I bought cast iron pan which I think is the best ever purchase I made.
The best purchase I’ve made this year has to be the tickets for the “Barbie” movie on opening day July 21st. As I watched the movie in theater (the best way to watch a movie), I was literally moved to tears by the performance of the lead actress, whom I might add, deserves an Oscar this year.
Fellow lemmings, I, for one, will definitely be buying “Barbie” on Blu-ray to have it in my collection.
Multiple copies, in fact.
Oh my god I loved you in that science meme!
Not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty good at both science AND memes.
You are the opposite of me, I got bored in 10 minutes and I turned it off after 30 minutes.
It’s cool that people can enjoy so different things.
Two questions for you!
1.) What is the most useful thing we in the Lemmy community can do to help you get that Oscar?
2.) I have a secret Santa this year coming up in a month that I am a part of with some friends. Would you be interested in leaving a comment for a friend of mine in response to this that I can show them a month from now for the secret santa?
“Hey Rome, this is Margot Robbie wishing you a merry Christmas and happy new year?”, or something like that?
Thanks for being cool either way and good luck getting nominated this year!
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Memes. I don’t know how it works either so I’m just going with it.
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I’m sure he would appreciate the sincere thoughts of you as his friend more than a social media comment left by a complete stranger from the Internet. Which is what this is.
Still, hi Rome!
You’re no stranger, you’re THE Margot Robbie! Well, A Margot Robbie. And since I saw that name on my screen that means we’re best buds, right?
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Good knives. Well worth it.
This and knife sharpening kit. I brought back two Farberware pieces of crap and use them more than my Wusthof chef’s knife now.
Are whetstone any good?
It is worth learning. A single two sided whetstone and some basic skill will give you sharp knives for the rest of your life.
Bonus, keep your cheap knives. They are typically a softer metal that will require maintenance more often so you can practice.
Also learn when you need to sharpen and when you need to hone. Your knife may be sharp but the edge is out of shape (folded, bent over). A few swipes of a hone and you could be back to 80-90% sharp.
At this point I use medium value knives and sharpen them once a year. I have no regrets regarding learning to sharpen with a whetstone. I also typically don’t sharpen beyond 1000 grit and it’s still enough for people to remark on how sharp the knives are.
Best of luck.
- Sagifurius ( @Sagifurius@lemm.ee ) 1•7 months ago
That’s no longer true. A dishwasher safe trend took over, most cheap knives are extremely hard now. I’ve a nice old set of not quite stainless that sharpen very easily and the ten thousand grit polish stone I have actually does something. Most new knives I sharpen for people I don’t even go over 3000 because they are far too hard to take much effect. My personal favorites are old Wiltshire 70s wood handled inox cleavers and Opinel knives, those opinel especially turn into a razor incredibly easily.
If you know how to use it. If you do not know got to use it a kit that you just stick in the knife is going to be way better.
Yes. Best way to sharpen a knife
I bought a really nice Benchmade pocket knife. I like the way it opens Amazon packages
My house. Even though we have to pay taxes and mortgage interest, it beats paying rent to a landlord. Also, we bought it in 2020 and it has appreciated it value significantly since then. However, that appreciation is kind of fictitious to me, because if we sold the house it’s unlikely that we’d be able to buy a similar one in the same area for less. So, it’s just a nice house.
Off the top of my head no particular order:
- Proper mop bucket like heavy duty on wheels. Mopping takes minutes now, nothing has worn out in years, very little waste.
- Proper broom, not plastic. Got tired of all the waste from plastic ones wearing out so quickly. I got one of these and it is an amazing buy it for life kind of thing.
- Bidet
- An IDGAF pocket knife. All those times when I was young and just needed a vaguely knife-shaped piece of metal but dad was like “don’t hammer that knife into that rock you’ll damage the blade” or “don’t hammer that knife into the can of beans” or “don’t hammer that knife into the deer skull you found” well now IDGAF. Sturdy, cheap, doesn’t matter it it holds an edge or stays clean.
- A Dremel. I don’t have a lot of space and this thing is great for cutting random things I don’t have real tools for.
- Respirator and impact goggles. Originally bought for going to protests but I’ve found they’re just fantastic around the house. Don’t want to breath in murder chemical while cleaning an oven? Or microplastics from sawing your latest art project in half? What about “This Dremel blade might explode if I use it like this and I don’t want to lose my eyes”?
- Yak tracks, they work. I’m getting too old to fall on ice and walk it off.
- The right shoes for the job. Walking shoes, climbing shoes, hiking boots, brown leather heels for construction work, eight inch black leather stilletos for getting attention, blue suede boots for getting attention, six inch pink platform boots for getting attention, blue gogo boots for getting attention. They’re all crucial to my day to day.
- Cats. They keep the sad away, works great.
- Jars everywhere. You can store spices, leftovers, paperclips, q tips, an array of rocks for making minis, paints, pepper ferments. They are so versatile and easy to clean I have maybe 150 or so of them currently.
- Air fryer. Didn’t think I’d like it but I’m a convert now they’re great.
- A growing collection of glues. I don’t know why but the ability to properly fuse shit together unlocks so many possibilities. This is a new discovery for me.
