Victory Design

Here is what's been done so far today!

Some Actual Plots include:

Dogsbody - The star Sirius is accused of murder and sentenced to exile on Earth in the body of a dog until he finds a magical item called a Zoi. He's adopted by a young Irish girl living with her abusive and neglectful English relatives. He has to balance his desire to find the Zoi with needing to be a Good Dog for the girl who takes care of him. Also the Wild Hunt is there. Hexwood - A girl finds a magical wood behind her house where she meets a wizard who thinks he's a convict of the intergalactic government, a boy created by the man to destroy said government, and a robot found in a junk heap. The magic wood is actually an alternate reality being generated by an AI who has a grudge to settle with the head of said government. The book is about abuse, PTSD, and trauma. The Dark Lord of Derkholm - Magical world is being destroyed by a company using it as an isekai amusement park for people from another dimension. Bio-wizard is appointed Dark Lord for the year, and he and his family (four of whom are bioengineered griffins) have to find a way to survive the season while everything is going wrong. Deep Secret - Interdimensional detective/diplomat/wizard needs to find a replacement for his deceased mentor. He does so at a fantasy convention, while trying to keep an interdimensional empire from collapsing into civil war after the emperor is assassinated along with all of his heirs.

This is 100% the gay supervillain music video I’ve been waiting for.

everyone, every day

"our great grandmas fed their entire families with their knowledge. they didn't need the government telling them how to do it."

great grandma also lost babies for want of vitamin k shots and antibiotics and would have had fewer babies to start with if she'd had the option to access birth control.

great grandma did the best with what she had and knew.

why can't we do the same 😭😭

edit after

@princessxombie an excellent point!

the reason for a preference of bottled lemon juice over fresh squeezed for canning (as reported through the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach): "It is a USDA recommendation that bottled lemon juice be used.  And consistent with the recommendation, reputable canning sources will agree that the best source of lemon juice for canning is commercially bottled lemon juice, as opposed to the juice of a fresh lemon. The reason for the recommendation is that bottled lemon juice has been uniformly acidified or standardized per FDA regulations: “lemon juice prepared from concentrate must have a titratable acidity content of not less than 4.5 percent, by weight, calculated as anhydrous citrus acid.” With a guaranteed pH...there is a consistent and known acid level which is essential for the critical safety margin in canning low-acid foods and for making jams gel properly. "

as for resources:

the usda guide to canning (revised in 2015). you used to be able to find it on the usda website but for SOME reason (two guesses as to why 🙄) that website is now routing to a broken error 404 page not found. fortunately, it's available other places! here it is hosted on the internet archive! if you want it printed in color and spiral-bound, you can also purchase it for $25 from perdue university.

if you want more resources, the university of utah has a whole section of their preserve the harvest extension website dedicated to safe food storage practices including freeze drying, fermenting, drying, etc.

ball (the mason jar company) also has a section of their website dedicated to canning 101, including the basic process, recipes, a glossary of terms, and videos for their tutorials if you're a visual learner. they also offer free online recipes broken down in a way that's meant to be easy even for new canners.

yes! an excellent thing to point out!

as reported through michigan state university: "The acidity of a tomato is considered borderline between a high- and low-acid food. Tomato varieties have been changed through the years and as a result, many now have milder flavor and lower acidity than in the past. Testing has shown that some current tomato varieties have pH values at or above pH 4.6; a few have values of pH 5 or even higher."

for reference (thank you, university of georgia): "The bacteria that cause botulism poisoning can grow and produce toxin in sealed jars of moist food at room temperature if the pH (measure of acidity) is above 4.6."

We did. It passed the private inspection we paid for in order to get our mortgage and two inspections done by the city.

The problem with my house is that it was owned by a landlord who did all kinds of illegal and sketchy shit to maximize capacity and resale value but also would require you to take down walls to find. And for those of you unaware, they don’t let you walk around with a saw and cut holes to inspect behind the drywall.

The shithead hid things behind fake walls. Literally. He put a bunch of chemicals and paints into a crawl space then drywalled over it. There is drywall on top of drywall (or there was before we took it down). He put carpet over the asbestos tiles—which is technically fine. It’s safer to seal asbestos away than remove it… except he also covered the drain for the house so the basement floods and then the carpet rots and in turn starts breaking down the asbestos tiles, making them into a hazard. He built the basement himself so that the drywall was sitting on the concrete slab—something we couldn’t see without removing the trim—causing them to wick moisture from the floor and rot until we had black mold everywhere.

The electric parts that were visible were all up to code, but again, anything that could be hidden was done so, hiding shit like a dishwasher that had been hot wired into the wall through a light plate fixture under the sink. Or the 240v socket that used to power an electric stove which had been pulled through the floorboard to power the tumble dryer. (Or the gas stove that we swapped for electric because it kept trying to kill us and then we realized he’d run a gas pipe from the water heater to power it. The plumber swore a lot about that one when he finally realized that one.)

Plumbing all looked good until you realized some of the new pipes were just pvc cut to go around the old lead pipes. Something you couldn’t see unless you got up close and personal during the inspection, and we’re talking up on a ladder jiggling the pipes around which is also generally something don’t let you do. Not to the extent we would have needed to.

The man was unhinged. And there’s very little we can do about it because we signed an “as is” thing on our mortgage thinking most of the repairs we’d need to do would be minor. Only to find out the house which looked fairly modern and well kept on the surface was actually a fucking Saw trap. And now because of all the shit we’ve uncovered, we have to fix it before we can sell it because no one in their right mind will buy a house with declared asbestos—even predatory developers hesitate on that one.

