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Can't wait for all the NSFW subs to remove the NSFW tags

Damn, I completely forgot about Mao. You just unlocked a vague memory from 15 years ago. I remember being incredibly frustrated while learning this, followed by the hilarity of introducing more players to the game.

My first job out of the military, I was hired as a project manager and was largely brought on to improve their processes. After speaking when almost every person in this company (200 or so), documenting the current business processes, and pulling together feedback for areas of improvement, I put together a plan to present to the president of the company (my boss). He said all the right things, but took absolutely no action. A few months and a few repetitions of this, and my boss asked me how I was doing the Wednesday before Christmas. I told him I was frustrated due to the lack of process improvement. He told me "if you can't find a way to be happy with how things are, maybe it's time to look elsewhere"

Noted. I had a recruiter call me the next day, and that turned into an offer making another 30%, remote two days a week, shorter hours, and a better work climate. My boss had the audacity to tell me I should've talked to him about it

Stick to a firm budget, and don't go over it. We had a firm ceiling of $400k, looked at around 40 houses, and put in 7 offers before ours was accepted. It was listed for $375k, made an offer for $385k with a 24 hour expiration. Appraisal came back at $412k. We closed about 6 months ago, and it took us 7 months of looking at multiple houses every week to get to it. We were also using a VA loan, which turned some sellers off due to the added time for the VA appraisal and potential to either force them to fix things that aren't an issue for most people, or back out of the contract.

My wife was pregnant at the time (and miscarried two months later), so I get the added pressure of trying to find something NOW. Don't dig yourself into a hole that you can't climb out of for thirty years because of that pressure.

We got lucky with this one because the previous owners were going through a nasty divorce. I get the frustration, and it was disheartening as fuck constantly being outbid, especially after you like a house enough to tie yourself to it for decades. Our realtor was great, and knew most of the agents in the area, so he was able to get us some inside info on a few of the houses we looked at. If your agent isn't being transparent with you, find a different one.

Treat the search as a business transaction. You have a list of criteria, you're reviewing options within your budget that meet the highest number of your needs. If it doesn't meet your nonnegotiable criteria, don't bid. The most important one of those criteria should be that you like the house. Have a checklist to run down in your walkthrough (roof, crawlspace, foundation, visible water damage, age of HVAC and major appliances that will convey, etc), and try to weed out as many major issues as you can before paying for an inspection.

It's tedious, extremely frustrating, and disheartening. Eventually, you'll find one. You may have to compromise on some things, and it's ok to gradually improve the house after you buy it. Just make sure the basics are solid. Also, allocate way more time for painting than you think it'll take, especially if you're doing it without help. Everything will take longer than you think, be patient with yourself.

Be stubborn as fuck during this process, and be willing to walk away. I get that you want to get out of a lease (I rented for years, and it sucks compared to owning), but once most sellers are motivated to get shit done once they're under contact just as much as you are. They don't want to start the process over again either, especially because if a major issue is uncovered during an inspection, they are legally required to disclose it (my realtor threatened their agent with this fact over some mold in our crawlspace when the seller wanted to walk away instead of fixing it. He told them that he has access to their system and would personally make sure the next offer received a copy of the inspection report and would report the agent if they didn't disclose it).

Let's be honest, Twitter has always been a cesspool if you read below the top tweet.

Bees come out of your eyes

YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR

but yeah, seeing dozens of support related questions kinda goes against the expressed purpose of this community.

I blocked 196 because it was just shitty memes being spammed

I've just been blocking instances. I realized after the fact that I signed up with lemmy.ml, which contributes to it, but was the only instance that was quickly approving people when I signed up. It may be time to switch instances, or finally get off my ass and make my own.

I don't mind some of the ideas, but seeing people constantly sucking off Russia and China gets old in a hurry.

The seller is required to provide a package with all HOA bylaws within 5 days of accepting an offer, at least in my state. If you disagree with anything in the HOA rules (or any other reason as long as the HOA is cited as the reason), you can back out of the sale with no earnest money forfeited.

Being medically disqualified for flight. I worked towards the goal of being a military aviator for over a decade, only to find out that my objective depth perception wasn't good enough. I almost went blind on two occasions before then, was one of the first in the country to get a new kind of corrective surgery to get to perfect vision, and never had issues with depth perception (could accurately determine distance out to about 6 miles, +/- about 50 yards, verified on radar). All of that, only to find out that because of the first event that almost blinded me as a child, my brain didn't develop objective depth perception the way it should have. The test where you're given a page and told to pick which circle pops out looks the same to me.

