I’m sure everyone’s much safer and happier now.
*
“Why do we have blood types?” is not just a question high people ask:
Our blood types might be even older, but it’s hard to know how old. Scientists have yet to analyse the genes of all primates, so they can’t see how widespread our own versions are among other species. But the evidence that scientists have gathered so far already reveals a turbulent history to blood types. In some lineages mutations have shut down one blood type or another. Chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, have only type A and type O blood. Gorillas, on the other hand, have only B. In some cases mutations have altered the ABO gene, turning type A blood into type B. And even in humans, scientists are finding, mutations have repeatedly arisen that prevent the ABO protein from building a second storey on the blood type house. These mutations have turned blood types from A or B to O. “There are hundreds of ways of being type O,” says Westhoff.
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The way some of us live now.
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I need your help, former RENT-heads or casual RENT listeners, and Twitter has done nothing for me. You know how in “Contact,” near the end, Maureen says “I think I missed / Don’t get pissed”? WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT, I have been wondering for 15 years. Because Joanne is a neat freak, I’ve always wondered if Maureen just got a non-approved surface messy. Elon Green suggested she maneuvered a strap-on poorly, but uh, I think JOANNE would know that first? I’ve generally assumed Maureen just didn’t reach orgasm, but that’s kind of a shitty, manipulative way to announce it. I don’t know. Maybe you know?
*
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Kate McKinnon didn’t realize that cat shelters are not to be trifled with.
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Oh, wow, this marble statue DOES look exactly like Ron Swanson.
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Rohin Guha on being a gay man and beach body politics and crushing:
One time, I was baking cupcakes and in trying to pick the eggs out of the carton, I dropped one on the kitchen floor. There was a sharp splat that cut through the air–and by my toes was the shattered egg shell, yolk oozing out and pooling. This is how hard I tend to fall for the right person.
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Dogs in wheelchairs playing fetch.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
I have a fear of going viral. I don’t want to be internet famous!
I have the same fear which is why I try to remain thoroughly uninteresting. Working so far.
I wanted Chloe Bennet and Elizabeth Henstridge to read my Skimmons FF but also thought they’d be pretty offended by the part where I was honest and said their show sucked before it got good.
But that’s not really Internet fame, is it?
IS IT?
Something I posted on tumblr once has now been reblogged by about 40,000 people and it is terrifying
Same thing happened to me–wasn’t any original content, just a funny picture of a bird I found on the internet, so I didn’t get a lot of pushback from it, but still. Having every notification be that little picture of a grumpy-ass bird was first amusing, then annoying. I’m not on tumblr anymore but that bird sure is. It will always be there. It is eternal.
I downloaded Xkit JUST so I could ban the notifications from that post which is STILL BEING BLOGGED. I POSTED IT THREE MONTHS AGO FOR GODS SAKE IT WASN’T THAT FUNNY TUMBLR
Worse, the comments from people who ‘didn’t get it’ for whatever reason.
The anonymous randos who duck in to inform everyone that they, personally, don’t get it/are bored/don’t care are the most precious flowers of all
No, the most precious are the ones that take issue with every inaccuracy with your joke.
‘But I get up at 7:30, not 8, so this bisexual agenda clearly doesn’t apply to me’
Those are so strange. Like, if someone writes a blog post about a band or TV show, someone always shows up in the comments just to say “I don’t like this show/band/whatever.” ‘Kay. Thanks for sharing.
Ah, I had to download Xkit too to get some peace after a post of mine went viral!
The best is it was vaguely (okay, overtly) misandrist, so there were people arguing in the notes BUT it was being reblogged so quickly at that point that I literally couldn’t even track down the wank! Once again protected from male tears by my sheer popularity [flips hair]
I’m really glad that my closest-to-viral post was a story I told on something I reblogged, so I only see notifications if someone tracks me down and likes/reblogs it directly from me — even with that limitation, I was snowed under with notes for a couple of weeks, and now it’s been, I don’t know, about a year and I still consistently get around 5 notes a week on this dumb story about the dudes who played the tuba in my high school band.
Oh, that was you? I saw that post, if it’s the one I’m thinking of.
