Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Yay, it's tax season. Disclaimer: I'm not complaining about paying taxes in general, but about some of the annoying things I've encountered this year.

With the exception of a handful of years after we got married and had pretty simple filings, I've had the same guy prepare (initially) my and- after we got married and built the cabin- both of our taxes. He was retired from his original job before I first met him 20 years ago and had started a tax prep company to keep him busy in retirement, and last year was his last year doing it before retiring completely. He partnered with another firm here in town to take over his clients and this year was the first that they are preparing our taxes.... and so far I am not impressed. 

We have a rental cabin we built a ways back and have managed by a company to handle all the booking, billing, cleaning, etc. When we got the returns to sign for them to submit and we looked through them we realized that they had listed the cabin as being classed as a 'single-family residence' and not, as it should be and has been since it was built, as a 'vacation/short-term rental' as well as saying that it was rented all 365 days and not, as again, it has been before reporting the actual number of nights it was rented and the number of nights that we stayed there ourselves. Both things that I would think would be flagged as questionable to have changed from one year to another.

Secondly, last fall I signed up with Amazon's Vine program where you pick and they send you products for free in return for testing and posting reviews on them to fill out the review pool for newly listed items. Except, it's not quite free- Amazon reports the cost (sometimes ridiculously off from what is realistic, with some things having large coupons that you can apply to the price if you buy it but that don't help at all for the reported value) of the items as 'non-employee compensation' to the participants- so you have to pay the self-employment tax rate on the (as noted, inflated) value of the items. I hadn't realize just how ridiculous that was until we got the filing back. And, of course, it's made even worst by adding $100 or so to the cost of the tax prep for having to fill out the self employment forms. Which could all have been avoided (or at least it would have been taxed at a much lower rate) if they reported the amount as miscellaneous income and not non-employee compensation (but, I have to imagine, the former doesn't save Amazon as much money).

Needless to say, I opted out of the program pretty much immediately- I got some interesting and useful 'free' stuff through it, but a lot of it was crap that we didn't really need, and I've been cutting back on getting things from Amazon anyway.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I think I do remember that!  The most memorable, however, was when you showed up after having used a nut and bolt to patch a hole in a tire on the side of the highway.

Next rant...  I replaced the rusted out rear lines.  A front line popped.  I replaced the rusted out front lines.  The MC popped.  I replaced the MC.  The line from the ABS unit to the section that goes back to the rear brakes popped.  At least I have the full brake line kit, but this is one of those jobs that really needs a 2-post.

And as I've already been reminded today...  I know that when one is bad you should do them all.  But what you fail to understand is that I am exceptionally lazy.

I need to leave work today.  I'm gonna flip out on someone if I stay here.

We make our own bumpers out of tubing.
Last week a new guy welded 4 up wrong, its debatable on who's fault it was, if the drawing could have been clearer or whatnot.  Whatever.  Its done, move on.

So yesterday I looked around, mocked up a jig in 15 minutes, went upstairs and designed it in CAD in 30, printed out instructions on how to weld it together and put them with the parts, then left cause it was quittin time, figured I'd grab a torch and stick em together today or tomorrow. 

Came in today.  By the time I got to the shop floor someone had put it together, incorrectly.  Then they welded up 4 more bumpers, and did so incorrectly (not just cause they welded the jig together wrong, but a new and different way of being wrong.)

And no one figured they should take 5 minutes and come ask me how it worked.  It was a new part, it had instructions on how to put it together, that MUST mean that it can go together with no other input!  HOW BERKIN HARD CAN IT BE!?!

The absolutely most irritating part? The one that just gets under my skin?  The welder that told the other welder how to do everything? We share a name.

He's an idiot.  Truly one of God'smost special children. He had been doing the same half a dozen parts for four or five years and STILL berkeleys them up.  He is the anti-Asa. Everything I am not, he is.

I don't know why he is still employed with us.

Antihero said:

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

One of my new coworkers at my deployed site is a legitimate flat earther and hardcore conspiracy theorist.

He watches videos on his phone without headphones because he believes that Bluetooth causes cancer, so everybody gets to hear his crackpot videos.

I can't. I just can't.

Oh God, I've worked with That Guy too. I seriously feel for you.

 

Is he also one of those people who doesnt think gravity exists? Mine thought that gravity was a myth and there was just "down".

 

Dinosaurs didn't exist either, along with The Moon and political enemies were lizard people.

OMG, yes, he believes the exact same with gravity. And things fall to the ground due to "density".

Today, we watched him plug a 110v blender into 220. The power strip has 110v recepticals but is plugged into facility power, which is 220v. He didn't bother to check where the power strip was plugged into.

It let out all the smoke, then briefly caught on fire.

Of course, it wasn't his fault.

