Okay, maybe the newly remodelled Westfield Doncaster Shoppingtown (you can Google it if you care; I'm not going to give them a link) is cool inside. I wouldn't have any way of knowing. I lost an hour of my life and a fair amount of petrol there and never even got close to going inside. I will not be returning, which is a shame, because we used to go there frequently and I really enjoyed it. However, what I experienced today is not something I want to risk experiencing ever again.

Anyway, we went in the afternoon, after what should have been the lunchtime rush. Yes, I know it's a couple weeks to Christmas and things are busy busy busy. I get that. I'm not fussed about that, I mean, I get that you go somewhere, you see there's not really any hope of parking, and you go elsewhere. Fine, I do that all the time.

However, what happened to us today was we drove around (painfully slowly) for about twenty minutes and then said, "Well, look, we're not going to find anywhere to park, let's go," and then spent another forty minutes trying to get the hell out of the carpark. Yes, really. For a while, we were so badly gridlocked that we actually turned the engine off for periods of time while waiting to be able to proceed. Furthermore, there were a lot of cars that were parked completely illegally (when I see that, I really want to just get out my keys and walk along scoring the paint on every damned one of them). The illegal parking just contributed to the gridlock, as it turned what should have been a two lane channel into a single lane. Oh, and there was a whole big area of parking that was blocked off from use. Why? Well, there was a non-existent car wash there. Seriously. Reserved for a car wash that did not exist.

So, basically, it was an hour of my life that I'll never get back. Wasted petrol, wasted time, by the time we finally got the hell out of there, my blood sugar was very low (we were planning on having a late lunch... we ended up going elsewhere and having a very late lunch, indeed), and one of the kids was complaining that she needed to go to the toilet.

The thing that really irritates me is the incredibly poor design of the parking garage. The parking aisles all exit to a single lane to get to the exit. I have to wonder if the engineers who created this mess have ever actually parked a car on a busy day? Hey, I bet it looked great on paper and blueprints, but in practical application it SUCKS. Poor design irritates me beyond belief. I mean, this was a $600million remodel, and it took a couple of years to complete, and yet they think that "state of the art parking" means a multi-level rat warren of painfully slow moving traffic and - wait for it - you pay for your parking! (Happily, you only pay after the first two hours. This is good, because it could take you that long just to find a parking place at all, or to decide you won't find one and try to leave.)

Unbelievably bad design. I don't care how much they brag about it, it sucks. I wish I could grab all the design engineers and all of the upper management and stick them in cars and make them drive around that hell hole for an hour or so.

I used to think that the parking situation at Chadstone was really bad, and it kind of is. You can drive around a long time before you find a place to park. But the thing is, you don't sit in a gridlock for the better part of an hour. I have now elevated Westfield Doncaster to the worst parking situation I've experienced in Australia (that's ten years of living here and visiting a lot of parking garages, including in the heart of the city, multiple suburbs, and at very busy times of the year, indeed!). In fact, come to think of it, it may be the worst parking situation I've ever experienced. The only worse one I can think of would be something like leaving a parking lot after some event (concert, for example), when everyone's trying to go at once, but that's about volume, not about incredibly poor design (which the owners are bragging about as if it's great!)

As I said, I won't be back. It's a real shame, because it looks like the internal remodel is pretty cool, but honestly, if you can't get in to see, what's the point? I can't be bothered. I'm sure that after the holidays the traffic will be better, but do I want to risk it? Nup. Plenty of other shopping centres in Melbourne, ones where even if I can't find a place to park, I can at least leave the carpark without being gridlocked for the better part of an hour. Poor design, frustrating experience, I'll take my money somewhere else. (I doubt very much that the management of Westfield will ever read this, much less care what I wrote, but I wanted to write it just in case anyone else felt the same way and wanted to read my rant.)

I've mentioned this before, but I was always a registered Independent when I was an American voter. I voted for Ronald Regan in 1984. I voted for George Bush in 1988. I voted for Clinton in 1992... I have voted both Republican and Democratic, and not just in presidential elections. I've also voted for state and local government and for members of congress, and my voting record is probably fairly evenly split between Republican and Democrat.

I am also a political moderate. Okay, like most educated people I have some mild liberal leanings, but they are, I assure you, MILD. I am very much in favour of a balanced approach to politics. That's not something I've seen a lot of in the past decade or so, at least not in American politics.

Anyway, if you've been following this blog at all, you'll know I was never, ever a fan of Dubya. I could write pages and pages about him. As far as I'm concerned, he's a warmongering moron, and yeah, go ahead and flame me, it's not like 60% of Americans didn't disapprove of him, as well. I just wish they'd figured it out prior to the 2004 elections and decided not to put that idiot back into office a second time, but that's all water under the bridge now.

It looks like Barack Obama has become the new president of the United States. I don't know if he'll be a great president or not, to be honest. I know he talks a good game. I'm happy to see the race barrier broken in this way, certainly. But most of all, I'm thrilled to see that the stranglehold that the neocon ultra-right has had on the United States is finally broken. Thank God for that.

I'm also thrilled to see that Sarah Palin will NOT be a heartbeat away from the presidency (you betcha!) and that Meg Whitman (former CEO of eBay) will NOT be made Treasurer of the United States (yes, McCain was seriously throwing her name around as a possibility! Can you imagine Meg Whitman's signature on U.S. currency?!). Dodged a bullet there (and you know Sarah's got plenty of bullets!).

Perhaps, too, this election will finally end the relationship between right-wing ultra-conservative evangelical Christians and the Republican party. It wasn't always that way. Separation of church and state, right? The United States could do with more of that. I'm all for religious freedom, and I don't think that can be accomplished when the party in power is in bed with the religious right. Maybe the Republican party will have enough of a wake-up call from this to actually stop catering to the religious right and get on with the business of government. We can hope, anyway.

Here's my prediction: Sarah Palin will go back to Alaska and pee in the woods and then put on lipstick and go out to dinner (thus was she described by a supporter who knows her) and she'll lose the next election and her political career will end quietly, giving her ample time to take care of her children and her grandchild (or, hey, grandchildren, why not? I'm sure her daughter can pop out a couple more in short order, though I'm not predicting that) and to stab the other hockey moms in the back whenever she can, and Tina Fey will never have to play Sarah Palin again on national television. I like Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, but I'm happy to have Mrs. Palin disappear into the Alaska wilderness and never be heard from again, frankly.

I also predict that McCain will go back to being a senator as he's been for many years, and he'll go on voting ultra conservatively (maverick my arse; he voted with Bush 90% of the time!), and eventually he'll either retire or die in office (note: I am not wishing death upon him, but everyone does die, and he's been senator for Arizona for a long time and he's an old man, so it's not unthinkable that he might die in office as many other long serving congressmen have done).

I hope that real positive change will come from this, that there has been a genuine shift in thinking toward a more positive outlook. Heaven knows the past eight years have been nothing but negativity, fear, and eroding of civil rights. Maybe that will change. I sincerely hope so, for the sake of the people of the United States, and for the sake of the world.

My in-laws are back from a trip overseas, and it seem that my father-in-law's eBay account is suspended as well as my buying account and my brother-in-law's account (see: this entry about why eBay are morons and then the entry with more about why eBay are morons and then this entry about what I wrote to the morons at eBay if you want/need to know more about this sickening ongoing saga). It turns out that my father-in-law's account is suspended, too. Apparently, he posted to the eBay boards, protesting the "required to use PayPal" thing and eBay decided that he was my brother-in-law and my brother-in-law was me or whatever it is that they decided. My father-in-law is not impressed, to say the least.

My mother-in-law's account is intact. Apparently, she didn't post to the boards, so that was okay. You can use the same IP address (and even the same computer) but you can't post to eBay's boards from any IP address that I've used. Whatever.

I haven't heard back from eBay regarding my suspension, but I only posted the letter yesterday. The probably got it today (generally, Melbourne to Sydney is an overnight delivery). They'll almost certainly drag their feet on it. I may hear back eventually. Who knows. I don't really care that much, and that's the truth. If they want to lose a customer, it's fine with me.

