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It’s only supernatural if Sam and Dean show up, otherwise it’s just sparkling paranormal.

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Since modern iPhones have adopted a new connector standard, they now fall under the protection of the patron saint of adapters, St. Francis of USB-C.

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All There Is: The Music of the McKittrick Hotel

Whenever she’s had a few too many, Rebecca is quick to remind me “Al Jolson is greater than Jesus,” and I don’t disagree. She knows I have an acute sensitivity to music and, between the two of us, we have a formidable collection of records in our library.  

And because we are slaves, body and soul, to our hunger for all things McKittrick, our collection has come to include every piece of music played inside the hotel that we have been able to identify. We’d thought we’d take this opportunity to share this part of our collection with you.

What follows is an exhaustive list of all the incidental music that appears in Sleep No More, including notes as to the major action that accompanies each piece of music and, where applicable, very cursory analysis.

Before we go on, I would like you to please note a few things:

While we are confident that we have been able to accurately identify the pieces mentioned herein (as well as accurately noted their accompanying events), we cannot be absolutely sure that this list is exhaustive. So, if you feel as though we’ve missed one, please let us know!

I have neglected to include the few ambient pieces featured on the show (e.g. the low hum that rumbles through the labyrinth on the fifth floor; the low, two-note figure, that scores the first confrontation between Agnes and the Porter, itself most likely derived from a figure in the score to Vertigo; the twinkly, record-scratched music box piece that plays in the Macduffs’ apartment on a loop during quiet moments; etc.). This is for two reasons. Firstly, whereas I have identified with confidence the pieces listed herein, I cannot say the same for the ambient works, which are all but unrecognizable as heard in the show. Secondly, despite the fact that all the ambient pieces can be safely said to be original compositions arranged by the sound designers themselves, they are most likely derivative works (i.e. heavy distortions of brief samples of the music cited below—particularly the Bernard Herrmann scores), and therefore already are covered in some form herein.

With that in mind, let’s get on with it.

Keep reading

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if you’re gonna introduce me to something new you have to defeat my 7 evil ex hyperfixations

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“For the love of God, Montresor!"

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In the midst of all these “Humans will packbond with anything” posts, I’m going to pause and give you some actual, real-world career advice

Ready?  Humans are packbondy creatures.  I mean, there’s just no arguing it.  They packbond readily, and quickly, and unbelievably strongly.  Once a human has packbonded with a thing, they will do anything to help and protect that thing.  

There’s a downside to that, not often mentioned.  It uses up a lot of their time and energy to build those packbonds, maintain those packbonds, and most especially to do the work of helping and protecting those with whom they have packbonded.  It doesn’t leave them a lot of time and energy for helping other beings.  If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first. “Yeah? So?” So you’re probably going to be working with humans for most, if not all, of your career.  No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there will come a time when you need someone else in your workspace to help you with something, whether that’s manning the fry station for 2 minutes while you pee, sending over those numbers from marketing, or dropping everything to teach you how to do a thing that your boss told you to do or else you’d be fired.   Not to mention the big things.  They don’t give promotions to just their friends – at least not so much any more. Promotions go to the people who’ve completed big, visible, important projects.  It seems fair until you consider,,,, who gets the big, important, visible projects assigned to them in the first place?   Humans give boosts to the people they’ve packbonded with.  They mention packbondee’s accomplishments to the boss (or the boss’ boss).  They cover for the mistakes of people they’ve packbonded with.  

“That’s not right! It shouldn’t be a popularity contest! It should be about who does the best –”  Listen to me.  Listen.

