What Grinds Your Gears? :)

[IndigoErth]

How does that even happen with a gift card in the first place? Are you able to check the balance on it and (if it hasn't been used before) make sure it was even activated?



4/4 -- Why must websites make stupid and unnecessary changes that just make it worse?

Used to be a habitual Yahoo! Answers user and of course was forced to move on the Quora. Not the best replacement and a bit laggy, but the best of what little options are out there.

I always despised that their search box has to sit there and wait to bring up a drop down to click on your search words instead of just going when you type and hit enter. Now... it has made another unnecessary BS move by opening a pointless pop-up box to type your reply in, instead of just typing it within the damn page as it had been.

So now it's much, much laggier to type anything this way, took far too long to even type the amount I did...before my stupid browser pretty much locked up and refused to do anything when the memory usage hit over a million. Who's stupid idea was this to change it this way, I need to know so I can chuck them off the roof of their company building.

Only saving grace is that it saves as a draft so I didn't lose anything and could to back to fight with it to finish what I was trying to say. But real cute that they basically decided to make it unusable.

[Jester]

After a month of radio silence my Facebook account was permanently disabled by Facebook. Not once did they reach out to me for additional information or anything. I'm debating just hanging it up and not restarting from square one. Had that account for years, with tons of images that I don't know if they are anywhere else and one douche on the internet accessed my account with a compromised email and torpedoed it all.

[newfan]

Originally Posted by Jester

After a month of radio silence my Facebook account was permanently disabled by Facebook. Not once did they reach out to me for additional information or anything. I'm debating just hanging it up and not restarting from square one. Had that account for years, with tons of images that I don't know if they are anywhere else and one douche on the internet accessed my account with a compromised email and torpedoed it all.

That really sucks, I'm surprised you were not able to communicate with someone properly about this either, seen as they know accounts do get hacked.
I can imagine the loss of content too.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Jester

After a month of radio silence my Facebook account was permanently disabled by Facebook. Not once did they reach out to me for additional information or anything. I'm debating just hanging it up and not restarting from square one. Had that account for years, with tons of images that I don't know if they are anywhere else and one douche on the internet accessed my account with a compromised email and torpedoed it all.

What did I miss? How did that happen?

[IndigoErth]

So it was figured out that someone hacked you, yet they didn't help get that sorted out and open again?? Wtf Facebook.

Are the photos viewable to people you know who might be able to save the ones you want and email them to you?


edit: Thought to give my own FB url a try on the Wayback Machine and it only has one image of the reg feed page from back in 2019, so I guess it doesn't commonly archive FB pages. But could be worth checking just in case?



Grind... the continuing saga of the Walgreens thieves who need to just go to hell already.

This week most of the theft garbage was 3 or 4 shelf trays from the individual foil wrapped Reese's eggs. Apparently someone grabbed all the trays and stole all the eggs...and of course shoved the trays into my f***ing displays. Along with another small tray from another Easter candy and plastic packaging from something else.

Can't tell you how much I just wish to go and hang out there and just wait for them to show up... Anyone got a cloaking device? (And a bat. Not the Nerf kind. Preferably wood. Live kind with rabies also acceptable if you can lend bat-proof leather gloves.)

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

What did I miss? How did that happen?

My backup email was compromised and someone changed my password and not long after got the account locked. Requested a review, and it seemed that was happening though every time I logged out it said, "Are you sure? You only have __ days to request a review." And when I logged back in it said it was under review. But I never got any email from Facebook about the case. Not a word.

I tried to call a number but the automated messages said they didn't have a line to help with account breaches. I can't find any way to talk to a real human.

Indigo, nope I seem to be scrubbed. I go to old posts of my parents that tagged me and my wife and I am not tagged anymore.

[IndigoErth]

Yeah, knew I was asking for it even bothering to try to leave the house today in this weather... As if the heavy frequent downpours weren't bad enough, I went and got my little finger somewhat painfully pinched between metal parts of a testy compact umbrella that didn't want to fold up and decided to bite back and wouldn't frigging let go... then one of the plastic nose pads on my glasses went and broke off in the middle of the same store... Yay.

