Prince Charles’ idiotic letters have been published, and shame on you for failing to respect him and his views on badgers.
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I just plain loved Jess Zimmerman on Douglas Adams:
To say that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has defined my life might actually be an understatement. I now think of my preteen self as “pop culture echolalic”—I didn’t know how to think or make jokes or interact with people, so I faked it by digesting books and plays and regurgitating them in a different order. And if that seems like it’s changed as I’ve aged, it’s only because it’s gotten more seamless; I’ve chopped up the references finer, down to their component elements, so I’m more of a concrete golem than a collage. I rarely call myself a “fan” of anything, just because I’m not a joiner; fandoms, like parties, make me shift nervously and look around for a dog to talk to. But when I was 14, my best friend and I went by “Lunkwill” and “Fook” at summer camp—not because we especially identified with those characters, which are ciphers, but just to establish what world we were part of. I have a Babel fish tattooed on the inside of my left forearm. And there is nothing about myself that I love that isn’t secretly Ford Prefect.
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Nikki and I wrote this big long personal thing about financial aid, and we hope you read it, and ideally pass it on to high schoolers you might know!
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Do you live in Portland, Oregon? Would you like a great part-time book-y job? I would LOVE to see Toasties get them. The last time I recommended a job on here, I got a thank-you note from RH Reality Check for sending so many dynamite candidates their way, so.
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beauty tips from bitches gotta eat:
foundation feels like too much work, especially to a person who works with dogs and cats all day. but i enjoy feeling like a fancy lady sometimes, and what better way than slathering some off-colored greasepaint onto my oily, scratched up, rapidly aging visage? i learned from the internet that first you gotta spackle on some primer, and the cheap one i like best is the nyx pore filler and my fave expensive jawn is the make up for ever step 1 hydrating primer. let’s be honest: i don’t have a clue whether or not these actually work. but they feel nice on my skin and everyone says you need to use them so shut up and do it. i have hella walgreens points, so i used a ton of them to buy a bunch of liquid foundations to play with. i got l’oreal true match because that’s the one beyonce wears duh; maybelline fit me matte poreless because you could for real dip your toes in the pores around my nose; and l’oreal infallible because, again, i’m a helpless sheep who sits nodding at my computer screen while writing down everything a twelve-year-old sitting in her bathroom with a video camera tells me to buy. i think i like the true match the best? but then again the infallible is smooth and velvety and seriously i don’t know what the fuck i’m talking about. i let a sephora salesgirl pressure me into this bottle of nars sheer glow foundation back in september, and it’s probably the wrong color and i bet i’m not even putting it on right but i’m using every last drop because it was forty-five real dollars and LOL THIS IS WHY I HAVE NO SAVINGS. the truth is that i don’t really like any of these hoes and keep going back to my first wife mac studiofix because i hate looking like a wet, patchy wax figure and who are we kidding i put base on maybe once a week and that’s only if some asshole is aiming an iphone camera in my general direction.
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The last male northern white rhino.
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This essay is so sad that I really don’t want to link to it, but it’s also very good.
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The MOVE fire, thirty years later.
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The white men are still leaving me angry comments, btw:
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This, however, made me very happy:
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
“Is that the joke? I’m confused :(” Truly, this list is the gift that inexplicably but delightfully keeps on giving.
Thank you again for the financial aid article.
I really enjoyed that as well. It’s information that I wish I’d had at that age.
After almost two years of the Toast, I can’t quite believe that this, THIS, is where they draw the line.
You can kill us, but you can’t take away our freedom to not read lists of books popular with our demographic and imply we all like David Foster Wallace!
I know! It makes me wonder if Nicole and Mallory have just shielded us from those comments until now, or if guys are REALLY more offended by a list of books than by Misandrist Lullabies. “I’m confused :(” as they say.
I can confirm that this vitriol is absolutely unprecedented in the history of the site, yes. Misandrist lullabies were a doddle.
And seriously, if their feelings are so easily hurt, please, someone hide the Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You? quiz.
You just know they were all hoping they’d get Jane.
I wonder if they leave angry comments on Buzzfeed talking about how THEY ARE 90s KIDS AND THEY NEVER HAD A SLAP BRACELET SO STOP GENERALIZING.
Perfect.
Black Mirror was pretty bad for Mallory on Twitter, right? I don’t know if it carried over to the comments.
I hope they keep on coming – surely every site visit to make a BUT I’M PERFECT CAUSE I’M A WHITE DUDE! comment is bringing tons of pageviews and your ad people are throwing money at you because of it. It’s not quite the same mechanism as Emily’s male tears – waterwheel – energy for servers system, but I love the idea of y’all being superbly funded by their outrage.
Oh man, that really ads some extra shine to the “I bet you won’t publish a dissenting comment, because that might negatively affect your ad revenue” comment.
They probably don’t know what “misandrist” means, so no offense taken.
*downs shot*.
Canon! I feel vindicated.
Take a shot!!
And whoever got click-bait yesterday might still be hungover today, so I dedicate this shot (of espresso (good morning)) to them.
Mmm, coffee. I was beginning to wonder if I was too out of touch with the whiney male psyche to play the game.
Bonus: I love the phrase “Of hatred and profundity!!!1!!” I think I will write it up as the sequel to Of Mice and Men.
I love the phrase “lazy mishmash of shit” and hope I get many opportunities to use it in the future.
I mean, I do have to freshen up my resume soon.
I didn’t get to drink yesterday, my cue (“I guess we have to stop reading [classic/popular male author] now!”) was a dud. So, glad the second-to-last one was posted.
I was just going to post that you finally get to drink!
THE TOAST NEEDS ITS OWN JOB BOARD.
Toast Classifieds! Jobs, crafters selling misandrist goodies, meetups. Would absolutely use, and pay to list my own whatevers.
If there are crafters it is pretty much a given that I will buy every single thing that says ‘Big hair, no heart’ on it. There is a spot on my wall that is just crying for a print of some large haired lady of yore with that motto emblazoned on it.
Same!
Y
E
S
YES
yes
yes
Can we call it The Bread Basket?
Um, only if we’re perfect, like that name.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
FYI if this is something the toast is considering, metafilter has done this with great success if you want some guidance
I would LOVE to recruit Toasties. This would be the best thing.
How about them badgers, huh?
That rhino might be my favourite ‘white male’ in the world. I am sad for him.
I misread that link as “the last white male” and thought yes, good but then I realized and I felt bad.
It’s the only white male I feel bad for.
…Until he leaves a comment here saying “I’m a white male rhino and I’ve never read any of these books.”
I need someone to register the username WhiteMaleRhino and just post that kind of ridiculousness all day every day.
#NotAllWhiteMaleRhinos
But if there’s only one left, surely is it always #AllWhiteMaleRhinos?
