I've learned to not ask my wife for anything material for any birthday/christmas/fathers day/etc.
Golf lessons? Great. Beer? Perfect. Fishing trip? Wonderful. But if it is material, it had better be to replace something or repair something. Otherwise one of us may get upset for some silly reason - and I could be the upset one, for a silly reason. I'm not the most mature person in the world.
Freddie never asked for somebody to love him back. I feel this was a miss which I had not considered.
In reply to mtn :
I tell my wife to not buy me anything. Ever. If I want it, I've already bought it or I want a specific one and I will buy it when I'm ready. On our 35th anniversary, she bought a blow-up projector screen for a projector we haven't used since our kids were young. A humidor I will never use because I already have one that holds 500 cigars, and a cigarette ashtray even though I haven't smoked a cigarette in 8 years. 
I also tell my wife, if you want something for whatever the occasion is, tell me. Otherwise, I'm not buying you anything. In 35 years, I've bought enough junk she never used or didn't want and I'm not doing it anymore. We have a garage full of crap that is never used, but was a gift so she can't throw it out either. It's a waste of space, money, and time. For our 35th anniversary, I bought her a rose for every year, as I do every year, and nothing else because every time I asked she said she would think about it. Ask for nothing, get nothing.
Naturally, she doesn't listen. Then I'm the shiny happy person and she gets pissed when I never use what she bought or I don't buy something for her.
I've taken to buying my wife underwear at Costco for gift-days. This is nothing for my enjoyment, just plain cotton undies (granny panties? maybe not quite) that she wears everyday. Then I go in and throw out a bunch of her old ones without telling her. Helps that I do the laundry most of the time.
Socks and underwear. My parents threatened us with them as gifts when we were kids. It sounded horrible. I don't think I've ever been so wrong in my life. Maybe the Coke-and-bourbon over ice cream. That was pretty nasty.
mtn said:I've taken to buying my wife underwear at Costco for gift-days. This is nothing for my enjoyment, just plain cotton undies (granny panties? maybe not quite) that she wears everyday. Then I go in and throw out a bunch of her old ones without telling her. Helps that I do the laundry most of the time.
Socks and underwear. My parents threatened us with them as gifts when we were kids. It sounded horrible. I don't think I've ever been so wrong in my life. Maybe the Coke-and-bourbon over ice cream. That was pretty nasty.
Truth, my wife hasn't bought her own in fifteen years. I do the laundry so I buy replacements as I throw them out. I'm not really sure she notices.
I know the sign says "No Turn On Red". It also says, "Except Curb Lane" right underneath that.
Beer Baron said:I know the sign says "No Turn On Red". It also says, "Except Curb Lane" right underneath that.
I rarely turn right on red, because there's usually an SUV halfway into the intersection in the next lane. Or if you try to creep forward to see past them, THEY creep forward too. And people wonder why I think SUV drivers are brainless zombies: the alternative is that they are deliberate shiny happy people, and I like to think better of people than that.
It'd be nice to have Hulk strength (Incredible or Hogan, either works) and be able to calmly get out, pick the front of the vehicle off the ground and walk it back behind the intersection line, set it down and nod a "thank you" to the driver, then get back in your own car and turn right on red, but that isn't the world we live in.
44 hours so far this week....
Went to a doctor's appointment this morning to get my yearly blood draw. Heading home I'm in the left lane on a 6 lane road. I need to get to the far right lane in about 1/4 mile. At the first stop light I nail the throttle and put on my signal as soon as it turns green. The guy in the brodozer in the middle lane immediately takes it as a challenge to his masculinely and tries to make it hard for me to get over put his bumper as close to my rear window as possible. At the next light he moves over to to the right lane (I should have just gone all the way over once I got in front of him. We play the same game when the light turns green but this time he pulls within a foot of my rear glass at the light. Now that I'm in the proper lane I turn and follow the speed limit. About 1/2 way down the road he pulls into the left turn lane and hovers about 5 feet off my bumper (possibly preparing to roll coal on my GTI). I wait until about 100 yards from the turn and put my signal on. At this point he goes around me, runs the stop sign, turns left and then proceeds to put his POS into coal rolling mode and does S turns down the middle of the two lanes on our side of the road. I waited for an opening an zipped by and gave him the one finger salute as I drove by. Of course at the next stop someone is in the crosswalk. So I had to wait while the shiny happy person drove up again. This time he asks if I'd like to get out and talk about it. (insert ghetto trash language here). I looked at him rolled my eyes and said "whateveeerrrrr" as I drove off. I wish I could have said it like my daughter "What Everrrrrr". In my younger days I probably would have seriously considered his offer. These days I realize that trash like that aren't worth my time.
