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once these 15 million different stressful situations resolve themselves I’m gonna be so normal again. I can be normal and not exhausted

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Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

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bat mosaic at the rijksmuseum you are all i think about 💖

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if I've learned anything from grad school it's to check your sources, and this has proven invaluable in the dozens of instances when I've had an MBA-type try to tell me something about finances or leadership. Case in point:

Firefox serves me clickbaity articles through Pocket, which is fine because I like Firefox. But sometimes an article makes me curious. I'm pretty anal about my finances, and I wondered if this article was, as I suspected, total horseshit, or could potentially benefit me and help me get my spending under control. So let's check the article in question.

It mostly seems like common sense. "...track expenses and income for at least a month before setting a budget...How much money do I have or earn? How much do I want to save?" Basic shit like that. But then I get to this section:

This sounds fucking made up to me. And thankfully, they've provided a source to their claim that "research has repeatedly shown" that writing things down changes behavior. First mistake. What research is this?

Forbes, naturally, my #1 source for absolute dogshit fart-sniffing financial schlock. Forbes is the type of website that guy from high school who constantly posts on linkedin trawls daily for little articles like this that make him feel better about refusing to pay for a decent package for his employees' healthcare (I'm from the United States, a barbaric, conflict-ridden country in the throes of civil unrest, so obsessed with violence that its warlords prioritize weapons over universal medical coverage. I digress). Forbes constantly posts shit like this, and I constantly spend my time at leadership seminars debunking poor consultants who get paid to read these claims credulously. Look at this highlighted text. Does it make sense to you that simply writing your financial goals down would result in a 10x increase in your income? Because if it does, let me make you an offer on this sick ass bridge.

Thankfully, Forbes also makes the mistake of citing their sources. Let's check to see where this hyperlink goes:

SidSavara. I've never heard of this site, but the About section tells me that Sid is "a technology leader who empowers teams to grow into their best selves. He is a life-long learner enjoys developing software, leading teams in delivering mission critical projects, playing guitar and watching football and basketball."

That doesn't mean anything. What are his LinkedIn credentials? With the caveat that anyone can lie on Linkedin, Mr. Savara appears to be a Software Engineer. Which is fine! I'm glad software engineers exist! But Sid's got nothing in his professional history which suggests he knows shit about finance. So I'm already pretty skeptical of his website, which is increasingly looking like a personal fart-huffing blog.

The article itself repeats the credulous claim made in the Forbes story earlier, but this time, provides no link for the 3% story. Mr. Savara is smarter than his colleages at Forbes, it's much wiser to just make shit up.

HOWEVER. I am not the first person to have followed this rabbit hole. Because at the very top of this article, there is a disclaimer.

Uh oh!

Sid's been called out before, and in the follow up to this article, he reveals the truth.

You can guess where this is going.

So to go back to the VERY beginning of this post, both Pocket/Good Housekeeping and Forbes failed to do even the most basic of research, taking the wild claim that writing down your budget may increase your income by 10x on good faith and the word of a(n admittedly honest about his shortcomings) software engineer.

Why did I spend 30 minutes to make a tumblr post about this? Mostly to show off how smart I am, but also to remind folks of just how flimsy any claim on the internet can be. Click those links, follow those sources, and when the sources stop linking, ask why.

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Just learned about the existence of this poem written by Vincent Starrett in 1942. I'm always so happy when I can learn more about the Sherlockian fandom and discover more of Sherlockiana.

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It's June 1. It's time.

Go be gay.

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knitting tutorial made by a twenty-something knitting influencer: 18 min long, 12 of those minutes being the intro and a sponsor plug, they show the first few steps of the tutorial at the slowest speed known to man, they show the most important steps at a neck-break speed, they stop every five seconds to talk about what they just did, 40,000 comments filled with questions ranging from insightful to “how do i knit”, filmed with a camera that costs more than a car, the tutorial is incorrect.

knitting tutorial made by a seventy-something grandmother: two min long, filmed 17 years ago, shows you what you want with the skilled patient hands of a beloved deity, made with the world’s shittiest camera, the best video on the fucking internet, four comments and 30 views, you lose the video and never find it again.

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Carrie Fisher tweets // Star Wars

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Edna St. Vincent Millay, from a letter featured in The Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Say what you want about the 2023 Shakespeare in The Park production of Hamlet, but the choices made in that play WORKED. Having Hamlet wear a black hoodie and camo pants and him dramatically putting his hood up when he was pissed off was inspired. Having Horatio video tape Claudius on an iPhone camera from the side of the stage during the play within the play was hilarious. Having the play within the play be a hip hop dance number that represented the murder!?! Fantastic. Having Ophelia be a singer before she went mad and having a beautiful voice that everyone loved to listen to and then seeing her singing get worse and worse as she got nearer to death?!?! Hamlet pulling out his iphone after killing Polonius to show his mom a picture of his dad compared to a picture of Claudius and angrily swiping back and forth between the two as he said “What judgement would step from this… to this?” The crowd fucking lost it every time. Horatio singing to Hamlet as he died made me fully sob every time. The way they did the ghost on stage was so chilling and I can’t even accurately describe it, you just had to be there. Hamlet being deeply exasperated the entire time was just perfect. Hamlet and Horatio had a secret handshake. Laertes inexplicably carried an acoustic guitar case for much of the play which was very funny but also hit you with the heartbreaking implication that he had used to play while Ophelia sang and he stopped carrying it after she died. It was peak teenage-angst-hamlet and it was so dear to me. PLEASE if anyone has a recording, send it to me.

