Comments by "Joe R M" (@joermnyc) on "Levi Hildebrand" channel.

  1. I made it a point to figure out how to shortcut my way through the IKEA in Brooklyn to get in and out of there (or at least to the checkout line) quickly. The best thing about their stuff is that they are open about what materials are used, so I tried to go for something that was all metal, or all non-composite wood. Honestly the best thing I got fro IKEA is a plush almost life sized Husky for my daughter from the kid’s toy section, she loves it, named it Blizzard.
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  2. The Lock Picking Lawyer channel did his “most expensive” lock, the one from Mrs. Lock Picking Lawyer’s very expensive designer bag. (And no, the lock wasn’t the greatest lock ever, it was easily picked open.)
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  3. Just finally bit the bullet and got Sennheiser Momentum 3 wireless earbuds. My lighting connector headphones were cutting in and out because the wire at the connector was getting pinched in my jacket, the phone fits, but that connector is big, plus why not have the wire on the side like say old analog headphones?) n No issues pairing with my iPhone, and the sound quality is maybe a slight notch under Bose, but a lot lower priced. (My travel headphones are also Sennheiser, big over the ear style that looks like it goes in a recording studio. They are not noise cancelling, but the padding is heavy enough to cut the outside noise by a ton), so I’m familiar with the brand). Time will tell how the battery life goes, these all are limited by Li-Ion tech.
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  4. I’m old enough to remember those toe socks during high school, and I went on a date with a distance runner about 10 years ago that used toe shoes in competition… (of course my running is pretty limited to sprinting after a bus or trying to catch the subway before the doors close, so that was a weird date.)
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  5. A lot of people get around the game console thing by building their own gaming pc, which gets expensive quickly (especially when there was a shortage of GPUs last year), or they do things like hardware hacking (I remember my boss from 20 years ago put the mod chip in his original PlayStation to play copies of games , though I thought it was cooler that it broke the region lockout so you could play Japan exclusive games… though none of us understood Japanese beyond the extreme basics so it was hilarious trying to play with zero knowledge of what was going on).
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  6. Without glue? Well there are certain materials that can be fused using “sonic welding”, or they will just stitch everything together and hope it holds up over time. 🤷‍♂️
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  7. They do still sell Coke in glass bottles, but usually it’s 4 in a pack, not 6… and the bottles are TINY compared to the plastic bottles in the 6 pack. So it’s more expensive.
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  8. Comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias used to joke that he drank Diet Pepsi “so I can eat regular cake”. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with really bad diabetes and he was almost 500lbs, but he managed to turn things around by cutting out added sugar and working or at the gym. Unfortunately it looks like he’s gained some weight back during covid.
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  9. Outside of vegan dressy shoes for work ($99 from the brand Vance on zappos), I try not to spend a lot on shoes ($50-$60) since I do tend to wear them until they break. It would be interesting if a shoe company did some kind of end of life return program what Apple is doing with old iPhones where they are dismantled and shredded/melted down to be reused somehow.
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  10. My office had those Aeron chairs after their old renovation, and they were the “sacred” chairs ONLY for the conference rooms and the front desk. Now our latest renovation (we thought we were socially distanced but not really.) The chairs are now ONLY for private offices, the conference room and new kitchen now has chairs that look like your dining chairs because the room is smaller (a future phase of the renovation will build a big conference room, but we needed to finish other parts of the plan first so everyone was back all on the same floor). Our desk chairs used to be okay, now they remind me of the vinyl seats in my parent’s old Chevy, except the back part is straight vertical with not much tilt back available… I snuck a chair from the temporary space upstairs because it was way more comfortable.
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  11. My cousin’s husband works for Verizon Fios. He recommended we never use it. 😂 There’s a few kindss of broadband, the best is Fiber to the premises, that fiber optic cable goes into your house and gets converted into copper cables. The less desirable, but the cheaper for the providers is fiber to the local distribution box. So somewhere in your area is a box with the fiber going into it, but then copper wires going out to you and your neighbors. Now if you’re in the middle of nowhere, the distance to that distribution box could be pretty far.
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  12. I mean, 2 Beyond burgers used to cost $12, now you can get 8 for $16. So the pricing is going down. Meanwhile the beef/chicken/pork/etc industry is heavily subsidized by the US government, even if it’s a factory farm.
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  13. Best advice, if your non-stick pan gets food stuck to it, throw it out, because the non-stick film over the top of the coating has failed, and now what’s under that film is “sticky” enough to get into whatever food you’re cooking. Also, stainless steel: if you scratch the material hard enough that spot might lose the stainless ability, as the food grade “nickel-chromium” forms a protective coating over the raw steel during forging at the mill, and the exposed steel can start to rust.
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  14. PFOAs are also in fire retardant foam used by airports, so in an emergency landing they will coat a runaway with this stuff… and then hose it off into the grass, where it seeps into the soil and gets into the groundwater… that’s how it gets into us. Always think of George Costanza in the huge bubble coat where he can’t even move his arms, “It’s Gore-Tex!”.
