cheesecake-crisis
blogging about stuff I like
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Latest Posts by cheesecake-crisis
Under 'memories I sometimes think I imagined': one time I was being babysat at a family friend's house, I think I was about 10.
My aunty (not actually a relation) puts on Shrek, on a burned DVD. I mention that it's burned because it's relevant to this story. I think it was just a plain disc, silver probably, with 'Shrek' written on it in marker. (Not relevant: I also saw 'Meet the Fockers' next to it in the CD album and felt vaguely scandalised for some reason?? Just by the name... I mean, to this day I would avoid saying it out loud.)
This is not my first time watching Shrek. I have enjoyed it many times before this particular day. I would notice if anything was amiss (foreshadowing!).
Some time passes. I am sitting on the sofa enjoying what is a standard viewing of Shrek, except for one thing. She comes back into the room to check on me. Is everything fine? Yes, I answer. Except I think there's a scene missing from the DVD.
By now, we're well past the point where it should have played (it's the Merry Men scene). I don't think I even get to finish my sentence before I realise she is glowering at me. This is surreal (to me). I was a very meek child and almost never got in trouble for anything, outside of my own family. She's frowning like I am saying something wrong, so I just backtrack and say it's a good movie and I'm enjoying it, no missing scenes at all, everything's Very Normal Actually.
She walks away and in my head I am left wondering what I did wrong. Perhaps she owns a defective copy of Shrek and this is a sore point for her. I don't know much about DVDs at this point in life-- maybe scenes can randomly cut out, she has never experienced the scene-skip I am describing, and I sound crazy to her. Maybe she just expected nothing to be wrong when she came to check on me, and the presentation of an obstacle upset her.
In the intervening years, I have managed to come up with the following semblance of an explanation: (1) she's very devoutly Christian*, (2) she purposefully had a cut of Shrek made without the blasphemy that was the Merry Men scene, thus enabling guilt-free viewings of Shrek, and (3) she wasn't counting on my existing memory of Shrek to be strong enough to detect any difference in this version, and was displeased when I called it out. Actually, on (2), it's not necessarily a religious thing now that I think about it, but there's precedent of religious nutjobs holding a very surface-level 'won't they think of the children!' attitude, the kind that might drive you to commission a 'clean' version of what is already a kid-appropriate movie. To omit exactly one dirty joke, because there are many others that cannot be censored without just... completely destroying the flow of the movie. (And I do think it's a great movie, a rare movie that grownups and kids can enjoy on different levels! It's a really special movie, beyond all the memeing it's so prone to.)
Anyway, I don't think I've ever typed this out in full before. I don't really expect anybody to read it. What's one more weird story on the internet?
I found this mildly unsettling at the time, like having tripped into an alternate reality. Now it's just bizarre. You're really going to stare down a child because they remember Shrek too well?? You're gonna cut out a whole choreographed musical number and then gaslight me into agreeing it was never there?? Wild. Formative experience for sure.
*she gifted me a 'My First Bible' when I was 5, and my immediate family isn't Christian. The imagery of the crucifixion scared me a little. But I think culturally, it kicked off a kind of outsider fascination with biblical stories and creation myths for me, so I guess that's cool?
Hello 👋
Vetted by @90-ghost
Link
Hello, I am Heba Al-Anqar, 21 years old, a university student. My university was suspended due to the war. I am writing about my family: my father Bakr (54 years old), my mother Alaa (46 years old), and my sisters Aya (18 years old), Amal (15 years old), Muhammad (13 years old), and Maryam (8 years old). We have faced many challenges in this war, from the destruction of our home to the famine we continue to suffer in northern Gaza.
My father suffers from heart problems. He had open-heart surgery when he was 36 years old. He also suffers from cartilage problems. He had his pelvic joint replaced about two years ago, in addition to other health problems. He cannot work due to his health condition.
My mother also suffers from asthma and shortness of breath, in addition to the difficulty of obtaining treatment due to the conditions and the war.
This is our house, which was destroyed by war
We have become homeless in places of refuge, in addition to the difficulty of obtaining medicine, food, and daily expenses
I created this account to request your help in this difficult ordeal by donating to meet the necessary needs, as we were relying on social assistance before the war.
My goal is to help my family live in safety and provide the necessary necessities for living, as there is a high cost of living and difficulty in obtaining necessities. We ask for your help in leaving the Gaza Strip to save my family’s life. The cost of travel is $5,000 per adult and $2,500 per child, in addition to travel and accommodation expenses of $500 per month.
Together, we can support Heba and her family through this ordeal. Your donation, no matter how big, can make a difference in my family's life to get life and start a new life
If you are looking to support Heba and her family, please consider providing assistance directly or through relevant charitable organizations.
Please Help
Help my family in gaza.🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸❤️❤️❤️🍉🍉🍉
My name is Mohamed Saqr, and just a short time ago, my family and I were living a life full of hope and stability in Gaza. We had worked hard for everything we had – multiple homes, a farm, and several successful businesses. Life was good, and we were building a future for ourselves. My brother, 24, recently married, and we were both proud of the lives we had built. But all of that changed in a heartbeat when the war began on October 7th.
this is my brother, Motaz Saqr, who had to undergo surgery in his stomach due to the pollution we are exposed to daily.
This is my house, before and after, im newly married and this was the house we were supposed to live in but the war happened and it turned into rubble since the war.
Since that day, everything we knew has been taken away from us. We were forced to flee our homes, leaving behind everything we had worked for. We lost our homes, our farm, and our businesses. Now, my family and I are constantly on the move, trying to find safety and shelter wherever we can. The fear we live with every day is unimaginable. We move from one camp to another, never knowing when or where the next attack might come. My brother’s children cry every night, scared of the loud explosions that seem to be getting closer with each passing day.
