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Visitor Information: Please Read |
| 31st Dec 2037 A.D. 1259 hours. |
Hello, you've reached our business office. This is a recording.
The shrine is open 24/7, 365 days a year plus Leap Days.
Currently, most many areas are restricted access. No adds unless I know you and we get along; if it's otherwise, please don't ask.
Feel free to read the public entries. That's what public entries are for.
Recently, we have been experimenting with a policy of increased access and greater openness, resulting in an increased number of public entries. The overall effects of this policy change are still being evaluated, and we reserve the right to revoke this policy and curtail or terminate open access at any time.
Our lavatories are for staff only.
Enjoy your visit.
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(pat the bunny ) |
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More Reasons to Get Off the Internet. |
| 14th Nov 2009 A.D. 0846 hours. |
Remember Nicholas Francisco? That young guy from Seattle with too many kids who just disappeared one day and his wife started soliciting donations all over the place? Well, just like I figured, the sheriff found him living in another state, reportedly California, under a different name. Given the circumstances and evidence, this was about as big a surprise to me as finding Falcon hidden in Richard Heene's attic.
I'd wonder if his wife was going to give back all the money she ripped off people who felt sorry for her, but when I thought about it, I bet they'd still feel sorry for her cuz her husband ran out on the kids. Actually after I read about three of her hysterical posts and saw how people were buying into her BS, I kinda understood why he'd run off, although really I think both of the folks involved are not anyone I'd want to talk to or be around.
Edited to add, I just read that the wife is already remarried after she found out Nicholas had been leading a secret life of which she'd been unaware. I wonder if this "secret life" involved other women or other men? I feel bad for the guy's kids but the reality is, this awful experience happens to way too many kids and most of their moms at least have the good sense not to go all bucknutz on the Intarwebz about it.
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mood: |
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 cynical |
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(2 good bunnies | pat the bunny ) |
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Just to live in the past tense, To make believe you were Right. |
| 8th Nov 2009 A.D. 1026 hours. |
As part of my new habit to Read Moar and Post Less, I've been pushing through "Torn Apart," Mick Middles' book on Ian Curtis that focuses on his life with the band and his gf, Annik Honore. I've previously seen the film "Control" and read his wife Deborah's book, "Touching from a Distance," which just covered their relationship and marriage since she seemed shut out of everything else - and many, many years ago I read "An Ideal for Living" before I gave it to Johnny for Christmas as he loved Joy Division and early New Order far more than I did at the time. The thumpthump of the opening bars of "She's Lost Control" was so ubiquitous in those days, I ended up hating it almost as badly as the "Genius of Love" opening riff which was similarly played to death, everywhere, then. Other songs, I liked, but I was never a big Ian/ Joy Division fan, so it bemuses me that I've bothered to read three books and see a movie about him, not to mention that huge David Kay painting I bought that is still finding a wall. It's unusual for me to pay this much attn to a musical act. Oh, I prolly read a dozen Beatles books once upon a time and I'm not a big Beatles freak either, but I did that mostly because the library didn't have many rock books to read.
Now that I am for all IntensivePurposes a metalhead and happy about it, with both the old punks and the old/ young indies having become an incomprehensible-unrelatable race to me, I wonder sometimes why I didn't just get on the metal bus back in the early 80s. I suppose the nuevo wavo/ punk/ postpunk milieu was the one more embraceable by the college set and that metal was music for the stoner kids who'd barely finished high school and worked on their cars a lot out in Parma. But really, I ended up spending all my punk-time mostly with punk-people who weren't in college and were high as kites much of the time. The fact that Victor and Bud and I went to college was not the norm, and my bf dropped out of hs at 15 to play garage rock. When I think a little deeper I keep coming back to Joy Division, which was the soundtrack of everything back then - and Magazine and Crispy Ambulance and the Durutti Column, all of which I truly did love, and all of which were from Manchester too, although I didn't really put that together at the time. Information was hard to come by when you didn't have a car and money to go buy the imported trades every week and maybe didn't even know where they could be gotted (Bank News on the Westside it turned out, when it was too late to matter anymore) - it was hard to find the right NMEs to sort out the facts about those bands and then of course there was the Cure who were NOT from Manchester nor on Factory but certainly sounded like they could have been (and someone could argue with me abt that I am sure but anyway)...Despite me liking Joy Division perhaps a tad less than all of the others I just mentioned, they nevertheless had a special place in the pantheon because Ian was D-E-D ded and a youngguy who expires right on the verge of stardom has a cachet for other young people who themselves would like to be rock starz and sometimes would also like to be dead but other times not. Or maybe I'm just a freak who thought about deth a lot before it was all gothy to do that but as a teen I had a list of every dead rock star from the 50s on, that I'd copied out of a book somewhere, and would solemnly and reverently add a new name to it each time someone else keeled over, so it meant something to me.
