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.

And on that note, I present Scrooge Defended. It's either a perfect example of why the Libertarian point of view is complete bullshit, or a brilliant piece of satire intended to illustrate that the Libertarian point of view is complete bullshit. I suspect that if I hadn't known some armchair libtards, I'd likely know for sure -- as it is, I could go either way.

I haven't seen New Moon, nor read the book, but I'm going to comment on it anyway.

"Was it better or worse than Twilight?"

I like New Moon much better than the first movie. For one thing, it probably doesn't have James in it. As a result, I'm not likely to have Twilight fangirls coming up to me commenting on how much I look like him. It's not that I object to being told there's a resemblance, per se -- by all accounts, Cam Gigandet is a hunk, and if someone says I look like him, I'll certainly accept that as a compliment. The part I object to is that nearly all of the girls cooing at me and occasionally making very bold passes at me were HALF MY AGE!

I'm in my mid-thirties, for fuck's sake. You kids should be asking me what it was like to live in caves and hunt mammoths, not dropping unsubtle hints that you want... well, I'm not going there. It's bad enough you went there. Well, now you all can go after Taylor Lautner, who, like you, is also underage.

Ahem. Sorry. I've been biting my tongue on that rant for a while now.

With that out of the way... I can't comment much on the story, much as I loathe this series of books. Sorry, I still haven't read them, and I still don't plan to. Sometime, I really should make a new icon. "Everything I know about Twilight, I learned from stoney321."

(Seriously, why do they keep letting Twatlight fangirls come up with writer's block questions?)

Roman Polanski is clearly a great director. There. I've said it.

Having gotten that token acknowledgment of his artistic merit out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks. He plied a thirteen-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol, and raped her. He admitted it, in court. Well, he admitted the statutory rape in court, mostly to avoid all the more serious charges he was facing.

I realize that many news services are saying he "had sex with her." Bull, fucking, and shit. He was in his forties, she was thirteen. The term sex should not even be used in the same sentence as Polanski's name, with respect to this incident. The correct terms are "rape," "child molestation," and "pedophilia." Harsh terms? Hell yes. He could have avoided having these terms applied to him by, I don't know, perhaps not being a dirty old man who drugged and raped a child?

I also realize that his victim wants to put this all behind her, to the extent of not wanting him to be further prosecuted, and all of Polanski's apologists are saying things like "let's respect her wishes and not lock him up." Let's ignore, for the moment, the likelihood that they probably wouldn't be so eager to "respect her wishes" if she wanted to castrate the sick fucker with rusty garden shears -- this isn't just about her anymore. Child molestation is one of the most reviled crimes there is. We, as a society, are rightly sickened by it. By encoding our disgust for child molestation into criminal law, we've taken on the obligation of dealing with people who perpetrate it. We aren't magically let off the hook because it happened thirty years ago¹, or because he's such a gifted artist, or because the victim has moved on.

Further, perpetrators don't just stop. Certain criminals, like pedophiles and other rapists, tend to keep doing it until they're forcibly stopped.

I hope he gets his ass nailed to a wall. And sadly, it appears I'm in the minority -- a wide variety of film industry movers and shakers, actors, actresses, and even political figures are defending him. What the fuck is wrong with all you people?

(By the way, I doubt that I really have to say this, but just in case? Please don't defend him here. Judging from prior controversies in my LJ, I feel safe in saying that you'll get torn to pieces for it -- and not only will I do nothing to stop it, I'll probably join in. If you absolutely must defend that scumbag, do it in your own LJ.)

---



1. A lot of people unfamiliar with the details of this case or US legal procedure might wonder about things like a statute of limitations. That doesn't apply here. It could conceivably apply if he'd managed to evade arrest and criminal charges for thirty years -- or not; I don't know what statute of limitations exists, if any, for this particular crime. He didn't evade justice, though. He pleaded guilty, clearly hoping for a token punishment, and ran like hell when it became clear he could actually get prison time.
   

I know I'm late to this party, but I'd like to say a few words about George Sodini. Well, actually, I'd like to say a lot of words about him, but I imagine that ten or so pages of "stupid fucking hateful fucking fucker who should have fucked himself fucking sideways with a giant fucking cactus fucking fucking fuck" would get really tedious to read in a hurry, so I'll try to keep that to a minimum.

