I’m pretty much in the same boat, 720p looks fine to me in the vast majority of cases, and while I’m not great at going to my eye doctor regularly, the last time I had my vision checked it was fine, and it was right around the time I was shopping for a new TV and upgraded from 1080 to 4k, and still had a 720p in my bedroom.

If I looked really hard at them, I could tell the difference from the 720 to the 4k, but truth be told, I’m just not scrutinizing the picture quality of my TV that much.

I think the basic premise of your question is kind of flawed.

Generational age brackets are always a little fuzzy, but most definitions tend to define millennials as people born from about 1981-1996

Which means come the end of the 90’s, the oldest millennials were just turning 18, the youngest were just entering preschool, the “average” millennial would have been about 10. Personally, I was 8 in 1999.

So most of us weren’t exactly politically-aware in the 90s, let alone actively criticizing anything besides homework. And a lot of us probably had parents who wouldn’t have let us listen to RATM because of the parental advisory sticker on their albums.

My main concerns at the time were things like video games and cartoons

Then right around the time we started to be old enough to really form political opinions, 9/11 happened and the world went insane around us.

I may be missing something obvious here, but put it in the cart?

Of course carrying a bag of some kind would also be an option, just a small backpack, messenger bag, etc. I have a surplus Czech military map bag I use for some d&d boosk and a folder of character sheets and such that would probably be about the right size for a portfolio, pretty sure there’s a ton of them still available from various military surplus websites for pretty cheap.

If you can put Velcro on the portfolio and the cart that could work. If the cart happens to be steel you could also do magnets

You could also strap, Velcro, magnet, clip, zip-tie, etc. some kind of bag, bin, etc to the cart specifically for it. Not sure exactly what kind of cart we’re talking about but some sort of a bicycle backpack with hooks to mount on a cargo rack may be an option to hook right onto your cart

If you want to get really extra, you can get an auto follow drone to carry it around for you, or if your workplace is cool with pets, get a dog with a backpack to follow you around, or perhaps hire a personal assistant (these last suggestions are not meant to be taken literally)

I have a big bushy beard which somewhat limits my costume options if I’m going for any kind of accuracy unless I want to wear a mask

My two standby costumes that I dust off when I find myself with unexpected Halloween plans are

A lawn gnome. I dye my beard white, put on a blue ren faire sort of tunic, a wide belt, and a red pointy hat

And a Monty Python lumberjack. Red flannel shirt partially unbuttoned over a bra, suspenders, high heels, and a knit hat. I also have a big ol’ double bit felling axe I may trot out if the occasion warrants it.

I suppose I can also lose the heels and bra and just be a regular lumberjack.

I would hope that like damn-near every other electronic device, it would include at least a thermal cutoff to kill the power before it got hot enough to start a fire.

Seriously, they’re in pretty much everything, any sort of tool or appliance with a motor probably has one, of course anything that generates heat like a hair dryer or space heater, I’ve seen them in lamps, they’re everywhere. They’re also a pretty common point of failure, so if you’re a little handy with a soldering iron, for any random device that suddenly stops working, there’s a pretty good chance that the culprit is a brown thermal fuse and can be repaired for just a few cents and a few minutes of mumbling curses to yourself while you try to get the damn thing open.

I think the bigger issue with this is probably people with mobility issues, who I imagine are a pretty big part of the target market for a bed like this, if they have trouble getting out of bed to adjust the heat or whatever, a bed like this is probably pretty attractive. But if they get stuck in bed with the heat stuck on high, that could be a pretty big medical problem.

I have a friend who is unapologetically a weirdo (really that describes most of my friends and myself I suppose, but this story is about one of them in particular)

We’re at a bar for his birthday. This place was formerly a real dump of a dive/biker bar but has cleaned itself up a bit. Still kind of a dive, but it’s a nice dive. It’s located practically right on the border of a really shitty town and one that’s generally pretty nice, so it gets an interesting selection of patrons there.

He’s a regular there, he actually lived in a small motel attached to the bar for a bit while his house needed some major repairs.

Again, he’s a bit of a weirdo, it’s his birthday, he’s been drinking, and he wants to listen to some Disney song (I’m pretty sure it was “part of your world” from the little mermaid) so he goes and queues it up on the jukebox

And the song never plays

So he does it again. And again it never plays.

Eventually he figures out that the bartender (what was new and didn’t really recognize him as a regular) was skipping it when it came up.

We ask her to just let it play for him for his birthday, she refused

So he queues it up about 10 times in a row, she can’t skip them all fast enough, it finally starts playing, she’s getting mad at us,some asshole dudebros in the bar are getting annoyed that this song is now playing twice, and we’re all politely yet firmly asked to leave.

