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March 19th, 2020
11:23 pm - Intro Page!!!
This is my front page. If you want me to add you, drop me a line here. Or, add me. Either way, I'll check you out. You can also drop me a line here if, for instance, you don't have my email address. All comments here are screened.
This post also includes 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 phone. I chose this style because, as bare-bones as it is, 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 LJ -- is for.
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May 24th, 2012
09:46 am - TV is bad. TV rots your brain. TV makes you hyper. Hitler watched TV.
This post is about more of my dips into pop culture through the idiot box. (The title is from an episode of Daria, in which Daria had to babysit two children who'd been perfectly indoctrinated by their parents. When she asked if there was any candy in the house, the children replied, "sugar is bad. Sugar rots your teeth. Sugar makes you hyper. Hitler ate sugar.")
The Weight of the Nation: A four-part HBO series on the obesity epidemic. Actually, I should be using the word "pandemic" here because it's the worst! possible! thing! (cue Rarity) and it's taking over the whole world, and the aliens who own Hulu are obviously fattening us up because they plan to eat our marbly tasty flesh and our fatty velvety livers as well as our soggy soupy brains. If you want to judge it for yourself, part one, part two, part three, and part four are all online. I considered taking one drink every time they use the phrases "obesity epidemic" or "body mass index" in this series, but I'm pretty sure that would lead to catastrophic liver failure. There is actually a lot of useful information in this series (the segments on food marketing, for instance), but it's floating on top of a drumbeat of doom, fat, doom, fat, doom, fat, doom, fat... no doubt with "fat" being played with two wire brushes on a badly tuned snare, and "doom" being played with a rubber mallet on a very large kettle. DOOOOOM. Ffffat. DOOOOOM. Ffffat. DOOOOOOOOM...
Fairly Legal: As anyone who's watched White Collar should have learned, you can put a conventionally heart-stoppingly-beautiful man in a really bad TV show, and the result is still... well, a really bad TV show. Likewise, Fairly Legal is a perfect example that a really bad TV show with a conventionally heart-stoppingly-beautiful woman in it is still a really bad TV show. There was this one ad they kept showing, where Ms. Hotstuff says, "Ben, Ben, Ben," and all I could think is "scenery, scenery, scenery, nom nom nom." I kinda want to see Sarah Shahi and Matt Bomer in a show together, just to see how bad it could get. I kinda imagine the scriptwriter thinking, "wow, I've got two hot leads. With their combined hotness to carry the show, I could write the script while stoned on enough pot to kill an elephant. In fact, I've always wanted to try that!"
L&O:SVU: dammit, my coworker loves this show, and it's still rape rape rape, rape rape-ity-mc-rape-rape, rape with a side of rape and rape dressing, holy crap is that River Song? It is! And she's playing a high-power lawyer defending a transwoman! Go River Go! Go River Go! Go River Go! Holy crap, I love this show! (Ahem. Sorry. I have no idea what just came over me. But yes, Alex Kingston did play a laywer in one episode, and yes, for five minutes I was squeeing over this damned show like a squeeing guy who squees. I could just picture River saying to The Doctor, "Hello, sweetie. I need the TARDIS to take me to this courthouse. A transwoman just tried to help a sweet little girl who was named a boy, but she went too far and now she needs me.") Having seen a few more episodes, I must grudgingly admit that SVU is well-written, though I'd still advise the easily-triggered to stay the hell away from it. One of the main characters gets raped at one point, and the writers could have taken the lazy way out and just left it at that -- they didn't. They showed how she was affected by it, for several episodes afterward, and they did it well enough that I cringed in places. (Did I mention that if you find rape triggery you should stay the hell away from this show? Just making sure.)
Todd and the Book of Pure Evil: beer and pretzels... but very good strong beer, and handmade pretzels. An idiot stoner metalhead saves the school in spite of himself (with the help of equally stupid best friend and his much-more clever female sidekicks), repeatedly, from the forces of (comically inept) darkness, with a soundtrack heavy on the metal. Fellow students discover that Monkey's Paw often applies to wishes like "I wish my dick were bigger" (resluting in a ten-foot-long cock demon that turns people to stone) or "I wish all these bullies knew what it was like to be gay like me" (the football team took that surprisingly well -- those of you who write slash may want to skip straight to episode four). The series has its problems, like its accurate depiction of High School being like a piranha tank and the students being the piranhas, but overall I love it, and I wonder how the hell I haven't heard of it before now. I hope Teh Joss never hears about this show. If he sees the all-musical episode "2 Girls 1 Tongue," he'll either love it, or sue everyone involved.
