We’ve been trying to sell an old ShopVac on Facebook Marketplace recently.  We didn’t have any hits on it for weeks, then Sandy gets a message from a guy named “Darren Knowles” the other day, interested in the item.  I blocked out our personal details in the screenshots in this post, by the way.  Here’s the conversation:

At the point where Darren started a Facebook call, Sandy answered it and spoke to him.   She was pretty confused with what he was saying, and since the Paypal e-mail address was mine, she gave the phone to me to talk to him.  I was confused already, wondering why she would give her phone number to this person, but she didn’t, he started a voice call on Facebook.  I learned that afterward.  I took the phone and he said he sent the $50 payment to my Paypal address and was asking if I got the e-mail or the money in my Paypal account.  I checked both and said no, I don’t have either one.  He insisted he sent it and asked me to check my junk and spam folders.  Nothing there either.  I had previously received money from other people through Paypal in the past, so this normally isn’t an issue at all.  I repeated my Paypal e-mail address to him, but he read it back as a gmail.com address instead of my personal domain e-mail address that Sandy had given him.  I corrected him, then he said yes, that’s the address he sent it to, and he asked me to check again and keep checking.  Eventually, shortly after that, an e-mail came in.  I started smelling a scam at that point, knowing he’s only send an e-mail and isn’t actually sending money to my PayPal account.  Here’s what the e-mail said:

At this point I was confused for a few moments, as I read this e-mail, first to myself, then out loud over the phone conversation with “Darren” (who I also now realized had a pretty odd accent for a guy named Darren, by the way), and I told him I was certainly NOT going to pay $300 for a “Paypal Business Account” or have him pay $300 for this and re-imburse him for it.  I said I’d figure this out and get back to him, then I hung up.

So next I looked at the “Paypal E-mail” a little closed and then it got pretty clear as a scam:

Oh sure, payservpalbuss@gmail.com must be Paypal alright, yessir, I’ll buy that for a dollar!

So I’m sure he had some pretty interesting plans to somehow convince me that he paid the total of $350 to Paypal, and now I need to send him $300 to pay him back, minus the $50 for the shop vac… Then what?  Does some contact of his located nearby actually come and get it??  I just wonder.

We reported him to Facebook, but I’m sure he has plenty other accounts to use to keep scamming.  Unfortunately he got our actual address and my Paypal e-mail address, which we’re not too happy about, but at least he didn’t get the ShopVac or any money from us.

We definitely won’t take anything other than cash for anything else we ever sell, if anything.  And even with that we can’t be sure we won’t get counterfeit bills or robbed at gunpoint when the buyer shows up.  It’s pretty crazy out there these days.  Stay safe!

The screenshot above shows the latest movies I’ve watched and exactly how long ago I watched them. Let’s dive in:

Where the Crawdads Sing: Wow, this was a great movie. Sandy and I watched it last night and really enjoyed it a lot! Even looks like it could win a lot of awards.

Witness to 9/11: Yesterday I was browsing through the 9/11 content, since today is the 21st anniversary of the disaster, and I noticed that Plex says Harrison Ford (from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.) was in it. I had watched this one before, and I didn’t know he was in it, so I was very curious. I watched it all the way through again and found that this is wrong… Unless he was in the background somewhere on the streets of New York City, but I don’t think he was in this special at all.

Pinocchio: This is the live-action version of the Disney classic. It was pretty funny and an interesting modern version of the classic kids will probably love. Tom Hanks plays Gepetto.

Thor – Love and Thunder: Kevin and I absolutely loved this one and the music was just fantastic! All great classic 80’s tunes and a couple hilarious screaming goats that got a bit on my nerves after awhile, but Kevin enjoyed them to no end.

TikTok, Boom: This is a documentary about the controversial rise of TikTok. I thought it was pretty good until it got very political about 1/3 of the way through. But it was ok. I was hoping to see a hugely popular Kenosha local I enjoy a lot on TikTok – Daniel LaBelle, but no such luck.

