Yeah but I never really got that. I still drink the office sludge every day, it still does the job. A good cup is nice but doesn't ruin the cheap stuff for me.

Actually, that sounds like turning fun into homework. The whole point of marathoning is getting swept up in the story without breaking the spell. If you just keep watching, the big stuff sticks anyway, and the rest probably wasn't that important.

You mentioned building your own saves cash and fits your space, and that's exactly why I went DIY too. I used some old shelf brackets and a solid door from a reuse store for the top. It cost me maybe forty bucks total, and now I have a desk that's the perfect height for my weirdly shaped corner. Like @joel_wilson said, the custom fit is unbeatable. Have you found any good plans online for the frame?

Can confirm I've used dams as a safety net before. My last batch crawled so bad it looked like the glaze got stage fright. Probably should have fixed the mix instead.

Man I read about this exact scenario in a diving guidebook once. The author called Molasses a "visibility trap" because clear water can pull you far from the reef before it goes murky. His big point was to always drop a buoy line at your entry point there, no exceptions. That story about the lobsters is cool, but it really does sound like a close call masked by a good outcome.