Maybe I’m biased, but the late 90s were just about perfect for cars. If you could get your hands on something like a Ranger or S10, it would be extremely practical. Automatic transmission, air conditioning, great fuel economy, and extremely easy to maintain and repair. And if it’s made after ‘96, it would have a OBD2 port that any modern scanner could read codes from.

In the typewriter community, the “holy grail” differs from person to person, but for me it was a 1930s Royal P equipped with a rare typeface called Vogue. Very, very rarely they’ll pop up from people who don’t know how significant that is, and that’s the only way to get one at a reasonable price - because those who do know what it is will ask thousands of dollars for it.

Eventually I found one for a comparatively cheap price (sub 1k), and the only reason someone else didn’t snap it up before I saw it was because the guy refused to ship it. Local pickup only. So I took the chance to drive the 10 hours round trip to snag it, and it sits proudly as the crown jewel of my collection:

A coworker of mine is from Louisiana. We’re in Washington state, and he told me that all the people here bitching about wind turbines and environmental regulations don’t know how good they have it. He’s from a town on the gulf which is basically one giant oil refinery. The stink and chemical pollution is unbelievable. He showed me the “Welcome to Whatever-ville” sign in his hometown, and it’s literally attached to a gantry that carries several chemical pipes over the road.

I’ve been learning Dutch, since the Netherlands seems like a nice place to go if I ever have to flee the US. Thinking about joining some Dutch communities here so I can get more “natural” language exposure.

When my truck’s clutch cylinder blew, I managed to limp it to the shop just by rev-matching and slipping it into each gear. I couldn’t stop without stalling, so I definitely blew a couple stop signs, but I made it.

The magic wears off as soon as the first expensive thing breaks.

Allow me to suggest the humble typewriter. There are dozens of us (dozens!) who enjoy the tactile feeling of hammering out a few pages with no electronics or distractions of any kind.

My parents used to have an old Amana Radarange. Built like a tank, wood paneling and chrome, warm incandescent lighting…I miss it. It didn’t have a beep or a bell or anything. Once it was done it would just…turn off.

There’s nothing more majestic than a galloping herd of wild chaise lounges…

Curse a lot. Think of how google’s AI summary won’t appear if you include the word “fuck” in your search, or how everyone on social media is self-censoring naughty words for fear of The Algorithm. The internet has been carefully curated and manicured to be marketable to every possible demographic, so they can milk data from everyone; from the six year old watching Fortnite videos to the pearl-clutching suburbanites worried about the Gays corrupting their Family Values. Become unmarketable by swearing like a sailor. Make communities with your fellow potty-mouths. Rebel against censorship by saying “fuck” a lot.

It’s part of a typewriter discord group I’m in. We’re all looking for excuses to use our typewriters, so writing letters to each other seems logical.

I used to sign up for a penpal thing where we would exchange letters written with a typewriter. One of the guys I wrote to was in Switzerland, we exchanged a couple letters but then he stopped responding.

Maybe I should try doing that again, it was fun.

Do you mean 42.77 mpg? Because 4.277 mpg is awful lol

The concept of having interchangeable, standardized parts is actually kind of a new idea from the Industrial Revolution. Before then, everything was custom-made to fit. The example that comes to mind is firearms. All of the muskets and rifles used in the revolutionary war, for example, were hand-made and hand-fitted. The lock from one rifle wouldn’t necessarily fit on another. If your stock broke, you couldn’t just go get a new stock and slap it on - you had to bust out the woodworking tools and make a new one.

In photography, there’s a saying: “Anything for the shot”

I don’t know if I’d go as far as this guy, but props to him for risking himself and his equipment, I guess

I live in Washington state, most of my electricity is from hydro or nuclear. My bill is usually about $80 a month, but it can go over $100 in the summer if I’m running the AC a lot.

I generally prefer to start series from the very beginning so I don’t miss anything, but I think I’ll go pick up that second book and give the series another try.

After the Dark Tower movie came out, I heard a whole bunch of people on the internet saying that the movie was awful and the books are so much better. I didn’t see the movie, but if the books are so well-liked I thought I’d give them a try.

I tried my best, I really did. But I just couldn’t finish the first book. It was just way too surreal and abstract for me.

There was a period where I regularly got to go inside Boeing’s Everett factory for work (I didn’t work for Boeing though). For those who don’t know, it’s one of the largest buildings in the world, built in the 60s to manufacture 747s. Now they build all kinds of aircraft there.

“Big” is an understatement. Even “cavernous” falls short. It’s easy for your brain to forget you’re in an indoor space until you look up and see a roof over your head. It’s like a miniature city in there. It’s got its own road network, fire department, cafeterias, and I heard it can even have its own weather.

My route to and from the job site every day took me through alleyways and around sites where workers were actively putting airplanes together. I got to watch an entire fuselage be moved from one side of the factory to the other by the overhead cranes. But my favorite part of the whole place were the underground tunnels that you could use to get around. You could still see old civil defense fallout shelter signs in the stairwells, and even though I wasn’t supposed to take pictures in the facility I did anyway: