I'm also really proud of myself for learning how to use the strikethrough style. That's one I have to go into the "Edit Html" button for.
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Easter candy is out now.
And because I am such a bitter, resentful ex-wife loving & fun mommy, I am letting the girls gnaw on some marshmallow bunnies & eggs this afternoon. It will only be a mild sugar rush, and probably actually wear off before Rob & his parents come to pick up the girls for the weekend.
I'm also really proud of myself for learning how to use the strikethrough style. That's one I have to go into the "Edit Html" button for.
I'm also really proud of myself for learning how to use the strikethrough style. That's one I have to go into the "Edit Html" button for.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
In the interests of posting more often...
I shall present here the results of various internet quizzes. Because I need an excuse not to go to sleep yet.
(Why yes, yes I am bored.)
***
(Why yes, yes I am bored.)
Your result for The RPG Class Test...
Smart Paladin
74% Combativeness, 23% Sneakiness, 76% Intellect, 56% Spirituality
Valorous! Noble! Or possibly just a self-righteous jerk (but with the brains to keep you alive!)... You are a Smart Paladin!
Paladins are holy warriors. They are valorous defenders of the light. Unfortunately, most of them are so ardent in their defense they tend to meet sticky ends faster than you can say "rampaging red dragon." Many people look up to Paladins, while others just consider them stuck up, overbearing, or self-righteous.
Fortunately for you, unlike most Paladins, you're pretty smart. Which means that you're more likely to fall into the "admired" category, rather than the "obnoxious" or "dead" categories.
Much like the crusades, you manage to combine violence and religion, though unlike the crusades, you add a healthy does of intelligence. You may be a staunch defender of the faith, a valorous champion of the weak, or the stuff that jihads are made of. Which ever one you are, just be happy that you've got the smarts to back it up and make it work.
Paladins are holy warriors. They are valorous defenders of the light. Unfortunately, most of them are so ardent in their defense they tend to meet sticky ends faster than you can say "rampaging red dragon." Many people look up to Paladins, while others just consider them stuck up, overbearing, or self-righteous.
Fortunately for you, unlike most Paladins, you're pretty smart. Which means that you're more likely to fall into the "admired" category, rather than the "obnoxious" or "dead" categories.
Much like the crusades, you manage to combine violence and religion, though unlike the crusades, you add a healthy does of intelligence. You may be a staunch defender of the faith, a valorous champion of the weak, or the stuff that jihads are made of. Which ever one you are, just be happy that you've got the smarts to back it up and make it work.
Take The RPG Class Test at HelloQuizzy
***
Your result for The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test...
The Monk
You scored 16% Cardinal, 72% Monk, 38% Lady, and 35% Knight!
You live a peaceful, quiet life. Very little danger comes your way and you live a long time. You are wise and modest, but also stagnant. You have little comfort, little food and have taken a vow of silence. But who needs chatter when just sitting in the cloister of your abbey with The Good Book makes you perfectly content.
Take The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test at HelloQuizzy
This is probably the only quiz on the site written by a conservative:
Your result for The What Kind of Girl are You Test...
PERFECTION!!!!!!!!!
You scored 71 looks, 82 personality, 80 politics, and 78 sex drive!
You are beautiful, have a great personality, know youre politics, and have a high sex drive. You are the girl of any man's dreams. You know what you are doing in bed, you're fairly conservative, and you know how to treat your loved one. Men have been waiting for a girl like you all their lives. You probably know how to make sure that the ones you love are happy. You will make someone a great wife or girlfriend someday, if you haven't already. You're the kind of girl that everyone wants. You're probably fun in a conversation and I'm sure that you are as loveable as you are beautiful. You have a wonderful life ahead of you, make sure you live it to the fullest, and keep being the person that you seem to be.
Don't Forget to Take My Other 2 Tests
The Music (Rock That Is) Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=8460139144648302003
The One Question Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=10194224782000446693
Take The What Kind of Girl are You Test at HelloQuizzy
***
Your result for The Kinkyness Test...
