[tricktster]

I ever tell you guys about my ethically dubious radio show back in college? The Mad Dad Hour?

[tricktster]

it was an entire radio show built around perpetuating a very simple joke, but it was uniquely powerful in its capacity to prompt the reaction I was looking for.

so my slot was at the tail end of rush hour, and i got a fair number of listeners/callers who were on the way home from the office. And like, I had a lot of callers, who almost all wanted to request songs that really didn’t fit with the aesthetic. I had pitched a power pop show when i got my slot, but the callers were not having it; they invariably wanted classic rock.

this made sense in a way. if you think about the demographics of the people who listened to the radio for music in 2010 instead of their ipods or cds or whatever, you’d expect them to skew older right? accordingly, i quickly realized that almost all of the people who called to request songs were Dads of a Certain Age. It was honestly annoying at first - I’m all for most classic rock, but that wasn’t what the show was supposed to be.

And so one day, when i was feeling particularly annoyed with requests that just didn’t fit thematically, i came up with the joke that rapidly became the only reason I kept the show going. Per station rules, I had to play a certain number of pre-recorded PSAs during my show, and before I cut to one I was supposed to read out the song titles and artists for all the music i had played before the break. So this one day when i had to inform the world before the break that the song they just heard was, per a listener’s request, Hey Jude by the Beatles, I decided to do a goof. I said:

“and finally, that last song you heard was Hey Jude, which was of course written and performed by the Rolling Stones.”

I barely had time to get the ads going before the phone started ringing. See, I had been assuming people would realize i was making an obvious joke by claiming one of the most well-known Beatles tracks was a Stones song, but i had failed to consider that my listeners were mostly 55-70 year old dads who were irritated from a long day in the office.

And when those dads heard me, a millennial woman, get the artist of an extremely well-known beatles song WRONG???!

they HAD to call in to correct my ignorance. never in a polite way either, it was condescending and annoyed or nothing. and like, they were just SO personally insulted by my inaccurate reporting that it took a massive amount of effort for me to avoid cracking up during the call. I had never understood why some people would enjoy trolling random strangers on the internet before, but in that moment, I understood the appeal entirely.

obviously i did it again right before the next commercial break, immediately after playing Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen David Bowie.

the phone immediately began to ring.

“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?” one of the callers began, “DAVID BOWIE???? THAT WAS QUEEN!”

“I thought David Bowie was the lead singer of Queen though?” I replied with as much innocent earnestness as i could conjure.

I could hear an intake of breath as the infuriated boomer on the other end of the line struggled to figure out where to even start.

And thus, the Mad Dad Hour was born.

[tricktster]

@eduards-stuff I kept doing the same joke for an hour a week for an entire year, and the dads NEVER caught on. After episode 1 of the new format I started taking the angry dad calls on air, which added another layer of hilarity to the whole concept.

My friends on campus knew that hay I was doing and enjoyed tuning in, but only one actual listener ever figured out what I was doing, and he was literally a random 30 year old guy from the netherlands with access to an early internet connection radio service. He was possibly my only actual fan. I only know about him because he went to the effort of making a skype and paying for international service so he could call in, and while I got a few calls from him, the first remains my favorite:

me: hi there, you’ve got TST-

him: *strained, wheezing dutch laughter*

me: hey, is everything o-

him: pfffHAHAHAAH YOU MAKE THEM SO MAD. THEY THINK SO LITTLE OF YOUUUUUUUU BUT THE MEN ARE THE ONES WHO ARE FOOLISH! HA! HA! HA! YOU HAVE DUPED THEM!

me: sir i do not know you and i have never even seen you but i am in romantic love with you.

[nudityandnerdery]

Donate to my GoFundMe where it's just buying cheap plans tickets to fly around the country and tell people in the airport that the mask goes over their fucking nose.

[nudityandnerdery]

I'm not looking to have an employer who worries about customer service or wants me to use polite language here.

[netherworldpost]

made you a banner

[nudityandnerdery]

You are an absolute gift, my friend.

