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To the very best of times

@thetimesarchitecture / thetimesarchitecture.tumblr.com

UPDATE: Quarantine brought me back
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I recently started working in hospitality, and I’ll tell you guys right now, the trope of “there was only one bed” is not as rare as you’d think in real life. A few times a week, at least, I have guys come in who are working together on projects in town or passing through who have to literally book the last room I have available for the night and lo and behold — there is only one bed, and guess what, they give each other a side-eyed look and begrudgingly take it. So write it up, it happens all the time!!!

Never let your There Was Only One Bed dreams die. I was secretly in love with my best friend for over a year when she graduated and moved to Oklahoma (like 1000 miles away) for grad school. Between that travel restrictions, we were so scared we’d never see eachother again.

At the end of summer, when Covid numbers were at a lower point, I took the risk to visit her in her new apartment and I quickly realized that, unlike when I’d spent the night at her house before, the couch wasn’t made up like a bed. She explained that since her new couch was so fancy and pink, I couldn’t possibly sleep on it, and so I needed to sleep in the bed with her. You know, out of necessity. I woke up with her snuggled around me in the middle of the night.

We’re dating now, and I genuinely think I’m going to marry her. Just the other day, though, I mentioned that if she hadn’t been weird about her fancy couch, I probably never would have like confessed my feelings. AND THEN she stood up, took the cushions off the fancy couch, UNFOLDED IT INTO A HIDE-A-BED, and said “I KNOW.”

THIS GIRL. ORCHESTRATED. BED SCARCITY. JUST SO SHE COULD MAKE THE “ONLY ONE BED” EXCUSE. Y’all when I said I just about lost my goddamn mind, I just about lost my goddamn mind. I love this sneaky bitch so much and the moral of this story is BE THE ONE BED YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

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leet911

Fanfic imitates life, and life imitates fanfic. It’s full circle really.

oh my god 

there was only one bed

but it was STAGED

I love this so much

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answered a scam call today and had the most bizarre conversation

scam caller: hello, how are you today?

me: great!

scam caller: good. I’m calling because your IP address has been compromised. I’ll just need you to get in front of your computer so we can get your account fixed up.

me: okay! there is one thing I’m wondering, though

scam caller: what?

me: you really couldn’t think of a better lie?

scam caller:

me: like, my “IP address has been compromised.” How, exactly, does an IP address become “compromised”?

scam caller:

me: I was just wondering, is all

scam caller: why did you answer?

me:

me: what?

scam caller: if you knew this wasn’t a legitimate call, then why did you answer?

me: oh, I just though I would have some fun at your expense.

scam caller: what expense? talking is no expense to me.

me: well, you’re currently not accomplishing your goal

scam caller: my goal?

me: your goal of scamming my elderly grandmother. You’re not accomplishing that. I’d call that an expense.

scam caller: well, can I scam you?

me:

me: did you- did you ask if you can scam me?

scam caller: yes. can I scam you?

me, baffled: sure, you can try

scam caller: you need to get in front of your computer

me: yeah, that’s still a problem. I’m eating tater tots right now and I really don’t feel like getting up.

scam caller: okay. I will call you tomorrow morning, then.

me: I might not answer. My grandma definitely won’t.

scam caller: You answered today.

me: …touché?

scam caller: I will call you tomorrow. Have a good day.

Enemies to lovers, slow burn, 500K

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lordterronus

This reads like a bit from a British sketch comedy.

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nowthisnews

Thanks to a pair of a bionic gloves, this 80-year-old classical pianist can finally play the piano again. The maestro, João Carlos Martins, had lost dexterity in his hands due to aging and health complications. His face at being able to play piano again says it all. 🎶

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Sometimes the future is pretty cool, actually.

Bro he’s so happy he’s crying and that’s making me cry he gets to play piano again after so long I

João Carlos Martins isn’t just any pianist, he’s one of the best pianists alive today. The dude has been playing piano for over 70 years (his career started when he was 11, but by the time he was 8 he had already won a contest playing Bach), and out of those 70, 56 years he spent playing with some kind of disability in his hands.

By the time he was 20 years old, João Carlos had already been invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to play at the Carnegie Hall, played with the biggest north american orchestras, and recorded the entire work of Bach for the piano. At the height of his skills, he could play 21 notes per second.

