2,794 Miles to Soho

[gailcarriger]

[silverhawk]

can you imagine how freaky shark mermaids would be like unlike sharks, shark mermaids would have actual arms/hands and could rely on touching things with their hands to see if they’re prey rather than having to bite like sharks do. like youre just swimming in the ocean and suddenly you feel a strong grip on your leg, you freak the FUCK out because uh what????? the fuck??? youre swimming alone in the ocean??

a head pops out of the water, dorsal fin pointed from its back and it just points at you and says in a low whisper: “i thought you were a seal. please dont swim alone like this, im sorry i scared you i just wanted to see what you are” and then disappears back into the depth. what the fuck.

[wbicepuppy]

no come back ma’am

[spoookiepie]

*under my breath* underwater girlfriend

[transmechanicus]

underwater wife

[jambambles]

Underwater love of my underwater life

[gailynovelry]

There are benefits to being a marine biologist

[weaselle]

underwater girlfriend underwater wife underwater love of my underwater life underwater benefits to underwater studies turning underwater sharks into underwater buddies underwater lovers are the partly sharky sirens seen if you’ve achieved degrees in underwater science

[amonsteronmaplestreet]

[moron-rights]

… couldn’t help it….

[gallusrostromegalus]

For Context: Underwater Temple, Underwater Monk

[plaidadder]

Looking Through A Glass Onion, Again

Long ago some teacher of mine defined a classic as “a book you can read over and over and find something new in it every time.” Had this aphorism come to me in my 20s or 30s I would have said, “Miss me with that Great Books bullshit.” However, at this point I would have to agree that most books that I really like are books you can read over and over and still find things in them. But this is as true for, say, Star Trek:TOS as it is for Jane Eyre. The one exception, I would have said, is murder mysteries. They function largely by making you desperate to know the solution of the mystery. Once you know it, you never pick the book up again. There’s no point. (Well, not until enough time has gone by that you forget what the solution was.) 

Of course there are some exceptions. Agatha Christie’s Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for instance. Dorothy Sayers’s The Nine Tailors. For the latter, what keeps you coming back is the fact that even after the solution to the murder, there are larger, unresolvable mysteries still to investigate. For the former, the reveal about the murderer completely changes your understanding of what it was that you just finished reading. And your immediate urge (ideally) is to go back and read the book you just read again, now that you know what it actually was.

Glass Onion dropped on Netflix yesterday. Having seen it in theaters on Black Friday, PJ and I watched it again last night. I can now definitively say: this film is a classic (according to the above definition). It is even better the second time. The humor is still fresh, the satire is still sharp, the topicality is…ever more topical…and best of all, you get to really ENJOY all the preparation. Behind the cut tag, I’m going to talk about what this film looks like on a second viewing and how–I mean I guess all y’all always knew I was going there–the way Rian Johnson does reveals is SO MUCH MORE SATISFYING in every way than the way the whole Super Clever Twisty Twist Crowd (I’m thinking mainly of Moffat and Gatiss here, of course, but there are plenty of others) does them. Specifically–

Well, look, I don’t know how the Glass Onion production team handled the whole “preventing leaks” thing. I’d like to think they did it the old fashioned way: by getting the good will of the people working on the film. But at any rate, in my subjective viewer’s opinion, one of the things that makes Glass Onion a classic is that the actors appear to have read the whole script before they started filming. And that is what makes the rewatch so delightful. 

I’m going to assume that if you click “read more,” you have seen Glass Onion at least once. From here on in I will be spoiling things six ways from Sunday. But–and this is my point–knowing the plot in advance doesn’t actually spoil this movie. It just kind of…ferments it a little. The flavors get more intense and complex, and you can enjoy them for longer. 

Keep reading

[flagellant]

I cannot fucking believe how much I'm losing my mind right now over soy sauce history. I'll tell all of you about it after I finish this essay because I need to un-distract myself enough to finish it but what the fuck? What the fuck is going on? I'm losing my fucking mind.

[flagellant]

During World War 2 there was a push to industrialize the Japanese soy sauce industry to be better for mass-production. This innovated the chemical fermentation technique and the semichemical fermentation technique utilized by Kikkoman; rather than ferment for four years in gigantic cedar barrels, kioke, instead fermentation takes place for six months or a year in stainless steel barrels which utilize electrolysis to artificially speed up fermentation processes.

