I'm a closet coffee snob
I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.
Being I am a New Englander, the way I drink coffee is "wrong" in that I add creamer and sugar. Hardcore coffee snobs will only drink black. Yes, I can drink black, but it's not my preference.
For years, I drank garbage instant coffee only because I didn't know any better. I was totally okay with the freeze dried trash, but all the while knew it never tasted that good.
I then started drinking what are known as coffee singles, which is basically the same thing as tea except with coffee and brewed the same way. After a while, I stopped using these because they can get expensive quick.
After that, I started using a drip coffee maker. This was by chance. I was given an old Mr. Coffee coffee maker that was probably made in the '80s or early '90s (which I still use and clean regularly to keep it working), acquired some ground coffee, tried it out, and hey, this is tasting pretty good...
...but not quite to the flavor I like. Close, though. Very close.
Then came the point where I started grinding my own coffee beans, and when you start doing that, you're almost a coffee snob.
After trying several different types of beans, there is where I am now:
I specifically use a breakfast breakfast blend, which is a lighter type of roast. It took me going through several types of beans before I found that's the one I like best.
But where I truly stepped into coffee snob territory is when I began measuring the water and timing the brew.
I use a very specific amount of water that I measure by the lines on the side of the carafe (yes, that is what it's called, and it's pronounced like cuh-raff). And with that old Mr. Coffee I have, I determined the brew time to get my coffee exactly how I want to be 8 minutes.
That 8 minute brew gets the "sweet on top, bitter on the end" coffee flavor profile that I prefer.
While true I don't weigh how much coffee is put in (that's ultra snob territory) before brew, the fact is that using a very specific bean roast type, measuring the water and timing the brew does qualify me as a coffee snob.
If that's not convincing enough, I do use an electric coffee bean grinder, and I'm snobby about how I grind. If the grind is a fine powder when completed, too much. Wrong. Wrecks the flavor. The end result has to be mostly ground so a little more water is let through during the brewing process.
All of this is a far cry from the freeze dried trash I'd just mix in a hot mug of water. But the end result is coffee that truly tastes great.
Pros and cons to making coffee this way
Pro: Less money spent on coffee. A bag of whole bean coffee lasts longer than anything pre-ground.
Con: More time is spent making coffee. Instant coffee can be made in as little as 2 minutes. My method takes anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes.
Pro: Brewing ground coffee from whole beans smells better. A lot better. You get the cafe scent every time you brew.
Con: More stuff and maintenance is needed. A coffee grinder, container to hold your ground coffee with screw-top lid, coffee maker, coffee filters, you have to periodically clean out the coffee maker, and so on.
Pro: After a little experimentation with different roasts and brands, you figure out how to make coffee flavored exactly the way you prefer, which leads to the biggest con...
Con: Once you figure out how to make your perfect cup, anybody else who makes coffee for you tastes inferior.
This is one of those things I wasn't expecting.
I figured out how to make a cup of coffee just how I like it. This presented a new problem. Any time I have a place make coffee for me, it's not as good as how I make it.
When I'm out and about and visit any place that serves coffee, the closest I can get to a coffee flavor I like is ordering an Americano. It's a crapshoot whenever I order one because the flavor is either going to be above-average, too dark, or so watered down that I can barely taste anything.
The above photo is from a place I went to recently. I ordered an Americano, and what I ended up getting was the watered down type. Three bucks wasted.
I have visited coffee places that actually make a fairly decent Americano, but there aren't many who actually do it right, so again, it's a crapshoot every time I get one.
Making a just-right cup of coffee at home is a process, and yeah I am snobby about it, but life is too short to drink trash coffee.
Baum Guitars Wingman is just plain great
Holy crap, the Baum Guitars Wingman is cool...
...and even better is that there is no bad color for it. Inca Gold, Skyline Blue, Coral Blue, Burgundy, Dark Mist... ALL good.
What drives this guitar - other than how awesome it looks - are the pickups, which Baum calls GoldSound. They make them in-house.
Neck profile is "Modern C", 25.5" scale, fingerboard radius is 12". Everything checks out there.
Tuners? Top tier stuff with 21:1 ratio. Incredible.
For what you get for the price, it punches well above its weight (even though it's not a heavy guitar). Great stuff here. Truly.
When spending $800 on car repair is worth it
I really didn't want to spend the money, but sometimes you just have eat the cost to avoid paying more later.
Take a sway bar link, also known as a stabilizer bar link. They are cheap to buy, but to have a pair of these installed by a mechanic can be anywhere from $275 to $400, depending on car type and garage you take it to.
These little links do wear out over time, and you'd be amazed how much they affect the ride quality of the car. True, they don't look like much and are easy to dismiss as something you don't think needs replacing after 100,000 miles or so. But oh yeah, these little things when in proper working order really do make the car ride better.
I just had three things done to my car. Rear drum brake cleaning, e-brake cable adjust (the e-brake handle was a little loose, I had the mechanic adjust the cable tension while the rear wheels were off since that's where the tension adjustment is), and sway bar links.
