today's funky frog of the day: the bornean flat-headed frog (Barbourula kalimantanensis)!!!!!!!!! they're otherwise known as the kalimantan jungle toad! this is one of those frogs where their name aptly describes them - they're so flat because they don't develop lungs after being tadpoles! breathing in this species takes place entirely through the skin.
A comparison of a male Pacman Frog, left, and a female, right. Or perhaps a bowl of spaghetti hoops with guacamole?
madam spgheettey
and her assistant mr guack
Damn. Fine. I’m on Firefox now. Are you happy?
Oh shit, y’all weren’t kidding. This is a lot better, damn.
It’s so fascinating to me that we’ve only been breeding Komodo dragons in captivity for thirty years. In that time, our understanding of them has actually really revolutionized the way we understand the social lives and behaviors of lizards in general, and it’s mostly thanks to this lady right here, who was born 30 years ago on September 13, 1992.
Kraken was the first Komodo to be bred in captivity. She hatched out at GMU, but was raised at the National Zoo. Her parents were wild-caught dragons- there’s still WC dragons in the AZA today- and this one specific individual probably did more to revolutionize lizard care in professional settings than any other individual lizard throughout zoo history.
Until Kraken, social enrichment wasn’t a thing people thought about. It wasn’t something anybody felt was necessary for lizards, because they were just… lizards. Sure, some keepers would play with their favorites, but it wasn’t until the National Zoo started documenting what she was doing that anybody realized how much Komodo dragons like to play with us too.
Kraken’s not in that video, but she’s the one who inspired all of the social studies that have been done on captive Komodo dragons. When she was at the National Zoo, her keepers started getting curious when, for no apparent reason, she kept gingerly stealing things from peoples’ pockets and tugging on their shoelaces. So they started giving her stuff- Frisbees, blankets, soda cans, anything she showed an interest in.
She played with them, just like a mammal might. The way play behavior is described in psychology is a given activity that’s voluntary, repeated, and conducted under “relatively benign” circumstances. Keeper staff found that her conduct during the study met all of these criteria. “Kraken,” they wrote, had clearly demonstrated “play-like behavior with objects and even with humans (tug-of-war).” Moreover, she “could discriminate between prey and nonprey” while showing “varying responses” with different items (rubber rings, shoes, etc.). (There’s an excellent book on Komodo dragons that has an entire chapter devoted to her.)
Kraken died several years ago, but her legacy continues today. There’s several of her descendants still in the AZA, and the intelligence and social needs she demonstrated led to the improvement of life for these guys- and other lizards. The Komodo dragon program has been an eye opener, not just for reptile conservation, but for understanding reptile intelligence and how this incredible clade of animals functions.
Can't believe tomorrow is wednesday. What's next, tuesday?
- I am very tired
I worked with toddlers and pre schoolers for three years. Sometimes I accidentally slip and tell a friend to say bye to an inanimate object (“say bye bus!”) & occasionally they unthinkingly just do it.
autisticcole
I’m glad there’s a teacher version of “accidentally called teacher ‘mom’”
when I worked at Medieval Times occasionally I would slip in real life and call people “my lord”
mugsandpugs1
One time during family prayer, dad began: “our father who art in heaven, American Airlines, how can I help you?”
One time my dad went to the White Castle drive-thru and the lady (who was supposed to say ‘Welcome to White Castle, what’s your crave?’) asked, “Welcome to White Castle, what’s your problem?”
She apologized profusely while my dad proceeded to lose his shit laughing.
Yesterday I went to Wendy’s and the girl said “Welcome to McDonalds” and then just sighed
Somebody in the elevator asked me what floor I lived on, and I answered “please open your books to page eight”, and we just kind of stared at each other, blinking.
commanderfraya
i work retail full time and my script gets frequently messy - ill ask the same question twice, or say “$2.60 is your total” while handing back their change, or say “how are you doing today?” instead of “have a good day!” like name it ive bungled it
but anyway, this lady came thru my line buying a book and the review on the front said: “few books are well written, fewer still are important, and this book manages to be both”
as i handed her the bag i was trying to say “thanks, youre all set” and instead my brain mashed up the review and i said “thanks, youre important”
there was this short pause in which i tried to figure out what the fuck id just said. she blinked and then said “oh thank you! youre important too!”
the real kicker was one of my coworkers. when i was relating this story later his response was “at least you said something NICE. last week i accidentally combined ‘youre welcome’ and ‘no problem’ into ‘youre a problem’”
one time, since I used to work as a daycare teacher with preschoolers, i was on my college campus in my gym, and someone was running in the weight room and tripped over a machine and fell, and instead of offering to help, I just stared and said, “This is why we use our walking feet.” we both sat there for a while until the guy nodded and said, “yeah, okay, i should’ve done that.”
I’ve spent a good chunk of time working in kitchens, so I still will reflexively say shit like “behind” and “coming around” as I maneuver through spaces and around people.
