Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[FransW]

K... I'm off to COSTCO. If I'm not back in 4 hours, send out the rescue dogs.



mnem
 

Don't miss!

[Kosmic]

Well, things are moving fast these days. schools and daycares are closing here too. I'm stuck home with the little monsters. Now let's just hope that Netflix will hold on or I'm screwed.

A good thing they recently deployed Citrix in the office for remote work. It's a lot more responsive than remote desktop.

[mnementh]

K... I'm off to COSTCO. If I'm not back in 4 hours, send out the rescue dogs.

fuck you costco

BAM!!! 60 DOLLAH!!!


So... got to COSTCO at 9:30 to be early vs the website which said 10:00am.  The insanity started in the parking lot; after circling the lot like a shark for a parking space, I successfully stalked someone to their parking spot in the far back corner of Beyond & waited for them to load their car & leave. On the way back, I go to grab a cart just sitting in the lot; some dingle waiting for a spot honks and yells at me "THAT'S MY CART!!!" Get up to the cart-carport, and... it's empty except for a couple of the big flat  orange dumptruck carts.

  Shrugging, I take one and wend my way through the parking lot into the store. As soon as I get inside, there's a line to get anywhere except the food court which is shut down and a ghost town except for a couple exhausted shoppers and their carts. Trying to get around, I follow a couple of the quicker-moving lines, which I soon realize either lead to the Pharmacy or recurse back to THE BIG SLOW LINE headed to the back of the store. I cringe as the light dawns on me; OF COURSE that's the line I have to get in; everybody here is doing the same thing as I am.   

Eventually I get stuck with that big dumptruck cart about 3/4 of the way back; so I abandon it to travel light. I work my way like a linebacker on a kickoff return; getting elbowed here, whacked in the shin by a cart there, foot rolled over by a cart somewhere else... but I make it to the back in a few minutes only to find the paper products dept is wiped out. There are about a dozen of the bulk paks of heffalump bog roll, and that's it. There's an associate directing traffic; "Is this where the bath tissue is supposed to be...?" I ask; he says "Oh, it was there when we opened; lasted about half an hour." I look at my watch: "It's 5 til 10, which is when you're supposed to be open." "Oh, we open at 9:00; have been for years."  I give him a look like a tree full of owls.   "We'll have more tomorrow; get here at 8-8:30 and you should have no trouble."

I weigh my options against the odds of going toe-to-toe with a Saturday morning rush of all the same duckwits I was already battling, PLUS those who couldn't get away from work all week and promptly decided to just make a stop at every grocery store on the way and take what I could get. So I turn my big dumptruck cart with half a dozen items on it around in the middle of traffic; doing so, I cut one lady off by accident. She's all apologetic... "Oh, were you in line...?" "In line, no... in line for what?" "To the registers. This is the line to check out."

Well, I guess I AM in line now..." I shout to her, pulling ahead to keep up. It takes me 30 minutes to get to the registers and check out; for a change I'm actually in the fast lane.   

So I begin my pilgrimage home... after 4 other stores, the 5th I stopped in was a Longo's... they're one of those upscale grocery marts, with a fire-baked pizza boutique in-store and 3 different "assault cookery" type specialty kitchen islands producing various ethnic foods at different times of the day. I see an associate just as I get in the door so I ask "Before I walk all around the store; are you sold out of bath tissue?" "We still have some 8-packs of Charmin; aisle 8 dead ahead." "Thanks so much... you're magical!" I reply, rushing my little 1/2-size man-cart down the aisle. Just as I get there, up comes another associate with boxes of Cushelle; he starts dumping out these big 20-paks. Each looks to be about 2/3 of the pack I usually get at COSTCO.

"Awesome!" I exclaim. "I just survived a failed COSTCO run; I can finally go home." I toss a couple of the packs in my cart. "Ummmm... are you limiting quantities at this time...?" "No..." he says. "But if we run out, we run out." I eye him cautiously, then grab a third. "I know I should feel bad, but I've been at this for 4 hours. I'm going to grab another so I don't have to face this madness again anytime soon."  "No comment." he answers, grinning slyly.

mnem
All my son cared about was the 3-packs of cream cheese.

