It’s Fail Time

So, as evident by this post, I did indeed survive the big race on Saturday. Survive is a loose term at the moment as I am sitting here wondering how many days it will be before I stand, much less walk without grimacing. I’ll be back with more details on the run, but for now I am just going to lay here and try to cut through the lingering pain with some happy pills otherwise known as another round of Fails. Been saving this up for a while now and decided it was time to release them in the inglorious spotlight for laughter, shame and dare I say mockery to those who had a hand in their creation. Yes, folks, it is time to call it like I see it.

Leading off this parade of misfits is Gadsen, AL. Noccalula Falls has become one of our favorite places to stop on our bird migration trips down to Dauphin Island. There is a nice campground nearby, the falls are lovely and best of all, there is an awesome set of biking/running trails to get some training runs in during the trip. There is also a pizza joint near the falls that has become a lock for at least one of our meals during the stay called Blackstone Pizza. Our visit this year came with a side of ..well, sideways.

I am not referring to the bright pink hair of the waitress, I couldn’t care less about individual choices on clothing, hair etc. If you are trying to get a rise out of me for some form of self-validation then you’ll have to wait for the next person. No, what I found quite hilarious is the menu orientation. You will see this theme throughout this post – it isn’t so much its existence, rather the number of individuals who clearly saw it and convinced themselves there was either not an issue or someone else’s problem and thus never addressed. You might want to think about your hiring practices.

There are plenty more fails on the way, simply hit the jump to bask in the fail army glory.

There are also those fails that might indirectly have a negative impact on you…like your safety or just peace of mind. I find locks fit both those categories. Knowing one is there can keep the worries down unless there are signs it has been compromised. Take for instance this door lock spotted at a campground.

Effective, ineffective, impaired? A few things can be inferred here on quick glance. First, highly unlikely they ever change the combination, 5 of the numbers have N#EVER been in the unlock combination, 1 is highly doubtful to be in the equation leaving just 4 likely numbers. Just doing some very quick math knowing the four numbers and assuming it is 4 digits in total reduces the combination set from the 10K range down to roughly 256. Knowing this situation, I’d start with ‘5678’.

I happen to have a bit of OCD entwined in my DNA – some would say a “bit” is waaaay understated, but I have always felt my need for organization is the “normal” condition and the entropy population are the ones who need therapy. Honestly, who looks at this wall at my orthopedic surgeon’s office and says “that’s normal”?

Nobody, that’s who!! If I would have seen this when I first walked in holding my shattered elbow I would have walked right back out and put my own screws in. I want precision in my surgeons – I ease my jitters by telling myself the doctor comes through another door every day.

Unfortunately, this issue doesn’t end at the doctor’s office. In fact, once you start being aware of the clearly deliberate efforts to turn us all into crazies you’ll notice just how persuasive it is. Linda was looking for one of those decorative boards to put on our porch and came upon this one at target. Before I looked over, she promptly declared “NO WAY IN HELL”. She knows what sets me off (or more succinctly she is normal) and knew this would have me convulsing every time I went into the house.

“Why people, why!?!” Granted there is a bit of added scare factor because the occupants don’t seem to care about straight lines, but doesn’t it really say more about the stupidity of the designer? Rhetorical of course, the answer is clearly yes.

Sticking with the Halloween theme I bring you a quandary we like to call “profiling”. Think this was found at Party City, but possibly Spirit – regardless, the question still remains…does a serial killer just prefer a certain form of fashion sense or does the act of butchering someone lend itself to a particular form of attire. (note, this is similar to the same internal debate I have regarding Harley’s and leather with frills – not the butchering part, just which is the chicken and which is the egg).

In this particular case, does simply wearing a one piece (apparently just a grey or blue one) immediately illicit screams and shrieking accusations of “Killer”?

Or perhaps it is more of the presence of a large machete and a hockey mask that is really the more accurate profile point. I guess this would be easy to prove should I be so inclined to get to the bottom of this psychology experiment (kicking myself for not thinking of this as my study case during all my college psych class days). Simply dress up in a grey or blue coverall and stand in the woods next to a popular trail – better yet, on the day of a 50 mile ultra race and count the number of screams you get.

Then on the next day (or race), add a hockey mask and a machete. Next step is to wear just the mask and hold the machete (NO CLOTHES). Next iteration is to simply stand there wearing a pink tutu followed by …you guessed it.. a tutu with a machete and a hockey mask. Tally up the number of shocked faces and law enforcement encounters and you have yourself the definitive answer.

Next up something unexpected at Sam’s Town in Las Vegas. We were watching their cute little wildlife animatronics show in their lobby when I looked to my right and saw this.

Yes, that is a lady holding a life-size Chucky doll. Did I mention this was in March? She seems nice and luckily not wearing coveralls. Honestly I think the most horrifying part of it was the fact Chucky’s shoes were facing the wrong direction – shudder.

Okay, time to now drag out my soap box. I am absolutely tired of the bullshit that inundates me every single day about the environment and climate change. Report after report claims this or that and then you are led on a meandering logic road that eventually gets so convoluted or outright lost they throw out meh, climate change as they drive off the cliff. Honestly, I don’t mind studies and manipulated data, but the outright lies and deception that accompany them that make me sick. The microsecond you notice they suppress all questions or alternative explanations is the exact moment in time you should realize they are lying their asses off for an agenda.

Case in point, the evolution of containers. Bottles bad, cans better, cans bad, plastic better, oh wait now recycling is more damaging than new so plastic is out and wait for it…wait for it.. cans are better now. Let’s just ignore the fact that metals come from mining (something I happen to know a lot about), but now it is okay because that is the only way to get our precious EV battery materials, but since it is being done primarily in China with a fraction of the environment restrictions the tree huggers can still sleep well. Bring up any of these points for simple discussion and like the vaccine agenda, get dismissed as conspiracy theorists.

Just to run out the clock on the soap box a few more interesting examples of alarmism in practice. Bee population is devastated by climate change – nope, just one small section of captive bees that came from the same origin that wasn’t adapted to the region they were being sold in. Monarchs are all decimated by climate change – nope, population is healthy doing exactly as before when the biased date is removed. The world is going to end in X days (AOC/Greta/Gore/Applewhite/Tolba/Pauchauri) – nope. Contrary to Fauci, science is not TRUTH. Everything deserves questioning and if the hypothesis survives scrutiny then we consider that the direction until new evidence requires a course change.

Now on to things that are completely without explanation.

This is the ceiling of the New York New York Casino/Hotel in Las Vegas. There are footprints along the entire way to the hotel entrance. What the hell?

How did they get there, what was the compelling motivation, can’t be kids, too high off the ground, why mainly the right foot … sooooo many questions — really, if you have a reason, let me know in the comments as it is driving me crazy and Linda put her foot down on letting me do a full scale CSI investigation on it.

Next up is the Radisson Hotel in Davenport IA. We were up there for the annual Bix 7 race back in July. If we can, we like to stay at this hotel as it sits right on the starting line of the race. Wake up, slap some clothes on and stroll out the front door and listen for the gun – my kind of race prep. This hotel was recently taken over by Radisson and supposedly renovated/updated. Code words for we are going to raise the prices. Absolute trash quality by whoever they hired to do the upgrades. The shower door was off by over 3 inches at the top.

Notice the bottom where it hits the side preventing it from stopping any water from drenching the floor – not to mention it wouldn’t even stay close and we had to jury rig a washcloth on the rollers to keep it from opening all the way while showering.

Then I notice the pictures on the walls were all coming apart.

Back to the theme – are you more disappointed in the quality put in on the construction side or the fact that a cleaning person has gone into that bathroom countless times and somehow convinced themselves that is completely acceptable for the price of the room.

How is this for bad marketing…or perhaps it is genius marketing to those who like to wear grey and blue coveralls.

In this day and age when we read about people being offended by the most benign Halloween decorations, I can only imagine the wailing if one of those individuals would walk by this product and just catching a glimpse of the title.

This is probably more of a personal issue than maybe an outright fail. I stared at this particular gas station sign for an embarrassing amount of time before I figured it out.

It wasn’t the handicapped symbol at the top as I think that is very well thought out and effective symbol. What I couldn’t figure out was the bottom portion. Now that I figured it out, my brain automatically rationalizes it for me, but I must have stood there 10 minutes going through options; people with canes, those on rollerskates, someone that has to use the urinal…ooooohh, babies who need help reaching the pump – wait, babies can’t drive, what the hell is this! How about a woman with a baby bump or something that is equally universal, because that ain’t working for me.

This one is industry specific so apologies to those not in the compute business. For those in the know, does anything about this make you chuckle?

I imagine when reading this book you NEVER get to the end as you just keep flipping back to the first page.

Unlike this book in which case the “END” is the entire point of the book.

The question is .. who is the target audience for this book beyond Kim Kardashian’s Kid? Then again, there seems to be this fascination with “that end” by a shocking number of corporations producing toys for children. Snapped a shot of just a few while shopping at Farm and Fleet during the last Christmas season.

15 bucks to watch a chicken running around pooping, nothing good can possibly come of that and if it was that entertaining you wouldn’t be able to get the kids out of the chicken coup.