Ice Loves Coco: a reality TV show devoted to Ice-T and his wife, Jessica Rabbit. Okay, I tease, but really, look at Coco and look at Jessica Rabbit -- anyone could have made that mistake. It's like misattributing the line "give a man a mask, and he'll give you the truth" to Yukio Mishima. (This quote is in fact by Oscar Wilde -- Yukio Mishima is the writer who gave us Confessions of a Mask. Anyone could have made that mistake, too.) I find I don't have the heart to snark this show. This show is remarkably low on drama, and according to Wikipedia, these two have been married for ten years, and they still have these doofy smiles around each other. (When I first saw it, I was surprised to see Ice-T with a smile at all -- this was the first time I'd seen him even hint at being capable of it. You know how certain scruffy people are said to clean up well? Ice-T smiles up well.) They've found that happiness that our culture says is waiting for us all, but that relatively few of us ever see in real life. I can't mock that.
Basketball Wives: yet another reality show with women treating each other like shit and then becoming enraged that they're not getting respected. Like Bad Girls Club, Basketball Wives should be airing on Spike, with a name like "Bitches be Crazy, so you should just give up and watch ESPN all day and pornos all night." Or maybe it could air on Logo, with a name like "Bitches be Crazy, aren't you glad you fuck dudes?" (Actually, I'm being unfair here. For all I know, Logo caters to lesbians as well as it caters to gay men. I just won't assume it -- I've encountered too many gay men for whom women don't exist. Anyone here still remember ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tiger(self-cleaning-anus)wolf?) And yet, it's airing on Oxygen, which is supposed to be a network for women, but saying that this shit is "for women" is like pushing Lifetime as entertainment for... oh, yeah. Never mind. (Strangely, Lifetime seems not to market itself that way anymore. I know this because they show Grey's Anatomy, and thanks to my psych-major collegaue at work, I'm seeing a lot of Lifetime in the back room at work. Sadly, I'm starting to get drawn into it. In some future "shows I've been suffering through" post, I'll no doubt have more to say about it.)
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XP: LJ ← DW
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May 18th, 2012
11:48 am - I want to bring "Simiacocainum lysergideum" into common usage!
So, ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) cuddlycthulhu just finished reading The Kobold Wizard's Dildo of Enlightenment +2 by Carlton Mellick III. Poor bastard. Poor, poor bastard. (You can read about it here. I'm sure sympathy and scotch would both be appreciated.)
Well, the first few pages of it were available on Amazon, so I read them. Wow. Isn't he... er, imaginative!
Then I clicked on the author's name. Holy crap. Not only imaginative, but prolific! This is an alpha male member of the obscure species Simiacocainum lysergideum! Amazon lists 39 books to his credit, with such eeeeen-teresting titles as Satan Burger, The Haunted Vagina, The Cannibals of Candyland, Zombies and Shit, Ocean of Lard, I Knocked up Satan's Daughter, and many more!
This is the kind of crack monkey that Chancery Stone (remember her?) wishes she could be, but she'll never even come close. Fly free and fly high, brave little acid-tripping crack monkey! Fly, and let the whole world see your freak colors!
Is it sad that, despite cuddlycthulhu's direst warnings (or possibly worse, because of them), I kinda want to read this author now? Just to discover how awful he is for myself, you know. I bet he's even crazier than the mind who brought us Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine. I kinda want to start a circle of people to read this at a convention during the wee hours -- after all, we all know Eye of Argon already. There may also need to be a rule about "one shot of good scotch for each X pages you successfully read," but that couldn't be done in an open room like Eye of Argon could.
Edited To Add: Amazon has just recommended to me Ass-Goblins of Auschwitz and Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere, by two different authors clearly cut from the same cloth. Help me. Somebody. I've fallen into the internet, and I can't get up.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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May 16th, 2012
12:15 pm - And now, some fluff!
"Bello Swain was a geeky dude (who was quite handsome, but didn't know it) who, after dressing in drag, found himself pulled between the attentions of a supernaturally beautiful amber-eyed sparklepire named Edward, and a hot werewolf named Jacob who had muscles, muscles everywhere, and never owned a shirt..."
Ms. Corsetto is absolutely right! This would be much better than Twilight!
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XP: LJ ← DW
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May 14th, 2012
11:05 am - Intersectionality sometimes leads to pileups.
So, over at Fleshbot (NSFW), there's race wank brewing. Short version: some white dude got his ass ripped in half over at it's gonna hurt dot com¹, said "never again" after that, and before long got into an exchange over twitter and showed himself to be racist scum. It comes up in the comments that his views aren't all that uncommon... he's just stupid enough to air them publicly.
As much as it pains me to take this dirtbag's side, even partially...
Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Black people² are entitled to your respect as fellow human beings. They are entitled not to have you throw hateful words at them just because they're black. They are entitled to equal consideration for any job for which they apply. They are entitled not to be dismissed from a job for which they are qualified just because they're black. They are entitled not to be treated more harshly by the criminal justice system just because they're black. Obviously, in our fucked-up culture, they frequently don't get these things, but they should, and if you decide to call someone a bigot because they think black people don't deserve all these basic considerations, I won't argue with you. Hell, I'll call them a bigot myself.
What black people (or members of any other given race) are not entitled to is your lust. Or my lust, if the general "you" makes you uncomfortable here. My cock -- and the rest of my body, for that matter -- is my own. It belongs to me, dammit, and I will share it as I damn well please. If I refuse to have sex with black people because I think they're less than human, then yes, I'm a bigot. If I see black people as fully human but don't have sex with them because, for instance, I think pale skin and blue veins are sexy and black people usually lack these features, that is my right. Obviously, there are some very worthwhile people I'm missing out on, but that's my problem³, and seriously, don't those worthwhile people deserve to be appreciated by the people they're in bed with? I'm missing out on a lot of worthwhile people by being interested primarily in women, too -- are you going to call me sexist or homophobic for that?
By the same token, and again with great discomfort on my part because I'm having to defend assholes here... if some slovenly shlub with atrocious hygiene decides that he's only interested in women who look like fashion models with breast implants, that is his right. Of course, it's also the right of any fashion model with breast implants to look at shlubby and say "screw you, I can do better," which means that in practical terms, the only right shlubby will actually get to exercise will be the right to jerk off at home, frequently and alone. With his own bitter tears for lube, no doubt. Sucks to be him, admittedly, but totally not my problem. (Pthbthbthbthbthbthb!) Granted, in the real world, shlubby probably treats any women who don't meet his standards (and the women who do, but who insist on having standards of their own) with appalling disrespect, but my (grudging) defense of assholes only goes so far -- when that happens, he needs to be handed his ass, and I'll help do it if necessary.
That distinction between basic respect and lust is important here. Certain obvious exceptions aside (Fred Phelps comes to my mind, but I'm sure you can name your own here), everyone is entitled to your respect as a human being whether they make you tingly or not. And honestly, if you're only capable of treating someone with respect if they make you tingly, you fail as a human being. All that said, though, you are entitled to get tingly over whoever you please, and let's face it, you probably don't have a hell of a lot of choice over who makes you tingly. And anyone who says or implies that you're a bigot for who you sleep with also fails as a human being.
- I fully support black people working in porn if they so choose, but the way black men are often used in porn bothers me. Forgetting for a moment that some porn studios are desperate (NSFW: contains modest sausage and much plastic) to spread the message that all black men are very tall on their backs, certain really ugly racial tropes tend to show up a lot.
- Obviously, this entire paragraph applies to other races as well. I'm referring to black people here because that's where this particular wank started.
- This problem of mine is purely hypothetical, by the way. I live in the Bay Area, and my sexual history (with women, at least) is actually pretty diverse. Granted, my sexual history doesn't include black men, but considering that it only includes four men, lots of ethnicities aren't going to be represented in such a small sample.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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May 10th, 2012
11:24 pm - What do you want, a freakin' cookie? It's a bit late for that!
Dear President Obama,
Thank you for, on this special occasion, deciding not to be a complete shit-rooster¹. Unfortunately, I had high hopes for you when I first voted for you, hopes you've since failed to live up to, and "decides not to be a complete shit-rooster" is an awfully low bar. I wish I claim, as a reason to vote for you, "he thinks gay people are fully human and deserve all the same rights the rest of us humans enjoy." As it is, considering how little you've done on that front up until now, I'm claiming "he decided not to be a complete shit-rooster, and is running against someone who is a complete shit-rooster."
Sincerely,
fierynotes
- "Shit-rooster" is an insult from the horror-sitcom Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. It first appears after the guidance counselor comments on how students insult each other with obscenities followed by random nouns that make no sense, and offers "cock-lamp" and "ass-taxi" as examples. In reply, the plucky sidekick calls him a shit-rooster, and the term sees occasional use through the rest of the series.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 28th, 2012
11:07 am - Share pain is lessened. Shared joy is increased. Shared music is all of the above.
One of my friends once summed up Eminem in fifteen seconds or less, as follows: "Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch! Faggot faggot faggot faggot faggot faggot faggot! Don't hate me because I'm white, I'm down with Dre, and I want to kill my wife and my mom!"
In similar (though slightly less succinct) fashion, I'd like to sum up three bands I discovered lately. I've provided links to songs by all three, but of the three, I can really only recommend Septic Flesh, and even then only if you're into death metal. That said, if you're into death metal, I wholeheartedly recommend Septic Flesh.
