my-releasevalve

[my-releasevalve]

Today's Adventure is that I, after an unintentional 13-hour power nap,

Got woken up at 6AM by a phone call from a friend stranded in Montana because of the heat wave and almost no cell service because of their crap provider.

OhSoThat'sHowIt'sGonnaBe.jpg

Ok.

I somehow summon a week's worth of spoons and in less than 30 minutes and 5 phone calls, get them

A hotel

An appointment with a mechanic from 2 states away

A perscription refilled from 2 states away

and A Pizza

Go me.

But then it's 8AM and there are unscheduled live humans at the door and while EVERGENCY MODE is still on, I have already blown through a ton of spoons, and also probably shouldn't meet whoever it is wearing just a pair of bootyshorts that say "CRYPTID" in Gothic Font on my ass.

So I greet them in those shorts and a T-shirt that I manage to put on both inside out and backwards

#nailedit

It is, Fortunately, not the mormons.

it is, Unfortunately, two UPS guys trying to deliver my other in-house friend's new phone except the new guy doesn't know how to operate the "sign for package" device, and the old guy that's supposed to be mentoring him is like, 92, deaf as a post, and doesn't actually know how to operate the device either.

by the way

it is already

over 100 out

it takes almost 30 minutes to sign for the phone

when i get back inside, i discover that apparently the Corgi has learned how to open his kennel from the inside because he is now out of the kennel and waiting for me to come in.

he also has cat litter all over his face because while he was waiting for me he also learned how to open the baby gate to the cat's room and help himself to a cat shit breakfast.

He'll be fine

He's a cattle dog, they're legally required to have at least 1 really disgusting snack they love.

but

more to the point

i have no idea at what point he learned to open his kennel from the inside

has he been staying there out of politeness this whole time??

And

I got other shit to do today.

namely.

I'm seeing a realator

The Devils most pathetic yet effective demons

I get a reminder text that I have an appointment with her

at least

I think that's what it is because what she sends me is: "🏡⏰12:00 ❔"

With the time typed in the middle like that.

She is, according to her profile, at least 80.

so I reply "😎👍"

and then she sends me a string of GODDAMN POST-MODERN EMOJI HEIROGLYPHICS THAT TAKE UP MY ENTIRE SCREEN.

She's on an iPhone so half of them don't even translate across platforms

It takes me half an hour and three different software programs and goddamn wingdings to translate, but she has sent me the address and rules about masking and not wearing shoes inside.

in emoji

instead of like

literally any other format

I am

FASCINATED

and simply must meet the woman so if I don't come back to update I got stolen by the fairies but I'm taking the Corgi with me as protection so I'll see y'all later.

[my-releasevalve]

I've noticed comic book writers/artists seem not to know much about firearms, or at least they deliberately avoid specificity. I'm not complaining about that - the specifics usually aren't important to the story, so glossing over them works fine.

But it does make it stand out when they bother to be specific (and get it right!) One of my favorite little jokes in Deadpool (2013) is based on a detail about ammunition:

Preston: Sounded like a 7.62 round.

Deadpool: So that narrows it down to the military. Paramilitary. Terrorists. Enthusiasts. The AARP.

"A 7.62 round" sounds technical and specific - it's actually just one of the most common sizes of ammunition out there (short for 7.62 mm caliber). Some military automatic rifles use 7.62 mm ammo, but so do plenty of civilian deer hunting rifles. In parts of the USA, you can buy boxes of it at Wal-Mart. So yeah, not that helpful to narrow down your suspect list...

[my-releasevalve]

“I wanna be a writer, but everything’s been done already!”

Not as a romance novel! =D

[my-releasevalve]

Has anyone brought this thread to @pmseymourva​‘s attention yet?  I just want to hear him read the various insane posts and watch as his brain melts as he realizes there are people out there like this.

Yes, I have a sadistic streak.  No, I don’t encourage it.

