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Post by Phalon on May 19, 2020 5:06:29 GMT -6
What a weird-@ss weekend it was. Saturday at work, was nonstop craziness from the moment I drove into the parking lot until I left an hour after I normally leave work. A gorgeous day brought people out in masses. Both parking lots full, cars lined up and down the street parked on the shoulder, and people lined up outside the store.
At the end of the day, when we finally turned off the open sign and lights, it looked like a bomb went off on the nursery grounds. I decided I'd stay and get some things done since I wasn't going to be in for the next two days. I finally had a chance to look at my phone - 19 texts from family and friends who just send chit-chatty type messages to normally make me laugh when I read them during my breaks. Too busy for breaks on Saturday though, except maybe a 10-minute lunch on the fly. There was one missed call though from BP, which came in about 15 minutes before we closed. Urgh - a call instead of a text while I'm at work means it's something urgent. I called her.
"Mom, I have a situation."
"What would that situation be?"
Although I could not see them, the tears started.
Apparently, she had driven her boyfriend to Chicago to meet his cousin, where the two of them were going to fly down to Atlanta to make it big (a whole other saga there), and her car broke down on the south side of the city. Note: it's a miracle every time her car makes it from one end of our small town to the other. That she even attempted to drive from here to Chicago and back in that POS is probably the most ridiculous thing she's ever done that I know of, and I'm sure if she'd made the trip without incident, I'd never have known she'd done it. She knew this, but did it anyway.
Luckily for them, a good Samaritan stopped to help. She had 100 free miles of towing with AAA, and called a tow truck for BP, then drove the boyfriend to his cousin's on the north side of Chicago. The 100 miles would get BP and the dead-in-the-water car as far as Michigan City, Indiana about an hour and a half from were she was currently, and an hour from our house. Could I please pick her up there?
Grrrrr.
To be continued. Gotta get ready for work.
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Post by Phalon on May 20, 2020 5:20:45 GMT -6
Continued...
After I got home from work at about six-thirty, Hubs and I left right away for Michigan City; BP had texted us she was about an hour away, so we got there pretty close to the time she did. The tow-truck driver dropped her and the car off at an Auto Zone. The entire hood of the car was covered in a spray of oil, and the engine compartment was practically dripping oil.
We'd put so many repairs into this car in the past year, maybe year and a half - brand new tires, a new exhaust system, and just last month, a new battery (not to mention other nickel and dime stuff), that it's just not worth it to keep fixing it - the repairs we put into it cost more than we paid for the car. It's a 2001 Chrysler Sebring convertible with nearly 200,000 miles on it; she definitely got her use out of it. We took off the plate, and asked the manager on duty at the Autozone if we could leave it there for a week or so.
I did not mince words about the car's condition when I called the "Donate for Charity, INC." (https://www.drive-safely.net/donate-for-charity-inc-review/ )- a great company (there are some crooked ones out there) that accepts cars in any condition, puts them up for bids, and donates the proceeds to a charity of your choosing with whom they're partnered. In addition to whatever blew in the engine, the car's nose cone is held on with bungie cords, the door panels rusted along the bottom, there's a rust hole in the trunk (made bigger by LX's boyfriend, because BP once locked the only key to the car in the trunk, and they fished them out through the hole), the rag-top is duct-taped to keep out the rain, and there are numerous dents and scratches along one entire side from front to back where her friend's brother's friend literally scraped his car next to hers pulling out of a driveway - and that's just the condition of the body. The lady at Donate for Charity said they'd maybe get $40 for it.
But before we were even done speaking, she got an offer of $250. It's a great organization - they took care of everything - calling Autozone to tell them when it was getting picked up, getting a towing service to take it to the place that bought it (a wrecking company that's using the car for parts), title transfer, and all the paperwork needed for taxes, and keeping us informed every step along the way, so we could cancel insurance immediately upon transfer. The only cost to us was Fed-exing the title and key to the wrecking company.
Everyone who's ever owned a beater as their first car has those stories that become legend over time of the trials and tribulations they've suffered while driving the POS they had when they were teenagers. At least with the demise of BP's first beater, maybe a whale or dolphin somewhere will benefit - the charity she chose was the Marine Mammal Center.
