Sum It Up

I don't use Tumblr.  I have one, but I don't use it.  I do, however, have friends who use Tumblr, and one of those friends is Wyatt.  He made a post about autism that got pretty popular, and I wanted to reblog it but like I said, I don't use Tumblr.  So I'm just going to link it here to show my support.

If you can't see the screencap or don't want to click it to make it bigger, this is the text of the post:

"Here, look, I’m just going to sum it up reeeeal simple for anyone who still doesn’t understandIf you see a charity for autism that obsesses even the slightest bit over wanting to “cure” autism in any waystay the fuck away from themI am not an illness"

Hell to the yeah, I could not have worded that any better myself.  Not that I have autism or am any kind of expert on the subject, but I have mentioned my ADHD on here before.  Not the same, but it's kind of a similar position, where people assume I am broken or flawed just because my brain works differently sometimes and I should be "cured" or "fixed" and become a completely different person.  So I just wanted to say, yes, this is excellent and this needs to be repeated as many times as possible until it finally sinks in for everyone who thinks otherwise.

ACTUAL ADVICE MALLARD IS BAD AT ADVICE

This is the slut-shaming Actual Advice Mallard I mentioned in my last post:

Translated: if you are at all sexual, like by wearing low-cut tops because you like how they make you feel or by having casual sex because you find sex enjoyable and don't let other people judge you for it, you are less than human and nobody can ever respect you!  By finding empowerment in something I don't, you are just showing everybody how worthless and trashy you are because REAL empowerment is in doing what I approve of, not in doing what makes you feel empowered!  Doing anything that society can label as sexual, whether it's what you wear, say, or do, means you lose the right to equality and respect.  Slut!

This duck really pissed me off because I abhor slut-shaming, as I may have mentioned in an older post, especially slut-shaming passed off as concerned pseudo-advice.  Also, ignoring that specific example, while some of its advice was good, the duck meme had a lot of total bullshit as well.  So I'm going to run with the joke I made in my last post, and actually follow up on making fun of all the terrible advice mallards I found.  Let's go!

Women are a completely different species and it is a hopeless dream to try and understand anything about them!  But there's no point in trying because all women understand each other (presumably via the female hive mind, because women are all pretty much identical personality-wise) and we all hate each other, no exceptions!  Sorry, all my female friends.  I thought I loved you all because you are such rad individuals, but nope!  Women all hate each other.  That's disappointing.  Now I feel lonely.

The only reason you could possibly get mugged is because you live in a bad area, and the only reason you live in a bad area is because you're too dumb to think of moving to a better one!  There is no reason whatsoever that anyone would choose to live in a bad neighbourhood.  Rent is exactly the same price in every area of town and moving from one home to another is completely free!  Nobody has to worry about being close to work or schools, and nobody has any emotional investment in their home or neighbourhood that could make them want to stay.

Women are mostly interchangeable and the only thing you should expect from one is physical attractiveness and mental stability.  What her personality is like and whether you love her are not important.  Settle for what you already have rather than trying to find a loving, emotionally fulfilling relationship.

People always try to match their bra and underwear whether or not they expect anyone to see them, and presumably they do it to impress other people rather than because they personally like having matching sets!  Also they have cats, because they are lonely!

Again, women always choose clothes because they want to impress other people rather than because they personally like wearing them!

Having children is an event that is always planned ahead and never ever happens by accident, and poor people shouldn't get to make that decision for themselves!

A woman who is not physically attractive is completely worthless and if you spend any time at all talking to someone who isn't conventionally beautiful, you are wasting your life!  The only thing a woman is good for is being pretty!

I am not a doctor, but if you are really depressed it is easy to make large lifestyle changes, and you should do them before you go to a real doctor to see if you can get medicine to help you with your disorder.  Depression is not really a big deal and you probably don't need any help in dealing with it.

Nobody shares the videos they take with other people who couldn't be there for the actual event, and it's impossible to enjoy the moment and plan ahead at the same time so don't even bother to try!

Sports are the single most important thing that could ever exist, and you must stay for the whole game every time no matter the game, no matter what else you have to do that day!

Because dogs and children are pretty much the same, right?  Just put out a bowl of dry food and take it out for a walk or two every day, and if it misbehaves while you're gone you can just keep it locked in the basement or something until you get back.  And if you find that you get tired of the responsibility after a few years just send it off to a shelter or something.  You can do that with kids, right?

"Being Needy"

Look, it's fantastic. I have to find out where this thing came from.

There's this huge stigma against girls being "needy" and most women I know (including myself!) jump through so many hoops so we're not considered clingy or desperate when we're dating a guy, but why isn't there any kind of stigma against guys who start being really distant and emotionally disconnected and who start criticizing everything their girlfriend does or says?

