Facebook Petition

My last post was about a petition I didn't sign, today's is about a petition that I did sign.  Because it's only fair to provide balanced non-biased petition coverage.  Also because I'm lazy and this was an easy post.

People should sign this!  It's a petition asking Facebook to expand the options regarding gender and sexuality in a profile's Basic Info section, to include genders beyond just male and female and to include sexualities beyond just straight, gay or bi.  It's important!

I think these two petitions are a pretty good example of something that probably isn't all that helpful and something that is.  Well-meaning (though shark-racist) it may be, the dolphin petition doesn't seem like it will be all that useful in the grand scheme of things.  I mean, why would the Government of Peru care about some random Canadian lady's opinion on how they enforce their dolphin ban?  Or a hundred random Canadian ladies, or a thousand.  Basically, the opinions of a few average citizens in another country just aren't that important to foreign governments.  I don't pay taxes to Peru, I don't vote there, I don't even think about Peru all that often.  But I do use Facebook.  I'll go out on a limb and say that most people on the internet use Facebook.  Most everybody signing that petition will be a Facebook user.  Unlike Peru, Facebook will have a reason to care about the opinions of people signing this petition.  If it gets enough signatures it might make them realize that while it seems like a simple thing, it's important to a lot of people and thus something that they should consider changing, to better serve their customers.  There are loads of people who are unable to express their gender or sexuality accurately on Facebook, and considering the amount of time people spend online, and how our social interactions are largely taking place on sites like Facebook these days than they are in face-to-face situations, I think it's a pretty big deal that people can properly say who they really are in those situations.  And it's not like it would be a lot of work for Facebook, either; unlike Peru, which will have to spend a lot of money sending ships and crews out on regular patrols and then having officials work extra time dealing with the increased numbers of caught offenders, all Facebook has to do is add another button or two to their website.  And Facebook changes their website constantly.

So, to compare:  the dolphin petition is asking Peru to a) listen to the opinions of a bunch of random foreigners who offer nothing to the country but criticism, and b) spend a ton of money to placate these foreigners (who will probably forget about Peru entirely the second they do).  Sure, there are ethical and legal reasons to do what the petition is asking, but those reasons are not actually affected by the petition in any way.  The Facebook petition, though, just asks Facebook to a) listen to people who are probably already users as they express a grievance with the service they are being offered directly, which impacts their active use of the site rather than just their polite sensitivities for a situation that they aren't directly involved in at any stage, unlike the Peru one, and b) make a small change to the profile setup that won't affect anybody but the people who are asking for the change, and which can probably be done the next time Facebook does some big huge redesign that everyone will hate like they do two or three times a year.  The difference is huge regarding the amount of work the petitions are requesting be done as well as in the direct impact the issues have on the people signing the petitions in the first place.  So it's kind of disappointing that the largely impractical, armchair-activist dolphin petition has almost eighteen thousand signatures as of this time while the Facebook petition that has an actual day-to-day effect on a number of Facebook users over a relatively simple issue only has about a hundred.

Also, it never occurred to me to post this Nimona strip on my last post about sharks.  So this is to make up for it.

Any day where I can plug Nimona is a good day.

Ugh

Ok so there are actually loads (and loads and loads and loads) of things about the "straight ally safe place" tumblr, Straight Voices, that piss me off.  Like seriously, pretty much every other post has something awful in it somewhere, from concern trolling via the tone argument (if you were just CALM and REASONABLE and NEVER EVER GET UPSET about all the awful bullshit that any sane person would get rightly furious over, everything will be magically better!  This is why cis straight people are better at gay rights than gay people!) to appropriating LGBT shit (why can't I have straight pride?  You get to be proud of being gay!  It's the same thing, isn't it?) to....well, to shit like this.  But one of the simpler, stupider things that annoys me is that slogan they have, Straight But Not Narrow, specifically when they are on t-shirts.

There are a few people who posted photos of this shirt, but I chose this person's photo

because I didn't want to steal someone's face-visible photo without permission to use in a critical post.

I think I hotlinked it, so if they choose to take down the photo on their end

it'll disappear here too rather than being up despite what they want.

What is even the point of this shirt?  It's not in support of anything.  It's not saying, "Hey, I think it's unfair that gay people aren't allowed to get married!" or "The government has no business in someone's bedroom!" or "Maybe transfolk should not get beat up and murdered all the time!"  It is not raising awareness or supporting a specific cause (to my knowledge).  It's just self-centred and braggy.  "Hey, look at me!  I don't hate gay people!  Me!  This straight person!  Right here!  Isn't it amazing how fantastic I am for not hating gay people, even though I'm straight!?  I'm so straight, you guys!"  Congratulations, you are not a blatantly hateful homophobe, you have reached the minimum requirements for being a decent human being.  Now maybe you should stop making everything about you and what an awesome ally you are even though those darn lgbt's are just so cishetphobic omfg.

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.

The Airplane

On any dating site, you're going to run into creeps. And they can be fun, let me tell you. Back when OKCupid flagmods still got to deal with flagged messages and profiles, you'd run into creeps like old FifaFiat/True Poizon all the time; remember his bullshit list?  Unfortunately now you only get to moderate on flagged photos, probably because assholes like me would post their douchebaggery on other sites, which I guess some people objected to.  Because how dare someone tell people about your public profile that shows what a dick you are, right?