Which, actually, not such a bad thing; I’m a big guy and can come across as imposing pretty easily. The position calls can help defuse that, and also help avoid collisions.
Less good is the time my brain was half functional and I let slip a “coming with a knife” while grocery shopping. THAT took some explaining.
starlightandcrimescenes
I work in an office and send tens of emails to customers every day. Once my mum asked me to send her a train ticket I had bought for her. I emailed her “Hello mum, as agreed, please find attached the ticked you requested. Thanks, Alex”
i worked as a camp counselor, and i would have the kids tap somewhere on my legs if they needed something because im a pretty tall dude. today asked my cat if he needed something.
I have woken up in a cold sweat saying “is that for here or to go?”
Every time a friend thanks me, and I respond with “gladly” or “my pleasure”, I die completely 1000% inside
runicbinary
I work at a plasma donation center. When processing donors, we call them by name, they walk up to the counter, and then we ask for their name and donor number. One time, instead of saying “Robert” I hollered “Name and donor number!?” into a full waiting room. Three people started announcing their names and donor numbers before we all realized that I fucked up.
three-course-dessert
In college, I was a barista at Borders (remember Borders, you guys?!) I once drove through Taco Bell on my way home after a shift. When the cashier said, “okay, that’ll be $5.46!” I cheerfully responded, “Do you have a Borders rewards card?”
I have dealt with so many difficult customers over the years that I used to angrily call my dog “Sir” when I was mad at him.
diyozas
My first job was at my nearest Panera, and after coming home from a ten-hour Sunday morning shift, I was exhausted; but when my mom called me to come downstairs, instead of replying in the grumpy teenagerish tone I usually would, I said in my cheeriest, fakest voice, “Not a problem at all, let me just check with my manager!” before realizing my mistake.
my coworker went to back up the cash registers one time and she had been at customer service right before. when we finish with a customer we have to sometimes get the attention of the next person and will shout “i can get the next person in line!” but instead of saying that she yelled “HI WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITH” to everyone in the general area
I have told my dog “no thank you” so many times after working at a preschool
a couple of times i’ve gotten stuck in a hello how are you good how are you good how are you loop with an equally tired Fred Meyer’s cashier after a long shift but the best time was after a 10 to 10 post-holidays after they told me my total, I asked if they would like a bag today and after a confused few seconds they were like, “no… I have the bags”
Worked in a gallery where we asked people to take off their backpacks in order not to accidentally damage paintings. So when I went to the shop later and saw a guy in the line in front of me, I told him he had to remove his backpack. He probably thought I was politely trying to rob him.
The other day they had me working with softserve and fried dough. I was burned out because I kept bouncing back and forth between the fryer and my register and these people had like, 8 things in their order. We get to the ice cream part of the order, and it comes in a bowl or cone. Instead of saying “Would you like the vanilla in a bowl or cone?” I said “Would you like the bowl in a vanilla or cone?” And we all stopped and had to think that through as my cart runner is staring me down like “tf are you doing?”
I work at Hardees and we have to yell “thank you” whenever we’re told to do something because of how loud the kitchen is.
One morning, my mom hollered at me to wake up, and half-asleep me yells at full volume,
“THANK YOU”
frankenlouie
i work with dogs, and i have to be a bit strict with them sometimes in order to keep fights from breaking out. recently, while making tea, the kettle started boiling sooner than i wanted, so without thinking i turned around sharply, pointed my finger at it and stared it down, and said, “Bad boy! You need to wait!” needless to say i was very glad i was alone
I know I’ve reblogged this a billion times but I’ve worked retail for 8 years and these things are never not funny.
avocadoapocalypse
I work with horses and whenever someone’s driving too fast I’ll say stuff like “whoa” and I’ve tried to click to a car because that’s a cue for a horse to go faster.
every time i go to order food at a counter my brain always wants to answer with my customer service phone greeting, I just open my mouth and it comes out
and lemme tell you there is nothing like being in a mcdonald’s and responding to “can i take your order?” with “AUTO GLASS, THIS IS JESSICA”
the thing about cracking open a long-established popular ship tag on ao3 is that it allows you to be extraordinarily picky, and i think it must be the closest thing i will ever experience to being filthy rich. i scroll along at super speed like no today i am only interested in fics with this precise range of words and one of these three tags. only authors i’ve heard of, please. hmm, i suppose i could consider an unknown quantity given its apparent popularity with the people, but… no, no, this summary doesn’t do it for me. no particular reason, it’s just… eh, i don’t need to explain myself. bring me 50 more like this for me to choose from and we’ll see.
reblog this to put a silly little wizard hat on the person you reblogged it from
hrelp
you know, i think there is something to be said to the fact that despite apple’s best effort to control the internet by forcing all these apps to censor themselves and their user content to a ridiculous degree, tumblr didn’t fully listen. they only did extreme censoring on the iphone app and not across the board like everyone else and thus made the user experience worse for only apple users.
