@Cerridwyn I got a couple of those fans for my aunt and mom and they loved how hideous they were! I think there was also cat or something equally kitsch
@Cerridwyn If I hadn’t have over 200 trick or treater, I would have bought mass quantities of these and put one pound bags in each of their T&T bags and freaked out both them and their parents.
Possibly my best all-time score was when djslack got an ebike in an IRK and offered to pass it along to me for a truly nominal amount. I had to replace one semi-major component and round up some bits that were missing and replace some smaller things that were damaged, but in the end I had spent less than a third of the smallest amount that I had seen as a list price for the bike online. And I still have no idea what it’s real range is, because I have yet to run it down as much as a full bar. (I only ride in pedal-assist mode because part of the reason for being on the bike is to get some exercise, and in full-electric mode, I go too fast and get no exercise.)
@werehatrack Nice! I got a pretty decent speaker dock that everyone at work loved from an irk back when they were called fukubukiro and an ungodly number of pocket knives.
@narfcake If only Built would give Meh the same kind of deal on their vacuum-insulated tumblers, I would be entirely unable to resist overbuying and then gifting them liberally. (Those are really good tumblers, BTW.)
Well definitely enough pasta to feed me, several friends and their families, and ultimately some mice and their families too. After that learned to always put anything like that into solid sealed hard plastic containers. Though once I stopped feeding them they seem to have moved on.
@pmarin I sent some to family, and one sister got 120 lbs of pasta right after having a newborn. They put it in several hard plastic totes with gaskets and clipping lids, and literally just finished it all recently.
@pmarin@smerk85 I sent inflicted my folks with three drops, which I think ended up being 340 pounds in total. Even after redistributing over half of it, they probably still have some left.
@narfcake@pmarin@smerk85 A couple of years ago, I got 20 lbs of linguine in an IRK, and I very briefly wondered if this was a harbinger of things yet to come.
It’s really good linguine. We’re still working through it.
@pmarin I dropped the pasta, without warning, and sent it to his office.
Because COVID, he was working from home. He got a call from building security about some big boxes, so he had to go into the office to see what this disconcerting thing was about.
When he saw it and checked the Web site, he called me, because I was the obvious perpetrator.
Some of my favorite deals were the Panasonic Eneloop Battery Power Pack and Audio Technica Sonic Fuel Over-Ear Headphones. Also fond of the LED Bluetooth Fidget Spinners and Quip Toothbrushes. I use the Voza wired earbuds in the gym all the time. Going through my orders I wonder where some of the stuff went. I sure bought a lot of powerbanks and flashlights.
@catthegreat@heartny Actually just have to “manhandle” them…They’re pretty tough! The bristle head separates from the handle part, then the motor/battery assy. lifts out of the handle by the little tabs on it. Change out the battery (AAA) and reassemble.
Meh-adjacent… nothing will ever top the Pasta Drop for me.
$20… and I received 100lb of Penne (which just happens to be my favorite pasta shape) delivered to my door by a FedEx guy in the middle of a global pandemic.
4 years later, I’m down to my last pound and I’m feeling a little too sentimental about the whole thing. Maybe I’ll never eat it.
Bury me with the last of my Pasta Drop penne.
(That would make for a great Piebald song title.)
@steelopus I should’ve dropped an order on myself I guess. I dropped three orders on three different people, and didn’t get so much as an invite to dinner from any of them!
Mentioned it several times but mine was the new unused X box series X gaming system I got in an IRK several years back. It was during the pandemic so they were hard to get and were selling on e-bay for more than twice their $ 500 list price.
Came sans box-dsjack got the box the IRK before filled with books. Gave it to my son and he registered it and was even able to take out an extended warranty on it as it never had been registered before. Best $ 5 I ever spent.
Fidget spinners for trick or treat kids - they were a major hit. A shark vacuum that was offered right when I needed it (and it still works fine). Car jumper kit with battery to jump with. Early on the speakers and the zillion zip lock bags that had the snow scenery on them. I wish I had bought more of those than I did. Took several years to go through them all. Some of the phone cables and battery packs. Meh: Year One Limited Edition Commemorative Collectors Shirt (that was a year’s worth of meh faces on the shirt). Probably a few things I have forgotten.
@Kidsandliz I got the fidget spinners for trick-or-treat too, huge hit. Once they had superhero socks for dirt cheap, worked out to something like 20 cents a pair, used those for trick-or-treat a different year, also a huge hit! Lastly, the unholy number of phone rings I have received in IRKs were used for trick-or-treating and those went fast.
I still have enough tracker pixels that I could give them out for this Halloween also
It’s either this:
Or this:
"In local news, @lonocat has been arrested and charged for distributing tracking devices to unsuspecting children out trick or treating. @lonocat denies any malicious intent, however. “I’m a cat and sometimes I get lost. I can’t keep contacting customer service departments and ask them what’s my address all the time, y’know.”
the dji phantom 1 quadcopter - that was fun to learn on. After that I got a bunch of the tiny less terrifying quadcopters here and we’d fly them indoors after work.
