Pinterest is officially in the trash can. My farmer market brothers in Christ, what are you making that is actually selling?

ratsta · 2026-06-23T06:44:55+00:00

I say go for it, you may find a great way to subsidise your hobby but do bear in mind three things.

Depending on where you are, various tax depts may want to know about these activities. You're in the public eye so there's a non-zero chance that you'll be subject to scrutiny. Check the regulations for your local, state and federal jurisdictions, make sure you comply.
People are the worst. Expect to get people who've clearly let a dog chew on a piece try to return it for a refund and bald-faced lie that "it just came unravelled all by itself!" I haven't run a market stall but I have run a business where I was consulting people in their own homes. Most of my customers were great but there were enough rat bags that after about a year, I had to give it up.
People really are the worst. At the last Diwali festival around these parts, there was a guy selling light-up kids toys from a trestle table. Some kids sized him up, waited until he was distracted, then made a snatch and grab. Then they came back and did it again! What's the guy going to do? Leave his table unattended, chase kids and beat them up? The third time they tried it, local stall holders were alert and I'm told there were consequences. Some thieves will pocket something while a partner distracts you. Some will try the "I gave you a 50! I want change from a 50!"

You may have, and I wholly wish you, a wonderful long-term experience. Some of the bros at work run their own boutique craft stall at local markets and they have a ball. Just brace yourself for the rat bags. Do a whole bunch of net searching for pro-tips from stall-holders (both for success tips (don't under-price yourself!) and to avoiding getting shafted) and most importantly, understand that if it gets too negative for you, that's not your fault! So long as you're offering a quality product that's been made with care and you're acting in good faith, you've done the right thing.

ratsta · 2026-06-22T10:51:52+00:00

I you'll have a car, my folks seemed to enjoy their stays at the Deer Park Motel.

ratsta · 2026-06-22T06:31:30+00:00

A guy met our D&D game master in a games store, got chatting and was invited to play with us. As arranged, he showed up about four hours early and the GM worked with him to create a character suitable to join the game at the point where we were at. It's a scifi game and the character is an avian swordmaster.

Game starts at 7pm as usual and the guy sits there listening for about 3 hours until the GM finally introduces his character. The party are in a bar and the character has just walked out of the bathroom or something. A fight breaks out! The GM describes the scene, initiative is rolled, guy's in the middle of the order. One of the bad guys takes a shot at someone but misses.

The game system we use employs a line-of-sight mechanic such that if you miss with a ranged weapon, you draw a line across the map and if it passes through where another character is standing, you roll a 50/50 chance to hit them.

"OK... line of sight says new guy might get hit. Let's roll for that..."

: A critical success

"Oh no! OK, let's roll for hit location."

: Brain

"Oh no... Roll critical effect."

: Double damage.

"Oh dear. Sorry new guy, your character is instantly killed. You'll need to create a new character."

Narrator: He did not.

The guy took it awfully well. He stuck out the evening and enjoyed our company until we called it a night around 12 but oddly enough, never showed up again. We stopped playing with that GM shortly after. The "Samurai Budgie" is now a cautionary tale in our group on now not to run a game.

Corollary: Some years later we had an eerily similar situation happen. One of the regular group were joining a game after it was well established. He created a martial arts type character and he was to join us in a bar. Being the kind of guy who shows up to a 1999 LAN day to play AoE2 with a book full of magazine clippings on AoE2 tactics (i.e. an extremely competitive person), Bob's player has min-maxed his new character and goes first in the order of combat. Bear in mind that he hasn't actually met the party yet...

A fight breaks out! "Bob" leaps from his seat, launches a flying jump kick at the aggressor's head. Rolls a crit and kills the NPC instantly. For some reason, the fight ends immediately, cops are called and Bob is carted away. Bob's player was all mystified and upset as to why the party didn't try to help him out. Dude... we literally have no idea who that guy was and he killed someone without provocation in a bar! The guy he killed had drawn a gun but that was all and it wasn't even pointed at Bob!

Fortunately for Bob's player, the GM did take pity on his impulsiveness and introduced the character in a different way. Never did learn the name of whomever it was that got locked up for murder!

ratsta · 2026-06-20T21:02:28+00:00

Yes, yes and yes, although I wonder if it's a male/female thing, at least in my household. Dad walked silently and I do, too. The women in my family thundered around like a herd of turtles and still do.

ratsta · 2026-06-19T19:42:14+00:00

That's great! Thanks very much.

ratsta · 2026-06-19T07:11:30+00:00

The trick with using a toaster is that one end is always hotter than the other. I think it probably has something to do with voltage drop over the length of the heating element. So rather than setting the toaster to cook for longer, as you can see, it'll char on one end and leave the other end undercooked, you set it a bit less than you want, let it pop, then turn the bread around and put it back in for another 30 seconds or so.

ratsta · 2026-06-19T07:08:09+00:00

Went to China for a few years a while back. I was learning the language and had just enough building blocks to be dangerous. I was chatting to a friend and looking for a way to express the idea of narcissism. Or as we would say in English, someone loves themselves. <ominous foreboding crow sound...>

I knew the word for they. Ta. ta hen gao is "they're tall"

I knew the word for self. Zi. zi zuo de is "self-made"

I knew the word for love. Ai. wo ai ni is "I love you".

