That line about every handshake turning into a pitch sums up half the social events in this city now, not just meetups. I went to a kid's birthday party last month and ended up hearing about somebody's protein powder before the cake got cut. The sales funnel follows you everywhere because too many people treat every room like a lead list instead of a place to just be normal.

Remember the guy who needed two hands and a knee just to get his old Coleman lit in the wind? That was me, every single trip. The canister setup changed my mornings because boiling water fast when you're cold and cranky is worth a lot, and the old stove stays home for car camping where weight doesn't matter.

Three hours instead of six on one piece from a $180 tablet is a stretch unless the old setup was actually broken. Shading is mostly brush control and knowing where light hits, and that skill does not transfer over just because you plugged in a different brand. A used Intuos is a solid little slab for the money, sure, but people drop $180 and suddenly want to believe it unlocked some hidden talent. Half the time the speed jump is just excitement from having new gear, and two weeks later you are back to six hours on the same tablet. What was the actual bottleneck before, because if it was your old tablet lagging or dropping pen strokes then yeah that is a real fix. If it was just you not warming up your hand yet, the tablet did not do that part.