Yeah, luckily we caught one last night.
Unfortunately, the other one got away at 5:30 am last night. It woke me up setting off the trap, but by the time I got into the room the trap was set up in, it was already scrambling back into the ceiling
Unfortunately, the other one got away at 5:30 am last night. It woke me up setting off the trap, but by the time I got into the room the trap was set up in, it was already scrambling back into the ceiling
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Nice! One down, one to go. Make sure you let this little anarchist go a good long way off so it doesn’t find its way back to your pad for more mischief.
If my district manager wasn’t out of state on vacation, I’d give it to her, as she’s taken raccoons and baby raccoons before to her ranch. Since that’s the case, there’s a chance it’ll be getting some lead.
You gotta do what you gotta do. I hear Crockett 'coon skin caps are in style…
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And that’s two! I hope he fucking likes the tuna I strapped to the back of the cage, cause it’ll be his last fucking meal!
I get my bed back, I’m not sleeping on the couch part of a pull out cause there ain’t exactly room for the pull out
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Fuckin’ raccoons! Congrats on the newly liberated bed!
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I’ve never posted in this thread before but I think I just need to get this off my back.
Last week, I booked an appointment for the first time in my adult life with an Audiologist (Or so I thought). One of my clients here at my full time suggested I go to this place called hearing life in order to sit down and speak to someone about my hearing loss. My client and I clicked right off the bat, he’s an 80-year-old guy that wears hearing aids, so to build rapport, I naturally struck up a conversation with him about my hearing loss since I had as a child. After hours and hours of talking to him over the phone about music and whatnot, he referred me to his ‘doctor’ so I finally made an appointment.
It was a free consultation + hearing test so I was excited if you can believe it. I thought to myself “Finally, I’ll have the chance to sit down and create a plan to possibly have surgery and at least somewhat help my hearing”. Boy was I wrong.
To make a long story short, the ‘doctor’ who isn’t really a doctor, but more like a salesperson, took one look in my ears for literally 2 seconds on each side and said “We won’t be able to do anything today, you have too much wax build-up”. I thought, well that really sucks but at least it was free. What I failed to realize at the time is that I made a mistake. In the initial conversation before they looked inside my ears, I let them know that I am not really interested in using or buying a hearing aid as I’m only 27 years old, I’d much rather see if there’s a way to fix my ears, not just put a band-aid over them. Once I said that they pushed all the documents aside and asked “Then why are you really here?”
Man, I felt so cheated. I felt that they had absolutely no intention of actually helping me at all, It was all just an opportunity to pitch me something. And that something was a hearing aid. Anyways - I went to an urgent care center and paid $150 to have my ears cleaned to find out I really didn’t have that much wax build-up at all. It was just an excuse to cut the appointment short. Oh well, live and learn I suppose.
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Just gonna weigh in briefly on The Apple Question. I was raised on PCs/Microsoft, so that was really all I knew. Sitting down occasionally at a Mac made me feel crippled - just helpless and horribly inefficient because navigation and how to get anything done seemed so alien and counterintuitive. So I was basically funneled into brand loyalty by virtue of being exposed to non-Apple products first.
I bought my wife an iPod in 2007. She used it pretty a lot until she got an iPhone 6, then an iPad Mini, then a MacBook Air. Meanwhile, I was happily using Dell and Lenovo desktops, Samsung tablets, and bottom-of-the-line Samsung phones.
Well, my tablet finally got so old that there was no more Android support for it. Apps started acting up, and I finally had to decommission it. Unfortunately, the only Samsung or Amazon or Microsoft tablets I could find at that point weighed a fuck ton, had the world’s shittiest screen resolution, or both. Talk about a huge step backward in tech. So I closed my eyes, I held my nose, and I bought an iPad Mini. Luckily my wife has an employee discount at the university bookstore, and they had the previous generation in stock - the kind with the 3.5 mm headphone out. Stunning 326 PPI, and weighs just 293 gm - perfect for Netflix, YouTube, ebooks, and puzzle games. I still have and use the Lenovo desktop and Samsung phone, but for the aforementioned applications, the iPad Mini is my clear favorite.
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Time to rant about Amazon!
I listened to Prime Music at work for a long time, using it as a kind of exploratory tool to collect favorites and learn about different artists, genres, and tracks. I built up 20 playlists of stuff I really liked. As tracks “fell off” (became unavailable with Prime) - I would try to find lossless downloads to buy.
Well, Amazon I guess finally got tired of not getting an extra monthly fee from people who refused to go Unlimited. So last week they overhauled Prime. The “good” news is they went from 3M available tracks to 100M. The bad news is you can’t listen to anything on demand. Everything is SHUFFLE. Albums? Shuffle. My 20 playlists? Shuffle. This is not a fair trade. They’ve exchanged control for content. I would much rather have control, listening to what I want (albeit a limited collection), when I want. Honestly, though, 3M was enough…
If they think this is going to get me to pay their monthly fee for on-demand listening, they can perform an anatomical impossibility. This business model of monthly subscriptions is supremely irritating. Businesses love it because it provides them with regular income without necessarily having to provide product that may or may not be worth the fees they collect. In the world of entertainment, people can’t buy “things” anymore. All they can do is pay a monthly fee to use something temporarily. Between my ad-free email, SiriusXM, YouTube Premium, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, I’m paying $70 a month (the last time I checked - it’s undoubtedly gone up). Damned if I’m going to add another single “Plus,” “All Access,” or “Unlimited.”
Well, I’m typing up a list of every single track, artist, and album from my Prime playlists. I will buy lossless downloads of as many as I can find, and mp3s of the rest (NOT from Amazon, goddammit). As long as it takes, as much as it costs. And then I guess I’m stuck with SiriusXM for my music exploration tool. Their online sound quality sucks noticeably harder than Amazon Prime, but I have a receiver in my car. Their variety is ok, but they keep jacking the price. But whatever it takes to not pay Amazon for Unlimited. Those assholes.
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Huh. I don’t seem to be experiencing this with AMHD. The desktop app asked to do an upgrade to a new version last night and I did it. I didn’t notice anything different really. Maybe I’m not following what you mean by “Shuffle”.
Funny you are mentioning it, though, because I had a hunch something was up with the stream. When I first started using my V40 as a streamer, I was streaming through the USB interface at 24/192. Now I can’t seem to get higher than 48K. Might be something with the V40, though. I need to dig further into it.
But if it’s not the V40 and they are throttling the stream at 48K, that will be a problem.
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I couldn’t ever figure out HD and just always assumed it was part of the Unlimited package that I’m not into paying for. My Play buttons (desktop app and web page) have been replaced with Shuffle buttons.
Oh, I see. I must have the unlimited then! 
The service has been working well for me so far. It has provided countless hours of therapy for me! Hell, I even forgot what I was paying for it. I am not sure how tied to the Prime thing it is. Whatever it is, it’s worth it to me. I never thought I would feel that way about streaming, but I have learned to enjoy it.
I also intend on growing the local collection as well. I still love playing my CDs and such. That will never go away.
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Not sure if there’s room to say everything here.
Listening to my Serial off a cheaper DAP, loving them.
Meanwhile went up about a grand in Paypal debt just this last week.
I absolutely hate the work I have to take home from school as a teacher. When I get up early on the weekends, when my daughters are napping, when they’re in bed at the end of the day, there’s always something (grading or otherwise) looming to be done. Because I hate it so much I of course procrastinate it. I have to be sat at a desk to at least convince myself I’m about to do it, so I do. But then my procrastination is always checking sites (this forum, classifieds) to get some kind of positive boost. The result is spending money when I don’t actually have any need at all.
If I didn’t have the bloody work to do I would never have sat down at the desk anyway. I’d have raked the yard, or done a workout or run, or drawn, or watched a movie with my wife, etc etc etc.
What I probably don’t have time to get down now is the utter frustration and despair with the horseshit quality of work that’s submitted to me that turns every should-be-simple grading session into damage control, extended deadlines, emails to parents, emails to staff when the student should just be getting a bad grade and actually putting some actual effort in next time. I can’t go into detail about how mind-blown I am by the sheer ineptitude of the majority of my students. Especially when it comes to “common sense” and basic reasoning, these are future voters/parents/board members etc. There’s only so much I, or even all my colleagues united, can do in the window of time we have in a day. Homes/families have to be different. Relying on schools to take care of everything has to be different.
Knowing that no grading session is going to be straight forward, I absolutely do procrastinate on it. If it wasn’t for my contract being for a year and me honoring that - or the fact that I have absolutely nothing to go to from here - a lot of what I’m facing just makes me want to throw the papers in the river and quit. And I work at a very supportive school with great admin. It may not sound like it but I love the kids too, I have a great time with they love my class too.
I love the rapport with students in the classroom and when I’m coaching. I hate absolutely everything else that goes with the teaching profession (planning, grading, etc) but they are of course the majority of it.
I’m seeing if how compulsive I am is part of a bigger issue, there are very many reasons my wife and I think I have ADHD and need to find management through therapy or drugs or both. My brother has it and it makes sense of so much. I’ve kicked things off by visiting a GP whose referred me to a psychiatrist and we’ll go from there. From one of the documents it looks like appointments are going to be hideously expensive, hopefully it won’t drain our HSA which we’ll have to put to use.
The odds are after playing all these big purchases against each other none of them will unseat the Serial for value (though the Serratus will probably accompany it very well).
I hate that I know without a doubt I’m making all these obsessive purchases and review readings as a shitty form of therapy but that hasn’t helped me stop yet.
I’ve already talked to my admin about this being my last year (7th year) of teaching. I still haven’t found what I’ll move to. We have a third child on the way, my wife will stop her job which although 2 days a week has been a huge contribution to what we have to work with. So somehow with only a teaching degree, and no disposable time to do much training before June comes around, I need to find a job that can pay me enough for us to make the mortgage on our tiny house while letting me have a clear and simple work/life divide.
Once I have the time (evenings, early mornings, weekends) without work pressure to spend on the things I want to (or need to, I’d rather repair something around the home or run mundane errands that help my family than do a bunch of unpaid work that doesn’t help my family at all) I think I’ll practice and hone in on my graphic design skills, see what particular packages/skills are looked for, build up a portfolio and start applying for that line of work within 2 or so years.
Apart from being 9-5 (or some other clear start and stop to the work day) and paying enough for us to survive, I would ideally get something that has a clear path for increase in pay as skills/services increase. I feel like I already spent too long in this job for how our non-existent retirement and savings looks. 2 out of the 7 years I’ve worked there was a 0 increase in pay. Inflation didn’t sit still either year obviously.
Well that’s the rant. A little more grading to do then shower then bed then up 3ish hours later. The usual.
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Hey man, I’m sorry to hear things aren’t going to well. Mental health is super important so I am glad you are looking into therapy. I am a firm believer of “you can’t help others until you help yourself”. A lot of what you described I have experienced in the past and while everyone works differently I found making a daily schedule helped with my procrastination. I focus on putting the higher priority stuff (which is usually the stuff I hate doing) in earlier time blocks so that got done first so that I can relax at the end of the day and do some of the chores I more enjoy. Music has been a big help in getting me to focus too so I am very thankful to this community.
Whatever you do I hope you get better!
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Not a rant, but an observation… at least U.S. democracy lasted 46 more years than it did in ancient Athens.
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Let’s try to keep the fringe conspiracy bullshit off of the forum…
Swiss Policy Research as a source 
I’m sympathetic to this viewpoint but I agree maybe we should keep this stuff off this forum and not mix flame wars with our audio. Plenty of other places online to talk politics.
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Not plenty of online places to talk about politics anonymously with many people when more platforms creepily require giving up your internet privacy. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, YouTube, anything from Microsoft, and other increasing amount of platforms do this. It’s not about giving people freedom online. It’s about normalizing surveillance to let very rich men extort money and power by spying on people online. So, there’s not many online platforms to rant about politics with absolute internet privacy when website owners make it harder for people to use V.P.N.s, adblockers, disposable emails, and other things for anonymity against tyrannical government authorities spying on citizens.
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There’s a mouse in our house… First in about two years, disconcerting knowing it could be anywhere and is spoilt for nooks and piles to hole up in.
I’ve never yet used poison because if it died in the wrong place we’d have a stench to deal with.
Had four traditional snap traps left in the garage so bated them and set them in two back-to-back pairs one along the wall under our exposed pantry shelves in the kitchen, one along the wall by my desk.
Giving an extra sweep under our table and then going to be early. Lots of work to do but I’m not about to sit about or block my ears while it’s loose. More likely to be active and get trapped with the lights off anyway
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I broke my wrist, my wrist is broken. Lunate.
In all seriousness I think I broke my wrist after my friend went for a defensive play as I try to drive in to the basketball, got a hard fall afterwards. It was not done by malice though for he will never do such a thing, for both of us is just defensive play where I am the one who got unlucky and got the receiving end of falling down hard, suppressing the fall with my left arm.
I thought I broke my whole left arm along with my elbow, turns out my left wrist got the pain more afterwards. No swelling but when I try to move my left wrist it sucks.