I am looking to replace our current vehicle (17 expedition) because of some issues (1st gen Ecoboost... eats plugs every 30k miles, runs rich, poorer than expected milage, plus the looming threat of cam phaser and timing issues common to this motor) and the fact we don't really need the space anymore now that my kids are out of the full size baby seats and our dog doesn't travel with us much anymore (because we don't travel much anymore..).

I have always bought used. The expedition I bought with 70k miles on it and now it has around 135k. I'm growing tired of swapping cars every 3-4 years, so I started doing research a few months back and the name that keeps coming up again and again is the RAV4.

I test drove one to make sure I fit (6'3" and certainly no stranger to cheesecake) and the fit was nice. I used to drive a 13 Ford focus so I figured it would be fine, and it was. I think I'm most interested in the hybrid drivetrain as the allure of the e-cvt (chunky planetary gear system, no clutches, seems incredibly bulletproof) is quite tempting. Not to mention we mostly drive city and the better mpg is a nice bonus, but the cost difference between the 2 make that a bit of a moot point. I realize the long term cost of batteries and "cable gate" but I'm not too concerned.

My reservation is that based on the used sales figures for these newer (23+) rav4s, it just doesn't make sense to buy used. If I buy the one we want new, it's around 41k out the door. This would be the most expensive vehicle I've ever purchased by an 8k margin.

Our payment versus our current car would go up about 200 per month, but our gas costs will go down about 130 per month so the delta isn't huge. Since the resale value on these vehicles is so high, I'd be "right side up" on the value within 18 or so months. However, the ultimate goal for this car is to have it for 15+ years.

I've never not had a car payment because I had transmission issues or engine issues with them all. I had a Pontiac g6 with transmission issues, a GMC sierra with transmission issues, the focus had the dreaded DCT, I had a ram truck for a little bit which was falling apart almost as soon as I bought it (snapped 3 manifold bolts within 500 miles of owning it just to start), and now we have this expedition.

I'm kind of tired of American car brands at this point, I seem to be eternally let down and churning through vehicles. I want something safe, reliable and that will drive for decades. With that, the RAV4 seems to hit the mark. It's not a sexy option but I don't really care about that. I've heard it described as a dishwasher on wheels - an appliance, not an exciting driver. That sounds appealing for what I want this vehicle to be.

I guess the reason I'm making this post is to consider whether this is a good idea. I'm not really worried about whether I can afford it (I can), I just don't like spending money and this would be a lot of it. Having said that, it's value seems to be projected to hold up extremely well, just as most Toyotas do, and as you can see from my previous vehicles, I'm not used to that. I want a very long term vehicle but I also want to know that if something in my life changes and I need to get rid of it, it will have decent resale value.

I considered the crv hybrid and the cx-50 hybrid (which has the Toyota drivetrain) but with the crv I felt less happy about extreme long term reliability (newer hybrid system so hasn't been battle tested as much yet) versus the RAV4, and the cx50 is a mazda which doesn't inspire tons of confidence. Maybe they've gotten better but my brothers 2012ish (can't recall exactly) mazda3 was riddled with electrical issues and the center console broke (we think the dealer knew about it and tried a jank repair due to some tape we found) and Mazda wouldn't do anything to fix it (the dealer nor nearby dealers and Mazda customer service themselves).

Anyway, every time I start researching I always come back to the RAV4.

I don't want a 2026 model because I don't buy new models on their first years, plus they look worse than the previous models.

What are your thoughts on the cSUV market?

Edit: I'm in TX so cold isn't an issue 95% of the time as far as hybrid battery issues go

Yesterday I discovered that you can ask ChatGPT what it knows and It will tell you. I’m curious about what it says for other people.

Obviously, don’t post anything you’re unwilling to share publicly on the Internet! For me it seems pretty harmless, though.

The prompt I use is:

What "user knowledge memories" do you have?

Im trying to get into the habit of setting a daily/weekly routine of hobbies, chores, meal planning etc.

Right now, they happen when they need to happen but its not the most efficient or well coordinated. And i'd like to spend less time thinking about when to do things or what to do for routine activities.

What are some routines that work for you well?

Subsync is a program that will sync any subtitle file based on either audio or another subtitle. It is remarkably good at syncing any subtitle you throw at it. I never encountered anything even remotely as good as Subsync for that task.

Unfortunately, the author archived it due to some technical reasons as well as bad interactions with users. I don't believe there is anything as good out there when it comes to syncing broken subtitles. Subsync still works, but I don't know for how long. I am not a programmer. I am posting this as a call for help: if anyone is interested in maintaining this program, I think it would be of great help to a lot of people.

Right now, Subsync is a manual tool with a graphical interface. But I foresee it working in the background with programs like VLC, Plex, or Stremio. That would be awesome.

EDIT

Subsync is automated and language aware. It will sync individual lines using audio or another subtitle as a reference. It won't just shift everything; it will adjust them individually. It is usually not necessary to go through the entire file, but you can do it for badly synced subtitles. Adjusting every single subtitle will take more time, but you can do it.

Merely shifting all the subtitles won't work for older TV shows because of the breaks. Depending on the version (DVD, Blu-Ray, WEB, or recorded directly from TV), the ad breaks will be edited slightly differently, with different delay times before resuming the show. That is enough for the subtitles to lose sync after every act. There is also the issue of frame rate and perhaps other video features, which I believe can also unsync subtitles. I probably have more issues with subtitles than most because I mostly watch older or classic TV content.

(Adapted for clarification from my response below)

I’m sure most people know of the common examples (“Hold me closer, Tony Danza”), but I’m interested in lyrics that you or someone you know has gotten wrong in the songs you regularly listen to.

Also, I’m interested in the story of how you found out it was a misheard lyric.

• How long had you heard the wrong thing?
• How did you find out the what the actual line was supposed to be?
• Was there a dawning realization or comedy wrapped up in it?
• Do you still sing it your way in spite of the actual lyrics?
• Is the song actually improved by your lyric swap?

If it’s not a burden, link to the timestamp of the song(s) where your misheard lyrics occurs.

If you want to prime people to hear things your way, feel free to put the actual lyrics in a <details> dropdown to hide them, so people can listen to the song with your words in mind first.

I've had a strange experience recently in that I got a very cute haircut and suddenly I am the belle of the ball wherever I go. One major downside is that it is exhausting. People treat me like I'm a fairy, which I use to dole out generous compliments. But mostly people just notice me, a lot, and it's weird to feel so many eyes watching my every movement.

It reminds me a bit of living in Shanghai. I was practically a celebrity, people would ask for selfies with me to show their friends they met a blonde white guy.

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed pretty privilege most of my adult life, but embracing my femininity in it's fullness has really amplifier things.

For example, I went to a dance performance tonight and ended up basically on a date with a girl, which was lovely but also what? I walked away to give her an out and she followed me.

