I am ridiculously organized and clean. I do that 5 minutes of swift pickup/wipe a few times each day.

That said, still have this drawer. There is always a collection of items that don’t seem to go “together” but they’re always used. That’s what this drawer is for.

I don’t get the stock picture though. It’s an obvious arrangement of tools that haven’t even been used.

I was there when “The Web” became available to the drooling masses. Nothing brought me more work in digital media than “easy tools” that blow up if one screw isn’t turned just right.

Thanks man! Pics are up and I’m game to share and compare! I love learning what other peeople do

I can only show you the two I have left, because I give them away constantly. That’s part of the whole “must be recycled” thing… after this comment I’ll come back with some pictures just give me a moment…

In 20+ years of stoner engineering, I feel the most important thing is to keep the cloud chamber much, much, much, much smaller than you’d think.

We often see these huge “frat boy bongs” as I call them with huge bases and like 40cm tall throats. That’s an absolutely insane amount of wind to have to suck before you can even get the hit. Our lung capacity is limited, even moreso when we abuse them regularly with smoking. A hit from a bong is totally “broken” if the user has to stop, exhale to open lung space and keep going. That’s a fail.

The more time smoke has to sit around in or pass-through parts of a vessel that are colder than the smoke itself, you’re going to get a shitload of condensation. All that resin you see caked allll over your bong is evidence of excess condensation and reveals product being wasted. And that makes the hit wayyyy harsher too.

So the number one thing which runs counter to what people expect, is that “bong power” comes from keeping the vessel small, limiting the filtration, and ensuring the path from the smoke chamber to your lungs is a short as possible. When I say limit the filtration, passing the smoke bubbles through a few inches of water is sufficient, more than that just robs the smoke of its THC and defeats the point.

My homemade ones hit so hard people are blown away. It’s kinda crazy when you learn how to make them hit harder… the best one I ever made was made in a 250ml mason jar - it was tiny but hit like a TANK. Plus once you master the art, you discover you now need half the weed… not because it becomes “stronger” but now you find you’re smoking it at double the efficiency.

The other thing is NOT to select a vessel that is narrow on the bottom and widens as it gets to the top. There are some “fancy” bottles like from Crown Royal and such that just don’t work properly. There is something about fluid dynamics and how turbulence flows at boundaries… I don’t fully understand the hows/whys but I know the vessel needs to taper smaller. (The part with the water needs to be the big part of the vessel)

edit: Here are pics of the 2 I’ve still got. The one in the Crown Royal bottle is neat and it delivers good hits but my neighbor fucked up the bowl (and my cutting bit!) when I was teaching him how to cut glass. Also I’m going to throw this one away (keep the components just chuck the bottle) as it’s incorrect shape. I just wanted to play on this one because I found some discarded paint markers. The skull jar was given to me by the same alcoholic neighbor that wrecked the bowl and my cutting bit, and I’m just carving a nice custom tiny glass bowl for it now. The pieces on it were actually repurposed from the Mason Jar one I mentioned earlier.

Pics all out of order because I’m feeling lazy RN

https://postimg.cc/gallery/mHqq4GV

I like making homemade bongs and water pipes specifically from reclaimed materials. I’m not strident about things, but it’s fair to say in a general sense that I need them to have $0.00 of material costs. I make “the best” in terms of performance, and people freak out when they use or see them. They are always a huge conversation piece, always creative, and I just give them away. People ask me all the time to make custom ones but I won’t. It’s free or nuthin’

I know people that still use water pipes I made for them 15 years ago! Sometimes they look a bit “trashy” but they’re crafted! And that’s the way I like em!

Remember when Homer Simpson made that misbegotten lump of shit called VunderBaat or something? I feel him man

It’s such a nutty claim for me to make… but I really believe any person on the Web circa 97-2005 and was involved in any kind of Web-based gaming has directly played at least one. Shockwave, Flash, Facebook no difference.

If you played any kind of web- or Internet-enabled, State-run lottery product anywhere in the world between 2010-2015 I would bet my actual life. And since the games I made were all localized for international audiences they were world-wide!

If you’ve been on a Riverboat Casino in the past 2 decades you’ve 100% played because I ran the game studio that made the games for a major supplier of riverboat Video Lottery Terminal games.

