yvfu:
is there any way I can hurt google?
okay I’ll bite, what’s google
no, biting won’t do it
actually, biting random googlers on sight probably would do something
Tags:
#violence cw #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #(we here at Brinens and Things do not endorse biting Google employees) #(it’s unsanitary)
I love when fantasy worlds have some nonsensical magical force that prevents technology from working.
Like… how does the magic determine where technology begins? I mean, a gun is just a little house for tiny explosions to live… what part of that process is interrupted by magic? Does gunpowder simply not combust in Magictopia?
What about the wheel? Bifocals? Condoms? Skateboards? Bicycles? Vaccines? Pyramids? Does a flint-knapped knife not count as technology?
“Shit.”
“What seems to be the matter?” asked the Elf, in that same insufferably airy tone that would have made it a fortune doing voiceovers for shampoo commercials.
Khalil sighed miserably. “Phone’s dead,” he said, scowling at the shimmering city. “Figures. Of course it lets me take a thousand blurry cat pictures and then konks out on me the moment I find something worth photographing.”
The Elf laughed. Khalil suspected it was meant to be a scornful laugh, but his companion had the emotional inflection of an automated voice messaging system, and it lacked punch.
“Foolish human,” said the Elf. “Your ‘phone’ will not work here. No technology functions past the borders of Faerie.”
If Khalil let his eyes unfocus and used his imagination, the expression it wore could almost pass for smugness. “Now hang on,” he said. “That’s a fucking lie. No way is that true.”
“Foolish human, I cannot tell a l—”
“Oh, shut up. You say no technology works here, but you’re clearly wearing some kind of ritzy elf sword. Are you gonna try to tell me that they grow on trees here? Obviously you’ve got smelting and forges and metallurgy. You’re wearing woven fabric, and you stole a bunch of medicine from that pharmacy in Detroit. We rode my bike over that troll bridge and it didn’t stop working.”
“That’s different,” protested the Elf, a shallow groove between it’s eyebrows betraying profound distress. “That’s not technology.”
“It is, though! ‘Technology’ doesn’t just mean guns and electron—”
There was a hand clamped tight over his mouth, smothering him before he had even registered movement. “Hold your tongue before I cut it out of your head,” hissed the Elf in his ear. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
It released him, and Khalil stumbled back, staring wildly. It had moved terrifyingly quickly. No doubt it could make good on its threat if it cared to—six years of boxing and he still had no hope of defending himself against something that could move like that.
“What magic doesn’t know can’t hurt it,” said the Elf in a low and strangely unsteady voice, sounding for the first time like a living being. “Be careful what ideas you give it. Some things seem right, and that’s what matters.”
The Elf must have grabbed him hard, Khalil realized, tasting the tang of blood where his lip had been torn open on his teeth. He swallowed, and stared at the Elf in horror. “Are you telling me,” he said slowly, “That your entire magical system, the physics of your entire world… is based… on vibes?”
The Elf grimaced and did not meet his eyes.
As the Elf’s screams grew louder and more frantic, Khalil’s mind alternated between two distinct but equally insistent convictions: first, that this was the stupidest plan anyone had ever advised in this world or any other; second, that it was going to work.
The part of him that was a twenty-seven year-old peace activist recoiled in disgust even as the ten year-old pirate fanatic vibrated with excitement. If I live through this, he thought, I’ll have to tell my mom that all those hours glued to the History Channel weren’t wasted, after all.
Very gently, he tipped a little of the powder down the barrel of the gun. He had no way of knowing the appropriate amount to use and simply guessed; after all, if his suspicions were correct, it might not matter much in this world.
He pried the moldering leather bag out from under the skeleton’s arm and reached inside. A few dozen lead balls clinked together under his fingers, along with a little bundle of greasy cloth. With trembling fingers, he tore off a square of fabric and wrapped it around one of the bullets. Like a swaddled baby, he thought grimly, and pushed it down the barrel until it was nestled snugly over the gunpowder.
Almost ready, he thought. He dropped a pinch of powder into the flashpan on the top of the gun, flicked the frizzen back into position, and rose to his feet.
“Step away from the Fabio impersonator,” he said, kicking the rotten door off its hinges. “Or I will shoot you with my gun.”
“You have the name of a poet,” said the queen, studying him cooly with pupiless eyes as green and unsettling as a neglected swimming pool. “That is a good thing, Khalil of Ann Arbor. We are fond of poets here.”