Anyway, three bands in fifteen seconds or less:
Septic Flesh: "We hire an orchestra to record with us, and we're brutal enough to get away with it. We're really good (and ladiiiies, you should check out our drummer). That's why we can get away with writing a song with a chorus based on the jingle for Meow Mix! We'll get meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow stuck in your head, but you'll still listen to us, because we're just that good!"
Iwrestledabearonce: "Hey, we're cooler and more ironic than you. We're going to take our instrumental skills -- yes, we actually have instrumental skills -- and use them to make utter crap, for some deep and meaningful reason that's kinda obscure, so you've probably never heard of it. If you don't like it, that's just because you're not cool enough to get it. Suck it, try-hards!"
Emmure: "Wellll, my ex is a bitch, she's a big fat bitch, she's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, she's a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch, she's a bitch to all the boys and girls! Monday she's a bitch, Tuesday she's a bitch, and Wednesday to Saturday she's a bitch, and then on Sunday just to be different, she goes down on drug-dealers, the fucking bee-yotch! Have you ever met my fucking ex, she's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, she's a dirty old bitch, and SHE GAVE ME AIDS, she's a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch!"
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 25th, 2012
04:35 pm - A bit of Music Theory I'd forgotten until lately.
(Those of you who already know Music Theory will hopefully forgive me for some horrible oversimplifications.)
You've heard of the major and minor scales, right? Well, there are actually five other "scales" that are sort of kissing cousins of these two. I put "scale" in quotes because they're all really the same scale: C Major, D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Minor, and B Locrian all use the same seven notes; they're just rooted differently. If you play a melody that uses those seven notes that resolve on C, it'll be C Major, which sounds happy. Those same notes resolving on A will be A Minor, which sounds sad.
Here's how that works.
Notice that the scales modes -- mode is the correct term here -- are happiest at the top, and saddest at the bottom. Each mode has one note that's lowered from the previous one, and except for the top and bottom (I'll get to those two in a minute), each one involves replacing a happy note (the white squares in the above chart) and with a sad note (the gray square) by dropping it down a space. If the Major mode is happy-happy-happy, the Mixolydian mode is still reasonably happy, but it has one less happy note -- a little like someone who's trying not to be too offensively cheerful around you when you're down in the dumps. Below that is the Dorian mode, which has two sad notes -- think of it as someone who has things to be happy about, but some serious self-doubt is creeping in, or someone who's depressed but trying to put on a happy face. Then, Minor, which is truly sad. Then Phyrygian, which is that sad person who tried to drink their sorrows away but only ended up sad and drunk.
So, from what I've typed so far, you'd think that Lydian would be orgasmically happy and that Locrian would be suicidal, right? Well, not exactly. Here's where you bump into a rule that can be summed up as "tritones (the light green squares) are fuckin' ugly." Lydian is happy... but with a false note. Have you ever known someone who was on the verge of a psychotic break or crippling depression, who knew they were near the edge, but were fighting like hell to keep their head above the waves and be happy no-matter-fucking-what? That's Lydian. By the same token, Locrian is sad... but with a false note. Think of someone who's that special kind of "fuck this, fuck you, fuck everything" where depression has turned into belligerence.
Now, how is this useful? Let's say you're playing something sad in A Minor, but you want to change the mood. You can switch almost effortlessly to C Major, and make it happy. Or, if you're a little meaner, you can switch to F Lydian, which is even happier, but the happiness is forced. Or, in a song I'm working on, switch back and forth between A Minor and F Lydian, which suggests mood swings, and does so better than switching between Major and Minor -- it hints at someone who knows they're having problems and is trying to soldier on, but failing.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 23rd, 2012
11:32 am - By my own petard...
A while back, I did a couple of posts dedicated to musicians who happened to be beautiful women (here and here on LJ, here and here on DW), complete with links to some of their songs. At the time, these posts were well-received. There are a couple of factors that could have contributed to that: the photos themselves were tasteful, I showed respect for the ladies in question as musicians as well as beautiful people... and let's face it, most of you here have known me for a while and know that I'm not a sexist asshole, which probably got me a lot of benefit of doubt where other guys who made a similar post might have gotten a hairy eyeball. Admitting that you notice that a given woman is beautiful... while still treating her with respect. It can be done!
Recently (here on LJ, here on DW), in an aside in another post, I suggested that Revolver ought to complement their yearly "hot chicks in metal" article with a "hot dudes in metal" one... not remembering that I'd done those other two posts.
So. Ahem. I guess it's... er, probably time for me to... um, put my money where my mouth is.
