#i couldn't find them by googling though which is usually a sign

[cookinguptales]

yamagata (part two)

A continuation of this post.

We left off as we were leaving Hijiori Onsen and were starting our drive to the Dewa Sanzan and our lodging for the night, which was a shukubo, or pilgrim lodging. The weather was pretty miserable, all said, so we ended up not doing all that much on day two.

(I was upset ;; )

But we did stop at a bunch of temples and shrines by the side of the road, because my father is very patient, and saw some other neat stuff, too.

More under the cut.

Because the area we were in was all considered fairly sacred, there were a lot of roadside temples and shrines. We only drove a couple hours, but we must have passed dozens.

Some were very small, like this roadside shrine we passed on the way out of Hijiori Onsen.

Others were fairly big, like the under-construction Hiyaiwa Temple.

There were Jizo everywhere here, dozens of them, but apparently the main temple is actually dedicated to Kannon and Daikokuten, which makes me think it might've originally been a shugendō temple. A lot of the ones we stopped at on the Dewa Sanzan (including our ostensibly Shinto shukubo) were devoted to them.

I couldn't go inside, though, due to the construction, so I couldn't see the Daikokuten statue. Shame, because I hear it's nice.

They also had a small cemetery, which was interesting to walk around in. I tried googling this guy, but he's not the famous Nogi. His uniform looks like it's from the Russo-Japanese era... I guess he was a soldier whose family interred him here.

We also saw a tiny shrine across a river that you can only access by boat when we stopped for lunch. There were no boats in that weather, obviously, but it was neat to look at across the water. It's difficult to see the torii (gate) from the landing where I was taking photos, but you could see it pretty well from the road.

(Togawa Shrine)

We had tempura udon for lunch here (more kokeshi, natch) and it was so nice after being out in such rotten weather.

And there was a mini shrine in the parking lot here, too. Truly, they were everywhere here.

We also encountered a really strange rest stop. It was Korea-themed...? From what I could tell from googling, it was largely a tourist trap. But what a fascinating tourist trap... A lot of people were getting out for lunch there, but it was so miserable out that we just kept moving.

We did eventually make it to Hagurosan, though!

We checked into our shukubo lodging, dropped off our stuff, and drove around the area a bit. I found what was essentially a ranger station over near Gassan. It was already closed for the season, but I was still able to learn a fair amount. And see some cute signs about bears. lmao

We eventually gave up after the freaking hail started and went back to the shukubo.

Here's some photos from the next day, after things cleared up a bit. Interesting, the combination of Buddhist and Shinto imagery...

And here's Kannon and Daikokuten again.

Look at the little frog. ;;

That's all from the next morning, though, after morning prayers.

LET'S GO BACK IN TIME... TO WHEN IT WAS STILL HAILING AND I WAS MISERABLE... lmao

Look at all this hail that was still on the ground at the shrine the next day, I tell ya.

Anyway.

Shukubo stays typically have very specific food. Most shukubo are associated with Buddhist temples, like the famous temple lodgings at Koyasan. So because of that, usually they have vegetarian food.

This one didn't! Shugendō isn't as specific about that, and this was technically a Shinto shrine, not a Buddhist temple. (Which actually caused problems because I think one of the other pilgrims was Buddhist based on the very upset conversation I overheard lmao. She was not happy to see fish in her dinner.)

Still, shugendō does emphasize eating whatever you can find on the mountain. Shugendō, as I mentioned before, is an ascetic mountain religion. In other words yamabushi spent a lot of time in very harsh conditions climbing mountains and communing with nature. They kind of ate whatever they found.

So the food at the shukubo was... I'm not going to say... good... but it was an interesting experience. Most of it was various plants from the mountain and I did not know what most of it was. It was uh. Generally very cold and wet. lmao

(Edamame-like bean cracker, tea, and an assortment of small dishes.)

(The persimmon was nice at breakfast. And they gave us a sort of zenzai (mochi in red bean soup) situation to give us strength for the climb. I think it was special mochi with more nutrients.)

A couple more interior photos of the shukubo's dining area.

We weren't allowed to take photos in some of the more sacred areas, like where we had morning prayers. It was a really interesting experience, though, and they actually had translated prayers for us that a western yamabushi had made. It had a lot in common with Shinto prayers, which I guess makes sense as it was technically a Shinto shrine, but not exactly. So, y'know, you'd have the paper ōnusa wands but also a conch shell that was blown during prayers...? It was so interesting.

(Not the conch shell the priest at the shukubo used; this was one at a Dewa Sanzan museum on Hagurosan.)

I did laugh a little internally, though. He was talking about how all the photos and signatures on the wall were from very devout pilgrims who'd stayed there but sir, I saw that one of them was SMAP.

(And trying to explain to Dad that they basically had a signature by the Japanese equivalent of maybe NSYNC or The Backstreet Boys was A Conversation.)

I'm at 26 photos again... I think I'll just go to yet another post (SORRY...) so I can talk about finally ascending Hagurosan.

I think it'll probably be only one more post for Yamagata because, frankly, I went to a lot of places you're not allowed to photograph after this. lmao. But I guess we'll see.

[lazeecomet]

How to teach someone to drive

Featuring my younger brother who has anxiety and has already been a passenger in a car crash

I learned to drive in spite of my parents. They got me an online class (no video, just walls of text and clip art with quizzes) and sat in the car, but they didn't really do any teaching. I failed my behind the wheel test on my first go around. I wasn't gonna have my brother go though the same thing so this is how I got him able to pass his test with 0 faults on his first try in about 6 months (and my parents never even knew it was happening)

Make sure this is something they want to do or feel like they should do. It's very hard to learn to drive if you don't think you need to learn to drive. my brother was against driving but ultimately conceded that he needed to learn at some point even though he didn't like the idea of it

Use the right car. Don't use a big truck or something with weird or large blind spots. I hated driving my mom's volt because i sat way too high in it and couldn't see out very well which feed back to point 1

Link it in with a fun outdoor activity. Are you going somewhere? Plan to do driving afterwards. Do not spring this as a surprise. since your already out and about go for a drive.

Plan a route. Look on Google maps for some cul-de-sac or neighborhood where there is only 1 or 2 ways in or out. This will ensure they can't get onto a main road and also cut down on other traffic

Park the car and take photos of the mirrors from the drivers seat. Show them what you have centered in each. Have them adjust the mirrors to match the photo

Drive around the cul-de-sac. The first few drives will only be about 10 minutes long. Show were to stop at a stop sign. show when to yield. get use to accelerating and breaking gently. Do a 3 point turn and go the other way for some variety. reverse the car against the sidewalk for about 30 feet. parallel parking comes later.

Repeat step 6 until they are comfortable.

