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What is something that had far more variety than you expected once you looked into it?
For example, I was shocked at the many varieties of onion. There are only two available for sale at markets where I live. It was such an interesting new world to investigate.
Doom Metal: a heavy metal genre defined by its slow tempos, downtuned guitars, and heavy riffs.
It's easy to dismiss doom metal bands as a bunch of pot-smoking wizards. Well, ok, most of them are pot-smoking wizards. But there's a lot of diversity in musical sound and lyrical themes, including overlaps with other genres you may not expect.
Links with asterisks are music videos. They're all on YouTube, but aren't necessarily safe for work!
Doom sub-genres
Starting with traditional doom, doom metal has branched out in many different directions.
Related genres
There are also at least a couple of related, non-metal genres.
Lyrical themes
Drugs are the most common theme considering that stoner doom is probably the most popular subgenre. However, dig beneath the surface and there's a lot to explore.
Doom Metal has something for everyone. Well, almost everyone. If you enjoy slow, heavy music, you might find something you like.
I've written this up on my phone, but if there's interest, I'll go back on my computer later and hyperlink some YouTube video examples for each band mentioned.Thanks for the interest! I've started adding hyperlinks. More to come!
I'd love some links! But don't do it on my behalf alone!
Great writeup regardless.
Have younheard of Subrosa?
One of my favorites.
Namely the albums:
"More Constant Than The Gods."
"For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages."
The former of which is one of my favorite albums ever!
I don't think I've listened to Subrosa, but I'll check out the album's you recommended.
I've started adding some links, and will add more later.
I'd be happier if you listened to "More Constant Than The Gods," than if you posted links!
I'll check out all your recommended bands in exchange and we can chat about it! No rush though!
Happy dooming, friend!
Thanks for the recommendations.
I had a good listen to SubRosa today - both More Constant than the Gods and For this we Fought the Battle of Ages. They're not quite my cup of tea, but I loved The Usher.
They might grow on me more if I read through the lyrics. I find a lot of bands are like that for me.
Happy dooming! \m/
Seriously, thank you for listening! That means a lot to this aging metal head!
No Safe Harbor is probably my favorite song and the lyrics are (overall) paramount, although I have to admit it took me a few listens for it to click with me.
I have to admit, that I have yet acquired the time to invest in your recommendations, but I definitely look forward to hearing them!
No worries!
I love a good banger, but the most meaningful songs to me are always the ones with strongly resonating lyrics. Sometimes you hear a song and don't really care for it—then you figure out the lyrics and they're so meaningful that they instantly become etched into your brain forever.
There are some amazingly heartfelt and emotional songs in the doom metal scene, and in the wider metal community.
This many bands and no mention of Electric Wizard? I'm offended!
In all seriousness, thanks for the list, will check out those I'm not familiar with.
Unfortunately, I don't listen to Electric Wizard enough to recommend them above other bands. I do like Funeralopolis though - doesn't everyone?
I've started adding some links. Hope you find something you enjoy.
I’m also interested, but don’t spend a bunch of time for just two of us. Maybe recommend a few of your fav traditional doom metal songs just to get started?
Oh man, I don't know where to even start with figuring out my favourite traditional doom songs. There are so many, and my tastes are weird.
Still, here are some good recommendations. I'll keep them short, because doom songs can be notorious long.
As a bonus, here's one of my definitive favourites: Demon Head - Older Now. It's a song about coming to terms with growing old.
I've edited my original post to add some links, and will add more in the coming days.
Great list. A couple of my favorites that I’d add:
Asunder
Hell
Corrupted
Thanks, I'll check these out!
I just recently thought, "I think I like Doom Metal," and the reason was exactly that I started to feel the variety of a genre that, from the outside, seems so homogeneous. This list goes directly into my bookmarks. 😀
Mechanical keyboards. Thought there was just your standard 3 cherry MX switches; red, blue and brown and everything else was irrelevant.
Turns out I was wrong lol.
Not exactly related but I didn't know how much effort goes into making quality books until I learned about Tune and Fairweather.
I started getting into mechanical keyboards, but the more I got into it the more I started feeling like it was like that Connoisseur XKCD where they debate intricacies of various photos of Joe Biden eating a sandwich. Ultimately, there's not really that much to customizing keyboards that result in a real benefit, so people start hyper-focusing on tiny tiny customization details relating to sound and feel that most people wouldn't notice. After staying up late one night comparing the sound and feel of various switches after lubrication, I had a "what am I even doing with my life" moment. I felt like I had snapped out of some kind of trance, and stopped buying any new keyboard stuff after that.
