Dogs, Depression, & Other Assorted Nonsense

I have a dog, depression, and a lot of random hobbies. Pretty self-explanatory.

[suspiciousmammal]

So whenever the news cycle gets too depressing, I scroll through horse sales ads while drinking my morning coffee instead. Even tho I'm not around horses anymore, and don't intend on getting back into that world.

Now, my partner hasn't been around horses much at all. So you can imagine my surprise when he not only became very invested in looking at random horses with me, but started actively enforcing horse ad time like it's some long-established relationship ritual we have.

After like three months of this, he has a surprising amount of opinions on horses and horse breeds despite never having been around one since he was 8. And since I kinda live for his comments on these horses by now anyways, here are some highlights:

he seems to have a nagging suspicion that irish cob yearlings aren't real, because they look too fluffy to be true. I'm with him on this

he likes Mustangs the most, because they have the friendliest faces.

He groups ottbs into the 'boring' or 'looks like a very big dog' category.

He dislikes American Miniature Horses so much that whenever we come across one, it's like he's discovering them all over again

He has developed a certain dislike for Icelandic Horses specifically. When I asked him what makes him hate Icelandics but love shetlands for example, he gave me a rather passionate explanation of how Shetland Pony ads are at least honest about selling some equine poltergeist, while Icenaldic Horse people act like they're selling Sleipnir itself. And jfc he's got a point?

Speaking of shetlands, he's a big fan of shetland sales ads and the euphemistic language they use

He also always asks me to save particularly... memorable pictures of horses to add to his growing collection. Here are some of the recent additions:

[suspiciousmammal]

He has since dropped the fact that his family history includes one grandpa who, upon failing to become a saddlers apprentice, pretended to be 16 to join the "cavalry" of the german military in wwii. It was near the end of the war (which is also why nobody cared about an obviously underaged 13yo kid signing up), cavalry charges were a thing of the past and what few horses were left alive got put to use pulling artillery and supplies for the nazis.

But he was 13 and an idiot and signed up to join some glorious cavalry. In reality as soon as he'd been issued a uniform they were sent on foot towards the eastern front.

He ended up captured, lost his teeth but eventually got released. It took him a couple more years to walk back home, where he worked in the trades for the rest of his life. In his home he had a small office room that his grandkids called the "horse room" as he had decorated it with paintings, newspaper clippings and the odd horseshoe.

I may have been swinging wildly at the childhood memory piñata of his, so now he's enforcing horse ad time like a cockatoo terrorizing its owner until he puts on its favourite song.

He also has some more opinions on horses that I'm allowed to share if anyone is even still seeing this

[prideprejudce]

so today a public health official guy came into my class to give a lecture on disaster awareness and he was talking about house fires and mentioned that the reason people most likely die during a house fire is because they refuse to leave their pet inside or they go back to get their pet. and right when he said this my friend immediately turned his head and looked at me and in that moment I had the most complete and genuine acceptance take over my body. I would 100% in front of my family and Jesus himself walk straight back into some raging inferno that was once my house to go get my fat cat. I nodded back

[prideprejudce]

the best part of this post is reading all the tags from animal people who would also go back to save their pets. like no hesitation. walk backwards from heaven straight back into hell. someone even said they would go back for their fish. amazing

[sterna-hirundo]

If you are a person who would walk into a blazing inferno for your animal, and your pet has free movement around the house, here’s a training exercise that could help save you both:

1) Set off your smoke alarm or play the sound on your phone (if your home has no smoke alarms, pease get some!)

2) stand BY THE FRONT DOOR to hand out treats

Do this a couple times and then keep it up NO EXCEPTIONS. Accidentally set the alarm off cooking? Treats by the door. Smoke alarm sound on TV? Treats by the door. Changing your smoke alarm batteries twice a year like you’re supposed to? Give them a test run and your pets get treats by the door.

Most dogs and cats will clue in VERY quickly that hearing that specific sound means go to the front door and wait for treats.

If there’s an emergency and even if you leave by another way, you will still know the most likely place your pet(s) is and can direct first responders to help.

You can also do this for any other kind of emergency alarm. My friend had both her cats trained to go to the front door for a tsunami siren.

[mortimermcmirestinks]

always remember, friend,

now go in peace

This meme was inspired by the piece "Lucky 10,000" by Randall Monroe.

[cipher-fresh]

[ID: “One man’s [“Yeah, the Time Knife, we’ve all seen it” meme] is another man’s [“Was anyone going to tell me?” meme] /End ID]

[ceekari]

internet heiroglyphics

[jordanbolton]

To the Person Who Asked If I Was OK

Pre-order my new book here

[drafthearse]

Opalised dinosaur femur. Registration no. P 208014.

[sabrebash]

Is That Allowed

[roach-works]

i recently found out the funniest thing about big horses recently which is that for centuries humans have sworn that the feathering on big horse’s legs has been bred in there for a reason, and the reason given is usually something to do with how it helps keep the joints warm and safe when the big horse is doing hauling work in fields.

the thing is: it doesn’t appreciably do that, because the feathers wick up water and mud, which cancels out any insulation advantage they might hypothetically confer, and also it wasn’t even put there on purpose.

the Leg Get More Hair gene is just linked to the Bones Get More Big gene. when you breed any lineage of horses to have bigger bones–not just taller, but chunkier–the leg hair just happens anyway. so every single breed of draft horse has feathered legs, and even carriage horses like friesians get feathers once they hit a certain threshold of lorge.

when you supersize your horse, mother nature throws in a free pair of booties. how cool is that?

[kyoshi-lesbians]

my controversial opinion is I don’t think Zuko was confused by “my first girlfriend turned into the moon”

[kyoshi-lesbians]

he was there during siege of the North. he infiltrated the spirit oasis. he has an uncle who studies spirits and the spirit world. he watched the sky go dark then the moon suddenly reappear like everyone else in the entire world did. and most importantly he watched zhao get eaten by a giant godzilla fish spirit.

[kyoshi-lesbians]

his entire life since he saw that beam of blue-white light in the south pole has been ‘this day has already been so goddamn weird’

[edgar-allan-possum]

The only really new information was that that was Sokka’s girlfriend

[library-graffiti]

Important opinion in the tags that I need to have be part of the post:

[clearascountryair]

Also, Iroh was there? He literally watched Sokka make out with the moon spirit. And you want to tell me that a romantic sap like him would not have immediately told Zuko about this romantic tragedy? Please, Zuko has known about this for ages, he just knows that this is not an acceptable situation in which to say “yeah, I know.”

[terriwriting]

Sokka: “My girlfriend turned into the moon.”

Zuko: “I know.” “Yes.” “She sure did.” “Uh huh.” “Tell me something new.” “Are we still talking about that?” “That’s rough, buddy.”

[alexseanchai]

[image: tags by samwisethebold: #it’s not that he doesn’t get what sokka means #it’s that how on earth do you respond to that]

[uberguber89]

When you put it like that, this is actually a legendary display of tact on Zuko’s part

[arinavah]

projecting my birding tendencies onto dragon nerd Quifrey

[starlightxraven]

Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry.

[appalachian-werewolf]

"Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry."

It fucking better.

[mrsjdavis]

Like to charge, reblog to cast?

[newbarktownalumni]

[creatingblackcharacters]

It really is hilarious because whenever you start your art journey, you watch all the videos and ask artists and they all give tips and help but it all ends up coming down to "you just have to practice".

And it pisses you off because bruh how am I supposed to practice this shit if I can't even do this first couple of fucking lines to make a good cylinder.

And then you start drawing and it sucks and you keep doing it, and you learn new skills and tricks, and you even end up developing an art style naturally (which they told you you would do, and you didn't believe them, but it came free with the constantly drawing in a way that made you comfortable and learning the medium).

And at the end of it all, someone else asks wow how you did all of that, and after all this time of putting in effort you finally have to eat crow and admit that the answer is... Damn... you really have to practice 🤣🤣🤣

[razzmothazz]

still caring about internet friends you lost touch with years ago is so embarrassing. yeah i had a deam we met up irl recently. the last time we spoke was maybe 7-8 years ago. i still wear the laces we randomly decided was a sign of our friendship. i dont know what any of your socials are or if youre even active on any. sometimes i see someones art resemble yours and i wonder for hours. do you still go by that name you chose? whenever i see it i wonder if its you. we couldve passed each other in this vastness a thousand times and not have a clue.

[razzmothazz]

we were lonely kids having fun together. do you remember?

[rosieofcorona]

sometimes you can tell how much someone loves dragon age by how much they hate dragon age

[catastrophic-writer-deactivated]

Story Time:

Working in retail is really fun, and the times when major fuck-ups happen, they can be either anxiety-attack inducing, or make it possible to get through the rest of your god-awful shift with a smile depending on the customer. My all-time favorite absolute fuck-up is as follows:

This kind woman is just doing her thing. She scans her membership card from her keychain. The register beeps to acknowledge the scan. We continue as usual. Neither of us notice right away, but after I’ve scanned a few more items, I hear a very quiet, “Um,” from the lady, very polite. I look at her. She is looking at the screen of my register, blinking. I, too, look.

And lo and behold. There is a charge of over four-thousand dollars ($4,000) worth of garlic bread staring us in the face. There are no words for a minute. We’re just… in awe. How did this happen? How the hell did this happen?

She didn’t even have garlic bread in her cart.

I sputter a partial apology - I was incapable of forming actual sentences in the moment - and try to void the garlic bread. Since there was no garlic bread to scan, I try to manually remove $4,000-some from this transaction.

Well, the registers don’t like it when you try to void off more than five dollars ($5) from a transaction, so naturally it pings my manager for confirmation, but she’s not by her pager.

At this point, both myself and the lady are just… dumbfounded. She’s not even mad. I’m not even all that embarrassed. Both of us are just looking at the screen. There’s a bit of laughter, but it’s mostly just… confusion.

I have to call through the whole store for my manager on the intercom because she’s not answering. She shows up, ready to override and void it, when she too, sees what exactly is being voided.

“What… did you do?”

“I genuinely. Have literally. No. Idea.”

She voids it, and I go to finish the transaction and tell the woman her total (minus the garlic bread). My register pings. It tells me that she hasn’t scanned her membership card. Odd. I distinctly remember her doing that. The woman goes to scan her card again, and I notice that her library card is stuck to her membership card. I tell her gently, and she separates the two and scans her card.

My manager, hovering nearby still, sees this and says, “I think it mistook the barcode of her other card for garlic bread, and the remaining digits were read as the price.”

And that’s when the laughter really came over us. There were no hard feelings at all. In fact, the woman was incredibly glad that the receipt still showed the garlic bread and the voiding of. I will remember it until the end of time, my only regret in the entire situation being that I didn’t take a damn picture, because she has proof and I don’t. But I swear to God it happened.

TDLR; Library Card Charged $4,000 of Garlic Bread.

[anais-ninja-bitch]

that’s just how valuable library cards are. each one is worth at least $4000 of garlic bread

[nudityandnerdery]

A picture is worth a thousand words, a library card is worth $4000 worth of garlic bread, if we can figure out how many words the average library card can check out at once, we can probably work out a picture-to-garlic bread conversion here, too.

[stonesense]

sometimes that character just wouldn’t hide an injury. it’s a great trope but only if they would do that.

[stonesense]

and sometimes the character wouldn’t try to push through sickness and do their day job or whatever. again i see what you’re going for but sometimes in these fics something else can happen. open your hearts and minds to scenarios such as “the character is actually pretty expressive about their needs and is willing to complain a lot but the other characters still don’t take it that seriously for whatever reason and have to deal with the guilt and quencies after”. or “the character takes a rest at the appropriate time (or earlier!) but then faces punishment/being ignored/hostility for doing so and that is what worsens their condition into a serious one.” or “the character is a practical one who informs people sensibly and takes every necessary step, yet to their distress their condition still spirals out of the control.” or whatever else but just do you see what i’m saying not every character is a silent sufferer and that isn’t the only way to put them in a situation . we can innovate

[kushblazer666]

araki in nebraska: fuuuuck dude what if there was an enemy

[fireflysummers]

I'm apparently so consistently aroace that a friend of mine uses me as a measurement for whether or not something counts as "romantic," based on when I stop understanding what he's talking about.

[fireflysummers]

@loraxofygg Stop being funnier than me on my own post (/j).