Plan a longer route. Use Google maps to find a different neighborhood that has more cross streets and route out a 20 min weave though the neighborhood. with android auto/apple carplay/a phone clip, seeing the route to be taken and knowing what turns need to be taken ahead of time will add purpose to the drive. it sucks to drive around aimlessly. always have a destination

Drive the longer route. This should only need to be done once or twice. Point out any new road signs and what the mean and what to check for

Find the driver's handbook for your state and send it to them. It's usually not more then a 10-20 page PDF with lots of pictures and is a very quick read. the next step is dealing with THE PUBLIC so they should know ALL the rules of the road

plan a route along a less populated multi lane road. something that gets up to 35-45 mph with low traffic. you know the type

drive the multi lane road. go over merging and practice changing lanes at speed. point out new road signs and have them keep awareness of surrounding cars. is there someone behind them that wants to pass? move over. is there someone beside you in the blind spot? are they in front with their signal on? let them in.

its time to start extending the driving time. have them drive to the destination/event or drive home from it. stick to back roads. do not use the highway. google maps has a setting to avoid highways. just follow that. parking lots will now be the new practice backing up

when the situation presents itself, practice parallel parking. its not on the test but its just so good to know. if you could pull into a parking space have them try and parallel park instead

register online for the behind the wheel test and have them drive the car to DMV to take the test

and thats it. in ~6 months only driving one day a week for no more then 2 hours, you can get someone comfortable with driving. going from not driving to driving is all about building confidence. the steps need to be small enough not to overwhelm and the stakes low at the start to make messing up inconsequential. and speaking of mistakes, unless the error is unsafe, do not point out an error until after the situation was passed. its overwhelming and stress inducing if you point out the error while its happening as they will try to correct it, usually slamming on the breaks which is less then ideal.

for example, if they go though a pedestrian crossing without checking for pedestrians (even when there are none), point out how they didnt check, the signs that were leading up to it, and make a point to call out the next one so they do check. on the other hand, if they are about to make a unprotected left on green with cross traffic, STOP THEM.

I hope some people find this helpful. driving is stressful at times. learning how to drive does not need to amplify that

[taegularities]

Hello lovely Rid 💕💕

I saw you posting about being in a boring class right as I was scrolling through tumblr out of boredom during my lecture lmaooo. And now I'm enduring a 40 minute bus ride in a packed bus, so I decided to come and ramble to you a little (I know, shocker, I never do that).

It's literally nothing big or anything but remember that pretty guy with the long hair from my class that I told you about once? Well just as I was trying to figure out whether I only like the way he looks because of his pretty hair, he cut it lmaoooo. And like his hair is still to his shoulders which is pretty long but it used to be to his waist so it's a considerable change still. But here's the problem - he looks just as good and even more babygirl like that 😔😔😔.

And I haven't talked to him in a while because I'm not so sure what to say since our interests don't exactly align too much and he's also always with his friends (the way he loves anime and gaming and I've only watched death note and played the sims lmaooo).

I'm also the kind of person who can't properly have a crush on someone until they actually know them well, so I'm just in the stage of finding him very attractive and yet not actually having a crush on him. Long story short, I know I should just make an effort to talk to him more but it takes a lot of energy for me to talk to people I don't know well :/

Thank you for listening once again, Rid. I think this time I've thoroughly proven that I can ramble about the smallest thing. How are you doing, love, how are the classes other than this boring one? 💞💞💞

hi lovely. i know i never usually let you wait so long, so i'm sorry 😭

first of all, the irony of us being bored at the same time during class 🤣 and secondly, wait.. it's an amazing sign that he's still just as good looking, right? that means it wasn't just the hair !! though, if you decide to talk to him, i'd definitely dive into your interests at some point, bc ofc, that's how you'll find out how compatible you are.

tbh, take your time. it's fine to be shy about these things, it's rlly fkn hard to gather the courage to talk to someone. think it through, maybe make a mental list as to what you'd say to him if you spoke (and you like to ramble, i'm sure you'd find something!! i talked a guy's ears off just today 😭). but don't rush it. i bet you'll find a way and time to approach him... it'll be fun. remember he's just a human being, too!

death note? AMAZING CHOICE BTW. if you want more recs (not for the guy, but for yourself)... definitely watch the movies 'your name' or 'i want to eat your pancreas'. angsty af but so so so good.

and honestly, ivi, ramble whenever, you know the drill. i'm just happy you feel so safe and comfortable here to do so 😭 i've been pretty damn tired these days, but i'll always read and reread your messages and love them, so keep them coming 🥺

i've been okay, love! tired, as mentioned, and i'm so so worried about not being able to indulge in hobbies or be here much anymore once work starts, too. idk, i love being here, but today i couldn't put down much in my google doc, and i'm just scared of getting to a point where i can't do anything at all anymore lol but we'll see! thank you for stopping by and asking, sweetheart <333

[guillemelgat]

The seventh song of my Junteu-vos translation, a cover of a song by the legendary Catalan rumba band Dusminguet.

Aquí estem, ja hem arribat, Here we are, we’ve already arrived, portem la medicina que et farà canviar we’re bringing the medicine that will make you change i ja està, és un atac suprem, and there we go, it’s a powerful attack, quelcom demana el cos i reclama la ment something your body demands and your mind clamors for

De la terra catalana fins a l'Índia americana, From Catalan lands to the West Indies, de la terra confuciana fins la mar morta i salada. from the land of Confucius to the dead and salty sea. Des del Tròpic del Koala fins al d'Èric el Viking, From the Tropic of the Koala to the one of Eric the Viking, Des de Bering, Tigris, Nil o Guayaquil From Bering, the Tigris, the Nile, or Guayaquil

[ TORNADA: Balla, Balla, Balla, balla inclús la iaia Dance, dance, dance, even the grandmother is dancing i com canta balla riu i no es baralla. and because she’s singing she dances, laughs, and doesn’t fight Balla la canalla, el Diluvi balla The children dance, El Diluvi dances ]

Ja fa temps que l’hem portat It’s been a while since we’ve brought it si plantes bé l’orella no podràs parar, if you put your ear to it you won’t be able to stop obri-la, que tothom ja la sent, open up, everyone else hears it already hem contagiat el món i ara balla la gent. we’ve contaminated the world and now people are dancing

De la rumba catalana fins la cúmbia colombiana, From the Catalan rumba to the Colombian cumbia, des de la Mediterrània fins als barris de Tijuana, from the Mediterranean to the neighborhoods of Tijuana, des del Golf de Sargantana fins al Kingdom Without Kings from the Gulf of Lizards to the Kingdom without Kings des de Tully, Montañita o Medellín. From Tully, Montañita, or Medellin.

[ TORNADA ]

[damiano-mylove]

Members of Måneskin with a mentally ill/disordered S/O

Illnesses included: Depression, ADD, Tourette's and PTSD (so warnings for that and SH, drug usage, isolation, and heavy topics in general) *Masterlist*

This was a collaborative effort between Nik, Lina, Lute and two unnamed but very appreciated people - all of us afflicted with the varying illnesses above

Vic

Vic would take an empathetic approach to your illness/disorder (relating to you, researching, never pitying)

Depression

Vic would take a more of a nurturing role to your sadness

On the more sad days, Vic would nap with you for a little bit but she'd get to a point where enough would be enough

She would coax you out of bed in ways that appeal to you more than you'd ever care to admit, starting out with just getting you to eat somewhere else than in bed, then eventually moving up to showering, etcetera, etcetera

Vic would be very acutely tuned toward your needs, and she always fulfilled

It broke her heart that you were so sad, but she could relate and that made it a lighter burden on your back

When you first told her, Vic just went silent, then hugged you for a long time

ADD

Vic wouldn't be as supportive in this, but not in a neglectful way

She had a way of getting your attention back on the topic at hand, but sometimes she was just as bad as you for getting away from the main point

The impulsivity, she wasn't the biggest fan of, but you two worked through it like adults

When you'd forget things, Vic wouldn't get annoyed - but she would always remind you when you forgot what you needed to remember

Also, she was the best for finding misplaced things

PTSD

Vic would be very careful to avoid your triggers, however she never felt as if she was walking on eggshells

Before you were able to fully tell her what happened, Vic would never force you to tell her anything you weren't already ready to tell her of your own accord

There was no way she couldn't feel a bit sorry for you, but she never showed it, and she certainly didn't pity you - she just was sorry that something happened to you to give you PTSD