Look at a popular post on Tumblr and try to click through to the person who originally posted it – half the time I do that they’ve deleted their blog, which is super depressing.
You cannot stop it. The virus is incurable; everyone must have their 15 minutes. Representatives from 4chan will be over shortly to film your cat and issue the script to your upcoming racist rant at the Taco Bell. You would do well to practice it thoroughly.
Try be perennially didactic and unfunny. Works for me!
More than a century after their discovery, we still don’t really know what blood types are for. Do they really matter?
I mean, considering that getting a transfusion of the wrong blood type can kill you, I’d say yeah they do?
I take perverse pride in my AB+ blood type even though I had literally not one single thing to do with it. I CAN RECEIVE ALL THE BLOOD.
You take pride in consuming the literal lifeblood of your fellow man, while only giving back to a select few, who are chosen not by merit but by the circumstances of their birth?
JUST LIKE A PLUTOCRAT.
Plebeians don’t deserve my blood.
Similarly, I am illogically proud of my O- type: I can give blood to ALL OF YOU I CAN SAVE EVERYONE
ME TOO.
Thirded! I am O-neg, I am a fucking saint*. Also it meant skipping the lines after 9/11, so…yay?
*said in Galadriel voice, because why not
O+ here, so I can only donate to 70-something % of the population. I’m still proud of it, though. Take all my blood, NHS Blood and Transplant Service!
Another O+ here! I also take pride in it, it’s still pretty valuable; it’s the silver of the blood world (O- being the gold, obviously)
I, like, weirdly brag about my O- blood? That’s probably pretty obnoxious.
ditto.
I too am a universal recipient and it’s great, except that I’m also a regular blood donor and I got a letter recently that basically told me I’m not useful enough and could I please stop coming to give them my blood quite so often.
And getting pregnant with a baby with Rh-positive blood when yours is RH-negative can be really bad, too.
If you have Rh negative blood you have to get essentially what are fetus allergy shots to keep your body from killing the fetus. Fun fact even if the pregnancy ends, you gotta get them shots, so like, abortions, miscarriages, etc. It’s to keep you from developing antibodies to the baby’s blood. BUMMER.
How does the “even if the pregnancy ends” part work? If I have an abortion, I don’t need to worry about keeping my body from killing the fetus, that ship has pretty much sailed already.
Short answer any pregnancy with Rh Positive fetus, could create your allergy and that hurts the next pregnancy. If you never want to have another pregnancy, I guess its not a problem. If you think you might someday…
Long answer:
Every time you get pregnant, the fetus is hanging in your body separated from your blood and organs through the placenta. If that fetus has RH positive blood cells, some of them may slip through at the placenta and come in contact with your blood stream. Your body then starts making some antibodies. So you have to get the shot to stop that process. If you develop the antibodies, the first pregnancy is actually the one that will go the best because it takes a while to ramp up the antibodies. So in the old days women would have pregnancy 1 ok, then have horrible problems in pregnancy two.
Essentially every pregnancy, has some risk of that cross contamination during the last trimester mostly, but they’re learning more and more that placenta is more porous than they used to think. (I guess not before the fetus develops blood cells). Its not a high risk, but its SOME risk. But where the highest risk comes is during delivery. During an abortion or a miscarriage that’s another point that has a similar blood to blood contact possibility- things are getting all gooey and mixed together. Other possible blood to blood contact happens with genetic testing (where they poke you and the fetus with a needle) or if there’s any kind of hit to the abdomen.
PS- not a doctor, just a google med. Talk to your real doctor, if there are concerns, because this is what I know from my own life.
I’m A+ and this has always pleased me because I am a superstar
I was a little disappointed to find out my blood is only A-.
Wow that “Hi Becky” tweet story is really interesting! Anatomy of a viral tweet.
Also, it makes me sad how freely people will steal shit. Ugh.
That article felt really weird to me. In my experience, when someone remixes or copies a meme, it’s understood by everyone else that this person isn’t claiming the idea as their own. Misattribution/lack of attribution *is* a big problem for so many reasons, but I don’t think what a lot of people did could be considered stealing.
Re: what Marueen says in Contact…I had previously assumed the same thing as Mr. Green, but Nicole’s counterpoint is one I didn’t really think of before. Now I’m confused about that song too, so THANKS A LOT.
