PhobosAnomaly

I used to do some operator work for a major UK telecoms firm.

Because it was free, you had all sorts of people phoning it. A good chunk of them were just old folk who were lonely and just wanted someone to speak to.

It was nice. Some of us had additional roles too and we were generally left alone if there was nothing else to do, so it was nice talking about people’s families and interests, and hearing their voices brighten over the course of five or ten minutes.

Growing old alone must suck.

I got 21 of 24. The NI Assembly question threw me for an absolute loop.

could have got some mad skillz real time Hegseth updates if you hadn’t!

Speaking of kids, the defining scene of General Morpugo had me in tears. It’s not often a book breaks me down like that, but there we are.

Usually it’s Weintraub’s story that does it for folk, but not for me.

I read it based on John Romero’s declaration that it was his favourite book.

I didn’t really care much for the stories, but the worldbuilding was absolutely stunning.

It’s funny, because a boy I used to work with in a major UK city centre with lots of traffic congestion used to say “go for the gap in front of the ones with a nice car, they’ll stop”.

That’s utterly bizarre. I can see why some tosser would come up with the idea of jacking up the prices, but my experience of most major events like the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games is that most transport is either included in your ticket, or just outright free.

Even when I’ve been living close to an event, I’ve not had the bad experience of paying inflated prices - rather just benefitted from the free shuttle buses that float about instead.

That’s some next level shithousery by that bus firm.

whatcha gonna do

when lemmymania runs wild

on you?

my guy appreciates a sample size

I’d love to visit - that area in particular for a cheeky photo under the Revolution sign.

Isn’t Safeway a US firm at it’s root?

I may be wrong. Safeway largely evaporated as a brand in the UK. Shame, I used to quite enjoy working there, good craic.

Jesus, my son wanted to add a classmate as a friend on Xbox Live last night. It should have been a two step process from a parent perspective: Authenticate, then authorise (though the lad was delegated the task of the latter technically).

When he tried to add the friend, I had to:

1. Enter my parental code (fair enough);
2. Enter my Microsoft Account password because it was apparently a transaction involving personal data;
3. Scan the QR code to do this on another device (admittedly optional);
4. Enter the email address of my MS account;
5. Enter the 2FA code emailed to me;
6. Stop the passkey creation process;
7. Confirm that I didn’t want a passkey;
8. Skip the age verification;
9. Turn off the personalised ads

Just so he could get to the point where he could select “add as a friend”, what the actual fuck

It’ll be the biggest exoneration, like no exoneration that has ever been seen before. I was on the phone to Chy-naaa and they came to me and said “Mr President, how do you put on such a good exoneration?”

Large coffees in a coffee shop are about the same price as a pint these days so you might as well.

Unless you’ve got the motor of course, then don’t be a dafty.

Maybe I’m just showing my age but I felt a bit of a gut punch when I asked for two large coffees at the till, and a tenner wasn’t enough to cover them. Fuck me.

A friend of mine got a phone call at daft o’clock one evening from his son who hadn’t turned up home.

“Dad, can you pick me up from the city centre please?”

Bear in mind that he lived in a smaller town 40 miles or so from the city; on a bus route that spanned two cities about 90 miles apart.

Turns out that he had been taught how to board a bus; ask for a ticket; pay; and take a seat… but never learned how to leave a bus.

His dad was understandably pissed off, having been kicked out of bed at midnight to do a near two-hour round trip drive to pick his lad up. He asking him why he hadn’t pushed the bell to signal the driver to stop.

“I thought they were just emergency stop buttons, and because I told the driver where I was going when I got the ticket, I thought he would stop for me… and when he didn’t, I just sat and waited until the end of the line”.

Poor soul.

Like Wreckfest, but with wings and maps.

Sounds like a laugh.

Yeah but the weather’s nice isn’t it. Suns oot, taps aff, might as well go and join a radgey outside a golf course.

edit: this sounds like I’m being flippant, I’m not. Crack on boys and girls, go wild

I still buy the odd paper if I’m working away from home.

These paywalls or “pay for no tracking” wankers make it easy to decide what papers not to buy.

Not that it really matters a flying fuck when print membership is sinking faster than the Oceangate grain of sub. It’s satisfying though.

There’s nothing worse when an appliance fails and you’re flicking through the future purchases like a rolodex in your head, figuring out which ones to push back a month to squeeze in a repair or new appliance.

It’s basically this but with future purchases:

yeah nah absolutely happy for the correction!

Fuck me, two tonnes? I bought myself an EV a few months back in an estate shape to replace my diesel estate, and honestly I hadn’t noticed much of a difference. I assume the drivetrains are a bit lighter but the batteries are a lot heavier than a tank full of dino juice.