Flaming Chords

This is my front page. All comments here are screened; if you don't have my email address, you can drop me a line here. If I know your email address, I'll reply by email -- if not, I'll reply to your comment, and then rescreen both your comment and my reply.

It's also got every tag I have -- this is because my current LJ style doesn't include a tag index. (At least half of my participation on LJ is on my Treo. I chose this style because it loads quickly and it's still readable on a small screen.)

I'd tell you more about myself, but that's what my profile -- and the rest of my journal -- are for.

The LJ community stupid_free has been dormant for two weeks, and suddenly two new posts come up -- and both of them involve childfree individuals talking about government handouts and generally making tits of themselves.

Well, no. For one thing, tits are both useful and lovely. And I suppose I can't accuse them of making asses of themselves, for the same reason.

Fine, fine, lemme start over. Two new posts are up about complete idiot freetards making sure that the rest of us childfree folks can't have nice things, with a heaping helping of "by your bootstraps" libertard bitching on the side, and a little "you're racist against wiccans" for dessert. (Those same new posts are also being mocked over at sf_drama.)

I know that the myth of the welfare queen with twenty social security numbers who's shit out ten kids, drives a cadillac, and has lobster and champagne for dinner every day is a colorful image, but in real life, I've only known one such welfare queen. And despite this welfare queen's tendencies to brag about gaming the system on conservative websites, he's actually a nice guy, and I'm sure he'll be a great parent if he ever decides to have children of his own in real life. I know he's a persuasive bastard, but why do so many people believe the hype?

Seriously, morons, could you educate yourself a little on how welfare programs work, and just how many luxuries most recipients can afford, before spouting off about them? I'm not saying the current system is perfect, but it's not the money pit you pretend it is, either. And it's certainly not a program designed to make lazy people rich off your tax dollars. If you want to bitch about people getting rich off your tax dollars, look up corporate welfare sometime.

You guys know about Mark Sanford, right? Disappeared for a few days, was thought to be hiking the Appalachian Trail for a while, turned out to be screwing around in Argentina?

Well, guess what? It's all Obama's fault. Really! Would Lush Rimjob lie about something like that?

Actually, we can do better. Rush says that Sanford is merely falling into despair because Obama is destroying the country, and after all it's completely natural to say "screw it." Michael Savage is even more literal. Apparently, Obama made it happen so that Sanford wouldn't be able to run against him in our next presidential election.

There's no funny I can make out of this. I sure as hell can't parody it.

Way back when, Geraldo Rivera got punched in the face, putting me in the very uncomfortable position of cheering for a white supremacist. Lately, something like this happened again: Perez Hilton got punched in the face, which put me in the uncomfortable position of cheering for the Black Eyed Peas. And then, Hilton twittered for the police, as opposed to... you know, calling them. Because he's such a big star, and the police keep up with all his tweets, dontcha know.

Apparently, calling someone a "fucking faggot" can get you punched in the face. Who'd've thought? You'd think Perez Hilton would know better, being gay... but apparently not.

(Link to UFB here. Unfunnybusiness is generally devoted to stuff that's well, extremely unfunny, but this is the funniest thing I've seen all week.)

Someone at cf_hardcore just had occasion to post something from hanzismatter, a blog showing all the bad tattoos with chinese characters often seen on idiot white folk. Some of the tattoos are just bloody incompetent, clearly done by people who copied the characters out of a book without knowing what they were.

I'm pretty sure that some of them were done by people who actually know the languages they're tattooing, though, since I've already seen two women there with tattoos that say "cheap whore" or "prostitute," and I'm just six months back in the site's archives. Now, to find a big tough guy with a tattoo that says "tiny penis" or "power bottom."

T-shirt Hell used to have a T-shirt that said "I'm big in Japan," with kanji that babelfish translated into "big root." I wonder if I'll be seeing that on the site eventually?

(It probably won't show up in this blog, but Britney Spears apparently has a tattoo in Hebrew, from when she decided to go Qabalah -- except I recall reading somewhere that her tattooist didn't know that Hebrew is written right to left. I'll have to look into that sometime...)

A friend linked me to a double-handful of guidelines for attending conventions. Go look, if you haven't already. I'll wait.

