richfiles

Last time I needed to travel, I compared prices for an airline, vs the train... I splurged on the train, and got a sleeper for myself. One ENTIRE tiny private room, ALL FOR ME!!! It had a BED! It had giant windows! It had a dining car! There were drinks (and depending on the state we were in at the moment... alcoholic!!!)! All for a price similar to the airline ticket. Sure, it took longer, but I enjoyed the trip. How is this a complaint? Thanks America... Thanks for letting the passenger rail network collapse into a shadow of what it once was. I had to still drive THREE HOURS to reach a passenger train stop. I could have driven 2 hours to go to a stop that was closer, but it would have added 2 more hours to the train trip, and that would mean getting up even earlier. The lack of passenger service is an absolute tragedy. Sure, the big cities have rail service within the city and some of the suburbs, but that's about it. Air travel killed train travel, and then air travel started to suck... But all the trains were gone...

Yeah, I get OT pay, which is nice... At least there is room for flexibility in hours... Truth is, the hours tend to be quite flexible. If I say I need to do something before work, typically I am able to do so... Originally, I used to be scheduled a strict 8 am to 12 pm shift. Due to changes in when we received customer samples to test, they decided they wanted me to come in from 10 am to 2 pm. Problem was, there was no adjustment to pay, no increase in hours... They just wanted to shift my time by two hours. Over the course of 5 days a week, that would eliminate 10 hours of my afternoon, with no compensation for me. I argued against it, and suggested I come in at 9 am, but be permitted to come earlier, or stay later, as needed, when additional labor was needed, and when I could actually do so without interfering with my other jobs... It was great... At first. Then they asked that we "check out" before clocking out. This was often cumbersome for me, as both my supervisors took lunch during the hour I normally would clock out at. Then things shifted from, "Okay, see you tomorrow", to "Okay, is everyone in your area fine with you taking off?", and then to ""Okay, is everything done in your area?" (That's what the full timers are for, aren't they!?! To stay a full shift and finish up!?). Now it's become not replacing employees who are no longer working there, and asking for even more hours from only two people. We don't even have enough people to run alternating Sunday shifts anymore... So they eliminated working Sundays, and now stack Sunday's 6 hours of work for 2 people on top of what we already gotta do on Monday... I'm just so tired of it. At some point, I need to skip my department supervisors and just go into the office and I dunno... file a complaint or something.

I feel the need to complain that I am paying for all these digital distractions that have led me to procrastinate on cleaning up my apartment. Now I'm scrubbing my counters and sink, and it's 11:45 at night. I still have a day, but I gotta work too, so really it's only an afternoon. I should have been done today, but stupid YouTube... Stupid emails... Stupid forums (every forum but this one, of course )... There's always a distraction. A moment where you think... "Man, I need a break... Just one video and I'll get back to work."... And an hour and a half later, with two Minecraft videos and a lecture on quantum theory and the holographic universe concept watched, and I'm thinking... "D'oh!!! Back to work, for real." Seriously... If you have chores... Just unplug your network cable... The temptation is beyond the resistance of any person!

My day... you've both made it!

Yeah, the repository has a lot of info that never made it here. Ebay is a fine resource, if you can afford the bill. Mine specifically was imported from Israel, formerly used in a P-4 Phantom flight simulator. I'm still alive, but work is infuriating... I work two jobs, both part time... This past week (not pay period... just ONE week) I got a nice 23 hours on my second job...Not bad... 51 hours at my main job though.. "Part time" That's part time, with no benefits, I might add. I've stayed part time cause I value my time more than a few extra bucks, and my health insurance is currently affordable, with both reasonably priced premiums and co-pays, but is also strictly available only to those who don't have access to employer provided health insurance plans... Something that going full time would disqualify me from. The "idea" of more free time and better health insurance is worth staying part time... Except my employer has obviously ignored this. Today they asked me to start coming in an hour earlier from now on. I've been pushing for another employee for my area since November. The ONLY reason I'm still there, is it's the most stable job I've ever had. I can't deny that. Government regulated food testing is a big business, and it's not realistically possible to export it... Customers require fast testing and results. Shipping items every single day, expecting it to start testing same day isn't feasible without local services. That's why we never have downturns. I've been there 5 and a half years, and there's never been a downturn beyond seasonal fluctuations in food production. It only goes between normal and heavy. I don't thing the job is going anywhere unless either the government goes belly up, or people stop eating. Either one would be a far worse scenario than a job search! That said... If i could get enough hours at my secondary job, I'd ditch the lab in a heartbeat. Problem is, that job isn't longterm stable... I can have tons of work... Or I can go months with no orders. That's why I need the stable job. Doesn't change the frustration with balancing the most stable job I've ever had, vs a company that's CLEARLY EXPLOITING me.

