#5 minutes is a generous estimate anyway !!!!!!!!

[picusviridis]

1 Cassius 👀

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Not that long, actually? It kinda depends on if he's in a daydream-y mood or not . He can sit there for hours if he's spaced-out enough........... but if he's, like, THERE? No more than 5 minutes max. Then he starts doing random (inoffensive and mindless) things like flipping through books or cleaning the area he's in until he's gotta do something proper...................................

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

hey so i saw the despicable me 4 trailer and i have a very specific beef with it that's making me insane

so, like, disclaimer, i havent watched any of the minion cinematic universe movies since despicable me 2 came out... holy fuck eleven years ago, jesus christ. but anyway i'm probably gonna get minute details wrong but like hold with me a second

so idr when despicable me 2 takes place in regards to the first film. from what i remember, agnes was having issues with not having a conventional nuclear family for mother's day so this implies it's the first mother's day that the girls have had in gru's household. i'm pretty sure that the first movie took place during the summer-ish, and iirc the second movie is also summer (fitting with my "roughly may" estimate) so we'll say like eight-ish months have passed since the first film. no big deal, right?

so then at the end of the film gru and kristen wiig get married but the timecard states that it's "147 dates later." i doubt they went on a date every single day leading up to the wedding but if we're assuming the date list also covers the engagement and wedding prep period, that's at the VERY VERY least one-hundred and forty-seven days after the events of the film. so with the timeskip at the beginning, that puts us at well over a year since the first film, thirteen months minimum

okay so the third film from my research doesn't state how long it takes after the wedding. so again, let's be generous and say that it's not too long after. i'm pretty sure the film itself takes place over a couple of days so we'll ignore its place in the continuity for now. that brings us to movie number four, which just got a trailer and just revealed a new player in the game

so gru and kristen wiig have a new biological child. this kid is old enough to move and emote, which puts him at 7-12 months old if he's able to crawl. let's again be generous and say it's seven months. assuming that human reproduction works the same as it does in our universe, and again being generous as hell and assuming that lucy may have been pregnant through the third film or right after the wedding, we have to add nine months to all this. so from the first film, we have ~8 month timeskip, then a 147-day minimum timeskip, then let's say 16 months to get to the baby being able to crawl. again, this is absolute bare minimum, and we still get to a conclusion of it's been roughly 29 months since the first film, or 2.5 years.

so okay. two-and-a-half years since the first film.

so then why the everloving fuck are the girls the same. fucking. AGE??

how have these motherfuckers not aged a fucking day??? they haven't grown a goddamn inch. it should have been, again, 2.5 years minimum, more likely 3-4 years if we're being realistic.

and to double check my work, i went on the despicable me wiki and found that they also put movie 4 at a three-year timeskip from the first movie, specifically putting margo at 10 in the first movie and 13 in the fourth, edith at 8-11, and agnes at 5-8; their main source is margo being stated to be 12 in the third movie, and her sisters' relative ages being provided by tweet, so even then this is, again, bare minimum on timeskip. and not only have these motherfuckers not changed style one fucking time, but they haven't changed height, weight, anything. agnes has hit eight years old and is the same height as the tiny-ass fucking minions. edith's hat still fits. margo should be in high school and she looks the same as she did three goddamn years ago

what kind of motherfucking witchcraft is the gru family using to keep themselves young??? they said gru stopped being evil but are we sure there isn't some vampire blood rituals happening in the minion basement

make them a new character model. please god

[andypantsx3]

incendiary | 5 | bakugou x reader

pairing: Bakugou Katsuki / Fem Reader

length: 3.5k | 5th of 8 chapters

summary: When you accidentally go viral in defense of quirkless people, an extremist group puts a target on your back. Pro hero Dynamight is the last person you want watching it.

tags/warnings:  enemies to lovers, themes of discrimination (please see note in fic masterpost), canon typical violence, eventual smut, aged up characters

series masterlist

Almost overnight, things began to change.

Bakugou had apparently decided that ignoring you was off the table now, and he was there the next morning when you awoke, audibly puttering around the kitchen, making his usual ruckus of kitchenware sounds. You listened to him work, slowly blinking awake, trying not to think too hard about the events of last night.

He came back into the living room only a few minutes later, bearing two plates of western-style breakfast, piled high with fluffy mounds of scrambled eggs and perfectly golden potatoes. He shoved a plate in front of you like he’d already sensed that you were awake, then retreated back to the kitchen. He returned with two mugs of hot coffee that smelled heavenly–almost certainly fair trade and freshly ground.

He put one in front of you, then dropped down to his place on the opposite side of the coffee table, watching you scrabble out of the blankets with something like a smirk pressing at the corner of his mouth, as if he knew his food was the fire under your feet.

“New rule, brat,” he pronounced as you finally freed yourself, flinging yourself down at the table and seizing your utensils.

You couldn’t bring yourself to stop now that you were already in motion, so you fit an entire forkful of potato in your mouth, then looked at him questioningly.

The smirk on his mouth deepened. “Your little stunt yesterday attracted every quirk supremacist in a twenty mile radius to this neighborhood, so you’re gonna have to keep away from the windows until they fuck off.”

You inhaled wrong around your potato, the steam catching in your lungs, and you coughed a little. “What? Quirk supremacists—here?”

Bakugou took a slow sip of his coffee, and you tried not to notice the way his bare bicep flexed as he brought the mug to his mouth. He really needed to invest in shirts with sleeves. “Your little cashier friend from the convenience store apparently leaked video onto YouTube already. The attack’s made a couple of the morning news shows.”

Your stomach churned, and you let your fork clatter back to your plate. “They’ve found us?”

Bakugou’s scarlet gaze tracked your expression over the top of his mug. “Not yet. But people know you’re in the general area now. Genius Office is running ID on all the weirdos showing up around here to find out who they are and what the risk is. But until they know what we’re dealing with, you’re to keep away from the windows. And you’re not going outside again.”

You didn’t think you wanted to go outside again anyway, considering the events of last night. Not for a long while, anyway.

You would never tell him, but it was kind of a relief to have Bakugou in here with you, now, understanding the kinds of people you were up against. But that so sucked, not even being able to poke your nose out a window after weeks of already being cooped up.

You nodded resignedly. You took a sip of your own coffee, then had to suppress a shiver of delight. Definitely freshly ground, and definitely fancy.

“They haven’t seen Matsui, have they?” You asked.

Bakugou shook his head. His hair looked a little messier than yesterday, piecey with gel and slightly flattened on the side he must have slept on. “No. Nothing on Matsui yet.”

You picked up your fork again and went back to your breakfast, at least reassured by that fact.

“Any estimate on how much longer this is gonna go on for?” You asked.

Bakugou scrubbed a hand through that thick golden hair. You watched, strangely enraptured, as it sprang right back up again in wild tufts. “Not much if you keep luring them straight to where you are, princess.”

You frowned into your egg. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Bakugou’s socked foot poked into yours. “It’s a safehouse for a reason. There were ground rules for a reason.”

You scowled. “Yeah yeah, I get it now. Excuse me for never having been the target of a national witch hunt before.”

Bakugou smiled, a wicked, blade-sharp thing. He leaned across the table. “So you’re gonna be good for me now, brat?”

Your fork clattered against your plate, spattering egg everywhere. You jumped in surprise, registering belatedly that you’d dropped it.

“Good for—? Good—?” you spluttered.

If anything, Bakugou’s smile went wider. “Something wrong, princess?” His eyes were practically glowing as he spoke.

What the hell was he doing? It was one thing to stop giving you the cold shoulder and act friendlier in light of everything that had happened yesterday. It was one thing to make you dinner and breakfast and not loom over you while radiating disdain from every pore. But it was entirely another to do—to do—whatever the fuck that was!

You grasped your fork with suddenly numb fingers, pointedly looking away from him. “No.” You shoveled a large potato into your mouth as if to punctuate that statement.

Bakugou just watched you, too knowingly for your taste. “Uh huh,” he said.

You finished your meal at lightspeed, desperate to get away from Bakugou and whatever that had been just now. Bakugou ate more sedately, seeming like he was mulling something over between delicate bites of his breakfast. You did not care to find out what that was.

You brought your dish to the sink when you’d finished and washed it speedily, then beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom, standing in the shower for a long time. Then you crept back to your room and managed a little bit of homework after you’d dressed, though you were a little too unfocused for your liking.

When you checked your phone you found that messages had started to pile up again, with a litany of texts from Megumi crowning the stack.

MEGUMI ✨🍹🌴💕 girl you almost died are you okay 8:58 PM those douchebags omg 8:58 PM please tell me you’re okay i’m really worried about you 9:06 PM

And then, a couple hours later, in typical fashion:

MEGUMI ✨🍹🌴💕 that rescue was so hot though 12:09 AM the way dynamight was all rough with them and then all gentle with you 12:09 AM it’s okay if you’re dead i would have passed away too 12:10 AM

You reassured her that you were fine, then paused, staring at her later messages, mystified. What did she mean, the rescue had been so hot though?

As far as you remembered, Bakugou had come slamming in there, metaphorical guns blazing, and he’d hauled you out of there much the same way. You didn’t think there had been anything particularly sexy about getting your quirkless ass almost handed to you.

Curiosity prickling in your veins, you googled around for the video Bakugou had mentioned, wondering how it had looked so different to someone on the outside. You found an hours-old upload on YouTube entitled dynamight destroys 7-eleven shopfront to save internet legend drunk girl—a title you thought a little unfair considering you had not been drunk this time, even though that was apparently your internet moniker now.

The clip was shot from a vantage point above the register, and started with the back of your head as the two men from yesterday turned the corner and almost immediately began crowding you towards the register. You saw your own face in profile as you peered back at the cashier for help—his own face conveniently hidden from the video’s perspective—and then turned back and said something muted to the two men. The smaller one stepped towards you—you saw yourself take an alarmed step back.

And then, faster than you had remembered—Bakguou was shooting into the store, the glass windows shattering under the blow from the door as he threw it open.

He was just as much a presence on screen as he was in person, all violence and savage grace. You watched as he grabbed the smaller man’s hand and twisted it at a brutal angle, then produced quirk suppressors from where they had been belted under one pant leg, just above his boot. You hadn’t even noticed it, then, hadn’t even thought to question where the quirk suppressor had come from—but he’d been wearing sweatpants yesterday, a pair not unlike the ones he’d been wearing this morning at breakfast.

But he clearly was packing some kind of emergency supply—and you wondered if he was wearing it now, even clanking around in the kitchen.

Then you watched as Bakugou approached you, saw yourself stumble as he grabbed your shirt to pull you out. To your surprise, you could see sudden concern twisting his features, clear as day, and you watched with surprise as he leaned down to look you in the face, hands going under your elbows to support you.

You remembered that—but it had all been so fast, and the sight of his hands, so gentle on you after he’d been so rough with the two men, made something in your stomach shift strangely. He really did seem to be looking after your safety, like an actual certified, probably-not-quirkist pro hero. You watched as Bakugou said something to you, and pulled you up into his arms. You instantly cringed at how truly princess-like you looked—having to be escorted out of the store under someone else’s power.

Embarrassingly, the comments section under the clip seemed particularly focused on that aspect as well.

2:11 ok but the way his arms flexed when he lifted her????? hello?????? jghgl26 2 hours ago Reply [Thumbs Up] 600 [Thumbs Down]

how he’s gonna carry me over the threshold after our wedding dynadaddy’s girl 5 hours ago Reply [Thumbs Up] 1.1k [Thumbs Down]

THE LIFT!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!! HOW EASY IT WAS FOR HIM?? am i gregnant? am i pegnate?? how to know if pregonate????? Rika Abe 2 hours ago Reply [Thumbs Up] 1.7k [Thumbs Down]

A hunted energy creeped over you as you read through them, your skin tingling. It suddenly took everything you had in you to click out of the video and not rewind it to the part where Bakugou had first hefted you into his arms. It had not been that appealing. And there was absolutely no reason you needed to witness the events again, no reason at all.

Bakugou chose that exact moment to rap on your door, and you accidentally flung your phone across the room in surprise, scrambling upright on your bed.

“Uh—come in,” you said, trying to not sound flustered.

Bakugou had clearly showered too as his hair was still damp, and moisture still glittered in the divots of his arm muscles. You clamped down very tightly on the echo of pegnate?? Am i gregnant???? that was suddenly the only sound in your entire brain.

No no no no.

You would not let Megumi and some internet perverts get the best of you.

“Oi, you just gonna sit here all day?” Bakugou demanded.

You frowned up at him. “I have been doing homework, thank you very much,” you said defensively.

Bakugou made a show of surveying your bed which was pointedly empty of any textbooks or notepads. “Yeah, looks like you’re real hard at work, princess.”

“Well I was,” you said, but you could already tell Bakugou had made up his mind.

“It’s time to talk about your second new rule,” he pronounced smugly.

“Another one?” You asked, heart sinking.

That razor sharp smile cut into Bakugou’s mouth again. “Yeah. You’re learning how to cook actual fucking food.”

You paused and stared at him, mystified. “What,” you asked flatly.

“I told you I was sick of watching you eat garbage,” he said. You could almost taste the disdain, dripping off of him like butter off of the baked potato he had so despised. “I can’t keep you alive if you die of fucking scurvy.”

“I eat fruit!” You bit back defensively. “And potatoes are good for treating scurvy!”

Bakugou wasn’t listening, though. Before you knew what was happening, he’d already fisted his hand in the back of your shirt and was hauling you to your feet. You felt like a kitten being scruffed by its intimidatingly well-muscled mother.

“Bakugou–what the hell—?”

But you were already being herded into the kitchen, where Bakugou had apparently preemptively arranged the instruments of your torture—several knives, a grater, a variety of pots, a rainbow of vegetables, an apple, some chicken, and a knob of ginger. Behind it all you spotted several other types of herbs and spices, some flour, and chicken stock.

“You’re gonna make curry, princess,” he informed you imperiously.

Curry! Okay now curry you could kind of do. You peered around for the sauce mix, poking through the ingredients on the counter.

