But no one is investing billions into your dog’s shit, are they?

Thanks, I’ll try this!

How do you update manually? It won’t let me anymore since an update (the update button is always grayed out now)

Idk… That might even out. During a 30 hr drive, I’d probably add on at least 8-9 hours for every 8-9 driven, because that’s as long as I can stand to drive at a stretch without needing to find a hotel to stop for the night. Driving for that long is goddamned miserable, and at least in a train you can book an overnight car to sleep in so that even when you sleep travel keeps happening.

Idk, maybe I’m totally off base and this is totally personal preference, but if I’m already driving that far, I’d rather just take the train to not have to worry about driving myself.

As an example of this, if I got a C on any report card/progress report, my parents would take my phone away for the following 9 weeks until the next one came out with better grades. As a kid with undiagnosed ADHD, that meant I had my phone taken away…a lot. As a result, I had no real friendships by the end of high school, and ate my lunch alone every day. If you couldn’t text people/connect on socials, then you never got included in plans or developed those relationships with anyone.

It was lonely, painful, and it fucking sucked. My parents were too wanna-be Boomer to give a shit or even ask. I don’t speak to them any more for that and other reasons.

So yeah, social media may suck, but cutting your child off from modern social circles is a much worse parenting choice. Ideally you’d keep an eye on their use and help them form a healthier relationship with it. But I understand parenting is hard, especially when both parents work full time jobs.

Yes! I felt like I was staring down a stairwell for some reason, haha. What a triply optical illusion. It looks like solid work, though, OP!

The problem is that even the fan speed settings/airflow settings are touch now, which require divided attention while driving to adjust. That defrost button turns the setting on full fucking blast, when most of the time there’s no call for that, so I have to look and find the fan speed part of the touch screen. Adjusting the temp is only one small part of climate control in the cab. Plus, if you start out your drive with the seat warmers on, but now they’re sweating you out while driving, you have to navigate into a separate menu via touch to turn them off.

Not to mention the never ending battle of adjusting the brightness via touch if it’s blinding my eyes while driving at night VS barely being visible during the day.

It’s all just so frustrating, and I wish there were at least options to take the damn thing out.

Cherish that Subaru, because it’s not that way in them anymore. At least, not in ours, which was purchased in 2021. Now hvac is all touch screen; it’s awful.

It makes them sexy. Stupid, sexy lead-additives.

I’ve been enjoying LibroFM instead of Audible. Same subscription/credits per month model, but a portion goes to support a local bookstore of your choice. Feels way better to do that than give any extra money to Amazon.

Very good point. I’m still early on in trying to build my collection of kitchen implements, but that is something I’ve been learning very quickly.

I would definitely agree on the Le Creuset stuff, as far as the French press goes! It probably wasn’t worth what I paid for it, though the ceramic does keep my coffee a little warmer a little longer than glass ones and looks nice on my counter top. You could probably get one just as good/nice looking for much cheaper.

Their Howling Gourd beer and ciders in the fall… So good. You have to get them fast at our location, otherwise they sell out very quick. Of course, our store has people driving from literal neighboring states to shop there, acting like animals and loading up their carts by clearing out whole items as if it were toilet paper during lockdown, so that might also affect our stock 🙄

Husband and I just splurged on a king sized Wink Bed. Oh man. Night and day difference from our last one. I think the old one was just a mattress-firm brand name mattress that I had had since I was a tween, though, so it probably wouldn’t take much to out do that lol.

That’s interesting, I didn’t realize that! I think it may have, because I’ve been using my Cuisinart one that I picked up pretty cheaply at Marshall’s a few years back and it’s been pretty solid—no chipping at all. I had been wondering myself why I would shell out for a higher end one if the cheaper one is working, but that makes sense if the cheap ones used to be worse.

I do have a Le Creuset French press that I splurged on that I enjoy, but that’s neither here nor there.

If you’re getting a BIFL buy-once-cry-once vacuum, I’d go straight for the Miele cannister vac. I went into an ADHD deep dive on vacuums a year ago when my own Shark needed replacing. Splurged on one and it completely changed how I feel about vacuuming. Of course, I’m 4’11, so ymmv on that, but using a good cannister vac that is lightweight VS pushing around something big and heavy makes a world of difference.

Plus, I like that it uses bags instead of a cannister; I was tired of emptying the cannister and getting a face full of dog hair and dirt that I then also had to clean up (again). That may also be personal preference, though.

Those things were built like tanks. As long as the main inner rod (name is escaping me right now) isn’t literally bent, and you can keep uo with maintenance/minor repairs it’ll probably keep running forever.

I’m a bit of a collector of old sewing machines; I love how simple a machine they are and yet so incredibly useful! They were also built to be able to be repaired by just about anyone, which is so cool. If you had to pick a single machine that shows how much capitalism has engineered backwards into built-in obsolescence from something we had already figured out, the sewing machine would be a good example.

Feels like one to me. When I get into a series I prefer to know as little about the final entry as possible. Didn’t know that was such a hot take around here.

Spoiler warning maybe?

Haha, “why so defensive”?

Right, but if the person I was talking originally to had said “I’m not from the US so I know nothing about it” it woulda been fine and I would have immediately apologized and we’d go from there. Having a nice chat.

That’s not what happened. Someone new chimed in with a pretty rude non-sequitur in the vein of ‘stupid Americans’. I don’t think I was particularly defensive or angry, but maybe it came off that way.