gingersnaps-09 - Tumblr blog

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When we were kids, we didn't have access to cool power tools. Every summer, when the soapbox derby race was coming, we'd break into my neighbour's garage while he was at work. Then, we'd use his drill press, lathe, table saw, all the fun tools. Over the course of a week, a race car was produced, which is more than the workshop ever made during the rest of the year.

Sure, we could have asked him if we could have borrowed his tools, but no doubt he would want to be there to supervise. And then he'd want to help. We'd never get done while we were busy indulging the suburb-tinged fantasies of someone who didn't take wood shop and chose instead to idly worship at the altar of Television Presents: The Fantasy of Bob Vila in adulthood.

One year, Old Man Garrett got a security system. Probably this was because Ted (fucking Ted) didn't clean up the sawdust that one time like we asked him to. The old man must have seen the footprint, and realized that he did not wear size-seven Nikes. Child thieves, casing his precious table saw! Now, our humble breaking-and-entering had become significantly more difficult than "reach a coat hanger under the door and pull the emergency release."

With the help of some of the high-school kids who were taking electronics class, we managed to defeat the security system. We did so using an ancient Japanese technique known as "distract Old Man Garrett while he's setting it, and then cut the wires to the panel." I think it loses something in translation, but you get the gist of it. That year's car was especially sweet.

In adulthood, I got drunk and bragged to some work buddies about our little scam. They responded in abject horror, because I was still occupying the weird hump in the middle of a normal distribution of "acceptable crimes." It was terrifying to them to see one of their own, one of the suburbanites, speak openly about largely-harmless property crimes. What if we had been hurt, they shrieked. Around the water cooler, I would become a pariah, unless I could make amends.

I did hunt down Old Man Garrett after that, still feeling the sting of rejection. He was still on the property, and he still had a beautiful collection of immaculate cabinet-making tools in the garage. I rang his doorbell and, when he answered, I told him the whole story. He laughed.

"I knew it was you dumb shits from the beginning," he bragged. "Fucking Ted -"

"Fucking Ted," I echoed, unconsciously.

"Fucking Ted left his library book on building race cars behind on the workbench that first year. You didn't let him drive, did you?"

I shook my head. "We ran the car into him if the hockey-stick brakes ever failed."

We had a good laugh about the whole thing that evening, and I returned to work with my soul cleansed. It's just a pity Ted didn't know how bad he actually was at crime, before he tried to knock over that liquor store and all.

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"if you are over 30 on Tumblr the mental illness won" "the aging fanbase of Tumblr" motherfucker if you are over 30 and have been here the entire time it means the mental illness didn't win we are still alive WE MADE IT

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James Earl Jones, the revered actor who voiced ‘Star Wars’ villain Darth Vader, starred in ‘Field Of Dreams’ and many other films and is an EGOT winner, died this morning at his home in Dutchess County, NY. He was 93.

Read about his life and legacy here: https://tinyurl.com/3bf8zn25

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When its your birthday month you should be able to do whatever you want and spend as much money as you want throughout the month and it doesn't count since your birthday is on that month so it's okay

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For reasons known only to adolescent girls my friend Kate and I started communicating with extremely loud calls of, “Ka-kaw!” at some point during high school.

When trying to locate each other on the quad in lieu of cell phones we made do with good old fashioned screeching. The first call was always a lower tone. When one of us heard the cry we’d immediately echo it back at a higher pitch like dinosaurs playing Marco Polo.

This was probably obnoxious for all our classmates but man did we zero in on each other right quick. It was great. I never had to look for her in a huge crowd I just had to unleash my lack of social decorum in sonic waves. My only defense was that we only used it for out of doors. We weren’t monsters.

It served us extremely well the one time we went skiing together. She was a newer skier and got off the ski lift before I did after a stroke of bad luck and poor planning on our parts. By the time I had my skis on the snow I couldn’t see her. Worried, I took off down the mountain, not spotting her.

I planted my skis when I realized I must have passed her somehow. She couldn’t have made the same time as me. I threw my head back and shrieked, “Ka-kaw!!”

The sound cut across the cold thin air, sharp and carrying. To my delight and the surprise of several snowboarders going past me there was an answering “Ka-kaw!!!” from further up the mountain, reverberating joyously.

I’ve had this turkey post pinged several times, I can only say that I’m glad my friend and I aren’t the only bird girls out there.

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Concept: Vampire character that represents strengthening ties to humanity and the natural world instead of dividing them

Vampire gets HEAVILY invested in eco conservation because they *can't* just shrug it off as the next generation's problems

A vampire that goes around eating oil tycoons and clear-cut logging CEOs and climate-denying politicians because their childhood village is a dirt pit now and the animals they saw growing up have become endangered

Immortal guys who anonymously donate huge sums of cash to wildlife preserves that oversee forests they used to hunt in

Fellow who, instead of succumbing to the boredom and waste of infinite time, has become feverishly obsessed with making sure this one specific species of snail will still be around in another hundred years

5000 year old woodsman who can still mimic the calls of extinct birds, who still remembers the mating calls of mammoths and wooly rhinos and wild horses

Ancient vampire who can still vaguely recall a cave somewhere with her whole family's hand prints in it, and not sure of it's precise location, keeps the whole area void of human activity so it doesn't become a tourist attraction

Vampire archeologist who digs up their old friend's remains and has the figure out how to prove, with evidence, how they know exactly who they were and what they looked like

Immortal anthropologist who reconstructs a face from a skull only to realize that they'd met them before a long, long time ago

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🐈‍⬛🤍

last week to get Gracie 🖤

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absolutely hilarious of Hollow Knight to answer the question "why are all the things I knock over back in perfect condition when I re-enter the room", a question that really doesn't need an answer because of how common it is in video games, with "there's a guild of bugs who are fixing things very very fast while you aren't looking"

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thinking about anastasia trusova paintings again

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TOTK - Eternal (part 1)

part 2 here

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there's no shame in continuing to live with your parents as an adult, but it does have an undeniable poisoning effect on your brain that you can't start healing until you live somewhere else

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Two days ago my husband said "...and he was pissed" and I said "don't say that around the kids!" so he corrected himself to "and he was liquid angry" and I've been laughing since

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we should globally ban the introduction of more powerful computer hardware for 10-20 years, not as an AI safety thing (though we could frame it as that), but to force programmers to optimize their shit better

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just witnessed a girl spot her friend in the grocery store and instead of calling her over she started making turkey noises. and her friend, who apparently recognized her call, responded with higher pitched turkey noises before she even saw her and they used turkey echolocation to find each other. friendship between girls is a beautiful thing <3

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as much as i understand people, i want to be understood, too

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So y’all know the classic edge trope of “my blade cannot be sheathed until it has tasted blood”? What if a magic sword that has that requirement, except it’s sort of inverted. A sword that, instead of being inhabited by an evil spirit which once awakened cannot be lulled back to sleep except by blood sacrifice, was inhabited by a benevolent spirit who would not allow the sword to be drawn unless bloodshed were the only possible solution. A sword whose power could never be misused because it would only allow itself to be used in situations where it was justified. What about a Paladin who spends their entire journey fighting with a sheathed sword, incapacitating but never killing or maiming. The party believes that the Paladin has taken an oath of no killing, until they face the big villain. And it is in that moment, and that moment alone, that the sword will allow itself to be drawn.

Idk, this image set my mindwheels a-turning.

But do y’all see the vision?