You may be right.  You may be the most correct creature to have ever spoken since the beginning of galactic civilization.  It does not matter Humans packbond. It’s what they do. I can’t stop it. You can’t stop it.  No power in the ‘verse can stop it. This is how the human do. All you can do is work with it.  If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first. “Look, I’m introverted and scared of people and I have social anxiety so I really don’t know how to –” Hey, my pal, I feel you.  I, too, am introverted. And I have social anxiety. And I have PTSD that actually – and I recognize that this is bizarre – has ‘business networking’ as a trigger.   For you, I have good news: Humans will packbond with anything.   Like, you don’t really actually have to do anything. You kinda just have to… exist. In their presence. They kinda do the rest.   If you can talk with them, that speeds things up.  But it doesn’t have to be, like, good conversation. Like, it can totally go You: boy, sure is hot out! Human: Man oh man, can you believe it? You: Wow, yeah Human: Totally You: …. Human: ….

This conversation – as awkward and uncomfortable as it felt to you, has caused this human to packbond with you a little more. If you repeat it weekly, you will get good results. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

You need to packbond with the humans you come in contact with

Taking time to do that is not only justifiable, it is an important part of your job, and should be treated as such

That is to say that, as much as you hate it (and believe me, I understand), you have to take time away from actual work and dedicate it to packbonding with your fellow workers

Tips

Plan out your packbonding time. It’s easier if you can initiate than if a human springs packbonding-time on you all unexpected.  In an office job I like to use Friday afternoon, but adjust according to what makes sense to you and your situation.

Keep some packbonding-time questions handy.  My go-to list is:

(If it’s Monday or Tuesday) How was your weekend?

(If it’s Wednesday) How’s your week been so far?

(If it’s Thursday or Friday) Any big plans for the weekend?

How’s your day been?

You don’t have to care about the answers to these questions. All you have to do is remember that if the human is answering questions, they are not asking you any questions.  Therefore questions are your friend.  If you ask follow-up questions, you may be able to get through the entire packbonding time without having to do any of the talking

Learn to disengage from packbonding.  You can use basically the same sentence (or variants on it), but you’ll want to practice it so that you can make it sound natural.  I use “Awesome! Well, I gotta get going. Have a good one!”

I know it feels overwhelming, but a few minutes of packbonding, once a week, is all you need.  Once you build it into your habits it can be no more annoying than doing dishes or showering.  

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Moon Landing

Thanks to China, men will no longer be as mysterious as the dark side of the moon.

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December 26th is also Saint Stephen’s Day, also called the Feast of Stephen (a la “Good King Wenceslas”).

In the tradition of Christmas Adam, I declare today Christmas Steve.

Happy Christmas Steve, everyone! 🎄🌈

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Brienne impressed by fierce little girls from the North

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Reblogged and saving for later.

Is there any anti-abortion talking point that isn’t based on a lie?

As I’ve investigated both sides of the abortion debate, I’ve become honestly curious to discover if there is any anti-abortion argument that isn’t based on a lie (or lies). I’m going through the most popular current US anti-abortion talking points and giving each a Politifact-esque truth rating. Let’s investigate! 1. Fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks.

In this New York Times piece covering the issue of fetal pain, the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that fetuses are not capable of feeling pain before 24 weeks. The few scientists who speculate that fetuses might feel pain before 24 weeks point out that they “did not think their work or current evidence provided scientific support for fetal-pain laws.”

Truth-o-meter: False 2. Margaret Sanger secretly wanted to “exterminate the Negro population.”

Quotes by Margaret Sanger implying she wanted to exterminate black people are either taken out of context or are fabricated altogether. For example, in a letter to Clarence Gamble, she wrote, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” In the full context from the letter, she was acknowledging the probability that opponents of birth control would try to paint her as wanting to exterminate black people–exactly what opponents of safe access to birth control still do to this today. Washington Post, Politifact, and FactCheck.org have all done fact checks that come to the same conclusion that this accusation is wildly false.

Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire

3. 75-79% of abortion clinics in the US are in neighborhoods with a majority black population.

