SOPA Rant

I'm not sure why the government is trying to break the internet so much, but I find it terrifying.  I feel like it's a short step from the Stop Online Piracy Act to full-blown censorship (not that SOPA isn't exactly that, but I'm sure they'll have something else to censor.)  I keep hoping SOPA will be shot down and never pass, but it seems to have some amazing regenerative resurrection abilities.  Supposedly SOPA will protect copyright holders from foreigners infringing on their copyrighted material and support and expand American creativity and protect the people from dangerous pirated websites yadayadayada (if you want the whole story do the research instead of letting me tell you about it.)  However, it will make companies responsible for their user-generated material that may reference, link to, or involve copyrighted material.  Said companies will be responsible for pulling that post/comment/video (as they already do once they're notified by a copyright holder that infringement is present) or all their ad revenue will be pulled and their domain blocked from access by the average user.  (Of course, Firefox has a few addons already that are intended to circumvent SOPA should it come to pass.)

What does that mean?  Well, some companies (Google, YouTube, Reddit) have already said that maintaining that kind of stringent supervision with their websites would be financially unreasonable and they may have to shut down.
No more free Internet, in both definitions of free!
Either sites with user-generated content (Facebook, Wordpress, Blogger, Twitter, eBay, Etsy, Amazon, Netflix, Mozilla, Tumblr, DeviantArt) would have a subscription fee to help cover the costs, or shut down, or be forced to change the way they're run, including removing comments sections and forums.

Even IF, (and this is a BIG IF,)  SOPA does exactly what it's supposed to do and stops US citizens from accessing pirate websites, it will be a huge financial drain on everyone involved.  IF SOPA is only used properly, for it's original intended purpose (that is ill-defined in the actual bill,)...
How long will it be until someone gets the bright idea that SOPA could be bigger and better and stop all piracy on the internet, whether foreign or domestic?  Someone like...someone like the RIAA, who already has too much lobbying power and proven itself to be a heavy-handed executioner of those who "pirate" music?  Or the MPAA who does the same?  Or any of the thousands of lobbyists who could benefit by this act while the people are censored and sites are blacklisted?

I see SOPA, and I see the death of the internet as we know it.  I see 1984 coming true, or Brave New World, or V for Vendetta, or your choice of bleak futures.

Corporotopia by Alexiuss

(P.S.  This blog would not be possible under SOPA)

Hmm...

So here I am posting at 4am because I have no life or something.
I'm sitting here thinking I'm kinda hungry and I don't remember what I had for lunch (or if I had lunch really.)
I think I need to fix this.  Yeeeeeeeeah.

Someone find me another job so that when I'm not working 6 days a week I can...be working 6 days a week?

DOOOOGS!!!

I hate you dogs. Really I do. Yesterday they caught a opossum, today another skunk. So now I think there are at least two more skunks. Apparently the dogs, they do not learn. Why don't u learn, dogs? Why u do this to me?

It's too cold to be washing dogs outside but we did anyway.

Tomorrow the groomer!

They were just starting to smell normal from the last time too.

This skunk was grosser; it was trailing about two feet of intestine, ewww. (At least the intestine hadn't split yet.)

I hate the dogs. I think, if the garbage people don't hate us yet, they will tomorrow...sorry, garbage-men. I'm so sorry.

The Tally So Far

Seriously why do things even live in our yard anyway. Go find someone that doesn't have dogs.

Audiophile

I would just like you to know;

Everything sounds fantastic with my new headset.

Thank you, that is all.

Halloween!

It's my favorite day! Sadly, this is the worst Halloween ever, being on a day I am scheduled to work and also a weekday when everyone else works/goes to school/whatever, which means I can't dress up. If I was working as receptionist tonight I totally would, but it happens to be a tech-training day for me and I think dressing up would be a bad idea (although if I dressed as a zombie I could get some very "realistic" blood spatters >> but you didn't hear that from me.)

I realized the other day that I stopped doing all the fun stuff to my blog, which makes me sad. My tablet hates my new computer so I stopped drawing, more or less, and I'm too lazy to keep my playing with HTML intact, so I stopped doing alt texts and junk.

I have too much free time and also not enough free time. I think I zone out a lot in my free time cause I'll suddenly realize it's been three hours and I have to go to work and/or it's 4am and I should go sleep considering I don't remember what happened between the hours of midnight and 4am.

I demand, since I didn't get to dress up for Halloween, to go to the Renaissance festival or something, to get my dressing-up-but-people-don't-give-you-weird-looks-for-it quota filled.

(Hello, one random reader in France!)

Dogs V. Wildlife, Round Two

Last night, mom found the dog(s?) attacking a decent-size opossum (which, by the time I got out there, was playing dead and probably going "omg leave me alone aaaaaugh!")
So she was all like "remember that last time the dogs got a(n???) opossum and I ran in to get you cause I don't want to bag dead things if I can possibly help it, and you came out and it was gone cause it was playing opossum like opossums are wont to do? Yeah they have a(n??? nah, "an opossum" sounds stupid) opossum again and it might actually be playing dead this time too!"

