Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
well crap! this year has been pretty good to me. i don't have any tales of woe and failure to give. my computer is pretty much maxed out without shelling out hundreds for very minimal gains.
so, good luck to everyone.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
I live in Africa.... that a good enough sob story?
Pics if required :P
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
I'm out as well. My rig is not as maxed out as I would like it to be, and I would love a nice HTPC, but I really only need a hard drive and PSU to make that happen. My wife and I had a baby two months ago, and he is totally healthy and meeting all his developmental milestones early. So, yeah, I'm going to remove myself from this competition as well.
I'll also post pics if required.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Well I guess I'll throw my story out.
We let my brother in-law move in with us after he got out of prison so he could get back on his feet. He was a non-violent offender and it was not computer/internet related offenses (if it were either family or not he would have moved in).
The week after his probation expired we get woke up at 6am to police and the FBI beating on our door. He has been accused of uploading child porn and is currently awaiting trial. They gave a very specific time and date of when this upload occurred, he was at work at the time.
When the officers were here they pointed out that they picked our wireless signal half way down the block. Believe me we've since learned a bit more about securing our internet. Since he lived with us and conceivably had access to our computers they seized both my computer, my wifes computer, our my book (which had all of our pictures for about five years and two vacations on it) plus all of our backed up drives. This was in March. We still can't get an answer about when or even if we'll get our stuff back.
Now we're not at the poverty level but we don't have a lot of money to go and replace what can be replaced. So right now we share a POS that we could afford off craigslist. We're rockin a P4 1.33 mhz with 512 MB and onboard video. It surfs the web good enough to do facebook and forums and thats about it.
On top of being more than a little embarrassing I guess it points out the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished'.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
ummmm don't think that can really be beaten :eek:
my story is that all I have is a laptop to use myself atm but its pretty high end and with all the other PCs around the house another one isn't needed
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
This year has been very good to me with a solid, stable, salaried software development job that was earned through the hard work on my notecard app, other apps, and my game. In light of that, I also graciously bow out.
This community, and others, owe a lot to you. Sometimes more than I think is ever said, Ken. Thanks once again for being such a strong cornerstone to TBCS. This place wouldn't be the same without you.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
"bump" Seriously I'm the only one that's had a crappy year?
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
msmrx57
"bump" Seriously I'm the only one that's had a crappy year?
Looks like it. But now it will be a little less crappy, if you win that is.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Other than my 6850 being completely dead (that, I'm not sure of. It still goes into OS, but never displays anything), and having a now-low-end 550Ti, I'm happy.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
msmrx57
"bump" Seriously I'm the only one that's had a crappy year?
You're still competing with a lot of people over at Bit-Tech.net too
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=237717
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Is it bad that I thought you were giving away 3 identical PCs?
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Well, the last few years have not been kind to me financially. We've been bleeding out, money wise. At $20,000 in the hole, we started looking for help, budgeting everywhere possible, and trying to fill in the gaps. We have an annoying living situation... we co-own a duplex with a family member. It's cheaper than renting, but the original intent was this is a starter home (it's barely 1,000sf, 1 bath, 2 bedrooms, lost the home office to the kid, and a new baby on the way in November). Well, we'd like to borrow against the house so we can write off the interest and condense multiple payments into one. Family member basically doesn't want to go with that as it "might affect her financially". We start to bring the bills and payments into line with our budget. Then the big housing bust settles in. I work for a civil engineer. I make good money. If I were to take a similar job elsewhere I'd take a 40% pay cut to start out. Wife isn't working since my son is high functioning autistic, has massive social issues, and can't really be put in daycare. We have no other family support, except for my wife's grandparents who I don't want to impose upon too often. Economy slides so far that at work, billable hours at one point reached such a low that I was paid $22.00 for two weeks. That is with going in every morning to see if there is any work for me and my staff, and to reply to any clients needs. Everything at that point goes onto credit cards. The downward spiral only increases. Here it is a couple years later and we're brushing up against $50,000 in the hole. Can't borrow against the house to consolidate the debt, and to relieve ourselves of the % rate burden and have a chance to pay it off. The latest letter we've received from one of the credit companies basically raised our % rate on our lowest card because we "have too high of a balance". Thank you very much for helping us by ramming your boot down on us.
I've taken several side jobs in the past which would have helped at the time. I'm still owed about $8,500 in total between two of the jobs. Still working on getting paid. If they had paid on completion of the work, I'd have been in a lot better financial situation. Where I'm at now, if they eventually pay me, it'll just disappear in the wind as it won't even take me back to where I was when I should have been paid. Started a home business with some of the money I was paid before... not making it too far with that, but hoping it'll pick up. It's at least making enough money to buy materials and do a few interesting projects. Getting a pretty grim view of my chances at this point of pulling out of this. Just picked up another side job, which thankfully is paying every time I deliver a piece of the project.
My health has declined significantly during all this, making it progressively harder to keep myself going and trying to get ahead. I ended up with Type 2 Diabetes. I'm only now starting to bring that under control. And last October I ended up with Chron's Disease. By the time I was diagnosed and started on treatment, I was barely able to function. I had lost about 40 pounds and was getting arthritis in all of my leg joints, and popping tons of ibuprofen just to stay vertical. Now that I wouldn't wish on a mortal enemy. I'm in treatment now, which is unpleasant. I'm sure the treatments are causing all kinds of other minor glitches I keep feeling in my body. Some days I just go curl up on the couch after work and watch TV... and I hate sitting around watching TV.
I used to play World of Warcraft pretty heavily. Haven't played in about 18 months now. My super expensive rig is not even capable of handling many of today's games. I could really use a new setup, not only for gaming, but for doing CAD work and designing stuff on.
Not real happy with where I've ended up. I work hard, I'm nice to people. I help wherever I can. I just can't seem to get a leg up at this point in my life. I will press on. I can only hope that something will change and I can pull out of this mess.
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
I know the contest is over but just had to add on top of everything else I just got laid off for at least three months. :(
Re: Satan Claus is Coming to Town 2012! - $1000 Prize!
Too late. But, man I hate it when that happens. Slowdown at work here, I'm hosing a lot of my vacation time trying to keep the paycheck up.
