The Anecdote Thread.......

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The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Fri May 25, 2012 1:35 pm

We have the "HOH OFFICIAL - Good Morning/Day/Night thread..." here, but I was wondering if this "Off topic" section of the forum could support a thread where we share little stories about what's happening to us. I was thinking along the lines of those "That's Life" columns you see in the local newspaper where the local wag writes a column about the mother-in-law, or as in the case of my own local paper this week, a story about coming home from a Spring vacation to find the yard totally overgrown and needing many hours of work. You know what I'm driving at, sharing something small with the others that might give them a smile about daily life. We already have a couple of threads for venting and shaking our heads about the amazing stupidity of some people. How about something a tad more positive? Anything not positive that gets posted here could be moved to one of the other already existing threads.

Here's what happened to me today:

The company that sells me heating oil seems to like to be paid for their last delivery before they will bring more. Only in the coldest of winters will they bring me more automatically before they receive payment for the last delivery. Sometimes my tank gets really low between fills. If they want to be paid more promptly, they should get their billing system in order. Sometimes I don't get a bill during a winter month because of the weather and when they automatically come (they estimate when to deliver based on how cold it's been.) and then get around to invoicing me.

At the end of the heating season usually at some point in May, they will come one last time to top off my oil tank. This ensures a supply at the start of the next season, and prevents rusting of the walls of the storage tank. They also send me a bill for a "furnace plan" that will pay for most repairs and insures that they come right away, any time of day, any day of the week during the heating season. It's been worth it in the past, so I pay it. Cleaning and an annual tune up are included. I paid this bill at the beginning of the month.

Today the jet stream is dipping very low in the West of the continent, and has moved farther north than usual here in the East. As a result we are getting the heat and humidity from the Gulf of Mexico two months early. May can often be cool and damp here. So it is feeling as hot as hades outside, especially for the month of May.

So naturally, because they have been paid, today of all days the oil man comes around to give me my final top off for the year. :lol: :lol: :lol:
I'm a man........but I can change........if I have to........I guess

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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by EvilGrins » Fri May 25, 2012 3:38 pm

Any given day i work I keep somewhat active on twitter. Sometimes little random stuff, sometimes more lengthy involved things. All depends on my mood and the influx of actual work assigments...

...I work the weekend which is fundamentally dead time.

Standard SMS texting to tweets. I do twitter RP, there's a surprisingly HUGE roleplaying community, or I should say communities given the various genres, on twitter. The 140 character limit does not stop it.

I setup a small list of accounts I use while at work. That being these:

tweets:
http://twitter.com/#!/TheLunarRay/the-night-watch
characters:
http://twitter.com/#!/TheLunarRay/the-n ... ch/members

hopefully i typed those right, can't access the site from work to check

Mostly brief lil' silly stuff, sometimes a story over multiple tweets. All depends what pops into my head. As I do this from phone texting, I usually only work one character a day.

My main twitter endeavor is a loose tabloid/newspaper I do most of the rest of the week.

http://twitter.com/#!/the_daily_rag

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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:35 pm

A Random Act of Kindness

Today's award goes to the fellow who pulled over and stopped his car so that he could give me back one item that I forgot to pack into my shopping bag at the supermarket checkout. I was about 3 blocks down the street by the time he caught up to me, and it was busy on the street too. What a pleasure to have my faith renewed in the basic decency of people. :D 8)

While I cannot offhand recall the other incidents, this is not an isolated case where I have been helped by a perfect stranger in the last 3 years or so. :)
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hermskii » Thu Aug 02, 2012 7:22 am

A perfect example of way-cool! Good for you Nameless!
~Peace~

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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hook » Fri Aug 10, 2012 6:58 am

Yes, there are actually a lot of great people out there - they just don't get on the news (publicized) near as often as the bad people do. :wink:
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:47 pm

I've been watching the large debate that sprang up around mind control and guns and what-have-you. The hot topic nature of the issues discussed, all the way from the always controversial gun control debate, to everything else that has been discussed or alluded to in there can easily spiral out of control. I see in that discussion the possibility of much unpleasantness and vitriol, and on a level that I must say I am glad to see hasn't occurred yet, and certainly hope does not in the future. Kudos to all who have shown such great restraint so far.

I would like to point out in here that since my last post about a random act of kindness I have several times been blessed with minor but important kindnesses again since then. That I cannot offhand remember the exact incidents as I write this down here does not belittle them in any way. If I remember later what they were, I will edit this post or make a new one. Or mention others of a similar nature.

I just wanted to reassure everyone that the world is not all going to hell. I have been the recipient of random kindnesses lately. The young people I have met or seen around have all been polite, boisterous, enthusiastic, laughing, quiet, smiling, normal teenagers behaving in normal teenage ways. They are not all growing up to be mass murderers or weirdos.

So it's all good. Life goes on as it should. The reason terrible tragedies stick out so blatantly is due to the fact that they are so out of the ordinary. Let us not become so disillusioned that we think these things are the new normal. They are not, and human nature will see to it that they never will be.
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hermskii » Wed Dec 19, 2012 6:20 pm

I love that your outlook is so good nameless.

Me? Mine? I just heard today our Republicans plan to let our democrats take us over the fiscal cliff and our treasury just decided to sell off the remaining debt for bailing out GM automotive at a major loss that yep you guessed it, they working class will have to pay for by way of taxes and Obama's biggest project to date, the free health care thing is going to kick more into action start in another week or two.