This is my brother’a daughter, this is the condition we are living in during the war.
Every day is a struggle just to survive. Food, water, and medicine are scarce, and we never know if the next meal will come. My wife, my brother, his wife, and their children are doing everything we can to stay strong, but it’s getting harder by the day. We’ve lost so much, but the hardest part is the constant fear for our lives. We’ve already witnessed too much destruction, and we know the situation could get even worse.
We started this GoFundMe because we need help. We need funds not only to survive but also to try and escape Gaza before it’s too late. We are asking for your support – anything you can give will make a huge difference in our lives. Your generosity could help provide food, clean water, and medical supplies, and it might even help us find a way out of this nightmare. Please, if you can, help us. Every donation brings us one step closer to safety and a chance at rebuilding our lives.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Our campaign has been reblogged by @90-ghost
🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸❤️❤️❤️🍉🍉
#gaza strip#help gaza#free gaza#save palestine#free palestine#mutual funds#fundraising#fundrasier#go fund me#fundraiser
Help my Son " Ezzdeen "
🌟 Our campaign is vetted by
🇵🇸 @/gazavetters List at #291
🍉🍉🍉 We are currently at €544 out of €5000 first goal - please consider donating to my Ezzdeen and helping us reach our goal as quickly as possible‼️
I want you to know that my ezzdeen is "ADHD" and very picky in his food, and now he is suffering from huge weight loss, because the crazy expensive prices for the food ,so that we can't afford to buy what he accepts, without you ezz will not regain his health.
We needs your support more than ever, the daily costs of living, the expensive treatments, I hope that through your support I can reach safety with my family.
Please Take Action Now‼️
GFM Donations Link Here 🍉🇵🇸
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Tintin Crossover Fan Art 2 by @adammurphyart
They're fighting over who's gonna beat the most Romans
draw basement lyman eating a muffin i need this drawing in my life
I think Garfield would be a better comic if it was Lyman instead of Garfield.
Rockapella promotional video, 1990.
Rockapella promotional video, 1997-98.
Rockapella's music video for Land of a Thousand Dances, 1996.
Rockapella promotional video, 1997.
Rockapella and Billy Joel, 1990.
Rockapella would later perform with him at the charity benefit Concert for Walden Woods the following year (with a slightly different lineup).
Rockapella promotional photo, 1995.
(AI enhanced with Remini)
Publicity shots of Rockapella, 1997.
(AI enhanced with Remini)
Publicity shots of Rockapella, 2000.
(AI enhanced using Remini)
Rockapella’s music video for Land of a Thousand Dances,1996
Rockapella has fun around NYC in a 1996 promotional music video for ‘Land of a Thousand Dances’.
My extremely unprofessional, bodged-together attempt at enhancing a Rockapella: In Concert poster from about 1998. After seeing it in the Folgers ‘Rockin’ Morning’ commercial, I wondered if a .jpg of this was available anywhere online, but my searches turned up nothing. Then last week, I happened upon it, on an archived GeoCities website from 2001... in glorious 218 by 300 pixels.
This first effort consisted of passing the image through some online AI image upscalers (one of which made the guys’ faces look mildly horrifying; results not included here for your benefit) - that’s why the top third of this picture is blurrier than the rest, which I’ll try to find a way around in my next attempt. I also replaced the shapes, lines and text using Illustrator (fonts are all from the Franklin family, so this was not too much hassle).
Just thought I’d share this as it seems to be quite a rare image online, so... enjoy! I can say with some certainty that this is the most high-resolution version of this poster on the internet, as of my writing this.
Source image also included, in case anybody with more expertise than me (read: almost anybody) wants to try their hand at it. Please click for full-size image (best viewed on a computer)!
The 1993-97 (Carmen Sandiego-era) lineup of Rockapella reunites to sing a darkly comedic parody of the show’s theme song, about drug lord El Chapo. Video by Funny or Die, 2015.
(Bass Barry Carl was not available for filming on the day, but did record his part of the song.)
More from the Rockapella X'mas '96 performance. If some of these seem extra choppy, I swear it's just the manic '90s editing style, and not me. (This same video also features hilarious dissolve and spin transitions without a hint of self-awareness. I love it.)
"Lucky Seven!"
More footage on a bus...
And inside a CD store. (Barry is me rn)
Rockapella has fun inside a Japanese toy store, Christmas 1996.
Seanpanman?
Barry Kong
Coming soon - the concert, at the Japan Airlines Building, Tokyo.
Intro to a Rockapella performance in Japan, Christmas 1996. Yes, the scrolling text in the first image does say 'Rockaperlla'. Similarly charming misspellings are littered throughout. (Sorry, Elliott. But notably, Jeff's last name is spelt correctly here, something English-speaking networks have struggled with).
Rockapella performs and advertises songs from their albums Christmas, 2, and Don't Tell Me You Do on the Home Shopping Network, 2000.
The Word on the Street for Season 5, Episode 13 of Carmen Sandiego - Serendipity!
Jeff and Sean find a beautiful rose, Elliott finds that sausage he lost, Greg finds the winning lottery ticket, and Barry finds the winning lottery ticket... in Greg's hand.
(It's actually just his laundry ticket :p)
Rockapella performing the Carmen Sandiego theme song on PBS Good Morning America, 1993. Those hairstyles! Those clothes!
Rockapella performs House of the Rising Sun in Japan, 1995.
Rockapella in 1992 (Carmen Sandiego-era), being interviewed in Tokyo for CNN, about their success in Japan.
Curiously, the news anchor introduces them as "some rockers who aren't quite stars yet", only to have the reporter say they are "already on a roll in the U.S." Get your story straight, guys!
Rockapella performing on Japanese TV in 1992. Looks to be some kind of musical guessing-gameshow?