Who writes this shite, and how do I manage to keep running into it in spite of my best efforts?

For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.

Pardon me while I puke on my fuzzy pink bear feet slippers. What kind of goddamned fool would “act” weak? Okay, so maybe if you didn’t want to change a tire on the side of the road ’cause you were wearing a nice white suit and some guy who didn’t look too creepy stopped, but that’s just practical. Hell, if I was wearing jeans, I’d stop and change a tire for some guy who was obviously dressed up. C’mon…act weak? Why??? As for the second part of this idiocy, who the hell thinks that guys aren’t vulnerable? Last time I checked, they were just as much Homo sapiens sapiens as women, and there are certain characteristics common to the whole of the species. That’d be one of them, dumbasses; we all have tear ducts, and not only to rinse dust out of our eyes.

For every boy who is burdened with the constant expectation of knowing everything, there is a girl tired of people not trusting her intelligence.

Hello? What the fuck is this–1932? Nobody thinks guys know everything and nobody expects that they will. Nobody thinks that girls are stupid, or at least not exclusively. Stupidity is as common to both genders as any other shared characteristic.

For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weep.

Jesus wept (and he was a guy!) Some women are called “over-sensitive” because…wait for it…they are over-sensitive! They’re the ones who somehow manage to claim PMS three and a half weeks out of every month, burst into tears if he doesn’t notice a new hairstyle, and sneak into his email and mobile call records to check for unfamiliar women’s names. OMG–he looked at that woman’s boobs! He doesn’t love me! WAAAHHHHH! Well, FFS, what did you expect him to do? If he’s heterosexual and still drawing breath, he’s as biologically programmed to look at women as you are to be attracted to that cute little “extra helpful” bag boy at Kroger. Unless he’s chasing her down the street with a taser in his hand, chances are pretty good that he’s just looking (and you do it, too–don’t lie!) The rest of us are pretty normal, so guys just need to stay away from the fucking crazies and they”ll be fine. Think you can’t move a man to tears? HAH! Throw out his favourite ragged T-shirt and the boxers with the worn-out elastic waistband, then hunt down his stash of “treasures” in the basement and give the lot to the Salvation Army. If that doesn’t work, put dead batteries in the remote and ask him, “Do these jeans make my arse look fat?” That’ll do it.

For every boy for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl who is called unfeminine when she competes.

What? Jesus, drag this tired old thing out again, why dontcha? It’s okay for women to compete–we even let them in political office and the Olympics now! Anyway, women have always competed; just ask any two who simultaneously saw the hawt guy with a great car and money falling out of his pockets. They’ll be easy to find because they’ll be the ones clawing one another’s fucking eyes out in the parking lot.

For every girl who throws out her E-Z-Bake oven, there is a boy who wishes to find one.

Flaming fuck on a cracker. For how many years have chefs existed? Well, I know that Henry VIII had more than a few, and he died in 1547. Pirate ships certainly didn’t have chefs, but they didn’t have women, either (at least not unless they were women pretending to be young men), so somebody had to be feeding them. There’s a reason that “Cook” and “Koch” are surnames in a traditionally patriarchal society. Historically, the vast majority of chefs have been…men. Guys can cook and they always could, and past 1950-something, no one gave a rat’s arse about it. Some like to cook, some don’t. Some are good at it, some will at least manage not to poison the guests, and some shouldn’t be allowed near a kitchen. Same as women.

For every boy struggling not to let advertising dictate his desires, there is a girl facing the ad industry’s attacks on her self-esteem.

FFS. Here’s a thought…turn off the TV, don’t listen to conventional radio, don’t read magazine or newspaper advertisements, use FF and AB+ online, and when you drive, watch the road, not the billboards. There–problem solved. As for the ladies, those with half a brain don’t pay attention to “attacks” on their self-esteem because they know that advertising is (surprise!) not real. It’s designed to sell product, and works on carefully researched psychological principles that will convince many people, both men and women, to buy stuff they don’t even need. That’s what it is by its very definition…it’s supposed to make you think your life will be better with (insert product). It has absolutely nothing to do with real self-esteem, and if you’re weak enough to believe that you need “stuff” to make yourself a decent person, or to be important/popular, then your credit card balance deserves everything you get, regardless of your gender.