NOPE: Awesome horror movie, very different though, which is expected from Jordan Peele (from Key and Peele). Enjoyed it a lot. Did I hate it? Nope.

Out of the Blue: Very good low-key movie. I thought it would be a sappy love story, and it was a love story, but very different. Kept us very interested to the very end.

Spin Me Round: Surprisingly, this movie was better than I thought it would. Especially by the look of the cover – I expected a really sappy love & romance story, but it was far from that, with some very unexpected twists.

That’s it for the past couple weeks in movies. Maybe next I’ll list my recent TV shows and miniseries I watched.

Since I watch so many movies, TV shows and miniseries, I thought I’d explain how I find them.  Sure, sometimes it just from plain old-fashioned advertising:  Ads on TV (Google TV, to be specific), ads in Happenings magazine, ad on the internet, etc..   Whenever I see or hear about something I might be interested in, I add it to my list.

I keep a list in OneNote, a Microsoft app I have on my phone and on my computer.  That list contains all of the TV shows and movies I’m interested in, ongoing, upcoming, and from the past.  It gets updated a LOT.  With all of the entertainment available in the world these days, it can get a bit overwhelming at times, especially during certain times of the year, like during “sweeps” or the summer blockbuster season.  But when those times come around I actually enjoy them – it gives me a chance to renew and update a lot on my lists so I have sort of a “queue” of shows and movies I can watch whenever I have time – sort of a “watchlist”.

Over the years I have converted every single DVD and Blu-Ray disc we own into digital format and added it to my Plex server – A movie application much like Netflix.  Plex is simply a different streaming service like the others, except it also allows users to and to add their own content to a personal server, then serve it up as if it were just another piece of media on their service.  Plex has allowed me to avoid having to physically insert a piece of media into a device to watch something for years now.  Now we just need to get our fold home movies – all in ancient formats of different kinds – before that media deteriorates completely – if it hasn’t already.

Plex’s free movie and TV offerings are one of my sources as well as another place I keep my “Watchlist”.  At any given time – especially during holidays – they’ll often curate a list of odd titles, like “Plex Picks”, “What’s on Now”, “Trending Trailers”, “Most watched this week”, “New for the family”, “Released this week”, “Coming Soon”, etc., and they even get pretty funny during special holiday periods with oddly-titled lists.

I could just use those lists to find and consume plenty of content, but I’d rather stay open to using as many other sources as I can, just to keep an open mind and see what’s out there, see what everyone else is watching, what they like and dislike, then I try to maintain my watchlist based on all of that input.

With so many streaming services available today – all fighting to get you to subscribe to them for a monthly fee – that alone can also be pretty overwhelming.  Personally – and surprising to some – I don’t keep a subscription to many of them.  I pick and choose which services to subscribe to at any given time.  Sometimes I’ll choose one streaming service and subscribe for a month, maybe two, watching everything I want from their service, then I’ll cancel or “pause” my subscription and move to something else.  This gives me a chance to learn their interface and see everything they offer, new and old, and watch all I can from them, to see how they stack up against the rest of their competition, then move on.

Pretty much the only streaming service I’ve kept for any length of time – and still have – is YouTube TV.  That name is pretty deceiving – YouTube TV has nothing to do with YouTube, it’s simply own by the same company – Google.  It’s actually just another streaming TV service.  But I’ve tried several others and I haven’t found one with better features that I like.  We only subscribe to the basic plan – about $65/month these days, but still a huge discount over cable TV.  Plus, it offers everything streaming with no actual cable wires, so you can watch it anywhere you have internet, and on a ton of different streaming devices and pretty much any device with a browser.  YouTube TV also offers the best DVR options I’ve ever found anywhere:  The DVR has unlimited capacity – record dozens – or hundreds – of shows and movies, and they all remain on your account, ready to watch at any time.  The limit they impose is “time” – 9 months.  Anything you record will stay for 9 months, guaranteed, then after that it will eventually expire and be removed from your recordings.  But thanks to reruns and movies that are re-aired, most of the time things will stay recorded much longer, and they also offer “VOD” (Video On Demand) versions of some shows, which are offered indefinitely, or at least don’t expire any time soon.

