Writing Conventions

Writing Conventions
-or-
Why I Got My Worst Grades in English Class When I Actually Love Writing


I have a few problems with writing conventions. As someone who professes to be a writer I want to try to use correct grammar and spelling and things like that. But I notice that my adherence to grammar and spelling constrictions tends to break down as I approach places in writing where logic conflicts with conventions. For example: The rules for dialogue. They do not make any sense. I mean, I understand them- I know when it's appropriate to end with a period, question mark, or comma and not to capitalize the beginning of the sentence extension. I just cannot bring myself to follow them.

Think about it. In script writing dialogue you always have the character's name capitalized or bolded or blocked in like this [Example] and the dialogue with no quotes surrounding it immediately following. Sometimes the dialogue may end in a dash or ellipsis to indicate being cut off or trailing off (respectively). It is quite orderly. After all when you want to convey clearly what is going on in a scene and what is being said by whom you have to be orderly and clear. [JACE] I am aware that I may not be the greatest in giving constructive examples for expository purposes. I hope you will forgive me this trespass.

In expository writing or speech-writing everything written is intended to be spoken and the only quotation marks used are to indicate a direct, ver batim, quote. The quote may be preceded by the source such as I am now going to quote the only swear my nephew Metaeo has learned as an amusing example: "Holy boys!" Alternatively you could have a quote followed by the source of the quote. I will quote the following as an example: "Stephanie Meyer is unclear." Christopher Perry, taken from AOL Instant Messenger Transcriptions, dated 12/28/2010.

Quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said by a certain person. Intentionally misquoting someone for the purpose of misleading other people about them or their beliefs is an offense that can be punishable by law. A way to intentionally mislead people without altering a quote made by a particular person is to take a quote out of context and put it in a different context. Let's say, for the sake of argument, the president was quoted in an interview making the statement: "I hate them." (Please note that this quotation is only for the sake of argument in this example and to no other purpose.) "I hate them." Is a strong statement and also quite ambiguous. It's possible that the interviewer asked him: "Why is it that we never see you wearing tube socks?" To which the president responded: "Because I hate them." He did make the statement- about tube socks. But a clever writer can take that quote out of context and place it in another context that gives the implication that the "them" refers to... we'll say kittens as I do not want to bring politics into this. Someone has now taken a (fictional) quote from a (fictional) context and placed it into a different (fictional) context that makes it seem as though he hates kittens. Naturally this will cause a great deal of stir even after it is pointed out that this was a quote taken out of context and the president actually likes kittens a great deal.

Quotation within writing is somewhat different and not subjected to absolute veracity. Also the point of view used in fictional writing can affect the dialogue used. If the writing is in first person you may have a snippet of dialogue that is intentionally not what that character actually said because the main character may be hard of hearing or may have heard only what they wanted to hear. This is usually explained later. If I was going to write some kind of modern geek romance in first person the main character might hear her beau say: "I love you." She would then throw her arms around him and admit she loves him as well to which he may act confused and reply: "But all I said was that I love Yu-Gi-Oh." Obviously the main character will be disappointing at the tricks her ears played on her but for the sake of a particularly sappy scene we'll say that as she started to pull away, dejected and crying, he continues: "I do love you as well."

You will notice that in the previous paragraph I used the same quotation construction each time as this is the only construction accepted by standard forms of grammar that I can bring myself to use. I'd like to go back to the statement I made a couple paragraphs ago about how quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said by a certain person or character with nothing altered to intentionally mislead the audience of this message. (You will notice there that instead of quoting myself directly I paraphrased a previously made statement and added to it.) So let's go through all of that a little at a time, shall we?

Quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said. You'll remember I mentioned earlier that mis-quoting someone as saying something they never said is punishable by law. I then went on to say that other people will take quotes out of context in order to mislead people as well. This is holding up quotations the same way we uphold the law: by preserving the integrity of the words only and not the intent or idea behind the words. The president says "I hate them" referring to tube socks and even though he did in fact state the words "I hate them" he did not mean he wants to kill kittens.

