Appreciation post: that random comment from a stranger on my porch saved me $80 on new deck sealant

I was about to buy the expensive polyurethane stuff from Lowe's but this guy walking his dog said he's used plain linseed oil on his deck for 15 years and it looks great, so I gave it a shot, has anyone else tried the cheap route for outdoor wood treatment?

Talked to a tv writer at a bar and now I watch shows differently

I was at a dive bar in Austin last Friday and ended up next to a guy who wrote for a Netflix series I like. He said most shows waste the first two episodes just setting up stuff they could show in a single flashback. That hit me because I binged a whole season last month and felt bored for the first hour. Now I skip the pilot if it drags and check if the show picks up by episode three. Has anyone else tried skipping ahead and missed something important?

Hot take: you don't need a $5,000 paint booth to do quality work. Last month I finished a full respray on a 2018 Ford F-150 out of my buddy's garage in Phoenix with a $300 setup and it came out smooth as glass.

Blew $30 on a Python automation course that taught me nothing

I bought this course on Udemy during a sale, thinking it would help me automate some boring stuff at my job... turns out the guy just read the documentation out loud for 8 hours. No real projects, no examples from actual work situations. My boss asked me to fix a script that loops through Excel files and I had zero clue where to start. The free tutorials on YouTube actually helped me more in one afternoon than that whole course. Anyone else get burned by a hyped up coding course that was basically useless?

Tired of hearing avionics guys trash talk refurbished units

Was at a bench the other day and overheard this tech say he'd never touch a refurbished radio. Said they're all junk and a waste of time. I've been running a small landscape biz on the side for years, fixing up old mowers and trimmers. Same principle applies here. Last month I put a refurbished Garmin GNS 430 in a 172 for a client. Cost them $4500 instead of $8500 new. Bench tested fine, installed clean, and it's been solid for 6 weeks now. Not every refurb is a gamble if you know the repair history and check the components. Most of the failures come from cheap shops that don't verify anything. Anyone else had good luck with quality refurbs? Or am I just lucky so far?

Why nobody talks about how long it takes to level a flattop grill

I spent three hours last Tuesday trying to get our main flattop level. Thought it was just a simple twist of the legs, right? Wrong. The floor in that old diner dips like a bowl. I had a level on it, looked fine, poured water on it and it all ran straight to the back. Ended up shimming the whole thing with stainless washers, like 14 of them stacked on the front left leg. Got it perfect after 45 minutes of fiddling but then the pilot light wouldn't stay lit because I tilted the gas line too much. Had to undo half the shims and start over. Total time was close to 4 hours for something I thought would take 15 minutes. Anyone else ever fight a piece of equipment for half a shift over something dumb like this?

Finally finished that Wolverine run I started in July

I was camped out at the used bookstore on 3rd street last Saturday reading the last issue of Old Man Logan when I realized I had the whole thing upside down for 15 minutes. The binding is just that loose on those early 2000s prints. Has anyone else had a book just fall apart on you mid read?

My grandma insisted on putting a pinch of sugar in her spaghetti sauce, and I thought she was nuts.

Tried it myself last Tuesday and it actually balances the tomatoes perfectly. Anyone else have a family trick they doubted at first?

I thought weighing ingredients was just for fussy people until my bread stopped being a brick

Switched to a $20 kitchen scale after three flat loaves and suddenly my sourdough in Portland looked like the pictures. Anyone else have a simple tool that fixed a big problem?

TIL that wrapping my brisket in butcher paper after the stall, something I thought was just a gimmick, actually gave me way better bark than foil ever did.

I tried it side by side on two 14-pound briskets last weekend, and the paper-wrapped one had a bark you could actually hear crackle when you cut it, so what other 'gimmicks' have you guys found that are actually legit?