Random Rant

random_rant @ 2010-03-21T14:06:00

2010-03-21T18:13:13Z

Fellow cast and crew members,

I really hate to have to throw my weight around as director of our project, but I've had to do so because it seems NONE of you can coordinate your fucking schedules to get a scene done that's due Tuesday. It's not even like I pulled you off the street and asked you to help me. WE WERE FUCKING ASSIGNED TO EACH OTHER. I MEAN, WE'RE FILM AND ACTING STUDENTS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. OUR GRADES ARE DEPENDING ON GETTING THIS THING DONE. SO GET YOUR GODDAMN ACTS TOGETHER.

Sincerely,
Me

random_rant @ 2010-02-04T19:44:00

2010-02-05T01:50:39Z

I volunteer for a cat shelter, and I run their website. I accidentally put up a cat that was in the process of being adopted. In the three days he was listed as available, we got at least 10 applications for him. Why?

He was listed as a specific breed.

We've got 50+ wonderful cats, including young kittens, who languish for months without any interest, because they're listed as domestic short/medium/longhairs. They get put into the newspaper, featured on our website, but nobody wants them. We put up one cornish rex, and people are begging us to let them spend hundreds of dollars to ship him across the country. I've actually got to send out two separate denial forms: one for people who live no where near us, and one for people I want to try to convince to come see our other amazing, loving, beautiful cats.

RAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

The upside is now we're going to try to estimate breeds when we can, because it does really increase interest.

A post calm down ETA: A lot of people do adopt non-specific breeds. We've had 13 get adopted in the last two weeks (especially awesome because we're a small shelter in a small town!), ten of whom are wonderful mutts. And I certainly don't blame anyone for wanting a certain breed. It just. . .bugged me.

Related rant:

Most of the pictures on our website look like shit because it is so hard to take pictures of cats. Especially cats who, at best, get about an hour a day outside of their cages, and certainly don't get the amount of attention they want. Especially in a shelter with bad lighting and with a not very good camera.

random_rant @ 2010-01-25T03:04:00

2010-01-25T08:30:47Z

Nnnno, I'm pretty sure that your Kapersky antivirus didn't just start giving you a message about not being able to load one of its components because I put Firefox on the computer two years ago. While yes, it's generally a good idea not to download stuff from wherever to your hard drive, it doesn't mean don't download anything ever. For example, a piece of software with an international reputation for being a pretty solid and secure browser? Probably a safe bet. Quit moaning about how I broked your puter every time you ask me how my new laptop is doing. Actually, stop asking me about my new laptop for an excuse to whine about Firefox.

And I do hate to be ingrateful, but shut the fuck up about what I should do with my computer. It ceased being your property or your business when you gave it to me at Christmas. I use Gmail instead of my AOL address from 1996 because AOL sucks. If I email you, it's not because I want a critique of my email service. And "it's supposed to be better" is not a valid argument when I tell you that I hate Windows 7 because it's basically Vista dumbed down for people who don't understand computers. I'm switching back to Windows XP if I can find the disks for my old laptop and Linux if I can't. I couldn't give less of a fuck about what Microsoft's advertising says, Win 7 makes me want to put my fist through the screen and the geek friends I've asked say that there's probably no problem with switching operating systems. I trust their judgment over that of someone who can't understand the TV remote because all the numbers have rubbed off. If nothing else, they don't try to mansplain things to me that I probably understand at least as well as they do.

FFS, how did a systems analyst get so clueless about computers?

Flames. Flames--on the side of my face

2010-01-20T23:55:06Z

I might kill someone in a moment. I am totally not trying to bogart this community, two back-to-back posts might be a bit much? But this much wrath has to go somewhere before I get myself put in prison.

I'm on Facebook right now, trying to explain, to people I have known since I was *four,* that yes, much of American mass media is racist. That just because they don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there; that it's invisible because the people they see look like them, and I've never had that luxury.
And having them tell me--when I have been perfectly polite and well-reasoned up to this point, to calm down.

Anything but bowing is just so goddamned uppity.

I am *shaking* with fury and just...how. Just how. It's all adding up. People asking me why a girl with an ass like mine is walking with a 'chink like that.' People looking at me sideways "Excuse me, but what ethnicity are you?" People calling me mixed-breed to my face, because I am a fucking rottweiler and it's their right to know my lineage despite the fact they haven't yet asked my name. People telling me to lighten up when I inform them, politely, that I am not at all interested in hearing another Mexican joke, and that if they use the word 'wetback' in front of me again I will not continue to share their acquaintance. My stepfather telling me it's okay to use the word nigger, a nigger told him he could.