Sometimes I feel like mechanical keyboards provide an outlet to (or worse, intensifies) people with undiagnosed OCD issues because of the absolutely insane levels of thock vs clack vs whatever else is happening that get hyped up.
Or the absolutely lack thereof.
Silent MX Blacks with rings and lube.
I'm one of those weirdos who enjoys the feel of silent reds. I dare not admit this in r/mk spaces though lol.
I honestly wanted to like reds but even gently resting my mitts on the keys and I start activating them. Blacks are just the right weight for me not to have accidental presses.
That said, the quieter the better in my book. A bit sacrilegious to some, to be certain.
I've never had that problem with accidental presses, even with speed switches. Which is ironic given how I grew up on the IBM buckling springs and my computer class classmates would sideeye me hammering away at the normal keyboards the classroom had lol.
I really like the feel of my mechanical keyboard, but I could definitely do with a little less clickity clackity
The Vortex Race3 with silent blacks is about the quietest out of the box keyboard I've found but if you're comfortable with it, MX makes both silent blacks and reds.
Then again, if you like the bump just get browns and don't bottom them out.
Key switches! There are just so many now with so many different names, it's impossible to know what they are, how they perform, how they sound. I'm typing this on Keychron banana switches (early tactile bumps) and they're excellent. I'm not going down any rabbit holes or chasing any dragons with switches. It's one of those hobbies where if you're not careful, you will never truly be satisfied with what you have.
I agree. I just ordered my last ever keyboard (the class 60) and I think I'll probably fully leave the hobby/community after building it. I'll still keep the 2 or 3 keyboards I have, of course.
Same. I never gave much thought about mechanical keyboards except for the fact that the ones my colleagues were using made a lot of noise. And I used to think it’s mainly for different types of clicky sounds. It’s when I started checking out split ergo mech keyboards that I fell down a rabbit hole and saw so many different variants. I started building my own keyboards. My daily driver cost me $51 and I love that keyboard.
Besides just key switches, I found out about tenting, number of keys (I use one with just 34 keys), layers, home row mods, hyper and meh keys, combo keys, different keyboard layouts (I even switched from QWERTY to Colemak), microcontrollers, different websites that offer parts of the keyboard, PCB design, 3D printed cases, different types of key caps, and a whole lot more.
I was evangelizing it so much at my workplace that I got 3 of my teammates interested in building their own keyboards 🙂
Do you have any suggestions for reading more about this?
Awesome!
Oh friend, thread carefully
Currently typing on Alps Black switches! Retro keyboards are where it's at.
--Sent from my Dell AT102W
Tabletop RPG’s! When I first started looking into them, I just assumed I would pick D&D or Pathfinder and a smattering of fan created adventures for each.
The world of TTRPG’s is INCREDIBLE and I’m addicted to reading all of the rule sets and settings I can. The indie creators of the TTRPG world create the absolute best content. Just flat out some of the best fiction there is.
The variety rabbit hole is DEEP.
Playing D&D use to be a fantasy to me, but these days my main game is Call of Cthulhu. Amazing how you can find a TTRPG out there that will be perfect for you.
Yeah. I started with D&D but have played many other systems mainly because my GM wanted to try them. My favourite is Blades in the Dark now.
I introduce people do tabletop by talking about D&D because that's the one they're familiar with. But after a while, I confuse them by saying I don't actually play D&D anymore.
Ah man. I had a chance to try out Blades in the Dark but was defeated by TTRPGs biggest opponent; scheduling issues.
I’ve been loving me some Delta Green lately, but want to run Call of Cthulhu for the first time somewhat soon. I’ve collected most of the current books, but haven’t run a single session!
I'll have to check out Call of Cthulhu! You can really can find the PERFECT TTRPG for you and your group, from rules to setting. And there's never any harm in tweaking what you find. A few houserules and some homebrew go a long way.
Yes, there's a huge variety of tabletop system to fit different styles of gameplay. It's unfortunate that many people don't care to expand their experience beyond the D&D/d20 bubble, but these days more folks seem to be aware of other games which is great.