Next up however are rear shock absorber replacements. This has not been done yet but will be fairly soon. Rear shocks are not as cheap as sway bar links, but you can get a pair for as little as 50 bucks when you look around, even for a full size truck.
All this stuff combined for my car will be about $800.
Yeah, that's steep for a car repair. But then again, it's for multiple repairs and not just one thing. Still, $800 is $800 and that's not cheap.
Why dump $800 worth of repair into a regular car over 10 years old?
My car is over a decade old and has seen better days, but it's paid for and runs well. I'll get back to that in a moment.
It's usually true that a set of tires is the most expensive thing people will buy for their car. These days it's almost too easy to spend over a grand just for that. However, for literally everything else where repair and maintenance is concerned, most only do the bare minimum or nothing at all, resulting in a car that will basically destroy itself due to lack of proper care.
Fewer than six months ago, I strapped on new tires. Worn out sway bar links and rear shocks can strip away as much as 10,000 miles or more off those tires. How? The tire gets subjected to unnecessary bowing/flexing every time I turn or go over a bump in the road due to worn out suspension components. Not good.
$800 spent on the repairs now means there's a better chance of my tires lasting longer, provided I rotate them twice a year (which I do). That $800 spent now means less spent on tire replacement in the future.
And as I said above, my car is paid for and runs well. True, it's not the prettiest thing in the world and has paint chips, dings and dents all over it. However, yes it is worth sinking a bunch of money into a not-so pretty car that works. If it didn't work, I wouldn't bother.
I'm definitely feeling the sting of spending $800 on car repairs, but given the absolutely insane prices of cars these days, better to make the one I have last as long as possible rather than have a car payment.
Hair, balding and the clipper shortage of 2020
Men should not be afraid to buzz their hair, be it for hair loss reasons or ridiculous barber prices. And do you remember the hair clipper shortage thing that happened before?
In 2020, a lot of barbershops and hair salons were closed. If you forgot why, just look up what happened that year. I'm sure you'll remember.
There was a genuine shortage of electric hair clippers in '20. Oh sure, you can find them easily now (and if you haven't bought clippers in a while, you seriously should), but there was a point in '20 for a few months where absolutely nobody had them. All the hair cutting places were closed and everybody rushed to anywhere hair clippers were sold and bought one or two. Nobody knew when the barbers and salons would open shop again, so oh yeah, hair clippers sold out real fast.
Since '20, the price of men's haircuts has gone to insane levels. Some places have increased prices as much as 300%. That's not a typo.
What's even worse is spending the high price and receiving a bad haircut, especially if you're losing your hair.
Even before '20 happened, I did experiment with buzzing my hair a few times. I do have some hair loss going on. I'm middle aged, so whatever, I've earned it. The hair loss I have is what most other guys would consider mild, but yeah, it's there.
At this point in my life, I don't go to barbers anymore and buzz my own hair for two main reasons. The barber price is too high and barbers around here give bad haircuts. I am literally better off just buzzing my own hair with a #1 or #2 guard.
The craziest thing is that a hair clipper set pays for itself after just one buzzing. It used to take 2 to 3 uses before that happened, but now it's just one.
The internet always says if you're losing your hair, just work up the courage buzz it off and do it. That advice is correct. Yes, you can try hats or hair transplants or minoxidil or wigs or whatever, but for most guys it's just better to grab the clippers and go for it.
When a $20 watch looks like a $7500 watch
I like luxury watches, but being I'm not about to spend the cash necessary to get one, I buy stuff like this instead.
Take a Chenxi CX-068. It is meant to emulate a Cartier Tank MC.
Before continuing, yes I bought my Chenxi from AliExpress, but I did a search to see if it's available elsewhere. Yes, it is, or at least similar to it. A search for "tank" watches does bring up some affordable stuff. While not exactly the same I have, it's a start.
Here's a little secret concerning luxury watches:
Nobody cares.
Seriously, absolutely nobody cares.
What matters where wristwatch luxury is concerned is the right look and not brand. As long as what you have on your wrist looks the part, that's all that matters.
Watch collectors would tell you different, but they're wrong. The collectors can snob it up all they want, but the reality is for two watches that carry a similar style, both look the same from more than two feet away. Absolutely nobody is going to put their face within two feet of your wrist just to read the watch brand logo.
All that being said, the Chenxi is an all-plastic quartz timepiece that is styled similar to Cartier Tank MC. The only thing that's metal is the strap buckle and that's it. The watch is featherweight light, the tick is thankfully near-silent, and because it's a small seconds watch, the "quartz-ness" of it is effectively hidden unless you intently stare at the tiny seconds hand at the bottom of the dial.
Surprisingly, the dial has a real texture pattern on it and isn't all printed. It also has a signed buckle. Fancy!
This watch is not expensive, but this is "my Tank". I saved about $7,490 buying one of these over a Cartier.