Personal – FORGETFOO

Category: Personal

Vue You Later

i got an email a couple weeks back about how my Playstation Vue subscription was going up from $35 to $45 a month… sure, it’s only 10 bucks but i wasn’t overly happy about it, especially since i’m already another $15/mo for HBO and was thinking of adding the Sports package ($10/mo) — which starts to add up, since now i’m looking at $70 a month for Vue/Sports/HBO… and that’s not including Amazon/Netflix/Crunchyroll y’know?

then yesterday i saw this post on engadget about a deal going on with Directv Now and thought “hmmmmm, interesting”…

since i had some running around to do, i decided to stop by the AT&T store near me and asked them about the promotion, getting more info etc… long story short, i ended up signing up for it — had to prepay $105 for the next 3 months, and since i’m an AT&T subscriber with my phone, they upgraded my plan to the “unlimited” one and saved me another $4/mo… also found that i was eligible for another promotion they have going for AT&T users, where for a limited time you can get the $35 Diretv Now package for only $10 a month — so they gave me that as well, so after 3 months i’ll only pay the extra $10 a month on my phone bill for it.

oh, and i also walked out of the store with a brand new Apple TV (32gb)…!

soooooo…. net net… my phone bill dropped by 4 bucks, and in three months it’ll increase by $6 for Directv Now.

pretty sweet, huh?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Personal

Last Night’s Dinner

even though i don’t cook as often as i used to, i still enjoy hitting the grocery store and picking up some fresh veggies/meat for a meal every now and then… i mean, i like pizza and subs as much as the next guy, but sometimes ya just gotta switch it up y’know?

getting everything cut up and ready…

start with the mushrooms / onions, then layer in the yellow squash, leaving the spinach for last…

grab some bowls…

…and dig in! g’damn it was good too.

#tastyyyyyyyyyy

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Personal

One Sweet Loadup

a buddy gave me a tip yesterday about BJs having these new boxes of “not your fathers root beer”, so i literally jumped in the car and drove over…

…and yup, after a bit of searching and walking around, i found ’em… fuck yeah! seriously man, felt like a little kid or something… went ahead and snagged two cases, and i’ll have to swing back over in another couple weeks to see if they still have them — since i’m curious if they’ll be keeping it in stock or not.

sure hope so ;)

#NotYourFathersRootBeer #delicious

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Personal

Trying To Quit, Again.

speaking of drugs and all that, i’m once again trying to quit smoking… i’ve tried several times, but always seem to start back up… and after 20 years, it’s a real bitch, and really is one of my biggest regrets.

so over the weekend i stopped at a local vape shop and picked up a new vaping mod… ended up going with this one since i kinda liked how heavy / solid it felt in my hand, but mostly because the sides light up and looks like the side profile of Optimus Prime — seriously, the geek in my just couldn’t resist ;)

it’s been two days now and i’ve been vaping like a mofo, and have only had a handfoo of cigs…

so yeah, off to a good start, and hopefully i can stick with it and basically retrain my brain over the next few weeks or months.

i don’t do drugs, but do enjoy having the occasional (not your father’s root) beer… so smoking has probably been my one vice, but i really do wanna quit.

it’s just sooooo fuck’n hard…

#sigh #vape #smoke

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Personal

Food Porn

oh man, seriously?! this is what you get when you combine two totally awesome things — s’mores and brownies.

fuck me.

#delicious #yummy

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Online/Web Personal Video

Jeffe: The Vlogging Virgin

my buddy jeff just hit me up with his very first vlog that he filmed, edited, and posted up to youtube.

nicely done, buddy!

5 hours of editing for 5 minutes?! shit, although i can totally believe it… still sounds pretty crazy mang.

