Month: March 2025

Posted on
by

Fun, excuse to be fun, fun fun fun, let’s get on with this silly list. You don’t need a whole paragraph explainin’ this shit, I don’t care what the SEO plugin says. pop culture

Revenge of the Fifth

When: May 5th, also May 6th if you’re extra evil

From: Star Wars

Nothing to see here. Cue hand thing.

Independence Day

When: July 4th

From: names-the-same-movie

Will Smith saved us from the aliens on this day!! Respect!!! He could have been at a BBQ!

Until America starts behaving I’m not celebrating that shit! Memorial Day and Juneteenth are more important to me, anyway.

Will Smith in the movie, captioned "4th of July, the day Will Smith saved us from the aliens.

Festivus

When: Dec. 23rd

From: Seinfield

I will have any, and I mean any, excuse to decorate with strange objects, complain, and straight up tackle someone. I also enjoy the anti-consumerism angle it could have.

Frank: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Kramer: What happened to the doll?

Frank: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born.

Towel Day

When: May 25th

From: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I was enamoured with this series when I stumbled upon it in my high school library. And, you know, knowing where your towel is actually good advice… and more relevant the older you get.

TOWEL.JPG is here. Do you know where your towel is?

National Lazy Week

When: Jan 5th to Jan 10th

From: Garfield

As the name suggests, it celebrated being lazy. Garfield Wiki

That’s a message I can get behind. Also, capitalism hates it when we’re lazy. Cue the memes!

Felix the cat napping on a ledge, thinking "I'm not lazy I just don't like making profits for capitalists..."

Fade in the Water Day

When: Aug 5th

From: IRL

Fade in the Water. ROLL (ed up in the) TIDE. The Alabama Sweet Tea Party. The Montgomery Massacre. The Riverboat Rumble. The Montgomery Melee.

No matter what they call it, Black people are talking about the big fight between a group of white men who attacked a Black dock worker and the Black people who swarmed in to defend him. NewsOne

I love us Blackfolx. We can make a holiday out of anything. And I live for this show of Black solidarity we were witness to on that fateful day in 2023. You fuck around, prepare to find the fuck out.

MtG card for the Folding Deck Chair, a Legendary Melee Weapon. Damage 5, Speed 2, Defense 3, Range 1. Increase damage by 3 percent to targets in water environments.

And then you got the ones where I just make up, or do something different.

Dick Plate in the Lake Day

When: Feb 28th

From: Xenosaga

Actually, this was already a thing as KOS-MOS’ Birthday. But I was grasping at something I can do for the Xenosaga franchise. My original idea leaned heavily on a fairly popular snark thing and… uh, let’s say the source material for that didn’t age well. Soooooo I decided to use the first game’s release date and uphold that instead. It’s safer. Makes me cringe less.

…and I still failed that Will Save Throw Whatever DnD Thing because it must be snarked. Dick jokes!! There is an uncomfortable amount of phallic imagery in that game! Dick. Jokes.

Enjoy the YouTube Video my settings Won’t Allow me to embed. Just as well, really.

Macross Day

When: Oct. 3rd (Series), July 21st (DYRL? movie)

From: Macross

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to come across the MM/DD of when the alien spaceship made a dent in the Earth (please comment if you did!). You know I’ll celebrate the airing of the first episode, and the option of one of my favorite movies as a bonus. Party twice! If you make a Mean Girls reference I will slap you and Tina Fey.

Misa slapping Hikaru, implying that I will slap you like that if you make a Mean Girls reference

Calypso’s Birthday

When: whenever the hell you want

From: Our Flag Means Death

I’ve only down here because I’ve yet to see it around, but it should totally be a thing! (And this shows that I’m not in the fandom… I should fix that?)

Anyway! Want to throw a party? Have that nagging feeling that you need a reason to have a party, but can’t think of one? Here it is. Just say it’s her birthday. She has a lot of birthdays. And no one really knows when her birthday actually is, so no one can call you out on it. It’s a perfect concept. … I mean yes I guess you can use the air date of that episode, but where’s the fun in that?!

