Thinking a lot smaller here… I’ve always wanted to build a custom pinball machine. I already possess most of the necessary skills, but the materials are expensive and I don’t really have the time or space to do it right

The Wydah Pirate Museum in Cape Cod MA - it’s a smaller museum but it’s packed full of artifacts recovered from the wreck of an actual golden age of piracy ship (the Wydah, Black Sam Belamy’s ship which wrecked in Cape Cod). They have multiple weapons, cannons, and the only confirmed pirate treasure ever recovered. All the artifacts were just super cool, very few recreations of things almost everything is really from the actual wreck. The excavation of the wreck site is ongoing too, the last room in the museum is dedicated to showing how they recover items that have been encased in “concretions” and has lots of items actively being recovered so you can see the process happening.

Idk, I’m a golden age of piracy nerd for sure so this was super cool to me.

GM W-body and GMT platform cars from around 2002-2008 I’ve found to be decent. The GM 3800 V6 engine and 5.3L Vortec V8 are extremely reliable and easy to maintain yourself if you’re into that kind of thing. You can very easily replace the stock radio with an aftermarket unit that has Android auto/Apple Car play and won’t spy on you. Since it’s an American car and so many were sold in America, both new and used parts are pretty easy to find and pretty cheap. The biggest thing that kills these cars is rust, especially if you live in the salt belt, so just make sure you look underneath the car before buying.

Look for: Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Monte Carlo, Chevy Tahoe, Buick Regal, Chevy Avalanche/Silverado. A good example of these can be found for under $10k easily and if you look a little harder you can usually find good ones or ones that need minimal work for less than $5k.

Personally I plan on driving these cars until it becomes impossible to find them anymore. There’s a junkyard near me that specializes in GM cars where I can get parts for DIRT cheap.

Currently I have an 05 Avalanche (140k miles) and an 07 Grand Prix (165k miles). Before those I had an 05 Grand Prix which died only due to rust, engine and transmission still strong at 160k miles. They hardly ever have issues, and when they do they are typically cheap issues or issues I can easily fix myself.

Sure - they’re nothing flashy, but the cost of purchase + repairs is almost certainly less than the cost of a new or lightly used car alone. Also, minimal complicated computer systems, and no corporate spying.

Seriously, the past 2 winters in the northeast have been the lowest snow on record by quite a margin. I’ve got some snowmobiles and normally can get in around 10-15 rides per season, but this winter we only got 3. Two of which were on the same weekend. The whole rest of the winter there wasn’t enough snow

I miss craigslist, but unfortunately just nobody uses it anymore. Everyone is using Facebook marketplace and for this type of thing you kind of have to sell where the buyers are. It sucks because the quality of people is so much worse, but at least there are actually people there. I can’t even count the number of times I’m selling something and get a “Is tHIs sTILl aVaiLAble??!!?!;;??!”, which I answer “yes, if you see the ad it’s available” and then never hear from them again. Very frustrating. On the flip side, BUYING things is actually easier because if you prove that you’re intelligent enough to reply to a message then you basically are guaranteed to be able to buy the item

Name’s Scruffy. The janitor.

Ive been considering buying a new old stock “backup pebble” for when mine goes. Basically the perfect smartwatch

Pebble is peak smartwatch. Fight me on it, I wont change my mind. Its just smart enough, without being too smart. Battery lasts for days, its waterproof, and side buttons instead if some impossible to use tiny-ass touchscreen. Perfection.

My dads car was actually damaged by a touch car wash. One of the brushes caught on the edge of his hood and folded over the hood metal. It was a huge pain, had to fight the car wash company to pay for the damage (they eventually did) and even still you can tell where it was repaired. Plus they wouldnt pay for color matching so he had to pay out of pocket for that.

Between that and the possibility of some tiny rock or grain of sand being caught in a brush and scratching the heck out of my car, I now only ever use touchless or wash it myself if the weather is warm. Im in upstate NY where we get pretty cold winters, so whenever it dips above freezing ill run through the touchless just for the underbody spray to get the road salt off

Buy em back! DVDs are dirt cheap right now (sometimes $1 a pop at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift stores)

I was snowmobiling with my brother in an area with no cell service. We stopped for a break and I mentioned that the headlights kind of looked like Blinky the 3 eyed fish from the Simpsons. I have never said that out loud before or after, and I haven’t even watched the Simpsons in years. The next day I get an ad on Instagram for a sticker of Blinky the 3 eyed fish. Thats so specific it could not have been a coincidence. My phone must have heard me say that that one time, REMEMBERED it until I get back into an area with cell service, and then phoned home to tell whatever corpo that I might be interested in Blinky. Wild stuff.

Its a Yamaha, the only brand of jet ski that could possibly go that far without breaking

Unpopular opinion - in Spotify (and Spotify ONLY) I actually like that it does this. I like discovering new music and Spotify seems to have really good recommendations sometimes. Sure they collect a lot of listening data - but how else could they give good recommendations if they don’t know what you like?

Lifelong American here - I do love it here, though as you point out there are definitely some stressful flaws.

Healthcare here is messed up. Not the quality (which is typically very high), but the price. Having insurance tied to employment never made sense to me either.

Personally, I actually love driving and owning a car. I just think cars are really cool and I like wrenching on them. Everything I could need is within a 10-15 minute drive and I never have to worry about there not being enough parking. That said, you are correct that car ownership is basically required - although I have been to cities in the US that have decent public transportation. Not European level good, but decent.

At my job I get 4 weeks paid vacation and “unlimited” sick days (they say unlimited but of course they have the ability to deny them if they find you are abusing them). My bosses will actually hunt people down who HAVENT used all their vacation days and encourage them to do so. They have realized that productivity is tied to employee happiness so they try to keep us happy. Now, none of that is government mandated but I just mention it to prove that not everyone here has a job that treats them like crap. I agree that this stuff should be guaranteed though. For reference, I work in IT and make less than 100k.

Tipping is definitely a weird thing and I would be glad to never have to think about it again.

At least for movies, I’ve actually gone back to DVDs. I can find them for $1 each at the flea market or garage sales, and once I own them thats it - no subscriptions and nobody can decide to randomly remove them from my collection.

Yeah I think OP’s preferred subject has something to do with the issue he’s having. I mainly watch car and tech videos, and I even use the algorithm suggestions sometimes (bad, I know), and I rarely see anything I don’t want to or that makes me roll my eyes.

I like LTT, Junkyard Digs, Pole Barn Garage (small channel, just passed 100k subs), and Donut Media

Same, sometimes (usually while driving for some reason) I just get overwhelmed with happiness at how well my life is going. Yeah it’s not perfect, and obviously I was incredibly lucky to get where I am, but it’s more than enough for me to be truly content.

The “entertainment first sport second” thing I find myself struggling with a little bit. On the one hand I want it to be a “fair” sport. On the other hand, I’m ultimately watching it for entertainment so I want a good show. If I’m being honest with myself, I’d probably stop watching if there was only one or two passes per race.