Signal Boost

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Let's do this

Hope you got your freedoms close to you because it's time for some motherfuckin' Dear Annie.

Dear Annie: My wife and I have been separated for four years. We have joint custody of our beautiful 8-year-old daughter. "Lizzie" spends half the week with me and the other half with her mother. It works out well, and Lizzie fully understands that she now has to live in two separate, loving homes.
Here's the problem: When going to gatherings and parties, my mother's friends and other family members feel the need to say, "It's so nice that you guys share her right now, because when she gets older, you know she's going to want to live with her mom full time." Or, "What are you going to do when she's a teenager and only wants to stay with her mom?" They then begin to tell me stories about their divorced son or a friend's son to whom this has happened. 

Who cares?
People are going to run their fucking mouths no matter what you do so just teach your daughter early that people are assholes and there's not much that can be done about it.

Dear Annie: I hope you can help me with an unusual request. I am a very heavyset female, and there are some parts of my body that I can't reach to wash. Because of that, I have an odor that I hope no one else can smell, but I'm not sure. Is there any place where I could get these private parts shaved? I am sure that would help a lot.

 FUUUUUUCK
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCK
Picture added by me, obviously.
In case you thought Dear Annie suddenly turned hardcore.

Dear Ms. Bit: You would have to ask at a salon whether they would shave you. You might have better luck with a bikini wax.

Oh Christ.
Hang on I'm going to see how much a bikini line waxer makes--
Google recommends I search for "how do I get a bikini wax while pregnant" instead.
If that's a serious concern you have should you be raising a child?
I don't know.
Anyway I'm getting off topic.
The answer, I found out, is 26,000 dollars on average.
And I in other news I have found the most underpaid career in America.
And you thought it was teachers, bah.

For permanent hair removal, you can check into laser therapy or electrolysis, although both require multiple treatments and are not inexpensive. In the meantime, look into installing a handheld shower sprayer and check online for easily available hygiene products geared toward those hard-to-reach places.

HOW ABOUT YOU LOSE SOME GODDAMN WEIGHT
ONCE YOU CAN NO LONGER CLEAN THE FISH HOLE OUT IT'S TIME TO LOOK INTO  MAYBE SPENDING SOME TIME ON A MOTHERFUCKING TREADMILL.

Dear Annie: I have lupus, but because I usually look OK, people assume I'm doing fine. I am part of a small group of Christian ladies that meets monthly. Often, I'm unable to attend because I'm not well. I notify our group's coordinator and tell her specifically what is wrong that day — headache, fatigue, achiness, etc. — so that the ladies can pray for me. No one has ever called to check on me afterward. 

Take solace in your voodoo and be done with it.

Dear Annie: My sister-in-law, "Marie," has been diagnosed as bipolar, but doesn't take any medication. For 25 years, it has caused serious trouble. Marie is a spiteful, evil, controlling human being.

Wow that's terrible.
I'm keeping the obvious joke in check right now.

You can't find a single person in town with a kind word to say about her. Her own daughters try to keep their distance. 

Well, you know--
What can you do when you marry white women
WOOOOO THANK YOU

My brother is afraid to leave her and instead seeks the company of other women. He's had many affairs during their marriage. All of the men he works with are aware of this and even encourage it because they see how awful his wife is.
As brothers, we were always close, but Marie has managed to sever our relationship. My brother is not a healthy man. He works extra hours in order to stay away from home. His latest girlfriend is a beautiful, kind, sweet woman. He adores her, but is afraid of what Marie might do. She has threatened to destroy his life if he ever leaves her. Her threats are real.
While we do not condone his cheating, the family has witnessed his painful marriage. What can we do? — Brother to Brother 

 Shovels are cheap.
Just sayin'.

I am madly in love with my ex-fiancee. We have been separated since March but have been talking about getting back together and starting a family.
The problem is, while we were separated, I slept with another woman. It happened at a weak point in my life, and I don't plan to do it again. Now the other woman says she is pregnant. I have asked for proof, but she hasn't provided any. We did use a condom, but it broke.
Should I tell my almost-fiancee or wait until I have physical proof?

THEN THERE'S THIS DUMB QUIFF.
 I GOTTA GET BACK IN GOOD WITH MY ONE HARPY WHITE WAHM BUT ANOTHER IS HOLDING ME EMOTIONALLY HOSTAGE WHAT DO I DO?
Here's what you do: kill yourself you dense motherfucker.
Have you considered she's your ex because of your shitty behavior?
Like I'm sure she just broke up with you for no reason.
"Should I renew my relationship on a lie?" is the question you're asking.
If you seriously need an answer to this then I'm dead fucking serious about my previous advice.

Dear Annie: I have been married for more than 20 years and have never been sexually attracted to my husband. He is a good provider, but there is no passion, no excitement, nothing. I have tried everything I can think of to make sex better, but he acts as if it's part of my wifely duties, which makes me sick.
I don't want to break up our home, but I'm in love with a passionate man who just rocks my world. He kisses me, and I forget my name. Our affair has lasted four years. Why can't I keep them both? — Torn in Tulsa

So let me see if I've assessed this situation correctly.
This dumb motherfucker has been married to you for 20 fucking years and is "a good provider" and because he views sex as part of your wifely duties (I'm envisioning a housewife here) it disgusts you so you promptly start fucking another dude.
White women, man.
What the fuck was he supposed to do?
I'm guessing there was no right answer for that jim-jom and he was just supposed to keep your spoiled ass while you were off fucking the pool boy.

Dear Torn: It seems you've been doing exactly that for four years, but obviously, it's not enough. Please stop living a dual life and figure out what you want. If there are young children, you owe it to them to work on your marriage. Get into joint counseling so your husband can work on his Neanderthal attitude toward women and so you can see whether passion can be ignited. If you believe sex is the most important aspect of a marriage, divorce your husband so you can be with Rocks Your World. But having it both ways isn't working, and you'll feel better when you deal with this more honestly.

Yes and he's the one with the problem.
He probably is wrong too but I hardly see cheating as excusable.
Don't make excuses for her shitty behavior, Annie. I thought you were an advice guru.
AM I THE LAST MAN ALIVE WHO KNOWS WHAT HONOR IS?

Dear Annie: I was sexually abused by an uncle when I was 12. I am now 35 and expect to see him at an upcoming family reunion. 

 Jesus Christ all mighty this got heavy quick.

After all these years, I finally wrote him a letter. He will never read it. When he dies, I want to place it in his casket. I hope you will let me share my thoughts:

Why wait until he's dead?
Not a lot of good the letter does at that point.

Dear Uncle: I have a few things that I've waited a long time to tell you. Now that you are dead, I am finally happy. I am happy you are burning in hell. God has given me justice. While others are mourning your death, I am celebrating. I will never forgive you for what you did. You stole my childhood from the moment you laid hands on me when I was a 12-year-old child.

Pffft please you can do better than this.
Surely after being molested you can muster up a better sense of vengeance than this.

Dear Annie: I've been a public librarian for 15 years.
Despite signs that clearly state, "No Cell Phones," patrons largely ignore them.

