Happy New Year’s!
Let’s hope the new year actually is at least a little bit happy this time!
What are you all up to for New Year’s eve and New Year’s day?
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
And your mascot for celebrating the new year are the furry bricks.
Why not something cuter? Like otters? Otters are awesome.
Or llamas. They even have llamas in World of Warcraft. That hop and bounce in a circle. You can go slaughtering evil demon thingies and then ride off on your llama.
And of course kittens. You can’t go wrong with kittens. They’ve got those in WoW too, including a pet kitten that will follow you around and is on fire. It’s made of fire, in fact. It’s called a cinderkitten. You never saw such such a perfect blend of cute and awesome in a single package.
Well, except maybe for the Molten Corgi, which is a corgi that’s also on fire and will bark when you click on it.
I know, I know, too much Warcraft, but the point is there aren’t any capybara there because they really aren’t that cute to my eyes, and none are on fire, so they lack awesome too.
And they still look like furry bricks to me.
Just saying.
And before anyone asks, I turned 64 this year, so I’m not a teenage edgelord. I’m an old man who appreciated cute incendiary animals. There is a difference.
Hey, I like the fuzzy bricks! They’re good fuzzy bricks!
Cuddling with my hyperventilating doggo listening to the fireworks surrounding us. He’s finally starting to chill.
Tomorrow I will sleep in and make chipotle to start the year out spicy.
@Robert Haynie:
How dare you insult David’s wonderful capys. HOW DARE YOU.
GOOD RIDDANCE 2021!!
Evidently, you missed this.
Hi, brothers ‘n’ sisters ‘n’ gender fluids!! Happy New Year, tho that seems highly optimistic at times….
I have a kinda long story, but you all can all have a new years chuckle at my expense:
I long ago took to heart the metaphor “… been there, done that, got the t-shirt.” As a result, I have a stash of about 200 t-shirts from various events, places, etc. Retired now, I’ve decided to turn this collection into quilts to give away. As a start, I made a quilt for each of my grandbabies… Junior is 6 and into rocketry, etc, so I made him a quilt composed of t-shirts I got from NASA Houston, NASA Huntsville, and various “outer-space-ish” shirts. Went pretty well. For Liv, who is 3 and into Minnie Mouse and other cartoons, I came up empty. Unfortunately, I never went to Disneyland, so I hit the Goodwill-type stores for shirts to make her quilt. Since (apparently) all little girls’ shirts are made of polyester knit, I had to search the YooToob vids for guidance on how to manipulate this strange material. (Perhaps there are stitch operators among the audience who might sympathize….) That quilt finished a couple hours ago, tho I must admit the execution… left much to be desired…. In my time, I have made airplane parts out of titanium… out of 15-5PH stainless… I have made pressure vessel parts out of Monel and Inconel… I have made gearbox housings out of chilled cast iron…. But I have NEVER worked with anything this testy and frustrating!! As with everything I’ve done, I learned a lot. Most importantly I learned:
(with appropriate apologies to Vivian Leigh as well as to her most famous character Scarlett O’Hara)…
AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I’LL NEVER WORK WITH KNIT FABRIC AGAIN!!!
🙂 🙂 🙂
in better news, IT’S SNOWING!!! SNOWING!!! It’s been almost 200 days since we’ve had measurable precipitation here. Bad as that is, it comes nowhere near the record, which was almost 17 MONTHS in 1934/35
fuzzy brix:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Jf23F60D5FI/SvLkxbSmPFI/AAAAAAAAAOc/qVx3bPcy9Q0/s400/fuzzyBrick_600x400.jpg
Personally I think the more fun sized Guinea Pigs are cuter than the rodents that could have been stunt doubles on Princess Bride, but I have no objections either way.
Just spent New Year’s with the close family. Took a walk for a few miles since it was in the 50s here today, had a nice dinner, it was alright. Never really went to any big New Year’s parties in my life, so I feel more or less “Whatever” about it.
@Robert Haynie:
And before anyone asks, I turned 64 this year, so I’m not a teenage edgelord. I’m an old man who appreciated cute incendiary animals. There is a difference.
If you continue to appreciate cute incendiary animals, here’s the Charlie Brown Christmasesque story of Harbinger, the hellhound who just needed some love. (One of Tumblr’s great virtues is its amenability to cumulative feedback and collective folklore; the affirmations in the second panel are actual comments from viewers pitying the poor dejected doggie—inspiring the followup to the original picture.)
https://shirecorn.tumblr.com/post/658442799764619264/shirecorn-shirecorn-harbinger-puppy-has
Not a lot happening here. I calmed my cat during the fireworks, had a late dinner, kissed my boyfriend at midnight — and went back to my dinner. It’s cold here in Northern California, so we’ve had the heater on for the past few days. Happy to have a heater, but of course I worry about its effect on the climate. I’m also wearing a wool sweater. Now I’m going to go put on an insulated jacket — and worry about the effect of microplastics on the climate. C’est la vie (these days).
