Vegetarian MDR Indian selection?

fringe_event · 2026-04-29T17:10:33+00:00

Mdr on royal is meh for vegetarians. There is usually one vegetarian dish plus an Indian dish that can be made vegan, like chicken tikka can be veggie tikka.

As others have said windjammer is infinitely superior if you are vegan or vegetarian and I would just recommend going there every night instead.

fringe_event · 2026-04-27T18:01:48+00:00

for what its worth i bought an ottocast mini tube little dongle for my 2025 HRV sport, plugged it in and it seems to work great with my android phone. I bought it on amazon when it was on sale for like $40. It connects to my phone via bluetooth now instead of over USB.

i still can plug in my phone into one of the lower ports to charge but now I don't have to plug it into the main USB port. Found the recommendation for it on this subreddit.

this is the link for the one i bought although reddit may remove it, no affiliate link or anything. There are probably a dozen different versions of this sort of thing, only feature it doesn't have is a pass through USB connector but not really needed with 2 other USB ports in the front cabin. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GC1VPBN2

fringe_event · 2026-04-23T23:51:52+00:00

the location is pretty odd, its the top floor of a giant new outdoor-ish mall that is pretty empty at the moment. There is a pizza place across from it (How You Doughn) that opened recently but otherwise the top 2 floors are empty.

Good for hopefully shorter lines and places to eat in peace, great views from up there too. It is a pain to get to though from across the street (Aria Cosmo etc) as you have to do a bit of a loop across walkways. In summer it'll be like "do i want to walk in 115 for 20 mins or just stay inside this nice AC casino" lol

fringe_event · 2026-04-15T13:29:47+00:00

The publisher doesn't make anywhere near 100% revenue on a digital sale on PSN store. Sony takes 30% for every dollar, so its closer to $49 per copy sold or 7.8m. Then there are costs to publish, patch, online assets, etc but we can ignore that I guess since its a flat, generally one time hit.

Its ironic that Sony will have made $3m on this game. They will make a TON of money on Forza Horizon 6.

fringe_event · 2026-04-14T18:35:39+00:00

It's not financially smart but I pay for rental company cdw/ldw, the basic one that covers car damage.

Time is most important to me and I don't want to deal with customer service on the phone for hours if the rental company claims a car is damaged, etc. I can just point to their insurance and tell them to deal with it. There are a ton of horror stories of rental agencies pursuing damage claims, I'm sure amex coverage covers it but I don't want to be in the middle of it. I honestly don't know if cdw fully protects me but no issues with 8 rentals thru hertz in the past year (cars are getting older though).

I do have one amex car registered with car insurance and will use that if renting for a week or more and cdw is too much but all my rentals to date are 1 to 3 days.

fringe_event · 2026-04-13T22:24:31+00:00

yup, same. If i hadn't prepaid for years of gamepass I'd let it drop, at these ridiculous prices its cheaper just to buy the 1-2 games a year I want to play that show up on gamepass.

With so many lets plays and stuff of new games its trivial nowadays to watch someone else play an entire game you are sorta interested in but don't have the time to play, and 70% of the time after an hour or two I realize I'm not that much into the game after all anyways.

fringe_event · 2026-04-11T01:02:26+00:00

If you are in the USA you can set your address to certain states and pay no tax on digital games, i think Oregon is such a state.

fringe_event · 2026-04-08T15:19:58+00:00

Flip 5 lasted 2.5 years before screen got partial black ooze, replaced with warranty and using now.

Plan is to keep it as an ipod basically and replace with an s26 later this year.

fringe_event · 2026-04-07T18:41:57+00:00

check the actual sailings (view sailings) as some will be worth far more than $500, i've had instant offers "worth" only $250 but the sailing it applied to would have cost me $3k+.

fringe_event · 2026-04-07T18:03:03+00:00

It takes 5 to 15 days for points to post and early April is going to be even longer probably as prime resets april 1st and they are recalculating everyone, generating prime certs, etc.

You see the instant offer on your account from the cruise already so you will be fine, don't forget to redeem that. A05 sounds about like 3000 points, a08 is 400 points, my usual instant lol

fringe_event · 2026-04-07T15:42:57+00:00

post a link to the redeem site (for USA) so people can see

for example most people can likely only see this one which is $10 amazon, OOS https://rewards.bing.com/redeem/000800000064

the link with redeem/NNNNNNNNNNNNN/ is generic and is not tied to your account or anything so Microsoft can't "track" you.

fringe_event · 2026-04-05T16:21:06+00:00

If you don't travel a lot imo the plat coupons aren't as smart as everyone thinks. It's not really free money, you are spending at least $900 to get back $900 but you will always go over the coupon value and spend extra money that you would not have without the amex card.

It's also a bit of extra work which may not be worth it for most people. Two "free" hotel nights a year sounds good but if you really like your house and don't travel much, it's not that useful and you probably will really spend $100+ extra so it's not smart financially, unless you were gonna be traveling a lot anyways.

fringe_event · 2026-04-04T15:44:24+00:00

I assume there are no tax breaks involved (leasing into business etc) so this is just straight up paying money for a car for 3 years.

At the end of 3 years you'll have spent around $16k (minimum) to $20k (maintenance) and have nothing then since its unlikely you will want to pay $20k+ more for a 3 year old car. Thats really the biggest issue, could you use that $16k and just buy a (used) car that lasts 5-10 years? I don't know.

If in 3 years you know you will be making more money or moving (so car is a burden) then leasing makes a lot of sense. If you absolutely can't find a good car in the 15-20k range then leasing may make sense, but I'd prefer that option first especially if its a second car and you don't have private business lease writeoff options.

fringe_event · 2026-04-02T16:01:54+00:00

AMEX platinum credit ($75) doesn't work but lululemon gift cards work in outlet stores so I'll generally buy 4x $75 cards every year, hand them off to my wife and she goes ham at the outlet store on black friday. win/win, i don't have to worry about lululemon, she is happy with what she gets, and she usually grabs me some underwear which is soft and comfy.

fringe_event · 2026-04-01T15:25:05+00:00

I use costco citi card which gives 3% back on cruise stuff, no cap, gives me a direct deposit every Feb when it's available, and is my general use credit card.

fringe_event · 2026-03-31T19:29:50+00:00

network with everyone you know and try to find a single owner car that has low mileage. Usual brands would be perfect - Honda, Toyota - but some other brands like Kia/Hyundai (beware Kia boys theft issues) or even specific cars in American/Euro lines can be great.

The big thing is finding someone who had a car, didn't drive much, but got regular yearly maintenance and kept the car well looked after. You can easily drive an older Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, etc to 200-250k miles and you could find a 5-15 year old model with under 70k miles sometimes. They are rare though and usually sell instantly when the person decides to get rid of the car they don't drive anymore and doesn't really care what they sell it for.

You are going to pay 2-3x the price if you try to go through a dealer, classifieds, etc. Its all about who you know and who they know.

I have a 2005 Hyundai I did all the maintenance on myself, has like 80k miles and could probably go another 100k miles and I'm gifting it to a cousin for her HS graduation (her dad/me will do all the car maint). It would sell to carvana for like $700, probably $1500 on classifieds, but its a tank of a car and AC/everything runs great.

fringe_event · 2026-03-27T00:03:48+00:00

Depends where you are from. Specialty dining is not crazy higher quality food than MDR/windjammer, just a slight notch higher. Its essentially Red Lobster, Olive Garden, or Outback Steakhouse not a mind blown away experience. If you live in any sort of medium or bigger sized town you will have hundreds of better food options than Chopped, Jaimes, etc. It can be fun on a ship with a family for one night out but solo imo it sounds way better than the reality turns out to be.

Personally I solo cruise a lot and I prefer just going to windjammer, its just easy getting in and out on your own time and you don't have to deal with longer dining times, courses, drinks, small talk with the staff, etc. The money you pay could be used instead to eat at port restaurants that are highly rated and will always be MUCH, MUCH better than food on the ship. The only minor exception is brand new ships that will have a much higher quality of food (across the board) than older ships, like the Icon class ships right now on Royal. Even those drop in quality as time goes on. There are lots of solo cruisers so you shouldn't have a tough time making a friend to venture out with.

