Sleepless in Scotland

Mini-rants and running off at the mouth...

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:55:59 GMT

Due to some hilarious miscommunication, my roommate and I have ended up with more toilet paper than Moses would've needed to soak up the Red Sea. So, tonight, he asks me for the list of non-food items that we need. I text it. Ten minutes later he texts back: "Hey, do we need TP?" ... ... ... My only response? "Wiseass."

So, I just decided that since I can't really leave my house to pick up classy blokes, I should actually get around to using that OKStupid profile I've got. And then I realised that there are default things about dating sites that annoy me. Things like:

You have to be male or female. There's nowhere searchable to put 'FtM', 'MtF', 'Gender Neutral', or 'I dress in women's clothing, and hang around in bars!'
Sexual preference is limited to 'Straight', 'Gay', and 'Bi'. Now, that sounds like it covers everything, until you realise that there are people looking for relationships who are ASEXUAL, and just want the romance, not the smut. Also, I've seen some complaints about 'Pansexual' not being included, but you can at least mostly fake that with 'Bi'.
Also, I hate people, and I find that most of the profile fields are not what I want to know about them, anyway.

Then, I started filling out the match questions. Mostly simple details that I don't need to think about. But there are user-created match questions, too, and those get a little glitchy. Questions like:

What would you be more disturbed to find in a 13 year old's room? *Pornography *Weapons *Illegal drugs
- NONE OF THEM. Hell, I probably bought the kid the weapon, assuming it was bladed. I picked 'illegal drugs', because the kid might actually hurt himself with those, not because they'd be at all surprising.
Would you permit your lover to [insert verb here]?
- The premise of these questions angers me. Like, seriously angers me. I have no direct control over anyone's actions but my own, and perhaps my godchildren and my pets, because they can be locked into and out of stuff. I can suggest, advise, protest, reward, or end the relationship, but I cannot be said to have allowed an adult to take an action. Unless, of course, an appropriate response to the attempted action included physical restraint, taking something from the person, or knocking them unconscious. And there are very few cases in which those responses are at all appropriate.
  
  Would I permit my lover to join the army? Hm, none of the previous responses are appropriate, so I'm suddenly responsible in some way, if he does? Uh, no.
  
  Would I permit my lover to drive while dangerously intoxicated? The previous responses seem to apply here -- I can steal his keys or knock him the fuck out, and he'd likely thank me in the morning.
People who throw cigarette butts out of their car window... *Are not doing any real harm *Are being insensitive and/or rude
- ... Uh, 'Are about to set the backseat on fire'? 'Are probably going to end up with ash in their laps'? 'Obviously never learned to fieldstrip a butt'?

More as I continue to be annoyed...

[Fic] Pigeon-proofing!

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:47:09 GMT

Title: Pigeon-proofing
Fandom: ST TOS
Characters: Spock, Kirk, Scotty
Rating: PG
Warnings: Crack. Pigeons.
Notes: This is utter rubbish. tehopheliac gave me a crack!prompt with which to generate her Christmas gift, and it is both late and crap. The pointy!boxers are apparently an actual feature of the new Spock Prime figures, and this was our attempt to explain them. I got nothing.

( Fake Cut is Fake )

[Commissions] Sonnets for your pretty young thing?

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:26:54 GMT

Valentine's Day is careening up the timeline, so if you want to score a sonnet for the object of your affections, now's the time to get your request in! Sonnets are only $7 each if you request them before February 1. Between the first and the thirteenth, the price goes up, if you want them done by Valentine's Day, because if I get less than two weeks, it's a rush job -- especially if you want a Petrarchan.

Check the sonnets section on my commissions page for more information and examples. ~~(I will also totally take an LJ handle as a method of contact, on the request form.)~~

Happy New Year!

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:53:36 GMT

This year, I resolve to:
- make more money than I did last year (which can't be that hard...)
- sleep with someone who's not an alcoholic (this one I might not succeed on)

I also may or may not end up stuffed under a desk during a WoW raid, to ... uhm ... accomplish a feat featured in one of Three's resolutions. I love you, man, and if this isn't proof, I don't know what is.

Things that were said:
- "I've got some spare wood."
- "Wait, your cat's grumpy and has a limp? Gives a whole new meaning to 'House cat', doesn't it?"
- "Gay porn. Yeah, I can do it in my sleep..."

Also, I would like to thank Three for the utterly lush first kiss of the new year. You're the best. You spoil me so rotten, some days.

And now, I'm going to sleep, so I can wake up to the first romp of the new year... which, sadly, will not involve Three, but will involve a certain ferret-faced tart of my acquaintance.

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:36:54 GMT

I seem to recall having promised photos of Christmas dinner, to someone, at some point. Here they are. Sadly, I didn't get a photo of the truffle pie, but that's okay, because we all ate too much to have pie, so it comes out again, tonight... sans a cherry.

Christmas dinner... ish. At least, before I finished getting the food on the table.

No, those are not meatballs. *grins* Yes, I'll surrender the recipe, if asked. There was a very funny story about these, thinly disguised as fanfic.

Yes, those are chocolate truffles. Yes, I made them. They're not that hard.

Lavender sugar cookies. The first batch sucked ass, because I've never been good at cookies, but as soon as I stopped following the recipe, they came out fuckawesome.

Christmas dinner, in all its epic glory. The cheese salad was the captain's, and the roommate helped me with the quiche, because after three straight days of cooking, I needed to not think about food so much.