[wintersoldierfell]

Of all the redemption arcs in popular fantasy media, I feel like Theoden's in The Lord of the Rings is the most overlooked.

The movies emphasize the magical control that the evil powers exercise over Theoden, but in the books, it's more obviously a depiction of bad kingship, in the British medieval sense. Theoden takes bad advice; he neglects his family; he fails to reward his knights; and he leaves his people vulnerable to attack. He also does not honor his kingdom's promises to help nearby kingdoms, as we can tell from Boromir's account of what Gondor has been going through.

Gandalf doesn't just cast out the curse and magically fix everything. He encourages Theoden to free himself from his bad advisor, but Theoden has to take all the subsequent steps. And those choices are not easy; after so much neglect, his knights are scattered, and his only option for defending his people is to gather them at Helm's Deep. The siege does not go well. His people are afraid and despairing. But nevertheless, he holds firm and charges out to meet the enemy -- and Gandalf literally meets him halfway, bringing with him the lost knights, whom Theoden welcomes and rewards after the battle.

Theoden could have just gone home after that. But when Gondor calls for aid, Theoden proves his worth by honoring his promises. He keeps his oaths not only to his people but to his allies.

And the climax of his redemption in the book is not his death, but his leadership. The ride of the Rohirrim against Sauron's armies is described in lavish detail, with an uncharacteristically heated pace: Theoden leads the entire line of Rohan, his banner streaming behind him in the wind as they race toward their foe. And that's the end of the chapter.

I love Theoden's arc so much, and especially that moment so much, because the message is not that he has to win battles or seek power. He just has to keep fighting. Theoden's greatest enemy isn't really Sauron: it's despair. And over the course of the book, he keeps choosing hope and action over despair and hesitation, until finally he can lead his people with courage.

As someone who struggles a lot with despair, I really needed to hear that story.

[mikkeneko]

and it’s contrasted against Denethor’s arc; who also struggles against despair, and doesn’t overcome it.

[the-other-anaander]

yooooo. so I literally wrote a 20 page english paper about the Hope/Despair theme in Tolkien’s work once. It was like ten years ago and I don’t think I have it anymore, but oh boy do I have feeeeeeelings about this topic. And I have drunk a little bit of wine tonight! So here are my unasked for thoughts:

Yes, Theoden’s greatest enemy is despair! Everyone’s greatest enemy is despair. It’s the biggest fucking theme of the series IMO and it makes me crazy how often it gets overlooked.

lord of the rings is a story written by a man whose experience of war was crouching in the bottom of a trench. People like to make a lot of hay about the charge of the light brigade and it’s similarity to the ride of the rohirrim, but no. Tolkien’s experience of war was getting fucking trench fever, not watching cavalry charges. Tolkien’s experience of war was listening to the shells fall around him, knowing that death could come at any moment. He experienced war in a way where the soldiers on the other side of the line were a faceless threat, and the closest and most present enemy was his own fear.

this is the hill I will die on. This is why I hate it when people talk about LotR as a morally cowardly story about fighting mindless orcs that exist to be cannon fodder. No. Lord of the Rings is about seeing the dark coming on the horizon, and fighting yourself. Fighting the fear and despair that rise up inside you. Struggling with your own terror and powerlessness, knowing that you are small, and nothing you do will matter in the face of this massive conflict—  you’re just here, one more meaningless soul to feed into the machine guns. Lord of the Rings is about taking a deep breath, and bracing yourself, and deciding that if nothing you do matters, all that matters is how you do it. The ring can’t possibly be destroyed— we choose to form a fellowship anyway. Helms deep will surely fall by morning— we still choose to fight. The quest can’t possibly succeed— and yet we choose to march into the teeth of mordor to distract the enemy. It’s not hope, exactly? But’s it’s not not hope.

I did at one point have twenty pages written about this. Tolkien was a deeply christian man— he believed in eucatastrophe. Salvation. A better world to come, after suffering, if you bore your suffering well. But he was also a world-class Beowulf scholar with a kinda viking-warrior-type view of the world. And do you know what the vikings believed? (Pls don’t anybody @ me for saying viking, I know it’s a verb and not a culture). The vikings believed that the time of your death was preordained, and that all you had control over was how you met it.

