jonn

2007-10-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

http://mcity.livejournal.com

2007-08-11T18:53:00.001-07:00

Meet the Woods, a family on vacation from the Bahamas. Coming down from the Carolinas, they stop at an 'El Cheapo' gas station, an establishment of somewhat dubious repute. Three members of the family are attracted by the bright lights of a nearby building, and wander toward the Formica tables planted firmly in...the Failure Zone.

Seriously. It exists.

2007-07-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, did you know that the Motorola K1 KRZR is like drinking unicorn giggles?

just so you know now

2007-07-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Maybe-spoiler for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Work. A bit of a lull. I'm leaving on my lunch break in half an hour.

"Hey, Jonathan, want to know the ending of the next Harry Potter book?" says a previously mentioned coworker.

I feel my heart sinking; at this point, I've managed to successfully avoid any spoilers for two weeks. And since I have a pre-order, which is supposed to be picked up toady, I signed of the Internet for the homestretch.

I hadn't counted on real life spoilers.

"No," I said, and covered my ears. I couldn't think of any better signal than the ol' childhood standby. "No no no no no no." He smiled and padded off. Silly Jonathan.

A few minutes later, he asked how Harry was gonna defeat Voldemort. I said he would have to destroy the horcruxes and face off in a battle in some arena, but don't tell m-

"Nuh uh," a toadlike smirk spread across his face. "He has to kill himself."

He didn't even stay to discuss it; he just kept on with that smug smile, and wandered off, a remarkable feat in a store only slightly larger than a shoebox. As if, having spilled his emotional load, he pulled his pants and wandered off to the kitchen, leaving me with a face whose contents can only be described as "What the hell?"

I wonder what kind of a sandwich one makes oneself after verbal bukkake.

The worst part? When I asked him why, exactly, the hell did he tell me this, he bleated something about "It was on the news!"

No. No it wasn't. And if it had been, I wouldn't have needed you to tell me.

I pointed out that that was not an actual answer and asked again. He mumbled I would've found out anyway. Yes, by reading the book. I will die someday, but I'd rather die in my sleep at 75 than bleeding out from a gunshot wound to my gut in a dark alley tomorrow.

It's not so much the spoiler that bugs me-I use the Internet, I know what lengths people can go to for a lie-as the sense of violation I feel. I wanted to go into the book expecting nothing, hoping everything. A virgin reader, if you will. And now I'll have to draw that image.

The point being, whether it's true or not, the "spoiler"will color my perceptions of the book. And I like to read things as pure and untrammeled as possible.

And the strange thing is, I know why he did it. I've been there. When book five came out, I went to my sister a few dozen pages in, and informed her, over her strident protests, that Ron and Hermione had become prefects. I did not use the Internet, seeing as we were in Florida at the time, but there were doubtless no shortage of hollow trees I could yell into. Failing that, the toilet bowl. I immediately felt guilty, thinking of the times I've been spoilered, and lied, claiming I was just joshing with her. She, of course, doubted the veracity of my claims, but the point is, I felt remorse. This chucklehead felt no such regret.

See, we all have impulses that could hurt others. What distinguishes the dick from everyone else is that he regularly acts on these for his own satisfaction, without any regard for the desires of others. Some even deliberately hurt people. And when your life is geared toward that? When you pain others just because it'll make you feel better?

You're doing it wrong.

//you're on your own now believe me

2007-07-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

a340 harryPotter

It happens several times every week, if not every day. Some young whippersnapper comes in and asks if we have any Playstations.

"Do you mean PS2s?" I ask.

They look at me oddly. "Yes..."

And I give them the price.

The Playstation came out about twelve years ago, and it's already been forgotten by most of the yuth of today. Heck, they're eight, the only PS most of them have ever known was black and blue. The amount of kids asking if we have the PS2 is outstripped only by the amount who keep asking if we have GTA. And this is understandable. What's strange is the ones who come in and ask if we have the Game Boy Advance charger.

"You mean the SP?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"Yes."

"$18.99."

It is at times like this that I take my chariot home, and look over the dark forest from my tower, and the full weight of my twenty years bears heavy upon my brow. I'm so disconnected with the youth of today, their cars and clothing and hippity-hop. I've always felt a few steps off from my peers, like I was looking down a cardboard tube. I assumed I was alone in my geekery, my drawings and writings and love of obscure internet catchphrases.

Then, one day, a dude came into the store, wearing a Bleach shirt, with several other young men of the type that buy bootleg shirts with Tony Montana. Because he's the original gangsta thug.

"Is that a Bleach shirt?" I ask.

"Yes."

Time for the test.

"All your base are belong to us."

"I know that, that's from, that's from...don't tell me..."

"Zero Wing."

"Zero Wing, that was it!"

So here was a young man, who could've been me. He had friends who were not like him. That much was obvious from their sideways hat.*

I had assumed that I would never make friends who weren't geeks, and that since I had difficulty finding them, that some elder had neglected to tell me the secret handshake. Turns out they were living among us in plain sight; more than meets the eye.

*I have a theory; If there is a Man, a powerful individual determined to keep a Brother down, all he's doing is thinking up ridiculous fashions and releasing them onto an unsuspecting Black public. We do the rest.

There are two stereos in the store.

Well, actually, there are about a dozen. But we're focusing on these two. My boss regularly plays music on them, through radio or CD.

One of my coworkers has an annoying habit of turning up the radios to 24 or so. The thing is, it's impossible to conduct a conversation past twenty. And this guy is standing in front of the set when he turns up the volume.

So he's there jamming to the beat, while everyone else in the store can't hear themselves think. And when I try to turn it back down, he sneaks it back up when I'm not looking.

Dude, can't you live without bad remix Christian Reggae for eight hours? It's not that hard. Millions of people do it every day. Try it and see!

