Today it cost $47 dollars to fill the tank on our 1999 Buick LeSabre. This is the highest it has ever gone - I remember being able to fill the tank for $25, and being completely distressed when it got to $30. Now I'm just in shock that this is even an amount one can pay for a tank of gas.

My fuel price was 3.09 or so per gallon, and the car took somewhat over 15 gallons worth because we were a little extra empty at the time. But still! It's shocking to spend nearly fifty dollars just to fill up.

All the fun places we used to go that are a bit of a drive, I'm starting to cut back on because while the places themselves are free- the trip to get there wastes way too much of what has become a very expensive resource , gas.

A gallon of milk that once cost around $2.80 is now costing $4.39. A single loaf of bread is costing me nearly $4.00 ! I currently eat multigrain because I'm trying to eat healthier - but how long can I afford to do that if this price trend continues? White bread full of high fructose corn syrup and bleached flour is only $1.89 , after all.

We try to buy thing on sale where we can, but these little bread and milk runs are getting to be a painful experience in themselves.

So where does it end? When do we finally get to the point where we have had enough, and someone in a position to do so actually does something to stop this alarming increase?

When do we get decent jobs that will pay us enough that we can afford a basic, humanly decent standard of living that will let us have not even the luxuries - but just the simple things that we need?

I will vote for ANY politician who would actually do something about this and make our lives better, and not make things continually worse as the current administration has done for the past eight years. White, black, male, female, democrat, republican, independent, communist, socialist... ANYONE.

The problem is I'm no longer even sure our problems are solvable by anyone. I'm not sure that anyone is even really going to try to make the standard of living any better for the poor and average folks out there. But Obama is the candidate I think I have the most faith in - I believe that there's a better chance that he will actually try to do something, so that is who I am voting for.

But what I wouldn't give for there to be jobs in America again - to be able to actually 'look for the union label', like the t-shirt my father wore when he was a proud member of the Boilermaker's Union when I was growing up. Is anything at all made in America anymore?

I read today that they're closing so many parks in New Jersey, because they're understaffed and underfunded. We're heading for a Great Depression anyhow... why not use a depression era tactic and do what Roosevelt did and employ our people to do public works? Why not create jobs, and improve our economy and make us proud of our nation again?

And while we're at it, let's stop making Homeland Security about the vague threat of terrorism. Let's make a homeland that is secure, where people aren't being murdered in the streets of our cities - not by terrorists, but by each other - because they live in poverty, addiction and despair? Let's feed and educate our people. If you tap the phone of the average American, he's not talking about what he's going to bomb - he's talking about how he's going to eat, how he's going to afford to get to work at the crappy job he's too afraid to lose that doesn't pay the bills, that gets him further and further into credit debt and the shadow of foreclosure.

I'm angry when I think about these things - the car I can't afford to drive, the choice I need to make between the healthy bread and the cheap bread, about how the funny noise on my phone could either be static on the line or the government checking to see whether I'm a threat but not giving a damn about how I'm living, about how my husband went to school for seven months to better himself and may wind up jobless in America despite his certifications. I'm tired of our government throwing millions of dollars at an unwinnable overseas war while on our homefront, we are sinking.

WE ARE SINKING.

Where will it stop? Who will stop it? When will we hit bottom?

I don't know the answers to these questions - do you?

The financial situation is still glum, but at least it looks like Aus may have made some progress with the unemployment people. So maybe we won't have to wait until the 19th, at least. My mom loaned me the money for my medications, so at least those are covered. I managed to get the kids school supplies for searching for prices I could afford - I got packs of pens for 7 cents and binders for 1.50 at Staples, and stretchy book covers for 50 cents at Wal-Mart. So at least that's all covered.

Aus got some money for his birthday from one of my brothers, so that's a bit of cash that can go to food or whatever until we get back on track. My mom bought him Sims Bon Voyage, and gave us twenty for gas, heh.

My brother Ron was manning a display from the historical society at the town picnic today. My mom, my brother Joe and I went to keep him company a while - and the kids went along to run about and meet up with their friends. It was a bit overwhelming for me- I'm not much for crowds, beer drinkers and small children running about everywhere, and loud music from a local band. I did get some very good kettle corn courtesy of my mom, though. They also took me out to lunch, which was nice. My brothers are up to a lot of things this month - brother Joe will be teaching a NAMI class on mental illness and how it affects the family on Tuesdays (I think it lasts 12 weeks?). My mom and I are going to go take the class. And we go to the historical society, too - that's once a month on Wednesdays.

