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.

MY BODY IS READY

Today we're taking our first uneasy steps into Tumblr territory.
Is Livejournal too high brow for you?
Maybe a little too masculine?
Well we have Tumblr here just for you, retard.
Anyway this blog actually came as a request--
because I'M FAMOUS ENOUGH TO GET REQUESTS FUCK YOU and here it is.
This is a return to one of my old favorites: poetry blogs.
Did you miss poetry blogs?
Aaaaah me neither.

I wanted to write something about her but
she’s so small then I thought men don’t measure things
by their absence,
she seems to have seen all 27 cracked and ordinary years of me
still laughs at my dumb jokes about old movies
three mocking birds worth of laughs while I pay for our booze
like I have many times before,
they said fuck you to all the saints with high heels and now she
touches my leg lightly and smiles at me like no one does, 

HOLY
SHIT BRO
WHAT THE FUCK
ARE YOU DOING
Poetry isn't actually sentences with random page breaks contrary to one of the first jokes I told about poetry on here.

for now I will just try to make her
laugh,
because graveyards are full of the boys who went for the
high heels and liquor, so rarely do they have
tombstones next to anyone important,
because graveyards are also full of boys like me,
I will die someday too,

amen,
plastic jesus candle lying upside down in my neighbor’s window,
hear my prayer,
“don’t let me
fuck this one up…”
He’s heard it before, He’s quite unimpressed, the
sun has melted his face into only hints and He has never been
lit, which explains everything
if you think about it 

So this poem makes sense if I think about it.
So you're a pretentious hipster faggot and this is all garbage.
Got it, asshole.

Sometimes I sit alone in the break room chugging red bull and listening to the Wrath Of Khan score wondering if I’m ever going to buy a decent razor so i stop giving myself terrible razor burn when I do remember to shave.

Gotta get up at 5:30 tomorrow, speaking of.
God I love my fucking shitty job.

Thai food, the Aquitaine, the Hyde Out, Willie Williams, the Revenger’s Tragedy, whiskey, and getting lives on track. Ups and downs. Life, you know?
Okay, I’ll write something cooler, settle down, jeesh. This was for me. SO I CAN LOOK BACK. I DO THAT SOMETIMES, JERKS.

HOLY FUCK BRO IS THAT A COHERENT THOUGHT OR THE RANTINGS OF A FUCKING TWEAKER? 

• Sally: What are you doing?
• Me: Waiting for a text.
• Sally: You do that? I thought the oh so edgy writersmith was above such things. He was never the active contact.
• Me: I'M TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF SALLY.
• Sally: I DON'T THINK A NEW LEAF MATTERS IF YOU CUT THE WHOLE DAMN TREE DOWN
• Me: I NEEDED THE WOOD BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WERE GONNA GET ON THE CROSS
• Sally: Damnit, Daniel.

Is it possible to hate these two people more than I do right this fucking second?
Because I don't think it is.
This is the 9/11 of blogs.

 Had a weird John Hughes moment in the Mission today; went down to go see the show at the Dark Room with Juan (oh that Juan) and was walking down the street and saw this very pretty girl who was extraordinarily familiar, who then asked me “Do I know you?” and then we talked about Roald Dahl’s adult fiction (gotta find a copy of his Hamlet) and now I’m looking forward to buying her a drink and talking books. Also, really, I wonder where I know her from — if I do in fact know her. It’s a small city. And I’ve got the soul (or at least wardrobe) of a detective. 

The soul of an asshole.
I can't imagine how you dress. I bet you own at least one fedora in which case you should be violently scourged with razor wire.

when you slammed the door in my face, I laughed, because I couldn’t scream, or yell, or beg. when you slammed the door in my face the air pushed me back a bit, and I teetered on the top step. I’m clumsy, and if I had fallen backwards and broken my neck and ended up crippled or dead, would you have wept? not in that moment, I’m sure. the bitterest satisfaction is only empty in retrospect. in the moment it fills you, like a good meal, like great sex, like religion or a long movie.

Like great sex
or religion
or a long movie
You know what three things I didn't expect to see tied together?
Well a lot of things but those three things especially.

I tried to explain she was a moment of weakness. it wasn’t hers — women are savage, and paranoid, but so rarely weak, and in that moment I touched her, and other things, and it was without meaning. meaningless but loaded with consequence. like all small actions, it became something greater, and worse, a free-floating emotional and social maelstrom. 

Coooooooool.
So you cheated--
You know I get this but I'm having a hell of a time giving a fuck because this is so pretentious and hipster I feel like I shouldn't be getting this as much as I do.

she was a great laugher, and a great smile, and a great body, and pretty — yes, she was all those things. but not like you. your laugh made me call you from thousands of miles away.

"baby it ain't be like that"
HOW IS IT
I CAN ACCOMPLISH IN ONE SENTENCE

WHAT TAKES YOU PARAGRAPHS
 your smile stood below mine in the mirror in the morning when you made fun of me. your body, well. I don’t have the time to describe. art. form and void. 

So she's got a great smile
and she's really fucking hot--

 when I touched her, she laughed. when you slammed the door in my face, I laughed. people do crazy things. people are fundamentally crazy, or perhaps we’re just sane and pretending.

But is she
half as hot as Anna Tsuchiya?
The answer, of course, is no.
So really whatever, bitch. Peace out.
FUCK HER. YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT A BITCH I AIN'T A SUCKA.

but I loved you, like fire and songs, because that is how I love. until I do crazy things. I won’t ever change, not until I die. 

Anna Tsuchiya
I even saw that fucking movie you were in where you were a hooker
what the fuck was that anyway?

the memory of her laughter is all I can recall about her, what became of the rest of her I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I loved you all along, but she was beautiful too, in the way that all women are — exotic and painful and unlocking, always becoming more complicated and wonderful.

What?
Listen, bro, she's just a pop star.
She's not even the hottest Japanese pop star so let's keep our shit together.
Or the sluttiest. Just putting that out there.

I knew when I touched her, I hurt you, and I hurt myself. perhaps that is why she loved it. perhaps that is why she laughed. now you are gone, and bigger than me, and I am still a boy who knows nothing, who plays with his toys and stares upwards not knowing just what to wonder. 
and you will crack the sky with your dreams, darling. 

Darling.
I think Anna Tsuchiya should probably send me an email or hell I'd accept a text of her thanks.
Because I think after watching her movie I'm about the most dedicated fan ever.
All right you've got a sexy voice do I really need to watch a whole movie featuring this?

• Me: I gotta get outta my hotel room. It's too small and creepy and it's making me stir-crazy and mean and weird.
• Zach: I hear the real estate in Damascus is good.

 I hear your face would make a good home for my fist, Zach.
Is anyone named "Zach" (with an 'h') not a complete twat?
Here's a picture of him reading a book and drinking Jack Daniel's with iTunes on in the background.
COOL.
COOL.
COOL.
LET ME POST ABOUT HOW I GOT REALLY BUZZED ON KAMIKAZES AND SAW THE ROOM IN A HIPSTER THEATER BECAUSE THAT'LL BE AN INTERESTING POST FOR PEOPLE TO READ ABOUT.
Dipshit.

Fuck a good life — I just want the story, you know? You die alone anyway. It doesn’t matter if you die holding someone’s hand, there’s no guarantees with the clearing at the end of the path. The story is what matters. I don’t care of I have to live a ridiculous cartoon hyper-allusion of a miserable life to get one good story. You don’t sign up for the writing gig and you don’t get to go AWOL. Journalism, poetry, telling dick jokes on twitter; go, go, go kid go! Write that ridiculous love song! Blog something about someone you don’t know! Burn it all down on the way and sit alone in a small room. 

And yet every single one of the best authors say "my life was complete shit so let me tell you this story so my life will be slightly less shit". They don't go seeking it out.
Like what, Dante just decided "yeah to tell a good story I should get myself arrested"
or what, Milton said "yeah I think I'll almost get executed as a traitor so I'll have enough material to write Paradise Lost."
That's not really how this shit works, idiot.