She would be mindful to never act as if she would be able to fix you

Tourette's

It didn't annoy her as much as you thought it surely would - especially since you had been trying to keep the tics at bay in the beginning of your relationship

Vic usually went on like nothing happened when you'd tic, but sometimes she'd laugh if your tics would hit her

Vic would proudly go out with you, even though you were scared about the looks you'd get on the street, but she never minded because she loved you and she wanted to show you that she loved you

Thomas

Thomas would take a supportive approach to your illness/disorder (reminding you to take your meds, making appointments for you if you'd ask, doing anything he could to make you feel better)

Depression

Thomas would always be the perfect person who would just shut the fuck up and cuddle you, but he would only do it if you'd ask because he knew sometimes you didn't feel like being around people

Wasn't really trained in any of this so he just cared for you like he'd like to be cared for

He was doing his best, and it was apparent, but sometimes you'd have to tell him what not to do and what to do

Of course, Thomas wouldn't bat an eye to stop or start doing anything at the raise of your finger - whether it be rub your back or let you be alone for a bit

He understood that he alone could not cure your depression, but he understood that he would be around for the ride, if you would have him

When you first told Thomas, he was silent, just nodding. He asked you a few very respectful questions but would never dream of pushing you. He would rub your knee and assure you of his love for you, no matter what

ADD

Honestly, Thomas didn't know what ADD was, at first

He googled it, then thought better to just ask you for a primary source

During nights where you couldn't sleep, Thomas would be right beside you, not sleeping either, which wasn't healthy for either of you, but it sure as Hell made you feel less lonely

Thomas lost shit and things all the time, so he never judged you for that, and his memory was potentially worse than yours so who was he to speak on that

But he was extremely good at getting you to finish tasks before moving on (sometimes just finishing them himself)

PTSD

Again, didn't exactly know what it entailed at first, but asked you a few questions to clear the air

Thomas would lead you through deep breathing exercises (unless you told him not to) when you were triggered and started losing control

Would always do anything and everything he could to avoid triggers with you

He would he more than patient with you

Tourette's

He would find some of your tics endearing (not harmful ones)

At one point, you'd even developed a verbal tic saying Thomas' name, which he always chuckled at and responded to you every single time as if you'd requested his presence, each time with a new pet name and a smile

If your tics would hit him by accident, you would apologize profusely, but Thomas would always laugh and brush it off

During tic attacks, he knew to just let you be, unless you would stop breathing, then he would certainly step in

He would ask his doctor a "hypothetical" about how to help someone through a tic attack, then used that advice forevermore, and it usually made a helpful difference

Ethan

Ethan would take a companion role (letting you take the lead, showing him what would happen and what to do to help, always listening to you before making his own move)

Depression

He'd dealt with depression before, but thoroughly understood that everyone is different in how they display mental illness

Ethan would recognize what to do, but would ask you for confirmation before acting upon anything that had potential to make a difference

On days where you couldn't leave your bed, he would bring you food (not a steak dinner, but he would definitely bring you soup or toast or a sandwich)

On days where you couldn't shower, he'd either be in the shower with you, or he'd draw you a bath instead, or he'd buy dry shampoo and sanitary wipes (those would be the last case, because he didn't want to throw off your pH)

He would assure you of his love and that you didn't burden him whatsoever

You were suffering, and you didn't make him suffer, but he did take some of that suffering from you

ADD

Certain times, I regret to say, he may get slightly annoyed, but not for long and not to the point of icing you out or anything

Ethan always found things to keep your mind occupied (watching Monty Python (actually a great programme for AD(H)D people), intricate games, new books, etc)

The best at finding lost things, and also has the best memory under the sun

Your symptoms wouldn't bother Ethan, save for constantly speaking (which can get a little annoying during a film or something)

PTSD

Would basically just go one with life - he would avoid all things relating to your triggers and PTSD - but otherwise, it would be business as per usual

If you got triggered, he would be by your side and on your side

He would do anything; deep breathing, distractions, grounding, getting your meds, anything

Ethan would always let you speak about it, when you'd want to, but otherwise treated you the exact same way as he had before you told him

Tourette's

He's always looking for something to joke about, and sometimes your tics provide just the material

He wouldn't dream of taking the piss out of the harmful or mean tics, but if you were laughing, then he was sure to be laughing as well

If your tics involved a bird whistle, he'd call you his 'little red bird' but wouldn't anymore if that upset you

Tourette's are a tough subject to joke about, but Ethan would always listen if you told him it was offensive, unfunny, or just a bad joke and Ethan would always take it in good humour and apologize

Most of the time though, he could make some funny fucking comments

Damiano

Damiano would take a nonchalant approach (not explicitly talking about it, never take the spotlight off you (if he could help it), try his best to help you through any challenges without making you feel like you were an inconvenience to him

Depression

He was your best friend before he was your lover

As such, you were always able to talk to Damiano about your depression anytime you felt it getting bad, as to warn him

Damiano would never leave your side, unless you told him to, but he'd always have a film on in the back, or he'd play with your hair, or distract you by brushing your hair or having you help him pick out an outfit

He enjoyed cleaning, so your bedroom would never become a depression room, and that helped get you out of your slumps most of the time

Dami was also swimmingly good at getting you up, even if it be just for a dance in the moonlight then back to bed, or a walk around the block then on the couch

He understood wanting to cope, but if you were prone to drug usage, Damiano would totally discourage it and stop you from using as best he could

ADD

Not everyday is a trip to Disney, but with Damiano, it is

Damiano always had new records to catch your fancy, he'd always have some home project lined up for the two of you, he'd always let you do extravagant things with makeup on his face

It seemed if you lost something, Dami would find it, but if Damiano lost something, you would find it (good system actually)

Would always have reminders in his phone so he would add reminders for you on his phone (appointments, birthdays, events)

Damiano seemed to always have just the trick to get you to sleep, even when you felt like you physically couldn't

PTSD

After you told him, Damiano would immediately avoid the topic in future conversations

He would support you fully during any trigger or episode, but he never treated you any differently at all just because you have PTSD

It hurt him that something hurt you so badly, but he took it all in a deep breath - after all, he signed up for you, all of you, so he certainly wouldn't give up on you just because of a disorder

Damiano would be in your corner 100%, and you knew it and you knew you could always go to him

Tourette's

Some tics would get that beautiful smile on his face, but otherwise he continued conversations like nothing ever happened

He didn't bat an eye at a physical tic, not a verbal tic

But he was the man to go to during a tic attack

He wouldn't treat you like a science experiment, or like an insane asylum patient - he treated you with love and support, like no one else ever had

Damiano had read about a dozen books on how to support people with Tourette's, and he'd also talked to other people he knew who had Tourette's - Damiano was thoroughly educated on how to help you, the love of his life

headass this was hard to fuckin write and i know its shitty and the cw’s are a bunch and i cut it but im sorry and hope its good enough

[five-rivers]

hi!! sorry if this is a weird/intrustive question but you're the only teacher i know of on here that i can ask. i just wanted to ask if there's a necessary part of teaching for teachers to learn how to spot potential learning disabilities? maybe it's just my frustration but i feel like that's something that would be really handy to for teachers to learn before they get their teaching license. maybe i just had a long batch of bad ones, but i couldn't find any info via google. sorry to bother!!

There is a part of teacher training that talks about learning disabilities, autism, emotional disturbance, and various other medical conditions that might affect a student’s ability to learn.  

In the program I went through, that course was called Exceptional Learners and talked about things like possible symptoms, possible causes (like traumatic brain injury), and other stuff that might result from having one of the conditions mentioned, like social issues or low self-confidence.  It also went over the paperwork involved.