My first reaction to these suggestions is that they are all obvious, common-sense kind of things. On the other hand, we all know how common "common" sense is, don't we?

I've only attended two different conventions: BasCon and BayCon. Of the two, I'd have to say that BasCon was more civilized, but I should add that this isn't a fair comparison since BasCon is less than a quarter the size of BayCon, and its attendees are about 99% women and 100% legal adults. (The one time I went with btralmnd, I think it had a few hundred women, and I was one of three men.)

BayCon is generally a pretty civilized con -- if it weren't, I wouldn't have been going every year for the last five or ten years, and I wouldn't be planning to go this year. And still, it ain't perfect. I occasionally pop into the Gaming Room, because an old friend of mine works that room, but if he's not around at the time, I don't stay very long because a lot of other people there aren't clear on the concept of personal hygiene. And as for touching other people uninvited... that happens a lot. Two years ago, someone created a system of colored dots that people could wear to discourage unwanted touching -- at the time, I thought it worked, but would later discover that it not only didn't work as well as I'd thought, but people were getting sneered at for having the temerity to wear red dots.

And the thing is, there are conventions much less civilized than BayCon. I've heard horror stories from friends about how shocking it is that a black person might actually like anime enough to go to an Anime Convention. I have friends who try to drag me to Gaming Conventions, and I wonder if the whole damn convention smells like that one little pocket of BayCon that I generally avoid. I've heard talk, from people I trust (poetic exaggeration aside), about how at Comic Conventions, ten individual Cat Piss Men unite like Voltron to form something truly unspeakable. And while BayCon has its share of individual ass-grabbers, as far as I know it's never seen group ass-haberdashery like the Open Source Boob Project.

I'm not saying that everyone at a convention is uncivilized like that. If they were, I'd have long since given up going to cons. I'd say that 99% of the people I've met at cons have varied from "inoffensive" to "a hell of a lot of fun." Let's say that only 1% of the people at a given convention are thoughtless assholes.

At a convention of, say, three thousand people, that's still thirty thoughtless assholes. Maybe not enough to ruin a convention, but more than enough to leave a hell of a bad impression. I can definitely understand why this person might want to punch up a bunch of rules we all ought to know, and keep it rolled up in his pocket, ready to be used to whack thoughtless assholes on the nose and yell "NO!"

Those of you who are members of Fandom Wank have heard the phrase "we eat our own." Over at F_W, it means that even if you're a member, it doesn't give you a free pass to wank up a storm or behave like an idiot. Point and giggle with the hyenas all you want when someone else throws a shitfit online, but if you throw a shitfit, the rest of the hyenas will turn on you with their pointing and giggling.

Most of you, wankas or not, probably know that "we eat our own" applies far beyond Fandom Wank. For instance, parenting. Planning to circumcize your kid? Perhaps planning not to? Either way, be prepared to go to war for your choice, because other parents will eat you alive. Getting toys for your kid? Other parents will give you no end of shit if you give your son G.I.Joe, or your daughter Barbie, because you're apparently reinforcing tired old gender roles. Of course, you can't give your boy Barbie without hearing a bunch of shit either. And don't even get me started on the anti-vaxxers...!

And of course there's breastfeeding. (And I can hear a few dozen of you grumbling in my head as I type this.) How dare someone even think of using formula! What kind of mother are they? Well, as it turns out, breastfeeding is nice if you can manage it, but it probably doesn't make as big a difference as you'd think. All the science that says breast is best is based on questionably designed experiments, and there are too many other factors that the experiments don't take into account.

(I'm not posting this with the hopes of starting any serious discussions: I'm male, and I'm not planning on kids, so it's not a question I'll ever have to deal with personally. I bring it up mostly because I'm horribly tempted to have my cat ologbu, or one of my sockpuppets, post this article in boob_nazis.)

I'm guessing that lilenth, aerynalexander, and thaily don't like me any more than I like them.

Finer character references than that are hard to come by. If LJ were the real world, that's the sort of thing I'd print on my business cards. "Hi, I'm flamingchords, and these three asswit freetards¹ think I'm a complete dick." Well, I don't necessarily know if they all think I'm a complete dick yet, but they're well on their way, and I'm sure that any further interactions I have with them will only help.