True story, I once felt really crappy while dating a guy because he convinced me I was selfish and needy because I demanded too much of him sometimes.  Like, expecting him to, if not hold my hand, then at least be willing to walk down the street within ten feet of me instead of keeping his distance like I had the plague.  Or for pressuring him too much to hang out, when I hadn't seen him in a month.  This same guy decided, about six months into the relationship, that I chewed too loudly and would criticise me every time I took a bite, until once he literally leave the room until I finished eating.  This came out of nowhere.  One day everything was fine and then over dinner, "Holy crap, how can you eat like that?  It's disgusting, can you please try not to deafen me."  Where did it come from?  Why did I stay with a guy who acted like this?  Well, I don't know where it came from, other than "it turns out he was kind of a dick," but I stayed with him because by the time his behaviour got that ridiculous, he'd convinced me that ever feeling that I deserved more from him than what he was willing to give made me a needy, clingy girlfriend who nobody could love because I was just so needy and clingy, and that a good relationship meant never ever talking about negative things because then I'd just be trying to start a fight and he'd get upset and I'd have to stop talking about whatever it was and spend the rest of the day trying to soothe his hurt feelings or else the relationship was over and somehow that would be a bad thing, I don't even know.  Next time you hear a girl being described as needy, stop and look closely for a minute and think about if what she needs is really so extreme.  Maybe she's just dating an asshole.

Wireless Mouse: Logitech vs Microsoft

I don't like trackpads.  No, wait, let me rephrase.  I loathe trackpads.  They are a vile, hideous, oozing pus-filled plague-boil of fuckery infecting laptops everywhere.  Trackpads are the worst.  Trackpads cut NASA's funding.  Trackpads were the masterminds behind 9/11.  Trackpads invented New Coke.  Trackpads are the opposite of Batman.

So I bought a wireless mouse!

Actually, I have two wireless...mice?  Mouses?  Whatever, two of them.  One I've had for about a year, maybe a bit longer, which I bought when the wired mouse to my desktop computer stopped working.  But I didn't want to take that mouse from the desktop computer, so I got another one for my laptop a few months ago..  And now...I'm going to compare them!  WOOOOO!  I've never compared techy-stuff before, so I have no idea what I'm doing!  Wooooo?  Really, this is probably more TK's area of expertise, not mine.  This is going to be a train wreck, I can tell.  So let's get on with it!

gif unrelated

Well, the main thing I was looking for when I went to buy a new mouse was to find a small one, to fit my hand: I have kinda small hands, I guess, and pretty much every mouse I've ever used before buying my own was bigger than my hand.  Which I guess wasn't bad, but when I went to the mouse-store and found out "Holy shit, this one FITS IN MY HAND" it was pretty crazy!  Having a mouse that fits my palm is super-comfortable.  So both of the wireless mice/mouses/whatever I bought were like half the size of every previous mouse I've used.  After the size, I wanted a mouse-wheel.  It is so weird to use a mouse without a wheel after you've gotten used to using the wheel.  The third thing, it had to be adorable.  Or at least not-ugly.  Call me shallow all you want, but if I gotta look at it all the time it should be appealing.  Fourth thing is, I had to be able to afford it, so somewhere in the area of twenty or thirty dollars.  That's pretty much all I thought about when I went mouse-shopping.  I dunno if there's any other way to decide what you want in a mouse.  Again, I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing here.

My new mouse is Microsoft brand.  It takes one battery and has a colorful if somewhat abstract design.  I believe I bought it for around twenty dollars.  It fit my hand perfectly, measuring at three and a half inches long according to my sewing tape.

It's an okay mouse.  It's comfortable to use and has a mouse wheel and two mouse buttons, it was affordable and cute, it's, you know, a mouse.  I don't really know what else to say about it.  It doesn't have extra buttons or do anything fancy or flash or light up or anything, other than the on-light.

Congratulations on meeting the minimum standards of mousehood!

I stopped using that mouse a few months after getting it, though.  I liked it well enough, but it had a few flaws that made it a not-great mouse.  For example, the battery cap on the underside wasn't perfectly smooth, so it had a tendancy to snag on the fabric of the sofa where I was usually using it.  I adapted to that by getting a denim placemat and using it as an armchair mousepad.  The thing I didn't want to adapt to was the battery life -- I only used the mouse for a few months because I got tired of having to replace the battery every three or four weeks, even though I always turned it off when I wasn't using it.  So I plugged the Microsoft mouse into the desktop computer that I haven't used since we had to unplug and move it while we redid the floors, and I took my older Logitech mouse from there and started using that.

The Logitech mouse was I think about twenty-five or thirty dollars, but I might have gotten it on sale, I'm not sure.  But I bought it, so it must have been in my price range.  It's a good mouse.  It doesn't have any sort of design on it or anything, other than the logo, but it's a deep pretty red that doesn't really come through in the photos.  It's not as pale or orange-looking as my pictures make it seem.  It uses two batteries instead of the one that the Microsoft mouse uses, but other than that it's pretty similar.  The two mouse-buttons and the wheel, the on-light, you know, general mousy stuff.  It's slightly larger than the other mouse at four inches long, but it's still comfortable in my hand.  I think I prefer the size of the Microsoft mouse, but I like the Logitech mouse much better overall.

I've had this mouse for about a year, and I leave it on literally all the time.  I even left it on for the four months or so that the desktop computer was disconnected in the corner of my room, and it was only the other day that I had to change the batteries for the first time.  I could tell it was starting to die, because it was shutting off every now and then, but I am gonna think of that as a perk - it was letting me know that the batteries were getting low, but I could keep using the mouse by just switching it off and back on and it would work fine for another little while.  I put off replacing the batteries for as long as I could, until it was shutting off every ten minutes.  Still, it was doing that for like a month and it wasn't all that annoying, so I gotta say I am really fond of the battery life.  The only drawback to the Logitech mouse is the battery cover --  it's not on the bottom like on the Microsoft mouse, so it doesn't catch on anything, it's under my palm -- the part with the logo on it.  Like I said before, I usually use my laptop on the sofa in the living room, and use the mouse on the armrest.  The mouse gets knocked to the floor constantly, because that's a high-traffic area; I'm always shoving it with my elbow when I move the laptop, or brush it when I get up, or knock it when I reach over for a drink or something.  And every single time it falls down, the battery cover pops off.  Sometimes the cover gets lost under the sofa and I have to spend ten minutes moving furniture to reach it.  Yet despite opening so easily when I don't want it to, I could not for the life of me get it open when I had to change the batteries last week.  I had to put it on the armrest and then push it off to open it.  I'm pretty sure that's not how it was designed to work.