Mom also wants me to keep going to poetry, if they're still having it this year, at the Cherry Hill Library. That's once a week on Fridays. She's not being supportive of me by going, however- she doesn't really like poetry. She just wants to go to lunch with my Aunt Marie and Uncle Leon, which is what we do after the poetry. I told her that I didn't really want to go at least this month, because I was already overwhelmed - it would be this Friday, and we already have enough to do. This Saturday is my niece's wedding (which I really don't want to go to, but I'll get to that in a moment). So mom got all pissy and said that if I didn't go, I might as well just quit, because I hadn't gone for the past couple of times they had it, yadda yadda. I don't know where she lives that she's missed all the stress we've been having going on in our life that doesn't leave much room for me wanting to a) write poetry and b) go drive forty minutes away from the house so she can pay a minimal of attention while I read then go to lunch. Yeah, whatever.

On the way home from the picnic thing, my passenger's side window just up and stopped working in the car. Unfortunately, in the down position rather than the up. Right now i have a plastic bag over it, which I will have to remove tomorrow to drive Aus to school. I really hope it doesn't rain before I can find someone to fix it / afford to have it fixed.

Sunday is my niece's wedding, another lovely event that I really have no desire to attend. Even though she and her fiance live in NJ like we do, they decided to have the wedding in a location that's two hours away. Why? 'Because it's pretty!' They're also having it at 11 o'clock in the freaking morning, which means we have to leave at like, nine. I am not pleased. I also dislike dressing up, crowds (as aforementioned), being around people who have been drinking (which will likely be two thirds of the people there), and really don't see much future in this as they are two unemployed unstable people in an unstable relationship that isn't going to somehow get magically better by saying 'I Do.'

What is this trend towards ignoring my emails? ... it seems like I send out emails that are pretty much indicative of the need of some reply. I don't think I could make it much clearer that I want some kind of response without saying PLEASE REPLY TO ME and therefore looking desperate for human contact like some sort of social pariah. Maybe that's what I'm becoming. I try to reply to all the mail I get promptly, and with an appropriate response -or at the very least, a brief note saying I will reply further soon. Why am I not deserving of the same courtesy? Is this just a sign of the times, the way things go? Or am I that insignificant, that I can brushed off and considered not even worth ten seconds of type? Very much a pet peeve of mine, lack of communication.

Edit: Somewhat less grumpy, as I just got a message about one of the interviews I've been trying to set up, hurray! Pierre is the man. Now I will ideally have the material I need to make this an informative review!

We just just had a visit from this guy who looked like a cross between a bum and a rapist who showed up at our door at 8:30 at night to talk to Jeanette about making her confirmation. Which, you know.. it's not my thing. I raised the kids secular, but Jeanette wants to do the catholic thing - okay, that's her business now that she's old enough. But then the guy starts asking all these questions to me... which was very irritating.

Guy: Why aren't you Catholic?
Me: I grew up and got over it.

Guy: What are you?
Me: A writer.

Guy: I mean... religion wise.
Me: A heathen.

Guy: *looking at his chart* Is that.. uh... agnostic? Or atheist?
Me: Depends on the day.

Guy: ... so when you die, do you believe you'll have an after life?
Me: I believe I want to eat dinner now. What does this have to do with Jeanette's confirmation, anyhow?
Guy: Nothing - just making conversation.
Me: Well, it's very invasive. Please stick to what information you need for the actual reason for your visit.

Guy: *turning to my mother* So... do you have a hard time getting around because of your age?
Mom: My daughter drives me places.
Guy: Just once in a while?
Mom: No, whenever I want to go somewhere.
Guy: But she won't take you to church every week?
Me: Look, Buddy... not everyone wants to go to church on a weekly basis, even if they do believe in god. You done yet?

It was very irritating! He was here for a good 15 minutes... and the only real question he was here to ask was where my mother was baptized/confirmed (she's Jeanette's sponsor). He could have asked that over the goddamn phone... or don't they have them in annoying religious guy land? Oy.

I believe that everyone has the right to believe in whatever religion they want. If you want worship/ believe in Jesus, Mohamed, a robotic space chicken in the sky that lays golden eggs, Buddha, Pan, or Harry fucking Potter, go right ahead and do so just as long as two conditions are met:

1) You aren't hurting anyone else.
and
2) You aren't bothering me with it.

Serious. Conversion is lame. Let people make up their own damn minds, thank you very much. I have just as much right to be an atheist as that guy has to be a Catholic. I don't go knocking on his door and asking "So, why do you believe in that invisible guy in the sky anyhow? Isn't that a little silly?"

Mrrh.

Edit: ...according to my mother, the 'scary pedophophile/bum looking guy' is the parish priest. Um... yeah. He wasn't in uniform or anything. That's doublly sneaky!

So I got this call today from a concerned parent, one of my son's friend's mothers... who told me that they were having an emergency meeting down at the high school. Considering that every 'emergency meeting' is about something totally stupid, I had to try pretty hard not to just laugh and hang up. (For example sake here, the last one was because Paris Hilton wanted to be a teacher's aide at the school for her Simple Life show). Today's moral outrage? MySpace.

