I got scammed by a hole in the wall cash only cobbler and I'm so jealous. Still ragging about paying $50 to replace a zipper on my work books and then they replaced the zipper on the wrong fucking boot.
My work boots are the most expensive shoes I’ve ever owned.
Also the most comfortable. I chose them after trying on several different brands and comparing lifespan vs usage vs comfort - I needed them for a physically demanding job, not the weekend hiking trails. I could have easily chosen cheaper boots that would have lasted long enough to be worth their low price, but I know the Sam Vimes Boot Theory and knew weaker, less comfortable boots would make my life harder in the long run.
So when the outside edge of the heel started wearing down after three years of heavy use I went to the shop I got them from and said “hey this is a common problem for me with how I walk but now it’s affecting my ankles and knees and I don’t wanna have to buy a new pair, is there a way to fix this?”
The salesman at this very fancy upscale boot store said “oh yeah, there’s a shoe repair place that can give you some heel guards - it’ll keep the rubber from wearing out.”
So at 8am this morning right after my 9hr shift ends I went to the shoe repair shop and it is the most hole-in-the-wall, is-this-a-real-business-or-a-mafia-front, am-I-gonna-get-shot tiny cinder block cube I’ve ever seen in my life. I grew up plenty poor and love me a good hole-in-the-wall business, but going from upscale store to this cash-only repair shop gave me whiplash. Wasn’t expecting this when a guy who wears three piece suits to sell boots said it’s the best place to go.
The skinny kid behind the counter looks somehow 16 and 25 at the same time, but when I tell him this place was recommended he smiles and says to hand over my boots. I hand him the vaguely warm foot-smelling boots, and stand in my socks in the 3’ square entryway surrounded by every color leather polish you could buy and watch as he turns my boots around in his hands, sizes up a crescent moon bits of plastic, and unceremoniously hammers tiny nails through them before handing them back.
The heels are perfectly level again. I can walk without almost rolling my ankles. They don’t clack loudly on the pavement or feel different. This is gonna fix my knee pain. It cost $10.
This kid had every tool he needed within arms reach, worked fast and smoothly, I was in and out the door in less than 8 minutes, and it only cost $10.
I didn’t think anything could cost only $10 anymore. I’m so used to hyperinflation prices I was spiritually thrown back to the 1400’s visiting the cobbler in town square. This kid might have been that cobbler and just decided to never die.
I’m still reeling from the whiplash, and gobsmacked at the price, and thrilled I didn’t have to go buy new, worse work boots (cuz I don’t have that kind of money for a second pair, I’m expecting these ones to last a decade) and it feels like I just experienced one of the rare little chunks of magic that floats around our world.
Knock knock. Who’s there? Echolalia. Echolalia who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Echolalia. Echolalia who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Echolalia. Echolalia who? Knock knock.
Ooohhhh this explains why I can cook when I have a caregiver with me but wont when I'm alone.
I'm showing thee caregiver how to prepare the things I like to eat for the days when I can't get out of bed
1. a couple months ago a publicist invited me to a concert and i accepted her invite and she said she’d add my name to the guest list. the night of the concert i was feeling a little tired and not entirely up for walking all the way to the venue and standing around listening to a band i’d never heard of. but then, as i was making dinner, i thought, “why don’t you pretend this is a date night with bill hader?” i realize this is an insane person thing to think. i do often go to concerts with friends; i am not in the habit of pretending bill hader is accompanying me to concerts. but that night i did put on the band’s album and pretend that bill hader was dancing around the kitchen with me while i cooked. and then i pretended that bill hader threw his arm around me on the walk to the venue and walked slower than usual because he’s taller and his paces are longer than mine. then i got to the venue. and i told the lady in the ticket booth that i was on the guest list. and i gave her my name. and she handed me two tickets, and she said, “here, for you and your plus one.” i was all alone in front of the box office. there was no one else around. at no point leading up to this had the publicist mentioned giving me a plus one. i laughed a little to myself at the idea of Imaginary Bill Hader being given his own ticket and then i went inside.
