good thing i listen to exactly one song with explicit lyrics every day
I’ve been saying this for a while but Startup Bro is the new and terrifying lovechild of the brogrammer and the business major and he is somehow even more self-centered and bigoted than either of them
No, no, guys, look closely.
This house is looking for extremely physically fit young men (No drugs, no makeup, no special diet, exercise 15 hrs a week) who are passive and docile (no protests, no music lyrics with swears) who, most of all, will not be missed if they disappear(very little social media presence, not rich enough to own expensive luxury items, no need to constantly be in contact with their parents over bills/gifts, few identifying markings like tattoos)
Wednesday, April 18: Blind Guardian, “Time What is Time”
Somewhere Far Beyond was
the major-label breakthrough that introduced Blind Guardian to larger European
and Japanese audience, crystallized the band’s musical and lyrical concerns,
and bridged the gap between the straight-line thrash of their first three
records and the near-symphonic bombast that would soon follow. “Time What is Time” opened the album in
suitably dramatic fashion, placing Thomas Stauch’s percussive throttle high in
the mix and stacking enough Hansi Kürsch vocal tracks to fill an entire
studio. Andre Olbrich and Marcus Siepen
actually had to fight to be heard over all the grandiloquence, as Kalle Trapp’s
production wasn’t quite equipped to handle all of the vocal and percussive
layers, but for the most part everything cohered well enough to render “Time
What is Time” an excellent pre-Imaginations
from the Other Side anthem. If
anything, although Blind Guardian would remain a power metal band through and
through, they would never again sound this frenzied, even though the song was
arguably less intense than what that came before.
I will never forgive them for cutting out this scene.
Tumblr app doesn’t show this gif set but I already know what it is. No need to hesitate to reblog.
And he did this just before a road trip, stuck in the car with his parents asking what he was thinking.
The look of utter defiance Dudley gives Vernon as he steps over the fence though
And how he does it really slowly as well as if to say “What you gonna do about it huh?”
The phone rings. It was an absurd wedding gift from his father in-law, and one which much to Harry’s surprise, had actually worked when he’d plugged it into the landline. Arthur had taken to phoning him on it, just for the pure novelty of the thing—though how they’d managed to get a BT engineer out to the Burrow without causing an incident, Harry doesn’t know. He’s not sure he wants to.
“Hello?”
“Uhm,, is this…is this the Potter residence?”
There’s a beat of silence as Harry adjusts the receiver against his ear, not quite sure he’s heard who he thinks he has. “…Dudley?”
“Yea…uhm, Harry?”
“Dudley.” Harry repeats numbly, turning to look at Ginny who is looking at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. “Uh…Christ, Dudley, hi how did…how did you find this number?”
There’s another beat of silence and the crackle of static that might have been a sigh or simply just the line breaking up. “Hi, sorry I know you probably…sorry this was stupid. I uh, I put your name in the computer and this was the only thing that came up.”
“Oh.” Harry breathes, still trying to recover his equilibrium. Ten minutes ago he’d been using his wand to clear away dinner, he’d been getting ready to sit down and read through some reports before putting the kids to bed, and now somehow, he’s talking to his muggle cousin who he hasn’t seen since… “How, how are you?”
“Good, yea” Dudley replies, seeming to rally, “You?”
“Yea, uh, doing well…”
The conversation lasts maybe a half hour, faltering and awkward. But they’re going for a coffee at the end of the week and Harry supposes…that’s…that’s a thing that is happening.
*
“Harry…”
Harry turns and looks up, and looks up some more at the looming figure blocking out the light.
“Dudley,” he says, standing up and hoping the pang of something awful doesn’t show on his face. For a moment he thought he’d been looking at Vernon. “It’s good to see you.”
Dudley gives him a look that says he clearly knows Harry is lying, but is thankful for being humored. “You too, you’re looking good…”
They pass the first few minutes with awkward pleasantries and even more awkward silences. But it’s…nice would be too strong a word, but it’s not bad either. He even manages to get a smile out of him when he calls him Big D, the other man shaking his head with a self depreciating eye roll.