There's a lot of design space that hasn't been explored by D&D. For example, I'm enamored with the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) inspired games' full success/success at a cost/failure mechanic. Instead of a d20, it typically relies on 2d6 to create a bell curve.
Yeah, I think especially since WotC's fumble earlier this year, people started to expand their horizons. Lots of games benefited from players looking for a new TTRPG rulese to dive into. I think it's awesome.
I need check into PbTA, I've been looking at a lot of Dungeon Crawl Classic, Cairn, and Mothership content myself.
I REALLY encourage people to go to itch.io and just browse the endless indie TTRPG content.
Dungeon World might be a good place to start exploring PbtA since it's so similar to D&D. Granted, the similarities are also the most clunky parts of this particular game because PbtA is much more narrative-based. There are some fan-made evolutions like Homebrew World or Chasing Adventure that are really good too.
This is exactly why my group decided to not do Curse of Strahd and instead picked up Symbaroum (original) which is incredible.
Powered by the Apocalypse interesting since it has am entirely different philosophy than d20 games. Even people that take roll playing seriously, are usually still trying to "win" a game of D&D or pathfinder. PbtA games are a lot more focused on storytelling. It was a big adjustment for me the way it gives players control over things that you can't usually control. Like you roll bad on an attempt to convince someone of something. You get a negative consequence, (they won't do it, they have a condition, someone overheard you, etc) but you get to choose which one it is.
I've wanted to try out Monster of the Week since I heard them do it on the Adventure Zone podcast. But haven't tried it yet.
I really recommend The Sprawl, a cyber punk heist game.
And the best part is that you can mix and match rule sets to make somthing spesific for what your players enjoy. I GMd a game where my players just got heavy into playing the social scene. A detective side story turned into political intrigue and then a spy thriller. Next thing I know it's been months since the last combat roll, everyone has their own conspiracy board and the major confrontation had become a trial to prove the innocence of the archdevil Chamo.
At that point, Charisma and Insight rolls were not going to cut it so we experimented a lot. Drew a lot of inspiration from Disco Elysium, Star Trek Adventures and Blades in the Dark. Also played with making dialog a deck building minigame where information was weapons and your social standing was a shield that needed to be worn down.
In the end, the system was a cumbersome mess but it was worth it for everyone to go full Ace Attorney for a few weeks.
That sounds AWESOME! TTRPG’s are magic. That kinda thing can only happen in that medium.
Side note: I’d adore an adaptation to the table of Disco Elysium’s rules and setting
Cannabis strains. I thought terpenes were just a sales tactic until my wife started working in the industry. Turns out it really can taste and smell like oranges, lemons, pine, ect. It's quite incredible really!
I remember when legal stores first started opening up in Washington. And being blown away by seeing all these different strains. You still had old school people saying "ah that shit doesn't matter. It's all weed". But man you really start to notice. Certain strains with certain terpenes can cause different results.
I mostly vape my THC nowadays. But where I live you can't artificially flavor your oil. So to flavor it they add a ton of certain terpenes and I love it. You can still get some wild flavors.
Low temp vaping opens up a whole other world.
That's wonderful to hear! I've been leaning towards getting a MFLB.
I have one, I’d get something a little more beginner friendly tbh. Arizer air max, xmax v3 pro, or anything from healthy rips.
Good backlog of info on the subreddit vaporents.
I'm actually at the airport right now moving to a country that has it legalised. I'm super curious, I've only messed around with what I assume was ditch weed, and even that wasn't very much... Might have to investigate. Do you have any resources I could check out?
The best resource is just going in and smelling the weed. At least around me it's common for the sales people to open a bunch of jars for you to sample. They'll probably tell you something about "this one is good for X experience". I wouldn't personally put too much weight into what they say for the effects. Those are very subjective.
There’s a couple of good websites for strain information. If you just search google for a strain like Jack Herer, as an example, you should see a few sites towards the top that have pretty detailed info. Lineage, thc content, terpenes, sativa/indica/hybrid, major effects, etc.
