Little Things That Totally P*SS Me Off

My Printer

I have one of those HP "all in one" printers that scans and prints... frankly that barely scratches the surface of all the things one thing can do, so I have no idea why its called "ALL in one"... but that isn't what totally P*SSES me off.  Its the fact that every time I print something, it pompously spews out a blank sheet at the end.  Does this thing think that paper grows on trees.... SHUT UP!  I know where paper comes from.

You would think that there was a setting somewhere where I could tell it to stop doing that.  I'm tired of printing something, stacking the spare unused piece of paper on top of it for later introduction back into the queue of soon to be printed paper, only to have to relocate the pile when I want to scan something.  Yes, I would suppose that at that time I should shove it into the tray, but that's not the point.  It shouldn't be there in the first place.

I looked through the settings and found nothing... of course.  No button to click that said "press here to stop the annoying waste of paper when you print", nothing.  So I Google searched and found one person bitching about the same thing on an HP help forum... with no answer.

FINE

So I look around some more and find some people complaining about it, and an actual step by step process to make it stop:
1.) reboot your computer.  Seriously?  That's the oldest trick in the lame tech support book.
2.) Preview your document before you print it to see if you application is putting a blank page at the end.  Seriously?  That's the second oldest trick in the lame tech support book: blame every application or device but your own.
3.) Re-install your printer driver.  Seriously?  It was a pain in the ass enough getting it installed in the first place, what makes you think that re-installing the exact same printer driver is going to stop something that has no setting?  Are there viruses out there that infect your printer driver to cause it to slowly drive you insane by printing a blank page after everything you print out?  I don't think so.

Therefore... no solution... yet.  I still haven't tried Step 4: beat it with a hammer.

Women's Dress Pants

I inherited my shopping gene from my father, which means I know what I want, I swoop into the store, grab it and head straight to the check-out counter, pay for it and flee. I don't want to try anything on, it should be sized so that I know what size I need, but thanks to self-conscious, vain women or manufacturers who think that all women are self-conscious and vain, women's pants sizes are in some alien language and measurement that varies from type of pants, to manufacturers, to types of fabric.  I'm pretty sure that places that make women's pants just make up a fucking size and slap them on random pants because no two pair of pants are the same fucking size!

I only have to guess that women around the world would fall dead if they had to actually pick a pair of pants that was sized by their ACTUAL measurements (frankly I see the return of actual measurements as a handy thing in the "war of obesity"... which isn't an actual war, just something NATO wanted us to do without congressional approval), so some elaborate measurement system was thought up to keep women "fooled" by thinking that if they wear a "2" they are wafer model thin without realizing that "2" is really heifer size outside of Hollyweird.

So, while men have a size chart that includes ONE chart (for shirts), women have the following convoluted non-standard charts:
Misses
Misses Petite
Junior
Junior Petite
Young Junior
Women's
Half sizes

Then there's the "catalog sizes".  Since around 1980 Companies were allowed to just make their sizes up, and they can vary among different styles of the same freakin pants!  So, even if you figure out what size you are in a store, depending on the brand, type, and style, if you buy something from a catalog, you are DOOMED because they just go all rogue and do whatever they damn well want. 

So, instead of going into a store and thinking "hmm, I need some pants... these look nice, and they're my size 36X34", you go into a store, try to find a department that fits your age, style, and price range (for instance, one department store has what I call the "I'm 12 and want to look like a street walker" section), stand in front of a rack of pants and cry, because you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT 2 petite/slim/junior/half FREAKING MEANS other than you'll spend about 6 hours trying on the same style of pants in 14 different sizes and none of them fit.

That's not even the worst part... the worst part is the fact that apparently its against the law to put pockets in women's dress pants.  I'm sure it also a vanity thing, because after you finally find a pair of pants that fit, the LAST thing a woman wants is to have an unsightly bulge somewhere (unlike some congressmen), so 99% of women's dress pants don't have pockets... unless they are decorative pockets. 

SERIOUSLY WTF is up with decorative pockets?

Is it the assumption that since women carry handbags there's no need for pockets?  I hate to inform you all, but only 80 year old woman carry their purses EVERYWHERE, and anyone younger than 80 who carries their bag to the bathroom is sending out the international "I'M ON MY PERIOD" signal, because they can't tuck their period junk in a pocket that doesn't exist!

The first company that designs women's dress pants with pockets and with the right freakin sizes, will be the ONLY company I buy my pants from... even if they make them out of freakin marmoset skin, I'm still in!

So, in case you are wondering, yes... I went out to find a pair of women's dress pants, and in a fit of rage, I bought a pair of men's cargo dockers... AND I DON'T F'ING CARE!

Shopping With Lobster Man

Before Thanksgiving I had to run to the store and pick up a few things so we could survive 5 whole days without leaving the house.  Nothing says holidays like stocking up on supplies and pretending the whole world has ended and your whole existence is the inside of your house... which is pretty much how we see the "holidays" between November and January.

Ok, so its not like the whole world has ended, its more like the whole world has lost its mind and in the spirit of giving and love, will shoot you for a parking spot at the mall.

