mathemajician

I had to work today.

And let me tell you, it sucked. People were being total dickheads.

Typically, people are nicer on holidays because they realize how lame it is that they get the day off while I have to work...but not today!

And we played holiday music. Because...our demographic likes that kind of shit.

So it was eight hours of marching bands, Bruce Springsteen, Toby Keith, Lee Greenwood, etc. over and over and over and over.

shoot me. Why can't you play Rebekah Del Rio singing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish? XD That shit is rad.

And in the earlier part of my shift I got a bunch of middle-aged men who were sympathetic. "Wow, it must be annoying to listen to this all day. This is obnoxious." "Yes...thank you for your sympathy XD"

Then in the early afternoon I started getting all these older ladies who were like, "I'm glad to hear you guys playing patriotic music because it's good to know someone still cares."

As if they're praising me because I personally selected the music and that makes me a good person.

As if people who don't flamboyantly celebrate the forth of July don't care. You know, some of us show that we care by paying attention...instead of wearing a lapel pin and waving a flag around, but whatever.

Customer: I'm from Boston and you would never hear this kind of thing there. I think it's really great. I think it's really unfair that only the leftist get to make their opinions known.
Me: We play the same music in all our stores, all across the nation. Even Boston.
Customer: Oh.

Why do people think I identify with them simply because I work for a company who plays "God Bless the US" 28 times in a day? Dude. I'm as liberal as they come, don't let the blue shirt fool you.

But yeah, everyone who commented on how great the music was said it with a deep burning hatred.

It's like this great big straw man argument. I'm not your enemy! I'm not Anti-America. I am, however, anti your bad attitude.

If you want me to give a shit about this holiday maybe you shouldn't use it as an opportunity to attack me. Just a thought.

But yeah, this holiday just serves to divide people into three groups:

1) Those who hate liberals
2) Those who hate brainless patriotism
3) Those who like fireworks and/or BBQs and/or paid days off

(Some people may fall into two of these catagories.)

This holiday sucks! I totally respect people who use this as an opportunity to be nice and have some fun...but I'm seeing a lot of, "Nerr, I'm going to wave this flag around and act like I'm being victimized by liberals!"

The political clash is so harsh here. I fucking hate it.

I'm sick of everybody's whining! Grow up!

My last full day in Paris is 27 Jul. Just discovered that's also the final day of the Tour de France. I'm hardly a big bike racing fan, but hey, may as well go check it out. It's not every day you get to go to something like that.

"The standard story: White males arbitrarily discriminated against everyone else out of pure malice. Then activists "raised awareness" and discrimination laws were passed to open up opportunities for people other than white males. While a strong legacy of racism and sexism persists, these laws have created the progress that disadvantaged groups have enjoyed since 1965.

Why it's wrong:
...."

-- Bryan Caplan

I would combine this video starting at minute 3:13



With this video:

Dear livejournal,

Is there a female equivalent to the comedic idiocy that is Homer Simpson?

What about a female equivalent to the calculating (but for the good) Mr. Spock?

Thanks,

RadiantSun

Alright, so I signed up for those "get four free issues and decide if you want to pay" things. Which is stupid, but I was bored.

And I read the information very carefully, and it said, "If you don't want to subscribe, we will send you a bill, and just check the box that says 'unsubscribe' and mail it back."

And they sent me six issues before they sent me a bill. And the bill didn't have an unsubscribe box, or any information about how to unsubscribe.

I was fucking busy, so I didn't deal with it until they started sending me threats about how they were going to send me to a collection agency. All the while, they were continuing to send me copies that I hadn't paid for.

So then I just paid to shut them the fuck up even though...it felt totally illegal to do what they were doing. (Though, apparently it's not.)

I searched their website for info and found none.

I just gave up. Whatever. I don't have the time or energy to care.


So I get a renewal notice with a "call this number to unsubscribe anytime!" And I called it, and I got this weird message that said, "For a $5 service fee, call this number." The hell?

And the notice says that my subscription hasn't run out yet, and I'm not being charged yet...it's just like a prewarning.

So I called customer service and I was like, "I want to cancel my subscription." And they were like, "Okay...okay, it looks like we already charged your account. We'll make sure to cancel your subscription and refund the charge on your account."

What?

"As a member of our Preferred Subscriber Automatic Renewal program, your subscription will continue automatically and your account will be charged approximately 2 weeks before the start of your next term."

Is what the notice says. I did not sign up for automatic renewal. There is absolutely no way I agreed to that. I hate this magazine. And the lady on the phone said my account expires August 18th...which is over a month from now. Yet they already charged me.

Dude. Somebody needs to sue these motherfuckers.