For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation, there is a boy who finds the way to freedom a little easier.

Jesus. Hand me that trash basket, please, because I’m gonna puke for sure. I spent much of my young life in a household with only my father and brother. Aside from my grandparents, all of my babysitters were teenage guys, or uncles (and one aunt, but she just let us run wild anyway). I’ve worked nearly all of my life in some of the most heavily male-dominated fields in existence, and haven’t had a problem. I know the “man’s world”. I had one job that was traditionally for women, and even then, I avoided the harpies and hung out with the two guys who did work there. Sure, I’ve encountered a couple of dicks here and there, but you get that anywhere. For the most part, if you don’t walk in with an attitude, you do your goddamned job and do it well, have a sense of humour and set boundaries, you’ll be just fine. Cultivate the, “Okay…that’s far enough” look and use it when a guy goes over the line. They’ll learn your limits, but they can’t read your mind. If you can’t do that, then you’re not liberated anyway. Nobody’s going to liberate you…you’ve got to do it yourself, not cop a ‘tude. If a guy opens a door for you, don’t freak the fuck out on him; he doesn’t think you can’t do it, he’s trying to be nice. Okay, be nice and maybe get your phone number. If you aren’t getting paid what you believe you’re worth (assuming you really are worth it), then ask for a raise based on your job performance, not on your gender or on some perceived discrimination. If your boss is an arsehole who truly does sexually harass you, sue the fucker, but “Hey, did you get your hair cut? Looks good!” is not sexual harassment. It’s called a compliment, and the correct response is, “Thanks!” The bigger deal you make about gender, the more like a bitchy ballcrusher you seem because…you’re being one. Stop trying so hard to create vast differences where none need exist. We’re different, yes, but not in “Venus and Mars” territory by a long shot. Find common ground. Person first, woman second, and nobody owes you a goddamned thing.

Fucking politically correct crap. EABOD.

P.S. That cartoon looks like a transvestite Hitler.

mplayer -really-quiet url http://www.wxryfm.org:8000/

No GUI, kill to stop.

I’ve always loved the way the window focus (in Gnome, at least–don’t remember KDE) seemed to “kinda follow” the mouse pointer. It doesn’t change window focus, but if I mouse over to another window to do something, I don’t have to click once to get focus, and then again to do whatever it was that I wanted to do; I just charge around the screen and click to do whatever, wherever I happen to be. I’m mostly a keyboard person, but if I’m reading something, leaned back in my chair with my feet up on the printer cabinet, I’m not going to sit up to use the keyboard. Windows drove me batshit because there was so much extra clicking–I’d stop reading, mouse over to the other screen, click a song in iTunes, go back to reading and…nothing, because my click only changed window focus. Click-click-click-click…grrrr! Eventually, I “tweaked” Windows for something called “focus follows mouse,” which sounded sort of like what I wanted, and seemed to be my only option. Well, that drove me batshit, too, because the windows kept switching focus as I moved the mouse, even when I’d just moved it out of the way to read something. It was hell trying to end up typing in the right MSN window. It wasn’t long before I put it back to normal because it pissed me off. Not what I wanted at all. I didn’t know what I wanted except, “the way Linux does it,” but it turns out that it has a name after all. Not a nice name, mind you, but it’s a name. It’s called…sloppy focus. Sounds like something you might pick up in a bar after last call, but by Jesus, it makes my life easier, and especially with dual screens. Sloppy focus. Who knew? 😆

If you don’t know the difference between “then” and “than”, I’m going to stop reading as soon as you use the wrong one. I don’t care if you wrote the modern incarnation of The Brothers Karamazov, I don’t care whether it’s otherwise interesting or enjoyable to read, and I don’t care if you help little old ladies across the street and volunteer at a soup kitchen three times a month. The instant I see “then” where it ought to read, “than”, I’m finished reading.  If you don’t know the difference, you obviously don’t read, and if you don’t read, then I won’t, either. Specifically, I won’t read what you have written.

Than – This is for a comparison. “My grammar is better than yours.” If you are making a comparison, it’s never, ever then!

