u/rgbhuman42

None of y'all will have a crazier story than this, I promise you lol.

I once had a dream that I was at my church and I heard the most beautiful music ever. So I wandered around until I found a room with a band playing a small concert. It struck me as very weird because the singer was female and I'd never seen a metal group with a female lead before. I asked the security guards outside who was playing and they told me "Nightwish". So I ran to find some decent wifi, then pulled out my laptop to look them up- and that's when I woke up with the intense urge to google Nightwish. And I was completely stunned to find that not only did I dream the band with 100% accuracy (even down to their stage outfits), but the song I heard playing was Dark Chest Of Wonders.

I live alone. No neighbors. Until that point, I hadn't so much as seen their name in a passing glance through a festival lineup. No explanation for this. But I'm glad it happened because they've been an excellent introduction to symphonic metal!

So what's your story?

I used a $3.50 digital reward on Amazon Music, intending to purchase two songs- but when I purchased my first one and downloaded it it gave me the song ABOVE the one I purchased. I thought "oops I guess I misclicked, better be more careful next time"- and the next time it did the same thing. I checked on the "confirm purchase" page and it did indeed say the correct song. But my download and my purchase confirmation emails both said the song above, even though that was NOT what I intended or attempted to purchase.

I am now stuck with the wrong Billy Joel and Beyoncé songs and I'd like to resolve the issue, but I've heard Amazon Music doesn't do refunds for digital purchases. Since this was THEIR FAULT, how am I supposed to handle this?

At the moment the groups I'm into are Beast In Black, Sabaton, Nightwish, Nanowar Of Steel, Alestorm, Twisted Sister, Iron Maiden, Majestica, The Hu, Civil War, AC/DC, Hevisaurus, Amon Amarth, Grailknights, and Hammerfall, with Sabaton, Alestorm, and Beast In Black being the top three (and yes I'm aware most of those aren't power, it's just giving a general idea of what I'm into.) My favorite songs are Electric Callboy's "Elevator Operator" and Wind Rose's "Diggy Diggy Hole".

What should I be exploring next? Suggest anything!

[But please note I'm Christian and don't like videos depicting Jesus (Feuerschwanz and Visions Of Atlantis, for example) or music about satanic things (Avantasia and Lamb Of God, for instance.) So try to keep it respectful! :)]

In a Sephora: "Why does it smell like pasta in here??? Like not even sauce, just pasta. Sauceless pasta." (it did not, in fact, smell like pasta.)

"So, like, if I wipe this makeup off, will it stay on?"

In a thrift store: "...and it smelled like tin cans of FedEx!"

In a library: "No I'm not okay, I'm in a library!"

The pasta one haunts me to this day.

As a statistician I'm curious as to what their accuracy is. I know it probably won't be as accurate as the finger stick was, but by how much? And do they tend to overestimate? Meaning if I get a reading of 14.5, does that mean it's actually 14.5 or is it more like 13.7 or something?

I forget the name of the system Red Cross is using now but I'd love some data on this!

I'm a routine donor and convinced my mother to donate with me whenever we're eligible. Worked out fine for a couple years until one day she started not being able to finish a donation because the blood would slow down so much it would take too long to finish.

It doesn't happen every time, and sometimes they can adjust the needle enough to get it going again (sometimes it takes 3-4 tries to get it finished.) At our last donation the phlebotomist said she probably just has too many platelets and that made it clot unusually fast. Now she's less eager to donate because it's a gamble as to whether she'll get enough blood out for a successful donation.

Any tips for someone like this? I'd love for her to be able to donate successfully every time.

I've got scripts for ten different 5-minute (or less) skits, same setting and characters every time. These were originally performed live but I'd like to use AI to animate them all, preferably with my own audio. Is this realistic, or even doable? And if it is, then which AI should I use and how expensive is this going to be in the long run? I'm brand new to this stuff and would love some advice!

Basically, I have a lot of VR games I just don't use much because it's been giving me motion sickness. Some games like Beat Saber and Space Pirate Trainer are okay, but others like SuperHot and Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time Experience don't work out so well (as well as anything with smooth glide motion controls and not teleportation.) Dramamine works fine but I'd like to find a solution that doesn't involve taking drugs every time I want to play.

