The Vent and Rant Thread

[Cinisajoy]

Hitch,
I think we are related.
Though I guess I could tell Rumpelteazer about an anniversary party.
This was both sides of the family.
My mom and her sister married a set of brothers.
Aunt and uncle had a noteworthy anniversary, so the youngest granddaughter and I planned a surprise party.
One aunt got upset because oh horror of horrors we scheduled it on the day her granddaughter was getting married. (We never got invited to that wedding so how were we supposed to know.)
Another aunt took me aside and asked why one of the brothers were not there.

The brother well my aunt who the party was for could not stand that brother so I wasn't going to ruin the party. Though I did tell my aunt well if you want to see your brother here is his address.
Besides that brother smelled.

In my family we had saints and sinners and still have drama at times.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

@Hitch: I like it!

Really, who looks at ashes and wonders, "gosh, is that really FRED?" Answer: NOBODY. Besides, Fred smells SO much better with the right type of aromatic wood in there. (Don't use Charcoal. Doesn't work.)



(And, truly...LAST time they asked.)

Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Really, who looks at ashes and wonders, "gosh, is that really FRED?" Answer: NOBODY. Besides, Fred smells SO much better with the right type of aromatic wood in there. (Don't use Charcoal. Doesn't work.)



(And, truly...LAST time they asked.)

Hitch

I do believe Deb was referring to Fedexing dear old departed Fred.

[badgoodDeb]

No, I meant the whole hilarious story!! Great way to deal with the whole issue.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

No, I meant the whole hilarious story!! Great way to deal with the whole issue.

Well, damn, the Fedexing was EXPENSIVE! you know how many Freds had to absolutely, positively, be there overnight? (And thus, the, uh...augmentation requirement?)

Sheesh!


Hitch

[Cinisajoy]

I can't quit laughing.

[Rumpelteazer]

I like the idea of dividing the ashes. If my uncle throws a hissy fit and starts demanding things we might have to do that (though I don't know anyone who has a fireplace and uses it where I can get supplementary ashes).

I'm only doing what I'm told to do; contact the cousins and find a date we can all go. I still need dates from three people. Despite all the family problems some people think we should try to be the perfect family, at least to the outside world. This is mostly my aunt and to a lesser degree my father.

I'm not sure what my grandmother's would have liked to be done with her ashes. I know my grandfather didn't much care: he was dead anyway. For him my parents, aunts and uncles decided to scatter his ashes in the waters near where my grandparents used to have a vacation home (and my uncle forced them to sell). Now my grandfather never could get along with his son in law, who is a nerd and always knew everything better than anyone (luckily he has mellowed somewhat since). All six of them were standing in a little boat, on a beautiful windstill day. At the moment my aunt dumps the ashes in the water there is a gust of wind, blowing the ashes straight into my face. I'd like to think of this as my grandfather's last revenge.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Objects with more than one constructor should ALWAYS use a common initialisation method!

#OtherPeoplesCode

NEVER! Copy/paste the constructor code!

#ContrarianCoder



I'm now trying to unravel a sample program that has networking code, error handling code, and GUI handling code all in one place, interwoven into one another.

I need only the networking code... and to make it worse, only part of that, even. At the end, 80% or so of the sample will be discarded.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Really, who looks at ashes and wonders, "gosh, is that really FRED?" Answer: NOBODY. Besides, Fred smells SO much better with the right type of aromatic wood in there. (Don't use Charcoal. Doesn't work.)



(And, truly...LAST time they asked.)

A late neighbour named Gary who lived across the hall from us kept his mother's ashes in his refrigerator. Don't ask me why he kept them there. It's not like they go bad.

But stuff like that was a small part of his issues. (As a friend once commented about someone else: "Issues? She's got a full subscription!" )

He owned a neutered male Siamese cat named Maxie, who was delicate, pretty, and terminally stupid. Our elderly gay neighbor Michael, who had known Gary for many years, just sniffed and said "Consider his owner!"

Our friend Naomi accompanied our mutual friend Ward on a sad duty. Ward's wife Lisa had gone into the hospital for surgery, and didn't come out again. (She had health issues that made having surgery a bad idea, and the embolism that killed her was one of the reasons it was a bad idea, but she knew that and chose to do it anyway.) She wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered over the Berkshire mountains, and Naomi drove up to New Hampshire with his to do it. It struck me as a fitting thing to do.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

NEVER! Copy/paste the constructor code!

#ContrarianCoder

Never copy/paste code, period.

In the old days, it was possible to see a patch posted in an appropriate code newsgroup on Usenet, save the patch to your local machine, and apply and compile it directly from your newsreader. I can't recall hearing of anyone that ever did, for very good reason.

