I never thought Id be excited for a garbage can, but after going through multiple plastic cans and having the lid mechanism fail on cheaper metal cans, I broke down and got a more expensive one from Simple Human. I feel the quality everytime I use the step to toss something. It sounds so dumb, but I’m really blown away after years of crappy cans.
Aside from that, my python water changer for aquariums. That thing has been the goat for years at this point.
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I have an espresso machine - so far 15 yrs of daily use.
I have the cheapest steam iron from Walmart, not as much use - but going strong.
I have a Casio scientific calculator going strong ~30 yrs.
Ikea blue bag for shopping and avoiding single use plastic.
Stainless steel straws.
Reusable pads and diva cup.But my swear by thing: a lot of dollar store or store brand snacks are as good as the big name. You just have to wade through them to see which one you like.
Moondrop headphones. Their quality is really good. I’m not an audiophile by any means but they have a good audio range and a pair typically lasts me around 2 years if I don’t forget to take them out of my clothes before they’re washed. They still survive a few trips through the laundry despite that though.
Dynavap M 2019 model. Pure craftsmanship.
Logitech K120
best keyboard ever made
15$
I can swear just fine without any products, thank you very fucking much.
Thanks, dad
Cast iron pans when you learn how to season them well. As an unrelated note, anyone know of any good mice brands for universal gaming?
Or my favorite pan right now: nitrided carbon steel.
8bitdo controllers & PC accessories
These guys can make really good electronics, while maintaining that retro aesthetic
Was having connection issues with the 8bitdo Pro 2 for the switch.I though that they followed enshitification practices and stopped supporting it, but was surprised that they still had firmware updates and it worked again after updating.
Red Boat fish sauce.
I’m more a fan of red fish boat sauce myself.
My Son of Sandlar merchant boots. I have two pairs, one in brown, one in black.
I got them at a Renaissance festival over a decade ago, and they’re still going strong. Son of Sandlar has a lot of very flamboyant footwear, things like this. But while I wanted some boots for costume purposes, if I’m spending that much on footwear, I want something that I can actually wear in everyday use. And the merchant boot style fits the bill. It has some flare to it, but they’re normal enough looking that I can wear them in regular settings.
And I wear them a lot. The black ones especially go with almost any outfit. And I live in the PNW, so we get cold and rain 8 months of the year. I wear these boots daily through the rainy season. And they’re really held up. I’m a decade in and still on the original soles, but the boots are made to be repairable. I’ll probably have these boots for the rest of my life. Really comfortable to.
My life has literally become an example of boots theory.
Wasn’t expecting to see ren faire stuff here, but yeah. Got my sandlar boots a few years ago, and they’re still basically new. Just keep them polished, and they’ll last ages.
For years I always liked the Pinaud shave products, and I never realized that it smells like straight weed even though I was a huge stoner. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.
I went a couple years without using it cause I stopped shaving, and then one day I decided to shave again so I used some and I was like “Holy fuck. Weed.”
So I checked the ingredients and sure enough, like half of them are terpenes.
I started rethinking my choices to travel with it by airplane, but I never had issues 🤷
I’m usually not a brand loyalist, but when it comes to tools, this is a Makita family.
No other tool company publishes open schematics for all of their tools, so they can be repaired with generic parts instead of expensive “replacement parts kits.” Every other tool company is traded publicly on the stock market and vulnerable to enshittification. Makita is a large, but still family-owned, union company in Japan.
Lots of companies focus on ergonomics & power, but only Makita is focused on low vibrations while still making tools that are just as powerful.
But most of all? They’ve stated that destroying two-stroke motors in yard equipment is one of their main corporate goals, and so for both environmental and noise reasons, this company has my loyalty forever. Makita corporate? Hit me up! I will sell the fuck out of your tools.
Thanks for the info. I’m thinking of buying an electric lawn mower to stop paying for gardeners but didn’t know which brand to go with. I’ll definitely give their offerings a look.
