It's Personal...

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:49 am

Possibly confusing her with Jack "King" Kirby.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 4:00 am

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 5:01 am

They're pretty steadfastly gender neutral with Kirby in Japan but that doesn't really matter too much in the US considering that the other famous Kirby is a hall of fame baseball player.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Jan 02, 2016 6:08 am

Ancient History wrote:Possibly confusing her with Jack "King" Kirby.

Indeed he is. I frequently remind him that Jack Kirby's mom was a Kirby too. (or so I presume)

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:33 pm

Medical billing is bullshit. I am tired of entering supposed "payment plans" with medical facilities and having them send me to collections anyway because they want their money now instead of the regular monthly payments they originally were fine with. I am trying to improve my credit but these assholes keep sneaking in bills they don't tell me about for months, letting me make 4 months of a 6 month payment plan then sending the remainder to a collection agency rather than waiting those two months for the rest of their money, and generally making agreements with me then going back on them despite me keeping up my end of the bargain.

You know, if I wanted my credit to constantly get worse I could be blowing my money on beer, porn, and video games again and still have the same results as I am not doing any of those things and being "responsible". I might as well be telling the hospital to piss off, I'm not paying them.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jan 09, 2016 1:46 pm

I just wanted to say that I am deeply, deeply sorry for the petition thread. I honestly don't know why I did that, as that kind of thing isn't like me. I promise that nothing like that will ever happen again, and I wish I'd never even thought of the goddamn thing in the first place.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jan 09, 2016 11:03 pm

Sometimes i really think karma is a thing that exists . . Fuck. THAT. Shit!
I went to watch star wars 7 with buddies, had a good enough time . .
Came home to find a message that my mother is in hospital with several fractures in her leg because she slipped on ice. 100KM away from home visiting my grandmother . .

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jan 10, 2016 2:15 am

Stahlseele wrote:Sometimes i really think karma is a thing that exists . . Fuck. THAT. Shit!
I went to watch star wars 7 with buddies, had a good enough time . .
Came home to find a message that my mother is in hospital with several fractures in her leg because she slipped on ice. 100KM away from home visiting my grandmother . .

Don't, man. It's not your fault. What could you have done?

You didn't pour water out to freeze, did you? It sucks that you weren't there, but it's not your fault.

On my end, a great aunt, one of the last of my grandmother's generation, she passed away last night at about 80 years old. She'd been declining for a while, but a lot of stuff jumped her at once.

So I get to go to another funeral soon. I hope they don't ask me to pallbear. That'd bring my count up to 7 on that particular duty.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jan 10, 2016 2:37 am

My condolences to you Maxus.
I only had to bury my father and my grandfather yet, but that was hard enough already.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Jan 10, 2016 4:35 am

How 2016 has been treating my family so far:

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sun Jan 10, 2016 6:03 pm

My deepest sympathies to all three of you.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 12:20 am

Went to the wake. It was nice. I'm amazed my great-aunt lived as long as she did with her kids being the hellraisers they were, to hear the familial anecdotes.

One of the three sons accidentally hit the other one in the skull.

With an axe.

The beaxed one has had a plate in his skull since his teenage years and now he's not far off of sixty.

That's not even the craziest story.

So I guess all the disaster-prone bad luck ended up in that branch of the family.

It was good to see everyone and I didn't get asked to carry the box with a loved one in it again. So it was nice, really.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 12:57 am

Maxus wrote: One of the three sons accidentally hit the other one in the skull.

With an axe.

The beaxed one has had a plate in his skull since his teenage years and now he's not far off of sixty.

That's not even the craziest story.

Well now we want the craziest story.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Jan 12, 2016 3:17 am

Hiram McDaniels wrote:
Maxus wrote: One of the three sons accidentally hit the other one in the skull.

With an axe.

The beaxed one has had a plate in his skull since his teenage years and now he's not far off of sixty.

That's not even the craziest story.
Well now we want the craziest story.

The youngest son stole his mom's car when he was 15, grabbed a bunch of dope, and ran off with two of his friends to the nearest state line and spent a week causing a lot of "trouble" which no one was willing to explain for me.

Or how about how the one who'd been holding the axe in the headaxing incident, he had a motorcycle wreck when a truck pulled out in front of him, and landed seventy-two feet away from the truck/his bike. This happened because he went high enough to snap off an overhanging limb about twenty or thirty feet off the ground feet off the ground. Which somehow altered his trajectory to something flatter so he didn't fall straight down, evidently he hit at an angle and slid on his back for a few dozen feet.

That tree branch is what saved his life. Even though sliding on the asphault gave him some incredible scars on his back. And hitting the tree branch gave him this huge knot on one shoulder which is still there.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 1:10 am

Dropped into the college counselor's office today to petition for my Journalism AA.