I think you mean #LiterallyAllWhiteMaleRhinos, don’t you??
#OnlyCorrectUseOfLiterally
It has suddenly occured to me that instead of calling not-shitty white cis men “unicorns” we should call them rhinos.
This made me laugh so hard, I’m worried that my co-workers might think I’m having a stroke.
Whoever had “Gets all mansplainy about the use of LITERALLY” in our Toastie Pool is going to be very happy.
Gotta hand it to these guys, they aren’t afraid to leave a comment saying, “Is that the joke?” and “I don’t get this at all”
That was me! Apparently I have a direct line to the white male brain. Must think of nefarious ways to use that…
Why would they be afraid to leave those comments? If a white man doesn’t understand your joke, how could anyone else? If anything, they surely believe they’re providing us with a service.
Sometimes, when I don’t understand things, I use that handy back button.
Other times, I ask people to explain.
Other, other times, I just don’t understand. That’s okay.
Jess Zimmerman’s piece hits so close to home. I was definitely a preteen pop culture echolalic– even a teen echolalic, if we’re being honest. I was in seventh or eighth grade when YouTube was launched, so my friends and I spoke to each other in a weird mishmash of stolen and original inside jokes. Some are so ingrained in my vocabulary and intonation I don’t even notice, and when someone points it out, I can’t pinpoint the origin. Douglas Adams was a fecund source. So was Homestar Runner.
I like to think that now I’m an Adult, I’ve found my own voice– I think college helped with that, I went to a school with a great semiotics program (I’m an engineer but made mostly interdisciplinary friends and took a lot of liberal arts classes) which helped analyze and compartmentalize my vast catalogue of reference. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fall back on echolalia at certain times.
In high school, I spoke primarily in Buffy, West Wing, and musical theater.
….. still do sometimes.
Hello, are you me?
At least all of those sources are delightful!
I’ve been rewatching tWW recently. It’s less delightful, and way more MANPAINy than I remembered. : (
Homestar Runner was SO important in my developing sense of humor. I’m so glad that the new stuff that’s been coming out is still funny. So many “old internet” things, when I look back on them are actually painfully UNfunny (sexist/racist/homophobic/just plain offensive) that it’s a delight to go back to h*r and see that no, it’s okay, Strong Bad is still funny.
You put your finger right on it.
Also, “What do we want? Several boys! How we gonna get ’em? …..don’t know!” is my go-to v-day quote, and no one ever gets it 🙁
Oh yeah, I speak fluent Teen Girl Squad.
“Aaaaah! My most of me!”
“When you fall into a bottomless pit, you die of starvation.”
“‘No, we can’t come. We have… the… Olympics… tonight!”
“It’s over! It’s over! Strong Bad says it’s over! It’s over! It’s over! Everybody died but me!!” (chomp sound) “Aw, crap.”
Let’s not even talk about Peasant Quest.
Wave o’ babies!
“Peasant babies are pretty freaking adorable.”
oh my god somehow this still makes me actually laugh out loud, just to read. Teen Girl Squad imprinted on me.
“Can someone send down my assignments? …and Brett’s assignments?”
“Where were you guys??
We got jealous
Let’s get yogurt!!
I got jimmies.”
“maybe some lunchables? or a juice box?”
Speaking of pop culture echolalia, YOUR USERNAME OMG.
thank you, thank you
CORN IS NO PLACE FOR A MIGHTY WARRIOR
I quote TGS so much to this day. I rue the day someone doesn’t get my reference.
I miss video games. I miss my mom. I miss video games. I-I-I-I miss my mom.
HALDO.
Also, re: TGS and it’s frequency in my vocabulary, see my username.
My friends and I definitely held entire conversations in Teen Girl Squad quotes. That was a biiiiig thing freshman year of high school in our friend group. Even to this day my best friend will still sometimes say “I have a crush on EEEVERY boy!” in the perfect TGS voice
“Looks more like a USB dongle goblin!”
I post that on Facebook every February 14. It’s sooooo good. I mean, oooohkay. I mean soooooo good.
Me too!
Tiiiiiiiiiiiiines tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines
Consummate V’s! CONSUMMATE!
Also, I enjoy yelling “ARROWED!” whenever I walk through the room and see Oliver Queen shooting someone on the TV.
YES. When I went away to camp at 12 my brilliant strategy for making friends was inscribing the names of every book, play, and movie I loved on the outside of my diary, then writing in it while ever-so-casually displaying it just so. “YOU like Sandman? I like Sandman! Let’s be best friends!” was how I imagined it would go. It did not go that way, sadly. But now I’m all grown up and there’s Tumblr and Twitter and all kinds of other wonderful ways to express intimacy through pop-culture references. Win?
Oh, golly, Homestar Runner was my love language in college. I had the techno song on a CD. I quoted Teen Girl Squad constantly! And how does Strong Bad type with boxing gloves on?
Are you a Carrie or a Samantha? Personally, I’m more of a What’s-her-face.
Definitely what’s-her-face, but I do Have a Crush on Every Boy
I really want to see a demographic breakdown of the Toast readership by Teen Girl Squad member. What’s-Her-Faces are probably a majority, but I suspect we’ve got a respectable number of So-and-Sos and Ugly Ones as well. Mallory is our collective Cheerleader, and I think maybe Kristen Stewart is Tompkins???
Kristin Stewart as Tompkins is GOLD. Absolute gold. Bless you.
I was definitely a So-and-So
The secret of being a pop-culture echolalic that I think a lot of people don’t realize is: that’s what all language is. You take in what’s around you, you chop it up real fine, you use it to build your sense of who you are.
It’s just more noticeable when the bits and pieces that you’re chopping up are unusual, that’s all.
This is also a great way to describe the philosophical concept/discipline of Phenomenology.
Yes, this. And I am also noticing it is the same thing with creative arts. You don’t come up with this stuff out of nowhere, You build from references in reality or other art.
Btw, are you the one who recommended the Kill Six Billion Demons webcomic a few weeks ago? I’m reading through all of it now and it is amazing!
That is what everything is! I get very frustrated about this because I used to have anxiety on this exact subject, and now of course I get frustrated when I see other people’s anxiety about it but how else could it possibly work? Like, what is culture even FOR — why do we have movies and books and TV — if it isn’t for providing the raw material of individual identity?
I felt a lot of relief once I realized this.
Thank you for putting that into words.
Also, yes, that was me that recommended KSBD, and riiiiiight!?!?!?!?
See, I always just assumed this was totally normal behavior. But then about half my family is on the autism spectrum…
Likewise. The concept of pop culture echolalia is hugely relatable to me and it’s such a relief to hear it discussed and know that other people also feel their voice is an increasingly finely-chopped collage of quotes. I swear I learnt more about how to do human interaction from RPGs than from actual human people (perhaps unsurprisingly, as teens are not the most representative example so modelling from each other could spiral very quickly).