Whatever, flagmod has less of the fun stuff now.  But that doesn't mean there are fewer weirdos; it just means you find them when they message you directly instead of when you find them flagged for shit.  And it is so much more fun when they message you directly, because then you can just fuck with them right back.  Check it, I spent like half an hour messaging this guy last night, it was hilarious.  I wish I knew more about airplanes, though.

And if you can't see the photos or don't feel like clicking to make them bigger, here's the text of the conversation:

Your conversation with [redacted]      Chat

[redacted]7/25/2013 3:00:19 PM
Flag Message

hey, are u interesting on someone who has natural gift?


[me]7/26/2013 2:48:41 AM
I'm an airplane.

[redacted]7/26/2013 2:49:19 AM
Flag Message

haha---not that lol, just whether u like it or not


[redacted]7/26/2013 2:50:01 AM
Flag Message

u dont need satisfaction?


[me]7/26/2013 2:54:03 AM
My dream is to someday break the sound barrier. I know, big dreams for an average commercial airliner, right? But I practice all the time, I can go really fast! I just love flying, it's what I'm meant to do.

[redacted]7/26/2013 2:57:15 AM
Flag Message

try other things too, u have to try everything in your life time
so try mine.
it is like flying also when u hang on it


[redacted]7/26/2013 3:04:30 AM
Flag Message

try this one too...is another dream


[redacted]7/26/2013 3:06:57 AM
Flag Message

can I have your number lol so that we will meet another day?


[me]7/26/2013 3:15:16 AM
Are you asking for my make or my serial number? I'm a Boeing 727, line number 18436.

[redacted]7/26/2013 3:20:07 AM
Flag Message

I need your cell number.
ours will be friendship... just to meet some days and have coffee together and be friend.
are u pilot or just dream?


[redacted]7/26/2013 3:23:21 AM
Flag Message

lol, I want to sleep, can I have your cell number?


[me]7/26/2013 3:24:37 AM
Don't be silly, airplanes don't have cell phones. How would I even use one? I have wings, not hands. Though I guess maybe I could get a bluetooth headset or something, but it'd have to be pretty big to fit on an airplane.

[redacted]7/26/2013 3:25:04 AM
Flag Message

this is my email: [redacted]


[redacted]7/26/2013 3:25:51 AM
Flag Message

okay come down ntonight


[me]7/26/2013 3:33:00 AM
I'm sorry, my place is in the sky. I belong in the clouds, far above you, with flight attendants handing out small packs of peanuts as my engines shred unlucky birds. I'm afraid we are simply too different to connect; you as a human, me as a Boeing aircraft. I know this must be hard to hear, but don't take it personally. It just wouldn't work between us. But hey, if you ever need a lift to another province, I'm your plane!

Subeta

As far as I can tell, Subeta is just a knockoff of Neopets.  Like completely.  Every step of the tutorial walkthrough was exactly the same as stuff you'd do on Neopets.  Anyway, I found it because I was fucking around online and got linked to a forum discussion about...something, I can't remember what, on this website Subeta.  I made an account because the little avatars were pretty cute, but mostly because I was bored with nothing better to do and the site promised games somewhere and possibly interesting conversations in the forums.

I never got around to playing any games on it, though.  I was in the middle of a walkthrough and doing some quests, where the NPC was looking for some random items and I had to find them in the shops.  I did a few before I realized that doing shit on this website was worse than doing nothing at all and closed the window.  The fetch-quests were annoying, but it was just really irritating to do a shop search and find something that sells for like five hundred coins or whatever in the regular shop, and see literally all of the user-owned stores selling it for over ten thousand.  Apparently everybody on that site is a greedy idiot, so there isn't even any point in going on the forums.

Well done, Subeta.  You are a direct ripoff of a site that came out in the nineties, and ten minutes of dicking around in your tutorial walkthrough showed me that a.) nothing on your website was original enough to be worth dicking around with in the first place, and b.) you are full of terrible people who overcharge basic crap to a hilarious degree and think the other users are actually dumb enough to buy it!  Good job selling the site to newbies, Subeta!  I'm off to delete my browser history for the past hour so I can forget about you completely and never come back.

Things I Hate On Facebook

You know what the worst part of Facebook is?  It isn't the constantly-changing layouts or the sketchy privacy settings or the aggravating app and game invites.  It's the people.  What is it about Facebook that turns pleasant, reasonable people into self-righteous, judgmental, pointlessly manipulative douchebags?  They seemed like perfectly fine people when I met them and said "Hey, you seem cool, you should add me to Facebook."

But nope.  Every day I look at my Facebook feed and find another half-dozen bullshit photo or status memes to hate.  Just look at this shit.

"Vapid pseudo-inspirational bullshit with poor grammar!  You're beautiful!  And skinny!  You'd better be skinny, because that's what I meant when I said you're beautiful.  Don't you dare be overweight when you step on that scale.  Or be happy with your fat.  EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE SKINNY!  You're reading this on a phone, right?  Haha, of course you are."

