Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Category: General Updates

Commentary on people, places, things, the news, current events, etc.

  • “Verify your payment method” loop on Mac OS

    I tried to make my first purchase from the App Store on Mac OS (Dark Reader for Safari) and ran into an issue where every payment card in my Apple Wallet, including my Apple Card, were deactivated and noted as “not available”.

    When I tried to make a purchase, it would ask me to sign into my Apple account, then it would tell me that I needed to verify my account. I honestly couldn’t figure out how to do that on Mac OS. I had to open my iPhone to check there instead.

    I went to Settings > tapped on my name at the top > Media and Purchases > View Account. I hit a roadblock here. I had to disable Adguard for iOS to get into the next screen. Once I got to the next screen, I clicked on Purchase History.

    At the top there was a warning message saying there was something wrong with my payment methods. Tapping it took me to a screen showing my saved payment methods in Apple Wallet. I had to reverify them all. With Apple Cash, I had to “edit” and then just save the same information. Then everything worked again.

    Once I did that, I was able to go back to my MacBook and purchase Dark Reader for Safari with no issues. I didn’t have to disable Adguard either.

    Ever since I bought a MacBook Air, I’ve been having issues with my Apple account. About a week or so after buying the MacBook Air, my Apple account was locked out. The only reason I was able to recover my account is because I had my security key from my iPhone saved.

    So, what’s the deal? Did someone else previously buy this MacBook Air and return it? Did Apple sell me a used product as new and that’s causing issues? I honestly can’t think of how anyone would have my Apple payment information or access to my account. I also can’t think of why every card in my Apple Wallet would suddenly need to be re-added or reverified. I go to the same places all the time.

    Is it just software errors? If so, that’s almost as concerning. I wanted to get a new MacBook Air because I remembered how great my MacBook Pro from 2007 was. I wanted stability, reliability, and something that “just works”. It’s only been a few months, but I’ve had more issues with my Apple account in those few months than in the last 17 years. Hopefully nothing else crazy happens.

    As an aside, Dark Reader for Safari looks amazing on the MacBook Air M2.

  • Bronx shooting at Mt Eden train platform

    This is the train I would take if I used the subway to get to work. But I don’t take the train because, despite what the mayor and MTA officials have been saying, it’s not safe to use the subway system in New York City. They know it. We know it. They won’t police the city properly and then act surprised when people don’t want to expose themselves to danger.

    I’m very much against congestion pricing because of situations like this. If the city and the train system was safe, it would be different, but the NYPD has been neutered. We need to bring back stop and frisk. We need to make arrests stick so that jails aren’t a revolving door for repeat offenders with rap sheets longer than a CVS receipt. We need to stop spending money on illegal aliens and spend it on things that matter.

    Shootings on the trains. Protesters being allowed to shut down roads and buildings with impunity. Kids getting kicked out of schools so illegals can live in them. $53 million dollars for prepaid debit cards for illegals when US CITIZENS are living on the streets or struggling to keep bills paid, including US Veterans. It’s a shame. It’s scandalous. But elected officials don’t care. They seem to think that people value illegals over the rights and needs of citizens and keep wasting our money on them. What money they aren’t pocketing, like that missing $850 million dollars that disappeared into De Blasio’s wife’s pockets.

    I can’t understand how these Democrats run the city into the ground and then act surprised that everything is going off the rails. They keep adding taxes and tolls and fare increases, but they don’t provide improved services, and no one’s salary is going up fast enough to cover all of these expenses, including higher rents. All of the money we pay in taxes is being mismanaged and misspent. New York City feels like a third world country. And what I can’t understand the most is how people in New York City keep voting Democrat anyway. I guess some people just like to keep hitting themselves.

  • YouTube Rabbit Hole – Honda N Vans to Camper Vans

    So, we started out watching a video about a girl going on a trip in an N-Van to a tourist destination in Japan, then watched the couple in the video above ride an actual Thomas the Tank Engine steam train in Japan followed by a stop at a scenic suspension bridge, and then I wound up watching a long, long video (below) of a guy living in a box conversion on the back of a Toyota pickup truck for the winter which was oddly relaxing. In each video, the people slept or lived in the back of their vehicles.

    I think these kinds of videos appeal to me because there’s a sense of freedom involved in not being tied down to one location. There must be a lot of hidden costs and complexities involved, but it feels like simple living and an escape from reality while watching from this side of the screen.

  • Counting crows

    I don’t recall seeing a lot of crows in this area, but I saw two on a light pole by the Petco in Teterboro, NJ. Hopefully it’s not a bad sign.

  • Attempted break-in and slow NYPD response

    My wife and I were watching a movie and we started to hear this banging noise from the hallway. When it went on for more than a few minutes, I stuck my head out the door to see what was going on and I saw this skinny crackhead looking dude in a heavy black coat banging on a door down the hall with some kind of tool.

    I looked at him and he looked at me and he didn’t even care. He just kept banging on that door.