Dead things quiche. This one had bacon and ham, but no spinach.

Ghetto quiche, sans bacon.

The captain's cheese salad. Standard fare, but damn it's good. I killed like half of that, by myself.

These three are the duck a l'orange, for dinner tonight. Well, technically, it's thit vit chay a l'orange... Vietnamese-French fusion cooking FTW.

A note on the benefit of truth in governance

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:51:34 GMT

So, I was reminded, tonight, that the US government has a habit of cleaning up after things very quietly. When terrorists or wackjobs are caught before they do anything really nationally notable, it just gets buried in paperwork, and no one hears about it. In cases of public arrests, it's written off as some crackpot with a gun on the subway, or some other case for the local PD.

What we hear about are the cases in which our guys dropped the ball. Hell, I'm willing to believe that that's a minority of the cases pursued, but since we don't hear about the ones that get done right, we all come to the conclusion that we're not safe, and the feds can't actually protect us from lunatics with explosives and bioweapons.

It is generally speculated that we're not told when things go well, so that we won't worry about those things. I call bullshit. If we knew that things were done properly, more often than not, we'd feel safer when things don't go according to plan. We'd have the strength and fortitude of being able to trust the people who are supposed to be able to protect us, and the willingness to ask for their help, when those times come.

We've developed a system in which the people doing the protecting are generally taken to be incompetent, regardless of the truth of the allegation, and the people fear them as much as they fear the actual enemy. This is not cool at all.

This rant brought to you by duck a l'orange onigiri and reruns of Criminal Minds. Also, 'ask a stupid question, get a surrealist answer' is still on.

OH GAWD. WHAT HAVE I DONE!?

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:11:06 GMT

So, yeah... I just bought tickets to my highschool reunion. The ~~ten~~ twelve year one. Well, okay, someone bought them for me, for Christmas.

Anyway, I have tickets. Two of them. I'm trying to convince Three to go with me, because that would be fuckawesome, and we'd probably get kicked out for being the same drunkpunk fucks we were, back in the day. I look forward to telling people that I'm a porn writing example of the living dead. I ... don't look forward to actually seeing those people.

Highschool, for me, was a repeated case of attempted murder. I've been stabbed, choked, thrown onto the hood of a moving car, beaten until I bled from the ears, stabbed, almost thrown off my own balcony, kicked down a few flights of stairs, pushed into traffic, and kicked until I stopped moving. And that's just the cases I can remember off the top of my head. People talk about getting punched in the face, in school? That was a good day. I liked those days. I could keep mouthing off, if it was just my face. And spitting blood on people during the mid-90s AIDS scare was great. Everyone knew I was dying, and most of 'em thought I was contagious. I got pretty good at gleeking blood into people's eyes after they busted my lip. I was kind of an asshole.

This is all a giant pile of 'fuck you in the ear with a six-foot concrete dildo, and no lube'. Hopefully, I will be on the correct end of the 'fuck you', for a change. Yeah, a dozen years after the fact, I'm really and truly still that fucking vindictive. Of course, twelve years after the fact, I also still have scars, improperly healed bones, and extensive nerve damage. (I'm awfully pretty for being mostly unable to feel my face.)

But, if I don't do this, people will still be able to say that I was too much of a chickenshit to face my fears. Yeah, not gonna happen. I'm going to go make a complete ass of myself in public, instead.

Anyway, besides all that, it might not be entirely out of the question to expect a New Year's mix out of the collective. Magpie seems to be causing trouble in that direction, and I'm pretty quick to follow.

Yes, I'm working on that K/S crackfic with the pigeons. No, it's not going to be very long.

I've been up since yesterday, and I can't fucking sleep. I keep screaming every time I start to drift off, and I don't know why, but my god, if I were someone else, I'd give me a cup of coffee, at this point. It's probably just the goddamn holiday season.

But, hey, if I'm going to be awake and completely FUCKED OUT OF MY MIND with exhaustion, now's the time to ask me totally bizarre questions, that I'd never answer, sober. Hit me up.

Another great reason for condoms...

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:31:04 GMT

So, a friend of mine's wife had their third child, about 11 hours ago. I, of course, just found out, because I suck and don't check Facebook but once a day.

Congrats to Moony and Kami on the birth of their second son, Gilgamesh Wolfram.

Stop having kids, you guys, or I'll never come visit you. :P

Vampires got no change, but goddamn do we have Chartreuse.

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:46:47 GMT

I have absolutely no excuse for last night. However, I do have an excuse for not dropping the Christmas playlist in this post -- namely that I cut a crap version of one song, and I'm too goddamn tired to fix it until after I sleep.

In other news, Chartreuse does go with HoHos. No shit. The most important image of the entire evening, with appropriate soundtrack, is below the cut. Other images of lesser importance may appear later, when I am not consumed by the ~~lazy~~ tired.

[Commissions] Holiday Special on Sonnets!

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:33:39 GMT

Valentine's Day is coming up, so if you want to score a sonnet for the object of your affections, now's the time to get your request in! Sonnets are only $7 each if you request them before February 1.

Check my commissions page for more information and examples. ~~(I will also totally take an LJ handle as a method of contact, on the request form.)~~

Songs I Got Stuck In My Head - Day 7

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:03:21 GMT

The Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today Meme
- When you wake up, crack open a playlist.
- Every time you catch yourself humming or singing something, today, put it on that playlist, in chronological order.
- Do this for seven days, and post your results each day.

(Hah! Last day! ... ... Looks like frickin' revenge of the 80s in here...)