"It's wrong to call her a slut, because she's actually a virgin! Shame on you for mistaking one of the Pure and Untainted for someone who has sex.  The problem was clearly where you thought she was not Virginal, rather than the idea that slut-shaming anyone regardless of their sexual activity is inherently wrong.  Like the pregnant girl walking down the street!  She was raped!  She doesn't deserve to be bullied for her pregnancy, unlike another pregnant girl who got pregnant from consensual sex.  She has it coming, so I'm not going to even try to defend her.  You don't know ANYBODY!  Not really!  Isn't that mind blowing?  People have lives completely unrelated to you!  If you don't re-post this then you endorse bullying and I bet 99% of you are terrible, terrible people who want kids to be bullied until they kill themselves, because that's what it means if you don't re-post this.  Love!"

"Hey everybody, let's play a game that tests who is paying attention to me so you all think about me and tell me a meaningless fact relating to how you know me because I need to feel like the center of attention and bask in how my four hundred Facebook friends talk about how they met me!  And I can do the same for you, but you'd better not pay attention to me when I'm making this desperate bid for attention without re-posting this idiotic game on your own wall, because I don't care about you if you don't play petty attention-seeking games like me."

"Everybody except for me is shallow and self-centred for only thinking about themselves and what they want, because if they ever express any desire for themselves then they have been permanently disqualified from ever being able to think about other people.  If you want anything for yourself, anything at all, then you are a terrible human being.  I am the most thoughtful, caring, gracious person who has ever existed. Let's see how many people re-post this, I bet it will be hardly anyone because I am just so inconceivably good when everybody else is so unbelievably shallow!"

Just....fuck you.  Fuck all of you dick-biting shit chutes.  I'm going to bed.

Take The Atheist Census!

Unless it's taken offline again because of a DoS attack!  But it's probably fine now.  The Atheist Census is a project designed to collect some basic demographic information about atheists.  It's very short: it took me less than a minute to complete, only asking six very simple questions.  But it's really cool to see the statistics they've already got!  For example, women comprise only about a quarter of the people who've already completed it world-wide, but here in Canada we account for about thirty percent while in Brazil it's closer to fifteen.  It's just really nifty to see the statistics for different places!

Anyway, my atheist friends should go and get themselves counted.  Censuses are fun!  Here it is!  Have fun, everybody!

JennaMarbles, why you gotta slut-shame? D:

Oh, Jenna.  I think you are so cool.  I loved your sports-bra video, and your dogs are adorable!  But girl, I gotta disagree with your "Things I Don't Understand About Girls: Slut Edition" video.  Because slut-shaming is wrong, and I want to speak up against it whenever I hear it going down.

First thing right off, you seem to think that being a slut is a bad thing?  Except you're kind of flip-floppy on that.  You say that you know that the word slut has some negative connotations, but that you think being a slut is a choice.  Which, yes, it is a choice!  It is the choice to have lots of sex.  But you kinda trailed off there.  You acknowledge that "slut" has negative connotations....then never say whether or not you agree with the negative connotations.  So I'm gonna assume that you think being a slut is a bad thing, because overall you're being very critical of slut-ness*.  That's not cool!  So you don't wanna have lots of casual sex, that's cool.  Neither do I!  But some people do, and that's okay.  It's their life, it's none of my business if they want to have casual sex!  In fact, more power to them, because sex is fun and there's nothing wrong with wanting lots of it, from lots of people.  So let's stop trying to say it's bad to do it, okay?
Oh look, you do think being a slut is bad, you say so at the end of the video!  Maybe you should have said it here too, just to clarify things.

Next, you talk about one night stands.  You don't get why people want them, pretty much.  Because girls have body issues, and boys are dangerous!  Except maybe you should wonder why your insistence that everyone has body issues should stop people from doing what they want.  Maybe people don't have body issues as bad as you think they do?  And even if they are as bad as all that, it's a good thing that body issues don't stop people from going after what they want (like sex).  Besides, what could be better for body issues than getting ass-fucking-naked in front of someone and seeing how somebody else finds your body to be totally awesome tonight, instead of standing six inches from the mirror and hyper-focusing on every pound and pimple until you're so convinced at your hideousness that you never ever undress in front of anybody ever.  Sure, it's better to realize how awesome you look on your own and learn to love your body because it's gorgeous rather than because other people like it, but sometimes that's hard and it's nice to take a shortcut to feeling totally hot.  Doing one of these things does not automatically negate doing the other thing as well.

And you say boys are dangerous because what if the stranger is into rape or murder!  You should not go home with him but instead google his name and get with him after that!  Except, you know, a dude is not going to say on his Facebook wall, "Hey tonight I'm gonna go to the bar and find a lady to take home and rape and murder!"  The vast majority of rapes and murders are committed by people known to the victim.  Googling his name and finding out where he went to high school will not suddenly let you know whether he's a safe dude to sleep with.  And saying that you should not be a slut and go around sleeping with people just in case somebody turns out to be a rapist/murderer, is just another way of saying "if you are raped/murdered, it is your own fault because you were a slut."  And that is not cool at all.  Don't go victim-blaming, it is never ever the victim's fault that somebody else is evil and attacked them.  If anybody ever thinks that a victim is ever to blame for their rape, then they can just fuck right off.  Seriously.  Go away, get off my blog, you are not welcome here.

Now we've moved on to the "stupid sluts" part.  Yeah, I wish more people would admit that any sexual behaviour is technically sex, even if they want to put special importance on the penis-in-vagina kind.  But sex means something different to everybody, and you shouldn't judge people just because their definition is different from yours.