According to said mother, they were having a meeting warning parents about the dangers of MySpace, and how almost every kid has one now, and who knows what they could be messaging about? And there was a KILLER who had a MySpace, so that means that our children could be being exposed to criminals on the internet! Imagine that! She told me that she was bringing all her kids down to the school right away, so that they'd know why they shouldn't have a myspace in case they were thinking about making one. I didn't have the heart to tell her that all three of her kids have a myspace already. Why doesn't she know that? Because her kids, like about 70% of kids I know, are afraid to talk to their parents about anything they do on the internet because they're sure their parents are going to freak out and overreact.

I told her that not only do all three of my kids have MySpaces, but also so do I. What do they do on MySpace? Message their friends, send annoying bulletins (I know because I'm on their friends list and they message me to ask what's for dinner, and send out silly survey things all the time), and decorate their pages. Has anything awful happened from this? Well, they learned some basic computer and CSS / HTML skills, and their grammar and spelling have gotten better because they write more. Their typing speed has improved. This mother was SHOCKED and APPALLED that I would condone such things as MySpace, and said that I should take myself and the kids to this meeting straightaway to learn the truth about how dangerous myspace really was.

If I had gone to the meeting, it would have only been to point out how ridiculous they all were being. Why don't I worry about my kids on the internet? Because I taught them how to use the internet responsibly, and taught them to be smart and sensible in general. I also provide a good example for them with my own internet habits. That's really all parents need to do. Do I 'keep tabs' on them? I don't read their mail or their messages on a regular basis, no. But they'll call me over to show me something someone has written to them that they find funny, and if I walk into the room while they're IMing someone they don't hurry to close the window, because they know I'm not there to give them the third degree about what topic they're on.

Mass hysteria over two unrelated events annoys me. The killer in question isn't on the loose - in fact, he's now quite dead. So why does it matter that he had a MySpace? That's like saying "Oh my god, a criminal walked past me in the street once - I should never go outside again!" Millions of people use MySpace. Many of them are stupid. Some of them are psychotic. Why, that's just like the 'real world', innit?

As my son said to me, while rolling his eyes "Why are they so worked up? You know, if you don't want someone on myspace to contact you, you can just hit Block. It's right on the profile."

I think my 13 year old makes a lot more sense than the adults here.

/end rant

You know.. things are so much easier when people would just realise I'm right and going to hurt them if they insist on being wrong. It's good to know that you're right, and have the power to back up your words with actions, and use those actions to make nasty little buggers so scared that they confess their evil deeds.

Plagerism in its various forms really pisses me off imensely- mostly because I'm a writer. When Ry's picture got hijacked today, it really made me fume. But after the little fuckers confessed, the day got much better. Now, if the people will just remove it from the site or credit her, we'll all be good and my foot will not have to meet any more asses.

No one messes with my people.

Nomi had the nerve to reply to Kara's post. Yet, lacked the guts to be mature and responsible about leaving, as did Claire. I despise falseness so much in people, damn their black hearts, both of them.

Of course, it was just to try and shift the blame to someone else. Ever this, to blame someone else for their own actions. Never their responsibilty, of course not. Always "We felt we had to do this" or "You made us..." in that sick little symbiotic plural that has come to symbolize their lives. They should just screw and get it over with.

Or grow up. Or both.

Still, it is disheartening to know that people you once cared for are so vile and craven as to sneak off and leave everthing unclosed, from what happens to all their characters who were with other characters in the roleplay all the way right on down to the "hey, we once trusted you so much that you have a lot of our shit, and we'd like it back now".

Shallow, nasty, craven little cowards.

If I believed in hell, I'd almost wish for you both to rot in it.

But of course, I don't. And from my estimations, if I did, I'd say you were both already there.

So what changes?

Nothing.

The sun still rises. Spring still follows winter. None of this will matter in a hundred years, which is like a blink of an eye to the universe.

Betrayal has been a part of humanity since Cain and Able (and I'm quite sure, since that's a Christian myth, in civilizations that went before it.)

That doesn't make it hurt any less.

Its amazing that even though you know humanity sucks in general, the pain is still fresh evertime you're confronted with the fact.

Well, the little bitch has finally done something to impress me. I hope she's proud. She's managed to sink to lower levels than even I thought her capable of.

Worse part is that now we have to change all our passwords for almost everything, and restructure our matterials to take stuff off the domain that she was paying for. This is our repayment, for years of kindness, for making her the maid of honor at our wedding, for spending the summers with her every year.

This is why one should never trust another human being , friends, because when you do, its only a matter of time before they rip their claws into your back and tear your heart out, smiling all the time.

We finally escaped from our room and were going to be online for a bit in peace, because Tim and his wench were in the bedroom getting some, but then they wandered out looking.. well.. you know how people look after.. heh.

Time to retreat again! We're going to live in our room for the next five days.

Warning: Rant ahead.

If you are particularly inclined to read this, do so. If not, use the power of not reading.

I have spent the past few days getting increasingly disgusted with the self centered nature of most human beings. I suppose it started when I read about the Buddhist statues being destroyed because "They were an affront to Islam" . That's just such narrow minded BS. I'm sick of people who think like that.

