Dark Shadow's Surprisingly Well-Lit Random Banter #217

[AuthorGirl]

Well, yeah. If you're not apologizing every five seconds, what kind of Canadian are you?

Remember, the correct response to "Stop apologizing too much!" is "Sorry."

On a more serious note, I'll see what I can do advice-wise, as I tend to have the opposite problem (i.e. I never manage to get my two nonexistent cents in). The best I can give is probably just try and wait for a natural stopping point in a conversation. Whether it's just one-on-one, or involving other people, it's generally better to just take things slow. And, yeah, that does sometimes mean you miss a chance to make a relevant comment, but that's something that you just learn to live with.
Unfortunately, this is something that you really have to get a feel for on your own... it's not really teachable, per se.

Never forget to apologize for bothering the receptionist in order to make your appointment.

Thanks for the serious note

[absolmorph]

My desire for pizza is healthy; my desire for more pizza afterwards is not healthy.

Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard and believe in yourself.

[LaZodiac]

Well, yeah. If you're not apologizing every five seconds, what kind of Canadian are you?

Remember, the correct response to "Stop apologizing too much!" is "Sorry."

Unironically have done this more than five times.

Anyway advice from this from one Canadian to another. If you interrupt someone and they don't raise a fuss it's because they don't care. If they raise a fuss apologize and let them continue until they are done.

[DataNinja]

Unironically have done this more than five times.

You and me both. I know in a lot of my social circles, I really don't help the overly apologetic and polite Canadian stereotype. Also, I talk about poutine too much.

[LaZodiac]

You and me both. I know in a lot of my social circles, I really don't help the overly apologetic and polite Canadian stereotype. Also, I talk about poutine too much.

I mean how could you not? Move over "fried butter on a stick", Canada's got the best "god I feel like I just ate ten pounds of solid mass" food, and that's literally the average poutine.

It's not real poutine if you don't at least a little bit regret eating it after ward.

[DataNinja]

I mean how could you not? Move over "fried butter on a stick", Canada's got the best "god I feel like I just ate ten pounds of solid mass" food, and that's literally the average poutine.

It's not real poutine if you don't at least a little bit regret eating it after ward.

I've learned to always order the smallest size. Because I have a tiny stomach at the best of times, and poutine is so filling. So good, but... blech, if I eat a standard bowl, that's, like, forcing myself, and eating a whole day's worth of food. I have no idea how people eat full pans worth...

[Teddy]

Greasemonkey finally updated to be compliant with the latest Firefox, and now my Nallesmilies extension is working again. I'm happy to have them all back, but the one I missed the most was actually the d20 which I threw into the lot, and which instead of inserting a smilie inserted an (unmodified) d20 roll. There were so many times I almost forgot to add a closing [/roll] tag to my rolls in this brief time I've been without it...

I would make the d20 allow for different dice numbers, values and modifiers, but I never studied HTML and web design enough to figure out how to intercept the "on click" event...

[Qwertystop]

Greasemonkey finally updated to be compliant with the latest Firefox, and now my Nallesmilies extension is working again. I'm happy to have them all back, but the one I missed the most was actually the d20 which I threw into the lot, and which instead of inserting a smilie inserted an (unmodified) d20 roll. There were so many times I almost forgot to add a closing [/roll] tag to my rolls in this brief time I've been without it...

I would make the d20 allow for different dice numbers, values and modifiers, but I never studied HTML and web design enough to figure out how to intercept the "on click" event...

Perhaps you could instead make it intercept the typing? Replace :rNdM+Q with the properly-formatted roll tags when typed in the chatbox? Typing's going to be faster than a click menu (speaking, admittedly, as a Vim user). I've wanted to do something similar for the URL bar for a while - "w/whatever" replaced with the Wikipedia article on "whatever", "r/whatever" for the Reddit, "y/whatever" for a YouTube search, and so on. Haven't had the time to look into how, though.