So we fuck off to another bar owned by the same person, we’re welcomed in, they let us play the damn song, they mention to to the owner who apparently told the bartender who was giving us issues to chill and there hasn’t been any issue since.

It is a bit outside of my area of expertise, but if I understand what you’re asking, the police usually aren’t going to just call up your family and say “hey, your adult child just did a crime and we thought you should know”

Unless there’s a good reason for them to do that. If they suspect that you may be a danger to your family, they’ll of course advise them and give them some more details.

Or if they’re trying to locate you, they’ll probably contact your family, but usually they’re going to keep details vague, they probably won’t come right out and say “we think your kid just robbed a gas station o do you know where he is so we can arrest him?” They’ll probably keep it to something more like “he may have been present during a robbery and we have some questions for him”

But of course every situation, police department, individual officer, etc. is unique, so I won’t claim that there’s absolutely no situation where that might happen.

The specifics are probably going to depend on where in the world you are, in the US it’s generally going to be a no unless you’ve specifically listed them as an emergency contact, they’re your medical power of attorney (which is separate from legal power of attorney) etc.

I work in 911 dispatch, so I’m not specifically covered by HIPAA, though we have some similar regulations and obviously we rub up against the edges of the healthcare field. My wife also works in a psych hospital, and my sister in a nursing home so I get to hear a lot of stories about stuff like this.

My wife has to deal with a lot of cases where a parent is trying to contact the hospital about their adult child who’s a patient there, but since they’re not listed on the correct paperwork the hospital can’t even confirm that their child is in fact a patient there, even though they were standing right there next to them when they were admitted a couple hours earlier.

–

I get calls at work a lot because someone’s child/parent, boyfriend/girlfriend, brother/sister etc. was taken to the hospital by ambulance earlier, and when they called the hospital they can’t tell them they’re there because they’re not on the paperwork, so they call us freaking out trying to figure out where their loved one is, and all I can say is that they were transported to the hospital, I can’t tell if they haven’t finished signing it, already been discharged/left AMA, if they possibly had to be transferred to a different hospital, or more likely the hospital just can’t confirm anything because the person calling isn’t an emergency contact.

–

Recently I had a call from a woman who was freaking out. Her husband was missing, his car was in the driveway, and she saw a lot of blood around the house.

While she was on the phone with me her friend was calling the hospital to check if he was there, but the hospital couldn’t tell her.

Then her friend gave her the phone, and since she was listed as an emergency contact they confirmed that he was in fact there.

What happened was that he had a bad nosebleed and had his brother give him a ride to the hospital, but didn’t tell her and of course he was an older guy who never has his phone turned on.

–

My sister once had a patient who had apparently led one hell of an interesting life, and at different points had been a doctor, a lawyer and a priest, so aside from his resume sounding like the setup to some kind of joke, he also knew his way around all of the ins and outs of how the whole system worked, but being a patient in a nursing home with probably the early stages of dementia setting in, he wasn’t always acting rationally, and apparently it was an absolute nightmare for the staff and his family to navigate the changes he was making to his paperwork while he was there.

Depends a bit on what you’re doing with them

For hard-wearing work pants, I think Duluth firehouse pants are pretty hard to beat

Dickies or Carhartt are solid, more-readily-available options

If you’re looking more for lightweight hiking pants, I used to have a pair of north face zip-off pants I really liked, but I’m not sure if they still make the same or similar model, but I’d take a look at their offerings. They were a bit pricey but not outrageous.

Barring that, a lot of my outdoors clothes tend to be Columbia.

For sort of a middle-of-the-road that can kind of fill either role, I’d probably go for BDUs. No specific brand recommendation, there’s a lot of companies making them, and while I haven’t tried them all, the ones I have have been pretty much the same. Just kind of get whatever you can get a good deal on online or whatever your local military surplus place stocks.

Mines a 16 cup model, so that could be the difference.

I don’t think mine has ever moved at all when I’m using it, and I’ve done just about everything you could ever want to do with a food processor.

The only time I’ve seen it struggle with anything was when I had it almost full of ground beef to make homemade hot dogs. It got it done, but it wasn’t happy about it, and I’m pretty sure that emulsifying that sort of quantity of meat would be a struggle for any machine that could reasonably fit on a countertop.

I honestly can’t say I’ve experienced that.

It might be that newer or different models are lighter, like I said, mine is over 10 years old.

Or it could be down to something goofy like your countertops being smoother than mine (not unlikely, I have some shitty laminate counters that are pretty beat to hell)

Yeah, ours works great as a dehydrator, I just wish it came with more dehydrator racks. You can order more I’ve just never gotten around to doing it

We do also have a breville toaster oven/air fryer (slightly different model though) and do love it. Probably use it more and get better results from it than our regular oven.