But enough advertising for YouTube TV, this post is about where I find my content.  IMDb.com is another source of mine.  Check the front page there to get started, or just search for any movie, TV show, actor, director… You’ll find plenty of rabbit holes there to keep you plenty busy, digging up some of the oddest and coolest content you never knew about before.

Google Play Movies & TV – This is another site I use often to see what just came out and what’s the most popular – especially the “Top new movie releases to rent or buy” list.  It scrolls, by the way, but they don’t make it obvious – hover over the last movie in the row and a “>” appears at the right edge – click that arrow to scroll another page to the right.  Do the same on the left edge to scroll the other way.  Those “$19.99” (or sometimes even higher) movies should be blockbusters… or at least you’d think so.

JustWatch – This page displays 201,018 titles (and rising).  Very simple, just sort the list whichever way you want:  Popularity, Trending, Alphabetical… I tend to use Popularity the most.  That’s the default setting when you visit the web page.  I think JustWatch even offers an app that you can use to customize the list based on just the subscription services you use, but I haven’t used it.

There are tons of other sources, but those are my primary go-tos.  In addition to those, I usually check out whatever “Gino at the Movies” suggests on Fox 6, what Happenings magazine includes in their many reviews, articles and lists each week, ads that come up on the Roku home screen, those appearing on my Nvidia Shield screen, and a few other sources, including friends and family.

Blair Witch Project (1999)
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
Crimson Peak (2015)
The Witch (2015)
Final Destination (2000)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
The Strangers (2008)

I finally finished the Mel Brooks book. That was very fun, and as a result I now have a much bigger watchlist. Last week I watched a special called “In Search of Tomorrow – The Definitive 80’s Sci-Fi Documentary”. I thought it was your basic documentary, maybe 90 minutes to 2 hours long… Then, after a couple hours of watching it (and taking notes) I checked my progress and realized I wasn’t even halfway through it! It’s a 5-hour-long documentary! But in this case, that’s a GOOD thing. I loved all of the details about the 80’s and sci-fi, not to mention the occasional Wil Wheaton pop-in I wasn’t expecting.

I learned about many classic gems I hadn’t even heard of before in here, including Flight of the Navigator, Galaxina, Collossus: The Forbin Project, Saturn 3, Cherry 2000, Mac and Me and many others. There goes my watchlist again. Other classics were in there that I had watched before, but remembered very little of them because I was so young when I saw them, like Disney’s the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, starting Kurt Russell as a kid, Fantastic Voyage, Alien Nation, and Outland. More Watchlist fodder.

There were even older classics from the 70’s and 90’s–responsible for the inspiration of some other movies, which I’m now also interesting in seeing. My Watchlist just grows and grows.

New releases lately that I’m interested in and have added to my watchlist: Jurassic World Dominion, Adeline, The Royal, Hello, Goodbye and Everything In Between, and a few others.

That’s about it. Tons to watch and so little time. I gotta go get to it.

Yup, I’m STILL reading Mel Brooks’ book, “All About Me!”, so I’m looking for more classic movies he talks about. The most recent ones are The Artist, an academy-award-winning silent movie from 2011 that I never watched before. Probably because it’s a silent movie. But Mel talked me into it, so I’ll give it a shot. The Elephant Man (1980) – another movie that’s supposed to be great, but I never watched it, 84 Charing Cross Road, one I’ve never heard of before, but now I want to watch it, and Solarbabies, another one I hadn’t heard of, but it was a huge problem for Mel Brooks’ production company, BrooksFilms, costing tons more money than what was budgeted. It doesn’t seem to be good as far as ratings go, but I gotta check it out.

