catatonicdreamer

[catatonicdreamer]

i learned about a stupid looking bird today and i cant stop laughing

its called a crested satinbird (cnemophilus macgregorii)

[catatonicdreamer]

Trump limits National Guard assignments to 29 days at a time to keep the called up service members from getting healthcare and housing benefits while on duty. And the NG troops are catching on.

Stereotypical Trump. Don't give those losers and suckers an extra dime.

[catatonicdreamer]

Sabía que piedra ganaba siempre

[catatonicdreamer]

trans unity

[catatonicdreamer]

you wanted the Behr paint rant, @say-duhnellee and I hate those fuckers.

So first, you gotta understand that all paint has three necessary ingredients. Pigment - the part that makes it a color; Binder - the part that makes it stick to stuff; Solvent - the part that makes it liquid/not a solid

Pigment is the most important part for this rant. And the most expensive part in almost any paint. There are pigments that are very opaque by default, and pigments that are very translucent. The most expensive, and tbh, gorgeous, colors are single transparent pigments. Alizarin crimson and quinacridone and the pthalos, for instance. So, when you buy a student grade tube of quinacridone violet paint, it has (making it up) 15% pigment by volume. And when you buy an artist grade tube of the same color, from the same company, it has 50% pigment by volume. That means the color is richer, covers better, extends farther. It's just superior in every way. Here's winsor newton heavy body acrylics in their professional line and their student line. The stripes are Heavy application, single streak, and mixed with white.

It's why student paints either take a ton of layers to get full coverage, or the colors are weaker, there's just not enough pigment in there to be opaque or to overpower an opaque you mix it into

Even something cheaper and easier like a raw sienna shows it

Or, Mars Black, which is consistently opaque, but you can still seen the weakness in the pigmentation when you cut it into white

But Strife! you're saying! that's artist paint, not house paint. I know, but you needed the primer and you asked for the rant.

One of the preferred paints used by scenic artists, aka, halfway between fine art and house paint, is Rosco Off Broadway, it has a ton of pigment in it. It's gorgeous, pure pigments. You can extend it crazy far.

A gallon of Fire-red is 100$ :)

I'm using red as the example because red is notoriously hard to get opaque in a pure hue. You can get opaque earthy reds, or if you skew towards orange to get more opaque, but true reds are hard. Its why that barn red color you can imagine? That's pretty neutralized, it isn't a true deep tone.

But in house painting, one of the things they like to market is how quickly it covers, right? 'one coat coverage' shows up a lot. And next to it is a price tag for like, 60 bucks. The upsell for why you should get that one, and not the 30/gal option is that Oh! You''d need multiple coats with that one, so this is actually cheaper overall! That's not untrue.

But there's always a little asterisk next to the One Coat Coverage. It has to be in one of the colors they have on cards for their brand, and for that exact type of paint. None of this scan to match stuff. And the colors available are all fairly neutralized. You're not getting a Behr Dynasty can of fire red.

Look at this shit:

Those are the ones they show as being one coat. They can do other colors, but it won't be one coat.

For instance, here's the 'purest' options of those same colors

Those are 1, not going to be One Coat, and 2, are not actually going to look like they do on your screen. They'll be duller.

However. All that is just business sense, right? The people want one coat, they offer one coat things, and they cover their ass on not claiming a purer tone will do that too. Business.

So. Why was I talking about plumbing?

There are three necessary parts of Paint.

Pigment. Binder. Solvent.

But pigment is the only thing in there that would make it opaque. And pigment is expensive. Thus.

Filler.

Sometimes called 'solids' sometimes lamp shaded as 'additives to prevent mold/stain/whatever' but still. It's extra stuff they tossed in there so the paint has better coverage in a single coat. It fucks up the color saturation, which is why those guaranteed ones are all so fucking dull, but yes. it does make for better coverage. As you go to their cheaper brands, they use the same amount of pigment, but there's less filler, which is why it takes multiple coats, but, you can get more intense colors from it.

hOwEvEr

You, random person painting a room, wash up after you paint, right? You wash your hands, the brushes, the tray, the roller cover (btw don't bother doing that ever, just your hands) And that washes the excess paint down the drain. And yeah, yeah, you know its not great, so if you have a wash room, or a work sink in the garage you use that instead.

You know what we have in full scene shops?

A Paint Trap.

Same principal as a grease trap. It's a bonus section that lts the water from the sink that you're unnecessarily scrubbing a roller cover in flow down into. The outlet is up higher, so the water and solids can separate, and the water that flows out is cleaner. You have to occassionally open up the trap, which will smell like death, and scoop all the accumulated gunk out of the bottom and properly dispose of it. It sucks, it can clog, I've cleaned these dozens of times, it never gets better, but I still throw a tantrum if there isn't one installed. This is actually a picture of a grease trap, but its the same system

Your house doesn't have that. Your apartment building? the initial pipes bringing water to the sewer? they don't have that. Depending where you live and how you dump paint water, there might be nothing like a paint trap between you and the ocean/river/drinking water.

