Razor

Comic #482 - Convenient #pokemon #comic

About my Samurai Travels Through America series. People see a samurai talking about chips and salsa and assume the goal must have been realism, journalism, or persuasion. For me it was none of those things. The foundation was comedy. A lot of Japanese comedy starts with an obviously ridiculous premise and then commits to it completely. You take something absurd and refuse to break character. The audience understands the premise is impossible, and the humor comes from watching the character apply that worldview to ordinary situations. That was the samurai. A man from a completely different time trying to understand chain restaurants, diners, parking lots, free refills, and all the small things that modern Americans barely notice anymore. To a Japanese audience, that setup is immediately recognizable as comedy. What I did not expect is that many Americans seemed to react less to the joke itself and more to the feeling behind it. One thing that may be difficult to explain is the role comedy plays in Japan. Of course we laugh because things are funny. But comedy is also a way of dealing with everyday life. Life is difficult. Prices go up. People worry about work, family, money, health, and the future. So there is a tendency to look for small moments of humor, gratitude, absurdity, or beauty in ordinary life. People often try to make each other laugh not because life is easy, but because it is difficult. I think that mindset influenced these posts more than people realize. I was not trying to expose anyone. I was not trying to embarrass anyone. I was not trying to convince anyone of a political position. I was trying to take ordinary things and look at them from a strange angle. The surprising part is what happened next. I expected people to laugh. Instead, people started talking about their grandparents, their hometown restaurants, childhood memories, road trips, first jobs, favorite diners, and places that no longer exist. At some point I realized many people were no longer talking about my posts. They were talking about their own lives. That was never part of the original plan. The original joke was simply that a confused samurai had arrived in modern America. What seems to have happened is that some readers used that outsider's perspective to look again at parts of American life they had stopped noticing. Whether that was because of nostalgia, affection, pride, or something else, I honestly don't know. I'm still trying to understand it myself. The idea itself is actually very old. Take an impossible character. Place him in an ordinary situation. Then see what happens. That's all it was. I expected comedy. I did not expect nostalgia. I certainly did not expect 150,000 new followers in a week. But that's what happened. And thank you all for enjoying it. I'll keep the samurai wandering around America a little while longer. Although, after getting carried away and posting nearly 100 times a day, absolutely nothing started going viral anymore. 😂 X is genuinely difficult. One week: +150,000 followers. The next week: 5,000 impressions and double-digit likes. Incredible technology. Nobody understands how it works.

In 1997, tourists witnessed an orca kill a great white and eat its liver near the Farallon Islands. After the attack, local white sharks vanished from the area for weeks . Then, in 2000, another orca attack occurred. A satellite-tagged great white in the vicinity responded immediately by diving to 484 meters and then migrating to Hawaii . This dramatic flight response highlights the intense fear even apex predators have of orcas. Scientists believe the sharks are not just fleeing a one-time threat but are using survival tactics refined over millions of years, including the ability to smell the chemical cues of a stressed shark or sense the presence of their mortal enemy in the water .

I'm embarrassed to admit that I just today learned that chiggers do not burrow into your body, causing that infernal itch. Rather, the intense itching from a chigger bite is primarily caused by your body's immune reaction to digestive enzymes in the chigger's saliva. Chiggers are the tiny larval stage of certain mites. They don't burrow into your skin or suck blood ---- which I'd have bet a thousand dollars that they do. Instead, they attach to the skin (often in areas where clothing is tight) using mouthparts. Then they inject saliva containing proteolytic (digestive) enzymes that liquefy nearby skin cells, creating a feeding tube called a stylostome. They feed on the dissolved tissue for a few days before dropping off. Neat,huh? It's the enzymes and the stylostome that remain in the skin even after the chigger leaves, triggering the reaction, because your immune system detects the foreign enzymes and saliva proteins as invaders. This leads to Inflammation and release of histamine (and other chemicals), which causes the itching, redness etc... All I know is that I hate them with the white-hot intensity of 10,000 suns.