1. Bon Jovi - i 'll sleep when i 'm dead (4:43)
2. Legendary Pink Dots - Remember Me This Way (Full Length Version) (6:05)
3. Def Leppard - Photograph (4:08)
4. Aerosmith - Crazy (5:13)
5. Jesus Jones - One for the Money (2:56)
6. Annie Lennox - Keep Young And Beautiful (2:17)
7. Front 242 - Hey Poor (5:19)
8. My Chemical Romance - Teenagers (2:41)
9. Mindless Self Indulgence - Faggot (2:44)
10. ADAM ANT - STAND AND DELIVER (3:09)
11. Red Hot Chili Peppers - If You Have To Ask (3:36)

Songs I Got Stuck In My Head - Day 6

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:46:01 GMT

The Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today Meme
- When you wake up, crack open a playlist.
- Every time you catch yourself humming or singing something, today, put it on that playlist, in chronological order.
- Do this for seven days, and post your results each day.

(No witty commentary today. Most of the day was spent overturning the furniture, so I could wash the floor.)

1. Leonard Cohen - Who By Fire (2:32)
2. Self - So Low (3:48)
3. Machines Of Loving Grace - Suicide King (4:04)
4. Aerosmith - My Girl (3:09)
5. Nine Inch Nails - The Only Time (4:47)
6. Nirvana - Son Of A Gun (2:48)
7. Pop Will Eat Itself - Wake Up! Time To Die... (6:41)
8. VAST - Touched (3:58)
9. The B52's - Roam (4:56)
10. Deine Lakaien - Return (4:23)
11. Sisters Of Mercy - Torch (*Bonus Track) (3:49)

Songs I Got Stuck In My Head - Day 5

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:07:48 GMT

The Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today Meme
- When you wake up, crack open a playlist.
- Every time you catch yourself humming or singing something, today, put it on that playlist, in chronological order.
- Do this for seven days, and post your results each day.

(Day Six will be delayed by 24 hours, due to my untimely demise, this morning. Fuck being dead. That's the third time, this year.)

1. Code Red - Dreamer, Dream (5:00)
2. Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Zoot Suit Riot (3:53)
3. The Damned - Melody Lee (2:08)
4. Legendary Pink Dots - Lucifer Landed (4:01)
5. For Love Not Lisa - Slip Slide Melting (5:47)
6. Anúna - Sí Do Mhaimeo Í (2:12)
7. Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - Eight Miles High (4:00)
8. Soul Asylum - New World (4:03)
9. Covenant - Dead Stars [Radio Version] (4:10)
10. Marilyn Monroe - Diamonds Are A Girl`s Best Friend (3:32)
11. The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping (5:28)
12. Frank Sinatra - Young at Heart (2:54)

Songs I Got Stuck In My Head - Day 4

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:08:44 GMT

The Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today Meme
- When you wake up, crack open a playlist.
- Every time you catch yourself humming or singing something, today, put it on that playlist, in chronological order.
- Do this for seven days, and post your results each day.

(It is now midnight. I've been up for eighteen hours. I have to start tomorrow now, or it's gonna fuck the timeline all up.)

1. Andrew Lloyd Webber - Masquerade/Why So Silent (8:37)
2. Jesus Jones - Info Freako (2:52)
3. Legendary Pink Dots - Stoned Obituary (6:31)
4. Glenn Danzig - Overture of the Rebel Angels (2:42)
5. Tears For Fears - Mad World (3:29)
6. Machines Of Loving Grace - Suicide King (4:04)
7. Clint Mansell - pi*r^2 (1:29)
8. The Jesus and Mary Chain - Cherry Came Too (3:06)
9. Depeche Mode - Sweetest Perfection (4:43)
10. Random Access Memory - Measuring The Wastelands (2:50)
11. LaTour - Cold (5:31)
12. Legendary Pink Dots - Blacklist (6:44)
13. Coil - Madriiax (7:17)
14. Depeche Mode - Stripped (4:17)
15. Nirvana - Son Of A Gun (2:48)

Songs Stuck in My Head - Day 3

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:47:10 GMT

The Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today Meme
- When you wake up, crack open a playlist.
- Every time you catch yourself humming or singing something, today, put it on that playlist, in chronological order.
- Do this for seven days, and post your results each day.

1. Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (16:20)
2. Hideki Naganuma - That's Enough (3:45)
3. Kate Bush - The Big Sky (4:41)
4. Collective Soul - Shine (5:07)
5. Natalie Merchant - Carnival (5:59)
6. Self - So Low (3:48)
7. Jesus Jones - Trust me (2:08)
8. K.M.F.D.M. - Ultra (4:33)
9. Switchblade Symphony - Bad Trash (3:45)
10. Machines Of Loving Grace - Suicide King (4:04)
11. Soul Asylum - Homesick (3:34)
12. Hot Hot Heat - Bandages (3:36)
13. Nightwish - Ever Dream (4:47)
14. David Bowie - Changes (3:37)
15. Legendary Pink Dots - This Hollowed Ground (3:06)
16. Current 93 - Into The Menstrual Night I Go (1:11)
17. Queen - Killer Queen (3:00)
18. Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools (2:46)
19. Soul Asylum - Grounded (3:17)
20. Gary Numan - The Angel Wars (5:01)
21. Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo & Alka Yagnik - Hindi Sad Diamonds (3:28)

... And due to circumstances beyond my control, I was only awake for about sixteen hours, yesterday. I feel like a frickin' jukebox, and I know there were three tracks I missed, because I forgot them on the way up the stairs.

Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Day 2

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:34:55 GMT

Too much signal, now it's all noise. (And the Stuck in My Head meme)

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:10:43 GMT

You know it's going to be one of those days, when you find yourself spelling out Leonard Cohen lyrics, in ASL, with one hand, while you're reading about PayPal dev tools and contemplating where that Vulcan/Romulan hand!porn should be going, because it doesn't seem to be going at all, right now. Multi-tasking? Yeah, maybe a little. But, it's the Leonard Cohen that gets me. If I'm rattling off 'Famous Blue Raincoat', apropos of nothing, then something is not right, with the world. This also does not count for the ongoing 'Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today' meme, because I was humming something totally else, at the time.

Fuck. Something is wrong with either me or the world, today. A long as this doesn't turn into last-Saturday levels of cascading failure, I think I'll be fine. I'd better be fine. ... ... I'm gonna kick the Romulan Suicide down a flight of stairs if he bitches out on Christmas. *smirks* Four in the morning, the end of December, indeed.

Do I sound distracted? I might be distracted. I also haven't had a shower in two weeks, because things keep getting in my way. I can't seem to stay screwed down long enough to do the little things, like eat, sleep, and bathe, but somehow I can stay disfocused long enough to get completely blind drunk. Which I'm pretty sure was a 'not paying attention' thing, the more I think on it.

Can't focus on anything. It gives me a headache. Can't do less than four things at once. It gives me a headache. Can't get rid of this FUCKING HEADACHE.

I'm sure the man with the snowblower isn't helping this problem in the least.

So, instead of continuing to run off at the mouth like a space-case, let me give you the results of Day One of Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today:

1. David Bowie - I Have Not Been to Oxford Town (3:49)
2. Sponge - Wax Ecstatic (4:11)
3. Soul Asylum - New World (4:03)
4. Louis Jordan - Is you is or is you ain't my baby (2:44)
5. Enya - Exile (4:21)
6. Semisonic - Closing Time (4:33)
7. Endless Blue - Lilacs (World On Fire Mix by Autopoesis) (4:46)
8. Jesus Jones - The Real World (3:03)
9. Rosetta Stone - Vogue (4:18)

The Songs I Got Stuck In My Head, Today Meme
- When you wake up, crack open a playlist.
- Every time you catch yourself humming or singing something, today, put it on that playlist, in chronological order.
- Do this for seven days, and post your results each day.

OMG WAT MOAR FIC?

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:25:08 GMT

Title: Realisations In a Cold Bath
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters: Spencer Reid
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst
Notes: Sometimes, things don't work the way they're supposed to. Sometimes, the little things are the most important ones.

It was an hour that the lead detective on the latest case had been fond of referring to as 'fuck-thirty in the morning', and Spencer Reid was finally back in his own apartment. On the bright side, he was home. On the dim side, it was the middle of December, in Virginia, and the heat was not working. He glanced at the thermostat -- sixty-two degrees. Either it hadn't been out long, or it was just starting to warm back up. Either way, the hot water heater was probably still okay, and he intended to get the bath he so desperately wanted.

He turned on the water, and then went to the kitchen to microwave the remnants of the breakfast he hadn't finished eating, before he left on this case, three days earlier. Three days in the fridge didn't usually do much damage to fried potatoes, and even if they weren't going to be as good microwaved instead of reheated in the skillet, they were still the food that took the least effort for the reward, right now. With the plate in one hand and a cup of tea dangling from his fingers, he tapped the stereo on the way through the living room, and swept up a book that Prentiss had lent him.

Piling everything on top of the toilet tank, he undressed and turned off the hot water. The bath was probably too hot, but he'd also probably forgotten something. That was how this went, he knew. Anticipating the scalding heat, he plunged one foot into the blandly tepid water. He rubbed his eye and stared into the bathtub in confusion. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, at all. With a sigh, he lowered himself into the tub, retrieving the book with one hand and dinner with the other. He lounged on his side for a few minutes, curled up, awkwardly, to fit as much of himself under the water as possible, while he ate and read, but the water was not enough to keep him warm.

This was unexpectedly unpleasant. Sure, he'd been through worse, but that wasn't here. Those things happened in the field, where food, sleep, and showers were more frequently theoretical than actual. This was his home. Things were supposed to work, here. He was supposed to be comfortable, here. And somehow, this was an appalling violation of his reality.

He set aside the book and the empty plate, and curled up, further into the tub, trying to leach what heat he could from the water, before he got out, back into the cold air. He lay unnaturally still, for a minute or two, reflecting that it was peculiar for him to be coming apart at the seams over a cold bath. Every day, he faced the worst that humanity had to offer, and every few days, he actually got to come home. He lived in a suitcase and fought the most brutal kinds of crime from hotels in other cities. Sleep had never been the kind of requirement for him that it was for other people, and he suspected he'd inherited that from his mother -- which made him wonder what else he might have inherited, but this wasn't the time for thoughts like that. He lived on willpower and the fear of losing time, and all he asked in return was that his home remain safe and warm. Apparently, that was too much to ask for.

As he dragged himself out of the cool water, aching more now than he had getting in, he realised that being the unstoppable boy-genius hero was exactly his problem. When a man faces things, as part of his normal routine, that evoke horror and revulsion, at the very least, in the greater part of the species, he needs unbreakable supports to prop him up. And, of late, it seemed, those things had been in short supply, all around. He knew, suddenly, why Gideon retired, why Hotch would only last a few more years, at best. He knew why, one day, he'd just start screaming, and not be able to stop.

