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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Teddy Roosevelt opted not to shoot a bear that someone caught for him to shoot (because it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel; iirc the bear was immobilised). The press at the time got hold of this story, turned it into a story about pity/mercy (neither applied, the bear was killed anyway, just not by getting shot by Roosevelt) and an enterprising individual made a toy based on it, which became more popular than expected.

    The popularity of the toy was also a boost to Roosevelt’s popularity, which is why at least one presidential candidate at the time tried to get something similar going for himself, but possums just aren’t cuddly and a copy of a popular thing rarely manages to reach the heights of popularity the thing it tries to copy got.





  • For those who want to know, that makes Xitter sound like halfway between Sitter and Shitter.

    As an English speaker you can try to make that sound by saying the Y in YEET and paying close attention to how exactly your tongue is positioned and where in your mouth the air is being constricted. Then try to position your tongue as if you want to say “yeet” or “yes” again, but make an S sound at exactly the same constriction point where you made the Y sound before. If you’re successful, it should sound like a hybrid between S and SH to your English ears.

    That’s how I make it anyway, actual Mandarin speakers might find issue with my explanation.











  • Sounds similar to something my family recounts. We were living in Lima, Perú at the time and had friends from Switzerland or Argentina come visit us. On the way to our home someone noticed a bakery advertising black forest cake and they decided to buy one to mark the occasion.

    Well, apparently that bakery had failed to consider that while salted butter may be the default form of butter in Perú, the default form of butter where the recipe was from is unsalted butter.

    My parents and their guests (I was probably around 3yo at the time) ended up playing Uno. Whoever lost a round had to eat a piece of this cursed black forest cake.