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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

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  • #16
    Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

    Originally posted by Sandman21 View Post
    My personal advice: Go to Greggs' and see what it looks like in the showroom. Go with what looks best to YOU.
    There is a caveat to that advice, because you are at the mercy of whoever set up that array of displays. Which ever one you think is bad or good could be the result of it being hooked up incorrectly, receiving a SD cable, or being on the incorrect settings. Even worse it could have been programmed to look good so you'll buy it even though it would less than ideal on your eyes or would jeopardize the life of the TV itself.

    My Advice? It's all relative. If you are simply upgrading from standard definition and have something that needs HD, find the best deal or what works logistically best for you and go for it. If you are a electronic snob, or whatever, then continue to do homework on specs and the different types. If you only have a VCR or a SNES, then don't go after a high end TV...
    Originally posted by Natston;n3510291
    I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of the 3 T.J.s working for them, and that ain't bad...

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    • #17
      Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice



      A little out of your price range.

      Samsung 80" Ultra HD. The most amazing tv I have ever been around.

      Could not bring myself to buy a tv more expensive then a lot of cars.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

        Originally posted by tora tora View Post
        The reason Plasmas are so cheap is because nobody wants them. LED is the way to go.
        I wouldn't say nobody wants them. They're heavy and they don't do well in a room with lots of light. If I had a basement, though, I would buy a plasma in a heartbeat. Get a helluva deal on it probably, too.

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        • #19
          Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

          Originally posted by Dr. Hibbert View Post
          I wouldn't say nobody wants them. They're heavy and they don't do well in a room with lots of light. If I had a basement, though, I would buy a plasma in a heartbeat. Get a helluva deal on it probably, too.
          I bought my plasma 7 years ago. 50" tv that I put in the office/media room (one of the spare upstairs bedrooms. This thing puts off so much damn heat that I have to stop playing cause I'm sweating.

          Cannot wait till I can replace this tv with an LED.
          First time in a long time, I've been happy with the team that was constructed, and now they struggle. I blame the coach.

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          • #20
            Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

            I went ahead and bought the 60-inch Plasma. I absolutely love it. The color is amazing. The weight wasn't too bad. Was able to get it up 3 flights of stairs with relative ease. Just couldn't beat the size and quality for that price. Thanks to everyone for the advice. It was much appreciated. I wouldn't consider myself a n00b, but no expert, either. As an electronics "dabbler" I had an idea of what I was looking for, and was looking to bounce ideas off you all. And again, I definitely appreciate the commentary!



            Fun Fact: My father & I spent most of the evening on Thursday putting together a TV stand then setting up the TV itself at my place. As soon as we finally finished and sat down, the first thing to ever grace my new TV was Pacers-Hawks. Game 6. 1:07 left. David West running right-hander.


            This new TV is a good omen. Hopefully.
            Last edited by Day-V; 05-04-2014, 12:16 PM.

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            • #21
              Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

              Honestly, most name brand TV's are really good, the key is getting online and getting a good calibration for it. I bought a cheapie a few months ago, plugged it in --- picture was horrendous. Got online, plugged in a posted calibration, now the picture is gorgeous. Never stick with factory presets, there are always calibrations online that take your picture to much better levels.

              People always ask me what I pay for my TV's, I paid $600 for a 60" LED. They're always like wow that looks amazing.
              There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

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              • #22
                Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                Originally posted by Kid Minneapolis View Post
                Honestly, most name brand TV's are really good, the key is getting online and getting a good calibration for it. I bought a cheapie a few months ago, plugged it in --- picture was horrendous. Got online, plugged in a posted calibration, now the picture is gorgeous. Never stick with factory presets, there are always calibrations online that take your picture to much better levels.

                People always ask me what I pay for my TV's, I paid $600 for a 60" LED. They're always like wow that looks amazing.
                I haven't seen a 60" that low. You get one of the chinese brand LEDs? I might go this route for the media room. Don't need an expensive Samsung. I only use it for video games and Netflix streaming. But I do want a 60".
                First time in a long time, I've been happy with the team that was constructed, and now they struggle. I blame the coach.

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                • #23
                  Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                  That's great and trust me you won't regret having a plasma television. However you will regret not having nice audio to go with your shiny new toy.
                  You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

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                  • #24
                    Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                    Originally posted by Sparhawk View Post
                    I bought my plasma 7 years ago. 50" tv that I put in the office/media room (one of the spare upstairs bedrooms. This thing puts off so much damn heat that I have to stop playing cause I'm sweating.

                    Cannot wait till I can replace this tv with an LED.
                    You're suppose to watch it, not lay on it.
                    You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                      Originally posted by Kid Minneapolis View Post
                      Honestly, most name brand TV's are really good, the key is getting online and getting a good calibration for it. I bought a cheapie a few months ago, plugged it in --- picture was horrendous. Got online, plugged in a posted calibration, now the picture is gorgeous. Never stick with factory presets, there are always calibrations online that take your picture to much better levels.
                      People always ask me what I pay for my TV's, I paid $600 for a 60" LED. They're always like wow that looks amazing.
                      http://www.tweaktv.com/
                      You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                        Originally posted by RWB View Post
                        Yea, and AVS forums are good, too.

                        I guess sort of the underlying message I'm making is that don't get too sucked up into all the bells and whistles and price of a TV. You can fairly easily coerce a great picture out of a cheap TV. Paying more than $1000 for a big LED is, imo, generally a lesson in drastically diminishing returns. You might get a slightly better picture, butmost folks won't see a difference. Getting a "SmartTV" is usually sort of a waste, too, because of the external units you can get that completely negate any reason for putting all that inside the TV. A TV should just be a display, a monitor, so to speak, in my opinion, but... to each their own. Some folks gotta drop $2-5,000 on a TV to get the feeling they're buying something of quality; I'm just saying you can duplicate that expensive rig for about.... $1000 if you just find your own calibration and buy your own external multi-media unit.

