Nature is strange and a bit terrifying. There are some “ice pancakes” floating on a river in Scotland. Some deep magic is at work there.
I often want a disposable phone number from which I can make mischief. Turns out, there is indeed an app for that. It’s called Burner.
Longform has compiled their best of 2014 for all your holiday reading needs.
Remember when Nick Jonas sang “Jealous” with a gospel choir? Now he performed the song with that big piano from the movie Big, in the FAO Schwarz store. He tries so hard. I love it.
Turns out that Witness 40 from the Ferguson grand jury deliberations, is a white supremacist with problems. My confidence in the justice system continues to thrive.
Ayn Rand reviews some children’s movies. She is rarely impressed.
Tiny bottles of booze always charm me and I often revisit this essay, “Assault on the Minibar,” by Dubravka Ugresic. She is one of my favorite essayists. I hope you all have lovely weekends!
Tags: link roundup, the internet
Pancake ice is totally a Thing around here! <—this video was taken about 100 yards from my office
a fairy circle of pancake ice! amazing. I always assumed pancake ice was a salt water phenomenon, because I only ever saw it in the ocean in Maine – the more you know!
I think ice pancakes would make an excellent breakfast for special occasions.
wait, so what does cause the pancake ice? choppy waves in freezing ice? or does no one know?
I think it has something to do with the currents?
Ice chunks slowly spinning in mild currents I think, keeping the corners knocked off. Or possibly witches.
Fishtown! Hello, Leelanau Toastie! I’m from further down the Mitten, but my dad has a cabin near TC and I love to visit! (But maybe more in the summer than now…)
Fair enough 🙂
For anyone who was interested in the Osculum Infame link yesterday: Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. It’s a Danish film from 1922 which sort of not really pretends to be a documentary about witchcraft and the accusations thereof. In the 60s it was rereleased with some narration by William S. Burroughs and a bizarre jazz score.
I think this might be relevant to The Toast’s interests.
I LOVE HAXAN
I was great! I had no idea what I was getting into. My roommate had some movie vouchers for this independent movie theater type place, and Haxan happened to be playing the one weekend we were both free to go.
I loved how gleefully the old witches scurried away from the places they were cursing, like kids playing pranks Though I couldn’t help thinking that the infertility curse they put on the newlywed’s bed would have been a great form of birth control.
Not if you have to go get a bunch of stuff from the woods to reverse it.
But the curse was put on the bed, not the people. Just don’t have sex on the contraceptive bed if you want to get pregnant!
Have sex everywhere else in the house instead!
So like three years ago I was in this bar and they were playing some crazy shit on their tvs but there was no sound and I was too distracted to ask what it was, and it’s haunted me ever since. Turns out it was Haxan! Hooray internet!
I love tiny bottles of booze so much. For my sister’s 21st birthday I sent her 21 tiny bottles of alcohol and a tube of Kat Von D red lipstick. It was mainly an excuse for me to buy 21 tiny adorable bottles. Last year I made a Christmas present consisting of tiny bottles of Scottish whisky, because I was living in Glasgow.
That sounds like a seriously great 21st birthday gift.
My niece will be 21 in February. This is an amazing idea!
A friend of mine had two pinatas at her birthday – one filled with candy for kiddos, one filled with candy AND tiny bottles of booze for the adults. It was wonderful.
Going back through a comment thread I missed yesterday, I saw someone with a problem that Toast comments have been looking weird for them all week. I was having a similar problem and I fixed it so I am reposting my answer to that person here in case other people need it!
Okay I had this problem a few days ago! I’m assuming you were using AdBlock? I think AdBlock just added to their filter the whatsit (technical term) that skins the comments for use on The Toast. If you go into “Open blockable items” and discover that something related to Intense Debate is blocked, try unblocking that. It fixed things for me.
(by the way if you have to use AdBlock so that the site is un-laggy, I think throwing a monthly donation to The Toast is great if you can afford it!)
Thanks for the donation suggestion! AdBlock is necessary to keep the site working on my computer, but I always feel bad about it. I’ll keep this in mind in the future, too!
Where can we throw a monthly donation? I only can see the subscribe-as-a-bundle option they talked about a few weeks ago
Above the web bundle, there should be a teal-ish button that says “Click here to support The Toast” which will eventually lead you to a Paypal page!
