Minesweeper Online

Minesweeper Online

 

It’s that classic Windows game on the web!

As a Linux desktop user, I have not used MS Windows on my home computer in ages. Of course my work computer is still using Windows, but they took all the games off. Well here’s a little site where you can get that old time Minesweeper fix of yours. It includes many features that the original did not have including a “no guessing mode” and of course the ability to play against others.

Of course it’s ad supported and uses trackers, but that’s just how things work these days.

Online Sequencer

Online Sequencer

Tagline: Make music online

This is a fun site that allows you to “draw” notes into a sequencer and play them back. It features a page where you can see the latest saved sequences from users as well as forum and chat room.

Not trying to show off or anything, but I do have an account there. Here is one of my own personal creations.

Ad supported? Yes

Trackers? Of course.

But it seems to “play nice”, and it works well with uBlock Origin.

 

Better Things to Do

Flush Twice is 20 years old now. It’s about time I tried something new with it.

I’ve told all the jokes I’m going to tell, so let’s trying something a little different. I’m going to start posting links to various sites that I think might be more interesting than what you are doing right now. Think of it like a sort of grab bag for things to do online.

To be completely honest, I have almost no idea how this is actually going to work, but over the years I have amassed a huge collection of bookmarks. So many in fact that I have a bookmark toolbar with folders titled “A” through “Z” and I drop new bookmarks into them all the time.

Of course some of these are going to be sites you have probably already heard about, but some people might not know about them. I might also be featuring really obvious sites that pretty much everyone knows. I can assure you they are not monetized adverts, but rather merely cataloging these sites for the sake of completeness and posterity.

At some point I might add a visitor suggestion box. I’m a little apprehensive about doing so, because “spamvertisers” are still a thing, and I really do not feel like wading through that quagmire. If and when I find the right plug-in, we might give it a go.

Oh, and putting any sort of links in the comment section is still forbidden, so don’t even try it.

Of course if you do have comments or suggestions and don’t want to wait for a suggestion box, I may still be contacted by means of flush2x at that enormously popular email website ran by google.

And from time to time I will post a new comic, but other than releasing them only on Saturdays, I will not be keeping to any predictable schedule.

Well OK then. See you tomorrow with our first featured site in the “Better Things” category.

Sunday, April 30, 2023

Career Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!

I took a manufacturing job back in August with a new company. Suffice to say I’d rather not say, but if I did happen to say, you’d recognize the name immediately. It’s a Fortune 500, but not the Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s kind, so yeah, we’re playing in the majors.

My career trajectory has had a few interesting turns. Previous to ’95 I was a job butterfly. I flitted around from job to job, some good, some bad, but never stayed anywhere for any significant amount of time. One year I went through 10 different employers, and never once during those days did I ever go on unemployment or welfare. Jobs came easy for me, and I always paid my way.

Back in ’95 I landed a position as a Robotics Technician for a company controlled by General Motors… But I didn’t actually work for GM. I absolutely love robots. I had that job for about two years, but things started getting rather dicey around there, so I got out. Good thing too, because they went out of business less than 6 months later.

So in ’97 I took a job at a plastics company. At first I couldn’t believe I had found such an amazing place. The pay was nothing to write home about, but the work was easy, the environment was laid back, the coworkers were great, the benefits were decent, and the 3rd shift hours worked well for me. After a few years I was even able to buy a house, but 9-11 happened less than a month later and everything was different.

The aftermath left me feeling a bit gutted, and I wanted to do something. While still working at the plastics company I joined the Army Reserves back in the fall of 2005. It’s something I look back on fondly, but I really think it was a major mistake on my part both financially and physically. Other than being able to say I was there, I gained no benefit from that experience. After 6 years I got out. Two years later my honorable discharge arrived in the mail. That’s all I have to say about that.

Back to the plastics company where I was still employed: Over the years things changed. The benefits dwindled, the hours grew longer, the pace grew more frantic, a lot of coworkers retired and/or died, and while I eventually ended up in a leadership role, I felt something was very wrong. So I got a job working for Amazon delivery.

