Employment, Housing, Beer, and other things.

 

Picture of me taken by my wife at a keg tapping of Hop Silo 16 beer by Tampa Bay Brewing Company last night at Craft Street.

     Very recently I moved yet again to another spot in Florida, this time leaving my job of 5 years with an Anheuser Busch distributor. They sold their brands and distribution in Florida to other beer distributors, which left me empty and losing faith in the business that brought me up in this state.. Beer. Low on energy to do this all over again, I knew I had to change things up.

     As outlined in some other posts from long ago, I've worked in Distribution for almost 20 years in one way or another. Sales, marketing, events, administration, operations, finance, and national accounts most recently. I've managed brands and developed programs for breweries for the last 11 years of that 20. I had the urge to work with the people that have always been great to me and been the most fun to work with; the local guys, the ones who made really good beer and fought the good fight in the market to do different and interesting things. I wanted to make the change over to the Supplier side of the industry for the first time since I worked for Molson/Coors in 2010.

     You have to have a job right? I applied for any and everything to get an idea of what people would be interested in as far as employment. I don't know if you have been looking lately, but there are a ton of jobs out there. I started in distribution and started applying for supplier and local level positions right out of the gate before the other 190 employees being laid off would get there first. I secured some decent references and worked in for a week straight, at one point keep a spreadsheet of all my applications and interview processes. I had two and a half months to make something happen.

     Offers started coming in first from distributors from people that know me or I have worked with in the past, which kind of surprised me at first. The company that sold offered me a transfer out of state, and the new regime that took over offered me a position as well. I was waiting for one company in particular to call me back, so I told everyone else to hold the line, as I have severance coming and they would need to wait. Eventually that call did come, and my dream job in the supplier world presented itself. A local legend in the industry, someone known to make things happen, take risks, and well known to be very good to his employees reached out to me and I couldn't say YES fast enough. I said goodbye to the severance, moved to Tampa and started my new job the very next week. 

    The rest is history! I'm settled in my new place, already love the people I work for and with, and made some friends with some really talented people in the industry. I've already started my book blog back up and made my first post, and there I've outlined the timeline of my 5 moves in 4 years. 

Cheers!

"You can't install Windows 11? Who cares!" - Microsoft, probably

 

This is everyone's level of frustration with Microsoft at the moment.

     The above screen shot I took today, when just going through my computer and catching up some updates. I did not want to update to Windows 11, but When I saw the popup prompting me to download Windows PC Health, I was a little worried. Is my PC too old? When googling for PC Health Check, some Windows insider program and some garbage clickbait links showed up, nothing you could click on to get this program needed to see if I pass the fabled Windows 11 test. Spoiler: It's in the Windows Update Tab, or you can just click this. Already I'm more annoyed than when my wife asks me to get her something when she is physically closer at least 13 times a day.

Circled in yellow, TPM 2.0 is some mystery bullshit no one cares about.

     I'll admit, it's been a while since I just went thought and cleaned things up and installed some new drivers, and did the required Windows Updates. In a future post I'll go over some of the personal stuff that lead up to that, and why I've been so lazy with it. For example, I updated my RTX 2080 video card drivers today, and I was 20 versions behind. Oops! I did turn on the GPU Hardware Scheduling (HAGS) for the first time, but I haven't played anything to see the difference. Anyways, I followed their instructions, downloaded the PC Health Check, and low and behold, I actually do have the system requirements to download and install Windows 11. Hmmmm. 

The game is afoot Windows!

     I figured since I have all the other requirements as outlined on my manufacturers website, It must be this TPM 2.0 garbage that is holding me back. What is TPM do you ask? It stands for Trusted Platform Module, and it's really just a security protocol that Windows 11 and some hardware requires. Do you really need it? No. Some older mother boards made you buy an external module that plugs on to your board to handle the security it provides. There is no actual standard of what it's called, what it actually does, and how it's enabled. It's so badly described, that even Microsoft's own website describing it, does not  even try. They mention it could be called by all these different things, and when you click the external links, they go to unhelpful click-fucks that just make you go back to the way in which you started. On it's own site to guide you how to fix this issue, they don't actually tell you how to fix the issue. "Vague idea" is more accurate.

Literally their page is full of spelling errors and misinformation. I just can't.

     I'm going to try to end this on a good note, but I can't. The problem is still there, I have TPM 2.0 enabled by default, and in the security settings in my BIOS it's enabled. Windows simultaneously says I can and cannot install Windows 11, and their own company hates that we are asking. Of course, my mind goes to the hacking part of it, of someway you can bypass the TPM check that is not needed anyways.

Of course you can bypass it. Silly me.

Denis Villeneuve's Dune is a Modern Masterpiece

    I just finished watching Dune on Plex for the first time. Yes, the first time.. as there will be several viewings of this film in the near future. I saw this video with Denis describing his thought process in to his favorite scene, and it got me so fucking hyped:

     Most people know if they have been on any of my blogs, I'm a huge Dune fan. From the original movie, the books, and so on. I spend night after night watching Dune lore videos on youtube. To see a director this much into the movie, and his vision.. really got me excited for this. I don't have the time right now for a proper review and links like normal, but you can bet your ass there will be one in the future. I give this movie 5 out of 5 Zardoz heads.

