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Bikeses update: Gone. It was a bit of a hassle, I ended up shipping the Levo and recumbent to different sides of the country. I hate shipping bikes. I really hate shipping expensive bikes. But, I did, and they arrived, and I haven't heard any complaints. Buyers have had the bikes for at least a week, so at this point, we're done. All told, all-in, I ended up $7 shy of doubling my money. I tossed a couple sheckles to glyph, because he nudged me into getting the recumbent, and I bought a TV for my built-in. After that, still put a good chunk in the bank, so a worthwhile endeavor.
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Oct 27, 2020 21:02
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EVERYWHERE 
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I just had a BMW E61 flashback. The rear wiper in the Escalade hasn't been working for a couple months. I had checked the fuses, but that's as far as I'd gone. I figured it was wiring somewhere, the internets said the wiper motors corrode, so I thought that may be it. But then the rear defroster woudn't work today. Two failures in the same place makes me thing it's not two separate failures, but one common one. Now the BMW wagon didn't have a functioning defroster, or a glass door release, and it had a common failure -- the wiring harness was too short from the factory and the wires eventually break. So, you need to wire in extensions on about 20 wires with no working space. Awesome. The Cadillac? Wiring harness problem, too. The ground wire burns in a connector. I pulled it out and cleaned the contact area, put a little dielectric grease on there and plugged it back together. Voila... everything's working again. Example #234523 on why a big dumb truck is better than a BMW.
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Dec 10, 2020 17:58
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Not far from '80s Dodge, where the big firewall connector contacts would corrode a bit, get hot, and start melting the connector.
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Dec 11, 2020 00:53
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look some dumb mother fucker in purchasing saved seven cents per harness that way and got his performance-based bonus that year so who's to say that it was a bad decision?
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Dec 13, 2020 17:19
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I had to look up my previous issues with the Escalade's transmission, so I figured I'd bump this. I'm so bad at cars right now, it's sad. The RDX has been complaining about needing an oil change for months and I haven't even bothered... it's only been 3500 miles since I changed it last year, the computer wants time-based oil changes, though. I still have a bunch of poo poo to sort out with the Passat. I need to do a bunch of maintenance with the Escalade. My son's Avalon hasn't been driven in a month, and when we took it out, we checked the oil and there was nothing on the dipstick. I guess that explains why it hasn't been leaking. Eh, it's a 2000 Toyota, it's fine.
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Feb 22, 2021 18:46
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I definitely owe a lot of fluid changes to the family cars, but I'm holding off until we actually might start driving them again. I feel your pain.
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Feb 22, 2021 19:01
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meatpimp posted:My son's Avalon hasn't been driven in a month, and when we took it out, we checked the oil and there was nothing on the dipstick. I guess that explains why it hasn't been leaking. Eh, it's a 2000 Toyota, it's fine. Brokeback told a couple of knock knock jokes on a cold start the other day. Oil light stayed on a bit longer than usual. It was also close to 0F. Same thing. Nothing on the dipstick. But 1 quart brought it up to the full mark.  It holds a little under 4 quarts though; not the 5 qts I'm used to with my last few cars.
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Feb 22, 2021 19:07
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STR posted:Same thing. Nothing on the dipstick. But 1 quart brought it up to the full mark. 9 quarts for our LS460, it's loving ridiculous. I had to buy the largest oil extractor I could find because 9 quarts comes out of the pan with so much force it's impossible to not make a giant mess.
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Feb 23, 2021 14:46
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Holy poo poo. That's an expensive oil change.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:23
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Yeah, I use Mobil 1 extended and it's good for at least 10k miles so i don't have to do it as much. Can't wait for both our cars to be EVs tbh
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Feb 23, 2021 16:40
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Hey, Meatpimp. Is it your [milestone] birthday yet? Happy Birthday.
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Feb 23, 2021 17:06
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glyph posted:Hey, Meatpimp. Almost, thanks!
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Feb 24, 2021 02:10
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Applebees Appetizer posted:9 quarts for our LS460, it's loving ridiculous. I had to buy the largest oil extractor I could find because 9 quarts comes out of the pan with so much force it's impossible to not make a giant mess. 10 quarts in the Mustang, but at least it's an even two 5qt jugs unlike my past couple cars where I always ended up buying a jug and a quart or two and had like 10 1-quart bottles with various levels of who knows how old oil kicking around in the garage.
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Feb 24, 2021 07:00
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I just buy 5 quart jugs and use the open one on the next oil change. I mean, I wouldn't use ancient oil on a vehicle, but dealerships and anywhere that does oil changes professionally buys oil by the drum and it's definitely not hermetically sealed after they pop the cap and install a pneumatic pump.
