I explained the concept of "blorbo from my shows" to my 71 year old immigrant grandfather because I referenced it in passing and I thought nothing of it, until today when he said "I think I'll watch peaky blinders tonight and see my blorbo from my shows" referring, of course, to Cillian Murphy playing Tommy Shelby
English isn't his first language so he's not super in touch with modern slang, so I've been accidentally teaching him to talk like a tumblr user. His favorite thing to say lately is "me when I'm a little hater" when he's like talking shit about the neighbor's son
I explained the “x before gta6” meme to my immigrant father and he, in turn, explained to me how back in his day in Romania, they had the same type of joke, except instead of it being gta6, it was about the imminent death of a singer named Gică Petrescu, who everyone was continuously shocked by because he refused to die. Every time a momentous event happened people would say, in essence: “This happened and Gică Petrescu hasn’t even died yet?!?”
So. He understood the gta6 meme immediately because they apparently had the same thing in Romania when he was young, except way, way more morbid
Okay it might be less insane than previously thought.
Basically I got in and there was an email that there was a new policy on lunch breaks which is that we are required to clock out for 30 minutes for a meal break. Which wouldn’t be a problem except we’re often staffing stores alone. And the company was like “You’re not allowed to close the store, though, just clock out and don’t get paid for 30 minutes.”
This made a lot of people very unhappy and was widely regarded as a bad move.
So our manager was trying to go over the changes and I was like, “So I’m required to clock out for 30 minutes even if I’m alone in the store for the day.” Yes.
“I am going to leave the store. I am legally allowed to leave if you are not paying me.” You will get written up.
“That violates the labor laws and this company has had to pay for these violations previously. I will leave and look at birds.”
After a very long very aggressive meeting it turns out we might be able to waive the break and still get paid but calls are flying and we still have the right to clock out and close the store if we are working alone all day. The company loves to pretend that we do not.
As a follow up on this policy the company stated that we couldn’t close the store if there was only one person on shift.
When we clock out we get an option to say whether we took a lunch. If we say no it then asks if it was voluntary or not.
If it’s not voluntary then the company has to pay us a penalty for not giving us an opportunity to take the break.
Every single shift I worked alone (which was most of my week at that time) I marked the penalty box. If I couldn’t close the store and was working alone then I did not voluntarily give up my lunch. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in doing so.
Three months later the company sent out signs that we could put on the door for lunches and an official update that we could close the store to take a lunch.
what if there was a show where every character was gay and you had the token straight guy character who acted really stereotypical and was into cars beers and women and everyone was like OH STRAIGHT LARRY YOU’RE SO FUNNY AND STRAIGHT
Pray for my local library to not reject an order I placed on a book about transmasc history because currently the only book they have about trans men is fucking Irreversible Damage and it is my god given DUTY to change that by requesting as many trans books as physically possible 😤✊
Yeah Irreversible Damage sucks. Like a lot of people in reblogs are saying though, it's likely not the goal of any of the staff for this to be the case! There's a chance that there previously were more positive trans books, but they were challenged by patrons and removed. If multiple patrons make a stink about a book, it will likely either move sections or dissappear entirely to avoid conflict.
As someone who works in a library, in regards to the comments, while I fully understand why you would suggest stealing it, I don't reccomend that! Almost all libraries have tags in books and beepers at the front, and many of those will log exactly what book has been taken. If the copy goes missing, it will eventually be noticed and a new one may be ordered. That would just be giving more money to the author. The best thing to do is leave the book alone- if nobody checks it out for a long enough time, it will be 'weeded'.
I know it can be hard to leave alone. My library also has Irreversible Damage and Detrans, among others, and I feel awful every time I see them. But please don't hide it within the library either. It will most likely be found by staff or a page (my job) and we're required to fix misplaced books and put them back on the shelves. Some libraries may even require that hidden books must be logged for interest, which delays them being weeded even longer.
I sincerely hope that they accept your request! If you want any reccomendations I am very happy to oblige, including for fiction with less obvious trans themes (higher chance of making it past the board).
Yup! I need to make it a little more obvious in my library posts that I never blame the libraries for books either being there or not being there (that’s on me!) because I know how libraries work and I know that it’s usually up to the patrons themselves who decide what ends up getting stocked, that’s why I’m so hell bent on ordering/requesting new trans books so that the few transphobic books there are get drowned out by trans-positive ones. I also was not planning on stealing the book because I know that wouldn’t be possible without another copy showing up in its place, so the best I can do is just get more trans books!
At the very least, I hope this post encourages others to do the same, because I don’t know how common knowledge it is that people can single-handedly decide what kind of books their library stocks if they put in the effort. I’ve requested a few other books before (one of them the next series in a manga) and, with the help of the librarians themselves, had them stocked within a few weeks! It’s always very satisfying walking into the library and seeing the books that were purchased on my behalf, it’s such a simple and effective way to make a difference! Especially since it also benefits the libraries. The more books you check out, the more you use the libraries, the easier it is for them to get funding!