Anyways, go get your free month of HBO Max and check it out for yourself.

**Post-Script Life Update** - I've finished moving, and just completed unpacking 99% of  the boxes today. It's been a rough 5ish days to be honest, and I'm feeling my age. I'll be back to my regular posting schedule by the end of the week at this rate, and I start my new job on Monday. More on that later, and pictures of my gaming setup then. I'm just physically exhausted, and today was the first time I let myself enjoy something and take a break from packing, running, calling...in at least 2 weeks. Moving and starting a new job is always hard, but this time it seems have take a lot out of me. Knowing how difficult this could be, I used my last week of vacation from my previous job to take this week off and relax. I'm very excited for my personal future, and that of the rejuvenated blog.

The next generation of prosthetic enhancement is here.

 

Click the link, trust me. 

     We have been getting closer and closer to creating and manipulating synthetic muscles in prosthetics for years, and this video absolutely blew me away. I grew up reading I, Robot, Foundation, and Apprentice Adept. I'm no stranger to science fiction-fact, the progression of technology, and the concept of emulation singularity in mimicking human physiology. 

     In 1795, the London Times published an article outlining the definition of what an Android actually is:

    Phillip K. Dick explored in great detail the mental, physical, and phycological makeup of synthetic humanoids in very minute detail, down to the very things they dream about.

    Robot, Cyborg, Automaton, Android, AI.. call it what you want. This video brought to life all the things I look forward to in technology... and fear the most.

Wizardry (1991) Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord - Full Movie OVA + Bonus!

 

Based on the hit old school game series of the same name, Wizardry: Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord is a hack and slash anime delight. 

Of course you can play the DOS version of the game in browser.. thanks technology! Click here to play it now. 

The 9th Gate (1999) - Full Movie Link & Thoughts

 

Shhhhh. (all links tested)

Watch for free on Plex - Free with popups site - Another free with popups site

     It's no secret I'm a huge fan of The Club Dumas and The 9th Gate. See previous unconnected thoughts here, and a couple of other random posts. Some quick history with the book and the movie; I read the book first, it was a gift from a girlfriend and she thought I would like it. The movie came out in 1999, and because news and internet was slow and shitty and I was disconnected from the world, I had no clue the movie and the book were connected in any way. I didn't see a trailer on the E! Channel like I normally would after Talk Soup to clue me in, and that was almost exclusively the way I would have known or seen it.

One to two packs of Pall Malls a day.

   I identified with Lucas Corso ('Dean' in Movie); I smoked a pack a day, collected rare books of different types and had a similar cavalier attitude about life in general. Before the movie existed, I was obsessed with reading anything from Arturo Perez-Reverte's catalog, and though I thought they were all great books, I never liked them as much as Dumas. It was not the first book to really grab me, but it was of the few. I was at a time in my life when 18 year old me was exclusively reading Science Fiction, and this was a huge change for me which led me down the path of the likes of Dan Brown and Umberto Eco. It was a.. witty person's summer reading, and you didn't have to get all the literary references to enjoy it. 

There were... some changes.

    I finally watched the movie after I realized what it was, and rented it from Blockbuster. Initially I was thrilled, until I realized right away that there was some really extreme changes from the book, and why they could not call the movie The Club Dumas. The Dumas connection was removed from the movie, and the roles of several characters have been swapped and moved around to the point where I had to unlearn the book and just enjoy the movie for what it was. The opening of the movie, it shows a young-ish Depp buying some early Three Musketeers books, and scamming them, being quite the con-artist as in the book. Seeing a Dumas reference, I thought.. Oh shit! This is going to be super faithful. If I squinted hard enough, Depp looked the part of a 40's Lucas Corso.

This is not the worst of endings.

    All doubts cast aside, I found myself really enjoying the movie. I did miss the Dumas connection, but even in the book, it turned out that Dumas manuscript had nothing to do with the central plot, and was just a bundle of crazy coincidences and distractions. The book ends in a very serene yet grotesque way, with "Irene" or "The Girl" listening to Borja burning alive inside the building, leaving you to believe that summoning the devil didn't work after all. Corso thinks to himself, it didn't work because the Ceniza brothers most likely forged the book plates after all, and off he goes. No devil, no doors, no gates. I very much like the liberties taken in the movie to visualize the woodcuts from the book, that it's the girl in the final correct cut, and going a step further, finding the page at the Ceniza brothers business and entering the gate himself. Admittedly, I would have like it better if he left with the girl, but that was explained as she left the clue on his windshield. I digress. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, watch the movie, read the book, post some comments. It would make me happy. 

