Hot take: I actually liked the final season of Game of Thrones

Everyone online acts like season 8 ruined their whole lives but I watched it all in 3 days last month and thought it was fine. The pacing was rushed for sure, especially Daenerys turning crazy so fast, but the big moments still hit for me. Jon killing her in the throne room gave me chills even if I saw it coming. The battle at Winterfell was dark to look at on my old TV but rewatching with brightness up fixed that. Brienne finishing Jaime's page in the book got me more emotional than I expected. Maybe I just didn't have years of hype built up since I started the show late but I never understood the pure hate. Has anyone else here actually rewatched it recently and felt differently than the crowd?

Blew $150 on a specialty crimper that did the same job as my old one

Picked up that fancy Deutsch crimper everyone talks about thinking it would fix my connector issues. Turns out my old 10 dollar ratcheting one from Amazon did the exact same thing for most pins. Now it's just sitting in my box collecting dust. Anyone else buy a tool they thought was a game changer but ended up being a waste?

Still have a bookmark from 2006 about using a paperclip to jumpstart an old Saturn

That writing workshop at the library killed my love for prompts

I went to this free workshop at the downtown library last month thinking it'd be fun. The instructor handed out a prompt about a door that opens to a different year and people spent 45 minutes writing 3 paragraphs. Meanwhile I'm sitting there with a blank page because deadlines and prompts just stress me out. Has anyone else found that structured writing events actually make it harder to be creative?

Checked out that new flooring place on 99 Street

Went to that new tile and hardwood place that opened up near the old Rona. They had a whole display of laminate that looked like it was made for a spaceship, silver and shiny. Has anyone else seen that stuff or am I just out of touch with current trends?

Hit 500 elevator inspections this week and it hit me different

I was going through my paperwork on Tuesday and realized I just did my 500th inspection since I started my own company back in 2019. That's a lot of doors opening and closing, man. It made me think about all the little quirks I've seen across different buildings around St. Louis. Has anyone else ever kept count of something like that and been surprised by the number?

Am I debating if extraction time really matters as much as we think?

I spent like 45 minutes on a single cystic breakout last week trying to get it to release clean. Some clients swear by the 10 minute rule for extractions, but I had one that took nearly 20 minutes with alternating steam and pressure. My mentor says if it's not coming out in 5 minutes, leave it alone and try again later. But that red mark stayed for days anyway, so what's the real difference? Anyone else feel like the timing rules are way more flexible than they teach in school?

Had a panel lock fail during a fire alarm test at a school gymnasium in Austin

The master key just snapped off in the lock and I had to drill it out with 200 kids standing in the parking lot, so now I always carry a backup lock pick set for those old Honeywell panels.

I swapped from a cheap $20 parts washer pump to a Graymills and the difference in cleaning power was like night and day.

After three months of fighting with the cheap one clogging on every other job, the Graymills unit blasted through a caked-up set of injectors from a 6.7 Powerstroke in under ten minutes, so what's your go-to for cleaning really nasty parts?

Met a guy in a 1998 AOL chat room who taught me how to make a pixel heart

It was in a room called 'Pixel Art Palace'. My screen name was 'Sk8erGirl92'. This user, 'VoxelMan', sent me a private message. He said my avatar was cool but my signature graphic was jagged. He asked if I wanted to learn anti-aliasing. I said sure. He spent an hour walking me through it, step by step, in MS Paint. He told me to 'use the pencil tool at 1px, pick a color between the line and the background, and dot it along the edge'. We made a tiny red heart. I saved it as 'heart.gif'. Never talked to him again after that night. But I used that trick for years. Anyone else have a random stranger teach them a core internet skill back then?