#chuckle

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Online/Web Personal

Verizon vs. Netgear Nighthawk X4S

verizon came out this past thursday to hook me up with gigabit, which is awesome… then i ordered a new router — NETGEAR Nighthawk X4S — to replace the one that verizon gave me so i could return it and save myself an additional $15-20 a month.

i got it saturday afternoon, and then went about trying to set it up… for some reason it just wasn’t seeing the internet at all, and after awhile i broke down and called verizon tech support… ended up hard rebooting the netgear router half a dozen times, swapped out the ethernet cables a few times, and verizon checked the line… released the IP a couple times, and finally rebooted the FiOS box on the outside of my house — still wasn’t able to see or connect to the internet. g’damnit.

so i talked to my buddy ron, and after remoting into my macbook and messing around with it for 20 minutes or so… he figured out what the problem was, and had me up and running on my new nighthawk router.

fucking sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!!

thanks again buddy, you rock dude!

#HellYeahhhhhhhh

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Personal

Poke Me, Please

oh man, i was super stoked yesterday afternoon when i happened to run across a new Poke Bowl restaurant that just opened this past week.

naturally i swung back around and dropped in to order me a poke bowl to-go… pretty damn good, and totally see stopping by at least once a week to grab a bowl.

do love me some poke bowls, mang ;)

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Online/Web Personal

I’m Officially Cable Free

well guys, i’ve officially now “cut the cable”… after the verizon fios was setup yesterday afternoon, i ended up spending quite a bit a time messing around with the router since i couldn’t seem to get my amazon fire tv to work unless i went in and enabled 2.4Ghz mode, instead of just having the 5Ghz enabled like i wanted… my buddy ron helped me out and got it working, which was a relief (thanks dude!)

it’s funny, but i had this really weird feeling when i disconnected the cable boxes from my livingroom/bedroom… i mean, it’s probably the first time in at least the last 20 years that i haven’t had cable — so yeah, kind of a weird feel’n mang… but a good one… to be honest, i’m sorta feeling like i’m channeling my inner “millennial” right now or something. lol

on the flipside, have to say i’m pretty impressed with this verizon gigabit so far… i ran ethernet cables from both the PS4/XB1 in the living room to the router, and when i checked the network on the PS4 it said it was pulling down around 457Mbs… i was like “OMG, FUCK YEAH!!!!” when i saw that :)

between Playstation Vue, Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, and Crunchyroll i think i’m pretty set as far as having enough shit to stream and watch… figure it’ll take me a little while to just get used to it, but sometimes change is good y’know?

#CableFreeBaby #FuckYeah #GigabitFTW

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Personal WTF?

These F*cking Trees

woke up a bit earlier than usual this morning so i could pickup my dad and drive him over for his weekly chemo appointment @ 8am… actually got up around 6:30am, which is hella early for me… anywho, i get back home armed with my Wawa coffee, still yawning and a bit bleary eyed, and just happened to notice something a bit weird or off in my back yard through the kitchen window.

apparently, at some point last night, a big ass tree limb broke off and fell, taking up half my back yard..! ummmmm… yeah… like WTF.

it was raining last night when i went to bed, and i’m pretty sure we didn’t have some hurricane or tornado rip through (i think)… doesn’t look like it was hit by lightning, least that i can tell… so i have no idea what the hell happened.

well that’s just fucking great.

now i’m gonna have to call around and see if i can’t get somebody over to cut up and remove this damn thing… not to mention maybe looking at that tree, since the last thing i want to deal with is a big ass tree falling on my damn house or crushing my beloved miata… g’damnit.

if it’s not one thing, it’s another…

#sigh #mutter

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Personal TV

Picked Up A 4K TCL For The Bedroom

after doing some quick research this past week or so, i went ahead and picked up this new TCL 55P605 from Best Buy, which got delivered yesterday afternoon… my son’s TV died on him a couple months ago and just told me about it last week, and since i’m cutting the cable i figured what the hell… i’ll go ahead and get a new tv for the bedroom and give him my “old” 2015 samsung (1080p).