BBS Games Are Back - Legend of the Red Dragon Online

 

Click here to play now! (I'm on the River Realm as Morganstern)

    As you can imagine, when I found out I could play BBS/DOOR games in a browser, I was so excited and forgot about work for the rest of the day. It's no secret I'm old and use to get on BBS's a long time ago on my Tandy 1000, and was always limited to a few minutes on each BBS per day, with a very limited amount of things you could do on each one. It was rare for the places I lived to have more than two or three nodes, so running in to other players was rare. Well not anymore! A quick signup which was required no verification by email, and we were off to the races. 

I quickly made a character. Oh god the memories came flowing in. The green text! I always go thief so I can get first strike in the forest and when other players are sleeping.

A few forest fights in, and I left my mark in the flowers... Comment below if you saw it.

Awesome random event with ANSI graphics. Creepy event!

A floating head visited me. 

...and of course I died a horrible death. Perfect!

    Super awesome site. No advertisements and totally free. Can't wait to die again tomorrow. For those who are familiar with the game, it looks like lots of aftermarket and supported add-ons that were sold originally with the program have been loaded. In the recent news scrolling at the beginning it appeared that people were getting married, robbing banks, and visiting places I had not heard of when I played as a kid. 

If you wanted to download the game yourself to run in DOSbox and try out different IGM's, click here!

Some changes at The Hole?

 

New hotness

Old and busted

     I'm sure you have seen a couple of small changes here recently, and I wanted to be transparent with that, just in case anyone was worried what was going on. Short version, everything is fine, I just decided things need to be brought up to snuff.

• Resized the blog to modern PC dimensions.
• Changed title graphic. Previous graphic had trademarked D&D page and had the names of people who no longer contribute on there. After I resized the blog and margins, the old graphic was very small and was started to look dated and pixelated on mobile. The skeleton is from the Dune MSDOS game I was playing recently turned on it's side and recolored, added some embellishments as well. The hand is from Legend of the Red Dragon ANSI BBS Door game, the text is from something I found on Dafont.com and really like it. It's about 60 layers, the text being most of it. I think it's okay for now and I could change it in the future.
• Removed all posts of straight up nudity and illegal piracy to be more advertiser friendly.
• Removed Author Bios of contributors that are no longer talking to me or contributing. I left their posts up, and links to their blogger profiles at the bottom. Of course any of those people could reach out and submit an article at any time and I would love to hear from them. 
• Added link to an Origin and History of the blog.
• Revised my About Major page. 
• Added a Facebook link, and I will be posting more on social media. **Update: Facebook removed the Unknown Hole Facebook for sharing trademarked images from movies and such. I didn't know that was possible. Not sure if I care enough to make another. 11/7/21**
• Added a Discord link and made a subreddit.
• Deleted (Most...) dead links and dead images.
• Moved a bunch of stuff around and did some general house cleaning.

     All in all, I like the theme and colors of the blog, and the general vibe to everything. I don't want to ruin that for people visiting again after not being here for a while. Even when putting a new title graphic together I wanted to keep the orange-ish theme intact. I remember the old title graphic being much darker and more orange, but I made it when I was still using a CRT as a monitor, on the warmest setting. Things have changed drastically in that regard. Expanding the size affected the picture placement, so had to go back and just check everything over, which was quite a task coming up to 375 posts.

     Last but not least, I'll be moving to another part of the state the third week of October and won't be posting until Mid-November when I get settled in, internet back on and so on. The Reason? Well, the short version is, the company I worked for sold, and I took a new and exciting job in the same industry elsewhere.

Anyways, thanks for visiting. 

How I became technologically literate, and how it's advanced my life

A decent of example of my late 80's Battle station

    I guess you could consider this a Part 2 to this post. 

No one cared about the family computer in our house in the late 80's. We had a dumpy Tandy 1000 Color computer that was bought second hand refurbished from a Radio Shack. The first year they had it, they may have put some tax info on it, ran a few schedule programs, and never turned it on again. I had played a few games on it copied from a friend, and asked for it to be moved to my room. I eventually added an Apple IIe to the mix, bought from the school when they were upgrading. I did not have anything fancy, but it was mine, unlimited access to two different PC systems.

Kids have no fear of destroying what their parents buy them

    I did what any kid would do, I took them apart, traded or "Borrowed" parts from other computers, attempted to connect with other computers, and generally just tinker around with them. I understood and knew how to navigate DOS, do some simple basic programming, and generally just had a really good launch point which would help me for the future. Back then, if you could enter a few DOS commands or copy a disk, your parents thought you were some kind of genius. Not only that, but your teachers did too. I remember handing in my mediocre and lackluster research paper in 5th grade that I had typed and printed on my Apple IIe and got a good grade on it because the teacher was so impressed with it being typed on on a computer. I was lucky enough to have parents that liked that I was so in to it, so when I asked for a game here and there or some blank disks, they just bought them for me.

