I have a funny feeling that all this talk about fake news is going to really back fire on them. If they made a prequel to The Matrix, this would be how it all started...

It might be worse, actually.

At least with a stack of post it notes they would have to physically break in to his house to get them. With this... all it takes is one run in with malware to potentially compromise his system and allow someone to take the entire file.

Jesus H. Christ... here we go again. Not even two weeks and the DB took a dump again.

I blame it on my host for sucking already. mySQL stopped abruptly on the server and it crapped the bed in the process.

REPAIR TABLE `smf_messages` ;

^ saved the day!

Oh come on... I changed the registration process like 16 hours ago and this is what we get...

You came in two hours before your shift and you said you couldn't work because you had MRSA. We said, okay, where's the doctor's note so we know when you can come back to work. You said, you didn't have one. We said, go get one, we need to know when you can safely come back to work.

You then showed up for your shift after saying you had an open sore from MOTHERFUCKING MRSA. And you were shocked when we said, yeah no, where's the note that says you can work. BECAUSE YOU'VE GOT FUCKING MRSA. IN A RESTAURANT.

You said, don't have it, didn't have time. But it's okay you can work. We said, no you fucking can't. You have time now, you ain't working, go get one. You were actually surprised

You said you had motherfucking MRSA. This is a fucking restaurant. We serve people food here. They bring their vulnerable nubile offspring here. Elderly eat here. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Ahh, the good ol' restaurant industry! I miss some of the entertainment like this from my restaurant days. I will say, the thing I miss the most about restaurants is the fact that it's literally something new every. single. day.

I had one kid who abused cocaine and other drugs and somehow wound up with a staph infection and he too thought it was alright to work. Had to tell him to gtfo and don't come back until he had a doctor's note stating he was clear to work. Wasn't long after that I fired him for doing heroin in the restaurant on an overnight shift. Luckily for me, an overnight Walmart employee tipped me off saying that he could not even stand up to take her order when she came through at about 3pm.

Oh, and the employees I had sitting on the front counter after the doors were locked passing a bong back and forth right in front of a camera. Yea... they were fired, too.

I feel for you though. Endless BS every day.

It's 2016 and there's a social media platform for just about everything you can think of. There are even dating websites for just about every niche you can think of - AKA Gluten Free Singles. But what's not clear is how to navigate through all of the major platforms that are out there. Is it still cool to use MySpace? What about Facebook? Will my parents and family be able to see all the stuff I post on Facebook? What about Instagram? Is it alright to post selfies 8 times a day on Instagram? Can I send nudes with Snapchat? Do they really disappear after a few seconds or are they actually stored someplace?

The truth is a lot of teens and young adults have discovered that they can fabricate a false persona through their social media accounts. Remember back in the late 90s and early 2000s when internet forums were kind of a big thing and everyone could be a doctor or nuclear engineer? Well now you have 20-somethings who seem like they are on vacation all year round based on the pictures they post on Facebook, they're all high powered finance executives at companies no one has ever heard thanks to LinkedIn, and they have at least 2 BMWs and a Ferrari according to their Instagram. #OMGwhogivesafuck

If you're new to this game, have no fear, I'm going to give you some tips that you can use on each platform in order to boost your ego all while making your friends and people you're connected with feel worse about their poor insignificant existence. Be careful using all of these tips though: you may inadvertently start a one up war in which your friends and connections will start to passively aggressively post comments that may or may not be directed towards you as well as as cliche pictures with captions like "I AIN'T GOT TIME FOR NO DRAMA" or "Live Laugh Love". (Tip for all you guys out there in the online dating scene - if her profile reads: 'if you can't handle me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best' this means RUN the other way. No seriously. Don't. Even. Bother.)

MySpace

Let's start with the social media platform that really started it all: MySpace. There might have been other smaller sites like it at the same time, but they didn't take off like MySpace did. But it only had its reign for a few short years before Facebook stole its thunder by allowing even non-college students to sign up for its services. So how do you go about leveraging MySpace today for your own personal gain? Well, to be honest... there's really no way to do it since it's more or less dead. If you're old enough and have an old MySpace account, you can go back into your account and maybe change around your old profile pictures to make it look like you were someone else growing up.