Quotation is intended to preserve the integrity of what was said by a certain person or character. Reproducing a quotation by one person while accrediting it to another speaker is misrepresenting a source (or slander, depending on how offensive it was). While the quote is very real and the person credited with the quote is real the person credited didn't actually say those words.

Nothing is altered to intentionally mislead the audience about the message. Obviously people can and will intentionally misquote people or take quotes out of context or attribute quotes to the wrong sources all to make the audience think what they want them to think. They can but this does not mean that this is allowed and in fact can be punished by law in certain circumstances.

Fictional writing (or even non-fictional narrative writing) is not held to the same standards. In some cases it is obvious why. If the author wants to mislead you about something the main character can mishear something said by another character or can include descriptions of actions that make this statement significantly more sinister than it would otherwise be in order to take you on a ride. This is acceptable because no one is being slandered (except in satire and people have been known to be killed for that as well) and the reader agrees to being duped by knowing that it's fiction in advance.

When a fiction reader reads dialogue in a book they know that it is all made up. There are no people to attribute these quotes to except the author's imagination and if something is misleading it is intended to be that way. Except when the conventions of grammar themselves are confusing and illogical. (Imagine that I said everything after the word "except" in the last sentence in a deeper more serious tone of voice.) Most people know that when they reach a written comma there is a mental pause, a short beat or indrawn breath in spoken conversation before continuing on. Most people would agree that a period at the end of a thought indicates the end of a sentence and a longer pause before continuing. A exclamation point indicated that the preceding sentence was exciting or loud or otherwise exclamatory. A question mark indicates that the tone of voice was querulous. But in conventional grammar for dialogue in a novel I must do something that is not only illogical but also misleading.

"I must quote a complete sentence and end it with a comma," he vented in frustration, remembering not to capitalize the first word in the sentence extension.

This does not make any sense. Complete sentences do not end in commas. When a reader sees a comma their mind is trained to think pause. But if you're reading say, my bad modern geek romance in first person, you don't want to read her beau saying: "I love you pause" (here with the word pause inserted in place of a standard comma). You see that comma and you expect there to be another clause to round out the sentence. You see that "I love you pause" and you expect that the next thing out of his mouth is going to be awful. You expect him to continue with something like: "The same way I would love a sister." That would be terrible. And here you are expecting this awful thing to happen to your favorite character because of a comma when that's not actually what Beau said at all. Beau said: "I love you." I love you period- No ambiguity. Beau loves the main character in the traditional romantic way. But what he says must be butchered according to the conventions of dialogue in novel writing.

"But why are you so worked up over a comma?" my theoretical readers wonder. That is why. If I want to have a character asking a question I can end the sentence with a non-comma punctuation (namely, a question mark) but the 'sentence extension' must still not begin with a capital. Going from a complete sentence to what should be a whole new sentence with a capital and everything only to find that uncapitalized 'm' feels like missing a step going up the stairs- it's unlikely that you're going to tumble down but it does give you a sick feeling in your stomach and a little rush of adrenaline. A writer doesn't want his or her readers to feel as though they've skipped a step or to pause to wonder why they've begun a sentence with a lowercase letter.

Okay, so that's two forms of punctuation. What if a character is trailing off at the end of a line and I would prefer to indicate this through punctuation rather than stating explicitly that the character is trailing off? It would look like this: "I only wish...," she murmured before turning away. What!? What is that comma doing there at the end of the ellipsis? Well, according to conventional grammar for dialogue in novel writing it is supposed to go there.* It is supremely frustrating is what it is.

What if I actually want to end a clause with a comma, say something about how they said that first clause and follow it with the sentence clause, completing their sentence? Well, under conventional standards it would look the same. And then you might have confusion still if the first clause appears independent. Wait, where did this second bit come from? Oh. It's the end of that. I see. Instead of immediately knowing that the first part is merely a clause as it ended with a comma instead of a period.