A typical 80's computer lab

      I was fortunate enough to be in a school that was a huge technology hub, even for such a small town, and we had a full computer lab with all the newest computers. It was called "One Computer Per Student" program, and literally every class had multiple Apple computers you could use during your free time, or to type something up, and no one ever looked over your shoulder unless you were playing a game when you were not allowed. For a small fee of $5 per quarter, you could have afterschool access to this computer lab, provided you take a series of PC literacy tests to verify you could be left alone with half a million dollars of computer equipment. I met some people, we started a little club, and even if you didn't own your own computer, that was fine, there was plenty in the lab. 

Scary programs with their scary numbers and clicking

     Things quickly changed for me, I moved, and no longer had access to a PC outside of school. Macintoshes were the new things, and I signed up for any afterschool program I could to be around them and learn and play the newest games. In one of these afterschool sessions, a teacher asked me if I could help her with a program that wouldn't open, and also needed some help with a Lotus 123 spreadsheet they used for grading that was giving her errors. I quickly figured it out, fixed the issue and moved on. This was to be the theme for pretty much the rest of my life. 

A computer genius at work. Typing and stuff. Look at him go!

     It was not uncommon for me to be in a work/school environment where I was around people older than me, and there was a 99% they did not understand computers or care at all how to use them. Mention an email and their eyes would roll back in their head. Have to plug anything more advanced than a VCR.. even a phone line, and people would ask you for help. If literally anything happened to their computer, they would completely shut down and have a paid expert come to the school or work to figure it out. Monitor came unplugged? Better call someone you know and not touch it just in case. Need an upgrade? People were absolutely terrified to take the case of their computer to even have a look. I quickly realized that I could always be counted on and be the hero of these situations, and often times I used it to my advantage.

The first big job. Look how angry this man is at technology. I love it.

     One of my first real jobs after college was making a website for a medium sized liquor store business with multiple locations and a warehouse with an attached Co/Op. Someone told them they needed one, and by word of mouth, my name came up. I had made several basic HTML sites for people and their businesses back then, it was easy to do and took no time at all. People didn't want much.. just contact info and a few pages explaining a product or whatever. I charged a flat rate of $500 and $50 per week to maintain it after I turned it over to them and set it up on their own webhosting platform. Something was different this time however: The owners themselves whose website I was making they would never see, because they did not own a computer. I take that back, they had a 286 downstairs with an inch of dust on it that they used to print tags from about once a month on thermal rolls that was never turned off for ten or more years. I would make the website, print out screen shots of what it looked like, and bring it back to them. Behold:

Yes this is really the website.

     This was the landing page for the site. I incorporated the logo and page to animated, which back then was ahead of it's time. I used a standard GIF maker on my Powermac 6100, and Adobe Photoshop 3.0. They loved it. I brought in a primitive laptop I borrowed from a friend to show them in real time you could click it, and I even scanned in their newspaper ad. They wanted it more basic, more white, and I changed it a few times so it is what you see now and above. This convinced them to get a PC, and to look in to doing some upgrades to their systems around the office. For the last 20 years, they had been doing their books on paper, their inventory and orders, sales, and yes, even register cost and price changes. I don't even know how they knew how much money they were making, but they had the biggest and cleanest stores in town, and no one seemed to care. The only complaint they had was that the registers would process credit cards at a snails pace, sometimes taking up to a minute or more. I was hired on the spot to diagnose some emergency issues, and start the process. They offered me a good wage, and a spot as assistant manager at one of their stores when I was finished.

God help me this brings back memories.

     The picture above is literally the registers we used at the stores. I looked under the register, and they were hooked up to a 2400 baud modem. I had a budget, went to the store and bought 56k external modems for $25 each at Best Buy, plugged them in, and tried a credit card. As fast as it could dial, the transaction was approved, and in one day I improved the efficiency of the entire system but multiple magnitudes. These stores were BUSY. I mean three registers going all day, 14 hours a day. 30-40k sales on a bad day. Instead of over a minute per credit card transaction, it took less than 10 seconds. Overnight, the lines diminished and customers were happier, and a strange side effect of that was an overnight increase in overall sales. One store only needed two registers open, so that saved on payroll. I tackled inventory next, buying a cheap online inventory scan-in and scan-out solution from a local supported vendor. The existing registers could be hooked up to this system, but the scanners had to be switched out. The scanners at the registers in question were single line scanners, with a trigger. They were clumsy and slow, and the barcode had to be facing a certain way, and the single line had to hit both sides. I bought the new scanners and attached the new system, and just turned it on.

This horrible thing. You know what you did.

    Again there was a singularity of progression that was noticed almost instantly. The clerks at the register no longer had to turn and spin the products and bottles a certain way, which increased speed and sales. The inventory computer could change costs and prices on the fly with a simple update, could be sent out to the stores via aforementioned 56k modem. No more manually entering in sales for hours after closing time once a week. Tags could be printed and sent to the stores when needed the same day. I could pull inventory reports on the last days sales at any time, instead of waiting for the paperwork with the X-Tape to verify how much money we made. It was accurate and clean. I knew exactly what to order based on Auto-replenishment and inventory depletions on a simple report. The owners did not know what the hell was going on, all they knew was.. they liked it. I was given my own store and free reign to go the warehouse and other locations to make sure things were working, and worked for this company for almost 10 years as a store manager and in charge of all their technology.