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Post by Mini Mia on May 20, 2020 15:03:16 GMT -6
Glad to hear BP is okay. That’s the thing about children growing up, you lose the ability to order them around and punish them. Well, that doesn’t stop you from trying, it just allows them to let it go in one ear and out the other. And I’m sure you never took advantage of being old enough to do as you please and disobey parental ‘advice.’ Hopefully she learned something from this experience, and it will stick for when she has to make another ‘adult’ decision.
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Post by katina2nd on May 20, 2020 20:04:35 GMT -6
Luckily for them, a good Samaritan stopped to help. She had 100 free miles of towing with AAA, and called a tow truck for BP, then drove the boyfriend to his cousin's on the north side of Chicago. That's really great, really restores your faith in humanity after it had taken a bit of a battering lately. Was just reading about the dam collapses in Michigan, I take it they weren't near where you live.
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Post by Phalon on May 24, 2020 6:55:23 GMT -6
Me? Of course not!!!
BWAH-HA-HAHAHAHA!
It most definitely does....and I'll take any act of kindness big (such as this one), or small these days! A customer made a special trip to the nursery last week, just to bring me a bottle of hand sanitizer after learning I haven't had any to use when going on personal errands since this all started. I thought that was very sweet of her. Even a kind word goes a long way!
No, that's way north of us. It's about 25 miles east of the university BP goes, and I wonder since campus is closed, if they evacuated people affected by the flooding to the college. It would seem to me that the empty dorms would be the perfect place to house people temporarily. I haven't read anything as such though.
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Post by Phalon on Jun 28, 2020 8:14:36 GMT -6
Urgh. Our internet keeps going out - just like it does every summer during peak times in the morning and evenings when too many people are in town; not enough bandwidth (I think that's the word I'm thinking of) in our small town for the influx of people.
Not a good sign during a pandemic.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jun 29, 2020 4:11:48 GMT -6
I'm surprised with so many home and on the internet it hasn't slowed everything down to a crawl.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 14, 2020 5:06:03 GMT -6
Haven't had much time in the mornings to stop in and post, and at night, I've been too tired to think straight. Just a quick note here to say "hi" and hope everyone is safe and well.
Joxie, I'm sure you've been busy with the new Twilight series book - I check in on Facebook every so often, and have seen you've been posting about its release for awhile. Something I saw in entertainment news a couple (few?) weeks ago reminded me of you - an "Easter Egg" in the Twilight movie. It was quite literally, a bunch of Easter eggs, actually. One of the characters in the movie was carrying around a bag of hard-boiled eggs in different scenes, for no apparent reason. In the more-than-a-decade since the movie was released, this weird little thing wasn't noticed until recently. Wondering, as many times as you've seen the movie, if you ever noticed.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 14, 2020 22:14:38 GMT -6
Yes. I didn't get online, on my computer, all weekend ... and got way behind. Trying to play catch-up now.
No. I hadn't noticed the eggs in the movie, but I have seen the images. Kellan Lutz, the actor playing Emmett Cullen, was working out at the time and needed to eat a lot of protein. According to IMDb, Kellan was filming a 'Generation Kill' mini-series around the same time.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 16, 2020 6:39:42 GMT -6
BOLL! No, really? With all the high protein drinks and bars out there, and he's walking around set and on camera with a bag of hard boiled eggs? The director cues him his line, and he says, "In a second...excuse me while I peel this egg." There's got to be something else going on there.
Hope you enjoyed the book. I've never read any of the Twilight books, nor seen the movies.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 16, 2020 11:15:19 GMT -6
The vampires don’t eat food, but they do pretend to, so since he’s a big guy, perhaps he carries the eggs around for appearances. Wonder how old thay are before he throws them away and boils new ones? 🤣
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Post by katina2nd on Oct 20, 2020 23:25:36 GMT -6
Wondering about the new Avatars then realised Halloween is just around the corner.
Something else is just around the corner isn't it ........ oh yeah, you guys have an election coming up I hear, the thought of "you know who" being returned for another four years id scarier then anything one could dream up on Halloween.
