#having a pbj in and of these is exactly the same

[magicianstable]

Sometimes I think we’re too specific about what we can eat on which type of bread yk? Unless there’s a flavor difference. It’s all bread

[girlishwhimsies]

unfortunately i HAVEEEEE to yap about my modern qpr pbj college au cause im thinking about it all the time and have to share

first of all it includes wheelchair user johnny my beloved 🫶 but basically the gang is all the same but johnny wasn’t ever part of it, im not sure where he lived but not in tulsa (i have a whole backstory about him and his parents in this au don’t play, i WILL drop it) he also got emancipated from his parents at 16/17 and was able to get an okay enough job to afford

pony gets assigned as johnnys roommate and they meet on move in day, soda and darry meet him then too. and they all IMMEDIATELY get attached to this poor kid, dawg for sure looks worse for wear he is smalllll and owns like 4 shirts. also doesn’t have many possessions!! so ofc they all love him so bad and soda and darry pretty much force him to get dinner with them and pay for it (they are broke but damn it they will be making sure this kid eats something)

pony doesn’t know anyone at school so he is like okay i need johnny to be my best friend and they just click instantly, attached at the hip! them slowly trusting each other more tho cause even if they click they both have built up Walls and finally feeling safe around each other, telling each other about their parents. pushing their beds together cause pony has nightmares and being closer to someone helps him. them having the biggest fattest most pathetically down bad queer platonic crushes on each other but not knowing exactly what they are feeling and just ough

pony finding out johnny doesn’t have any thanksgiving plans and forcing him to come back to tulsa with him and meet the gang :( johnny just fitting right in and watching from the corner just soaking up all the excitement from the people around him and being so shocked and happy when they include him in on things! he also clicks so well with two bit who clocks his ass so bad so quick within like 10 minutes (soda clocks pony within this time period as well) and corners him! johnny is lowkey scared shitless but two-bit is just excited for him and tells him it’ll turn out fine etc etc (and also makes a bet with steve that they’ll be together before christmas) also they go to stores and steal together i fear it’s so important to me

after thanksgiving pbj getting even closer, spending so much of their free time together!!! but all good things must crash down at some point (at least for a little bit)

pony catching johnny on his computer snooping and copying his work onto his own page…. pony just loses it he’s already been so stressed this week and he’d scared of failing and he just doesn’t get why johnny would be doing this and he trusts johnny so bad so what if he is just using him!! meanwhile johnny is freaking the FUCK out cause his learning disability ass has been struggling and he can barely even read (audio books and voice to text is this man’s best friend!!) and he just couldn’t handle going through all these hoops this time so he tried this but he messed up so he just panics as pony is yelling and blurts out that he can’t read real well and BOLTS

pony after that really be standing there like 🧍‍♂️panicking and calling his brothers cause he doesn’t know what the fuck just happened or how to process it!! meanwhile johnny is outside FREEZING cause it’s right before winter break and doesn’t know where to go for the night and plans to drop out in the morning cause he doesn’t know what the fuck he was thinking trying to go to school and his phone is at 1% so he uses the last bit of his battery to send the gc with all the gang a text with “thank you so much for all your kindness, i ain’t ever gonna forget all y’all did for me” before his phone dies and he can’t get another charger

so now EVERYONES freaking out and as soon as morning hits the gang all drive up to the college and pony with their help HUNTS through campus!! ofc johnny sees them from afar a few times and BOLTS away cause he doesn’t wanna get caught since he thinks they all hate him (he has thousands of missed messages and calls since the night before) til they finally corner his ass and finally get him to properly communicate

pony teaching johnny how to write and read slightly better and he gets a job at the thrift store :( he goes home with the curtis’s for christmas and new years and spring and summer break!!!

anyway this isn’t even like half the lore man and i hope you all love my insane little au that’s far too important to me!!!

[seedlessmuffins]

there’s something so important, about that win yesterday. not only did we beat a team that has stanley cup aspirations, which has two of the best players in the world on their team (which we shut down), overall it was a stunning performance from every single player on the ice. from jt miller’s five points, to boeser’s four goals, to demko’s .955 save percentage with the flu to the introduction of hughes as the captain in a stunning fashion, across the board it was a great night not only for the team, but for the fans 

(full tactico thoughts below the cut)

what we saw last night was a full team effort, not just the top 6 forwards and top 2 defensive pairings clicking. everyone across the line up was pulling their weight and clicking into place last night. because of injuries, illness, and our salary cap situation, we ended up playing with a player less, and with 11 forwards and 6 defensemen. this meant that the bottom 3 wingers especially needed to play more then they usually would, against the tough opponent of the most complete oilers team they have ever iced since they drafted mcdavid. and the bottom five did exceptionally well in the positions they put themselves in!! 

lafferty, for being a new acquisition, knew exactly what he was doing. he positioned himself well, especially during the pk, right near the goal and was always in a good place to either pass or get the puck within shooting range of the net. he is such a smart player, drawing that penalty in the third is absolute genius and he just knows where to move within his line and how to create a good pass. i think hoglander worked well with him, as he made some nice little plays especially behind the edmonton net during one of the power plays (i think in the third period?) to keep possession of the puck. i was glad to see him make the roster, i think he’s a smart player and a solid person to have on the 4th line. 

i adored joshua’s game, honestly he was one of the standouts of the night for me. he was willing to use his body, not only to block shots on the pk but also to drop the gloves less than 5 minutes into the game, but he was also able to position himself well to be in scoring positions and it paid off as he scored the 8th and final goal for the canucks. joshua is one of my favourite players, and i hope he continues doing well this season both with his physicality and his scoring, he is nothing but an asset and really is a necessary staple of our third line at this point.��

the hirose/juulsen pairing did well when they were on the ice, nothing notable, however the cole/meyers pairing was incredible. very physical, both in hits and blocking shots, able to get back quickly and had some nice puck distributions, and other then meyer’s stupid penalty in the first period, they were great. ian cole is an amazing addition to the team and i can’t wait to see what more he will do, especially on the pk, he was excellent and i can’t wait to see more. 

the “pbj” line of di guiseppe, boeser, and miller was incredible and so productive. near the net all night, lighting the lamp, excellent puck possession and was able to fight the hard battles in the corners. of course boeser’s 4 goals deserve to be celebrated, they were incredible (especially the first goal? sexy, sexy hockey), but di guiseppe and miller’s passes made it possible for boeser to finish the passes with incredible accuracy. these guys also did great work on the pp, they made up an excellent second unit to keep the pressure in the edmonton zone without the stars on the ice, and i think boeser got his groove back. lets see 30+ goals this season.

tocchet really loaded up the top line and the top d pairing, with hughes/hronek and garland/pettersson/kuzmenko as the top lines. i thought both lines did an excellent job not only creating chances, but also shutting down the mcdrai line when they were both out at the same time. petey had some stunning, sexy passes (i’m still thinking about his first pass to garland for the first goal,,,, holy shit that was sexy) and garland was able to hold his weight and finish the chances he was given practically on a platter. kuzya had a quiet night, but he made some productive moves to keep possession and he was able to keep the puck in the offensive zone during pp time so i’m not mad at how he played, i know he will only improve from here. hughes/hronek were exceptionally productive, both in passing and in blocking shots, and they had mcdavid shut down all night. the oilers not registering a single high danger scoring chance AT ALL at 5v5 with petey on the ice?? yeah that’s my selke candidate right there

and demko, how can i forget about thatcher demko? he made save after save, and the dmen gave him space to do so every time. he had a clear line of vision, and he used it. he made some incredible saves and came away with a save percentage that reflected that, all while having the flu! shoutout to desmith, though he only was in for 10 minutes he made some strong saves and didn’t look as nervous between the pipes as he did during the preseason. i’m glad he settled in nicely.

overall, we worked very well as a team. special teams were cooking, goalies were cooking, everything looked cohesive. there were some big hits, from joshua, meyers, and petey notably, and some good blocks. other then the first 5 minutes of the first period, and some sloppy passing in the middle, it was a strong, dominant game. we choked the life out of the oilers, even getting noted most boring man in the nhl to make salty comments about our decisions. i'm most proud of how we handled ourselves in the third, as edmonton were losing their heads with sloppy hits and stupid penalties, we kept ourselves together.

we fucking won. it was a great game. i'm so excited for this season. see you on saturday in edmonton.

[nickgerlich]

Run For The Border

If the Summer of 2024 is remembered for anything, it will be the discount meal deal. That’s not exactly earth shattering, and most certainly not anything new, because we have all seen short-term sales promos like this before. It’s just that with people still reeling from inflation and economic uncertainties, not to mention shifting their consumer behavior to either dine at home, or trade up to better places on a smaller frequency, operators are forced to be proactive.

The latest to throw their hat in the ring is Taco Bell with its Luxe Cravings Box, and with a Chalupa Supreme Taco, beefy 5-layer burrito, double-stacked taco, chips with nacho cheese sauce, and a medium drink all for only $7…well, let’s just say they’re making it pretty hard for diners not to make a run for the border.

The deal represents a 55% discount compared to if the items were purchased separately, a very aggressive response from one of the biggest fast food purveyors in the nation. With 7200 stores here and another 1000 internationally, Taco Bell’s footprint is not to be taken lightly. They have also been pioneers in developing the post-COVID stores of the future, ones that have little or no dine-in options, and have multiple drive-thru lanes and a walk-up window.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: I am no fan of fast food. Mass-produced food is seldom good food. But in the interest of transparency, I have a confession to make: I have actually patronized some Taco Bells this year, but only when I am on travel. If I am trying to cover up to 800 miles in a day, there’s scant time for fine dining, and to be honest, another PBJ in the van got crusty and dry to me a long time ago.

What has caused me to come to Taco Bell is their kiosk ordering, where if you scroll enough to look at the options, you discover you can build some halfway decent custom burritos that are completely off-menu. I can build a bean burrito with black beans, lettuce, tomato, avocado, and a slew of other ingredients, and walk out the door with two for less than $8. They’re not exactly the same quality as what I would get at a fine cantina, but actually not bad for fast food. I’m rolling again in 10 minutes, and it is faster than Subway where their sandwich artists get bogged down with everyone’s bespoke orders.

Taco Bell is up front in informing diners that these deals run only through summer. Like a true sales promo, they are designed to provide a bump in sales for a little while, and are not permanent. Well, under normal conditions.

Of course, all plans are revisable, and if the other big guns in the arena, meaning McDonald’s, Burger King, and Starbucks, continue their meal deals indefinitely, I bet that Taco Bell would join them. It all depends on whether the deals can effect change on their bottom line, which has become rather flat recently.

There are some critics, though, who allege that all of the big marketers, including chains like Walmart and Target, are guilty of “greedflation,” that there has been a huge conspiracy to sock it to us. Costs have gone up for everyone, from labor to materials and real estate. These companies must balance the interests of their shareholders as well as customers, a balancing act that is no small feat.

Sales promos are one of the most important weapons a marketer has in their tool box. They must be used judiciously, but not all the time, lest your customers become accustomed to them and thus lose any sense of urgency to show up. In the fast food world, a summer deployment is good timing, when people are most likely to be out and about, and road tripping.

You might even see me at one, crafting my own custom burritos on those very friendly and easy-to-operate touchscreens. Maybe I’ll add some rice next time. I may not be responding to the current promo, but the value proposition is still there for me.

Dr “I’ll Take Mine To Go” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[elkdiaries]

potential tw for brief mentions of internalized homophobia and domestic violence.

the benches’ edges were thin enough to make mike’s neck progressively more uncomfortable when he leaned back, engulfing fresh air and then letting his lungs deflate once again. 

his jaw hurt. his head hurt. his eyes, fresh from the tears of a recent dinner conversation, now felt exhausted like he’d taken in too much of the world for today.

“it’s like…” he started, more able to search his brain for information when he didn’t feel like max’s sharp eyes were scraping out his soul with every glance. he cracked a trembling knuckle. “it’s like i’m suffocating.” 

up in the abyss laid venus, and not far away spica. will liked stars, he had since he and mike first went on an astronomy-themed field trip in first grade. they shared a pbj sandwich for lunch that day and almost got lost because the solar displays were so mesmerizing. when will turned seven, he explained to mike his plan to capture a star and turn it into a nightlight. 

max’s knee twitched against mike’s. though his lungs were tight and teeth grit, he tried to continue.

“my house used to be my safe space. all my legos were there, i had a huge blanket fort standing somewhere at all times. everything felt okay. but now, there’s this… unending tension between all of us. i know mom and dad hate each other. but it’s like we aren’t allowed to say anything about it. and i’m so fucking tired—” the lights above mike began blurring. he pinched at his eyelids for a shaky second, then again, forced himself to breathe.

think of el’s energetic hugs. think of will’s smile. will’s sleepy laugh. the way he messes with his hands when he’s nervous.

no, actually. don’t do that. think about el again. stop it. don’t dwell on him. just don’t. it’s not normal. it’s not. it’s not. it’s not. 

grow the hell up.

mike sat up and his criminal tears spilled out silently, sending relief to the burning pressure that previously clumped behind his eyes. “i’m tired because every day after i wake up and brush my teeth and pull on the same old clothes i have to go downstairs and act like everything’s just great. like i’m a great son and an even better human being. like they wouldn’t fucking disown me if they knew about…”

without warning, max rocked mike’s hollow figure forward so the two could click into place, her arms tight over his back and providing him stability. his guard plummeted down as he let out wet sobs into her collarbone.

it took a while for him to scrape his thoughts and will to sit without structure back together, but at last he dragged himself off max’s shoulder. she was wearing a thin flannel even in the middle of the crisp spring night, but there weren’t any goosebumps over her freckled skin.