TCL P-Series Roku TV review: the best budget 4K TV you can get

TCL’s P-Series is a remarkable win for budget-conscious consumers. You’re not “settling” or sacrificing much of anything in terms of specs or features with this TV. It’s got local-area dimming (a feature often reserved for pricier sets), 4K resolution, HDR, and intuitive, familiar software with easy access to all the popular streaming apps you’d need.

first time with a roku, and the setup was dead easy and only took a couple minutes… spent a little time playing around and tweaking the picture settings — movie mode, dropping the sharpness down to “0”, dialing back the backlighting a bit, playing with the colors… i like how it keeps/remembers the different settings per input… also like how easy it is to rename inputs and customize it with icons, etc… as far as picture quality goes, i have to say i’m pretty damn impressed, especially with a $600 budget 4K tv… the black levels are better than i expected, colors are pretty damn vibrant… and another reason i got this one was because it has really low input lag, which is awesome for gaming.

one of the first things i did was fire up YouTube and searched for “Iceland in 4K”, which i remember watching on a buddy’s new 4K tv a few months back and being kinda shocked at how awesome it looked in person… and holy shit, it looks fantastic!

so yeah, i’m pretty stoked at the moment.

#ThumbsUp #FuckYeah

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Online/Web Personal

Going Gigabit, Baby

on a less depressing note, i was talking to my neighbor the other day and he was telling me that he just switched over to FiOS Gigabit, and how awesome it was… also said that they had a promotion going on right now, and that it was only $70 a month — which ain’t bad! was kinda surprised at that, to be honest.

so i went ahead and gave verizon a call yesterday afternoon to ask them some questions about it, and 15 minutes later found myself signed up with a scheduled installation date of july 6th.

yup, that’s right… after thinking about cutting the cord for the past year or two, i’m finally doing it… after i get this gigabit installed and setup, i’ll be calling comcast and cancelling my service… dunno how much they’ll shaft me with their damn “cancellation fee”, but honestly i don’t care at this point… my comcast bill went from $160 a month up to $210 a few months back, and i’ve been seriously thinking about this ever since…. it’s $70 a month for the gigabit, with another $15 for verizon’s modem/router, so it’ll be $85 a month.

not too shabby, aye? :)

at some point, i might look into buying my own router/wifi so i don’t have to pay that $15 monthly rental charge… but i’ll have to do some research and figure out what my options are, how much it is, etc.

anywho, pretty excited mang.

#FuckYeah #NeedForSpeed #Gigabit

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Personal

My Dad Started Chemotherapy Today

kind of a sad, and maybe a bit of an anxious day… got up a little earlier than usual so i could head over to my dad’s place and pick him up, and drive him over for his first chemotherapy treatment.

took him last week for a consult, where the doc went over all the options… his recommendations, explaining the whole process, and was super helpful in answering all our questions and concerns, etc… haven’t been through this, least not on a first-hand basis before, so it’s definitely been pretty damn nerve wracking and stressful — especially since there was all this confusion with his health insurance, where at first they said the chemotherapy wasn’t covered… spent the last week helping my dad out, making calls, following up, and even having to “fax” things (wtf?)… ugh, what a mess… but got it all sorted, and now he’s good to go as far as the insurance goes.

that was the most stressful thing over the past week or two, to be honest… because there’s just no way you can ~~afford~~ do this without medical insurance coverage.

anywho, just thought i’d drop a quick update.

#FuckCancer #ChemoSucks #SadPanda

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Personal

Weekend Project: Put Together That Pergola

i (finally) finished putting on a new fresh coat of deck paint down on my back deck the other weekend… and man, what a shitload of work that ended up being — seriously, hopefully i’m good for the next 5-7 years because i really don’t want to do that again anytime soon…

for this past weekend, i had the company BBQ on saturday, and then really wanted to get this pergola i bought at Lowe’s put together… so i enticed a couple friends to come over and gimme a hand with some beer/pizzas, and got this badboy assembled.

took the above pic today, and since it was almost dark by the time we finished yesterday, here’s a couple snaps i took last night.

have to say, the whole thing came together really damn nicely… took quite a bit longer to assemble, not to mention running the lights around the top edging… drilling and installing an ibolt to hang the outdoor fan from, and running the extension cords — ended up drilling two holes in the deck and running it underneath, along with installing a new “bubble” outlet with a cover so it’s protected from the weather and doesn’t short out all the effin time, etc…

lots of work, mang!

