Roommate failure
We're all a bit fed up with living with J. We can put up with him, and tolerate him, but it's just getting old how we practically have to babysit him. Apparently, at work, he's almost worse than useless. There was this whole long thing about him trying to get a box down off a shelf. Of course, that's just the first in a list of epic fails.
Epic fail 1: J gets instructions, wanders over to shelf, looks at it a bit, wanders back. "So, I use the ladder, right?" Gets confirmation, goes back to shelf, gets small ladder and tries to get the box. Reaches, fails, keeps trying, gives up, wanders back. "Do you think I'm supposed to use the big ladder?" Well, yeah, if the small one isn't high enough. Gets ladder, sets it up just a little too far out from the shelf, climbs up three steps, tries to reach, still can't. Gets down, moves ladder closer, tries again. Still only on third step, still can't reach, and ladder is now a foot and a half to the side of the box, resulting in even more awkward attempts to reach. Manages to get hands on it a few times, lightly. Gives up, comes back again. "I can't reach it, and it's really heavy." Roommate M gets fed up, goes over, moves ladder a bit, climbs up to the fifth step and brings it down. It's all of maybe five pounds, and on top of that, it's not even the right product. Epic fail.
Epic fail 2: He was trying to clip a clasp like the kind that this kind of necklace usually has as a clasp, and it took him a solid five minutes to figure it out. Apparently he's never seen one before. Not even kidding. I can almost believe him not ever seeing one before, since he seems to have grown up under a rock, but... Five minutes to figure it out?
Not-so-epic-but-still-a-fail 3: He was at the store, and I asked him to get stew meat while he was there. He asked me where the stew meat would be. I said it should be in the meat section. I've seen it before. I know it's there. He asks me to be more specific, assuming that stew meat is a general term. I tell him no, it should be labeled as stew meat, but that if he can't find it, a large chunk of beef that can be cut into cubes would work just fine. The response I get? "Oh, so it's beef then?" Okay. I get that not everyone makes stew with beef. I'm quite tempted to try making it with something else, to be quite honest. But still, generally, one probably assumes stew meat is beef. What's worse? "So, like, ground beef, then?" Shoot me now. No. You can't... GENERALLY DON'T... make stew with ground beef. After much hemming and hawing he finally finds a package labeled stew meat. Thank god. I didn't want to have to go to the store just because he couldn't figure that one out.
I know there was another one, I had it in my head just a second ago. Ah, right.
Maybe?-epic fail 4: He wanted to show us something new and interesting that he thought would be surprising to us. So he showed us this book about how human sexuality evolved, and how we're different from other primates in that our females don't show obvious signs of ovulation. He was extremely disappointed when we already pretty much knew that. We learned that in high school biology. Apparently our high school biology class was a lot more advanced than his, since this isn't the first time something has come up that we learned in basic biology, that he expected to be completely new to us.
I've been trying to figure out if he has any problem solving skills at all. Judging by most of this... I'd say not so much. From the first three, anyway. The fourth, arguably, isn't his fault. Although finding a school more backwater that our high school has to be a freaking miracle to begin with. We went to a school well known in the district to be a bunch of redneck, prejudiced hicks, who aren't very well liked and aren't very bright. Anyway.
I keep hoping he'll surprise me and actually be smart, one of these days, because he actually sounds halfway intelligent when he's chatting on the internet or on the phone. But then he pulls something like this, and fails at basic problem solving, or fails at basic academic feats, like doing rudimentary addition or not understanding a relatively basic vocabulary word, or asks a question that just begs me to ask him if he lived under a rock until he was twenty, because it's the only possible explanation for how he could not know some things.
Honestly, I can put up with him, because he lowers the rent, and we can't afford to kick him out. We have too much stuff to move into a smaller place, no matter how we try to wing it, and none of our other friends are looking for a place to stay. Admittedly, I don't have to work with him, like M and D do, so I'm not dealing with him nearly as much.
