All this shit over the dead celebrity is finally getting to me. I'm sick of hearing about what a tragedy it is that someone with too much money and too many opportunities decided to off themselves because they couldn't manage their dosage levels. You know what's a tragedy? NO, YOU DON'T, because your entire news world for the last week has been filled with news of some singer that will be forgotten in 10 years. Who cares? Who honestly cares? I know, I know, right now a bunch of you care. But be honest, if this woman walked by you on the street dressed like everyone else a month ago you'd probably not have recognized her. That's true for about 90% of you, maybe less for the people that took the time to actually feel more than a passing bit of sadness before getting back to crap that mattered.

And for those of you going on about how people who make fun of her death don't know what it's like? Get over it. Seriously. There are people out there in all walks of life who manage to get through their lives and demons without fucking it up that hard. Celebrities overdosing and dying is newsworthy because it's rare. It's rare because so many can actually manage to handle their addictions and occasionally get off of them. The ones who don't aren't any more saddening than the people who die in the streets and gutters from ODing on rotgut whiskey. They're less, in fact, because the guy dying forgotten on the street didn't have a giant bed and retinue of hangers-on and choice of any path in their life to go.

And those of you who blame the hangers-on, just stop it. Don't blame the enabler for the addict's choices, as you're insulting the addict. People are pushed to do thousands of things a day, many of them bad or questionable, and 90% of us manage to avoid the really bad ones regardless of the forces pushing us to and fro. We're not puppets and neither was she.

Amy Winehouse is dead. Good. Get on with giving our resources to people who actually matter, and stop pretending to give a shit about someone whom you've never even MET or spoken to. And if you insist on caring about people you've never met, open your browser to google and type " shelter" and go help those people.

Christ.

Tags: .

SIDS no longer going to be an acceptably bona fide way to explain toddler death! Check those condoms, kids, cause your "Plan C" just went out the window.

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many-deaths-no-longer-a-mystery?ft=1&f=1001

Posted here instead of Facebook cause people can track me down via Facebook.

it would be nice to enforce some sort of upgrades on people and thinking, wouldn't it.

If you operate or work in a nuclear power plant you must live within 5 miles of said plant. No more than 50% of upper management may be outside that range at any given time, and all must maintain residency by being there 70% of the year. Local inspectors on a 5 year rotation also have to live there and be employed by the NRC and only the NRC, not the company running the reactor.

Japan ran their reactors well over life limit because they were cheap, corrupt, and lazy. If not all than enough. We're doing the same thing. India does it more. Who will feel sympathy for us and them when it blows up? I'd like for us to stop thinking of individuals and families and lost homes, failing that I'd like for the people who caused it to get punished. IE The company execs, the contractors, the government, etc.

Same as Wall Street. I like how nobody but a complete idiot says the term "free market economy" and "United States" in the same sentence without "isn't", or "never was", or "probably shouldn't be", or "never could be"... or if they do they're saying it with a smile and conspiratorial wink. China does the same thing. Here, however, the government is simply a tool of the business, hello bailout. A free market economy is only free until the companies involved start tinkering with it to make sure they stay up top. The silly idea that they wouldn't bend or break every rule to prevent their own collapse is juvenile.

There is no higher power. There are no higher laws. There is no higher ethic. In nuclear power or economics or anywhere else. Just what we enforce on ourselves and each other.

What lessons are we teaching our children?

Easy to sit back and think we can't change it. Apathy is the stock and trade of our nation. It's someone else's problem. We elect people and make it their problem, and then tell them not to bring it up in front of us, just fix it. Then we demand they do it for free or we start meddling.

So how do we fix that? Define the problem, really. Break it down. What needs to be fixed and how can we fix it? Don't think about tomorrow, think of it as larger. It's a long term problem with these last two generations, how can we set up the children to be better? You know they're going to have to deal with genetic manipulation, zero privacy, increased radiation(s), expensive fuel, and the realization that plastic and the chemicals within are causing most of our cancers, defects, and shortages.

None of that is a bad thing, remind yourself. The end of the cheap lunch and hidden check can't come quickly enough. But how do we set ourselves up to take advantage of it, long term?

Idea one: Teach children that credit and credit systems are horrible horrible ideas. Accountancy from a young age and learning to live on what you can afford. Let them know and learn how little they need that's being sold to them.

Others percolate within me, but I can't put voice to them.

Thanks muchly to hornetskaya and her husband, the big stuff got moved last night! Thanks to my_window_seat, the kitchen is mostly unpacked! Yay! Hopefully I won't move for another 2 years at least. Good god I'm tired. Tomorrow and the next week are all about slowly unpacking and arranging.

This new place is bigger than I thought it'd be.

In other news kitan found a kitty and is trying to get it rehomed. The cat is FIV positive. Humans can't get FIV, but other cats can so she's keeping it separate from her kitty. Her apartment is too small to handle that for long, we've got to get this cat a home without other cats in it ASAP. It's very domesticated and box trained, it'll have all it's shots save Feline Leukemia (vet recommended no) as well as microchipping.

If you can't take her, please repost or forward this to someone who can.

Link to original post (with a picture):
http://kitan.livejournal.com/106678.html

I have more upper body strength then I conceivably should for as little as I do some times. I must be forgetting something.

But 99% of the move is done. All that's left is silverware, some plates and bowls, cat stuff, cats, and the big heavies. The bookcases were bulky but manageable.

So that leaves:
Queen mattress set
Dresser frame
Washer
Dryer
Couch
Coffee table.

I think I'll try tackling the dresser frame, maybe it too is lighter than I remember.

...
Oh hell yeah! So nevermind the dresser, then. It's moved. I'm not touching that coffee table alone, though. It's real wood and heavy as... something... heavy.