Then there was the whole Jenna thing. Jenna is Aus's ex-stepsister- and a pathological liar. It is probably not her fault, considering that her mother was such a psychotic bitch. But still. She didn't go to the funeral for Aus's grandfather, then tried to play it off like it was Aus's fault, and she was really all concerned, when she wasn't, and it was no one's fault but your own. If you're going to be an insensitive bastard, at least be an honest one.

I'm also tired of all the instant gratification junkies our society brreds. As the leaders of a very large guild on Neopets (722 people) and the creators of a roleplaying system, we get this -alot-. "I want my free stuff right now!!" "Why isn't anyone playing rightright now?". We do not exist to entertain or please others. We are not here for the enjoyment or the amusement of others- we are not pawns in some larger game. We are human beings, the same as any other, and have the right to not be in the mood to play on demand, or to provide yet another free service for the greedy grasping hands.

And I am sick to death of people that hurt your feelings, then turn around and say "Gee.. I'm really sorry I did that..." then do it again, and be completely bewildered by the fact that you're not going to sit around and take it. Once is usually all it takes for me to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's not mistrust, that's common sense.

Then there's the person who's so completely self absorbed they'll blather for hours about their new clothes, and their hair, and about what stupid thing they did with their equally inane little friends- then completely ingore you when you try to tell them one little thing about your life, because its not about -them-. Shallow, spoiled, nasty little bitches.

Oh, and then there's the person who can't understand why you don't trust them, or give them a chance to do things, after you've repeatedly tried to get them to do something so simple, yet they never seem to have the time to help. This is usually the same person who has plenty of time to babble vapidly about their clothing.

I'm sick of people who don't live up to their responsibilites, try to blame others, stab each other in the back, and are generally false, jealous and nasty.

I don't like liars and cheaters. At all.

I don't like buttkissers, senseless flattery, manipulators, or holier than thou people.

That's just so much bullshit.

I especially don't like prejudiced people, whether against gays, religious groups, or races, or gamers, or anything, really. Every person has the right to exist as they wish, so long as they are not harming others.

I hate it when people act stupid because they think its "cool".

I hate it when people just follow the crowd, and let the media or their friends decide what they should like, wear, or listen to.

I can't stand power plays, political bs, or other hostile actions that seem to have become part of polite society because we can no longer just invade someone's castle and decapitate them when we want to make a "takeover".

I hate that there are starving children in the world while every day I hear kids in America whining because they can't have a new pair of sneakers, or a fucking Rio, or yet another CD.

It totally disgusts me when people think the online world is any less real than the offline one. You can't just treat people you meet online like shit because you can turn the computer off and forget about them. Each person out there on the net is a person with feelings, dreams, and sorrows- just like you. To think otherwise is cruel.

I really hate the fact that people who are part of this problem will read this rant and go "wow.. other people suck" and not realise that parts of this are parts of how they live.

There are, however, reasons I don't lose complete faith in humanity. There are those few beings I have met who have truely beautiful souls, who love, and give, and do not hurt others. Unlike the people who are those 90% (and you know who you are) , these people genuinely make the world a better place.. and keep me from wondering why the gods are insane enough to let our species continue.

Maybe its that 10% that makes everything worth while. Maybe someday, when natural selection gets itself back in gear, the good people will be the majority. One can only hope.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for someone who has tons of work because they spent the past four days f'cking around at a gaming convention instead of being here to help with the tons of stuff we needed people to help with while we were doing funeral stuff?

Especailly now that I'm trying to catch up with all the work accumulated from the stuff I couldn't do this weekened because we were caught up in all the death stuff. Nice to know how much your "friends" care about anything behind their own lives.

When this same person returned last night, it wasn't "How are you feeling?" or "Did everything go alright with the funeral?" . No, of course not. That would require thinking about someone other than herself (and her tag-along, sometimes). The first thing she does is brag, brag brag about all the buttons she got, and how they roleplayed for almost 24 hours, yadda yadda.

The other "friend" who went to the convention loaded the bot we've been without almost all weekend, and didn't even bother to show her face to be blatantly uncaring.

There's just some days I hate 90% of all human beings.

I woke up this morning in a perfectly good mood, really. Then I went out to my computer and saw a "cute" little note from the father in law on my keyboard. "Please get the sink and stove clean - Love Dad" .

Now.. what made me cranky about this wasn't even the fact that he was asking us to do stupid house things on Aus's days off. Its the fact that this maniacal cleaning fit is so his girlfriend can come and vist him for his birthday and won't think he's a slovenly bastiche or something.

This is the same reason we have to contain our cat in the bedroom when she comes, because miss prissy is alergic to cats. Oh, poor baby. The cat has lived here since Aus was a child, you think the poor animal could be left alone.