(Full story here. For the linkphobic, some scumbag murdered his child in a bid to avoid paying child support, and the story ended up posted on cf_hardcore. Two of these three idiots are suggesting that his wife oopsed² him, and that this is somehow relevant. The third wants to use this whole sad story as a cautionary tale for any woman who's thinking of oopsing a man. To its credit, a significant fraction of cf_hardcore's membership is dogpiling on them. Including me -- I'm wanking up a storm in there, and using both hands.)

---



1. freetard, n., pej, a childfree person who also happens to be a complete idiot, mouthbreather, and/or waste of perfectly good oxygen.
   
   
2. oops, v.t., to have sex with a partner with the intent of causing pregnancy, without the partner's knowledge or consent. A man might oops a woman by poking holes in his condoms, or a woman might oops a man by "forgetting" to take her birth control pills. Or, a man might use "pulling out" as his only means of birth control, or worse, not use any birth control at all, and claim to have been oopsed when the inevitable happens...
   

Dear uptight atheist,

One: The phrase "I'm going to Hell for this" is not, as you assume, a statement that I believe in Hell, nor a confession that I believe I'm going to go there. It's just me making light of something I'm about to say that might be considered by some to be offensive or blasphemous.

Two: "Goddamned" is not, as you assume, a qualifier indicating that I believe something to be eternally condemned by the One True (nonexistent) Creator. From the mouths of some people, it is not taking the (nonexistent) Lord's name in vain, merely an expletive. If I refer to "that fucking computer," surely you don't believe that I'm suggesting the computer is having sex?

Three: When I say I don't believe in God, that is not a confession that I believe there is a God, and I just refuse to believe in him. I just say it that way because it's shorter than "I do not believe that there is any supreme being," and for most people, it gets the general idea across.

Four: You can believe that I'm not truly an atheist all you want, based on my choices of expressions. I don't care. You and your stupid-ass semantic fluff-picking can go straight to Hell, and you may interpret that however you wish. In any case, you can get out of my nonreligion, as you're making us look like twatmonkeys.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

Y'know, if it was anyone other than njyoder saying something like this, I'd probably be prepared to believe that they might just have a point. After all, back when I was a whole lot younger, I suffered from that kind of insecurity, and what porn I saw seemed to confirm my fears. Granted, I've learned better since, but the mental association with porn remained until my web-design days, at which point it was replaced by boredom. But that's a different story. What was my point? Oh, yes. The fear of being judged on one's penis size is both widespread, and worth discussing.

Or it would be, if it wasn't njyoder bringing it up. Since it is, all I can do is broadly hint that he's telling us more about himself than he'd intended, hold up an extended pinky, point at his groin, and giggle hysterically. I'm so torn! I have an icon with Nelson Muntz pointing and saying "HA HA," and an full-frontal icon with a well-hung ginger dude (NSFW!), and I can't decide which to use! Okay, fine, Nelson wins. For now.

I'd offer to set up a pool, where you all could bet on how long it took him to make an appearance here, but I've preemptively banned him.

(Link here. And thanks to a friend for emailing me the link.)

(I have screencap, if he decides to delete that post.)

OMFG, Michael Jackson is back at cf_hardcore!

(Squees like a loud, happy squeeing thing.)

I'm so delighted to see him, I want to buy him a chimpanzee! With the possible exception of crackpig, he's the funniest troll ever!

I just made stupid_free! In a good way!

For those of you unfamiliar because you have lives, stupid_free is a community dedicated to making fun of idiots. It occupies the same kind of niche that fandom_wank does, but where fandom_wank covers all the stupid shit that happens in fandom, stupid_free covers all the stupid shit that happens on LJ.

Anyway, I just made it there! All because I felt like being a bit of a smart-ass in this post over in cf_hardcore. (This chap named massashaun complained about welfare-sponging moos. I replied in a rather-less-than-serious manner, ending with a reference to eating Irish babies that I thought really obvious. massashaun completely missed the reference.)

Anyway, this calls for a speech!

