laceblade | Entries tagged with epic fail

Recently,

sasha_feather started a good post about accessibility at WorldCon. In her own words, the purpose of the post is "not to pick on WorldCon or to cause drama, but rather to say, here is a problem, at this convention and at others. What can we do to work on addressing this problem?"

Most of the comments are on-topic.

I would like to frame this thread. It starts with someone mentioning that sometimes in fandom, people use "insider knowledge" (in this case, an entire track of fake programming that had some people wandering all over an inaccessible convention hotel looking for non-existent rooms).

sasha_feather notes that insider knowledge is A Thing in fandom, and "what is needed are ways to welcome people into that."

Someone anonymously responds with, "There's insider knowledge in fandom, but there isn't a lot of it, and it's not secret. Everyone who knows it, learned it on their own. If the process had been difficult or unpleasant, fandom would be a much smaller place.
If you don't find that satisfactory, consider joining the N3F."

To which

sasha_feather eloquently responds, "My response to this entire comment can be summed up by, "citation needed.""

Then, Teresa Nielsen Hayden shows up to give

sasha_feather a citation (I think?!).
The entire comment is so bizarre that even though

sasha_feather hilariously responded with, "Cool story, bro" and froze the thread, I MUST BLOG ABOUT IT.

Firstly, TNH's comment seems to assume that

sasha_feather is not already "in" or a "part of" fandom, despite the post making it clear that she organizes Access at WisCon.
Her pompous introduction is also useless. I do not understand its purpose; she could have simply said, "I have imposter syndrome, too." Regardless of the back story, can we not just make fandom more accessible? Must Big Name Fans always trot out their personal Horatio Alger stories to prove how they EARNED their way into fandom, as if to say, "And damn it, if it worked for little ol' me, it will for you, too!"

I tried to pick apart TNH's entire comment, but she seems not to have read the post on which she's commenting. None of it is relevant or meaningful to the ongoing conversation.

I'd really just like to draw attention to this quote: "If you want fandom enough to not care that you're a neo, enough to get you to wade straight in, you'll discover that there are practically no barriers."

It is actually hilarious to me that, IN A POST ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY, she would say, "If you want fandom enough....you'll discover that there are practically no barriers."
IN A POST ABOUT THE LACK OF ACCESSIBILITY AT CONVENTIONS.

I CANNOT.

For those looking for amusement, we did start a fannishCV hash-tag mocking TNH's ludicrous "fan credentials" with our own.

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/596631.html

At the end of this post by Kathryn Cramer, she requests that "con committee members should do a lot more listening and a lot less defending when concerns like these are raised."

While I do not speak for the WisCon Convention Committee, I am a member, and I have yet to hear why Jay Lake, or any other person felt "unsafe," specifically. I also have yet to hear what exactly is meant when they say "unsafe." What the fuck should I be listening to, exactly? References that are so vague that they are useless? The reason you can't name it is because the "lack of safety" to which you refer is better described as "uncomfortable when privilege is challenged." Sorry, but the WisCon ConCom is not the place to turn to if this is your problem.

Also? Word.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Sincerely, Jane - Janelle Monae
Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/440265.html

I just....cannot even believe the comments I'm interacting with in this thread any more. For example!

If you don't understand the logic behind the man being (at least titular) head of the household, you don't understand men. A man has to be responsible for something or he will not be responsible at all.

Well shit, I guess I'll have to turn in my Understands Men card! My poor boyfriend! I must be stunting his growth as a man by being in a relationship in which I fully expect to have input, and my thoughts respected, and to NOT BE CONTROLLED, or to not expect him to be "responsible for me," lest I punch him in the neck and say, "Fuck you, bye!"

Also, WTF is up with people posting things ON THE INTERNET, and then getting upset when people respond to their thoughts. I think that I stopped expecting choruses of, "Oh, mystickeeper, you're so right!" when I turned 14. It's The Internet, buddy. You should be so lucky that the meanest person you have to deal with is ME.

