h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It used to be just Independence Day and New Years for fireworks, but Texas recently passed a bill opening up 3 more firework holidays; Memorial Day, Texas Independence day, and San Jacinto day (celebrating the defeat of Santa Ana leading to Texas Independence). Each of these holidays is preceded by a week of sales. The bill also rescinded a 2% fireworks tax.

Have you ever had to tell your boss that you were late for work because a fireworks factory was on fire? They don't believe you.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-36283943
Fortunately no-one was hurt.

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Well, of course they're not going to believe you if it happened a year earlier. Being that late is going to require some sort of documentation, a letter from your doctor or a death certificate or something like that.

Ah - you think I should have gone with 'sorry I'm late, but Cæsar crossed the Rubicon' instead?

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Sure.

I don't mind hold music. What bothers me is that they stop every five seconds and say "Please stay on the line, we'll be with you shortly." I'm trying to listen to music here!

The worst is when they say something like "we value your call..."


Oh, REALLY!?

Then answer it!

I had a peach on the phone today.

I called a number and was greeted with the message.

'We are unable to take your call. Please leave a message'.

And was then re-directed to another message which said.....

'You have reached the (something) voicemail system. This person does not subscribe to this service........'

PP.

They do value our calls – the longer we're on the line to them, the more they get.

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My electric toothbrush died a couple of days ago. I rather assumed that the rechargeable battery had given up the ghost and hunted around and bought a replacement today.

When I got home I tried my new toothbrush on the old charger. No charging going on. Tried the old toothbrush on the new charger. Works.

So the old charger was at fault. I've no way of knowing that until I buy a new toothbrush though and it's the simplest and cheapest part.

Grrrrr.

PP.

And I look on the web and I could have bought a new charger.

PP.

Look on the bright side. The next time your toothbrush "packs up" you already have a spare that you can use to test the charger. If the charger is OK then you can use the spare toothbrush. If not, you know that you only have to replace the charger. Simples! (Really Petty Hate: no meerkat smiley!)

Today's PH.
People who drive eg to the station, get out to catch the train & the passenger leaps out to go round & drive the car away. Usually they stop on yellow lines to do so. Why doesn't the passenger drive, then the person catching the train can leap out with least delay. Better still, stop somewhere you're permitted to do so ie leave home earlier!

Un-refillable nicely shaped vinegar bottles.

The plastic lid could screw mon instead of pressing on. Yes Sarsons. I'm looking at you!

PP.

Graduation
This week is Graduation Week, we've two ceremonies a day every day, so the place is full of former students all dressed up loitering around outside all the buildings taking selfies of themselves and group photos of their friends by all the doorways, which makes getting into and out of the building very awkward.
We're also volunteered into helping at graduation, which means that in July we have to wear a full suit and tie plus grad rags on top and spend whole days at a time stood in one spot without moving for eight hours. Then when we get to spend a day actually at work, we've got a few days' worth of work we have to catch up with but can't do if it requires consultation with a different department because everyone there has been volunteered to do graduation.

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Today's Petty Hate: People who don't keep their devices up-to-date. I bought a used Kindle Paperwhite yesterday. When I got it home I connected to our home wifi and tried to register it. I got an error message. OK, I thought, I'll call Amazon tomorrow and try to find out what's wrong. This morning I had a brainwave. Is the software up-to-date? I checked. No, it isn't. I had to update it manually, a simple enough job, but one I shouldn't have had to do.

Now my Kindle is registered. All I have to do now is decide which books to download. All!!!

Books made out of paper can go for hundreds of years without needing software updates.

True, but I can have hundreds of books on my Kindle and I can only have one book in my handbag at a time. And if I finish that one book I'm stuck unless I buy another, which I don't have room for.

Handbag upgrade to one with a greater capacity. The operating system isn't likely to change significantly.

PP.

PH: Rose thorns. I like roses but the thorns on our various wild roses are really vicious!
I also hate the way as soon as I go out & do any gardening at the moment, I'm itchy.