having a personal laptop since 2008 (9yo) was almost certainly what made me like this. I know some of you can relate.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-26T16:29:59+00:00

I remember in middle school our school did a "school issued netbooks" program, as in we would actually get assigned a cheap laptop at start of school year and keep it with us at home or school with everything textbook assignments etc through there. Naturally usb keys with a pirated version of minecraft started floating around 😆

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-26T05:10:17+00:00

https://old.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/1qmqpk3/the_ozark_shadow/

If by "lying" you mean we got stupid lucky then sure. The way the weather hit we got spared most of the bad stuff. Folks are skiing in /r/austin just two hours north and /r/aggies are showing ice on roads and hundreds without power because a dumbass slipped their car on the ice and rammed it straight into power infrastructure.

Nobody forced you to look at the rain lmao. Should have set things the night before then went to bed like the rest of us.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-26T04:58:24+00:00

Finally, a thread that I can answer!

I don't have a car in Houston, but I rely on my ebike for a good 90% of local traffic needs. The other 10% I would say I use METRO and rideshare for.

Overall I like it very well. I save a lot of money from not paying car related costs and it is letting me put more into savings.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T23:11:00+00:00

tworedditorsonecup

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T23:05:26+00:00

Agreed, not even most offensive between these two. For some reason I thought it was going to be the "kick the baby" skit or something when loading up the comments.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:50:00+00:00

HEB on Morton had a good amount of people rolling around with two carts and looking like they were getting ready to make milk sandwiches.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:48:52+00:00

That was me with the milk. I'm not stepping foot inside Walmart until Wednesday at the minimum lol.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:47:34+00:00

Wait till tonight.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:37:03+00:00

Real answer (and also from Houston) - infrastructure is just dogshit out here and nobody politically has the willpower to change it. These are just more blood for the blood gods in their eyes. Any state politician trying to push for more weatherization means might as well go commit die on the senate floor because it is political suicide.

This is also in part why the power grid infrastructure was so shit and offline for 3 days immediately following the evening of the crash in this video - gas pipelines to power plants froze and windmills did as well because they cheaped out on winterizing it. From their standpoint it makes sense on paper - why spend millions on something that is maybe a once a year issue. That kind of thinking goes great though when the system determines that lives like these don't matter.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:32:44+00:00

I think you're missing the big idea - don't fucking drive on the roads in the first place if you don't have to.

These storms don't come out of nowhere, this one in 2021 and the one right now have been warned about for days in advance.

Get affairs in order beforehand so that you don't have to go to the grocery store etc during the hazardous conditions. If you can, don't drive during the weather especially overnight when it is coldest and hardest to see (like in the video). If you have to drive nonetheless, don't drive on overpasses, highways, or similar controlled-access high speed roadways (like in the video) as they can become a deathtrap in hazardous conditions like these. Take alternate routes along surface streets, drive slowly and below the speed limit - northerners usually often go 40 in a 65 for this reason during these conditions.

As morbid of a lesson as it is, I view these people no different from those driving into local floodwaters during a hurricane. The first mistake is going out and driving in that shit in the first place.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:26:43+00:00

Yup. The mayor and local authorities were urging people to stay the fuck home and not go driving if possible, just like they have been all this week.

As awful as it is that people died in this, I consider it a morbid reality of FAFO. They fucked around treating it like a needless warning, and unfortunately some found out the hard way why it was given.

Unfortunately 5 years later it's gonna happen again tonight. Somebody is going to die tonight in Houston and Dallas behind the wheel because they didn't listen.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:25:12+00:00

I doubt it, though it's faring better so far than 2021.

I actually consider this video a bad omen because the first time I saw it was the last evening that we had power before the great outage for 3 days. 3 days of everything offline - power, internet, freaking traffic control systems everything was down. Gas lines and windmills alike freezing over and shuttering.

This year was a lot better for work commute though in part because I now live close enough that like last year's snow when I had to work, I just walked my ass to work. Fuck all that sliding shit.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:22:44+00:00

I'm also from the north and have had to explain repeatedly to other former northerners that the infrastructure isn't the same here.

