u/bswiz87

I was seeing Lord of the Rings with a live orchestra yesterday in LA, and yes, it was epic. There was a early 20's girl sitting next to me with an older woman, presumably her Mom.

Within the first 30 mins of the movie her phone received some form of notification because the flash for the camera went of in rapid succession three times per notification...it was very distracting. So after the third time it happened my wife squeezed my hand which was code for "handle this please before I do" so I just leaned over and asked her kindly if she could put her phone away to hide the flashing or disable that feature...her response "it isn't"...I was like "it's happened three times, c'mon". She then ignored me.

But there's more... her and her mom start TALKING...not loud but definitely not whispering either. The people in front of us turned around and "shhhhhh" her. So again, wife is squeezing my hand so I lean over "hey, uh, can you please stop talking during the movie?"

Her response? " We're not" so I'm like "ok so I'm <f word> imagining you speaking and these people in front were shushing absolutely nothing?" She looked at me shocked and silent not saying a word .

I have noticed this in generations younger than myself in recent years, I have a teenage step daughter who does the EXACT same thing. What's the deal with this ?? Why deny something that it irrefutable and be so confident when doing so?

Edit: Had my wife been seated where I was she would have been the one to say something and I'd be the one squeezing her hand. Stop looking into this so hard reddit detectives.

Second edit: I think quite a few people are missing my point here because they keep saying "but the mother was equally wrong" etc. I didn't speak to the mother therefore I will never know what her response would have been. I'm pointing out the DENIAL part where younger girl denied even talking in the first place.

For the sake of community rules I'll open with this:

I own a PS5 Pro and really want physical media to remain an option for fellow gamers.

Now, the story: I remember being a Junior in highschool when Halo 2 came out. I had detention that day and there was only like a 15 minute window between when the last bell rang for the final period of class and when detention started. I remember having my plan in place, with my bag ready , sprint the half mile to EB games , hope there isn't a line and sprint back to make it before they closed the door for detention.

I did the thing and made it back (i was actually on the track team, go figure) , there were only a few people in line ahead of me luckily. In detention we had to just sit quietly and not speak for 45 minutes. I remember just placing the halo 2 disc box on my bag and stared at it for that entire time. It is such a core memory...then taking public transportation home especially crossing back into the Bronx to get home and not even taking it out of my bag , guarding that game with my life. (The main hub where I'd end up was a rough neighborhood, one winter, my northface jacket was literally being pulled off of me).

Tldr: removing physical media is inadvertently making current and future kid gamers miss out on the core memories we had as kids and that makes me sad

Edit because some of you either can't read or are master manipulators:

I never said Sony was removing MY memory. That is dumb and impossible. Sigh I'm simply using my story as an example and how I'd hate to see current and future kid gamers be robbed of that.

I can't imagine getting some type of cancer diagnosis and enduring that type of pain. Had a friend who's Dad had esophageal cancer and it was just absolutely awful. I can't imagine going through that level of pain. I feel like if you have a terminal illness, you should be able to work with your doctor/healthcare and have the ability to choose to leave life.

I brought my old phone into the Verizon store near me since I was passing by. My phone that I have to trade in over the course of 30 days is a Samsung Z-Fold 6. It has a cracked screen (that actually happened the week I upgraded to the new phone Go figure).

I just popped in without an appointment so I can ask a quick question if this inner cracked screen on my fold would affect the trade-in value because I'm currently getting $25 off a month totaling out to $900 off over the course of 3 years.

Verizon employee: "nope you are good to go Verizon will take the phone as is any condition!"

Me: "okay great That's awesome because otherwise I was going to have to drive over an hour to a Samsung store to get the screen fixed before trading it in"

Something wasn't right and my gut was telling me just to double check, to trust but verify. So I called Verizon customer service. Customer service said that it would be tough to determine what my trade-in value would be without having the phone right in front of them but cracked screens can definitely affect how much trade-in value you would get especially on a fold since the inner screen is the whole purpose of that phone.

Needless to say I drove to an in-person Samsung store to drop off my phone to get repaired luckily I have 2 months left of Samsung care + and It's going to be like a $29 repair or something like that. But what the heck!? Why can't employees just say either "you know what I don't know but let me go check for you do you mind waiting x minutes " or maybe she was genuinely misinformed who knows.

Trust your gut , people.

I don't even have the bandwidth to explain every detail, just, wow. I cannot believe that in 2026 Verizon makes it THIS difficult to activate a new device at home.

"We send the new code to your new device" - (Just kidding no we didn't!).

Anyone else have major issues with new device activation?

I have been a long time Samsung user with the exception of a couple of stints early on with Motorola Droids and one HTC phone. So I've always been team Android to say the least.

I'm coming from having a z-fold 6 as my daily driver for 2 years and thought I'd share why I came back to the S series devices.

I absolutely loved the extra screen real estate with the Fold, especially using an app like Reddit, having an entire screen the size of a mini tablet was awesome. When it came to media consumption though, The majority of media is in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, so I don't get the full screen even in landscape mode I would have the black bars on the top and bottom. Older movies that came out in the '80s, watching those on my phone they would usually be in 4:3 aspect ratio and it would use the whole screen so that was always pretty cool.

