I like to make up pasta dishes in sauce with veggies that reheat well. Pasta alfredo (made with butter and parmigiano reggiano) with spinach and pieces of chicken, or red sauce pasta with a bunch of veggies like zucchini, broccoli, onions and even beans, with some olive oil in the sauce. I buy the precut frozen veggie medleys and chuck them in. You can also make egg fried rice with veggies in it, with your choice of butters and oils. Cheese, nuts, dairy, eggs, I agree with other commenters that fat is not your enemy. Sugar and ultra-processed stuff should still be avoided but embrace the butter, haha.

Peanut butter is also fantastic for healthy calorie density and travels well.

I was just thinking about this today. Any corporations big enough for us all to know have likely done more bad things than praiseworthy things. Patagonia is the closest I can think of to a good company we may all know.

Costco seems pretty solid. I’m in the northeast US and I feel good about supporting Market Basket. Valve isn’t so bad. There ARE some ethical big corporations just trying to do their thing out there and understand that providing the services and products they’re meant to is more important than “line go up”, they’re just few and far between.

Subbed to Enchanterium 👍 thanks for the rec!

Yes! It was such a pleasant surprise on my feed. Unfortunately they said they won’t be continuing because of Youtube’s enforcement policies around copyrighted material so those videos were meant to be a limited series.

Along with Technology Connections, Philosophy Tube, and Primitive Technology, here are my “must watch” subs

Climate Town - Excellent videos about climate change and environmental impact that are insightful and funny

Contrapoints - Well written and meticulous deconstructions of philosophical concepts in media, pop culture and society with a dry wit

Every Frame a Painting - Amazing content on film-making. No longer active, but if you haven’t seen it yet, lucky you, enjoy.

Pop Culture Detective - Interesting meta analyses of popular tropes in pop culture

Because I’m into historical clothing and fashion, Bernadette Banner and Abby Cox both do great videos on costuming, history and creating cool stuff

Really loved her video on new Star Trek too, she has very similar vibes to Jenny Nicholson but has a lot of great science material too

For mac and cheese: medium shells, ditalini
For red sauce pasta: medium shells, rotini
For pasta alfredo: medium shells, fettuccine

So I guess you could say my favorite pasta is potato gnocchi

Posted most of this in another thread but I’m glad to spread the word. I usually find things by searching what I want to buy and then adding “-amazon”, “-etsy”, or “-wayfair”.

Some general recs:

B&H Photo or Microcenter for anything electronic or computer related

Sweetwater for music stuff, there’s a lot of great small music stores, or marketplaces like Reverb

For clothes, if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website. If you don’t, go to local secondhand shops and touch, handle and try on some clothes to see them in person. I’ve discovered some brands I like by finding something in a thrift store that was well made but not my size or preferred color.

For house DIY stuff, we order from a local building supply store, but there’s also hardwareandtools.com, 1stoplighting, Waysource, Lightbulbs.com, Timothy’s Toolbox etc.

For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it’s a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites.

For super fast, need it now shipping, Target has a lot of the same things Amazon does and even does same day delivery for an extra fee for certain items.

For something hard to find you can’t find another site for, try Ebay.

I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. These are sites that I’ve personally bought from but there are a lot of smaller sites just trying to make a place for themselves on the internet

Ren faire folks LOVE stuff like that, you should absolutely see if you have one nearby. If you’re in the states, each state usually has one.

Whatever you want. Find something that brings you joy and try to do more of that. If it’s important to you to leave a legacy, try to connect to others and be in their lives. Try to make good, meaningful changes to the world, even if they’re small. Our existences are only so long, and worth enjoying.

Don’t worry you’ll reread it again 😋

Part of the pros of it being so long is by the time you’re done you can start over again and it feels fresh hahs.

Those numbers are old, btw. The numbers got skewed when people were finally legally able to divorce each other freely in the 70s and without much social stigma. Modern divorce rate is more like 25-35% So that’s a good chance that wedding ring will stay on :)

Dr Pepper made with real sugar, the taste with HFCS is just not the same.

SteakEze had these microwave angus burgers that you could get at BJs that basically mimicked McDs flavor. Whenever one of us was craving fast food, we could pop it in the microwave and it scratched that itch and was much cheaper, easier and faster. Sadly haven’t seen them for sale anymore and they got taken off the website.

The thing I miss the absolute most is some fruit nectars I used to get that came in big glass bottles, by Fruit of the Nile. They had mango, strawberry guava, guava and orange mango and they were all so incredibly good. My favorite was the mango, it was rich and thick and luxurious, almost just a fruit puree. They made the best mixers. I still use the bottles around the house. I don’t think the company made it through Covid 😫

If you mean Amazon, hard at first but once you get into the habit it’s not hard at all. Whatever you would search Amazon for, search DuckDuckGo for or your websearch of choice and put -amazon in. There are SO MANY online stores out there, with perfectly reasonable prices and even free and fast shipping.

Some general recs:

B&H Photo or Microcenter for anything electronic or computer related

For clothes, if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website

For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it’s a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites.

For something hard to find you can’t find another site for, try Ebay.

I’ve been avoiding Amazon for about three years now. I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. I encourage everyone to get out of the trap of thinking that Amazon is the only option.