I was just thinking this morning that it’s kinda odd that there’s no cell phone that also doubles as a multi-meter for measuring electronic current. I guess it’s because in theory you’d need to also carry around a set of probes with you?

I have been slowly working on replacing the motor in my truck. Took Friday off from work & made a lot of progress. I’m approaching that point where it actually looks like it might run again.

10 hours, but I’m also a fatty.

Back in college, my buds & I did a road trip across America, so of course we stopped at the Grand Canyon. Breakfast was just a peanut butter & bread “sandwich”, at which point we started hiking down the canyon. If you’ve ever been, they have numerous signs saying “Do not go past this point unless you are packing food”. But hey, we’re college kids, and we’re not going to go THAT much farther… Long story short, that night the rangers had to chaperone us as we fucking crawled back out. One of us ‘got’ to ride in a helicopter to the medical building. For the other 3 of us who could still move, they manged to find a dusty MRE at the last way station. That was the absolute best chicken & pea soup in a tin foil bag I have ever eaten in my life.

$4.30 / dozen. Atlanta, GA.

I was on a Ford reddit forum. OP was pissed that their timing belt (chain?) broke, and was convinced that the repair shop she had previously went to had sabotaged her motor. I commented that these things do in fact break, and that the shop might not have been the culprit. Holy Downvotes Batman.

Kept the left over floor tiles. Nearly 30 years later I needed to replace one, had a box ready to go.

“Dogmeat has died”.

Oh no he fucking has not. Reload.

All I can give you by Jason Lancaster

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46kuUZAPxeQ

Model Railroading.

It’s not the worst, but it requires all the key ingredients - you need to own a home large enough to have a ‘spare’ room, which means you’ve got disposable income. And displaying the trains is almost as much fun as running them, so you end building shelves and shelves, which then sprawl out to the rest of the house. Only to realize you’re missing the ‘key’ one from that set, got to go find that, obviously.

And then of course you can’t throw away the boxes, because that would lower the resale value, so you need to rent a second storage unit. Not that you would ever sell them of course. But your kids will be sitting on a goldmine!

And that’s just the collection portion. It’s a crafty hobby, from making scenery & waterfalls & little trees all the way to the special paints to make the engines look aged. That will need a room as well.

And now that we’ve got the train shelves in the kitchen, you know, I could put a food themed railroad on the table there. Yes I already have the desert themed one in the train room and the prairie themed one in the living room and the snow theme layout in the hallway, but I don’t have a silly one. No of course the Halloween theme one doesn’t count.

74F (23C) I grew up in Florida, which is a very warm state. Now I live a good bit farther north, but my body never adjusted to the cold weather. Nice in the summer, as I don’t need the A/C, but the bills in the winter are rough.

Every week I write my weight on the giant whiteboard in the kitchen. I don’t erase it, just keep the log running all year long, for anyone to see. It’s an amazing motivator.

I was banned from Reddit for the crime of using a different computer to login. Fun fact - there’s no appeal for that one. So I decided I had enough of that particular shit show, did some Googling for something similar to the older Reddit from years ago.

Scottish Shortbread Cookies.

Small story - my grandmother on my mother’s side made these cookies that were absolutely my dad’s favorite. Unfortunately, he & my mom separated pretty early, but they stayed local so they could co-parent. So every Christmas, we could tell if dad had treated mom well that year because either there’d be a ton of his favorite cookies, or none at all.

I used to carry a universal TV remote control with me. It’s simply staggering how often it was useful.

“YOU DRIVE VERY FAST”. Screamed at me out her minivan window by a middle aged Indian woman making a left across traffic in front of me. Still cracks me up.

There’s this scene at the start of War of the Worlds where the hero races his classic muscle car up this tiny neighborhood street at full tilt, exhaust notes at full blast, and I think he even screeches the tires by slamming the brakes pulling into the driveway. Then he walks up to his neighbor and they’re all chill with him. In any other world, the neighbors would have him in handcuffs.

Not a direct answer, but if you ever get a chance - go walk around a self-serve junkyard. This is where cars go when they finally just aren’t worth fixing anymore. It is eye opening. There are cars that you will still consider ‘new’ that have already given up the ghost (mainly Dodge/Chrysler, Hyundai/Kia, & Nissan). And you can’t help but think - WTF are these cars doing here, aren’t these still for sale at the dealership?

Conversely, there are also cars there so old you hardly recognize them (usually Honda, Toyota, and full size pickups from Ford/GM).

I’m super-out of date, so talking about the originals here.

For the Decepticons, I have to go with Devastator / the Constructicons. Something about “We build for EviL” is just so cartoon villian-y that I’ve always loved them. Plus, neon green & purple.

For the Autobots - my first transformers ever were Gears and Cliffjumper - two relative no-name minis, but they have a special place in my heart.

Steam has free voice chat as well. Hardly open source though.

My company is European. Although all our templates are written in English, the check-language is set to Italian. So, pretty much every single word.

And yes, every time a new template comes out, we have to go through block by block and reset them to English. But even then a bunch slips through. Usually takes about a month to filter all the filters out.