“X: not just a question high people ask” should be the headline format for all science articles from now on.
Ones that seem absurd in that format are probably just bad write-ups of a single study that doesn’t actually “prove” anything much. Our new system provides the correct solution: don’t write those.
Gravity: how does it even work, really?
I always assumed ‘I think I missed/ don’t get pissed’ as a reference to her period and infidelity, leading to their breakup.
Ohhhh, this explanation makes a lot of sense!
Ah. Duh! That has to be it.
Seconded!
…and now I want the thing I didn’t think of in the 90s, which is the fanfiction of Maureen and Joanne raising the baby. I’m going back and forth on Maureen the parent–is she in the mold of Jenny McCarthy, or Amy Poehler in Mean Girls, or or or.
I think she’d probably be intensely interested/involved for very short bursts of time and then pretty much forget she had a kid for the rest of the time. Especially when it made a mess or needed taken to the doctor or anything boring like that.
Think of Joanne’s parents! Think of the gifts they’d buy the kid, and the schools/tutors they’d want to pay for! Think of hiring other RENT cast as nannies!
This was always my assumption too, though I have to say, I am now kind of amused by the idea of it being about getting a fluid on a surface that should not have that fluid on it.
OH that makes so much sense!!
I just started a Twitter account and now I am terrified of something like this happening to me. Thanks, Toast. Thanks a lot.
Would you like to be friends with a bunch of Toasties who won’t make your Tweets go viral but who will entertain, amuse and support you? Post your Twitter handle and we’ll all follow you!
I’m scared to share my Twitter handle, though! What if people figure out who I am??? My parents were always very Be Careful What You Put on the Internet and now I’m a little paranoid.
Yeah, that’s valid. My Twitter handle is the same as my username here. My Tweets are private right now so you can request me if you want.
That’s what private twitter is for! Harder to find friends (they don’t get a notification when you follow them) but less likely to become a viral disaster.
Well, I’ve only got two tweets up right now, and I don’t anticipate tweeting terribly often until I get a smart phone (I am SO BEHIND on technology, y’all), but I’m @clevermanka if you wanna check me out!
added!
but that’s kind of a shitty, manipulative way to announce it
Maureen’s a shitty, manipulative person though, so it fits.
Ignore me, I’m one of those people who doesn’t understand why they couldn’t just pay their damn rent.
You know you’re old when you start going, “Wow, Benny really did a nice thing for them, letting them live rent-free in Manhattan for a year. And now he wants to subsidize their art? What a stand-up guy!”
Yeah, “You’ll See” just sounds like a fantastic offer.
Why Benny Is The Closest Thing ‘Rent’ Has To An Actual Hero by Alyssa Rosenberg is about this very thing.
I had this realization this year too! At 15, you wanna be Maureen. At 18, you realize you’re Joanne. At 30, you understand that you’re Benny, and it’s all over.
Yep. When I went to see the RENT movie with my friend for nostalgia purposes I realized that Benny was a pretty great guy to his friends, why were they such dicks to him, you do remember that the opening scene is your other friend getting beaten up on the street right
And they laughed about killing his dog. They really were kind of a bunch of assholes.
This.
(I mean, I love Rent, but still.)
You’ve heard David Rakoff’s Rent rant, right?
Yeah, I was thirteen when I first heard Rent and I was so into how unfair the situation was and then a few years ago my friend and I were watching the movie adaptation and our reaction was “…why DON’T they just pay rent? Everyone else has to pay rent. Get a day job! Benny’s just trying to earn a living, man.”
And when we were watching the movie version of Phantom of the Opera we were like “Why doesn’t Christine just LEAVE the opera house? She’s marrying a viscount. This isn’t a problem.”
So much of musical theater does not hold up when you get past your teens.
A friend of mine described Phantom as “great music, weak-ass plot,” which is about right.
The plot really does not hold up to any degree of scrutiny.
“great music, weak-ass plot, kick-ass underground lake secret lair.”
What always bugs me is how everyone is pushing Roger into dating Mimi. Umm way to support his recovery. Great friends, everybody.