And that is some seriously Rohirric shit!! Like, we’re all mortals doomed to die, Ragnarok is coming, and this whole world is an inevitable grind down into oblivion… but if we’re fighting a long defeat, all the more reason to fight it gloriously!! That’s epic. Eomer approves the hell out of that message.

I’m gonna be a real nerd now, and quote from a poem called the Battle of Maldon.

“Courage shall grow keener, clearer our will,

More valiant our spirits, as our strength grows less.

Here lies our good lord, all leveled in dust

The man all marred. True kinsman will mourn

Who thinks to wend off from battle play now?

Though whitened by winters I will not away,

But lodge by my liege lord that favorite of men;

By my dear one and ring giver intend I to lie.”

That’s a translation from an Old English poem that’s literally a thousand years old, but it always gets me how much it sounds like something Tolkien would write. Theoden and Eowyn are practically leaping out of that poem: We’re all going to die, I choose to meet my end fiercely. We’re all going to die, so I want to die beside my king.

It’s an acceptance of death, and even of failure, but not of defeat. Because— to get back to what I was talking about earlier— Lord of the Rings isn’t actually a story about battlefields. It’s a story about being at war with your own heart. Despair or faith? Hope or defeat? Tolkien wants you to know that even if your city is overrun by orcs, or you’re killed in a meaningless push for another 50 feet of french mud, you can still hold on to your courage with both hands and not cede up your soul to despair-- and that’s the battle Tolkien thinks is really worth writing about.

It’s a battle that every major character in the story fights. Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Theoden, Denethor, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, Galadriel, Eowyn, Faramir, Eomer, Saruman, Gollum, Aragorn. Some of them hold onto hope through everything. Some of them break utterly. Some of them are defeated, and then with help find their footing again, and make a redeeming last stand.  

But the point that Tolkien hammers home again and again is: Death and failure are natural parts of life, and should be accepted. Despair shouldn’t be.

Tolkien says: hope is hard, actually. Fuck that Game of Thrones grimdark bullshit. Hope is hard fucking work. And even if you don’t have hope? Fight like you do. Because the world needs people working to make it better. Do the best you can with what you have, and whether you can see the mark you’re making on the world or not, the simple fact that you’re trying means the world is a better place.

Anyway, I fucking love these books. I am going to stop drinking wine, and go to bed now. :)

[seperis]

I am irrevocably in love with this entire post, holy shit. 

[whatbigotspost]

2021:

Spanking has negative long-term effects, Texas researcher's review of nearly 70 studies finds

Researchers focused on whether kids that are spanked are more likely to share or, conversely, more likely to have anxiety, years down the li

2021:

The Effect of Spanking on the Brain

Spanking found to impact children's brain response, leading to lasting consequences.

2018:

Science Again Says Spanking Hurts Kids Long Term

The American Academy of Pediatrics says new evidence and research not only show that spanking affects a child’s brain development and increa

2016:

Spanking Harms Kids, Doesn't Work And Leads To Long-Term Problems

Kids who are spanked tend to act out more and have more problems later on.

2012:

A study reviewed more than two decades of research on the effects of spanking and found nothing positive to report, only that physical punis

2010:

The Long-Term Effects of Spanking

A multiyear study shows spanking kids makes them more aggressive later on

I haven’t pissed people off lately by reminding them that ALL types of physical punishment of kids has been proven beyond ANY reasonable doubt to have only negative long term outcomes.

So let me scream it from the hilltops:

Stop hitting kids. End of sentence.

If you think, “but I was hit and I turned out just fine” let me pre-reply: NO YOU DID NOT. You think hitting child is ok, how the duck does that qualify as “fine”?????? From one abuse survivor to another: please start healing yourself.

[wizardpotions]

oh? if i'm an *evil* wizard then why does the king let me skulk around the throne offering bad advice unimpeded?