Beneath these cuts, you'll find some of the more attractive men in metal. As with those earlier posts, I confined myself to attractive people that I also respect as musicians. Still, if you're not into long-haired pretty-boys, you may want to give the rest of this post a miss. Or not -- there's still some good crunchy music here.
(I should point out that this post was a bit harder to make than the posts with female musicians. Outside of the really mainstream lite-metal, i.e. hair metal and its descendants (and no, you won't find any of that shit here), men are not encouraged to play up their looks. Quite the opposite, in fact -- one of the examples below seems to actively play down his looks when on stage. As Strongbad once said, the gift of death metal does not smile upon the good-looking. Fortunately, no one's gluing corn flakes to their faces.)
( Teemu Mäntysaari )
( Fotis Benardo )
( Henkka Seppälä )
( Mark Jansen )
( Mathias Nygård )
( Tobias Sammet )
( Chuck Schuldiner )
I've no doubt left out many worthy people from this list. You must express your disappointment and tell me all about it in the comments! (Because I'm totally not planning to cheat and maybe use your suggestions for a possible follow-up post or anything...)
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 18th, 2012
12:27 am - GO SEE THIS FILM, DAMMIT!
"It took me forever, Mister Director, but I've got every horror movie cliche, trope, and monster written on a slip of paper, and they're all in this box. Now what?"
"Well, Mister Writer, I draw three. Let's see, I've got 'don't go in the basement,' 'we should split up,' and 'the virgin survives to the end.' Now... Marry, Shag, or Throw off a Cliff?"
"Excuse me?"
"Marry, Shag, or Throw off a Cliff. You pick one of these slips of paper you want to marry, one you want to shag, and one you want to throw off a cliff."
"Are you serious? Okay, okay. I'll marry the virgin, shag 'don't go in the basement,' and throw 'we should split up' off a cliff... but I'll be nice and shag 'we should split up' before throwing it off a cliff."
"Great. Now, I just drew 'dumb blonde,' 'we've seen your tits so you have to die,' and 'cenobites,' Marry, shag, or cliff?"
"Dammit. I hate 'dumb blond.' I'm not only going to cliff 'dumb blond,' I'm going to marry it and put a life insurance policy on it, then cliff it. And I want to shag 'cenobites' but I'm afraid to marry it, so I guess I'm marrying 'we've seen your tits so you have to die'."
"Great. Now I draw three more..."
"Wait, how long are we going to keep doing this?"
"Until we run out of slips of paper."
"But there's over a thousand strips of paper in here!"
"Yes. Your point?"
"This is going to be a loooong night."
Two hours later, Mister Writer and Mister Director have the beginnings of Cabin in the Woods, one of the funniest damned movies I've seen in a very long time. And this is all I'll say about it, other than for the first five minutes, I thought I'd stepped into the wrong theater.
Go see it. It's gory, messy, horrible, scary... and it made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 17th, 2012
11:29 pm - A listing of sex objects, subverted. I hope.
So, Revolver has this thing they do called "Hottest Chicks in Metal."
Normally, I wouldn't bother mentioning it. There are some good-looking women in metal, sure. Some of them are taken seriously as musicians, for instance Christina Scabbia, Anneka Van Giersbergen, and Sarah Jezebel Deva¹, and I'd like to hope that I'm perfectly capable of appreciating their talents and noticing their looks without one detracting from the other. Some women in metal... well, aren't taken seriously as musicians, and their role in the band is more or less ornamental. Typically, I'd just notice that Revolver's doing that thing again, groan a little, and move on.
This, year, however, I'm rooting for Mina Caputo. The reason for this: she was born "Keith." Whether I necessarily think she's hot is irrelevant -- I really want to see her win². Partly because coming out as transgendered takes brass anywhere, but even more so in the metal community. Partly because I want to believe that the metal community would accept her, and this is a hell of a way to show it. (We have a spotty track record on this. We've embraced Rob Halford, certainly, but some of us throw words like "fag" around way too casually.)
But mostly, my inner troll can't help noticing that there are a lot of people in metal who'd get seriously angry over "some dude who thinks he's a chick" winning something as trivial as the metal equivalent of a beauty pageant. And honestly, if you're one of those people, you deserve to have the world go out of its way to piss you off... and it would be my honor to take a small part in helping the world piss you off.
(And next year, Revolver should do "hot men in metal," as well. Partly because there are women who like metal and they deserve eye candy too. Partly, because if you're a guy drooling over Christina Scabbia's tits, but you're threatened by the fact that Teemu Mäntysaari is prettier than you or Greg Puciato³ has bigger muscles than you, this is something you deserve to have rubbed in your face. But hey, if Revolver isn't up to the task, this site will pick up the slack.)
- Yes, Ms. Deva is a fat woman. Yes, I think she's beautiful. Pleeeeease let this not turn into fat wank.