I could go on. I'm sure you are aware that I could easily go on. But instead I will try to move to the point (and hope that I've kept you amused along the way). Regardless of the fact that my characters are fictional I still love them. I care about them. I care about the characters in the books that I read as well. I don't want to read what they say and see it butchered or confused by the conventions of grammar. I want to quote what they actually say. If I am reading a sappy love scene in a novel I want to read the stereotypically reluctant male character say: "I love you." I don't want to read: "I love youpause". I don't want that. Not unless the author intends to follow it up with a clause to break the poor main character's heart. And if that is the author's intent then it will be made obvious by the comma and the reader can work themselves up for it.

So what is my proposed solution? I might say that I'd like to see a committee get together and vote on a logical grammatical system for the English language. While they're at it the committee could come up with logical, phonetic spellings for words where one letter (or one particular combination of letters as necessary) stands for one sound in a word because to be frank that jerk Webster fucked a lot of things up especially for anyone who is dyslexic or who did not get the spelling gene. The only problem with the committee theory is that it would not work. How would you decide who got to be on the committee? It certainly can't be Bestselling Authors because as we should well know it does not take any kind of grasp of grammar or even logic to get to be a bestselling author you just need some sparkly "vegetarian" vampires and too much free time. Not that I have anything against sparkly "vegetarian" vampires (this is actually an outright lie) I'm just pointing out that Bestselling Authors may not be the best choice for this committee. I would not elect English Teachers either. Not even college professors. Why? I had a high school English teacher who was a former college professor and he was so in love with the current standards of grammar that given the opportunity I doubt he would change them.

That leaves me with the only option I have which is to boldly write as I wish to write, calmly ignoring the illogical conventions of grammar. They are, after all, not rules. There are no rules except for spelling and we can even throw that one out if you're making up your own words. My best friend, and an excellent writer, assured me that as long as it's consistent, clear, and makes sense it does not matter that you do not follow conventions. Someone sifting through a slush pile (which is to say the giant pile of manuscripts publishers receive every day) probably would not care. Readers are clearly not bothered by glaring lapses in grammar (as is evidenced by a certain bestselling saga involving sparkly "vegetarian" vampires). The only people who will care are grammarnazis on the internet and preliminary studies show that internet grammarnazis do not actually have souls.

"And that will be all." He said grandly, calmly beginning a sentence with a conjunction and defying the grammatical rules of writing, because that is how he speaks just to let you know annoying sophomore English teachers everywhere.


* On a semi-related note: One period is the end of a sentence, two periods together is a typo not an indication of trailing off, three periods together is an ellipsis which is an indication of trailing off, and four periods together is not an ellipsis followed by a period to indicate trailing off and the end of a complete thought it actually means that what is being quoted is missing a chunk exceeding one full line and should generally only be seen in expository writing where you want to quote big chunks of text in a pointed way and not in play-by-post roleplaying- ever. The end.

I Continue to Astound Myself by Not Going Broke

I Continue to Astound Myself by Not Going Broke
-or-
More Angry Stupid People


Please refer to Angry Stupid People if you haven't read it already before going on.


I continue to astound myself by not going broke. I find this very impressive and I'm not quite certain how I continue to manage it. I say this because I work part-time for minimum wage, pay for rent and utilities and food and internet and entertainment and still haven't yet managed to need to have a serious wake-up call (merely a minor mathematical one). I am scheduled to work between twenty (absolute minimum) and thirty-seven (maximum) hours per week. I usually actually work between twenty-two (minimum) and thirty-nine (absolute maximum) hours per week depending on how many shifts I pick up and how long we end up staying after closing each night to do cash-up. The number of hours I pick up, obviously, goes down in direct correlation to how many I am originally scheduled for. I would say though that I work an average of thirty hours a week. For minimum wage.

I make approximately eight hundred dollars in a month, more than half of which goes toward bills and a further quarter to one third to food and the rest I think maybe gets converted into oxygen through photosynthesis or something but I'm not sure about that last part. It must go somewhere. But like my poor sneakers nightly wanderings what happens to it will remain a mystery until Rick Charette writes a song about it.

At first I managed this discrepancy by sheer denial and slowly leeching away my savings. But late last spring I realized that the denial was no longer cutting it and I faced the prospect that in a few months I would probably be forced to be a sell-out and work for Wal-Mart if I couldn't find another job before then. It so happened that at that time I suggested to my friend that he could try to make money on the internet as many other people seemed to be able to do. I decided to see, just to check, if this were feasible.

