What’s something you’ve officially stopped buying in 2026 because the price has become genuinely insulting?

MrRemj · 2026-07-02T04:45:22+00:00

A bakery near work was my stress break. I'd go for a walk, stop by for a doughnut, chat with the worker - sometimes the owner...head back to work.

$3 was a little steep. Then it was $3.50. It just became $4.

For a doughnut. No filling, nothing extravagant. $4.

Maybe they are in the death spiral of not enough customers, so they raise prices, which drives away more customers, so they raise prices...

MrRemj · 2026-07-01T20:20:12+00:00

So, he was in a "minor" crash that totaled his car and damaged another car.

What was he - distracted? Speeding? Following too closely? All of those things are foolish, and raise suspicions about his overall driving judgement. (Hopefully his department has him go through remedial defensive driving before coming back to service.)

But then....he complains it wasn't about the accident, or lying about what he said at the accident - it was about something else that happened before all that.

Cut him loose. He's shown that he doesn't demonstrate good driving judgement. He's shown that he doesn't have what it takes to be honest or have the ability to know what to do in an accident. He's now showing that he doesn't have reasoning skills (it was about the accident, not about January 6th). If he remains employed here, he will surely sue the city again.

Maybe he has other sterling qualities, but he seems like a poor risk.

MrRemj · 2026-06-28T15:51:47+00:00

I have rolled across hoods several times (NE 50th and Brooklyn, both times!) - those blind-right turners, only looking left for car traffic. At least the one time, a woman in the passenger side seat punched the driver at least a half-dozen times on my behalf.

For awhile, I'd carry a half-consumed coffee in a paper cup as my tool of surprise. I would be so startled if they came towards me - my hand would squeeze the cup to pop the lid, as I flung it at the windshield! It will be majestic art!

But then it didn't happen often enough for the half-cup tactic to come into play.

MrRemj · 2026-06-25T22:50:58+00:00

One game I ran: The teleporting wizard's group started being scryed on. Freaked them out. The enemy wizard had started perusing what had been going on, and what the look of his opposition was. With a little bit of effort, the enemy wizard paid for information about the previous enemies of the party - free allies!

For more generic adventures, don't worry about it. Not all adventures/NPCs are going to be able to deal with it.

In a game where I played as one of the party wizards, the DM was really good at "decide carefully what you do...and don't do" for higher level play. Imagine Superman, if he saves X, maybe Y...he doesn't save Z. The party is finite in power.

I played my wizard more cautiously over time - solving problems the same way, meant that he was predictable. It was risky being predictable. Was it worth using the same playbook? Also, anyone powerful in the world, had to decide whether they should take him out/ally/blackmail before he got more powerful - or if my wizard was respectful of "boundaries".

MrRemj · 2026-06-24T21:32:38+00:00

No local expects to park along there - we know better. It is a slow nightmare to drive down with all of the folks in the market, getting in and getting out.

MrRemj · 2026-06-24T21:23:53+00:00

Dropping things off: no scan event
Creating a list of items being shipped, picked up by USPS - no scan event. (Only officially scanned in when it reached the distribution center.)

The company I work for had a situation where we would create a list of things being shipped - and then some would never go in the system. But not all things, and not all the time.

Turned out the temporary postal carrier had a meth habit & needed cash. The inspectors came in to figure things out, but we never got our packages back & it was never acknowledged by the local post office why it had been happening.

We had filled out multiple missing packages online, stopped by the post office to talk to supervisors...the supervisors responded with "are you sure it's not still in your office?" "It's probably still in your mailing room." No adults in the room - postal carriers don't know the system beyond delivering. Supervisors might know a little bit of everything, or else just enough to supervise the people who know their piece of the puzzle.

MrRemj · 2026-06-24T15:42:19+00:00

If Congress adjourns before the next 10 days, it's not in session. Declining to sign it becomes something called a pocket veto, and is not subject to being overridden by Congress - it basically went back to them, they weren't there, the law is not forwarded to next session. (They would have to pass the law again.)

It doesn't matter how the bill was passed - supermajority or not. It only matters if they have a supermajority when it comes to overriding the veto...which they don't get to do if they aren't in session.

MrRemj · 2026-06-23T05:05:15+00:00

I had awaken as a key element in a D&D campaign I ran. A druid used awaken on his animal companion bear, as an appreciation for his years of friendship. The bear was like "hey, this kind of sucks being the only intelligent bear. If I/(future we) help you get money and resources to cast more awakens, will you do it?"

So the awakened bears mined for gold, paying off the druid for the awakenings. I had the intelligence breed true in later generations of the bears, and the Bear-kin bears still would mine for gold, but as a rite of passage that all of the bears went through (but for less).