What got me the most was the "love". Where was this supposed love when he took off suddenly for Kentucky and left Aus without transportation to work for three days? Where was this love when I told him that Aus had to walk to work one day in the snow and the cold and had blisters on his feet now, and all he had to say in reply was "Good"?

I'll tell you where. It didn't exist, and it doesn't exist beyond the bounds of "if I say this, you're more inclinded to do stuff for me". I really hate falseness in people. I used to feel like I was a part of the family when I married Aus, and that his father was my father.

Now I'm wondering how much kindness he has towards his own son, let alone me.

Then when I tried to explain to everyone how upset this made me, the false carring at the end of a "do something for me" note.. .they just basically ignored me, each going about their own little life, doing what they had been doing before I got there, as if I didn't exist of all. Granted, Sherry and Liz were on their way out to lunch, and Nomi doesn't give a damn about any of us except Claire most of the time, but a little bit of sympathy from someone would have been nice.

I don't know... sometimes it seems like there's nothing behind the masks that most people wear to look polite, yet completely detatched, from anything you're saying to thme.

You could be talking about how you just ran naked through the streets, and they'd still go on making little noises about their lives, and shutting out anything you have to say.

I wonder what those people really look like, inside, and if they ever truely see themselves without some sense of guilt or pitty for the lack of ability to truely feel?

I wonder if anyone really reads this, except me.

Probably not. But that's okay, because I think in the end, it was only really meant for me to begin with. I never start out to write for other people- even if its a story, or an article. I guess that's selfish of me, to not be like the old english teachers used to say we should be "Writing for the audience" and to "keep the reader in mind".

Here's a little secret. I couldn't give a rat's ass about the reader when I write. Some of the pieces I feel most strongly about are those that never get commentary, because they are too personal for anyone but me to really understand. Some of the stuff I feel detatched from to the point of letting it sit around for months before I do anything with it is called "Brilliant" and "very touching".

Go figure.

This has strayed far from its original intent.

Okay.. my "slightly irritated by new GM and his screwups" has gone to "If I had a real sword, I'd dismember him slowly". I have very little patience for people I don't like anyhow (its a character flaw, I know), and he has just stepped on my last nerve.

He's just.. .ignoring the rules of our system entirely, and doing this freeform hippy tree-hugging autohit BS. I can't take it anymore. I got so disgusted I just wandered off before I told him what I -really- thought of him (never a good idea when mad).

He's not even trying to use the rules. And its freaking ego quest, made up to explain why his character is missing, to perhaps make his character more important than the barlurking waste of f'cking space and text he is.

We worked hard to make this system. Three years of our lives went into making these rules that he is just blatently ignoring. I'm sure this is not such a big deal to those of you who don't RP... but it really upsets me.

Then, we have this other person (who I also don't like that much) that says "Other GMs in other systems push things along or say they automatically happen to further the story."

That's just f'cking great for them. If all the other GMs jumped into a cess pit of hell, should we jump too?

What good is having a game system if you dont' play by its rules? Everyone in our system from the creators on down follows the rules. That's the way it is, and will always f'cking be. I wouldn't want to play in a game where my GM and my game owners were above the rules. I don't expect people to play in our game if we suddenly become that way.

I'm too pissed off to be online right now.

Oy, sometimes you can start such a riot by saying you're starting not to like something. The more I hear about some things, the less Ilike them. Like this filk thing which is starting to get to be rather daily and somewhat itchy like anime talk. I've been trying to be more patient with the anime talk, particularly since I've seen a few things that didn't make me want to run screaming from the room. But just because I said that I've been hearing about it every day from either Nomi or Claire, Nomi got all upset because she's "not allowed to like things". The whole reason I'm tyring to become more anime tollerant is so that Nomi can talk about her favorite stuff without making me want to cringe. I've gotten to the point where I can listen to talk of AX, Utena, weird colored hair and big eyed things for at least five minutes at a time on a good day before politely asking that the anime talk please stop because I'm aporoaching my low tollerance levals. I'm getting used to it. Filk is nice to listen to, I like the songs that Claire has sent us, its funny. But.. having to hear it quoted in the loft on a daily basis, either by Nomi or Claire, and having it appear in the topics (we don't usually post song lyrics) is just getting to be too much. So I try to say that its getting irritating so that it doesn't turn into another anime thing, and could we please not go on about it quite so much, and it turns into this big disaster. Mgh. I didn't mean to hurt anyone's ternder feelings, I just don't like to hear about stuff that irritates me any more than non smokers want a smoker breathing smoke rings in their face, or being in a room full of drifting smoke clouds. And as 1/2 of the two people doing 90% the free work that goes into our RPG (often thanklessly and with paying money out of our own pockets to the tune of 250 dollars or more a year to keep it going), I think I have the right to say that something is getting on my nerves, and it needs to stop and be taken to messages if it is to be discussed. Its one of the few benifits that come with the three tons of work.

At least my class went well. People seemed to enjoy it, particularly the game at the end. I was glad of that.

The cat is licking his arse next to me. Why do they need to sit down right next to you before they start slurping?