Commiseration is cool, but if you'd like to respond to the thoughts of Father Benjamin, please post the thoughts in his blog.

Current Mood: bitchy

Just e-mailed the man mentioned in this article with a subject heading, "Your Poor Decision."

My favorite parts of my e-mail to him include:

The text of the speech is being released on Monday (one day before it is aired), so your ultimatum of "It would be irresponsible of any teacher to introduce to her/his students material that the teacher has not screened, evaluated, found to be educationally sound" is erroneous.

I am sick and tired of people like you using the Church as a platform on which you can make your political statements, and which you use as an instrument to make other people conform to your own political beliefs (in this case, by using your power as a superintendent to censor information that is being offered to children in public schools).

and

As a superintendent, I would certainly hope that you have better things to do - as both a Catholic and as an educator - than come up with useless rules. The showing is not mandatory - schools are supposed to decide for themselves whether or not to show the address. You have taken that power away from individual schools needlessly.

I would soften my reproach if I could think of a single reason for you to ban the showing of the President's speech to students, but the truth is that no such reason exists. The only explanation is that you are personally politically opposed to President Obama, and you are abusing your position to manipulate the children who happen to be in your charge by denying them information to which they have a right.

I AM SO SICK OF THIS POLITICAL BULLSHIT IN MY CHURCH. Go feed the hungry! Help poor people! Stop sitting on your asses in offices figuring out ways to manipulate your herd of sheep, and instead learn how to tend to them. What a pathetic and useless waste of precious time.

But hey, considering the fact that our bishop made everyone watch his pre-recorded message on abortion, marriage, and stem-cell research IN AN ELECTION YEAR, and oh yeah, fired a woman because of her graduate thesis, I can't say that I'm surprised that this happened.

Bishop Morlino also serves on the board for School of the Americas. Classy.

Current Mood: aggravated

The last couple of days have been filled with anger, for me.

One involves a situation beyond my control, but leaves me feeling vulnerable and cheated by a faceless bureaucracy. Of course it will get sorted out for my personal situation, but it only reinforces my adamant belief that health care should be a right for every single person, and not a classist privilege accessible only to those who manage to find a full-time job or can afford to pay for their own health care out of pocket. What does it say about our society, if you can only gain access to medicine and technology that will make/keep you healthy if you have the money to pay for it? Isn't it bad enough for the unemployed or under-employed that they make very little money? Must we punish them further, by telling them that they don't deserve to be healthy? That, in some cases, they deserve to die?

And people truly argue about this? Fail.

I've also been thinking a lot about people in positions of power.

If you are in a position of power, and you see that the people over whom you exert power - the sheep of your flock, if you will - are not doing what they're supposed to be doing, which of the following do you think is the proper response to make your flock more functional?

A) Blame them for not knowing better (and be sure to blame other people for not teaching them better, willfully ignoring your own position of power at the moment).

B) Mock them while surrounding yourself with people who agree with you.

C) Ostracize them by making them feel ashamed or guilty, so as not to taint your tiny Type A flock of "true sheep."

D) Complain about them and how they are the reason that the group is failing as a whole. Make sure to not actually speak to them, tell them what you think what went wrong, or perform any action items to rectify what went wrong.

E) Point out to them what went wrong, and ask them what you can do with your position of power to ensure that it does not happen again.

On a lighter note, a friend of mine recently told me that she thought my Internet alias was "My Stick Eeper." I've had this alias for 8 years, and I never thought about it that way. It's supposed to be "Mystic Keeper," by the way; huzzah for aliases created at age 14.

If people want to start calling me "The Stick," though, I am okay with that.

Current Mood: irritated

Of course I'm sad.

Mostly, I'm pissed.

When Terminator: Salvation opens (THIS THURSDAY), I want it to be a box office smash, and I want the FOX executives to cry themselves to sleep, and have nightmares about themselves living in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.

EDIT: I read somewhere that the writers got enticed to join the staff of Fringe, which would make me 1) re-upload my Joshua Jackson icon and 2) catch up on that show, which is probably still interesting??

