Small Talk: We'll Be Right Back

[elle]

Great news, @Ashforth!  Continuing prayers for you and your mom.  And saying a prayer too for you @peacheslatour and anyone else who are unable to see their parent at this time.

17 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I'd trade all nine hundred and forty seven sports channels I have to get TCM back.

You and me and a bazillion others!

[Prevailing Wind]

My Roku stick offers PlutoTV, which, by itself, offers a gazillion channels. There was one dedicated solely to "Leverage" which I would turn on sporadically. I didn't understand why a show that only had 5 seasons would be running 24/7, but it seems it's been replaced by "Fear Factor."  Phooey.  They've got another channel that shows nothing but "America's Test Kitchen" and another one dedicated to "Midsomer Murders."  Now those, with 20 or more seasons, I understand. "Doctor Who" has its own channel, as does MST3K. Astounding!

I'm glad for the ATK channel - I used to get it on my over-the-air subchannel of the PBS station, but their transmitter's in a different direction from all the other transmitters in Metro Atlanta and I lost channel 8 & all its babies, including "Create."  So now I can get it on Pluto.

[smittykins]

I know Pluto TV is free, but BUZZR and 24/7 Forensic Files and Unsolved Mysteries channels would make me more than happy to pay for it.

[Silver Raven]

I just went over to the Pluto TV website, and there's an entire network dedicated to marijuana.

[Prevailing Wind]

Pluto didn't ditch the Leverage channel; it just changed its position in the lineup.  But now I'm turning it on to the Midsomer Murders channel. They've got WAY more seasons to show before they start repeating.

[peacheslatour]

19 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Pluto didn't ditch the Leverage channel; it just changed its position in the lineup.  But now I'm turning it on to the Midsomer Murders channel. They've got WAY more seasons to show before they start repeating.

I love that show. It's on Ovation and PBS here. I never miss it.

[Jaded]

20 hours ago, Silver Raven said:

I just went over to the Pluto TV website, and there's an entire network dedicated to marijuana.

[Nicmar]

On 7/17/2020 at 7:22 PM, Prevailing Wind said:

My Roku stick offers PlutoTV, which, by itself, offers a gazillion channels. There was one dedicated solely to "Leverage" which I would turn on sporadically. I didn't understand why a show that only had 5 seasons would be running 24/7, but it seems it's been replaced by "Fear Factor."  Phooey.  They've got another channel that shows nothing but "America's Test Kitchen" and another one dedicated to "Midsomer Murders."  Now those, with 20 or more seasons, I understand. "Doctor Who" has its own channel, as does MST3K. Astounding!

I'm glad for the ATK channel - I used to get it on my over-the-air subchannel of the PBS station, but their transmitter's in a different direction from all the other transmitters in Metro Atlanta and I lost channel 8 & all its babies, including "Create."  So now I can get it on Pluto.

24/7 MST3K? I have pluto , i really go on there but i didn't know they had 24/7 channels. I watched all the old Unsolved Mysteries on there

[peacheslatour]

17 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

I wonder why they chose the name Pluto?   I suppose Uranus would have been a non-starter.  Though I suppose that would be the perfect streaming service for the endless supply of bodily function commercials.

If my cable program guide is to be believed, next Tuesday (7/27) will be the last day of Saved By the Bell, and Monk will no longer have any episodes bumped.   On 8/4 Sundance has Monk airing from 10:00am est straight through until midnight.

Great news! 

[mmecorday]

Quote

OW!! I was referring to the St. Elsewhere series finale. It was just as dumb as it sounds.

I absolutely loved "St. Elsewhere" and I hope no one ever attempts to reboot it. I'd boot their ass if they did.

[Ashforth]

5 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I suppose Uranus would have been a non-starter. 

LOLOLOLOL

[Prevailing Wind]

6 hours ago, Nicmar said:

24/7 MST3K? I have pluto , i really go on there but i didn't know they had 24/7 channels. I watched all the old Unsolved Mysteries on there

MST3K - Always On, Always Free, Always ASTOUNDING!

I *am* getting tired of the Siesta Key ads.

