My stupid, ugly lizard.
I had my eye on a beautiful female leatherback bearded dragon with great genetics! She was around 200$ and I was so ready to buy her. Contacted the breeder and was told that she had been sold just a few hours earlier. Absolutely crushed.
Then the breeder offered up a defect dragon. It was going to be culled due to a genetic fuck-up that caused it to be born without spikes or scales. They’re much much much much much more difficult to care for into adulthood, due to their special needs. 20$ adoption fee + shipping.
He was the opposite of what I had wanted.
So naturally, sucker that I am, I adopted him.
He’s turning 5 this November.
I love my stupid, ugly lizard. 💕
(here is what a standard one looks like:)
His skin is the issue, mostly. Bearded dragons shed by rubbing themselves on rough surfaces. Due to having no skin protection from scales, he is prone to cuts and scrapes from such surfaces. Cold-blooded animals are notorious for slow healing, which means open wounds heal extremely slow, leaving the animal very prone to infections and further complications. SO, I’ve sanded down corners, sharp edges, and other things in his enclosure.
He also requires lotion, aloe, and massages to keep his skin / shed healthy. If this is not done, the shed can become stuck on certain appendages, which can lead to loss of blood flow, with can lead to rot/infection, which can lead to required amputation or death. Common stuck shed amputation parts for scaleless beardies are tail tip, all toes, and even eyelids.
So this dude has a better skincare routine than I do, gets weekly massages, gets humidity checks (too little = dried out skin, too much = respiratory infection), has temperature control, special furniture, etc.
Given me more white hairs worrying about him more than anything else in my life, that’s for sure!
His name is Pączki! Pronounced like “Poonch-key”. (native Polish speakers, please do not come for me lol)
My answer is very similar to this. I talk about it a lot, I was around eight years old when I just supposed to “take care” of my pup whose canid species is only semi-legal here, but it turned into full blown pethood. She passed away and I currently have a granddaughter. I wouldn’t trade her for anything.
Someone I don’t really know all that well, last spoke at school, has an autistic niece. She lost her toy and was distraught, so her aunt put up a post on Facebook to say it was discontinued, and to ask if someone could locate a second hand one somewhere. I’m not really sure why, but I felt bad for her and thought that maybe I’ll use my Google-fu to help.
I did a reverse image lookup, found the original manufacturer, looked up one of the main execs, found their contact details against their personal domain, and asked them if they could help out. They said they’d be happy to help, and I said as a gesture of good will that I’d pay for the new toy - perhaps several so that she’ll always have one if it were to break.
After speaking to the owner, I had paid for several toys for an autistic girl I had never met - probably around £500 worth. The exec went a step further and flew to the UK to give her and her aunt the toys, probably for some good press. I never told the aunt it was me, and I told the exec to keep it between us. They put out a press release where I was referred to as a “mystery hero”, and said that for her they would resume that line of toys, with her receiving a custom version with her name attached. To their credit, he said her aunt and mother kept asking who the person was so they could thank me, but they stayed firm and said that it was up to me to reveal myself.
So, for £500 I made an autistic girl and her family happy, and got a nice photo of the workers with a note that said “thank you”. That money was supposed to go towards car repairs, but I decided that a month of walking and leftovers for lunch to make someone happy was worth it.
During COVID, I went a bit mad and got really into collecting Transformers action figures. I’m still not entirely sure why. One day I just bought one on a whim, and before I knew it my closet was full of unopened, mint condition toy robots.
Anyway, Christmas rolls around and I see a flyer for a local toy drive. A sudden compulsion hit me, so I loaded up my entire stash and donated the lot. Just like that, the spell was broken. Not even Soundwave was spared.
To this day, nobody in my life knows that I spent thousands of dollars on plastic crack, only to foist my addiction on some poor, unsuspecting kids. I like to imagine the War for Cybertron rages on in their hearts.
Not even Soundwave was spared? Shit dude. That’s some hard core cold turkey.
Steamdeck. Had some cocktails and bought it, got it and had buyers remorse. Figured I’d give it a shot anyway.
Love of gaming rekindled, now I don’t doomscroll during downtime at work.
Installing bazzite tomorrow if I get around to it.
edit: installed bazzite in a few hours this morning, zero to hero. If you fuck with the penguin you’re going to want to do this. Very simple and straightforward as far as linux installs go. My deck is a 64GB LCD that I upgraded to 2TB and it worked fine, so the 64GB limitation is just the SSD, not anything to do with the deck itself.
Don’t forget to backup your saves for games that don’t do cloud save. I have fast internet and most of my games are also installed on my desktop PC so I didn’t worry about backing up any of that.
I’m on the fence. I get a 1 hour lunch, already own a switch, but never use it. I know the deck has all my games already, I just cant with the current price.
Check eBay for the non OLED version, you could find one at a good discount especially if you buy a 64 GB
I had pretty much stopped using my switch before I got the deck. There just weren’t enough compatible games to keep me interested. I ordered a deck impulsively and, like people often say, I fell in love with video games again. In absolute numbers it’s a big investment, but I’ve gotten like 3000 hours out of it so far. I love being able to wake it up, play 20 minutes of a AAA game, then suspend the game and come back later.
what are you trying to play? I’ve been happy with an Anbernic for classic arcade games
I have an older brother. I invested $1000 in his first show, lost it all.
He went on to win a Tony award.
Also, it’s likely I may one day inherit some of his wealth. He’s single and childless.
Too bad he didn’t consider that an investment in his future and not just explicitly that show.
Nah, he’s used his position to give me some exceedingly cool experiences. I feel more than paid back.
It must also be fun to see him in big time stuff and awards shows and be able to point and truthfully say “that guy owes me a thousand bucks!”