Current Mood: disappointed

Elizabeth Bear speaks out!

MY FAVORITE PART is how she tells people they're being mean but uses no specific names. How do we know who's actually being "mean"?!

I JEST.

MY FAVORITE PART is where she arbitrarily declares a ceasefire, complete with a time and date so she can get mad at us when we ignore it.

I JEST!

FOR REAL MY FAVORITE PART? IS THE PART WHERE SHE TAKES BACK SAYING AVALON'S WILLOW'S CRITIQUE OF HER BOOK IS VALID, AND SAYS SHE ONLY TREATED IT AS SUCH TO HAVE A PIOUS EXAMPLE OF HOW TO TREAT THOSE SILLY KIDS OF COLOR.

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

Current Mood: surprised

And for the record, I do have a social life. Reading LJ posts really doesn't take very much time. I like being informed, and I like deconstructing this stuff in my free time.

Relevant Posts that give a background to the one I'm about to write!

coffeeandink: RaceFail: Once More, with Misdirection

vom_marlowe: Fucking Will Shetterly Insults Me and My Family

deepad: To burn a bridge is sometimes as necessary as to build one

shewhohashope: Cultural Appropriation and SF/F: Once More, With Apathy

coffeeandink: Dear People....

I am really confused by posts like Kathryn Cramer's, which cries foul at people who use aliases online.*

I'm sorry, but some people have very good reasons for choosing to be anonymous on the Internet. Not everybody is self-employed, or even employed by leftist, free-thinking people who agree with all of their opinions anyway.

Does nobody remember the PDF files from WhiteHouse.gov that were floating around just about a month ago? To be considered for employment in the Obama Administration, a person had to detail any blog posts or blog comments, or comments of any sort, made online in their entire life.

People who work in the same field as me are actually forbidden by their employers from having blogs at all, because anything - and they do mean anything - can misinterpreted and reflect poorly on their employer. People who have blogs are not hired. So if you choose to have a blog anyway, you'd damned well better use a pseudonym.

People like me are not using aliases to hide behind a made-up name, to never own up to the things we say, to never take responsibility for hurting others, for making a point, for speaking out. In fact, many of us make use of aliases so that we might have a voice at all. I'll own up to things I write online. I'm not going anywhere! I don't start conversations and then run away, taunting with "HAHA BUT YOU DON'T KNOW MY REAL NAME!"

In fact, I think using a pseudonym keeps the conversation focused on what's being said, and not on who people are.

I thought

jonquil solved this shit with her post calling attention to all the bad-ass people who have used pseudonyms like, say, Publius.

vom_marlowe points out why it's quite dickish to make assumptions about people's class after finding out single bits of information about them. I don't really don't know what Will Shetterly's deal is. Like, you find out one detail about a person, and then you know their entire life story!

Even if he was right....what if people are middle class, or *gasp*, upper class? Does it take away their right to call you a fucker for being a dick on the Internet? No! It does not.

And I'm getting really sick of all of his friend's comments of "OMG, but he really is nice in person! I can't believe he's this mean online."

For the record, dear friends of mine, if any one of you were to start being a total asshole to all of my friends online, but you were still nice to me in person, I would not be friends with you any more! The way you treat other people also reflects on you as a person. The Internet is real. People who type words are not machines or paper dolls; I find it ironic that in this RaceFail 9000, the people using their real names are often the ones who don't seem to understand that. IF YOU ARE A DICK ONLINE, YOU ARE STILL BEING A DICK.

To bring up high school as an example most people understand: even when Abercrombie-wearing "popular" kids were nice to me, if they were mean to me or people they viewed as ugly or fat in my grade, I was not nice to them in return! That shit is mean. Nothing excuses it. I didn't stop thinking that they were assholes when they were nice to me, or when, at that moment, they weren't picking on other kids.

Lastly...can someone tell me who Theresa Neilsen Hayden is? Same with her husband? I'd never heard of these people before RaceFail 9000, and they must be big in fandom or something, but all I know is that they acted with fail.

