Life

[undermind9]

i started with a fan on the bare concrete, it helped...but rain all week i think raised the humidity of the air...and perhaps its just a weird water table issue right there...so im bound to be anxious until i just rip up the room and re-ceramic it myself

 

at least it'll be consistently making me nervous, but i do feel like an edgar allen poe character staring at these "wood" planks and getting on my knees to check if they are swelling or uneven.

 

if i hear beating i'll report back

[clyde]

Owning a house is stressful when you are too lazy and cheap to do repairs in the correct fashion. My wife and I are considering going back to being renters, but the common consensus is that this would be detrimental to our long-term finances. The thing I hate most about the idea is that someone else would have a key to my door; I don't like that at all.

[undermind9]

Ya, certainly half assing something isn't conducsive to proper home ownership. This situation wasn't a crap job, our professional installers couldn't determine a proper course of action and poor communication by the field techs and their management put my wife over the edge.

I liked renting, but when you're done with a place and all have to show is a missing security deposit it really ruins morale

[clyde]

Of course, I was referring to my own laziness and lack of willingness to spend more and more on building supplies. Dealing with "professionals" hasn't been a silver-bullet for us. Finding a contractor that is willing to do the work for a reasonable price, within a designated time frame, and who seems to actually know what they are doing is a near impossibility in my area. And I don't think it's right for me to have a problem with that. A benifit that apartment-buildings have is that the larger ones can keep a maintanence person on salary. From my experience, many times when work is done to a home, by a professional or not, there will often be complications that show up months later. For instance, we had a new roof installed by professionals and a year later there is mold in the attic because the new roof is much tighter (no holes) and additional ventilation was not added. I expected that the contractor might should have expected this since they are more experienced, but nothing was mentioned. And this was the only contractor that didn't jerk us around about dates. My personality type is not cut out for negotiations, spending large amounts of money on things I know little about, or forcing other people to be accountable. Plus, I'm lazy and unskilled. I don't even think I could install a door in this house, especially considering that nothing is the standard size.

[Ucantalas]

In fairness, in my experience, installing doors can be a real pain in the ass. Don't get it in quite right and its rubbing on the floor, or not closing all the way, or one of a hundred other things because you accidentally put it in at a tiny bit of an angle...

[Nachimir]

Hanging doors is a really horrible job. I can do it and I hate it.

 

My dad was once a carpenter. One day he turned up on a site someone had referred him to, found out the job was to hang about fourteen doors, said "Sorry, I don't want this work, bye", and took the day off.

[miffy495]

I had never heard of Kombucha before, but the first paragraph on Wikipedia alone is enough for me to not.

 

My girlfriend drinks kombucha daily and really likes it, so I have tried some out of curiosity. To me, it mostly tastes like you're drinking moldy vinegar. People that like it, more power to you. I believe that it is probably decent for your health. I can't even smell it without gagging though, so I'll stick to black coffee in the mornings.

[Ucantalas]

My girlfriend drinks kombucha daily and really likes it, so I have tried some out of curiosity. To me, it mostly tastes like you're drinking moldy vinegar. People that like it, more power to you. I believe that it is probably decent for your health. I can't even smell it without gagging though, so I'll stick to black coffee in the mornings.

That smell is how you know its healthy!

[Apelsin]

So, the European elections were over the weekend and the results were pretty horrible. Anti-EU, anti-immigrant, homophobic and anti-equality parties got a large piece of the seats available in the parliament. Voting participation was disgustingly low in some places with an estimated 13% participation in Slovakia, 30-ish% in France. I don't know if any country got over 50% participation.

 

Edit: 8/28 Countries got over 50% participation. Denmark at 56,4%, Belgium at 90%, Italy at 60%, Luxembourg at 90%,  Ireland at 51%, Malta at 74% and Greece at 58%. Overall participation for the elections were 43%. 

[Roderick]

Yeah, it's depressing. In the Netherlands there was this whole sentiment that not voting would send a signal that Europe needs to do things differently, but all it communicates is apathy and lethargy. The EU sighs under a huge smear campaign running for decades now. I'm sure there is some waste and corruption at the top, but I don't believe it's as bad as a lot of people claim. Nor is the EU that terribly expensive or restrictive with a great many perceived weird rulings on the shape of bananas. That stuff is either made up, exaggerated or willfully misinterpreted.