“i’m sorry,” mike managed before his voice broke again.

max looked near to tears, an expression that shocked mike even more than his sudden ability to talk about his feelings. “never apologize for expressing yourself, mike. is there anything else you need to say?”

he sighed, eyes feeling bloated and headache going towards migraine territory with the speed of a freight train. “not really. it’s just a lot. sometimes it gets to be so much that i even consider—”

“running away?” max finished. her eyes appeared as sullen as mike felt, but a smile indicated that the look was of her own issues rather than his. she seemed to… know, somehow, exactly what mike needed right then and there. what he needed to do.

he nodded, a little taken aback. “yeah. running away.” he considered for a second then added, “to will’s.”

her copper hair tangled into the crook of her neck as a breeze shuddered over them. she pressed her lips into a thin, thoughtful line, then opened her mouth again.

“i can help with that.”

platonic madwheeler + stranger things 4

[moonfurthetemmie]

Unplanned Meetings of the DS Verses (Part 2)

There is more Potential Meetings of the DS Verses

there will likely be even more

This one doesn’t have any warnings other then DS Nightmare trying to breathe liquids and also just food in general, so go ham

Previous | Next

Apparently, England (in some universes) had closed the parks for the Queen’s passing. Why, Nightmare didn’t really know, but he and his friends were happy to take advantage of this. They’d talked a lot about how nice it would be to just go eat outside somewhere, but being wanted criminals made opportunities for that…well. Non existent.

But, if the parks were going to be completely empty, and not even patrolled, there’d be no one to call JR or arrest them.

So they packed some sandwiches, chips, and drinks, and had a picnic. They also brought Kevin. On a leash. At least he wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to wiggle off the collar like a dog.

Cross and Error still weren’t sure how Nightmare had managed to find a chicken collar, but decided that some questions are better left unanswered. Nightmare would probably sell his kidneys to get something nice for Kevin. They didn’t want to know.

Everyone was enjoying themselves, though. It felt weird to be in a park without anyone else around, but they decided to pretend they were just eating in the middle of nowhere, which conveniently had uniformly short grass. It was peaceful, even with Kevin wandering over and trying to steal the ham from Error’s sandwich.

“Why is your chicken carnivorous,” Error complained, holding her sandwich out of reach. “He’s supposed to eat grains and stuff, isn’t he?”

Nightmare snickered. “Chickens’ll eat just about anything. I’ve heard stories about them even eating other chickens just because one of them was bleeding.”

“…ah,” Cross said, slowly putting down her PBJ. “Not. Quite so fond of chickens anymore.”

“Mostly they eat grubs,” Nightmare assured them. “And that been Kevin’s diet for about a hundred years, so ham’s like a delicacy for him. Don’t give him any though, he’s not supposed to have table scrapes.”

“I’m trying,” Error complained, trying to keep Kevin from climbing on her to get to her sandwich.

“C’mere, Kevin.”

Kevin stopped for a moment, cocking his head to the side. Nightmare tugged on his leash. Kevin ambled over to him, letting Error finally eat in peace. Nightmare held out a small bag of chicken feed he brought, and Kevin made himself busy. Error watched Kevin warily, slowly bringing down her sandwich back to face level.

Cross grinned. “Eat it quick, before he comes after it again.”

Error snorted and took a big bite that wasn’t really polite, but she didn’t care. It was just them, after all.

They’d chosen a bad day for their picnic. At least they didn’t have to find out the same way Dream did, though.

Kevin suddenly looked up from his very important task of eating and crowed loud enough to be heard across the park and probably reached the gift shop by the road, right before a loud POP made the trio yelp. Cross dropped a handful of Cheetos. Nightmare accidentally tried to breathe soda and started coughing. Error nearly spit out that bite of sandwich.

They followed Kevin’s gaze, and found a tall, familiar looking man staring at them with a blank expression, though something about his posture and stance expressed absolute bewilderment.

Nightmare caught his breath after a moment, and stared at the man with equal confusion.

He looked…like Dream. Almost exactly like Dream, but something was off. Nightmare could barely sense anything from his except his aura, like he was somehow suppressing all of his emotions. And he just looked…different. The sword at his side looked more decorative then anything; its scabbard covered in jewels and gold filigree, and the hilt didn’t look very worn at all.

His wings and eyes were startlingly orange, and even as they watched they could see feathers flaking off and dissolving into ambient magic.

Nightmare was so confused, and so busy trying to figure out where the hell this guy came from, that he didn’t notice the uncomfortable warm sensation in his soul building until it started to burn.

“…Ow. Ow, ow, ow ow ow,” Nightmare stumbled to his feet and backed away from the strange Dream quickly. He was clutching his chest and struggling to breathe. “What the fuck, dude, why are you burning me?”

Cross and Error quickly got to their feet. Cross’s fingers twitched and started to glow red, but she and Error suddenly gasped and grabbed at their hearts, too.

‘Dream’ folded his wings back, which only lessened the burning sensation slightly. “My sincerest apologies,” he said, not sounding very sorry, or seeming to care. “I seem to be in the wrong universe.”

Cross and Error hurried over to Nightmare, all of them still trying to get away from the winged fire ball.

“Wrong multiverse, maybe,” Cross snapped. “What the frick is wrong with your aura thing?”

The man shook his head and sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t afford the time to speak with you three. I have things I must take care of, and I don’t have the luxury of free time.” He nodded his head to them, spread his wings, and took off.

They stared after him, and watched as he opened a portal and flew through.

“…Um?”

“Bukbukbukbukbuk,” Kevin said as he cleaned up the chicken feed Nightmare had spilled.

“That was…” Error started, finally able to swallow that bit of sandwich. “…Weird. What planet did he come from?”

Nightmare coughed. He could still feel that burning sensation, and his lungs were still rebelling from his attempt to breathe diet coke.

Pop!

This one was behind them. Kevin apparently had decided that this person didn’t need a rooster’s trumpeting to welcome them.

Before any of they could turn around, though, they heard an excited gasp, and Nightmare was nearly pushed to the ground.

Nightmare wheezed and stumbled. “Christ, my fucking ribs-“

“Blue?” Error sounded indignant and confused.

Nightmare was released, and the man that had randomly bear hugged him said, “Sorry, sorry sorry! I got a little too excited.” He giggled.

This ‘Blue’ looked like he hadn’t seen the light of day in months. The Blue they knew was pale, sure, but this guy was white white. Nightmare was pretty sure he could see some of his veins. His hair was a choppy, messy, uncombed tangle, and despite his energy, he had bags under his eyes like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in years.

He was grinning at them, a little too widely, but seemed friendly enough. He didn’t seem to notice how they’d all tensed up.

“This is a different multiverse, isn’t it?” He asked, but instead of waiting for an answer, he went on. “We should have nicknames, so we don’t get confused! Or, at least I should get a nickname, since I’m the stranger here.” He paused, his eyes sliding to the side like he was listening to someone else. His smile seemed frozen for a moment, almost forced. Nightmare could sense emotions that weren’t his, coming from a different source, but it was faint, and he couldn’t figure out where it was, or what exactly they were feeling. ‘Blue’s emotions were sliding from excited to despondent, before he suddenly looked back at them and said, with the same excitement as before, “How about you call me ‘Hunter’? I really-“

Cross held her hands up. “Ooookay, slow down dude. What the fuck is even going on, another Dream dropped out of nowhere and then left right before you showed up.”

Hunter perked up. “Really? Dream’s here too?” He laughed. “I wonder if anyone else from our multiverse is here!”

Nightmare and his friends glanced at each other. Hunter seemed to have a few screws loose in there.

“O…okay. Um. Well.” Nightmare scratched his head. “Nice…to meet you? I guess? Did you have to nearly break my ribs?”

Hunter giggled again. “Sorry. I don’t get to spend time with my versions of you very much. I get a liiiittle over excited to meet new people~”

“…So you knew right away we weren’t from your multiverse?” Error said hesitantly. “How different are they from us, then?”

Hunter taped his chin. “Hmm…Well, physically, not very. I think maybe some slight height differences?” He looked them all over again, humming. “I think the others have more scars, too.” His gaze stopped on Cross for a moment, and he tilted. “Lots more scars, in your case. Do you only have the one on your chin? I wonder why there’s such a difference.”

Nightmare became uneasy. If Hunter didn’t spend a lot of time with his version of them, how could he tell just from a quick glance that they weren’t the same?

“Well, different AUs can be really different. I don’t see why multiverses would be mostly the same.” Cross mused. “It’d be cool to have a lot of scars, though. I bet she looks so badass.”

Hunter hummed. Then he giggled. “My versions of you would’ve already chased me off by now. I think I like you three more, you’re much nicer.”

Error crossed her arms. “Just because we’re not chasing you off doesn’t mean we want to hang out with you.”

“Yeah, we barely know you,” Nightmare agreed. “And we don’t have the best relationship with our version of you.”

Hunter’s face fell. “…Oh. So…we can’t be friends?” He sounded heartbroken.

Nightmare opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly that other, unseen person’s emotions became very, very clear. At the same time, Hunter flinched and lifted his hands up slightly, like he was going to cover his ears.

Nightmare could tell where the person was, now. They were right next to Hunter. They were angry and so full of hate and contempt Nightmare could easily imagine someone shouting in Hunter’s ear.

Nightmare and Cross glanced at Error, who looked very uncomfortable. “…We just aren’t going to trust you right away,” she said finally. “We-“

But Hunter had perked up, and grabbed her hands. Error tensed up and started glitching violently. His eyes had practically turned into stars and he started talking really really fast about hanging out with them all and doing things before Error jerked away and tucked her hands under her arms.

Nightmare and Cross were immediately by her side, standing slightly in front of her to keep Hunter from touching her again. Hunter just blinked. “…What? Are you okay?”

“She doesn’t like being touched,” Cross said firmly. “I don’t know if your Error was different, but you really can’t just grab her hands or whatever like that.”

Nightmare held his hand out to Error, not touching her shoulder but trying to send a message of attempted comfort. “Are you ok?”

Error’s eyes had filled with glitches and ‘error’ messages, and she shuddered, but nodded.  

Hunter furrowed his brows. Nightmare could sense the other, unseen person’s dark amusement. “I don’t understand.”

“Just don’t do it,” Cross said.

“I don’t…like it,” Error glitched. “Ask first. No means no.”

Hunter frowned, but said nothing. After a few moments making sure Error was actually okay, the Meme Squad decided to go pack up what was left of their picnic. They didn’t really feel like staying here, if people like Hunter and that other Dream were going to keep popping up.

“Oh, were you having a picnic?” Hunter asked. He started talking. And didn’t stop talking. This guy must’ve been awfully lonely. He politely asked if he could have some of Cross’ cheetos, and she gave him what was left in the bag. At least that slowed down his talking.

Once they’d gotten everything packed up, Hunter seemed disinclined to leave them alone. In fact, he seemed to be more determined to stick with them. Nightmare could sense irritation coming from somewhere, but not from anyone that he could see. He was starting to wonder if it was a ghost.

“…Uh, hey Hunter?” Cross said as Hunter finally took a breath and Error made a portal. “We gotta get home.”

“Can I come?” Hunter interrupted her.

Cross blinked. “I- huh?”

Nightmare narrowed his eyes. “Remember the part where we barely know you?”

Hunter tapped his chin. “Well, yeah, but…I don’t know how to get home, and I can’t make portals. I’m going to need help figuring out how to get back, and in the meantime, I’d rather stay with familiar people.”

“You could get a hotel,” Error suggested.

“My wallet didn’t get teleported here with me,” Hunter said. “Please?”

The trio of friends looked at each other for a moment. Nightmare thought he heard someone scoff, but it must’ve been his imagination.

“…You’d really be better off getting help from JR,” Nightmare said slowly. “They have a lot more people there who actually know stuff about traveling between different AUs and would probably know where to start to get you home.”

Hunter tilted his head. “…But you can’t take me there, can you?” He said. It wasn’t really a question. “You’re wanted by them in this multiverse too, aren’t you?” He stepped closer to them. “Please let me stay with you. I would be perfectly fine sleeping on the couch, if you don’t have a guest room, and I’d be happy to help cook and clean!”

Cross sighed. “Ok, look-“

Hunter, for some reason, took this as a yes, and beamed at them. “Really? Thank you! I promise you won’t regret it!” And then he rushed through the portal.

Cross’s mouth hung open. “Did- did he just-“

“I think that was the most polite home invasion I’ve ever seen,” Nightmare muttered. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a pain in the ass trying to kick him out.”

Error sighed wearily. “Great. Can’t ever just have a nice day out.”

[slasherwife]

🐻Oh, I stopped to think, how the Slashers would react to their S / O being a witch who reincarnated (doesn’t remember the past life, except how she died.), She does rituals (using some potions, animal bones and blood itself). to raise and control plants and a power related to his death (possibly fire) and have nightmares about his death that usually have phantom pain and vision (in the midst of flames and smoke for example.) kisses from Brazil 🐻

Slashers react to a witch s/o

How do the slashers react with you doing tarot, moon rituals, playing with energies, making potions and doing spells?

🌹🌛🌕🌜🌹how do they react to you controlling the elements and getting forewarning of his death?

Thomas Hewitt

Thomas is lowkey intrigued?

Doesn’t even know what this stuff is??