Welcome to the modern age, asshole.
You can fight that battle.
It won't work but you can.
It's really up to you to decide what you're going to do about it but at the end of the day you will accomplish nothing.
I'm not saying give up now is the easiest and best solution but giving up now is the easiest and best solution.
Anyway fuck it's time for bed I got school in the morning and it's the last day before Thanksgiving and it's 12th graders.
THE SONG OF THE NOW.
From best vidya soundtrack in the last 5 years.

Fuck

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well you know

we run things
things don't run we
that's a genuine Miley Cyrus lyric.
She didn't really write it, though. Seven (yes, really) people were needed to make that masterpiece of lyricism.
There's this debate with litfags about the story of Orpheus.
The story classically ends where he gets over his lost love by having sex with a lot of underage boys and it's believed now early Christians added that to discredit one of the more important myths in Greek Paganism.
I think it's clear that it's no myth and Orpheus still lives among us writing Miley Cyrus lyrics.
Oh right, what the fuck am I talking about?
Blogs.
Hope you're sitting comfortably and doing something else enjoyable while reading this drivel because we're opening with a bracing session of body politics.
I went to the gym yesterday and was already skinny before and now I'm getting fuckin' ripped so I am well equipped to handle this topic with sensitivity.

There's been another round of non-controversy over the use of mannequins with proportions approximating those of average women rather than unusually thin women. Which rather trivial news has been greeted with hysteria over the prospect that the mannequins might promote unhealthy lifestyles. 

I'd really like to take this article to a feminist in India and say "this is what feminists in America are worried about instead of the number of their supposed sisters raped and killed here every year"
I'm sure her insight would be interesting.

I find it completely baffling, this idea that even the most mildly positive image of anyone who isn't thin is going to destroy everybody's health. I personally am not convinced by the evidence for the view that being fat causes diabetes and heart disease and cancer, but I appreciate this is conventional wisdom. Even accepting that correlation, for one thing it seems like the only body shapes that don't provoke this health panic are those that are much thinner than the proportions recommended by those who are convinced that weight is the major factor in long-term health.

I'd only want those really swanky mannequins that don't even have human proportions--
like the impossibly thin waist and huge tits.
I'd also glue googly eyes on all of them.
Also I'd only have one pair of pants in a random color, style and size and once someone bought it I'd shutter the entire store for 15 minutes.
When someone bought it an air raid siren would go off.

And for a second thing, vaguely positive images of non-thin people don't cause people to gain weight and most certainly don't cause serious long-term health conditions. And we're talking really tiny amounts of positivity: a plastic statue of a woman standing in a shop window and wearing fashionable clothes is hardly an aspirational role model. I am incapable of imagining a woman deciding, oh, they have mannequins of about my body type in the window of Debenhams, I won't bother doing any more exercise or maintaining a healthy diet any more.

Remember when everyone was pitching a bitch about Abercrombie and Fitch saying it didn't want to sell clothes to fat people or nerds?
I feel they really missed their mark.
It's a brilliant marketing strategy but it's directed at the wrong market.
Teenagers are traditionally the ones who shop at Abercrombie and Fitch and they're also at the height of their 3edgy5me must be different phase and the best way they perceive to do that is by being extra accepting so that means being accepting of fat nerds and homosexuals.
If you want that marketing strategy to work make sure you sell primarily to white 20 something women.
Trademark like one pattern and put it on yoga pants and make sure it matches with beige and brown then pay like 50 hip-looking, hot models to wear them in NYC and LA for a week.
Then just sit your ass down and count your fat motherfucking stacks you greedy swine.
This type of thinking is exactly how I make money on the stock market, incidentally.
Here's my market research:
"that's an interesting name, what do they do?"
If I like what they do I go to their corporate website. If their mission statement sounds evil I check the news. If I can find a story where they're doing something I'd do I invest 100% of my money.
If I can second guess them I keep looking.
This is why I am 18% growth and really only play two to three times a week during lunch or in between bouts of 16 year old punks asking me ridiculous questions.
If I was actually a full time day trader or, hell, invested my full attention into it for an hour?
Watch the fuck out.
Nothing more heartbreaking than to see a good angle only to find the company is owned by like a chain of 90 companies and you just have to invest in Viacom or, even worse, they're private.

 I was going to post this when I had three milestones clustered together: a year of running, a hundred runs, and 200 miles total. But I was going through a really bad patch and I just felt too discouraged. Now things are going a bit better, but I'm still finding it hard going and feel I've lost ground. 

>been seriously exercising for about 3 months
>over 100 miles run
m8

So I started the Couch to 5K beginners' running programme at the end of September last year. It went really well; each successive week the workouts got enough harder that I was challenging myself but not impossible so that I felt like giving up.

Enough harder.
Do you have a couch to basic English proficiency program?
FUCKIN' ZING.

And I got through the programme (it took me I think 12 weeks rather than 9, but that's no big deal), and by the end of it I could comfortably run for half an hour without stopping. Slowly, but considering that even one minute of running felt daunting at the beginning, that felt a big accomplishment. 

Time to start your marine PFTs then.
I still couldn't join the marines due to my abysmal mile time.
I don't understand. I went from noodle arm to being about to do 20 pull ups without any real trouble but my run time has barely improved.
Not that I'm planning on joining the marines but I figure they have to shoot people for a living so they probably know a thing or two about not being a pussy and I just wonder why my progress is so uneven.

I definitely like running better than generic cardio.

>running better than generic cardio
>running is generic cardio
-
anything that gets your heart rate up is cardio.
The way 99% of meatheads will advise you to do this is running.

Partly because it's such a basic thing, I can get a fairly objective feel for how I'm improving without worrying about things like the exact machine settings. Partly because at least having the potential to run outdoors sometimes makes it less boring, I can actually go somewhere rather than being on a machine. This also means that I can just put on some trainers and leggings and run, I don't have to faff around going to the gym, getting changed, remembering my washing things etc. Of course, the down side of this is that sometimes the weather drives me indoors; I don't know if I should maybe go back to just switching around cardio things like ellipticals, bikes and rowing machines when I do have to be in the gym, because at least that would be a bit more varied. 

>you have a rowing machine
>not using it
IT'S LIKE YOU NEVER WANT TO GO SUPER SAIYAN.

On a good day, I come close to enjoying a run, though good days are still the exception rather than the rule.

You're not running fast enough, then.

In any case I'll take less hateful, because it's a lot more possible to motivate myself to do exercise when it's only mildly unpleasant rather than both unpleasant and boring. 

>want your exercise to be less hateful
Wow no wonder you've made like no progress.
The human body evolved in some of the harshest conditions on this, an already violent, planet. If you want true fitness you can't really afford to be anything less than a ball of incandescent hate and fury.
I should write motivational tapes for Warhammer nerds.
If I heard that in middle school instead of the typical NO PAIN, NO GAIN crap I might have given three fucks about four fucks.

I think one of the reasons that C25K worked well for me was that I got into the habit of running three times a week. I had to be quite strict with myself to make that happen, but aiming for three and falling short was was definitely getting me more exercise than aiming for twice a week and falling short. I also gave myself permission that on days I ran, I didn't have to do any other exercise. 

My routine starts with running.
Then there's stuff after it.
No fail.