As he pulled his bathrobe down from the bathroom door, and wrapped himself in it, listening to the water drain from the tub, he realised that it all started here. It all started with a cold bath. It all started with the knowledge that the things you depend on won't always be there. It all started with the realisation that nothing could be expected or relied upon, even, and perhaps especially, the little things. It all started with a vivid reminder of things he already knew.

The room was colder than he'd thought.

Tala t'Zaprah

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:41:56 GMT

Title: Tala t'Zaprah
Authors: diane_kepler and proudcockatrice
Length: 7,168 words
Rating: R (and for violence, this time)
Fandom: ST TOS
Characters: Vulcans & Romulans, mostly.
Summary: T'Nis thinks kidnapping is the way to Starek's heart -- or at least some of his vital organs.
Disclaimer: We don't own Spock, or the other Star Trek ideas mentioned here. We just want to live with them in our heads.

Read on gDocs or Blogspot. Mouse over foreign text for translations.

Vampires and Sociopaths, Love and Friendship

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:34:08 GMT

Let me start by asking you to define the value of a human being. To many of you, this will be an offensive question. If I ask you the ways in which your people are useful to you, you are likely to first object to the possessive and then to the idea of individuals as a means to an end. You want to believe in the value of the emotional connection, and I want to point out that I am not discounting that value.

Let me talk about my best friend, for a moment: she values my opinions, but will tell me without preface, if she thinks I am wrong. She remembers things that I forget. She is generally willing to take me places I need to go, in exchange for small necessities, and overall, she does not take offence at my perception and expression of reality.

These are functions that I value. There are, indubitably, several more, generally involving capacity for drunkenness and tolerance for standard human behaviours, but I'll leave the best of those to your imagination. We are a team, she and I, and for all that she has been called 'really mean' on occasion, she is the kinder, gentler one of us, and with respect to that, I try to let her handle situations that require such behaviour. Between the two of us, we've got functions for most situations, and what we don't have, we can come up with someone who does.

I do not like people who are purposeless and entitled, and neither, I'm pretty sure, do you. These are the people who don't care what they do with their lives, but if you're not doing your job, just the way they want it done, they'll do everything in their power to make your day hell. These people do not serve useful functions in my daily life, and I make choices that put me nearer to people who are functional to me, and further from people like that. I weigh the value of the individual. I weight the benefit they provide to me in terms of the cost to me to gather that benefit. In the end, it's all about profit, on a generally non-monetary plane.

Now, this is, to be honest, a relatively sociopathic manner of thought. While I am capable of love, and generally, sociopaths are assumed to be incapable of it, love is not a bleeding fondness, in my case. It is based in functionality, arsedness, and bizarre chemical imbalances that I'm far more likely to attribute to blazing lust. It is not unheard of for sociopaths to engage in relationships, and even marry, provided that the spouse provides a functionality that exceeds the maintenance costs. It's a good calculation to make, even if you're not a sociopath. Of course, the difference is that if you're not a sociopath, you're less likely to kill your wife because she's outlived her functionality, and divorce is a pain in the ass. I'm just saying.

A smart sociopath, though, learns to live by the rules, out of recognition of potential harm to itself. Again with the risk/benefit analyses.

Now, where do vampires go, in all of this?

Well, consider that a vampire must maim, if not kill, and extract sustenance from something that carries a strong resemblance to itself. Humans, according to most mythologies, are the root of vampires, whether through suicide, vampire bite, drinking vampire blood, or in some odd cases, birthing them. So, a vampire must be, to some extent amoral and generally unafflicted by knowing themselves to be the cause of human suffering.

A vampire must also face an extended lifespan of several times the length of its human predecessors and contemporaries. As a human, everything you know goes away in the end. For a vampire, it happens in the middle. Any persistent sense of grief or tragedy must be forced away by these changes, or the creature will go mad, and likely take its own life.

We have created something that is no longer bound by its roots, and develops new ethics, as defined by the experiences of itself and its own kind. It is drawn to only form lasting relationships with its own kind, as any other relationships will have a sense of urgency, fluidity, and futility. Comforts like 'attachment' and 'love' are replaced by survival necessities like 'functionality' and 'reliability'.

So, assume a vampire, surrounded by humans, suffers a chemical imbalance and falls in love with one. Or perhaps, he grows used to having her at his side, where and when he needs her. Maybe he needs something that only she knows how to do, and when she is gone, no one can replace her. These are all loves, of differing kinds. And the closest thing to a happy ending is that she becomes a vampire, too, and suffers through the same separation from her own kind, until she, too, numbs to it.

But, does she thank him or does she blame him? She will still be human in the head for quite some time. What happens if she never fully separates herself from humanity? See Anne Rice's Louis. He's got his very own sentimental baggage train that stretches over half the Atlantic. He's a sad excuse for a vampire, who hates what he's become, but really hasn't the balls or the sense to either off himself or get over it. And this is why Lestat was the popular one... (GO CRY, EMO KID. I mean, Lestat says it to him, even: "Oh Louis, Louis. Still whining Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that for centuries." YES. THANK YOU. I HAVE.) Even Poppy's Christian is not so far gone as Louis, and he, too, is a vampire with a conscience, unlike his gore-bathed compatriots. I think for general amorality and lack of conscience, Poppy's got Anne Rice beat on all fronts. Not even poor, human Ghost is as idiotically sentimental as Louis.