I definitely do not go about this the same way as other people. From what I can tell other people mostly buy stuff in the real world and then sell it online. That's fine. Obviously works for certain folks. All the ones who wrote all those promising books, at least. But I figured that if there's a book about it there's probably thousands of dummies trying to replicate the same trick. And I didn't want to be a dummy. No one has ever considered me to be anything of the sort and I wasn't about to start ruining my image now.

So when I realized that I could take the knowledge that I had amassed earning fake money on GaiaOnline and potentially turn it into real money I decided to go for it. I found something on eBay that I figured I should be able to sell on Amazon for a decent profit margin. I bought it, it was shipped to my house, I checked it out and then listed it up on Amazon. It sold within a day or two and I shipped it to the customer and immediately bought another one. And the next time I bought two. And then a different item. And then I started to buy a dozen items at a time and by the end of the summer I had made over a thousand dollars in net profit with not a lot of work or time expended.

I not only had kept myself from needing to get a second job but I also started to build up a little savings somehow. And then my roommate decided to shut off the internet. I bought a laptop so I could use it at the Library. I started looking for another apartment. I got kicked out of my apartment. I was going to up and move to Georgia. I ended up going to Georgia but only for a week. I managed to cover the cost of the trip by cleaning my brother's (the person I was staying with in Georgia) house. I immediately moved into a new apartment (complete with deposit and first-month's rent in advance.) We had to buy stuff for the apartment. I was flat broke and working constantly and we didn't yet have internet.

We finally get internet, just after Thanksgiving. I can start selling things in the small window of online shopping time remaining before Christmas. And I do. Quite quickly. The only problem is is that I need all of that money for bills. I wont have anything left to reinvest. And my company has suddenly decided to go to bi-weekly pay-checks. And I work all of December and more seemingly endlessly with only one day off every seven days. And one night my right palm is itching fiercely at work. My coworker comments that this, according to an old wives tale, means that I'm going to come into some money. K'van calls a couple days later. I've gotten mail at my old apartment. It's a letter from a previous employer claiming that I was owed close to three hundred dollars in past wages. Reinvestment money.

Really I'd love to do even more selling online. I'm contemplating asking my oldest brother for five hundred dollars for a few months just so I can have more money to work with buying things to sell online. I could pay him back with interest like venture capitalism and still end up with more money for myself. Ideally I would like to make enough money that I can live off of it. Maybe even enough to justify writing a book.

But! That was not the whole point of this post. The point was to explain that not only do I work in retail sales in the real world I also sell things online. And everyone is an idiot on the internet. I, admittedly, have done some idiotic things online (over bid on some items on accident and such). But so do other people. I liked to read through the comments of stores I was buying from or who were competing with me in selling. And I noticed that a lot of people were angry about things which were clearly stated in the description or even title of the item as though it were the sellers fault for sending them what they actually ordered instead of what they thought they ordered. These people were angry because they were stupid.

I mention this specific example because I wanted to say that a few days before Christmas I got my first negative feedback on Amazon. The buyer gave me two out of five stars. And I'm going to quote the post they made on Amazon rather than the customer inquiry they sent to my e-mail (though the message is much the same because the initial e-mail made me feel slightly homicidal): "The item listed said it was a BLACK controller and everything, but in the comments the seller put White controller well why would you list it as BLACk if you are going to put in comments that it is actually not what it is being advertised as. It was a false sale and i feel like i have been tricked into buying something i didnt really want."
To which I responded: "For the same reason other sellers list differently-colored products: because Amazon does not have a heading for every color of product. It was not my intention to mislead anyone. I sent an item exactly the same as the heading except that it was white in color, as noted in the description. I would be more than happy to exchange the white bundle for a black one if that is the customer's desire."

Allow me to explain if it was a little convoluted. I sell both black and white of this particular controller except Amazon doesn't actually have a place specifically for the white one so I list it under the description that matches the closest. And since I also sell black ones I will put up two listings, one that specifically states that it's actually the same controller in white. She bought the listing that stated it was white so I sent her what she ordered- a white controller. This was not, however, what she thought she ordered and so she became angry.