He’s pretty much clueless, but that doesn’t mean you can’t teach him

If you tell him you’re a witch I have a feeling he’ll be taken aback

“B-but the Bible says—“

“No no, the Bible was originally Aramaic, Tommy— and ‘witch’ in Aramaic meant poisoner, my love. I never poison anyone.” 💖💕💖💕

That should do it 😊

Anyway he will still be bewildered a lil bit, just peepin around the corner watching you doing a tarot reading like Ow0 wot

Will catch animals for you to use for rituals

Do you need human bones too? Cuz he’s got you covered 😊💕

But hearing of your past life death? Seeing you play with fire and plant energies? How the universe practically bows to you? He sees you completely different.

He was standing on the back porch, watching you walk towards him as the grass waved to you and the trees bent in your favor, and he never wanted to be apart from you 🌹😊

You are a starlit goddess, sent to him by mistake— and he thinks you belong to the stars above or in the clouds~~ anywhere but his dark, sad home 😓💖

If you have nightmares about his death, he will go under your wing —begrudgingly— under your constant protection

He doesn’t believe too much of your visions, but he hates seeing you upset and his dark goddess doesn’t deserve paranoia 🥀😓

Jason Vorhees

Whatever Jason thinks, he at least acknowledges at his zombie phase that he isn’t exactly considered natural either.

Tbh you guys would be a total power couple 🤗🥺💖

He would be probably more understanding of your occupation than Tommy, and would embrace you fully 😊

Like “I knew my y/n was special. I knew it!” 😊💕

He doesn’t like that you use animal bones though. “Why the poor animals y/n?? Use human bones instead— here.”

He thinks you have superpowers hah

He loves when you raise the plants to be alive again— it’s like you keep it spring all year and he loves it 🥺💖💕💖🌷

Will be happy that you have them so you can protect yourself if need be 😊

Once you tell him about your past life death and how you can manipulate elements and that you’re getting forewarnings dreams of his death... he won’t be too worried.

First off, any thought of you dying in general is caused him literal physical pain. So he didn’t like you talking about that 🥺💕

You controlling the elements, Fire? He will follow you anywhere hon’. 7’1 immortal zombie legend murderer and powerful sorcerer/ess/witch? Biggest power couple 💕🙌🙌

And then lastly, the only thing Jason will worry about from your dreams is how you will manage with out him. That’s literally it 😂🥺💕💖

He knows he will come back eventually, you can’t kill Jason forever— he physically can’t stay dead lol

He will sheepishly miss all the crazy sex you guys have been having, but you stop your worrying! Jason’s like “my poor bab don’t be so scared— I’ll always come back!” 💕💕💖💕

Michael Myers

Will 1000% pretend your powers don’t interest him.

But just know that he’s peeking around the corner when you absent mindedly play with the candle’s flame while mixing a clarity potion, literally on his toes 😂💕

He loves to be around you when you’re doing candle work, making a potion, practicing controlling the elements— because you exert this powerful and foreign energy aura that’s comforting to him 😊💖💕🥺

Another slasher that will go on a midnight trip of catching animals for you because “ANYTHING FOR YOU, MY GODDESS— 😫💖💕💖💕”

But you wouldn’t even ask for it, he would see you making spell charms or bags with animal bones in it—

And then next thing you know he drops a sack of birds and a goat next to you and walks away???🤭

Do I know where he got the goat?? No I fucking do not xD but it kinda stank so you had to drag it out the back door and get to work 😣

And then obviously he’ll give you human bones as well lel 💕

He likes hearing of your past life death, he thinks it’s cool lol 😊💖

Getting forewarnings of Michael’s death? K.

He wouldn’t be bothered really, but he obviously doesn’t want to die— he’s too stubborn for that 💕💖

This is the only time he will ever listen to you xD barely

Basically like “too bad—I’m going out tonight. But I’ll ‘be careful’ or whatever the fuck you said.”

Another huge power couple btw 🙌💖💕

Bubba Sawyer

He thinks you’re so cool 🥺

He’ll think your tarot readings are a game and he’ll pick up random ones and look at them

(He likes the pictures) 😖💖

He’ll be so curious, like snooping around when you’re doing a ritual, snuggling up against you when you’re saying an incantation—

He’s like a cat💖💕

Oh you like animal bones? What a surprise! His house is literally full of them. 😶🌷

Ya you have an endless supply of animal bones— you won’t ever run out 😂💖💕

You died in your past life? WHAT? Why? *crying*

He will snuggle you all night when you tell him that 🥺

Also thinks you’re a goddess that was sent to him and can NOT wrap his head around the fact that you two met by chance 🥺💖

Cherishes you every single day and will probably be super clingy because you’re just his strong woman who deserves everything for the queen she is— *INHALE* yeah. 😖😖💕💕💖💖

Wait. What? You dreamt of me dying? What abt you will you be okay my little blueberry muffin??

He won’t careeee but at the same time he wants to stay with youuuuu😖💖💕

Just so he can stay alive to be with you, he’ll do everything you say to stay safe and will follow every protocol much to Chop Tops annoyment. 🤷‍♀️😊💕

“No, sorry—Y/n says I can’t do that.”

I love you two together, it gives me the feels 🥺💕💖

Bo Sinclair

Ooooh niceeee

Lowkey interested but probably won’t show it 😆

Like u do u— don’t know don’t care as long as you keep making me pbjs

Prepare for bewildererd looks when he walks in on your using blood/bones for a particular ritual 😳

Like you’ll just be sitting on your bed with your eyes closed, holding a black candle trying to banish negative energy and he’ll walk in—

“Want me to leave...?”

“Shhhhhhh....”

He’ll probably come home one day with an animal skull or something like, “babe I found this owl beak... you want it?” 😂💖💕

He’ll probably tell Lester to catch something while he’s out and about, and then take it and tell you that he got it for you all by himself😂💕

Lowkey scared of you sometimes

He’s not scared of blood, but like y are u using it..??

Tried not to piss you off too much so you hex him or something xD 💖💕

You: *manipulating fire and wind out back*

Bo, walking in on it: bitch what the fu—

If you tell him you’re getting visions of his death, he’ll probably be super skeptical and give you it a smartass remark— probably ask if you’ve been smoking the mugwort too 😳😶

But if you persist on it— he’ll get frustrated but will listen to you because he doesn’t like seeing u upset 🥺🌷

Brahmsie

Bitch wtf u doin?

So confused— explain now

This little shit will go through all of your stuff and take what he thinks is cool and will probably piss off your deities (if u have deities) 😂

You’ll have to make him apologize and have him give it back~~which I wish you the best of luck w 😂💖💕

You’ll just be minding your own business when Brahmsie is looking at your things—

The he legit looks at you dead in the eyes and takes your dragon figurine and disappears into the walls, much to your panic 😓😶😶

But since you can do all this stuff, now 3x more scared of you even tho you’re a small bean in comparison to him— 😳💕🌷

You threatened to hex him if he didn’t start actin right and he started being nice real quick 😂🙌💕💕

Where did u get that blood? 😶😳

Using animal bones? Use the dead rats y/n! Duh!

Bonus for him if he manages to sack the grocery boy and take his bones too 😶💘

“ANYTHING FOR YOU MY QUEEN!” 🙌😭💖💖

If he finds you controlling the elements and sees u controlling fire.... he leaves immediately dont you know he’s terrified of fire??

Yeah uh he demands in a shaky voice that you stop doing that or else ☹️😶he doesn’t like fire at all

But that’s okay cuz you’re still the fuckin coolest person hes ever been w! 😆💘

Wait wut...? You’re saying I’m gonna die? UWU SAVE ME Y/N I DONT WANNA DIEEE

He will literally get so scared when you tell him you’re getting forewarnings of his death, and will go under your wing definitely the most willingly 😅💓💓

Whatever, more cuddles for him! And some other things 😏

I hope u liked ittt! Sorry I’ve not the time to post ANYTHING lately— it took me 5 days to finish this one because of how busy w school I am— but I hope you like it!! 💖💖

[anxiousnerdwritings]

(Part 1) zoydzlhfxfzmbdd BRUH. BRUH. BRUH. your writing is phenomenal! Like, can I get the number of the Demon you sold your soul to for writing talent? Because ugh its so fucking good. I love your concepts and headcanons and they're always so in character and fit so well with each yandere like a terrifying PBJ sandwich 🥪. If you're not busy, can I get some uh platonic yandere Superman? Like, just imagine him adopting a dumbass vigilante reader and getting uber protective when he realises

Yandere Platonic!Superman/Clark Kent x Daughter!Reader

Once Clark meets you as your vigilante persona and sees how reckless and careless you really are, he just knows he has to take you in as his own. He's not like Bruce who will gradually get to the point of taking you under his wing and bringing you into the family, no Clark rushes in head first, much like yourself. Now, he knows you're not of legal adopting age but the doesn't keep him from deciding henceforth you will be his daughter.

When Clark does make his fateful visit, your fate was already decided before he even got to your apartment complex. He either got the address from Bruce or from one of the many nights he followed you home, just to ensure you got back safely and without incident. Speaking of which, he'll have to have talk with you about how you late you come home, barely leaving any time for you to get a restful amount of sleep.

Once you open the door and see Superman in all his superhero glory (he didn't even bother changing) you don't have enough time before he's already inside your apartment, looking around and taking everything in. It's obvious that you're a broke college student just by how bare and empty the place is. You're still babbling on about how he found you and what the hell's going on. Clark already thinks this place isn't good enough for you by any means. Looking through your cupboards only to find cup'o'noodles, peanut butter and RedBull. Yeah this isn't going to fly with him. He's surprised you've made it this far on your own, but now you don't have to survive by yourself cause Clark's here now.

You won't be able to talk your way out of anything with Clark, if he has his mind already set on something then that's what he's gonna go with. You'll be packed up and moved into his house in no time, probably the same night he comes to your apartment. You're pretty sure you're being kidnapped and you are, but Clark's just taking his daughter home. He's too delusional and too far gone to see his actions as anything other than what they are and to him, he's taking care of his precious baby girl and making sure your needs are met.

If you have a job, Clark will be there especially if it's a job like being a cashier, server, or something of the sort. He'll drop by to check in on you and make sure everything's going well. He doesn't necessarily like you working, he and Lois could take care of you, but it is a proud moment to see his Daughter being responsible and doing grown up things. He'll take sneaky photos of you while your working just to send them to Lois or Bruce, bragging about how well you're working and how much of a little worker bee you are. All the while you're having an existential crisis about this strange man who keeps referring to himself as your Dad and how he basically kidnapped you the day before, after not even meeting him for the first time.

Speaking of Lois, she and the rest of the Superfamily have already been well aware of Clark bringing you home, he hadn't stopped talking about leading up to the day he actually brought you home. Lois was hesitant and apprehensive about at first but once he brought you home, she saw exactly what Clark had seen in you. In that moment she accepted that this was the best choice for you. You're still very much in a panic over the whole thing especially when you're all sitting at the dinner table and everyone's acting like this is what you've all been doing for years, being completely normal and not uttering a word about what all has gone down in the last few days.

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you won't anymore after Clark finds out. He won't allow you to date at any age, you're going to stay his precious baby girl. He can't fathom the thought of you getting married or having kids, not that he's opposed to grandkids, he just is opposed to everything leading up to grandkids. He wants to keep in his mind that you're his pure and innocent daughter and that no one has tainted you or anything. If you've already had intimate relationships, it would be best to keep that to yourself.

Clark is always listening to your heart beat, keeping track of even the smallest changes in the rhythmic beating. He'll use his x-ray vision while you're both out on patrol to check for any internal damage or injuries. God forbid if he finds any, you're being rushed to the hospital right away, no ifs, ands, or buts. He'll stay with you the whole time. Now if Clark knows who hurt you or even the slightest inkling they're a goner. He'll track them down and beat them to a pulp, maybe even killing them in the process.

Clark probably has a parenting book about How to Raise a Daughter. He'll take advice from Lois, Kara and Karen but he'll usually go with his gut. He'll treat you a lot like a toddler or middle schooler than an actually college aged person. When you're old enough to drink, he'll probably have a heart attack. Clark just can't take the thought of you going to a bar and getting drunk and then the thought of some grubby drunk person hitting on you or making you feel uncomfortable just gets him all kinds of angry. Lois would be the voice of reason, telling you to date and to go out and have fun but to be safe about it, while Clark is off to the side with his arms crossed and huffing like a child who didn't get his way. If you do go out, Clark will follow whether as Superman or where some ridiculous disguise.

God forbid if you actually do sneak out and go on dates behind his back, Clark will feel both betrayed and upset. He'll pull that "I'm not mad, just disappointed" card on you and you'll probably feel like a piece of shit for making him upset. But then you remember that this man KIDNAPPED YOU and MADE YOU HIS DAUGHTER!!!! But the psychological aspect of being told that you disappointed someone does hit deep and you'll probably come around to apologizing to him and promising him you won't do it again. He'll use that on you a lot to make you more compliant.

If you do have your own REAL family and you're close with them, Clark will probably orchestrate something to get rid of them. Like some sort of weird accident or putting the blame on a specific villain. He was just a little too late to save them and he'll hold you as you collapse into his arms crying. As much as it kills Clark to see you hurting, it had to be done. He'll be right by your side the whole time, even at the funeral he'll be right there for you. You won't feel alone with Clark around, he'll make sure of it. If you want space Clark will hesitantly give it to you, but he's using his super hearing and x-ray vision to make sure you're okay, periodically checking in on you using his powers. You don't know what all you've gotten thrown into and you won't be able to claw your way out of it, it's just best to play along and keep the facade going on. Who knows maybe you'll believe sooner or later, maybe you'll become just as delusional as your "dad", if only.