So my brother (here known as Screwy) is a sessional teacher in a university. He decided, on the advice of a trans friend, that he would include asking for preferred pronouns during the intros in the first class of term. However, one fresher in his class, whom Screwy read as trans but who isn't out, was made visibly uncomfortable by this. This student later wrote in Screwy's teaching evaluation that this exercise could potentially out them, and respectfully requested that Screwy should not do that again.

As a result, Screwy feels really bad because his good intentions of making his class a safe space for people with diverse gender expressions backfired and actually made one of his students directly unsafe.

"Fuckers are out in force" would be my reaction.

i haz a pedagogy!

Oh good you're trusted to instruct people.
Fills me with confidence.

Somebody mentioned in one of the introductory sessions that whatever else the course achieved, it would turn you into a bad student. That turned out to be absolutely prophetic. I skipped the reading and turned up to class unprepared, I gossipped or daydreamed instead of working on group exercises, I whooped and punched the air when class was cancelled.

Sounds like how I got through my last year of college.
I bought a book to use as a prop.
Proof I owned it.
I never even opened it.
I'll never forget the class where we had to grade each other for "practice" and my response to this was "let's all just give each other an A" and one punk motherfucker said "I'm going to take this seriously."
I think something about the look in my eye convinced him I was serious when I said "then I want to grade last and I will give you exactly what you gave me."
If we're playing a game of GPA chicken I think I can take the guy in a sweater vest and bow tie.

Thing is, I was a bad student partly because for the first time in my academic career I genuinely had more important things to do than get high marks in a particular course. 

One time I had to walk hand in hand out to the parking lot with a class.
This was in college.
I am dead
fucking
serious
I tried to sandwich myself between the two hot Korean exchange students but no dice. I did get between one of them and a blind girl though so that was all right. What were we doing in the parking lot?
Checking our fucking privilege.
I swear to fuck I am not making this up.
I think the problem teachers run into talking to me is unless you literally taught in a prison and went to college in fucking Narnia you're not beating the insane shit I've seen and done.
This was somehow supposed to prepare me for homeless children high on PCP. I feel like if they had just played this while pointing at me it would have prepared me better.
YOU BETTER FEEL LIKE THIS ON THE INSIDE OR YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT THROUGH.
And here I am.

Another reason I was a bad student was because I actually struggled with the academic material. Lots of people look at someone like me who typically achieves high marks in everything and imagine it's completely effortless.

>struggling with pedagogy
more like struggling to stay conscious am I right?
This doesn't make you a bad student. It makes you bad at tolerating bullshit. Any class that outright tells you "you'll be a bad student by the time you're done" is full of shit by definition.
Really?
Because before now I was an honors student. Is it me or is it you at that point?

Which is always really annoying to me, because I've never coasted on my innate ability, I've always worked really hard in every academic setting (until this course). But there's a difference between putting in lots of time and effort, and as a result fully understanding the material and being able to do well at it, and putting in lots of time and effort and still not really getting it. 

That's because it's engineered to not be understood. It's like one of those Zen riddles. T
wo hands clap and there is a sound.
What is the sound of one hand? It's like that only stretched out over 40 pages and filled half with made up words and the other half with  the douchiest words you've ever heard strung together in your entire life.

kaberett is absolutely right to point out that social science isn't any more jargon-heavy than any other field of study. But my problem was not that I didn't know the definitions of words, as that I didn't really understand the concepts the terms (very often words with common English meanings entirely unrelated to their technical ones) were referring to. I'm afraid that if this Higher Ed teaching course had been my only exposure, it would have confirmed my prejudices that social sciences are mostly wishy-washy and people making stuff up without any evidence and using lots of long words to make their opinions sound respectable.

Nope that's the social sciences.

For one thing, that helped me to overcome my prejudices; the "problem" with social science is nothing more than Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. 90% of natural science is crap too, it's using long words to justify existing opinions and prejudices, it's based on experiments which assume their conclusions rather than properly falsifying hypotheses with rigorous controls. But because I am completely embedded in the biological science world, I can filter out all the mediocre stuff and I basically only notice the really well-supported models. I still do find it difficult to connect to "theory" as opposed to what I think of as empirical work, but I am much more aware now of good research going on in social sciences and I'm starting to get the hang of where some of the theory comes from. 

I did a study for my student teaching class that said if you don't study you won't pass the test.
I had to scrap the experiment because I had no control. No one actually studied for the test.
It actually turned into this tortured experiment in perception vs. reality.
I'm pretty sure I ended up concluding I couldn't actually prove any of my students were real.
I guess I should be thankful because frankly it's been an issue I've been grappling with ever since in the back of my mind.
What is real?
What am I, even?
WOW MAN.

Some friends of mine have a young baby who is just about approaching the age where the NHS starts its vaccination schedule. They've been reading anti-vax stuff on the internet and it's scaring them. 

>being against vaccinations
>anno domini 2013
I guess the jar of leeches and the balance of the humors works just as well, then.

My friends are not completely convinced because they say that the pharmaceutical industry is motivated by profit rather than health.

No one hates the pharmaceutical industry more than me.
They are in the business of selling health, though. If what they sold didn't work they wouldn't be in business.
I'm not saying it works well or even fixes the problem but it has to at least be partially efficacious.

They are aware of stories of negative trial results being suppressed, of contaminated vaccines and of testing unsafe vaccines on vulnerable populations without proper consent.

And I store nuclear waste in a Coke bottling factory in EVE Online.
If you want cheap crap some sacrifices have to made.

There's been a lot of virtual ink spilled on the snobbery and sexism that permeates which kinds of video games are taken seriously. I think where I'm at is that actually, the industry has woken up to the fact that they can make serious money out of casual games, and it hasn't necessarily made my life as a casual gamer better (even though I am reasonably willing to spend money on games I enjoy). 

Every girl can now play her fucking Candy Crush for 5 minutes a day but I still struggle to find a game that can't be beaten in 12 hours.
WELCOME TO THE EQUALITY OF GAMING.
Ready for a fucking essay on why she's a casual gamer?
No?
Well too fucking bad because it's coming.

I am almost totally uninterested in first person shooters or any sort of game where the aim is to run around the world killing enemies. Those make up, of course, most of the headline games! And yes, I know some of them are really good, beautiful graphics, detailed world-building, interesting and original missions. 

You know some of them are really good, have beautiful graphics, detailed world building, etc etc?
Can you list them?
Because I sure don't know any like that.
Just brown and bloom in the desert of brown people and vague gun metal.

But I can't be bothered to invest dozens of hours in a game in order to find out what happens next in the plot. I would rather read a book, which takes me 10 hours or less, and which I can do more or less anywhere without needing complicated hardware. And if I want to look at pretty things and admire excellent storytelling in a more passive way, I would rather watch a film (which takes 2-3 hours) than play a game. 

Sounds like you might want to read a book or watch a movie, then.
You don't have to fuck up my major form of entertainment just because you weren't included in a hobby you clearly have no interest in anyway.

I've quite often acquired cutting-edge games when they seem to be more plot or exploration driven and less explosion / shooting driven, but I still have the problem that I can't be bothered to learn the skills needed to control my character or put the time in to actually play through the game. Things like Myst, Baldur's Gate, Black & White, Oblivion: over the years I've never been able to stick to them long enough to get past being useless and incompetent and actually start having fun.

