The Dysfunctional-Palooza Obnoxious Masshole BS Thread

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I hope they still have it in August. Research.

 

[balrog]

Wilbraham cops seem to have been reading the National Parks humorous social media.

 

[day_trippr]

Apparently there are still some Founder memberships available at The ("new and improved") International.
Wonder what they keep on tap?

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Get a membership and let us know!!!

They've done good work on the redesign. I was a member years ago and went to meetings with the new owners. Way out of my pay scale but I've heard they've come down. They do the age biased membership which is annoying. I hear that membership isn't too bad

 

[day_trippr]

bleh...

 

[balrog]

bleh...

View attachment 876144

A fine soft day for golf.

Gonna have to mow every other day for a while. Almost.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

I was watching forecasts up north and they believed it was going to be safely above freezing. They were wrong

 

[balrog]

Wee doggies, look at all them purty colors!

(Most of this is thankfully N and W of me.)

 

[day_trippr]

We were hearing distant thunder on and off all afternoon but other than a darkened sky we didn't get any of ^that^ here.
Might get clipped by the tail of that thing though. We'll see...

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

My local bah lost power! Luckily I'm up at Notch Anniversary in Salem.

Ooh and we're just squeaking by. Thunder happening. Beers a pouring

 

[Melana]

Does anyone want (free) 6 corny kegs? Free?

 

[day_trippr]

"Mass Brew Bro's" have acquired Cape Cod Beer to go with Mayflower Brewing and Hog Island on the Cape...

https://massbrewbros.com/triton-bev...e-cod-beer-a-new-chapter-for-a-cape-cod-icon/

 

[day_trippr]

Yikes! Next week's gonna be wicked pissah toasty here!

 

[balrog]

Yikes! Next week's gonna be wicked pissah toasty here!

View attachment 877972

Yup. Gotta get the watering can ready for The Great Porch Flower Wilt.

 

[Andyandroid]

Deleted

 

[day_trippr]

On a record-setting high temperature day the municipal power company that serves our area took a dirt nap at 6 pm - and they had no clue why. Figuring we were in for a protracted outage the Spousal Unit and I left an "almost home made pizza" on the board and bailed to a local eatery with AC to ride it out.

Near the end of our meal I was able to "talk" to our house, indicating power was back on, but between leaving the restaurant and arriving in our neighborhood it was evident the power was off again. Called Youngest Son over in Boylston and let him know we were on the way over, hanged out there until 11 when the power came back on at our house - and stayed on for a half hour - so we headed back home.

I'm waiting to read why the outage happened. I'm concerned that it was load-shedding, which would totally suck if true, because not one soul has commented on a reason for the outage. Usually there'd be an explanation by now, but so far nobody is saying anything...

 

[Dland]

Perhaps it's time to invest in a generator, with auto start and all the modern features. The technology would not be any trouble for you, so you would not need an expensive service contract.

 

[balrog]

I was going to make a silly joke asking if you rake the forests around you but did not want to turn this into something else, and it wasn't reallly funny anyway. Hope you survived the related fallout from no power on such a brutal day. hopefully the worst is over. Hard to sleep when it's 86F in the upstairs bedroom personally but the basement sofa and my aging back are not really on speaking terms.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

My parents had a NG generator installed, during their “golden years”. It would engage in seconds of an outage and they regarded it as a blessing.
Here on the south shore of LI it expected to reach 94F. Stay hydrated and cool my friends.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

Did the "almost home made pizza" bake while you were gone?

 

[day_trippr]

Nah. The yeast really enjoyed the heat and by the time we got home it looked like an overly puffy flatbread before I tossed it out. Everything was prepped as it was minutes from being assembled and going in the oven, so all the toppings were saved in the fridge. We'll have a do-over with fresh dough tonight.

I've often thought about having a propane-fired automatic genset installed, but then we go like a year without an outage so it falls off the list of things we "need" to do. That said, when the power went out and the outage map showed it was just our corner of the system, I drove the perimeter of the outage area and while not seeing any reason for the outage I also noted a hella lot of folks have generators! Might need to get another quote...

Cheers!

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

I saw that we shattered records for the day and were close to breaking all time highs. It is June but hopefully this is an extreme but I kind of believe the new norm.

I'm on a municipal. We've gotten better on outages and went from horrible on updates to great and then the whole upkeep of the system brought us back down to s*ck.

If you get a quote you probably could get some from the "life free or die" border. I've found the rose colored glasses of MassSave and subsidies has inflated prices inner state. The whole model is directed towards rebates and anyone looking to just pay for it themselves will find out it's not free. Everyone in state sees a big pile of rebates and anything outside the system is ridiculous.

I'm about to start quotes on redoing the insulation on my house. I'm willing to bet theres a massive difference on getting someone out of state. Then again I could get Paulie up in my attic on a day like this for a steal.

I just recently redid my furnace and I was ok maybe paying a 20% prem by buying env friendly since I am municipal. I'm also realistic that env friendly isn't quite there yet. The quotes I got were 4x and 5x. The installer and I just laughed and laughed. Even still I had replaced the furnace when I first moved into the house. Still sticker shock.

I'd like to say what about battery back up but I you're in the same boat

 

[balrog]

redoing the insulation on my house

All the MassSave quotes I got for insulation, "almost no cost to you" quotes, were about 4-6,000 because "well sir, since you have a mix of rolled fiberglass batting and blown in we have to remove everything first". I've never pulled that trigger.

 

[Dland]

I might be wrong, but I doubt Mass Save wants to help with any generators. They're kind of set up to get you to use electricity instead of fossil fuels.

That said, I got a pretty decent rebate for installing high efficiency mini splits last year. It came to about 25% of total cost for two buildings. I got away with keeping my oil fired boiler too, as it is making my "domestic hot water". I mainly heat with wood anyway, but I did not rub that in with the rebate people.

Of course, I did have to go with a licensed installer to get the rebate instead of DYI. Was kind of looking for an excuse not to DYI it anyway, just because I could do it does not mean it would be easy for me to do a good job on the first try. My project plate is fuller than it should be as it is.

 

[Andyandroid]

At the end of the day, you always end up paying one way or the other; there's only one taxpayer...

 

[day_trippr]

Heads up for this event on the 28th!

15th Nashua River Brewers Festival Set For June 28 At Fitchburg's Riverfront Park​

Also, Barrel One is assembling quite the collection of area breweries

Barrel One Buys Worcester's Greater Good Brewing In Blockbuster Beer Acquisition​

​

​

Cheers!

 

[Mutant]

At the end of the day, you always end up paying one way or the other; there's only one taxpayer...

The issue with taxes is that they are infinitely cascading. You can start at any point in the process, and this is just a basic example.

The manufacturer or importer includes all the taxes (property, business, fuel, utility, ...) that they pay on with the price of their product.
The wholesaler does the same.
The distributor does the same.
The retailer does the same.
Then, the customer pays sales tax on all those passed along taxes.
The customer then requires to be paid higher wages, as they have to pay for the inflated prices from all these cascaded taxes which then requires the employers to pay higher and higher salaries which they pass along as part of their costs.
The cascading is endless. The PEOPLE are tax slaves.

 

[day_trippr]

Probably takes a doctor's earnings to open a brewery these days

https://brookline.news/why-a-brookline-doctor-is-opening-a-brewery-in-roslindale/

 

[homebeerbrewer]

And then there’s the income tax…

And the property tax…

 

[balrog]

I don't have the photoshop skills to show "Wants to biff @paulthenurse into the blackberry bushes" driver.

 

[Dland]

I don't have any photoshop skills at all. But I'd like to make the picture of a line of spandex lance armstrong want to bes, on a narrow winding road, cycling mainly outside the line with a couple of them in the back of line way out into the lane, to provide "cover" for their companions. And we'll add a line of work trucks, full of people not on vacation, that they are holding up so they can say they went cycling on marthas vineyard.

That said, I always follow the new 4 foot rule or pass in other lane when I can. I sure as heck don't want to jeopardize my freedom or livelihood by offing one of the idiots.

 

[balrog]

I hate holding up traffics when I cycle.
Really hate it.
Never have nor will I ever ride other than single file, esp w traffic. There’s rude and then there’s asking for it.

Same with the left lane on the hwy when driving. It’s for passing.

And that lever on the steering columns left is called a turn signal.

And stay off my lawn.

 

[Dland]

Could you even afford me on your lawn? At island landscape rates, that is a fair question. {;

However, you are welcome on my lawn, such as it is, but suggest you first spray with permethrin, as we have a lot of ticks around here, including the lone stars that trigger Alpha Gal Syndrome.

 

[balrog]

Could you even afford me on your lawn? At island landscape rates, that is a fair question. {;

However, you are welcome on my lawn, such as it is, but suggest you first spray with permethrin, as we have a lot of ticks around here, including the lone stars that trigger Alpha Gal Syndrome.

Given my affinity to all things red meat, I will avoid at all costs.

 

[day_trippr]

Getting that Alpha-GAL thing would totally suck. I'm more worried about one of my grandkids getting it than me.

 

[Dland]

I know several people who have gotten it recently. So far I've dodged it, but I did get bitten by a lone star this spring. I do my best to use repellent, check for ticks, no way to totally avoid them in my line of work, plus my yard is a jungle. I've already had lyme three or four times, but at least that is just 10 days of Doxy if you catch it on time.

Some of the people who have got it have slowly recovered ability to eat mammalian proteins after a while. First they can eat dairy, then pork. Ability to eat beef seems to take longest to return.

 

[day_trippr]

.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

.

A man of many words, but I agree.

 

[day_trippr]

Sometimes less is more

 

[balrog]

My immediate smart alec reaction was to post "And sometimes more is more"

But that made my brain remember this, which made me laugh:

Chung Mee: Opium is my business. The bridge mean more traffic. More traffic mean more money. More money mean more power.
Lawrence Bourne III: Yeah, well, before I commit any of that to memory, would there be anything in this for me?
Chung Mee: Speed is important in business. Time is money.
Lawrence Bourne III: You said opium was money.
Chung Mee: Money is Money.
Lawrence Bourne III: Well then, what is time again?