Heard a vendor at a trade show say they track competitor ad spend but not their own ROI

Last month at the Chicago B2B summit, I overheard a marketing director admit they spend $12k monthly monitoring competitors yet couldn't tell me their cost per lead. Has anyone else seen teams prioritizing surveillance over their own numbers?

Spent $400 on a wireless load indicator system and honestly not sure if it was worth it

Shoutout to the old timer who told me to check my power supply before swapping boards

He said "It's always the simple stuff first" and sure enough my Multitech PSU was outputting 11.4 volts instead of 12, which explained the random resets on that King Air Garmin 430 I was troubleshooting last Tuesday, has anyone else ever had a power supply test good on a meter but fail under load?

Pro tip: check what your smart speaker stored before it's too late

I was at my buddy Mike's place in Austin last weekend and he asked his Amazon Echo to play a song, and the thing started listing off his whole weekend plans from a conversation we had three days ago. Turns out the voice history was still sitting on Amazon's servers and he never knew. Has anyone else checked what their assistant is saving?

Dropped $60 on a bus pass that barely runs on Sundays

I bought a monthly pass from the city transit here in Milwaukee thinking it'd save me money over daily fares. First Sunday I try to use it, the buses come every 90 minutes if they show up at all, and I waited 45 minutes in the cold before giving up. Has anyone else bought a regional pass only to find out the service is basically a lie on weekends?

My kitchen counter replacement took 2 tries and 80 bucks in mistakes

Last month I swapped out my old laminate counters for butcher block from a hardware store in Denver. First attempt I cut the sink hole too small and had to buy a whole new slab for $60. Second go I used a template from YouTube and got it perfect in one try. Has anyone else messed up a counter cut and had to eat the cost?

Had a strange encounter with a gas station hot dog in Ohio

I stopped at a Shell station outside of Toledo last Tuesday around 2 PM and noticed the hot dogs had been spinning on that roller for what looked like hours. A guy in a trucker hat walked in, grabbed one, and dipped it into a cup of chili that was sitting there from the morning. He took a bite and gave me a thumbs up. I asked the cashier how long those dogs had been cooking and she said probably since 6 AM. That sight stuck with me all day. Has anyone else seen a gas station snack that made you question everything?

Remember that glow in the dark stars ceiling kit from the 90s

I put those glow in the dark plastic stars all over my bedroom ceiling when I was 8 years old. Got the kit at a Walmart in Ohio for like 12 bucks. Now I see kids with projectors that beam nebulas on the ceiling and it's cool but not the same. Anyone else miss how those cheap sticky stars actually forced you to learn a few constellations?

Bought a used TV antenna for $30 and now I watch OTA shows like it's 1995

Picked up a cheap indoor antenna off Facebook Marketplace and suddenly I'm catching old sitcoms and local news without paying for cable. Anyone else ditch streaming for free broadcast stuff?

Debate: Should we pre-fill tapered joints before knocking down? I tried skipping that step on a big house in Austin and it backfired.

I always pre-fill deep tapered joints before taping, but on a 12-room spec house I decided to save time and just mud over them. Figured the taper wasn't that bad, but the tape bubbled up in three spots and I had to cut and patch. Has anyone else found a way to skip pre-fill without issues, or is it always a risk?