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which is definitely not an omen

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in 2015 I needed a job really bad for reasons not worth getting into. i was living in ohio for like 6 months & i just applied at every place within a 30 minute drive from me and i got a call from the local Game Stop mere minutes after submitting the online app, which was obviously a red flag but I wasn’t in the position to be picky.

so they tell me when to show up for orientation & I get there the day-of but the store is closed & locked. i text the manager & he says back “oh yeah. i manage two Game Stops and open them alternate days.”

apparently the Game Stop I originally applied to is open Mondays Wednesdays Fridays and the other one is open Sundays Tuesdays Thursdays Saturdays.

They’re 15 minutes apart. I don’t ask whether it would make sense to just have one store locally that is open daily, bc maybe the guy knows something I don’t.

So I get to the other Game Stop and walk in and it seems like there’s no one working there. There’s just a single woman in there wearing an ankle length leather trench coat. She didn’t greet me when I came in & she’s just browsing.

After ten minutes I ask her if she’s seen any employees and she’s like “oh I’m an employee.” She’s not wearing a name tag on the trench coat.

I tell her I’m here for training and she tells me the manager hasn’t come in yet. “he falls asleep playing xbox all the time but if he’s on live we can try pinging him to wake him up.”

I play Xbox and that absolutely doesn’t sound like a thing you can do in the way she’s describing it but once again maybe she knows something I don’t.

I ask if we have an Xbox that we can use to “ping” him and she says “yeah the one in the back we play on.”

She has an English accent by the way, a very specific & posh one which usually wouldn’t be relevant but we’ll get there.

So before she leads me to the Xbox-in-the-back she goes “oh damn. our internet has actually been down all morning, I forgot. We need to call the provider and have them come out and fix it. Can you do that?”

Can I call an unnamed internet provider and schedule them to come do service at a business where I don’t even technically work yet? Idk. She gives me their number and I call them and they put me on hold.

People are walking in and she’s not greeting them. She keeps browsing and people assume like I did that she’s another customer so they’re coming up to the counter where I’m on hold to ask me for help, and then I have to say I can’t help them and to ask the woman in the trenchcoat, and then she says “we can’t sell you anything. internet’s down.”

this goes on for 30 minutes and every time the store is empty she’s chatting at me and I’m on hold and then a man walks in the door and he says “sorry I fell asleep on live again haahaahaa” so this is the manager and the minute she starts speaking to him she no longer has an English accent which has me confused because it did not sound fake.

It was regionally specific and very natural.

the manager asks what I’m doing and I say I’m on hold with the internet provider and he gives me a thumbs up and walks to the back.

so I ask how long she’s lived in the U.S. and say I’m always interested in the way people can sometimes go in and out of accents and she says “oh I’m American. he asked me to stop doing the accent so I only do it when he’s not here.”

Suddenly I wonder what I’m doing here and I tell her I need to leave and I give no excuse but at this point I didn’t feel like I needed one? She said okay! See you later.

The manager didn’t contact me and that night I got offered some other retail job I jumped on.

Three months later the Game Stop manager texts me and asks if I can cover a shift in an hour and I say back “I don’t think I work there? I left an hour into my training. And we never spoke again.” And he texts back “hahahaha right on.”

And you may think wow, what a strange experience that all was but recently I have spoken to friends who did work at Game Stop and when I tell them this story they don’t even blink. Nothing I say surprises them. I was at the average Game Stop

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The thing about the D&D movie which is absolutely genius is that the game mechanics basically insulate them against any of the most frustratingly fun sucking movie criticisms. “But why were the guards looking the wrong way?” Failed their perception check. “Why did the spell stop RIGHT before they would have died” Dropped concentration. It gets to be dumb and fun anyone that TRIES to be the plot hole police gets ever increasingly obscure D&D rulebooks thrown down in front of them and called a fake nerd. There's NOTHING those type of guys hate more than being a fake nerd. This movie is untouchable.

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as a huge lover of birds, 90% of the concern against wind turbines being used for energy is literally just pro fossil fuel propaganda. birds ARE at a risk however there is a lot of strategies even as simple as painting one of the blades that reduces a lot of accidental deaths. additionally renewable energy sources will do more in favor of the environment that would positively impact birds (and all of us). one study found over one million bird deaths from wind turbines. while that is a shockingly high number and we should work to drastically shrink it, at least 1.3 billion birds die to outdoor cats on a yearly basis. it was never about caring about birds

#important #computer stuff #(for the last addition)

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the African wild cat (from which house cats are descended) looks like a normal house cat but with uncomfortably longer legs