That's why I'm dressed quite neatly

2007-07-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

a350 driving practice

Dear boss,
So we found a 'best of Kelly Clarkson' CD in one of the product boxes. Most likely, a customer was holding it while looking at the product. wait, it belongs to an absent employee? Oh, well, he probably just happened to be holding it in his hand while he showed the customer the pro-wait, no don't. Don't launch into one of your little talks about how the employees need to pay attention, especially me. You've done this several times, and it grows tiresome.; you start your little quiet lecture about a perceived fault based on something that happened, and when you're corrected, you go on about the fault anyway. It's annoying.

Thank you,
-Jonn

//'Cause it's easy and discreetly they seek me

Trufax

2007-06-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

a364 woodThingie by ~u63r on deviant ART
1. If I leave for work early, say, to get a delicious breakfast from the Wendy's at the mall, the bus will be late.
2. If I go into the nearby BKs to get their overpriced crossan'wiches, the bus will come at some point between me making my order and it being delivered, no matter how long I waited.
3. I need my frakkin' license.

records, or numbers

2007-06-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

a365 sphere by ~u63r
on deviant ART

I flustered a cute hispanic girl today.

Alright, Hispanic girl comes into the store. One of my coworkers handles her; she wants to buy a cell phone. Alright. While she is being dealt with, I orbit the other customers and try not to check her out too openly. She has a friend, too, but she's ugly.

After she gets done, and the kids hanging around the games case leave, I just walk around the store for a while, under orders not to sit down while customers are in unless I look busy. I don't fully understand how it happened, but she ended up asking me how to get to the bus stop.

She didn't make it through the first sentence before giggling.

Confession: girls have broken out in giggles in my presence before. Fairly frequently in fact. It was not until some girl told me I was cute, last year, that I realized that girls did not have a malfunctioning giggle gland, that I am actually good looking.

It bugged me, because it meant I had no excuse for not having a girlfriend other than my social reticence. It also means I actually notice now when girls seem to have some sort of humourous speech impediment.

Right then, however, all I noticed were her cheekbones.

God, she has nice cheekbones.

And those eyes.

"The nearest bus stop is on the far side of [store], out by the main road." I don't know if there's a bus to get you downtown. But I can't seem to tell you that, because there's something wrong with my chest.

She gives me a smile that lights up the world, and when I can see again, she's gone.

I collapse into a chair and think hard about the phrase "prettiest girl in the world" for the first time.

Favorite songs evar;

Hotel California-the Eagles
Bohemian Rahpsody-Queen

And currently duking it out for third is Chris Cornell's You Know my Name and Klaxons' Golden Skans. Also on the list, in unspecified positions, Don't Stop Me Now-Queen, The Ultimate Battle of Ultimate Destiny-Lemon Demon, I'll follow you into the dark by Death Cab for Cutie, and Billy Talent's Try Honesty.

//or spaces still undone

I can see the city lights burn

2007-06-13T17:28:00.001-07:00

No time to look up clever lyrics. Not today.

My parents often call me into the room to watch "History being made". She does this a lot, but this time I actually cared. Because zombies.

"Alright, we need to find a black guy."

"Quiet."

I guess we've all seen the news.

We sat there for a few minutes. Then we all started moving. More on that later. Oh, and outbreak map.

There seem to be a few isolated cases of zombies trying to get home, as strange as this seems. They're wading out into the ocean, and a few of the less decomposed ones are swimming. The others just...float. Some sink. Thankfully, no one has died in out house. Or rather, no one who lived here has died. I don't think.

I hope Ali's okay.

The funny thing is, the zombies immediately kill anyone they find at their old place, then start moving out from there and killing anyone they see.

I'm fairly sure this can't be natural. To turn a phrase from scans_daily, viruses don't work that way. They can't. This must be magic or something. I'd tempted to say it's some punishment for idolatry, but that sounds too much like Jerry Falwell.

I wonder how he's doing?

The internet, of course, has imploded.

My internet has been spotty for the past week; it finally gets back to normal, just in time for the Zombie Apoclypse.

There are plenty of vids on YouTube. Every blog, every website, as turned to this, rules be damned. One of the saddest things was Brian Ashcraft posting from frikkin' Japan about what happened to his

Deep breathing exercise No 1: Inhale. Put all of your tension your fear your worry into that breath. Exhale.

LJ is staggering along, but JournalFen is slightly better. The good little soldiers over there are still posting wank about this.

LJ...has just gone nuts.

There is a zombie fandom.

There are people writing frakkin' fanfic for the zombies.

And not regular fanfic. Slash loli necrophilia fanfic. Like, what would Orochimaru do with Sasuke if

You know, I thought 4chan had inured me to this kind of thing.

Maybe because it's real now.

Incidentally;

Oh you wacky /b/ tards.

There are some crazies arguing that we should all welcome the zombie way of life. If you see any of them, dispatch them as quickly and quietly as possible.

Some others were scanning and posting bits from the Zombie Survival Handbook, or whatever it is.

My family has been barricaded inside all day. We're trying to leave tommorow. We're not far from the coast. There'll be boats.

God, let there be boats.

We're trying to get some sleep. Nothing to speak of since the dog got in. Besides the gunfire, and moaning, and some dick who tried to jack our cars screaming, of course. We live a literal stone's throw away from a major road, and...nothing. Silence.

We had just finished watching the news when there was some scratching at the back door. We opened it, and the dog walked in.

Can they smell fear?

The dog growled in a funny way, then jumped for my throat. I was holding a stick-to fight them off-and managed to throw it off without getting bit. It went for the stick, it was almost through it-the smell-when I tossed it onto the stove. It hit the backstop, and was just getting up when my sister nailed it with a cast iron skillet. Mum turned on the gas, and for a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of frying dog and our screams.

So yeah.

We're taking the laptop; if we don't make it, at least something will survive. Zombies don't seem to be too interested in checking their MySpace; they're going for people, not infrastructure.

I always thought it'd be natural causes, don't you? I'd go quietly in my bed, after spending my last few decades lucid and walking and able to wipe myself.

All that stuff I wish I did.

Of course, I might more easily be dead if I was in college. Think about it; a densly packed mass of rich, edumacated brains.

