Gave us a whole other reason to dislike CrossFit.
“1 minute rest in silence”
The UK is fucking mental.
Insane.
Fucking hell lmao.
Holy shit hahaha
(via noandpickles)
Gave us a whole other reason to dislike CrossFit.
“1 minute rest in silence”
The UK is fucking mental.
Insane.
Fucking hell lmao.
Holy shit hahaha
(via noandpickles)
Today’s Adventure is that I, after an unintentional 13-hour power nap,
- Got woken up at 6AM by a phone call from a friend stranded in Montana because of the heat wave and almost no cell service because of their crap provider.
- OhSoThat'sHowIt'sGonnaBe.jpg
- Ok.
- I somehow summon a week’s worth of spoons and in less than 30 minutes and 5 phone calls, get them
- A hotel
- An appointment with a mechanic from 2 states away
- A perscription refilled from 2 states away
- and A Pizza
- Go me.
- But then it’s 8AM and there are unscheduled live humans at the door and while EVERGENCY MODE is still on, I have already blown through a ton of spoons, and also probably shouldn’t meet whoever it is wearing just a pair of bootyshorts that say “CRYPTID” in Gothic Font on my ass.
- So I greet them in those shorts and a T-shirt that I manage to put on both inside out and backwards
- #nailedit
- It is, Fortunately, not the mormons.
- it is, Unfortunately, two UPS guys trying to deliver my other in-house friend’s new phone except the new guy doesn’t know how to operate the “sign for package” device, and the old guy that’s supposed to be mentoring him is like, 92, deaf as a post, and doesn’t actually know how to operate the device either.
- by the way
- it is already
- over 100 out
- it takes almost 30 minutes to sign for the phone
- when i get back inside, i discover that apparently the Corgi has learned how to open his kennel from the inside because he is now out of the kennel and waiting for me to come in.
- he also has cat litter all over his face because while he was waiting for me he also learned how to open the baby gate to the cat’s room and help himself to a cat shit breakfast.
- He’ll be fine
- He’s a cattle dog, they’re legally required to have at least 1 really disgusting snack they love.
- but
- more to the point
- i have no idea at what point he learned to open his kennel from the inside
- has he been staying there out of politeness this whole time??
- And
- I got other shit to do today.
- namely.
- I’m seeing a realator
- The Devils most pathetic yet effective demons
- I get a reminder text that I have an appointment with her
- at least
- I think that’s what it is because what she sends me is:
“🏡⏰12:00 ❔”- With the time typed in the middle like that.
- She is, according to her profile, at least 80.
- so I reply “😎👍”
- and then she sends me a string of GODDAMN POST-MODERN EMOJI HEIROGLYPHICS THAT TAKE UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN.
- She’s on an iPhone so half of them don’t even translate across platforms
- It takes me half an hour and three different software programs and goddamn wingdings to translate, but she has sent me the address and rules about masking and not wearing shoes inside.
- in emoji
- instead of like
- literally any other format
- I am
- FASCINATED
- and simply must meet the woman so if I don’t come back to update I got stolen by the fairies but I’m taking the Corgi with me as protection so I’ll see y'all later.
Update:
- It’s not fairies
- It’s Doris.
- might be about to get a sewing machine and/or start an ACAB riot.
Ok, so:
- I’m going to see a prospective house because due to various circumstances, I’m probably going to be moving to the other side of a major metropolitan area in the next few months, but that’s not important.
- I get to the house
- I get a text from the realtor
- The realtor is not the person who has been texting me in emoji
- The person texting me in emoji is the homeowner, who the realtor says will let me in if I want, she’s running late.
- Sure
- Why not
- I put Herschel on leash and go to the front door
- As much crime as he commits at home Herschel The Hanukkah Goblin has terrific public manners, and is Very Cute so I’m about 90% sure the emoji fairy is going to let me take him through the house
- Door opens.
- 90-something blue haired old lady with a spine like a question mark and glasses that could be used as telescope lenses opens the door.
- “OH [Gallus]! How lovely to see you!”
- This woman clearly knows me because she remembers my anniversary was last week and that my sister is back from Australia.
