Simon Pitt

Uncle Stan is also highly accomplished in the field of flatulence

Not much to say about this one. I like a fart gag as much as the next person (probably more so, if I’m honest). It’s an original bit of phrasing, referring to flatulence like it’s a talent or trade. 

Kenny gives them the tour, showing them each one and explaining what it is.

“That’s my Harley,” he says.

“Harley,” Cole repeats.

“That there is the queen of hearts and over here is the album cover of Th e Wall, by Pink Floyd.”

“Pink Boy.”

“And that little bird smoking the doobie is Woodstock. You know, Snoopy’s friend?”

“Big Bird.”

“Close enough. And that there is some spiritual Japanese writing, but I forgot what it means.”

This Is Where I Leave You (Jonathan Tropper)

This made me chuckle when I read it. The context, if you need it, is a large tattooed man (Kenny) is showing a toddler his tattoos, and explaining them. There’s a nice bit of malapropism with the toddler’s misunderstanding of the tattoos (“Pink Boy” for Pink Floyd) and the inappropriateness of Snoppy’s friend smoking a joint.

There’s a nice conclusion as well, with the “spiritual Japanese writing”, undercut by the fact Kenny doesn’t have an idea what it means. The impressive thing about this exchange is just how many jokes are fitted into such a short exchange.

tastefullyoffensive:

[@laura_ellenxx/@kitkat/@oreo]

114,463 notes

Reblogged from tastefullyoffensive

rebeccalando:

These flexible paper heads will haunt your dreams.

gpoy

93,173 notes

Reblogged from yeahapparently

I never wanted kids, so I never had them. I prefer dogs and cats. Well, any animals really. I dated, married, divorced and dated again, and have successfully managed to avoid children throughout my life. But then something terrible happened: I fell in love with a man who has kids. Lots of kids. (Three is a lot.)

I found Ian online. I was searching for a Friday night date and he seemed funny, fit and quirky. From the photos, I couldn’t tell how attractive he was but he liked running, his music taste was good and, well, we were both free that weekend. He liked my cheekbones, was impressed that I run cross-country but fixated on my hatred of bananas, in case it revealed something Freudian. He chose one of my favourite restaurants and we met and fell in love.

No, dear reader, that is not how it happened at all.

Ian had got used to being economical with the truth when he met women. The less he said about his complicated personal life, the better his dates went and a succession of women made this easy for him by not firing questions across the table.

It turns out that I am not most women. I could see Ian try to deflect the conversation away from himself and I smelled trouble. I launched an interrogation that stopped just short of waterboarding and which forced him into lie after lie. I knew he was lying; he knew I knew he was lying. But he has gorgeous eyes and so we met again.The truth emerged over the next few turbulent weeks as I continued to press for information and pointed out the discrepancies in his story.

Eventually, little by little, he was forced to come clean: he still lived with his ex and their three children because their house had so far failed to sell.

Ian knew that if he mentioned any of this, his chances of another date with me would be slim. But, as each of these facts emerged, I blew into a frenzy, but somehow he managed to talk me round. It is safe to say that none of my friends wanted to meet him. Most still don’t.

We have been together for five months now. It doesn’t sound a lot, I know, but it feels right. It always did.

Even during the “revelations phase”, we somehow felt that we fitted and that gave us both a reason to keep on trying. Perhaps if the sex had been less good, I would have walked away. (Oh, come on, don’t judge – good sex is hard to come by.) It’s true that our first month was spent largely in the bedroom, but then we emerged and realised we had other things in common too.

As long as we didn’t mention the kids, we got on great. Yet at the back of my mind lurked an inconvenient truth: if we were to have a future together, I would have to learn to be around children.

I don’t have kids. My friends don’t have kids. My brother has a grown-up one in Germany and two babies in another country, whom I have never met. There are no children in my life at all and that, to me, is a good thing.

Babies make me nauseous. I don’t like the way they look, smell or sound. It’s not my fault. No one in my family – including my mum – likes babies. Puppies, on the other hand, are playful and adorable and can be easily forgiven for pooping on the carpet. There are no such redeeming features about babies. None.

One friend, many years ago, got pregnant accidentally. Before she moved away, she insisted on bringing the baby over to meet me. I faked my own death but she came anyway. I ignored the baby in her arms. The conversation went like this:

“How are you? What have you been up to?” (Stupid question.)

“Why don’t you hold her?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you want to hold the baby?”

“No thanks.”

“Go on. It won’t hurt.”

“I’ve never held a baby.”

“In that case, you must.”

