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1
General Discussion / DnD Encounter
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/28/23, 2023, 08:28:21 PM »
**Shadows of the Enchanted Forest**
**Background:**
In the heart of an ancient and mystical forest lies a realm untouched by time, teeming with magical creatures and hidden treasures. The Enchanted Forest, as it's known, is a place of wonder and danger. A curse has befallen the land, trapping its inhabitants in an eternal struggle for control. Adventurers are called upon to journey into the forest, break the curse, and claim the enchanted relics before they fall into the wrong hands.
**Encounter 1: The Haunted Glade**
Players stumble upon an eerie glade shrouded in mist. A cursed human knight, once a valiant protector of the forest, now roams as a vengeful spirit. The Troll King, under the curse's influence, commands his minions to terrorize the glade. Players must defeat the knight (AC 13), fend off the trolls (AC 9), and face the ominous forest guardian, a massive spectral panther (AC 12). If victorious, they find the "Dagger of Valor."
**Treasure 1:** Dagger of Valor: Raises attack by 1 for 1 roll, usable once per fight.
**Encounter 2: Troll Bridge**
The adventurers must cross a rickety bridge guarded by a troll. As they attempt to pass, the massive troll attacks (AC 9), hurling boulders and causing the bridge to shake. Defeating the troll reveals a hidden chamber where they uncover the "Time-Warping Staff."
**Treasure 2:** Time-Warping Staff: Can go back in time 1 roll against any opponent.
**Encounter 3: Crystal Clearing**
A peaceful clearing reveals a magical crystal, coveted by a powerful mage. As the adventurers approach, the mage summons illusions and conjures an ice spell (DC 15 to block with Shield) to freeze attackers. The mage's large feline companion (AC 12) joins the fight. The adventurers can claim victory by besting the mage (AC 13) and securing the "Reflecting Shield."
**Treasure 3:** Reflecting Shield: Reflects opponent’s attack with a roll of 16 or higher.
**Final Encounter: Breaking the Curse**
At the heart of the Enchanted Forest, a malevolent presence holds the curse's source. The adventurers must face a final challenge, combining their newly acquired treasures to overcome the curse's embodiment. Players must also use the Time-Warping Staff and Dagger of Valor strategically to enhance their chances. The battle culminates with an epic showdown against the embodiment, requiring tactics and teamwork to triumph.
**Conclusion:**
With the curse lifted and the Enchanted Forest free once again, the adventurers stand as heroes. The realm's inhabitants are grateful for their bravery, and tales of their triumph echo through the ages. The enchanted relics become symbols of hope and resilience, guarding against the return of darkness. The adventurers depart the forest, forever remembered for their deeds.
2
General Discussion / The rainbow community is getting out of hand.
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/18/23, 2023, 04:38:52 AM »
  LGBTQ+++++++ (and so on)
  Are you fucking kidding me with this shit? Now, before you decide to get all butthurt over my little rant, read the whole thing and listen to my reasoning for it. Or not... If you'd rather just believe that anything said about the community that isn't putting them on a pedestal is hate speech, then just block me if it bugs you so much. Ask me if I care. Just like everyone else, I have the right to an opinion. Nothing I say here is a fact (probably). But it IS what I believe.
OK, so the whole gay thing is not an issue with me. But what bugs me is the list of "options", we'll call them, that grows on what seems like a daily basis. Allow me to explain why the ever-growing list gets to me.
Remember when it was just the gay community? I mean, that covers a pretty broad spectrum of people, right? Adding bisexual to it adds just about all of the rest, as far as I'm concerned, other than those simply not interested in any sexual interaction whatsoever, or those who believe they can reproduce by themselves. You know, like how a lot of plants do?
The rest is technicalities for the most part. Given, I guess, there are a few that don't fall into either of those categories, but seriously.... is there really a need to have a word for every single thing? If that's the case, we should add words for people who only like missionary style, doggy style, 69, and so on... right? I want a word! I like to have sex while I have a smoke. Where the fuck is MY word? I also like to have the TV on. Where's the word for that? I kick the animals off the bed when it's time to get frisky with my wife. Can't we call that something? It's a preference, isn't it? Or is this where it becomes a technicality? If so, then I argue that a LOT of the things on these large lists are technicalities. The reason why these monstrous lists (yes lists... as in plural, since no 2 websites seem to be able to agree on what's a thing and what's not) bug the living fuck out of me is the fact that it allows for everyone who decides they don't wanna be classified as normal (which is actually one of the preferences on a VAST majority of these lists, and is called just that... normal, rather than heterosexual) can join the LGBTQ+++++++ community. A LOT of those people simply want a word for whatever it is they do so they can join that community and be able to do the parades and try to get everyone else in the world to bow down to them.
Now, this seems like I have something against gay people and the like. I don't. It's not my thing, by any means, but hey, do you. Hey... is there a word for someone who only likes to do themself Beatosexuals. There. Add that to the list. Since we're adding a word for everything else, let's chuck that one up there while we're at it.
OK, so let's move on. This is a list of what I have found after looking at a couple of different sites. Buckle up... it's a LOOOOOOONG ride.

Androgynous - Term used to describe an individual whose gender expression and/or identity may be neither distinctly “female” nor “male,” usually based on appearance.

Asexual: A person who generally does not experience sexual attraction (or very little) to any group of people. May still have romantic, emotional, affectionate, or relational attractions towards others.

Binary Gender: A sociological construct or "traditional" view of gender limited to "man" and "woman" defined by a collection of characteristics that are culturally associated with male-ness (masculinity) or female-ness (femininity).

Binary Sex: A sociological construct or "traditional" view of sex limited to "male" and "female".

Bisexual: A person who experiences sexual, romantic, and/or physical attraction to people of their own biological sex, as well as, another biological sex.

Closeted: A person who is keeping their LGBTQ sexuality or gender identity hidden from many (or any) people. At times, being in the closet also means not wanting to admit one’s sexual identity to oneself. (By the way, how can you announce that you're closeted? Do explain.)

Coming Out: The process of revealing your sexuality or gender identity to individuals in your life. This is a lifelong and sometimes daily process.

Down Low - Pop-culture term used to describe men who identify as heterosexual but engage in sexual activity with other men (WHAT?). Often these men are in committed sexual relationships or marriages with a female partner. This term is almost exclusively used to describe men of color.

Drag Queen/Drag King - Used by people who present socially in clothing, name, and/or pronouns that differ from their everyday gender, usually for enjoyment, entertainment, and/or self-expression. Drag queens typically have everyday lives as men. Drag kings typically live as women and/or butches when not performing. Drag shows are popular in some gay, lesbian, and bisexual environments. Unless they are drag performers, most Trans people would be offended by being confused with drag queens or drag kings.

Fluid(ity): Generally with another term attached, like gender-fluid or fluid-sexuality, fluid(ity) describes an identity that is a fluctuating mix of the options available.

FTM/MTF: A person who has undergone medical treatments to change their biological sex (Female To Male, or Male To Female), often times to align it with their gender identity.

Gay: A term used to describe a man who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, or affectionately attracted to other men. At times, “gay” is used to refer to all people, regardless of sex, who have their primary sexual and or romantic attractions to people of the same sex.

Gender Neutral  - This term is used to describe facilities that any individual can use regardless of their gender (e.g. gender neutral bathrooms). This term can also be used to describe an individual who does not subscribe to any socially constructed gender (sometimes referred to as “Gender Queer”).