[Bort]

7 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I wonder why they chose the name Pluto?   I suppose Uranus would have been a non-starter. 

Maybe they’re saving that for their porn channel.

[smittykins]

Poor Uranus can’t catch a break—it’s either “Your Anus”. or “Urine-Us.”

[Jaded]

On 7/23/2020 at 7:09 PM, Prevailing Wind said:

I *am* getting tired of the Siesta Key ads.

That whiny blonde wailing "Think about what I saw!" is about to do my head in.

I'm fed up with the commercials increasing in sound so much on Pluto especially ones for their other channels. The Baywatch one running currently is awful and makes the volume seemingly go up twice as high. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Jaded

[SnarkySheep]

On 7/23/2020 at 1:50 PM, icemiser69 said:

I wonder why they chose the name Pluto?   I suppose Uranus would have been a non-starter.  Though I suppose that would be the perfect streaming service for the endless supply of bodily function commercials.

"Hey, guess what? I finally got around to watching Uranus last night!" 

Now that would be a fun office conversation for others to overhear...

[peacheslatour]

24 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

I would have just turned the other "cheek".

I chased a chipmunk out of one of my blueberry bushes earlier today.  A short while later two robins flew in and ate some of the berries from that same bush.  I am okay with that.  A couple of hours after that, I had to chase two adult gray squirrels out of that same blueberry bush.

With mine, it was flickers, a type of wood pecker. They drove me crazy. Probably squirrels as well but I never caught them. Sly bastards.

[peacheslatour]

1 minute ago, icemiser69 said:

No, "butts" about it.

Yeah, I have flickers, and other woodpeckers around.   There is a hollow log (not inhabited by the Keebler Elves) that stands really tall and downy woodpeckers (among others) really make a lot of noise with it.   I find it soothing.  I am an early riser, so the noise is calming.

I like them too except when they nest in our eaves.

[Browncoat]

I watched a flicker just decimate an anthill the other day.  Every now and then, the bird had to stop with the pecking and scratch an ant off its head, but it worked that anthill for a good 15 minutes or so.

[friendperidot]

I'm slowly catching up with reading all the threads. I've been having major computer problems, had a virus that caused major damage and took a couple of weeks to get fixed and if that wasn't enough, we had an electrical storm almost 3 weeks ago that killed my modem and my sister's tv. I spent 2 weeks in AT&T hell. The storm was late on Saturday night, so I didn't call until Sunday. Had a difficult time finding a phone number with no internet and paperless billing. While speaking with a rep, I mentioned I had gotten a letter about a free upgrade on my internet, it's fiber optics. They offered free installation, free HBO, $10 less/month for a year, then about $15/month increase. That's doable, so I agreed. We've been streaming on 2 tvs, a pc and a tablet, the fiber optics upgrade is supposed to improve that.

Tech was scheduled for Thursday, he came out, he couldn't get in my back neighbor's back yard and she has a Pit. So I had to walk around the block in near 100 degree temps to make arrangements with her for the following Tuesday. She and I now have each other's phone numbers. The next Tuesday, different tech, an a$$hole. He didn't want to do the install because we have too much stuff piled up in the living room and he said it was unsafe, he left without saying a word to me, but reported me. The reason we have so much stuff is that I moved my full household of stuff into my sister's house and went into a depression that's lasted nearly 5 years. I've started coming out of it and I've got plans how to move stuff around and lots of changes. We're going to turn the living room into my doll/dollhouse room. I've got the shelves, I'm ready to go. We're going to make the back bedroom (that was occupied by my great nephew until I kicked him out and put a protective order on him) into a sewing/craft room. We don't really need a living room. If my sister has friends over, they go to her room, all my friends are doll people, we will enjoy the heck out of the living room. But in the meantime, there's still stuff packed in boxes and piled high.

Right before the quarantine stuff, my sister's ex-son-in-law helped me sort through the living room. We had set up one set of shelves and put doll stuff boxes in it and had sorted through the sewing/craft stuff. It was all ready to go switch out rooms, and then the virus. In the meantime, my sister has piled every delivery box she gets on top of the mess in the living room. I've broke down tons of boxes and sneaked many into the recycling bin, but as nature abhors a vacuum, my sister abhors an empty space. We're going to have to do a moving day, except we're not moving, just organizing and putting stuff in the proper rooms, we have to empty the garage and bring a lot of my furniture into the house. We have a ton of stuff that can go back into the garage, boxes of Christmas ornaments, my great-nephew's stuff.

But I didn't take time to explain it all to the tech, it's really not any of his business. So AT&T was just going to put everything on hold indefinitely. We aren't really going to be able to do much of the moving around until late September when it cools down a little. I could not wait that long without internet service. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate AT&T? I've had their internet so long my email is SBCglobal, since about 1998 or 99. They did agree to send a new modem for us to install ourselves since the old one had been fried.

On Friday, my sister's ex-son-in-law and his girlfriend came over, he put the a/c in the living room window (don't ask), he repaired a hole in the wall that my great nephew had done, assembled one more set of shelves and his girlfriend and I moved stuff out of the way and then put stuff on the 2nd set of shelves. We cleared a large path to where the modem was. Then Saturday, he came over to hook up the new modem, it still did not work because there were also wiring problems from the outside to the inside wall where the modem was. Matt got rather fed up with AT&T and called them and raised more hell. A tech came out on Sunday and spent hours repairing the old internet. Another tech will be here tomorrow to install the upgrade. 

So, it's been he** for the past month. I hope when the tech leaves tomorrow I will be able to watch tv without it stopping and telling me I am not connected. 

I discovered Pluto tv a few months ago and a couple of weeks before AT&T he**, I started watching the Leverage channel. I had seen most of the episodes, but I never really watched it while paying a lot of attention. I leave it on a lot, it's kind of replaced Bill Kurtis and Cold Case Files as my sleep channel. It's oddly compelling and I constantly see new little things, interactions between the actors, I pick up new little tidbits in the plot.

And you all who are 5'2" and 5'3" and have to reach for groceries on the top shelves, y'all are tall, what's your problem? lol. I'm 4'11" (barely) and I'll be 70 next month, there is no climbing shelves for me, can't risk breaking any bones. But I have no problem looking around and asking anyone taller than me for help. If I can find a store employee, great, if not I'm not picky, I'll ask anyone. And I've never had anyone refuse me. It's all about being polite and asking nicely.

[peacheslatour]

Quote

he repaired a hole in the wall that my great nephew had done

Sounds like a nightmare. Dealing with telecoms is my idea of hell. Is your great nephew receiving any kind of counseling?

[friendperidot]

thanks for asking Peaches, no he's not, he's too busy using meth and being high and knowing everything in the world. I've had no contact with him since December when I got the protective order. I miss him, but I miss the young man he used to be before meth got a hold on him. I worry about him.

[Suzn]

16 hours ago, friendperidot said:

... Have I mentioned lately how much I hate AT&T? I've had their internet so long my email is SBCglobal, since about 1998 or 99. They did agree to send a new modem for us to install ourselves since the old one had been fried...

 

I didn't know there was anyone else still with a SBCglobal email!

I'm glad to see you back!  🙂

[friendperidot]

43 minutes ago, Suzn said:

I didn't know there was anyone else still with a SBCglobal email!

 it happens when you don't change providers for 20+ years. I don't use that account, but I use my Hotmail account. Yep, I've had that one 20+ years too. I don't like change.

[QuinnInND]

6 hours ago, Suzn said:

I didn't know there was anyone else still with a SBCglobal email!

I'm glad to see you back!  🙂

A friends husband has sbcglobal too! They are out there! 

[isalicat]

I have an sbcglobal email! Get off my lawn! LOL!

(I did not know that was a super indicator of oldness, so shows how old I am tee hee. But I don't have a lawn, actually, because that is not an environfriendly use of land in my droughtland part of California.)

[Bastet]

14 hours ago, isalicat said:

I have an sbcglobal email! Get off my lawn! LOL!

So do I. 