So I said, "seriously mom you can't take care of it?" and she was all "nooo way," and since I'm mean and spiteful, I made Chris come with me too since he happened to be here. Sure enough, Loki was pulling a 10ish pound opossum around by the tail (She-Ra was watching him somewhat disinterestedly,) but, some Chris-footed encouragement got the dogs to leave it alone. Anyway, I went in and grabbed the shed key so I could go get the shovel if necessary, and Chris was complaining that Loki was all bloody, so I told him to just wash the dog already*. I got the shovel, and when I came back the opossum had his head up and was being very still, so I just watched him. Apparently he decided I wasn't being threatening (though I was planning to bust his head in with the shovel if he couldn't walk away,) and he got up and started high-tailing it out of the yard as well as he could with an injured leg. Well, I'm not about to run after a opossum and smack it with a shovel if I don't have to, and I wasn't really looking forward to getting blood and brains everywhere, so I watched him wander off until I couldn't see him anymore.

Chris was sortof washing Loki in the garage sink and was being all wussy about the blood and going "eee don't let it touch meee!" so mom and I made fun of him a little bit about that. Okay, I guess I'm used to blood cause of the whole vet-thing, but what's mom's excuse? Maybe she's just a little psychotic?

She-Ra had some blood on her cheek, so I washed it off and decided that brushing their teeth would be a good idea and why the hell didn't I brush their teeth after the skunk incident, gross.

Turns out She-Ra at some point had her mouth on said opossum cause her teeth were bloody too.


This is why I don't let the dogs lick me.



*(# of baths Loki's had this week: 5 and counting, apparently?)



I was going to post a picture of the skunk but I decided that'd probably be in poor taste.

Funk

So, Sunday night, I was supposed to work 12 hours because I was covering my shift as well as someone else's. I ended up working 9 hours because it was slower than molasses and I was allowed to go home. When I got home (thinking, of course, that I could like...go sleep or something,) my parents were fighting about the dogs, who apparently got skunked not ten minutes before I got home.
Which meant instead of sleeping I got to wash two smelly dogs.
Loki got a full-on face spray (divined from his face-funk, watery eyes, sneezing and rubbing his face all over the floor,) so I washed him first with Dawn, which actually cut down the smell a lot more than I would have thought. Then I washed him with the regular dog shampoo, and it was around that time that mom showed up with two cans of tomato paste, which she refused to dilute like I asked her to while I was washing She-ra outside. Have you ever tried to keep dogs from eating tomato paste off of themselves? Probably not, right? It's kinda hard.
Anyway, She-ra seems to have gotten a peripheral hit, as she doesn't smell nearly as bad.*
Two and a half hours and about thirty mosquito bites later I give up and shower and go to bed. Somewhere near this point I realize my hands smell kinda skunky courtesy of not wearing gloves. Shit, I guess I'll not be so tired next time.
The next day I tried out the baking soda/H2O2/Dawn trick, which seemed to work reasonably well, but every time the dogs (or my hands) get wet they smell skunky again. At least it's a faint skunk. Or I think it's faint, I might just be accustomed to it now.
It's all dad's fault for letting the dogs out at 9, which we never do.
They killed the skunk, but it was a baby and I know there is at least the mom and one other baby out there, maybe two babies, cause I saw them last month walking around the side of the house. Maybe the dogs won't be so retarded next time.



*This is what I think until I go to bed, when I discover that she does, in fact, smell pretty bad.


I had a dream in which I had a remote-controlled plesiosaur and could glide around not-really-flying and Robert Ott agreed with me that New Moon was a terrible movie, but I am 90% certain that the movie I had to watch in my dream was about 300x better than the actual movie, considering that it didn't have vampires or werewolves or literally any of those actors in it.

I seem to have mostly forgotten that dream, I guess I should have typed this bit before the skunk bit. Oh well.

Title Apathy

It is a strange strange thing to be coming home from work when the sun comes up. It's an absolute perversion of ...everything? But it's worse when your housemates wake you up. Also the neighbors. And planes. Cause, the real problem with going home at sunrise isn't that you're going home at sunrise, surprisingly, but that literally no one else in your general vicinity does so they're all...awake. And presumably chipper.

The other problem is I'm better at this staying up all night working thing than I am at getting up in the morning to work thing.

Also my phone hates me and doesn't believe in calendar alarms or something. Someday I will figure out what the hell, phone.

On the bright side, it was deliciously cool this morning when I got home. Summer over now, yes? Maybe? ...Working on it???

The real, totally unrelated question is: zombies or vampires?

Hospital Blues

Well, just an update for everybody, I guess it's about that time.