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Shakespeare’s birthday reblog

Here's THE masterpost of free and full adaptations, by which I mean that it's a post made by the master.

Anthony and Cleopatra: here's the BBC version

As you like it: you'll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version

Coriolanus: Here's a college play, here's the 1984 telefilm, here's the 2014 one with tom hiddleston

Hamlet: The Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. THe 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. And the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation. Have the 2018 Almeida version here.

Henry IV: part 1 and part 2 of the BBC 1989 version. And here's part 1 of a corwall school version.

Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.

Julius Caesar: here's the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one.

King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here.

Macbeth: here's the 1961 one with Sean Connery. Here's the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. Here's the 1948 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljZrf_0_CcQ">here. The 1988 BBC onee with portugese subtitles and here the 2001 one). The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here and the 1966 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here.

Measure for Measure: BBC version here.

The Merchant of Venice: here's a stage version, here's the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here's the 2004 movie.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version.

Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here's the 1984 version.

Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you've got the BBC version here and there.

Richard II: here is the BBC version

Richard III: here's the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier, and here's the 1995 one with Ian McKellen. (the 1995 one is in english subtitled in spanish. the 1955 one has no subtitles and might have ads since it's on youtube)

Romeo and Juliet: here's the 1988 BBC version.

The Taming of the Shrew: the 1988 BBC version here, the 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one.

Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,

Troilus and Cressida can be found here

Titus Andronicus: the 1999 movie with Anthony Hopkins here

Twelfth night: here for the BBC, herefor the 1970 version with Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Ralph Richardson.

The Winter's Tale: the BBC version is here

Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.

(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)

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Here’s an enlarged response to the “Reblog if you know how to cook, even if it’s just ramen” post…

Yup, I can cook. Pretty well, too, though Food Network has nothing to fear. My preference is for one-pot stuff like stews, daubes, eintopfs, tajines, chilis, goulashes, curries - oh, and sauces for pasta (there’s a really simple one below.)

That way all the peeling, chopping and stirring is done before the lid goes on and the stove is turned RIGHT DOWN. Now wash up. Leaving a clean kitchen will make you just as popular as being the one who did the cooking. Possibly more so. Then go do something else for a couple of hours - TV, gaming, Tumblr -  until it’s time for dinner. Check once in a while (set a timer if you have to) to make sure things haven’t gone dry*, give it a stir to make sure things haven’t stuck to the bottom.

*We have a Doufeu (from French doux “soft/gentle” feu “fire/heat”)…

…which is a casserole with a recess in the lid that holds water. The difference in temperature makes the steam inside re-condense and drip back down to baste the food. It will take hours and hours to boil dry, because of physics - which means we can go out for a walk, and if that November walk involves a local pub that’s just had a nice new wood-burning stove installed in the corner, well… :-)

New Le Creusets like the one above are hideously expensive, but older Le Cousances like this one pop up at garage sales and are well worth finding.

We have this design, in orange enamel, which @dduane found on eBay. Everyone goes on about putting ice in the lid recess, but since it becomes water in no time I think the ice-cubes are used just to show better in photos.

Forget about the whizzkids on Food Network. Ultra-Simple Cooking 101 is not rocket science. Boil water in a pot, put chopped meat and/or veggies into the pot**, add a bit of salt and pepper, put the lid on, turn the heat down and check once in a while until the things in the pot are soft enough to eat.

**Lightly frying things like meat and onions before they go into the boiling water makes them even nicer, but that’s Ultra-Simple Cooking 102. Traditional Irish stew (depending on whose granny you ask) doesn’t even bother.

They will have mingled their flavours together. They will smell nice. They will taste nice. If there’s a lot of liquid, you have soup. (Throw rice or small pasta like orzo into it for 10 mins.) If there’s less liquid, you have stew (buy some crusty bread for gravy-dunking and plate-wiping.)

Either way, you have cooked a thing all by yourself. You know what’s in it. There are no dodgy additives or stretchers that belong in a chemistry set. Eat it and feel mentally and physically satisfied! Then freeze the leftovers (if there are any. I sometimes have to cook extra so there will be.)

Here’s that really, really simple pasta sauce:

Keep reading

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idk maybe a weird ask but any advice on how to enjoy romance books without being bummed out by discourse? i know they aren’t the pinnacle of literature or anything, but the recent stuff people have been saying about romance not counting as books has been kind of discouraging. have no idea why i’m asking this, i just wanna read my silly gay romance in peace without feeling guilty i’m not reading Super High Brow Literature. currently my main method is reading out of sheer spite, but any other advise is helpful. it’s not even just online, i get this irl too.

hey man in the most respectful way possible. who gives a shit. reading is for fun and guilt is for catholics. do whatever you want forever.

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I can’t ever leave tumblr because I just love the tag function.. no other social media platform allows you to heckle yourself on your own post. you get to preemptively make metatextual commentary abt your OWN POST. how cool is that