I'm not really sure why I shouldn't- when I switched from Prodigy* (ask your parents, some of you) to the phone company's DSL as my ISP, sbcglobal became my new email address because SBC was the phone company at that moment in time (it has changed many, many times in my life, even though I've always lived in Los Angeles). 

Sure, it has long since been AT&T, but the takeover thankfully didn't require existing customers to have att in their email address instead (thus having to notify all our contacts we have a new email address when we weren't the ones to make a change), so since my provider has remained the same all these years, so has my email address.

*When we got Prodigy (around '91, I believe), we were assigned a screen name (that also functioned as an email address and a handle on that weird thing known as the world-wide web) made up of a random assortment of letters and numbers.  Mine started with "drxf".  When I became an X-Files fan several years later, the fact mine looked like "Dr. X-Files [etc.]" was a source of great amusement to me.

[Suzn]

1 hour ago, Bastet said:

So do I. 

I'm not really sure why I shouldn't- when I switched from Prodigy* (ask your parents, some of you) to the phone company's DSL as my ISP, sbcglobal became my new email address because SBC was the phone company at that moment in time (it has changed many, many times in my life, even though I've always lived in Los Angeles). 

Sure, it has long since been AT&T, but the takeover thankfully didn't require existing customers to have att in their email address instead (thus having to notify all our contacts we have a new email address when we weren't the ones to make a change), so since my provider has remained the same all these years, so has my email address.

*When we got Prodigy (around '91, I believe), we were assigned a screen name (that also functioned as an email address and a handle on that weird thing known as the world-wide web) made up of a random assortment of letters and numbers.  Mine started with "drxf".  When I became an X-Files fan several years later, the fact mine looked like "Dr. X-Files [etc.]" was a source of great amusement to me.

Prodigy!  That's where I started, too - I think in 1994, then to AOL and finally to SBCglobal by way of what is now AT&T.  I like my email address so I've got no reason to change.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

I explained a dot matrix printer to someone the other day.  No shame from me!

[Bastet]

7 minutes ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

I explained a dot matrix printer to someone the other day.

I continued to use the paper from my dot matrix printer for a long time after I switched to an inket printer -- I had much of a big box left when I switched, and there was no way I was just going to recycle rather than use that paper, so I gradually - while watching TV - tore off the side strips (with the holes to feed it through) and separated the pages from each other.  The resulting sheets were what I used for first drafts for many years.

[Silver Raven]

My first interactions on the net were via Cleveland Freenet.  Yeah, you bring up the freenet, log in, and you had a timed session.  It was free from my office computer.

 

[peacheslatour]

12 minutes ago, Silver Raven said:

My first interactions on the net were via Cleveland Freenet.  Yeah, you bring up the freenet, log in, and you had a timed session.  It was free from my office computer.

 

Oh god, remember dial up? You could actually hear it dialing.

[Suzn]

46 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Oh god, remember dial up? You could actually hear it dialing.

I'll never forget that sound!  It was so slow and on AOL all the lines could be busy and you couldn't get on at all.  I wonder what we will use that makes today's technology look pathetic.

[Ashforth]

19 minutes ago, Suzn said:

I'll never forget that sound!  It was so slow and on AOL all the lines could be busy and you couldn't get on at all.  I wonder what we will use that makes today's technology look pathetic.

Dial up makes me think of the great movie War Games with Matthew Broderick in which he was a hapless newbie hacker who nearly started WW3 ("Let's play thermonuclear war").

I assume that at some point in the probably not-far-off future, we'll get chips installed and will control our computers with our minds. And I guess we won't have physical computers, it will all just be in our brains. And then we will become human-computer hybrids.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Oh god, remember dial up? You could actually hear it dialing.

Yep.  And the sound when you'd pick up the phone to make a call and realize someone in the house was online (then you'd either yell at them you needed to make a call or get yelled at by them that you'd just kicked them off the internet).

And you only had a certain number of minutes per month, so I'd download stuff to a disc to read offline and save my minutes mostly for emailing, chatting, etc.

 

[Gramto6]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Oh god, remember dial up? You could actually hear it dialing.

Very well! We've come a long way! Who can guess what the future will bring?

