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Re: Any crazy roommate stories? - 3 months ago

Not me but my daughter had a college roommate who was probably Sarcany's roommate's sister (without the smoking). Partying at all hours with her friends, playing loud music, all of the above. My daughter was torn between trying to fit in and doing well in her classes and wasn't doing well at either. She finally told us and I called the college and was able to arrange a new single room for her wit

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: What will you feel comfortable doing, after you are fully vaccinated? - 3 months ago

We went to the house of some old friends who haven't seen anybody except family for a year and ate dinner. Outdoors and socially distant just because we're still hinky about the whole thing. We're all a month out from our second shots but it's going to be a long time before we just ignore the whole thing. I just bought the Purell singles that pRICE cUBE linked on the other side. Just because...

by Michael - 'Friendly' Political Ranting

Re: 125-Ct Purell Singles Advanced Travel Size Hand Sanitizer Gel Packets $12 w/ Subscribe & Save - 3 months ago

Thanks. We have some of the 2oz bottles that we carry around but they've leaked a couple of times. These will be more convenient.

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: MR Forum Fit Club: In the bag - 3 months ago

We both lost all the weight we gained in Nov and Dec, just in time for our annual physicals. We both have more to go--about 15 lbs each and are doing our best to continue. It's harder when we don't have the "fool the doctor" motivation (yeah, I know we're not fooling anybody but ourselves).

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: If you appreciate "Halleluja" - 3 months ago

That's pretty cool!

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: TV Cable Management (In Wall or just channel) and small Blu-ray Player. - 3 months ago

Cool console. And a gumball machine! One thing to consider is that a small Blu-Ray player on top of the console would hide another couple of inches of the wires. I'd probably live with the wires in a channel painted the color of the wall for a while and see if it bothered me a couple of hundred dollars worth (Home Depot says having one of their guys move an outlet or install a new one would

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Arby's Coupon: Crispy Fish Sandwich $1 - 3 months ago

We find these substantially better than the McDonald's fish sandwich. But, it's not as big as it looks--there's an area cut off on the back so it doesn't quite fill the bun on the back. Thanks for the coupon!

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Leaky Loo - 3 months ago

We had a Glacier Bay (Home Depot brand) that was a dual flush and had the flush buttons in the middle of the tank top. It had a cylindrical control inside that went up and down. There were fingers sticking down from the buttons in the tank top that engaged two places on the cylinder to activate the flushing. If that's what yours sounds like, I found the thing to leak quite a bit. At the time H

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Winter is gone in WI... Bike rack for truck? - 3 months ago

I have a 6' bed in my Tacoma and I put the bikes in and lean each over one side. The Tacoma has a bed liner built in so nothing gets scratched. When I need to put a third one in, I put an old moving blanket over one and lean the third one against one of the others. Easy and fast but it doesn't make me look good in comparison to the other folks with pretty spectacular racks at the national park wh

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Turning off your water - 3 months ago

Our water key is now an extra. Our utility has been replacing meters with no-backflow versions. When they put in the new meters they also put in a ball valve in it's own little box on the house side. It was a nice thing to do.

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Happy Birthday MR Forum member Sam3 - 3 months ago

Happy Birthday!!!

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Happy Birthday MR Forum member DinerDave - 3 months ago

Happy Birthday!!!

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Happy Birthday MR Forum member Yoyodyne ArtWorks - 3 months ago

Happy Birthday!!!

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Painting Room, order to do the Painting? - 3 months ago

Quotebazookaman I've been painting houses for something like 30 years. I used to do walls first then trim. Thats so much more trouble. I do all the trim first. However many coats needed. Then I apply painters tape to the baseboard only. THEN I paint all the walls. Still cutting in all the trim. But not having to be quite as careful and also not getting roller splatter all over everything. You

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: call this morning from Customs and Border Protection - 3 months ago

I've started pressing 1 and then let the phone sit. The person gets on the phone and spends 15 secs saying hello before they hang up. I figure I saved 1 person from the jerk during their shift by costing them that 15 seconds.

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Apple Watch throws some shade on my exercise - 3 months ago

Mine often doesn't count an outdoor walk (or golf) as exercise for me while my wife's does for her. I presume it's because she's taking many more steps with her rather shorter stride so (I presume) her heart rate meets their standard while mine does not. Today we walked 18 holes of golf and on hole 17 is showed I had 18 min of exercise even though I had walked 11,000 steps over 3 hours as we were

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: icemaker works, but... - 3 months ago

I'd bet that if there was a way to reduce the amount of water that goes into the ice maker for a given set of cubes, it would keep them from staying connected at the top. That's what I'd search for with the refrig name and model number first.