YOU COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO CONTROL MYST?
YOU CLICKED WHERE YOU WANTED TO GO AND IT HAPPENED.
THERE WAS LITERALLY NOTHING THREATENING YOU IN THAT GAME.
Also are you sure you played these games because if you tried to pick a group of games with less in common control wise than Myst, Baldur's Gate, Black & White and Oblivion you'd be having problems.

There are precisely two games I have actually enjoyed enough to spend time learning a complex set of skills to be able to play. One is Civilization II, which manages to combine flow state (managing resources in each of my cities in turn) with making decisions which actually take thought and strategy.

Until you realize the quirky AI and exploit it like a motherfucker.

And I think Terraria is turning out to be a second such game. I play it on softcore (which basically means that dying is an inconvenience), and I like the combination of simple repetitive stuff like fighting, with the brain-requiring bits of exploring and building. 

>Terraria
>brain power
WOW.

So the obvious reason I prefer casual games over "serious" games is that I want something that gives me 5 minutes or half an hour of flow state, not something that requires serious investment of time and brain power. But there's a second reason too, which I think boils down to a difference in approach or attitude. Serious games require you to manage split second timing and pixel perfect pointing to avoid DEATH. 

Not really.
I mean some games sure but most are a mix of strategy and coordination. If you're seriously going down to the wire like that then you're probably doing something wrong.
Also so what? Some people enjoy competition.
This is like people whining about IVs and EVs in Pokemon.
That's what competitive battlers do. If you don't like it prepare to be at a disadvantage. Don't expect everyone to bend over backwards because you don't like to sit and breed Pokemon for a few hours.
I'm glad IVs are still in Pokemon. Nintendo stood the fuck up and told whiners to go screw.
They made it manageable, granted (and thank fuck) but it's still an important element to the game.

Casual games kind of give you the benefit of the doubt, often giving you credit if you're nearly right, they tend to default to "yay, you win" any time the outcome is marginal.

IF I NEEDED PROOF OF HOW AWESOME I WAS I'D READ MY OWN BLOG.
OTHERWISE I'D LIKE A CHALLENGE.

And also, in serious games, your reward for doing well is very often stuff that is simply not rewarding for my brain. In-game money or high score points, meh. And all too often your reward in serious games is... sexy women. "Sexy" as in scantily clad with tiny waists and pneumatic breasts and a sort of vaguely soft-pornish "please abuse me" attitude. 

I have never in my fucking life played a video game where the reward was a woman outside of Mario.
You know, Princess Peach?
The one with so much clothing on she's wearing gloves in the desert and the only sex happening is if you can somehow interpret "baking a cake" as "fucking"?
There might be some sort of dating side quest or dealing with white women as a matter of getting to the part where you get to kill heretics and aliens but in general the end result isn't women.

Even though I'm attracted to women in principle, that particular style of sexy I find a complete and utter turn-off, and honestly when I'm playing computer games I'm not looking for sexual thrills anyway.

Soooo let me see if I understand this correctly:
you don't like active entertainment
you don't like being challenged
you don't like spending a great deal of time figuring stuff out
you don't like conflict
clearly video games are the hobby for you, then!
I hate the feeling of chalk and I can't draw worth a goddamn and I can't be assed to practice.
Should I pick up chalk portraiture?

Conversely, in casual games, your reward for doing well is often cuteness. Playing a little fanfare or displaying a colourful animation or giving me achievement badges and medals are much much better at pushing the reward buttons in my brain than just racking up a bigger number. And little cartoonish cute creatures make me smile, whereas sexy women making kissyface just makes me feel vaguely dispirited or reminds me forcefully that I'm not the intended audience. 

SO MAYBE FIND A NEW HOBBY.
JESUS CHRIST.
Also she may be dressing this up as "I like easy things" but I'm really reading this as "women can't handle honest competition and only like shiny, colorful distractions and vapid, shallow, meaningless content" but maybe that's just my rampant misogyny showing.
I mean sure video games are a waste of time (like pretty much everything in life) but at least good games you can claim shit like "well most people couldn't beat that."

Literal unpopular opinions

I have some unpopular opinions but let's match and see who is more far afield.

Israel is a legitimate state, both politically and in the specific sense of existing as a constitutionally Jewish and Zionist state.

Israel is not a legitimate state but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. If the Palestinians couldn't keep their shit together then that's sour grapes.
They're both assholes, though.

Islam is an excellent religion and one of the crowning achievements of human civilization. 

Backwards, barbaric drivel and the crowing jewel in the decadent and primitive Abrahamic religion crown.

There should be fewer abortions. 

I think most people agree all babies should be wanted and loved.
That's not really a controversial opinion.
The problem is that is not reality.
How are we doing so far?
Who is more controversial?
I'm not even trying to be edgy, here. These are genuine opinions I hold.

It's often better to vote Conservative than Labour. 

No one cares about British politics--
Not even British people, seemingly, as they're wrapped up in ours more often than not--

Alternative medicine is a good thing if it makes people feel better, even if its claimed mechanism of action goes against the current scientific consensus. 

This is where I'll lose ground, I think. Alternative medicine is full of shit and feeling better isn't necessarily being better.

We should actively encourage immigration into this country, and possibly remove immigration restrictions altogether. 

And here I'll gain some ground (against the typical Dreamwidth crowd, anyway): immigrants should only be allowed in if they have a useful skill or are college educated.

It's sometimes acceptable for parents to smack their children as a punishment. 

No it isn't. It only teaches children violence is a solution when they don't know how to deal with an issue.
While literally true (sometimes violence is the only acceptable solution) that's not really a lesson I believe needs impressed upon a 4 year old.
Your controversial opinions are boring.
Uhhhh fuck blogs.
Fuck the internet.
The song of the now.
Have we had this one before?
FUCK FEATURES.

DEAR ASSHOLE

I'm so fucking bored of blogs.

After 4 years the best blogs on the internet include pictures of Warhammer models and a Russian dude who posts pictures of naked Asian girls.
While Warhammer and (naked) Asian girls are for sure in my top 5 favorite things ever we're not exactly talking about a high batting average.
So let's go down.
Way on down to London town.
Let's go back to what first gave me the idea for this mess--
reading Dear Abby and thinking "I can give better advice than this."

WIFE'S WILD PAST PUTS FUTURE OF HER MARRIAGE IN JEOPARDY

Already the hits are rolling.

DEAR ABBY: This is my wife's second marriage. When we were dating, she led me to believe that I was the second sexual partner she had ever had.  

>believing anyone about anything ever
>believing white women in particular
harr not today, asshole.
I'm dead fucking serious when I say a totally Machiavellian society would be far, far more trustworthy and noble than what we have now.
Take EVE Online as a prime example. You cannot trust a single person by default so no one trust anyone.
So because no one is ever trusted about anything it's totally equal. There's none of this "well she told me this" because the default stance would be "yeah and she's full of shit."
There'd be no malice, either. That's just business.
I managed to rope this gaggle of newbies into selling me all their ore at a price not technically unfair to them (it's unfair if they had refining skills but they don't so $$$)
and when I told them how I wanted the ore packaged (easy for me to double check their math) their response was "don't you trust us?"
and my response was "no and welcome to EVE"
and they were ok with that.