I literally made a D: face at the pregnant-slut part.  What!?  Jenna, Jenna, why is it so important to you who the fetus's dad is?  Why does it have to make you feel weird that you don't know, or that you don't think that the mom-to-be knows?  Guess what, who the dad is maybe isn't all that important.  Single parents can raise kids fine, and the real father is never the guy who donated some genetic material but the guy/guys that are actually there for the kid and give it a person to look up to, as a father-type person.  But not having a father-type person is not inherently bad, because there are so many people who have been raised by just moms, or by two moms even!  It's really none of your business that the pregnant lady slept with lots of people, so "feeling weird" about it is kind of intrusive, especially if feeling weird about it means you later go online and tell the world how terrible you think they are for making you feel weird.  Just be happy that the mom-to-be is happy about her mom-to-be status, ok?

Please don't assume that all sluts are making bad decisions, or are having lots of sex because of a lack of respect for themselves or something.  Casual sex is not inherently a bad decision, it's just a decision that some people make that you or I would not make.  It's a different decision.  And it's really insulting to say that people only choose it because they have no self-respect.  Have you never read sex-positive feminist blogs?  Most of the sluts I am familiar with have self-respect coming out of their ears!  How many people you have sex with does not necessarily correlate to absolutely anything other than, you know, the number of sexual partners you've had.  And possibly the amount of sex you've had?  But there are lots of people who have had lots of sex with a few partners, so I dunno.  I'm not really a sex mathematician.  Sexematician?  Mathemasexian?  There's gotta be a pun for this.

I'll grant you a few points, Jenna.  It's important to practice safe sex.  Use a condom, people!  STDs are bad!  It's a dick move to have sex with a guy when you know he has a girlfriend, because it's wrong to hurt other people like that.  Don't let people pressure you into having sex you don't want (ie, rape), and don't feel pressured to have sex if you only want to have sex because it's cool .  Have sex because you want to have sex, not because cool people have sex (while I have not met anyone who has done this, I'm not going to say that nobody ever did because hey, there's a lot of reasons people have had sex, how should I know them all).  And having friends around who can help you from getting into trouble by, say, trying to stop a creeper from taking advantage of you if you've had too much to drink or somebody slipped you something is awesome.  Or being a person who is willing to help strangers from being taken advantage of like that!  But don't judge people because they sleep with what you think is too many people.  Other people's sex lives are none of your business, and it's wrong to slut-shame people.  There's enough of that in the world already, we don't need more poison in the blow gun dart of sexism.

But I am not mad at you, Jenna.  I'm just disappointed, parent-style.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, I think you're cool and I like a lot of the videos you've made.  I still think you're cool!  But I also think that you've succumbed to a lot of very negative messages that lots of other people have also internalized regarding sex and women's sexuality in particular.  You say in the video that you love when people disagree with you and start discussions, and I sincerely hope that you listen to the discussions that your video started and see what made your video so sexist and problematic that the internet kind of exploded at it, even if you don't change your mind about any of the subject matter.

PS: I could not help but notice that your entire video was aimed at slut-shaming women.  I know that the video was made as a "things I don't understand about women" thing, but I gotta help but wonder if your opinions on slutty guys are just as toxic as your opinions on slutty women?  Ladies have gotten the short end of the slut stick, you know.  When guys sleep around it's just what guys do, but if women do it then they are demonized and labelled sluts.  Even when people try to shame a man for sleeping with lots of ladies, it is pretty much always a much milder shaming than a woman would get.  Just something to think about.

More Womanly Advice From The Mighty Penis

And welcome back to Making Fun Of Internet Misogyny (AKA "20 Tips For Girls To Get And Keep A Good Man")!  The other day we left off on tip number ten, a surprisingly good piece of advice that Dumbfuck predictably fucked up.  And yes, that one piece of halfway-decent-advice-before-Dumbfuck-ruined-it was the only polish in this pile of turds.  The next ten "tips" are solid shit all the way through.  Let's get started!

Tip number eleven:  ooh, a doozie.  "Guys get controlling because they know girls tend to run when things get hard, boring, or when they meet a more fun guy."  That's right ladies, he's not being abusive if he isolates you from your friends, demands that you keep him updated on where you are and who you are with, or tells you who you can or can't hang out with.  He's just trying to keep you faithful to him!  It's not like he can trust you or anything, you're a female.  You're not allowed to just break up with a guy if the relationship is having trouble or has gotten boring or if you meet another "jerk" who can make you laugh and lets you be yourself and doesn't lock you in the basement to keep you from whoring around.  Nope, once you start dating someone you're with him for life or until he gets bored of you, and he has to control you because as a dumb bitch girl, it's just your nature to run off with the first guy who catches your fancy as soon as you start getting bored.  And we all know that men never ever "run" the way us girls do.  Haha, women.  Amirite?

Twelve: "Good Men want Classy, not Skimpy."  Apparently by dressing in skimpy clothing you are representing Every Woman Everywhere and saying that It's All About Sex, because if you show any cleavage then you know it just means that you want to be raped or something.  And then the dumb bitches complain when men harass them!  Remember, if you dress in clothes you like that make you feel sexy and confident, you're just showing everybody how "easy" you are.  If you want a Good Man, then only dress in classy clothes!  Like a nun's habit or a hijab.*  Whatever you do, don't show skin, you skank!
Chrome thinks that hijab is spelled incorrectly, and when you right-click to see what to replace it with one of the options is hijacker. Are you racist, Chrome?