During Postwar occupation by Americans, Japan was experiencing massive shortages for the raw materials needed to make soy sauce nationwide, and was forced to rely on exported materials from America to make production. A single American woman named "Ms Appleton" was given total control of apportioning all American soy bean rations to companies, how much, and to who. She had no knowledge of soy sauce, allegedly.

She apparently had so much power over Japanese soy sauce production that she could singlehandedly shape its future by threatening to not give soy beans to any company, family, or factory which did not utilize her specific requirements of semichemical fermentation (reduced from chemical fermentation, since it was that abhorrent). These days, the term soy sauce is distinct from traditional shoyu, and requires distinguishment because of such a radical difference the two products are.

Here's the problem, folks:

I can find absolutely no evidence that Ms Appleton ever existed. There are no sources about this specific period in Japanese history that I'm able to definitively confirm. All of the sources which reference Ms Appleton are referencing in circles with each other; there is no listed source for any of them. Kikkoman's official English website is a veritable goldmine of information regarding this piece of history, with an entire 4 size 13 paragraphs. It not only gives me a first name, Blanche, but also tells me she worked for General Headquarters and that her policies and decisions shaped governmental policies heading into the future.

Except any variation of searching for Ms Appleton, Ms Blanche Appleton, and so on gives me absolutely no information about her ever existing. By appending keywords such as Ms Blanche Appleton+soy sauce, or Ms Blanche Appleton+GHQ, we can find the same couple of sources that are circling each other--or, in the case of the latter, only Kikkoman.

But there is NOTHING else. I'm getting pageantry from some minnesotan town; I'm getting world war 2 veteran records and obituaries when trying to follow that route; I'm getting k-12 teachers and a Titanic survivor named Charlotte. There is no fucking evidence of a Blanche Appleton to substantiate these claims.

And this is fucking massive. Because there should be way more information on her if this was the case; she was apparently powerful and influential enough during the occupation that she could singlehandedly enforce whatever arbitrary rules she wanted on the soy sauce industry and they had to comply or else have no product at all. That level of power is fucking insane. Imagine having so much raw influence over Japan that you could order them to completely renovate and change how they produce and make SOY SAUCE, literally one of if not THE most important thing in Japanese culinary history--and yet there's absolutely zero reference to this outside of like, three specific sites, and none of them have sources, or if they do, they source those sites.

What the fuck is happening here? There shouldn't be radio silence about this woman. There should be records of her policies, there should be legal documents in America which record how she apportioned out American exportation of soy beans to Japan, there should be sources talking about this woman's ability to transform Japan's soy sauce production so heavily that today only 1% of all soy sauce is made with pre-WW2 traditional techniques.

So if she's that big a deal then why does she not exist?

I feel like I'm losing it. I can't think about this too hard because it gives me a headache trying to comprehend any possible answer. There is so many levels to how this shouldn't be happening that I can't settle on just one. I don't understand how some foreigner American could have an iron fist over soy beans so hard that she could apparently influence national policy heading into 2022 but I can only find a first name on the Kikkoman website.

[flagellant]

I literally just sent in a Freedom of Information Act request to the national archives asking for any records of a Ms Blanche Appleton, her reports, census information, anything. I can't believe that I'm having to use FOIA to try and ask the government to prove a woman existed because she was that big of a deal in SCAP/GHQ.

[flagellant]

This is a translated page of Kikkoman's .co.jp website, with an apparent picture of Ms Appleton.

But this says that she has an apparent good knowledge of soy sauce brewing--directly contradictory to the Kikkoman.com claim that she had "no experience". And it also claims she was in charge of GHQ, which I'm going to assume is a mistranslation, but still.

Major General Murcutt doesn't exist. Douglas MacArthur was appointed head of GHQ/SCAP during the occupation of Japan. This now just has more questions. How did this woman become so important to GHQ that she could directly speak with a Major General? Any level of power or public view she SHOULD have isn't here. You don't just get to be colleagues of a Major Damn General in Post World War 2 Japan. That isn't given to any random housewife.

[flagellant]

I just emailed a shoyu brewer family, Yamaroku, about this. The Yamaroku brewery was established 400 years ago; if the company/family were affected during the 1950 import rations and under the thumb of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, they'd have records and memory of Blanche Appleton or what it was like during that period as a brewery.

