I have a lap cat so I get lots of cat-in-lap time 🐱
My ABCC11 gene is in it’s recessive AA form.
Which is more common in Asians, but I am European. This means my earwax is almost white and completely dry, which makes it just crumble/flake out. But more importantly, my sweat is almost odourless. I am a bigger dude and sweat a lot as it is. When I used to take a certain medication that made me sweat insane amounts I would literally be wet above the belt when I walked a minute. No stank. I check regularly and have my partner check my smell but I legit have to shower more often because my hair is greasy than because of body odour. When I had super short hair the thing that made me want to shower is when my skin gets oily, which happens after about five days. I still shower every other day because hygiene, but it’s a really nice perk.
Don’t be too jealous though, nature balanced that out with heaps of mental health issues.
My mom had this and also no leg hair. She told me “I shaved it once and that worked, it never came back”. Not Asian as far as I know but part Native American or Mexican, she never found out because her dad was so estranged from his family.
Fun, I never heard about these before ! here’s all my good vibes for your mental health
Thanks, it’s well under control now, but I had some shit years, not gonna lie.
Do you have everything you need? Like, can someone take away your shit without your permission, to what extent are you able to self-determine your life as of now?
Oh, all’s well, friend. Long story short: Mega heavy depression from early teens, diagnosed in my early twenties after years of substance abuse, tried to off myself, odyssey of therapists, got better for some years, got bad again, got a great psychiatrist, got on some fantastic meds that we tweak occasionally (got rid of the sweaty pills).
I’m in my thirties, have a family, life is good (apart from /late-stage capitalism and my countries slow and seemingly inevitable decline into fascism).
My absurd luxury is probably my PC. I had a pretty decent one but saved for 1yr and built a $2,600 one. It was unnecessary in almost every sense of the word.
Same, been the only thing I will throw money into since I use it all day. I got 2k saved up for a new GPU as my 1080 is starting to show its age. Waiting on the 5000 series and I move the old card to the old PC and use to as an Ai server or something cool.
Truuueeeee, I have my old PC waiting on me for some project still. I just gotta figure out what maybe as an intro to Linux main? It has a 1080 as well so it should definitely be a capable machine!
I take almost 30 minutes to make 2 eggs some mornings, but they’re perfectly cooked and wonderful.
Gaming PC, PS5, VR headset…
Shit now I feel bad cuz I’m imagining some starving kid covered in flies just watching my fat ass play games in awe and anger.
When washing my hands, I use an electric soap dispenser.
I once bought an electric hand dryer for the “office” bathroom in my house.
Washing my hands, I use a $1 bottle of dollar store soap, feels pretty luxurious (I’m a broke university student and my codormatory had no soap before I bought it don’t judge).
I’m gonna judge you so hard for doing something positive for your living space.
🥇
why is a cat in your lap an absurd luxury?
I guess in the same vein, my dogs sitting in my lap
I get to handle over $1 million in musical instruments every day for my job.
(I’m a church organist and pipe organs are insanely expensive)
I sit in the back of my car in the parking ramp on my lunch break, throw my Nintendo Switch on a seatback headrest mount, and play Diablo II like I’m flying first class. First time I’ve ever had something with 4 doors and I’m using every damn door
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I will try to emulate your good example
It’s ok Nintendo, calm down, he didn’t mean that kind.
Clean tap water.
People have no idea how fortunate this is until it’s gone. Several years ago we had a bad algae bloom in the river that supplies our water and we couldn’t drink it for a couple weeks. Every store in town was out of water and you had people with well water leaving hoses and signs out front of their house offering it up to people. One Pilot gas station tried scalping 6 packs of Dasani for ~$50. It’s so crazy how you take it for granted until you can’t just go to the sink to fill up a cup of water (we have excellent tap water) along with taking for granted the fact that stores have bottled water on the shelves.
Ever since then we’ve kept a small stock pile of water in the garage just in case.
Thanks, i sould appreciate it more. Tap water in switzerland is maybe even healthier as bottled water.
I have a Xbox series x
Day AND night moisturizer for my face and eyes feels pretty absurd and with inflation over the last four years is entering what I consider to be luxury territory for my budget.
But, I love taking care of my skin and looking nice, and my face feels amazing after applying the moisturizer, so whatever.