Kinky bastard!
Grats! You're 80% kinky!
Well well well, you kinky bastard! Most likely you're into some weird shit, which is always great. Consider mailing the author of this test, and keep up the good work ;)
Take The Kinkyness Test at HelloQuizzy
And at that, I shall quit boring everyone, & take myself off to bed.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Dumb & Dumber, Navy Edition
I lived through two uniform generations as a Navy wife, the old dungarees (for a few months; they're the old-fashioned blue shirt, blue bellbottom pants) and then the "No, really, I'm not a janitor" utilities. That one switch left me convinced the Navy is on a steep downhill slope in regards to uniforms. The utilities were both more expensive and flimsier than the dungarees; the ex blew out the crotch in his first three pairs under a month. And, of course, there was the issue that they lacked the distinctive Navy look, instead making the men look like civilians with particularly menial, low-paying jobs.
That said, I'm damned glad to not have to deal with the next gen o' uniforms.
Let's see if we can pick out which is worse. First contender, the new Naval Working Uniform:
Because, of course, the Navy has to steal everyone else's idea of wearing BDUs, but call 'em NWUs, 'cause of course it's so different.
I wonder if someone, somewhere, during the process of deciding upon this uniform ever said "You know, camouflage is supposed to make people less noticeable. I'm not entirely certain this blue camo is really the proper choice for men clambering all over haze gray ships."
Or, to put it another way, I'll quote DukeRulz over at No Slack, Fast Attack:
"And, again, I must ask, camouflage? What are you hiding from at sea? Does it have a blaze orange interior for those man overboard evolutions?"
For a while there, all men standing topside watches while in port (at least on the USS Boise, though I was given the impression this was a Squadron Six-wide thing) were authorized the old-school dark green camo for their duty days. Rob loved that shit. The BDUs were apparently comfortable, durable...and you could wear them off-base.
Not so these. I think the only thing that kept hope about the new uniform alive the last few months Rob was in the Navy was the thought the men would be able to wear these out on town. On the contrary, apparently not only can you not, you're not even authorized the "one brief stop" on your way to/from work. (I predict great suffering for the 7-11 closest to NOB Norfolk.)
That, and they look like something the Air Force turned down as too gay.
But wait! There's more! I have truly saved the best for last.
When I first saw that, I thought "Hmm, he's damn fine." And then I thought, "Wow, nice new chief uniform."
But no. No, that's not what that is. That is the new ServiceUniform. For E-6 and below.
Most people who read this blog are probably pretty clueless. Brief explanation: E-6 & below--blueshirts--have up until now worn dungarees/utilities as the norm, with either dress blues or whites when they needed to scrub up. The term "blueshirt" really tells you all you need to know. E-7s & up--Chiefs--got to trade in their blue for khaki. No matter where they went, if they weren't in a poopy suit, they were in khaki. (Officers too, of course.)
You made chief, it meant something. And that was symbolized by that khaki uniform. I'll steal a quote from the Navy Times's article on the issue, 'cause I can't possibly put it any better: “But now what do you have to look forward to? Buying a set of khaki pants?” Seriously, y'all.
For the record, Rob never rose above E-5. And not a particularly promising E-5, if you know what I mean. But still. I showed him the NSFA post & he had pretty much the same visceral reaction to this.
Now, I'll be fair. Both uniforms do offer some slight advantage to their forebears. The new NWUs are significantly less ugly then the utilities. And hopefully will prove to be sturdier. The new ServiceUniform does simplify the issue of dress blues/whites. It's cheaper & will obviate the issue of what to wear when. Of course, not only does that step all over the toes of the chiefs/officers, but it takes away yet another piece of Navy tradition. There aren't a whole hell of a lot of sailors in San Antonio, but they're instantly recognizable because of their uniforms. Now, at best, they're gonna look like a slightly confused Marine recruiter. (Seriously. Picture those pants blue with red piping.)
Sigh. Damn glad I don't have to deal with that anymore.
