asking people what they think about it. Works especially if you catch anyone in the thread. I've shamelessly peppered folks with rants and ramblings on my work before, and just sent someone a lengthy PM spoiling my whole plot and asking for help.

 

I like the plot with Gogonji. To be totally honest, I wondered if you were going down an eldritch horror route and were going to have him intellectually frankensteined by the time it ended; I loved the bits about him losing himself in the memories and wondered if we'd see much more of that. An old-fashioned case of being brainjacked and forgetting his research would have been classic horror stuff. Regardless, I'm all on board the current angle. I've often said the difference between revenge and justice is how popular your actions are, and I love seeing that boundary pushed.

 

You keep writing it, I'll keep reading it!

[Aya]

I like the plot with Gogonji.

Gogoonji.  Chachan the Goon?

[Maril]

So living in a country where having a bicycle is pretty essential according to the norm, I wish I could sit people down and get them to understand that people on bicycles with a battery to boost the speed up hills are not challenging them to a race. A race which they will lose, and/or inconvenience the person whom they appear to have challenged by going slowly in front of them. Which is a problem when the bicycle you're on generally speaking also is quite a bit heavier, going up the hill without the battery on is a kind of torture my legs were never meant to go through. So the only option is to stop up and wait for them to get far enough ahead that you can regulate the speed well enough. 

 

Quite a bit of a first world problem but.. Yeah.. They're designed to go faster than a regular bicycle for a reason ; ; I can otherwise recommend investing in one, it's meant that I do not have to take public transport at all (and I do not need a car either) because I can tackle all of the hills around here (my town is basically just one big hill, a little bit of flat valley and then another big hill on the other side), much cheaper and faster compared to walking, and also gets me a bit of exercise.

[Warren Castille]

...so a couple of PMs and a post later, and I have the most fun thing I've written IC in a long while. Woo!

[Gegenji]

I like the plot with Gogonji.

Gogoonji.  Chachan the Goon?

 

Chachan's older brother! He's plot important for the little guy. But that's IG stuff and not so much IRL stuffs. ... Minus all the self-panicking stuff I wrote earlier, since it involves the story with him in it.

 

Continuing my self-deprecation a little bit. I mentioned several times my dislike of other drivers. However, I find sometimes I find myself getting angry at car wrecks for holding me up. It's usually followed up by me wondering what the hell is wrong with me - people could be seriously hurt or injured and I'm upset at them because it's going to take another few minutes to get by the accident itself.

 

... Then I usually remember that it's less the people in the accident that upset me so much as ALL THE NITWITS WHO HAVE TO SLOW DOWN TO TAKE A LOOK. I'm still upset at the initial slowdown (which still makes me feel a little angry at myself), but it gets cranked to eleven when a bunch of demented drivers feel the need to ogle the accident and further cause congestion.

 

YES, IT'S AN ACCIDENT. IT HAPPENS. HOPE EVERYONE IS OKAY AND MOVE ON. Get your damn schadenfreude somewhere where you're not holding up three lanes of traffic trying to squeeze past the wreck.

[Warren Castille]

Continuing my self-deprecation a little bit. I mentioned several times my dislike of other drivers. However, I find sometimes I find myself getting angry at car wrecks for holding me up. It's usually followed up by me wondering what the hell is wrong with me - people could be seriously hurt or injured and I'm upset at them because it's going to take another few minutes to get by the accident itself.

 

... Then I usually remember that it's less the people in the accident that upset me so much as ALL THE NITWITS WHO HAVE TO SLOW DOWN TO TAKE A LOOK. I'm still upset at the initial slowdown (which still makes me feel a little angry at myself), but it gets cranked to eleven when a bunch of demented drivers feel the need to ogle the accident and further cause congestion.

 

YES, IT'S AN ACCIDENT. IT HAPPENS. HOPE EVERYONE IS OKAY AND MOVE ON. Get your damn schadenfreude somewhere where you're not holding up three lanes of traffic trying to squeeze past the wreck.

 

Nuh-uh. Not allowed to feel guilty for being mad at rubberneckers. Those people all deserve to have their fingers caught in their doors.

 

I'm also guilty of the "Someone better be fucking DEAD for all of this delay!" but I've just accepted that as part of myself. I don't earnestly want anyone to be hurt, and I always hope it's just a cop pulling a customer over that causes the delay, but it's natural for people to not want to be inconvenienced. When things don't go accordingly, we get annoyed. That's normal.

 

This week alone I've had a carbeque turn my 30~minute commute into a 50 minute one, and a cop pulling someone over at a specific junction caused my commute in to work take nearly an hour because the beltway can suck approximately every dick on the east coast.