So if we’ve got to fix this place up, we’ll fix it up for us because god knows, even if we managed to sell this place, we can’t afford the mortgage rates right now. (And while yes, apartments are an option, they make my MCAS a lot less stable because you can’t control the shit your neighbors use, nevermind things like a shared laundry facility where everyone wants to smell like “a spring summer breeze” that to me smells like death by fragrance induced anaphylaxis.)

So yes, we’re stuck with this place. For now. A place we had inspected multiple times and were still let down by the reality that people hide things and will do so in the most imaginative ways possible if it means they can make a profit.

The furnace dying the instant we moved in wasn’t a good sign, but shit happens. That’s home ownership. The gas leaks we had last week? Also home ownership. It had passed yearly inspections up until now. Appliances break down and require maintenance, especially gas ones. In an ideal world we would have gotten another five years out of the furnace, but alas, it chose death so we had to yeet it.

Adèle Romany  (French, 1769–1846) • Portrait of a Woman at a Pianoforte • 1808

I came across so many portraits from the early 19th century of young women wearing coral jewelry that I had to look into why.

Thomas Barber  (British, 1771–1843) • Lady Caroline Gordon, Lady Chesham (1785-1866) • Between 1805-1815

It was believed by the people of the era that coral contained properties that protected the health and well-being of the wearer. Coral was worn mostly by young women and children because their health was considered the most vulnerable. If the coral remained bright, it signified its wearer was in good health. If it turned dull, it indicated that the person wearing it was either ill or soon to be. Wearing coral for a portrait helped to portray that the sitter was "the picture of health".

Jewelry sets, such as this one, were called parure. The comb in the upper center was called a diadem. These matching sets are evident in portraits (see the Romany portrait), mostly coral or pearl studded.

I can go on a payment plan if they go through my insurance but I have to pay something upfront and they prefer 30% which is $786.41 and to go lower they have to get permission from powers that be. So I'm about to have to put shit on my credit card again. I still have to have the appointment about the results of the heart monitor too.

posted a month ago on my patreon, original post by @turing-tested, @dog-on-it-tm, @khazel-t, @prettyboy-bigfoot (@clearcutcasualty), @rankeluck, @world-heritage-posts, @icecreamsavant, @yumiiiiiii, @jessbeinme15, @spacepaprika, @rat-on-fire, @thehottestmess, @vang0bus, @royal-random-the-yogurt-queen, @astraltrickster, @rubykgrant, @vaultoffaggotry, @adamsmasher, @cartoondog, and @unstablebill can be found here

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when it turned out that it was a normal piggy who grew up to be a big fat fatty piggu

EDIT: This is a photo of the world’s smallest recognized breed of pig, the kune kune. I’m sorry cartoons lied to you all.

This is the pot bellied pig, another famous “small” breed.

This is your average adult pig.

My dads coworker is at the front and this man comes Up and hands him a document.

The coworker took a Look at the document and while he couldn't read the things written by Hand, because he wasn't wearing his glases, he did notice the Logo of a different Bank so he's like:

"Oh, sorry sir you can't do that here! You have to go to the other Bank for this :)"

The man, visibly confused leaves, but dosen't take the document with him.

The coworker, now just as confused as the Guy actually Takes Out his glases and reads the hand written part:

So our branch had had a big takeover robbery as well as a note one. We also had a teller that had transferred to our branch after having been through a robbery. She was sweet as apple pie, hair up to the ceiling, southern lady who had just been through multiple robberies.

A guy comes in and hands her a folded note. Her immediate thought was “this guy needs to learn you don’t hand bank tellers notes. I am just not going to read that.” So how the conversation goes:

Her: how can I help you today?

Him: I’m here to get money

Her: great *hands him a withdrawal slip*

Him: all the information is on the paper

Her: to process the transaction I need you to put it on my piece of paper

SO HE FILLS OUT A WITHDRAWAL SLIP. Meanwhile another coworker is looking at her latest robbery notification email thinking the guy at the window looks a lot like him but the teller is calm and seems to be following standard transaction.

Back at the window the teller notices his name on the withdrawal slip doesn’t match the name on the account so she asks for his ID. He once again tells her all the relevant info is on the folded note but also gives her his ID and says it is his dad’s account. She tells him he will need a check from his dad to get cash. He grabs the note and leaves.

ONE HOUR LATER

Two new robbery notifications hit our emails, both branches within a mile. It is our guy. Teller goes over to the manager and sheepishly informs them he was here and the time. Security department is notified as are local police and the FBI. The FBI comes over believing that these poor tellers had been robbed for the 3rd time in a month and take her statement. She is completely embarrassed telling them how everything went down and he kept signaling to the note and telling her to read it but she was just done.

To which this FBI agent of 40 years who has been to the scene of many bank robberies (several at this branch in recent weeks) says: Ok. Let me see if I got this right, he came in fully intending to rob you. He gave you the note and you just…refused to read it? So he left and went to the bank literally across the street, handed them the exact same note, and they just handed him five grand? Do I have that correct?”

Her: I am so embarrassed

FBI: this is best thing I have ever heard. He even handed you his ID! Holy-

Her: I feel so dumb!

He was working at a 7-11 that got robbed a lot, working nights. And he was bored and read though his entire contract and learned if you're shot at work you get $200,000. Also, he hated his boss and the job.

So when a guy came in to rob him at gunpoint he got excited and was able to hatch the plan he had been pondering while dealing with a Shitty Boring Job.

"Dude. Shoot me in the leg. Right here- it'll go through and not hit anything vital and I'll be able to quit this fucking job. I'll give you fifty fucking grand to shoot me in the leg then you can take everything in the register."

One day, this guy came in and announced he was there to rob the place. This man was smoking a cigar with one hand and had a gun in the other.

My uncle pointed at the "No Smoking" sign and told him in no uncertain terms, "Put that cigar out, or finish it outside first."

This guy, bless his heart, went back outside to finish his cigar.