Not being Asian enough for some people that I've dated: "You said you were Asian, but you don't look Asian. But. I mean. That's okay, just." or "This is what I get for dating a white girl, I should have known you'd never understand me." My ex-fiance, after we got home from a quest around the UK, saying "And I looked around, and we were the only white people there!" and then being angry when I correct "You were the only white person, dear." in a dry voice. My friend from church's mother, when I was sixteen, saying, don't walk that way near sunset, the Reservation is that way and we'll both get raped.
It does not stop. I am just--
my head is pounding and I am shaking. My god, our species is all and entirely fools.

Fuck this species. I'm really done with it today. If I keep this up I'm going to end up vomiting, I'm that angry right now.

froth

2010-01-17T19:46:58Z

Okay.
I understand that books are heavy.
And it's raining. And it's cold, you don't want to be outside.
I understand this because I have to push the unwieldy, rusted-wheeled steel book truck, so cold it bites my hands, through puddles and over cracked pavement from one book drop to the other, and fill it up with a couple of hundred books, which I then have to push back, careful and slow so that the potholes don't make me pitch my cargo into salt-filled greasy puddles. No way to keep *myself* from getting soaked, my job is to save the thousands of dollars of books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines that I have to load onto this thing every few hours. For all that we're the biggest public library in town, our administrators are cheap; if they can't be bothered to fix the sidewalks to prevent a lawsuit, do you think they'd give us tarps to cover the truck? No luck there.

So when you, dear patron, step out of your heated car, pop open your massive umbrella, mince over to me in your perfect waterproof boots and blink, chirping "Can I just give these to you?" I will probably not smile. I will clear my expression before the irritation has time to show, and say "Certainly, ma'am," and take your issues of Us Weekly and your copy of the latest Jodi Picoult book and add them to the mess I have to push up the hill.

If, however, I then have to watch as you walk past me, up the steps, past the other outside book drop, past the inside book drop, and into the library, where you immediately come to the service desk where you could also have returned them? If I have to understand that you handed me your books just because you didn't want to put them in any of the THREE places you could deposit them before entering the library proper, you just wanted to get rid of them right then?

Motherfucker, I will give you rabies.

That quote does not mean what you think it means

2009-12-14T10:49:49Z

See, this is why I shouldn't start arguing on the Internet when I can't sleep. Because now I kind of want to bite someone.

It is not censorship that "a station dedicated to preserving old movies"--the one that's primarily known for Mad Men these days, do you mean?--cuts an amazingly offensive musical number from a film made in 1942. I don't give a fuck about the supposed integrity of the film. It isn't harmed by not having Bing Crosby in blackface singing about how Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. How can you suggest that this is vital to the plot or high art with a straight face? In fact, it's an astonisingly privilege-packed idea that they should have kept the scene because you liked it as a kid. Your right to nostalgia and "the integrity of the film," whatever the hell you mean by that, does not trump other people's right to not be subjected to gross stereotypes and slurs.

I was a history major in undergrad and worked at the county historical museum/genealogy library all through school. I'm starting an archives/library science masters program in the fall. You don't need to lecture me on the Importance of Preserving Our Past. The problem here is that basic cable really isn't the place to do it.

But Jesus fuck, if you don't understand why "people who don't learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them" is complete horseshit on this issue, I don't even know how to explain to you what's wrong with valuing one musical number from a sixty-seven-year-old film more highly than respect for the people it mocks. Except maybe to say that the lesson to learn from this piece of history is that it's not okay to feature offensive stereotypes of PoC as entertainment, assmonkey.

Also, this kind of "we should be allowed to do whatever we want because people used to do it" use of "people who forget history blah blah blarrrghf" is why I really, really hate that fucking old chestnut.

random_rant @ 2009-11-21T19:42:00

2009-11-22T00:45:05Z

So Livejournal refuses to load for me possibly because of a DDOS attack on my end. Is there any quick fix method or do I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs until it passes? I mean, I cleared my cache, deleted all my cookies, restarted my computer TWICE...dammit, I've got RPing to do and I was on a good active streak until it went all psychotic on me!

To the photographer and retoucher for my latest modeling gig

2009-09-18T22:07:59Z

I know that I'm an inexpensive model. It's not my life's work, here; I've got an exotic-enough face that I get stopped by strangers who ask "What ARE you, anyway?" like it's their right to know, so getting paid to stand still and smile and toss my head is just kind of...balance. Enough money for Scribblenauts and a box of Oreos, or the electric bill, or for the love of god a couple of new bras, and I'm a happy little girl.
But that photo you sent me, from the last gig? The accompanying email where you said you were really happy with it, and what do I think?
Fuck you, is what I think!

