Abracadabra @alohomora4 - Tumblr Blog

a bushtit

imagine you're a fifth-grade teacher and one day a crow just flies into your classroom, steals some food, sits on some kid's head, and shouts "fuck off"

inferentialdistance

What asshole snitched!?

queen-susans-revenge

No, the story is even better than that! This crow lives outdoors, but he has a human family that rescued and raised him as a chick. He is highly vocal because he talks to his humans regularly.

They have some judgy neighbors though, who didn't love foulmouthed Cosmo, and who secretly captured him and took him to an animal rescue. He was eventually released far from from home.

When he came to this school? When he walked through all the classrooms telling the kids "what's up?" and "I'm fine"? He was looking for someone who could help him find his family.

“He went to the only kid I know in Allen Dale and knocked on the door,” Shattuck said. That was the fifth-grade classroom where Cosmo found snacks. That night, when the kid relayed the story of the talking crow to his father, the father called Shattuck. Colpron went the next day to collect Cosmo.

Cosmo's home now, he was welcomed back and fed sardines, he doesn't visit the traitor neighbors anymore, and those kids got to take part in a wonderful story about friendship, corvid intelligence, and Christmas magic.

Link to the full story: https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2021/12/friendly-foul-mouthed-crow-befriends-entire-oregon-elementary-school-before-state-police-are-called-in.html

breelandwalker

Raise your hand if you would also watch the crap out of a heartwarming TV movie version of Cosmo the Christmas Crow.

#HEY EM #BIRDS

hamletthedane

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

hamletthedane

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

caught-in-the-wi-fi

Reblog if you remember this motherfucker:

las-lus

ooh i have a nice fun fact!

Static was WILDLY popular in Brazil (a country where the population is over 50% black) and we had re-runs for YEARS on open television. Everyone who was a kid in the 2000s knew and loved him. As a result, every single Brazilian Con has a LOT of static cosplayers!

So, a couple of years ago, Comic Con Experience (the biggest con in Brazil, which is actually also the biggest con in the world!) invited Static’s creator Denys Cowan as one of the guests of honor.

Now. Thousands of people attend his panel. And cosplayers went NUTS because they could show their Static cosplay to the creator himself! What none of us expected was Debts Cowan’s reaction:

He cried on stage.

He had never seen Static cosplayers - especially not so many of them! And he had no idea the show was popular here! No one ever told him his character was so beloved! Years and years of reruns and he had no idea! He obviously created the character with his experiences and his community (Black North Americans) in mind. Still, he accidentally touched a whole other community of black people who could see themselves on the screen as a superhero!

Anyway he is a lovely person and one of the best, most memorable guests we had. And I think this is a nice reminder that your art might touch people you can’t even imagine would when creating it.

#thanks em #Virgil Hawkins...STATIC SHOCK

monamoni

#THANKS EM #yes it do it was very cool

amilkyway

fireflies lighting up a rural Pennsylvania field at dusk

spaghettinatural

As a european i sometimes forget furefkied are actually real and not american folklore/cryptids. Like you’ve got friendly little bugs that glow in the dark….. b r uh

roach-works

in case europeans were worried: we love them very much! even tho they’re clumsy and slow and sometimes bump into you, no one swats fireflies here, or takes them for granted. even grownups sometimes reach out in the summer and gently catch a firefly for a minute before letting it go.

actualaster

By “reach out” that’s meant quite literally–you just kinda. Stick your hand in their flight path and they land on you and will sit on your hand for a bit. Sometimes if you’re just walking or standing outside while they’re active you have to shoo them off you because they’ll just. Sit on you.

They’re harmless and very pretty and it’s always a treat to see because they’re out for a relatively short time each year.

everythingfox

Yellow duck road

#THANKS EM #ducks #birds

🫶🏼

#HAHAHA #BIRDS #THANKS EM

caroldanversenthusiast

this is simply the greatest video i have ever seen

arandomcollectionofstuff

I’m going to reblog this a million times so be it

kiran-wears-science-blues

#i love how they give up on the dumb gimmick and just make her do increasingly inane trick shots

sindri42

Reminded of that time the xkcd guy was trying to research what sports equipment would be most effective for destroying enemy drones in flight and he looked up a bunch of stats about pro tennis player accuracy against stationary targets like 40 feet away, and figured that a really high level tennis pro might be able to hit the drone in 5-7 shots if they had the time and even then probably wouldn’t do enough damage to disrupt it more than momentarily.

And then Serena volunteered to test this theory and just, killed it instantly.