I'm sending them a written notice right now to confirm that I want my subscription cancelled.

low-pass filter: average over the last n time steps
high-pass filter: the residual of the low-pass filter

To Ms. Michelle Malkin;


(this woman)

who made the incredible suggestion that Rachel Ray's black-and-white paisley scarf (worn during a Dunkin Donuts commercial which was pulled from broadcasting) was reminiscent of "the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad," and further wrote in her column:

It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists. Too many of them bend over backward in the direction of anti-American political correctness....

Well, you stupid slack-jawed bitch whelp of a cuntwhore, I hope an irate schizophrenic jihad extremist plows a Cessna into your bathroom while you're sitting on the toilet.

Sincerely,

Jenarael

PS. If I had to decide between pushing you or Ann Coulter off a boat into shark-infested waters, I'd probably push you. And beat off the rest of the sharks with Coulter's boney louse-infested lysozyme sack.


Jesus Effin Christmas, am I in a bad mood tonight. Also, when the hell did America become a country where 55% of adults DON'T believe in teaching evolution in schools? Maybe those same people think the earth is flat and the lunar landing was a hoax.

Theorycrafting: "The Virgin Whore Complex"
By Mona Adele

 

Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.
-Betty Friedan

Earlier this week, I learned that an ex of mine is getting thoroughly pwnt by the Internet. Someone hacked his myspace, made it hot pink, and made all sorts of disparaging remarks about his sexual orientation and persona. This ex was engaged as of a few weeks ago and seemed, for all intents and purposes, happy with his lot. I'm not sure what happened, but I can only guess that either a) one of the hundreds of crazy girls he's screwed over has somehow accessed his account information for AIM and Myspace (keylogger anyone?), or b) he really, REALLY pissed off his fiance.

This leads to the question of how far a girl will go to get back at a guy. Which leads to theorycrafting about why anyone would date someone like my ex in the first place. Don't get me wrong, we're still cordial-- in the most non-intimate way imaginable, for obvious reasons. However, after 9 months of knowing this guy and being thoroughly deluded by pangs of undying love, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was the biggest man-whore and self-loving/loathing train wreck I would encounter in my entire life. Considering my chosen profession, that's saying a LOT.

This does not make him a bad friend. It simply makes him a horrible person to have a romantic relationship with, because (like many of the guys I dated at that point in my life) the only person he has a deep intimate connection with is himself. As a friend he's considerate, compassionate, funny, and great for an intelligent and stimulating conversation. He's charming and charismatic, and so long as you're not blinded by that, he's easy to like. Unfortunately for a lot of women, he's also easy to love, and he has the unfortunate ability of seeming very sincere. It does not help that he's a sex addict and has received treatment for this disorder in the past.

Ex is par for the course as far as my relationship history goes between the ages of 18-23. I've noticed the same tendency among a lot of women in that age group, so much so that I'm inclined to believe that it's pandemic. I've often referred to this as "the Virgin Whore Complex." The name originated with my friend Sarah, who used it to refer to girls who whored themselves out to every jerk who paid them a bit of attention. I have a few younger friends who are going through/went through the same thing, and a few older friends/peers who shared similar experiences, some to greater, some to lesser extents. Over time I've tried to articulate the whys and wherefores of why women that age date men who are absolutely horrible for them, and I think it comes down to a conversation my good friend Renee and I had a while back.

Women are inherently insecure when we're young. So are men, don't get me wrong, but the methods of managing this insecurity differs between genders. Women need constant validation and approval. So do men. To some extent, both attempt to gain this validation and approval from the opposite sex. . .

Read more and comment here

My number in Helsinki is 044 961 8295.

The pre-paid SIM card cost 17Euro and came with 10Euro in credit; All calls I can make cost me 16c/min (except for International and service numbers).

Why doesn't a screen-capture of VLC Player / Media Player work?

What would work?

It's 1:04am now, and it's somewhat darker than that, but I could probably walk around without artificial lighting.

I've been walking to work with mhat every now and then. On the way to his office, we noticed a big poop on the street that was big. I thought it was human and he thought it was just from a large dog. There is nothing I'm willing to do to find out who is right in that debate. I think we are pretty comfortable with uncertainty in that matter.

Every now and then, being in San Francisco reminds me of my privilege. Not as a white person, because there are lots of poor, homeless white people here too, and being white doesn't seem to have any advantage for the homeless. But as someone that was brought up in the top percentiles of American wealth. I don't even know if I constructed that sentence properly, but whatever. Anyway, privileged in that way because it sheltered me from a lot of stuff.

I've been thinking a lot about homeless people, because I see them EVERYWHERE here. In every other city I've been in, they seem pretty easy to avoid coming into contact with. Or at least I don't remember seeing them that much. I also don't recall EVER having seen an Asian homeless person. Poor, yes. But homeless? No. radiata_prime explained the reasoning behind why it less likely for Asians to be homeless, EDITbut the post is locked, otherwise I'd link it. The post is here

So, this morning, walking back from Mhat's office, my music listening device died. And on the rear side of a car, I saw a blanketed mass. As I got closer, I could hear the mass making groaning sounds, and on the side of the blanketed mass closest to the trunk of the car, I saw a lily white ass sticking out from under the blanket. And from that ass, poop was coming out. A big brown stinky log.

