Dorkus

So my little brother lives a few states away, he's 27 now (I'm 31, so not much older) and whenever I talk to him for lack of better words. He's kind of like a train wreck. Basically he hits on every girl he ever meets. He plays "the (hitting on girls) game" like a video game, and over thinks every little thing said/done in a conversation. Sadly he has lost a lot of friends, due to the fact that he uses everyone as another avenue to try and meet girls (by either hitting on their friends, or using them to go with him to a bar as a wingman, and they eventually get tired of it). To top it off, hes not very successful with girls to begin with. He also likes to describe people being on different levels.

As if some people are not good enough for him and/or hes not good enough for other people. Bottomline I think he lacks a lot of confidence and is at the same time self conscious on everything. Yet he also thinks he has a firm grasp on the world that he can read people and their intentions, and often when listening to it. it's very sad, Freudian and negative.

He's my little brother. I love him to death. I hate seeing him unhappy, but at the same time I feel it's his own doing given his mindset on life. I offer him help, I try to remind him of his positives. I also try to help him to see life in a more positive light, perhaps not overthinking everything, and just relaxing a bit more. Any other ideas?

So my wife has some issues with the power windows in her car.

Front Passenger Side - Windows Rows up and Down no weird noises, stuttering etc. However after it rolls down about 2 inches it just stops, and refuses to roll down any further (no noises being made). Rolls back up fine.

Rear Driver Side - Rolls Up and Down fine (so far). However as it rolls up and gets to the top. You hear a loud clicking/clacking as if the motor is still spinning even though the window is already to the top.

Now I know for about 95% of the problems when it comes to power window problems in your car it's the window motor and/or regulator. The front feels like it's a regulator problem, or heck maybe the window was just tightened weird so it's not going down evenly and getting stuck on the track.

The rear window I am unsure if it's a regulator issue or the motor itself.

Thoughts?

So I am starting a new job, going to be making roughly mid 50s annually. Wife also going to be starting new job making mid 30s annually. We have a baby, who will need daycare. We will end up filing jointly every year.

So trying to figure out how many allowances we should each claim for our W4? Wouldn't mind getting a small return every year, but definitely do not want to risk owing any money, I know claiming 0 or 1 for each would be easy, but that would seriously hinder our take-home.

So I'm thinking:

Me: 3-4 (myself, baby, daycare/child tax credit)

Wife: 1 (herself)

Does this sound right?

I tried using the calculator on the IRS website, but it requires a lot of info I don't readily have available (primarily tax withheld for pay since these are new jobs)

Thank you

I plan to get a home loan in the next 6-8 months. However, I was debating on opening a new credit card now to help consolidate my current credit card debts, something with 0% APR for the life of the balance transfer. Basically it would allow me to more rapidly bring down my CC debt prior to the home loan hopefully making my debt/credit ratio look better, and possibly even close down a card or two, so I don't have so many credit cards under my name (although all in good standing since I always do make payments on time, I just have balances). However, I also read that closing credit cards and opening cards prior to applying for a home loan is bad for your credit score. Again I'm not looking to apply for that home loan for another 6-8 months, but not sure if this is enough time.

Thoughts?

So I put myself into a lot of credit card debt years back and I am slowly paying them all off. However, in the near future my parents are helping me with a down payment for my first home loan, assuming I qualify for a loan and can make the monthly payments. I have no doubt I can make the monthly payments (since I project it to be less than rent anyway), my only worry is qualifying for a home loan (and at a good rate). Basically I have these credit accounts:

1) Unused AMEX

2) Unused Line of Credit from bank

3) A Mastercard I use for personal purchases

4) an Amex I use for business purchases

Sadly at the moment a lot of the credit cards above are always very near their limits (especially 3 & 4), #1 and #2 have slowly been going down as I have been making my payments and stopped using those cards/lines of credit.

Anyway, I am going to start hunkering down and putting more money into my credit card debt to bring down my overall debt in hopes it will make me look better when I eventually apply for my home loan. As of now my credit score is actually around 720, but the negative aspect of my score is that I of course have a lot of debt and I'm close to my limits frequently.

Anyway as I put more money to try and pay off my debt.

1) Should I evenly distribute the money, so my overall debt is lowered and at the same time make it so I'm not so close to my limits anymore.

2) Should I just make it a point to put as much $ as possible into one account at a time, pay it off and close it? So my overall debt shrinks as well as available credit, but at the same time my other accounts that do get used will always be close to their limits?

3) is there a different recommended option?

Anyway, lucky I am much better at managing my paycheck at this point in time to slowly pay off my debts, will be able to afford the future mortgage payments, and of course never miss any payments. But again I am trying my best to make my overall credit score/profile look good for this future home loan I will apply for. So need some consultation.

