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.

(Note: This entry is about all the sex I had at BayCon. Despite the fact that I successfully kept it in my pants this year¹, it may still be kinda long.)

With any kind of magic, there are dangers to casting a spell that is bigger than you are. I recently learned that costuming is a form of magic.

My costume this year was the Dread Pirate Roberts. A simple spell, as far as the components go: a scrap of leather with eyeholes cut in it; a black t-shirt cut up, and tied into a bandana; a poofy black shirt and tight black jeans I already own. I didn't even have proper boots, and was just wearing black sneakers. This costume was surprisingly little work; it took me all of fifteen minutes to get it together at home, and about five minutes to put it on before I left my hotel room.

As myself, I'm fairly well-assembled, but not devastatingly attractive or anything; I just have a few striking features, and enough confidence (on my good days) that I'm sometimes mistaken for it. As the Dread Pirate, I was apparently sex-god on toast. I got a lot of good offers. Several women, and a few men, all conspired to inform me that if I had the inclination (and the stamina), I could have probably spent all three evenings of this convention bouncing from one bed to the next.

There were other effects, too. I'm a redhead, and as such, I tend to be very easily identifiable... usually. Covering my hair meant that I could step outside myself, at least partly because a lot of people who know me didn't instantly recognize me; many didn't recognize me at all, until I spoke to them. An odd feeling, that. I wouldn't do it every day, but occasionally it can be fun.

So far, I've just been talking about my costume, when in fact a whole lot of magic was flying in all directions, most of it by costumers much more skilled than me². What of all these people? Do they gain some immunity from other people's spells, being more knowledgeable about how those spells work? If two people in costume pick each other up and decide to get to know each other a lot better, does the spell end the moment the costumes come off?

(The answer to this last question, as I learned from a friend well-versed in this sort of magic, is that it does, but not immediately.)


A few people were interested in the guy under the mask, though. In particular, I was propositioned by a woman I regard so highly, I'm really tempted to brag about it. "Holy shit, [Jane] fucking [Smith] wants me!" As it is, I declined, but only for reasons having to do with my own issues; if not for those, I'd totally have jumped at the chance. Still, I was well past flattered, and into honored. The best offer I got the whole con!

(And [Jane Smith] is the only name you guys are getting from me. I haven't dropped names from my LJ up to this point, and I'm not starting now.)


One other wrinkle: there was a panel I intended to go to on writing outside your social group. A sci-fi writer can write about alien beings without anyone raising an eyebrow, but if a straight white male author writes from the POV of a black character, a woman, or a gay character -- especially a gay character -- people will sometimes get upset. I went into what I thought was this panel, and after about five minutes, I realized that I confused that panel with the GLBTQ panel. Oops.

This sort of mix-up is the kind of lame plot device I'd be hissing about if I saw it in a bad sit-com, and here I am in real life, subject to that mix-up. And just as it would in a bad sit-com, this led to a few awkward moments later... but I've had practice in dealing with those.


(Comments are screened.)

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1. My reasons for doing this have to do with personal issues. I've already dropped hints about them in other LJ entries; if I decide to write about them more candidly, it will be in a locked post.
   
   
2. Of course, not all of the people in costume did it well. Some people are just plain bad at it, or choose costumes that suit them very poorly. I didn't see any 102-pound guys dressing up as Conan, or women with nasty skin conditions in skimpy chainmail... but I did see one guy who was paler than me (which should be impossible), in a kilt, with nothing on above the waist except for pasties with tassels. It was somewhere between amusing and horrifying.
   

I've brought with me a case with forty pounds of free weights and dumbells. It's keeping me from going completely bonkers, but it's far from a complete workout. It's also barely a workout; I've long since outgrown it. Between this trip and a neck problem I had a week before, it's been about two weeks since I've been to the gym. You ever see someone at a gym, day in and day out, and marvel at how much discipline they must have to have kept at it for so long, and how much willpower it must have taken to get such good results? Well, guess what -- it ain't willpower! It's an addiction, and withdrawal fuckin' sucks, man!

I have no friends up here, in the middle of nowhere. I can keep up with you guys online, but my cell service is spotty up here, so it usually takes me a few minutes just to log on, to say nothing of actually loading content. No doubt I've missed plenty, and have a shitload of catching up to do. I've also exchanged emails and text messages with a few of you, but it's not the same. In the real world, under normal circumstances, I visit friends something like three times a week, whenever work doesn't get in the way. I didn't realize I'd miss that quite so much. I didn't realize I'd miss IM quite so much, either.

