Most autistic thing you've purchased lately - c'mon feel the cringe

Aunt Carol said:
First rat snuff bottle on eBay; I honestly thought that they'd have some of those cool red ones in rat flavor, but the red sandalwood rat snuff bottles aren't as good at the monkey ones.

You'd think the abundance of cat merch is a good thing, until you get cat-themed gifts on every occasion from everyone forever. Sturgeon's Law states that "90% of everything is crap," so you have grandmas and Secret Santas kneejerk picking out the first thing they see with a cat stamped on it, without running it through their conscious mind to determine if it's a cute cat or not. At least people painting rats on things know that they have to design it well, because people who like rats are probably buying things for themselves.

I like the occasional owl, but the owl merch situation is even worse, and my mom started buying me owl knickknacks which could not be allowed to continue. So I started buying her owl-themed things and loudly reminding her that "YOU LIKE OWLS," until she agreed to not buy me any owl things any more as long as I stopped too.
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That one is not coming up for me, unfortunately. It doesn't look like it's available to searches from my country.

My history with parental gifts is... very strange. Sometimes they hit the spot, but a lot of the time I've find myself looking back and forth from their beaming faces to this random object I've just unwrapped, trying to figure out their thoughts behind it because it matches absolutely none of my interests or style. However, I'm pretty famous for getting people weird gifts too, so I know exactly where that trait comes from. :lit:

I don't get the owl thing. I like owls but I don't understand why it's such a huge market for a single design. There are a hundred species of owls but owl themed items are all the same and I don't understand why. It's cute in small doses but it gets so dreadfully monotonous.
 
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Someone's refusal to offer international shipping on their rat snuff bottles has just saved you $30, at least until you find someone in your area.
glass_houses said:
There are a hundred species of owls but owl themed items are all the same and I don't understand why.
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It's owls as designed by someone who saw a real owl a long time ago, but saw a lot of other owl-themed tat just five minutes ago.

I think this happens with meme animals a lot; I remember when sloth-themed stuff just started coming out, and the sloths were more realistic, probably because everyone had to at least image search a sloth to make sure they were remembering right. Now that everyone "knows" what sloths are, they're down to a cartoony essence of sloth-ness that you'd expect when you ask someone to sketch a more traditional cute animal like a sheep.

It's not the representation of an owl, but its placeholder in the collective consciousness. Owls are easily reduced to their eyes (and maybe wings, maybe beak) and you have to admit, that's literally iconic. Cat and dog stuff at least has more variety, and I think it's because people are a lot more familiar with IRL cats and dogs; they're drawing from their memory of the actual beast, not their memory of someone else's interpretation, give or take a few generations.

Heavy stuff, man.
 
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Aunt Carol said:
It's not the representation of an owl, but its placeholder in the collective consciousness. Owls are easily reduced to their eyes (and maybe wings, maybe beak) and you have to admit, that's literally iconic. Cat and dog stuff at least has more variety, and I think it's because people are a lot more familiar with IRL cats and dogs; they're drawing from their memory of the actual beast, not their memory of someone else's interpretation, give or take a few generations.

Heavy stuff, man.
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This is exactly the same problem that afflicts the rare mass produced merch depicting rats and mice. Gigantic round ears, massive eyes, because that's what rats look like, everyone knows. And they're always, always holding fucking cheese, because of course they are.
 
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Canuck Breaker said:
Cigar smoker? I know those are quite popular on that community.

Thread tax:
Been buying different guitar parts and repair tools and hot-rodding/upgrading/modifying my guitars over and over. I love soldering the pickups in different wiring combinations or with them in different positions or guitars. I love setting them up and doing the finishing work and really feeling the difference that makes each one unique.
Next up will be a 3d printer to make some custom parts like knobs/switch tips/pickup bobbins. Eventually would love to go full in and build my own customs from scratch.
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I smoke a cigar like.... Once every 2-3 years 🤣

I just like lighters.
 
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I bought a wireless PS2 controller, because I wanted to play some of my old games, unhindered by cables yeah?

But I turn the PS2 on and everything is so yellow now, what the fuck.
The component cable seems to have gone bad. Good luck, huh?
 
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Probably didn't put this up but someone bought this and put this up in a bar in Baltimore city...

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drfuzzyballs said:
I've been bidding on gemstones on proxibid

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Be careful with that. Depending what's in fashion and whether dealers have had a successful year smuggling stones out of Africa, you can get some really nice stones very cheaply. However, laboratory created stones inundate the market, and the market itself is incredibly volatile. Twenty years ago I bought a number of nice, solid, firey opals, feeling clever because I'd saved a lot of money by dealing directly with miners who cut their own gems. However, between fashion, synthetic opals and an incredibly stressed economy, the stones I bought are worth less than what I paid for them years ago.

If you approach gem buying as a collector this absolutely the best time to do that. If you're trying to make investments, you are going to have to focus on top level, extremely high quality and rare gemstones like oversized or coloured diamonds, stones that rich people wear to show off to other rich people.
 
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Not a purchase, but I found this in the gutter a couple blocks from my house today. Asked the people whose house it was in front of if it was theirs. They were happy for me to take it.

Any ideas on something fun/crafty to do with it?

Edit to add: it's a full size hub cap, looks to be just under 12 inches, the back is rusted to hell. I've only given it a quick scrub with detergent and a sponge.
 
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Exist0 said:
View attachment 5770481
Not a purchase, but I found this in the gutter a couple blocks from my house today. Asked the people whose house it was in front of if it was theirs. They were happy for me to take it.

Any ideas on something fun/crafty to do with it?

Edit to add: it's a full size hub cap, looks to be just under 12 inches, the back is rusted to hell. I've only given it a quick scrub with detergent and a sponge.
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Polish it to a shine, then turn it into a wall light where it has a 1" gap from the wall that light shines through?
 
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I bought three universal remotes so that I can turn my TV up and down wherever I am in the room. It makes sense to me seeing as how so much video is engineered with awful dynamic range. "Hurr der der, you know what people like? LOUD EXPLOSIONS AND PEW PEWS! Hurr der der, you know what people hate? Hearing dialogue and following a story."
 
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I got a miniature tape measure to keep in my handbag, so I don't have to waste a precious three minutes opening up the garage and getting the full sized one out of my tool box whenever I need it. It has Kuromi on it.

A pair of bookends so I can store the notebooks on my desk upright. They also have Kuromi on them.

A pair of drink coasters for my desk, after realising that the Persian style coaster I was using looked ridiculous amongst all the Sanrio plastic tat. They too, have Kuromi on them.

Another miniature rat figure for my shadow boxes. It is glass. It does not have Kuromi on it.
 
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A hatsune miku x jenny xj9 youtooz figure
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Yootooz are barely a step above funko pops but its basically the first piece of my life as a teenage robot merch ever made and I absolutely loved that show when it came out so I had to have it. I also have a soft spot for the leek vocaloid from the project diva rythem games and old internet memes.
 
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