- Problem is
- I know about 500 geriatric ladies with blue hair, scoliosis and extreme prescription glasses, because I am a member of 2 quilt guilds, the scientific illustration guild, the rocky mountain SCA and stagehand for three different theater companies, so I know everyone’s grandma and fuck me if I can tell them apart.
- Wait
- There’s a quilt in thekitchen, visible front hall
- I don’t know faces but apparently I can recognize applique techniques at 40paces.
- “…Doris? From SAQA?”
- “YES! Who is this handsome little man?”
- Herschel speaks enough English to know that “handsome little man” means “this person will feed me milk bones and bacon if I’m cute enough”
- Immediately does a Sit Pretty and Shake.
- Doris is bewitched
- This is fine, but I also know I’m about to severely disappoint the realtor because there is no way in hell I’m moving into this House.
- Because
- The reason Doris is moving out is that her neighbor is a Cunt Magnifique and has been harassing Doris and everyone else to form an HOA and “improve the quality of our residents” because this woman has nothing better to do than be a racist-ass busy body, and recently, she’s set her husband, a county sheriff on Doris, trying to bully her into signing paperwork and threatening her with legal action and writing her up for bullshit property violations
- Ain’t putting up with that shit
- And neither is Doris, so she’s selling all her shit and moving out to live with her grandchildren in Santa Monica.
- But she’s technologically impaired, so the only indication that there is an estate sale happening is a small paper sign in her front yard.
- “Doris.” I say, as Herschel makes himself comfortable on the couch for belly rubs and pieces of ham. “Did you tell SAQA or FRCC or anyone on Facebook that you’re having the sale?”
- “oh, I don’t know how to do all that!” She sighs. “I tried to call the Denver post but they just put me on hold for ages…”
- “Watch Herschel for 20 minutes and he’s only allowed to have that one piece of ham.”
- Pics of everything
- Address, time and pics to Facebook, both quilt guilds she’s in, two more I have contacts for, nextdoor, and the local SCA discord for good measure.
- It’s 12 minutes and Herschel persuaded her to give him at least three pieces of ham.
- He is petitioning for a fourth by doing a little puppy dance on the living room rug.
- “OK, that’s enough ham, people will be here in 10. Where is your cash box?”
- Because apparently I’m running an estate sale today too.
- It’s fine :)
- There’s about 7 minutes of quiet.
- Then
- They DESCEND
- The first on the scene is DeeDee, who doesn’t believe in speed limits. She’s arrived with a horse trailer. I remember that she is also moving.
- “HI DORIS SWEETHEART WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS TODAY I WAS GOING TO TAKE ALL THIS TO THE GOODWILL HERE LET ME SET UP ON YOUR LAWN ”
- DeeDee is 73, and has a special spiritual bond with Hello Kitty. She weighs like 98lbs, dresses exclusively in neon pink sanrio clothes and the kind of eye makeup drag queens aspire to.
- She also speaks non-stop at a volume normally associated with jet engines.
- Half the horse trailer is already spread out on the lawn.
- Doris is putting price stickers on stuff
- Herschel is trying to tear open a bag of cotton batting.
- This, and the arrival of approximately 56 minivans, five more trucks with horse trailers and Corgi Excitement Screaming alert Cunt Magnifique that something is happening outside.
- Madame saunters off her porch up to Doris and Demands to know what’s happening, you’re supposed to notify the neighborhood and get a permit to-“
- Doris, surrounded by her pack of silver wolves, shouts. "OH HELLO! EVERYONE, THIS IS MARCIA. I’VE TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT MARCIA.” >:)c
… further details in a bit I think the Vikings are here.
~`* SOMEONE’S GETTING FIRED!!*`~
OK so.
- You know those high school house parties you see in movies, where the person invites only a few friends, but those friends call their friends, and those friends call THEIR friends and soon like 500 people show up to one house and someone calls the cops and that one John Mulaney sketch with “SCATTER!” happens?
- Old people will 100% do this too, except instead of a house party it’s an estate sale on a wednesday afternoon and when the cop shows up there are lawyers present and he is in DEEP SHIT because his wife just spent the afternoon admitting to doing a bunch of wildly illegal shit on tape.