I know what you mean @steve_v... At my job, they've been posting "TEAM means: Together Everyone Achieves More!" up on the digital board... I point out that "Together Everyone Achieves More means: There IS an I in TEAM!"

Good luck, and try to have fun!

In all honesty... I am certain this guy is either: A: A grumpy old man who thinks his trains are worth their weight in gold and doesn't really wanna sell them, but has to make it look like he's trying for she who holds the power. or B: A little brat that got his gramps stuff, has no clue what he's doing, nor cares about the stuff he's selling. This is someone who does no research, and tossed a price up. or C: Is one of those ebay scum that prices things super high and leaves it up, in the hopes of catching a poor uninformed fool, so he can turn a big buck with minimal effort.

I have been buying up DM&E railcars in N scale whenever I get a chance, in preparation for the day I can finally officially call my self "an old man with his trains". I figure I should have enough trains to start being an old man, once I'm "over the hill" next year. Anyway, I recently won an auction for three nice DM&E hopper cars. They were the nice newer style 3-bay cylindrical hoppers in the yellow paint scheme. Exactly what I wanted. The seller were selling them in an ExactRail brand three-pack, and they were in perfect condition. Seller also threw in an EXQUISITELY detailed and weathered "POTACAN" 4-bay cylindrical potash hopper... Seriously, the detail is incredible! I won that auction for $52, and it shipped for just over $7. Not bad. They arrived safe, and I am quite happy with the purchase. Shortly after, a single DM&E hopper showed up on ebay. I ended up paying $20 for it, but free shipping, so about on par. I'm quite happy with those purchases... My complaint for the day... When the three pack + bonus hopper sold, some random seller puts up THREE!!! of the ExactRail three packs of DM&E hoppers! I'm thinking, AWESOME! ... And then I saw the price tag... $145 for EACH three-pack... He wanted $435 for all 9 hoppers! Oohhhh no way!!! Anyway, i was in no hurry, they CERTAINLY were not gonna sell at that price. No way! Those packs RETAIL for about $75 new. Each hopper sell for $25... NEW! He wanted 2x retail, and 3x the established ebay market value! So, payday rolls around, and I've put in 74 hours last week (that in and of itself is complaint worthy, but ooooohhhhh, that paycheck). I figure, I'll make an offer. I calculated out the price I payed per hopper ($52 ÷ 4 cars × 3 cars = $39 for three railcars, and I even rounded it up to $45). Within 5 minutes, he rejected all of my three offers (I offered the $45 on each of the three Buy-it-Now sales). Okay, he's obviously on and watching, since the seller didn't immediately reject, so it wasn't automatic. He had to reject them manually. So, I sent him a message. Ebay only offers three chances with he make an offer tool. I didn't wanna use up my chances trying to ballpark what this guy would take. I asked him what he was realistically trying to get for them, mentioned the 12 way bidding "battle" that left me on top, with a similar item sold for $52, and explained that I wasn't planning on going much higher than the established ebay market value for them. I broke down the price, and said how high I was willing to go... He replied with: "Don't whine about it be a man." . . . Really?!? Oh my... Once the shock of the rudeness wore off, I couldn't stop laughing at this childish behavior and attitude... I then replied: "Well that was a rather rude response... What am I whining about? That I'm unwilling to pay you three times the market value for these? I'm just trying to figure out what offer you will realistically accept. All I did was to inform you of the current (realistic) market value of these DM&E hoppers, and I'm not gonna make you an unrealistic offer. I'll buy a bottle of yellow paint, some used hoppers, and some decal sheets and kitbash my own custom DM&E hoppers like a man! LOL. If you'll accept a reasonable price though, then yeah, I'll totally make you an offer. I'd happily send some money your way for these, but not at an unrealistic price. You know what an unrealistic price is... Higher than the retail value! These go new for only $25! NEW! When I asked what offer you realistically wanted, you just replied rudely. I am genuinely asking... What kind of offer would you be willing to accept?" His glorious response? "Then stop bothering me and use your time to kitbash some. Be smart" Pffft! I can't stop laughing at this! It's so INCREDIBLY rude, and at this point, I'd probably not wanna give this guy any money anyway, but MAN!!! What a rude dude! Part of me is tempted to actually DO it... To be smart and kit bash a few of these, and then link back the photos... Like a man! Pfft!

