Posts by Sean Grant85

Think hot water—I take a shower and my face flares up red, only settling down after about thirty minutes. Whenever I’m near a heat source, the redness and itching on my face show up immediately.

With summer approaching, I have no idea how my skin is going to handle the sun.
Has anyone else dealt with this kind of allergy—where the skin reacts to heat, whether it's from a bath or even just standing too close to a hair straightener?
Should I go see a specialist—maybe an allergist at the Mayo Clinic?
How does the testing actually work?
Everyone knows about ragweed, peanuts, walnuts, or reacting to jewelry, but an allergy to heat itself seems incredibly strange.

So, that’s how it plays out. James Jackson9, I get where you're coming from—as long as you squeezed every bit of value out of that Zaba flyer, you're fine.

My situation is a different beast entirely. My company covers most of the costs, so I'm only left paying $3.00 per month—meaning moving forward, it'll be $6.00 ($3.00 for the current one, plus maybe $5 or so for the checking account, so $3.00 total).
I don't have to take the buyout option right now, but I have a feeling that in a year or two, JPMorgan Chase will just hike their fees and force my hand again... lord help me.

$20 monthly or annual? if it’s an annual plan, then maybe the price actually makes sense—hmm...

Here I am again. I’ve never once been a user of the Zaba flyer—for years now, the bank and their tellers have been relentlessly pushing it on me, but I flatly refuse. My company covers my Mastercard, so there's zero annual fee, and since they handle my online banking too, I don't pay a dime for that either. The only things hitting my pocket are the monthly fees for $1.75 and $1.75. I moved all my utility bills over to my Diners Club card to avoid extra fees and other nonsense. As for an overdraft, I don't need a massive limit; a $3.25 cushion is plenty, especially since I make it a point to stay out of the red entirely. Restaurant discounts are irrelevant to me because I get those through Diners Club anyway—all that other fluff is useless. Yesterday, I got a notice stating that instead of paying $1.75 per month, I'll now be charged $3.00. To soften the blow, they’re offering the Zaba flyer with its "various perks." If I don't want their precious flyer, then let them just give me the Payment Assistant.

So, to all you esteemed banking customers out there: what does the Zaba flyer actually cost per month? And what about the Payment Assistant? I’m betting it’s quite high compared to my future $3.00 per month. Why do these bankers constantly work against me—hiking prices and squeezing everything until I'm eventually forced to swallow their hated Zaba flyer...

....to hell with Zabka!

Someone suggested that sticking with a CD at Bank of America is the smartest move.
However—after actually looking at their numbers—it’s clear that Coinbase is leading the pack when it comes to savings rates.
Unless there is some bank outperforming Coinbase, then Coinbase is the undisputed champion of fixed-term savings... I think it's time I move some cash over there.

VLC Media Player is clearly the superior choice.
Check out my similar thread—I’ve included an internet link there.

So, it’s not dropping until the end of the year—but I need this for Coachella in just two weeks! Is there any way to fast-track this?

electriclynx2 said:Just finished watching a movie on DVD. The picture quality wasn't exactly anything to write home about, but honestly, seeing it on my LCD TV made a world of difference. It definitely cleaned things up.

All things considered, the movie was great. I genuinely enjoyed it—it’s easily one of my favorites. Plus, watching the Transformers animated series was basically my entire childhood. That being said, I do have a few gripes:

I’m still a little lost on how things wrapped up with the rest of those evil Transformers. And honestly, the whole way the Cube killed Megatron was pretty confusing—it felt like something just shot out of it or something? I also have no idea what actually happened to the Cube in the end. Did it just vanish into thin air? There are definitely some loose ends regarding the movie's finale that left me scratching my head.

That final showdown in the last half hour dragged on way too long. Honestly, it was getting exhausting to watch. There were so many hits being thrown that a human brain can't even process them all at once—I actually ended up with a massive headache from trying to keep up.

Americans, Americans, Americans—the ego is truly something else. They love portraying their military as this superhuman force capable of going toe-to-toe with the Transformers, which is honestly hilarious. Then you have the Secretary of Defense acting like some kind of Everyman, fighting side-by-side with the little guys. It’s almost comical how much they lean into that trope. The movie itself falls into another classic American trap: it glorifies their domestic cars to an absurd degree. I actually lost it when I saw that yellow Chevrolet Camaro; it was just ridiculous. If they wanted to do it right, they should have had the Autobots transform into something with actual class—something like a high-end Audi Q7, a sleek Mercedes-Benz, a powerful BMW, or even an Alfa Romeo. Instead, we get stuck with these jokes of American cars. Typical.