Gender Non Conforming  - A person who is, or is perceived to have gender characteristics that do not conform to traditional or societal expectations.

Heterosexism: Norms and behaviors that result from the assumption that all people are or should be heterosexual. This system of oppression assumes that heterosexuality is inherently normal and superior and negates LBGTQ peoples’ lives and relationships.

Homosexual: A medical definition for a person who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to members of the same biological sex. (Hey! Doesn't this sounds like it covers gay and lesbian, doesn't it? Or am I overlooking something? Maybe a man being attracted to another man or a woman being attracted to another woman are 2 completely different things. Sounds like both are a gender attracted to the same gender to me.)

In the Life  - Often used by communities of color to denote inclusion in the LGBTQ communities. (Sigh).

Lesbian: A term used to describe a woman who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, or affectionately attracted to other women.

Men Loving Men (MLM)  - Commonly used by communities of color to denote the attraction of men to men. (Or... gay?)

Men Who Have Sex with Men - men, including those who do not identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual, who engage in sexual activity with other men. (Um..... What?)

Minor Attracted Person (MAP) - We all know what that means. There's another word for it, but apparently it's offensive and not politically correct. FUCKING REALLY??????????

Openly Gay - Describes people who self-identify as lesbian or gay in their personal, public and/or professional lives. Also openly lesbian, openly bisexual, openly transgender.

Outing: When someone reveals another person’s sexuality or gender identity to an individual or group without the person’s consent or approval.

Pansexual: A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction to others regardless of gender identities/expressions or biological property.

Queer: Term describing people who have a non-normative gender identity, sexual orientation, or sexual anatomy -- can include lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, transgender people, and a host of other identities. Since the term is sometimes used as a slur, it has a negative connotation for some LGBT people; nevertheless, others have reclaimed it and feel comfortable using it to describe themselves.

Questioning: The process of exploring one’s own sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Transgender: A blanket term used to describe all individuals whose gender identity does not align their biological sex. (BLANKET TERM? How do you even break that down further? HOW?!?!)

Transitioning: A term used to describe the process of moving from one sex/gender to another.

Trans-man: A person who was assigned a female sex at birth, but identifies as a man.

Trans-woman: A person who was assigned a male sex at birth, but identifies as a woman.

(Can we group those last 2 into one? Would that be the end of the damn world?)

Transvestite - A person who dresses like the opposite gender. (Hey, what if you are a dude who identifies as a woman who dresses like a man? Is that like a trans-transvestite? Let's add that to the list!)

Two-Spirit: Contemporary term chosen by Native American/Indigenous people who identify with a third gender, implying a masculine and a feminine spirit in one body.

Women Loving Women (WLW)  - Commonly used by communities of color to denote the attraction of women to women. (Or... lesbian?)

Ok, that's the list of the ones that a handful of different resources provide. But clearly, I missed some, considering the whole acronym is lgbtqqip2saa.......PLUS.

Now, does this all seem necessary? While I have absolutely no doubt that there are quite a few people who aren't "normal" (which, by the way, there is a flag for in the rainbow community, which looks like sideways prison bars) who legitimately are what they claim they are. But inventing new words for the tiniest of things just so one can join a community that for some reason likes to do parades, fly flags, claim every color in the rainbow, and are sure to announce what they are at every possible opportunity, especially when they know it's gonna either make someone else uncomfortable or will result in worship is absurd. Maybe it has something to do with trying to make the rainbow community bigger. Y'all might wanna be careful, tho. If you become too big, then straight people will become the minority, and then you will have to worship US! And then WE can have parades, our own flag, and all that other jazz. I also think straight people should have their own section in every retail store with clothes announcing how straight we are. I think we should have a month, too. Not really. I don't think there should be any of those things. FOR ANY GODDAMN PREFERENCE! Why can't everyone just do their own goddamn thing, not have to announce what we do between the sheets, and just leave it at that? And I mean everyone, no matter if you're in the rainbow community or not.
You know what I don't have any issues with? People who aren't straight and whatnot. You know what I DO have an issue with? People who think that there should be words for every possible situation, a majority which aren't really even things. Like thinking you can impregnate yourself and have a baby without another person or without a donor. Yea... because that can totally happen... right? The reason why this is in an issue for me is due to the fact that it makes it possible for absolutely anyone to join the rainbow community for one reason or another and be able to be put up on a pedestal.
Now don't get me wrong. I have no cause to believe that everyone in the community wants to be worshiped. But those who fly flags, march in parades, and the like... those people generally do. Not all of them, by any means, but a LOT of them. You don't see a bunch of people flying "I'm Straight!" flags in their yard, do you? Hell, we don't even fly the black and white bar flag that the rainbow community has so lovingly bestowed on us.
Now then, those who are gonna argue with me, tell me how wrong I am, how much I hate certain people, and the like, get after it. I'm looking forward to seeing how many people think I'm a hateful person, how I try to put down certain people, and whatever else people can come up with in order to fight the machine. Or whatever it's called. Really... I am looking forward to it. Every time I rant about something, regardless of what it is, there always has to be a grip of people coming out of the woodwork in order to fire up a "debate". And I'm sure this one will really bring these comments on. Here's the weird thing: there are, what, 3 or 4 people on my friends list who are rainbow community members who won't say a thing. 1 or 2 of them will likely even agree with me. I know that one of them will, for sure. Whether they do it publicly, I don't know. Probably not. And I can't blame them. Any time someone in the rainbow community does anything but claim that their community is all powerful and should be worshiped, they get absolutely ridiculed by a vast majority of the rest of that community. Brutally.
So there. There's my rant for the day. Not that anyone is gonna see it before facebook takes it down and puts me in jail. But that's alright. It'll also be on my website here in a day or 2. And I know that a LOT of people read my stuff there. More than on facebook, I'm sure. But I sense that i will be in facebook jail before long. Whether it's because their automods decide that it's hate speech or whether someone reports me, I have no doubt it'll be gone before the end of the day. Especially if it's reported. Because heaven forbid someone express their opinion about something, that opinion offends someone, and facebook automatically has to bow down to them, lest they be classified as bigoted themselves.
And now I'm gonna go to bed. I intend to sleep on my left side, watching tv, with 3 dogs and a cat laying on the bed somewhere either between or on my wife and I as i cover up with a comforter. Call me a "Fluffernesterquiltophilicentwinedgentlefellow".