…but g’damn, it was worth it :)

#SuperHappy #OutdoorChilling

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Personal

Food Porn

now that looks like some tasty fucking ramen :)

i’m not even a vegetarian, and that looks pretty damn good to me.

#ramen #yummy

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Design Personal Work

The Artechouse

speaking of our little fieldtrip yesterday, here’s a few quick snaps…

we usually bounce outta the office and head into DC to checkout some art exhibit or whatever, every couple months or so, which i think is pretty cool.

#thumbsup

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Personal

C’mon Girl, Whatchu Ya Got

for all the dad’s out there, hope ya had a great Father’s Day yesterday :)

i got a lot of text messages and a few calls from family & friends wishing me a happy father’s day, which is all i really wanted or care about to be perfectly honest… but i was happily surprised when my son showed up at my house and wanted to take me out to the Outback for lunch, remembering that i’d mentioned it a few weeks ago… feels like it’s been forever since i went there, and forgot how much i like their steaks / bloom’n onion! g’damn, talk about hitting the spot.

kinda wished my dad could’ve joined us, so it always trips me out to have all three (generations) out… used to go hit the movies together every now and then, and i do miss that… but my dad’s still recovering from the neck/back surgeries, so totally understandable… after lunch, jayden and i headed over to his place and hung out with him for awhile which i could tell he was happy about.

anywho, hope it was a good one m’friends ;)

PS. time to settle into “work” mode and get this week started…

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Personal

Weekend Project: Back Deck

i’ve been thinking about cleaning and putting on a fresh coat of paint to my back deck for awhile now, and finally got around to it this past weekend… probably should’ve taken the plunge earlier, since it ended up being hot as shit and i pretty much sweated my balls off… but whatever, it’s all good… it’s been at least 5 years since i stained my back deck and it definitely needed a bit of a refresh.

here it is after pressure washing it.

starting with the top railing since it’s super easy and i was curious how this “chocolate brown” color looked.

i got up early and stared with the deck painting around 8am on saturday… pretty much spent the entire effin day working on it, and really wanted to at least finish up the railing… but alas, i still didn’t manage to get it all done… man, i forgot what a collosal pain in the ass it is! here’s a pic of where i was at yesterday afternoon.

i did manage to get at least one coat of deck paint down on the floor boards and it’s looking pretty good… still have some stairs and a little landing on the side to do, which shouldn’t take too long… but damned if i’m not sore and tired, and finding it really hard to work up any ambition towards going back out there and working on it.

i will, but g’damn it’s gonna be rough… especially with this mini-heat wave we seem to be having this week.

after i finish this up, i’d like to do the front porch.

#whew #gdamn #paintingsucks

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Personal

Food Porn

oh hell yeah, do those look like some perfect little waffles or what?!

…or maybe i’m just really hungry.

PS. i love waffles.

#yummy

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Personal

Happy Memorial Day

just wanted to drop a quick note to wish everybody a Happy Memorial Day Weekend :)

hopefully everybody enjoys the 3-day weekend and enjoys some good eat’n with family & friends… it’s been raining a lot lately, so i’m really hoping for some nice weather… it’s also usually the first time of the year that i get pretty down ‘n dirty with the grill.

was talking to my neighbor last night and he’s already got some serious meats all ready for some serious smoke’n and grilling this weekend… he makes some insanely good homemade marinades and sauces that blow my effin mind, mang.

#AwesomeSauce #SomeGoodShit

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