still a ways away

When I have to (repeatedly, now) turn off C-SPAN coverage of a political convention because the videos they’re broadcasting are too violent for me to want my kids watching, what does that say?

I think there are better ways to express the thought that Republicans prioritize national defense. I really do.

So the Mac Store just called.

Seems they’ve taken my laptop apart and determined that it’s suffered “liquid damage.”

When this happened, I don’t know. I haven’t exactly been pouring coffee in it. It’s a $2000 computer. I baby the fucker like you wouldn’t believe. It has not been sitting out in the rain growing moss.

“Liquid damage” means “not covered by your warranty damage,” which means, apparently, “we have taken your computer apart and we want $300 to begin to put it back together, ha ha, suck it bitch.” Why yes: I took a mostly functional computer in for servicing and they have now broken it completely and are holding it hostage against my payment of exorbitant fees for what I really think should be warranty service.

C. has very kindly offered to go down there and retrieve it on his lunch break. At this point I am thinking we eBay the fucker for spare parts and try to get enough off that to make a start on something new.

Folks, when next you go to buy a computer, FFS don’t buy a Mac. Do something pleasant like jamming toothpicks under your fingernails instead.

ETA: And now I’m even more frustrated: yes, the interior of the computer really does seem to be full of dried milk. Children! Arrrgh! Arrrgh!

Boy howdy, nothing gets you up the hill on your bicycle at nine o’clock at night quite like being chased by someone’s off-leash German Shepherd.

Apparently I can ride all the way up the hill without stopping, even in the aftermath of a community group meeting with a fairly heavy dinner and two bottles of beer in me. I just have to be sufficiently motivated.

I’m going to have a nice warm bath now, I think.

This weekend’s political news has given us all a reminder to have one of those important talks with our kids. It’s a talk you really can’t have too often or too early. My version goes something like this:

Guys, I think it’s really important that you wait to have kids until you’ve gotten an education and a good job. I had my first baby at 26, but that was after I had two college degrees and a steady job and your dad and I had been married for almost five years. I don’t think having babies when you’re much younger than that is a very good idea. Babies are an awful lot of work; they are very wonderful, but they are a lot of work and very expensive. If you ever need help with not having babies, I want you to let me know.

Your version should vary, depending on the age of your kids, but folks? It’s something you should say and, more than that, something you should mean. You should say it without making any cracks about how you want your kids to stay celibate until they’re married or dead — that’s not going to make them feel like they can talk to you about their reproductive health (also, little hint: you are not now, nor will you ever be, in control of your kid’s sex life. Just ask Sarah Palin). If you don’t know how to help your kids with birth control, or would rather someone else talked with them about that stuff? You can find your local Planned Parenthood office here. They’ll be happy to hook you up with a peer counselor or someone else who can help.

And any day is a good day to kick a little cash at PP, should you have some to spare. If you haven’t benefited from their services, I can guarantee you know someone who has. After all, you know me.

That sound is the baby, plonking on the lid of an empty primer tin with a toothbrush. Yes, I’ve confiscated it.

Matt the Painter (a colleague of Rob the Painter And All Around Dogsbody, who is too busy these days to drive down here and do my evil bidding, but remains a good friend) came over yesterday and made a good start on the living room painting; I’ve chipped in on the window trims, and at this point we’ve finished all the windows and half the beams. The color is Devine’s Gold, and I must say, before I started using the Devine paint (which is essentially Miller Paint’s designer line, and no, sadly, you can’t buy Miller Paint outside the PNW, which really is particularly sad because it is excellent paint), I had my doubts that it was worth the money. Not any more! It’s spendy, and it’s not all that low-VOC, but boy howdy is this good paint. Matt concurs, and he paints for a living. It takes a lot to impress a fellow who paints for a living.

And the living room? I swear, it looks like we put a couple extra 100-watt bulbs in there. Matt will be back on Tuesday, and I am really looking forward to seeing it finished. When we bought this house, all the trim was pine stained dark walnut, vintage 1973. Over the last few years we’ve been slowly repainting, a couple of rooms a year, some in color and sometimes just going to white. The difference is remarkable — even my parents, who really like wood and really loathe color, agree that it’s been an improvement.

(Yes, Dad joked that we’d gone from 70s Walnut to 70s Harvest Gold; I said, hey, it is always 1973 in this house. And then Mother whacked him. It was not the only whacking he got during their visit, either. Dad seems to be dealing with life challenges by being a wiseass. Since I don’t know anyone else who copes with their problems this way his behavior patterns are totally opaque to me. Er.)

All my gigantic picture windows now look lovely. We bought this house for the fantastic view, but that view’s always been framed by these dingy windows. Oh, yes, this is a bit bright, but…I think it’s a good effect. And the ceiling beams don’t look like there’s a giant spider coming to eat me any more (this is not a good mental image when you’re re-watching The Lord of the Rings, let me tell you). More like the Sunshine People have come to carry me away to the Rainbow Planet. Which will probably be much cheerier, come February.

