By David Futrelle
Yesterday, we looked at the “fellas, is it gay” meme — specifically, the way it highlights some of the preposterous (but real) beliefs that some men have about masculinity and gayness, finding examples of “gay panic” tied to everyday activities that are decidedly not related in any way to sexual orientation, like washing between your ass cheeks or ordering dessert in a restaurant.
But a lot of people doing this meme do it in a different way, mocking the very idea of asking “fellas is it gay” by making their questions deliberately absurd and often surreal. Here are some of my favorite ones in this particular genre.
If so, I am gay as hell.
Actually, that one might be a real question.
This poor woman has been scarred for life by this meme:
And speaking of butts, here’s a question for all you cat owners out there:
Huh. My cats, both ladies, just sniff each others anuses. Not sure what that means.
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Maggie Mae Fish is awesome. Plus I’d say she goes into the source material into greater depth.
Is it gay to eat
the plums
that were in
the icebox
sometimes a plum
is only
a plum
so much depends
upon
a black box
of dude
wipes
glazed with shower
water
beside the white
supremacist
@LaMaria I live in Spain and we’re opening up a bit, which is to say that manufacturing in general is open again. Schools, bars and most shops etc still closed, no tourism obviously, even though that’s a LOT of the Spanish economy (and I’m a self employed tour guide). Watch this space.
Wishing you all the best, Sheila.
@VP:
Certainly have! I love Linday’s work, so I watched this like a nanosecond after release. Don’t remember her having much to say about Eliot, though.
I think this “Musicalsplaining Cats Animatic” is also essential viewing, for the line “as hard as you try, someone’ll just make Cats”:
@Battering Lamb:
Why, Lin-Manuel, why???
Fellas, is it gay for a fella to have sex with another fella?
OT: Work
Once again my boss decides to call me to work on a class day. And then says my availability schedule says I’m available for work. My availability schedule explicitly says I have no time for work today. They even claimed I had work on the paper schedule when I saw no such thing on the paper schedule when I was available for work last Sunday.
Seriously they don’t respect my time at all.
@Ooglyboggles
Grrr. Sorry to hear that. Hang in there. You won’t work there forever.
My favorite thing about Lindsey Ellis is that she and I are on exactly the same page about everything Phantom of the Opera-related, in the sense of having a bit of obsession with it while also being fully aware of everything terrible about it.
She starts of her review of the Schumacher film by sighing wearily, pulling the cork from a wine bottle with her teeth, and filling a comically oversized wine glass. And my immediate thought was “I am here for this video.”
There’s another where she spend thirty minutes ranting about Susan Kay’s professionally-published fanfic Phantom and it is glorious.
Update on my own situation:
* Ontario case growth continues at a steady 6% a day. At that rate it will take just over four more months for everyone to be affected. How can it be forced down to zero?
* I am, unfortunately, running low on toilet paper. Is there any reliable way I can get more? It’s too bulky to carry home over a four kilometer walk so I’d have to arrange for a taxi to meet me. That carries obvious virus risks (confined space with a stranger for several minutes). It also means I need to be 100% sure I’ll have the stuff when I leave the store, or the taxi (and the expense!) will have been wasted … and it’s the stuff that is least reliably in stock these days. Having a way to order the stuff delivered would be great, but I don’t know of one that doesn’t assume you have a credit card …
* After being forced to switch from ranitidine to famotidine and back to ranitidine, it’s become apparent to me now that though both seem to prevent the cramps and address heartburn, only ranitidine seems to significantly ameliorate my sleep disorder. I’m thinking there’s some sort of gut-brain axis thing going on here: H2 blockers alter digestive tract conditions enough to affect gut flora, and these are somehow affecting other things in turn. The cramps could be from a deficiency in something like magnesium caused by malabsorption (my diet should have normal amounts), perhaps caused by issues with gut bacteria that are addressed by the alterations in gut chemistry caused by the H2 blockers. And maybe a gut-brain thing explains the effects on the sleep disorder, but why is only one of the two drugs effective then? I can think of two likely explanations: 1) ranitidine has a separate effect on the circadian system through some separate mechanism, and 2) 150 mg of ranitidine has a bit more H2-blocking effect than 10 mg famotidine does, and it’s a dose dependent effect, so 10 mg famotidine twice daily isn’t quite enough to significantly affect the circadian aspect, but 150 mg ranitidine twice a day is enough. The obvious (but expensive, and difficult when famotidine seems to be in short supply) test would be to try 20 mg famotidine twice a day and see if that also fixed the sleep disorder …