I recently made the mistake of putting on “100 Greatest TV Themes”, an album on Spotify, to listen to something in the background as I was working. I like to work with a little background music playing low, nothing intense, just sort of like elevator music playing softly. So I’ve taken to listening to a lot of movie and TV soundtracks. But when I hit played this particular album, it often triggered memories of old TV shows, so I had to dig up things I rememebered that I hadn’t dug up previously. Like 21 Jumpstreet, Lou Grant, and Who’s The Boss. At the time they were awesome. We’ll see how they hold up over time.

We watched the movie Superintelligence this week and I really enjoyed it! It’s about an A.I. that decides it’s going either enslave, save or destroy humanity, so it contacts Melissa McCarthy’s character by taking over all of her smart devices in her life and manipulating her to test how humans work and interact to help make its big decision on what to do with humanity. I found it pretty amusing.

I’m still reading Mel Brooks’ “All About Me!” and he married Anne Bancroft, so of course I have to dig up anything he recommended that his wife made, such as “The Miracle Worker”, the movie that won Anne the Academy Award for Best Actress. Mel says it’s an excellent movie, so of course I gotta put it on my watchlist. Plus “The Twelve Chairs”, a crazy Mel Brooks comedy I hadn’t heard of before that I have to see now.

Yucko the Clown is a whole different story. He was recently discussed on the Howard Stern Show (yes, I still listen to Howard). Yucko was apparently a big thing on Howard Stern many years ago. I vaguely remember hearing the name mentioned before, but I apparently missed him completely. He was a very rude, drunken clown. But that was quite some time ago. Now he’s in Hollywood making it big in animation. His name is actually Roger Black. He made the animated shows Brickleberry, Paradise PD, and a new animated Sci-Fi series coming out very soon called Farzar. All shows I’ve never seen before, but now I gotta check them out. My apologies in advance if the embedded videos offend anyone.

Just a trivial note:. There are 37 small Pixar Short Films. These were released on 3 discs, separately, as Pixar Short Films Volume 1, 2, and 3. Some sources include them in a single “Collection” titled simply “Pixar Shorts”. Go figure.

I’m currently listening to Mel Brooks’ audiobook, “All About Me!” so I’ve been digging up (or trying to dig up) a lot of really old movies and TV shows. Many seem to be completely nonexistent, like “Your Show of Shows” which is featured a lot in the book, since it was a big part of Mel’s life, but I can’t seem to find a trace of it anywhere. It’s a really good book though, he’s had an awesome life. So if you see some very old movies and TV shows pop up somewhere familiar, this would be why.

For the Marvel fans out there, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is out on digital now. My stepson Matt saw it in theaters and said it was awesome. You can watch it in 4K or 1080p. Being a huge Marvel fan myself, I’m looking forward to it, but the trailer seemed pretty confusing. We’ll see. I’m sure Kevin and I will watch it very soon.

I’ve heard that a lot – “Write what you know”, and this site has gone unused for way too long. So I’ve decided to write what I know. I’m obsessed with movies and TV, and videogames. Well, I’m more of a spectator than an actual player of videogames, but I collect them anyway, figuring when I retire I’ll have all the time in the world to play around with them. Like my dad did when the hundreds of Beta and VHS movies he collected. Lets go ahead and get started, shall we?

As I write about movies and TV shows here, those “in the know” will know where to find them all the easiest, so I won’t bother to provide sources. This morning I found a new movie that looks pretty good: “Jerry and Marge Go Large”. We’re going to watch it tonight. It stars Brian Cranston and Annette Bening, in addition to several other great actors. Here’s the description: “The remarkable true story of how retiree Jerry Selbee discovers a mathematical loophole in the Massachusetts lottery and, with the help of his wife, Marge, wins $27 million dollars and uses the money to revive their small Michigan town.”

