|
Amazon used to be automatically country specific to your location for physical media (especially region-coded stuff like DVDs and Blu-rays) so if I were to search for an older movie like say, something like Thunderbolt & Lightfoot on Blu-ray and I specified as such, instead of just bringing up the North American Kino Lorber Blu-ray (that I bought) like Amazon should and used to do, it now brings up several regions and worldwide versions of the movie on both DVD and Blu-ray and you have to dig through all the listings to find the specific version you’re looking for. It sucks when I’m looking for older films on Blu-ray and get excited to see Amazon has it, only to realize it’s got the U.K. or German ratings stickers plastered all over everything and it’s not region-free. And yes, I’m well aware of region-free players and 4K being region-free, but I don’t have 4K anything. Amazon has turned to poo poo in general, though. It’s become nothing more than an AliExpress reseller with cheap garbage named HGGZCH and WAADDBCHJ and poo poo. I’ve been having great luck with eBay.
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2023 17:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:03 |
|
|
Jelly posted:i just noticed elon musk got shittier again for no good reason Musk never got shittier; he was lovely to begin with.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2023 05:55
|
|
|
Embedded suggestions and huge pop-up buttons that are links to other videos that obscure 80% of the screen on YouTube that you can’t disable. Also, videos that have linking to websites such as SA disabled so you still get the window embed, but still have to click on the gray screen to watch it YouTube proper. It’s infuriating when you want to embed a video here that’s 15 seconds long, and 13 of those seconds have all that embedded bullshit in it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2023 16:03
|
|
|
Speaking of YouTube, shorts. gently caress YouTube shorts.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2023 23:31
|
|
|
Lowe’s has been discontinuing a lot of stuff for no discernible reason other than that it doesn’t sell at all or very well, so off it goes to clearance and then discontinuation. A lot of the stuff is for older homes and hard-to-find items that used to be in stock at the local hardware store before Lowe’s came in and ran them out of business. There is no reason to drop these items because they’re not replaced by anything new or different. There’s a Home Depot further away that 8 out of 10 times may still carry it, but HD eventually discontinues carrying the item, too. Ace Hardware will usually carry it and never discontinue it, but they’re always out of stock; ALWAYS. It’s always gonna be a part you need right then and there where you can’t wait for Amazon next day or whatever. It sucks poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2023 17:39
|
|
|
redshirt posted:I miss Sears.  , but also Montgomery Ward. It was my parent’s go to for literally everything and I have a buttload of memories going there all the time and browsing Atari through PS1 games and checking out all the electronics and toys (Electric Ave. was the best). I bought a 5.1 channel Technics receiver from there in 2000 before they went out of business and still use it to this day.I remember my mom buying me Friday the 13th for NES from a bargain barrel of games for $20, and yes, I still love it; gently caress the haters. haljordan posted:I had to physically go back into work before pretty much everyone else during the lockdown and the very first day, I drove from my house to my parking garage (about a 15 minute trip) without seeing ONE other car, truck, bus, etc. It was a bit eerie. I was an essential worker throughout the lockdown and I still had to go into work, and a lot of times I felt like Charlton Heston driving around Los Angeles devoid of life during the opening credits of The Omega Man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hx0m1TgSBw
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2023 16:37
|
|
|
wash bucket posted:Oh yeah Amazon's just an online junk store at this point. You'd have better luck buying from eBay. I checked Amazon because I’m looking for Emergency!, the ‘70s paramedic show on DVD and it’s currently listed for $65 for the complete series, but it’s used and from third party sellers. Amazon also has region 2 listed as the one to buy because it’s new for $58, but it’s also third party and yeah I’m not region 2. Why even list it If I’m not that region? Checked eBay and reputable sellers I’ve bought from before are selling it for $40 brand new still in the shrink wrap and with actual pictures of the box set instead of a GIS’ed stock picture and free shipping. gently caress Amazon at this point.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2023 21:03
|
|
|