2. on the way home from acting class tonight, a long walk in the cold, i came upon a diner lit in warm golden hues, and i hadn’t eaten all day, and it looked irresistible, so i went inside. “for one,” i said, and the hostess said, “do you want to eat at the bar?” and i said, “no thanks, could i sit at a table?” and i was ushered to a table for two. it was a pretty busy night and i was kind of self-conscious about being the only person eating alone so i was like, “well okay i’ll just imagine i’m on a date with bill hader again haha.” and so i sat there and enjoyed some very good sweet potato ravioli with chestnut-cream sauce, and what was perhaps the best cheesecake i’d ever eaten in my life, all the while imagining bill hader seated in the empty chair across from me. and then at the end of the meal, my waitress came and cleared away my dessert plate, and she looked at me, and then she looked at the empty chair, and then she looked back at me, and then she said, “are you paying separate or together?” again, the other seat was empty. i had been sitting at this table fully by myself for the entire duration of the meal. the waitress had come by the table perhaps five or six times over the course of the hour, seeing me completely alone. and i said, “sorry?” and she said, “separate or together?” and i said, “…together?” and she said, “cool, do you need the machine?” and i said, “yes” and she brought the machine over and i paid, because my dinner companion, despite apparently being visible to my waitress, was imaginary bill hader.
I absolutely can not stress how horrific this was and also how extremely bizarre for this type of show.
The medic: Like on a scale of one to ten?
Thiago: It probably hit the bone.
The medic: Ah.
He seriously looks like he’s about to cry when the EMT says he can’t stop the bleeding.
Someone in a black chef’s uniform is sitting next to him, holding his glass of water, saying, “Don’t worry about your team, this is the priority. You gotta keep your finger, okay?”
Then he does start crying and we get some really intense close ups.
He tells his teammates what’s going on, he walks up (crying) and just says, “bad”. And a teammate says, “Like, you have to go, bad?” and that’s when we get, “It’s like... dangling”. I just really feel like the show runners could have had someone else let his teammates know what’s going on.
Chocolate guy walks him out saying, “Someone is going to take you to the hospital, okay?” Like set aside the fact that they could have absolutely paused the challenge or restarted it later, but if they’re not going to do that I think there’s something more kind and supportive he could have said.
One of his other team members is real choked up, but they only show her describing that the chocolate sculpture was Thiago’s idea. It cuts away and then cuts back to them and they say, “My heart just sank”. I’m fairly certain the original context didn’t have to do with not knowing how to continue the sculpture without Thiago.
Chocolate guy informs the rest of Thiago’s team that they don’t know how long he will be gone and that the two of them can choose between two other people to help them continue.
The music suddenly switches to something upbeat and the other team member has a voice over that goes, “And I’m like, ‘thank god!’“ and she laughs. I did not like that moment.
The music continues to be so inappropriate as the substitute jumps in.
The show returns to usual.
Oh no! Another team’s chocolate has set! The person in charge of said pot of chocolate reacts way less calmly to this predicament than Thiago did to cutting his finger.
Thiago comes back at the start of the next episode once the competition is over. Chocolate guy asks him, “You still have motion? You still have nerves?” And Thiago goes, “yup, yup” and then Chocolate guy says, “You’re lucky, you have to be a little crazy to be a chef right?”
I’m a huge fan of blown away and I can not imagine anything similar happening on that show. Glass blowing is so very dangerous and the people on the show have so much experience that I think they would call out nonsense like this.