The queen was beautiful, but she was not attractive. No, thought Khalil, that’s not right. She was attractive—in the way that the lights of beachside cities attract baby sea turtles away from the surf; attractive in the way that hot stoves attract curious children’s hands; attractive in the way that trays of beer attract garden slugs.
Tags:
#storytime #fun with loopholes #fae
The Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start the Fire is 4:49 long and covers 41 years worth of history. Recorded history began ca. 3000 BC with the invention of writing in ancient Mesopotamia. Therefore a version of We Didn’t Start the Fire which covered all of history at the same pace would be around 590 minutes long.
Or you could reach the first chorus with bad news from the first day of 2020, which also covers 41 years worth of history.
Are you telling me…that the fabled dedicated-to-2020 version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” *existed*…but was *lost*?
I don’t think “spared” is really the right word here, but I don’t want to beat you up over it. In any case, perhaps people will be in a better position to write it after 2020 is over. Hindsight is, after all, 2020.
Tags:
#is what my 2023 self will tell people when they ask her why she owns a P100 respirator #reply via reblog #illness mention #music #history #amnesia cw #please get a cloud sync Nate
So I just had this really weird experience.
This girl was visiting me, and I was washing dishes, and I asked if she could put up the dry ones.
And she had never heard the expression “to put something up”.
She said “you mean put them away?” and I said yeah, thinking she just didn’t hear me well and wanted to confirm. But then she explained that no, she had never heard that expression, only “to put something away”.
The only thing she had heard of with “put up” was “to put someone up”, i.e. host them as a guest.
And I said that I understood “to put something away” perfectly well, but it sounded a bit formal, so I wouldn’t say it normally.
Is this really some kind of Southernism? Or otherwise geographically peculiar?
This girl is a second-generation American, which could also explain it.
it was obvious to me what it meant, but I wouldn’t ever say it in place of “put away” unless there was a specific meaning.
I’m not sure if I’ve actually heard it before or if it just fits into a normal pattern of regionalisms.
If I’d been there in the place of your visitor, we would probably have had exactly the same conversation.
(linguistic context: first fourteen years in northeastern America (South Jersey with significant Massachusetts influence), latter thirteen years in southern Ontario)
I do recognise the “putting up a painting/poster” usage that a couple other people in the notes mentioned, as well as the “putting up supplies of preserved food (usually, but not always, for the winter)” usage that @isaacsapphire mentioned, but I don’t think I would have thought to mention them on short notice.
Tags:
#language #reply via reblog #(yes I’ve almost reached the point of having lived the majority of my life in Canada) #(I have the equal-halves point marked on my calendar)
A man has built Ogo, a hands-free wheelchair for his paraplegic friend (video)
Holy shit this is awesome.
For any wheelchair users following me!
-FemaleWarrior, She/They
every few months I forget about this and then see it again and it is always one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
So this time I looked it up, I wondered how to get one and how much it cost. Turns out it was a bit hard to find, actually, and that’s because it’s no longer called the Ogo, it’s called the Omeo.
They are pretty advanced as a product now, in terms of accessories, color options, etc (they have an off road conversion kit and stuff!). They are kind of expensive, tho not necessarily when compared to other wheel chairs, which cost anywhere from a couple hundred bucks for a shitty one, to like 4k for a high end electric one. An Omeo will cost you just under 2k.
Here is their website, if you want to learn more: https://omeotechnology.com/
(I think weasowl overlooked a 0: it’s more like 20k. https://omeotechnology.com/frequently-asked-questions/ indicates that you can sometimes get healthcare coverage for it, though, particularly in Australia.)
Tags:
#interesting #wheelchairs #the more you know #reply via reblog #(sort of)
No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | O_O | Oh god you don’t even know
Tags:
#computer generated text #oh my god #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #(the ”yes” being bolded really makes it) #(I almost didn’t notice it but it’s a very important part of the post)
So simple yet so effective!
Tags:
#the nosepieces on both of my masks are starting to wear out #a couple weeks ago I started taping them shut with bandaids on this post’s advice #it’s working great and I want everyone to know about this method #illness tw? #covid19 #allergies #the more you know #(I’ve already shared this tip with one receptive-looking customer and she called it ”brilliant”) #(I hope she makes good use of it)
non-confrontational cowboy that wont turn around after the 10 paces
he just breaks into a sprint and nobody has ever been able to hit him because he serpentines so well
“This town ain’t big enough for the two of us”
Non-confrontational cowboy: “SURE AINT!” *sprints away*
Tags:
#relatable #violence cw?
Brinens and Things - Tumblr Mirror 