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Feb 24, 2021 15:06
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yeah but they're burning a drum in like a matter of weeks at most in most cases
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Feb 25, 2021 15:35
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This is a dad-chat, detailing-thread, archive-bump multipost. So I came back from shopping at a nearby nursery with my wife this morning, to find my 12 year old daughter in hysterics. Our 2 year old Bernadoodle had counter-surfed the Chinese takeout red sauce for eggrolls and decided to messily devour it on our new carpet and drapes. Said 12-year-old daughter found it and aforementioned 18-year-old tried to decide what to do. Thankfully, they just tried to triage with some water. With that, I tried to calm the 12 year old and send the 18 year old on to his job... his shift started in like 10 minutes. Then, it was time to break out one of my favorite tools -- a Mytee Spyder steam carpet extractor. Red things normally look fierce as a stain, but generally don't hold up to good cleaners / steam. I have recently found that Folex is an absolutely phenomenal fabric cleaner, that is after 30+ years of experimentation with commercially-available carpet cleaning chemicals. With that, I got the Spyder out of storage, filled it with a hot water / Folex mixture and... the way that it destroyed the stains on the carpet and drapes was just disrespectful of dirt... it obliterated any semblance of the stain with little effort. Okay, we're good. Time to shake off the adrenaline that comes from finding your 12 year old daughter in hysterics. That's a tough one. I had a lot of Folex mixed into the Spyder, so I decided that instead of putting it away, I'd get to the Escalade, which had intended to do for a while. See, I had intended on giving the Escalade a third go-around with carpet cleaning. When I bought it in ~2015, it had a LOT of carpet stains. I don't know what they are, I don't want to know. I do know, though, that I am really good at getting vehicle carpet stains out. When I first got it, I used what I had at the time (Probably the blue aerosol cans from Wal-Mart that are, in general, awesome). Then, when I got the Spyder, I tried again and got more of the poo poo out. Well, now it's a couple years on, and I haven't paid the Escalade much attention at all. But, it still had carpet stains, so let's try the Folex with the Spyder and do a tour de force on those stains. The amount of stain that was taken out was impressive. I'm left with just a couple small stains ( and small means "unnoticeable" to most people on a tan carpet. But man, whatever the spilled all over this poor car was epic. Trip report: Bernedoodles are garbage canines. Mytee Spyders are awesome tools for car detailing AND carpet cleaning. Finally -- Mytee Spyders are absolutely NOT worth the $1600 purchase price, but ARE worth $200 or so from craigslist. 
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May 2, 2021 19:41
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Looks like you're stuck with the dumb dog for the rest of it's life  I just don't have the patience for pets anymore, I love our cat but sometimes I really wish I held firm against anymore pets again
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May 2, 2021 21:41
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Will ha e to keep an eye out for one of those machines, never heard of them! I get a lot of tiny kei trucks with really dirty seat fabric. Speaking of kids, my 11 year old who is allay as tall as me got hurt in the backyard yesterday, after hours at a very nice urgent care fir foot X-rays not broken but on crutches, it’s hard seeing your kids hurt or upset.
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May 2, 2021 22:10
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everdave posted:Will ha e to keep an eye out for one of those machines, never heard of them! I get a lot of tiny kei trucks with really dirty seat fabric. I had never heard of it before, either. It popped up on craigslist a few years ago and I got it for a couple hundred bucks. Super worthwhile at that price, questionable at $1500. And yeah, kids struggling sucks. My girl broke her arm at 9 and it was no fun for any of us! Applebees Appetizer posted:Looks like you're stuck with the dumb dog for the rest of it's life Yup. One of these dogs is amazing, the other is an rear end in a top hat.
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May 2, 2021 23:29
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It's easy to tell which is the rear end in a top hat now (and now I've got a screen to fix). In car world, cars suck. I need to replace the headliner in the Passat... it started falling last year and I tried to 3M 77 it, but all that did was adhere the fabric to the disintegrating foam, which continued to disintegrate and fell again a few months later. I'm debating whether to get a junkyard headliner or just get some fabric and redo it myself. Also on the Passat, the driver's door stopped locking and unlocking, I figured it was something I left unplugged last time I took the door card off, but I investigated and... nope, everything's plugged in, but the lock/unlock doesn't work. VW stereotype founded in fact. I've got 2/3 of a front end rebuild on hand for the Escalade. I think I'm going to wait until I have everything and get some Bilsteins to do a full-on refresh all at once. 4600 or 5100 Bilstein... does it matter? I may crank the torsion bars up a little bit, but I did that with my dad's old Silverado and that made the truck harsh as hell... Other cars are doing their thing. RDX is plugging along like a good appliance and my boy's Avalon is in limited service. It seems to have fully poo poo its evap canister, so you can only fuel it at like 1/6 speed without the pump kicking off, but that beats the hassle of dropping the gas tank and replacing a $200 charcoal canister.
