Recently I noticed my bathroom sink was not draining well, as water started to back up into the sink while it was running. I decided to research solutions on how to fix it without having to call a plumber. There are many suggestions out there on ways to fix it. Using this information, I was able to clear the drain, so I thought I would share the experience here to help others who may have the same issue.
First I took an unfolded wire hanger and fished it down the drain to see if I could knock anything loose. It did get a lot of gunk on it so I could tell there was probably some build up around that area of the pipes.
Next, I looked underneath and found the drain pipe. It has a curved section known as a “p-trap” and this part can unscrew to take it off. I decided to try this to see if there clog was in this section.
First I put a bucket underneath and then started unscrewing the p-trap. It was a little hard to do, but I managed to unscrew it. As it came off, some water came out as expected, as well as a lot of gunk. Sure enough this is where there was a clog. Years of toothpaste and soap residue can really build up over time inside the pipes. It does smell pretty bad so be prepared for that.
I started cleaning out the pipe with the wire hanger and some paper towels. I cleaned the section attached to the sink as well as the pipe attached to the wall. I also cleaned out the p-trap pipe. Overall it was not too hard, just messy, so you will probably want to have rubber gloves and plenty of paper towels or rags.
I also ran the water a bit to clear out any loose material while the pipe was off so it would just go into the bucket instead of into the drain again.
Once clear, I put it back together and tested it out. The drain worked perfectly and the clog was clear! I think this is a project most people can do so if your bathroom sink is clogged, I recommend trying this method to clear it before calling for a plumber.
Today I was at a gas station filling up my car when I hear the person on the other side of the pump asking a guy for a couple dollars for gas. The guy was reluctantly starting to help him and was going to use his credit card. In the middle of the transaction he must have changed his mind because then I heard the first guy say, “It's ok, I'll ask someone else.”
Me being the next closest person, I was thinking oh great, I'm next. Sure enough the guy comes over and asks for a couple dollars. He gives a story about how his card got declined and he was from out of town. He even said he would pay me back, which is ridiculous. I'm not sure why he even said that.
I was in the mood to help someone out and I figured if he is at the point where he is begging for a couple dollars at a gas station, he must be in pretty bad shape. So I gave him a few dollars. He went inside the store and I finished pumping the gas for my car.
I got in the car and stayed there for a few minutes just trying to process the situation and keep an eye on their car. A minute later they drive off and did not even fuel up the car! So at that moment, I figured I just got scammed. He probably just went in to buy something else or just faked it and drove off to run the same scam again.
My takeaway from this is that I probably will not be giving out money like this again because it is most likely a scam. It's unfortunate it happened, but for learning a lesson that only costed a few bucks, it's not that bad.
I wanted to share this story to let other people out there know about this potential scam so it does not happen to you.
One of the great things about the internet is the ability for people to connect with others and share their opinions. You can learn what other people think and you can share what you think about pretty much anything from products to businesses to politics.
While this is a great resource, it can also be very harmful when people post false or inaccurate information. When you read reviews online, you assume true and you hope they can be trusted, but unfortunately this is not the case.
This applies to both good reviews and bad reviews. For example a product may have a lot of good reviews, but it is possible the reviews are fake and have been written just to make a product look good. On the other hand, someone might have a bad experience that has nothing to do with the quality of a product and they leave a bad review for it which makes the product look bad for no reason.
The same goes for businesses, someone may have been upset about something and then they take it out on a business. You never know if what they are saying is true or if they are just trying to make a company look bad. I have seen examples of this first hand where people have written things about a business that are not true, just to try to make it look bad.
So what is the solution? Often review sites such as Google and Yelp will have a way to report a review if there is an issue. The problem is, there is no guarantee anything will be done about it. For example I have reported reviews from time to time for various reasons such as spam or false information and the reviews did not get removed.
This is a problem because when people post reviews that have false information, it can be damaging to a brand or company. When people read these reviews, they assume they are true and this affects their view of what they are reading about.