Mum keeps folding and unfolding underwear. Somehow, I don't think clean FTLs will be of much importance.

It's getting pretty stuffy in here.

If we make it, we're leaving tomorrow. If we were heading in that direction, if the bookstore in question weren't in the centre of town, I'd suggest that we stop so I could pick up the rest of the Horatio Hornblower series. I'm not going out without finishing it, not if I can help it.

Which I can't.

Pray for m

//like a thousand miles of fire

The Zen of Jonn

2007-06-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is phallic.

This is yonic.

This is the past few years of my life.

The phallus and the womb are the symbols of male and female, respectively. They are also, in a sense, agression and reception. The philosophy of yin and yang, which also involves these archetypes, states that there is a little bit of yin in yang, and vice versa. That's why no one is completely girly or mannish.

I don't believe in binaries.

Not many of them, anyway.

In the center between the two is a neutral state. This is the aforementioned being passive, not to be confused with being receptive. Receptiveness requires actually inviting something in. Agression does something. Both require initiative.

Passivity just...lies there.

It is easier to decay than to sustain. This is the law of entropy. We know this. A system tends toward the least expenditure of energy. We know this. We have, basically, a passive universe. A null value. The space between the zero and the one.

I've spent the past few years of my life doing what other people, mostly my parents, wanted me to do. I chose graphic design as a major because it would give me an excuse to fool around in Photoshop all day. I went to COB because they said I had to. I took the art program because it was the only thing available. I switched to computers because the art program had me skirting the edge of suicide. I quit that after two semesters when an advisor informed me that I should probably go off to school.

Last November seems so very long ago.

My parents said that if I wanted to go off, I needed to apply. Alright, I made a show of searching online, all the while pursuing my usual e-habits.(more on those later) I filled out an application for two schools, then let it sit for months. I only went for my written Driver's License test when my sister did. More than two years after most of my peers. Online, I curtailed my habits, stuck mostly to snark comms, and barely touched my own artwork or mrRB. It took me weeks to finish the "why should we let you into our school" essay. I still haven't entered the "Previous Schools" section. I was just screwing my courage to the sticking place when I noticed the Internet was down.

">Dear God;

what

-Jonn

I think part of my problem is that I have no goal to work toward. I'm going to college because I have to to get a job because I need to make a living. I'm not sure where this spine seems to have come from, but I'm going to take up Animation as a minor, at least, because random people keep telling me my art style is condusive to it. (And by "random people", I mean "people who come into the store where I work and look at my sketchbook and lying half-hidden on a shelf".) That, and I'm fairly good at imitating writing styles, albeit unconciously; why not try my hand at art? Animators need to draw on-model, and I'm too honest to be an art forger. (Perhaps I should get a perpetually irate British hobo to hit me with a stick.) If my application is too late for the October term, I'll apply for the Janurary and see about taking commisions. Paypal, dA, anything. I need the money. I'm also going to practice my painter-y digital art.

If there's anything I've learned from my two decades upon this mortal coil, it's that if you can't win, change your conditions of victory. I've had nothing to live for for all these years, but I hope to see at my birthday in 2011 free, reasonably Black,and twenty-five. I'm not sure how I'll get there, but, God wot, I'm gonna to find out.

Care to watch?

//ford every stream

D:

2007-05-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Well. This is incredibly creepy.

//powered by ScribeFire.

it wasn't meant to mean no harm

2007-05-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

I am surrounded by jackasses.

I don't mean the pejorative curseword, oh no, I mean actual donkey, stubborn, stupid, and intractable. Mostly the individual I tangled with in my last entry. At one point today, he seemed eager to resume our debate, and I, despite my reluctance to weather the slings and arrows of outrageous arguments, found myself, inexplicably, exchanging verbal blows with him; a tango with a twit.

At one point, I pointed out that he was arguing ethics, while my original claim was about legality. He claimed that not only was piracy ethically right, it was morally right as well.

Me: How can you justify downloading Naruto episodes?
Him: Bcuz TECHNOLOGY!

Hantagod. He said that since the technology was there, then the business clearly needed to change. Never mind the actual people who's livelihood depends on this stuff, never mind that the technology exists to kill everyone on Earth in a matter of hours; he envisioned a bright, Utopian future where people never have to pay for anything. (Later, he called me an idealist.) In Soviet Bahamas, anime downloads you!

Quoting MacHall, I pointed out that people would be willing to steal content no matter who's involved in the distribution. He then made that stupid Hitler point again. Specifically, if you were a kid in Germany during Hitler's reign, would you think that killing Jews was right? I said yes, but pretty much the entire rest of the world said to Germany and it's allies "Hang a tic! You can't do that!" But he wasn't having any of that pesky 'earth logic', and asked me what's the difference between a revolutionary and a criminal. I asked what revolution, exactly, he was supporting by downloading Naruto. He said the businesses need to change. I brought up the issue of "creator's rights", and asked what, exactly, the businesses needed to change to. He said he didn't know.

All in all, a productive debate.

If there's anything I hate, it's people BSing themselves. The piracy itself is reprehensible, but what irritates me more is the self-righteous attitudes in the people who commit it. You are not a revolutionary, you are a criminal trampling all over the rights of the people who make and/or own the work. You are a dude who has Limewire. Businesses are made up of people; they are not faceless straw men. I've pirated myself, sure, but I don't pretend what I'm doing is blessed by the Pope himself.

I find it strange that no one I've seen who pirates realizes the potential of communism until after they've started. Fight the system by shafting the middleman and the thousands of workers in front of him!

There's another coworker, who I recently realized was a dick. He was talking with a customer about he, personally, would rather get a PS3 because the CBox 360 couldn't play High-Definition DVDs.

Me: The 360 has component cables.
Him(smiling smugly): But it can't play High Definition DVDs.
Me: Component can play up to 1080p.
Him: But it can't play High Definition DVDs.
Me: The Elite has HDMI output.
Him: But it can't play High Definition DVDs.
Me: The 360 has a HD-DVD add-on.
Him: But it can't play High Definition DVDs.

