It happened to my cousin awhile back with Photoshop. She’s a professional photographer and it shut her down for a few days. I found it pretty quickly and an update stopped it from happening. It wasn’t removing temporary files and totally filled her drive up.

Poor thing was ready to buy a new hard drive.

Red Bull is also twice as expensive. You get used to the jitters eventually. :p

At my store (which I worked at for 23 years and miss dearly), I would always let my regulars come in after closing if I could still serve them. If they had cash, I’d ring it up the next day.

That was one of 7 stores I worked in over the years (same company).

The other 6, hell no. Once they realized that I’d open the door after closing those bastards were coming up to an hour after I locked the doors. Same jerks every time yelling and cussing at me, “Well yer still here yuh faygit I don’t see why you won’t let me git a beer!”. Sometimes I’d stay late and hide in the office to watch a little tv before going home. It was always the same jackasses beating on the door at 1 AM putting their hands and faces up to the glass with stupid looks on their faces. I stopped letting them in after it became a problem for me and no matter how many times I said no, they’d walk their drunk asses to that store to try me.

It is amazing how much culture can change over 40 miles of road. I mean it, it’s crazy. Even the meth heads were polite and reasonable when they were in the middle of a 3 week, no sleep, hallucination fueled nightmare. “Ah, man. I’m so sorry that I bothered you. There’s people following me across the road so I’m just gonna borrow a little of your light here until someone I know comes to get me. I hope you have a good night.”

In that one store every local was always polite. I had two memorable assholes there over 23 years. At the others I had so many I couldn’t tell you.

I was one of those idiots going back and watching old Trump interviews and thinking, “Well, see, this dude can’t be the total idiot he’s putting on display today. Maybe he’s playing some crazy game and he won’t be as bad as he looks like he’s going to be.”

That lie made it clear to me that my stupid theory was no good. He won, there was no point in playing a character.

He got fame and attention for being exactly what he is. He doesn’t need to be anything else.

I bought some for my daughter to learn and you’re right, it’s not cheap.

It didn’t go the way she wanted it to go so she threw it away. I really wish I had been able to keep it so she can see her progress one day.

This about me and my kid ain’t it? :p

Me too. God bless the Appalachian mountains.

I’ve probably met more mouth breathing, lead paint eating morons (myself included. As a matter of fact, at one time I was a t-1000 Liquid Metal mercury from 50 thermometers in my hand moron) than most people will ever encounter in 10 lifetimes. I can count on one hand just how many of those people were truly bad people.

If I have a visibly heavy load at work, it can be annoying how many people wander up and say, “hey ‘ere buddy. Yew gawn need inny hep wittat? I’ze just checkin’.”

Open the hood of your car and you can summon an entire neighborhood. For real, need directions in the Appalachians, just stop somewhere with houses, open your hood and spend a few minutes staring at your engine.

Shit, I’d put my money on it’s actually him.

I seriously have a boiling hatred for computers now because I couldn’t even be a little bit mean. I’ve snapped a few times when people blamed me for problems years after I worked on their stuff, but mostly I just got trampled on and robbed at every turn because I didn’t want to upset anyone.

By the time I was mean enough to demand payment and things like that, I already hated it.

My daughter is passionate about computers, so nowadays if I so much as want to tweak something a little bit I let her do it unless she don’t want to. I don’t want to burn her out too.

Your dad sounds like the childhood hero of mine who got me into computers.

Severe ADHD prevented me from ever learning to code, but I became damn good at repairs and things and just general understanding of computers because he was available to ask questions at almost any time.

He went to school auctions every year and got me a pile of hardware to learn from. He never asked for anything in exchange. All around great guy.

I heard him on the phone a few times dealing with the people who he worked with though. Good god he was mean. I couldn’t imagine him being that way with me ever, but he was brutal when it came to work and money.

A dude called him one time while I was sitting there, he listened for a few minutes and he said, “I’ve got a 14 year old kid here, he’s been doing this stuff for about 2 years. I’m gonna let him walk you through this for the 10th fucking time because you’re a goddamn idiot and feeling like a fool when you hang up the phone with a grown man isn’t teaching you any lessons. Maybe get a pen for this one because if I have to remind that a child walked you through it last time, I’m not going to be so fucking friendly.” I was so nervous, apologized multiple times, when I was finished walking him through it he took the phone and said, “now don’t you feel stupid? 25 years and this kid just schooled you.”

He told me, “you gotta be real with idiots or they’ll bother you with stupid problems every single day of your life.”

I wish that lesson had stuck haha, it just wasn’t in me to be mean. As a result, a hobby that I was passionate about all of my life is something I avoid like the plague now. People ruined it for me by bothering me constantly.

I wish I could pull that hat off. You gotta actually live the pope life though. People can see through that shit too. “Why you wearing that hat? You ain’t no poper!”

Nah, cocaine good. Easy cheese and ritz too.

AA got it right as far as that goes. Leadership revolves.

AA would be one of the biggest organized cults on the planet if the founders hadn’t thought of that.

Now, not everyone can be a leader, and those who can’t won’t generally volunteer. So, what you end up with in a small community is a handful of leaders who don’t agree on everything and therefore represent the needs of the people in the group a lot better.

Whether we like it or not, positions of leadership tend to happen naturally. As long as we hold sacred the fact that there is no truly central leadership, it shouldn’t devolve into a cult.

It might just be a part of our nature though. When you enter recovery they give you a list of places to avoid (they gave me one anyway) because the revolving leadership has fallen apart and a single personality has taken over.

Me, 38 years old sitting here in my Darth Vader jacket with my Trek shirt underneath (I like sacrilege, that’s my jam).

People tell me, “Wow, you don’t look like you’re about to be 40!”

Umm, yes I do. I’ve drank and smoked myself into a state of mental growth paralysis. You think I look younger than I am because I still dress like a millennial teenager and you’re 65.

My kid. Good lord.

I have her in therapy so that’s something I should bring up next visit.

I had a 1998 firebird when I was 19 (thank you mom). There’s a dude in the neighborhood I live in now, 20 years later, who has that car.

I stopped him one day and said, “hey, I lost a car like this in a flood ages ago and traded it for an ugly little Escort. You think this is it?” “Haha, I doubt it bro, but it was a flood car my dad bought like 15 years ago so, maybe? He got it pretty far away from here though.” I said, “Bro, I have the VIN in an old file. For fun, let’s check it.”

Sure enough, it was my old car. Funny thing is, his dad bought it in Missouri and I had it in WV. Now it’s in Va in the same neighborhood as me.

What are the odds?

This is burned into my brain like a favorite song.

I love this every time I read it.

This is the answer right here.

Robin Williams was amazing. The range of emotions just can’t be topped. He was the most believable actor of all time.

I like you, Maven. You’re alright.