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  15. There is a movement of removing lawns for native plants. Problem is many people have been brainwashed into seeing native plants as “weeds”. And HOA Karens are fighting native plant gardens like crazy.
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  16. You can ship WAY more plastic bags than paper bags by weight. Shipping a similar number of paper bags needs more trucks. So yes, paper bags are bad.
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  17. Cowboys are a thing in Canada too, well Alberta…
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  18.  @IrishFinalExit google is good: UPF= ultra-processed foods.
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  19. Some supplement vitamins do go right through you, like vitamin C… so it’s that old joke about beer, “you don’t buy it, you just rent it.”
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  20. I must say the food in Europe is so much better, better taste, we even came back feeling great… (we spent 2 weeks living out of an apartment in Sofia, BG grocery shopping and cooking in. Buying only pre-made foods (breads, some desserts) from bakeries since we didn’t have the supplies for those (and the oven was tiny).)
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  21. I got an LL Bean stainless steel bottle that I just use for water for free because someone gave me a gift card and it was on sale for like $12. It’s beat to hell, the logo is almost gone, but it still holds water and that’s all that matters. (I’m a weirdo that doesn’t like coffee, and too much caffeine is bad for my heart anyway.)
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  22. Well, if you watch the 1980 Blues Brothers movie, the mall they drive around was a closed mall in the Chicagoland area. In fact they had to grab a bunch of stuff to make the stores look open. They left a bunch of it behind, and it sat rotting for decades before it was finally razed for redevelopment. So malls have been “dying” for at least 40-45 years or so. 🤷‍♂️ Edit: during our two trips to Stara Zagora and Sofia Bulgaria we ended up visiting 3 malls. It was jarring because they were like slices of American culture, in the middle of Eastern Europe with their stores and brands (there were a few US brands but they weren’t as prolific as US fast food places were.) Edit again: We’re near the Queens Center Mall, that’s got tons of bus stops around it, and it’s next to a subway station that will (finally) be getting accessible elevators… though it’s a local stop on the M and R trains, express trains zoom right on by.
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  23. I love Mexican food, but I can’t stand avocado or guacamole (or dipping salsa). It’s the texture and the fact that guac and salsa are usually served cold.
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  24. They also buy back iPads too, my old 1st Gen iPad Pro finally had to go because I was using it for remote school at home for most of last year… Zoom eats up so much battery power… finally went and got the last iPad Pro before they put their M1 chip in it (kind of not happy I missed out on that, but I’m not in any rush to replace my new one) and they actually gave me a surprisingly decent amount of money to buy back my old one… and they also bought my old Samsung S10e when I finally switched. (Samsung copying the no headphone jack was the last straw, I don’t want something else to charge, yet another device with a slowly degrading lithium battery (or three for the AirPods, two in the earpieces, one in the case). I use a wired set of lightning connector headphones from a local maker (usually makes traditional 1/8” jack cellphone headsets, but somehow they got Apple MFI certification! I’ve bought other headphones from them before, and was happy I could continue to support them.)
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  25. Most of these are just “veggie burgers” which are a bunch of chopped up vegetables (and sometimes an egg, like many do with their own burgers made from ground beef) in a patty that quickly falls apart while you’re eating it.
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  26. I was a Samsung Galaxy guy up until they deleted the headphone jack. Then I felt their phone was just another iPhone clone, without good connectivity with my Mac and iPad, and without decent security features. I do wish they had better repairability and a ln easy way to swap out the battery (galaxy s5 could do it and it was almost as dust and water proof as the same year iPhone.)
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  27. I believe the Ford Ranger (and other “light” pickups are still used in Latin America, and sometimes in Europe, though it’s rare.)
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  28. American coffee is burnt and bitter, at least to me. I would have to add in some much sugar it would be really unhealthy for me. So I don’t drink it, I stick to water. European coffee tastes good, but my lack of daily caffeination means it’s way too strong for me to handle.
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  29. According to google “lakes” sounds something like hukhhararr? (This makes no sense to me, and I took the time to learn some Danish with my wife before going there (though most of the course was about driving directions (“Den rigtige vej er vejen til Roskilde.”)… which we didn’t need… couldn’t teach me about rail travel? Especially when a guy asked us about something in the station and the only thing we understood was “Undskyld” (good luck saying that one) 🤦‍♂️ that was so embarrassing.) Then again when I noticed the local Lego store in our mall had closed for good due to the pandemic, “Lego-butikken er lukket.”
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  30. A factory making the same product, but putting different brand names on them is not new. There’s tons of examples, (did you know there’s really only ONE company that makes microwaves? They just change the control panels to the design specifications of brand that puts their name on the outside.) Another one that’s actually really bad, if you watch the Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube, he finds cheap locks or lockboxes that look so suspiciously similar, it’s like they just change out the silkscreen for the brand name every few hours. It’s bad, because now you have a bunch of the same security devices out there with the same flawed locks that can be exploited by criminals.
