#spendy

[unpretty]

i bought some plushy hammocks to finally get things off of the top of my bookshelf, and as a consequence just found some of my favorite and most expensive necklaces, which have been missing for literal years because i decided to put them somewhere safe (in a special box on top of the bookshelf)

[yeesiine]

You dont get older you get better!

[endeus]

$8.50 NUTRIENCED & BUDGETFUL

[mulderiloveyou]

No but literally there’s no space between them

Agents Scully & Spender: A Interdimensional Study in Lack of Personal Space

BONUS:

[sleepnoises]

i posted about shing yin khor's a mending and people indicated they would like to know more!

a mending is a game where you pick two points on a map, your home and a friend's home, and draw or embroider a route between them. as you pass from one square of the map to the next, you draw cards. cards may be a random encounter or they may invite you to more deeply consider your relationship with your friend. you are supposed to mark events with beads, buttons, or stitches if playing on a fabric map, and it is suggested you journal as you go.

i did not journal or extensively embellish on my playthough because i had been putting off playing this for years for fear of its preciousness—a quick playthrough made me want to play again, slower, and luckily the fabric map will only look better with multiple paths.

the fabric version can be purchased at the link above. i also liked this article about it that expands out to include more crafting games.

[laurellament]

Did I not post these?

[lanonima]

I didn't say anything last week because they do take a little while to come through, but guess who got tickets to go see the Sailor Moon live show!!!!!!!!!

ME!!!

[matildathewolf]

I bought a Back to the Future poster and severely underestimated how big this thing was going to be. The wall I was going to put it on is too small for it; and now I have to rearranged ALL the posters in my room to accommodate Marty McFly.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Y'know, we've been experimenting with Noodler's a bit more, and honestly we think that the talk about the smell as a sticking point has been overstated somewhat. We might be biased by our own background, but we think a lot of the reason that it's so overstated is because it's being encountered by people who have never been on a farm before and are unused to the scent.

We like to have opinions on things. This post is on your dashboard for two reasons - one, we've been using this Charlie pen for something like two-three weeks now, and thus have gained enough experience to be comfortable making statements about it, and two, like every review we've seen online and also the one person we talked to about using Noodler's immediately hit us with "oh but the SMELL" and we honestly didn't find it that bad.

We have, for reference, a Noodler's Charlie pen (came free with Baystate Blue), and a few bottles at this point. Noodler's is a brand that, at least for us, stands out due to affordability (guy making them apparently has previously stated that he takes pride in how little money he makes off his ink, and we checked and they're legitimately the cheapest ink even when compared to clearance inks) and the ridiculous amount of properties they bake into inks (waaterproof, forgeryproof, flourescent, "bulletproof", freeze-resistant - there are a good chunk of these that bind to the cellulite in paper, and Baystate Blue specifically is known for staining pens and such). Its pens are made with a vegetal resin that is cheap, biodegradable, and known for its smell. We also had one guy bring up the inks having an odor.

While the pens are where the "smell" note came up most often, we find that it's honestly... less bad than billed? It's noticeable when you put it up to your nose, but leaving it out in sunlight for a few days, as most manufacturers recommend, definitely does make a difference. The immediate smell is best described as putrescent - it reminds us a bit of manure, which is definitely something some people will have less tolerance for. With exposure to sunlight, it mulls into something more akin to a rich fertilizer, which we personally find somewhat pleasant, though YMMV on that.

This pen smells more when it has been used often - body temperature and sweat will get it smelling stronger, and it may stick to your fingers for a few minutes. Putting it down before writing again will get it back to its neutral state - and with the specific pen, doing this every now and then is a good idea anyways, since the Charlie Pen when eyedroppered can have excess flow if the hand's body heat causes the air inside of the pen to expand. This is probably a dealbreaker to some - we don't blame them, if so! This is an acquired taste, for sure, and we feel that a lot of our personal view on this particular manufacturer works the same way as

The chemical smell on inks is something that we'd definitely agree with with some, but not all - we have a sample vial of Noodler's Black Eel, and it has enough surface tension that it acts more like a simulation of a liquid than an actual liquid. It smells sharply artificial, like silicone condensed into a liquid. It is intense and distinctly unnatural and honestly it's a really fun substance to play with partially because of this. Other inks, like Southwest Sunset (3 oz bottle, obtained a few months ago by now), are significantly less... pronounced? There's a chemical smell, but it certainly isn't noticeable unless you stick your nose right up in there. Honestly, we think that unless you're getting a lubricant ink, it's nothing to worry about.