- So when we left off, the party had really started getting underway, because Marcia the Cunt Magnifique had decided to crash the estate sale and whine about “we’re supposed to coordinate garage sales as a neighborhood” and “your friends are blocking traffic on this cul-de-sac while nobody is home” weh weh-
- DeeDee is about ready to throw hands but she is nowhere near the most dangerous of the Silver Silver Wolves.
- That’s Dr. Ruth.
- Dr. Ruth turned 99 this year and went paragliding for her birthday
- So you understand just how hard she goes
- Dr. Ruth sort of hobbles over and point-blank asks “So I understand you’ve been trying to start a homeowner’s association?” :3c
- Marcia
- Entirely misunderstanding how much danger she’s in
- Starts enumerating the TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS of trying to start one, because SOME PEOPLE DON’T RESPECT AUTHORITY and all the paperwork and talking to people and she even had to ask HER HUSBAND. A SHERRIF. To go around and hand people stuff to sign.
- Some people, right?
- Dr. Ruth nods. Some people. She agrees.
- You know.
- Her son is a lawyer.
- Why doesn’t she give him a call?
- Marcia, a Moron: Oh that’d be great!
- Dr. Ruth, hobbling back to Doris: “Don’t worry. David will handle this.”
- Meanwhile
- The Friends-Of-Friends and the Friends-Of-Friends-Of-Friends are arriving, lured in because they heard the words “Longarm Sewing Machine” and “Hand-made quilts”
- Various factions present include but are far from limited to:
-Probably Six Quilt Guilds
-The Denver Art League
-The Denver Leather League
-The Vikings
-The Klingons
-The Colorado Wild Game Share
-A Pack of Scientific Illustrators
-A Pack of Assorted Scientists they brought with them
-The Sheep Lesbians
-The Horse Lesbians
-Three Extremely Competent Finnish People (My Scientific Illustration Professor and her sisters) who immediately take over the estate sale and turn it into an auction to maximize profit and keep the taxes in order.- Someone brings two additional Corgi called “Cap” and “Bucky”
- They are Pembroke Corgi, and weigh about 21lbs apiece
- Herschel is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi and weighs 42lbs because he’s hug even for a Cardigan, and is Delighted with his New Minions.
- They worship him as a God and follow him around so every time he sticks his face in something two smaller corgi faces immediately follow, like some kind of adorable cerberus.
- Pelts and meat shares are being traded out of the backs of trucks and vans
- Someone is making bratwurst.
- Intrigued by the Brouhaha, Doris’ neighbors emerge.
- They are also Geriatric and very nervous, because Marcia has been harassing them too.
- They are telling this to the members of these factions that are also lawyers.
- There are at least 5 of them so far and David isn’t even here yet.
- I realize my realtor isn’t even here.
- I decide to text her.
- She is somewhere in the crowd and having a nervous breakdown because She’s SO LATE!!!
- Ma'am.
- It’s 103 out.
- I was just handed a freshly grilled Brat
- Some bitch is incriminating herself on the lawn.
- Nothing scheduled is happening.
- Come sit in the yard and watch the Corgis play on the Palyskool plastic slide set. They’re disassembling it like tiny furry engineers.
- Have a bratwurst.
- One of the Klingons appears, having physically carried my realtor through the crowd, and gently deposits her on the lawn before handing her a Bratwurst.
- Diane, the Realtor, is not much older than I am, and from the preppie swaths of society that has “Never had a dog growing up” and “Didn’t Know People Could Just. Make. Blankets?” and “What is this? It’s like a hot dog but spicy?”
- She is having a LEARNING EXPERIENCE.
- One of the Horse Lesbians comes over and compliments Diane on her Dior handbag.
- Diane thanks her ans compliments the apparently expensive brand scarf she has on. Do you. Know all these people?
- Horse Lesbian explains that she’s part of the SCA,
and what that is,
and that why yes.
Her girlfriend Tasha is an armorer.
Yes like for knights.- More Livestock Lesbians assemble.
- They are pulling off shirts to show off livestock and battle scars, and biceps.
- Diane is LEARNING A LOT TODAY.