My brother (Valve Index user) insists that I just have to fight through it and keep playing naturally and eventually my body will adjust and I'll never have issues again, like getting your sea legs. Is he right? Does this just go away? Or is there another solution?

I have always hated the dentist. As a kid, I was a major screamer. Until second grade, I had to be held down and restrained in the chair. Then I was a moaner, until college when I sort of mellowed out a little. I still hated it exactly the same amount but I was better at controlling myself. Dentist was good enough but I still couldn't stand going, especially when I got scolded for not flossing enough. I went to the same local small-business dentist for 20 years until he retired and sold it to a national chain.

Then I went to the new dentist that took over his practice and it was a nightmare. I had to wait a few years between appointments because of both the pandemic and the treatment process for other chronic illnesses. When I came in, I had a few cavities, and they got aggressive with me, saying stuff like "This *could* have been avoided IF YOU'D COME TO SEE US SOONER- LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO! 🤨". They opted to do my fillings in three separate appointments, even though there weren't that many and it could've easily been done in one. Naturally, I had major issues at the first appointment, and at one point I jerked my hands up a little and the dentist yelled at me "UH-UH! If you touch that spacer tube in your mouth then we have to start the ENTIRE process ALL OVER AGAIN! Do you wanna do that??? Because I don't think you wanna do that!". I wasn't even doing anything, my hands just moved a little, but it really set them off.

At the end of the appointment, she then rudely informed me that "the job was too much for them to handle so she was cancelling my other appointments and I wasn't going to be their patient anymore but I could visit one of their other locations a substantial distance away and they might be able to handle this."

At that point I saw the writing on the wall and decided to switch dentists. Out of convenience, I started seeing my dad's dentist, which is an hour away but worth it. And it was a miracle. For the first time ever, seeing the dentist wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't painful or anxiety-inducing. It was like "oh ugh I guess I have to do this thing, I don't wanna but whatever- wait it's done already? FR???" Not only that, but my wait time has gone down from an hour to only 15 minutes, and I haven't been criticized or scolded by my dentist once. It's life-changing.

TLDR, if the dentist is a nightmare you might just have the wrong dentist. Experiment a little.

Seems like everything I read online is from Millennials reliving their childhood, but I was born after BSB lost popularity and I think they're great! Any young fans out there? Anyone? I just want to know I'm not the only one lol!

Title says it all. I used to love reading (and my parents/grandparents were big readers so it might be hereditary lol), but once I reached highschool I started reading less. And college was sort of the knife that finished it off, because I never had time.

Lately my psychologist has been telling me I should read more like I used to, and in particular he wants me to start slow and increase until I'm doing an hour a day. I have the time for it, but I'm still not reading.

I have an absolutely MASSIVE TBR- we're talking 50+ books here, some of them pretty long (GoT, "A Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes", etc.), all in physical form in my house, and I own about a million other books to boot, but I can't seem to get myself to read any of it. My public library did a "summer reading challenge" for adults where you log your hours in an app- which worked for a while, until I got the prize I wanted from it and then it fizzled out. Doing my own incentives ("if I read 10 books then I'll buy myself a treat") doesn't work because my brain knows I can just buy the treat without having to read first.

I like reading. I support reading. I love libraries and wish people would spend more time there. I think people SHOULD read. I have a long list of books to read and a huge amount of overflowing bookshelves in my house. And yet I'm never reading because it feels like work. The last few things I actually read were Batman comics and a book series from my elementary school days, which don't count.

So what's the way to go here? How do I tackle this problem and get my TBR downsized?

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19613K8y8u/

I'm a bridesmaid in a wedding this weekend and my brother gave me $250 to spend at Sephora as a birthday present so I'm going to use at least some of it on green liner and tan shadow for the big day.

But how do I decide which brands are a good value to get? I can't really tell the difference between dollar store eye makeup and the good stuff so spending $30+ on a single stick of eyeliner doesn't sit right with me, even if that's the point of the gift. And I know just because something's designer doesn't always mean it's better, so I'm trying to do my research.

What brand would you suggest? :/ (also if anyone has suggestions on how to avoid using up one shadow color faster than the two others and needing to buy a whole new palette, that'd be super.)

EDIT: just remembered I did buy liner and shadow there once on clearance, but the Sephira-brand liner broke and wouldn't come out anymore after a few weeks, so I'm hoping to avoid that.