I did, however, receive an unpaid item strike on account of all this bullsh*t. As it happens, I know the seller quite well and I was in contact with her as soon as my account was suspended. I asked her to invoice me. She was very sympathetic, having had her own account suspended for stupid stuff in the past. However, she's currently on vacation, and I think she must have an automated thing to file a non-paying bidder dispute after seven days. Since I am currently suspended, she automatically "won" the dispute. She can (and I'm sure she will) reverse the strike against me when she gets back from her vacation and realises what happened. In the meantime, I'm wearing a strike because eBay thinks I'm my brother-in-law.

EBay deserves every bit of bad corporate karma they're reaping in the courts these days. Until and unless they do right by their customers, they're going to fail. I don't post much about their corporate bullsh*t here, but trust me, I keep an eye on what they're up to (because I follow e-commerce trends in general, and I used to be an eBay PowersSeller until I figured out how unreliable they are as a business platform... and said so on the eBay boards back in 2006... and got suspended from them...)

In the ongoing saga of eBay unfairly suspending my buyer account, I decided to go ahead and send them the paperwork they want from me, wherein I promise not to be naughty and I prove to them that I am who I say I am. I'm not sure why I'm bothering. Mostly, I keep getting emails from eBay about various things and I have no way to turn them off. It's annoying.

So I filled out the form and ticked the boxes and I printed it out and signed it. And then I photocopied my drivers license (both sides). And then I wrote them a letter. Mind you, they may well take exception to my attitude and refuse to reinstate my account, but I wasn't willing to just meekly accept that I was in the wrong, because I wasn't. Not this time. (I fully accept, as I've mentioned before, the suspension from eBay's discussion boards, and I have honoured that by not posting there since 2006).

Here's what I wrote:

To whom it may concern:

I have filled out and signed the required form and photocopied my Victoria Drivers License. Note that I have copied both sides, as we've moved and my address has changed. The address on the back is the current one, and is the one registered with eBay.

I am familiar with the rule under which my account was suspended, but I would like to note that I did not actually violate this rule. Back in 2006, I was suspended from the eBay boards (but NOT from eBay trading). I chose not to appeal and I have abided by the restriction and have not posted to the boards since then.

However, several months ago, my husband's brother was visiting our home and he used our internet service in order to connect to eBay (he is a buyer and a seller; I am a buyer ONLY). Apparently, he posted to the eBay boards. Ebay, in their wisdom, decided to suspend his account and mine, as well. Until the day my account was suspended, I didn't even know what his username was. I only worked out what had actually happened by piecing it together for myself; eBay's customer support was no help whatsoever in helping me to find out what had happened and why I was suspended!

So, yes, I certainly promise not to violate a rule that I didn't violate already and I won't let my brother-in-law use my internet service to post to eBay any more. I hope this is satisfactory.

By the way, my account has been in effect since 2000. I have spent literally thousands of dollars on eBay, and I frequently pay with PayPal, giving eBay even more money (at the sellers' expense, of course, but still, eBay pockets it). I have 100% feedback on my account.

Suspending me for something I didn't do, refusing to help me work out what actually happened and why I was being suspended, and now requiring me to promise I won't do it again (without even telling me what "it" was that I supposedly did; I'm fortunate that I was clever enough to figure it out, otherwise I'd still be wondering!) and send you copies of my personal documents isn't really what I call improving the buyer experience.

Please reinstate my account. I apologise for allowing my brother-in-law to use my internet service to post to eBay boards (though I didn't know he did it, nor did I think it would be a problem, given that he's not suspended from the boards and I haven't posted to them since my suspension from them in 2006).

While I'm at it, perhaps you might lift my board suspension to prevent this from ever happening again. I don't want to post on the boards (when I was suspended, I accepted it fully and was somewhat relieved, as a matter of fact), but I don't like the idea that if my husband were to log on from our shared internet service and post there (not that he does or would, but it's within the realm of possibility at some point), we'll have to go through this song and dance again.

I want you to know that this experience has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I am a good and regular buyer. I didn't deserve this treatment, nor did my brother-in-law. I don't know if you've also suspended my father-in-law and/or mother-in-law; they used the same internet service (I doubt they posted to the boards, though).

Thank you for your time. It is my hope that eBay will, for once, do the right thing.

As I wrote a couple days ago, my eBay buying account has been suspended. Note that my husband's account has not been suspended. Nor has my selling account (which doesn't actually have a seller component attached to it at the moment). Only my BUYING account.

After some detective work and help from third parties, I've worked out the the other user they think is me is actually my brother-in-law, David (who, by the way, still has not contacted me about this, despite the fact that he knows I was suspended; I had to work it out entirely on my own). Until this suspension, I had no clue what his eBay username even was, nor did I care.

What appears to have happened is that six months or so ago, David was visiting our home and he logged on to eBay via our wireless network (with permission, of course). While he was logged on, he posted to the eBay forums. Now, six months or so later, eBay suddenly compared IP addresses or something and decided that he was me and that I had violated my suspension from eBay's boards (which I most certainly have not done).

And in order for eBay to reverse their mistake, they expect me to fax or post them private documents to prove my identity. This is a BUYER account, folks. It is not a seller who needs eBay to make enough money to pay the electricity bill. This is someone who comes to eBay with the intention of BUYING things. You know, the person whose experience eBay is always talking about improving? Yeah. And because my brother-in-law, who did NOT have a suspension, posted to eBay's forums while visiting my home, I now am expected to jump through hoops to prove to eBay that it's really okay to let me buy things on their site.

They deserve to lose a buyer.

I haven't yet decided if I can be bothered to do this. I do NOT agree that I violated any rules, because I did not (it's not against the rules to allow a relative to use your wireless internet, no matter how eBay spins it). There are plenty of other places on the net that I can spend my money (and it's getting close to when I start doing Christmas shopping, actually). Do I care enough to send them in photocopies of my drivers' license and other documents they have no need to see in the first place? Hmmm.... tough call....

Got some weird sh*t from eBay today.

First, a notice that my "bid" had been cancelled on an item I bought months ago via BuyItNow. Item was bought, paid for, has been received. I have no clue how/why they would cancel a "bid" on an item I bought months ago. Weird, I think.

Then I go on to the next email and find that my account has been suspended.

This is an account I've had since 2000. It's my primary buying account, and it's associated with a PayPal account, so it's not like they can't check out who I am. I have literally thousands of dollars worth of purchases on that account, and 100% feedback. I have never done anything with that account except buy (I don't think I've even posted on any boards with it).

A few years ago, when I got just a little to outspoken on the eBay boards, they suspended my posting ability. They suspended my selling account (which I still have but no longer use), my posting ID, and my buying account from using the boards. No biggie (I was sick of the boards anyway), but they did manage to CORRECTLY figure out which accounts where mine.

This time, though, they can't work it out. They just plain suspended my buying account:

Hello [username], [email address]

We regret that your eBay account has been suspended due to the following policy violation:

*Previously Suspended User*
eBay prohibits users who are currently suspended from registering new accounts. Our records indicate that your account is associated with the following previously suspended account(s):
mysterycoms

To familiarise yourself with this policy, go to:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/rfe-previously-suspended.html

For details on our other policies, go to:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/overview.html

Due to the suspension of your account you are prohibited from using eBay in any way. This includes registering a new account.

Please note that this does not relieve you of your obligation to pay any fees you may owe to eBay.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Regards,

eBay International AG

My only response to this is.... WTF? I have NO CLUE who that user is. I have NO CLUE why they would associate my buying account with that user. And they clearly have NO CLUE because they haven't suspended my other accounts.

I'm in two minds about this. One part of me wants to fight it and show them that they screwed up YET AGAIN. Another part of me says, "Pffft. F**kit. They want to get rid of a 100% FB buyer, well, let them!"

Is there any way to appeal an eBay suspension? There doesn't appear to be....

Okay, just now I went and investigated a bit more. Apparently, I owe them $0 and this is why my account has been suspended. I'm not making that up.

Your account balance is: AU $0.00 as of Dec-22-05 07:53:36 PST

They give me the option of paying them by DirectPay, Credit Card, or I can mail in a money order. For ZERO dollars. On a seller account that I don't have (all my seller accounts are closed). For some association with some other user I've never heard of. I mean, W. T. F.