On a relatively unrelated side note, he did something that was kind of creepy yesterday, too. D and I have been drawing the last few days, and I was researching tablets, seeing if they were in a range I could reasonably swing my spare cash for. Best deal I found was a $70 Bamboo by Wacom. Not a bad deal, either. More than I want to spend, and I'm not going to, but still, a nice tablet for a good price, and I was all but drooling on my computer screen over it. So here comes J, and he offers to buy it for me for my birthday. Now, maybe if I was in a relationship with him, it would make sense. But we're not particularly close, and that seems extremely excessive to me. I typically think a limit on friend gifts is 20-30 bucks, unless it's something absolutely perfect, or a shared gift or something. Maybe he's used to being extremely generous with gifts? He's certainly free with his money elsewise. He was bragging to D a few weeks ago about how he's spent over 2k at strip clubs. I swear, he's obsessed with sex.
... I need to remember not to never mention the DnD book that has all the sex rules when he's around. Ever.
But yeah. That offer creeped me out a bit. Made me wonder if maybe he wasn't looking to buy goodwill, or affection, or angling for something else. It does not help that he's a twitchy, stereotypical, scrawny nerd, minus all the good points most nerds have. AKA the brains, video game skillz, or tech savvy. And he's not nearly as attractive as he thinks he is, for all that he's relatively good natured.
And on another mostly unrelated side note (I'm just full of these today, aren't I?), his questions about alignment in DnD are all... Dull. I can't think of a good word. He was asking me if someone just out to get themselves further ahead was more good aligned or evil aligned. I had to explain that that goal, in and of itself, isn't really something you can base an alignment off of. It's all in how you go about achieving those goals. The most evil man in the world may have a goal of rescuing his loved ones from the clutches of some other being, and he's content to rape, loot, and pillage along the way, then go back to his farm and live in peace, despite being evil. Just like good-aligned characters can be bent on getting revenge, torturing, and maiming their targets, but unwilling to cause harm to anyone else along the way. He seems to have grasped that concept, at least. It's not necessarily the goals that make the alignment, but the approach to those goals. Although the goals do make a difference, it's not just the goals that play a role. Then he had to ask me about chaotic neutral, and how that fit into the whole scheme of things, because he thought maybe they were supposed to deliberately break any and all rules, and work deliberately against organization of such rules and laws. (Conveniently, I had just read a thing on that very alignment. Unfortunately, I cannot remember precisely what it said.) I told him to look it up on the internet. I was tired of trying to field that explanation on my own.
Which sorta, kinda, not really, leads me to still more ranting about him. J is extremely anti-religion. He takes offense at the idea that a religious person can be intelligent. I have found myself in the extremely strange and uncomfortable position, lately, of defending the people who are devoted to one faith or another. Usually, I myself can be found cracking a joke or two at their expense. I find the more fanatical ones to be highly irritating, and I can't stand them. I find them to be extremely deluded, and I don't place much value on them as human beings. That said, I don't think they're stupid. They may be basing their religious arguments off of things with rather large logic holes, but the fact that they're capable of holding their own despite those holes says that they have some intelligence. Arguing something when you don't have all the information is very, very difficult. When they aren't arguing religion, there's even less reason to assume they're stupid. Some of the better scientists in the world are very devoted to their faith, taking the time to go to church every week, and sometimes try to convert friends who don't hold the same beliefs as them. (I think the largest problem I have with religion is the whole converting others thing, actually.) Some of the world's best authors, artists, athletes, and even world leaders, (and voice actors like Vic, I feel compelled to mention) are devout followers of some god or another. I refuse to think that these people I admire, most of them for their mental prowess, are less intelligent than many idiots I know who don't believe in a god.
So I'm finding that those who push me to convert to non-believerism are just as annoying, if not more so, than those who push me to believe. Because I'd mostly thought that those who didn't believe were a pretty laid back lot, who just smiled and laughed at those who do believe. I was, apparently, being incredibly naive. And completely forgetting the whole kerfuffle over agnostics and atheism and all that bullshit. Next time he starts bashing religion, I'm either going to hit him, or ask him what 17 times 13 is. And when he can't tell me, I'll say that clearly, he's less intelligent than those people he's so intent on bashing, because I know a large number of them who can do that in their heads without having to think twice about it. Come to think of it, I may just hit him anyway.
