(ChorpSaway) 8-bit Sanctuary Arrangement

minneapolis winter aesthetic, driving edition

periodic car horns outside (’f you ask me they sound vaguely like ducks with bad senses of direction who just scream whenever they get too close to each other)

driving very slowly down a hill with a four wheel drive truck patiently following your snail’s pace ass because listen buddy We’ve All Been There

guestimating where the parking spaces in the lot Probably are

plan an extra thirty minutes to brush six inches of frozen nonsense off your windshield and dig trenches behind your wheels before starting your commute

the windshield wiper thing when you park and pull them up so they don’t freeze and your car looks like a bug with antennae 

the knowledge deep within your soul that if necessary you will pilot this vehicle directly into a snowbank and you have made your Peace with this reality

lane dividers are a thing of the past just stick to the right of the road and pray

that look/nod of We’re All Doing Our Best It’s Okay when you fuck up and panic and the other driver sees you

"Where is a frown?" Americans say mouth, Brits say forehead (my mind=blown)

This recent post from Lynne Murphy on Separated By a Common Language created much discussion in my Twitter feed and over dinner with a collection of American, British and Australian English speakers. Many of us have been living with semantic variation staring up in the face. Even (American English) Lynne didn’t realise her (British English) husband had a difference sense from her:

When I tweeted the question “Where is a frown?” British people told me “on the forehead”. When I asked the Englishman in my house, he said the same thing. Fourteen years together and only now do I know that he’s been frowning much of the time.

And like one of the blog commenters, the Brits I talked with had an epiphany: so that’s why Americans say “turn your frown upside down!” to mean ‘cheer up!’.

Older Australian English speakers I talked to identified the forehead frown as the sense that they have, but a frown has always been the opposite of a smile for me, all about the mouth. Otherwise, what is the opposite of a smile? It looks like we have some intergenerational semantic shift happening right under our noses.

See Lynne’s original post on Separated by a Common Language.

I made a printable coloring calendar! It’s got all twelve months plus blanks in case you like writing out all the months and whatnots yourself. It’s a mere $3 on Etsy and Gumroad; Etsy splits it up into three files, but it’s all the same thing. It prints on standard letter-sized paper and you can stick it into your discbound planner or three-ring binder, whatever floats your boat. Reblogs are appreciated, feel free to post pics and tag me if you color your own 💙

Coolest Lizard In The World Google Search

I did a very quick, sketchy comic because I was extremely inspired by this post. (Credit to @pinkdiamondprince for the original post.)

The entire analogy was just fantastic and so, so accurate, and I wanted to make a comic for it, even if it’s very sketchy because my attention span is nil.

Why Is AriZona Iced Tea Cheaper Than Water?

The company's enormous vats of iced tea are cheaper than pure water. What kind of sorcery is this?

Despite being a bladder-shattering 23.5 ounces, cans of AriZona iced tea have never wavered from the 99-cent price point introduced shortly after the drink debuted in 1992. It’s even printed on the label as a way of warding off sugar-water price gouging by retailers.

The fact that AriZona has been able to resist inflation for nearly a quarter-century is impressive. The fact that the cans usually wind up being cheaper than smaller soft drinks is also impressive, until you begin to realize how strange it is that a vat of iced tea and its accompanying ingredients somehow manages to be less expensive than plain water.

In a recent interview with Thrillist, AriZona chief marketing officer and co-owner Spencer Vultaggio shed some light on this convenience store mystery.

Unlike water titans Coke (which distributes Dasani), Evian, or Fiji, AriZona has virtually no advertising dollars invested in their teas. “We feel like it’s more important to spend money on something that our customer really cares about, instead of buying billboards or putting our cans in the hands of some celebrity for a few minutes,” Vultaggio said.

Even with a frugal approach to ads, AriZona still has to deal with rising production costs. To help resist increasing prices to compensate, the company has pursued alternative manufacturing methods, using 40 percent less aluminum in cans and having enough factories dotting the country to make transportation more efficient. Bottled water, in contrast, is sometimes sourced from abroad, making for exorbitant shipping costs.

In the end, it’s not the iced tea that’s more economical than the water; it’s that the container it comes in is simply cheaper to produce and transport. And while AriZona isn’t above charging a premium for fancier drinks—like a tea brewed with oak chips that sells for twice the price—their branding depends heavily on those familiar rows of 99-cent cans and the loyal consumers who keep reaching for them.

Sushi Bedroom by Daisuke (2023)