I did not know that about Makita. I will have to pay closer attention their offerings!
I am fully kitted out with DeWalt battery powered hand tools, but I have been adding more heavy duty corded tools lately as well.
DeWalt is good, imo them, Milwaukee, and Makita all make great tools. Bosch and Festool are also good. But Makita is my favorite for the reasons mentioned above. Btw, you can get adapters to use different brands’ batteries with different brands’ tools…
Yeah we’re firmly committed to the DeWalt ecosystem at this point. The lawnmower is even a DeWalt.
Good to know, thanks! My default is just using Kobalt out of cost and convenience. In my opinion best bang for buck. For premium tools I’ll consider Bosch (apparently another great reputation as a company) and now Makita.
Bosch is very good too. Festool is great, but crazy expensive. Milwaukee & DeWalt are good too. But Makita is the best, especially the ones actually made in Japan
If you like cannabis, the Pax 2 vaporizer is amazing. Bought one 12 years ago, used it nearly daily til the button died. Recently purchased another one exactly like it, looking forward to another decade of use.
I am generally anti-corporate anti-capitalist, but I will happily endorse this one specific product cuz it performs one function extremely well for years.
I didn’t go with a Pax but I have Mighty and Crafty+ that are great. It allows for less herb to be used which kinda helps pay for the device but my favorite part is the flavor is nicer.
Got both second-hand with new mouthpieces as I hate spending money but they’re dope. Irony is I’m trying to smoke less or just stop but it’s 2026.
Haix boots.
They’re expensive AF, and they’re super heavy, but they’re super comfortable and they’re designed to protect your feet from basically everything, be worn for long durations, and last forever. My first pair lasted me almost 7 years of heavy use and kept my feet safe in the most disgusting situations (I finally had to buy a second pair after they tore up the side). They were covered in mud, snow, blood, vomit, feces, and took me through homes infested in cock roaches and bed bugs and all I ever needed to do was hose them off. I replaced countless broken laces and a zipper once (the laces hold the zipper in place and it’s designed to be easily swapped). They’re rated for electric shock, are wildland fire approved, are waterproof, have a composite toe, and a steel shank in the sole to protect from sharp objects.
I won’t buy any other boots for work. It’s a classic case of the boots problem, I used to go through a $150 pair of boots every 8 months and always had foot pain, but these cost $450 and lasted me almost 7 years so I definitely saved money and my feet are happy and protected.
Beyerdynamic makes good wired headphones. Are they too expensive? Absolutely. Their headphone stand costs 60 USD. The drawstring bag costs 25 USD. Some of the headphones cost up to 700 USD when not on sale.
But here’s where they’re better than competition. This is compared to the JBL 720BT, not to any other brand or model.
- They do not fall apart after a few months.
- They do not require weird audio adapters. They work with multiple standard audio jack sizes, in stereo.
- They do not require a proprietary application to use weird Bluetooth features. They are just wired headphones. There is no enshittification.
- Is their customer service line god-awful? Honestly, I don’t know: I’ve never had to put up with their customer service. But JBL made me wait on the line for an hour on multiple occasions, on their crackly phone line to a call center outsourced to India. It took me three calls and much waiting to get a person who spoke fluent English. Even that person took the better part of an hour to resolve the records issue on their end (related to purchase history).
Maybe you knew this already, but Beyerdynamic was sold for cheap to a Chinese conglomerate earlier last year. I wouldn’t count on the quality remaining the same.
Oh, that’s unfortunate. Do you have any good recommendations for other wired-only closed-ear headphones of similar quality? If you suggest JBL, I’m going to put my head through the wall.
Audio quality and headphone durability matter a lot to me.
Sennheiser. I’ve been using a Sennheiser HDR175 every day for the last 10 years and they hold up extremely well. I’ve replaced the cushions a couple of times but the build quality is excellent, I’d buy them again in a heartbeat. Mine is wireless but they offer a number of wired models too. The original batteries still last all day, I can’t even remember the last time I got a low battery warning.
