The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

[Sly Boots]

"It's a gaffer of an acca"

-_-

[Wrathbone]

Bloody Amazon.

For the last 10 years roughly, I've had my dad's account in my Amazon Household so that he can receive my Prime delivery benefits, and then I've signed my account into his devices so he can use my Prime Video. It's worked pretty well that way. Amazon are now putting an end to this by changing Amazon Household into Amazon Family, which on paper sounds even better: I add him to my Family group and he gets ALL my Prime benefits, not just delivery.

Except we also get all each other's notifications, along with sharing of all Alexa devices, payment methods and activity.

This shouldn't be a big deal - it's not like we have any especially private activity we want to hide (that I know about ¬_¬) and while he has loads of Alexa devices, I have none. But as someone who is stringent (militant, even) about privacy when it comes to technology, this feels fucking awful. I hate not knowing how, when or why my data is being flung about Amazon willy-nilly, and especially the payment methods being 'shared' in some unspecified manner, which is a nightmare from a security perspective. I like my accounts to be barebones and isolated, under my control, and this is the exact opposite.

[Alan]

Mr Xerxes Von Braun, my bestie, my right hand boy turned 13 a few months ago. He’s been pretty consistently in fantastic health. When people ask his age they are either surprised or think I’m talking in months because he’s still so youthful. His only real issue is some hind leg arthritis that we have been managing with various supplements (glucosamine is such a wonder pill!) and that’s only really noticeable if he’s climbing up a lot of stairs. So we were at the vets for his yearly booster and I asked about next steps should his arthritis get worse. There are two options options, a monthly injection or a cheaper self administered option that “can cause liver damage over time but since he’s 13 that probably won’t be an issue”. Now it may be a faux pas to tell your vet to fuck off but here we are. Wee man has years in him yet, touch wood.


Then a couple of days ago we were out a walk and he suddenly keeled over, eyes twitching, couldn’t stand up then was sick. Scary shit, scariest shit, pretty much assumed it was a stroke and had to carry him back with my heart in my throat. Well, thankfully, it turns out it’s some kind of inner ear infection that apparently nobody knows the cause of. It throws off his equilibrium and just makes the world spin constantly which must be horrible for the little guy. It’s known as “old dog syndrome”. Now it may be a faux pas to track down the people responsible for naming an infection and tell them to fuck off but here we are. He’s still a puppydog!


Room 102
It’s supposed to last up to two weeks, but the usual is 7 days. 5 hours later I took him out with a big resistance band I was going to use to stabilise his hind legs so he could at least pee. I put him down, he stood by himself for a few mins clearly unsure and then he lead me on a 40min walk! He did stumble here and there and had a drunken sway but man I was so fuxking proud He’s been improving steadily since. Best wee guy in the world <3

[Snowy]

Mr Xerxes Von Braun, my bestie, my right hand boy turned 13 a few months ago. He’s been pretty consistently in fantastic health. When people ask his age they are either surprised or think I’m talking in months because he’s still so youthful. His only real issue is some hind leg arthritis that we have been managing with various supplements (glucosamine is such a wonder pill!) and that’s only really noticeable if he’s climbing up a lot of stairs. So we were at the vets for his yearly booster and I asked about next steps should his arthritis get worse. There are two options options, a monthly injection or a cheaper self administered option that “can cause liver damage over time but since he’s 13 that probably won’t be an issue”. Now it may be a faux pas to tell your vet to fuck off but here we are. Wee man has years in him yet, touch wood.


Then a couple of days ago we were out a walk and he suddenly keeled over, eyes twitching, couldn’t stand up then was sick. Scary shit, scariest shit, pretty much assumed it was a stroke and had to carry him back with my heart in my throat. Well, thankfully, it turns out it’s some kind of inner ear infection that apparently nobody knows the cause of. It throws off his equilibrium and just makes the world spin constantly which must be horrible for the little guy. It’s known as “old dog syndrome”. Now it may be a faux pas to track down the people responsible for naming an infection and tell them to fuck off but here we are. He’s still a puppydog!


Room 102
It’s supposed to last up to two weeks, but the usual is 7 days. 5 hours later I took him out with a big resistance band I was going to use to stabilise his hind legs so he could at least pee. I put him down, he stood by himself for a few mins clearly unsure and then he lead me on a 40min walk! He did stumble here and there and had a drunken sway but man I was so fuxking proud He’s been improving steadily since. Best wee guy in the world <3

Sounds like what I had referred to as a 'vestibular incident' with my old border collie. Absolutely fucking terrifying as you assume the dog is having a stroke or something, but easily controlled with medication, albeit for the rest of the dog's life.