I think this is the fundamental difference between Gen X and most other people. When you graduate into a recession the idea of “selling out” seems pretty dumb. Bitches gotta get paid.
Reel Big Fish never would have made it big in the late-aughts.
On the contrary, I believe a literal reading of that song is the Millenial anthem! Hell yeah I want to leech a bunch of money off a corporation so I can do my own thing.
I should have realized what my generation was going to be about when one of my friends quoted “Trendy” in our eighth grade yearbook with nary a trace of irony.
I don’t care what Johnny Quest thinks, I just want to be able to afford gas okay
Yeah man, everyone has to PAY RENT. JESUS. Especially if they’re mentally and physically capable of having jobs. I never liked that show.
When you realize that Jonathan Larsen based Maureen on his ex-girlfriend (emphasis on “ex”) it all makes sense.
(I’m a fan of the show for primarily nostalgic reasons, but I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Larsen had lived and written other shows. Would he be looking back on RENT with the same combo of fondness and exasperation that a lot of us are right now?)
Off topic/threadjack alert but… I read “We Were Liars” by E Lockhart last night and I need to digest this with another human. Has anyone else read it? Apparently I’m a moron because I didn’t see the end coming at all and it was so disturbing to me.
I just finished it! I knew it was going to have a shocking ending, but I still didn’t call it, and I too was very disturbed. I thought it was a great book, but — upsetting.
Very upsetting. But I want more of it! (I also was so thrown off by the end that I thought Cadence was going to kill herself. There’s a little passage about her gathering some bleach and other cleaning supplies, and my first thought was, “she’s about to drink the bleach oh no no no” … luckily things did not get even more disturbing than they already were.)
I did! I did see the ending coming and I was still really upset about it.
I figured there was going to be some other awful thing, but did not think it would be that they were dead. When she remembered the fire, I thought that was it – because honestly, burning down your grandfather’s house is pretty damn bad even without accidentally killing anyone in the process.
Yeah, the dogs would have been more than enough, E. Lockhart. Yeesh.
I read it a few weeks ago. I was kind of disappointed in the twist but I still liked it (but I liked Frankie Landau Bates better and I just started the Boyfriend List). I’m definitely still thinking about it and feeling the distinctive mood of the book which I guess is the sign of something good.
Boyfriend List and the sequels are all really fun!
I will come back to this at a later date- I just bought it but have not read it yet. I don’t want to read anything and spoil it. So…yes, we should talk about it when I finally read it.
I remember when I learned what my blood type was. It was during my first fertility treatment, and I was told it was “B POSITIVE!” The nurse literally said it that enthusiastically. Later that day I was speaking with my mom and without telling her what my blood type was, I asked her what hers was. She said “B negative” in her typical, sardonic tone. And for some reason, at that moment, my world made just a little bit of sense.
This seems as good a place as any to share this: last time I was at urgent care, the PA said, “Wow, you have great veins!” and I immediately replied “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
I’m O positive. It’s very common, but sought after for that reason. I used to give blood on the reg but haven’t found a place to do it in NYC. If anyone knows of a donation center, let me know!
Are you near a hospital? A lot of them take donations directly. It’s generally better to donate directly because if you donate at a drive or center run by Life Source or another for-profit company the hospital ends up spending hundreds of dollars per bag. I mean, you are still doing a great thing donating another way if it’s convenient! It still helps save someone’s life, it just ups the cost.
New York Blood Center! They have many locations, and good snacks.
I’m also an O+ with great veins! I can give from either arm, and they like my blood, so I take great pride in being an excellent candidate for donation (and I do donate frequently).
My dad always joked that we have A positive blood because we have to get an A+ on everything. Type A for type As.
That’s the only way I remember what type I have. A+ is for winners!
A- is just not good enough. A- for the procrastinators?
BEST TYPE!
Yep. I got an A+ on my blood test! Go me!
*fistbump* to your mom. I’m B Neg, too. PERFECT.
I’m O positive, so theoretically a universal donor, but I can never donate blood because I lived in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong number of years, and now the Red Cross is convinced I might have Mad Cow.
I’m still very bitter because donating blood was HUGE at my high school, and I couldn’t fit in with the cool kids who got to skip class and eat cookies and have neon bandages of altruism wrapped around the crooks of their elbows.