Much.

okay unrelated but what was the funniest red flag in ur worst relationship

[my-releasevalve]

Yeah.  Especially when you have things like the Death Cult going around trying to bend the world to their whims.  And they are as unforgiving as Old World Puritans going on a Witch Hunt.  Heck, they have their own Witch Hunts, which usually involve digging up some random thing from your past and using it to condemn you.  Even if you agree that thing was bad, and apologize, they will not forgive.  You’d have an easier time with 4chan, and they’re infamous for not forgiving, or forgetting.  And the Death Cult sure won’t let you forget either.  Might as well have their own form of a Scarlet Letter to mark you with.

Keep them out at all costs.  They join, they take over, and they change things to suit their whims.  I’d use an analogy from sci-fi or fantasy if I could think of one, but I’m coming up dry.  Suffice to say, they destroy all that they touch.  Why do you think so much entertainment sucks now?  Because they took over, and even those with good intentions and good ideas joined in to kick out the Old Guard, even those they could’ve learned from.  And instead of taking criticism, they cry on the internet about being bullied and unappreciated and how their detractors are all misogynists and racists and...

A lot of them are petulant children who throw a tantrum when they don’t get their way.  But the dangerous ones are those who know what they’re doing, and are insistent on Progressing society toward their vision of the future.

The same vision that the Soviets had, though they won’t admit it.  And look how that turned out.

Keep them out.  If you can have a dialogue, great.  Maybe help them to see things from your perspective and understand why you love these things, and more so why they shouldn’t be changed.  Or at least not to change them without great care.  Every convert you win, every person you save from the Death Cult, will become a very fierce ally once they understand what they were once a part of.  But those you can’t reason with, who refuse to understand or care?  They’ll be your enemies, even if you have no personal quarrel with them.  Those you’ll have to keep out, and endure the occasional siege, with the screaming masses demanding to be let in.

Keep them out.  Or you will lose everything you love.  After all...

...they’re only the devil’s pawns.

What happened to the SCP wiki?

To my understanding, Tumblr found out about it and basically infested the community, dramatically changing everything to match their sensibilities while pushing the old creators out.

[my-releasevalve]

Anyone who disturbs such an obvious vibe deserves to get bit.  He ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong!  Just walkin’ along, minding his own business.

Honestly, if you don’t respect wildlife, you deserve what ya get.  They’re not pets.

[my-releasevalve]

Let’s see... “Whiskey Lullaby” is the only sad song I can think of right now, and it’s too late at night to look it up.  I will say that there’s still some good country music out there, though not necessarily on the radio.  Heck, I keep my car tuned into a station that plays a lot of pre-2000 music.  OP isn’t wrong about country music turning into pandering nonsense specifically made to sell albums and appeal to a wide audience.  Thing is that’s pretty much all the big artists nowadays.  Even Christian music suffers from this, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they coached it in more religious terms.  I grew up in Church Culture.  I can tell you almost exactly what they’d say.

If you want good country post-9/11, you should go out and find it.  You have the internet.  Have you never looked it up on YouTube?  Has no one shared The Brothers Bright or The Silent Comedy with you?  Granted, they seem more like Outlaw Country with Christian themes, but they’re a lot better than what’s on the radio right now.  If you hate Christianity, well, there are probably some indie bands and singers in the genre that could appeal to you.  But most rural folk tend to be religious.  And tearing down Christianity is how we got a lot of the troubles we have today.

Of course, the thing that bugs me is OP listing two songs I don’t like.  Not because of their content, but because they feel like what I call “Angry Women Songs”.  Which, yes, as a guy I’m rather sick of.

Because I’m tired of the Death Cult that says I’m the cause of all the world’s problems when I can barely make rent, you ungrateful sow.  No, not you, necessarily.  The one in the back who thinks I hate women because I dislike these songs.  You’ll know her when you see her.  Or hear her more like.

Look, “Goodbye Earl” always struck me as way too mean-spirited.  I’m not saying the guy didn’t deserve, and whatever moral objections I may have, I accept that some folks need killing.  But did they have to make it sound like they were mocking him?  I dunno.  Maybe there’s just something in the way they sang it.  I’m of the mind that if you’re going to kill someone, do it and be done with it.  Pissing on the grave just doesn’t feel right to me.

