1. i can’t believe there are people in the world who haven’t heard this
2. go check out mika he’s great - important to note is that he’s mlm (he’s come out alternately as being gay, bisexual and ‘not interested in labels’ for a while) and a huge amount of his songs are about being mlm so in particular if ya need good mlm artists check him out
Seriously Mika is a gift and sunshine unto this sick sad world
mika is wildly popular in europe but his north american fanbase is like, six people and a napkin, and it’s killing me.
please listen to Mika’s entire discography because there are a LOT of classics that i’m 100% sure you’ve heard at some point in your life, all the love songs are implicitly gay, it’s great, but ESPECIALLY listen to No Place In Heaven (2015).
it always surprises me to remember that mika isn’t actually a part of the global populace’s general consciousness
because his debut album, life in cartoon motion, was such a huge part of my generation’s tween and teen years
like, i guarantee you, you can walk up to any swedish millennial, and they will still know every single line of his song lollipop
it was just a part of our upbringing;
become a crippling anxious mess
develop an attitude problem
and memorize all of mika’s lollipop
This is the song of his I remember being popular here in Ireland, Love Today!
I LOVE MIKA
Grace Kelly was such a big song for me… It’s hard for me to believe it’s considered an older song now. Bless, Mika. He’s just a wonderful person.
He also has a vocal range of FOUR octaves.
The average is about 1.5-2 octaves.
If there are record stores in the afterlife, then Mika is Freddie Mercury’s favourite living artists.
anyone here got tattoos and have any input on the process/things to know,,
Alright, so! I’ve had a bad experience (first tattoo) and a great experience (half sleeve, multiple sessions)
Before you get your tattoo, 2 things to buy is gentle fragrance free soap (baby soap most likely) and fragrance free lotion. just like your most basic cheap things ‘cause you don’t want fragrance to react in an already itchy wound, and you don’t want to take TOO good care of it and have it over heal (so none of that ultra healing vitamin E stuff)
Oh right!!! Do NOT expose a new tattoo to sunlight for at least a few months (a few moments while walking somewhere is fine, but no picnic in the sun without covering it)! And (once it’s healed, never as it’s healing) use sunscreen to protect your tattoo –sunlight will absolutely make it fade faster
Gonna put the advice and description of the process under a cut because i went way into details fjdns it’s long, but don’t hesitate if you have more questions!
im late responding to this but this is a lot of rly good input thank you!!!! the healing process is what concerns me most so its useful to have some more info on that, thank you
the trouble is what i want is a very small tattoo on my hand which im aware would probably hurt, but im not sure how big of a nuisance it would be dealing with keeping it covered for that long (id get it on my non dominant hand, but still) and thats like. very visible, so the inevitable “you did What” conversation with my dad would be significantly unavoidable lmfao
i Really want that one as my first but maybe i might need to consider less immediately visible options as a kind of test of the process first. hm
I posted this on twitter too, but in light of gumroad shitting the bed I heartily recommend itch for all your pdf-selling needs. I use it and so do friends of mine who do adult work, which it hasn’t choked out (yet lmao). It’s fairly intuitive to use, you can adjust the cut that itch takes from your sales, and they sometimes have creator days where 100% from sales goes directly to you. RECOMMEND.
ARTISTS YOUR SAVIOR HAS COME YOUR SAVIOR HAS COME IN THE FORM OF THE WEBSITE 500px.com
I haven’t seen this anywhere, so figured I’d share it: This FREEsite has so many cool pictures from awesome photographers, ranging from nature shots to landscapes to portraits to nude models to architecture to whatever the hell else you can think of. You can access all these pictures FOR FREE, and create galleries to save your favorites. You can also like pictures to support the aforementioned awesome photographers. AND IT’S FREE.
PHOBIA SAFE (no real creatures shown in post itself) with clickable source links for every single fact!
Arthropods are wonderful amazing living things, but often poorly appreciated. This post dispels some common arthropod myths, but also collects some generally cool, fun or surprising facts!
Some people don’t like looking at arthropods, and I won’t pretend to get it, but they still deserve cool and (to the best of my ability) accurate facts, so there will be no real photos in this post. It’s also extremely long, so I’ve put a cut after the first few items! I apologize if any links change or go down, and will fix them when possible.
First: “Bugs” ARE animals. An animal can really be as simple as a jellyfish or a sea sponge, but Arthropods are on the more complex side of the animal kingdom with such familiar adaptations as legs, eyes, muscle tissue, neural cells, egg-laying and more. Possibly only rivaled by nematode worms, they may also represent the majority of animal life in terms of both species and actual biomass, making arthropods the foremost representatives of what constitutes an animal.
Wasps are at least as important as bees. Wasps can pollinate almost all the same flowers, even if it’s with slightly less efficiency, but many plants also attract wasps alone for pollination, and wasps pull additional duty regulating every food web that involves insects at all.
Mosquitoes are also necessary, sorry. The viral claim that “scientists” have “proven” them to be useless is a misunderstanding of one researcher’s opinion that it would be safe to eradicate one variety of mosquito from a limited area. All over the world, mosquitoes are a massive part of the nutrient cycle, and little else could multiply as rapidly in the same range of conditions if they were to go missing.