Bakugou watched you, scarlet eyes tracking you curiously. “What,” he asked, though it was barely phrased like a question.

“Where’s the packet?” you asked, not finding it among the things he’d laid out.

Two blonde eyebrows went up, and you swore you could almost see a vein pop in Bakugou’s forehead. He grabbed the counter beside your hip, leaning back in, and you definitely did not notice the definition in his bicep as he did so.

“Packet?” He demanded, in the tones of someone who’d just witnessed their entire family get massacred. “Packet?”

You watched his handsome face work through what had to be the five stages of grief. “If I fucking ever hear about a packet again I’ll sell you to Matsui myself,” he said.

He reached over and slammed a kitchen scale down in front of you, followed by several of the ingredients. “Now pay attention, brat, I’m not showing you this twice.”

You knew better than to argue.

Under Bakugou’s stern direction, a curry roux—a term you would not have been able to supply before he’d said it—came together quickly. He stationed you at the stove, stirring everything together for almost twenty minutes while he chopped vegetables in front of you, a rainbow of carrots, potatoes, onions, and some leftover asparagus and peppers he’d dug out of the fridge. Then he made you grate an apple and some ginger into a paste while he sliced the chicken in expert strokes, narrating everything in his gruff tones.

It was strangely hypnotic, watching Bakugou’s hands work. You’d not paid much attention before, but he had long fingers, almost elegant but for the various scars and calluses that littered his skin, evidence of his career pressed into his fair flesh. You watched his fingers bunch at the end of the knife, the swift, decisive sweep of his palm moving ingredients back and forth on the cutting board.

Your skin prickled with the memory of those hands on you in the hallway after you’d passed out, the image of how gently those hands had handled you in the convenience store, and you shook off the thought, the back of your neck weirdly warm.

They were just hands. And they were Bakugou’s hands, for that matter. Make one wrong move on the end of those hands and you’d get cooked, faster than the curry you were working on now.

Eventually Bakugou divided everything into two bowls, and shepherded you over to the coffee table.

“That’s real curry, princess,” he informed you haughtily as you sat down, blowing on the golden sauce. It shimmered under the living room lighting, curls of steam rising off of it in tempting twists.

If this was real curry, you never wanted to eat anything else. As with dinner and breakfast, it was perfect—expertly seasoned, everything evenly sliced and cooked just right. You hated how much you liked it, suppressing a pleased groan as you shoveled down spoonfuls.

“I hate you for how good this is,” you admitted to him.

A wicked smirk cut the corners of Bakugou’s mouth, and the sight of it raised a strange heat to your face. You shifted uncomfortably.

Whatever. It was probably just the spice in the curry.

After dinner you helped Bakugou wash up, and you were sent for a loop by how easy it was. There was still some kind of… tension… that you couldn’t quite put your finger on, and it wasn’t like he’d done a complete one-eighty in your esteem.

But knowing now that he hadn’t despised you for your quirklessness… hadn’t even actually despised you at all, really. It seemed like it had somehow flipped a switch inside of you. You’d told him that you’d needed more time to think on it, to come to terms with the things that he’d told you about himself. But really, with the air cleared so definitively, well—

You kind of thought maybe Bakugou wasn’t horrible after all.

You still wanted to bite him, actually–that hadn’t gone away–but you definitely didn’t think he was horrible.

The thought unnerved you.

When you were done you retreated to your room, still mulling that idea over, bemused at the idea that Bakugou wasn’t actually bad if you weren’t looking at him through the lens of your quirk supremacist glasses.

You managed a little bit more homework and cleaned up your notes from one of your previous lectures, shooting off a couple questions to one of your TAs. And that’s when you finally noticed it, an email from earlier this afternoon, sitting primly at the top of your inbox. It read: New Day Japan - Interview Request

You opened the email, interest piqued by the mention of one of the country’s most famous morning programs. What it said inside floored you.

Miss L/N, My name is Honda Ichika; I’m a producer here at New Day Japan. We’re airing a segment on the two quirkless anti-discrimination bills currently circulating in the National Diet, and we plan to cover your story in relation. We would love to interview as part of this segment. Specifically, we are hoping you can comment on: - Cultural barriers quirkless civilians face - Your specific experiences with respect to the events portrayed in your viral video and subsequent run-in last evening, as a microcosm of those cultural barriers, and -Your feelings on the efforts of the assembly to pass these anti-discrimination bills. The interview won’t exceed 15 minutes and will take place Thursday morning in our studio in Nakano (address to be provided upon acceptance). While I can’t offer questions ahead of time, I promise the questions will fall within the outline I mentioned above. The story, once completed, will run Friday morning. Please let us know by Sunday what your interest is. Cordially, Honda Ichika

You gaped, stunned by the idea that anyone wanted to interview you about anything.

New Day Japan was a hugely important morning news program that had been running for something like the last fifty years, and it was a massive platform for anyone looking to speak to the average citizen.

You didn’t know that you in particular had anything worthy of that massive platform, and you were squirreled away in a safehouse besides, having just almost eaten it at the hands of two random quirkist assholes just yesterday. So it was probably not a great idea to draw any more attention to yourself, and it wasn’t like you had some huge message you wanted to share at the cost of your safety.

So you closed your laptop instead of answering, pulling up twitter on your phone for something to distract you.

And yet, even as you scrolled, your mind was helplessly drawn back to the email like a magnet, catching on key points. A segment on the two quirkless anti-discrimination bills, the cultural barriers quirkless civilians face….

Please let us know by Sunday what your interest is.

You had two days to either put it out of your mind, or figure out why it was piquing your interest so much. You could give it more thought in the morning.

You wondered absently, as you drifted off to sleep, what Bakugou would make of it.

[rigelmejo]

Oh also, to hype up this app Smart Books even more (apparently its on app store as Parallel translations of books. Which. Yeah thats literally what it is and it's great:

So in this app, it shows book statistics. Which I'm always fascinated by. Here's my current stats for Guardian:

It shows how fast I'm reading in words per minute, how often I'm looking up words (caveat here that I keep clicking some words I know reading wise for pinyin pronunciation), shows my progress (4% is pathetic but also impressive considering I restarted today and the book is over 100 chapters). It shows how long I have read total and I'm happy to say the timer does NOT count when you minimize the app or switch to other apps with it still open, making the time read quite accurate (and really calling out my ADHD for taking a break from reading every 5-20 minutes ToT). And it shows estimated time to finish the book. Which is a feature I love in any reading app. And I have to say, personally? I am VERY motivated to see the estimated time go DOWN. So when I see it, it motivates me to kick up my reading speed, and remember fucking words so I don't slow down to look them up again. I like motivation, so I love the estimated reading time. And a fun fact about Guardian, the audiobook is around 55 hours if I remember correctly. So the closer I get to seeing that estimated remaining time go down to 55 hours, the closer I'm getting to spoken reading speed! I've already improved a lot as when I started reading it estimated 98 hours, now after a bit of reading its estimating 72 hours. Huge improvement. (And yes, if you load a Chinese novel in this app you'll be hit by the reality a fuck ton of Chinese web novels are from 20 hours for SHORT SHORT ones to 100+ hours to read... for a fast reader). For comparison, I'm also reading 坏小孩 which is only 124k words compared to Guardian at 304k words... and 坏孩子 is estimating ill finish reading it in 28 hours (I think it's audiobook is 20 hours so that's at spoken reading speed).

And Guardian word statistics:

This fun word statistics area lists the words by order of how often they appear, so its great for if you want to pre-study vocabulary for a book. Or if you want to review common words in it. Or if you're curious how MANY fucking unique words are in a book. Fun fact, 坏小孩 has around 8000 unique words, compared to Guardian's 16,740 unique words. Despite this, I find 坏小孩 harder cause apparently of my lexicon of Chinese words I know how to read, it's mostly words priest uses. And the 坏小孩 author uses a word I am not familiar with about every 20 words ;-; to be fair, Guardian leans heavier into case investigatkom stories/supernatural which is the bulk of Other novels I've read too. Whereas 坏小孩 has many more every day words for card games, school, building descriptions, orphanages, which I do not read about as much.

Anyway my point is: this app is free and pretty dang useful if you're trying to read a language you're learning. It generates parallel texts!

[someone-always-cares]

chapter 5, page 60

first - previous - next

[image description: an sac webcomic page. the shelf crashes onto schmidt, pinning them. her mask is now fully formed, aside from the growing horns, showing the eye holes surrounded by branching tendrils that match the ones on her shoulder and hands. markings that are easier to view in the close up of her, glaring directly at the viewer, the highlights in her eyes now more like her tendril shapes rather than the wiggly lines they were before. with one hand on the counter, lewis quickly vaults over the shelf and person trapped under it, all that is seen of them is the sparking hand reaching up at him. jade worriedly grimaces downwards at schmidt, one hand on the doorframe she's facing, the one they just tried a few pages ago. end id]

so i didnt finish this page due to stomach pain on monday so it wasnt done tuesday, so i thought, okay, well, lets get it finished on wednesday after i take my bro out for a birthday movie.

and then i got back, took a 20 minute nap so id have a little energy to draw comics! and then i woke up 5-6 hours later, at 3am. 3 alarms slept through (despite being a light sleeper) and lights still on. the 5 hours sleep each day took its toll i suppose, so i went back to sleep, so heres the comic today!!!

speaking of waits for comics! its time for the annual fucking off period! also known as "taking a break" like i do in december, buts lets be honest, i will not be taking a break. like always i will just be working on other things because i cant just not draw for too long.

hopefully this means i will be working on a buffer, finally. i will for sure be working on making chapter 1 book ready! if im very lucky i will get that sorted and ready before next febuary (got a couple large cons there) but thats a very generous estimate and assuming self funded and not kickstarter, but i can do that with some savings if i only get a small amount of books because chapter 1 isnt long. wish me luck.

so yes, this is the last update until january unless i end up making a holiday drawing who knows.

until then, im also going to try and upload more art to my art blogs (@galaxia-art on tumblr and galaxiaprince on instagram) and speaking of socials, shameless self promotion for my etsy because if youre looking to buy something from outside the uk then the last days for doing that and getting it before christmas is the 4th-7th december (depending on country) (or the 18th if you're in the uk). if you dont care when it arrives then all's good whenever!

anyway, thank you all so much for reading my comic, and i hope you all have a great rest of the year!

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Regular sleep experiment day "fuck it" of idec.

Again I fell asleep at some point after 10, woke up some time later and laid in bed trying to sleep for what I would estimate was at least about 2 hours, before checking the clock and seeing it was only 12:30 instead of even 3 am.

I'd propose that what I try next is just sleep in two 4 hours shifts, one at day and one at night, but that's effectively what i have been doing and my night sleep just erased itself.

I have crawled out of bed to have a cokey-cola and watch x-files because I don't want to spend yet another night just laying there from before midnight until after 5 without sleeping.

Illicit nighttime caffeine tastes so cold and crisp and fizzy. I actually put this box of them in the fridge before consuming them all so they are actually cold. I was torn between avoiding aluminium and avoiding microplastics, but I wanted to be able to drink it in smaller portions without the whole bottle going flat, so I got cans. Tasty tasty rule breaking.

I don't think it matters, my only hope now is to completely upend my current 'schedule' so I can sleep for more than 4 hours in a day again. I need to so desperately. I am getting weird chest pains again, and my heart acts up more when I am sleep deprived.

I guess another part of the problem is that the time I get sleepy at acts like I have a non-24h sleep cycle, where I have to push my bedtime by 1-3 hours each day or I just lay there awake, but the time I wake up -usually- understands what time it is on the clock and will be at the same consistent hour anyway. I have no problem with laying there awake telling myself calming scenarios until I drift off, but the problem is that if i do that too much, my brain becomes content to lay there all night thinking. It's best for my sleep in general if I can fall asleep shortly after laying down.

I have considered that this might be due to having an alarm which can force me awake at specific times by uh... Waking me up, but even if I set a sleep time alarm, which I do, which I currently have, it can't uh... FORCE me to fall asleep. So my body is trained to wake up at a consistent 24h kind of hour, which it will do with no alarm, but not to get sleepy at a consistent 24h kind of hour... Melatonin doesn't help set this time and sleeping pills do something weird to me that makes me really wakeful if not alert or full of any energy. [The last time I tried sleeping pills I was awake for 48 hours despite laying in bed for over 10 hours doing breathing exercises...]

None of this is a symptom of any disorder currently known to man, unless it just counts as the irregular sleep patterns you expect from a patient with dementia or certain psychotic disorders, neither of which I have to the best of my knowledge. Except the caffeine not being helpful thing, that's adhd for sure. So I don't really think there's any point in prioritizing this issue with doctors over my other problems because they aren't likely to know of disorders that I can't even find mention of on the internet in either formal or informal spaces, especially not my gp, and they can't prescribe me anything anyway due to my metabolism being weird. I have brought up issues sleeping before and I get a lot of shrugging. It doesn't help that I sleep 16 hours a day the other half of the time, so they can't treat one problem without making the other worse.

I have also tried alcohol to try to sleep by now, for the record, and that's how I was able to scrape about 20 minutes out of this.

So now I drink this can of coke, feed my cat, and see if caffeine helps me sleep.

If I can't sleep from now until 5, I am going to try again at just staying awake all day to delete whatever 'schedule' my brain thinks it's on now so I can sleep more than 4 hours. If I can sleep from now until 5... I am going to do that, but also let myself have caffeine at bedtime again.

Fuck it, I don't even care, I just want to sleep.

This is why trying to force myself onto a regular schedule is always a pipe dream that turns into regrets.

[morphomixz]

Eclipsed Pt 3 Miraculous x Reader

6:21:48 AM Thursday, April 18th, Paris, France

"Okay, you can do this. It's just a high school, you have nothing to worry about." I've been saying that since I got up an hour ago. I'm currently double-checking for the 19th time that I have everything.