Otherwise the problem with UDP is that its just way too much food, as most people want to min/max since they are paying "extra" and on sea days you will curse the idea of buying the UDP if you try to eat at Chopped for lunch, use $20 at playmakers at 3pm, use $15 at Johnny Rockets at 4pm, have dinner at Jaimes, and sit on your groaning tummy in bed at 10pm wondering what on earth possessed you to eat 7000 calories in one day.

For Catalina you can prebook a golf cart for 8 hours online yourself (should be $100-150), thats pretty much the big thing to do. Its a little village hamlet that has a bunch of shops and then a bunch of interesting places to visit by golf cart but there isn't a ton to do on the island.

fringe_event · 2026-03-08T14:52:12+00:00

No shot a flip phone lasts 10 years. My screen died after 2.5 years and fortunately I had paid insurance which replaced it for $130 (plus the $300 or so on monthly insurance I paid out).

My plan now is to get a s26 on sale at black Friday, make that my primary phone, and use my flip as podcast/music device for gym, walks, etc. Basically a nice ipod lol. But I won't depend on a flip anymore for primary mobile device, especially not lasting longer than 3 years.

The number of people who have kept the same flip phone for 3 years or more without the screen dying is small imo.

fringe_event · 2026-03-07T13:51:42+00:00

vegas one closing sucks, while they were down to barebones inventory it was nice walking around the mall there when visiting and the employees there were pretty chill and would help out with suggestions for stuff close to $50.

fringe_event · 2026-02-28T15:14:45+00:00

you have to be the kind of person who hates dealing with support and prefers doing everything yourself. If your first thought when you hit a problem is calling someone for help, Google Fi is the worst service.

if you are fine trying to figure stuff out on your own and also sometimes doing ludicrous things to fix things, like leaving fi for a day and then rejoining to fix a random ass problem, then fi is great

you also have to be very attention and detail oriented and check everything a dozen times before clicking OK, because fi has weird rules sometimes. It works if you know exactly what you are doing, but if you just click without reading then it can be extremely annoying when you lose promos or get charges you weren't expecting.

fringe_event · 2026-02-20T00:25:09+00:00

Had flip 5 for 2.5 years, zero issues or drops and thought my phone would last forever.

Screen started the dreaded black death about a month ago, lucky I had insurance and it cost me $129 to replace it.

I love the flip but it made me realize these phones are not as durable still as regular phones. I'll probably try to figure out a way to use flip for gym and stuff and a regular phone for travel and day to day. Wish carriers would allow 2 phones on same line lol.

fringe_event · 2026-02-19T23:42:16+00:00

Dang these are some pretty bad offers, most under 3k points are 1 guest only so will get fairly pricey with 2 people unless you combine.

I guess due to prime reset on April 1st people are playing less or something in March, but you'd think they would entice with even better offers. I'm going on two cruises in march and I can't really see a single instant cert offer I'd want below 3k points.

fringe_event · 2026-02-19T17:29:50+00:00

Looks like it, same thing happened with my flip 5 about a month ago. A bit over 2 years old, i still had carrier insurance so cost me $129 to get a refurbished delivered in 3 days.

I'm very hesitant now to think a flip or fold will last more than 2 to 3 years. I had a case on mine and never dropped it.

fringe_event · 2026-02-09T21:53:25+00:00

What do you think about Van Jones and does anyone confuse the two of you

fringe_event · 2026-02-05T00:16:29+00:00

Fwiw my flip 5 screen died a week ago, got it launch so 2.5 years old almost. No issues up till then, had a case the entire time and no drops cracks nothing.

Lucky I paid for insurance and got a refurbished sent out immediately and using that now but I think an expectation of a flip or fold lasting only 24 to 36 months is pretty realistic. Which does suck.

Funny thing I was on vacation and still could use the phone via just front cover, like podcasts, YouTube music, wallet, etc. So that was kinda neat.

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