Wednesday, February 26, 2014

at night I can't sleep

I toss and turn
candlesticks in the dark
visions of bodies being burned
already found a blog saying Jessie Pinkman from Breaking Bad isn't a villain and has a heart of gold.
I'd like to point out Jessie shoots a guy in the face in cold blood at one point in the series.
But, you know, just a lost soul otherwise.
The guy probably (arguably) had it coming but you know.
Still.
Here we go. Brony?
Girl? Who knows.
Let's take some bets.
Grill or guy?
I picked up the cake after work. It almost didn't happen. I was on the verge of maybe getting an apple crumble pie, but how do you write "happy harmony day" on an apple crumble? Whatever, all Elements deserve cake, even if it's in the middle of the winter blah season. So I ordered this cake at the last minute. Tomorrow my coworkers dine on cake! No if's and's or buts.
Pumpin' in the clip
so I dunno this blog is apparently about My Little Pony cakes.
I have to go to school tomorrow.
A way far away school way up in the frozen north in the middle of a horse field.
It looks like a prison.
Apart from the immortality of cancer cells puzzle (yadda yadda yadda), there's the 'how does this cancer manage to avoid detection by the immune system?' thing.

I'm thinking of the potential of avoiding rejection of transplanted tissue!

If you could get the cells to differentiate (and not be dependent on an outside source of mitochondria), could you get a viable, immortal dog? (Mayyyybe not.)
Are you retarded?
Like what the fuck am I reading
It took several naps, but I think I'm awake now! That doesn't leave much time for drawing, or checking that union collective aggreement for errors. Let's see, which is more important, combing a temporary document that's probably fine, or drawing something that will last forever? Foreverrrrr! Well, duh! here you are.

So I drew small and then traced that drawing via Wacom 
You own a professional artist's tablet to produce this shitty My Little Pony art?
Talk about a waste of resources.
Sunday, back to the furry nerd-fest for discussion panels.
Where all the cool kids are hanging out, huh.
In one week's time I will be driving to Bronycon, held this time at the Meadowlands exposition center in Seacaucus, across the water from Manhattan. There will be over 3,000 people attending.
Ah, damn. Used up my "where all the cool kids hang out" joke.
I mean, uhhh--
WHERE ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE HANGING OUT, AM I RIGHT?
I was up before the dawn and again at dawn, but the sun rises behind a whole bunch of trees and a low rise several kilometers away, so I went back to bed.
DAWN'S BEAUTY, CORRUPTED BY MORTALS AS TAMRIEL, THE REALM OF LORKHAN--
can you believe how fucking shit Elder Scrolls Online is?
I was hoping for a train wreck on par with The Old Republic where I could at least laugh at it but no dice.
Just sadness and misery.
Like look I get that Molag Bal wants to pull Tamriel into Coldharbour but that doesn't mean you actually have to torture me about it.
But yesterday I ordered a cake with Princess Celestia's butt symbol on the frosting so today I picked it up and carried it (while riding my bike) to work to fatten up my coworkers.
I learned from another brony blog that's called a cutie mark.
Excuse me while I fucking kill myself.
Apparently I have a hickey. "Oh! You have a hickey on your neck! Had a hot date eh?" Yeah, with a horse. "Is he or she cute?" Yeah, real cute, I really like her mane. "That's some hickey." A horse! A horse nipped me! Not hard...
Uh-huh yeah that's right you horse fucking weirdo I'm on to you.
Burn him alive, I say.
I have an ♪♫idea!♫♪ I shall call henceforth this winter gift exchange thing we do every year Hearth's Warming! The date is variable, it happens whenever we can get all our dispersed bodies in the same place, this year it's the 29th. 
Oh you mean Christmas?
December 25?
We've been calling this unfortunate wallow in consumption of consumer goods Giftmas for ages (we've sworn every year to reduce the bulk and expense with little success). But ponies makes EVERYTHING better. Hearth's Warming Eve has a nice ring to it, and NO ONE SHALL KNOW that it's a MLP reference. Mwah ha ha ha ! Only five more days until Hearth's Warming Eve!
Yeah better burn him out.
Speaking of getting the boot, one of the sites specializing in compiling and redistributing episodes of MLP:FIM, called the Pony Archive, got shut down yesterday. They weren't very pleased about that. Instead of being loving and tolerant, or at least showing grace and absolution, the remaining maintainers of the P.A. gave Hasbro the finger. And there was much debate on Equestria Daily. It's possible that Hasbro was required to show that it was protecting its trademarked intellectual property (or risk losing it again) and P.A. took the fall. I doubt these actions will go much farther as the show, like the Budweiser spots during the Superbowl, is merely advertising for Hasbro's toy line. Hasbro benefits enormously from the free redistribution of the show and the buzz it's generating. The target audience, young children and their guardians, are the least likely to scour the internet for free downloads of the show.
>target audience is small children
>primarily 20 something nerdlings
welp.
Last night I had trouble sleeping and all day I've been bubbling over with excitement. Why am I so excited? I DON'T KNOW! I'm not nine. It's just that over the weekend someone offered to order a batch of custom pins showing Rainbow Dash's cloud-and-lightning-bolt cutie mark (butt brand) and Equestria Daily picked it up. I ordered five. I got my invoice on Sunday. I decided I would illustrate the envelope and the card with ponies. So Monday evening I planned out what I would write and draw, hunted down the pictures I would copy and got out my sketchbook. And erased a bunch of 30 second nudes I'd drawn last year at a "life drawing" panel at a con.
Nudes of ponies more like you fucking pervert.
Also have you guys noticed I'm copying a large amount of this fuck's text just to make a complete thought for him?
Like scale that shit down, son. We gotta write the My Little Pony blog slowly.
HOLY SHIT THIS BLOG IS FUCKING BORING I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HIPPOS AT THE ZOO WHERE YOU WORK YOU BORING SHIT
FUCK
SONG OF THE NOW.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Blogs are boring