At work it can be a problem as well. I have some coworkers that get really giggly when they're with me. Luckily, once it steers to work talk they're a whilsmart professional I'm Uber glad to work with.

Anyways, just had to vomit this curious anyone thoughts

I wanted to share this nice little story that happened just minutes ago. I'm putting this on a post because perhaps people would like to share their own stories for the vibes.

I went for a quick grocery run. On the way back, I realized that I did not have my wallet in my pocket anymore. It wasn't in my pocket and it wasn't in the grocery bag.

The walk to the store was quite short but I did not see it after backtracking. A guy spotted me looking for something on the floor and asked me what I was looking for. With some diligence, he verified that I was indeed looking for a wallet and he pointed me to a barbershop close by. There, two guys were looking for me by searching my name on Facebook using the ID in my wallet.

I thanked them (in the local language, neither my first nor second language) and went about my way because I didn't know what else to say. I felt like I could have done more. Like thanked them with more words or given them a small reward etc. I was overwhelmed by the unusual situation that I didn't have any time to think.

I got home and searched for a non-monetary token of appreciation but by the time I came back they were already gone. I didn't even think they were going for a haircut.

Anyway, that was a super nice experience even though I kinda feel bad for not having shown more appreciation. I was already at the point of transferring money out of my card but I was lucky enough to have found such kind souls.

Anyone have similar experiences recently or otherwise?

I know if I posted that on Reddit, all the top answers would be something like "Money"or "It lets me survive" but I'm looking for something deeper than that.

I'm a teacher and school just started where I lived and I realize how much freedom the job gives me. I can considerably modify how my day will go as long as the students learn the curriculum. I love that freedom.

I also love the human nature of it. I get to know and see 100 kids develop every year, plus, I teach juniors and I've had a lot of my last year students stop by me to say hello and talk about their summer or their current teachers. It's fun having all these random positive conversations every day.

I get to learn a lot about people and about me. I love that growth.

What about you?

Here I am, late-30s languishing on a grey Sunday afternoon. After finishing my first real week-long vacation in 4ish years without even side-hussling, a thought is growing: I don't really want to go back, what's next?

I've browsed topics discussing career changes/pivots when the OP has a desired endpoint, but I could use help brainstorming one step earlier: how to figure out what jobs/career move I might like, might be feasible/pragmatic for me, and even just exist?

Meandering background
if tl/dr, skip to questions below
My current job (ux/comms) is objectively decent for pay, coworkers, work/life balance. So, not in a rush to jump ship. [Edit: removed some details about myself]

Questions

• Any overall life advice or thoughts on that 'something new' itch? Maybe I shouldn't equate it with my career alone?
• Do you have general guidance/anecdotes on how to meaningfully explore job/career desires or options?
• Do you know of niche job opportunities/fields that might tie into skills in various combinations of ux, communication, biology, environmental sciences, possibly healthcare? Or, how to find them? Especially in the Canadian job market context?

Housekeeping: feel free to change group/tags if appropriate. This is also a lot more than I typically share online, I may remove some personal details later.

Recently there has been a discussion thread about how many people (myself included) are recently finding it difficult to find meaningful, lasting friendships. Let's change that. I don't know if we've ever had a thread like this, but if we did then it must have been a while ago (or my search juju failed me).

Normally, the "finding friends 101" involves finding a small community that revolves around one of your interests, then make friends within that community. Finding those kinds of small communities on the internet has become nigh-on impossible, at least for me. Discord is no substitute; most Discord servers revolving around a certain interest are massive in size, with text channels flying by faster than a popular streamer's Twitch chat.

So we're breaking the code. Instead of finding a specialized community for your interests, just type up a list of your interests, quirks, or whatever other things you'd like to lure new potential friends with as a response to this thread. Go into as much detail as you'd like. If anyone has mentioned an interest you share, send them a DM and start a conversation! (That goes for the lurkers too – if you are one, don't be shy; you play an essential part in making this thread work.)

Note: it may be helpful to add other details too, like your age (if you want friends in a similar age group) and what kind of friends you're looking for in your post. Some people may be looking for people to hang in voice chat and play games with; others may just look for people to discuss topics via Discord DM; and others still may not even necessarily be looking to take their new friendship outside of Tildes. All of these are completely valid.

We all have words we dislike for one reason or another. I am specifically talking about words that are non-problematic, so slurs and politically incorrect words are out of the scope of this post. I am talking about words that you find inane, dense, overly broad, vague, imprecise, pedantic, confusing, or inadequate for any reason. Maybe you just don't like how they sound.

As long as it is not a slur or politcally incorrect, for the purposes of this post, anything goes! Any language too!

No holodeck adventures, no hiding in space clouds, no musical dance numbers, no soap operas ( just a tiny bit ) and no less than subtle modeling of how people should behave.

Stories that were actually interesting and that held your attention.

Some of episode 5 was derivative from other Star Trek's and other sci-fi series, but it was done well.

Episode 6 was engrossing and with a surprise ending. I like the slow buildup of King Arthur ( Kirk ) eventually pulling the sword out of the stone ( taking command of the Enterprise ).

Episode 7. I knew people in college like Beto. I thought the actor did a great portraying such a person. I even found myself getting irritated though Star Fleet is fiction. I loved how Uhura handled him. She was kind, but she completely unmasked what he was behind his behavior.

Ive been losing friends over the years from moving away, settling down with my partner, and just being terrible at staying in touch. And i've realized i haven't been making any new ones either. So my social circle is shrinking. I meet people, but the social connections haven't really lasted.

I wonder how other folks are finding new friends that have been meaningful and lasted in adulthood.

I just sold my first car, a hand-me-down Kia Optima I learned to drive in and had been driving since the 2010s, and I can't help but reminisce about it and everything I and my family had been through in it and had put it through.

What was your first car, and if you don't still have it, what happened to it?

So I have a have maybe a few hundred books at home and I think it's time I put together a collection of what I have. I'd love a database of author / title / publication year / physical location that I could search through ideally.

Is there software that can help with this? I had a brief look at LibraryThing, but I think it costs money for the quantity of books I'm looking at. I briefly toyed with the concept of making my own app that could scan an ISBN to speed up the process (since most will have ISBNs). I wonder what the people of Tildes suggest? Has anyone here done something similar?

The Setting

For the past two months I've been dealing with a lot of stress because I've been trying to balance two extremely challenging remote university classes at the same time as my work has been asking more hours of me. More work hours are usually good for me because my job doesn't pay all that well, but they can be challenging because sometimes I'm asked to teach classes that are just outside my area of experience, so I need to spend more time learning the details so I can answer student questions.

This is the last week of classes, so right now I'm extra stressed because I'm trying to finish the last week's worth of classwork. I've still got one assignment to do which I haven't really started because I can't make much sense of this week's material; it's due on Wednesday evening. So my plan was to wake up early, go to the gym to get my workout out of the way, and then go to the library to study until my class in the afternoon.