Only up side was that Visionworks was happy to fix it for free, even though I hadn't bought them there.

[Leo656]

F*cking Wrestling.

Should have had a good day. Got booked in a 3-Way and told I was going over. Not a bad start. One of the guys doesn't like me personally and we don't speak (I've actually had them blocked on FB for years) but I figure, whatever, work is work and you're supposed to be professional. Got on fine for most of the day, for what that's worth. He did the same sh*t he always does about passive-aggressively talking down to me like I'm an idiot, meanwhile he mostly does that "hardcore" garbage where he gets staples in his head and hit with light tubes and whatever, AND he's constantly drinking all day during the show... but it's not like he was openly hostile. I just Yes people to death when they get like that; he thinks he knows better, so whatever.

We keep going over the match beforehand, we kept it nice and simple but for God knows what reason, they kept getting lost and it's not like we called a million spots. We had like three moments mapped out, the Beginning, Middle, and End, and that's really all you need for an 8-minute match, you should be able to just improvise the rest. And every time we went over it, one or both of them would be all turned around, and I'm like "No, guys, it's This and THEN This." So I knew it was gonna be clunky, but I figure, whatever, we'll just fix it.

For the beginning they wanted to jump me and have me fight back from underneath, and they specifically said "Show fire, fight up," and so I warned them in advance, with apology, "Sometimes my depth perception isn't great and if we're coming in hot like that, I might accidentally land one or two stiff ones but I assure you it's not intentional."

OH BOY did I hear about it later.

So we get out there, we get started, and almost immediately after I fought them off they start f*cking everything up. The guy who hates me has about eight more years in than I do, and he was lost in space out there. Every time I turn around, nobody was where they were supposed to be. We do a couple things, eventually we get to the part where they cut me off and double up on me for a while, and out of nowhere I catch the stiffest kick to the face I've ever had; I swore I lost three teeth, but it was "just" a really badly busted lip with a ton of blood gushing out of it. But it's whatever, you don't cry about it, you just move on. So apparently THAT threw them off, too, and when the ref was checking on me I was like, "I'm FINE, tell these guys to work the heat, we've got half a match left."

So we get about three minutes from the end and suddenly the one guy grabs me from behind and says "F*ck it, we're going home early" and we went straight to the finish out of nowhere. Crowd was already a bit tepid from all the f*ck-ups on their end, so not getting a real finish was deflating as well, and I was annoyed I didn't even get to do my comeback; I still won, but it was mostly just me getting beaten up for five minutes and getting a quick roll-up, so story-wise the whole thing was botched.

I was annoyed, but it's whatever, I'm not mad or anything YET. I get through the curtain and BOY OH BOY, can you guess what happened next? I get these two guys ganging up on me about how *I* f*cked the whole thing up. The one guy says to me, "Dude, that 'depth perception' bullsh*t... man, you stiffed the f*cking sh*t out of me with those punches." Point of fact, I pulled the SH*T out of those punches, and didn't hit either guy any harder than I've ever hit anyone else. So I said, "Which one got you?" and he's like "F*cking ALL Of them!" And then the guy who hates me was like, "You see your lip? THAT'S why that happened, because of those F*CKING punches at the beginning." So basically, they both got pouty about being hit too hard and decided to tank the match and split my lip as a way of "sending a message". Meanwhile, I've still got blood gushing from my mouth as they're saying this, and I'm not complaining about it, and yet these two chucklef*cks are playing it off like "Yeah, well, you hit us too hard".

I'm literally in shock at this moment because I KNOW they're both full of sh*t, so I'm just standing there like "WTF?" And then the one guy goes, "Man, you're lucky I'm a nice guy" and storms out of the building to go pout in the parking lot, I assume; I couldn't find him for a half an hour after that. And then the guy who hates me was like, "Dude, you're SO lucky he's a nice guy," and follow him outside.

And in my head, I'm like, "Actually, it sounds like YOU f*gs are 'lucky' I wasn't actually swinging live rounds with those punches, if you're gonna get THAT pissed off about a little love tap to the point you're gonna make a goddamn federal case out of it, tank the match, cut it in half, and then stand here making a f*cking scene blaming ME for the whole thing." F*cking LUNACY.

Guy who hates me came back in more calm but still playing Big Shot. "Don't be pissed off we're telling you this sh*t, you can get mad or you can learn from it." ALL I learned was that these two guys are A. Pussies, and B. Bitches. BUT HEY, they've had more years in the ring than I have, therefore they're "right" by default because that's how wrestling works.

BUT IT GETS BETTER!

So after the show, the guy who'd stormed out finally comes back in and I make my way over to try and talk it out with him now that we're more calm. But I never got the chance, as the guy who owns the venue - another promoter I've been working for regularly for about a year and have known for a decade prior - waves me over to "talk". Here's the brief rundown on THAT situation: A few months ago, he didn't have the cash on him to pay me for a show, so he did the "I'll send it via cash app" thing and of course never sent it. I was gonna let it go, but then one of his people said I needed to make sure he sent it so he didn't forget, he wants to be sure I get paid, etc. etc.

SO. He waves me over to "talk", he hands me some cash and says "So here's the money you said I never paid you. And now, we're done forever, this is the last time you and I will ever do business, because I already paid you for that show and you're still saying I didn't. So here, you're paid, we're done, goodbye."

Literally an hour earlier we were like old pals and he was talking about me coming in for their next show in a few weeks, so this was a total shocker. I'm like "Listen, it's just a mix-up, but here, take the money back if it's that big a deal, I'm not trying to make a federal case out of it or screw up a friendship or anything," and he just kept refusing to take the money and just kept saying "We're done, please leave," and I'm like "No, I legit don't understand any of this and I want you to explain it to me because none of this makes any sense."

He goes so far as to say, "I have it right here, I can show you that I sent the money last month," starts to pull out his phone... then sticks it back in his pocket once he realized, no, he CAN'T "prove" sh*t because he never sent the f*cking money, and just says "Y'know, nah, I'm not even gonna bother," and in my head I'm like "Yeah because then you're f*cked, asshole." I still kept trying to give the money back anyway and was like, "Dude, if you say you sent it, then whatever, I'll believe you (I do not, but I wanted to defuse the situation), this doesn't need to go down like this," but he insisted on being a dick so eventually I just stormed out and left.

What a f*cking ordeal. I got a bunch of people mad at me for sh*t that I didn't do/wasn't my fault, AND I got fired from a company I wasn't even working for on this particular evening, over a financial matter of SUCH little consequence that I'm still baffled it even happened. THIRTY DOLLARS. The guy owed me THIRTY F*CKING DOLLARS for doing commentary on a show a few months ago, and I didn't even ask for money for that until one of his people told me the guy wanted to pay me. They were shorthanded and I jumped in to help out, I wasn't sweating getting paid for that. But now this guy makes a federal case out of THIRTY F*CKING DOLLARS and fires me from wrestling for him (and my wife from doing ringside video for him as well) over it.

Like dude, don't say you're gonna pay me, and then NOT pay me, and we won't HAVE THESE F*CKING PROBLEMS. I didn't ASK to get paid for the f*cking commentary and after three months or whatever it was I honestly wasn't sweating it anymore. And frankly, I don't need $30 that badly to lose a steady booking over it. I've made a lot more than that in the year I've been working there. This wasn't even a matter of principle, it was a big misunderstanding that one guy decided to make a huge f*cking deal out of for no reason.

Oh, and to top it off, we got to the WaWa by the house and ALL I wanted was a f*cking burger so of course they were out of burgers. Just to make the day perfect. So I ended up getting a sub since that's all they had and it's a bitch to eat with this f*cking lip.

So yeah, not my best day. I say this every single year but I'm pretty sure this is gonna be the year I hang it up. 40 is a nice round number to go out on, I figure. And I've almost sold out of all my shirts; it took me years to sell out the last batch so I don't see any point in having a bunch more printed; you can only get 'em in bulk and I really don't see myself pushing on another 5-10 years. So I kinda figure that's a sign. Besides, I'm about done taking sh*t from these people anyway. It's always SOME bullsh*t no matter who, what, or where.

