The Official Condiment Conglomerate

I have returned with more power than ever before

[big-condiments-official]

Here's my Bingo Card for the year!

Please let me know if any of these come true!

[big-condiments-official]

note: sources would be appreciated

[big-condiments-official]

It was alright

[victusinveritas]

[borkborkheresadork]

@vague-magnus-archives

[lesbian-sweeney-todd]

"They hate us all": True! A helpful reminder that assimilation will not save you.

"They hate us all equally": False. An attempt to obscure the ways in which anti-queer policies are disproportionately targeted at trans women, especially trans women of color. A retread of that classic white feminist error of assuming all women have a "common oppression", which obscures race and class differences among women.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

There was a delivery mixup with my chicken pellets which means I have had to feed them corn and oats and rice and things from my pantry for the past few days. (This is not a nutritionally balanced chicken meal, it's like living on big macs.) The chickens, of course, are loving this, and are gonna be so fucking pissed when their real food gets here on Monday. I anticipate being yelled at a lot for daring to give them healthy pellets instead of delicious corn.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

My chickens being like "if we were meat chickens on a farm you'd let us live on corn" and me being like "if you were meat chickens on a farm you would've been slaughtered and cooked already"

[sinnahsaint]

Here’s a spreadsheet that can help build a balanced diet for them out of random seeds and grains and such.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1BSMn8KxUFWMzw7bQpsXbVr6mtBhsDjyiS2i3vbg1QEY/htmlview

You can also add stuff you have around like tins of sardines from the dollar store (if your flock is small enough for that to make any sort of sense).

[rincewind87]

When I stayed over at a working farm, they showed me how greens etc go in the compost bucket and the rest went into bucket for animal feed. The exact quote was "we feed it to the chickens, they eat anything. And if there's anything they won't eat, it goes to the pigs."

Farms dont throw away a lot of edible organic matter.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Chickens love veggie scraps, they especially go bonkers for tomatoes and for cooked potato. (Like me.)

[transhuman-priestess]

Bats are so cute, it's not fair that they're full of Worst Way To Die Ever Disease.

[transhuman-priestess]

The special unique trait of bats is that Worst Way To Die Ever Disease varies by region.

[virtualgirladvance]

their only vector of rabies-like disease down here

but theyre worth it

[apathetic-revenant]

“oh no, my audience has begun to guess the big twists of my story and are accurately predicting what will happen!”

incorrect response: write the rest of the story to be as twisty, shocking and counter to expectations as possible, regardless of whether this is a logical or satisfying way for the plot to go

correct response:

[thebourneultimatum]

can someone elaborate on the “make hoax” and “post angry tweet about “leak”“ part. i’m stupid and don’t understand things

[apathetic-revenant]

sure!

(you’re not stupid. I posted this thinking it would amuse a handful of mutuals who all knew the context and that would be about it, so I didn’t think about providing any other explanation. I had no idea it would spread this far.)

I’ll start from the very beginning just to be thorough. so this is Alex Hirsch, creator and head writer of Gravity Falls, a show which had a big focus on mystery, conspiracies, codes and ciphers, etc. the whole plot is kicked off by one of the main characters finding a mysterious old journal in the woods, which detailed all kinds of weird and supernatural things, but then ended abruptly with the author saying they had to hide the journal because they were being watched. the central driving mystery of the show, therefore, was the question of who wrote the journal and what happened to them.

now, the thing about Gravity Falls is that, while it must be said that the writers weren’t always quite as sure of their plans as we tend to like to think they are, it is very much a fair play mystery, with legitimate clues to what was going on. but the writers were caught off guard by how quickly the show attracted a dedicated audience, including a lot of people outside the primary presumed demographic, who started solving the clues faster than expected. so some of the fans were able to correctly guess who the author was before it was revealed in the show, and the theory started spreading. this put the writers in something of a panic, because this was THE mystery that the whole story revolved around, with ¾ of the show building up to the dramatic reveal in the middle of season 2. they wanted it to be a mystery that could be figured out, sure, but they weren’t prepared for people to solve it so far in advance of when it was planned to be revealed, which would have really taken away from the big moment. they weren’t going to change the main story itself, but having been caught unaware by how much attention the fans were paying, they wanted to up the ante and make the mystery more complex to solve going forward–but first they needed to buy some time and throw the fandom off the scent for a little longer.

