greetings from my desktop. writing this blog from an actual keyboard is so much more comfortable than phoneposting.

not much to say today, finally did the yardwork since we got a little break from the rain. got a call from my mother, mechanic wanted to charge her $700 to replace a radiator fan. $100 part and 1 hour of labor. I will be doing this for her this weekend. i hate mechanics, the markup and labor for simple shit is absolutely nuts. i've been doing all my maintenance at home for years and have probably saved a few thousand by now doing brakes, oil, suspension, and some other miscellaneous repairs of the last few years. I've probably only spent $1,000 on hand tools and power tools. You can get a lot done with an impact wrench, some impact sockets, a wrench set, allen and torx sockets, a few ratchets, screwdrivers, pry bars, a few hammers, a few types of pliers, and some extensions. Plus a jack stands, and if you're impatient like me, a full size hydraulic floor jack. That all might sound like a lot, but you can store all that on a small cart, and if you shop smart most of your hand tools are gonna run you $10-20 each. Amazon and harbor freight are amazing for cheap, but decently made tools for DIYers. You could start with nothing, walk into harbor freight with about $300 and get the bare minimum tools to do common repair jobs. Any weird stuff you run into later will probably cost you an odd $10-20 here and there for those edge cases that you will inevitably run into. If you want to get fancy, add another $100-150 for an impact, $100-$150 for a floor jack. But if you fall into the trap of buying tools you don't need you could easily spend a small fortune. For the most part I only buy tools I need, but I have spent some money of little things that make life easier, and have bought some little novelties that were not necessary at all. I might buy a bunch of tools I don't need during my next Japan trip coming up in two weeks. I plan on visiting some actual tool stores in Japan for the first time. The closest thing to a tool I bought on my other trips were probably nail clippers and chopsticks. I kind picked up the tool bug very recently. I've owned tools all my life, but only really started buying some "serious" tools of my own this year. Before this year I was more of a clueless casual tool buyer, but somehow I'm starting to turn into a little bit of an enthusiast and completion. I'm not crazy enough to spend big money on brand name tools yet, that would be a huge waste of money. Though I do plan on buying some premium Z series ratchets in Japan from Ko-ken. Maybe a nice adjustable wrench or two. And a proper 1/4" chrome socket set.

Ko-ken Z series ratchet

bed time is fast approaching, I need to hurry this up so I can go watch more conan...

Learned today that someone released a browser based Phantasy Star Online. Seems to be single player only at the moment. I'm not sure why this needs to exist when the privary servers are still alive in well, but it's still cool.

https://psoreborn.com/

I received a pile of junk from Aliexpress today. 53 items received, 17 to go.

Highlights from this package:

• Warsun T7 EDC flashlight. $6 well spent, the light is bright and magnet is strong. Should be helpful when working on the car.
• I fucked up and bought a stubby 10mm ratcheting wrench that does NOT have a flex head. I don't know what I was thinking, the flex head was only slightly more money and would be way more useful. Oh well.
• Pile of ESP32's with proper wifi antennas and related parts for a wardriving project. I'm planning on making something custom that logs APs quickly and accurately.
• $2 set of 1/4" sockets, these are definitely dogshit and would impact on an impact. These are for my travel tool set.
• Some stuff for my DIY bench PSU. I meant to start building that tonight but I forgot. Whoops. Not planning anything special, it's just going to be an old 24V PSU from a 3D printer repurposed with buck converters to supply 3.3v, 5v, and 12v via Wagos.

My head is becoming increasingly empty as I write

Here, my cat was enjoying the temporary trash pile

I don't think I did much else today, didn't watch anything noteworthy. Highlight of today was opening the pile of Aliexpress junk. I did drink three lattes. Man I love having a super automatic coffee machine. I could go on a ramble about how shitty cafes are in america, but I will just say my 50cent home made double espresso from a $300 machine beats the shit out of an $8 "artisan" drink from a local coffee place. I don't know how people open a place dedicated to serving coffee then serve the most mediocre drinks ever.

that's it for today, tomorrow if I'm feeling more motivated I should make a little post about my pwnagotchi or something (don't hold your breath)