I’ve always assumed this is normal behavior too. My family and I have phrases from favorite movies that have sunk so thoroughly into our family discourse, I sometimes forget they’re quotes, they’re just “things we always say in certain situations.” Common, useful phrases too, not particularly noteworthy or humorous ones. “These things must be done delicately,” “I have no memory of this place,” and “Come into the light” are the first few that popped into my head (Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings, and *probably* Beauty and the Beast but none of us are really sure at this point).
My family has one (“’tis but wafer thin!”) that’s been around for so long and repeated so many times that the joke has been completely scrambled and the words don’t even match the original quote any more. I suspect that those little quotes float around in families the same way that an old saying would; you always say it with the rhythm of the person you learned it from or it just doesn’t have the same feeling, and people who know the original context take more meaning out of it than just what the words say. It’s like a little shorthand between you and the people you spend the most time with.
My boyfriend and I say “it’s waaafer thin!” to each other at least five times a week.
My family definitely has many of those, and at least 75% of them are Monty Python-related.
“I didn’t know how to think or make jokes or interact with people, so I faked it by digesting books and plays and regurgitating them in a different order. ”
I came here to say that this excerpt made me cranky on behalf of dating-age me all over again. Maybe its because I spent my childhood without cable TV and generally crappy internet access (modems! that share your family phone line!) and I read a lot – and felt pretty alienated from my schoolmates who had a more typical upbringing. I mean, sure, it made me not super popular (ha) but it really only got to be a problem when I started to be interested in boys. I’d meet them, and they were SO FUNNY! And Clever! And Creative! and every. time. without. fail. it was because they were cribbing shit from Spongebob or Drawn Together or a general mishmash of just television shows I didn’t have access to and passed that off as a personality.
I get that it wasn’t their fault for being half-formed young people, but I’m feeling the flavor of that very specific kind of disappointment in my mouth right now.
I think I get what you’re trying to say, but I think it’s not really fair to call them “half-formed young people” just because their frames of reference were different from yours. Would you be as critical if they had been cribbing those references from the books you read, instead of the TV shows you hadn’t seen? As a lot of people have pointed out, reference can be a crutch, but it’s also just how language and culture work together.
I could definitely have worded my comment more clearly. Yes, all culture and language is borrowing from shared/relevant knowledge and media (more heavily in modern times, of course). I came with my own set of meme-speak and Simpsons references, but there is a huge difference between throwing a joke from a tv show into your conversation vs. being a walking-talking word-salad of unattributed quotes and passing that off as a personality.
Also I want to make the distinction that Jess Zimmerman is talking about pre-teens and I’m talking about people a little further along in their development (but who are still pretty far from solidifying their identities).
This was just my personal experience – getting charmed by boys who were cute and funny only to realize that they were (to my mind at the time) just plagiarists who took on pre-fab personalities and passed them off as their own.
And yes, I would absolutely be as critical if they got their references from books that I read. They did that, too, that’s how I caught on about the rest of it 😉
Yes, definitely, over-relying on quotes as personality can be annoying, but I think it’s a bit dangerous to deem when is an acceptable age to solidify one’s identity–I know I’m still solidifying mine. And as the original article and many commenters have mentioned, sometimes being a “walking-talking word-salad” is a way of coping with social anxiety, a fear of not belonging, being non-neurotypical, or a variety of other things.
I don’t think what you’re saying is wrong or bad, I just think it’s worth being careful about how we judge the sourcing of others’ personalities.
I want to hi-five the Guardian editor for picking the most ridiculous pictures of Prince Charles.
I’m pretty sure the Guardian has someone on staff with that as (at least) 50% of their job description.
The mere notion of a joke that does not cater directly to them is so totally foreign that they aren’t even able to recognize it as such, and have to keep commenting everywhere that list is posted to ask after the “point.”
The point is for us to laugh at you! That’s it!
The reaction to this list has been amazing.. I can accurately pinpoint someone’s gender and generation by their response to it.
Since we’re talking about British politics today, and I brought up Thomas the Tank Engine yesterday, I am just going to leave this here:
The difference is Thomas the Tank Engine actually builds his community up, and small children don’t flee from the sight of him.
I was thinking too that there is no way you could describe Cameron as a really useful engine – unless you are thinking of an engine of destruction. I am still deeply depressed about those election results…
…What’s that engine’s name, if that’s not too strange a question? I tried to look it up and I’m appalled at the expansion of the
franchiseSteam Teamproduct linenumber of characters in the televised story. Even Wikipedia cannot keep up with them. Old-school little watercolor books for me!That is Spencer. He is a SNOOTY engine. He’s newish (not in the books, but has been around the tv show for a while).
Well you could certainly describe Cameron as a SNOOTY engine. I think Private Eye nailed that one.
Thank you. I am now wondering whether they modeled it on Cameron. The resemblance is suspiciously close.
I’m an Ivor fan, myself.
Thomas. 🙂
So does that mean we can brick him up in a wall and use him as a generator? Cause that’s the only way I can see him being productive.
I still owe y’all a mug and a half of tea. Also, last night, on facebook, where I’d posted the original list to my wall*, a white man told me he didn’t get it. I am not entirely sure if he was trolling me or not.
My partner love the UK, and is super allergic to badgers, so I shamelessly send him nearly everything I find about badger culls and debates about badger culls and pro-badger organizations and whatever. He’s generally not amused, but I keep doing it, for reasons I can’t really explain or justify.
*or timeline, or whatever the hell we’re calling it these days, good god I’ve been on fb for a long time and feel old.
Never explain, never apologize.
…How does one find out that one is allergic to badgers?
And is it badger fur or all badger by-products? Because you can get them to stop leaving badger by-products in your garden by composting with imported lion dung. (Or human, apparently, but no-one wants to go that far). How a badger knows what a lion is and therefore that it is bigger than them is one of life’s great mysteries.
We haven’t tested anything other than badger fur. Thankfully, we don’t currently live in an area that’s badger habitat.
One attempts to shave as pretentiously as possible, and buys an expensive shaving brush made from badger fur. And then one breaks into hives.
Hypothetically.
Oh. OH.
Kudos for the presumably difficult balancing act you then performed between mocking and sympathy.
It’s so wonderful when people really get me.
(although, to be honest, I was not physically present when this happened. but the difficult balancing act has happened every time this has been brought up since then.)
Also, since I haven’t yet posted a gif yet today:
great now I have the song stuck in my head.
no, it is actually great. I love that song. Snaaaaaake ahh snaaaake ooohhhh its a snaaaaake
Badger Jane Fondas!