I hate this stupid bastard so much I'm having to stare at my keyboard and struggle for words to describe it adequately. This scumbag is every loathsome aspect of all those "Nice Guys™" who think they're owed pussy by hot women (and only hot women) half their age, exaggerated to such a degree that if he hadn't just gunned down a bunch of women during their aerobics class, he'd actually be pretty damned funny, in a "hah hah, look at the clueless loser" sort of way. He's the perfect example of the creepy shitstain who couldn't get laid in a Nevada brothel even if he had a roll of hundred-dollar-bills wrapped around his dick. He's a small, pathetic, useless excuse for a human being, so much so that he decided that becoming a monster was a step up.

The more I read about him, and the more I read his diary, the more I hate him. I've been reading about how he was reading books by pick-up artist douchewhistles who clearly want to be Tom Leykis. How he felt personally affronted by the fact that there are 30 million desirable women, none of whom would have sex with him. (There are actually over 150 million females in this country, but I'm forced to assume he decided only 1 in 5 were worthy.) How he envied his neighbor for having an pretty young thing living with him, never mind the fact that said pretty young thing was his neighbor's daughter. How he hated black guys for getting all the white chicks and thereby making it even more impossible for him to get laid.

And most of all, I've been reading about all the sympathy he's been getting. I've been reading about how if he only knew the love of a good woman, or if he only learned some game, or if he could have gotten laid, all this could have been averted -- as if his involuntary celibacy is somehow an excuse for shooting up a bunch of strangers at a gym. I'm remembering that vile "suck a dick, save a life" meme that was making the rounds shortly after the Virginia Tech massacre, and wondering how long it will be until I see it again.

I hate this scumbag's attitude about there being a magic bullet for getting laid, whether it's a book like Date Young Women: For Men Over 35, or being black -- because all black men have big dicks, dontcha know? I have everything about him, and I hate all those faceless people on the internet who sympathize with him. He doesn't fucking deserve it. I'll save my sympathy for the real victims in this incident. You know, the ones who were minding their own business when some psychopath decided to start shooting at them.

Once upon a time, I was really enamored of satellite radio. Not enamored enough to subscribe to it myself, mind, but it seemed like such a huge improvement over AM/FM. When customers asked me about Sirius, I used to describe it as being "a lot like regular radio, if regular radio didn't suck." I was impressed by the metal station, which regularly managed to come up with bands I'd never heard, and by the classical stations, which actually played the Eighth Symphony by Shostakovich. (The Eighth is excellent, but it's dark and depressing, and not exactly radio-friendly.) Even the pop stations managed to surprise me, frequently in good ways. And best of all, even individual stations had a lot of variety, unlike AM/FM stations which each tend to pick about fifteen songs and play them over and over and over. (Fuck you very much, ClearChannel.)

Then, Sirius and XM merged. Then, a while later, we were given a new list of approved radio stations at work. Then, satellite radio -- at least, this one approved station -- started blowing goats with great enthusiasm.

In related news, a rant.

I'm sick of that stupid "gives you hell, it gives you hell, it gives you hell" song. I'm sick of the Fray, and their whiny-ass "how to save a life" song, and all their other equally-whiny-ass songs. I'm sick of how O.A.R. can "always turn the car around." I'm sick of that one Three Doors Down song, asking "will you let me be myself," which I've also come to associate with breathtakingly stupid car insurance ads. I'm sick of Avril Lavigne.

"I would like to see the whiny bitch decapitated!
It would give me joy to see the brat defenestrated!
And she whines, and she wails,
and she moans, and she groans,
and her lyrics are total shit,
and I wonder how the hell she got so fucking overrated!"

I'm sick of hearing each of these songs at work every day, every three or four hours. I'm even sick of Pink, and considering how much I liked the song "Sober" before our satellite station drove it into the ground, that's saying a lot.

