Forever Untitled

Quite a few pro-Trumpsterfire blogs have started following me. I'm sure some of these are bots as well but let me say this plainly.

Fuck that man. I am going to party so fucking hard when he finally kicks the bucket.

And that's true, it's very true, but I must talk to you. About Brigadoon.

The premise of Brigadoon is that two dumb fucks find a Scottish town from the 1700's here in the modern day (re: 1900's). The inhabitants of the town state that their town is the beneficiary of "the miracle," in which 100 years pass every time the people in the town go to sleep, preserving their simple way of life forever or some shit. It is, as you may guess, a deeply conservative fantasy about the good ol' days and how they're so much better than the modern day and bla bla bla gag me with a chainsaw. There's a whole subplot that goes nowhere about how one of the women in town is a slut and everyone hates her but she's too dumb to realize it, it's a deeply conservative play.

Now, the play wants you to buy into its premise. It wants you to think that the town of Brigadoon is a miracle, and beautiful jewel preserved from the ravages of our modern world, a wonderful thing that you wish existed in real life. So it would be deeply against the spirit of the thing to start thinking about all the ways this scenario is a horrible nightmare, right?

...AND YET

Another subplot in the play is that there's one young man in Brigadoon who's in love with a woman who's getting married to someone else. He thinks Brigadoon sucks ass and there's nothing for him there (he is correct) and tries to leave, but the other villagers say he can't because if he does the "miracle" will be broken and their town will disappear into the mists of the Scottish highlands, never to return. Well, in the second act he tries to leave anyway, and full-on angry mob of villagers chases after him with torches to stop him, until he slips while running and bashes his head in on a rock, dying before he could leave Brigadoon.

The play then goes right back to being boring, tedious horseshit, but it has made a fatal error. By killing that boy who didn't buy into the conservative fantasy, it opens the floodgates of the speculation, and speculation is not kind to Brigadoon.

Brigadoon experienced its miracle in the 1700's. The play shows them reappearing in the 1900's, which means they've only had this "miracle" for two days of their waking lives. None of these poor, dumb bastards knows the horror show that awaits them.

In one year of their waking lives, 36,500 years will have passed. Within fifty years of their waking lives, 1,825,000 years will pass. That's longer than human beings have existed on this planet. Imagine how many new diseases will have sprung up in that time. Imagine how much pollution will fill the air. Now imagine that you only have the resources of a 1700's rural Scottish town to deal with them, and that every time you fall asleep, the problems of the outside world have another 100 years to worsen before they seep into your town.

Someone in Brigadoon probably has a disease from the 1800's that hasn't shown symptoms yet but his body is totally ill-prepared to handle. Those two fucks who visited the town during the events of the play probably brought way more with them, along with whatever toxic pollutants have filled the air in the two centuries since the miracle started. By the time the people in Brigadoon even realize what's wrong, more and more diseases will beset them.

And that's assuming the world proceeds as normal in all this time. What happens in nuclear war breaks out, and the next day in Brigadoon sees the small town arriving not in the scenic Scottish highlands, but an irradiated wasteland? How are they going to deal with radiation poisoning?

And they're forever trapped in the town, they can't leave, so their only hope to preserve any sort of genetic diversity is to lure more people inside. How long before they start kidnapping humans to replenish their dying and inbred society? How long before they discover modern human vices and weaponry?

The middle ages were one thousand years ago

I don't know if I need you to tell you this but Jesus was alive 2 thousand years ago during the Roman Empire

3 thousand years ago the Mediterranean and Middle East were recovering from the bronze age collapse. None of the philosophers of Western philosophy (or Eastern for that matter) were born yet

Earliest writing dates roughly to 5 thousand years ago.

Agriculture started roughly 10 thousand years ago

It told me the creature might have lived as much as 1,000 years ago.

Yes, a dynasty that's actually 8,000 years old is unrealistic

A dynasty that claims to be 8,000 years old, and whose claims are believed by most people, on the other hand, is realistic. Lots of cultures have official histories that claim much longer time frames than archeology would support (the Sumerian King List being an especially egregious example of this - it claims to trace kings going back 241,200 years!)

I will be downloading everything I purchased from Bandcamp and keeping an eye on it.

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

Still haven't heard back from the unemployment office, but a few days ago I ended up telling this to the SNAP caseworker, who absolutely lost her shit and then put everything on hold to go investigate this herself out of a sense of justice and Needing To Know More. World's most nosy angel who helped me out a lot in general (in case she ends up seeing this: I appreciate her so much).

While she didn't find a facebook listing for a used kiosk (yes, that post is just a coincidence, I'm sorry), what she did find was the actual kiosk for sale. By the owner. On a reputable website.

Now, there are a lot of funny conclusions to be drawn from this, but I'm afraid it's not quite that wild. I asked a friend in management about it and turns out the listing is from months before the disappearance, it wasn't kept a secret, it just wasn't relevant. She had been trying to sell it for a while without much luck, wasn't selling the entire business, but just the kiosk with that branch included (the listing advertised that it would include the equipment and drink recipes and retain the current staff). It also said the lease with the mall was active until some time in 2027.

So, no, as funny as that would be, the owner did not heist her own kiosk. However, what this does tell us is:

She must have owned the kiosk outright, so the only way this could be a repossession is if she had a mortgage on it? I guess?

It definitely isn't about the lease being up. So any eviction would legally require like 30-days notice and, presumably, a valid reason like a violation of the terms. (this is how it works with renting homes in my country, and I've never rented a business location, so I can only guess that it's similar)

The store was not financially beneficial enough to keep. This could just mean that she was focusing on other ventures like she says in the listing, but it could really also mean that she was having money trouble and couldn't afford to keep the location.

SO. This leaves the most likely scenario being that the owner was behind on rent, and the mall manager (who has a history of being outta control and pulling shit like this, as well as harassing asian businesses and our shop specifically) decided to illegally remove the entire kiosk about it.

Still no confirmation at all about anything, but I remembered the listing today and realized it gave some additional clues.

So I have no one else to share this with (besides my wife but I already told her) and it doesn't seem to be shared here on tumblr yet.

According to this reddit post and Frank Mezzatesta's blog (of "This Could Kill Someone" screenshot fame), Big Dino was requested to go in the lobby of the new company created by its creators in 2001. Disney agreed but only for 1 year.

Disney never asked for it back.

So Big Dino isn't in the Disney Vault but is apparently still with Applied Minds as there is a photo of it in their possession dating back to 2013, eleven years after it was supposed to be returned.