 I should probably explain. I haven't been to a real school before. My aunt has had me study under private tutors instead of attending a private boarding school like she initially planned. It's harder to control an image if they aren't under your roof with bodyguards, strict curfews, and Life360 downloaded on your phone despite the fact that you don't go anywhere.  So, an entire school isn't really my forte, nor is making my own friends without them being work partners first. So, I can do work friends, not real friends. Anyways, I have about two hours until school starts, Chloe's still asleep, and I need some air.

I let my uncle know I was heading out and went on a walk to go find a cafe or a park, just somewhere where I wouldn't be surrounded by riches or paperwork for work. It's weird. In New York, if you walk around alone, you're generally asking to be mugged, but it's calmer here. I think the bakery I passed on my way to the hotel last night may be open. 

"Hello, ma'am! Is the bakery open?" I heard my voice come out, slightly higher than I would've hoped. It doesn't appear the lady recognized me, or maybe she registers that it's good to feel like you're a background character for a while. 

"Ah, yes. Hello. What can I get for you?" she responded. Her smile is warm like the bakery. 

I bought two chocolate croissants and was on my way after a short conversation with the woman. She apparently has a daughter about my age, who will be in my class today. Maybe she and I can become friends. I've only been here for maybe 10 hours and there are already rumors spiraling on Instagram that I'm in Paris to hang out with some chick called Lila, or that I'm working on my new project (which is kinda true), or that I'm even pregnant with Dante's kid (which is far, far, far, away from the actual truth). Seriously, I'm 15, not 20, where did that rumor even come from? Dante and I barely even hugged half the time. I really need to stay off social media. 

I was walking back to the hotel when I noticed something. There's an old man who looks confused looking at the sign postage on the corner of 2nd and 4th street.

"I'm sorry to intrude, but do you need help?"

"Ah, that would be much appreciated, young lady. Do you know how to get to the subway station from here?"

"Unfortunately I don't. I've only just come back... but let me look it up for you." I wasn't going to lie to a sweet old man. Especially one that seemed so confused. Perhaps, he's a tourist. 

"Alright, if you follow this road, down to where it connects with Wormwood Avenue, there should be an opening to the subway station along the road." 

"Ah, thank you. Would you mind walking me there?"

"I don't mind, sir. I just need to get to the local high school in time for class."

8:00:39 AM Thursday, April 18th, Paris, France

So, I walked the old man to the subway station. I learned he came from China to France where an old flame used to live and that he'll be staying for a while. When we got to the subway station, he vanished before I could make sure he knew where he was going. I have 30 minutes until school starts and it's about a 20-minute walk from here. Chloe's been blowing up my phone to let her know where I am, so the limo can pick me up. Their estimated time of arrival is in 5 minutes. As it pulled up in front of me, I started to wonder, why should I ride in a limo every day when I can walk just fine? I mean, I went walking for a long while and didn't mind the idea of walking to the school myself. 

Anyways, we pulled up in front of the school about 10 minutes later, and I left Chloe to go get my schedule from the office. There were a lot fewer people staring at me than I expected. Which is a good thing. I'm happy it seems they don't care so much. I'm in the same class as Chloe, but I have P.E at a different time. When I made it to the class, the teacher placed me by two girls that Chloe was glaring at. I'm guessing they don't get along since she texted me to avoid them outside of class and she'd try to get my seat moved. The girls I am sitting next to are glaring at me too... I guess Chloe's burned some bridges. It's going to be a long school year if this is what it's going to be like. 

[necarion]

Slow charging in parking lots?

Was working through a thought experiment with @jadagul about one way of improving car charging infrastructure in the US by using unmetered slow-chargers (120V plug outlets) in parking lots.

Obviously, building out a metered fast charger (or even 240V charger) is going to be far, far more expensive than running a 120V line out to that same space. 120V chargers can charge about 1 kW, and electric cars get 2-5 miles/kWh, so a slow charger space can add about 2-5 charge-miles/hour parked. This isn't a lot, but it's enough to cover a ton of ordinary shopping trips in the US. And even if it wasn't a net-positive, it still reduces the effective milage of the trip by 2-5 charge-miles/hour.

One advantage of this system is that it would tend to increase the dwell time inside the store ("we're getting free charging!") so people would tend to buy more stuff.

The problem is that electricity isn't free. Now, I'm going to take a lot of upper bound estimates here.

In CA, rates are something like $0.30/kWh (CA is an outlier in electricity costs, but it's where I live, so). So for a store to be able to eat the cost of the unmetered space, they need to make $0.30/hour more profit per-customer. As a lot of these places are operating under tiny margins (like 2-3% for stores like Walmart), that's about $17 revenue/customer-hour to make this fully pencil out. And that's assuming that every space that's charging is a customer in the store who might be buying things.

Now, to be a little more reasonable, the extra spending a customer might do at the end, trying to eke out another 5 minutes charging (people aren't rational here) is somewhat more likely to be on stuff that isn't quite as small a margin. Checkout candy bars are like 35% margin, so adding 1 candy bar/hour/space would make up that margin. And marginal profit is generally higher than average profit on anything at the store.

And if electricity prices drop to $0.15/kWh (like they are in Texas during on-peak, a rate which is falling as they add solar) on a store with 3% margin, you're starting to see costs at closer to $5 revenue/space/customer-hour. That might actually reach a level we could subsidize, especially when paired with wealthier customers buying higher-margin stuff.

We could also consider subsidizing it through encouraging stores to add solar. One panel produces something like 500W during daytime, so at two panels you're at net-zero during daylight hours even for 100% occupancy. I could imagine having a bonus subsidy for solar panels if you do 1 slow-charger / 4 panels, or something like that. You could even allow stores to only provide free slow charging during daylight hours, although that makes things less attractive for customers, and for the argument for switching to an electric car, that you can just charge in any parking lot.

Lastly, "free slow charging" is something that works a lot better in places where there is a certain degree of audience-captivity. i.e., paid parking garages. City parking lots could more easily spread out the rate increases to all the customers (which is the direction of the subsidy we want, anyway, right?). If you had a parking garage that advertised "free slow charging" on 20% of its spaces, it could increase the hourly rate by like $0.10/hour on all the customers and come out well-ahead. And for all-day garages, this is even better because you can (1) add $1/day which is a nice round number, and (2) the customers can get 20-30 miles of charge. (Now, this does mean that the garages would lose some customers to garages that don't do that, but this is one place where the subsidy comes in to get the transition in the first place). Movie theaters could also handle that through slightly higher ticket prices.

(Funny option for making the public happy if we do subsidize this: we do this via the car companies, who give the money to the big parking lots on the DL.)

Ultimately, this (free slow charging) is something that might ultimately be a viable option to speed the transition to electric vehicles. I feel like in 10 years, the regular charging network should be sufficiently built-out that we can probably figure out actual metering systems here, even for the slow charging ports. And electricity prices seem to be coming down due to the massive build-out of solar, wind (and hopefully nuclear).

We really need to speed the transition to electric vehicles as much as we can. As a thing developed countries could handle subsidizing for a couple years, adding out free slow-parking in big parking lots seems like something that might just be plausible.

[micahdraws]

Well since my last post on the Dislyte sexualization discourse, some ignorant jackass insists on arguing with bad faith assumptions. So I did a little research into because I was curious and who knows. Maybe I was wrong about my own understanding.

First, they liken being horny on main to "sexual harassment," which it's not. Yes, it makes some people uncomfortable, but it's not harassment to witness a sexual conversation that has nothing to do with you outside of a workplace. People are allowed to talk about their sexual fantasies openly and in public areas outside of work. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. If you're out with your friends and you want to talk horny topics among yourselves, that's not harassment even if others overhear.

Second, in online spaces, everyone is responsible for their own experience. So crying "sexual harassment" and "what about the children????" is not only disingenuous, it echoes the same conservative talking points being wielded in places like Florida and Texas. It's gross, insidious, and ultimately not about the children, but about that person not wanting to take proper responsibility and curate their online experience so they can be more comfortable. Nobody is forcing them to continue exposing themselves to the unwanted content, and the main difference between seeing horny on main content and "sexual harassment" is that online you have the power to immediately cut it out of your perception, full stop.

Also, speaking of "what about the children," you don't get to lump "young adults" into that. Either something is appropriate for adults or it's not. Young adults are not children. They're adults. Don't pull people in their late teens/early 20s into this mess.

The other thing that was thrown at me was a "common sense" assumption that the majority of gacha players are "extremely likely" to be teens. Source: trust me, bro, it's "common sense" because nobody with a full time job and money is going to be playing a gacha. Which...okay, that's a take.

Anyway, here's where I was really curious and did some quick research. This took all of like 5 minutes to compile. This post is already getting long so I'll put the rest under a cut but the TL;DR is the average gacha player is most likely in their 30s.

According to Google Play demographics, the average age of mobile game players is 36.

According to this 2023 study, here is the breakdown by generation:

79% of Gen Z

Millennials are second with an unstated percentage

68% of Gen X We know that somewhere between 68% and 79% of millennials play mobile games, so for the sake of this discussion, we'll assume 74% of millennials play mobile games, putting them squarely in the middle between Gen X and Gen Z.

Estimated population by generation:

Gen Z: 2.56 billion (69.58 million in the US)

Millennials: 1.8 billion (72.24 million in the US)

Gen X: 1.025 billion (65.37 in the US)

Estimated number of players by generation:

Gen Z: 2.02 billion (55 million in the US)

Millennials: 1.33 billion (53 million in the US)

Gen X: 697 million (44 million in the US)

If you look at the totals worldwide, Gen Z only makes up about half of the estimated number of players. And currently about half of Gen Z is adults, so we can assume about 1 billion of this number is not children. That means of the about 4 billion number of players, about 75% of them are adults. In the US alone, millennials and Gen X make up nearly double the number of Gen Z players, and that's even before we cut the Gen Z number in half to account for adult Gen Z-ers.

So yeah, the average gacha player is not "extremely likely" to be a child. The average gacha player is, in fact, far more likely to be an adult.

But hey, I'm sure the "for the children!!!!" people are gonna find some way to explain why this is wrong and/or you still shouldn't be horny on main because they're running out of pearls to clutch with their weird conservative talking points. So whatever.

Bottom line is if you are seeing something you don't like, just fucking block it or mute it or unfollow it or whatever. Grow up.

[brakingpoint]

you went to the london eprix last year right? how did monaco compare?

WELL my faves did better so on that level alone i had a better time :)

anyway - the big downside of both eprix is that the fan village is just... not great. it was slightly bigger in london due to the venue (and the entertainment was better, stan gracey) but in monaco it was just a packed bit of astroturf along the harbour with like, three food stalls, some charging points that did not work, and a small store. at one point between quali & the race they did a q&a with jev that, no joke, i would generously estimate to have lasted about 3 minutes

of course the good thing about monaco is you have basically the entire country to explore instead if you get bored at the fan village, whereas you can't really leave the excel arena once you're in (and the area around it is a big load of nothing anyway). however you do have to be prepared for a LOT of walking on race day because half the country is, well. the track. so there's a lot of detours in place. so getting between my grandstand at tabac and the fan village, which at my fast walking pace was probably a 5-10 min walk the rest of my stay, became a half hour trek. i didn't mind this because i like walking (except stairs as rach will tell you from my incessant moaning all trip) and it killed the time but if you're thinking of ever going to monaco i'd say that is THE thing to be aware of. also a lot of shops around the circuit are closed & the restaurants are all packed with reservations so be prepared to eat at stalls by your grandstand or bring snacks yourself!!

another random thing was at least in my grandstand (K1) i was pretty far from a screen. i could see the action just fine but i had no hope of following the timings or lap count - during quali i got around this by having the live timings up on my phone while watching but when the grandstands filled up for the race my wifi & 4G both tapped out entirely so i just got a lot of fun surprises re: the order every single time the cars came back round hahaha

in terms of the overall experience i'd say i preferred monaco outside of the fan village being worse - the track is obviously so iconic and it's a lot nicer to be in monaco than a convention centre in east london, and i think the racing was a lot more exciting this time round at least - but i had a great time at both and i'm really looking forward to going back to london in the summer :)

[touch-starved-switch]

1. What’s your favorite tickle tool? 2. Favorite Ler? (Tag them if you dare~) 3. Favorite Lee? (Tag them to call them out~) 4. Opinion on blindfolds/restraints? Why or why not? 5. A spot that gets you squealing? 6. How long do you estimate you could last before calling mercy? 7. Ever have tickle fantasies? 8. Why did you make your tickle blog? 9. Does anyone irl know of your interests? 10. Can you say the t-word? 11. Verbal teases, yes or no and why? 12. Upper body tickles or lower body tickles? 13. Neck or ear tickles? 14. Pinned on your back, or your stomach? 15. What do you love about the lees you know? 16. What do you love about the lers you know? 17. Feathers or Paint Brushes? 18. How long have you known about your interests in the community? 19. What’s your favorite way to be tickled? (As in provoked, teased into asking, etc.) 20. Are you/Do you like Polite Lees or Bratty Lees? (Asking for tickles vs Pissing someone off for tickles)

That's all of them homeslice I'll answer 5 of them tho using a random number generator 😁

4-opinions on blindfold on restraints?

It's a no for me as a lee it crosses a hard boundary. I just don't like that amount of vulnerability and also my anxiety would go through the wall.

As a ler tho I would be up for it but there would have to be a serious conversation first

6-how long do you think you could last before calling mercy

Depends on the tickling if it's quite rough 15 minutes if it's a gentle forever. But if there's teasing.... yeah that numbers gonna go down

8- why did you make you're tickle blog?

So ok I actually have two blogs on here and if you find the other one then you're actually James bond! Anyway, I made this blog because I love to shit post stuff and I accidently nearly posted tk stuff on my other one😬

12- upper body tickles or lower body tickles?

Ya see I have no preference between the two HOWEVER my lower body is way more ticklish then the upper half!

16-What do you love about the lers you know?

Well I only know one prominent ler on here and they know who they are! But what I love about them is they never fail to MAKE MY LEE MOODS WORSE

[jodilin65]

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009 It’s been a very peaceful Halloween being out in the woods and away from pesky civilization. It was also quiet today between Jesse’s being home and the weather being warmer.