Now, this is true of basically all house paint, I'll admit. After they got rid of VOCs and started bragging about opacity, everyone does some version of this.

Behr is the worst offender. (I have not directly checked if they're using exactly the thing I'm about to describe, but they did for a decade)

When you buy paint, you choose the type, you give them the paint swatch, and you may have noticed they grab different gallons for different colors. White, deep base, medium base, etc. Those are saying how much pre-added Dark Opaque Stuff is in the gallon before they add the tint (that's the color goo the machine squirts into the gallon, its made of just pigment and solvent and if it gets on your clothes, just throw them out bc it will stain everything forever)

You know what's a really good, solid, opaque thing that is naturally available in different neutral colors, is cheap, and is already made of very very fine particles

Fucking Clay.

Clay.

They use goddamn fucking clay as filler in their goddamn paint that is specifically marketed to DIY folk who don't know shit about paint. They literally have you washing clay down your goddamn sink, and since most DIY folk are idiots, I have watched folk straight up pour the rest of the gallon down a house sink. At best, they're cleaning things in a bucket, and then dumping the bucket in the sink. That's clay. You're pouring clay down your sink.

You don't have a paint trap. You have an S trap or a P trap under your sink, neither of which can stand up to that kind of bullshit. Look at these poor babies, they can't handle this

And then they have the aboslute nerve to act like its this decadant goddamn product and you should feel so luxuruious about it. They are out here convincing people that all the actual stylish colors are neutral, they aren't those gaudy intense colors, how gauche. Cause then, you're cool with it being the ugly ass neutral fucking green bc you want to be stylish, so you think hey, i'll buy the expensive paint. But also, you're a DIY guy so you're an idiot, and probably have to do multiple coats anyway, so now! Now you're washing goddamn clay down the sink Twice! Which is actually worse! Because the bit of clay that settled during the first one is still fucking there. and it's not going to easily wash away, its going to just pick up another fucking layer.

They also use chalk btw, but clay is the one that makes me insane because!

That paint trap I mentioned? We had a 30 gallon one. And the show budgets were tiny, so you had to base out with house paint a lot, or a project was entirely house paint, so the trap would absolutely fill up. I'm talking 3 cubic feet of paint goo, filler, and whatever grossness got washed down with it. And they first few inches on top are squishy, its actively rotting, but its soft. You dig that out. Then you get into the heavier stuff. Then. at the bottom, We'd straight up have trowels, bc the clay had sedimented down and was compacted by the weight above because its goddamn clay that's what it does.

'oh look at me, my behr paint on the roller feels so heavy and its super opaque and expensive so it must be high quality and luxurious, just look at how fancy the labelling is' fuck yourself Behr, you added clay dust to it and you're making worse colors for more money and you're fucking up everyones plumbing.

[catatonicdreamer]

Had a coworker tell me they hadn’t texted once because of the time. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

I stared at them through the dawning realization that they lived in a world where that was remotely possible. “My phone is on do not disturb if I’m sleeping. Why would I let random texts wake me up? My sleep is important.”

Equally baffled they replied, “What if someone at work needs you?”

“I am not a manager. No one at work will ever need me badly enough to interrupt my sleep. If I’m not working then there’s no reason to be calling me.”

“Not even if you need to cover?”

I laughed, “I don’t need to cover. They could ask me to cover but good luck getting ahold of me if I’m sleeping.”

They looked distressed at this idea.

To console them I added, “I have important people like my mom and my wife set to override. If they call they get through no matter what.”

There was a small pause before they asked, “You can do that…?”

So friendly reminder. Become unreachable. Work does not need you that badly. Sleep.

[catatonicdreamer]

Crazy how many mobile game ads will just take you straight to the play store once they're done playing without you even clicking anything. Feels like something that should be illegal but here we are

[catatonicdreamer]

i can handle one (1) Event™ per day. whether it be a phone call, an appointment, trip to the grocery store, play date with a friend, etc. only one, that's it. any more than that and i am Stressed

[catatonicdreamer]

for any mobile only users. here is the clown.

[catatonicdreamer]

so we know that humans share 50% of their dna with bananas. and also, they say one in four humans are related to genghis khan. using this information, we can determine that genghis khan was 200% banana

[catatonicdreamer]

just a guy out having a bang up time

[catatonicdreamer]

writing omegaverse CPR because apparently that's how my brain expresses itself these days

[catatonicdreamer]

Trump is dead this and Trump is dead that. The obvious answer for Trump's sudden disappearance is that Trump has gone into his very first heat and the Whitehouse is trying to cover up that he's an Omega

[catatonicdreamer]

big fan of characters who look cool and tough and stoic but only because theyre internally thinking "fuckkk what do i say. how do i make friends. they didnt teach me how to do that in sword school."

[catatonicdreamer]

OP made a mooncake sofa for the Mid-Autumn Festival (cr 闲人祝幸福)

[catatonicdreamer]

NEW SEQUEL FUCK YOU ALL

INCORRECTLY SPINNING CUBE

(sourced from @dailycube)