[striveattemptfail]

Football Vs. Husband: Which Do You Know Better? | Zimbits ft. Tater, G, 1.8k

Summary: Bitty gets quizzed on two of his favourite things: Jack and...... football?

Based on the Buzzfeed video of the same name. Takes place sometime in Sept-Oct 2019. Minor spoilers for 4.25 Faber and 4.26 Check, Please! (If you can call em spoilers LOL.)

Read on Ao3

A/N: Fun fact: At the time I wrote this (2017), it was set in the “future” (2019), but now that year is literally the past for us hahahahahahskfjasldfjasldfjklaskdfj. In the fic summary I say “minor spoilers” because what I originally wrote as wish fulfillment in 2017 became canon in 2020.

Anyway, this is a near verbatim copy of Ned Fulmer getting quizzed on his wife vs football—like fr some of the dialogue is exactly the same LOL. Thanks to @smol0ctopus​ for the beta and the omg stream! please server for advice!<3 Any other mistakes are mine.

YouTube transcript of Football Vs. Husband (Check, Please! #151: A Falconers Special!) [Descriptive captions by biittyyreciipees, airhockeycanbeviolent, and f4lcsboy: Check, Please! Captioning Team]

Eric Hey, y’all! Didja miss me? Because I sure did miss you! Now, today’s video is a lil special. Y’all’ll see that I’ve got myself some lovely guests here from Providence’s own Falconers team. (gestures towards Jack and Tater) Say hi guys!

Tater (waves) Hi!

Jack (single nod, smiles) Hello.

Eric I’ve got here regular guest and my husband, Jack Zimermann, and his teammate, Alexei Mashkov—

Tater But you call me Tater!

Eric (laughs) But we call him Tater! Tater, why don’t you explain what’ll happen here today?

Tater Is collaboration with Falcs TV! We had special tournament to see if players knows their SOAPs more than favorite thing.

ONSCREEN CAPTION SOAPs = Significant Others And Partners, for all y’all non-hockey fans out there! Click here (highlighted annotation inserted) to watch the tournament on the Falconer’s official website or check this video’s description!

Eric I had me such a great time over on Falcs TV with Jack that I wanted to share the fun with y’all here!

Tater (nods) Zimmboni crush everyone in tournament!

ONSCREEN CAPTION “Zimmboni” is Jack’s hockey nickname, like “Tater” is for Alexei. Everyone on the team has one! In fact, I have one too: Bitty! But Alexei likes to call me “B”.

Jack (shrugs, gives small smile) I know history. I know my husband.

Eric (laughs, blushes)

Tater Now, is time to see if B know Zimmboni just as much!

Eric I’m feelin’ pretty confident that I do. What do you think, sweetpea?

Jack I think Bits knows me better than myself, to be honest.

Eric Jack! (blushing again)

Tater Yes, yes, is very cute! But I’m want to ask questions now, yes?

Eric (turns to camera) Now, I tried to get ‘em to quiz me on baking—because y’all and your mama know that I love it—but Jack here insisted that I get asked about football instead.

Jack Baking’s too easy. I figured you’d appreciate the challenge. You know a lot about American football, eh?

Eric (rolls eyes) “American football”—I know y’all in Canada just call it football too! Now, I’d argue, but that’ll take up the rest of this video, so I guess it’s time to get to the quiz!

Tater Yes!

(video transition with dramatic music)

Tater (holds up stack of cards in hands) Here, I’m hold questions about NFL and college football, plus questions about Zimmboni for B to answer. Like during Falcs’ tournament, I’m ask SOAP about their favorite subject first, then ask about their partner. B, is ready?

Eric As I’ll ever be!

Jack Gonna crush it, Bits.

Eric Let’s hope so, sweetheart.

Tater Will be good, B, I’m sure! Question one, name five offensive positions in the NFL.

Eric Lord, how easy—quarterback, running back, wide receiver, offensive tackle, tight end.

ONSCREEN CAPTION Score: 5/5

Tater See, B! You be fine! Name five of Zimmboni’s favourite foods.

Eric Ooh, alright. So PB&J sandwiches, chicken tenders... scrambled eggs, uh, cassoulet... (Caption Note: French food pronunciation is not butchered, because food)

ONSCREEN CAPTION Score: 4/5

Tater One more, B.

Eric Hm, let’s see—

Tater (snickers) Remember this easiest question in stack.

Eric Oh, hush, you.

Jack Bits? Maybe a dessert?

Eric (hits head with base of palm) Oh, goodness me, right! Maple sugar crusted apple pie.

ONSCREEN CAPTION Score: 5/5

Tater (nods) Yes. Okay, how many minutes in football quarter?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: Quarters in the NFL and NCAA football are 15 minutes.

Eric 15 minutes.

Tater How long is Zimmboni’s pre-game ritual?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: 15 minutes max. Like all athletes, hockey players have specific rituals before their games.

Eric About thirty minutes?

Tater (whooping laughter) 15 minutes, max.

Jack (laughs)

Eric (gasps, shakes head) That is not true, that can not be true! Honey, I’ve seen you take 15 minutes making your pre-game PBJ sandwiches. (scoffs)

Jack (makes a face)

Tater Sorry, B. Must give big zero for that question.

Eric (rolls eyes) Hmph!

Tater B, you get 20 seconds—name as many starting quarterbacks in the NFL as possible. Ready, set, go!

Eric Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, Josh Allen, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady—ugh—Baker Mayfield, Derek Carr, Carson Palmer.

ONSCREEN CAPTION Score: 8

Tater Have 10 seconds, name as many as Zimmboni’s lineys when he finally move to first line.

ONSCREEN CAPTION Lineys = Hockey linemates. Fun fact: Jack moved from third to first line during his first season in the Falcs back in 2015!

Eric (opens mouth)

Tater But! Must name them by nickname!

Eric (single nod, determined expression)

Tater Okay? Ready, set, go!

Eric Alright so excluding Jack, that’ll be you, Tater, then we got Marty, Thirdy, Guy, and Snowy if you count the goalies!

Tater (solemnly nods) Always count goalies!

Eric Then that’s five for five. Gettin’ a lil easy there!

ONSCREEN CAPTION Score: 5/5

Tater Haha! Okay, who are on cover of Sports Illustrated for this season’s NFL and college previews?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. were on the cover for the NFL preview. Trevor Lawrence was on the cover for the college preview.

Eric Oh, Coach and I were just talkin’ about this! I know the NFL preview was Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry, but the college preview... (brief pause, placing chin on fist contemplatively) I think it’s Trevor Lawrence?

Tater Correct! What magazine cover did Zimmboni appear on first?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: Trick question! Jack’s first ever appearance on a magazine cover was not as a hockey player. He first appeared on People Magazine as a baby with his parents, Robert “Bad bob” Zimmermann and Alicia Zimmermann.

Eric Can I ask a question?

Tater ...no.

Eric Well, shoot, alright. If you mean his first cover as an athlete, I’ll say Sports Illustrated, but if you mean his first one ever I think it’s People Magazine when he was a baby.

Tater (censored beep) Wow!

Jack (raises eyebrows) You remember that?

Eric Well, you told me! And Alicia did show me when we visited for Christmas one year. (smug smirk)

Jack (covers face in hand, exasperated sigh) Of course she did.

Tater Next question! How many Super Bowl rings does Tom Brady have?

Eric Oh goodness. I think it’s five?

Tater Six!

Eric What?

Tater Is six!

Eric (groans) Of course it’s six. Whatever, it’s fine, I try not to think about Tom Brady anyway. I don’t mind getting this one wrong. In fact, I’m kinda glad because I certainly don’t care for the man. Like, who—

Jack Bits. We’re in the middle of a game right now?

Eric (blushes) Oh, right.

Tater It’s alright, B, haha. But we move on with game now, yes? (single nod) Now, how many rings Zimmboni normally wear?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: 1.

Eric One! He usually just wears his wedding ring, but today he’s got his 2016 Stanley ring! Wanna show it off, honey?

Jack (sheepishly holds up hands to show the two rings)

ONSCREEN CAPTION Fun fact: The team who wins the Stanley Cup get matching rings. Jack got his first one when the Falcs won the Cup in 2016!

Tater Is tough one now: How many times have the Atlanta Falcons made the playoffs?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: 14.

Eric (sighs) Oh Lordy, that's hard. Alright, so by the time I was born they were at five so— (voice continues in fast forward) —they did in ‘98, then... ‘02? After was 2004, not 2005, or ‘06... so the next one was 2008. Then there was that streak from 2010 to 2012. Then the next one was 2016, and then ‘17. Not ‘18 and ‘19. So that’s... (begins to count on fingers)

Tater (back to regular speed, looking impressed) You have answer, B?

Eric I'm gonna go with fourteen as of this year.

Tater (censored beep)!!!

Eric (laughs)

Jack (censored beep), Bittle.

Tater Is amazing! You have both number and years!

Eric I’m Southern, and my daddy’s a football coach. (shrugs) Can’t help it!

Jack (chuckles) This is why I wanted you to answer stuff about the football instead of baking.

Eric (rolls eyes, swats Jack’s arm) Oh, this boy.

Tater Next question! What is most number of times Zimmboni fight in one season?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: 3 fights.

Eric Ooh, shoot. I should know this one too, huh? Okay, so his first season he only got in one fight— (voice continues in fast forward) —and second season was also one, I think. After that, uhh, I think he finally got in two. Last year was three maybe? And this season hasn’t even started. But last year? Was it three? I don’t quite—hm.

Tater (back to regular speed) Your answer, B?

Eric I’m gonna go with three fights for last season.

Tater (shaking his head)

Jack What did I say?

Tater (censored beep) Is correct. (huffs) What year did Falcons join the NFL?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: 1965.

Eric Uhhh, oh goodness, I know Coach told me this at some point... (pause) I think it was 1965?

Tater Correct! What year Zimmboni first try skating?

ONSCREEN CAPTION Answer: 1992. Fun fact: Bad Bob had Jack skating as soon as Jack could walk!

Eric Skating, huh? ‘Cause I’ll bet the son of Bad Bob tried on his first skates before he even turned one, huh? (smiles cheekily)

Jack (nudges with elbow, gives Eric a small smile) Not the question.

Eric Oh alright, not the question. Hmm, I know it was before you turned three so, I’ll say... (drawling out answer) nineteen-ninety... two?

Tater (throws cards out of hand, shaking his head) Is correct again!

Eric Oh my god!

(high pitched sound as Eric fist pumps the air)

Jack (laughs, bringing an arm around Eric before kissing his cheek)

Tater B, I'm frustrate to say you know Zimmboni as much as you know football.

ONSCREEN CAPTION FINAL SCORE: Football = 6, Husband = 6. T I E ! ! !

Jack Knew it. Told you so, Bits.

Eric That sounds like a chirp, and I will not have that on my vlog, Mr. Zimmermann. So with that, I guess we’re done! (looks towards camera, claps once) Well, that about does it for today’s video! Thank you so much to my special guests, Providence Falconers’ Jack Zimermann and Alexei Mashkov, for joining me today. (gestures towards Jack and Tater)

Tater (nods with a wide smile) Thanks for having us, B!

Jack (smiles and nods) Always great to be here.

Eric Be sure to check out the Falcs TV videos too! Link in the description or right over here! (points to space, highlighted annotation inserted) And thanks for tuning in! Next week, I’ll have a new video for y’all on the best ways to add protein to your favourite sandwiches.

(Eric, Jack, and Tater wave at the camera)

Eric Bye, y’all! See ya next time!

(More notes on Ao3.)

[m4a1-shermayne]

Well it’s been quite the ride since 2013 and after a while I’ve finally reached 7,500 followers.

So for the hell of it today I will teach you about the M3 75mm gun and it’s uses.

First off I want you to forget about the whole Tiger/Sherman and Panther/Sherman debate for a moment and focus on the primary reason the tank was created in the first place: Infantry support and breaking through defensive lines.

The M3 it’s self finds it’s roots going back to a French Cannon known as the Canon de 75 mm Modele 1897 which was widely regarded as the first modern artillery piece at it’s introduction during the end of the 19th century.

Now you might be thinking “woah Sherm what does this have to do with a tank cannon from the 40s” well, everything! The biggest reason the Modele 1897 was so popular was due to it’s HE and timed shrapnel shells, infact it was popular enough that the French had several thousand still in service before the German invasion of 1940.

The Modele 1897 was used on a handful of other vehicles during the First World War including the Char Saint-Chamond.

The French and other nations also mounted these vehicles on trucks and used T30 shrapnel shells for Anti-Aircraft duty.

The US obtained numerous weapons during World War One including tanks and planes, they began using them during their time in Europe, Renaming the Modele 1897 to the 75 mm Gun M1897, the US was so fond of these guns that close to 2,000 of them were on the field in US service when the War ended in November 1918.

US production rates of the M1897 reached 1,000 total, but only a handful of those guns in particular got to Europe before the war ended. Which means they ended up with a large surplus of US made M1987s. Development of the M1897 led to an experimental anti-aircraft gun known as the T6. The barrel was shortened by 5 calibers from 36 to 31 and Nordenfelt screw breech replaced with the sliding block breech.

The time between 1918 and 1939 was great for weapon tech, from Biplanes to Monoplanes, from Carriers becoming a lethal and key capital ship in Naval warfare, to the smallest but fastest armored vehicles. The US had spent it’s time quite wisely building up and researching technology that would but it’s self into a relative sweet spot by the time the next Major conflict would arrive.

The M1897 would undergo modernization in the hands of all who used it, The French built the later M1897A2 and M1897A3 models while the M1897A4 would be built in US factories. The A4 model consists of the removal of rollers and sweeper plates with felt pads, and elimination of a portion of the jacket of the gun which is replaced by steel rails and bronze strips attached to supports on the gun.