In a vein similar to the lack of real-world contact with friends, there's a lack of real-world contact with, ahem, friends. See earlier comments about being out of action due to neck problems, and being in the middle of nowhere. As a result, well, let's just say that ( there's some dude TMI, here ).

I have one day off left, once I get home. Any guesses on how I'll be using it? No, don't bother guessing. Too easy.

On the plus side, I've used the time up here to work on a couple of habits. I've gotten a decent amount of music done, I've cut my junk food consumption to absolutely zero, and after having fallen off the wagon for a while, I've been free of caffeine for several days and will have an easier time remaining so when I get home.

I've also taken a few books with me, and finished them. Philip José Farmer is a good writer, but he's a weird bird -- if you've ever complained about Heinlein and his occasional obsession with sex, don't even bother with Farmer. Or if you must read him, stick to Riverworld. There's a very fine line between stories with sexual themes and outright porn, and the collection Strange Relations comes within a eyelash-breadth of it and says, "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you," over and over and over. And then that line gets annoyed and walks away, and Strange Relations yells, "come back, I'm not done not touching you!"

(I also finished Double Star, by Heinlein. It was published in 1956, so it's pre-Time Enough For Love (1973), and therefore lacks that aforementioned focus on sex. An excellent book, overall. If you've seen the movie Dave, in which an actor gets shanghaied into playing the President, you've already got a vague idea of what this book is about.)

I recently finished a book, in which a large colony ship was to travel from Earth, to a planet 85 light years (or 8.04145 × 10¹⁷ meters) away. Its boost¹ is a constant 3.3 m/s², which it maintains until the trip is halfway finished, at which point the ship decelerates at a constant 3.3 m/s² until it arrives at its destination.

Oh, and to make things more interesting, for a major chunk of the trip, the ship is apparently traveling at a big enough fraction of lightspeed that to the people on board, it will feel like less time than it is for the people on Earth.

Figuring out how long the voyage will take, from the viewpoint of people on Earth, is a relatively simple first-semester calculus problem. Figuring out how long it will take, from the viewpoint of people on board, is probably no more than second-semester calculus, maybe third at the most. Ten years ago, I could have figured out the answers quite easily. These days, I almost have to crack open a book.

Damn, I've gotten rusty. The writer provides the answers in the book, but I'm still just a wee bit annoyed. There are stories about Robert Heinlein and his wife Virginia doing calculations on butcher paper for the parts of Heinlein's books that required math, and I have no doubt that they are all true.

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1. One of the nice things about constant boost ships is that you don't have to spin them for gravity -- and gravity has lots of uses most of us take for granted. It keeps our muscles from atrophying. It keeps us from being smothered by our own carbon dioxide, which would form bubbles around our head if there were no gravity. And can you imagine how much harder it would be to use a toilet without it?
   

Recycling gone bad.

I've heard muzak versions of songs. I've heard Kidz Bop versions of songs. I've heard people on American Idol torture songs. I've heard techno performers take good songs, and turn them into gutless, toothless, danceable mockeries of the originals. I've heard no-talent hacks like Puff-Daddy P-Diddy whatever the fuck he's calling himself this week whats-his-fuck take good songs and turn them into utter garbage by talking shit over them. And now, I've played Alvin and the Chipmunks on the Wii, a game that wishes it was Rock Band, except that the Nunchuck controller is completely unsuited to the game.

All of this has persuaded me of one thing: I am never writing in 4/4 again. Well, maybe occasionally, but for no more than a few bars at a time, unless I'm writing something just for cheap laughs.

I figure that if my stuff ever gets so popular that a rapper thinks he can rap over, say, my 11/4 riff, I'll be curious enough to hear it that I just might let him try.

(Heheheh. I like that word. "Douche-nozzle!")


Some new software.

In other musical news, I've been playing with the evaluation copy of Harmony Assistant, and I've just purchased it for real. I'm waiting for the registration code as I type this. As a composition tool, it is far superior to Cakewalk -- its scores are a lot more readable, and don't look like shit. It also handles transposing instruments a lot better.

As a recording tool... well, I'll probably still use Cakewalk, because DXis sound a lot better than standard MIDI -- I'll see how Harmony Assistant's plug-ins sound first. Fortunately, both programs can do MIDI, so copying stuff from one to the other shouldn't be too painful.

