DaBibliophile

Beyond the back cover copy shared in that post, I like to say it is a book that explores the following questions:

When does archival witnessing cross the line into objectification?

What do you do when the future you imagined has been taken from you?

What if you found a really weird bug?

that your URL was kind of a

And I didn’t really know what that meant, only that I always said no, but for some reason or another I was very annoyed and a fight sounded pretty good so for the first time ever I said “yes”

And I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but I remember my mom just going “Okay, then. Let’s fight. What do you want to fight about?”

And I remember it occurring to me all of a sudden that the onus was on me to generate the energy to pick something to be mad about, and wishing she’d just do something worth fighting FOR me, but she just went, “I’m not the one who wants to fight. If you want to fight, you have to pick something to fight about”

I go through the drive through at the taco bell. This is the same taco bell that, three years prior, asked us how many sauces we wanted. My roommate responded with "we'd like to get lost in the sauce."

To which he said "lost in the sauce. Ok boss!"

And gave us an entire brown bag full of sauce packets that we are still working through to this day.

So our conclusion is that this store is operated by stoners, which is on par for a taco bell.

But anyhow, 2021, all I want is a burrito.

Pull up in the drive thru, order burrito. Compliment the cashier's nails, take the bag without checking, drive off.

I get home. I carry the bag all the way to the kitchen and set it down. The sound it makes is not the sound of a beefy five layer burrito. It rattles.

I realize now that something is wrong.

I look inside.

I find this:

Which I realize now in 2022 after hanging out with potheads that this is considerably more than 100$ of THC products but that's unimportant. I sit there for a few moments and just kind of stare at them asking myself

WHY does this KEEP HAPPENING to me?

Girlfriend comes in and sees this.

"Did someone pay you in smokeables again?"

"No, this is the new beefy 5 layer burrito from taco bell. Obviously."

I could keep them, but what would I DO with them? I didnt know any smokers at the time that I could sell them to. You cant really... pawn THC products in my state because it's a consumable and uhhhh... possession of such products is probably illegal? Fucking I dont know, if there's a law about it everyone seems to be ignoring it.

And I cannot stress this enough: I dont smoke! And yet people keep handing me these things for some reason.

But more importantly: it is now 6:00, I am starving, and I did not get my burrito. So i make a decision and i grab the bag of vape carts and I go back to get the food I ordered.

I go inside and stand at the counter. I quietly tell the cashier that I ordered a beefy five layer burrito, and I got this instead. I lift the bag. I gently drop the bag. It makes the very non beefy burrito rattle sound.

The cashier knows by sound what is in the bag. Her eyes go wide.

"I'm not mad," I tell her. "I dont want anyone in trouble. I'm just very hungry and would like the food I ordered."

She very quietly takes the bag beneath the counter and produces six coupons for a free taco. "We'll get your order to you in a moment, thank you for your patience."

I am... containing my urge to burst out in laughter because this urban legend stuff. This is 'that happened to my friends cousin' kind of story material and I'm just... waiting for my burrito.

The manager on duty approaches me and says:

"I understand you received something uhh.. other than your order." She thinks I'm gonna tell corporate. This shit is too funny for corporate. I am not telling corporate.

"I dont want anyone in trouble," I repeated. "I'd just like to make sure it gets back to its owner and make sure I get the burrito I ordered."

"Right. Right. Right away."

She gives me six more free taco coupons.

It is deathly quiet back there and I am trying so hard not to laugh at the absurdity of all of this. Like... how did I get here? What happened back there to lead me to this awkward situation? What farcical theater piece am I now a minor character in? Will I exit left persued by a bear?

The cashier returns with a bag. "Once again, I'm REALLY sorry."

I take the bag. I check it this time.

This is indeed a burrito.

"No need, all is well."

That’s Louis Rossman, a repair technician and YouTuber, who went viral recently for railing against Apple. Apple purposely charges a lot for repairs and you either have to pay up or buy a new device. That’s because Apple withholds necessary tools and information from outside repair shops. And to think, we were just so close to change.

Have an iPhone and are in need of repairs

Have a friend with that problem

Hate Apple and are more than happy to spite them in some way

So I asked the internet, well how hard IS it to repair? And I saw this guy’s video, and while I am no techie, I AM fueled by spite, so I was all “oh, they do that shit on purpose specifically so they can charge me $1200 bucks or make me buy a new computer hunh? FUCK THEM” and I bought all the tools I needed for about $25 and I bought all the parts I needed for about another $25 and I watched a few tutorial videos, and I replaced my own keyboard.

So, once you are doing the actual deed, it becomes pretty obvious that they are finding creative ways to make this much harder than it has to be on purpose. On thing that stood out to me is, instead of all the tiny screws being the same size, there are about two dozen very slightly different sizes. They could easily be all the same size, or like, two sizes at most, but no.

These mother fuckers will take a panel that screws into place and they’ll use a different size screw for each corner. They are so close that you almost cannot tell them apart visually, but they each will only screw into the matching corner. Like, it’s a pretty clear “fuck you” to anyone trying to do repairs.

“hey don’t use eugenics language to describe a thing you don’t like”

The card deck company has been taken to court by a local self-appointed guardian of public morality, who insists that despite of no laws being broken in the creation of the deck, such lewdness should nonetheless be deemed illegal. He does not care that the models were paid well for their portraits and gave their full consent to their use, nor that they are in fact satisfied with getting free advertisement from them. He does not care about the rights nor consent of sex workers, he simply wants the cards gone.

The judge eventually deems that the cards are indeed too indecent for public sale and distribution, and the artist who designed the cards agrees to re-draw them according to the limitations dictated by the court (which sadly include prohibiting the aforementioned impressively flexible pose), on the grounds that no additional limitations are given retroactively.

It takes a year for a new card deck to be drawn and go into print, and it doesn't take long before the same people are in the courthouse again. This time the Defender Of Public Modesty is suing the card print company for personal slander, as every single drawing in the new art of the corrected deck features a man who looks unmistakably like himself, harrying and bothering the ladies of the previous deck portraits, whether by judging skirt lengths with a measuring tape, covering an exposed bosom with a folding fan, or placing a tablecloth over the infamously impressive no-knickers-hand-stand.

The Morality Warrior is enraged by this distribution of slanderous images of himself interacting with any women of questionable repute. The judge agrees that drawing an entire series of portraits of this guy harrassing these women does count as spreading false accusations of him, and agrees that the second deck should also be taken out of rotation. The artist who drew both decks consents to making a third version with the same conditions as before: no additional retroactive rules. No depictions of women in lewd poses, and no depictions of the man who sued them posing with sex workers.

The third deck is once again taken to court, as it depicts the exact same uncensored themes, outfits and poses as the first deck, except this time instead of the local Ladies Of Occupation, every card instead depicts the Public Morale Defender. The print company had to hire a trapeze artist from a passing circus to pose as reference for the most famous subject, as no other man could be found who could do a hand stand like that.