I also wonder how much Corning Glass, who provides a first place prize, would get a say in the cut of an episode. I don’t think they would want to be associated with a show where the show runner, an expert in the field, would brush off a serious injury with something like, “you have to be a little crazy to be a glass blower, right?”
every time I see the tiktok chocolate guy I remember watching his cooking competition, which had absolutely life changing career opportunities for the winners, where one contestant almost cut his finger off during a timed round and was literally forced to choose between keeping his finger by going to the emergency room and losing points, or losing his finger to try and finish the round while covered in blood for a chance at the grand prize. he lost points for going to the emergency room. after he bled everywhere and left to go get his finger reattached, the show runners refused to stop the timed round even though all the contestants were clearly horrified
i want to hold my tongue and not share the depth of my opinions about the two-headed cow but it upsets me so much every time i see it, i really do hate the narrative of 'rooting for' an animal like this to live despite it being unable (and will be unable, for its entire life) to do the most basic of things life has to offer, even breathing, eating, moving, to prioritize the savior myth that everything can and should be saved, that every living creature should be treated this way as though its not one of the greatest mercies that we as humans have the ability to enact a quick and painless alternative to a slow and miserable life that ends in slow and miserable death on our livestock when they can't advocate for themselves, the ability we have as humans to see the research and make a prognosis and decide that the spectacle is not worth the extended misery, but this life is worth the dignity of a peaceful death we have the capacity to grant
because there is a difference between helping a baby animal in the first legs of life knowing it has a chance to have a quality of life worth fighting for, not a life doomed to be painful that we KNOW is painful knowing all that we know about animals who come with this specific type of physical abnormality, what we see on the surface is only a fraction of much more malformation and deterioration on the inside that we can't just decide is not happening because they 'look' fine, and what we see on the surface is already a life from start to finish without any experience an animal like this should have by virtue of being alive, with no life at all and no understanding of why it is going through this
the assumption that there is no suffering despite eating, breathing, moving never something that this baby will be able to do unassisted, despite knowing the longest a two-headed cow has ever survived was not even a year and a half and that record hasn't been broken in over thirty years, that's not even a quarter, an 8th, a 12th, a 15th of a cow's normal lifespan, and doubtfully much of that was pleasant or comfortable, and even if this cow does get to the point of being able to stand on its own, we can't ever know the full range of agony this animal is going through, all we know is there is and there will be agony, and we need to not see life as inherently successful or painless just because something is going in one end and coming out the other, that isn't what defines an animal's quality of life to me
the two-headed calf poem is beautiful to me because it's a miracle that something so rare (luckily) and so doomed could see one extraordinary thing before passing. the sky ceases to be beautiful when forced to live every day for the sake of social media's voyeurism, it makes me so sad that someone who raises livestock would put public attention over their duty to their animals ☹️
We set up the GameCube for the first time in years and years and loaded up a Mario Party game to play. The save name was each of our initials, “KMS”.
Image converted to text under the cut:
Please stop
I am begging, BEGGING you, whoever you are, to stop writing these. About ten years ago the titles were funny, and the twitter account was funny, and the lore around the clearly fictional Chuck Tingle was funny, but around the time Trump was elected, they turned into increasingly deranged, uninformed and mediocre political diatribes masquerading as whatever the hell this is supposed to be. Literature? Satire? I think the author is going for satire, but unfortunately these books are not satire. They're not funny, they're not clever, they're not subtle, and they're not nuanced. And they're not funny. Did I mention that?
This one is particularly hellacious, because it's clearly just the author getting frustrated about something and thinking "Time to write a Chuck Tingle book to tell everyone how I feel about this subject!" The creators of South Park occasionally do something similar, but their show is actually witty and relevant, unlike this hot garbage. The only thing funny about this book, if it can even be called a book, is that it very obviously and embarrassingly reveals the author for who she is (I'm going out on a limb and guessing "Chuck Tingle" is female). Because although obviously a bisexual in a heterosexual relationship is still bisexual, nobody who is actually gay OR bisexual will disagree that there is a huge influx of functionally straight people opting into being "queer" (I hate that word) out of guilt for being part of the majority, or the desire to partake in the fetish of victimhood that has permeated our society in the past ten years, or maybe they're just trying to be cooler than they are. They're mostly straight women. Wild guess here: "Chuck Tingle" is one of them, and is mad that she was called out at some point for doing exactly that.