But most of all, I'm sick of Katy Perry. "I kissed a girl, and I liked it!" Yeah, whatever. Jill Sobule also kissed a girl once, and she has more talent in her pinky than Katy Perry will ever possess. You want edgy? I'd be more impressed if a band like Pansy Division performed it -- that would turn some heads, and get people talking! Or, if you'd rather not give heteronormativity the small victory of having gay guys singing about kissing girls and liking it, we could write a gay version in the opposite direction:

"I fucked a dude, and I liked it.
He was tall, dark, strong and hairy.
I fucked a dude, and I liked it.
He was better than Katy Perry..."

We could get a band with a bisexual frontman, like Green Day, to perform it. Or maybe David Bowie might be willing to sing it. That would be awesome!

It's not that I have anything against bisexuals, or screwing outside one's orientation. Believe me, I don't, and I'd be a gigantic hypocrite if I did. It's just that the song is so fucking bad. She tries so hard to be "daring" and "edgy," and in truth she's about as edgy as two cute drunk chicks kissing in front of a horde of drunk cheering fratboys.

On the other hand, the power metal version of the song is pretty damned amusing, and it's a huge improvement over the original. (Thank you, matrexius.)

I'm one of those people who, for most of his life, has been effortlessly skinny. (Lately, it's taking a little effort, but that's mostly because I'm not in my twenties anymore, and I can't drink two or three liters of Mountain Dew every day like I could back then.) I'm also not a doctor or dietician. This means that I'm not qualified to comment on obesity. For the most part, I'm aware of this, and aside from my vocal hatred of the fast food industry, I generally keep my mouth shut. There are certain medical conditions that have been tied to obesity, and at times I do worry about my obese friends, but again, I keep my mouth shut, if for no reason beyond figuring that they know these risks better than I do.

However, despite my complete lack of qualifications, I feel safe in saying a few things:

• Psoriasis is not even remotely weight-related.
  
  
• Failing to hate your body if you're fat does not count as NPD or BPD.
  
  
• PCOS is not an imaginary disease invented by fat women. It actually does exist.
  
  
• Clinical Depression can not be instantly cured by losing weight.
  
  
• Eye problems are not caused by obesity. Nor are migraines.

There's more. Much more. I suppose there's a certain irony in the fact that I will be using this as gym fuel later, but I'm doing that because these days, pushing myself harder at the gym is my usual reaction to anger. Some guys have personal trainers -- I have a friend who sends me news articles and blog posts that piss me off.

The late George Tiller's clinic is closed, and Operation Rescue has expressed an interest in buying the building. I want to write about how angry I am about this, but at the moment, the only way I can do that is by typing the word "fuck" several hundred times in caps, with lots of exclamation points.

Let me be clear about this: I am not angry at Tiller's family or colleagues over this. It's easy to say things like "we will not negotiate with terrorists," especially if you're not the one who has to deal with them. Tiller was far braver than any doctor should ever have to be, and his family have lost far more than they should have had to.

The fact is, Wichita (and a rather large area around it) is now without abortion services. What I am angry about is that this sends a message to the aforementioned terrorists: abortion will go away if you harrass and shoot enough people.

And yet, abortion is still necessary. As long as rape, incest, and child molestation exist, there will be a need. As long as contraceptives have a failure rate, there will be a need. As long as teenagers have limited access to contraceptives and limited education about sex, there will be a need. As long as pregnancy comes with risks of health complications, there will be a need. As long as women are capable of getting pregnant before they consider themselves ready to become mothers, there will be a need.

And yet, do you see any of the pro-liar activists addressing any of these issues? Of course not. Yelling at women about how they're going to burn in Hell is more fun. Sure, some of them claim to care for feti, and some of them even have instruction manuals on how it's necessary to do things like feign compassion for pregnant women to be taken seriously, but it's all an act.

There is no common ground on the abortion debate. Either you believe that a woman's body belongs to her, or you don't. Either you believe that a living woman is of greater value than a clump of cells, or you don't. The closest thing that exists to common ground is the hope that abortion might be less needed if we do... well, we can't even agree on that.