- I am just getting everyone’s contact info and making sure Herschel does not consume his weight in bratwurst.
- BWOOP!
- Uh-Oh.
- Marcia’s Husband is here.
- I step out front.
- He has used the siren to largely part the crowd and pull into his driveway but it has closed around him and there is No Escape.
- He starts huffing and puffing about blocked traffic and permits and the like, but this is not his usual Can-Bully-Without-Consequences crowd.
- These are Grandmas.
- Veterans of the 60’s protest front who never let up.
- He’s starting to turn bright red and looks like he’s about to cry and I’ve got my phone out to record whatever Incident is about to occur.
- -And a Mercedes pulls up.
- It’s David.
- Dr. Ruth’s son.
- The Lawyer.
- And I emphasize that The because David is not some mere ambulance chaser.
- David is the guy that the state sends to prosecute Corporate Fraud and Organized Crime and Other State Departments.
- David was part of the team that took down the CO Branch of the KKK.
- David is all of 5'4", very round and a balding little man that looks like the Dictonary Definition of “Nebbish” that moves with such intense confidence and authority that he pretty much has the Pillar Men Theme Blasting behind him at all times.
- So when he and three other lawyers from the state’s office step out of the car
- Mr. Sherrif goes from red to while like color-changing octopus and I am like 50% sure he shit himself.
- Because what he and Marcia have been doing is Very,
Very,
Very,
VERY,
Fucking Illegal.- “mArCiA!” he garbles. “sHuT tHe fUcK uP!”
- Marcia is standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, having spent the last 3 hours recounting to anyone who will listen about the ‘measures she’s had to take’ and now the 5 lawyers that were here are delightedly handing over the paperwork that she had forced on Doris and her Neighbors, and pointing at all the doorbell cameras and witnesses out to the state’s top prosecutor.
- Friends
- I ugly laughed.
- FOUR HOURS LATER:
-Auction wrapped up with a solid $40K to Doris’ name plus pending sales on some of her larger furniture and antiques- Plus whatever David gets in damages from the county sherrif’s office.
- Marcia and husband are fucking busted
- Herschel spent all afternoon running around and eating snacks and is passed out on the floor
- Diane is “meeting up with” one of the Horse Lesbians next week.
- The sewing machine went to someone else but I did open my purse and found out Doris or someone shoved a bunch of cash in there.
- I’m getting ice dream and going to bed.
(via noandpickles)
‘Children as fists! Infants as gestures! Yuck! Pfaugh! I live in the worst of all possible worlds!’
Mercymorn thinks Harrow and Ianthe are too young to be Lyctors, and she complains about this loudly and often. But she is also voicing the core thesis of the series. Children as fists. Infants as gestures. A child conceived, carried and birthed only for her death to serve as a weapon. Two hundred children murdered to create a single heir, one who is never valued for herself, only as a prop to uphold her failing House. Eight pairs of young people sent to Canaan house to do what sixteen others did ten millenia ago, and reduce their very selves, their friendship their trust their love, down to ever so much nuclear fuel. And in the background, thousands and thousands of young people sent out to the frontlines to kill and die in service of a malignant, metastasized empire. Yuck. Pfaugh.
(via noandpickles)
TOP 10 TV SHOW FANDOMS ON AO3 BASED ON NUMBER OF FANWORKS, SINGLE CATEGORY VERSION (2009-2022)
- If you want to see the TV Show bar chart with the multi-category fandom tags included, please check this post.
- To make these bar chart race, all series titles in the TV Show Category on November 29 (or the closest date to it) of every year were copy-pasted from Wayback Machine to Google Sheets, rearranged according to number of fanworks, manually filtered for fandoms belonging in only one category and then inputted to Flourish to turn into a bar chart race.
- Locked fanworks aren’t included in the count because Wayback Machine can’t view those, only Ao3 users can.
- Jossverse was in the top 10 from 2010-2017 (Top 2 in 2010 and 2011). In 2018, it was removed from the TV Show fandom list and works tagged with it show up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) instead so I’ve excluded it from the bar chart.
