#She's technically older than all of the Lindens.

[loupy-mongoose]

How I've collected an Army of Mews. :3

@puzzled-zebra asked me in a chat how I get my Mews, and it made me realize something. While I did make a post awhile back talking about how I easily get my Mew characters in-game, there are a few aspects that I feel need more attention (some of which I've learned since that post). So I figured I'd make a new and improved, deeply in-depth post about it! :3

It is important to know, though, that the Mews (and Jirachis) obtained this way are SHINY LOCKED! You cannot reset for a shiny this way! (I have a post about how I got Akoya here~)

The Lindens, the Branch crew, and my first gift Mew Pearl. All safe and sound in Scarlet. :3 Every Mew here except Akoya was obtained in Shining Pearl.

What you need: Nintendo Switch/Lite Brilliant Diamond OR Shining Pearl Let's Go: Pikachu OR Let's Go Eevee (For Mew) Sword OR Shield (For Jirachi)

First off, it's best to do do this on a user with HOME access for a few different reasons. First and foremost, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl has a lock that makes it so you can send ONLY ONE Mew per file into HOME! I learned this the hard way, as I made the mistake of stockpiling my Mews in a Shining Pearl file, only to find out that I had go through convoluted hoops to get them all into HOME. XD This issue is ONLY present in BDSP--Sword and Shield, and Scarlet and Violet do not lock you in this way and you can transfer as many Mews as you want to your hearts content. (Currently--please don't change it GameFreak!) (I don't fully understand the mechanics of it all, but Mews obtained in previous games pass through this lock--Akoya and Randy were consistently able to be put in HOME together from the same file. It's only when they're obtained in BD/SP that the lock applies, or so I understand.)

The second reason for HOME access is, you have to beat the first Gym to do this method. I have in the past done it using the starter Piplup and catching Starlys and Shinxes, but if you have access to HOME and powerful Pokemon, then you can borrow some to help you get through. I use the Linden Shiny Squad since their levels are between 65-70. They scarcely listen to me, but when they do, it insta-KO's their opponents. (I recommend having Piplup or a Lv. 10-ish powerful Pokemon on hand, especially for Roark's Onix, as it has Sturdy. I have had them all disobey themselves to death.)

Make sure you put your borrowed 'mons back into HOME before deleting the file, if you want to do so!

How it works is, there's a lady in Floaroma Town that will give you a Mew, at Level 1. (The guy next to her will give you a Jirachi at Level 5 as well.) In order for her to give it to you, you need to have save data of LG;P or E on the same user. It doesn't matter how far in the LG file is; it just needs to be to the point that you can save the game. And you don't need to touch it after you save--One LG save gets you as many Mews as you restart BD/SP for. (For Jirachi it's the same, but instead of LG save data you need Sword or Shield save data.)

So you start BD/SP, play up to Floaroma, and boom, Mew! You can save by the lady and reset for a specific nature, and even name it! With the Shiny Squad's help it takes me roughly an hour of play time to get to that point.

Anyway, a little long-winded, but I thought I'd put this out there for peeps who have the means and want to build their own in-game army of adorable pink cats. :3

[reverienne]

Barbie movies, you say??? How about princess and the pauper and Fairytopia for the ships thing? 😄

OTP: Princess Anneliese/Julian. I’ve always felt a bit iffy shipping them since technically Julian is her tutor, but… c'mon, I’m pretty sure that her actual tutor was Julian’s tutor and that Julian is barely older than Anneliese herself.Anneliese’s comparison in the mine is a bit unfortunate, I’ll admit, but I’ve always found them cute and I’m glad that they found each other.

favourite canon pairing: Erika/King Dominick. I’m so touched by the strength and sincerity of King Dominick’s feelings. He gave Erika the time and space she needed, he didn’t pressure her into anything and when she came back to him, he was still 210% down to marry her, just like he was before her departure. He couldn’t care less that she was a peasant. The scene where he comes to the prison to rescue her because he KNOWS that she’s a good person, even though he had every right to be angry at her for “tricking him”… MY HEART.

worst pairing ever: objectively it would be some twisted ships like Annelise/Preminger, personally I would say Anneliese/Erika. I’ve always seen their bond as purely platonic and sisterly. Let me have that.

guilty pleasure pairing: I don’t really have one, though I definetely feel guilty over not listing Preminger/Queen Genevieve on the worst ship list? Don’t get me wrong, their relationship would be awful, unhealthy and twisted, I just consider it more interesting and less yikes than pretty much all of the worst pairing options. Maybe because they’re roughly the same age.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

a pairing you want to see more of: Anneliese/Julian. I mean, Erika/Dominick is also somewhat underappreciated, but I sometimes feel like I’m the only person who likes Anneliese/Julian and it’s sad.

