Best posts made by Aria

Terminator: Dark Fate was solidly okay. I mean, not full-blown amazing and OMG dredging up all of my childhood fangirl freakout over those movies, but. Linda Hamilton is wrecking some goddamn robots and I'll always show up for that.

@Alamias said in RL Anger:

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

flask was moved and is still full of whiskey.

Laws in Texas (I think that is where you said you are now, right?) are surly more lax than they are in So Cal. I would get busted for open container laws if I had a flask full of whiskey in the car...lol

Sorry people went through your shit. =(

Yeah, open containers of alcohol in your car are super, super illegal in Pennsylvania, even if you're stone-cold sober.

....Which is why it's called a road soda and you don't keep it in a flask. Duh.

(I say this for passengers. Not drivers. I have a college friend that still owes $300K in medical bills for his reconstructed arm after being the only dude to survive a drunk driving accident in which he was very much not the driver. Driving drunk? Don't... don't do that.)

<just leaves this here while she laughs and laughs>

@Ganymede

A Christmas morning conversation with @insomniac7809

I: "Your present should be in your inbox."
A: "Wait, my inbox?"
I: "Yeah."
A: ".....BPAL gift card, huh?"
I: "You didn't even look!"
A: "Well, it was that or the elephant sanctuary."
I: "....That's in there, too."

As someone who has worked with animal shelters on and off for almost twenty years and has a house full of rescues/strays.....

You do not "get" a cat. Cats happen to you. It's a scientific fact.

Sooooooo....

I spent three years in my last department, two of them looking for another role at my company before finally transitioning in June. While most of that was wanting to utilize my expanded skill set in a more challenging job, I'm NGL -- a big part of that was also getting away from another coworker.

She started as a temp, not reporting to me but as my junior partner on my little team of two. I liked her and I needed help, so I busted my butt training her, ceding some of my (then overwhelming) responsibilities to her role, helping her network. Taught her tricks for cutting through red tape. Helped her negotiate a better salary when she was finally hired. We hung out outside of work. I thought we were friends!

...until the post-hire politicking began. And not just politicking, but girl-world style. Doing subpar work, but getting away with it because she was the social butterfly who was "nice" to everyone and just needed extra help. Flirting with some of the male managers. Making mistakes that I had to fix repeatedly and then refusing the training refreshers I offered her. Taking credit for my work, regularly. When I would get frustrated by it, suggesting that I wasn't a "team player". Once, she even went into my boss' office and burst into blathering tears about how I was mean to her because I thought she was prettier. (Yes, really.)

It was pretty damned obvious she was gunning for my job -- a narrative that eventually was adopted by the leadership team as the reason I was "bullying" her, despite me having told them all on more than one occasion that I was looking elsewhere and had originally been hoping to groom her as my successor. I'd even told her. Apparently, she just didn't want to wait.

Well. Of the seven managers on that team, four have retired or left. The person now filling my manager's job has decided to reorganize the department.

....guess who's job just got eliminated?

Karma's a bitch, kid.

Please excuse me while I ugly snot-cry at The Good Place finale.

@GreenFlashlight Let's not forget these are some of the same idiots who think that periods are like bodily waste functions -- that women can just hold it in until it's convenient, but are apparently so repulsive and inconsiderate that we can't be bothered and would rather just bleed all over ourselves and everything/everyone around us.

I'm not sure which I find funnier and/or more terrifying -- them thinking that's actually how any of it works or that a bunch of people looked at these assholes and went, "By golly, they really seem to have things together. We should elect them to Be In Charge."

Amazon is including Season 1 of "The French Chef with Julia Child" for free with Prime through 3/31.

I am way, way, way too sick to actually try to keep up with any of her recipes right now (though I've made her boeuf bourguignon at home before), but it is exactly the kind of comfort-watching TV that I enjoy when I'm stressed or don't feel well -- just interesting enough to keep hold of what's left of my attention span, but nothing so intense that I'm going to care if I fall asleep in the middle of it.

So this isn't a "resources" post as much as it is a Strong Suggestion (tm).

The governor shutdown my entire state to control coronavirus spread, which includes all non-essential (basically anything that's not a pharmacy, grocery store, laundromat, or post office) retail. This morning, I spoke to two different friends who are small business owners that I've been a long-time customer of. They're freaking out -- not just for themselves, but for their employees

I realize things are a shitshow right now. But. BUT. If you're lucky enough to not have a massive financial impact hanging overhead -- maybe you're able to WFH, maybe you're in healthcare, maybe you just have a crapload of money -- please please please consider making your purchases through the online sites of independent shops and small local companies. Jeff Bezos doesn't need your money right now, but I know people who are in tears because they had to layoff their entire workforce yesterday in the hopes that their employees would at least qualify for unemployment.