[Moose135]

My first forays into the internet were on Prodigy, probably around 1994. The newspaper I used to work for launched their first online version in partnership with Prodigy, and I was able to get a free account. A year or two later I got myself a Juno.com e-mail address, which I still use today as my main e-mail account.

[isalicat]

Gawd - this whole thread is taking me back to the days when I first started my professional (and very accidental) career and we used to have to type resumes (using white out!) and mimeo (later copy) them and then type addresses on to envelopes and send them out via the U.S. Postal Snail Mail (yes, I was a technical recruiter before there was such a thing...it was fun to pioneer an industry which has been negated by social media, thanks for your condolences). Once copiers became truly what they are today, we used the hell out of them and I remember once when one of ours was malfunctioning and my business partner took a baseball bat to it out of frustration.

Then we had the first (gnormous) PC you could buy and began the transition into moving info to people "on line" (which if you think about it, is a complete misnomer these days). I think I fell on my knees in gratitude the first time I could send someone's resume directly from them to me (add the letterhead, run the spellcheck) to the hiring manager without any actual paper involved.

Yes, I'm still old. Get off my lawn!

 

[Bastet]

51 minutes ago, isalicat said:

Once copiers became truly what they are today, we used the hell out of them and I remember once when one of ours was malfunctioning and my business partner took a baseball bat to it out of frustration.

 

 

[isalicat]

36 minutes ago, Bastet said:

 

 

That was awesome! But those guys were pussies - they took it out into a field to dispose of it....my partner did it right in our office in front of all the staff and all...but this was the 90s and you could get away with a lot more back then. (Lets just say we also had darts - like pub darts - going on in the office too.)

[Bastet]

6 minutes ago, isalicat said:

but this was the 90s and you could get away with a lot more back then. (Lets just say we also had darts - like pub darts - going on in the office too.)

I would never go back and stay with it, as I went on to work in civil rights law, which is my life's passion, and it's not remotely the same now, anyway, but I'm also glad for the fun I had in that '90s era, working for a record label, with a minibar in my office, joints passed around meetings with no judgment one way or the other, lavish picnics and holiday parties each year, a great commissary and rec room, etc.

[Prevailing Wind]

Nobody's mentioned CompuServe.  When I got my first computer, it came with 3 ISP options - Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL.  I went with AOL finally - for $3.50 an hour.  Then they reduced it to $2.95/hr. When it became free, I recall mentioning in one of the forums, that now you don't have to hurry - you can actually LOOK UP how to spell words. Oh, I was so naive.

When ATT took over Bellsouth (again), I was off AOL by then, with a bellsouth email address. I started looking around for alternative email providers, because I thought ATT would eventually make me get rid of "bellsouth" - turns out they haven't, but by now I've gotten fed up with gmail's targeted ads.  I went to 1&1 which is now ionos.com and bought my own website for $15/yr.  I don't use the site itself for anything; I just use the one free email account that comes with it.  NO targeted ads!

My SIL still uses her AOL email account for sites she's only visiting that insist on an email address.

I know people refer to it as the handshake - that god awful squawky noise when the modems hook up - but I always preferred to call it the mating call.

At one point, AOL offered sound files you could attach to your email of celebrities announcing "you've got mail" - I downloaded Letterman's "Congratulations, Skippy, you've got mail" and I still use today. I've got it "associated" with email and it works well.  When I open my Thunderbird email client, there's Dave, calling me Skippy.

I don't remember which Windows program was current when I got my first computer (late 93), but I had a hard time giving up 3.1.  I still arrange my programs and files within icons on my desktop - There's one for games, one for maintenance (CCleaner, a backup program, and AVG), one called "production" that has stuff like Word Perfect, Lotus, MS office crap (only because everybody else uses it and I need to read their stuff when they send it to me), and all those other programs you use to get stuff done.

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, Prevailing Wind said:

At one point, AOL offered sound files you could attach to your email of celebrities announcing "you've got mail" - I downloaded Letterman's "Congratulations, Skippy, you've got mail" and I still use today. I've got it "associated" with email and it works well.  When I open my Thunderbird email client, there's Dave, calling me Skippy.