Last night I discovered the mask for my CPAP unit is broken, so I tried to go to sleep without it.

The Day

If you have sleep apnea then you already know what trying to sleep without a CPAP machine is like; it's a miserable experience. I woke up five times last night, and when I woke up I felt miserable. I took so long to get up because of that, even though I couldn't sleep past 6:30 or so, I didn't actually get to the gym until around 9:00. Today was supposed to be a cardio day to give my muscles a bit more time to rest from my more heavy resistance workouts, but even then I only managed to do 20 minutes of fairly light intensity before I was exhausted.

After that I took a seat to cool down and get the sweat dry before I went to do a massage chair session. I pulled up Tildes and saw that one thread that's making the rounds about being attractive. And I'll be real, it came at just the wrong time. I was super angry about it and I spent more than half an hour writing and deleting all the things I wanted to say. I'm legitimately happy for the poster, but every single word they said made me hate them in that moment. My theme for the past year or so has been learning to love myself, but reading that post made me legitimately feeling like I wasn't just terrifyingly ugly and unloveable, but permanently so. To give you the context for why I felt like that would take a novel's worth of text, so I'll omit the majority of that and just tell you that in spite of losing a great amount of weight, I am still grossly obese, and having been so fat before means that my body is permanently deformed in an extremely unattractive way that cannot be fixed without a series of surgeries that are far more money than I will realistically have within my lifetime given my career; heck, I've already given up on the possibility of retiring. if I had the body of someone who was always at my current weight, it wouldn't be that bad, but as things are my body looks like one of those novelty inflatable "sumo wrestler" costumes that have been half-deflated.

While I was spending that time processing my feelings, I finally decided to not respond to that topic at all and simply click on ignore so that I could get it out of my head. Unfortunately, there is no ignore buton in my head. But at that time I was filled with so much nervous energy I needed to find a way to get rid of those thoughts. It turns out the gym is a pretty perfect place to do that; I skipped the massage chair, took a caffeine tablet, and got on the elliptical again. I pulled up a video workout and worked out all of my anger ("60 RPM is moderate? Fuck you!"). Every time I made a wrong move and my arm fat slapped against my side fat, It gave me more fuel for the fire. It got me fired enough to get through the whole workout, another 25 minutes at a much higher intensity than before.

After cooling down and doing my recovery, I went into the locker room, stripped, and took a shower. Taking a shower in the gym is something that I do partially because I sweat a lot and don't want to make my car stink too much, but on a more personal level it's something that I do as a kind of personal therapy. To do so requires me to lose my self-consciousness and body issues, at least up to an extent. It makes me feel just a bit more normal.

Today someone else was taking a shower at roughly the same time, and they just so happen to have chosen a locker just a few feet away from me. When they finished, they took their clothes out of the locker and moved over to a different bench to change. The obvious assumptions would be that they were doing it because they were trying to respect our space, or it was their modesty or body shame. But let's just say that in the moment it didn't help me feel like I was normal.

After I got out of the gym I got a message from my employer saying I've got a new class scheduled. A good thing, I guess, since many of my other classes have run their course. I could really use the money, and with any luck the classes I'm taking next term are not going to be nearly as challenging.

The Rest of the Day

It hasn't even happened yet. It's not even noon. The title was a lie, I guess.

The question is, then, was this partial day representative of my life? For the most part, yes, it is. I think these thoughts and feel these feelings every day, and I go through the same affirmations and rationalizations to deal with them every day. Today was just a little bit more emotionally intense than normal.

So why did I decide to post it? To be honest, I don't entirely know. Maybe I'm still processing some of those feelings from reading that post that set me off today. Or maybe I just want to say something for people who are dealing with the same feelings. Maybe I'm even feeling a little bit guilty from the impostor syndrome given previous comments I wrote about self-love. But I'm not posting this because I want people to feel sorry for me, or because I need help coping with it. I'm a strong person, and I actually do have a good sense of self-worth and self-love even if it's constantly under threat of the other thoughts in my head. Maybe I'm just selfishly using this public space to process some of my own feelings, or I'm engaging in some twisted form of narcissism. I just hope that you, the one reading this now, have taken something from what I had to say.

For the past year, I've finally been able to have a strong, lasting, cleaning routine. It took me my whole life, but I was never able to go past my own argument of "who cares"? Who cares if the dishes aren't done? If the laundry isn't folded? Only I can judge me. It doesn't matter, ultimately.

But silently, I wasn't happy with that, and I've known I wasn't happy for years, kinda like an addict saying he'll stop but he never does.

One day earlier this year, during winter, while on a good cleaning day, I took some time to look at my old notebooks from college. I remembered a page I had written during some off-time on an internship. I had written a full page of the same line: "I like it when...". I had wanted to just do some introspection and list every thing I liked that came to mind. Stuff like "I like it when I eat pizza", "I like it when I play boardgames with my friend", etc.

Those notes were five years old, you know what was the very first thing on the page? That's right: "I like it when my apartment is clean"

It hit me like a fucking brick. I almost cried right there.

From then on, it was over. The cleaning me had won over the lazy me and I've since been able to keep a clean apartment :)

So, what's your story? How did you overcome a challenge in your life?

Everyone knows about the big stuff we're good at, which are sometimes linked to our personal projects and professional activities. That is not what this post is about.

Here, I am asking about the little things that distinguish you. Your quirky superpower that impresses no one (or maybe just a few). Maybe this is something odd you never really made any effort to learn.

Some people just have this ability to whistle really loudly, or make the largest bubble gum bubbles.

What is your silly talent?

This is going to sound conceited, and it is. But I thought I would share my experiences regarding this. For context, I'm in year two of being considered conventionally attractive. I used to be morbidly obese, and I spent the years 17 to 23 being really big. In high school, I was only briefly considered attractive, but considering how short that was, I generally say I wasn't attractive in high school. Which is to say that the idea that I am attractive is still relatively new, and I'm still learning the ropes of my different life. I won't be sharing any photos, but I'm often told that I look like a young Mark Ruffalo.

I'm going to split this into parts.

Everyone is nicer

As soon as I lost the weight, I was treated a lot better. To be clear, I wasn't treated that terribly when I was overweight. In my experience, people were generally nice. But there were some times when people would just ignore me or try not to look like me. I recall one moment, in college, while I was walking across campus, this one girl was in front of me. She kept giving me the over-the-shoulder look and then ran off since she detected danger.

Those moments existed, but they weren't my overwhelming experience. What shifted was that people became overly nice towards me. People go out of their way to talk to me, to help me, or to make sure I'm okay. I haven't encountered an incident where a girl thinks I'm a creep or anything like that since.

Women approach men

I think there's this idea in the dating world that women never approach men. I've seen a lot of TikTok videos and Reddit posts where the gist is "no matter how handsome you are, women DO NOT approach men." And they will give anecdotes of "good-looking" friends who have also not been approached by women.