Additionally, dress the part. That means D R A G, lovely!

One of the crewmembers dressed in drag as Calypso

National Rage Week

When: third week of September

From: Me! (and Garfield– title is totally shambling around in its National Fat Week corpse)

It began as a joke while I was still on LiveJournal, early 2000s. I was so Mad About Shit, that I felt like I needed a whole week to complain about Shit. To vent. Because if you don’t vent, you fucking explode. I haven’t observed it in quite some time; due to Current Events we are bringing it back. We’ll discuss anger management as well because… take care of your health, y’all. Being mad is all well and good, but you have to control it like a fire.

Don’t burn out. Take deep breaths. Mark your calendars.

A modified strip of Garfield sitting and declaring: Attention America! I am hereby declaring this week NATIONAL RAGE WEEK. This is the week for all you RAGIN' people to come out of the closet. Rage on and remember to self-soothe after venting.

And it’s now that I tell you that there is an entire list of pop culture holidays (and TV Tropes has some!) so you can discover some of your own! I definitely need to observe more of them.

  • National Grouch Day (Oct 15th, Sesame Street)
  • Summerween (June 22nd, Gravity Falls)
  • Life Day (Nov 17th, Star Wars)
  • K-Day (Aug 10th, Pacific Rim)
  • Hobbit Day (Sept 22nd, Lord of the Rings)
  • Halloween in January (Jan 31st, Bojack Horseman)
  • Galentine’s Day (Feb 15th, Parks and Recreation)
  • Fridge Day (Dec 25th, Dinosaurs)
  • Leap Day (Feb 29th, 30 Rock)

…Yeah, that was one rabbit hole I jumped into.

And there’s nothing stopping you from making up your own. For example, I just thought of "FUCK OFF WITH THE GUNS" Day (July 14th, Trailer Park Boys ep air date, quote from that guy that’s always yelling offscreen).

C’mon. Give it a try!

Posted on
by

On January 1st, I deleted Facebook and I couldn’t be happier.

But when you’re not on Meta, it can be isolating.

You’re at a party and everyone is happily trading Instagram profiles, and the only thing you could offer reliably is…

…

nothing, actually.

Only gamers seem to know about Discord, and getting people on Signal is still like pulling teeth. Even a phone number could miss– there are still people out there that don’t disclose it for privacy reasons.

That happened to me during another icebreaker. We were sitting next to each other and they beat me to it, asking for my Instagram handle first. Unfortunately, I don’t use it in that capacity (more on that later). We eventually came to a compromise: email addresses. It’s been two months since I sent the first one.

…I’ve yet to receive a reply.

At the next shindig my contact info was just a TinyURL. It has the online places I actually frequent and ways to contact me.

…No new friends (yet).

And I tried sending someone a link to my personal website.

…I uh, got blocked? But that happened only once.

There’s always a failure rate to these things.

When I take it personally: no one wants to meet me where I am.

But actually, I think: No one wants to leave Meta.

It’s convenient. It’s popular. It’s what we know. All the organizations and queer peers are on there. So that’s why I caved and made an Instagram account. Where there’s a lack of RSS feed or newsletter, it’s my last resort. And I still miss important updates because nothing’s chronological, I’m drowning in ads, suggestions keep pestering me, and the whole thing like the rest of the modern web is user hostile.

I fucking hate it.

I may delete it out of spite in six months.

But I’m used to not having Facebook in my life now, and for a digital diet I’ve filled it with other things: GroundNews, tiny forums, my projects, Mastodon, a lot of Discord. I’m even giving Friendica a try (it is largely neglected). I’ve my messaging apps that also have a web or desktop client for when I want to use a full keyboard– it’s easier on my hands.

I think I’m only lonely because I miss certain people.

But also, it’s been oddly freeing. Instead of all those 200 friends, I got my chosen family and fellow weirdos. And the occasional stranger that crosses my path, goes "what’s up, doc?" and if we keep bumping into each other we even become friends!

I think that trade-off is worth it.

In short, I’m the Odd One Out and I am solidly in my Cryptid Era.

Which, cool.