Asklemmy

The best purchase I've made this year has to be the tickets for the "Barbie" movie on opening day July 21st. As I watched the movie in theater (the best way to watch a movie), I was literally moved to tears by the performance of the lead actress, whom I might add, deserves an Oscar this year.

Fellow lemmings, I, for one, will definitely be buying "Barbie" on Blu-ray to have it in my collection.

Multiple copies, in fact.

Good knives. Well worth it.

My house. Even though we have to pay taxes and mortgage interest, it beats paying rent to a landlord. Also, we bought it in 2020 and it has appreciated it value significantly since then. However, that appreciation is kind of fictitious to me, because if we sold the house it's unlikely that we'd be able to buy a similar one in the same area for less. So, it's just a nice house.

Off the top of my head no particular order:

• Proper mop bucket like heavy duty on wheels. Mopping takes minutes now, nothing has worn out in years, very little waste.
• Proper broom, not plastic. Got tired of all the waste from plastic ones wearing out so quickly. I got one of these and it is an amazing buy it for life kind of thing.
• Bidet
• An IDGAF pocket knife. All those times when I was young and just needed a vaguely knife-shaped piece of metal but dad was like "don't hammer that knife into that rock you'll damage the blade" or "don't hammer that knife into the can of beans" or "don't hammer that knife into the deer skull you found" well now IDGAF. Sturdy, cheap, doesn't matter it it holds an edge or stays clean.
• A Dremel. I don't have a lot of space and this thing is great for cutting random things I don't have real tools for.
• Respirator and impact goggles. Originally bought for going to protests but I've found they're just fantastic around the house. Don't want to breath in murder chemical while cleaning an oven? Or microplastics from sawing your latest art project in half? What about "This Dremel blade might explode if I use it like this and I don't want to lose my eyes"?
• Yak tracks, they work. I'm getting too old to fall on ice and walk it off.
• The right shoes for the job. Walking shoes, climbing shoes, hiking boots, brown leather heels for construction work, eight inch black leather stilletos for getting attention, blue suede boots for getting attention, six inch pink platform boots for getting attention, blue gogo boots for getting attention. They're all crucial to my day to day.
• Cats. They keep the sad away, works great.
• Jars everywhere. You can store spices, leftovers, paperclips, q tips, an array of rocks for making minis, paints, pepper ferments. They are so versatile and easy to clean I have maybe 150 or so of them currently.
• Air fryer. Didn't think I'd like it but I'm a convert now they're great.
• A growing collection of glues. I don't know why but the ability to properly fuse shit together unlocks so many possibilities. This is a new discovery for me.
• A growing collection of solvents. Like the reverse of glue the ability to clean things in specific ways is great.
• Metal wire shelves. They're versatile, sturdy, relatively cheap, easy to break down and transport if you've been averaging a move a year for ten years.
• A small sewing kit. Great for small repairs. I've added years to some of my dresses by catching weak points early and doing 10 minute fixes.
• Proper electric toothbrush. Even the fanciest ones are cheaper than dental work.
• Lastly, a bin of compost in your living room because you live in a city and don't have much access to dirt. Feed it very slowly so it doesn't rot. Keep roly polies in there, they're cute, and springtails to prevent mold, they're also cute. When you feel sad about living in a cement and steel environment just crack that thing open and pretend you're looking at a forest floor. Dig around a little see how the worms are doing. Bother your nesting partner by grabbing fistfuls of it and loudly exclaiming "dirt smells great today really earthy!"

Edit to add, how could I forget this? I just got home and in my entryway there is an 18 unit locker like the kind you would find during a Bed Bath going out of business sale and they're getting rid of everything including the employee lockers in back, you know the ones. I'm poly so each of my partners and my nesting partner's partners get to pick their own locker to keep overnight supplies in. There are unclaimed lockers for guests to store small things, and some that are effectively house mandatory junk drawers. Also serves as a lost and found when like partners leave phone chargers or whatever else behind. Great purchase.

Vasectomy. Before I got my vasectomy, I had a lot of anxiety that the condom might fail and an unwanted pregnancy would occur. That's not to say vasectomies can't fail, they can, even years afterwards, recanalization can happen so I get tested every year.

Annual failure rate of condom (average use) is 18%, and with perfect use it's 2%. This means that over a span of 20 years, even with perfect use, there is a 33% chance for a pregnancy which is too high for me. A vasectomy with annual testing of sperm count is as close to zero as possible.

Decent quality automatic cat feeders.

We have 3 cats, and I resisted getting autofeeders for 5 years because it felt silly to buy what amounts to three $75 food bowls.

They paid for themselves the first weekend I didn't have 3 razor sharp dickheads screaming at me to feed them at 5:15 AM. I should have bought them years ago.

My synology NAS. It’s great being able to have a central place for all my files that’s platform agnostic.

Bidet, easy, second choice was an AMDGPU, fuck nvidia.

My IKEA 100cm blahaj for 30€. Now I don't feel as lonely every night.

My dog. Easily the most value I've ever got for my money, no comparison.

Electrical tape, anything I don't know how to otherwise fix, electrical tape fixes it in a pinch. Haven't tried it with relationship issues yet, though.