For those of you unfamiliar, a DXi is a DirectX plug-in that (usually) simulates a musical instrument, or a group of musical instruments. Some of these are very good: Synful, in particular, is amazing. Sadly, they are often very resource-intensive, and frequently expensive (Synful was about $500, last I checked).


Some old hardware.

My progress on guitar continues, however slowly. I'm trying not to be frustrated, especially considering that my current skill level is my own damned fault. Falling in love with the possibilities of writing for full orchestra is all well and good, but I should never have stopped playing guitar in the process. Still, I used to be pretty decent, once. One day, even if it's a few years from now, I will be again.


( Further music geekery here. May not be safe for work. )

I used to like peanut butter just fine. As a small child, I ate a lot of it. I haven't touched it in years, though, because the stuff makes me sick. I can eat peanuts without having any problems, but the very thought of eating peanut butter makes me want to throw up. In fact, peanut butter makes me so sick that if I'm trying to describe something disgusting, I'll sometimes add gratuitous peanut butter to the mental image, which no doubt confuses or amuses some people.

"What's more disturbing than Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore having sex?"

"I dunno, what?"

"Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore having sex while covered in peanut butter!"

"You are so weird."

"Come on, doesn't the peanut butter make it a hundred times worse?"

"Um, no. Not really."

I think I know why peanut butter bothers me so much. Several years ago, at a science fiction convention, I looked through the short list of rules, and found something called "the no peanut butter rule." I asked what this was, and heard the most... ahem, amazing story.

( If you're a regular con-goer, chances are you've heard this all before. )

And as funny as I find this story, I haven't touched peanut butter since hearing it for the first time.

I've been going through some of my old shit, mostly for reasons of clearing things out, and at least partly to see what I could pawn off. Hey, money can be useful, right?

In terms of music, I discovered a whole bunch of stuff I'd forgotten I had. Some of it is stuff I'm happy to rediscover, e.g. Queensrÿche's Operation Mindcrime. Some of it was decent, but my tastes have shifted so badly I'm no longer interested in it, e.g. Megadeth's So Far, So Good, So What and Voïvod's Killing Technology. Some of the stuff... old Slayer, a disc or two from Napalm Death, and a bunch of semi-underground thrash and death-metal bands who all sound alike. I'm sure I thought that each band was a unique and precious snowflake at the time... what the hell was I on?

(Don't answer that.)

I want to go back in time and slap my younger self for having wasted money on this shit. As it is, I got a little over sixty bucks at a used music store for thirty CDs. It turns out that if the clerk has to look up the name of a band that hasn't existed for five or ten years and wasn't all that well-known even when they were active, then surprise, the CDs aren't going to be worth that much. Ah, well.

I'll probably be doing the same for my comic books as well soon. Things that I thought were worth buying back when I was working in a comic shop, I've since decided are not worth keeping. But then, at this point, the only things I bother collecting are Strangers in Paradise (which is ending very soon) and a few good writers (Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, a couple of others).

Getting over a cold at the moment. Yeah, another one.

As a result, I'm getting to know an old family recipe for dealing with colds: one part honey, two parts lemon juice, two parts brandy or whisk(e)y, and six or more parts boiling water. The stuff is great for dealing with the symptoms, and tastes much better than Nyquil. (And I'm guessing, since thalwen concluded I was sick just from knowing that I was drinking it, that it's not exactly an obscure "old family recipe.")

For the last year or few, I've been getting over my general distrust for alcohol. This distrust owes to a lot of teenage drinking, back when I was a self-destructive asshole. (The incident I remember most clearly from that time was when I went up to a football player, drunk, and told him I'd been fucking his girlfriend, and that she said I had a bigger dick than he did. This got me into a fight, and made me very suddenly persona non grata to the girlfriend, who up until that point liked me a lot. That was a turning point for me: I didn't touch alcohol for years after that.)

For a while, I've been discovering, to my delight, that I'm actually not a bad guy drunk. I'm also discovering that I don't have to get drunk -- I can stop at "slightly relaxed," while the honey and lemon do their job.

Which brings me to a rant about colds. Why are all colds the same?

I had a cold in August: congestion, runny nose, head full of cotton, you know the routine. Another one in October: congestion, runny nose, head full of cotton, and so on. And another cold now, and you guessed it: congestion, runny nose, head full of cotton, ad nauseam (figuratively).