In the meantime, for all those 'essential' businesses?

Be kind. Say thank you. Tip people you can tip. They're working their asses off through this panic, potentially putting themselves at risk, and most of the positions are minimum wage or low-paying jobs. The absolute very least those people deserve are our patience and kindness.

I only consider it white knighting when said 'knight' is stepping into some bullshit situation, trying to 'protect' someone (usually but not always a girl!) from a conflict or consequences that they likely created themselves, thereby looking like the Big Dicked Hero who was brave enough to take on The Big Mean.

Calling someone out on utterly unacceptable behavior regardless of who their target is? That's not white knighting. That's being a decent person that cares about community.

@Auspice And somehow, the prospect of making that decision is in itself incredibly fucking exhausting.

@surreality @GreenFlashlight

Nope! This was a real life occurrence with a hobby group I'm involved in. Hence this going in the "RL Anger" thread.

A shitty thing happened. And it has now spurred something of a debate re: whether it's ever acceptable name something after a town whose name was also the name of nearby camp. At least when that thing is clearly meant to reference the town, especially if it's not one that people automatically recognize and are like "Oh, wow! You named it Auschwitz? That's incredibly tasteless and hurtful."

And I'm on the "holy shit you guys, unless you're talking about, like, Warshaw, which is a major city that people might associate with a hundred other things, then no, it is never okay" side of the debate. The instigating event was very much one where it was done on purpose, but even if it's done accidentally.... dude, just pick the next cool-sounding town name over. The one that doesn't have the brutal murder of 11 million people associated with it? Like, just maybe? If it was an accident, I guarantee the person will rename it, probably after being quietly mortified at their mistake. That was generally my experience with the guy who accidentally made a reference to a common bit of Irish heraldry, but which is also associated with a small and fairly obscure terrorist group that most Americans have never heard of when an Irish member of the group was like "Hey, could you maybe not? Thanks." If they're like, "NO! It must absolutely be Janowska and I will never change it and you are oppressing meeeeeee <fratic panting> FREE SPEECH!", then that person is probably a neo-Nazi fuckhead that is just having a tantrum because they got caught in their clever subterfuge. That person can piss all the way off.

@Rinel said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

ETA: speaking of people not seeing stuff. Swimsuits. While transitioning. Oh my gosh the unrelenting horror

Swimsuits designed specifically for trans folks and other non-binary types in various stages of "out"-ness.

I, personally, am just a fat woman who hasn't been okay wearing a bathing suit in almost twenty years, so I definitely feel some of your cringe albeit for totally different "I am not comfortable with my body and the way people are going to stare at me" reasons. You have my support.

ETA: There's also some stuff on Etsy that (not trying to be rude or assume to much or be all up in your bizniz) includes bottoms designed specifically for transwomen and also this article with some general advice on shopping.

Today, @insomniac7809 and I nabbed a loose doggo after some people kept him from getting hit by a car while running around on a very busy road in West Philly .

Four hours later, this pibble goofus has been to the vet, got good meds for some stuff they found while scanning him, and is happily at home with his very worried dog-dad.

Microchip your pets, folks, and keep that registration updated. Things could've gone a lot worse for Muggzie today.

Holy motherforking shirtballs, guys. Being the only person with an arts & humanities degree on your MBA group projects is absolutely the worst.

Every single assignment where we push closer and closer to the deadline, I'm the one frantically editing seven to ten pages of syntax, diction, and like... pages of grammatical garbage fires so that the very smart people I'm working with don't end up sounding like absolute morons. And then going back and fixing the references because now they're all out of numerical order since they won't just use MLA.

a) Be nice to your editors.
b) If you've ever joked that English majors can have a great career waiting tables, you deserve to be punched in your big stupid face.

If you are going to ask my team for a favor that takes 15+ hours of manpower and do any of the following:

• Come unprepared to multiple meetings about said work
• Send us instructions that are unclear and make no sense
• Not actually understand what it is you're asking us to do as demonstrated by you repeatedly breaking pages when following your own instructions (and then acting surprised)

Then you don't get to be a rude asshole about said favor that acts like we're too dumb to understand.

If you are going to do all of those things, then you do not get to use the MS Teams meeting chat to try to make an unscheduled group call in which you start screaming about how we can't filter the Excel file because it ZOMG IT EFFECTS EVERYONE WORKING IN THE FILE AT THE SAME TIME.

You especially do not get to yell at ME about it when I'm the only one who was dumb enough to answer and have repeatedly told you I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE FILE OPEN.

Congrats, Larry. I reported you to my manager because I am ten kinds of done with your shit today.

PS - She also said you were a rude asshole to her the last time she worked with you, so now she's reporting it to her boss.