Just on that, what are the signs like, any indication how things will pan out?
Something else is just around the corner as well, the mighty Cats have made it through to the Grand Final this Saturday night, so here's hoping for a double celebration, Cats and Biden to pull off the double.
Go Cats (and that old guy as well)
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Post by Phalon on Oct 22, 2020 5:03:16 GMT -6
I dunno, Katina. The polls have Biden ahead, but we've all learned that polls don't necessarily mean anything after what happened in 2016.
Congrats to the Cats on making it to the Grand Final! Go Cats! And fingers crossed for that double celebration!
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 2, 2020 19:22:23 GMT -6
Counting down the hours now, and have a horrible sinking feeling that Trump will be returned for another four years.
Obviously hope I'm wrong.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 3, 2020 5:48:51 GMT -6
I don't know how it's going to go, Katina, except that we most likely won't know anything for certain tonight, or even in the next couple of days. There are too many mail-in ballots to be tabulated, the results may be contested, and if so, there will be recounts - he's already said his lawyers will demand recounts in swing states. In the meantime, he'll probably declare himself king...er, president.
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 4, 2020 19:02:19 GMT -6
How are everyone's tickers holding up, this election is on a knife edge.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 6, 2020 5:48:53 GMT -6
Purposefully limiting my news intake, Katina, only checking once in the morning, and once after dinner - otherwise, I think I'd be in a constant state of nervous anxiety.
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 7, 2020 23:21:52 GMT -6
VICTORY. Glad to say I called this one wrong.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 8, 2020 6:46:39 GMT -6
OMG, I'm glad you got it wrong also! Have a feeling though, it's going to seem like a very long couple of months until Biden takes office.
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 8, 2020 18:09:54 GMT -6
At least Trump and his followers are taking the loss graciously so it should be a smooth transition. *huge eye roll*
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Post by Phalon on Nov 9, 2020 5:37:48 GMT -6
Graciously? It seems as if the man has never done anything graciously in his life, much less accept a loss. He'll never publicly admit defeat - he doesn't have it in him to do so. "I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!" - he tweeted Saturday morning; although the race hadn't been called yet, it was clear he wasn't even ahead. As far as his followers go, he's sown so much doubt in the election process since the day he started campaigning, saying that if he loses that surely the election must be rigged, they'll never believe otherwise.
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Post by moonglum on Nov 9, 2020 8:40:08 GMT -6
We've been watching the whole thing since the day of the election and I must say I think the best man won, and history in the making, selecting Senator Harris as his VP. I've never been able to stomach Trump, even at this distance. I think our government will have their work cut out now with our Brexit negotiations and trying to forge a trade deal with the USA, but 'Trump-Clone' Boris will just have to change his attitude.
Quote of the campaign for me from, I think it was the Mayor of Philidelphia: "The President needs to put his big-boy pants on and admit defeat"
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 23, 2020 19:51:59 GMT -6
Anyone been following the circus that is Trumps "elite strike force team" and their endeavors to overturn the election result.
Holy Guacamole, that press conference the other day was scarier then the pandemic.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 24, 2020 20:25:42 GMT -6
You mean the press conference where Guiliani was sweating so profusely it literally ran down his face in streams mingling with his hair-coloring so that it looked as if he was bleeding the black blood of his soul (what happened to that man, a once, long-ago respected mayor? is that what greed does to a person? and what's with all that sweat??? I don't even sweat like that working outside during 90 degree temperatures), and the spouting of conspiracy theories from Sidney Powell, so far out there that they were seemingly deemed too crazy for even Trump, so she was let go of his legal team? This a little more than a week after the press conference in a landscaping company's parking lot between a crematorium and a sex shop. It's all so bizarre is seems like it'd be something straight out of a Quentin Tarantino dark comedy, not something from a presidential legal team.
