Important Breaking News, Man Has Kids?

In a fine display of "Who cares about this non-news" reporting, CBC has informed me that "families believe" that the late ex-PM John Diefenbaker was not childless after all, but in fact has two -- that's right, count 'em, two! -- sons.  According to CBC, having two kids is enough to count as "leaving progeny scattered across the country" because woah, two children?  Such a voracious output of sperm is absolutely unheard of!  Neither me nor my two siblings have ever heard of anybody having more than one kid.  And the two sons live in different places in Western Canada!  Holy cow!  Scattered across the country indeed, CBC.  I gotta say, I'm really glad somebody is reporting on this truly important breaking news that is the personal life of a guy who died over thirty years ago.  Way to be relevant, CBC.

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.

Sci Fi on the Rock

I went to Sci Fi On The Rock on Saturday!  And neglected to blog about it for pretty much an entire week, because I kind of suck at this.  Oh well.

It was kind of a blast!  Twenty dollars seemed a little steep for a day pass, but whatever.  There was some pretty cool merchandise; I got two fridge magnets, a Storm Trooper with a bow and a Pokeball.  The fridge magnets, I mean, that's what they were.  I also got a knit R2D2 cap and a tribble!  I named the tribble Nimoy and he is now wearing the R2D2 hat.  The tribble came from one of the workshops, a dramatic reading of the episode The Trouble With Tribbles from the original series Star Trek.  That was a blast.  I also went to the Second Most Dysfunctional Writing Panel, which was fun, but in hindsight I wish I'd gone to the Terrible Fanfiction panel instead.  I tried to go to the Steampunk Tea but there wasn't anywhere to sit, so we went to McDonalds instead.  Then I got absorbed into a group of strangers and we went to the movies and saw Jurassic Park.  There was one workshop I really wanted to go to, Build Your Own Airship, but it was on Friday and I had a dentist appointment so I couldn't attend.  Sadface :(

I also got buttons!  I got two Doctor Who buttons and a It's OK Pluto, I'm Not A Planet Either button. The Pluto button was actually free!  I couldn't find a dollar so the woman at the booth was like, "you know what, it's one button.  Here!"  I wish I could find her business card so I could tell everybody to buy things from them, but I seem to have lost it.  Alas.  If I ever find it I'll make a dedicated post specifically for that business, because it really was nice of them to give me the button.  I'd like to repay them with a little publicity in lieu of a dollar.

All in all, it was a good day.  I spent a bit more money than I meant to, because who can turn down tribbles and R2D2 hats, but it was a fun day all the same.  I only went on the one day, because twenty dollars a day?  Ouch.  It double-hurt, because when I checked the website before I went I saw the price and it said it was ten dollars for an adult ticket.  I didn't scroll down to notice the part where it said it was for Friday only and that Saturday and Sunday were both twenty dollars each.  It would have been nice if they'd removed the Friday price after Friday passed, but oh well.  Next year I might go on a Friday instead, or I'll just suck it up and buy the weekend pass for forty bucks.  I'll have to decide when next year comes around and I can see what awesome workshops are on the go then.

Alan Turing's Gay Pardon

I read yesterday that a bunch of famous people, like Steven Hawking and Other Leading Scientists Who Didn't Write A Brief History Of Time, are petitioning to have Alan Turing posthumously pardoned for being gay.

In case you didn't know, Alan Turing was a totally rad dude who worked for the government in the Department of Awesomeness where he Invented The Future while winning all of the wars or something.  Except he was gay, and back then it was a crime to be gay, so he was arrested and chemically castrated and fired because he might have been a KGB spy to tempt Amurka's government with gayness, and then he killed himself because his life was royally fucked.  That's the short, no-research history I gave you right there.  I can probably give you a better description of who he is, why he's such an important figure, and what happened to him when it's not...holy shit, six forty-five in the morning, I should go to bed.  Whatever, I'll finish this first.  Don't let my terrible late-night-explaining skills fool you into thinking he wasn't actually a huge deal, because he was super-important and what happened to him was a vile tragedy.