For what it’s worth, Beyerdynamic still mostly produce in Germany – at least for the time being.
Thank you for the recommendation!
Please tell me more about the cushion replacements. Did the cushions fall off, or did you replace them for some other reason? How easy are the cushions to replace?
You’re welcome! I mostly use ear pads made from artificial leather. The surface material gets small cracks from wear and tear over time, they typically last a couple of years though. You can also get ones made from Velours, they supposedly last forever but I personally don’t like wearing them.
Replacing the ear pads is pretty easy on most Sennheiser models, you can clip them on and off without any tool needed. The smaller pads at the top are attached with adhesive film. It takes maybe 2 minutes to replace all cushions with new ones. Sennheiser no longer sells spares for mine, but there are fortunately plenty of third party manufacturers that still do.
With JBL (ugh), the only thing holding the pads on is the surface material, whichis attached with cheap glue that lasts a year at most, under minimal wear.
So this is much better. Thank you—I will look into Sennheiser.
Some of their models come with a dettachable cable. If the cable breaks or you prefer a shorter/longer cable you can swap it easily.
Bar Keepers Friend, it just works and that’s a rare quality these days.
Lysol laundry disinfectant, it’s the only thing that gets the funk of our well water out of the clothes
Myos muscle powder for dogs, it practically reversed my dogs aging and at 11 he’s actively gaining muscle that was wasting before
MAKEUP BY MARIO surrealskin waterproof setting spray, it’s alcohol free, gentle and works better than any other setting sprays I’ve ever used
This one is a little different because it’s a brand and it definitely isn’t universal, but Kirkland Brand, so much of my house is just Costco store brand and it still has great quality almost across the board, don’t buy their batteries or toilet paper though, I don’t know if they’ve fixed the water content in their butter than was messing up everyone’s baking.
My Brevill toaster oven, it’s a little champ that’s fed a family of four with no problem for years.
I’m sure there’s more but that’s off the top of my head
God yes, laundry disinfectant is a godsend. I live in the south and sweat a lot. No amount of showering, anti-perspirants, deodorants, etc kept the sweaty funk smell off. I’d walk outside, (even just walking between my front door and my car), and would immediately smell bad. Then I started using laundry sanitizer, and the sweaty funk smell vanished almost overnight.
It turns out I didn’t stink. My clothes did. Detergent is great for getting rid of dirt, stains, etc, but it doesn’t do anything for microbes. And all of my clothes had built up enough microbes that I’d start stinking as soon as my clothes got damp from sweat.
I literally credit laundry sanitizer for helping me land my wife. She (in)famously has a bloodhound nose. Know how some pregnant women get a supercharged sense of smell? Yeah, hers is like that all the time. So if I showed up to our dates stinking of sweat-funk, she 100% would have stopped dating me. She’s always the first to notice when something stinks, and laundry sanitizer is the only reason I was able to keep her around long enough to put a ring on it.
As a bonus, my clothes don’t go sour if I forget them in the washer for a few hours. Microbes are what make your clothes to go sour. Since the laundry was freshly sanitized , there are no microbes to make it go sour.
BKF The powder stuff is great. Hard to get hold of. Saved my skin a few times.
Have a breville coffee machine. Id give the oven up before that. It’s my daily saviour and is no bother.
Mysos muscle powder…can humans have this?
Myos is specifically a laboratory that makes the “dog formula” which means it’s unflavored but fertilized egg yolks is something humans can ingest and get the same results yes! It’s for age related muscle wasting only because it essentially blocks a protein aging bodies produce. A lot of stuff was like give your dog glucosamine and condroiten or other things but had no hard science to back up the results, fertilized egg yolks have human and animal science behind them that show an 18% - 22% reduction in age related muscle wasting and can help build muscle back too.
The Breville Sous Chef is great as well.