Wrap it up

    At the end of the day, just basic knowledge of computers and how they work has made me a lot of money, and made look good wherever I go. It's diminishing; I'm the old guy now that has people perceive as a scary amount of PC and software knowledge for someone my age. Still an advantage when dealing with CEOS and such, and I can always make a mean spreadsheet to help people understand data.

8 Man After (1993) Full Movie OVA

 

I'm working on some articles, playing a little Overwatch and Watching UFC tonight, so full post tomorrow. Until then, watch this insanely great OVA for free on Youtube! Link in case embed fails.

Tuff Turf (1985) Full Movie

 

Seems like another movie night to me. Hit play and let's watch this together. I've never seen it! How can that be? An 80's movie with James Spader and Robert Downey Jr. I haven't seen!?

Transformers: The Movie (1986) Full Movie

 

Hit play and let's watch this 80's classic together. 

Popping/crackling coming from the speakers/headphones (How to fix)

Beware - This image may cause extra frames or loss of sound

    You've tried everything! Updating the drivers, trying different speakers, trying new drivers, nothing works! The headphones are popping during YouTube videos, music and games and you can't fix it, and every single guide on the internet is no help. I get it, it's all clickbait bullshit and you're fed up. Your sound card drivers are fine, trust me. They weren't popping before, right?

   I recently installed new Nvidia drivers, as it's been a while and I wanted some hot DLSS action for a few games that I have not tried out yet. Right after the update, I'm watching a Techmoan video, and there is the dreaded popping sound. It would not going away. Any amount of treble in the speech of the video would cause it. I tried to update the RealTek sound driver and a few other quick tricks, tried different headphones.. nothing. Out of curiosity I uninstalled the Nvidia HD sound drivers, and POOF. Just like that, the sound was restored to its full quality. I let Windows catch their HD drivers that do the exact same shit on the next restart so if I wanted sound over Display Port or HDMI in the future, I would have it. (Spoiler, I don't use it, and neither should you) I suppose you could just roll back the Nvidia driver to a previous, but this faster and you don't even need to restart, and it feels good to delete things. Everything works the same and you get the satisfaction of saying fuck you to Nvidia, even though you still need the graphic driver to play games and whatnot. 

     Changing to the plain jane Microsoft driver does have its benefits, like Dolby Atmos sound compatibility right out of the box. 

      How to Fix the Sound

1. Don't Trust Nvidia
2. Go to the Device Manager (Windows 10)
3. Go to the Sound, Video and Game Controllers arrow
4. Right click the Nvidia logo, uninstall HD sound driver

You're Welcome.

The Gold Coin Currency from John Wick is confusing

 

Mr. Wick pores over his treasure trove of coins.

    You may be looking for a simple answer, and I'm a simple man. The coins appear to be one ounce stamped coins, and in today's gold market as of September 11th, 2021, an ounce of melt gold goes for $1630.85. So there you go, article over, the cash value of the coin has been explained in the most simple terms. Use them anywhere! They open doors, buy silence and weapons, even a drink. When a contract is put out, it's always in real world dollars. Never are coins used outside the industry of the Wick Universe to pay for anything truly tangible.. sort of. 

It's not that simple. 

     I've watched the John Wick movies back to back at least five times now. I like modern fantasy, I think this counts. There is a certain majesty to the underworld they created, the freeness of it all, but still has a super strict set of rules; Rules based on respect. Earned or otherwise. These coins are less about the actual cost of the coins, but more accurately represent a token of respect given and respect earned. The inscription on the coin reads: "End Causa Sui," or "Something generated within itself." and on the reverse: "ex Unitae Vires," or "Out of unity comes strength."

"It represents the commerce of relationships, a social contract in which you agree to partake." -Barrada

     Let's think about it completely different for a moment. Take the the whole 'Gold is Worth X' out of the equation and out of your thoughts.. pretend they are wood instead for the sake of this paragraph. Treat the coins as if they each can be traded for a favor, and favors in this world are worth everything. One coin opens a door, one coin is one drink, one coin buries people for you, it's all over the place on what exactly the perceived value is, but if you have the mindset each coin is a personal favor, the viewpoint drastically changes. The coin or favor token change depending on the movie as well. In the first film the coins represented entry and access to exclusivity, the second film a "Marker" is used to represent the ultimate favor, above all else, a forbidden contract known to all. The third movie the Rosary is used to brand the flesh, and is honored even after John Wick is considered banned or, Excommunicado, so is even above the coins and markers. 

Still hard to wrap your mind around. 