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Jul 8, 2021 01:06
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Oh hey thread, it's been almost a year. Cars? Haha. Cars are poo poo. The Escalade is pretty much hauler duty, the Passat is a basket case my son is driving, and the RDX just completely impressed me on a 1k mile vacation. It is utterly boring, but ultimately dependable and competent. I really came to appreciate the way it quietly ate up miles. So, what was the vacation? Well, it ended up with beach time, but it started out with a visit to RCR's race car shop and a couple days at Charlotte Motor Speedway with ridiculous access. NASCAR has come a long way since the last time I saw their pits/garage. No more bulky physical templates, everything is laser measured. The shop is GPS mapped and their measuring system can pinpoint dimensions down to ridiculous fractions. The cars are completely different, but so much more modular... if you had access to the parts, you could absolutely build one yourself. Pics to come after I get them sorted and a post prepared. Teaser: 
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Jun 3, 2022 13:15
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I don't watch much Nascar since the times don't work out well for me, but it's been hella interesting following the development of the new car. A lot of V8 Supercar DNA in it. And yeah, conceivably there's nothing stopping you just buying so many components given the spec nature. Transaxle for example is from Xtrac and I believe they supply from the clutch/bellhousing back.
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Jun 3, 2022 23:18
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If you're interested in the machining in NASCAR: https://youtu.be/176kwgqokcY Behind the scenes tour of Stewart/Haas. It's amazing.
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Jun 3, 2022 23:58
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sharkytm posted:If you're interested in the machining in NASCAR: Very similar to what I saw. RCR has its processes spread over several buildings in the complex, so I didn't see their CNC setup, but the hawk eye was the same: 
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Jun 4, 2022 13:14
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Okay, I suck. I never updated this thread with more pics.  I have a deposit on the Passat, supposed to be picked up on Wednesday. I've got a total of $2400 in it and I've had it since 2019. Sold it for $5k, even with a list of obvious cosmetic and QoL problems. I don't really want to sell it, since it leaves my wife and I and 20 year old kid with just the Escalade and RDX, but the kid is at school and doesn't need to drive until late Spring, and I figure that by then there will be a different used car landscape and I'll be able to buy something significantly better for that same money. We'll see...
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Nov 20, 2022 15:09
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meatpimp posted:Okay, I suck. I never updated this thread with more pics. How's the Escalade cruising these days?
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Nov 20, 2022 16:22
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Hughmoris posted:How's the Escalade cruising these days? You know, I really didn't drive it this year. It was tasked with dog transport duties when needed, and that was about it. I started to daily it a couple weeks ago and I really like it. It's big, tall, plenty of power (when you're in the 3 speed ranges that are properly geared), in general, a great daily. Other than the gas mileage. I'm running the 18" all terrain tires right now, since my 20" tires are dryrotted (with only 8 years and 30k miles on them  ), but I'll get new 20" tires next year.It desperately needs a suspension refresh... the rear shocks leak like crazy and burned up the second pump back there, and the front electronic shocks have always seemed overly stiff. So I'll probably go with a static Bilstein setup next year, too... we'll see...
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Nov 20, 2022 16:56
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I sold the Passat last week. Largely because it was a basket case that freaks out in the cold weather, but mostly because I doubled the money I had into it since 2019. I see the used car market dropping a bunch next year, so I'll re-buy something for when my son gets done with college for the year. And this is the time of year I hate. My semester is ending, so there's grading and crying students and all that nonsense, along with all of the stressors of modern Christmas. So, I did the only logical thing -- added more to my plate. Mother in Law got hit in her 2018 Toyota Avalon in October. I started helping steer the resolution about 3 weeks ago. Got to the point of negotiated payoff, then they gave $8700 as buyback. I'm buying it back. Plans are to get a Uhaul, strap it to the back of the Escalade and drive the 2 hours up to where the car is at, hopefully next week. What does it need? Who the gently caress knows. It is purely in the "somebody's been here before" territory, since the door, fenter, headlight, and bumper have all been removed, so who knows what fasteners and parts are there versus missing... but hey, it's an adventure, right? Pics, some with bonus FiL thumb:         Awesome! Dirty tires on the light colored leather!  Awesome! Ragged fender shoved into the light colored leather!
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Dec 7, 2022 22:38
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Man, whoever stuffed that grimy poo poo, especially the wheels/tires into a pristine interior like that needs a beat down.
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Dec 7, 2022 22:43
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They all loving do it. They just treat the whole car like it's garbage. They aren't paid enough to give a poo poo about something that isn't theirs. See: Any thread of mine between 2006 and 2012.
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Dec 7, 2022 23:02
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Sadly par for the course for cars destined for the auctions, or in this case a buyback. It really gets me going seeing destroyed sharp and dirty pieces tossed into pristine interiors where the next action is to dump that poo poo in the bin because it's unusable in any way. That looks like a cake walk to fix if you have any salvage repair experience. The cleaning from negligent parts handling will likely be more effort.
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Dec 7, 2022 23:04
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I'm not a body shop pro by any stretch, but one of my more fun projects was buying a 1988 Mazda MX6 GT from a woman that wrecked it drunk driving for the $250 she needed to cover her fines. Before (bonus corner of my UrS4):  After:  And yes, that is an actual Yugo hood scoop. I made an airbox and cut the hood out on top of it, so that is as cold air induction as you'll get.That was also my first try at shooting paint from a real gun and not a can. Single stage, but it turned out pretty well for a hack.
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Dec 7, 2022 23:27
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Alright. Just got back with the car. Used a 2 wheel dolly and it was about 125 miles away. The Escalade did fanatically well. On the way up, with just the 2 wheel dolly, I got 16.5mpg at about 75mph. On the way back, I had it in third gear and tow/haul mode and got 12.1mpg at around 75mph. I'm fully impressed with that, plus, the extra vehicle on the back really smoothed out the ride. The car itself? Definitely needs a lower A pillar pull. Probably not going to be me. I don't have any contacts with anyone with a frame machine, but it's a quick and easy pull. I'm going to get it cleaned up and documented, then get it on the market. That means a lot of cleanup and... all the parts are there that they took off, but I cannot find one loving fastener.
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Dec 15, 2022 20:23
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Well, that was a huge loving mistake. I saw the lack of fasteners and the pull that the a-pillar needed and figured I don't have the time right now. So, I cleaned it all up, meatpimp style, and took glamour shots of it. Posted on fb and craigslist. Zero replies from craigslist, over 70 different accounts messaged me on fb so far, all absolutely lowballing... 6k,8k offers like crazy... for a car that clean books for 25k, would sell with a rebuilt title for 17-20k and needs about 2k in work. I'll loving give it away for what I have in it, just need to get someone to pony up 10k and be done. Sheesh. Just buried with lowball cretins... and it gets tiresome.
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Dec 19, 2022 00:38
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Sounds like a "seal it up and park it safely" and see if it feels like there's more time next month. Maybe price out the fasteners because it'll be easier to decide to buy them if they're already sourced. Can you call the shop that took it apart and see if by some long shot they have the fasteners in a tub that didn't get thrown out? Once in a while you get lucky. Did you open everything while you were detailing to make sure they're not in the glove box or spare tire well? Looks like a great project so I'm kinda hoping I get to watch you go through with it.
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Dec 19, 2022 11:22
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LloydDobler posted:Sounds like a "seal it up and park it safely" and see if it feels like there's more time next month. Maybe price out the fasteners because it'll be easier to decide to buy them if they're already sourced. Can you call the shop that took it apart and see if by some long shot they have the fasteners in a tub that didn't get thrown out? Once in a while you get lucky. Did you open everything while you were detailing to make sure they're not in the glove box or spare tire well? Shop that did it said they threw out the fasteners.  It was never their property, kinda hosed, but nothing I can do now. It's not huge, but it's just the straw/camel's back thing... I just finished up my last class ever, so I'm entering this weird space of I'm not retired, but I'm not working, and I've got a ton of projects on the list... this just doesn't fit right now. 
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Dec 19, 2022 12:03
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Sold it. Worked too hard for $500 profit, but it's an albatross removed from the garage. Just bad timing -- it got cold here, so my wife's car was outside, I grossly miscalculated the number of vultures I'd run into selling a salvage car (I've sold dozens of clean title cars, I never realized the market is so different between the two...). Learning experience. Time to get selling all of the auction stuff I bought last week and enjoying a full-on break from working.
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Dec 19, 2022 21:37
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selling stuff is too much trouble these days. i just packed up a fuckload of toys and nerd poo poo and instead of going slow on Mercari i'm taking it all to a shop to dump in one go. i need to have as much free time as possible because a mutual friend messaged me and said "hey, he's going to propose on christmas, didn't want you to be blind sided" so i need every single second of every day to make sure they can never be happy/ (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 20, 2022 01:12
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Rhyno posted:selling stuff is too much trouble these days. i just packed up a fuckload of toys and nerd poo poo and instead of going slow on Mercari i'm taking it all to a shop to dump in one go. i need to have as much free time as possible All of my time just became free... but I've got a ton of projects and work lined up. So I need to get ready for the post-push crash, then figure out what happens next.
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Dec 20, 2022 01:51
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December is a bad time to try to sell anything used really, especially cars. Around the holidays people are buying poo poo for christmas.
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Dec 20, 2022 04:16
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