That's what I used to get every year. Now I just get a six pack of socks.
I disagree.

If you aren't trolling, you need to realize that not everyone's family is like your family... You also have to realize, this world is not a fantasy world where only good people are allowed to have kids...

You're lucky you live somewhere were kids still show their parents respect. I see it all the time when I go shopping. Kids talking back to their parents, ignoring them, throwing temper tantrums...and I am not talking about pre-teen kids.

for the last 5 days there is no electricity in my area and other parts of the city, its freezing cold, most houses in fuking toronto arent designed with fireplace and the crack head fat ass mayor rob ford who's power was stripped away says we are not in a state emergency and somehow this is taking into account and there are people suffering in christmas. This is fuking canada where the corrupted crack head bastards makes decision and no ones even tries to protest

well could have been worse. you're pretty well off, considering the options on the american continent.

The latest versions of Opera are shite........lack of customization, big footprint, high usage of resources, lack of speed....really quite appalling. Very disappointed user :( (last great version was version 12.x)

Sorry to hear that. My advice is drink a lot of vodka.

It's not an emergency, your (ex)mayor has his generator powering his electricity, the fireplace is burning nice and hot, and he has enough crack to last him to the end of the year.

"Its good to be the king."

Damn the luck, my last flight of the day delayed for maintenance. Seems like we always get the broken planes. Could be worse, I'd rather they find the problem on the ground than that other alternative.

Last time I posted here about a flight delay we boarded like 5 minutes late instead of the hour and a half they were saying. So, being the superstitious guy I am...here it is again.

Edit: Last time to post about a flight delay. We took off about an hour late, and ending up landing about 30 minutes late. So, the superstition is dead.

My sister's job has her flying quite a lot, so as a former FF I sympathize with both of you. Just not a lot of joy to be found flying these days.

Here's hoping your next long flight gets you bumped up front, next to a fascinating and pretty woman who loves your witty banter. : )

----

My work bitch from last week, a bit of irony:

Customer wanted some machine inspections so they had me write up an estimate. Actually, I've done this same thing for the past four years; all I've done is change the date and number on the estimate and sent the same info each time. New sheriff in town so they finally got around to making it happen.

This is a big place so the paperwork train is quite long. Someone in purchasing emailed over a purchase order (PO) and a contractor package. The package is this 13-page piece of legalese that asks me to sign my life away: what's your employee safety training program? Send a copy of your safety training schedule. Send copies of your safety certifications. Etc.

Then it went into insurance requirements: worker's comp of $1 million, business liability of $2 million, biz umbrella of $1 million, and car insurance of $1 million. Yeah, that's a million bucks just to drive 30 feet from the street to park my car in their parking lot. I'll guarantee the owner - and all of the employees - has much less coverage than that. So $5 million total coverage.

Holy crap - I'm a one-man show. I don't have worker's comp since I'm self-employed, no safety training program since it's just me. And my insurance coverage is nowhere near $5 mil total. Ended up emailing back saying temporary, one-time coverage of those amounts would cost more than my total service estimate. Not gonna happen, but hey, talk to the OEM and see if they'll contract me for the visit so I fall under their umbrella; last time I went there, a few months back, was under the OEM.

OEM said okay, so off I went. And why not? They charge more than I do so the OEM made money simply by shuffling some paperwork and mailing an invoice after I did the same work I could have done - for less - under my own coverage.

I got to the final machine last Thursday and started the inspection by testing the safety circuit, the thing that shuts off all the motors in an emergency situation. Hmm, the motors still run when I trip this safety - that ain't right. And I can start the motors with this cover removed. Not right, either. Spent a couple hours troubleshooting and it turned out that over 90% of the safety circuit was bypassed. Found out one of their employees miss-wired a replacement switch, and that mistake bypassed nearly all of the safeties.

I showed the maintenance manager what I found. "Not sure how long it's been like this, but it's fixed now." He was not pleased - he told me that testing the safeties is part of the scheduled maintenance so it's obvious someone had been shirking that simple 3-minute check.

Well, then. The contractor you can't hire directly because he doesn't have enough insurance is the guy who saved you from a potential million-dollar injury or death lawsuit. Umm, I'll need to see copies of YOUR insurance coverage, and also need to inspect YOUR training program. Hahaha.

I just got the latest figures in and evidently the Keweenaw has had five total hours of actual sunlight this month.

This is seriously starting to wear on me.

* laughs *

- 5 rep for posting the word " nothing " ?

Just got input on how much money I'd be making if I had taken a particular job earlier this year. I had only applied for grunt work and those guys only get minimal wage there but I thought that I might work my way up there. However, when the employer seemed hesitant to take me even for such a primitive job (in fact at first I was pretty much told that I didn't get the job) I refused when they finally called me. They were hesitant because I was overqualified for the job I had applied for and they had to discuss what to do with me. Half a year later I'm still receiving more and more input on what really went down there, two days ago I finally even got a few numbers indicating the kind of money I'd be making, I'm almost throwing up just thinking about it.

Edit: I just got a message from another user who suggested that I was indeed a backup guy after one of the initial choices had not worked out so just to make it clear - I'm not thinking up the "overqualified" thing, I got the information later on first hand from my GF's friend (an important fella at the company) who later on clearly told me that they were going to offer me a better job than the one I had applied for.

So I'll just do it now, won't have time later, i guess.

Happy new year everyone!

May the next year be less ****** than 2013!

Let's be honest, sh*t's gonna happen but I hope it won't be too bad for any of you.

Let's get through 2014 mostly healthy and happy.

And let us all pick up the stones people dare to throw in our ways. And throw them back at them!

Best regards,

Soccorro

I'm a bit disappointed. I write in a purely hobbyist fashion - never attempted to get published or anything. I always tell myself in the new year that I'll strive to write something which I can use to get somewhere, but something always comes up.

Then, a few minutes ago I found a competition running in the UK in which they ask for a 10k word manuscript, brief synopsis and biography of an unpublished author, with a guaranteed publishing deal and £50,000 as a prize. I'm not saying I'd win it but it's an amazing opportunity and I think even entering would further my ambition. The catch? the competition started in August and it ends in 8 hours.

FML.