I try my best to not upset people, yet it seems I often do.

I don't want Aus to have to go out again tomorrow. I know he needs a job, but I think Mondsy would do just as well to get aps and such, and his feet are still all blistery from his walk. He should stay off them and rest.

I'm sure most sane people don't read my journal, but in case you are one, dont' read this one. There is a rant about things that piss me off about to happen.

1) Drinking, drinkers, beer, drunkeness, etc. Especially when applied to our zip disks. We keep the ARC system backed up on a happy zip disk. Is this a good thing? Yes. Is having your father in law spill his beer on it a good thing? Hell freaking no. Our zip disk is ruined because of pointless stupid drinking. That really pisses me off. And have you ever noticed that those that are drinking are nine times out of ten a person that can't afford to lose the braincells they're killing? And alcohol smells. I'm rather glad Aus doesn't drink, but it would be nice if our household could be drink free.

2) People who want something and are quite obviously only lurking around because they want something. From help with bot scripting, to help with homework, to a date, people wander into our OOC room looking for help/advice/free handouts all the time. Get a life, people. We all had to learn to do things on our own, and we have little enough spare time as it is. We're not a matchmaking service, a bot scripting clinic, or a homework helpline. And asking for us to make you a bot, or to use our bot for your own purposes is like going to Coca Cola and asking how they make their really neat drink. Crass, and stupid.

3) People who try to make you feel guilty about things you have nothing to do with, or use faulty logic to use somehting bad to get you to do something for them. "I need this bot because my grandma died and I'm feeling really bereaved" . Are you going to toss a pile of mIRC scripts in Granny's grave? I think not. You don't need this because your grandmother died. You need it because you want to get free stuff for nothing, and have a convienent excuse.

4) Peoiple that say "I can see I'm not wanted here..." . If you're here to get free stuff for nothing, be pesty, agrivate me, or just lurk to make mean or leud comments, damn straight you aren't wanted here. What gave you the clue? Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, pal.

5) Fanboys/girls. "I like this because all my little friends like it, and the media says I like it!" mentalities piss me off. People that read crap and call it inovative (when I could point out 50 books or more that have the same trite recycled plot) piss me off. People who write fanfics and play Sepharoth and Raistlin Majere because they can't use the imagination they have for other useful, more industrious puproses piss me off.

6) Stupid people. I'm not talking about those people that have been born with lower IQs, i'm talking about people that don't try to use what they've got. People who think its cool to play dumb, or not think, that would rather play with their hair and wear more makeup than a mime in winter. That really really irritates me.

7) Bad roleplayers. Moders that try to be all powerful, people that can't play and think they can, people that want to play the continual everflow victim that needs to be rescued from everything, Anyone that describes anything on their character as pendoulous or heaving. Anything that trys to use the system for their own advantage as opposed to creating what would be an interesting character (I'm 4d89, but I've got more faults then you can shake a system at. Oh, yeah, and an allergy to cheese.. I can only be killed by chedder...) . Freeform pisses me off. So much that it gets its own category.

8) Freeform roleplay. It encourages people to not play well, and to learn to be moders. It, by its very definition, doesn't encompass anything that roleplay is supposed to be. Its like a bunch of children playing "lets pretend" without rules. There's no way for characters to grow, or face challenges, without the very lame "Freeform combat". Just say no to freeform.

9) Smokers. You're turning your lungs black and smoking cancer sticks. 'nuff said.

10)Harry Potter. The plucky little bastard needs to be shot so that all the millions of entranced victims will wake up and read/support decent litterature again.

11) Most Anime. Anything with a deformed head, or eyes that are larger than its hands, should be exposed for the freak of nature it is and put down. Anything that shows animated sex for no particular reason, or animated nudity (particularly with disproportional parts) so that people can go Huh huh Huh.. breasts... should be destroyed.

12) People with no opinions other than what others have told them they should have. "My parents say..." "My friends say..." "My dog says..."

13) Rap, country, pop music,disco, hip hop. I don't like it. I don't want to listen to it.I don't want others to play it near me.

14) People who seem to think that you should be awed and thrilled by their presenace in your life or RP. Ooh. Ah. Die.

15) Anyone that names their website www.myname.com and has nothing there but stuff about themselves and what they think is cool . What an egotist. I don't care about your life that much. Perhaps, not at all.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure I could delve deeper, but that would just piss me off more. Being pissed off is kind of cool though, in a way, because it motivates you write more rapidly. I'm already feeling a bit better, too, getting that out.