Upcoming/Uplifting:
-Tonight's

beer_marmalade discussion, at which we discussed topics and thoughts from RaceFail 9000. It was a good conversation! Even with a mostly white crowd! GOOD THINGS CAN COME OUT OF MIRES OF CRAP.

*Link removed because Kathryn Cramer keeps changing the redirection of the URL, sending people to scammer sites that might have malware. Mark a bitch point in her column!

Current Mood: irritated
Current Music: Macedonian Morning - Riverdance OST (LOL CULTURAL APPROPRIATION)

A Key!
HT = home town
CT = current town

So, this morning I realize two things: 1) I'm going to be in HT a week from today, and 2) I get to be on the computer all day at work. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?! It means that I planned on gleefully spending all day compiling a heinous number of holds at the HT library on volumes of manga which they have but my CT library does not.

I WILL READ ALL OF THE MANGAS....*CACKLE*

But then I encountered woe!

On the HT library's website (which uses the same interface as CT's!), it treats manga series as one book. So when I try to put, say, 14 volumes of Claymore on hold, only "Claymore" shows up on my list of holds request.

So I call the HT library (praying to God that I don't get the same librarian who had to tell me my pin number) and ask what's up.
"Oh, right! Unfortunately on our website, you can't request specific volumes; you have to call or come in, and have a librarian do it for you."

WHAT. What a terrible system! I mean, my God, I am on CT's library website multiple times every day, seeing when the next volume of High School Debut will be available for pick-up, or how many episodes of D.Gray-Man and Fullmetal Alchemist I can get! If CT made me call or come in, they would get so sick of me that they would probably change the interface JUST FOR ME.

I got a pile of Claymore, Gin Tama, One Piece, and Lovely Complex.

BUT YOU GUYS, WHAT IF I THINK OF MOAR?! [For example: Damn it, I just realized I forgot about W Juliet!]

WHAT.

Dear Hollywood,
People of color like getting jobs, too. I AM SO SICK OF THIS SHIT.

Link courtesy of

meganbmoore

Thanks to

maevele and

rachelmanija for alerting me to recent developments via my LiveJournal friends list.

Okay. So, this one time, Nightshade Press published an anthology of short stories, titled Eclipse One. The mix of authors contained within the anthology was evenly split between men and women. Despite having a number of good (and good-selling) female authors, every name that was on the cover was male. In addition, the marketing package of the cover art was masculine.

Taken from the Wiscon panel description from this year:

The ensuing argument centered around two main points--the publishers felt that, of the authors in the anthology, the names they'd put on the cover were likely to attract the attention of more casual buyers. And because they were in the business of making money, they could not afford to put an "agenda" ahead of anything else. Readers felt that, because no women were given a slot on the cover, the publishers were reinforcing patriarchal assumptions about who sells books, and who doesn't. Some expressed the opinion that the lack of women on the cover was actually likely to deter them from buying the book.

coffeeandink had a nice write-up of this panel posted in her LiveJournal, here. Of particular note is the concluding thoughts, which mirror my memory of the panel:

The book's sales history: Jeremy said it "sold to expectation," that he's already contracted for Volumes 2 and 3, and that based on the authors already accepted for Volume 2, there will be multiple women on the cover (I forget how many).

The table of contents for Volume Two has been released, and you can see it here, or with more comments accompanying it, here. Every name on that list except for one is a man's name.

So, as spelled out in the Wiscon panel description, there are two sides to the debate. Either it is okay for marketing people to shape their marketing strategy of fiction to reinforce a patriarchy, or it is a good idea for them to acknowledge the diversity in fiction that already exists.

Whatever side of the debate you lie on, there is no excuse for sending a representative (an editor responsible for the decision, no less!) to a feminist convention and have him fucking lie to the entire panel and everyone in the room about what they can expect in the future.

Seriously. WTF.

I now regret not typing up my notes on this panel yet. Perhaps I'll have time to do so tomorrow.

rachelmanija is actually productive in her post, and has started compiling a list of women writers and/or writers of color.