Here's something specific to terpenes: https://takomawellness.com/what-is-a-cannabis-terpene/
Here's one for general consumption: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/if-you-use-cannabis-do-it-safely-202301172876
Here's one saying TCH prevents coronavirus from entering human cells: https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/oregon-state-research-shows-hemp-compounds-prevent-coronavirus-entering-human-cells
Liminal Spaces. Photography and artwork of liminal spaces that I had initially seen tended to narrow into a small number of subjects such as swimming pools, airports and hotels and I think this happens because the idea of a liminal spaces works best when presented with both a spacial and a temporal uncanniness and those spaces are the easiest to achieve that with. Also I think alot of bots did their karma farming which certainly does not help
However occasionally an incredible piece rises to the top. One of the last pieces I saw on reddit before leaving was this which I think illustrates the the idea of a liminal space perfectly.
It depicts a scene of a partially stormy beach. The beach is itself liminal because it transitions from land to sea the storm represents a uncanny change in the emotional cadence of the image, clearly showing the influence of cursed images on the format, finally the idea that a beach trip might be interrupted by a storm is also liminal because it puts the story the image tells into a surreal limbo, is this the image of the a fun beach trip or a trip back to the hotel to peer out the gloomy window at the rain.
I think about that image a lot and how I could strive to ever take a shot that captures as much as that piece does.
Planting gardens using native or "non-horticultural atrocity" plants.
I live in an area where the soil is mostly sand and pretty bad for anything to grow but "weeds". When I moved in I had a nice lawn but that was a sales tactic by the previous homeowner, it all died within 2 years.
I started walking around, researching etc. And found that the native plants here are not only perfectly adapted to the soil but they are beautiful.
Most folk see weeds, I see plants that are vital to pollinators or some specific bug that co-adapted to it. I can thank youtube channel Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't for opening my eyes to the plant world around me.
Our previous homeowner did that, too! Do then I spent a week researching different types of grass. I had no idea there were types of grass you have to replant every couple of years, which is apparently what they used.
I seeded what was left of the lawn with clover and just let it grow wild, i even have big milkweeds growing for the pollinators. I also planted stinging nettles in particularly desolate areas to try and fix the nitrogen in the soil. The nettles went wild and grow up to 8ft tall, which is unheard of..
Time will tell what will happen to my yard.
I'm taking a little different approach. I want to set up my yard to grow as much for as possible with as low maintenance as possible. So for now the grass stays while I gradually give it less space each year. I'm doing a lot of research on local food plants because of our wacky climate (mostly rain in the winter with a few freezes, mostly drought in the summer). My regular garden has things that wouldn't grow here on their own like tomatoes, but I don't want to put that level of care into the whole yard.
I stumbled across food forests a couple of weeks ago and got really excited! I want a Ranier cherry tree, which you need a second variety to pollinate. That seems like a lot of cherries, so that also means checking if the food bank would send someone over to help. Having a cluster of food trees would be awesome.
That went way off topic, sorry. I'm really excited about all of this.
Your mention of cherry trees totally made me realize I forgot to mention my apple tree "expriment".
When I was fishing in vermont in late September the owner of the motel we stayed at had some mystery apple trees that made small but very crisp and tasty apples. I came home with a few crates of apples and decided to germinate the seeds from a few of them.
Now obviously we all know that you won't get the same apples from seed, you need to graft the tree at some point. But I didn't care as I wanted to see what would happen.
Well now I have a mini orchard of 7 trees that I hope will eventually bare fruit, and then I shall see what comes of it. Maybe they will be sour and wild? Maybe not? But either way the bugs and birds will be happy.
That's a pretty fun experiment. Apple trees are so pretty in the spring, too.
Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't is fantastic! Watched countless hours of his stuff. So fun to watch someone so into what they are talking about. Also, I love his aggressive planting of native species in the cities he is near.
Mushrooms!
I encountered a recipe that called for mushrooms I hadn’t heard of and went down a rabbit hole of information and varieties. Until that point, I thought white mushrooms and baby bellas were it - that the rest were the poisonous kind. So many mushrooms out there I had never heard of that are so amazing - different tastes, textures. I was hooked.
Then I started doing grow kits. And now I’m looking at a grow chamber and growing many more. Foraging for my own that aren’t able to be grown that way, like morels, is also on my “do it someday” list.
Similarly I've been getting into mushroom ID and even foraging. I spent a couple years learning how to (try to) ID and getting familiar with them.
I find local facebook (yea yea, I know..) foraging groups very helpful for learning about common local mushrooms and their timing, opinions on edibility (shockingly, not always straightforward!), and posting to confirm IDs.