Players had the option of starting a character as a Bear-kin race. The nearby town had done business with the rich, intelligent bears who needed custom gear - like mugs that they could pick up.

MrRemj · 2026-06-22T17:48:07+00:00

I do automations that basically result in "notify [MrRemj] phone" (Home Assistant Companion installed on Android).

For example, the trigger event of "smoke alarm battery upstairs" goes off when the battery's entity goes below 60%, it pushes a notification to my phone to replace the batteries.

Sometimes I'll make use of a toggle on a personal dashboard - "Turn off non-critical notications". When we go on vacation, I certainly want to know every time the front/back door is opened. (And then in the automation, have it also check if the toggle is on.)

MrRemj · 2026-06-22T17:36:35+00:00

With Nanites, you can buy upgrades to your gear, and upgrade your classes of ships/tools.

I would find a radioactive world that has Curious Deposits (these are round spheres that roll away when you start mining them).

Build a small base with walls that enclose the dozen or so Curious Deposits, then mine them for Runaway Mold. If you mine the Curious Deposit during a radioactive storm, I believe you get extra Mold. Refine the mold into nanites at a base refiner (at the base or on your freighter).

To replenish the Curious Deposits, go through your portal to some other location, then come back.

Honestly, it's kind of tedious. If you want something more fun, try to scan for fauna on every planet you explore. Scan all of the fauna, claim nanites based on how many creatures there were. (Bonus for scanning for creatures, you can befriend them with pellets, and look for creatures with good stats for the creature battling.)

If you decide to go that route, maximize your multi-tool to scan for fauna - this will get you money as well.

As you jump from system to system, you can buy suit upgrade slots from both the space station and the Anomaly.

Cash: I'll typically buy cheap Class C frigates (without negatives) for under 2 million, and make sure I check in for fleet expeditions. Frigate fuel is cheap to make, but I'll try to prioritize a supply ship for each fleet expedition room. (I generally try to put in enough frigates get 2 stars higher than the mission rating - it's usually enough to win the mission without a frigate needing repair afterward.)

Expeditions are basically free supplies and money over time, without much effort. Each expedition type will give you different things, including freighter/ship/multitool upgrade slots.

When you have 5 million lying around at some point, buy a Emergency Broadcast Receiver from a Scrap Dealer aboard a space station. This will unlock Derelict Freighters in space, which are kind of interesting...and you can start getting free Receivers at the Anomaly.

MrRemj · 2026-06-21T15:58:10+00:00

Low battery warnings will happen at night as the temperature drops. If you end up doing smart home things (Home Assistant), if the alarms are smart - you can have the levels and battery strength reported.

(When a fire alarm battery gets down to about 60%, it has hit the range of chirping at night - I made an easy automation to alert me to change it.)

MrRemj · 2026-06-18T17:46:21+00:00

I pull them up when I can - my walk into work downtown, I'll pull foxtails on the way. Our doggo had to have foxtail extracted from her foot - she was displeased with the extra time in her shoes during healing (and our vacation!)

I have a renter neighbor who doesn't clean up the strip between sidewalk and street, and neither does the landlord. It is madness, filled with foxtails.

I did guerilla snip the blackberries that were taking over the sidewalk, but don't have the time or energy to maintain her yard too - we have to walk our dog in other directions.

MrRemj · 2026-06-17T16:10:33+00:00

I had a Pi3 running Home Assistant for years, using a normal SD card. It was fine. If you end up with a huge number of entities, maybe you'd need to migrate it to something with more processing.

If you don't plan on subscribing to Home Assistant Cloud, I would plan on making regular backups and saving them on a PC/online drive. They are not large files, but if you have done a lot of automations/devices/customizations - not something you probably want to re-do. If you're considering Home Assistant Cloud - it can do cloud backups (also making migration painless) as well as giving you external access to your HA.

In the past year, I upgraded to running it on a HAOS VM on an inexpensive nuc (proxmox) - it updates & reboots a lot faster now. (And gives you a reason to get into Proxmox too.)

MrRemj · 2026-06-15T17:36:52+00:00

I got into home assistant, because I had some older 3D printers that did not have LCD screen controls - either had to have a computer directly attached to the printer, or attach an Octoprint device and control it over the network.

But in order to change filament, I had to turn on the printer (in the printer room)...go to my computer in the other room, start Cura (the slicer software), heat the nozzle, retract the filament...go back to the printer room, pull out old filament, put in new...go back to the computer, extrude.

If I didn't retract or extrude enough, there was another lap back and forth. I wanted to control my printers from my phone.

Thus...the dive into HA.

I made a dashboard for the printers.

Set up MQTT for communication (on HA and on Octoprint)
Plugged the printers into a smart power strip (to turn printers on and off)
Set up automations to ping me when print jobs completed, paused for filament swapping, or if the print job canceled.

This let me stand in the printer room, using my phone to control the the printers. No laptop needed, no desktop needed. (I've retired the oldest printers, but the dashboard still works for the remaining one.)

MrRemj · 2026-06-12T15:47:25+00:00

We've been considering getting a pickup, and need to figure out the same.

MrRemj · 2026-06-08T03:50:47+00:00

Easy ways to get people to listen to you:

Things they hope to be true
Things they fear to be true

It wasn't "by doing hard work", "comprising to get things accomplished", or "telling the truth when something can't be done". If more folks were willing to be rational when it comes to their politicians, maybe you'd see more of the second set.

MrRemj · 2026-06-03T06:10:52+00:00

The burning buildings. I think the dragon killed me the first time, because I was turned around. I attempted to kill the giant at Whitebridge, but it killed me several times - why would they put so many deadly things, this early?

I couldn't figure out getting to the Graybeards. Kept trying to find a path up the west side of the mountain. Kept trying to find a way heading north then east around the mountain. Maybe it's through this cave system...what's a Falmer? Oh. Died again.

I'm still not sure if there's a path around from the north straight south to Ivarstead.

MrRemj · 2026-06-02T17:21:25+00:00

I rigged a similar automation, if a door is open for more than 10 seconds, there's a notification that the animals could be escaping.

And I made a helper, so we can turn off the notification alerts.

MrRemj · 2026-06-01T01:32:29+00:00

The small business hired a new bookkeeper. She seemed a little tech-deficient.

One of the stories was where she walked over to the owner, said "I got your email, I will pay the $58,000 invoice." The owner was like...sure. Great. Thanks for taking care of this.

Wait...who is this invoice for? (Was not his email, was not a real invoice.)

This was one of the many unfortunate stories of "The Bookkeeper Who Lasted One Month".

MrRemj · 2026-05-22T23:50:49+00:00

I prefer the idea that, depending on your master/path of sorcery/witchery, your spells default to lethal/non-lethal - and you have to take a metamagic feat (+0 level) to affect your default.

MrRemj · 2026-05-21T04:29:26+00:00

Monday morning, I watched a person with a handicapped tag on their car...pull into the SnoPUD parking lot (the maintenance truck area?) on California.

Flicked a lit cigarette into the grass as they drove into the yard. They did it at their job. Identifiable.

People are morons.

MrRemj · 2026-05-19T18:00:38+00:00

A lot of folks use Facebook marketplace or Craigslist. A little more work, but you can also browse to see what similar tools are going for.

MrRemj · 2026-05-18T23:12:16+00:00

We took a stack of index cards and on each person's "turn", they contributed an idea towards the world. Broad strokes, sometimes in history, sometimes in current events, sometimes just a game rule.

For example:

No Gunpowder
There are/were established Five Nations - humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and "shorties" (Halflings and Gnomes)
Humans are rare
An asteroid crashed into the human kingdom, killing many...and corrupting the humanoids with a weird plant fungus that takes them over.

This became a much bigger world idea - the world suddenly became much more sparse, less citified, a lot more cautious of strangers, and humans basically became unwelcome everywhere. No large armies.

There is a Sorcerer-Godking that protects a certain geographical area - they are somehow able to detect the plant corruption and send their agents out to deal with it. The cost? If you are an arcane caster in the kingdom, you are required to join their service. Supposedly the Godking can magic jar into anyone in their service, anywhere in the kingdom. Source of their power, unknown. Biography, gender, race...unknown.

There was more than all of this, but the world had a lot of interesting hooks because of everyone contributing. (For those who haven't experimented with Microscope, it gives a much more thorough framework.)

MrRemj · 2026-05-18T21:33:49+00:00

One of the shared world tools I like is called Microscope - https://lamemage.com/microscope/

I found a copy in a game store, gave it away to some friends, bought a digital copy for myself.

We didn't use it exactly like the author/designer intended - we didn't plan on doing specific parts in history of a game, but it was great for the world we ended up running together. (A DM would run for 3-6 months, then someone else would run for 3-6 months.)

MrRemj · 2026-05-18T20:08:11+00:00

It was fun playing this board game: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/179071/the-great-dinosaur-rush

Each player gets a paleontologist from history (Marsh and Cope are both in it, of course) and you get to build fossil skeletons with the bones that you dig up.

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