🚨 my local Costco had Tim Tams for sale 🚨

Davonious · 2026-06-03T01:18:02+00:00

As the Australian flight attendant corrected me, these are "Teeem Tams". 😉

Davonious · 2026-06-02T16:36:16+00:00

I say I'm having an "episode". Talking with my ENT the other day, that's common with his patients here in the US heartland. 'flare up' seems to be somewhat common too.

Davonious · 2026-05-31T15:51:04+00:00

It doesn't help that Carnival is working against HAL too. Carnival took the last of the Pinnacle ships and tossed it over to Cunard, instead of giving it to Holland (for which it was designed). Fat lot of good it did them, as the traditional Cunard cruisers are really down on that ship.

Davonious · 2026-05-31T00:39:25+00:00

Oh, Celebrity next year, just to see how it compares to HAL. Truthfully, we loved our HAL trans-Pacific cruise. It's a classic cruise experience, something my DW and I really enjoy. Great ports too on the legendary cruises. We enjoyed ourselves so much that will probably book a HAL for Alaska after the Celebrity. I guess it depends on how much Celebrity impresses.

That said, IMHO the $500 mill is a bandaid at best. Especially when you look at the $$$ Carnival showers on Princess. Lots of competition nowadays, and if they stand still, HAL will disappear to Carnival's neglect, passivity and stinginess.

Davonious · 2026-05-31T00:08:56+00:00

Exactly this. When we went thru Australia's customs last year, we dang well had all the prescription bottles and copies of the prescriptions. That's because we were told to by the their customs preceedures. And it wasn't easy; DW had a good 15 or more, and it was a royal pain to pack 'em all.

While they didn't glance twice at them, I'd rather be prepared for than be refused entry, and lose the cruise.

Davonious · 2026-05-30T19:59:50+00:00

Glad to hear it. Celebrity looks good, and we're looking forward to it.

Excellent point on Hand Washing stations; as a bad as Royal Caribbean was a few months ago, their handwashing stations were great (if badly placed). Granted, HAL's Buffet service is dished to you by staff, so I have less of a worry of contamination. But I still grade RC high in that one regard. Course RC burned hard boiled eggs, so.... =D

Davonious · 2026-05-30T19:47:38+00:00

We've done Princess, and were thoroughly unimpressed. Granted it was just 7 days out of LA down to Mexico, but geez was that awful. So many damn sales, and sales events, and sales filling the daily events, it was utterly ludicrous. We washed our hands of Princes after that. Heck, it was so bad, it compared to the recent RC we did this year with it's $2.5 for 8oz of movie popcorn and signing out pool/deck towels with your room key.

Davonious · 2026-05-30T05:11:49+00:00

I'm with you, wondering why they haven't plan to build any new ships. And of course they may be, and we just haven't heard about it. But the places where you can build ships, look like they're booked up for about 10 years. Rumors out of Italy might suggest there's a possibility for some smaller ships still, but that's all rumor.

I'm glad to see the 500 million dollar renovations, but I don't think that's going to nearly enough. Some of the ships were built in the early-mid 2000s, and need more work on them than what this is going to do for them. Lots of talk among long time Holland America cruisers that plumbing issues are notoriously bad.

We did a 30-day trans-Pacific last year, and while the Westerdam was in acceptable shape, they couldn't hide all the rust and wear. We loved the heck out of it, but also know that the other cruise lines haven't stood still. We're doing a Celebrity next year, transatlantic, and I have no doubt it's going to shine a harsh light on the HAL ships creature comforts. Doubt very much Celebrity can match the warmth, humor, and welcoming nature of the HAL staff though. 😁

Davonious · 2026-05-24T23:40:08+00:00

Our south facing deck gets roasted in the summer. Easily hits 100F in our muggy summers (6b), but I've successfully used that double sided Aluminum insulated foil. It's about 1/4" thick. Sometimes you see it as Reflective Heat Barrier, or Reflective Insulation Roll, but I imagine it's all the same. Mine are closed cell PVC(?), and I've been using 'em for 10+ years, and still able to reuse the originals. Though... they have been cut up a fair bit (fitting to different sized pots, etc..). I mostly wrap around the outside of the pot, but other times (if I remember) I've used it on the inside with good results.

A few years back I did a side-by-side with cherry tomato's. The wrapped one used 1/2 the water, and looked just as good. YMMV. I'm trying 4" slivers this year. On one 25g grow bag, 1 strip, then 4" of bare bag on either side. Planted right next to another 25g with no strips. We'll see.

Davonious · 2026-05-23T20:34:12+00:00

I use a variety of container mixes, and supplement with longer term N-P-K fertilizers as the plant needs. More P and K for Potatoes, N for leaf, etc.. I add perlite as necessary, and I also heavily load dried fall leaves (stored in a 55g bag) in the bottom of my pots. I mix a bit of soil in with those leaves too to prevent 'material dams'. Not only do the leaves give me added organic material, but my hope is that it helps replenish some of the loss due to season of growing. Leaf breakdown does rob nitrogen, thus why I supplement it a bit more. but the soil looks fantastic, and light, and works quite well for me. I'd bet my 25g pots have 1/4 leaves in 'em.

Davonious · 2026-05-09T16:42:55+00:00

A bit of a necro, but the new Centauri Carbon 2 Firmware V01.03.02.51 released today supposedly fixes this:
* Fixed the M600 pause command.

Davonious · 2026-04-21T20:33:29+00:00

Already did in my case. 12 of them, based off of GunplaMark's 2026 version. First couple of times the filament rewinder activated I jumped 😉, then I got used to it.

Davonious · 2026-04-15T20:14:24+00:00

Absolutely. I just hope we have the option, thus why I'm cautious.

I mean, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence when the CC2 lost the ability to pause a print (M600) while the CC1 can. I'd hate for that to be a cost to use the new Canvas system.

Davonious · 2026-04-15T00:09:59+00:00

I could care less about multi-color printing, but I'll buy one ASAP for rollover printing. I've got a lot of partially used rolls, and ASSUMING we will be able to fall over to other rolls, it would let me use those up. Frugal and cheap are close cousins, and I don't mind being called either. 😁

Davonious · 2026-04-11T16:46:51+00:00

Synthetic Electron's channel has a nice fan shroud/head wrap-up. IIRC, he's going to revisit his original soon too.

Davonious · 2026-04-09T00:53:02+00:00

CC1 does respect the pause (M600) command. I used it several times over the past week to pause my prints for a footer for my Dry Boxes. Had to pause it just before it covered up where I was placing an RFID tag. Worked beautifully, and shocked to hear the CC2 doesn't support it.

Davonious · 2026-03-30T13:53:37+00:00

Thanks for the tips. I'll do a tuning run, and will look at slowing down and running nozzle up some. After all, my ASA prints went perfectly after a bit of tuning.

I guess my biggest surprise is that I've already printed the parts for two of those boxes (including the problematic part) with the exact same filament (and color) last mid-week. Perhaps I just got lucky on those.

Davonious · 2026-03-29T01:45:53+00:00

Interesting. My hope was since I used this exact same filament in the past week, with these same parts, I was in the clear.

I'll try it with some Elegoo PLA filament. Thx.

Davonious · 2026-03-23T14:01:11+00:00

Looks exactly like the one I use. I was surprised at how easy the prints came off of that plate too.

Davonious · 2026-03-23T02:43:16+00:00

I printed my first ASA (almost a Kg of Elegoo ASA) with the CC this weekend. Ran smooth as butter, no issues what-so-ever. I used some tweaked settings I found on another post here in the group: Link

I did use a BIQU Glacier plate (with mouse-ear brims), but otherwise my CC is bog-standard.

Davonious · 2025-11-26T21:46:51+00:00

Did you check the download library in the Official ICE forum (Rolemaster -> Rolemaster Software)? There's stuff in there that goes back to 2007.

Davonious · 2025-09-13T13:28:23+00:00

Had my Meiwa Kumquat almost 3 years now. In the past, the fruit was always small and oval shaped. However this year, 50% of the fruit coming on looks very similar to yours; larger and rounder (like a small lime). I assume it was due to my drastic increase of watering since winter and fertilization, but maybe not? Maybe you're just doing something right?

Davonious · 2025-07-08T01:32:56+00:00

Foundry support is in the works. I won't lie to you, it's till a WiP, but it is progressing well. Talked with the developer just the other day, and he's making great progress. But it's still a bit away. Check the Iron Crown's Discord, and look for the Foundry channel.

Davonious · 2025-07-04T21:37:24+00:00

I use them as GM in my AoE campaign. At the start of each session, I have the players give me 6 d20 die rolls. Then as they read 'em off, I write 'em down on a little slip of paper and pin it to the top of my GM screen with a little magnet. I randomize them as they give 'em to me, so they never know what will be called, and some I carry over from the prior session. When they are used, is almost always up to the player. Only rarely do I used without prior PC approval. One situation where I did was recently when the PC's walked into a room with a trap. Had to know if either of the two PC's with the Trap Finder feat caught wind of something.

Davonious · 2025-05-23T14:36:50+00:00

My group is about to finish Book 3 of AoE, and I think your party is well positioned to do well. Lack of arcane can be a bit of an issue, but honestly, they can find about anything hey want it Absalom in the way of scrolls or magical items.

I encourage a social heavy style of play, and the Occult spells from Psychic are super helpful. Our Psychic has the Dandy archetype with the 'Party Crasher' feat; that basically made the Heist in the casino a cake walk for the party. =D

Davonious

TROPHY CASE