3
What Ziggy Thinks / How easy is it to divide a community? Here's something to think about.
« Last post by Ziggy on November 11/26/22, 2022, 07:27:39 AM »
This is a story about how easy it is to divide a community.
An elementary class was learning about the Salem Witch Trials, and their teacher told them they were going to play a game.
The teacher told the class, “I’m going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you’re a witch or a regular person. Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade.”
The kids dove into grilling each other. One fairly large group formed, but most of the students broke into small, exclusive groups, turning away anyone they thought gave off even a hint of guilt.
“Okay,” the teacher said. “You’ve got your groups. Time to find out which ones fail. All witches, please raise your hands.”
No one raised a hand.
The kids were confused and told the teacher he’d messed up the game. “Did I? Was anyone in Salem an actual witch? Or did everyone just believe what they’d been told?”
And that is how you teach kids how easy it is to divide a community.
Shunning, scapegoating and dividing destroys far more than they protect. There’s plenty of it going around. Do not allow the political elite to divide and destroy us. We must remain united against those who would do so.
See how easy it is to divide a community by doing nothing more than making something up that doesn’t even exist?
Now, take that to the next level. Throw some “real” issues in the mix. Our government is throwing so many different principles out there that are guaranteed to divide the people. Republican vs democrat. Vaccinated vs unvaccinated. Open borders vs closed borders. Sending our military to foreign countries to help vs not doing so. Pro-life vs pro-choice. Keeping the second amendment vs abolishing it. Allowing parents to discipline their kids with spanking vs not allowing “corporal punishment.” Biden supporters vs Trump supporters. For the death penalty vs against it. For gay marriage vs against it. Mandatory masks vs anti-mask. Global warming is true vs fake. For the legalization of marijuana vs against it. For the electoral college vs against it. The list goes on and on and on.
Think about this: thats only 14 topics. The factorial of 14 is 87,178,291,200… more than 10 times the population of the entire planet. This means that if you asked everyone on the planet their opinion on the above topics, there are enough possible combinations for everyone to have a different collection of opinions… more than 10 times over! Holy shit, huh? And that’s JUST 14 topics.
Now imagine if we bring 20 arguments in. The factorial for that is 2,432,902,008,176,640,000. Do you have any idea how easy it is to create an argument between people by bringing up 20 fucking topics? All you have to do is find ONE that they don’t agree on. ONE!!!!!! And just like that, you divided those people.
And here we all sit… letting the government do it to us. There’s a reason why they do it. So they can divide the people, cause them to fight amongst each other, and weaken them.
Ever heard the phrase “divide and conquer”? Because that’s EXACTLY what our government is doing to us. What if the government decided to become completely insane and start attacking the public? How many people would stand together? How many people would watch their neighbor being attacked, and rather than helping them, they sit back and go “fuck those guys… they think gay marriage is ok”. Or “fuck those guys… they think it’s OK to kill babies”.  Or “fuck those guys… they’re not Christian”.
I can tell you one thing… should our government go and do a full on attack, we’re all fucked. We’re already so divided that it’s beyond ridiculous, and it gets worse by the day. Literally.
I mean. Seriously… only half of the people are going to agree with my rant. Half will. See how I just divided an entire community with only one topic? Now watch this: the Minnesota Vikings suck ass. Game of Thrones is the worst show on TV. Kids should never be allowed to watch tv.
Wow… now you guys are REALLY divided, and I didn’t even bring up anything important.
Oh yea… and you fucking burger flippers can stop striking for $15/ hour now. Want better pay? Learn a trade that takes more than an I.Q. of 45. Anyone can lift the fries out of a fryer when the built-in timer tells you to. Well, everyone SHOULD be able to. Yet somehow, people still fuck that up. And how goddamn hard is it to NOT put ketchup on a fucking cheeseburger when someone requests it? Yea… when your retarded ass can’t even do a simple task like that, you absolutely don’t deserve $15/ hour. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Minimum pay for minimum skills.
And for the love of fucking god, people, stop texting and reading Facebook posts while you’re flying down the road at 75 MPH in your 2-ton death machine. Your friend telling you what they had for lunch isn’t as important as that family’s lives that you’re about to cause a head-on collision with and cancel their life subscriptions.
One last thing. Do you lazy fucking assholes think you could take the literal 20 seconds and walk 30 feet to put your goddamn shopping carts away???? Just because you don’t care if you get scratches on your piece of shit vehicle when a cart gets blown into it doesn’t mean that someone who saved up for 5 years to buy a $30,000 car doesn’t care about theirs.
And just for fun, I will now force you to do something, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.……. Blink manually.
In closing, if we have any chance for survival, people are just gonna have to learn how to agree to disagree and move on rather than letting whatever the topic is make enemies out of each other.
And there you have it folks, another rant by a very exhausted high functioning autistic brain. And now since I haven’t slept in more then 72 hours, I am going to go get some sleep.
4
General Discussion / Giveaway information for Premium subscribers.
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/27/22, 2022, 06:23:20 PM »
While giveaways on the site are typically limited to Gold and Platinum members, there will be a select few occasions where everyone who is a Premium member of any tier can enter and win.

Although some giveaways will be ran in the Copper Member area, anyone who is a Premium member, regardless of which tier, can enter. In other words, giveaways posted in the Copper member area aren't typically open ONLY to Copper members. And that's the case for most giveaways here on the site. No matter which tier area a giveaway is on, you can typically enter it, even if you aren't in the tier that the giveaway is posted in. Since each tier of membership has their own sections of the site, you will be able to see every giveaway you are eligible for. So that means that if you can see a giveaway, you can enter it. For the most part, anyway, and I'll explain that shortly. Since copper members can't see, say, the Gold area, when there is a giveaway going on for Gold members and higher, only Gold members and higher will be able to see those giveaways. Every giveaway will be announced in the General Category section, which is viewable by everyone. But the thread where you can enter will be in the respective membership tier area. Make sense?

Now to explain what I said earlier about entering giveaways posted on lower level tier boards. Since not everyone will choose the higher Premium membership tiers, I figure there should be at least a couple of smaller giveaways for each tier, which will only be available to the respective tiers. Take for example a giveaway for Silver members. If you see a giveaway in the Silver member area, you would typically be able to enter it, regardless if you are on a higher tier or not. But to make it fair for the lower level subscribers, there will be a select few giveaways designed specifically for certain Premium membership subscribers. This will increase the odds for those lower level subscribers. However, ALL of the prizes for the giveaways that are going to be created for specific members will also show up in the Platinum area at one time or another. I know that sounds a bit confusing, but I think you can make sense of it.

That said, there are already a couple of giveaways going. One is for some Lego sets. 3 winners for 3 prizes, with the grand prize set being worth well over $100. This one is open to all premium members, regardless of which tier. Entries are open as we speak, and will close on December 10, 2022 at 11:59, MST. You need to be a premium member to enter, as well as a premium member when the drawing happens so you can tell if you won or not. So if you're either broke or a cheap fucker, but still want a shot at winning a lego set, I would recommend waiting until late November or early December to purchase your copper membership. Since I may have to re-draw a winner or 2 due to someone not claiming their winnings, you're gonna wanna be a subscriber past December 11, which is when the first winners will be picked.

But there will also be other giveaways coming up for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and more for Xmas as well, which many of will be spectacular prizes and will only be available to the higher tier subscribers. So if you want good chances at winning more stuff, your best bet is to break down, not go to McDonalds for a couple days, and use that 23 bucks you would have spent there to pick up a Platinum membership for a year. This will give you the opportunity to enter into an absolute bare minimum of 60 giveaways coming up over the next 12 months. Plus, if you do that, then I get to go to McDonalds a couple times. Or probably not. I'll probably just use it to pay for my domain, hosting, SSL certificate (So I can keep you fuckers' accounts safe), and all that other jazz. And whatever is left over, I'll use most of it for more giveaway stuff and maybe go out to McDonalds once in a while. Or maybe even Texas Roadhouse, WHICH WE JUST RECENTLY GOT IN ROSWELL.... FUCKING FINALLY!!!!!!!! We haven't gone to it yet, but I wanna take my family there soon. It's not like I can't afford it or anything, but it would just be cooler if you assholes bought it for us.