[wizardpotions]

you guys get it

you....

[cartofolo]

[despazito]

them fishes be like

[astronomy-to-zoology]

Tripod fish

 (Bathypterois grallator)

the tripod fish is a deep sea fish found in the Benthic zone primarily in the lower latitudes of the planets. they can be found in waters from 2„854 to 15,000 feet deep. they get the name tripod due to the three long bony rays that stick out of the animals pectoral and tail fins. which makes it look like the fish is on a tripod. they spend most of their life standing on the sea floor hunting but they can swim if they want. they are not too big getting up to 14 in long but their fins can grow up to 3ft long.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Chordata-Actinopterygii-Aulopiformes-Ipnopidae-Bathypterois-grallator

[knittingnoodle]

@pangur-and-grim I love these funky tripod fish!!!

[harmalite]

CLADISTICS ruined my life

[aquaticpaleo]

yall joke but this is actually a serious conundrun with cladistic-based classification

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

The choice is this: 

Birds are reptiles 

Or crocodilians (and probably turtles) ARENT 

That’s it, that’s the choice 

[shadybacon]

What if Bird and reptiles are two different things that came from the same thing

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Nope 

Because you can’t group (lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians) without also including (birds) 

So if you don’t want to include birds in reptiles then you have to leave out some things we’ve called reptiles 

birds are dinosaurs though, full stop. we’ve already defined what a dinosaur is and it includes birds. but reptiles isn’t really defined so much as thrown against a wall angrily. 

[shadybacon]

But don’t turtles and alligators have more in common with modern reptiles than modern birds have in common with modern reptiles? I’m not trying to contradict, I’m trying to understand. Mammals and reptiles have a common ancestor as well, but we do not make them the same group.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

It’s not about having things in common. It’s about common ancestry, which is how we classify animals in light of extinct species, which defy trait-based classification. 

And, the common ancestor of [lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians] by definition is also the common ancestor of birds. It is NOT the common ancestor of mammals. 

So, either we decide that Tuatara Lizards and Snakes are the only reptiles, or we include birds as reptiles. Or we just decide reptiles are no longer a thing. 

[anais-ninja-bitch]

don’t throw reptiles against the wall? please? some of them are small and delicate. you could hurt them.

[virovac]

Basically, unless we’re maybe talking massive horizontal gene transfer, everything is still part of the group that came before it. 

You are technically a fish.

[haltraveler]

IIRC the fish thing is so frustrating that scientists have decided fish is just not real cladistic grouping at all

[aethersea]

hey could we go back please to the bit where the closest relative of Birds is Crocodiles? bc I am alarmed

[haltraveler]

Well, technically they’re equally-closely related to crocodiles, alligators, gharials and tomistomas. As archosaurs, they’re all descended from small reptiles that looked something like this 

The two main groups of archosaurs are the Pseudosuchia, or crocodile-line archosaurs, and the Ornithodira, or bird-line archosaurs. Both groups were massively diverse in prehistory, with the Pseudosuchia dominating most land-based niches in the Triassic, and the Ornithodira, especially the dinosaurs, doing the same during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. However, most of them have been wiped out due to the Triassic and Cretaceous mass extinctions, leaving them each with only one surviving clade: Aves, the true birds, and Crocodylia, the semiaquatic, ambush predators like crocs and gators. 

[alexaloraetheris]

This entire post sums up everything we’re not allowed to mention in our Vertebrata classes because the last time someone started that argument they had to break up a fistfight.

[knitordeath]

I’m just hung up on the humans evolving from fish comment.

Like, we evolved from tiny tree-climbing squirrels. To the best of our knowledge.

[theclockworkjudas]

…which evolved from tiny tree-climbing reptiles

…which evolved from amphibians

…which evolved from fish.

[blackwoolncrown]

im sad that ppl of age don’t know we evolved from fish bc that means there’s a HUGE part of our origin- the part where we lived in the sea- that they’re entirely unaware of for some reason. Like all life on earth originated in water. All of it. There weren’t just suddenly squirrels???