Other household projects this weekend include getting the second garden bed fenced and ready for fall veg, which we are midway through. This required a trip to BRING, where we did not find any 2×2s but did find a lovely granite countertop, brand new and left over from the lot they bought for a big new development on the north side of town, which will someday go in my bathroom. Score! Although we did bing one corner of it during transport (aargh!) I think we can sand that down and it’ll be okay. Now I just need to make the money to have the new cabinet built.

Herself has just presented me with a portrait of me as a carnkagark, which is a creature which is like one’s parent, only with many legs and a tail. I will admit to considerable amusement but that may just be the wine talking. Really I should scan it. It is not a bad likeness, if you overlook the (small) fact that I don’t actually have eleven legs.

Funny to be back around to Labor Day, which still feels like the start of the new year to me. This time last year we were getting ready to leave for Utah, and a surprising number of things which would turn out to be big in my life this past year were still just getting off the ground. It’s been a good year in many respects and a deeply sucktastic year in others, which I suppose is normal.

And finally, our hosting provider migrated servers this weekend, so if you’ve noticed that I’ve lost your comment, I’m very sorry and I will try to do something about that once everything has shaken out.

The MacBook Pro is in the shop, again, for the third time in ten months. All hardware problems; this time, it’s the keyboard.

Fortunately I have a loaner Mac, and we’ve been able to put the contents of the laptop on it; unfortunately, it’s a desktop, so I can’t do a lot of the things I normally do with my computer (which are, of course, why I have paid a hefty premium for my last three computers: because I need to be able to haul them around).

Unfortunately, it will be about ten days before I get the laptop back.

See, that thing where Apple is supposedly great with repairs? That breaks down when you live over a hundred miles from an Apple store, at which point your computer goes on an exciting vacation to mysterious Lake Oswego, and you go, “Fuckety fuckety fuck I can’t believe I’m doing this again.”

I know this is not the typical Mac experience. Mother asked tonight why they don’t just replace the damn thing if it’s such a lemon, and I will admit that I have no idea. I’ve had it for most of a year, it’s spent three weeks in the shop, and I am still having compatibility issues with my mapping package and functionality issues with my word processor. I am really not a happy camper and at this point I would recommend that, when you next purchase a computer, you think twice about buying a Mac if you don’t live in a town that’s big enough to have local repair.

Cut for further discussion of the thing that’s been bugging me all week, because you may feel like you’ve heard enough of this already: Continue Reading »

You know I love you, but as my daughter puts it, you look like you have a cat on the back of your head.

Please, dude, haircut. Please. For the good of the nation. You are not in the SCA. You are a governor. You can keep the beard, but please, ask your barber to bring it up on the back and sides.

With your best interests at heart,

Sara

p.s. C-SPAN is where it’s at, folks. Both the “liberal” and the “conservative” pundits are acting like morons and it is not worth listening to them when you can watch for yourself and draw your own conclusions. And I can’t imagine the networks will do a better job for the RNC next week.

I would like to note that, for the umpteenth month in a row, the top search keyword for this blog is “fuck.”

Sadly, despite this, I am still not edgy.

I am struck, watching the convention on C-SPAN at night and then reading the articles in the papers the next day, that the political journalists and I might as well be watching two entirely separate events.

Theirs would probably not be changed much by the addition of monster trucks and Britney Spears. And I could go the rest of my life without ever again reading a teaser like, “Did Hillary Rodham Clinton deliver a speech that will endure? Did it find more receptive ears among women than men?” which is what the New York Times is using this morning for its article on her speech.

I thought it was a meh speech, and the video they aired beforehand was really kind of delusional, but can you honestly imagine the Times asking if a male politician’s speech was sufficiently appealing to men? Ever?

If you are planning to watch tonight, please, give the pundit-free version a try if you have the option.

ETA: C. tells us in comments that C-SPAN is streamed here, at least in the U.S.

“My cereal is too wet!”

“You asked for it with milk on it, of course it’s wet.”

“But the top is wet, too!”

“That’s because you’ve been sitting over it for half an hour. That’s what happens to cereal when you don’t eat up.”

“But I don’t want it wet! At all!”

“Wow, you are just looking for an opportunity to complain, aren’t you? Next time you want dry cereal, ask for dry cereal.”

“I don’t want it dry, I want the bottom part wet and the top part dry.”

“Your brother looks like he’d be happy to eat it, if you don’t want it.”

“No!”

