Re: Return of the Rants

by **reboot** Mon Dec 07, 2015 7:31 pm

reboundstudent wrote:There's that old Far Side joke about a man writing in his journal, "Dear Diary, Sorry to bother you again..."

I'm apparently so unlikable that even a dog, who is supposed to love their human unconditionally, doesn't like me much (and seems to like everyone else far better..)

My dog is the same. I nicknamed him "Conditional Love Dog". He wants attention from everyone but me unless he is hungry or needs to go out or has a sticker in his paw. This includes attention from people I definitely don't want to interact with like the slightly unpredictable speed freak who may or may not be waiting for the apocalypse yelling at the moon in the park Smile

by Guest Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:58 am

My drunk-ish thoughts on ChromeOS (still):

by BasedBuzzed Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:33 am

How many political causes can you really lend your full support for in a dedicated and thorough manner given the average time schedule of adult life? Precisely. It doesn't matter if I sign on for the whole package or not.

by **eselle28** Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:27 pm

Dear Person Whose Email Address Is One Letter Off From Mine But Who I'm Pretty Sure Isn't Just Making Mistakes,

We've known each other for over 10 years at this point, from that day long ago when I wrote to inform you that using my email when shopping online meant that I'd been sent enough information about you to find your actual email, where you and your spouse work and your emails there, your home address, your telephone number, and all of your family photos. I wanted the deluge of junk mail to stop, but I also wanted to let you know that your cybersecurity procedures were lacking. I even suggested you set up a dummy account to direct junk to.

You stopped for awhile, but since then there's been a gradual increase in the number of airline tickets, professional newsletters, and ads from stores I'd never shop at headed my way. At some point, I rolled my eyes and resigned myself to hitting unsubscribe a few times a day. I've even directed a few actual humans back your way when they stumbled.

But, after all this, you sign me up for Ben Carson for President emails? No. I don't know what I'm going to do about this, but this will not stand.

Sincerely,

almostyourname@gmail.com

by waxingjaney Fri Dec 11, 2015 8:22 pm

This is why I pick random letter/number strings for email addresses.

by **eselle28** Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:10 pm

waxingjaney wrote:This is why I pick random letter/number strings for email addresses.

If I'd been wise, I'd have done the same. But at some point, it became almost sort of hard to change it in the same way I'm reluctant to change my cell phone number.

I am considering signing up my name counterpart to Feel the Bern, though.

by Guest Sat Dec 12, 2015 5:54 am

Looks like I'm working Christmas Day aaand I don't get time & a half at the news station that day... only full-time people get that. Hmmm, but I do have a bunch of sick hours. Guess who may be calling in! ;D

by **eselle28** Sat Dec 12, 2015 3:59 pm

So, my cat pounced on me as I was making dinner last night, and I broke a plate. Not a big deal! My dishes are cheap, and I wasn't even using one of the nice ones! Whatever!

This morning, hungover, I seem to have stepped on a shard I missed during cleanup. This seems to have happened before I sleepwalked through preparing breakfast, feeding both of my cats in separate areas, putting some laundry in the washer, and going back to bed.

My apartment looks like a murder scene.

by **eselle28** Sun Dec 13, 2015 9:37 pm

If you have to preface your Facebook post with both "I'm not going to tell anyone how to raise their children" and "I don't usually like to toot my own horn," that's generally a good sign that it might be better to keep the thoughts that follow private.

by **eselle28** Thu Dec 17, 2015 8:24 pm

I am entirely aware that wrapping presents is not among my talents.

Next person who reminds me of that is getting a lump of coal next year.

by WJMorris3 Thu Dec 17, 2015 8:59 pm

eselle28 wrote:I am entirely aware that wrapping presents is not among my talents.

Next person who reminds me of that is getting a lump of coal next year.

Santa ran out of coal this year, so he's giving the bad boys and girls tickets to see the Leafs.

by BasedBuzzed Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:03 am

It only affects you as much as you seek it out, you dolt. For most, acceptance and changes just happen gradually in the background without anyone paying attention. For every one person that is active enough to really try to implement funhouse norms from the inside, you have nine other low-energy millstones and droning pariahs dragging him or her down. Stop panicking.

by **Enail** Wed Dec 23, 2015 10:02 pm

It's hard to be annoyed with people for being nice to you. But with my parents, I manage it somehow. Sigh.

by Guest Thu Dec 24, 2015 5:16 am

Why, all of a sudden in the last few years has everyone and their fairy-fucking-godmother want to go to Portland or Seattle so bad?

by Guest Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:31 pm

WJMorris3 wrote:
eselle28 wrote:I am entirely aware that wrapping presents is not among my talents.

Next person who reminds me of that is getting a lump of coal next year.
Santa ran out of coal this year, so he's giving the bad boys and girls tickets to see the Leafs.

You could be onto something. After all, it's well established that he doesn't exactly have a high opinion of them.

by BasedBuzzed Mon Dec 28, 2015 10:55 pm

"Yes, we're all a bunch of passive-aggressive peeps who can't and don't communicate until it reaches a boiling point, whereafter we are unable to offer feedback without wrapping it in insults, but these external reasons excuse us."

Self-awareness without self-improvement is worth nothing.

by **Enail** Wed Dec 30, 2015 9:32 pm

No, Friend, your random speculation that the reason there aren't many female characters in media is because women prefer to watch men is not in fact an argument of equal strength to the many studies, facts and details, not to mention the personal experiences of the women present in this discussion and the experiences of women that they have discussed it with because it is something that matters to them and affects their experiences of media, which I gave to support my opinion that that is not the case. And by not listening to a word I say, aggressively talking over me, denying my experience and outright insisting that my information is less trustworthy than your speculation, you are being an unbelievable sexist ass.