The main reason I'm switching back to the S series however, is because on my inner screen. It began to peel, And this was with average daily opening and closing I would say nothing crazy. Another reason is because I wanted to have something smaller in my pocket, which is why I actually went with the base model S26 as opposed to the ultra which I used to exclusively get in the past.

Got a pretty good deal I think at Verizon by the way, they gave me $900 for my trade-in towards a base S26 with 512GB of memory.

I'm curious if anyone else made the switch from fold to S series and if you had similar thoughts/experiences?

First time seeing that battle rifle and later on dual wielding and all our minds were blown. Oddly enough my favorite part of the demo was the warthog scene and there's a part where a friendly warthog comes ripping out from his side street to back you up because it went so well with the music.

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Those were the days.

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*Sips beer*

We get it, you as parents should be able to go see a movie. But us other movie goers didn't sign up to listen to a screaming baby for 2 hours. Get a babysitter or wait till you can stream the movie at home but don't ruin it for the rest of us.

I just commented on another thread and thought this could be somewhat useful for others so why not make a post. I have a 15F SD who is incredibly difficult to live with. Here's some stuff me and my wife have done.

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1. Upgraded our router to a mesh network through ASUS. This gives us control over individual devices on the WiFi network. So cut wifi to TVs, laptops, gaming consoles as well as alerted us to burner phones her friends loaned her.

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2. This is applicable to both adult SKs and kidnSKs. Regarding phone bill and cellular data. It's simple. "Hi, we are no longer going to pay for your cell phone as you're well into adulthood now, your portion of the bill costs x-amount" (you can usually see a by-line amount on your phone bill) OR "a cell phone is a privilege so we're going to take away your smart phone and get you a flip phone or a dumb phone" They actually have a company that makes a dumb phone that is meant for kids . You can track them still, they still get Google maps, just no social media"

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Give an ample warning for what's next. "So we're going to need you to really step it up. This means you're either in school full-time getting a good grades and maintaining a part-time job to help pay your share in the house or if you're not going to the school you need to have a full-time job with benefits or join the military". And for kids "your only real job is to get good grades and clean up after yourself in this house"

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If they do not comply start taking stuff away in their room starting with the door. This house is paid for by adults. If you do not want to be an adult that's fine but that means that you lose your privacy and privileges going forward. This means we're not allowing you to hang anything on your walls, you're allowed one dresser , anything that doesn't fit in that dresser or your closet is going in the trash so choose wisely.

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my SD Just "completed" freshman year, she failed four classes and now has summer school. She currently has no door, no internet, no phone, And when we are not watching TV the remote goes upstairs behind our locked door. I forgot to add that above by the way, We have a biometric lock on our bedroom door to keep her out and she HATES it because now she can't steal her phone back or her mom's makeup. She also has zero stuff on her wall because every time she ate in her room after telling her not to I would go in and rip a poster off the wall.

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Take the gloves off.. it's not too late.

I just retired from the military after 20 years of active duty and am enrolled and set to begin at CSU Channel Islands in the Fall pursuing a degree in Environmental Science and resource management. I have not been in a proper classroom since I graduated High School in NY back in 2005, and my entire High school time I was a complete clown, retained practically nothing and barely graduated by the skin of my teeth.

My concern is that I am not completely ready for college and was thinking it would behoove me to find someone who can essentially do some College prep with me over the summer ahead of starting in late August. I am very much an in person visual type of learner too.

Are there any teachers out there in VC that would be interested? I don't know if i'm allowed to mention $$$ on here so if not that can be discussed in DM's.

Edit: Great responses so far. I am going to reach out to the schools veteran resource center and see what they have to offer. Still keeping an eye on those DMs a few nice folks have reached out already . I will go the private tutor route if I can't do anything through the school.

This is not a post about benefits or else I would have posted it in the other sub. This is a post so I can see what other veterans who have gone to college after retirement experienced specifically in regard to age gap. I posted this last night with a different topic title and I think it was removed instantaneously (AI? I honestly don't know how it works).

I'm going to go to college in the Fall and excited to be retired but slightly dreading the thought of being 20 years older than probably everyone else in my class. I know some people will say I can do X amount of days minimum in person and do the rest online but I know myself and am definitely an in person learner.

Anyone else do something similar?? I'm sure there's some other people in my shoes on here who went through or currently going through the same thing. Would love to hear from y'all about your experience.

First post in this sub, I technically retire on June 1st but passed my 20 year mark a few days ago. Anyways, I just deep-dove into my American Express cards (both gold and platinum) perks rewards offers all that good stuff. I've come to the conclusion that as crazy as this sounds it might actually be worth keeping post-retirement, meaning I pay the annual fees. I usually fly home to visit my family a few times a year and hope to travel at least once per year for vacation which hasn't always been the case but I should be able to do now. All the other perks I don't take advantage of enough but I'm going to set calendar reminders to do it.

I wanted to hear from other retirees and see what you all had to say regarding specifically American Express cards.

Cheers 🥂