Category Archives: life

just plain life

The Out-Touch-Adults Guide to Kid Culture: The Top 10 Slang Terms of 2025

2025 is limping to a merciful end, so I’m taking a look back at the year in slang. Below are ten examples of youth patois, chosen for both their popularity and for what they reveal about generations A and Z. Like most slang, these words and phrases evolved over time, so while many didn’t first […]

Will Your Smart Vacuum Still Work After It Stops Being Supported?

My Neato D5 Connected was once a willing workhorse, but, today, things aren’t looking so good. I recently caught an email from the company alerting me that it shut down my vacuum’s cloud servers. Now, my once capable Neato is just a LiDAR-equipped vacuum with a soul that’s been deprecated. Without cloud servers, the “smart” […]

This Sony Wireless Portable Speaker Is Nearly 50% Off Right Now

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Sony ULT Field 5 is currently $191.95 on Amazon, down from $349.99, and that price drop is what finally makes this speaker feel properly positioned. Sony ULT Field 5 Wireless Portable Bluetooth Speaker […]

Valve Officially Discontinued the LCD Steam Deck

There are a lot of gaming handhelds to choose from right now, but the Steam Deck is undoubtedly a fan-favorite. Just as the Nintendo Switch introduced the world to console gaming on the go, the Steam Deck was the pioneer in bringing PC gaming to a handheld form factor—even if it pushes the definition of […]

How Useful Are Ankle Weights, Really?

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Ankle weights seem to have tunneled through a wormhole from the 1980s to the present moment, appearing in countless TikToks and Instagram posts. Do they really help tone your legs? Are they worth buying at all? The promises are overrated, but in some cases ankle […]

The Best (and Worst) Fitness Devices I Tested in 2025

We may earn a commission from links on this page. 2025 was a fun year to review fitness devices. We saw three companies introduce devices that could have been Whoop killers, and one definitely came closer to the mark than others. One running watch gobsmacked me with its accuracy, one device was so inaccurate it […]

10 Shows Like ‘Boots’ You Should Watch Next

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Who knew that, here in the mid 2020s, a show involving gays in the military (even a relatively pro-army one) would prove its own relevance by drawing a fierce, angry denunciation from the current administration—a response strong enough that it maybe, just maybe, got the […]

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K With HDR Is Half Off Right Now

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Roku Sticks have useful features that can make your dumb TV smarter (or replace the interface on your smart TV), and they are seeing great discounts right now. In particular, the Roku Streaming Stick […]

A Cordless Blower Is the Overlooked Tool You Definitely Need

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Once you start down the path of DIY, you’ll soon realize that any time you find yourself wishing someone had created a tool to serve a specific purpose, someone probably has—no matter how narrow the use case. Case in point: The cordless blower/inflator. This tool […]

My Favorite Amazon Deal of the Day: The First Generation Amazon Kindle Scribe

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Though the Kindle Scribe is already on its third generation, the first-generation model still has a place for anyone looking to nab one of these note-taking e-readers for less. Released in 2022, the original […]

This Wallet-Sized E-Reader Is My Tech ‘Upgrade of the Year’

We may earn a commission from links on this page. One of the often unspoken truths of being a tech reviewer is you get to test out, recommend—and sometimes even keep!—gadgets that you would never buy for yourself, because you can’t justify what they cost. This is why I tend to spend large portions of […]

You Can Now Customize ChatGPT’s ‘Personality’ to Suit Your Tastes Even More

When Spike Jonze’s movie Her dropped back in 2013, I thought it was a great work of total fiction. Who would actually befriend an AI bot, let alone fall in love with them? Fast forward 12 years, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only do people love chatting with AI bots, they are […]

This Multi-Platform Mobile Gaming Controller Is Over 20% Off Right Now

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Backbone Pro mobile gaming controller is currently down to $134.99 from $169.99, its lowest price yet, according to price trackers. That drop helps justify its somewhat in-between status—it’s more expensive than basic clamp-on […]

Why I Won’t Be Getting an AI Home Gym

I’ve been getting relentless Instagram ads for AI-powered home gyms lately. You’ve probably seen them, too—sleek wall-mounted screens with impossibly toned instructors, testimonials promising “the future of fitness,” and before-and-after transformations that make it all look effortless. The smart home gym equipment market is booming. According to Business Wire, the industry was valued at $3.2 […]

Don’t Fall for This ‘Out of Stock’ Purchase Scam

Scammers frequently target shoppers who are looking for a good deal or a rare find (or both). As holiday sale season winds down, the Better Business Bureau is warning buyers about a scheme in which fraudsters charge you for “out of stock” goods and fail to refund your money. The out-of-stock purchase scam is simple: […]