Coronavirus

Today the two major local grocery store chains started installing plexiglass windows around the cashier's perch in the checkouts. 

That's just damn smart!

tohostudios wrote:

Thrasher73 wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

On a side note, when I ventured out to the grocery store yesterday for the first time in a week I half-expected to not be able to find any hard liquor.  Nope, that section like a lot of the store (like produce) was stocked like normal.  The only bare shelves were paper products, hand sanitizer, raw chicken and spaghetti sauce.  People sure are stocking up on weird combinations of stuff.

It’s weird the stuff that’s selling out fast. We went today and it’s odd to say the least. What’s with kitty litter? That aisle was cleared out!

OMG!  No cat litter would be a total disaster for me!  I just bought 3 more bags on Thursday and there was a ton of it on the shelves.  Don't tell me I need to start stocking up on that!!!!!  I'm pretty well set for the long haul on everything else but not litter!

Damn!  Going to the store tomorrow.  Sunday is my usual cleaning day and that always includes changing three cat boxes.  So I go through three bags of cat litter a week.  Know how many bags I keep on hand?  Three.  Dammit!

Looks like this might be starting here too.  I went to the store today and they had 5 bags of the cat litter I use.  I bought 3 because I have 2 cats and you're supposed to have one more box than you have cats in order to reduce fighting. 

Then I went to Amazon.  You can still get "my" cat litter but it won't be delivered until May. 

Another example of people hoarding STUPID SHIT!!!

Yeah the only thing I can figure with the kitty litter is people think they’re gonna be locked up with their cats for several months and don’t want the house smelling like shit! Lol!

It's unreal!

I did find a seller on Amazon who had a 50 pound bag that will be delivered either next week or the week after.  It was overpriced but not drastically considering no shipping on 50lbs so I pulled the trigger. 

I guess that makes me as bad as the people hoarding toilet paper.  But I'm sorry, I could go without TP before I could go without litter!



And I currently have 6 ten pound bags in-house so that should get me through until the latest delivery date if I stretch it out longer than normal.



Looks like I'm going to be hitting various stores on my day off Thursday looking for cat litter.  Unbelievable.



EDIT:  Well, I managed to find some more at Chewy and Petco that are supposed to be delivered in the next week or so.  So right now I have over 200lbs of cat litter scheduled to be delivered.  The scary thing is that that's not even 2 month's worth for me (3 huge boxes at 10lbs each changed every week) so either I still have to round up more or I need to change the number of litter boxes and/or how often I change the litter in them (not a pleasant thought either way).

I'm absolutely SURE this is how the toilet paper shortage started and I kept ragging on those people but now I'm about to do the same thing with cat litter.  Sue me.  Oh, and I promise to shut up about how stupid people are for hoarding toilet paper.

You’re good man, I totally understand.

Boris2008 wrote:

Lockdown in the U.K.

All but absolutely essential shops (food & medicine) closed. All playgrounds, parks, places of worship; libraries closed. Weddings, Christenings etc. cancelled (funerals still permitted)

People ordered to stay indoors enforced by police. People must work from home if at all possible. People allowed out ONLY for exercise (run or walk) once a day alone. shopping (must be kept to a minimum) or medical reason. No-one to congregate more than two people in public places.

People most at risk not to leave home at all for 12 weeks.

I'm still at work but have spent the whole day working on prevention and control measures which are pretty extreme. We will now only be providing the essentials of life and our stores have closed beauty sections and will concentrate on health & pharmacy.

Fuck this got very real very quickly!

The same thing was announced last night for South Africa. We're sitting at 402 confirmed cases (although no one knows how many people there are with it who haven't been tested yet), none of whom have died yet, but the government has decided not to wait any longer. It took a bit longer for it arrive here, so we have had the luxury of seeing what has happened in other countries, and going into lockdown earlier than they did should hopefully prevent things from ever getting as bad.

It's a big call to make, especially in South Africa where we have so many people living day to day and no work means no pay means possibly no food, but in the poorer communities people are living in close proximity to each other meaning that self-isolation isn't an option, and TB and HIV are quite prevalent, so if it gets a hold in places like those the effects could be devastating.

I’m glad some stores are finally putting limits on products.

Hers a crazy story, speaking of limits on things. My dad has a friend that works at a grocery store. A couple days ago some guy came in and had four gallons of milk in his cart. The store put a two gallon limit on milk, so the teller told him he could only buy two. The guy pulled out a gun and stuck it in the tellers face and told him he is buying all four gallons one way or the other. Of course he sold them to the man. The good news is, he was arrested before he got to his vehicle. Freaking crazy over milk. Every store I've gone to has plenty of milk. Why not just buy two, and drive to the next store and get some more? Really crazy times.

And thanks for the kind thoughts about me and my wife. I'm sure we're fine, but ya never know. I'll keep y'all posted when we get the results.

Doomsday is here. And those stupid preppers turned out to be the smartest after all! .

Damn, I didn't even think of cat litter. I do have an unopened 25 pound bag, that should last a couple of weeks. I do have wood pellets that would work but those are expensive because they are cooking pellets.

Toho, our bank shut down lobbies last week. Drive-thru only but I rarely go to the bank anyway and do my banking online.

I even went so far as to add Google Pay to my phone so when I do shop I don't have to touch the debit card readers. I just hold my phone to it and pay that way and it's pretty easy to use if your phone has NFC. Even the Pepsi machines at work have it so if I need a drink I can just hold my phone up to the machine.