At this point I remembered there was no arguing with the insane, and backed away slowly. In hindsight, this guy pirated movies, music, and time rampantly, with no regard for the creators. He also has a habit of changing the TVs to Food Network and Lifetime. I like the Golden Girls as much as the next chap, but do the muted tones on their Florida house really show off the high contrast ration of a 42" Spectroniq LCD TV? And while you're at it, stop putting turning up the bass on the stereos. When you have a pop song—specifically the Kingdom Hearts 2 theme—playing so loud you can't even hear the lyrics? You have a problem.

It's not about you, it's about the customers. We're trying to sell stuff here. Having throbbing lows just makes people antsy. It also makes it hard to hear each other. I had to go and turn down the radio just to talk to a man I was standing two feet away from about his router. And the worst part is, you aren't even in that section of the store! Half the time you're helping the computer repairmen—including Dick#1—in the back of the store, using your recently-acquired degree that you're oh-so-proud of. And then you come back out front and complain about someone turning your music down. The frick?

And while we're at it, stop turning up the Bass on the music I bring in. It's my frakkin music, it sounds best with medium bass. And you cannot just play two types of music loudly and expect them to work. If you play "Ice Ice Baby" on one stereo and "Peaches and Cream" on another, the result is not a delicious dairy desert.

Oh, and Dick #1? The revolutionary is actually working toward a goal. He isn't just fighting to bring down something, he's fighting to rise up something. Whether it's bringing down an apathic nobility, overthrowing a dictatorship in favor of a Communist government, or trying to bring down the democratically elected government of a country so one can ship dem Negroes back to Africa, there's a clear end in mind, no matter how misguided that end may be. The revolutionary, in fine, is fighting for something.

The criminal? He's just fighting.

// but to think there's nothing wrong is a problem

Telling everybody oh just how to live their lives

2007-05-05T14:04:00.001-07:00

A kid, about 8 years old, must've weighed about a hundred pounds, comes waddling up to the display case. He all but presses his face to the glass, and stabs his chubby finger at a game. His mother asks him "what's that?"

"That," I say, "is Grand Theft Auto." I somehow resist the urge to add The last thing your son needs is sedentary activity.

The mother gave me a tired sort of smile, then herded her kids out of the store.

Earlier, I had been standing in the middle of a long line to buy tickets at the movie. I, clever boy, was buying tickets for next Monday two days in advance, thereby baffling the dude who would turn up at 4:15 on Monday asking for tickets for the 4:30 showing. Foiled again, Hypothetical Man.

Four people from the front of the line-I had even bought an old Reader's Digest to pass the time-a woman comes up to me and asks me to buy a child's ticket for "Are We Done Yet".

I blink.

"No."

She insists. I continue to say no, and point out that I don't even know her. I refrain from insulting her motives, her gall, her arrogance, and her shoes, and eventually, she just goes to the back of the line.

My question is this; when did my life become a childfree_bs story?

An argument

A debate is a series of arguments and counterarguments, given by each side, towards their position. As Monty Python reminded us, it is not the automatic gainsaying of everything your oppent says. An argument is presented in the following format.

If [premise/s], then [logic], therefore [conclusion].

If the premise and logic are sound, the conclusion is unassailable. The best way to assail a premise is to simply prove it false. The fastest way to assail logic, incidentally, is an analogy. Suppose Debater A said this;

If public is wrong, then why is it legal in some states?

Debater B analyzes the logic.

If [something] is wrong, then [something] would be against the law.

B inserts another something into the place of "public nudity".

By your implied logic, bestiality is right because it is legal in some states.

So if I come into the back room during lunch to call you out to the front for something, and I find you whining about how YouTube keeps taking down Naruto: Shippuden episodes, and I point out that they're doing so because it's, um, illegal under international law? Saying "It's not illegal" every time I try to make a point, then stating that "just because someone says something's illegal doesn't make it so", then asking me, in a sad attempt at rhetoric, if what Hitler did was illegal* does not an argument make. It just makes you a jackass.

*He also evaded my questions about what the frak does that have to do with anything. A few minutes in, I went "Waitaminute! You made a comparison to Nazis! You lose under Internet Law!"

//sliding down the information highway

2007-05-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

The illustration photo for this article bumps up the woobie level to over nine thousand.

Also; The Trouble With Tribbles in macros. NSF56K.

Don't you want to know how we keep starting fires?

2007-04-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Situation; I'm at our satellite store. It's just me and the manager, and I'm getting kinda peckish. I suggest that I get lunch for both of us, and eat it behind the door to the employee area, keeping an eye out for customers that need assistance. He agrees, and I get our food.

About two seconds after I return, the place swarms with more customers than we`ve seen all day. I have just enough time to shove one ambrosial fry in my mouth before I sally forth. I`m fairly convinced they were just waiting around the corner, ordered to delay me by a shadowy figure who speaks in terse sentences. They look around the shop for several minutes, just looking, not buying. The manager is busy explaining the difference between the store and manufacturer`s warranties to an irate Hispanic man, leaving me to hover over the interlopers like a mother hen, something screaming in my head about what this will mean. Eventually, a carefully monitored sensor, pointed at a brown paper bag, is tripped, the order is given to withdraw, their dark mission accomplished. I return to my lunch, my worst fears feeding a tightness in my chest, a tightness that knows already exactly, exactly, what has happened.

My fries have gone cold.

//It's my desire

Hey, look, I'm not angsting!

2007-03-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

http://pnutjewelry.com/usa/index.aspx
So cute. And not just because of the green-eyed cutie on the front page. I'd so get the 'plain bomb' from the Large Charms page if I had that kind of money. Or maybe the star bomb. Or the skull bomb. Or the scaredy ghost. And maybe the skull key, except I'd have to learn how to put on eyeliner and I overheat in black t-shirts. Ah, there's so much to choose from!

omg onoz

2007-03-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'm part of several LJ comms mocking drama. On one of those, someone was using an icon I made. Specifically, this one.

