mrbigsteve

I have to say that Mistress Malchia and her whatever the fuck he is have singlehandedly made me immensely proud to be anything *other* than a Concordian.

Ganked from The Register.

( An open letter to the Red-State victors: )

It is days like today that make me wonder about my role as a mediator among the different circles I meander in. It is also days like today that make me ever so immensely glad to not be in Albany any more.

Last week was a bit odd for me... I had a number of people unfriend me, one a day. Now normally, this kind of thing would make me go "eh". The first was doing a purge, and we never really had that strong of a relationship anyway. The second may have just been doing some cleaning, the third was... I don't know quite what the third was. Whatever. It was just the timing of things that made me stop for a moment.

Fast forward to this week and I am watching a veritable shitstorm of drama flying around people in the capital district. A war because, quite frankly, one person didn't think. The point at which their thought processes stopped is subject to opinion. Perhaps it was when they found someone's LJ account open and decided to read through entries that they were otherwise barred from. Perhaps it was when they wrote about breaking the trust among a number of people just because they wanted to get their spiteful little jollies. Maybe it was when they decided to *brag* about doing such a thing and spit forth numerous inflammatory comments about what they'd read. (If you're still waffling on whether they possess cerebral capacities at all, this person promptly threw up their hands, denied all blame in the matter, and cut and run. While not polite, this may turn out to be their first intelligent decision in the process)

Of course, faulty thought processes are not solely the realm of this person. When someone gets involved with one sibling, then the other, and nobody actually talks to anyone else about it and hurt feelings are the result, "Really fucking dumb" can be freely applied to any of them. Rest assured, dear readers, it has been. Numerous times. Unfortunately, I've not done so directly since I've been removed by 150 miles or more.

It is easy for me to sit back now, look at these people, and say "What a dumbass." Had I been local when all of this was starting up, I might have gathered the energy to sit the aforementioned siblings down and say "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?" (the first non-thinker referenced above was written off years ago back when they wrote what I feel to be one of the most self-important (and simultaneously condescending and self-denying) letters I've ever seen a 19 year old put to text)

The peacemaker in me pokes his head out and asks "Could I have done something to stop this?"

And the part of me that has spent so much time developing comes forth to say "It's not your fucking problem."

And then I kick back with another beer to wait and see who'll be the next person to fall through the ice on hypothermia theater.

Apparently their Highnesses of Aethelmearc think I'm OK. Beeyotches. Give me an award and don't even give me the opportunity to decline it because they don't actually bother to wait until I'm in court to give it to me.

Of course, given that it's one of the reasons I was specifically *avoiding* kingdom courts, I guess that's only fair.

But I am curious to meet our seneschal, because apparently someone got OK'd for being seneschal of Myrkfaelinn and it wasn't me, and it wasn't Thorpe (because he already got OK'd for exactly that reason). I mean, shit, if someone else is really seneschal, why the fuck haven't they bothered to tell me so I can stop running the damn meetings?!?!!

Final notes for the day:

"Super Size Me" was a lot of fun. Oddly enough, I preferred the tone of "League of Ordinary Gentlemen", but that may be because the filmmaker let the subject explain itself, rather than narrating. The Paramount is a *phenomenal* theater, and I may well need to get there *very* early tomorrow night for the Jersey Girl/Hellboy feature if I want to get in at all. The man survived 4 weeks of nothing but McDonald's and gained 25 lbs thanks to it. A far braver man than I.

Ju-On: The Grudge: chaosvizier, I'm sorry to say that I suspect I didn't find it quite as affecting as you did. the audio was sufficiently creepy though, and likely to be a sound from a horror movie that resonates up there with the opening flashbulbs in the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Tomorrow: Try meeting my cinema geek inspiration, Harry Knowles, and probably try finding an appropriate interactive-type panel or two.

Night all.

Just finished my first panel here, and I'm beginning to wonder exactly what my chances of being able to pull off a return trip are.

The panel in question was "Craigslist and Online Community", and unfortunately, it seems to be a whole lot of... well, crap. It started out well, dealing with how the founder thought that his list had achieved such success, dealing with issues like trust, self-policing, customer service, and other good things, and degraded into a lefty rah-rah let's get Bush the fuck out of office.

Now I can't argue that I don't share this opinion, as the lefty blogs are a frequent starting point for my daily routine. Unfortunately I'm more of the opinion that this is not the way to develop community. In this case, politics are like a burr under a saddle. Something is *really* wrong, and people want to deal with it, but once it's not an issue, people will, quite frankly, forget about it. This is *not* online community; ever the pessimist, I fail to see how basing a social construct on a subject like "get Bush out of office" will succeed past doing its appointed task.

It's entertaining that the film I just hit beforehand, "League of Ordinary Gentlemen", set more things in my mind than the last panel did. "League" is the story of the decline and fall of the Rpofessional Bowlers Association", and its subsequent rebirth thanks to new ownership made from Microsoft alumni and some ad execs picked up from Nike. One of the speakers they had was the author of a book I read about in marasca's journal, "Bowling Alone", talking about the breakdown of community due to the privatization of entertainment. I can see that this is a book I need to check out. It may just give me an idea of the problem we're currently trying to solve at work, regarding developing an online community among faculty at work. Anyone out there with other ideas regarding community or the breakdown thereof?

Current plans: Panel on making the most of SXSW (I figure *someone* has to listen to the guys :) ), dinner at Magnolia Cafe (if the crowds have decreased somewhat) possibly preceded by another trip to the gym; Evening entertainment is "Super Size Me" and "Ju-On: The Grudge". I wish I liked the Dobie better, for all the films I'm seeing there. Some more air conditioning would definitely help.

Survey time.

What did I forget to pack?

Trip report thus far( Read more... )

The American Family Association got bitten on the ass when they tried conducting a poll to see what Americans thought about gay marriage. And since "the homosexual activists around the country have done their number on it", they're ignoring it in their call for a heterosexual marriage only amendment. Serves the fuckers right, but apparently the poll is still active.

Previous post reviewed: I've now been awake for 27 hours or so. A good chunk of the vitriol in it was based on work frustrations, but yeah, the underlying feelings are still there. Just not quite so violently.

Further update: I've managed to get some sleep. This *definitely* mellowed my opinons. I'm more down to the whole thing being one heck of an annoyance than anything else. I think I just need to work on my "invisible during court" skills, and if they catch me, it's my own damn fault.