Thank God for gravity.

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all. JULIA STILES & HEATH LEDGER AS KAT STRATFORD AND PATRICK VERONA 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (1999) Dir. Gil Junger

JULIA STILES AS KAT STRATFORD 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (1999) Dir. Gil Junger

When I was 3 years old I went to a preschool that had this little green crocheted crocodile finger puppet that was my absolute favorite toy to play with of all time. I named her Chelsea, because Chelsea starts with C and crocodile starts with C and more often than not wild animals in fiction aimed at kids have names that start with the same first letter as their species. I played with Chelsea every day, because she was my favorite toy, and because the other kids weren't really interested in her, and also because I eventually started to hide her in a special secret spot in the room so no one else would find her before I did. She was so beloved by me that when I graduated from preschool, my teachers gave Chelsea to me permanently, because it was clear no one else would ever love that little crochet crocodile as much as me anyway (in part because I hid her). They waited a few weeks after I graduated before doing it, too, and sent Chelsea with some post cards as if the crocodile had been on a whirlwind "travel the world" vacation before deciding to come live with me.

And Chelsea remained my favorite toy all through my childhood. There were others I loved nearly as much, like my Imperial Godzilla and the big red T.rex from the first Jurassic Park toy line and my tiny knockoff plush Charmander, but Chelsea always held the place of honor in my heart. She was my absolute favorite toy.

I kept a lot of my favorite toys through adolescence, even if social pressure eventually got me to give away a lot of them (and some, y'know, broke). That's obviously not surprising to you if you've followed my blog, since I still collect toys into my adulthood. But it's important to note because while I know I made a conscious effort to never throw out Chelsea every time I pared down my collection... at some point, she went missing.

I became aware of it when I graduated from high school. I was feeling really emotional about leaving that stage of my life and, y'know, becoming an adult and shit, and in that state I decided to find Chelsea to reassure myself that I hadn't entirely left childhood behind. But Chelsea wasn't there. No matter how hard I looked, I could not find Chelsea anyway.

And that was, like, devastating, because the only explanation was that somehow, at some point, I had accidentally tossed her out with some other "childhood junk" while trying to grow up and be responsible in my teen years. I had literally thrown away my childhood in a careless attempt to be more grown up.

Of course I knew she was just a toy - nothing more than some yarn twisted together in the loose shape of a crocodile, lifeless and soul-less and more or less worthless in the objective light of day. But she was also Chelsea, my best friend since i was three, my stalwart little pal, a source of comfort for most of my life at that point, and I had just... tossed her out! Like garbage! What kind of person was I becoming if I could do that to my best friend?

I was very visibly distraught, and my mom noticed. Being very crafty, she tried to find the pattern for Chelsea so she could knit me a new one. The problem is, she had no idea where to find said pattern. She checked all her books of crochet patterns, and when that failed she tried the internet, but no matter how hard she looked, she found nothing.

So my mom found the next best thing.

The original Chelsea was a tiny finger puppet, and I had "met" her when I was three. Well, I was eighteen now - shouldn't Chelsea have grown too? And as has been established, this crocodile was fond of whirlwind vacations. My mom found a pattern that looked as much like Chelsea as possible while also being a much bigger crocodile, and gifted her to me before I left for college - to show that while we can't stop the flow of time or how it changes us, that doesn't mean we have to leave it behind.

And yeah, I decided to believe it. That's Chelsea now. Yeah, I know that in reality it's a completely different set of yarn made by my mom rather than... whoever it was that crocheted the original Chelsea, but then, Chelsea was never really the yarn. She was the feelings I put into the yarn, you know? So that's Chelsea, all grown up, and still my most prized toy.

...

Flash forward... Jesus, eighteen years, holy shit. A few weeks ago I saw a post trying to identify a different crochet crocodile pattern, and thinking it was cute, I decided to try and look for it on ebay and etsy, just to see if maybe I could find it. I didn't, but do you know what I found instead?

A very familiar crochet crocodile finger puppet. An intensely familiar one, you might say. Of course I bought it. And of course I asked the seller if, perhaps, they might have the pattern for it or know where it came from (they did not, alas). And after a few days, she showed up at my house.