“Before He Cheats”?  Okay, first off: he has to have cheated.  If she’s wrong about her guy cheating (and be honest, has there never been a woman who was wrong about that?), then the whole song goes up in smoke.  Looks like a crazy woman smashing up her boyfriend’s car.  The music video makes it obvious he’s cheating, but the song does not.  Where in the entire song can you say anything she’s stating is actually true and not in her head?  Unless you assume that her guy is cheating, it’s just a woman over-reacting to stuff her boyfriend didn’t do.

Also, you also have to assume she has the right car.  I mean, yeah, if she’s been dating him long enough, she probably knows what to look for.  She can pick it out if it’s got enough identifiable features.  But last I checked, the description she gives of the vehicle is so bare-bones it could fit a dozen different cars.  So, even if he is cheating, she could be destroying a stranger’s property.

I honestly want to see someone edit the ending of the music video to make it look like that.  It would be so hilarious if her ex-boyfriend, coming out of the bar with the other (possibly not as crazy) hot chick, pauses as he sees her standing there, baseball bat in hand...

...and then pulls out his keys and unlocks a different car.

And that’s before the other guy comes out (or hey, maybe another woman?) and goes, “MY CAR!!”  But I’ve rattled on long enough.

OP is probably right about a lot of things.  I haven’t looked into this myself, and this is mostly off-the-cuff written at almost 2:30 in the morning.  So, I apologize for any and everything I got wrong.  There is still Outlaw Country though, if you can find it.  Go search for it on YouTube.  There’s a whole playlist of new and upcoming singers in the genre, including one guy with a guitar and kick drum who sounds like the reincarnation of Johnny Cash himself.  Sings about small town kids doing heroin and shit, stuff you won’t find on the radio.  It’s good.  Do yourself a favor and go find it.  I wish I could remember his name; I need to get his album sometime.

Oh, and don’t worry about country being pro-establishment in the near future.  After the debacle of the last Presidential Election?  You bet your sweet bippie there’s gonna be a lot of songs against the government.  But they may not be supporting the side you like so much.

Whatever you think of country, please, leave the Death Cult that blames all the world’s problems on the White Man.  It’s just a whole different kind of racism, one that implies that the Non-Whites are powerless and stupid.  You think country is dead now?  Wait until the real Manhaters get a hold of it.  It’ll sink faster than the promises of a career politician.

Oh, one last thing... any of y’all seen the music video for “Girl in a Country Song”?  It is fucking hilarious!! XD It’s still one of my favorites, if only because of what they got the guys to do!  It’s so worth watching, at least once.  You owe it to yourselves to go look it up.

BIG DISCLAIMER: i was 9 when 9/11 happened, so this might be more about my own crystalizing tastes than anything else. i think it’s a pretty darn good theory tho and other people have validated it.

BIGGER DISCLAIMER: i am not saying that country music prior to 9/11 was free from nationalist, racist, misogynist undertones - i just think that these themes became more the norm!

MY HOT TAKE:

with very few exceptions, including goodbye earl, before he cheats, and daddy Iessons (side note - all women!) 9/11 ruined country music. around 2014 onward we’ve got margo price, sturgill simpson, jason isbell etc., who are making country music great again (wink), but those folks are mostly considered “alternative” country. the mainstream country music for well over a decade now is a glut of trash performative patriotic / working-class-but-not-really lab-crafted budweiser-sponsored nonsense that has managed to sound rebellious (or has convinced its fans that it sounds rebellious) without ever actually questioning any power structure. so much so that artists who ACTUALLY criticized the government were literally blacklisted for nearly a decade (the dixie chicks)

pre-9/11 country music, though not perfect or ideologically pure by any stretch, did not have the raging american flag painted truck boner that comes to mind for a lot of people who say “i like everything except rap and country”

SPECIFICALLY, toby keith’s “courtesy of the red, white, and blue (the angry american)” (2002) literally destroyed country music. it was a direct answer to the 9/11 attacks and war song in support of the invasion of afghanistan. the lyrics read like a disjointed feverish email chain letter forwarded from your great uncle sprinkled with glittering american flag gifs and heavily saturated pictures of bald eagles. the entire song is lifted from an estimated 248 peeling bumper stickers collected from rusted trucks on cinder blocks in overgrown yards, cut up and arranged to fit a catchy, formulaic tune that is almost certainly the background music playing in george w. bush’s head at all times.