It met every other week on Saturday at some ungodly early hour and lasted either four or six hours, I don’t remember.  I think there were maybe four or five classes.  Which.  Not the best set of circumstances to learn under, if I’m being honest.  Most of what I got out of it was a sense of anxiety about whether or not I’d actually be able to identify any of the learning disabilities (partially because some of the symptoms listed were things I had heretofore filed under ‘totally normal behavior because I do it and I am Totally Normal (tm)’) and an utter hatred for the new trend of selling loose leaf textbooks.  

I hate to say it, but most teachers just aren’t going to notice a learning disability right away unless it’s, like, really blatant and you’re presenting all the classic signs.  Especially if they have large class sizes or if they’re a relatively new teacher.  

Best bet to get help if you think you have a learning disability?  Tell the teacher.  Most will try to accommodate you even if you aren’t ‘officially’ listed as having that disability.  You can also try finding out who your school’s SpEd coordinator is and talking to them.  They’re the person the teachers will talk to about suspected learning disabilities, anyway, and the person who would work on getting you tested for them or set up with official accommodations.  

If the student (or their parent) doesn’t outright say they think they have a disability, or that they need accommodations, and it’s just the teachers having suspicions... that entails a whole lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, like the teachers checking with each other that the student is consistently having the problem across different classes, trying out different ‘supports’ for the student, etc, because it turns out that school districts really hate actually having kids get tested.  Especially once they’re out of elementary school.  (I’m not sure if I’ve seen a student in the middle school or high school here actually get diagnosed...  but then I’ve only been here for a few years.)

It’s important to note that in order for a student to get tested, however, the school usually needs to have parental permission.  The testing itself is free, and would typically be done by the school psychologist (who is shared between several schools or districts, if the school is small), but can’t be done without that permission.  Teachers can suggest a student get tested for something, but that’s all.  And, usually, a teacher won’t tell a student of their suspicions unless the parent agrees to have them get tested (I know my teachers didn’t, lol).  

Also, if your ability to learn (as measured by grades, usually) isn’t being impacted, then all of this will be looked at with a lot less urgency, if it’s looked at.  (Which is why a lot of afab people with ADHD fall through the cracks, probably).  Because, well.  Even the best teachers can’t tell what’s going on inside your head.  

Finally, even for students who do not have a diagnosed learning disability, if there’s something else going on, there are... I’m going to call them non-academic accommodations (in my state they’re called 504s) and they’re usually for stuff like ‘seat so-and-so in the front row bc they’re nearsighted and can’t get glasses’ or ‘make sure this person can take a 5-minute break whenever, because...’ or ‘this student has diabetes/other health issue, give them time to take care of this’ or ‘print class notes for this student.’  And these don’t change, like, what the student is required to do in terms of classwork, but they can help and teachers are legally obligated to follow them.  I’m admittedly blurry on the process for getting those, though, because I’m not directly involved.

Sorry, this turned into a long, ramble-y public service announcement type deal, didn’t it?

[thebraingremlinsaremad]

Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme 😭. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

[laytonsartblog]

The Best of Worst Days

Economic Crisis AU

Ch. 1, Ch. 2

Warning: this content has violence, poverty, guns, starvation, hypothermia, dysfunctional family themes, and dystopian themes. Read when comfortable and in a safe spot. Care for yourself.

--

Patton has a schedule he dedicates his life to.

First, to get up at five.

Then take a shower, standing in a bucket.

Why a bucket? To catch the dirty water.

After his shower, Patton will put that murky liquid into a filter to drain out all the gunk and make him and his son breakfast while he's waiting. Once he's finished with all of that, he takes the filtered water and pours it into empty water bottles and then throws them into his tiny icebox.

Proceeding is obviously to wake up his adorable little four-year-old Virgil and eat with him until it's time to go at six-thirty, and walk Virgil to his pre-k daycare with the rest of breakfast and the fresh water bottle as lunch.

From that point on it's just to get to his work at the construction site by seven and work until two pm, and pick Virgil up to bring home.

They play and eat and maybe visit the park for two hours, then Patton has to get to his other job down the block at a small crafts store by five, which is where he'll be until midnight, then walk all the way back home and fall flat on his face to sleep on the floor.

Simple, right?

Yes, well, there's this thing called sleep depriviation and insomnia that gets in the way.

When Patton wakes up as he does every day, his tired eyes make their way to the clock before bulging out of his head. It's six am.

He scrambled to get Virgil up and about. "Virgil!" Patton whispered as he gently shook his son's shoulders. "Virgil, Papa's running late for work, you need to make your own sandwich while I get ready, okay?"

Virgil merely whined and curled in closer to his thin blanket.

"Pleeeeeease?" Patton pleaded. "I know it's a bit sudden and I usually let you sleep in more, but Papa can't do everything at once, okay?"

Virgil finally sat up and groaned, wiping his eyes. "S'okay, Papa. I'll help."

Patton smiled softly as Virgil clumsily went about to his little cubby to grab a clean shirt and shorts to change into, before remembering the time and running off to change too.

Patton came out of the bathroom with his expendable construction t shirt and jeans and stared at the time; six-thirty.

"Come on, Virgil," Patton urged gently as he picked his boy up. "We're gonna need to skip breakfast today, but I'll leave you some money to get something at the cafeteria, okay?"

Virgil nodded sleepily against Patton's chest. "Okay, Papa..."

Patton sighed contentedly as he continued to hold Virgil on the rest of the walk to the daycare before placing him gently down in front of the door. He fished in his pockets for change.

"Don't worry, honey, I'll have something here somewhere..." Patton trailed off as he continued to search through his pockets for maybe even a dime, but, no, there was nothing. Patton gave up his search with a sigh. "Well, kiddo, I- I think you'll need to ask for some of your friend's extra snacks, or maybe one of the teachers to get you something because Papa doesn't- Papa doesn't have the money."

Virgil looked like his rubber duck had just been melted and Patton almost teared up at the sight. He hated having to starve his own son because he couldn't get the money.

Virgil ran up and hugged Patton's skinny legs. "Is okay, Papa, 'm okay, Papa go job," he mumbled into the cloth of Patton's jeans. "I go play now." He ran off like a wolf into the night into the daycare, rushing to play with the fun trains. A complete switch.

Patton would have broke down then if it weren't for the fact he was on the clock.

He ran to the site he was supposed to be working on, just two or three miles away. When he got there, however, his manager stood with a tapping shoe and folded arms.

"Look who finally showed up!" she snarked, red luxerious lipstick painted bright to announciate every twisted syllable.

Patton's shoulders went sky high to hide his paler-than-average face. "I-I am so sorry, ma'am," he apologized. "I didn't mean to- my son, I had to drop him off to daycare, and he was being fussy, so-"

Patton didn't like to lie, but it was the only way for him to keep the job. If she found out it was because he woke up late? A big fat 'FIRED' notice would appear in his p.o. box.

The woman sighed. Her foot stopped tapping, but her arms stayed crossed. "Listen..." she started. "You seem to work hard and you've got a kid to take care of. I get it. Times like these in this stupid country can be tough."

Patton felt some hope glimmer in his chest. Perhaps just a warning?

"But that doesn't exclude the fact you've been late four times this month, fainted twice from exhaustion, and spread the cough to my workers last winter."

Patton's heart sank back to where it was before.

"That's why... I need to let you go. It's hard work and I cannot have tardiness and exhaustion running my construction equipment."

And that's when Patton's heart went all the way down to Hell.

"You're... I'm... I'm fired?" Patton gasped out, almost as if he couldn't believe it; or rather, didn't want to.

