Whenever I moved into a new place in the '90s, I’d have a phone line installed in my room (I was always a roommate to somebody) and it only ever cost me $12 a month. Special Lifeline Service for poor people.

Not sure why I ever did this since I was never home.

On par except that are three of them at once.

I’m not doing any more bottle babies until I’m collecting Social Security and don’t have to work or sleep.

No lynx native to my area. But a bobcat is always an option. Some legends tell of cougars. I can always hope.

We had four cats die within a year. All orange boys.

Then one day I get a call from a place I’m doing Trap Neuter Release. Some mom just dropped three kids on a porch. I go grab the kids and set a trap for mom. I get the kids home. Three orange girls, two are bobtails. I’ve been on the hunt for an orange girl for years. Jackpot.

Really hoping we get mom because these are bottle babies. Get mom. Orange girl with even less tail.

I know I’m probably keeping mom no matter how feral she is. Definitely one of the kids too.

Time to make the decision. Which kid to keep. Wife vetoes me. We are keeping them all. Plus two more orange girls that will show up over the year. I have six orange girls. Probably more than anyone on the east coast. So much foster fail. So few braincells.

Eventually tame mom after 12 months and multiple attempts on my life. So many orange girls.

I foster extra spicy kittens and tame them so they can be adopted. Each time one bites me I think about how I have almost no insurance and this could be the one that unalives me. Those puncture bites are amazing. This little predator weighing less than 1% what I do can do me in with just their teeth.

My pet geese are so much safer.

One got transferred to a hospital last winter and eventually got into some kind of housing situation.

One tends to hang out at the Walmart.

Others are frequently in and out of one of the two hotels in town. We had three but they tore one down.

My place isn’t paid off but it is cheap enough that I can say what would change and, importantly, what wouldn’t.

My monthly payment is just under $700 a month. About $400 of that is the actual mortgage. The rest is basically property taxes and insurance. I’d save $400 a month but would still have to pay $300. Assuming I didn’t decide to just earn $400 less a month then that $400 would have to go back into the property. I need a new roof. I need a new HVAC (AC died three years ago). A new roof and AC would cost almost a quarter of my original mortgage. So in the end not much would change financially.

An important thing to remember about home ownership is that on average you are going to spend about 1% to 3% or a dollar a square foot on home maintenance each year. I had to replace my septic system months after buying the place, 7.6% of the home price. I had to replace my water heater a few years ago. Fortunately it’s located outside the building so no water damage and I was able to do that replacement myself so instead of spending $1800 for someone else to do it I did it for $450.

Once I have even a little spare money I need to do some roof repairs, not pay someone else to do it.

No might. Only do. It is frequently ranked as the best Star Trek movie even though bits not Star Trek. Patrick Stewart didn’t like the very idea of it and then Jonathan Franks made him watch it. Patrick Stewart had to admit that he was wrong. He loved it.

It takes just as long to cook, and has the texture of parboiled rice.

I have power tools. I had like 7 batteries for them. I saw that they offered a USB adapter so I could charge my cell phones. $20. I quickly stopped using wall warts and standard battery packs. 5 amp hours, hot swappable, always a battery in the charger so I could never run out of power. Power tool batteries are built to higher specs than typical cell phone chargers so they didn’t die after 10 chargers. The batteries are rugged so a drop doesn’t destroy them.

My tools were stolen. I replaced all my Makita with Harbor Freight Hercules brand, their premium brand. Half the cost of Makita and actually better designed in a lot of areas. I quickly bought the USB adapter because I could never live without it again.

If you have power tools and always use them, I’m a handyman, then a USB adapter is a must.

Yes. Anything more than 2000 mg, aka two freaking grams, is likely to cause diarrhea. Because that’s the symptom of a Vit C overdose. It will cause your body to flush water and with it other water soluble vitamins. Unless you are lactating or a blood test says you need more there is no reason to consume more than 120 mg a day. And with the Standard American Diet [SAD] you will get plenty of vit c because so many things are fortified with C that not getting the RDA is very difficult.

So by taking 3 grams a day you, waste money, flush other vitamins potentially creating new issues, spend too much time on the pot.

Vit C is clinically proven to prevent scurvy. And that’s about it. Its benefits are extremely over stated by people trying to take your money. Airborne is a scam.

I like the way you think

This caused me to think about upside versus downside and benefit versus some word that isn’t anti-benefit, unbenefit, abenefit, ilbenefit, irbenefit, imbenefit, inbenefit, debenefit, disbenefit. There is no etymological related antonym to benefit.

Everyone uses the name that China used. I guess that’s the benefit and downside of only having one neighbor.

Having enough money to keep a tropical aquarium running is very relaxing.

I’m doing my part.

Thank you.

Instructions unclear. Is this a place for weirdos or a place to highlight weirdos?

But that’s not what people mean when they say GMO in this context. Otherwise they would use GMO in front of every food item name unless they were referring to foraged goods with no domesticated equivalent.