Fuck me it never ends with this shit.
Overly intellectual (usually British) guy
girl who writes too much fanfiction and thinks she's humanity's gift to literature--
religious person who won't shut the fuck up about little shit being baby Jesus--
furries (just kidding that's not even a thing anymore)
actually, yeah, let's talk about furries briefly.
Remember all those people who said in their soul they were actually a fox?
What happened to that?
Are they even still around anymore?
How long has it been since we've had a furry blog?
This wave of boring pseudo-intellectualism and Dr. Who fanfiction has just obliterated the furry.
Not that I'm complaining or anything but, I dunno, I need some variety. I think all the words and permutations of words I can use in regards to stultifying Dr. Who fanfiction story #58934741.3 I'm skipping have been exhausted.
Anyway pseudo-intellectual person.
Maybe a girl. Who can say?
I've spent a not inconsiderable part of the day coping with the inefficiencies of the current financial infrastructure. First I went to pay off a chunk of my mortgage. I went to my old C&G branch at Moorgate, walked in, gave my cheque to the cashier and told her what I wanted to happen. After some apologies that it was "her first day", I was passed along to the next guy, who told me that it was now a TSB branch, and although he could process it, it might be a better idea for me to go to the Lloyds branch around the corner.
Have you ever seen Reservoir Dogs?
Well that'd be a solution.
Just saying.
So, of I went to the Lloyds around the corner. That led to a 25 minute farce as they tried to work out what to do. The main problem is that most of the mortgage payments that they receive in branches are just that - payments on the mortgage. What I wanted to do was reduce the principle on an interest-only mortgage, a different transaction entirely. And they just could not find out what code they had to enter.
>reduce the principal
whoa easy there, Mr. Moneybanks. This is 2014.
When did the 1960s start? 
January 1, 1960.
The obvious answer is, January 1 1960. People took more notice of decades in those days. I do not remember the passing from the 1950s to the 1960s, but I do remember the passing from the 1960s to the 1970s. I went to a New Year's Eve Party at a council flat off the Wandsworth Road. A pop TV programme was on, of which I only really remember The Who.
January 1, 1960.
Unless we're talking metaphorically like when did the culture stop being 50s and start being 60s.
Because as we all know the 80s actually started in 1978.
But social movements and decades do not neatly coincide. And how one defines "the sixties" depends on your parameters. Politics? Economics? Fashion? Music? Literature? Film? 
Like 1964 or something.
I possess two well-known books on that decade - The Neophiliacs by Christopher Booker and The Pendulum Years by Bernard Levin.
Yes, truly those are the books of the 1960s.
Two books I haven't even heard of.
Not Dune?
Like of all the books of the 1960s surely Dune should be in the top 2.
It would be easy to write 200 pages on how the Age of Austerity morphed into the era of "You've Never Had It So Good" and then morphed again into the end of that Macmillian era -- so beautifully drawn by Timothy Birdsall in an early Private Eye, depicting Bacchanalian excess at the heart of the Conservative government.
That sounds like the least interesting thing ever.
Like holy shit that was the era of psychedelics and scifi and that's what you got?
But this is more of a personal memory, written down now because, I realize to my horror, far fewer people are alive who remember the early 1960s than those who do not.
Yeah that means you're too old to be blogging. My mom doesn't remember the early 60s.
She was a toddler then.
You gotta stop, dude.
Like come on man.
I was quite distinctly defined by pop music. And so my measure of the start of the 1960s is pop-related.

I was reminded of this while watching a compilation of 1960s hits. With the benefit of time, it's easier to see the flow from the 1950s through the 1960s to the 1970s. The "new music", so hated by my father, in terms of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, really consisted of nice middle-class white boys in sharp suits and ties, adapting the blues music of American blacks. If you wanted a real innovator in UK terms, you had to look to Lonnie Donegan.

No, it was not "She Loves You" that defined the beginning of the 1960s, not for me.

While watching that 1960s music compilation, I realized that the real groundbreaker was Sonny and Cher's performance in 1965 on Top Of The Pops of "I've Got You Babe". The tune was not radical, but the words represented the San Francisco ethos that would become famous three years later with Scott Mackenzie. 
YES, TRULY
SONNY AND CHER ARE THE 1960S.
THERE WERE NO BETTER ACTS.
Like I say 1960s music and what's the one answer you should give?
Oh I don't know, what about THE BEATLES YOU FUCKING RETARD
I had an interesting encounter early on in my holiday in Las Vegas. I was talking to a rather intelligent ultra-liberal (for the US) poker player, about 30 years of age. Somehow the conversation got round to living for nothing in London, and I mentioned the word "ligger".

