What made me unhappy today ?

This happened to a coworker of mine, not me, but I couldn't resist not passing it along.

Our accounts department has five workers (me and four others) plus our boss. One of the tasks that they all do is send out weekly bills and statements to customers - standard stuff. (I don't have customers, but I deal with payments, among other things). When I run out of stuff to do, I help them with the mailout.

Anyway, she told me that if I find more than one bill for any given customer (John Smith or Jane Robinson, etc.), I should not put them in separate envelopes, but stuff one envelope with them all. Naturally, I asked why.

Then she told me that the last time she put two bills in two envelopes for one client, he shouted and complained along the lines of "You sent me TWO envelopes instead of ONE! You're wasting paper!! How dare you not be more environmentally conscious?! YOU'RE RUINING THE PLANET!!!" etc.

So I was unhappy for her, but I couldn't help cracking up. Dude. It's an ENVELOPE. Something that costs all of 10 cents. The planet will be fine. But I think you need a hobby. ;)
 
I can't say it made me unhappy today, but it's made me unhappy every trip we've taken.

The story is timeless. A gentle whisper in your inner ear tantalizes an epic. All that stands between you and fame and legend is a little time with your laptop — and there you are as the whisper grows stronger, in the hotel lobby, checking in, a day before responsibilities catch up to you.

In the room, stow the bags, deploy the laptop sit down to create, and then it happens. The chair sinks to the floor. The desk would have been a little too high, anyway. With your kneecaps at eye level the desk is an unreachable mesa. It's useless.

The front desk will swap chairs, but they either don't get it or relish in the schadenfreude of your quest to write.

Every chair at every hotel world wide is equipped with failed hydraulic struts. It's a given. It's also a given I've reached my limit.

A few months ago I found a folding camp table with adjustable legs. Desk at writing height, not typing height? Not my problem, as long as I can keep the chair from collapsing into a kiddie stool.

Last week I found something on Amazon called an Office Chair Sinking Fix Kit. It's a set of four cylindrical devices that go around that cursed strut to block it from drooping. I can block up to about 5 inches of strut travel, and I know what you're thinking.

It would have worked if only I could have thwarted another inch or two of dropsy.

So I got another kit. LJZP 3 pack Fix Sinking Office Chair. And then I realized the real solution. Bronze ground rod clamps. Two or three, spanning 3/4 inch to two inch should handle any strut out there.

Another two weeks and it looks like I'll get my first live test of the system.

So there, evil hotel chairs! I shall write despite you!
 
I can't say it made me unhappy today, but it's made me unhappy every trip we've taken.

The story is timeless. A gentle whisper in your inner ear tantalizes an epic. All that stands between you and fame and legend is a little time with your laptop — and there you are as the whisper grows stronger, in the hotel lobby, checking in, a day before responsibilities catch up to you.

In the room, stow the bags, deploy the laptop sit down to create, and then it happens. The chair sinks to the floor. The desk would have been a little too high, anyway. With your kneecaps at eye level the desk is an unreachable mesa. It's useless.

The front desk will swap chairs, but they either don't get it or relish in the schadenfreude of your quest to write.

Every chair at every hotel world wide is equipped with failed hydraulic struts. It's a given. It's also a given I've reached my limit.

A few months ago I found a folding camp table with adjustable legs. Desk at writing height, not typing height? Not my problem, as long as I can keep the chair from collapsing into a kiddie stool.

Last week I found something on Amazon called an Office Chair Sinking Fix Kit. It's a set of four cylindrical devices that go around that cursed strut to block it from drooping. I can block up to about 5 inches of strut travel, and I know what you're thinking.

It would have worked if only I could have thwarted another inch or two of dropsy.

So I got another kit. LJZP 3 pack Fix Sinking Office Chair. And then I realized the real solution. Bronze ground rod clamps. Two or three, spanning 3/4 inch to two inch should handle any strut out there.

Another two weeks and it looks like I'll get my first live test of the system.

So there, evil hotel chairs! I shall write despite you!
This is true dedication.
 
I am trying to avoid Reddit for the moment but I did look at the r/teachers thread and.....I'm terrified for the future of North America.



