Stupid Translations
Judy and I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon that are imported directly from China. The Chinese know this and provide useful guides, instructions and other useful information in English to help us stupid Caucasians handle their superior products. Maybe they should skip that part of the packaging.
We recently purchased new steak knives. They came with instructions that had nothing to do with slicing T-bones. I understand how I might need washing instructions, but do I need to be told not to cut myself while washing them? But that was only the first step on the down escalator to hell.
The statements below that are in quotes are exactly how they appeared on the instruction card. Even though I have a problem with bad grammar, punctuation, and capitalizations, I have copied these statements as they appeared and rechecked them against the original multiple times. They said, “the knives offer micro-serrated edges that never need sharpening”. Later in the instructions they said, “Sharpen the blade regularly by whetstone in order to maintain the sharp edge”. Don’t they proofread? The whole instruction sheet was only half a page. Somebody needs a QA hire. But the real fun began under the heading “Warm Tips”. What the hell are warm tips? Are they lukewarm hot tips? The first of these warm tips states “please be careful when using it in your kitchen in case hurt yourself. For longevity, keep away when not using.” Are they saying that using it in the kitchen may result in death? Good point, only use it while at the dining table, and when not using, don’t carry the knife in your underpants to avoid cutting your penis off. I am so glad that the Chinese worry so much about my dick. The final “warm tip” was “not recommended for children under 18 to use it to avoid any Horrible emergency”. Almost old enough to vote, fight in the army, smoke, drive, and drink in some states, but handle a steak knife, oh hell no.
I know that old people like Judy and I should be watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, but Alex is dead and Vanna has sagged a bit, so I lost interest. Then I sold my soul to the devil in exchange for the Beavers getting a good coach. Beelzebub kept his promise, then dissolved the PAC 12, leaving my beloved Beavers and Wazoo in football purgatory. My dream coach left for the rusting junk yards of Michigan State, dropping off all his Beaver duds at Good Will in a black plastic garbage bag (fucking traitor!). As a consequence of my deal with the devil I am forced to play gory, satanic video games. I should have read the fine print! Having said this, I have fallen in love with Diablo. Judy and I have wasted hours playing it again and again, as different characters and at various levels of difficulty. We were so excited when Diablo 4 came out that we willingly paid the $100 price tag without batting an eye or even bothering to change out of our pajamas. The difference between the new version and what we had been playing for two years was enormous. It soon became apparent to fully understand the game that we needed a guidebook. We bought “Diablo 4, Complete Guide” by Deti Aslakhanov for $15. I am assuming that it was written in Mr. Aslakhanov’s native language and translated into English as It’s 170 pages of utter incomprehensibility. To prove this, I am going to open the guide to a couple of random pages and just quote what I find. I am not cherry picking these quotes, they are truly random. Bottom paragraph page 69,
“Along these lines, it’s totally significant that you’re strategic with your mixtures. Right off the bat, on the off chance that there’s a mixture on the ground and you’re at max elixirs yet have lost a tad of wellbeing, it’s typically worth popping an elixir so you can get the one on the ground before it vanishes.”
Top of page 111,
“Whenever you’ve found the spring, you really want to tackle the conundrum to uncover the mystery. This isn’t the principal mission you’ll see as this way yet is presumably the first, and to finish the Diablo 4 Mystery of the Spring journey you’ll need to play out a specific at out ‘persistence compensated’ line implies the Stand by act out is required.”
I really can’t believe that a human being is responsible for this. Surely in 170 pages there would be by random chance that one paragraph would be understandable if translated by a human. Only AI could fuck up to this extent. I know there has been a lot of hype about how AI is a future existential threat to human life. After reading this guide, I think it is already trying to kill us as this guide gave me headache and I only read a couple of pages. Reading the whole thing would likely have been fatal.
As an aside, In the above paragraph I used the word “existential” which is a favorite way for the talking heads to express how AI, gluten, woke, migrants, or Trump is going to destroy all life on earth. The definition of existential is as follows: “relating to a philosophy (= system of ideas) according to which the world has no meaning and each person is alone and completely responsible for his or her own actions”. I have no clue as to why anyone in the media would use this word as an adjective with “threat”. OMG! They are cyborgs and are using their AI to translate from their native binary. Now that explains a lot. Resistance is futile.
U-tube videos
In a previous blog (Sawzall Kama Sutra), I bitched about how u-tubers will publish a video showing how easy it is to fix your car with a screw diver and a pair of pliers. You would think that I might have learned my lesson but no, I still believed that I could DYI with little to no mechanical expertise. This time it was new shocks on the truck “aka Captain”. Judy named our F250 this because it mostly pulls our trailer (aka Boldly Go) and we have taken it places that no trailer has gone before. The video made it look easy. Only two bolts per shock and if you take the wheels off, they are right there. No laying on your back on the cold ground. No fancy tools. No odd angles to put your body in to get to the back side of a hidden nut. I could sit on a stool and get to everything! My 75-year-old body was up to that, no prob-blame-oh. Wrong, so wrong.
