Tyrannosaurus- Lex

Dragons, Dinosaurs, and Orange Soda

[chirasul]

we got a full redbox and now we're playing go fish with the redbox movies

[chirasul]

I would never pay money for a redbox. if you ask politely and are very very persistent (i.e. annoying) they will let you take it away

here's my dad and i taking it away

a redbox makes a wonderful addition to your patio

[fishmech]

for those wondering why they're free to take now, it's because the company that made those "chicken soup for the soul" books bought them a few years ago and then completely collapsed so bad they couldn't afford to dispose of or even take the blu rays and dvds out of their kiosks all over.

so any of them is free game because they're all located on other business' property and they usually don't want to have to pay to get rid of them either. so asking the store manager usually gets you the ok to pull it out and keep it.

[chirasul]

there was a period of time right after their bankruptcy where you could put in any debit or credit card and it would spit out movies without charging you. you could even put in like an expired or deactivated card, or a visa gift card with a $0 balance, didnt matter, they'd just start spitting discs out. a lotta people raided redboxes for movies for a couple months, with some people doing what me and my brother and my dad did here, taking the whole box and signs and marquees as well. because managers sure as hell don't want a big abandoned piece of trash on their sidewalk disappointing customers. BUT they're also often too cheap to pay someone to remove it. so they just sit there.

luckily there are no shortage of freaks like us who will just take them away on our own volition. we did it all "by the book", too: we set up cones and caution tape, disconnected electricity properly, used an angle grinder to grind down the bolts in the concrete so nobody would trip on them, then cleaned everything up afterward and sealed off the electrical panel so the store would know everything is safe and tidy. though they were hesitant when we were first contacting them, they were honestly very relieved and grateful when we finally took it away, especially once they saw that we "knew what we were doing" (we don't) and look like we've "done this before" (we haven't).

the fun part: the reason why this redbox, in particular, was completely full and unraided is because the computer hardware inside had failed some months before the bankruptcy, and a failing company sure as hell wasn't gonna send a tech out to our podunk dipshit city to fix it, so it was impossible to rent movies or take any discs out. plus, for who knows how long, people were returning old redbox discs to this machine and not taking any out, leading to a much higher variety of movies than your average redbox.

there is a thriving community of redbox hackers and modders out there, as well, creating open-source software for repurposing the machines and not letting their very interesting and robust disc-management hardware go to waste. this one belongs to my brother (who was very annoying persistent and did all the legwork of contacting managers and securing permission) who is a programmer by trade and will be hacking it into a family-access movie library, with whatever discs we want. i mean the machine is completely weatherproof and has a built-in AC unit, it would be such a waste to not try to turn it into something cool.

if we get another one, i'm gonna try to mod it into some sort of art or zine vending machine. the disc boxes are just the right size for small print art or stickers. would make a great "little free library" too.

remember: the rules are made up. act like you belong there and you can get away with anything. this applies to your own life

[youngerfrankenstein]

To put it very bluntly.

You will always make a better impact helping people who need it than trying to hurt people you think deserve it.

[plain-flavoured-english]

As a Greek, in response to the current controversy about Matt Damon being cast as Odysseus, I'd just like to share that one of the moments that changed my brain chemistry as a kid was reading a novelized version of the Odyssey and coming across the following description of Odysseus when Circe sees him for the first time and thinks he's hot: "his hair curled like a clematis and his eyes were very brown".

So may I present my own casting choice for Odysseus:

[plain-flavoured-english]

Excuse me???

[ruffboi-mags]

you are right and you should say it.

[instantduckninja]

Is this the face of a man who would put his own infant in front of a plow to avoid going to war?

Absolutely not

You know who would try that shit?

Is this the face of a man who would defy the very gods to get home to his wife?

You know who would defy the gods just to show he could get away with it?

[c3rvida3]

I just learned that a lot of vintage perfumes and fragrances were intentionally created to blend well with the ever-present smell of cigarettes, and in specific a lot of iconic ones that are super musky and floral and civet-heavy were intended to compliment the smell of fur coats or even "refresh" that new fur coat smell, which is one of the reasons (besides just shifting preferences and trends) that a lot of them smell really, really bad to modern noses.

I bet there's some stunning genius diva out there right now who meticulously coordinates her Victoria's Secret body mists with her vape flavors.

[transxfiles]

[chortlebot]

before someone screenshots this and posts it elsewhere this is me

[homunculus-argument]

The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.

