Easily solved by social compact, box (or more fun, jenga tower) on a table, phones go in box. First person to remove phone from box for reasons other than poop break (I’m not a monster) or leaving owes the group something, even if it’s just a little dance.
It’s helped myself and most of the people I have done it with to truly understand how much we are actually addicted/dependant to the little electric serotonin dispensers.
YMMV on getting others to agree 😅
They eat somewhere between 1-2 times a week and like once everymonth or so 😅. They are totally fine being completely ignored for up to a week (probably two) and honestly would probably survive WAY longer than that with no ill effect. Once they are settled they basically just keep going as long as their temps are fine (which is to say, if your comfy likely they are too. caveat, I live in New England and we let our house get to low60s which is too cool but 68+ is fine. I use a super low watt ceramic heater to keep their IKEA cube shelves warm enough)
My weird plug for an exotic pet to impulse purchase: Tarantulas. Specifically a new world (read: America’s mostly) tarantula since they are chill and as a rule mostly harmless. Worst thing that happens (to you) is a bite from a massive fang (ouch) with about a beesting severity of venom (meh) but that shouldn’t happen anyway cus you shouldn’t be handling Ts in general because the worst them and honestly likely thing from interacting with you is fear, pain, or death.
The upsides as a hobby are pretty big. Their food is basically free (crickets), their waste is small and infrequent, they make zero noise have zero smell (both of these are not true of cricket feeders notably), have no real risk of escape and likely wouldn’t even if they could (at least most of mine are scaredy cats), and live for 5-20yrs depending on sex/species.
On top of the fact that the spiders themselves are basically free as far as buying the spider itself is concerned. Spiders lay hundreds of eggs, so the young unsexed individuals are kinda a dime a dozen. Depending on the day, maybe literally (I have gotten some truly crazy marketing emails from invert sellers lol)
My favorite part is that if you have one, it’s like 1% more effort to have more and you will quickly come to realize despite the fact that they are utterly unintelligent that doesn’t stop them from having oddles of personality and inner lives. They are constantly reorganizing their enclosures, moving dirt and decorations around to fit whatever their whims are at the moment just to redo it all the next week. They all have different feeding responses, one of mine hides from crickets until they wander near her hide them lunges, another attacks any movement in their enclosure with massive gusto (and zero, ZERO, grace).
Tl;dr: Tarantulas are genuinely great observational/tank pets. Like fish with 1/1000th the effort, and less dangerous. No one ever hand tens of thousand in home repair bills when their T enclosure broke like a salt water aquarium.
Two way tie: First is Dethklok on their first tour at the Worcester Palladium. To this day it was the best produced live performance I have ever experienced. Everything sounded immaculate, Brendon arguing with and having whole conversations with himself in charecter was great. Just absolutely phenomenal. Saw them on their latest tour and it was like 90%, so still amazing.
Second was Castle Rat at Sonia in Boston (iirc 2024?)when they opened for Green Lung. Sonia is small af, and they had the PA cranked. It was the only time I have ever regretted not having ear plugs, and actually bought some specifically because of this show. I can’t even describe what the show was like, it was as close to a religious experience as I have ever had (definitely aided by the heat). Green Lung live is a whole other experience (in a good way), but I walked out of that show saying next time I saw Castle Rat they were going to be in a MUCH larger venue. I was wrong, it took two more shows. I saw them at Sonia again almost exactly one year later but they were headlining. The year after they were opening for Amon Amarth and Dethklok.
Ha, I wanted a cheats site and did the exact same thing, Geocities and hijacking content included 😂