O Pos isn’t the universal donor! Sorry. O Neg is. But you are the most common blood type and also quite valuable. It’s better too because Positive types can take Negative type blood, but not vice versa, and you can have a pregnancy without worrying that your + blood baby is going to kill you or itself.
That Ron Swanson statue is PROOF of Time Travel, also confirms Ronbledore Theory
My ads tell me they know The real reason why you’ve never seen Kristen Stewart smile. BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT WORTHY, THAT’S WHY, NO NEED TO CLICK THERE.
My ads know I’m at the beach, because of course they do.
Audi ad, compression sportswear ad, and an ad for ‘pruhealth with vitality
These are pretty seriously mis-pitched
I watched the American Ninja Warrior video of Kacy last night and actually screamed, out loud, more than once.
I saw it on Esquire last night and FREAKED OUT. I’ve been watching her since she came on the scene and Brett for years before that. Being an American Ninja Warrior announcer would be the best side gig.
I’m so sad I missed her. Saw the show for the first time the other night and just seeing one GUY get to the end made me almost collapse. Immediately afterward, I thought ‘Nicole could pull that off without breaking a sweat.’ I, on the other hand, would launch myself at the first mattress square and true, and immediately bounce into the gator pit.
Only deleted about four comments by men about our failure to respect Zizek from pending yesterday. It was kind of a letdown.
Oh, what a shame.
I second the idea of an article based solely on rejected Toast comments.
It was fun to see that literally every one of them was named, like Dan or Steve or Chip, though.
I think you should post the comments with mega ads and monetize that shit.
They should be required to submit pictures of their own haircuts before publishing, though.
#NotallDans!
I tried listening to/reading Zizek a few years back but I legitimately could not tell you what he was on about.
Why would you delete those they sound hilarious
They just haven’t found it yet.
They will find you soon enough. In a quiet moment, when you are feeling mostly content with just the slightest nibble of concern from your subconcious about whether or not this is really self-actualization, that is when they will come and remind you of the real purpose in life: to serve others by righteously smashing the overly self-assured.
As if those guys even understand Zizek. That’s the “fuck you” point for me, they’ll want to explain to you what they cannot comprehend. Hell, even Zizek doesn’t want you to respect him. Listen to him, yes. Still, Zizek on Lacan is a good read.
It pisses me off that when people who were spending all day at the park with their kids realized that another kid was spending all day at the park alone because her mom had to work, their reaction wasn’t to offer to help take care of her, but to report her mom to the police. Nice.
That’s what I thought. I mean, c’mon, your first reaction is to call the police? Or maybe that was her second reaction…after indignantly tweeting about a motherless child at the park.
People are being arrested for not having access to affordable daycare. Oh god.
And the reaction of the state isn’t “hmmm, maybe we should look into providing some free/low cost childcare during the summer for working parents” but “take this kid away from her mother and subject her to more trauma”
Yep. #sorrynotsorry but the risk of leaving your kid in the car so you can grab any one thing from a CVS is no longer the risk of abduction or the risk of dehydration. It’s the risk that someone else will see a kid in your car and call the cops. the risk is from your peers in society. And does anyone else notice that most of the neighborhoods where kids get picked up by police for walking around unsupervised are in neighborhoods with the tax base for a police force that makes worrying about the safety from strangers probably irrelevant?
now I’m angry.
It still amazes me that among all the sturm and drang that goes on about the subject of working mothers, and women having it all, and what not, almost nothing is ever said about how difficult to find and insanely expensive daycare can be.
Then when you sit down and calculate the hours and wages, you realize how even the most expensive day care is seriously underpaying their staff. Everyone loses. Until society realizes child care is a communal good and should be an expense subsidized by all members of society.
end rant by former day care director
100% agree. For all the “but what about the children!” handwringing we do in this country, we actually do very little to help actual children, their parents, and their caretakers (teachers, etc). It’s shameful.
DOGS IN WHEEL CARTS PLAYING FETCH!
Hey wheelchair-using dogs: STOP TRYING TO MAKE FETCH HAPPEN
So, with the viral piece, i was amused by how incredibly detailed the it was for the relatively small amount of info.