The three fact checks cited above also cover this ground, but here is the Guttmacher article showing that 6% of US abortion providers are located in majority-black neighborhoods. The toomanyaborted.com page claims that Guttmacher claims that “only 9% of abortion clinics are located in urban neighborhoods,” which means they are lying about Guttmacher lying in order to perpetuate their lie. It’s a lie within a lie.

Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire

4. We say that a person is dead when their heart stops beating. On the contrary, medical professionals will declare a person “really dead” if they are brain dead. Brain death is recognized as legal death in the United States, even if the heart is still beating.

Truth-o-mether: False

5. A “radical feminist” aborted a fetus because it was male. Anti-abortionists believed a ridiculous story on the Internet because it gave them an anti-feminist boner.

Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire

6. Abortion causes breast cancer.

Major medical studies (including one by the National Cancer Institute) show that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer.

Truth-o-meter: False

7. Abortion causes infertility.

There is no link between medical abortion and future infertility.

Truth-o-meter: False

8. Abortion causes depression and “post-abortion syndrome.”

Neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the American Psychological Association recognizes the existence of “post-abortion syndrome”, and an American Psychological Association review found that “abortion is usually psychologically benign.”

Truth-o-meter: Mostly False

9. The birth control pill is an abortifacient.

Major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, disagree. The birth control pill’s primary method of controlling birth is suppressing ovulation, with a backup of preventing implantation in the uterus. Maybe you think every fertilized egg flushed out before implantation is an abortion; in that case, you should definitely be taking the birth control pill, as many, many more zygotes are lost in “natural” sex than sex on the pill.

Truth-o-meter: False

10. The IUD is an abortifacient.

IUDs work primarily to prevent fertilization by thickening the cervical mucus so that sperm can’t reach the egg or incapacitating the sperm before they reach the oviduct.

Truth-o-meter: False

11. Condoms don’t work.

Condoms fail about 18% of the time when they are used incorrectly or inconsistently and fail only 2% of the time when worn correctly and consistently.

Truth-o-meter: False

12. Surgical abortion is very dangerous and is more likely to kill the pregnant person than childbirth.

You should be able to intuitively conclude that this is not true, but if you want a citation, this study shows that the risk of death is 14 times greater in childbirth than in medical abortion.

Truth-o-meter: False

13. Crisis pregnancy centers are legitimate clinics that give scientifically sound information about abortion, which is why employees wear lab coats and are trained in reading ultrasounds.

Crisis pregnancy centers are actually run by volunteers from local Christian churches. These volunteers are almost always not trained in any medical profession, including sonography, which might explain why one center told a woman her IUD was a baby. However, volunteers will frequently wear lab coats and give “intake” paperwork in an attempt to fool clients into thinking they are trained medical professionals. They are well-known for giving out false medical information, including that abortion causes breast cancer, infertility, “post-abortion syndrome,” and child abuse, or that abortion is much more dangerous than childbirth, or that birth control pills are abortifacients, or that condoms don’t work, and the list goes on …

Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire

14. The focal point of the abortion debate is whether or not a fetus is living.

The focal point of the abortion debate is whether or not pregnant people have the right to bodily autonomy, meaning the right to govern what happens to their own body. You’re welcome to your own personal opinion on when a human being’s life begins, but it’s irrelevant.

Truth-o-meter: False

15. Banning abortion stops abortion.

Multiple comprehensive worldwide studies by the World Health Organization concluded that countries where abortion is illegal have no lower rates of abortion than countries where it is legal. They do have significantly higher rates of unsafe abortions, however.

Truth-o-meter: False

Bonus: Abortion is reversible.

I don’t really know what to say about this one, except that if you believe this, please fill out this short survey for me:

Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire

Mostly False: 1

False: 10

Pants on Fire: 5

Conclusion

A wise person once said, “If your point of view requires you to lie through your teeth to get other people on board, maybe it’s time you rethink your point of view.” Pro-life defenders would do well to take this advice to heart. I became pro-choice in part because I was tired of finding out that every pro-life talking point I had ever heard was based on a lie.