Okay, just for fun I tried to make a one-time payment of ZERO dollars. The system won't let me.

Honestly, what a bunch of idiots. They go on and on about how they want to "improve the buying expeirence"? Well, this isn't improving my buying experience... Really, I'm just to the point of not caring any more. They can't manage to keep their accounts straight and their stuff in order, well, they DESERVE to lose a customer.

I wrote the following as an on-topic comment on Dawn's blog, but upon reflection, I decided I liked it enough to post it here, too. So, here it is. Take it for what it's worth.

I always try to say something nice or at least give a sympathetic smile to any parent with a misbehaving child in public. I have been there so many times, and it's NOT because I'm a lazy parent.

I have a child who is Autistic. You can't tell by looking at her that she's disabled, but she definitely is. She attends a special needs school and has all kinds of therapy to help her learn how to cope with the world because, guess what? Her brain is wired differently and she just doesn't always "get" what other people expect of her, and even when she does, she's sometimes literally unable to comply.

As she's gotten older, it's gotten better, but there have been many, many public meltdowns and just general misbehaviour (screaming, for example).

The dirty looks I've gotten from total strangers kind of amazes me. Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention would see that I am definitely paying attention and doing my best to manage the situation, but I can't rewire the child's brain in the food court for the convenience of random strangers, no.

And you know what? Even if I could rewire my kid to fit the pattern that random people on the street think she should fit, I wouldn't. She is unique, and so am I, and if people don't like it, they can take their judgmental attitude and stick it in the orifice of their choice (and they can do it in the food court if they want; I'll just look the other way, the way they should if they're offended!)

I've been on the net since 1993. Back in those days, the net was largely unknown to the general population, and it was populated mostly by people at universities and some military facilities. It was not easy to use. And therein lay the beauty of it.

You see, everyone on the net in those days had to have a certain bare minimum of tech savvy and/or intelligence. You didn't have to be a genius, but you did have to be able to figure things out and think for yourself, or you'd be hopelessly lost and you'd never manage to do much other than maybe get into your email (which almost certainly had to be accessed via a Unix shell using Elm or PINE).

And then AOL came along and then some bizarre product called "Internet in a Box" and the Dotcoms started to appear and oh, well, the little haven of reasonably intelligent people was gone and our inboxes were full of spam (yes, I remember the days when spam was pretty much non-existent) and Usenet went to hell in a handbasket, overrun by drooling idiots...

Okay, that's probably not quite the way it went, but back in my day, we had real, intelligent discussions on the internet, and we liked it! We thought a 14.4KBaud modem was fast! We were grateful! We didn't have any of this fancy PPP connections, oh, no, if we were lucky, we had SLIP. But you kids today, with your fancy ADSL and other high bandwidth connections and your Web Two Point Oh and your Facebook and your MySpace... HAH! Back in my day we had text .sigs with ASCII art in 'em and we were happy! Ecstatic! Whippersnappers...

I just read this in an Australian forum:

we live in a democracy .. free speech is our constitutional birth right

Uhm, no. Well, okay, we do live in a democracy. However, free speech is not guaranteed by the Australian constitution. No, it's not. Australia does not have anything like a Bill of Rights such as the United States has (and argues about constantly).

Australia, being a democracy, has the implied legal right of free political speech. We do not, however, have the right to say anything, any time, anywhere, as this person would have us believe. They're even posting this on a privately owned forum, they could be banned at any time and have no recourse whatsoever... So much for their God-given, inborn Constitutional right to spout off at will, hmmm?

Australia does have a strong history of allowing free speech, but Australia also has laws against sedition (a term of law which refers to covert conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order), so if you say stuff about the government that the government doesn't like and can show to be "subversive", you can go to prison for it.

And furthermore, this whole "right to free speech" thing does NOT give you the right to use my resources to make your speech. In other words, you can get your own printing press, I'm not obligated to let you use mine.

Mind you, this is totally lost on the sort of brilliant mind that can't tell the difference between free political speech and bitching about their host.... Anyway, people like this are the reason I don't have a guestbook, a public forum, or comments turned on (okay, technically, I have comments turned off because our server kept crashing because of spammers targeting the comment form, but it's actually fixed now and I haven't bothered to turn comments back on; I don't think anyone particularly cares, though).

Enough ranting. I'm actually in a good mood. I was just momentarily annoyed. I'm over it now. Really.

Okay, I generally don't write much about celebrity gossip here. I do read it (lurid fascination with the whole gossip culture, I admit it), but I generally don't bring it here to talk about it, mostly because there are a ton of celebrity gossip blogs out there that do it much better than I ever could.

However, lately (as in, the past year or so) I've developed a very strange semi-obsession with Britney Spears. I've quite honestly never really cared about Britney Spears one way or the other and I still don't, depending on how you define "care", but I'm sort of horribly fascinated by her since she became the world's most famous (or infamous) train wreck. I've been trying for months to figure out just what the fascination is, and I think I finally worked it out...

It's that I'm astounded, horrified, and fascinated by how incredibly STUPID she appears to be. I do think she's probably mentally ill, a drug abuser (the judge in her ongoing custody battle certainly felt that was the case), and has lots of, err, issues, but on top of all that, she appears to be genuinely stupid. It just really amazes me that someone that stupid is not only functioning in the world, but has made millions (which should stand as a reminder that the best, the smartest, and the most talented aren't always the ones who succeed, materially).

I keep watching her bizarre antics and episodes of her life because it just mesermizes me. She's stupid, she's not particularly talented, she's a colossal screwup, and yet she just continues on and on and on like some sort of demented Energizer Bunny with bad extensions...

Eventually, of course, the circus will end, or the train wreck will be cleaned up, or something will give and my bizarre fascination with her stupidity will end. When that happens, I will breathe a sigh of relief, but until then, I'm afraid I'm going to probably keep right on staring at her continual displays of stupidity and utter, utter lack of self-awareness, wondering how it's possible to be so stupid and so rich all at the same time.

Note to any Britney fans who happen upon this little rant and feel they need to "set me straight" or bitch me out or whatever. First, read the disclaimer. Then, if you still feel the need to email me, be aware that if your email is stupid enough (and entertaining enough), I'll be happy to post it here in the Moron Mail category. So feel free to email me, okay? I haven't posted any really amusing Moron Mail in ages...

People frequently think I'm smart. And, for the most part, I am smart, generally speaking. But most of the reason people think I'm smart is because 1) I know how to look things up and 2) I don't broadcast my ignorance far and wide.

It always, always amazes me when people ask stupid questions that could be answered easily by thirty seconds of Googling. I'm not talking about if you're at a party somewhere and a topic comes up and you ask for more information, mind you. I'm talking about going into some forum and asking the most basic of questions, stuff that should be incredibly easy to just find out on your own. Instead of finding it out on their own, though, some people seem to prefer annoying others and making themselves look stupid in the process. I don't do that. I do ask questions, but I don't ask blazingly stupid questions that I could answer for myself with the minimum of effort, thus eliminating my own ignorance and sparing other people from having to deal with it.

So that's my rant for the day. Take it for what it's worth. Or not at all. I just wanted to spout off. Because while I do generally refrain from showing my ignorance in public (and, yeah, there's a LOT of stuff in the world I know nothing about!), I'm not above showing my irritation...

Saw an eBay ad today (at the cinema, no less). It went like this:

A bunch of random people are standing around in the snow on a mountaintop. None of them are properly dressed for the weather. They seem terribly happy and unaware that they're likely to freeze to death or develop frostbite.

Finally, one woman runs up and grabs a shopping trolley (cart), and leaps into it and begins to slide down a hill into what we see is a luge or bobsled track. She careens down the track, skidding snow and ice everywhere, laughing into the camera, as spectators watch and cheer. At the end, we're told that we find out that it's "exciting" to shop on eBay.

My interpretation, though, is that buying things on eBay is like leaping, unprepared, into dangerous and stupid activities that could result in injury or death.

Okay, so you're not too likely to end up dead or injured from shopping on eBay, but in the past few months I've had TWO different sellers take my money and disappear. Perhaps I'm a bit jaded.