If these assholes really cared about reducing abortions, they'd be supporting sex education in schools, and they'd be delighted that people are actually using birth control. As it is, they're trying to keep kids ignorant, based on the assumption that if kids don't know anything about sex, and are told not to do it until they get married, they won't do it -- and anyone who's ever known teenagers should know this doesn't work. They're going into pharmacy with the intent of making it harder to get birth control pills. They're working as nurses at clinics and yanking out women's IUDs.

They're not interested in the welfare of women, and their interest in the welfare of feti doesn't extend much past the day they're born. What they want is to see women punished for having sex. Go to a clinic sometime, and just watch the protesters. You won't see much concern for life of any sort there, just contempt for those evil whores who got pregnant. Perhaps there's some subtlety or nuance to "you had a choice: don't screw" that I'm missing...

...and all ten of them are complete bullshit. They're a very nice try -- none of them use that "sanctity of marriage" crap, and a few of them try to co-opt the language of equality and nondiscrimination... but they're all still complete bullshit.

Reasons 1, 2, 3, and 8 are all conditions that exist within marriage as a whole, and are in no way unique to any marriage contract that a gay person might enter into. Reasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9 are all based on the assumption that a married couple is somehow obligated to have children, and that any married couple that doesn't have children is "cheating the system." Reasons 4, 5, and 6 might as well have been written by that stupid bint on The Simpsons who screeches "won't someone PLEASE think of the children," dressed up to look like actual arguments. Reasons 6 and 7 are based on the assumption that being gay is somehow intrinsically wrong. And reason 10 is a badly-applied slippery slope. (While I suspect we'll one day see group marriage, I'm pretty sure that coming up with a legally workable version of it is going to be a monster headache -- it'll be legally closer to a corporation than to what we currently think of as marriage. But I digress.)

Translation: "WAAAAAAAA! We liked being able to treat them faggots as subhuman, and we can't anymore! Can't you let us keep them from getting married? You've already taken from us the right to stone them or fire them for being queer, isn't that enough for you? Now you don't want to let us keep marriage for ourselves! That's all we have left! Can't you see that's ALL WE HAVE LEFT!"

(Yeah, I know. I've likened the anti-same-sex-marriage crowd to whining infants before. Tell you what. When they stop behaving like spoiled children who are crying because that kid they don't like wants to be able to go into the store and buy the same lollipops they have, I'll stop treating them accordingly.)

For everyone who's ever been in a comic shop -- and especially for everyone who's ever worked in one:

THE WRATH OF CAT PISS MAN

When did I completely forget that there's this stuff you can drink called water?

And why am I having to remind myself constantly that it not only exists, but is the cheapest beverage there is? I've recently realized that, while I've successfully kicked Mountain Dew (yet again), I've replaced it with other non-caffeinated soft drinks (mostly fruit juices), and unless I consciously decide not to, I drink them to the exclusion of water without a thought. And I suspect I'm not alone in this. In fact, I suspect that most of us do this.

And when the fuck did High Fructose Corn Syrup get into everything? Has it always been this way? Even in drinks that call themselves "fruit juice," there's HFCS. I can understand why cranberry juice has sweeteners in it -- anyone who's tasted raw cranberries, which are actually rather bitter, can understand that -- but even fruit juices that you'd think are plenty sweet on their own still include HFCS, apparently because HFCS is cheaper than real grape juice. Hell, in all kinds of processed food, even food that you wouldn't think of as sweet in a million years, there's HFCS.

I don't care what ads like this say about it: it's not the same as sugar, and unlike the patsies in those ads, I'm not being paid to stammer like an idiot on camera, so I can explain why. Table sugar (sucrose) is a more complex molecule requiring your body to produce an enzyme (sucrase) to digest it. As a result, there's a limit to how quickly you can absorb it, and it will trigger that mechanism in your body that tells your brain that you're full. HFCS is very easily digestible, so none of this applies. It may be "made from corn," but they process the shit out of it, using a variety of nasty chemicals that tend to remain in HFCS in trace amounts. And while it may be "fine in moderation," moderation is a little difficult when your stomach doesn't tell your brain to stop eating it, and it doesn't help that manufacturers in this country use it in just about everything!

(Yes, there are studies to the contrary, claiming that HFCS is perfectly safe. Most of them, if not all of them, were paid for by corn refiners.)