If I were the sort to believe in God, I'd claim that this was laziness on his part. Why can't we have colds that do more unusual things? Maybe a cold that rotates all our color perceptions sixty degrees on the ol' color wheel: we'd see yellow instead of red, green instead of yellow, cyan instead of green, blue instead of cyan, etc. Maybe a cold that reverses our sexual orientation (and wouldn't Jerry Falwell go crazy over that!) Maybe a cold that made our skin break out in purple Hieroglyphics or something?

But noooooo! Every time we catch a cold, it's the same damned symptoms!

(Don't mind me. This is my third cold in five months. I swear, I didn't used to get them anywhere near this often!)

A discussion I recently had at work with one of my colleagues: Atheist Morality and/or Ethics. He wasn't so much surprised that we atheists are indeed moral people, but he was interested in where those morals and/or ethics come from, if not Gods or religions.

The truth is actually kinda boring: atheist morals and ethics come from a knowledge of cause-and-effect as they exist in real life.

Take, for instance, the rule against stealing. For most Christians, this is the seventh or eighth commandment... but even for someone who doesn't believe in God's Laws, it's common sense, and it has rewards in real life. Being known as a thief has adverse consequences in the real world, in the here-and-now -- humans tend to be social creatures, and the fact that being known as a thief puts a real kink in a person's ability to interact with others can be a strong deterrent against stealing. Or deception in generally, actually.

Murder is even easier. We all want to kill someone at one time or another, and yet we don't. There's a kind of unspoken agreement in place: I won't try to kill any of you, and none of you will try to kill me. If I kill someone, I'd better be able to explain it to everyone around me -- If I kill someone for frivolous reasons, other people will wonder if I might break that unspoken agreement again, having done it so casually once already. Then, they might decide that it might be necessary to kill me as a preemptive self-preservation measure. God needn't have anything to do with it.

The so-called Golden Rule: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." (Luke 6:31 NIV.) As much as some Christians -- I repeat, some Christians -- want to take credit for it, this ethic of reciprocity is a pretty universal ideal. Being able to get along with other humans has a lot of benefits, and it takes a relatively small amount of effort to earn them. The appeal of a system in which you get more out of it than you put in is also pretty universal -- even if it doesn't always work in real life, we want to believe in it.

Those of us who are atheists are still taught many of the same rules -- not because God says so, but because the real world tends to abide by them and enforce them. It's in my own best interest to abide by them, no matter what my beliefs on God are.

Of course, there are some rules that we don't always agree on, regarding actions that are not necessarity harmful to the people involved, or for that matter anyone else. This is where we get into the difference between Morals and Ethics, and in this, atheists are in the same boat as everyone else -- we need to decide how we feel about these actions for ourselves.

A few things about me: a meme stolen from happiestsadist.

LAYER ONE:

• Name: Some of you know me as Loki. Others know me as "red." Those are the only names I'm posting here.
  
• Birthdate: March 19th.
  
• Birthplace: Nothern California, United States.
  
• Current Location: Nothern California, United States.
  
• Eye Color: Blue.
  
• Hair Color: Red, with a couple of light strands.
  
• Height: 6' 1"
  
• Righty or Lefty: Mostly righty. (I'm assuming you're asking which hand I write with.)
  
• Zodiac: Fishies!

( Nine more layers of questions under the cut... )

I briefly consider joining cf_hardcore...

As written here and posted by the childfree here: some nine-year-old girl thinks meerkats are cute. (I don't blame her for that -- I think meerkats are pretty cute, too. Don't you?) The problem is that she went to considerable lengths to get within touching distance of them at her local zoo: "...she must have crawled over a driftwood barrier, climbed up more than 3 feet of artificial rock and reached over 4 feet of Plexiglas to get her arm into the exhibit."

She got bit. Because of the risk of rabies, one of two things had to happen. Option A: the girl could get a series of six rabies shots, which would be painful for the girl. Option B: the meerkats could all be killed and tested for rabies. (I'd also like to point out that if one of the meerkats tested positive -- admittedly unlikely, since they were in a zoo and their vaccinations were up-to-date -- the girl would have to get the shots anyway.)

Obviously, the childfree favored option A, and were sad and angry that option B prevailed. And I have to say I agree with them. Perhaps if I'd had rabies shots myself, or if I were myself a father, I'd see it differently.


...but I think better of it.