Today’s the first day in a long time when my hair’s been long enough that I’ve been able to wear it in braids. Two, but still. It’ll be some time before I can go back to a long braid down the middle of my back, which is how I wore it all through college, grad school, and while I was working, until Herself was born and wouldn’t tolerate being set down long enough that I could braid it (who, her, needy? Um.)

Yep, I’m growing it out again, now that the kids are old enough that I can go back to showering in the mornings and braiding it. I realized a few months ago that, despite hacking it off to jaw-length when Herself was born, I have continued to think of myself as a long-haired person…and that’s the sort of self-image thing I’m just going to stop arguing with.

In other self-image news: while in Chicago, I had an experience for the first time which I think a lot of folks must confront pretty regularly. I went into a drugstore to buy nylons, the afternoon before the wedding, and found that they carried a vanishingly small selection of skin-toned pantyhose in my size, and they were sold out. See, I’m pretty gol-darned white — particularly now that I live in the Great Green North — and I can’t wear anything like “suntan” or “beige” without looking like a damn freak. I take “nude” or “pale” or whatever the absolute lightest shade on offer is. And this Walgreens? Obviously catered to a majority latina and black population and was not stocking pantyhose for white girls who’d forgotten a few things while packing.

I bought a pair in “off black,” which is apparently sufficiently universal to look good on a lot of different skin tones. And they did look good. I found the whole thing amusing, but at the same time I thought, damn, this must be one of those day-to-day frustrating things for people of color.

We have a fairly substantial CD that’s timing out in a few days, so I spent time this afternoon looking at other places to park intermediate-term cash — this is the “how we’d pay the mortgage for a few months if C. lost his job” fund, so I’d like it to keep up with inflation and be in something insured and secure.

I am distressed to learn that as of May, Series I savings bonds are paying the federal rate of inflation (which is a lot lower than the actual inflation most of us actual citizens have been coping with) and nothing else. That’s…kind of telling, it really is. It’s not a good sign. For perspective, when I last bought these bonds a few years ago, they were paying 2% or 3% plus inflation.

Time was when the idea behind savings bonds was to (1) get the citizenry involved with underwriting the public debt and (2) promote small-scale savings. Now? The debt is far, far too large to be underwritten, even notionally, by the citizenry, and the government’s economic policy is not oriented toward promoting personal savings. We’ve seen how that’s playing itself out in the real estate and debt markets, and we will continue to see that fallout from bad leadership and substandard regulation for at least a couple more years.

It’s not good for the economy when money is held onto and not put to work — and yes, there are historical periods when that’s happened, and it is something government should work to prevent — but this alternative where we are not, as a nation, promoting the value of savings at a personal scale, through an effective savings vehicle that has been an important tool for decades? That’s terrible.

Savings bonds have long been a place where even someone who could only save $25 or $50 at any given time could put a bit away. Dismantling that system by electing not to offer even a notional return — on top of a biased inflation measure which ultimately results in a net loss of value to investors — marks a real low point for those of us who believe in the value of small-scale personal savings and in the cushion those savings can provide from life’s vicissitudes in a way that credit instruments never will.

Folks, evolutionary processes work on populations, not individuals.

What does this mean? It means that when you refer to some horrible fatal accident (usually, in my observation, one which involves children) as “evolution in action,” you are not being “scientific.” You are instead being what decent people refer to as a “heartless asshole.” Because that’s not how evolution works. Even punctuated equilibrium doesn’t work that way (if you buy into punk eek, which I’m not sure I do).

You’re part of the reason why most people in this country think “evolution” is wretched and awful and nothing they want to have happen to their nearest and dearest. Yes, you are part of the problem, neighbor, not part of the solution, no matter how many times you repeat the words, “But it’s science!” in that superior tone of voice. People are not disagreeing with you because religion has made them stupid, they are disagreeing with you because your worldview is appalling. In truth, they are no stupider than you are.

Of course, that’s not saying much, because you buy into this social Darwinist crap.

Shut up until you learn some actual science, ‘kay? You’re making my side look bad.

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And if you’re concerned that this is directed at you, personally? Mm, no. I’ve seen at least a half-dozen posts or comments in assorted places making this argument in the last few days. The combination of overweening arrogance and total ignorance is starting to grate. Just a bit.

*puts codfish back in fridge, goes to fix a nice pot of tea*

“And now, we are going to have a puppet show! Where you will discover the LEARNINGS of SCIENCE!”

In other news: I am doing well enough today to sit in my comfy chair and make sure the kids don’t kill each other, which is a real step up from yesterday, which I spent entirely horizontal. I am very, very happy to be back with my kiddos. I am amused to note that the baby has made a real vocabulary-usage leap during our absence, presumably because he had to spend a solid week using his words, instead of pointing and yelling and trusting us to know what he meant.

Construction on the north side of the river.