If we paid fifty dollars for this pen, then we might consider these complaints to be... hmm, more significant? The Noodler's Charlie Pen we have was free, and writes better than a $50 pen - and we do mean legitimately free, we checked the price of the ink and it adds nothing to the price to add the pen. Things like Noodler's Flex pens are ten bucks below the next most expensive thing and much prettier. Your mileage may vary, of course - we have a relatively sensitive nose, but we also grew up in the middle of fuckass nowhere and had more than enough time to get used to the smells of livestock and animals, whereas we could easily imagine that someone who didn't grow up on a farm would be shocked and disgusted by the smell. But it's a free pen, we like "biodegradable and sturdy", it functions better than our more expensive ones, and... honestly, we kind of think the resin is worth the price of admission.

This post does not necessarily have a purpose - it is, mostly, us sharing our opinions on something, and you should take it how you will. Most sellers recommend that you leave the pen out in sunlight to sap the smell, and we noticed that it was more or less gone when our of use after about a week and a half of that. Our $0 Charlie pen has a significantly better flow than our $25 Pilot Metropolitan, and a less scratchy nib. We feel like if it works it works - you may want a less strong-smelling pen, or a pen that doesn't need to be left out in sunlight for a week. Though we, of course, can be more than caught up in form, we tend to vastly prefer function over looking fancy, so this has become one of our most well-used pens over the past little bit.

So we aren't just obliterating your dashboard - here's a picture of the moddle, and of our foster kittens serving as our backdrop for our Charlie pen. Do what you will with this information. Also, to our loyal followers, thank you for continuing to attend our blog posts as we slowly descend further into the madness of fountain pens. We refuse to buy anything that costs over $100 without a job and at least a few years sunk into the hobby, but Fountain Pen Day has given us a handful of sales good enough to get spendier pens that would otherwise be out of our price range, so you will probably be hearing about those soon enough.

[terra-tortoise]

not bad!

[revolver-starman]

Just thinking about my next super sandwich. It's an art and it's been too long since I've cooked one up.

"What is a super sandwich?" you might find yourself asking...

Well I'm glad you asked. Go to your favorite grocery store and guided only by the spirit of culinary creativity wander around looking for anything that might be good smashed between veggies, meats, and cheeses.

It is important that you do not go in with a plan. You are merely a vessel for the sandwich you are about to birth into the world. This said I do like to have some rule

1) Variety. I like to have at least three different meats, three different cheeses, and three different veggies

2) Get weird with it. Try that ingredient or sauce. Why settle for normal mayo when there's that weird soft plastic Japanese mayo with the baby on it? Why go for normal mustard when you can hunt down the perfect coarse ground for you? You will know what's right, because the sandwich will tell you.

3) If it's worth doing its worth overdoing. The place you're at has a bakery? Buy the loaf of sourdough and ask them to cut it extra thick. Why settle for plastic bags of cheese when you can get the good stuff. Buy a grade higher of meat than you usually would, or get the veggies fresh instead of frozen.

The most important thing is if there are extra steps you can take, you really should take them.

For example: after getting the bread sliced specially I like to toast it in three distinct phases to give it the best texture and taste. First pouring a little olive oil into a skillet and toasting the bread by hand on the stovetop, followed by hitting it with the good mayo and toasting it just a little further while the mayo is on it, then finish the toasting when I melt the cheese onto both top and bottom. Each step absorbs something into the bread while crisping it up perfectly.

If you stick to this guide and follow the spirit of creativity while remembering that there's no kill like overkill you will come out with something tasty. No two should be the same, given the variety in ingredients and methods you can employ. By the time you're done your sandwich should be art, and you'll be very proud.

[importantandunavoidable]

guess who has resorptive lesions!! 😋

[unpretty]

there's a dragon hoard ita bag.... how is my wallet supposed to thrive under these conditions

i'm telling myself that it's fine and i'll probably cancel some of them before the campaigns are over and therefore there's no harm in jumping in and getting the early bird specials. but also. i am not going to do that. and the charges that hit my account in a month will be truly terrifying.

[holedyke]

Why haven’t you moved out?

uhhhhh money?

[shapedforfighting]

A trip to the thrift store would fix me

[botaniqueer]

When you wind up with surprise plant mail because you made an order that you completely forgot about. 😅

(Right after you made another order for the same seeds because you didn’t remember the first time…)

I really wanted to try oysterleaf again! I tried with partial success several years back at my old place, though they weren’t entirely happy due to their pots being too small. Supposedly they taste like oysters but I’ve never eaten those so I can’t say. To me they have a slightly marine kelpy taste. They’re also edible and very pretty!