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By David Futrelle
We’re long overdue for an open thread, so he you all go. And, as a little bonus, here’s a classic underground cartoon from the 70s that I’ve been hearing about for decades but only recently saw for the first time, featuring a couple of weird-looking ducks and a robot going to a creepy amusement park. It’s pretty good.
Following that, an interview with the animator, Sally Cruikshank.
Enjoy!
Well, I posted this in the other thread, but it makes more sense here.
I thought this week royally sucked and have been looking forward to it being over. My car’s alternator died on the interstate, apparently someone stole the tags off of it while it was waiting to be towed, the garage overcharged and then when I got it back it the brakes weren’t working anymore (this was not the case before it went in), and had to take it somewhere else. It turns out the guys before had forgotten to reattach a hose even though they claimed they didn’t forget anything and it must’ve been like that when I brought it in.
Now I’m just sitting around today, waiting for the snow to let up so I can walk to the bus and go get my car, when I get a call from my parents saying that my aunt had a massive heart attack and passed away. Officially, this week very royally fucking sucks.
And I just got a message from one of my clients that their dog (who I board) just died as well. This is really not my week!! ???
Sympathy to you re your aunt, and your clients re their dog.
I’ve been reading a lot of stuff ABOUT pop culture, in particular about comics and comics-related universes, and I haven’t been doing that stuff since, oh, 1970 or so. So if I wanted to get an introduction to the relatively modern Marvel-verse, DC-verse, and other less prominent oeuvres, are there resources for that? Lists of “start somewhere around here, and these are must-read” things? Weigh in if you like.
Comics!!!
I grew up on pulp paper comix and Analog Science Fiction magazines. I remember when comics went up to 12 cents… meant 4 pop bottles only got one comic instead of one comic and 2 pieces of dubble bubble gum 🙁
B&W Mad Magazine, 25 cents… (cheap)
Thanks, Moon Custafer.
I feel like I should be able to say more but right now my brain is just shutting down.
I teach you the Superman. The Batman you must learn for yourself.
@Catherwood
I highly recommend the sci-fi series ‘Saga’. Its about a couple from opposite sides of a galaxy spanning war who just want to raise their daughter in peace but are stuck dodging assassins from both sides who see their relationship as a threat to the war.
I always enjoyed the Oingo Boingo segment from a different Sally Cruikshank film, “Face Like a Frog”:
Take care of yourself @Yutolia, and deepest sympathies for a week of unending shit.
Random rant: fuck the nerd community. Seriously.
I am a diehard super passionate star wars fan and I love all the fan-made short movies and youtube content but dear fucking gods above and below, why does nearly everything nerdy have to be tainted by antifeminism.
I mean sure, the previous generation hated the prequels, this generation hates the sequels, but for crying out loud, for the wing that complains about “having minority/feminist ideology shoved down our throats” (for merely allowing minorities to exist in fiction) they sure love to shove their actual ideology (read a dictionary asshole) into every hobby they have.
Thanks Jane.
I’m de-lurking to ask how Lainy’s cat is doing?
@Lurker LXVII
I got him easier to get in litter box and he’s using it, I put a baby gate up so he can’t get into the room with the bed to crap in it. I’m still finding little bits of crap on the floor leading to the litter box so he’s trying to make it and I’m going to take him to the vet next week when I’m off for spring break. He’s eating and drinking normally. The other cat does not like new littler box and she is protesting by knocking over the water dish any time I’m in the room to see her do it. She’s pushing thing a off tables and shelves when I’m looking at her. She’s a little terror right now.
I’m enjoying my time hanging out with my brother on the weekends. School has been good and I only need a little more effort to have straight A’s in every class.
*waves furiously*
Hey peeps, still alive and kicking. So sorry to hear that your week is not going great, Yutolia! 🙁 Really blows when that happens. 🙁
Quick recap — I’m currently in a very “””worklike””” arrangement, supposedly one of those “healthcare” initiatives for unemployed (Finns know what I mean, if I say “kuntouttava työtoiminta” and add that fuck everything “aktiivimalli” — basically “fuck the poor” from our right-wing govt); the only upsides are that “ideologically” I kind of support this non-profit idea, which is assisting immigrating people to find their place in Finnish life without losing their own identity in process and the fact that I can do this stuff from home, involving mostly WordPress and doing some shitty ad graphics.
And I have to only occasionally handle a language that I do not speak, write or understand, thanks Google Translate. ?
OK, sarcasm mode off for a bit!
There are happy kitty news! Carisma is again expecting, and kittens are estimated to arrive around 12th of April! This will be her last litter. Mew mew!