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This is why I engage in the comments on Facebook. People shouldn't see this crap unopposed.

one thing I don’t think people realize is that in arguments about human rights, it’s not about trying to persuade the other party. it’s not about them at all. they’ve already made up their mind.

it’s about persuading the audience.

if I call out my teacher on being homophobic I’m not trying to change his opinion. I’m trying to convince any closeted kids in the room that they’re not the monsters he’s made them out to be.

if I argue with my aunt about how racist she’s being it’s not because I expect to change her mind. it’s because I’m hoping to god my cousin’s kids hear and learn that maybe skin color doesn’t mean what she says it means.

people will try to hush you and say “they’re not going to change their minds, don’t bother” but it’s not about them. it was never about them.

[swashbucklr]

What comes after, “No, you move.”

In recent years, a quote from Captain America (written by John Michael Straczynski) has become popular. It was popular at first because it embodied a specific sense of the hero as a man. Now it’s becoming popular because it has suddenly turned important in this day and age, and that’s terrifying. 

Here’s the quote:

“Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world – “’No, YOU move.’”

I know a lot of people who love to quote that, who have pictures of it on their facebook wall, who proudly call themselves fans of Cap. Good on them, be a fan however you want to be. 

But before you start lecturing me on how punching a fascist is wrong, please consider the following: What happens after Cap says “No, YOU move” to the person he’s standing up to?

Kumbayas? Hugs? A montage where the bigot cries a tear and changes his mind? The swelling of orchestral music as the whole middle America small town moves to stand with Captain America and the fascist shamefully hangs his head and walks away?

He’s saying “No, YOU move” because he’s not going to be the one to give in. And planting yourself like a tree beside the river of truth does not mean standing there and politely asking the fascists to stop being mean. It means you fight for the position you’re holding. It means you dig your heels in and you don’t move. 

If you quote Captain America and you love that line, please consider for a moment that what comes next isn’t a happy acceptance and end to all bigotry. It’s usually Cap punching a Nazi in the face.

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you antifa guys are actually more hateful and violent than any neo nazi group in the 21st century. its fucking disgusting and you should be branded as terrorists just as much as the KKK

We’d usually just block you, Anon, but we’re going to use your message as a reminder of where the violence is coming from in 2017.  Off the top of our heads, here’s what the year has looked like so far:January 20, 2017: A right-wing extremist shoots a protestor at a Milo Yiannopoulos event at the University of Washington. January 29, 2017: Alexandre Bissonnette walks into a mosque in Canada during evening prayers and opens fire, shooting 17 people and killing six of them.

January 2017: Over 40 Jewish centers in the U.S. receive bomb threats. February 22, 2017: Adam Purinton tells two men from India to “get out of my country” then shoots both plus a bystander, killing one.February 28, 2017: a mosque in Toronto is set on fire by arsonists.March 12, 2017: a mosque in Ypsilanti, MI. is set on fire by arsonists.March 20, 2017: James Jackson arrives in Manhattan with a sword and stabs the first black man he sees to death.  He later tells authorities he “intended to kill as many black men as he could.”March 24, 2017: Yelling “I hate Muslims!” a man in Minneapolis stabbed a Somali man in an attempt to kill him.  March 26, 2017: A racist mob attacks a 15-year-old Polish boy in Gloucestershire and, when a local Asian shopkeeper tries to intervene, attack him as well with crowbars and baseball bats, then attempt to run him over with a car.March 31, 2017: A 17-year-old Iranian/Kurdish boy is nearly beaten to death by a mob of eight people in Croydon after he revealed to them that he was a refugee.April 6, 2017: A Charlotte store is set on fire by an arsonist who leaves a warning message for the shop owner that he “did not want any refugee business owners and that they would torture the owner if they did not leave and go back to where they came from,” according to police.  It was signed “White America.”MAY 5TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

April 30, 2017: A  white man storms a pool party in San Diego and shoots four black women, two black men, and one Latino man while allowing white attendees to leave.  One victim dies while the other six sustain critical injuries.

