Peanut Butter. Put a big dob on a plate and hand me a spoon.
Like, I’m at the point where I’ve acquired a Vitamix so I can make my own. Which is even more dangerous, as now I can also control the sugar and add flavorings. A nice dash of brown sugar or a hint of Vanilla really make it pop.
I’m kinda surprised we can’t do this by simply insulating the center-most half of the pot’s bottom. When heated on a burner, this would make the outsides hotter than the core, which ought to cause our soup to rise along the sides of the pot and then roll back to the center, forming a nice current that auto-stirs.
I suspect the reason we don’t do this is that eventually, even insulated, the center would still reach equilibrium & we’d lose our circulation. In order to keep this going, we’d need to change the burners, not the pots. We’d need to design burners to be hot on the outside but cooled at the center.
Kenny from South Park?
I agree, we need to stop chasing a moving target. Instead, minimum wage needs to be adjusted every year to account for inflation.
Fun fact, the maximum amount you can donate to your congressmen is increased every year to account for inflation. So, we already have the formulas in place.
Yes. Although they’ve gone to shit, I still encourage using contractor rating sites like Angie’s, Yelp, Google, or those mailers that come around once a year. Get three quotes from high rated companies. Make a point to listen to the perceived pain points from each of them, as each of them will point out different issues. Circle back with the first quotes to ensure they have a plan to address everything. Ask about insurance, ask about cleanup. Expect to pay more for good quality.
I should add, I do all the small & medium stuff myself. So the only contractors I deal with are here for ‘big’ jobs. That might be your issue - a small project isn’t going to fill a whole day, so the best contractors aren’t going to look at it.
Even this doesn’t guarantee great contractors FYI. I had some windows replaced, in my opinion they did a subpar job for the price. Will probably hold up for 10 years, but it will need to be redone at some point.
Reheat pizza by placing a few drops of water in a frying pan & cover. Gives the bottom the slightest bit of crunch & the steam reheats the rest evenly.
Canned soup + a bouillon cube + extra of that one thing that you like (pasta, rice, meat, veggie).
You can use frozen strawberries instead of ice in many drinks. Doesn’t water the drink down, and you get a sweet treat at the end.
Folks often ask me how I manage to keep my old cars looking & running so great. I’d love to say it’s because I do all the maintenance, and of course that helps. But the real answer is because I keep them in a garage. It really is that simple. It blows my fucking mind that America is so car-centric on every other aspect except having housing with enough garage space.
XNview. This was a screen capture & basic editing tool I started using in like the Windows95 era. Yes, the latest couple of version of Windows also do this, but I’ve got the hotkeys memorized at this point.
I reckon I should point out that I’m transitioning to Linux, so I rarely use it anymore. But we had a helluva run together.
Although I agree, as a thought exercise, how about we also split up companies worth 1 billion dollars? We used to call them monopolies, but corporations have become very good at staying technically just under that bar. I’d argue this is part of the problem.
1968 Chrysler Wagon.
Finally had a bit of time this weekend, started replacing the main seal for the rear differential so that it would hold oil. Got the whole thing apart only to realize I had ordered the wrong seal. So, going to be up on jackstands for another week. On the upside, gave me time to replace the rear shocks and also do an oil change.
Write it down.
I use two whiteboards to separate priority. The one in the kitchen is for timely stuff: Take the trash out, doctor’s appointment Tuesday. The one in the office is for longer term stuff: Fix the garden gate, paint bathroom.
If you’re stressing, pick something & make some progress on it. You can only do so much in a day though, while you are working, stop & realize that hey, you’re making progress! And perhaps the biggest thing for me is I don’t erase my projects when I complete them, I cross them off. Then on Sunday morning, I take a moment to look at everything I completed before clearing the whiteboards & starting over for next week.
I made peanut butter at home last night. Both batches came out great.
It really is pretty darn simple. I buy normal roasted peanuts at the store, then grind them up in a Vitamix (think blender, but on steroids), then add a pinch of flavors to taste.
Reddit’s bot detection bot banned me for being a bot. The irony was too much.
First off, everything you wrote is excellent. And I love the Halloween vids below too - particularly the night shot with the flame bulb!
I did go the bigger turbo route with mine, and was autocrossing & doing track days with it for probably the first 10 years of it’s life. So, I wasn’t exactly being easy on the trans. So hopefully you’ve got more life left in yours. Also, good to know that if I ever have issues with the block, it sounds like I have a lot of options.