Continue Reading »

It’s apparently entirely acceptable to carry swords and nunchaku in your checked baggage. But not Lysol. And no gel shoe inserts in your carry-on.

ETA: If you aren’t feeling grouchy enough at the world, check the TSA’s page on getting your service animal through airport security checkpoints. Scroll down to the bottom. Down there under “Monkey Helpers.” Yes, the United States government, in its eminent wisdom, is now screening the diapers of assistance monkeys as part of its effort to combat global terrorism.

Insert your own jokes about excrement-flinging here.

It’s frustrating when I spend time over two days going to two different AT&T stores, trying to get warranty service on the cell phone before the trip, and can’t get any traction whatsoever with anyone — except an offer to confiscate the battery that’s been losing its charge and give me a replacement a week from now. At which point we will be, yes, approximately 2,000 miles away from here.

It is even more frustrating when C. then goes in to the first cell phone store and they immediately replace the battery for him.

You know, it’s hard not to read this as a gender thing, it really is.

Having tits should not preclude getting warranty service on my goddamn phone.

I notice, this morning (before tea, even) an incipient wank, and before it really gets going I’d like to throw out some information that, as I’ve become aware, the majority of regular LiveJournal users do not possess.

LJ has announced that it’s introducing an opt-out feature that will allow users to see who’s been visiting their pages; in return, one’s information will be visible to others.

Let’s talk for a minute here about what web sites know about you and what you’re doing. The short answer is, a fuck of a lot.

Things I either know, or could figure out, about you (and when I say you, I mean you personally, Dear Reader, right now — hi!), just from my standard, web hosting provider-installed stats panel on the domains we run (let me emphasize that we do not make an effort to collect this information; we are running the hosting provider’s defaults), include (1) your IP address, which as it appears to me often includes a home or employer domain name; (2) your geographic location (you’ll notice that, as an exercise in publicizing my possession of this information, I put a graphic on the sidebar that shows it, a few months ago); and (3) any page which links back to my domain — including things like, say, the “filter” page LJ builds you when you’re only reading part of your friends list or the amalgamation page Bloglines builds you.

Other data include things like what browser and operating system you’re using (how is that Firefox 3 upgrade going for y’all? I didn’t like it when I tried it), though my current stats package doesn’t associate that data with IP on an individual basis. I imagine, however, that if I were really curious, I could find out, because that information is collected, it’s just not broken out that way in AWStats.

And with what I’ve already got, yes: there are a lot of people out there who, if I wanted to, with the information I’ve got at hand and some very rudimentary social engineering skills (a.k.a. what my mother calls “decent phone manners,”) I could pick up my phone and be talking to your spouse or your boss. This morning. Is that scary? Yeah, kinda. Fortunately for you, I (1) have to take Herself to violin camp and (2) am not a creepy stalker.

Getting this information, these days, does not require mad internet skillz; it requires a username and password (if that; you would be surprised how many people do not think to password the stats panel on their sites), and it shows up on a tidy little screen. And I haven’t played with LJToys (I don’t really need to), but my understanding is that it does similar gathering for LJ-only sites. There is no “knowledge bar” to get over to have access to this data. It is more like a knowledge turnstile with a well-greased pivot.

Is all this a privacy violation? Well, maybe, and maybe not. That’s one of the great questions of the age.

But is being ignorant that you’re distributing this information good? No, I think not.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: online privacy and anonymity, unless you are actively doing something to ensure your security, is a social construct. Think about it for a minute: the internet was built by smart people who wanted to distribute information. And it is very, very good at that. But it is not a particularly good system for ensuring privacy. That’s not what it was designed for. Engineers: they are a literal people.

If you want to retain some degree of privacy, you need to educate yourself (I recommend starting at the Electronic Freedom Foundation site) and take active steps to mask your data. Just because you don’t know how to collect this information does not mean that it is hard to collect. Even off a service like LJ. I collect this kind of information off LJ daily, whether I want to or not (I don’t, particularly. I mostly look at my logs to figure out if someone is hotlinking my photos, because that’s kind of a bandwidth hog. It’s all under a CC license, kids, host it your damn self. And credit).

Me, I’m here to be social, so major violations of the social contract would be counterproductive.

The people you, and I, and everyone else should watch out for? Are the people who aren’t here to be social, and are here to be asses, and think that spreading chaos into people’s offline lives is rewarding in some way. Because they’ve got this information, too. This genie is not going back into the bottle just because you or I or anyone else is standing here going, “Wow, genies are big and scary and I’d rather not see them!”

When I threw the rotten egg that I found while mucking out the henhouse down into the bottom of the yard, I did not do so in order that you could more readily go down there and rub your face in it.

Though, if I were smarter, I would have assumed that you would do so.

Yes, I think you and I and the baby shampoo and the hose will be having a hot, hot date tomorrow afternoon after violin camp.