I knew wine was a deep subject, but I went down the rabbit hole and there's no bottom.
1,000+ genetically distinct grape varieties, some googol-esque number of soil and climate combinations, and a stupid range of aromatic compounds, acids, sugars, glycols, aldehydes, tannins...
Then there's what happens with fermentation, barrels, blending, aging, bottling, and other technical modifications.
That's not even counting the variability in human capacity to taste and smell.
I've sat at a table with a bunch of winemakers, listening raptly to a debate about the relative merits of French oak barrels from different sources, how they should be toasted, and which day of the week they're best manufactured.
Up until the past few decades, it's been pure craft knowledge, without much science applied. But these days, winemaking is much better studied and controlled. You can get a $10 box wine that's consistently better than much of what royalty of the last few centuries could obtain at great expense.
Which then brings up the history of wine and wine economics...
You know full well we're going to need to know what is top tier wine, in white, red and rose, that can be bought in a budget!
In the UK I recently discovered a red made by Yellow Tail, an Australian brand, called Jammy Red Roo.
Let me tell you, I am not a fan of red, or at least I never used to be, but since this discovery...
The part I hate about wine stuff and beer stuff is that some people would shit on you for liking yellow tail. For me it's just like anything, you like what you like. I've got a friend that still buys spaghettios in his thirties. Good on him, he likes it, who am I to tell him I think it's trashy?
You like what you like and you should get to enjoy what you like. Find the style/varietal/winery/brewery/whatever that you like and you're doing good. In the case of beer (which I know more about than wine) I think there is something for everyone out there with the huge amount of variety.
If more people had your attitude, I think others would feel far more comfortable to explore these things. I view something like Yellow Tail the same way I view McDonald's, which also gets sneered at (unfairly in my opinion). Neither are premium offerings, but they're not trying to be and that's ok! Sometimes (in fact, most of the time) all I want is something relatively cheap and reliable. Appreciating the finer things in life shouldn't preclude you from appreciating anything else.
Spouse actually has a "Wine Tasting For Absolute Beginners" curriculum built out, that's pending trials with local tasting room staff. The message that's going to get hammered home, again and again, is: "Good wine is wine you like." And anyone who yuks your yum is being a douche.
Taste is one of those crazy human things that's part genetics, part learned, and part social. You can train yourself to like a greater variety of wine or other beverages through exposure, using the various techniques for understanding and comparing flavors/aromas, and drinking with food to understand those interactions.
But the kind of social status stack ranking that goes on with wine can be appalling. It's bundling up a bunch of judgments about economic class, education, ethnicity (I grew up with Mogen David and Manischevitz. Some of that sweet Concord wine is actually good, fight me). They're ready to toss whole categories of wine drinkers and sources in the bin. Truth be told, some great wines are being sold in cans!
And if you want to hit a hard brick wall of wine snobbery, it's the "dry"/"sweet" divide. Early on, the region I'm in got a reputation among tourists for delicious sweet white and fruit wines (it's easier to make good sweet wines than good dry ones, because reasons). And we call those sweet wine drinkers "fudgies", and generally dunk on them because they don't appreciate the more delicately crafted dry wines. But here's a secret - there's a place for every level of sugar content, acidity, aromatics, and tannin. I came to wine through food service, so I always think of wine in terms of what food it goes with, and then whether I'd enjoy a glass by itself. Sweet wines are absolutely delightful with tart, spicy, or smoky foods, and you can make a vibrant, delicious wine at 5+% sugar. Think of sweet red wines with spicy tomato sauce or barbecue; sweet, tart whites with cheesecake. Even the French treasure their Sauternes. Other ethnicities also make and enjoy sweet or non-grape wines. I won't knock Valpolicella, the classic Italian slightly sweet "pizza red". And you can spend a mint for ice wines, which concentrate the grape flavors to the point where a single sip can have you picking apart the flavors for 10 minutes.
So the snobs are just creating an artificial barrier to feel better about their own taste. I've had a so-called expert wax ecstatic about wine so bad I thought about looking up the Poison Control Center, because I'd have sworn there was paint stripper in my glass. [It turned out the expert in question was an importer with a lot of trash to unload... con artists are a wine thing, too.]
It's a great gateway wine! I believe the first wine with that distinctive uh-oh, this wine is very tasty flavour (at least in the UK) was another Australian brand called Jam Shed. I don't know if it was the actual first, but it's certainly the first I (or more accurately, my girlfriend) came across. The Yellow Tail and Barefoot versions of the 'jammy' wine popped up later. They're all very similar, so I just pick whichever is cheapest at the time. They're definitely not as 'good' as something like a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but they're my absolute go to for an affordable wine that is guaranteed to taste nice.
I'm not sure how to answer this, because availability varies so much from place to place. My go-to "wine shop" for an inexpensive bottle is actually Costco - they're buying really good bulk wines and bottling them under the house "Kirkland" label, so you can get some steals. In the U.S., at least, Reverse Wine Snob is a good resource. But I've also got a good relationship with a local wine shop, and the staff are great at steering me towards the inexpensive bottles that they've enjoyed drinking. I highly recommend building local sources of information, because that's how you'll get the best price for quality wines available to you.
There used to be an online source that compiled "QPR", a quality/price ratio for wines. There were some questionable ratings (don't get me started on ratings) in the mix, but the general curve for quality these days starts to bend at around $25 - the incremental quality you get for each dollar after that diminishes pretty quickly. And wine-making has gotten standardized enough that there are plenty of satisfying (if not distinctive) bottles/cans/boxes at $8 - $12/750 ml.
Maybe a little niche but just something I ran into recently while upgrading my gym. Barbells. There's of course standard and Olympic, but then there's like 4 different sizes of Olympic bars with only the 7 foot one being the real 45lb Olympic bar, but then there's also different types of ways that the sides can spin. There's bushings, bearings, hybrids, different numbers of bearings. Bars can range from $50 to like $800. I thought it was going to be the easiest thing to purchase until I started researching it. Took me days to figure out which one I was going to get.
Very true, and it can make a huge difference in max load. Probably less of an issue with Olympic bars but I’ve seen standard ones that are only rated for 70kg 😬
IPA's. Growing up near Seattle I've always had certain micro brews you could get. But I had mostly had Coors and natty ice at this point. But as I got older the micro brew explosion happened. At my store there was four full fridge doors filled with craft beer. We are talking 24 different beers per door. And it was constantly rotating and new ones were coming in all the time.
I actually then got burned out on beers. I was tired of having a new one every time. And having an everyday beer. One I could get year round. So I've left IPA's and have moved onto pilsners. But man I was heavily into that IPA explosion.
My mother in law’s boyfriend is in his IPA phase right now. I introduced him to them a few years back and it’s now all he wants. We just went on vacation together and at every place he was upset they didn’t have multiple IPAs to choose from. He’s got a couple kegs at home and one is always a craft IPA for him and a cheap popular one like coors or miller for his friends. My goal is to teach him that similar to wine there are different styles that pair better with different foods.
Oh man that last point is such a huge one. There are different times for different beers. Some were great on a hot summer day. Some would make you die in the summer heat. I'm definitely glad that it got me to try a whole bunch of different beers. I didn't like that it kinda ruined every other beer because they all taste like they are missing something. (The insane amount of hops)
Lol. The hops are really what most crafts place their bets on.
I just came from Italy and it was laughable how many places offered a draft “beer” without any explanation on what it actually was. The wines would have paragraphs of notes…
I mean I had specific hops I looked for. Most of the C ones. Cascade, citra. I loved mosaic as well. It's crazy how much the hops change a beer. And how some people couldn't care less.
Music. There's more variety out there than I realized.
Anime!
It took me a lot of watching and getting a bit older to realize that there is such a tremendous volume of Anime. It breaks up into a few loose categories that are targeted at different age groups and genders. For example, the popular Anime Dragon Ball Z is considered a "Shonen", for younger boys.
But the genres have blended and evolved over the years to the point where now there's a huge crossover among them. Take a look at Crunchyroll - the most popular anime streaming site - and you might catch a Shonen about a sport you're interested in (or might become interested in). And you'll often find deeply layered stories in the most unlikely places, like a romance Anime for young girls.
My youngest is into anime as well. He had me watch Demon Slayer with him and then Vinland Saga. I liked the first season of the latter, but the second seemed too slow and drawn out for me. I think my son as well since he stopped watching early on.
I grew up watching looney tunes and Disney cartoons and as I got older I started watching lots of studio ghibli as well. My kids grew up watching all of them as well and I think it sparked the interest. My youngest watches American cartoons as well as the anime, the fact he uses subtitles is good as it has helped my wife and I adopt them for most shows and movies now so we can keep the volume low and still follow along.