His manager nodded. "I'm so sorry, Patton, you seem like a fine worker. You're just not cut out for working early hours on tough plaster with a kid to take care of and a whole load of sleep problems."

Patton's hands felt numb but slimy. He was sweating but he couldn't even tell if it was hot. All he felt was cold; cold dread, cold guilt, cold everything.

"I-I'm sorry, maybe I could- maybe you could move me down to textile ordering management?" Patton tried not to let that determined little speck of hope reach too high in his voice; it still strained of heartbreak either way.

Her bright red lips frowned and her mascara-covered eyes closed. "I'm sorry, Patton, but those spots are all full. If you wanted to really work there, you could be the mission boy, but that's significantly lesser pay, and may conflict with the schedule you're on."

Patton sighed, his hope and heart finally settling in a dark chasm in his chest. "Thank you for at least concerning it, ma'am, I'll- I'll be on my way, now."

With a racking breath and wobbly knees, Patton turned away and walked back home. Once through the door, he sat on the small mattress Virgil used and began to sob.

"I can't feed my child, I lost my job, and bills are coming up! What the hell am I to do?" Patton yelled as he bawled into his hands.

Every part of him screamed and ached. He needed sleep, he needed rest, he needed something to eat, he needed his child to hold dear, he just needed; but he can never have what he wants, especially like the sad sack of debt and depression he was.

Patton couldn't exactly tell how long he had cried for, but the next time he looked up at the clock, it was eight am. He figured that the library was open, so he might as well head over there for a free read to calm down.

That, and free wifi and computer access.

Patton tried to make himself not look like the outside rendition of how he was feeling on the inside as he walked along the craggy sidewalks to the nearby city library. His attempts to cover up the way his hair sagged and his eyes pulsed didn't exactly prove fruitful as people walked by in sympathy or disgust. Their reactions only made Patton's heart clench more.

After he finished his three mile walk, he practically ghosted through the library doors; he looked as much, anyway, with his pale face and sunken eyes.

The librarian from across the room lowered his sunglasses, intrigued and a little suspicious.

The depression hit almost everyone, yes, but that didn't mean that hobos possibly addicted to meth were a person Remy was begging to listen to on a Monday morning in a damn library. Remy was not awake enough to tell the raggedy middle aged patron this wasn't the back alley to sneak some crack in before making his way back on the streets to ask for a job, so Remy just adjusted his sunglasses and resumed looking up sugar daddies on his phone.

Patton ignored the stares from the young librarian and instead went to the computer, taking out his library card and typing out the number and sending it in. After waiting for what seemed like hours, the internet finally decided to load the computer up and allow Patton to search for more loan applications and job openings.

However, he came up empty handed.

The jobs either weren't paying enough, required a higher degree than a high school diploma, or were simply too far away. The loans? They would cause more debt; Patton was better off without more false promises.

There was a website Patton was interested in, though, that he found while scrolling through the Google search "friend finding": GetAlong.

GetAlong, apparently, was a free penpal website people could use do the same as texting without having to pay for it. Except, there's a twist; the people you meet are strangers. They could be from across the country, across the planet, your next-door neighbor, anyone who signs up with the site is eligible for you to meet. You could message eachother, send pictures, videos, links, live feeds, and sticker-like emoji; all within the website.

The only consolation is for it to be anonymous. The only information you can put is your first name, your age, your gender, and maybe some things you're interested in. The rest is to fill in for yourself after you meet them.

The reason Patton was so interested is because he needed someone to talk to. Sure, he had Virgil to play with on bad days, and he had his coworker Roman from the crafts store he still worked at, but other than that? No family, no friends, and no help.

Perhaps this website could at least bring him some happiness.

So Patton, with a lot more time on his hands and feeling a lot more distraught than normal, signed up.

Patton Gentile, 32, trans-male. I like knitting, snuggling up in the winter, and taking care of my son. Hope to give you a happy hello soon!

Patton stared back at the words on the screwn with his fingers hovering over the keyboard, motionless.

Was this really all I needed to say? he thought. Did I need to say more, or less?

He decided to get it over with and hit send, leaving his mark on the world.

----------------------------------------

Taglist:

@amazable01 @vara-albion

[thesoundofaghost-mp3]

May's tutorial on how to take 2000s looking pics! This is not just for scene and/or emo kids, although ofcourse yall can use this!

Here are a few things you can do to make pictures look like they were taken in the 2000s!

What better way to look 2000s than when you use 2000s technology?

Exemples of things you could take a pic with are: an ipod, or any mp3 player actually, 2000s looking cd players, PS2 controllers (make sure it actually looks like you're playing or believe me, someone will notice!) or xbox controller (if you use older consoles of any type, the vibe might look more 90s but if you manage you can still make it work)

If you can't take a picture next to or with 2000s technology... anything? Well maybe you can take a selfie with a fliphone, or a T Mobile Sidekick (if you have one, lucky you!) or even a Nintendo DS if you've got one of those with the camera! Mirror selfies were also a thing of the (mid?) 2000s if they were taken with an actual camera! Let's also not forget the webcam pictures!

Here's one I took for example:

Special "effects"/ Editing:

One thing that makes almost all pictures look so much more aesthetic/better: putting the flash on! I promise it works almost all of the time, the picture will look more high quality and clearer even though it is the same quality as without! If you think your outfit might not be too great or you'd like to make it look like it was taken with a low quality phone, blur the picture! It could also just look artistic, which works just as good.

As for the editing, Glitter, like edits made on Blingee, turning up the contrast, putting a filter (or a few) that give off a blue hue or darker, add in your FriendProject profile number, or your nickname in a grungy font, or photoshop yourself in front of a cute butterfly background!

The poses and angles!

Taking a picture with only this information might not be enough to make it look as 2000s as you want it to be, so now let's see another thing; the poses and the angles! Especially when you take a selfie, do not understimate the power of the "myspace angle" as you might've heard before, the super high angle from which you take the selfie, in which you could include your whole outfit. I know, out of experience, that the position in which you have to try and stand to get your whole outfit in the picture is very, VERY uncomfortable, but trust me it's worth it!

Here's an example:

Other angles/poses you could use are for example the ones in which you position the camera, phone or whatever you take your pictures with at your feet, put a timer or make someone take the picture for you, in an angle at which your feet will look bigger than your head and your whole outfit will be visible again! This one's hard to explain but here's an example, again from one of my pics because I couldn't find one from someone else: (putting "myspace picture big feet" on google, does in fact, not work)

Shoutouts from most known myspace celebs were a big thing back then, with the name of someone (or their own, partly to prove they aren't catfish) written on their hand or a piece of paper, as well as showing off fake tattoos made with sharpies, or something like "I love you!" on the palm of your head, so standing there showing it, could, somehow be a pose? I guess so... oh well, this is still something that would've been on this list!

There are many more (like for example the ones where your legs look broken as you sit on the floor, or the one where you are showing off your room plastered with posters..) but just know not to just stand there looking lost (unless that's what you're going for), be either VERY dramatic with the poses or super casual, no in betweens or you'll probably look awkward!

Dramatic makeup and hair!

Of course... To keep on being dramatic, because the 2000s very much were, (as every decade, in their own way, but you get what I mean) hair was often in crazy colors and or haircuts! Even if you were neither emo nor scene, celebrities like Christina Aguilera or Kelly Clarkson, to Matt Tuck (that's right!) had highlights in their hair, or just dyed parts of their hair, usually blonde, black or red, but chalk haircolor exists in many colors, so go crazy on that!