My grandmother had another stroke a couple weeks ago, was in the hospital for four or five days, and then we moved her to a rehab facility like...Wednesday or Thursday, I guess?  Anyway, as soon as she was able to sit up they discharged her from the hospital so we moved her to that rehab center.  Well, mom tells me she had another stroke at the rehab and that my aunt is displeased that they apparently didn't notice before she got there (I guess?) but she's back at the hospital again.

Let's say that I personally didn't have much hope of her living independently after she was discharged from the hospital, and now I'm thinking she's having too many strokes, too close together, to be able to recover enough.  So I'm not really sure what's going to happen with her.  Maybe she'll actually pull out of it, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I miss walking around Tristan with her and my grandpa.  Now I just want to carry her because she's so slow and frail.

She keeps reminding me of Max.

It's really really late.

Razzle Dazzle

Yes, I did just want to name a post "Razzle Dazzle" cause that was the first thing that popped into my head.  In case you haven't heard yet, I did finally manage to get a job at an emergency vet clinic.  I'm not sure why, because they were adamant that I didn't have enough experience, but on their little test thing I answered questions in a way I guess they really liked.  (Note to self: I know you hate acronyms, but you could at least have remembered that CRT stands for "capillary refill time."  Ugh.)
Anyway, a lot of that test was "what are these acronyms!?" and I was like "noooo, my mortal enemy!"
But, I finally (even if it was like 10 months after I started seriously looking and 5 months since I applied there) got a job at a vet's office.  And it's not a boring vet's office!  I might have gotten a vet tech job in League City, and I liked the vet, but...nothing ever happened.  Regularly, there'd be fewer than five clients in a day and most of the time, there were no surgeries.  (Also he could barely afford to pay his rent.)  However, at an emergency vet, either nothing happens at all or you're totally overwhelmed with interesting/depressing cases.
My Petco manager tells all my co-workers she's afraid I'm gonna quit.  Come on, I'd give notice, and I already told you I wasn't quitting unless I was literally incapable of doing both jobs.  Besides, there's a really expensive parrot there that I could never afford, so I have to keep working there so I can play with it.
Now I just need to bother one of the vets for a recommendation...

Also, vet school applications are going as well as could be expected.  Mostly need to round up recommendation letters and do each school's application cause they're all jerks and want me to write everything twice.

Next Time

So today I was picking up prescriptions at the optometrist (which I was apparently supposed to be getting mom's contacts and I just heard prescription for some reason,) and there was an old man crying really quietly in the corner.  I was going to go talk to him, but when I turned around he was looking everywhere but at the people in the room.  He was trying so hard to not draw attention to himself (and I'm pretty shy,) so I left.

But...I wish I had talked to him.

Happy Fathers' Day

If you want an extremely long and polarizing read about the corruption of family courts, here you go.  At first, I thought, this guy is crazy.  Then again, I think this is exactly the reason there are so many angry misogynists on the internet (look around and you'll find hordes of them in blogs and comments.)
Even the comments on that page totally miss his point, which is that the family court system is broken and needs to be fixed (or in his words, burnt down, which I can't say I condone.)
Guess it's time to start studying up for election day again, and I wonder if this incident and essay will be ignored or a platform point.

Of course, the candidates for next year aren't looking too good for me...Bad Choice #1, 2, or 3?
It's so hard when I feel like writing in Jesus or something as the next President.  Then again, Jesus' running mate would probably be the Devil or something.


Anyway, Happy Fathers' Day, don't let me and the news get you down.

But, I Digress

Oh right I have this blog thing that I do sometimes.

Quick updates:  I'm so sorry Diedre, I totally would have come and visited you and bought awesome pointless dinosaur fossils that I don't need but really want but I seem to have spent the entire weekend working and being ridiculously tired (and being kinda passive-aggressed at but kinda ignoring it.)  I don't have a reason for not calling you back, I'm just a jerk, ha!
Also I still don't have any money so it's probably better that I didn't go buy awesomefossils.

I like working at Petco except for the part where I'm paid minimum wage.  Also the part where sometimes there isn't anything to do.  Or when a dog backs off the table cause it's stupid and people are watching.  At least it wasn't their dog, but it was still all "wtf is wrong with you, dog!?"

The VCA emergency clinic called me back last ...Friday?  Maybe? Like six months after I put in an application?  Okay?
So anyway, I have an interview for Thursday after my job, cause I'm totally going to try this two job night/day job thing and hope I don't die horribly.  VCA wants me as a fill-in more than anything else right now, for when people are sick or want the night off or whatever which is both cool and not-cool.  I mean, it's awesome cause I get experience and I don't have to work like 1am-8am every day or something, but it's not awesome because not having a steady schedule there means I can't like quit Petco or anything and I hope they don't go "no you can't have the next day off cause you're working from 1am-8am that day, sucks for you!"  Because then I'm gonna have to like, quit and not have a steady job (but one that pays like twice as much!)  Anyway, with my luck they won't hire me anyway and I don't have to figure out how the hell I'm going to sleep through dad when I can't sleep even when I actually kinda share his schedule.