"I'd like to thank the academy, for making this possible; the moderators of cf_hardcore, for providing the rehearsal space and underwriting; my idiot costars massashaun and lilenth, without whom I would never have been nominated; my press agent ms_daisy_cutter, for notifying me that I was in the papers again; and my publicist tomecatti, for making sure that the talent scout shot my good side.

"Oh! And my fellow guildmember, the Ginger to my Fred, genghis_cunt, for her masterful portrayal of the normally-lovable drunk who's had QUITE ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT. (She can write her own damned acceptance speech.)

"You like me! You really, really like me!"

For those of you who didn't know, I keep an HTML cheatsheet up on my computer. Mostly, I use it for things I use regularly, like footnotes or the altered formatting I use for dream posts, or for putting the self-cleaning-anus in tiger(self-cleaning-anus)wolf or the extra-long vowel in faaaaabio. That way, instead of typing five lines of code for tigerwolf or four lines for fpb, I can just copy and paste.

Well, I've recently decided that someone on LJ needs to be addressed in future as shit_cauldron, by as many people as possible. You can find out why here¹. Since this is about four lines of code, I've added it to my cheatsheet.

<span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://hypersurfaces.livejournal.com/profile"><img src="http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif" alt="[info]" style="border: 0pt none ; vertical-align: bottom;" height="17" width="17"></a><a href="http://hypersurfaces.livejournal.com/"><b>shit_cauldron</b></a></span>

If you have a cheatsheet of your own, I encourage you to borrow my code. And spread the word far and wide!

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1. No, I'm not calling her a douchebag, faggot, baby-raper, dyke, fudge-packer, and/or mother-fucker. You've heard of TinyURL, haven't you? Well, this is a neat little toy called IndecentURL. It exists because even pictures of cute little kitties can be made hilarious with a URL that includes things like twat, lemon-party, mother-fucker, shit, asshole, slut, splooge-balls.
   
   But mostly, I'm using this URL redirection so that her real name does not appear anywhere in my post, either in text or in source code. Yes, she has a real name. I won't use it. "Shit Cauldron" suits her much better.
   

A while back, the internet was set on fire by a spectacular bit of ass-haberdashery known as the Open Source Boob Project. Since this originally happened at a con, I guess it's no surprise that the impact is being felt at subsequent cons.

I attended a panel on Fanboy Etiquette, mostly to see if someone would bring theferrett up. Sure enough, someone did. Well, almost. Someone brought up this incident they read about on the internet, and didn't get a chance to describe it in any more detail than that -- and in a room of about twenty-five people, at least fifteen groaned all at once. The moderator dealt with this issue as quickly as possible, told us that asking to touch some random girl's boobs is a bad idea, and then changed the subject. It wasn't that she felt the subject deserved no attention -- she gave it attention -- but this was a panel on Fanboy Etiquette, not a Weasel Roast.

After this panel, I ran into a friend. I mentioned that I'd just been in that panel, and I went mostly to see if a certain incident would be mentioned. The next bit of the conversation went something like this:

caprine: "The ferrett?"
'chords: "The ferrett."
caprine: "Boobs?"
'chords: "Boobs."
caprine: "Yeah."
'chords: "Uh huh."

(Both of us are fully capable of complete sentences, but you'll notice that neither of us needed them; each of us just knew.)

I also saw quite a few women with shirts that said things like "they're not going to talk to you," "my eyes are up there," and "these aren't the boobs you're looking for." I commented that I liked these shirts, and at least half of them thanked me, grinned, and mentioned "that guy online."

As far as I can tell, the guys at this convention behaved themselves. I choose to believe that all it took was a really bad example to educate a lot of people. It's possible, though, that for some, the motivation was fear of being the next dumbass to be barbecued.

(Admittedly, a few women did not. On a handful of occasions, I was slightly annoyed at the time, and permitted myself a sly grin once either I, or the lady in question with the wandering hands, walked away. But this is how I choose to react. It no way diminishes the rights of women to react to being manhandled differently from how I react. Nor the rights of other men -- one guy on my list (who shall remain anonymous, unless you're on his list, or he chooses to name himself here) was less than pleased by people groping him, and made a point of saying so.)

So, a couple of years ago, Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis onstage at WorldCon. All Hell broke loose, and Harlan got tarred and feathered in the fan community.