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no”: I don’t see people boycotting Wolfie/Serafina so I’ll go with Wolfie/Serafina. It’s not that I hate it, it’s just a ship that comes out of nowhere and… it feels far-fetched that not only do Anneliese and Erika have their double wedding, but also their cats hooked up with each other? Please no.

favourite non-romantic pair: Erika with Julian, Serafina with Bertie. I also would love to see more interactions between Anneliese and Erika’s coworker - I can see the potential for a sweet friendship (and Anneliese getting more understanding re: How Real Life Works).

I decided to go with Fairytopia, Mermaidia and The Magic of the Rainbow for the complete trilogy and both Mariposa movies for the complete series.

OTP: MARIPOSA/PRINCE CARLOS. Listen, that’s the only Barbie ship that has ever given me so much emotion. Mattel, I’m begging, give me an animated TV series in which Mariposa and Carlos get the slowburn romance they deserve.

favourite canon pairing: does Mariposa/Prince Carlos count as one? They’re definetely the closest match and they’re supported in-universe by Willa.

worst pairing ever: objectively these would be ships like Elina/Azura or Rayna/Rayla, but personally I absolutely detest Bibble/Dizzle and the idea of Elina/Mariposa squicks me out?

guilty pleasure pairing: okay but consider an AU to “The Magic of the Rainbow” where Laverna doesn’t inpersonate Sundrop and we’re given a whole movie of Elina and Sundrop’s enemies-to-lovers relationship? No, it’s more self indulgent. Maybe Elina/Dandelion? Just give me more of their interactions, please. I love them.

a pairing you want to see more of: it really looks like that if you don’t ship Elina with Nori, you’re in deep trouble? Aside from Elina/Sundrop, I would love to see more Elina/Dandelion, maybe Elina/Glee and a whole lot of people accepting that Elina can be single and happy.

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no”: Mariposa/Catania. It’s a very sweet friendship, but Mariposa is just too much of a mentor/older sister figure to Catania and their romance just doesn’t sit well with me.

favourite non-romantic pair: from Fairytopia trilogy: TOPAZ AS A BOTHERSOME HOSTAGE TO LAVERNA, Elina & Dandelion, Elina & Dahlia, Elina & Linden; from Mariposa duology: Willa & Prince Carlos, Prince Carlos & Queen Marabella.

[thekillerblogofkillers]

Kenneth McDuff (1946-1998)

Kenneth McDuff, also known as the Broomstick Killer, was an American serial killer who was convicted of murdering 3 strangers in 1966. He received 3 death sentences that were reduced to life imprisonment. He was paroled in 1989 but was given a new death sentence and was executed for a murder committed after his release. He is suspected to have been responsible for many other murders.

Kenneth Allen McDuff was born at 201 Linden Street in Rosebud, Central Texas, on March 21, 1946. He was the fifth of sixth children born to John and Addie McDuff. John McDuff ran a successful concrete business during the Texas construction boom in the 1960s. McDuff was said to be coddled by his mother, nicknamed the ‘pistol packing momma’ because she once threatened a school bus driver with a gun after he had kicked her older son Lonnie off the bus. Kenneth ended up with the reputation of a bully that picked only on the weak kids after losing a fight he had picked with an athletic, popular boy. As a result he dropped out of school and began to work for his father’s business, doing manual labour. He later bragged in interviews that the older women loved the way he mowed their laws, making others jealous. McDuff was convicted of a string of burglaries and imprisoned.

McDuff’s criminal record began 2 years before his 1st conviction for murder. At the age of 18 McDuff was convicted of 12 counts of burglary and attempted burglary in 3 Texas counties. He was sentenced to 12 four-year prison terms to be served concurrently but he made parole less than a year later. McDuff did another brief stint in prison after becoming involved in a fight. Despite the fact that he had not been convicted of any murders at the time, Roy Dale Green, McDuff’s accomplice in the 1966 triple homicide, said that McDuff had openly bragged about raping and killing 2 women.