Review sites need to be more strict about content that is being posted. I know they probably can't moderate every review manually, but there should at least be a better way to report bad information so it can be removed.
We like to think that we can trust the reviews we read online, but unfortunately many of them cannot be trusted, so everyone has to keep this in mind whenever they are reading a review about anything. It may not be as good as the reviews make it out to be, and it may not be as bad as the reviews make it out to be either.
Over the years I have seen a good amount of movies and so I decided to make a list of all my favorites. Then I reviewed the list and narrowed it down to my top 5 movies off all time. These are movies you can watch over and over and they are always good and hold up over time. Of course everyone's opinions are different but if I had to recommend the best movies to watch it would be these here:
1. Little Miss Sunshine This is a movie about a dysfunctional family trying to drive across the country so that the young daughter can compete in a beauty pageant. The acting is great, as is the relationship between the characters. It's one of those movies that has a good mix of heart felt drama mixed with unexpected comedy. It's a feel good movie that I think everyone will enjoy!
2. Point Break (1991) This one is about a couple law enforcement agents trying to track down a group of serial bank robbers who they believe to be part of a local surf gang. The main character goes undercover as a surfer and tries to infiltrate their group. The movie has a lot of action and suspense as they try to catch these guys who have gotten away with so many robberies.
3. Back To The Future (1,2 and 3) I would guess most people know of this movie series and have probably seen it, but if you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for? You have some amazing movies to see! For those who haven't seen it, its a time travel movie where a guy goes to different times and his actions may have a big effect on what happens in the present day timeline. It's a classic for good reason.
4. Leon The Professional This one does have some controversy due to some of the themes in the movie especially in the extended cut, but regardless, I would consider it one of the best movies. It is about a hitman who reluctantly takes in a young girl after she loses her family. The girl wants to work with him and train to be like him so she can get revenge on those who killed her brother. Its an exciting film with a lot of action and some very memorable acting.
5. Dumb and Dumber Rounding out the list is my favorite comedy of all time Dumb and Dumber. Its a funny movie that still holds up after all these years. You can watch it many times and keep finding new jokes you might have missed the first time. The premise is a couple of guys who are trying to return an important briefcase to a woman who left it at an airport. The movie follows everything that happens along the way as they try to return the case.
Hopefully you will enjoy these movies as much as I have. Feel free to comment below about these movies or others that may be on your list.
Twitter seems to be continuously getting worse over the years. It used to be you could follow people you were interested in and see the tweets they wrote. Now it seems like most of the content in the feed is either advertisements or content you don't want.
Instead of seeing actual tweets, the feed is flooded with things like “so and so follows...”, or “so and so liked...” I followed these people to see what they are tweeting, not to see what tweets they liked and which people they follow.
Also they are now just throwing in random tweets from random categories. This is essentially junk mail in Twitter form. I know they are just trying to get you to follow more accounts, but at very least this kind of feature should have the option to be turned off.
I go into the settings and they have sections for “Topics” and “Interests”. They sign you up for these categories supposedly based on your activity, but I have found tons of “topics” and “interests” in there that I have no interest in nor have I even heard of them.
And they don't make it easy to get rid of this stuff. In the feed you can manually delete each one, one by one. In the settings you can go through and manually try to delete the things you are not interested in but all of this is very time consuming and annoying to do especially when we never signed up for these things to begin with.
I have an account just to follow the people who are interesting, but at this rate, I find myself wanting to check the feed less and less. I would not be surprised if other people feel the same way and are starting to leave the platform as well. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any thoughts on this issue.
I was watching the latest Dave Chappelle stand up special “The Closer” and as a fan of his work I enjoyed the special as expected. There was a part of towards the end which I found to be particularly profound. Dave was talking about a conversation he was having at a show one night with a transgender friend of his named Daphne Dorman. He mentioned about how he didn't understand her and what she said was very moving. She said “I don't need you to understand me. I just need you to believe that I'm having a human experience.”