Sorry bro. It just doesn't look so bright out there to me right now.
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:23 pm

Oh you know what's going to happen with that lot in Washington. They'll play chicken with each other until the last moment and then sit down and hammer out a deal. They probably each know what it will be already. They've already played this game so many times before. But first they must do their posturing so that they will appear to be the reasonable and accommodating one when they finally cut the deal. :?
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hermskii » Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:31 am

You understand that when they say say they are saving 1 trillion they are talking about saving it from the 2.3 trillion they plan to spend that same year. The net is still spending 1.3 trillion. Democrats and Republicans are equally guilty of this crap. That was just an example. I pulled that total out of the air. It is worse in real life I bet.

My point is they are talking about cutting some of how much MORE the plan to spend. Neither party is actually talking about cutting back to spending less than before. Sadly, the only way to stop this will be a war of sorts. This won't be a North vs South war either. What I feel pretty sure about is that Texas will be a major player and I'm already here so good since I also already know which way Texas will lean.
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hook » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:44 pm

We really NEED to get rid of Political Parties!
They are the biggest problem and roadblock to getting anything done and done right! :shock:

It is locked now, but I also see that certain folks in far away lands "see" Americans in a "funny" way.
Where do they get this odd information from? - The movies? :roll:
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Sun Dec 23, 2012 10:52 pm

Hermskii wrote: My point is they are talking about cutting some of how much MORE they plan to spend. Neither party is actually talking about cutting back to spending less than before.
I don't think they can, without tanking the US economy. Today I watched a Canadian public affairs program. Our Minister of Finance was talking about the future. He's a very savvy guy, and the only government minister of that lot in Ottawa that I can stand. In fact I like the guy, and just wish that he could be poached somehow if another political party were to take the next election and form the government.

Anyway, here's what he said about the near future:

Europe's economy will remain flat.

The US economy is starting to get up steam and will improve nicely soon. The US job market is still flat, but the economy is improving.

The Canadian economy will continue to buck the world trend. The improving US picture can only be good for us too.

Hermskii wrote: Sadly, the only way to stop this will be a war of sorts. This won't be a North vs South war either. What I feel pretty sure about is that Texas will be a major player and I'm already here so good since I also already know which way Texas will lean.
Owww, this sounds really scarey. Please expand what you mean by this, and tell me where you are hearing such talk. :o :shock:
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Sun Dec 23, 2012 11:06 pm

Hook wrote:We really NEED to get rid of Political Parties!
They are the biggest problem and roadblock to getting anything done and done right! :shock:
I've felt that for a long time you've needed a third party down there. I used to think it should be positioned to the left of the Democrats. But now that things are so polarized, they should position themselves smack dab in between the two existing parties.
It is locked now, but I also see that certain folks in far away lands "see" Americans in a "funny" way.
Where do they get this odd information from? - The movies? :roll:
Oh, a lot of them are just as pleased with themselves and the way they do things as most Americans are. ;) :mrgreen:
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hermskii » Sun Dec 23, 2012 11:36 pm

Ever notice how the election percentages almost match the people paying income tax percentage vs the people not paying income tax percentages? It's almost 50/50.

Texas is very republican and has the best infrastructure to bring together more republicans and do whatever it wants should it ever decide to. Texas has about the 15th largest economy in the world right now.

http://econpost.com/texaseconomy/texas- ... king-world

We could totally do it if we ever decide to and I'm real sick of paying teachers up north in unions to do a crappy job. Obama hates Texas and socks it to us every chance he gets.

I'm just saying that people here are getting real sick and being charged for stupid crap like what California does and New York and after some time I think something will give around here.
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by Hook » Sun Dec 23, 2012 11:53 pm

Nah, I am not talking about a third party - we have that already.
I mean NO parties at all!

We do not need groups to be against each other.
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Re: The Anecdote Thread.......

Post by a nameless entity » Mon Jul 20, 2015 5:32 pm

a nameless entity wrote:A Random Act of Kindness

Today's award goes to the fellow who pulled over and stopped his car so that he could give me back one item that I forgot to pack into my shopping bag at the supermarket checkout. I was about 3 blocks down the street by the time he caught up to me, and it was busy on the street too. What a pleasure to have my faith renewed in the basic decency of people. :D 8)

While I cannot offhand recall the other incidents, this is not an isolated case where I have been helped by a perfect stranger in the last 3 years or so. :)
So almost 3 years to the day since I made the post above, I get to report another Random Act of Kindness that I received today:

A few years ago my late brother gave me a very nice straw sun hat. Since I had a spot of skin cancer that had to be removed from my nose in 2008, I have been wearing sun block and/or that sun hat ever since.

It's a nice hat, but once in a while the wind will catch it and blow it right off of my head. And when that happens it will tend to cartwheel along the ground, sometimes for quite a distance, if the wind pushes it along. One time I chased it down the sidewalk for 3 blocks before a nice lady grabbed it for me.

So today a random gust of wind tore it off of my head as I was crossing the street, and it cartwheeled right into the middle of the intersection. This intersection is always extremely busy, so I couldn't chase it. I was standing on the corner wondering if I would get a chance to rescue my hat before someone ran it over, when a lady who had been waiting to turn left stopped her car, and grabbed my hat for me. I walked away from the corner so that she could pull over safely, and she gave it back. I thanked her profusely for her trouble, and she just smiled and nodded before she drove off.

What a nice thing to do for a complete stranger. :D

That makes twice that a nice lady has saved that hat for me. And naturally that hat is more precious than ever to me, since my brother is gone now. :)
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