Yes, I favor giving a girl several painful shots rather than killing five cute animals. My reasons for this have to do with reluctance to kill cute animals for what I consider to be insufficient reasons -- if the girl's life could only be saved by killing the meerkats, I'd be siding with the girl, but that's not the case here. I am not in favor of giving her shots just to indulge a sadistic impulse toward those vile twat-waffles (or whatever they are calling children these days). Nor would I suggest that the girl should have been killed and tested as a measure to prevent food poisoning in the meerkats -- that's just fucked up.

This post here, however, really takes the cake: "look at me, I'm a delusional twit who thinks he's a mad scientist! Watch me claim to be creating a handheld abortion ray, and watch my fellow freetards swallow my batshit hook, line, and sinker! Watch me in amazement, as I demonstrate my complete ignorance on topics such as radiation poisoning! And best of all, watch our favorite batshit freetard tiger(self-cleaning-anus)wolf place an order for a bunch of them!"

Yeah. Because everyone who views a fetus as anything other than a parasite is obviously delusional, and needs to have an abortion forced on them for their own good. You see, this is why reasonably sane people such as myself are ashamed to call ourselves "childfree" in public, despite having no interest in procreating.

(Yes, I'm perfectly aware that xombie is probably joking. I don't give a shit. Even if this is a joke, the stench of stupid is overwhelming.)

Up until very recently, my exposure to the wild, weird world of polyamory was limited to a few kinds of people: some of the coolest people I know practice it, but then again, so do some of the most pretentious shitbags I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. (At least when I sleep around, I don't pretend I'm more spiritually evolved for doing it, and I don't look down my nose at people who don't.) Aside from that, I knew relatively little about it.

(I've actually been invited into it by a few people, but for various reasons, I've refused. Partly out of fear of ending up in over my head, but also partly because I've been afraid I'd damage an existing relationship by becoming involved in it. And yes, both of these have happened.)

Lately, I've had a chance to talk with a few friends who happen to practice it. For one thing, I'm surprised to discover just how many people I know are doing it (successfully, at that). For another, I'm surprised that at least two of said polyamorous friends said they would use that term to describe my own sexual practices. (Or at least, what they know of my sexual practices. My insistence on keeping certain details secret borders on Victorian -- or maybe just neurotic.)

I don't quite see the resemblance, but I guess I can see why they do -- both lifestyles tend to have the same required reading. I think I'll stick with the term "slut" for myself. It's simpler that way -- polyamory seems to be the one sexual lifestyle that's even more complicated than "sleeping around a lot."

(There was a panel at BayCon on the subject. I'd wanted to attend it, but I went to another discussion instead. One of the frustrating things about BayCon -- or any convention, for that matter -- is that it's impossible to actually do everything that you'd like to do there.)

My current attitude towards reincarnation is, well, meh. To quote Heinlein, there's no evidence for it -- but there's no evidence against it either, and one day, I will know. Sure, I could summon my share of healthy curiosity if I wanted... but if my only means of researching the matter is to see if I come back after dying, then hopefully you'll forgive me if I'm in no hurry to do the research.

So, let's just treat the following speculations as ideas being pulled mostly out of my ass -- and sometimes, other people's asses, as I know I've discussed this with at least three other people.

( Let the rectal data-extraction begin! )

( Seven things that [blank]... )

Seven People I'd like to see answer these questions
(And who possibly haven't been tagged by this meme yet):

1. trogula
   
2. hilarypoet
   
3. farmount
   
4. caprine
   
5. agilebrit
   
6. gtonizuka
   
7. drave117
   

I got to help a friend celebrate his twenty-fifth last night. Was lots of fun, and oddly educational, too. I learned, among other things...

I am a giggly and affectionate drunk.

This surprised me a bit. Back when I was drinking in Junior High and High School, I was an asshole drunk with shades of drunken lech. This is why it took my friends a little coaxing to get me to take a drink. After one drink, I cautiously had another, and another... and before long, I was bobbing and weaving. And bouncing up and down like Tigger, if you can imagine someone drunk doing that. I was also hugging anyone and everyone who'd stand still long enough, near the end of my time at the party.

Election nights and visits to the Whiskeytarians aside, this is the first time I've gotten drunk in years. The last time before this what what prompted me to stop drinking. (Well, it was more going up to a guy on the football team, and telling him I'd fucked his girlfriend and she said I was better, that prompted me to stop drinking... but I would not have done that sober. I'd like to hope, anyway -- I was a seriously self-destructive shit at the time.) This time, I was hugging old friends and people I'd just met who might soon become old friends. Even more interestingly, I didn't rudely proposition anyone there.

