at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you
at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95Ā°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.
at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly
at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.
at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.
It's my cat's birthday (anniversary of me getting him) so I told him the story of his life while petting him real good
Highlights include:
For your first two years (when you were small) you lived in a foster home with people who raised you into a very polite young man. Two is like you plus me, that's what two is.
Some people adopted you before me and they called you Timmy (which is a stupid name) and they returned your ass almost immediately because you were so annoying at that age.
Like think about how annoying you are right now at seven years old, but way worse.
I'm better than them though, I don't call you Timmy and I wore earplugs to bed for three years because you love to scream at bedtime. Earplugs are like when I roll over and go back to sleep even when you are yelling so so so loud.
I got you at a time in my life when I was really sick (being sick is like when I'm up late because I'm throwing up and you are a very handsome good boy who sits with me) and they had to put me asleep for a procedure. A procedure is like what happened to you when they put you asleep and took your balls away.
Now you've lived with me for five years. Five is like the number of toe beans on one of your feet. When I clip your nails five is when we're halfway done. But we're hopefully not even halfway done with how long we get to be together. I'm gonna have to figure out new ways to help you count.
love that kids are emo again. i love walking into the grocery store or goodwill and seeing some teenage emo kid all decked out walking around with their mom or something
to give some entirely bizarre context, nigel farage (extreme cunt) has stepped down from his position as MP for clacton (due to a scandal where he received Ā£5 million from a crypto billionaire that could have been laundered) only to run again so that he can prove people like him. and the only person running against him is count binface. who has been a staple of british politics for many years. and now the british press is forced to interview him seriously while he sits there with his binface.
I am deeply offended by this! I was reading thoughts on what D&D classes the characters of The Mummy (1999) would be, and there was a comment that Jonathan was obviously a rogue, but either a badly built one or one with shit dice rolls. And! Excuse you? Jonathan is a perfectly acceptable rogue! He rolls fine when heās actually attempting to do something!
In the first movie alone, some of his greatest hits:
Successfully pickpocketed Rick on their first meeting, without Rick so much as joining the dots until later.
Survives a pitched battle on a burning ship without a scratch, and somehow gets the key from a burning hook-handed enemy mook in the process. (āAnd did I panic? I think not!ā)
Survives a pitched battle in the Hamunaptra ruins while drunk, through liberal use of cover and picking off targets at range.
Rolls a Nat 20 on his deception check to avoid being massacred by a large group of hynotised enemies in the museum.
Survives the final pitched battle with the undead (again, through liberal use of cover, hiding and running).
Successfully makes his intelligence roll to translate the Book of Amun Ra (with the Help action from Evie).
Successfully uses the resulting control over the undead mooks to even out the battlefield, including the genius brain move of sending them after Ankh-Su-Namun to both save Evie and distract Imhotep.
Successfully pickpockets a lich while being strangled by him to regain the key and enable Evie to use the book to banish Imhotep altogether.
Yes, heās fairly flimsy in direct battle, and if at all possible refuses to get to melee range with anybody. So heās a ranged rogue, and has a tendency to use the environment to his advantage. But heās clearly designed around Sleight of Hand, Charisma, and a decent sprinkling of Intelligence, and prefers to use object interactions and battlefield control to even out his odds. For all that, though, he fully will stay in melee range if he has no other choice, and take the opportunity to pickpocket the BBEG while heās at it.
He's a perfectly serviceable rogue, heās just not optimised for straight combat. And even there, as the second movie shows, heās excellent at ranged combat. He just doesnāt like getting up close and personal.
Actually, going back and rewatching that final battle again ... I don't think that Jonathan stayed in range of Imhotep because he had no choice. He stayed in range specifically to pickpocket him.
I didn't realise before, but this whole battle starts with Evie telling Jonathan that the only way to kill Imhotep is to open the book and read the spell to banish him. Jonathan says it's locked, they need the key, and Evie then tells him it's in Imhotep's robes.