The German invasion of France in 1940 caught the attention of the Americans, they looked into what made them so effective. One of the notes they made was the use of self propelled artillery. When looking at their own arsenal it was made apparent that the United States lacked vehicles that could fulfill such a role.

Debate and discussion followed and eventually it was decided to mount the M1897A5 onto the new and upcoming Half Tracks. Using the M3 and M5 half tracks the gun would be mounted and used in numerous roles such as Anti Tank and Indirect Artillery Support.

Known as the T12 or M3 GMC (Gun Motor Carriage) this vehicle would be sent to North Africa along with Operation Torch and find it’s self neck deep in German/Italian Tanks. However technology had moved too quickly and due to the fact the weapon was mounted on a half track and not a heavier vehicle, losses weren’t exactly minimal for the M3 GMC. Eventually the M3 would be replaced by the heavier M10 Wolverine, but that doesn’t exactly mean the M1897 was to be taken out of service.

At a similar time the M3 Lee was being produced as a stopgap for the problems US manufacturers were facing with the up coming M4 Medium. The War Department noticed the all purposeness of the M1897 and decided to develop it a bit further. The M1897 was shortened and adapted to the role of Anti Tank.

The gun would be known as the M2 75mm and it would arm all Lee/Grant tanks and during their time in North Africa they showed promise, but as time goes on technology always advances and being a stop gap doesn’t exactly mean time is on your side. However the T7/M2 would be used briefly on the Sherman.

The T6 was the first Sherman prototype, armed with the T7/M2 and boasting four .30 caliber machine guns, it had a handful of features that it would share with the Lee which would be eventually removed such as the side hull door. It should also be noted that the Lee’s hull door had periscopes embedded in it, the T6 prototype did not. Also the white circle is to bring attention to the fact the antenna was getting caught by the gun.

Eventually the M2 would be refined into the M3 which would feature a lengthened barrel and not much difference.

The M3 was highly praised for it’s High Explosive capabilities and Armor Piercing capabilities in the North African desert. But of course as the story goes when moving through Italy and France the M3 struggled against heavily armored targets. But it wasn’t exactly the gun’s fault.

First off, it should be noted that Shermans were not designed to engage heavy vehicles. That was the job of the tank destroyer units that stuck around. Just like it wouldn’t be the job of the tank destroyer to push heavily fortified areas.

Second, a certain individual is to blame for the inefficiency of the M3 75′s AP capabilities; General Lesley McNair. There are numerous types of munitions that these guns use, but the ones in question would be the M72 AP and M61 APCBC shot. The capabilities of the M61 APCBC shot had enough to punch through the Tiger at close distance and enough to punch through the sides at at least 500 meters. However due to McNair’s orders the M61 wasn’t issued to troops while the inferior M72 was in fact issued. McNair believed that Tanks were not the best way to fight tanks.

This is a USSR Archival photo of testing against a Tiger tank. The USSR tested virtually every type of ammunition to determine the capabilities against it. They found that the Sherman was more than capable of killing one if the proper measures were taken.

But nevertheless, the M3 turned out to be an amazing gun for infantry support and bunker busting. Infact the Army was so thrilled by the HE capabilities it was having a tough time switching the M3 out for the M1 76mm which had better AP but worse HE.

There are two other version of the M1897 I’d like to mention before finishing off. The M5 and the M6.

Attacking ships is serious business. They’re usually filled to the brim with anti aircraft guns so you’re usually forced to use rockets, bombs or torpedoes. But the US loves it’s kinetic action.

Lightened and stuck into the nose of PBJs and B-25s, the M5 was fitted with a automatic reloading mechanism which allowed it to be used more than once. 

The M6 is based on the M5 and used in the M24 Chaffee which was a very potent light tank when comparing it to the M3 or M5 light tanks.

Couple final notes. All major version of the gun could use the same ammunition.

The ammunition included: M72 APC

M61 APCBC

M48 HE

M66 HEAT

M89 Smoke

M64 White Phosphorus

Other rounds such as HVAP and Shrapnel were also developed.Crews would typically take 50% HE, 40% AP, and 10% Smoke/WP.

The last thing i’d like to mention is that France still uses two M1897 guns for ceremonial purposes.

Thanks for sticking around, I don’t really post tanks that much anymore but I’ll try to change that.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 103

June 22

Tonight's journal is coming to you from my balcony, where it is dark at nearly ten pm and very humid, but still pleasant with all my plants growing and the hum of air conditioners all around me. 

And fucking yikes, those are some large bugs. The inside is also very appealing at this hour. I think I will write from my armchair this evening. 

Anyway, I need to go to bed earlier than usual tonight because I have a very early morning tomorrow. Poll workers need to report to the precinct by 5am, and although I'm lucky to live nearly on top of our polling place, I still need to shower and dress and pack my breakfast, lunch and dinner before I go. We typically don't finish till 8:30pm, sometimes later, so it's a damn long day when you're not allowed to leave the precinct for any reason. Typically we make it nicer by throwing a big potluck of foods people can eat on all day long, but COVID ruins everything once again. At least there's a fridge and a microwave so I won't be stuck with PBJs and tepid water bottles. 

The procedure is going to be different this time, too. I work pollbook most of the time at our precinct, which is the computer we use to check people in. It's not difficult work, but it is exacting, and it must be done right every time. Almost every counting discrepancy in a precinct starts at the pollbook, with somebody who didn't get entered properly for one reason or another. I have not made any major mistakes yet, knock on wood! There is a special precinct captain just for the pollbook, who does not work the pollbook but watches us working the pollbook to make sure we do it right. She's very demanding, for obvious reasons, and insists that we follow a particular procedure that is the same every time, so no steps ever get missed. This time we can't touch anybody's ID, which is going to make things different since we usually hold the ID till we've pushed the key to enter the voter, and we have to hand out the ballot ourselves instead of sending them to a ballot table. I'm hoping we get off to kind of a slow start so we can get the hang of things. I really, really do not want to be the person who causes a counting discrepancy. The biggest thing we've got going in our favor is that it's a simple Republican primary, so only one ballot type to hand out, and attendance is likely to be fairly light.

Going to bed early will be easy, at least, because the new mattress topper is here! Yay! It's very soft and cushy and I love it deeply already. I've only laid on it a little because it needs to recover from being vacuum sealed, but I can tell we're going to be the very best of friends.Our super-old mattress for the past two nights has made my back and neck very sad. We can't afford a new mattress, but this is like a new mattress, or close enough for now. I'm finally looking forward to going to bed! 

Today was grocery pickup day, so we finally have milk and eggs and yogurt and such. The morning routine was disrupted when we realized that the truck's battery was flat after sitting for so many weeks, but I was able to take the battery pack we got for Christmas from my folks and use it to jump the battery, with some Facetime assistance from my dad. I know the principles of jumping a battery, but never had to do it on my own before. It's not too hard. I then had to go over to the post office, a chore that always ruins my day a little. 

I don't understand what is wrong with my post office because I have dealt with many many post offices in all the places I've lived and none of them have been terrible like this one! I went in and told them that I wasn't getting my mail and asked if they might be holding it. Officious Asshole Guy, as he shall henceforth be known, assured me that they did not hold any mail without an order to hold it. I told him that I had a hold mail for the first two weeks of May, but that my mailbox was bursting when I got home May 16, so I assumed that, per usual, the mail carrier ignored my hold. I asked if he could go check, and he did, and came back with a big bundle of mail. He informed me that it was my fault that I wasn't getting my mail because I'd said I'd pick up my mail on May 16 but I hadn't done so. I reiterated that I'd gotten all my mail up until May 16, and that this must be mail from later, after the hold mail expired. He insisted that was not the case, that they never held mail without a hold mail order and never did not hold mail that had been ordered held, and that if I hadn't gotten any mail in a month, it was because people weren't sending me anything. It was useless to argue with him, so I took my mail and left. Everything in the pile was, of course, from after May 16. I went home and reminded all my family and friends on Facebook to please not send us anything via postal mail because the probability of it not reaching us is fairly high. I am sticking with my resolution to not leave any negative comments or complaints for anybody who has to work during the pandemic, no matter how terrible they are, but this guy really, really tempted me. 

Just typing all that out has angried up my blood again, so I'll finish out with nicer stuff. The kiddo is back to using the knitting loom, which is a nice hobby and something good to do while listening to podcasts. He's been a little high strung since we got home, settling back into the routine, but it's getting gradually better. I wish it weren't so hot, so the kids could go out and play distantly with each other. Virginia is on a downswing right now, so it's not too unsafe except for the heat exhaustion part. My husband's summer class didn't make, not enough students signed up, so while that's a little less money for us this summer, it also means more time for him to work on his book. 

And my mail today included two interesting COVID artifacts I will probably save: my son's report card with all V's (not evaluated) for his fourth quarter grades and merely a notation at the bottom that he is being promoted to fifth grade, and my sister's wedding invitation with an "everything could change at any time" caveat right under the RSVP instructions. These are strange days we are living in, but the weirdest thing I saw today was a Crayola Maskpack commercial that looked exactly like a commercial for any other Crayola school products, kids running, jumping, coloring in the classroom, interacting with their teachers, except every single person except one mom at home was wearing a bright colorful facemask. It looked so bizarre I watched it through twice, couldn't look away. It really is a new world. 

[cowboyjen68]

Hello Jen, do you have any tips on how to save money? I spend mine impulsively on food almost every day & it's killing me. I'm trying to save for a place of my own before my parents move out

I seem like the worst person in the world to ask this because I am in debt up to my eyeballs. I work two and three jobs and I have to call debtors weekly to beg for more time and forgiveness.. BUT in reality, I am the best candidate to help with this. Hindsight is a great gardener for the growth of wisdom. 

Go to a Credit Union or local bank.  Start 3 accounts.. one is checking with a savings and a savings. Label them… Checking and Future

Every time you deposit money.. take some to put i the Future.. if you get an autocheck your bank or employer can do this for you.  It can be 10 percent or 10.00.. Anything.. but make it less than you will miss. Don’t short yourself for bills because then you have to dip into it anyway. 

Almost all banks and credit unions offer financial growth assistance for FREE and many off an on line budget system. If you are the kind of person who thrives on filling out forms or needs someone to line up a budget for you.. use those free services. 

Here is what I do. I NEVER go to a store without a list.. and money to do that. I do use my card but try to just get cash at the bank. I always build in “fun”.  The top of my list is stuff I need for basic eating. The second part is for meal prep .. the final part is for meals for fast and easy (boxed or frozen). The last is a dollar amount on treats. I am NOT good at math.. and I do better with a reward for staying under budget. 

Sample list:

Eggs, butter, tortillas, PB, Bread, RIce, noodles, olive oil, coffee

Meatless crumbles (hamburger if you eat meat), sauces like spaghetti or fake alfredo, stir fry veggies, canned food that can be added in to things like mushroom, corn, beans.. Then a bag of potatos and any odd ingrediants for somthing I want to try. 

Bonus stuff: Boca Burgers, meatless chicken strips, soup boxes or noodle boxes, pot pies, frozen pizzas, hot pockets etc. 

Treats.. LIttle Debbies snack cakes, ice cream, chips, sugar cereal

 I allow for 10.00  to 20.00 more in my budget if I buy veggies or corn from a local vendor or farmer’s market.. I buy my eggs from Rainbow Farm (they have 12 chickens) so I pay 3.00 a dozen and not .98 cents.. but I am okay with that. 

IF you stay under budget you get to have a treat from the gas station or fast food, ONLY if you stay under budget.. I follow these rules… 

NO FAST FOOD unless I have the kid with me and it is an emergency .I literally pack PBJ On a tortilla (bread get soggy) . I carry a water bottle at all times. I never by coffee from any “fancy” place. Mcdonalds and Dunkin Donuts has wonderful coffee for under 2.oo.. I carry a coffee to go cup.. In a pinch.. ONLY get pop from the fountain and REUSE THE CUP

Coffee refill  .25 to .99

Pop Refill .25 to .99

Water Bottle fill (even with pop) Free to .99

MUCH less waste.. most gas stations have a sink you can wash the in.. no need to drag them in the house.  Get a water bottle you can carry, a mug that fits  in your car holder. 

Don’t wander down each lane at the store.. go to what you need and get it.. wandering is what causes us to think “ooo I could use that”  NO JUST NO.. you don’t need it nor will you use the plastic sandwich keeper. I PROMISE> 

NOW on to other ways to save. ASK: DO I need it?  Can I get it Cheaper used?  Is a used version easy to locate?

I needed new socks.. I went to Wal Mart and spent the 12.00 on 15 new socks.. sure I could run all over the place.. search on line but that is time and gas…when I knew exactly what i wanted and could get out. TO go cups are .25 at most thrift stores and they have tons of unique ones.   Same goes with Pants.. I know what I want 19.99 Wal Mart.. But shirts… Thrift stores have many more and often are on sale if you check with the store on what day clothes are half off. I never buy cooking utensils, kitchen wares etc new.. no point.. .50 to 1.00  will get you about anything at a thrift shop or even an estate sale or auction. 

It is sort of a game for me.. I have 30.00 for the day.. groceries and all. IF i get it all done with 20.00 I get to spend 10.00 and take Lori to ice cream and 10.00 goes in my savings. WIn win. 

