Nick Bell 🐀

Chemist, informatics, gamer, DIYer, father to 4-legged children, lover of an early childhood special educator, owner of year 1900 built farm house. Dog help me.

[Nick Bell 🐀 @thenitewatch]

@fomoinu_sol @blknoiz06 Blocked

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A Waffle House at three in the morning. I ordered hash browns. The waitress, Charlene, turned toward the kitchen and shouted.

"Scattered, smothered, covered!"

I rose from my stool.

These were battle commands. Shouted across a room, fast, in code, the way a captain calls a line into position. Something was happening. I prepared myself.

"Who is under attack?" I asked.

Charlene turned back. "Huh? Oh. That's just your hash browns, baby."

I sat back down slowly. "...The potatoes have their own commands?"

"Mhm. Scattered means on the grill. Smothered's onions. Covered's cheese."

"And there are more?"

She counted them off without looking at a menu. "Chunked is ham. Diced is tomato. Peppered's jalapeños. Capped's mushrooms. Topped's chili. Country's sausage gravy."

I was silent for a moment. Nine words. Nine fates, for one potato.

In my homeland, a man earns a name through a lifetime of deeds. Here, a hash brown can earn nine in a single night. I had badly underestimated this country.

"I want all of them," I said. "Every word. The potato has earned them."

"...You want it all the way?"

"All the way. To give it fewer would be an insult."

Charlene shouted the whole thing back into the kitchen, the full litany, and the cook answered without turning around, and I stood again and bowed to him, sergeant to sergeant. He did not see it. It did not matter. I knew.

It came buried. Onions, cheese, ham, tomato, peppers, mushrooms, chili, gravy. You could barely find the potato underneath, which seemed correct, because by then the potato was no longer a side dish. It was a decorated soldier.

I ate the whole thing with a fork in both fists. It was hot and filthy and magnificent. I have eaten in palaces. I have never eaten anything that was honored this thoroughly.

So tell me, America.

You can shout the same potato into nine different lives.

Who wrote this language, and where can a foreigner learn it?

And the cook who answers in code at three in the morning. Is that a kitchen, or a war room?

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

First trailer for Taika Waititi's ‘KLARA AND THE SUN’, starring Jenna Ortega & Amy Adams.

The film follows a robot who bought by a family to help them heal physically & mentally in a dystopian future.

In theaters on October 23.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

There came a knock at my gate, and a young warrior, small but formidable, stood ready for battle.

She was perhaps nine. Behind her, at the sidewalk, a parent stood like a supply wagon. The sash carried badges of past campaigns. She looked up at me and spoke the words every American fears and longs for:

"Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?"

In Japan, sales require months of relationship. Tea is poured. Cards are exchanged with two hands. Here, a nine-year-old general appears on your own land with a binder of product, and resistance has never once succeeded in the history of the republic.

"What is your strongest unit?" I asked.

"Thin Mints. Everybody gets Thin Mints."

"And if I refuse?"

She did not answer. She looked at me. The parent shifted weight. Somewhere, a wind chime rang. Refusal, I understood, was technically possible the way swimming to Hawaii is technically possible.

"Four boxes," I said.

"Most people get more. They freeze."

THEY FREEZE. Forward logistics. This child carries doctrine my family needed three centuries to learn: the campaign is won before it is fought, in the freezer.

I bought nine boxes. I am told this is called a start.

Dale confessed he buys from three generals, granddaughter, coworker's daughter, the girl at the supermarket table, and hides the count from his wife. Tribute, he calls it. Correct. This is not commerce. This is fealty, paid annually, in cookies.

I was not hungry. I was outranked.

A man does not negotiate with a general who brings Thin Mints. He surrenders, and calls it a donation.

The boxes are in my freezer, as instructed. They are nearly gone. She said she would return next year.

I have already begun setting aside funds. One does not meet such a commander unprepared twice.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

For the fourth time since my arrival, I entered the small eatery. Before I could utter a sound, the woman behind the counter spoke. “The usual?”

"The usual," Doris said, setting down sunny side up, wheat toast, hot tea. Exactly as I have ordered it every Thursday for two months.

THE USUAL. I had heard this phrase in your films and assumed it was reserved for detectives and cowboys. No one told me it could be conferred upon ME. No one tells you it arrives without ceremony, one Thursday you are a customer, the next you are KNOWN, and the eggs are moving before the door finishes its bell.

I want to be precise about the scale of what Doris does, because I have studied her like a strategist. She tracks the orders of perhaps two hundred regulars IN HER HEAD. No ledger. Carl: black coffee, short stack. The deputy: scrambled, bacon "almost burnt, not burnt, ALMOST." Me: the eggs of the rising sun, wheat, tea.

When Carl's doctor changed his orders, the short stack became oatmeal WITHOUT CARL ASKING, and Carl, a large man, went quiet in a way the whole counter pretended not to see. That is not food service, America. That is GUARDIANSHIP, conducted at six a.m., while calling everyone "hon."

In Japan, a tea master might study a single guest for years to anticipate one preference. It is high art. Doris does it at scale, before sunrise, in orthopedic shoes.