Anyway, some people want Alan Turing posthumously pardoned, because it's wrong to ruin someone's career and life just because of their sexuality, duh.  Apparently there's some sort of rule saying that a person can't be pardoned if the thing they want to be pardoned for was actually a crime when they were convicted of it, despite it being a terrible, stupid, disgusting law that pretty much everybody now agrees was so awful and inappropriate that it should never have existed.

I don't have a real problem with people who want to posthumously pardon the guy.  I see where they're coming from.  Alan Turing was a hero, and the way he was treated was despicable, and now we want to try and make things a little bit right, even if we are fifty years too late.

I do have a problem with how this pardoning petition comes across, though.  Why just Turing?  Why not everybody who was convicted of having teh gayz?  Wasn't it was a terrible law in the first place?  It was wrong to convict people for being gay and ruin their life, whether they were a war hero or just your average guy who liked to suck dick.  Or do people not actually care that lots of people were damaged and opressed by that law and only war heroes should get specially nominated to be officially forgiven for liking cocks because hey, he made up for it by winning World War 2 and all.  Pardoning just one or two people for this makes it seem like anybody who doesn't get posthumously pardoned is still guilty of being gay and deserved their consequences.  Even the phrase "pardoned" irks me.  Hey, you guy, we're going to bestow upon you this great awesome favour of being forgiven of your gayness!  Haha, isn't that big of us?  We're so cool now!

Also....shit.  I had at least two points I wanted to make, and another half-a-point in the back, but I can't remember what they are now.  Fuck.  Oh well, it's like seven thirty now, and rather than have this be yet another draft wallowing miserably in my posts to be edited and fussed over for eternity, I'll just post it and make another post later if I remember what those points were gonna be.  I should probably get some sleep for now.

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!

Mardi Gras on George Street

So I went down to George Street the other night for Mardi Gras!  It's not real Mardi Gras, though.  That's in February or something.  In St John's Mardi Gras just means Halloween Party.  I don't know why.  It's kind of confusing.  I mean, why steal somebody's holiday if you're not even going to pretend to do that holiday?  Just call it Halloween on George Street, seriously.

But anyway.  Costumes!  This is the first year in a while I actually did a costume, instead of just throwing on some awesome stuff I had lying around.  I went as Wesley from The Princess Bride!  Well, sort of.  The Universe was pretty insistent on me being Stripper Wesley, because when I went to look for a shirt the only ones I could find with the right sleeves were transparent.  The only non-see-through shirt I could find was too small for me, so I couldn't do up the top button properly and my cleavage was pretty visible.  Looked good though.  Not Quite Stripper Wesley is a good look for me.

It was a quick and cheap costume, for the most part.  I already had the sexy boots, and most of it I bought at Value Village.  Except for the leggings.  They were surprisingly expensive, but at least I was allowed to try them on.  I've been burned by leggings before.  You gotta be careful when you buy them, because a lot of the time they are labelled leggings when they're actually just footless tights.  You know what the difference is between leggings and tights?  You can see your underwear through tights.  Always check your leggings for underwear sightings.  And wearing dark panties helps too.

I'm on the phone with Shannon in this picture.  He asked for photos.  You're welcome, Shannon.

I went to Mardiween with Petron, because his friends ditched and Sam didn't have money to get in and then when she could get in she had a headache from shitty glasses, and Ash had to work but she showed up later anyway because she's cool like that.  Petron was a blogless mad scientist with a tube of glowy worms.  It was pretty cool, he did it by sticking a couple of glow sticks in a jar of milk and water.  Then he dropped it and the top cracked, but it still worked.  The seal didn't break so no milkwaterglow spilled anywhere. But he kept rolling it all over the table, because he never learns.

