tag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846life in mokievisionalways a cameron, never a ferrismokie2016-02-11T06:32:27Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:909889Well, at least we're progressing with a theme.2016-01-13T00:55:47Z2016-02-11T06:32:27Zmehpublic2So far it looks like 2016 is going to be the year in which I upset and/or alienate everyone I know.<br /><br />Good times!<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=909889" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:871210Foodie thoughts2014-02-25T05:06:01Z2014-12-28T05:48:20Zhungrypublic0#1. Vinegar has an expiration date. Did you know this? I didn't know this. Isn't vinegar just expired wine in the first place?<br /><br />#2. Nobody knows what to do with radishes. NOBODY.<br /><br />#3. I wish I'd noticed about the vinegar's expiration date before I poured it over the radishes and chucked them in the fridge.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=871210" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:858103Behold my dorkitude!2013-06-01T06:30:50Z2014-04-22T20:08:22Zstressedpublic0Work stress + lack of sleep + nifty TV show = sad, sad tendency to play catch-up with the TV show blogging, and then to comment on month-old TV-related posts with things that have already been kinda sorta sorted out, because in the moment of I kinda sorta forget.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=858103" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:857190Vocabulary fun!2013-05-30T06:44:23Z2013-06-14T08:46:30Znerdypublic0UK: That's a tank top. <br /><br />US: No, that's a sweater vest. <i>That's</i> a tank top.<br /><br />UK: No, that's a vest.<br /><br />US: No, <i>that's</i> a vest.<br /><br />UK: No, that's a waistcoat.<br /><br />OZ: Guys, that first one is a singlet.<br /><br />US & UK: No way, we've heard your national anthem. What you're speaking is English only on a technicality.<br /><br />AL: No, no, no, that first one is a wife-beater.<br /><br />UK: What the--?<br /><br />US: Dammit, Alabama!<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=857190" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:854775Bad advice! Volume flumptymillion2013-05-08T06:39:44Z2013-07-28T03:04:04Zooh, a quarter!public0I'm medicated, because it turns out I'm allergic to coconut. (Ooops.) It also turns out that Benedryl makes me chatty--more so than liquor, surprisingly. And thus you get the benefit of my doofy wisdom!<br /><br />#1. Vaguebooking is punishing everyone who reads because one person pissed you off. It's throwing a rock into a group because you're angry and you want someone to pay attention. It's an act of verbal aggression, and should be met with equal aggression--call that shit out when you see it.<br /><br />#2. I don't mean privately. Those "Are you OK?" private messages and emails are what the poster wants, someone to come and coddle them so they can spread their misery around without actually asking for help or dealing with the person they're upset with. It just feeds that godawful behavior.<br /><br />#3. I don't mean nicely, either. <i>Vaguebooking is punishing everyone because you're mad at one person.</i> That's not nice behavior and it doesn't deserve a nice response.<br /><br />#4. At the same time, I know sometimes folks are just looking to vent. They're not trying to passively-aggressively lash out at someone, they're not asking for help, they just need to release a little steam before the auto-smacking starts. The problem really comes in when they fail to notice that <i>all</i> of their blog posts or status updates or tweets or [insert next big thing in social media] are this kind of venting, because they're never actually socialling in their media--they're just sticking anyone who reads in the position of having to be their ear for venting, without ever giving anything but venting.<br /><br />#5. And who the fuck wants to read a non-stop negativity engine, just churning out nothing but misery and spite? Fuck, at least toss people a cat picture once in a while.<br /><br />#6. Ironically, this looks very much like vaguebooking. I'm aware of that. Two minutes before I loaded Semagic, the free-form rant flowing through my wobbly grey bits was all about avocados, so at least this is moderately relevant to the medium.<br /><br /><i>Edited for clarification:</i> I could have also mentioned in #6 that what sparked the vaguebooking rant was some <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com">Buzzfeed</a> article in passing, but that would have made too much sense.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=854775" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:837774My point stands!2012-10-06T19:58:49Z2013-06-03T19:20:29Zconfusedpublic0<a href="http://lifehacker.com/5834025/if-you-wouldnt-do-your-job-for-free-then-quit">"If you wouldn't do you job for free, then quit."</a><br /><br />Oh <a href="http://lifehacker.com/">Lifehacker</a>, you endless treasure trove of trustfund hipster bullsh--<br /><br /><i>What do you do, mokie?</i><br /><br />I correct people's grammar over the Internet, mokie.