Didn’t do all that great on tonight’s German lesson but am 75% through 101 with a 92% accuracy rate.

Some people laugh at my use of the word “only.” Such as when I said I was currently fluent in only 3 languages, and when I described a certain day back in Arizona as being mild and only 108º. A cashier who once drooled with envy when I could sit on my hair cracked up when I spoke of the days it was only to my waist.

I was thinking I should get if not a California license, then at least a California ID. I think I’ve been living in California with an Arizona driver’s license with an Oregon address on it long enough.

I also think I should get my own debit card. It’s never good to keep money in just one place anyway, and if anyone’s learned this the hard way a couple of years ago, it’s us.

Meanwhile, November’s when we get his Mac back, December’s when we get my new glasses (or contacts if I can get up the guts to try them), plus other things we could use around here, then January is when we begin to save, save and save! By June I estimate will have enough for a new vehicle if this one crapped out and wasn’t worth fixing. By next December I estimate we’ll have that plus 3-4 months of rent saved.

Right now we’re thinking the best time to go to Italy will be when we’re waiting for our new house to go through and all that. A few months before I know when we’re going for sure I’ll really push for fluency with the Italian. It shouldn’t take long since I know other romance languages and the general rules of how they work. My brain is also wired for that sort of thing anyway.

So now we learn that the healthcare reform thing was basically just a joke, though I pretty much figured as much from the get-go. Tom was all excited about it, but as I tried to tell him, “Don’t be so naive, gullible and quick to believe everything you read! People love to make false promises. Especially at a time when people are so down on their luck and need to hear anything that sounds good to help keep them going. Meanwhile, nobody’s gonna give us shit. Our government cares more about taking care of other countries and not its own people. We have to wait till we’re 65 to get insurance because you sure as hell won’t be getting any job that offers insurance IF you can ever get another job again in the first place.”

As much as I hate cold weather, sometimes I think we ought to just take the Macs, laptop, stereo, iPod, maybe the camera, some clothes and some toiletries like shampoo and toothpaste, leave everything we can’t sell, then head on up to Canada where they insure everyone. But I know we wouldn’t survive the transition and I don’t know that they do retirement communities.

I’m just so worried about our future! The present might look better with the MT and all that, but the long-term future just looks so incredibly bleak. :( I fear that instead of “going home” in 3 years we’ll be killing ourselves instead in about 2 years if there are still no jobs when his extensions run out and we don’t want to be total street bums.

Thanks, God. Thank you so much for caring about my husband and I. Your love for us really shows.

Meanwhile, I’m not going to “try” to get to a dentist and I’m not going to “hope” for one either! That’s just no fucking way to have to live. Do you know how many things could go wrong with a person’s health in 21 years on top of the dental problems they may already have?! Well, if we survive this recession in the first place that’s how long I’ve got till I can get Medicare. :(

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2009 Made a couple of bucks in less than 5 minutes and am slowly going blond while I’m at it. Well, semi-blond. Blond is my least favorite hair color, but gray is also the ugliest color in the world. I still don’t have much gray; just a little at the temples and forehead plus a few sprinkles elsewhere. But I thought that if I lightened it up little by little the gray roots wouldn’t stand out as much. I’m not going to lighten it too much, though, because I simply wouldn’t look good as a blond either way. Right now, between the last dye job and the California sunshine, it’s a light golden brown.

The good news is that I’m easily going to beat my $100 goal for the month of October. As soon as I get everything that’s pending, plus whatever else I’ll make today and tomorrow, I should be closer to $130 - $150. Between the two of us, it’s like getting his pension money early, plus more!

It’s neat to get paid to write articles and various things that get published in magazines and online, plus other kinds of jobs I do in both English and Spanish. Nothing in Italian or Portuguese yet, though I’m not as good yet in those languages or with German. The German classes have slowed down since I’ve been busy working, but weekends are slower so that’s when I usually catch up on things like that.

Got a letter from Rosa. She made me a Halloween card. I sent her the notes we swapped late one night so as not to wake Tina up by talking out loud and she was amazed that I kept it all these years.

She said she misses home, of course, and her son and mom, but that she tries to keep busy. She said people are always at her door wanting her to make birthday cards or cards for other occasions, and she’s usually tired by the time she’s alone. I didn’t know you could be “alone” anymore in prison than you could be in jail. She’s lucky if that’s the case.

It’s been chilly at night, but the days have been warm and sunny. We might even hit 80º in a few days. :)

Tom called Jesse shortly after I got up today at 11:00 and let him know that he discovered that he hadn’t turned the cooler valve off all the way so that’s why water was running off. There’s also a leak in the plastic line which Jesse says he’ll replace, but as Tom told him, there’s no reason that can’t wait till next year. I still think there’s a gap in the roof by the door too, and that it’ll leak in front of the door when it rains.

I just don’t see how Jesse could’ve seen the water dripping onto the porch from his place like he claims. Maybe with binoculars, but I don’t see how he could see it through all the trees and brush.

Speaking of trees, he’s also going to be dragging a dead tree by our place at some point which I’m sure will have to be when I’m asleep. The bulldozer is broken down right now so he has to fix it first.

I just wish he would do something to shut his fucking dogs up when he leaves! Three times I had to yell at them after he left on the motorcycle around noon. I was so glad to hear him come back just before 2:00. But it’s Friday night so he might still go get shitfaced somewhere. I’m sure the dogs will let me know it if he does.

The whole thing just makes me want to get our own dog even more. If we have to listen to barking every place we go, why not have it be our own for once? It’s like when neighbors blast music. People figure that if they’ve got to hear music for a while it may as well be their own, and so they join right in. We’ve also had a string of bad luck with rats ever since Tinkerbell died, and I like the idea of having something that lives longer than two years. But I don’t like not having a doggy door or an enclosed yard!

I’ve decided not to renew my Webshots membership this year, though they do say you can store up to 1000 pics with a free membership and I’ve got 993, so my pics will still be there. I’m just sick of all the holiday pics! Who the hell needs a dozen Halloween pics and so far in advance of the actual date? It’s worth saving $30, even if it means losing out on some of the better premium pro shots. I’m also archiving my pics in Yahoo either way.

Kiwi’s to launch 3.0 on Monday, something no one’s at all happy about.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2009 My entries have really been lacking, haven’t they? Work’s been so good that I’ve been pretty busy. Initially, I set a goal of $3.25 a day so I could make $100 a month. Then I started to think I’d be lucky to get just $2.00 a day. Lately, however, I’ve been making $10-$15 a day! Not bad for a few hours of work in the comfort of home. So while I may not be God’s little princess, I ain’t His poor-ass bum anymore either! Hopefully, He’ll go beat on someone else’s head with money for a good long time and leave ours alone. It’s people who don’t give a damn and who don’t want to work that deserve to struggle. Not us! As I told God the other day, “Yo, do you think we’re Puerto Rican or something? Well, we’re not and we really do want to work!”

But sadly there won’t be many new jobs coming around this area for quite some time to come, so it’s nice to at least be able to work online for once and make more than a few cents a day. So now our monthly income should be around $1600 a month, plenty comfortable with our rent being only about half of that. We were even able to have the tank filled with propane today for $200. So 120 gallons of that should keep us set till early February. I had just gotten up when the guy came.

I also got to wake up to the tune of barking, too. Yeah, lucky me, huh? It’s really sad that we have to deal with this in every place we live, but that’s the west for you. And it’s not going to stop with an adult community either, should we ever make it into one. But it’s the only place we can buy something without the loud music and kids in the picture as well. I’m surprised Whiskey didn’t go on and on all day, but I’m sure that the colder it gets, the more he’ll bark. It’s obviously a temperature/seasonal thing.

Jesse left a message saying he noticed the water dripping onto the porch just in front of the door we use. Tom will call him tomorrow after he goes up on the roof to see what he can see. It’s probably coming from the cooler even though we turned the water off for the year. Jesse also did a shitty job on the porch roof. At least the part by the door. There’s obviously a gap somewhere up there for the water to be able to get through in the first place.

What scares me is knowing that this could all be for nothing; this saving up money and all that. Maybe his extensions will run out in a couple of years and maybe there still won’t be any jobs and maybe the government will decide not to give any more extensions. After all, they’ve got to send our money to other countries. Fuck their own people. I mean, what do we deserve? We’re only from here.

As for a dentist, I’ve given up. I totally give up on being teased with the prospect of ever seeing a dentist. I’ve simply resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to ever see one and therefore I’ve quit hoping for that. I said to myself the other day, “Face it, Jodi, if you were meant to see one you’d have seen one by now. It’s obviously not going to happen, so move on to something that’s doable.”

IDK, maybe something up there just doesn’t feel I deserve to see a dentist, or maybe it just doesn’t give a damn. All I know is that even though we’re doing much better, we’re never going to have that kind of money or insurance since they’d obviously rather just talk about healthcare reform and not actually do anything about it. If the fucking government cared about its own people any more than it did terrorists in Palestine, they’d already have given us insurance. I know no one’s gonna get shit and I’m not going to let myself be belittled, in a sense, with this impossible dream of seeing a lousy dentist. Besides, I have gone this long on my own after all, and I can just take a pain reliever when they really get on my nerves. The teeth still have to die sooner or later anyway, don’t they? Either way, sometimes you want to do something for so long, but you can never do it for whatever reason, and so you finally just give up altogether. Even if I were suddenly insured by some miracle, I’m tired of even thinking of dentists! I’ll get by on my own.

I think the same thing happened with the idea of having a kid. I wanted one for years and I believed I was infertile after years of not being able to conceive. Then one day I had a miscarriage and by then I was so damn sick of the subject that I just didn’t care. So it wasn’t just about me deciding I wanted to keep my life and my freedom. Yeah, that was part of it. But when one anticipates something for so long it just has a way of getting old and wearing off. The only thing I can’t imagine fading with time is the desire to own our own home, preferably one that isn’t a million years old. But maybe it will. Maybe I’ll decide I like renting trashy old trailers by the time he finally turns 55. I just wouldn’t count on that one! Contrary to some people’s beliefs, though, we only have so much control over our destiny and can only be in the driver’s seat so much. All we can do is try our best to achieve what we want. The rest is up to fate. If we’re not meant to have a home – and I would say that being run out of one and losing two others would be a good indicator of what’s in our cards – then there’s not much we can do about it.

For the first time ever I wanted to hug Obama. That’d be when he signed the first federal gay rights law. I nearly fainted with shock when I read about it what with all the false promises those in politics usually make. I definitely can’t say all blacks are like the ones who victimized me for being white and Jewish and asking that they keep their music and trash off our property. I wonder why the change of heart, though, as he sure did a good job of coming off as quite a bigot in saying he thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. To hear someone say that may be sick, but it’s even sicker to hear this from a black person of all people who should know firsthand what it’s like to be discriminated against. I could’ve sworn he said he thought marriage should be between a man and a woman, but that he didn’t hate gays and I was like, then why would you want to exclude them from anything? If you don’t hate someone, you wouldn’t want to suppress their rights as far as I’m concerned.

Ok, this entry’s getting to be kind of long, longer than I expected, so I’m calling it a night for now. Fatso Ratso and Mr. Ratitude will no doubt want their dinner by now.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2009 I’m actually writing this entry by hand which I plan to type up later when the power is back on. I was sitting at the kitchen table finishing up my breakfast (Tom was still asleep) when the power suddenly died. This was around 7:00. So I called up to Jesse and he didn’t have any power either. The question is whether or not they’re working on something or if the big windstorm we’re supposed to have knocked the power out. I just hope it’s back on soon cuz it’s 62º in here! At this time of year, we don’t get any direct sunlight till around 11:00 being up against the mountain where the sun rises, and so it’ll be quite a while before it even hits 70º in here.

I almost feel like I’m being compensated for all the money I made yesterday. Yeah, yesterday was a great workday. Lots of easy jobs with better pay than usual.

Anyway, after I threw on my mom’s jammies which I appreciate immensely since I haven’t owned a pair in years, I made some hot tea. The bottoms threatened to slip off while I was at it, but I got by. I also threw on one of her sweatshirts, another thing I appreciated. I hate long sleeves, so between that and living in warm climates, I haven’t had much in the way of long sleeves either.

Hey, I’ve been keeping a journal for exactly 22 years now! On this very day 22 years ago I went to the Enfield mall with Jenny (I can’t believe I had such stuck-up selfish friends like her, but most of us do at 21) and got my first journal in 1987. I wrote by hand until 1993 when I met Tom.

Ok, back on track now. After my tea, I realized I had only 4 things I could do. I could eat. I could work out. I could listen to my iPod. Or I could lie in bed bored out of my freaking mind. I decided to write instead.

Later on, we’re going to get burgers and fries. I could light our propane stove/oven with a lighter, but I’ve been craving burgers and fries anyway. I also lost another pound, so why not?

My hand is cramping up on me because I’m not used to writing by hand so I’ll stop for now.

Whiskey just went off for a bit so Jesse must’ve left. I didn’t see the freeloaders’ dogs so I guess it just must be that time of year.

Later…

It turned out to be a pretty fun day. We left around 11:00 for Carl’s Jr. Their burgers and fries are scrumptious! The place was clean, warm, sunny and surprisingly quiet.

Then we browsed through the Goodwill store since it was close by and I grabbed some more incense.

When we returned the power was back on and now the place is just beautiful with all the afternoon sunshine and the windows open. We definitely won’t need the cooler today, though. There’s a beautiful breeze out today too, but it’s not as windy here as it was in town being nestled against the mountainside like we are.

That’s it for now. Off to work I go!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2009 Jesse didn’t work last week, but he’s working this week. Whiskey went off at 8:00. Gee, it must be coming up on November. :( I had just started putting lotion on my feet and decided that I’d go out and yell up at him if he was still going off when it dried, but he stopped. Still, I’m afraid it’s just a little sneak preview of the shit I’m going to have to listen to until April. It sucks too, not just because excessive barking is no fun to have to deal with no matter what, but it’s going to really distract me from my work.