Yard sales (garage sales, tag sales, or whatever you prefer) seem to have all but disappeared for good in my area. I think the Covid lockdown had a huge part in their demise, and now people probably don’t want to set up shop outside their home where strangers can walk about freely on their property and touch stuff. I also think scumbag resellers had a part in it like they’ve ruined thrift stores by buying up all the decent stuff to make a profit while leaving behind the literal junk no one wants, and what homeowner wants to go through disposing of unsellable garbage? I bought so much great stuff at yard sales over the decades, and it’s sad to see no more cardboard boxes with neon poster board addresses scrawled badly on them 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2023 15:13
|
|
|
Milk containers suck poo poo now. The old gallon jugs had a piece of the cap scored with a pull tab so you just very easily pulled the scored piece of cap off and BOOM, your milk is ready to be enjoyed. I hate that little thing under the cap now that’s supposed to peel off the tamper-proof membrane, but 9 times out of 10 just rips right off and you have to stab the membrane and peel it off with your fingers. I have a pretty strong grip and even I have trouble removing that drat thing. I can’t imagine how much harder it must be for elderly people with arthritis and the like. It’s not just milk, either, but orange juice, tea, and anything else that comes in a one gallon jug.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2023 20:35
|
|
|
I remember when my mom worked at a hospital in the ‘80s, and the cafeteria had one of those old-school simple 25 cent coffee vending machines with three buttons on it: coffee, hot chocolate, and hot water. The hot chocolate that came out of that thing was nothing short of GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING INCREDIBLE. You could even add mini marshmallows to it if you wanted! Young Elf drank his fair share of hot chocolate whenever I’d visit mom at work 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2023 23:56
|
|
|
One thing I will say that HAS gotten better somehow is automotive headlights plastic. I live in the desert where the sun is brutal and relentless, and it seemed like for a good while a brand new car’s headlights would turn hideous yellow and dingy/peeled from UV light after just a couple of years. It was really bad on cars from the ‘90s and ‘00s, and there wasn’t too much you could do about it. It was inevitable even if you bought creams and such to prevent it from happening, Cars made within the past 10 years seem to have figured out the best material for headlights because every 2013 and up car I see on the road here still has crisp and clear headlights. I have a 2017 that almost never sees shade, and the headlights still look like new. Kudos to car manufacturers for finally figuring it out. I’d still prefer glass headlights, though.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2023 01:02
|
|
|
Those are tail lights, though. But yes, I live in AZ and I’ve never seen that before. Some poor crossing guard in Phoenix had the soles of his shoes melt on the pavement recently, I’m picturing it like that one dude in Volcano who sacrificed himself to get the conductor out of the stalled subway train with the heat from the lava melting his shoes. You Are A Werewolf fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jul 27, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2023 01:25
|
|
|
Woolie Wool posted:"coupe rooflines" on sedans are another form of car enshittification. Most sedans now do not have enough head and shoulder room to accommodate an adult human without the adult bowing their head. My sister bought a 2017 Mazda6 in which this 6 foot tall broad-shouldered rear end in a top hat has to practice yoga and dislodge my bones from their sockets in order to get my Lurch rear end inside. Once inside, it’s not so bad, but the roofline is so freakin’ low on that thing.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2023 19:52
|
|
|
Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:The next wave is already upon us. Toy/product movies. Waiting on a dark fantasy Guillermo del Toro reboot of The Smurfs.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2023 18:08
|
|
|
Out of all the stores I shop at with self-checkout lanes, Fry’s (Kroger in AZ) has the assholiest and most frustrating checkout lanes imaginable. This is the only store out of all of them that seems to have a weight detector in the bagging area, so if the thing you just scanned isn’t put in the bag in 1/1,000,000,000th of a second, it actually yells at you condescendingly, “PLEASE PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!!!!!” Like holy loving poo poo, I just scanned this thing and couldn’t have been quicker to toss it in the bag, and the machine still yells at me with an uncalled for smugness. And you can’t do a loving thing until it detects the item is in the bagging area, which is almost never and an associate has to come over and get involved and UGH. I’m told most, if not all stores have the weight detector in the bagging area of self-checkout lanes for anti-theft purposes, but most stores decide to disable it because if you already scanned the item, you’re obviously gonna pay for it so where’s the theft? Fry’s is the only store that has it enabled and it sucks poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2023 19:29
|
|
|