My final tip (and a warning because I am in debt due to my inability to see red flags and say “no”..)  If you are with a partner or friend or anyone who needs to borrow money BUT doesn’t work, doesn’t try, doesn’t save, spends 200.00 on a trip to wal mart that was for “milk”. Get out.. get away.. keep your finances your own..  We all fall on hard times. have short checks, health issues, sudden bills to pay, When NON working, but spending is the clear pattern.. PLEASE listen to me. They will not “get the perfect job someday”  They will not “start to save after this one last purchase”  They will not “save money by getting that giant tv on sale”. Patterns are patterns, Listen to your gut.  Do not stay with or date someone with toxic spending habits. Caring for each other in down times is different. Caring for some one who will not even see a need to try or change will destroy your savings, your energy and your goodwill. 

[acehotel]

Just/Talk: Justin Strauss with “Breakbeat Lou” Flores

“BreakBeat Lou” Flores has been a student of sound since he was three years old. The legendary Bronx-born DJ, B-Boy and hip hop pioneer — whose modus operandi could be summed up by the line, “If it’s funky, it’s funky” — cut his sonic teeth in the early 70s in New York City, where he says “there was no better recipe” for hip hop to happen. Here he chats with longtime Ace friend and fellow New York mainstay Justin Strauss for this edition of Just/Talk about the octopoidal nature of being a DJ, soaking records in bathtubs to hide their labels from rival music crews and the first record he ever bought. 

Justin Strauss: In my mind, you’re one of the architects of hip hop. You were there at a very important part of New York and music culture. What was your introduction to music? Obviously, it’s been a passion — what triggered that?

Lou Flores: Well, the music started at a very early age. My mother used to have a social club in the Bronx, and at the age of three I got the interest in playing the bongos because I had seen the band members rehearse. When my mother was opening the club up, I gravitated.

JS: How old were you?

LF: I was three. So I learned to play bongos first and then congas at the age of three, and that really catapulted the love for the intricacies of music. In my household, my mother, on the weekends, she was always playing. Wake up in the morning, it was cleaning day, so she was always playing music, everything from The Beatles, Elvis, Frankie Lyman, Marvin Gaye, so it wasn’t just Latin music. It was a little bit of everything, so my palate for music was very cultured from the beginning as far as I can remember.

JS: This is in the 60s?

LF: This is in the 60s, early 60s for sure.

JS: You were working and helping out in the club, hanging out in the club.

LF: Yeah, just hanging out.

JS: And the club was in the Bronx?

LF: Yes the Bronx, 138th and Brook Avenue. My mother and I were extremely, extremely close. My mother was my hero. In most cases, most have the father, but my mother was my hero. The man that I am today across the board, even in music, it comes because of her. She gave me that love and passion, respect and the love for music.

JS: Was that something you knew you were going to pursue at any certain point?

LF: No. I was heavy into sports when I was younger, but I think the first thing that really got me, that touched me, the bug that really touched me, was in New York City, there’s the numbers game that people play. So I was young, I played the number one time. I had a dollar, played the number. Well, this is 1973,  and I won the number. One dollar got me seven dollars, so I went to a record store.

JS: And the numbers is street lottery?

LF: Illegal lottery, street gambling. Musically, first thing was a Willie Colon album called El Malo, which featured a record called “Che Che Cole,” which featured, at that time, Héctor Lavoe. I loved the record to death. I used to play with my mother’s albums. She was like, “Stop playing my record. You’re going to wear my record out.” When I played the number that day, I won, and I went to a record store and bought my first record in 1973, a 45 of “Che Che Cole,” which I still own to this day.

LF: It’s 1973, at that same period, this whole culture called hip hop started to bubble up.

JS: It wasn’t known as hip hop.

LF: It wasn’t known as hip hop. You started hearing the jams at block parties. It was going on. You would hear those things, but there wasn’t the continuous aspect as the break beat facet of the culture. At that time, B-Boys weren’t called B-Boys yet, but I was already dancing in 1973.

JS: Where were you going? Just to clubs or parties ?

LF: Not even clubs. This is block parties, or house parties, that’s the way mainly the whole thing of New York, especially in the Bronx was the house parties. We had parties for everything. We had birthday parties, Christmas, Thanksgiving, rent parties.

JS: What DJs were playing — was it Kool Herc?

LF: No, this is before him. Way before that. But, you would hear guys like PBJ Jones doing certain things in the Bronx, you would hear other guys that were not as notable as Kool Herc. But that actually had equipment, because, think about it… in those days, getting two turntables and a mixer was extremely expensive. Then a little while after, you started hearing about this guy that had this vision playing this continuous musical interlude. That’s the best way to describe it, which became what they call, “rocking the breaks.”

He would take the intro of a record that had a featured drum or a breakdown of a record, which usually means the music tends to leave a portion on the record and you would hear mainly just drums, baseline or just a very sparse aspect of music. Just concentrating on a groove more than a melody. So, that he was concentrating on that because he noticed that when that part would come in, the height of the activity of his parties would come when these breakdowns would come into play. He concentrated on that to get the energy of the particular event to have a peak period. So, instead of having it flow 30 or 40 seconds, he extended it for a couple of minutes. But it wasn’t two copies, yet. At the time, he was rocking… he would go from break to break. It was playing, let’s say from "The Mexican” breakdown, to the “Give It Up Turnit a Loose” breakdown, to the “It’s Just Begun” breakdown and vice versa.

JS: These records were all from different genres?

LF: Yeah, “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth was a rock record, “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” was a James Brown record and Jimmy Castor’s “Just Begun” was a combination… was leaning more into a disco aspect, but not really disco, but had the funk aspect to it. So, it was a multicultural, multi-genre facet of music display. Because at that time in New York, if you know… New York was very multicultural. 

JS: Very diverse.

LF: Diverse listening palette for music, I remember at that time, I think it was WABC was the main station that everyone was listening and you heard everything from Marvin Gaye to Aerosmith so, New York was probably more cultural than most places in the country, I would say. So, that started bubbling up.

JS: When did you start digging for records?

LF: I started working 1978. Real quick, in 1974, I started DJing. I joined this crew called, The Paradise Crew. Which is one of the first crews that came out. So, from 1974 to spring of 77, there was few and far between crews that came out that actually had systems. Here comes the 1977 blackout and for whatever reason, the city decided to donate systems to a lot of kids. And, I’m being facetious.… the stores were vandalized and looted … and from you having one DJ crew in a matter of a two mile radius. Now you have a DJ crew every three blocks. So, that was 1977. For sure, from 1974 to 1977, I was really… more or less… a bedroom DJ, I helped carry record crates for DJs and stuff like that, so I wasn’t really hard-bodied into it. Come 1978, I got booked to do my first hookie party in New York.

JS: What’s a hookie party?

LF: Hookie project is when you left school at 12 o'clock and you stood somewhere else 'til three o'clock and made believe you were at school, but you weren’t at school.

JS: You were in your own school.

LF: Exactly. So, I got hired to do that. We went to a friend’s basement where his father was the Super. We set up equipment and we rocked there. So, that particular summer, I got a job at Crazy Eddie’s. Which used to be a electronics and record store chain in the tri-state area. I was hearing this break that Afrika Bambaataa was playing and I didn’t know what the heck it was. One day I was putting records away while working at Crazy Eddie. I saw this 45 promo, which I was already gravitating to promos. I put the record on and it was Manzel’s “Space Funk”.

JS: That was the record?

LF: That was the first digging record that I bought in 1978 and after that I became a hard-core digger… I decided just everywhere I would go, from Brad’s Records to Bleecker Bob’s, to The Music Factory, to Downstairs Records. Just looking for records, looking for breaks. And, I would spend every penny my mom would give me for lunch money went to that. Every little gig that I would get, would go into records so… 1978 was when the bug really bit me and I became hardcore embedded into DJing and hardcore embedded into digging.

JS: And, at the parties where you DJ’d were people rapping and rhyming over records? Is that something that was starting already?

LF: I would say, by 1975 it really caught on real heavy. Because that’s when you have Grandmaster Flash, the Furious Three and then you had the Mighty Fours which in turn became the Cold Crush Brothers. You had Funky Four Plus One More, you had Masterdon Committee, you had Soulsonic Force. You had The Jazzy Five. 

JS: What year is that?

LF: This is from 74 all the way to 76.

JS: Okay, that’s pretty early.

LF: Yeah, there were crews already in those days. 

JS: This phenomenon hadn’t come downtown yet.

LF: Yeah. It hadn’t come downtown yet. This is before the Negril parties downtown, this is before Michael Holman, this is before all those days —

JS: Okay. I remember when I was DJing at the Ritz in 1980 and they had the Sugarhill night. It was one of the first downtown hip hop events.

LF: Oh, yeah.

JS: And The Funky Four, Grandmaster Flash, Sugarhill Gang all played and everybody was blown away. You’re really not old enough to be in clubs at this point, correct?

LF: No, but those days nobody cared. My sister was the one that enabled me to go because she’s older than me by a few years. She would go so it enabled me to go into these clubs. I was a dancer, at least in 73… so I was already dancing hustle from 74–75, so I would dance with my sister. So, it was an attraction. My sister and I became known as dancers. And, people would look at us and they were like… okay, so that’s why I was let into most of these little jams back in the day. So, I was able to be exposed to that life really early on because I was a dancer.

JS: It was important. So, you DJ’d at these parties and your friends and crews started developing?

LF: Yeah, then everybody wanted to be like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Three — everybody wanted to be like The Mighty Four. So, the crews started developing there and I had a crew already. We used to rock every so often. It would be simple, at that time I would consider more like nursery rhymes kind of things. Like rhyming Mikey and Nike. And, stuff like that. But, the thing was everybody wanted to be rapping on a beat. Like these, what I call, Ghetto Superstars, because these guys became iconic to a lot of the young generation that we had. Because, think about it, in the beginning of the 70s we were losing a lot of cultural things in school. We weren’t getting enough art classes, we weren’t getting enough music classes. So, that hunger and thirst that we had, that creative aspect was being fed to us through what became hip hop.

So, the music aspect of being creative and even in just a rapping cadence that wasn’t really singing, but you had this new thing of rocking over just a drum beat mainly. And, being able to create some kind of poetry on rhythm over these particular beats that became a bold thing to do. So, it became a thing that everybody wanted to have… every crew wanted to have some guy that would be able to be on the mic. What we called crowd pleasing in those days, because it was more like, you know, people say, “Ho”... So, it was more of a call and response kind of situation. It became something that was extremely attractive to the youth and especially in the hood. It was something that you didn’t have to get caught up with, not joining any gang, or anything like that. You had the dancing, you had the music and then you had the entertaining person, Master of Ceremony. Which became the MC, which became attractive and a peaceful thing to be around.

JS: And, you guys would go from party to party, setting up your own equipment, bringing all the records —

LF: Yeah. Because it became a competitive thing. My crew is better than yours.

JS: And, did your crew each have certain records that you wouldn’t want anybody else to know about?

LF: That’s how it started. The thing was to discover the break that nobody else had. Something that fit that mold but nobody knew about. Think about it, even at that early time, a lot of records were very unknown to people. So, you will find, in the dollar bins, you would find them, like at Korvettes or Woolworth.

JS: Records that were basically ignored.

LF: Yeah.

JS: The rest of the record might have been terrible but if it had twenty seconds of an amazing break...

LF: It was incredible, I remember the first time we heard, we used to call it “Toys in the Attic,” by Aerosmith, it was “Walk This Way.” Even the Black Sabbath, the first album, that drum break. It was incredible. “When The Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin. Even though we weren’t really into a rock kind of situation, but those drum breaks were that phenomenal that we gravitated to that.

The Winstons was a gospel group that had a big record, won a Grammy but the B-side became the biggest record they ever had, which was the “Amen Brother” break. Which you know, by us bringing that out into the world, made it what it became. But, it was just those kind of things, to be unique enough and find records that nobody else had but that fit the mold. And, you know, Bambaataa was the master of that. I can only say this, the culture wouldn’t be what it was, or there wouldn’t be the name breakbeat culture if it wasn’t for Bam because he set the template for the music being so versatile. Because he would say break beats are not genre specific. If it’s funky, it’s funky.

JS: The Monkees was one of his, I remember him playing “Mary Mary,” like, I heard that and I was like, “Wow!” Remember there was this, obviously the competition between the crews and you guys would scratch off the labels so nobody would know each other’s records.

LF: I will go even further. I would put the record in the bathtub with water so the label completely comes off. So, you wouldn’t know anything.

JS: And, everyone wanted to know what it was —

LF: Exactly, because I know, I remember one of the biggest things for me. I remember I went to a street jam and Charlie Chase was playing. He was playing, “Rocket in the Pocket” by Cerrone. So, I’m looking at his record and it’s Atlantic Records and I’m like, “What the heck is this freaking record?” So, you were very secretive so he told me, I mean, for whatever reason, I asked him and he goes, “Cerrone.” And, I’m like, “Cerrone? Okay, fine.” I go to Crazy Eddie’s and I see Cerrone Four and I see “Rocket in the Pocket,” this is the record. I play the record and I said, “This is not the freaking record, it’s a disco record. What the heck was he playing?” But, then Cerrone was on Cotillion Records, it wasn’t on Atlantic. So, I’m looking, I’m saying, “But this is not the same thing, what the heck!” So, I don’t know if you remember Cerrone had, there was two releases. There was one with a white cover and there was one with a black cover. So, I found the black cover. So, I found the black cover, I said, "This has to be it. It was the same crap record. So, then one day, I was looking in the bin. And, something comes in that’s this live Cerrone album. And, I’m like, “What the heck is this, double album?” So, I look and I see, “Rocket in the Pocket.” I open the back of the thing and it said Atlantic Records and I said "Damn, this has to be it.” So, I put it on and it’s like, real slow. I’m like, “It doesn’t sound like it,” but because, I know what we were doing already, there.

