#why is there a robot litterbox??

[xelsrealm]

can’t believe i live in a reality where its my generation who has to witness the creation of, grow up alongside of, and acclimate to robots being introduced to everyday society

[jamiesfootball]

📓 give me a glimpse into ur mind

Let me tell you about the Greater Richmond Pet Acquisition (aka Give Jamie Tartt a Cat)

So it starts here with Jamie, having just joined the team again in season 2, and he is struggling. He basically blew up his life and its in pieces and he's having things that definitely are maybe panic attacks

He accidentally ends up befriending Higgins.

Higgins who back in season one through poor late Cindy Clawford's collar into the curse fire. Since then they've gotten a new cat (who i had the perfect name for but i can't find it in my drafts and my tagging is shit), and just like Higgins shows Jamie pictures of ducks and the memes his kids use that he doesn't understand, he also shows Jamie pictures of their cat.

So Christmas rolls around, yeah? And Jamie fucked up secret santa, and Higgins invites Jamie to his house for the team Christmas but that doesn't feel fair to the team

(and him and his mum are still on the outs, have been for years, and one of these days he's gonna be accountable but he's not so much of an asshole he's not so much like his dad that he'd just drop in on her unannounced at Christmas)

So he spends Christmas in Richmond alone with the bottle of champagne that he got at secret santa and it's brutal and he's lonely and he sees an ad on the telly for an animal shelter and decides screw it- I'm gonna get a cat. If I'm gonna be miserable and lonely like an old cat lady then I might as well have a cat.

So he goes to the shelter and he's thinking 'yeah i'll get a nice sleek cat one of those cool posh ones with the markings' and then he finds this ginormously rotund squash faced orange fat bastard and just. laughs.

His name is Big Ben and he's a surrender. His previous family up and moved, and they decided they didn't want him anymore. He came from a house with three kids (responsible for the kinda lame name) but no one ever really gave him any attention. He was kind of a nuisance. Always underfoot. Always yowling for attention. Too needy. They were a bit relieved to have an excuse to get rid of him to be honest.

Jamie is weirdly upset by this and can't pinpoint why. He gets the cat.

He gets a bunch of cat stuff - beds and toys and a robot litterbox that cleans itself - and he takes the cat home an he's like 'wait what the fuck did I just do?' Because he's never had a cat, or a dog, or any sort of creature relying on him to keep it safe. So he looks up Youtube videos on 'what to do when you've fucked up and bought a cat' and they're like 'well start them off in one room in the house' and Big Ben hates that.

It's a horrendous first few hours for both of them, Big Ben yowling at the top of his big unhappy cat lungs while Jamie is about to lose his goddamn mind, spiraling and on the verge of a panic attack because oh god he didn't just fuck up his own life now he's hurting this big giant fluffball cat the cat is crying fucking hell what do I do I can't call Higgins it's Christmas

So he breaks. He lets the cat out of the room and Big Ben barrels into his legs and starts purring. Loud. Like the loudest a creature has ever purred in its life. And he's looking up at Jamie with it's big green cat eyes and it's making little chirpy noises.

"You wanna hang out with me, buddy?" Jamie asks, and he feels stupid, talking to a cat, and Big Ben leans against his legs and-

-tiiiiiips over. Flops right over on Jamie's socks and looks up at him with his big adoring face like Jamie's the best thing that's ever happened to him.

Jamie could get used to someone looking at him like that.

[hylianengineer]

 This morning I fell down an internet rabbit hole about the worst gadgets of the early 2000s. Now I’m laughing my ass off because this list includes:

Disposable DVDs?!? It’s called Flexplay and I can’t imagine why people thought this was a good idea.

A Taser that also functions as an mp3 player. Why not? Also they come in fun colors, including leopard print.

Microsoft Spot Watch, aka a weird early precursor to the modern smart watch which nobody apparently wanted. Maybe it was ahead of its time? The author of the late-2009 article I’m reading thinks having a computer on your wrist is “painfully humiliating.” I wonder if they’ve changed their mind.

The finger drum mousepad:

Yes, you can actually play drum noises on it. Fun, I guess, but WHY?

A phone that is also a computer mouse, for some reason?

Robot Elvis! Again, WHY.

An automated litterbox that cleans itself

A less-than-user-friendly device whose sole purpose is to use Twitter, because apparently using your computer for that isn’t enough. It’s called TwitterPeek. There’s a similar device called WikiReader which is solely for Wikipedia (offline!), and apparently that one has a cult following nowadays.