The most outrageous deal was an IRK back when they were called Fukubukuro, and it contained 3 different sized rolling duffle bags. I still use all 3, they’ve held up very well through my travels and at the time probably would have cost around $300 retail.
My favorite daily use item is the Solo Active Laptop backpack, which has seen better days but has lasted 10 years of near daily hard use.
My favorite Meh branded item is easily my Meh logo hoodie from 4 years ago.
When my kids were little, Walmart was doing some warehouse clean out or something and they had a bunch of kids clothes and gear on sale for $1 each (including winter coats). I bought probably 12 coats for my girls to grow into… ranging from size 4 to 16. One lady yelled at me for filling my cart with $1 stuff because I got to it first, but I was poor and was outfitting my kids for years (and I do mean years… like a decade).
I think I spent about $65 that day and got away with about $1200 in full retail value of items.
Just last week I found one of those coats in the back of my closet, new with tags still and I gave it away to a mother in the area. It was the only one that was never worn. My kids were so sick of that pattern LOL!
@mbersiam on the outfitting your kids for a decade… Did you then do like some species and eat your young so you wouldn’t have to do it for another decade or so? And yes I would have done exactly what you did. Kid’s coats are expensive, especially when they leave them behind on the bus or at school and the jackets never make it to lost and found.
IRKs aside, my favorite purchases are always food related: the $100 6.5Q pressure cooker, the noodles, the crate of breakfast cookies from Bevita/Nabisco, tubs of hummus, or the high-end dark chocolate peanut butter cups and full sized meat sticks and fruit jerky at 2/$1.
Knives
Sharp objects, hehe
Hmmm
old school 5 dollar Fk’s - most of those got away
Back when I still worked, I used to buy mugs and cups for the random give to someone at work. Contigo mostly, but other things too.
And speaking of fans, the were kinda fun
And let’s not forget
@Cerridwyn Some will never forget the candy corn, no matter how much they might want to!
@werehatrack probably some people still have some
@Cerridwyn @werehatrack
/image melted candy corn
@Cerridwyn I got a couple of those fans for my aunt and mom and they loved how hideous they were! I think there was also cat or something equally kitsch
@Cerridwyn If I hadn’t have over 200 trick or treater, I would have bought mass quantities of these and put one pound bags in each of their T&T bags and freaked out both them and their parents.
Possibly my best all-time score was when djslack got an ebike in an IRK and offered to pass it along to me for a truly nominal amount. I had to replace one semi-major component and round up some bits that were missing and replace some smaller things that were damaged, but in the end I had spent less than a third of the smallest amount that I had seen as a list price for the bike online. And I still have no idea what it’s real range is, because I have yet to run it down as much as a full bar. (I only ride in pedal-assist mode because part of the reason for being on the bike is to get some exercise, and in full-electric mode, I go too fast and get no exercise.)
@werehatrack Nice! I got a pretty decent speaker dock that everyone at work loved from an irk back when they were called fukubukiro and an ungodly number of pocket knives.
@werehatrack this is quite a score
Best value because buying more was less $.
@narfcake If only Built would give Meh the same kind of deal on their vacuum-insulated tumblers, I would be entirely unable to resist overbuying and then gifting them liberally. (Those are really good tumblers, BTW.)
@narfcake bath
@narfcake I kept the ones I wanted, gifted some and sold a bunch of them on amazon. The bundle was cheaper than just one case!
@narfcake And we need the photo here (I can’t find it) of whomever it was in the bathtub with all of his to go along with “Bath”.
@narfcake I still have quite a few in the corner of my office closet
@Kidsandliz That would have been @BillLehecka who did “BATH!” – and was subsequently goated for that too.
Well definitely enough pasta to feed me, several friends and their families, and ultimately some mice and their families too. After that learned to always put anything like that into solid sealed hard plastic containers. Though once I stopped feeding them they seem to have moved on.
@pmarin I sent some to family, and one sister got 120 lbs of pasta right after having a newborn. They put it in several hard plastic totes with gaskets and clipping lids, and literally just finished it all recently.
@pmarin @smerk85 I
sentinflicted my folks with three drops, which I think ended up being 340 pounds in total. Even after redistributing over half of it, they probably still have some left.@narfcake @pmarin @smerk85 A couple of years ago, I got 20 lbs of linguine in an IRK, and I very briefly wondered if this was a harbinger of things yet to come.
It’s really good linguine. We’re still working through it.
@pmarin I dropped the pasta, without warning, and sent it to his office.
Because COVID, he was working from home. He got a call from building security about some big boxes, so he had to go into the office to see what this disconcerting thing was about.
When he saw it and checked the Web site, he called me, because I was the obvious perpetrator.
@pmarin it’s hard to argue with outrageous amounts of pasta
@jouest @pmarin Its hard to top it as a deal either, but we’ll all hoping that Meh will succeed in that…
@pmarin I still have some left after giving out copious amounts, it is good pasta.
Some of my favorite deals were the Panasonic Eneloop Battery Power Pack and Audio Technica Sonic Fuel Over-Ear Headphones. Also fond of the LED Bluetooth Fidget Spinners and Quip Toothbrushes. I use the Voza wired earbuds in the gym all the time. Going through my orders I wonder where some of the stuff went. I sure bought a lot of powerbanks and flashlights.
@heartny As yes, the great toothbrush debacle lol
@heartny Proud meh-mber of the Quip toothbrush brigade. Still use it every day as a matter of fact.
@heartny @tohar1 got a quip in an irk, couldn’t figure out how to change the battery. i may have thrown it out, now you’ve got me wondering.
@catthegreat @heartny Actually just have to “manhandle” them…They’re pretty tough! The bristle head separates from the handle part, then the motor/battery assy. lifts out of the handle by the little tabs on it. Change out the battery (AAA) and reassemble.
@heartny @tohar1 thanks for the tip - i found mine and will try to get it apart!
@catthegreat @heartny Quip battery replacement
Best value items:
($12!)
($24)
@lehigh
@lehigh those bubba mugs were great! I had something break on them and Bubba/Newell sent me new models for complete warranty replacements!
Meh-adjacent… nothing will ever top the Pasta Drop for me.
$20… and I received 100lb of Penne (which just happens to be my favorite pasta shape) delivered to my door by a FedEx guy in the middle of a global pandemic.
4 years later, I’m down to my last pound and I’m feeling a little too sentimental about the whole thing. Maybe I’ll never eat it.
Bury me with the last of my Pasta Drop penne.
(That would make for a great Piebald song title.)
@steelopus I should’ve dropped an order on myself I guess. I dropped three orders on three different people, and didn’t get so much as an invite to dinner from any of them!
@steelopus @tohar1
How rude of them!
Mentioned it several times but mine was the new unused X box series X gaming system I got in an IRK several years back. It was during the pandemic so they were hard to get and were selling on e-bay for more than twice their $ 500 list price.
Came sans box-dsjack got the box the IRK before filled with books. Gave it to my son and he registered it and was even able to take out an extended warranty on it as it never had been registered before. Best $ 5 I ever spent.
@Felton10 well damn
Fidget spinners for trick or treat kids - they were a major hit. A shark vacuum that was offered right when I needed it (and it still works fine). Car jumper kit with battery to jump with. Early on the speakers and the zillion zip lock bags that had the snow scenery on them. I wish I had bought more of those than I did. Took several years to go through them all. Some of the phone cables and battery packs. Meh: Year One Limited Edition Commemorative Collectors Shirt (that was a year’s worth of meh faces on the shirt). Probably a few things I have forgotten.
@Kidsandliz I got the fidget spinners for trick-or-treat too, huge hit. Once they had superhero socks for dirt cheap, worked out to something like 20 cents a pair, used those for trick-or-treat a different year, also a huge hit! Lastly, the unholy number of phone rings I have received in IRKs were used for trick-or-treating and those went fast.
@cbilyak @Kidsandliz I still have enough tracker pixels that I could give them out for this Halloween also
It’s either this:
Or this:
"In local news, @lonocat has been arrested and charged for distributing tracking devices to unsuspecting children out trick or treating. @lonocat denies any malicious intent, however. “I’m a cat and sometimes I get lost. I can’t keep contacting customer service departments and ask them what’s my address all the time, y’know.”
@Kidsandliz very true that first year. The second year I told kids that they had to take a spinner, then they could have candy
I got a neat o bot vac in one of my very first fukubukuros
the dji phantom 1 quadcopter - that was fun to learn on. After that I got a bunch of the tiny less terrifying quadcopters here and we’d fly them indoors after work.
The most outrageous deal was an IRK back when they were called Fukubukuro, and it contained 3 different sized rolling duffle bags. I still use all 3, they’ve held up very well through my travels and at the time probably would have cost around $300 retail.
My favorite daily use item is the Solo Active Laptop backpack, which has seen better days but has lasted 10 years of near daily hard use.
My favorite Meh branded item is easily my Meh logo hoodie from 4 years ago.
When my kids were little, Walmart was doing some warehouse clean out or something and they had a bunch of kids clothes and gear on sale for $1 each (including winter coats). I bought probably 12 coats for my girls to grow into… ranging from size 4 to 16. One lady yelled at me for filling my cart with $1 stuff because I got to it first, but I was poor and was outfitting my kids for years (and I do mean years… like a decade).
I think I spent about $65 that day and got away with about $1200 in full retail value of items.
Just last week I found one of those coats in the back of my closet, new with tags still and I gave it away to a mother in the area. It was the only one that was never worn. My kids were so sick of that pattern LOL!
@mbersiam
on the outfitting your kids for a decade… Did you then do like some species and eat your young so you wouldn’t have to do it for another decade or so? 
And yes I would have done exactly what you did. Kid’s coats are expensive, especially when they leave them behind on the bus or at school and the jackets never make it to lost and found.
@mbersiam It must have looked like the coats grew with them!
IRKs aside, my favorite purchases are always food related: the $100 6.5Q pressure cooker, the noodles, the crate of breakfast cookies from Bevita/Nabisco, tubs of hummus, or the high-end dark chocolate peanut butter cups and full sized meat sticks and fruit jerky at 2/$1.