Yes, I am a very affable model. Yes, I will put up with damn-near anything, up to and including being stripped naked and soaked in baby oil 'to catch the rising sun' outside at six AM in March with frost still on the thorny ground. You are pursuing your art; and as long as you're paying me, I am a tool to get you there. That's how it works. So every time you express wonder at my willingness to do the same damn photo another ten or twenty or thirty times, I kind of want to laugh; that is how it works.
But this?

Let me lay it out for you, here. If you hire a model of color--and yes, that would, in fact be me; this golden skin ain't for play--then you have hired a model of color. Which does not mean, during retouching, that you should change her skin tone to rose instead of amber. It does not mean that you should make her eyes round, and smaller, through the magic of photoshop, or that you should gentle her cheekbones to something more Caucasian, or that you should slim down her Filipina lips.
In short, you asshole, it means that you have hired a model who will object, slightly, to appearing in whiteface.

Fuck you sideways.

random_rant @ 2009-08-27T22:06:00

2009-08-27T22:09:16Z

You know, I would love to be in my online class session right now listening to the lecture and participating in discussion, but it's extremely difficult when the university server won't LOAD anything.

ARGH

Work

2009-08-01T08:45:26Z

Dear Boss at Work:

I have you telling me to do things one way. I also have another manager and two people high up in the administration telling me to do things the way I am already doing them. Please understand that I am not just trying to be chutzpahdik when I ask you to please speak to the administrators and straighten this out before I make any changes.

random_rant @ 2009-07-25T14:54:00

2009-07-25T03:09:48Z

Dear New Zealanders (specifically students),

I know that, as an American, I socially interact in ways that can seem strange for you. I've also been trying to be more careful of how I act, ever since I learned that my behavior has unintentionally weirded some of you out, and even alienated a few completely. And yet, somehow, you continue to use me as your scapegoat; associating me with events that not only was I not involved in, but had no fucking knowledge of, until an RA asked me about it. Hell, if I understand this right, even introducing myself to people I don't know is a sign of sketchiness, as opposed to, say, a polite thing to do when meeting a fellow resident. I've been so discouraged by finding out how people in my hall are percieving me, I've isolated myself in my room so as not to attract attention, but I seem to inevitably get it anyway. What the fuck?

Tired of this bullshit,
Me

It's not enough that I've been Googling "Untalkative Korean boyfriend..."

2009-06-24T18:27:55Z

I wanna give this a good shot. I do! You're funny and you're smart, I like you a lot, you've seen and done things I never have but survived many of the things I have, and I think we have a lot of shared context. Plus, yes, it's true, you're pretty damn hot, even if you don't think so. And if I am baffled by your continual tendency to refer to me as "Supercoolawesomegirl," still it is kind of endearing. The thing where you insist on doing the chores because you're two years younger than me? A little bit out of my experience, but if you insist that it's a cultural thing I will believe you. I believe you when you say that about a lot of things, even if I also go then and do research and read, because what do I know about what it is to be Korean? Multi-ethnic relationships are always gonna have some rough edges at first.

But. This thing. This thing you do, where you go out of your way to get in touch with me in some fashion every single day for a bit, and then abruptly it will be impossible to get in touch with you at all? For extended periods of time? Remember how you promised that if you needed to drop out of ambit, you'd warn me first? I understand the need for solitude (five siblings, remember?) but dammit...you tell me you have a massive fever, and then vanish entirely for six days? Six days, when you're due out here in another four, when I'm leaving in less than two for my kendo tournament and *need* to be sure everything is all right before I get going? I don't even want to think about fighting with this uncertainty between my shoulders. Six days, and finally I'm wondering if I should start making phone calls to every hospital in Boston's telephone book, six days where you can not be reached by email, no Skype, no text messages, no phone calls, no AIM?

And then this morning I wake up to an email from you. The sight of your name in my inbox provides me with a vast and total sense of relief; even if this is a letter saying "Yeah, about moving to Pittsburgh, I'm having second thoughts," at least I know you're alive, right? So I open it up.

You didn't get back to me because you got in a fight?
...because you got in a fight and you have been in jail?
Fuck's SAKE, Shin!

No--no, I understand, you can not possibly have gotten in touch with me while you were in jail. Okay. Deep breath here.
What the FUCK was a fifth-degree black belt doing getting in a fight that landed him in jail for a week? Twenty years of study should give you a good way to get out of a fight without having charges pressed, don't you think? Unless it was, like, three guys or something. But I don't know if it was. Because your email was four fucking lines long!

*pulls out hair*

STEP AWAY FROM THE TWITTER.

2009-05-13T03:54:36Z

Dear friend,

Okay, so you post your Twitter feed to your LiveJournal. No problem. Lots of people do it.

However, when you're liveblogging (livetweeting?) along with American Idol and generate a post that contains, in addition to your other tweets for the day, twenty five AI-related tweets over the course of an hour? Then it's just excessive. I realize it's an automated thing. That doesn't stop it from being obnoxious.

Dear Neighbours

2009-04-15T18:56:39Z

Dear, sweet, kind neighbours,

When I step outside my door, bearing a sign that says "Do not sit on Stoop", and you tell me "You can't do that" (with inferred exclamation points) and I turn around, smile sweetly and tell you the landlord allows it?

I'm not joking.

When another one of you asks "Does that mean us?" and I again, turn around, smile ever so sweetly and innocently, and say "Why no, why would you ever think such a thing?"

That's called sarcasm.

Then, when I continue on, and tell you "I'm sure that it wasn't you out here yelling and cursing so loud I couldn't hear my music through my headphones, now was it?"

That's called condescending sarcasm.

When you look at me confused, and then get huffy when I start picking up the garbage on my stoop (granted, full beer bottles, and a whiskey shot glass), and I tell you that I'm just "Taking out the trash abandoned here on my stoop."

That's called a HINT.

I will not go through another summer with y'all sitting there, acting like you own the damned place. That is my stoop and I do not want anyone on it. And now? The signs are hung. Now, I have room to call the police and have you removed.

That is called justice.

Piss off the lot of you.

Hugs and fucking kisses,
cat_mcdougall

random_rant @ 2009-04-08T09:33:00

2009-04-08T12:34:06Z

This is a quiet area. You have an office door. PLEASE FUCKING CLOSE IT SO I CAN CONCENTRATE.

Dear Mother Nature

2009-02-11T06:11:01Z

I love you. Really, I do. HOWEVER- WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP WITH THE INVADING OF MY APARTMENT?! FIRST WE HAD THE HUGE-ASS SPIDER. NOW, WE HAVE A WESTERN CONIFER SEED BUG- http://farm1.static.flickr.com/162/438121081_8cb20cdf59.jpg

Now, I realize, Mother Nature, that neither of these creatures pose a threat to me but KEEP THEM OUTSIDE AND NOT IN MY KITCHEN OR MY BATHROOM.

Thank you for listening.

random_rant @ 2009-01-24T13:34:00

2009-01-24T19:40:20Z

Y'know what's awesome, Apple? Make a new model of one of your laptops, and don't note *anywhere* that it takes a different kind of RAM from the old version. Extra points for actually stating on your website that it uses the old kind, and barely acknowledge the model so when someone tries to dig deeper, all they see is instructions for a version you don't even sell anymore.

Seriously, good game, ye of the "User friendly" computers.

ETA: Even more awesome, pick a type of RAM that can, apparently, only be bought from you or dropped off the back of a truck eBay sellers.

To whoever makes dvds

2009-01-12T02:37:48Z

When I buy a dvd and it says it's supposed to be in French as well, I expect it to be in French. Now while it can be funny at a time to be watching something in French and have them randomly switch to English then back to French (it's like an anime fic with random Japanese), it gets annoying after the fifth movie in a row. I can follow perfectly fine, but my mom sometime cant. Plus most of those movie are in French on VHS. Can't it be that hard to try and stick to have the movie in one language only and not switch back and forth.

And honestly, I know that movies are better in their original languages, but there's some that I've grow up watching in French and watching them in English is just plain weird.

Almost getting into three wrecks in about two minutes because of asshole drivers makes me pissy.

2008-11-21T19:18:19Z

This might be elitist, but if you are so afraid of your car that you can't go over thirty miles an hour on a clear, dry day, you do not belong on the fucking interstate highway.

I can understand being a little afraid of your car. It's been two years since I got my newish Honda Civic, built during the period when Honda was experimenting with increasing fuel efficiency by making the car weigh three goddamn pounds. Crazy bitch of a thing still spooks me out sometimes, because you can feel just how much traction you don't have in conditions like the rain, snow, and fog all at the same time that I had to drive home through last night. And I guess that there is something pretty inherently frightening about being behind the wheel of a hurtling projectile of death.