    He tipped someone, got a cache of guns, paid for a drink, opened a door, nights in an exclusive swanky killers resort that offers 24hour security.. the list goes on and on. At one point in the second movie, a man shows Wick a map of the ruins for his next kill and gives him a handful of coins as a reward. Hide some bodies? Here is a whole handful. Internal coinage for Assassins currency has to be hell to keep track of. How do they enter circulation? We see Winston looking them over, and learned that high table doles out the coins in the third installment. Can you buy them? I would say you could, if you could buy a life with money and/or coin, then it works the other way around as well, even if we can't seen it. Who cares if the coins are tokens of respect and considered favors in the business, getting a peak at a map is not worth six full assassin favors. 

The rules don't apply everywhere, and to everyone.

    Like anything in life, some people just don't give a shit, plain and simple. The Bowery has no use for the Gold Coins, does not respect the foundation of the underworld as most people see it. They reject the reality of this universe, and substitute their own. Lawrence Fishbourne passes on 7 Million dollars easily, and in the second movie, you can see him passing tables with heaps of money on everyone being counted and collected. They deal in dollars, and favors to them have no representation in coins or anything else.

     Did we cover it all? I think so. I didn't do much research for this, I'm just watching the movies again and thought it would be as interested to explore. Let me know what you think in the comments below. 

We need to stop pretending Gin tastes good.

 

This is the face of someone who dislikes gin

    Let your mind be free for a moment, and relax. Come with me on a spiritual journey on the taste of Gin. Close your eyes slowly and just imagine for a second the smell of burning sulfur, and the acrid stench of ammonia. Holding the glass up to the light, you swirl the clear liquid around in the tumbler, easing it to your lips and taking the smallest of sips. Gasoline assaults the senses, stinging your eyes and the back of your throat. For the briefest of moments you can't breathe as the turpentine like finish burns what little taste buds you have after you found out the McRib was back. What is that you detect? Yes, oh.. yes. What some people would perceive as juniper berry and grains of paradise, is nearly undetectable to the average person and comes across as straight 1940's home surgery Ether from the movie Cider House Rules to the average person. You swallow and nod your head, pretending to like it to seem sophisticated, and take another light sip. Again you are rewarded with a tainted fiery burn, and the bitterness is nearly overwhelming now. Outside of Season 8 of Game of Thrones, nothing has left such a bad taste in your mouth.

The Herbalists Poison Shelf - Venom of the British

    Something equally as nasty, Tonic Water is also available to cut the toxic English contagion from your mouth. Almost anything is better than Gin, but Tonic Water is also another level of blight on the bartending nation. Known as the "Q" on the soda gun for Quinine, Tonic is a foul concoction of bitter herbs and crushed up Aspirin that pairs nicely with the green puke that came out of Jeff Goldblum in 1985 movie, The Fly. 

The True source of Gin and Tonic. This looked like Hoggle from Labyrinth if you squint.

This is just my take on Gin of course. This beverage has a thousand year old history, sells millions of gallons a year, and seems to have some kind of fan base. I can only imagine that British people think this is good because their food tastes like shit. They eat beans on toast and tuna on fucking pizza for god's sake. 

Making Tech Money in the 90's

 

     Let's be honest. Making money on technology in the 90's and early 2000's was insanely easy. I'll explain how I made enough money to open my own business while in college, how I made money even in high school, and the skills you needed to be able to do it.

     Years before LGR was building his dream rigs from Ebay hand picked parts, my friends and I were Macintosh gamers and soft hackers, thinking we owned the world and everything was for us. We had limited tech knowledge, but school gave us multiple opportunities to expand our skills, and we always knew someone that was throwing away an old computer. DOS gaming always seemed more primitive to what we had on the Macintosh, with having to navigate command lines and different kinds of ram management, and typically there was a Mac version of the game we wanted, and it ran better on our systems anyway. Needless to say, all of the experience I had working on PC's was 90% Macintosh related.. and they rarely broke. Macintosh was the premium, more expensive option, and they were very upgradeable. Schools used them, everything was easy to install. Plug this in, press this button, ram goes here, hard drive goes there. They were all the same. It was a niche, but I didn't know anyone in my circle of friends that preferred their IMB compatible over their Macintosh.

    I realized right away that people were absolutely terrified to open their computer. In most old Macs, there was a red button on the motherboard you press to reset the computer, and it would fix most issues right away... but that would require you to take 2 screws off and slide the motherboard out of the tray and press it. I never had a Mac just not start after I put it back together after an upgrade or a reset. People starting calling on me when they heard I could take them apart, and would pay me $50-$100 just to press a button on the motherboard, or put a paperclip in the little hole to eject a floppy. I remember once, someone gave me a $100 bill to plug in a modem to the back of the computer and turn it on, and install AOL.