Please use your libraries folks, and order, request and check out as many books as you can!
not only are most people completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in the americas, most people are completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in europe. never mind occitan, they don't know about basque! it's wild! bleak! existentially horrifying!!!
the last few centuries of french history involved, amongst other things, a concerted effort to establish "french" as a legitimate country and cultural identity, and crucially as a language, which sounds like an absurd statement if you know nothing about the languages of france. french is a language, yes; it exists and existed in the late eighteenth century. but it was limited primarily to the north of france and was certainly not spoken or even understood across the country. other languages within france were banned and french was enforced following the french revolution and even to this day other languages indigenous to france have very little legal protection and are not recognised as official languages.
that's just one country in europe. one. and many people straight up have no idea about any of this!
did you know france has celtic languages? breton is the only celtic language spoken outside of the british isles. did you know france has germanic languages? alsatian, for example, is spoken in the east of france, unsurprisingly in alsace. it's not even the only french germanic language. did you know france has a number of languages and dialects known as langues d'oïl closely related to french? norman and picard, for example, are spoken in the north of france. did you know that france has gallo-romance languages? franco-provençal (which has a number of dialects) is spoken in the east of france, as well as parts of switzerland and italy. did you know that france has a language most closely related to catalan, the langues d'oc? occitan is spoken in the south of france and has a rich literary history. did you know france is home to basque, or rather euskara, a language isolate which predates indo-european languages? romani dialects! corsican! so much more than just french! there are even extinct jewish dialects of occitan! extinct langues d'oïl like angevin! so much linguistic diversity and all anyone talks about is french.
shout out to everyone who has any sort of maintenance job whether it's a custodian or a mechanic or a furnace repair person or a pool cleaner or a housekeeper or anything where someone shows up or I go to you, and my shit is taken care of.
Huge fan of when I have a problem that I have no idea how to handle (or no time/tools/physical strength to handle) and I call A Guy who knows how to handle it and they come and handle it for me.
Referring to someone as your “partner” sounds as if you are deliberately obscuring their gender and may subtly out you. “My ex”, however, is entirely unobtrusively gender-neutral. #breakupallrelationships
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
OK, but just a reminder: Moon Day will *not* fall on a Monday "every 7 years" as stated above. Because of leap years, things get a bit wonky. Moon Day Monday will occur four times between now (June 2026) and 2050: in July 2026, 2037, 2043, and 2048.
At Target this lady told her son he couldn’t have a Wonder Woman doll because “that’s for girls” and then bought her daughter the same one. It got me thinking about how often I see people bar young boys from appreciating girls/women as protagonists and heroes, and my own experience with it as a kid.
I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.
-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a
~*Spiritual Experience*~
I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.
Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.
He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only
BARELY
enough space for the fireworks
and certainly none for his truck.
So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand.
This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.
He begins,
and this is crucial to what happens next,
by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it
unsecured
on his lawn.
Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.
His process for unloading the fireworks is to
1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls.
2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile
He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things.
3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed
4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup.
5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her.
6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house.
7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too.
8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate
9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed
10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.
Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man?
Answer: Absolutely Not.
There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else.
(This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual)
Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally.
Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.
I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.
However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up.
and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop"
And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."
For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."
I move under the eaves.
"Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled."
"Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not."
"Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."
Sometimes,
the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.
The Gods were not merciful today.
It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this,
But I got to see it today.
Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before.
Oh. I realized as it got closer.
That's RAIN.
Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say,
five to tent square miles,
is instead concentrated into an area of say,
my neighborhood exactly.
So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.
The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel.
Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge.
Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.
My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp.
They do not have a tarp.
They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.
Which is when the hail begins.
"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy.
"HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!"
"OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"
I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic.
The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor.
Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.
So.
I was raised Agnostic
-but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.
---
(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)
i think americans should have to put a banner above their post that says U.S. CENTRIC ADVICE/INFORMATION. i think political posts should clarify that they are giving protest/societal/class information relevant only to the USA i think i would like to stop getting halfway through a post with really good information and then realising it is not widespread advice and is only applicable in the united states of america
for the love of GOD can we PLEASE stop treating us-centric advice as applicable to the whole entire world. Please. beyond anything else, i do not think you guys understand how difficult it makes it for young people to interact with and learn information relevant to them.
at a certain point, treating us-american advice as universally applicable borders on misinformation. i am not saying that it is done maliciously, but it is dangerous at worst. i do not want younger people going around assuming that certain laws do/do not apply to them and getting in trouble because of it. i worry about what 'fundamental/constitutional/labour rights' are only legally defensible in the USA. i worry about kids who do not know yet to wonder where the advice is for, and take it as fact because a post that reads "EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS" begins with "EVERYONE".
okay yes all the tags are very very good points but i would like to point out the main reason i made this post, which is that
if you are non-american then it can be dangerous to hold beliefs about your rights that are only applicable in the US.
i am australian and i have seen young australians have completely us-american perceptions on the rights they hold (or do not hold) in regards to protest, police officers, self-defense, medical care, higher education, debt, and legal proceedings. i am not talking about "boooo americans" i am talking about the genuine danger it might present to have us-centric assumptions in high-stakes situations
(please do not chalk this up to 'if you don't do research then you are stupid'. i made this post with young people in mind. that being said i am willing to bet it also applies to others, ie those who are newer to non-local internet, older folks, or those escaping high-control environments.)
