#there's like 30 of them I'm not interested in ALL but

[potatoes83]

I get a new phone when my old one stops working; is either glitching up so bad it's non-functional, the onboard battery stops holding a charge, or the screen stops working, (that's absolutely hysterical with a touch screen phone). So what is that these days, somewhere between every three and eight years depending on the quality of the phone? I'm an Android user, I don't need the newest greatest flagship phone, fairly basic. I'm not upgrading every time a new model comes out.

So with that said, a couple phones ago, I hadn't been in the AT&T store for quite a while. And I don't know what the hell they were thinking, but I walk in and all the counters are gone. There are these tall uncomfortable tables with tall uncomfortable stools that look like something out of Men in Black, and a couple random fabric boxes that I presume were supposed to be some sort of couch. And some dude coming up to me with a tablet like a fucking concierge or something.

Right out the gate, I'm not comfortable. I am here to conduct business. I want to walk up to a counter, wait patiently in line, talk to a person, and get a new phone. Instead this person takes my name and tells me to sit somewhere uncomfortable as if I'm being seated at Chez le Ritz. Eventually I am summoned to one of the tall uncomfortable tables, successfully clambering my bad leg up onto a tall uncomfortable stool on only the second or third attempt.

I need a new phone. Doesn't need to be too fancy, here's what I got, what can you do for me?

Well can I interest you in an upgrade to the latest iphone? No, I'm not interested in that.

Well we can bundle your new phone with a DirecTV package that comes with Home Security and a free tablet, well yes, that tablet would require a separate data plan, but it's only $30 extra a month... No, I'm not interested in that.

Well I see you only have a 1 GB data plan, that really is just woefully inadequate for this day and age. Now for only an extra $60 a month, we can raise that to an unlimited, blah blah blah streaming, blah blah blah social media, so on so on. No, I'm not interested in that!

And the problem is, to the exact point of OP's post, we are generally raised to be polite. Like this other person is talking, I am the customer, but they hold the position of power because this is their territory. I'm not going to stop them mid sales pitch to tell them look, I just need a damn phone, nothing else. Even though I would be well within my rights to do so. Like hey, I'm going to stop you right there, save us both a lot of time, this is what I need, and if you keep going off tangent, I am going to leave. That's probably not going to happen. Instead I'm just going to sit here and suffer in silence, hoping that you have some magic threshold of me saying no that breaks you out of your feedback loop and you can actually tend to my request.

Incidentally, and I have no way of proving that it was company policy, but I feel like that number was three. Because after the third no, we just completely shifted gears, and I was walking out of there with a new phone not terribly long thereafter. And since then, and it's been quite a number of years since I was last in the AT&T store, they had kind of put things a little bit closer to back to normal.

Assertive is definitely not one of my strongest characteristics, and it would save me a hell of a lot of frustration and suffering in silence. 🥔

Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 4 extra entry

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1])

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M STILL NOT DONE WITH EP. 4, TRULY A DEMONIC 30 MINUTES OF TV

but @onceuponalegendbg pointed out that I skpped the girls chatting around the fire and that is inexcusable. In my defense the video skipped on its own when I opened it but STILL there is no justification. Alice my love forgive me.

okay I love everyone's body language here. tag yourself which sapphic are you?

Jen in episode 2: "Like I care about that dusty, warty, snaggletoothed community." Her identity is so important to her! And the intersectionality between witchcraft and herbalism!

lilia is so impressed

and this is what I mean by support system - all the girls here are covenless, they had no one to help them through the hardest part of their life, no one who would listen, support, give advice. people simply NEED community.

alice is so small. I wish I was there to hug her

and more parallels between alice and agatha. not being able to save the people they loved made them angry. what does it say about a mother that she couldn't protect her own child? what does it say about a daughter, and a protection witch at that, that she couldn't save her mother? they had no agency, they were helpless in front of tragedy. and like agatha got mad at rio, alice got mad at lorna for ostensibly wasting time with songs and amulets instead of seeking help. anger became a defense mechanism, a way to find blame when there wasn't anyone to blame, to feel in control when there was nothing anyone could have done.

HER TEARY LITTLE FACE when lilia points out she's no longer angry, just sad. the way she whispers 'you're right'. sweet alice, you deserved the world.

I'll say this about ali ahn's performance, it's not flashy and it gets overlooked among all the powerhouses acting alongside her. but she's building something quiet and steady that really gets to you in the end, like a bittersweet weight on your stomach

lilia is being so so gentle with alice, encouraging her to sit with her pain while she's safe with people who love her. no, all the anger in the world won't bring lorna back, and it's okay that it's not okay.

jen is not as overtly emotional, but she has other love languages

lilia is ranting again and I love love love her for it.

and then there's this freak

no but really, even if rio's existence goes way beyond human experiences and she cannot exactly share like the others, she's just happy to be there, you know? genuinely glad to be included, interested and fascinated by what they all have to say

this is just patti's and aubrey's irl dynamic let's be real

thank you writers and costumes and aubrey for creating this delightful little weirdo just for me, as a treat

the first entry for episode 5 will be up later today!

go to episode 5 part 1

[rushingheadlong]

(Left: Photo from an ebay listing from Magnifico Vintage Magazines; Right: Photo from a PDF scan from worldradiohistory.com)

I stumbled across this article (from Record Mirror magazine, 30 March 1974) and wanted to share it because it’s a fascinating follow-up to this article I’ve previously shared from Melody Maker which was printed a week prior. 