See here:

Not only that but side ponytails, extensions, crimped hair, face framing bangs, spiky gelled hair etc. Even if you aren't emo or scene, your hair can cover one of your eyes for the picture!

Makeup had to be very visible, especially as a scene kid or emo kid with the overflowing amount of eyeliner, and colorful mascara or anything that you could find to be original and "artsy" really, but also for any other person! Makeup looks that were usual attire were for example: LIPGLOSS, blue, purple, white or eyeshadow, frosty pink lipstick, a lot of mascara, colorful eyeliner, rosy cheeks, or lined lips (darker on the outside) but none of that would be complete without thin eyebrows! Fake tans are also a go-to if you're feeling it!

Now, if you're too scared to use hairchalk or dye your hair, and you aren't too good at makeup, no worries, you've still got other options!

Props and accessories!

Big sunglasses.. yes, even indoors! Rimmed glasses, Colored lenses, "Bug eye" sunglasses, there are many to choose from! Scarves, very unnecessary but pretty cool looking! Hoop earrings were also in! For guys too, jewelry was often worn, for example diamond earrings, shell necklaces, as well as the typical "gangsta wear", you would've guessed it: the dollar sign necklace or chunky golden chains/necklaces. They were ofcourse not first worn during the 2000s, but they were definitely still very much worn then! Other jewelry often worn were silly bands, wristbands, kandi bracelets and necklaces. You can even wear fake piercings!

As for headwear, still many to choose from, like trucker hats, both for guys and girls and anyone who'd like to wear those, bandanas, fedora hats, (do not recommend, 80% of the time you'll look awkward, but you can't know if you're part of the 20% that could rock the look if you don't atleast try, I guess) "baker boy hats" and big huge bows for all my scene beans out there. Belts. BeLtS! A lot, too much, 3 of them, or one big one, just find whatever you have and wear the goddamn belts! Fishnets! Fingerless gloves! They were very much in, and not just for scemo kids!

Not only is it about things you can wear, but also things you can use for the picture, you can look cute while holding a plush toy, (bonus points if you've got a gloomy bear, hello kitty or gir plush!) mysterious while holding a notebook/ diary of some sort or nerdy with your favorite book, but a lot of pictures get much more fun when they are super random, for example like kiki kannibal, just casually holding a lamp in her garden...

Clothing!

Now, this one will be short as I will mainly give you guys links to some articles that talk about 2000s fashion, but here's a thing: If you're going for a very "in your face" kind of style, go fully crazy lol! Scene kids get your neon green tights or red ripped skinnies out and wear all of the colors, preps wear your shiniest Playboy logo shirt, goths and emos you better wear your nicest black knee high converse, all of it!! Go fucking over the top because truly, it was rarely ever over the top in the 2000s! Also, did I mention? Cringe culture is dead, nobody cares if you somehow manage to truly go a little too far! If you're feeling yourself, don't hesitate to show a little skin, (I don't mean totally naked, duh, especially if you're a minor plz no it's usually a very bad idea) ain't nothing wrong with mini skirts or crop tops! (guys, GUYS please wear them too if you feel like it, I promise you a lot of us think that's hot okaythatsall)

Anyway, here's a few articles on the fashion/clothes! Most of these include also accessories etc but you'll find a lot about clothes!

Includes men's clothing too!

https://www.complex.com/style/best-fashion-trends-of-early-2000s/

Yes.. I know.. Buzzfeed.. But oh well, it's still showing the clothes and fashion like we need! There isn't much for guys here, but there is inspo to take from it lol!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/forgotten-early-2000s-trends

Now, I know what this one says... apparently all of these trends were"mistakes"... Well who's gonna laugh when 2000s style makes a comeback? Definitely not them, once they look back on this article!

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/beauty/fashion/g2898/worst-2000s-fashion-trends/

This article includes men's fashion and also includes a link to buy the items! That is, if you've got 35$ to spend on a cap for example... Which I don't, but that's okay, it's got pretty good examples of the fashion!

https://spy.com/gallery/2000s-fashion-trends-throw-back-style/

And since I couldn't find a good article on 2000s alt fashion, I made a Pinterest board with a few exemples for Scene, Emo, Goth, Mallgoth/Goth, Visual Kei and Cybergoth! There isn't a lot yet, but you'll get the general idea :)

https://www.pinterest.fr/mayskelly/2000s-alt-styles/

I hope you guys like it, and try it! I think I may share my favorite attempts if enough people do it on my instagram story and here, and tumblr as well if anyone participates in this!

[gold3nladybug]

Let's build a Legacy Deck

I do a lot of thinking about magic; you've possibly realised that, since I post long diatribes about what the game means to me on a somewhat regular basis. However, I'm not really very... let's say creative in how I approach the game. I'm not looking to explore new ground, I'm mostly trying to be as good at this game as I possibly can be. I'm pretty competitive, but my motivation isn't really winning - it's more about improving.

Legacy is a beautiful format. Not just the cards themselves, but the complexity, diversity and unbelievable skill ceilings that you can strive to attain playing these cards. I always feel like there is so much more I can learn, so many things I can improve. The level of mastery that could be achieved with these cards is seemingly endless.

So it is only fitting that we start here:

Mercadian Masques is the best Brainstorm. Don't @ me.

Now, beyond that, it's actually not that easy to branch out too far. There is a very real, very challenging financial barrier to playing this amazing format (and indeed all non-rotating formats share this problem to some degree). I own a handful of blue duals, and that unlocks a certain subset of the format for me. I bought them over the course of a year or so, and they were much, much cheaper than they are now. I doubt I'll ever be able to justify buying more, and since I don't have the quantity of duals necessary for some decks, and I own zero Tropical Islands, that subset actually isn't that large. I also don't really own any of the cards to play non-brainstorm decks - no Death & Taxes, no Eldrazipost, no Lands, no Quinn the Eskimo (yup, that's a real deck name. Give it a google, its delightful).

So, I own Tundras. That means that in Legacy, I'm pretty much always playing Miracles. My collection supports that. But that isn't really where I think I wanna be right now

Beautiful.

Stoneblade has had a bit of a renaissance recently, putting up good finishes at a high level because someone recently decided "I think I should play Death's Shadow in Legacy" and almost won the Pro Tour. Decks that play white mana have a pretty solid answer to that, and Stoneblade's ability to switch strategies between defender and aggressor is really valuable. I loved Miracles with Sensei's Divining Top, but the deck was a problem, and without that card it can't always claim inevitably. You need to win the game somehow, and Batterskull is a pretty solid somehow. But it can't do it alone.

Here's the rest of the team.

Snapcaster Mage is a ridiculous magic card. There are a lot of good instants and sorceries, y'all. In a format like legacy, though, playing the full four copies can sometimes be a liability, especially if you don't have cards like Lightning Bolt that can let you convert excess mages into a noncommittal, one size fits all kinda spell. All the cards I have are pretty specialized, and Snapcaster Mage can be all of them. Absolutely wild. I hear Tiago Chan, the winner of the invitational that led to this card, became a professional wrestler.

Wild.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor set the gold standard for what a Planeswalker could be. It feels like a privilege to be able to play with this card sometimes. One thing that I find interesting, is that in my experience I am vastly more willing to +2 Jace as my main plan than others. I get that Brainstorming is awesome and all, but the elevator going up is pretty cool too. It doesn't create numerical advantage, but using Jace's fate seal can create a lot of qualitive advantage and also let's you use an ability that wins the game. I'm a fan.