Weirdly, all I had to do was disable and then re-enable Adblock just now and the comments are back to normal. I didn’t have any “open blockable items” option. Also, it says there are 10 replies to your comment and I only see 2! What is going on
The first reply to me by Scandyhoovian is going on an adventure and refuses to appear as a reply to me–so replies to Scandyhoovian count as replies to my thread but don’t show up in my thread! That is why there is a discrepancy.
I’m actually dumbfounded with that whole Witness 40 thing. Burn the whole system to the ground.
I’ve seen people elsewhere defend it with “but she was discredited by the prosecutor at trial!”, but then, why even have her testify at all?
Just goes further to show that the system is not broken, it is functioning exactly as those who built it and run it intended.
“A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.” W.E.B. Dubois
Perjury perjury perjury. If she isn’t now charged with perjury and submitting false evidence, that will (also) really discredit my faith in the justice system.
Perjury is a crime, and submitting false evidence such as a made-up diary is a felony offense.
I can think of MANY amazing uses for that Burner app! Non-mischievous uses, of course….
Ooof, you guys. Between The Nib collection yesterday and the Longform link today, I’m just really sad. Humanity: it seemed like a good idea at the time?
Not sure what it is but the site is totally fine and not at all laggy on my work laptop (Windows 7) but lags something FIERCE on my laptop at home (Macbook). I don’t use adblock as a rule on the Toast (I want them to get all their monies!) but I just… it’s hard to read at home, because of whatever is making it so laggy on my Mac.
EDIT: OK this was supposed to be in reply to Wallofillusion up there but I’ve tried posting it as a reply TWICE now and IntenseDebate apparently wants it to be its own thread, so… here it is.
For what it’s worth I got the email notification that this was a reply to me, so in some way it is in its proper place, even if it is going adventuring through the comment threads on its own.
Comment rumspringa!
i dont use adblock either but the site still gets really messed up for me, also on a macbook. it helps if i’m not so impatient, and i let the site load for a few minutes. but this doesn’t happen with any other website.
I also get the site freezing and crashing a lot on my work computer *and* my home computer. Different OS, but I’m using Chrome on both.
Also use Chrome, and it was crashing Chrome entirely for me… until a few days ago when I blocked plug-ins (through Chrome) for the Toast. I still get the static ads, I just don’t get the auto-play ads, and since then I haven’t had any problems. It was actually becoming unbearable (I was reading less Toast!) so I was thrilled that this fix seemed to work.
Another vote for blocking plugins if you have problems reading the Toast on Chrome. Before I did that, the page would load then get slower and slower until it was hard to even scroll. You can block plugins by clicking on the icon in the address bar to the left of the url.
Somehow I have the opposite problem – super laggy on my work PC and fine on my macbook! I also don’t want to use adblock but I do want to read the toast at work, of course.
The CD player in my car is broken so I’m listening to the radio a lot more lately….. WHY can’t I stop liking that Nick Jonas song?? Nick JONAS for christ’s sake. It’s damn catchy.
Is there some dilemma with liking Nick Jonas that I should know? Has he been outed as an abuser or something, or is this just an anti-pop star thing?
This is just my inner grumpy ex-goth not wanting to be mainstream, mannnn.
Just checking!
The Jonas…es(?) seem like a silly bunch to me. I’m old and curmudgeonly 🙂 BUT I like the song nonetheless.
I’m an unabashed lover of pop music of any era, and I actively strive to avoid being old and curmudgeonly but I like to know when artists are actually jerks that don’t deserve my money!
The first time I heard it I was convinced it was a remix of Chromeo’s Jealous. I’m still always surprised when similar sounding songs with the same name come out around the same time.
The rest of the album is just as good unfortunately… It’s all I’ve been able to listen to for the last month. He has Angel Haze and Demi Lovato on some of the tracks too!
ANGEL HAZE?!
*sighs, adds album to the list*
Watching the video helped me to get over it. It’s so goofy and nonsense.
Quick help – not sure I will be around for open thread—
Christmas gifts for daycare teachers? Baby is baby and so cannot make anything adorable nor write a heartfelt note. Thinking gift card, but not sure to where, or how much is appropriate. Also chocolate? These are the parenting questions that keep me up at night…
We do Target gift cards inside holiday cards for daycare teachers. I think we did $25 each last year, but, you know, whatever works for you.
This is the first year I’ve used daycare, and I was wondering the same thing! I plan on getting my daycare teacher a visa gift card because I don’t know what her hobbies/likes are. I called the daycare director to ask if it was appropriate and also if they had any suggestions for a gift for her, since they know her well. They suggested a gift certificate to a restaurant that she likes, so I might do that too.