First the dirty bastard u-tuber had me remove plastic strap which held the shock in a compressed state. Then I was instructed to work the shock back and forth to fully charge it. This part I was able to do with some difficulty by putting all of my 230 pounds of obesity directly over it and pushing with all I had. Okey, I needed a bit of break and a double scotch after that, but so far so good. Next, I attached the upper bolt. One more to go. Now to compress the shock, slip it into the lower bracket and put the final bolt in. That is when I became aware the u-tuber had fucked me up the ass with the first step.
Neil deGrasse Tyson take note, the physics of compressing a shock while sitting on a stool is slightly different than compressing it with all your body mass. Maybe Arnie Schwarzenegger in his prime could do it, but I doubt it. And even if I could have compressed the shock, the rubber gromet through which I was to insert the lower bolt in was too fat to fit inside the lower metal bracket. I took the shock totally off and spent the next two hours trying to force it into the lower bracket as rubber should be pliable, but this must have been some sort of MAGA no compromise rubber. Finally, I took the shock into my shop and ground the rubber down on my bench grinder. Now it fits in the lower bracket, but I still had to compress the shock to get it to the right length. Eventually I had to ask Judy to help. With both of us pushing the shock while laying on our backs on the cold ground we eventually succeeded. Fuck you Schwarzenegger, two 70+ year old are as good as you and one of them was a girl! The downside of this was it took 5 hours and I still had 3 more shocks to go. The next day, with Judy’s help, I finished the task, then spent the next 3 days on the sofa with a hot pad a bottle of single malt. I believe that no jury would convict me if I ever met and killed that U-tube ass hole.
Reels on facebook
Reels are short Tic Tok like videos that are imbedded in my Facebook feed. And no, I don’t know what I am talking about as I have never seen a Tic Tok, but I think this explanation makes me seem younger. And let’s face it, I need younger people to read my blog as my current readership are older friends and family that I shame into reading it. Reels as opposed to Tic Toc, seem to be different depending on the user. Judy for example gets a lot of cooking hacks, recipes, and shit about Prince Willie and Kate. I on the other hand get ones about cute baby fuzzy animal, especially raccoon and rodents that people have rescued and then adopted as pets. Lately there has been a bunch about capybaras.
A capybara is a prairie dog that has been exposed to massive radiation in a botched nuclear test and then grew to gigantic proportions. I have never understood rats as pets. It’s dogs, cats for me. I have had tropical fish, which is not really a pet concept, more like living art. I did try to teach the fish tricks. I worked on roll over a lot, but when they did roll over and played dead, they really were. Capybaras may be trainable but, in my mind, they are not pets, more like 150-pound tailless rats. An additional drawback is that they are semi-aquatic, meaning that they need to swim a lot. Imagine coming home for a hard day at work and snuggling up on the sofa with a giant wet hamster. Yuck! And what are they going to swim in? You will need a pool. A giant wet rat that takes shits in your pool. Not a pet.
The other thing that I consistently get on reels are ample assed and women with augment cleavages that are taking selfies in evening gowns that are split from ankle to china. How disgusting and no matter what I try I just can’t seem to block the fuzzy animal videos.
Pretensions Stupidity
Years ago, when I was still earning a living wage, I was required to attend scientific conventions in exotic locations like Huston, Denver, Seattle and Washington D.C. Once in while they even put me up in a nice hotel. May be the room was next to an elevator in serious need of lubricant, but the location made it a shorter crawl back to my bed after the “all you can drink bar”. Every once in while I even managed to splurge and dine at the expensive in-house restaurant. More likely I was forced to break per diem limits as I was too inebriated to walk any distance. On one of these occasions, I was at a hotel in scenic South San Fransisco. When the soup was served the perky waitress, holding a tea towel, offered me a warm teaspoon. WTF. I was shocked into catatonic silence. What was this about? As soon as I put the spoon in the soup. Wouldn’t it warm up on its own when I put it in the soup? Not knowing the proper etiquette, I put the spoon in my mouth before putting in the soup. “Yes, it’s quite warm, thank you very much, and expect a nice tip for your kindness”. From the shocked reaction from my dinner companions, I think I did the wrong thing. So wrong in fact that if Emily Post were alive, she would have shot herself then turned over in her grave. When the salad arrived, I was offered a chilled salad fork. Having screw up so badly on my first try and vowing not to cause further embarrassment, I politely refused, and then ate the salad with my fingers. The next morning, I realized the error of my ways and vowed never again to drink tequila at the free bar. Stick with scotch.
One more pretentious stupidity before I close out my latest rant. My son and his gorgeous wife took me wine tasting on my 75th birthday. You can read all about it on a previous blog (Wine Tasting With Dolls) if you are so inclined or are one of my aging relatives and friends who will try and lie about it when I ask them if they read it during the upcoming reunion. Back to the story. We were at this fabulous vineyard, wine tasting in a stunning room that I think was once a garage. At a far table was a pretentious ass doing an imitation of Alan Rickman from the movie “Bottle Shock”. First, he swirls the wine around in the flute, looks at its legs, and sticks his nose in to get the aroma. Then sips it, gargles with it, and then SPITS IT OUT. He just spent $25 for a “flight” of five wines and did not swallow any of them. Why would they call it a flight if they didn’t intend for you to high? Okey, they only give you a timbale full in each glass, but there are other winery’s to visit. You have only one life and even if you ‘re Hindu; you need to be careful as there is karma. I you don’t swallow, you just might be reincarnated as Monic Lewinsky.