this is a poster i made for my call to action assignment in humanities! it's a bunch of basic and easy stretches for people who sit and work at a desk all day (me)
the idea is that you'd put the poster up above ur desk and do the stretches every 30 minutes or so,, the whole routine won't take more than about 6 minutes to complete and when done regularly it can prevent wrist, shoulder, neck and back pain! :)
all these stretches can be done while sitting (although i HIGHLY recommend you stand up and move around while taking a break from working)
you can get a free digital copy of this poster here on my gumroad!
I WAS FUCKING WONDERING WHAT THOSE DIGITAL PRICE TAGS WERE ABOUT SUDDENLY i had hoped they were so the workers didn't have to finagle those little papers into the slider part anymore 😭
Hi, yes, that is the OFFICIAL excuse made to me by the guy replacing the paper tags with digital ones at my local Walmart, but the end goal is to remove the numbers off the shelf entirely, replacing them with QR codes that you have to scan with the app…. Which requires your login information….. and also stores your card information so even if you didn’t use your Walmart account at the physical checkout, if you used a card they recognize, they assign that purchase to your Walmart account purchase history.
I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.
Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:
Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.
No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.
So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:
Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:
Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.
Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.
POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.
When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)
If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.
In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.
Yes, call your reps. Yes, push for more legislation like this in more places. But also take an extra minute out of your shopping trip to MAKE IT HURT for companies to pull this shit.
I've seen some people in the notes express (very fair) concern that this is only going to inconvenience already under-paid laborers, and not have any impact on corporate. While I can't speak for every company or every store, I do work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is precisely the kind of thing that would have an impact, especially if people are doing it en masse. Stores absolutely track their shrink numbers, and they do draw distinctions between what gets stolen, damaged, or wasted for other reasons. If people are making it clear that the reason they're bringing things to the cashier is that the prices are not adequately represented on the displays, and rather than improving business it's wasting product, slowing down transactions, and causing confusion and mistrust in customers, that is a language that shareholders speak.
I worked in retail for years. If this had happened while I was working retail, I would have been delighted and felt great solidarity with anyone who was wasting my employer's time and money and giving me busy work as an act of protest. In point of fact every moment the employee spends carting items back to the shelves is a moment not spent standing at a register.
Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.
Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.
Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.
In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.
In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)
In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.
The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.
In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.
see unfortunately I have this condition where if I am not explicitly told that I am a part of the ingroup then I will assume I must be part of the outgroup
I went with Sybil and Albert for this one! It turned out with a heavier feeling that I was intending, but overall I like how it turned out!
“Whisper” prompt
—
It was midnight.
Every minute was another midnight, regardless of what the clock might try and claim. Clocks lied, anyway. Time slid by on greased wheels, going nowhere fast. Time wasn’t entirely real in these cases anyway.
So damned midnight stayed stubborn, sticking behind Sybil’s teeth and threatening to slide down her throat. A spirit drifted listlessly in the upper corner of her room, too far gone to register the living woman watching it. It bobbed like a stick caught in a pond, aimless and unaware. Every few moments, it moaned faintly. A confused, miserable sound. It followed the sound with a groping hand, outstretched towards nothing, trying to grip onto whatever energy it could.
It had been decades since Sybil had felt cold dread at the sight of a ghost, not since she was barely ten, but she felt it now, sinking dagger teeth in to scrape along her sternum. Ice bleed into her fingers. Cold, unseeing eyes stared straight above her head and out into a. Well. She wasn’t sure. When spirits were this far gone, not even she could speak with them in a way that mattered. They weren’t scary. But they were draining—pulling and pulling and pulling at her energy to keep themselves together.
The haunting figure was just that, and she couldn’t find the strength to break away from the hold it had on her, helpless to the leaching ebb sucking her under.
“Can’t sleep either?” Albert’s voice was barely audible, a faint whisper in her ear, but it managed to crash through Sybil’s chest. She sucked in a sharp breath. It slammed against her ribcage like the tolling of a church bell, entire body going tense as whatever grip the spirit had on her was violently shaken free.
He noticed the flinch—when did he ever miss one?—and she glanced down just in time to see his hand reach down to stroke her hip. “Sorry,”
Sybil took in a steadying breath and rolled her head to the side, meeting Albert’s gaze. And immediately knew that he was lying about being awake with her. Exhaustion seeped in at the corners of his eyes where he was visibly struggling to stay awake.
“It’s okay. Did I wake you?” Sybil whispered back; the idea of speaking in a louder voice made her skin crawl. Maybe it was the darkness, or the knowledge that Albert was going to fall asleep again if she stayed silent for another few seconds. She deliberately avoided thinking about the ghost. Albert didn’t answer, instead nudging her gingerly.
Sybil certainly didn’t need any convincing to roll onto her side, letting his hand guide her more fully to cuddle against his chest, the bare skin warm with the summer air. The chill in her fingers slowly thawed and she flexed them softly against Albert’s stomach, earning a muted grumble about being ticklish.
“Sorry,” her turn to slide an apology forward. Albert hummed an answer from his chest. The hand from her hip slid up, pressing gently against the back of her head, tucking the top of her head in under his chin.
“Love you,” quiet and cold molasses thick.
“Love you, too,”
Albert’s heartbeat thudded sweet and strong in her ear, his breathing going shallow and slow, and it drowned out any other sounds from the rest of the room. If she closed her eyes, it was almost enough.
After a half of eternity, the plodding rhythm finally worked its way into her bones, and midnight slipped into the recent past.