Americans, I need to ask something that may sound stupid 🇺🇸 Did you actually grow up with a basement? In Japan, most people go their whole life without ever having one. I’ve never lived in a house with a basement. Not as a bedroom. Not as a game room. Not as a storage space. Not as a storm shelter. But for some Americans, basements seem to be part of childhood, family memories, sleepovers, laundry rooms, creepy stories, or tornado safety. So I want to understand: Was your basement normal and boring? Scary? A family hangout spot? Or something only certain states really understand?

A nice lil YCH i got from @Deadlyzapcat 💚 Love it so much

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A Grizzly Kept Stealing Milk From Cabins, Then Cameras Caught Who It Was Really For After several families called wildlife officials about milk disappearing from their cabin porches, cameras were set up to see what was taking it. The first footage showed a male grizzly walking up, grabbing the milk, and heading back into the woods. But when officials followed the tracks, they kept finding torn open jugs farther out near the tree line, like he wasn’t drinking it where he found it. That’s when they placed trail cameras deeper into the woods. The footage they captured changed the whole story. Two young cubs were seen drinking from the fallen jugs while the male grizzly stayed close beside them, almost like he was guarding them. That got researchers looking into nearby female bears, and that’s when they discovered a tagged female grizzly had been hit by a car around the same time the milk started disappearing. What first looked like a bear stealing groceries suddenly looked like a father trying to keep his cubs alive.

Skip the slug bait pellets. Slugs need somewhere cool and damp to hide during the day, so give them one, and make it lethal. Lay a board or piece of cardboard on the ground near the plants they're hitting. In the morning, flip it, and they'll be clustered underneath. Scrape them off and dispose. Do it a few mornings running and you'll put a real dent in them. Most slug pellets are metaldehyde, which is grain-based, tasty, and deadly to dogs. Plenty of dogs have died eating slug bait right out of a garden. The board can't hurt anybody. If you really want a bait, iron phosphate is far safer for pets than metaldehyde.

If it feels like poison ivy is worse than it was when you were a kid, you're not imagining it. It's growing faster, spreading more, and producing a more potent mix of the oil that causes its rash. The reason is carbon dioxide. Before the industrial era, atmospheric CO₂ was about 280 parts per million. Today it's over 420. Plants use CO₂ to build themselves, and some species respond especially strongly to having more of it. Poison ivy is one of them. In a six-year experiment at Duke Forest in North Carolina, researchers exposed patches of forest to elevated CO₂. Poison ivy grew roughly two and a half times faster than vines in normal air. It wasn't just bigger, the plants also produced higher levels of urushiol, the oil responsible for the rash, and a more allergenic form of it. So the vine creeping along your fence really is a tougher opponent than the one your grandparents dealt with. Learn to recognize it, wear gloves and long sleeves when removing it, wash exposed skin and clothing afterward, and never burn it.

Wolf: I am wild and dangerous. Man: frees wolf Wolf: I am now domesticated and awaiting further instructions.

my seal got stuck in a hole again… why do they keep doing this??

Why shouldn't I plant Kudzu outside of data centers?

Sylveon is so cute as an anthro ^^ #furry #pokemon

by salandrill

Rockruff 🐾🐕 #pokemonㅤㅤㅤ #pokemonfanart #Pokemonartㅤ #furryㅤㅤㅤ

Por favor no toques el cristal

FORMER BARKSDALE AFB AIRMAN KILL*D IN B-52 CRASH. Lt. Col. Gabriel Estrella was one of the 8 airmen who lost their lives in Monday's B-52 crash in California. His wife posted this evening, "He died doing what he loved. He was the most incredible man and loved his family fiercely. He woke every day excited to go to work." She shared that being a Weapons Systems Officer was his dream job. She added, "I don't know how I will live each day without you. You were my best friend. I will love you forever, babe." Lt. Col. Estrella leaves behind a wife and three children. Rest easy Hero 🇺🇸