There's anime about almost any interest/hobby in Japan.
Types/styles of beers, really common drinkers classify by color "I'd like a dark beer" or "I'd like clear straw beer". You can classify beer by continent, country, or styles as American IPAs, Catarina Sours, New Zealand Pilsners, and so on a list of more than hundred styles.
I'm a massive fan of Belgian beers in general. Both trappist and sour stuff. I honestly think there is a style of beer out there for anyone to enjoy.
Totally agree, I'm also a fan of Belgian Dark Strong 👌
My hot take is that there is more variance in beer than in wine. It's also more inclusive, it's all about the ingredients and the brewer, the location literally doesn't matter.
With wine you need the grapes to be grown in a certain location for a specific flavour profile. Then you need to let it be for years. And usually you need to own the winery to get their grapes, you can't just buy them from a farm and make your own.
On the other hand anyone can start a microbrewery in their kitchen or garage with under 1k€ of investment and make stuff that wins competitions over Big Manufacturers.
Leather treatments. There's quite a handful out there and it's a bit confusing at first to make sense of them and how they act.
This one is something I know nothing about. What are some general differences?
There are 3 main treatment methods to leather:
conditioner - usually creamy or like a lotion, for when you want max breathability and flexibility, but comes at the cost of protection from rain, water, and oil. Also good if you want to maintain a lighter color or a leather that has a light-colored dye, such as yellow or turquoise. Conditioner is better suitable for hot and dry regions such as Arizona.
oil - provides some protection from water and oil and keeps your leather flexible, at the cost of some breathability and will make your leather browner. Makes sense if you're a working dude and don't care about the color, but it's a great option in general or if you're set on a natural brown without dye. This option is ideal for regions where it's wet or suddenly rains for no reason, such as Hawaii or the UK.
wax - maximizes protection from the elements, at a near complete cost to breathability. Waxes are different, some are hard and some are soft, so their individual properties directly affect flexibility. Also affects color as much as oil, sometimes moreso. Hard beeswax, for example, melted into leather will darken it the most and decrease its flexibility the most, so this treatment method is great for goods that aren't meant to bend or be worn directly on the skin, such as holsters and sheathes.
These options can be mixed and matched, but treating leather is not unlike filling a glass with water. At some point, it will stop accepting treatment because it's full. So one could wax their stitching to prevent rot to the stitching, and then oil or condition the rest of the item. There's a lot you could do, really.
Wow, I’ve been getting into leather work lately, and this is so helpful! It is confusing (at least to me, who is very much a newbie). If I’m reading about different treatments, the description will say something like “medium water protection,” which is vague. Or if I’m watching a video— which is rare as I kind of detest videos, but I will bite the bullet for the sake of knowledge— the person will say, “And then we add X, which keeps out all the bad stuff.” But what is the bad stuff? Is water bad? What does X actually do? Etc.
So I appreciate your comment and am bookmarking it for reference. Thanks.
Also wait a minute! You’re the person who just welcomed me to Tildes a moment ago! How funny; I know it’s a small world over here, but that’s crazy.
Welcome once again! Haha
Yeah so the treatment side of leather is where it gets a bit sciencey, and leather is very much a simple thing that doesn't need to get complicated. People tend to use the umbrella term "conditioner" for all treatments too, which I think is too vague. So I've studied them since the pandemic and sorted them out in a simple and easy way to understand. I think it's pretty solid.
The problem with water is that it can move oils and tannins out of the leather, and water dries much quicker than oil or wax, which causes the leather to shrink as it dries. Though, just because your leather got some water in it doesn't mean it's the end of the world either. So you'll want to treat your leather appropriately for the task and use the leather appropriately, and replenish its treatment as needed. Oil or wax your leather for scenarios that may expose it to water, oils, and chemicals, and condition it for scenarios where you can get away with it, such as horseback riding. You wouldn't take your horse out in the rain if you can help it, and a saddle treated with conditioner allows for the most breathability for the horse by absorbing its sweat and evaporating it while keeping the leather hydrated with said conditioner.
I can tell you that wax retains more heat when melted and for longer than a conditioner or oil through my experiments (conditioner much more readily evaporates, in fact).
Tell me more about onions...