Daycare may be different than regular teachers, but as someone who lives with an elementary school teacher, no more sweets!! (Not that I am not thankful for the time parents put into these things… but my kitchen is filled to the brim and to be honest most of it will be given or thrown away) The go-to giftcard seems to be starbucks, and my boyfriend and his coworkers seem to put good use to those.
There are only nine kids per room, so they can’t get toooo many treats 🙂 Perhpas just a little bit.
Yes to Target giftcards. Our center has a large staff, so I did $20 for each of my kid’s 2 favorite teachers, and then put together a (quick, not fancy) gift basket of non-candy snacks like granola bars, nuts, and popcorn.
We do target too. I feel like they deserve cash because daycare workers aren’t exactly pulling in the big bucks so i figure they can use this to help buy food/gifts if need be. I have given $25 to $50 each, depending on number of dedicated caregivers.
That’s a good point. They can’t be making more than $8 or $9/hr.
We do movie gift cards of $25 for our kids’ elementary teachers and bus driver. It’s enough to cover a couple of tickets or one ticket and treats.
BTW, it’s illustrative to how big a part the toast now plays in my life and mental health maintenance that I’m really sad to be missing the open thread today, even if it’s because of (work-related) boozing (I’m in a different time zone, in case you’re wondering). And next week too! Anyway, have fun 🙂
Target giftcards are good, if you know their coffee preferences Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts cards are also great. Or if you wanna go swanky a gift certificate for a massage or mani pedi might be appreciated? This is supposed to be a reply to Lemonadefish btw
TOAST HELP I CAN NOT WAIT FOR OPEN THREAD. The Internet is down at work and I literally cannot do anything at all and my horrible boss’s solution is for us to make cold calls. All day. When 99% of our business is schools that are either closed today or in classes. And if someone needs something we are supposed to print and fax it to them.
I cannot rightfully participate on any of my Internet hangouts all day on my phone because typing is so awful and autocorrect! And I want to just go home because I am leaving tomorrow to visit my parents and I have shit to do!!!! UGH WHY TOAST HELP SAVE THE DAY
I was juuuuust lamenting to workfriends about how this day couldn’t possibly be any slower or more boring (also in a field that mostly talks to professors, who all seem to have checked out weeks ago), but no internet + cold calls would DO ME IN. You have my sympathy!!!
Sounds like you’re having a rough day, here’s a [insert whatever happy thought needed here]. BOO! to horrible bosses, BOO, I say!
Toasties, I will not be around for open thread because I am off to Switzerland today to spend Christmas with my parents! (Well… off to take the Greyhound bus to Montreal, then a commuter train to my brother’s house to hang out with him, then getting a ride to the airport, then flying to Paris, then taking a TGV to Zurich. But “off to Switzerland” is shorter.) I’ll be back on the 28th.
I will not be around because even trying to read The Toast on mobile is a nightmare of constantly being redirected to ads I never tapped, never mind commenting. I will miss you all! I wish you a warm and happy holiday. Stay toasty!
Also, to my Toast Post matches & everyone who asked for a Christmas card: I sent them all out last week but the other day one was returned to me because the adhesive on the envelope crapped out and it opened (and nobody at the post office had any tape to tape it shut again, I guess?…) I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again while I’m away – if it does I’ll send the cards back out when I get back. I just don’t want anyone thinking that I reneged on my promise to send cards!
Ganz schöni Wienachte und an guäte Rutsch is Neue Jaar wünscht eui allne !!!
okay that is as much Swiss German as I can manage — and it is not a written language anyway. <clears throat> very happy Christmas and a good slide into the New Year I wish to all of you!
I actually think I may need to disengage from Justice stuff for a few days because I have been in a current-events-and-if-you-liked-Serial-list fueled run of INCREDIBLY depressing documentaries and stories about the justice system and at this point I feel like it pretty much needs to be rethought from the ground up.
“That her testimony has become so popular among conservatives says as much about them as it does about Sandy McElroy.”
QFT
Another vote for blocking plugins if you have problems reading the Toast on Chrome. Before I did that, the page would load then get slower and slower until it was hard to even scroll. You can block plugins by clicking on the icon in the address bar to the left of the url.
Where can we throw a monthly donation? I only can see the subscribe-as-a-bundle option they talked about a few weeks ago