<br /><br />Okay, so I'm not the best argument for this one...<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=837774" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:836307All my fucks are back!2012-08-28T09:59:20Z2013-05-25T21:28:38Zvery full of feelingspublic0It has been suggested by someone who is very, shall we say, 'right', that I'm actually seething about something else that I can't do anything about. That anger that I can't fix is snaking its way out of my molten core and finding its way up to the surface through minor fissures here and there, causing things that should be small nuisances, like unclear instructions, to become sinkholes of <i>raaaaaaaaaaaaaage</i>.<br /><br />Damn! I hate it when other people are right.<br /><br />Realizing it helps. I can see where I tried to convince myself that I wasn't that angry over the thing that's making me seethe, since (a) it's a stupid thing to feel angry over, and (b) I can't do anything about it. And I can see where trying to shove that issue into the 'minor nuisance' box knocked all the real nuisances out of the box and all out of proportion, since (a) they were legitimate (if minor) issues, and (b) I could do things about them, including <i>raaaaaaaaaaaaaage</i>. It was easier to get angry at a few small, clear targets that I could knock out or blow up about than at a vague and currently unfixable thing.<br /><br />You know what else helps? Mocha coffee hazelnut spread stirred into warm almond milk. No, wait, I mean, talking about it. But that too.<br /><br />And another thing pointed out to me: socializing wipes me out and makes me cranky. I know, I shouldn't need this pointed out, since <i>I</i> point it out so often, but my Friday was full of more people and places full of people than usual (ooh, that's sad), so I should have expected to be spending my Saturday and Sunday waving a knife around re-establishing all perimeters, prison-style.<br /><br />So now I feel stupid about being so tetchy for the better part of a month, and guilty for feeling stabby at someone (okay, everyone) yesterday, and waving a knife around, prison-style. (Joke! Don't call CPS!) And drained, because that's a lot of realizing and feeling to be doing all at once.<br /><br />(Also, like I should be posting some emo song lyrics or something...)<br /><br />[Related posts: <a href="http://mokie.dreamwidth.org/835924.html">I'm all out of fucks, because I used them all in this post.</a> / All my fucks are back! / <a href="http://mokie.dreamwidth.org/836847.html">Well, that was brief.</a>]<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=836307" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:835833[Dream] The stubborn mokie brain...2012-08-26T07:08:13Z2015-01-03T04:00:51Zimpressedpublic0Friday I was invited to dinner and drinks to celebrate the <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=sweetevangeline"><img height="17" border="0" src="http://www.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif" alt="sweetevangeline" align="absmiddle" width="17"></a><a style="FONT-WEIGHT: 800" href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/sweetevangeline/">awesome Ms E</a>'s glorious, if brief, return to St. Louis. The time: 6:30pm.<br /><br />I awoke at 8:30pm, two hours late. I was not just disappointed--I was devastated.<br /><br />For all my complaints about minimum wage jobs and how difficult it can be to plan get-togethers when you don't have set hours, or when you have set hours that don't jibe well with the rest of the world's set hours, freelance hasn't exactly changed anything for me there. My workday is effectively 5pm to 3am many days. If I didn't love the work I do, I'd probably cry at the delicious irony of it all.<br /><br />Several important last-minute jobs have made me miss recent gatherings, and the wonderful exec who sends me these jobs recently called me out and put her foot down, essentially telling me to put on pants and go hang out with my friends once in a while before I went all squirrelly. Thus I'd sworn not to miss this one, minor advertising emergencies be damned.<br /><br />And yet there it was: 8:30pm.<br /><br />I laid back down in the hammock to pout. (Yes, I still sleep in a hammock.) I tossed. I turned. I grumbled. I slept and woke and slept and woke a few times. I considered getting up, then ruthlessly shot it down. Why bother? What was the point? It was already too late! Then my bladder chimed in, but I stuck to my guns. No! I would not get up! I would not get up just so I could be missing <i>everything</i>! It was stupid, and I was going back to bed.<br /><br />At some point, a less sleepy portion of my brain pointed out that it was awfully damn bright for 8:30pm...<br /><br />I begrudgingly got up to use the bathroom, shooting the clock a death-glare as I passed: 2:30pm.<br /><br />Wait--2:30?<br /><br />Yes, I dreamt that I overslept, then went back to sleep <i>in the dream</i> and refused to get up <i>in the dream</i>.<br /><br />And so that evening I went lighter on the beer than I might otherwise, because who was to say that I was really awake yet?<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=835833" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:831808Weighing in after the bell...2012-04-10T22:25:05Z2012-11-17T16:33:44Zexhaustedpublic0The upside of getting steady work is that it means steady pay. <br /><br />The downside is that, because it's writing and editing, by the end of the day I don't feel like doing more digging and sorting and taping-together of meaningful words. So I piece together a few notes for a post or a rant, and vow to come back and flesh it out the next day. A few weeks later I spot the file, when the world and I are both out of steam on the issue.<br /><br />For example, the whole contraception kerfluffle. Who said anything about asking taxpayers to pay for birth control? Most people just want their own insurance, insurance that <i>they</i> pay for with their premiums and their co-pays, to cover their medical needs adequately. And contraception <i>is</i> medication: forms of contraception are used to treat a variety of medical needs of which birth control is indeed one, but only one--and not a damn one of those medical needs is anybody's business but the patient's and her doctor's. For that matter, neither is her sex life. No woman should be obliged to give her employer her medical records and full disclosure of how much dick she is or isn't getting to justify receiving medication that her <i>doctor</i> prescribed.<br /><br />Why should anyone's employer get a say in their medical care anyway? Who made CEOs experts in health care? Would a Muslim employer get to override a heart transplant if doctors decided that I needed a baboon heart? Would a Jehovah's Witness have a say in whether I received a vital blood transfusion? Would a Scientologist get to nix my prescription for antidepressants and send me in for an 'audit' instead? Would I have to sit down in a Christian Science prayer circle and hope that fixed a cancerous mass instead of seeking actual medical attention? If it's all about not asking an employer to violate his 'morals and beliefs', will racists be able to dictate that their employees only see white doctors? My freedom of religion should include the right not to have my employer's religion dictate <i>my</i> health care choices.<br /><br />But I'm all out of rant about it. Now it's just a sad resignation to the idea that some people don't get how contraception works or <a href="http://angryblacklady.com/2012/02/25/overplanned-parenthood-reproductive-tyranny/">why it's necessary</a>.<br /><br />Or the whole SOPA/PIPA debacle. I saved <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120208/01453517694/riaa-totally-out-touch-lashes-out-google-wikipedia-everyone-who-protested-sopapipa.shtml">a lovely quote from TechDirt</a> just for the occasion, but even with Obama hinting at another round of that inanity, I can't work up the <i>oomph</i> to do more than nod:<blockquote>"What they might not have known -- because the RIAA never wants to admit this -- is that the overall music industry is growing, not shrinking. Sure, the dollar value of music sales has shrunk, and perhaps it's because of file sharing, but the overall music industry -- including things like concerts, licensing and publishing -- has continued to rise, quite significantly. More importantly, these are the parts of the business where artists actually keep a much larger percentage of the money -- meaning that artists are significantly better off today than they were in the past, contrary to what Sherman and the RIAA will tell you."</blockquote>For example: <a href="http://bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="http://noisetrade.com/">Noisetrade</a>. Go forth and support an artist on their own terms.<br /><br />But I digress.<br /><br />Now that work has quieted down some and I can think up words for fun and pleasure again, I've found I'm pretty much out of things to apply them to.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=831808" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2010-04-20:501846:831157Intervention for word hoarders?2012-02-06T12:11:33Z2013-05-28T18:06:32Zexhaustedpublic0I opened my assorted friends lists today and realized that I haven't read in almost three months. <br /><br />I've been swamped with work, and all that hardcore word-mining really strips my ability to put words together in anything longer than a sentence or two. I knew I'd fallen behind in posting. I hadn't realized I'd fallen so far behind in reading too, though.<br /><br />And not just blogs. My sister lent me third book in the Dexter series before Christmas. It's sitting on my desk right now, mocking me with its unreadness. It's not a particularly dense or complex series, but making sense of sentences seems too much like work. I slide into the tub, open the book, and my eyelids droop in open rebellion; I took it to the doctor's office (just accompanying a relative) and nearly dozed off. The bookmark is at the midway point, but I'll be damned if I can remember anything past the first three pages.<br /><br />Can one overdose on words? I think I might have.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=mokie&ditemid=831157" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments