The Syndicate

Good gracious- I've spent a few hours clearing out my Syndicate PM inbox, which was about 98% full. Around 650 of my inbox messages were from Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3.

My 'sent messages' folder is about 99% full. I wonder how many of those messages will be from CC123 as well?

Scotty wrote: ↑Mon Jan 10, 2022 10:57 am

G-Man wrote: ↑Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:32 pm I experienced a scintillating scotoma last night. It freaked me out for a good while.

I had to look this up and I didn’t know that was what those were called! I get those right before my biannual ocular migraines and they’re a right annoyance. Starts as a pinwheel in the center of one eye, and then gets bigger to envelop my other eye. Takes me out of commission for a couple hours.

Sorry you had one!! Keep drinking your water

I saw the correlation with migraines when I was Googling to figure out what it was. The weird thing is that I don’t get migraines. At first I was freaking out inside my head, worrying that something was wrong with my rods or cones. I have any number of eye floaters, but a shimmering technicolor one was not something I ever imagined. I have an eye doctor appointment coming up, and I plan on mentioning it to them.

I experienced a scintillating scotoma last night. It freaked me out for a good while.

So, parenting-

We’re on vacation with my wife’s parents and my sister-in-law (plus her husband and two-and-a-half-year-old son). My knee has been surprisingly cooperative for the first three days. My oldest daughter, however, has caused me to earn new parenting merit badges.

Yes, tonight I earned the “Figure Out How to Rinse Vomit Out Of Sheets, Pajamas, and Pillow in an Outdoor Shower Because the House You Are In Lacks a Proper Wash Basin, All Without Waking the Rest of the House” badge. I also earned the “3:00 a.m. Emergency Store Run For Sick Kid Supplies in a State Where Almost Every Store Closes By Midnight” badge and the “Salvage Your Daughter’s Favorite Stuffed Animal After It’s Been Soaked in Vomit” badge.

I’m all merit badged out, but there’s still laundry running. I think I will take in the sunrise an hour from now.

It seems that I am becoming more and more of a stranger around here, and that is partly (mostly?) my own fault. I’m still very busy at work (don’t ever ask school district business office staff what they do all summer or you may get slapped), but I am also dealing with some medical fun as well.

Over a month ago, my bad knee (ACL replacement in 2008) crunched in a way that it sometimes does but this incident didn’t let up like in the past. I thought it might get better in time but after two weeks it was clear it wasn’t just going to go away. Luckily I had my annual physical coming up.

The week before my appointment, my knee swelled up like a grapefruit and the swelling seemed to cause more pain than the previous few weeks. My doctor put me on a hardcore ibuprofen regimen for a week to bring down the swelling and said he would send a referral in for an orthopedic appointment.

The swelling went down, but the doctor didn’t send in my referral for a full week. Then it took almost another full week for the ortho to call. At the appointment last Friday, the doc spent all of three minutes in the room and told me we needed to do some imaging to figure out what’s up. He also wiggled my leg around and said it didn’t seem to be my ACL at the very least.

The earliest they could schedule me for imaging is August 1st- the day I get back from my family vacation. Then the doc will be on vacation the rest of that week, so my follow-up appointment for him to read the MRI will be a full two months after the initial crunch that started it all.

In the meantime, I can’t fully straighten my knee joint and I get sudden flashes of stabbing pain stronger than anything I have felt in a long time. Happy summer to me, right?

Anyway, it might take me longer than I hoped to get back into action around here than I thought it might. Just wanted to let you know why.

nutella wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:35 pm do i look like i know or care what that means

You sound like you’ll be a tough-as-nails White Sox fan. Cubs fans exhibit more Mid-Western charm.

nutella wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 1:43 am Some of you may know by now but I'm moving to Chicago at the end of this month! My partner and I along with two close friends from college bought a big old house and it's gonna be super cool. I'm keeping my current job continuing to work remotely which is nice, and will be in the central timezone which is new and different for me lol. We're going to miss Portland a lot though. Somewhat busy with the moving process for the next few weeks, but excited for the change!

Are you moving to Cubs territory or White Sox turf?

I have reached the conclusion that my dreams grow ever stranger the longer I try to sleep in.

Every year (twice a year) I spend far too much time reading about the history of daylight savings time. Every year (twice a year) I spend the better part of a full day wondering why we keep doing this stupid, antiquated nonsense.

My computer (an almost 10 year old Dell desktop running Windows 7) has been notifying me of a hard drive failure for a few weeks now.

I am confused, because I always assumed hard drive failure would mean the computer just doesn't work. I doubt it's spyware or malware, because the notification comes up in the usual Dell SupportAssist window that I am used to seeing.

Should I ignore this or take it as a sign that it's time for a new computer?

I’ve been working in the business office for a school district for a little over a year now. A few months ago, the thought popped into my mind to see if I could find out how much a fetal pig costs for biology class dissection. I had forgotten about that quest for a while, but this week I stumbled upon my answer. One of the high school secretaries placed an order for fetal pigs for the science department. It’s $25.50 per fetal pig kit (the piglet and some tools), but there’s a $1-per-pig discount if you buy 10 or more.

Well looky here- I’m orange again. Seems I just can’t say no this year...

fingersplints wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:06 am
And yes She went by the name leggyorlyb.

Oh my! I remember leggy. She made her way over here to the Syndicate briefly, though I don't know if she ever played any games here. That is awful and sad. It's the first I've encountered someone passing away who had been a part of one of the mafia communities I've participated in. Was it sudden or had she been battling an illness?

fingersplints wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 7:25 am Hello mafiathesyndicate. After learning of the passing of an old friend from irc, I have spent a lot of the morning reminiscing about the good times I had with you all playing mafia, discussing Lost, and just the general chatting/friendship. It feels like a lifetime ago, but I miss you guys. Just thought I’d stop by to say I hope you are all keeping well and safe in this scary time.

We miss you too!

My wife got me good tonight. I got home from doing my taxes at my parents’ house (they buy H&R Block software each year and everyone uses it to file) and I walk in to hear the bathtub running. Chloe was with me and Lilah should have been in bed already. I yelled up to her to find out what was going on. She yelled down that Lilah threw up in her bed. I’m the one in the house that cleans up vomit because I’ve grown immune to the smell for the most part. I darted up the stairs to help out only to find Lilah sitting up in bed with a big smile on her face. My wife pops in and they both shout, “April Fools!”

Well done, my dear. Well done.

Outbreak and Contagion may be what people are thinking, but my house feels more like Bio-Dome right now.

My wife and I are watching Outbreak. What is wrong with us?

When are we going to get sign-ups for a new Heist game? I’ve got some rust to shake off.

At work today I listened to soundtracks to several seasons of Lost without realizing today’s date. Spooky.

I've come to the conclusion that my Blogger pages look like crap on mobile. Does anyone know of a way to make Blogger not look awful on mobile? Or would I be better off switching to Wordpress.com? I'm not interested in paying to host it myself, since it's a pet project and few if any people ever read it anyway.

It’s Easter Sunday. Is it sacrilegious for “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” to be stuck in my head?

Breaking news: Lori Loughlin’s defense team has added John Stamos as a character witness. They anticipate he’ll ask the judge and jury to have mercy.

Do other states even report whether Phil sees his shadow? Punxsutawney is not exactly known for anything else, so I have to wonder if other states/regions even care.

Good news! Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow this morning, so Spring is starting early. We trust the meteorological skills of a groundhog, right?

Tonight at bedtime, Chloe (7) mentioned how she curls up in a ball at night if she gets cold. Lilah suddenly spouts off “Yeah. Sometimes when I get cold at night, I curl up like a fetus.”

Lilah is three.

I don’t know whether to be proud of her vocabulary, scared that my daughter received an double-sized nerd gene from me, or both.

Probably both.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope your holiday season is full of happiness, warmth, and all that other smarmy stuff they put in Hallmark cards. When the season of spreading joy and cheer is over, remember to come back here so you can lie, manipulate, and murder for fun.

Blessings and best wishes,

-G

What kind of car was it?

Ongoing abdominal weirdness from almost a year ago. The contrast dye I’ve been nursing over the last 100 minutes tastes like poorly-prepared lemonade, which is better than I expected. They still have to put an IV in my arm yet, so we’ll see how that goes.

juliets wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 1:50 pm

G-Man wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 1:35 pm I’m waiting to get a CT scan.

For what?

If I knew what was amiss, then I wouldn’t need the CT scan.

I’m waiting to get a CT scan.

Golden wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:20 pm I can't leave the country except by airport - the idea of a border crossing in a car is utterly foreign to me.

Why not by boat?

Epignosis wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 7:58 pm

Long Con wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:48 am So we're starting a restaurant.

What should we name it?

The Hunger

Yep, that’s a winner. Either go with that or call a fiendishly evil eating challenge The Hunger.

Long Con wrote: ↑Fri Aug 24, 2018 12:48 am So we're starting a restaurant.

What should we name it?

Long Rock Bar & Grill (or whatever best describes the establishment).

Find yourself a giant slab of granite or shale to use as decor so people think that’s where the name comes from.

ColinIsCool wrote: ↑Thu Aug 23, 2018 7:17 am Twitter is an overwhelmingly net negative in my life and in the world imo

I never understood the appeal of Twitter. I grew up in the heyday of AOL Instant Messenger, when reading people’s away messages was oftentimes as much fun as IM’ing people. Twitter strikes me as nothing but away messages. Sure, there’s an art to pinning your thoughts down in 140 characters but it all boils down to “this is what I’m doing” or “this is what I think”. The sheer volume of tweets posted in a day boggles my mind. Unless you spend a great deal of time reading through the feeds you follow, you might miss something worth reading. And unless you tweet a lot each day, your feed will get buried by those who do. It’s become, what this old-timer views as, an away message arms race.

speedchuck wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 2:29 pm Well, my headphones are broken.

Perhaps this just means that you are meant to share what you're listening to with the rest of the world.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:29 pm

G-Man wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:21 pm Email read receipts.

I have a long history with email read receipts, mostly negative. When asked to send one back to the person who sent me an email, I decline because, chances are, the sender also earmarked the email for a delivery receipt and should have gotten one.

One of my co-workers is now requesting a read receipt with every email she sends me. Not just for important tasks and questions, mind you. She is also requesting read receipts for one-sentence responses. My other co-worker has noticed this as well, so Ms. Read Receipt isn't just doing it to me.

What to do?

Hand her a sarcastic hand-written note indicating that you read her email each time you do so.

Believe me, I considered returning the favor and spamming her with read receipts but I try to avoid petty retribution. Besides, Ms. Read Receipt is always striving for the 'good dog' pat on the head from the owners and she would probably complain about it. I don't know if it's her poor communication skills or her over-developed self-preservation instinct, but she regularly makes subtle put-down comments about me and our other co-worker when the boss men are present. She used to be the only office person years ago, so maybe she never got used to sharing the glory when things go right. Trouble is, she makes most of the mistakes, so she still gets most of the grief. Sharing is caring, right?

Anyway, she only recently started doing it, so maybe I can get her to stop it unless its an email that really matters.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:35 pm

G-Man wrote: ↑Tue Apr 17, 2018 12:21 pm
Email read receipts.

I have a long history with email read receipts, mostly negative. When asked to send one back to the person who sent me an email, I decline because, chances are, the sender also earmarked the email for a delivery receipt and should have gotten one.

One of my co-workers is now requesting a read receipt with every email she sends me. Not just for important tasks and questions, mind you. She is also requesting read receipts for one-sentence responses. My other co-worker has noticed this as well, so Ms. Read Receipt isn't just doing it to me.

What to do?

Get her to spit in a tube. It could be a genetic thing.

Email read receipts.

I have a long history with email read receipts, mostly negative. When asked to send one back to the person who sent me an email, I decline because, chances are, the sender also earmarked the email for a delivery receipt and should have gotten one.

One of my co-workers is now requesting a read receipt with every email she sends me. Not just for important tasks and questions, mind you. She is also requesting read receipts for one-sentence responses. My other co-worker has noticed this as well, so Ms. Read Receipt isn't just doing it to me.

What to do?

I took the trash out just now and found a shingle in the yard. It must have torn off from the garage roof when we had high winds last week. At least one more flipped up on the garage. Possibly two or three flipped up on the main house. The roof is probably old enough to need replacing, so we’ll see what the insurance company says.

Next Friday is the Father-Daughter dance at her school. We just found out that it's luau themed. This raises a very important question:

Do I buy a styrofoam ring and make an S.S. Minnow life preserver or do I buy a volleyball and paint a face on it?

8” of snow here and still coming down

It's official- Toys R Us is filing for liquidation. Plans are in motion to possibly save some high-performing stores, but for how long?

Toys R Us might close its doors soon. Another childhood staple at risk of disappearing before my kids are old enough to appreciate it.

DharmaHelper wrote: ↑Sat Feb 24, 2018 12:09 am Fun thing is you can play AND watch INH's Twin Peaks game G-Man if you haven't already signed up.

Mafia is my mistress and I’ve learned that I can never have just a quick fling.

I always overextend myself and get behind at work, so I am using every ounce of willpower in me to avoid signing up for a game right now.

Apparently GoC really is just for the champions who can play. The rest of us don’t even get to watch.

Actual statement heard in the office today:

"Hey Missy, it's Chris from Control Systems. I just wanted to see if, in the next 45 minutes, I could come down there and calibrate your little oven."

Just a reminder that grammar matters and so does punctuation.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:55 pm They'd have to ask you how to spell "Turd" first.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:41 pm Teaching feels like hosting Celebrity Jeopardy.

"You know what?" *Rips up questions* "Just write a number. Any number. You could write a two. Or perhaps a three. Maybe even a four? Any number."

juliets wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2017 11:04 am Aww no one is sharing what they are doing for Thanksgiving I love to read about how people are celebrating.

I will bring us back to this topic.

Today, we're going to my grandmother's house for Thanksgiving. It's normally a big, extended family even but most of my cousins are in college now, so no one is traveling from out of town. It will be just the four of us, my parents, my sister's crew, and grandma. It will be weird this year without everyone else but we'll probably break out some of grandma's old-school board games.

Tomorrow is Christmas cookie day. M mother-in-law's family always gets together on Black Friday to make cookies. My wife's aunts are both loud talkers, so it's always trying on the ears. But it's mostly fun. The first time I was brought along while we were dating I found the concept of spending a whole day making and decorating cookies to be tedious so I got snarky and spent an inordinate amount of time decorating some very fancy-looking cookies. Since that day, 10 or so years ago, my fancy-pants cookies are highly anticipated.

Saturday is Thanksgiving with my father-in-law's side of the family. This involves a good meal, card games, and hearing my father-in-law and his dad complain about how the officials and/or announcers are either biased for the Dallas Cowboys or against their precious Washington Redskins (depending on which game is on).