That said, I'm damned glad to not have to deal with the next gen o' uniforms.
Let's see if we can pick out which is worse. First contender, the new Naval Working Uniform:
Because, of course, the Navy has to steal everyone else's idea of wearing BDUs, but call 'em NWUs, 'cause of course it's so different.
I wonder if someone, somewhere, during the process of deciding upon this uniform ever said "You know, camouflage is supposed to make people less noticeable. I'm not entirely certain this blue camo is really the proper choice for men clambering all over haze gray ships."
Or, to put it another way, I'll quote DukeRulz over at No Slack, Fast Attack:
"And, again, I must ask, camouflage? What are you hiding from at sea? Does it have a blaze orange interior for those man overboard evolutions?"
For a while there, all men standing topside watches while in port (at least on the USS Boise, though I was given the impression this was a Squadron Six-wide thing) were authorized the old-school dark green camo for their duty days. Rob loved that shit. The BDUs were apparently comfortable, durable...and you could wear them off-base.
Not so these. I think the only thing that kept hope about the new uniform alive the last few months Rob was in the Navy was the thought the men would be able to wear these out on town. On the contrary, apparently not only can you not, you're not even authorized the "one brief stop" on your way to/from work. (I predict great suffering for the 7-11 closest to NOB Norfolk.)
That, and they look like something the Air Force turned down as too gay.
But wait! There's more! I have truly saved the best for last.
When I first saw that, I thought "Hmm, he's damn fine." And then I thought, "Wow, nice new chief uniform."
But no. No, that's not what that is. That is the new ServiceUniform. For E-6 and below.
Most people who read this blog are probably pretty clueless. Brief explanation: E-6 & below--blueshirts--have up until now worn dungarees/utilities as the norm, with either dress blues or whites when they needed to scrub up. The term "blueshirt" really tells you all you need to know. E-7s & up--Chiefs--got to trade in their blue for khaki. No matter where they went, if they weren't in a poopy suit, they were in khaki. (Officers too, of course.)
You made chief, it meant something. And that was symbolized by that khaki uniform. I'll steal a quote from the Navy Times's article on the issue, 'cause I can't possibly put it any better: “But now what do you have to look forward to? Buying a set of khaki pants?” Seriously, y'all.
For the record, Rob never rose above E-5. And not a particularly promising E-5, if you know what I mean. But still. I showed him the NSFA post & he had pretty much the same visceral reaction to this.
Now, I'll be fair. Both uniforms do offer some slight advantage to their forebears. The new NWUs are significantly less ugly then the utilities. And hopefully will prove to be sturdier. The new ServiceUniform does simplify the issue of dress blues/whites. It's cheaper & will obviate the issue of what to wear when. Of course, not only does that step all over the toes of the chiefs/officers, but it takes away yet another piece of Navy tradition. There aren't a whole hell of a lot of sailors in San Antonio, but they're instantly recognizable because of their uniforms. Now, at best, they're gonna look like a slightly confused Marine recruiter. (Seriously. Picture those pants blue with red piping.)
Sigh. Damn glad I don't have to deal with that anymore.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Something doesn't add up.
I almost never post about celebrities, 'cause I really don't give a damn, but in spite of having only a tiny clue who they are I'm going to post a wee bit about the whole Chris Brown/Rihanna thing because it is merely a small, public part of a huge problem.
The brief synopsis for those who might be even more firmly under their rocks is this: The night before the Grammy Awards, after leaving a before-event party during which they were seen acting upset with one another, Chris Brown "allegedly" beat the living daylights out of Rihanna. Which is to say, a woman matching her description, with injuries apparently requiring medical attention, identified Chris Brown as her attacker, and the next day he turned himself in instead of performing on TV (she, for fairly obvious reasons, also missed her performance).
