xt1me

The ongoing saga of the #@%!$ing rats

2023-12-28T15:58:02Z

I was woken up last Thursday in the middle of the night to a thud in the kitchen. Since I was now awake I went down and found out that one of my failed attempts at homemade chocolate bombs had fallen on the floor. A bit odd I didn't think anything at the time so I just threw it in the bin and shuffled back to bed. I didn't make it I did notice that there were very bright high beams coming from a car that had just driven into the driveway shining straight through the front door glass into the kitchen. In hindsight this must have startled the rats into running down the hall but didn't think much of it at the time. When I was going back to bed though I heard loud scratching noises. These weren’t coming from the kitchen, they were coming from my computer room, which is the opposite direction in the house. I went in and turned on the lights to have a look around but obviously I didn't see anything but all I could think of was oh God I hope the rats aren't back in the walls. But of course, it's in the middle of the night, there's absolutely nothing i can do about it, so i just went back to bed.

So in the morning I had to start work. I work from home so I was set up in the computer room. I probably was at work for about an hour and there was that noise coming out from behind me and I turn around and what do I see? A rat running along the floor! I know it was about 8:00 when this happened because I immediately went and emailed my landlord to say I had rats again. Unfortunately this was the Friday before Christmas so I'm not even sure anyone was in the office and even if there was, there's no way the rat catcher place would probably open up for Christmas so I wasn’t really expecting a reply. I got someone to cover me for 15 minutes and went down to the shop to get some rat traps but that was pretty much all I could do.
I did put the rat traps down that night and nothing happened I did some Googling and got advice to use peanut butter instead of the rat bait that came with the traps. It seemed to work because the next night they definitely sprung the trap in the kitchen. Unfortunately it didn't get caught. The trap got sprung again the next night and didn't the rat didn't concoct then either. Very annoying. The rat trap did get flung underneath the countertop and I spent ages trying to get the fish it back out so I now have a have it on a string so if it gets lost under there I can just drag it back.

It's definitely going around the kitchen because I've heard noise coming from there and seen knocked over things but I've made sure all my food is put away as best as I can. It's also definitely still getting into the computer room because I had some chocolate on my desk and I came back in one of the mornings to find little bits of tinfoil scattered all over my keyboard so I tossed that in the bin and made sure to clear everything from my desk. Obviously I didn't do it well enough because I had forgotten about a mostly finished pack of halls soothers that have been on my desk since the last time I was sick and I think the rat got drunk on them last night. I got woken up at 3:00 in the morning to the sound of skittering back and forth across the floorboards so unfortunately the rat completely bypassed the both traps I have down.

There's absolutely nothing further I can do until my landlord gets back to me which unfortunately is looking like isn't going to be until the new year so all I can really do is wait and see and just hope this stupid rat springs one of my traps.
It's possible that when the guy was coming in to install my new fridge he knocked whatever sealant was in behind the back of the sink covering up one of the rat holes. Because I know one of the first times the rat catcher came out to this place when I was here he sealed a bunch of holes. One of them was under the sink which is where the plug for the fridge is. Obviously all this is conjecture as I have no definite proof of anything. It's also possible there's a hole and the wall somewhere behind the cupboard I can't move on my own in the computer room. Who knows.

All in all this just sucks.

incidentally, my LL did give me a thing to plug into my wall the last time I had rats. It's supposed to repel rats using ultrasonic frequencies.
Needless to say it appears to do sod all.

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finished Assassin's Creed III

2022-02-18T21:00:48Z

So I finished AC3…

And well …

I have some things to say.

( long rant )

Whatever I've ranted about this enough. I got that tyrant king DLC free when I bought this so I’m gonna have a go of that. Maybe it’ll be more fun

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Heater

2022-01-18T19:55:04Z

I bought an electric portable heater from Argos just over 3 years ago
(according to the receipt I still have in my inbox it was Nov 2019)
Argos has a 3 year grantee.

Guess what just broke.

I can't even bye a replacement since it's out of stock.

But I found a slightly cheaper one in Woodies so at least I wont be cold for too long.

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First Rats and now the Internet

2021-10-01T20:13:48Z

Am I doomed to have the same issues every year?

Last night just before I was about to head to bed my internet went down.

I did some basic trouble shooting but nothing worked.
Since it was late I decided I would worry about it in the morning. An maybe, if I was lucky, it would sort itself our.

Of course that didn't happen.

I was able to use my mobile as a hotspot (which means I was able to work) and I got contact with my internet provider.

Good news it that they figured out it was probably a fault in my area. They'll send someone out to fix it and the reimburse my next bill for the time I'll be without broadband.
Bad new is that it'll take 5 working days for someone to be out.

so I'm going to have to struggle through work next week on an internet connect that only works at a snails pace

And I slipped when I was checking my internet router and sprained something in my thumb.

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Why the radio edits Beat Saber?

2021-04-16T18:15:07Z

I get that they might be wanting to keep the game all ages but why, when I had to pay extra for them, are the additional music pacts the radio edit versions?