(Psst: Is the wall the timeline now?! I went on facebook the other day and got confused as to what a timeline was and I was meant to approve something on it and my boyfriend just laughed at me when I asked)
i THINK that what used to be my “wall” is now my “timeline” (so, the thing I see if I click on my name)—- I think it got renamed when cover photos and the better time-stamped nature of it all happened (like, you can click on a particular month and look at the person’s stuff from just then, rather than endlessly scrolling).
I think the thing that has everyone’s stuff all smooshed together is the “newsfeed”.
I have been on fb for over a decade now, and consistently active the whole time. One would think I’d be confident in these sorts of terms, but, no, no I’m not.
Your lack of confidence in FB terms is on FB, not you. It’s a product that either 1) doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up, or 2) is desperate to hide what it really is. If a user of a decade is not clear on their vocabulary, FB is doing it wrong.
Read the Teague essay a couple of weeks ago and burst into tears just as my husband walked through the door. “It’s from READING SOMETHING,” I sobbed.
So yes, everyone should READ IT (cries more).
I read it on the train last night and made this face the whole time :-O
And then I went home and posted a Facebook love letter to my friend Jen who was There For Me (TM) when my mom died two years ago. Everyone should be so lucky to have a Dane or a Jen in their life.
At first I was crying imagining myself and Mr. BHam in the situation of the author and his wife, but what really got me blubbering was thinking about the Danes I have in my life. Goddammit, I’m crying again now.
Fuuuuuuuck two paragraphs in and I can’t remember if my mascara is waterproof or not. WHO IS CUTTING ALL THESE GODDAM ONIONS?!
It is SO FUCKING GOOD. I read it this morning and just sat there in awe.
I am not AT ALL happy with my decision to read that this morning 🙁 🙁
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park used to have two northern white rhinos, but their male died at the end of last year. They still point out the female on the safari bus and it’s so, so sad. She usually just sits on her own by the water.
On a completely different note, it’s the 15th anniversary of Center Stage and yes, they have full video of that end dance scene. YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT, EVEN THOUGHT IT’S NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE TO CHANGE CLOTHES/HAIR/SHOES LIKE THAT.
Thank you for this link, from the bottom of my heart. It really perked up my morning.
IT IS COMPLETELY POSSIBLE IF YOU JUST BELIEVE!
My question is what stereotype is being reinforced by that book list? Why are your feelings hurt? What negative thing about white men is being reinforced by a list of books?
And especially, if your reaction is a shrug, why so compelled to leave a comment about your puzzlement?
This, more than anything else, is the strongest indicator to me of how much time and effort our society puts into telling white men that their every fleeting thought is vitally important to the universe at large and must be shared. Some of these guys will go to the effort of registering an account on a website in order to comment on a blog post and say something to the effect of “*shrug*” because it simply never occurred to them that their *shrug* has literally no value to anyone but themselves. AMAZING!
It’s like the people who respond to generally-posted requests for crowdsourced advice or information with “I don’t know but I hope you get an answer”. If you have no input, then you are not obliged to leave a comment! Not everything is For You!
Biblio, I think this should be a required class at every college. Just, this, what you said, repeated over and over for an entire semester.
I keep asking myself that, and the best I can come up with is the notion that it means that these books are not tomes of Universally Important Ideas and Feelings–that they are marked by whiteness and maleness–and thus their own ideas and feeling are also not universal.
I guess it’s real effin’ offensive to some people that other people might think and feel in different ways.
EVERYBODY MUST THINK AND FEEL EXACTLY LIKE I DO OR MY ENTIRE IDENTITY IS INVALIDATED.
This is such an eloquent (and I believe accurate) explanation. I would be truly interested in sitting down with these guys and seeing if they could possibly articulate why they are so, for lack of a better term, butthurt. I feel like the ones who are so quick to leave confused, angry comments of barely-controlled panic are unlikely to be able to identify or explain why they are so afraid and upset.
Some of it is definitely in that they do not get/ agree with the piece being funny (which means they should shrug and move on) and then immediately assume that they’re being made fun of.
edited to fix a their/ they’re mistake, the bane of my existence.
I really don’t want to burst the excellent bubble of misandry going on in this thread but I feel the need to point out that “butthurt” is a rape joke – if one is defeated at a videogame, certain asshats will say that they got “raped”. If they’re mad it’s because they’re “butthurt (from the rhetorical “rape”).
Very few people are as shitty as bro gamers and so they don’t make that connection, but the phrase makes me cringe. I’m sure that’s not what you intended but I thought I’d give you a heads up.
In all seriousness, men’s greatest fear is that women will laugh at them. THEIR GREATEST FEAR.
This fear, relative to the incredibly justifiable fears women have regarding men, is pretty damn laughable…you can probably see why this doesn’t work out so well for them…
Still accurate. GAWD. Also I bet the men in deleted comments swearing that they have Atwood on their shelves would accuse you of lying. “She never said that! Also the only books she ever wrote were The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, and Maddaddam.”
they don’t know and that’s terrifying
Are these books not good enough? Do only stupid people read Lolita? Am I, unconsciously, revealing something terrible about myself through my reading habits? What is it? What? What?
That they…read books? I really don’t understand their offense. It’s not even one one-hundredth as offensive as the kind of “jokes” they make about women and minorities, soooo…?
The Craft is being re-made! : http://jezebel.com/manon-i-invoke-thee-to-stop-th…
This could be amazing, but it will probably be sad. Also, I totally had the Silver Ravenwolf book the author of that blog post mentions.
My teen witchy phase is totally warring with my semi-dislike of that site to see whether or not I click on the link. (The teen witchy phase side will probably win.)
You could probably google to get the same info from another site. I’m very mixed on Jezebel. Sometimes I find out about political things or news stories (or just tumblrs) that I wouldn’t have learned about otherwise. But I really wish they moderated their comments better. That’s one of the many things I love so much about The Toast–the very active comment moderation.
Yeah. I stumbled onto some really just down right nasty anti-military and anti-service member stuff in the comments there once (while I was still in the military) and that really put me off if. It was like reddit levels of vitriol and no one was saying or doing anything about it.
All hail comment moderation.
ETA: clicked on the link. Ok then. It’s just a movie remake people. It’s not that critical. I for one welcome the prospect of modern teens getting their witchy phase on.
My first car was named Fenchurch.
God, the NAME Fenchurch is introduced in a echolalic fashion. Fascinating.
The MOVE fire is so surreal–in what world do the police BOMB AND BURN DOWN their own city?
This one, apparently. Ugh.
A relative of mine was PFD and was there that day. It’s only this year we’ve heard some of the stories. Just awful.