I'm now trying to unravel a sample program that has networking code, error handling code, and GUI handling code all in one place, interwoven into one another.

I need only the networking code... and to make it worse, only part of that, even. At the end, 80% or so of the sample will be discarded.

That code cries out for refactoring and revision, and the fact it is interwoven like that is not a good sign. I'd be tempted to pass on it and look for something better focused.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, damn, the Fedexing was EXPENSIVE! you know how many Freds had to absolutely, positively, be there overnight? (And thus, the, uh...augmentation requirement?)

Sheesh!

Years back, I worked for a small Unix systems house. Back then, computer trade show Comdex still existed, and was the biggest trade show/exposition in the world.

One year, FedEx gave out the wrong address as the place to send stuff that needed to be at the show. They wound up with a warehouse full of shipments they had to try to sort through, and none of it "absolutely, positively got there overnight". (Folks the stuff was shipped to weren't allowed to go there and try to identify their stuff.) FedEx paid untold millions in refunds for missed deliveries, and I suspect various people at FedEx found themselves looking for new employment in consequence.

Comdex died slowly and horribly. Exhibiting at Comdex was enormously expensive. The whole point to exhibiting was to meet potential customers and sell, and increasing numbers of vendors asked "Does what we get out of Comdex justify what it costs us to be there?", and concluded there were smaller more focused trade shows where they would get a better bang for their buck.

I'm wondering when the enormous consumer electronics show E3 will suffer that fate, but it doesn't seem to be happening yet.
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I like the idea of dividing the ashes. If my uncle throws a hissy fit and starts demanding things we might have to do that (though I don't know anyone who has a fireplace and uses it where I can get supplementary ashes).

Uhhh...well, a certain family member who is the only other person who knows the full story insisted that I tell the "rest of it," which occurred somewhere in between realizing that I didn't have enough "Fred" to go around, and shipping Fred 2.0.

Do you, Rumple, perhaps have a deceased dog, that you had cremated?

The part of the story that I omitted, was that when I realized that there wasn't enough Fred, I strongly considered using that of a much-beloved childhood pet--a Labrador that had been an integral part of pretty much "everybody's" life. Mine, Fred, my parents, my sibs, even aunts and uncles. The dog simply had this way about him.

Now, I really thought that if anything, Fred wouldn't mind. He'd either love it, or he'd love the joke, but...my sib was NOT going for it. And, unfortunately, the dog's cremains were in his/her possession, and I couldn't pry them loose. THUS: the fireplace. Spoilsport. Hell, I'd be tickled to be sprinkled with the hound.

(n.b.: no hibachi? Nothing like that? Can't you get cedar chips, for your garden, and put them in there, and burn them?)

I'm only doing what I'm told to do; contact the cousins and find a date we can all go. I still need dates from three people. Despite all the family problems some people think we should try to be the perfect family, at least to the outside world. This is mostly my aunt and to a lesser degree my father.

Perfect families are for the 1950's. We're pretty grown up now. We all know that any time you see perfection--that's a facade.

<SNIPPAGE> All six of them were standing in a little boat, on a beautiful windstill day. At the moment my aunt dumps the ashes in the water there is a gust of wind, blowing the ashes straight into my face. I'd like to think of this as my grandfather's last revenge.

LMAO. Perfect.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Years back, I worked for a small Unix systems house. Back then, computer trade show Comdex still existed, and was the biggest trade show/exposition in the world.

One year, FedEx gave out the wrong address as the place to send stuff that needed to be at the show. They wound up with a warehouse full of shipments they had to try to sort through, and none of it "absolutely, positively got there overnight". (Folks the stuff was shipped to weren't allowed to go there and try to identify their stuff.) FedEx paid untold millions in refunds for missed deliveries, and I suspect various people at FedEx found themselves looking for new employment in consequence.

Comdex died slowly and horribly. Exhibiting at Comdex was enormously expensive. The whole point to exhibiting was to meet potential customers and sell, and increasing numbers of vendors asked "Does what we get out of Comdex justify what it costs us to be there?", and concluded there were smaller more focused trade shows where they would get a better bang for their buck.

I'm wondering when the enormous consumer electronics show E3 will suffer that fate, but it doesn't seem to be happening yet.
______
Dennis

You know, I can't recall the year, but a long time ago, and far far away, I was at Comdex. '84? That sounds roughly right. Man...those were the days. We still thought that everything was possible. Ah, youth. So wasted on the young, as they say.

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Perfect families are for the 1950's. We're pretty grown up now. We all know that any time you see perfection--that's a facade.

I've seen an assortment of family dysfunctions come back and bite members.