I am at the point where I am genuinely considering the possibility of Blanche Appleton never having existed. There is the chance that Kikkoman invented an 'ambassador'-type person with high influence in the General Headquarters during the occupation to grant itself apparent influence/validity/power above the rest of the competition. "The woman who controls all soy materials coming into Japan visited our main factory and said she liked us :)".

It's incredibly fitting that my first act of serious investigative journalism is about soy sauce. Like, I'm a little annoyed at how on brand this is for me. Of course I'm overly invested in this weird little nitpick about soy sauce. Of course I'm making this the government's problem.

Of course.

[flagellant]

It's currently 12:14AM. I have just learned that a private individual submitted a research query to the Japanese National Diet Library in 2008 regarding any information or proof of Blanche Appleton in relation to soy sauce production.

The researchers found absolutely no reference or evidence of her that was not directly related to the Kikkoman company, even after trawling the archives of the Asahi Shimbun Newspaper since 1945.

This information was told to me by a follower of mine--who asked to be anonymous. So right now we have evidence that Japan as an entity cannot find evidence of Blanche Appleton ever existing within relation to soy sauce production. And I can't find evidence of Blanche Appleton existing in obituary records, nor any publicly available birth/deaths.

Right now there seems to be more and more evidence that Miss Blanche Appleton was a complete invention of the Kikkoman Company possibly dating back nearly a hundred years. But why?

If nothing comes back from my Freedom of Information Act request, I'm going to be contacting Kikkoman directly. I'm not going to just let this slide. People have been noticing this since at least 2008. Who is Miss Blanche Appleton? Why would she be faked by Kikkoman? What's the point of this lie, and if it's the truth, if she was real, why can't I find any proof of that?

Who is Blanche Appleton?

[flagellant]

Why is everything starting to point towards yakuza/organized crime Kikkoman origin story and why am I researching zaibatsu breakups of the GHQ and where assets from various clans got sent to.

[alexseanchai]

[image: Tumblr tag: #dont dig too deep op]

.

keep digging, please, this is fascinating and disturbing

[genuinehumanboy]

today is video games’s birthday.

[wheel-skellington]

Happy birthday videogames

[ubuyo]

[algorizmi]

Happy 50th, video games!

[tuherrus]

i’ve had this comic sketched out for months but only decided to finish it now, it’s based on something i drew a couple years back of toph and zuko….don’t think too hard on when or how this takes place because i don’t really know either! it’s just a concept i’ve always wanted to draw

[copperbadge]

please tell us what the Sandra Bullock clause is! (if only so i can use it on all of my friends this holiday season)

Oh, that was just a throwaway joke line, there isn't actually one -- I just said "per the Sandra Bullock clause" because she's the star of While You Were Sleeping.

Although I suspect there is merit to the idea that any given movie made by Hollywood, Sandra Bullock has made a version of it which is either better, more fun, or more interesting.

So Die Hard, if it indeed is a Christmas movie, is mooted by While You Were Sleeping. There's Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 8, of course. She wipes out an entire genre of car chase films (the FastFurious franchise, the French Connection, etc) with Speed. I'm not sure what Two Weeks Notice is a better version of, but there's bound to be something. I haven't seen The Lake House but I bet nobody else has either so they can't argue with you when you assert it's a superb time travel movie. She played Miriam in Prince of Egypt which wipes out every swords'n'sandals epic. Miss Congeniality is a fantastic undercover cop film. She's done at least one spy movie too, hasn't she? And she did The Blind Side, which while kind of a creepy film is more interesting than most sports films.

I started the response to this ask as a joke but I think I might actually be onto something profound here. I think if you are hanging out with a bunch of pretentious film nerds and you mention the Sandra Bullock Clause, ie if a film exists she has been in a version of it which is either better or more fun, you could really make some people BIG mad.

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re a daycare worker, watching over toddlers, when the imminent end of the world is announced. It becomes increasingly clear none of the kids’ parents are going to show up as the end inches nearer.

[bixbythemartian]

[Audio starts]

“Mom has been texting me for the last twenty minutes. She wants me to come home. It’s a four hour drive, when the roads are clear, and from what I hear everybody is trying to get somewhere right now. There’s no telling if I’d even-”

“Everybody else has left. All the other kids were picked up, the other staff left. They gave me all the keys. I promised to stay and wait for as long as- well. Even if some of the parents show up, I guess some of them won’t, so I’m just waiting. Until.”

