If we’re talking hand tools, those 70s tools will be the best you ever use. In my experience the whole “they don’t make em like they used to” thing very much applies to tools. Nothing wrong with harbor freight tools though as long as you have realistic expectations. If nothing else, they are a good “trial run” to see how much you actually use it and if it’s worth getting an actually nice one.

Harbor freight has some diamonds in the rough, just gotta be careful of what you get there. Some stuff is great, some is crap.

I have one of those harbor freight Daytona 3 ton low profile ones that I really like. Also let me introduce you to the Project Farm channel on YouTube, he does non-biased scientifically fair comparisons of lots of different kinds of tools including jacks and jack stands.

Bow hunters?

Thinking a lot smaller here… I’ve always wanted to build a custom pinball machine. I already possess most of the necessary skills, but the materials are expensive and I don’t really have the time or space to do it right

The Wydah Pirate Museum in Cape Cod MA - it’s a smaller museum but it’s packed full of artifacts recovered from the wreck of an actual golden age of piracy ship (the Wydah, Black Sam Belamy’s ship which wrecked in Cape Cod). They have multiple weapons, cannons, and the only confirmed pirate treasure ever recovered. All the artifacts were just super cool, very few recreations of things almost everything is really from the actual wreck. The excavation of the wreck site is ongoing too, the last room in the museum is dedicated to showing how they recover items that have been encased in “concretions” and has lots of items actively being recovered so you can see the process happening.

Idk, I’m a golden age of piracy nerd for sure so this was super cool to me.

Seriously, the past 2 winters in the northeast have been the lowest snow on record by quite a margin. I’ve got some snowmobiles and normally can get in around 10-15 rides per season, but this winter we only got 3. Two of which were on the same weekend. The whole rest of the winter there wasn’t enough snow

Name’s Scruffy. The janitor.

Ive been considering buying a new old stock “backup pebble” for when mine goes. Basically the perfect smartwatch

Pebble is peak smartwatch. Fight me on it, I wont change my mind. Its just smart enough, without being too smart. Battery lasts for days, its waterproof, and side buttons instead if some impossible to use tiny-ass touchscreen. Perfection.

I was snowmobiling with my brother in an area with no cell service. We stopped for a break and I mentioned that the headlights kind of looked like Blinky the 3 eyed fish from the Simpsons. I have never said that out loud before or after, and I haven’t even watched the Simpsons in years. The next day I get an ad on Instagram for a sticker of Blinky the 3 eyed fish. Thats so specific it could not have been a coincidence. My phone must have heard me say that that one time, REMEMBERED it until I get back into an area with cell service, and then phoned home to tell whatever corpo that I might be interested in Blinky. Wild stuff.

Unpopular opinion - in Spotify (and Spotify ONLY) I actually like that it does this. I like discovering new music and Spotify seems to have really good recommendations sometimes. Sure they collect a lot of listening data - but how else could they give good recommendations if they don’t know what you like?

At least for movies, I’ve actually gone back to DVDs. I can find them for $1 each at the flea market or garage sales, and once I own them thats it - no subscriptions and nobody can decide to randomly remove them from my collection.

Isn’t it “embrace, extend, exterminate”?

I’ve started buying printers from the thrift store - my local Goodwill had a few. I got a wireless printer for $15 and ink for it for another $10. So for $25 I now have a functioning wireless printer, and at that price I can excuse DRM stuff since I’m still way ahead of buying even the most consumer-friendly new one

Preventative maintenance for the win. Just bought a 90s DeaDoo, noticed it had the original grey fuel lines. I know that those lines are notorious for breaking down and plugging fuel filters, thus killing engines. However, this SeaDoo ran perfectly as-is. I was too paranoid to just run it like that so I took it apart and sure enough, the fuel filter was all plugged up - probably would have killed the engine if I hadn’t checked and just kept running it