That's what I do... Except what I pick are things that... hehe... Nope... not saying! Pick something that you know well, but others would not. The more obscure, the better. You can use random characters... underscores and tildes and dashes and such, when allowed. I often use them to separate password "units"... Blocks that you know by memory, and do NOT record anywhere. This is where personal knowledge is great... Come up with a different password block, to be represented by a different letter or number... In english, you could easily come up with 36 mental password blocks that you can rearrange, and recall with a single letter or number per mental unit. I also tend to pair those units with arbitrary numbers, unless they already contain numbers. I can easily track every password I have with a string of just 2-5 symbols... My longest password has more characters (symbols, numbers, uppercase, and lowercase letters) than is even in the english language, yet I can perfectly recall it ALL using only 4 characters! I don't even allow any one type of character to exceed 4 consecutive units of the same type (eg. no more than 4 numbers, no more than 4 lowercase letters, etc, with even that being highly variable from 1-4)... And yet, I can instantly recall it with only a reference of 4 symbols. Now that's how you password! I loath entering that one by remote control into the tv though... ugh...

Comcast/Xfinity "mysteriously" activated auto-pay on my account, a mare 8 days after my last payment (on the 4th), and took a second payment (on the 12th). When I checked my account, and saw auto pay was active, I immediately disabled it. I got a confirmation email about the auto-pay being disabled... I've checked... NO EMAIL announcing they suddenly turned it on. I'm going to try to have the bank reverse the charge in the morning. If not, it'll overdraft my account. Their tech support at first tried to say I must have scheduled it myself, since auto-pay wasn't active... I pointed out that it wasn't active because I had just turned it off, prior to contacting tech support... They never once admitted to having ever turned it on. The lack of confirmation email seems VERY shady to me. I'm not happy. Now I get to deal with this before and after work tomorrow...

I'd like to complain about me... Apparently, I'm an idiot. I just assembled a 42 piece rush order of circuit boards WRONG, and now I need to pull an all nighter to rework my mistake. I soldered the wires to the wrong side. It was so dumb. I did the first one wrong, and just followed with all the others. I wanted till I was DONE to put a board on the tester... And of course it failed. Had I tested as I went, I'd have caught it at the first one. I had to make THAT call to my boss... They need to ship tomorrow morning, so back to work I go... at 9:20 pm (21:20). I calculate it'll take at least 4 hours to fix...

I'd bring that recent for the service shop to the place you got the oil changed and ask them what kind of shoddy, lazy work they think they charged you for! At the least, demand a refund, since they risked your vehicle's functionality, your safety and your time, all cause they couldn't properly finish their job! Had to edit this, cause my mouse is acting up, and the entire quoted text didn't select... Intermittent main button operation, I think.

When an ebay seller says they will combine shipping, so you bid on a bunch of his items, but then he waits long enough to send back an invoice with the combined shipping adjusted that ebay starts repeatedly reminding you that you have to pay for the dozen or so items you purchased... I would pay now if I had the invoice back... Without that invoice, it's asking for $78 in shipping fees! I need to wait for that combined shipping invoice. I'd bet all the items would probably fit inside a single USPS flat rate box.