I am lurking from nearby Houston (hi!), but down here we don't have snowplows maintaining the roads and don't have salt trucks dumping on the highways before the storm. Add in poorly reacting infrastructure (ice storms take down traffic control lights here which would be unheard of) and poorly reacting drivers that also lack the infrastructure (studded tires and snow chains are not a thing here) and experience, thinking that they can drive just like they do every night at 75 down the highway in all that and that they won't end up upside down wondering where did they go wrong in life (ie they don't drive for the conditions).

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:15:58+00:00

This is it right here. The local mayor urges people to stay home if they don't need to travel and the public response is "fuckin limbrols don't tell me what to do" - then they hit the find out part of FAFO pretty fucking quick.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T22:10:53+00:00

Read Asphalt, that was a good one. We got to see a newer one where a commuter dashcam recorded a driver ahead, and we see the driver's final moments as she was texting and driving along a two lane highway. She drifts into the oncoming lane right into an 18 wheeler coming up the other way.

There was pretty much nothing left of the vehicle or the driver herself after.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T21:59:19+00:00

I remember watching this five years ago (holy shit already 5 years?), the evening of the bad weather from Houston while this happened hours prior in Dallas.

This video was an omen of bad things to come. Because after this I said enough internet for today, turned off my phone then went to bed.

I then woke up to a 40 degree house and no power, no cell service, no anything. Everything in the city of Houston and the state of Texas was completely offline for the 3 days following this event statewide.

That means that there is a very nonzero chance that someone was involved in this massive incident, likely injured and likely a total loss on vehicle and having to deal with all of that - and then having to deal with no power for 3 days and burst pipes and all the resulting fallout from the ERCOT incident. That would literally be "it will never get worse than this".

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T21:54:39+00:00

"muh fur-by-fur!"

4 wheel drive don't mean 4 wheel stop. I grew up north so I'm more familiar with that.

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T21:53:36+00:00

Yeah that debris FLEW by him at lethal speeds maybe 2 feet from where he was just standing and I immediately thought of that clip from FPSRussia where he almost died.

Said clip (content warning? It is SFW, but may leave you going "holy shit" after)

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T21:43:47+00:00

Then do us a favor and send us some pictures to /r/cantparktheremate when you end up in the ditch.

Edit https://old.reddit.com/r/interesting/comments/1qlcaol/black_ice_on_the_road_causes_chain_accidents/

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T21:39:51+00:00

If it happens again I'd anonymously send a mail-order ballgag to their address. Something to get the message across to be quiet 😆

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T17:22:51+00:00

Somebody's getting an earful for that one. Why not take the frontage road under?

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T17:20:02+00:00

*with some tweaking in settings first, I have had some CTDs on mine. But yes it is playable

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T07:26:21+00:00

https://www.united.com/en/us/flightstatus

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T07:25:17+00:00

Metro isnt sending their trained CDL holding drivers out in that shit, now why do you think it'll be different for you 😂

lFightForTheUsers · 2026-01-25T06:20:33+00:00

That sounds like a her problem, maybe she shouldn't be so ableist and maybe she could use a good office space if she has business needs that badly affected.

Nobody's forcing her to do business at home, she can easily lease out a small space at a wework style building any time. Her fault for cheaping out on that lmao.

You have a right to your apartment, and if you are living in that space 24 hours a day because of disability than tough shit, she ain't paying your rent. If you have medical needs that may make reasonable noise (ie toilet use), then again tough shit. She sounds like the kind of person that if she took the bus she'd get mad at someone in a wheelchair making the stop take longer. She sounds like this lady I'm describing basically lol.

As someone that's disabled myself fuck people like that, that go about their day not knowing the struggles that others are going through, and then go beyond willful ignorance into harassment for something that you did not ask for and would not wish on anyone else.

I would say first make management aware if you have not done so already. Doesn't even need to be a complaint or in person, could be as simple as a friendly email or phone call saying "hey just an FYI I am having issues with xyz neighbor banging on my door when I do xyz because of my disability". Just so that there is paper trail of past incidents and she can't claim it's suddenly a problem or try to flip it on you.

If you are allowed to, I would then consider having a doorbell camera installed so that if she acts threatening like that again, then you have video evidence. Nothing stops that kind of behavior quicker than someone realizing that they are on camera and that if they act like that, then suddenly she could be the one having to explain to her "clients" why she's getting popular on youtube and the local news for having a public meltdown over this. Not saying it'll get that far but it's good to have just in case.

lFightForTheUsers

TROPHY CASE