Just kidding. I, as always, never expect anyone to do anything for me. If someone does, awesome. If not, I'm not gonna go pout. I'm a big boy. All 121 pounds of me.

So anyway, there's the deets, peeps.

If this doesn't make sense, which I doubt it will at the moment, since I am typing this out after being awake for more than 24 hours straight, fret not, I will come back to it tomorrow or whenever, read over it, and tweak it so that it might make more sense. Cool? Cool.
~Ziggy
5
General Discussion / Premium Membership Subscription Announcement
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/27/22, 2022, 05:32:44 PM »
Alright. So there was a mandatory update to the servers, put there by the server owners that I lease my servers from themselves. This added a bunch of security features to PHP platforms. First off, have no fear... nobody's account was affected in the least. The updates had nothing to do with the account databases or anything tied into this site.
However, due to these server updates, some of my code for the website no longer work properly. One of these things is the way Premium Membership subscriptions are handled. Before the update, once you purchased a Premium Membership, paid for it via PayPal, and returned to the site, your account was automatically updated with your subscription tier. Now, though, I have to manually do it for you. So if you decide you would like to purchase a Premium Membership, click the "Premium Memberships" link at the top of the site, choose your tier, and head on over to PayPal to complete your transaction. Once you have done this, you can either message me here on the website (I think I have the permissions set right for that, anyhow), or if you can't get that to work, head on over to my Facebook page and message me there that you have purchased and paid for your Premium Membership and I will come onto the site and manually change your status for you so that you will have access to all of the things thar you are supposed to get with whichever tier you went with.
I have the PayPal app on my phones, as does my wife, so its likely that at least one of us will see the transaction, and I will go onto the site as soon as I can in order to set up your account properly for you. But you should still message me in one way or another as soon as you pay for your membership so that you know that I am aware that you subscribed and I can change it as soon as possible.
I will set your subscription to expire at the end of the time frame you chose, right down to the minute, from when I manually grant it to you.
I will be working on seeing if I can find a workaround for this so that the site will automatically grant the subscription for you, but that's sort of on the back burner for the moment, since I can just do it manually. I have a few other, more important bugs to work out before I tackle that particular one.
I also don't know if the site will automatically renew your subscription should you set it to auto-renew. So if you have it set to auto-renew, and it the site doesn't update your account after the next payment, message me so I can repair that for you.
Cool? Cool.

~Ziggy
6
Announcements / Christmas Lego set giveaway!
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/26/22, 2022, 11:45:52 PM »
Alright, kids. Here’s the giveaway details on the current giveaway.

As promised, giveaways are available to those who decide to become premium members, which help offset the cost of giveaway prizes as well as the expenses I have of maintaining my site. While most giveaways will only be available to Silver Members and higher, this one is open to Copper Members and up, just because I'm feeling especially generous today. Cool, huh? So here we go!

3 Lego sets are up for grabs. 3 winners will be chosen. Here are the prizes:

3rd place: Set #40515, Pirates and Treasure VIP Add On Pack 2022 (103 pieces).

2nd place: Set #43184, Disney Raya and Sisu Dragon Building Toy (216 pieces)

1st place: Set #66706, Creator Animals Bundle (852 pieces)

This giveaway is open to US residents only, simply because not only do they cost a small fortune to send to other countries, but many countries also charge an import tax, which will cost the winner a pretty penny most of the time. But for those of you outside the US, fret not… there will be giveaways available to you as well. Game codes, gift cards, and more will be available worldwide in the near future. I just have to figure out what they will be and get them!

Any questions? Feel free to message me!

~Ziggy



7
PLEASE READ BEFORE USING THIS FORUM! / Re: Website guidelines and information
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/21/22, 2022, 04:06:56 AM »
Alright, children. Here's the deal. The site is being being relentlessly bombarded by fucking bots posting links to malicious, inappropriate, and/ or scam sites. Therefore, I have had to do a little tweaking. For the time being, people who register a new account will be able to see a few boards, topics, and comments. But in order to keep those bots from dropping all their shit in the replies, I have set all of the default boards to "Read Only". This means that nobody can post replies to any topics that I, Nadi, or any of my forum staff create. I know this sucks a bit for new members who don't wanna sign up for a premium membership, but I had no choice but to do it this way. Every day that I logged in this week, I had to delete literally dozens of bullshit replies to topics that contained dangerous links. Now, although most people are smart enough to not click those links and visit those sites, there are a handful of idiots that will. Some of those sites contain viruses, malware, and the like, which will sneakily install onto your rig. Some of these are keyloggers, phishers, or just plain "I wanna fuck up your system for Absolutely no reason but to piss you off" types of programs.
Should someone have that happen, not only will it make me feel bad and piss me off simply because I despise those things, as I'm sure most people do, but I can also be held liable for anything that happens on those sites that were landed on from my site. Technically, I can't be held liable, but a suit can be filed against me. Although I will beat it 99.999% of the time, it still costs me $450/ hour to have my lawyer defend it in court. Should the judge decide to be a dick, or it winds up being a big case (think if a keylogger snagged someone's bank information and drained a couple hundred grand out of their account), it could be tied up in court for a good week at 8 hours a day. $450X40= $18,000. Fuck that shit. 
I will be adding some more boards here soon, and will continue adding more and more over time when I think of new ones. Some will be visible to everyone, guests and all. Others only to registered users, and others on a Premium Member tier-to-tier basis. I will also be adding a new group that people can be assigned to by myself or my site staff. Quick explanation as to how that works:
Once registered, you will not be able to reply to topics or create new topics by default. But a user can head on over to my Facebook page, message me, and I or a staff member can bump you up to the new group, allowing you to reply to select topics. All this does is prevent bots from posting replies. And it won't cost anything. A bot, you see, isn't programmed to take that step in order to get moved to the new group. Therefore, their reply will fail. This particular assigned group will not cost anything. Make sense?
Moving on.
Quick tidbit of information about little old me. That math up there... 450X40=18,000... I did that in my head in about 2 seconds. As many know, I am pretty good with numbers. Ok, ok, ok... a master with them. But here's the thing. When doing large problems like that, I take shortcuts, break the big problem down into smaller ones, solve those small ones, and the rebuild the small answers into the larger final result. I just do it so fast that it looks like I did it in one go. So for that problem above, here is my formula:

450*40
Step 1) Drop the two zeros.
45*4
Step 2) 4 is an even number. Halve it.
45*2=90
Step 3) Since we halved step 2, now we have to double that answer.
90*2=180
Remember those 2 zeros we dropped? Let's add those back on.
180+double zeros on the end=18000, or 18,000 when typed out properly.

If my lawyer takes 60 hours, he's gonna charge me $27,000. How do we know? We did that same formula above, except instead of halving step 2, we are cutting it into thirds. Then instead of doubling that 90, we triple it. Still look to big? Drop the zero on the answer at step 3, leaving you with 3*9, which for some reason is easier for some people than 3*90. But since we dropped that extra zero, we need to add it back with the 2 we dropped earlier.

See? Easy. I'm actually gonna make a board with match shortcuts that I use, and with some practice, you an be a human calculator as well!

Just for fun, while I'm thinking of it, here's another quick math tip for you: percentages are reversable. ALL OF THEM. Try 9% of 50. 4.5 is the answer. But its easier to do it backward. What's 50%, or half, of 9? 4.5. And if you wanna double check your math, multiply them. What's 9*5? 45. But since it's a percentage, we need to divide it by 10. Move the decimal to the left one digit. 4.5.