He reacted with horror, which puzzled me. Then he said that it would be difficult to use that word in the US, because it was too close to the "N Word". 
1. ligger isn't a word.
2. shut the fuck up.
Needless to say, this set me off on one. "So", I said, "the liberals are now so sensitive to the word nigger that you can't even use words that SOUND like it? Hasn't the fact that words which sound like each other don't necessarily mean similar things sunk in in liberal America?"

Subsequently I asked him if he had similar problems with the words rigour, figure, bigger and that character from the Jungle Book, Tigger.
I'm suddenly reminded of my buddy in EVE Online, Digger Nick.
Obviously, he hadn't. That was because the meanings of these words were in his brain. The transfer to meaning from sound was entrenched. However, with "ligger" (a word that he did not know) he had no meaning to fall back on -- only the sound of the word. It was this which caused him to think that there would be a problem with the word.

But does this not also say something damning about liberal America? The word "nigger" (even though he could not bring himself to say it) was so high in his consciousness; the fear of offending "African-Americans" was so great, that when I mentioned a word that even rhymed with nigger, then that was the first word he thought of. Not "figure", "rigour", "bigger", or "Tigger". No, his mind leapt immediately to a word that he could not bring himself to utter.
Remember when Fox news was debating if the word nigger was as bad as cracker?
But it wasn't "nigger vs cracker" it was "n-word vs cracker"
like when you won't even say one of the words
that's the worse word
Also I'm allowed to type the word nigger because I'm called it enough in a 24 hour period by teenagers I'm basically black at this point.
Like when a 6'7" kid comes in with his posse and addresses me "what up my nigga" and means it genuinely there's something wrong
like I'm a tie and a clipboard away from being middle management I don't think this is how this is supposed to work
but yeah good to see you too, Larry
This, I feel, indicates a far higher level of race consciousness amongst white liberals than the white working class. I've long maintained that part of my problem (as far as white liberals are concerned) is that I frequently forget the race and colour of people. To me, they are people.
I don't even give a shit about race
black, white
Indian
Asian
Hispanic
you're all dumbass teenagers who don't know the first thing about anything to me.
As such I do not have this white liberal (and, it must be admitted, black intelligentsia) hyper-sensitivity to the "travesties of history". I'm not perpetually carrying a guilt trip for the misdeeds of people in the 18th century who happened to have a skin similarly hued to mine. 
I just want to know why black people name their kids after Roman Emperors.
I mean by and large black American culture is very offended by their past enslavement (totally understandable) but naming your kids after the rulers of people who are so sold on the idea of slavery they owned white slaves too--
not sure that's what you're aiming for.
Maybe they just like the names.
I will agree they had some rad names.
It would be a lot easier if the white liberals and black intelligentsia could think the same way.
Most black people I meet are about as sick of the likes of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson playing the race card incessantly as anyone else.
They're just people, Jesus. Most of them are just trying to make some money before they fucking die like the rest of us.
Here's a post about online poker--
but not like "here's my grand online poker strategy" it was just a discussion about point conversions.
Want to read four paragraphs about me discussing the merits of buying champions in League of Legends with Riot Points versus Influence Points?
NO?
Me neither.
Fuck it.
Third day in France, and not a whisper of a blog entry. 
Wow that's fucking incredible.
Not a whisper of a blog entry so what the fuck are all these words that follow this sentence?
It's the miracle entry.
It's the fucking virgin birth of blogs.
The entry that wasn't conceived.
Have Facebook and Twitter updates truly made the blog redundant?
Why are you asking this question on a blog?
Clearly the answer is no.
Certainly a significant number of the people whom I know who used to write blogs now confine themselves to FB or (increasingly) Twitter posts.

