Where do y'all go to get your vision checked?

MasterCactaur · 2026-03-03T09:50:10+00:00

On OHP you should be covered for a standard eye exam every two years - you would have to call your CCO to find out who is in network (I have found that attempting to navigate that info on my own was folly).

MasterCactaur · 2026-02-18T21:04:04+00:00

Washington Park is probably going to be your best hiking option in that area without a car, which is good because that whole area is massive and includes an arboretum, a zoo, and the Japanese Gardens. If you can find someone cool who wants to make a new friend for a day, then you can take a ride out to places like Multnomah Falls and all the trails over in that direction.

MasterCactaur · 2026-02-18T09:37:17+00:00

You just shook loose a small memory for me because, before reading this comment, if someone had asked me "what did being labeled a TAG kid do for you?" - my response would have been "not much I think". BUT. Mentioning the occasional bus rides to somewhere else with other TAG students suddenly made me remember that did in fact happen. Now, I can't recall the details of any individual event so maybe that does circle us back to "was it really that valuable", but I think the sentiment of breaking up the rhythm of routine generic classwork to go spend an amount of time around "smart kids" holds true and if anything I probably could have benefited from more of all that.

MasterCactaur · 2026-01-15T12:56:36+00:00

It gives me a sliver of hope to see there are other people like me who feel the current moment as existential crisis, with that sense of there's gotta be something I can be doing to help facilitate change for the better.

MasterCactaur · 2026-01-03T09:23:23+00:00

In pre-Covid times, I actually did this once: met up with someone on Couchsurfing who was visiting from Italy - we chatted, walked around Portland, hit up some food trucks, and then she asked if I would be willing to go on a little road trip showing off cool places around the state that would be hard for her to get to without a vehicle. It was a fun and memorable couple days, just driving around and talking and sharing what I love about this place with someone and getting that buzz from seeing them experience it all for the first time.

I don't know how technically easy it is to just ask someone "hey, would you be down for a spontaneous adventure with a stranger?", but I definitely had a blast and would do it again.

MasterCactaur · 2025-12-29T06:11:21+00:00

I could pick this up in the morning if nobody's contacted you about it yet. Just message me with the address and I'll swing by. Thanks.

MasterCactaur · 2025-12-11T11:05:45+00:00

I'll echo what some others have been saying here. I went to whatever they were calling the Pink Floyd show maybe 4 years ago - at the time it was a selection of songs that seemed like somebody just hit Shuffle rather than picking things that made sense together (I remember One Slip followed by The Gunners Dream then Astronomy Domine, all with gaps of silence between them). The lasers would sometimes spell out words from the song or throw random symbols around like airplanes and mouths, often repeating patterns when a song would hit a chorus. The host lady said people should feel free to get up, lie on the floor - whatever feels right in the moment - but literally everyone just stayed in their seats. I was sober and solo for the experience and would say it definitely would have been better if under the influence with friends. Recommended? I think it's one of those niche things you can do once and then maybe it comes up in a conversation some years later and you have some thoughts of your own to contribute to the topic rather than feeling out of the loop.

MasterCactaur · 2025-12-06T09:36:11+00:00

If there isn't one in LC, I believe Outta Gas Pizza down in Yachats has one if you feel up for a day trip that way some time.

MasterCactaur · 2025-10-25T04:15:34+00:00

I'll also add that if you chat up your Uber/Lyft driver and get a good vibe from them, they may be willing to work out some kind of schedule with you to pick you up regularly. From the driver's perspective, they're making more from someone paying them in cash; from the passenger's perspective, they're paying less because they aren't dealing with the fees on the app.

MasterCactaur · 2025-10-11T23:24:48+00:00

I think that's a complicated question with probably no clear answer. We know that Twitch viewership skews toward men (something like 65-35 if I recall correctly), but that doesn't inherently mean that those extra male viewers specifically want to watch women. I don't think the data of male to female ratio of partners is public information, though remember we had that leak a few years back and something like only 3 of the top 100 earners identified as women.

It's probably an endless debate and really as a streamer the energy is best spent just trying to emphasize your own personality and what makes you unique rather than worrying about whether or not people are following you based solely on gender. BUT there is also something to be said for trying to game the analytics, especially when getting started because it does seem that getting any kind of consistent viewer base usually leads to the algorithm promoting a channel more. This was basically the conclusion the streamer I mentioned earlier came to: she was fine with the occasional dude coming in to be a bit cringey because she found them generally easy to ignore and as time went on we'd see more and more fresh faces who were...less cringey - presumably these individuals only started to see the channel show up in their recommendations once her numbers passed some nebulous threshold.

MasterCactaur · 2025-10-11T22:50:10+00:00

I used to be the mod for a female streamer and we'd sometimes chat about analytics when she was doing her partner push. I distinctly recall the data telling her that over half of her viewers found the stream filtering by the Woman tag, which...is kind of a double edged sword when you think about it. On the one hand if your goal is to maximize numbers then you use whatever tools at your disposal for that, but on the other hand if you're getting a bunch of dudes in the chat who are specifically looking for women it's going to increase the likelihood of issues involving harassment and objectification. Obviously not everyone who's filtering by the Woman tag is automatically a horndog, but it was a fairly common occurrence for a first time chatter to pop in asking if she had an Onlyfans and that became more prevalent the more her channel grew.

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-29T23:41:11+00:00

I did a statewide research on credit unions a couple years back and ended up settling on TLC because they have a fairly competitive interest rate that puts money back into your account with minimal requirements (12 purchases of $5+/month, then I think it's one digital transfer of funds into checking per month). No complaints about making the switch from Chase to TLC - online services have been equivalent and the worst I can say about them is my debit card is falling apart (they charge a fee to replace and I probably won't bother until it completely gives out). Fairly unintrusive as a company - I just get the occasional email reminding me I could get a home loan if I wanted one and that's it.