We went down around seven, because that was the only time I could get a ride.  It is unfortunate, because the weather was crap so most people either didn't go, or waited until nine or ten to show up.  Including Ash, who didn't get off work 'till eleven.  So Petron and I were kinda stuck on the street waiting for hours and hours for it to get interesting.  We passed the time by calling random people, getting food at Greensleeves, and trying to harass our friends into showing up.  Also I called Shannon, because Shannon is cool and apparently my phone does reach Clarenville when it wants to, and every other time I've tried to call people in Clarenville it was just being a wuss.  I don't know how a phone can be a wuss.  Probably by being too wussy to call numbers.  Thanks, phone.

But it got cool eventually!  Later in the night people in cool costumes showed up, like the Lego Batman people and the Adventure Time characters.  I didn't get photos of them though.  I should have.  And Ash came down dressed as a mob bitch/mobster/mob boss/person in rad outfit.

After Ash got there, we switched it up!  Instead of wandering aimlessly all over the street like we had been doing, we started wandering aimlessly all over the street and dancing in one of the bars.  Took photos, made fun of people, got photos interrupted.  Seriously, don't bother trying to do a posed photo around drunk people, they think it is hilarious to jump into it.

Petron went home at around one or one thirty, and Ash and I went to another bar and made new friends, Doctor Who, Po the Teletubby and a Free Mammogram machine.  Ironically, Doctor Who was the only one without a sexy foreign accent.  And yes, I know technically he is The Doctor, but face it everybody calls him Doctor Who.  Even the show does it.  Calm your tits.

Also what the heck is the deal with stuff on George Street.  You have to pay twenty bucks to get on the street, and they give you both a ticket and a wristband, but if you leave the street you can't get back on?  What the hell is the point of the wristbands?  Either use the wristbands to say "You have already paid for your ticket and been on the street, so if you leave this is proof that you can come back," or don't bother with the fucking wristbands in the first place, what the hell.

But we stayed on George Street till last call, me and Ash and Tom of the Free Mammograms and Po the Drunk Teletubby, and after that we went down to a really cool little bar with a nice atmosphere and stays open serving alcohol past the legal hour, lets you smoke in the bar, and never cards anyone.  I love that place.  I don't smoke and so far I've always had my ID, but it's cool to know that there's a place like that to go if I am hanging with underage smokers at three am for some reason.  Then we went to Celtic Hearth and stood around waiting in the rain for like half an hour waiting for a table.  Po ditched us to join a group of strangers who got a table before us, and vanished into the night like a mysterious wasted ninja.

So overall it was a pretty rad night.  Well, half and half.  The first half was kinda lame, but only kinda.  Petron is awesome to hang with, and we got some decent food.  The second half was rad as fuck, despite a lack of Petron.  I have no idea how I spent as much money as I did, but whatever I spent it on was probably worth it.  It was a good night.

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. 

I spent too much money today :(

So today I went to the mall!  I was supposed to go with Sam, and head up to Value Village to look for a Halloween costume, but she was a butt and decided to feel sick today.  So the Halloween costume search is put off 'til next week, but I still needed new headphones (as you may remember) so I went to the mall solo tonight.  Insert Forever Alone face here.

Overall I'm relatively pleased with my purchases! I got the new Harvest Moon game -- well, relatively new, it came out last year -- and two pairs of headphones instead of just one, because I lack willpower.  Nail polish for the same reason.  But both the headphones and polishes are really cute so it's okay.

I haven't tried the earbuds yet.  I'm expecting them to be pretty mediocre-to-terrible, since they were only six bucks.  I'm sure they will crap out in a month or two and I'll have to buy another, better pair.  I did try the big over-the-ear headphones on the way home, and I think they were kind of shitty?  I can't really tell.  I mean, they don't sound as good as my old earbuds used to, but that might just be because my earbuds were noise-cancelling and these aren't, so I'm expecting them to be louder than I have a right to expect them to be, uh, loud.  Still, that's what I get for buying the cheapest pairs in the store.  I should have gone for the Skull Candy ones, like TK recommended when I called him for an opinion.