I'm tempted to write a short science fiction story about it, perhaps one in which HCFS has infiltrated every processed food product there is, and as a result is slowly taking over people's brains and turning them into zombies. It would be a bit too much like The Stuff, though, which is why I'll probably never write it. (This story is up there with my story about a much nastier variant of Toxoplasma gondii, or some other behavior-altering parasite, existing in bacon -- it amuses me to think about, but I'll never actually write that one, either.)

...grrr.

Don't mind me. I'm just pissy because I have the beginnings of a six-pack, and figure that if I cut down on the junk food, I can probably get the rest of the way there fairly easily -- and believe me, I expect no sympathy for this. Unfortunately, I've also concluded that nearly any beverage beyond water, milk, tea, or black coffee counts as junk food, and I've been consuming a lot more of it than I thought. And dammit, I really like cranberry juice.

Dear Bush,

Normally, I don't believe in that pro-liar myth that claims that loose women deliberately get knocked up and then have abortions just because they like killing teh por defesnless unformed babby, but if I were a woman, I'd make a point of having sex without condoms in November, just so that I could have an abortion on January 18th. And not just one January 18th -- every January 18th. And I'd do it just for you, scumbag -- I'd even name the soon-to-be-removed clump of tissue after you.

Fuck you, and fuck your rhetoric. If you truly gave a shit about human life, you wouldn't have started a war on trumped-up evidence for personal reasons -- you don't get to claim to respect the "Sanctity of Human Life" after pulling that kind of bullshit.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

---

Dear Sylvia Olona,

It's people like you that make me hope that a certain so-called "conscience clause" gets shoved very far up the rectal openings of the people who wrote it, especially when people like you think that claiming that it's your right to have a conscience should let you get away with "accidentally" removing several women's IUDs and then lecturing them on their birth control methods. I hope you get your ass sued off, I hope you get sacked, and I hope you never work in medicine again. Hell, I hope you never even find work as an elementary school nurse.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

(First news link stolen from tomecatti. The second was stolen from ms_daisy_cutter, but has also appeared twice in cf_hardcore.)

This entry, aside from the math-geek introduction, is about shock sites. Do not click any link you see here if you value your eyes. You have been warned.


Way way back in High School Calculus class, I discovered these things called derivatives.

For those of you unfamiliar, for any function f(x), there is a derivative function f'(x), which tells you the slope of the curve at any given point x on the function f(x). If you have a teacher who insists that you plot functions, derivatives are very useful. For instance, without a derivative, if you have to draw, say f(x) = 3x² + 4x + 8, you have to find roots, and if the function doesn't have any, you're stuck laboriously plotting one point at a time. With a derivative, in this case f'(x) = 6x + 4, it's a whole lot easier: where f'(x) = 0, the curve levels out (in this case, x = -2/3), and once you've got the center of a parabola plotted, the rest is a breeze.

This was all very well and good, until we got to the function f(x) = e^x. My calculus teacher asked us where the critical points were on that, and after much arguing and fruitless skullsweat, she walked us through the equations, and we learned something new: this function was its own derivative. There was no point at which it ceased to be small and started to be big. It just looked that way because we were looking at it on a given scale, and if you change the scale, the function shifts.

Exponential functions are like that. They sneak up on us. A tiny number doubles and doubles and doubles, becoming only slightly less tiny, until suddenly it becomes monstrously huge... but its growth has been consistent all along, and it's only because humans tend to think on a certain scale that it seems sudden.

Now, to change the subject a bit... remember when Goatse was considered hardcore?

As I type this, the image at goatse is safe for work, though it clearly alludes to the original... but even the original image -- a man holding his gaping asshole wide open -- is considered tame, even quaint. Tubgirl used to be considered off the scale as far as revolting images go, but now it's passe. Lemon party? Puh-lease. Like old people never have sex, and like all gay men are pretty twenty-somethings?

These days, it seems new shock sites spring up every week. Some of them are really old, but are just now getting new exposure, like Egg Chute. Some are actually new, like 2 girls 1 cup or 4 girls fingerpaint or 2 girls 1 finger or 2 fingers 1 cock. Not all of the new shock sites use the x noun y noun formula, though -- like Touch my Wii or Eel girl. And all of these make Goatse look downright pleasant by comparison.