Shortly after our wedding, I found out through some mutual acquaintances she had attended college with that she had been very promiscuous during her college years and that the number of men she has been with is far greater than two.

Why are you asking, I mean really?
I wouldn't care unless she's still sleeping with prodigious amounts of men while being married to me.
Or giving me AIDS I guess.
Really you should find a woman who has done that and feels guilty about it.
She'll try harder to not screw up.
Who you have to watch out for is the woman who has slept with only you when you married her because there's like a 90% chance she'll snap and go crazy and fuck everyone because you "smothered her".
I've heard of this happening.

I love her and want to stay with her, but I feel betrayed and, frankly, embarrassed by her now. What do I do? -- CONFOUNDED IN THE SOUTH

What do you do?
Drop the bitch like she's on fire
get on a plane
go to the Philippines
open up your motherfuckin' wallet
take your pick.
You stupid fuck.
I'm not even talking about the sleeping around thing because who gives a fuck but it's time to do your life up fuckin' right for once.

DEAR CONFOUNDED: People lie when they feel threatened, when they want to impress someone or when they're ashamed of something. 

Just watch this video for enlightenment about why you do what you do
If you haven't seen that movie, incidentally, stop whatever you're doing and watch it.
The movie is called Heat. 1995. Al Pacino.
I'm pretty sure I can enlighten all of America with just my words and clips from movies on Youtube.

Please be aware that many women in our society have had multiple partners, so if you're looking to replace your wife anytime soon, you may be hard pressed to find a woman with no experience. If you want to salvage your marriage, I strongly recommend you talk to a therapist, but don't spend your money unless you can forgive your wife for being afraid to tell you the truth.

Hey whoa all right.
The bitch did lie. Don't act like he's the menace here.
He might be an asshole and misguided but that doesn't excuse the reality.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a 16-year-old guy, and I have a problem. I recently met a girl in a chat room, and we seemed to hit it off pretty well.

No.

As we've been talking, she has told me she is suicidal, and in the past three days she has made three attempts to take her life. (As I'm writing this, she is in the hospital.)

Cocksucking liar. Don't believe a word she says.
It's a dude in Missouri. 

Being a sensitive person, I try to talk her out of it, but she keeps shutting me out, and once she's OK, she is a completely different person. I still want to be her friend, but this is getting to be too much for me. Please help. -- WORRIED IN VERMONT

Girl is an acronym in the internet: Guy In Real Life.
Here's like 3 days of Abby phoning it the fuck in and letting people who write letters give advice--

DEAR ABBY: Our son recently came to us and confessed that three years ago he'd had an affair with a married woman who had two children. He ran into her recently, and she told him she now has three children, and the most recent one -- age 3 -- is his daughter. She's still married to the man she cheated on, and our son says he's still in love with her.

Once again Heat to the rescue on the reaction front.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a single woman who has had a string of unsuccessful relationships. When a man is into me, I'm not into him and vice versa.I know the problem is mostly mine. I'm very independent. 

No.
Sorry you're the trouble I fix in these letters.

DEAR ABBY: How does one stop family and old friends from going on and on about their aches, pains, symptoms, conditions, doctor visits and medications in excruciating detail? Aside from my mother (who is 85), I don't care to hear about this from others.

Kill them.

KIDS WITH HIGH SELF-ESTEEM ARE UNLIKELY TO BE BULLIED

After having observed the high schooler in his native habitat for nigh on 3 years now I can tell you that is not the case.
All kids are bullies and are bullied. It's just the sensitive ones that seem to pick up on it.

DEAR ABBY: I'm in fifth grade, and I have noticed that teachers pick favorites. I'd like to know if or how I could be one. -- NERVOUS STUDENT IN CALIFORNIA

Don't be a narc.
No just kidding. Don't be a twat and pay attention and get fucking quiet when I have to take attendance.
Don't be that one bitchy girl who thinks getting quiet means everyone but her.
Then cop an attitude when I stare and stare at you until you finally shut your fucking yap about whatever irrelevant bullshit no one cares about you're wasting my MOTHERFUCKIN' TIME with.

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend of five years, "Todd," is a daily pot smoker. We met during our senior year of college, and I knew he smoked. I don't use drugs, and I assumed that after college he would grow up. However, it seems unlikely that he will quit, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

Quit harshin' my mellow, man.

DEAR ABBY: My fiancee, "Tina," and I made a resolution to lose weight for our wedding. Everything has been going great except for one thing. Because men lose weight faster than women, I now weigh less at 6 foot 1 than she does at 5 feet 4.

Tina already has self-esteem issues. I want to look good for our wedding, but not at the cost of my fiancee's hurt feelings. What can I do? -- AT A LOSS IN MICHIGAN

What can you do?
What can't you do?

CROSS-DRESSING HUSBAND WORRIES HIS SECRET IS OUT

BRO.

DEAR ABBY: I am a happily married, heterosexual cross-dressing male. My wife understands and is supportive, and we have a wonderful life together.
During the past week I have been caught unexpectedly by three different neighbors, and we are now in a state of panic. We're not sure what to do. If you have any suggestions, we are all ears. -- CAUGHT IN A PANIC

Dude what the fuck is happening
why would you write to Dear Abby about this?
Also caught 3 times by 3 different people?
I dunno man sounds like you either want to start showing girls your penis in public or you need to invest in some fucking blinds.
Goodbye--

DEAR CAUGHT: Because you would prefer to keep your cross-dressing private and this is October, you could tell your neighbors your female attire is what you'll be wearing to a costume party. It's plausible.
However, when someone is "caught" engaging in a private activity once -- that's an accident. When it happens three times in one week, I can't help but wonder whether on some level you would like to be more open about your lifestyle.
If you're not aware, a resource, The Society for the Second Self (Tri-Ess International), offers support for heterosexual cross-dressers as well as their spouses, partners and families. It has been in my column before and is the oldest and largest support organization for cross-dressers and those who love them. It promotes cross-dressing with dignity and decency, and treats spouses on an equal basis with their cross-dressers. You can learn more about it at www.tri-ess.org.

Dear Abby says all that I say, isn't as clever about it then offers actual help.
Incidentally I'm a card carrying member of Tri-Ess International.

DEAR ABBY: I'm never happy with just one partner. It's not that I want to go out and have a different man every night of the week -- just some options. I'm currently in a polyamorous relationship, so seeing other men is OK. But my boyfriend is now asking me why I feel the way I do because he is considering becoming monogamous again.

DON'T BE SUCH A WHORE.

DEAR ABBY: I recently told my mother that I am transgender, male to female. She is supportive and urged me to come out to my father. Abby, he doesn't believe me!