I'm well aware that the reasons I emotionally glom onto things don't always play well with other people's, and I get flak for that. In this case I feel guilty for admitting I felt a tantalizing cachet in a suicide solution that was no doubt awful for everybody close to the sitch. Back In Tha Day, "An Ideal for Living," - a quite short, slick, sleek imported tome that was pertnear the only thing available to read abt St. Ian then - mentioned a hanging, a wife and a girlfriend but refused to go into details - a primpy reticence that annoyed me, as I nearly always want to stare the gory details in the face and understand them better - but at the same time fit with the air of 2 am mystery and gray, rain-washed uncertainty that permeated the concept of Manchester. And yes, it was a "concept" to me then - far-off faded, crumbling industry that people - well, okay, Johnny, who got it from M. Mom - told me was just like Cleveland, only British. I was happy to take their word for it. I had no idea how to see for myself then, as my parents weren't rich and didn't like to travel. I added it to the list of Someday when I Had Money and knew how to go about such things, or hopefully when someone who already Knew how would conveniently fall in love with me and whisk me over thar and show me. (Which never happened, of course. But I dye grass...) Of course by the time such a trip was remotely possible, all the scenery had changed and Manchester or Madchester or whatevs had asserted a cultural power punch far beyond anything that sad-sack C-town ever achieved in its wildest dreams. And 16-year-olds in furry hippie vests and bell bottoms swooning around on E, or for that matter New Order in a bunch of white t-shirts/ shorts/ and baseball caps making dancey toons at Merriweather, had little to do with my life, with the postwar wasteland in my head that resembled the cover of "Secondhand Daylight" meeting David Bowie's Berlin in the middle of a Public Square portrayed by Bourke-White. Where Were the Young Men?
Now we are all middle-aged and people talk about the details now, as middle-aged people do. Things get far enough back that you can talk about them without feeling like you're being stabbed - I'm not cold enough to say "maybe they make some money off it too", p'raps they do, p'raps they don't, it doesn't bother mercenary me. Funnily enough, shops like Alloy and Delia's still sell "Unknown Pleasures" shirts to their teenage customers, like Ian has become some sort of latterday Jim Morrison. Every time I read a book or see a reference it takes me back there and makes me realize why I went the way I did, then. Living in that blurry zone, between concrete towers, always on the edge of pain that (years later) I learned to recognize as an anxiety attack coming on and I should eat some protein, get some sleep, take a Motrin - but back then, I didn't know that. I lived in a near-constant state of low-grade panic. I never ate, and you couldn't get Motrin OTC, and maybe it wouldn't have helped anyway. Situations change, your body changes. All those ethereal dirgey postpunk bands produced like they were playing in a tunnel, coming in over a shortwave from England with bad reception, like some war and we were down in the bunker, down in the basement, my whole life felt that way, black and white like a 1940's movie, like my parents' world when they were young, and it fit, and it gave me hope that there was a way to live that would be Different, would turn the pain into poetry. And then as the 80s wound along it all changed, flipping pixels a couple at a time like some diabolical Jacob's ladder. I started out with an Ideal for Living and I ended up with a damn cartoon. The Cure, gone commercial, adopted by a bunch of kiddie goths who don't have a clue wtf. Death of Samantha...Trent Reznor...grunge...Adam Duritz. And Morrissey, blargh, talk about the joke of all jokes, that. "Night Flight" cancelled and replaced by Gilbert Gottfried?!! I walked away from it, I walked AWAY from it. Is it any wonder? No.
Now it's...just a relief to know that part of the past, the part that wasn't the bad part, is still out there. So I can say, yes that's why, that's why I did what I did. We're Glad We Are What We Are. The past is now part of my future. The present is well out of hand.
The most poignant part for me is when Annik explains that she and Ian didn't even have sex. They just kissed and cuddled a lot and slept in the same bed. Because they were very young yet, and sex, though wonderful, wasn't necessary, wasn't even the point. It never was for me either (another reason why I could never have been a young metal girl, that was too much about hormones, and naught else). I got called bad names anyway, just like she did. People don't get it. They never do get it.
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(pat the bunny ) |
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Tobe Knows Wabbits. |
| 20th Aug 2009 A.D. 2026 hours. |
I'm dreaming and so it must be true
Nothing else could look as good as you do
And so, in a rocket go
Up to where the astros flow into space
Don't hold me down
Atom eyes, don't worry your brain,
Take a break from everyday,
Sell the house, the car, the pain,
Atom eyes...
I'm running away from your blues
Atomizer sprinklers are sprayin' perfume
Escape the lobotomy,
There's a million heartstrings ready to fly
Let's pull them now
Atom eyes, don't worry your brain,
Take a break from everyday,
Sell the house, the car, the pain,
Just be sure to live again,
Atom eyes, don't worry your brain,
Take a break from everyday,
Sell the house, the car, the pain,
Atom eyes...