I will spare you the usual whining and complaining of going to Costco, then Bed Bath & Beyond, and that's just what I was saying, you have no idea what Lobsterman was keening and screaming about, and frankly I won't put you through it.

Needless to say, the highlight of our trip was standing in line at BB&B with an arm full of k-cup boxes.  BB&B always tries to sucker you into buying some strange item or another by filling their checkout counters with so much crap, that invariably you'll knock something over and be forced to buy it when it breaks.  You barely have enough room to slap up that gargantuan comforter or pillows for scanning without buying half the "as seen on tv" crap they're trying to get rid of.

This time, I actually saw something that looked promising and pointed it out to Loberster Man:

"look, there's something you need! Its a Lotion Applicator Back Brush!"

Lobster Man is always complaining about having itchy dry back skin so I figured that would be the solution to all of his problems and one less thing to complain about.

He looked at it carefully and then said:
"But that's what you're for".

AWWWW!  Nothing says love like realizing that I'm only around to slather lotion on his dry scaly back!  He knows just the right things to say to win over a woman. 

In my head:

Grocery Shopping with Lobsterman

As usual, after Lobsterman goes on his vroomy ride, we meet at Starbucks and chat with each other via Facebook.

I told him that he was all out of lemonade drink so we needed to go to the grocery store for more.  He HATES the grocery store, but since I claimed that I didn't know which exact special brand of lemonade drink he liked, he begrudgingly agreed to follow me to make sure I got the right stuff.  Its a hard name to remember:

I mean seriously, how can he expect me to remember THAT! 

We walk in, and he immediately realizes that it isn't the store across town where he knows EXACTLY where the stuff is, this store is different.  He's thrown off by the juice section that is "natural" juices, and claims that "Simply Lemonade" is simply lemonade, so it should be in the "natural" juice section because how much more natural can something called "simply lemonade" be? 

Apparently its not "natural" enough for the natural food section (although Starbucks mocha frappucino is there, and THAT'S hardly natural), so we begin to wander toward the back dairy section where the other unnatural juices are kept.

I spy the new apple/cinnamon Cheerios, which sounded uber tasty right then.  I wondered (aloud) whether they would have the same razor sharp knobs on them like Apple Jacks.  I LOVE Apple Jacks, but they somehow bind cinnamon-apple shards of glass on them that rip your mouth to shreds.  Very tasty until your mouth fills with blood and that's all you can taste.  Lobsterman ignores my Apple Jacks rant, as usual and we get to the juice section and find his tasty beverage.  I tell him to get two (because I'm NOT going back to the store for more this week), then announce that we must walk all the way back to the other side of the store because now I must have the apple/cinnamon Cheerios or else I shall die... but manage to grab a dozen eggs along the Bataan death march for Cheerios.

"OHMYGAWD, don't get eggs, they're dangerous!" Lobersterman tells me.  "They've killed people."

"You make it sound like people are asleep in their homes and eggs come out of the fridge and stab them." Since Lobsterman is going on a long vroomy ride during the week, I have major plans for a gigantic gooey egg salad sandwich for dinner, which will involve hosing myself off afterward.  As Lobsterman can't stand the smell of egg salad, its my only opportunity to indulge in some messy comfort food.  I'll wash it all down with some apple/cinnamon Cheerios for dessert.


"I can't believe you're getting killer eggs"

"These are pasturized!" I inform him

"Oh, even worse, they're free-range killer eggs, and you're buying cereal, which means they're free-range cereal killer eggs!"

"I seriously have no idea why I keep bringing you to the store" I grab the Cheerios and head for the check-out line to see if there's a new grotesque picture of the dying Mouseketeer Annette... I'm not disappointed.  I also know he says these things hoping that I will stop bringing him to the store... I'm not stupid.

Distracted

Today I finished off the last bit of the taxes, going over them to make sure that TurboTax didn’t botch something up or anything. Dragging hubby by the ear, I made him sit down and sign them so I could get them in the mail and then anxiously wait on my whatever bribe name they’re calling it money to be sent in May. While the government wants me to go out and spend that on new junk, I think I’ll use it to pay down on a credit card that I used to buy old junk, which I’m sure will disappoint our Nation’s leaders, but screw them.

After that traumatic experience, I decided to go get some groceries so off I went, driving to the store. Got out of the truck, started walking to the store and thought “gee, my bag is awful light”. Yep, I had taken my wallet out and forgot to put it back in.

Its funny how you can drive like a loony to the store when all along you didn’t have your drivers license with you, but on the way back you feel as though your truck has a bullseye on it for the police to find you, and you drive like a 90 year old cataract patient.

Got home and I almost said screw it about going back. Its raining and cold here today, just overall gloomy and I really didn’t feel like going all the way back (3 whole miles) to the store, but I did. My main motivation was the fact that our milk was expiring and I wouldn’t have any to make latte. Frankly if we had nothing to eat in the house buy dog food, but we had milk, I wouldn’t go to the store, but when that milk gets close to expiring, the wonders of motivation.

I managed to get the two things we really needed: milk, bread, and entemann’s donuts. Ok, we didn’t really need the donuts, but after taxes I felt that I actually did NEED them, and they do go well with milk, so why not.