So overall, the Logitech mouse has a flaw or two but is the clear winner when compared to the Microsoft mouse.  I was really disappointed in the Microsoft mouse, actually.  I thought it would be way better than it was -- who puts a rough snaggy bottom on a mouse?  Not Logitech.  If you are in the market for an affordable wireless mouse and have to choose between Microsoft and Logitech, go with Logitech.  

Much less shitty than Microsoft's mouse.

GIRLS ONLY, NO BOYS ALLOWED

Saw this on Youtube today.  Disney's The Story Of Menstruation.  There were a few comments that said something along the lines of, "I remember seeing stuff like this in school, they had a special class for girls and they'd show us this video/a video like this, the boys would go somewhere else."

There are a few reasons this video annoyed me.  First, the description calling this a banned cartoon.  This was never a banned cartoon.  I hate watching old cartoons on Youtube and just about every one is "banned," or claimed to be.  People just spread misinformation about cartoons being banned, because calling it banned generates more hits (or they just assume that any given cartoon must have been banned, because OMG LADY PARTS IN AN EDUCATIONAL CARTOON?  NOOOOOO!!)  Another reason it annoyed me is that the way the lady narrating pronounces "maturing" is so weird.  Mahtooooring.  The hell.

But the main reason I am annoyed at it is because of those comments, about how girls would have to watch it and the boys would be sent out.  Which isn't directly annoyance at the cartoon, more annoyance at how stuff like that has been educated.  Why can't boys learn how menstruation works, too?  I know most of that sort of stuff happened in Ye Olden Days Of Sexism, but I've heard of it happening in Ye Modern "Post-Sexism" Days* too.  I've met so many guys who have absolutely no knowledge of what menstruation is or why/how it happens.  Once somebody expressed amazement that women get cramps during their period.  Or that menstrual cycles affect hormones and shit even when we aren't bleeding, or that periods may not always be predictable and regular, or that being on your period doesn't automatically make you a RAGING BITCH RAAAAAAAR.  Dudes.  You are thinking PMS.  It stands for premenstrual syndrome.  As in, it happens BEFORE your period, and ends when your period starts.  So if you claim that any lady who acts irritable when you're being a douche "must be on the rag!" then you sound like a complete idiot.  Also, PMS isn't just "ladies hulk out!"  There are a lot of symptoms (and it's not universal either, there are plenty of women who don't get PMS at all) and they can include breast tenderness, clumsiness, headache, and any of these other symptoms here.
*Post-sexism: not actually a thing.

So why can't guys sit in on this video too?  It's not some big secret that ladies sometimes bleed from the crotchal area.  Most women do.  Most guys realize that most women do.  It's pretty hard to get through life without learning this little fact.  So why don't people want to teach boys as well as girls how and why it happens, and what to expect?  There's nothing wrong with learning about stuff that doesn't directly affect you.  And it's a good thing to learn about stuff that directly affects half the people you interact with.  Also, it helps you not look like a fucking moron when I mention a basic fact of life and you are utterly confused because "Durr, what does your period have to do with stomach cramps?"

And for the record, when I give you a death glare and/or punch you for making a PMS joke, it's not proof that I've got PMS.  It's proof that you've successfully pissed me off, because PMS jokes are one of my pet peeves.  How come every time a woman is annoyed or angry it's proof that she's somehow suffering from PMS, even while she's menstruating or has just finished a period?  What, men can get pissed off for the sake of being pissed off but whenever a woman is pissed it's because of hormones?  Fuck you.

I love my glasses!

I hear it all over the place, from people who have to wear prescription glasses -- they suck.  They're awkward, they're ugly, they're annoying, I want contacts, I want Lasik.  Nobody likes glasses.  Glasses are like plastic herpes you caught from the optometrist.

Herpes framex

Fuck that!  I love my glasses!

<3

My eyesight is shit.  Super-shit, actually, I can see maybe five or six inches away from my face and then it gets blurry.  I know one person with eyesight worse than mine, and she's on her way to being legally blind. Well okay maybe two people with eyesight worse than mine, but the other one is my grandmother who actually is blind so that doesn't count.  

So I love my glasses because when I wear them I can see shit!!!!  Do you not get how amazing this is?  The gift of sight is a wonderful thing, my friends.

But I also love my glasses because my glasses are adorable.  I like how I look in glasses.  And maybe it's just because I've worn them all my life, but when I take off my glasses I feel like my face is missing something.  Granted, I'm still adorable, but that's just because I'm just irresistible in general.

Mabel is the only one who gets me.

I have two pairs of glasses -- they're new!  Ish!  I got them a few months ago.  In retrospect, I should have gone for the one-normal-pair-and-one-sunglasses-pair because I really do need prescription sunglasses.  But I just couldn't decide between these two frames, they're both pretty rad.  So I got both of them, because apparently I am completely incapable of making decisions and planning for my future needs!  Yay!