Not to be outdone, the FurReal product geniuses bring you Sir Poopalots.

AS far as I can tell it is just a stuffed toy that does nothing other than defecate all over your carpets. Is it a parent trap to secretly convince kids they do NOT want a puppy or perhaps some kind of Pavlovian dog whistle to make babies poop on schedule – got me, but I was half tempted to buy it for my great nephews and nieces just to see how their parents would react.

Okay, it is inevitable that a fails post eventually slides into the bathroom realm. Yes, for some reason I am absolutely fascinated with bad design and, unfortunately, that seems to manifest the most when it comes to bathrooms – honestly, no clue why, it just does. I’ve already documented the guy’s guide to bathroom etiquette (link here), so I am not going to go into that detail here. I can tell you this is completely unacceptable for urinal placement with one exception – for a father who has to keep watch on a child.

From that angle, it might not look that much of a violation, but then you see the rest of the story.

Beyond a child or very, very, very close relative, no way in hell is someone else going to use that back urinal. In fact, any male (sans child) who chooses to use the back urinal before the first should be barred from public urination facilities for life.

Next up on poor bathroom design – the designer who doesn’t fully grasp the handicapped (or small statured) struggles.

If you notice, the closest sink is lowered in a rather artistic manner which is somewhat accommodating to those who could use an assist reaching the faucet. That is as long as that individual does NOT need soap which is placed probably at its maximum height for non-handicapped people. Assuming 9 inch planks and blocks that dispenser is nearly 6 feet high.

Now we transition from a height issue to a width issue. This was the bathroom configuration at the Gulf Breeze Motel on Dauphin Island, AL. Take notice of the door clearance.

If that was more than an 1/8th of inch clearance I would be shocked. Not as bad as a previous fail where they had to cut the bowl profile out of the door for it to even open, but this is pretty damn close. I can imagine the construction guy having an oh shit moment as soon as he tried to open the door the first time.

Now for just plain insanity. I’ll let you take in this sight without me spoiling it first. It really is quite something.

Just in case you are struggling to rationalize, you are correct, there is no way to turn the hot water on. The levers come forward for on as you would expect and that can’t happen. Honestly, I am not sure how this occurs as I have never seen an off center faucet hole. The hot water handle is clearly taking up the center hole which means they probably had to cut the cold water and maybe the soap holes out themselves. Regardless, to put that together and think “success” takes some mental gymnastics. But wait, there’s more…

Obviously seeing the error of his/her ways, synapses were put into overdrive to resolve the issue for the sink right next to it. Look at that, switch the faucet and the soap dispenser and then put the hot water paddle in front!!! Wait..hot water paddle..what the hell, they decided the hot and cold water had to be switched as well. There are some people you just have to meet in life and I really, really, really want to meet this person.

That would be in stark contrast to the person this sign is intended for.

There should never ever, ever, ever, ever be a need for this sign in the interior of a first world nation.

Okay greenies, how does this make you feel?

That’s right, this campground in Pensacola has gone green and that has made them uber-happy totally based on the happy face emoji proudly displayed at the bottom of the sign. They now have an on-demand hot water system that requires you to run the water for what really turns out to be a MINIMUM of 15 minutes and closer to reality 20 minutes before you get lukewarm water at best. For those of us on a well, that was like watching gold circling the drain…..but, but, but g r e e n.

Can you imagine the reaction of the person in need of the following service?

Sorry, the proprietors of this establishment have decided your life is not worth getting this fixed anytime soon and instead, have decided that taking the effort to print this very helpful sign is more worthy of their time. I can just feel the passion in that italic font.

The good news is the above signmaker didn’t make any grammar mistakes.

Although in this case I am not exactly sure who is right or wrong. Are they trying to counter the suggestion and recommend using the door the sign is on or should I use the one the arrow is pointing at “aaaaackkk” pulling my hair out.

I do like the Orwellian Animal Farm “All are equal but some are more equal than others” vibe – slightly altered to “No one is allowed but some staff are allowed”

I have come to the end of this Fail collection, but thanks to this genius of a current administration, the “adults in the room” as they refer to themselves as, the purveyors of harmony, distributors of equity, masters of the stairs, the unifiers of this great nation, the walls are racist until we build them, employers of luggage stealers and most of all, on the pulse of the geopolitical world, I give you one last failure to chew on…Jake Sullivan from last week.

I know you are still thinking about the imagery of someone standing naked with a machete wearing a hockey mask in the woods. Admittedly, I forgot my control grouping – would need to add standing on the trail with normal woods attire and of course one iteration where you wear a bear suit if you really wanted to earn that ‘A’ on your psych final.

Time to go lather on some Tiger Balm. Take care everyone.