“Dad died,” Dudley says after a while, and Harry feels an icy hot flash go down his spine, curdling in his gut.
“Oh,” he says, not quite sure how he’s supposed to feel about that, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Dudley snorts into his coffee. “Somehow I doubt it.” and it’s not accusing, but Harry still can’t help but feel like he should defend himself. The words they locked me in a cupboard are on the cusp of his tongue but Dudley gets there before him. “There’s a lot of things…looking back…lot of things…” and it’s not an apology, not really. “Took me a long time to realize certain things weren’t right…too long.”
Harry nods at that, because yes, it had also taken him a long time too to understand the full of extent of what had gone on in 4 Privet Drive. He still doesn’t like tight spaces.
“You realize things though, when you have kids,” Dudley carries on, shaking his head, “Like they’re just kids, how can you do that to a kid? They need you for everything.”
And Harry can relate to that too. Lily is three and Ginny is pregnant again and James already has an alarming alacrity for finding trouble and with or without magic Harry doesn’t have enough hands to deal with it all. But he loves it, and he loves them, and the thought of anyone ever treating his children the way he remembers his first eleven years of life is enough to make the electric lights over their head flicker.
“You’ve got kids?”
“Two,” Harry says, “third one on the way. You?”
“Nice. Just the one, so far.” He hands over his phone, the image of a bright young girl with dark skin and tight ringlet curls staring back at him from the grasp of Dudley’s arms. “Effie.” He smiles ruefully at Harry’s obvious surprise. “Dad wasn’t too happy about that either.”
“She’s gorgeous.” Harry says, handing the phone back and pulling out his own wallet to reveal the moving pictures inside.
Dudley flinches a bit at that, but he guffaws broadly when he spies James. “Cor, he don’t half look like you. No glasses though.”
“No,” Harry says, pushing his own glasses back up his nose. “He’s got his mother’s eyes, thankfully.”
“Actually, Harry, there was something I was hoping we could…talk about.”
And ah, there it is. “What about?”
“It’s…it’s about Effie…”
And when he’s done talking Harry just wants to lean back and laugh and laugh and laugh, because of course Vernon Dursley’s granddaughter is a witch, of course she is. But he doesn’t, because Dudley is doing the one thing he can think of to try and help his child, and Harry can’t fault him for that.
*
They keep in touch after that. Christmas cards, postcards—gifts for the kids on birthdays. The year Effie turns eleven—the same as James—Harry drops a casually long thought out text into the familial void.
“Diagon A this weekend, if you’re up for it?”
The text comes back quickly, a little too quickly for the way Dudders pecks at his phone whenever Harry has seen him typing. “Snds gd, 1st pint on u 😉 – Big D 🍺🍺🍺👌👍”
It’ll be painfully awkward, it always is. But it’s something.
2015 – Here are some gifs of Donald Trump being attacked by a bald eagle named Uncle Sam, literally the least patriotic thing that can happen to an American.
I’m reblogging this again because I finally realized why this is so funny to me, as a bird person.
In the first gif, what you’re seeing is a man who has zero idea how to handle a bird. That’s a heavy bird, and he’s got his arm stretched out as far as it will go in an attempt to keep the bird away from his face. What that does is create unstable footing for Uncle Sam. The handler is there trying to hold up Trump’s arm, but the bird has already realized it needs to leave or it will fall. In the first gif the bird is not attacking Trump- it is trying to get away from him so it doesn’t get hurt.
In the second gif, what we see is a bird that remembers what just happened and is blaming Trump for it. Uncle Sam sees Trump reach for its tether, and makes a lunge at Trump’s hand to keep him away. The bird /does not/ want to hang out with Trump because it has learned that Trump has no idea what he is doing.
Uncle Sam is rejecting Trump based on Trump’s proven inability to properly handle Uncle Sam. And that is both hilarious and beautiful.
Good bird.
Always reblog Uncle Sam telling Trump to fuck off
This is a better explanation of these gifs than I could have given!
Organized Chaos 