Random Wanderings

The band, the music, the dance.

1. Playing an instrument is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Don’t think I’m stepping on any toes saying that.

2. Dancing is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Still not controversial.

3. YOU AVOID, AT ALL COSTS, MOVING YOUR BODY WHILE PLAYING A WIND INSTRUMENT.  To make the correct, pleasant sounds, you need to be in the correct form. And that form involves your ENTIRE body, even your legs when sitting down.

4. “oh, but I’ve seen marching bands before and-” MARCHING BANDS HAVE ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC FIELDS DEDICATED TO FIGURING OUT HOW TO MARCH WITH MINIMUM BREAKING OF PROPER FORM. A marching band tries to be as smooth as possible while moving, so as not to jar their instrument, mouth, neck, arms, torso, or anything else.These ladies and gentlemen are BOUNCING and still playing properly, what the FU-!

There is a finite amount of memory on any given device.

No matter how good your game is, players will want memory for other things on their devices.

I am reading Tim Curry’s 2025 memoir, Vagabond

and in it, he not only devotes a chapter to Muppet Treasure Island, but also references this very post

so, to recap

no, Tim Curry is absolutely NOT a Muppet; however

Surgeries require having a designated person to look after you. Many injuries require driving to somewhere like an emergency room which can be hard to do if you are the one injured. If you're home with the flu, it's hard to tell when it's bad enough to go to the hospital without another person checking on you. And if you pass out it requires another person to find you like that to get medical aid.

And yeah as several people pointed out it isn’t even explicitly in the bible, but something some radicals pieced together in maybe only the last century. My uncles all believe it to the letter and they all believe it’s what the Bible is “supposed” to be communicating.

A lot of people are also confused as to why they would believe the peace and unity are villainous things and what the difference even is then between the “antichrist” and actual Jesus, which brings me to another thing I realize some folks CRITICALLY overlook about American Christianity, which is that they do not believe in good or bad deeds. They believe the same deed can be right or wrong strictly according to whether or not it’s performed by a believer with God’s stamp of approval. Like, they KNOW the Satanic Church and Witch Covens do community service or donate to cancer research and they are not confused, surprised, bitter or embarrassed by that at all. It’s exactly what they’re taught to expect. They believe the forces of Satan do primarily “good” things so people will think he’s just as good or better than God. So if a pastor heals a sick child with a prayer then that’s good, but if a “witch” heals the same sick child with “magic” (not something I believe exists, but they do) then that’s a false miracle from the devil and the child was better off dying because now everyone involved is a sinner who deserves hell. They’re taught to view you as a ridiculous fool if you don’t grasp this difference, and every single argument you might make is a part of the satanic trickery.

….And something I’ve heard before but still neglected to mention:

…..so that’s all pretty nightmarish confirmation of how pervasive this mindset is around here, but you know, if the majority of reactions to this information have been either “what the fuck are you talking about?” or “yeah I WAS taught this and I’m better now,” maybe that’s a sign that it’s slowly but consistently fading with every generation?

For those of you who didn’t, here’s a quick rundown of how American evangelicals think the world is going to end:

Evangelicals will be persecuted. Holocaust style. This is how we open. Then they will go to heaven and watch the rest of the show.

The most common interpretation I heard/read/was yelled growing up was that this is a prophecy of nuclear war. Mushroom clouds, missiles falling, billionaires get in their bunkers. This is how they sell it to you; it’s honestly eerie how prophetic it sounds.

This is where the zionist stuff comes from. For the rest of Armageddon to unfold, 144,000 Israelites will be selected. American Christians believe this is why it’s their duty to safekeep Israel’s sovereignty. If that requires genocide, so be it; that is the will of the LORD. You cannot convince fundamentalists not to be zionists, because you’re literally telling them to obstruct the return of Christ. They will never sympathise with Palestinians because to them that means delaying their eternal glory.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m making this up. You’re thinking no one could possibly be this delusional. You’re thinking there’s no way hundreds of millions of Christians seriously believe that genocide is their divine mandate in order to protect their piece of the cake.

I’m sorry to tell you that the genocide is the light part. If you can’t stomach reading more, well, tough shit; this is the administration’s policy now and being ignorant won’t save you. Go throw up, wipe your mouth, and finish reading if you want a chance to survive the Trump administration.

This is when they go to heaven btw. Immediately after getting Zion to win. Everything after this will not affect them in any way, so they do not give a shit what happens to the rest of us. So now you’re going to learn the fate they are expecting for you, while they get their ultimate Omelas.

Now THAT is some Armageddon shit. This is also why environmental conditions are meaningless for evangelicals. They believe the world will be destroyed right after they go; what’s the point of preventing climate collapse when it will happen anyway? If the planet is doomed then saving pandas is not only a waste of time, but active defiance of God’s plan. This isn’t an exaggeration; my mother told me this as a child to soothe me.

More torture porn, but if you saw the Animatrix you know since the 90s this has been interpreted as some form of robot demons:

I’m just going to drop this gif and walk back slowly

This is it. This is where you get your comeuppance. OP wasn’t kidding; your torture and death is considered righteous if you defy the will of God. And every dyslexic knows how little difference there is between God and the GOP. To them, this is what you chose, and what you deserve, and they secretly laugh at your stubbornness. They think you’re a child throwing a tantrum, and ooohh you just wait until Daddy gets back, because they’re telling.

So if you criticize any given Christian (even specifically Evangelicals) for believing in XYZ specific event from the Book of Revelations, there’s a non-zero chance they will laugh and say they don’t believe it will happen like that, and they will be telling the truth.

But all that means is that you have found a part that they don’t believe in literally, and you could go down the same page or chapter and find another part they DO believe in literally. The whole reason there are different Christian denominations is because Evangelicals and Lutherans and Seven-Day Adventists and Baptists and Assemblies of God all have different opinions on what the Bible says and means, on how to structure religious rituals (like church services), and on how the events of the end times (not even exclusively described in Revelations) will take place.

One thing that IS important to know, though, is that a LOT of U.S. Protestant pastors take a premillennialist view of Jesus’ Second Coming.

(source link, yes it is a Christian site, but it seems like these are pretty real percentages of the pastors they surveyed)

Now what does that mean? Welp, let’s refer to this handy chart.

The cross marks the Death of Christ, which happened somewhere around 29 C.E. In the Book of Revelations, it mentions a millennium of peace on earth that will occur before the final judgment, and eeeeeverybody has differing opinions on when that millennium will happen.

The Amillennialist view considers the thousand years to be figurative, rather than literal, and occurring right now. This is the second most popular view amongst U.S. Protestant Pastors (73% of whom say that their congregations agree entirely or mostly with them), but it trails Premillenialism by… a lot.

The Postmillennialist view claims that Jesus will return after the thousand years of peace, and in general, that it is actively a part of one’s Christian duty to make the world better.

The Premillennialist view claims that Jesus will return before the millennium and usher in the age of peace himself, but people are split on whether the current Christian church will be raptured before the times of discord immediately preceding the thousand years of peace, or whether the Christian church must suffer through the tribulations and be raptured afterwards.

This is the most popular view, and it is the main reason why the Christian Right is so invested in supporting Israel to set up Jerusalem as Jesus’ seat for when he returns. No matter what, nothing will matter, and there is no lose scenario for a Christian with this view: if they die before the Second Coming, they’ll go to Heaven. If they survive, they’ll be raptured. And the world will enter an age of peace because Jesus supposedly can hit some sort of reset button, which will render all climate issues pointless.

These people believe they can influence when Jesus returns by preparing for the Tribulations. They do not care who they have to hurt or what they have to spend to do it. The literal End justifies the means.

Christians may all have slightly different interpretations and beliefs about what will happen and when, making it incredibly hard to criticize them with one brush, but regardless, the general attitude of “why should I care, I’ll be gone anyway?” pervades–even though a common Christian teaching is that they are called to be good stewards of the Earth they’ve been given to live on.

Focus on the constant hypocrisy no matter their personal views, and don’t get distracted by painting them as a monolith.