I didn’t even know it was a true story until I copied and pasted that description. I only watched the trailer and I wanted to watch it. I’ll pop back here and add a short review after we watch it.

Sandy’s brother Rick has been pretty sick lately. Since Sandy is his Medical POA, she’s been pretty busy these days as a result. Rick and Sandy are pretty close, keeping in touch several times a day, most days. Rick lives in Wisconsin Rapids in the Winter and in Bancroft, Wisconsin in the Summer at a campground.

Rick has had several falls recently, and his health has gotten a bit worse. He was hospitalized in Wisconsin Rapids on 02/24/2022, stayed overnight in the ER, but they had no beds for him, so he was transferred to UW Madison Hospital on 02/25/2022. We went to visit him on 02/26/2022 and he was on a ventilator. Sandy was able to see him, but due to visitation restrictions I had to stay in the waiting room. He didn’t wake up at all when we were there, but Sandy talked to him anyway.

They said he had problems breathing overnight, so they had to put him on the ventilator and tie his arms down to prevent him from pulling out the tubes. He has been diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis (often called rhabdo). It is a serious medical condition that can be fatal or result in permanent disability. Rhabdo occurs when damaged muscle tissue releases its proteins and electrolytes into the blood. These substances can damage the heart and kidneys and cause permanent disability or even death.

As of today, 2/27/2022, Sandy was told that he now has a partially-collapsed lung, which they found after doing a Chest CT, so they have adjusted his venilator accordingly. They have also run more tests, and as of today he does appear to be improving. They are expecting at least another five days or longer in the hospital before he may be well enough to be transferred to a rehab facility for further help, if he keeps improving.

They are testing him for MRSA and HIV today. He is already in isolation due to the rhabdo, so Sandy had to fully gown up in order to visit him. The Chest CT also showed no blood clots, so that’s good. They’ve also put in a feeding tube today. I will update this post as we learn more.

Monday, Feb. 28th, 2022 – Sandy reminded me that I forgot to mention the fact that Rick is also going to withdrawal from alcohol, so that’s another complication of his current condition. Today they confirmed Rick has tested positive for MRSA, and they did an MRI of his brain and stomach to check for damage from bacteria. They also did a Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) today and he now has a feeding tube inserted. They will start giving him the regular meds he takes via his feeding tube as much as possible, and they are going to start weaning him off of the ventilator a little at a time.

Tuesday, March 1st, 2022 – They started weaning Rick off the ventilator today by shutting it off temporarily and they said he did very well breathing on his own. They will do this procedure a few more times before they take him off of the ventilator completely. The TEE test was delayed until today, and his nurse will call when those test results come back.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – The results of the TEE test came back normal today, so that’s one good thing. They had also tried removing him from the ventilator temporarily today, to see how he does, but he had a very difficult time and couldn’t breathe on his own yet, so they had to put it back in.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022 – Rick was completely taken off of the ventilator today and he is breathing on his own with a low dose of oxygen. He has some delirium and confusion and the doctor says this will last a few days. They did a bedside swallow study today and he is very sore from the ventilator tube and to get a better picture they will do a regular swallow study in X-Ray tomorrow. He still has the feeding tube in, but after the full swallow study tomorrow they will try to feed him by mouth with soft foods. Tomorrow is Rick’s birthday, by the way.

Friday, March 4th, 2022 – Rick’s nurse said he had a bit of a rough night and was very confused. But Sandy was able to talk to Rick on the phone today with his nurse’s help with the phone. She wished him a Happy Birthday and told him to cooperate with the nurses and doctors so he can get better and come home. He seemed pretty good on the phone and aware of what was going on when she talked to him.