He's been an airplane mechanic for 44 years. He won't wear Bluetooth headphones but has no issue with putting his phone up to his head.  

Nobody from his home location likes him. I've been getting all the stories the past few days.

In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :

Density huh? I just have no idea where the hell this comes from.

I mean so let's just say that gravity is a myth perpetuated by NASA ( this was my guys theory) what in the ever living berkeley would it matter? Suddenly the world is better because they are not hoodwinked by NASA? We all get free money and hot and cold running blowjobs? Who gives a berkeley and why would they try to make us think it???

What are your guys thoughts on the " Military Branch of NASA" because apparently there is one lol

In reply to Antihero :

Is he talking about Space Force?

mtn said:

In reply to Antihero :

Is he talking about Space Force?

He is not. He is talking about the super secret side of NASA that starts wars, prevents the world from knowing the " dark secrets of NASA" and the "truth of Flat Earth"

Boy howdy do I wish I was joking 

The slackers at work are starting to piss me off. Heady words coming from a (late) Generation Xer.

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

Antihero said:

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

One of my new coworkers at my deployed site is a legitimate flat earther and hardcore conspiracy theorist.

He watches videos on his phone without headphones because he believes that Bluetooth causes cancer, so everybody gets to hear his crackpot videos.

I can't. I just can't.

Oh God, I've worked with That Guy too. I seriously feel for you.

 

Is he also one of those people who doesnt think gravity exists? Mine thought that gravity was a myth and there was just "down".

 

Dinosaurs didn't exist either, along with The Moon and political enemies were lizard people.

OMG, yes, he believes the exact same with gravity. And things fall to the ground due to "density".

Today, we watched him plug a 110v blender into 220. The power strip has 110v recepticals but is plugged into facility power, which is 220v. He didn't bother to check where the power strip was plugged into.

It let out all the smoke, then briefly caught on fire.

Of course, it wasn't his fault.

He's been an airplane mechanic for 44 years. He won't wear Bluetooth headphones but has no issue with putting his phone up to his head.  

Nobody from his home location likes him. I've been getting all the stories the past few days.

In the South "Bless your heart" Can mean any of a hundred different things.

Just look right at the stupid berkeleyer and sympathetically say "Well bless your heart"

I just heard that they are remastering a game called 'Days Gone'.

It was released in 2019. 

Something about it being for the PS5. If your game is that terrible that at 6 years old it requires a complete remaster for next gen console, maybe you need further work in optimization. How many next gen consoles has Skyrim been ported to already?

But we all know what this really is. This is a way to maximize profits by adding a word to the artwork, do minimal work optimizing for a new console, then lay off more employees because it didn't meet some arbitrary sales expectation.

I hate what video game companies have become.  

In reply to DjGreggieP :

Game companies used to be guys in their basements or garages writing code in assembler because you could optimize it to run way faster than a higher level language and compiler ever could.

I think as a rule, if a game needs more than a 3.5" HDD floppy to store, it focuses more on graphics than gameplay.

Started work on rear main replacement in my track car like 6 weeks ago. Stalled once we hit a really cold snap and I just couldn't motivate myself to work in the shop during what little free time I had.

Fast forward a bit to like 2 weeks ago, with a track day coming up next weekend (Mar 1) I spent some time out there putting things back together. First, couldn't find clutch alignment tool. Then, dropped trans off of lift height trans jack and broke an ear off it. Next, left the throwout bearing on the trans when I hastily took it to a welder to fix and didn't realize that when I picked it up, no throwout was on it (lost last weekend to that screw up). THEN, I foolishly thought "hm, didn't feel like a ton of resistance on the slave, but it was almost definitely centered on release fork." No, no it wasn't. Pushed the clutch pedal yesterday, straight to the floor. Brake fluid dripping out of bellhousing. Luckily it stayed intact, just blew out the seal, so I didn't have to fish anything out of the bellhousing. So, this afternoon I get to try again with a new slave cylinder, plus the added step of bleeding the clutch hydraulics. And I have to work tomorrow. And there's 10" of snow on the ground (a once in a decade happening at my house). 

On the plus side: idled the car on the lift yesterday, sans slave, and rear main was at least good enough for that.  I'm racking up a bunch of "dumb lessons, learned the hard way" on this one. Biggest of which: don't wait so damned long to work on track car when there are events already on the calendar. 

Was planning a trip to Joshua Tree in late April/early May.  It'd be the first time I've been there in six years.  Now, due to staffing, some national monuments and parks are reducing services, and even have days they'll be closed.  Not sure I want to spend money on a flight, hotel, and car rental if there's a risk I won't be able to get in.  Especially since I was aiming to go during the week, when it'd be less crowded, so more likely to be closed.