Things that annoy you...

Sure, of course not. But America is the only thing I know, Lord help me.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

I went to put up my little artificial tree this morning like I always do the day after Thanksgiving and... the lights on the bottom half don't work. It's a small tree, so restringing the lights aren't a big deal. The big deal is that I was planning on spending the day in my pajamas and now I have to either get dressed and fight the Black Friday crowds today to buy new lights or wait to decorate the tree until I can either order new lights or go out to buy them on a different day. Ugh.

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Hey, I’m sure you remember something of Old Blighty.

Of course. All my siblings are there.

People who have shit tons of money yet no class or taste. Dust covered chandeliers.

Does anyone else have trouble with their Christmas tree shedding pine needles? artificial trees that is... mine does.

It's probably too late to help with this, but if I remember correctly, one bad bulb in a string of Christmas lights can cause the whole string to stop working, but if you can find the one bad bulb and replace it, or maybe movie it to the end of the string, it might fix the whole string.

I've only decorated a Christmas tree once, so I could be wrong. Maybe someone else knows more about this and can help explain this.

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

Sloppy house guests. I had my cousin stay with me over the holiday and as much as I love him, I was glad to see him go. Why? He's a slob. Like worse than I remember. I should have know what I was in for when I picked him up and got a look at his apartment. It was pretty icky. My initial plan was to drive out to his place, spend the night and drive back the next day. When I saw his place I knew spending the night could be hazardous to my health and spending as little time in that place as possible was the right answer. I'll take a five hour ride home over crashing here. I'd rather crash on the highway than spend another second in here. Literally crash on the highway. Every morning was spent cleaning up the messes he made the day before. It was like a tornado went through the house. But it was good to see him again.

I know that's a possibility, but frankly it's not worth the time or the effort to check them especially since this was a several years old pre-lit tree. I went to Lowe's to get the lights. There weren't a lot of people there and I was in and out in a couple of minutes with a string of lights that cost me less than $4.00. I unplugged the tree and used scissors to cut the old lights off then had the new ones on in no time.

My very frugal dad did try checking the bulbs and the fuses while I got ready and went to the store but all that did was cause him to get in my way when I got back.

Awww, he was trying to help.

True, but he wasn't helping.

I see this every year at Christmas for decades. When I was a child it was my Nan getting in my mum's way and now it's my mum getting in my sisters way. My sister doesn't have the patience or poker face my mum did. I just ask "Can I help? Or will I just get in the way?" 9 times out of 10, it's a "Thank you, but just go and sit down." My sister still gets annoyed and flustered, but at least I'm not making it/her feel worse by annoying her as well.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

White balance...I adjusted my camera's white balance to match the light source and the photos turned out well. Later in the day I used the same light source but the photos turned out with way too much yellow...All because the incidental light from the outdoors was gone and the color balance shifted. Ugh more work for me.

We recently installed security cameras at my in-laws house, and they've been great most of the time, but on days with bad weather, (heavy rain, snow, and/or windy), the cameras notify us like crazy. We've tried lowering the sensitivity of the motion detectors, but it didn't help.

The elevation of the word "content."

My Alexa Show's screen frequently asks if I want to "Watch Sports Content?" Can't I just watch sports?

It's actually humorous to realize that the people who call themselves "content creators" are usually not "creating" because all they're doing is adapting/leveraging/stealing schtick that has been viral for a while. And the "content" they "create" barely has any real "content" at all ... very little that is genuinely new and informative, just something that demonstrates a profound grasp of the obvious.

It feels like labeling what you do "content creation" is actually an acknowledgment that it's just more "product" that didn't require any genuine specific creative effort such as writing.

Of course, none of what I've written above is original to me. I guess it's "anti content".

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

Having to be near smokers - and I mean in general, not just when they are actually smoking. Sorry people, but you stink.

We got rid of our motion detectors outside right away. Too many critters going by setting them off & scaring the wits out of us. We just have it for the house itself now for many years.

I thought you could set motion cameras to only detect certain things, like humans instead of smaller creatures?

I like watching the critters go by. We don't have a lot of them, but I find it very relaxing watching the playful cats, the slow-moving possums, and the raccoon families go by every once in a while. They don't come around very often, so they don't bother us. We saw a fox in the side yard a few days ago, and I didn't even know that we have foxes in our area.)

It's the constant annoyance of the bad weather that drives us crazy.


There are settings for the motion detectors, but they're not always accurate. We've seen the cameras tell us that people are animals or vehicles, that animals are just motion, and that motion events are animals or people, etc. (FYI, these are Google Nest cameras, not some unknown brand, so we expected better recognition than this.)

And just to add a bit of context, we installed the security cameras because we had an attempted break-in recently. The neighbors noticed strange people wandering around the house and called the police, which scared them away. We don't know if they're planning to come back, so we need the cameras to monitor the house when nobody is there. It's too important to take chances with unreliable settings. (We have several cameras inside the house as well, and the light changes from the sun can cause them to notify us sometimes, too.)

You’ve got good neighbors. Which is priceless.

We’re in a big city, but see loads of different critters. I feed 5 to 6 cats in our yard. We even have bears here. Couple of years ago one bear was in the neighboring street up a tree. The neighborhood went wild.

I even saw a coyote this year for the first time. Sadly, a driver hit & killed this beautiful creature.

Yes, we have great neighbors.

Fortunately, we don't have any bears here. Most of the critters around here are small, and they're usually not dangerous as long as nobody provokes them.

That's so sad about the coyote. I don't think we have any coyotes around here.