“we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the american way and uncle sam put your name at the top of his list and the statue of liberty started shakin’ her fist and the eagle will fly, and it’s gonna be hell, when you hear mother freedom start a'ringin’ her bell”

country music and the new country musicians that toby keith paved the way for became so pro establishment and so unquestioningly nationalistic that, again, the dixie chicks who went against this grain were blacklisted by the industry and received death threats from country music fans. hell, there are folks who STILL froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the dixie chicks.

9/11 killed outlaw country - how can you sing the praises of law breakers when your main circuit consists of singing to troops? there are some great classic country songs critiquing the police state - especially from johnny cash and merle haggard - now country music artists hold fundraisers for FOPs. new country music is basically in-law country music.

you don’t have to write a pro-bush patriotic anthem to be part of this post-9/11 ruination. playing meaningless songs about living in the heart of (read: white) america, eschewing the city (read: not white), and cracking open a cold one with the boys for “authentic” country music is also important to the war effort.

there’s a progression of themes here:

post 9/11 top tier: war anthem, vocally patriotic, directly used as pro war propaganda; which paved the way for: “things used to be so much better” thinly veiled racist laments, good for campaign ads; which paved the way for meaningless party anthems - attempts to make things “like they used to be” and craft a reality that neither the artist nor listener likely ever experience.

that brings us to what most people think of today when they say they hate country music: the country party anthem - “tiny hot gal in tight jean shorts who can drink beer like the guys, she doesn’t like beyoncé Like Other Girls, oh she’s so into me and my truck, i’m gonna take her fishing after i finish sowing my corn - sung by a guy who’s never touched a tractor” - has overtaken the tragic, done me wrong, despairing country ballads of tammy wynette, george jones, and even up into pre-9/11 contemporaries like reba mcentire and george strait. you didn’t necessarily have to be country to relate to their pain. now you have to perform suburban redneckness to enjoy luke bryan.

when was the last time you heard a sad country song?

after 9/11, cowboys (whether or not they had ever been near a cow) weren’t allowed to be sad anymore (no more done me wrong country), and they certainly weren’t allowed to question authority (no more outlaw country). partying hardy became the most important American Thing and if you don’t sing about that, our Enemies Will Win.

so - understanding that country music has always had bad stuff, and that like any genre it suffers from commercialization, 9/11 DESTROYED COUNTRY MUSIC. and toby keith gleefully helped destroy it.

for some further evidence of the decline of country music, please listen to the dixie chicks’ “long time gone” which is an indictment of the industry (i believe it was written before 9/11 but my point still stands - the genre was on the decline and 9/11 was the major cultural event that hastened the decline).

maybe i am a curmudgeon - almost every generation of country music has had its own “country music is not what it used to be” anthem, but i really think something distinct happened with 9/11.

[my-releasevalve]

You’re heard it said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

I’ll do you one better.

He got the sacred halls of academia to teach how to express the fewest concepts with the greatest number of words.  Even to the point of saying nothing at all in a paragraph full of run-on sentences.

Best part?  It was mankind, under Marx and Engels, that gave him a new False Shepherd to use.  The rest was almost too easy.

How the devil rejoices when he finds a new flavor of Pharisee on earth.  They are his most trusted prophets to spread his counterfeit Gospel of Death.

the way my head hurts...

[my-releasevalve]

“Launched more drone strikes than his predecessor”?  According to whom?

Can someone please inform me where they’re getting this?  Because as far as I know, Trump didn’t drone strike anyone.  Except maybe, y’know, actual terrorists?  Because ISIS disappeared under his administration.  Gone.  Wiped out.  Kaput.  (Insert overly long Dead Parrot Sketch reference here.)

I do, however, support OP’s intention to never vote Republican.  At least, for most of them.  Because these past four years have shown just how bad both parties are.  President Trump kept getting back-stabbed and undermined time after time.  By “his own Party”, so they say.  Except it really wasn’t because he was a true Outsider, a businessman instead of a politician, and could probably be said to be the only true statesman we’ve had in years.  Maybe decades.  Because this President got more done in four years than the Republicans did in four decades.