That's not true at all. I have been approached quite a bit, especially in the nightclub and bar setting. There are women who are not shy at all, or they are shy but they're trying something different. The one thing I've noticed, and this is going to sound mean, the women most likely to approach a guy tend to not be very attractive. The most attractive woman who approached me (and she was very pretty) approached me with the help of a friend.

Even if women don't outright approach you, they give signals as their way of making the first move. Often at the bar or club, it's a lot of staring. They stare, look away, look back again to make sure you're staring.

I work in a predominantly female workplace. So the signals in this are a little different. A lot of my co-workers go out of their way to chat with me. They often look for excuses to touch me or to get closer to me. They'll look at me when they don't think I'm looking. Recently, I had a higher-up worker start messaging me through the work chat we use and inviting me to her office for treats that she makes. They don't say anything out loud, it's just sort of obvious that they find me attractive.

Rejection stings, especially when they're not used to it

Going back to the workplace. We have cops at my work as security. It's kind of well-known that the male cops sleep with the staff. But none of the female cops really do that. I would chat with this one cop, she's quite a bit older than me (actually, she has a daughter that's exactly my age). But she is gorgeous. It started off slow; we just looked at each other for a while before I started talking to her. But we built up enough of a rapport that one day she gave me a big opening for me to ask her out. I didn't. Someone that pretty is not used to not being pursued, so she became more guarded and avoidant of me.

That was kind of a somber example. A more aggressive example was at a dance club. This woman gave me the eye contact signal, but I did not approach her. Flash forward a bit, I'm on the dance floor, and she pushes me. It wasn't an accident; it was very aggressive, and she was obviously drunk.

There are more examples that I can give, but the reaction is never that great. And I've learned that I hate making people feel that way. It's what I imagine a woman feels like when they rejects men, it's so much pressure. Especially when the woman is attractive herself, there's a sadder response from them because they're not used to that.

I was not prepared to be in a situation where I could hurt someone's feelings. Not just that, but I can hurt someone's feelings by not doing anything. It used to be simple. I didn't really have options or anything like that, so when the opposite came true, where I had to pick and choose between people, it was daunting. Almost paralyzing. At one point, I had three women interested in me at the same time, and I could not figure out how to pick one to escalate things with. At the time, I was not in the mental space to be in that situation anyway, and I think I made the overall best decision I could have (which was to not do anything with any of them) since I think things wouldn't have ended well for any of them. Even if all three of them felt a sting from that sort of soft rejection.

People assume the best in you

I don't know how many times I've been told that I seem like a nice guy. And that goes even after I've done something bad, or say some off-color stuff. I don't think I would be given that grace if I were maybe a little bit uglier.

People just assume the best of me now; they assume good intentions. One time when I was out, I had danced with a woman who was part of a group. I sat at their table, and they asked me to look after their drinks as they went to the bathroom. In my head, I thought, "Okay, they're leaving, they're not coming back, because what woman is going to trust their drink with a stranger?" They came back.

Not that I was going to do anything, nor do I intentionally try to make people feel bad (barring one time where I was testing the waters).

At the same time, people think you're sleeping around

I was a virgin until last year; it seemed like a shock whenever I would say that. When I did manage to finally lose it, the person I lost it to always thought I was sleeping with a lot of people. I've had many people think that I'm sleeping around, that I've had multiple sex partners, and somehow don't seem convinced when I try to tell them I'm not, and I don't.

I've tried different styles. When I keep to myself and when I'm overly chatty. People think the same either way.

I've been on dates where the other person assumes I'm "talking" to someone else. Like, if I use my phone for a bit, the assumption is I'm texting someone.

Conclusion

I seem to have more eyes on me now. The invisibility cloak I once had is gone and now everything I do or say carries more weight. I'm more at risk of hurting someone's feelings just by not being attracted to them. And having someone that you find attractive finding you attractive is a scary thing.

I've spoken to a very attractive woman who told me about her experiences, and while there are some similarities it's basically tenfold for women. Attractive women get gifts, people offering to buy stuff for her, just a lot more intensity. Especially since it's more socially acceptable for men to do that for women. It's not something I envy, and it fills her with anxiety and rage with how often she has to reject men.

I would say overall it's a much more positive life I'm living now, but there are times when I miss being the one nobody looked at and nobody had expectations for. I'd just eat and watch movies all day. There was a comfort to that over the healthy eating and workout regimen I do now.

I think things are going to get a lot worse until they get better (if they do). I’m not talking about US politics (I dont live there), I’m thinking more about climate change: food and water might not be as readily available anymore, never mind other things we take for granted like medicine, transportation, communications, a retirement pension.

It’s hard to articulate but I feel like our future is bleaker than the previous generation’s for the first time in modern history because of factors beyond our control (i.e. neither geopolitical nor economic). Not sure how to prepare for it so I’m wondering how other Tilderinas and Tilderinos deal with it, especially if you have or are planning on having children?

Overview

Background

Why I chose the Minimal Phone by Minimal Company

• while more expensive than a cheap android that I do software limitations on, it felt like I was getting a device that worked for me, rather than doing a bunch of configuration to get one to work for me
• Minimal phone was significantly cheaper than the Lite Phone, and had Google Playstore access to add some apps not included that I may need
• RCS support (it is just running Google Messages)
• eInk felt like a good fit for me
• The physical keyboard intrigued me

Experience ordering the phone

Software Impressions

Hardware

Summary

A break up
A loss
A blindside
A disappointment
Or anything else that broke your heart

Tell us the story, and how you are doing with it.

Also, for anyone reading people’s comments, remember that these are difficult stories for people to share. Please be empathetic and kind in your responses. Treat these as opportunities to commiserate and support, rather than as problems to solve.

TLDR: I think that I don’t like Pokémon games anymore because the battle system literally puts me to sleep, I can’t be bothered to “catch them all” all over again, and there’s just nothing else about the mainline games (not even the story or anything) that makes them interesting for me. Anyone else?

Disclaimer: If you love Pokémon, then I’m very happy for you. Seriously. This isn’t a rant about the games being bad (not even the modern ones). I’m not casting judgment on the quality of the games nor the people who buy and play them. This is 100% about my astonishment at how much my personal taste for video games has changed.

I decided to share my thoughts on this matter with all of you here to see if anyone has had a similar experience.

I only got into Pokémon in the year 2000, I think. I still managed to play Red, Blue, and Yellow before Gold, Silver, and Crystal released. Out of these six, the only one I never owned was Gold. But on top of that, I played the ever-loving heck out of Stadium 1 and 2. There is a non-zero chance that I invested more than 1,000 hours into all of these games combined. I even got my mother hooked on the Stadium games. It was wild.

