Ryan Jones

Ho ho ho to everyone! Been a bit busy here over the last two weeks. Did a weekend no electronics allowed weekend with 3 other gay couples this past weekend. They relieved us of our phones as we arrived and then accepted all the other usual devices like pads, laptops, etc. The first night I thought I was going to go crazy, after that it was easy. We drank a lot of wine, had conversations with the other couples. Played Risk, Clue, Life and Monopoly and did jigsaw puzzles. By the last day I was almost ready to leave the phone behind but once it touched my hand it's like it had tentacles that reached deep inside me and I was connected before I even turned it on. Because of the new Omicron variant rampaging through the area I'm swearing off the poker playing at the casino until after Jan 1. Probably longer than that. We've also changed our holiday dinner plans to include just the family. Justin's parents, grandparents and my sister will be the only guests besides Justin and me. Hope everyone has a great time over the holidays.

I suppose it depends. Since the majority of the scammers are outside the USA it's unlikely they'll ever be caught. As far as reporting them to the authorities, all you can really do is report the IP number. You're not going to get a name.

No, it all seems very clear to me. I was wondering what others thought. All of us have different life experiences that make us see things in varied ways. This is evidently one of those things. To me liberating ill gotten gains from thieves and other criminals isn't wrong at all, in fact I think it's great and there should be enough hero types to take out each and every one of them, financially that is.

Not a bad idea but under no circumstances should hero stop what he's doing.

I suppose my former occupation has given me a slightly different idea of right or wrong. I do appreciate your comments but I can say that I'd suspect the hypothetical person would continue on fighting crime their way! lol Hope you and Michael are doing good.

Not sure how you figure that. To me it's not quite so easy. Taking money from a criminal seems a nice enough thing to do, hopefully it totally disrupts their life in some way. I'm really not trolling here, to me the hero seems a hero.

Had a great Thanksgiving here. Hope everyone else's was the same. I'd like to pose you a totally hypothetical situation. Let's say you have a bored person who has a computer set up and that person goes out and clicks on every shady seeming link or website available. Then while that person is waiting for anything to happen on that computer they suddenly get a spam message on FB offering them a $2000 government payout from the latest legislation, all you have to do (after some short discussion back and forth) is send them $200. So let's say the hero of the story sent them a link to where the gift cards they wanted were located. After a minute or so the villian comes back and says the link didn't work. So another link was sent. At the same time that first link is connecting back to the hero's computer and the hero is perusing all the files for anything interesting. Were there any interesting files? How about a folder that says "CRYPTO", in it are text files labeled BITCOIN, ELU and a few other less well known crypto currency names. Looking in the BITCOIN text file there's account and password information. A hugely long password so it's unsurprising that it's saved. Saving it with no encryption is pretty normal with scammers who aren't computer literate. So the hero copies off all the crypto information. Another folder is clearly labeled "GIFT CARDS" and what do you suppose is there? A folder called GIFTCARDS. Upon opening that file there's maybe 200 different cards with numbers and pins. Again, may as well copy that info also. The hero then sets in motion a complete wiping of the information in all the files and sees it all disappear. Before that the hero goes through and alters the account numbers and passwords and saves the altered information so that should they pull back the file after wiping, it won't have the correct information. Then poof! Then the hero blocks the villian to see what happens. Do they log off? Are they suspicious? Their computer remains up and running. Now what does our hero do? The total of crypto isn't overwhelming but it's in the high 5 figure range. Gift cards are less than $10,000. These must be some lousy scammers. So, still talking hypothetically of course. Should the hero liberate the crypto? The gift cards? Remember unless they had paper backup all their passwords and account numbers are gone. It could be a very profitable holiday season for the hero, depending on what he does.

The only real memory I have of my paternal grandmother is a bad one, related to turnips. All my life I have been a picky eater but one of my favorite things as a kid was mashed potatoes. One time my grandmother stayed with us a week or so and would cook. I got to the table and there was a bowl of white mashed stuff that I assumed was potato but when I took a bite I spit it out immediately. It was awful! She had made mashed turnips! My grandmother died when I was 6 or 7 and this is quite literally the only memory I have of her.

Boy can I relate to #1 on this list. At one point I had about 75 people working under me and some of them I fired before I ever did know their name. Once I said goodbye to a person I fired and used the wrong name. I don't forget a face but names are another thing. 2 never, 3 very seldom. Stopped making concrete plans years ago. 5 is the housekeeper's responsibility. Sleep is overrated! I get by with my 4-5 hours and wish I didn't have to waste that much time!

There are times when I think both my father and I were lucky because he had vascular dementia. It was caused by little strokes but the overall effect was that of Alzheimer's. Just very accelerated, from the onset until he died was only 7 months. At least there weren't years of it to tear at both of us. It really seems like the people I know who do have Alzheimer's all seem to be very healthy except for that. My aunt had it and never had other health issues into her mid 80s, she finally forgot how to eat and had a do not force feed directive so that was it. The other lady is 94 now and still very healthy. Her condition is deteriorating very slowly, it's been 15 years since the diagnosis.

My sister got hers yesterday and said she didn't feel it then or later. I'm getting mine 11/30. On another note, have to watch where I walk in the house. There's little piles of grass where the cat eats it and pukes it back up. Still looks fresh and all!