[HOW THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?! Do you confuse the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika?????? I know dyslexia is a thing, is there a similar condition for symbols where people mix up symbols??? It must be fucking scary to go to school with people that ignorant if you're Jewish....]

I don't understand why Harry Potter was THE BOOK two decades ago and now it's completely disappeared from children's lives. Regardless of how anyone feels about the author's political views, the entire series was an AWESOME story. I mean...magic! Friendship! A secret magical school! Wizards! Witches! Dragons! Flying broomsticks!

Is this because of the ability to see anything and everything on a screen? Like there's Harry Potter movies, apparently a tv show, audiobooks, but there's also things like Lego Harry Potter, Harry Potter colouring books, Harry Potter recipe books, etc, etc, surely some of this would make children WANT to read the books?

I do feel that audio books are a lifesaver for people who have dyslexia but if you're capable of reading....what's the appeal of an audiobook over a physical book?

Anyways...the scary part is that while this is on the decline in North America, it's on the rise in other countries where people still read physical books. Those individuals are going to be completing with the people in North America down the line for employment and educational opportunities.....
 
I don't understand why Harry Potter was THE BOOK two decades ago and now it's completely disappeared from children's lives. Regardless of how anyone feels about the author's political views, the entire series was an AWESOME story. I mean...magic! Friendship! A secret magical school! Wizards! Witches! Dragons! Flying broomsticks!
The books are on various school banned book lists because of "magic" perceived sationism, and "anti-christian" values.
 
I probably have covid 19. It feels like I do. 😨

I hope you can see a doctor ASAP. If you feel that bad, don't neglect it. :( Maybe go to the nearest ER and ask to be looked at.

[HOW THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?! Do you confuse the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika?????? I know dyslexia is a thing, is there a similar condition for symbols where people mix up symbols??? It must be fucking scary to go to school with people that ignorant if you're Jewish....]

I'm Jewish, and I would definitely avoid anyone who thinks like that. :eek:

As for someone who thinks that snow didn't exist 100 years ago ... sigh. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.

I don't understand why Harry Potter was THE BOOK two decades ago and now it's completely disappeared from children's lives. Regardless of how anyone feels about the author's political views, the entire series was an AWESOME story. I mean...magic! Friendship! A secret magical school! Wizards! Witches! Dragons! Flying broomsticks!

As JT Woody said, some schools decided to ban HP because they confused "magic" with Satanism, and furthermore equated Satanism with "EVIL!!! BURN IT!!! RAH!!!" ... OK. So what does that make you? :rolleyes:

Whenever the subject of banning books comes up, I'm reminded of an anecdote about Thomas Hardy's publication of Jude the Obscure (1895). The novel was released to great furor, and a bishop went so far as to burn it at the stake.

Hardy took this phlegmatically, ascribing the action to the ecclesiastic's chagrin, "presumably, at not being able to burn me."
 
The interactive illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is on B&N's list of most anticipated children's books for 2025. B&N Of course, millennials may be supplying most of the anticipation. My millennial daughter has at least three versions of the series, included the illustrated one.

The Harry Potter series provided a revolutionary impact on children's literature akin to the impact of Star Wars on cinema in 1977. The last HP novel was published almost a generation ago in 2007. Kids still read the books, but the revolution is over and HP is just an old series from their parents' generation. My grandson started reading the series when he was around 9 or 10. A hundred pages into The Goblet of Fire, he got too bored to continue. He isn't a literary Philistine; the series simply doesn't speak to him the way it spoke to my children.
 
The Harry Potter series provided a revolutionary impact on children's literature akin to the impact of Star Wars on cinema in 1977. ....the series simply doesn't speak to him the way it spoke to my children.
HOW does something so revolutionary just fade in less than a generation???

You're a 1,000% correct about the revolutionary impact on children's literature and I absolutely thought it would last for several decades, maybe even a century. I was thinking when the series was going and going and going that it was going to come close to the works that William Shakespeare or Mary Shelley or Jane Austen had produced simply because it impacted so many young people that were going to grow up and pass the love of the series down to their own children and grandchildren. But....the love of reading that I saw JK Rowling start in children seems to have faded away.

It's not like only the snobbish elite of society that went to private schools got to read these works. It's not like only a small percentage of the population was literate.