On August 6, 1966, McDuff and Green (whom he had met through a mutual friend around a month earlier) spent the day pouring concrete for McDuff’s father. When they were done for the day they began driving round (McDuff said he was looking for a girl.) At around 10pm, Robert Brand, 17, his girlfriend Edna Louise Sullivan, 16, and Brand’s 15-year-old cousin Mark Dunman were standing next to their parked car on a baseball field in Everman, Texas. While they were driving around, McDuff noticed Sullivan and parked 150 yards away from the trio. He threatened them with his .38 Colt revolver and ordered them into the trunk of their car. With Green following in McDuff’s car, he drove the victims’ Ford along the highway and into a field, where he ordered Sullivan to get out of the trunk and told Green to put her into the trunk of his Dodge Coronet. According to Green’s statement, McDuff said he would have to “knock ‘em off” and proceeded to fire 6 shots into the trunk of the Ford as Dunman and Brand were pleading for their lives. McDuff then told Green to wipe the fingerprints off the car. After driving to a second location, McDuff and Green (Green allegedly under duress) raped Sullivan. After raping her repeatedly, McDuff asked Green for something to strangle her with and Green have him his belt. In the end, though, McDuff chose to use a 3 ft long piece of broomstick from his car to choke Sullivan. After she was dead, McDuff and Green dumped her body in a patch of bushes. They bought Coca-Cola from a gas station in Hillsboro before driving to Green’s house to spend the night. The next day McDuff buried his revolver next to Green’s garage and their mutual friend Richard Boyd allowed McDuff to wash his car at his house. The next day, Green confessed Boyd’s parents, who told Green’s mother, who convinced Green to turn himself in. McDuff received 3 death sentences and was scheduled to die in Texas’s electric chair and Green was released after 11 years. McDuff’s death sentences were commuted to a life sentence and he hired a lawyer who gathered a wealth of evidence suggesting that Green was the real killer. Some members of the parole board were swayed by the dossier. During a 1-on-1 interview with a board member McDuff offered him a bribe to secure his release. He was given a 2-year sentence for the bribe attempt. It was meaningless, however, as board members thought McDuff was still able to “contribute to society” and granted him parole. He was released in 1989.

McDuff was one of 20 former death row inmates and 127 murderers to be paroled, and after his release he began working at a gas station making $4 an hour while taking a class at Texas State Technical College. It is believed that within 3 days of his release, McDuff killed 31-year-old Sarafia Parker. Her body was discovered on October 14, 1989 in Temple. McDuff was not charged with his crime, but was soon returned to prison on a parole violation for making death threats to a youth in Rosebud. Addie McDuff paid $1,500 plus another $700 for expenses to 2 Huntsville attorneys in return for their “evaluation” of her son’s prospects of parole. On December 18, 1990, McDuff was released from prison again. In October 1991 he picked up a prostitute/drug addict named Brenda Thompson in Waco. He tied her up and then stopped his truck 50 ft from a police checkpoint. When a police officer walked toward the vehicle, Thompson repeatedly kicked the windshield of McDuff’s truck, cracking it. McDuff accelerated quickly and drove at the officers. According to a statement the officers gave later, 3 of them had to jump out of the way of the truck. The officers chased McDuff, but he escaped by turning off his lights and travelling the wrong way down a 1-way street. He parked his truck in a wooded area near Route 84 and tortured Thompson to death. Her body was not discovered for 7 years.

Five days after the murder of Brenda Thompson, McDuff and 17-year-old prostitute Regenia DeAnne Moore were seen having an argument at a motel in Waco. Shortly after the 2 drove in McDuff’s pickup truck to a remote area near Texas State Highway 6. McDuff tied Moore’s arms and legs with stockings before killing her. She, too, had been missing for 7 years before her body was discovered. McDuff is also thought to have killed Cynthia Renee Gonzalez, 23, whose body was found in a creek bed near County Road 313 in a heavily wooded area near I-35, 6 days after she was reported missing. McDuff and Alva Hank Worley, an accomplice, murdered Colleen Reed from Louisiana on December 29, 1991. McDuff and Worley drove to a car wash and kidnapped Reed in full view of eyewitnesses before driving away. Worley admitted in a later interview that he had raped and tortured Reed with cigarettes, but claimed not to have participated in her murder.

McDuff’s next victim was Valencia Joshua, a prostitute, who was last seen alive knocking on McDuff’s door. He strangled her on February 24, 1992 and her body was discovered just under a month later at a golf course. Next came Melissa Northrup, a 22-year-old store clerk from a Waco Quik-pak, who was pregnant when she disappeared from the store. The kidnapper took $250 from the cash register. McDuff was a suspect as he was seen in the vicinity at the time of Northrup’s disappearance. Before the body was found, a college friend of McDuff’s told police officers that McDuff had tried to persuade him to help rob the store. Northup’s body was found by fishermen almost 2 months after the murder.