Considering that alcohol has a way of washing away inhibitions, it was a nice surprise to discover that I'm not such a bad guy when I'm drunk. I don't plan to test this regularly, but as a one-time thing, it was a nice thing to learn.


Nickelback has more than two songs.

Yeah, this one shocked the hell out of me, too. Before now, I'd only heard two songs by them: "Someday," and that fucking whiny "This is How You Remind Me," and they don't even count as two distinct songs. (Google "how you remind me of someday" if you don't believe me.) Having actually heard an album worth of Nickelback... I can't say I like it, but it's tolerable.


I may be losing my Music Snob license...

I really ought to hate Lords of Acid. Their music is repetitive and formulaic, and was obviously written by someone who thinks that hammering a single key on a QWERTY keyboard makes you a musician. Their lyrics try to be shocking and offensive, and manage only puerile:

"Darling, come he-ere,
fuck me up the EENK! EENK! EENK!
EENK ENK-ENK-EENK! EENK! EENK!"

Sung to the tune of "Ring around the Rosie." Ooh, how clever. How Lenny fucking Bruce.

Basically, Lords of Acid, along with Mindless Self-Indulgence, are everything I hate in popular music all in one convenient package, and yet, I love them so! "I wanna see your pussy, show it to me! Let me see your pussy, show it to me! Show me your..."

Aw, dammit. Now I have that song stuck in my head!

Holidays have whatever power you give them.

I'm saying this because I've seen a lot of people accepting Valentine's Day with absolute sincerity and perfect devotion. I've seen just as many who consider Valentine's day the darling cash cow of Hallmark and FTD, an opportunity for women to emotionally blackmail men into giving them presents, an opportunity for men to try to bribe women into giving them blowjobs, and finally, a reminder to give romance the only attention it will receive all year. (You guys may have noticed a kind of cynicism in my first post on the subject, followed by whooping and cheering barely more than twelve hours later. If I offer any explanation for that 180° turn, it will be f-locked, and hidden behind an LJ-cut with warnings... but chances are, you've already guessed.)

The funny thing is, you're all right. Yes, all of you.

Valentine's Day, for better or worse, exists. Each of you can follow it, fight it, or subvert it as you see fit. It does not have to be about how much money your florist can con you out of, and even if it is, since when is romance dependent on a florist? Or chocolate? Massage costs nothing. Knowing how to cook costs nothing. If you're inclined to be romantic on this day, go all out -- if you think romance has to be expensive, that says more about your lack of imagination than it does about romance.

If you're resentful of this Holiday, well, being single and getting together with a bunch of other single friends for a "fuck Valentine's Day" party costs nothing... unles you decide that one of the party games will be gutting Lotsaheart Care Bears, in which case it might get a little expensive. But still, get together with friends. Make jokes about how the initials for Valentine's Day can also stand for "Venereal Disease." Describe Valentine's Day as "that time of the year" in the same long-suffering tone used to talk about someone's period. What's Hallmark going to do, call the police? What's FTD going to do, send ninjas? I've been to a few of these -- they're a lot of fun (if a bit mean-spirited), and I highly recommend them.

The day belongs to you, just as much as it belongs to starry-eyed lovers. Have fun with it. Even if you hate the Powers That Be in marketing for taking over this day, don't let them steal it from you entirely.

My gods, I was a cynical asshole in that last post.

Sorry, guys, I can't help it. Valentine's Day, like Christmas, is one of those days that popular culture has tried to shit on and turn into a cash cow. This is a shame, because when you put the marketing aside, like Christmas, it's a really fuckin' great holiday!

I'll remember that, in the future.

Step One: Get rid of the blatant propagandists

Round one: Michael Moore and Sean Hannity. Give them both boxing gloves, and let them beat the hell out of each other until one or the other is dead or in a coma. If Hannity dies first -- likely, given that Moore has a significant weight advantage -- replace him with another vocal conservative who cares more about polemics than about facts... say, Ann Coulter. If Moore dies -- likely, given that Hannity will have tired him out a bit, and I have a suspicion that Coulter fights dirty -- replace him as above, but replace "conservative" with "liberal," and replace "Coulter" with one of those names hated by conservatives everywhere. Al Franken, perhaps. I don't know -- I'm not conservative. And so on.