I don’t use fabric softener in the wash, so I’ve always depended on dryer sheets to soften my clothes and it’s worked out great for decades. Snuggle was my favorite brand of dryer sheets, but ever since the parent company got bought out by Henkel a few years ago, the texture of the sheets changed from an actual fluffy towel sheet to a thin plastic-y paper-like thing with little to no softening agents or scent on it. I think the only thing they’re doing now is preventing my clothes from sticking together in the dryer and nothing else. I switched to Bounce for a bit, but even Procter & Gamble seems to have jumped on the “gently caress you, consumer” train with similar thin sheets. The scent is actually there in Bounce, but you have to use more sheets to get the same results one or two sheets used to do. I was using like four or five sheets of Snuggle when they changed every load to get the results one sheet used to do. Now I’m using house brand sheets that seem to have kept the old formula (for now) because the name brand stuff is garbage now.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 15:13
|
|
|
mawarannahr posted:You can dodge the shittiness by not using dryer sheets, they're like pouring lotion on your clothes Yeah, been using sheets for decades and my clothes last forever and I know how sheets work  Also, I don’t use liquid fabric softener in the wash as stated because of what that article says (lipid buildup over time), but also because liquid softener is prone to building up and clogging your drain over time. It’s also apparently very hard to remove from gray water for reuse. One sheet a load is (or was lol) perfectly fine for my needs.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 15:40
|
|
|
Mr Lanternfly posted:Did the thread already cover how every single thing is now a subscription service? Oh yeah, gently caress Adobe for making Photoshop et al. subscription only, and also gently caress my computer for being too new to run CS5 Suite which I used most of frequently until my old computer poo poo the bed and I had to upgrade. I haven’t ‘shopped in years and GIMP sucks poo poo
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2023 03:49
|
|
|
digitalist posted:I picked up the Affinity suite to avoid Adobe’s subscription model and it works pretty well, worth checking out the demo if you haven’t already come across it, https://affinity.serif.com Heard good things about this and then promptly forgot what it was called. Thanks for reminding me!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2023 04:06
|
|
|
Internet Old One posted:I can remember ads on VHS tapes as early at the 80s and they were getting pretty crazy with it sometimes at the end of the DVD era. If you had a compliant DVD player it wouldn’t let you skip them either. *pops The Land Before Time and afterward Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the VCR* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIPUCPMd_nA
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2023 06:39
|
|
|
wash bucket posted:lol. I remember that being a thing with new editions back when books were made of dead trees but it's kinda messed up they can do that to an ebooks you've already bought. Though I remember buying music on iTunes and having the album art randomly switch up after the fact. My book copy of Watership Down is my older sister’s from 1978 and was passed down to me since I saw the movie several times before reading the book. Across the top it says, “America’s beloved #1 bestseller, now an enchanting motion picture!”
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2023 16:29
|
|
|
I went to Home Depot to buy some Husky jumper cables for my late dad’s truck because both the website and the app had a pair listed for $9.88. The cables were $19.98 in store, and when I asked an associate why the price difference, they told me that the online/app price was for shipping or pickup only. When I showed them the button in the app that toggles from shipping/pickup to “in store today” and that there wasn’t a price difference between the two, I just got a *shrug* and a “sorry.” A cashier overheard my dilemma, pulled me aside and told me not to worry about it, they think the price difference for online vs. in store is bullshit since everything comes from the same company anyway and gave me two jumper cables at $9.88 because I was a kind and patient customer and not an entitled one. You loving rock, you awesome cashier! But this whole online vs. in store pricing really is bullshit. Give me one price and stick with it.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2023 19:25
|
|
|
humpthewind posted:Every associate at home depot used to (and likely still does) have the authority to change a price up to 50 bucks without manager input. This is often used for things like out of stock price matching but seems like it should have applied in your situation also. I would have adjusted it down to honor the online price. The first associate (I think) wasn’t a cashier, but we were near the cashiers and that’s how the cashier overheard my confusion. She did tell me she was honoring the online price, which was really cool.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2023 19:34
|
|
|
Biplane posted:Erkle “Did that happen because of meeeeee???”
