#pro doom strats

[3liza]

speaking of being arrested (earlier tags on a Mangioni post) every time i see cop footage of a suspect being interrogated i shake my head in amazement because everyone is SO willing to just talk to the pigs, trust the pigs, give the pigs information. even people who should really know better (people who are presumably criminally experienced and manipulative enough to understand talking to cops never helps). i did not do this when i was arrested. i gave them the autism silent treatment the whole time i was there.

they sent, on purpose i think, a small female cop to do my pockets/possessions search before they put me in the cell, and she was absolutely and transparently trying to buddy up to me, and she fucking sucked at it, making overfamiliar comments about how my puffer vest (it was cold) was like the one in Back to the Future. i dont think ive ever delivered a more deadpan "what." in my life. it was a black vest btw, not orange, and otherwise completely unremarkable. weird thing to say.

all i said to every cop in the arrest process was "yes" or 'no" to mandatory questions, my identification, and "i want to speak to a lawyer". as a result they never actually tried to interrogate me, they just put me in an overnight cell next to another activist who had also been arrested, another activist i already knew. we ALSO did not talk to EACH OTHER overnight, because we knew they were listening. instead, we took turns singing Disney songs with the lyrics changed to make fun of the police (we were in adjoining concrete cells, no bars, just solid walls and doors).

im telling you this because it may happen to you someday, especially if you are brave enough to show up to protests (please do). the cops will try to trick you. if you are nervous you may exhibit appeasement behaviors you're unfamiliar with and find hard to control. you will be aware the whole time that they can kill you, rape you, frame you for crimes, and have zero repercussions. the way to deal with this is to "grey rock" the cops. silent treatment. remember how effective this was when you were a kid? when you just shut down and turned into a stiff, staring automaton. cops cannot do anything with this behavior, they cant manipulate it or lie to it or twist it around, because "it" is nothingness, you're giving them nothing to work with. remember that tiktok with the two lawyers? shut the fuck up

you also should not eat or drink anything while there unless it's just water out of a sink, no cup. they can take your DNA from anything you put your mouth on. i fucked this one up, i actually ate the jail breakfast they gave me. im a low-priority, zero-clout arrestee so i doubt they bothered, but they certainly could have my DNA on file right now. i cant tell you why i made that mistake, people do stupid and careless things when sleep deprived and i just forgot to put that into my "here's what im going to do" plan going in.

if you are white and privileged like i am, go to the front line, put your body in front of your more vulnerable comrades. white and cis-passing people get the treatment i described, we get to sing in a nice clean cell all night and go home in the morning. everyone else who gets arrested is not so lucky. take up the cops' time and space, be a distraction.

edit: they also kept taking me out of my cell, about five times over the course of the night, trying to get my fingerprints on the fingerprinting machine, and they couldnt do it because my weird hEDS frog fingers wouldn't register on the scanner. lmfao

[3liza]

every time i use a thermos and my liquids are kept hot or cold for a long period of time im like :0 holy shit. do people know about this

[3liza]

i dont use alarm clocjks a TON and i dont use them for waking up for work so my recommendation sucks maybe but i bought one of these things cheap a couple years ago and i like it. it has a ominous bell-tolling (like church bell) sound in its library and you can set it to toll for thee. light very gently turns from dim orange to bright fucking white while the church bell starts quiet and distant and gradually comes closer and closer until it becomes terrifyingly loud its great. it also has the standard choose-your-own-LED-colors function as a basic lamp, you can set it to green light to shine in your face for migraines if you do that green light thing, or just a small bright white light to help you wake up

i wouldnt pay $20 for this though, theres probably a better price on ali express

[3liza]

here's what I've learned to never pay full price for, because people are giving these items away for free or almost free on Craigslist, Nextdoor, Facebook, at Goodwill, and on eBay (which has a local pickup section) in every sufficiently populated location in the USA.

cost of acquiring these items ranges from "carrying it home from the sidewalk" to "getting a friend with a car to help you pick it up" which is the same amount of effort as going to IKEA for worse quality that costs more, with the notable exception of it being a pain in the ass to coordinate with craigslist sellers, and you often have to wait and watch for what you want to actually show up. it took me about a year to find an acceptable gamer chair left out on the sidewalk, for example. but they cost $100+ new, so I chose to wait.

a lot of this stuff is the kind of thing you don't necessarily intend to keep, just to use in transitional housing or until you can afford a better one.