Last night was the thrilling experience of watching some first timers take some low-grade acid and dance, get topless, while I (also dropped) and graphically and repeatedly described the Coen Brothers spit-roasting Frances McDormand (for almost forty five minutes) and we laughed about fax machines, tried to get Siri to admit she hates Zooey, and made fun of each other’s weird mannerisms and lay about on the floor trying to figure out how the fan worked.

THEN WE WERE THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE THEATER SO WE DECIDED TO FUCKING MAKE SHADOW PUPPETS ON THE SCREEN--
IT WAS FUCKING HILARIOUS YOU GUYS JESUS CHRIST.
God this guy is an asshole.
Here's a picture (that just just a bunch of words, inexplicably) that says "any time a scene is two characters talking about a third the scene is shit" which is actually pretty true.
Except half of Pulp Fiction is that kinda shit and it's one of the best movies ever so whatever.

girl,
with your exquisite cataclysms calming mendacious impertinent folk medleys,
I have built 27 years and 37 teeth worth of poems and
sad songs for you,
I have witnessed the tragic splintering power in the voice
of broken windows, 

MAD LIBS: THE POEM

Most of the girls at the fashion store across the street are leggy Deschanel analogues (and therefore barely noticeable) or surly looking heavily made up Asian girls in hipster glasses (also something this city has overdosed on)

I propose that you cannot overdose on the latter. 

Everyone’s miserable sometimes.
Let me back up. You’re probably in love with someone right now; you, the abstract reader and you the specific — whether it’s known or not. Human beings are mechanically or biologically programmed to love, to facilitate stronger bonds and therefore stronger children.

I am?

There’s no answers anymore. That’s part of getting older. You like the bands you like and you like the certain friends’ facebook statuses and some mornings you wake up and almost don’t go to work, and sometimes you get drunk and dance with a stranger and sometimes you stay at home and watch an episode of something utterly forgettable that completely entrances you. But you don’t have answers.

I have all the answers.
All you have to do is ask me and I can give you them.
Anyway I gotta be up soon for bullshit and salad on the shelf.
Bye then.

Oh God

Get ready--

I saw Prometheus yesterday and I am still trying to figure parts of it out. This marks it out as not your average summer blockbuster.

Really because I heard it was shit.
Or a really good movie, actually.
I dunno. Fuck it.

Talking with my missus this week about the Cold War made me remember a conversation I had at work in about 1999 about what we'd do in the event of a three minute warning of nuclear attack. Always assuming that the government passed such a warning on of course.

So you're married--
so presumably this is a man but I'm not betting on it.
LORD HAVE I BEEN BURNED SO MANY TIMES--

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Once we achieve hope, anything is possible.

It's okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers - they help us to learn

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.

What the fuck?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
If it has a second hand that means it's wrong 86,398 times a day.
But let's focus on the incidental two times it's right. No, awesome.
If it has a second hand it is right 0.000002% of the time a day.
I'm not demanding perfection from my clocks--
I know for a fact the main clock in my room loses about 30 seconds a week but I cut it some slack because it was made in like 1956 but still, you know, I expect it to be right more than a fraction of 1% of the time.

Who do you think would make a great U.S. president?

Caligula.

What is a synonym for your LiveJournal?

I don't have a Livejournal but a synonym for Livejournal in general is shit.

Some things are too important to be left to the private sector.

Like everything but then again the government is run by idiots--
IT'S A MINEFIELD.

Let me explain my political position. I think that the life-or-death industries like the utility companies (gas, water, electricity etc) and of course health, the armed forces police, fire brigade should be state-run.

 Why?

I don't recall in Britain when the utilities were state-run that we had the problem of OAPs having to choose between heating and eating every winter and I don't think anyone had even heard the phrase 'fuel poverty' before the industry was privatised.  

The fuck are you people doing?
I thought Britain was a first world country. You already mentioned well fare-- don't you subsidize poor peoples' heating?
Can Britain really not reconcile state run everything versus privatizing industries but subsidizing the poor peoples' costs?

Things like the welfare state the prison service and the judiciary important things like that will obviously still be administered by the government as well as transport schooling etc. 

I'd actually like to see a privatized judiciary system. I imagine it'd actually be far more efficient and fair than the existing mess.
I'm not saying I'd want to commit to it because it'd probably end up like Robocop or some shit but I'd like to see their plan before committing to it.

Everything else we can have private firms running things, competition and all that. I mean who wants a state-run supermarket? How dull would that be!

... Actually--
a state run supermarket system would be pretty smart.
Having worked at one for a while I can safely say they're not entirely sure what they're doing.
At least it'd minimize some of the fuckery I see there.

I saw someone driving yesterday. Not in itself all that unusual but they had an iPod on. No not on in their car routed through their speakers. Actually listening to it while they were driving with the earphones in their ears.

I'm not a driver but I can't for the life of me think that that is safe.

That is illegal in the US and I assume in the UK although after what I've just read it wouldn't surprise me if you people had no laws at all.
To be honest I don't fully understand why it's illegal. The logic is you need to hear emergency personnel coming but as anyone who has had iPod earbuds on can attest you'll definitely hear them coming because the noise bleed on any pair of earbuds is ridiculous.
Also I like how he says "not in itself all that unusual" like someone was about to say HEY WAIT SLOW DOWN YOU SAW WHAT?

Surely you need to be aware of things around you including noises and be alert at all times when in control of a vehicle?

Surely you do but I don't see how the sound being right in your ears versus being at three quarter's volume on the radio makes a huge difference.

Okay so the last time I posted about CCTV people freaked out a bit. But that was about three years ago so here goes again!

When people say we're the most watched nation on Earth in the UK I always think that they're scaremongering a bit. Mostly because if you've worked in a fast-food restaurant like I have you know that some cameras are of poor quality and the tape in them is reused so much that its practically transparent!

Wow.
Good work, idiot.
"It's okay there's a pervasive program of monitoring in my country because the government is too stupid to implement it properly."
Bang up job all around, retards.

The point is when they say there are X amount of cameras in Bridlington or wherever, they don't take into account the amount that are dummy cameras to scare people off, the amount that are covered in bird crap and unusable, the amount that use the same tape over and over etc etc. 

I think the fact the government installed them at all is pretty disturbing but then again I live in a first world country and not England.
Which I thought was first world but the more I read the more I'm starting to analyze my position on the matter.

And as we saw with the riots in London this year, CCTV is only really good after the event. Because despite what the some say, there isn't an operator sitting behind the screen watching every single camera. If there was, there would be zero unemployment!

Yeah after the race riots.
Because it's the 1960s in England still.

So I don't think CCTV is necessarily a bad thing. But then I'm not an armed robber, a drug dealer or someone that goes out looking for someone to hit with a bat!

You heard it here first: police states are okay as long as you're not an armed robber.
It must be great being this stupid.

So do I agree with the British monarchy. Yes. But not for reasons of patriotism as such. Economically they make sense as they cost about 79p to each citizen per year which is small beer when you consider the tourism revenue they bring in every year.

Plus there is the important thing. Having an apolitical head of state.

... An apolitical head of state with no actual power behind it, what?

So the British Medical Association said yesterday that smoking in cars should be banned.

Now, I am an ex-smoker (I quit two years ago) but I don't think everyone should be like me. Obviously smoking-related illness is a bad and very painful thing. But it is a lifestyle choice and your car is your own property.

This is an interesting stance from someone who just admitted having the government monitoring its citizenry constantly isn't a bad thing as long as you're not a criminal to take.
Government said it's bad--
Better comply, citizen, or prepare to be assigned to a reeducation facility.

If I walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke when I'm out I don't mind all that much, a couple of steps and you're through it. In a car, yes it is an enclosed space, but any kind of a parent should know themselves that subjecting their kids to second-hand smoke is bad. They're acting as if every parent is the most irresponsible person in the world!

Are you questioning policy, citizen?

But it is a choice. And banning smoking in cars, while probably a good thing in the long run for personal health, is unworkable. Don't the police have enough to do with all the cuts coming their way?

LIKE MONITORING ITS CITIZENRY.