One is a purple plastic pair with a butterfly on the arm joint, and they suit my face really well.  They're just so cute, I can't get over it.

And my other pair is a really neat Geordi La Forge sort of wrap-around thing, and they just looked too neat to pass up.  I spent like an hour agonizing over which pair to pick before I went, fuck it, I'll get 'em both!  It's important to be satisfied with the glasses you're going to be wearing every day for the foreseeable future.

Glasses are awesome. They are so pretty!  And they come in so many styles!  If the pair you're wearing doesn't suit you, then next time get a different set of frames that go with your face.  It's not that glasses are bad, you're just not wearing the right pair.  I'll never understand people who go "I don't like my glasses."  What the hell is there not to like?  I get the "My glasses are inconvenient sometimes" angle, or the "My glasses aren't the right prescription any more so I don't like them" or whatever, but glasses are rad!  If I ever get Lasik or something, I'd keep wearing my glasses just for fashion, even if I didn't need them.  Again, I've worn them all my life so my face just looks right with glasses, but I like the look of glasses on pretty much anybody.  I think everybody should wear glasses, prescription or not, just for fashion.  There's a frame for everyone!  And the more people who wear glasses, the more pressure movie theatres will be under to make 3D glasses that go on comfortably over normal glasses.  It's win-win!

Thank You, Mighty Penis

Moderating a dating site is fun.  You get to see all the crazies.

Today a profile was flagged that was hilarious.  It was some older dude with a billion "tips" for "girls" on how to "get" a "man."  Gee, dude, do you think the reason you need to use a dating site is because you feel the need to instruct women on how they're Doing Everything Wrong before they even get a chance to talk to you?

The first "tip" is to look for commitment qualities instead of sparks, because "Notice how most couples, after the first few months, barely converse and have no passion outside the bedroom."  First, why is it more important that a girl look for a guy who will Stick Around than it is to find a dude she has Sparks with?  What's the point in dating a guy for his commitment potential if you have no chemistry?  And maybe she doesn't want a dude who will Commit To Love Her Forever And A Day.  Maybe she just wants a short-term guy to have fun with.  You don't get to decide how women pick who they want to date, and how they want to date them.  Second, that doesn't sound like most couples to me.  That sounds like a dude who has had a lot of shitty relationships and is projecting like a motherfucker.  Especially since how do you know how other couples act in the bedroom.  Busted.  Just because you're shit at relationships doesn't mean everybody else is.

The next tip is....not actually a tip.  There are a few like this.  He's just all, "Dating is a game!  Guys do stuff to get girls.  Maybe they'll be jerks! Irresponsible people are irresponsible!"  Oooh, helpful.

Tip number three is insulting to women and men.  It's a recurring theme in this list.  Apparently, men are simple and want a simple woman -- sorry, simple girl.  Not once does the list ever refer to a woman as a woman, it's always girl.  Anyway, Simple Guys want a Simple Girl and "notice how most girls with dating problems and most on dating sites are the adventure, party, corporate job, and extroverted ones."  That's right, ladies, if you ever want to have fun or talk to people or, like, have a job or something, that means that you can never ever get a Good Man.  Sorry!  That's just what the list says, and I'm sure you can tell that this advice is all pure gold.  Gold, I tell you!  Also I swear to god this paragraph ends with "How do you please a man? Sports, food and sex. If you want a long conversation that's not about sports, cars or video games, talk to your friends."  Yup, every single guy who ever existed liked all those things and only those things, and they've never ever been able to have any kind of conversation that did not include them.  I've never in my entire life met a single dude who did not play video games, follow sports, or care about cars.  Just like how I've never met a woman girl who liked those things!  Pfft, you want to talk?  That's what women girls are for.  (Hey remember the first tip when he complained that after a few months in all his relationships in everybody's relationships, the couple never converse any more and are only passionate in the bedroom? I think I just figured it out!)

Tip number four!  "Girls want a Man? It goes both ways, Men want a Lady."  Those uppity bitches only want equality "until the bill comes," and if a dude says he likes girly things or is not a manly man then girls will run in the opposite direction! So why shouldn't guys only want girlie-girls who cook and clean and stay in the kitchen!  Now, to be fair to the list-writer, he does say that women girls are allowed to be tomboyish and swear and like fights and sports and drink alcohol and work out.  Of course we're allowed to do that!  But if you do, "don't expect to get a good guy.  If you want to be treated like a Lady, act like one."  He also blames the skyrocketing divorce rate on how girls aren't acting like Ladies any more.  It's all our fault, girls.  Sorry.  Every relationship that ever failed is because you were just too dudely.  

Tip five, "Too many girls think it's all about them. This isn't a Womans World, there are 2 genders, 2 way street. If you want us to respect your body, then respect our wallets."

I actually can't really figure out what he's trying to say here.  I mean, I get what he thinks he's trying to say, that women are all gold-digging whores who take offense to being called whores and that is somehow a bad thing, but....what?  We know it isn't a Woman's World (by the way, this is the only time the word woman shows up in the entire list, I did a ctrl-f search), that's why women make seventy cents to the dollar, rape is ridiculously under-reported, women are under-represented everywhere from the media to the government...and somehow, not being raped or sexually assaulted or harassed is equal to going dutch on dates.  According to this list.  How is this dude single?  I just can't figure it out.

Tip six.  Real Men don't cheat, lie, tell you what you want to hear, or act all "bad ass" because only insecure dudes do that!  (Well, that's not true.  I know lots of really confident, narcissistic dudes who cheated and lied and flirted all over the place.  Just because you don't like the way they act, doesn't mean that they hate themselves.)  Real Men are [insert every single positive attribute you can think of here].  I don't see the point of this tip.  "Jerks are assholes!  Good men are awesome!"  Woah, thanks!  And then the tip continues by saying most girls can't handle Real Men so they go for Boys who cheat and lie.  Yeah, that's it, us women are just so flustered and intimidated by really cool guys that we just throw our hands in the air and date assholes. It has nothing to do with the fact that the world is not actually separated into Real Men and Boys Who Suck, but rather into People Who Have Both Positive And Negative Qualities.  That can't be it at all.

Seven.  "Girls dislike whiny, serious, judgemental, bitter, negative, impatient guys (yet girls do those more than anyone) yet girls like guys who are drunks, chaotic and play games."  One, you are a dude.  You do not get to say "Girls like _____" with any credibility if you are not, in fact, a girl.  Two, even if you were a girl, you could still not say that with any credibility because not all women are the same.  I've said it before, women are not a monolith.  Yes, some women like men who drink, are "chaotic" (whatever that means -- maybe he's thinking of Harley Quinn and the Joker), and play games.  Plenty don't.  Some women also like whiny serious judgemental bitter negative impatient guys when plenty don't.  Also, nice potshot at women there, "girls do those more than anyone," yeah right.  You can really feel the hate-on he has for ladies, can't you?  He's being pretty whiny and bitter and negative and judgmental   Then he says, "If you can't tolerate impatient, tempers or seriousness you'll never handle a marriage; men are naturally temperamental and impatient (and smelly lol)...just give them time."  Hear that ladies?  If your man never makes you laugh, and throws a tantrum if dinner is late, he's a keeper!  Dodge that casserole plate he's throwing at your head and thank your lucky stars you had the Internet Nobody here to tell you how to find a Good Man!  And if his impatience and temper are too much for you, don't break it off and file a restraining order after he gives you a black eye.  Just give him time!  Thanks, Single Bitter Dude On A Dating Site!  And remember, dudes, all men are naturally tempermental and impatient.  You were just born that way.  It's not character flaws that some of you have and some of you don't.  It's an inherent part of Being A Guy.

Number Eight: It's All About Sex.  Apparently we're not fooling guys when we "hide it and play innocent."  Every woman girl ever wants sex, there isn't a single woman girl who wants to wait for marriage or is asexual or something.  And if the dudes aren't any good at sex, why us heartless ladies just toss them and look for the next guy instead of teaching them how to be good at sex like we're supposed to!  (It's all part of the Feminine Rulebook, your job is to teach men how to please women, not to look for your own pleasure.)  And if you're good at sex you can treat a lady like dirt and she'll keep coming back!  Also, uh... also, "std risk is a media scare."

Dang, this guy is a piece of work.  I'm not even going to talk about how fucking stupid that is.  I'm just gonna go on to number nine, "Why are many guys jerks?"  According to Dumbfuck, as he shall henceforth be known, it's because "being nice/honest gets them rejected."  Yeah, that's for sure.  I hate nice, honest guys.  In fact, the second I find out a guy is nice or honest, I reject him on the spot.  Oh wait, no I don't because that's really fucking stupid.  If a guy is actually nice, he would not turn into a jerk because a girl rejected him.  He would be a jerk in the first place who was pretending to be nice in order to get a girl, and who showed his true colours after she rejected him and he didn't need to pretend any more.  Actually nice/honest guys, when they are rejected, are not rejected for being nice or honest.  They are rejected because they don't have much in common with the girl, or because she likes someone else, or they smell funny, or she just plain isn't attracted to them, for any of the billion possible reasons a person can use to decide not to date someone.  And guess what?  It's not a crime to reject people you are not attracted to.  I am not contractually obliged to date Nice Guys because They Deserve A Girlfriend.  Then Dumbfuck says that girls go with bad boys and it's their own fault if they get hurt, because they can't change a jerk.  Unless she is giving him time to change like you recommended in Tip Number Seven, Mister Can't Keep His Bullshit Straight.  And apparently, guys have emotions too!  They just hide them because they know us bitchy women will judge them if we find out!  Lol.  Actually, we probably won't.  Us girls tend to like our guys having a sensitive side, or many of us do at any rate.  A lot of guys only show their emotional side to their girlfriends, which really fucks them over if they break up.  And not because that fucking bitch went and made fun of him for crying or told all his secrets to the entire world or anything, but because he can't show his emotions to anyone else.  Do you know who's policing the whole expressing-emotion thing with guys?  It is the guys.  Men hide their emotions from each other, because they judge each other.  Don't blame this on the girls, Dumbfuck, this is a patriarchy thing.

