[Thorzdad]

I’ve been using DDG exclusively for several years now for regular search, but Google’s still my choice for image searches, though they definitely seem to more and more prioritize the $tock photo sites in the results. DDG’s image search is getting better, though.

[Brien]

Yeah, DDG used to be useless.

[Laminar]

I've tried DDG a couple of times and it was jarring how bad the results seemed. I may be willing to give it another shot. Though a lot of my image searches are for really specific, obscure industrial products and Google can only usually find one or two actual good results, I'm worried that any lesser engine will be worthless.

I did use a Chrome extension for a while that filtered out all Pinterest results from Google image searches, which was a godsend. It seems like half the image results were to Pinterest which ended up being dead ends with no useful info. Unfortunately, that extension broke Google Maps to where searching for a town name would give me no results, and also it broke the thing where Google will show several results from the same forum or site compacted. When you click to expand the results from that site, it would come back and say there were no results at all from that site. So I disabled the extension and everything's working again. But recently I was doing a search for headboard images and at least 80% of the results were Pinterest dead ends.

[ghporter]

Vendors’ web sites with “progress of your order” timelines are often VERY wrong.

I ordered a thing on 3 December, and the vendor’s site had an order timeline, with a supposed “in production” date of 11 December and “complete” on 12 December. It stayed in “order confirmed” until 13 December when it finally went to “in production.”

On 18 December with NO updates since the 13th, it showed as “shipped” with a FedEx tracking number. FedEx showed that “a shipping tag was created” on 12 December. Grrrrr...

FedEx finally got the thing on 23 December, and since it’s going by ground, it won’t be delivered until tomorrow. That is assuming that FedEx actually bothers to try to deliver it.

Shouldn’t “shipped” mean there’s a chance that the product is somewhere close to leaving the vendor’s shelf? I think so.

At least it wasn’t a Christmas present...

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

At least it wasn’t a Christmas present...

A friend of ours, who lives just across town, mailed a present to us Dec.1. Soon after, stories started hitting the local news about delays at the main USPS sorting center in Indy, because they weren’t able to fully staff the place due to COVID.

About a week passed and the tracking on the package still showed it in the sorting center. Two weeks, still there. At two-and-a-half weeks, tracking was updated to show that the package was now in-transit...to Cincinnati.

Still hasn’t arrived here.

She’s a manager at Trader Joe’s, and her packages are always delicious.

[reader50]

I'm seeing signs of USPS stress also. Items on the way no longer show delivery estimates in USPS tracking, and I've seen multiple routing errors. Sometimes they don't even say where it was, just a date and "in transit to destination". I figure it got embarrassing enough, they're hiding the wrong location unless it's a hub.

Too bad all those sorting machines got trashed before the holiday rush.

[ghporter]

USPS has been raped by the (insert appropriately crude epithet/childish name calling/etc. here) “Postmaster General”. All to prevent voting by mail from working. He wasn’t even a good minion, and we got to vote by mail anyway. But he wrecked much of the USPS infrastructure, and it will take years to rebuild the major sites that were ordered to literally remove and trash expensive mail handling equipment.

But that’s not a “minor irritant,” so I won’t rant any further on that point.

My purchase got from Nashville to Arkadelphia AR, to Houston. It sat (literally by time stamps: 0424 to 1624) 12 hours there before apparently being loaded on another truck yesterday afternoon. The last time stamp was 0425 today, for what I hope was that truck heading toward San Antonio.

I can drive from Pasadena TX (well east of Houston) to San Antonio in about 4 hours without pushing... As of 1616 this afternoon (as I type), there’s been no change in the FedEx tracking for this package. Which, by the way, FedEx says is scheduled for delivery “Sat December 26 by end of day”. I really don’t see them pulling that hat out of this particular rabbit. This has gone from being about the vendor being vague about the meaning of “shipping” and morphed into yet another case of “how does FedEx stay in business when they do this...?”

[ghporter]

Update: my item is now at the Cypress, Texas FedEx facility, having arrived at 1428 this afternoon. It looks like they spent all day getting my item from US 290 and the Sam Houston Tollway (Tollway 8) all the way to Grand Parkway and West Road. That's about 10 miles direct distance, maybe 15 miles by road.

The story goes that Fred Smith, founder, chairman and CEO of FedEx, was so desperate to keep the company from failing that he took the company's last $5,000 to Las Vegas, and used his $27,000 blackjack winnings to pay the company's $24,000 fuel bills. Somehow I don't doubt both the incredible luck, and incredible problems of this company. And somehow they stay in business... (No knock against Smith himself, but from my own personal customer service perspective, it's just astonishing that his company can do so poorly at getting stuff to people and still keep going.)