- Thanks for understanding and hopefully I didn’t mess up anywhere! 🙏
(via dduane)
I cannot fucking believe how much I’m losing my mind right now over soy sauce history. I’ll tell all of you about it after I finish this essay because I need to un-distract myself enough to finish it but what the fuck? What the fuck is going on? I’m losing my fucking mind.
During World War 2 there was a push to industrialize the Japanese soy sauce industry to be better for mass-production. This innovated the chemical fermentation technique and the semichemical fermentation technique utilized by Kikkoman; rather than ferment for four years in gigantic cedar barrels, kioke, instead fermentation takes place for six months or a year in stainless steel barrels which utilize electrolysis to artificially speed up fermentation processes.
During Postwar occupation by Americans, Japan was experiencing massive shortages for the raw materials needed to make soy sauce nationwide, and was forced to rely on exported materials from America to make production. A single American woman named “Ms Appleton” was given total control of apportioning all American soy bean rations to companies, how much, and to who. She had no knowledge of soy sauce, allegedly.
She apparently had so much power over Japanese soy sauce production that she could singlehandedly shape its future by threatening to not give soy beans to any company, family, or factory which did not utilize her specific requirements of semichemical fermentation (reduced from chemical fermentation, since it was that abhorrent). These days, the term soy sauce is distinct from traditional shoyu, and requires distinguishment because of such a radical difference the two products are.
Here’s the problem, folks:
I can find absolutely no evidence that Ms Appleton ever existed. There are no sources about this specific period in Japanese history that I’m able to definitively confirm. All of the sources which reference Ms Appleton are referencing in circles with each other; there is no listed source for any of them. Kikkoman’s official English website is a veritable goldmine of information regarding this piece of history, with an entire 4 size 13 paragraphs. It not only gives me a first name, Blanche, but also tells me she worked for General Headquarters and that her policies and decisions shaped governmental policies heading into the future.
Except any variation of searching for Ms Appleton, Ms Blanche Appleton, and so on gives me absolutely no information about her ever existing. By appending keywords such as Ms Blanche Appleton+soy sauce, or Ms Blanche Appleton+GHQ, we can find the same couple of sources that are circling each other–or, in the case of the latter, only Kikkoman.
But there is NOTHING else. I’m getting pageantry from some minnesotan town; I’m getting world war 2 veteran records and obituaries when trying to follow that route; I’m getting k-12 teachers and a Titanic survivor named Charlotte. There is no fucking evidence of a Blanche Appleton to substantiate these claims.
And this is fucking massive. Because there should be way more information on her if this was the case; she was apparently powerful and influential enough during the occupation that she could singlehandedly enforce whatever arbitrary rules she wanted on the soy sauce industry and they had to comply or else have no product at all. That level of power is fucking insane. Imagine having so much raw influence over Japan that you could order them to completely renovate and change how they produce and make SOY SAUCE, literally one of if not THE most important thing in Japanese culinary history–and yet there’s absolutely zero reference to this outside of like, three specific sites, and none of them have sources, or if they do, they source those sites.
What the fuck is happening here? There shouldn’t be radio silence about this woman. There should be records of her policies, there should be legal documents in America which record how she apportioned out American exportation of soy beans to Japan, there should be sources talking about this woman’s ability to transform Japan’s soy sauce production so heavily that today only 1% of all soy sauce is made with pre-WW2 traditional techniques.
So if she’s that big a deal then why does she not exist?
I feel like I’m losing it. I can’t think about this too hard because it gives me a headache trying to comprehend any possible answer. There is so many levels to how this shouldn’t be happening that I can’t settle on just one. I don’t understand how some foreigner American could have an iron fist over soy beans so hard that she could apparently influence national policy heading into 2022 but I can only find a first name on the Kikkoman website.
I literally just sent in a Freedom of Information Act request to the national archives asking for any records of a Ms Blanche Appleton, her reports, census information, anything. I can’t believe that I’m having to use FOIA to try and ask the government to prove a woman existed because she was that big of a deal in SCAP/GHQ.
This is a translated page of Kikkoman’s .co.jp website, with an apparent picture of Ms Appleton.