Thank You

I bought a Honda Ridgeline RTL, that came with upgraded 20" Rims. The stock wheels sadly did not come with it.

Anyway, it's time for me to replace the tires.

Stock Size Tires are: 245/65-17

However with the upgraded Wheels, the optional/recommended sizes online are:

235/55-20- DiscountTire Recommendation

245/50-20 - Discounttire Recomendation

255/50-20 - Recommended by both DiscountTire and TireRack

265/45-20 - DiscountTire Recommendation

- I want all-seasons to drive in Seattle-area for light snow, I will most likely eventually get a set of actual winter tires later.

- Comfort - Matters to me a little, but the roads in Seattle are pretty good.

- Handling - I drive with the flow of traffic (10 mph over limit), important in the sense that I have a baby and safety matters.

- EPA - my gas mileage sucks, I would like to save money on gas if possible without having to sell my truck.

Current tires on vehicle: 275/45 - Which are actually not recommended by either site online.

Anyway given the above, what tire size would you all recommend I get as replacements? I know wider tires tend to look nicer and theoretically give you more grip on the road, but at the same time I don't know if the extra size/weight of the tire dramatically effect gas mileage.

help. Thank You.

So my first baby is due in May, and I figured it's time for me to get things started and buy our first car seat, stroller, travel system.

Right now the brands I'm looking at (that also fit my budget and seem to be pretty popular) are Graco, Chicco and Safety 1st.

So here are my questions:

1) I noticed there are some car seats that are meant to hold infants up to 22 lbs and others up to 30 and even 35 lbs. Is there really a benefit to sticking to a bigger or smaller car seat, ie. the bigger car seat seems like it allows more future-proofing as the baby grows, but does the smaller one (which will have to be replaced sooner) fit infants better?

2) I was building my own travel system as it seems the largest amount of complaints for current travel systems are that they are quite bulky/heavy. So I was thinking about getting one of the lightweight infant strollers and then getting a different stroller when the infant outgrows that stroller. However, I noticed the infant strollers tend not to have canopies, also do not have nice features like shocks? are those really important?

Anyway, this is my first baby. My budget is fair, I can probably spend about $300-$400 on the travel system/stroller/car seat combo. What would you recommend? just getting a travel system (or building one), should I bother with the lightweight infant car seat stroller?

Thanks

I'm back on the job hunt, one of the first steps is obviously cleaning up my online profile since I know good companies will check things like facebook for background check. Any recommendations on what I need to do and/or to what extent I should clean up my online profile?

i.e. Obviously obscene stuff must go. But what about things like my friends and I drinking in Vegas? Do I just need to turn on privacy filter? or go further than that?

Hi,

I live on Guam and it's very hot and humid here, to add insult to injury, the power rates here are also quite outrageous. I live in a 2 story condo, and for the most part I stay downstairs and leave the A/C when home. Upstairs I only turn on the A/C to sleep. However, during the day, the upstairs gets very hot and humid to the point where it can smell moldy upstairs. I could leave the A/Cs on upstairs to keep the upstairs cool and dry, but the powerbill gets quite high. and I don't really need it cool upstairs, only when I sleep.

I was thinking about getting a dehumidifier to just possibly keep the upstairs dry. However, I wonder if this would end up using about the same electricity as just leaving on my A/C all day?

So yeah would a dehumidifier help keep the upstairs dry (prevent that moldy feeling) without using as much power as an A/C.

Thanks.

So right now Steam is installed (and all my games) on my SSD, and space is very valuable on it. I want to move Steam (and the games) to my secondary HD. I figured the best way to do it, would be to uninstall everything, and then re-install it. My only issue is that one of my games on Steam (Deus Ex) is a digital copy that came free with my graphics card. If I uninstall steam and reinstall it, will I lose the game completely, or will it already be noted in my account and allow me to completely redownload it?

thx.

Just built myself a pretty nice Gaming PC (Gtx 580, I7-960, Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium HD)

Anyway, want to test the thing out. Battlefield 3 and Batman Arkham City appear to be the 2 newest most popular games? which one do you guys suggest?

So I built a PC not too long ago and realized now that I may have accidentally been plugging in devices such as keyboard, mouse, and external hard drives into the wrong port (IEEE 1394a port) instead of the USB 2.0 or 3.0 ports. All I typically saw in the back was what looked like a USB port with fancy red coloring, didn't realize the red coloring meant it was something else entirely.

Anyway, just curious by doing so did I risk damaging my keyboard/mouse/external HD? Also what are these fancy red firewire IEEE ports for anyway?

I'm looking for some new PC Adventure games similar to the ones I used to play long ago...King's Quest, Hero's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry...

I tried picking up Fall Out New Vegas and Witcher 2, and although the graphics are stunning. Just wasn't the type of game I was looking for.