Only piece I can add is I did also look into STI transmissions. The bell housing side will bolt right to the block, but nothing else fits. The gear ratios are wrong compared to the rear diff, and the mounts for the halfshafts are different as well. In order to do the swap, you need the whole STI drivetrain all the way out to the hub & wheels. Sure you can do that, but finding all those parts is going to require a donor STI. And if you have a donor STI, why aren’t you building that out instead…
The metal portion should not be radiating heat. Implies there’s something not quite right with the vacuum seal. If it’s new, you might try returning it & asking for a replacement. If it’s only mildly warm, that might be normal - have you considered getting a knit hat to place over that area to further insulate it (yes, I’m too cheap sometimes).
FWIW, I’ve had great luck with my Stanley thermos for doing exactly what you’re doing, keeping coffee hot for hours. I also like Zojrushi’s products - I have a smaller one I use to keep my creamer cold.
Short answer on the Subaru - needed a transmission and could not find one at any price. Did eventually find a decent one, but it was more dumb luck & word of mouth than anything.
I gotta say that when I started looking, I saw an alarming amount of “Bugeye for sale, Excellent condition, just needs transmission”. To Subaru’s credit, every other gasket/washer/seal I needed was still available, right up until I got to actually cracking the transmission itself open. So, can’t find a transmission, and can’t find the parts to fix one either. So, yeah, if you want to try & future-proof yours, consider keeping an eye out for transmissions.
Speaking of, your WRX sounds bad-ass. I did at one point (briefly) consider putting a tow hitch on mine and ditching the truck, but the only hitch I could find was a class 1. Is that what you are using, or did you find bigger, or simply fabricate your own?
Wait, the block from a 2019 STI fits the heads from a 2003 WRX? Okay, that’s… you clearly know more about mixing/matching Subaru parts than I do. I knew the 2004 STI block matched, but that’s a 1 year gap, you’re talking about a 16 year gap. Wow. Perhaps I should be asking you if there’s any other transmissions that drop right in? I’m aware that the later (~2008?) Legacy Spec B transmission is supposed to be a drop in - has the right gear ratios & connections for the halfshafts. But the clutch is different somehow and the pickups for the speedometer have changed from analog to digital. Still, supposedly it can be done. I didn’t have any luck finding one of those transmissions either though…
I have an 20 year old Subaru WRX and an 30 year old Ford F-150 (2 door). Honestly, I can’t imagine a better combo if you have the space for 2 vehicles. The car is sporty, fun, and can carry 4 people, while the truck can haul or tow nearly everything I would need. Purchased both brand new, both are still running strong, although parts for the Subaru are starting to dry up.
Although I’m not currently shopping to replace either, they’re both gas burners. If they die before I do (feels unlikely), I’d like to upgrade to electric. But I haven’t seen anything I would consider affordable - which is to say designed to be repaired by the owner. Slate is the only possible thing on the radar, but their trucklet in this weird middle spot where it’s too small to be (fully) useful to me as a truck, while also too big to fill my hot hatch/4door car needs either. Hopefully they’ll be super successful and bring more models to the market in the future.
I have the same nausea issue. Once you clear Skyrim’s tutorial level, you can switch to over the shoulder camera. But I didn’t know that on my first try. Ended up putting the game down & uninstalling it. Only came back to it years later after seeing some videos.
For what it’s worth, there are mods that let you skip the introduction entirely. “Live Another Life” used to be the go-to, but I think it’s been depreciated. Still would be a good starting point to search.
Ever play with a pair of binoculars or an old camera where you had to manually turn knobs in order to focus on something in the distance? That’s the ‘focal point’. This is what LASIK changes. So, if you can currently see stuff up close but not far away, LASIK can move your focal point to make it easier to see things clearly at a different distance.
What LASIK does not change is how wide your focus range is. That’s controlled by your eye muscles and how flexible your cornea is. As you get older, that range gets narrower and narrower.
Using myself as an example, My LASIK set my focal point at around arm’s length. So I can see my computer monitor no problem. I had my surgery around 25, and for years I didn’t need glasses at all. When I reached my 40s, I realized I was having trouble reading very small print, and things very far away were a bit blurry. So I now keep a pair of distance seeing glasses in the car for when I’m driving, and I also have a couple of pairs of readers lying around the house. I still walk around without glasses, but there are times when I need to pull out a pair.