Then, there's the current worst thing I've ever seen, which is 1 guy 1 jar. (I say current because I'm sure it's only going to be a matter of time before something worse comes along, though I shudder to even guess what. I can only say that if the current trend holds, within two years there will be an image so vile it will instantly kill all who look at it.)

Oh, and in the meantime, the internet (and the scum and villainy that dwell on it) continue to crank out goatse-level shock sites, despite the fact that there are much worse things out there. Bananas, for instance. (I'd include meatspin, hammer time, big bag, and all the other videos on that network, but for some reason, it refuses to load. I'm guessing it has bandwidth issues, which implies that a lot of people are watching it. And if that doesn't frighten you...!)

(If you could, try to imagine me with a voice like Don LaFontaine for this post.)

This winter! Coming to a theater near you! A movie so horrifying...

(Voiceover, female: "You loser! You've destroyed my life!") (Insert sound of shattering vase.)

...so terrifying...

("Just look at my hair, look at my nails! You loser, you jerk, you nobody!")

...that you'll be scared out of your wits!

("We are being targeted by women on the fence between leaving their husbands who are on the brink of losing their wealth, and wanting to meet someone extremely rich straight away.")

This winter, you...

("This movie has everything: teh evul gold-digging whores, teh poor abused menz, loveless marriages, shouting matches, fisticuffs, and awkward demands for sympathy for the money problems of people a million times richer than us!" -- Roger Ebert)

...and your wallet...

(Voiceover, Ian McKellan: "Mr. Laurio, never trust a beautiful woman. Especially one who’s interested in you.")

...are being hunted, by...

("Dun dun dun!")

THE TOXIC WIFE!

(Rated R. Men with net worth over 17 million not admitted without a lawyer.)


Sorry, I saw this news article (if you care to call it that), and had to get a little dramatic. But even with all drama aside, I'm posting this for fun. Considering how hard the recession is hitting all us regular working stiffs, to say nothing of the poor, I find it a little difficult to sympathize with someone whose net worth dropped from nine figures to eight: even if they've lost three quarters of their wealth or more, they still have more money than most of us will ever see. Nor am I likely to sympathize with these guys for losing their wives -- at a guess, they were buying a pretty thing to hang on their arm, and they knew it on some level. If their net worth hadn't sunk, they'd no doubt eventually trade her in for a younger model anyway...

Seriously. Why is the personal plight of the obscenely rich even news?

Dear Motorola, Sanyo, Samsung, LG, et cetera,

Once upon a time, most of you used the same kind of connection for wired earpieces: a three-conductor plug, 2.5 mm in diameter. Granted, Nokia just haaaad to be different for a while and use a four-conductor plug, but even they eventually adopted the three-conductor TRS standard.

Then, Bluetooth came along, and you shitheads figured that standards are for wussie wusses. First, Motorola. When you assholes made the RAZR, you decided to use the mini-USB jack not only to charge your phone, but as a receptacle for the earpiece -- an earpiece only you carried. Then, the other companies followed your lead, and now, half of the phones in my shop have proprietary earpiece connections.

Sure, they do Bluetooth, which is admittedly a common standard now. Not everyone likes Bluetooth. Every day, I get customers who are afraid that using Bluetooth earpieces will give them earpiece-shaped brain tumors. Personally, I don't believe it, but what I believe is irrelevant -- enough people do believe it, and no number of studies showing otherwise will convince them that Bluetooth is safe. People still want their wired earpieces, and they don't want to have to order them.

You had an already-existing standard that was conventient for everyone, and then you took it out behind the barn and shot it in the head. "Ha ha, if you want a wired earpiece, you'll have to come to us for it, because we're the only ones who have it, and we can charge as much as we want for it!"

Blow me, jerkwads.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

It's the most! Miserable tiiiiime of the year!
Must we put up with terrible
horrible caroling
Year after yeeeeeear!
It's the most! Miserable tiiiiime! Of the yeeeeear!