Aus is better at everything, and its not fair,because he's too cute to be mad at about it, or anything. And he's totally non-compeditive, so its not like he rubs it in your face or anything. I didn't even know he has like.. more NP than I've ever had like.. since playing the entire game (combined, most likely, all the NP that I've ever HAD doesn't equal what he has in his bank account). And he's bitching because he bought me a like.. 6,000 NP paintbrush (He had half that much in cash, and 10 times that in the bank and not to meantion his store till) . AND this is like the second item he's ever bought me (not including quests, which I got some stuff for him for, too), and I've been giving him stuff to put in his store and books after my guys are done reading them, thinking he was a poor SOB like me. Selfish husband. Hmph. Anyhow, so he buys me the striped brush, then tries to say that if I'm really nice to him (this probably involves sex in some manner- or making him tea), Actually, I was thinking of 'not being yelled at for having a savings plan, and not being ranted about.' Shush, this is my rant. And those triangle thingys won't show up, because it'll think that's HTML. Anyhow.. as I was saying. I really get unhappy thinking about how pleased I was to make just one thousand NP, and think about how Aus must have been silently mocking me ( I knew that smirk was for a reason) when I was all proud and happy about it. Men, oy. Also, I was all happy about getting the t-shirts and mousepads from Neopets, and they -still- haven't put a link to my article up, and Aus and Tim haven't even worn the shirts yet. I feel blech. Anyhow, in addition to that, he can do programing, math, fix things that break, has like.. better logical skills than I do, he doesn't have as many mental issues as I do, he's younger than I am, better looking, skinnier,

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Aus is better at everything, and its not fair,because he's too cute to be mad at about it, or anything. And he's totally non-compeditive, so its not like he rubs it in your face or anything. I didn't even know he has like.. more NP than I've ever had like.. since playing the entire game (combined, most likely, all the NP that I've ever HAD doesn't equal what he has in his bank account). And he's bitching because he bought me a like.. 6,000 NP paintbrush (He had half that much in cash, and 10 times that in the bank and not to meantion his store till) . AND this is like the second item he's ever bought me (not including quests, which I got some stuff for him for, too), and I've been giving him stuff to put in his store and books after my guys are done reading them, thinking he was a poor SOB like me. Selfish husband. Hmph. Anyhow, so he buys me the striped brush, then tries to say that if I'm really nice to him (this probably involves sex in some manner- or making him tea), <Aus> <interrupts the journal to comment> Actually, I was thinking of 'not being yelled at for having a savings plan, and not being ranted about.' Shush, this is my rant. And those triangle thingys won't show up, because it'll think that's HTML. Anyhow.. as I was saying. I really get unhappy thinking about how pleased I was to make just one thousand NP, and think about how Aus must have been silently mocking me ( I knew that smirk was for a reason) when I was all proud and happy about it. Men, oy. Also, I was all happy about getting the t-shirts and mousepads from Neopets, and they -still- haven't put a link to my article up, and Aus and Tim haven't even worn the shirts yet. I feel blech. Anyhow, in addition to that, he can do programing, math, fix things that break, has like.. better logical skills than I do, he doesn't have as many mental issues as I do, he's younger than I am, better looking, skinnier,<Aus> <imitating L's tone> And he complains that he's not good -enough- at this stuff, and damnit, he should be teaching me how to be better than him instead! <L> <regains the rant again> Grrrr... anyhow, he's too smart for his own good sometimes. Heh. But he's so cute, its like.. hard to stay mad at him for more than... eh, a minute or two. Then he does something cute. Then I whack him. Like this. <whacks him to demonstrate- as Aus was making cute litele hand gestures> Agh, he's still doing it. <whack whack> Rggh. Anyhow... what was the point of this? Oh, yeah, Aus is cute and should actually get me two more paintbrushes so that I can paint the rest of my neopets, because lets face it, I'm going to have to spend 800 hours or more kacheek seeking like a ho on fifth avenue or something. Its vaguely degrading. And your pets mock your inability to find them, because they know you don't really want to do it, you're just being a sleaze for the NP. Anyhow.. I hope Tim hasn't removed our music from his puter. Maybe Aus should hide it somewhere. Heh.