Let's make it easy for them, shall we?

Here is a convenient post listing current authors of gender and/or color who have been known to write sf and/or fantasy and/or magic realism short stories. Editors, should be uncertain whom to solicit to get fantastic stories that are not by white guys (sorry, white guys!), just check the post and comments here, and then feed the names into google. I am certain that many of the authors will be pleased to hear from you.

One could also email the list to any editors whom one happens to know are putting together anthologies. Just a thought.

Personally, I don't think the problem is simply that the white male editors have absolutely no idea where to look. I mean, it's the Internet age,right? One of the editors was at Wiscon. I don't really know what else we could do, short of a color-by-number instruction guide.

To be clear: What upsets me the most is that an editor for the publishing company came to Wiscon, sat on a panel, and lied. Who does that?

Okay, so it appears as though Something Awful has deleted the offensive post* made by a Wiscon attendee at her request. Indeed, she is so sorry.

So here is my question. I am assuming that people are going to want to discuss what happened. People should discuss what happened, and IMO, how it can be prevented next time.

I still have the window open on my laptop with the original post. Should I post the text in a public post so that it might be accessible to the interwebs once more? If so, where would be most appropriate: my personal blog, or the Wiscon blog? Is it offensive to re-post the material, or is it more offensive for the perpetrator to hurt people so egregiously and then do a hand-wave because she "did not even begin to consider how much harm it would do to people"?

I'd rather not re-post the pictures in my blog, and I'm not even sure that I could. If the post was deleted, I don't think that I can save them, even if they're still on a web browser window that's been open for hours.

*In case you missed it, someone who attended Wiscon spent her time snapping photographs of people without their permission, removing their faces from pictures, and uploading them to the Something Awful forums with some of the most hateful and ignorant commentary I have ever seen in my life. She attended panels such as "Fat is Not the Enemy," took pictures of people whom she considered to be fat, and then hatefully mocked them for the rest of the world to see, often posting people's names with the pictures. I felt physically ill reading the post, and was nearly in tears by the end of it.

I am disgusted and ashamed that this girl attends my University, and presumably lives in this city. I hope for her sake that our paths never cross. Verily, words would be exchanged.
(Thank God for Facebook, so I know what she looks like, am I right?)

ETA: Read the comments for a link to the first half of the original post. Also, the threads of that post on the SASS forums contain lots more pictures (did people find flickr pools?). People seem to be posting lots of just random photos from Wiscon, including a cute picture of

littlebutfierce,

raanve, and someone I don't recognize. NORMALITY, IT TRANSLATES TO LOLS. I guess I'm just really out of touch with Internet humor. I don't get it.

ETA2: One of the Con-Chairs has posted to the Wiscon LJ community, asking people to please cease violent threats of any kind. The post is here. Please sit tight, people. The Con-Chairs and ConCommittee are aware of the problem and working on it. Please refrain from posting personal information about the person in question, etc.

Also, the thread on SASS seems to be using pictures from the Wiscon Flickr pool in an ever-increasing number of posts. If you have photos of children on Flickr, please lock them. If you took photos of people without asking for their permission, I would recommend locking those as well, until you obtain it.

EDIT 3: Do not threaten the original poster (that's just stupid). Do not post her personal information (there is more than one person with her name in the world). If you happen across her personal information, I would go with: Do not contact her.

EDIT 4: If you want to disagree with my friends and I in the comments, that's fine. But if your comments are in any way derogatory, they will be deleted. I am open to discourse, but will not tolerate slurs.

So. Heinous things have gone down on LiveJournal today, in case you missed it!

It started with

theferrett posting about something he calls the Open-Source Boob Project. His post is here, although he's edited the opening to whine about people commenting on his public post, and not being able to keep track because LiveJournal is not his job. Can I just say? That I totally understand that blogging is not a full-time job. And sometimes people leave 1,000 entries on a post you wrote that you see nothing wrong with. But you don't have to reply to every comment! I personally think it's really awesome if people start talking to each other in the comments of my entries. Just saying. There are much better things to whine about.