They all hated him.  Few in the GOP backed him up, and few still do.  So much so that the GOP would allow election fraud on an unprecedented scale to happen just so they too could be rid of the Outsider.  Rid of the “Orange Man”, who they despised as if he were Christ himself.  For all his faults, he’s the best President we’ve had in a long, long time.  And because of that, he must be destroyed, his legacy erased, and kept out of power by any means necessary.  The only reason they don’t kill him is because he’d just be a martyr.  And they’re at least too smart for that.  So far.

Don’t vote Republican.  Don’t vote Democrat.  Vote for people who actually give a damn and aren’t just gonna swindle you into starting their political careers.  Vote for term limits.  For all of them.  Yeah, maybe even Judges, because there comes a point where senility is a concern.  Plus, many of them are already corrupt, if the travesty of the Election Fraud Investigations is anything to go by.

Though it may be that the time for peaceful resolutions is over.  I kinda hope it isn’t, yet at the same time I also wish we could rip off this bandage, sterilize the wound, and patch things up.  A Civil War might be the only way to fix this, and I hate that.  Especially because many Americans may be hesitant to fire the first shot knowing others might not be behind them.  And who knows when it’s too late to take up arms and fight?  I hope God is watching over us, because it seems the Watchmen have been bribed, and the barbarians are gathering at the gate.

Best thing I can figure for now is to apply a bit of Martin Luther King Jr.’s own tactics.  Civil disobedience.  Not to the law in general, but to those that are clear violations of our Rights.  Raise up the new generations and don’t let them force them into mandatory schooling.  Oppose their overreach at every step.  File lawsuits, hold protests, refuse to comply with unjust orders, and use every legal tactic you can find to harass and trouble and bother the Elites who just want to you be a fat, lazy cash cow for them.

Let them know what happens when they try to conquer The Men Who Just Wanted to Be Left Alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5iEjz8ToMA

God be with you all.  We need a light in the darkness now more than ever.

I will never forgive or forget what Donald Trump has done. And it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever vote for a Republican.

[my-releasevalve]

Came for space shanties, got blind-sided by a small essay about the death of the work songs.

What the hell. XD

ok but like. space shanties. 

there’s a thing that should definitely be a thing in sci-fi.

[my-releasevalve]

They’re all labeled “Foreboding”.  They’re not possessed, they’re doing their job.  What did you think “Foreboding” sounded like?  Birds chirping, gentle wind, and children laughing?

hi i am literally obsessed with how horrifying the music in Piglet’s Big Game is and can’t stop thinking about it. possessed.

yeah! i guess it is!

[my-releasevalve]

The braided tails are a nice touch.  A bit of a nod to the real life phenomenon called a “rat king”, where several rats get their tails fused together somehow.  Pretty sure they rely on other rats to feed them since they can’t really move much.

Isn’t learning fun? =D

The Rat King and Clara

[my-releasevalve]

Swap out Christmas for almost everything else and you have the entire Hallmark channel and all its copycats.

i realized this was also lost in the fall of the CH website so

since it’s That Time of Year again, i’m just gonna bring back my Every Christmas TV Rom-Com comic

[my-releasevalve]

I’m confused as to why anyone would think the first girl is lazy.  Sometimes, a book just doesn’t jive with you, for whatever reason.  And to be fair, a lot of “classics” and popular books/authors probably aren’t that great.  Kudos to the second girl for backing her up with research and pointing that it was indeed written on drugs.  Probably not the best book to study.

[my-releasevalve]

Anything rural is horrific to those sheltered too long in cities.  If not for the internet, how many people would know what an alpaca even is?

[my-releasevalve]

So, losing a Dragon Ball Z fist fight then?

Since a bunch of you are seemingly into tall, skinny dudes with questionable fashion choices, I present your next crush:

Mr. Mint ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[my-releasevalve]

FRIENDS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

GOOD NIGHT!

“i wish i could go on platonic dates with people”