Spent too long dress shopping with Chris's mom (and Chris though he wasn't really "there") even though I have dresses I could wear to his cousin's wedding and they didn't have anything I was like "oh, yeah, that one!" and the only one I kinda liked was $80 and you know what, if I'm going to spend $80 I'd rather have gone to see Diedre and get pointlessawesomefossils instead cause I'm bad at being a girl.  I was like, "I already have at least five dresses (that I like that I already spent money on) that I never get to wear and this dress is cute but eh polka dots and eh it's navy and I already have a dark blue dress thankyouverymuch."  I kinda wish Chris had a sister so I wouldn't be the target of all this "I always wanted a girl and you will wear what I like you to wear in a this-is-not-really-a-request-tone-of-voice."
I always was a tomboy, and while I've become less tomboyish over the years, I'm pretty sure I will never be "girly."

Dad doesn't realize that I can hear him through the wall and the open hallway and he's passive-aggressing about me again, haha.  I can be passive-aggressive too, watch!  At least I remembered his birthday.

Man, I wanna move out.  Not living at home for two years and then moving back in really sucks.


Oh right, a week or two ago Chris and I went to Schlitterbahn Galveston.  It was okay, but not nearly as awesome as the original.  Too many body slides, which I'm not fond of.  Though they do apparently close off part of the park and heat it for winter hours which I find amazing.  Also, it's worth it if you want to do nothing but BoogieBahn all day since the line is like 15 minutes long instead of a couple hours.  (Sidenote:  I kinda suck at it.)

Rapture (al)Ready?

It's funny how I hadn't really heard that the Rapture was to begin (the world will end?) today until sometime last week.

News to me.

What entertains me the most is a church's billboard on the way to work: "If you're still here, come to mass Sunday!"

If you know me, you probably know that I don't hold much with visions and prophecies and literal interpretations of the Bible, because it's all filtered through people, and people are typically batshit insane.  I may be a heretic, or a heathen, or just a terrible person, but I also know that there have been no fewer than 13 predictions of the exact time and date of the Rapture (even though the Bible says it cannot be known and will not be known until you're kinda in it.)

Maybe the end times will be prefaced by natural disaster and impending war, but be honest: how often has human history, even for a brief stretch of time, been without natural disaster and impending war?

For all I know, the end of the world happened in the Dark Ages and the rest of us just didn't notice (or chose to believe we were worthy enough to be taken up in the Rapture.)  Or apparently, according to Preterists, around 70 AD.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Random Title!

A few weeks ago, Chris got pulled over for speeding literally right outside his driveway.  It was epically entertaining.  (I had the joy of sitting in the passenger seat and refraining from making snarky comments.)

Why is leather always billed as "buttery soft?"  I don't think I want it to feel like I picked up a stick of squishy oily butter with my bare hands...  Not to mention this Levenger catalog uses it for literally every leather item they have.  Cut and paste ahoy!

So after 7 months of being jobless and almost a year of actually actively looking for a job, I finally have become a wage slave at Petco.  At least, though, my job is pretty much petting dogs all day (with a brush,) so as far as wage slavery goes, not bad, and I could potentially make more than my wages in commission.  Which is good cause wage slave wages suck.
I'm starting to think I can only be hired in May.  I mean, before the shelter I'd been looking for a couple months and then I was hired like halfway through May after a couple days of the position being open, and then this time I was looking for 11 months and then suddenly a day after I apply at Petco they hire me...in May.  It's weird, is all I'm saying.  Sorry for lengthy bout of non-postingness, but it seems to be a blog-related disease, as none of the other blogs I read post regularly anymore.

The War on Jasmine and Recommendation Letters

So, for the past couple of days, I've been fighting my mother's arch-enemy mano a... vine...o.  This stuff is like the Texas version of kudzu...wait a second, I'm going to make sure it actually isn't kudzu... I don't think it is, but it might as well be.  If you don't know what it is, it's that stuff that grows at the mall, but they have the advantage of actually keeping it down.  My parents planted it forever ago and kept up with it for a while, but in the past few years it's gotten absolutely everywhere and mom says I'm not doing anything but sitting at the house (which is true, I suppose, but still,) so I might as well be out killing her nemesis.  The actual work part isn't too bad, but wrestling this stuff out of the trees is absolutely exhausting.  I am sore in the weirdest places from trying to not fall over when I finally get it out of the tree (namely, my bum.  My arms are sore too, but that's expected.)  Funny thing is, the jasmine has actually gotten thicker in a lot of places than the 10 foot tall bush it's growing on. =/

Dad is "helping" as usual; he watched me and mom pulling it out of the ground for a bit yesterday, and said, "You know if you don't get the roots out, it's not going to do anything," which sounded more like, "Totally not worth the effort guys, lol."  Best part is the section I cleared yesterday could be easily taken care of with the mower, he just never bothers to mow there.  So today I got to rake everything out of the area and bag it and pull the roots out by hand as best I can, because that seems to be the most efficient way to do it.

