And he had this huge mass wedding party to honor her.

And he called a bunch of celebrity chefs to make the food for it.

Wow this is… really cute?

I’m… sympathizing with Guy Fieri?

But.

Dude’s biggest show on TV is one where he drives around and highlights tiny restaurants that make good food. (And they do- I found my favorite pizza place in town because it was on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.) And they’re all little places, usually run by family or something, making food they love. So he’s doing an amazingly awesome thing for these small restaurants, driving a lot of business to them. I found this article that’s talking about how places see a definite bump in sales, and they can even tell when a repeat airs, because they’ll still get emails and stuff. 

And there’s the fact that every time he goes out to film an episode, he invites a kid along from the Make-a-Wish foundation- actually, he invites their whole family, so no one feels left out. Apparently, that happens on all his shows, which is pretty amazing. Again, this is because of his sister- she was diagnosed with cancer as a kid, and beat it, though she died of melanoma a few years ago. So because he went through that as a kid, he does a lot to help out families who are dealing with that sort of thing. It’s pretty awesome.

Kelly put on her glasses, smile wide, and pulled out a piece of paper which she read from. The paper was from an article (which I have issues with, but I will leave alone for now) by ABC news. Kelly proceeded only to read the opening of it, which reads: ‘Americans work more than anyone in the industrialized world. More than the English, more than the French, way more than the Germans or Norwegians. Even, recently, more than the Japanese. And Americans take less vacation, work longer days, and retire later, too.’

And everyone cheered.

And they kept cheering when Kelly put her paper down and smiled at everyone. (not continuing with the rest of the article which suggests that this may in fact be a problem).

And I just couldn’t BELIEVE that anyone was cheering. America. AMERICA you work more than the French, who are entitled by law to have 5 weeks off a year for vacation and can not work more than 35 hours per week. You work more than Norway, who average 33 hours per week and 44,000 dollars a year. Germany, where AGAIN, we see a shorter work week and better pay! And all of these countries have health care and better pay and free/affordable education!

WHY ARE YOU CHEERING?

I have a different interpretation of this information: the American worker is the most taken advantage of worker in the industrialized world. It’s plain and simple. You work long hours and get horrible pay. You take multiple jobs and work and work and work just to get by. Unions are disappearing, jobs are always looking for part timers and all you are doing is giving up your time for less money, less vacation, less safety and stability and less education than anyone else on the list.

Celebrate Labour day. Celebrate the accomplishments of the common worker, but don’t let these people trick you into thinking you should celebrate the theft of your time and energy, or the fruits of your labour.

The Great American Eclipse as seen from Oregon

No. Just no. Ok?

So I used to make this joke all the time. Now I have chronic tinnitus. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s nerve damage in your ears which often comes as a result of being constantly exposed to very loud noise for a long period of time. The nerve damage results in a constant ringing/buzzing in your ears. So far there’s no cure. The severity of it varies, and I’m lucky to have a mild case, which I can barely hear during the day and is easy to block out at night. That said, loads of people with tinnitus aren’t so lucky. Severe tinnitus can’t be blocked out. Those who suffer from it also suffer from severe loss of sleep, depression, anxiety…. the list goes on. Tinnitus also comes with a degree of hearing loss in most cases, making it even harder to ignore. In fact, some people with severe tinnitus kill themselves just to make the ringing stop. Tinnitus can be so severe that it drives a person to suicide. Chronic tinnitus used to mostly be prevalent in older people who worked for years with loud machinery etc, but all of a sudden it’s becoming more common in our generation. Why? Because of people, like me, who listened to their music too goddamn loudly through their headphones.

“You want to talk history, be prepared to be schooled.” (via)