No, I don't understand why this particular woman held millions of people in some sort of thrall, why we felt we knew her (although I've read a great deal about her from many sources, positive and negative, and I do have a good idea what she was like), and I don't know why so many millions of people were so upset when she died. She was an icon in the true sense of the word. She was a symbol of the beautiful, romantic, tragic princess of our imagination, and she managed to tap into some part of our collective consciousness and become, for many of us, a sort of archetype.

Diana's wedding to Charles was on at 4am where I lived. Didn't matter. I stayed up all night to make sure I was up on time (because I was seventeen, and you can do stuff like that at that age). I watched the wedding with my grandmother, and I remember how we both sort of gasped when Diana got out of that impossibly picturesque glass carriage in that enormous dress made of all that silk and lace with absolutely the biggest train I have ever seen in my entire life (and I've seen a lot of weddings, thank you). Yes, the dress was kind of poufy and it had too many bows on it in rather silly places, but Diana looked incredibly beautiful, despite the merangue of a dress. I remember watching her come down the aisle of the cathedral, that masterpiece of architecture that is the jewel in the collection of works by Sir Christopher Wren, and I remember how the diamond tiara she wore, the Spencer Tiara, glittered as she moved.

I can't say I've ever thought much of Prince Charles, really. He's said to be highly intelligent and quite charming, and that may well be the case, but he's not particularly charismatic and any charm he might have isn't immediately apparent to the general public. Diana's charisma, on the other hand, was dazzling...

I felt a sort of kinship with Diana. She was a woman who suffered a great deal. Perhaps some of it was her own doing. In fact, I'd say that some of it definitely was her own doing, but she was very damaged and damaged people do stupid things. She was vulnerable and emotionally needy. She was sometimes extremely unstable. She was in a marriage that was making her extremely unhappy, and she was suffering from an eating disorder and mood swings, plus she admitted to engaging in self-injury. How could I fail to identify with that?

And then, just as she was starting to get herself and her life together, to finally figure out who she was and what she was going to do with her life, she was gone. It was a bit of a shock. Okay, that's an understatement.

I was watching Saturday Night Live on that day in 1997, and they interrupted the show to say that Diana Princess of Wales had been in a car crash in Paris. Initial reports were that she was injured, but it didn't sound too serious. Then more reports came and then they reported that she was very seriously injured, critical. And then she was dead and I just felt like someone had punched me in the stomach and I started to weep.

Which, of course, is quite strange, given that I didn't even know this woman, not really. But I felt I'd lost someone that I did know. Someone beautiful and charismatic and who was trying to do some good in the world, in spite of her own failings and flaws. And, yeah, it hurt. I cried quite a lot, actually.

Mind you, at the time, I was emotionally extremely raw, myself, having been going through what amounted to a complete and total breakdown for some time. I was unstable, I was hurting. Losing Diana most certainly did feel like I was losing a friend, or at least a kindred spirit. I felt that a light had gone out of the world. Judging by the reaction to her death, a lot of other people felt the same way.

So, well, now it's been ten years. I'm an extremely different person now. Different name, different nationality, different family, different life.

I still miss Diana, though.

How much more must she be missed by those who really knew her and who really loved the actual woman, and not just the image, the icon, the archetype?

Prime Minister John Howard has refused to back down from his attack on US presidential hopeful Barack Obama, vowing to do the same again if it's in the nation's best interests.

You can read the article yourself (probably you should), but in a nutshell, Mr Howard decided to say nasty things about a potential candidate for the U.S. Presidency.

That he won't back down doesn't surprise me. John Howard never, never, ever, ever, EVER backs down on ANYTHING and he never, ever, ever apologises, NO MATTER WHAT. To quote a very funny British comedy, "He wouldn't apologise if he shot God in the foot."

Totally apart from John Howard being immovably stubborn to the point of cutting off other people's noses to spite their faces, I'm wonder what the hell he's doing.

Since when it is the place of the Prime Minister of Australia to make comments on the elections of other nations? I mean, we know John is best mates with George W. Bush, so maybe George put him up to it (hey, you never know; George might have made it into some sort of dare and told John that Tony Blair would be his best-best friend if John didn't do it, and John was so scared that George would stop being his bestest mate that he did it).

Basically, Howard has made it crystal clear that his alliance is not with the United States as he's always claimed, it's with George W. Bush. What's going to happen if someone John Howard doesn't personally approve of gets into office? All bets are off on alliances and trade deals?

I dunno, it just really kinda pisses me off. I've never liked John Howard, never voted for him, intend to vote against him in the next election, etc., but he seems to have gone right off the rails on this one. It'll be interesting to see what other forays into American politics he feels the right to make.

NOT that I think Americans give a flying farthingale what John Howard thinks. Most of them don't even have a clue who John Howard even IS...

From the article: "Dr Michael McKinley, an international relations expert from the Australian National University, described the Prime Minister's comments as stupid [...]"

Yeah. I think I'd pretty much agree with that. And it seems that most people on both sides of the Pacific do, as well.

Well. The bastard who has been dogging me for months in a particular forum on a particular site has been de-registered. Halleluja! (I had nothing to do with it, by the way, but I'm happy all the same.)

And, as an amazing added bonus... Two other particularly troublesome forum members there who were constantly starting fights and making trouble and flaming newbies and just generally being irritating and anger inducing have also been banned from the forums. (Also nothing to do with me, but I'm still chuffed.)

Stupid as it sounds, I'm really extremely pleased by this turn of events. The forums on that site were getting worse and worse and it was getting to where I was thinking I was going to have to leave completely, but, well, I guess I won't now.

So halleuja and praise the admins because they finally did the right thing and started getting rid of the known troublemakers! Woot! Now maybe I can post something intelligent without some random nasty post about how I'm a know it all!

And yet again I was accused of being a know-it-all. It's one specific person, mind you. It's a man who has made it very clear that he doesn't really like women very much, and he apparently dislikes opinionated women who - ohmyghod - know anything even less.

Anyway, he once again directly called me a know-it-all.

I just told him that if he genuinely thinks that I believe I know it all, he's sorely mistaken, as there are far more things in the world about which I know nothing than there are things about which I do know.

It just really makes me wonder WTF. I mean, yeah, I DO know a hell of a lot about computers and the net, no doubt I know a great deal more than he does (which is probably why he's so threatened by me, I mean, a woman who knows about technical things, how dangerous is that?!). And I do know a fair bit about jewellery. And perfume. (Pretty threatening, I know, I mean, wow, a woman who knows about perfume and jewellery, that's pretty scary, too, right?) And when I do know about something, well, yeah, I do speak as if - wait for it - I know what I'm talking about. Because I do know what I'm talking about.

This, of course, makes me a know-it-all.

I just have to pity this man. I've seen him say really obnoxious things about battered women, about women in general, he's accused women of being "anti-male" (no, we're not anti-male, we're anti-YOU), all sorts of crap. I can easily work out why a woman who has opinions and knowledge scares the pants off him, the feeble old fart.

This is an actual quote from a message board. No editing at all:

Like many others I thought that selling on the internet would be simply a matter of listing the items for sale, sitting back & waiting for the bids to come rolling in.

I'm not even going to say anything snarky. The quote pretty much says it all, though, don't you think?

Yesterday morning, I saw an interview with the Dixie Chicks, and I was impressed by how smart they are. Then I saw the video for "Not Ready to Back Down" and was impressed yet again. Then I was cruising around YouTube and saw another interview with them, particularly with regard to The Incident, and you know what I did? I bought all their albums. All in one go. It's my Christmas present to me, and to them. Talk about some courageous women!

It's almost unbelievable that a flippant comment that should have gone more or less unnoticed turned into death threats. DEATH THREATS! Can you believe that? How "free" can America possibly be when an American voices an opinion in a lighthearted quip and gets death threats for daring to speak at all? I mean, the hate campaign that was waged against them was astounding, and very, very scary. What is wrong with Americans when they seem to be perfectly content to watch a group of musicians essentially be blacklisted and threatened because they excercised their right to free speech. You know that saying, "only in America"...

Oh, and don't worry, I like country music. Haven't bought a lot lately (been thinking about picking up some Keith Urban, though), but I definitely do enjoy it, and I'm certainly familiar with the Dixie Chicks (very talented women), so I'm sure I won't regret buying all their albums. Don't worry. You'll be hearing about it in this blog, I'm sure, the same way you hear about the Eagles and Weird Al Yankovic and Green Day.

Hey, someone on YouTube compared Green Day with the Dixie Chicks (apparently, musicians are all too stupid to have any valid opinions on politics, go figure). And I like both. Oh, no, does this make me a radical?!

I don't think I'm a radical. I am quite defiant, though, when I feel the need to be, and I'm willing to pay the price for speaking my mind. I guess that makes me unamerican. Which is okay, because these days, I'm Australian.

Today at the shopping centre, Zoë was wearing a pair of OshKosh overalls, an orange tshirt, and a pair of very pink, girly sneakers with sparklies on them. Her hair is currently about shoulder length, and she's got a fringe (bangs). While going up one escalator, a man coming down the other side asked, "Is that a boy or a girl?" When told it was a girl, he remarked, "Looks like a boy."

Uhm, okay. Whatever. But this makes me wonder a lot of stuff....

First, to what benefit is it for us to know that this bloke's opinion is that a girl in unisex clothing and pink sneakers looks like a boy? Is it to encourage us to dress her in pink tshirts when she wears the overalls? Or to grow her hair longer and tie it up with ribbons? Is it to persuade us to dress her up in something appropriately frilly so that random strangers can instantly guess her gender at a glance? And why is it important for random strangers on the escalator to know her gender, anyway?

Secondly, why on earth should I care what Random Escalator Man thinks? I don't think she looks like a boy, especially, but then, I'm not into the whole "girls have to wear pink" thing (though my girls do wear pink sometimes).

Thirdly, why did Random Escalator Man feel the need to blurt out his opinion on my daughter's apparent gender as he saw it? I have a theory on this one.... He was momentarily confused by her mostly unisex appearance, and had to say it out loud to make himself feel better. Like, by saying she looked like a boy, he could sort it all out in his little mind and it excused his incorrect guess as to her correct gender. Or something.

I dunno. It was all pretty weird. Which is why I was thinking about it. I don't sit and think about normal stuff (not that interesting, really). And by the way, I've no intention of always dressing her to the expectations of random strangers. I know she's a girl, she knows she's a girl, everyone who matters knows she's a girl, and the very pink, very sparkly, very girly sneakers and shiny painted fingernails are a dead giveaway, in any case.

Yeah, well. When you've got the irrits (as Aussies would say; pretty good phrase, methinks) there's nothing quite like punk music to either take the edge off or bring it all to a head so it blows over (I was going to say "until it pops" but thought that was too gross).

I put on some country (Garth Brooks) and that totally did not do it. It just made it worse. I put on some 60s pop (The Monkees) and that didn't help (though the Beatles theoretically might have if I'd tried it). Billy Joel? Right out. So I'm back to Green Day's fantastic American Idiot album.

She's a rebel
She's a saint
She's salt of the earth
And she's dangerous

She's a rebel
Vigilante
Missing link on the brink
Of destruction

[...]

Is she dreaming
what I'm thinking
Is she the mother of all bombs
gonna detonate

Is she trouble
like I'm trouble
make it a double
twist of fate
or a melody that

She sings the revolution
the dawning of our lives
she brings this liberation
that I just can't define
nothing comes to mind

Oh, yeah, baby. That's what I'm talking about....

Oh, and by the way, I know I'm not saying anything new, but.... Stupid people really piss me off.

I keep seeing, in a particular online forum, people who are supposedly running a business on the net say, "Well, I'm not very computer literate..."

Okay, fair enough. I get that, some people aren't. It doesn't make you a bad person or anything. There are many things I can't do well, or even do at all.

For example, I'm the most hopeless woodworker you've ever seen in your entire life. I can't hammer a nail straight, I can't put in a screw properly, I can't put together pre-fab shelves or anything else of that sort. I'm really, really, really not good at anything to do with building things out of wood.

So, what do you think, should I start up a business as a carpenter?

Okay, I can be snarky, no question about that. And I can be (and frequently am) sarcastic, as well. I can also be quite oppositional when I'm in the mood to be contrary.

That being said, I generally do NOT single people out in a forum or other such situation just to target them and attack them every time they post something.

Not sure, then, why I seem to attract that sort of "forum stalker"...

Continue reading "There's always one...."…

I desperately need to vent this. I'm going to try to do it so that I'm not giving away any names or too much information.

There's a person who has been an absolute bitch to members of this family for months now. The woman is STUPID, she can't write to save her arse, she's vindictive beyond belief, she's a liar of the first order, and she's like a friggin bulldog with something, she WILL NOT LET GO. She has caused a family rift of EPIC proportions, one that will almost certainly never be fixed, she's even broken a number of laws.

The fact that she's still walking around, happily enjoying her pitiful excuse for a life, acting as if she's the one in the right and everyone else is in the wrong, TOTALLY AND UTTERLY INFURIATES ME.

I sincerely hope I'm able to know about it when she finally has to deal with the consequences of her actions, when she has to reap the harvest she's sown. I want her to feel the stress, pain, anxiety, anger, and every other negative emotion that she has inflicted on everyone else in this matter, and I hope she chokes on it.

And she had better damn well hope that I never see her again, because I will not restrain myself or my "inner New Yorker" and she's going to get a verbal flaying the likes of which she's NEVER going to forget.

That doesn't really feel much better, but it's a little better. I don't think she'll ever read this blog, and I don't care if she does or she doesn't. I just seriously need to vent, and I hope that the Universe is listening, because I'm completely serious. She really had better hope that I never see her in person again. I won't physically assault her (she's definitely not worth going to jail over!), but she'll remember the encounter for a long, long time....

I have to tell you, I"m constantly amazed by the number of barely computer literate people who sell on eBay. I mean, the internet (and the computer) are your tools for your business, right? Shouldn't you know how to actually, you know, USE THEM?

Nuff said.

Stupid people so completely piss me off. I can't give details because it's conceivable that someone reading this blog could figure out what I'm talking about and work out the person's identity, but suffice it to say that it seriously pisses me off when stupid people blame everyone else on the planet because THEY are stupid and can't figure out what the hell they're doing.

This isn't exactly moronic, so it's not in the Moron Mail category. I just felt like commenting on it. Perhaps I'll put this on the unicorn site in some form. The name, IP address, email address, and other identifying aspects of the writer will not be revealed, of course. Here's the message, though:

If unicorns exist we need prove or everione will think your sayng something that is not true. Take a photo.

Continue reading "What is it about the unicorns, anyway?"…

Okay. So I went to the post office today to send something and while there I casually asked about posting perfume (that's not what was in the package, and I made that clear). I was told in NO uncertain terms that it was STRICTLY NOT ALLOWED. HAZARDOUS!

So I promptly cancelled all my eBay perfume listings (which, by the way, is going to cost me money and a great deal of time to relist them all) and started looking for a courier service or some other means of shipping. I called and talked to all kinds of people, spent a hell of a lot of time on hold, sent at least three faxes, visted website after website, etc. Nothing I found had reasonable rates...

Anyway, I called a local perfume seller who ship all over Australia when I saw that they ship with Australia Post. They assured me that they do use AusPost and have never had a problem with it.

So I talked to Andrew again, who had already talked to Australia Post (he was helping me look for shipping options), and asked him to call them again. He did so. Andrew's a pretty laid back guy, but he can be very assertive when he needs to be, and he finally, finally got to the bottom of it (after I wasted my whole damned day and sent all those faxes and gave myself a headache...).

It turns out that perfume is a Class III Dangerous Substance. Less than 5 litres is not considered dangerous. It can be be posted, so long as it's less than 5 litres.

So, like, I can't send somebody a GALLON and then some of perfume. Right. I can live with that. (Some of the perfume I have in stock has a retail price of AU$25 for a 4ml bottle, so I can only imagine how much 5 litres of the stuff would cost!)