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(2 good bunnies | pat the bunny ) |
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THIS IS NOT A POST. |
| 27th Jul 2009 A.D. 0015 hours. |
IF THIS HAD BEEN A REAL POST, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED WHERE TO SET YOUR DIAL FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS.
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mood: |
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 bitchslaphappy |
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(4 good bunnies | pat the bunny ) |
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Joey had his Maria Bartiromo... |
| 1st Jun 2009 A.D. 1103 hours. |
and a friend o' mine who made this has his Becky Quick.
Makes losing all yer money look fun...almost.
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mood: |
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 calm |
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music: |
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you're the coolest chick I know |
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(pat the bunny ) |
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A Prayer for Mark Levy. |
| 1st May 2009 A.D. 0025 hours. |
a prayer for mark levy
whose column I read
who early this morning
shot self in the head
got six hundred comments
on "Above the Law"
the layoffs are many
the nerves they are raw
to be One with my job
is a state that i dread
and if that ever happened
I'd shoot myself ded
I'm glad for my failures
I'm glad I'm a hack
rock never forgets
you can always come back
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music: |
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a long december/ wonderful/ the lebanon/ god save the queen/ hair of the dog |
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(pat the bunny ) |
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THE DEATH OF LIVEJERNAL. |
| 31st Mar 2009 A.D. 2220 hours. |
Posting this here because I laughed at it harder than I have at anything in about three months (Those jokes at the capital defense seminar don't count. You wouldn't get them) and because it won't embed right on my MySpazz. If I hadn't quit EllJay over the portal page hoodeedoo, I would have been driven off by the ever-increasing posting of "tweets", which are like, everything I despise most about "Soshul Notworking," taken to the Umpty-Frat Power of Ding Dong Perdeedly Doo, Squared.
Hope everybody's well, and stuff.
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(13 good bunnies | pat the bunny ) |
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Leaving Las Vegas. |
| 15th Nov 2008 A.D. 1105 hours. |
Oh what lovely rainy foggy weather it's been here - makes me feel all happy and ready for a new start - anyway...
I've decided I'm not going to be blogging here on a regular basis anymore. I will continue to mod the communities I mod, not that they need much modding. I will continue to read my friends' journals and use the syndicated feed feature to keep up with my LOLcats and Failblog and such like. I'm just not going to be posting myself, or not very much.
In a nutshell, as illustrated by the profile page ruckus, the direction LJ seems to be going in as far as rolling out new features, trying to recruit newer users and not dealing very well with its longtime users, plus the patronizing way the staff regularly communicates ("here's a change, you're gonna like it or lump it, we know what's best, we can't please everybody, blahblah") has put me off and made maintaining a regular journal here into more hassle than I'd like it to be. I already have enough stress in my life so I'm all about the hassle-free. Plus, at this point I don't need all the "social networking" (or data mining) aspects of LJ that the site staff holds so dear as they obviously try, on orders from their bosses, to compete with Myspace and Facebook and who knows what. I used to enjoy meeting new people on here, but the time for that is long since past. What I'm looking for now is a serious blog site where I can express myself. A space that is *mine*, not a space where some boss or some twentysomething "web designer" of dubious skills decides what's best for me. (I'm not senile yet, kids.) And I've decided the best place to get that is either another LJ-type site that's more responsive to its long-term users (I've been looking at InsaneJournal and Inksome) or, perhaps, my own domain, where I can have things exactly as I like and not be worried about "OMG what feature are they going to suddenly mess up next?"
I already know that one day LJ will no longer support S1 style that my journal layout uses, and when that happens I'll have to get a new layout...I don't want to use the cookie-cutter layouts that LJ hands out. MySpace has been a lot more accommodating about letting people change their layouts or get layouts from off-site than this site has been. That already had me thinking about going, and then this profile business...meh. It's kinda like when you have an annoying landlord who starts remodeling, knocking out the kitchen wall with little or no warning, when you're at work. You come home and find your kitchen all in disarray and they insist they told you and they really didn't and your blood pressure is going through the roof and then you have to argue with them about where the new appliances are going to go. And you just figure the living room will be next. Forget it. The smart thing to do in that situation would be to move, so that's what I'm gonna do.
It will probably take me a little time to get set up elsewhere because as much as I enjoy blogging, it does take energy and if I wasn't blogging I could be putting that energy into some other activity, which I'd kinda like to do for a little while. In the time I haven't been blogging on here I've found myself reading old books from my basement, cleaning up a little bit and generally doing stuff I haven't done for a while, and that's cool, it's time for me to rediscover some of the things I used to enjoy when I was very much alone.
I will let people know where I'm going to be blogging when I get there, but I don't expect most people to follow me to wherever it is, comment, or read.