* I can’t seem to find a bypass for the paywall on https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532770-400-we-may-have-spotted-a-parallel-universe-going-backwards-in-time/ … the full text isn’t revealed by disabling CSS, and I can’t seem to find an intact copy elsewhere on the web with search either. I viewed two other articles there before it did this stupid “subscribe to read more” garbage and at most sites that do that it’s enough to just fire up a private browsing window and visit the third article in that, but that isn’t working here. That suggests it’s actually tracking IP addresses at the server side, but then TOR should circumvent it and that doesn’t work. I also googled “circumvent new scientist paywall” and didn’t get anything useful out of that. So: How do I circumvent it and read this specific article? And: How do I stop web sites from doing shit like this to me again in the future? If a piece of information is non-confidential, not any sort of secret at all, and would not burden anyone else for me to read it, then I ought to be able to read it without paying or having to jump through any kind of hoops, dammit.
Gays, is it fella for a fella to fellate a fella?
Surplus – You might call restaurants and ask if they sell unused stuff “from the pantry”. They might be able to confirm that they have toilet paper – likely those giant rolls of cheap low grade stuff commonly used in public toilets.
The restaurants around here are closed, except for take-out and delivery.
I’ve assumed pantry sales would be legally included in the takeout option – This is just random internet advice I’m forwarding after I saw it somewhere.
@Surplus
Is it possible that another news publication has the same information and you could read it there without a paywall?
Also, ignore if you’ve already tried this, but did you clear cookies for the site? That can sometimes help.
@ surplus
I’m not so sure about that. The journalist spent time writing the article, editorial staff then had to put the journal together, and IT people had to set-up the website etc. Surely they are under no obligation to do that for free?
As it happens though, the article is just a revisit to some work done in 2016.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-propose-a-mirror-universe-where-time-moves-backwards
Kat:
Nah, that’s just men having sex with men. Totally not gay.
And we have to keep it that way because otherwise contact tracing for STDs gets screwed up.
@Ooglyboogles:
That sounds like it’s time to start doing things like photographing the paper schedule so you have proof. I mean, this is into ‘document everything’ category just so you have proof, if not for the local HR, then at least so you can put in a claim in case they try to actively push you out over complaining about this.
Then again, I don’t know where you are, the ‘right to work’ states in the U.S. seem to be ‘I can fire you if I don’t like your face’ places.
@Battering Lamb, thanks for mentioning that Maggie Mae Fish video, which was really good. I wasn’t previously aware of her, so I’ve got a bunch more watching to do now.
No, but in the instant case they have already done those things. I’m certainly not suggesting that I ought to be able to hire a contractor to generate new information and host it without being expected to pay in such a case.
Meanwhile, my need for a solution for having groceries delivered is becoming acute. Is there no way without a credit card?!
@ surplus
Yes; but that’s in the expectation that enough people will pay to see the results so as to recover their costs of doing so. Are you suggesting that only people who commission work for their own exclusive use should pay for it?
I have a number of friends who work in fields that produce non-tangible products, like writing, music, and (to an extent) art; so IP rights are important I think.
If I get on the bus, I have to pay the fare, even though the bus is going that way anyway. Similarly, if I want to read a book or listen to a piece of music, I may well have to pay royalties, even though an additional digital copy costs nothing to produce.
You get my drift?
Is it gay to not want to spread a virus?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions
@Alan Robertshaw : it’s one of thoses times where I wish the virus was 5% mortality in general, but 75% on people who underestimate it.
@ ohlmann
They’re saying “My body, my choice”; so if they do catch the virus then it’s only right they have to carry it to term; no medical intervention.
After all, each virus is a life.
Micro-biologists leap to feet