One year ago, random groping was enough of a problem at BayCon that someone came up with a system of colored dots to try to counter it. At the time, I thought it worked -- I wanted to believe that the gropers were not dangerous so much as completely fucking clueless, and that after the first person whacked them with a clue-by-four, they'd learn. I've since learned that it wasn't entirely successful, and had some nasty side-effects.

And this year, that fiasco with the Weasel. Again, lots of tar and lots of feathers.

This has always been a touchy (sorry, sorry) issue. Now, it looks like a powderkeg. The next stupid bastard who lays a hand on a lady at a convention without explicit permission is probably going to lose that hand.

In possibly related -- though I hope not -- news, in about a month, I'll be going to BayCon. I can't help wondering if I should keep my ear a lot closer to the ground this time. I've never led an internet lynch mob before -- maybe this will be my big chance?

Nah. Chances are I'll learn about it the same time the rest of you do -- when someone with faster fingers posts it, and it starts spreading like crabs at a frat-house. Besides, as much fun as internet lynch mobs are, I personally prefer prevention. I wonder if it's too late to suggest an addition to the newsletter?

WARNING: IF YOU GROPE SOMEONE UNINVITED, YOU RISK BEING YELLED AT, SLAPPED, PUNCHED, SLUGGED, KARATE-CHOPPED, THROWN INTO A WALL, KICKED IN THE NUTS, AND/OR HAVING THE WHOLE DAMNED INTERNET KNOW THAT YOU'VE GOT WANDERING HANDS AND NO RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLE. YOU WILL ALSO LIKELY HAVE EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN ONLINE PICKED OVER WITH A FINE-TOOTHED COMB IN SEARCH OF FURTHER EVIDENCE OF YOUR ASS-HABERDASHERY, MOSTLY BY WOMEN WHO ARE SICK AND TIRED OF NOT FEELING SAFE AT CONVENTIONS BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU!

SCARY, HUH? LUCKILY, YOU CAN NEATLY SIDESTEP ALL OF THESE HAZARDS BY KEEPING YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF, UNLESS YOU'VE BEEN INVITED. AND DON'T TAKE INVITATIONS ANY FURTHER THAN THEY WERE INTENDED; FOR INSTANCE, A LADY WHO CONSENTS TO A HUG IS NOT NECESSARILY CONSENTING TO HAVING HER ASS PINCHED AS LONG AS YOUR HANDS ARE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, SO DON'T TRY IT!

PERSONAL SPACE, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Probably a little too harsh for newsletter. Maybe just a leaflet independent of the newsletter? Hell, maybe I could just print out a few hundred of them at Kinko's or something, and leave them in places where they'll be picked up. The table with all the other flyers, for instance.

And maybe in small print, include the URLs for the sites describing previous tarrings and featherings.

Dear theferrett,

In the time I've been sexually active, I've touched a lot of women's breasts. And, well, other places. Would you like to hear my secret? Would you? Wouldja, wouldja, wouldja?

Of course you would -- you would never have come up with the Open-Source Boob Project otherwise.

In general, I try to be worthy of the honor. I have good social skills, at least sometimes. I recognize that women have standards, and I try to live up to them. But perhaps most importantly, I try to be a fuckin' gentleman. This means, among other things, that I do not assume that I have an inherent right to touch women's bodies, especially in their intimate places. I recognize that a woman's body belongs to her, and only her, and that she may share it on whatever terms she deems fit. Little things like respect. You'd be amazed at how far they get you.

In short, I'm allowed to touch some -- I repeat: some! -- women's bodies, including their breasts, in part because I am nothing like you!

You've edited your post a few times, so you appear to be teachable at least, but merciful fucking Christ!

Sincerely,
flamingchords

PS: Welcome to fandom wanked. Population: you.

One last post for today, and then I have a life to get back to.

LJ Abuse has concluded, after no doubt considerable debate, that Nicky-boy is a public figure. This means, among other things, that if you feel compelled to mention the name "Nickolaus Pacione" in your LJ, Nicky-boy can't complain to LJ Abuse just because you mentioned his name. Well, he can, but LJ Abuse will no longer threated to suspend your journal over it. Let the mocking begin!