See? Easy!

You're welcome.

8
General Discussion / Re: Let's talk, shall we?
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/17/22, 2022, 11:15:30 AM »
Oh yea, I forgot... Nadi and I also stream on Twitch. Sometimes on Youtube and/ or Facebook as well. Those links will also be added to the menu here at the top of the site. Feel free to subscribe to our Youtube channel, which hasn't been up for long, join the 2,000 followers on our twitch page, and like our Facebook pages. We each have our own Facebook pages as well as one for our twitch page.
Since we have so many links to our social media platforms, Nadi's personal website and our business websites where you can look at and purchase the beadwork we do and see some of the websites and mobile apps we have developed. Our web development site is currently being overhauled, so there's nothing more than a landing page, but I am working on recoding it, so it should be up and running before too long. I will also post links to some of the streaming platforms where you can listen to my single (Angelic Boots, Demonic Guns) and my first album (Orbital) as well as my second full album, scheduled to be released by the end of November. Some very chill instrumental music on the single and first album. My next album is going to be a little harder, but will also have a few chill songs on it. No lyrics in any of my music, so it's appropriate for all ages. I might get that post made before I try to get some rest. if I can't sleep, I'll get that done this morning. If I can fall asleep, I'll get that post made when I wake up and have either a Red Bull or 2 or some coffee. Fair enough?
Ok, that's it for now. Stay tuned for updates, and feel free to check out the premium memberships and check out what sort of privileges you can get. I promise you that the prices I set are fair. It's not gonna break your bank account!
Thanks again, folks. Take care!