When you watch things like Ice Road Truckers and see that they have an Alaskan oil pipeline through some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, the narration always makes it sound like its a great feat benefitting humankind. Which of course it is. But what would probably match if not better that would be if we could do the same with water with pipelines taking it to the most drought-heavy regions of the Third World.

Well why not? It seems like a no-brainer to me.

... Why not?
Are you joking?
$$$$$$$$?
The gas pipes in Alaska pay for themselves--
water pipes in Africa would only cost.

And it could also potentially offer a partial solution to the problem of rising sea levels in the future, with desalination plants on the coast purifying the water before sending it through the pipelines to inland areas for drinking and irrigation.

Am--
am I getting trolled?
That would solve the rising water levels?
Yes because when you drink water it just vanishes from reality and doesn't wind up back in the ecosystem at some point.
And, you know, expensive salt water purification plants and transportation lines are completely sustainable in an area of the world with about 0 infrastructure.
All right, boss, you have your pipes but WHOOPS ONE BROKE WHAT NOW?
The desert and the jungle especially are really hard on man-made structures so where's your staff to keep the jungle foliage from literally growing through your pipes?
Where do these pipes even wind up? Are you seriously feeding them through the entire African continent?
You'll have to transport them from the main saline treatment plants on the coast--
the coast of Africa, incidentally, which a quick Google search confirms is 16,000 square miles--
and the water will have to go to some sort of containing facility which will then have to feed into the various villages and shit--
who will need some sort of basic sewage system at this point to keep your waterworks from becoming tainted--
Do you have any idea how much this would cost?
You were just complaining about your country being broke. This would be enough to completely decimate the economy of the top 20 economies in the world I imagine.

And because the technology already exists it would probably be relatively cheap too.

...
Wow.
Yeah, pipelines just lay themselves.
Idiot.
I didn't even get into the astronomical sums it would cost to move that much piping over from the US (I assume the US would be donating the pipes) to Africa--
or Jesus Christ, moving the facilities to make the pipes over to Africa so they can make their own pipes?
Are we talking about a 70 year project or what?
Now, look, I'm no expert on logistics or supply routes here (despite people telling me I should go back to school for that, what) but one thing I do know is all logistics pretty much boil down to having material where you need it and Africa doesn't have material and it isn't where most people need it.
That might sound cold (because it is) but that goes a long way towards explaining why this plan won't ever happen.
I didn't even get into the fact that saline treatment isn't cheap at all and this guy's an idiot but let's skip over that for now or my head will explode.

It may even prove to the populations of the drought-affected countries that the West does care about them and stop them from being driven into the arms of extremists through mistrust and disgust of the richer nations.

Drought is a problem in Africa but it pales into insignificance compared to AIDS and conflict materials.
And you can't just propose people get their materials from somewhere else like during that whole blood diamonds nonsense because some of those metals are only found in that area of Africa.
You could deprive the first world of its metals that it needs to make processors but the effect that would have on Africa would be catastrophic compared to letting them persist in this conflict state.
I'm not even getting into what kind of effect that would have on the first world because this is only about Africa.
And I'm using effect instead of affect because at this point this level of idiocy has a direct cause and effect on the planet if he's in charge.
He means to do this to the planet.

Every day vast numbers of people have no access to plentiful water supplies and yet more drink polluted water doing untold damage to themselves because there is simply no other option if you want to survive until tomorrow. This is wrong and one of the greatest scandals in the world today. The simplest ideas are usually the best too.

Can't just teach them to filter their water with simple mesh nets and boil it, no, we have to create the most complicated water management system in the history of the entire fucking world.
This would make the New York pipelines and the entirety of the Roman aqueducts system look like a retard playing with tinker toys by comparison.
Why not propose we travel to Europa and mine its frozen ice lakes to bring back to Africa? At least some important ancillary technology would come from that.

One of my pet botherings is the way people misrepresent the very thought of universal socialised healthcare as 'socialist' and something to be avoided at all costs.

Well based off your previous post about water in Africa I'm guessing the concept that things cost money is a new one for you.

They say socialist like its a bad thing! I wonder if these people charge their next door neighbours for a band-aid.

A single band-aid has literally no resale value but if my neighbor is expecting me to foot his expensive treatment I might object a little bit.
See what I mean when I say this guy has no concept of value?
Is he seriously expecting the band-aid analogy to work?

Healthcare is not left wing its not right wing its not centre either. Its completely apolitical. It is the most noble thought to have occured to the human mind. To help your fellow human being in their hour of need. Health is a right not a privelege.

 He makes it seem like everyone but the poor are so rich they can afford whatever the fuck they want and are just denying the poor to be assholes. Do you have any idea how many people are barely scraping by and an expensive medical problem would nearly break them, such that they now can't afford to help anyone else?
Where's the compassion for people like that?
"People like that", incidentally, are the most populous group in any developed nation.
They're called the middle class.

Things people say that don't make sense.

Can we start with "piping sterilized ocean water through Africa is a viable solution to drought"?

 *"Don't knock it until you've tried it".

Hmmm lets see. I'm anti-fascist and I don't need to try fascism to know that it'll never be for me. And the same goes for jumping from a 20-storey window and shooting myself in the face. 

Oh shit. You sure got them, smartass. 

*"I don't vote in elections".

The king of stupid sayings. It took us decades to get the vote and world wars to keep it. The least you can do is put an X on a bit of paper you selfish fuck. And if you don't, you surrender the right to complain about anything. Ever.

I never understood this logic. If all of my choices are inherently shit and I choose not to deal with this garbage don't I have the right to complain?
You picked the idiot in office, or worse, you picked the idiot so bad he couldn't even win so don't you lose your right to complain?

Do you believe in UFOs? Do you have a gut dis/belief or do you rely on empirical proof? 

If there's empirical proof for what it is--
it's no longer a UFO, is it?
What does the 'U' in UFO stand for, dipshit?

Yes. I say this because I saw...something one night that changed my opinion from being a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic to being aware that there is more to this universe than us and thats it.

And its not only me, at least 75% of the people I grew up with or am friends with now have seen some strange goings-on at some point above our town. I know, I know, it sounds like a Stephen King novel or something where there's a town that loads of people have seen this and treat it as an everyday thing! But its true.

UNIDENTIFIED flying object.
MUST BE ALIENS!
Well you've now identified it, haven't you?
Of all the things that it could be why do you automatically conclude it must be aliens?
Never mind, actually. I gotta pick my battles with this idiot, clearly.

"We've got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money". - Barack Obama.

Apparently Obama meant "by demographic" because he's certainly fucking over the middle class.
Actually the wealthy still have more money by demographic so I guess he's just a liar.

Do you believe in luck? Do you think some people are luckier than others? Do actions cause reactions or are there intervening forces beyond our control that govern our destinies? 

Man I sure miss writer's block.

No no and no. If fate really existed and we couldn't alter our course in life there would be no point in doing anything, ever. Fate is often confused by stupid people with coincidence.

After the shit you've just said I think you've lost your right to call anyone else stupid.
Also that's bulletproof logic. If fate were a real thing do you really think you'd be capable of understanding fate as a reality?

And the same with life. If you didn't get that job/girl/whatever its not down to luck its down to how much you wanted it and what you were prepared (or not prepared) to do in order to succeed.

That's an awfully utilitarian view from someone who said all that other shit in this blog.

So I see from my Daily Mirror today a pic of one of Girls Aloud (not sure which, but one that isn't Cheryl) looking ultra-skinny and gaunt with the predictable 'before and after' side pictures showing a healthy-looking young lady a few years ago that contrasts with the whippet-thin girl in the main article.

Girls Aloud?
Is it 2004?

Now I'm not sure at this second if she's ill or whatever and thats the reason for her sudden weightloss. But plenty of celebs are super-skinny out of choice. But why?

Every bloke I've ever talked to about this says the same thing: that they don't like ultra-thin women. And neither do I. 

Well there you have it. No one wants skinny chicks. This dude and his friends have deemed it--
so it is.

Is it because they think its what geezers want? Because they're wrong if they do.