Damnit.
I'd be working on E36 M3 outside, but the area is full of bastard ass flying blood drinkers. It is way too bitey and itchy to be outside right now.
9 days till July fourth and this the second night in a row my neighbor has been setting off an extensive array of fireworks.
In reply to mad_machine (Forum Supporter) :
BeaveRun used to hold an open autocross on the 4th. That was fun to go to because it got me the hell away from fireworks, and it involved car stuff too!
What's the point? I'm sick of being E36 M3 at all of my hobbies.
You'd think at nearly 40 I'd be used to being such garbage.
mad_machine (Forum Supporter) said:9 days till July fourth and this the second night in a row my neighbor has been setting off an extensive array of fireworks.
I like the pro stuff, but I got over backyard fireworks when I was about 14.
Hey, wake up, there's an alarm going off in the basement and I don't know what it is. Hurry it's probably something really important.
I looked everywhere and it's coming from an area where there's no equipment, but I can't see anything. From the high heat and monsoon we had last night it's crazy humid and damp as hell in the basement. And I finally found it. It's a cat toy that makes squeaky sounds when they play with it. The dampness must have shorted the motion sensor and it sounds just like the type of alarm you'd get from a furnace or water heater, both things we have in the basement.
Oh, I was going to get up anyway... an hour later. Berkeleying cats
mad_machine (Forum Supporter) said:9 days till July fourth and this the second night in a row my neighbor has been setting off an extensive array of fireworks.
Our dog is seriously freaked out by loud noises, so this time of year is really fun for us... we actually got meds for her for the 4th weekend this year. Not to mention the whole state is a tinderbox, with giant fires everywhere and these shiny happy people still have to play with fireworks.
The best thing about modern fireworks is I can sit on my front porch and enjoy everyone else's and not spend a dime. My house is on a little rise on one end of the subdivision so I can see the entire neighborhood shoot them.
Plus #2 is the city fireworks show launches about 500' behind my house so I get to watch that one as well.
Our scaredy dog will want to sit in my lap and be petted all evening and thats OK too. The other dog couldn't care less.
Very minor but plan for your public bathroom doors to swing out. Last thing I need to do after washing my hands is grabbing the pull handle behind people who didn’t wash theirs.
In reply to Crxpilot :
We have a guy at work that leaves the bathroom to walk directly to our kitchenette and wash his hands again. I bet he washes his hands 50x a day.
He constantly contacts our corporate HR with complaints so if I make comments to him I make sure I have witnesses around.
I found out this evening that my uncle passed away at 2am this morning. They discovered more internal bleeding due to an aneurysm on Thursday so the family decided it was time to take him off the breathing machine. I'm sad that he's gone but I take comfort that he's no longer suffering.
RIP Uncle Wayne - 1955-2021
stanger_mussle said:I found out this evening that my uncle passed away at 2am this morning. They discovered more internal bleeding due to an aneurysm on Thursday so the family decided it was time to take him off the breathing machine. I'm sad that he's gone but I take comfort that he's no longer suffering.
RIP Uncle Wayne - 1955-2021
I'm damn sorry to hear that man
In reply to stanger_mussle :
Sorry, man.
Got up early to do the cap and rotor in my truck before it gets too hot.
Freaking cap, though the box and packaging were perfect, is broken and unusable. Abd Amazon wants it back.
Ill have to go buy one for 3x the cost at the parts store, and install it in the heat of the day.
Yay.
A month ago, an impaired (I'm assuming) driver plowed into some landscaping in the front of our house at 1AM. His insurance company told us they accepted liability, and asked me to get estimates for the repair. OK, cool. I called 5 places; 3 eventually showed up to look at the work, and a total of one (1) place gave us a written estimate, that consisted of a picture of a piece of paper that said "Remove damaged trees, plant new ones, $X."
I'm amazed how hard it is to find people to give money in exchange for their services.
mad_machine (Forum Supporter) said:9 days till July fourth and this the second night in a row my neighbor has been setting off an extensive array of fireworks.
The battle has been raging on NextDoor between the "It's a free country" folks and the "But mah furballz!!" anti-fireworks forces. Same E36 M3, every year.
I usually set off some fireworks, but we live in the country and have a few acres where we can set them off a safe distance from any buildings or trees. I decided against it this year, mostly because after the last year I don't particularly feel like supporting Chinese-made products any more than I have to. We'll get some sparklers for the kids, and watch the neighbors blow off their mortars.
You'll need to log in to post.