Tom just got up now and is bogging the net watching a show so that’s why I’m catching up on my writing and proofreading now. I love the guy, but I’m so sick of him being home day after day. Just every single fucking day of every week! I like to be the first one up yet I only get to wake up when he’s asleep 3 times in like 2 weeks. This is the only thing I miss about him having an outside job. I miss having the place to myself at times when he’s not in the way when I’m cleaning or here to distract me from whatever. I would still rather make little money on our own than lots of money with him working elsewhere.

Anyway, I was thinking of the day we own our own place again, have sufficient space, and the freedom to do as we please with it. I really do hope Tom’s right too, and that it does happen! The only dark cloud over the idea is having so much barking so close to us. When I think about it, 90% of the noise we’ve had to live with since being together has been from dogs. I’d say only about 10% of it has been from loud music and kids or excessive car door slamming. But a retirement community is still certainly better than just any community because then we limit the sounds to just barking and maybe some door slamming if they have company 3 times a day like most folks out here seem to.

For the longest time, I’ve been saying there are just two things keeping our lives from being perfect. Lack of money, and worrying about who’s going to take care of us when we get too old to fend for ourselves since we opted out of children in the end. Most of the time we’ve been together we’ve made 30K - 50K a year so we’ll probably have money again at least for a while. It’s the other thing that’s bothered me. It’s easy to say I hope to be the one to die first so I won’t have to be alone and won’t have to deal with the heartache of losing him, but if I were the one to go first, then who would he have by his side in his final days??? Then a simple solution crossed my mind, but it’s not a good one. I’d always hoped we’d each have someone, even if it were just a bunch of indifferent hospital staff, by our sides in the end. However, if we killed ourselves the minute either one of us was diagnosed with something terminal, that’d sure make it easier, wouldn’t it? Ugh, I hate to have to think of it either way and trying to tell myself it’s way too soon to be worrying about shit like that doesn’t always work!

I just might make my goal of $100 after all in my first month at MT. There was a lot of work over the last week, but now it’s slowing down again so I won’t know for sure until the month ends.

I just went out and yelled at Whiskey to be quiet when he started up again and he quieted down right away. But not even a few minutes later he was going off again. I stormed over to the door saying, “What good is the command going to do if it’s only going to work for 10 minutes?!” Then I saw our typical lazy, defiant Mexican neighbors’ dogs back on the loose again. So tomorrow it’s off to call the complaint line again like Jesse told us to for what will no doubt be the fourth time when they’re supposedly supposed to lose them. They’ll just get new dogs to turn loose if they do as that’s just what Mexicans do; they do things their way and their way only, and that’s usually to annoy as many people around them as they possibly can. Then when Tom goes back to work we’ll literally be paying for them to do it, too. Hopefully, today was just an occasional occurrence where the dogs got loose accidentally, but I don’t know. They’ve gotta be just itching to rebel by now. Again I’ll ask, how can these people complain that no one likes them if they’re going to treat people the way they do and be so inconsiderate and rude? Why can’t they be like everyone else around here? Everyone else has been a fine neighbor. No problems there. So if others can behave, why can’t they? The dogs aren’t just annoying with the way they bark and stir up Jesse’s dogs, but these are pitbulls, and pitbulls can be pretty dangerous. They need to be kept tied up and on their own property.

Tom went out and tried to nail them with a rock when they went down into the ditch, and it would’ve been the perfect shot too, had it not hit a tree branch. Figures, huh?

We’re going to have to fire up the heater today. There’s no getting away with it anymore, especially at night now that it’s getting down into the 40s. And we’re also going to have to call the propane guys out soon too, as the tank’s down to 12%. In fact, Tom’s struggling to light the heater now, saying we should get $200 in propane this week. Yeah, AFTER he struggles to light the heater he says will be easy to light if he just removes the spring door while he’s at it. OMG, he got it lit! He really did. I’m impressed.

Down a pound for some reason and that’s really about it. Since I’ve been working my ass off, which is why my entries have been lacking, I’m going to take it easier today and catch up on other things I’ve been neglecting.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2009 I won a coupon for a free box of those Little Debbie cupcakes Tom loves so much, so that’s cool.

Finally heard from Mary, too. She’s depressed, as expected, but hanging in there. She says the place she’s in now which is in Ft. Lauderdale is so horrible cuz it’s run like a boot camp and the officers there are like drill sergeants and they keep them really busy. She’s also in a huge dorm with 60 people. So much for prison being more comfortable than jail! She did say, however, that they sell radios, soda, coffee and pizza there. So at least she’s got that much to look forward to.

The last paragraph of her letter made me smile. Not just because of the suggestion itself but because I was glad to see she’s at least able to think of – uh – well, these kinds of things despite her predicament, LOL. She said I should write a book with two lesbian lovers and have one be a dominatrix.

I’ll keep that in mind, though I do romantic suspense, and well, a dominatrix hasn’t yet exactly fit any of the roles I’ve had in mind so far for characters, but we’ll see. I haven’t even been writing much of anything in the first place because I’ve been swamped with work. Been doing these transcriptions that are actually of good audio quality for a change, and plugged right into the “hit” as they call it, so there’s no downloading and setup involved or anything like that. But I expect the work will come in waves, so when the jobs are lacking I’ll do other things.

The money’s building up nicely and so is my weight. Yeah, if I don’t quit this shit with all the binging I’ve been doing lately it’s just gonna keep going up and up and up! I’m 126 pounds now.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009 I hear a garbage truck somewhere off in the distance. It’s obviously coming from down the mountain somewhere, cuz no one this far up the mountain has trash service.

Eileen and I exchanged emails throughout yesterday morning and a little bit into the afternoon. Then she had to get ready to move. I guess moving day is tomorrow.

Anyway, there wasn’t much work and then tons of jobs came flying in. They nearly cracked 100,000 hits. I’ve been working on and off all night, but when tons of hits come in within the same job, I don’t want to get carried away doing too many in case they’re just going to end up rejecting my work. I did some huge writing projects and other piddly little things.

I also think I may now know what’s going on with my heart. Yeah, I forgot about tachycardia, but that seems the most likely. It’s nothing serious; just a bit of a faulty electrical system, though I sure had the palpitations from hell the other day. Normally they just beat really hard for 3-4 beats at a time, but for the first time ever it did this for about a dozen beats. I was just beginning to wonder if it would ever stop when it actually did.

Things have dried up outside and it’s to be back around the 80-degree marker soon, but not fast enough for me.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2009 So Amber sent me a friend invite on KB. I accepted it, but after having more time to reflect on the issue, I’m not sure forgiving her was the right thing. Yeah, I may like her fiery, outspoken side to a degree, but she’s also pretty unstable at times. Very angry, confrontational, defensive, and downright mean. None of us may be perfect, but she seems to have a ratio of kindness versus meanness that I’m just not into. I’m surprised she’s so sensitive when it comes to animals, for she certainly doesn’t seem to have much compassion for people. So I will be polite, but not friendly.

Eileen sent me a direct email saying she’s moving to Quincy to be closer to her kids and grandkid. This is nice to know and that she didn’t lose her house with all the foreclosures going on out there.

She asked how I decided on “ratgirl” and I told her about how I got hooked on rats.

It’s still kind of funny how my million-year search led others to find her who were also looking for her.

I didn’t get the impression that she’d seen my journal, but that may be a good thing. Eileen doesn’t strike me as a judgmental kind of person, but if you don’t like those who are unique, eccentric, liberal and outspoken, then you won’t like me! And even if you do, I can see where some people may still be unnerved by the idea of someone they know keeping a public journal, even if it’s hardly uncommon these days, and they don’t have anything unkind to say about them.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2009 I wasn’t going to join Ning, the new “safe haven” for shafted and pissed-off Kiwiers, but then said what the hell? And so I joined.

Now I can finally say – after a long, long time of being what’s probably the least forgiving person on earth – that I have forgiven someone whom I’ve gotten into it with in the past online. She may stumble upon this journal and not appreciate her name mentioned here any more than it might have already been mentioned, so I won’t do it unless she says it’s ok to do so.

I think it’s cool that we’ve moved on and I think we both realize that sometimes we tend to get carried away at the mouth because we’re so much alike in that we’re both very outspoken. I also think a lot of people mistake our honesty and bluntness for being rude bitches, but that’s basically what it was about. We pissed each other off by saying things the other didn’t agree with, but I have realized that hey, we’re not in high school and so it’s better to “make up” and move on than to hold stupid grudges over the dumbest of things. She didn’t spite me into jail for verbally laying into her abusive ex as Tammy did. Now THAT’S unforgivable! But if she or a few others I’ve squabbled with on KB were suddenly outside our door, they’d be welcomed in for coffee, tea or whatever. We all make mistakes and say stupid shit we shouldn’t say in the heat of the moment, but looking back on it later on it all seems so silly. Most of all, I think we can be as compassionate as we can be mean, me and this chick, and in the end, humans weren’t created to be perfect in the first place anyway.

So if you’re reading this – yeah, you know who you are, LOL - yeah, you’re a bitch just like me, but you’re a likable bitch at the same time. :) I admire your good traits, so keep on doing what you do best!

I now have a 29” waist – yay! Not the 22”-24” that would be ideal for my height, but I’ll settle for peeling off just a few more inches. My weight is still hovering around the 122-pound marker, though. So now that I’m 36-29-36, I’m really starting to pump iron to get that sculpted, muscular look. Slowly but surely, I’m getting there. My tummy is about 90% flat now, too. :)

That justice of the peace in Louisiana is pretty fucked up for refusing a marriage license to an interracial couple, saying that most interracial marriages fail, and any kids they may have will just be picked on.

Most marriages fail anyway, like it or not, and kids pick on each other all the time if not for one thing, then for something else. Besides, people shouldn’t try to stop others from doing what they want simply cuz of what might happen. I hope they sue him silly cuz it’s their lives, and if they really are making a mistake, it’s theirs to make. People should be able to marry their dogs if that’s what they want.

Later…

Just got a little rain, but at least my ear’s not acting up. I never did get any side effects from yesterday’s Claritin (just my sleep being split up), not even the one I wanted which is where I lose my appetite. I still only had about 800 calories yesterday, though today it’s leaning more towards 1200.

Got a message from Dorian, my number-one fan. He always puts a smile on my face. Damn, that guy can write!

Eileen accepted the friend invite just as I was getting pretty sure she either never got it or decided to avoid me for some reason, saying she didn’t realize she had to accept it. I didn’t realize this at first either, I told her.

She sold her house and is packing, but didn’t say where she’s going. I hope she’s ok! I gave her my email addy in case she’d rather keep in touch that way since she doesn’t use Facebook regularly. She did say that due to my finding her more Naomi people are contacting her. Oops. I’m sorry if I may’ve opened up a can of pests! Nah, she probably doesn’t mind. I did notice we had a mutual friend, though. I don’t remember this person, though I’m not surprised she remembers me. I was quite a little monster, no doubt, even though I was only there for all of 5 minutes, LOL!

After saying hi to Emma and Amber on Ning, I swapped messages with Susan. I told her I was totally on her side about the launching of 3.0 and that I believed her when she said Mike got screwed over (he’s there too, and I said hello to him as well) and tried to fight to stop it from happening, but those assholes in Germany are hell-bent on taking over. Despite any disagreements, we sort of became like one big family over there and yeah, you really can make friends online that you’ve never met and never will. So I know how they feel.

Susan replied saying she quit all her jobs there when Mike left and that he was the main reason she stayed on as long as she did, thanked me for my support, and said it was nice to see me there. I doubt I’ll be there that often, though, since I won’t be journaling there, but I’ll drop in every now and then to say hello to people.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2009 Ah, it is so nice to get paid for my writing for once! Been doing qualification tests and they’ve decided I’m best at writing and so I should be given writing jobs. Gee, I wonder why, LOL! I just wish I could do more transcriptions, though I can’t do many because they’re just too hard to hear. Oh well, I’m still doing pretty good seeing that I’m coming up on $60 counting pending jobs.

I might not get much work done tonight and not just because it’s slower on weekends, but because I’ll be drunk on Claritin D. Yeah, that’s why I’m hurrying up and doing this entry now; before it sets in and makes me dizzy, drowsy, light-headed, jittery, and a true insomniac at heart. The side effects are a killer, but the stuff really does work. I also love how it kills my appetite, too. It’s no wonder they made it illegal to obtain in some states without a prescription. I can totally see how it’d be every druggy and anorexic’s dream come true. I took it a couple of days ago and barely ate 500 calories all day. The worst side effect is the bizarre dreams you have if you can get to sleep in the first place. I slept horribly on Thursday. It’s like I never fully fell asleep, but just remained sort of on the edge of sleep and wakefulness. The next day I let myself get caught up, but since my ear started acting up again today I decided to take another Claritin, even though I’ll be just as sorry as I will be glad that I did.

I’m enjoying this toasty warm night we’re having before it cools down and clouds up yet again so more bugs can invade the place.

That’s pretty much it. Been doing a wonderful job of neglecting my stories and am even slacking off on my German lessons, but I might get around to it tonight, depending on how much of a Claritin haze I’m in. The side effects do eventually go away, but it takes a while and I’d rather not have to be on the stuff that long in the first place.

Think I’ll go check out what new jobs may be in and then do a little proofreading.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009 Wow, I made a buck fifty in just 3 minutes writing a 200-word article reviewing our local pet store. It’s nice to finally get paid for my writing! I’ll bet I made more doing that than I would have had I let them publish my manuscript for just pennies while the publishing company kept most of the dough.

Anyway, I’m over $40 now. Sometimes the work comes in steady streams, sometimes it seems like hours go by before anything new comes in that I’m qualified to do, which they’ve decided is mostly writing projects. Gee, I wonder why?

Now I’m thinking my ear might be affected by humidity as well. It’s hot again here, but still kind of humid for this area. It got on my nerves enough to take a nightmare pill for it. Yeah, that’s what I call the Claritin D. Benadryl doesn’t help much, so I took Claritin instead, even though it fucks with my sleep and causes nightmares. I laughed when I first read that side effect, unable to see how medication could do that to you, but I don’t mind being chased by ax-wielding zombies for a few minutes if that’s what it takes to relieve the pressure I get when the tube that runs between the inner ear and throat gets congested.

