Gotta backslash your backslash there,my Monster!

‘Bully’ used to mean good friend. There’s a scene in Shakespeare (who else?) where he talks about someone sending his bully boys to teach someone a lesson, meaning he sent his close friends. But, over time, people took it to mean his thuggish friends and so the word’s meaning shifted.

The kicker is that the peasants spoke the old proto-germanic language, and the nobles spoke the shiny new French derivation. So peasants raised the beasts and the nobles ate the beasts.

FANG? Facebook, Amazon, ???, Google.

Pffft. An ‘atom bomb’ as a unit of measurement is (roughly) equal to:

ff x (hdl/afps) x solh x amb

Where:
ff = football fields
hdl = hot dog lengths
afps = average Floridian pants size
solh = Statues of Liberty heights
amb = average medical bill.

Swearing or aggresive behaviour in public when there are little kids around.

When I worked in a (casual) office, I did the same. Grey polo shirt, black jeans, every day for about a decade. Now I work from home, freelance, and I wear whatever’s clean with much the same result… I don’t worry about it.

A combination of Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, whatever the name of the character Jon Goodman played in Roseanne… and… Donkey Kong.

Oh, that is such a Hermione Grainger answer!

We’re this close.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - someone else said it’s a cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason. It’s a brilliant album that still stands up half a century later. No-one else does middle-aged angst quite like Floyd: “And then one day you find, Ten years have got behind you, No one told you when to run, You missed the starting gun… The time is gone, the song is over, Thought I’d something more to say.”

Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime - a narrative concept album. Nothing else sounds quite like it, and it is operatic and amazing.

Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - another narrative concept album, and the best thing Maiden did in their third musical period.

Metallica - Master of Puppets - not a concept album, but the best album Metallica made. Every song is a banger, with some absolute treasures: “Master of Puppets”, “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”, and especially the mighty “Orion”.

Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd- Yes, this is a cliche.

Yeah, but for good reason. It’s still an amazing, near perfect, album.

I’m with you on this one, OP. Selfish, litter-dropping, swearing-in-front-of-kids, loud-music-playing motherfuckers don’t care what other people think and they accelerate the erosion of community. Community is how we defend each other from the inevitable shit that is heading our way.

Mine is a composite smell of my grandfather’s shed: soil, and sawdust, and wood glue, and petrol, and pipe smoke, and whisky. He was a keen gardener and would often spend the afternoon pottering around the garden, tending to his veggies or flowerbeds or mowing the lawn, then wind up for an hour or so in the shed, sitting on a deck chair and smoking his pipe (or occasionally a cigar) and drinking single malt whisky. Sometimes he’d be reading the paper, sometimes looking through the notebooks he filled with plans and notes about the garden, sometimes just looking out across the garden and being content. I never got into gardening, but I did love to find him at the end of a day at school and just hang out with him in the shed. Often we wouldn’t talk, he’d read the paper and I’d read The Beano. I learned companionable silence from him.

Sometimes I’ll catch one of those smells and it takes me right back, over 50 years ago, to that shed and makes me feel safe and warm and happy.

Recognise a fair few that have been mentioned. Oh, also that Hossenfeffer chap but he’s nowhere near as funny as he thinks he is.

Pfft, as if Wikipedia is a reliable source. Do your own research: go and stand next to Greg. He’s just a little fellow.

Duh. Soup, obv. It’s already wet.

Pfft. People are idiots. Philosophy is literally the OG PhD.

Fun fact: Greg Davies is actually only 5’5". He looks taller because Alex Horne is so short at only 4’9".

A story I shared with my kids. Got it off reddit years ago and no longer remember the name of the redditor who posted it (apologies if you’re out there!).

— STORY TIME (I will cry again as I format it for Lemmy (I will cry every fucking time I read it)) —

The last thing I remember is My Person bringing my to the Sharp Place.

I never understood why My Person would bring me to the Sharp Place. The smells were sharp, and they poked me with sharp things. That’s why I called it the Sharp Place. It was a bad place. I didn’t like it.

I don’t know why My Person brought me there, that day of all days. I already hadn’t been feeling good. I’d been throwing up, and my hips hurt and my paws hurt. Even eating grass didn’t help. And then My Person brought me to the Sharp Place. I tried to be mad at him, but he seemed so sad about something, so I tried to wag my tail to cheer him up. I didn’t even really notice when the Sharp Man poked me.

Then my eyes got heavy and that was the last thing I remember.

Buddy, a voice said. Buddy, wake up.

I opened my eyes and got to my feet, and I realized my paws didn’t hurt anymore. I tried a wag, and that was fine, too. I sniffed the air. It smelled like the Play Park and like Our Home and the Car Window. I liked it a lot.

Welcome, Buddy, came the voice again, from behind me.

I turned around, and there was a person there. He wasn’t My Person, but he was all safe and good smells, so I trusted him.

Where am I? I said.

You’re in the place that Good Boys go, the person said.

I was a Good Boy? I said.

You were a Very Good Boy, he told me.

That was good. I always tried to be a Good Boy. Where’s My Person? I asked.

He’s still down there, the person said. And he waved his arm and all of a sudden we were in Our Home, and My Person was sitting on the Forbidden Chair and looking sad. Every so often, he’d look over at the Okay Couch, where I was allowed so sit, and his breath would catch because he was very sad. I tried to nuzzle him, but my nose just passed through his hand.

What’s happening? I don’t understand, I said.

The person sighed. You can’t be with him right now, Buddy. I’m sorry. It’s the way of things.

I thought about this. So it’s like My Person is on the Person Bed, and I’m not allowed there? I said.

Exactly like that, the person said. But he can be with you someday. If you choose to wait for him.

Of course I want to wait for him! I said. Not wait for My Person? Who did this person think he was talking to?

Hold on, Buddy, the person said. He seemed sad about this for some reason. It’s not that simple. You have a choice. He got down on one knee and he looked into my eyes. There are bad things in this world, Buddy. Very bad things.

Like Neighbor Cat?

So much worse than her, Buddy. He waved his hand, and I saw what he was talking about. He showed me dark things, that were like snakes and rats, only worse. Worse than the Sucking Machine. Worse than the Sharp Place. They smelled evil.

These are the things that want to hurt him, Buddy. They want to hurt everybody. So you can wait for him, or you can keep him safe. But if you choose to keep him safe, then you can’t see him again.

What, never? I said.

The person nodded. Never, Buddy. I’m sorry. Those are the Rules. It’s a terrible choice.

I looked at my paws. I didn’t want to not see My Person ever again. But I wanted to keep him safe even more.

I know what I have to do, I said, and the person waved his hand, and all of a sudden we were in a place with as many dogs as I have every seen before. More, even.

These are all the Good Boys who chose to keep Their People safe, the person said.

I looked at them all. I couldn’t believe it, still. But there’s so many of us! I said. How many Good Boys are here?

The person looked down at me. He smiled, but I could tell he was also partly very sad. All of you, Buddy. Every single one.