Sigh. I absolutely LOVED what JK Rowling did for getting children and youth (and adults) to read but.....it's too bad it didn't continue. It really would have helped society a lot if people were more than basically literate.
 
HOW does something so revolutionary just fade in less than a generation???

You're a 1,000% correct about the revolutionary impact on children's literature and I absolutely thought it would last for several decades, maybe even a century. I was thinking when the series was going and going and going that it was going to come close to the works that William Shakespeare or Mary Shelley or Jane Austen had produced simply because it impacted so many young people that were going to grow up and pass the love of the series down to their own children and grandchildren. But....the love of reading that I saw JK Rowling start in children seems to have faded away.

It's not like only the snobbish elite of society that went to private schools got to read these works. It's not like only a small percentage of the population was literate.

Sigh. I absolutely LOVED what JK Rowling did for getting children and youth (and adults) to read but.....it's too bad it didn't continue. It really would have helped society a lot if people were more than basically literate.
i've honestly never read any of the books. i was in the 2nd grade when my generation started reading them. the books were in my classroom library, too. i just didnt have an interest.
I was a Goosebumps and Anamorphs girl. (and Gardians of Gahoole). Then I read everything by Sharon Creech and became obsessed with Gloria Whelan (i even asked my school librarian to help me write her and i still have the postcard I got back in response).I didnt get into reading fantasy until maybe 5th or 6th grade, and by then, I was well in to the movies and still had no interest in the books
 
HOW does something so revolutionary just fade in less than a generation???
Back on Old Town, I made several references to confusion over cultural references at work. My colleagues are in their thirties. I mentioned Darth Vader to two of them recently and my enquiry to their blank looks was "was he in Lord of the Rings?" I'll add they're both intelligent and read quite a bit.
 
P.G. Wodehouse's book, Cocktail Time, (fiction of course) features a novel that appeared to indifferent reviews, and languished in whatever bookstore could be persuaded to carry it, until a prominent churchman found his daughter reading it, and he was appalled by its relative sexual candor, so he lambasted it in a sermon, and the news spread, making it a best-seller.
 
Personally I though Harry Potter was very over hyped, the actual writing is awful... its like a 101 in overuse of adverbs... harry and co do absolutely everything 'ly.. My wife has it on audio book and its painful to listen to
 
I feel like Harry Potter really ignited a passion for books in elementary aged children, to the point that they wanted to head to the store and get the HP sequels on the first day of release. I read them too, once my relative was done with their set. So IMO, it was a good phenomenon.

Children these days are used to tablets. They get visual and audio, and they get engrossed in short clips from Tiktok, etc. at younger and younger ages. That means they have shorter attention spans and don't use their imagination as much. Some kids think there is no need to read as there are text-to-speech functions on devices.
 
Personally I though Harry Potter was very over hyped, the actual writing is awful... its like a 101 in overuse of adverbs... harry and co do absolutely everything 'ly.. My wife has it on audio book and its painful to listen to
Agreed. I read the first two books and wasn't too impressed.

Also, whenever someone is embarrassed or angry ... they "go red". Harry went red. Hermione went red. So-and-so went red.

Give me a break, please ...
 
P.G. Wodehouse's book, Cocktail Time, (fiction of course) features a novel that appeared to indifferent reviews, and languished in whatever bookstore could be persuaded to carry it, until a prominent churchman found his daughter reading it, and he was appalled by its relative sexual candor, so he lambasted it in a sermon, and the news spread, making it a best-seller.
On that note, I'd like to thank Tipper Gore and the PMRC for their parental advisory labels that roadmapped my musical journey when I was kid.
 
Rowling ignited a passion for Harry Potter books. To suggest that the series single-handedly inspired an entire generation to read anything beyond the series may be stretching reality a bit. I agree with Edamame that it was a good phenomenon, but I suspect it had a limited range.
 
Back on Old Town, I made several references to confusion over cultural references at work. My colleagues are in their thirties. I mentioned Darth Vader to two of them recently and my enquiry to their blank looks was "was he in Lord of the Rings?" I'll add they're both intelligent and read quite a bit.
Jimi Hendrix died a bit before I was born. I had an adult student, college grad, person with a career and two kids, ask me "Who's Jimi Hendrix?" when his name came up in a lesson on comparisons and superlatives.
 
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