I honestly don't know if I would change anything that I did had I known sooner, because I did still get some positives from my time in the military (along with plenty of health issues), but it definitely would have given me pause.

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I've literally never heard a single person bring that idea up. Acting like it's somehow a widely held belief because that dude said so is idiotic.

Possible to do solo with the right tools/enough muscle and stubbornness, much easier with 2 people

Reintroducing removable cell phone batteries is a big start, and ending this shitty culture around buying a new phone every 2 years that is functionally identical to your existing phone.

Probably the SawStop cabinet saw I bought a few weeks ago. It's way easier/less sketchy than my job site table saw when cutting large panels, and the peace of mind it gives me from a general safety perspective is priceless. I have been doing a lot of projects with full sheets of plywood since I bought it, which has been an aspect of woodworking that I dreaded before. No more crawling around with a circular saw or precariously balancing between a job site saw and an extra table

Bought a nice Sawstop table saw that I've been eyeing for years. I make good money, but have issues spending anything on myself. According to my therapist, it's from a fear of catastrophe. Even though I'm extremely frugal, make good money, and am in a better position than the vast majority of people my age, there's a constant voice in the back of my head telling me that I don't need whatever it is that I want to get for myself.

In moderation, that's a good thing, but I've taken it to a pretty far extreme. It legitimately stresses me out to buy something for myself that costs more than $15-20, even if I can afford it. I talked to my therapist about it, mentioned the table saw, and he suggested that I buy it. I talked to my wife about it, and she talked me into it, and I finally bit the bullet and did it. Definitely a luxury, but it's cheaper than a hospital visit to sew a finger back on.

However, I do not recommend moving it solo to prove a point. 450lbs is not light

I get where you're coming from, but sight unseen in a sellers market is a terrible idea. I commented above about the details of my experience, but there are so many shitty houses with major problems that are evident the second you walk into them. This approach ties up earnest money and can potentially prevent you from being able to jump on a good house.

My joints hurt. I'm around 30, and I beat the shit out of my body through my late teens-mid twenties. My joints feel like they're about 20 years older than the rest of me some days. Fun experiences for the most part, but I'm paying for those minor injuries piling up over the years.

Hustle culture, sure. Side hustles, sure. The concept that a game company should pay me to play their game, nope.

OP said irrationally disgust

One of our dogs growing up (golden retriever), would run laps around the house for hours. He would also play fetch, but he would bring a ball back within about 20 feet of you before dancing around in a circle. The only way to get him to drop the ball was to have a second ball ready to go when he got back wit the first one. He would also try to fit as many tennis balls in his mouth as possible, saw him get 3 in successfully once. He was also terrified of floor vents and the downstairs bathroom. He loved to carry socks around, the dirtier the better. He never chewed them, just carried them around in his mouth.

Loved that derpy dog.

Woodworking can get crazy expensive, but like most hobbies, you can get into it gradually for relatively low cost. I started with a cordless drill and a circular saw, then gradually bought used tools and restored them. If I were to buy everything new in my shop, it would easily be $15-20k, but I've spent maybe $2k over 5 years. The most I've spent on any one tool was a $400 miter saw a few months ago on sale, almost everything else has been stuff that's older than me or inexpensive tools that work just as well as pricier options.

Good hardwood is fucking expensive though. I found a local mill where I can get cherry for $4/bdft or walnut for $5.50/bdft (bdft = board foot, volumetric measurement equivalent to 12"x12"x1"). Somewhere like Woodcraft charges $15-18/bdft for walnut, which is $60+ for a 6" wide, 8ft long, 1" thick board.

ETA: It does annoy me when every woodworking video comment section is bombarded with complaints about how expensive tools are. Yes, Sawstop and Powermatic are obscenely expensive. A DeWalt job site table saw is more than enough for most hobbyists starting out. So is a used saw you can get for $100 or less. It's very easy to blow through $20k outfitting a shop, but it's also very easy to outfit a shop with old, quality tools for a fraction of that price. This is what I've spent over five years

• 6" Jet jointer from 1973: $240

• 12" Parks planer from 1943-1986 (no idea on exact date): $200. Used a 13" Woodtek lunchbox planer for a few years before this. I got that for free because they don't make linkage gears for it anymore, and I was able to 3D print replacements.