Us lads want women to be...womanly. Any fella that wants a girl with a body like a 12 year old boy I find slightly disturbing.

I've seen this logic a disturbing number of times.
Like skinny chicks?
Nope fuck you you're either gay or a pedophile.
Well have fun, fatty fucker.

Obviously its the woman's choice what she does with her body but...all that effort if its in an attempt to attract boys is a little wasted on us.

Thats what most males think anyway!

Yeah yeah go work on your salt treatment, asshole.
Evaporation is the fastest way to do that shit, incidentally.
Saved you a lot of time I'm sure.
Anyway this has already gone on way too long so I'm going now.
Goodbye.

Skimming

I just skimmed this crap.
Let's see if my spider senses were right.
This is Jon Reid. Presumably that's the blogger's name and he isn't just naming is blog.

Yo Mac users!

My co-worker Sean Christman has put up his very first app on the Mac App Store: Space Gremlin, an app that helps visualize the files on your hard drive.

Wow an app that lets me visualized my hard drive! ONLY ON A MAC!
No just kidding I don't even need to visualize it. It's a mix of video games, naked Asian women, "hilarious" pictures and a bunch of junk I can't be bothered to delete.
Why do I need to download an app to tell me this? It's my hard drive. I know what's on it.

It's way cool, and there's even a free demo available. If you get it and have feedback or questions, Sean sits like ten feet away from me. Well, when he's not in Ireland, that is, which he is about 30% of the time. Yes, he's that cool.

In other news, Sean and I will be working together on a project in a couple of weeks. He'll be working on an iPhone demo app, while I'll be retooling the client's current mobile web app using jQuery Mobile. Exciting stuff.

I'll just have to take your word for it.
Here's a post entitled "Because I don't know a loosing battle when I see it" and I know a losing battle is explaining to people the difference between lose and loose.
These must be the same people who call my FFXIV character Eddie Hart when clearly Edie and Eddie would be pronounced differently by the virtue of there being more letters involved.
AKA I think I've only heard one person pronounce it right.
Although at least three of them say it wrong on purpose because they know it'll push my buttons.

Looks like I was wrong in my previous post. I said that there wasn't enough science to back up worries that the radiation exposure from the new full-body airport scanners is harmful. And I tried to put things into perspective by talking about relative radiation doses. Where I was wrong is that there is evidence and study about the harm that these scanners can cause.

I liked it when they started shouting for everyone to stop moving like serious shit was going down then thanked us for our time and it was a successful test.
The entire purpose of an airport is just to fuck with people and I, for one, won't stand for it.
 Which is why the biggest thing I fear about becoming president of anime isn't moving 2000 miles away to a foreign land but instead the 18 hour plane flight beforehand.

Apropos other conversations I'm having online and IRL, here's a little information about skepticism.

Apropos is a word you should be scourged for using seriously.

In a nutshell, skepticism is a methodology, a way of searching for knowlege. It involves suspending judgement on the topic at hand and applying reason and logic to examine the claims and evidence. Only after examining the evidence will a skeptic make a provisional conclusion. 

Great so--
end of post.

Now, there's a lot of meaning encompassed in these two sentences, so let's deconstruct.

No really we don't--
Okay.

Suspension of Judgement

Skeptics use constructive doubt. They do not use doubt to refute, they use it to take a provisional stance that is as neutral as possible while they are evaluating the claims at hand. The goal is to avoid accepting or rejecting claims and evidence prematurely.

Yeah.
Cool.
Cool.
COOL.

This suspension of judgement is, needless to say, difficult. But it is a key step in the skeptical process. If you do not follow this step, everything you learn and reason will be tainted. This is the difference between skepticism and justification.

I'm just skipping this post. I couldn't suspend judgment long enough.

Here’s the thing. When you learn how to handle firearms, one of the things you’re supposed to learn is that they are tremendously powerful tools which are quite dangerous and should be handled with great care and respect. They have a couple of very specific purposes (self-defense and sport) and THAT’S IT. Any other use constitutes misuse.

Only a woman would need a ranged weapon at all times on her person to successfully defend herself.
Real men should be either unarmed (preferably) or armed with a suitably manly weapon like a sword or warhammer.

Open-carrying for the sole purpose of making a political point is misuse of your firearm. These people should have their weapons taken away from them by their grandfathers, be swatted with a hickory switch on the behind, and be sent to bed without supper. Once they grow back up and promise to treat their firearms with respect, they could have them back. In other words, if you’re going to behave like a petulant three-year-old, you should be treated like one.

Can you imagine King Leonidas having this conversation about weapon control?
Whenever it comes to the topic of weaponry and what should be done I just stop and think "can I imagine the King of the Spartans saying this?" And if the answer is no then I kindly shut up about it.

Seriously, folks. Open-carrying to make a point is disrespectful to your firearms and it’s disrespectful to your fellow citizens.

But only the citizens are allowed to carry weapons and--
nope not getting into this. On the other hand, the Usability Prime Directive does not mean the users are automatically relevant.

True, the users should determine how you will design, build, and offer your service, but only as long as that input is productive. Users are greedy, and just because they say (for a wild example) they want a telepathic interface doesn't mean you should invest all of your resources into research and development of online telepathy. In other words, it's important to separate usability issues from entitlement issues.

That's a buzzword in the video game community lately. Apparently Bioware (or EA, or someone) said that gamers had entitlement issues because they expected a product they paid for to be good.
Which is a great point. It really is your own fault for buying Mass Effect 3 and expecting it to be anything more than complete and utter shit. In fact, you're lucky the entire game wasn't one long gay porno with a giant middle finger watermark in the middle of the screen.

4-year aged Gouda cheese (rather like a very friendly and mellow aged cheddar; if it were a person it would be the sort who would come over and help you pack your bookshelves. You know how really good aged cheeses will have that very faint crunchy texture due to crystallized proteins? Yeah.)

Wow, dude.

My new 2 Gb USB thumb drive ($65 at Costco, thanks to a cupon)

65 bucks for a 2 GB USB drive?
How fucking old is this?
And that's after a coupon.
Or, no, my mistake: a "cupon"
and this entry is from 2006.
Fucking Livejournal.

Go here, and keep hitting “refresh” until you’ve found a total of five quotations that are meaningful to you, or mean something about you, or you agree with them, or whatever criteria you choose, I guess. Then post those five. 

What a great time wasting exercise in bullshit this'll be.

LET'S COMPARE QUOTES.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Lion and the Mouse

Yeah that's pretty gay but I got:

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

    -William Ellery Channing (1780 - 1842)

I like it, actually. Maybe this won't be such bullshit after all.

Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

I was never a fan of The Three Stooges but perhaps I was mistaken:

Only fools are positive.

    -Moe Howard (1897 - 1975)

Does he mean think positively or only fools are ever sure of what they're doing?
It works both ways.

 If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918 - ), The Gulag Archipelago

Notice how my quotes are like one sentence and his are entire paragraphs?

Further proof of a discerning reader in my opinion.

The best way to get approval is not to need it.

   -Hugh Macleod

This nicca.

Hugh Macleod, Highlander.

Reminds me a lot of a (better) Machiavelli quote: "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

SO RANDUM xP

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.

    -Antisthenes (445 BC - 365 BC) 

Man how can I be getting such awesome quotes and you're stuck with garbage, friend?

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
Carl Sagan

Then you whip out Carl Sagan at me.

Still I'm not really feeling that one.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

    -Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

I had no idea Albert Camus was that hardcore.

In fact from what I've read I always assumed he was a pussy.

The farm is an organic fruit farm in Pallisade, which is over on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains here in Colorado.

Oh, speaking of. Things I'm not allowed to call the stuff at my job:

non-organic apples "poison apples"

the water I drain from the tables "plague water"

this job is no fun at all, man.

"might give the customers the wrong idea" the manager told me.
Yeah and if someone is fucking stupid enough to take "plague water" seriously maybe they should starve out.

It's not like I announced it to customers, either. I was joking in the back with one of the other guys working there.

He really doesn't want to hear the nickname I devised for the seven layer bean dip then, no sir.

Cholesterol-laden health department nightmare shit log.

Aaaaaaaand here's where the guy claims to be a huge scifi fan but hasn't read Neuromancer of Starship Troopers.

What a loser.

Or, excuse me, "looser". To tie this back into a previous comment.

Anyway outside of the brief minute where I had fun comparing quotes this shit is fucking boring and I'm going to go do something else now.

Compromise is the last bastion of defeat

I tried to update Friday but no one was posting shit. I think it's safe to say blogging is almost (finally) dead.
But as long as there are blogs like this I'll be vigilant.
I'm skipping the first entry because I can't bring my eyes to focus long enough to read it.
The second post caught my attention because it's entitled "hate speaks for itself" and I almost considered using that as the title of this entry but she means it in a negative way and I was thinking it sounded like a Warhammer quote.

On the internet we read a lot of homophobic hate speech but I think it is often not treated as severely as it should be.

It's the fucking internet. Trying to stem the tide of the shit wave that is the internet is impossible.
I'm still here, aren't I? Still trying to stop blogging. It's futile.

Ok I have finished Mass Effect 3 and I am going to have to squee. There is so much good here.

Mass Effect 3, the game universally panned by almost everyone not a professional reviewer getting paid to turn out a 10/10?

ME 2 and ME3 I don’t think the whole “clips” concept worked. They had a nice idea with ammo in the first game – and I don’t think the whole “heat sink” idea made a whole lot of sense the way it was implemented.

Really, the heat system in 1 didn't make sense?
So firing superheated gas at enemies wouldn't cause the gun to heat up?
Genius.

And, besides, you never ran out of ammo so why bother?

Yes, why bother with things like balance and logic?

On inclusion – lots of it and I loved it. And I loved my romance with Estevan (Kaidan, alas, died in ME1 for me) but more than anything what impressed me is that Estevan is gay. I mean, even if my Shepherd is straight as straight can be, Estevan is still gay. He isn’t the gay option thrown in to placate me and hidden away if you don’t want him. He’s gay, he’s mourning his husband and he will talk about it.

Don't care. Busy killing.
Don't care about that blue bitch's quest for knowledge and I don't care about that bitch in the hazmat suit's peoples' plight.
Don't care about that fag's whining or that other bitch's racism.
It's just me, Wrex and that weird alien guy.
Yeah, the three fucking guys killing shit and saving the galaxy.
When this is all over we're going to have so many blue bitches, holy shit.
And then I never played any of the sequels.
What a great game.

 Similarly you can walk through the Citadel and hear a woman talk about her wife. While romancing these character is an option, there existence is not. They are there. And that impressed me.

Whatever out of the way I'm going to the gun store.
Blue bitches won't ride my super tech cock if I can't beat these assholes in some bullshit lab doing illegal cloning research.
Too many targets. Can't solve this diplomatically because I chose to sink points into firing guns instead of whining so my only option is murder.
Your plight doesn't interest me. Stand back and let me save you from alien collectivisms bent on killing all life.

And to describe how much I loved this? I’m tempted to do a play through of the whole series, one after the other. Yes yes I am.

I seem to recall getting that game a few days after Christmas a few years ago then beating it before break ended. That's not really a feat.

So, I was talking about how Beloved’s parents aren’t exactly super-duper thrilled about be, or mine about him for that matter – and I was quickly informed by an empathetic person that they totally understood, they didn’t get on well with their in-laws either. See, they understood what it was to be rejected by your loved one’s family.

Great.
Don't care.

But it’s not a matter of my in-laws not liking me or my parents not liking Beloved. Even if Beloved or I were completely different men, our parents would still be hostile. 

Oh this is a guy.
Of course.
I'm just glad I can keep score for once.

We cannot have a relationship that would possibly meet their approval. Every potential relationship is wrong. It would actually be better for us not to have relationships, in their eyes, than have any of the relationships open to us. Our very capacity to love is flawed in their eyes. They weren’t just rejecting our partners, they were rejecting us. And that is so extremely different from your in-laws not liking you very much. 

K.
You're right. We are completely unalike.
ANYWAY ALIENS TO KILL.
Or because I'm still playing Deus Ex it's FEMA and other government assholes to kill.
OH NO ADAM! FEMA!
Who gives a shit, Frank? Unless FEMA is code for "I can't snap their necks" I'll solve this somehow.
Then one of them caught me hacking one of their computers.
Fuck it time to escalate this motherfucker.
Have you seen my armor piercing assault rifle yet?
No?
Let me acquaint your spine with it.
MMMMMMMMMMMM YEAH.

*deep breaths* my temper is frayed on this one. I’ve just come across a blog post by a straight person who is most displeased that the GBLT community is not more up in arms and outraged by the group beating of Brandon White in Atlanta. She wanted to see more outpouring of… I don’t even know what. Outrage, grief, anger, shock? She judges us for not reacting more forcefully to the gay bashing and not paying more attention to it.

Oh look it's some Russian bitch who can turn invisible.
Real fucking neato, super spy. Hope you're a fan of Dirty Harry, Natasha, because I have a 44 mag you can suck on.
All the invisibility in the world sure didn't stop that hot lead, huh?
Now that was a great fucking game.
Know how many romance options there are in Deus Ex?
Fucking none. Not a single one. Too busy being future Dirty Harry.

So, I just saw a wonderful whine about the new Mass Effect 3 and apparently, of the new love interests, there are no EXCLUSIVE heterosexuals (i.e. they’re all gay or bi). Note, this doesn’t mean that you can’t have an opposite sex pairing – there are bisexual love interests and your straight love interests from the last 2 games which, in case you have forgotten, included ZERO same-sex relationships (oh you could have female bisexual flings, but no relationships).

I'm currently reliving every act of violence I've ever committed in a video game right now. Are you still whining about fictional relationships?
K, glad to see I haven't missed anything.
Seriously you're playing a game where you're a space soldier with optional robot eyes and you're charged with stopping an alien collective from eradicating all life in the galaxy and your concern is whether you can fuck other dudes?
If it's that fucking important to you, your imaginary gay life, you can save the galaxy and I imagine every ass in the galaxy would be yours because YOU SAVED THE FUCKING GALAXY.
All the waifu options in Mass Effect were underwhelming from the start so I just focused on being as hardcore as possible because I imagined Shepard would have a million waifus if he succeeded in the mayhem I was contemplating.
Am I the only person who still plays video games to have fun?

But but but shouldn’t heterosexuals be equally represented?! Equality should be equal!!!

Yes, equality should be equal. This is correct.

I just want to kill aliens with advanced weaponry. I don't care about heterosexuality or homosexuality or dualspirited furry transgenders in my games.
I want to sneak up on cybernetically enhanced gangbangers and kill them with my sword hands. I don't give a fuck about any of this other bullshit.
If you're going to tell a good story fucking do it and make it like Lost Odyssey or Persona 3. Make me feel interested about these characters as individuals and not fucking platforms for your misguided sociology nonsense.
If you're going the societal issues route you better make it like Deus Ex and make it an issue I care about otherwise I'll just focus on everything not that.

So Janet W. Hardy is writing a book that she has a kickstarter page to announce. And the book is called Girlf@g. (I am not linking to it, the last thing I won’t is for even one link from me to add so much as a penny into having this homophobic book put on the shelves)

Kickstart is basically institutionalized begging where you can tell people to give you money and you'll make this thing for them.
Lots of video games are being developed like this now and they'll all universally suck because you're paying for something before it even exists.
Fuck it, I made 2 million before I even started this shitty game. You can eat shit and like it, idiots.

Yes Girlf@g. Though Hardy, of course, doesn’t remotely have the respect to disemvowel the slur –if she did she wouldn’t have used the slur in the first place. And this book is about? Women who are sexually attracted to gay men. No, let's not even be that respectful. A book for women who fetishise f@gs, since that's the term this woman uses. Oh yay there’s a book about the fetishists now.

How to count the many things wrong with this?

Fuck it I made my cool thirteen million by being controversial. Peace, bitches.