Epic fail 1: J gets instructions, wanders over to shelf, looks at it a bit, wanders back. "So, I use the ladder, right?" Gets confirmation, goes back to shelf, gets small ladder and tries to get the box. Reaches, fails, keeps trying, gives up, wanders back. "Do you think I'm supposed to use the big ladder?" Well, yeah, if the small one isn't high enough. Gets ladder, sets it up just a little too far out from the shelf, climbs up three steps, tries to reach, still can't. Gets down, moves ladder closer, tries again. Still only on third step, still can't reach, and ladder is now a foot and a half to the side of the box, resulting in even more awkward attempts to reach. Manages to get hands on it a few times, lightly. Gives up, comes back again. "I can't reach it, and it's really heavy." Roommate M gets fed up, goes over, moves ladder a bit, climbs up to the fifth step and brings it down. It's all of maybe five pounds, and on top of that, it's not even the right product. Epic fail.
Epic fail 2: He was trying to clip a clasp like the kind that this kind of necklace usually has as a clasp, and it took him a solid five minutes to figure it out. Apparently he's never seen one before. Not even kidding. I can almost believe him not ever seeing one before, since he seems to have grown up under a rock, but... Five minutes to figure it out?
Not-so-epic-but-still-a-fail 3: He was at the store, and I asked him to get stew meat while he was there. He asked me where the stew meat would be. I said it should be in the meat section. I've seen it before. I know it's there. He asks me to be more specific, assuming that stew meat is a general term. I tell him no, it should be labeled as stew meat, but that if he can't find it, a large chunk of beef that can be cut into cubes would work just fine. The response I get? "Oh, so it's beef then?" Okay. I get that not everyone makes stew with beef. I'm quite tempted to try making it with something else, to be quite honest. But still, generally, one probably assumes stew meat is beef. What's worse? "So, like, ground beef, then?" Shoot me now. No. You can't... GENERALLY DON'T... make stew with ground beef. After much hemming and hawing he finally finds a package labeled stew meat. Thank god. I didn't want to have to go to the store just because he couldn't figure that one out.
I know there was another one, I had it in my head just a second ago. Ah, right.
Maybe?-epic fail 4: He wanted to show us something new and interesting that he thought would be surprising to us. So he showed us this book about how human sexuality evolved, and how we're different from other primates in that our females don't show obvious signs of ovulation. He was extremely disappointed when we already pretty much knew that. We learned that in high school biology. Apparently our high school biology class was a lot more advanced than his, since this isn't the first time something has come up that we learned in basic biology, that he expected to be completely new to us.
I've been trying to figure out if he has any problem solving skills at all. Judging by most of this... I'd say not so much. From the first three, anyway. The fourth, arguably, isn't his fault. Although finding a school more backwater that our high school has to be a freaking miracle to begin with. We went to a school well known in the district to be a bunch of redneck, prejudiced hicks, who aren't very well liked and aren't very bright. Anyway.
I keep hoping he'll surprise me and actually be smart, one of these days, because he actually sounds halfway intelligent when he's chatting on the internet or on the phone. But then he pulls something like this, and fails at basic problem solving, or fails at basic academic feats, like doing rudimentary addition or not understanding a relatively basic vocabulary word, or asks a question that just begs me to ask him if he lived under a rock until he was twenty, because it's the only possible explanation for how he could not know some things.
Honestly, I can put up with him, because he lowers the rent, and we can't afford to kick him out. We have too much stuff to move into a smaller place, no matter how we try to wing it, and none of our other friends are looking for a place to stay. Admittedly, I don't have to work with him, like M and D do, so I'm not dealing with him nearly as much.