The Melody Maker article looked at the role of big business in the music industry, specifically by using Queen and another band Merlin as examples of “hyped” groups i.e. artificially manufactured to generate maximum interest. While this may be somewhat accurate for Merlin, it’s not true for Queen at all - and as the Record Mirror article above shows, they were not happy about this comparison.

(Left: From Record Mirror magazine; Right: The photo in question from Melody Maker)

Lead guitarist Brian May picked up the paper and waves it under my nose. "This article is the biggest load of rubbish I've ever read in my life", he declares vindictively. "Look, there are people going to read this article - some of them won't have heard of Merlin and some of them won't know us. The headline screams out commercial pop. They've printed a very old picture of us, which we hate, looking extremely poppy and underneath it is the word HYPE. The whole article says in a suggestive way that Queen are a hype."

So Brian is certainly not happy with the Melody Maker article - or at least he doesn't like the photo they chose! I suppose he would've preferred something from the Queen II shoots instead, though it is rather funny for him to call a photo taken only a year prior a "very old picture of us".

But alright, surely the rest are concerned with things other than how they look...

(Left: Roger quoted in Record Mirror; Right: Freddie quoted in Record Mirror)

"Freddie and I used to sell old clothes. In fact Freddie used to design and MAKE our stage costumes. We've always taken care to make sure that our clothes are just right and look good. Perhaps they'd prefer it if we went on in dirty jeans, but we don't really think the public want to look at that. I think they'd rather see something that looks good." ... "Oh, really," [Freddie] exclaims in disgust, "this paper has no flair - I mean to print this picture three times in succession... and just look at my arms!" He was horrified, "look how fat they appear, now my arms aren't like that at all - what do you think?" He rolls up his sleeves for me to inspection and I'd like to state here and now that the poor dear's arms are quite, quite slender!

...okay, that's on me, I should've realized that the two fashionistas in Queen would have thoughts about their appearances and such. Or at the very least I should've expected Roger to bring up the Kensington Market stall! Poor self-conscious Freddie, but at least it seems like the interviewer reassured him about his arms!

Enough about clothes and photos though, I wonder what else the opinionated Roger Taylor had to say about the Melody Maker article?

(Above: Roger quoted in Record Mirror)

"That's exactly how we think it is," joined in their drummer Roger Taylor. "Supported by the fact that they've compared us to a totally new band who we've never heard of. We don't want to say anything against them, but apparently they're just a straight pop band. Whereas we've been playing and working up to this for years. Christ, I'm 24, Brian's 25, Freddie is 27, John's a bit younger 23. Plus the fact that we're all intelligent enough not to want to be put across in that way. We want to put our music first."

Honestly, Roger makes a really good point here. When the Melody Maker article was printed, Merlin had only been together in their current form for less than a year and had only released one single. Their first (and only) album wouldn't be released for over 6 months, and unfortunately they would be disbanded by this time the following year.

That being said, the emphasis on their ages is very funny to me because while Merlin might be a young band, the individual members weren't exactly far off from Queen's own ages and experience.

Their lead singer, Allan Love, was born in 1946 just like Freddie and had already been in the music business for seven years. The youngest member of the group was guitarist Jamie Moses, who was only 19 at the time, but even he had been performing semi-professionally for six years. In fact, all the members of Merlin had some degree of previous experience in other bands and the rest of them were right around 23-24 themselves, the same ages as Roger and John!

But speaking of John, what does he have to say about all this?

(Above: From Record Mirror)

By this time John Deacon (who reminded me of the Alice's doormouse) had woken from his slumbers (too many late nights and early mornings), he was reasonably cheerful for someone who had had his clothes ripped off the day before. "By the law of averages," he was saying, "it's someone else's turn to be ripped off today."

That's a lovely tidbit of wisdom at the end there, John, but what on earth is that about your clothes being ripped off?? Unfortunately there's zero elaboration on this in the article, so I guess it's just left to us to imagine.

So, any final opinions from the boys?

Above: From Record Mirror magazine

Phew! If after all that you think that the lads are hypersensitive to criticism and feel animosity towards their critics, then let Roger put you straight. "No, we don't hold grudges - we just go round and wrench people's arms and legs off. Or send them bags of wet cement, nothing too violent!"

Amazing response, perfectly executed by the one who would later refute a Rolling Stone article about Queen by writing them a letter on an airline sick bag.

Never change, Rog. Never change.