A problem for investigators was that McDuff’s post-release victims were spread out all across Texas, covering multiple jurisdictions, and making a coordinated investigation almost impossible. The police did learn that McDuff was selling drugs and had an illegal firearm, both of which are federal offences, so on March 6, 1992, a local State Attorney issued an arrest warrant. In April of the same year, Bell County investigators brought Worley in for questioning on the basis that he was a known associate of McDuff. Worley admitted his part in the kidnapping of Reed and was held in a Travis County jail while police continued the manhunt for McDuff. In the meantime, McDuff had moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he was working as a garbage collector under the alias Richard Fowler. On May 1, 1992, a co-worker of his named Gary Smithee watched America’s Most Wanted & noticed how similar Kenneth McDuff was to his new colleague. After talking to another co-worker about the situation, Smithee called the Kansas City Police Department, which ran Fowler’s name and discovered he had been arrested (and subsequently fingerprinted) for soliciting prostitutes. A comparison of the prints taken from Fowler and those taken from McDuff proved they were one and the same man. On May 4, 1992, a surveillance team of 6 officers arrested McDuff as he drove to a landfill.

Kenneth McDuff was indicted on 1 count of capital murder for Northrup’s killing in McLennan County, Texas on June 26, 1992 and was found guilty. In Texas, the jury decides whether or not an individual convicted of murder is sentenced to life imprisonment or given the death penalty. Journalist Gary Cartwright wrote: “If there has ever been a good argument for the death penalty, it’s Kenneth McDuff.” On February 18, 1993, the jury opted to sentence him to death. After a number of delays while appeals were heard, the Western District Court denied habeas corpus relief and rescheduled the execution for November 17, 1998. McDuff is buried in the Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery, also known as “Peckerwood Hill,” in Huntsville, Texas. Prisoners buried there are the ones whose families chose not to claim their remains. His headstone contains only his date of execution and his death row number. His final meal was a hamburger fashioned to resemble his request of a steak.

[camomility]

So in case anyone didn’t know, I am a theater major (specializing in technical theater and design, rather than acting/directing) at a smallish women’s liberal arts college. Our theater department is small and underfunded and under-appreciated, and I know almost everyone in the department and call all the faculty and staff by their first names and have been an assistant costume designer on two mainstage shows. It’s great.

Because we have to struggle with budgets and resources for bigger shows, the department doesn’t get a chance to put on musicals very often. Our resident director(/directing professor/acting professor) has been pushing for us to do one at least every few years to give the acting students that opportunity, though, and since the last musical the department did was Rent in the spring of 2014, we started talking last year about doing another one this spring.

The committee originally settled on Chicago, but there were some issues with licensing costs as well as with collaboration with the music department’s jazz band. Into the Woods was suggested instead, until it was discovered that approximately five other theaters in the area were also doing it this spring. So they chose Cabaret.

I was not a fan of this choice. I wasn’t really familiar with the show apart from the song ‘If You Could See Her’, and I swear to god I thought until very recently that the plot was another one along the lines of Moulin Rouge/Rent/La Boheme and that Sally died of syphilis or something at the end.

(can you see why I was confused)

And given all that, especially in the wake of the election and with rising racism and antisemitism fucking everywhere, I really did not think that it was a good time to be putting on a musical about Nazi Germany with songs comparing Jews to gorillas. I mean, I was still gonna work on costumes for the show, but I wasn’t happy about the choice of play. I wasn’t gonna make Ernst’s armband, but I’d make garters for the Kit Kat Girls. Fine.

(I was wrong, I realized as soon as I actually read the damn script, about this not being the right time to put on this show. This is exactly the right time to put on a show like this.)

It ended up being a damn good production. We sold out more than once during the run (which ended today), I think. Everyone involved is really damn talented -- the choreographer is a former Broadway dancer who did some very interesting Fosse-like things with the numbers, the costumes (so many damn costumes) are beautiful, even our 80-something-year-old set designer came through. 

The Kit Kat dancers are great. Cliff is very endearing and very bi (we’re using the 1998 script, and how). There’s an adorable first-year playing Herr Schultz opposite a Fräulein Schneider who came back to college for acting many years past traditional college age. Sally is fantastically enthusiastic and oblivious and, by the end, broken. She shakes all the way through the title song, sings the last third as dead Elsie like some kind of haunted doll (’come hear the music play...’) and it’s creepy and heart-wrenching as fuck. We didn’t do the concentration-camp ending, which I think is a good call, but it’s haunting and quiet and the last thing you see is the lights and curtain going down on the whole cast as they come up on Herr Ludwig and Fräulein Kost on the sides in the Nazi salute.

Because musicals tend to be tough to transpose for all-female casts (and because the director was very enthusiastic about putting the Kit Kat Boys in as little clothing as possible), the auditions were open to students from other colleges in the area. We ended up with an all-female cast anyway, apart from some of the musicians and the trans guy from this school who plays Cliff, but three of the actresses are from different colleges: two of the Kit Kat Girls, and the Emcee.

A few of the senior actors from here were not happy about the Emcee’s casting. We do musicals so rarely, it isn’t fair to give one of the lead roles to someone who doesn’t even go here. And they have a point. But the actress was cast for a reason, that reason being that she’s really damn talented. 