I don't know if cat litter is considered a priority item by Amazon, but that one-month delay is what is going on with non-essential, non-priority items. Not necessarily hoarding.

It's all good though, because Trump is apparently planning to reopen the country?

For once, I hope the cries of "fake news" are 100% accurate. Because that is a bad move, if true.

Plus, am I wrong in thinking that it's not up to him, but to the respective state governors as to whether businesses, schools, etc., are open in each state.

I mean, state's rights, right?

I think I am done following this shit in the news.

I can't do anything else myself. Not going anywhere right now, except grocery store when I need to, and as little as possible.

Reading about Trump's ineptitude and mental decline daily doesn't really help anything. Keeping up with the insanity everywhere is not really helping anything.

I am out now.

We have something similar to this at work for HAZMAT incidents. I told my wife I should bring one home and wear it to Walmart to see what kind of reaction I would get.

mikeinfla wrote:

We have something similar to this at work for HAZMAT incidents. I told my wife I should bring one home and wear it to Walmart to see what kind of reaction I would get.

That would cause a huge panic!

mikeinfla wrote:

Damn, I didn't even think of cat litter. I do have an unopened 25 pound bag, that should last a couple of weeks. I do have wood pellets that would work but those are expensive because they are cooking pellets.

Toho, our bank shut down lobbies last week. Drive-thru only but I rarely go to the bank anyway and do my banking online.

I even went so far as to add Google Pay to my phone so when I do shop I don't have to touch the debit card readers. I just hold my phone to it and pay that way and it's pretty easy to use if your phone has NFC. Even the Pepsi machines at work have it so if I need a drink I can just hold my phone up to the machine.

I blame Boris and company; apparently this cat litter shortage thing started in the UK.  If you google "cat litter shortage 2020" all you'll find are UK articles (j/k Boris ).

I managed to find another 30 pound bag on Amazon today from an independent seller for a "reasonable" price; he's charging about $22 for 30 lbs but with "free shipping"; anyone who buys litter knows he's obviously baking the shipping into his price but WTH.  And tonight I scored 2 more 20 pound bags from my local PetSmart for a much more reasonable $13 total but I have to go through the hassle of curbside pickup which at this point in a cat litter shortage really isn't that much of a hassle. 

So if/when all the cat litter I've ordered online in the last 3 days is added to the six 10-pound bags I already have in the garage, I'll have about 400lbs of litter which even if I go back to my normal routine and stop "stretching" how often I change the boxes should list me about 10 - 12 weeks.  Hopefully this nonsense will subside by that time. 

If not, in a few months I'll go Road Warrior.  By then my hair will be long (no barbers available), my beard grown out (to match the hair), I'll shave the sides of my head to make a Mohawk ponytail, use shoe polish for facepaint and run around terrorizing people.  "Give me all your cat litter and toilet paper!!!!!  AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

On the positive note, me and the missus had my parents over for a cookout earlier tonight. It was fun- burgers and hot dogs, and beer and apple pie. We are going down swinging! I was off today, so me and Isabella (my daughter) played outside and had some quality time together - playing music, cooking, doing puzzles and coloring, etc. The only silver lining in this (imho anyway) is that people seem to be spending more time with and cherishing moments with loved ones. With all the Rock and Metal stars at home I have actually had a few people directly respond to my instagram comments, namely Doro and Paul Quinn. I was really shocked as no one has ever answered me before.

Sentinel - Good to hear and cool about the responses. Yeah, our neighborhood is swarming with people (to their credit keeping their distance) out and about. I've never seen the likes. It reminds me of how imagine the pre-tv era was.

Second day in a row I didn't hear the President use the term "China virus" during his now daily press briefing.

Maybe someone finally got through to him that doing that accomplishes nothing.

Wife got her results back tonight, and they were negative thankfully. Figured they would be, but it's good to know for sure.

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Wife got her results back tonight, and they were negative thankfully. Figured they would be, but it's good to know for sure.

Really happy for you!

Boris2008 wrote:

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Wife got her results back tonight, and they were negative thankfully. Figured they would be, but it's good to know for sure.

Really happy for you!

Thank you sir. Only thing that bums me out is, it was supposed to take 3-5 days, and it only took two. Now I gotta go back to work tomorrow lol

I'm trying to maintain a positive outlook on this whole thing, which isn't always easy. But reading things like dolphins showing up in the canals of Venice for the first time in over 30 years and air pollution being down is reassuring. Folks slowing down and spending time together. People being nice.

Mother Nature hit the reboot button on planet earth and yea, it's gonna delete some old rubbish that's been bogging us down, but it's also gonna give us a fresh start and a chance to do things better.

And just think of all the bad-ass music that's gonna come out when all this is over. Musicians with nothing else to do but sit at home in their studios crafting the best-est riffs and perfecting lyrics for the next album. Artists creating. Not rushing the process. Taking time to make it look the best it can possibly be without all the distractions of life.

It's not going to be pretty or easy, but I'm confident we'll come through this stronger, better, wiser than before. Well, Maybe not Uncle Saxon. There's no helping that guy.

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Wife got her results back tonight, and they were negative thankfully. Figured they would be, but it's good to know for sure.

Glad all went well brother. .

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Wife got her results back tonight, and they were negative thankfully. Figured they would be, but it's good to know for sure.

Good stuff, my brother!