I would not wish gay male body policing on my worst enemy
There was a liposuction float at the Chicago Pride Parade this year. It was so upsetting.
🙁
Are you serious?
Yes! It was covered in pictures of buff guys and questions designed to make you feel bad about yourself. Terrible.
Even disabled dogs get stuck with the inspirational label now. Do other dogs tell them they’re really brave for playing fetch?
What I love about dogs in wheel carts is they are totally immune to the bullshit question “How do you EVEN get by?”
I’ll just die happy now.
this is a weird thing to get really mad about probably but “word crimes” makes me very viscerally angry? like it’s a lot of dumb snobbery which doesn’t even adress ‘real’ grammar or wtvr and instead is just like ‘you are dumb if you do this thing that young (and also poor) people do,’ which i think is pretty problematic (although i also think most grammar pedantry is pretty classist and just dumb). it’s this very like reddit-y internet nerd thing, like ‘i’m smarter than you’ without really having anything to back it up. and the ‘you write like a spastic’ line is fucked up. boo al. that is all.
Nope, not weird to get mad. It’s all of the classic “excuses to ignore what you’re really saying and declare you unworthy of my attention” set to music, and … it’s getting old.
Also any kind of “get out of the gene pool” comment = deserving of infinite rage. NEVER FUNNY.
If I could permanently eradicate any group of human beings from the gene pool, it would be people who cite “The Dictionary” as some sort of English Language Bible, rather than a tool to understand it.
“I can’t believe they added the definition of selfie to The Dictionary!!!”
“What the fuck do you think a dictionary is for?”
“You just ended a sentence in a preposition, dummy.”
“I did, and you understood me, BECAUSE WE ARE NOT SPEAKING A ROMANCE LANGUAGE, ASSHOLE.”
eradicate
humans
and presumably at least sterilise their existing offspring
no thank you
Offspring are fine! But you’re right, that was gross of me! I take it back. I don’t want them eradicated, just shamed for their silly snobbery.
I stand in solidarity with you! The whole thing seems cheap, as well as recycled from every annoying person on facebook’s indignant status updates about the time they were traumatized by a misplaced apostrophe.
And the “spastic” line! What are you even getting at, Weird Al? You are telling me you don’t have a rhyming dictionary, out of which to pick any other word? You would have me believe that. Your services are no longer needed, Weird Al.
Yeah, I was all set to love “Word Crimes” (grammar! making fun of Robin Thicke!) until I actually heard it and then I got sad. Calling people “morons” and “spastic” and there was some line about drooling in there ugh ugh ugh. Man, Weird Al, I just want to love you! Stop disappointing me.
no i have not heard it yet do not tell me this
Possibly my biggest problem with “Word Crimes” is how un-doge-like the doge is in the music video though. such fail. wow.
Screencap: http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/91889766547/w…
(Yes I do dislike it for all the other reasons too.)
YES. So mean! Holy classism AND THEN vile ableist shit!
Yep. I love Weird Al and hate Robin Thicke, so I was all set to love it, but I hated it. I hate language policing with a passion. 1) As you say, it’s often a subtle way of policing race and class lines, and reifying current power structures, as we see anytime a white person with a daughter named Jefferson freaks out about black people’s kids’ names, 2) It ignores THE FUNDAMENTAL WAY LANGUAGE WORKS AND CHANGES. Like, if Weird Al were around in 1200, I imagine this song would be bemoaning the great vowel shift. 3) People who do it are smugly patting themselves on the back for knowing basic grammar. “Oh, you know the difference between you’re and your? GOOD FOR YOU, SHAKESPEARE.”
And half of the “grammar issues” they bring up aren’t grammatical issues! (Looking at you, The Oatmeal.)
Like, if you wanna be a gatekeeper, look up the words for their meanings they have ‘n stuff.
Yes! As Churchill once said when someone told him not to end a sentence with a preposition, “It off me ticks!”
“if Weird Al were around in 1200, I imagine this song would be bemoaning the great vowel shift.”
Beautiful.
No, I’m with you. It doesn’t even make me angry in my old age, I just feel pity. “You poor thing, you have so much free time to care about such a meaningless thing.”