I can't believe its the weekend already. It seems like this week went by particularly fast. I'm hoping we can finally teach our very postponed shifter class today. I'd like to actually be able to do my shifter CPs. I've gotten my t-shirts and mouspads from Neopets.com - they really sent them off fast. They're very cute. I'm going to give the three medium ones to the kids, and so forth, but there's still three extra mousepads. I really had fun playing with my neopets today. I go through periods of not caring whether they exist beyond feeding them, and then suddenly feel like playing games and doing stuff with them. The side of my face is starting to hurt again. I can't help but think about the fact that if we had stayed in NJ, we'd have insureance right now, and I could be going to doctors for this. Maybe someday soon, we'll get to go back there. Lately I've been thinking about my characters, and my mostly non-existant homepage. I might take some time to just update that. Maybe include a section on understanding L's characters, and just.. I don't know, looking into what motivates them and so forth. And some stuff about my writing, I guess. That's pretty much what defines me as a person. Characters that everyone loves and writing that makes people depressed, for the most part. Heh. Don't get me wrong, there's some love songs, and poems about cute things, but for the most part, my writing comes from the somber place inside of me that holds a certain view of the darken plane that has been my primary point of existance for most of my life. I think its like an inkwell, where I've stored up all the memories of dark things past, and occasionally dip the quill of inspiration into it before capping it tightly again. After all, I wouldn't want to spill those dark and shadowed things into my normally friendly and cheerful existance. Aus says that I'm an angel so often that I'm really tempted to believe it. After all, I was born in the mystical numerology of 9, a gemini, a free spirited charismatic icon that seems to have some sort of magnetism towards the universe in general. I have never not landed on my feet, or seriously doubted my ability to survive anything that was thrust at me. When I write, I enter an almost trance like state. Words just seems to flow from my mind onto the paper, or in most cases, the screen, without hitting all the little conventions that seem to stop most people's inspiration. I don't worry about what I say being offensive, unconventional, or wrong. Most people have a faucet (I think its called "common sense" ) that controls the flow of their words, usually only allowing a trickled down version of what they are thinking to reach their audience. Me... well, I think i have a waterfall. I could no more stop the flow of what I want to write than I could stop an oncomming train by laying a sheet of paper with "stop" written on it across the tracks. Sometimes I am blunt, sometimes I am unsymapthetic, and selfish. But at least I'm honest about what I'm feeling, and make no polite conventions. I have very little patience for the stupid. And by stupid, I mean people that don't try to learn as much as they can, or push the limits of their static little worlds. There are plenty of people I have met with IQ's much lower than my own that were facinating, vital, smart people. They did the best they could with what they had to work with, and tried their best to do more. Learning might have been harder for them, but they never complained. Then there are people far smarter than I, who whine constantly about being able to do nothing.. not wanting or liking this or that, not bothering to think beyond what the teachers and lawyers and politicians tell them to think. That is true stupidity. The ability to be so much more than we are, and yet do nothing- that is the most stupid thing that I can think of anyone doing. Prejudice also pisses me off. I can't think of any reason to dislike someone because of their skin color, sexual prefrence, or social class. That's like saying that oranges are far superior fruits to apples because Orange starts with O, and O is a round letter. Its just plain faulty logic. Which brings me back to the above point about what true stupidity is, and therefore, brings an end to this post before it gets stuck in a terminal rant loop, and we're all trapped in an alternate dimension with some aliens that sort of look like Jamie Farr, who would suck out your internal organs and take some polariods, and say you were a darn good sport....

Y'know, sometimes it just seems that your friends are less enthused about your life than you'd hope. When you tell someone about something you're really happy about and get a flat "congratulations." you know that it means they just don't care, and wish you didn't bring it up in the first place. That's sort of sad. You know, I'm really tired of certian people coming online after being mostly gone and talking about their offline gaming sessions, and then just bitching when anything else is meantioned to them. What gives? I don't know how to relate to people who's entire purpose seems to be being cranky/miserable/depressed, then being bitchy at you for pointing out that they are one or all of these things. WHat happened to the good old days when people would come online in -good- moods, anxieous to participate in whateverr story was going on, or start some nifty adventure or some such? I don't know, it just seems like a lot of people are into self-centered fonts of either depression or self importance. That's another thing that goes on a lot lately. "Look at what I did! See what I'm doing? Oh, you guys are playing? Well, go ahead and play by yourselves, I'm admiring my own self worth". Its just.. irritating. It seems like people are either too good or too damn cranky to play anymore. Fortunately, a few people are still playing on a regular basis, like Ry, Kara, Nomi, Bri, Arley, but its just been sort of disheartening the number of people that just up and find their little lives far more imporatnt than we are (and then lurk in the loft to tell us all about it in either glowing or bitchy terms). Heh.. this has been a rant. If you are offended by it, oh well, its how I was feeling at the time. If you aren't offended by it, good, that means you are probably not one of the irritating people alluded to in this rantfest. Oh, and one more complaint, Tim's playing country. Blech.

I really hate hackers. They need to get f'cked, so they have something to do other than sit in front of their computers like the no life little geek boys they are. I may have some IRC virus called subserver7. This means that if I can't figure out how to fix it, I'll have to format my entire freaking harddrive. Which would suck majorly. I'm really pissed off about this. There is absolutely no reason that some arsehole should make a virus to f'ck with people, instead of doing something constructive or useful. I really hate hackers. They supposedly have all this computer knowledge and talent that they could be using for good purposes, but instead, they chose to be arsewipes, so that innocent people like me that didn't do anything to anyone have to deal with crap like fixing my computer. This is so not what I felt like doing with my day. I was going to get up, talk to my firends on IRC< work on some webpages for the game, and relax. But Aus got called for a job, and of course, that's when I find out that the computer is acting all assly. Because he'd know how to fix it. I'm trying to think if I was a really rotten bitch to anyone to deserve this kind of karma, but I don't think I was anything but nice to anyone, really. This sucks. And if you are a hacker, and you are reading this, you need to get a life and stop being a pimple on the arse of society. Seriously.