In slightly less happy kitty news (but it will get better), Didi had a close shave with kitty-reaper earlier this year, as she somehow developed an eating disorder (refused to eat anything at all) and barfed stomach fluids, which then meant some rather expensive vet visits, sedation, x-rays and bloodtests, and the end result was “well there’s nothing wrong with her tummy or guts, but her bloodwork is horrible, she needs to start eating again or she’ll die”, and she got given appetite-boosting antidepressant.
Luckily, that did the work (given when she was sedated — I absolutely failed to give her a new dose once she was awake, as she put up a fight), as did the horribly expensive specialty food (which I’m still giving to her) and she’s back to her happy, purring self again, rather than a limp shadow she was.
Lesson: cats can go totally anorectic, and they will absolutely refuse to eat, if they feel so. And cat liver is not equipped to handle fat-burning too well, and that can kill them. Keep an eye on your kitty’s diet!
We still don’t know what exactly was causing this, but we believe Carisma’s bullying her might have been behind it. So we started Didi on fresh meat, putting Carisma to bedroom with a plate of her own, and letting Didi inhale raw chicken, beef and pork to her fill. That did the trick, as well as testing other tinned foods, as she decided that eating is the best in life and she’s going to eat everything she can get.
She also had a short solo cat week, when Carisma went to a date with a tomcat, which further built up her confidence, and she has now managed to draw some limits to Carisma’s intrusive butt-sniffle obsession (the primary bullying method she used).
All in all, this thing has NOT done any wonders to my depression, as I feel like a total fail of a kittymom, and I absolutely could have used those 500 euros for something else, but oh well. Shit happens.
Just a plug for a little project of mine:
Blockquote Mammoth get you down? No longer!
v1.3 of the WHTM Quote Helper has been released.
This is a userscript / bookmarklet that adds a “Quote” button to the bottom of each WHTM comment. Clicking it automatically copies the comment into the reply text box, including
– Username
– Permalink to comment
– formatting (bold, italic,
strikethrough, blockquotes)– links
– images
– and YouTube embeds
Changelog:
v1.3
– Added the strikethrough button to the quicktags bar
v1.2
– Improved the handling of br tags and newlines
v1.1
– Added an additional routine that removes unnecessary paragraph tags from the quoted comment
How to Install:
Userscript – First install a userscript extension for your browser (e.g. Greasemonkey), then click on the link below and follow the instructions. The userscript will subsequently automatically run on WHTM articles.
Userscript: https://greasyfork.org/scripts/377808-whtm-quote-helper/code/WHTM%20Quote%20Helper.user.js
Bookmarklet – Create a new bookmark, and paste the contents of the Pastebin link below into the “URL” or “address” field of the bookmark. Click on the bookmark while on a WHTM article to activate it.
Bookmarklet: https://pastebin.com/raw/XZ2na22d
@Yutolia
Hugs if you need them.
@Ogglyboggles
Great to hear!
@Jane Done re: toxic nerds
I hear you. Gatekeeping while pretending to be “rational” about it is such bullshit.
@Skiriki
Good to hear from you again; that sounded like a shitty thing to have to go through.
@Yutolia, I’m sorry to hear about your Aunt, especially when everything else must have left you running on empty already. I hope you’re OK, or will be soon.
@Ariblester, I hope you don’t mind my asking but you’re demonstrably a person who might know – do you happen to have come across a way of putting formatting buttons into firefox? (I mean, for ease of adding bold, italic etc. when writing on pages that don’t have their own custom buttons like WHTM does here). I used to have some (http://codefisher.org/format_toolbar/ by Michael Buckley – for BBcode, HTML or Wiki code) but a firefox update a while back made them stop being compatible. Many thanks for any suggestions!
@ Jane Done,
Wanted to let you know that my sister wrote her literature Master’s thesis on this very subject!
I have a cat question. We have four cats; 3 have been with us for years, 1 only since this past July. While the original 3 get along well, they are merciless to the new one, and gang up to bully her. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to handle this?
@Yutolia
My condolences.
@Skiriki
Glad to hear Didi is feeling better. I follow the kitties on Twitter.
I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t a clue. This is literally my first time programming anything serious in JavaScript. Even my adding of the strikeout button to the comments box here uses already-existing WordPress code.
If it’s a Firefox update that broke your previous extension, though, Waterfox may be just the ticket. It’s a fork of Firefox that maintains support for older extensions while keeping up to date with the security updates of regular Firefox. (It’s what I use!)
@Ariblester, thank you! And aha that certainly looks interesting – I hadn’t heard of waterfox, shall have a look.
Much obliged! ::tips hat:: 🙂
@Nanny Oggs Busom
😀 I should post there some pictures soon… although when the kittens are born, it’ll be nonstop kitten pics.
Thanks everyone for your support and kind words and ehugs. I can definitely use them!!
Hopefully today I can just concentrate on taking care of myself and maybe I’ll get some of my mental bearings back.