Me: *scrolling* oh cute dog
Brain:
*scrolls back up*
Me: wait WTF is that a horse?
Romano-British bronze brooches Circa 1st-4th Century A.D.
Look, I know facile trope inversion is for weenies, but I still really want to see a JRPG-style game where the shouty teenage boy who gives long speeches about the power of friendship is the fragile healer and the girl with the gentle piano-and-strings theme song and self-sacrificing “must save everyone” attitude is the melee tank. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here.
I’m not even being ironic – I honestly think it would work better that way. Like, let’s put power-of-friendship boy in a position where he actually needs to rely on his friends to get anything done, rather than just talking about how they’ve inspired him while he solos the final boss. And as for Little Miss Messiah Complex, well, tell me you can’t perfectly picture how the standard tank protagonist move where you intercept a blow meant for a critically wounded party member, facetank a fucktillion points of damage, then get back up again with one hit point and a voice quip about how the baddies will have to do better than that would play out under her idiom. You can see it, right?
People in the notes are looking at the second one saying “that’s just She-Ra, that’s just–” no, it isn’t. Gentle piano-and-strings theme song, remember? It’s essential that each archetype’s stock personality remain intact, and only the role changes.
She’s sweet. She’s humble. She wears homespun dresses and grows pretty flowers in her free time. She has that vibe that says “I’m going to die halfway through the game to make my boyfriend sad”, except that doesn’t happen, because the baddies don’t have a big enough gun.
I want to see the obligatory scene where the bad guy’s army is burning down her Beloved Peasant Village™, and she’s standing between the evil commander and a group of soulful orphans, begging with tears in her eyes for him to see that there’s already been enough death – except when he callously rejects her entreaties and moves to backhand her out of the way, she catches his armoured fist mid-swing, without even the faintest tremor of effort, and in a tone of infinite patience informs him: “You misunderstand, sir: it’s not our lives I’m pleading for.”
And then she punches people until all the soldiers run away and feels conflicted about it afterwards.
since fursuits are expensive a furry themed MET gala makes total sense
and because celebrities would absolutely try to minimize the furry aspect, two requirements would be wearing a FULL fursuit AND coming up with a fursona beforehand
also because they're in a full fursuit they only announce who is in what costume after the event but the news outlets have to guess who is wearing what anyway ans trying their hardest to not let their biases kick in. A jaguar shows up who everyone thinks is Lil Nas X but it's actually Sigourney Weaver
This is the only fashion related thing I have ever truly wanted for in my life
For the next 24 hours: Get our whole (ebook) store for $44!
The tl:dr; version: For Tumblr users only: for the next 24 hours (until 02:30 Hawai’ian time on September 14, 2022*), get 20% off the price of the package containing the entire contents of our Ebooks Direct store. (With the discount, $44 for the whole thing!)
What it’s all about: We’ve done this before during the summer, and some folks have ask-boxed me wondering if/when we might be repeating the offer. When that starts happening often enough, it’s hard for me to say anything but “Well, why not now?” …In any case, maybe you need something to ease the pains of back-to-school-itis. Maybe your TBR pile is getting low. Maybe you just got paid and were thinking about this offer at an earlier date. How would I know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
…Whatever the reasons, if you feel inclined to avail yourself of this genuinely around-the-bend bargain price** on the whole-store package, just go to this URL and put one of the “I Want Everything You’ve Got” packages in your shopping basket (make sure to tell the page which ebook format you want/need: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks/Apple or generic .epub). Please note that the store will show the product price [on the product’s own page] as $55 in the shopping basket until you proceed to the checkout… where it will display the correctly discounted price of $44. Sorry about this: it’s how the shop handles things when it’s already got another discount running.
Anyway, when you click through to the checkout, you’ll find the store has applied your discount automatically, like this:
…Then you just make the payment by whatever method you prefer, and the store emails you the download links for the files.
And from over on this side of things I will glance up from my work (I’m pushing a deadline at the moment…) and applaud you for what I can hardly fail to take as a sign of your good taste and discernment; and murmur (as we do over here) “Thanking You!”
(BTW, in case anybody accidentally just goes straight to the main product link [which doesn’t auto-attach the discount], the code is EVERY24. That way if it’s missing from the field in the checkout page, you can put it in yourself.)
In any case: Enjoy, all! And if this offer’s of no interest to you, do you mind reblogging it for the attention of others who may? Please & Thank You. :)
(Oh–!! UK people, one thing: we’re so sorry we can’t include you in this offer… please forgive us. Due to Brexit we can no longer sell direct into the UK. Details on that are here. …Apologies again.) :(
*Originally it would’ve been midnight Hawai’ian time, but we got started a little late.
**Because seriously, $44 for 35 ebooks isn’t too bad…!
Just bumping this for the US morning-to-midday crowd…