I'm not even going to suggest we get rid of all of them -- just enough of them to guarantee that we won't hear the words "cut his mike" when we get to steps two and three. Besides, watching that series of fights will provide immediate entertainment for the rest of us, followed by a touch of nausea, which can only help the debate along.


Step Two: About your delusions of superiority...

If I may speak generally for a moment, both liberals and conservatives are guilty of assuming that the opposite side is beneath them. Those on the left have a habit of assuming that they are more intelligent, and that all conservatives must be so stone stupid that they have to be told to breathe periodically, or they'll forget and then die. Those on the right have a habit of assuming that they are more moral, and that all liberals are morally bankrupt bisexual zoophiles who sacrifice babies to ancient Sumerian gods with Lovecraftian names.

Keep these delusions close to your heart, if you must -- I'm sure they'll keep you warm. But keep them out of debate. Saccharine condescension can end a rational discussion faster than insults.


Step Three: Try listening, for a change!

Chances are, the people on the other side have good reasons for feeling the way they do on certain issues, and these reasons are legitimate issues that to be addressed. It's just as possible that the people on the other side have ignorant prejudices that they've always mistaken for good reasons, and these prejudices need to be shot down. Either way, you won't know unless you actually pay attention.

High school kids on forensics teams manage it -- surely, you can.

For about a week, I've been inexplicably in a very bad mood -- I'd say I was depressed, except that I have a friend learning about depression lately, and my current funk doesn't qualify.

I have no way of dealing with the cause, since I have no idea what's making me feel like this -- as far as I can tell, nothing is making me feel like this. I'm remembering plenty of old grudges I thought I'd buried... but that's not the cause of my current mood, that's a result. The simple truth is that there is no reason I should be feeling like total shit.

I hate this. Sure, I'm not always offensively cheerful, but I'm generally stable and agreeable, moodwise. Even when I'm angry, I can usually enjoy my anger. I'm not supposed to be Eeyore. To be Eeyore is bad enough, but to be Eeyore, when I'm usually Tigger -- when I'm used to thinking of myself as Tigger -- hurts.

Since I can't fix the cause, I've been working on the symptoms. Aside from visiting close friends, I've recently purchased the first three Girl Genius books, which are wonderful. I can't wait for the fourth to come out, early next year. Well, actually, yes I can. But only because I have to, and because Foglio publishes a page at a time online. I've also been listening to classical a lot more lately; some of the really depressing stuff is oddly uplifting. (Rachmaninov and Gorecki are terrific for this. As much as I dearly love Shostakovich, I don't think I can handle him right now.)

(Comments are screened. If you feel compelled to give me a kick in the ass, trust your own instincts.)

Dreaming in black...

Since I've been sleeping poorly for the last few days (and oddly enough, meth has nothing to do with it), I've been hanging out online a bit too much, looking for bizarre shit...


Oh my gay thtarth!

Cho Aniki is, without doubt, the gayest video game on the fucking planet. And please note that I do not mean "gay" as in a word used by retarded high-school aged boys to mean "bad." I mean "gay" as in, well, gay. As in gay, adjective, "of, or pertaining to, men fucking each other in the ass."


Check this shit out!

From:Dennis Thompson(Esq) 23,Fabian Height Crescent, Pretoria,South Africa Dear Mr/Mrs ██████████,                       I am Dennis Thompson a solicitor at law. I am the Personal Attorney to Mr. Charles ██████████,who has lived in Zimbabwe for the past fifty years, and whom here in after shall be referred to as my client. In April 2002 , my client, was involved in crisis between the white farmers and the the government of Mr.Robert Mugabe . He lost his life during the crisis when the president wanted to disposses them of their farm lands.I am contacting you to assist in repatriating most especially,the money left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged.Particularly, the bank where the deceased had an account valued at about USD9,000,000 (Nine million United States Dollars) has issued me a notice to provide the Next of kin, or have the account confiscated since they aware of his death. I seek your consent to present you as the Next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at 9 million dollars can be paid to you, as my clients Next of Kin, and then we can share the amount on a mutual agreed percentage.All legal documents toback up your claim as the deceased Next of Kin, will be provided. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with me, to enable us discuss further about this transaction. Best regards, Dennis Thompson(Esq)

Isn't this just adorable? I just want to reach through the internet and squeeze this baby scammer's plump little cheeks! Maybe he'll grow up to be a real scam artist one day!