Anyway, it’s after 4am and I’ve got the fan on and the window open. Now that’s how California should always be! Ah, but sadly, it’s to cool down and cloud up again soon. It’s December through February that I’m really not looking forward to.

I’m burning Cool Water incense now which smells like lavender.

Less than two weeks ago I only knew a few German words and now I know dozens. The jail Germ, as I’d refer to her, would be impressed. That’d be the 60-year-old thief I was in jail with whom I both liked and hated. She drove me crazy cuz she’d always pace back and forth across the little two-man cell we were in, but she sure had a lot of interesting stories to tell about her life back in Germany before she married the American soldier she married. She was small like me, but that was Ad-Seg for you – home of the high-profile child abusers and the undersized.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2009 The German lessons are going really well, though some of those looooong words can be tough to pronounce. Currently, I am fluent in 3 languages, knowledgeable in 2, and now I’m learning German. I don’t know that I’ll add any more languages to my list after this. I think managing 6 languages is enough work!

Mary’s 32 today. I just hope she’s ok and that I hear from her when we go to pick up our mail on Friday. That’s when the rats’ new bottle will be there, so that’s why we’re going then. Then we won’t go again till next Thursday when the check should be there.

We got slammed with rain and so Jesse was bulldozing the drive from what it sounded like when I got up. I figured he would. That first rain of the year really messes things up. I just hope the dogs don’t go losing in November like they did last November.

My ear’s been acting up since it got cooler and rainy, so maybe it’s a temperature or humidity thing besides an elevation issue. It’s supposed to be warm and sunny again, though. As it is I haven’t needed any heat tonight. It’s coming up on 2am, yet it’s 77º in here.

The Turk’s kind of slow today, though I’m coming up on $40 and still have hundreds of jobs pending. I’ve submitted over 1100 now.

Tom’s looking forward to getting his Mac back in a few weeks so he can do more transcriptions and make money a lot faster. We figured out that all we need is $45 a day to make it on our own. I doubt the Turk would ever make us that much, but his program is still a possibility. We’re looking at launching that in a few months or so.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2009 Understandably, a lot of people on KB are pissed that their protests to stop the launching of 3.0 are going ignored. I agree that there are already enough goddamn Facebook knock-offs on the web. They’re setting up other sites to discuss the fall of KB since you can’t really express yourself on KB if it’s not what they want to hear any more than you could on OLS.

I myself haven’t left KB due to just the inevitable, unwanted change, but for other reasons beyond the loss of prizes and journals. I’m sick of the drama queens like Susan, Amber and Emma, though I can relate to their frustrations over what’s been going on. Still, I’m tired of seeing the same damn members get away with attacking those who dare to speak their minds and be unique simply because they’re best buds with the hot shots there. But life wasn’t meant to be fair and I can’t fix KB. Only the new owners can do that and they obviously don’t want to leave what works best the hell alone and put an end to the favoritism that goes on there.

Here I don’t have to be afraid to “be myself” in my own journal. Here I can say what I want and not have to deal with any little sensitives who can’t handle and therefore shouldn’t be reading what I might have to say. Journals are supposed to be a means of fully expressing ourselves without having to hold back in any way. Anyplace that says you can’t bash apples or cows in your own journal isn’t really providing you with a “journal” in the first place. Furthermore, if you don’t like what someone may have to say in their journal, there’s a simple solution to that. There really is.

Don’t read it!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2009 Lots of Turk work came in today and that helped make up for the slow weekend. It was down to like 10,000 jobs on Sunday, but today there was something like 33,000.

I’m halfway through German 101, still with a 95% accuracy rate, and about to take another lesson.

Supposedly we have a real kick-ass storm on the way. At about 4am we should get slammed. In less than a day, we’re to get as much rain as we’d get in Arizona in a year. Lots of wind, too.

Can’t think of anything else. Just working and doing the usual.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2009 I’m now 44% through German 101 and still with a score of 95%. I’m going to be taking another lesson in a few minutes since it’s another slow workday. I still got enough to order that bottle for the rats awfully fast! That should be here within a week. After I get the things on my list I’m going to start saving most of my earnings.

I definitely need new glasses next. Tom thinks I need bifocals. I miss my old eyes! I really didn’t think I’d need glasses of any kind till I was in my 50s, yet my eyes are getting worse and worse by the minute, and these drugstore glasses are too heavy.

I also need new bras. Dumping 30 pounds makes your clothes too small! Then we’d still like the memory foam topper for the bed, a new body pillow, and one of those Nu-Wave ovens. I also have to drop Napster for Slacker and renew my Webshots membership.

So after we get all this shit which should cost around $300, I’ll start saving. Tom will have the $500 he’ll need to get his Mac back next month.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009 I’m now 38% through German 101 with a score of 95%. It’s going a hell of a lot better than the French was! I’m retaining quite a bit and fast too, though I think it’s going to take me 5 years before I can say the word “nurse.” Krankenschwester, WTF???

I guess I’ll journal here till they either launch 3.0 or I get sick of it.

Not much Turk work in today cuz it’s the weekend, but I’m over $30 now.

We went to put money on the card to cover the phone/net bill today, and since we’re not doing so bad I even got some incense at the Goodwill. Vanilla, Strawberry, Wild Cherries, Opium, Cool Water, Jasmine, Rain Forest and China Rain.

It was a hot one out there today. At least in the direct sunlight, it was anyway.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2009 Decided to drop French for German since I heard it’s supposed to be the easiest language for a native English speaker to learn because it’s structured a lot like English. Sure enough, it really is pretty easy! Some words are a bit tough to pronounce, but you can get used to them. I’m already 25% through German 101 with a score of 93%. I know I have a knack for languages anyway, but that’s still not bad for my first non-romance language!

Although they have gender words like romance languages, they’re not “backward.” You know how we say, “I am not young,” while in Spanish it equates to “I no is young?” Well, they put the “I am” or “you are” before the “not” as well. It seems they capitalize the first letters of all nouns, though.

Anyway, French was just kind of ugly for me. German’s ugly too, but it’s different, and I partially disagree with those who say French is the hardest romance language. I think it’s the hardest to speak and to hear, but I think Italian has the toughest grammar.

Well, I’ve turned into a regular little workaholic working 7 days a week and you could definitely say I’m quite dedicated. Tom thinks I work too hard, though I always make sure I still have a life and that I don’t neglect other things that need to be done. The only thing I’ve been neglecting is my writing/proofreading, but that’s not a necessity, so it’s ok. Not a whole lotta jobs coming in today, so I’m doing some proofreading and I might work on my stories, too.

I also decided not to bother with AdSense until and if we have a website of our own. If we do, then I’ll throw it on whatever sites I use that’ll let me, like Blogger. It’s definitely not worth paying LJ $20 for, especially since I don’t need the features that come with upgrading. So which journal will I use? I guess I’ll stick with LJ’s free journal for now. Maybe sometimes I’ll copy stuff to other places, but LJ will be the main journal for now.

The check came today and we even have a pretty decent cushion for the first time in quite a while. Tom could even get his Mac back now, but we decided to wait till next month. It’ll only cost $10 extra. Yes, after a long stressful year of getting nowhere, things definitely do seem to be improving. I hope it stays that way, too!

But Mary’s life got worse. I hope I hear from her soon, but I can understand that she’s going to be depressed for a while.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had intermittent cramps and ache-like pains mostly on the left side of my chest. For the most part, I’m not sure what the hell it could be, but something happened the other day that now has me wondering if maybe there really is something wrong with my heart, as hard as it is to believe. I know it’s not impossible and that it does run in my family, but I’m still fairly young and super fit. And while I may not be thin, I’m not fat either. Especially for my age. What happened was I had some cramps that sort of pulsated on and off. Then they stopped for a while. But then later on I was startled by what I thought was a huge spider and the instant my heart started racing, the cramps returned.

Nothing from Eileen since we first spoke. I don’t know her or exactly what’s going on in her life, but I realize she might’ve been spooked by my journals if she read them. I even considered taking the links off Facebook, but then decided not to. I’m not going to change my life for anyone, and anyone who may be spooked by them or anything else about me shouldn’t be a friend of mine, not that the idea is to be her friend or stay in touch anyway. Don’t get me wrong; she’s still welcome to contact me and I might say hello from time to time myself, but the main point was to a) find out who she was. And b) thank her for caring. Even so, I’m kind of shocked she wasn’t as delighted and as flattered as I’d think she’d be at all the time and effort I put into finding her.

As for Gregg, I asked him if he’s checked out my journals, saying I was curious as to who on Facebook may take the time to check them out. I never got an answer, which makes me think the answer is probably, “Yes, and I don’t want to be put on the spot with any questions about what I think of them.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2009 Nothing from Eileen since we first messaged each other, and she still hasn’t accepted my friend request. Hmmm… could she be spooked by my journal? Something else? Something that has nothing to do with me? Either way, it’s like, gee, thanks. I put all these years and all this work into finding you and you’re like, yeah, so? So what?

Not that I regret finding her and settling my curiosity as to who she is and what her life has been like, but it looks like my sensors were right on as usual when I said I sensed a lack of mutual excitement over reuniting. Oh well. I’ll send one more message saying hello towards the end of the month and then that’s it. I don’t want to bother with her if she doesn’t want to bother with me.

Got a friend request on Facebook from a mutual “friend” of ours. We have two mutual friends, actually, and that’d be those two people whose emails and IPs trace to Mountain View, CA. Sure enough, while this one’s profile looks legit, its email also traces to Mountain View. It’ll be interesting to see just what they’re up to.

It just seems really strange that I get friended by strangers while Eileen hasn’t accepted my friend invite.

Later…

No unemployment check today, but we’re not worried since Margaret, at the UPS Store, said that others hadn’t gotten their checks either. We mail the forms right over to Sacramento, but the checks themselves come up from San Bernardino. Besides, I haven’t had any bad dreams.

No letters or samples today, but I got that pendant I won. It’s just so-so. Kind of hard to see any detail because it’s so small, and lacking in color.

Best of all, I got my first check from InboxDollars and Tom found a more convenient check-cashing place, so we still got plenty of stuff to hold us over till tomorrow, not that we were completely out of food.

Today’s the opposite of yesterday on MT; not many jobs coming in. But if it can be this good during the worst economic times that I’ve ever seen, I can just imagine how much better it’ll be when the economy is better and there are more jobs and fewer people around to steal them from me! It’s so cool to see my money grow throughout the day and or night, depending on when I’m awake and available to work. I do as much as I can whenever I can. I love working from home! No need to worry about transportation, gas, etc.

For now, Tom, who’s still hopeful for an outside job, decided to use what he earns towards paying the phone/net bill while I get various things we could use around here and maybe even a few goodies mixed in. I want to get the rats a new water bottle first. This old roller bottle sucks and it’s too small. Super-sized rats like these go through 8-oz. bottles in no time. I’m going to get a top-loading swivel spout bottle like the one we had for years before it broke.

Not much else to say. The days are toasty warm, the early mornings chillier than I’d like. I wish it could always be June!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2009 Been going nonstop since I got up about 8 hours ago that I didn’t think I was going to get to make an entry today. Yeah, they really threw the work at me today on MT! Part of the contract in working for them means you can’t discuss the jobs, so I won’t discuss the actual jobs themselves. I don’t know why they have this rule since anyone can sign up to be a worker there. You just have to be over 18 and not have any felonies on your record. Once that’s established, you’re in!

I’ve got $20 made so far and about $25 in pending jobs. Yesterday there weren’t many jobs, but today there were tons of them. I was worried I wasn’t going to get enough work, but I’m still pretty sure I’ll make $200 - $300 a month there. I currently have 577 jobs submitted, 442 approved, 17 rejected and 118 pending.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2009 Lost a total of 30 pounds since my highest high that I know of which was 151 pounds, and am back to 121 pounds.

I exchanged a few messages with Eileen last night. She was perfectly polite and friendly, but I didn’t sense the same eagerness about hearing from me as I felt over finding her. IDK, I just would’ve thought she’d be more excited. Who knows, maybe she was. You can’t hear tones or see facial expressions online, so who knows? This is just something I sensed.

Anyway, she simply told me that she did remember me and thanked me for considering her to have been a kind person. She’s 58 now with 3 grown kids and 1 grandchild. She asked what was up with me and I gave her the highlights within a few paragraphs.

She hasn’t accepted my friend request yet, but that’s up to her. If I never heard from her again I’d be ok with at least knowing that I accomplished my main goal which was to find and thank her. Anything more is just a bonus.

I did get a friend request from a fellow camp group member, and a message from Gregg saying it was his pleasure to have been able to help me after I thanked him for his help. He says he loves that kind of detective work. I was glad to hear that as I was worried I was burdening him.

Wow, California has definitely been the “state of reunion” for me, even if there were a few unwanted attempts to reunite with me along the way.

I spoke to my folks yesterday and I’m both glad and not so glad I bothered to call, as I knew they’d bring up the shit with Tammy and her brood. I was about to just call it quits and hang up when my dad insisted, all the while my mom’s attitude was like fine-go-ahead, that they weren’t blaming me only. Well, that’s nice that they recognize that I’m not the only one who did things she shouldn’t have, but they almost made me feel like a kid being scolded all over again. I understand where they’re coming from, but still, I don’t need this shit in my life. It’s easy to tell myself, “Just walk away. Just wash your hands clean of all of them just like you did 10 years ago. You got along fine without them and you know you don’t want/need any negative people in your life or people you simply don’t care for.”