 

Like you said: Cars have us as captive audiences. Do what I do: Turn the radio to 98Rock, and if that's in commercials hit DC101. They don't overlap so it should never be commercials (98 is on :15 and :45 while 101 is :30 and :00.).

 

MUSIC, BITCHES. IT'S AWESOME.

[Gegenji]

Like you said: Cars have us as captive audiences. Do what I do: Turn the radio to 98Rock, and if that's in commercials hit DC101. They don't overlap so it should never be commercials (98 is on :15 and :45 while 101 is :30 and :00.).

 

MUSIC, BITCHES. IT'S AWESOME.

 

... Those... those are the exact same two stations I use. What the hell. :lol:

[Warren Castille]

... Those... those are the exact same two stations I use. What the hell. :lol:

 

That, my friend, is because we have taste.

[Naunet]

Whilst I won't post my rant about commuting by bike, I will be smug about the amount of maintenance my chosen steed takes. I'd say I spend under $50 a year, most of which is in tires and inner tubes. There's also the extra benefit that my ass is fantastic!

 

I really wish I could commute via bike.

 

Alas, I really do not want to ride my bike 20 miles to work in the morning and 20 miles back. Especially not when there's no real way to get to work aside from taking interstates, toll roads, and extremely busy thoroughfares. >_< Was even worse when I was living in far west Houston and commuting to far north.

 

I don't necessarily mind driving, though. NPR's morning edition is at least entertaining, and if I get bored of that, I can pop in a CD.

[Ha'uruh Nunh]

I like the plot with Gogonji.

Gogoonji.  Chachan the Goon?

 

Chachan's older brother! He's plot important for the little guy. But that's IG stuff and not so much IRL stuffs. ... Minus all the self-panicking stuff I wrote earlier, since it involves the story with him in it.

 

Continuing my self-deprecation a little bit. I mentioned several times my dislike of other drivers. However, I find sometimes I find myself getting angry at car wrecks for holding me up. It's usually followed up by me wondering what the hell is wrong with me - people could be seriously hurt or injured and I'm upset at them because it's going to take another few minutes to get by the accident itself.

 

... Then I usually remember that it's less the people in the accident that upset me so much as ALL THE NITWITS WHO HAVE TO SLOW DOWN TO TAKE A LOOK. I'm still upset at the initial slowdown (which still makes me feel a little angry at myself), but it gets cranked to eleven when a bunch of demented drivers feel the need to ogle the accident and further cause congestion.

 

YES, IT'S AN ACCIDENT. IT HAPPENS. HOPE EVERYONE IS OKAY AND MOVE ON. Get your damn schadenfreude somewhere where you're not holding up three lanes of traffic trying to squeeze past the wreck.

 

I extensively cursed out the multiple cars involved in an accident that shut down three lanes of the Beltway the other day.  Felt a bit bad about it afterwards, but better to blister the air with profanities in the privacy of your car than take it out on people who you can actually interact with.

 

I felt even worse when I saw the complete shreds of one of the cars involved.  I'm a horrible person.

[Kage]

Apartment living.

 

The cable line that also does tv and phone (even though we don't use them) is bad. Cox, my ISP confirms this. Other apartments don't have this bad of an issue but mine does. Shit happens a lot.

 

Now must get leasing involved because we don't own the line and the apartments do. Need them to give the ok to drop a new line or have an electrician (this one most likely) come in and drop one.

 

/argh

[Delilah Scythewood]

Computer maintenance and troubleshooting can choke on a fat, disgustingly hairy chode and die.

 

For realz.

 

Since my computer went out over a week ago and came back to me on Tuesday, there's been small little problems here and there. For example, my cat knocked over my tower and fucked with my HDMI-to-DVI cable so that the metal encasing around the little connecting bits popped off and you cant just put that back on. Had to get a new one. Showed the guy the part, he gave me one that was shorter and more rounded and said it would work just fine for the scenario I described.

 

Of course, being a dummy, I took it on blind faith and went back home. It's too fat to fit besides the HDMI for my other monitor, and I'm so used to multitasking with work stuff that having one monitor cuts my system in half. It sucks ; ;

 

Then I notice that the main fan in the back of the tower is off. Which is alarming. Sooooo I take off the panels and start studying the wiring and poking inside. Took me half an hour before I saw that the switch had gone from 'turbo' to 'silent'. Switched it back and fixed!

 

While many of these are all small, independent  little tweaks and solutions, they've all been popping up at once lately that it's made me go RRRAAWWWRRRRRR STAAAHHHPPPPP.