[Mr. Scram]

The best part of all this is that I know some people in distribution and there's literally canned food for years. Actual years. I think they have a huge buffer for bad crop years and prefer buying when crops are cheap but I'm not sure. We could wipe our arses until they literally bled and we'd still haven't made a dent in the toilet paper supply. The only issue right now is trucking the stuff to stores quickly enough because too many morons are completely devoid of sense and reason.

[Kosmic]

K... I'm off to COSTCO. If I'm not back in 4 hours, send out the rescue dogs.

fuck you costco

BAM!!! 60 DOLLAH!!!


So... got to COSTCO at 9:30 to be early vs the website which said 10:00am.  The insanity started in the parking lot; after circling the lot like a shark for a parking space, I successfully stalked someone to their parking spot in the far back corner of Beyond & waited for them to load their car & leave. On the way back, I go to grab a cart just sitting in the lot; some dingle waiting for a spot honks and yells at me "THAT'S MY CART!!!" Get up to the cart-carport, and... it's empty except for a couple of the big flat  orange dumptruck carts.

  Shrugging, I take one and wend my way through the parking lot into the store. As soon as I get inside, there's a line to get anywhere except the food court which is shut down and a ghost town except for a couple exhausted shoppers and their carts. Trying to get around, I follow a couple of the quicker-moving lines, which I soon realize either lead to the Pharmacy or recurse back to THE BIG SLOW LINE headed to the back of the store. I cringe as the light dawns on me; OF COURSE that's the line I have to get in; everybody here is doing the same thing as I am.   

Eventually I get stuck with that big dumptruck cart about 3/4 of the way back; so I abandon it to travel light. I work my way like a linebacker on a kickoff return; getting elbowed here, whacked in the shin by a cart there, foot rolled over by a cart somewhere else... but I make it to the back in a few minutes only to find the paper products dept is wiped out. There are about a dozen of the bulk paks of heffalump bog roll, and that's it. There's an associate directing traffic; "Is this where the bath tissue is supposed to be...?" I ask; he says "Oh, it was there when we opened; lasted about half an hour." I look at my watch: "It's 5 til 10, which is when you're supposed to be open." "Oh, we open at 9:00; have been for years."  I give him a look like a tree full of owls.   "We'll have more tomorrow; get here at 8-8:30 and you should have no trouble."

I weigh my options against the odds of going toe-to-toe with a Saturday morning rush of all the same duckwits I was already battling, PLUS those who couldn't get away from work all week and promptly decided to just make a stop at every grocery store on the way and take what I could get. So I turn my big dumptruck cart with half a dozen items on it around in the middle of traffic; doing so, I cut one lady off by accident. She's all apologetic... "Oh, were you in line...?" "In line, no... in line for what?" "To the registers. This is the line to check out."

Well, I guess I AM in line now..." I shout to her, pulling ahead to keep up. It takes me 30 minutes to get to the registers and check out; for a change I'm actually in the fast lane.   

So I begin my pilgrimage home... after 4 other stores, the 5th I stopped in was a Longo's... they're one of those upscale grocery marts, with a fire-baked pizza boutique in-store and 3 different "assault cookery" type specialty kitchen islands producing various ethnic foods at different times of the day. I see an associate just as I get in the door so I ask "Before I walk all around the store; are you sold out of bath tissue?" "We still have some 8-packs of Charmin; aisle 8 dead ahead." "Thanks so much... you're magical!" I reply, rushing my little 1/2-size man-cart down the aisle. Just as I get there, up comes another associate with boxes of Cushelle; he starts dumping out these big 20-paks. Each looks to be about 2/3 of the pack I usually get at COSTCO.

"Awesome!" I exclaim. "I just survived a failed COSTCO run; I can finally go home." I toss a couple of the packs in my cart. "Ummmm... are you limiting quantities at this time...?" "No..." he says. "But if we run out, we run out." I eye him cautiously, then grab a third. "I know I should feel bad, but I've been at this for 4 hours. I'm going to grab another so I don't have to face this madness again anytime soon."  "No comment." he answers, grinning slyly.

mnem
All my son cared about was the 3-packs of cream cheese.