On a relatively unrelated side note, he did something that was kind of creepy yesterday, too. D and I have been drawing the last few days, and I was researching tablets, seeing if they were in a range I could reasonably swing my spare cash for. Best deal I found was a $70 Bamboo by Wacom. Not a bad deal, either. More than I want to spend, and I'm not going to, but still, a nice tablet for a good price, and I was all but drooling on my computer screen over it. So here comes J, and he offers to buy it for me for my birthday. Now, maybe if I was in a relationship with him, it would make sense. But we're not particularly close, and that seems extremely excessive to me. I typically think a limit on friend gifts is 20-30 bucks, unless it's something absolutely perfect, or a shared gift or something. Maybe he's used to being extremely generous with gifts? He's certainly free with his money elsewise. He was bragging to D a few weeks ago about how he's spent over 2k at strip clubs. I swear, he's obsessed with sex.
... I need to remember not to never mention the DnD book that has all the sex rules when he's around. Ever.
But yeah. That offer creeped me out a bit. Made me wonder if maybe he wasn't looking to buy goodwill, or affection, or angling for something else. It does not help that he's a twitchy, stereotypical, scrawny nerd, minus all the good points most nerds have. AKA the brains, video game skillz, or tech savvy. And he's not nearly as attractive as he thinks he is, for all that he's relatively good natured.
And on another mostly unrelated side note (I'm just full of these today, aren't I?), his questions about alignment in DnD are all... Dull. I can't think of a good word. He was asking me if someone just out to get themselves further ahead was more good aligned or evil aligned. I had to explain that that goal, in and of itself, isn't really something you can base an alignment off of. It's all in how you go about achieving those goals. The most evil man in the world may have a goal of rescuing his loved ones from the clutches of some other being, and he's content to rape, loot, and pillage along the way, then go back to his farm and live in peace, despite being evil. Just like good-aligned characters can be bent on getting revenge, torturing, and maiming their targets, but unwilling to cause harm to anyone else along the way. He seems to have grasped that concept, at least. It's not necessarily the goals that make the alignment, but the approach to those goals. Although the goals do make a difference, it's not just the goals that play a role. Then he had to ask me about chaotic neutral, and how that fit into the whole scheme of things, because he thought maybe they were supposed to deliberately break any and all rules, and work deliberately against organization of such rules and laws. (Conveniently, I had just read a thing on that very alignment. Unfortunately, I cannot remember precisely what it said.) I told him to look it up on the internet. I was tired of trying to field that explanation on my own.
Which sorta, kinda, not really, leads me to still more ranting about him. J is extremely anti-religion. He takes offense at the idea that a religious person can be intelligent. I have found myself in the extremely strange and uncomfortable position, lately, of defending the people who are devoted to one faith or another. Usually, I myself can be found cracking a joke or two at their expense. I find the more fanatical ones to be highly irritating, and I can't stand them. I find them to be extremely deluded, and I don't place much value on them as human beings. That said, I don't think they're stupid. They may be basing their religious arguments off of things with rather large logic holes, but the fact that they're capable of holding their own despite those holes says that they have some intelligence. Arguing something when you don't have all the information is very, very difficult. When they aren't arguing religion, there's even less reason to assume they're stupid. Some of the better scientists in the world are very devoted to their faith, taking the time to go to church every week, and sometimes try to convert friends who don't hold the same beliefs as them. (I think the largest problem I have with religion is the whole converting others thing, actually.) Some of the world's best authors, artists, athletes, and even world leaders, (and voice actors like Vic, I feel compelled to mention) are devout followers of some god or another. I refuse to think that these people I admire, most of them for their mental prowess, are less intelligent than many idiots I know who don't believe in a god.
So I'm finding that those who push me to convert to non-believerism are just as annoying, if not more so, than those who push me to believe. Because I'd mostly thought that those who didn't believe were a pretty laid back lot, who just smiled and laughed at those who do believe. I was, apparently, being incredibly naive. And completely forgetting the whole kerfuffle over agnostics and atheism and all that bullshit. Next time he starts bashing religion, I'm either going to hit him, or ask him what 17 times 13 is. And when he can't tell me, I'll say that clearly, he's less intelligent than those people he's so intent on bashing, because I know a large number of them who can do that in their heads without having to think twice about it. Come to think of it, I may just hit him anyway.