We would take 45s and put them on 33. We would take 33 and put it on 45. I played that on 45 and I was like, at least I know what that was. But, before that, I was thinking the record that he had was so worn out that, that’s what you heard the “Shhhhh” which really wasn’t worn out, it was the applause from the live crowd. And, then you stumble records like that. But, then when I found out, I easily was able to find the record he had, that’s where I decided to take the whole label off. And, I was like, nah, my cannons, secret weapons, you’re not going to find out. No.

JS: But you eventually used a lot of this knowledge. What was the inspiration for the Ultimate Breaks and Beats series of records, which basically laid the foundation for a lot of what came in hip hop and other genres after those records were released?

LF: Well, it’s two-fold. Lenny Roberts is the founder and co-creator and what I would say, the money man behind all the records I was involved in as far as break beats. We started doing bootleg 12 inches because we couldn’t find all the obscure records and people wanted them. Then all of a sudden, Bambaataa said to Lenny, I’ve got two tapes that I want you to put out and make a 12 inch out of.

So, we were like, sure. The one side was a live recording of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five at Bronx River and then the other side was a pause-tape done by Afrika Islam, which became the infamous Bozo Meko 12 inch with “Fusion Beats” on one side and “Flash it to The Beat” on the other side.

When we put out this particular 12 inch, it outsold every other 12 inch that we had. And, the reason why is because that pause-tape that was done by Islam had multiple records. He had “Champ” by the Mohawks. He had the “Get Up, Get Int It, Get Involved” by James Brown and then he had Dyke and the Blazers “Let a Woman Be a Woman.” 

So, it had those three records on it, so it became more of a compilation than just a single 12 inch. At the same time Super Disco Brake’s — Paul Winley was putting his records out. The thing that Paul Winley was not conscious of, or he didn’t care two bits about what the culture was. The quality of the records he put out was horrible. He had put, “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” with a skip on it. He wasn’t using virgin vinyl either. So, we saw that. So, we said, let’s create one ourselves that would compliment what we did with the Fusion Beats 12”. We thought, “What can we do to make it attractive for DJs?” We’re not going to call it ‘”Disco Breaks” because we’re trying to get away from disco.

So, we’re going to call it “Break Beats.” If you look back at the late 70s, early 80s time… the DJ did almost everything. The DJ took care of everything. So, that’s why the logo became the octopus. But, if you look at it, it only has six tentacles out of eight. The DJ was the MC when he had to be, the DJ dealt with the strobe light, the DJ was the sound guy and the DJ also DJ’d the two turntables. So, we were trying to show that aspect of a DJ. 

JS: This is the era before sampling records had begun.

LF: This is 1980. DJs were either scratching the record or just throwing in record. No one was even thinking about sampling drums or anything. 

JS: Right, this is strictly for DJs. Who’s the first one to record, in your mind, the first rap record?

LF: Well, that’s a big argument between the Fatback Band, “King Tim III” and then Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” I think those as far as rap records as we know it, from the hip hop standpoint. But, if you want to hear the first record that has a cadence and it sounds like hip hop and everything else, it’s Pigmeat Markham, “Here Comes the Judge” — 1968. It has the same cadence and everything. But, it wasn’t done with that mindset. But as far as rap as we know it, there is a big dispute between Fatback Band and Sugarhill Gang as to which was actually released first. As far as in New York, it was Sugarhill Gang. And, Sugarhill Gang fit more of the mold, because it was recorded like you were rocking over a break beat, which was “Good Times” by Chic even though it was played live.  

JS: I started DJing at the Mudd Club in New York City in 1980 and I was just buying everything. I bought every kind of record, Everything was new. Punk, New Wave, disco, hip hop all at the same time. It was an amazing period.

LF: It’s like I said, New York is the only place that it could have happened as far as hip hop and let’s say punk and all of that stuff is because the melting pot of people in New York in cultures, there’s no other place in the world that was like New York, let’s say from early to mid-70s to early to mid-80s. There was no better recipe for that to happen than New York.

LF: The club scenes and the rebellious aspect to it that we had at that time was just everything, it was like the perfect dish that we needed to cook, it had to be cooked in New York at that particular time.

JS: So with the Ultimate Breaks and Beats series, was it an immediate success?

LF: Yeah. And, another point I want to bring across is the reason we also put those records out in the early 80ss. Then what was happening was, some of the second generation of DJs that were making hip hop, instead of the cutting up break beats because they couldn’t find them, they were cutting up rap records. They were cutting up “Love Rap,” they were cutting up “Feel the Heartbeat,” they were cutting up “Catch the Beat.” Good drum breaks, but they weren’t break beats per se. They were rap records that had drum breaks in it. So, that’s another reason that we wanted to keep doing it… to make sure it continues to have a solid legacy, that the foundations are intact. So, for me the foundation for what we know and what we love as hip hop is the break beats. 

JS: How many volumes did you end up doing?

LF: We ended up doing 25, a total of 25.

JS: When you were doing them, do you think about, I don’t want to put this… I want to keep this for myself. Or were you happy to share the knowledge?

LF: On volumes one through nine, which we did as bootlegs, were to cover the foundations of break beats. We got a lot of flack from a lot of OGs for sure. But, again, we have to keep the DJ culture alive, and keep the hip hop culture alive. But then by 1986, when we decided to do the Ultimate Breaks and Beats, as legal records. That’s when sampling came into play. So, now you have a different dynamic of what music is being used for.

JS: So, now sampling becomes a thing. Do you remember when you first became aware of sampling and how that changed everything as far as record production and hip hop production in particular? Because now record producers, like myself included, were buying you series and sampling for our productions. So music would sound a lot different now without those records. 

LF: 1986. Yeah.This is my motto. I would say that we were instrumental for keeping hip hop, hip hop. In the sense that the aesthetic sonic dynamic that hip hop has would not have been what it is, if we had not put those records out. Starting in 86. Because, when Marly Marl stumbled on sampling the kick and snare, that changed everything. That changed the whole… to me, it brought the rap music back to the park. That’s where I say, because it sounded like the records or the performances that you heard back in the parks in those days, so it took it to a new level of appreciation and creativity because, after a while, there’s only so much you can do with a drum machine … from the DMX or the BX or 808 or the 909, that was around along with the LinnDrum, you know there’s only so many styles you can do. When you were able to take all the kick snare from different drum machines and make it sound the way you want it because, if you look in the first two records that Marly Marl produced with that technique, it was Boogie Down Productions’ “The Bridge Is Over” and “Eric B. Is President,” by Eric B. and Rakim. It just changed the whole dynamic, it was like, how the heck do you do this? 

JS: So, that started a whole industry of people clearing samples and making a whole lot of money for people who might have never made money from the original release or hadn’t in years. You helped a lot of people, in a way.

LF: Exactly. Syl Johnson said it best when he said, “As much as people may hate sampling, I love sampling. Because sampling bought me my house, sampling gave me a new life to a new generation and sampling kept my legacy alive.” We exposed a lot of artists that were not really known and kept their legacy alive. 

Also if it wasn’t for reggae, there would be no hip hop. In reality. The whole aspect of playing with the systems and talking on the mic while music was going on came from the “toasting” aspect of reggae music. So that played an intricate part in what we were doing. But, in a million years, I didn’t think it was going to be that huge. And, the thing is, I knew exactly when it changed. It changed exactly between 84–86. It was two pivotal points. It was Crazy Legs doing the Flashdance movie which gave a new audience to the culture of hip hop through the B-Boys. Those two things were extremely pivotal. That changed the whole dynamic aspect of how hip hop was being heard and how hip hop was being seen.

JS: One record I want to talk about, because I think it’s so important for many reasons, is “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five featuring Melle Mel. Lyrically it changed everything in hip hop at that point. 

LF: Well, let me tell you a story about our record which people don’t understand. That same rhyme was said by Melle Mel a year prior on an Enjoy Records called “Super Rapping.” If you look at “Super Rapping,” go all the way to the end of the record, it’s the same rhyme. But, the energy of that record was totally different, much faster, like a party record. By the record being slowed down a little, the music being slowed down a little, giving it more or less a psychedelic sound and then him delivering that rhyme as it was is what changed the dynamic. So, a lot of it had to do with the way music was being presented as more of a bed for the rhyme. Because you look back earlier, as far as the culture, remember it’s always been a party, dancing crowd. This actually changed it to push the lyrical aspect to the forefront. 

JS: And “White Lines,” again by Grandmaster Flash sampled or replayed the bass line from a Downtown New York band, Liquid Liquid, was massive in all the clubs, Uptown and Downtown. 

LF: And, I think we played a big part in that because we put Liquid Liquid on Volume 9 of the Ultimate Breaks and Beats. Which was used as a break because Bambaataa was using it in his sets.

JS: So, let’s fast forward a bit. Now, you’re back into music full time?

LF: Yeah. I left, for 12 years, I worked in the banking, the financial area and I was miserable. Great money but I was miserable and I had to come back to my passion so 2009, I came back and this is what I do now. This is how I live, breathe, DJing, producing all over the world. I’ve been blessed too. Starting first on the lecture circuit. Teaching it, breaking down a historical aspect of what this culture is. Then people finding out I DJ also.

JS: How do you feel about hip hop today? LF: Hip hop has always been very different in many different ways. There’s good and bad of course and there’s also an individuality aspect of it. So, I say this, at the end of the day, hip hop has always been the music of the youth and it speaks more as a youth language. So, what I would say is this, the language they’re speaking, it is speaking to the youth, the only problem that I may have with hip hop is that the individuality of hip hop is not being utilized the way that it’s supposed to be. And, I’m saying this to say that in our era, as you know, it took more than just having Apple Garage Band and iTunes to bring a record to the masses. When I go to do lectures, I’ll tell them, before, when we had to do a record back in our day, it literally took blood, sweat and tears. 

But, I still respect a lot of it. Because I think there’s creativity and everything else. Anderson Paak – he’s extremely creative, J. Cole is another guy that’s extremely creative that I think deserves the second listen to, third listen to. That’s on that side. There’s a young kid, incredible, by the name of Cavalier. Out of Brooklyn and now lives in Atlanta. Extremely creative, even down to the sounds. You don’t even hear the mundane 808 that everybody is using. Or the mundane keyboard pads that everybody is using. So, people are actually taking it to the next level.

Then you got guys like Adrian Young. I don’t know if you know who Adrian Young is. He’s taken it to a whole different level, he’s probably the most impressive to me because he’s taken the bull by its horn and broken down how it’s done. He has an incredible studio in LA. Down to vintage board, an incredible sound room, everything from the Rhodes and to the grand piano that he uses. He’s captured that side. I think he’s probably the one I’ve been most impressed by in a long time sonically. And, every album that I hear, again, we’ve been students to this sound for a long time and he’s captured that sound extremely well, extremely well.

And, another guy, an old goodie but classic guy that does that on a regular basis, I don’t know if you’ve heard Kenny Dope’s regular R&B or funk stuff. In those projects, he’s captured the essence also. I’ve been privy and honored to have seen and heard some of the projects and if I close my eyes I can honestly think that this is something that was recorded in the 60s. That’s how good it sounds. So, those — as far as music — those things sound incredible to me.

JS: So, you’re still inspired.

LF: Oh, everyday. I have to be, man. I think, this is the way I feel. You have to be a lover and respect the views. You have to be a lover and respect of the craft that you do and you have to be a lover and respecter of the culture of what we do. And, I think again, we haven’t seen each other in a trillion years, but your impact and the way you put music together — even from those days that we were doing this the old fashioned way — was impressive to me. And, even listen to some of that stuff way back, like the other day, I was listening to your Debbie Harry remix and the drums you did, I’m like, “What they heck, this freaking guy just took this record and made a freestyle sound out of it.”

JS: You were an inspiration as well. I always went into the studio armed with a handful of Ultimate Breaks and Beats albums, as well as other stuff that I would find. It’s been an honor to have stayed in touch. And, we were always connected through music and through our mutual friend, the editor supreme Chep Nuñez, who edited a lot of my remixes and who is someone I think about to this day when I make music and I miss him. 

LF: If it wasn’t for him we would have never had met, and you helped cultivate my sonic ear.

[sealpup9]

Apparently part of this has to do with not just executive dysfunction, but something called Aphantasia, or the inability to visualize in your mind. So like, seeing black when you try to think about stuff.

Heres a fantastic thread about it.

The example they give is how when someone goes to make a PBJ sandwich, they know what thd sandwich looks like, they can visualize it, and then work backwards.

Someone with aphantasia can't visualize what "done" looks like when it comes to a task.

Another example they gave is how their child struggles to get ready for school in the morning because he can't visualize what "ready" is. To help, they printed a picture of him ready for school so he could visualize it, and it helped immensely.

When it comes to this, you could ask the question "How can someone be expected to prepare when they don't know what a finished product will look like?" Well, exactly.

If you can't visualize what a project looks like when it's done and have no examples, you just have a table full of tools and materials and no end goal!

It also explains certain things from a social aspect! If you can't visualize something like a birthday party, that might make you anxious because what will the party be like/feel like/where will it be?

The following thoughts are just my experience, but:

I wonder if this is part of why habit making is so difficult. You can't visualize it. You're blind to it. But I think this is also why habit forming is SO IMPORTANT. Going to the same location over and over again makes it easier for you to remember what things were like. So it's no longer "visualizing the future" and instead it's "remembering how things were." I feel like I try to rely on my past experiences to figure out the future more than i try to visualize the future itself based on just yknow. Being told something exists or being given a box of supplies and told to craft something.

