I adopted a defective lizard from a breeder for a 20$ fee. This particular defect often results in culling the animal, as it is often too expensive and time-consuming to care for. Because of this, not much is known about its care.

I now am one of the most prominent “experts” on caring for this particular subset of creature. Though no one but the most experienced keepers should own one, I am still happy to give information to folks who may have to care for one, either from rescue or purchasing one before knowing exactly what they’re getting into.

Aside from being able to give advice on keeping these creatures alive, that’s not all the value: the real value is my stupid lizard. I got him literally just a couple of weeks before the pandemic & lockdowns started. He’s an absolute angel who has brought me so much joy in my darkest times. He’s sweet, gentle, goofy, and is a wonderful companion animal. He now has complete freedom in the front of my home (when he’s not in his vivarium) with his own heatlamp, ramp, and a view of the road where he love watching all the cars go by.

I love my stupid lizard. ❤️

A computer when I was still a kid. I wouldn’t be the quant and maths PhD I am today without it, that shit literally shaped my life.

I just kept messing around with it when I was 7 years old. I learned to write .bat files and create DOS bootable floppy drives for my games at that age (you needed to play around with Soundblaster drivers and DOS extenders at the time). Then at the same age I quickly discovered BASIC thanks to the fact that MS-DOS used to include QBasic. Then learned some basic assembly using MS-DOS’s included DEBUG tool. Then my father got me floppy disks with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ on them and then I learned that shit again just by fucking around and looking at the examples, all at the age 7~8.

I coded like a monkey but I still coded and at a very early age I already knew what people usually learn first in university computer science classes.

By the age of 14 I already knew how to write my own minimal bootloader in assembly and a basic 32-bits kernel in C. (then later on math ironically won me over, so ended up formally pursuing applied math with a tiny bit of computer science because I just didn’t need it and the whole exposure to programming at a very young age helped me a lot)

All of that was just thanks to the little spark I got when I first got that Pentium MMX computer.

Vasectomy.

By far the best purchase I have ever made for myself. Seriously.

I went back to college at 30. That set me up for a career I actually enjoyed and a wage that was double the dead end job I had at the time.

I’ll say right off the bat that my roomba i7 self emptying vacuum cleaner has been a game changer for me. 2 big ass dogs and the dirt/fur that comes with it made me loathe sweeping/manually vacuuming. $700 well spent.

A really nice kitchen knife. I use it daily and it makes cooking so much more fun, which translates into eating less junk food and take out, saving a ton of money and being more healthy.

A subscription to the now defunct children’s magazine 3-2-1 Contact. That magazine would sometimes include the code for simple BASIC computer programs. Eventually I figured out they would run on the (then common) Apple II classroom computer at school, tried one (a simple guess the number game with a preset answer), figured out how to change the answer and tweak the code, and got hooked.

Ultimately this led to a degree in software engineering and a job in IT that I quite enjoy, especially when writing scripts or working with code.

End of 2008 start of 2009 I bought a house. It was VERY risky move for me at the time.

Not only has it been a temp house for others that needed help. But with the wild costs of apartments these days I simply don’t understand how people haven’t just flat out started a revolution over it. There’s an apartment complex that opened in my town very recently. The units are much smaller than my house but cost more than double my mortgage. And that’s just for where they actually list the price, there’s some I’m guessing are so expensive they don’t list the price they just say “contact us”.

My sewing machine. I (m) wanted curtains, my wife didn’t want to sow them (no sewing machine didn’t help).

Bought it last year (€270), made curtains troughout the house, monthly energy bill went from €630 to €230 a month due to savings on heating. (And I learned something new, always fun)

For me, my Steam Deck. I have been having a lot of mental health issues and it allows me to have an outlet for anxiety and stress while still spending time with my family. I use is most days and have enjoyed a good chunk of my extensive Steam catalog to boot. Honestly, the most bang for my buck I have ever gotten.

Phones are expensive but…

I mean I think my screen time is at like 5-6 hours a day. I can do almost all the things with it.

It is fragile tho. Probably won’t last more than a few years.

…still, landslide victory in the cost/utility category, despite the high cost.

I bought a $700 acoustic guitar when I was 17. That thing is now old enough to buy porn.

deleted by creator

My playstation 4, I’ve had it who knows how many years. Not only do I have countless hours of gaming, but it’s also my primary media device.

Have an original N64 from like 98, no idea how many hours of enjoyment I’ve gotten out of that.

Ceramic skateboard bearings I bought in 2001, as well as a pair of grind king trucks from maybe 97 that I still ride.

My doggo

A $5 stick-on hook. (Command brand)

It’s a place to hang my pants at night, so they’re not on the floor. Makes my whole routine better.