I love tip thirteen, it's so completely awful.  If your friends don't like your boyfriend, fuck them!  Friends come and go, boyfriends are forever!  This advice is so much bullshit.  If your friends don't like your boyfriend?  Find out the fuck why.  Your friends want the best for you. And most of the time, you'll have been with your friends way longer than you've been with the guy you're currently dating.  I've been friends with Ash for like eight years.  I've been friends with Wyatt for two or three now.  Compare that to, say, a guy I've been dating for six months or whatever.  If they don't like him?  Well shit, I want to know why.  Does he hit on other women behind my back?  Is he rude?  Is he just plain boring?  I want their input!  If he's being a total dickwad behind my back, that's worth breaking up over and I'd only find out if I listened to my friends when they told me why they didn't like him.  How your friends react to your boyfriend is important, but not because you're some mindless drone who only does what the Peer Group says.  It's because a lot of the time your friends will see giant red flags that you're blind to, and if somebody is telling you to ditch your friends because they think your boyfriend is bad for you, guess what?  The dude saying that is hella creepy, and you should get outta there.  When you're in a relationship with someone you're often too close to the situation to see the seriously problematic shit going on.  You can fool yourself into thinking it's totally reasonable that, for example, you need to stop hanging out with certain friends or that you need to let him know where you are and what your plans are all the time, because that's just the way he shows you that he loves you, and he can't help being insecure! Whereas your friends will see it for what it really is, abusive bullshit from an abusive guy when you deserve better.  Even Dumbfuck's reasoning for this tip is stupid and inconsistent with the rest of the list.  "You're dating him not them. Don't let others dictate your life (friends come and go)."  Haha, don't let others dictate your life unless it's Dumbfuck with his "advice"!  And I loathe loathe loathe the "friends come and go" line.  I hate it when I hear it the other way, too, "boys come and go but friends are forever."  Guess what?  People come and go.  Sometimes those people are friends, sometimes those people are boys. I'm probably going to be friends with Ash for my entire life.  I'm probably never going to see some old college friends again after we drift apart.  I'm not dating anybody any more, even though I've had boyfriends in the past.  I might find a boyfriend someday who I'll spend my entire life with.  Both of these will happen because I'll find people who I want to know for the rest of my life, and people who I don't.  Don't put your friends up above your boyfriend, and don't put your boyfriend above your friends.  Both are important and worth preserving.

I preserve everybody important to me.

Anyway, that got a little out of hand.  Let's see if I can do fourteen without going off on a rant-within-a-rant.  "First dates are supposed to be awkward, don't judge so quick!"  Well, it's sort of good advice, in a way.  Sure, don't judge people too quickly, give them a chance.  But then, you shouldn't drag on something that isn't working.  What if there's a shitty first date?  Okay, everyone has them.  But what if there's a shitty second date?  Because the rest of the advice goes on to say you should keep not-judging for the second date and onward.  Because, "Don't expect full chemistry on day one. My only relationship was 6 years; and our first 2 dates weren't that great."  Oh, I love that admission for so many reasons.  One, "Don't expect chemistry on day one!"  Because if you don't feel any attraction to a guy, just keep dating him anyway.  "My only relationship" (you've only had one relationship and you think you're qualified enough to write a list of advice based on what every woman does wrong when dating?) "was 6 years."  Was.  Was.  So the relationship didn't actually work, did it?  And why do I get the feeling from this list that it wasn't actually a very good relationship, mister men-only-talk-about-sports-video-games-and-cars-and-within-a-few-months-of-being-in-a-relationship-you-are-only-passionate-in-the-bedroom?  "Our first two dates weren't that great."  Was it because you acted like a bitter loser and spent the whole time complaining about how awful women are at dating and how they always go out with jerks because clearly if women were interested in Nice Guys you'd have a date every night of the week or something?  I bet it was.  Remember, I found this list because this asshole has it posted as his self-summary on his dating site profile.

Fifteen: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hahahaha, oh my goodness, that was a good one.  I love this advice.  "Too many girls are anal about height,"  because us girls aren't allowed to decide what physical attributes we want in a guy!  And of those attributes, the single most important one that matters so much that he needed to include it very specifically on his list, is height!  He goes on to say, as if it is some little-known fact that silly girls like us hadn't realized, that "You can't control height."  And then any excuse a girl might say to a short guy is stupid -- the "heels excuse" is lame, it's not about protection because "So a short guy can't take down a tall guy?" and then something about offspring.  "How would you feel if a guy rejected you because he doesn't want daughters with no ass?"  I'll tell you how that would make me feel: relieved, because what kind of creep thinks about that stuff and clearly I got out just in time.  This is another tip that isn't a tip, btw.  He never actually says, "You should be less concerned with a guy's height," he just bitches about how "Too many girls are anal about height!"  You know, I've met women who don't wear heels, not because they don't like them but because their boyfriend will get upset with them if they are taller than he is when they go out.  And for the record, in case it hasn't sunk in yet, women are allowed to be "anal" about anything they want when they're thinking about what guy to date.  It is incredibly entitled of him to think he gets to decide what women should find important when looking for a guy, even superficial stuff like height.  "You ladies should stop thinking about what you want in a guy, and start thinking about how you should want less stuff in a guy so I can date you!  It's really rude of you not to date every single guy who wants a shot at you! Stop wanting things as if you were people and start acting like the Girlfriends that you are supposed to be!"

Sixteen: "Guys have it harder than girls."  Pfffhahahahaha, yeah, okay.  I'm glad I got most of my giggles out on fifteen, because these are just getting funnier and funnier.  Either that or examining the list this closely is having a real effect on my mind.  Anyway, guys have it harder than girls!  "Guys have to be, say, do so many things to get and keep a girl, and girls judge men on every flaw and move."  Oh, you poor babies.  Because of course women never have to deal with crap like that!  That's why there are so many realistic body types on women in the media, why the cosmetics industry sells mainly to circus clowns, why there are hardly any magazines out there aimed at women trying to tell us how to snare a man, keep a man, seduce a man, etc etc etc.  Guys are the only ones who have to worry about finding somebody to be with, and getting judged on everything!  You are so right, dude who wrote a twenty-item list judging women.  The paragraph continues with a lot of stereotypically misogynistic bullshit.  It's mostly.....actually, you know what?  I'm just gonna quote it so you can see exactly how messed up this guy is when it comes to how he sees women and dating.  "Guys deal with unnecessary drama and whining, 'hard to get' and jealousy games, being blamed for everything, grudge holding, spending money on a girl they may never see again, or being good to a girl who ends up leaving him for a jerk. Guys have to be tall or fit, girls just have to be naughty."  (Girls just have to be naughty!  And it comes so easily to them, because every girls everywhere are automatically naughty and never have any hang-ups or insecurities, and a girl never thinks about whether or not she actually wants to do naughty stuff with someone or if it's just that if she isn't 'naughty' then he'll leave.  Guys have it so rough!)  I gotta ask, dude, if you think this poorly of women, why are you trying to date them?  Just be single.  Or "choose" to be gay.  Then he blames all this....stuff, on why guys are abusive jerks and/or shy.  Fucking women ruin everything!

17: Dumbfuck knows what Every Man Ever wants, thinks, needs, and does.  Men "prefer going Dutch but won't admit to it," and I can tell you for certain that this is not the Universal Truth that Dumbfuck thinks it is.  I've had guys get pissy at me if I try to pay for my own meal (or even open the door for them instead of the other way around!) and I'll give you a tip of your own, lots of women don't mind going dutch!  I tend to feel really guilty if I let the guy pay for everything.  I'll still let him pay, because a lot of the time he'll take me on dates I can't really afford, and I'd rather let him pay and do something together than insist on paying my own way and be stuck at home because I can't afford to date this week.  But if it bugs him to always pay, just suggest going dutch for fuck's sake.  And don't take the lady out to dinner to a resteraunt that's out of her price range.  Seriously, lots of girls don't mind going dutch and I personally know tons who prefer it, so if it's such a big fucking deal that you need to whine about it just freaking suggest it, douchefucker.  And that's not all.  Men "need affirmation more than you do," because apparently women get it all from their peers and men don't get it anywhere.  One, a friend telling me my hair is cute does not mean the same thing as when the guy I'm on a date with says it, so "your friends compliment you then nobody else needs to ever" is ridiculous.  Two, if your friends aren't giving you "affirmation" (which I assume just means flattery, Dumbfuck doesn't exactly explain himself) then that's a problem you have with your friends.  "Guys are masters of BS, they'll say anything to get you."  I see Dumbfuck is working under the assumption that every guy is a total asshole.  Projecting again, I see.  "Every guy likes video games."  Seriously, dude?  Just because most people you know do something, does not mean everybody everywhere does it.  I know guys who don't play video games, who haven't owned a console since they were kids (if they had one then), and I'm pretty sure that you are not actually omniscient, so you don't know what "every guy" likes.  Which leads right into "Men hate when you cut your hair short." No, fuckface, you hate when a girl cuts her hair short.  As a girl with long hair, I happen to know that lots of guys prefer short hair, judging by how many of them have told me how much better it would look if I cut it short, and how frequently old boyfriends complained that my long hair was inconvenient and bothersome.  "Many men steer away from giving compliments because girls just play "hard to get" after."  Ladies reading this, do you ever play "hard to get" after a guy starts complimenting you?  I don't.  I'm pretty sure I know why he thinks that, though.  If a dude starts coming on to me and complimenting me a lot, and I'm not into him?  I'll brush him off or leave or something.  The trouble here is that Dumbfuck (who I am fairly confident is the "many men" he is talking about) can't tell the difference between "playing hard to get" and "rejection."  He can't get it through his thick skull that women don't want to date some people.  He's one of those assholes who, if you turn him down, he decides to be "persistent" and to keep harassing you after you've rejected him because he doesn't actually know anything about women or dating.  He ends this tip with the actually really creepy-sounding "we can tell right away if you're the girl we want; girls are way too easy to read."  What the hell does that mean, you can tell if I'm the girl you want?  That is sketchy as fuck.  I have no idea what he thinks he can "read" but he's starting to sound like a bit of a rapist or a serial killer or something.  I am honestly getting creeped out by this misogynistic freak, and I hope to hell I never meet him in person.