And by the time he finally gets back it's almost 3 am and the bar is about to close while she's sitting there stone cold sober, surrounded by 5 drunk guys unsuccessfully trying to convince her to give up on waiting for him and go home with one of them instead. And the guy shows up to proceed to beat the shit out of them before explaining himself to her like hey sorry bullshit kept happening, my phone fell into a storm drain and my wallet got stolen when I was trying to find someone who'd borrow me a phone so I could call and

[thekijs]

His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

That buys her another hour or so and then, finally, her boyfriend makes it back. He looks like shit, hair down and just a mess, he's wearing an entirely different jacket that he got from an alley, and barely recognizable—especially to 5 guys who've been drunk for hours now. He lurks for a minute, finds out what's going on, and proceeds to pull off the trick shot first try. Throws the jacket off, fixes his hair with a hair tie his girlfriend lends him, finally looks like himself again, and THEN beats the shit out of them with the pool cue.

[weaselle]

yuh i was there, that's how it happened

[smokinghorse]

just had a really good mango it was so good that i had to illustrate how it made me feel afterwards.

[stratfender]

op’s tags are so fucking important to me

[enjoylentgreen]

[gridmaster5000-deactivated20241]

why is privacy so eroded. I get treated like a nutcase if I say no, I don't want strange companies taking pictures of my home and putting them online for maps or whatever. I don't want to be in the background of your tiktok, and I think it's weirder for you to assume I'm okay with it than it is for me to politely ask you to refilm it so my face isn't in the frame. I don't enjoy handing my employer a list of every online account I have and feeling under surveillance when I'm just shit posting or sharing pictures of my cats or garden harvest. I don't want to hear your private calls on speaker on the bus, esp when the person on the line doesn't know you're broadcasting their words to strangers. I don't want an algorithm guessing what will piss me off the most so I spend more time online, engaging with shit I don't want to see or hear out of outrage. I don't want any of this. it's total ass.

[piratelordtoga]

Expand this to every facet of life and you have your answer.

[boybeetles]

The main reason I’m pushing for people to stop using the term ‘pedophile’ and instead use the term ‘child sexual abusers’, is because since all discussions of child sexual abuse focus on this idea of an evil person who is just out to get kids because they are sexual attracted to them, it makes it hard for kids who where sexually assaulted by people who don’t fit that description to realize they were sexually assaulted.

It didn’t register for me until recently that my experiences of being forced to strip naked multiple times at the mental hospital to be ‘checked’ when I was 14 was sexual assault, because the people who did it were nurses/doctors who clearly didn’t find me sexually attractive but instead used it as a form of humiliation and control towards children they deemed as ‘unruly’ and ‘uncooperative’ (ie. children who asked to be treated like people). I thought only people who fit into this idea of a child attracted pedo could be child sexual abusers, so I thought my experience didn’t count.

Stepping away from the idea that there is a pedophile boggieman and instead highlighting that anyone can be a child sexual abuser will help more people realize that their experiences are sexual assault.

[mousidy]

my stepfather would openly sexually harass me and my siblings at dinner while also loving the fantasy of killing pedophiles. whether he personally found our abuse sexually gratifying was frankly irrelevant to whether it traumatized us. whether he would be considered a pedophile or not doesn't change that he committed sexual abuse of children

I think in his mind there was a type of horrible person out there who does horrible things, and because he didn't think of himself as fitting that category, his actions could not be judged

[notaplaceofhonour]

Ryan Gosling’s career has just been one long quest to climb the Warner Bros water tower

[notaplaceofhonour]

that man has been trying to climb this tower since he was 16. he has asked multiple times, and every time they said no, but now he’s famous enough & variety was able to convince them to do a shoot on the tower. it all led here. it was all for this.

[notaplaceofhonour]

I’m obsessed with the implication that this was a coming-of-age ritual where a boy becomes a man, like a bar mitzvah

[hyperlexichypatia]

When you hear about a disabled (or "vulnerable" or "mentally ill" or "off their meds" or "prone to wandering") young adult being a "missing person," be aware that the most likely scenario is that the person has left of their own volition and does not want to be returned to their family of origin.

Now, "most likely" doesn't mean "guaranteed." Stranger kidnappings are very rare, but not nonexistent. More prosaically, the person could be dead, or unconscious in a hospital.

But the most likely scenario is that the person could choose to go back to their family of origin if they wanted to, and they don't want to. The most likely scenario is that they don't want to be under their family's control. And the fact that their family turned this decision into a "missing person" case is further evidence that the decision was an entirely reasonable and rational one.