What moisturizer(s) do you use? Just curious!
My day regimen is:
Neutrogena Mens 3-in-1 Face Lotion and RoC eye cream
Night regimen is:
IFUDOIT Retinol Cream and Era Organics Eye Cream
And I keep a bottle of Ceravie with 30 SPF on my desk to use when I take the dogs out for walks. It works really well if you’re consistent. I am in my 40’s but get mistaken for early 30’s all the time.
Can it be biological? I’m approaching 40 and I’ve been asked to show ID buying alcohol until I got fed up and grew some beard… I don’t use this kind of products, I’m happy to live with just soap and shampoo and when it’s reeeeeealy hot outside and I just need to go out for long period of time I use whatever sunscreen I can find.
Yes, part of it’s biological too, no doubt.
I have a smartwatch, which I got for my birthday. I have no real need for such a thing, but I really do enjoy it. I spend most of my time at home, and it’s nice to not have to do stuff like go find my phone and take it outside with me if I want to sit on the deck in case I get an important text or call or miss an alarm.
Also, because other people are mentioning audio and music- my dad was born in 1931 and died in 2016. He absolutely loved classical music and was a real expert on it, especially the Russian composers. He pointed out that in his lifetime, if he wanted to listen to recorded classical music, he had to go from multiple 78 records, about 3 minutes per side, which you had to just keep flipping over and switching to the next one if you wanted to listen to something long (this is where the word ‘album’ came from, it was originally a literal album full of 78s) to a smartphone or mp3 player that could hold virtually every CD in his massive collection.
That was definitely a luxury, but a luxury that gave him a whole lot of comfort in his old age.
I just hung up on a telemarketer from my wrist. God, that was satisfying.
Like slamming down the receiver of an old land line, I imagine you did this by slamming your fist through drywall.
Sadly, I am a little weakling.
I have a human who feeds me and does whatever I want, even lets me sit on their lap all day 🐱
Coffee
Love muh tea muhself
I usually try a new single origin every month, and this is the first time I’m reordering one because it is so good. Some stuff is pretty unique and I never see it again, so I can’t miss out on more of this.
It’s like pineapple and brown sugar and is so sweet and refreshing, especially at room temp or fridge temp. When it’s hot outside, it’s a bit tougher to find a coffee I get excited about and this stuff rocks.
FWIW cold brew coffee is extremely easy to make, gives a different flavor profile than brewing with the same beans hot, and I find it super refreshing in hot weather. My only complaint is the extraction is inefficient so you go through a lot more beans for the same amount of beverage, which irks me. But then again, sounds like you’ve got the situation sorted, that tea sounds great.
That cold brew method is how I got into coffee, since I didn’t like it much at the time, so I didn’t have a coffee machine or anything specialized. I made the extract and made cafe au lait with it.
My current method for most days is to make coffee right before I go to bed. If I want it warm to hot, I’ll Aeropress and add warm or hot water in the morning. If I want it cold, I do pour over. I put it into a mason jar, and I think it keeps the original flavor profile really well, at least well enough for when I stumble to the kitchen at 5 am.
It’s not the same as the cold brew method, but the Aeropress with a metal filter is pretty close without the extra bean usage.
Cool! For the cold, are you just saying you put water and grounds together in a mason jar overnight, then use the Aeropress with the metal filter in the morning to strain? Cuz that’s pretty close to what I do. Mesh strainer (like for rinsing fruit), then through Aeropress with paper. Maybe I should try the metal instead, paper gets pretty gummed up and impermeable.
The metal filter will let the coffee oils through along with some of the fines leaving you with more flavor and mouth feel that the paper filter holds onto.
I’ve done the method you do, and if I’m remembering right, it’s much harder to press cold for some reason. I’ve done it that way hot too with very coarse grounds to clear up cowboy coffee when I want to make a bigger batch, but the gf doesn’t like the fines.
What I do is I make my Aeropress extract as normal. I do 20g beans, 200g water, inverted for 2 minutes and extract into the mason jar, cap it and toss in the fridge right away. Then in the morning, I add 150g water at around the temp I want to drink it.
It gets it immediately to the desired drinking temp, and the extract in the sealed container doesn’t taste old/stale/flat because it has been in the sealed jar, and it’s reheated by plain water, the coffee isn’t messed up microwaving it.