If anyone needs to get hold of me while I'm not on here, a bunch of you have my number, and the rest of you can leave me a comment or hit me up on MySpace which I check maybe like once a week.
Ain't it time we said good bye...
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(8 good bunnies | pat the bunny ) |
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Update (in which I once again, take things all seeriously). |
| 9th Nov 2008 A.D. 1227 hours. |
Due to the shit going down in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) lj_design, I am weighing my options once again as to whether I want to continue to participate here.
I know it may seem like a small thing but I don't like the way the LJ staff repeatedly treats the users. To me, that is a much bigger deal than how the profile page looks or whether it is configured to hold an advertisement.
Also, the last time an issue like this came up with LJ that upset me, someone else who was on my f-list at the time pooh-poohed it and I ended up having to stop speaking to them because they and their friends decided to bash the issue and, when I complained, bash me (and falsely accuse me of bashing them - I could go on and provide more detail but there isn't any point except to say that I felt and continue to feel pretty wronged by that whole affair. WRONGED ON ELLJAY, WHAT ELSE IS NEW, WANK WANK WANK...more likely just a symptom of how pitifully little I actually had in common with an entire group of people). In light of that incident, I'd like to ask that if you want to differ on this issue or think it's no big deal, then fine, but kindly don't bash those of us who do have a problem with either the profile change or even more, the attitude of LJ.
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(pat the bunny ) |
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PSA. |
| 8th Nov 2008 A.D. 0017 hours. |
If anyone is having a problem with the general fug of the new LJ profile "design," (otherwise known as "Last year we wanted to be Myspace, now we wanna be Facebook!") please feel free to stop by lj_design and post your thoughts to the "design team" (ha) as a few thousand people (no exaggeration) have already done. Because users don't tend to look at their or others' profiles every time they log on, or don't check LJ every day, there are still people just noticing this mess and going "Wha'appen?"
You can also join changeitback if you want the profile page changed back or an opt-out given; there are also some helpful links over there to an online petition and a comment or two made by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) marta, the only LJ staffer who seems to be talking right now. LJ's current position, as stated in lj_design, is basically that the opt-out is too much hassle so no go. If enough people request it, however, perhaps they'll rethink. I know that seems like a long shot, but hey, men walked on the moon, the state of Virginia went blue, and if webmonkeys don't fly outta my butt, perhaps they can at least dislodge their own heads out of theirs.
Edited to add, I've blanked my profile page out as much as possible until this gets resolved - deleted my bio, interests, and just about everything else I could delete. If it doesn't get resolved, I won't be using the fugly page anyway, so no great loss.
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(2 good bunnies | pat the bunny ) |
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A Large Bear. |
| 3rd Nov 2008 A.D. 0728 hours. |
One of the problems I have with my life sometimes is I don't see Ted enuf, which can be annoying. Then when I do see him I don't want to leave. I'm the type of person who doesn't like to hug or kiss most ppl but when it's someone I love I would really just like to hug on all the time like a koala hugs a tree and hugging is abt 50-100 times more important than any sex that might or might not be going on. Fortunately, this habit of mine doesn't annoy Ted like it has some other ppl. He makes a rather good tree, hassock, sectional, sofa pillow, hot water bottle, and/or overstuffed toy.
Sometimes I imagine we just met rather than being around each other for 24 yrz now and sometimes the idea of having Just Met is fun, but other times it is scary as I can't imagine 24 yrz without Ted being around to at least hug and I probably would have been with some other hahribble person or a Succession of hahrrible peepul. (Since I'm not terribly "exclusive" or whatever word you want to use - "Faithful" is not what I'd use given that I don't know how anyone can call a 24-year commitment to anything a lack of faith - I did pretty good at meeting some hahribble peepuls even with Ted around.) Maybe this is why some of the ppl I know who dint meet their partners till their late 30s or 40s seem so crazy nucking futs. They just lost their minds from waiting so long. Now they're too painfully aware of the lack of time, as am I, but I do have that 24 yrz even though I am happier with things now as an old bizzatch, bcuz Ted was always a prematurely old guy and it was the sort of weelayshunshit you grow into, not the sort that's a big coup de foudre from the start. I'm sure the ppl who take a long time finding some1 have another take on it like Personal Growth Getting to the Right Spot in the Journey blahblah but I am a very impatient person and would rather everyone be matched up perfectly with everyone they're gonna be with from the get go or as early as possible and go from there. The way I see it if something is lacking you can always add an extra person on later :)
Anyway I have to get up, no thanks to election day and the lack of early voting for bunging up the early part of this week. I still have my cold, this morning it's an earache. By Wednesday after 2 wks of being sick I might even have time to take a sick day.
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mood: |
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 grumpy |
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(pat the bunny ) |
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navelgazing |
| hey, what r u lookin' at?
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