#“it is a pune or play on words”

[nostalgia-tblr]

the proof that thor wasn't ready is that he didn't realise when he was unready

"I was a fool to think you were ready."

"Æthelred's notorious nickname, Old English Unræd, is commonly translated into present-day English as "The Unready" (less often, though less inaccurately, as "The Redeless"). The Anglo-Saxon noun unræd means "evil counsel", "bad plan", or "folly" [...]The nickname has also been translated as "ill-advised", "ill-prepared", thus "Æthelred the ill-advised"."

[pratchettquotes]

Hour after hour, it went on, with a patience that at first terrified and then bored. It was the warfare of clerks, and it harried the enemy through many columns and files. Moist could read words that weren't there, but the clerks found the numbers that weren't there, or were there twice, or were there but going the wrong way. They didn't hurry. Peel away the lies, and the truth would emerge, naked and ashamed and with nowhere else to hide.

Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

[20dollarlolita]

Stop putting thick thread in your freaking sewing machine.

If you have a home machine, it's not ready for it. If you have a drop in bobbin, it's really not ready for it. If it's bonded nylon then it's SUPER not ready for it.

Your Viking Emerald 118 is not a commercial machine. It's got a powerful engine, but it does not have a mechanical system that can handle the thickness and inflexibility of heavy weight thread. You're going to yank it out of time and that's not a warranty issue because the warranty doesn't cover you breaking it yourself with bad thread. The warranty also doesn't cover you trying to sew through a sterilite bin lid or getting sliced ham in your feed teeth, despite the warranty not specifically saying that you can't do that. It's not unreasonable for a machine to expect you to check your supplies for compatibility before using them.

If you want to sew with really heavy thread, you need a machine set up for that thread. This is like how if you want to put diesel in your car, you need a diesel engine.

You need a different threading set up for heavy thread, and you need the kind of bobbin case that can handle it as well. This is the Janome HD9 Professional, which is a home sewing machine that can sew with thick thread. You can see that the thread has to be wound in a different way to use the thick thread. If your machine doesn't have this, it probably shouldn't be using tex70. And by "probably," I mean "definitely."

The Janome HD9 is a sort of semi-commercial machine, where you sacrifice a bit of foot clearance, a bit of thread thickness, and some bobbin size in exchange for getting a machine that fits on your table top.

If you only want to work on thick thread, you probably need a commercial machine.

Quick flow chart on how people buy commercial sewing machines:

Step 1) Be aware that you're buying a piece of furniture. The table is part of the machine.

Step 2) What kind of foot do you want? If you're getting a machine for sewing, you need to pick if you want a straight stitch foot or a walking foot. On commercial machines, the walking foot is built into the machine, and a walking foot machine cannot be made to not walk. However, walking foot machines are a lot better than a walking foot attachment for a home machine.

Step 3) How thick are you going to put in it. Please note that I don't mean thick in how difficult it is for the machine to penetrate. The motor is a different part of the machine from the head, and you can stick a more powerful motor in there if you want. What we're talking about is how high of clearance the presser foot can give you. If you've sewn with really thick fabric on a home machine, you might have run into a situation where your fabric is so thick that it physically pushes the presser foot up so high that your tension disengages. All machines can do the same thing, so check on your machine that the physical dimensions of what you want to put in will fit under the foot.

Step 4) How thick of thread are you going to put into that thing? Tex90? Tex 180? You might need a lighter weight thread if you're making bags or clothing, but if you want that big, chunky decorative stitching you see on car upholstery, you need a machine that can handle that thread.

So, as you can see, dear home machine owners, people will buy commercial machines specifically to run heavy thread in them. If you want to run thick thread, you have two options.

The first option is to get the right tool for the job. Commercial machines aren't anywhere near as pricey as high end home machines. If you come to me and say that the only thing you want to sew is heavy thread, you're going to do better to get a Juki DDL8700 than to buy a new Emerald 118 every year when you run yours into the ground. You're only really paying about 2.5x the cost of an Emerald when you get the Juki with a full set up, and that's not bad when you take into account that you are going to be either servicing or replacing your 118 pretty frequently if you're still sticking that thread in it.

The second option is to get an old and broken sad fuck of a machine and mess up all the tensions yourself. Hang around junk shops long enough and someone's going to get rid of some kind of 1910's cast iron monstrosity that was converted to electric in the 1930's by someone who may have had no idea what they were doing. Get yourself something that you're mildly afraid of. If that maching has survived from 1914 to 2024, you're probably not going to break it by messing around with the stitch tension. If the head of the machine was made before we were capable of precision manufacturing thin, strong thread, it can probably adapt to the nightmare that is Coats Outdoor Upholstery thread or whatever that thread thing you bought on Amazon is.