I'll admit that, when Twitter started, I was sceptical. Grubby (Pauly's brother) was the first blogger whom I saw mention it, 
Who you saw mention it.
You directly mentioned him. Grubby, Pauly's brother, who was the first blogger I saw mention it.
He is the subject of this sentence.
Whom is the direct object.
when he was working at a radio station, back in, I dunno, 2008 or something like that. First of all, I couldn't quite get the hang of what it was, and then I couldn't quite work out what the point was. I got the fact that it would be useful for real-time updates of chip counts and the like, but this was before the smartphone and 'always on' was ubiquitous, even in Europe, let alone the US, which was about 18 months behind the curve when it came to mobile telecommunications.
>need a mathematical count for a mathematical game
>uses Twitter and not a spreadsheet
come on dude what the fuck there's a reason the stock market is a ticker and a candle graph and not twitter.com most valuable stock on the NYSE
And, speaking of mediums, I'm writing this on a laptop which is on my lap. That doesn't happen very often. Laptops in the main these days are more portable desktops than laptops, aren't they?
... No?
I know we're getting cute with our words but a desktop just means there is a cabinet for the computer and the other bits are separate and a laptop is integrated.
And I swear to God if anyone posts about Macs being integrated I will kill myself and haunt you.
In the office a few years ago you would see people moving between floors carrying their notebooks (paper). Now they are carrying their laptops.
Do you want to pick a thought and stick to it?
What I got from this:
Twitter replaced blogs because laptops replaced paper.
People moan about the depersonalization of air travel these days, and never stop criticizing the hassle off fflights in the modern world.
Did you guys see the Korea Airlines commercial during the Olympics?
Prove to me that isn't a country that has its fucking act together.
Hot women in skirts.
Have you seen American airline commercials?
I feel like I'm being sold a line of credit.
Fuck off, everyone.
Here just compare.
Am I going crazy
Like I dunno which would you rather do?
Go on Korean Air where hot women will serve you drinks with umbrellas and this P.F. Chang looking motherfucker will cook you chicken or do you want to hear bloated William Shatner and that unfunny cunt from Big Bang Theory cackle?
Excuse my while I load this 9MM and put it to my fucking temple.
One of the things investors are always careful of when looking at balance sheets is spotting how "optimistic" a company is when it comes to booking revenue. 
I don't know why companies are ever optimistic in predicting their earnings. If you meet expectations your stock goes down because it didn't exceed them and if you don't meet them it really goes down
so just assume the fucking worst.
If you see marriage as a religious institution rather than a legal institution, one "sanctified by god and by god alone", then you could be a strong supporter of gay rights and yet still feel unable to vote in favour of gay "marriage", because (their argument would go) they simply cannot do so because they believe the institution of marriage to be something unique to a man and a woman. 
To which I'd remind you that not everyone believes in your hateful desert god.
That isn't homophobia (the most common accusation) or bigotry (the second-most common accusation). It's a deeply held belief (no matter how misguided from some people's point of view) based on an interpretation of the Bible. 
Wrong is wrong.
Well intentioned or not.
Some day people will learn the only thing that actually matters is results.
In the early days, advertising and marketing was effective because it was new. If advertisers and marketers had been shrewd, they would have rationed it – kept it rare and thus maintained its level of impact. It could, in other words, have become a sustainable ecology.
There you go. Better to sell one of something at 300 dollars than 10 of something at 40 dollars.
You heard it here first, people.
It was nice to come back from Las Vegas in profit. I still haven't achieved the dream of paying for everything, but I came pretty close. I won $1,350. The holiday cost $880 (flight), $400 (spent), and $630 (hotel, including added gym and internet fees). So that's $560 spent for the entire two weeks. However, included in that is about $100 that I spent on clothes and stuff (I bought another $200-worth on my card). So that brings it down to $460. And if I had stayed at home I would have spent about $160 at Tesco and maybe $200 elsewhere. So the net cost of the fortnight, in a hotel, in Las Vegas, and most definitely not here, was $100. I'd take that deal.
>profit
>lost 560 dollars
uhhhh
maybe I'm don't know what profit actually is but what?
Also you "won" 1350 after two weeks. What's that in dollars per hour?
Because I'm guessing it's about minimum wage.
I also won about $1,350 online this year -- pathetic compared to the $25,000-odd that I chalked up in 2009, but rather better than the $10 or thereabouts that I achieved in 2011.

I can tell you precisely when the wheels started to came off -- it was in October 2009 in France. My monitor blew up, so I started playing cascading rather than tiled.
>tool failure
>instead of replacing the tool you change the fundamentals of what you do to make money
>wonder where you started going wrong
do people think about shit ever?

Dell announced a 47% drop in profits this morning. That's a neat indication to anyone who supports buying "growth companies" as an investment strategy that the important part of that strategy is to know when to get out.
>Dell is also looking to go private
>implying
Fuck blogs Jesus Christ.
But do you know what shouldn't even be badmouthed ever?
Playing Fallout: New Vegas and then this is on the radio in the game.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Canada sucks

Fuck.
Why is writing femslash so damn awkward for me? I keep slipping into overwrought lyrical bonking territory.
Because you're a shit writer writing a shit subject.
On the upside, on the bus ride home this evening, I realised that I'm writing a negotiation heavy, spanking and  tickling fic, so there is that.
So you're a sex starved hambeast, got it.
Bliss borders on painful. I was expecting it to be soccer mom softcore, and I was even prepared for cheesy music, but they just suck on basic things like informed consent, even the most basic negotiation- like, don't drip hot wax on someone without their permission, if they tell you to stop dripping wax on them fucking STOP, always test wax on someone first etc. JFC. 
Yeah you better watch what you do with your fictional characters!
They need informed consent too!
There's also this would-be homoerotic tension between the pro-domme (who has roughly three expressions and a distracting Louise Brooks bob) and the main character, in all it's leather clad glory, but instead it's mostly just unconvincing and unintentionally funny. Really, how do you mess this up? Leather and spanking and disappointment oh my.