Maybe that's how you leverage it! You replace some of your older pictures with pictures of someone who almost looks like you but isn't. Make sure they look handicapped this way you can claim that you beat all odds to walk again even though all of the doctors you saw since the day you were born said you would never walk. Due to your condition.

Also be sure to only have pictures of only one parent this way people will think that you were only raised by a single father or a single mother only helping to perpetrate the fact that you had overwhelming odds to overcome to amount to anything.

Facebook

This is it. This is your time to shine! The most popular social media platform on the planet! You probably already have an account set up, but the question is how to you use it to lie about who you really are?

The first step is to pretty much delete every "basic" picture of you. And by basic I mean pictures of you from a family gathering or perhaps a family holiday party. Let's face it, those are pretty dull and boring. Have you ever looked at someone family Christmas pictures and thought to yourself, "My god, it looks like they were having the time of their lives in this picture!"? Exactly - no one has ever thought this. So delete them.

Your goal is to leverage Facebook in such a way that your friends think you are always living on the edge and are always having the time of your life. Find some random pictures of a tropical setting from doing a few obscure Google Image searches and pass them off as your own and caption each one with a great description like "Can't wait to go back to my safe place next year!" or "Until next year Fiji!" this way your friends really start to believe that you take vacations every other month.

On vacation in Fiji. Can't wait to go back #HomeSweetHome

Here are some things you should try to post more pictures of in order to make yourself seem more interesting: tattoos, red solo cups, cars that aren't even yours, dogs, mirrors, guns, Starbucks cups, new shoes, a picture of yourself in a car while in the driver's seat holding an open bottle of alcohol, a gym selfie of you flexing with your big 11 inch biceps, group pictures from a bachelor or bachelorette party, any picture of you where you look completely trashed from a night of partying, the aftermath of a party in your parent's house, pictures from the cheapest seats in the stadium because you have no money because you spent it all on drugs and/or alcohol, your plate of food from Olive Garden with a clever hashtag in the description, and a picture of yourself from when you were younger to show how much you've grown up.

Let's not forget to use Facebook to serve as your political podium to let the entire world know about your opinions on certain politics. And it's alright to flip-flop your views in the span of just 24 hours. People won't remember what your thoughts were yesterday so it's fine to lean democrat one day and then republican the next if you think your party might not win the presidential race. Think of it like front runners in sports - you need to root for whoever is winning this way you're always part of a winning team.

Instagram

Instagram is like Facebook, but minus some of the annoying words and sentences and stuff. The upside of Instagram - or affectionately known as just "IG" by some - is that it's just pictures with a few descriptions. So basically take the above stuff I mentioned about Facebook and apply it to IG, but multiply it by 100. Oh, and let's not forget the filters that you need to apply otherwise people won't even bother looking at your IG account. Pro tip: if you're going to be taking lots of selfies and putting them on IG, make sure to use a light filter that makes it seem like the room is filled with purple-ish smoke. This way people can't really tell if you're really ripped or it's just the filter and lighting combining to cause this effect.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is probably the dumbest of all social media sites in that the entire site is just one big circle jerk of "professionals" stroking each other's egos in an effort to make them feel better about their piss poor career choices. Go ahead, browse around on LinkedIn. You'll be amazed at how many people have VP titles, CEO titles, CFO titles... that's because it's mostly people trying to make themselves seem more powerful than they really are. A guy uses Legal Zoom to start an LLC and guess what? The very next day he's on LinkedIn updating his profile to reflect the fact that he's now a CEO. Congratulations, you're the CEO of a one person company.

Just got done filling out the forms on Legal Zoom for his LLC. Current title: CEO - Current Number of Employees: None

So how do you leverage LinkedIn to make yourself seem powerful? Easy. Pick a career you want to have and think who are the top companies in that field. Technology? Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. Great. Use those places as places where you formerly worked and make up some bogus job titles with bogus job descriptions. Where do you currently work? Just put "VP at Company Confidential" and professionally explain to potential connects that you don't want to publish your current employer because you don't want a million sales people calling and emailing you this way you can be more accessible to your shareholders and employees. Problem solved. It also doesn't hurt to list every. single. job. you've ever held since the time you were able to walk. Did you mow lawns for a little cash when you were 12? Put that in your profile. There's nothing wrong with putting that job you only had for two weeks because you got tired of it and just walked out. Potential employers LOVE seeing diversity in your resume and job skills. After all, isn't diversity the big message after this year's presidential election?

