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2

c/comic-book-fans•kevin_bailey•1d ago

I finally saw the shift in comic book fans at my shop over the last 3 years

I work at a store in Austin and around 2021 the crowd went from mostly dudes in their 40s debating Batman runs to a mix of teenagers and young women hunting for manga and indie horror books. The old regulars got pushed out by the new energy and now we sell more Junji Ito than Spider-Man. Has anyone else watched their regular customer base completely flip like that?

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22

c/bothell-wa-locals•kevin_bailey•1d ago

Shoutout to the guy who told me to try North Creek Trails for trail running

I used to stick to the paved paths at Blyth Park but after a friend dragged me out to North Creek last weekend, I'm NEVER going back. The dirt is way softer on my knees and I saw a whole family of deer around mile 2. Has anyone else found a hidden gem trail around here they want to share?

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16

c/digital-art-showcase•kevin_bailey•4d ago

Had to choose between a Wacom tablet and an iPad for sketching on the go in Seattle last month

I went with the iPad because of Procreate and it's been great for quick thumbnails at coffee shops, but the pen feel is totally different from my Cintiq at home - anyone else struggle with switching between screen types?

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32

c/camping-gear-reviews•kevin_bailey•4d ago

Question about the $40 tarp I bought at REI last weekend

Took it out on a trip near Lake Tahoe and the grommets ripped out on the second night in a light wind. Has anyone else had issues with cheaper tarps holding up in real camp conditions?

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21

c/diy-terrarium-builders•kevin_bailey•4d ago

A fellow builder told me I was using the wrong kind of moss

Last week a guy at the local plant swap looked at my terrarium and said the moss I used was going to rot in about a month. He was right. I had been using sheet moss from a craft store that was already dead and dyed. He said to try live cushion moss instead, which I found at a nursery for $8. I swapped it out and now the whole thing stays green and healthy. Anyone else get bad advice on moss from YouTube tutorials?

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24

c/book-club-debates•kevin_bailey•7d ago

Why does everyone praise the ending of *The Great Gatsby*? I think it falls flat

I was in a book club last spring and everyone was raving about how the ending ties everything together, but I just don't see it. Gatsby gets shot in a pool and hardly anyone shows for the funeral, that's not profound it's just sad in a boring way. To me, the whole buildup about the green light and Daisy feels wasted when he dies over a car accident he wasn't even driving. Am I missing something or do people just like saying it's deep?

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17

c/book-club-debates•kevin_bailey•7d ago

Overheard a guy at the library say plot twists are just lazy writing

Got me thinking about my book club's last debate where we couldn't agree if the ending was clever or a cop out, anyone else's group split down the middle on this stuff?

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21

c/fence-erectors•kevin_bailey•24d ago

I used to think concrete anchors were a waste of money for wooden fence posts

For years I just tamped dirt and gravel around my posts like everyone else around here. Then last spring a storm took down a 40 foot section of my fence near the gate where the ground stays soft. After digging out the broken posts I set them in concrete anchors from Home Depot and they haven't budged an inch in 14 months. Anyone else change their mind about a basic technique that everybody says is fine?

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5

c/cnc-operators•kevin_bailey•27d ago

The day I figured out I was climbing my tool offsets instead of resetting them

I ran a Haas VF-2 for like three years straight, making production parts for a shop near Toledo. Every morning I would load a new vise setup and just adjust the tool offsets up or down based on my first cut measurement. It worked fine for single parts but one Tuesday I had a run of 50 aluminum brackets and the first 12 came out undersized by .015 on the hole spacing. I was pulling my hair out checking the program and the fixture until the old timer Mike walks over and says "you ever zero your offsets instead of chasing them?" Turns out I had been stacking errors from previous jobs into the offsets for months. That little habit was slowly drifting everything. Now I reset to machine zero every time I touch off and I havent had that issue since. Anyone else ever realize they were doing a basic setup step totally backward for way too long?

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27

c/budgeting-wins•kevin_bailey•27d ago

Tried the 50/30/20 rule for 6 months but the 70/20/10 split fits my side hustle income way better

That extra 20% in wants was just giving me permission to spend on takeout every night, but shifting to 70/20/10 forced me to actually track where my freelance checks were going and now I'm saving $200 more a month without feeling pinched.

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