With love and respect,
~Ziggy
9
General Discussion / Let's talk, shall we?
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/17/22, 2022, 11:01:13 AM »
So the site has been down for several months due to a ton of shit going on in Nady and i's lives. As you guys who have known us for a while know that we lost our home when our aunt and uncle, who we have been taking care of for the past 9 years, passed away in January of 2020. So we moved in with my mother, who loves it when Nadi and I live with her. My mom is 74 and feels safer when we are here. This town is getting dangerous, and her garage and storage shed have both been broken into as well as stuff stolen off the back porch. Luckily, the actual house hasn't been broken into, but that person or people who got into the garage could have just opened a door that goes right into the kitchen, which is never locked. I bought her new garage doors a few years ago, so it is quite a bit harder to get into. She has also fallen a couple of times, with once not able to get back up. Fortunately, Nadi came over to her house (we were living out near my aunt and uncle's place at the time), found her laying in the hallway and were able to get her up. She had been laying there for about an hour. She didn't get hurt, but still... she easily could have. So when we were kicked out of our house out in the country, which was right next door to mu aunt and uncle's house where their son lived before he died in February of 2018, we asked my mom if we could move back in with her, which she was more than happy to allow us to do so. We lived with her after my divorce from my second wife (my first wife was killed in a car crash back in 1998) because I lost everything in that divorce. I wanted out of that relationship so fucking fast that I told her she could have everything (including the house that I had just dropped a downpayment of 20 grand on). So when that happened, I asked my mom if I could live with her until I had enough money to either rent an apartment or buy a house. After a few short months, I had enough cash to put down a decent downpayment on a place due to having my store where I sold mainly gold and silver bullion, along with some other things like knives, musical instruments, and all sorts of other stuff. But my main income was from buying and selling gold and silver.
Anyway, once I got enough dough saved up, I told my mom that I was gonna go put a downpayment on a place that I had found and she asked me to stay with her due to her feeling safer with me here. This house is plenty big enough for all of us to lie comfortably, so of course I decided to stay with her and just give her some money every month to help with the bills. The house is completely paid for, so there's no payments there, and all of our vehicles are paid for, so we only have to pay the normal bills every month. You know... water, electricity, gas, TV streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Disney, ESPN, Peacock, HBO, and Apple TV), the cell phones, the landline phones and house and car insurance. So that's all we have coming out of our pocket these days.
So the reason we were kicked out of our house out in the country is because my uncle's will didn't get updated. He originally had it set to leave 25% to each of his 2 siblings and the 2 siblings of my aunt who were still alive, which of course is my mom and her brother, who is a complete dick, has his hand out, never does anything that doesn't benefit him, and is just an absolute piece of shit. Hell, he even called the very same day my uncle died (my aunt passed away just 12 days before my uncle) asking how much things were worth, like my uncle's impressive collection of classic cars, which was about 20 vehicles, and that's just the classics, not counting the 2 SUVs and the rest of the daily driver cars. Jesus Christ... who has that much greed that they don't even give anyone time to mourn before trying to figure out how much money is going to fall into his grubby fucking hands? What a goddamn loser.
Now, the will was meant to be amended to leave Nadi and I the whole 10 acres which had 3 livable houses and another that is just used for storage as well as a pair of 6 car garages, a 4 car garage, a 1 car garage, and 3 carports. He was also going to leave his younger sister a very nice 1937 Pontiac, leave me and Nadi each a Ford Edsel, and leave me a 1964 Barracuda. But the amendment wasn't made official before my aunt and uncle died, so Nadi and I receive nothing. I couldn't give a rat's ass about inheriting anything. But what pisses me off is that nobody else cares about Nadi and I and all they care about is getting a bunch of money, which about 400 grand has been paid out so far, giving each of the heirs 100 grand each. My mom, at least, feels bad enough to give Nadi and I 30% of hers, which of course comes out to 30 grand, which is partly what got Nadi back on our feet. So at least we are sitting in a good place financially. With part of what my mom gave me, I was able to purchase a new computer after my old one caught a power surge which completely destroyed it. Since most of our income coming from developing and designing websites, mobile apps, logos, and branding, it's hard to get anything in the bank without the one and only thing I need to make those things come together. And I mean... we do it all for online marketing. Not only what I listed there, but we also sell domains, hosting, business-class email, SSL certificates, social media integration, and pretty much every other type of online marketing you can think of.
So now that I have a new computer, I am back to work and have around 7 websites to put together. So we're in good shape for the most part now. The only issue we have now is the fact that when we moved, I had to leave my '64 Barracuda (which I had to buy from the estate), and my 3 motors that I had stored in my uncle's garage with his permission and couldn't bring them with us when we moved, but was making room for them at my mom's place. The new owners guaranteed me that I could leave them out there for as long as I needed, seeings how they had enough garages to store 16 vehicles, which of course they don't own anywhere that many, as well as leave my car out there. A few weeks later, just out of the blue and without any notification, Nadi noticed that my motors had been listed on Facebook for sale by that broad who her and her husband who bought the property. Then I asked about the car, which the husband said "No, you can't come get it, and I've already started the paperwork to get a title for it", which of course I have already. So that broad told us "you can come get it if you pay for storage. She wanted me to pay $40 A DAY to store the car, $15 A DAY for the motors, and $15 A DAY for a small utility trailer that is sitting outside. Now, when she made that so called "offer" to get my stuff back, it had been out there for 60 days, So yea... she wants $70 a fucking day total for storage. Like I'm gonna write that bitch a check for $4200 to get my stuff back.
So now we are taking her and her husband to court. With a little luck, he will come up with a verdict in my favor. If that happens, I just have to hope those fuckers didn't damage my car or those motors that my uncle, stepfather, and I had restored 30 years ago (almost to the day) and have a shitload of sentimental value, seeing's how both my stepfather and uncle are gone now. Goddamn, people are just pieces of fucking shit these days.
And this is why I refuse to let money control my life. Money means absolutely nothing to me. Whenever there's some money sitting in the bank, I ALWAYS send it to people who need it. To me, it makes no sense seeing money sit in a bank account doing absolutely nothing when there are people who have nothing to eat and nowhere to live. So I take that idle money so at least a few people can have some food and a roof over their head, at least for a while until they can get back on their feet. I guess I really should leave a couple grand in the bank just in case something happens where I need some cash to resolve. You know... like a computer dying on me, leaving me with no way to make money. I have that little safety nest now so I never have to be in the absolutely humiliating situation where I have to ask someone for help again. Goddamn, that was embarrassing when I had to do that earlier this year. Never before in my life have I had to ask for help. I hope I never have to do that again, and I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure I never have to.
Ok, moving on. When the estate got to work, I was able to not only save the Barracuda, which is now in jeopardy, but I was also able to buy a super nice, near mint 1986 Chrysler Town and Country Lebaron woodie wagon for Nadi for next to nothing. Paid a grand for it. Got lucky on that one. Here's a funny story for ya: the worthless trustee claimed she had a professional appraiser go out there to put prices on all of the vehicles. I call bullshit, seeing's how that Chrysler books at $6500 due to it's amazing condition. But somehow a Honda wagon that my cousin used to drive, which the paint is in horrid shape, the interior isn't in all that great of shape, and it doesn't even fucking run right appraised at $1500. Another reason I call bullshit is due to the fact that there were prices on 2 1941 Chryslers. That's a neat trick, considering there's only 1 out there. But there were 2 titles, one of which went to a scrap 1941 Chrysler that my uncle sold about 15 years ago, along with about a half dozen other scrap cars because the neighbor bitched about them destroying her view. So yea... I'm pretty sure that she just had some dipshit look at the stack of titles and chuck a guess on them all.
This trustee needs to find a different profession. She hired some people to do the estate sale out there. She paid them 45 fucking percent to do it. What the actual fuck????? I talked with some other people who have done estate sales, and they all said that was absolutely unheard of and ridiculous. I mean, I talked to several people who do estate sales. Most of them get between 7 and 12% of the proceeds. There's no fucking reason why this useless broad hired someone who takes nearly half of the proceeds. MAYBE if that group of people who ran that sale set up everything on their own, but even then, thats super steep. But they didn't even set it up all themselves. There were other people who were hired to move stuff from the other houses to the main one and organize the garage, which was absolutely PACKED with antique stereos, car parts, and musical instruments. Plus, that "trustee" paid those people $30 an hour to do it! And of course those people took their sweet-ass time going through that stuff.
To top all this off, they ran 2 different sales out there. At the end of the first one, the trustee sent out an email to the beneficiaries and said "they sold everything!". I was like, "I bet whatever was left on the last day was all sold off for next to nothing." This was obviously true, seeing's how at the end of the second I was out there, and the bitch running the sale said "Hey, Ziggy, make me an offer on all the stuff that's left". So I said "how about a hundred bucks?" She couldn't say "yes" any faster. Shit, if I would have said "$10", she would have probably jumped on it just so she could make a whole extra four and half bucks. So for a hundred bucks, I was able to bring home more than $2000 worth of stuff. Makes you wonder how much stuff she practically gave away from the first one, which was fucking retarded. Why not just leave it there and put it on the second sale? Because they wanted to make sure they could squeeze as much as they could out of the first one just in case the trustee didn't hire them to do the second one. But why wouldn't the trustee hire them again? There's no way she didn't get a kick-back out of that 45% those goddamn bitches who ran the sale got. This fucking trustee needs to be investigates, I swear. She's gotta be getting kickbacks from the people she hired to do the sale as well as those people she paid $30/ hour to go through that garage and throw away the trash. Oh yea, and they supposedly only threw away cash. Bullshit. There was a lot of stuff that I know was in the garage that didn't make it to the sale. So one of 2 things happened: either those people stole that stuff, which was worth a pretty penny, or they are so fucking retarded that they threw that valuable stuff away. I'm gonna go with the first one, considering I had a $400 winch hanging from one of the I-beams in the main garage that magically disappeared. "I watched those guys out there when they were cleaning, and I watched those people who came to get the cars for auction", said the trustee. Yea? Then where did my fucking winch go? Did that steel evaporate or melt or something? OK, you fucking bitch. Whatever you say.
Speaking of those classic cars, that greedy ass I talked about above DEMANDED that the trustee send them all to fucking Arizona to be sold off. That auction was fucking useless. Those cars were practically given away. None of them sold for anywhere near what they should have. One thing that really pisses me off is how they handled that 1937 Pontiac. That thing had sentimental meaning my my uncle's niece. The whole reason my uncle bought that car was because he and his older sister both learned how to drive in a car identical to that one. So his niece offered the trustee 11 grand for it, which the trustee turned down because that useless appraiser set the price on it of 11.5. So because the offer was 500 bucks short, that fucker who I refuse to call my uncle told the trustee to refuse the offer. So what do they do? They send it to auction, where it sold for a mere $7500. Why the fuck didn't they put a reserve on it for 11 grand????? I mean, there was that offer on the table. If it didn't reach that bid at auction, why not just sell it to my uncle's niece for 11 large? Yea... this shit all makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Now, typically when there's an auction for vehicles, the auctioneer or the company that sells them gets 3%. Guess what these guys got. 35%!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK???????????? Tell me that the trustee didn't get a kickback from that.
Goddamn, this estate is being handled horribly. My mom, Nadi, and I wanted to buy one of the 2 five acre lots. The one with the nice 3 bedroom mobile home, which looks like a double wide, but it's not. It's the largest single wide you could get at the time. They don't even make them that big anymore because they're too big to haul. The side we were gonna buy has 2 of the 3 houses on it, a pair of 6-car garages, and a 3-car carport as well as a nice storage shed. Since the supposed appraisers who priced those properties put it at 122 grand, we told the trustee that if there was enough cash coming from the estate, we wanted to purchase that 5 acre piece. For more than a year and a half, that trustee told us there would be plenty of money there to buy it. That would have been perfect for us. Then we could have sold mom's house in town, which will easily bring 115 grand or more. That's one reason why I left my stuff out there, which I was told I could do seeing's how were getting the place. But magically, a couple months we got the bombshell dropped that we couldn't get it and had to get all of our stuff out of there, which was quite a bit since we bought what was left of the stuff from the sale. So now this house we live in now is jam-packed with stuff. All 3 bedrooms are filled, wall to wall. Nadi and I stay in the sunroom that was added onto the house several years ago, and my mom has to sleep on the couch. Although she was doing that long before we moved back in with her. I swear, my mom lives like a teen-ager. Hell, when I first moved in with her after my divorce, the kitchen was disgusting. Dirty dishes everywhere. That kitchen was infested with cockroaches. It took me a few weeks to get them goddamn things out of there and get the house cleaned up.
Anyway, yea... so all the bedrooms are full, as well is the 2 car attached garage. We're going through stuff to get rid of what we can and get moved back into the house rather than sleeping in the sunroom and having my new computer set up out here, which takes up a ton of room with my three 43 inch monitors hooked up to it.
