Yeah seriously check what else your library has to offer. My library loaned me a brand new pair of Black Diamond trekking poles and I liked them so much that I bought by own pair.

Not sure if you’re being serious, but yeah we have guards pretty much everywhere in the US, particularly in cities. We also have guards at grocery stores (usually multiple guards, and they’re usually cops in uniform hired by the store) and at discount stores and sometimes on buses and trains. I’ve even seen them at convenience stores and cell phone shops. My apartment building has an armed guard on site with their own police-clone patrol SUV from like 10pm to 6am every night, I’ve had to call them a couple times and they arrive faster than the cops.

The US is a violent shithole and the guards primarily keep away sketchy troublemakers (except in larger stores where they’re useless and only used to deter shoplifting).

Hey, fair enough! I liked the old app menu layout better too, and I deleted the weather widget from my home screen because it takes up too much space now.

FYI you can change the quick settings / notifications so it’s all in one panel like it was in 6. Pull down on the quick settings panel, select the edit icon, then Panel Settings in the top left.

I held off on updating to 6 until a week ago because of reports of people’s phones dying after updating to 6. So I jumped straight from 5 to 7.

No regrets, my S22U is snappier than ever and the battery life is slightly improved. They added some settings that I’ll actually use and my phone has a fresh look. I’ve read that they improved the camera app so it now takes better pics, haven’t played around with that yet though. Overall fantastic update IMO.

What do you hate about it? I’m liking it with the exception of a few small things they’ll probably fix. My S22U is snappier than ever and it looks fresh and modern. They added a lot of new features/settings too, nothing revolutionary but still some useful stuff.

Learn from my experience!

I was obsessed with the same thing for a time so I bought one of those blue ear bulb syringes to aid with earwax removal. I’d put earwax removal drops in my ears, wait a few minutes and then use the bulb syringe to rinse the drops out of my ears, before squeezing the remaining water out of the bulb syringe and setting it on my counter. I did this almost every day for weeks.

One day I noticed a bit of gray earwax coming out after squirting water from the bulb syringe into my ears, like a few small chunks of it. I was so excited, my persistence was finally paying off!! The next day I did it again and there were even more gray earwax chunks!! Holy shit, I must have knocked something loose! Third day it happened again and this time I was suspicious, so I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut open the bulb syringe to find that it was full of mold. I’d been squirting chunks of mold into my ears and when they fell into the sink I thought they were earwax.

Now I use a translucent bulb syringe that’s split in the middle, so I can take it apart to dry properly and I’ll see if anything is growing inside of it.

If you haven’t tried then I recommend hydrogen peroxide in your ears. I dilute it 1:1 with water, but some people use it straight from the bottle. It feels SO GOOD and helps with earwax removal.

I randomly point at my cat and tell her, “YOU!! I know what you’ve done!” and then I run at her. She immediately goes WILD and starts tearing around the apartment and doing little lion roars. If I stop pursuit too soon then she’ll taunt me by jumping over me on the sofa over and over again until I continue chasing her. When I “catch” her then she gives me a sassy slap in the face and scampers off.

Hard water vs soft water.

So many times we’ve been in a hotel room and I’ve taken a shower and commented on what soft water it is because it feels like the soap never rinses off and I feel slippery all over. She always tries to correct me by calling it hard water. She grew up in a desert city that has naturally hard water, so she’ll always say, “I know what hard water is, I grew up with hard water!” when the “hard” water she grew up with was softened by some means. It doesn’t matter how many articles and blog posts and ChatGPT sessions on the topic I show her, she always insists they’re wrong and she’s right. We argued about it a few times in the past, but now it’s a running joke between us.

You add it before cooking! It actually doesn’t get mushy at all, and brings out the banana’s sweetness.

Curry powder! I’ve never tried curry leaves or curry sauce, but those sound delicious too. Whichever way you add the curry, I highly recommend trying it!

I discovered that combo when I was living in Sweden where it’s a fairly common one that most pizza places offer. I believe the pizzas are usually called Bahamas, Afrikana or Tropicana and they always feature pineapple, banana and curry, and usually either ham, shrimp or peanuts.

Pineapple, banana and curry, optionally with peanuts. Now that’s a real pizza!

I’ve been on a similar coffee journey. I used to drink it nonstop throughout the day, like 5-6 cups of black coffee most days. Then one day I was physically assaulted and chased by a drugged out guy at a train station (never take transit in Denver, it’s a total fucking shitshow). I thought I was going to get stabbed or killed that day and I guess that event caused some trauma because I started getting panic attacks shortly after. I realized that my panic attacks were more frequent and lasted longer on the days that I drank more coffee, so I quickly cut all caffeine out of my life. Now I’ve been without caffeinated coffee for over a year and don’t miss it at all, although I still enjoy a decaf espresso most days.

Same thing happened with weed. I used to love weed and smoked/vaped it pretty frequently, but started getting panic attacks from it around the same time so I cut it almost entirely out of my life. Every few months I’ll buy a pack of pre-rolls to enjoy, but it literally takes me like five days to finish a single joint because I smoke one tiny puff at a time to avoid panic attacks.

Honestly though, even if I didn’t deal with panic attacks, I’m probably better off having no caffeine and only a tiny amount of weed.

But that would require getting up off my sofa and walking across the living room.

I’ve been getting into tech house lately. It’s fun and catchy with really satisfying bass.

Black V Neck - Like Whoa

Chris Lake & Aluna - Beggin’

Central air conditioning all summer long.

But before I had AC, on hot nights I’d put a cold damp rag on my feet to fall asleep easier and that really worked. I’d also put a box fan in one of my windows pointed outside, and I’d also open a window in another room so that outside air would be sucked in through my home.

I lived in a cheap studio in Boston that was infested with roaches. Every 3-4 months I would spray Raid where the walls met the floor and that always worked well until they gradually started appearing again.

I lived in another studio that got a bedbug infestation. My building’s management paid for the place to be heat treated – they wheeled in two giant space heaters and had them powered by a generator on a truck five stories below on the street. I never saw another one again, but it destroyed all my books.

Nowadays I’m way more picky about where I live and I haven’t had any pest issues in over a decade.

72 F / 22 C in winter and 68 F / 20 C in summer. We live in a LEED Platinum building and the electric bill for our 2-bedroom apartment never goes above $50, so we set it to whatever is most comfortable.

Mine has trekking poles! (Colorado)

I learned about this from a can of ///Fear.Movie.Lions beer from Stone Brewing:

What 3 words pinpoint where this indelible beast was born? The location is printed on the can. There’s a 3m x 3m square in our Richmond, VA brewery with these three words painted on it. What three words? Exactly! For the uninitiated, that’s What3Words.

Use them in salads!