I see a lot of people get scared by the prospect of sharpening and it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Provided you don’t want to get so far into it that flawlessly sharpening knives becomes your entire pesonality (some guys do indeed make it their sole hobby, apparently) all you need is a decent double sided stone or maybe three diamond stones and you can produce an edge that’s quite good enough for nomal people.

Freehand sharpening on a stone isn’t for everyone and for that reason I propose there’s nothing wrong with a guided sharpening jig of some description. If you only want to buy one thing I always recommend the Work Sharp Field Sharpener.

There is a certain minimum threshold before bothering to take a flight becomes viable, and that’s if your flight is about 3 hours long or more. Otherwise you may as well drive if you can, because the amount of time you spend getting to the airport, getting fondled by the TSA, checking in, waiting to board, standing around in lines, waiting for your bags to show up, renting a car at your destination, etc. all adds up to be the same as just driving. It’s not actually any faster to fly when it still takes all damn day.

And then you can bring all your knives or weed or liquid bottles more than two ounces or whatever it is you’re into without getting thrown into Gitmo and when you arrive you already have your car (or motorcycle).

I’d doubt this is anything approaching universal, but where I am there definitely were three digit signs in the early aughts, which now appear to have all been replaced with two digit ones. I don’t know if this was for cost purposes or the proposed “high score” reason.

There was one right in front of the police station in the town I lived in back in the day, which was a full dot matrix display and didn’t even have discrete digit slots. It could display other messages if it wasn’t in speed readout mode. I passed it at about a buck twenty one night and discovered that it topped out at 99. It’s the first one I recall seeing that didn’t have a third digit, but then they became the norm pretty shortly thereafter.

The ones that are popping up like mushrooms around here now fit within the footprint of a normal speed limit sign and they have a dual color LED matrix that flashes a frowny face at you if you’re 0.01 MPH over the specified speed…

We’ll just have to observe him carefully and see if he’s able to complete a left turn without assistance. That’ll tell us for sure.

I’m going to come at this from the wrong angle and suggest filtered earplugs, the flavor of which I’m currently using are these “motorcycle” oriented ones which are indeed also the ones I use when riding.

There are a zillion variants and rebands of these, and if they all look the same to you that’s because you’re right, and they are. Variants exist being billed as “concert” or “high fidelity” earplugs, or shooter’s earplugs, or whatever the hell else. I noticed a few weeks ago Cabelas/Bass Pro is selling a set of plugs identical to mine but in different packaging and marketed towards shooters rather than riders. They all work the same way with a little plastic puck inserted in the middle that’s ventilated, and with a tiny diaphragm in it.

Regardless of flavor, the deal with these is that they dampen sound quite a bit with the key distinction of not making you completely deaf while you’re wearing them. They also do so while remaining discreet and not making you look like a berk, or as if you’ve got Airpods in. I’ve taken to using these for all tasks where I need hearing protection or want quiet, since I almost always have them on me anyway and they’re the least uncomfortable type of earplugs I’ve found so far for long term use that don’t also cost a mint. They’re washable and my first pair has survived being worn basically every day inside my helmet for about three years running.

Or possibly ten thousand spoons.

I’ve been summoned, just like Beetlejuice.

Yeah, print out that fuckin’ telephone because we called it. Sometimes it sucks to be right.

Prime is already a protection racket. Sure, we could deliver your package on time but we won’t unless you pay us extra to not artificially slow it down.

It’s amazing how so many people still haven’t realized this and dutifully pay for Prime because, “It’s just so convenient!”

Oh, that’s diabolical.

For similar reasons, I always kept Alabaster Potions around to sub out for the Meteor Shower (or Fireball, but Meteor Shower is more amusing). Pick white, you explode. Red, I’ll just give myself 4,294,967,296 health.

You know, I have a deck that could theoretically legitimately cast this by turn 4. Less if you were willing to abuse Lotuses or Moxes.

Usually I just dump all of that colorless mana into a Meteor Shower, though.

All of a true ninja’s tools have multiple purposes.

This works with Maraschino cherries, also. Helps you reach the bottom of the jar and keeps your fingers from turning red. Double bonus.

Said jar, by the way.

While we’re at it, then, “targeted” only has two T’s, not three.

^(Ducks.)

A friend of mine worked for the US Census Bureau for a while. Among their myriad binders and forms, etc. was a page full of tear-off perforated wallet size cards which contained no text or information on them whatsoever other than “do not distribute this card” printed on the back. And no, I have absolutely no idea what the purpose of these things was supposed to be. Nor apparently does anyone else.

So of course he dutifully tore them all off and quite deliberately handed them out to people. He gave me one. I might still have it someplace.

Oh, I’m sure they do. And charge eight times more than what they’re worth.

The oil filter. Not the air filter.

If only that boat could be made smaller somehow and fit inside the car.

The fact that these places always exclude the filter from their price and treat it as a “gotcha” add-on is deeply hilarious.

You have to replace the filter when you change the oil. That’s just how it works. It’s not special and it’s not extra. It’s literally the intended procedure.

Finally, a viable use case for that bar.