It is a pretty powerful statement and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to apply to life in general. It can apply to some of the deepest questions such as what is the purpose of life, and why are we here? The answer could be simply, to have a human experience.
We are all here on this planet and we have been given the opportunity to live a lifetime here as a human and experience it however we want. Sure, we are all born into different environments and circumstances to begin with, but ultimately it is up to us how we want to live out lives. We choose what we want to do, where we want to go, how we want to behave, how we want to spend our time, who we want to associate with etc.
Everyone is different and gets to make their own decisions about how they want to live their life. This can help understand people who are different. You might see someone do something or act a certain way and not understand it or not see why they would do that. The same person may see you do something or act a certain way that is different from them and wonder the same thing about you.
It's great to be able to understand people, but its not always necessary when you realize that we are all just living our lives and having a human experience. We are all at different points in our lives and have had different experiences up to this point that have shaped who we are. We have this wonderful opportunity to have this experience so be sure to make the most of it!
Its time to announce the best Youtube channels of 2021. This year we have 5 new channels to recommend which have not been featured before in any previous years as well as a couple more channels that have been featured before but they did such a great job this year that they deserve a spot on this list as well. Here are our top picks for the best Youtube channels of the year:
1. Trash Tuesday (Podcast)
Formerly known as Bloodbath, Trash Tuesday is a weekly podcast featuring comedian Annie Lederman, actress/comedian Esther Povitsky, and podcaster Khalyla Kuhn. It is funny and entertaining and the topics are different each week. It is well produced and seems to be growing in popularity as more people discover it. If you enjoy real talk and edgy comedy be sure to check this one out.
2. Katie Carney (Vlog)
Katie Carney is a vlogger who is known for her videos about what it is like to live in a car. She travels around the country and vlogs about the places she visits and also makes videos about how to live in a car. She has a very friendly upbeat personality and it is fun to see what she is up to each week. Here is a video where she and her friend visit an unusual attraction in New York.
3. Cart Narcs (Real Interactions)
Cart Narcs is a channel is a channel run by "Agent" Sebastian who makes it his mission to tackle the problem of people not returning shopping carts. He patrols various grocery store parking lots and confronts people who leave their shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. He films the interactions as he tries to get them to return their cart. Sometimes they comply but most of the time it escalates into a confrontation.
4. Trilogy Media (Scam Investigations)
The guys at Trilogy Media have a goal of tracking down scammers who try to steal money from people on the internet. They follow up on leads and use investigative skills to find the people who are responsible for running and enabling these scams. Often they will travel across the country to confront the scammers and expose what they are doing.
5. Sarah -n- Tuned (Cars)
Sarah from the Sarah -n- Tuned channel makes car related videos that range from working on project cars to reviewing new cars. She is very knowledgeable about cars and does a great job with reviews. She is also very funny and incorporates humor into her videos. In a sea of car review channels, this one stands out as one you should check out if you are into cars.
6. Gas Station Encounters (Surveillance Commentary)
We have featured Gas Station Encounters before but they did a great job this year providing lots of entertaining videos so they definitely deserve a spot on the list. This channel features surveillance video of people trying to steal from gas stations while comedic commentary is added. Usually the thieves are caught and confronted just when they think they are about to get away. The videos are well produced and even feature original songs from time to time.
7. Vlog Creations (Funny / Pranks)
Ross and his friends from Vlog Creations also earned a spot on the list again because of their amazing work this year. No other channel is more consistent than these guys in putting out reliable entertainment every week. They continue to come up with funny creative ideas for videos. You can tell they are having a great time and that feeling comes through in the videos.
Hope you enjoyed this years picks for the best Youtube channels of 2021! Feel free to comment below on your favorite channels of the year.
This is a general blog with articles on just about everything from reviews and advice to lists and stories. Feel free to leave a comment if you like an article or have any feedback to share. Thanks!