Yeah. Crazy how you can't do that. Imagine some of the things people might select as their default if they could!

Why do some people choose to go out of their way to be so offensive... Crazy...

When a friend calls you at 3 in the morning (on a work night) to inform you his GPS isn't giving good directions (when it mentions other states... Uh, no...), and he is asking you for directions, but he keeps hanging up to check the GPS...

My idea of a "bender" tends to be me holing up in my place and building... and building... and building... A very different kind of disappearing. I don't tend to go out that often, and prefer to stay inside and get creative. Of course, I haven't been able to have a building bender in AGES!

Man, even here, it's like that. There's a town in southern MN called Mankato. I've been there many times. It's based off an old Native American word, Mahkato. I can just imagine the conversation in the 1800s... Colonist A: "What do the Indians call this place?" (cause everyone called the natives Indians back then) Colonist B: "I can't remember... M - Kato something... I don't remember, man! M... Man-Kato... Sure, that's close enough. Colonist A: "Sounds good to me!" Native: "They take the land for themselves, drive us away, cheat us... and then can't even speak our words right..." Yeah... America has a crumby track record with getting names right...

Not always... It means you tend to enjoy work, but often, it can burn you out on carrying on with said hobby at home. That's why I got out of electronics as a profession. I never had the ambition to do any electronics of my own once I got home. Depends on the situation.

Is it really living though...

ICE? "InnerCity Express"? Which city? One city, Two cities? That city, this city, all the cities??? Sheesh! So ambiguous! All we know is it's fast. At least the railway I mentioned says where it's going... Iowa, Chicago, and... Um, just east of those places. LOL So that's why I can't get my Kerbal Instrument Panel built... I've spent several thousand grueling millennia stuck at work, and I've only had a couple minutes of build time!