Well, no. The mocking has been going on for years, and he's deserved every bit of it. But "let the mocking continue unhindered" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

(As I understand it. LJ Abuse generally takes a dim view of people posting personal information about people, and this includes given names. They simply don't apply this rule to people who use their own names publicly if they are "public figures," and Nicky-boy apparently now qualifies as such.)

The post in which this is discussed is here. Many kudos to tjcrowley for having fought for this small victory. I have already favorited it, and I expect I am only one of many who have done so, or will do so.

If you're a furry, this is probably old news to you, but I'm posting it anyway. Why? Because drama amuses me, and no one does drama quite like furries...

Once upon a time, there was a bunny who was down on his luck. Got kicked out of his parents' house, or something. A coyote then said to the bunny, "move in with me for a while." And now, the coyote is accusing the bunny of having stolen a lot of his shit and sold it for coke money. Then, the coyote made wanted posters, shouting from the rooftops that the bunny was a dirty dirty whore and a thief. Moreover, it appears that they coyote is far from alone in making these claims. Funny animals everywhere are now eager to drop the dirty-thieving-crackwhore-hammer down upon the bunny's head.

And then, the drama ended up spreading to places like Encyclopedia Dramatica and Crush Yiff Destroy, which is where I found it. And I was much amused.

At the moment, the entire furry fandom seems to know about it. Both 2_gryphon (link) and unclekage (link) have posted on the subject, and both of these people are very well-known in furry fandom. In fact, they are probably the closest things to celebrities that the fandom has.

The battle lines are being drawn as we speak. In one corner, the friends of quentincoyote, who are disgusted at how his amazing generosity got him kicked in the metaphorical teeth by buckyrabbit, who turns out to be a thieving scumbag who uses drugs and uses people. It's a shame that there are people who would take such advantage of the incredible acceptance and generosity that exists within the furry fandom as long as you're young, hot, and male.

In the other corner, people like squng (link) who paint quentincoyote as a lech who saw a hot (?), kinda brain-damaged twink who was down on his luck and nearly fifteen years younger than him, and thought, "hm, if I let him crash at my place, I can tap that ass every day!" And now he's all butthurt because while he was screwing said brain-damaged twink, he himself was getting screwed in turn.

As far as I can tell, the two groups have not yet met, though they obviously know about each other. (quentincoyote has said a few harsh things about squng, but it does not appear they've actually thrown down.) Eventually, they will, and that will be glorious to watch! I'd almost attend a furry convention if I thought that all these people would be there! (Note well that "almost.")

This is even more fun to watch than that misogynist freetard lunatic with the self-cleaning anus!

Holy shucking fit, bread wank. People really will argue about anything.

How anal do you really have to be to tell someone, "your bread recipe is wrong, and let me tell you why," over the internet? And then argue with people about it for at least five hours? I admit this seems to have garnered schlake a whole lot of internet fame -- he's made it to otf_wank, domestic_snark, stupid_free, and sf_drama -- but who wants that kind of fame?

On the other hand, I did savage Sandra Lee's tiramisu recipe a while back, so perhaps I really shouldn't talk. But come on, it used prepackaged vanilla pudding!

Edited to add: It just got worse. He's arguing that Challah isn't really bread, to a rabbi's daughter! What a maroon!

Someone tried to troll cf_hardcore with this image.

( Click here for comic. A really good one. It makes fun of freetards. )

I'm obviously not truly childfree. This comic made me laugh my ass off, mostly because I know childfree people like this. We all know people like this, or have at least heard of them or seen them in action¹. Yes, fifteen percent of childfree individuals are total assholes, as with any other group. So, yes. I'm a member of a group being made fun of in a cartoon. Come on, it was funny. Most of us need to laugh a little, and get the hell over it. We're supposed to be the grown-ups, right?

Especially that one guy who's plastered the post with a couple dozen image macros -- my phone damn near crashed trying to load that damned thread. Really original, dude.

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1. My first exposure to the concept of "freetard" was an incident in cf_hardcore, in which someone bragged about their impulses to stab chirruns in the eyez over a fucking children's book. You might have heard about this incident, it's gotten around just a bit. Granted, it's been nearly three years, and that person might just have grown up a little since...