Overheard a guy at the scrap yard talking about his forge lining

He was telling another smith he mixes a little bit of wood ash into his clay for the forge floor. Said it helps the lining handle the heat changes without cracking as much. I tried it with about a cup of ash in my last batch, and my little coal forge has held up way better over the winter. Has anyone else tried something like that, or have a different trick for keeping a forge lining solid?

Remember buying a 56k modem for my Geocities page

I saved up about $120 from my part-time job to get a faster modem back in 1998. It was supposed to make uploading my pixel art and MIDI files so much quicker. Honestly, it still took forever, and the connection would drop if someone picked up the phone. But it felt like magic watching those tiny animated gifs load line by line. Anyone else have a specific piece of hardware that defined their early web building?

That week in January where every job was a creosote monster

We had a cold snap in my town, and folks ran their wood stoves non-stop for about ten days straight. I went to six houses in a row where the flues were just packed with thick, tarry creosote, way worse than normal. The worst one took me over three hours with rods and a heavy duty brush to clear out. Has anyone else seen a spike like that after a sudden freeze?

PSA: I wasted $40 on a 'smart' planner that needs an app to work

Bought a fancy planner from a company called 'DayCraft' because it promised to sync my tasks. Turns out you need to scan QR codes with your phone for everything, which defeats the whole point of writing things down. I just wanted a simple paper book, not another screen. Anyone have a good recommendation for a basic, no-gimmicks weekly planner?

Bought a $75 notebook at a yard sale that turned out to be a detailed plan to steal a garden gnome.