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2023 16:29
|
|
|
Today I learned not too many goons are keen on eating seafood. Huh.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2023 04:58
|
|
|
You Are A Elf posted:Today I learned not too many goons are keen on eating seafood. Okay, so like I originally posted this in the sushi thread. Hit reply and it went through and I saw it posted there. Then the post immediately disappeared. So I posted it again with slightly different wording and it showed up in the sushi thread while this post wound up here. Like… what? Or maybe I’m just a weenie doofus who posted in the wrong thread at first. What a fuckin’ weenie doofus
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2023 14:02
|
|
|
Biplane posted:You're clearly in a state of derangement from eating too much bad sushi  I’m still a weenie doofus, though.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2023 14:17
|
|
|
Getting my late father’s truck back into service after having sat unused for 3+ years. It needed new front brakes and I was certain I’d done them before and got lifetime warranty on brake pads at Auto Zone at the time. The clerk couldn’t find any info in any of the names and warranties on all the cars in the system my family has owned going back to the mid-90s. Maybe I never changed them before? Huh. No big deal, so I went ahead and bought a new set with lifetime warranty on them. Thing is, “lifetime warranty” now means the lifetime of this pair of pads only, which I get to replace free of charge once. The next time after that, I have to pay for them again. It wasn’t always like that. You’d buy a lifetime warranty auto part one time, and any time it failed or needed replacement, you’d swap out the core and were in and out of the store. It’s how I haven’t (for the most part) had to pay for most poo poo for my car I’ve owned for 26 years because almost everything had lifetime warranty on it. Now that perk’s been taken away and it’s bullshit.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 02:38
|
|
|
redshirt posted:Sorry for the loss of your Father, brother. Thanks, brother. He passed in 2021and I think of him every day. Getting his truck on the road again has been fun and sweet. euphronius posted:That’s not what lifetime warranty means haha It’s how Auto Zone has always labeled it? “Lifetime” means as long as you own the vehicle (the “life” of the car and not the part). Buy a set of brake pads in 1998 and as long as you still have the car, you get new ones free every time if you bought the “lifetime warranty” originally. That’s no longer the case, though. Loss leader, but it was a great thing.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 13:47
|
|
|
euphronius posted:But not “we will place it once”. That’s basically buy one get one free. Lol yeah. Suckered me into a BOGO set of pads.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 13:52
|
|
|
Just saw on the news McDonald’s is gonna phase out the self-serve soda fountains for “hygiene concerns” and staff will fill customers’s cups for them. Lol it’s because people request a cup for water and then blatantly get 30 free refills of Coke with it and don’t try to hide it. Not that I eat at Mickey D’s because I don’t, but what’s stopping other places from doing this? Those Coke Freestyle machines better not disappear because drinking vanilla Seagram’s Ginger Ale with a burg’ & fries is like fine dining. Gotta lift a pinky when I take a sip.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 15:35
|
|
|
Cerekk posted:Basically every company that has ever had a customer-friendly return policy has had to change it because of jackasses abusing the poo poo out of it. My favorites were people picking up piles of LL Bean stuff at thrift stores and then swapping it in bulk for brand new stuff, and Costco telling people they will no longer accept live Christmas tree returns after Christmas. redshirt posted:LL Bean once had a "we will exchange any defective product" and you'd see folks with 20 year old boots explaining how the sole coming off is a product defect. Not gonna lie because I think every one of us is guilty of at least once abusing a store policy to our advantage, but I used to do this with Craftsman tools at Sears back in the day. Buy a broken ratchet for $1 at a yard sale, go to Sears and exchange it for a new one off the rack, no questions asked. Sears eventually started handing out remanufactured tools from a box underneath the cash register instead of giving you a new tool, and then ditched that for a rebuild kit where you repair the broken tool yourself.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 16:14
|
|
|
I just checked and:quote:As of June 21st, 2023, there are 11 total Sears stores remaining, with 10 in the mainland US and one location in the US territory of Puerto Rico. Imagine being the largest retailer in the US with thousands of locations across the map for decades and being reduced to 11 stores in 2023 instead of just… going out of business for good. Their partner Kmart isn’t any better: quote:9 stores (3 of which are in the continental US) (April 2022) Just… why?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 17:14