So I responded to the feedback to set her straight (albeit in a rather cramped manner as there was a severe character limit). I almost wish I hadn't. Almost. Because two days after her feedback I got feedback from another person who had ordered from me in early december. Their comment was concise down to three words. I couldn't have stated it so elegantly myself without a great-deal of thought. They gave me five out of five stars and their words were: "Met expectations exactly."

And I think I'll end on that note: "Met expectations exactly."

Beer is Disgusting

As part of my whole... (here I would like to make some kind of vague hand-gesture but find this difficult to represent in text) I'm going to write more in general. I wanted to start reviewing the books I read again.

I just read I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and Assholes Finish First, both by Tucker Max.

I'd like to present the books from a two very different viewpoints because I feel conflicted and I don't think I could take one stance.

On one hand they are highly offensive to women and deplorable on many levels. The fact that there are thousands of men (and women) who consider this man their hero and idolize his behavior is disgusting. He behaves as though the world revolves around him. He consumes a great deal of alcohol and has slept with women numbering in the low triple digits. He is not the kind of role model you would want your fourteen-year-old son looking up to.

On the other hand some of his stories are both fantastic (in the sense that they are hard to believe and not in an exclamatory sense) and hilarious. My stomach muscles hurt from laughing so hard at certain points during the books. His writing style is more or less expository. He is writing a story as he (and other first-person accounts) remember it and he mentions that certain things included in the stories he doesn't remember at all. He wraps up the stories with finesse and knows how to set up his jokes for maximum impact. He is also highly intelligent and insults people in ways that are both demeaning as well as intellectual. One quote from a friend of his in a story goes something like: "Are you actually quoting Chinese philosophy at me right now?"

If you're thinking about buying this for yourself I would recommend reading some excerpts first to decide if you like it. If you're thinking about buying one for someone else I would say that you need to not only have already read it but also know your intended audience very well lest you seriously offend them.

December 7th

I meant to post this yesterday but I ended up being tired after work and I came home and watched my roommate and his brother shoot aliens instead. Sorry that got in the way of a greater amount of timeliness.


Yesterday I had to go to the post office so I caught the bus down town, walked to the post office, and did my business and then walked back to the bus depot. On my way back to Pickering Square I saw that there was a gathering on the foot bridge that runs over the river. This particular bridge is huge and more than stable enough to drive vehicles on (I mention this last mostly because there was a truck out on the foot bridge). There were quite a few people out there in the cold and the snow and there was a lot of black clothing and general somberness and someone was shouting something indecipherable from the distance I was at over a loud speaker. One end of the bridge is right before Pickering square and I looked at the people for a few moments before proceeding.

I had to wait for the buses with the other bus-riding folks milling around in Pickering Square and I pulled out my book to use as a shield against conversation and boredom so I'm not sure how much later it was (less than twenty minutes, though, certainly) but there was a sharp retort. And then another. First the other people in Pickering Square remarked that the pigeons were terrified but after a couple more they realized we were hearing gunfire. I did not count the number of shots but I'm sure there was some kind of significance to them.

The people in the square were going crazy. "That's gunshot! Why are we hearing gunshot?!" Because I am a nice person and I wanted to quell their terror (and also because their shouting was interrupting my reading) I told them: "They're having a memorial on the foot bridge." "A what?" Several people asked with the same phrasing. "A December seventh memorial," I clarified. "December seventh?" I got many quizzical looks. "You know, "December seventh, a date which will live in infamy"?" I prompted. There were several tense and very silent seconds before one person said. "Oh. Pearl Harbor."

Oh. Pearl Harbor.

I admit I have never liked history and I am terrible at dates but my reaction to a December seventh memorial was not: "Oh. Pearl Harbor." And even that pitiful acknowledgment was after much prompting.

I would ordinary go on at this point to tell you how this is both sad and also strangely hilarious but I think you're probably smart enough to have that covered.