That said, if you cannot work up the nerve to go at least fifty-five miles an hour, or even figure out which part of the on-ramp you should use to get onto the freeway--hint: it isn't the far left shoulder--you do not belong there. Trying to putter along the freeway at thirty miles an hour while there's a stack of cars trying to merge on behind you and oncoming traffic in the right lane is, in fact insanely dangerous. Braking repeatedly when you get up to forty does not make it less so. The car right behind you while the cars behind us try to pass on the right in the same lane or floor it to build up highway speed and then suddenly realize how slow this lane is actually going just in time to almost cause a wreck by cutting into the left lane without paying any attention to how fast traffic goes in the left lane.

Actually, you guys behind me suck too. I don't even get people who pass on the right when there are three actual lanes and the left--which is the one you're supposed to use in America--is free and clear. But in my fricking lane? Space for traffic to merge into the right lane =/= viable alternative for going around slow traffic. One car-length is not worth dying over. Just stop tailgating and doing dumbass things like that and simmer down a minute. Having some douche who wanted to do ninety right out of the gate in my back seat wouldn't even have the minor black humor going for it that the jackass behind me last night who apparently thought that forty mph is unreasonably slow for a winding, narrow country road in the rain/snow/fog at night ("wouldn't it be funny if a deer ran out in front of me and I stopped in time to miss it, but this jerk hit me instead?") did. Elementary physics, kids. Learn you some.

(tangential rant: WTF, Honda? I know that Japan has weather. Why would you design a car that can't operate safely even on moderately slick roads or winds over five mph? It wasn't terribly much better, but I miss my Protege so much.)

Dear self

2008-10-29T15:54:48Z

Why did you go and lose the antibiotics you NEED to recover from this ear infection? WHY?????

Signed,
Me, the woman who is going to tear apart the apartment a fourth time to try and find said antibiotics

It's basic.

2008-10-27T08:32:40Z

To My Downstairs Neighbor(s),

Just because you only use the garage to park your car, doesn't mean you can just leave it open. Other people are storing stuff in there. My bike is in there. My roomie's bike is in there. Have some fucking consideration. IT'S NOT FUCKING HARD TO CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR MANUALLY. YOU PRESS THE BUTTON ON THE SIDE. AND IF IT'S STUCK, YOU PULL TO GET IT GOING. THAT'S IT. IT DOES THE REST ITSELF. I had to do this TWICE tonight.

Also, when you parked your car in the driveway because you are too lazy to park on the street like you are supposed to- not cool. The other residents can't back out.

Sincerely,
Your Upstairs Neighbor

P.S. Pay some attention to your dog, for pete's sake.

Dear fellow apartment residents

2008-10-13T18:18:56Z

You're not the only ones who want to wash laundry today. How about not being a fucking punk and actually getting around to emptying out the washing machines of your shit? It's one thing if you leave it in the dryer because I could just take it out and leave it for you to pick up later but you left it all in the washing machines. It's all sopping wet.

Stop being a jerk and get with the program.

random_rant @ 2008-10-06T16:01:00

2008-10-06T20:06:21Z

Dear irresponsible Film classmates,

When I set a date with you guys on when to shoot a movie, I expect you to ACTUALLY BE PRESENT that day and time. Especially when we had to reschedule after you failed to make the original date. And no, saying "Don't worry man, we'll get it done" does not help and is not in the least bit productive towards getting it done (then again, neither is ranting, but I digress). Since I can't count on you, I'll have to arrange something with other people I know, which involves coordinating their schedules with mine and AAARRRGGGHHH. Thanks a lot.

No love,
Me

random_rant @ 2008-09-20T21:18:00

2008-09-21T00:19:19Z

Dear Little Feminist Group,

Being organized is NOT bowing to the patriarchy. It's getting things done.

No love,

The only person who baked anything for the damned bake sale

random_rant @ 2008-09-08T04:46:00

2008-09-08T09:00:19Z

Dear member of my offline writing group:

The reason I "have to put gay people in all [my] stories" is the same reason I have to put men and women and old people and young people and people of different colors in all my stories: that's what worlds have. It doesn't matter that I write fantasy. My story is not set on the Planet of the Hats. To be remotely realistic, a major trading center is going to have a whole lot of different kind of people there. It has nothing to do with me being bi, and that really isn't what I meant when I told you that before you went any further with that line of criticism, you should know that I'm not straight.

And at the other extreme, I'm getting really irritated with the online beta reader for one of my other stories who complains because my same-sex couple in that story "aren't slashy enough" (i.e., neither of them act like girls). Leaving aside the question of whether an original story can even be slash since it isn't combining anyone else's canon characters, good god. They're men who are eventually going to marry each other. How much slashier can it be?