Even more mind boggling is this is not even the first time African-Americans have been fire-bombed in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot#Atta…
I now think of my preteen self as “pop culture echolalic”
Oh god, “pop culture echolalia” might be the best description of Internet memes ever.
Also, an excellent name for a grad school garage band.
My spouse and I stayed up late last night, me reading him the deleted comments and comments from the amazing Toasties, he reading me choice bits of MRAs losing their minds about Mad Max, and laughing long into the night. Reader, I slept like a baby.
[BONERS.]
Us, too! It was a struggle to finally go to sleep. That post is like a drug.
I am so delighted by the combination of Toast-related and Mad Max-related meltdowns yesterday. My day was pretty much one long extended cackle.
We did the same! My husband was like, “Surely, this can’t be real.” And I was like, “Oh but it is! And don’t call me Shirley!”
Save the rhino, extinguish another species of white males.
I would like to nominate a species.
Oof, that financial aid article. I fell into the “gets a little bit of financial aid, but generally has to cover college with work-study and loans,” and I think the point the Nicoles made about the strange, little class markers is so, so accurate. I remember it particularly freshman year, when I lived next to a girl whose parents gave her an allowance of $500/week (!), and often for spring break trips and summer jobs. I think the time I realized it the most, though, was when, because shifts were allocated by seniority, my work-study job as a lifeguard started 3 days a week at 6am. Having to wake up when others were going to bed was this specific kind of reminder that my work was work.
On the plus side, I will be done paying for college next month!
Actually, a question…assuming that you could afford to cover ALL of your kids’ expenses and tuition, would you elect to have them get a job to cover incidentals? I am torn on this–on the one hand, I definitely learned how to manage money, since I had a finite amount of it, and worked for it; on the other hand, it’s possible that I would have had different or better opportunities if “earning wages” wasn’t the main factor in deciding what jobs to take during college.
I would absolutely want my own (hypothetical) kids to work during college– I think everybody should, really.
I might have just been lucky, but my university offered quite a few work-study jobs that were actually quite interesting and of the “career-building” variety. For instance, I got a paid internship with the county planning department that way, and a good summer job at the library.
I went to law school with a number of people who would have probably been very well served by (e.g.) having had some previous jobs where they cleaned toilets, like I did in my summer hotel maid jobs. It might have given them some valuable humility and understanding of other people’s lives. A surprising number of them had never held *any* job before (by their mid-20s), which just astonished me.
As someone who didn’t work in college (and who was subsequently very broke in college) partly because of anxiety over the whole process of applying to workstudy jobs… I’d get the kids to work, if only so they aren’t kicking themselves later for missing out on opportunities like I did. The theatre scene shop always needed people and I could’ve gotten a job I was interested in just by asking, but I was too anxious to follow through with it. I’d love to be able to do that now.
If it’s just incidentals, you wouldn’t need too many hours, presumably, so you could do things like that.
I’m struggling with the same question. I didn’t go to college because I was afraid of student loans, and was very ignorant about grants/scholarships, although I did have the grades. Now I’m approaching my mid-30s and am just getting to where I can save money, after spending my 20s mostly in poverty. My spouse had a similar experience, and we very much want our kids to go to university. We’re trying to save enough that our kids can just go for 4 years and not have to worry. I know what you mean by how your experiece taught you how to get by on little. I rationalize my decision by looking at my friends who had a free ride and are actually pretty good with money.
The agreement I had with my parents was that they would cover my tuition and fees, and I would cover all my living expenses. I think that worked well. It’s the same agreement my dad had with his parents (though his post-secondary education was not a four-year university degree). It’s based on the idea that living expenses were the expenses I had control over, so being responsible for them specifically meant that I was dealing directly with the consequences of my own spending decisions. (They were willing to loan me money on occasion, and they paid for travel home and bought me groceries when they visited and so on.)
I mostly didn’t work during the school year, though, because I qualified for government student loans and mostly used those, supplemented by summer job income. If I could afford to cover all my kids’ expenses, then they might not qualify for the same loans, so it wouldn’t be the same situation. In which case I don’t know what I would do. I definitely think I’d want them to be responsible for some expenses. But I really enjoyed having lots of time to participate in various student activities, and I’d want my kids to have the option of doing the same. Maybe I’d just give them living expenses money about equivalent to what I got from loans, and let them figure out how to stretch or supplement it.
That all sounds very fair. I like to think and talk about what I will do when my (as yet non-existent) children go to college, but I think the key is being fluid. If there is something they really want to participate in that does not pay, it makes total sense to allow them that and cover their living expenses for a semester or whatever. I just want to give them OPTIONS, which is something that a lack of money really prevented me from having at that age.
Yes, options good.
I think part of why it worked is that it didn’t involve my parents telling me what to do at all. I would have been much less happy with a situation where they’d tried to tell me to get a job. Actually, they tried that when I was in high school and it didn’t go that well. But in university. they mostly left me to figure out job-having and affordable-apartment-finding and so on myself, and I was fine.
It does mean that when people talk about whether they should have their kids get a job, it sounds kind of helicopter-y to me. I realize that having more involved parents seems to work better for some kids, so I’m not going to say that it definitively is a helicopter parent thing to do regardless of the kid involved, but I think that at least some kids would respond better to being put in a position to make that decision themselves.
I like this balance a lot! I think having that safety net is really important, too. And you’re right – I suppose a more realistic scenario would be not qualifying for financial aid, but also not easily being able to cover EVERYTHING without loans (which, it would be awesome, but she’s only 2, and already the cost of college stresses me out).
My parents paid my tuition and college expenses like books and the school meal plan, but didn’t give me any money for clothes, going out with friends, etc. I worked a little during the year and full time in the summer. I would probably do the same thing, but I also don’t think there’s any way to perfectly calibrate your rich kids’ sense of their own privilege by giving them the right amount of money. I’m pretty sure my parents thought that that amount of working would give me a good perspective on people who had to work to actually afford college, which obviously it doesn’t, by itself.
What does a college student even do with $500 a week though??
Spends a lot of money on clothes and high-end liquor, from what I can tell.
I’m torn, because if I hadn’t had to work, I would have had more time to be in clubs and make those kinds of connections, or I might have been able to volunteer somewhere, but I also wouldn’t have picked up the kinds of un-teachable work skills like dealing with tricky co-workers or whatever (although you can get those from some volunteer experiences). I guess I would want them to work unless they were doing something else valuable with their time, but trying to be the arbiter of what constitutes a Valuable College Experience also seems like a great way to alienate your kid.
I only worked during senior year of college (and all the summers), but I actually really enjoyed it and wished I had done so all four years. It was a nice dose of reality, since I worked off-campus with mostly non-students.