Her Emcee is... something new, I think. They are androgynous, charming, a little awkward (the pre-’Don’t Tell Mama’ introduction very quickly and clearly becomes ad-libbing to cover for Sally being late for her cue), with a Marcel wave and heavy stage makeup. They’re more Joel Grey than Alan Cumming, a thick layer of childish glee over cynical darkness in an endless variety of mostly sleeveless tux jackets.

They are also, like the actress, a wheelchair user.

This is not directly commented on by any of the characters at any point in the show, but it’s not an aspect of the character that can be ignored. The Emcee has choreography along with all the other Kit Kat performers, waltzing with a gorilla and all. 'Kit Kat Club’ is written on the back of their chair’s seat. 

I think there are some interesting things to be said about disability, desexualization, and the entirety of ‘Two Ladies’ (moaning sheet silhouettes and everything), although I don’t think I’m the most qualified person to say them.

It all works. And the whole production is great, but my favorite scene in it is about thirty seconds long.

Blue light. Empty stage. Halfway through Act I.

A Kit Kat Girl brings a wooden box onstage, sets it down. Opens it, revealing it to be a compact record player. Leaves.

The Emcee wheels onstage, quiet, holding a cigarette. They’re wearing thigh-highs and a medical corset. It could look quite kinky, if you’re into that kind of thing; it’s a real piece from the period, belonging to the costume shop manager, who runs a side business selling things like it on Ebay to well-paying medical fetishists.

It does not look kinky now. It’s a medical device, designed to support the torso and treat scoliosis. And the person wearing it is, for the first and maybe only time in the show, not performing for anyone.

You get the sense that this scene is happening in their apartment, sometime late at night. Certainly after hours. Certainly they are alone.

The Emcee leans down to the record player, turns the hand crank on the side to wind it up, puts the needle in the groove. Listens to the boy’s high voice singing alone, minimal accompaniment.

“The sun on the meadow is summery warm

The stag in the forest runs free

But gather together to greet the storm

Tomorrow belongs to me.”

The Emcee looks older, tireder, more relaxed than they did in the Club. Leans forward with elbows on knees, takes a drag on their cigarette, stares at nothing. Breathes out. Listens wistfully (or uneasily?) at first, then swaying slightly along with the music.

“The branch of the linden is leafy and green

The Rhine gives its gold to the sea

But somewhere a glory awaits unseen

Tomorrow belongs...”

The Emcee lets the song play almost all the way through the second verse before putting a finger on the needle. The record scratches jarringly and stops.

The Emcee slams the top of the box shut. Looks straight at the audience. Says, “To me.”

Lights down.

[seven-oomen]

I JUST SAW THE NEW PREVIEW AND I AM SCREAMING!!!!!!!  I’m so ridiculously excited to read the full scene!  It’s entirely possible some of the noises I made were not entirely in the normal human register.  There was probably some blushing and flailing (read: there was definitely some blushing and flailing.)  Peter being all shy and trying to cover it with sass.  Chris being so confused about just what the implication of the offer was.  Noah being amused at both of them but also not even fully letting Peter ask before bursting out with an emphatic yes.  My precious awkward turtles, I love all of them so!

And if you would like my perspective as an American who would have been just a few years behind the boys in school, I will say that it’s highly likely they would have known about some methods of contraception and such, even if their parents weren’t the type to bring it up.  In that sort of post-emergence of the AIDS crisis time period, safe sex became a thing that was hammered into you in health classes, after-school specials, etc, unless you lived in the much more rural, conservative areas (so I guess with Chris it would depend partially on where all he lived growing up?)  Now their ability to (legally) access anything like condoms, etc, would have been much more iffy (though the idea of John, Talia, or Deuc offering to get some for Peter is hysterical to imagine.)  How much they would have cared about/been stopped by this lack of access is really a matter of character interpretation, though :D

I’m so down for attempted family prank shenanigans.  (Also, side note, the best way to find Linden’s Insta is actually through links from his Twitter.  He had to do one of the variation things, like Hoechlin, because someone was already using his name for one.  His vibe is pretty much a combo of aging surfer dude and MASSIVE dad energy.)  Actually speaking of family shenanigans, may I put forth the idea of game nights?  Can you imagine them sitting around playing Apples to Apples or Monopoly (and how many fights between Stiles and Jackson this might cause)?  Or even better, when the younger kids are off at a sleepover, or at least busy in another room, the older kids and the parents sitting around playing Cards Against Humanity?  Seeing who can manage to make the group break through card chosen or the reading of said card (and boy are there some doozies to choose from)?  I feel like the best at maintaining a complete deadpan presentation or reaction would be Noah, Jordan, Erica, and Lydia.