• DeWalt job site table saw, new in 2018: $325

• Wen drill press, new in 2019: $70

• Wen scroll saw, new in 2019: $60

• harbor freight miter saw, used: $80 (fuck this thing, would never cut square no matter how much I tried to tune it)

• DeWalt compound sliding miter saw, new 2023: $400

• Harbor freight lathe, new 2020: $150-200 (don't remember exactly)

• shaper from 1978 + $2k in tooling: $40 at auction

• 7-10 various hand planes, all used from eBay or marketplace: $80

• knockoff 14" delta bandsaw from late 80s: $40

• harbor freight dust collector, new 2023 (gift): ~$250-300

• slow speed bench grinder, new 2021: $90

• various hand saws, 2016-2023: probably $100

• various chisels, new 2016-2023: ~$120

All in, $2,100 over 5 years. I sold ~$1,500 worth of random projects in that time, and gained a ton of enjoyment from it.

Even if you do go big and spend a lot of money on tools, as long as you have disposable income and you're not forgoing your/your family's basic needs, there's nothing wrong with spending money on things you enjoy. It's ok to enjoy things.

Good for you man

Your instance name disturbs me

I might check that out. I have a small Etsy shop that used to generate a bit of side income for me, mainly just enough to buy the occasional tool or some materials for personal projects, but Etsy has changed a lot since 2018. It's basically just eBay or Amazon with the veneer of "this is totally handmade." They pushed "free" shipping and decreased lead times, which undermines actual handmade products.

Plants crave them!

Sorry to hear that bud. I recently stopped talking to my best friend and our friend group after their response to my wife's pregnancy and miscarriage. Basically made us feel like a burden while she was pregnant, and with two exceptions, the other 10 people said nothing after the miscarriage.

Sucks to cut contact after 15 years, but he still did nothing after I talked to him about this. Ultimately, I think it was for the best, but it still blows when your supposed support system fails you.

Playing D&D with some people on Friday, then setting up my new Sawstop table saw. After that, building a miter saw station for some storage and more effective use of space in my shop. I doubt I'll finish that, but then I need to finish restoring an old planer from sometime between 1935 and 1986 (got everything taken apart, cleaned up, painted, put back together, just need to rewire it) so I can sell my cheap one. If I manage to get all of that done, then I have some nightstands to build

When I got my license, I had a 1995 Geo Prizm that I affectionately called Dumpy. The paint was peeling on it, and I ended up removing the front quarter panel after a deer jumped into it (deer was walking on the side of a country road, I slowed down to 20mph, got over to the other side of the road, and it decided to jump headfirst into the side light as soon I got parallel to it). Still 100% reliable for years, and it was a manual, so no one tried to steal it, even when I managed to leave the key in the door in a city for 2 hours.

Some cars aren't worth fixing. Dumpy was $1200 in 2010. Why would I spend $500 repairing the bumper, and $2-5k repainting it?

Proctologists hate this one weird trick!

Congrats!

Exactly. I'm not going to pay a fuckload of money for multiple streaming services only to still not see my fucking team every week.

That equates to $36.7M/year. Last year, Meta had a revenue of $114B, so the fine is 0.03% of their total revenue. Definitely just getting written off

Melatonin gives me some trippy ass dreams/night terrors

My wife had a D&C after a miscarriage earlier this year. Luckily, our state isn't as shitty as others, but the surgery was still labeled an abortion, and they made her answer a bunch of questions like it was a choice and not that our baby was dead for a month before the 12 week ultrasound. And the shitheel front desk woman lied to us and said that no one could be back there with her (obviously not in surgery, but I wasn't even able to be back in the waiting area with her pre or post op), because that woman was a religious fruitcake and "didn't agree with the procedure"

We raised some serious hell after finding that out and took it up through their patient advocate. It went up to the hospitals board and they issued an apology, which meant fuck all, and I think that woman was fired.

I don't understand why people want to be involved in anyone else's lives. I get it if you personally don't agree with abortions, but that's your choice. You don't get the right to decide what someone else does with their own fucking body. The kicker is that most people don't even realize that a D&C after a miscarriage is the same exact procedure and is classified the same. Excuse the fuck out of me if I don't want my wife to die from sepsis or have to sit around for another 1-2 months with a dead fetus inside of her waiting for it to possibly discharge naturally. That whole experience was awful enough and she wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

Fuck your religious beliefs. Apply them to yourself, no one else should bend over to appease your stupid sky fairy bullshit.

Ain't nobody got time for that

Gaming, listening to emo music, thinking engineering is cool as shit, willing to do a boring job to make more money than I can in engineering (project management)

Thank you, doing better with time.

That's fucked man. I wouldn't blame yourself for trusting someone not to be a piece of shit. I'm glad you acted when you found out, and hopefully he faces consequence for his actions