Anyway, this is a pretty long list, so I'm gonna show you tip number ten and then post the rest of them later.  Tip number ten is surprisingly not-awful.  I mean, it's not some insightful piece of wisdom or anything, but it's somewhat less completely outrageous than every other tip so far.  "Physical attraction is important but the more you get to know someone the more attractive they become."  That's actually pretty sweet!  And true, too.  Lots of people are kinda average in the face-pretties, but when you meet them they're completely gorgeous because their personality is just that awesome.  Of course, Dumbfuck being Dumbfuck, he had to put his text-foot into his keyboard-mouth with the end of his advice.  "If men are all about looks, why are many of you still single and why do you see so many slim guys dating big women?"  That cuts both ways, asshole.  Why do you see so many hot chicks with average-to-ugly guys?  Or with poor guys, or guys with small dicks?  How come every sitcom couple on TV is the ugly guy/hot wife combo?  Dumbfuck has taken this one piece of perfectly good advice that applies to everyone, and shown off his true colours by slanting it so that it only applies to women.  Because girls are trashy hoes who only like hot guys, and need to be taught how to find and keep the elusive Good Man.  Don't worry, the rest of his advice is just as hilariously bad.  I'll show you exactly how bad it is tomorrow or this evening or something.  Later, peeps!

ADHD

Okay, so I have ADHD.  I don't bring it up often, but it's a thing I have.  When I do bring it up, I expect a couple of different responses.

The most common one is, "Oh, you have ADHD?  I never would have guessed!  You don't seem like that kind of person."  Because people with learning disabilities are all idiots, I guess.  Yeah, you can always tell who has a learning disability and who is normal.  The LD kids are different from normal, not-stupid kids.  They can't read well, if they can read at all, they aren't smart, they talk slow or don't "get" things easily.  So a lot of the time if I mention that I have ADHD, people are surprised.  Because I'm not stupid, or something?  I'm not obviously one of those "special needs" people with a learning disability.  I mean, you know what those people are like, right?  They're just different from regular people.  They're stupid.  That's why they have learning disabilities.

(For the record, this is where I was gonna embed a video clip from Bob's Burgers, but Youtube blocked it because FOX has copyright notices and shit. I am annoyed that FOX hasn't figured out that funny clips on Youtube are a good way to get more people to watch their shows.  And maybe I will eventually find another site to put it up on because fuck you FOX you cancelled Firefly.  But the clip I was gonna post was from Spaghetti Western and Meatballs, where Gene says "I acted like Banjo and took Choo Choo down.  Everybody laughed!" and Louise goes, "Well, one kid.  He has a learning disability."  Because kids with learning disabilities have a crappy sense of humor and laugh at everything, because they are not as smart as the kids without ADHD or whatever.  They just laugh hysterically whenever they see or hear things going on around them.  Because they're stupid, I guess.  All of them.)

No, by the way.  In case you didn't get that.  You can't just immediately go "That person has ADHD!" and "That person is completely normal!"  It does not work that way.  Sometimes the kid who has ADHD or some other learning disability is one of the smartest kids in class.  Sometimes the class clown who's failing everything is just a lazy, stupid, neurotypical kid.  Sometimes people with learning disabilities aren't even kids!  They're grown-ups who just go on with their life, and keep having ADHD or whatever even when they get out of school.  You don't hear about those people very often, do you?

The second most common is, "Oh, right.  Sure.  I guess you went online and found a list of symptoms, right?  I hate that, people always have to convince themselves that they have whatever bullshit disorder they read about online."  I always feel equal parts indignation and smugness when I tell them, "Actually, I was diagnosed.  By a real doctor and everything, when I was in elementary school.  And I see that doctor every couple of years just to check up on the whole ADHD thing, you know, just making sure it's still there."  Yeah, there are a couple of hypochondriacs out there who insist that they have Super Special Snowflake Syndrome because they're just so different and special omfg.  There are also a lot more people with Actually A Thing They Have Disorder, whether it's been diagnosed or not.  So maybe don't assume all the time that the person you meet who says they have something going on is lying.  How about you try asking them about it a bit before you immediately jump in with the accusations, okay?  Because you're gonna have a hard time talking with your foot in your mouth after I tell you that no, I'm not making it up for attention, it's actually something I have to deal with.  And trust me it's a lot less awkward to give a hypochondriac the benefit of the doubt than it is to go off on a rant about how ADHD is not actually a real disorder and people just pretend to have it because they suck at school, only to find out that actually the person you are ranting at was diagnosed years ago and takes daily medication and knows a lot more about the subject than you do.  And who now thinks you're a complete moron.  Congrats.

This one I don't get quite as often, but it still comes up and it's still really, really infuriating.  Usually it shows up in specific situations.  Like I'll be talking to somebody and saying, for example, "The recipe I'm following says I can prepare the blahblah while the thingy is fizzing, but I have to prepare the blahblah before I start the thingy fizzer because of my ADHD, I'll hyperfocus on blahblah and won't hear or smell the fizzing scorch.  I'm not good at multitasking."  And the person I am talking to will be all "Oh, well just pay attention to the food while it's cooking!" and gives me instructions on how to do the thing I'm doing.  Okay, first off, the problem isn't that I don't know how to do it.  The problem is I can't.  I know I can't, I've got a lot of experience failing before I gave up and started doing it this way.  Second, congratulations!  You've just cured ADHD!  "Just pay attention," holy shit, I can't believe nobody thought to tell me this all through school.  What the hell was I doing taking medication and shit when I could have just paid attention to the stuff I couldn't pay attention to?  WOW!  Now that you have that out of the way, why don't you go tell people with lung cancer that they probably shouldn't have smoked so much.  Cured cancer!  Dang, you are on fire!  Way to go, dude, your Nobel prize is in the mail, being shipped with a rabid honey badger.  Enjoy opening the box.