1. printers of any kind. basic office inkjets are free. ink is easily refillable or has generic ink cartridges way cheaper than brand name for any inkjet up to about 2015, not sure how difficult the newer smart printers are to hack but there's no reason to own a newer one because printing technology has not improved since about 2005. you want a color laser for making zines and wheatpastes? it's on Craigslist RN and someone's mom is desperate to get rid of it

2. bedframes

3. desks

4. tables

5. chairs

6. bookshelves, nice oak bookshelves that don't bend like al dente spaghetti when you put books on them, are rotting on sidewalks rn because they didn't fit in someone's house. go get them

7. scanners. I find a working scanner by a dumpster at least once a quarter, and I don't pick them up because I already have one that I picked up from a dumpster years ago

8. hot tubs. everyone thinks they want a hot tub and that the maintenance and upkeep will be worth it, and they are wrong. Craigslist.

9. sofas, with the caveat that if you are in a bedbug region like New York State you need to be very confident in your bedbug screening skills

10. quality leather shoes. these last forever and are expensive new. eBay is best for these

11. plates, glassware, silverware. all of these are able to be sterilized to whatever standard you feel comfortable with but if you eat in restaurants you've already put a fork in your mouth that hundreds of people have drooled on so try not to fool yourself

12. televisions and computer monitors

13. houseplants. similar to the bedbug warning above, you need to screen these for pests like fungus gnats and mealybugs

14. dressers, wardrobes, china hutches, cabinets, chests of drawers, etc

15. mirrors

16. clothes hangers

17. moving boxes

18. mattresses to a certain extent. I don't like secondhand used mattresses but unstained, unused mattresses are surprisingly common, especially since the foam mail order mattress boom started and people keep getting told by the mattress companies to just get rid of/keep any mattresses they want to return for flaws or wrong sizes or whatever. bedbug warning on this obviously

19. sheets and towels. you gotta launder them obviously

20. basic clothing, especially for kids. normie type clothing is so numerous people often just throw them away because they can't get anyone to take them

21. kitchenware like cooking utensils and pots n pans. don't use chipped or scratched Teflon/nonstick if you can help it. everyone needs one basic steel chef knife, which can be sharpened and maintained indefinitely. people throw these away CONSTANTLY

22. household consumables like laundry soap and dish soap. people often accidentally buy the wrong brand, scent, or develop allergies and want to get rid of extra

23. pet supplies like collars, leashes, dog crates, litter boxes, litter itself, dog beds, toys, carriers, etc

24. medical equipment of all kinds. people who take care of all kinds of patients end up with tons of leftover, sealed, miscellaneous stuff when that person recovers or dies, and they often give it away. adult diapers, hospital beds, IV stands, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, fracture boots and splints, knee braces, canes, catheter packs, ice packs, heat packs, sterile paper sheeting, gauze, slings, over-the-door stretching and rehab pulleys, mattress protectors, etc

25. washers and dryers, both the basic household cube type and the small twin tub or rock tumbler type. people upgrade these when the old ones are still working, just squeaky or a little weird or sometimes just old

26. vacuum cleaners. secondhand ones are sort of icky but you can get rid of the ickiness by wiping them down with a rag and isopropyl alcohol inside and out. use an exacto or utility knife to slice off the hair and string wrapped around the roller. buy a new filter on Amazon. people throw away vacuums that work perfectly all the time because they don't actually know how to clean them out or do maintenance. bedbug and pet hair warning obviously

27. microwaves

28. refrigerators

30. lamps

31. any kind of exercise equipment including stationary bikes, ellipticals and weights/weight benches

32. any kind of piano. there's a grand on my local Craigslist for free rn

33. scrap wood and lumber

34. pallets

35. wood shipping crates

36. newborn, toddler and baby equipment like breast milk pumps and storage, bottles, bottle racks, diapers, etc. anything a little guy will grow out of fast will end up being given away

37. air conditioners, humidifiers and dehumidifiers. these will be most numerous during their respective off seasons

list updated 2/13/24 based on recent Craigslist trawling

38. jars, both canning type jars and clean food jars like from pickled or jelly bought at the store

39. rugs. most of my rugs are sidewalk finds. rugs will almost always be dirty. a decent consumer grade rug cleaner costs under $100, it's cheaper to just buy one if you have the space to store it. flushing the scavenged rug with soap, hot water, vinegar, alcohol, etc will clean almost anything but huge bedbug and allergen warning on this item