Happy 2022! I hope it brings us good things.
Happy new year to all (or soon, for our asian friends – year of the Tiger, not his eye) !
Here, it is a nice weather, which, if the proverb is right, means that we are going to have a cold spring.
This year is going to be presidential election year. We are sadly going deeper in the far right here, as a mirror of US trumpish years, and that is terrifying. Hope we are not going to fall to the Z.
Best wishes to all of you and those who count for you !
Happy New Year, everybody!
A cheerful thought to share: Betty White leaned close to 2021 and whispered, “I’m taking you with me,” grabbed 2021 by the shoulders, and leaped into Mount Doom.
Alternatively, she was collected by Terry Pratchett’s Death, and they had a lovely chat about animals they have known and loved as he escorted her to the edge of the black sands.
Wishing HNY to the Mammotheers.
Most useful thing I did last year was probably a joint effort that may have helped a robin survive a broken leg (pun not initially intended, but now it’s there I’m pretending to intend it); it was already coming regularly to take food from the hand, so we made sure to offer plenty, as often as possible – many times a day – and after a period of having no use of that leg at all, it’s been able to put weight on that side again for a little while now (the break is still clearly visible and the broken leg has set at a very slight angle, but it seems to be doing fine).
(bother, now I can’t remember if I already told this story – sorry if so! This all happened over the course of the last couple of months or so. Apologies if this is a repeat, I’ll just put it down to impaired mental faculties)
I hope this year treats you better than the last one.
Sorry man, but if you actually look into otter behaviors the cute image is quite thoroughly shattered. And it’s not just the sea otters.
Say what you will about the ‘furry bricks’, but at least they need provocation to get aggressive.
… remembering those halcyon days of late 2020 when we had survived what we THOUGHT was the worst year possible….
@Victorious Parasol:
A cheerful thought to share: Betty White leaned close to 2021 and whispered, “I’m taking you with me,” grabbed 2021 by the shoulders, and leaped into Mount Doom.
Astride the flaming Yule Goat, while we’re at it?
They are wonderful critters! They’re basically just giant Guinea pigs! They are pretty mellow and get along well with other critters. Life goals!
Happy Gnu Year, everyone! I hope everyone is happy where they’re at today, all cozy and warm (or cool, if you’re living in upside-down land).
And to start things off this year, a tweet I stumbled across about Biblical literalism. Given how often the subject comes up around here, I thought folks would get a kick from it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheTweetOfGod/status/1476277182997491714
Betty White too? 🙁 Why are so many famous and at-least-halfway-decent people dying recently? Anne Rice, Joan Didion, bell hooks, Desmond Tutu…
Do capybaras really look like fuzzy bricks? 😀
Anyway, the thing about imaginary kittens on fire reminds me of a card game my cousin gave my brother and me called “Exploding Kittens”. She also got us the family edition of Cards Against Humanity, and evidently “family friendly” = aimed at kids who like fart jokes. Lots and lots of fart jokes.
Anyway, I hope everyone’s doing all right, and here’s to a better 2022 than 2021.
Cute? You want cute. Australia’s got cute over-achievement awards.
We have bettongs, bandicoots, wombats, platypus, koalas, potoroos, antechinus, bilbies (now doing double duty as our substitute for Easter bunny. Easter bunny, and every other kind of bunny is persona non grata here.) Koalas have dibs on 1st prize for stupidest animal ever. Platypus hide in the water. Wombats are cute, sort of, but they’re not at all sociable. Most of the others are photogenic but strongly avoid human contact – and who would blame them.
But the flat out winner has to be … Quokkas!!!! The smiley badge of the animal world.
You are warned by the rangers on Rottnest Island that you mustn’t try to pat or pet them, and definitely not feed them. No worries. Just sit on a rock or a bench and a happily smiling quokka will walk right up to you and cheerfully start going through your bag. I’m pretty certain the rangers have a leaflet giving dos and don’ts for quokka selfies by now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quokka is the wiki page. I got a bit mesmerised trying to choose among the avalanche of images for happiest animal on earth. Anyone who needs a smile or an arms length dose of pure contented joy should just take a half hour’s wander through their browser.