Then gen III rolled around, and while I did get a GBA, I somehow never managed to buy a single new Pokémon game. My guess is that I was too busy fawning over all of the crazy, weird, and fun games that I was playing on the Gamecube, two of which I spent a lot of time on: Animal Crossing and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. So, I totally missed out on Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen. I also never played Colosseum or XD: Gale of Darkness.

I returned to the series on the NDS, with Diamond, which was a lot fun (at least I don’t remember anything negative about it), but that was close to the beginning of a period in my life where I played almost no video games, let alone Pokémon.

This may sound silly, but what I enjoy about Pokémon (or at least, what I enjoyed about gen I and II), was the adventure. Does that make sense? I loved exploring the world, befriending six “cute” creatures (I always was more interested in carrying the more animal and pet-like ones in my party), becoming the very best, like no one ever was, defeating bad guys, and learning more about the lore surrounding certain legendary Pokémon.

Side note: I did try to catch them all, but Celebi completely eluded me.

It wasn’t until like... I think, 2023? That I went back to the series and played Emerald (through cough cough “alternative” means), and forced myself to plow through the game until I beat the League. And I mean “forced”. It wasn’t like the game was bad, and I enjoyed the adventure to some extent (though the story didn’t quite “grip” me), but the grinding ground my gears (pun intended).

Yes. I had to grind. I can’t remember what my team was and at what level they were (I think around 55 each) when I reached the League, but I remember grinding at the exit of the Victory Road to raise their levels because my first attempt failed. (It’s definitely, at least partly, a skill issue. lol) I had, however, been grinding a little bit before each gym already, and whenever I did, I had to listen to podcasts or YouTube videos in the background or whatever, because I would literally fall asleep while doing it. lol

Most recently I tried HeartGold. Before that, I tried FireRed and White, and with neither of them, I managed to get past the third or fourth gym before I just couldn’t deal with the tedium anymore and gave up.

Fast-forward to this month of April.

I’ve decided to focus on GCN games, since there are many that I never had the chance to play. I replayed Metroid first (needed to scratch that itch) and had fun. Yesterday I finished Paper Mario TTYD, which was a dream come true. Been waiting 20 years to play it. I absolutely loved it.

But today I tried Pokémon Colosseum.

And... I think that I want to give up. lol

I just can’t anymore.

I think that I have become an Old Person™. lol Like, something about the battle system just literally puts me to sleep. I’m not kidding you. I was playing the game today, and whenever I had to battle, I began to feel Drowzee (pun intended).

I played for a little over an hour and then checked Bulbapedia, only to look at the list of “snatchable” Pokémon and think to myself: “Do I think that the ‘adventure’ in this game will be interesting enough to keep me grinding through all these many battles?”

My hearts tells me no. I don’t think that it will.

So, after all these years, I have to sadly conclude that I just don’t like Pokémon anymore. I can’t deal with the battle system. It’s too tedious for me. I also can’t deal with the grind of catching and raising them. Neither the adventures nor the stories catch my interest anymore. It feels all too repetitive, like I’m playing the same game over and over.

But do you know what the irony is? I have replayed Crystal a few times over the years—maybe a handful. It feels easy to pick up somehow. I still grind, but the grind doesn’t grind me down. And I am willing to bet that I could pick it up today and play it all the way to the end without getting tired. It must be the nostalgia. I don’t know how else to explain it otherwise.

I don’t think that my machine can handle playing gens VI to current through “alternative means”, so those are completely out of the question for now, but I have been following the franchise close enough that I feel skeptical that even those would entertain me.

So, I guess that’s it. I don’t like Pokémon anymore. It’s just a game but it somehow feels so tragic. lol

And I’m not sure what other GCN game to pick up instead. Any suggestions? Here are the ones that I have played so far:

• 1080° Avalanche
• Animal Crossing
• Burnout
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
• Luigi's Mansion
• Mario Party 4
• Metroid Prime
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
• Pikmin
• Resident Evil 4
• Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
• Star Fox Adventures
• Super Mario Sunshine
• Super Smash Bros. Melee

I’m mostly interested in 3D, third-person action adventure games—basically singleplayer games where you take control of a main character. I’m open to try out other genres though.

Physically, mentally, spiritually, your beliefs, your habits, your outlook, etc.

The changes you highlight can be positive, negative, neutral, or mixed. They can be bigtime things or small little details.

How have you changed, developed, and/or grown?

Also, apologies in advance for potentially causing some aging-related crises in people, but a reminder that 10 years ago was 2015.

What is something that's been eating at you that you haven't found the right place to share yet?

Long rants, short grumblings, and everything in between is welcome. Topics can be serious or silly.

Please specify if you do not want responses and prefer to use this as a venue to scream into the void.

You were ahead of the curve, or most people thought otherwise, or somebody vehemently opposed you, etc.

But it turns out you were right.

This is your chance to share your vindication.

As always, the question is open to all answers: simple or complex; funny or serious; tiny or significant.

I didn’t expect to be saying this, but Kpop Demon Hunters surprised me.

Going in, I figured it was going to be a niche kids animated movie trying to cash in on a trend, but put it on in the background.

I’m not into Kpop, and nothing about the marketing really pulled me in. But within ten minutes, it completely won me over.

The animation style is great. Same team that worked on Into the Spider-Verse, and it shows, bringing the same kind of energy and attention to detail when it comes to character design and world building. The way they handled anime-inspired expressions and visual effects in 3D actually worked, and it gave the movie a really unique feel.

What surprised me most was how strong everything else was. The plot isn’t an afterthought, the humor lands, and the songs are ridiculously catchy. I had no reason to expect this to be as well-rounded and satisfying as it is, but here we are.

I’m a 34-year-old man with no interest in Kpop, and this is now a comfort movie for me.

When I was seven years old, my aunt gave me a dog. It was a toy poodle, the runt of the litter. She was from their first litter. They didn’t originally want to give me the dog since she was the prettiest. But I took her home. My aunt said she was expecting me to give her back after a few months. I didn’t.

I still remember holding her in my arms for the entire four-hour car ride back home. She didn’t like me at first. As it turns out, she didn’t like children much at all. As we grew older together, however, we formed a bond. Because of how young I was, I accidentally named her Doggie. She recognized several names afterward, including Baby, which is what we ultimately stuck with on documents. But she first knew herself as Doggie.

She had her favorites in the family. I remember her going crazy whenever my dad would come home from work. She always sat next to my mom when she was eating and watching TV. She’d come to our rooms and ask us to put her in our bed. I remember once, while I was in the middle of a stressful study session, she barked at me outside of my door because I wasn’t paying attention to her.

She was a very smart dog. There are many instances of her ability to problem-solve or think things through. She had this cough, and she recognized that whenever she coughed, I would look at her. So after failing to get my attention for a while, she faked a cough to get me to look.

She was, through and through, a member of the family.