When I first posted it on LJ, all I asked was credit. I noticed the icon wasn't credited. Nor were any of the others there. That should've been a sign. I went to the top entry on his LJ, and gave him my usual boilerplate.

That icon you're using was made by me. Would you please add credit in the "comments" section?

Most of the time, the user is happy to. Occasionally, we get the dicks.

His response.

I found this arbitrarily on a WoW forum somewhere. It's certainly made it's rounds of the internet. You know you made it, and that's what counts. Basically what I'm saying is, no, stay the fuck out of my journal, and I don't care if you *claim* to have made this gif I'm using it anyway. It's the internet, get used to it.

Anyone else notice that the people who go "it's just the Internet" never seem to have done anything worthwhile of their own? No, wait, lemme qualify that; they never seem to have worked hard on anything creative. They're the ones commenting on posts about how an artist's work was stolen about how they would be flattered if someone stole their art. They're never the ones with art worth stealing.

Anyway, when I tried to respond

Um, by that logic, I should be able to repost everything in your journal. It's just the Internet, right?

I find that he has banned me from his LJ and deleted my comment and his response. This dovetails nicely with the last time this happened, where the user refused to let any attention not be on them. Ironic that he refuses to credit, yet has this image on his LJ. In fact, most of his posts are borrowed quotes and images. So not only is he unoriginal, he refuses to give credit. And he's a anime pirate too, how lovely.

Seriously, the best piece in his dA gallery is a generic t-shirt design. The entire gallery looks like someone without any imagination whatsoever lifted it from the C.O. Pypasta guide to Being An Intertubes Artist. Bravo, you pioneer, you.

//but it's sad and its sweet and I knew it complete

It's exactly what it looks like.

2007-02-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

//And that, children, is the end of the story of how Daddy first tried Dulcolax.

Illustration Friday- sprout

2007-02-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday- red

2007-01-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, I just reread Dune.

//do you know what you'll give

2007-01-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

I watch several drama-mocking communities on LJ. On one of those, I can't find which, there was a post in the community for some major city that's experiencing lots of snow right now, let's say...Denver. There have been several posts in the comm about complaining about said snow, and the user tnib(See how clever I am at hiding how I feel about people?) made a post complaining about all the complaints about the snow. I noticed she was using the OMG ONOZ icon I made, so I made a post on her personal LJ asking her to credit.

Read more...

mcity
Would you mind crediting me for that icon in the 'comment' field? Where'd you find it?

This is my standard approach when asking someone to credit that icon. It clearly says in my userinfo that the only compensation I ask for reuse is credit. It's basically under a Creative Commons Attributive license, though I didn't realize it until recently.

tnib
Read my user info. I do not credit for icons. I've had this one for well over a year and have no clue where I found it.

I'm not sure why she felt the need to tell me when she found it, but whatever. I toodled off to her userinfo.

The unfunny cartoon at the top gave me an inkling of what to expect. (Oh, an animated .GIF of a man beating a dead horse with 'This Topic' written on it. How droll. How very amusing.) Random photo, random photo, more random photos, photo of Tnib pretending to be a murder victim-oh, here's that actual content. I C/P'd and responded.

mcity
unless you have created the entire icon from scratch with photos you took, brushes you created et alia, you've stolen too. unless you own the copyrights to all parts of your icon (be it photos, song lyrics, or even fonts and brushes), you don't own the icon. you shouldn't even have the icon since its existence alone is breaking the copyright laws. the amount of time you've put into making an icon doesn't matter in the eyes of the law, and neither do the modifications you've made.
I made that icon from scratch, so it qualifies. The only thing I didn't do was make the font.

Somehow, I doubt that you care.

Truth be told, I was expecting some flames and vitriol, something I could really sink my time into. Except that I wouldn't. I'd just say "Good day, ma'am."(See how clever I am?) and stop responding. I've recently imposed a three-post per wank limit on myself, so that would just meet it.

tnib
No, not really.

Crap.

The relevant portions of the userinfo.

regarding stealing your work:
unless you have created the entire icon from scratch with photos you took, brushes you created et alia, you've stolen too. unless you own the copyrights to all parts of your icon (be it photos, song lyrics, or even fonts and brushes), you don't own the icon.

Fonts and brushes. Fonts and brushes. You know, those things are distributed free and often come with the programs they're used in. It's like saying the Mona Lisa wasn't Da Vinci's because he didn't actually make the pigments for the paints himself, or carve the wood and pluck the hair for the brushes, or have sex with a woman and wait a few decades until she became a pretty Italian woman with nice breasts, big hands, and a cute smile. Or Michaelangelo's David isn't his because he didn't make the hammer and chisels he used, or for that matter, hew the marble from the quarry, rough out the form, and let it sit for two and a half decades, then draw it hundreds of miles on a sledge made from wood he cut himself-from trees he planted the seeds for-to Florence from Northern Italy. It basically says that you can't claim ownership on something you made unless you made and produced the tools and materials you made it with.

I hope I don't have to point out the irony in the fact that she posted this on LiveJournal from a computer.

After reading that section originally, I began to suspect that I was dealing with a raging tnib.

regarding stealing your bandwith:
unless you're hosting the images on a server that you pay actual money for, you can't complain. not only is it mind-boggling of you to assume that something you're not paying anything for is your sole property, that assumption is also incorrect.

There's a hole in the logic, dear Liza, dear Liza. Should I start be pointing out that paying for something or not does not necessarily determine ownership?

photobucket (along with other similar providers of free hosting) have the right to terminate your account at any time for any given reason. they have power over your account, they own it.

Ooh, so close. Said image providers do own your account, they do have power over it, but one still has sole responsibility over what one does with it.

you are only borrowing their bandwith. if you are paying for your own bandwith, i understand in a way, but then again - livejournal icons are 40kb or less. even if it adds up over time, that's not going to make a huge dent in your bandwith. also, you can block your images from being picked up by the feed.