    When Gateway started offering dirt cheap computers locally with everything included, I knew my Mac days were numbered. My parents were early adopters and bought a top of the line Windows 95 system for the house and of course ignored it and let me do whatever I wanted with it. Like anything, I felt it was just as easy to take this apart as it was to play one of those kids games where you stick the colored shape blocks in to their corresponding holes. Literally two screws to take the case off, and the there is a the cards, board, processor, hard drive and power supply. Some small changes like plugging in sound cards, and the CDROM had to be plugged in to that, but that's not much of a learning curve. Learning DOS seemed easy after navigating an operating system if you could visualize you were accessing folders and could memorize half a dozen commands. Within a week, I felt very confident I could fix or build a DOS or Windows PC from scratch, and work on older systems. 

    I never had to buy anything. People upgraded and just tossed out their old computers, sometimes if there was nothing wrong with them. They would ask me their old PC and toss it after I just set up their new one and got them online for the first time. A few times, I brought computers home that were better than my own, and had some unique upgrades that I could use. I started collecting parts, boxes and boxes of parts. Bags of old and new ram, monitors piled up 10 deep. Cardboard boxes of mice and keyboards. I didn't even have a business card but would get 3-5 calls a week to come and replace a mouse or keyboard. 99% of the time it was just dirty, so I would take it home, clean it and bag it up for sale. I was still living at home and my closet and the hall closet became a repository for my de facto PC warehousing. I found some beige PC cases during one particularly fruitful dumpster dive, with laundry baskets full of old IBM XT and PS2 parts and software. I knew nothing about these other operating systems and computers, or how they worked. I had never seen a server in person before, but people have asked me to work on them. All of these things combined, I decided to start networking computers together on the floor of my bedroom for fun. 

     Understanding Networking on bedroom floor with 3 junk PC's all tied together was an eye opening experience. I had networked Macs together to play games over the IPX protocol, and the GEO port to play Doom against buddies, but never for Business, and definitely not on PC. It was actually not that hard, and I had so many spare parts, it was easy to learn and make my own network and get files transferring. I started taking Networking jobs as well as I started to take my first college classes, and around that time, I made my first business cards and got started making a name for myself.

Working out of my bedroom, I was taking 20-30 jobs and house calls per week, while working part time at a gas station. Those were very busy days. 50% of the jobs were old people that could not connect to AOL/Prodigy/Compuserve, and needed a modem or just a quick reset or change a phone line out because it got pinched. I would charge $50 to show up, and $50 per hour if it did not require any parts. I was getting so much work I started turning the hourly jobs down in favor of the bigger ones. New PC setup was a big business then. I would recommend a computer or they would just buy it on their own from a magazine or the TV, and would call me and I would just hook it up for them and show them how to use it. I charged $150 for this service and took me an hour. Anything after an house, I told them I would have to come back and they would have to schedule another service. $150 to plug some wires in and show them how to print a picture of their grandkid and send an email. 

     The other 50% of house calls were always a burned up modem. I would carry an external US robotics modem in the car, bring that inside and if that worked and their internal one didn't, I would replace the modem. Where did I get the modems? I would buy them 25 at a time from PC Mall magazine for $8 each. The cheapest ones they had, 28.8 baud, no frills, Hayes compatible. I would charge $25 for the modem, which if you bought one at the store for $99, you knew you were getting a good deal. Some people would tell me they would get one at the store, then call me back and say just come put it in, because my fee and the cost was still lower. Remember, the only place you could buy a modem back then was at a specialty computer store that would 100% of the time charge 3 times too much and rip you off for any of the services. My local repair shop I dealt with for some diagnostic things would charge $90 an hour, minimum of 2 hours, and they would get it.

My job at the time was paying me $7.75 an hour, but reimbursed me for my college costs, and gave me free health insurance. Yes, free. I only worked 20 hours a week and if I called in to take a PC job they would never say anything because I was in a relationship with the store manager. I was able to save $20,000 in one year, and that's with buying a motorcycle, a car that I put tons of money in to make it fast, and anything I could want to have at the time. I did have distractions where I would take a few weeks off, like my ex-girlfriend sleeping with my best friend(s)? and moving in to my own place. I rented both sides of a duplex, did my PC stuff out of one side and lived in the other. $525 a month per side. 

Things started to slow down, where the only business I was getting was building new PC's and networking large jobs. It was weekly work and allowed me to save further. I got a new girlfriend and treated her to vacations and a good way of life while she was going through Hair School locally. I brought on a friend to take the jobs and he ended up buying the business from me and making it in to something great. I called an ex-girlfriend who I knew had a younger brother interested in tech and gave him all my inventory that wasn't being used for free. Wrap up below:

- Made 20k a year from 1998-2000

- Made 40k in 2001

- Made 66k in 2002 and in 2003 sold the business for 15k after taxes

Facebook is super broken - COViD19 Misinformation on a page

 

  If Facebook was a person, I would give them an angry look and clench my fists.. like really hard and look at them in a not-so-nice way. Yeah.

     The above message from Facebook is but one of many messages I've got reporting comments for "False Health Information" on news articles posted by verified local news organizations. This comment in particular, was some Microsoft paint level info graph that outlined how the Vaccine kills you, and that COViD is fake, with a picture of Biden with a swastika on his head, holding a dead baby. This post specifically, an article on the number of deaths at a local hospital, with statistics on how many people have died, listing number of those dead who are vaccinated and unvaccinated, and their age and some other random stats was very plainly said and informational. These updates were also released on the hospital's Facebook Page the same day for everyone to take a look at. It was very easy to see how this would go very, very wrong. Yes, I live in Florida. 

Sad right? Not according to Karen it's not! Thanks Biden.

     Instead of worrying about the dead piled up like cordwood in the parking lots at the hospital, which there are pictures of in said news story of refrigerated trailers with steel drawers full of bodies; anti-vaxxers swarm to the comments to post their rhetoric and extreme conspiracy theories on the full transparent stats released by the hospital group. The comments range from racist to just cruel and horrible, and then back again. See some examples below:

Like my Scribbles of Protection +1?

     I copied and pasted those from that very same article. On other posts there are tons of YouTube links, garbage links to bogus medical websites, and fake info graphs saying millions of people have died thanks to the Vaccine. Lots of housewives posting things like, "I know someone..", and then some bullshit story about how they died or worse from getting vaccinated. I see one wonderful example of a human explaining to all that will hear how to take horse paste safely, and how to give it to your children. When I click on these accounts, they have no public information, do not live in the South Florida Area, and only history on the internet is constant and very consistent posts on social media articles. As a matter of fact, the same 20 or so people have been commenting on every post with dumb opened ended questions, never replying when called out, but are VERY consistent. I followed one gentlemen and reported all his fake health and science posts, over 20 on different pages, and his terrorist comments that he going to cause unrest, and every single time I got a message like the above, that Facebook would NOT take the posts down, that they do not go against their posting policy. However, according to Facebutt and other sources, they are working taking these accounts down.  More lies? I think so. 

Zuck Data Accumulator 5000 powers on for the first time.

     I have some questions. Does Facebook give a fuck anymore? I can't go a single day without seeing an article make national news that Facebook is getting tough on misinformation. Bullshit. Full fucking bullshit. Facebook is contacting news outlets and writing their own stories. I'm telling you, there are doing NOTHING to remove the false information, fake accounts and terriorist-like health threats on their platform. I report them all. Nothing. Someone is literally selling horsepaste on the Facebook Marketplace, I reported it every time I saw it, and it's still there. The same 20ish people, posting on every single thing with garbage questions with a questionable Facebook profile. Even "famous" people are getting in on it. 

This guy is a fucking loser.

     JP Sears, the guy who made Youtube videos making fun of vegans, gluten intolerance, and the whole crunchy hippie essential oil culture is using his social media following to promote anti-vax statements, and anti-government propaganda. The comments are pure lunacy, with every kind of conspiracy theory you could dream of. The Adventures of Baron Von Munchhausen seems tame compared to this. News sites have been picking up on his garbage, but no one seems to care. His youtube videos stay up, and every discussion he starts about the subject does not get removed. He is spreading misinformation to millions of people per day, and no one is doing anything about it. He even has a post that has a full discussion thread on where his followers are going to meet and carry out "Civil Unrest". At the time of this writing, people in the comments are organizing meeting up, which guns they are going to bring, and where they are "Going to hit next." What the fuck? I can't make this up, click the link above and look at the replies. Some people, once fans of his sarcastic dead pan videos, have taken to the comments as well to ask what in the hell is going on. 

See something missing from this graphic? Its only 75%. That's because the other 25% not represented are absolutely out of their fucking minds. 

     Confirmation bias is the elephant in the room.. right? Call them what you want. Trumpers/Anti-Vax/Anti-science/Conspiracy Theorists.. etc. They all have one thing in common: Extreme confirmation bias. The people that want to believe something that is not true or supported by known research and science with interpret, translate and only recall the things the things that support their belief in said thing. Not to be outdone, scientists have been researching and drawing conclusions on the beliefs on confirmation bias, and how to mitigate that when dealing with the vaccine. These scientists are under the firm assumption that we can clear up this bias with enough education and transparency, which is just fine, but they forgot one thing: That Facebook Anti-vaxxers are an entirely different breed of fucking stupid. CDC, hold my beer.

Let's wrap this up. 

    Darwin is smiling down from above as the world fixes itself, which in a way is cruel magnificent poetic justice; Karma for the ones that believe it. The ultimate way to prove a point is here for the taking, just remove the ones that do not conform in perpetual eventuality. Flawed decisions from organizational, financial and faux-science contexts blurs reality on a massive scale we have never seen before. Social media's filter bubble only showing the people what they are interested in, ironically mostly just displaying something they are likely to agree with, which are rarely opposing viewpoints. The technology of social media let's you herd in with like-minded folks, where you don't have to understand any other point of view, or care for that matter. This in particular has hurt society on a scale that no one expected, except maybe Bill Gates. 

Get vaxxed fuckers!