Good Job 

I didn't tried Costco your braver than I am.

[Mr. Scram]

Did you say you paid 60 bucks for three packs of 20 rolls?

[med6753]

The madness is escalating. All schools in my county plus the adjacent county across the Hudson River are now closed for 2 weeks starting this Monday. The NY State University College system has suspending classroom instruction for the rest of the semester. Classes will be on line only.

As I type this.....county south of here also suspended schools for 2 weeks.

The kiddies are going to have to make up the time over the Summer.

[bd139]

LOL it'll still be around in summer. As a society we are totally unprepared for this level of disruption. The disruption being healthcare and logistics mostly. I reckon it'll push everything back approximately a year school wise as well. As for work we just rolled out remote working for everyone with no advisory on when that will be terminated but we have business continuity set out until possible "wave 2" recovery which is Jan 2021

For the bog roll famine:

[med6753]

Chump just declared a "National Emergency"

Oh shit. 

[bd139]

Hope you've been shopping. It'll start getting shooty at Walmart over there now 

Edit: This is what is in my head at the moment 

[Kosmic]

Damn, I need to go to my drop point to fetch a package before they close the border! Will probably try to go there tomorrow morning.

[mnementh]

EDIT: Won the AMD V5900 on my maiden bid, though not quite in mnementh-jamminess territory in terms of price. Ordered a dp > hdmi adaptor from a UK seller on ebay, the race is now on to see which arrives first!

https://www.amazon.com/ATI-FirePro-V5900-2DisplayPort-PCI-Express/dp/B00535CDXO/

One of these...? Hope you didn't pay much for it; they're a 9-year-old dinosaur of a card.    Like approx 10% the compute power of a RADEON RX580. IIRC, the reference design doesn't even have DisplayPort; only a single Dual-link DVI, so DirectX 11.something and DisplayPort 1.2 at best.

Well, things are moving fast these days. schools and daycares are closing here too. I'm stuck home with the little monsters. Now let's just hope that Netflix will hold on or I'm screwed.

A good thing they recently deployed Citrix in the office for remote work. It's a lot more responsive than remote desktop.

Yup. Netflix is our lifeline with the wee beasties too. Schools closed early for Spring Break; tentatively opening again April 6th. Surprisingly, the drop-in basketball practice my son attends at the local Community Center was still open tonight. We have tickets for ComiCon next weekend; just waiting for that to be canceled. 

fuck you costco
BAM!!! 60 DOLLAH...

mnem
All my son cared about was the 3-packs of cream cheese.

Good Job     I didn't tried Costco your braver than I am.

Thanks. This would've been my usual COSTCO run... only problem is COSTCO wasn't COSTCO today due to the crazy.

Chump just declared a "National Emergency"

Oh shit. 

Fuck... I don't think the Rainbow Bridge border is enough to keep ALL THAT shit from rolling uphill.   

Damn, I need to go to my drop point to fetch a package before they close the border! Will probably try to go there tomorrow morning.

Yeah, we WERE planning to make a pilgrimage down to Tejas in April to visit the wife's GPs who are old and infirm as our car needs inspection/registration renewal. We're really worried that they may close the border before we can; or worse yet, we may get down there and Canada closes the border before we can return. 

mnem
"Tonight's forecast: DARK. With brief periods of midnight sunrise as the ICBMs come over the North Pole..."

[Cerebus]

Chump just declared a "National Emergency"

What happened? Walmart out of hairspray? Home depot out of orange latex paint?

[bd139]

He made a loss on something due to it.

[mnementh]

Did you say you paid 60 bucks for three packs of 20 rolls?

No, I paid 60 dollars (on top of another couple hundred for other staples and sundries) to NOT have to fucking deal with other fuckwit human beings for at least the next three weeks.

The bog roll part of that's really only about a 16% or so asshole tax over what I normally pay; 20 triple rolls vs 24 triple rolls for $20 with tax at COSTCO. 60 DOLLAH!!! was just a nice round number for the headline is all. 