Ants and bees are effectively just specialized wasps themselves, together forming the order Hymenoptera along with the less famous “sawflies.” You can think of ants as super-social, super-successful subterranean wasps for having evolved from the same ancestors.
Fireflies are carnivorous beetles, which feed primarily on slugs and snails during their larval stages. In some species, adult female fireflies also prey on the males of other fireflies, imitating their light signals as a lure.
Termites are cockroaches. Totally unrelated to ants despite their very similar lifestyles, termites were always considered closely related to roaches but were more recently proven to actually just be very oddball roaches themselves. There are even some highly social wood-eating cockroaches that bridge the evolutionary gap, still alive today.
What kind of intelligence does your character posses? Based on theory of multiple intelligences, these are some ideas what kind of smarts your characters might posses that aren’t the typical academic or street smarts.
1. Visual-spatial (space smart)
These people are good at visualizing things, seeing in 3D, being able to imagine how things look even out of sight from the information they have about it. They are good with directions, maps, charts and pictures. Eye for drawing, patterns and puzzles.
Especially useful for: architects, engineers, artists, pilots
2. Linguistic-verbal (word smart)
The ability to use words well, when writing and speaking. Typical strenghts are telling stories, memorizing information, love for reading, skill with words, debating and persuasive skills, adept at explaining complicated subjects. Also tend to be great at languages.
Especially useful for: writers, journalists, lawyers, teachers, public speakers
3. Logical (reasoning smart)
Not necessarily but possibly mathematical, these people are great at reasoning, pattern recognition and logical analysis. Enjoyment for abstract thinking and ideas, excellent problem-solving skills and logical argumentation are other common traits. Pattersn, categories, relationships.
Especially useful for: mathematicians, accountants, scientists, and detectives.
4. Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart)
Great hand-eye cordination, physical movement, often skilled at sports, dancing and creating things with their hands. Learn and remember rather by doing than listening or reading. Sense of timing and mind-body union excellent.
Sensitive listeners. Thinking in patterns, recognizing rhythms, notes and melodies, good at remembering tunes, these people often enjoy singing or playing instruments. Often show great understanding of musical structure and know quickly when they hear someone going off-key.
Especially useful for: musical teachers, composers, musicians,
6. Interpersonal (people smart)
These people are very good at understanding and interacting with others. From verbal to non-verbal communication, they are proficient at assessing motivations, moods and desires of others and seeing things from multiple perspectives. Great communicators, create positive relationships with others easily and solve group dynamics and group conflicts well. Also enjoy discussions, debates and teamwork.
Especially useful for: psychologists, counselors, salespeople, politicians, philosophers, teachers, managers, team leaders
7. Intrapersonal (self smart)
The opposite of interpersonal smarts is the intrapersonal intelligence, where people are very in tune with themselves and their feelings. They are honest with themselves, enjoy self-reflection, analysing theories and ideals, love daydreaming, and show great self-awareness and assessment of their own strenghts and weaknesses.
Especially useful for: writers, philosophers, theorits, scientists
Bonus types:
8. Creative (ideas smart)
People that show exceptional curiousity, get inspired by little things around them and connect ideas and concepts in an unsual way. It’s a more feeling-based, spontaneous type of intelligence that gets less recognition, but brings immense benefits in all fields.
Especially useful for: artists, marketers, scientists, concept artists,
10. Abstract (concept smart)
Drawn to abstract ideas, these people enjoy deep discussions, don’t like to settle on one truth and ask questions that have no easy or no answer at all. Connecting, conceptualizing, analysing, listening and putting things together, they are great at seeing things from a distance, seeing the whole and not just the pieces.
Especially useful for: scientists, philosophers, researchers, theorists, designers, analysts
Someday, they will publish a box set of enormous, leather-bound volumes containing between them all of the Discworldnovels and supplementary texts, complete with annotations and critical discussion; in centuries to come, scholars will drive themselves blind trying to figure out all of the puns and plays on words; there will be a Pratchett scholar on every university’s literature faculty. Someday.
I feel like this is a good time to plug the Annotated Pratchett File! Not, uh, not that I’ve ever needed any of the jokes explained to me, definitely not, I just happen to have the link for other reasons.
Please do not let debt collectors play in your face.
I am super busy so I honestly don’t even know if I should be taking the time to write this, but hopefully this will help those of you who may find yourself in a similar situation.
Earlier this year I received a letter of notice from a debt collector stating that they had acquired a debt supposedly belonging to me and that, per law, I have 30 days to dispute the debt. I immediately drafted a letter and sent it to both disputing the debt and request validation of the debt as well as possible settlement arrangements had they actually been able to validate said debt
I sent this letter via certified mail. Always certified mail.
About a week after the 30 day period for them to respond expired, I received a Phone call very specifically crafted in a way to invoke urgency and panic and suggest legal action. So, naturally, I called this number only to discover this was a different company that had only just recently acquired said supposed debt. I reiterated to them that I was disputing this debt and required validation in writing.