                        Most of the screens are all made in the same place, they just stick a different brand and maybe throw some cheap software on it, which... btw, you can usually find firmware updates online that will also make your TV look a lot better, they usually just install via USB and take maybe 5 minutes.

                        Also, if it's going to be a main event TV, you might as well skip all the sound ratings, because you'll want to get a sound system instead. You get on Amazon and find a cheap 3 star TV and read some reviews and most say "The picture is fine but the sound is terrible!" Well... who cares, I'm running sound through my surround-sound receiver, anyway, the TV speakers will be shut off. So many "poorly rated" TVs are actually 90% rated poorly because people didn't like the sound. Gotta really read through the reviews to get an idea of why it's considered so bad. The other 10% of bad reviews are usually because they're idiots and have no idea what they're doing, lol...

                        And if a "calibration" sounds confusing or daunting, let me clarify for you: A calibration is simply a set of manual video settings that we all can access via the TV's menu. It really is that simple. In some cases, a calibration might have you access a TVs internal menu via a super secret remote button sequence, but again, not hard. Whereas most people probably just cycle through the factory video presets like "Movie" or "Standard", or "Dynamic" (which are all usually pretty terrible)... you just select the Custom or User setting and then program in your own video settings. There are groups of nerds out there who love this stuff and have narrowed down and perfected each individual model's "ideal" video settings, so all you gotta do is find it and plug it in and presto-chango. Sometimes the factory calibration is pretty good; other times it's terrible and you gotta fix it yourself. I guess the equivalent would be buying an alarm clock and not setting the alarm, and then getting upset with the quality of the alarm because the alarm doesn't go off when you want it to. You always gotta program your alarm clock, and your TV; if you don't you're doing your eyes a disservice. All TVs can be better out of the box but it requires a little manual overriding and tweaking.
                        Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 05-05-2014, 01:08 PM.
                        There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

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                        • #27
                          Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                          Originally posted by Sparhawk View Post
                          I haven't seen a 60" that low. You get one of the chinese brand LEDs? I might go this route for the media room. Don't need an expensive Samsung. I only use it for video games and Netflix streaming. But I do want a 60".
                          No, BestBuy posted a really good deal on a 60" Sharp Aquos LED a few months back right about the time that it broke in the news that BestBuy had a terrible 4th quarter, so it felt like they lowered the price drastically on a few items to make a quick buck. I might be wrong on the price, but ya, between $600-800. It was a steal. The reviews online weren't very favorable, but I bought it anyway knowing that I could likely land a calibration for it, and if I couldn't fix the picture, then I'd just return it. When I plugged it in and turned it on, the picture was absolutely horrendous, so I knew why everyone posted terrible reviews on it. After 15 minutes, I had found a calibration, plugged it in, and voila --- instant stunning picture. If anything it's a little lacking in the "darks", but for the price, I don't care, most of the time the picture is stunning. I chuckle a bit internally knowing a lot of folks returned that TV, not knowing they could spend 10-15 minutes and totally fix that TV, which was less energy spent than repackaging that TV and taking it back to the store, lol... the real kicker for me was knowing that Sharp could've shipped that TV with a decent calibration and made a crap-ton more money and had a lot higher customer satisfaction... really silly business decision.

                          This Aquos was weird though. Whereas past TVs looked "pretty good" in many different settings... this TV ONLY looked good with the posted calibration. Anything off of that "sweet spot" absolutely looked terrible. It had just unbelievable fragmenting and pixelation... at first glance, it almost seemed impossible to get any sort of good picture out of it. So if you didn't find that calibration and program it in, you pretty much had a crappy picture. It has a very narrow sweet spot... but the sweet spot looks damn good. The pixelation and fragmenting is gone, it's crystal clear now. If I take any of those settings and bump it 1-2 notches, the picture is busted. So I guess in that regard, the quality of the TV isn't great... but I don't care, it works great in that one calibration and that's all I need. Very well-balanced color, lighting, crispness, contrast, looks very natural and clear. I can switch from games, to sports, to movies, to TV and the picture always looks perfect.
                          Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 05-05-2014, 01:17 PM.
                          There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

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                          • #28
                            Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                            I used the Disney WOW: World of Wonder disco to calibrate my tv. Never realized how much better my TV and audio could be.

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                            • #29
                              Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                              Just saw this thread. Walmart recently did a redesign of their tv departments, at here in Houston, and all display models were sold at low prices. One may still find a few on sale. When i was there last week they had them for at least half off if not more. No box and such though.

                              I'm going to tweek the settings on my visios tonight.

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                              • #30
                                Re: Electronics Gurus: Buying a new Television, Need Advice

                                I got the super secret handshake, password, and button sequence for my Panasonic Plasma TV that finally worked to get into the service menu. The picture looked great on the Cinema settings with just normal user tweaks but sometimes there was a tinge of color I would tweak if I had that power. But alas that level of tweaking wasn't available to mortals thru the user menu. So now I was in the service menu for the first time.... Well, I made a test tweak or two just to get a feel how the menu worked, noted original setting so I could change it back (in fact I wasn't even planning on this actually being my adjustment session. I was just getting a handle on the menu routine), and when I looked at the picture I had just nailed what I was wanting on the first try. So I bailed out of it and haven't touched the user menu or service menu since.
                                Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                                ------

                                "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

                                -John Wooden

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