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government is trying to ban tiktok meanwhile millions of poor and disabled americans are about to completely lose their internet access at the end of april because congress wont renew funding for the affordable connectivity program

hell fucking world

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#sillyposting

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People are so stupid about snakes. If there's a little black racer chilling outside just leave it alone, you don't have to kill it, it's probably dealing with all your pests for you, jesus christ

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“If a society puts half its children into short skirts and warns them not to move in ways that reveal their panties, while putting the other half into jeans and overalls and encouraging them to climb trees, play ball, and participate in other vigorous outdoor games; if later, during adolescence, the children who have been wearing trousers are urged to “eat like growing boys,” while the children in skirts are warned to watch their weight and not get fat; if the half in jeans runs around in sneakers or boots, while the half in skirts totters about on spike heels, then these two groups of people will be biologically as well as socially different. Their muscles will be different, as will their reflexes, posture, arms, legs and feet, hand-eye coordination, and so on. Similarly, people who spend eight hours a day in an office working at a typewriter or a visual display terminal will be biologically different from those who work on construction jobs. There is no way to sort the biological and social components that produce these differences. We cannot sort nature from nurture when we confront group differences in societies in which people from different races, classes, and sexes do not have equal access to resources and power, and therefore live in different environments. Sex-typed generalizations, such as that men are heavier, taller, or stronger than women, obscure the diversity among women and among men and the extensive overlaps between them… Most women and men fall within the same range of heights, weights, and strengths, three variables that depend a great deal on how we have grown up and live. We all know that first-generation Americans, on average, are taller than their immigrant parents and that men who do physical labor, on average, are stronger than male college professors. But we forget to look for the obvious reasons for differences when confronted with assertions like ‘Men are stronger than women.’ We should be asking: ‘Which men?’ and ‘What do they do?’ There may be biologically based average differences between women and men, but these are interwoven with a host of social differences from which we cannot disentangle them.”

— Ruth Hubbard, “The Political Nature of ‘Human Nature’“ (via gothhabiba)

Yes.

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#gun mention #HEEEEEELP #sillyposting #MY STOMACH HURTS FROM LAUGHING AT THIS #COMICALLY LARGE GUN #actually no. muppet show skit

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#my mildly sheltered childhood was full of me sneaking onto dailymotion and watching classic who #doctor who #for those who dont know- dailymotion is a video hosting site similar to youtube

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US food & drug administration (FDA) proposing ban on electric shock devices (like ones used by places like judge rotenberg center [JRC]) for self injurious behaviors or behaviors deemed aggressive.

was banned before, then was overturned. now propose new ban.

can submit formal comment here:

which. if can, please do. show FDA that there public support for ban.

not see if say only US people can comment.

edit to add: open until may 28th 2024

put under cut, some trigger warning about badly summarized info abt these devices & JRC

readmore

these devices different from modern ECT. modern ECT done under general anesthesia. these devices. ECT not without faults but these devices not same as ECT.

while there truly are behaviors in disabilities like autism that genuine cause harm to self or others, 1) using this shock device for those behaviors without consent or try other methods or think about underlying why, still issue, 2) many times used for behaviors that. staff just don’t like. like saying no. or refuse take off coat.

there videos online.

but let just say. GED-4, used by JRC (at very minimum used, past tense. not sure what model use now, but definitely still used. & still being defended on JRC website), shock for 2 seconds, lowest setting, shock at 45mA, highest at 90. don’t know what means? me neither, but to compare, tasers 3-4 mA. n frequently see survivors say they get more than 1 shocks. people shocked by these scream. put it lightly

old stuff wrote by survivor:

often see people only talk abt autism when talk abt JRC & these devices. not just autism. those diagnosed w conduct disorders, psychiatric disorders, autism, intellectual disability, & imagine other developmental disorders too.

though. need lower support needs autistic people & late diagnose autistic people decenter themselves on this. you all not typical target demographic for this. you not most affected here.

because. going be early diagnosed & visibly disabled & higher support needs people most affected.

also. majority people in JRC BIPOC. one old statistic say 50% Black people.

majority of these. are children.

& most these ugly facts & statistics not going be on JRC website. they going make everything pretty & appealing & downplay. & defend use of shock device on website

had to look through JRC website for this. just for my sacrifice please go fill out comment for FDA. link again: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/26/2024-06037/banned-devices-proposal-to-ban-electrical-stimulation-devices-for-self-injurious-or-aggressive

#important

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Gaza's municipality is trying to raise money to fix and restore Gaza's water system. Please support them by boosting and/or donating

#palestine

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medieval backstreet boys: you are… my friar

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sunsets after 7pm now !!!!!!!!!!! we made it guys !!!!!!!!!!!!

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