But this says that she has an apparent good knowledge of soy sauce brewing–directly contradictory to the Kikkoman.com claim that she had “no experience”. And it also claims she was in charge of GHQ, which I’m going to assume is a mistranslation, but still.
Major General Murcutt doesn’t exist. Douglas MacArthur was appointed head of GHQ/SCAP during the occupation of Japan. This now just has more questions. How did this woman become so important to GHQ that she could directly speak with a Major General? Any level of power or public view she SHOULD have isn’t here. You don’t just get to be colleagues of a Major Damn General in Post World War 2 Japan. That isn’t given to any random housewife.
I just emailed a shoyu brewer family, Yamaroku, about this. The Yamaroku brewery was established 400 years ago; if the company/family were affected during the 1950 import rations and under the thumb of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, they’d have records and memory of Blanche Appleton or what it was like during that period as a brewery.
I am at the point where I am genuinely considering the possibility of Blanche Appleton never having existed. There is the chance that Kikkoman invented an ‘ambassador’-type person with high influence in the General Headquarters during the occupation to grant itself apparent influence/validity/power above the rest of the competition. “The woman who controls all soy materials coming into Japan visited our main factory and said she liked us :)”.
It’s incredibly fitting that my first act of serious investigative journalism is about soy sauce. Like, I’m a little annoyed at how on brand this is for me. Of course I’m overly invested in this weird little nitpick about soy sauce. Of course I’m making this the government’s problem.
Of course.
It’s currently 12:14AM. I have just learned that a private individual submitted a research query to the Japanese National Diet Library in 2008 regarding any information or proof of Blanche Appleton in relation to soy sauce production.
This information was told to me by a follower of mine–who asked to be anonymous. So right now we have evidence that Japan as an entity cannot find evidence of Blanche Appleton ever existing within relation to soy sauce production. And I can’t find evidence of Blanche Appleton existing in obituary records, nor any publicly available birth/deaths.
Right now there seems to be more and more evidence that Miss Blanche Appleton was a complete invention of the Kikkoman Company possibly dating back nearly a hundred years. But why?
If nothing comes back from my Freedom of Information Act request, I’m going to be contacting Kikkoman directly. I’m not going to just let this slide. People have been noticing this since at least 2008. Who is Miss Blanche Appleton? Why would she be faked by Kikkoman? What’s the point of this lie, and if it’s the truth, if she was real, why can’t I find any proof of that?
Who is Blanche Appleton?
Why is everything starting to point towards yakuza/organized crime Kikkoman origin story and why am I researching zaibatsu breakups of the GHQ and where assets from various clans got sent to.
[image: Tumblr tag: #dont dig too deep op]
.
keep digging, please, this is fascinating and disturbing
(via seananmcguire)
THE BATS ARE DOING CALCULUS
I REPEAT: THE BATS ARE DOING CALCULUS
THE BATS CAN ONLY DO CALCULUS IN ONE DIRECTION
(via dduane)
This is stupid but HOW did Gideon learn the “jack-off” motion? I’m trying to imagine her life on the Ninth House; just her, Harrow and a bunch of ancient and devout nuns. Most people on the ninth avoided Gideon. WHO would do it so young Gideon would parrot it? Aiglamene? Crux? ORTUS NIGENAD in a fit of personality?
My absolute favorite thing about Gideon’s dirty gestures is that they’re so associated with Gideon in Harrow’s mind that just watching someone else do a jack-off motion triggers Harrow’s lobotomy headache
(via megparsec)
I hope there’s an afterlife so that whoever made this pot 2,000 years ago can brag that their cookware is so good it’s still usable literally millennia later. Something about this object being lost for centuries and then rediscovered, and being put (successfully) to its original purpose again is so pleasing to me.
Some Uzbek digging a canal: “Oh fuck yes a free pot. This rules.”
(via telesilla)
“you asked me to come and i came. i understand you didn’t ask on purpose but i like to think that there was a grain in your soul that saw yourself in need and perhaps thought to itself ‘i wish i had abigail pent’.”
honestly, I often think to myself I wish I had abigail pent
On all levels except physical, I am reading an AU of GTN where this is no [REDACTED] and everyone instead just gets to hang out with each other and talk about how weird their respective houses are.