Yeah, I've been keeping up with the endeavors to overturn the election, and all sweaty dark comedies aside, it is some potentially dangerous stuff they're trying - which in the most basic terms amounts to overriding the vote of the people, and putting into office whoever they want, which in effect, overrides democracy. Why even have elections then. It was an anxious weekend after Trump called a closed door meeting with two of Michigan's Republican legislators the Friday before Monday's scheduled final certification (which after the meeting the legislators were filmed drinking Dom Perignon at Trump's hotel; that doesn't look suspicious at all). I could go on with statics about how ridiculous it is to question the Michigan vote count and Detroit's specifically as fraud, but it's there's no evidence supporting fraud, so there's no need to bore you with it. After hours of debate for something that should have literally been a formality, Michigan though certified the vote, after which, GSA acknowledged Biden is the president-elect and the transition can finally begin. And Pennsylvania and Nevada certified their votes today; Georgia certified theirs on Saturday. Last I heard Arizona Republicans are still pressuring officials to delay certifying the election there; I think the deadline was yesterday. All the while the "I WON THE ELECTION" (always in all caps, cuz you know he's screaming) keep coming.
When this is all over, which I hope will be soon, I wish he'd just quietly go away, though I know that'll never happen. I can't help thinking about a show we watched every year as kids - "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - one of those stop-motion puppet animation films. I know it's still around; I watched it with the girls every year when they were kids. Near the end of the film, the narrator, voiced by I think Fred Astaire, is asked by a child whatever happened to the villain of the story, the Burgermeister Miesterburger, a blusterous fool of a ruler. Turns out the Burgermeisters fell out of power, and people realized how ridiculous they were, and the family name fades into obscurity. That's what I wish - for him and his family to go back to their shady real estate deals and his failed businesses, until it all finally catches up to them, and the Trump name fades into obscurity.
Yeah, that's childish and ridiculous, I know....but is it anymore childish and ridiculous than the present antics of sweaty lawyers, sycophantic legislators, and a one-term president?
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 26, 2020 17:33:15 GMT -6
You mean the press conference where Guiliani was sweating so profusely it literally ran down his face in streams mingling with his hair-coloring so that it looked as if he was bleeding the black blood of his soul Yep, that be the one, with The Incredible Melting Man and the escapee from Madame Tussauds. The other woman there, Jenna Ellis, who described them as the elite strike force team, had a few interesting things to say on Facebook back in 2016 ................. "I could spend a full time job just responding to the ridiculously illogical, inconsistent, and blatantly stupid arguments supporting Trump. But here's the thing; his supporters DON'T CARE about facts or logic. They aren't seeking truth. Trump probably could shoot someone in the middle of NYC and not lose support. And this is the cumulative reason why this nation is in such terrible shape. We don't have truth seekers: we have narcissists." .............. Strong words, hasn't stopped her from jumping aboard the gravy train now though. You've summed things up perfectly really, if you look behind the distraction of the circus that is currently happening (hard to do I know) there are really (potentially) disturbing elements in what they're trying to achieve, really amounts to nothing less then a coup. On a lighter note, don't know if you've seen this, it was posted on the Footy forum, check the video in the second last post from the bottom. www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2019-2020-offseason-offtopic-chat-thread.1233593/page-182#post-67846992
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Post by Phalon on Nov 27, 2020 8:02:37 GMT -6
And it keeps going on and on when Wednesday, Giuliani told a group of Republican legislators in Pennsylvania basically 'all you've gotta do to override the vote is appoint your own electors', which in turn, Trump invites them to the White House to apparently discuss the possibility.
I couldn't watch the link provided in the forum, but think I found the video on YouTube - the one in the classroom with the kids, yes? Though it was made a few years ago, how foreshadowing was that ending? Except for one thing of course - in the sketch, Pence actually steps in and does something.
On a lighter note, since you brought up Footy - how did the Cats fare in the finals?