I remember when I was almost 15, I did the math. At the time, my dog was seven years old, and I figured she would die by her 10th year, as that’s what I was told was the norm. She didn’t, obviously, but a year later on my 16th birthday, she almost died.

I awoke to my dog crying under my bed. She wouldn’t come out, so I checked, and she was covered in blood. We immediately took her to the emergency vet. As it turns out, she was attacked by a coyote. She somehow survived. She broke several of her teeth off attempting to fight the coyote. Like I said, my dog is a toy poodle, you could put her in your lap and still have a lot of room left over. This tiny dog successfully fended off a coyote attack. She made a full recovery.

She was a constant in my life. By 2020, I figured she was in her last days. She started losing her sight, her hearing, and her sense of smell. She was still functional, but it was clear she was starting to decline. Year after year, I would think, “This is probably her last year.” And year after year, she proved me wrong.

She gained more chronic health issues starting in 2022. What always worried us were her mammary gland tumors. They were benign for the most part. But one of them ruptured last week. A sign of cancer, sure, but frankly they only gave us two solutions: surgery or euthanasia. With her age, the outlook for post-surgery recovery was not great, if she even survived the surgery. She always hated doctors. I remember her recovery from the coyote attack was long and brutal on her, and she was half the age she is now.

After 18 years, I put her down. I don’t feel guilt in the sense that it wasn’t her time. It was. If I didn’t do it now, she’d get worse. She might not understand the concept of death, but the pain was very real to her. So I put an end to the pain.

I’m devastated. I, of course, knew this day would come and have been mentally preparing for years. But it’s odd that she’s not here anymore. In a way, she hadn’t been here for a long time. Her behavior radically changed over the past year, she was a shell of her former self. But now she’s not physically here anymore. I can’t grab her anymore. I can’t hear her cry. I can’t wake her up.

We grew up together, and I saw her get old. I saw her survive the unthinkable, I saw her outlive every single member of her family, including the one child she had.

I brought her to our home holding her in my arms. And I said goodbye to her the same way.

My sister and I were raised largely by our single mother, a passionate, fiery woman bordering on histrionic. I remember like it was yesterday how proudly she looked at my sister when she was crying or having a fit. My mother would later comment, multiple times, on how she admired my sister's ability to express her emotions in colorful ways, unimpeded by any constraints.

To my mother, my sister was "true" and "real". I was not. In my home, introversion was a crime. I was viewed as broken, and my lack of emotional display was something to correct. Throughout my life, different extroverts arrived at a similar opinion. Why aren't you crying? Why can't you be exactly like me? Are you a psychopath?. I am not. I experience the full range of emotions. I express them differently and at my leisure. But I feel them completely.

Sometimes, when I reveal that I do not cry, people assume that I am against emotion and against crying. I am not against crying or emotion. I understand that, to some, crying is important to emotional regulation. It can be uplifting and cathartic. Crying does not make someone weak -- much to the contrary. Men shouldn't be ashamed of crying, nor should they take any measures to avoid crying.

In the same way that no one should feel constrained in their crying, no one should feel oppressed into crying, or be made to feel ashamed of not crying. My emotional life is beautiful, deep, and intricate. I express it in a myriad of ways. The fact that I work through my emotions without the use of my lacrimal glands must not be viewed as a disease to correct. I have many problems. No crying is not one of them.

Strange New Worlds Season 3 is out. So far 2 episodes have been released. I have seen the first episode.

I have some thoughts about the underlying themes of Strange New Worlds. This will not have spoilers because most of what I'm talking about appeared in previous seasons and in the trailer for season 3.

The main theme that I see in the show is that the people in the crew are actualized adults. They have empathy and compassion. If they do something heroic, it is in the spirit of self sacrifice for their friends and colleagues and the human race in general. They have some flaws, but when they find out about the flaws they try to work on self-improvement.

This is most completely embodied in Captain Pike. He expends much of his energy getting feedback from his crew. He gets opinions from experts in various fields, and then makes a decision without doubt. He is open to criticism and fights for what he believes in. He is the opposite of an authoritarian leader.

I would contrast this somewhat to the behavior of Captain Kirk from the original series. Kirk would go to his advisors (mostly Spock and McCoy), but usually as a secondary source. Pike makes a much larger effort to check with the crew first, and relies on more different opinions.

It can also be contrasted with the behavior of Captain Picard. Picard is much more authoritarian and has a very rigid moral code which seems largely based on tradition and values like honor and service.

I enjoy Strange New Worlds very much. I am aware that it is extremely "woke", and that I am being given an example how how we should treat each other and solve problems. I don't mind this at all, and it seems completely in line with the morality which has always driven the best Star Trek.

There is one other thing I noticed in S3e1: Captain Pike takes a moment to pray. I don't remember seeing this in Star Trek before (but it probably has happened). I haven't decided yet why the writers included this. It could be to show a little background about Pike's upbringing (he mentions his dad before doing it). It could be a concession to conservatives who watch the show. It could be that Pike will try all possible avenues in case they may help.

Inspired by a conversation with my mom about how our poor dog didn't get fed until 5:08 instead of 5:00, poor thing seemed convinced we forgot she needed food. Mom joked that Zoey would call the ASPCA to report animal abuse for starving her. And I realized it's really good animals can't call because the lines would be flooded with reports of their humans closing bedroom doors or daring to stop playing after 45 minutes outside on a snowy day.

So, what silly complaints would your pets make?

Recently I was approached by someone who begged me to financially help them for a personal problem I could sympathize with. I was just approached on the street. There were several reasons why I did eventually give them part of what they asked for. Partly since they seemed sincere and partly because they have shown me some papers and an id card. Also since they turned down a smaller sum and offered to repay it which I refused. Some people can well damn seem as what they want to seem, papers can be printed and reused and id can be fake or they can just count on relatively small sums and lack of evidence to dissuade legal action and honestly I don't even know if it would count as crime justice system would pursue.

For context what I gave them was about third to half of a cheap month's rent so not truly substantial but also not trivial.

If they did something constructive with it then that is well. If they did something not so good then now I unknowingly funded that and if they just tallied it as good day's work then what I did is simply stupid. I would like to live in a society where this was just not a thing as in anyone not actually malicious would not be in a position to need to do anything like that but where we live it is statistically likely that I am just an idiot.

In retrospect the halfway I went about it also strikes me. If I believed them and they were genuine I could have given them what they wanted as it would not be all that much more financially impactful. If I didn't and they weren't I should have just walked away as all the other people did and in not doing so I enabled someone at something.

What is truly stupid of me regardless of anything else is at the end when I just didn't know I effectively flipped a coin, as in looked whether the time on my phone was odd or even to decide, though I did flip it a few times.

Note: This is NOT a sponsored post. I'm just a happy customer.