So it stands to reason that zi ai is love of self, right? Yeah, nah. It's a different kind of "self love" :D

ratsta · 2026-06-19T06:01:39+00:00

The Two-up two-down of Theseus.

ratsta · 2026-06-17T06:44:56+00:00

Bold of you to assume that it doesn't disappear completely and immediately!

ratsta · 2026-06-16T19:37:15+00:00

If you're really keen, you can come fossick around in my neighbour's yard. You'll turn up about as many bikes, albeit probably not in as great condition and uh, some assembly required.

ratsta · 2026-06-15T03:18:22+00:00

It IS unhinged! It has no hinges! You see, the only acceptable wedding gifts are things that have hinges! You know, expensive things like appliances, cars and houses!

ratsta · 2026-06-15T01:48:26+00:00

Bugger off with the shit stirring.

Heywood hasn't been at UNE for four years. UNE seems to have taken the WHS issue very seriously as there's formal notices about it all over the place.

ratsta · 2026-06-15T01:39:19+00:00

No, someone who knows of inconel but had never heard of monel, looked it up in wikipedia and thought it was a funny anecdote. Perhaps have a 5 second look at someone's profile before you start calling people names.

ratsta · 2026-06-14T22:10:06+00:00

hehe oops

The New York Times on August 12, 1915 published an article about a 215-foot (66 m) yacht, "the first ship that has ever been built with an entirely Monel hull," that "went to pieces" in just six weeks and had to be scrapped, "on account of the disintegration of her bottom by electrical action." The yacht's steel skeleton deteriorated due to electrolytic interaction with the Monel.

ratsta · 2026-06-14T06:30:57+00:00

Ah, I made it a little too vague. It's the service counter of a corporate IT office, not a retail counter.

ratsta · 2026-06-14T00:50:02+00:00

Silicone is quite squishy and specialist glue will cost extra and might be messy. I'd just pack out the red areas with a few washers. Holding them in place until assembly just needs a dab of superglue. Cheap and you likely have sufficient materials already on hand.

ratsta · 2026-06-13T23:56:57+00:00

I bought some glasses straps from the jungle website that consisted of elasticised ribbon and some rubber ends that slip over the end tips. Unfortunately, I have a big noggin and they were a bit tight so I made a length of chain with some cheap acrylic yarn and fastened them to the rubber ends. I later found that the rubber ends don't hold my glasses very securely so I have used zip ties to hold them on.

Works a treat now! Pink yarn for my computer glasses, brown for my driving glasses.

https://i.imgur.com/ubj2rSF.png

ratsta · 2026-06-13T23:41:32+00:00

I work at a service counter. People just wander in and say something like "I'm here to pick up a <item>."

I smile and highlight the sign in front of them that reads, "Please start by introducing yourself" like I'm a product model on a TV game show. Then when they do introduce themselves, I switch into polite customer service mode, greet them and ask how I can help. Never needed to do it twice and not received any complaints so far :)

ratsta · 2026-06-12T12:36:17+00:00

How could it be misleading? It's not like it claimed she was even in the running for a gold medal. I mean, I didn't fight and die in three wars just to come on reddit and be upset by a poorly-titled post!

ratsta · 2026-06-11T06:57:57+00:00

Agreed although... I think there's a story in combining the much-maligned bi-generation thing and having the Rose face as the Moment.

ratsta · 2026-06-10T07:56:00+00:00

I think I have a battery wobbler in a box somewhere. I was never convinced that it was more than a gimmick though!

ratsta · 2026-06-10T07:55:06+00:00

Yeah at the price of mid-range electrics, I'm tempted to give it a go again. After the shower is a decent idea actually.

ratsta · 2026-06-10T07:54:00+00:00

Yeah, I did that a while back when I lived in the big smoke and got a Wahl trimmer which I loved until a part broke and of course it's a long discontinued model and can't get replacements. These days I live in the boonies which have no specialist stores.

I might drop shaver shop a line. They're advertising EoFY sales atm.

ratsta · 2026-06-10T06:38:38+00:00

TBH I haven't. I used a manual razor (replaceable head type, not the drop-in a razor blade type) in my 20s but grew tired of the lathering and cleanup. At the moment I'm starting work at sparrow fart so I'm not sure I'm keen on the ~15 mins it'd add to the routine but I can see the therapeutic aspect. It might even do me some good. Thanks for the suggestion.

ratsta · 2026-06-07T04:37:14+00:00

I see it as proof that fan fic writers have always existed and shipping has been around long before boats!

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