Holy shit… I never actually stopped and realized how many lives my crappy games touched…

I made several hundred games over my 20+ year career. I started making games for the world’s first touchscreen internet-enabled kiosks, the Playdium arcade in Toronto, etc. Moved onto online game development as senior dev for GameLoft.com, made the first online pari-mutuel gaming system, introduced online lottery technology to the world’s “Big 3” lotto companies. Made the first 3D tennis game. Honestly too much to even discuss as I could go on for hundreds of pages. Most people who are older than 30 have played my games and wouldn’t know it.

I gave everything away and now I live a simple life where I volunteer, work at crisis shelters, do recovery mentorship, housing outreach and other things. I am happy and I do not care about the trappings of the material world anymore. I chased the hologram until I caught it and discovered its true nature.

Just as casual conversation, what items or categories of goods do you usually deal with? Just wondering, as I myself have noticed “the boat” rocking back and forth between different online buying options for years. I live a pretty minimalist life now (used to be heavy tech) so I don’t buy much anymore and am pretty out of the loop now.

Effectively ALL of what I was told about what makes a satisfying and successful life. I was told the right thing to do is work hard, go to school, get a good stable job, get married, settle down, have kids, buy a house, own several depreciating assets.

Life is about being happy. Nothing else. Do what makes you happy, because that car, vacation, or other piece of consumer shit won’t. Nor will living by scripts somebody else wrote for you.

I had my house paid off at 30 and was traveling 5-6 times a year. High-level in the gaming, lottery and promotions industries. Misery. Now I have a humble life and I paint and craft things and I go dancing. And I’m happy. I could pick up the tools again and make a highly successful Steam game, but I won’t. I already proved my point in my career and creative output, and I don’t want to anymore.

Kindly do not portray DDG as an “alternative” because it is now trash as well.

2 years ago it was the alternative, today its a sidegrade at best

Why spend $12 on an easily replaceable battery when you can just use $11.97 worth of 18650’s and six hours of your life?

You can just use the “Save” function which is the Star icon near the post Title instead of cluttering up the comment section with these kinds of ersatz “bookmarks”

Thanks for the support!

I made so many changes in my journey. I taught myself to cook and made every meal from scratch ingredients… for 6 months. I’m reminiscing now thinking about how many tortillas I’ve pressed, sauces I’ve made, things I’ve fermented, and hundreds of hours on the cutting board. How many times I ordered a “kid size” pizza or sundae on my “cheat” days lol

I ran (poorly), swam, rode, lifted and burned so many calories. I meditated every day and did monthly therapy to help with the mental stress of the physical and lifestyle changes. That is all time, effort, pain, money, and sacrifice.

Every day without wavering I made a hundred difficult little choices that prioritized my goals vs my desires/old patterns. Food everywhere and people genuinely insulted when I wouldn’t partake with them or in their way. Watching my friends literally not enjoy their meal from their own shame, just because my serving was conspicuously smaller. Dealing with my biology compelling me to eat one way while I was consciously reprogramming myself to eat another way. Massive social pressures from all sides.

I never really even told anybody of my goals or changes. I didn’t make it my personality or a thing. Never spoke of it once or advocated anything to my friends. Only spoke about being slimmer when specifically asked.

That’s why it was so hurtful to undertake such tremendous responsibility for my own personal transformation, and then have people internalize it, make my journey about how them and how they feel shitty when they look at me, then make a snide or sinister comment. Only my best friend of 30 years gave me any positive feedback.

The whole thing was kind of a rough ride. Worth it in the end, but wow it was so much more than just eating less.

Thanks for listening. I really appreciate your comment a lot!

Wow you really nailed it.

I lost 58kg and the only things I ever heard was concern trolling from my friends that resented me for doing what they could not.

Never heard word one about my body while I was unhealthy and unhappy, and the shitty remarks started as soon as the weight reduction became noticeable.

“Woah slow down, don’t want you to disappear!” “You’ve proven your point! You can eat a donut!” “Why do you want to be miserable and only eat seeds?” “Fuck dude you’re vanishing! Eat a hamburger!” “You think you’re better than everyone now!” “It’s actually really unhealthy to be as lean as you’ve become.” “Don’t like hanging out anymore, you make me think about every molecule I put in my damned mouth!” “You look like a skeleton now.”

And so forth.