I can remember back in those middle/high school ages you'd always suggest having a 68. When asked what that meant you answered "You do me and I owe you one!"

I can relate a little since I had the wedding earlier this year. Luckily Justin's parents and grandparents took care of it all with Justin's help and my very occasional assistance. We wrote our own vows but since there was no tinge of religion in our service it wasn't anything like @Wayne Gray related.

That sounds pretty impressive. The only time heels were "in vogue" for men that I knew of was the disco era and those sure weren't stilettos. They were just basically shoes with like 4"-6" of height in the sole. Talk about a weird experience, especially for a guy. I'm 6' and I was going out one evening but had to go to the computer section at work so wore the shoes in. It seemed like everything was out of proportion, way too low. Took me a little while to get used to it. I never fell with those shoes on but neither was I doing any outrageous Saturday Night Fever type moves! Since I'm a neat hoarder I probably still have them in a closet and since feet don't grow, they'll still fit. I'll have to check and if they are there I'll wear them next time Justin and I go to dinner at his parent's or grandparent's house.

At least my car clock is correct again. I never bother to change it, too lazy. I don't really care whether it's dark early, or dark late. I suppose if I had to give a preference it would be for it to be dark at 7am and light until near 6pm though.

The imprint is on the back legs of the bull. Forgot I could only post 1 picture here because of the size. Here's what the imprint looks like. I even know which fancy department store sold the only other example of the bull that I could find although with a different pattern, they had nothing any more with that bull, or this one. I do actually collect coin banks of all kinds. From the very expensive to the extremely cheap. Although the last 10 years or so I've pretty much stopped the cheapest banks. My "cheap" room is too full of stuff.

I'm one of those people who go to church bazaars and flea markets. Tag sales, yard sales, if I see a sign I'm going to take a look. I have a great track record of buying things that are worth far more than I've paid. When I get the item home the first thing I do is look it up on Ebay, see what the item sold for. This is a first for me though, this item not only wasn't on Ebay but one like it didn't come up in any search I could think of to try. It's a bull bank. I assume since it's got Osborne on the back that it's a representation of Toro Osborne, a Spanish landmark(s) since they are scattered all over the country. I found one the same size but a different pattern. I checked the store it was purchased from, they didn't have that bank anymore. Nor did they show the one I bought. So maybe some of you are better at searching than I am so perhaps you can take a crack at it. I'll post some pictures of the bank at the end of the message. Once I buy something and determine the general price range, it gets put in specific areas of my house. There's a "junk" room for things that are under $20 for example. So I need to sort this into the correct room.

Just 2 cats here but many have gone through my house.

Did it try to sell you auto insurance? lol Nice story for an morning laugh.

I love Snocaps. I buy them at Walgreens, or the grocery store. They are $1/box. I don't know how you eat them but I like to just take 1 or 2 of them and let them slowly melt in my mouth.

Yes, there used to be some rules about how you had to crop the picture to avoid showing any actual naked genitalia. That's gone now so Troye wanted everyone to be able to clearly see his "softie", even commented later that he could "show his long schlong" now. Not sure how many know he's Jewish, so schlong is a good term to use! I don't think his costume was supposed to be any particular character from a comic or movie.

@Starrynight22 Since you like Troye Sivan so much I thought I'd post this picture from his Twitter. It's his costume for Halloween. I think the boy has gone completely nuts. It's not too bad for the board, I don't think. Oh and this wasn't just for the Twitter picture, there's videos of him at a party later with the same outfit on. His caption for the photo was "Now that Twitter has changed their rules I don't have to crop the pictures"

I'm a very boring candy person, like I am with most foods. My favorite is the plain chocolate Hershey's bar. In fact tomorrow I'll be heading to the grocery store to pick up bags of leftover Hershey bite size bars for 50%-75% off, depending on which store I go to. Tonight's party I'm going as a dinosaur (in a onesie) with my AC/DC horns I picked up at one of their concerts. Justin is going as a fairy (somehow appropriate) and has wings that extend out to about 6' if he unfurls them. At least we'll be in a very large ballroom type space. Last year he did angel wings that were fixed open, that caused more issues. We have a makeup person that does whatever makeup we need. We'll do the regular trick or treat for the neighborhood kids. That ends at 8pm, then off to the party. Just to show you how bad I am about plain old chocolate, I love the type of chocolate they have in those Easter rabbits you see everywhere. After Easter I'll run around and pick up the leftover smallest hollow rabbits. They are generally $1-$1.50 before Easter and afterwards are 25 cents. One year I bought 90 of them and stored them in the pantry for a few months, then the remainder in the fridge. Also love those cheap $1 chocolate bars they have for every holiday with the center "picture" as the holiday character. For example at Christmas it would be Santa in the middle. I can't remember if they are 100,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 in value.

Before the pandemic the traffic here was exactly as you describe. Monday the worst, Friday the easiest. It's only since the return of a lot of people to their offices that it's changed to Wednesday being the most traffic day. Of course that's only the portions of the two main roads that I travel on. I'll have to remember to check the traffic reports on the mornings when I don't go to the casino to see where the traffic jams are that aren't caused by accidents or some other issues like road construction.

Does any particular day or days seem more crowded? That's what I find unusual here. It seems Wednesday is the most crowded morning traffic.