Useless Facts

No I didn’t. How do you know someone didn’t read it, or this, to me?

 

"No I didn't," "You don't know me," and "Stop pretending you understand," are all phrases I learned as a teenager that can just be thrown out there when you know someones directing something at you, but you can't be arsed to pay attention and really don't feel getting engaged in conversation.

 

Because it`s wonderful.






Annnnd yet someone still left a balloon pump in one of the rooms. If nobody claims it we`re using it for our next staff party.

 

Useless fact: If the item you're looking for isn't in the store, screaming, shouting and throwing other items around isn't going to make it magically appear.

Dunno if this kind of childish temper tantrum is specific to my peer group, but damn, some people lack home training.

 

In July 1603 a little after his accession and short before his coronation, James I of England was awaiting the Spanish Ambassador, the first normal embassy to England since the war. He was with the ambassador from the Hapsburg Archduke in the Netherlands, the Spanish also being Hapsburg, and when the envoy assured him the Spanish Ambassador was coming, James said "with disdain' Then the delay must be due to his weight".

 

James I was not always great at saying the right things, was he?

 

Maybe he was shunned by his family before the throne, so would that
make him James -1?

 

Well, he did lose his parents at quite a young age.

 

He didn't have much of a family. The family member he knew best was his half-uncle the Earl of Moray who has not especially close to him and was assassinated.
Probably why he had such intimate, and possibly sometimes gay, relationships with his male associates; it was his only real company without parents or siblings. He also had his wife but their relationship was complicated and strained.

 

One thing I found kind of sad is that one big contributor to his financial issues was that he was very insecure and thought that no-one would like him unless he bought them expensive gifts.

 

I think he also enjoyed being generous because he liked to be kind, and to show off. Also, it was part of political theory for royal generosity of various sorts, personal and political, to build bridges and James wanted as much of the people, chiefly the aristocracy, on his side as he could. Older scholarship neglected to evaluate the political aspects of his reign due to the older idea he was a buffoon, up until around 1970s were it was recognised he had some strategy as well as just abstract learning.

 

Finnish: Yllätys!

 

Today I found out this are a thing...

 

Melon Bear,



https://mondomascots.com/index.php/2016/12/11/melon-kuma/

Another useless fact: I want to scare someone while wearing that.

 

There's a myth that Boudicca, Queen of the Celts, faced Roman armies for the last time and was slain at Battle Bridge, in present day London, now beneath King's Cross station. Allegedly to this day, she haunts her grave located somewhere near platforms 9 and 10, which is why Hogwarts Express was chosen to land at platform 9¾.

 

In fact, she killed herself rather than be taken captive. I think it's fabulous that she decided to go out on her own terms rather than wait for the Romans to kill her. (Part of me does, any way. Part of me doesn't like the idea of glorifying suicide like that.)

ETA: Seconds after posting this, I think I've figured out what I like about it: even when they had defeated her, the Romans couldn't kill her.

 

It's not glorifying suicide to escape the justice Rome inflicted on rebels. One thing that lower Roman magistrates were forbidden from doing was sentencing people to relatively painless or merciful deaths. Rome wanted to send her condemned to the afterlife screaming.

 

Rome was not as cool as everybody likes to think it was. In the later years of the Empire, a punishment for forging coins was to have the coins melted down and poured into the mouth of the forger to drown them.

 

Not as cool as everybody likes to think / Way cooler than you knew.

You say tomayto, I say tomahto.

 

*sad latin noises*

 

Isn't that a model of Chevy?

 

I'm kind of divided on Rome. On one hand, they did do a lot of really cool things, architecturally, militarily, and whatnot, but they were also huge asshats. I realize that's a fairly broad statement, but when reading their histories, I generally find myself rooting against them when it comes to the battle scenes. Maybe it's just a reaction to the pro Latin dreck teachers have been shoveling at us since grade school.