But it’s not that easy what with how much I appreciate their saving us like they did, and all the nice stuff they sent. Stuff is just stuff, I know, and it’s not a ticket for them to aggravate me, but because it was a minor thing where they just wanted to ensure that I won’t contact Tammy, I will keep in touch for now. Besides, it’s not like these people have many years left to live in the first place, and as I assured them, ignoring Tammy and company is my pleasure. Even if they sent a million messages a day I could just ignore them. If they lived a few feet away from us, they could make me pay attention to them, but they don’t. Those people can never hurt or control me ever again. None of them can. I will never see them again and the only ones I’ll talk to are my folks, and without others in the mix to start the he-said, she-said bullshit and come between us, we should be able to get along. This won’t stop Tammy from telling them things in my journal that I might not necessarily tell them myself which they may not agree with (like looking up personal info on people, posting the message about Valleyhead, finding Eileen), but as long as they don’t get pushy, controlling or demanding in any way, I’m ok with keeping in touch with them. And I’d say Tammy definitely mentioned Valleyhead and camp to them because of the way Dad worded things when he said, “That’s what you do. You look up people and places.” Well, I’ve never mentioned places to them in past letters, just info on various people like when Al M died and shit like that.

Meanwhile, things just aren’t the same and I doubt they ever will be again. My folks almost sounded cold, especially my mother. Like talking to me was a chore that they simply felt obligated to do because they’re my parents. I’m not saying they don’t care about what’s going on with us and that they don’t wish us the best, but well, it’s like we’re strangers in a way. Then again, I think we always have been, haven’t we?

Anyway, my folks are ok. They said they’ve never seen a recession this bad in their lives and that they can’t even save. And what they do save has to go to doctors. I’m sure their definition of saving is different than mine, though. We’re so broke that a savings of $20 is a luxury to us.

We have 6 old CRT monitors and Tom brought two of them to the recycling center today, planning to eventually take two more in, then keep a couple as a backup. Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t bring them all in today as the one he was using burned out, so he’s using one of the backups till he can get his Mac back.

I learned an easier way to peel bananas. You usually peel them from the stem, but if you turn the banana around and pinch the very ends of it, it peels much easier. It’s how monkeys do it.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2009 I have some pretty exciting news! I not only got the name I’ve been looking for but made contact, too! Yay! Her name is Eileen.

I got up this morning and found a message from Gregg, saying that one of their alums gave him the names of the unit heads from 1976 and that they vaguely remember Eileen having a dog.

Someone else said she married a counselor there.

So now I had a name. A much more likely name than ever before.

But then I ran her name and got more hits than I knew what to do with. Especially without an exact age and knowing what state she currently resides in.

Then someone named Becky was kind enough to leave a message on the reunion site saying she vaguely remembers a Jodi being in her cabin, but she couldn’t picture her and didn’t remember anyone getting kicked out. Also, there was a unit head around that time who had a dog named Sidney, who fit the description I gave of the unit head.

For some reason, the dog’s name seemed more familiar as opposed to the name Eileen. So I sent Becky a PM, thanked her for her input, described myself, and gave her my photo albums link in case seeing me would help her remember anything more since I have had pictures throughout all my life there. Then, to see if Becky remembered anything else I told her the only other real memory I have of being in the cabin and that would – uh – that would be stealing some other girl’s barrette! I told her that my bunk was on the front wall of the cabin, maybe 3-4 bunks from the sidewall heading away from the door. In the next bunk to the right, closer to the wall, was a girl whose long hair I was jealous of because my mom wouldn’t let me grow mine much longer than the middle of my back. I don’t remember anyone’s names, but anyway, she had a large brown hair barrette and a colored one as well. Being the little devil that I was at the time, I stole one of them. Yeah, I wasn’t a very nice kid, LOL, though as I told Becky, I’d be happy to replace it now!

Becky told me the name of that girl and that seemed familiar, too. Then she sent me an email saying she’d Googled Eileen’s name and provided me with a link that had a photo which she was pretty sure was Eileen. It was a picture at an education site showing her, her daughter, granddaughter and mother. Without seeing a better picture taken from around the time I last saw her, I wouldn’t be able to look at it and go, “Oh, yeah, that’s definitely her!”

We seem to have a couple of things in common from what the article said, like writing and languages. I guess she spent some time in Denmark and learned the language. She seems to be mostly into business-related stuff, though, and has kids. When I looked her up on MySpace she came up as single, though the article spoke of her as married and it’s only a year old, so I don’t know if she’s still married or not. She seems to have done quite well for herself over the years and has led a very busy and productive life.

Had someone told me in Phoenix when my first attempt to locate her came to a dead-end that some guy in Georgia would help me find her 14 years later while I lived in California of all places, I’d have laughed my ass off!

This entry is getting way too long and so I’ll finish the story tomorrow. I’ll just sign off by saying that Brandy and the puppy came down today and this time it wasn’t quietly. The puppy barked just outside the porch. Tom said he thinks something happened to scare it, but I think it was playing. It not only distracted me from my work, but it really startled me. So I called up to let Jesse know his dogs were loose. Damn, I wish that guy would keep his dogs to himself! This is the whole reason we came out here; to try and finally escape this shit.

Up to $11.59 now on MT, but I’m afraid there are not going to be as many jobs as I hoped there would be. I’m also still owed about $20 in pending payments.

Oh, I keep forgetting to mention this and then I’ll sign off – I apparently scared off whoever the hell that really was that contacted me on FB claiming to be from outside of Thailand. I don’t know what their motives were, but when I confronted them with the fact that I ran their email and found them to be just 134 miles from here in a place called Mountain View, I never heard from them again.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2009 Wow, no barking yet, though I’ve only been up an hour. I’m impressed. It’s their kind of barking weather, though certainly not mine. At this moment it’s 46º. And people think California’s always warm and sunny – haha! Every night from here on out till March I’ll be dreaming of Florida.

Today’s my 12th quit-smoking anniversary! I can just imagine the money I’ve saved over the years. I don’t think I’d be alive today if I hadn’t quit, but in the end, I didn’t have much choice. Sometimes things have to get to the do-or-die stage before change occurs.

My weight works as mysteriously as God. Yesterday I took the day off from both diet and exercise, slammed on a good 2000 calories or so of whatever, and woke up this morning to find I’d lost a pound. I can also imagine all the weight I’d lose – and how quickly – if I could only discipline myself with the diet part as well as I can with the exercise part. If not, I’ll forever bounce between 122-124 pounds.

Work has slowed down over the weekend as few requesters are around to pay the workers for their tasks. The good news, though, is that I think I can make closer to $10 a day if I do 60-70 jobs a day. It’s hard to tell exactly what I’ve made each day until all pending jobs are paid for, and of course I expect a few here and there to stiff me. After a week of not receiving payment, I’ll jot the names down of those people/companies and make sure I never do any other jobs for them again.

I won a fairy pendant from that doll company. I asked them what it was I won. I didn’t want them sending me crap I’d feel almost insulted to “win” and embarrassed for whoever made it like in Oregon. I saw a picture of it and it’s not too bad at all.

What should I do now? I think I’ll try to get my sister sent to jail for defending me when I lived back in S. Deerfield in 1991 and the Northampton Crisis Center insisted I killed my dad in 1984 (yeah, they had my files mixed up with someone else’s, alright!). But who the hell was she to get involved? After all, I was only her little sister. Shame on her for trying to stick up for me. She should’ve never given a damn, right? Right?

I’m 19% through French 101 with a score of 95%. So far it’s both harder and easier than expected. The grammar’s not too bad, but it’s going to take a long time to get used to hearing/speaking it. It’s kinda ugly. Usually, it’s the other way around and the grammar is the hardest part for me. It sounds so different than Spanish and Italian and even Portuguese, too. But when you’ve been hearing Spanish every day for two decades as opposed to French, it’s no wonder French sounds weird.

J’ai froid (I am cold)!

Since there’s less work today, I guess that means more entries from me on weekends.

The dogs are still quiet and I can’t help but wonder, would they be this quiet if Jesse wasn’t home? I’m afraid I would not like the answer to that question!

I suppose it’s a waste of time to try to figure people out, but I just don’t get them when it comes to defending them. They crucify you if you do stick up for them, and they crucify you if you don’t. They’re never happy no matter what!

Later…

The cold is making my ear act up. Anyway, it’s just after 8am which means Jesse will be taking off anytime between now and noon. It’ll be interesting to see how the dogs are then, though it should be warming up fast as it usually does in dry climates. Then again, it’s only supposed to get up to 65º. It will be back in the upper 70s next week.

The more I work at MT, the more I can see the possibility of making closer to $10 a day. I wish he’d hurry the hell up and get up already, so he can set me up to do transcriptions that pay more. We read the tutorials and style guides yesterday. I may be bad at a lot of things, but if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s typing.

So they say the new and historical insurance plan is to cover dental and vision, but I’ll believe it when and if I see it. I’m just glad they’re keeping the illegals out of it. That would’ve really driven the population up worse than China! Besides, I hate to give things unless it’s something I don’t want anyway. That’s another human trait I don’t get besides forgiveness. Why would people want to be giving any more than forgiving? Giving is how you get taken advantage of. Forgiving is how you get screwed over again. So no, I’ll never hold a grudge against Lisa for immaturely attacking me like that without politely and calmly asking me about what I did or didn’t say to my dad in an adult manner, but I’ll never forgive her. Why? So she can attack me again without giving me a chance to explain or defend myself? Sorry, but at nearly 44 years of age, I’m not obligated to explain or defend myself to anyone.

The sick neighbors we had didn’t allow me the luxury of ignoring them for 7 years, and this has only made me more determined to cut those of negative influence out of my life. I may not be able to destroy their memories. I may write about them from time to time. But they will never ever again get the chance to victimize, abuse, use or just plain annoy the hell out of me ever again. Not if I can help it! I’m sure my sister would deem that as “threatening” if she reads this too, hahaha!

Still haven’t decided on AdSense yet or if I’m going to continue journaling. I kind of like journaling where I can have some say in who comments about it. If KB really does have those controls included with 3.0 once they launch it, I might return there. It’s easier to choose the colors from their drop-down menu, but here I have to import them.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2009 Yesterday morning there was some barking. Nothing maddening, but I can see how it’s going to get there the cooler the weather gets. Tom doesn’t think they’ll be a problem this winter because Brandy and Whiskey are older and the puppy will learn from them and follow their behavior. Yeah, that’s my optimistic hubby for ya! Brandy (I think it was her) just went off for a few seconds yet it’s the weekend and Jesse should be home. I hope she woke him up!

There she goes again. Great. Just great. So much for hoping it wouldn’t start up till next month! I’ll put the sound machine on so I can concentrate on my work. I’ll be working more today than yesterday because I need to give myself a day off from working out. My legs are like logs!

I almost met my $5-a-day goal yesterday. I made $4.48 that I know of. Meaning that there are several other jobs I did yesterday that are still pending. It usually takes a few days to receive payment. Once everything’s all paid, I should total around $20, plus whatever I make today. Our goal is to make at least $300 a month in extra money between the two of us.

They reactivated my Facebook account yesterday.

I’m going to give my folks a call, probably at the beginning of next week right after 5pm my time when I know they’re likely to be home, but not yet asleep.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2009 Yay, just 999 days to go till he turns 55 and we can hopefully – hopefully – get the ball rolling towards getting a house in a senior community!

Meanwhile, I’ve been working and winning. Yep, I did say winning. From 2005 to early 2008 I won nearly 20K worth of stuff. Then it all stopped right along with the economy. I’m still not sweeping regularly, but I got a win notice from a doll company saying I was their monthly winner. Apparently, if you’ve subscribed to their newsletter, you’re automatically entered into their monthly contests. I once won from them up in Oregon, but you don’t always get dolls. If I remember correctly, I got some stupid handmade craft that looked like a two-year-old made. Watch, now that I’ve quit collecting dolls, it will be a doll!

We decided to set me up with an account on MT, so now we’re both workers there. I did 27 jobs in just a couple of hours and made a few bucks. I can see where we could easily make 3-5 hundred a month doing this! Eventually, I’ll do some transcriptions. That’s where the real money is.

It’s so nice to be working and making money, even if it’s not a lot! After the hell we’ve been through, getting “rich” and having “tons” of extra money no longer is a top priority for us. Of course we’d take millions of dollars if we could. We’re only human. Yet while extra money may be nice, as long as we can pay for our necessities, that’s plenty good enough for us.

I’ve been wanting a home job that’d pay a significant amount and not just a few bucks here and a few bucks there for so long now. Working at home I don’t have to worry about schedules, transportation, uniforms, or any evil coworkers/bosses.

I decided to spend the first few hours of my day doing everything else I usually do, then the rest of the day will be devoted to working. Of course I’ll take breaks to eat, exercise, run errands, etc.

Still haven’t decided if I want to do AdSense yet. Off to work now!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2009 I realized that what my sister did really put a complex on me and could stop me from helping those who truly want to be helped in the future. About a decade ago I was harshly reminded that you not only can’t help those who don’t want help, but they can turn on you, too. Not just refuse your help, but literally spite you for trying to help. Because of this, I had to ask myself this: If I saw a guy abusing some woman somewhere, would I have the guts to try to help her? Or would I be paranoid that she would tell the cops when they arrived that I was the one trying to attack her or something like that?

I hope I won’t ever have to find out!

She once said I deserved it when I told her Ron once slapped me. This was back in the mid-80s. Can you believe it? “You deserve it,” she told me.

Yet I, along with any other sane, rational human being, know that no one deserves to be slapped. No one. If they’re not trying to harm you, your loved ones, or your property, no one deserves to be handled that way. Violence is not love. Although I threw the bastard out before I could take a hammer to his head in his sleep, her telling me that probably hurt me more than his slap. I was only around 21 at the time.

We’re looking for a site like MT that I could work at. I should be started with something somewhere within a day or two. Tom thinks I’d be best at jobs that involve writing, LOL, obviously. Oh, and I went back and re-read that chick’s message. She hasn’t been on the MT for 2 years but for 2 months.

I still can’t believe the judge fucked over Mary by reneging on the deal. Then again, I can. When you are the law, you can make it or break it at will. I don’t get how they expect people to testify if they keep backing out of the deals they make, though. Oh well, hopefully the asshole will get hit by a bus or something.

[i-need-death]

We're Doomed from A.I

So I've asked A.I to give me reasons on why this site is a purgatoryscape, heavenscape, hellscape, and limboscape. Safe to say, we're screwed if A.I can even ESTIMATE how odd tumblr is.