Maybe this is why i love jigsaw puzzles so much. I don't have to visualize it, the image im making is right there, and i take comfort in completing it at my own pace.

Ofc, relying on past memories poses a whole nother issue with time-blindness- you might remember a location differently and it might freak you out. (Or suddenly something about an app you go on daily Changes™ and you have a panic about it).

I think the reason we're visual learners is because we are physically incapable of consciously visualizing outcomes. Whether its a situation or physical object or unit of measurement.

Another side note: I think this is why I took to art so well. For me, its more about process than the end-goal. But being in art classes taught me to do thumbnail sketches and force myself to make my own image to work off of and that is so useful.

Some tips for folks who are in my boat, aphantasia and ADHD and Exec. Dysfunction:

-don't just make a list, put it somewhere it will bother you or you will forget. Change the location slightly of the list if you need to, so it looks out of place when you walk in a room and you're drawn to it. Also, if it helps, make a list of your things to do tomorrow and leave it somewhere you will find it in the morning! (Like on top of your laptop, on the fridge, etc.) Maybe draw a picture if you want. Something to make it different and stand out and not just fade into the Everything Else™ like those unwashed hand-wash only mugs that are sitting in your sink right now.

-Try to force yourself to make habits. Even if it starts with 'when i remember'. You will feel good about it, honestly. And then when things like brushing teeth become habits you can put energy into other things!! Incentivize it! Give yourself a little treat if you do it!! But only if you do it!! You can do it!!

-Take pictures!! I mean it. Take pictures of the sky, of documents you need to remember of phone numbers of drawings of animals of anything. Save that art you love on tumblr, bookmark those fanfics. Just save things. Its helped me immensely. The other day I realized I didn't have a current photo of my ID so instead of stressing I just went and took it immediately and now i just have it for if i need it. I love the photos app on my phone.

-Set alarms. I know. I KNOW im the kind of person who will set alarms and then ignore them. Change the ringtone often if you have to!! Hold yourself accountable for the 1:50am alarm that says 'please for the love of god go to bed' because when you turn it off suddenly it will be 4am and you'll be on tumblr typing up a really long response on a topic you're extremely passionate about

-Find and use The Passion!!!! If you're like me and you get hyperfixated on things? Use that as a means to get things done! Imagine your blorbo cooking or doing dishes! Put music on while you do chores!!!! Its like that one post, Naruto Believes In You!

-I'm so serious about this one and its so important im making it into its own category: Make a nightly routine. You can fall into the rhythm of just doing your nightly routine and it will be mindless. For example my routine is Turn off Computer, Unplug Computer, Put Headphones down, turn off mouse, turn off large lamp, take medication, turn off small lamp, go to bathroom, wash hands, brush teeth, check on front door locks, come to bed, take melatonin. And you can add one or two things in between if you need, like im using a humidifier in my bedroom so i make sure its filled up when I come into the bedroom after brushing my teeth! Be flexible with it but not too flexible. Like if you take your meds after using the bathroom its totally ok you still got it done and Im proud of you.

-This one is something I seriously need to do more but: wake up early every so often. Just to reset your messed up sleep schedule. Just. Push yourself up, make some waffles or pancakes or something. Make tea for your significant other. (Make it about love, man.)

If you're someone who lives with/supports someone who struggles with this kindof thing, maybe talk to them about if it's difficult to visualize the end goal. I was so surprised to see someone put this into words that i was solid crying for a bit while typing this.

At the end of the day, reading into all of this has made me feel a lot less dumb! I hope this helps some people like it did me. :)

A lot of us with ADHD are familiar with the concept of time blindness, but for anyone who isn't: it's a neurological inability to have a consistent sense of the passage of time. If you put me in an empty room, gave me a button and told me to press it when I think it's been 15 minutes, I might press it after..... idk, anywhere between 3 minutes and 2 hours? And if we repeated it the next day the result would probably be wildly different!

But something I've only seen mentioned in one (1) Reddit post, which took some extensive digging to find, is the same effect extending to ALL things measured in numbers. Distance, weight, length, height, amount, space, volume, percentage... For me, small numbers are a bit easier, I could approximate a centimetre probably, but a metre would be much harder and 10 or 100 would likely miss the mark by a lot. Also, anything that can't be easily measured with a ruler or a measuring tape (like weight or volume) is even harder since I don't encounter reference points (like a 1kg hand weight) for those as frequently as I see visual representations of specific lengths.

It's not dyscalculia or anything like that, I'm decent at math (and the OP of the Reddit post was a math major) and I have no other difficulties with numbers, it's just a disconnect in translating real life experiences like sensory input into numbers (and possibly also inconsistent processing of sensory input? Like how the same sound volume is okay one day but hurts my ears the next?), which I think is basically the same thing as what happens with time blindness. For now I've been calling it "measurement blindness" since I've never seen a name for it anywhere, but maybe "quantity blindness" could also work?

I've talked to other people with time blindness to see if they experience this too, but so far none of them have known what I'm talking about. I'd really like to know how many of us are out there and if anyone knows literally anything actually scientific about this very inconvenient phenomenon!

Tl;dr: bc I am wordy:

It's like time blindness but for all things measured in numbers

Not dyscalculia or caused by it

Pretty much never seen it talked about anywhere

Please tell me if it sounds familiar and/or you know something about it, thank

[crowcialist]

Hiking “South Brother,” Olympic National Park: 6/20 (Part II)

We sit at the top and take in the view and after we realize it’s the wrong top, just west of the one we’d been aiming for all morning (or for well over a year, really, in my case--I’ve been yearning to sit atop South Brother ever since I learned you could do it without rope), we don’t say anything for a good long time. 

All the triumph and exultation I’d expected to feel is just...not there. I’ve been picturing this moment for so long and it’s the wrong moment, the wrong spot. All the rosy glow I thought I’d be flush with has made way for something else, a sinister chorus: You fucked up. You fucked up. You fucked up.

It’s beautiful up here and I start to kick myself for not making the most of it. Will and I talk it over: if we pick our way back down to the top of the Hourglass, we could almost certainly find the path to the true summit--we can see the damn trail from where we’re sitting. But there are no guarantees, and we’re completely spent, and the hour it would probably take us to get down and up and down again would be an hour of sun on the snow, meaning we’d be making the final descent that much more dangerous for ourselves. It’s hard enough to plant axes and kick in steps on steep slopes in crunchy snow; on slush you’re asking to eat it. 

With the decision not to try it, with the realization that there is very little we could possibly do, comes a modicum of closure. I take a moment and look around and try to breathe in the vast expanse of mountain and cloud and sky. I eat half a PBJ and we pass a plastic water bottle full of whiskey back and forth. I’d meant to drink it in celebration. Instead it’s half for the searing heat it brings to the gut and half to steel my nerves for the long, difficult trip down. 

Our leaving catches the attention of a family of goats--billy, nanny, and kid. Mountain goats are some mixture of formidable and hilarious and utterly captivating. Would that I could move so easily. We’d watched them come down off the true summit a few minutes earlier; stifling the feeling that I’d just had my ass kicked by a literal baby goat was no small feat. 

Still: no time for appreciation. Mostly they just want to drink your pee, but they can get territorial, and a fair few Washington hikers have been killed over the years by getting knocked off mountains by goats. 

The nagging feeling of failure (or maybe just the toll of five-plus hours of struggle) makes my legs heavy and my head starts to get thick and a little stupid. I used to get bogged down in anxiety spirals once in awhile on the PCT; this feels that way. Like I’ll never get where I’m going and that this was all a tremendously bad idea to begin with. It doesn’t help that I start to feel like dead weight--Will isn’t exactly breezing down the mountainside, but he’s still taking the lead across the snow and the rocks, spotting cairns and kicking steps and doing roughly 100% of the work. I’m reduced to a trailing call of “see a way down from here?”, a repetitious phrase I start to hate myself for. 

This is all to say that I’m not in a super great place, emotionally speaking (physically I’m in a stunning place, the most gorgeous place I’ve been in a long time), and there’s no end in sight. Following Will, I try to delay the inevitable while picking my way down the Hourglass, but there’s nothing to be done: we have to glissade. On the PCT a glissade was a godsend, a relief from walking; here, it’s a 50 or 55 degree pitch that requires a real short stop lest one smash into an ochre field of rock. 

A deep breath. I’m braking and steering with my axe, but it’s not enough--whether it’s my own fault or conditions I’ll never know. I don’t pull up quite fast enough, and I add a few bumps and scrapes to my total. Those are less of a concern than my general panicky attitude. 

Fortunately I get a chance at redemption a short while later, because we still have to go down the same narrow snow chute where I confronted my mortality on the way up. This time I’m a little more prepared, though the panic and hesitation are still nagging. (High speeds, high heights--I’ve always been something of a coward when it comes to such matters.) Will goes first--of course--and I’m beside him a minute later, laughing off the latest brush with my own anxiety. 

Below the trail becomes an endless series of rocky slopes that have to be scrambled and scooted down very carefully. The further we descend, the more I’m in awe of the fact we ever got up at all. It’s steep and treacherous and fuck, we somehow we walked all the way up it in a relatively short amount of time. Another layer of resentment about our false summit peels itself away to make room for that happier thought. 

The goats are still behind us and gaining speed. They’ve found four companions, including two more babies, and when we finally slide down the last bit of scree adjacent to long snowfield No. 1, we sit for a long while and watch them bucking and jumping and just generally loving the shit out of life. No hesitation, no sliding, no panic. Just the joy of being on the mountainside. 

I fill up my water bottle in the frigid runoff of the raging stream beneath the snowfield, whose division we can now see clearly open up into a set of ice caves that will probably be gone in a few weeks. I’m less furious at my own softness as I embrace the fact that the worst is over, the danger has passed. We still have a long way to go, but it’s all forested and we can ditch our microspikes and helmets for good. 

It strikes me that I’ve been terrified for I don’t know how long. Weeks, months, maybe, as this trip drew ever closer. I think I realized there was a non-zero chance I could ruin (or end) my life out here if I wasn’t both careful and lucky. On the way down I spent a lot of time thinking about all the people who would never forgive me if I had let that happen. Now that the possibility is gone, I don’t know exactly how to handle the release of that anxiety. It’s dizzying. 

The blowdowns and red dust of the forest are an uninteresting chore that my legs force themselves over and under until there’s nowhere left to descend, and I’m chasing Will back into camp, and all I have left in me to do is grab the rest of the whiskey and a salami and a wedge of cheese and set up my hammock, where I pass out cold for the next two hours. 

[socialwicked]

How Many Peanut Butter Sandwiches Does It Take to Fuel a Hulk?

Superheroes do superhero  issues: They bounce, punch things, run quick, and often shoot beams out of their eyes. These routines demand energy, just like typical human activities. When you get up in the early morning, that takes electricity. Walking around usually takes strength. Working a mile requires even much more energy—but not nearly as a lot as it would get to fly a human-driven helicopter for just one minute. ( Indeed, that is true .) All of that electrical power comes from food. If superheroes also get their vitality from food, just how a great deal would they need to have to consume to pull off their substantial-electrical power moves?

 In honor of the new Disney+ collection that started out August 17, I’m going to aim on moves by the Hulk and She-Hulk. I consider we can suppose that the two of them get their vitality from meals.  A modern clip from the sequence  demonstrates the Hulk (Bruce Banner) telling She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters) that they can consume as a great deal liquor as they want, due to the fact hulks have these types of a high rate of metabolism. That indicates their energy comes from ingesting and not some bizarre mechanism or source, like an extra dimension.

 Food items Electricity

 We measure the power in foods in conditions of calories. For instance, the wrapper on a solitary sweet bar may perhaps say a serving has 200 energy. (Here are some  examples with specific values .)

 But there is a change concerning the way nutritionists communicate about calories and the way physicists do. To physicists, a calorie is the amount of money of power that you would have to have to elevate the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. But which is not the very same as a food calorie. Meals labels truly record issues in terms of  kilocalories , which implies the 200-calorie sweet bar is definitely 200 occasions 1,000 calories, or 200,000 calories.

 Which is perplexing. And to be genuine, we physicists will not definitely like to use  both  of these models for energy. As a substitute, we usually use joules, exactly where 1 joule is equal to the energy wanted to thrust with a force of 1 newton about a length of 1 meter. Lifting a textbook off the floor and placing it on a table will take about 10 joules of electricity. One food items calorie is equivalent to about 4,184 joules.

 But for this demonstration, I think it’s very best if we make up our personal device of vitality. Let us call it the PBJ—the peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich device of vitality. This is the sum of power you get from ingesting a single of these sandwiches, which is  about 380 foods calories  or 1.59 million joules. With this PBJ unit, I can calculate the energy cost of superhero moves in phrases of sandwiches. I just imagine that will be pleasurable.

 Power Desired for Almost nothing

 Only staying alive necessitates electricity: to breathe, pump blood, and even blink your eyes. The quantity of strength it normally takes is named the  basal metabolic charge , or BMR. A usual mortal human could have a BMR of all around 1,500 to 2,000 food stuff energy a day. Converting to my chosen electrical power unit, a man or woman takes advantage of about 4 to 5 PBJs a day. (Your mileage may perhaps range.)

 A BMR value relies upon on a person’s age, fat, and height—but the Hulk and She-Hulk usually are not ordinary-sized humans, so they will not likely have regular BMRs. Let’s figure out their weights and heights.

https://socialwicked.com/how-many-peanut-butter-sandwiches-does-it-take-to-fuel-a-hulk/