hence, Alex’s plan as described above. they whipped up a fake shot that appears to give away the identity of the author as being another character in the show, put it on a screen in the studio as if it was a real animation frame, took a picture of it, and ‘leaked’ it online. it was initially decided to be a hoax (albeit, I think, presumed to be a hoax originating from outside the production team), until Alex posted this tweet:

…before quickly deleting it (though not so quickly that it didn’t get seen, of course).

it worked well enough to distract most people for a while, and wasn’t revealed as a hoax until a year later, when an episode aired that definitively proved that the supposed screenshot could never have happened, at which point Alex owned up to the whole thing as seen in the tweet above. by then the episode with the real reveal wasn’t far off, and while people did still work it out ahead of time, it was more of an “OH MY GOD I KNEW IT!” moment than a “booooooring, we’ve known that for ages” moment, which of course was what the writers wanted all along.

personally I find this a fascinating approach to dealing with the problem of spoilers, because it doesn’t affect the story itself at all; if you watch Gravity Falls today–or if you were watching it when it aired without any significant contact with the fandom–you’d never know about it. ultimately, the problem the writers were facing wasn’t that some people might guess the answer to the mystery–they never wanted to make it completely impossible to predict–so much as it was that they hadn’t designed the story to stand up to so many people working on the puzzle together, which resulted in a sort of total output of puzzle-solving ability that far outstripped the capability of any one solo human being. so their solution is something that’s very much targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show.

plus, it’s very in keeping with the overall tone of the show.

and now you know!

[notaplaceofhonour]

if your audience guesses the ending of your story

don’t:

change the ending

do:

gaslight them

[ammnontet]

bad comic

[gaycop]

@dogpuppy brought up Garfield the Movie for a future movie night in the server and i was reminded that my sister and i abused the hell out of a copy of that movie as kids and i still have it

[gaycop]

are. are you trying to buy my childhood copy of garfield

[tzikeh]

Maryland to Become First US State to Ban Surveillance Pricing That Charges More After Mining Personal Data

Maryland will become the first US state to ban surveillance pricing in retail stores, after passing Protection from Predatory Pricing Act.

Jesus fucking christ that this exists in the first place

[boyslit]

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 😭

[eclipticasolaris]

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.

[antisocialxconstruct]

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.

[dovewithscales]

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.

[furryprovocateur]

"trans people just name themselves after characters" as opposed to cis people who name their children after names in the bible

[pjackk]

Hello,

Please feel free to include me in your banquet/feast.

Lets stay in touch about this suject.

P. Jack

[oceanflowerrs]

GENUINELY INSANE

[libraford]

Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.

The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an 'indicator species' in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesn't have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).

Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.

[crustystherat]

Random thing for people to consider is that since Laika is the saint of one way trips should Felicette be known as the saint of safe landings since she did make it back to the ground safely

[somefishycat]

tu LANCES félicette ? tu lances son corps comme la fusée ? oh ! oh ! prison pour les scientifiques ! prison pour les scientifiques pendant Un Mille Ans !

[bug-yogurt]

You can understand the French perfectly fine with only context but the English translation I got still had me floored

[pretentiouslimericks]

It feels like I’ve talked about this before, but to me the funniest version of Portal is if Chell is deaf.

Like, most of the major story beats, at least the ones that directly affect her, have a prominent visual component so she’s following along with the basics. But she has no idea who cave johnson is, or what wheatley was trying to explain to her, and she certainly wasn’t hurt by any of glados’ insults.

but the best part of this headcanon is imagining glados checking chell’s personnel file years down the line, noticing the word “deaf” for the first time, and just going “WHAT???”

[emptyjunior]

Glados learning sign language so Chell can hear at least one of her excellent monologues and Chell just closes her eyes

[junebug-jamboree]

[lengthy-artery]

learning that providing people with food when they're experiencing a huge life change has really revolutionised my supportive gift-giving techniques and it works every single time. you've just moved house? takeaway gift card. you have a new baby? takeaway gift card. you're suffering a bereavement? guess what. takeaway gift card. have one evening of not having to thing about cooking or groceries or meal planning. take a little breathing space.

[makeitrightthistimebaby]