So over in the US the Violence against Women Act has become partisan because it contains inclusive clauses for GBLT people, undocumented migrants and Native Americans

Which means, for these over-privileged arseholes, they were willing to scupper this bill – and throw all those women who desperately need this out because their hatred is more important than saving women’s lives.

If the government really wants to protect women from scumbags they should give me some cybernetics because I think I've successfully demonstrated that in test environments I am utterly lethal to scumbags.
Here's a post entitled "another rant about my labels"
MY LABELS I MUST AFFIX THEM TO MY BODY--
I AM HEMORRHAGING LABELS!
HELP I AM DYING OF LABEL LOSS--
FAREWELL.

Yes it’s time to say it again. Not particularly because I think it’ll stop people calling me it, but at least it lets me vent, and why have a blog if you can’t vent when you need it?

Do not call me queer. Yes I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it 100 times more. Do not call me Queer. I don’t care what the word means to you or how you identify or why – that’s your identity and your label, not mine. Do not use it to refer to me.

How about asshole?
Can I refer to you as an asshole?

And don’t try to poke or police me into accepting the label. Don’t make assumptions about me because I refuse to use your preferred terms.

My using the word gay doesn’t make me conformist. It doesn’t mean I’m not an activist. It doesn’t mean I secretly want to be straight. It doesn’t mean I’m not REALLY fighting for equality. It doesn’t mean I’m not a real gay man. It doesn’t mean I don’t REALLY face discrimination or that I don’t know what prejudice and bigotry really means. Pack up your shaming and get the fuck out if you think these things because I am beyond sick of it.

I've created a handy list of labels you can use when addressing me:
The Bane of Kings
The Red Wake
Uncontested Slaughter Master
The Last True Scion of Zeus
The Baleful Fire
If you're going to affix labels to your body you better pick some fucking labels, man.

To me that word is attached to my bones that ache because they’ve been broken. That word is attached to the scars on my arms and my back.

Hey man I know some chicks are into kinky shit like that but I don't really want to hear about it unless you're brown or Asian. And hot.

That is a word of my nightmares and memories that still haunt me. I take a cocktail of pills to keep my brain working because of the echoes of that word.

 HEH GOT HIM.
I added the boldface, if that wasn't apparent.

You have no right to decide I should use and claim this word. You have no right to demand I just swallow that and “get over it” and move on so I can follow your word choice.

My life. My being. My labels. Respect them or get out, simple as.

I prefer the first two titles, incidentally.
Respect them or get out.

So, Louis C. K. has joined the legions of those downplaying Tracy Morgan’s bigotry and chiding gay people for our reaction to blatant homophobia

So let’s address some things here, Louis.

Louis C.K. is probably the best comedian alive--
If he says something is funny I'm inclined to agree.

You found it hilarious. Really? A joke about stabbing a gay child you found hilarious? You know why we can’t laugh at this shit? Because it happens, Louis.

 He also makes jokes about rape and killing elderly people. I'm pretty sure he's not serious.

He is on a comedy stage – do you think that makes it better?

Yes.
It literally does.

You know nothing. You understand nothing and you’re choking on your privilege.
Don’t tell us what would be more effective, straight man. Don’t tell us how we should react.

K got it.

I've been putting it off for months, but this wreck is way past its useby date. I have a blank desktop and 101 broken start menu links, in fact broken files all over the shop, it keeps freezing on me, half the programmes don't work the other half are unreliable at best.

computer programs are always spelled the American way.
Yeah that's right I'm correcting a British man about British spelling.
That's how top fucking pro at English I am.
Also time to reinstall Windows dipshit no need to buy a new computer.

So another bigoted arsehole has decided to open his mouth to defend poor oppressed Christians in the UK Who are being crushed under the “pink jackboot” and he needs to oppose the “Gaystapo”

Christfags sure do love playing that persecution card. I don't even understand how you can pretend to be persecuted when you're 80% of the industrialized nations' population.
When my people, the Romans, (allegedly) fed your people to lions that was persecution. You people are just whining about some bullshit I don't care about.

Yes, Nazi analogies. I'm putting aside the malicious vileness of claiming GBLT people are oppressing Christians when Christianity is pushing so much homophobic and transphobic hatred because it's eclipsed by the sheer nauseating evil of comparing GBLT people to Nazis.

There's an ironclad defense if I've ever heard it. "It's okay because Christians are the Nazis!"

So I've quit WoW. 

WOW MASS EFFECT AND WORLD OF WARCRAFT!?
Sure you're not a girl?

Partly because I wanted the time, partly because even with 6/7 hc bosses progress before nerf still didn't seem fun and partly, with our guild going from transition with our server dying, it was looking like I'd have to go to other places with other guilds aaaand... that sounded as much fun as putting my foot in a blender.

Oh yeah gotta rush through the boring leveling to get to the boring end game raids--
can't wait to play this gringo motherfuck in a heroic, fuck yes.
SO MUCH FUUUUUUN WoW REVOLUTIONIZED VIDEO GAMES.
I will bet a thousand dollars right fucking now that this'll some how wrap around to gay shit.
I mean goddamn. I play an MMO (FFXIV) and yet I don't somehow tie this into how fucking straight I am, do I?

I've been lucky in my guild. S & I have been GM of it since raiding Gruuls lair back in the day. We were insular, kept to our own and had a very strict policy – your fuckery will not be tolerated here. 

That's one of my rules in my linkshell, too.
No meme spouting
No general faggotry
No bullshit whining
I hate you
You're going to hell.

No boss will be “raped”, nothing was “gay” unless they were actually homosexual and no racial abuse was remotely tolerated.

I don't know if there are any gays in my LS but I know I'm a minority as a white man and the racial slurs fly like fucking mad regardless.
No one gives a single fuck.
You know that's the thing about being cool as hell. You don't give a shit about this nonsense because you're too busy having a job and doing shit to worry about nonsense.
And no one there is actually racist. Hell, the core of this group agrees we'd probably be friends in real life if it had come to that.

If you didn't like it we weren't going to argue or debate with you – we'd kick you. Get out.

I've never kicked a single person.
Your presence might not be tolerated, but if I have to kick you for your bullshit I'd have to kick at least three other people for the same reason.

Because, ultimately, I'm quitting WoW because I don't want a hobby that involves so much homophobia dodging.

Outside of FPSs, MMOs are probably one of the more homophobic communities in gaming.
They're not outright hostile about it but the anti-gay terminology is pretty much rooted in the lexicon of these games. You picked a really shitty thing to involve yourself with if that's what offends you.
I can't even recall the number of times I've heard something called a cocksucker in FFXIV alone.

Oh and all you straight cis people “you're offended because they insulted the alliance” really? Really you privileged arseholes? Someone sings a rant full of anti-gay slurs and you think we give a shit about the freaking FACTION insults?! Get a clue, get some perspective and wake up. 

What kind of fag picks a Lalafell anyway?
AM I RIGHT?
And I'd never call a gay man a fag.
Unless he was acting like one.
Anyway this is fucking boring. I'm going to go play the video games.

These people need pills

Ready for our exercise in what's real and what isn't real?
Cartoon characters: not real.
Strange, I know.
Oh don't worry, gentle reader, if you don't know what I'm talking about. You're about to be educated.

What would be your last meal?

Oddly morbid line of questioning from Livejournal today.

Probably something obnoxiously fat that'd give me a heart attack three minutes 45 seconds into the meal, thus it being my last. :3

So typical American ha, ha-- except he's Dutch.

She is pretty. And halfway done. And I like vectors. And Shampoo. And fancelling.

I do not like shaky hands though. More good news to follow at a later point.
The entire post.

So a vector, in modern day nerd parlance, is a specific animation technique that renders an image larger than it was previously. The only other definition I know of is in epidemiology where a vector is something through which something (disease, parasite, whatever) spreads (mosquitos, water, Nickelback CDs, etc.).
I think it's also a shape. A specific kind of shape but I don't know geometry.
I know this does relatively little to translate this post from crazy but that's what I have to work with currently.
Here we have a cut for, in his words, "too many words" which is always a good sign.