[Clears throat.]

“A couple of people came after everybody left. Peter, one of Aidan’s fathers, gave me three hundred dollars for staying. What am I going to do with money? It’s- anyway. I kind of get it. He wanted to give me something.”

[Audio ends]

[Audio starts]

“They’re all between 2 and 4.” Sniff. “They’re so little. Too little to really- maybe if they were older, I’d have to tell them something. But um. I’m just- trying to stay calm and keep them happy and occupied. I think that’s the best thing, right now.”

[Heaving breaths.]

“I normally use this recorder to help me remember stuff. It’s just, uh, habit to talk to it. I don’t know. They’re napping, right now. I’ve got the baby monitor, they know that if they talk into it, I’ll come, so-”

[Sobbing.]

[Audio ends]

[Audio starts]

“Mom keeps texting, so I blocked her. I sent her a text telling her goodbye, first, but. I do. But these kids need me.”

[Sniff.]

“I tried calling their parents again, but I can’t get anybody. It’s just busy signals. I called the firefighter station, 911. I can’t get through to anybody.”

[Shaky breath.]

“I went out into the yard. Um, I think they can play. It’s nice out, and you can’t really see it yet. Little bit of a glimmer, if they ask I’ll just tell them it’s a plane, but it’s nice out and we’ve got hours before-”

[Murmuring child’s voice, indistinguishable.]

[Audio ends]

Keep reading

[noirbettie]

This is genuinely one of the best stories I’ve ever read in my life.

[yekkes]

Martin Scorsese's daughter showed him the meme. He's aware

[yekkes]

For those asking. Yes this is real, look at the screen name.

And if there were any doubt. Here's a video she made on the account with her dad, who is Martin Scorsese:

[theodysseyofhomer]

paintings of ulysses and the sirens rated by how securely he is tied to the mast

[theodysseyofhomer]

Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse

looks reasonably secure, he’s probably not going anywhere. waterhouse always comes through. 10/10

Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper

you’ve allowed too much freedom of movement for his sexy arms!!! he’s aboutta BUST through the ropes and join the choir invisible!!! but i do love the crewmate to the left with the king-wrangling job. i bet that’s eurylochus. 6/10

Odysseus and the Sirens by Alexander Bruckmann

they’re pretending to ask for advice on building wooden horses, and when he jumps overboard to mansplain, that little wristlet is not gonna stop him. 0/10

Ulysses and Sirens by Pablo Picasso

this ulysses is forever trapped in flatland. he will not jump overboard. he knows there is no true escape with the sirens, not really. 7/10

Ulysses and the Sirens by Léon Belly

in 3 minutes this mans is going to be dragging behind the boat like a jet ski. 1/10, there must have been a thought process at least

Odysseus and the sirens (stamnos, British museum)

rope to naked flesh ratio is so funny here but you can’t listen to the forbidden song of the sirens if you ain’t cute <3 9/10

The Sirens and Ulysses by William Etty

i’m sorry, i hate this. what?

fish women want him for his thick ass. only ropes around here are the ones he pulls in the gym. 0/10

Ulysses and the Sirens by Marie-François Firmin-Girard

finally…. a socially distanced ulysses. you did it boys. can’t sink this bad boy. 100/10

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

Can someone please explain to me what evaporated milk is? Wouldn’t that just be gas by definition? I live in constant fear

[buthowaminotdeadyet-deactivated]

no no it’s what left behind after the milk has been evaporated cuz only the water goes, not the other stuff

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

THERE’S WATER IN MILK?

[buthowaminotdeadyet-deactivated]

WHAT DID YOU THINK THE LIQUID WAS?

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

IDK ISNT MILK ITS OWN LIQUID?

[buthowaminotdeadyet-deactivated]

NO

IT’S MILK-STUFF MIXED WITH WATER

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

MILK STUFF? DOESNT IT JUST COME FROM THE COW’S TIT?

[buthowaminotdeadyet-deactivated]

ITS LIKE TIT JUICE, THERE IS WATER IN JUICE AND THERE IS WATER IN MILK

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

It’s fat droplets suspended in water, with some nutrients and soforth dissolved in it. You know, like ranch dressing.