Eighteen.  I think part of Dumbfuck's problem is, he doesn't have any real friends, and he assumes that no-one else does either.  This tip is supposedly about having "common sense" but all he's doing is telling you to say that you don't want to go downtown one weekend and then watch all your friends leave you behind.  Is that what happened to you, Dumbfuck?  That's sad.  I've said that before, and my friends didn't ditch me.  We just all did something else that we thought was fun.  Then he says that we "don't need a piece of paper that says "degree" on it to be smart and have common sense."  (Hey, remember in tip number three when he said women who get corporate jobs or go out partying are unhappy?  It sounds like he's against anything that keeps women out of the kitchen.)  And, "Speaking of bar/party scenes...notice how that's all they do with their life and how not one person in Happy Hour looks "Happy" lol."  More proof that Dumbfuck has a very sad, lonely social life.  When I go to the bar with my friends, we're generally all pretty cheerful because we're having a fun night out.  And more evidence of Dumbfuck looking around and making wild unfounded assumptions based on his own self-projection, since he's looking at a bunch of total strangers at the bar and going "Yup, that's all they are doing with their life.  I bet they come here every night and drink themselves into a stupor to forget how sad and lonely and unloved they are and how they're going to die alone eaten by fourteen cats.  Everybody here is miserable!"

Nineteen is just....weirdly pathetic.  I'm not even going to summarize it, I'll just quote it in its entirety.  "For many of you, it's your profiles that scare off good guys (you all say the same things. Be different): "I love to laugh/have fun!"...really?!?! "I just want a nice guy who will treat me right"...no, you want a tall bad boy who will eventually break your heart. "I dont take myself too seriously"...so why should a guy take you seriously in a relationship? "Live everyday like its your last! Live/Love/Laugh!"...who actually does that? "I have the best friends ever"...till you argue over who's hotter or go for the same guy. "I love my job!"...that's why you run to the bar, parties or gym once you get off to unwind and let loose. We all love our jobs when it's payday, 5pm or the weekend. "I dont like drama and games!"....no, girls live for it. "Id die without my friends"...makes you sound insecure and dependent. "Life's too short!"...so why do many of you spend most of it working and studying?"  What is your problem, Dumbfuck?  You hate people who say happy, cheerful things, and you refuse to take them at their word.  You assume everybody hates their jobs, that their friends will all turn on them without a moment's notice, that anyone who is even remotely cheerful is bullshitting because "....really?!?!?!" and "...who actually does that?"  I can't even mock this tip, dude, it's just that pathetic.  I really feel sorry for this guy, he has serious problems.  Jesus fucking Christ.

And now for the final tip, number twenty.  Again, not really a tip.  It's listed as one, but all he's saying is that "This all sounds easy, but there's a reason many of you are still here and still meeting jerks."  Apparently we can still meet guys, we just won't meet "the good ones who will be faithful."  Gosh, I sure am glad that Dumbfuck is psychic and knows who I'm meeting and whether or not they are Jerks.  Oh wait, he doesn't need to, because in his mind, any girl who is not interested in dating him is dating a Jerk.  That's because he's a Nice Guy.  Does anyone know the difference between a nice guy and a Nice Guy?  I might have to do a blog post on it.  I was going to go off on a long Nice Guy tangent, but I'll save it for later and just wrap this up because reading all this bullshit has worn me down: Dumbfuck has problems.  He's sexist towards both women and men, he has no friends, and the only relationship he's ever had was presumably pretty crappy, since he doesn't think women should talk to men about anything that is not Sport, Car, or Video Game related.  And you know the scary thing?  When this douche's profile came up in flagmod, another mod said that he was right.  How many idiots out there read crap like this and fucking agree with it?  The world is a scary, scary place, my friends.

Also, this guy has his body type listed as "athletic" and yet he says that he's working to "drop those last 30 stubborn pounds."  I don't want to be fat-shaming anybody or anything, there's nothing wrong with being overweight and it's downright admirable to lose as much weight as this guy says he has (he's lost a hundred pounds already, apparently).  But it's a little dishonest to say that your body type is athletic when you're overweight, even if you are working out to try and change that, and the last part of the list kind of showcases his bitterness about women not finding him attractive.  "There are tons of great men, most just don't look like GQ models."  He never outright says it, but I really get the feeling that he considers thin, conventionally handsome guys to all be "Jerks" women are stupid enough to date instead of going out with him, and they are all fundamentally terrible people who cheat and lie and do stuff that He Would Never Ever Do Because He Is A "Good Guy."  Dude, you need to stop with the hate-on already.  So lots of women don't want to date you.  That's okay.  I'm sure that there are lots of women you don't want to date either, right?  I hope so, anyway.  I wouldn't put it past him to be one of those guys who does not give a fuck who goes out with him, so long as he gets a Girlfriend.  But hopefully there are lots of women who he does not want to date for whatever reason, and that's okay.  He seems to be really entitled, acting like women should be falling all over themselves to date him instead of the "Jerks" they date out of stupidity.  He's just....augh, I can't even continue this.  If I get going on how pathetic this dude is I'll never finish this blog post, and it's long enough as it is.  Fuck it.  I'm sure everybody reading gets the picture, I'm done here.

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!

I Hear The Sound Of Stupid....