Saturday, March 5th, 2022 – This morning we took a trip up to Rick’s apartment in Wisconsin Rapids to take care of some of his affairs while he’s in the hospital. Rick is doing better today, Sandy talked to him on the phone again while we were on our way up there. Rick said he wants to check himself out of the hospital, but Sandy set him straight and explained that he has been in bed this whole time and will probably need to go to rehab for a short time to get back to normal again. He said “I know…” and seemed to understand. The nurse told Sandy today that they’ll be moving him to a regular room and out of CCU in a few days, so that’s great news. Sandy stressed that to Rick as well. We met several of Rick’s friends today, on our trip: Jerry and his girlfriend Sandy, Tom, and another Sandy, who is the owner of the bar at Rick’s campground, Ponderosa Pines. Three Sandys and a Tom & Jerry…hmm… There’s a good joke in there somewhere. Jerry even bought us lunch at Ponderosa Pines. They’re all very nice, friendly, and very concerned about Rick’s health. He has a great support system up North, and we were glad to learn that.

Sunday, March 6th, 2022 – Rick’s doing better. He called Sandy three times today, on his own, from his hospital room phone. He even got up and used the bathroom several times. They’re going to move him to a regular room tomorrow. Things are looking up! Thanks to everyone for your well wishes, thoughts and prayers.

Monday, March 7th, 2022 – Rick slept through the night last night and had physical therapy today. His oxygen line was removed, so he’s no longer on oxygen at all. All other lines were removed as well, except for a PICC line, which will be used to administer antibiotics to treat the MRSA. His social worker said they are looking for a rehab or short-term nursing home facility that he can move to for about three weeks because he still has to take IV antibiotics for that long. A swallow study was also done today and he can now have soft food and he is on a low-carb diet. He lost 15 lbs so far during his hospital stay.

Tuesday, March 8th, 2022 – They removed Rick’s feed tube today, and he’s taking walks with a walker for physical therapy every day now. In one to three days he willl be transferred to Manor Care, a nursing home in Kenosha, for physical therapy and IV antibiotics. This will last approximately three weeks while he is still on the IV, then he will stay with us in Kenosha until he feels well enough to return home to Wisconsin Rapids.

Wednesday, March 9th – Rick will be transferred to ManorCare in Kenosha tomorrow afternoon for rehab and IV antibiotics. He’s getting better every day!

It’s been awhile. I hate that I haven’t posted in while, but this happens a lot. Things have been pretty busy lately. We’ve been working a lot on the house, our health, and even my employment has taken a turn for the better. That’s our trifecta! All of this now takes up a lot more of my time than before, leaving less and less time for me to sit here and type up a post. But it’s Saturday night and we just finished watching American Underdog–a great football movie, and a true story. Sandy and I both really enjoyed it a lot. So I felt like posting.

Since this is my first post of 2022, I should go back a bit. I lost a total of 48 lbs. last year. That’s my personal best, and a record I intend to break, hopefully this year. I’d settle for 50 lbs., but the more the better. Gardein actually tastes pretty good, and with that and walking 3-4 miles every weekday at work, I think it’ll be a done deal. Sandy and I are also doing 16/8 Intermittent Fasting too, which is helping us both.

Sandy, by the way, is having knee replacement surgery Monday. She’s been in such pain lately, since she fell on her left knee recently and made it much worse. I feel her pain, and know exactly how it is, having gone through the same thing a few years ago. So I suggested she go to the same doctor I went to. He did an excellent job with my right knee replacement, everything went very well and turned out great, and now I can walk my ass off (literally) , I have no more knee pain, and I’m finally seeing some good improvement in my health. So now he’s going to do her left knee. Together we’re the Bionic Man and Bionic Woman, with one complete set of bionic legs between us. Queue the theme music…

More to come soon…

I ordered a Ring Chime last week from Best Buy. They didn’t have any in-store at the time, so I ordered it to be picked up curb-side, as I have several times in the past since the beginning of the pandemic. Yesterday (Sunday 11/8/21) I received a text stating that my item was ready for pickup, so I set aside a time during the day to run out and pick it up.