Yeah, give this one a miss.
I'll be sure not to read that thing I don't care about and had no idea existed.
Ever have that moment when you're reading a really hot fic and then the author uses the term fleshy, wet strokes, and you're like, AHHH Why?!!  WHY? And your naughty bits basically invert themselves in horror. 
... All the time!
Oh thank the fuck Christ I reached the end of this blog.
Well let's move on to the next one, then--
RAPID FIRE TIME NO TIME TO REDO THIS.
I can't find any blogs that aren't roleplaying or fanfiction.
Well time for Dear Annie, I guess.
This is fucking filler you can just skip this if you don't want to read.
Dear Annie: Why do women announcers who appear on the TV news and weather programs dress so trashy? They wear miniskirts up to their rears, bare arms and shoulders, and low necklines showing everything.

The men on these same programs always look professional, with nice suits or sport jackets. I've heard people say that a woman's knees are the ugliest part of the body, and yet they wear short skirts above the knees. Why don't their bosses stop all of this vulgar dress? — Not a Prude
Yes you are.
Dear Not: What makes you think the women are selecting this clothing? More likely, their bosses, the producers of the shows, encourage the women to dress this way because "sex sells." In all fairness, national news announcers, both male and female, tend to dress more professionally. But if your local news has the men in suits and the women in low-cut blouses and miniskirts, it is sexist, and you should write the station and say so.
How joyless is your life?
I mean what the fuck. Is your life so devoid of anger you have to make shit up to be angry about?
A few years ago, my wife went out of town for a conference. A month after she returned, I was on our computer and noticed that she hadn't logged out of her email. My curiosity got the best of me, and I saw that she had traded emails with an old boyfriend. I then discovered that the two of them had met while she was at the conference. One of her last emails to him said, "I still have feelings for you." 
Bitch is cheatin'.

Dear Annie: Could you please inform your female readers that we are tired of seeing their behinds because they refuse to buck a fashion trend that has been forced on them? I am talking about hideous low-cut jeans.

Unless you are model thin, it's hard to look good in these jeans. And if something hangs over, they're not for you, period. Do women have no sense anymore? It is disgusting to see someone's behind hanging out of their pants.
Young women have been misled to think that jeans that sit at the natural waist and don't show your assets are "mom jeans," which is supposed to make them sound undesirable. But listen up: It's a marketing ploy to sell more jeans. Women need to wake up and take a good, hard look at themselves. — Sick of Seeing It in Indy
Yeah.
Tell it.
Also if your size is in the double digits you should not own a pair of yoga pants.
What the fuck is the matter with you?
Holy shit this entry is not going anywhere and I am trying as hard as I can. This has my undivided.
What the fuck is wrong with everyone or me today?
Fuck it
song of the now
give it a minute it takes a minute to get going

Friday, February 14, 2014

Fuck off snow

So it snowed an unuuuusual amount here in North Carolina so of course everything shut the fuck down.
I'd cut them some slack because it does seem pretty hairy out there but they shut down before this even started so even though they were right to shut down they're still pussies for doing it before anything even happened.
This is also the point where I tell everyone I fucking hate snow more than life itself and I hate this kinda bullshit weather and why do I live in this misery?
Anyway here's this jackoff.
I've developed a keen sixth sense for blogs now. Before I'd do extensive research. Now I can tell.
Still can't guess the gender worth a motherfuck but at least I know the goods when I see them.
I have stuff to say, and this seems like the best of available venues for it.

Forget about the roses and chocolate and sex of Valentine's Day for a minute. I wanna talk about other sorts of love.
Fuck off.
I know where this is headed.
Just wait for baby Jesus shit.
Gotta check the cut--
So, Jesus more or less said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." Plenty of other religious leaders have said the same thing, but I'm from a Catholic background, so I'm coming to it from this direction.
BAM.
FUCK OFF.
It's a tall order. Humans are selfish, emotionally and socially spiky assholes. Most of us have better sides and redeeming qualities, but there's no refuting the presence of the inner asshole in us all.
The only religions to adequately embrace this inevitable reality are any kind of indigenous Paganism and Buddhism. 
I've been dealing with a lot of pain, a lot of fear, and a lot of stress lately, and let me tell you: pain/fear/stress work just as well as the Deadly Sins to bring my inner asshole bobbing to the surface.
 There are moments when even loving my nearest and dearest family members is impossible and I willing to bet that's a universal experience. As for neighbors... Sometimes it's to their benefit that we don't know them well. It's fairly easy to be civil to the neighbor who keeps an eye on the kids and offers you fresh-baked muffins.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
tl:dr version: try not to be a jerk. I'm trying my best to be fond of you.
Just like Jesus said.
You know there are religions with a more reasonable framework for this kind of situation.
It usually goes: "you don't have to love each other. You don't even have to like each other. But if you do something too heinous Zeus will smite you with lightning."
resonant  asked "What are some things you've learned from fandom -- either from stories or from fans -- that you didn't learn anywhere else?"
I learned the fandom has an incredible ability to be absolutely insufferably smug about a third rate TV show.
So much. So so much.  Maybe a better question would be "what hasn't fandom taught me?"