 

If the EU were to collapse, it would be hugely destabilizing for the continent.

[Gormongous]

8/28 Countries got over 50% participation. Denmark at 56,4%, Belgium at 90%, Italy at 60%, Luxembourg at 90%,  Ireland at 51%, Malta at 74% and Greece at 58%. Overall participation for the elections were 43%. 

 

Considering that Greece, Belgium, and Luxembourg have compulsory voting laws, albeit all barely enforced, those are incredibly low numbers for them, too.

[Nachimir]

36% here, and the media have been reporting the results as if they were a landslide for anti-EU, anti-immigration party UKIP. Their support actually declined since the last EU elections, but you'd think it was skyrocketing if you watched the news.

 

I've turned away from most coverage in disgust, since there's been so much spin and bollocks attached to it. You don't even have to dig very far to reveal it. Here's a good takedown of pretty much every factoid UK media have been spewing: 

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/local-election-results-2014-aav.html?m=1

[SuperBiasedMan]

So, the European elections were over the weekend and the results were pretty horrible. Anti-EU, anti-immigrant, homophobic and anti-equality parties got a large piece of the seats available in the parliament. Voting participation was disgustingly low in some places with an estimated 13% participation in Slovakia, 30-ish% in France. I don't know if any country got over 50% participation.

 

Edit: 8/28 Countries got over 50% participation. Denmark at 56,4%, Belgium at 90%, Italy at 60%, Luxembourg at 90%,  Ireland at 51%, Malta at 74% and Greece at 58%. Overall participation for the elections were 43%. 

 

*waves irish flag sarcastically*

Kinda surprised we got that much participation, I feel like the general feeling here is that every politician is either corrupt or lazy anyway so you're mostly just choosing the bastard you happen to like. But I guess a lot of people vote based on their family's loyalty (ie. my mam and dad always vote for O'Hannigan so I guess I should too)

 

It said a lot to me that in our local elections (that happened at the same time as the EU ones) over 40% of votes were going to independent candidates. Most people wanted non traditional people voted in... but the 40% was scattered over so many different people, the independents only got about an equal number of seats to the next biggest 2 groups.

[Merus]

All this European racist revival stuff makes me wonder how it compares to our policies. We've got some really terrible immigration policies right now, but we don't really have a racist party (we have One Nation, but One Nation's a joke), which makes me wonder if that means that the racist fringe has a home in the mainstream parties, or that we pulled back from it successfully.

[elmuerte]

People are selfish idiotic assholes. On average they will vote for what benefits them the most right now. All they see is Europe getting money from countries, so that means that their taxes is being funneled to Europe, and thereby to poor countries. But they forget all the benefits which they directly or indirectly get.

[eot]

I use my passport as my id (bad idea I know) and apparently I lost it while I was voting in the EU elections the other day. Some kind person found it and came over with it. Amazing! I'm kinda glad I didn't notice it was gone, because having to study for finals without being able to id myself there = anxiety overload. Didn't have anything on hand to give as a finders fee though, kicking myself for that, but I guess you don't have to pay people to show your appreciation.

[Ucantalas]

I, too, use my passport as ID quite often (because I don't have a driver's license, and very few places will accept my photo health card as valid ID) and losing it while I'm out using it is one of my larger fears.

[Twig]

I also use my passport as my ID!

[Erkki]

Crazy people! Maybe you could get an Estonian ID-card (end of this year). http://taavikotka.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/10-million-e-estonians-by-2025/

[mikemariano]

Hi all!  I am going to Chicago this weekend. (Fri–Wed 5/30–6/4)  I haven't been there since I was a child.

 

I am staying downtown near Navy Pier and am mostly just seeing a lot of theatre and trying to find good vegetarian food.  If any of you are nearby let me know!

[Justin Leego]

[Dewar]

PAX tickets are on sale, just in case anyone here cares.

[Twig]

My friend just got through the queue and 4-day passes are already sold out. Hah.

[SecretAsianMan]

I think I'm skipping PAX this year.  I've been to several now and while I still think they're fun, they're also largely the same thing, only the games change.  Really the only thing that would get me to want to attend PAX is if Campo Santo got a booth.  That and visiting some friends in the Seattle area but I'd rather do that during a less crowded time.

[Dewar]

They intentionally list very few four day passes these days because they want to encourage people to pick up the single days. I believe there were only a couple thousand of them last year, out of 70k total tickets.