I parked in one of the reserved curbside-pickup parking spots and used the text message I had received to “check-in”. Best Buy requires you parking spot #, the type of vehicle you’re in and its color. After completing my check-in it said someone would be out with my order shortly. This normally takes just a few minutes, then I get another text message stating someone is on the way out with my item(s). This time, however, someone cam to my car and apologized, explaining that either their system messed up, or someone misplaced my item, because they haven’t been able to locate it yet. He said he was going to go look for it, and if he still can’t find it, he’ll take one from stock and give me that one. He said he’d be back shortly.

Good thing I wasn’t in a hurry. So I waited. And waited. After about 30 minutes of waiting I was getting pretty frustrated and contemplated leaving. Then someone else came out – a manager – empty-handed again, so it didn’t look promising. He explained that their system must have had a glitch or something, because my item definitely wasn’t at the store, though their system said it was. He knew how long I had been waiting, so he offered to make it right by giving me a $50 Best Buy gift card. He said they will correct the issue and get my item re-ordered and sent to the store,. or they could even ship it to my house, but the gift card pretty much makes it free, as the Ring Chime Pro costs about $50 itself.

He kept apologizing for the error and the time that I wasted waiting. I didn’t appear angry or anything, just a little frustrated. I said it was alright, no problem, this is fine. He gave me the gift card and after I left I got the text that my Ring Chime Pro had been re-ordered. He said that, if I wanted to, I could even return it when it came in, and purchase it again with the gift card if I wanted to truly make it free. I knew that, but as long as the gift card never expires, there’s no hurry and I’m sure I’ll make use of it in the near future. Returning the item to the store would be a last-resort task, only it if was defective. The less exposure to others the better.

I went home empty-handed and a little disappointed, but it was free now, so I feel better about the whole thing. Except I wish I knew exactly what went wrong. Can I trust Best Buy’s ordering system anymore? This is the first time I’ve had an issue with it at all. But now I’ll always be wondering when I order something… I just hope, if it screws up again, they’ll be just as nice next time.

I’ve been struggling for weeks with a very annoying issue on my smartphone, and I just now found the solution. It was quite the journey, and very very frustrating knowing that people usually come to ME for solutions to problems like this, so if I was having a problem myself, I knew I had to keep at it until I figured out the solution.

The Problem: My smartphone would pause every 5 minutes whenever I had a Bluetooth speaker connected. I could be in the car connected to my car’s Bluetooth or walking with my Bluetooth earbuds on and whether I was on YouTube watching a video, on Plex watching a TV Show or movie, or listening to an audiobook on Audible, it would pause every 5 minutes like clockwork.

I checked all of the obvious things first, of course: Sleeping apps, battery saver settings, etc., and after turning all of them off completely, for every app, the problem remained, so I took to the web. I found several articles with lists of possible solutions, many of them listing the same solutions. I tried them all. Still the same issue remained. Day after day, week after week, driving me crazy. It’s really really annoying, especially when I was listening to a particularly good book or watching a video or movie I was really interested in. Each interruption prompted me to dig deeper and keep looking for a solution.

I even went so far as preparing to wipe my phone completely and start over fresh. I knew this might resolve the issue, but it would probably leave me still wondering what caused the issue in the first place, and I might be stuck wondering if the problem will just come back again, possibly even right after the refresh, to make me even more frustrated and annoyed. Not to mention the time I would have wasted setting everything up just the way I like it., not knowing if something within my particular setup was what was causing the issue in the first place.

With the reset in mind, I also began looking at just upgrading to a new smartphone in the process. Why not get some better speed and features along the way. Maybe the issue I’m having has something to do with this model of smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G), who knows? After some research the Google Pixel 6 Pro looked pretty sweet – the pure Android experience without all the Samsung crap, including the Samsung Store and all of the bloatware they include on their phones (which I remove as much of as I can), and it also comes in a 512GB model, which is a new standard I live by. It’s a fairly rare storage size for a smartphone, but it’s the only size I’ll buy anymore after experiencing my last couple smartphones with this much storage. It’s worth the extra money for all the extra breathing room it provides.

