I learned from America’s Test Kitchen to look at the ingredients. If the first ingredient is tomato paste or tomato concentrate, pass. If it is tomatoes, it will probably be fine. Although usually this means a more expensive jar, there are plenty of expensive/fancy looking jars that don’t pass this test.

That said, Del Grosso’s has a premium line with “Aunt Mary Anne’s Marinara”. It is our go-to and far and away the best I’ve tried.

Sprinkle some salsa and sour cream on it before you bake. I know it sounds weird, but it is so good.

I don’t know what the building codes / rules are where you live, but where I live (in the US), there is supposed to be a smoke detector in every bedroom. Newer code also requires them to be hardwired so 1) no batteries to change and 2) if one goes off, they all go off.

I put kiddie z-wave enabled smoke/CO detectors throughout the house, including one in every bedroom. They are linked into a monitored alarm system (abode), but that is mainly for keeping track of things when we are not at the house, and I m going to eventually switch to home assistant.

Since the main ones are already wired in, you could probably add at least the dumb smoke and CO detectors to every room for extra peace of mind.

I have had good luck installing Gallium OS on a Chromebook for my daughter, so you might look at some of the Chromebook tablet/detachable keyboard options. Just make sure the model you get is supported.

I agree with you, but most tech support (tier 1‚ anyway) is just following a set of prompts anyway, so it’s barely better. At least with the recording I can abuse it without feeling bad.

I had a problem with Verizon service, and the troubleshooting app (not audio prompts, just answering questions in the app) actually solved it in about 5 minutes, and introverted me didn’t have to do a phone call or chat. So the experience can be good, sometimes.

I remember back in the 90’s seeing news stories about the Taco Bell Doritos War in Iraq.

I finally got fed up with Evernote’s increasingly aggressive paid upgrade requests. It would flash an “upgrade special” every time it opened and a followup, “Are you sure? You won’t be able to get back to this offer”. Like, please, let me not get back to the offer ever again.

I have been using Joplin with Dropbox sync. The UI is pretty good on Android and windows. Markdown input is easy to manage, it does checklists well (you can check and uncheck the boxes without going in to edit the note). The folder structure for organizing notes is good.

Not being able to share notes with other users is the main limitation. My wife and I have solved this by syncing with one dropbox account on with phones and computers and just having a folder for each or our personal notes plus the shared notes. But really it is all shared. I don’t consider this ideal, but it’s workable for now.

The dropbox sync is kind of slow / not very good if multiple people are making edits in real time, but I had this problem with Evernote too.

I think you can get more functionality out of the Joplin cloud sync, but I am already paying for Dropbox.

Serious question: what do you not like about snaps? I find the isolation and dependency desolation to be pretty great.

I use these:

TECNO B1 Bluetooth Headphones https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X2JSMHZ

And they will reliably pair to two devices, including some combination of my laptop, phone, and TV. My only complaint is that sometimes when they are paired to my PC, they won’t turn off until I unpair them.

They are pretty awkward with the neck weights, but the battery life is fantastic. They appear to have the same software in them as my older ones that were sold under the brand TaoTronics, which was banned from Amazon for something.

If you find something, please post back, I’d love to find a less awkward pair of headphones that does this.

In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix

First
Must
Burn.

~Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents