A who what now?
A who what now?
When "packing a puck" (loading an espresso maker portafilter) the challenge is doing it in such a way that you have uniform density throughout. Failure to do so results in a phenomenon called "channeling" in which the pressurized water finds a path through the puck that doesn't pass through the majority of the coffee. This can result in weak, metallic, or bitter tasting coffee. This has needles that agitate along a spirographic pattern that assures uniformity as the needles pass through every millimeter of the puck within two rotations.
If coffee is your thing there is nothing wrong with spending money to improve the experience.
If coffee is your thing there is nothing wrong with spending money to improve the experience.
I just tried it out and it is not a silly purchase. Wow does it make a difference.
Veloxi wrote:A who what now?
When "packing a puck" (loading an espresso maker portafilter) the challenge is doing it in such a way that you have uniform density throughout. Failure to do so results in a phenomenon called "channeling" in which the pressurized water finds a path through the puck that doesn't pass through the majority of the coffee. This can result in weak, metallic, or bitter tasting coffee. This has needles that agitate along a spirographic pattern that assures uniformity as the needles pass through every millimeter of the puck within two rotations.
Ohhh that sounds awesome. If we used pucks over the french press I'd definitely suggest it to my wife, who is the coffee snob among us.
BadKen wrote:Jonman wrote:I genuinely can't tell which one the gadget is in that picture.
It’s the fork. It’s made of Rhodium.
Ha! The whole thing is a gadget. Raclette grill. Cheese goes in the dishes underneath to melt from the heat above, and whatever you want smothered in cheese gets grilled on the top. Family polished off at least 7-8 lbs of raclette cheese over the holidays.
My brother in law moved to Germany and introduced the family to this tradition, it's so much fun and delicious. Out every holiday season in a giant fondu night. Plenty of food consumed those days.
Someone at Nintendo's going to have to explain to me why I'm spending 20+ minutes playing Animal Crossing before I get to the damn golf.
Someone at Nintendo's going to have to explain to me why I'm spending 20+ minutes playing Animal Crossing before I get to the damn golf.
Wait, what?
I started in "Adventure Mode" because it allegedly teaches you the game, and I've spent the first half hour of my play talking to Goombas and Toad and running around this little golf town and not playing any golf.
Like, the game starts, and you get introduced to three other characters you don't care about and then you have to find your room and go to bed. I'm not kidding.
Yikes! Guess I'll keep playing the GBA version of Mario Golf, which is the best version.
I'm sure it'll be fine once the golf starts! I'm just annoyed because the people who made this think what's missing from golf is Stardew Valley, apparently.
I'm sure it'll be fine once the golf starts! I'm just annoyed because the people who made this think what's missing from golf is Stardew Valley, apparently.
Do you have to grow your golf balls, and can you marry toadette?
DID I MENTION THAT WHEN YOU TALK TO EVERYONE, THEY ALL CYCLE THROUGH THE SAME 2-3 SFX FOR EVERY DIALOGUE BOX? THAT DEFINITELY ISN'T GETTING ANNOYING.
Sounds a lot like my experience trying to play the original Mario Tennis for the GBA. I loved the N64 and GameCube versions so I wanted to see where it all started. I got what felt like an hour or two in-- might have been less, maybe it just felt long, I dunno-- and there had been neither any Mario nor any tennis, just playing this weird little generic dude who looked like a create-a-character with all the default options talking to a bunch of NPCs.
I'm planning a Star Trek trivia night at a local brewery on April 5th, so under the guise of "research" I purchased this:
Rule #284: Deep down, everyone's a Ferengi
Hah, I probably still have that in a box somewhere 
Possibly the silliest of silly purchases this year so far.
I bought a planetary spirographic WDT espresso agitator to improve my coffee experience.
I would not be able to stop singing "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys the entire time I was grinding coffee. Hopefully you will now too.
Plan-e-tar-y!
Not as silly as Paleo's intergalactic coffee grinder, but still a splurge! This machine was discontinued a few years back, so I got it at a decent discount. As a bonus, this model lacks any connection to an app, wifi network, or anything else!
I was just looking for a fairly low effort way to get a decent cup, at the very least it will be a step up from the 14 year old Braun coffee brewer it replaces.
Possibly the silliest of silly purchases this year so far.
I bought a planetary spirographic WDT espresso agitator to improve my coffee experience.
I am 3d printing one of these as I write this. Construction to be completed once the other parts arrive Monday.
Serious question - are you not worried about plastics leeching into your drink? I don't know a lot about how these work.
Serious question - are you not worried about plastics leeching into your drink? I don't know a lot about how these work.
There are stainless steel pins that stir up the ground coffee. This all happens prior to making the espresso so it's a "dry" function.
1. Grind coffee into portafilter
2. Use agitator to distribute ground coffee
3. Tamp
3. Place portafilter onto machine
4. Make espresso
5. Drink espresso
Now that I have acquired a mastery of about 10-15% of this mysterious (and dangerous) power known as 'reading Japanese', I went on a shopping spree in Tokyo this week and acquired the following:
I also had to buy a small suitcase to bring this all back to Canada.
My recent trip convinced me to two things:
1. It is actually possible to learn Japanese
2. It is totally within my reach
Considering this, I decided that improving my Japanese reading and listening would be one of my top 3 priorities for 2024.
The problem will be to fit all of these on the shelf space available in the manga section of my home office. Currently all my manga is in alphabetical order, regardless of which language they're in (French, English or Japanese), and I'm debating separating the ones in Japanese in their own section.
Niiiiiiiice!
Recently, Prime added Northern Exposure, which I've never seen but my wife loved, so we tried, it. I too, fell in love with the show, so we blew through the first season. However, we noticed the music sounded weird, and figured that, due to licensing, music would be a problem, so we looked to DVDs. The US DVDs have the proper music for the first two seasons, but not the remaining four.
The solution? We have a region-free blu-ray player, and apparently, the UK edition (which costs a lot more) has all the original music, so...
I was worried because other folks with region-free players reported that the disks didn't work for them, but they worked for us! Huzzah! Can't wait to see more!
Now that I have acquired a mastery of about 10-15% of this mysterious (and dangerous) power known as 'reading Japanese', I went on a shopping spree in Tokyo this week and acquired the following:
I also had to buy a small suitcase to bring this all back to Canada.
My recent trip convinced me to two things:
1. It is actually possible to learn Japanese
2. It is totally within my reachConsidering this, I decided that improving my Japanese reading and listening would be one of my top 3 priorities for 2024.
The problem will be to fit all of these on the shelf space available in the manga section of my home office. Currently all my manga is in alphabetical order, regardless of which language they're in (French, English or Japanese), and I'm debating separating the ones in Japanese in their own section.
Barakamon! I loved the anime of that so much. Have fun with all that!
These things are incredible for their size. Paired them with a Kanto Sub8. Blown away at the clarity and soundstage.
Done. And it works!!!
If anyone would like to build one themselves I'd be happy to 3d print the pieces. Just cover shipping. The rest of the parts are easy to source via Amazon
I bought a teeny thermal printer to print stickers for my Bulletjournal
It may be my dumbest purchase I made in a long long time. 
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