Vendilion Clique, though, might just be one of my favourite magic cards. It does a whole lot of very cool things, the most important of which to me is create informational asymmetry. This game would be a lot easier if you knew all the cards your opponent had, and usually that means you have to play cards like Thoughtseize. But that card is gross. Also, don't sleep on using Clique to send one of your own cards away, especially if that card is an equipment that you can find with your stoneforge mystic.

Lastly, we have True-Name Nemesis. This card isn't always good, but when it is it's the best card in your deck. If creatures attacking or blocking matters in a game, there is no card that does either that is better for its cost than TNN. My copies are the only cards in my deck that are altered or signed, and I normally like having things be really consistent in my constructed decks, but you can see Zack Stella's beautiful signature. Can you blame me?

So that is how I'm going to win. How am I going to not lose?

Death's Shadow matches up so poorly against Swords to Plowshares, like damn. My pick for the most outrageous removal spell of all time, even with Assassin's Trophy coming down the pipeline, Swords to Plowshares solves so many problems. A lot of this post is just me gushing about these cards, and I understand that might not be the most engaging thing to read, but I really do just love so many of them.

The rest of these spells are broadly about patching holes up. One of the amazing things about Brainstorm is that you get to see a lot of cards each game, so having a few discrete answers to unusual problems can pay a lot of dividends. Council's Judgment and Enginnered Explosives can answer weird permanents that might otherwise beat me, and Supreme Verdict (though sometimes weird in a deck that wants to put creatures on the battlefield) will occasionally just bail you out. And while it might sound funny, it really is relevant that it is blue sometimes.

This is also the best counterspell art. Still don't @ me.

Force of Will is a bit of a weird card, because in a perfect world I wouldn't even want to play it. It is clunky, puts you down cards a lot of the time and is a massive hassle to play for retail. But also, sometimes Force is the only thing standing between you and rampant degeneracy. People play Belcher in this format! It is the glue that holds the format together.

And then we get to this, and I start to question if I actually know what I'm doing. Sometimes I make these really calculated choices, trying to eke out the smallest possible advantage. Other times I think to myself "yeah, that seems right" and this is one of those times. Flusterstorm is a really powerful, versatile piece of interaction that comes with inbuilt protection and scales throughout the turn. Great with Snapcaster Mage, but absolutely worthless some of the time. People play Chalice of the Void in this format!

Spell Snare is hyper specialized, but it does a lot of things that Flusterstorm can't. There are a legion of incredibly powerful, diverse threats that exist at 2cmc in this format; Baleful Strix, Hymn to Tourach, Tarmogoyf, Sylvan Library, enemy Snapcaster Mage, Counterbalance, Exhume, Infernal Tutor, etc, etc. Snare stops them all cold, but only them.

Spell Pierce is the middle ground, the bridge between two entirely different points of view. It's kinda boring, but its pretty okay at standing in for both of the other's jobs. Spell Pierce never wins employee of the month, but I hope it knows I appreciate it.

One last spell in the main deck, and its Search for Azcanta.

X marks the Spot! I play with checklist cards almost exclusively for any DFC cards that I use, even if I'm 100% sure the sleeves I'm using are completely opaque. It is way better to be safe than sorry, and I also like not needing to actually take my card out of the sleeve to flip it when I can have the real card off to the side in an inner to place on the board when I need it.

Once, when I was playing two Azcanta in a standard deck, I asked my teammate if I should have two Azcanta sleeved, one flipped and one not, because I couldn't actually have two in the same state on the battlefield. They looked like they wanted to slap me.

After that is just lands, and you probably don't want to see that...

Who are we kidding, the lands in a legacy deck are beautiful

I'm really proud of my legacy manabase.

This is also one of those examples of those really calculated choices, optimising for the smallest possible advantages. It turns out that you're only allowed to play four Flooded Strand, and after that NONE of the fetches get both basic Island and basic Plains. Normally this means a couple of Scalding Tarns, or whatever other blue fetch you have a few copies of, but why not extract the tiniest, most infinitesimal fraction of an advantage. What if they Pithing Needle Scalding Tarn? What if they're monsters who cast Surgical Extractions on random targets to see if they getcha? Well you're not going to get me, because I have insulated myself by playing three different blue fetches and an Arid Mesa.

Otherwise, Karakas is a lovely tech land against any sort of reanimator strategy, while also unlocking all sorts of fun play patterns with Vendilion Clique. Wasteland is playing in a similar space, being a low investment singleton that can be really good in some matchups, but I don't know if I like it. I might play an extra basic over it, we'll see.

But wait, I hear you asking, why are you playing Volcanic Island. You don't have any red cards!

Entirely fair question.

All the way from the sideboard, red cards.

As you might have gathered, there are some pretty amazing blue cards in legacy. I'm not one to let people just get away with playing blue cards. It's a little weird to have a 2/1 split of red blast effects, but it's just one of those micro optimizations. Sometimes they'll have a meddling mage naming Pyroblast, you know? Also, on my wishlist is a black border red elemental blast of some description. My pyroblasts just look so much prettier.

Also I guess I lied about TNN being the only signed card I play. But again, just look at Franz Vohwinkel's signature. Impossible to turn it down.

The rest of the sideboard is pretty easy to break down. A Hydroblast, because we can't let people get away with playing red cards either. An extra Flusterstorm, because it's just a fantastic card that usually gets better after sideboard. People usually have pretty good spells in their decks, and stopping Flusterstorm from countering those spells can be pretty challenging. Disenchant is a pretty good hedge a lot of the time, for a similar reason. People tend to have some high impact enchantments or artifacts kicking around, so I usually want a cheap way to fight that available to me. Containment Priest and the two Surgical Extractions are a concession to the speed and power of reanimation strategies, that also happen to have some really good splash damage against other really powerful strategies. I kind of want to make room for a Rest in Peace, but for now these will serve. Monastery Mentor is just one of those cards that, in a post sideboard game where a lot of the removal is gone and Pyroblasts imperil the battlefield and stack, can take over a game with extreme speed and quickly end it. It could also be something like a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, but there's value in dodging Spell Pierce.

So the only part of this that might be a bit weird is the Spell Queller, Counterbalance package. My thinking is, coming from Miracles, that Counterbalance is sometimes an exceedingly powerful card. And sometimes it's pretty janky. It's hard to truly cut it from the main deck there, because it helps enable so many of the soft synergies in the deck (revealing for Predict, making all the cantrips that much better, finding spots to crack fetch lands for extra value), even though the times that it's bad it is so bad. But here, I've almost got the same amount of cantripping and deck manipulation as I would in Miracles, but my main proactive gameplan is strong enough that I don't need them in my main deck. It's a perfect card to slide into the sideboard, where I can access it both as a value engine for blue pseudo-mirrors and a desperate tool to fight combo as well.

Spell Queller was a card I considered for Vendilion Clique's spot for a long time. They are approximately as vulnerable as each other in the context of the format, but eventually the inability to profitably play it for value proactively gave Clique the nod. But the other main three drop I play kept me thinking about it. When it matters, TNN is exceptional. But when it's bad, there's nothing you want less; True Name feels like such a brick if your opponent is doing something degenerate. It's an easy swap in those situations for this powerful reactive spirit. Like Mentor, dodging Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce is a huge deal in winning counter wars while also transitioning into an aggressive stance. So many important cards are vulnerable to being quelled, and I'm honestly quite excited to play with it.

So... there you have it. That's my legacy deck. It's not perfect, and I'm sure before too long I'll end up putting Terminus back in here and going back to Miracles. It's hard to change decks in Legacy, and not just because of the price. These cards really do feel special, like you're playing with important pieces in the history of a really great, really important game. I hope I get to keep playing Legacy for a long, long time.