In any case: Chuck Tingle, go away. Go away and put down your pen and call it a day and close this tired, unfunny, embarrassing chapter of your life. And get some counseling or something.
all time funniest review. someone please check on the scoundrels they are very riled over our joy
the audiobook for NOT POUNDED BY BI ERASURE BECAUSE MY CURRENT HETERO-PRESENTING RELATIONSHIP DOES NOT INVALIDATE MY QUEERNESS is available here
i want to hold my tongue and not share the depth of my opinions about the two-headed cow but it upsets me so much every time i see it, i really do hate the narrative of 'rooting for' an animal like this to live despite it being unable (and will be unable, for its entire life) to do the most basic of things life has to offer, even breathing, eating, moving, to prioritize the savior myth that everything can and should be saved, that every living creature should be treated this way as though its not one of the greatest mercies that we as humans have the ability to enact a quick and painless alternative to a slow and miserable life that ends in slow and miserable death on our livestock when they can't advocate for themselves, the ability we have as humans to see the research and make a prognosis and decide that the spectacle is not worth the extended misery, but this life is worth the dignity of a peaceful death we have the capacity to grant
because there is a difference between helping a baby animal in the first legs of life knowing it has a chance to have a quality of life worth fighting for, not a life doomed to be painful that we KNOW is painful knowing all that we know about animals who come with this specific type of physical abnormality, what we see on the surface is only a fraction of much more malformation and deterioration on the inside that we can't just decide is not happening because they 'look' fine, and what we see on the surface is already a life from start to finish without any experience an animal like this should have by virtue of being alive, with no life at all and no understanding of why it is going through this
the assumption that there is no suffering despite eating, breathing, moving never something that this baby will be able to do unassisted, despite knowing the longest a two-headed cow has ever survived was not even a year and a half and that record hasn't been broken in over thirty years, that's not even a quarter, an 8th, a 12th, a 15th of a cow's normal lifespan, and doubtfully much of that was pleasant or comfortable, and even if this cow does get to the point of being able to stand on its own, we can't ever know the full range of agony this animal is going through, all we know is there is and there will be agony, and we need to not see life as inherently successful or painless just because something is going in one end and coming out the other, that isn't what defines an animal's quality of life to me
the two-headed calf poem is beautiful to me because it's a miracle that something so rare (luckily) and so doomed could see one extraordinary thing before passing. the sky ceases to be beautiful when forced to live every day for the sake of social media's voyeurism, it makes me so sad that someone who raises livestock would put public attention over their duty to their animals ☹️
Mr. Lincoln from Fifty Shades of Grey?
"haunting the narrative" is one of those phrases i wanna put up on a shelf. not all characters that are dead haunt the narrative. not all characters that are dead haunt the narrative. not all characters that haunt the narrative are dead.
I'm absolutely loving the discussionsection on this SCP. The original article was a too dense for me to wrap my head around understand.
So far this one is my favorite.
"[...] Of course from his perspective, he's just walking across the hall away from these statues that just toppled over. He's got no idea whats happened or how long he's been in there or what all these strange light blurs are everywhere…
Best thing to do would probably be to clear a path/build a tunnel away from him, through the horizon, into space. That way he gets shot into space and takes most of the energy with him."
The Foundation also sent a team in to correct the cause of the non gravitational singularity (the statues which existed incorrectly in the time continuum falling over) without having noticed the guy stuck near the center of it.
Now they're sending in more teams to tell the first group NOT to do that because it will collapse the singularity.
From the outside perspective the man is also blue shifted, so in all the comments he's referred to as the Blue Man.
My favourite stupid world-ending SCP object is the one that's literally just a hallway where time is stopped, except time isn't really stopped, it's just slowed way, way down, and the Foundation's Science Math™ indicates that when the effect collapses, everything that's in the hallway will return to normal spacetime preserving relative velocity – meaning this random guy who happened to be walking down the hallway when time stopped is going to come shooting out of it at half the speed of light and promptly explode.
Oh I'm going to be seeing this show later this month!
therapist: cunt dracula is not real and cannot fuck you.
cunt dracula: