Squirrel World

If you’ll all pardon my Americentrism for a moment, the amount, visibility, and flamboyance of Pride merch available in clothing, home goods, and comestibles stores is a DIRECT reflection of how safe it is to be queer in public in the United States.

How? Simple. Out groups aren’t profitable. If you’re not “acceptable” in the current social climate, big franchise businesses will not market to you. (Prime example - Look how quickly Target dropped all their Pride merch after having been wall-to-wall rainbows every June for almost a decade prior.)

Sure, capitalism sucks and being viewed as an exploitable marketing demographic isn’t a fun concept.

HOWEVER.

The grim truth is that being normalized enough to be considered profitable by corporations IS A GOOD THING in terms of the barometer of social acceptance.

Same thing goes for smaller businesses that throw kitschy Pride events or even just put a token rainbow flag in the window or somewhere inside the shop. That’s a level of acceptance that DID NOT EXIST thirty years ago, and I can tell you because I was there.

The fact that we can scoff and bitch about being an exploitable marketing demographic nowadays means we have made GIGANTIC strides since the 1990s. It also speaks to the fact that the drive and the conversation surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance are continuing. And getting louder.

You can be cynical about it if you want. But I will take a store that puts out lip-service rainbow merch over a world that pretends we don’t exist any day of the week. Because that will always mean something.

And you'll be like, "That sounds bad." And she'll be like, "No no. It's totally not that bad. It's just a meme. Men say it too. Like if a man does something silly he'll be like, 'I am like those women who do not deserve to vote.'" And you'll be like, "Does that make it better?" And she'll be like, "Well there was one guy who tried to make 'Men shouldn't vote' a popular meme. But it never caught on and also he got yelled at a lot."

Then they’re just crimes.

Die CDU hat ihn ja nur Kanzlerin werden lassen wegen seines jahrelangen Psychoterrors. Vielleicht haben sie jetzt zu viel Angst davor, dass er komplett abdreht, wenn sie ihn absetzen.

Wer auch immer sein Nachfolger wird - eines nachts kommt sie/er nach hause und da lauert Fritz in Dunkeln, American Psycho Style -

linux isn't harder you were just taught to use windows (windows is actually way more complicated once you know both. source I do)

linux has graphical applications for settings and installing stuff and whatever, you don't need to input commands if you don't want to

inputting commands isn't "coding" you just copy and paste 4 words that mean "run as administrator and install [program]"

and if you really do use a program that doesn't have a linux version or wine looks too complicated, that's okay!! just instead of going "NEVER!!" and playing into the Microsoft propaganda, considering saying:

I wish more developers would make their programs compatible with linux

Linux looks really cool, I'm just stuck because of [program] at the moment

fuck you Nvidia for making this harder than it needs to be

Woah that girl is really pretty

I wish that were me 😵‍💫

Also, VHS tapes did not have menu screens. Your only options were play, fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or eject.

we really, really should. 🚬

another piece for my noir series ;)

I'm going to be very blunt about something. I don't enjoy most peoples' company beyond casual interactions. I wish them all the happiness in the world, but I likely won't be a part of it and that doesn't bother me. I'm more interested in things/ideas than people. I don't care about most people in the warm fuzzy sentimental sense. I do not feel personal warmth towards strangers.

What I do like, and care about, is living in a society that is at least semi-functional. And liking/caring about that means recognizing that if everyone deliberately caused problems for other people, acted carelessly or as if other people don't exist, or allowed problems we have the power to solve or mitigate to exist as-is, nothing would work at all.

the following events ensued:

1. predictable lively discussion on the preparation of Wienerschnitzel, in which natives and wurstaboos are pro-puff and everybody else is like *confused dog head tilt* why wouldn’t you want the crust to stay ~attached to the thing you put it on? as with other fried foods?

2. thirty “Bad Schnitzel is my band name” jokes

3. thirty “Bad Schnitzel is my stripper name” jokes

4. one “ah yes, Bad Schnitzel! a lovely spa town” joke

5. this absolute masterpiece:

Turtle Quilt by Laurraine Yuyama