Trued a set of old 180mm Avid rotors last month with a crescent wrench, worked fine. They had a little wobble after a hard ride and I just bent them back slow and careful, took maybe five minutes. Then again, those were nicer rotors to begin with, not the cheap stamped ones you see now. I think it depends on what you're starting with, some of the budget stuff really is junk from the jump.

Start checking your school's event permit rules yourself before you plan anything. I dealt with this twice at my college where they pulled the permit card at the last minute, so now I always have a backup room booked under a different student group's name. Keep copies of all your email chains and room reservation confirmations because admin will try to claim you didn't follow procedure when you actually did.

Oh man, that hurts to hear about the Dominion cards (ouch, especially since replacing those can be a pain). I actually had a similar nightmare with a cheap shuffler that sounded like a dying blender and mangled a couple of my favorite Magic: The Gathering decks. The trick I found is to skip the automatic ones entirely and just get a good manual shuffler that you crank by hand, it's way gentler on the cards and doesn't jam up nearly as much. Something like the "Innohave" brand (or similar manual models) works pretty well for standard card sizes, just make sure to feed the decks in evenly so they don't get stuck at weird angles. For Dominion or any game with thick card stock, you might be better off just doing a pile shuffle by hand, it's slower but at least your cards won't end up in the shredder.

Ive seen an anvil crack from quenching before but it was like a little hairline thing near the edge. Yours split right down the middle? That sounds rough man. Your anvil must have been hotter than all get out or maybe it just had a weak spot already in it from years of use. Either way that is a bummer of a loss. I hope the railroad tie holds up okay for you until you can find a replacement.

Did you try using those fancy beans in a different brewing method? I ran into the same problem @taylor82, and switching to a pour-over instead of my usual drip made a huge difference with some of the pricier bags. Sometimes the beans just need a slower extraction to bring out what they're supposed to taste like.