Anyway, here is an excerpt from his original post:

"This should be a better world," a friend of mine said. "A more honest one, where sex isn't shameful or degrading. I wish this was the kind of world where say, 'Wow, I'd like to touch your breasts,' and people would understand that it's not a way of reducing you to a set of nipples and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful."

We were standing in the hallway of ConFusion, about nine of us, and we all nodded. Then another friend spoke up.

"You can touch my boobs," she said to all of us in the hallway. "It's no big deal."

...

We all reached out in the hallway, hands and fingers extended, to get a handful. And lo, we touched her breasts - taking turns to put our hands on the creamy tops exposed through the sheer top she wore, cupping our palms to touch the clothed swell underneath, exploring thoroughly but briefly lest we cross the line from 'touching" to "unwanted heavy petting." They were awesome breasts, worthy of being touched.

...

At Penguicon, we had buttons to give away. There were two small buttons, one for each camp: A green button that said, "YES, you may" and a red button that said "NO, you may not." And anyone who had those buttons on, whether you knew them or not, was someone you could approach and ask:

"Excuse me, but may I touch your breasts?"

kate_nepveu articulates quite nicely why this is not okay:

If you are a stranger, especially a man, perhaps especially in a group of other strangers who are men, and you come up to me and say, "You're very beautiful. I'd like to touch your breasts. Would you mind if I did?":

You will put me in fear.

Because you could be someone who will go away quietly if I say no (which I will). You could be the exiled gay prince of Farlandia, cursed to wander this Earth looking for the key to his return that can only be revealed by touching the breast of a willing stranger, and who isn't enjoying this at all. You could, in short, not be a danger to me.

But how am I supposed to know that?

How am I supposed to distinguish you from the person who says he's really just whatever, but is actually going to put emotional pressure on me, or make a scene, or stalk me, or rape me?

I can't. Because that would require a level of discernment and of trust that is not possible, by definition, in my dealings with a stranger.

And therefore, if you ask to touch my breasts, you will frighten me.

If your goal is actually to make a better world, I suggest that you use a method that doesn't involve putting women in fear.

coffeeandink is a bit more blunt with, "Fuck you. My breasts are not a shared common resource."

the_red_shoes has compiled links to more horrific comments, and tries to consolidate a timeline.

rachelmanija expresses her own views here.

I have no objection to clearly labeled private grope parties. But I enjoy cons, and tempting as the prospect is to get the chance to try out my martial arts in a real-life situation, I think the desire of women to not enter a public grope zone pre-empts my desire to kick the asses of sexual harassers, or theferrett's desire to cop a lot of feels.

Therefore, if I hear that this button scheme is likely to go on at any con I would like to attend, I will contact the management for the hotel in which it takes place, inform them of it, point out the danger of sexual harassment lawsuits, and further inform them that if they do not get the con organizers to ban the buttons from public spaces at the con, and someone gropes me, I will sue the hotel and call the police. And that I will also encourage anyone else who is groped without their consent to sue the hotel and call the police.

And I think that

coffeeandink makes a very timely argument to people trying to play-down the original post. Because, indeed,

theferrett did refer to it as the "Open Source Boob Project," which, to me, sounds like a movement, and not a one-time or one-con or one-space event.

What you observed at the con is one part of the discussion. What it means for this practice to be made into a movement and extended to other spaces is another issue, which is not resolved by individual women at one con feeling threatened or unthreatened.

It appears as though

theferrett has deleted all of the comments on his original post? Which is a shame, because I wanted to link to everything that

mswyrr said, as she was amazing.

ETA: Thanks to

goldjadeocean's comment on this entry, I can now link to

mswyrr's comment, and then thread of comments on

theferrett's original post. Find the thread here.

Also,

ladyjax has some friendly advice: "Touch your own damn self. You'll be glad you did."