My parents were always telling me to focus on school instead of getting a job, which of course makes me ridiculously privileged and lucky, but every single time I had a job during school (high school, college, law school), I really liked having that balance. And the income certainly didn’t hurt.
The longer you put off working the less equipped you are to deal with the real world once you actually hit it, in my experience. A job is education, and at this point far more instructive than most universities’ courseload.
Hell, far as I’m concerned college was already too late, I don’t even wanna think about how my priorities in schools and degrees to shoot for would have changed had I the foggiest clue what I’d do with a degree after, or how it would matter.
I don’t know, really. My parents had me cover living expenses (housing, food, etc), which I could choose to do with earnings or loans. They also handed me a chunk of my college savings to use for myself, so I also had an emergency fund from the start. I worked every semester except the one I spent abroad- the first year or two for the same retail company I worked for back home, and after that work-study at the university greenhouse. The greenhouse work study probably contributed to my well-being more than to my wallet, but spending an hour or two most mornings watering plants and re-potting geraniums and pruning coleas was immensely helpful to my stress levels. Plus I made it through a decent chunk of Dickens on audiobook. Summers I had actual paid internships in my actual field, because the economy was good right up until I graduated :/
I probably didn’t stay out as many nights as I would have if I wasn’t working weekends or getting up early, but I don’t really do the party thing now, either, so probably no great loss. I probably didn’t have to take out loans, but I took them out at the magical time when they were variable interest rates, so I still have one that is presently at 0% and clearly doing me no actual harm, and taking the loans meant I had a better cushion when I ventured out into the real world. Which was certainly helpful.
I didn’t qualify for much aid either, and had to join ROTC to pay for college because my parents would not co-sign student loan paperwork.
I feel like I shouldn’t complain, because my parents DID help pay for college, and also were willing to facilitate other financial aid like loans. That is some next-level stuff right there.
It was mostly just a control thing on my dad’s part. He was a pretty big time asshole. My wife (GF a tthe time)’s mom co-signed a loan in my senior year (ROTC scholarship didn’t cover everything), and took great satisfaction in how angry that made my dad. She was the best.
Fabulous story. A+ mother-in-law-ing.
I know some (wealthy) parents are matching their college kids’ earnings. That is, the kid gets nothing from mom and dad until he shows them his paycheck. Then they deposit an equal amount in the kid’s bank account. It allows the parents to give their kid financial ease, but requires the kid to know the meaning of work. In theory. I don’t know these families well. Unsure of the results. Anyone care to comment?
Ouch. The Douglas Adams one hit me right in the feels. But on a slightly less emotional -though morbid- note, it’s nice to know I’m not the only person who has stolen things from dead people.
I stole Thomas Jefferson’s lemon once. Anyone else taken things, purposefully or not, from dead people?
It’s okay, I don’t think he needed it. It’s not like he’s going to make a pie or something.
I still felt bad though. And then didn’t know what to do with it other than take a blurry phone photo with my razr. (God. That was almost ten years ago.)
Oh no you don’t. You do not just say you stole Thomas Jefferson’s lemon and then not dish.
It’s much less interesting than it sounds? I was on a tour of Monticello with my grand and great-grandmother, and we were the only three people there that day because it was ridiculously cold for VA. So we essentially got the VIP tour and could wander at leisure. I took it upon myself to mosey on into the conservatory/orangerie thing and began wondering if the fruit trees were real. To find out I poked one. Turns out they are because a lemon fell into my hand after the poking. I freaked out, tried reattaching it to the tree, failed, shoved the lemon in my pocket, and rejoined the old lady portion of the tour.
I kept telling myself I’d discreetly leave it somewhere in the museum. I never did and it ended up coming back to my college dorm room with me instead.
I was absolutely starving when my parents and I visited Monticello, because I hadn’t had an adequate breakfast. So I definitely grazed a bit in the gardens, and also took a bit of lavender home with me to try and propagate it (spoiler: didn’t work). But I figure the thousands of dollars of debt I have left over from Mr. Jefferson’s University entitle me to raid his vegetable garden.
http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/35… is_hiding_all_my/
Woman finds out her boyfriend has been gaslighting her, makes him watch the movie Gaslight with her before breaking up with him. Make sure to read her original post, in which she describes his shitty behavior, first.
Posting from a phone and I can’t tell if that link is working. I’ll fix it from a computer later if not!
Seems fine to me!
Good christ! I mean, it’s fascinating to read because I know the OP is aware of the gaslighting and manipulation and can protect herself/implement counterattacks to it, but holy shit there are people like the OP’s partner who DO THAT SHIT ALL THE TIME and are better at it than that guy and OH MY GOD THEIR POOR VICTIMS. *shuddering forever*
What’s interesting though is that she doesn’t actually realize it in her first post. She has no idea why he might be hiding things from her until the commenters explain the term gaslighting to her. And then all of a sudden she starts to realize all of the other things he’s done to her and what his behavior could mean. What’s really great is how quickly she realizes and accepts it and formulates a really solid plan of action, instead of denying that the relationship could be leading to abuse and ignoring the problems until things get worse.
This woman is amazing. My ex gaslighted me hardcore and even though I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to mental health and abuse I had no idea. I wish there was more discussion and acknowledgement of gaslighting in the world in general because if you don’t catch that shit early it’s incredibly tough to figure out.
AMEN.
I read something when I was in recovery from the heartless bitches website about how tough feminist women are actually pretty good abuse targets, because they self-identify as strong and independent and are less likely to suspect that they are being abused. That gave me a little bit of comfort, at least.
Wow. She’s a stone cold baller!
HOLY. SHIT.
I think she was smart to not make it a confrontation. That dude is nuts.
ETA: Making him watch “Gaslight” was some straight up Hamlet, and that is so, SO awesome.
I love the Reddit commenter who calls it “the Hamlet maneuver.”
Best use of Shakespeare ever.
QUEEN.
I’d like to nominate this woman for Official Toast Sainthood. What’s the beatification process around here?
I’m also cheering for the fact that she posted 11 days ago, got down to business, and had her sketchbag manipulator boyfriend out of her life 9 days after that. If only we could all get rid of men so efficiently.
I felt bad about my only contribution to the link roundup being that terrifying Thomas the Tank Engine/David Cameron mashup, so here, have a MsSweeneys piece: Lesser-known trolley problem variations.
There’s an out of control trolley speeding towards Immanuel Kant. You have the ability to pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so it hits Jeremy Bentham instead. Jeremy Bentham clutches the only existing copy of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Kant holds the only existing copy of Bentham’s The Principles of Morals and Legislation. Both of them are shouting at you that they have recently started to reconsider their ethical stances.
This is brilliant. I am finishing up an Intro to Ethics class right now, and almost everything my professor said sounded exactly like that article to me. “Here is the problem, but if we add THESE conditions, and then THESE conditions…” I barely kept myself from screaming “WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT?!?!” and fleeing to the nearest Gender Studies class.