What's the point of all this, you ask? Oh. Yeah. Uh... Twilight is crap. Vampires don't fucking sparkle. IDFK.

HELLO, INTARWEBS!

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:22:53 GMT

Okay, seriously, I just went a week trapped in my house, with no internet. SEVEN DAYS. ... Seven days and about fourteen hours.

Now, if I had gone somewhere that had no internet, this would be acceptable. However, I have been home. I really can't get out of my house, for reasons I'm not going to go into. In my home, I expect a WORKING INTERNET CONNECTION.

And now, I can finally get back to work, because I have about ten pieces to edit, for someone else, that are walls of words with no sense of grammar. And they need to be done by Christmas. And I need to finish some writing that I can't share with you guys, because I'm going to submit it to a magazine. *fingers crossed*

But, really, I'm feeling the love, right now. Internet-related endorphin rush...

Also, for those of you who might give a fuck about what I've been doing, with no internet, I present the local txt blog that ensued:

2009.11.24 :: 10:02

I have no internet. I have had no internet since somewhere between 04:30 and 05:00. Comcast reassures me that their accounts specialists will have it fixed within 72 hours. That's great and all, but they're lying to me. I'm pretty sure it's a physical problem with the modem, at this point. I've had the same damn piece of hardware since 2003, and it was out of date, then. Every day or two, I have to reset it, to get it to re-auth. Sometimes, I've had days where I have to reset it every fifteen minutes. Whatever the shit happened, this time, it locked up eth0 on the router, when it went down. This is a case of the modem getting de-authed from the far end, instead of just forgetting it has an authorisation.

So, the nice lady on the phone checked my billing history. Oh, it is so not that. My account lists Comcast owing -me- about 400 credits. I approve of this, of course. So, she takes a look, and tries to re-auth me, but she can't. Best part is that she can't tell why she can't complete the auth, it just won't go through. She thinks this might be because it comes up as a bulk account.

*screech* Back up the bus.

A bulk account.

That would explain the distinct lack of charges on my account for the last two years. I got bundled into somebody's package, somewhere along the line, and they're paying a bulk rate for a range of between x and y number of accounts. Okay. I'm down. It's not actually costing someone else more money to carry me, so I'll run with this. Weirdly, I'm pretty sure she said the phrase 'UNM Bulk Account' a few times, but I'm also a little deaf. Alumni what?

So, she calls the bulk number that she thinks is for my area, but they're actually in California. Sadly, the lass there can't get the damn modem to kick over, either. She tries one more time to get the right folks on the phone, but there's no 505 number on her list, today. It's cool, I've worked for a nation-wide entertainment provider. Sometimes, that shit that's supposed to be right where it always is isn't there. That happens. No shit. So, all you folks out there who have been on the wrong end of that call? Don't yell at the agent. They're not kidding.

So, it's somewhere in here that I ask if it might be a physical problem with the modem. I remember we had some weird receiver auth problems, back in the day, and sometimes replacing the unit was the only thing to be done for it. But, no, she's sure it's some weirdness on their end. Cool. Whatever. She sends up the ticket, and then tells me it'll be about 72 hours.

I spit tea.

They'll call when it's fixed, so I can reset the modem and the router, and make sure everything's working, she tells me. Just make sure not to turn off the modem for the next few days, so it'll be on, when the signal comes in. 'Turn off the modem' is a weird idea, for me. I keep forgetting the fuckin' thing has an off button.

She gives me the case number and talks so fast I can't repeat it back. I hope I got it right. I'm a little deaf, these days.

So, now, I have no internet for the next three damn days. ... Probably. Unless it's seven, because there's a four-day holiday weekend in there. Comcast support may be open 24/7, but I know the departments that take escalations and do callbacks are paid the kind of wages where they get holidays off, so the company doesn't go broke. I remember what they used to pay top-level support back at company I'm not supposed to talk about. Those fucks got to take Thanksgiving and Christmas off. I don't know about New Years, though, 'cause I didn't work that day, anyway. [/tangent]

What the hell am I going to do with myself, for the next 72 hours? I can't follow my ARGs, I can't play in any RP, I can't edit that damn fic that DK wanted my help with, I can't edit that other thing that I can't talk about, yet... I guess all I can do is write. And save lots of text files.

... Aw, shit. I was in the middle of a dev-binge, too... *cries*

Theoretically, I could go install Fedora on the router. It's not like it needs to work for the next three damn days. But, I hate doing an install with no documentation. And I hate doing an install where I can't set up the network while the install's running. So, I guess that's out.

Also, I gotta give Comcast some credit -- not something I'd usually do, but they actually managed something damn shiny. Before I got to talk to a person, the automated system pulled up my account and reset my modem, remotely. I was actually really impressed with that, as I'm sure it gets a whole lot of the mouthbreathers off the phone in a hurry.

Maybe I'll teach myself to speak dhcpd.conf. DHCP has been busted, here, since like 2006. I should get off my ass and fix that. Of course, I'm also about to switch versions of Linux, so maybe I should STFU and wait.

Okay, fuck this. I'm gonna go play Torment. Mmmm, Planescape.

-------------------

2009.11.25 :: 04:52

Twenty-four hours with no internet. Planescape is just as fucking awesome as I recall it having been. Man, do I love this game.