Yes, I could smell the poop.

I started dry heaving. I kept moving up the hill as quickly as possible, and relief washed over me when I could no longer smell the homeless person poop.

You know when you smell something, particles of it are in your nose. Tiny particles of homeless person poop were in my nose.

I started thinking about he feasibility of putting port-a-potties at a lot of street corners, and that was followed by imagining a homeless person locking themselves in it to sleep at night, and then it is not available to the other would-be street poopers. Or, the port-a-potties getting poop all over the inside of them . . . because the people using them would care about making it in the hole.

Really, the solution is help the homeless become not homeless. And whatever San Francisco is doing, liberal city that it is, is not helping. There seem to be more homeless here than in LA. And according to some quick "internet research" which may or may not be good, LA has more homeless people, but SF has more homeless people per capita. And according to this spread sheet, per capita, DC has the highest percentage at 1%, followed by Nevada at .7%, Rhode Island at .6%, then Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon California at .5% and California having the most homeless total.

Apparently, San Francisco used to just give the homeless money, and the govn't has shifted to "care" not "cash" for the homeless, which seems like a better idea.

I'm also reminded of an article brought to my attention by reichart in the New Yorker, on homelessness, and how for many homeless, it is not a way of life but a place they find themselves temporarily, but for some, it is almost impossible to help them be anything but homeless. Of course maybe help is coming in the wrong form.

I don't know a lot about homelessness. I see a few jobs for MFTi's working with the homeless . . . which, as long as I'm in a clinic and not out on the street I feel okay with, but anything that involves going into a client's domain gives me the willies, even if they are not homeless. The only exception are homebound old people.

Anyway, the "moral" of this experience for me is: Sometimes poop IS NOT funny.

В догонку к предыдущему посту.
( литдыбр->корочка )

Here's the preview for Dr. Horrible's Sing Along, Joss Whedon and co.




Tee hee! I hope it will be musical goodness!

So one day this lady came in and she was wearing all purple.

Purple hat with a purple flower, purple shirt, purple sweater, purple pants, purple sandals, purple socks, purple lapel pin, purple glasses, with a purple purse.

And she filled out her purple checks with a purple pen with purple ink.

She was purple down to her finger nails.

And she was like that every time I saw her.


So she came in yesterday and she was dressed completely in shades of light brown.

Even her checks are beige now.


And she handed me her license and I noticed for the first time that she's dressed entirely in gray for the picture.


I could have sworn there was a word for this.

..until the end of August. If any of you do as well, you should say hi, and tell me fun things to do.

* Pitt-Cincinnati pilot got a stomach flu, unfit to fly; severely delayed. I figured I better not go West if I'm going to miss my connection.
* called Delta Reservations while inside the airplane. After talking to unhelpful person (who refused to look up alternative routes), the Delta gate attendant made a phone call and put me on a direct flight to Boston (USAirways). The line to talk to him was huge, is probably going to last >1 hour^*: I'm lucky I was third (and that a Tennessee-bound gentleman let me go ahead of him)
* since this is none of FinnAir's business, I could theoretically get stuck in Boston indefinitely, or forced to buy yet another very expensive flight. For now, sounds like I will be ok.

The luggage is probably still with Delta, but they said it should catch up with me in Boston. (It's checked all the way to Helsinki, so I think I don't need to worry about it)

Updates here.

---

^{* - 30 minutes later, ~20 people were still standing in line to see him. He was still completely alone! I couldn't locate any Delta agents in other gates.}

Got back last night from Colorado. What a month! Most of the stories will have to wait. But for now, I share with you a Youtube video about 20 of us watched one night, on a big projector screen in the common area of the dorm where we were staying. Quite apropos for a summer school on the "Dawn of the LHC Era":


LHC is "Satan's Stargate"

Naturally, we'd had quite a few beers by that point, and it made for lots of laughs. We followed it up by watching another Youtube video claiming that Nostradamus predicted black holes (of the earth-swallowing variety) will be produced at LHC... but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as the one above so I won't bother linking to it.

In the process of finding it just now, I found this video, which caused me to subscribe to her vlog... yes, she gets a few things wrong, but overall she's too devastatingly cute not to like, seems pretty intelligent, has awesome jewelry (check out the bracelet on her left hand, only visible once towards the end), and knows at least 100 times more about LHC than the average person:


Cute girl discussing LHC

And while I'm posting videos, how about this one? a quick, fun, optimistic monologue by and for transppl:


Being Trans is Cool and Fun

All in all, TASI was probably not as memorable as Perimeter last year. But it sure did seem like I was gone for longer than a month... what a weird little "summer camp" experience it was. I'm feeling so much better than when I left.