My email notification is Scully (The X-Files) saying, "Sucker".  Which has nothing to do with mail, but I just love the way she said it.  When I log onto my computer, she says, "Somebody's accessing my computer," and when I log out, Cartman (South Park) says, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

As you can tell, I have not updated my .wav files in a very long time.

[Jaded]

When my Mom and I got our first computer at home at the very beginning of the 2000's we ended up having a free trial of MSN dialup. We had a kinda shared email account which I used mostly so she started her own MSN email account. I still have the original email account that ends in @msn.com. 

[Prevailing Wind]

Do y'all remember when I had the broken water valve soak my condo back in December? When the insurance renewed in March, the premium was still the same $544 for 6 months.  NOW it's gone up to $832.  So I have an embarrassing confession to make. LiMu offered me the best deal when I went insurance shopping...only $658/6 months.  Get that...ONLY.  You know, if I'd bank that money, I could do without insurance. And I'm seriously thinking about it.

[Ashforth]

1 hour ago, Prevailing Wind said:

Do y'all remember when I had the broken water valve soak my condo back in December? When the insurance renewed in March, the premium was still the same $544 for 6 months.  NOW it's gone up to $832.  So I have an embarrassing confession to make. LiMu offered me the best deal when I went insurance shopping...only $658/6 months.  Get that...ONLY.  You know, if I'd bank that money, I could do without insurance. And I'm seriously thinking about it.

Do you rent or own? Either way, check your lease or condo agreement carefully, because you are probably required to have insurance. If you let it lapse, the landlord/condo association can usually purchase it "for" you at a high, high cost that they pass on to you.

When will we see an ad for Insurance: Legally Required Extortion? 

[Prevailing Wind]

I own my unit and we're not required to have insurance. Everything that goes wrong inside my unit is my responsibility, even if it was caused by the guy upstairs. So if I wanna pay for it myself instead of getting insurance, that's my business.  Of course, our documents were written in 1984, so there's not even a consideration of email notifications for anything, and they didn't include the necessity of having insurance.

[peacheslatour]

7 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

I own my unit and we're not required to have insurance. Everything that goes wrong inside my unit is my responsibility, even if it was caused by the guy upstairs. So if I wanna pay for it myself instead of getting insurance, that's my business.  Of course, our documents were written in 1984, so there's not even a consideration of email notifications for anything, and they didn't include the necessity of having insurance.

We've owned our home since the mid eighties, free and clear. Before that we paid renter's insurance. Since we bought it we've never had home owners insurance but we do have substantial savings. We would be out of pocket if anything happened.

[isalicat]

7 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

We've owned our home since the mid eighties, free and clear. Before that we paid renter's insurance. Since we bought it we've never had home owners insurance but we do have substantial savings. We would be out of pocket if anything happened.

Yowsah! that is brave! I also own my home "free and clear" (which is great unless the state in which you live decides to seize your property or buy it against your will for "right of way" so  its like "conditionally free and clear as long as I pay my property tax and all else goes well...").

I don't have earthquake insurance which is the thing I probably would need most when it comes down to it. Otherwise I have one of those kinda full replacement policies and the premiums climb significantly each year as the fire danger increases here in droughtland. Fire is the thing I've learned to fear most as a home owner because if it isn't an actual wildfire it could just be your neighbor stupidly deep frying a turkey some Thanksgiving and the whole thing gets out of hand.

[peacheslatour]

10 hours ago, isalicat said:

Yowsah! that is brave! I also own my home "free and clear" (which is great unless the state in which you live decides to seize your property or buy it against your will for "right of way" so  its like "conditionally free and clear as long as I pay my property tax and all else goes well...").

I don't have earthquake insurance which is the thing I probably would need most when it comes down to it. Otherwise I have one of those kinda full replacement policies and the premiums climb significantly each year as the fire danger increases here in droughtland. Fire is the thing I've learned to fear most as a home owner because if it isn't an actual wildfire it could just be your neighbor stupidly deep frying a turkey some Thanksgiving and the whole thing gets out of hand.

Or fireworks landing on your roof.