2022 doesn’t enthuse me very much, and here’s why. I’m getting worried that my life will never get any better. Most places I’ve been, I’ve been at most tolerated, and often it’s seemed to be grudging tolerance at that. Remember, I’m the guy nobody wanted to hire during a tech boom after he’d just graduated with a tech bachelor’s degree. Not due to any personal quality (or lack thereof); the decisions in question were made sight-unseen without reference to anything other than my university transcript and CV, by people none of whom knew me personally. It seems instead that I am intrinsically unwanted, however exactly that works. Someone just needs to see my name to feel compelled to immediately toss the file to one side and say “Next!”
Then there are the saboteurs, and there are always a few of those anywhere I’ve been. Some are just overt bullies, others lie in wait for some situation that will grant them license to point and laugh, and still others pull the pranks that provide those ones with the opportunity to strike, rigging some game or moving the goalposts or just doing one of the “classics” like sticking out a leg to trip me. Expectations are often placed on me that I can’t meet, and that in many cases are never even communicated to me until after I’ve already “failed” them. This doesn’t just apply to social situations: even if I’m just trying to do something quietly in the privacy of my own home, I’m frequently subjected to outside interference that seems totally gratuitous and unprovoked, from malfunctions trying to catch up on things at some website or another to the ever-annoying flipping my power off and back on. (And whoever is behind that has made the unwelcome transition from just flipping it off and immediately back on again most of the time to leaving it off for anywhere from 10 or 20 minutes to several hours every time they strike.)
I can’t even seem to relate to people much of the time. I hardly ever actually have an interesting conversation.
Now add in the slow deterioration of my own health and the environment around me, and the way I’ve been systematically excluded from accessing the tools to do anything about those things, and I’m sometimes left wondering what the point is.
This feels like it’s supposed to be some temporary, transitional phase of life but I got left behind; like I’m in some waiting room and whoever’s in charge forgot I’m there, so I never get called. There’s not enough money, though, for me to do much else than sit and wait for something to change, I’m not sure what. Unless there’s something I could do online to change things?
It fits the pattern elsewhere though: when I’m not actively unwanted, I’m often forgotten or ignored. If you’ve ever seen any of the Home Alone movies, I seem to have been cast in the role of Kevin McAllister … and things stayed that way into adulthood.
Does it ever get any better? Or is “more of the same, for another 30-40 years or so” the best I can hope for?
@Battering Lamb :
True. Otters merely look cute, that I’ll give you.
As to your comments on their personal habits? Rather missing the other point– although it could be argued that Otters are not awesome.
They are metal.
Capys and a kitty are a good start.
Hope los carpinchos are all right in the suburbs. Viva la revolucion!
We have spent the last I don’t know how many years ringing in the new year sitting on the couch drinking cheap champagne and eating nibbles, so this year was no change. Well, due to supply chain issues, we had to substitute one variety of nibbles but they were still top-notch. This is literally the only supply chain issue I’ve had in the local stores this whole time, so can’t complain.
@Weird Eddie: I once amazed some English friends that “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” is not just an adage, it’s a way of life. And I have heard your solemn Scarlett-esque vow from other sewers.
Obligatory carpincho poem:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/52653/unit-of-measure
@ Surplus to Requirements
I really do wish I had some kind of solution or advice here, but if I did, I’d probably be doing it myself.
I was trying to change my life around, trying to make friends, connect with family, go out and try new things, etc, etc, right before the pandemic started and now… well, all my personal solutions to my problems largely revolve around getting out and mingling, so you see the problem in today’s world. I also kind of feel like I have been in a waiting room most of my life, except the minute I decided to say forget it and go somewhere else, along came Covid and put my butt right back in the same chair I was sitting in.
Covid has really put a dent on everything. My possible friend list has been whittled down significantly, I have essentially cut ties with anti vaxxing family members, the pandemic seems like it will be unending as long as there are anti masking anti vaxxers running around spreading new variants… yeah, you’re right, it is hard to be optimistic about 2022.
So, the only advice I can offer is basically commiseration and mentioning what has helped me a bit, though what has helped me recently is basically so generic you have probably heard it from a thousand sources.
Specifically, I have been exercising and meditating a bit recently, streaming a couple new shows online, trying to improve ties I have with my remaining family members, and have become a fan of a woman online who discusses meditation, surprise, surprise. That last has inspired me more than I would have expected. I rather like this women’s attitude and approach to life, and am somewhat concerned I am running out of her videos. Perhaps finding some sort of online surrogate mentor might be of help to you?
Even before COVID I never had enough money to say “forget it” and go somewhere else. 😛
No idea where to find someone like this mentor you mentioned, either.