analog_kidd

Google for "no ad hosts file". You'll discover a method I use on all my PC's to block all sorts of ads and bad web sites. It's a setting that is computer wide and works on every program that connects to the internet.

  Joe's gotta be one of the hardest working guys in the music industry. He puts out a studio album what seems like every six months, with a live album mixed in every so often, all while touring constantly. I did not know about this new album yet. Pretty stoked to get it.

People who say you have to keep a mortgage for the tax deduction have not thought it through, and are uninformed. Using round numbers, lets say you are in the 25% tax bracket, you earned $100,000 and you paid $10,000 interest on your home last year. With no deductions, you will pay $25,000 in taxes. If you deduct your $10,000 in interest, your taxable income is $90,000, which means you'll pay $22,500 in taxes. So by keeping the mortgage deduction, you are paying $10,000 in interest each year to get $2,500 worth of tax savings. The math does not work. You would be better off, paying yourself $2,500 in a savings account than paying the mortgage company $10,000.   If you just really want that deduction, donate to a charity. You get the same exact tax benefit, and you help out an organization that needs it as opposed to a bank.   Plus, I don't know about everyone else, but I have not been able to use itemized deductions in years, even with the interest I pay on my shiny new mortgage. The standard deduction the IRS offers is better for me than itemizing. Check your tax records and see if that is the case for you as well. That being the case, mortgage interest does NOTHING for me at all. I get the standard deduction whether I have a mortgage or not.

So, recently I did a little thinking about what TGO means to me. I've been here for a number of years, enjoying the awesome service David and the moderators provide. I really enjoy being a part of a community of like-minded folks. The knowledge I've learned, the stories I've heard, the laughs I've had, and even the tears I've cried are a big part of my everyday life. Heck, I get up an hour early every morning before work, just to have time to get caught up on TGO.    All of that led me to decide to go ahead and make a contribution to become a benefactor. I've gotten way more knowledge and entertainment than the cost of the membership.  I've never felt any pressure to donate here, and the service has always been free, but TGO deserves my membership money.   David and staff, thanks for this site and all you do.

  That is exactly what mine does. I met a couple of guys at work that work in the metering department (they measure stuff) and they said that is very common for Fluke meters. They said to open up the case, and find the little leads that connect the LED display, take them off and use a pencil eraser to degunk the contacts. Said it was super easy. I just have not tried it yet.

I have a Fluke that was handed down to be by my dad, who was an electrician before retirement. Not sure of the model, but it's a basic unit. It has an LED that is VERY difficult to read. It is so dim, and you have to hold it at just the right angle to read it.    I finally got tired of dealing with it and bought a cheap knockoff from Amazon for about $35. It works just as well, and didn't break the bank. It even has more features than my Fluke.   If you are in the business and will be using it weekly, then definitely get the quality that Fluke will afford. If you are a casual user then consider saving your money. I'm a Do-it-Yourselfer homeowner, so I definitely fall into the occasional user category. To be honest, I use mine for checking to see if a line is live, and occasionally to test Ohms to see if there is a break in a connection. I could probably get away with a super cheap one. In fact I had a $10 one from Radio Shack for years that I used before giving it to my son, and I saw him pull it out this past weekend.

We started doing the Dave Ramsey plan many years ago and it has worked very well for us:   1. $1,000 to Start an Emergency Fund 2. Pay Off All Debt but the House 3. 3 to 6 Months of Expenses in Savings 4. Invest 15% of Household Income Into Retirement 5. College Funding for Children 6. Pay Off Home Early 7. Build Wealth and Give.  https://www.daveramsey.com/baby-steps/   According to that plan, the house is the last thing to pay off. Your vehicles and credit cards should be what you are focusing on, if you have an emergency fund of a couple grand put away.   If you got the mortgage recently, it's probably a fairly low interest rate, and almost certainly higher than your other debt, so the other debt just makes sense to pay off. Plus the other debt is a smaller chunk, so it will pay off quicker. The satisfaction of knowing you have no debt but the house is amazing. Then use what you were paying on the debt to pay down the mortgage. It'll be more than $100 a month, so you'll get caught right up to where you would have been if you started on the mortgage first.   If you look into how paying off early works, you'll find that it pays off the tail end of the mortgage. If you look at an amortization schedule you'll see that the portion of your mortgage that goes toward principal increases over time. So, a $1000 mortgage payment in the first month pays maybe $5 of principal, and $995 of interest. The opposite is true of the end of the mortgage: your last payment will be $995 of principal and $5 interest. So paying $100 a month extra will take 9 months just to save one mortgage payment. (I made up these numbers because I am too lazy to go look them up, but the point remains, and I'm probably not too far off)   Now I'm not saying you shouldn't pay early, but you definitely should take care of the earlier baby steps first. If you have not read any of Dave Ramsey's books, you owe it to yourself to go get one.The Total Money Makeover is one that I read, and it changed the way we look at money. It's taken a while, but we are on step 6. All debt is paid, including two cars, and we are paying down the house as fast as we can. I'm 15 years away from retirement, and I want the house paid for way before that. I can't imagine making a mortgage payment on retirement income.

Guys who wear a "Man Bun"

Perhaps their time and effort would be better spent coaching local young people to not grow up to be thugs. Instead they harass honest, law abiding folks who likely come in from out of town, buy guns and take them back out of town. I'd venture that few, if any, of the gun show guns actually make it to their streets. 

My question is, is that the standard tactical way of chambering a round after a mag load? Have I been doing it wrong all this time? 

Looks like it skipped right over us here in Oak Ridge. I can still see the grass in my yard. Turned out to be just a light dusting for us.

Our son bought us one for Christmas. It's a pretty cool gadget. We keep our in the kitchen and mostly use it for setting a timer for cooking and playing music. It sounds really good for music, and with our Prime subscription, it taps into Prime Music and plays just about anything we want.   We put the Alexa app on both our phones and use the Echo to make a shopping list. From the app, we can manually enter items and they show up on our common list. So I can be at work and think of something I need, add it to the list and it shows up on my wife's phone. We have used another list sharing app in the past that was much better. The Alexa app doesn't organize your items.  But it's kind of convenient when you use the last of the peanut butter and from the kitchen say "Alexa, add peanut butter to my shopping list" and it gets added.   My grandson found out there is a Fart Noise app that Amazon includes with it. I've resisted so far from installing it, but I'm sure he will wear me down the next time he is over.  I also use it to tell me a joke each day ;-)    It is a little creepy that it is always listening. Every now and then we will say something in normal conversation, that it mis-interprets as the "Alexa" command and then listens to the rest of the sentence and answers back with some weird, random answer. Lots of things are going with this model though, I suppose. Windows 10's Cortana can be listening, Google Now on Android Devices, Siri on Apple. Welcome to the future. I guess.   I'd love to hear how everyone else uses theirs, or what kind of questions you ask it.

Did I see "Opie" from Sons of Anarchy in that trailer?

And the Chupacabras. Don't forget about them

My first thought on the OP's question was that there is going to be a much higher percentage of people show up that are not gun lovers. The sight of a gun on the hip of an "untrained wannabe cop" would scare many of them off. They may be worried about one of us showing up, but that scares off a dozen others.   Or, it could just be about safety. Say you find the boy in some creepy guys camp, and that guy is armed. A dozen searchers show up and start blasting away to rescue the kid, and innocent folks get shot.

  You are correct. It's not the logo that was offensive, it was the name tied to the logo. Just like the Redskins logo is not what some folks are upset about, it's the term Redskins that people claim offense to. Changing their name to something like American Arms and showing that same Indian logo could foster a sense of pride among both Indians and Whites. We all still know what Savage refers to.

I think the OP's question was basically: how much does the Gov get from the lottery in total. That is a difficult Google search, especially right now. I got a million pages of "how much do I have to pay" results. I did find one page that said in 2010 there were $33B worth of payouts to lottery winners in the US. Just doing the simple math that the Gov gets 40% of that comes to $14 Billion!

I can usually separate the art from the artist, but there are a few I just can't stomach watching. Sean Penn is the one actor I will NEVER watch in a movie again. He literally disgusts me so much, I can't even stand to look at him. 

I just heard that Rock Star, David Bowie, died. He was definitely an odd guy, but seemed to mellow out and tone it down as he got older. He put out some good music though.

I heard on the TV that this is why the AG did this: Bloomberg's "Everytown" organization gave a bunch of money to a couple of anti 2A Democrats running for re-election. They both lost the election, so as a repayment of sorts, the AG (who is a Bloomberg supporting, gun control advocate) made this decision.

http://bearingarms.com/nba-vows-marginalize-pro-basketball-pushing-gun-control-fans/   Looks like the NBA is joining the Bloomberg "Everytown" movement to fight against ownership of firearms. I certainly think that they, and America in general, would be better served if they just focused on ending gang violence. That's something I think they could do effectively, and not alienate a large percent of their fan base. I am not a fan of basketball, but this would definitely turn me off if I were.   This quote from Bloomberg makes absolutely no sense:     Yeah, keeping the guns away from people that are getting killed will keep them safe. How about keeping the guns away from the people doing the killing! Seems to me that would be a better way of keeping victims safe.

When I lived in FL I dreamed of living in Alaska. Now that I live in TN, and have experienced actual "cold", which is nothing compared to Alaskan winters, and experienced dealing with minimal daylight in the cold, I have reconsidered. Might be a nice place to visit in the early Fall sometime.

I do NOT like the cold weather. I grew up in s. Florida, and just can't get my blood to thicken up enough to stand the cold.   On a brighter note, 12/22 was the Winter solstice... Every day will get longer from here on out. I hate that it's dark when I leave for work, and dark again when I head home.

  Yeah, I think I did the same thing too, now that I think about it. But, at that time they told me it would be several days to a week before they could get there. My wife said to me something along the lines of "That is unacceptable. Get your butt up on the roof and fix my TV!"   I just needed the proper motivation.  :rofl:

I wonder if the ball was for himself or if he was going to use it as a Christmas present. The idea of stealing something to use as a Christmas present just seems like a guaranteed way of going to Hell. (shooting at and trying to run people over in a car aside)