[ghporter]

Final update:
My package showed as being in Cypress at 1418 yesterday afternoon, and the website had no more updates this morning at about 0600.

Then later this morning, it showed that at 2137, the package left Cypress. At some time this morning, probably about 1000, the site showed that the package arrived in San Antonio at 0556 this morning, and was now on a FedEx truck for delivery. But... It also said "for delivery on the next business day." In other words, Monday.

I was OK with that. At least it was local now.

At 1310 today, Sunday, the FedEx guy delivered the package.

I'm less irked by this sudden "get it to the customer" thing than completely confused by it. But anyway I got my stuff. Finally.

[Thorzdad]

There's this Samsung Galaxy ad running on cable right now, and it features this autotuned-to-death Justin Bieber song where he's moaning on and on about being lonely. The capper is the final bit where he slowly drones Lo-O-o-O-only, with the autotune ramped-up to 11. It's like nails on a chalkboard. Depending on what I'm watching, it's shown at every damned commercial break.

[subego]

Car blocking my garage for 32 hours. Finally got the ****er towed.

Now I get to shovel it out at 8° instead of 20.

[Laminar]

3yo and I were out scooping yesterday, it was around -1. She got mad when I finished and told her it was time to go inside, she wanted to ride her scooter around some more. Wife was inside huddled on the couch with a sweatshirt and two blankets. Daughter is definitely mine.

[Laminar]

When my iPhone auto-corrects a misspelled word to two words, when I backspace to try and get it to revert to my original word that wasn't actually misspelled, it doesn't offer to change it back to my original word. If it auto-corrects a single word to another single word, you can easily revert to the first word.

"Clearancing" made it very mad it and it changed that to two words. I had to go back and retype all of it. It happens especially a lot when I fat-thumb something and misspell it and the iPhone changes it to two words.

[subego]

I have a similar problem where the autocorrect will fix the word I’m typing but also randomly capitalize the previous word.

[subego]

I’m hoping it’s just the cold, but the Jurassic size mother****ing cockroaches in my building have mounted an offensive.

[Ω]

Welcome your new overlords

[subego]

Not until they pry the hand vacuum out of my cold, dead hands.

[Thorzdad]

Yesterday, for some unfathomable reason, there came to be a gorgeous, black, Maserati Quattroporte parked in front of my home. Well, sort of in front. Probably closer to between my home and the neighbors’ place. Trust me, I don’t live in a Maserati neighborhood, so this was a real odd thing to see.

Anyway, here’s the irritant...The car was absolutely beautiful, except for the large, effin fugly white vinyl car-dealer’s logo decal slapped on the tail of the thing. It wasn’t even an attractive logo. It was big, chunky letters and what looked like freakin’ arrows. I know car dealers aren’t the klassiest of folks, but c’mon.

Though, I’m not sure who’s more irritating, the dealer who would slap a big, vinyl cancer onto such a beautiful machine, or the owner who doesn’t remove the damned thing as soon as they get it home.

[subego]

Back when I had a Cherokee Sport, the first thing I did when I got it home was take a hair dryer to the “Sport”, and the sport racing lines on it. Yuck.

Kept the “4x4”.

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

Though, I’m not sure who’s more irritating, the dealer who would slap a big, vinyl cancer onto such a beautiful machine, or the owner who doesn’t remove the damned thing as soon as they get it home.

Likely: this was the dealer advertising his business by parking in random neighborhoods.

[subego]

When I was a boy, Maserati dealers would advertise by giving away cocaine.

[subego]

Originally Posted by subego 

I’m hoping it’s just the cold, but the Jurassic size mother****ing cockroaches in my building have mounted an offensive.

I hacked their comms and they’ve ordered a tactical retreat.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

There is no way in hell I’d choose to live in a place that had cockroaches, haha. My northern sensibilities do not translate well to the southern climes.

[subego]

I definitely didn’t choose to. Had no idea the place had them until well after I moved in.

They definitely bother me. If the invasion levels were the norm I’d move. In general, they only end up in my apartment if they’re lost. The building has 80+ units, and my floor has only two of them. The other floors are their meal ticket.

[Thorzdad]

I’ve started experiencing a thing called scintillating scotoma. I haven’t figured out what, if anything, triggers it. It starts out small, grows to cover about half my field of vision, then slowly recedes off the left side of my field of vision. Overall, it’s just about an hour to an hour-and-a-half in duration. No headache is involved.

It’s weird and kind of interesting to watch, once you understand it’s going to go away eventually. But, annoying, nonetheless, as you can’t really do anything when it’s at its peak, because you can’t see clearly.