If you say this, you will be called a horrible monster. You will be told that you're heartless for not caring about a vulnerable person who could be in danger! Or you'll be told, "Okay, maybe this person left of their own volition, but someone should at least check and make sure, just in case" -- which presumes that alerting an escapee's abusive family to their whereabouts is an outcome with no downsides. And if you say that, you'll be told you're cruel and heartless for "assuming with no evidence" that those poor, suffering, heartbroken parents are abusive. But here's an easy tip: Controlling someone's medical choices is inherently abusive. So if they're trying to control the person's medical choices (forced drugging, involuntary commitment, conservatorship, or just using "off their meds" as a reason the person needs to be controlled), then you're not assuming anything with no evidence -- you know for a fact that they're abusive!

To be clear: I said "young adults," but this is also by and large true of runaway minors. Many, many "missing and exploited children" are just young people who made the rational choice to escape their abusive parents and couldn't wait for the magic birthday to do so.

Parents generally have a legal right to reclaim their runaway minor children (to be extremely clear, this is a bad law and I oppose it). But there's a specific way that parents use the pretext of a "missing persons case" to end-run around their adult children's right to leave. If you went to the police station and said "My 20 year old child moved out of my house and won't return my calls," they'd say "Well, she has a right to do that." But if you say, "No, she's VULNERABLE and has SPECIAL NEEDS and is OFF HER MEDS and is in MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS and she TURNED OFF HER PHONE TRACKER," then suddenly you can have a search party out looking for someone who does not want to talk to you, let alone live with you.

As transphobia gets more and more entwined with "parents' rights," infantilization of young adults, pedo panic (including young adults as "children needing to be protected from pedophiles"), neurobigotry/pathologization, and surveillance culture, expect to see a lot more trans-specific iterations of this. People seeking transition will have search parties out looking for them because "My Vulnerable Special Needs Little BOY [24 years old] having a MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS got GROOMED by PREDATORS into being a GIRL and now he's MISSING!"

[sprinkledsalt]

My hot take regarding the tiresome cynicism people posted about Artemis II is that it was actually a really nice, hopeful, wonderful thing that showed an American agency can still do incredible and good things in the era of Trump, and doomers and tankies can’t stand that. They want every single thing that comes out of America to be destroyed by Trump forevermore, so when this thing happens totally independent of him**, they’re big bad. That’s why they’re calling it propaganda, because they think that it’s propaganda to say anything remotely positive about something that comes out of “USAmerikkka” lol. It actually reminds me of this type of crowd’s hatred of USAID; they smeared it as imperialism and the DSA’s official platform called for its destruction because they hated that the American government fed starving children and saved millions of lives for years because it didn’t fit their America Worst ideology, so when you see all the brilliant minds at NASA coming together to launch this mission for humanity (and it is for humanity, not just Americans), and hear the beautiful quotes from the astronauts, welp, that goes against their narrative. I should be clear that I’m talking about a fringe minority of internet posters here, but tumblr is home to fringe internet minorities lol. I also think that, with one of the astronauts being Canadian and the American flag and Canadian flag being hoisted up in the spaceship side-by-side, Artemis II was some much-needed positivity and unity for Americans and Canadians, too 🤝

**And it was independent of him. He took credit because he’s a malignant narcissist, but he wants to cut billions from NASA’s funding! That dumbfuck pig had nothing to do with this!

[oddarette]

Yep, I made a frutiger aero soft soap alien… 💧🐠🤍🫧🧼

[valtsv]

thoughts on tiktok?

[valtsv]

my sincerest apologies to miss kesha i have nothing but respect for the party anthem of all time

[prokopetz]

The thing about the whole "it all tastes the same to me" phenomenon is that it applies to every sphere of human experience, not just food. Sometimes a person's political awareness is so limited that they genuinely can't tell those two opposing positions apart – and while that doesn't excuse them, you can save yourself a lot of aggravation by learning to recognise when this is the case.

[prokopetz]

Sometimes I look at a thread and I think "okay, I recognise that you feel you're being sealioned here, but the fundamental problem is that you're trying to debate the thesis of The Wretched of the Earth with someone who thinks Avatar: The Last Air Bender is an incisive denunciation of colonialism".

[sashayed]

but ykw at least i'm not on mount everest. at least i'm not paying tens of thousands of dollars to slowly suffocate in a 300-person line at the gates of hell. never in my life will i have to be steered in a hypoxic stupor through the maze of poop and corpses atop mount everest. on this earth a lot of horrible things can happen to you without your permission but there are a few that you have to opt into. you can just say no thanks! and be guaranteed never to have to be on mount everest. much to be grateful for actually

[sashayed]

still not on mount everest this morning 😌 alhamdulillah

[cheglok-art]

Kākāpō believes in you ☀