It is not, however, the greatest air fryer out there. It’s certainly passably but we definitely get better results from the crispi, and the Ninja is much easier to clean.

I whole-heartedly recommend their toaster ovens without reservation. And if you lack the storage/counter space for a dedicated air fryer o it will certainly do.

My one wish is that they’d make a toaster oven with a rotisserie.

My wife worked at a fancy kitchen store for a long time. She tested out a whole lot of small appliances, demo’d them for customers, saw what people returned and exchanged, etc. and generally knows what’s what.

And her general advice is to go breville for basically every small kitchen appliances. I can really only think of 4 exceptions- KitchenAid for stand mixers, Vitamix for blenders, croquade for waffle makers, and the Ninja Crispi for countertop air fryers.

I’ve really put our breville sous chef through it’s pages over the years, Shen had it since before we started dating to easily more than 10 years, and it’s still going strong.

It’s become a new years tradition to just play a bunch of random asylum movies just to have something on while we’re hanging out and so we have something to occasionally point to the TV and comment on.

We usually try to pick a known movie that we can start at a specific time so that something cool happens at midnight. A favorite is Hitler getting punched in the balls in Kung Fury

Shitty b movies. Anything by the asylum, anything that may have once appeared on an episode of MST3K, any weird VHS your parent brought home for you one day back in the 90s by some obscure polish director that you half-remember and now that you think about it where the hell did your parents even find that movie?

I don’t think I get recognized, but I’ve had a handful of people say that they like the way I write, so maybe I have a group of dedicated followers somewhere.

Funnily enough, I just earlier messaged some random lemming that I had tagged for a while as “this guy seems cool” to let him know that. I figure everyone likes to get a little compliment like that from a stranger now and then. Just some random dude whose username kind of stood out to me and I noticed every time it popped up he seemed like a nice guy. So some of you are probably out there like him being recognized for just being a decent person.

Just gonna chime in to say check with your local libraries to see what they do have available, and also check with surrounding libraries,

My local library is a small branch of a countywide network of libraries, so I can go check things out from any library in the county.

I was a little surprised to learn that my local branch has mobile wifi hotspots available. They’re nice for families that are struggling to pay for Internet service so their kids can do schoolwork, I’m also thinking about checking one out for road trips and such.

A bigger branch has a pretty impressive library of things available- tools, cookware, board games, small appliances, AV equipment, etc.

One thing I’d really like is vehicles, although I’m sure it would be an absolute liability/insurance nightmare, not to mention the upfront and ongoing costs and such, so I totally I totally understand why it’s not a thing.

I’m lucky that I’ve always been able to borrow a car from my parents when I needed one because mine was in the shop or whatever. Not everyone is so fortunate though, and unless we step up our public transit game, a lot of people need cars to get into work and run errands and such. A small fleet of basic sedans or something that you could check out for a day or two when needed without paying out the ass for a rental would be amazing.

And almost everyone needs to move something big or transport a few people once in a while, so a pickup truck or passenger van in the fleet might be kind of nice.

Even if it’s not totally free, they could be rented out at-cost and not have to turn a profit like regular car rentals.

Anvil firing

You get 2 anvils

Pack some gunpowder between them

Light a fuze

Run

The top one shoots off into the air

And you try not to looney tunes yourself.

American/meat-eater

Bread stays out but is wrapped

Butter stays out in a butter bell (that’s not a common thing in America BTW but they should be)

Some sauces and condiments and such that are packed full of salt and vinegar and such stay out

Leftovers and such go into the fridge after a few minutes to a few hours, there’s not exactly a hard rule here, just kind of based on what feels right and whenever we get around to it. Overnight is too long, with few exceptions if it’s been out that long we’d probably throw it out.

One exception to that is if I make stock, there’s a good chance that’s going to sit out for a good while to cool down. It takes a while to get a big pot of liquid down to a reasonable temperature to put in the fridge. I also figure it’s been simmering for several hours, so odds are there’s no bacteria alive in it, so I throw a lid on it to try to keep it that way, especially when I do it in the pressure cooker because it’s basically been autoclaved at that point and it’s staying in a pretty damn close to totally airtight vessel.

Most vegetables and fruits are fine out on the counter for at least a day or two, and some will last weeks or months depending on temperature, humidity, how much light they get, etc. but most of them last a lot longer in the fridge so that’s where they go. Onions, garlic, potatoes, pineapples, and bananas always live outside of the fridge. Other things like apples, citrus, tomatoes, peppers may go either way depending on how fast I’m planning to use them and how much fridge space I have. Cut-up produce always goes in the fridge.