u/forestdude

I somehow never had any exposure to them growing up but they totally seemed within my wheelhouse and I've always been curious. I think Red Alert and Tiberian Sun were the popular ones when I was a kid?

Our house recently got into aquariums and was wondering peoples thoughts on local fish stores.

Bay Bridge Aquarium in west oakland is a huge space with lots of stuff, but its kind of a shitshow in there. Boxes and trash stacked up everywhere, basically no signage or posted prices. Pretty poor lighting and the bathroom looks like its out of a horror movie. Helpful staff though and their fish seem happy and healthy enough. The tanks while full of algae have live plants and don't feel overstocked. Their snail and plant tank is pretty cool, but not a ton of plant variety or information about any of the plants. By far the most convenient location for us and has become our default.

The Fish Barn in Orinda. Small but well lit and well organized. Really nice display tanks which is cool to see and provided some inspiration for one that I just put together. Very helpful staff. Fish seem very happy and healthy. Lots of plants with good information about them and their various requirements. The owner was able to find a weird sized tank and get it ordered for me.

Petco. Lots of useful information on their displays. Piss poor plant selection. Questionable fish health. By far the best hours. Nice and helpful staff. Good for what it is.

6th Avenue Aquarium. On Clement street in SF. By far the biggest selection of fish. But also by far the saddest condition of the fish. Most tanks were wildly overstocked and the fish looked about as happy as the fish in the tanks at the front of a chinese food restaurant. They had a ton of fish pre bagged up for some sale, just floating there looking sad af. Large store with lots of items for sale, but not super cheap either. There is an upstairs area and the stairs leading up to it smell strongly of a recent fire. The upstairs area also feels like it could collapse if a few people jumped all at once. Probably won't return here. I really want to like this place because of the insane fish selection, but it honestly sad af in there. I did like how they have a nursery in the front of the store and they have some cool plants. But probably won't be back.

I haven't really done any price comparisons between stores, so curious if anyone has any experience there.

I was fortunate enough to have a V1 switch that I used a jig to boot into for years, but I've recently made the upgrade to a chipped OLED. Huge QOL improvement honestly. I approached the OLED console as a mostly clean slate, but there are a handful of games on my old V1 EMUMMC where I would like to bring my saves and progress over to the new console.

Is there a good/relatively easy way to do this? Is there a walkthrough floating around that I can follow?

As of maybe like a week ago I get an that says "there was an error loading content'

Anyone else having a similar issue or know what's happened?

I've got something to take care of in the area and need to make a very quick overnight mission to the area. My camper shell is broken but the weather seems suitable for a night under the stars. So wondering if there Is there someplace I can sleep in the back of my pickup safely tonight? I know you can't do this really inside town so looking for someplace within 30-45 minutes ideally.

Driving up from the Bay Area this evening and will probably end up in the area at like 10 or 11 so it needs to be reasonably navigable at night. I do have a 4x4 but am not fixing for any serious off roading.

Anyone have a Toyota mechanic they like who is reasonably priced? Wife's camry needs to get scheduled maintenance done.

Got a call from a company requesting to inspect our home on behalf of our insurance company which caught me off guard. Don't live in a high fire risk area and have never made a claim. Have owned the home for 8 years and they've been the insurer the whole time. The woman on the phone said it was to confirm the replacement value, which I'm not sure what there is to confirm and they send me an adjusted notice of this every year anyways, but you hear all kinds of stories of people getting booted off their insurance in the Bay Area, so I fairly suspicious of the motives. Anyone have any experience or thoughts here?

I bought a slightly odd sized fish tank and am having a hard time finding a stand. Was thinking of making one out of wood, but also wanted to explore making one out of metal. Is there anyone out there with the capability to make such a thing?

I bought a slightly odd sized fish tank and am having a hard time finding a stand. Was thinking of making one out of wood, but also wanted to explore making one out of metal. Is there anyone out there with the capability to make such a thing?