There are other things I should be doing, but my drafts are all online. I'm largely incapable of contacting people, which sucks, and also impairs the everloving fuck out of my productivity. At least the doctor kept me busy for a few hours, today. I've had three non-consecutive hours of sleep, because other people can't keep their shit square, and I -missed- my ability to get back to sleep, because I was at the bank, at the time. At least my roommate paid most of his half the rent, this month... most. But, I'm also stranded in the middle of another twelve hours of staring at a computer that has no internet.

At least I'm supposed to spend today cooking. Presumably, I will actually do so. If I'm extraordinarily fortunate, I will even be able to make some awesome cake, which will not be a lie. However, since the cake is still theoretical, its truth remains unestablished, at this time.

-------------------

2009.11.26 :: 07:55

The cake is a lie. I also spent most of yesterday sleeping and hallucinating. Oh, and playing Torment. Because Torment is fucking awesome.

I did get up at midnight and clean the kitchen, tho. Then I made cranberry salad and greenbean casserole, with no significant difficulty... Then I learned that no, you can't sub oatmeal for oat bran. I have cookies, instead of mini-cakes. Then I learned how not to make syrup, and made some slightly burned hard candy, instead. Then I learned how to make syrup. I may or may not have failed at brownies. I won't know for about another ten hours.

The internet is still out there, somewhere, and I am not on it. No signs of improvement. I'll be calling and getting cranky, tomorrow, because fuck getting stuck until Monday. This. Is not. My fault. And they haven't actually killed my account, either, because the TV works fine. Shit, I think I'm gonna call now, just to see if anybody can activate the damn thing, yet.

--------------------

2009.11.27 :: 21:49

Didn't call yesterday. Did call today. Something's horribly wrong with my account. They can't tell who's being billed for it, but they're sure they're getting paid. Whoever the bulk client is, they have to find that account in order to switch me back on. J-- is very confused that 1. I have analog television and 2. my television channels are still working, even though the internet is not. Something is VERY horribly awry.

Supposedly going to get one more call, tonight, when they actually figure out what the shit just happened, and reclaim my account from the void. Hopefully, I'll be able to retain my current package, which doesn't actually exist, anymore, even if I do end up paying for it. Guys at Comcast have been very nice, even if they haven't managed to be useful, yet.

Also, the brownies were made of fail. There is no excuse. Also, learned that theoretical 'syrup' is actually taffy, at room temperature. Totally botched kitchen rolls, yesterday.

22:57 - Note to self: When J-- calls back, ask if he can either give you your account number, or switch you back to paper billing, because online account has been disabled, for no apparent reason, and if this shit starts billing again, you'll have no way to know what the charges are. --------------------

2009.11.30 :: 10:01

There is still no internet. I'm not calling back until at least 16:00. It has now been a week.

I've learned some shiny things about MUSHcode, though. Closest I can get to my usual passions is coding up a storm in the local TinyMUSH install. Learned all kinds of appalling stuff. Why, for instance, is IC/OOC status determined, in MUDcore, by the HAVEN flag? IDFK. IDFC. I wrote an IC/OOC switching system for it, because FUCK COMPLICATED BULLSHIT. It even has soft help.

Speaking of soft help, none of the MUDcore help files use ANSI, or have skimmable formatting. This sucks, but I'm seriously too lazy to fix it. I think I'll fix the dice, first. @pemit is way better than page for shit like that.

The wench is still insufficiently Egyptian, but she works as intended, finally. vtime() is not time(). In fact, vtime() is not even a function. It was broken for -years-, and I just finally caught what the problem was. Now, if I could only figure out how to un-break the mail system again, I'd be onto something.

14:13 - Fixed the dice. Learned all kinds of stupid shit about the INHERIT flag and @oemit. Started messing with the ambient @emits. Switches work. This makes me happy. Now, if only I could think of more ambient occurrences in a tea shop...

19:46 - I have some internet, but not all of it. No LJ, no Amortentia Dolorosa, half of Yahoo mail. This appears to be a DNS problem. Called back. Comcast is still, after six years, utterly useless about DNS servers. There are no longer Albuquerque nameservers. Luckily, whatever the hell the router is using seems to work. I think that's Denver, but I can't swear to it. Actually, I can... Thank you, nslookup.
68.87.85.102 cns.cmc.co.denver.comcast.net
68.87.69.150 cns.beaverton.or.bverton.comcast.net

Me? Deranged? Maybe...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:53:19 GMT

As I'm fairly certain you all know, by now, I have an aversion to children. Okay, aversion doesn't really begin to cover it. You know that eye-covering, retching reaction that graphic disembowelment engenders in most sane individuals? Yeah, that reaction. I've lost friends because I refuse to place myself in proximity to their young children, because babies are more disgusting than that time I inadvertently stepped in a festering dead cat.

So, I find it patently offensive when adverts start with images of babies. I have, in fact, vomited on my living room floor because of this. Not often, perhaps, but it happens, when I get taken by surprise. It's an assault on my sensibilities.

So, when I ask you to leave me to my Clive Barker movies and my gory-ass forensic pathology shows, it's not for you to tell me that there must be something wrong with me, if I like these things. There is something wrong with me. I am humanity's defence against overpopulation. I'm that fag who hates kids. There is no danger that I will ever reproduce. And if my calculations are correct, people like me will become more common as the population of the world goes up. It works in rats.

If you have the right to ask me to turn off what I'm watching, because it upsets you, then I have the right to ask the same of you. I also have the right to vomit on your child if you don't take me seriously when I ask you to stop pushing your baby into my face, in the food stamps office. If you care so little for the welfare of your infant that you intentionally inflict it repeatedly on something that actually wants to hurt you, then I hope for the good of the species that both you and your baby die. Intelligent and kind members of the species should reproduce, and intelligent and kind members of the species tend to recognise things that pose a danger to their genetic line, and STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM.