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  31.  @triadwarfare I’m a “this is way too bitter” guy. There’s not enough milk, or sugar to make it seem not bitter to me (even a cappuccino). So i just never drink coffee.
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  32. As I already had a Lodge cast iron pan, I got their enameled Dutch oven for well under $100. Oh, and Lodge still makes the non-enameled stuff in Tennessee, they just figured out how to automate the process.
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  33. Unless it’s something I need, I tend to avoid sales with spending minimums. (25% of $300 is $75, so you still have to spend $225 on stuff you probably don’t need. Buying nothing saves me $225!)
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  34. Future (proof?) video idea: do you really need Fabric Softener? I’ve been reading it’s: bad for fleece (mats down the fibers), bad for towels (makes then less absorbent) and possibly even bad for clothing. Plus most non-“green” brands are petrochemical based, and most of it gets washed into the water system with the rinse cycle. Wool dryer balls are probably a better choice (although not best since that still means running the dryer).
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  35. Mineral water is good stuff, but you have to find ACTUAL mineral water, not just water with stuff tossed into it. Thus far the only place that had this was Bulgaria (so much of it, you can get it out of public taps for FREE.)
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  36. Holiday creep is real, I was in the mini-Target* near us the weekend before Halloween. They were selling Halloween candy next to Gingerbread houses. So I’m predicting “Black Friday” will slowly move back until it starts in summer.😂 *it used to be our Barnes and Noble.😢
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  37. Worked in college radio, we had 3 CD players, a dual cassette recorder, and two turntables (and a microphone). The music storage room had two WALLs of vinyl, next to rolling racks and racks of CDs. I still have a small vinyl collection, but I have more CDs because I can rip them into iTunes/Music and put them on my phone. You can do that with vinyl, but it’s more of a project since I’d have to connect the computer to the turntable (Audio Technica, which does have usb, my old one did not, so I’d have to use a thing that converted stereo RCA audio into digital.) Edit: IKEA makes/made a recycled plastic storage box that’s 13x13x13ish, holds a lot of vinyl.
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  38. The President of China wore one of their jackets to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
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  39.  @benjalucian1515  he was saying there are, he meant there are no bad words.
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  40. Here in NY a long running cow’s milk dairy Elmhurst shut down, and reopened as a fully plant based “dairy”. Never really bought theirs since I just use Silk soy milk, though not to drink (yuck), but it’s a great substitute for cow stuff in recipes (which I can no longer tolerate.)
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  41. Be very careful with these, last night here in NYC someone’s e-bike on the charger caught fire, and unfortunately several members of the family died before the fire department could save them.
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  42. I personally don’t get coffee, it’s bitter, sometimes tastes burned, and overall I just feel I’d need to add an unhealthy amount of sugar to it for it to taste decent. I do like their white hot chocolate (with or without peppermint), and vanilla crème frappes though (with soy milk and no whipped cream, since that’s got dairy in it and my tolerance for dairy has dropped a lot as I’ve gotten older (seems to be a normal thing.))
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  43. Cardiologist told me the heart rate stuff on the watch aren’t great and just ignore if it tells me something is wrong, it’s probably nothing to worry about unless I had other symptoms. I’m probably not replacing mine, but I’ll wear it into the ground since my wife got it for me for Father’s Day a few years ago. And then the other day the new WatchOS changed how all the controls work and I’m very annoyed that I have to learn how to use this thing… AGAIN. (It was fine the way it was, I don’t need widgets on the watch!)
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  44. I have a Norelco, blades last 12 months. No need for any shaving cream/gel, and I get a good shave quickly.
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  45. Reusable CLOTH bags are great. Reusable plastic bags are bad news. If they weren’t recycling the old thin plastic grocery bags, they aren’t recycling the thicker reusable plastic bag either, so when it eventually wears out, it’s going to be sitting in a landfill for a longer time than that cloth bag. Edit: I’ve had and reused the same cloth bag from the Strand bookstore for like 20 years.
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  46. I usually only use Uber Eats around my job because they have way more vegan options than seamless, and that’s only on days where I didn’t just pack lunch from home. (We’re kind of in a sit down restaurant dead zone, aside from fast food 🤢, so going out to eat is not possible.) Yes, the time we were staying in Bulgaria for our adoption, we ate local and rented an apartment with a full kitchen to cook at home, and all the food was basically farm to table, delicious and we felt BETTER after a week of eating like this.
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  47. I can’t remember what it was, but we used to buy the off-brand because it had less unpronounceable chemical ingredients and the list of ingredients was shorter. It was like trying to omit something real to cut prices required a chemistry set, but the off-brand just found a cheaper source, which somehow was “beneath” the original brand? 🤷‍♂️
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  48.  @Reticence9zen924  save a fox, they are on YouTube.
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