That's Canadian too... so more like US$15.60/pack. 

mnem
*currently sucking on a Zicam tab just on GP*

[worsthorse]

Chump just declared a "National Emergency"

Oh shit. 

necessary, i think, to get a bunch of money pointing in the right direction, though the words, we are from FEMA and we are here to help you should strike fear into your heart.

[Kosmic]

Well, things are moving fast these days. schools and daycares are closing here too. I'm stuck home with the little monsters. Now let's just hope that Netflix will hold on or I'm screwed.

A good thing they recently deployed Citrix in the office for remote work. It's a lot more responsive than remote desktop.

Well IT did an excellent job all those years. The infra of our office just blew up and they need to upgrade everything to support the load. I'm now in vacation until they call me back 

[bd139]

LOL Citrix benefits 

I know a company which has 50 citrix servers and all it does is make everything shitty and less reliable.

[Cerebus]

No, I paid 60 dollars [/b]

That's Canadian too... so more like

159 Shekels
171 Złoty
950 Pesos

[AVGresponding]

EDIT: Won the AMD V5900 on my maiden bid, though not quite in mnementh-jamminess territory in terms of price. Ordered a dp > hdmi adaptor from a UK seller on ebay, the race is now on to see which arrives first!

https://www.amazon.com/ATI-FirePro-V5900-2DisplayPort-PCI-Express/dp/B00535CDXO/

One of these...? Hope you didn't pay much for it; they're a 9-year-old dinosaur of a card.    Like approx 10% the compute power of a RADEON RX580. IIRC, the reference design doesn't even have DisplayPort; only a single Dual-link DVI, so DirectX 11.something and DisplayPort 1.2 at best.

...

Yeah, we WERE planning to make a pilgrimage down to Tejas in April to visit the wife's GPs who are old and infirm as our car needs inspection/registration renewal. We're really worried that they may close the border before we can; or worse yet, we may get down there and Canada closes the border before we can return. 

mnem
"Tonight's forecast: DARK. With brief periods of midnight sunrise as the ICBMs come over the North Pole..."

Yeah, I expect I paid more than I should, but I want to see if it's more compatible with my 8350 than the 1060 is.


The fuckwittery and headless chickenery is proceeding apace over here, on a logarithmic scale if I'm any judge. Empty shelves, cancelled deliveries (that really pissed me off, I need my weekend booze! Had to go out and buy some in person...), and delivery slots fully booked up days in advance.   


As for Donald Dump declaring a national emergency... given the powers this grants the office, and the lack of the usual checks and balances due to extreme partisanship, I feel I'm only just on the slim side of a 50/50 when I say, congratulations on your new President for Life!   

[mnementh]

Chump just declared a "National Emergency"

What happened? Walmart out of hairspray? Home depot out of orange latex paint?

His teevee told him to. 

mnem

[mnementh]

A good thing they recently deployed Citrix in the office for remote work. It's a lot more responsive than remote desktop.

I similarly much prefer my new testicle grinder; Frau Hilda. She comes with extra-pointy heels, a sexy leather teddy and a sultry demeanor, whereas my previous grinder was a bridge troll with a tree stump. The pain is now much more intense, but the view is better. 

mnem
"Frau Blucher!!!" *whinneys of terrified horses in the distance*

[mnementh]

Chump just declared a "National Emergency"

Oh shit. 

necessary, i think, to get a bunch of money pointing in the right direction, though the words, we are from FEMA and we are here to help you should strike fear into your heart.

I think it sums up his regime neatly that folks with a whit of sense between them are much more worried about the "Chump declared" part than the "National Emergency" part of this scenario... 

mnem
I would literally rather eat worms alone than a 5-star dinner with that waste of skin.

[Mr. Scram]

I asked Fluke for a quote on some parts of a less common but currently sold Fluke device. They told me they don't sell spares but I should ship the device to them for repair instead. They don't have the parts but will happily charge me for installing said parts for me at undoubtedly a healhy Fortive premium.

[mnementh]

Ummm.... this is a known dealio with FLUKE. Has been since I was knee-high to a bat-squirrel. The only non-accessory new parts you can get for them are disco parts sold to associate vendors or clone parts from overseas.

mnem