I mentioned earlier that I've been getting that model building itch, once again... Working on replicating the "Apollo look" with my KSP Instrument/Control Panel is awakening my inner modeler! I also mentioned (in a previous complaint) how prices for model train stuff has skyrocketed in the decades since I last partook in the hobby... Well, there are still a few bastions of sanity, one being used stuff off ebay. As long as you're willing to put in a little effort to clean it up and get it rolling right, all should be well! This is an important factor that I'll return too, but first, I feel like sharing... (and oh boy, belive me... the tangents... Wow... Enjoy the ride) So, my plans are ultimately, to model DME (Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern) as my primary railroad. Along with DME, I want to also have a smidgen of ICE (Iowa, Chicago, and Eastern, DME's sister railroad), CNW (Chicago & Northwestern, the railroad DME and ICE branched off from), and a very small spattering of "The Rock". Officially CRIP (Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific, rebadged ROCK in the 70s.), "The Rock" was a railroad that had a lot of people batting for it's survival, but in the end, it ran out of money in the middle of a strike, and that was that. All their assets got liquidated to pay off debts, and while "The Rock" was no more, it's railcars fanned out onto other railroads, including CNW, which in turn spawned the DME and ICE roads. Their railcars and locomotives were VERY noticeable... A turquoise/sky-blue sorta color (depending on how much the sun had faded it), with a giant angular hexagonal black "R" on the side, and "THE ROCK" or "ROUTE ROCK" printed in big, bold, enormous, white lettering. They were eye catching! Much like DME and ICE did, The Rock also named their locomotives after places, people, and groups. One of the fan favorites of Rock Island was actually a tribute in return, locomotive #4310 "The American Railfan". I have decided I need to model this... But I digress... The thing that bound DME, ICE, and "The Rock" together as being so unique in a sea of heavy transportation machinery, was that incredibly "personal touch" that they seemed to give their locomotives. You just don't see that anymore. So many of the old smaller lines have failed or have been bought out by the big lines, and they certainly don't tend to do creative things like what the small regional lines like DME and ICE did... "The Rock", DME, and ICE had the named locomotives, Chessie System had a floofin' SLEEPING KITTEN as their logo. What set Rock Island apart was that, while not the largest railroad, they were still pretty big... They covered a region that included Chicago, Minnesota, South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. "The Rock" was not small, yet they still took the time to create a series of locomotives like that, and they did so before DME or ICE were even around. I almost wonder if they inspired the people at DME and ICE to follow suit. The failure of Rock Island was kinda shocking when it happened. People knew there were troubles, but no one expected a complete financial collapse. They expected a gradual recovery, and it was working! Projections had them being profitable by the end of 1980, a first for them since the mid 60s! As I stated, a strike struck them in the worst possible way, at the worst possible time... And then the government stepped in. Expectedly, everything came crashing to the ground once that happened. When I was a kid, I always was fascinated by those lone bright blue boxcars and hoppers that would roll by at random... DME used mostly grey for most of their rolling stock, with a mix of blacks and occasionally other muted colors, but not "The Rock"... Those railcars stood out like beacons! I am VERY nostalgic about them, and I had always intended to grab a few of those to intersperse with my other models, just like I always remembered them. I never knew back then, when I was just a kid, that the company those once belonged to was long gone. They ceased operations around the time I was only about half a year old. Now on to my point, and my first complaint for the day... Complaint one: I am saddened that this personal touch is lost on most railroads. I genuinely miss the old DME locos and playing "spot the city name" as they passed by. These days, it's all CP (Canadian Pacific) or UP (Union Pacific), and every locomotive is the same, save for an unremarkable number. Even Chessie the kitten is gone from Chessie System... It's been swallowed up by CSX (Just CSX... That's the name. Lawyers made it up... Not even joking about that one). Needless to say, that personal touch is long gone. I know there's still a few railroads out there that still do that stuff from time to time, but it's far more rare these days. Interestingly, CSX is one of them. They have a handful of "named" locomotives, and even a few with the classic logos... But it wasn't done for nostalgia... The layers made them do it to retain legal control of the vintage logos. That's just... sad. Now, nostalgia bombs and what not made me look something up. When I was a kid I remember my family driving up to a town for their "Railroad Days" festival. It was one of these annual small town things... Carnival rides in the park, food stands, bounce house, etc. What made it "Railroad Days" was they would get this scaled steam locomotive out there, on narrow gauge track and give rides on the mini-train, and they had an old rail depot converted into a train museum. It was a pretty big event, and there was so much to see and do... Except for reasons I didn't learn till years later, the Model Railroad Club that normally held an open house... Was closed. I never got to see the model trains, and for years, I wanted to see that. That's why I looked it up, and decided after two and half decades, I was going back to see those model trains that I'd missed so many years before. I got there, and let me tell you, they have an awesome setup. When you enter, there's a display case with numerous models and railcars that don't fit on the layouts on display. to the left, is a massive O gauge layout. it follows the entire side and back wall, in an inverted "L" shape. On the floor level, under the edge of that O gauge layout, is another simpler, and smaller Lionel set for kids to play with and control. if you walk around the display case, you see the back side is the same, but showing off locomotives. behind it is a massive "S" shaped wall, and an HO scale layout snakes along that wall, up one side and back down the