There are several things that make this a sentence that should be read like "I got teeth pulled today."

First, the counseling office apparently cannot figure out how to work an appointment book. The book opens once every two weeks, at 7am on Friday. People must call then, to try try to get an appointment sometime during the next two weeks. This is of course less likely than finding gold in the toilet after you take a shit. The only other recourse is to drop in, and hope someone doesn't show up for their appointment.

So today, I dropped in about 12:45pm, and proceeded to wait nearly four hours. Which is fine, I knew what to expect, I brought my laptop. I have the Discworld book I'm currently rereading on my phone. I dozed off for about ten minutes, I'd say. I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack for possibly the hundredth time.

The other problem with this process is that, well, I even have to go through it. For some reason, my college decided that I needed to actually sit in the counselor's office while they cross reference a degree's requirements with my transcript.

I have no clue.

Finally, add to this the fact that the counselor who I met with has apparently been at the college for 40 years. And this shows. And not in a positive way. There were multiple times I wanted to say "just tell me what requirement you're checking, I'll point it out on my transcript" or "that's something I wrote, would you like me to read it to you so you don't have to strain your ancient eyes?"

But as the next appointment is standing outside the door, I'm beginning to find out that because I'm trying to get an AA for transfer, rather than the literally not possible to get Journalism AA, I have to take a math class and an english reading class, testing out is not an option, despite the amazingly low standards (like, Algebra 2).

Somehow, I managed to talk to the Dean of counseling before leaving, and walked out with an actual appointment set up, against the entire bureaucracy of the system, but it still looks like I'm going to wind up taking another pair of classes.

I just took two classes that were supposed to be "just these last two classes."

I swear on all that is supposed to be holy, if I have to spend any more time at that college, I'm going to demand a fucking paycheck.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 1:15 am

Great Jeebus, my county must have a lot of jury-duty dodgers.

I've got another Jury summons. My last was two years ago. And then two years before that. So basically every even-numbered year, I'm getting called for jury duty.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 1:19 am

It's actually really easy to get out of jury duty. Just tell them you have critical thinking skills or ties to law enforcement.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 1:44 am

Prak wrote:It's actually really easy to get out of jury duty. Just tell them you have critical thinking skills or ties to law enforcement.

I'm not going to dodge it, it's a civic duty and thanks thanks to various factors in my life, hanging out here among them, I take those seriously. So I'm going to fulfill it seriously and soberly and to the best of my ability. Because I can count on myself to try to be fair, I can't say that for others.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 1:47 am

Oh sure, if I ever actually get called for jury duty, I intend to show up too (I've gotten the letters, but never been required to show up). I was more explaining how there could be so many dodgers.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 2:53 am

There's something wrong with you two.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:13 am

You mean the fact that we are genuinely interested in giving back to the social construct which we rely on?

Yeah, we're deranged mutants in this country.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:18 am

Jury duty ain't no big thing. Of course the one time I showed up, it lasted a day, and I didn't have hear a case, and I'll never be a juror again for as long as I live... so I guess my perspective is somewhat limited.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:21 am

I kind of just want to do it once. I see it as a civic duty. I've been sent letters something like three times, and one I deferred because I was literally out of state. The other times, I checked online each day, and my group wasn't required to come in.

I mean, it's nice to not have to go downtown and sit there and wait, especially since I'm pretty sure that they will not select me if they ask what I majored in at college (anecdotal, but still); but I'd like to do the token civic duty thing.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Jan 16, 2016 4:51 am

I've been called for jury duty exactly once and the prosecutor kicked me off pretty much immediately. I have no idea what evidence was actually presented at trial, but during juror evaluation the prosecutor talked almost exclusively about eye witness testimony. I remember frowning briefly at something he said, which he must have picked up, because he singled me out for some specific questions about a personal hypothetical and then later he gave me the boot. I'm pretty sure the prosecutor was checking to make sure he would not end up with someone like me on the jury.

I can't say the experience filled me with a lot of confidence, but I also can't say I know exactly what could have happened differently to make it less unsettling. But the prospect of a murder conviction based on the testimony of a single eye witness is pretty fucking heavy.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Jan 16, 2016 5:14 am

Prak's experiences with his degree resembles my attempt at my second attempt at higher education. Except I had my financial aid yoinked out from under my feet because the classes they assured me I have to take and couldn't test out of (algebra II was one of them in fact) were not necessary and I got hit with taking too many classes. Also there was a one credit class that I couldn't pass for the life of me. I went from being on the Dean's list every semester to getting on academic probation because of that shit. If anyone tells you going to trade school to learn a new trade is a good idea you can spit in his eye for me, I got raped in a figurative and financial sense.

Also, I've never been selected for jury duty ever. I kind of think they would disqualify me somewhat shortly if I just drop my filter.