Then – Indicates a period of time, or a consequence. “I was young and naïve then, and I believed there was hope for the future of literate humanity.” (period of time) “If you don’t have good command of the language, then I’m not going to read what you write.” (consequence)

I was actually fussing with sounds yesterday because I’d finally set up my voice mail (under duress–I don’t like voice mail), and didn’t like the notification sound. Turns out that the only options for the sound are “on” or “off”, but since I was in there anyway, I changed the sound for new text because the default sounds too much like one of the sounds in the aMSN theme I use on my laptop and if the laptop is on, I don’t know which it was, and I also checked to see whether I could change the sound for new email, which is kind of “meh”. Then, it occurred to me that I get notifications for new texts and (as of yesterday) voice mail, but I didn’t get notifications for new email. It doesn’t make much sense to have a sound for new mail if I’m right there, holding the phone to check, so I was going to shut it off, but decided instead to investigate why I wasn’t automatically getting new messages. I had push enabled, but I’d left the fetch option at the default of “manual”, primarily because it didn’t seem like something that I needed to change. I knew what it was, but didn’t see why I’d need to change it.

I poked “Advanced” just to see what was in there. Lo and behold, there would be the reason I wasn’t getting notified…email doesn’t support push, so it was using my chosen option for fetch…manual. In the words of Adam Savage, “Well, there’s yer problem!” 🙂

I changed fetch to every half hour. If that doesn’t seem too hard on the battery, I’ll bump it up to every fifteen minutes, and if it does drain the battery too quickly, then I’ll bring it back to every hour. Interesting that my new favourite toy is an iPhone, since the phone bit of it is the least of my interest. I answer it, of course, but P. made a very good choice in getting a smartphone–especially an iPhone–because were it not for SMS, IM, email, browser (blogging and Flickr-ing) iPod, games and doing fun stuff with photos, and for the increased file access and ability to customise after having jailbroken it, I’d hate hauling a mobile around just as much as I hated it ten years ago. Man dear Jesus, I hated my phone back then; it seemed like every time it rang, it was a call I didn’t want. Work, calling me to come in for a shift when I was either asleep or had plans to do something fun, or (after I went to KS), someone calling half an hour before start time to tell me that (s)he couldn’t make it in for a shift so I’d have to find somebody else in a big hurry, or some family member, calling to ask me to do something I didn’t want to do. I hated the interruption, but I don’t mind this so much. V. used to call to ask me to do (something I didn’t want to do), but now, he’ll just text, which somehow seems less annoying and invasive. When I get texts, email or an IM, it’s as likely to be something I want to read as it is to be something I don’t. Maybe I’ll just never give the number to anyone who annoys me, or at least nobody else who annoys me, since a few already have it. I don’t think I even mind voice mail as much as I hate it on our VOIP line. On the VOIP, when there’s voice mail, it makes the dial tone beep when I pick up the phone to make a call (I could cheerfully throw the phone across the fucking room!), and in order to retrieve it, I have to remember the code, which for reasons I don’t understand (I don’t mind computer passwords at all), annoys the hell out of me, and then play back in the sequence that the calls were received. The iPhone’s voice mail does ask for a password, but it just doesn’t irritate me so much, and I have a visual list, so I can play back whichever I choose, in whatever order I choose, or look at the list and ignore them all, plus I can stick it on speaker if I want. I still don’t like voice mail, but I’m okay with it, especially since I can just ignore certain (football/basketball/NASCAR) calls (football/basketball/NASCAR) and let (football/basketball/NASCAR) them leave (football/basketball/NASCAR) messages. Heh

Damn…just noticed that my numeric battery isn’t on. Stupid AT&T made me reboot my phone three times yesterday so they could tell me, “There’s an outage in your area. That’s why your voice mail isn’t working,” so that’s probably what messed it up. Meh…I think it’s Boss Prefs that does that; I’ll have to fix it.

I wonder whether I’d be accurate enough with a pellet gun to take out the wires on an entire neighbourhood’s worth of cheap-ass wind chimes. Why the hell does everyone have those goddamned things hanging off the front porch? They can’t hear them inside their houses, and the only time they go outside is either to shout into their cellphones, or to drink and talk too loud long into the night when their idiotic, guffawing friends come over. The only one who has to put up with them is me, every goddamned time I step outside the door, and in spring, when I have the windows open in hopes of getting some non-recycled air. Well, the kids that actually go outside and play hear them, but that’s their own crotchfruit, so who cares?