We are left with a larger-than-these-two issue. Domestic violence. They're not married but have apparently been dating for a couple of years now. I am certain there are factors here which don't affect a lot of the poor white trash who are typically on the DV scene, but let's be honest with ourselves: it's much the same. You have a man with a sense of entitlement, and one of the things he thinks he's entitled to is his woman, and she must act exactly the way he wants her to, or she deserves to have the shit whacked out of her. She brings it all on herself, you know?
We're all well aware of the issues there.
Here's what sickens me, and the part I didn't really know about before, having always been friends with the victim rather than the villain. There are a lot of people making excuses for this pile of human excrement, and saying or at least implying that it is incumbent upon Rihanna to forgive him.
I happen to have read the issue of People magazine which discusses the issue. Chris Brown is a great boy, donchaknow? He's never ever ever done anything like this before. All his hometown friends have a hard time believing it was him, 'cause after all he watched his stepdaddy beat on his mama and there is no such thing as the cycle of violence. This has to be a one-time only thing, and we all need to leave Chris Brown and Rihanna alone so they can work through their problems on their own.
The hell! No, no, no, they should most certainly not be left alone. Let's send Rihanna off with Tina Turner for a weekend (or at least a copy of La Turner's autobiography) and Chris Brown off with Anthony Geisler. I pray that woman surrounds herself with real friends, and that anyone who tells her to make nice is promptly thrown out of the room and barred reentry. The time for Christian forgiveness can come later. Sometime after the trial.
I can hope this is a one-off thing for him. That he just snapped and he has never done it before and will never do it again. That the first time he hit her, Rihanna did exactly the right thing by calling the police, having her injuries documented, and naming her abuser. Anyone who has a passing familiarity with relationship violence will know to doubt this, however.
I don't generally think that we should hold celebrities to be any sort of role models, but in this case I will make an exception. Only because the sort of people who typically find themselves on the receiving end of this sort of thing are typically interested in their favorite celebrities & Rihanna is a pop singer (I have no idea what Chris Brown does, other than he sings too. I think.) so they'll know about her. Maybe, just maybe if she stays strong & smart and follows this thing through to its rightful conclusion--asshole in jail--some other girl out there will have the ovaries to follow through in her own situation.
The brief synopsis for those who might be even more firmly under their rocks is this: The night before the Grammy Awards, after leaving a before-event party during which they were seen acting upset with one another, Chris Brown "allegedly" beat the living daylights out of Rihanna. Which is to say, a woman matching her description, with injuries apparently requiring medical attention, identified Chris Brown as her attacker, and the next day he turned himself in instead of performing on TV (she, for fairly obvious reasons, also missed her performance).
We are left with a larger-than-these-two issue. Domestic violence. They're not married but have apparently been dating for a couple of years now. I am certain there are factors here which don't affect a lot of the poor white trash who are typically on the DV scene, but let's be honest with ourselves: it's much the same. You have a man with a sense of entitlement, and one of the things he thinks he's entitled to is his woman, and she must act exactly the way he wants her to, or she deserves to have the shit whacked out of her. She brings it all on herself, you know?
We're all well aware of the issues there.
Here's what sickens me, and the part I didn't really know about before, having always been friends with the victim rather than the villain. There are a lot of people making excuses for this pile of human excrement, and saying or at least implying that it is incumbent upon Rihanna to forgive him.
I happen to have read the issue of People magazine which discusses the issue. Chris Brown is a great boy, donchaknow? He's never ever ever done anything like this before. All his hometown friends have a hard time believing it was him, 'cause after all he watched his stepdaddy beat on his mama and there is no such thing as the cycle of violence. This has to be a one-time only thing, and we all need to leave Chris Brown and Rihanna alone so they can work through their problems on their own.
The hell! No, no, no, they should most certainly not be left alone. Let's send Rihanna off with Tina Turner for a weekend (or at least a copy of La Turner's autobiography) and Chris Brown off with Anthony Geisler. I pray that woman surrounds herself with real friends, and that anyone who tells her to make nice is promptly thrown out of the room and barred reentry. The time for Christian forgiveness can come later. Sometime after the trial.
