I’ve been extremely impressed with the longevity and all around toughness of my Dell Precision. I think it’s gotta be 12 years old now, it weighs a ton, been dropped multiple times, and while I replaced its disk and memory at some point it has never suffered a hardware failure. The thing is a tank, I love it.

Ear mites are also a thing, and they’re highly contagious. Kittens are especially susceptible to them so I would definitely read up on them if I were you.

Thanks, I did feel guilty when my first cat passed, I was the most ignorant then and she had the worst diet and died the youngest. Since then I know I’ve done what I could with the money I could budget, and tried to educate myself so I could do better. Now I try to make up for it by spreading the word to other cat owners in my life and leading by example.

Yeah same, I like to get the paté cans because it’s easy to add water to get him better hydrated.

This exactly, thank you. I’ve had multiple cats during my life make it to old age and each one had health issues from the food I was feeding them. Chronic dehydration leading to kidney issues, chronic high blood sugar from grains and vegetable fillers leading to pancreatitis and diabetes, etc etc. My old man is now on nothing but wet food and is pushing 18. He’s got some issues since I fed him junk for the first half of his life but he’s in decent shape for his age, and I bet if I hadn’t changed his diet he’d already be gone.

I’m excited to see the progress of 3d printers becoming more user friendly, reliable and inexpensive. I’ve been keeping an eye on the development of consumer printing and there are so many types of materials to print with at higher and higher details with less troubleshooting needed. I’m thinking I’ll finally jump in this year but I’ve had very little time for hobbies lately.

I can’t remember which was first but it would have been Number Munchers on PC or Asteroids on the Vectrex, an obscure console from the 80s.

Ranch dressing, or a mix of half ranch dressing and half ketchup I call “krantchup”. Specifically Marie’s ranch mixed with Primitive Kitchen ketchup is so good on fries.

When dealing with upholstery, the materials are much thicker than your average entry point sewing machine will be able to handle. The feet might not be able to feed the heavy material through, and some machines will be physically unable to feed your material under the needle where seams meet. In most sewing projects there may be four or even six layers of material at some points where seams meet or need to be rolled over, which would require more space between the foot and plate than most machines could handle. So if your principle interest in sewing is upholstery, you will probably have to find a machine explicitly made for that task and it won’t be cheap.

Here’s a picture of the dough from a similar recipe to what I use

If you do a search for “Irish soda bread” you’ll get almost all the same kind of pictures of X cut boules with some kind of add ins. Sounds like the brown bread is something different, but it’s probably still yummy.

I’m not sure if you’ve tried making it but the recipes that I have tried all result in a dough that’s capable of standing on its own as a boule. If you do an image search you can see a lot of images of Irish soda bread with X score marks baked in to their tops, which you couldn’t make with a liquid batter.

Yep, Irish soda bread is a quickbread made from a dough with baking soda as the rising agent, and it is absolutely a bread, not a cake.

Joined! I make my own ice cream and I’m looking forward to finding and sharing recipes

My two year old has rotating favorite colors. He knows our favorite colors and he will bring us objects that our respective favorites, and then we ask what his favorite color is. He’ll pick out a marker or point or say a color. It changes every few days. Today was “lello”, a few days ago it was “bu”. He’s probably been interested in colorful objects (favoring something in primary colors vs pastels or neutrals) since about 5 months. So at least this kid has been interested in color almost from the beginning.

How about The Romans in Their Decadence? (Thomas Couture)

I’ve been getting into having a pdf of the various manuals for things around the house on my phone. I recently consulted the manuals for my fridge, a new dehumidifier and the lawn mower and it was pretty awesome not having to find and dig out a paper booklet each time. My phone is on me all the time plus I can get rid of the paper copies.

Yes, the first one is goofy but it did the whole “what would an actually average person do with superhero powers” shtick before it was cool, and managed to make it funny and pretty sweet too.

Maybe I should give buckwheat a try, or shredded latex. I’m probably due for a change but lately I haven’t been able to afford any sleep disruption.

Most of mine came from a vendor called Pure Beech that was exclusive to Bed, Bath and Beyond. They are the 100% modal sateen that seems to have been a consumer favorite that doesn’t seem to be available anywhere. I have another set from Bedsure in their 100% bamboo that has a similar feel though.

I use down feather pillows, they are easily customizable but they can go “flat” and hard in the middle of the night. Putting your head down on a freshly fluffed one is utterly sublime, though.

I have fallen in love with bamboo rayon pillowcases, (aka modal, aka tencel, aka lyocell). They can be extremely soft and smooth like silk but are much hardier, so you can wash them like normal laundry.