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  • I'd like to skip Christmas, I get nothing out of it but headaches. I don't enjoy the family get togethers (individually or in small groups my family is mostly fine, but all of them at once is too much) I don't want anything that can reasonably be asked for or given as a present, and I don't have any space for the useless junk I'll inevitably receive.

    What I need/want is money. I'm not struggling, but I have projects and things I'm saving up for and whatever they'd spend on gifts if they feel like they need to give me something I'd much rather them just give me the cash or Venmo me. They're not going to gift me a new heater, deck, washer/dryer, paint for my living room, etc. the best I can hope for is some gift cards to Lowes, home Depot, etc. and inevitably the cards will all be to different places so I can't even use them all on what they're intended to go towards, and there's a good chance that once I've saved up enough I'll get the best price at a store I don't even have any gift cards for, so they're going to sit around collecting dust because I'll never remember to grab them when I need to go buy a box of screws or something.

    Just give me cash.

  • A no gifts agreement. You get nothing, I get nothing, we all save money and some sanity while not feeding the system by collectively buying a ton of unnecessary stuff at double the prices.

    But anyway, if I wanted something, a Mullvad voucher would be useful.
    Something cool, but mostly just a toy, an external eUICC chip, "eSIM adapter". Either JMP because their app is open-source and on F-Droid, or 9esim because it's far cheaper and has more storage. But as I said, it's not something I need, mostly would serve me as a toy and I'd have a bunch of random foreign eSIM profiles. There's even some free eSIMs like Firsty Free that I'd like to try. They promise "basic speed" unlimited data access with a time limit for watching ads. But there's also some like BNESIM which have no expiration and some usable prepaid data amount.
    My current phone doesn't support eSIMs natively, but seems to support the required OMAPI to make this work.

    ThinkPad Thales card would be far cheaper, and probably work too (with EasyLPAC), but it's out of stock everywhere.

    But again, not something I need, just something for fun.

    • What are you doing with all that phone stuff? I thought we're using the internet these days instead of calling people. Or do you just travel much and need the data plans for different countries/continents?

      • What are you doing with all that phone stuff?

        Nothing, I don't have any.

        I thought we’re using the internet these days instead of calling that much.

        A lot of cheap eSIMs are actually data-only, i.e.: you don't get a phone number.

        Or do you just travel much and need the data plans for different countries/continents?

        No, not at all. I just get interested in random crap, and now it's SIM cards it seems. Either way, some of these manage to be cheaper than many local offers, or even completely free as I mentioned.

        Another thing is some countries, unlike mine, don't require ID verification. So no scanning of your ID card, scanning your face, or perhaps physically sending signed documents via mail and waiting 3 - 5 business days to get your SIM card activated like I had to do with my carrier. e-mail should be enough. This way, phone numbers can be as disposable as e-mail addresses which is just awesome when using some untrusted services that want your phone number.

        Lastly, coverage. I already purchased T-Mobile physical SIM from Czech Republic (and yay it works). T-Mobile seems to try to get as many roaming partners as possible in every country. In mine, that's 3 out of 4, and 4th one is my main carrier. So I can connect to every carrier in my country with these 2 SIMs. I just find that pretty cool.
        I told you, I get interested by random crap.

        Next on my list is GiffGaff (United Kingdom) which I can get for free shipped anywhere in Europe and can also be activated from abroad (as far as I can tell) like that T-Mobile card.

      • Hackerman

  • To win a housing lottery so I can move the fuck out like why the fuck do you need to be lUcKy to FUCKING LIVE IN THE CITY YOU WERE FUCKING BORN IN? Some apartments and condos had yearly incomes of 100k to 150k yearly. Bro. If you're making One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars every year, you're most likely making $1500 a week. You should be considered rich or well off. Why the absolute fuck are literal rich people unable to fucking just live on their own in their city without needing to be lucky? The US Government is a humongous failure. Any country with homeless and desperately poor people has a failed government. Then you have these exact poor people fighting each other for enough money to escape poverty on Mr Beast Games and everyone's watching it without understanding how fucked that is. That poor people are given a carrot on a stick to chase for everyone's entertainment.

  • This was all just a bad dream and I'm waking up to Mortal Kombat for the Sega Genesis under the tree in 1993.

  • The motherboard in my computer is basically dead. Every morning I must perform voodoo to get just one more post.

    But my computer is fairly old now and I can't justify just replacing the board for more money than upgrading the platform. 😔

  • Medical debt for my disabled friend/roommate's cat who had a bad accident which severed a tendon. I'd love to pay it off for him if I could. Emergency visit to the vet for a severed tendon, all the follow-ups, and drugs over his month long recovery. I recently used up my savings and added debt myself to renovate my entire previously unfinished basement for said roommate/friend and have nothing left to give. Took him and his two cats in because he needed to escape his abusive mom. It's been a big fucking stain on his fresh start from my pov and I'm bummed out about it /rant.

  • With the way the weather goes anymore due to climate change in my area, a white Christmas. I think either last year or the year before we had one, but that also came with the first subzero temperatures I've ever dealt with.

    This year there's been basically no snow at all outside of maybe a day or less and not even that cold. I've been able to use a leather jacket I've been wearing most of fall and haven't needed to pull out my actual winter coat besides once this December. I really do like my winter coat, so I'm bummed about that, but also bummed because I associate Chrismas with snow because there was always snow every winter in my hometown compared to now.

  • A reversal of the cuts my health insurance is making and further to have all of my healthcare paid for by the insurance I pay a ton of money to have. Especially hurts since the insurance company is my employer, or at least I used to. Now they have the same parent company or whatever they call it these days.

  • A (significant) raise in salary (after tax) to invest and hopefully increase my portfolio.

  • Some things for my daughter’s room (a nightstand, a bedding set, and a table lamp) to help her transition to a “big girl bed” from her crib. But they’re not “fun” gifts or toys so I’m not expecting to get them even though they’d be the most helpful. She has enough toys.

127 comments