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Report on Zvox AV157 AccuVoice TV Speaker - 3 months ago

Several days ago Davemchine asked about mounting a soundbar under a tv. The discussion moved on and Grateful11 asked if anybody has used one of the Zvox TV speakers that boosts voices to make them easier to understand. I was intrigued and looked into it, told my wife about it and she said get one. It came in 3 days-impressive-and it took just a couple of minutes to set up. I said I'd report back

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: ‘ Fry’s Electronics going out of business, shutting down all stores ‘ - 3 months ago

I loved the Bay Area Fry's stores years ago. I used to wander around the Palo Alto store looking at all the cool stuff but knowing that I didn't know what to do with it.

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: another Paypal question - 3 months ago

Quotespace-time My consumer advocate hero Clark Howard hates Zelle with a passion, though. I am curious why, I don't follow him but now I need to look this up. Does he had podcasts, or a log that you follow? Here's one of his concerns with Venmo and the like: He's also said on his podcast a number of times that there's simply no do-overs for mistakes with these services. If you happen

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Unusual real estate deal? - 3 months ago

It's hard to imagine the realtor won't make anything on it. At first blush it seems to me that the owner of the property won't pay a broker fee, nor allow one as part of the deal. I'd imagine the way around it is for your daughter to pay the realtor independently. Before I called a lawyer, I'd talk to the realtor she's working with about exactly how that would work. And I'd look at the contrac

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: I actually like this time of year - 3 months ago

We had spring yesterday in NW Georgia. Clear skies, slight breeze and warm. For the first time in months the truck was hotish when we got into it after kayaking for 90 minutes. It was great. We'll get a bit more of winter, surely, but the end is in sight.

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: My health insurance company offered to send me a "free" smart blood pressure monitor - 3 months ago

Ours sent us COVID testing kits and thermometers. We had to post our baseline temps 3 times and then if we ever had a temp, call them and a doc on call would tell us to either use the tests or not. That seemed pretty cool. Now we've had both vaccines so I assume they will be unused. But, 2 days ago my wife got an offer for a smart scale if she'd do a diabetes pre-check online. We have a Wyze s

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Pay off my mortgage? - 3 months ago

My first impulse was to suggest paying it off; you can easily make more than 2.75% in an SP500 fund. But, when you said your horizon was 5-8 years and that you're in money market but that you'll get into the market, I dunno. I think the market is pretty frothy right now (look at the Nasdaq yesterday and the futures today) and if/when the Fed stops their rather remarkable level of financial suppor

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Supreme Court rejects Trump effort to block Manhattan prosecutors from getting tax records - 3 months ago

Oops.

by Michael - 'Friendly' Political Ranting

Re: Sound bar under tv? - 3 months ago

Quoterich in distress Hey Michael! I’m curious if you set up your AirPods with Headphone Accommodations, or only the regular transparency mode. I didn't know anything about Headphone Accommodations so I was just using the regular transparency mode. I just followed your link and went through the process and it tuned for moderate boost in the vocal range. That sounds like it's exactly what I

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: Sound bar under tv? - 3 months ago

Quotewurm I'll be curious to see how you like it, Michael. As a hearing aid wearer, there's a bit of an artificiality to the sound enhancement, but you do get used to it. I'll be interested to know how this soundbar actually sounds. I'm resisting getting hearing aids. But, I bought a pair of AirPod Pros recently when I read that they can be used as hearing aids. I used them in a restaurant with

by Michael - Tips and Deals

PSA Pulse Oximeters - 3 months ago

I've read people recommending pulse oximeters here. I got one based on somebody's recommendation. I got the STAT newsletter this morning by email and they have a warning about accuracy. Here's a copy/paste, followed by links to 2 of the resources that they link to: FDA issues alert on ‘limitations’ of pulse oximeters, but omits racial differences Without explicitly mentioning racial di

by Michael - Tips and Deals

Re: A Trump Party would draw off nearly half of GOP voters - 3 months ago

QuoteGGD What percentage of democratic voters mighty they draw? I wonder this, as well. If a "new" republican party (but probably have to change the name...) went barely center-right financially and barely center-left socially, would it pull a bunch of disenchanted Dems and Repubs? I know an awful lot of people on both sides who don't like the extremes of their own side while they hat

by Michael - 'Friendly' Political Ranting

Re: Texas Republicans: Feds should pay for overpriced power bills - 3 months ago

I know somebody who has a house on the beach on the gulf. It's flooded a number of times and every time the federal flood insurance pays to rebuild it. The place seems to be getting better and better with each of the 3 rebuilds. He's a lawyer and is perfectly happy with you and me paying for his beach home (a USAToday story says we subsidize the federal flood insurance program by $30 billion a ye

by Michael - 'Friendly' Political Ranting