And with that, baby was shoved into my arms and a photograph was quickly – and, I might add, without permission – taken. The image shows a baby whose expression confirms she has seen into my soul and found me seriously deficient. As for me, the fake smile and panicked eyes say it all. And I was still clinging on to a rabbit. That’s right, I hadn’t let go of my disabled rabbit, Stanley, who appears to find the whole clumsy scene adorably amusing. You see, I am utterly maternal – just not with my own species.

I don’t hate babies, but I really don’t like them. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t hurt one and would never want to see one harmed or neglected but I do not want to be around them. The closest Ian and I came to parting was the “final revelation”, forced out of him when I spotted a highchair in his house.

“How old is Betty?” I asked. He squirmed visibly.

“Not yet two.”

My bullshitometer went into hyperdrive. “How far off two?”

“Ten months off.”

Oh, crap. A baby.

I had fully expected to go to my grave saying, “Well, I tried holding a baby once, didn’t like it, didn’t do it again.” Then, out of the blue one Sunday morning, Ian suggested we take his two younger kids – the girls – out to feed the ducks. Together.

And so three hours later I climbed into his car, to find Emily and Betty already secured into their seats in the back. With some trepidation, I looked round. Betty was tiny, beautiful and singing away; not in real words but in deliciously sweet sounds. I looked across at Emily, who fixed me with an unwavering death stare.

“This is my friend, Kate,” said Ian.

“Nice to meet you,” I said for want of another phrase. At least I didn’t try to shake their tiny hands. Betty gurgled and crooned. Emily stared in silence.

At the duck pond, Ian took his elder daughter’s hand, leaving me to push Betty’s buggy. I clutched the handles with my clammy hands, took a deep breath and just pretended it was a shopping trolley. All I had to do was take it wide round the bends and not spill the contents. Simple.

At the cafe, I must have seemed like the world’s worst mother. I had no idea what the girls liked to eat, if they could use a straw or even whether Betty was capable of standing up unaided. While Ian took Emily to the toilet to clean her up after she had covered herself in chocolate cake, I was, once again, left holding the baby.

As Betty looked inquisitively at me, out of a place I didn’t even know existed came this thought: what if I grow to love this little girl, and Ian and I don’t make it? Already, that thought is unbearable.

Via The Guardian 

cjbrowne:

lessstupidthanyesterday:

I’ve been obsessed with automating and scripting things for a while now. I know it’s weird, but I actually enjoy scripting. It’s precise, it’s quick it’s efficient.

I’ve been using vbscript a lot, since you can automate most core components of Windows, you can automate Microsoft Office and also, it’s very easy. It has a syntax that really makes sense to me. There aren’t lots of curly braces, which I’m not a big fan of.

However, today, by chance, I discovered that you can automate much of Photoshop too using Actions. It essentially works by creating a Macro. You click on Window => Actions and then you can record a new action. I wish I’d known this yesterday when I went through and recoloured 26 images. But oh well, you live and learn. So I’ll be less stupid next time, which is all I can hope for.

“I wish I’d known this yesterday” is quite funny to read in a post by someone whose URL is “less stupid than yesterday”!  Anyway, what have you got against curly brackets?  *narrows eyes*

I know you’re a Microsoft guy, but Linux is great for scripting support.  There’s even a command-line image processing suite called ImageMagick which allows you to script every task you can imagine doing in Photoshop (and more) using pretty much any language you want.  Python might be your best bet if you don’t like brackets.  :)

It’s a good point, I have nothing against braces really - they’re kind of crucial. But there’s always that danger of ending up a block of code with }}}}}}, and having to bracket count.

I think what I’ve got used to (and “used to” is the operative phrase here - it’s very difficult to say one is better) is the way of closing code blocks. For example, in Vbscript you say:

Function MyFunction()

//Do some stuff

End Function

It’s very obvious where that function ends.

The javascript equivalent is:

function CheckContent(){

 //Do some stuff

} 

 And it’s easy to confuse that closing } with something else. It’s the same with:

 IF this THEN

//do this 

ELSE

//do that 

END IF

Probably just a weakness on my part. But I’ve grown to like that. I found it weird at first - I used to mainly code in javascript and php. But now, this just looks nicer to me.

You’re right, I am a Windows guy - it’s the nature of working in a company that is 95% Windows. We do have Linux, Unix and OSX at work, and I do manage them too, but for day to day tasks, I’m stuck with Windows (along with 80% of the world, I guess), so I’m having to make Lemonade.

I’m interested in ImageMagick though. Funnily enough, I’ve just looked at the website and I remember looking at this a while back (and, in fact, using it) for converting some formats and resizing some images. There’s a Windows binary available too! But you know how I issued the commands to it? That’s right, vbscript!

Every task you can imagine doing in Photoshop though… really? I reckon my friend in Adobe might have something to say about that :p

3 notes

Reblogged from cjbrowne