Evaporated milk is just dehydrated milk.

[bisforbutch]

Obsessed with the user who assumed milk was its own element on the periodic table

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

As op I felt like I had to make this

Milk, the forbidden 119th element

[jasonfunderberkerthefrogexists]

the only question left is if it’s a metal, non-metal, or metalloid.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

OP seems to have classified it as a special case of halfnium, reclassified as a lanthanide. This has fascinating implications for electron orbital geometry.

Anyway it’s a rare earth metal apparently.

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

Yes I definitely classified it intentionally and knew exactly what I was doing when I put it with the lanthanides because I am never wrong

MILK IS A RARE EARTH METAL

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I thought so, I took one look at your classification and immediately thought “this is definitely someone with a deep understanding of how the periodic table works”

I’m glad that we have reached a consensus on the expected elemental properties of milk

[oceaneyes1834-deactivated202312]

I’d really like to know what @derinthescarletpescatarian’s thoughts are on milk’s electron orbital geometry

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

That would involve writing a crash course in how suborbitals work on a post about whether water (the primary ingredient in milk) is in milk and even for tumblr that’s going a bit far

[jesin00]

no, it is absolutely not going too far

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

You guys always complain that you don’t get to learn stuff in normal ways and then you come asking for this

[boopboopboopbadoop]

MILK IS SEVERAL COMPOUNDS PLEASE YALL ARE KILLING ME OVER HERE

We have a container of dry milk because in addition to a little fat and sugars, it contains proteins, which settle into the pores of nitrocellulose membranes, making sure analytical proteins (specific antibodies) don’t get trapped. We could just use casein (one of the proteins in milk), but milk is much cheaper and can also be found at Walmart.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

No milk is a lanthanide keep up

[flipocrite]

lanthanide?

I think you mean lactanide

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I will put lego in all of your shoes

[vel0000vet]

A cube of milk with 3 inches of edge length can blow up the galaxy.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Our galaxy is actually the result of such an explosion, that’s why we call it the Milky Way

[zoroshonkingbazonkadonkas]

this is a unique sort of thread in which you’ll find two types of people exclusively: nerds and dumbasses

[e-the-village-cryptid]

Enter OCEAN EYES and NOT DEAD YET, two of the king’s most quarrelsome stablehands.

OCEAN May one explain what powdered milk doth be? Is it not gas? I live in constant fear.

NOT DEAD The water flees to air, the rest is left. The dry debris then forms the powdered milk.

OCEAN Thou sayest water doth reside in milk?

NOT DEAD Pray tell what thou believ’st the liquid is?

OCEAN Is milk not one pure substance in itself?

NOT DEAD No; ‘tis only milk-stuff mixed with water.

OCEAN Yet milk appears from living cows’ own tits!

NOT DEAD ‘Tis juice from tits, yet water still it holds. If water be in juice, then ‘tis in milk.

Enter DERIN, the scarlet pescatarian.

DERIN ‘Tis drops of fat afloat in water, As if ‘twas dressing for thy greens. With water gone, the powdered milk remains.

A NOTE attached to an arrow, written by BURNING BRAND, flies through the window.

BURNING BRAND’S NOTE Obsessed with he who foolishly believ’d That milk is element of chemistry.

The NOTE crumbles to ash. BURNING BRAND is not seen again.

OCEAN As he who instigated such a fight, I felt that this creation was my duty.

OCEAN unrolls a scroll of parchment with a flourish.

OCEAN Behold, ‘tis milk, one hundred and nineteen.

Enter JASON FUNDER BERKER, a frog.

JASON FUNDER BERKER And yet the burning question still remains: ‘Tis metal, not, or somewhere in between?

JASON FUNDER BERKER does not wait to hear the answer, and exits.

DERIN A lanthinide! A special case, I see. How fascinating, geometrically.  But let us leave atomic musings be. For milk is a rare metal of our Earth.

OCEAN Of course it is, for I am always right. My choices are, of course, deliberate.

DERIN I do not doubt thou speakest truth, my lord Thy brilliant mind is utterly unmatch’d. It seems that an agreement has been reach’d.

OCEAN Of course; however, in sincerity I wish to know thy scholar-driven thoughts.

DERIN I fear ‘twould be beyond thy comprehension. To teach to thee would take this much too far.