other side. In the back curve, it's completely dark, with only dim UV lighting, and the lighting of building, signs and street lamps. They play "night" sounds, like crickets, and occasionally, storm noises, with "lightning flash" strobes and thunder sound effects to simulate night and the occasional storm. VERY cool. After having my childhood wish restored... Well, we lead into my second complaint... Complaint two: Railroad days is a shell of it's once former amazingness. They screwed up the permitting for the park, so they couldn't even have it in the park, next to the Rail Depot Museum or the Model Railroad Club... Nope! It was half way across town in the BACK PARKING LOT of the POST OFFICE! They had a couple bounce houses, three food stands, picnic tables... And that was the entire "carnival". They did (to their credit) have some rides. They did have horse drawn wagon rides and the city's vintage firetruck offering rides... But the thing that just shattered my nostalgia... was the Lawn Tractor made to look like a steam locomotive, pulling a train of wagons. I mean... It was not the classic miniature ridable steam locomotive of yesteryear, but it did offer the kids a "train ride" of a sort... Around the parking lot. I was neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed... I was just whelmed. They botched that event, and the years have certainly not been kind to it at all... Of most significant disappointment, and where we come into complaint three... Complaint Three: They advertised a vendor/trade/fleamarket for the event... And the entire thing got canceled outright! Visiting the Model Railroad Club was the number one reason for going, and that certainly still made the trip worth it, but I didn't go there to ride the kiddy train (steam or lawn tractor, regardless)... My secondary reason for going, is that a flea market is where I first discovered N scale, with a $7 train set, bought at my own home town's local festival's fleamarket. I figured, a fleamarket at a railroad specific event was bound to have model railroading stuff for sale, and probably some good deals! As I said way back up at the beginning, I figure used stuff is gonna be my ticket back into the hobby, and where better to find used model railroad stuff than at a railroad festival's fleamarket! Which was canceled... So, i soon got bored with the husk of a once vibrant festival's empty chrysalis, only redeemed by the shining beautiful butterfly that is the town's Model Railroad Club. I found out that the club had moved to a new building back when I went as a kid, which explains why they were closed those many years ago. I ended up leaving and heading back home, deciding to pass through my home town. I visited my mother for a while, helped her out in her garden, and when it was getting a bit late, I decided to head home. I was gonna stop by my father's place too, but it was getting late, and I figured, I'd not bother him (I only live 15 minutes away, so I see them both frequently). I got home, and got more bored, and decided to browse ebay, and look at a few cheap Rock Island boxcars and hoppers. There were a few that were in good looking condition, and were cheap. I had set aside money for the fleamarket, but since I spent exactly none of it, I ended up buying groceries for my mother and myself. I ended up getting more than I'd planned, and then grabbed a few other odds and ends as well. I still had some cash, and my bills were paid, so I said sure! I'll start out my new collection with a few of those beautiful blue Rock Island railcars. I hit the buy it now, and ended up getting four of them, plus some graffiti decals (I like modeling things with a bit of grit to them, including the graffiti). In the end, I spent about $60. I felt I'd gotten a really good deal... And then... I realized I was an idiot... Complaint Four: I had set aside $60 for the NES Classic Mini that's coming out (again) this Friday. Nintendo is re-releasing it, due to the incredible demand, I had waited in line to get my SNES Classic, but I never got the NES Classic. Remember that bit about spending $60 on Rock Island railcars? Yeah... Oops! I checked my cash... Whew! I have enough still, even counting for tax... But that leaves me with all of $5 to last me for two weeks... At least I have groceries! Now, that bit where I said I decided not to bother my Dad late, and then just went home, and spent all my money on groceries and tiny trains, forgetting about my planned NES Classic purchase... Well, I was out of town, focusing on Railroad Mehs ... Days, and forgot about the Auto Show in my own town. I'm less concerned with the auto show, and more concerned with the drive in movie they always project on the side of the grandstand at the fair grounds, once it gets dark. My Dad was watching one of my brother's kids, when my other brother called him, asking if he wanted to come see the movie. He said no. Decided he should probably just stay home. The kids wanted to go, but he decided to not bother. Now, by pure, random coincidence, just a measly week prior, I had been talking to him on the phone, and he mentioned a movie. He saw part of it on TV, never caught the title, and kinda wanted to see the whole thing. He still lives in the dark ages (aka, he has no internet), so he asked me to try to look it up. I found it in like, 10 seconds, of course. I told him that if he enjoyed that one, there's a much older one he's GOT to see... It was Spielberg's first movie, back in the early 70s. "Duel"... About some poor guy just trying to drive home, ending up stalked by a crazy trucker that he'd passed, with a homicidal case of road rage. The suspense is set up just perfectly in that movie. Told him if I ever find a copy, I'd bring it. And that leads to... Complaint Five: WE MISSED seeing "DUEL", played on the side of a flippin' BUILDING!!! Of COURSE they played Duel at the auto show's drive in! Ugh! He wanted to go, but kinda didn't wanna bother cause he'd have the drag the kids along... Except they DID wanna go! I wanted to see it, but only learned it was playing AFTER THE FACT!!! If I had just stopped by my Dad's place, despite it being late, or not wasted so much time making myself broke buying extra groceries, or yada yada yada... I'd have got to see Duel with my Dad and my Brother, a mere WEEK after I'd mentioned it, and at an old school style DRIVE IN, no less... And I missed it... Complaint Six: This complaint is way too long! All that mess, just to say I'm broke, I missed seeing a movie with my family, and I was very whelmed by the Railroad Days "festival".

Sony is the stubborn mule, in this situation... SOMEHOW, they've managed to lock out a THIRD PARTY account from accessing their competition, and there's actually a STORM of angry users telling Sony off on social media right now... Sony is an awful company. They are unethical, shady, and I'm done with them! They have put rootkits on their music CDs, sold consoles with features and then taken said features completely away (and a court decided Sony needs to pay some lawyers, me and a bunch of other PS3 owners some cash over it), they've always tried to lock people into proprietary formats, just as bad as some of the worst companies do (At least Apple didn't come up with Memorystick), they've always treated your game console as hardware, without regard for your user data (try to get a console repaired by Sony... Even if the hard drive is 100% fine... Formatted from the factory on any repair. No recovery or transfer service, and they lock the hard drive down to the console, at least on PS3). Sony played the pro-consumer card at E3 2013, after the PS3 had such a hard time catching up to the Xbox 360... They have completely forgotten about the consumer now that they have the sales again. I've decided I will not buy future playstation systems. I don't need them. Walk away from that abusive relationship! Sony doesn't love you... they only love your money, and they ain't afraid to take any action to get it, including figuring out how to lock down a THIRD PARTY account! I still have no idea how they got that to work. They have it locked out on Switch as well. Even after days of complaints, they refused to even address the problem, and just "announced" that "there's plenty of PSN users out there to play against..." Sony... I don't even play Fortnite, and your behavior over this is cementing the fact that I will NOT buy a PS5... Let Sony fall from their pedestal!