I teach professional ethics and I don’t bother with 3/4 of the “essential” theory behind the application because I have the same reaction you do.
Q: How many white men does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That’s not funny.
Okay, five minutes later I’m still laughing at this … will come back in a hour and give an update. Oh wait … .
BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER
MUSHROOM MUSHROOM
Snaaaake!
Ding, ding, ding! WINNER. Perusing this list was possibly the first time these butt-hurt young men were exposed to the idea that their experience is not, in fact, the default Human Universal Experience.
I’m just shocked at how HURT and ANGRY and THREATENED that makes them feel.
It reminds me of this gifset/video .
This seems to apply to the current kerfuffle going on over this year’s Hugo awards as well – entitled outrage from a bunch of fans (predominantly male, from what I can tell) that recent awards have become more diverse (I think? Their logic, it is all over the fucking place), so they used bloc voting to game the nomination system.
It baffles me that the response to things winning that they personally didn’t like was “It’s a conspiracy! We must take it back!” rather than “Huh. Rich tapestry.” But then…dudes.
The best part is that the Hugo outrage came from a group called the Sad Puppies. http://bookriot.com/2015/04/08/broken-hugo-awards… Book Riot’s overview is worth a read if anyone wants more about these poor, sad little puppies.
Anyone up for a dose of white-hot rage this morning?
Disney, what in the ACTUAL fuck.
Hey, everyone in Africa had PLENTY of time to plant their own flag there. It is the white man’s burden to be so clever, and Disney is right to recognize and reward this.
…fuck, even saying that sarcastically leaves a horrid taste in my mouth…
So far I’ve only seen the headline of that article, and I refuse to read the rest of it bc I’m sure it makes equally little sense and I don’t really want to subject myself to that.
I just spent two minutes whispering, “ew… ew… ew…” at my desk so I wouldn’t alarm coworkers with my disgust.
Historically he is in the right; No Flag, No Country.
They’re making a FILM of it? I was so furious when this first happened and was reported, but this is another layer of awfulness.
I wasn’t aware that Eddie Izzard bit was a guide, instead of a joke.
But it’s okay because the writer says the film is not going to be about colonialism!
I just feel like if he wants to be king of a small chunk of land with a very harsh climate, few resources, no people, and no infrastructure, then he should at least live there. In a very harsh climate, with few resources, no people, and no infrastructure.
And I wouldn’t be that upset if the US decided that as a foreign king, he was no longer a US citizen and was no longer eligible to reside in the US or to have the US passport that he would likely need to legally reside in most other places he’d probably like to live. Or if the countries surrounding his new kingdom declined to let him over their borders, making it impossible for him to leave or to bring in food or materials for a shelter from the sun.
Can we make this movie?
So, I have this absurd love for all things badger after my horrible ex was talking about needing to go to the gym “because [his] tits look like badger noses” and goddamn if that wasn’t the most accurate image ever. Dude should be a writer. But now I hate him and love badgers and that is the story of the weirdest animal association I have.
I’m not sure I should post this … but I also put the White Men’s List on my Facebook page, and noted that it was a bit of good-natured ribbing and misandry. My white male friend got really angry. He posted several comments in response and then wrote me two long emails, and did not in any way reply back to what I’d written. (I’d been interested to read in the deleted comments that some of these books were required reading in school and my friend and I didn’t have any of these books to read in either college or high school. Not even Hemingway or Fitzgerald.)
So I learned something about my friend, when he wrote this:
“The reason I kind of went off was that it was a White Man’s list. I went through the 100 best novels of all time and I have read a pretty good share of them (male and female authors). You know, the only author who ever made me cry was Anne Rice and Interview with the Vampire. What bothers me about these things is that we (white men) are lumped into a category and we are supposed to all be interested in these titles? I think you would be very disappointed in me if I made broad statements about white women and their tastes. So, that is why my hackles were up. Enough of that. Having a drink and calming down.”
He is completely and totally clueless.
So I pointed him to this article on The Atlantic, and asked him to read the comments section.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015…
The frequent commenter Fraga123 is a pretty typical MRA guy, but shadeseeker is a former college prof (he’s said so in his own comments) … and I can imagine he is like my 1982 college art history prof who told the class “several of you have asked me why I don’t present any female artists. Well, there either aren’t any or if there are, they don’t paint masterpieces.” The intrepid commenter Laura takes these guys on, but I’ve given up.
I still can’t get over my friend’s line about what if he made broad generalizations about white women … . I told him that we have to sit down and talk sometime. I’ll tell him about my30 years of experiences in my computer science-y jobs that I don’t normally talk about.
“Well, there either aren’t any or if there are, they don’t paint masterpieces.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Suppress_Wome…
THIS. Well (other ethnic/gender group) would be really upset about generalizations about them!
“Would be”? As in, these generalizations aren’t a daily part of life for us? Yeah, WELCOME TO THE WORLD YOU’VE BEEN LIVING IN, FUCKSTICK, I DON’T CARE AT ALL THAT IT IS UPSETTING FOR YOU TO EXPERIENCE ONCE WHAT WE EXPERIENCE ALWAYS.
Oh, wow! “Broad generalizations about white women” floored me. Let’s count the number of times our supposed likes have been used as a punchline in the media, like Pumpkin Spiced Lattes, 50 Shades, “bosom heaving” romances, Rom-coms, been dismissed as soccer moms, and mommy bloggers who know nothing and have terrible taste. Let’s make him a list.
I’m still just flabbergasted. I don’t even know where to start with him or if his bubble can’t be broken.
I just realized that men like this don’t realize those generalizations exist. I mean, they literally know those things are said, but they either don’t conceptualize them as “broad generalizations,” or don’t connect them to actual people who exist. Because [not white men] aren’t really people who exist.
You know, the only author who ever made me cry was Anne Rice and Interview with the Vampire.
This is when I started laughing. I mean, look, I have a deep and abiding love for the Vampire Chronicles, but those books are just thousands of pages of a white man whining about how hard it is to be so special.
Let’s be fair, it’s various white men.
#notallvampires
that confession is infinitely more embarassing than owning any (or all) of the books in the list dude maybe you should chill
Argh, how infuriating that in 1982 there were still college art history professors saying that shit (who am I kidding, there are still professors saying that today, they just have to say it more quietly now.)