[Alan]

That’s the one though he’s just had anti nausea pills to get him through it so maybe a different variant of the same thing. “Idiopathic vestibular disease”, idiopathic meaning “we have no idea why this is happening”. We may have a relapse within the year, in a few years or never. All very wishywashy. At least I’ll know what’s happening if it ever does relapse. Amazing how a nice walk down the river can turn on its head in a split second.

[Wrathbone]

Norovirus, or at least something with all the hallmarks. Been years since I’ve had it and I’d forgotten what a grim, exhausting affair it is.

At least it happened before the heatwave.

[Lenny Solidus]

Spoiler

When you got super lazy tending only to the front and record heatwaves hit the UK, there's a lot more to the end beyond the slide too.

Going to be a fun day.

[Stormbringer]

I deleted a post about this the other day, but I'm going to re-post it.

Bloody Windows!

While Microsoft Windows has come a long way over the last two decades, to the point where it's now incredibly clever and you can plug in any device (more or less) and it will just work...it's got a ton of settings these days that I just don't recognise and it confuses the hell out of me. I think the real problem, however, isn't so much Windows...it's more than I'm getting old. I'm reaching that point where current technology is baffling me and I'm getting left behind. Soon I'll turn into my late granddad (who lived to 99 years, bless him), who famously wouldn't let his grandkids touch his PC (that he bought in 1998, I think), lest they "wipe the hard drive".

[Alan]

I dunno man, I think modern windows is kind of poorly designed. I particularly hate the way there is now a settings app and a control panel and things are arbitrarily spit between the two. Have the settings app for light users by all means but have all that functionality be in the control panel as well!

That said I recently bought a MacBook and MacOS is incredibly stupid for a whole lot of things too, infuriatingly so…. and Linux is even more so. I think this is why everyone loves iPads so much, they mostly just do the thing, mostly.

Funny thing about your granddad is my dad was the opposite. Slight problem? “I’ll take it to the shop and format it”, “can you format it?”, “formatting it will fix it!”. I’m not 100% sure he knew what formatting was but he certainly held on to that word! Also, not always a bad idea either

[Wrathbone]

I tried MacOS for a while and viscerally despised it. Every little thing was a chore. The whole “it just works” thing is such BS, and MacOS users will claim that you just need to learn the ecosystem… which is exactly as true for Windows. The reality is that they’re as bad as each other.

[Raid]

I particularly hate the way there is now a settings app and a control panel and things are arbitrarily spit between the two. Have the settings app for light users by all means but have all that functionality be in the control panel as well!

Yeah, I hate this, and it's been like it for years. I do at least like that you can search for specific items from either by typing into the start menu though.

[Alan]

I tried MacOS for a while and viscerally despised it. Every little thing was a chore. The whole “it just works” thing is such BS, and MacOS users will claim that you just need to learn the ecosystem… which is exactly as true for Windows. The reality is that they’re as bad as each other.

Yep! There’s also this thing of “it’s like that because that’s how it was in the 90s” as if that’s a good thing . Like apps not fully closing unless you command +Q or that stupid install process of - install // are you sure you want to install? // show me how serious you are by dragging this icon to this folder - then nothing happens, the folder window stays open and there’s no sign anything happened so you think you must have missed and drag it over again “app already you fucking idiot”.

That said, there’s a lot that’s better than windows, hell no ads and minimal bloatware alone is a killer feature. If they just joined forces…. they would probably take the worst from both and tell us to wallow in it.

[Stormbringer]

Speaking of my granddad, here he is in the newspapers from ten years ago:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scot ... on-6777378

His wife's still alive; just turned 101!

[Alan]

And that's this room! That cant be a coincidence!


Did he make his solo flight?

[Stormbringer]

I actually can't remember...I suspect not. That may have been his last flight.

Speaking of Room 101 and things that need a bloody good moan about: one of the best things about visiting my grandparents as a child was the Magnum Centre in Irvine, not far from where they lived. It was literally the best swimming pool in the world. I mean, perhaps not actually, but from my childhood perspective it was.

Then, in December 2016, having not visited it for...well, I suspect approximately eighteen years (during the sadly wasted years of my young adulthood)...it was shut down. Permanently.

I feel sad that my kids will never get to experience the Magnum Centre. In fact, I generally feel sad that I haven't been able to recreate all the good parts of my childhood for my kids. No doubt they have their own good memories, but due to a variety of circumstances, they'll never get to experience mine.