So I guess what I'm basically trying to say here is, I dunno, don't assume people who have a learning disability or whatever are all recognizably learning-disabilitied, or that people with a learning disability are just weird or dumb or "special" all the time and are super-visible about it.  Don't assume that someone who says they have a learning disability is making it up for attention when they say, hey btw I have an eldee.  And don't tell somebody with a learning disability that "Hey if you just act like everybody else does then you will be completely normal!  You are just lazy and you intentionally don't pay attention to stuff going around you because I guess you just don't care."

That's...that's kinda all I got.  I thought I was starting out with a point to make but I guess I just wanted to complain about morons who have been saying dumb shit to me lately.  Uh.....sorry?  I'll try to actually have a point next time I write a blog post.  Hint it may or may not be about Jem and the Holograms. 

Internet Dating Tips for the Discerning Gentleman

"I can't say it or you'll punch me -- oh I can't hold it in! You seem to have the best breasts ever!" probably isn't going to go over all that well with the lady you are trying to e-woo.  Pro tip, if you think it'll get you punched you might not want to bring it up.

Following up with "Oh but don't get mad!" isn't going to suddenly make your comment any more tactful or appropriate.  No, not even if you are "just stating the obvious!"

And after your dazzling compliment, the lady in question seems less than flattered by your attentions?  She will not suddenly be more tolerant or understanding or pleased when you tell her "Well it's only the truth! What, did you want me to lie?"

Just in case I need to spell it out for you, she didn't want you to mention it at all.  Trust me, there is no shortage of men on the internet chomping at the bit for a chance to talk about a woman's breasts.  Whatever it was you wanted to say about them, she's heard it before.  Multiple times, by multiple douchebags.  And usually the same thing, too.  Dudes apparently aren't all that creative when it comes to boobs.

well, when it comes to talking about them, then.

Now normally I'd assume that if a guy has randomly started talking about a girl's chest, he is a raging dickwad.  Seriously, it's pretty basic!  Polite friendly guys do not start talking about how a girl has boobs like the Mona Lisa has paint.  They do not point and make grabbing motions and honking sounds.  They do not write soulful titty haikus.  They do not make motorboat noises.  In general, they don't make awkward, rude comments about a woman's body if they are hoping for a chance to get to know said lady.

But JUST IN CASE!  I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.  If you are an earnest dude trying to compliment and flatter your lady-friend, boobs are probably not the first choice you should go for.  Butts and legs are also out.  In general, body parts are not the first thing you should aim at when you want to fire off a compliment.  You know what a good compliment sounds like?  "Hey, I love your scarf!" or "You're really good at piano!" or "You do a really good impression of a penguin choking on a cell phone!"  Rather than, "Your tits are boobful!" or "Yum."

boobs: probably not poisonous?

Want to know what makes them good compliments?  The person you are complimenting has chosen to wear that Fourth Doctor scarf.  She practiced really hard to be able to play Rach 3 flawlessly.  She did a lot of hands-on research to find out how choking penguins sound, and what ring tones they would choose.  Those things are indications of her choices and her personality.  She didn't look at her boob closet today and go "Hmm, the C-cups will look nice today!"  Her breasts are just something she happens to be shaped like.  A meaningful compliment would be on something about her personality, something that is relevant to her as a person.  Boobs are nice but they don't make her who she is.  And when every girl gets the "i like your breasts" message all the time, it's kind of like saying "I only noticed one thing about you, and your personality is less noteworthy than the fact that you, like many women, have breasts that I would like to play with."  And that just gets tiring.  So please, non-dickwad guys, will you please shut up about the breasts already?  I would tell the dickwads to shut up about them too, but well, they're dickwads.  They wouldn't listen to me anyway, the fuckers.

Don't get mad at me,

You have nice boobs -- should I lie?

A titty haiku.

The Egg Quest: Concluded?

Can it be?  Have I discovered the secret to Delicious Eggs?  Has my lifelong quest to improve terrible foods finally come to an end?  Can I really call it a lifelong quest if I only started it a couple of weeks ago?

Yeah, I guess not.

Anyway, I made some scrambled eggs tonight.  They were delicious!  At first.  They turned gross when they started to cool off, I guess eggs are the sort of thing that only taste good hot?  Is that an egg thing?  I don't eat eggs how should I know.  Cooling-off breakfast taquitos are still good though.  But I'm pretty sure they are magical wands in food form what with the being unbelievably delicious thing.

So my scrambled eggs: I discovered the secret to making them taste delicious.  I must add as many other ingredients as it takes to mask the egg-taste.  Which sure, maybe it's cheating, but seriously eggs are gross and I don't know if I can fix that.  So I added a few lumps of grated cheese, a quarter of an onion, four slices of bacon, a bit of milk, butter, and a bit of pepper and sugar.  Is it weird to put sugar in eggs?  Batman, any thoughts?

Wait, no it's not weird or no you don't have thoughts?  BATMAN COME BACK I'M CONFUSED

Anyway, the recipe I was (mostly) following said to fry the bacon while you prepare the other ingredients.  I am sorry, Recipe, I guess you're a lot better at dicing onions and finding the pepper and grating cheese than I am.  Or at least you can do it a lot faster.  Because when I tried to do it that way I got like, less than halfway through dicing the onion before the bacon started getting burn-y.  Again.  Saved it in time this go around, though!!  Anyway here's a Life Tip, when you try a new thing always assume it will take you approximately sixteen times longer to do the little nibbly details than it did for Person Who Has Done It A Million Times And So Wrote A Recipe For Scrambled Eggs Where They Think It's Totally Reasonable To Prepare All The Ingredients In The Time It Takes To Fry Bacon And By The Way Bacon Apparently Needs A Lot Of Attention So Maybe You Shouldn't Do Anything Else While Making Bacon If You Are As Not-Great At Cooking As I Am, And This Name Turned Out To Be Way Longer Than It Needed To Be.  Gasp, pant, breathe.

