Random Chit Chat

[PP Mguire]

Really? I wasn't aware that you can gain employment in an intermediate or upper level position without certifications. My husband told me that I could probably persue an entry level position without certifications because he spoke to a few employees at work who were currently employed at the entry level positions but I never knew you could with advanced positions.

It's who you know, not what you know. In my current position my recruiter recognized my name and got me the interview because she knew I could do the job easy despite their requirements.

 

[kmanmx]

Weighed myself again today, progress has slowed a lot but it's still ticking away, about 1 pound a week at the moment. Now 179lb versus my original 255lb. To be honest I can't really see that it has helped my diabetes at all, my blood sugars are still entirely dependent on how many carbs im eating. If I eat pizza they will be just as bas as when I was 255lb. So that's disappointing, but hey I figure it's better to be diabetic and a healthy weight rahter than diabetic and obese.

This diet for the past 9 months has made me realise how many people including close family are in such denial about how much they eat and how often they do it. My aunt is prediabetic, and she is pretty overweight. She tells me every time I see her that she eats one meal a day but just isn't losing weight. She is either eating an absolutely massive 3000 calorie meal or she is making the common mistake of ignoring snacks and drinks. I've known her nearly 30 years and can guarantee the latter. She can proclaim one meal a day all she likes but I will bet my life she spends the rest of the day drinking soda, fruit juices, eating packets of chips and cookies as snacks. I bet she consumes 1000+ calories in drink and snacks before her meal. And then I get people in complete denial from the opposite end, I tell them I only eat for 4 hours each day and they just instantly say "oh my body would never let me do that" - well it almost definitely would, you are human just like me, there are 100's of millions of people around the world that practice fasting either as a religion or because they are in some super poor 3rd world country and just don't have much access to food. But my mom and sister just tell me they'd pass out if they don't eat for more than six hours. They have no health conditions, it's a load of bullcrap, they just have no willpower to overcome the hunger feelings.

And that's my rant for the day. And I say the above without having any moral highground because although I have been dieting for 9 months succesfully overall I am 100% completely aware of how hard it is to deal with cravings and hunger and the desire to binge eat. I battle it every day and atleast one or two days a week I lose that battle and eat some bad unhealthy junk food, and probably a large amount of it. But I just see it as a trend, if I can stick to it more often than not then I keep going. And when I do have a bad day and eat half a tub of ben and jerries ice cream, I wake up the next day and won't eat anything at all for 24 hours and then just have one meal. I try and balance bad eating events by doing the extreme opposite the next day. It's better for my to successfully diet some of the time than none of the time like if I didn't even try.

 

[PP Mguire]

Dude that's really good! You're at my weight now.

 

[kmanmx]

Dude that's really good! You're at my weight now.

Thanks. I have to say it's nice to look normal and clothes look like they fit properly. Downside, I get colder way easier. I practically live under multiple layers of clothing and blankets during the winter, too expensive to turn the heating on...

 

[PP Mguire]

Thanks. I have to say it's nice to look normal and clothes look like they fit properly. Downside, I get colder way easier. I practically live under multiple layers of clothing and blankets during the winter, too expensive to turn the heating on...

It's still hard for me to get cold, but don't y'all have radiators?

 

[kmanmx]

It's still hard for me to get cold, but don't y'all have radiators?

Sure do. But energy prices due to Ukraine war are 4x what they were in 2021. Electricity is about $0.60 kwh atm. Gas even more. We turn our radiator heating on for two hours in the morning and evening, it costs about $2 an hour to turn on at the moment. Our house is old and badly insulated and leaks heat fast as well. Despite trying to be as efficient as possible our energy bills are $30 a day if its cold. Its financially crippling.

 

[PP Mguire]

Sure do. But energy prices due to Ukraine war are 4x what they were in 2021. Electricity is about $0.60 kwh atm. Gas even more. We turn our radiator heating on for two hours in the morning and evening, it costs about $2 an hour to turn on at the moment. Our house is old and badly insulated and leaks heat fast as well. Despite trying to be as efficient as possible our energy bills are $30 a day if its cold. Its financially crippling.

In November I got charged $240 for a natural gas bill when the previous month was $30. The month of October was over 80F average all month, and the only thing using gas in the warm months is the water heater. Our bills might not naturally be as high but these companies are screwing people over left and right.

 

[Nukem]

I have electric everything and on Dominion's "budget" plan. My bill went up to 311.00 a month.

Yea... It sucks.

 

[PP Mguire]

I have electric everything and on Dominion's "budget" plan. My bill went up to 311.00 a month.

Yea... It sucks.

My electric on average in the spring, summer, and fall is 300+ because our electric company is fucking everybody over. We've been charged PCRF for 2 years now since the first snow storm, and now we're being charged extra to cover the Brazos Energy bankruptcy. The PCRF earlier this year amounted to a doubling of rate charge, when they've had the same 0.06c rate since the 90s. As of October that is now an official 14.5c rate charge plus the extra fees. Before when it got cold and I shut the AC off my bill would be 150 or less, my last one was 314. Last summer I got a 640 dollar electric bill, and now I bet this summer will be higher.

In other news, I've had some pain in the ass moments at home. For my media server I don't have any redundancy because I don't really care about media but this recent one is a pain in the ass. I have spotted missing episodes through my entire TV library from one 6TB WD dying. I've spent the past week trying to get missing episodes even with automated systems helping. Last night my network controller took a shit on me and when I went to bed it was boot looping. It still forwarded internet traffic so I just waited. I unplugged it this morning and it boot looped a couple of times then finally came up. In threat logs I noticed my machine attacking my controller on port 53 with the tag et malware vipersoftx cnc domain in dns lookup. That would explain the constant 50+% CPU usage on it for hours. Over 2,000 logs of threats over the course of a day. After checking my machine it's clean, and when I shut my machine off it still logs attacks. Now it's showing a random mac address hitting various ports of other machines saying a specific port on a switch that's empty. I think it's just on crack and dying. Tcpviewer on every machine shows no traffic besides my server Plex traffic.

 

[kmanmx]

Nice to know US energy companies are just the same.

This basically sums it up:

"The energy consultancy Cornwall Insight has predicted that, excluding government subsidies, typical annual household energy bills will have fallen from £4,279 now to £3,208 from April, and then will ease to roughly £2,200 for the remainder of the year.

The forecasts are about £300 a year lower than its previous expectations because of the recent fall in wholesale gas costs.

Nevertheless, bills are set to remain far higher than the £1,138 energy price cap before the escalation of gas prices in late 2021, which was further exacerbated after Russia invaded Ukraine."

So basically the energy prices are never going to return to what they were before. The energy providers got a taste of dem fat profits and they will never go back to what they were before. Market prices for gas are already back to pre-war levels if I remember correctly.

Tesco admitted the other day that they had seen a lot of food manufacturers inflate product prices far beyond the current inflation rate too because they saw it as an opportuntity to deliver even bigger profits. I like capitalism but they really need to be put under more checks and balances.