When Jonathan sends the priest mummies after Ankh-Su-Namun with the spell on the cover (saving both Rick and Evie in the process), Imhotep is coming right for him. However, Imhotep is then briefly disabled by watching the brutal murder of his lover all over again, and Jonathan ... could have run. There's a beat there where Imhotep is completely focused on something else, and Jonathan absolutely has the presence of mind to use that, but he doesn't. Imhotep, now incensed that Jonathan has murdered his lover, promptly spins back around and goes to murder him back, and is only stopped because Rick returns the favour from earlier and saves him.
At which point a lightly-strangled Jonathan stands back up and tells Evie he got the key.
He fucking stayed put on purpose because he knew they needed the key, that Imhotep had the key, and that he was the only person who could fucking pickpocket the BBEG mid-strangulation and get away with it, so long as someone could swoop in before the undead wizard actually killed him. Imhotep is immortal and immune to damage if they don't do something about that. This is a fight of attrition they cannot win. And his sister told him what they needed to stop it, so Jonathan went and got it.
He cheerfully calls himself a coward, and then he goes and fatally pisses off a lich as a distraction, and then stands still to be murdered for it in order to get close enough to pickpocket the immortal pissed off undead. It wasn't that he took the opportunity while being strangled, he set up being strangled in order to have the opportunity.
Say whatever the hell you like about that man, but he has never once failed to do something his family actually needed him to do.
me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: IāM NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU
For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway.
In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.
Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.
This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.
Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.
If this seems harsh:
There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour.
Over fifty people lost their homes.
Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.
The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this
-And there is!
It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)
All of this spring, I've been battling Bindweed and my City Code Enforcement Officers.
The city code people have been professional, but the truth is that one of my neighbors is calling them on use because one of my housemates is transgender. It's extremely grating to get these notices, having to explain repeatedly that I *AM* working on the weed situation, I just have a heart condition and No Money. It's also deeply paranoia-inducing to know that the city is regularly coming by and photographing my house.
The Solution to the Bindweed is 1 gallon of high-concentration vinegar, half a cup of Borax, a quarter cup of salt, and a couple tablespoons of dish soap. Get one of those weed sprayers from a hardware store and mix it up in there. Spray it on your thistles, bindweed, kudzu, garlic mustard or whatever your local herbaceous invasive is on a day with bright sunlight, and in a few hours the entire part of the plant above the soil is Deceased. It's non-toxic to insects, pets and wildlife (just wait a few months before trying to plant anything in the area for the traces to wash out).
The only real downside to this stuff is that it smells HEINOUS.
Sure, The Stench is nauseating, but WeedFucker 5000 is genuinely painful to inhale. Again, it wont hurt people- even my asthmatic housemates can use the stuff- but boy howdy it sure smells toxic. I've got the ingredients for about 40 gallons of WeedFucker 5000 prepared and ready to go.
I've also got a disposable hazmat suit, rubber boots and gloves, respirator, goggles and a shitty little golf cart from the free section of craigslist to haul my shit around in.
I also have Business Cards!
See, the very nice officers from the City Code department left some Very Nice business cards so that I may contact them about "the fucking bindweed is gone, get off my back".
So I scanned the business card into my computer, fired up Clip Studio, and made my own business cards. I've turned my City's Abstract Triangle Logo into an Eye of Providence and the slogan of "E Pluribus Unum" to "E Plurbis Anus", Changed my city's name to a dumb pun, and stated the card originates from "The Department Of Public Nuisances".
Crucially, where the name and contact information of the real city employee has been replaced with the name and business email of the neighbor who has been bragging on facebook about calling the city code department on my home because he hates my housemate :)
It looks, at a glance, very much like the business cards of city employees. If you look at it for like 5 seconds though, there's no way it could be mistaken for the real thing.
I've printed out 500 of these bad boys and will have them on hand as I, a put-upon employee, am forced to work overtime on a national holiday doing weed mitigation, because my boss can't manage deadlines for shit.
You're mad about it? I've been out here since 5 AM! But if we don't finish by the deadline we lose the contract and I could get fired. You know what the economy is.
Here, this is my Boss's Business card- how about you send him an email about how this has ruined your barbecue?
It's golden hour now, so I'm Suiting Up and preparing to embark on some civil service in the form of Noxious Weed Eradication, and by coincidence, Fire Mitigation.
I'll report back later Tonightš«”
(If you'd like to support your local disabled storyteller in their Acts Of Public Service, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon)
Well.
It's not quite an hour into July 5th.
I am very tired, may have destroyed my sense of smell, and am not sure if I'm proud of or VERY disappointed in my fellow citizens.
On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!
- Only nine to last year's thirteen
- three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir
- That's far from foolproof
- and really bad for the fish
- also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting
- but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!
On the other hand.
Absolutely NOBODY questioned why the hell I was out spraying weeds.
- In a Hazmat Suit (technically it's a coverall for painting rooms, which is much more breathable, but looks the part)
- In a Residential Area
- After Dark
- On a Federal Holiday
Like I'm glad I didn't get into a fight or something, but like.
I was Ready.
I had that conversation locked and loaded.
I MADE BUSINESS CARDS.
...But instead of Very Reasonably asking What The Fuck I Was Doing, the crowds at these parties saw me (5'0" flat, potato-shaped, sweating profusely) trundling up on the slowest and least-intimidating motor vehicle in the county*, hanging a bit out the side to spray thistles and bindweed on the streets and sidewalks**, and instead of raising a rival stink, I was instead greeted by some derisive muttering and a couple of "OH COME ON!"s, but the groups dispersed and retreated indoors or at least away from the general direction of my home.
*Like genuinely, I think Barbie's Dream Car has more horsepower than this golf cart. This thing doesn't have horsepower. It doesn't even have ponypower. It's running on duckpower. It waddles, something I didn't know a wheeled vehicle could do.
**Actually completely legal and a welcome community service in my city. Thank you Neighbor Barbara for telling me the exact part of city code that details what civilians are allowed to do about weeds on public roads, which is apparently "LOTS". Theoretically I could bill the city for my time tonight.
Do people not know how to Make A Scene anymore?
I was absolutely sure I was going to get filmed and shit thrown at me, or someone would call the cops. My beloved was terrified I was going to get shot. I at least had ONE woman shout "YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" at me, which isn't quite as good as being told I'm ruining Christmas, but she said it with a genuinely heartwarming anguish while gesturing to a homemade "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!" banner, with an attempt at rendering The Evil Orange that as so enthusiastically yet talentlessly executed I almost stopped to get a picture of it. He looked like he'd been put in a wafflemaker.
I promised my beloved that I would turn around and come home at midnight, and I did, having eliminated every fireworks party and Scottish thistle in a five-block radius despite the lackadaisical maximum speed of my Steel Steed.
The complete lack of protest is honestly shocking to me. My flabbers are completely gasted. I waddled home on the golf cart in a sort of stunned silence that this HAS worked so well. The whole world is almost eerily quiet, and reeking of vinegar.
...Which is maybe why I didn't notice the cop pulling up beside me at a red light until he rolled down his window and leaned out at me.
"WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'?" He asked, in a voice that could be used as a foghorn in emergencies.
I probably would have jumped were I not currently melting into a semblance of the Chernobyl Elephant's Foot in the heat, which was the first thing that saved me.
The second was the voice of my Grandfather, coming to my aid through decades of generational memory, to tell me his words of wisdom, usually spoken right before doing something wildly inadvisable:
The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over.
"Weed Mitigation!" I called back.
"CHRIST ON A BIKE, THEY GOT YOU GUYS WORKING THE HOLIDAY TOO?" He said, in the same fontissimo as before. Apparently Officer Foghorn just talks like this.
"Yep." I nodded.
"SHIT." He blared in solidarity. "WHEN DO YOU GET OFF?"
"Just finished."
"MOTHERFUCKER. THEY GOT ME OUT HERE UNTIL GODDAMN 5 AM." Officer Foghorn whined in THX.
"Shit." I commiserated.
The light turned green.
"ALRIGHT YOU GET HOME SAFE! GOD BLESS!" He waved, and drove off at something significantly above the speed limit, and I trundled on home.
I must have still looked shocked when I came in, because My Beloved immediately got up to hug me and ask if I was alright.
"The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over." I nodded slowly as the animals all battered me about the legs for attention. "...For real though, absolutely nothing happened."
"What?" he squints, wobbling slightly as Charlie tries to shove him aside for better access to me. "That's... Is it weird to say I'm almost disappointed?"