- A growing collection of solvents. Like the reverse of glue the ability to clean things in specific ways is great.
- Metal wire shelves. They’re versatile, sturdy, relatively cheap, easy to break down and transport if you’ve been averaging a move a year for ten years.
- A small sewing kit. Great for small repairs. I’ve added years to some of my dresses by catching weak points early and doing 10 minute fixes.
- Proper electric toothbrush. Even the fanciest ones are cheaper than dental work.
- Lastly, a bin of compost in your living room because you live in a city and don’t have much access to dirt. Feed it very slowly so it doesn’t rot. Keep roly polies in there, they’re cute, and springtails to prevent mold, they’re also cute. When you feel sad about living in a cement and steel environment just crack that thing open and pretend you’re looking at a forest floor. Dig around a little see how the worms are doing. Bother your nesting partner by grabbing fistfuls of it and loudly exclaiming “dirt smells great today really earthy!”
Edit to add, how could I forget this? I just got home and in my entryway there is an 18 unit locker like the kind you would find during a Bed Bath going out of business sale and they’re getting rid of everything including the employee lockers in back, you know the ones. I’m poly so each of my partners and my nesting partner’s partners get to pick their own locker to keep overnight supplies in. There are unclaimed lockers for guests to store small things, and some that are effectively house mandatory junk drawers. Also serves as a lost and found when like partners leave phone chargers or whatever else behind. Great purchase.
You seems like an interesting Person!
I’ve been told I’m very me. I think mostly I have too much going on to give one hot fuck about what other people are thinking of me so I end up being a top tier goblin
Vasectomy. Before I got my vasectomy, I had a lot of anxiety that the condom might fail and an unwanted pregnancy would occur. That’s not to say vasectomies can’t fail, they can, even years afterwards, recanalization can happen so I get tested every year.
Annual failure rate of condom (average use) is 18%, and with perfect use it’s 2%. This means that over a span of 20 years, even with perfect use, there is a 33% chance for a pregnancy which is too high for me. A vasectomy with annual testing of sperm count is as close to zero as possible.
Yeah, this isn’t the usual holiday present thing… this is something you buy for yourself.
I agree with OP though on the cast iron though, these are super affordable and last forever. restoring a rusty cast iron skillet is pretty easy, so there is no reason to buy them new; from a bang for the buck perspective, this is really good.
Yup this is why I got my tubes tied. Too much anxiety just relying on the pill!
Pretty smart. Hope it wasn’t too difficult for you to get it (many doctors treat their patients with condescension and dismissal about sterilisation, especially towards women).
Oh man it was a nightmare finding someone who would sterilize me. I was 24 when I started seriously looking, and I can’t tell you how many doctors told me I’d change my mind about not wanting kids (insert huuuge eyeroll here), and one doctor even said that he thought my boyfriend was forcing me into it and that I didn’t understand how permanent it was. Thankfully I did finally find someone to take me seriously but man, what a pain in the ass!
Before leaving Reddit, I spent a lot of time on the r/childfree subreddit and read many threads with similar experiences. They have a list of CF friendly doctors, so this is a great resource that can save people a lot of time and frustration.
Yep - back in the day the LiveJournal childfree comm had a similar list which was really helpful!
Is the annual test really necessary?
Most people don’t do it, but it’s mostly for my peace of mind.
Got my procedure scheduled in two weeks, so I am hoping it’s a one and done thing
Vasectomies rarely fail, just make sure to follow the instructions and use other contraceptives until you get the tests cleared (since you will still release sperm even afterwards for a while). Hope you have a smooth experience like mine.
I worked with a guy that had to go in three times but I think he was no following post operation care. You are supposed to abstain for a few days while it heals.
When I got my vasectomy it was no needle, no scalpel. They make a small hole then pull the vas deferens out cut and tie it to itself then do the other, all with pain numbing spray. Was 5 minutes not including the ball shaving. I went in to work that night, with an ice pack on my balls all night but barely had any issues. Some extra swelling happened but I went back for an injection of anti inflammatory and it went away.
If you want to be 100% Sure then yes.
Most people are fine with being 98% sure though.
Okay, thanks.
This means that over a span of 20 years, even with perfect use, there is a 33% chance for a pregnancy
No this is completely inaccurate and wrong…there’s a 33% risk of a condom failing. You’d still have to time it with ovulation of the person you’re boinking for there to be a risk of pregnancy. And even then, having sex in the most optimal period isn’t even a guarantee of pregnancy, far from it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3638209/
This is talking about the percentage of women with unintended pregnancies. They also compare it with no contraception which is 85% annually.
Decent quality automatic cat feeders.
We have 3 cats, and I resisted getting autofeeders for 5 years because it felt silly to buy what amounts to three $75 food bowls.
They paid for themselves the first weekend I didn’t have 3 razor sharp dickheads screaming at me to feed them at 5:15 AM. I should have bought them years ago.
Seriously. My cats are so relaxed because they get their food at the exact same times every day. I still hand feed the first and last meals (canned wet food), but it gives them something to look forward to during the day, even when we are at work.