Oh yea... and then I made the mistake of going to a storage locker auction, where I picked up 4 lockers for a pretty good price. We scored on one of them. I'm pretty sure it was stuff that came from a store. There were some silver coins in there, some old coins, and then the amazing find: more than 100 brand new Invicta watches! So for $450, we found roughly 7 grand worth of watches. Not too shabby, huh? We're gonna sell most of them, but we're also giving away a handful of them. There's a giveaway going on right here on the site, as a matter of fact, as well as one on TikTok, which you can find the link to at the top of the site. The giveaway on TikTok is open to everyone, and will offer one of a handful of watches to choose from, each worth $50-$60. The ones you can choose from on the giveaway on this site are worth quite a bit more at $100 or more. The giveaway here is available to gold or higher members. The drawing will happen once there are 50 entries. You don't have to be a gold member or higher when the drawing happens. You just have to be in order to have your name entered. Details are in the gold area of the site. So yea... that was a hell of a fucking find. There's some boxes that we haven't even opened from those lockers yet, either. Who knows what else is in them. Maybe some more watches, knives, jewelry, more silver and/ or gold, and other stuff that you might find in a little store. That's gotta be what it was. Why else would you have that many watches? Not to mention that some of them had prices on them. So that was an exciting day, for sure.
Moving on. Since my mom inherited 70 grand after she gave Nadi and I 30% of that 100 grand, she decided she wanted a new car. Not brand new, but new to her. So after some looking, she found a 2020 Ford Fusion that is im immaculate condition. An it has every option you can think of. Heated seats, Sirius/ XM radio, backup camera, blind spot notifications, and a sunroof, which is something she always wanted to have. The dealership was asking $23,600 for it. Well, mom wanted to stay right around the 20k range. Now, we all now that you can always bring the sticker price down some. So what I did was walk into the dealership while mom and the salesgirl were negotiating. Then I bluffed the salesgirl with this line" OK, lady, we found a 2019 Ford Taurus at another dealership, which I offered $21,500 for, and he's accepting our offer. So here's the deal... we're gonna buy a car today for $21,000. You get to decide where we buy a car from." Immediately, that lady says " Oh, there's no way I can come down that far." So I said "Alright. Well, then there's no need for us to keep talking. We're buying a car for $21,500 today. Cash money. No loans or anything. So there's no need to waste your time or ours." Then we got up and started walking out. You could see the disappointment on mom's face. She really liked that Fusion. I whispered to mom "Don't worry. We're not even gonna make it to the door." Now, most buyers would have stopped before they got to the door and say something like "would you take $22,500" or whatever, and then the negotiating would begin. But once she realized that we weren't going to do that, she runs over and says " Would you do $21,900?" To which I replied with "I'm, sorry, ma'am. Like I said, there's another car at another dealership that my mom will be perfectly happy with for $21,500. Why would we pay $400 extra for a car when my mom would be perfectly happy with that Taurus?" Without hesitation, the sales lady says "Alright. I can sell it for $21,500". So we sat down, did the paperwork, and my mom write a check. Since I saved my mom $21,000, she told me that I could buy her old car, which is a 2006 Ford 500 for only $1,000. So I obviously bought it from her. So that car will be Nadi and I's daily driver. That way Nadi doesn't have to put extra miles on her Chrysler, and I don't have to drive my truck more than I have to, which gets a whole whopping 10 miles per gallon. I get super excited if my truck gets 11+ MPG. I really put new spark plugs in it and flush my tranny. I bet that would improve my mileage. Considering my truck had EXACTLY 130k miles (and I mead EXACTLY 130,000.0), and now it has somewhere between 152,000 and 153,000 on it, and it's probably never had its plugs and points replaced and I bet the tranny hasn't been serviced, which should be done at 10,000 miles. When my mom bought that Ford 500 3 years ago or so, she only paid $5k for it, so with the money I saved her on her new car and the $1k I gave her for it, she basically sold it for $3,100. Not bad. That car has about 100K miles on it and runs pretty good. I have to replace a sensor on it. It sort of hesitates at low speed, but once you hit 15 MPH or so, she runs just fine. My mom did bump into someone when she was backing, but didn't cause much damage. And then one time, she somehow hit one of those steel guards they put next to gas pumps, putting a little dent in the pack passenger door. I have no fucking clue how she managed that. Other than those minor damaged spots and a little hail damage, the car is in great shape. I'm gonna take it to a body shop and have those 2 dents fixed, and maybe the hail damage dents, if they don't cost too much. And I just recently purchased the $450 Diagon Alley set. I should have bought it a few weeks ago when Nadi told me to buy it. At that time, it was priced at $400. But I was tired, so I went to bed, planning to buy it the next day. But when I went back to the Lego site, they were sold out. So I signed up for email notifications when they got it back in stock. But I went to the Lego site nearly every day anyway to see if they got it back in stock. While they were out of stock, the price jumped $50. But on a side note, I also bought the big Hedwig set, which cost me $250. Shortly after I bought it, it went up to $300, so I guess the $50 I saved on that offset the price of Diagon Alley.
Anyway, I bought the Diagon Alley set right when they got it back in stock. I can't remember if I checked it the next day or 2 days after I bought it, but it was again out of stock when I checked and said it was temporarily out of stock again. And they don't have a date of when they will have it back in. Sometimes when they run out of a set, they allow people to backorder it so that when they get them back in stock, they send it to you right away. But they didn't do that with Diagon Alley! They will probably have them in stock in the future again. If they don't plan on releasing them, it'll say "Sold Out" rather than "Temporarily out of stock" or even just "Out of stock". It was fun to put together and is an amazing looking model. So I'm glad I broke down and bought it.
Ok, moving on further. As some of you might know, I was a bull rider back in the early to mid 2000's. I broke 57 bones in that ride. My face got pretty fucked up, which is why I try to keep my face either off the camera or wear a mask when we stream or make TikTok videos. I still have some cosmetic surgeries coming, but those are kind of on the back burner for the moment. I have a knee that has had 4 surgeries on and it still causes a lot of pain. I have to take 40MG of Percocet "Oxycodone", per day, as well as 15MG of morphine at bedtime just keep the pain under control. Considering that Oxycodone is morphine based, that's a lot of painkillers a day. Every milligram of Oxycodone is equivalent to 1.5MG of morphine. So basically, I take 75MG total of morphine per day to keep my the pain in my knee and back (where I have 2 vertebrae fused together) within a bearable level. But even with all those painkillers , there are times that the pain completely incapacities me. So I have another surgery coming on my knee, hopefully in the near future. I also did something to my shoulder a few weeks ago. Maybe I tore a rotator cuff. I had X-rays done, but those didn't show any damage. So I have to have an MRI done to see if my surgeon can find anything wrong. I refuse to do anything with my back, even though it causes pain quite often. The damage that was done is close to the spinal cord, and there's a fairly good chance that it could damage the spinal cord enough to paralyze me from the waste down. Even though the fusion is down low enough that if the surgery goes bad, it won't paralyze my arms, I still don't wanna take the gamble of losing use of my legs. Plus, I'd have to wear a diaper for the rest of my life. Fuck that. I was already told I'd never walk again... twice. Once when I broke my back, and once when I broke my neck. But the spinal cord wasn't severed. There was enough hemorrhaging that my spinal cord couldn't talk to my legs. Usually when that happens, people can't use their legs for several weeks, and that same thing happened to me. What normally happens is that people's legs don't work when they try to move them, so they just give up trying. This causes the spinal cord to atrophy out where the damage happened. But since there was a very small chance that I'd get the use of my legs back, I refused to give up. After a few weeks. a couple of muscles in my legs would twitch when I tried to move them. Shortly after that, I could wiggle my toes. So I just kept trying to move my legs, and after several months of trying to move my legs and intense physical therapy, I was able to walk again. I rely on a super beefy, custom made knee brace a lot of times, use a cane when I need to, and walk with a limp, at least I can walk. I try not to use a cane or my knee brace unless I absolutely HAVE to. I wanna keep my knee as strong as possible so I don't have to rely on either pieces of equipment. I also started wearing a back brace once in a while when I need to. Fortunately, using my back brace is rare, so that's good.
So now you're all caught up for the most part.  If anyone has questions, feel free to asl me and/ or Nadi. We are both open books for the most part. Of course there a few things that we keep private, but not much. A couple of the things I like to educate people on are epilepsy and autism, which I have both of. So if you have questions on those topics, please ask and we will do our best to answer them.
And finally, this post is viewable by everyone simply because it informs everyone about my wife and I so you can get to know us a little. But in the future, my daily blogs (which I will try to post every day, but there will probably be days that I won't have time to get on the site to tell you what happened that day. But reading those posts is only available to those who subscribe to the premium memberships at bronze level, which will lower your checking or PayPal account by $1.49/ month or $10.99/ year. Higher and lower level memberships offer different privileges on the site, which you can check out by clicking the "Premium Membership" link at the top of the site. Signing up for one of those memberships helps offset the costs of maintaining and hosting this site, and might even take Nadi and I out for dinner or a movie once in a while, and those memberships are HIGHLY appreciated.
Now, then. Since this is an UBER long post that very few people will read, there's a reward for the first 10 people who made it all the way through. The first 10 people who get all the way through this post are going to be rewarded with a free 3 month top-tier membership. All you have to do is use the on-site messaging system or on my Facebook page and let me know that you read the whole thing. But this is only available for the first 10 people.
Once those 10 rewards have been handed out, I will update this post to let everyone know that they have been filled. Don't forget that the top 2 tiers offer giveaways exclusive to those tiers. Although gold members will have giveaways they can enter, the platinum members have their own exclusive rewards, which are better than the gold members. And platinum members can also enter the gold level giveaways. The higher the tier, the more privileges! I also have a grip of my mashups and remixes uploaded to the site with a nice playlist on them so you can listen to some neat stuff. I have almost 70 of them uploaded and ready to listen to at the moment, but according to the folder on my computer where I saved them all over the past few years since I started doing them, there's a grand total of 183, and most of them will be uploaded to the site in the near future. There's a few that didn't turn out as well as I had hoped so those won't be uploaded, but there's probably 50 or more that I'm happy with that I will be uploading. I also post teasers on my TikTok page that you can check out and help you decide if you think it's worth subscribing to this near little site (as least I think it's neat), which helps me offset the costs of it, helps me purchase more and better editing programs, helps me buy Legos, allows me to take Nadi to a movie, out to dinner, or buy her something nice. It also allows me to donate money to charities and people in need. Same goes for the PayPal link at the top of the website.
And I should relay this information as well: I have set up a CashApp account for those who wish to toss a little coin my way can do so. And if you like, you can use CashApp to sign up for a premium membership to the site. All you have to do is send the equivalent amount as you see on the site, and then message me either here on the site, message me on my facebook page (link in the menu), or leave a note when sending the dough to my CashApp (which is $blameziggy, by the way). No matter how you do it, I think I have to change your account manually. For some reason, the newest PHP update has fucked with my code. So until I find a workaround, I don't think the site is automatically changing your account level. So no matter how you pay for your premium membership, if you don't see your account change (which you can find on your profile), message me so I can change it for you. I should see your payment on my phone, tho, since I have CashApp and PayPal set up on my phone, but just in case I overlook it, please do message me here or on Facebook.
Alright, kids. I think we're mostly caught up, at least for now. But remember that my daily blog, unless something MAJOR happens in our lives, will be posted in a hidden thread available for Bronze members and up. So feel free to check out the premium subscriptions link in the top menu to see what each level unlocks, and if you think it's worth it, please sign up! But remember that the first 10 people who catch the message in this thread get free memberships for 3 months to the top tier so you can listen to my music, see the daily blogs, get into my personal discord server, and many more privileges.
And feel free to follow me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and wherever I have an online presence. I will try to get those links added to the menu here in a minute, but I haven't slept in almost 24 hours, so my brain may not work well enough for me to code them in. If I have too many problems getting them added this morning, I'll do it after I get a little sleep. So they will be added one way or another today. Just don't know when.
So thanks to those who took the time to read this giant post. We appreciate each and every one of you who helped Nadi out during this rough time while we attempted to recover from this devastating blow, which I will get into more detail later on. I'm sure I'll get worked up about a couple of the beneficiaries and rant like I'm on crack (which I'm not). We appreciate all the support, and not just financial support. The mental and emotional support really helped us get through these difficult times as well.
We love you all! Hey, if people can hate others right out the gate for no reason, why can't the same happen with love?
And with that, I'm gonna try and get those links added and then maybe try to get some sleep.
Y'all take care, and if there's anything we can do for you, never hesitate to reach out to either of us. We always have an ear to bend. We can chat via Discord, here on this site, on Facebook, or wherever you like. I will even give you my phone number (which you can find on the landing page, actually), and call any time. I have nothing resembling a sleep schedule, so there's no bad time to call. If you call while I'm sleeping, my phone won't wake me up, so don't worry about that. Once I wake up and see that I missed a call or text, I'll get right back to you.
Thanks one last time. I can't express how much Nadi and I appreciate, care about, and love you guys. Y'all mean so much to us. Truly... you do.