Here are some reasons Tumblr is both wildly bizarre and endlessly captivating:

1. The Lore-Generating Machine

Tumblr can turn anything into an epic saga. Whether it’s a screenshot of someone’s typo or a random observation about frogs, users collectively expand the joke until it’s a sprawling, pseudo-mythological universe. Examples include the Horse Plinko discourse or the inexplicable rise of Goncharov (1973), a completely fictional Scorsese film that now has fanfiction, fan art, and detailed analyses.

2. Inside Jokes That Defy Reality

Tumblr is a place where jokes have no punchline, yet they thrive. Classics like:

“I like your shoelaces.” “Thanks, I got them from the president.”

The ominous phrase “do you love the color of the sky?”

And "Bees???? Bees." These are utterly incomprehensible to outsiders, but to users, they're shorthand for shared chaos.

3. Unapologetically Chaotic Creativity

Tumblr users will take a simple concept and run with it. It’s home to Shakespearean shitposts, cross-fandom debates, and anthropomorphized internet phenomena like the "Tumblr Userbase Hive-Mind," which users half-jokingly treat as a sentient entity.

4. Fanfiction and Shipping Culture

Tumblr revolutionized fandom spaces. It’s where tropes like “tag yourself” or AO3 comment memes originated, and every conceivable (or inconceivable) romantic pairing has a home. It’s also the birthplace of some iconic fanon—just look at the memes surrounding Supernatural, Destiel, or Sherlock.

5. Tags Are Their Own Medium

Tumblr’s tag system isn’t just for organization; it’s for thoughts too wild for the post itself. People write essays, crack jokes, or scream incoherently in the tags. Example:

Post: “I love frogs.” Tags: #FROGS ARE JUST. SO. #have you ever seen one???? #they’re like tiny green philosophers on legs.

6. The Unholy Blend of Wholesome and Cursed

Wholesome: "Look at this cute picture of a cat I saw today!"

Cursed: “What if that cat was God? Anyway, here’s a cursed drawing of him eating a cheesecake.”

7. The Great "Website of Contrasts"

Tumblr oscillates between:

Beautiful, profound art and poetry.

Shitposts that read like they were written at 3 AM after a gallon of coffee. Sometimes these two things are the same post.

8. Everyone’s a Comedian, Philosopher, and Cryptid

Tumblr humor thrives on being purposefully obtuse, self-deprecating, or eerily wise in ways that make you laugh and then question your existence. Examples:

“The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But what powers you?”

"If you're feeling useless today, remember: someone made a ladder for a snake."

9. Absence of Algorithms = Pure Chaos

Without TikTok’s or Instagram’s hyper-targeted algorithms, Tumblr feeds are a free-for-all. You could scroll past a poignant essay on queer identity, a Doctor Who gifset, and a post screaming, “CRABS ARE THE FINAL FORM OF EVOLUTION,” all in the same minute.

10. It Just Doesn’t Care

Tumblr is a place where cringe doesn’t exist, and sincerity can coexist with irony. It's a space where people post their deepest secrets or scream into the void—and others validate them with notes, reblogs, or completely unhinged additions.

11. Everything Is Canon and Nothing Is Real

On Tumblr, you can claim something ridiculous—like, “In the 1600s, people used to eat tulip bulbs like apples”—and people will roll with it. Whether it’s fact or fiction is irrelevant because it’s funny.

In short, Tumblr is a digital chaos void where sincerity, irony, creativity, and humor collide—and somehow, it works.

[rigelmejo]

I'm about to make a lot of rough assumptions to get to the point of my notes for myself lol

So this ALG article has the equation for estimating how much comprehensible input it will take to acquire % of a language understanding. And in this case, comprehensible input just means experiences/happenings (or witnessing them) where you understand the main idea of what's going on. Since it's ALG, they assume NO word lookups and no conscious guessing the meanings of stuff, so my estimate is going to be really fucking weird compared to theirs when applied to me as... I did a lot of word lookups, and guessed a lot.

The BASIC LANGUAGE ACQUISITION EQUATION: y = 1-e-kx

where y is how much language they know (1 = native).

x is how many hours they have understood.

k is the acquisition constant: .0018

e is the natural logarithm base:  2.718

The article does go on to say that if you did 100 hours engaged with the language, if you only understood say 50% of what's going on then you would put 50 hours into the equation. Because you want to aim to only count hours worth of time you UNDERSTOOD meaning.

What I find cool about this equation, is 1000 hours is 83% understanding, 1400 hours is 91% understanding (both great goals). 1500 hours is how long Dreaming Spanish estimates learning Spanish will take as an English speaker (less for a Romance language speaker), and it appears this equation primarily made for learning Thai as an English speaker, ALSO estimates good progress by around 1500 hours. At 2200 hours, this equation estimates 98% understanding which is a great goal for doing most anything in a language (and is fairly close to some estimates I've seen of how long to give ALG for languages not similar to your own). Now... since not all hours of study you will understand 100% of what's going on, you're going to want to either double those hours (assuming you understand 50%) or at least assume some of those hours of study only count for 75% understanding. So considering those factors, actual hours of study you understand OR not, is going to be closer to somewhere between 2200-4400 hours to get good enough to understand 98% of the language a native can understand. Now this matches up quite well with people's experiences they've shared, and with the experience of BOOK/classroom/explicit learners, as well as ALG learners. Although... I would guess an ALG method minded person would argue that the explicit learner needs more hours, in general, of comprehensible input, to hit certain milestones. But at a certain point, explicit learners are doing most study hours as just that, comprehensible material they understand the main idea of, like me watching shows/reading/listening to audiobooks now in chinese with word lookups only 5% of the time.

So anyway, for fun, I wanted to see where this equation thinks I'd be so far. So with Chinese, I studied what, 4 years? I'm going to try and underestimate. But I feel like I'm coming up on 5 years, whatever. Let's say 4 years, let's say 2 hours per day on average the first 2 years - so 1460 hours the first 2 years. Let's say 30 minutes on average the next 2 years, because I did take like 3-6 months off of studying to focus only on Japanese, so 365 hours for those 2 years. So a total of 1825 hours. Damn. That's more than I expected! Okay, now lets cut out hours spent not understanding without lots of word lookups (the whole first year of 730 hours. 1825-730=1095. Okay, now let's assume out of the 1095 hours, only 75% of it counts for 'comprehended input' if I don't count times I looked up words often, or I couldn't grasp the main idea. The truth could be closer to 50% or closer to 95% depending on if the times I looked up words occasionally hurt my progress or helped it. 1095*.75=821.25 hours. If we do the conservative estimate of only counting 50% then it's 547.5 hours. Let's see where the equation places me:

1-2.718^(-.0018*547.5)= 63% (rounded)

1-2.718^(-.0018*821.25)= 77% (rounded)

That's pretty good!

Now lets see how that matches up to Thai learners, they're expected to need around 1000 hours for 83% so I will probably hit my next milestone in 200-400 hours of chinese material I understand the main idea of. They're also expected to start speaking around 800-1000 hours, just simple stuff, so I can probably start speaking now or in 200 hours and 'not expect' much damage. (Although I may already have lots of 'damage' ALG thinks concious guessing/translations cause, so I might already be a lost cause there).

My personal guess is that I'll probably need 534 hours, if we assume the stuff I'm engaging with is only 75% comprehensible. Or 600 hours, if we round it up and give me more cushion room for not understanding some stuff.

And for fun for me: if I count my FULL hours studied 1825 hours, I am in Level 7, if I count only comprehended it's 1095 or Level 6 Dreaming Spanish Roadmap's levels wise (which is where I think I feel I am based on skills I can do - around Level 6, Skills include most native media, reading, conversation recommended). If I don't count any of my explicit study, I'm at 821.25 hours or Level 5 (easier native media, reading optional, conversation optional).

[avaguenotion]

12.09.2023 - 8:11pm

damn so I've actually been hyping up this post in my mind for the last half hour or so. I popped my night pills - doxepin sleep aid included. I made some hibiscus tea. *sips tea* I put nothing in it. Just hot water and the hibiscus tea bag. I didn't want to artificially tamper with the sanctity of this moment. I also gave some thought to the music I want to play, at this moment there is none playing. My "The Mars Volta" hoodie came in the mail yesterday and I slept in it to break it in. Something is telling me that it's a Mars Volta kind of night. *sips tea* Not only did all that happen, but I did some good writing in my offline archive. There is a lot I write that I don't post here mainly because of it's more experimental nature. But writing is writing.... and with that 2 things 1. It's either between "Day of the Baphomet," "Tetragrammaton," or "Ouroborous" ...... Tetragrammaton. That one riff. 2. To write?

At present there are an estimated 8,045,311,447 people on the face of the earth. That's man, woman, elderly, adult, teenage, and child. That's every spoken and written language - english being the most widely used.

Quite the audience you could say. That's not including all future generations for as long as the text remains extant. Exponentially multiplying the potential audience.

And I'm doing what exactly? I am endeavoring to convince them all, as many as I can, that it would be wise to acknowledge Allah and Muhammad. To stand, bow, and prostrate in ritual prayer 5 times a day. And to pay the holy alms tax.

There is more of course. But that is succinct enough. It's the methodology that makes the novel what it is. It's not an explicit invitation to the religion with clear and concise commandments or what have you. It's a fictional drama that conveys the teaching as it is lived and experienced. Some of the characters are practicing muslims some aren't. But… If they aren't, what are they? What else do people believe? And what of the aliens we have yet to encounter? Does the scale of the cosmic realm and the possibility of humanity being alone factor into the equation?

Yes. That is indeed what I am doing. So when I share fragments of writing it is only because I believe the person or persons being addressed would appreciate a glimpse of where things are.

But there are roughly 8 billion possible humans being addressed right now.

Humbling. *sips tea* Tetragrammaton begins. Atonal rhythmic brilliance. All hail Cedric Bixler-Zavala!

Let it be clear - the reason "The Mars Revolver" is my music project's name is heavily due to the existence of "The Mars Volta." They're one of those bands that just occupies a very special status. I want to be conflated with them. *sips tea* and the book... and the family tree... and dinner... and god... and fate and choice... and the voices... and all and all ----------

p.s. the tea finished right as the song ended. [ time: 8:34 pm ]

The song looped. Just to be exhaustive and experimental I am going to listen it once more intently to be certain there is nothing else I want to add to this post. The song is 16min and 40 seconds.

bismillah.

[ time: 8:45 pm ] The song is at 12 minutes.

Anyway, "The Zakat Mechanism" led to: Zakat as a Poverty Reduction Mechanism Among the Muslim Community: Case Study of Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia [ time: 8:50pm ] Done.

[bolcseszgoblin]

i am SO SORRY that i do this to people. i guess it's the ADHD and it's good friend generalized anxiety. i think (with me) it is mostly about denying that i am unable to prepare and i am getting more and more scared that i'll be late. surely not... oh. i'm almost late. i'm gonna quickly put myself together, and i'm gonna make it. maybe. if i run a bit to catch the bus. and if not, i'll be like 10 minutes late, and i can text my friend once i'm on my way, because i will probably go back 3 times to check for my keys, phone, wallet, if I turned off all the lights. oh shit this tshirt is dirty. but i swear i had another one that's cute. oh. forgot to pull the wet laundry from the washingmachine. shit. now i have to find another shirt, a different necklace, and start the machine again to prevent mold, but put a timer so it won't be too loud for the neighbours, will it finish before 8? shit is it past 5 already? i'm laaate. how long is this programme? let me find the manual. can't find it. lets look on the internet. this is in Polish, i don't speak Polish, but i can compare the pictograms right? they are all in the wrong order. oh it's a slightly different model. close enough though. 5 minutes go by, i finally decipher it and set the timer. hey, the bin is full here. let's clean it up, I've been putting it off for days, and now i am going down anyway. but then i can bring down the recycling too! finally clothed, have everything, ready to go, picking up the trash, walking down the 3 flights of stairs. throw them away. when i walk out to the sunlight, i realize i forgot my sunglasses. should i go back? should i not? it's just a pair of sunglasses. don't be a pussy, you don't need it. but did i bring sunscreen? eh okay. i go back. dermatologist said i should definitely wear some with my skin and moles. this is my health. *going back up* hey, look! i forgot my keys in the door! the more it falls apart, the more i am unable to notify the person. once i am on my way, safely on the bus, or at least out of my street after making sure that this time i have everything i need, i'll text the poor person waiting for me, because then i can say with confidence that i am on my way, and i have an estimated time. before that it is just a lie. i used to text i am sorry i am going to be late, probably 10 minutes - and then fail to leave. multiple times. some friends got around this by telling me an earlier time. i didn't catch on for a while. others were simply tolerant of my bullshit, and them i could message: sorry, being late, trying, i'm gonna text you when i'm on my way. we don't risk notifying people if it is just another failure, and makes it even harder the next time. so i am so sorry. but this was me. i don't go out much anymore and a lot of my friends have the same problems, so we just set and end time, after which it is not viable to leave anymore, and settle in for the undeterminate amount of time we are going to wait for each other. (e.g. you can come over from 3, I'll have to leave to my evening class at 6, so you are welcome till 5, after that we can't really talk, but no worries, we can just reschedule) surprisingly this helps with the anxiety and shortens the delay, by getting rid of nervous running around.

i was prone to the first example more, but i can remember a number of times where it was the 'i am already 2 hours late, but i am on the bus now, and explaining what i was doing instead of being at your party. kind. I never did it when leaving someone alone. i was just in a bad place and had to convince myself that i really like this person, and i want to go celebrate their birthday (all 3 cases i remember clearly were birthday parties. and a new years eve. or 2) even if i am scared shitless of how many people will be there, and ask me how i am, and i am... well. i feel like shit. and i don't want to talk about it. because i don't want to ruin the party. but i hate to lie. but i know i'm gonna.

being vague about what time you're going to be somewhere to meet someone and not saying a WORD until the moment you leave the house (assume this happens every single time, for everything) and also not saying a thing all day even if you're going to be later than the vague time until... after you are already late (assume this happens every single time the person is late/later than normal) is