Now, of course, I'm really annoyed regarding the big waste of time and money and energy over this. The fact is, the postal worker who was so stern with me about how you're absolutely not allowed to post perfume oh my ghawd it's so dangerous, was entirely, utterly, and completely WRONG. I mean, it took two or three phone calls and someone consulting a supervisor who had to look it up in the big book of regulations to get this sorted out, but it's only true that perfume is hazardous if there's more than 5 litres of the stuff, so maybe, just MAYBE postal workers should know this stuff?

So, I can (and will) ship perfume via the post, I WILL sign the "no hazardous materials" declaration with a clear conscience, and if anyone gives me ANY sh!t over it (although I'm not actually going to tell them what's in the package because unless I'm insuring it, it's none of their damned business anyway), I'll tell them to go get a supervisor and get out the regulations, because a little 100ml bottle of j'adore is only hazardous to your pocketbook and it'll sting if you get it in your eyes, and, oh yes, it's probably hazardous if you shove it directly up a postal worker's arse...

[EDITED SOME MONTHS LATER]

Well, my fit of pique notwithstanding, it turns out that it is, indeed, against postal regulations to send perfumes in the mail. Full stop. The fact that Australia Post didn't seem to know this or knew only part of it was frustrating to the point of... well, severe frustration.

ANYway, I eventually found out that 1) Yes, it's against the rules 2) Yes, they've now got the means of checking packages and if they find things being posted illegally, they'll confiscate it and you may get a huge fine 3) Even if they don't catch it, it's still against the rules 4) There is a way to send perfume legally via Australia Post.

I can't tell you the amount of angst and annoyance generated by all of this, but I found out that if I get an account with Australia Post, I can get a Dangerous Good clause tacked on. It's free to get the account, though you do need an ABN. There are many benefits to having an account, not the least of which is that you get a monthly statement rather than having to keep lots of little slips of paper from postage, so it's easier to keep track of them.

The Dangerous Goods contract is pretty straightforward. You have to package the items in a particular way and you have to put on a special sticker that lets postal workers know how to handle the parcel (i.e., it can't go by air; therefore you can't send perfume internationally unless you go with a private carrier who has their own Dangerous Goods regulations, etc.). There are also a few post codes that you can't send to, because they're too remote and are always approached by air (yes, Australia's that kind of place). Oh, and there's a form you fill out every time you post, but that's part of the overall account, not the Dangerous Goods.

So that's the way the story ends. I got the Dangerous Goods contract and now send all perfume legally. It was an annoying, frustrating journey, to say the least, and I still don't believe that a little bottle of perfume is going to cause a plane to crash, although I will admit that if there were to be a fire in the cargo hold, having perfume in there might, indeed, make it that much worse, so fair enough, I guess.

I think this is the first time I've edited a blog post more than a year after it was written!

So I placed an order for perfume a couple days ago with my favorite U.S. supplier. Their prices are good, even when you figure in the shipping costs, and they've got a really good variety of products. I've gotten several orders from them in the past, too, some of them quite large.

Anyway, I got an email today apologizing and saying they'd refund my money, but that they couldn't ship my order or any other orders to Australia. It seems that UPS, their usual shipper, opened a couple of packages (just a routine thing) and found they contained perfumes (well, DUH, it's a perfume wholesale distributor!) and returned them saying they couldn't ship them because they contained "hazardous materials".

I happen to know that Australia doesn't consider perfumes hazardous. You can import them without any kind of special license or customs rigamarole. Other than having to pay an import tax, which applies to all kinds of goods when the order is over AU$1000, it's absolutely no problem and no drama to import perfumes.

Unless you're UPS, apparently. They decided that perfume is too dangerous and they won't ship it.

My supplier is looking into alternative shipping (I hope they go with FedEx, I love them), and I'm sure they're losing a lot of money from this, because they do ship internationally all the time.

So let this be a lesson to you. Perfume is a hazardous material! For heaven's sake, be careful with it! I mean, if you get it in your eyes it can really sting, it tastes terrible, and if you get strong perfume on your face, it can give you zits (because it's high in oil). Pretty damned dangerous stuff, that.

I've used PayPal for years now, and never had a problem with them. I'm about to start using them more because of a particular business venture, and as such, I had my bank account "tested" (they put in a desposit and you tell them how much it was so that you can "prove" it's you or something). Well, the deposit failed for NO GOOD REASON, because the account is definitely valid and the information was correct. What this means is that I can't deposit anything from my PayPal account to my bank account now...

Anyway, they say to send a fax with ID and a photocopy of bank statement (with the deposits on it, but if I never got the deposits how the hell can I show that?!). Sent fax with ID and copy of bank statement to prove the account was valid. Fine. No problem. Except that it's still banned. Sent an email. No reply. Went to look up phone number and the only thing offered, even though we go through ebay.com.au, is a U.S. toll free number that can't be used outside the United States (brilliant, eh?). After a couple of class action suits against them, you'd think they'd stop pulling crap on people, y'know?). Anyway, I have tracked down some valid U.S. telephone numbers that we can try, and if they don't respond satisfactorily, we'll be calling. And if I STILL don't get satisfaction, I'm going to have to stop using PayPal entirely, I guess. I hate to do that, as it's quite convienient on many levels, but if I want to get my money I should be able to, y'know?

EDIT: Well, I found the Australian contact information, woohoo. They're in Sydney, in case anyone wondered.

A few months ago, I heard about the report published by Salon (and others) about how mercury in vaccines causes autism. As the parent of an autistic child, I was naturally interested, and this was, indeed, the first time I'd heard this particular theory, so I started to do research.

In the process, I found a number of blogs that I continue to read to this day (and to which this blog is linked), so that was a good thing. I also did a great deal of research into the mercury/autism thing and eventually felt I could safely discount it (i.e., there's a great deal of evidence that the theory is not correct, and almost no supporting scientific evidence for it, plus the people who most strongly support this theory appear to have vested interests such as bringing lawsuits, selling books, getting donations, and making a profit selling "cures"). I was particularly convinced when I checked Zoë's vaccination records and found that, indeed, there were no thimerisol vaccines used (it was discontinued in vaccines in Australia before she was born, pretty much).

ANYway, I have since fallen right down the rabbit hole with regard to groups of people who believe one or another strange theory and/or pseudoscience and base campaigns on it or otherwise make life decisions that could (and sometimes have) proved dangerous and even fatal. I'm a pretty well educated person, but honestly, I had no idea that there were so many fringe groups with bizarre beliefs centered on pseudoscience and what appeasrs to be outright mumbojumbo. people who deny certain diseases are real, people who insist that diseases or conditions are "caused" by one or another random thing, people who believe that incurable diseases and conditions can be "cured" by various odd means, all sorts of folks who adhere to all sorts of strange "alternative" rituals and such, and a good portion of them adhere to some sort of conspiracy theory or theories in the bargain. It's truly bizarre.

I've known for a long time that the majority of people can't or won't make the effort to reason something out or to examine evidence logically, but I really am kind of shellshocked to see the vast numbers of presumably otherwise reasonable people who are part of some anti-this or conspiracy-that group dealing with medicine and cures and, well, snake oil and miracle tonics.

I'm not sure I wanted to know about these people, actually. Oh, if only I'd taken the blue pill...

Well. I finally opened up IE and started to check this blog with it. #@$%!!!!

I totally forgot about IE's idiosyncratic implementation of CSS, and I see a bunch of stuff that now needs to be fixed. *&^#@ I'm going to end up having to fix every single template and then rebuilding everything. *&^#$

Well. IE users (stop that, go get Firefox right away, and yes, you can import your IE bookmarks as well as enjoying a superior browser), I do apologize, and I'm working on it, but I put the blame squarely on Microsoft and their slipshod adherence to standards.

I have mentioned that I *&^#$ing hate IE, haven't I?

I also noticed that due to the fixed background, the sideways scroll does weird things at lower resolutions. I'll be fixing that shortly. It's not IE's fault. For a change.

Okay, so for those of you who enjoy reading my rants, there's a new one on the Rantsome site.

I tend not to take myself too seriously. I also tend not to take most other stuff too seriously. I just always see the humor in most situations, even very bad ones (my ability to do this has enabled me to survive some pretty horrible stuff, for what it's worth).