    While I was looking down the hallway, the super’s wife opened her door across the hall and I waved her back inside and told her someone is breaking into an apartment down the hall. I took one more look at the guy and shut the door and called the police.

    I placed that phone call at 5:50 PM.

    We listened to the guy hitting the door and using what sounded like a hammer and chisel for about ten minutes. Then we got bored and went back to watching our movie.

    Twenty minutes later, we heard an altercation in the hallway so I went and looked again and the building super was running the guy off.

    The police never showed up. I called 911 again and asked why the police hadn’t responded to a report of a man hammering his way through the door of an apartment. The operator told me that the “job [was] in the system” and she wasn’t sure why there was a delay in my area.

    I could only say, “very reassuring” and ended the call.

    The NYPD finally responded an hour after my first call. One hour. The criminal got away because the NYPD failed to respond in a timely fashion, which means the guy will probably be back. What if he had attacked someone in the hallway?

    Thankfully, the door held. Even if there was no one home, no one deserves to have all of their property stolen or vandalized, or to possibly have pets injured because the NYPD was too busy eating donuts to respond to a call. We’re supposed to trust them to help us when we need them but how can we?

    They don’t show up for 311 calls for noise or huge numbers of double and triple parked cars blocking the road, or parked on the sidewalk. They don’t show up for a crime in progress. Will they really show up and save you?

    You can’t rely on the police to save you or even to help you, only to write a report about how you got wasted after the fact. We need more 2A friendly laws in New York City so regular citizens don’t become victims due to lax policing and even laxer sentencing.

  • Tire repair again

    This is the second time I’ve had a nail in my back right tire in almost the same spot. Makes you wonder. Either the dealership didn’t replace the tire last time like they said and somehow patched over the nail to be cheap, someone is spiking my tire, or I just had really bad luck. Hopefully, it’s the third possibility. Driving in New York City is already expensive enough.

    I have tire insurance but it would require me to go to the dealership in Jersey, meaning I’d have to miss work, so I went to a place near where I work in Brooklyn to see if it could be patched first. The flat repair wound up being $20, so I went with it.

    I guess 3 flats in 6 years isn’t bad at all though. I talked to an Uber driver once that told me he got two flats in one day. That sucks a lot more.

  • lying

    We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.

    Source unknown, but attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    Wherever this quote originated, it’s definitely relevant to the United States today. They lie. We see the lies. They know we see them lying. They keep moving on as if the lie is reality and they haven’t been caught. Why? Because there’s nothing we can do.

    We can’t even be sure the elections are fair anymore. Diane Feinstein was in office until she died, but she’ll probably get reelected anyway.

    It’s incredibly discouraging to have no faith in one’s own government and realize that the founding ideals of your country have been completely shattered by the institutions designed to protect them. We’re going somewhere other than intended now, and it’s not going to be pretty.

  • Well staged photo of Putin and Kim Jong Un

    A headline from 13 September 2023.

    I just really appreciate the work that went into this photo. It looks almost like something that should be on a museum wall. It’s a little odd, though, how each of the three main subjects seems to be looking in different directions. I wonder what was going on around them.

  • Superman Meshi: a superhero cooking manga

    A cooking manga with Superman. There really is a manga about everything.

    I spotted this on the shelf at Kinokuniya in Edgewater, NJ yesterday.

  • Kadie the Cow

    Kadie the Cow is now on Bay Avenue in Woodruff Riverfront Park in Downtown Columbus, Georgia, but she used to “live” on Manchester Expressway in front of the old Kinnett Dairy. Along with her calf, BeBe, she was the company’s mascot, and they both stayed on in the same location even after Kinnett shut down and was replaced by a Best Buy, which in turn has also shut down.

    Over the years, Kadie has been defaced with obscene graffiti and BeBe was kidnapped and spent some time in Butler, Georgia, before being recovered. It’s weird the kinds of things people get attached to, but with so much change happening in Columbus and Kadie standing witness to it all, she gained significance to the community and achieved landmark status.

    It’s nice to see her down at the new river walk with a fresh coat of paint. It feels like a monument to my childhood and a simpler, friendlier, perhaps rose colored past. When I was a kid, my Nana kept a box of Kinnett ice cream sandwiches in the freezer in the Florida Room of her house because she knew that me and her other grandkids loved them. We’d walk through the den, open the sliding glass door and step into that hot room that smelled like chlorine and hot plastic, and open up the freezer to grab dessert, or a snack when we got older.

    I’ve spent most of my life living outside of Columbus, because of military service and work, and when we talked on the phone Nana would always ask me when I was “coming in”. What an interesting way of looking at the world. Beyond the borders of Columbus was outside, and coming home was coming in to where family waited for you. Coming in meant Kinnett ice cream sandwiches and visiting with loved ones. My entire childhood is tied up with memories of Kadie and Kinnett products. I was really disappointed when the company went under, but at least Kadie is still around to remind me of the past.