With respect and love,
~Ziggy
10
General Discussion / Good news, Boys and Girls!
« Last post by Ziggy on October 10/15/22, 2022, 10:48:56 PM »
Good news, boys and girls! My lack of computer problem has been resolved, I have completed a couple of websites, gotten paid for them, and Nadi and I are now once again perfectly financially and then some.
That said, I am absolutely no longer asking for help with funds. However, my music-making habit is rather expensive. Buying programs and gear to edit music for mashups and remixes sort of hurts the bank account. Releasing my original music isn't exactly cheap, either. I have agent fees, copyright fees, distribution fees, taxes, and you know... all that other shit that comes along with publishing your own music. Although I do get a little revenue from the platforms that my music is streamed on and if someone purchases a song or the entire album that I released a couple years ago, it doesn't add up to much. I mean, I've been paid $14 over the past 2 years from all of the streaming platforms and the one sale of my album on iTunes, which a buddy of mine purchased.
Ok... so this doesn't mean that if y'all wanna support my habit I won't humbly accept it, but even if I don't get a nickel from people, I'm not going to stop making mashups and remixes. Nor will I stop making and distributing original music. Support from people simply helps offset the costs of music making, composing, and producting.
In closing, I would like to thank all those who helped me and my wife, Nadi, get back on our feet after the devastating blows that we got hit with over the past couple of years. If it weren't for you guys helping us out not only financially, but morally and emotionally, I'm not sure we would have made it. You guys are all amazing, and I love you all.
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