I see where you are coming from, anti-prescriptivist friend, really I do.
On the other hand, I was a professional copy editor for many years. And being the language trenches is tough. I don’t think there is anything inherently classist about correcting people’s language for clarity, especially when the original writer intended the message for a general audience.
This is going to sound really White-Man’s-Burden-y, but I think as an editor at least, one of the greatest favors you can do for a person with a limited command of your language is to help make them as understandable as possible to their audience—so their voices will be taken seriously by the pedantic assholes, rich people, and old people who make the rules.
Note, I don’t apply this to private conversation or internet comments, because duh.
i guess the thing for me is i am a person who writes things sometimes? and i am p well-educated and taught high school english for a while and so i know the rules, and my number one like ~dudes on the internet~ pet peeve is mansplaining at me abt grammar stuff bc on my okcupid profile i use ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ (bc it’s ~evocative~ or something, idk, ‘style,’ ‘tao lin,’ ‘reading too much hipster runoff at a tender and impressionable age’, wtvr)– don’t call me illiterate bc i am using language like i wanna! and i agree, mostly, that it is important that ppl be taught to function within the system and be able to write ‘appropriately’ or whatever when it’s called for but i also think that discounting stylistic decisions mostly used by ‘the youths’ or whatever as ‘dumb’ and ‘wrong’ from a grammar standpoint is, well, wrong, i guess? idk i am a dumb person who al would def say ‘types like a spastic’ so there’s that
Maybe replace “spastic” with “space dick”? Maintains satisfactory phonetics, mentions an actual key, I think it’s funny? idk.
I definitely didn’t mean to tacitly endorse use of ‘spastic.’ was trying to emphasize gross ridiculousness of al using it, sry if it came across the first way! (bc srsly wtf spastic wtf)
Didn’t think it was endorsement at all! But I’ve had the “word I’m used to using that I need to drop” experience eased by finding a substitute. Sorry I hleped you out there!
I am referring to all people who displease me as “space dicks” from now on.
I was sooooo disappointed when the ‘spastic’ line came around. Damn you Weird Al! This is why we can’t have nice things.
Gee, I was so delighted to hear that it existed that I didn’t bother to try and listen to it bc Victrola internet. By continuing to not listen to it I remain in the protective bubble of my earlier stupidity. Just won’t recommend it to anyone. *hums to self quietly*
Just watched the video of Kacy kicking ass and I might possibly have cried a little. I have to say, when I heard she was a gymnast, it made me less surprised that she could do it – the strength, flexibility and just general understanding of how to move your body and make it do what it wants that gymnastics requires is no joke (esp. at the Collegiate level). I was watching some of those obstacles and thinking that her experience with things like the uneven bars probably helped a lot. But it was so great to hear the enthusiasm and respect in the announcer’s voices and to hear all the crowd cheering for her and supporting her (and the looks of awe/respect on their faces were pretty good too).
Did you see that Pistorius got in a drunken bar brawl? May he continue to destroy any chance of an acquittal.
Yess. Maybe now people will believe he’s a violent asshole if his violence is directed against a man.
Ron Swanson is a timeless beauty.
Just checked in with Boyfriend, who is a recovering RENT-head, and he says, “Oh god, I’ve been wondering about this for years. I thought it was a ‘gay’ thing for a long time. It’s actually pretty simple if you look at the content of the song and the staging when the line happens; Maureen missed her chance to orgasm!”
Someone, I thought maybe Nicole, tweeted that they wanted to see Kate McKinnon as Angela Merkel react to the World Cup? She does a few sentences of it in a different clip from the same Seth Meyers show, here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/661164
Kate McKinnon is a national treasure and too good for SNL.
In Japan, blood types are thought to influence a person’s personality.
Type A’s are fastidious, hard workers, safe drivers.
Type B’s are happy-go-lucky, inconsiderate, and fall in (and out) of love easily.
Type AB are dreamers, hobbyists and bookworms.
Type O are realistic, ambitious and ‘big picture’ types.
So what blood type do all the assholes come from
A and B – type A is the one where they just get stressed out over everything, Type B is the one who’s stepping on your head and laughing at your pain.
