Random Rant

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?

random_rant @ 2008-07-29T02:45:00

2008-07-29T06:48:43Z

Ok, so I can understand that you're an affectionate person. Really. Really and truly. I mean, I'm not particularly, but I can get that. Still, don't you think we've been doing a bit much kissing on the mouth for only being friends? Or hey, don't you think, maybe, if we're only friends, sleeping (in the actual sleeping sense) together on your damn couch was a bit...misleading? I mean, really. Thanks for reinforcing my paranoia when it comes to relationships.

A rant in letter style

2008-07-22T17:48:37Z

Dear you:

We've been friends for a long time. We don't always agree on things, but that's okay, because I don't think that it's necessary for friends to agree on all things.

I know it sticks in your craw that I don't like a group of people you consider friends. And you repeatedly make that dislike known anytime the subject of said group of people comes up.

But you know what? That group of people has treated your other friends (including me) like absolute shit. A lot. Repeatedly. And the fact that you will continue to defend them? Kind of pisses me off.

Actually, it pisses me off a lot. I can tolerate the fact that you still want to be friends with them. But I have had it up to here with you getting whiny, emo, and passive-aggressive anytime anyone says a bad word against them.

THEY DID A LOT OF NOT NICE THINGS. Defending them to the people who were the targets of said not nice things is NOT KOSHER.

Grow up and suck it up. If you would prefer to keep kissing their asses, be my guest, but I'm thisclose to being completely done with you.

No love,
Me

Dear Speschul Snowflakes

2008-06-26T18:05:02Z

See...there's a *reason* magnetic ID badges are used in some office buildings.

It's because there are people who probably have no business being there, and Security would like to keep them on the other side of the electronic doors. Period.

Also: I'm a contractor, and the building is huge. I don't know 95% percent of the folks here by sight, and that might include you. If I let you in, and it turns out you're the stalkery ex-lover of someone who works here? Or a disgruntled former employee, packing heat and looking to shoot up the place? Guess who gets it in the neck for letting you bluff your way in.

Go on, guess.

If you do belong here and have just misplaced your badge, you're supposed to schlep over to Security to beg a temporary replacement. I know that's the rule for me; presumeably it's the rule for eveyone.

Therefore:

- Trying to sneakinrealfastbehindme when I buzz myself in? Not cool.

- Rapping indignantly on the glass window of the side-door, and smooshing your face against it to glare accusingly inside? This, instead of going 'round to the suite's front, where Security can see you, confirm who you are, and happily resolve your badgelessness for the day?

Just plain lazy, and will get you fucking ignored.

- Propping doors open? Like the door to the corporate fitness room, so your dawgs who don't work there can come and go as they please? Doubleplusuncool. Especially when I'm one locker-room door away — which has no lock! Quelle ironie! — alone, female, small, and depending on the timing, starkassed nakkers.

- Finally: yesterday. After hours. You haunt the back door, looking all officious, huffy and briefcase-y. Lurking, waiting to pounce on the first biped who walks by. Then you leap up to go *BANGBANGBANG* "HEY YOU! LEMME IN!", projecting a more belligerent sense of entitlement on the subject of In Vs. Out than even my cat's got.

Meanwhile the biped (me) has just done 5 miles of cardio on top of a full day's work, is sore, tired, and on the phone letting off steam about a friend who'd died several hours earlier.

Fuck off and go round the front, where the main entrance has regular, non-electronically locked doors. Ass.

The only thing that keeps me from being any more annoyed about this trend, is the sobering fact that all the folks involved probably bring the same aggressively self-absorbed attitude with them when they get behind the wheel. o_O

They'll kill me one day, I just know it.

bubba the shitty repairman

2008-05-05T04:53:05Z

ETA: Sorry this originally ended up in random_lounge - I didn't check before I hit "submit"
(the longer story can be found in my LJ as well as LJ's bad_service)

Dear Absent Landlord,

Thank you for being a cheap ass and hiring "Bubba." Not only did he use the wrong material for the hole in the ceiling, he didn't remove anything from my room (in fact my roommate offered to move my stuff out herself and he brushed her off), nor did he adequately protect it - so now $1000-2000 worth of my electronics are soaked in plaster dust. Also, the entire apartment is coated in dust, my closet is coated in dust, and I can't sleep in my own bed for the next two nights.

Did I mention I have a midterm tomorrow?

Oh, and yes I am going to hire maid service to clean the apartment, and I'm going to send you the bill as well. Not only would it be ridiculous to ask me to clean up after the Neanderthal you hired, but I'm allergic to dust. So no, I'm not going to even lift a finger myself because it would result in a sinus infection (which I already feel coming on just from walking around and moving a few things out to prevent further dust.)

Royally pissed,

Your tenant

Dear body: choose a date and stick to it

2008-05-02T03:18:09Z

Dear body,

Could you like choose one date and stick to it? You had your fun for years now. I let you start on the 15 on one month, then skip the next, then start on the 1st the month after and then start on the 27 the month after that one. And who knows the next month! Not me! Would it be that hard to choose one date and stay on that date for like a year? Just you know, to give me a sense of no "surprise!". No? Too hard. Fuck you.

No love,
M.

Fuck you, Mr. Governor, and Fuck you, my dearest chancellors

2008-05-01T21:15:29Z

I don't post much, I mostly lurk, but somewhere NEEDS TO BE PARTY TO MY RAGE.

I'm currently a graduate student with the Group in Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. We have a pretty old and prestigious program, one of the oldest in the country (which is sad as it's only 59 years old).

We have a very strong East Asian Languages program as well. Currently it teaches 3,000 students (out of 40,000 total, which is a pretty significant portion), and that is with turning many away. The languages are popular because of the quality of the classes, and the heritage factor in that 40%+ of Berkeley's student population is of Asian decent (which, I know, doesn't mean that all 40% of them are of East Asian descent or want to learn an East Asian language, but I will say that it's nice to not be surrounded by anime nerds in Japanese class).

Well, perhaps I should say, WE HAD.

Because our fucktard of a governor refuses to even slightly raise taxes (which are actually low in respect to how many services the government provides) because HE ARE REPUBLICAN HARHAR, we have a huge deficit looming this fiscal year. And, of course, the one of first things to get assed when really stupid conservatives are in charge is always education. $4 billion dollars worth of cuts to K-12, and $412 million to the UC system (which translates into about $20-40 million of loss for UCB, which runs mostly off of donations at this point).

Despite a vice-chancellor claiming that to arbitrarily fire staff would be shit for the university (cite), EALC is facing a budget cut of about 50%. This means that while they are teaching 3,000 students now, next year they can only accommodate 1,500. Over half of all of our language teachers are being fired (Korean is the most assed by this, as they are going from seven teachers to two, while Chinese and Japanese get to keep five, and only because they have tenure! Korean, which is the smallest of the three programs, is going to also have to turn away just as many students), and they are getting rid of such classes as fifth year (and possibly fourth-year!) language classes, and language classes for speakers with some prior background, or speakers of other dialects.

Korean, the least popular of the three, has more students than Russian and Arabic, which, as far as we know, aren't facing the same kinds of cuts. SE and S Asian languages are also getting massive cuts, which is going to basically remove language programs in Tagalog, and likely other smaller language programs like Thai or Hindi, entirely.

THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT.

On a personal note, degrees in the Group in Asian Studies require three years of study of an Asian languages. The way things are looking, EALC can only give class seats to their majors. Everyone else CANNOT EVEN ENROLL. I have NEVER heard of this happening in any school's language program (cuts, yes, but closed to non majors? no). So, yeah, the backbone of an area studies degree is the language, especially in a field somewhat lacking in English-language scholarship, and without it, our program is as good as dead. Which is a shame, what with it being so well respected and all. MY FIELD IS SMALL ENOUGH WITHOUT A MAJOR UNIVERSITY KILLING ITS PROGRAM.

I also am looking at the possibility of not getting enough language training to be able to read the Japanese sources I'm going to need to finish my thesis. I'll have to look elsewhere for the language classes that were promised (more or less) to me at admission. It's most of the reason I came to get an M.A. in the first fucking place. Asian Studies, and Asian Languages, are underrepresented as it fucking is in English scholarship, the last thing we fucking need to do is more or less eliminate them from an option for anyone who wants to study them, but not major in them. For someone who actually, you know, wants to incorporate language into their other studies (like someone who wants to do, say, international business in Asia). It's bad e-fucking-nough that I hate the area I live in, am not getting any funding from the school next year, and that M.A. students can't get most GSI/TA positions, but now they are taking my languages away from me and over a thousand other students? I've about fucking had it with this fucking place.

I love foreign language, am an amateur linguist, and how monolingual and Europe-centric a lot of university education is has always pissed me off. And now for a university to force students out of a program that was overflowing is such fucking bullshit.

I'm sure our football team is DOING GREAT THOUGH. I haven't heard of any other departments getting cut this heavily either, though I haven't done a lot of looking. Just fuck.

I'm so fucking pissed at the moment. I don't even know where to best channel my rage. Letters seem inadequate at this point, you know?

Why didn't I go to UCLA or Stanford, or even to USC? I mean, they appear to actually care about their language programs (though UCLA is the only fair comparison, as the other two are private universities).

Fuck these people hardcore. With something pointy. And rusty.

You want some irony? We just opened our new, huge, East Asian Library. The only larger collections of East Asian language materials in the country are at the Library of Congress and Harvard. Sucks that no one will be around to use it! What the fuck was the College of Letters and Science thinking?

[I can't help but link the student movement here]