Exit OCEAN, in a huff. Enter JESIN, BOOP BOOP, FLIPOCRITE, VELVET, and LOVELY DREAMS, curious onlookers attracted to the scene.

JESIN Do teach us, it would not take this too far!

DERIN Ye all complain of learning strangely, Then ask me baiting questions such as this!

BOOP BOOP Thy gross ineptitude shall be my death! Milk is formed of small component parts. The fat, the sugars, proteins all combine They seep through pores of membranes in this drink Unpleasant compounds all are filter’d out. All this obtained for small amounts of coin.

DERIN No, milk is lanthanide, pray keep the pace.

FLIPOCRITE The word thou mean’st is lactanide, I think.

DERIN May sharpened pain-shaped stones fill up thy shoes So that thou never know’st a moment’s peace.

VELVET A cube of milk, three inches on each side Could blow up the entire galaxy.

DERIN Our galaxy was formed in such a fashion. ‘Tis why we gave it name of “Milky Way.”

LOVELY DREAMS Thus ends our entertainment for the night Here fools and pompous scholars come to fight.

Exuent, pursued by a cow.

(Shakespearean adaptation format inspired by @mortimermcmirestinks​ in this post)

[alexaloraetheris]

Youpeople have no right to be this funny on my dash so early in the morning

[atombombtom]

As I grow older I feel my capacity to understand that Miss Piggy is not a real person reached a peak in my adolescence and is now on a steady decline. I watched a Wendy Williams interview and there's this part that's like "can we get a ring cam!" and Miss Piggy shows her bling and I'm just like fuck she's so iconic. Miss Piggy who are you wearing? Miss Piggy have you ever considered running for office??

[atombombtom]

Like literally every time I see Miss Piggy there's a period where I need to readjust to the fact that it's not a person, and I feel that period is getting longer and longer with every instance

[atombombtom]

now all my Youtube recommendations are filled with Miss Piggy interviews. I’m not complaining. Miss Piggy what’s your secret to ageing so graciously

[bigscaryd]

It's not just the audience; professional journalists, hosts, and actors report it is legitimately difficult to not see the Muppet as a person, and it is, in fact, incredibly easy to interview or act with them once the performer gets properly set up.

[redwaltz]

Like that one time they couldn't figure out why Kermit's audio was so garbage... then realized they'd put the mic on him instead of the performer.

[brunhiddensmusings]

this has been a very longstanding issue - before the muppet show was even a thing some muppets appeared in commercials, such as rolf the dog they had a continual problem where when people directing/shooting the dogfood commercial would give dirrection to rolf that they would be speaking to the muppet, to which rolf REPEATEDLY had to tell them ‘i cant hear you, you have to talk to him’ and point at the performer underneath him rolf is one of the most embarrassing muppets to need this direction as the performer is this, damn, obvious when not on camera

‘sir, i am a bathroom mat, the man you need to talk to is back there’

[petranaradulovic]

I did an interview with Gonzo one time, and when I got into the Zoom call, it was the actor on screen trying to figure out his audio. And then once he did, he went like “OKAY!” and then just like dove to the floor and it was Gonzo and there was never a moment when I doubted that the dude was just Gonzo’s tech guy 

[but-the-library-of-alexandria]

an underrated detail in pride and prejudice is that elizabeth bennett was home alone on the day darcy proposed because she had a headache. can you imagine. this was in the pre-painkillers era. you're at home with a headache and then this asshole walks into the room and tells you he loves you and wants to marry you even though he hates your whole family and you're beneath him. imagine having to deal with that while also having a headache. she doesn't even have ibuprofen

[earhartsease]

[ID: youtube comment from Hal Sawyer:

My favorite relic English still used everywhere is the word "the" used in phrases like: "the more I look at this, the stranger it seems, or "the bigger they come, the harder they fall". This "the" is not the article of any noun, it is a different word, a conjunction descended from the old English "þā", pronounced "tha" which means either "when" or "then". Back in early Middle English the structure "if - then" had not taken over and if you wanted to express an if - then relationship you said "þā whatever, þā whatever", meaning "when such-and- such, then such-and-such". "þā" sounds almost the same as "the" and the spelling of the two converged, but the meaning remained totally different. "the more, the merrier" literally means "when more, then merrier" or "if more, then merrier'; same as centuries ago.

end ID]

this is so cool

[sacredstem]

if you had the 2006 guinness book of world records do you remember this guy with the record for the most straws stuffed in a mouth? why is he dressed like he’s in the matrix? slay.