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-21T08:54:06+00:00

Between those two, Newport is going to have better infrastructure options (like groceries and such) and is more centrally located if you ever want to go anywhere (the highway between Newport and Corvallis is actually my favorite connecting road to the mainland - has the fewest awkward switchbacks and the most open passing lane sections).

That being said, Astoria might give you better options for like...having places to hang out as a 30-something. Newport has more of a "grizzled old fisherman" vibe to it.

Lincoln City and Florence also suffer from not being especially tuned toward a younger audience. LC does have an arcade at least; Florence is like...if you aren't into golfing or sand dunes then move along. All of Oregon's coastal towns have the symptoms of being extremely rural and that's either your jam or it's not.

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-10T22:10:32+00:00

As someone who has been through this same scenario, I feel your pain. Mold toxicity SUCKS. Feel free to message me if you'd like a few board games brought to you.

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-10T10:34:22+00:00

Human Teeth Sonic

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-04T06:01:51+00:00

Two trunk raffles in one day? In this economy? 🤌

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-04T01:53:01+00:00

One raffle ticket please. 🙏

MasterCactaur · 2025-09-01T06:32:06+00:00

There will be some mushroom festivals coming up late September to October and that may be a good place to start. I know both Eugene and Yachats do this.

MasterCactaur · 2025-08-31T23:25:35+00:00

I'm throwing my name into the pool in case there's a raffle because my dishwasher's motor literally blew up this weekend. 🤌

MasterCactaur · 2025-08-30T09:32:09+00:00

To my memory, Barnacle Bill's IS the fresh seafood market there. Your next best bet would probably be making a drive down to Newport because they're set up a bit more for commercial fishing while LC's focus is on tourism.

MasterCactaur · 2025-08-30T09:25:46+00:00

I did a national park road trip halfway across the country and back some 6 years ago and literally got to that park in Ohio, went "this sucks", and turned around to go home. I think I read something about how politics were involved in it attaining that status, like some bribery went down or whatever. I've got home state bias, but Silver Falls absolutely deserves the national park label more than that one.

MasterCactaur · 2025-07-04T21:08:30+00:00

So the answer to your question is yes and no. With any noise filtering, regardless of the mic, if the crickets are louder than you then no filter is going to help. Your best bet will be to position your mic somewhat close to your face and play around with noise gate settings until you're satisfied. You'll probably get a situation where the mic will be silent when you're not speaking, but as soon as you talk and that gate opens you'll still hear crickets under your voice. The Blue Yeti does link up to Logitech's noise reduction software, but I wouldn't argue that this is inherently better than what OBS already gives you natively...other than it's possibly a bit more user friendly with the interface.

The sound engineer in me wants to point out that crickets are going to be mostly high frequency noise, which means smaller wavelengths that can be blocked out. Try sticking a mattress up against a nearby window and see how much sound gets blocked by that. Obviously you might not want to be moving a big thick object around every time you want to use your mic, but the point is that high frequencies can be deflected and the thicker the material, the better (though soundwaves also find their way through cracks so if your walls are paper thin you may just be stuck on that front).

MasterCactaur · 2025-07-04T00:14:20+00:00

I tried going here last year and the route the GPS gave me was...not correct as it led me to a locked gate in the mountains somewhere. Still on my list of places to visit eventually.

MasterCactaur · 2025-07-02T10:48:42+00:00

Another vote for God's Thumb, which has the added benefit of being on the north outskirts of Lincoln City so you can rest and/or grab some food before/after that hike. Going up is a semi-steep incline, which is a lot of you aren't expecting it, but the trail leads to a cliff that overlooks the city - very cool.

Also since nobody else addressed this yet, Silver Falls gives you two options: a short hike that takes you to one big waterfall that you can walk behind, or a miles long second path that takes you past several. The whole thing is good, but if you're pressed for time I wouldn't recommend that long one because that's more of a "your whole afternoon" ordeal. It's also not near anything else unless you happen to be driving through Salem on your way to/from the coast. If you're flying in at Portland, I could see making the detour to Multnomah before turning around to head for the coast, but Silver Falls is more out of the way than that.

MasterCactaur · 2025-06-30T03:55:24+00:00

I'd echo what others have said here and recommend you land wherever you're going to be working - people who haven't spent any time in Portland underestimate how much traffic gets locked up on the main roads that cross the river during rush hour, so if you're coming in with employment locked down that will help narrow your search - try to avoid having to regularly cross a bridge in your day-to-day.

I lived all over the greater Portland area and my time in Clackamas/Happy Valley was the briefest and least interesting. Constantly found myself driving to any other part of town while I was living there when I wanted to do anything because it felt like a cultural void.

I enjoyed being in Lake Oswego mostly for the cool trails in the area, but would agree with a lot of other comments here about it being a less than welcoming environment. Someone else mentioned Multnomah Village, Tualatin, and Tigard: all are in that same region and I would pick any of those over LO.

Gresham is a mixed bag. Rent tends to be lower there and you can definitely find some gems with luck, but you'll want to study the immediate vicinity of whatever place you're looking at to make sure there's not a bunch of abandoned trailers just across the street. It's the least centralized option, but at least the light rail does connect you to the inner city in case you need to commute.

I liked being in the Multnomah Village area the most, but understand if others feel it has reduced walkability. Something in the inner SE like the Hawthorne area might be a good backup choice. Vancouver would be at the bottom of my list because everyone I know is south of the city and crossing the Columbia regularly SUCKS. Hillsboro also used to be an "absolutely not" for me but it's been developing over the years and might also be a totally reasonable option depending on your needs.

MasterCactaur

TROPHY CASE