I can hope this is a one-off thing for him. That he just snapped and he has never done it before and will never do it again. That the first time he hit her, Rihanna did exactly the right thing by calling the police, having her injuries documented, and naming her abuser. Anyone who has a passing familiarity with relationship violence will know to doubt this, however.
I don't generally think that we should hold celebrities to be any sort of role models, but in this case I will make an exception. Only because the sort of people who typically find themselves on the receiving end of this sort of thing are typically interested in their favorite celebrities & Rihanna is a pop singer (I have no idea what Chris Brown does, other than he sings too. I think.) so they'll know about her. Maybe, just maybe if she stays strong & smart and follows this thing through to its rightful conclusion--asshole in jail--some other girl out there will have the ovaries to follow through in her own situation.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Straw Man (Mildly NSFW)
I've been mulling over this post for a while. It's more one for the girls than the guys, so let the adorable baby above be your warning.
Some time ago, I got in trouble on MySpace for a picture similar to this one:
It wasn't this one exactly. The one it was is on another, nonfunctioning computer, so I cannot use it as my example. Anyway, the MySpace breastfeeding controversy was the forerunner of the Facebook breastfeeding controversy.
I find Facebook's issues with nursing especially amusing since this is my Facebook profile picture:
Yes, the first picture of me shows more breast, but really, not by much. And yet it's the first one that is considered improper for public gatherings.
The Facebook controversy has exposed, again, one of American society's dirty little secrets. We don't get breastfeeding. Especially not if-gasp-the woman has the nerve to nurse in public. Especially if it's, like, at the dinner table. Where people are eating. Because, gosh, we just can't go around feeding babies at the dinner table when everyone else is eating.
This "controversy" comes up, and I hear the same tropes from the anti-nursing crowd. We support breastfeeding, they say, just do it discreetly. You can't go around whipping a boob out. You could traumatize a small child. You might even give a boy the impression that breasts are used to feed babies. And we can't have that, can we?
Know what my favorite argument is? "Sure, breastfeeding is natural. But so is going to the bathroom, and we don't do that in public."
I shouldn't even address this. I shouldn't even have to address this. The people who make this argument should be patted on the head and sent off to mop the floors, because that's about all their cognitive powers are good for. But I keep hearing this, and so I am going to address this.
Breastfeeding is not analogous to urinating. Duh. It is FEEDING A BABY. The ONLY thing it is analogous to is--wait for it--EATING. To compare it to anything else is a straw man argument, and a particularly poor one, at that.
If you can tell me--honestly tell me--that you do not want to see any babies at all being fed in public, then I will support you in stopping breastfeeding in public.
If it is the exposed breasts/implied sexuality that offend you, then I expect to see you no longer buy Cosmo or Maxim. I expect you to actively boycott any mall with a Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc. I expect you to never again play World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, or even the Sims (any version, given the ability to install nudity hacks). I expect a heated letter-writing campaign any time a local TV news anchor wears a low-cut top.
Let's be consistent here, folks.
Breastfeeding is not sexual. The key word here is not breast, but feeding. That's another argument I've heard. "I don't want to have to explain to my child what you're doing." The heck is there to explain? "She's feeding her baby." I had to explain to my children a couple of weeks ago what was going on when a woman on the bus prepared a bottle of formula. Somehow we all survived the trauma. (For the record, although my kids have sometimes witnessed bottlefeeding, this was the first time they'd ever seen a bottle prepared. They had no idea what was going on.)
So, breastfeeding offends you. And? Formula feeding offends me when it's unnecessary (and let's be honest, most of the time it is unnecessary). We have no protection against offense.
And if you feel sympathy for the offended, just remember...something you do probably offends them too, whether it be your SUV, your gun, or your cross. It's not a game I, for one, care to play.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
The Hero Factory
Builder Here. (Turn off the music.)
I'm really just killing time online instead of looking for my keys. You would think I had a really great time Friday night, as I stumbled into the house around one a.m. and promptly lost my keys, but not really.
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