[garbage-empress]

is this the straw man you guys are always arguing with

[carnivoroustomatoes]

I love insults like landlubber and cityslicker, look at this idiot not used to areas and situations

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I have had a really full and busy day today, but the highlight was:

So I'm sitting in the staff work area and one of my colleagues comes up to me. There's an open day this weekend, and so we need to plan an activity for the would-be students.

"Simple!" I say. "Let's get them to dissect some owl pellets. Hands on, fun, they get to play with skulls."

"Good idea!" she says. "But we'll need something even fancier for the open day in February. What can we do? Perhaps we can take some soil samples."

And as we're debating the photogenic merits of soil Vs dead mice...

Suddenly, a Dashing and Handsome Stranger (read: an autistic engineering lecturer) appears with a flourish (read: launches himself into a seat beside us while visibly and physically vibrating with excitement about his special interest being Useful) and asks "HELLO I'M SORRY DID YOU SAY SOIL BECAUSE I HAVE A RAMAN MICROSCOPE"

"Amazing!" declares my colleague. "...Who are you?"

"COME AND SEE IT!!!" he says, currently the human embodiment of the :D emoticon.

We went and saw it. It's an excellent microscope and his ten minute infodump about it was both spectacular and also extremely useful. We're going to use it to assess microplastics.

I have a new friend.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Guess who I saw again today! I say 'saw', he hunted me down to invite me to train on using his microscopes - it turned out some of the engineers asked if they could look at explosive substances with it and he was like NO YOU MAY NOT IT'S POWERED BY A LASER so now he's insisting that everyone train on it, but wanted to ask me if I'd like to do it. Obviously I have said yes. He's getting an SEN as well so he's put my name down for that, too.

And then we compared notes on working in labs, and he told me about the time he was sent to the 'chemical cupboard' in his last lab and found a Tesco bag of asbestos, three and a half kilos of TNT, and half a pint of cyanide, and when he told the health and safety woman she just said he should use a lone working protocol, and he was so angry he yelled A LONE WORKING PROTOCOL WILL NOT SAVE THE CHILDREN FROM A DIRTY BOMB, CAROLINE

I love this man

[shotgunfullofbabies]

Why did the chemical cupboard have three and a half kilos of trinitrotolulene (the full name for TNT, for those unaware), and was it at the very least an explosives cupboard?

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

It was not in an explosives cupboard, and he didn't know. Basically this was in an HE building being converted over to a young offenders institute, and for whatever reason, all the science teachers quit en masse as the switch was happening, leaving all their students in the lurch. So one morning he came into work, was told he was being promoted to Technical Demonstrator, given a Bunch of Mysterious Keys, and told he had three hours to familiarise himself with the contents of the chemical cupboard.

"Great," he said. "Where is the chemical cupboard?"

"Shrug emoji," his boss said gravely, and wandered off to have crisps.

So he spent an hour wandering the building and trying his keys in every lock before finally finding a door that opened, and upon finally opening it, was immediately greeted by a Tesco carrier bag on the floor labelled 'Asbestos, do not touch'.

"Right-o," he thought. "No touching that."

But then he had two hours left to familiarise himself with the packed shelf contents of quite a large room, and the problem is that when you tell an autistic lab tech to familiarise themselves with a room full of chemicals, what they hear is not "Have a quick look so you have an idea of what's there", it's "These chemicals must be catalogued in detail and also here have a time pressure," so he was going to be both Thorough and Grumpy about this. And this room was packed.

The oldest bottle he found was a reagent opened in 1959.

It had crystallised.

("It was quite beautiful, actually," he told me dreamily. "A work of art. I wish I'd kept it.")

The cyanide, when he finally found it, was in a stoppered glass vial. So that was the point he lost his shit and went and grabbed Caroline.

The kicker is, Caroline didn't care. She insisted they didn't have the money or resources to spare on getting rid of it. So he had to march all the way to the Dean's office.

"You look like you're having a bad day," she said warily.

"Well I thought it would peak with the Tesco carrier bag of asbestos I found," he said, "but I was very wrong."

And that's how you give your boss a heart attack.