[Leo656]

Times like this, I can't help but think of a story Jake "The Snake" Roberts told in the documentary "Beyond The Mat" (which you should definitely see if you haven't) about how he pretty much had his life ruined by his devotion to the wrestling business...

"My father said to me, 'I'm ashamed of you... you'll never amount to anything.' And that's when I gave up my dreams. And I said to myself 'If it's the last thing I do, I am gonna shove this business up his rear. And guess what? I did it!

...And guess what? It didn't matter."

That's in my head all the time. Especially when people who aren't in the business talk to me like, "Yeah, but dude, you get to wrestle! Everyone says 'What if' and you actually went and DID it!"

Yeah. I did.

And it didn't f*cking matter at all. My life is by far much poorer for having ever fulfilled this ambition, and that's something I have to live with for the rest of my days.

Success can be Failure when you wanted all the wrong things out of life. I'd advise everyone to take that to heart.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Success can be Failure when you wanted all the wrong things out of life. I'd advise everyone to take that to heart.

I know absolutely nothing abput wrestling, but those are some amazing and profound words to live by. I get chills just thinking about them.

[Leo656]

Pretty much the Moral of My Life.

Like, I succeeded at everything I ever set out to do in life. But it didn't get me anywhere. Thus, failure.

I knew wrestling was never gonna pay bills, so that's whatever, it's a side hustle at best. But when I was a kid with no direction or marketable skills, I did as I was told, "Talk to your guidance counselor", and they directed me to be a personal trainer. "You're in the gym every day anyway, it's something you like to do, it's a low-stress career and it pays well. That should be your career goal." So I did that. And I rode it for a decade and I was VERY good at it but it was one of the MOST stressful jobs I've ever had AND I did not make anywhere near as much money as I was told I would/should.

But that's all I ever learned how to do, and now thanks to Covid and the internet, that job is gone, that whole industry is gone. And I have NOTHING to show for all that work; no savings, no pension, no 401K, not a goddamn thing. I'm 40 f*cking years old and my entire life was a waste despite "succeeding" at everything I ever set out to do. And it's far too late to fix it.

We were driving past a Wal-Mart on the way home, and I says to my wife, I says, "I remember when my guidance counselors told me, 'You need to find a job you like doing, that's the key to success.' What a bunch of bullsh*t. Like, I had that one job mopping floors when I was 17, I did it for two months and hated it SO much I swore I'd starve to death before I'd ever do it again. BUT, if I just sucked it up and got a job scrubbing f*cking toilets at Wal-Mart when I was that age, and decided 'F*ck being happy, that's for rich people'... I'd be f*cking running the place now and I'd have a nice fat 401K with lots of benefits. But NO, I had to 'pursue a career of fulfillment' instead. What an asshole."

Like, if I could tell 17-Year Old Me one thing, I'd grab him by the neck and say, "You weren't born rich, so 'happiness' isn't in the cards for you. You're gonna eat sh*t for a living, forever, so you'd best get used to the idea, suck it up, and drink away the misery every single night like normal people do. OR, you can be 'happy' and f*cking broke."

All I ever did was what people who supposedly knew better told me to do. I hit every landmark, people just kept moving the goalposts back on me. They flat-out lied, what was I supposed to do?

So on one level, I was a "success". I achieved every goal I ever had for myself. BUT, I'm still broke and my life still generally sucks. So I'm forced to say it's not only been a failure, but one of most epic and spectacular proportions. If I'd done what smart people do and just given up right out of the gate, things might have worked out okay. I'd hate my job like everyone else does, but at least I'd have something to show for it, and then maybe, if I was lucky, I'd have 5 years or so to be "happy" between Retirement and Death, which is all anyone really gets.