And you know something that really kinda ticks me off? People who take themselves and their ideas too seriously, to the point that they can't see or appeciate when someone else makes a joke. I mean, okay, be as damned stiff and serious as you want, it's no skin off my nose, but when dealing with others, can you just take a moment to LIGHTEN UP?! Sheesh.

Just had to get that off my chest.

I just finished reading an Ann Rice novel. I'm not sure why I do this periodically. Well, yes, I do. I like some of her work. She's exquisitely good at painting a vivid picture of periods in history, and I'm quite captivated by that sometimes.

I liked Cry to Heaven, although I could have done without the graphic sex scenes which weren't, in my opinion, very sexy anyway, and the story sagged in the middle. I also liked Servant of the Bones very much, although there was a "loose end" that bothered me and which was never tied up and explained.

I might like the Mayfair Witches stories, because they're not about vampires. In fact, the book I just finished was about a Mayfair, but it wasn't "the Mayfairs". I didn't realize that it was actually pretty much a vampire story. I'm going to say it right now, I really don't much care for Ann's vampires (yeah, I know, a million Ann Rice fans are going to descend upon me in a fury, but we like what we like, what can I say?).

Partly, the very idea of being trapped on this earth in an immortal body, unable to leave... that's pretty horrible to me. The idea of immortality on earth is just... Well, let's just say that I cherish my mortality, and I'm glad to know that someday, eventually, I'll die. It's probably kind of weird, but that's how I feel about it. I'm not suicidal or anything, but the sure knowledge that eventually I will, absolutely, die, is comforting on a lot of levels.

Partly, the eroticism of drinking blood is... okay, I'm not sure if she intends it to be erotic, but I'm pretty sure she does, and if so, that's just weird. I can see it as a metaphor for loving someone "to death", but... I dunno. Vampires, even ones who only kill evildoers, that just seems pretty unappealing to me.

Anyway, the book I just read was Merrick, which, for the most part, I did enjoy. The voodoo elements were fascinating, and, as usual, the portrait the author paints of New Orleans is enticing, as are some of the descriptions she gives of other locations in the book. I can't say I was thrilled to listen to Louis being morose (as usual) or Lestat being... well, Lestat... but overall the book was all right. I kind of read them in spite of the many parts I really don't like that much, because the strength of the author's descriptions make it worth it for me.

So, well, if you're an Ann Rice fan who adores Lestat et al, I do apologize if I've offended your sensibilities. I don't hate Ann's books (I wouldn't have read more than two if that were the case), but I always come away from reading them with a sort of less-than-satisfied feeling, which is certainly subjective. I DO wish she'd write more stuff along the lines of Servant of the Bones or Memnoch the Devil (which I liked in spite of Lestat and in spite of the rather icky menstrual thing toward the end, ugh).

I think I really will have to investigate the books that deal specifically with Aaron and the Mayfair Witches. I suspect I'd like them more than the vampire ones...

In a discussion one day not so long ago, someone said to me, "Well, that's your opinion..."

To which I might say...

Why, yes, yes it is. I have an entire collection of them, and they're all mine. I don't necessarily think they're better than other people's opinions (although many of them are quite well-considered), and I've been known to change them when sufficient evidence persuades me to do so, but, basically, my opinions are mine, and I voice them as such.

From time to time, when I have an unformed opinion because I lack the scientific, technical, or other knowledge to form one, I will accept that the opinions of experts may be valid, and I may even repeat or cite those expert opinions, but I never claim those opinions as my own.

When I was younger and much more unsure of myself and much less able to form opinions (at least, unable to form opinions with much substance), I did, indeed, frequently take other people's opinions and claim they were my own, but now that I've lived a reasonably long time and had lots and lots of life experience both good and bad, I find that forming my own opinions is much more comfortable and satisfying, and is preferable to adopting the opinions of others (although, at times my opinions may agree in whole or in part with those of others, through coincidence, shared life experiences, or other means).

Yes, it is my opinion. And your point is?

A simple fact of life is that if you make bad or careless decisions, you may have bad and careless results, some of which will negatively affect your life forever more. That's the way life works. There is NO mystery on this count.

Basically, every human being has to live with the short and longterm consequences of every decision they make. What they eat, how much they exercise, whether they pursue an education or not, whether or not to run that yellow light that's about to turn red, whether or not to buy things, whether or not to dive off a pier into possibly shallow water, and on and on and on. Some decisions are minor and have minor consequences. Some decisions appear to be minor and have huge consequences...

Is it "fair" that a stupid mistake can result in a lifetime of misery? No. But that's LIFE. Life isn't fair. We have to live with the consequences of our decisions, good and bad, casual and serious. That's just the way it is.

And for some reason, this simple, basic, rather obvious fact seems to elude millions of people.

Sometimes brutal honesty is more about being brutal than about being honest.

Microsoft seem to have taken on the job of educating people about spam. To that effect, they've put up a page about spam and what to do about it. Most of the advice is fine, except for this little ignorant gem:

Forward spam to the spammer's Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you get unwanted mail, the sender's address will show the ISP name after the "at" (@) sign. If it came from MSN.com, forward the entire e-mail with headers, to mailto:mailto:abuse@hotmail.com.

Uhm, yeah, do you suppose ANYONE at Microsoft has ever actually gotten any spam or do they live in a spam-proof bubble or something?

I couldn't let it go unchallenged. I sent them a message via their feedback form. Here's what I wrote (slightly edited to remove unnecessary redundancy):

Under "Step 2" you suggest to "Forward spam to the spammer's Internet Service Provider (ISP)" but then you tell people that "the sender's address will show the ISP name after the "at" (@) sign"

This is absolutely ridiculous advice. NO spammer is going to put their actual address or ISP in the "from" field. They usually use fake addresses, and of course if you try to reply you just get a bounce message and also generate needless network traffic.

Spammers also sometimes put in the "from" field a random address from their list. Reporting spam of that sort may be sending false reports to the ISP of a totally innocent party who just happens to be on the spammer's list.

Please, remove this piece of bad and useless advice as soon as possible. I'm really surprised to see something this wrong on Microsoft's site. It's about the same as telling people to prevent spam by tying a string around their big toe: Useless, unless it actually does harm!

So, why is it that someone will come along and admit they know nothing at all about you, then proceed to flame the crap out of you based on their own ill-conceived ideas, and never bother to find out who you actually are and what you're on about? I mean, it's not like I'm anonymous or anything.

Okay, I just need to vent.

I am getting SO damned fed up with so-called professional artists and/or designers who don't know the first thing about the basics of copyright law, who don't know the difference between trademark and copyright and patents, who have weird (and easily disproved) ideas about what can and cannot be copyrighted and how laws may or may not apply...

The thing is, no, you don't have to be a lawyer, but the basics are honestly NOT that hard to grasp. Really. Knowing this stuff should be part of your damned job. Not the piddly intricasies of case law, but the damned BASICS...

It just always, ALWAYS pisses me off when people call themselves "professional' and yet they barely understand what their "profession" involves, including all the boring, non-fun parts...

Ya know, nothing will take the wind out of your silly sails quite as quickly as somebody with ZERO sense of humor jumping into a thread where you've posted something funny and "explaining" to you what the thread is "really about".

And you know what? I even included a disclaimer stating that it was a joke and I used four -- count 'em, FOUR -- emoticons, all versions of laughing, grinning, or smiling.

Hmph.

I wrote this in a forum I participate in, and I liked it enough (and thought it would stand out of context well enough) to put it here, too. I think you'll pick up the topic from the question (I shan't name the author, because it doesn't really matter) that set me off on my little rant/reflection.

Quote: "What the hell is a 'fake mormon'? Jeez, you never hear of 'Fake pagans'."

Uhm, I'm sure that there are "real" pagans who have a definition of what a "fake" pagan is. Seriously.

One aspect of a certain kind of personality is that they HAVE to set themselves and their beliefs (or lifestyle or habits or nationality or whatever) apart as being "right" and since everyone knows that the opposite of "right" is always WRONG, everyone else must be WRONG (or not "real").