Anyway, the recipe is pretty similar to the eggs I made last time, what with the bacon and the cheese.  So clearly, the secret ingredient that made them Delicious instead of Tolerable was the onions.  This doesn't surprise me.  Onions are amazing.  They are the most delicious things in the world and every time someone tries to convince me otherwise it just makes me more certain that Onions Are The Best Thing Ever Fuck You.  Don't believe in the awesomeness of onions?  They made scrambled eggs taste amazing!  Onions are magic, I'm telling you.

Magic.

For the record, add a bit of onion soup mix to the patty-meat when you are making hamburgers or mooseburgers, it makes them taste amaaaaaazing.  Fuck yeah, onions!!!  =D

So, is this the end of my egg quest?  In finding the secret to making yummy scrambled eggs, has my journey finally come to a close?  Can I lay to rest my weary spatula, hang the apron, and close the pantry door for good?  Okay okay Batman's telling me to shut up already.  Besides, I didn't even use a spatula.   Or own an apron.  Also I don't technically have a pantry.  Well, maybe I have a pantry.  A pantry can just be a shelf full of condiments, right?  Like it doesn't specifically have to be a food-closet-thing, does it?  Oh.  Wikipedia says my shelf of condiments can't be a pantry because a pantry specifically has to be a food-closet-thing.  Well fuck you too, Wikipedia, fuck you too.

I'm sorry, Wikipedia.  I didn't mean it.  Can we be friends again?  I miss you.

Things I Learned Today

If you try to get rid of a moth via toilet, it will just fly away before you can flush it down.

My dad will take at least two tries to figure that out.

Learning to make a gif, and also pirates

So I watched the four Pirates of the Caribbean movies over the weekend.  I'd seen the first two and the last one -- well, the last one for the moment, I hear a fifth is in the making.  I don't mind.  Some people online think all of them past the first one are awful, but they're not that bad.  None of the follow-ups turn out as well as the first one, but they're all fairly endearing.  Though I developed a sudden love of Davey Jones over the weekend and have always had an undying devotion to mermaids, particularly creepy/evil mermaids, so I may be somewhat biased.

SO GOOD 

Anyway, my sudden love of Davey Jones and his betentacled face (though not so much his bescrotumed back-of-head) started from him doing that one thing in Dead Man's Chest, where he's talking to Jack the first time and goes, "Price? (plupt)" and I replayed that scene like a dozen times because it looked just so hilarious.  I realized that I desperately needed a gif of that scene, just looping for eternity.

I looked all over Tumblr for ages (ok fine it was for like five minutes but on the internet that's a really long time ok) and couldn't find it, so I decided I'd look up a tutorial or something online and find out how to make my own gifs.

I downloaded Freemake Video Converter because I was pretty sure I didn't have a program on my computer to cut videos with.  I played around with it for a while and figured out how to do it easily, since the program is nicely simple and straightforward.  So when I had a few video clips to gif-ify, I went online looking for a tutorial on how to make it go from video to animated gif.

I found one tutorial that was supposed to be on how to make an animated gif with Windows Movie Maker.  I checked my computer and went, "Oh!  I have that! I didn't need to download the Freemake one at all!" and read on.  The first part was all about cutting the video -- it looked a little more complicated than it was on Freemake, so I figured it was still worth downloading.  "Okay," I thought.  "So the first half of this is all about cutting the videos to size, right.  But I've already done that...let's skip to the end and see how to make the gif in Movie Maker, not just cut the video."  Turns out, you can't make gifs in Movie Maker, despite the tutorial being "make gifs in Movie Maker."  Well that was annoying.  The last step was, "oh by the way you can't actually do this in this program, surprise!  But here's a link to a completely different program to download that will do it."  Kind of annoying but hey, whatever.  So I download the program, Movie to Animated Gif.  It was crap.  I tried to use it a couple of times and it kept crashing.  Thanks a lot, useless tutorial.

So I looked at an online program or two, but all of them put their website's logo on the gif.  One of them offered to remove the logo if you paid money.  No thank you, website.  I'll just find some software to download after all.  I ended up getting Free Video to GIF Converter 2.0 and it was pretty good.  Again, a very simple easy-to-use program and the GIFs I made work fine for the most part, but sometimes they seemed to delete the last frame or two which made a few GIFs not as complete-looking as I wanted.  But still, I am delighted!  LOOK AT ALL MY PRETTIES!!! Warning, a ton of GIFs.  Also, um, spoilers for Pirates, I guess?

I'd hide these under a cut, but I have no idea how to do that and am too lazy to look it up, so I guess you'll just have to deal with a dozen GIFs loading and possibly spoiling you for these films that came out a couple of years ago.  Sorry about that.

Edit: Looked up lj-style cuts for blogger, found some halfway promising ones, they turned out to be useless.  I'll just cut a bunch of gifs and post them on my tumblr or something later, I guess.  And make the ones posted here a little smaller.  Maybe that will help a bit.