She's not Chelsea, obviously. For one thing, she's far too clean and fresh looking - Chelsea was very well loved, and looked the part, while this crocodile finger puppet has definitely not endured years upon years of a child's affection. And, more importantly, she's not Chelsea because we've already established that Chelsea grew up into a bigger crochet crocodile. This has to be Chelsea's younger sister, Cici.

And if I could find another of Chelsea's kind after all these years, then maybe, with a bit of luck, I might find the pattern for her, and be able to make more of them. Fill the world with Chelseas.

this is the full video of patti lupone breaking the sound barrier at the 1988 tony awards btw

it's patti lupone's birthday have you listened to her breaking the sound barrier at the 1988 tony awards?

@bloodanna i'm stealing your tags bc it's a good explanation of what's going on!!!

im literally not exaggerating when i tell you guys this video saved my life

This is a damn MOOD FOR LIFE, I tell you what.

This is beautiful, not just because of the lyrics, harmonies and relatable message, but also because Cinderella (Brandy), One of the Hercules Muses (Roz Ryan) , and Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis) are singing it.   Like we have been blessed.  

one of these days I will not watch this video when it comes around on my dash, but today is not that day

Some days the internet delivers the thing you need to see when you need to see it. This is that day, and this is that content

I have been waiting all year to post this.

omg

This has been in my queue for months.

I missed it last year and I vowed that would NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

YES

omg i didnt reblog this last year!

The Day is here. :)

He had something important to say

Younger writers. Please, just know that you could not skip to different songs on a cassette tape, that’s CDs. With tapes you pressed fast forward or rewind and prayed.

Also, VHS tapes did not have menu screens. Your only options were play, fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or eject.

Y’all are making me feel like the crypt keeper here, I’m begging you 😭

reblog to instantly disintegrate some of your peers to dust

I think a lot of what pro-AI people are really wanting is stuff that already exists but they don't know it's out there like

can't format a work email? templates

don't know how to write a resume? templates

writing a thank you card or a condolences card or a wedding invitation? templates templates templates

not sure how to format your citations in MLA or whatever format? citationmachine.net

summary of something you're reading for school/work? cliffsnotes.com

recipe based on ingredients in your fridge? whatsintherefrigerator.com

there's a million more like, guys, we don't need AI, we never needed generative AI

stop talking about tumblr dying I have no other place to go

It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

I took calculus my senior year of high school, and I really liked the way our teacher framed this on the first day of class.

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

And I’ve never forgotten that.

THIS.

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one.  Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to.  But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from.  It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely.  Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction.  But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.

The good thing is, students who learn the content are likely to pick up at least some of the context, some of the patterns of thinking, even if they don’t realize it.  (The unfortunate thing is how the current educational system prioritizes content so much that a lot of students, and a lot of adults, don’t see the point in learning either, and teachers are overworked and held to standardize test grading scales such that it’s hard for them to emphasize patterns of thinking over rote memorization, etc etc etc, but that is a whole different discussion.)

I would also add that giving as broad an education to as many as possible gives everyone the opportunity to follow a career that might use calculus. Or colour theory. Or electromagnetism. Or [insert specialism here]. If we gatekeep specialisms, those careers are only available for the ones who were privileged enough to have the background training. That’s why Classics as a degree subject is full of private school kids: it’s not offered in state education.

The Haunted Palace // Ep 01

Do me a favour and reblog this with a show you like that was cancelled after only one season. I don't mean shows that were always meant to be miniseries or shows that work perfectly well as a standalone story, or shows that might still get renewed. I mean shows that are and will forever remain unfinished. The more obscure the better.

(glancing around in mild bemusement)

Seriously, people. Where do you think we even got the word "sponsor" from?

In its original usage it meant a guarantor: someone who promised you that you were going to get something out of what they were doing.

Throwing a ludus / game or a series of games was expensive. Local (or national) Roman politicians put down good money to pay for the rental of the event space (you think the Colosseum was cheap to rent? Think again. The Imperials who built it liked to make their money back...), the wages (and overtime!) of the hundreds of venue support staff, the fees required by the fighting talent and the schools that owned them (or their own management, if they were free), and so forth.