I read this one yesterday in preparation for this and all I can say is what a fucking baller.
I guarantee every scenario was exhausted mentally and the male-to-female transgender prepared to be disowned.
ONLY TO BE PSYCHED OUT.
NOPE DON'T BELIEVE YOU ASSHOLE I'VE SEEN MAURY AND BEEN TO THAILAND YOU AIN'T NO TRANNY
I bet dad has to shave 3 times a day and lost an eye in a bear fight.
Here's what you do:  high five your father and let him take you fishing or something.
Man that was a good time reading Dear Abby.
I might make this a regular feature or something.
WHAT SAY YOU, READERS?
Also in celebration of how fucking gay the world is the song of the now is this song.
I made sure to find the gayest one I could.
Korean girls singing about butterflies and flowers and I sing along to this at full blast down the road.
I am physically incapable of giving fucks.
Also if you don't want to comment on this new feature comment on who you think the hottest member of Girl's Generation is.
Warning: your opinion might be wrong.

This is the worst thing to ever happen to me

All right you people I'm taking maybe a risk by reviewing a blog from my own home turf of Blogspot. Considering how unreasonable Google has been lately this might be a bannable offense.

I welcome the challenge.
I don't want to say this is the ultimate example of shitty blogs but it's the ultimate example of shitty blogs.
This is going to get complicated because a lot of this is unfunny webcomics knocked out in Microsoft Paint so I'm going to be linking you guys a lot of stuff and you'll have to follow as best you can.
Here's the about page:

Hi.  I'm Allie.

If I had to explain myself in six words, those words would be "heroic, caring, alert and flammable."  That's only four words.  Oh well, I guess I should have thought of that before I started writing.  Too late now. 

This is the standard we're working with.
Oh but if that wasn't giving you cancer already there's a second about page:

I decided to make a second "About" page.

I don't really know what I was thinking.

WACKY!

Power is intoxicating. Everyone loves having the ability to make their decisions into reality — to think "this should be something that happens," and then actually be able to make that thing happen. 

It is also dangerous. 

And it is especially dangerous when applied to four-year-olds. 

Four-year-olds lack the experience to wield power responsibly. They have no idea what to do with it or how to control it.

What proceeds is a 30 panel comic and a 15 paragraph saga about being 5 and dressing as a dinosaur for Halloween.
This is supposed to be funny.
This blog is so popular the twat author landed on public access radio.
Not that that's any kind of feat (I could probably do it given enough inclination) but Jesus Christ.
I tried to read the entire comic and I am literally sterile from it.
Thank you, Blogspot.
Ok let's run a little experiment because I'm now two posts into this shit and already I have a big fucking problem with this fucking blog. I'm going to link you an entry. Don't click on it yet-- I'm going to comment on it. I won't skip anything major from the entry.
The goal is to see if the images add or even enhance meaning we couldn't already get from her shit writing.

I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys. Some days they died repeated, violent deaths, other days they traveled to space or discussed my swim lessons and how I absolutely should be allowed in the deep end of the pool, especially since I was such a talented doggy-paddler.  

WHO
CARES
This post is entitled "Depression part 2" incidentally so bang up job leading in with something RELATED TO THE FUCKING TITLE.
Let's go back to my own post, paragon of brilliant writing it is: what was my title?
THIS IS THE WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME.
Lead in?
I'M MAKING A BIG MISTAKE ALREADY AND THIS ENTRY HASN'T EVEN STARTED.
Title, lead in, whamo.
COME THE FUCK ON.

I didn't understand why it was fun for me, it just was. 

Take a guess how many pictures divided that last vapid paragraph with this meaningless sentence.
It was only two.
But still all I can see is red right now.

But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren't the same. 

Yeah welcome to growing up. It sucks.

I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared. Horse's Big Space Adventure transformed into holding a plastic horse in the air, hoping it would somehow be enjoyable for me. Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride was just smashing a toy bus full of dinosaurs into the wall while feeling sort of bored and unfulfilled.  I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.

This is where we part companies because if a video game company released "Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride" I'd be at the midnight release.
Maybe you did lose your sense of childlike wonder.
Midnight release and I'd buy the collector's edition.

Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.

At first, though, the invulnerability that accompanied the detachment was exhilarating. At least as exhilarating as something can be without involving real emotions. 

There you go. Depression is a lot like being a twat, apparently.
That's all I've derived from this so far.

The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief.  I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. I viewed feelings as a weakness — annoying obstacles on my quest for total power over myself. And I finally didn't have to feel them anymore.

Easy there, Spock.
Emotional mastery comes from feeling the emotions when you want to. Feeling nothing is kind of against the spirit of things.

But my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there's a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck. Cognitively, you might know that different things are happening to you, but they don't feel very different.

Exactly. I consider depression a good motivator. As my psychology professor once said: sometimes there's a good reason you're depressed.
No matter how shit the situation is it's important to stick it out because then at the end of it you can say "holy shit I'm never letting that happen again" and you become a better person for it.
Which is why I am at once thankful and bitterly hate Harris Teeter.

Which leads to horrible, soul-decaying boredom.

I just watch Girl's Generation (or my new favorite, 9 Muses) videos when that happens.
I don't use the term "soul-decaying" because that's pretentious twattery. The word "very" has lost all meaning so we have to invent terms for how not that bored we really are.

I tried to get out more, but most fun activities just left me existentially confused or frustrated with my inability to enjoy them.

NOTHING MATTERS HAVE FUN PLAYING POKEMON NOW.

 Months oozed by, and I gradually came to accept that maybe enjoyment was not a thing I got to feel anymore. I didn't want anyone to know, though. I was still sort of uncomfortable about how bored and detached I felt around other people, and I was still holding out hope that the whole thing would spontaneously work itself out.

Isn't that an emotion, though?
I'm catching some holes in this story.
I'm sure people would (rightly) argue "discomfort" isn't an emotion so much as a state of being but it implies a certain range of emotions--
I feel words like "discomfort" and "doubt" and words like that should have a psychological term because there isn't an emotional state of being doubtful but it requires certain emotions to hold--
I call them emotional superstates in my own mind but I'm sure there's a less cool term for it.
Also man, I do my best thinking regarding people when I'm detached and one step removed.

As long as I could manage to not alienate anyone, everything might be okay!

Huh yeah good luck with that.

However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.

One thing I quickly learned about myself is I have a relative shallow level of empathy for my fellow man. I do not feel their pain at all like I feel my own.
I've learned to fake it, though.
I usually turn out better in regards to considering others due to an elaborate code of honor I follow but that genuinely has less to do with how they might feel and more about holding myself to my own exacting standards.
So what I'm saying is either I'm also majorly depressed or there's something off about both of us or this is just kind of what being a human is like.

It's weird for people who still have feelings to be around depressed people. They try to help you have feelings again so things can go back to normal, and it's frustrating for them when that doesn't happen. From their perspective, it seems like there has got to be some untapped source of happiness within you that you've simply lost track of, and if you could just see how beautiful things are... 

Do you feel bad that when people are this depressed and "creative" they try to make great things like paintings or epics and you've made a webcomic on Blogspot?
I'll cut you some slack, though. At least this isn't fucking Homestuck.
Jesus Christ Homestuck.
Go ahead and google that shit if you haven't seen it because man.
Jesus Christ I can't continue with this entry. Here it is.
Maybe this was a bad setup for this but do you see what I mean?
Do you see how fucking long this is and how the pictures add precisely nothing to the already incredibly long winded and boring talky bits?
Have you ever read a comic and you wonder why they writer didn't just write an essay instead of jamming pictures of people in with the rambling (Ctrl, Alt, Delete)?
At least they try to frame the paragraphs in drawings. This is just brazenly setting the bad art apart from the bad words in some sort of bland pap that defies my eyes' ability to focus long enough to form meaning out of it.
Who cares about your depression, honestly?
You have to make me want to care and all you're making me want to do is watch Girl's Generation videos.