Any games you all could recommend for me.

So I just built myself a pretty solid gaming rig (i7 PC with GTX 580), I'm very excited to test out some new games for it. Been out of the gaming scene for a long time.

Games I'm already playing: League of Legends, Portal 2, and Witcher 2.

Games I used to love: Space Quest, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Bomberman, Halo, Quake 3 Arena, Counter Strike, Sim City 2000, Roller Coaster Tycoon.

So yeah any other games you all would recommend?

Hi,

I just finished building my first piece of wood furniture. It's a computer workstation. Right now it's made of typical 3/4" plywood, screw holes have been filled with "Minwax Stainable Wood Filler", and the desk has been sanded down with 150 grit sand paper.

I would like my desk to have a dark brown/espresso color to match the rest of the furniture in my living room. I figured paint would be the easiest way to achieve this color, not to mention it will easily cover up a lot of imperfections in the wood. However, I plan to use semi-gloss paint which I hear leaves a sticky/tacky-ness which is undesirable for a desk.

So staining is my other option. However, after doing some google search supposedly wood filler even if it claims to be "stainable" does not stain right with the rest of the wood. So I may end up with some ugly blotches of uneven stain where I used the wood filler.

Anyway, experience carpenters, wood workers, what do you recommend I do? Basic goal, just get this thing to a nice espresso color, have a smooth non-sticky/tacky surface to set my mouse/monitor/keyboard on. So should I stain? or paint? anything I need to do prior to staining or painting to make sure the stain is even or paint does not end up with sticky/tacky texture?

Thank You!

Hello All,

I'm going to attempt to build my first piece of a furniture being a custom computer workstation. Just need some good suggestions:

1) Is there a way to get it to a dark espresso color (other than laminate) that will prevent the typical sticky/tacky surface from typical sanding and painting.

2) Will putting it together with common and finishing nails along with wood glue be good enough? or should I use screws?

3) If I choose not to use plastic laminate cover, what type of wood would be good to use for this desk? I have decided to use 3/4" thickness.

Thank You.

So I just built my first PC, and everything seems to be working right except for one thing. The PC shuts down when it goes into "sleep mode". Basically when it enters into sleep mode, the display turns off as usual. And the PC power light starts to blink as usual. However the blinking light starts to slowly fade, and eventually stop blinking. At this point the PC is shut down. I press the power button and the PC restarts and gives me the error message saying the PC was incorrectly shut off giving me the safe mode option. Anyway not sure what to do to fix this other than tell the PC never to go to sleep, but that just seems like a band aid rather than an actual fix.

My PC:

3.2 i7-960

Corsair Dominator Ram

ASUS Rampage 3 Formula Mobo

Windows 7 pro 64-bit

EVGA GTX 580

Corsair Gamer Series 750 Watt Power Supply

(if it matters) NZXT Phantom Case

OCZ 120 GB SSD (for OS)

Help please, thank you.

So I'm building my first PC, I'm pretty excited about it, but need some advice if this system would be good for me:

Planned Usage: Internet surfing, MS Office, Light Photoshop, Light gaming, but I would like the ability to play games on this thing without any problem in the future, oh and 3D Blu ray would be nice too.

My budget is about $1500 and playing around this is what fit:

Case: NZXT Phantom (I reallly like how it looks, and the reviews on it seem good).

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage Formula 3

HD1: OCZ SSD 60 GB for OS

HD2: WD Green 2 TB for my junk

Power Supply: Corsair 850 Watt

Memory: G Skill Ripjaw Series 6 Gb (3x2GB)

Video Card: GTX 570.

Actually for about $100-150 more I can get the GTX 580, just not sure if it's worth the money. But yeah would this be a pretty good system for my needs (I'm sure it's overkill). But more importantly give me some good future-proofing that would only require minimal upgrades in the next 3-5 years (more ram, additional video card).

Hi,

I'm shopping for a new graphics card for my computer. All i know is that my PC has a PCI-express x16 slot that requires a low-profile bracket. But while shopping I see things liek PCIe 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1. Does that make a difference? I just don't want to end up buy a 2.0 or 2.1 and finding out my slot can only take a 1.0 or something.

I have a Dell Optiplex 380

Thank you.

I know how to install a graphics card, but I have no idea how to make sure I buy the right one.

Anyway my PC:

Dell Optiplex 380

Expansion Slots:

1 low-profile PCIe x16

2 low-profile PCI (Optional riser converts the PCIe and PCI into full height slots)

-I have no idea if the PCI-Express slot on it is 1.0, 2.0, 2.1 or if that even matters?

Anyway I'm thinking about this card since it fits my budget:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

Radeon HD 5770

Will this work for my PC?