- Please note that I'm using feminine pronouns. This is because, whatever her current anatomical status (or natal anatomical status), she identifies as female, and I'm a fuckin' gentleman.
Please also note that I'm not speculating as to her current anatomical status, nor intimating that she has any particular obligation to share it with us. Again, this is because I'm a fuckin' gentleman.
- I'd like to hope that Mr. Puciato would agree. He's certainly not above rubbing people's insecurities in their faces; I've read that he's been known to wear Britney Spears T-shirts onstage, and that he has stated that if he thinks a lot of homophobes will be at a DEP show, he'll wear a T-shirt depicting two men having oral sex.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 16th, 2012
09:48 am - A couple of pony clips I forgot
A fan of the ponies with animation background dissects the show to give us lessons on talking, walking, throwing, and panning.
For those of you unfamiliar, Lollipop Chainsaw is an upcoming video game that takes the barely-legal ass-kicking female sex-object trope and dials it up to eleven. Actually, way past eleven -- it dials it up to "freaking ridiculous." As for how this could possibly be pony related, watch this video, especially at the beginning, and tell me if the voice sounds at all familiar. All you video editors on YouTube out there, I'm counting on you. I want clips of Twilight Sparkle screaming, "stupid undead zombie douchebags!"
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XP: LJ ← DW
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09:11 am - Bzuh?
"Ah just the thing. I was just thinking about how much it sucked to be entertained by all the other videos on youtube and I really wanted to get a serious migraine. This will do perfectly." Normally, YouTube comments are about halfway between ONTD comments and Free Republic comments in the level of sheer stupid they contain, but sometimes you'll find a good one.
"Dammit, Violet, I told you not to chew that gum!" Actually, I think this is just a subset of "looner" with a sense of humor. Hell, maybe not even "looner." Maybe just someone with an air compressor, too much latex, and too much free time.
If you have musicians playing in a band, it helps if they are all playing in the same key and time signature. Failing that, using a time signature based on rational numbers would be a good idea. I offer you... the "Kids need to respect their parents" overture in the key of Upslion minor, in Φ/4 time.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 13th, 2012
04:46 pm - I'm at work posting this.
I hate our satellite radio station.
And I really hate Rihanna.
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XP: LJ ← DW
Current Music: "CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE..."
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09:38 am - Social health problems
Do you ever get the impression that a lot of people who have opinions on a given subject are totally talking out their asses?
I ask because I've been reading up on nutrition, and the results are a little depressing. It seems that a lot of people out there -- people with influence -- think that there's this horrible horrible obesity epidemic, and that it exists because those poor pitiable fat people lack either the willpower to eat "correctly," or the knowledge of what eating "correctly" is. Therefore, all you have to do is teach those people that fat is bad, that knowledge of proper nutrition is good, and we'll all be lean and svelte and pretty and live to be two hundred.
It's a nice idea. Warm and comforting, like a hot bath with lots of bubbles. Imagine, if you will, me standing over that bathtub unbuttoning my pants after having had a dozen beers. (I don't normally drink beer, except for metaphors like this. I don't like the flavor, and if I want to get drunk, there are much more efficient ways to achieve that.)
There's a lot wrong with this idea, in that it ignores the role of genetics, the fact that "willpower" is not exactly a useful concept when it comes to avoiding food that's explicitly designed to appeal to millions of years of instincts, the greater expense of healthy food as we currently know it, the greater time and energy investment of preparing healthy food, the presence of large areas where there's no shortage of convenience stores and McShitholes but no grocery stores, and many other things that would make this run-on sentence even more ridiculous than it already is if I tried to name them all. Seriously, I want to stop and catch my breath just reading that.
But let's ignore all that. Let's pretend that this is purely a problem of education, and that by teaching people how to eat, we can solve this problem.
Let's start small. White bread or whole wheat? Easy one, ain't it? Well... not really. The powers that be have flip-flopped on this one a bit, and notice how whichever kind of bread is worse, it's always those other people who are making it or eating it. You should eat white whole wheat bread. You don't want to be like them, do you?
High Fructose Corn Syrup? Awful, awful stuff. But it's no worse than table sugar, is it? Just as the corn lobby... or any political figure who owes the corn lobby favors.
Fast food will kill you, right? Of course it will -- you've seen Super Size Me, haven't you? Well, you might want to watch Fat Head, too -- there are problems with Spurlock's little experiment. There are problems with both movies, actually. Super Size Me is clearly a hatchet job against the fast food industry, and its motivations are probably social issues, some of them having little to do with health. (Not that social issues aren't worthy in and of themselves -- they are -- but not all social issues are health-related.) Fat Head is clearly resentful of people claiming to know what's best for us, and insists that "free will" is a useful concept when we're all surrounded by billions of dollars in marketing. (Seriously, do you think McShitholes would spend so much money on advertising if it didn't work?)