I had to look up some of those music ideas (and boy are my YouTube algorithms probably confused right now), but yes, I love all of those.  Especially Peter’s, because it reminds me of a headcanon/scene I thought of for a fic I will never actually write because I am a coward where Noah wanders into the kitchen one morning to find Peter making breakfast and full-on rocking out to Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” in nothing but an ancient BH Sheriff’s Dept t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs.  With Chris I just keep going back to the ball thing because one of the few Nickelback songs I know is “Something in Your Mouth”. XD  So, I have a fun story for “Never Gonna Give You Up”!  When two of my friends got married, they had a friend of the groom’s be the officiant.  Rgiht before he got to the part with the vows and having them repeat after him, it only took me like one or two lines into his lead in speech to go “…wait a minute this sounds familiar…”, at which point he began having them recite the lyrics to that song as their wedding vows.  Pretty sure everyone was cracking up (I mean, the ceremony took place in the middle of a zombie walk with all of us in full costume.  no one was expecting anything normal, but still.  that was hilarious.)  But oh god, can you imagine if any of the kids ever figured out Chris liked that song?  The sheer amount of rick-rolling that would occur boggles the mind.  The things Jackson could try to talk Danny into using his tech skills to do.  It might be one of the things Stiles and Jackson could bond over.  For Noah, maybe he heard them while he had some kid pulled over one day and was like “well that’s stupidly catchy” (because it is), or maybe Stiles had some of their albums at one point, and he kept hearing them and realized he rather liked it, so snuck in and burned himself a copy at some point?  I also considered suggesting ABBA, because that also seems like one of those out of left field choices.  And omg, yes, on the Caramelldansen.  I feel like they’d play it up even more once they notice how horrified their older kids were, because they’re assholes like that.  (Related if you want it to be note: Did you know YouTube has a 10 hour loop of the Swedish version?)

The funniest thing to me with the kids eating the dog cookies is how often it happens and how rarely it gets noticed.  And they always pick the nastiest ones, too.  If they’re gonna do it, they should wait until Christmas, that’s when we get the ones that are basically like the blandest sugar-style cookies ever (I will neither conform nor deny having taken a plate of those to a party once, because I, too, am sometimes an asshole)  And yeah, I don’t get the cat water thing either, particularly since the tap water in our area is actually really good quality.  Some other entertaining stories I forgot last time:

1) Our corporate office told us we had to start carrying snakes, so now we have a ball python named Julius Squeezer.

2) Speaking of eating weird things, we once had a group of college kids come in on a scavenger hunt and one of them bought and ate a feeder fish to check an item off their list.

3) A guy who worked in one of the other businesses apparently lost a bet of some kind and had to come up to our front doors after hours, dressed as a cat, and rub all over them and generally act like a cat wanting back in the house.  We know this because the whole thing was caught on one of the security cameras, and it ended up getting shown at the company holiday party, and one of our cashiers was like “Hey I recognize him.”

4) We have a cardboard stand-up of Rachel Ray (a celebrity chef) that we have to have out because we just started carrying her pet food, and this thing is the stuff of nightmares.  It is technically life-size in that it is about as tall as I am, but the proportions aren’t quite right.  All the employees are weirded out by it.  Every time you walk past it, you can feel it’s soulless gaze following you, mocking you with it’s dead eyes and rictus grin.  Recently it got damaged, and my boss had to temporarily move it until it could be repaired.  Unfortunately (and perhaps coincidentally) the spot he chose was directly across from the employee entrance, so that was the first thing they’d see entering the building.  I witnessed some great reactions that day.  I wish I’d gotten to see the ones from when he took my suggestion back when we first received it to slide it behind one of our propped open warehouse doors so that the face was right where the little window in the door is.  Apparently one of my coworkers jumped a solid two feet when someone pointed it out to him.  I was probably more proud of myself for suggesting it than I should have been, but oh well.

Glad you were spared having to attempt public transport.  I can’t imagine how nerve-wracking that would be right now.  Hope your day has somewhat improved (I know other people who work tech support, I understand there’s only so far up that part of it can go), at least!

That makes me so happy!

No seriously, my workday was absolute shite and I come out of work and I see this wonderful message and my god my friend. You made me smile today. I smiled for the first time today when I read this.

I’m so excited to read your response to this chapter, I’m just so excited and that’s what’s keeping me going. Because I really feel like crying and giving up for a bit. But this, this means so much to me. Thank you <3

I’m definitely going to need people to have a little bit of suspension of disbelief I guess. I mean, yeah, teenagers can do very stupid things and technically only Chris & Peter did the stupid thing, but I might need a little bit of suspension of disbelief. Now that I read how well-known birth control was in the US during that time. I know it was a big thing in The Netherlands (where I’m from) but I wasn’t sure about the US.