Anime
Anime has taken up quite a bit of my life. Without it, I wouldn't be here anymore - more on that later. I love quirky humor, perky characters (be they male OR female, although one will usually find them to be female in anime) and silly physics (Goku's instant-fallovers in DBZ come to mind).

Oh yes, the zany physical comedy of Dragon Ball Z.
What's the most memorable scene from DBZ? Most people would think of Gohan's victory over Cell or maybe when Goku goes Super Saiyan (1 or 3) for the first time, or maybe Goku's victory over Freeza-- somehow I doubt many people would pull the "zany xP" comedy segments that are (mercifully) few in number.

Anime usually has at least two of these characteristics, and sometimes they are just plain old interesting. Aside from comedy, I also like ecchi anime. The fact that some artists just blatantly draw (physically inaccurate, lulz) breasts, as opposed to prude western cartoons, is a sign of respect for the human body.

TLDR: It is my anti-drug. Along with Doctor Who (Thank you, Hel), Scrubs and The Big Bang Theory.

Why would you admit to any of this shit?
Ecchi, for those of you blissfully ignorant, is basically softcore cartoon porno.

Shampoo
The muse of my continued existence, bane of relationships. Many a person is repulsed by the fact that my life has been saved by an animated female, but sadly (for them) this is the fact. Late 2003, by depression had reached a stage when I had attempted suicide (twice).

Why would you admit to any of this shit?

And on another side note, I still won't start on the cel or resume either statue. I've slept for two hours last night and my hand ain't steady. All the paint, jars and resin is here though, so tomorrow is probably go-time. :3

My hands smell like brimstone, speaking of Warhams.
Why, Ork Kommandos? Somehow the Warhammer staple, Orks, has eluded me for 10+ years.
Not so today.
I think I bought the last set of pewter models in the world, too. Thank you for not getting with the times, NC.
Basically I got them as an excuse to try some new things including painting green (which I seldom do) and this new buffing thing I learned about.
Oh but we're not talking about Warhams. We're talking about some anime sculpture.
My mistake.

Of course, as I finally resume work on my statues, I am both out of hi-gloss white, meaning I can't work on the eyes of the statue I was working on half a year ago, I lack sample jars to mix paint for the fancel.

I've been painting statues (as you call them) for more than ten years and I've never heard of a fancel in my fucking life.
Also:
>painting eyes
>using high gloss paint
No.
I'd be powerfully against using titanium white period for eyes (your eyes aren't that pure white) but if you have to do that at least use oil paints.
I guess you could argue it's an anime sculpture so realistic or muted colors aren't what you're going for anyway so maybe you could justify titanium white but for the love of Christ don't use high gloss.
Things glossy paints are good for:

1. 
   

That's all I can think of.
Here's a post on why CSI is bullshit and my response to this is if the science on CSI were completely realistic no one would watch it because real life is boring.

The artificer (new class in DDO) sucks, but is extremely fun to play. Making a whole of four classes completely obsolete and still being self-sufficient, it is a one-man party, making the whole principle of an MMO equally obsolete.

>Sucks
>makes four entire classes obsolete it's so awesome
we clearly are working under different definitions of "suck".

I have been raging at work a couple of times these past couple of week. Nothing compared to today. I'm still quaking. I can't help it anymore. Litte things now piss me off beyond repute. Pathetic little ignorant people (although ignorant people have been pissing me off ever since I started this journal). But there are now very few people who can still balance out this gross insult on my intelligence.

GROSS INSULT TO MY MASSIVE INTELLECT.
Sounds like you need to man the fuck up, friend.

This, by the way, counts for both my LJ and offline, and my MSN, and pretty much everything.

This must be some insult. You are butthurt at least five different ways across unrelated means of communication.

While I still may have a couple of intelligent lurkers, the blatant stupidity everywhere is starting to really get to me. LJ is still a relative safe haven though, where I can still spew my gall without too much... stupidity.

Excuse me?
Are we reading the same Livejournal or have I just been plugged into the stupid one this entire time?

But it just seems that more and more people have nothing to say and just skip to insults or empty sentences without any meaning whatsoever.

"Insults and empty sentences without any meaning whatsoever" was working title for this blog, actually.
I made a list of things I wanted this blog to contain and the phrase "anger and insults" appeared no less than five times.

...

I am depressed. I am horribly depressed and want to escape into games for the rest of my life.

Escape into an MMO. Smart place to escape stupidity and no, wait I remember now. Those games are breeding grounds for morons.
I saw a picture today where someone had 938,000,000 gil, incidentally. I thought I was rich in that game but that's just obscene.

Or just end it. I am so sick and tired of all this shit that's happening around me. During this morning I went into such a fucking blood rage that I wanted to kill people, indiscriminately.

That's how I felt when I saw a stream of Skyrim yesterday.
I like how it's 2011 and animation involves literally capturing movement from real people and Bethesda still cannot animate a human walking like they're not being controlled by an invisible hand up their rectum.
That shit flew in 2002 when Morrowind came out but come on, we're almost a decade into the future. Time to animate shit like we're big boys.
Also I heard rumors to the effect that there's a quest where you help a bullied kid by killing the bully (who is a girl [who really just likes the kid]). If that's true then that is Bioware-level writing and Bethesda really needs to go bankrupt.
I'm all for violence as a solution to problems, especially in video games, but in that specific case I think the situation could be readily handled through diplomacy.

This scared the living daylight out of me.

Why would Bethesda even write a quest like that? You are the chosen one-- go help bullied nerdlings!

Maybe I should just end myself for the safety of the masses, or maybe I should end a couple of people on the other end of the intelligence scale. I'm guessing I'll be heading home early today.

Go help bullied nerdlings by murdering those mean girls who bullied them in high school!
It's a vicarious revenge fantasy. That's the only thing I can think of.
No, there's no way that shit's real.
Here's a post entitled "bored and gaming ramble" and there's no way you're as bored as I am reading this or as rambling as I am.

I started playing ADOM again last week and I finished a run already. Yeah, I'm a save-scummer (I've recently learned this term), but I am pro-optional iron-man mode. Forced Iron-man = very uncool.

I could explain all this but I shouldn't.
I shouldn't dignify this with a translation to normal speak.

I lost the PayPal claim, and I won't be refunded my 5 bucks for not receiving my DLC from EA, which effectively ruined my savegame. I am not terribly grief-stricken about either the cash OR the savegame, as the cash is very little (even though I'm near-broke right now), and the save-game is of the 30-somethingeth playthrough, but the end result is still the same: If you pay for DLC, don't automatically assume you'll get it, and if you don't, you won't get a refund as you paid for virtual shit.

>EA outright stealing your money
>not getting angry over this
this is why EA is the video game monster it is today, people.

Another good reason not to pay for virtual shit. I'm not sure I'll pay for Mass Effect 3, either. EA and Bioware hit me where it hurt, and that is a very bad thing to do in an area where I am knowledgable.

Bioware hit me where it hurt.
The storytelling department.
Seriously, what 12 year old have you loosed into the writing meetings, Bioware?
Oh boy, here's him cosplaying Tseng from Final Fantasy VII, though he looks less like the elite Shinra operative and more like some sort of horrific Nazi Men in Black character.
Further proof cosplaying is a bad idea.
For reference, this is what he's cosplaying.
I don't understand people, man.

It probably also isn't a secret Microsoft has been dropping in my polls, over the last couple of years. They finally molded that whole Windows-95 look-a-like set of re-releases into something decent when they brought out XP, and yet they managed to ruin that in twofold: Once by releasing XP-SP2, which was an insult to every gamer and wannabe gamer out there,

>SP2
>insult to gamers
>SP2 being the de facto standard until Win7
Didn't SP2 add support for Direct X11? How exactly is that an affront to gamers?
FUCK YOU, DIRECT X. WHAT HAVE YOU EVER DONE FOR GAMING?
Just revolutionized how graphical libraries are packaged, harumph!

Then they state that as computers get better, Windows should be able to gobble up more system resources to look pretty (as in, polish a turd, it's still a turd). Yet another insult to people who want to get the most out of their PC's, and I can relate why many people switched to Linux there.