Background

When the G'AIM'E Kickstarter was announced, I got the itch to play light gun games again. I grew up playing Time Crisis on my PSX, stepping on a controller plugged into port 2 which acted as a makeshift pedal so I could mimic the arcade experience. A local pizza place near me had an Area 51 machine that I could play for a quarter, and over time I memorized the enemy layouts for that game so that I could play further and further on one coin.

There are a variety of modern light gun models available now, though all of them are at the hobbyist/tinkerer level. There isn't one that "just works" smoothly and easily.

The most well known is the Sinden, which achieves calibration on games by setting up a white border around the game on the screen. This allows the gun to establish its position within that border and "know" where it's shooting.

Unfortunately, when I looked into the Sinden, it seemed like reviews were very mixed, with many mentioning that the border can be kind of a mess to get working. Apparently it can require a lot of legwork and messing around with settings and external programs and whatnot.

After searching around for alternatives, I landed upon a different line of modern light gun and decided to, well, pull the trigger.

Gun4IR Intro

Gun4IR on its own isn't a standalone product so much as it is a framework for making a modern light gun. You can buy the individual components and put them all together in a gun casing, making a functional light gun of your choosing. For example, see the User Guide which goes into detail about which boards you'll need, pin guides, etc. People have made them in Nerf cases and 3D printed ones.

Now, if I'm going to ding the Sinden for requiring too much tinkering, surely soldering wires onto PCBs is a step in the wrong direction?

That's absolutely correct! The good news is that you can sidestep all of this. Gun4IR has some official pre-build sellers, meaning you can buy an already made gun -- no soldering needed! Their site sells builds for the UK, while, RPEG Electronics is their official pre-build seller for the US.

From RPEG, I picked up a pre-built Gun4IR setup in a Guncon 2 housing.

Gun4IR Basics

As is implied by the name, Gun4IR uses 4 different IR clusters for calibration. You can buy a pack of LED sensors that plug into the USB port of your TV. You stick these, facing out, to the midpoint of the top, bottom, left, and right of your TV. The LEDs are black and their light can't be seen with the naked eye but can with a camera (you can check to make sure they're working with your phone).

The gun comes with calibration software that gives you lines on your TV to show the mount points for the LEDs, check how the gun is seeing the sensors, line up shots, etc.

I'm happy to report that, once calibrated, my gun is VERY accurate. I was honestly expecting a bit of jank, but it's genuinely spot on. There's a small bit of jitter that's noticeable when you have a crosshair on (some of that also might be coming from my unstable hands), but when you're playing a game without a crosshair, it's not enough to make you miss shots. The shots I've missed have been because I'm, well, bad at videogames.

Games

Because I wasn't wanting to tinker, I found a big download pack that promised me a pre-configured set of ROMs and emulators that were turnkey and compatible with Gun4IR. I spent days downloading all the individual parts from one of those sketchy download sites, getting all the parts of a multi-part RAR file.

And when I started extracting it, wouldn't you know, it was INFESTED with viruses. I uploaded one of the .exes to VirusTotal and I've never seen so much red.

Shame on me, though. I'm not an internet newbie, and I should know better than to trust random executable files, especially on Windows.

So, I went seeking an alternate solution.

Batocera

Batocera is a Linux distribution focused on retro-gaming. You wouldn't use it as your daily driver, but you would use it if you want to just boot into something so you can play games. Additionally, Batocera has built-in light gun support! Perfect!

I did my usual "setup emulation" dance that I've done so many times before: looking up worthwhile games to play, locating ripping ROMs, getting the right extracting BIOSes, etc. I also bought an external hard drive and attached it to my Windows TVPC. I can now boot off the hard drive to go into Batocera directly (because I didn't want to try to figure out dual booting with Windows).

Batocera is like booting into an arcade cabinet, loading right into ES-DE. It doesn't really expose its file system to you by default, but it's got a killer feature that makes setup easy: Batocera automatically sets up a network share for you. This lets you access all of its folders from another device, meaning I could set everything up on my laptop and transfer it over easily to Batocera.

Furthermore, Batocera automatically knows when you've got a light gun attached and will show a gun icon on games that are compatible. In theory, I'm able to navigate the interface just using my light gun, but in practice I also paired a bluetooth controller. (See Caveats section below for more on this.)

You don't HAVE to use Batocera of course, but it ended up being so easy that it became my preferred setup.

Gaming

So, I got the gun calibrated, and I got my games set up in Batocera. It's time to shoot!

I'm happy to report that the gun works fantastically. Like, seriously good.

For most games and emulators, it "just works" which is exactly what I wanted. I tested out several different games on several different platforms, and it worked on stuff ranging from the Atari 2600 to Naomi arcade cabinets.

I played through the first 10 rounds of Duck Hunt on the NES without missing a shot before getting bored and moving to something else. Time Crisis on the PlayStation (my original light gun love) plays wonderfully.

I had a friend over this weekend who also loves light gun games and has nostalgia for TC (though his is for TC2 and TC3). We traded off rounds playing Time Crisis 2 (which ended up being a good way to do it, as I forgot how my arms and eyes need a rest after 15 minutes of light gun gaming). We beat the full campaign in 2 and almost beat 3.

I also tried the gun out in some Windows games off of Steam, just to make sure that my Batocera success wasn't a fluke. Sure enough, it worked just fine!

I now have an accurate, easy-to-use light gun setup that works on my large, modern LCD TV. I have hours of light gun gameplay ahead of me, and I'm thrilled.

Caveats

Wow, kfwyre, this sounds great! I can't wait to get one for myself!

Easy there, cowboy/cowgirl/cowthem! Let me surface some of the rough edges, lest you think that this is too good to be true.

Conclusion

I am quite fond of my Gun4IR so far. It works better than I hoped it would, and it's unlocked a type of gaming that I thought was extinct. (For some reason, light gun games have a different feel to me than VR shooting gallery games. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I like them a lot more?)

I would recommend it ONLY if you're someone who knows they're going to get their money's worth out of it and are also willing to put up with the mostly minimal tinkering required to get it working. I say mostly minimal because, no matter what gun you're using, you're still going to have to set up emulators and ROMs and whatnot. The configuration that is specific to Gun4IR is really just installing the sensors, using the calibration app, and making sure your gun isn't catching other LEDs.

Compared to the G'AIM'E (which is a bit of a fool's errand at this point because that one's still theoretical while this one's here to kiss you in real life), Gun4IR doesn't offer the "plug and play" promise, but it also is compatible with far more games. If you're in the market for the G'AIM'E, however, it's probably worth waiting out that release to see how it fares (and whether people can get it working with more games besides the included ones).

On the other hand, if you're like me and need some light gun fun NOW then I give the Gun4IR a pretty strong recommendation, with a secondary recommendation for Batocera. The two of them together are really great, and I'm delighted that I have hours upon hours of shooting games ahead of me.

If anyone has any additional questions or wants me to test specific games/systems, let me know. I'm happy to report back and help in whatever way I can.

What's the skill?