I might end up buying a better pair next paycheck and just keeping these as backup.  They are really cute, and they did a good job of keeping my ears warm.  Plus they fold together to be small enough to be (kinda) portable in my purse, and they have that nifty curled telephone-wire on them which just looks neat.  And they were cheap.  So overall, I'm happy with them.

Trust me, they're adorable.

I haven't played the Harvest Moon game yet.  I'm gonna start it tonight, and I will probably be completely sucked into it and disappear from the world for a week or two once I do.  I will have to do my best not to become completely obsessed.

No promises.

The nail polishes are omfg crazy cute.  I tried the pink and green colours on my left and right hands, respectively.  The pink went on frickin' neon!  I thought it would take a couple coats, but nope.  Straight out of the bottle, blinding pink.  Also it dried into sort of a matte finish, rather than a gloss.  I've never had polish that dries like that before!  I like it.  I always did prefer the feel of a matte finish to a smooth gloss finish.

For the record, my camera does not do justice to the crazy-bright colours of these polishes.  Or to my bright pink headphones, since we're on the subject.  All these colours are like ten times more intense than they look.

So that's what I got at the mall tonight.  It was an arduous journey, but the loot was worth it.  Now excuse me while I go play Harvest Moon for the next eight hours.

Things That Are Awkward

When a strange dude unintentionally follows you to your car trying to make awkward small talk, because you had to wait together at a crosswalk and are headed in the same direction at the same speed.

That was creepy, Strange Dude.  If my car had been any further away I would have stopped at any random parked car, just to get rid of you.

Good advice, doc.

My sister had to get stitches a couple of weeks ago.  Her bike fell on her or something and gouged her leg open.  It kinda looked like a zombie bite or something, it was pretty rad.  Luckily for the world it was not a zombie bite, it was just an assassin bike that was bad at its job.

She had to go back to the doctor the other day to get the stitches removed, and apparently one fell out or something.  Or at least, he shaved off the scab that had grown around it and couldn't find it under  the scab.  So either it fell out or it's still in her leg somewhere.  Apparently the doctor told her, "I think it fell out, but it might be still in there.  If your leg gets a massive infection and starts smelling and is all pussy and gross for weeks and you can't figure out why, come back and we'll look for it then."

Great.  Exactly what you want to hear from your doctor.  Take two and come back when you ooze pus. 

Neil Armstrong is dead.

It has begun.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Todd Atkin is why America is terrible.

Well, one of the reasons why America is terrible, at least.

I was in the car with dad and heard over the radio that some American politician said that a rape victim's body naturally prevents her from becoming pregnant.  What?  No, really, what??  Seriously America, there is something wrong with you.

So I looked it up when I got home, turns out it's even worse than I thought!  Apparently it's only "legitimate" rape victims who are given this magical Rape Science pregnancy prevention.  And also this dude is a completely terrible person.  Seriously, what the hell is wrong in America.

Even setting down that somehow this is a popular political stance, that rape victims shouldn't get abortions because baaaaabiiiieeees -- why is somebody this fucking stupid allowed to be a politician in charge of creating laws.  Oh my god.  I'm literally stunned speechless by this.  Not only that somebody would be this completely terrible as a human being, but that somebody would be this completely fucking ignorant.  It's like, does this guy even realize that facts are actually a thing that have to be real, or does he think that if he thinks it really really hard it becomes true?

Now I'm not saying Canada is perfect in every single way and none of our politicians are dumb or bad. I mean, look at Stephen Harper, he's a total dirtbag.  But this guy just comes off as being, I don't know, evil or something.  Seriously, what goes wrong in your head to make you think that any of this is an acceptable opinion for a decent human being to hold, much less for a decent human being to say out loud on television in a position of authority?  Because you know, there's the whole abortion/conception/babies thing, and then there's just being a terrible terrible person who hates women and doesn't seem to think of them as real people but instead as babymaking boob-wearers.

What?  Oh no.  Nonono.  My sister just told me that he's a member of the United States House Committee of Science, Space and Technology.