Is it more important to cut calories altogether, cut carbs, or cut fats? You'll find "experts" who make each of these claims. Butter or margarine? Saturated or unsaturated? We've flip-flopped on that, too. The four food groups, then the food pyramid, and now the current model? There were certainly good reasons to ditch the pyramid (the proportions on it were remarkably like the proportions used by farmers to fatten livestock), but for those of us who remember the way things were, this is easy to mistake for yet more flip-flopping. And let's keep in mind that all of these guides for healthy eating come from the government, which means that there are political factors influencing them. (The dairy lobby would have fought against the exclusion of milk in that new model. Meanwhile, vegetarians objected to its inclusion. Again, social issues as distinct from health issues.)
The BMI? Sure, it's useless (I've been "overweight" for a few years now, and I had to get my doctor to tell my insurance company I don't need to lose twenty pounds), but there are lots of people in medicine who take it seriously, and some who swear it need to be adjusted downward. I like that idea -- it'll mean that I'm four points overweight instead of just two.
Some of these changes are due to the fact that our knowledge of nutrition was never really complete, and as our body of knowledge grows, we need to update our education materials. Still, the fact that it changes allows doubt to creep in, and the fact that it's still not complete and will therefore continue to be changed every now and then doesn't help.
Changing the subject for a bit... when I was in school, I learned that drugs were bad. If you so much as smoked one joint, you'd end up on a rollercoaster to Hell that would end with you homeless in a gutter sucking tar heroin off a dead man's unmentionables, with ten horribly deformed children you can't afford to feed, and they'll all suffer, and you'll suffer, and it'll be all your fault because you smoked a joint. Don't smoke joints. When I discovered that this was all bullshit, I tried pot. Then PCP. Then, years later, meth. It's possible that I would have tried drugs anyway if I'd been surrounded by actual education instead of propaganda, but the propaganda didn't help -- I was in fact emboldened by the knowledge that the propaganda was bullshit. And let's not forget that alcohol and tobacco are both in on the War on (Some) Drugs.
Surrounded by a bunch of information, some of it bullshit, and nearly all of it produced with motives that go beyond simple nutrition, we're all in that same position. We're all surrounded by noise. And if you're fat, you hear more noise than if you're not. And even if you try to get good information out there, it's still going to contribute to the overall impression of being surrounded by noise.
My solution is a simple one in theory -- get all the people who don't know what they're talking about, or who do know and are still spouting bullshit, to shut the fuck up. In related news, who wants to put the bell on that cat?
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 12th, 2012
09:41 am - Even more ponies!
If memory serves me correctly, the last time I did a pony post was before the whole Derpy Hooves controversy started. So, before I post the ponies, I'd like to get a small rant out of the way.
No, I haven't rage-quit My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic over the whole Derpy Hooves thing. I'm clearly a bad ableist person who's worse than Hitler, and I obviously need to take lessons on Social Justice from a community that was lightning fast to throw a collective shitfit over a cat named Vindaloo in fanfiction... but hemmed and hawed for several days when one of their own was accused of rape in the real world. I should immediately ask for lessons on what to get angry about from people who very desperately want to say "DIAF" but have all bullied each other into not saying it, or anything like it, to the point that the strongest thing they could bring themselves to say, even to someone like Hitler, is "step on a lego." Shame on me. Shame!
...SHAME!
Okay, rant over. On with the pony show.
Princess Celestia is an internet troll. I have proof.
I haven't seen Game of Thrones yet, mostly because I've heard that it ought to be called "Rape-Rape: Tales of Rapening," and if GRRM decides to do another series, it should have less rape in it. (Thank you, RK Milholland.) That said, I'd totally watch this. Jason Fox would probably not.
Avengers slash... but as ponies!
Lessons on sensitivity with language. Because everything is better with ponies! (Warning: this is still an ONTD thread. There's wank in it, including SJ wank.)
A while back, you saw Pinky-Pie making Epic Cupcakes. Now, she makes Epic Pie. Rarity kicks so much ass in this one.
Some sick fuckers really love their ponies (NSFW, please don't click this!). (This site appears to be gone. You didn't really want to see MLP toys with semen on them, did you?)
Pinky-Pie: portrait of a serial killer (NSFW, gore, bad music).
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 6th, 2012
09:53 am - A couple moments of total silly.
(Clip stolen from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) elfscribe5.)
Somewhere, there's a Craigslist for hookups with vehicles, no doubt in a place like Radiator Springs (from the movie Cars). If the van in this movie wrote such an ad...