[marianomoreno]

the history of immigration in buenos aires is so goddamn interesting the early 20th century must've been such a strange moment to live in this city. over 50% of the population was immigrant, and from all over. and they both took from the local culture and added to it. my grandma (armenian but born here in the 30s) developed a taste for tango from her neighbours who were second generation english (older immigration). my dad grew up in the 60s with a galician-uruguayan mother and a canarian grandpa, next to a huge italian family and an armenian family who raised goats, and spent his childhood playing on the streets with the children of spaniards, italians, poles, irishmen. in the last thirty or so years my neighbourhood has become mostly a bolivian and peruvian neighbourhood but nowadays there's a lot of venezuelans and colombians, some senegalese people. you keep hearing people speak russian and ukranian on the streets. now. anyways, fascinating.

[mo-ok]

🚨 RED BOYS 🚨

🌠

[yardsards]

people love an "i'll take care of you" "it's rotten work" "not to me, not if it's you" character dynamic until the character who needs to be taken care of is disabled. then it's supposedly fucked up and toxic for a person to have to take care of someone else.

[bixels]

are the kirin going to be part of the 1920's au?

idk, maybe.

[miabrown007]

sometimes you just write 1k wholly incomprehensible words in 30 minutes and call it a day

[aflawedfashion]

I'm listening the the new Buffy Audible drama and I love that in this AU Cordelia is the slayer and Tara and Anya are her scooby gang

[batsplat]

deeply compelled by this photo

[glimblshanks]

It's so difficult, because I genuinely do want to understand what the whole deal with Christianity is, but Christians are so apposed to any line of questioning about their belief system (in a way that no other religion is) that if you say anything they don't like they shut down and accuse you of being a sinner.

And it's like bro, I'm not trying to be insulting, I'm trying to understand why this religion is even appealing to you. How do you manage to get so many converts when you're not even willing to answer basic questions about your theology?

Everyone I've found who's actually willing to discuss Christian theology with me is an ex-Christian which is super unhelpful, because ex-Christians are people who have deconstructed Christian belief and come to the conclusion that it doesn't work for them. They're always very cynical about the whole situation. That's not what I'm looking for.

I want to talk to someone who's still into it. I want to understand what actually draws people to this religion ( I do not want to be trauma dumped at - I don't know what aspect of Christian belief confuses y'all into thinking that trauma dumping is an appropriate substitute for theological discussion, but it absolutely isn't).

Like you would really think for one of the most popular religions in the world finding answers to this stuff would be easier. Why can't you guys just talk about your beliefs?

[mistwalkers-menagerie]

TRoP Season Finale spoilers under the cut

Fuck this show.

If this was fanfic I'd gobble it the fuck up but these people are writing official Tolkien stuff. Half-assed bluster poetics ain't really gonna cut it for me even though I'm not a Tolkien purist.

Rest in peace Adar, you would've loved the Tragedy of Julius Caesar (not)

[dolokhoded]

simon peter is the funniest apostle to work with because in theory he's the most loyal, most by-the-book of the apostles so you'd expect him to be the most logical and collected one but 80% of his concerns (pre crucifixion then everything went downhill and they all died) are that he has a crush on every person he encounters

[thelaurenshippen]

Hello! I'm loving Breaker Whiskey, it's so beautiful and it's also making me better at Morse Code, lol. I've got a question about episode 60, though, what's the music that's mixed into the morse and static? It sounds like a very old recording, and I love that sort of thing. Thank you for sharing your shows with us!

ahhhh this makes me so happy!! I LOVE that it's getting people into Morse Code, that thrills me.

(some spoilers below about episode 60 of @breakerwhiskey, including additional explanation from me that you may or may not want)

yes, the music mixed into episode 60 IS an old recording! it's a song played on a phonograph - I use a service called Splice to get a lot of the sounds I've put in a bunch of my shows, and there's a pack that's all sounds from vintage audio devices. there's a few of those sounds mixed into episode 60 - a phonograph song, the sounds of wax cylinders being played, and a recording of Thomas Edison explaining the phonograph - all of them distorted to be mostly unrecognizable.

the song file itself is just called 'phonograph song' - I think a bunch of audio engineers just recorded whatever they could off the vintage resources they had - but as far as I was able to glean from the lyrics (they're not that much clearer even undistorted) it's an 1860s confederate rallying song, which I thought would be just about the worst possible thing that you could hear played at random over a radio frequency. I wanted the sounds all together to be menacing, and Whiskey has talked a lot about the myth-making of America vs. the cruel reality, so it felt on theme.

that said, the phonograph sounds were chosen mainly for the literal quality of the sound - that tactile, fuzzy wax static - rather than any true story importance. there are story-relevant sounds mixed in there, but I'm not going to tell you what they are or what they mean!

[swagging-back-to]

sooo i just had the thought of putting mochi and sushi in with the main colony instead of getting any more mice and adding them to the future 30 gallon colony....

[icewindandboringhorror]

everyday I miss miitomo .. aaa