I like to think werewolves would be pretty open about these things and Talia and John were definitely like; wrap it up. Deuc definitely bought Peter a whole box of condoms after they found out Chris and Noah were knocked up. ‘Just to be helpful’. 

Talia definitely talked to Chris and Noah about birth control more and educated Chris on sex and what’s going to happen now that he’s pregnant. I might actually include that in the story somewhere or in the prequel. I like to imagine that due to moving so much he never really got much education on everything and when he did he was probably tired from hunting and couldn’t focus much on school.

DUDE

I wanted to put Cards against Humanity in the story but the game doesn’t come out until May 2011, the story takes place in January XD

But yeah, game nights are definitely a thing, especially CAH, Monopoly, Life, Clue (Cluedo in Europe), Trivia Pursuit (Stiles, Lydia, and Noah rock that one), I actually don’t know Apples to Apples but it looks like fun and definitely something they might play!

During Monopoly, they have the general rule that no-one can flip the board and Allison is the bank. (she’s the fairest and most level headed during Monopoly.) Although that role is passed to Kira when she starts playing.

Noah wanders into the kitchen one morning to find Peter making breakfast and full-on rocking out to Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” in nothing but an ancient BH Sheriff’s Dept t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs.

This is one image where I’m like, yeah, this is going into the story because it is awesome! I need it more than life itself. 

Also, I can see the three of them swapping clothes quite often too. Like Chris wears Noah’s BH Sheriff’s dept jacket or cap and Peter’s Stanford Hoodie, Peter wears Noah’s worn BH Sheriff’s dept t-shirt and Chris’s worn Metalica/Green Day sleeping shirts, Noah tends to wear Peter’s leather jackets and Chris’s sunglasses. (Because Chris’s shirts are a little too tight for him and his pants too short. He does occasionally steal those loose sleeping shorts from Chris)

Occasionally he’ll take Chris’s weird pens (from Argent Arms or places like BK that Chris collects) with him on patrol. His favorite Pen to steal is a pink feathery one while on late DUI patrols where he can write tickets with them. 

And dude the rickroll at the wedding is brilliant! I should have done that at my friend’s wedding.. damn.

But yeah Jackson would enlist Danny into helping them. Stiles still pitches Derek shirtless to use as leverage against Danny. (Which to me is extra funny because Derek is actually their cousin.) Derek is okay with it because he gets to extract revenge on Uncle Peter for that time where Uncle Peter gave him the talk by just throwing condoms at him.

At some point there’s just a rickroll VS Carameldanssen battle, it needs to happen XD

All of these stories are wonderful, honestly, they really made me smile and if I wasn’t this tired I would’ve shared some from my vet tech days too. Those days were wild man. But I do want you to know, I’ve read all of them and tell Rachel Ray she’s awesome and Julius Squeezer he’s a ball and I love him <3

[trendingnewsb]

Blue Apron Loses HR Executive, Freezes Hiring Amid Expansion

Blue Apron Holdings Inc. has lost its top human resources executive, implemented a temporary hiring freeze of salaried employees and fired part of its recruiting team just as it ramps up a new fulfillment center thats supposed to help the troubled, newly public company expand.

Kate Muzzattis resignation was announced internally on Aug. 10, according to two people familiar with the situation, the same day Blue Apron decided to halt the hiring of salaried employees. The fired recruiters included staff who helped find operations and technical employees, said three people, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss an internal matter.

The meal-kit company confirmed Muzzattis resignation and said shes joining MM. LaFleur Inc., a womens apparel startup. The recruiting team firings totaled 14 people. They were tied to the temporary hiring freeze, which doesnt affect hourly positions as well as certain roles at headquarters, the company said. Blue Apron, which sells boxes packed with fresh ingredients and recipe cards to make dinner at home, employs more than 5,000 people.

The shares rose as much as 1.3 percent following the news Tuesday, reversing an earlier small decline.

Since going public in June and raising less money than expected, Blue Apron has lurched from one setback to another. Last month, co-founder Matt Wadiak quit as chief operating officer; he was overseeing the teams in charge of producing boxes, procuring ingredients and creating recipes. Though Blue Apron beat analysts revenue estimates in its first earnings report as a public company, it lost customers during the quarter after slashing the marketing budget. The shares have fallen almost 50 percent since the IPO.

Blue Apron has ambitious plans to upgrade its fulfillment operations and offer a much wider selection of products and options; to that end, its been moving a lot of the work to a new warehouse in Linden, New Jersey, all the while winding down an older facility in Jersey City.

“We recently completed an internal reorganization which involved several changes to our organizational structure, including the creation of our new consumer products team and the launch of a new fulfillment center team in Linden,” Chief Executive Officer Matt Salzberg said in an emailed statement. “As part of these changes, we temporarily paused hiring for certain positions, while keeping others open, for the duration of our 2018 resource allocation process."