In 1965, at 24 years old, he suffered an accident during a soccer match which ended up causing an injury on his right elbow, damaging his ulnar nerve and atrophying 3 of his fingers. This caused him to stop playing for a year, and to play with difficulty until his 30s.

After long periods of physical therapy, but still with much difficulty, he returned to the stages and was received several positive reviews and was acclaimed by the public. However, he ended up developing a work-related musculoskeletal disorder, which forced him to stop playing again.

This wasn’t enough to make him give up on his musical career, and even with atrophied fingers and paralyzed hands, he still managed to play and record all basically of Bach’s work from 1979 to 1985, still being wildly popular despite his difficulties.

However, the worst would come in 1995: at 55 years old, during a robbery in Bulgaria, João Carlos was struck in the head with an iron bar, resulting in neurological sequelae which paralyzed his right arm. After a lot of physical and neurological therapy, he managed to move his right hand again enough to play the piano with both hands, but due to a worsening of his condition, at 58, he started to develop troubles not only moving his hand, but also speaking, so he had to go through another surgery. It didn’t seem like he would recover much movement in his hand after surgery, however, so he used the short time he had before his hand atrophied completely to record one last CD with both hands.

In 2001, at 61, he recorded the album Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, written by Maurice Ravel for Paul Wittgenstein, an austrian pianist who lost his right arm during World War 1.

His intention was to record 8 albums using only his left hand, however, his left hand developed a disease called Dupuytren’s contracture, causing his fingers to become permanently bent and contracted, as well as causing pain. He went through another surgery, this time in his left hand, but it didn’t prevent him from losing movement in his left hand, causing him to have to abandon the piano, seemingly for good.

This still didn’t keep him away from music, and after learning to conduct from a friend of his, he became a conductor in 2003, at 63 years old. Due to his paralyzed fingers, João Carlos couldn’t actually hold the baton or even turn the pages in the score (at least not fast enough to not stall the music), however, so instead the maestro simpy memorized every score note by note. He memorized, on average, 5000 score pages. (Unfortunately, he started to develop dystonia on his left arm, causing it to twitch, which caused him to have to stop conducting for a while, but he came back shortly after and has been conducting ever since.)

He went through another brain surgery in 2012, to recover the movements in his left hand, but at this point it was so atrophied he hadn’t even opened it in 10 years. He still occasionally played the piano in important events, and he even played at the opening of the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, but his playing was very slow and he could barely use his fingers, playing only a single note per second (compare with his 21 notes per seconds back when he was young).

(João Carlos Martins playing at an event in São Bernardo do Campo, 2013)

His bionic gloves were custom made by an industrial engineer, after said engineer saw him playing live and thought he could probably come up with something to help him. After he approached João Carlos to offer his help, the bionic gloves got ready just in time for him to play at the 466 anniversary of the city of São Paulo, in 2020, where João Carlos claimed “this is the first time in 22 years I place all 10 fingers in the keyboard”. Now, in 2021, he often posts videos of himself playing, and he always gets very emotional while doing so, and he is hardly seen without his new bionic gloves.

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I want a story about an Italian vampire.

No romance, no action.

Just 200 pages of “What do you mean, I can’t have garlic? Do you know where I’m from?”

TBH I think the main issue would be the mirror thing

have you ever met an Italian man

the amount of time they spend looking in the mirror jfc

a bunch of pissed off vampires stuck in Venice because they can’t go over moving water

Not to victim blame, but you’d have to be a pretty bad Italian to even get turned into a vampire in the first place.

the only two places practically immune to vampires are texas and italy

Let me tell you of A Thing.

Lithuania has no vampires, I guarantee it.

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stephendann

Lithuania has one vampire, and let me tell you, she’s gonna be FURY UNLEASHED once someone gets her out of the centre of that crossterfuck of a burial point.

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voidbat

cackled and kicked my feet at “crossterfuck” oh my god

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on a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how well would you deal with losing your right hand

or, on a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how well do you deal with latent sexual feelings for your sister

or, on a scale of luke skywalker to jamie lannister how well would you deal with your dad being an utter bastard with unresolved issues about the death of his wife

or, on a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how well would you deal with the fact that your nephew is a complete and total douche

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assheda

or, on a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how do you feel when you see gwendoline christie in armor

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andrusi

on a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how badly did your failed attempt to murder a kid screw everyone over

on a scale of luke skywalker to jaime lannister how disappointing was the end of your franchise

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