Rant!

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Sorry, I just need to let off some steam.

I paid my taxes this month; big outlay of money I barely have.

I needed to replace my computer. I was going to wait but with the tariffs incoming, I went ahead and bought it before prices increase.

I brought my bike in for maintenance earlier this week. I bike to work (16 miles roundtrip a day) so I need it. They originally quoted me almost $300 but they called me just now to say the rear wheel is cracked and needs to be replaced and its now up to $500.

And both headlights are out in my car. I’m gonna buy new bulbs after work and hope its just that the bulbs are out and not a bigger electrical issue.

And I’m already barely getting by due to the high rent I’m paying to get my kid in a good school district.

And I’ve just started dating again. Now I’m afraid I can’t afford to do anything but go for a walk.

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I’m sorry to hear all of this. I hope things get better. Any way we can help you out?

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Thanks, I appreciate the offer. Short of giving me money (and there are plenty who need it more), just an ear and some sympathy will do fine.

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Come hang out with us on Grouvee Discord group some time and chill. It’s a fun group and it can be nice just to chat and let some steam off.

Also, I think people are always up to try to coordinate some online game fun. I’m sure we can find games you already own and we can just try to get your mind off serious things. I think we all need that now and then.

I actually just mentioned Gartic Phone to @Roach for a future event. I don’t know if you’ve ever played it but it’s like broken telephone Pictionary, and it’s free to play. It’s great for a group of remote players.

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Yes! I love whatever regional name we’re giving “it’s like telephone but with pictures” lol
We used to play that all the time in college

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I got a whole shelf of non-live service free to play games.

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Ooh free games!! I’m a dad for two weeks starting tomorrow but I love the idea of having a chance to get to know people over online games. Maybe when I have time I’ll look into it.

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Okay, sorry, more rant.

Ex just sent me April’s child support payment. Earlier in the month, we had agreed to split costs for a field trip for our son that I paid for. I had asked her to add it to the April payment. When she finally sent the payment over almost 3 weeks late, she didn’t add her half of the field trip cost because she says she believes her half is covered by child support. Our divorce agreement explicitly says we split the cost of extracurricular activities 50/50 in separate paragraph from the child support.

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. She’s been trying to renegotiate how we pay child support for a while now. I am a very nice person and it feels like she is constantly taking advantage of my niceness. I told her no on this one but I don’t have the emotional energy to fight with her constantly.

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I’ll do it, give me her number. :grin:

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Ha thanks. Honestly, I am having a very rough week and I appreciate the support but I should probably stop hijacking this forum to kvetch. I’ll save it for this years festivus celebration

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Naw, you’re good. It’s a self-contained thread in the off-topic section. Kvetch away!

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Yeah dude let loose, you’re welcome to say anything. And I love confrontation lol.

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Sending a virtual hug your way and thank you for teaching me a new word “kvetch”, but please don’t hold back - this is a good place to vent and I just hope letting off steam is helping you.

Also I hope your ex steps on a lego bare feet everytime she makes your life harder!

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Since I already started this thread, I’ll just keep the fun going.

No ex drama this time. Instead, my bike is in the shop for repairs and it’s been there for two weeks. Today was the delayed date that the part I’ve been waiting for was supposed to arrive and it didn’t arrive. I bike to work and not having that start to my day has completely sucked. My laptop blew up a couple months ago and I bought a new one three weeks ago and it looks like it will never ship. It may not have actually been at the warehouse and now never will be. And lastly, I’m fixing up an old motorcycle and the carburetor rebuild kit has been sitting in customs since April 11 and is probably stolen.

All of this is probably down to Trump’s tariffs. There is an old school leftie part of me that doesn’t hate tariffs entirely. Until it starts messing up my life!!! [shakes fist at cloud]

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Although everything you mentioned seems quite annoying, this feels especially so to me because it’s such a disruption to your routine and the start of your day. I know how much a lousy start to your day can make everything else much worse, so I empathize.

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Yeah, biking to work was a mental health savior for me. I’m in a better place generally now but I still appreciate that morning ride.

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I 100% understand this. I have the things that really help my emotional and mental state and I know how frustrating it can be when they are disrupted. I like to walk and hike a lot, and walking to start and end my day really make me feel pretty great. I put my back out during my last move and wasn’t able to walk for several weeks and that really felt like a downer.

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You are not alone in this. Two other people I regularly have contact with and that live in the US of A have hardware ordered that showed as “ready to ship” on the web page but turns out that was more of a “usually ready to ship but not anymore” kind of thing.

On demand shipping saved a lot of warehouse space but the moment the supply chain stumbles all pieces fail very fast.

I had to order two things fom Amazon that I could not get anywhere else (otherwise f*ck Amazon) and despite the delivery is for Germany, for some reason I was told it would take more than a week for one and two weeks for the other item to arrive. That hasn’t happened since I use Amazon and that’s basically since it exists. One business might be connected to China but says they have a warehouse in Portugal the other is supposed to be “fully” European, but I question where they get the materials from. No idea if this is just random or collateral because of tariffs /chaos.

I hope you get the bike situation sorted soon. I wish so badly I could still use a bike - it was my favorite choice of transport since childhood, but my handicap doesn’t allow it anymore.

Also sending some luck your way: :four_leaf_clover:

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I came home from work yesterday and my cat had yarked a hairball onto my desk. It was so big and disgusting and because it had been sitting there all day, it was dried and glued on. I had to rip it off my desk and scrub scrub scrub.

It was extra frustrating because I had a very long nonstop busy work day arguing with clowns and drowning in paperwork, and I was looking forward to booting up Oblivion and continue reading the books in the First Edition bookshop at the Imperial City during the short period of time where I’d have quiet time to myself, so this curveball ate into that time further. I still managed to watch an episode of Daredevil and the first three volumes of the Real Barenziah so it wasn’t a complete wash.

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Now April is over is I can relate what a intense, almost nightmare, it has been.

It started off with my wife and I finding out the IVF worked and our baby is very healthy.

No long after, I was threatened to be fired. I don’t like the job, but with a baby on the way losing ones job isn’t great, especially as historically it’s taken at least three months between jobs to secure another - usually temporary - gig.

This all caused me to have something of a semi breakdown during which I found out exactly how little I’m valued at work when, after going for a mental health walk and coming back, a colleague saw I was struggling and kindly offering to grab a coffee and have a chat. Next day I was pulled over the coals again for it by management because I’d gone out, come back, and gone out again. Upon explaining why I had gone to get a coffee I was told “yes, well, we aren’t paid to take coffee breaks.”

Not too long after this, my parents visited from Australia. It’s great to have them here as I usually only see them once a year. We went to Wales over my birthday week, it’s a beautiful place! My wife bought me a Steam Deck which I love.

Literally the day after my birthday we found out our beautiful dog Jake, who was being looked after by my wife’s parents while we were away, had to be rushed to the vets.

His liver and pancreas failed which caused him to develop diabetes. He wasn’t responding to any treatment so we had to make the hardest decision of all.

The following day we spent in Hay-on-Wye, which was again beautiful, but rather diminished by the news. The day after was the four hour dive home, then to the vets to say goodbye to our little man.

Somewhere in there I found out a story I’d submitted to a competition got to the top 50. It didn’t go further but I’m taking it as a win.

Two days after Jake’s goodbye it was back to work. Three days after that I completed this huge task that had literally taken months and I was the only one working on it. As if to re confirm how little work values you (which resulted in something of a tirade on my Substack) there was no “well done” or anything, just the next demand shoved in my inbox.

Next week my parents, wife and I are off to Cornwall for a week. I’m really hoping it’s the start of things beginning to improve.

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