So Friday (unless someone crazy shows up) will be all about picking up the odds and ends and moving the cats. Yay, this is going well.

I'm not hearing too many "Yay"s on the Sunday day for helping me move. Are there those out there who would be more amenable to coming out to the wilds of Hurst on Saturday instead? Let me know, preferably today, and I can arrange for it. Text or call if you need immediate contact, moving the rest of the kitchen and computer room... probably clothes, today.

FYI for all coming to help with the move: I've got the keys and have begun moving small stuff. I'm off this week this afternoon, as well as Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Text or call me (if you don't have my info comment and I'll send it, comments are screened), and we can arrange it. It's not a big one day thing, no trucks needed, just a strong back or two to help get the big items down a flight of stairs, across 25 yards of grass/parking lot, and up a flight of stairs.

If people all come by Sunday I can take us all out to a thank you dinner, individuals or stragglers/what-have-you's can get individual thank you favors or beer, whichever.

Thanks again!

Go look up Doug Stanhope (the stand up comedian whose winning lines include: "We didn't get an abortion because we didn't have enough money or responsibility or maturity for a kid. I just really wanted to know what it felt like to kill a baby.") vs Alex Jones (who is saving us single-handedly from the New World Order [Wasn't Hogan in that?]) on youtube. LOOK IT UP NAO.

Take a shot whenever you hear "enemy", swig a beer whenever you hear "them" or "they", shotgun the beer when you hear "New World Order". Smoke a doob whenever Stanhope completely disarms the crazed rantings of Jones with a well-placed neo-angry-hippie quip or saying.

Okay, it's four hours later and you've woken up. Put your pants back on and post this game somewhere else before the police arrive. If you've followed the instructions we beamed to you telepathically, you came in the eyes of the little old lady who caught you stealing all the lawn gnomes from the neighbors yard quickly enough that she can't positively identify you, and you will be safe from prosecution. You bukkake with the speed of the striking cobra and the spray of the startled skunk, padawan, and you will go far in our porn army.

I am one bad trip away from being one of those conspiracy theorist guys. Watch "New World Order" from 2005 (I think) an indie documentary about those 9/11 truthers and NWO-watch dogs. They are literally what happens to your kid if you let them LARP too much, s'truth (not really, feel free to let your children run around the forest dressed as an elf, no harm will come from it...*cough*). They're the heroes of their own Choose Your Own Adventure epic novel. I almost felt myself getting sucked into their reality and believing that a group of ultra-powerful men secretly meet each year to discuss the enslavement of the human race, but then I remember that I'm not 12 anymore, the X-Files was canceled, and while a plot like that may hold up a particularly deep and moving Micheal Bay film if the CGI falls a bit short, in the real world you start to smell the copious amounts of dried and strategically placed bovine feces filling the cracks. I WISH my internal outlook of the world was that awesome and fit together that well.

I'm moving the week of the 24th in Hurst. I plan for most of the heavy lifting to be done on the 27th/28th Thursday/Friday, maybe the 29th if nobody is available until Saturday. It's from my apartment to an adjacent building, so no trucks are necessary.

The things I need help with are thus:
Queen sized mattresses
Washer/Dryer (will have an appliance dolly)
7ish-foot couch
big wooden coffee table

In exchange for your assistance I can offer pizza or some other agreed-upon delivery food and soda on site (bring beer/alcohol if you like, or request it as partial payment for your help), and can offer dinner at the end of it at someplace fancy or not-so.

If you're allergic or sensitive to cats, I have them, so fyi.

Soooo yeah.... HEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPP, please?

Buddha showed up. We put him on mood stabilizers and South Beach. You're welcome.

The only time we've ever been right is when we're admitting how wrong we've been.

(I've grown, 5 years ago it would have been "you've/you're/you've". It's largely more correct, but 'correct' and 'effective' are usually a bit exclusive of each other.)

I can't bother to put the context in where this is funny. Roll with it if you can.

Ever want to just go up to someone who's complaining about being or having been oppressed or abused and telling them that that's the best they can probably look forward to from the world? You know, just try to shatter their little fragile psyche just for the fuck of it?

I feel like saying "You're maligned, belittled, taken advantage of, prejudged, and treated as less than a person because of physical traits outside of your immediate control that have no impact on the validity of yourself or your stance? Shit, welcome to the human race, glad you could join us."

No fucking shit you get treated like shit by other people. That's LIFE. WAKE THE FUCK UP. Trust me, nobody is ready to hand you flowers and candy and then suddenly deciding not to because you have a vagina or your skin is a certain shade. Okay, well that's a lie, there are those people, but you know what, they'd deny you those trinkets for any convenient reason! They're fuckheads! That's what fuckheads do! Take a deep breath, realize they're fuckheads, and structure your next few minutes accordingly. People shoot each other daily over things their imaginary friend said in a mistranslation of a collection of short stories that stopped being relevant when 99% of the human race realized shitting in our own food bowl is not a perfectly valid way to live, so do you really fucking think it matters the bullshit reasoning someone will use when denying you a job or a raise or a vote? No. If it wasn't that they'd be coming up with shit about how your hair is too straight to be natural.

Okay, fine, you like the battle. You think you can redeem humanity by shouting loudly enough, good for you I hope you don't lose that little ray of hopeless sunshiny hope, etc. etc. etc. But stop getting in MY face because I'm not getting enraged or engaged with you. It's not my fight, I don't have to fight it. I listen to you because you're interesting and I argue with you because I (personally) am a contrary asshole who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. I will continue to do so and I will continue to poke holes in your arguments because really, I think you're trying to build a sandbag wall to keep the flooding river out of your houseboat. You built the house there, or you were born there. Luck or stupidity or both put you there, and you're going to stubbornly keep trying to win at a battle you may not really have to fight.

---

Oh yeah Happy New Year.