Anyway, you're not going to buy the As Seen on TV Keyboard Vacuum and try to vacuum the front office of a dirt and rock emporium and then get upset when it doesn't work. Not every vacuum is interchangeable and not every sewing machine can handle carpet thread. Not every bad decision you make is covered by your warranty. Sometimes you break things and then it's your problem to fix it.

Thank you for coming to my TexX talk.

[therodentqueen]

CASSANUNDA THE DWARF

NOT Cassanova

Cassanunda

Not Cassan-OVER

But Cassan-UNDER

Cuz he's a DWARF

[windmillcrusader]

she’s got a mind like a teal strap

[peppermintquartz]

Last night, I paused the TV, took my husband's hands so he would stop scrolling, looked him in the eyes, waited until I had his full attention, and said,

"Capybara."

Pause.

"Guinea bigs."

[m0ose-idiot]

I was today years old when a Wikipedia article about birds told me Admiral Anous' name isn't [just] a bum joke 🤯

[takofukkatsumi]

The ships in Discworld are so good cause Pterry made an art form out of shipping the most awesome and capable woman you've ever met with a sad wet bastard

[mister-a-z-fell]

19 And He looked upon the Other and was couered in confuſion. Thvs ſpake He: ‘I do not vnderſtand. Surely your uery exiſtence requires the ending of this world as was written?’

20 And the Other caſt down his eyes and was ſilent for a time, and the World waited, for thys was once again a Reckoning.

21 For alſo was it written that in the coming of the Lamb was laied out the downfall of the Beaſt.

22 Now the Angel and the Deuil, who had ſtood witneſse to theſe euentes came forth in turn.

23 And the Angel ſaid, ‘Was it not Thy Father’s will that Thy ſacrifice paid and expunged the burthen laied on Man by that the miſdeed of he who was firſt named Adam? And is this Other not alſo a Man, renouncing his ynfernal Father for the ſake of the World?’

24 And the Deuil mayd a ſound like vnto that of one who hath trodden unknowing on a thiſtle, yet muſt needs conceal his preſence.

[a-book-of-creatures]

What do you get when you cross a llama and a gopher? In this game from GAMES Magazine's March 1985 issue, Anna Mulcross and artist Donna Ruff present a variety of whimsical hybrids whose names are all actual words made by combining the names of the animals. So a llama and a gopher, with the clue "is very lazy", is a loafer. Can you identify them all?

[teaandspite]

My favorite running bit from our current Dungeons & Dragons campaign is that whenever a character mentions something from our world, I immediately make up an in-setting legendary hero who is responsible for it. So far we have:

Sir Kadian, the Wizard Knight, known in his later years for his study of natural cycles

The great Gnomish philosopher monk Mur-Phē

Paladin Mary the Virginal (had an oath of abstinence of both sex and alcohol) and her sister and nemesis, Mary the Bloody

The Myriad Webster (a sentient school of fish that collects all the words)

...for Circadian Rhythm, Murphy’s Law, Virgin & Bloody Mary drinks, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, of course

[uchidachi]

I want to write a dissertation on the influence of the isekai genre in anime on the fanfic trope of the self-insert. I really wonder if I could quantitatively analyze the increase in authorial stand-in characters being reincarnated vs. the old standards like “a portal suddenly opened and i fell in.”

I’m going to call it “The Death of the Author-Insert: the Impact of Truck-kun”

[pratchettquotes]

The Igor looked up.

"Good morning, thur. And you are...?"

"Moist von Lipwig," said Moist. "And you would be Igor."

"Got it in one, thur. I have heard many good thingth about you."

"Down here?"

"I alwayth keep an ear to the ground, thur."

Moist resisted the impulse to look down. Igors and metaphors didn't go well together.

Terry Pratchett, Making Money

[krakenartificer]

OK, so you know those Terry Pratchett Moments when you suddenly realize that this whole thing (whatever thing you're looking at) is just one long elaborate play on words, and you want to flip him off but actually who you're really angry at is yourself, because he told you! You can't say he didn't tell you! It was right there! He gave you all the pieces!! How could you have missed it?!

?

Yeah, so that's what happened to me today reading Soul Music when I finally (finally! I first read this book in high school! That was 20+ years ago!!) put

"Imp sounds a bit like elf to me." "It just means 'small shoot'", said Imp. "You know. Like a bud." "Bud y Celyn?" said Glod. "Buddy? Worse than Cliff, in my opinion"

together with

"all my family are y Celyns," said Imp. "It means 'of the holly.' That's all that grows in Llamedos, you see."

and got...

Buddy Holly.

Buddy Holly!! How did I miss that? How did I miss that???

Anyway, my knowledge of classic rock is not what it needs to be (clearly), so if anyone can help me out with Cliff (ne Lias) Bluestone, and Glod Glodsson, I'd be grateful.

[psychuan]

Liz Truss is gone but the lettuce romaines

[aeshnacyanea2000]

Priests were metal-reinforced overshoes. They saved your soles. This is an Assassin joke.

Terry Pratchett - Pyramids