All in all, it’s pretty cool. I’m especially fascinated by those transformation sequences, though it's a bit of a bummer they don't just merge into one massive robot more often.

Has the Transformers DVD hit the shelves yet? I'm looking for a place to pick one up—maybe check a local rental shop? I want to grab it for my son's birthday, but I'm not sure where to find it locally... and if it's not available for purchase, I might just have to rip it to a DVD myself. Given the runtime, I'd probably need two discs, right?

This isn't about me—it’s for a close friend of mine who was in a car accident. His doctor on shift told him he'd need to pick up his own Sancov collar. He's 31—no younger siblings under 18 to worry about—so he's just brushing it off like it's $27 nothing. Don't worry. If we were talking about $200-$100, I might suggest a different approach, but $27 is peanuts... thanks again, everyone.

PS. The exam took place at St. Jude's in New York City.

Perhaps I can give it a shot—though I have my doubts about how smoothly it'll actually go. Regardless, thanks for the help.

Give me the inside scoop. A clerk told me there’s a way to get reimbursed by insurance later on, but I’m lost on the process. Apparently—if what I was told is true—I have to file the claims myself.

Don't give me that—they’re claiming the collar isn't eligible for a tax exemption. I actually spotted someone wearing one near $27 Fifth Avenue by the Orthopedics clinic. At least there's some proof.

Michelle Cook83 said:.... and doctors are there to help. Take it however you want.😉

Look—I was told a Standard Oil collar runs about 50-$20, yet you see them in retail stores for upwards of $33. That’s the reality of it.

How long does medical leave typically last for a whiplash injury? Working at a sewing machine can really mess with your cervical spine—especially after a head impact—so maybe we're looking at a 2-3 month recovery period?

Regarding Sandov's neck brace—where can one actually pick that up? Is it strictly through a doctor's referral, or can you just grab one directly from a pharmacy or an orthopedic specialist?

Here’s how it went down.

I copied the QuickTime Alternative over to my Windows 2000 machine—and during the process, a prompt popped up suggesting I ditch the old QuickTime entirely in favor of this newer version. So, I uninstalled the old QuickTime and replaced it with the QuickTime Alternative using Media Player Classic.

After that, those annoying 2gp files automatically switched over to QuickTime icons—which looks nice enough, I suppose—but things took a turn for the worse. When I right-clicked and selected open with VLC, the Media Player Classic window appeared and tried to run the 3gp file, only for the bottom of the Media Player Classic interface to throw this error: "Failed to render file."

So, there you have it. Nothing works. Just great...🙂

That makes sense when you put it that way—but back when I tried moving those *.3gp files, Windows didn't recognize them at all. It just lumped them all under a generic icon instead of having their own specific look like *.avi or *.wmv files do. When I fire up VLC Media Player, nothing has changed, though. I did go ahead and grab a QuickTime Alternative again—it's about 12MB this time—so I'm hoping it’s the version you mentioned. I'll give it a shot and see if it actually claims *.3gp as its own...

Here’s what I’ve managed to dig up so far—I stumbled upon www.dicas.de via Google, which seems to cover technology for decoding *.3gp files, though it's mostly just technical specs:
mpegable AVC encoder is a MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 software

It looks like they probably want to charge for it—is there actually a free version out there somewhere? Or am I completely misreading the situation?

James Roberts87,

Is it enough to just search Google for mpegableAVC to find what I need for the download?

I went to the QuickTime Alternative site to find the link to download Media Player Classic for Windows 2000/Windows XP—ended up with a file size of roughly 2MB.

Well, that was a bust.

I tried downloading Media Player Classic and threw a 3gp file at it—nothing. It handles AVI and WMV just fine, but when it comes to 3gp, it’s a total dead end.

The issue is pretty straightforward: Windows 2000 doesn't recognize those 3gp files at all. If you drop three different video formats into a folder, WMV gets its icon and AVI gets its usual label, but 3gp shows up as an "unknown type." Basically, Windows 2000 doesn't know what it's looking at, so it refuses to play it—period.