Some people have a legitimate reason to feel depressed, but not me. I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason.

Uh oh, here we go: Youtube open.

It's disappointing to feel sad for no reason. Sadness can be almost pleasantly indulgent when you have a way to justify it - you can listen to sad music and imagine yourself as the protagonist in a dramatic movie.

I think Warhammer teaches us there's never not a good reason to be a little sad with how things turned out but mostly you should be angry.
The two prime motivators in life, really.
Already don't care--

Touchstone (a division of Simon & Schuster) will tentatively release my book in Fall 2012, which sounds like it's a long time away, but really, it's only the gestation period of two slightly premature babies. And if you're a time-traveler, then it can be as soon as you want it to be. It can be now!

It is this easy to get published.
I blame my own exacting standards for quality as the only reason I haven't been published yet. It truly is that redundant.
Man already I'm struggling with this blog. Despite all the pretense this really is a typical white wahm whining.
Like imagine if I drew pictures for this fucking thing. Would you like it if the entry just had this every other sentence? Like here's me reading this fucking thing:

The bottom of the chair strategically positioned to look like my wiener.
Note to ladies: drawn to scale.
But even that doesn't work because while my drawing was at least passingly amusing and got to the point with no words at all this blog is a thousand unfunny pictures and words on top of paragraphs in between. Like holy fuck I think I'm going crazy dissecting how much of a bad idea this is.

I've been getting lots of emails with subject lines like "R U dead???" and "POST SOMETHING MOTHERF*CKER!"  and "Wheeeerrrrrree aaaaaarrrrrrrre yyyooooooouuuuu???"

You know you can say motherfucker on the internet.
I say it regularly.
Usually it's directed at someone.
Yesterday I was playing EVE Online and someone decided to act a fucking fool.
This motherfucker said he was smarter than me.
And maybe he is. I can't say.
It was his attitude.
I'M SITTING HERE DOING DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS WHILE TALKING TO YOU.
I'm going to give you 30 seconds to apologize or this is about to get fucking ugly.
And he didn't.
Well let's see if all those smarts can keep his cash safe.
Now I'm being confronted by a graph that doesn't seem like it can be fully represented on 3 dimensions--
Jesus Christ can you believe this blog is still going on?
I certainly fucking can't. How can you have so little to say yet stretch it out for an eternity?

Legend has it that many bloggers don't post very much during the holidays.

Oh what's up I post more during the Holidays

I am the greatest.
I injured myself yesterday.  You might be wondering if this injury occurred while I was rescuing a child from a burning building, but no. It didn't. 

I saw pictures of you. I have never seen anyone in my entire life that inspires less confidence than I currently have in you.
In case you were wondering, well--
Here it is.

Remember when I wrote that post responding to that guy named Kyle who called me ugly and unfunny and it was exactly like when Tyra Banks got called fat and then protested by coming out on stage in a bathing suit and everybody said “wow, she’s so brave!” and she was lauded as a hero by self-esteem challenged women everywhere?

That was pretty sweet.

Anyway, I made a video. It's for Kyle.

I cut the link because the link now 404s so I guess the whole thing has been deleted.
I wonder what she'd say about this entry.
This is less "you're ugly and not funny" and more a protracted study in why your blog is so shit so maybe she'd appreciate it?
I'm helping you, lady. It's a service I'm providing for nothing.
Fuck.
The only songs I know of that can cancel how shit this blog is anything by Al Green.

Whoa what

Low blow I understand but what the fuck is up with your hair, friend?

The premise is sound enough: let's take a day to remember those who fought, and in many cases died, to protect our homeland, our communities, and our way of life. My father, for instance, was an infantryman in General Patton's Third Army, and fought at The Bulge and the Siegfried Line. The enemy he faced was perhaps the most profoundly evil force in human history, Nazi Germany. My father survived the war and is now in his 90th year of life, but many of his comrades were not so lucky. Do they not deserve the honor and remembrance of a grateful nation? Of course they do.

But what about the other wars -- wars fought not to defend anyone's home or loved ones, but to rob other peoples of their lands, resources, or sovereignty?

>being this stupid
Yes I'm sure the Germans were aware of how evil they were. They definitely weren't just calling themselves the good guys and the British/Americans/Russians/whatever the invaders.

How are the men and women who fight in these wars much different from the German soldiers my father fought? And if we honor such veterans, what about the 100,000+ Iraqi and Afghan civilians and as many as as three million Vietnamese who died at their hands? If Americans killed more Indochinese civilians than Pol Pot, one of the most infamous mass killers of the twentieth century, how is our celebration of Veterans' Day much different from Japan's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the soldiers and sailors who died in that country's wars of aggression?

Just take the day off and shut up for real.

...the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

What might the world be like had Guy Fawkes succeeded in blowing up Parliament and King James I/VI? 

Does anyone else wonder why Americans celebrate the foiled attempt of an English terrorist to overthrow monarchy? 
Outside of, you know, V for Vendetta and general internet idiocy.
In general Americans should be in favor of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot yet the famous nursery rhyme kind of takes the opposite approach.

I hate making decisions when I am feeling intense emotion. I almost always make the wrong choice.

I only make decisions while angry.

In the spring of 1979, as I prepared to graduate from college, I applied for a job at the NSA. I went to Fort Meade, Maryland, where they were headquartered, for an interview. Then I heard nothing from them for about a year, by which time my career aspirations had taken a different direction. They asked me back for a second interview, but I told them I was no longer interested.

1979 you graduated college--
I was -8 at that time--
and here you are posting on Dreamwidth.
Where did you go so horribly wrong with your life, friend?

I've used a succession of phones including two Blackberries and my current Mororola Razr, and I've hated every one of them. Last night I plugged in my phone to charge and went to bed. This morning I had to go to NH, and among the things I took with me was the phone. When I got to my destination, I noticed that it was only 30% charged, and during the course of the day that dropped to 15% and then zero. This thing does not have a replaceable battery, and it is less than a year old.

It's also inconvenient to use, and things like passwords are impossible to type reliably by anyone with fingers larger than a small child's. And every few months it gets a software "update" that makes it even less convenient; the first one took away my ability to connect to my computer with a USB cable, and the latest one made file transfers via Bluetooth a major chore.

If these things are supposed to be the wave of the future, why do they leave me longing for a Morse code key?

This editorial brought to you by some yahoo.
IF THESE THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE WHY DO THEY LEAVE ME LONGING FOR MORSE CODE KEY?
A HUE HUE HUE HUE HUE HUE

At church today our minister described his Boston Marathon run, the cheers and encouragement he got from spectators along the route, including a group of parishioners camped out at the church, the delightful weather of last Monday, his feeling of triumph as he crossed the finish line, turning to wait for his wife, who was also running, and then... the explosions, the bedlam, people running to help the injured, two hours of anxious searching for his wife, and a tearful reunion. I wish I had recorded it.