WHAT IS CLASSICAL MODE?
I DO NOT KNOW.
You do realize Windows Aero is the thing hogging most of your resources and you can turn it off, right?
Not that you'd need to because I can still run FFXIV on max with Windows Aero, iTunes, Firefox and MSN open with 0 lag on anything and my computer isn't that high end, all told.

soon other browsers adapted this principle into tabbed browsing, a nightmare from which there obviously is no return. Quite the contrary, obviously, as IE7 followed suit.

Tabs are nightmares?
What kind of bizarro world are you living in, friend? Oh yes, I loved having 50 windows open during the IE days.
Ohhh man, I don't know anymore.
Anyway, Monday.

The cloying stench of shadow lingers still.

No, seriously. First blog.
Precognition, etc.

Have you ever had a secret admirer? What happened?

In middle school I sure did but she was a bit too zealous and I figured it out within a day.
Good work, girl.
But that was like 6th grade and neither of us knew what we were doing because durrr hurrrr middle school so we just wound up friends.
Then she moved.
Why am I talking about this like anyone cares?
Very odd. Anyway:

No.

I was so painfully shy around girls that I didn't even have an admirer, let alone a secret admirer, for the first twenty years of my life.

Also because you're, you know, ugly.
So many people used this shy thing as an excuse but I still managed to have a secret admirer at one point in my life. Are you sure you people just aren't devoid of personality?
There is a very real difference between shy and no personality.
I'm not sure I'm shy, though, so much as withdrawn and indifferent.
But in middle school I was probably shy.

What do you like most about LiveJournal?

Things I like about Liveournal:

1. 
   

Get back to me on this one.

10. It is still the only place where I place my private writings via my flist.
9. It is where I have been able to keep in touch of online friends that I have first connected with on various list serve groups which are no longer active.

Maybe I don't understand what private means but if you're showing your entire friend list of 72 people, most of whom you don't actually know, then I'm not sure that counts as private.

8. It is the place that introduced me to friendships that have morphed into real life meetings of seriously awesome people.
7. It is a primary source of inspiration, hope and compassion.

If that's true then you're pretty fucked.
I mean Livejournal, a source of hope in your life?
Inspiration?
Compassion?
What about these mutants dredges up any emotion besides revulsion?

6. It is my number one location for connecting with other INFPs.

Oh, yeah, this shit again.
So there are these dudes. Meyers (maybe it's Myers I forget) and Briggs made this psychological profiling test that gauges you along 4 different axis. You can be either Introverted or Extroverted, iNtuitive (not how acronyms work) or Sensing, Thinking or Feeling, then Judging or Perceiving.
So our boy is Introverted, has iNtuition (still now how acronyms work), Feeling and Perceiving.
I'd wager a good 99% of all Livejournal users have the introverted part down.

5. My flist is the fertile ground for contemplation and mediation of ideas relating to my own spiritual path.

Oh God.
Literally, oh God.
You're getting spiritual enlightenment through Livejournal?
Are you fucking kidding me?

2. It is where I can express my passion for visual art, myth and symbolism

Your passion for myth.
My passion for mythology is one of the chief reasons I hate Livejournal.
Oh, where did you go so radically wrong?
Oh, this guy is a lawyer. The hits keep rolling.

Because it is cliché but true - the best things in life are free.

Yeah, and so are some of the worst things and I don't hear someone throwing a party when they get cancer.

The incredible miracle of nature, the sky above and the earth below are all breathtakingly amazing if you slow down long enough to listen to is.

Did I use my brain spore story yet?
Miracle of nature.
Or my tongue eating louse story?
How about the parasite in the Amazon river that jumps up your dick?
Or the parasite in the Nile that eats your eyelids from the inside out?

Someone once said: “That, which you cannot give away, possesses you.” That's true. We cultivate fear because we become afraid of losing that which we have acquired over the span of our life.

There's a critical difference between can't and won't. I could give my PS3 away but I won't be doing that because I have things to kill on it.

But, we become deadened to joy as a result and, ironically, are no longer capable of feeling passion and joy in the possessions that we have. If I can simplify things in my life, appreciate the daily blessings, and focus on what is before me, then that is truly the secret to happiness.

I keep telling you chucklefucks this. Your zeal doesn't come from simplifying or any of that crap. It comes from adversity.
Listen to 5 Nickelback songs in a row and see if your favorite song doesn't suddenly sound better. You're trying to do all this Zen shit on me but the Buddha himself said we only understand joy through suffering. The deeper the suffering, the greater the joy.
That's why the Buddha starved himself until he realized he had to lay down his burden?
Christ you people are thick.
Now here's a post celebrating "national vegetarian awareness month" and I feel like there are a lot of awareness months.
Vegetarian awareness, seriously? What, do I have to be aware of vegetarians now? How can I tell them apart?

What is your favorite word, and why?

My current favorite word is avail.
I prefer to use it in this exact sentence: "it will not avail you."

fan·tab·u·lous

it says it all.

Having fantabulous as your favorite word will not avail you.

Estimated to be 100 times heftier than our Sun, Eta Carinae is one of the most massive stars in our galaxy.

Most massive.
... Adverbs can't really modify adjectives--

What is one thing that needs to be changed in your country?

All the protesting. Jesus Christ you people look fucking stupid and pathetic whining about the government while you type on your Macbooks in a Starbucks. Self-entitled manbabies is what all of you look like.
If you want to stage a goddamn protest you do what Egypt or Libya did.

Holier than thou judging. The next time you find yourself being critical of the action of yourself or another, recite these words: "Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato

Yeah thanks a lot for that Plato but meanwhile Macbooks in Starbucks. If that's a hard battle I'd to see an easy one.

On July 10, 1040, according to one tradition, Lady Godiva made her famous ride, naked on horseback, through the streets of Coventry, England. Thus, today is Lady Godiva Day in that city.

Slut.
Why'd she do that, anyway? I can't say I'm too familiar with this legend.

Godiva (Old English: Godgifu, "god gift"), often referred to as Lady Godiva (fl. 1040–1070), was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom had watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.

Thanks, Wikipedia.
I learned something today.

The past is an illusion. There is only the present.

As I grow older, too often do I find my thoughts dwelling on past events. Often reliving past mistakes or moments that I regret.

The past is an illusion except the woman who died almost a thousand years ago I'm posting about.
You know someone with a clear passion for mythology and history probably shouldn't say shit like "the past is an illusion."
I mean I've said that many times because it's a Warhammer quote but I don't really believe it.

So it is important for me to remember that the past is an illusion and I should spend my moments enjoying the bountiful moments of the here and now.

No you fucking pussy you have to remember the past because it's what got you to where you are now.
Nothing makes sense but by what preceded it.
Also Livejournal appears to be down suddenly.
Can't say this is a disappointment.
That website is so down I can't even begin to tell you.
Well I could end it here but instead CHECK THIS FUCKING SHIT OUT:

Sorry about the image quality. In the sheer excitement of killing Ifrit I kind of forgot to pay attention.
And here's the chest:

Not pictured: the Ifrit's Blade I got from it.
Mostly because Edie can't equip it.
Guess I could have taken a picture of it in my inventory but it's just the words "Ifrit's Blade" written in blue.
So imagine that for yourself if you want.
Of course the question now is do I level gladiator to use this weapon? It is probably the coolest looking Ifrit weapon but unfortunately gladiator is also complete shit.
But it wasn't before and it probably won't be in the future so maybe it'd be smart to level it up-- I dunno. I just feel like I could get another weapon for a job that isn't shit.
Also leveled conjurer to 44 (ever closer to 50) and Edie learned some Biblical spells, including flood, flare, quake and tornado.

I'd trust this face with power over the weather.
I mean why the fuck not? She can already cause plagues and Force choke people like Darth Vader so what's the power to conjure Biblical-style floods?
oh look Livejournal is back.
I am so glad I missed it--

Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees are my prayer, for God is all in all.

There's a quote to prove I wasn't making the Christfag thing up.
Or "spiritual" I guess he is. Whatever.
This sure doesn't seem like a guy.
Anyway I'm off~