Free rent/mortgage if basic necessities are allowed. If not… a Michelin Inspector permit (and associated training courses), I do like some good culinary experiences

Nothing, and it’s not because I don’t play mobile games. I have a GrapheneOS phone that is so insulated from modern technology that it can barely run Uber/Lyft… so I keep games on my computers and tablets. Me having a bunch of gadgets (I have a Steam Deck and a dedicated tablet for mobile games) helps too

And… speaking of this topic. I am slightly competitive on a mobile gacha game at the moment; almost no serious players for these “mobile game” play on phone because screen too small, so they end up using the PC clients anyway…

Got a second-hand Walmart folding table + chair set at the beginning of my PhD, I think the entire set was like $15 or $20; it was the only furniture I had that lasted my entire grad school

If I count everywhere in the world… When I was growing up, me and my parents ended up renting some absolutely atrocious apartments that were close to where I went to school. The worst one was my middle school apartment… it was a tiny 1-bedroom for the three of us, don’t think it had a real kitchen, AC barely works (actually I couldn’t recall if it even had an AC), toilet clogged every other day, and once in summer the hot water broke down for an extended time and I had to take showers at the swimming pool I visit… To be fair, my parents grew up when China was a 3rd world country, so I guess the 3rd world country haven’t left them at that time

If I only count in the US… It was not that bad per se, but I lived in a shady 500 sqft tiny house next to the one bar in my college town for two years. It definitely felt quite shady and wasn’t exactly quiet at night. I’ve also had issues with the AC/heating and the metal pipe bursting once in winter. This place also gave me a peculiar core memory in college… I used to have a bucket by the front door to wash my car; once my school’s football team had a big victory, and the next morning the bucket was just gone

Also honorable mentions to my AirBnB adventures when I was younger… which includes once when I saw my landlord being put under house arrest as I was returning to the bnb, once when I think I shared a place with a drug dealer, and once I managed to get myself homeless in NYC at 3am in the morning because the host didn’t give me the room code & I couldn’t get in the building

Dark Souls 2 was the first and only Soulslike game I played… Was a great experience and a good time killer during my summer break (when I still had one). Only later did I learn how poorly ppl thought of the game

…are we describing the same restaurants? Unironically all the restaurants I go to generate less waste than me cooking at home lol…

As in, every time I go to a restaurant they would always bring in washable dishes/utensils, and I assume they would probably have to fill the dishwashers to the brim (in contrast to me living alone & only filling up half each time). The one time I ordered a takeout, the restaurant put all the food in insanely high-quality takeout boxes that were freezer and microwave friendly, I used them for meal prep for a full year…

Granted these are fine dining and all cost a fortune. I guess fast food/takeouts do describe that a bit better

The worshipping of the self-made man and entrepreneurship in popular American culture

I think I was just too young and fashionable, maybe I was one of those guys that saw themselves as a “temporarily embarrassed billionaire”… then got old enough to see through the nonsense

I believe no one else mentioned this but… China is a case study of why this is a terrible idea

The entire PRC uses the same time zone, even though in any other parts of the world, China should have been split to at least 3 different timezones

It is very disorienting to try and go for breakfast in Tibet at 9 am to find that nothing is open and the sun is just out… So yeah. Imagine if this is extended to 12-hr differences

Wikipedia has a nice summary of this

Proper Belgian waffles. I have seen two US supermarkets selling proper Liege waffles that you can take home and microwave yourself, and they taste phenomenal

I hope the ones properly made in Liege would be even better, but yeah the supermarket version is still good

On laptop:

• Primary LibreWolf, as it does everything I need, and I don’t 100% trust Mozilla anymore after recent incidents so I wanted a non-Mozilla fork of Firefox
• Secondary Chromium, when something refuses to run on Firefox and derivatives

On phone:

• Primary FOSS Browser, I think it might be some guy’s passion project… It works so yeah
• Secondary Vanadium, basically GrapheneOS’ in-house Chromium fork. For when the primary browser doesn’t do the job, which happens more often because I have FOSS Browser set on blocking all JavaScript…

I left town the entire day yesterday and my parent was watching the cats for me. Apparently both kitties were staring at the apartment door from 6 pm onwards until late at night for me to come back…

I had to leave again earlier today and Tommy (one of the cats) seems to not really want me to leave. Poor Tommy is really bonded with me but is scared of just about any other human so…

Autumn. All the places I’ve stayed the past few years have hot & humid summers and cold frigid winters… and Spring has pollens. So yeah Autumn/Fall seems to be the one with the fewest issues for me

donate it to me

Jokes aside… If you don’t use Mac stuff at all and don’t mind bricking the computer, would you be interested in trying out Asahi Linux for science?

I’m not familiar with the project at all so I’m not sure how it works, but it might be cool to try. The lead developer had some personal issues recently but is otherwise quite active on Mastodon

Making two final trips to visit friends/grad school before I leave US for good! A bit exhausting… but good

Also there has been a bunch of massive shitstorms in different gacha games and it has now hit the game I main… Highly suspect it has something to do with Tencent. Don’t judge me for this I just want an outlet from all the politics and stuff

Sooo what I find funny is… all things considered, French Press isn’t even that sophisticated; it doesn’t involve adjusting the speed at which one pours the water, so it’s a lot less technically demanding than using like a V60 or something… I think the last time I went to a coffee class the instructors were all scoffing at the French Press lol (including one of them not wanting to “waste” a really high-quality batch of coffee on a French Press)

Also James Hoffmann has an alternative technique for using a French Press that makes coffee that is less “muddy”… basically doing the same as usual, but after 4 minutes instead of plunging, try to us a spoon to remove all the foam, and then keep the coffee inside for another 5-10 min. Then pour out coffee without plunging

Slay the Spire, on ascension 20, I lose most runs… I think I enjoy torturing myself

• Strength 6
• Dexterity 6
• Constitution 2
• Intelligence 20
• Wisdom 16
• Charisma 2

I’d wish to reroll my stats or at least try a different build

Tommy does have yellow and green/blue eyes; the exact color seems to depend on lighting and the person

I actually have something fun planned! My now-former employer offers public short-courses in various hobbyist topics. These usually fill up quickly so I registered for a dining etiquette course this Saturday a month or so back. Not an employee at this uni anymore but I am still allowed to attend the course so

I’m so sorry to hear… I have just recently left a job with a shitty supervisor and I’m still in recovery mode even after 2-3 weeks, so I feel it. I don’t know how but I hope situation on your end improves