* * *

God save this grumpy gentleman,
at least till Christmas Day.
For all these fucking Christmas songs
are driving him insane.
They claim to play these songs in stores
to spread some Christmas joy,
But it's just a cheesy marketing ploy!
Marketing ploy!
But it's just a cheesy marketing ploy!

Dear fellow Californians,

We were supposed to be the cool state. You know, the one full of Liberals, the open-minded ones, the ones who felt all smug and superior to those "other states" full of people who still think that "nigger" is an appropriate form of address for a black person. "Oh, we're better than that," we'd say, as we pat ourselves on the back.

I'd better not hear any of that shit today, because while some of us do apparently get it, we're outnumbered by the same kind of bigot we make fun of other states for including -- and those bigots live in our state, too. Today, we are one of those "other states."

If you voted yes on 8, it's possible that you were horribly misled -- a lot of churches were lying their asses off about its content, and the intent of the people opposing it. (Isn't there something in the Bible about that, like, Exodus 20:16? I'm pretty sure that this counts as "bearing false witness.") More likely, you're a backward fucking bigot, and you're also a fucking crybaby who screams "oppression!" every time a gay person has the temerity to remind you that they actually do exist. You remind me of a spoiled child with a whole bunch of lollipops, who's just been told that he has to share a couple of them with "those other kids," and responded by throwing a fit -- and I want to take you over my knee with a belt and then throw all your lollipops down a sewer grate. You want something to cry about? There you go!

Yes, I'm taking this personally. Sure, I'm mostly straight, and I'm not the type to settle down and get married at all, let alone to a man, but I'm still just gay enough that I count as one of those people you view as less-than-human. Let me assure you, right now the feeling is fucking mutual.

I can hope that the California Supreme Court shoots 8 down. Hell, I can hope that the US Supreme Court will one day shoot it down. Still, the fact remains that we should have done the right thing on our own, and not enough of us did... and of course, you stupid bigot assholes in this state will no doubt go into your usual chant of "activist judges, activist judges," with a side order of "help, help, I'm being oppressed!" Never mind that you seem to have no problem with activist judges when they're just as ignorant and backward as you. Fucking hypocrites.

For those of you who recognized proposition 8 for what it was, and voted against it... let's not give up on fighting it. We lost this battle, but the war must continue. This bit of hatred that just got scotch-taped to our Constitution is a stain on our honor -- on all of our honor -- for as long as it remains there.

Sincerely,
flamingchords

Dear men,

Is it really that much trouble to put the damn toilet seat down after taking a leak?

---

Dear women,

Is it really that much trouble to check the position of the damn toilet seat before sitting down?

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Dear men and women,

It's just a toilet seat. It's not abortion, it's not gay marriage, it's not slavery, and it's not a tax increase. It's a fuckin' toilet seat. There are things that are worth this level of drama. Is a toilet seat really one of them?

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Dear mhael,

Wow. Issues with women, much?

A while ago, I decided that I would do my best to keep from getting too serious about the election in my LJ. In keeping with that...



(Stolen from ms_daisy_cutter.)

So, at work, we have this disc that we play on loop that's supposed to show off just how bloody amazing blu-ray DVDs are. I'll admit that the disc does the job, but the movies it uses are annoying the crap out of me.

First of all, Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story. Try to imagine Bill Murray, but painfully unfunny, and without the charm and smoldering good looks. Then cast him in a role halfway between the Beatles and Elvis, with all the fame and women -- especially women -- that implies.

(John C Reily is a lot like Norm MacDonald and Will Farrell. All three of them together are funnier than cancer only by the narrowest of margins, and yet movie producers keep hiring them. WHY???!!!???)

Next: Good Luck Chuck. Dane Cook is twice as funny as John C Reily, I'll give him that. This movie's comedic highlights include "ow, my nuts," "ow, my nuts," "lookit the fat girl eating hur hur," and just in case you missed it, "ow my nuts."

Saw IV: I almost liked this movie when I saw it in the theater. In all fairness, I was drunk at the time. (When I get home, I'll link to that from here.)

Across the Universe: Looks pretty but appears to made no damned sense.

I dunno about you guys, but this just makes me want to RUSH out and plunk down $400 for a blu-ray DVD player!