I do it mainly to put the effort in while I’m awake at night, and then all I have to do is microwave some water in the AM, so it’s either ready right away with tap water or fridge water if I want it cold or room temp, or in a minute to 90 seconds if I want warm or hot.
It’s essentially regular Aeropress brewing, but split over 2 days. Especially as the gf likes my coffee but doesn’t want to follow the steps and measurements, it lets me have 2 big cups of Aeropress first thing in the morning without all the measuring, boiling, and squeezing when I’m not in the mood for all that. Since we both don’t like scalding hot, fresh coffee anyway, it works out better for us, especially if we want different temps but at the same time to enjoy it together.
Interesting! I definitely see the advantages you mention. I’m curious about the strength, though, my understanding was that the cold brew just needs much more extraction time (which makes sense intuitively from a physics and energy standpoint). And you’re not using a particularly strong ratio, I actually use 1:8 for my overnight “steep”, slightly stronger than your 1:10.
With that said, you seem experienced. Works out to pretty “normal” strength coffee (whatever that means)? I guess something I’m vaguely remembering about the Aeropress is that the pressure itself helps it extract efficiently even with lower heat, but I’m not even sure how much pressure there would be with the metal filter.
Ah, I was not clear about the brewing water. The extraction is made with water just off boil, so it is a standard hot extraction. My final bean:water ratio is 1:18 which is fairly standard. I use that to scale up recipes when I do other things.
I don’t really consider any pressure from the Aeropress. With a clean paper filter or metal one, the pressure feels inconsequential. The Aeropress benefits to me are the immersion brew method of the grounds and the repeatability and adjustability of the brew since it’s all manual. You can tweak every variable, and I’ve never ended up with anything undrinkable from cowboy coffee to wannabe espresso.
Nice. I quit smoking weed and reduced my alcohol intake to near zero a few years ago. To make up for all of the lost ritual, I dove deep into coffee brewing. It’s the only part of my day that I have complete control over and I love that.
I will try those beans! Thanks for the tip.
Similar story here. Was never a huge drinker, but since getting on depression meds, the desire just isn’t there anymore, so I started exploring coffees and brew methods to keep up the taste adventures.
I take all mine black with sugar, as the sugar really brings out some of the flavors. This pineapple stuff has been great at all temps, but cooler temps make it bolder and more concentrated. It’s still very dominant hot though. I hope you enjoy it!
I’ve heard of people serious about coffee who use sugar. How much do you use? I’ve also seen people brew with sugar right in with the coffee grounds - do you do that or do you add it to your cup?
One of the hardest things to let go of when I gave up smoking pot was rolling joints. The ritual was so calming, and after several decades, a huge part of my life. But preparing a pour over coffee is so similar to that: wetting a paper, grinding, strong smells, heat. Not to mention the flavours of the different strains and the tinkering with the process to get the most out of your “stuff”. Only now I don’t bumble on like an idiot for 3 hours!
Lol I feel more guilty about saying how much sugar I use in my coffee than most other things I could tell you about myself. Everyone always acts like I use an obscene amount, but it’s far less than a soda.
I use 12-16g, which is 3 to 4 packets worth. If I go less than about 12, it gets in a funky place where I’d almost rather have none. The same size soda has 3 times as much. I swear it’s to being out the coffee flavor, since at a dinner I either won’t add any, or 1 pink packet if it’s rough. There it’s all roast and get gross if I add much sugar. With the good stuff though, it just makes all those great tastes shine so bright! All those judgey people ask drink coffee just for the caffeine, not to savor it and explore.
The routine is fun. I enjoyed the experimenting with grind size, steep time, and all that. There are far worse vices one could have than coffee, so I will continue to indulge myself a cup each day.
Ridiculously expensive tea from artisanal tea gardens. Like four bucks and more per portion (which you can brew 6-12 times in that sitting, though). It’s addictive and sets your standards so high, I can’t drink cheap tea anymore
Herbal tea or tea tea?
Doesn’t actual tea get unusable basically after the first wash due to tannins?
High quality tea can be brewed multiple times, you’d typically use a higher tea to water ratio than for a single steep though.
Green, pu erh and especially oolong teas also often change their flavor profile and taste in subsequent steeps, bringing out more nuanced flavors.
Tea tea :)