"Hey, boys. My name's Priscilla (I was given that name by three drag queens -- it's a looooooong story). Don't let the name fool you, though: I'm all man. I have a lot of mileage, but my handling is still good, and I'm still a fine motherfucker, with a big shiny cock. Seriously, it's huge. It trails like fifty feet behind me. My interests include road trips and the works of Giuseppe Verdi. Yep, I'm not only well-endowed, but well-cultured. Oh, and I like both porsches and pick-up trucks; there's plenty of me to go around, after all. My phone number is..."
Okay, in all seriousness, I have absolutely zero desire to be a drag queen, and even if I did, I could never pull off that level of fabulousness in a million years... but I'm very glad that the world has a few people who can.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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April 3rd, 2012
08:57 am - A remake I'd actually consider watching
Stolen from drave117: the trailer for the new-and-improved Total Recall.
Yeah, I know, Hollywood running out of ideas and mining its past, and milking its previous successes for yet another run, blah blah blah. I agree. All that said, however, Ah-nuld didn't bring much to the first Total Recall except for muscles. (As I recall, he took quite a few groin shots in it, which amuses me. Not as many as Dane Cook took in some other bad movie, but he didn't deserve it like Dane Cook did.) The new version, with Colin Farell, looks like it has a much better chance of having actual acting in it.
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XP: LJ ← DW
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08:49 am - An old flame makes an unlikely reappearance
Dear █████,
I haven't thought of you for a while, because it's been a while since we've gone our separate ways. If I still had the means to contact you, I'd want you to know that I bear you no ill will, remember you pretty fondly, and understand why you had to end things between us -- just as I'm not cut out for monogamy, you weren't cut out for the alternatives. Still, it was one of my better breakups. You gave me mushrooms (I've since cleaned up), and I gave you an ahem-toy that resembled me as much as was possible given relatively short notice.
The reason I'm thinking of you lately? One of my friends bought an electric cello.
Way back when, you taught me a few things on your own cello, and if you were still in my life, you'd be surprised at how much I retained for having only touched the instrument at your place, and then not touched on for several years. My fingering could use work, but I'm a guitarist at heart -- I'm used to having frets. My bowing is actually not bad. There isn't any of that horrible beginner scratchiness in my technique, though I still have to be careful not to end up with octave overtones overpowering the primary note. I'm sure you'd know exactly what I'm doing wrong, and if I get one of these things for myself and play it regularly, I'll no doubt remember it myself.
My friend was very impressed, enough that he asked me to try to explain bowing to him. He's not going to become Rostropovich any time soon -- he's starting at least twenty years too late to have any chance at that. But then, the same could've been said about me, and you thought me worth teaching.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
fierynotes
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XP: LJ ← DW
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March 31st, 2012
10:06 am - "The President is a ni--" (BONG!!!)
Dear various internet wiseasses,
Thank you. I was a little worried when Santorum called Obama a nigg...oops, and the first thing I thought of was a certain scene from Blazing Saddles. My inappropriateness filter occasionally goes on the fritz, but I was afraid that it had just snapped altogether.
And then I saw some of you, and realized I was not alone. Thank you.
Sincerely,
fierynotes
Dear would-be President Frrrothymix,
I ought to be angrier at you for calling Obama a nigg...oops. I suppose I'm not because you've already proven to be a hateful son of a bitch with respect to the LGBT crowd, and in favor of women (after all, every man should own one), and your stance on dem horrible immigrants is typical fear of brown people, so I'm not terribly surprised that you think black people are lesser beings as well. My emotional state as a result of you half-blurting out a racial slur was, well, filling in one more space on a bingo card that's already halfway to blackout. It certainly wasn't shock.
Still, I'm a bit annoyed. Couldn't you have waited until the primary was finished before you put your foot in your mouth mid-thigh? As it is, you've all but handed Romney the primary. He scares me. He's a little too good at pretending to be a decent human being, whereas I liked your odds of getting pounded by Obama better. Besides, you've deprived me of a few more months of headlines like "Obama squeezes out Santorum."
Your fuck-up needs to spread far and wide, and since the mainstream media seems to be ignoring it, I'm doing my part. Seriously, I haven't been this tempted to do a dance mix since I heard the story about Bill-O shouting "I want to go to a gay bathhouse" at Dan Savage, and unlike Bill-O's outburst, I can actually find yours. And I normally hate dance mixes. Still, this one has potential.
"Government nig... uh... Government nig... uh..."
00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz...
"Government nig... uh... Government nig... uh..."
00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz, 00ntz...
I can't exactly play my fiddle as your career burns, since I don't have a fiddle, but I have a computer, and that counts for a lot these days.
Sincerely,
fierynotes
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XP: LJ ← DW
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