First, the no-brainer: Fandom taught me about sex.
No go on. Let that sink in for a minute.
This is the same group of people who write about male impregnation.
I can wait.
And, since I've lived almost all my life among men, it gave me a community of women who were willing to share information about periods, about Diva cups, and about tits. Also, it gave me a network of women who could compare experiences with sexual discrimination and rape culture, and who have pointed out to me (by and large, very gently) that I had sexist habits. (I still struggle with "guys" not being a gender-neutral term.)
RAPE CULTURE
DIVA CUPS
Know what a diva cup is?
I got a lecture in pussy sensitivity on it.
It's like a cup that clamps around the vaginal opening during a period.
Then it's emptied.
Cup of period blood.
Apparently pads and tampons are relics of the subjugation of women.
I awkwardly look at the girl next to me who was my friend so naturally she had the "please shoot me" look.
So I raise my hand.
"What if a woman doesn't want to deal with a cup of period blood?"
 "THEY DEAL WITH PERIOD BLOOD ANYWAY"
No but like
Pulling a pad of blood out is different from using your finger to scrub the rime of period blood crust around a plastic cup
surely even pussy sensitivity people can see those aren't the same.
How is a pad a relic of rape culture even?
I suppose we could argue a tampon is because it's like an insertion--
I don't know.
Fuck it.
Also, fandom is a fantastic place to explore desire and build a vocabulary for talking about desire and pleasure.

Fandom taught me about reputation and group dynamics in a way that interacting with people in body did not. Er, I'm not sure how to elaborate on that.

Fandom discussions have taught me a lot about ownership, about RPF, about celebrity, about gossip, and the ethics surrounding all those things.
Group dynamics what
Fandom has reminded me that I'm not weird -- or rather, that if I am weird then I am at least not alone in my weirdness. I have found a niche of fandom that is comfortable to me in a way that my embodied life is not. An intellectual Room of My Own. 
Look at that smugness.
Intellectual room of her own.
It's Dr. Who chill the fuck out.
GUYS I'M PART OF THE HOMICIDE FANDOM
(it's a TV show I'm not making a joke about murder)
AND I'VE LEARNED A LOT ABOUT PERSONHOOD FROM IT.
When I die, please God, let my professional obit discuss my professional work. Or at least mention it. Or at least, let the obit lead with the fact that I *did* some sort of work. 
When I die please tell them how much ISK I had in EVE and my ELO in League of Legends
It should mention my family, of course, who I hope will survive me. But do not use any variant of "she conformed to 1950s standards of good wife and mother" to make readers less threatened at reading of my own intellectual and spiritual and bodily achievements. First, it would be a lie, and second it would be the basest sort of historical erasure.
 Her bold, not mine.
Yes. She'd have been important historically had it not been for that damn patriarchy.
You know Margaret Thatcher had to say the exact same shit.
Her achievements weren't just manifest.
Like you can whine about patriarchy erasing you historically but your obscurity and mediocrity will do that far better than any sort of institutional discrimination.
And that's a lot of how I feel about the way the New York Times utterly botched Yvonne Brill's obituary. She was a hot shit rocket scientist starting in the 1940s, she won the National Medal of Technology and Innovation as well as other awards, and her patent on rocket boosters made it possible for more satellites to be feasible.

In other words, every time you use GPS, you benefit from her work.

But that wasn't apparently newsworthy enough for the NYT. The first paragraph mentioned her cooking and her wife-and-mother credentials. Nothing about rocket science. They changed the obit some but it's still infuriatingly sexist. 
Maybe that was her wish?
People in the 1940s weren't as monstrously egotistical as we are today. Maybe she considered bragging about that uncouth?
Did you think of that?
Thank you! I adore all the fandoms and characters I've chosen so I'm sure I'll love whatever you create.
Nope still can't do it.
Fuck you, Java.
Of course it's vulnerable.
It's Java.
That's what it does.
Fuck it I'm going.
Fuck you Java
fuck you blogs
fuck you fandom.
Song of the now.
A couple things I like in stories:
  • I love hopeful endings.
HUEHEUHEUEH
Has anyone gone through the "Making Home Affordable" mortgage adjustment/refinance program?

Does applying and or using the program cause a hit to one's credit score?
I'm guessing the admission that you spent above your means is admission you can't handle credit and therefore it should.
Also let me see if I can find this information out despite never having been a homeowner.
Let's see.
Wow one Google search later I don't even have to click on a website to read this:
Accepting a loan modification can affect your credit score
Woooooow.
If only the fandom had taught you Google searches.

Remember to dance.

I (and many of you) spend so much time in our heads, staring at screens, either fighting or ignoring our bodies. And that's a shame if our bodies are basically serviceable.

When was the last time you moved your body to music, just for the pleasure of it?
Why just today I was dancing in my room. Why do you ask?
Alone with the radio on, or surrounded by people, or in one slow dance with someone special, or rocking a baby to a waltz-step?