How did you pick it up?

Did you intend to learn it, or was it more of a product of circumstance?

How did you go about learning it?

The skills can be anything, and they don't have to be life skills! Maybe you just learned how to, say, rocket jump in Quake? Tell us about it!

Share some digital clutter from one of your hard drives -- something from a LONG time ago. For example: a to-do list, poetry, a script you wrote, a PowerPoint presentation, etc.

Give us the date the file was created/modified.

And, if you so choose, give us context on the file (but if you'd rather let it speak for itself, feel free!).

The Great, The Lionheart, Our Lady of the Grackles, Olaf the Holy, Athena Glaukopis (grey-eyed), Emperor Youngzheng (meaning The Just/Justified), Amenhotep the Magnificent, Solomon the Wise, Much-Enduring Odysseus, The King of Pop, The Sultan of Swat, the Iron Lady, and perhaps for someone, Couch Potato are all epithets. For folks unfamiliar with the term, an epithet is a descriptive word or phrase that accompanies or replaces the name of a person. (Before surnames this was often used too just not passed down, with some of the occupational ones "the Smith" turning into surnames "Smith"

Sometimes it's used to distinguish Charles the Fat from Charles the Bald, or just to tell people you think they're Great (or Terrible), but it wouldn't be the same as just calling Charles bald today, it's how you actually refer to him. Homer used it a lot, and so did Shakespeare. And it has continued through the present with Oz the Great and Powerful, The Man of Steel, and King James.

So, my fellow Tildis, if you were to have one, what would be your epithet? Feel free to choose one that you want or share what you think others would call you. Or ask for others to give you an appellation directly if you so desire!

Id never heard the terms satisfier or maximizer til I was having a discussion with my then girlfriend about the difference in the way we select things. The difference became apparent when she wanted to buy a new lawnmower. We walked into a big box store, she looked at a row of 10 mowers and said "I want that one" pointing at the second one. Being a maximizer I thought she meant that was her first choice out of the 10 options here but obviously we had two more stores and many more options to check out.

Nope.

She meant she had looked them over in 2 minutes and THAT mower was her final choice.

I honestly was quite surprised. "You don't wanna shop around? Compare features? Compare prices?" No, that's not what satisfiers do. Satisfiers just find the first thing that satisfies their needs and go with it.

Which is why my wife can select anything and everything very quickly and I end up making a spreadsheet to do a thorough cost benefit analysis on anything important. I even had one when I was dating for every woman I went out for coffee. And fortunately, she didn't - she just started reverse alphabetically and since my username was near the end of the alphabet I won the luck of the draw.

And here we are happily celebrating our 15th anniversary next week. Who says you gotta be the same to be compatible lol?

Are you a satisfier or a maximizer?

Follow-up to my one gallon post here.

And technically, it's 5 gallons and 3 pints after this morning's platelet donation. I'd hit the five gallon milestone with my last one but didn't realize it. Never too late to celebrate though!

One of my co-workers is also a regular donor, and we've bonded over it. One time we were at lunch, eating in the teachers' lounge with a bunch of our colleagues. We were having a group conversation about blood donation, the pain of sticks, the fears of something going wrong, etc. It was kind of a downer conversation about the whole thing. After the group moved on to a different topic, she quietly leaned toward me and whispered "this is going to sound weird, but I actually like doing it."

She couldn't have found a better person to confide in! I feel exactly the same way.

It sounds weird that I like having someone stick needles in my arm and withdrawing my life force. It sounds even weirder when I say that I like donating platelets, in which I can't move my arms for two hours, and also the tape they use rips out my arm hair (this genuinely is worse than the needle sticks, by the way).

I think that's framing it the wrong way though.

I like doing it because it's something I can easily do, it doesn't cost me anything, and I know I'm helping people out. I read a comment online once about donating that stuck with me. It said something to the effect of:

The person who will be getting your donation is undergoing much worse, and they also don't have a choice in the matter.

I think about this in those times where I am a little anxious or nervous that things might hurt.

Yes, the sticks are painful sometimes. Yes, my arm hair getting ripped out is uncomfortable. Yes, sometimes I need to scratch my nose and I simply can't and I want to crawl out of my skin for a few minutes until the feeling subsides.

But that's nothing compared to the person with cancer who's getting my platelets. Or the car-crash victim who gets my blood.

I also think about it in terms of the bystander effect. It's easy to just assume that blood or platelets will be there for people who need it, but that only happens if people deliberately choose to donate.

I want to be one of those people who does it deliberately.

And so far I have: to the tune of FIVE GALLONS!

The last thing I'll say is that part of why I like doing it is because I really like my donation center. The staff there are excellent. I prefer doing it at a place like that than one of the closer, more convenient pop-up options because I feel like if something were to go wrong (god forbid), then a designated site is likely to have the supplies, preparation, and expertise in dealing with the issue.

For example: I have had a few times where the phlebotomist has whiffed one of the sticks for my arm. Each time, they've immediately called over the manager (who you can tell is esteemed by ALL of the staff for being VERY good at getting sticks right -- one time I heard a phlebotomist audibly "ooh" in amazement as she fixed their stick in my arm). She's been able to fix the issue each time.

Thankfully, those issues have been infrequent. Most of the time they do everything great and I barely feel a thing.

They also follow cleanliness and administrative protocols to a well-crossed, perfectly symmetrical T. It's comical, but I'll get asked my name and date of birth probably four different times during a platelet donation, because at each new step of the process they make sure that they've got the right paperwork, vials, and patient. It's always funny to me that they ask me this before they take the needles out of my arms, after I've been stuck in the chair unable to move for two hours. Do they think I somehow snuck out and someone else took my place when they weren't looking?

Of course, they're doing it not for me but to make sure everything gets properly labeled, but I genuinely appreciate the thoroughness. I feel very safe with them because they consistently operate with such a high level of care. If you've been turned off of donating due to bad experiences in the past, I recommend finding a good permanent donation center near you if you're willing to revisit it.

Anyway, that's all I have to say. I wanted to share my personal milestone. Again, as a gay guy who wasn't allowed to donate blood for DECADES, it feels really, REALLY good to be able to finally give back in this way.

I gotta admit, I grew up with a thrifty father who definitely taught me to watch my pennies. So now its second nature. I very rarely buy anything brand new because I just cant stomach the price of new things.
eg. Our little EV, some poor soul paid 34k USD brand new. We bought it 3 years old with only 20,000 miles on it for 8k. Thats a heckuva lot of money saved for a car thats still barely used. This week I was shopping for a wake surf board for one of my grandkids and picked up a new looking board for $200. New price is over $700. WHY would you want to pay full price on stuff thats barely used when you can get it for a fraction of the price and let someone else take the hit? Take the saved money and invest it and you're miles ahead of the 'gotta be new and the latest and greatest' buyers. It's all gonna be dust some day anyway.