This is like saying that if one's house has been robbed, one should have had a burglar alarm. If you had one and it was bypassed, you need a better alarm. If your neighbours ignored the alarm, you should be living in a better neighbourhood.

regarding posting your images without permission:
if you don't want your images posted on the internet, don't post them on the internet.

Fallacy: Straw man. What most people don't want is anyone else posting their images online, with some exceptions. (Creative Commons, for example.) It's called 'copyright'. Funny how that whole 'legality' thing was dropped two sections back.

livejournal has provided the feed service to you, this community is only taking advantage of an already existing program. if you have a problem with the program, complain to livejournal and ask them to terminate the feed service. even then, all of your publically posted photos can be found on google and there's nothing you can do to stop that. (you could code a robot block for your page but livejournal doesn't allow javascript so you're shit out of luck.)

there are plenty of other sites around that take advantage of the livejournal feed. here's a few examples:

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/livejournal-pictures.php
"http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest-img.bml
http://www.perturb.org/lj_images.php
http://www.portalofevil.com/lj.php
http://livejournal.dougstewart.org/livejournal-images/livejournal-images.php
http://what.was.the.question.whyblog.org/lj/

your icons show up on every single one of these pages (and the others that i haven't linked, the amount of them is probably at least in the hundreds). this community functions exactly the same way as these other sites, it just filters the images that are suitable for icons (≤ 100px X 100px, ≤ 40kb). the maintainer is not going through thousands of posts a day just to pick out your less-than-pleasant-to-look-at icons. which brings me to another point: having your icon posted here doesn't mean that you're special or that your icons are exceedingly good. it just means you posted them publically and they met the criteria for an icon. i wish you'd stop thinking each of your shitty icons is like a caravaggio or (insert your favorite artist here) painting.

Wait, what?

get over it. they're fucking icons, alright?

(yes, i use stolen icons and no, i never credit.)
(Words by [info][censored] from ~~[info]iconscraper~~

Well, this is ironic. She cut-and-pasted most of the text in her profile from the profile of a community. When she was going on about how people who make icons have no grounds to ask for credit. And she credited same text. And the community she C/P'd from is deleted. Evidently, she must get asked about the icon thing a lot. I love that the icons she ganks are good enough for use, but the creator is automatically not good enough for credit, by virtue of her arbitrary and nonsensical rules that are basically an excuse for her not to give any attention to anyone. What's more, they probably get people to flame her, thus giving her more attention...

See where this is going?

The post in the Denver comm was titled 'Xposted by request'. This meant that someone had actually wanted here to repost this screed;

If you're going to complain about how OMGZ DENVER CAN'T HANDLE THE SNOW! OMGZ WHY CAN'T THEY PREPARE FOR THIS!

Quit whining.

We get snow maybe once every 3-5 years. To purchase and maintain equipment that will clear off all the city streets, side streets, and freeways would cost tax payers much more than you apparently have considered. Yes, Chicago and New York deal with the snow in a timely fashion. They get it every year for weeks/months and thus have a reason to purchase and maintain the equipment.

If you can't handle the fact that this region has a hard time with snow for a few days out of each decade, move.

"See, you'll probably get shot only once in your lifetime. Stop crying and clutching your leg. No, don't bother begging for your life. You should be grateful; there are people who get shot at all the time. Doesn't that make you feel grateful? Doesn't it?"

you have a hard time navigating or dealing with others who can't navigate on the roads, call out for the day and stay home. If you think you can't afford that, suck it up and quit bitching about it. Bitching about it just makes you look ignorant and petty.

I'm sick of everyone whining about this. It's simple to me. If I can't feasibly make it to work, I call out. Since I can make it to work (either on a crowded, slow bus or on my own two feet), I don't complain. I grabsome coffee and enjoy knowing that I will make it when I make it, and that I will be excused if I am late. No rush=no stress. I have compassion for those who ride the bus and have to walk further in the snow in order to navigate around. The most complains are coming from people who have cars and are acting pretty self-centered about the entire thing.

This expecially goes for the guy who was whining non-stop about how crowded the bus was, that SCCC better not be closed cause of an inch of snow, how stupid the city was for not being prepared, but then he only rode 3 BLOCKS on the bus instead of walking to the college. Grow up.

Yes, I am being snarky about this. I'm sick of the constant whining about this winter.

So she says that they should stop complaining about being sick of the snow because it rarely snows in Se-whoops-Denver, and they should be happy it doesn't snow more. And she's complaining that she's sick of their complaining. You should be grateful that they aren't complaining all the time. Imagine if the Denver comm was an endless font of troubles, all year, every year. You know, like the Pittsburg comm.
From the post on her journal.

Person
I'm with you..

Weather happens, and until someone figures out a way to control the weather (yeah right) then people need to just quit whining about and indeed move to a place that accommodates their preferences if they can't take the weather conditions..

me, I like the snow.. the frantic pace of life slows down a little.. that's a good thing.

Yes, that's right. Everyone who doesn't like the weather should just move out of the city entirely. That's actually what they said.

Person
Wow, that's some serious irritation. Being the devil's advocate that I am, and because I am faced with the other side of this, I want to point out a few things:

"If you can't handle the fact that this region has a hard time with snow for a few days out of each decade, move. If you have a hard time navigating or dealing with others who can't navigate on the roads, call out for the day and stay home. If you think you can't afford that, suck it up and quit bitching about it. Bitching about it just makes you look ignorant and petty."

The thing is, many companies are not so forgiving about extreme conditions, so a lot of people are out there driving in the snow because they lack a better option. I think those people are pretty justified to be irritated with the weather, the drivers, and the overall situation.

My roomate got into an accident because we didn't close the center in time, due the company being similiarly apathetic about people with cars. He was thrust into the worst of the storm. Those of us that are driving are most certainly validated to be fearful of the roads, afterall, just as you said, it's pretty rare for us to get snow and ice like this.

If I had an easy bus route in to work, hell, I'd probably take it. But when you work until 11pm (and at times to midnight if you get stuck on a call), you don't have the same options for public transportation. You have to drive. My employees complain all the time, but in my eyes, they have every right to. What other option do they really have? You can't just miss days because you don't feel like taking the risk if you want to keep your job.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get what you're saying, and I'm irritated by a lot of the same talk, but I think there's a large amount of people who are pretty justified if they want to vent and let their frustration out.

Food for thought. :)

tnib
Oh, I wasn't nearly as irritable as I sounded. I've just been pretty stressed about everything lately and it's coming through in my posts.

I am TOTALLY NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY.

I am of the mind that everyone has options.

Fascinating insight. Do go on.

I never specified if they were good for the long term or short term, but you have options. You can chose safety over a job, or learn new ways to deal with bad drivers, etc. It's all in your mind.

Call me crazy, but I and most people'd rather risk injury than lose their frakking job.

You can't just miss days because you don't feel like taking the risk if you want to keep your job.
That's just it. You have options. There are other places of employment out there. Sure, some pay less (but probably have less stress and better benefits) or pay more but is outside your normal field. It's up to us to at the very least, consider that there are choices all around us and it is our obligation to ourselves to decide to take them or not.

The reason I vented is that people seem very unaware that they all have choices.

No, that's how you interpreted it. People know they have choices, they're just complaining about hardships which are a result of their choices. You're 0-for-infinity this life, aintcha?

Sure, I could say that I have no choice but to go into work, but I do. Yes, I'll lose part of my bonus ($2 an hour extra on top of my base pay) if I call out for the day and the office was open, and if I do it too often I may lose my job, but I have that option if I feel I need to take it. I also have the option of dropping out of the employment field altogether and go to school full time. Or, I have the option of finding another job somewhere else. Options. It's up to me to decide what I want to do and how I can work towards achieving that.

Too many times, we get stuck in the "I have to do this, I have no choice" mindset. Choices are all around. It's also our perception of our choices. I can either "force myself to go into work today because it's expected of me and I have no other choice" or "I can go into work today and listen to some pretty outrageous calls which resulted in one possibly two agents being removed from the phones for customer service-related issues, made money, and actually got out of my apartment for more than the 20 minutes it takes to walk to Caffe Ladro and back". I choose to see it in the latter perspective.

I did react with irritation to the multitude of posts and conversations regarding this subject. So I'll end this rambling comment with something that Carl loves to say, combined with some of my own philosophy for the moment : "Someone else doesn't make you feel a particular emotion. You made yourself feel that particular emotion. No one forces you to feel anything, it's all about you perceive and react to an external stimulus. Change your perception and/or reaction, and you change your emotional response to a given stimulus."

Like Captain America said, "You know what I hate about the modern world? The Psychobabble.

On the post in Denver.

sycophant
see. everyone agrees. i TOLD you to post it here. TOTALLY NOT KIDDING. I WOULD NOT KID!

This is the fourth post, mind you.

Dude
It's my job to drive around, snow or no snow, so I don't have the option of staying home. Do I still get to complain about other drivers?

tnib
You always have an option. You just chose to think that you don't.

She's right, you know. He could just choose not to have a job.

Dude
Well of course I have the option, nobody owns me. However, our clients pay a premium for our service, and that includes reliability. If I don't go to work people miss planes and meetings and weddings and funerals and our reputation goes down the drain, and my job along with it.

Anyway, I'm over complaining about other drivers, nothing people do behind the wheel of a car surprises me anymore. I'm just glad I'm alive at the end of the day.

I called it!

tnib
Me too. I like your icon.

*dramatic violin screech*

Dude
Wow. The only thing dumber than complaining about something that you can't change, e.g., the weather, is complaining ABOUT people who complain too much.

In other words, you might wanna try some of that "Quit bitching" advice yourself. Don't like the talk in the community about the snow? Leave the community. :P

Or, you know, just sort of skim over the posts with the word "snow" in them. Difficult, I know, but as you oh-so-scientifically asserted, we only get snow once every 3-5 years, so it shouldn't be that big of an imposition on your obviously busy lifestyle.

WINNAR.

tnib
Wow, you took my post too seriously. Are you new here? Do you know who you're talking to? I can handle the posts. In fact, I do skim them. This was originally posted in my LJ regarding posts from my friends and had requests from local folk to post it here. It seems to be well-received. Just run along, honey. Run along.

If you hear a squeaking noise, that's just backpedalling. Pay no mind.

The rest of the thread is her pretending to be a /b/tard. And not even a good one. Everyone likes to think they're funny, but unfunny people refuse to believe they're not. The worst of those are people who randomly quote from /b/.

Later on, it's revealed that she's a psychology major. That explains a lot. She also responds to almost every post, even those clearly not directed at her.

Other Sycophant
Good post.

I does suck that the majority of whining people are over-privileged buttwipes in the first place.

Thank you for at least having a balanced, expressed opinion, something you don't see in Denver too often.

Well, it's expressed, so he's kinda right...

She posts in the post on a sporking comm(not necessarily the one I got the link from), pretending she doesn't care. Someone responds.

Another Sycophant
Hi "tnib".
I didn't read the whole thing but from what I did read I don't remember you blaming anybody for anything. I thought you were just stating the mere fact that peoples' lives are the products of the choices they've made. And, that people ALWAYS have choices. I do not understand why that pisses so many people off.

Point duly missed.

sporker
Because the word "choices" infers that there are multiple favorable outcomes for every decision someone has to make. Like, "do I eat sausages, or do I eat pancakes?"

Some people don't have as many options. The consternation is over tnib's ignorance and refusal to believe that not everyone has the same tools in their toolboxes.

tnib
I'm sorry, but I'm not making you think that the definition for choices "infers that there are multiple favorable outcomes for every decision someone has to make". That seems to be your personal definition.

