Parenthetical

"I’m not the freaking savior of the universe. I’m just a girl from Arizona.”

[artemisiasea]

Desert Shrub of Paradise (Erythrostemon gilliesii) found blooming in Tucson. Never seen this flower before today but it’s legume family and native to South America. This one really caught my eye… 💛

[parentheticalaside]

These are non-native but really common in the low desert. The red variety is more common than the yellow:

For some reason, newer desert landscaping doesn't include them as often. I don't know why, as they're quite pretty. Maybe they're not low water use enough. Maybe the flower shedding irritates people. Maybe it's a landscaper reason I can't come up with.

[parentheticalaside]

You know what really pisses me off by all of these businesses acting like you’re doing something wrong by paying in cash?

A lot of businesses charge you less if you pay in cash because they don’t have to cover the fees from processing cards.

So you have businesses that incentivize cash payments by charging less for cash purchases, but then they don’t give their employees enough change for their drawers (or the on-site managers are handling this poorly).

Like, gas stations often charge 10 cents less per gallon for cash payments. That’s nothing to sneeze at in Trump’s economy. I get another five cents off at Circle K as part of their loyalty/data harvesting program.

And then they give me shit about paying in cash.

[parentheticalaside]

I just got told at Circle K that they didn’t have enough change for a $100 bill for a $65 purchase.

They don’t have $35 in cash?!?!

(He had to call a manager over, who had me pay through their automated checkout. Insane.)

[parentheticalaside]

The city: "Your bulk item pick up must be placed at the end of the driveway."

My brother: "I put it in the yard."

[nflstreet]

[markadoo]

original research

[dyketrinitysantos]

part time sheriff, full time comedian

[parentheticalaside]

I was sitting in my bedroom watching Undertone with the lights off and I was like… what is that noise? Is a neighbor having a party? Fortunately I decided to check the weather because a storm was moving in. And by the time I told my mom and got into our backyard, the wind was really bad. It’s like it waited for us because right then my grandpa’s giant umbrella crashed over and another umbrella blew into the pool. I had to bang on my brother’s door to get him to help us. (We usually take down the umbrellas when we suspect a storm will come through but it didn’t seem like anything would happen tonight.)

Now it sounds like a ghost is throwing itself against my window. Perfect atmosphere for my scary movie watching.

[theonion]

Saying the nation had enjoyed a perfectly adequate amount of dribbling, passing, and loud chanting, a new report published Tuesday confirmed that was enough soccer for now. “Welp, that was fun, but we’ve got our fill,” the report read in part, adding that after a couple weeks of watching men from places like Italy, Bulgaria, or wherever kick the ball back and forth, Americans were ready to thank everyone involved and move on to something else.

Full Story

[parentheticalaside]

I don't have a Reddit account, so I'm asking here. Does anyone know what these red things are? They're plastic and they look like they can attach to something.

[frankenmouse]

It is so ridiculously easy to gain a reputation for being competent by just reading signs.

This is not metaphorical. I mean actual, literal pieces of paper/plastic/metal/whatever explicitly erected to inform the public.

“How did you know this was the right trail?” I read the sign.

“Wow, how did you know what that flower is?” There’s a SIGN.

“How did you know we needed to use the side door?” THERE IS A SIGN POSTED ON THE FRONT DOOR.

Just…why are we having such different experiences of the world? People can read. I KNOW they can read. There’s nothing wrong with their vision.

Just. READ. THE. GOD. DAMN. SIGN.

This also applies to:

Syllabi

Instructions

[onceuponawhine]

@parentheticalaside

[parentheticalaside]

I tell people all the time, "There are people in this world whose entire job is to help you out. Let them."

[parentheticalaside]

I swear in 2-3 years you're going to start seeing concerned articles about how people communicate without context and assume you understand what you're referring to and I'm going to be like "Yeah, I've been saying this for five fucking years now."

Why do I have to constantly follow up to texts to ask what the fuck you're talking about? Why do I have to do a bunch of side research to understand your screencapped tweet? Why do I have to triangulate which online discourse your cryptic post that you don't think is cryptic is referring to?

Everyone these days assumes the entire fucking world is in a continuous conversation with their specific experience. It's so exhausting.

[parentheticalaside]

I have this task at my job that I always forget to do because it's outside of the work systems I use. I finally took the time last week to build out a recurring task in Outlook with all of the links I need to access for it and I got it done in five minutes without being days late like I normally am.

I love shit like this, it makes me so happy. Process improvement is like drugs to me. Other people get a runner's high; I get a "Look at this perfect fucking to-do list" high.

[nudityandnerdery]

Just off the top of your head, don't need to try and look it up to check out anything:

Can you name a web search engine that you used before Google?

Yes

No

Don't know/just want to see the results

Remaining time: 4 days 17 hours

The book I'm reading suggests that Google became so market dominant that most people couldn't name a search engine that came before it, so I'm curious.

[parentheticalaside]

I got to order a free t-shirt after my last blood donation and I had three options. One said, "My blood type is BBQ," then "My blood type is ice cream" and the third was "My blood type is s'mores."

I picked the s'mores one.

I have no idea what any of these things mean. "My blood type is BBQ"? What is that?

[parentheticalaside]

Just need to brag that I got South Georgia Island in MapTap. Thank you, confusing article with no maps that I recently read, which made me spend 20 minutes zooming around on Google Maps.

[wingkink]

btw it's so fucking stupid you can be anxious physically in your body even after you've decided mentally you don't care. I'm supposed to be in charge here

[enki2]