But, seriously, I just want to be able to eat my dinner and watch television at the same time, without needing to keep a barf bag on hand, in case of diaper ads.

7 in 7: Gifts [Sky]

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:41:39 GMT

Title: Gifts
Fandom: Sky *
Characters: Severen, Singularity, Viridian Doll
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, slippy reality, mild nudity, uncomfortable situations, Severen's mouth
Notes: Severen never quite got used to gifts, neither giving nor receiving them, and he never ceases to be amazed at the things one will do for a friend. This should have been 7,000 words across 7 fics in 7 days, but it's a little more like 8,900 words...

FP (chaptered)
BS (individually): [ Amazing | Infinite | Cloudy | Blue | Ethereal | Night | Pale ]

* The Sky is not technically a 'fandom', when I write it, because it's all my work, and it doesn't have any fans. It's the story of two gentlemen in love, one of whom is a cranky, hatchet-faced, former English teacher, who plays in a band, and the other of whom is a flirty, bishie, history professor, who was touched by the Norse god of beauty and creativity, at birth. I find them brilliantly enjoyable. Your mileage may vary.

POP QUIZ! I want your opinions on booze and laws.

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:23:51 GMT

So, I'd been talking to my mum about some proposed laws in our city, and it came out that her views on some things had changed, since I was a kid. So, before I tell you about my views, I want to see yours.

View Poll: #1485895

So, I believe that having a bar area at 18+ events, at the very least, is important. You're subjecting people who aren't allowed to drink, yet, to the very real presence of potentially very drunk people. It's a lot easier to see that drinking to much will make an ass out of you, if you're not drinking, too. Springing both drinking and drunks on a person, all at once, is a recipe for disaster, because they will have no idea what to expect from themselves or from other people. Media portrayals of drinking tend to err to the extremes, and with only those ideas to work from, a situation is likely to get worse than it has to.

Now, on the subject of the drinking age being 21, I think its a bunch of crap. First, let me point out that I'm not a teenager. I'm nearly thirty. So, this isn't a bunch of 'oh, the drinking age needs to be younger so I can buy booze' tripe.

I honestly think that if we need a drinking age, it needs to be 18. A man can buy cigarettes and pornography, at 18. He can sign up to go get shot at in foreign countries. He can vote, or get a tattoo. Since you can't do most of these things while drunk, anyway, I see no harm in granting a person the right to drink, as well. (And to fucking check into a hotel, but that's another rant.)

Of course, this would alter the age ranges for shows, but, again, all-ages with separate bar does not offend me in any way. I used to go to festivals, when I was in my early teens. There were drunk people and beer tents. There were also security guys to keep the drunks and everybody else in line.

Legislating that children are forbidden to witness smoking or the consumption of alcohol just makes these things that much more tempting. Did prohibition work? No. Did alcohol related problems go down about five years after Prohibition ended? Yes. Why would this be different? Legislation like this removes personal responsibility and good judgement from the equation, which is not cool at all.

On innocence and the value of a good upbringing

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:47:49 GMT

Over the years, I have heard many people say they want their innocence back, especially around Christmas. So, this year I finally stopped to think about why my reaction to that is inevitably, "I don't".

Innocence is a state of unchanged purity and simplicity, and while it looks lovely from the outside, it's implausible in a real world context, for any length of time. More than that, if I got my innocence back, I would necessarily lose everyone I love, in the process. (I know, I can hear it, "WHAT? THE REMORSELESS FAG-WHORE LOVES PEOPLE!?" Yeah, I do. And I'm remorseless. Please bear that in mind when yanking my chains.) I am no one. But I am the no one who helped people and saved a few lives, before they decided I wasn't the kind of person they wanted to be associated with. (See 'remorseless', above.) I goddamn did something useful with my time, more than once. Why would I want to give that up, just so I couldn't see what was coming, any more? Why would I want to wish myself into being blindsided again, by things I already know how to avoid?

Look, all I'm saying is that innocence is overrated. It's only a good idea to forget about the evils of the world if you're not coming back to it. The Catholics have a thing for that, as I recall. A final confession, in the Last Rights, so that all the evils of the world stay in the world and don't drag your ass back down out of heaven. That? Is a good idea. I'm not even Catholic, and I'll probably ask for that, just in case. But, it ain't gonna do me any good down here.

I know that someone who reads me is strongly considering children. I know that as a parent, it's very hard to watch your children suffer through the same mistakes you made. I know it's hard to watch them get hurt. But, I'm going to tell you something very simple and very logical, and it's probably going to sound dumb, but I want you to remember it, when you're tempted to lie to your children, to protect them.

The best thing you can do is to provide your children with all the information you have available, including but not limited to your own opinions and experiences. If they have more and better information than you had, they will make better decisions, even if those decisions aren't quite the ones you were aiming for. Don't try to frighten them away from making mistakes, because they'll just try to prove they can do those things better than you. Sometimes, they might be right, but it's not a guarantee. I can remember being an age where I was on the receiving end of a whole lot of data and a whole lot of scare tactics. I remember what worked.

Innocence is overrated. Decent life skills are much more important, even the ones I learned the hard way. And if you doubt that, ask the jury-rigged suicide saves why they're still alive.

And there I go, tilting at windmills, again...