Ok.
Must suck living in Boston.

Every time I log into LiveJournal, I get an email entitled "Login to LiveJournal from unrecognized location".

Unrecognized location? The IP address is always the same, and I rarely log in from any other. What's the matter with these people?

Considering this is Dreamwidth I think you might have other problems.

I am an agnostic. I do not claim to know if there are no Gods, one God, or seventy Gods.

But I do sing in a church choir, and after church when I got in my car, I turned on WHRB. They were broadcasting the service from Memorial Church, and I heard a beautiful pefformance of Thomas Tallis's "If Ye Love Me (Keep My Commandments)". That's an anthem for Pentecost, not the first Sunday in Advent. It's six months out of season. It's like singing Christmas carols in June.

I don't know why that bothers me, but it does.

Must be nice having nothing at all to worry about in life.

Somebody on dailykos.com asked whether a sustainable human presence on Earth is possible under capitalism. I remarked that capital is like yeast; it wants to keep gobbling up resources until it drowns in its own waste, and in the age of "globalization" no government in the world is strong enough to stop it.

Whoaaaaa.
Capitalism is like yeast.
Deep.

One of the things I've come to realize is that nothing, no matter how well or long established, can last forever. The Soviet Union was a great power in 1985, an unassailable fact to be reckoned with since time immemorial, yet all the Party's tanks, ships, and nuclear weapons couldn't hold it together, and it would be gone in six short years.

This is totally how history works. Shit just collapses and is gone forever into the void.
Soviet Russia was a like a clean shit where you don't have to wipe. Just one and done.

There are more descendants of Germans in the United States than descendants of English, yet we speak English not German.

Presumably, we speak English because the English spoke English. But unless I misremember, Britain was the only major province of the Roman empire in which a Germanic language came to be generally spoken, most of the former western provinces retaining a Latin-derived language despite invasion and conquest by Franks, Lombards, Goths, or other Germanic peoples.

>England
>major Roman holding
OK.

The Visigothic kingdom of Spain lasted from the fifth century until the early eighth, when it fell to Arabs; yet Spain retains its Romance languages today and no trace of Gothic survives. Yet in Britain, Latin was replaced quickly by English,

Well after Rome was on its decline--
Also Britain never "replaced" Latin as its main language because Latin was never the main language of England.
Maybe stop talking about Rome now plz before you keep embarrassing yourself.

and not even three centuries of rule by French-speakers after the Norman conquest would change that.

Yeah, you know. When English was replaced by French.
That's why England and America speak French now.
Do you proofread this shit at all?

In the east, where the empire survived the era of Germanic incursions, Greek not Latin became the dominant language in the areas that were not lost to the Arab conquests of the seventh century. But Iran, which fell to the Arabs at the same time, still speaks Persian.

Yet in one eastern Roman province -- Dacia -- the Latin language survived to become modern Romanian, a Romance island surrounded by Slavs and Magyars.

Weird, huh?

Yes. Greek had a resurgence in the East.
The Greeks stopped speaking Greek and picked up Latin only to pick Greek back up when Rome declined--
are you fucking joking?
Rome always worked with two dominant languages. Greek and Latin.
So if I'm to understand this yahoo's post correctly Latin was replaced by modern English which was replaced by modern French in England and Greek had a revival a la Hebrew in the early ADs--
Jesus Christ, buddy.
Read a fucking book sometime.

Why, in the middle of yet another global panic, as the economy continues to unravel, is Barack Obama vacationing in Martha's Vineyard?

Perhaps, Mr. President, you should try your hand at the fiddle. It would help drown out the noise all those annoying Romans are making as they watch their houses burn.

Nero didn't fiddle while Rome burned as the fiddle wasn't invented ye--

oh right, sorry.

Thought we were still on the topic of being smug and wrong about Roman history at the same time.

So far, I'm unimpressed. Both SSD's in my laptop are now unreliable after three years of use. I've ordered a new SSD, and in the meantime am trying to see if I can use a Flash drive as a stopgap.

But so far, it's looking like old fashioned mechanical disk drives are better. They are cheaper, more reliable, and last longer. I wouldn't buy another SSD right now if my laptop could take a conventional drive.

>letting packed-in disk sweepers sweep your shit every week

WHY DO MY SSDs BREAK AFTER A WEEK

I guarantee this is what is happening.

You gotta turn the defragger off, bro.

Take care of your fragments yourself like an adult.

You get pretty pretentious about technology and history. You can swing it.

I learned that in 1985, 75% of a UMass Boston undergraduate student's tuition was paid by the state, while today the state pays only about 25%. Increasingly, UMB students come from households earning at least $85,000 to $100,000 a year. About 1,200 of them live in luxury waterfront apartments immediately adjacent to the campus. They probably pay $2,000 to $3,000 a month in rent.

Are we moving back toward the pre-World War II era when college was accessible only to a moneyed elite? If so, this is surely another consequence of the tearing up of the Roosevelt-era social contract since 1980 by the special interests and their (mostly, but not exclusively) Republican hired guns.

>social contract

>The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Thirteen

What's it like being this delusional? 

It amazes me to see immense cuts looming in government social programs that help poor and middle class people while the super-rich are rewarded with tax cuts, and there is not a whimper of protest coming from anyone but a few isolated liberals. I see a vast chasm looming in front of our country and the tea partiers are urging us right over the edge of the cliff.

Then I inform people that both the Democrats and the Republicans are Neo-liberal and everyone flips shit.

A few years ago, I set out to read the Qur'an from cover to cover in the original Arabic. I got as far as the beginning of Sura 3 (Al-i-`Imran) before getting sidetracked, and I think it's time to take it up again. I would like to recover something of the Arabic I studied for four years back in college.

There was an intriguing article in a magazine a while back that claimed that the standard story that the Qur'an was compiled in its present form in the time of Caliph `Uthman (644-656 by our calendar) is wrong; that it may have evolved over several centuries; and that Muhammad may have been more a legend than a historical person.

Oh, what, like the Bible and Jesus?

You mean people who have an axe to grind about the historicity of their holy book might not be totally honest with themselves about the historical reality of their chosen book?

Color me fucking shocked.

Certainly there are aspects of it that need explaining; for instance, several Hebrew names, such as Isaac, are close enough to their Arabic equivalents that they should have been easily understood by Arab listeners, yet seem not to have been. If "Yitzhaq" means "he laughs", that is "yad.haq" in Arabic, but the Qur'an spells the name "Ishaq", which is meaningless. Ishmael, Israel, and Abraham are similarly rendered incomprehensible. Yeshua (Jesus) is called Yasu` by Christian Arabs, yet the Qur'an names him `Isa. And John, which ought to have come out Yuhannan or some such, is Yahya. Could these names and the tales in which they figure have come into Arabic from Greek, Persian, or some other non-Semitic source?

Or maybe the scribes who copied the Quran down originally weren't perfectly literate themselves.

This might be shocking to modern people but back in the day spelling wasn't standardized and literacy was an especially rare thing to have.

Following on my previous post, I know that a number of y'all don't listen to the radio.

What could radio stations do differently that might get you to listen?

Basically be totally unlike radio.

Fewer commercials, better music, better disc jockeys--

Fuck.

Song of the now.