I moved on to the vines providing a nice canopy over the bushes (I hadn't realized quite so much of it was actually jasmine, now that I notice the bushes are looking kinda sparse,) and dad came out and watched me for about ten minutes.

Aaaalways waaatching...

He then asked if I was planning on clearing the whole fenceline, and decided cutting the bushes down will somehow help me.  I mean, yeah, I guess it'll help, but it'll also make the yard look like shit.  But that's dad for you.  I think I need to convince him that I'd rather have the shade than super easy weed-pulling...

In other news, Dr. Athreya has agreed to write a recommendation letter for me because I was a strong student.  Whoop!  Also she must live on her email because she responded in less than an hour, which I was not expecting at all.

Seriously, I nearly cried with joy/relief.  Now just waiting for the other professors to reply and probably bugging Dr. Grant too...
Must...find...courage...to ask for favors...

Dogs and Jobs

I think Jock had a stroke or something today.  He's listing to one side like a poorly laden sailboat and can't really stand up at all anymore.  So I guess it's time for a euthanasia appointment, and I really shouldn't be this sad about it.  I was going to complain that my dogs are dying too close together, but then I realized it's been almost a year since Max died and that's not long enough.  We'll see what Dr. Young thinks about it, but I think Jock's quality of life took a nosedive.

In other news, I might be moving up to be a squatter (not really) in my grandparents' house very soon.  Yay job (maybe) and money, boo long distance relationship (again) and probably not being able to go be extremely nerdy at the card shop, which is like my only social activity.

It's awesome cause D&D was canceled last night, which may have been my last chance to go.  Woo.

(Sorry for all the short posts lately.)

EDIT:  We had Jock put to sleep; his right eye was shrunken and probably would have gotten infected, and since he's old and dehydrated we just went with it.

The Borgias

I don't know if it's because I've played too much Assassin's Creed, or if it's because it's full of Jeremy Irons, but I am so stoked for this.

Photophobic

So dad's currently jamming out in the kitchen to a certain 90's era boy band that I forgot he actually...likes...all un-ironically and everything.  He's also improvising his own percussion accompaniment utilizing his hands and various everything around the kitchen.  Thankfully he doesn't know the words, because I really don't think I can handle my dad singing "I want it that way" anywhere in my vicinity.  Dad's like the anti-hipster, he only likes popular stuff ten years after everyone hates it.

In other, totally unrelated news, mom just handed me a book about migraines because she wants me to be more sympathetic or something.  Oh, mom, I'm not unsympathetic, my caustic sarcasm is merely a byproduct of my intense worry for your general health.
Anyway, this book tells me that you can have migraines without the headache bit (kinda a non-sequitur if you ask me,) and that these are called migraine equivalents.  This made me think back to a couple weeks ago when I was taking care of Diedre's dogs and had to invade someone's driveway because I had an attack of severe photosensitivity, as I have on a few other occasions (like at midnight while being driven back home from my grandmother's house--good thing I couldn't drive yet.)  I know, I'm always photosensitive, but sometimes it's like I'm staring into the sun and I literally can't keep my eyes open because it hurts so bad (even when the sun clearly isn't out, see above.)
This symptom is, at least, fairly infrequent; usually it's something about the outside light and my glasses, or if I just woke up and turned on the light or went outside.  Occasionally, it's happened after about ten minutes of playing video games (with my glasses on, but not always the same pair has done it, so I don't know what's up with the glasses thing.)  The weird thing is, it's not right when I step outside or whatever, it takes a few minutes to kick in and make me want to gouge out my eyes, which is how I get halfway down the road before aughing.  At any rate, it has occurred to me that these might actually be migraines, or rather, "migraine equivalents."  Well...shit.
Hopefully, I'm wrong, but I'm not sure what I'd rather my photophobia-that-goes-away-in-a-few-minutes was instead, so maybe not so hopefully.

Take home message here is, stop shining shit in my eyes, and yes I'm totally serious.  They're very broken, okay?

Random Pictures Day!

So I have a lot of random pictures which I like to take because something amuses me.  They're not very good pictures but they're usually from my cell phone, so low quality is expected.  Of course, since this blog post was halfway written in February and I forgot about it, the pictures are from allwhens, and not just recent whens.  Apparently I also had another picture in here that got eaten??? so I took it out but I'm not sure anymore what it was so you may have just missed out on the greatest picture of all time or something, sorry.

These are just so creepy they're so so creepy.

I'm not sure what whoever was thinking when they made these, but they never should have combined Christmas trees and the torso-less horror of bisected Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

No carts here..

 

Wait, there they are!  They're everywhere!

If you've never noticed before, notice that I apparently go shopping late at night and no one else is around. I literally have no idea why I was at the grocery store so late, nor do I know why the shopping carts were everywhere but where they were supposed to be. I think perhaps they were slowly surrounding me, but I'm not entirely sure. It seems I escaped just in time. (Maybe with lots of spare time, they were moving pretty slowly.) Really, check out your local grocery store lots and keep tabs on the movements of the shopping carts in your area. We need to make sure they're not plotting against us. Maybe they just don't like being corralled like cattle into tiny pens, but you can never be too paranoid.













So one night when I was driving home from Chris's house at late o' clock, it was super foggy.  So I was all bad driver and took pictures of it (with my cell phone as usual) and now you can look at the creepy emptiness pictures, but I won't take a picture on a non-foggy night so you can compare it.  Just trust me, there's usually stuff there and it doesn't look like a horror movie set.

Spooky.

One day I will figure out why this stupid blogger layout is so stupid and fix it accordingly, but this seems unlikely as I have no clue what's wrong with it other than it hates my guts. (EDIT: I changed some stuff.  Okay, almost everything.  Hopefully Blogger will stop chewing up my stuff and spitting it out but I can never tell; lemme know if anything looks utterly bizarre.)

Well, it looks like it's time to go take more random pictures as I'm out for today.

Have some dinosaurs.

Om nom nom.

Really, Facebook?

I feel bad because some of my friends have a terrible habit of only communicating through Facebook.  They seem to have forgotten that there are other ways to contact me, even...far better ways to contact me considering that I logged in this morning (and Facebook immediately sent a "we missed you!" email...) and found a note from someone from two months ago that I really wish I would have gotten in a reasonable amount of time.  Anyway, I recently learned that several websites, applications, BROWSERS track your geographical location.  I thought that kinda wasn't cool, so I ran around trying to fix it, which is when I found really old note.  Also, this guy sent me a friend request, which I find hilarious because he was one of the few people I absolutely hated in junior high and high school.  I'm really not sure what he's smoking, as I know he knew I thought he was a jerk.  If you want to know who it is, it's that guy that I always complain about his parents getting him a yellow Hummer as his first car.  Anyway, he seems to have gotten on the "friend people you never talk to!" Facebook bandwagon.
Ultimately, I kinda want to delete my Facebook, but it's insanely difficult and it won't actually disappear for forever anyway, though it's much less forever than, say, your Hotmail account.  Dilemma, dilemma.

DVDs Hate Me

I have a beef with the DVD production industry (I guess that's who I'm supposed to blame?)  When I want to watch a movie, I want to watch that movie.  And only that movie.  Other than maybe the first time I watch a DVD, I am entirely uninterested in previews.  Previews belong in the theaters, when people care, not 12 years after every movie in the previews has a greatest hits special anniversary edition DVD format.  Honestly, is there really a problem with just opening to the root menu?  Is it really necessary to force me to push menu 30 times (or failing that, root menu; or, if the DVD really hates you, the skip button?)  I mean, they claim I can push menu at any time and it will go to the menu but they. are. lying.   Disney DVDs are particularly obnoxious with this, putting almost as many minutes of previews as actual movie on their discs and neither root menu or menu buttons take you to the menu.

You may not know this, but I am plagued with inferior DVD players.  My TV has a DVD player in it, which, in the past, when it was my sister's, worked reliably.  At that time I had an old TV (no, a really old TV,) so pretty much anything was an upgrade (though I honestly miss that TV.  It worked.)  Anyway, when the color started to go on that one, I inherited my sisters TV and she got my parent's old TV (I am, by this point, really tired of how many caps are in this post.  I hate acronyms.)  I guess the color on that one went fairly soon after my getting it, cause now that I think of it, this is my third set.  Anyway, at one point it worked reliably and now it doesn't really.  The disc player usually works on the first try, but more often it complains that I should "Please check the type and scratch of disc."  So I had a separate disc player (you have no idea how my family goes through external disc/tape players, it's ridiculous.)  That one worked right up until a few weeks ago, when it decided every disc ever had an irreparable debilitating scratch (but only about a third of the way through the movie.)  So I eventually got tired of that and dug an extra out of the attic.  Why do we even have extras?  This one, aside from having a ridiculously blinding red light ALL THE TIME, seemed to work far better than its' predecessor.  I "fixed" the light with a bit of electrical tape and was more or less satisfied with it.  Today, I felt like watching The Lion King because I love it so and had the songs stuck in my head.  Now, my DVD player seems to hate it immeasurably and won't play it without pausing every 15-20 seconds.  Maybe I should just watch it on the internet.  At least then it'll be high definition.

Disney, why do you like "modernizing" your movies when they get released on disc?  Take The Lion King, for instance.  When you finally are able to skip to the menu bit, they make you watch a 6 minute, poorly done CGI Zazu flight sequence before it actually gets to the menu (I think you can at least skip this part without confusing the disc, but the first time I didn't expect it.)   As if that wasn't enough torture, they then have Zazu (not even the original actor) explain the menu items.  Come on, Disney, nobody wants to listen to Zazu for longer than they have to.  That goes for the Morning Report song also.  (Plus, it shouldn't auto-play the "extended version," it should auto-play the theatrical version, duh.)
Also, don't put CGI menus on traditionally animated films.  It's stupid.