Because I've had a lot of personal experience with Christians, I've seen a lot of people who comment that so-and-so can't be a "real" Christian because they don't do Thing X (or, worse, they DO Thing Y!).

I also have a lot of experience with geeks, and I've seen a lot of geeks who will say that so-and-so can't be a "real" geek (read: programmer, web developer, sysadmin, etc. etc.) because they do Thing X (or, worse, they DO Thing Y!).

I've seen this attitude in absolutely EVERY area of endeavor that humans do, and in EVERY culture and sub-culture. You're not a REAL artist. You're not a REAL writer. You're not a REAL parent. You're not a REAL biker. You're not a REAL [whatever]. (When, of course, the speaker IS a real [whatever].)

So yeah, you see it a lot in religious circles because the sort of people who go for ostentatious displays of religious beliefs are frequently the same sort who need to be all vocal about what they believe (and how "right" it is), but you see it everywhere else, too.

Humans. *spit*

That nice shiny new domain I had all set up? I just deleted it. I hate Unix. *sigh* Thankfully, I think I have all the customized stuff saved on my hard drive, the database is still there (although I don't know if I'll be able to restore it or not) and hey, it'll be the third time I'm installing Mambo Open Source, so I'm getting to be quite the expert...

Have I mentioned that I hate Unix? No? Well, I do.

This is the second time in my life I've done this. Every time I do it I just want to kick myself all the way to Perth and back.

Yippee. *sigh*

I've recently had the misfortune of coming into the knowledge of one of the most unrepentant, clueless "snaggers" I've ever seen. If you don't know what "snagging" is, basically it's grabbing images off the net to share around illegally. Many times these "snaggers" turn the images they steal into image "tubes" (nozzles, stamps, etc.; basically the picture has the background taken out and it gets redistributed that way, in a form that allows it to be just stamped into an image).

I've been the victim of these people in the past. This time I wasn't, but it came into my knowledge, anyway.

There are groups dedicated to this practice. Mostly email groups, but probably also other groups such as closed boards and such. Yahoo and MSN and Topica are rampant with them. They're like little nests of rats, IMHO.

When and if anyone dares to point out to them that what they're doing is illegal and harming the artists whose work they're hacking up and passing around, they get extremely abusive and argumentative. Their favorite thing is to claim it's "Fair Use", but they only read one sentence of the Fair Use clause, not the whole thing. Sometimes these idiots even try to claim that what they're doing is "educational" and therefore allowed. Since the never credit the originators of the image, they redistrubute without permission, they alter the image without permission, and some of theme even sell the tubes they've made from "snagged" images, they're definitely not within the law (more on Fair Use, and copyright in general).

Anyway, someone said that they didn't understand this snagging/tubing culture, and I have to agree, but I have researched it a little bit and this is what I've learned.

From what I can gather, they get all kinds of prestige and praise and status within the group for the quality of their "snagged" images, and for how cleanly they cut out the background to make the tubed image.

I'm told that the positive feedback for quality snagged images/tubes can be very addictive, which is why they fight so friggin hard if someone tries to point out their unethical and illegal behavior.

Sounds a lot like a drug addiction to me, actually. They know (just as addicts do) that it's wrong, but they need the "high" and they don't care who they hurt to get it. Anyone who gets between them and their drug is subjected to abuse of all kinds.

Pretty damned sick when you think about it.

Oh, and if you want to write to me to defend the practice of "snagging", you can keep it to yourself. NOTHING you say will convince me that it's "okay" or "fine" or anything other than sleazy. I work hard to make images. I spend a great deal of money, time, and energy on it. You hacking up my stuff to "share" with your idiotic friends who can't understand simple legal statutes cannot be justified to me. I don't undermine YOUR ability to make a living, nor do I take YOUR work and cut it to bits and pass it around without even bothering to credit you. If you think it's okay when you do it, you're seriously self-deluded.

I just spilled a considerable amount of sweetened drink on my work area. It was all over me, all over the keyboard, all over the mousepad, all over the floor, and on a couple of books. The glass just basically fell out of my hand, it was weird. It's like I had a twitch or something, and my grip momentarily lost strength.

Anyway, the good news is that the keyboard (which is only a few weeks old anyway) appears to be fine. It's still a bit sticky in places, but it seems to work perfectly. Whew. Last ime someone spilled a drink on my keyboard, the keyboard died utterly.

The other good news is that I have an optical mouse, rather than a traditional one, so "sticky" isn't that much of a problem (and I did give the mousepad a good wiping down; it's plastic and vinyl, so it's quite washable).

The the VERY good news is that my pen tablet was spared completely, other than a few very small random droplets. I had moved it to where I normally keep my mouse pad (and moved the mouse pad to where the pen tablet normally lives). The pen was up on the shelf in the pen holder (On a tangental note, Wacom doesn't appear to provide pen holders any more. The one I use is from my first Wacom, which I bought in 1998 and which has long since gone on to wherever dead components go. But I kept the pen holder and have used it ever since, because they no longer come with the pen tablets, or at least, they don't come with the ones that I buy.)

So, well, yuck. And just for the record, this is the first time in ten years (or more) that I've ever spilled drink on my work area (that last one I mentioned was Andrew spilling a drink on my keyboard). I kinda wish that it had been Diet Coke rather than sugary drink, but then again, the last keyboard that died of drink spillage was drowned in Diet Coke, so maybe I should just shut up already...

So I'm wondering. Why do people join a "select membership" group that has requirements (participation, portfolio submission, whatever) if they don't want to even try to meet the requirements? I mean, if a group says, "Members must have an online portfolio," why would you join and then refuse to put your portfolio online? I don't get it. If you don't like the requirements or can't meet them, why do you join... ?

I posted this in a thread at an art-related forum (doesn't matter which one, so I won't post a link). It was one of those threads that keep popping up regularly (you'll work out the context from my comments). I've edited slightly for context and clarity. I just liked it well enough to post it here.

80% of EVERYthing is crap, and there's no use complaining about it or lamenting it. Just accept it and look for the stuff that's NOT crap.

I get so damned tired of this argument. Someone strolls in, bitches about how 80% of everything is crap, and a bunch of people jump up to defend their work in various ways ("I don't care if it's crap", "It's the best I can manage, even if it is crap", "One man's crap is another man's chocolate sundae," "Who are you to decide what's crap and what isn't", and on and on), and it just turns into a big old argument.

I got tired of this argument ages ago, about the time when I figured out that no matter what, 80% of everything is always going to be crap. You can't get rid of the crap, so you may as well ignore it, learn from it, or use it as a springboard to something else, IMHO.

That pretty much sums it up, I think....

I have a few pet peeves where grammar and spelling are concerned. Mind you, I"m not perfect in the spelling department. I used to be better, but years of relying on the "click of a button" spell checker have dulled my senses, but that's neither here nor there. Everyone spells things incorrectly sometimes (in my case, it's more often a typo, but I do still have words I just can't spell, which is why I keep an American Heritage electronic dictionary sitting on my desktop, and as for why it's the American Heritage, that just happens to be the one I have in electronic form).

ANYway, I normally don't get too worked up about misspelled words. Happens to everyone. I even caught Andrew at it the other day (a rare event, and I basked in it after correcting him). There are a couple that annoy me, such as the habit so many people have of spelling "definite" as "definate". It's got the word "finite" in the middle, it shouldn't be that hard to remember... And the way so many people spell "congratulations" as "congradulations". Where did that come from, anyway?

Spelling errors aside, there are a couple of word misused that REALLY irritate me. The first is the use of "infer" when you obviously mean "imply" and vice versa. These words are basically inverse. To "infer" is to form a conclusion from unstated facts, from evidence, from clues, etc. To "imply" is the exact opposite. I understand, more or less, how people confuse them (hey, I confuse "stalactite" and "stalagmite" and can never remember which one is from the top and which is from the bottom), but it still bugs me.

The other thing that irritates me is when people use "flaunt" when they clearly and obviously mean "flout". To "flout" is, according to my handy American Heritage dictionary, "To show contempt for; scorn." An example would be that someone "flouts" the law. "Flaunt" means, "To exh