But no, I went and listened to that "Pursue your Dreams" bullsh*t. If your "dreams" don't pay off in cash, you're wasting your life and all of your priorities are dead f*cking wrong. End of story. There's people who come home from work every day ready to stick a gun in their mouth, who never fulfilled one "dream" they ever had, but at least they have health care and a retirement fund, and so they're doing much better than I am. "Dreams" are overrated as f*ck. If I had a kid I'd do my best to knock that fairy-tale bullsh*t out of their head no later than second grade. They'd hate me for it, but they'd thank me later in life when their soul-crushing, thankless, menial job actually paid them enough money to cover them into old age. That's a luxury I'll never know.

[Andrew NDB]

Damn, man. That rings true to me. Though possibly in a slightly different way, at least in a broader sense.

All my life I wanted a career doing something I loved. Which could just be one thing: creating things on a writing level on the grandest stages available (TV, comics, movies). Yeah, I'm involved in this or that here or there that are a lot of fun to do on the regular, but on the grandest of stages? BIG Hollywood stuff? BIG TV? TOP TWO comics? That's the dream if you're thinking in these ways, right? So I was talking to Powder about this a couple of weeks ago privately and it kind of hit me again. Yeah, it's sad. These are no longer dreams I even want anymore given what these things resemble nowadays, and now I'm in my 40s so it's pretty much over. Big Hollywood, big TV, and the top 2 comics are run by whackjobs who no longer believe story > anything else. It's all about the far left ideology or signaling to it, or at the very least an active fear of it. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it at length.

Not a call for pity. I'm fine. I have a decent career in other things. A good family. But this is a thing that does give me daily anger.

[Leo656]

Man, circa 1993 my life's dream was to be a comic book artist. Todd McFarlane had the whole world convinced that Comic Book Artists were gonna be Rock Stars, now. And HE did alright, and Jim Lee did alright... most of them barely scrape by. It's a sh*t job and most people know that, now. Then, though? Seemed like a viable option. I was always handy with a pencil.

I *think* what kind of started steering me away from that dream, was when Romeo Tanghal ended up in the same hospital room as my father thanks to suffering a stress-related heart attack during his Green Lantern run (super nice guy). I still had SOME ambitions in that field, and he was kind in his advice, but I also got the message loud and clear that it was a rough gig even if you were successful enough to work consistently. Seeing a guy with something close to my then-"Dream Job" almost dropping dead in his 40s due to stress, despite being reasonably successful in the field... yeah, that got me thinking maybe it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

But oh, man, if I'd actually pursued it? Holy sh*t, I'd be dead by now for sure.

Like, we are not honest enough with kids and it sets them up for failure. "You can be ANYTHING you want to be!" No, you can't. You absolutely, 100% Cannot Be That, MOST of the time. SOME will, a fraction of a percent, and the rest mop floors and wait tables, That's Life. MOST people will never come close to fulfilling any of their "dreams", and that is an objective statement of fact.

BUT, you can't tell a kid that, because it's "mean" and it "discourages" them. So what's the alternative? Let 'em think they can make it big, so they try, and fail, and end up a bitter, anxiety-ridden stew of neuroses that spends half their money on therapy because "Life didn't turn out the way they told me it would and now I'm sad about it." Which again, ends up being MOST people.

Like, if you just accept that you're NOT gonna grab that brass ring and just get used to settling for the life of a bottom-feeder... like yeah, it's not glamorous or uplifting, but it's where 99% of people end up so I feel like we ought to be setting people up for that reality sooner rather than later. Eliminating the whole "failure" middleman seems like it would help more than hurt, quite honestly. For one thing, people wouldn't waste their Prime Years in their 20s and 30s pursuing things that aren't gonna work out.

I'unno. People tell me I have a pessimistic attitude but I just see things for what they are and don't think wishful thinking bullsh*t or unrequited optimism does anyone any good. Quite rather the opposite, it hurts people. It sure f*cking hurt ME. I spent my prime "looking for fulfillment" when I should've been mopping those floors and padding my pension like anyone else whose Daddy wasn't a lawyer. Now I'm f*cked, and all I get is people telling me, "Wow, guess you should've done something else with your life."

Gee, YA THINK?! Lotta good it does me NOW.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Like, we are not honest enough with kids and it sets them up for failure. "You can be ANYTHING you want to be!" No, you can't. You absolutely, 100% Cannot Be That, MOST of the time. SOME will, a fraction of a percent, and the rest mop floors and wait tables, That's Life. MOST people will never come close to fulfilling any of their "dreams", and that is an objective statement of fact.

Where I come from, kids are constantly pushed by parents and society to study hard and to pursue a respected path with alot of financial return (doctor, lawyer, engineer etc.). Not everyone will get those careers obviously, but I feel that setting kids up to be competitive and aiming for prestigious careers is the right way to go.

"Fulfilling dreams" seems like too broad of a thing to base one's financial future decisions on. Thats not even asking whether said dreams are even good in the first place or not.

[Leo656]

Yeah, well, in America, we sell kids Failure at a premium price. Y'know what a f*cking Liberal Arts or Gender Studies degree costs? More than I ever made in a year. Y'know what either of those degrees qualifies you to do in real life? Wait tables. Why are these things even college courses?! There is NO practical application of these things for monetary reward! And yet we let kids take out loans and accrue mountains of debt to pursue these things, and then they end up working at Starbucks right next to the kid who dropped out of high school. Because "If it's what you wanna do..."

I strongly feel like we need to be more blunt, full-stop. "If you want to have money, it's law school or medical school, pick one and stick with it. If you don't have the patience to spend ten years of your adult life in school, you mop floors or do construction. If you're okay with 'just okay', go to vocational school and be an auto mechanic, it's sh*t work but it pays well. If you're a woman, you'd be best served to just jump right to stripping, it pays five times as much as any non-lawyer job ever will and it's all cash. And if you have too much stress for any of the above, you can always sell drugs and make lawyer money pretty easily without any actual work."

Like, if we REALLY didn't wanna bullsh*t kids and wanted to set them up for Guaranteed Success, you skip ALL the bullsh*t and give them those Two Options: Drug Dealer or Stripper (and one of those is mostly only applicable for females). But those are the only two "jobs" that guarantee you tons of cash without any stress, effort, or marketable skills. Most people say they want that, Maximum Reward for Minimum Effort. If your local cocaine dealer is pulling in over $100K a year and his stripper girlfriend is making two thousand bucks a week in cash, meanwhile You are working two or three sh*t jobs to pay off your mountain of debts... You might be looking down on Them, but at the same time, THEY are looking down on YOU, except they're doing it from atop a pile of cash they didn't have to break a sweat for. So who's really the asshole?

Like, I'm so f*cking jaded by this point it's good I DON'T have kids. That'd be my pep talk. "You're gonna sell blow, son, and little girl, you're gonna be a stripper. That's the deal, that's your life." "But WHY Daddy?" "BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE!"

[MrPliggins]

I remember going to comic cons in the early/mid-90s, showing my art to the artists and asking them how to get into the industry. Half of the responses were "why would you want to?" I ended up in animation, which is, in retrospect, probably a better career than comic book artist anyway, and kind-of sort-of related.

[Coola Yagami]

Yeah, I remember back in the day the big two were, well.... The Big Two. And like, you had to become the top of the top OF THE TOP of a quality artist to get a job at Marvel. And now look at the **** they've both become.

Even as a kid I had zero interest in being either a doctor or a lawyer. Back then I wanted to become a comic book artist and whenever I told the fellow kids, even they'd say it's better to be a doctor or a lawyer.

And who knows, maybe if I did 'follow my dreams', I would have been broke as a comic artist. Even when I was more on the left, I was never a deranged leftist. I felt eventually come the 2010s, I would have gotten cancelled or fired over at Marvel cause I would have probably had said something like 'We're making Iceman gay now? But that's...... dumb. Why not make an original gay character or hell, give Northstar his own comic' or whatever.

[IndigoErth]

...stupid gamesradar.com and their Last Ronin spoiling article title.

[CyberCubed]

So the gist of what I'm getting in this thread, is once you hit 40 it's all downhill from there and the good days are over.

You know, just like I've been saying for years. I'm still a few years away still thank goodness, but I know it'll be here before I know it. My 30's are going by at warp speed.

[Leo656]

AJ Styles is 44 and he's never been doing better. Let's not oversimplify.