I’ve used the stainless steel mesh from the bottom of fine mesh kitchen strainers (the measuring-cup sized ones). Got them from the dollar store and only had to cut them down a little bit. It’s not bulk stock, but they’re cheap and plentiful. Sadly comes with plastic waste unless you have a use for the leftover part. Luckily I only needed one.

As your neighbor, I’m still jealous. At least Ohio allows citizens to propose ballot measures. WV doesn’t even have that.

Wish I could take credit for the term, lol, but I heard it elsewhere.

Yeah, I took it to a few local places, and none of them would do anything like that. I lived in the boonies at the time and didn’t want to tow it all around everywhere. I’d already driven it like that for 4-5 weeks, and the left spring was pressing against the underside of the bed. One good pothole and it would have likely punched through lol. Figured I’d pressed my luck long enough. I had a welder and could have probably fixed it up good enough for farm use, but no way would it have passed inspection.

Just parted it out since everything else was in great shape (especially the transmission that had been rebuilt not 4 months prior 😢)

Ended up just buying the hybrid I drive now since its main use was for my 110 mile daily commute.

Yeah, my 2004 not-quite beater truck came to its end that way. The frame rusted out where the leaf spring shackle attached, and there’s no real way to fix that. Surprised I was able to drive it as long as I did with it like that (it was my daily driver at the time lol).

For my OG beater truck, I got a lot of its body parts from a local salvage yard. Some of the parts I got were rusted in the same spots as mine, just less so (e.g. the quarter panels on S10s were notorious for rusting out).

Replacing the bed isn’t too bad if you have someone to help you lift it on/off and you can find a donor in good shape. I had to pull the bed off my old beater truck to replace the fuel pump, and did the work myself (plus an extra set of hands to lift the bed on/off, naturally) On that one, it was only like 6 bolts holding it down. Hardest part was that two were seized up and had to drill them out (and replace the bolts afterward).

Unless there’s major pushback from car buyers in the next 10 years, I’m going to be holding on to my 2017 hybrid for as long as possible. May even look into doing an EV conversion on it or possibly some aftermarket way to make it a plug-in hybrid (there is a plug-in hybrid version of my car, and I’ve been looking to trade-in for that, but I cannot find any within 250 miles of me).

Yep!

I’ve seen enough EV conversions to know it’s not rocket science. The instrument cluster just displays the values relayed to it over CAN bus, most of the sensors are the same as they are on a conventional ICE vehicle, and the only real difference is the powertrain. There’s some consideration for the battery placement and management, but that’s pretty much it. Leave the touchscreens in the backseat for the kids, and give me physical buttons to operate the vehicle.

Maybe if they’d focus more on making them functional vehicles instead of smartphones on wheels, it would simplify that problem.

Honestly no idea. My only knowledge of Catholicism comes from Dogma. But George Carlin did bless his golf clubs, so if that holds true for jello, then yeah. Lol

New bucket list item: jell-o made with holy water.

Oh, if that’s your jam, enjoy! I just don’t have the time/energy to do that myself, lol, and I can only roll my eyes so many times in a day. I also do enjoy the sparring and watching them squirm to defend their bad faith positions.

I think I’ve mostly blocked all of the really transparent ones. Lol. Can’t recommend that enough.

I just put together a model, and it predicts a 77% chance of the Hamburgler winning in 2024.

Go vote. That’s the only thing that matters.

If I didn’t hear the fire alarm, I certainly won’t hear your call.

That was my thought as well. Blowhard’s gonna bloviate

Usually those are only 0% for a certain period of time. After that, the interest rates are typically higher than average.

So if you utilize it and pay it off completely during the 0% phase, they really don’t make any money. They make money when you carry a balance past that, or if/when you continue using that line of credit after the 0% period has ended.

That’s my understanding, anyway, as I have seen 0% APR offers, but they always are for a limited amount of time.

That, or there’s some kind of massive penalty if you miss a payment or something. Definitely read the fine print lol.

Broadcasters are using public spectrum. They don’t need to make money off of this.

They sure don’t, but it definitely represents the current state of the union where everything and everyone has to be monetized 🤷‍♂️

Good question. Now I wonder who’s advertising in those slots (not that I’ll watch the ads lol).