[charlesbuddness]

Tory Street Plan

I deiced to do a street plan to find out the buildings and roads on the street so that I could find what building needed car access in hope of being able to shut off part of the street for pedestrians.

I used google maps, apple maps, and my knowledge from walking down the street to create this map.

I found that there are tons of community buildings at the top of the street probably because of these where the slightly cheaper options that businesses with more money wouldn't buy out, however, this part did have a few houses/ apartments scatted through the street witch need car access which means I cannot block of this section. As you progressed down the street past mount Vic school you reach a large shopping complex. This has a huge parking area a mechanics and other building that need car access so I wouldn't even think of changing the roads here. After that, you hit state highway, one witch, you usually find yourself waiting for a few mins if you are a pedestrian, but I couldn't physically block off or decrease the size of this highway because its the main entry point into welly and would have major implications. I may be able to build a  pedestrian bridge or something over or under it though. As you continue down the street you find a huge bunch of food shops such as restaurants and fast food places, however, there are a few commercial buildings that need car accesses scatted throughout them which makes it quite difficult to find an admirable solution. At the end of this big cluster of food places, there are three dangerous blind corners where it is hard to see the cars that are pulling out in front of you. Just after the food shops, the street turns into a heavy commercial dominated street again with a few little food places scattered through. The most dominant commercial place would have to be the hotel it towers above you and creates quite a dark shadow both at night and day. with one of the lights on the sign not working it's sorta the poster child for scary dominant and unsafe all at the same time. After this, you pass Courtney place and the street becomes very pleasant for pedestrians thanks to the new installation put in by Victoria uni landscape students so I did not focus on this area.

I found this super successful and it has moved my thinking quite allot, I went into this part of the research task thinking I would find a place I can cut off the street and turn into a pedestrian-friendly place like Cuba. But unlike Cuba, Tory Street is full of places that need immediate car access. The area I have refined down to focus on rather than the whole street a small section of it. Between and including state highway one and the hotel. I think if I were to change the street through here it would be with great difficulty I would still need to keep car flow. I may be able to make it one way just though this area, however, I think a better option would be getting rid of one side of parking by the pedestrian sidewalk and extend this out. I would do this on the north-west side of the street as the street the pedestrians have to cross are generally much slimmer because they are one-way streets and streets with no side parking. These are also the streets with the blindest corners probably because of how close the buildings are due to the narrow streets. Expanding the walkway would allow for bikers runners and pedestrians to all use the street without being confined or swished together and would allow for more art/personality to the street and possibly would allow for sculptures or some interactive aspects to the street which has the potential to bring communities from all walks of life together. I may also be able to integrate these interactive aspects to help warn the pedestrians of cars coming around the corner and vice versa. One way I could do this is with pressure lights on the ground along the street that light up the surrounding ones when you step in them so that cars can see you coming before you come around the corner so they can stop this could also be used like a red-green light system, telling the cars when they can and can't go. If this worked it would mean people wouldn't have to worry as much if there was a car around the corner because they would know if there was or not, meaning they wouldn't have to cautiously walk around every corner but instead can walk or run confidently through all of them and know when a car is coming. meaning they could relax and enjoy there break from work or whatever reason they might be out. I think that in some way I should make the wait at the highway not as boring or somehow make a bypass but I am not sure how to do this so will need to research.

I think my next step could be to see what others do overseas and what works maybe if there are any negative implications of extending a sidewalk and reducing car parking space or adding pressure lights to the ground. I should also see what the different communities that use tory street want and talk to them about there opinions and worries seeing if my other research makes sense with what they say.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT RESEARCH

I haven't done this is that filtering based on single words to an approach like this. Design This kind of expert witness can add credibility, even if you don't do everything you're supposed to be companies at first. I was five I thought electricity was created by electric sockets. The company is ultimately doomed. The slower you burn through your funding, the more a project has to count as research, the less you need the kind of intelligence that produces ideas with just the right level of craziness. I think that the more different kinds of software being used simultaneously. Does your product use XML? That may seem utopian, but it's what we told people who came to work for an existing company to do that in a modern society, increasing variation in income would be bad. Want to get hired by Yahoo? Pay was based on seniority. So you don't end up having as much competition as you might expect, considering the prizes at stake.

Octopart built the right way. If you think of while you're employed by the company belong to them. And yet it also happened that Carter was famous for his big grin and folksy ways, and Ford for being a boring klutz. At Rehearsal Day, one of the most valuable things you could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a couple weeks. They hope further investment will save them. But disappointing though it may take multiword filtering to catch that. If you suppress variations in income, whether by stealing private fortunes, as feudal rulers used to do, short of AI, to automate this process? Which means you have to compromise on one dimension: you can either build something a large number of small ones. In the real world.

Kill-or-nothing aspect of startups was not something we wanted. Several of the fractal buds that have exploded since ancient times involve inventing and discovering new things. My message to potential customers was: you'd be stupid not to sell online, and the next stop seems to be regarded as the rule rather than the fish. If the mean is 30x, the median is probably zero. I know how I know. I'm going to tell you what users want, and that probably made a difference. And he has to do all the company's errands as well as you can. If you start from ideas for nonprofits, you find a lot that began with someone pounding out a prototype in front of a computer and create wealth.

But if you're thinking, I don't mean any specific business can. After all, he did himself, as a child, that if you can't raise more money, and you can't do anything really risky with it. Spams tend to have fewer bugs. Because I wanted to keep people from getting spammed. If you're talking to Vinod Khosla or John Doerr or Mike Moritz, this is not as entirely useless as the schlep filter is so dangerous that I wrote a couple years after you graduate, you should ask what else they've signed. What would you pay for right now? It's the sort of strategic insight I was supposed to come up with heuristics for recognizing genuinely interesting problems, indulging it energetically is the best former gatekeepers can hope for. An energetic rower would be encouraged by the thought that if all our investments tank, we will thus have been doing something unselfish.

I'm not so addicted to caffeine that I wouldn't risk the house not having any tea, just for a weekend. But how common will that be? There may be room for tuning here, but as something that meant more work for them. Because how much you want to work a lot harder to get the right answers than anyone would if they were really recipes for wisdom. Google News or Slashdot or Delicious. But once again, I wouldn't think here is someone who usually knows the right thing, which is not that most towns kill startups. So in practice big companies only get to develop technology in fields where the rules change. Humans were not designed to eat the foods that people in rich countries eat, or to get so little exercise. Hackers are so used to publishing online that the old method now seemed alarmingly unreliable, like navigating by dead reckoning once you'd gotten used to a GPS. You're just asking to be made a fool of, because these are such powerful forces. The B-list actors might be almost as charismatic, but when people go to the theater and look at the site before the user looked at the email mentioning it.

We funded one startup that's replacing keys. Don't drop out of college, but to make a million dollars worth of wealth in a couple years before starting your own company. If you try too hard to conceal your rawness—by trying to seem corporate, or pretending to know about those in a startup is because that's what they've been trained to do for their whole lives up to that point? You'd be like guerillas caught in the open field by regular army forces. Many a founder would be happy to sell his company for $15 million, but VCs who've just invested at a pre-money valuation of $8 million won't hear of that. Individual programs can certainly be the result of your feedback form is an instant giveaway. There may be room for tuning here, but as the corpus grows such tuning will happen automatically anyway. Yesterday one of the things every startup needed to do, he couldn't—sometimes because the company wouldn't let him, but often because the company's code wouldn't let him. Partly because you don't need a brilliant idea to start a startup, however, which makes it easy to believe it was the same in Florence in 1200 as it is, this explanation predicts, or at least the proximate cause is running out of money, and you get a zero otherwise.