drowning in the rain

kate. 30. all-around disaster. biologist. lesbian. i write things sometimes and love animals, books, and video games.

[apostatefrog]

I’m alive!

I’m back because I have a new obsession and need the Certified Fresh™️ memes

This is a Dungeon Crawler Carl blog* now. I read all of the paperbacks last year. I kept seeing recommendations for the audiobooks, and as a former audiobook hater with a graveyard job, I took the plunge. I honestly don’t think I’ve listened to music at work since the 7th book came out on audio. Not sure how many times through tbh, but at least 3 and I’m already most of the way through the 5th book again.

*And BG3, with occasional appearances of other things I like

[jackalovski]

Have you ever looked closely at a car windshield?

The edge of the glass is painted where it is glued to the car but it has these small dots between the clear and painted glass.

These are there for a reason. When the sun hits the glass the painted areas and the clear areas will absorb heat at different rates. This causes the glass to expand and contract differently putting stress on the glass.

These dots help the glass to warm up more evenly over a larger area so the glass does not suffer stress that could cause it to spontaneously explode.

Fun fact: the Tesla cybertruck doesn’t have these.

Yes, the glass will spontaneously crack or explode in the sun.

[thememedaddy]

[apostatefrog]

New blog ideas: shitty NPS photos

In a time where even social media can’t protect public lands in the United States of Whatever Bullshit is Happening Every Weekday, scrub the metadata from your images and share photos only true locals would know. Not here, but @ the ALT National Parks accounts. Nature is beautiful, even if you can’t afford the top of the line camera to take the same picture everyone else has

EDIT: Canyon tree frog, Subway, ZNP, 2022

[feyburner]

Love being fun and silly with strangers… Today at the farmers market the hummus guy saw my bag and was like “We’re filling that up right??” and I was like Twist my arm!! and we both hooted. Then at the end he was like “By the way the baklava is only half sliced so make sure to slice before serving… that is, if you’re going to share!!” and I was like “Oh I wouldn’t count on that!! 😉😉” and we shared another hearty laugh. I love playing in this space with you

[pngblog]

[orcboxer]

Hot take but praise is a good tool for encouraging healthy behavior. Positive reinforcement is good. Relying exclusively on punishment to change people's behavior is both cruel and ineffective. If someone does better than they did yesterday, let them know you appreciate it, let them know that they're improving!

[orcboxer]

"Don't praise anyone for doing the bare minimum" is a shitty take that prioritizes your sense of superiority over the actual betterment of people. I understand that things shouldn't be as bad as they are, and anger can often be justified, but you need to get over the propaganda that kindness is naïve, that cynicism and bitterness are intellectual. Withholding praise from those who haven't caught up with you doesnt actually help them, it doesn't motivate, it doesn't encourage, it only discourages them. It breeds bitterness and apathy, which are antithetical to empathy.

Growth isn't something you do on your own. People need support, they need community. Bootstraps won't get them there. Kindness will. Do you want results or do you just want to feel superior?

[the-sacred-now]

"Notice the smallest move, the slightest try."

From Turn Loose, an incredible (and quite old) documentary about working with horses, especially unbroken, green, or "problem" horses. Yeah, you don't stop at the smallest move, the slightest try--but when you ignore those and keep demanding more, more, more, without acknowledgement, you might end up getting bucked off onto your ass.

Look at me. This includes when the problem horse you're working with is yourself. Especially then. Notice the smallest fucking move, the slightest try, towards who you want to be, what you want to do. A turn of the nose, an accidental shift, an inclination or a shuffle-step. And give that confused brain-body-thing, that spookable, sensible, disgruntled and ill-used horse of the self some reason to believe that it should do more of that.

[crafting-and-tea]

I’ve been helping a friend who’s starting to learn German, and following the advice of an aunt who used to teach ESL. This boils down to giving TONS of positive feedback. They pronounce a tricky word well: “Excellent.” Any time they say a word or sentence perfectly: “That was perfect!” They sound out a difficult word, but don’t pronounce it perfectly: “Very good! <repeat word again for them.>”

The closest I have come to giving negative feedback is to tilt my head and hum in a tone indicating, “that is not quite right.” They always respond by urgently trying again, or by asking me to say whatever sentence or word they’re struggling with, and then carefully repeating it.

Everyone has been blown away by this person’s pronunciation and progress so far.