|
|
|
Yeah, Lampert sucked every ounce of blood from both companies until they were husks while doing absolutely NOTHING to help any of the stores. I remember walking into Sears in like 2015 and it looked exactly like it did when I was a kid in the ‘80s, right down to the same carpeting (now stained and worn), fixtures (now rusty and gross), and tile walkways (now chipped with discolored grout). It was like being in a zombie movie where society had long since collapsed and the few living people left scavenged for supplies in dilapidated department stores that hadn’t had a living customer or employee in them in years. Only it was Sears and they were still open lol.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2023 20:31
|
|
|
Wilkins Micawber posted:loving Walmart grocery pick-up. It was fine enough at the edge of the parking lot, but now at most of our local stores the pick-up area is now DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE STORE. So cars come and go and it clogs up the lot, which also makes it way less safe for pedestrians. And it seems to take longer, somehow. God I'm so mad lol. I should be at Burger King and then eating weed edibles, not waiting an extra hour in this hellish corral. I’ve noticed that all the Walmarts and Neighborhood Markets have expanded their pickup parking spots to like quadruple their original size and most are always empty because there just aren’t that many people picking up groceries at any time. The Neighborhood Market by my house had the entire side of the building converted to pickup parking and it’s where I used to usually park. At any given time I’m there, the most cars I see picking up at a time is three. There’s just way to many pickup spots now.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2023 15:38
|
|
|
Crossposting from the Trump lol thread:You Are A Elf posted:A local old timer AM radio station has had the same programming for 25 years and actually really owned to fall asleep listening to. They played everything from the ‘40s to the ‘90s, with an emphasis on ‘40s and ‘50s standards and ‘60s and ‘70s oldies. Lots of different music and minimal commercials; it was a nice break from the garbage-rear end radio landscape. Looks like it’s back to my old white noise generator  More garbage talk radio for garbage people.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2023 17:34
|
|
or 
|
wash bucket posted:Oh god that gave me flashbacks. When I was a kid my dad used to listen to the oldies station non stop whenever he was driving. We lived way out in the middle of nowhere so every trip to the store took forever. Just years and years of the some old songs. Lol my Boomer dad did the same. Same station on all of his radios, KWFM Cool Oldies. They loving LOVED to play “California Dreamin’” every five minutes.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2023 21:20
|
|
|
Bob’s Discount Hotel & Oil Change Palace “Our rooms are now [mostly] black mold free! Free windshield wiper inspection while you stay!”
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2023 16:34
|
|
|
Went to Peter Piper Pizza (and I’m sure this applies to other pizza chains with big birthday party vibes) to celebrate my nephew’s birthday and all the games were just bullshit trick, chance, and skill games to win tickets (which are now on a tap card that also doubles for tokens). I mean, the latter is easier than physical tokens and tickets, but there were no arcade games to play, the air hockey tables were gone, the carousel was gone, and even skeeball, the most ubiquitous game at joints like this was a single lane in a forgotten area. Even the actual amount of tickets needed to win a lovely prize isn’t worth it anymore. The games pay out like 5 or 10 tickets at a time for a single game and you need like 1000 tickets to get an eraser or single Tootsie Roll or some crapass prize. I mean, ticket gouging has always been a thing even when I was a kid, but the erasure of actual fun games to play and let kids have some decent fun is terrible. At least my nephew still had a decent birthday 
|
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2023 23:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:03 |
|
|
My nephew a little over a year ago bought himself a nice used low miles Hyundai Sonata. This week, his insurance was dropped without explanation and after some investigating and calling the insurance company, he found out why: Hyundais and Kias have a high theft rate in this area. So because he owns a car that has the potential to be stolen (as ALL cars do) but has never actually been stolen in the year that he’s owned it or even before he owned it, his insurance company can just say “lol NAH BRAH” and drop him like that? Horseshit. His investigating even found his model year isn’t even on the list, but it’s a Hyundai so see ya! Luckily he was able to insure his car with someone else.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2023 16:43
|
|