Weather, Cut it Out

Seriously, Weather, this rise to 60 degrees and then drop of 40 in a few hours, it's...it's not working out.  Weather, you have, in the past, been both wonderful and horrible to me (usually being wonderful when I have to stay inside and horrible when I could actually go outside and do something productive, or exercise even.)  But I find your mood swings and temper tantrums have finally gotten to me and I can no longer ignore them.  Really, Weather, you make it difficult for all of us when you act this way, and you do it in public, too, and that's just unacceptable.  So, I'm sorry to say this, especially as Valentine's Day is so close, but we have to break up.  I need my space, you see, and you need someone more...mercurial.  Oh...oh, Weather, don't cry, especially when you've gone and made it so cold...Weather, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, let's try again.  We can make this work, I know we can.  Maybe if you could have a bit of a sunnier disposition and not get so angry at me, and I can stop spending so much time with Central Heating and Air Conditioning.  Please, Weather, let's work together on this.

Heavy Meta-Dreaming

So last night I had a dream in which two of my friends (first Scott and Diedre, then it kinda morphed into Scott and Kelley for some strange reason) were buying me a d'annyo (apparently a crab in my dream instead of a weird spelling of a fish I had in my fishtank at one point).  Scott and I went to Diedre's fancy new house (it was epic fancy, but not mansion).  Her family was all displeased that I showed Scott where she lived now, but I successfully made the case that he'd never find the way back on his own anyway.  At some point Diedre became Kelley or something weird, because after that I woke up and told Scott and Kelley about the dream in a "hey, I had a dream about you guys last night!" manner, and we went to Kelley's house.  My laundry was at Kelley's house because Chris's mom had like...stolen all my clothes to wash them or something, and Adam was at Kelley's house singing an epic musical about my underwear (though he didn't know they were mine at the time, which I guess maybe makes it less weird...ish.)  So I told them how my underwear had gotten there, a mystery to my waking self.  Then, a grey squirrel came in the open window and everyone wanted to pet it (and did,) only every third or fourth time I petted it, it bit me.
After that, Chris called me (like I'd asked him to) to make sure I'd woken up.

Then, I realized that I'd had a dream about a dream and referenced something that had happened in another dream as an actual event.  I can't decide if my brain is just that broken or I just woke up that many times to remember that many dreams, as I've heard whenever a dream spontaneously changes location/people you've actually woken up and gone back to sleep.
It was all so very meta.

Fashionista Vista

So, for Christmas I got, among other things, a Macy's giftcard for Too Much Money. So I figured I'd go check it out since I haven't been in...might actually be a decade now. Apparently ruffles are in. Woo...ruffles...
Whilst navigating the strange terrain of the long-running department store, I came across several items which should not exist, and frankly, some of them I'm not even sure what article of clothing it's supposed to be (I hate it when someone tells me I'm wearing a dress as a skirt (this is a purely hypothetical situation as I do not buy ambiguous articles of clothing.))
Also, the sixties seem to be continuing their comeback. Aren't we tired of sixties fashions yet (again?) I saw way too many peasant blouses and paisley prints, it was getting ridiculous. Half of the clothing looked like it came right out of the old Bond movies and I'm waiting for the beehive to come back.
Alright, Macy's, let's go!

This is how you do ruffles.

This is NOT how you do ruffles.

 Ruffles, though I don't really care for them much, are feminine and can be good.  To your left you will see ruffles done the right way.  To your right you will see...wtf were they thinking?  I get the little cravat look you want to pull off, but it honestly looks like a Macy's employee took an extra large shirt and stapled all the extra fabric together down the middle (while it was on the model, no less!)

This is...borderline acceptable, I guess.

Vests are another easily misunderstood piece of clothing, aside from Macy's websites' confusion as far as "what is a vest" goes.  Vests are for if it's too cold for just a shirt but not cold enough for a jacket; alternatively, "I wore this shirt yesterday but today you won't notice because I'm also wearing a vest over it."
First we'll discuss short vests (i.e., normal vests.)

Yes.

No.

 First up, the floral print looks fleecy and warm vest.  Clearly fits in the "too cold for shirt, too warm for jacket category," has some sort of feminine print and is slightly formfitting without making you feel like a tube of toothpaste.
Hoodie vest:  always no.  Aside from the fact they had the model wear a black (hoodie) vest over a black shirt (almost like they're ashamed to show it off,) there is no reason to have a hood on it.  At all.  No woman with her hair done is going to wear a hood unless it's absolutely friggin freezing outside, in which case, they're going to wear a parka and not a cotton vest.  Also, it looks ridiculous.

Also yes-ish.

 Long vests:

Cute.

Failing miserably.

Faux fur: I agree with the sentiment, but it always looks terrible in such quantity.  Same goes for actual fur, actually.  Actually...that whole outfit is miserable.  I hope models don't actually have taste.