~60% odds, I can buy into this divination schema
They have this in South Korea, too. I only know this because there was a bit on a TV show about how people of different blood types would react to being stuck in a public bathroom stall with no toilet paper. (The Koreans love their toilet humor.)
Ugh, I saw that article about the 9-year-old yesterday and it made my blood boil. Nine is old enough to stay home alone for god’s sake. When I was 9 I was babysitting other people’s children. UPHILL. BOTH WAYS.
IN THE SNOW
yes but there’s pedophiles and murder now, those never existed before, in the Good Old Days
This is always so weird to me that in the US you can’t leave children alone anywhere until they’re what, 12? 14? In my quaint European country, you use common sense not to leave babies at home alone but when I started school at 7, I was always alone until someone came home. AND THAT WAS OKAY!
My 11yo is catching two buses to school by herself WHERE DO I SURRENDER MYSELF TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES
My boyfriend recently left his 11yo daughter unsupervised with her 7yo sister for a couple hours, and he said that not only was that the first time they’d ever been left alone that long, but he’d be surprised if any of their classmates had ever been left alone at ALL. I was flabbergasted. How the hell are kids supposed to learn how to be people if they never have to figure out shit on their own?
My sister was babysitting me and my brother (6 and 9 respectively) during the summers by the time she was 11, because childcare is expensive and my parents had to work. I was regularly allowed to run around the neighbourhood on my own/with other neighbourhood children the entire summer. Guess I should be mad at my parents for that now, just, such terrible parenting.
BLOOD DONATION.
Ever since I listened to the “Blood” episode of Radiolab I have not been inclined to donate blood. The idea of giving it away for free so that the Red Cross can sell it as a commodity just feels wrong. Like all these years I was being exploited and didn’t know it. No wonder the RC was calling me, sometimes twice a day, to remind me to donate.
According to someone…elsewhere? in the thread (I have lost track of it) you can donate directly to hospitals, if you’re so inclined! And yeah, the whole blood-as-a-commodity thing skeeves me out in a big way.
I actually work at a hospital, but all of our blood drives are managed by the RC. I’ve never thought to ask why, but maybe next time one rolls around, I will…
Why did I never know that droppin’ off a big ol paper bag of blood on the hospital doorstep was a viable option
That Radiolab totally blew my mind. I received a bit of blood after ridiculous spine surgery and forever after felt like I was paying back the blood I got….not so much after that episode. Makes the plasma companies seem less smarmy, somehow, and I used to work for one! (Worst job of my life, the only one I’ve ever quit out of sheer misery.)
In the beach body article he talks about Prince Fielder’s nude ESPN cover. While I would like to intelligently discuss the terribleness that is body standards, and glory of subversion, sadly all I can come up with is PHOOWAAAARRR. I mean, God DAMN.
yes, boners do tend to create mental blocks to intelligent debate.
Have you SEEN his thighs?!
I gave up big dudes when I started dating my boyfriend, who is a more slender fellow. And that picture made me the tiniest bit wistful. I love my boyfriend, and his lovely body which is his and I would have it no other way, but maaaaaaaaaaaaan. Man. PHOOOWAAAAAARRRR is right.
I have a link to share! Reproductive Justice New Brunswick has 15 days left in its fundraising campaign to keep New Brunswick’s only abortion clinic in operation. They’ve raised the $100k they need to lease the clinic itself but still need money for service delivery/improvement/etc. If you can afford it, please consider donating!
I'm so sad I missed her. Saw the show for the first time the other night and just seeing one GUY get to the end made me almost collapse. Immediately afterward, I thought 'Nicole could pull that off without breaking a sweat.' I, on the other hand, would launch myself at the first mattress square and true, and immediately bounce into the gator pit.
Gee, I was so delighted to hear that it existed that I didn't bother to try and listen to it bc Victrola internet. By continuing to not listen to it I remain in the protective bubble of my earlier stupidity. Just won't recommend it to anyone. *hums to self quietly*
After going to see West Side Story with my family for my birthday, I turned to my brother and was like, "So if I meet some guy later tonight and he kills you TOMORROW, that's cool, right? I can totally just elope with him?"
As long as you act mildly conflicted about it for a couple of minutes I don't see what the problem would be.