The local government or utility may be able to help. Several lights in my area have shutter shades on them that help control sideways/upwards light and keep the beam focused on the ground. It’s called “light intrusion” when someone else shine slight into your property

Sometimes it’s the easiest way to get a particular toppings group. Like a “mushroom burger” comes with Swiss, bacon, sautéed onions, and some sauce, or you can build your own for 10% more than getting a pre-built mushroom burger, minus the mushrooms. Plus, when you and-then an order, there’s a high chance they’ll miss something.

I mean, my local place asks me every time if I want to add peanut butter to my burger. I’d also expect modification to be more and more frequent with the prevalence of touchescreens allowing customers to highly customize items. I don’t see modifying as a big deal, within reason. Not just for burgers, obviously.

I just bought some things on ebay to avoid Amazon. They dropshipped Amazon to me, individual packages and all, for nearly 100% markup. I don’t know how to avoid that and find “real” sellers dropshipping non-branded warehoused Chinese goods like the good old days.

If I have ice cream and then a piece of 100% dark chocolate, its tasteless. When I do keto and have a piece of 100% as my only dessert, it’s the sweetest thing in my life.

69 is older than that and it’s still here

“I don’t remember you” was my idea to say the last 5 years have completely changed my life, but I’d probably assume I got Alzheimers ahead of schedule. One sentence is tough.

“It worked out” feels like what if want to hear, but that ignores growing global and national issues. Might even make me lazier, believing in some grand natural path, creating a paradox.

I could send details on the job move that made life better, but I’m on the path that took me out of that job already, so why try to change it?

Are monetary moves the only thing that would work for me? Not to change my route, but give me some more padding today?

The people that’d pay a premium for vanity just don’t get solar panels. The only people I could see going for this are tech bros. There’s lots of huge houses in my area that have regular solar panels. There’s lots of homebuyers here that don’t want to see panels or don’t want panels at all. And then there’s desparate people signing predatory solar panel leases. These tiles don’t fit it anywhere near me. I guess an alternate category would be people who must use a visible roof panel to get decent solar production, but plan to sell in a relatively short term. But still, their best option is inaction, not expensive solar. Especially if your electric supplier caps your output.

Yes, but it took time to get there. Two things shifted: I opened up and I lowered the bar to be called “friend”.

Opening up: geek out. Find the people that share your interests. I know, it’s hard to do. But if you can find some people with a common thread, you’ll likely find people with a few common threads and several tangential threads. Obviously, it’s hard to find people, but chances are if you find one, they’ll bring you more similar-minded people. Secondly obviously, you have to throttle yourself to not overdo the geeking until you know it’s someone that has similar levels of interest. Most people geek out about something, but your local societal norms tend to direct you on what’s normal. Watching every sports game of a particular team, knowing their stats? Geek. Cars? Geek. Guns? American Geek. Weight lifting min/maxing? Geekmaxing. These are just the normal masculine hobbies. Weather, space, physics, electronics, gardening, cooking, reading, so many other things to geek about. Try going to events that are part of or are tangential to your interests. Even if you dont grab anyone’s contact info, enjoy vibing with your kind. Depending on the gig, you might even start seeing the same people.

Lowering the bar: I spent souch time feeling like I had no real friends. I had work friends. I lost school friends. I left home city friends. I lost prior work friends. Then I threw a big party and invited people from across my life. They showed up (mostly) and it literally felt like I was just catching up with old friends. The party itself wasn’t important (to this topic), but the realization was. I always heard this notion of “fair-weathered friends” and “friends of proximity” and thought it applied to all of mine. Now I know: they’re all friends of proximity because everyone is. Even your own family. If you lose the proximity, the friendship fades if you don’t make the time for them. But it doesn’t mean it’s gone. It doesn’t mean it needs a formal restart. I have summer friends, winter friends, work friends, concert friends, and so on. No, they’re not all deep friendships, but they’re people I can message on mutual topics and get together for mutual interests. But, among the ~30 people I can think of off the top of my head, there’s maybe 5 I can talk about anything to. Doesn’t mean I do. But they’re people that i can spontaneously have deep conversations with.

Opening up can be as a simple as “I’m having a bad time with [blank]”. If you’re surrounded by masculinity, you might just get some dumb curt answers like “fix it” or “so don’t do it”. But you might find people with relevant experiences. I know I have selection bias, but most of the people in my life now would lend an ear and try to help. Humans like solving problems.

Similarly, when I was younger, I had more female friends than male. I’m sure being horny was an underlying factor, but I have little interest in most male interests here. By 25, I felt like I had no one. By 35, I was surrounded by 20 men and 20 tangential women, all friends, all open emotionally, all with just a seemingly small amount of common interest. But all about the same vibe.

And yet I can go a week and only talk to my spouse. And I’m happy with that. My spouse is my best friend, but I’m in the orbit of all these other people to share hobbies and interests with, both with and without my spouse.

Obama renamed Denali and this guy’s been crying to prove anything Obama can change, he can change faster

Atlas Obscura, though some countries (or just my specific cities) don’t have many entries. Neat to see some alternative, often non-commercial attractions. If I had a shilling for every scale solar system walk it’s led me to, I’d have two shillings. Sometimes it’s just a recommendation for a good view. Sometimes it’s a secret vampire bar. Sometimes it’s a famous grave. Sometimes it’s a little plaque that even the locals forgot about. It’s not like these things are really life changing they’re just very unique memories tied to only those locations.

Aside from that, if it’s a chain restaraunt I have at home, I avoid it entirely. If it’s novel to me, I might go for it, but it’s usually not worth repeat visits. I don’t spend much either, so I try to see what’s rated well and locally busy. If a city is known for a cuisine, I’ll probably try a different version of it each night - and they’re usually all great because they wouldn’t still be open if they weren’t. This extends to local beer, though again, most countries just don’t do artisan beer. I used to log them all in an app, but I never actually seek out my past favorites, so I’ve successfully converted to just living in the moment on that one.

I’m big on astronomy, even if it’s just looking at the sky. If I’m traveling somewhere near dark skies, I’ll do a night excursion and spend maybe 2hrs out there. If you check some light pollution maps, class 2 or lower is something I’ll travel an hour to go see. The closest class 2 sky to my home is currently 3 hours away. Obviously, weather-depending.

I hate the touristy bullshit surrounding them (and the prices), but I do have a hard time resisting rooftop bars. It’s OK to be a tourist, but I wish they’d stop lying abouthow classy their fried mozzarella is.