A robotic vacuum cleaner. I just have to clear the dust bin weekly and manually mob some spots that the robot couldn't clean

25 years ago I bought an IKEA printer cart to hold a computer tower and a UPS and stuff. It was like a billy line, so it was particle-board (aka beaver chow) but at least 20-odd years ago it wasn't the hollow-core shit like so much of their stuff. I could screw in a mount for a switch and stuff.

Fast forward 25 years. I've moved-house 10 times, three of them coast-to-coast moves, and this thing is festooned with old cable-tie mounts, two switches (hp1810 and er-x) some test-rig APs for a project, a work laptop on top and its 4th APC unit (movers beat the hell out of them).

Good as new. I'm amazed that the beaver-chow actually held together, but I've kept it safe from its kryptonite: water. I've rolled it out and around to work on a tower on the top as a workbench l, and I've loaded server after server into it as they lifecycle out.

Barring calamity, I could bequeath this fucker.

My 2nd monitor. It's some 24" curved 165Hz 1080p monitor that I bought from a guy at my university for $105. While not the best for gaming (noticable ghosting), it's been incredibly helpful for work as it gets more complicated in university. The extra screen real estate lets me fit so much more without needing to alt tab or click on another window.

Multiple computer monitors

I love being able to have chats / reference materials up on one screen while working on another

A bicycle with a full chain case. They're hard to find in the U.S. Bike mechanics say it's because they're a pain to work on, but the cool thing is that you hardly ever have to work on them. When riding in the winter, I'd have to clean the gears and chain every couple of weeks, and then replace the drivetrain almost every year. With the chain case, so far my maintenance has consisted of oiling the chain a handful of times in three years.

Hard plastic pan scrapers, kinda like these.

A friend had a bunch in her kitchen when I was housesitting and I took one home. First started using it in my air fryer to get rid of gunk without scraping up the finish, but now I use a set all over my kitchen. For all I know they've been around 20 years and I never knew. Dirt cheap, too.

Kerbal Space Program 1. I bought it in early beta for like $14, have received all subsequent updates for free because I bought it so early, sunk literally thousands of hours of enjoyment into it and come out with a solid basic understanding of orbital mechanics.

I cant think of a better return on investment I've ever made.

Bidet

Solar Panels

VR headset (originally to socialized during covid but ended up completely renewing my interest in video games)

Electric Scooter (an adult sized one with suspension). Ended up selling my ICE car when I realized the scooter isn't just for fun.

Buy a stanley thermos. If you leave it on a train track, it would probably derail the train and you would still have hot/cold liquid in there.

Noise cancelling headphones. My work requires a lot of air travel and I have trouble with loud noises in general. I bought a pair a year or so ago for just under $70 and it's as good or better than the more expensive one ($150 refurbished) I got in 2017. It also has a mode to let the external sound through if someone is trying to talk to you.

It really does eliminate some of the annoyance of air travel.

Purple bed. Super expensive but the most comfortable sleep I've ever had. Prior, I've spent way more on high-end pillow tops, but they eventually get lumpy. I've had a Purple 2 King matress for 6 years, and it's as good as day one. My #1 purchase ever, period. Sleeps cool and preasure perfectly. Makes me sad when friends ask for bed recommendations, and then they get the Costco bed in a box. Had a couple of them complain, and I just shrug. Might sound like an advertisement, but I 100% love this bed. But of a pain to change the protector since the King matress weighs over 200 pounds

Bought a cheap AU$40 pair of generic hiking poles. Use it for the entire Camino de Santiago. Friend borrowed for her Camino walk as well. I later used it for the first half of the Coast to Coasthike in UK. Earlier this year i used it for my Kumano Kodo hike. Still going strong.

The highest end Green Pan cook set. I've had expensive cookware before, but these are unbelievable. Actually makes me want to cook more.

In 2009 I bought a lot of 10 late 90s Sun servers (1997 machines upgraded a few years later with better CPUs) for $300. Original list price about $2.5 million. After fixing a few problems and swapping parts to max out half the machines, I kept a few as my compute servers, and traded the rest for SGIs. An Onyx for the museum, and a small (one 6' rack) Origin-2000 for myself.

A decent blender. Not anything industrial like a Vitamix, it's a Magimix which was about half as much but still durable and has replaceable parts. It's fine for what I need and is lasting much longer than the pile of crap I had before.

Vacuum pack bags for clothes is another one. I like to keep my wardrobe seasonal but I don't have much space, so packing it down helps.

Also anything reusable: PTFE/silicone baking sheets, rechargeable batteries, reloadable floss handles. All of these have saved recurring purchases, money over time and reduced waste (which made me feel good.)

High end PC I built. Players every game I'd wanna play super well and is far more reliable than any other PC I've owned

I bought the Rockwell 6S razor a few years ago and it's one of the best purchases i've ever made.

Kuru brand shoes. I'm on my feet for 12 hours shifts and I actually have zero foot pain, they're amazing. Also I have extremely high arches, and the Kuru Quantums are the first shoes I've ever owned in my entire life that I don't have to add orthotic arch supports.

I buy a new pair twice a year.

Electrostatic capacitive rubber dome keyboard. …Such a pillowy, smooth travel compared to every mechanical keyboard. I wish there were higher demand so I could get an ergonomic one instead of basically being limited to what Topre or NiZ release.