I used to have a model railroad layout as a kid. I really enjoyed building scale models and it was the perfect outlet for that hobby. I found an unboxed N scale (1:160) train set at an open air flea market for $7, back in the early 1990s. I got into the hobby pretty hardcore back then, building scale models of many of the homes I and family have lived in, the church we go to, a dorm I stayed in, and so on. That part of the hobby is pretty cheap... Sheets of balsa wood and even cardboard are more than sufficient. Some paints and some scraps of random junk, paper clips, wire, etc all serve as viable materials to build with. No, it's not the buildings that cost... It's the trains... Now, N scale was already more expensive than the far more popular HO scale (1:87), even back in the early 1990s... But YIKES! I just looked online to see what an EMD SD-40-2 locomotive with "Dakota, Minnesota, & Eastern" paint costs... and holy guacamole, those things are typically $129 to $309, EACH! That's not for a train set... that's for ONE ENGINE! Turns out that the manufacturing behind the hobby has vastly shifted from the old days... Many manufacturers were right here in the US (and others were in Europe) and I have heard anecdotal claims that it wasn't unheard of for some budget manufacturers to actually pass molds around. No joke! Many manufacturers couldn't stock every variation at once, so different companies would make a run of something, then switch off to another item to stock. Another company might use a mold for a bit, while the other company wasn't producing that particular item. It was done to keep costs down. Most model trains in the earliest days were just toys sold to kids in hobby shops and toy stores, and you had your genuine rail fans who liked to build the hardcore layouts, but the mentality back then was to buy the item and then mod it, detail it, weather it yourself, if you wanted something particularly specialized. Two things are driving up prices, but both are situated in the demands of modern rail fans... First, there's DCC. DCC allows for digital control over your trains. Very cool, but OVERLY expensive... STUPIDLY expensive!!! They've switched to using more expensive can motors with flywheels, and the digital controllers on most trains. Even the "cheap" options still are using the higher end motors, so they can sell them as "DCC ready". That probably doubles the dost right there. Old school layouts were DC analog controlled, and even if you wanted digital control, there's absolutely no reason why a tiny little board with a microcontroller and Wifi, couldn't be put together so you can just control it all from a computer. That'd be a $5 part... Even assuming the 3x raw part to retail factor... That's a $15 increase in the train cost to add digital control by that method. DCC is OVERPRICED, but since it makes control SO much easier, people with money WILL pay for it. It can easily add $80-100 to the cost of a locomotive! Additionally, a large portion of manufacturing is now either based in China, or is split between US manufacturing of components and Chinese assembly. Due to the greater splits (some manufacturers being all in China, and some not), there's less opportunities for collaboration, like mold sharing. Some companies have literally lost control of their molds... There has been a push towards cheap Chinese manufacturing. This actually caused a lot of problems with poor quality products, but thanks to the quality and detail demanded by the type of model railroader who would actually buy an individual locomotive or train car, it's kinda backfired. To get a sufficient level of quality, it's actually costing more. On top of that, there's the fact that a dollar is worth less and there is a stronger demand for more ready to roll goods, done in more detail, and in more railroad line names... Yikes! It's done nothing but make model railroading into a hobby for kids and old retired dudes, into a hobby for RICH old retired dudes! The rising costs of manufacturing have led to most manufacturers eliminating budget options altogether, in favor of only selling the more premium models, as they have a higher profit margin. It's not that the trains couldn't be cheaper... There's just enough demand that some hobbyists will spend stupid levels of money to participate in the over priced buying frenzy. The old local railroad I want to model is particularly tough to model, because they had at least 40 UNIQUELY PAINTED locomotives, each with different markings! That doesn't even count the old ones from when they first started out, that were just other lines with DME markings painted over the other line's logos. DM&E started naming each locomotive after a city on the route, or sometimes after landmarks or people, such as the awesome Mount Rushmore locomotive, that has a painting of the monument on the side of the unit! One of the towns along the route was named after a Lakota chief, and his portrait is painted on the side of the locomotive! Since the locomotives were purchased by DM&E at different times, they cover a wide variety of different models as well. Many are SP40-2 units, but there's actually at least 10 different variants, including the high nosed GP9, the stub nosed, short, four axle GP40, and there's even more variants! That's some pretty specific stuff, and requires a different locomotive for each variation! Anyone insane enough to model the ENTIRE fleet would need to spend an exorbitant $5.4K, just on locomotives alone... And that's if you get the cheapest ones and decal them yourself! So yeah... Not like I'd have room for a layout big enough to even support that many trains, but still, I REALLY wanna model trains that match up with all the local towns I grew up around, you know... Since the trains ARE named after the towns... There's also the locomotives named after iconic towns and landmarks, like the "Mount Rushmore", "City of Wall", and "City of Sturgis"... My long list of names covers 13 locomotives, all uniquely painted, two with actual art on the sides, not just unique numbering and text. Even my short list is still at least 8 locomotives, and even my SUPER DUPER short list is still 5 locos... And that's ONLY counting DM&E locomotives... I still want at least one or two Chicago & Northwestern locomotives, preferably a high nose model like a GP9, and maybe a single Iowa, Chicago, & Eastern, and a single modern Canadian Pacific (something like a GE Dash-8 or 9, or an AC series)... ICE was a sister line to DME, and both lines came about from CNW, and were both bought by CP, hence why I want some representation of those lines... I DEFINITELY need to get a CNW locomotive though, as they routinely rolled through town for much of my younger childhood, and I LOVE their green and yellow colors. DME's blue and yellow is very good looking, but I like green even more! So yeah, even at the ABSOLUTE cheapest... For 6 locomotives, one ready to roll, and 5 needing paint and decals... That'd be $815, not counting paint. That's before I ever lay a single track... Before I even buy a single car to pull behind... And those are $25 a piece these days... $100 for just FOUR measly train cars... I'd better build my layout to be weather proof, cause I'm gonna need to live inside it if I want to ever build it... And I thought the hobby was expensive in the early 1990s... Crikey! **EDIT** Looked it up... In 1995, I could buy a Chicago & Northwestern SD40-2 locomotive for $40. An SD-45 locomotive was just $30. A GP38-2 was $35. By only 2001, Some prices were already at $115, though some brands still had locomotives around $60-70, and not all the budget models were gone yet.