Seriously, Linda Nochlin covered that shit in 1971. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Have_There_Been_…
#allwhitemen I HAVE AN OPINION AND THIS IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I HAVE A PENIS. (Seriously, who is it that tells little boys that they’re opinion is valid at all times, no matter the context or qualifications of the person they are talking to)
I once had the amazing pleasure to be at dinner with one of Irelands biggest Hotelier’s (He owns a chain, he was my bosses father), and the (English) father of my bosses GF; GF’s father takes it upon himself to give business advice to Mr. IrelandsMostSuccessfulBusinessMan about what kind of hotel he should open next. Mr. IMSB didn’t even bother it reply, he literally just said ‘Yeah no.’ Best. Moment. Ever.
On another note: Its not just White Men who become upset when they don’t understand something, all Americans do it too!, as demonstrated by this amazing post about the epitimous ‘Cheeky Nando’s’ http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/going-to-westfi…
(I apologize for the massive generalization of all Americans. Its just funny for the rest of the world when your exclusively inward facing media causes you to miss things. #NotAllYanks)
Inward facing media! It’s exactly the same problem as the books list: if tragic stories of tragic men are the only things you’re exposed to, then it makes perfect, sad sense that you’d be flabergasted that those stories are a) not universal and b) not universally appealing. Ditto Americans in our soft power bubble. Other youths have other youth slang? I am outside of the loop? Harumph, impossible! Every piece of media I have ever consumed tells me otherwise.
I’d follow this up with every counter example to my own shelteredness, but hahahahaha did we not all just learn that lesson. Still, the buzzfeed list gave me a good laugh and a new life goal: raise a child in London into their tween years so that I can say, “Go have a good bants with your friends, not too cheeky though. Watch out for bus wankers! Be home by 10pm!” I suppose children will have moved on by then, but it will probably be good for a solid eye roll at least.
I tried to read that, but the images were slow to load and then the whole page started rapidly jumping up and down on my screen. I think this is a sign that I am too American to get in on this joke.
Oh, this made my day! All my time reading the glossaries in the back of Louise Rennison novels would never have prepared me for a Cheeky Nando’s. I’m still grappling with the concept of double-cool with knobs on. #murica
OMG Louise Rennison. Me and Georgia were totes BFFs for life <3333 But then they made that awful movie and I was sad.
I adore the “cheeky nando’s” meme. I’m American but studied abroad in the UK and ate Nando’s allllll the time, so it’s completely hilarious to me. I also love how befuddled all the Americans are. WE HAVE NANDO’S HERE IN THE USA (not in nearly as many locations, but still).
Only in MD, VA, and DC. Now I’m sad I can’t get Cheeky Nandos 🙁
(It looks pretty good)
I am a weird Brit who has never had Nando’s. Am I missing out? (I am still finding the Cheeky Nando’s thing hilarious, though.)
I just really like that what with all the Internet there’s still a space for local slang that those elsewhere don’t really get. (And names. Calum.)
Calum’s are almost exclusively tossers. Just to warn you.
See, this whole thing confused me, because I hadn’t seen any recent flurries of people demanding to know what ‘cheeky nando’s’ meant, nor had I actually heard of Nando’s, so I didn’t know it had the potential to be cheeky.
Also, I now know, not only what Nando’s is, but that the closest one is still very far away from me. 🙁
I’ll clear this up for anyone who’s still confused (Although personally I prefer when things aren’t explained, makes it funnier) 😉
A Cheeky Nando’s is essentially an unplanned trip to Nando’s. Like, you’re supposed to be studying, or at a lecture, but instead you say Fuck It and go to Nando’s instead. Cheeky anything = doing something (eating or drinking usually) when you’re supposed to be doing something else (Like studying, cleaning, working, anything really)
So a few Cheeky pints on a Wednesday = I should really not be drinking right now.
No, right, I figured it out, I just had to start by finding out what Nando’s was. I had also been unaware that the furor over it was a thing.
OH GOD OH MY GOD I AM WEEPING AND SILENTLY CACKLING AT WORK AT CHEEKY NANDOS.
I’m immensely sad over the southern white rhino’s imminent extinction. Surprised it isn’t getting more mainstream media attention.
It got some air time a few weeks ago – maybe NYT? But one of the mainstream papers covered it.
I am not in a place to post a link, but I assume the majority of us Toast folks are going to have strong reactions to Harry Shearer leaving The Simpsons.
Try and imagine the show without Flanders, Burns or Skinner. I dare you.
Oh expletives the rhino stuff. Extinction makes me sad? Especially rhinos. I love rhinos. I sure hope we can clone them back someday. Hopefully before we start cloning dinosaurs.
Oblivious white men commenting are like a vampire standing in front of a mirror and complaining that it’s defective.
The Guardian piece links to this one, about how politicians signed off their letters to Prince Charles, and it is making me furious. If I ever have reason to write to the Royal Family I am certainly not going to sign myself “Your Royal Highness’s most humble and obedient servant”. They will get a “Yours sincerely” and they will just have to cope.
(Or possibly, depending on my mood, “I am not your fucking servant and I am certainly not humble or obedient”.)
“Regards”
“Yours in struggle”
“Peace out, y’all”.
“Best Wishes”
“Love and kisses”
Nicole and Nikki, thanks for that financial aid article. I am a prof, but I often wind up counseling people I know who are making the transition from community college to a 4-year institution, and when I suggest that they apply to (local big-time private school) because it’s got extremely generous aid packages, they look at me like my head is on fire. Now I can show them this.
I want to have a beer with the author of that last screencapped comment, and I don’t even drink.
Hahaha I knew which sad essay it would be even before I hovered over the text to see the link, now my heart hurts 🙁
So has anyone else been following all the brouhaha about badger culls and TB over the last few years? It’s one of those incredibly divisive topics that seems to lead people practically to blows (rivaled perhaps only by fox hunting).
Oh my god, I never had any feelings regarding either Ariana Grande or Miley Cyrus but then I saw this video of them doing a duet dressed as a mouse and a unicorn and they were flirting all over the place (well, Miley flirted with Ariana, anyway) and my heart kind of melted a little. “You’re the cutest mouse/bear I’ve ever seen…oh sorry, guys, I was flirting.” “Ariana Grande, you’re an angel.” !!
Edit: having a ton of trouble embedding a link for some reason. 🙁 It’s on themuse dot jezebel dot com
OMG Louise Rennison. Me and Georgia were totes BFFs for life <3333 But then they made that awful movie and I was sad.
I'll clear this up for anyone who's still confused (Although personally I prefer when things aren't explained, makes it funnier) 😉
A Cheeky Nando's is essentially an unplanned trip to Nando's. Like, you're supposed to be studying, or at a lecture, but instead you say Fuck It and go to Nando's instead. Cheeky anything = doing something (eating or drinking usually) when you're supposed to be doing something else (Like studying, cleaning, working, anything really)
So a few Cheeky pints on a Wednesday = I should really not be drinking right now.
Calum's are almost exclusively tossers. Just to warn you.