MAY 10TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:May 5, 2017: A man walking his dog on South Beach in Miami is confronted by two men who call him a “fucking faggot,” then attack him, beating him unconscious.  At one point in the attack, one of the attackers shouts “all faggots need to die and we’re going to make sure they do!”MAY 18TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:May 14, 2017: Vandals spray-paint hate graffiti on the home of a black family in upstate New York before attempting to set the house on fire while the family slept.  Although the family escaped unscathed, their garage burnt to the ground and their house suffered some damage.May 17, 2017: A homophobic mob break into the home of a gay couple and shoot and stab both men to death.  MAY 23RD: EDITED TO INCLUDE:May 20, 2017: University of Maryland student and member of the “alt-Reich” facebook group Sean Urbanski walks up to 22-year-old Richard Collins III, who is black and who Urbanski does not know, and stabs him to death in an unprovoked attack. May 27th: EDITED TO INCLUDE:May 24, 2017: A barrage of doxxing, rape threats, and death threats received by trans comic book artist Sophie Labelle forces her to cancel an appearance and event at a Halifax book store, which also received bomb threats and threats of attacking the event.  Labelle is forced into hiding.May 26, 2017: Three men intervene on a MAX train in Portland when they witness another man verbally abusing two Muslim women with an Islamophobic tirade.  The Islamophobe responds by pulling out a knife and stabs the three interveners, killing two of them.  

MAY 30th: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

May 27, 2017: A white man drives his pickup truck through a campsite, targeting the Native Americans camping there while yelling racial slurs at them.  He intentionally drives over two Native American men, killing one and injuring the other.June 3rd: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

March 3, 2017: A Sikh man is shot and injured in front of his Seattle house by a white man waring a mask, who yells at him to “go back to your country!”May 27, 2017: A 34-year-old Anthony Hammond lets loose with a flurry of racial slurs directed at a black man in a parking lot, then pulls out a machete and stabs the man before barricading himself in his apartment for several hours, until finally surrendering to police.

JUNE 13th: EDITED TO INCLUDE:January 1, 2017: 19-year-old Nathan Richardson encounters 67-year-old jogger Wenqing Xu and beats him to death in an unprovoked, random attack.  After committing the murder, Richardson texted his friends that he “fucked sum chink up. Bodied him. I think pure crime scene – his head’s gone,”JUNE 19TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:June 18, 2017: two men armed with baseball bats attack a group of Muslim teenagers, kidnapping a 17-year-old girl, who they beat to death, dumping her body in a pond.

June 1, 2017: A Princeton professor and racialized woman is forced to cancel a three-city lecture tour to promote her book about the Black Lives Matter movement after receiving over 50 death threats.June 19, 2017: Shouting “I’m going to kill all Muslims!” 47-year-old Darren Osborne drives a courier van through a crowd of Muslims leaving a Finsbury mosque, killing one person and injuring ten others.

JULY 4TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:January 28, 2017: a First Nations woman walking with her sister is struck by a trailer hitch hurled from a passing vehicle.  After struggling in hospital for several months, she succumbs to her injuries.  June 21, 2017:  an Islamophobe approaches a Muslim man and woman sitting in a car stopped at a traffic light and knocks on the window.  When the driver rolls down the window, the Islamophobe sprays the driver and passenger with acid, severely burning both.  JULY 16TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:February 21, 2017: a 24-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Chicago, IL. February 26, 2017: a transgender woman is shot and killed in New Orleans, LA.March 1, 2017: a transgender woman is stabbed to death in New Orleans, LA. March 22, 2017: a 38-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Baltimore, MD.April 21, 2017: a 28-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Miami, FL. May 17, 2017: a 34-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Fresno, CA.July 2, 2017:  a 28-year-old transgender woman is shot and killed in Lynchburg, VA. JULY 25TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:

June 3, 2017: 38-year-old white supremacist Phillip Wade racially abuses a 57-year-old black man on an Oakley, CA. bus, then pulls a knife and stabs the man to death while the man is walking away from the confrontation.  The victim is the third racialized person Wade has stabbed in the past six years and the second person he’s murdered.  July 16, 2017: A man attempts to pull the hijab off of a Muslim woman waiting for the tube in London, then hits her when she resists.  He then pins her friend to the wall and spits in her face before leaving.  July 16, 2017: Arsonists set a mosque in Manchester ablaze. July 18, 2017: A NASA researcher of South Asian descent has her car windshield shattered by a rock thrown through it by an assailant screaming “go back to your country!”  She’s injured in the attack.AUGUST 2ND: EDITED TO INCLUDE:July 19, 2017: Two men exit a car and attack a racialized pedestrian with their fists and an iron bar.  AUGUST 7TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:August 5, 2017: A mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota is firebombed, narrowly missing killing & injuring dozens of members there for morning prayers. AUGUST 10TH: EDITED TO INCLUDE:August 8, 2017: A well-known Chicago neo-nazi starts an altercation at a concert, then pulls out a smuggled knife and stabs a man and a woman at the show.AUGUST 12TH: EDITED TO INCLUDED:August 12, 2017:  A white supremacist in Charlottesville, VA. drives his car at high speed directly into a crowd of anti-racist protestors, killing one woman and seriously injured 19 other people.

In case you have trouble counting, Anon, that’s three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve shootings, three four five six arsons, two three four seven eight nine ten eleven stabbings, two three four five mob beatings, over 40 41 bomb threats and an acid attack by bigots, Islamophobes, nazis and racists so far this year.  Eight Nine Eleven Twelve Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six Twenty-seven Twenty-Eight people are dead because of these bigoted attacks and fifteen twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-five thirty-five thirty-seven thirty-nine fifty-eight were severely injured.  But it’s anti-fascists that people should be worried about, right?“you should be branded as terrorists just as much as the KKK“ 

Really, now?  Anti-fascists are as much terrorists as the KKK, a terrorist organization which murdered over 3000 people in lynchings, arsons, bombings, etc. over its 150-year history, are we? 

Maybe it’s time you learned about the logical fallacy of false equivalence, Anon!  

[swashbucklr]

Hi friends. This is our new comics TEST. This one means a lot to us and we really hope you like it.

We put out a digital comic book today containing our stories TEST, ARK, and MIDNIGHT RADIO. It’s hi res, DRM free and pay what you want. You can download it at: Gum.co/theworld

If you would like to support us creating more stories like these, please consider buying a copy. If you can’t, no worries. Please download and enjoy the book!

Written by Ehud Lavski. Art by Yael Nathan. Contact: elavski@gmail.com

[swashbucklr]

Millennials use 100% of their kills.

Millennials use 100% of their kills. After the fatal spear thrust, Applebee’s gets turned to housing and felled diamonds pay student loans.

Arrows fly, and Buffalo Wild Wings falls on the Great Plains of the American strip mall. Like the majestic animals for which they are named, the restaurant will provide great bounty for the millennial tribe. The hunters move in, and strip the giant TVs from the carcass. Once they showed nonstop sports, but now they will be used to stream Khan Academy for the young who cannot afford college.

Like a pack of wolves, the millennials are thinning the herds of beers, so that only the strong and craftiest of beers survive. The weak are cut down by the knives of the millennial hunters, and the old, watery swills give way to death while the younger, more virile beers go on to spawn new breweries in the future.

Millennials are killing, doing their part in the great circle of life.

[swashbucklr]

Hold My Beer, Nantucket

There once was a man from Nantucket Whose philosophy was described as, "Eh, fuck it." "Would you be a dear, And hold on to my beer." Then he walked up to a bear and he struck it.

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