So with the problem still ever-present, yesterday I started focusing more on the significance of the exact 5-minute intervals of the pauses. Why 5 minutes exactly? Something has to be happening that’s triggering that pause, and it has to be something that uses Bluetooth. Then it hit me: My Dexcom G6 Blood Glucose patch is connected with Bluetooth and it sends a reading every 5 minutes!! BINGO, I thought, that HAS to be the issue. Now I had to think of what I need to do next to confirm this theory, as well as what I would have to do if this was the issue. Will I need to get a different model of glucose patch? Is there an update for the Dexcom G6 application that I need to install? What about my smartwatch? I was using the Dexcom watchface that comes with the Dexcom G6 as my smartwatch’s display, so this way I can see me readings at any time by pressing my smartwatch’s screen. I get a nice graph of my reading history as well as my current glucose level. Using that watchface, I realized that, itself, could be the issue – the watchface needs to update every 5 minutes after my phone gets a new reading from my patch, all via Bluetooth. So I turned off that watchface immediately and tested it. Fail. The problem remained.

There is no easy way to stop or pause the Dexcom G6 without replacing some hardware – either the transmitter or the sensor – so doing that would cost some money, and I’m not even actually sure that’s the issue. So I took to the Internet again, this time specifying “Dexcom” in my search term along with “Android bluetooth 5 minutes pause”. I quickly found a few posts on Reddit that insisted that they had the same issue, definitely from the Dexcom G6, and asking how they could fix it, if there was a patch for the software, etc… Then, after some back and forth discussion, someone else responded stating they thought they had the same issue with their Dexcom device, but it was actually the Roku app. The user said “just uninstall the Roku app and your issue will be done.” Then, after that post were several more from other users saying “Thank you, that worked!” in various ways, confirming that just having the Roku app installed, which should have nothing to do at all with Bluetooth, was causing the issue. It sounded pretty sketchy to me, but I figured it was simpler than everything else I was about to try – just uninstall the Roku app, and if that didn’t solve the issue, just re-install it.

I uninstalled the Roku app then started playing an audiobook as I drove home from work, most expecting to find out, in about 5 minutes, that those people were wrong–at least in MY case–and it wasn’t the Roku app. But they were spot-on. I made it all the way home, and listened to my audiobook all the way, about 40 minutes straight, with no pauses at all. The Roku app somehow causes this issue. I haven’t looked into it further yet, but I certainly will later on.

Right now I’m just so relieved my issue is completely gone now, and I don’t have to wipe it, replace it, or waste any more time troubleshooting. The only benefit I got from this whole experience was that I’m now sure I will definitely be abandoning Samsung phones, at least for one upgrade cycle. They stopping making their “Note” line of phones with the Note 20 (the one I have) being the last of the Notes–these are their phone model with the built-in stylus so you can write and draw on the screen with a pencil-like stylus. That’s a big feature I really liked in my phone, along with the 512GB of storage. So without that option in the new models, I compared all of the other pluses and minuses and I’m pretty sure the Pixel 6 Pro will be my next smartphone, hands-down. I am well aware that they will still sell a stylus that will work with their new phone models, but it won’t be built-in and there just won’t be that seamless integration that the Note series has always had. And I know I can also use a stylus with the Pixel 6 Pro, if I wanted to, so there are alternatives for that piece of the puzzle.

I also learned, during this fiasco, that you shouldn’t summarily reject someone’s response to a post offering an alternative solution to a problem, no matter how silly it might sound. It might just be true, as it was in this case. I never would have found the solution without finding that post, or one similar to it (I have actually found several now). I have over 500 apps installed on my phone, and the Roku app would definitely have been one of the last, if not THE last app I would have suspected as having caused this issue.

First World problem.

Its getting scarier out here…