"The usual" is not an order. It is a TITLE. It means a place has watched you arrive enough mornings to bet eggs on your return. Citizenship, issued one plate at a time.

A man does not ask to be known. He arrives every Thursday until he is.

This morning, drunk on my new rank, I tested its borders. "Doris," I said. "Surprise me."

The counter went still. Carl turned fully around.

Doris narrowed her eyes. Studied me like a hand of cards. And ruled:

"...You'll have the usual. But I'm putting the jam on the side. You're not a surprise guy, hon."

JAM ON THE SIDE.

She was completely right, America. The jam was excellent. Carl nodded once, like a judge. I am not a surprise guy. I am a usual guy.

Fifty-four years and one waitress to learn it, and I have never been more at peace.

The jam is part of the usual now. She never asked. She knew. Of course she knew. She's Doris.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Two hives went into Dave's orchard corner this spring, and Keith, who has assessed and tested and dismantled every single thing on that farm, has assessed the bees exactly once and elected, for the first time in his life, to leave a thing entirely alone.

This is genuinely without precedent. Keith tests everything. He has eaten a latch, a pocket square, a set of water heater instructions, and the better part of Dave's left wellington. He climbs what cannot be climbed and opens what cannot be opened and investigates the world with a relentless prehensile curiosity that has cost Dave three hundred and eighty-seven pounds in gates. There is no object in his domain he has not, at some point, put his lips to in the spirit of enquiry.

He walked up to the hives on the first day. Dave watched from the yard with the specific dread of a man who has seen this goat approach things before. Keith stood in front of the nearest hive. He watched the entrance, the constant stream of bees coming and going, the low working hum of forty thousand individuals about their business. He brought his nose to within a sensible distance. He held there for a while, doing whatever calculation it is that goes on behind those rectangular eyes.

And then he stepped back, turned, and walked away to the bramble, and he has not gone near the hives since.

Dave's log: "He left the bees. I don't know what passed between Keith and the bees. Whatever it was, the bees won the negotiation without appearing to negotiate, which is the only time anything on this farm has managed it. I have not added a column. I am simply relieved."

There is a kind of intelligence that tests everything to find its limit. And there is a rarer kind that meets a thing humming with quiet collective purpose and recognises, without needing to be stung, that here at last is something better left to get on with its work.

Keith has both. The bees are fine. The bees were always going to be fine. Even Keith knows where the line is, and the line, it turns out, is forty thousand of anything, all agreeing.

[15/10 Foundation @15outof10]

These are all the dogs we sponsored in May ❤️‍🩹

[World Health Organization (WHO) @WHO]

#Hantavirus cluster linked to cruise ship travel: 
Since 1 April when the boat set sail, of the 147 passengers and crew, 7 people have become ill, among whom 3 have died, 1 is critically ill and 3 are reporting mild symptoms.

Based on the current information, including how hantavirus spreads, WHO assesses the risk to the global population from this event as low.
We are working closely with health authorities from the countries involved and the ship's operators to ensure passengers and crew get the information and support they need.

WHO will continue to monitor the situation and update the risk assessment as more information becomes available.

More information https://t.co/4945xmA0IX

[Ben Inskeep @Ben_Inskeep]

The 1,000 MW Meta data center under construction in Lebanon, IN, will use up to 8 million gallons of water per day, according to a new letter published by the Mayor in response to concerns from public officials.

The entire city currently only peaks at 3 million gallons per day.

[WeRateDogs @dog_rates]

Here are my top 10 dog and news reporter interactions

[Nick Bell 🐀 @thenitewatch]

@CSOonX Texas and New Orleans are not drivable by most fans. Gotta fly.

[Nick Bell 🐀 @thenitewatch]

@YahooFantasyCC Thank you. After over 20 years of enjoying Yahoo fantasy games, I am done. Your arbitrary points system has ruined all of the games. Goals and assists are less important than the +/-. It’s all unnecessary.

[Melissa Y. Kim @melissaykim]

It was an emotional postgame presser for @HUMensBB as Bryce Harris and Ose Okojie shared their final thoughts about Howard HC Kenny Blakeney and how's changed their lives.

Their answers are almost ten mins long (which obvs speaks to KB), but here's a little snippet:

[Sci-Fi World Museum @hollywoodscifi]

Something shiny is definitely coming...

[WeRateDogs @dog_rates]

This is Buddy. He does hydrotherapy to stay strong and live forever as all good boys should. 14/10 #SeniorPupSaturday

[WTFGOP @doggintrump]

Before you buy Girl Scout cookies you should know they support Transgender girls & reject donations from anti-transgender organizations & then buy a couple more boxes 🏳️‍🌈

[Denny’s @DennysDiner]

we love you but do NOT bring your girl here today

[Liz Essley Whyte @l_e_whyte]

WASHINGTON—In an hour-long meeting in January, Food and Drug Administration career staff laid out their objections to a plan to block a new flu shot from vaccine maker Moderna...

Vinay Prasad, the head of the FDA vaccine and biologics division, overruled them...