One former friend was one of three children. I never met him, but by all accounts, her father was a classic character I would have enjoyed meeting. She had a brother and a sister. Unfortunately, her brother was ...damaged, with an assortment of developmental and personality disorders. Dad couldn't admit his only son was beyond hope, and poured resources that should have done things like pay for her and her sister's education down that rat hole. By the time he finally faced reality and the kid was institutionalized, she and her sister had been screwed over.

Then dad died of cancer, leaving her sister primarily responsible for her brother. It was obvious she had lots of unresolved father issues that would now never be resolved. On one hand, her father was one of those wild characters and she loved him more than anything. On the other, she hated his guts for what he'd done to her and her sister, but she couldn't admit that, even to herself.

The fallout destroyed her marriage to another friend of mine. They had been partners in a company, and expansion that was his idea didn't work and put them in a financial bind. (It didn't work because a key distribution partner went belly up. Absent that, things would have been fine.) Her primary need was security after the roller coaster ride that was her father, he wasn't providing it, and she divorced him.

Everyone who knew them took sides and most decided he was that bad guy. He wasn't. He was simply clueless, and should have understood his wife's needs far better than he did, and not been so gung ho about taking risks.

The last step was a public blowup where she stopped talking to her sister, and moved the the West Coast to start a whole new career. She effectively divorced her family and moved as far away from everything connected as she could get.

Another old friend has father and sister issues. Father is long dead, but one of those folks who levied impossible expectations on the kids when they were alive. She had no desire to meet his expectations (and likely couldn't have in any case), so got treated badly. Her sister did try to be what dad wanted, and if half the tales are true became a thoroughly dis-likeable person. She's still alive and a thorn in my friend's side. Whenever my SO and I see her, we can expect to spend some time listening to complaints about dad and sister we've already heard multiple times. All I could say last time she started in about her dad was "You really need to let go of that..."

You know, I can't recall the year, but a long time ago, and far far away, I was at Comdex. '84? That sounds roughly right. Man...those were the days. We still thought that everything was possible. Ah, youth. So wasted on the young, as they say.

All sorts of things are possible. You just can't afford what it would cost to do them. (I've tried to get that across in other areas about other things, where I look at what people would like done and say "There isn't that much money in the world!")

Companies decided there wasn't enough money to spend what Comdex cost and stopped going, and it withered and died. I never got to Comdex, but did get to a few other computer trade shows, and most were zoos.

(I went to one local show on behalf of the systems house I worked for. We resold AT&T gear, back when AT&T was in the computer business. I found myself assisting AT&T reps at the show on breaking into one of their Unix machines that needed to be reconfigured but no one knew the root password. I knew how to get root on the machine (by exploiting what was arguably a bug in the default setup), and they were very happy I was there to assist. )
______
Dennis

[Rumpelteazer]

It look like there's no need to supplement grandma's ashes. My father and aunt have decided that if my uncle starts demanding things he can have the ashes, do with it what he wants to do with it with his family and my aunt's and our family (and my uncle's kid and ex if they want to) will go to the forest and remember grandma by just taking a walk and have a drink at the restaurant. We don't need ashes to remember her and grandpa.

I wish my great aunt, my grandmother's half sister, was still alive. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind and would have given my uncle an old-fashioned b**locking years ago.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

It look like there's no need to supplement grandma's ashes. My father and aunt have decided that if my uncle starts demanding things he can have the ashes, do with it what he wants to do with it with his family and my aunt's and our family (and my uncle's kid and ex if they want to) will go to the forest and remember grandma by just taking a walk and have a drink at the restaurant. We don't need ashes to remember her and grandpa.

I wish my great aunt, my grandmother's half sister, was still alive. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind and would have given my uncle an old-fashioned b**locking years ago.

RATS. I've been sitting here contemplating various and sundry Grandma 2.0 augmentation schemes.

Boy, nothing like common sense kicking in to ruin a perfectly good idea. Dammit.

@Dennis wrote:

Been there. Done That. When you're the screwed-over sibling--no matter how much, what the screwage was...you just never get over being furious. It's childish. After all, the world isn't fair. I don't quite know why we are so susceptible to the pain inflicted by parents, or why it's so hard to get past. Nonetheless...it is thus.

Comdex was fun. I was working (I wish I could remember it all better). At the time, I was putting Basic 4 minis into hotels, in L.A. Comdex just seemed like it would go on forever. New amazing things and OSes and whatever all every year, y'know? But lo...new and amazing things, and all that, are fewer and further apart on the ground than we thought that they would be.

Although...even so, the things and gadgets and capabilities that we have today would have been considered George Jetson fluff and nonsense back then. Hell, the big "advanced" (ha!) removable drives that the Basic 4 had then were like, half the damn size of my body. Well, okay--half the size of my torso, and I'm not a wee petite thing. Now I store more than that on thumbdrives. :-) A LOT more.

Hitch