Yeah, but I never actually made it to Amazon. A head hunter caught my resume and saw robotics and plastics. I was a perfect fit for this tier 1 auto supplier, and the money was actually really good. I was on track to pay off all my old debts in under two years but 10 months later I bought a new car, and a few months after that things started going off the rails. They fired a bunch of people that shouldn’t have been fired and it started a chain reaction. People were already overworked, so the resignations started piling in. On top of that, they were increasing monthly insurance premiums by $250! Suddenly this wasn’t looking like a place I wanted to be anymore, so my resignation was about to be added to that pile.

But before I left, I started putting out job applications on Indeed, and wouldn’t you know it, I got a lot of responses. Some good, some bad, but then there was this one response from a long shot. I honestly didn’t believe it at first. They reached out again, but I thought it was just some automated form they send to everyone who clicked. After the 3rd Letter I called them. Like a dork, I naively asked if they were serious about wanting to hire me, and the person said, “Yes! We’ve tried to contact you three times already!”

Sometimes I can be such a dense headed putz! Fortunately for me, their impression was more professional, and the interview went great! I got the job, and kissed my robots goodbye for a second time. I really miss those guys.

So in a way it’s like when I started working at the plastics factory. I’m on the night shift, which is what I prefer, the work is easy, the environment is laid back, the coworkers are great, they benefits are nice, and frankly the pay ain’t too shabby. Like most companies, they have their strengths and weaknesses, but over all, I feel like this is a place I can hang around till I retire.

So that’s that. I’m still alive and kickin’. The house is a mess, but I’m grateful to have a home. I still owe an obscene amount of money to my creditors, but my bills are paid. I’ve even been dating someone who I have almost nothing in common with, but we like each other’s company, and she doesn’t seem to mind my warped sense of humor. She’s also trying to get me to lose weight and make better food choices. (Yes, I am way too fat again. Go figure.)


Kudos

So a special thanks to everyone who’s contributed to the content of this site over the years. I’m sorry I haven’t been maintaining it of late, and even sorrier still that I have decided to retire the submission page. It isn’t here now. The submission page went away. The submission page is gone.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this site just yet, but if you have any suggestions, you can leave me a comment here or contact me through email. My username is flush2x on gmail, and from there I’ll let you figure it out.

Pax,

-f2x

Sunday, August 14, 2022

New Day, New Job.

So it should be obvious that Gail is a completely black dog, right? But occasionally, the lighting in the room will impart a reddish or brownish hue on the fur, and the camera will pick up on that hue. That’s just a lighting thing, and I thought people knew and understood that. It’s like if you show someone a picture of a person holding up the leaning tower of Pisa, they understand that it’s just a perspective trick, and that the person is not actually holding up the tower.

But the weird thing is how many times people will remark, “Oh, is she a chocolate Lab?” when one out of the six pictures I showed them happens to have ambient lighting reflecting off the coat. I really kind of wonder how they would react if I said, “yes” to that question, because maybe they would just leave it at that, but no, I tell them that she is a black lab, and that it was just the lighting in the room.

For some reason they always double down and remark, “Really? Her fur looks brown right there! Are you sure?”

I would think I would know if my dog had brown fur, but now, no matter what I say at this point, the person is either going to gas light me or go full on stupid by insisting that my dog, who is obviously stark black in every other picture, is in fact a chocolate lab, and I just haven’t realized it yet.

I’ll be starting my new job next week, and at some point people are going to ask me questions about myself, and the subject of pets is bound to come up. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so when I scroll through the photos of Gail on my phone, I will be waiting for that moment when the person I’m showing them to asks, “Is she a chocolate Lab?”

And this time I might just say, “Yes.”


Kudos

Thanks Big D and TOR for dropping off some jokes last month. They will finally be featured this week. Sorry about the delay. The submission page is still the best way to share jokes with me because they are automatically added to the queue.

No promises on when the next update will be. I’ll do my best to put something together when I find the time.

Pax,

-f2x