They can also apparently tell time now because they get ready within five minutes of most feedings, I like to think that makes them feel more connected to their world and existence.
wish there was one that could open wet food cans and parse it out. my old gato is on soft foods only.
We use ice cube trays to freeze wet food, then put the cubes in the automatic feeder.
Avoiding 5am starvation yowls is exactly why I free feed, and I’m sure it’s going to bite me in the ass when my two are older and stop maintaining their weight easily. But for now, they’re active and healthy weight even with the free feeding. So we’ll see
After watching a Jackson galaxy video on how to stop your cat from waking you up early, I followed the advice of never feeding immediately after getting up, and instead doing a certain activity first, like making coffee. After a month of taking a shower before feeding, my cat no longer makes any noise in the morning and only starts getting noisy when I step out of the shower. So thats a good tip for those who can’t free feed. I also started collecting every toy and putting them in a secure box before bed since she has a tendency to chase toys around in the middle of the night and yelp with one in her mouth.
Bidet, easy, second choice was an AMDGPU, fuck nvidia.
My synology NAS. It’s great being able to have a central place for all my files that’s platform agnostic.
If you got one with a decent CPU it’s also quite the little workhorse of a home server via its apps and Docker.
Mine is quite old now but has always been slow a molasses. Maybe I should upgrade.
I went from 212j to 920+ and it’s night and day in terms of what it can do. It was also $400 more so there is that.
It has been a fun hobby to nerd out learning Docker, networking magic, VPNs, and such. It may tun into full-blown Linux on a PC at some point.
If you go the full Linux desktop route, I recommend installing a hypervisor like proxmox to make it easy to spin up and manage VM’s and containers off the bare metal.
A lot more work to setup than a NAS like Synology, but having some more control over the setup and tailoring it to your needs makes it worth it imo.
Thanks for the tip, i didn’t actually 100% understand what proxmox was until you said that it is a hypervisor.
I have a NUC that I accidentally stole from my last job that may become my hobby PC. I will probably try a distro on bare metal to get my feet wet but then take it to there. Or maybe a USB distro to start? I haven’t put much thought into it yet.
Yeah, just try some stuff, then wipe it and try something else. Do that until you have an idea of what you want to try more of.
I have a Synology NAS too but YSK they’re an absolute shit company who only does well because they’re the only game in town. They used to be great but they’ve started doing some questionable things in recent years with “official” drives and their customer service is SO bad.
Also, they’re closed source.
My IKEA 100cm blahaj for 30€. Now I don’t feel as lonely every night.
My dog. Easily the most value I’ve ever got for my money, no comparison.
Electrical tape, anything I don’t know how to otherwise fix, electrical tape fixes it in a pinch. Haven’t tried it with relationship issues yet, though.
It’s probably not ideal, but if there’s consent…
This gave me a chuckle
A robotic vacuum cleaner. I just have to clear the dust bin weekly and manually mob some spots that the robot couldn’t clean
How many people do you invite to mob the spots?
lol. My bad.
My roborock has been revolutionary for my apartments cleanliness. I’ve had it about 1.5 years and I’ve only emptied the dock’s bag twice (I live in a small apartment). I have the water change kit so it auto refills the docks clean water tank from the laundry hookup and auto empties dirty mop water down the laundry room’s drain. I only have to clean the sensors and rinse the drain screen every 2-3 weeks but otherwise it’s on autopilot on a schedule and my floors are spotless and free of dust and cat fur.
Came here to say the same thing. The robot vacuum cleaner is the hardest working member of our family. We have a white dog that is part husky that has an under coat and she sheds like crazy. If it weren’t for the robot vacuum we would be knee deep in fur.
My 2nd monitor. It’s some 24" curved 165Hz 1080p monitor that I bought from a guy at my university for $105. While not the best for gaming (noticable ghosting), it’s been incredibly helpful for work as it gets more complicated in university. The extra screen real estate lets me fit so much more without needing to alt tab or click on another window.
42" 1080p TV. Again, probably not the best for gaming, but I don’t really game heavily. And for work - complete game changer.
When I get a bit more space to myself, I’m thinking of somehow wall mounting a 42"-50" 4K TV and using that as a work monitor. Or maybe I don’t need a wall mount. I’d have what feels like acres of screen real estate.
25 years ago I bought an IKEA printer cart to hold a computer tower and a UPS and stuff. It was like a billy line, so it was particle-board (aka beaver chow) but at least 20-odd years ago it wasn’t the hollow-core shit like so much of their stuff. I could screw in a mount for a switch and stuff.
Fast forward 25 years. I’ve moved-house 10 times, three of them coast-to-coast moves, and this thing is festooned with old cable-tie mounts, two switches (hp1810 and er-x) some test-rig APs for a project, a work laptop on top and its 4th APC unit (movers beat the hell out of them).
Good as new. I’m amazed that the beaver-chow actually held together, but I’ve kept it safe from its kryptonite: water. I’ve rolled it out and around to work on a tower on the top as a workbench l, and I’ve loaded server after server into it as they lifecycle out.
Barring calamity, I could bequeath this fucker.
Multiple computer monitors
I love being able to have chats / reference materials up on one screen while working on another