It's not even that I have anything agent censored versions of song or anything but this is a rhythm game.
It doesn't matter how good the cut is, anytime they have to interrupt the music to cut out a word it throws me off.

It makes the harder difficulties extremely annoying

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Jacksepticeye’s real name is Seán William McLoughlin

2020-01-13T19:52:44Z

There’s something I noticed a lot with fans of Jacksepticeye. A pet peeve I have.

It’s not something I’d ever point out to the people themselves since it’s really only my problem & not worth anything in the grand scheme of things. But it still really annoys me so I’m writing this here.

Jack himself has said he doesn’t care if people call him Jack or Seán. He’s been called both when growing up, Jack being the English of Seán and all (well actually it’s the English for John but Jack’s a diminutive form of John so same difference).

I tend to refer to him as Jack mainly because I admire him for providing multiple free entertainment but it’s not like he’s my friend. It doesn’t matter how much of himself he puts online, it’s not like I know him. I prefer talking about him using his, I guess, stage name but that’s just a personal preference. It’s not what annoys me.

This came to a head in my mind when I saw someone reply to a comment on one of his videos trying to correct another fan. The 1st person called him Shawn, understandable if you only ever hear him say his name not seen it written down, & the other person said it was spelled Sean.

WRONG!

If you are going to correct someone’s spelling at least get it right.

á =/= a

My dyslexic ass did not suffer through 12 years & I don’t know how many hours of remedial lessons & tutors learning Irish to not get reflexively angry when people get this wrong. Not when it was drummed so hard into my head. If I had to suffer this you do to.

The fada changes the sound of the letter for a start. It’s what makes it have that aww sound. It also changes the meaning of the word.

To use an example from one of my Irish tutors, the fada is the difference between man and grass.

fyi: The Irish word “fear” (pronounced like far as in to go far) means “man” but the Irish word “féar” (pronounced more like fear as in to be afraid) means grass

I mean I get why, after all most people haven’t had to learn Irish. It’s just general ignorance that they don’t treat it like another language since the name sounds so much like something in English. They forget that it is a different language. There is a reason why people tend to have so much trouble with trying to pronounce traditional Irish names. (one of the reasons being that the English lettering system was never actually designed for the Irish language so of course the rules don’t make sense on the outside) but that’s a whole different topic about English colonization & I really couldn’t do it as much justice in explaining it as my sister (who not only went to a Gaelscoil but also taught it a bit).

There also the fact that if you only speak English you might not even know where the ‘á’ symbol is on your keyboard (Ctrl + Alt + a usually in windows btw) or depending on your device might not even have it.

Still, I clawed my way to a B in Irish on my leaving Cert & some things leave marks.

Just google it, Jack’s wiki page has the correct spelling on it, it’s not that hard.

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Finaly!

2019-10-25T19:28:49Z

That'll teach me to get something fun for myself.

I got myself a VR headset.
Because I'm a grown up now & I can have fun if I want to.

But I don't know if it was worth it.

First I had a hell of a time just trying to get the thing delivered.
It wouldn't accept my work address for some reason & kept putting my order on hold. Even after I called up & got the service desk to update the address.
I eventually just put the current home address figuring that when it bounced (because there was no way I was going to be there to sign for it) I'll just pick it up at the post office depot or something.
Lucky they had tracking so I could see when it was delivered.
I was a bit puzzled when it said it had been "delivered to a safe area" but I figured maybe my neighbor was home or something.

Nope.
They left it, in the rain, by my front door.

Whatever, I had it finally.
But then, when I was trying to install the software my internet went down.

I had to call the internet provider as my computer kept insisting that it was connecting fine just none of my web pages would open.
The internet provider said it looked like there was a fault & they'd send someone out. It could take up to 5 working days.
The thing is the internet seems to be intermittent so it was fine the next day.

So, hoping the internet would stay on long enough to download the software I decided to start.

It took hours to download & before it finished it just stopped.
I had to restart my computer twice.

Then once it was finally downloaded it said there was an error & to download it again.

Ahhhh!

the next day I tried again.

I finally got it working & then I had to plug everything in.

But that wasn't the end!

The cables would only go in the same slot my monitor was working from.

(If you remember I had issues already w/ the monitor since my old one only had VGA cable & my new compute didn't have a VGA slot)

So I check all the slots I had on both the monitor & the computer & found I could probably run the monitor from a HDMI cable instead.

Now I could have waited until I was back at work & seeing if there was any unused cables around. There usually is.
But I was so annoyed that this was taking so long I just drove to the nearest shopping center & just bought one.

I could have probably got it for cheaper somewhere else but I was too fed up to shop around in the freezing rain.

So now, I have finally got it working.

It is a lot of fun though.

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NCT

2019-09-24T18:22:09Z

I had to put my car through the NCT test today.

I forked over a bunch of cash to get my car up to date yesterday. Things like brake pads, a fan belt and I had to replace all 4 tires.
Thankfully the car passed fine first g.

Of course my Tax & Insurance is due next month so I have to fork over even more money.

Arrrg!

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