Heeeheh, 60s

Bonus!:  
What is this?  It is simply a travesty in and of itself.  It's like the designer woke up one day and said, "You know what?  It doesn't matter what my stuff actually looks like, so I can just totally phone it in today and people will still buy and sell it!" and then went back to have a venti chacha coffee at Starbucks.
(It's called a Cha Cha Vente Tunic and I have no idea if that's a style or a brand.)  Also, tunics are so 60s again.  This thing comes in black, "concrete," and the ever-present mauve, none of which make it look any better.





Dresses (specifically cocktail dresses, as Danielle and I perused many of them yesterday:)
Wow there are so many bad dresses I have to just pick some and stop.  It will be a plethora of pictures!

Shouldn't do one sleeve.

This is an oversized shirt, not a dress.
Definitely not a cocktail dress, Macy's...

Cute, but watch the hemline there, junior!

Oversized shirt now comes in ruffles!

Not as bad as the grey one.

MORE RUFFLES MAKE BETTER!

Some simple rules for everyday:

• A dress is not an oversized shirt.
• Ruffles do not clothing make.
• Juniors sizes (ages 12-16, generally) should not have hem that far above the knee.
• If the model looks silly in it, you will look sillier.
• Stop it with the fringe/paisley/animal prints already!  Some is okay, but market is now flooded!

Some things I found in the actual store:
[EDIT: Post will be edited upon the re-discovery of my micro SD card converter. =P ]
[EDIT EDIT: Gave up on finding the adapter, bought a card reader finally.]

This...is just wrong.  I appreciate your willingness to not wear fur and/or leather, but this by no means suggests you're allowed to mix faux fur and pleather in a hideous combination, and no, I don't care how cold it is outside.  Although, if I catch you wearing this, I will make sure you are burning with shame within ten seconds, so, yeah, I guess it can be pretty warm.  What could save this?  Not being quilted shiny pleather, for one thing.  Better faux fur would probably also help, but mostly what would help is not looking like an 80's reject.  (And this from someone who actually loves 80's fashion like an idiot, too!)

This is an abomination.

I'm not even sure what this is, but I am sure the designer should probably be shot.
I think it's a blouse?  Maybe?
Or a dress...?
This is a RUFFLES NO.  Also what's up with the cheesy flower-pin thing going on these days?
I'm sorry, just imagining someone wearing this is making my head hurt.










Lastly, my favorite clothing item at Macy's...

Wait...what?

Scuttlebutt About the House

We might actually get the oven today! I will be happy to get the last one out of its' residence of the Middle of the Kitchen Floor! (Scott did not notice this for the first like...week it was there, and he'd definitely been at my house multiple times. In the kitchen, even!) Maybe I can bake things again in celebration! Mom has made brownie mix twice now and can't even pretend she was going to bake some of it.

Chris updated me with Linux on a fancy computer...but this version of Linux hates me and particularly is at odds with my monitor, which makes navigating difficult, to say the least. It's hard enough to try to log in when you get one blink of screen every forty seconds or so, but harder when you unminimize a window and for some reason it makes you log in again (with the blinking) and brings you back with windows from two days ago instead of two minutes ago. Hopefully a different version won't be so buggy. If not then Linux isn't impressing me much.

Also, really ugly IM application. I miss you, Trillian. ;_; When will you make a Linux version?

Dad is so funny. He's re...novating the garage (I guess, he says I'll be able to park in there at some point but I don't think I believe him) and a couple weeks ago he apparently shot himself in the thumb with the nail gun. He came inside and asked me if the dogs had been fed yet. I said no (because it was like 5:20 and their dinner is supposed to be at 6 but dad never follows that anymore,) so he fed them and went back outside. Apparently he drove himself to the emergency room. Why didn't he ask me? Did he really think I'd say "naaaaaw, you can drive yourself to the emergency room, sucka!?" Was he too embarrassed to admit he shot himself in the thumb? I didn't even know about it until the next day when mom told me (all gossipy-like) what he'd done. He still didn't mention it until I deliberately asked him how his thumb was. Looking at his fingers last week, it looks like he bruised his middle finger too. (He says he doesn't remember how that happened.)


Reminder to self: you wanted to watch Being Human, remember? Hope it doesn't suck, apparently Syfy picked it up which usually isn't promising. =p


Dessa got me a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. I disagree with their movie reviews. For instance, Tron deserved less than a B, and the King's Speech was definitely better than Harry Potter. There was some something about the Green Hornet movie (...eh) some people complained about 3D and low moviegoing in 2010, and something about Beiber dating/making out/"getting frisky" with Selena somebody...
(EDIT: How is it I mention watching the King's Speech to mom and get caught in a conversation about the last three generations of royals? Why does she follow the royal family anyway???)

There had to have been more in that magazine than that. Maybe I'll use it as wrapping paper for Dessa's birthday present. =D
DESSA WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY!?



Tune in next time for fashion do's and don'ts at Macy's.