"I mean, I confirmed that I inherited my Grandfather's supernatural ability to get out of trouble for no good reason, but we knew that from the code enforcement people." I shrugged. Selene finally noticed the smell of vinegar and retched in disapproval.
"How about a shower and some Ice cream?" My Beloved suggests.
So now it is July the 5th.
- My house is not ablaze
- There are four medium-sized carnivores sleeping on me
- I am freshly bathed
- and I have a pint of Americone Dream all to myself
Here's to you, your health and your happiness, and a reminder to go make good trouble. Goodnight all.
---
(If you enjoy reading about my adventures (and the occasional curious non-adventure) I'd appreciate it if you could tip me on Ko-Fi. Apparently my Patreon link is fucked but it's basically 1 in the morning and I can't be arsed.)
Ohhohohoho DO I EVER. Meet the āsnapback zone,ā not an area with cool hats, but instead the unintuitive range at which a hawser can kill you if it breaks under tension.
I donāt think you guys understand how much force this is, a tow rope used to move a 20 foot boat snaps under tension with enough force to dent metal, shatter glass and seriously injure anyone in its way. A Hawser on the other handā¦ Well Iāve seen a concrete pier with a chuck the size of a sedan ripped out of it by a line failure, and anecdotally, Iāve heard of a 2 ton heavy cargo forklift being skidded sideways, then knocked over. These lines snap with enough force to noticably dent the hull armor of navy ships.
This is a line designed to hold in place a moving object that can be easily in excess of 10000 tons. AND THEY CAN BREAK FROM THAT TENSION ALONE.
THESE THINGS ARE TERRIFYING RUBBER BANDS FROM HELL.
Iām once again reminded of its much smaller cousin, the haywire.
Youāve heard of the term, āGoing haywire,ā right? Ever spared a thought to why that term exists?
See, time was there was a prototype automatic hay-baler. But this was in that magic period juuust before we really got into standardized sizes. So calibration of the machine was handled manually - a mix of guessing and learning from the results of guessing.
If youāve read Raising Steam by Sir Terry Pratchett you know that many people donāt get to learn from the results of their own guesses, due to being dead.
A poorly calibrated hay-baler had the mechanical strength to smush the hay into a tight bundle, wrap the wire around it, and tie that wire off to maintain the baleās form. But the pressure of the over-packed hay was a constant outward force. Each bale made by an over-tight baler was potential energy in physical form.
We have a word for āpotential energy in physical formā and that word is ābomb.ā
So sometimes, a man would toss a hay bale and it would land with a twang and the man whoād been reaching down to pick it up where it landed was dead.
Normally Iād expect wet plant matter to be less likely to go up in flames, but not hay bales! Those pesky bacteria really like to party in damp conditions. And by party I mean ācreate heat.ā
Edited to add: Since a lot of people are reblogging this original post, I'm adding the updated version I did that incorporates the intersex circle...
I know intersex people are still getting excluded in a lot of LGBTQIA+ spaces (let alone wider society) and I think it's crucial to show this group is included in the statement that we all deserve equal rights.
bitches will complain about how they removed the live chat and the live broadcasts then turn around and conveniently ignore the whole cast begging the parasocial death squads to stop biting back homophobic slurs every time a fictional cartoon character does something they personally disagree with
slowing intuiting the rules and goals of solitaire through trial and error on what the computer does and does not let me do rather than looking up the rules because it's a much funnier way to learn
FIRST RULE OF SOLITAIRE: aces are useless. put them on the top right.
SECOND RUE OF SOLITAIRE: two's are about as useless as aces.
discard them to the ace pile as soon as possible
THIRD RULE OF SOLITAIRE: it's hard.
FOURTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: it's really hard;
FIFTH RUlE OF SOLITAIRE: you need to make the cards count down. But watch out. You must Alternate The Colours
FOURTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: make if you already have a red king and only have one more spot to add a king do not add another red king. You will lose.
SIXTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: make sure to do every possible move with cards already on the board before adding cards from your draw pile. You WILL screw yourself over
SEVENTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: good luck. Don't forget to beyourself and have fun
should i eat first or shower first *has phone in couch time for another 3 hours due to choice procrastination, a behavioral phenomenon observed in pigeons and rats as well*