Another key thing is to make sure you publish one or two well thought out articles - or "Insights" as LinkedIn calls them - this way readers really know that you are an expert in your field. Actually, I'm just kidding. You could copy and paste the Bill of Rights on LinkedIn and people would post comments saying how they agree with you wholeheartedly and they wished more people in corporate America had a VP with your mentality. No one actually reads this nonsense so just go ahead and copy and paste something you read on Forbes and pass it off as your own. No one will notice and no one will call you out on it.

And finally, make sure you list a bunch of causes you really care about. You know, being a member of a not for profit board, animal welfare, saving baby orcas. Doing this will really make it seem like you spread yourself so thin that you're on the verge of a mental breakdown any second but you do it out of sheer love for your causes. But don't tell them you actually don't want to be part of a not for profit board. That would be unprofessional. If approached just tell them you're already a part of one and that you rarely update your LinkedIn profile.

Twitter

Twitter is an odd platform because it only allows you to use 120 characters to get your point across. This platform is usually pretty dead until Sundays during football season and then every football fan suddenly because Dan Marino and knows exactly what every single player on the field should have done on a particular play. Because they have played exactly 0 games before in their life. Well, aside from on their xBox, perhaps.

My advice to you... just follow everyone. Follow as many people as you can because apparently Twitter etiquette states that you MUST follow someone back if they follow you. So in theory you should be able to have the entire world population follow you. Who knows, you might even be able to get the RealDonaldTrump to follow you back.

Oh. One more thing about Twitter... Hashtags. #YouKnowThis. #Hashtag #everything #because #that's #what #the #world #has #come #to.

This is a pretty good start to get you up to speed on how to make you seem like you are someone that you are not. Go ahead and give it a try - I think you will be surprised at the results you will get after just a month or two. At first it might seem a little shady to you but remember - almost everyone nowadays is doing this. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the job market is so tough. People blatantly lie on their resumes (And LinkedIn profiles) so much that "nice guys" get overlooked because everyone else is turning in completely made up resumes designed to be heavy on certain key words. Let that sink in for a few minutes if you've been on the job hunt for a while.

Go ahead and start playing dirty. It'll make you feel good and it'll start getting you things you never previously had. It's 2016, soon to be 2017 - it's a whole new world out there.

Ghostery
Avast
AdBlock Plus
1Password
FB Purity

Speaking of password managers... not a Chrome extension but I've been using KeePass Password Safe for a few years now and it's not too shabby. You know... just in case someone wanted a non-Chrome password manager.

I like time travel movies, so sue me.

• Twelve Monkeys
• Primer
• Time Lapse
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Safety Not Guaranteed

Chris, if you'd like more - I have a list.  Of time travel movies.   

I don't mind time travel movies. I was actually pleasantly surprised by Edge of Tomorrow with Cruise. Twelve Monkeys is another great title that I've overlooked - looks like my ISP is going to be seeing a bandwidth spike shortly... 

Is this all time top fives?

1. Total Recall (1990)
2. Sicario
3. Band of Brothers (mini-series count don't lie)
4. Nosferatu
5. As Above So Below

Band of Brothers... thanks for the suggestion! Completely forgot all about this mini series until you mentioned it. Adding to my watch list!

I almost forgot... there's a Zendesk extension that will allow you to manage tickets right from your Gmail account. I've used this a few times and it works pretty nicely.

BTW- Demo, Stylish reminds me a little of the litestep days from the early 2000s. I was wondering when someone was going to get around to making something like that.

For those of you who use Chrome as their browser, what are some must have extensions that make your browsing experience that much better?

For me, I'll go with the obvious two:

AdBlock Plus
uBlock Origin

Either of them are pretty good for killing ads in my opinion. Unless of course, someone recommends something even better.

Three words for you guys... Euro Truck Simulator.

What?... I like to drive.

The setups that some people have are INSANE. Check out this guy. That's dedication if you ask me. I'm fine with a keyboard and joystick, thank you very much!

I'm going to have to check this out.

This sounds like a modern day version of the 1995 movie Hackers. Well. Kind of.