Author: David

Mood Lifter

I can wake up in the bleakest, nastiest of moods and feel as happy as a clam after a few hours spent in the library and a few dollars spent on photocopies. In fact, I can only think of two other things that can make me that happy that fast. One of them is food and the other isn’t — or is, depending on how you’re mind is working today.

I had a realization today, one that I’ve had before and will probably have again. There’s probably no better career choice for me than to become a librarian. Whenever I think of it, I can’t come up with any compelling arguments against it aside from the potential of having to deal with the public. It’s something I really need to think more about.

But now I’m going to read about the grand opening of Charlotte’s first self-service A&P store in 1938.

Message Board Moron

I’ve had my websites for a little over ten years now. I added a message board to this one five or six years back, because it amused me and because I thought some of my visitors might enjoy it. I also added a much nicer one at another site, which actually gets traffic.

Over the years, I’ve only pulled a few messages and I’ve banned very few users. Ninety per cent of these pulls and bans were for spam. A few more were obvious trolls (people who simply wander in to any message board they find and start posting statements designed to piss people off and get a reaction whether on topic or not). Only in two cases have I pulled posts and/or banned regular posters for specific content violations. Both of these cases have been recent and both revolved around posts which I perceived as racist and inflammatory.

I mention this now because some people (including the recently-purged poster) may have gotten the idea that I remove posts from my message boards because I don’t like the grammar they use. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m a language snob, I know I’m a language snob, and I usually manage to grit my teeth and cope with other people’s more casual approach to grammar and punctuation. Maybe the confusion with the recent post occurred because it just happened to occur at almost the same time as a language rant I’d posted just a bit before. This was a coincidence.

Just for the record, here is the post I pulled from the Otherstream message board:

Hey big guy, don’t forget to mention NC’s newest Idol star “Rhonetta Johnson”, she’s making all the crack head/ghetto mama’s proud thru out the Charlotte area! A fine product of our welfare system, as I heard she know’s her ABC’s to G, and can count to eleventeen. LOL

As should be apparent, the problems with this post are definitely not limited to the bad grammar and punctuation. However, it IS a bit ironic that the poster has the audacity to criticize someone else’s educational attainment when he can’t even seem to compose a sentence himself, isn’t it?

This individual has posted on my message board many times before, and sometimes even has expressed some valid and relevant opinions. Other times, I’ve generally just ignored him and laughed off whatever he was trying to say. On one occasion, he made some pretty blatantly unfounded comments about me. I didn’t “censor” that, but this last bilge was just a little too much.

Maybe I should’ve just left it there and let him dig his own grave. Maybe I should have just pulled it down and let the incident pass. Or maybe I should’ve made it more clear what had happened when I commented on it earlier. Either way, I just wanted to clarify for the record.

The Constitution Lives

2 ejections from House denounced: Capitol police chief apologizes to G.I.’s mom, lawmaker’s wife:

A 1946 law prohibits demonstrations within any of the Capitol buildings. But a subsequent U.S. Capitol Police Board regulation clarified “demonstration activity” to include “parading, picketing, speechmaking, holding vigils, sit-ins, or other expressive conduct … but does not include merely wearing Tee-shirts, buttons or other similar articles of apparel that convey a message.”

I was right. Apparently there’s not a law against merely being annoying. Which is a good thing, all in all.

Hand Me Downs

Just got back from visiting my parents. My mom has broadband now. What is the world coming to?

It’s kind of funny, though, that I’m thinking of giving her my old G4 when Mark gets a new desktop. Nowadays, you’re just as likely to see kids giving their parents hand-me-down electronics as you are to see parents giving their kids hand-me-down cars.

I love that I have a mother who wants my hand-me-down electronics…

She May Live

After a very sketchy first few months, where she often looked a little like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, the plant above suddenly seems to be thriving. Apparently, she’s found her preferred solar angle. I haven’t named her — nor any of the other new kids yet — partly out of respect for the ones I left behind, and partly because, you know, once you name them and start feeding them, it’s extra hard when you lose them.

I think this one’s going to make it, though. Ultimately she’ll be one of my favorites since she had to work so hard and all. She might get a name very soon.

Fleeing the Bay Area

I can’t believe this was published so prominently in Sunday’s Chronicle. Imagine someone suggesting that the reason the middle class is fleeing the Bay Area has something to do with the fact that planners and assorted NIMBYs are making it very difficult — or at least rather disagreeable — for them to stay there.

On top of that, imagine them publishing something which suggests that the middle class contributes more to the economic vitality of an area than the very rich or the very poor.

Even better, imagine the author having the audacity to suggest that planners might be wise to consider compromises based on how people WANT to live rather than merely dicatating how they SHOULD live.

Scandalous.

Cindy Sheehan Must Go

Despite the fact that I emphatically agree that the war in Iraq was a bad move and that George W. Bush is an inept, smirking moron masquerading as a president, I find Cindy Sheehan to be one of the single most annoying individuals who’s ever walked the face of the earth.

She’s one of those folks who should never be chosen to speak publicly on any issue, because her strident, whining, and nagging personality causes many people to instinctively tune her out and support any position which doesn’t have her as its spokesperson. She generally ends up doing her cause way more harm than good.

That said, I don’t remember there being a law against being annoying…

Art Good. Everything Else Bad.

The whole campaign can be seen here, and you’re absolutely right, baby. It’s garbage. I’d never actually seen it until today.

“Has your 4th grader ever taken a DANCE class or learned the basics of choreography?” “When was the last time your 12th grader went to a museum or talked about the origins of symbols in the SCULPTURE of various cultures?” Give me a fucking break.

What irritates me so much is not the idea of promoting art, but the idea that anything other than art is essentially meaningless and boring. Frankly, I can’t think of anything more irrelevant to my life than “the basics of choreography” and it would be no more relevant had I been force-fed it in the fourth grade. I just don’t care. If you do, that’s fine, but who the hell are these morons to assume I’m a less worthy individual for pursuing things which have a more practical bearing on my own life.

Parents who support the ideals of this campaign are no different from their overzealous peers who force their completely uninterested kids into Little League or summer camp or beauty pageants. I’m glad I had parents with more sense than that.

Emotions and the Internet

I understand. The chain reaction surrounding my dead internet connection sent me into a fits of gut-wrenching sobs and tears on the couch a few weeks ago.

No. Really. It did.

Who knew that a G5 comes packaged with an external Airport antenna that you apparently really need when you suddenly move your computer and it’s no longer right next to the base station?