The initial conversation went smoothly, they then called me back the next day and became aggressive. They accused me of lying and did everything under the sun to try and trick me into validating this debt as mine so that they would not have to legally send me that validation. I, knowing my rights, insisted that I was disputing the debt and that they were required to send me validation despite them claiming that they were not and that they already had and many other number of lies. I refused to continue the conversation until someone had sent me validation to which they continually responded that they would be forwarding this to their legal department and blah blah blah blah blah.
Surprise surprise, I get a phone call today from yet another company, this one claiming to be in the process of forwarding my account to the county clerks office. That was an immediate red flag as the county clerk does not handle debt disputes. They would have to hire a lawyer in my state to handle this case. I asked what company this was as they had not stated initially, and when they told me I realized this was now another company who had purchased said alleged debt and we’re trying to collect on it. this one outright illegally threatening to take me to court knowing they weren’t.
Beyond that, he tried to lie to me and tell me that a debt validation was not what I thought it was and that a validation was actually just a notice that they had purchased a debt so when I received a letter stating that they had purchased this debt that would be a validation.
That is not true! Debt companies are legally required to send you notice of an allegedly acquired debt in writing and you have 30 days to dispute and request that validation. The company then has 30 days themselves to respond and validate your debt or the debt is forfeit. This man tried to lie to me and tell me that a notice was the same thing as a dead validation in order to trick me into paying a debt that he cannot validate that I am actively disputing.
This is now the fourth company that has attempted to collect on a debt they cannot validate. They know they cannot validate this debt and instead have relied on trying to trick me into paying it. These tactics would absolutely work if I did not have a sales background and or know my rights.
And this ladies and gentlemen is why you always always always dispute a debt. The last debt I disputed was immediately pulled from collections and that allowed me to get back in contact with the original creditor and work out a payment plan so that it would never hit my credit and keep my account with them current. This debt is invalid and therefore they cannot hit my credit with it nor can I collect on it or I will sue them.
If you guys have any questions about dealing with that collectors please ask me.
I’m not surprised they gave you the long ass run around on this.
For anyone that has a debt sold to a Collections Agency do exactly what OP did and request debt validation (Google-able). Most of the time, the Original company you owed debt to did not give them your Social Security Number or your date of birth; just a good phone number and address. In order to be held legally responsible for it and to be on your credit score, they need your SSN or DOB to prove it’s yours.
Usually, they’re initial call will say “Hey so before we can discuss your debt of $Xxxx, we need you to verify your SSN and DOB.” They’re lying. That means they want you to confirm it so they can legally pin that debt to you. If you send a Debt Validation letter VIA CERTIFIED MAIL, that Collections Agency has 30 days to prove you owe the debt and that it does in fact tie to you. Since in most cases they can’t, they’ll send a letter saying “We don’t have the necessary information to collect on this debt. It is now null and void.” Send copies of that to the credit bureaus, and they wipe it from your credit report.
With OP, they did the shadiest thing possible by constantly re-selling the debt, thus starting over that 30 day response period.
Never pay a debt unless you’re certain that you owe it. Especially if it’s for a deceased relative. Debt collection companies are especially predatory during the grieving period asking you to “Pay down the debt” or “Clear their good name”. Unless you (co)signed, don’t give them anything. The debt will get written off on their taxes. If you do pay, you’re locked in on that debt. You basically showed “willingness and ability to pay” which is all they need.
It is very important that the language in your novel reflects the time and place in which the story is set.
For example, my story is set in Italy. My characters would never “ride shotgun”, a term coined in US in the early 1900s referring to riding alongside the driver with a shotgun to gun bandits.
Do your research! A free tool that I found to be very useful is Ngram Viewer.
You can type any word and see when it started appearing in books. For example…one of my characters was going to say “gazillion” (I write YA) in 1994. Was “gazillion” used back then?
And the answer is…YES! It started trending in 1988 and was quite popular in 1994.
Enjoy ^_^
This is really important, especially because language can change in very unexpected ways.
For example, did you know that before 1986 people never said “I need to”?Instead, they were far more likely to say “I ought to”, “I have to”, “I must”, or “I should”.
Don’t believe me?
Anyway, most people won’t notice subtle changes like that. But your reader will notice and be confused when characters in your medieval world use metaphors involving railroads and rockets.
One of the things you can do besides use Google Ngrams is to read books or watch movies written in the time period you want to set your story. The key here is that they can’t just be set in that time period, they have to have been made in that time period.
Also, there’s a Lexicon Valley episode on this very topic which I highly recommend. It’s called Capturing the Past.
SEE ALSO Etymonline. Word origins and when they’re first recorded. So, say I wanted to find out when a “coffee break” became a thing – around the 1950s, as seen in magazine adverts – or characters might talk about more genrallly “taking a break” from the 1860s…
“Just string it together in any order, the more random it is the more complex it’ll sound" improvising music on the fly was one of Mozart’s party tricks
Not saying this guy is Mozart but he’s smart and clever and talented and way, way underappreciating himself
Bimbo qualities
babe wake up new flavor of imposter syndrome dropped