[3liza]

guys, if you are framing a talking subject on a screen, their head does not go in the center of the frame, almost ever. their eyeline should be approximately level with the upper rule-of-thirds grid line, at least, and often should be even higher, like making the mouth level with the thirds line! top of head clipping out of, or just brushing, the upper border of the frame, is the most comfortable Talking Head frame for a reason.

whebn you DONT do this, you end up with the frame looking oddly looming, as the emptiness of the space you're framing about your subject's head presses down on them. if youre using this result for creative effect, fine, its not illegal to do this, im just saying if you are filming a youtube video vlog or basic presentation or whatever, the viewers will usually be put off slightly by this center-weighted framing and wont be able to articulate what's wrong with it. so im telling you what's wrong with it. the composition is bad and causing inappropriate tension for a youtube host presenter. this guy needs to just scootch his framing down a BIT and it would be fine, but this frame is irritating to look at how it is now

[3liza]

here is a life hack for throwing up: sniffing isopropyl alcohol (like an alcohol swab or basic bathroom alcohol) often works to prevent vomiting when you are about to barf and do not want to. anxiety nausea, need to keep pills down, motion sickness etc. i learned this in the ICU and it really works, a nurse ripped open an alcohol swab under my nose and suddenly i wasn't about to throw up anymore. it's research supported too!

[3liza]

i mean the truth is that we do not need and should not have all this stupid plastic clutter in or houses. no one should be producing or selling this shit. everyone make your own merchandise and charge a living hourly wage to sell it 🤷 sorry to be so simplistic about this but it's one of the results of the lack of class unity specifically in the means of production-owning creative class, who is not mentioned or dealt with by the core Marxist texts as far as I know (i asked about this earlier on here, did marx ever address in his analysis people like, for example, a professional photographer who owns a camera ans prints his own dagguereotypes? or a portrait painter or idk, independent milliner or seamstress? these people all own the means of production and do not employ anyone, and the answer from better educated people than I was that no, Marx didn't mention them), I'm not well read on this at all, there is just a big void where leftist analysis of what modern economists call "the creative class"

I'm getting off topic. my point is make your own keychains in your kitchen. it's actually not hard. you can even mass produce (on a small scale) little plastic crap if you want, with resin and a UV lamp, or a 3d printer, or a laser cutter and acrylic sheets (or just use balsa wood damn, at least its biodegradable and less tacky).

all this stuff is available to little creators AND there are hundreds of people who already own these machines who will take work for you and produce your designs. you just have to actually find them and know them and email them. that's what I mean about the class unity issue with creatives. we have no large scale union, we have no large scale class consciousness, and we're all sending our orders for little plastic crap to sweatshops instead of emailing a guy with a laser cutter in his garage and saying "hey Keith can I get uhhhhhhhhhhh 50 laser cut keychains of this twerking Diggler design I made, like how much would that cost" and he's like sure here's the work and materials cost and tbh it's always always less than i think it's going to be. you just have to do some basic arithmetic and then order shipping, and I hate order fulfillment with my life but you can actually pay or barter with someone to do that for you too. learn to delegate and then factor that into your unit cost. this is basic shit every commercial creator needs to know. they should teach you this in art school but they dont

don't give me crap about "I can't afford a laser cutter" either because I just told you to email Keith. and all these machines get sold secondhand when a manufacturer or hobbyist needs to upgrade. i got a color laser printer perfect for making zines and wheatpastes and shipping labels from a retired lesbian on capital hill for $75 and it was still full of ink. my friend gave me her 20 year old canon dslr because she just didn't need it and didn't want to bother selling it. it works fine because I spent the time finding the right drivers and shit for my computer. and card readers exist. Craigslist. Facebook marketplace. nextdoor sales section. eBay. everyone always forgets eBay. eBay lets you save searches and will email you when it finds a guy selling his vinyl plotter in your city with local pickup. I'm serious

[3liza]

the venerable housecleaning expert Fly Lady is right about many things but one of the best tips she has is putting old dish soap or body wash or shampoo or whatever in the cup of your toilet brush holder and just gently brushing out the toilet once a day-ish even if it's not actively dirty. you don't even realize your bathroom is getting that sort of dank, cavey smell even separately from the more typical fecal stink of a "dirty" bathroom until you start remembering to do this regularly. i mean it's a pool of enclosed standing water in a small room, it just makes sense. plus if you're fucked up and the toilet is actually currently dirty you can scrape off another layer every day instead of feeling like you have to do it all at once.