[Amidus Drexel]

I've wanted to do something similar for the URL bar for a while - "w/whatever" replaced with the Wikipedia article on "whatever", "r/whatever" for the Reddit, "y/whatever" for a YouTube search, and so on. Haven't had the time to look into how, though.

That's more along the lines of a browser extension than HTML stuff, so probably a little different in the scope of the problem.

[Teddy]

Perhaps you could instead make it intercept the typing? Replace :rNdM+Q with the properly-formatted roll tags when typed in the chatbox? Typing's going to be faster than a click menu (speaking, admittedly, as a Vim user). I've wanted to do something similar for the URL bar for a while - "w/whatever" replaced with the Wikipedia article on "whatever", "r/whatever" for the Reddit, "y/whatever" for a YouTube search, and so on. Haven't had the time to look into how, though.

It'll probably be faster, yes, but I don't use my smilies often enough for it to actually save time. Also, that would still require me to set up listeners and also modify the content of the post area, which I don't know how it would affect all the other scripts running on it. The Nallesmilies script works because the smiliebox actually works by inserting the alt-text into the post area when a smilie is clicked, so modifyin the alt-text also alters what is being inserted.

As for your ideas, I'm not sure that's actually possible to encapsulate in a Greasemonkey script. I think the closest you could get is by implementing a script which runs at document-start and redirects you to the desired page if the URL matches, but since I'm fairly certain this entry point still happens after the DNS lookup probably has mangled the URL into a search engine query, this might not be trivial to parse...

That's more along the lines of a browser extension than HTML stuff, so probably a little different in the scope of the problem.

Yeah, the benefits of my script is that it's so lightweight that it even survived the tightened security on Firefox's extensions without need for any modifications. It might not allow me to increase the numbers of available smilies or add additional on-click functionality to them, but it does 90% of what I want to do, so I'm happy with it nevertheless.

[acheter]

So, unless you're willing to pay that, you'll want to host it elsewhere.

[enderlord99]

Anyone who has ever been in the military, I have a question:

Is it true that "boot camp" is an extreme hazing routine that consists of a group of several dozen people have to share a bedroom with a floor area of under 100 square feet, are deliberately infected with salmonella then ordered to sprint for 48 hours, and if anyone poops the whole group is punished by being given a thousand cuts (each) with a razor and having the aforementioned excrement rubbed all over them? Is it also true that drinking water without permission is punished worse than pooping, and permission is never given to drink?

[LaZodiac]

Anyone who has ever been in the military, I have a question:

Is it true that "boot camp" is an extreme hazing routine that consists of a group of several dozen people have to share a bedroom with a floor area of under 100 square feet, are deliberately infected with salmonella then ordered to sprint for 48 hours, and if anyone poops the whole group is punished by being given a thousand cuts (each) with a razor and having the aforementioned excrement rubbed all over them? Is it also true that drinking water without permission is punished worse than pooping, and permission is never given to drink?

I mean...hazing exists, yes, but to that degree would be super illegal, instead of just the regular level of illegal that hazing is.

[enderlord99]

I mean...hazing exists, yes, but to that degree would be super illegal, instead of just the regular level of illegal that hazing is.

Are you saying that boot camp is super illegal, or that my post does not accurately describe boot camp?

[LaZodiac]

Are you saying that boot camp is super illegal, or that my post does not accurately describe boot camp?

The latter.

[enderlord99]

The latter.

What about this description:

"Camp Green Lake from Holes, but instead of sand it's cement."

[Knaight]

Anyone who has ever been in the military, I have a question:

Is it true that "boot camp" is an extreme hazing routine that consists of a group of several dozen people have to share a bedroom with a floor area of under 100 square feet, are deliberately infected with salmonella then ordered to sprint for 48 hours, and if anyone poops the whole group is punished by being given a thousand cuts (each) with a razor and having the aforementioned excrement rubbed all over them? Is it also true that drinking water without permission is punished worse than pooping, and permission is never given to drink?