ETA 2: I like what

coffeeandink has to say about this issue as related to space:

What people are saying is: Women spend THEIR ENTIRE LIVES IN SEXUALIZED SPACES. All of us. Ugly, pretty, fat, thin. Women are by default assumed to be sexual objects for the enjoyment of the men we encounter, and our pleasure has nothing to do with it. All spaces. Streets, houses, bedrooms. Either we are pretty/dressed provocatively/flirt, in which case we're asking for it, or we are plain/dressed in concealing clothes/don't flirt, in which case we're repressed prudes unable to enjoy sex because of damaged psyches.

What you're suggesting, repeatedly, is taking a public space whose boundaries are often and already transgressed to sexualize us when we want to be whole persons including but not limited to bodies and saying that these already-permeable boundaries are too solid. What you're suggesting is that instead of the default being "No, you may not touch my body", you want to turn cons -- large public spaces -- into spaces where women have to repeatedly and loudly say no in order to be heard. And you keep insisting on equating "No, you may not touch me" and "No, you may not act like my body exists for the sole purpose of your enjoyment or edification" with "You are bad and wrong for having sexual desires." You're not bad and wrong for having sexual desires. You're bad and wrong for arguing that your sexual desires are the most important criteria under consideration.

So yeah, I guess I went from Best Weekend Ever to Crappiest Day Ever. THIS IS NOT OKAY.

--I've lost my car keys. I have looked everywhere, including the coat I wasn't wearing Saturday night and my sock drawer. I raked the snow under my car. It is nowhere. My car is plowed in and was on the wrong side of the street all day. They don't normally give tickets for violating alternate-side parking out where I live, but knowing my luck, I'll get a ticket. I will have to go to the dealership to get a new one. Too bad I can't get to a dealership in order to do this because....

--Chad has gone home to our parents' town because his grandpa is really, really sick and will likely die within the next day. Prayers and good-thoughts for Chad and his family are awesome.

--Apparently, some non-student n00b at Anime Club is making Alt.Room suck for everyone else, and I'm probably going to do some ass-pwning to make him stop, judging by everyone's comments. This is unfortunate - I haven't had to talk to anyone about their behavior at Club in the last two years, and I'm not very excited to do it now.

--I completely and utterly forgot about the Liturgy Training I was supposed to attend tonight. I am on the Liturgy Team. My role was to train people to lector. I VOLUNTEERED FOR THIS NIGHT. And I didn't even realize it until about 5 minutes ago, upon which there was much swearing. I am a terrible person, and I am going to hell. I especially feel terrible because I was supposed to lector (read during mass) Sunday night, and had to cancel because I was snowed in. I feel like everyone on this team thinks of me as such a flake because I never have much to say at the meetings and often can't make extra meetings due to work or school work (OR SUCKING AT LIFE, like today!), and I hate when people have negative opinions of me.

--I am about 3 weeks behind on my Con Law homework.

--Random dude on the way up the steps to the Capitol this morning: Gee, they don't shovel well here.
Me: No, it's not very good. Better than my street, though, my car's plowed in.
Dude: Oh! Well I guess you'll have to get a guy with a strong back to help you!
Me: *weak smile* Yeah.

I HATE SHIT LIKE THIS. I always feel pissed all day afterward, when I decide to be polite and not start an argument when someone I don't know very well says something sexist to me. A strong back?! Who the hell does this guy think has been shoveling and ice-scraping our sidewalks nigh on every fucking day all winter, not to mention shoveling out my own damn car, often by myself, thank-you-very-much?!

--I couldn't go to the post office today because it's President's Day. Which is actually not that terrible at all - just irritating.

--Haven't yet started the presentation I have due Friday. Yes, it's about manga and American comics but I still have to, you know, do it. Also, I don't have a scanner. That should make things a lot more interesting (and difficult).

--I still don't have a job, and it's scaring the shit out of me. Also, due to not knowing where I'll be living, I don't have an apartment yet, either.

--It's also looking like I'm going to have to walk to my polling place tomorrow, which is a bit of a hike. Not to mention, I need to find a bill addressed to me somewhere, because I'm paranoid that I won't still be registered from last spring.