People want positive feedback. Positive feedback WORKS. Shame and targeted criticism almost never does.

[apostatefrog]

I was trying to clean some sweat stains off of my mattress with vinegar while the sheets were in the laundry, but my cats spooked me, and I spilled a lot of it.

It’s now several hours past when I am normally go to sleep, and I now have personal experience with a quite literal example of “you made your bed; now you have to lie in it.”

[apostatefrog]

Fuck I just realized the obvious pun I missed that is also a solution to the problem: lye.

[apostatefrog]

I was trying to clean some sweat stains off of my mattress with vinegar while the sheets were in the laundry, but my cats spooked me, and I spilled a lot of it.

It’s now several hours past when I am normally go to sleep, and I now have personal experience with a quite literal example of “you made your bed; now you have to lie in it.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

Environmentalism isn’t so much the idealization of ‘pristine’ nature (though it is vital to protect intact ecosystems) but the recognition that it is still possible to repair our broken world.

Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass, Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics

[apostatefrog]

There is something to be said about having once known someone so well that you can anticipate their schedule/routines and use that knowledge to actively avoid them because they deserve better than to have to spend even a passing moment with you.

[spirulin4]

a quick “why is my life so bad” checklist

how’s your sleep schedule

have you eaten or drank anything besides sugar and caffeine

how long have you been sitting in one spot

have you gone out in public recently

have you taken a shower/brushed your teeth/groomed yourself properly

have you spent time doing an activity that doesn’t involve a screen

etc

[spirulin4]

i myself needed to be reminded of this today. the freedom of summer also means the risk of falling back into bad habits if i'm not mindful

[apostatefrog]

Last night at work, we were unloading a pallet that turned out to have over 20 boxes of hot cocoa (which was already mostly full on the shelf), and after about the dozenth or so box I had to toss to the side, I muttered, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

One of my coworkers was standing next to me, and without missing a beat, he said, “Yes, that’s who we’re celebrating this month.”

[nqsa]

you know who’s gay? paul the real estate novelist who never had time for a wife and davey who’s still in the navy and probably will be for life

[mooncustafer]

New headcannon: everyone in that song is gay except the Piano Man who has no idea he’s playing at a gay bar and the staff and regulars have a betting pool on how long he’ll take to finally figure it out. So far John is ahead.

[skeleton-richard]

[spacegay-yx]

[freshdonuts]

“The manager gives me a smile ‘cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been coming to see” also implies that the Piano Man is possibly an incredibly attractive but oblivious himbo, and if you listen to the rest of it imagining that, this all fits a little too well.

[spacedandelions]

this makes too much sense. Also, the full quote is “Now John at the bar is a friend of mine. He gets me my drinks for free. And he’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke. But there’s someplace that he’d rather be” Yes, your bed, he wants to be on your bed honey, that’s not a joke, he is flirting with you.

[madgastronomer]

Lighting another man’s cigarette is some old-school gay cruising.

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

Billy Joel actually addressed this interpretation!

[francesderwent]

reblog this and tag with a food you no longer have access to (closed restaurant, state you moved away from, ex’s mom’s cooking, etc) that will haunt you until your dying day, mine are the spicy chicken sandwich on the employee menu at the fine dining restaurant I was a prep cook at, and the onion bagel from the kosher place down the street from my house when I lived in the city

[dgalerab]

current fan creation landscape is kinda like if you went to a party with a homemade cake and everyone takes a slice and silently thumbs up at you with no attempt to start a conversation except for occasionally some guy sits in the corner with a tape recorder critiquing the cake as though he was a restaurant critic and another guy is handing the cake to an uber driver like "yeah i need you to find a restaurant that makes cake like this so i can have more of it" and the only person that's talked to you in 30 minutes is a very sweet little guy who was like "hey i liked your cake" and then ran away apologizing for bothering you the moment you said thank you.

[dgalerab]

someone brought a cake analysis robot to feed the cake into to determine the exact ingredients and supposedly it can spit out the exact same cake. and if you're like dude. what. then they're like well if it bothers you you should have made more cake. i'm hungry and i deserve cake. and you're like dude we're at a party.

[sainamoonshine]

Three months later you find out that fifty people locked themselves in a room to discuss how much they loved your cake and how they wished you made more. None of them ever told you.

[depsidase]