I think I was being pretty classy to offer the option to change the subject and have a pleasant evening in spite of how rude you're being to me, but if you'd rather act like a baby and storm off in a huff, well, I feel pretty okay with having the rest of my evening free to relax and have fun.

by **Werel** Wed Dec 30, 2015 10:44 pm

Enail, that's way more classy than anybody deserves, especially somebody being an unbelievable sexist ass.

Going on two weeks of nonstop family houseguest time. I love these people but holy shit, this is more than enough. And still six days to go.

To top it off, finally got our eviction notice. Bank foreclosure shit went through and we have to be out by the first week of February. Just what I wanted to spend the rest of vacation stressing about. Just how I wanted to start my last semester of classes.

by **Enail** Wed Dec 30, 2015 10:46 pm

Oh, that sucks, Werel, having to find a new place on short notice is so stressful. Hope you find something great and quickly! And two weeks of family houseguests sounds looooooooooooooong.

by BasedBuzzed Fri Jan 01, 2016 8:23 pm

If I think even cats and tattoos are too much of a commitment, why would I ever want a relationship? It's still a crutch for a host of other things: normalcy, achievement, physical contact, desirability, novelty, motivation to perform in life and fear of missing out. And if there was someone tomorrow who ticked all the boxes, I'd think it was a trap that would make me close off whole parts of myself to her. I only float around possibilities without ever considering someone a realistic option. Appreciation is catnip, and only the highest quality (read: unprompted, sincere, well-argued) is ever worth it. And then I see people around me getting married, breaking up, falling in and out of love, being domestic, popping out kids and it's so horribly mundane, even when I embrace that Tim Minchin song.

There aren't enough years in a lifetime to make that bet. How many hours would I have to sacrifice for emotional upkeep that makes me cringe because it feels like treating someone like a lab rat? Life's a Skinner Box that should offer enough varied stimulation to last the rest of my functional years in contentment while losing the awareness that I'm just strapping blinders on myself. Heavens, if I could take a glimpse into my future and see some smug, satisfied person standing around a few years further having himself and his worldview together after having found an answer to this ennui I would self-terminate on the spot.

By Baudrillard, life is reality television and I'm not here to make friends. A pun, a vile smile and another hand of half-assed turns of phrase are all I've ever needed to live for, and I should be grateful there's so much more thrown in my lap. I'll coast by until the flood comes.

by reboundstudent Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:14 pm

Fuck.you.dog.

Edit: Was not clear who I was referencing, gah. Whining/barking in crate for a solid hour...

by **eselle28** Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:05 am

Hey, authors? Posting reviews from Goodreads users with names like "J.J. Rowlings" in the section where you'd normally describe a book's plot is not going to convince me that the author of Harry Potter thinks your $0.99 ebook is awesome. That's especially the case if you're writing erotica rather than YA. Tell me who the characters are and anything I might need to know on the kink/squick front and let's be done with it.

Hey, other authors? I get that there's a grey area between things you must TW for and things that are either expected in the genre or that should be easily inferred from the book's theme/title/cover art. Can we maybe agree that incest is in the must category, especially if the leads featured on the cover and in the excerpts are unrelated? I really didn't need to get to the part of the story where the heroine has sex with her father for no comprehensible reason. I'll go a little further and suggest that if you're interested in writing that scene, it would make a lot more sense just to write an incest story. There's definitely a market for them.

by Wondering Tue Jan 05, 2016 1:59 pm

This is more of a frustration than a rant, really. I have a friend who posts every day a "positive" or "aspirational" quote on Facebook. And then comments about it. She's one of those aggressively "positive" people who's always commenting about what we can do to help others and make the world better.

Which, there's absolutely nothing wrong with, on the face of that. Except this seems really performative. And, more importantly, her quotes are often things about letting things go or being polite in the face of rudeness or such sentiments that are to frequently used as justifications for women to not stand up for themselves or for abused people being told to forgive and forget.

And it makes me frustrated. Because I think we actually tell women these sorts of messages too much. And again, it all seems really performative.

by Xexyz Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:33 pm

Saturday I agreed to the purchase of a car that's down in Kansas City. I'm flying down on this Saturday to sign the documents and drive it back home, but that's still 4 whole days of waiting. I'm very impatient, so haaaaaate waiting for things!

Is it Saturday yet?

by BasedBuzzed Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:35 am

Something that bugs me about "changed person" confessionals that contain passages that normally lead to pitchforks, but now only lead to apologists.

Am I to conclude:
A)Skeletons up to a certain level don't count, because everybody has them. Talking the right talk+time are enough to forgive past mistakes. Skeletons get treated harsher if the person still has not disavowed them fully or convincingly enough yet.
B)Skeletons matter only when the right person pulls them out of the closet at the right moment. A certain level of celebrity, labels and/or social value (material or charismatic) can serves as a buffer to pretty much everything, no matter the end of the aisle one is on. You simply only see the ones with a congruence of media attention, botched responses and the right social networks jumping on it.
C)Skeletons never disappear entirely, or at least the behaviour that led to the full closet doesn't. We seek out people with similar skeletons to our own, rally the wagons in times a closet opens, and try to pull out the skeletons of the people pulling our skeletons out, because they might actually be worse. This is alternatively rage-inducing and incredibly addictive, because it gives free license to practice the exact behaviour that would normally net another skeleton.
D)A combination of these factors.

So it's picking between hiding your skeletons so it only leads to anger when you're caught redhanded, try to achieve a counterweight that brings a defense forces with it and pray that you're not in the perfect storm, or align yourself with a supposed skeleton crew who share all your flaws but have done nothing about them and in fact might cause them to flourish under another name. Or a mix in which there's not really any oversight of what the hell you're doing. Still, another good way to see that outsourcing your morals is a stupid idea.

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