For reals, it doesn’t even have to be a whole cat.
…That sounded wrong.
Anyway, I have a neighbor who rescued a frostbitten, bedraggled little kitten with a badly injured leg, he had to have some amputations done at the vet’s and though Admiral Nelson has some battle scars, he’s the dearest, cuddliest tri-paw’d, one-eyed, half-tailed thing ever, and sure enough, the judges considered him Best in Class for his personality and demeanor. He didn’t just get a ribbon, but a little medal and he did so well at the cat show, that’s how come my neighbor decided to get him formally certified as a therapy cat. Now he has a little vest, and alternately a sort of navy uniform one with a pinned-up sleeve, and when humans are dealing with orthopedic surgery, amputations, even just being unwell in general at a rehabilitation facility where my neighbor works, they sometimes get to spend time with him and often feel quite a bit better.
There was an awkwardness when a nurse had a tuna salad sandwich at the charge desk, the Admiral decided to leave his sleeping patient and go inquire if a deserving cat might have a quick bite between watches, a different patient spotted him in his naval uniform and was worried her medication was causing hallucinations, but apart from that, the little guy does awfully good work and is a popular fellow.
“what are you a cop” is bookaziraphale’s entire mindset btw. “is it very angelic to hoard books and be mean to customers” what are you a cop? “should you really be married to your adversary” what are you a cop? “should your husband be parking his car there” ah you ARE a cop. explodes your ticket notebook with his mind. like in his mind if the lord herself doesn’t come down to tell him off he’s doing just fine. because he’s doing it. and if she DOES come down (where is the flaming sword I gave to thee) well then. what is she a cop
no so true. in fact I think this was a key experience in his conviction that he is correct about everything ever. after all she did not ask him again
book Crowley: you’re an angel, you can’t do the wrong thing book Aziraphale: you are absolutely right. everything i do *is* the right thing
book aziraphale really took ‘do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ and ran with it
some time ago i introduced the phrase “food pact” to my friends as a shorthand for “i’ll go make and eat food if you also make and eat food” and ever since then ive just started incorporating more pacts into my life. stay hydrated pact. stretch break pact. stop doomscrolling and go to bed pact. we need to bring this back in vogue more people should be making pacts imo
the best part of this is when you ask “who wants to do a shower pact” and you get a half dozen friends all rolling up saying “the pact is sealed”. faustian behavior
The Least Intimidating bakery in the village has closed for good so now I’ve got to go to the Intimidating Bakery, it’s awful. If you don’t have a PhD in being French I don’t recommend going to that bakery, here’s the humiliating account of the 3 times I’ve visited it so far:
the first time I went in there I pointed at one of those extra-skinny baguettes and said “a flute, please” feeling pretty sure of myself, and the baker said “… that’s a ficelle” (you idiot) (was implied) “a flute is twice as large as a baguette.”
That’s insane, first of all, a flute is a skinny instrument. Call your fat baguette a bassoon, lady—I made some timid remark about how it would make more sense for a flute to be a skinny bread and the baker said, “In Paris it is. I thought you were from the South?”
oh, that hurt
I guess I’m from the part of the South that’s so close to Italy the bread’s waist size matters less than whether it’s got olives in it, but I left the bakery having an existential crisis over whether living in Paris had made me forget my roots
the Least Intimidating Bakery just had normal baguettes vs. seedy baguettes vs. horny baguettes (easy mode, some have seeds, some have horns), while the new bakery has breads that are only different on a molecular level—there’s a good old loaf and then another, identical loaf called a bastard? google told me a bastard is “halfway between a baguette and a bread” but denouncing them like “those are not regulation-sized bastards” would get me banned from the bakery for life
on my 2nd visit (while I stood in line discreetly googling baguette terminology) there was an English tourist who asked for a baguette while pointing at what was either a rustique or a sesame and I felt a bit worried for them, but the baker just clarified “this one?” to waive any responsibility if they found out later it wasn’t a classic baguette, then handed them the bread without educating them in a judgmental tone and I felt envious
I know it’s because she thinks the English are beyond saving but still it made me want to come back with a fake moustache and an English accent so I wouldn’t be expected to play bakery on expert mode just because I’m French. I asked for a pastry this time and the baker asked “no bread with that?” which felt cruel, like she wanted me to sprinkle myself with ashes and admit out loud that my level of bread proficiency isn’t as advanced as I once believed it was
The third time I went, I had lost all self-confidence and I hesitantly pointed at a bread and said “I’d like this, uh—what is it called?” and the baker looked at me in disbelief and said “That’s a baguette.”
God.
for the record, if that stupid bread had been flanked by a skinny bread (ficelle) and a fat one (flute) then yeah of course I would have known to call it a baguette, but in the absence of reference points I now felt lost and scared of being called a Parisian again
it’s hard to express the depth of my suffering so I’ll just let the facts speak for themselves: this morning a French person (me) stood in a French bakery in France surrounded by French people and pointed at a baguette and said “what is this called”
I wanted this but the original poster is transphobic
This is called the “analog loophole” and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. They can encrypt and copy-protect all they want, but eventually the file has to be sent to a speaker and/or screen, and it has to get there in a human-readable form because that’s the whole dang point
The simplest way to exploit the analog loophole is just pointing a camera at a screen or a microphone at a speaker, but direct recording is also always possible and always will be. Anything that can be displayed can be saved and displayed again
i recently found out my blog is being recommended to follow during new user registration and what i thought were bots were literally all minutes-old users
“LOL. You think your vote matters? ROFL and LOL.” Yes, I am aware my vote carries less and less relative power the more people I’m voting with, but unlike your glorious violent revolution, it actually exists.
The Glorious Violent Revolution fantasy is the Rapture for leftists.
ALT