No, seriously.  I heard Dad watching a video in his office and I just had to go in and say, "I hear some really stupid things being said in here, what the hell are you watching."  Turns out it was this.

I just, I can't...  The stupid, it burns.  I can't even make fun of this, it's just that ridiculous.

Stop having lame groups, Facebook.

Seriously, what?  "Actual anti-bullying"?  One, how is it more "actual" than any other anti-bullying group, and two, if you are going to say you are somehow different then you should probably make a description to explain why you are "actual" and other groups are somehow fake.

Also, what the fuck Facebook since when can people add me to groups without my agreeing to join the group.  That is incredibly sketchy.  Now I need to go through my facebook page and see what, if any, other random stupid groups people have added me to.

For the record, while I am against bullying in schools, I am not gonna join in with a shitty circle-jerk of a group that comes off as incredibly arrogant right from the get-go (remember they are ACTUAL anti-bullying, as opposed to those posers who only PRETEND to be anti-bullying) without even the initiative to describe how their group is different from the others, that does nothing to actually stop the problem, not even passing around petitions or proposing new policies for schools or brainstorming ways to enforce the policies already in place, and for some reason feels the need to break off into completely random tangents to lecture furiously about the danger of teachers in short skirts and low-cut tops and how they must set an example for the students (???).

QuestionableContent archive binge, noooooooo

So I've been re-reading old QC strips and just got to the introduction of Hannelore.  Dang, she is almost completely unrecognizable!  Also, in retrospect Ellen was kind of a dick sometimes when she was dating Steve.  I wonder if Jeff had the whole breakup thing planned from the beginning.

Fuck you very much, eBuddy.

So eBuddy is an annoying piece of crap, did you know that?

It's not that it's a bad program per se. I used it all the time in college because I didn't have a computer of my own and the only ones I had access to were the school computers, so no MSN.  eBuddy did the job well enough then.  If it were just the quality of the program I wouldn't really mind it at all.  I mean, I didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it then like I do now.

See, it's not the program itself that I hate.  What I hate is how every time I have to use eBuddy, if I'm not on my laptop or if MSN is being a douche, eBuddy takes it upon itself to change my display picture and status message.  And it never said anything about doing that.  So I didn't realize at first, since half the time MSN won't load display pictures for me, that I was going around for a week or two with the eBuddy logo instead of my picture, and that my previous status message had been changed to promote eBuddy.  When I clued in, I was...less than pleased, let's say.

Putting it simply: I don't appreciate being taken advantage of like that.  I didn't sign up to become a walking advertisement for a service I'm not particularly fond of.  But the kicker is, I wouldn't have minded if they had just said something when I signed in!  I can totally get them saying "Because we provide this service for free, we have changed your display picture and included a link to our site in your status message in exchange for providing you with an alternative to MSN" or something.  But by not asking, and by not even alerting me that they've changed my visible information, eBuddy seriously pissed me off.  I've started avoiding eBuddy entirely, using other MSN alternatives when I need them, and my status message for the past month has been about how irritating eBuddy is.  So, thanks to eBuddy sneak-changing my status and image, not only did they not get the advertisement that I wouldn't object to giving them had they just asked (or even just had the decency to let me know!) to getting negative publicity because I'm complaining about how terrible they are every time I see them.

So like my MSN status message says: I am not using eBuddy, because eBuddy can go suck a rotting hippo cock.  I'll stick with Skype and Beejive for MSN replacements.

Turns out it's hard to find photos of rotting hippo cocks online, but you get the picture.

Pumpkin Scissors and more adventures in gif-making!

Pumpkin Scissors is one of my favourite animes of all time.  Granted, I'm not into anime as I used to be, so I don't watch as much of it any more.  So maybe there are better series out now that should also be loved by me?  Feel free to suggest any, I'm trying to get back into watching the stuff.

But Pumpkin Scissors is amazing, for super serious.  It avoids a lot of those irritating flaws that made me mostly stop watching anime in the first place.  Not all of them, mind, the series is subject to some irritating filler and that obligatory "lovable" super-creepy womanizer.  But on the other hand, FUCK YES ALICE MALVIN OMFG

One of these days I'll have to write a proper blog post on how fantastically amazing she is.  And the series in general.  I haven't watched the series in full in a year or two though, so I'll watch it again to re-familiarize myself with it before I start publicly fangirling.  

The reason I bring it up now, though, is because I'm still making gifs!  Except I got bored of Pirates after that weekend, so I've been trying to think of what other movies or shows I could make gifs out of.  And, of course, Pumpkin Scissors!  Duh!  Why did it not occur to me sooner.

The show desperately needs more love, and there is a depressing dearth of PS fics, gifs, and fanart online.  One of those things I can help with!

Well okay technically speaking all of those things I can "help" with.  But gifs are the thing I choose to help with, on account of my being a lazy bastard.  I've learned my lesson on how terrible Blogspot is with photodumps, so now I'm posting the gifs I made of Pumpkin Scissors on my Tumblr, which will hopefully co-operate.  Look here, here, and here.  I only did gifs of the first episode, but I might do more of later in the series later if I don't get distracted.  Won't post them here, though.  To Tumblr!  Mostly because hey, I can actually use tumblr now, that's new.  I've had an account there for a while but ignored it because I had no idea what to post lol.

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.