But Blue Apron has had trouble keeping enough workers on the production lines, especially at the Jersey City facility, one of the people said. At the worst, more than 100 new people had to be hired in a week to replace those who quit, and an average of 20 to 30 weekly departures was common, the person said. Even though Blue Apron pays above minimum wage, the work is stressful, involving standing for hours in a refrigerated warehouse with little natural light, doing repetitive tasks perfectly. Because the process is complex, new workers take some time to get up to speed.

The new fulfillment center, when running at full capacity, is supposed to handle more than half the companys production volume. Yet during the second quarter, only 3 percent came from Linden, due to unexpected challenges, Chief Financial Officer Brad Dickerson said on the earnings call. Salzberg also said Linden had been slow to ramp up because training on new machinery was taking longer than expected. Linden began operating in May, a few months later than originally planned, one of the people said. 

The company said the Jersey City turnover was related to the transition to the Linden facility and that the delayed opening was nothing out of the ordinary and typical of any large construction project.

The delays and other setbacks mean it will take longer than expected to offer new menu options. Meanwhile, Blue Apron plans to keep cutting marketing to free up cash for the new center. As a result, the company wont reach $1 billion in sales this year — a milestone many investors and analysts expected.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2fXTCbv

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2fXo6KN via Viral News HQ

[trendingnewsb]

Blue Apron Loses HR Executive, Freezes Hiring Amid Expansion

Blue Apron Holdings Inc. has lost its top human resources executive, implemented a temporary hiring freeze of salaried employees and fired part of its recruiting team just as it ramps up a new fulfillment center thats supposed to help the troubled, newly public company expand.

Kate Muzzattis resignation was announced internally on Aug. 10, according to two people familiar with the situation, the same day Blue Apron decided to halt the hiring of salaried employees. The fired recruiters included staff who helped find operations and technical employees, said three people, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss an internal matter.

The meal-kit company confirmed Muzzattis resignation and said shes joining MM. LaFleur Inc., a womens apparel startup. The recruiting team firings totaled 14 people. They were tied to the temporary hiring freeze, which doesnt affect hourly positions as well as certain roles at headquarters, the company said. Blue Apron, which sells boxes packed with fresh ingredients and recipe cards to make dinner at home, employs more than 5,000 people.

The shares rose as much as 1.3 percent following the news Tuesday, reversing an earlier small decline.

Since going public in June and raising less money than expected, Blue Apron has lurched from one setback to another. Last month, co-founder Matt Wadiak quit as chief operating officer; he was overseeing the teams in charge of producing boxes, procuring ingredients and creating recipes. Though Blue Apron beat analysts revenue estimates in its first earnings report as a public company, it lost customers during the quarter after slashing the marketing budget. The shares have fallen almost 50 percent since the IPO.

Blue Apron has ambitious plans to upgrade its fulfillment operations and offer a much wider selection of products and options; to that end, its been moving a lot of the work to a new warehouse in Linden, New Jersey, all the while winding down an older facility in Jersey City.

“We recently completed an internal reorganization which involved several changes to our organizational structure, including the creation of our new consumer products team and the launch of a new fulfillment center team in Linden,” Chief Executive Officer Matt Salzberg said in an emailed statement. “As part of these changes, we temporarily paused hiring for certain positions, while keeping others open, for the duration of our 2018 resource allocation process."

But Blue Apron has had trouble keeping enough workers on the production lines, especially at the Jersey City facility, one of the people said. At the worst, more than 100 new people had to be hired in a week to replace those who quit, and an average of 20 to 30 weekly departures was common, the person said. Even though Blue Apron pays above minimum wage, the work is stressful, involving standing for hours in a refrigerated warehouse with little natural light, doing repetitive tasks perfectly. Because the process is complex, new workers take some time to get up to speed.

The new fulfillment center, when running at full capacity, is supposed to handle more than half the companys production volume. Yet during the second quarter, only 3 percent came from Linden, due to unexpected challenges, Chief Financial Officer Brad Dickerson said on the earnings call. Salzberg also said Linden had been slow to ramp up because training on new machinery was taking longer than expected. Linden began operating in May, a few months later than originally planned, one of the people said. 

The company said the Jersey City turnover was related to the transition to the Linden facility and that the delayed opening was nothing out of the ordinary and typical of any large construction project.

The delays and other setbacks mean it will take longer than expected to offer new menu options. Meanwhile, Blue Apron plans to keep cutting marketing to free up cash for the new center. As a result, the company wont reach $1 billion in sales this year — a milestone many investors and analysts expected.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2fXTCbv

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2fXo6KN via Viral News HQ