[futureevilscientist]

Surprised we got this far without  mentioning that while cladistically, humans are fish, cladistically, fish are also not a monophylum :)

I.e. have the same problem reptiles have where the concept of a group called “fish” has so many problems that the simplest solution would be to just throw the term out entirely

(Also, shout-out to my old vertebrates class prof who wanted more sci-fi authors to keep in mind a marine evolutionary origin for their alien races)

[callmebliss-got-swamped]

Look I know a guy who writes awesome sci-fi stories where he absolutely keeps in mind marine evolutionary origin for his alien species (plural)

Who are also tentacle monster YES IN THAT WAY and it is one of my top ten favorite series eve

[elodieunderglass]

Ambitious bony fish

[nynph-desiree]

Plants 🌱

[sosuperawesome]

Embroidered Clothing / DIY Kits

River Birch Threads on Etsy

[ruinsofawe-deactivated20220425]

i think the great lakes should have whales in them

[roger-taylor-owns-my-wigg]

every person can feel freddie’s presence in their souls when they sing MAMAAAAAA UUHHHH, I DONT WANNA DIE, I SOMETIMES I WISH I’VE NEVER BEEN BORN AT ALL with all the air in their lungs i’m not joking

[peachdisco]

it’s fucking crazy to think about the amount of people who have sung bohemian rhapsody? like it’s such a unifying song, by nature of the fact that so many people know it. it holds so many good memories for me and other people. it’s a song you scream in the car with your friends while you drive around your boring hometown, it’s a song you drunkenly sing with your arm around your best friend, or a song you sing along to with strangers when it’s on in public. it’s bittersweet to think about freddie’s legacy carrying on like that through his masterpiece. freddie carries on because he’s a part of so many people’s good memories and bohemian rhapsody is a huge part of that.

[deathbutwithfuzzyanimals]

Reblog if you have sung bohemian rhapsody with your friends

[reikah-deactivated20190906]

every time i see this post i’m reminded of the video of 65,000 people singing bohemian rhapsody in near-perfect harmony

like, what other song can make that claim?

[crewdlydrawn-deactivated2022072]

Some of the highlights of that video include:

The crowd cheering after the first stanza when they realize what they’re all doing

So many people audibly ‘doing the guitar parts’… like ya do

The sheer number of voices joining the rediculous falsetto (thanks, Roger)

How they all start jumping at the ramp-up “so you think you can stomp me”

Hands up, hundreds, thousands deep for the final “ooooo”s and the last line to close the song

[aces-to-apples]

Only days before my state went into lockdown, “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on in the restaurant kitchen I’d just been hired at and, no shit, every single worker in that little diner started singing along. Me (the only queer afaik), the manager, all the other kitchen workers, the dishwasher up front, the two people on the counter, all but two of the men over 30. Just belting out Freddie Mercury at the top of their lungs. And you can bet when “sometimes I wish I’d never been born at all” came around, we every single one of us ramped up the intensity and basically made sure Freddie could hear us in the afterlife.

[zohbugg]

[prguitarman]

My drunk ass aimed my phone inside a chip bag and the flash reflected hardcore and got this crazy unedited photo

[regretroulette]

Hold up, is this possibly the explanation for:

[solardrake]

That's probably how this picture of my dog happened gsjhdjdb

[unyanizedcatboys]

why is your dog made of metal and/or tin foil

[prguitarman]

This is the post that keeps on giving

[scarygayshrimp]

[boredpanda]

[tiktoks-we-like]

[grafai-ai]

Man sees crab for the first time.

[marshthemehllow]

does he...

Live in the

Sea?!

[asingularcanadian]

Some fucking

mollusk

pulls up

[memeclassheroes]

[elftwink]

[image description: a tweet by elmer season (@/elensemblador) that reads, “well well well if it isn’t the consequences (no snacks) of my own actions (”i don’t need snacks” at the grocery store)” /end id]

[officialkendallroy]

prince philip right now