Sunday, July 31, 2005

Some thoughts for the cast of Big Brother 6

For Kaysar:

Dude, you're not Lex Luther. Please stop talking about "your plan".

For Sarah:

Your boyfriend seems a little devious, plus you look so much like Posh Spice!

Maggie:

While loyalty is a trait I personally admire, you seem to be taking it to a weird level. Please see Kaysar's remark re Lex Luthor and remember it's a game for money not a battle of good vs. evil.

Janelle:

Breaking up with your boyfriend from the Diary Room of BB6 was one of the creepiest things I have ever seen on tv.

Howie:

"Boobies" is a word best left for eleven year old boys. Even then it's borderline.

Ivette:

You're some kind of crazy genius inventor! The coaster game! The ghetto slide! Bread pudding! Checkers!

No One Likes an Enabler

I can understand wanting to know how many unique hits one's Blog gets. I can understand having an interest in where those visitors are coming from, who is referring them, and even, albeit marginally, at what time they are visiting. What I cannot understand is the need to know the other stuff. I am trying desperately to see some way that the other stats might be relevant to my life...

Me, picking up phone to call friend. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep (that's me dialing)

Friend: Hello

Me: OH. MY. GOD.

Her: What!?

Me: OMIGOD!

Her: Whaaaat!?

Me: You are not going to believe who has JavaScript enabled!

Or, you think you know a person, then you find out that he has his screen resolution set at 800x600. And you're forced to get all "I don't even know who you are anymore!" on his ass.

And do not even get me started on the people who are using proxy. Do they not have any standards at all!?

How about, "You know I have to be honest, I wasn't sure about you at first, when we first met. I was concerned that maybe our values were too different to really establish a firm friendship. Then I saw you were using Mozilla, and well, that changed everything!"

I am going to assume that this is like Physics; I just don't even know how much I don't know. And I will leave it at that.

Unless you are one of those mofos who enable cookies, in which case, I don't even want to know you.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

I Love The Brits!

I can't even try to be funny today.

I have been thinking so much lately about the bombings in London. I so admired the British "FUCK YOU." response to the tube bombings. The "You will not win."

I loved it and I still do. The British people rock.

Then I found out that the bombers were second or third generation British citizens. Betrayal makes it even worse.

The bombers' victims were the people who go to work every day to make the money to pay the taxes that paid for the education and the health care and the protection and the social safety net that the bombers and their families benefitted from every day of their lives. Salt in the wound.

I'll say this, too. I haven't heard a whole lot of "British people we stand behind you" support, and that almost bugs me more. So, for the record, British people, we stand behind you! And we should all look to you for how to behave when evil people do horrible things.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Camping

This morning I got up early and did the thing everyone does just a day before a camping trip: come on, yell out the answer if you know it! You've been camping, right? Yes! exactly, I went shopping for new bras. I tried on over 20,000 and bought two. Camping strength.

Then I stopped by the patio furniture section of the department store. They had an outdoor room set up with a comfy, cushioned furniture, a coffee and end table set, a bar, a portable air conditioner and a patio heater. There was an electrical generation station of some kind so one could plug in a television. And some smart dinnerware. And this was all enclosed inside one of those screen rooms, which had a zippered door and some hilarious employee had added a battery operated door bell to the outside. I sat at the bar and ordered a Mai Tai. Which, apparently, they didn't have.

I thought to myself what these people really want is a basement. I mean truly, like aren't there some sort of essential requirements that make one's stay outdoors actually be outdoors. How about "no doors" for one.

I'm a stickler!

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Punctuating on the Internet

Five question marks after a question:

One question mark -- perfectly clear!

Two? Maybe a tremor.

Five? As near as I can tell, five is meant to convey incredulity.

Like this: Did someone actually teach you to punctuate the English language that way?????

Or is that something you came up with that on your own?????

Saturday, July 02, 2005

For Hyper Sensitives Everywhere...

It has finally happened to me.

The thing I have waited for, since childhood, has finally arrived.

No, I am not talking about the Secret Agent beebee gun I send a dollar twenty five for to an address in the back of an Archie comic book in 7th grade. That has still not arrived.

But something far more wonderful has.

No, not my period. (That gift of womanhood was highly overrated by the way.)

I have finally reached the stage of my life that has been promised by many women, mainly Oprah, but she's every woman, or used to be until she turned in Oprah Van Houten, anyway.

It's here. I have come to that wonderful phase of my life where I no longer care what people think of me or my choices.

Sensitivity can be a very good thing; it makes you kinder, more compassionate, more considerate of other people's feelings. It alters your behaviour, for the better because it's unbearable to feel the guilt of having hurt someone, or the shame of not helping when you were able. But sensitivity has a price. It makes you sticky. Every little unkind word, every injustice, every sad story sticks. And it's hard to live like that. Ad no matter how hard you try, you just cannot brush it off. You can say you don't care, but you do. You can try to forget, but you can't. You can even decide not to be affected, and you will be. Because even that decision will have its own cost. And really, who wants to be an asshokle anyway.

What I chose to do was just live with it. I finally accepted that I was a sensitive person, and stopped apologizing for it. I stopped getting so angry at myself for letting things affect me, and simply accepted that they do. Instead of being angry with myself for being too sensitive, I decided to see it as a good thing.

And then a miracle! By age or by choice or by Divinity, I know not which, the dream of the sensitive person everywhere materialized in my life: it occurred to me that I don't care, not in a self-esteem affecting way anyway, what people think of me anymore.

But, and this is the miracle part, I can feel this way while still caring about other things. I get to keep the good parts of sensitivity without all the bad.

I wish the same for you.