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Post by katina2nd on Nov 27, 2020 22:41:13 GMT -6
And it keeps going on and on when Wednesday, Giuliani told a group of Republican legislators in Pennsylvania basically 'all you've gotta do to override the vote is appoint your own electors', which in turn, Trump invites them to the White House to apparently discuss the possibility. Just saw something on YouTube a few moments ago where Giuliani's case was dismissed by the Pennsylvania 3rd Circuit court, having already been rejected by the District court, so (hopefully) they're taking him about as seriously as we are. I couldn't watch the link provided in the forum, but think I found the video on YouTube - the one in the classroom with the kids, yes? Though it was made a few years ago, how foreshadowing was that ending? Except for one thing of course - in the sketch, Pence actually steps in and does something. On a lighter note, since you brought up Footy - how did the Cats fare in the finals? Yep that's the one, didn't realise it was so old, and you're right, it certainly is prophetic, plus so damn funny I had tears in my eyes, much as I did after the Grand Final where the mighty Cats were beaten.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 29, 2020 8:56:40 GMT -6
Also in the last couple of days, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out a lawsuit filed by Republican congressmen that in part sought to either throw out 2.5m mail-in ballots or to wipe out the election results entirely by directing the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to pick Pennsylvania’s presidential electors.
And the recount in Wisconsin, paid for by his campaign, isn't going his way either, as one of the counties he demanded be recounted resulted in Biden getting a higher vote total (though the number was very small - something like 260 more votes, while Trump got 125 more votes). Given his track-record of skipping out on bills, I hope Wisconsin got paid the 3-million dollars owed before the recount started!
Oh, no! So sorry the mighty Cats lost, especially when they were so close to the big prize! But you know what we've said in the past - there's always next year. Already keeping my fingers crossed.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 29, 2020 8:50:56 GMT -6
A weird thing...a kind of Christmas mystery of sorts: on Christmas Eve our Netflix account was taken over by a different family. Not taken over exactly, and not hacked either. But all of our names were replaced by names of a mother, father, a 12-year old son, and a son and daughter under age 12, based on the parental controls placed on the two younger kids' channels. Not to mention, the ages of the kids are known to us, because the family who replaced ours on the account is BP's boyfriend's aunt's family.
The boyfriend contacted the aunt and was like what the heck is going on? She had no idea and shared screen shots of their own account information, which is active, up-to-date, and what they've been watching; she also asked her husband and kids if they've noticed anything weird with their account. Nothing. Aside from the account information though, the channels and preferences are a mirrored image of what we're seeing on our account.
So I did the obvious - I cancelled the account which will deactivate the 31st because that's when the billing cycle ends, I changed the password, and we created a new account under a different e-mail address and new password. I keep getting e-mails though from the old account, saying stuff like 'we're sorry you cancelled', 'you changed your password', 'here's a new show recommendation for you', etc, etc, etc.. They come to my e-mail, but they're addressed to the 12-year old son of the aunt's family.
Yesterday, I was curious if there's been any activity on the account since I cancelled it, so I logged in, and think I figured out what possibly happened...although I don't know how any of this stuff works, so I'm just guessing. I looked through the account history, and found a login from way back last year from a PlayStation with a Chicago area IP address...which is right around the time BP and her boyfriend visited his aunt. I'm thinking while they were there they used the PlayStation with BP logging in using our account, and played it with the 12-year old. Did some drilling and found out that Netflix stays logged in to any device it's used on. I wonder if whatever game they were playing on PlayStation hasn't been used again until last week by the 12-year old, and our login info was still there, and somehow merged with the Netflix info of the aunt's family which is used on the actual PlayStation console? Is that even possible?
I dunno. I did find out by drilling that you can physically log out of every device that your Netflix account has ever been signed into on, by just clicking a tab that simply says "sign out of all devices". Something I never knew (I never knew it stays logged into all devices either), and good information to keep in mind if your account is ever hacked.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 30, 2020 9:07:40 GMT -6
BP came by the house yesterday evening (to do laundry, of course!) and we got to talking about this little Netflix mystery. Seems I was wrong - the 12-year old isn't 12; he's 10 years old. I knew he wasn't yet a teenager, but assumed he was 12 because he didn't have the same parental controls on his channel as his siblings.
And it seems without the parental viewing controls, the 10-year old went on quite the Netflix binge watching spree starting on December 23rd up until the time I changed everything on the account on Christmas Day. BP suggested looking at "recently viewed programs" - none of the other family members had anything...because they never signed into the account. But the little 10-year old boy had dozens of either rated MA or R movies and comedy specials that were viewed within that two day span.
Whether it was intentional or not, the little bugger figured out how to bypass his parents controlling what he watched!
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