Fuckin’ wind chimes. I hate wind chimes. Wind chimes don’t make you anybody special…you’re still low-rent white trash. It’s how you were born, and you’ll be that until you die.

After I’d missed two calls (one long distance and semi-important) on Saturday because it was windy and I didn’t hear the first couple of rings, then couldn’t get the goddamned phone out of my pocket fast enough (more to the point, couldn’t remember which pocket it was in amongst the nineteen layers of clothing I was wearing out there in the woods), I finally broke down and got a case. There are hundreds of cases for the iPhone in all sorts of styles, but the vast majority are protective plastic/rubber/metal, and that wasn’t what I wanted. I have already a pretty (I think it’s pretty) Gelaskin to protect the back, and a screen protector on the front, which, incidentally, did its job well because it has one big scratch and a few smaller ones on it already. The case had to be leather, not big or clumsy looking, oriented sideways so I can put it back or front and still bend without getting poked in the ribs, easily accessible with a Velcro closure (snaps put on too much localised pressure and magnets aren’t reliable, and I don’t want to have to search the woods for my phone because I happened to bend over), and it had to have a sturdy, low-profile belt clip that wouldn’t stick out so far as to get in my way (don’t always wear a belt, so loops are impractical). I’d found one that I liked online, and it wasn’t expensive at all ($25), but being a good citizen, I do try to by stuff locally if it’s reasonably priced. Usually, it’s not–for fish supplies, it’s often twice the online price even adjusting for shipping charges–but this time, I got lucky (no, not that kind of “lucky”). I found a case exactly like the one I’d seen online, other than a little (whatever the brand is…Body Glove?) logo embossed on the front, which bothers me not in the least. Even better, it was only $20, so a little less than buying one online even without shipping. Now, I don’t have to check to make sure I’m not wearing the jeans with the metal buttons on the back pocket before I shove my phone in my pocket (that’s what scratched the screen protector), and I don’t have to listen to Jerry complain that I didn’t answer my phone when he called to say he was on his way because I left it on my desk and went downstairs. Doesn’t look bad, either; works with jeans, or with something less casual, and the clip doesn’t stab me when I sit down. Yay! 🙂

P.S. Gnome Do is teh shizznit!!

Christ…like I needed another way to waste time. The little bastards are so cute, though, that I almost didn’t have any choice. Besides, 99 cents doesn’t buy too much else that’s cute and addictive does it? 🙂

Somebody at Google did not have a very nice day today, and it’ll probably be less nice for the person who caused the problem. It lasted only about 20 minutes, but (apparently) affected every country in the world, and was on Techcrunch and the front page of Reddit by the time I’d noticed it (and I was googling anyway, so I noticed right away). I had time to do a couple of test searches myself, check P.’s computer to see whether it was just mine (it wasn’t), and type a message to L. to see whether it was just Google in the US (it wasn’t) before it was on the FP of Reddit three times; one of them the top story. There were so many people clicking the links to see what was going on that they took down the entire site of Stopbadware.org (incidentally…stupid name–it’s “malware” and even the dumbest computer illiterate can learn a word). It was interesting, though, because in order to finish what I’d been doing, I had to go to Google, get the warning and copy the URL for Yahoo! Search in order to find it. I guess that means to me, teh Google is teh intarwebs! 🙂

Searching “test search”.

Search for “google” on Google.com

Search for “google” on Google.fr

Search for “google” on Google.se

Now…back to what I was doing before somebody broked teh google! 🙂

Doesn’t matter what it is, if you speed it up and give it the Benny Hill theme, it’s always funnier. The Roomba Kittens were funny on YouTube, but they’re even better like this. 🙂

embedded by Embedded Video

There, goddammit…I finally got the embedded video to work properly for a local file. What’s Swedish for “Yay, me”? 😀

Oh, and if I forget one more fucking time

ffmpeg -i <filename.mpg> -deinterlace -ar 44100 -r 25 -qmin 3 -qmax 6 <filename.flv>