This is basically an increasingly implausible description, and while I'm obviously not familiar with every military (or really familiar with any of them) I can state with some confidence that this accurately describes nothing. Extreme hazing routine? Sure. Dozens of people in a 10x10 room or comparable? There's some tightly packed quarters, but that's running up against the restrictions of physical possibility unless it's a room with a lot of vertical space. Deliberate infection with salmonella? That's getting into the absurd. Sprinting for 48 hours? Again, literally impossible.

Then we get into thousands of cuts with a razor and being rubbed with excrement, and it's just cartoonish, with drinking water even worse. The events in the description would involve a fatality rate near or at 100%, and as you can clearly see that's not the case. Also military and ex-military personnel tend not to have the sort of scar network that would come with the tens of thousands of infected cuts literally guaranteed by that process.

[WarKitty]

The annoying part of work sometimes is that you can't say what you're thinking. The answer to "put so-and-so" on is "I'm sorry, he's not available, but I'm sure I can help you!", not "That would be hilarious but I'm pretty sure it would end in all three of us getting written up and I have a job to do."

[enderlord99]

I found a plastic figurine of Kanaya from Homestuck; it doesn't seem to be particularly accurate, though.

Spoiler

Show

Sorry for being double-racist in the quoted post.

[LaZodiac]

The annoying part of work sometimes is that you can't say what you're thinking. The answer to "put so-and-so" on is "I'm sorry, he's not available, but I'm sure I can help you!", not "That would be hilarious but I'm pretty sure it would end in all three of us getting written up and I have a job to do."

God I know the feeling. So many stupid ass people I want to dunk on trying to order food.

If I ever hear the "I didn't want to cook today~" joke one more time...

[DataNinja]

God I know the feeling. So many stupid ass people I want to dunk on trying to order food.

If I ever hear the "I didn't want to cook today~" joke one more time...

This is why I'm glad that I work in the back in my job. I remember back when I was up front at my old job, doing the ice cream.

"Hi there, what can I get for you today?"
"I'd like the rum raisin ice cream."
"Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have that."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I have never seen rum raisin for as long as I have worked here. We do have many other flavours, though, if you'd like to take a look."
*a few minutes pass*
"Alright, I've decided. I'd like the rum raisin ice cream, please."
"I'm sorry, miss, but we don't have that. I'd recommend the sea salt caramel, It's very popular."
"No, I think I'd rather have the rum raisin instead."
*sigh*

That one went on for far longer than it should have. I'm just glad it was slow at that time.

Oh, right, and that one mother who was trying to guilt trip me, because we were out of one particular brand of ice cream. Sorry, lady. It doesn't matter that you came a half hour, and that your kids were looking forwards to it all week. I'm not a magician, able to conjure ice cream out of thin air.

[WarKitty]

God I know the feeling. So many stupid ass people I want to dunk on trying to order food.

If I ever hear the "I didn't want to cook today~" joke one more time...

Nah, this is just...one of our satellite offices, their night person is mad at one of our booking agents. And they're both very blunt "tell it how I see it" people. And satellite office is demanding to talk to our agent, despite the fact that it's my job to fix issues like that and the agent already clocked out.

[Amidus Drexel]

[snip]

That one went on for far longer than it should have. I'm just glad it was slow at that time.

Oh, right, and that one mother who was trying to guilt trip me, because we were out of one particular brand of ice cream. Sorry, lady. It doesn't matter that you came a half hour, and that your kids were looking forwards to it all week. I'm not a magician, able to conjure ice cream out of thin air.

See, I just respond to those situations by saying something along the lines of "I'd serve it to you if I could, but we just don't have it, so I can't." Usually it gets the desired result.

Usually.

(Then, of course, we make fun of these people after they leave. )

[LaZodiac]

This is why I'm glad that I work in the back in my job. I remember back when I was up front at my old job, doing the ice cream.