Ookay, that post said absolutely nothing.

sporker
You're turning this into a semantics problem. It would seem to me that you're a moron and that you want to hide behind words and theories instead of addressing the fact that some people are inconvenienced by some things and that not everyone can decide to opt out based on the weather.

tnib
Um, no. You're pushing meaning into my words that I hadn't intended. You also missed the entire point of my post and are, instead, focusing on only a fraction of the "conversation" that occurred.

Cute how she never actually corrects her.

And tnib's response to Another Sycophant's post.

tnib
I think that people in those situations feel trapped and that there are no options. They are looking for blame. Honestly, Denver does not get enough snow on a yearly basis to warrant keeping equipment on hand every year, only to be used 1-3 days out of a year. Someone mentioned that Denver averages 7 inches of snow per year. Places on the East Coast average 115inches. No comparison.

People just don't like being told that they should point part of that finger at themselves.

"You eat that food right now, young man! There are people starving in Africa!"

I commented on the post about her profile. She commented asking if I 'still had sand in [my] vahjayjay'. I replied that she was mistaken; I had no 'hoo-ha'. She replied 'lollers'. I'm not C&Ping it because my hands hurt.

In conclusion, she's an attention-whoring, wannabe-/b/tard with a huge ego. She's like Zeriara, except she can't draw, and doesn't live in the south.

On earth as it is in heaven.

2006-12-25T12:07:00.000-08:00

The mall is a funny place at Christmas.

If you work in an electronics store, there are dozens of girls in short skirts coming in to ask where the cell phones and digital cameras are.

Give us this day our daily bread.

There in the case over by the front of the door, ma'am.

Strangely enough, most of these ladies wear very short skirts. Or maybe not so strange; this is the warmest winter I can remember. I'm sitting here in shorts and a vest.

And forgive us our trespasses,

I've been running around like a chicken with no head. My boss has been scouring every hiding place to get some people on the floor.

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

With all the girls going in and out, and knowing that one will never be caught doing otherwise, it's remarkably hard to keep one's eyes above eye level.

And lead us not into temptation...

Attention, people of Naruto-kun.com!

2006-12-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

Stop being stupid!

Seriously. I go in for some Avatar information, and I find a retard rodeo. Periods are not optional people, nor do they usually come in packs of three! And are you trying to cause seizures ith your stupid sig images?! How long does it take to copy/paste four words into Google? And why do you make the same point three times?! Sweet Christmas, is that Times New Roman in your poorly-resized sig that you ganked from dA? Why are you calling Aang 'generic' for being a twelve-year old boy? You guys can't even quote your own sig right. Wait, their are people who still think the series is Japanese? Which part of the "Michael Dante DiMarteno" and "Bryan Konietzko" at the end of the opening title that they put at the beginning of every episode of the series looked Japanese to you?! And you make a valid point, but would you please learn to spell and loose the cliched sigs? What's with putting a random anime image over some fractal and then increasing the saturation?

I need a drink.

and tend to go nowhere

2006-11-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

Girls I do adore.

The security guards at my workplace rotate, and are thus addressed collectively as "Secu". The latest in this august line is a tall, dark-skinned individual who wanted me to meet his sister. I, having recently decided to be more aggressive, accepted. Sometime the next evening, a girl showed up and asked me to buy her a cell phone.

Cue twenty minutes of me trying to avoid conflict, and her running her hands all over my body, trying to get me to spend $329 on a pink PEBL.

Needless to say, there wasn't any chemistry.

As I explained to my bemused coworker the next day, we may be living/in a material world/but I don't want material girls.

Part of my problem is that I'm to passive, to submissive*. I almost never stand up for myself, preferring to dodge conflict, confrontation**. This had stood me rather poorly in life. As mentioned last entry, I hate the state of my life.

F- commented yesterday that I need to get some-

"Assertiveness? Backbone? Balls?" I suggested.

"That last one."

*Hence the illustration.
**Apparently, I'm an Airbender. :D

//they grow right back inside

Motivation

2006-11-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

[link]
It's been an odd weekend.

My parents and I had another fight, about the low grades I'm getting. My last test in the only class I'm taking this semester got a score of 63. My parents were disappointed, and rant rant rant. I pointed out that they never listened to me. They asked what I wanted to say.

I had nothing.

I told them that I didn't know what to talk about, and they said I should talk about that. I honestly don't know where I want to go, or what to do to get there.

I know where I want to end up. There's a difference.

A few days ago, one of the ex-workers at our store came in and asked if we had FF12. I had no idea what his name was. I knew who he was, I remembered his face, he had only stopped working there two months ago, and bupkis. After he left, I went home asking myself what the heck was wrong with me. This is not an isolated occurence; people frequently come into the store that I met in COB earlier this year, and I don't even remember their faces.

I doubt it's because I'm a right-brainer. It's because I don't care. I can't bring myself to care much about anyone who isn't me. Without caring, it doesn't register.

It's also why I get no schoolwork done.

As my mother has told me several times, I need to stop coasting.

I'm smart. I know this. Yes I've spent the entirety of my life leaving what little studying or work there was to be done until the last minute. Not a winning strategy. I always promised myself I'd two it two weeks out. Then one week. Then three days. Then I'm brushing my teeth and the sight of a textbook jogs my memory.

The thing is, I haven't been able to make myself try. I haven't been able to care enough about my work to get up off my rear and get 'r done. Until recently.

I've been buildng up frustration over how little work I've been getting done, and using it to power me through said work. I get 'r done so I won't have to do it. Not healthy.

His name was Antwone.

Several years ago, my parents informed me that they wouldn't let me go off to school right after HS because I wasn't mature enough. I wonder what would've happened if I had yell, and screamed, and tried to make myself mature so I could prove them wrong.

If I had cared.

And here I find myself taking courses I hate, in a college that sucks, and dividing mytime between a mediocre job, useless schoolwork, and perpetually-unfinished art. My family doesn't have nearly enough money to get me through college, I don't know what I'd do once I'd have the degree, and I have no real friends.

What I need is to make myself care.

Maybe I should start to cook.

// to the left, to the left