That guy who painted a Subaru with rattle cans in his driveway

Tbh I saw a post on Facebook last week where some guy showed off his rust repair on a 2010 Outback near Portland. He used Bondo over bare metal and painted it with $5 rattle cans from the auto parts store. The body lines were gone and the clear coat looked awful in a week. Why do people skip the primer and sanding steps? Has anyone else run into customers trying to cheap out like this?

The day the Wayback Machine saved my research paper

I was writing about early 2000s indie game development and needed a reference from a site called GameDev.net that I knew had vanished around 2022. Found a cached snapshot from 2004 through the Wayback Machine with the exact forum thread I needed, including screenshots. Has anyone else had a dead link that actually had a preserved copy that saved their work?

Unpopular opinion: is meal prepping actually cheaper than cooking fresh every day?

Last week I spent $45 on ingredients for a 5-day meal prep and ended up throwing out two portions because I got sick of eating the same thing by Wednesday. But my coworker in Portland swears she saves $20 a week by prepping versus buying fresh each night - so is it really about saving money or just knowing your own habits?

That time I handed out 80 zines at a punk show in one night

Last Saturday I set up a small table at a basement show in Portland with a stack of maybe 100 copies of my latest art zine about abandoned gas stations. By the third band I had given away or sold around 80 copies just from people flipping through while waiting for sets. The funniest part was watching two kids argue over the last copy of the fold-out map I included. Has anyone else had a zine really take off at a live event like that?

Bought a Festool track saw for $650 and honestly kinda regret it

I dropped $650 on a Festool TS 55 last spring because everyone swore it would change my cuts forever. First week it worked great on some plywood panels for a closet build. Then the riving knife got stuck and I had to send it in for a $80 repair fee after only 3 months. My old $150 Skil circular saw with a cheap guide never gave me that kind of hassle. Am I missing something or did I just fall for the hype? Has anyone else dumped cash on a "pro" tool and felt burned later?

I still think that old Nokia 3310 was overrated

Met a guy at a coffee shop in Portland who swore it was the best phone ever made, but after 3 months with one in 2019 I just got annoyed at typing one letter at a time with no copy-paste. Anyone else try going retro and realize the nostalgia doesn't match the reality?

Appreciation post: old tile guy Carlos who told me to stop being so perfect

I was talking to this older guy Carlos who did tile work for like 30 years up in Santa Fe. He was helping me out on a backsplash job last month and I was going crazy trying to get every single grout line exactly level. He just laughed and said you're fighting the house not the tile, the walls are never flat. He said he learned that after his first year when he redid a whole kitchen floor three times trying to get it perfect. It hit different because I've been burning so much time being a perfectionist on jobs that nobody will ever notice. But then again part of me thinks quality is quality and you should aim for best you can. What do you guys think? Do you settle for good enough or fight it till it's dead level?

Ran a 200-pound bronze pour last Wednesday and the crucible cracked halfway through

We lost about 60 pounds of metal on the floor and the shift supervisor just stood there staring at the mess for a solid 30 seconds before anyone said anything, has anyone else had a crucible fail mid-pour on a big job like that?

PSA: Don't blow $150 on a drawing tablet stylus pen

I picked up one of those fancy pressure-sensitive stylus pens last month thinking it would make my digital paintings smoother. Spent a full $150 at a local shop here in Austin just to find out my old $30 stylus did the same thing. The tip wore down after three days and the replacement nibs cost another $20. Anyone else fall for the hype on these overpriced accessories?

Overheard a homeowner tell their kid 'the floor guy is just here to make noise'