Take a few minutes and enjoy that body of yours.
Don't fucking tell me what to do.
That has been really bothering me since I started playing League of Legends.
Just today I was playing and I hatchet this Darius down and I'm in the middle of recalling because I need to buy items and I'm at 50 health when this guy says
"yeah great job but can you recall?"
Like no, idiot from another lane, I can't.
I'm just sitting here waiting to die at 50 health because I need someone to tell me there's a way I can quickly return to base and get fully healed.
The end score:
11:0:6 me
3:6:2 him
SO CLEARLY I NEED INSTRUCTIONS
ON HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME
FROM YOU.
Also protip, other low level idiots:
when you're low on health and running away from Jinx don't just run back in a straight line because I have a rocket that can hit you.
How you can help OCCCUPY
(without camping)
Oh yeah remember when a bunch of freshly graduated college idiots decided to camp?
Transfer Banks. The best and biggest thing you can do to send the message that you do not approve of unethical banking practices is to get a credit union or local bank. If you have a Chase, Citi, Wells-Fargo or Bank of America account, withdraw your funds and place them somewhere that you trust.
Yes, hurt the unstoppable Bank of America so their stock drops to penny stock territory then let them recoup their losses in the interim so much they're actually at pre-recession numbers.
That is sure to send a message.
It definitely wouldn't, you know, help them long term or anything. Blah blah blah last one:
FORGIVE. The rich and powerful did not mean for this to happen. The bankers and investors were short-sighted and they work in a high-risk field. They got used to taking risks and then more risks, and some of those risks were not theirs to take.
Forgive that level of corruption and incompetence. You people deserve to be exploited at that point.
They risked our homes and livelihoods. They were foolish. But foolish is not evil. The government was foolish to think that the state could let them take as many risks as they wanted.
The government claims it's canny and capable, though.
Treachery.
Heads should still be rolling.
They were foolish and we supported them in their foolishness by being less critical than we should have been about ideas that proved unsound. But now we have no time to waste on foolishness or on the bitterness and blame it generates. Please forgive yourself and all of us, and let us move forward from this a more careful, more mutually respectful nation.
After the top level purges, of course.
Dear Fandom,

I don't want to name names, but some folks appear to need a reminder of this.

There is more than one type of object of sexual interest. Men, women, androgynous individuals, poodles (Captain John Hart, I'm looking at you), fetish objects, innocent youths, grizzled elders, skinny, fat, dark, light, hairy, bald. (Some types probably turn you on, some types probably don't do much for you, and you may hate even the idea of some other types. This is normal.) 
Wait what
people are attracted to different things from me?
They're all fucking mental, I tell you.
Laptop repair clue. T'husband has a Jetta Jetbook laptop. We (pronounced "I") think that the motherboard battery is going. It's 6 years old, it's losing BIOS settings and having trouble booting up. I've taken off the access panels in the back, but don't see anything that looks like a button battery. I suspect that the battery is either accessed by taking off the entire back panel or by taking off the keyboard (although that would be a stupid place to put a battery).
>netbook battery died 2 years ago
>just have to hit F2 to boot
just deal with it, Jesus.
Here are Dreamwidth invite codes she just posted and said she'd cross off as they got used--
either she didn't do that or no one gives a fuck.
Here's some dude whining about the vocabulary in boy's toy commercials she linked.
He made a wordle for it.
Just scroll.
Battle, power, stealth, special forces.
I fail to see an issue.
Wonder what this blog would look like.
WELL I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW BECAUSE MAMA WINDOWS BLOCKED JAVA BECAUSE IT'S VULNERABLE.
I'm a 26 year old man who pays rent and a cellphone bill and drives a car to a job. I think I can handle my own system vulnerabilities.


Thursday, February 6, 2014

The edge

If you're wondering why knives get dull it's because this guy steals the edge.
So fucking edgy.
I haven't really read this but I'm fairly convinced we're in for some fucking edginess.
 What I learned from watching the creation vs evolution debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum:
One day scientists will learn it's entirely pointless to debate people who believe something on faith with hard evidence.
Kind of the point of faith is you don't have evidence for what you think.
It's impossible to know what happened in the past because no one was there to see it.  Fossils and other evidence aren't real science.  The sole exception is the book we call the Bible, which is absolute historic fact, despite the fact that no one knows for sure who wrote it or when and almost no one can read the original texts and need to rely on translations.
People seriously think that.
If you can convince them otherwise you'll be the first person to do so. These are people who can still believe in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I knew it was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, but according to the Google homepage it's also the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.  Strange to think that one of the world's most popular and enduring TV shows premiered on the same day that everyone would have been interested only in watching news about the murder of the American president.
Well I'm sold.
Dr. Who killed JFK.
Conspiracy solved.
Wow and check this out:
the death of Julius Caesar
Liu Bei's declaration that he is the only legitimate successor to the Han Dynasty
the death of Cao Cao
ALL ON THE DAY AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY, MARCH 15
COINCIDENCE?
I THINK NOT.
CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF, LAW ENFORCEMENT.
(That's to assume the Europeans were interested in JFK's murder, but it seems likely to me that they were.)
I'm not a Doctor Who fan, but for those who are, David Tennant and Billie Piper were recently voted the best Doctor and companion.
Well thanks for that post of nothing.
Good job staying on topic, too.
JFK was assassinated so David Tennant and Billie Piper were voted best doctor and companion.
I'm sold.
You may have heard that Canadian short story writer Alice Munro has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Proof the Nobel Prize for Literature is as useless as the one for peace.
TaigaSis tells me that the company her husband works for, in the States, has announced that they will  no longer hire people who smoke and will charge current employees who do smoke an extra $60 per month for their health insurance.  How can that be legal?
How is it legal that I have to pay for other peoples' poor decisions?
Just kidding I can no longer afford healthcare thanks to Obama's affordable healthcare act.
Here's an article about what ancient China thought of ancient Rome and that genuinely is interesting.
An interesting article linked from Dreamwidth. Whatever next?
Apparently the Chinese term for Rome was Da Qin which means "West of the Sea".
The people (of these countries) are connected to each other. Every 10 li (4.2 km) there is a ting (relay shed or changing place), and every 30 li (12.5 km) there is a zhi (postal station).23 There are no bandits or thieves, but there are fierce tigers and lions that kill those travelling on the route. If you are not in a group, you cannot get through.
Factually accurate.
Rome was well known for putting down brigands but the roves of wild tigers kept the otherwise invincible Roman legions in check.

Actually that sounds pretty accurate, come to think of it.
Well, all in all China seems to review Rome favorably.
As it should be, really. They had more in common than differences.
Also the entire Silk Road exists so they could trade with each other.

This website calculates your date of death from actuarial tables based on your birthdate, nationality, and gender.  The only countries included are the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, and Mexico (and Mexico's tables must be way off). 
Let's see--
r i p
you
October 11, 1987 – October 11, 1997
Yeah that's right, fuckfaces.
Death has two things on me. Want to know what those two things are?
Fuck
and
all.
You have lived
263.21%
of your life.
Goddamn straight.
HAIL CAESAR.
I tried to donate blood and they couldn't hit my vein.  Just like the last time I tried.  Either I have amazing veins or I'm a walking corpse.
They tried to take my blood but ambrosia came out.
I'm half god.
I've lived more than double my entire life somehow.
I was just reading about the new Star Trek film, which I don't intend to see so I have to ask for an explanation.

So, I've never seen the Khan episode or film, but Wikipedia tells me that he's a "full blooded North Indian Sikh" who ruled in Asia in the 1990s.  Played first by a Mexican, and now by a pale-skinned Brit.  Is this explained in the films?   Maybe they couldn't find an actual Indian man to play the role, since there's only, oh, HALF A BILLION of them?
I believe I went over this about ten times already but the reason he doesn't look Indian is probably because HE'S A GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUPER SOLDIER.
BOY THERE SURE AREN'T ENOUGH INDIANS IN MY SHOW ABOUT WARP TRAVEL, TELEPORTING AND ALIENS.
Here's a quiz trying to figure out what classical hero you are but the questions and answers are so transparent I'm not sure if I'm picking what I'd actually do or if I'm just describing Odysseus.
Hey what the fuck do you know I'm Odysseus.
Wow, subtle.
Looks like my options were Odysseus, Achilles, Jason and Orpheus for some reason.
No Perseus?
Theseus?
No fuck that noise.
The entirety of Greek mythology can be summarized with Jason and the Argonauts and its sequels The Iliad and the Odyssey.
Nothing happened before or after that in Greek mythology.
Isn't that kind of ignoring how long Greek myth goes?
Like you can trace the founding of Rome back to an apple in Greek mythology.
Oh hell yeah you can.
So to make the long story short:
Eris trolls the fuck out of some goddesses
and things got a little out of hand
So Aeneas founds Rome and gets murdered.
Does anyone have any idea how to download stuff using bit torrents? 
TOTAL FUCKING MYSTERY.
If only you could, I don't know, search for information on some sort of information super highway. 
Speaking of ETA 31 minutes on all 5 seasons of The Wire.
Not that I'm torrenting as I type this.
Fox News doesn't realize that Gangnam Style's lyrics are in Korean and that the video is about South Korea. I could understand if they were saying that the millions of non-Koreans who have watched the video don't understand the words or the video, that is a valid point, but they're clearly saying that it's "unintelligible" and 'meaningless".
Have you Googled the lyrics?
Basically unintelligible and meaningless even if you speak Korean.
Is it just me or is this lawyer full of shit?
Without even looking: yes.
I'm obsessed with Breaking Bad. Well, no shock there, lots of people are. The show's creator claims his pitch to the studio was one line: "This is a story about a man who transforms himself from Mr Chips into Scarface." A good line and I see it absolutely everywhere, quoted by actors, media, and fans. Especially young fans.

Am I the only person who had to turn to Wikipedia to find out what "Mr Chips" and "Scarface" mean? And marvelled at discovering that they're pop culture references from almost eighty years ago? 
I'm sure they meant the 1980s Scarface as that was about dealing drugs.
Which is also what Breaking Bad is about.
Surely you can't be this dense.
Some guy posted on Reddit that he's been playing the same game of Civilization II for ten years. It wasn't designed to simulate the future past 2020, but he's now at year 3991. He reports "the world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation", with three super nations locking in perpetual nuclear war over the few remaining resources.
Much like real life.
A Stanford University professor calculated that an individual's risk of dying from nuclear war is 7.5%, but this Oxford University professor estimates there's a 20% chance that we're all living in a computer simulation. So if nuclear war happens, take comfort in knowing that it's more likely to be a computer game than a real war.
And I estimate there's a 100% probability he's making shit up as he goes along.
Oh shit I wrote this but forgot to post it.
AHUEHUEHUEHE late post