Whoever was footing the bill for a given Game (or sequence of Games) was formally known by the title sponsor, and got to parade around the arena at the beginning of the game to remind people in the stands just who was fulfilling their civic duty by throwing this entertainment for them. The message was, "I'm doing something for you. Next election, don't forget to do something for me!"

And it was always political. Never lose sight of that. (Especially when a local political party promises to build you a nice new stadium if you elect them. The more some things change, the more they stay the same...)

(cc: @petermorwood) 😏

The individual gladiators and charioteers also had sponsorship, in the modern product-placement sense.

Ads were written on blank gable-ends often painted white for the purpose...

...and while the ones in that pic are political slogans, this one is an ad for the wines available at that shop...

...including prices ranging from two to four Asses.

The As was a Roman coin, so you lot at the back can stop giggling.

Other ads were outright endorsements (with appropriate payment, of course) and included stuff like "Felix the Thracian, five-time winner at the Saturnalia Games, says 'Tiburnian Olive Oil Keeps My Sword-Hand Swift!' "

Or "Diocles, Top Driver for the Green Team, uses Scaurus-brand garum at every meal!"

Ridley Scott was told about this during the making of "Gladiator", but ignored it as "unrealistic" - then went on to double the size of the Colosseum "for artistic reasons".

Considering how he's treated historical accuracy in later films, my response to his dismissal of graffiti and ads is this:

I made up Tiburnian olive oil, so it's (probably) fictional, but Scaurus-brand garum was real, and famous enough to appear by name in Pompeii mosaics.

Evidently the name carried weight, just like "Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce".

There are other Worcester sauces, but L & P is THE Worcester sauce - or so they would like you to think - and used to be advertised as "not genuine without this signature".

Whether this was suggesting that all non- L & P Worcester sauces were in some way fake, or because there was a rash of Worcester-style sauces packaged to resemble L & P as closely as possible, I don't know,

However, as regards overly similar packaging (deceptive rather than outright deceitful, relying on accident or inattention more than fakery) take a look at this row of Ancient to Modern L & P...

...compared to another sauce called Henderson's Relish, and note that one label, AFAIK for US sale, refers to it as Worcestershire Sauce.

It's from a different county - Yorkshire not Worcestershire - and is made to a recipe so different it can be marketed as vegan, which real Worcester isn't because of anchovies, so it most emphatically isn't any kind of Worcester sauce at all.

And yet there's that bottle shape, also the label design and colour, so I wonder if, way back when, it was someone's deliberate choice.

The other sauce from Yorkshire is "Yorkshire Relish", made both in the usual thin style and also a thick version like HP Sauce (aka Brown Sauce or Steak Sauce).

Although the label isn't orange, both versions have easy-identification bottle shapes (long-neck cylindrical for thin, short-neck square for thick) characteristic for their contents.

It was apparently like that 2000 years ago, because archaeological finds...

...suggest that the one-handled, high-necked "footed" amphora shown on those mosaics was THE standard shape for garum-jars, thus an instantly recognisable form of product packaging.

Zoom in on each photo, and you'll see writing on the jars. Whether either or both read "Scauri" I can't tell, but if they're from Pompeii I'd make a small wager (maybe even, ahem, bet my As) that Aulus Umbricis Scaurus did indeed put his name - "not genuine without this signature" - on any jars which left his factory.

This one is ours. The shape isn't exact (too short) but pretty familiar...

...but though @dduane and I have racked our brains for what was originally in it (not garum!) we've come up blank. Currently it's full of lemon-infused olive oil, but if we ever buy some modern garum, we'll have somewhere obvious to put it. :->

*****

That short-lived but excellent series "Rome" got it just right. This ad for free wine and cakes is both commercial and political, so covers all bases - and ends with a hint that he gets to read that bloody Guild of Millers bloody slogan Every Bloody Time... :->

It cannot be overstated how much insight A. Umbricius Scaurus' obsession with branding has given us into Roman advertising.

In Pompeii, where he lived and had his factory, there are literally stones and small mosaics IN THE ROAD with his ads on them. The level of dedication the Condiment King of Pompeii put into his advertising, putting it into permanent and quasi-permanent forms, speaks to how much money and effort in Roman society went into advertising. Makes me wonder just how many wooden signs might have been about that were lost in the eruption.