"Hi there, what can I get for you today?"
"I'd like the rum raisin ice cream."
"Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have that."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive. I have never seen rum raisin for as long as I have worked here. We do have many other flavours, though, if you'd like to take a look."
*a few minutes pass*
"Alright, I've decided. I'd like the rum raisin ice cream, please."
"I'm sorry, miss, but we don't have that. I'd recommend the sea salt caramel, It's very popular."
"No, I think I'd rather have the rum raisin instead."
*sigh*

That one went on for far longer than it should have. I'm just glad it was slow at that time.

Oh, right, and that one mother who was trying to guilt trip me, because we were out of one particular brand of ice cream. Sorry, lady. It doesn't matter that you came a half hour, and that your kids were looking forwards to it all week. I'm not a magician, able to conjure ice cream out of thin air.

Actually you know what's the worst. This guy comes in some times, and he recognizes me from the other store. Every time he's come in, he's said "oh hey you're working at this store now?" as if it's the first time he's ever seen me at this store. This has happened three times already and I'm going to assume this will just be my life now, forever.

[DataNinja]

Actually you know what's the worst. This guy comes in some times, and he recognizes me from the other store. Every time he's come in, he's said "oh hey you're working at this store now?" as if it's the first time he's ever seen me at this store. This has happened three times already and I'm going to assume this will just be my life now, forever.

Clearly you should reply, "Nope, I'm just a figment of your imagination."
(But, seriously, ouch. I feel your pain.)

[HalfTangible]

God I know the feeling. So many stupid ass people I want to dunk on trying to order food.

If I ever hear the "I didn't want to cook today~" joke one more time...

There was this one family of customers that every month or so would come in late at night, usually after 9pm. They would load up three carts entirely full of food, bring it all up to the front, and try and get us to scan them all. When we finished loading up a cart, they would try and take it out of the store to their brand new car without paying for any of it, saying that they could pay with their food stamps while they loaded the food up to leave. We'd get into an argument about how you need to pay for the food before you take it out of the store.

It was the same group of people, over and over again, like they thought we wouldn't recognize them after a while!! And every single time this happened, they would leave behind a full three carts while taking out maybe a loaf of bread and a carton of milk.

If you know you can't afford three steaks, why would you get them? If you know you can't pay for ice cream, why would you get it?! If you can't pay for even a single cart out of three carts full of food, WHY WOULD YOU GET IT?!

Actually you know what's the worst. This guy comes in some times, and he recognizes me from the other store. Every time he's come in, he's said "oh hey you're working at this store now?" as if it's the first time he's ever seen me at this store. This has happened three times already and I'm going to assume this will just be my life now, forever.

Don't even get me started on that one ******* who came in and got high off of the whipped cream while his wife called our manager a n$#@%er.

THAT was the worst.

[2D8HP]

The annoying part of work...

.

.

.

Thanks guys!

For seven years I worked the parts counter at a motorcycle shop, and I was convinced that motorcyclist were extraordinarily stupid, nice to learn that others who work with the public experience the same.

[Teddy]

In programming, it's generally considered a law of nature that no matter how thorough you test your software, it will still break the second you put it in the hands of a customer (and often even when you're just demonstrating it in front of them). I recently had one episode when I spent a full day testing out all the new functionality of my program on site (in another city) in the same room as one of the would-be users, then returned home in the evening. On the very next day, I get a call which basically can be summarised as "None of the features you had been adding functionality to work any longer, but if we switch to an earlier version, they still work.". My response was a lot more, well, responsible, but the spirit of it could be summed up as "It worked yesterday and I have no idea of how you could possibly manage to break it overnight.".

The world of the programmer would be perfect if it weren't for the users...

[Fairfieldfencer]

Every pizza is a personal pizza if you try hard and believe in yourself.

Or if you don't share!

[factotum]

In programming, it's generally considered a law of nature that no matter how thorough you test your software, it will still break the second you put it in the hands of a customer (and often even when you're just demonstrating it in front of them).

There's an old saying that goes every program can be made one line shorter, and every program has at least one bug in it. We therefore assume we can reduce every program down to a single line--that doesn't work.