How the Two-Party System Works

How the Two-Party System Works
-or-
I Do Not Understand Politics


I do not understand politics. Well, I do. Funny-looking people spend money on looking nice while lying out of the side of their mouth in order to be put in a stressful position where they have to vote on things that affect millions of lives. There is theoretically some kind of balance of power (when people aren't sneakily weighting the scales with gold). Citizens get to vote on things. Supposedly the government protects the rights of the people and keeps them safe and happy while also dealing with things other people prefer not to think about. Do I have a grasp on it? No? Well, that's okay, too. After all I don't understand any of the other parts, either.

I do not watch the news. I don't even really watch television if you discount Netflix. I don't read newspapers. I even try to avoid listening to the news on the radio. I find the news to be (kindly pardon my adjective here as many people find expletives to be reprehensible) “fucking depressing”. I also find politics to be, at best, amusing in the same way that you derive amusement from say, that unfortunate guy on AFV who always seems to be skateboarding his sensitive parts into railings. Painfully amusing. There is some kind of vague sympathy involved but also, mostly, the feeling that you are glad that you are not that unfortunate bastard.

My general feelings on what political party I might belong tends to vacillate wildly between “I have never actually read the tenets of either party” to “I might be considered a democrat except I disagree with most of what they say” to “the party I belong to is so obscure as to not exist” to “I would say I belong to the “Logic” party except what most people assume is logic is nothing of the sort”. Other people call me a Democrat because I did things like vote for President Obama in my first election and voted for Propositions One and Five last year in my home state. Proposition one had to do with allowing Gay Marriage in my state. I was all for that. Proposition five dealt with the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes in my state. (Ten points for guessing which of the two actually passed. And score one for proposition five though it was a close call on proposition one.)

Voting for any of those things had nothing to do with being a democrat. I feel pretty much the same way about being called a democrat (or any other political party for that matter) as I do about being referred to as “white” or “Caucasian”. If you let me add up the various factions of race in my ancestry I'm something more than a sixteenth Native American, something more than a sixteenth French, and somewhat less than three quarters European mutt. I look, possibly, Irish. I am glow-in-the-dark pale and have red hair and blue eyes. I can also reasonably say that if you named any country in Europe I have ancestors from it. Technically, I am “white” or “Caucasian”, this does not mean that I am “white trash” or for “white power” or that I am racist or that I think I am part of the “master race.” I am more of the belief that I have a genetic mutation in my DNA that causes my skin to lack melanin and make me burn under ultra violet rays (much like a Vampire but without the blood-drinking and living forever). I voted for Obama, gay marriage, and marijuana not because I'm a democrat or even particularly liberal but just because it seemed logical to do so. By definition, I am “white” and by definition people might consider me a democrat but I don't want to be associated with either of those groups because they're reprehensible.

I particularly fail to understand people who vote their party line blindly. I also fail to understand people who do not even achieve a glimmer of understanding before voting. If I am in the voting booth and I see a question regarding something I have no idea about I do a novel thing- I leave it blank. Regardless of how I may feel about the decision eventually made about this particular article I would rather not cancel out the vote of an informed voter because I didn't bother to look anything up on the subject before showing up at the polls. Although, I guess I could easily argue that I would simply be canceling out the vote of another uninformed voter but I never argue semantics- except as a form of recreational sport.

I don't feel particularly worked up about politics. I have no emotional investment in it. I was vaguely disappointed that people in my state did not manage to pass the proposition allowing gay marriage but I wasn't really angry. I guess I figured that if I was ever in the situation where I was dating someone of the same sex I would be happy enough to canoodle in sin- just like straight folks do. I did not feel victorious that proposition five passed. I felt that some logic might be making a tenuous presence known in the world- not much of a victory. I wasn't even really happy that Obama was elected or feel interested that I was living through “history”. Which leads me to the fact that I don't understand people who get into heated debates about politics. It doesn't make me angry that I disagree with virtually everything my boss believes regarding politics. I find it fascinating. I don't feel the need to seethe or bite my tongue. Maybe I am a political sociopath.

You might feel that there is something wrong with political sociopathy. I feel that it helps me lead a less stressful life. After all- which party I belong to is irrelevant because there are only two. Invariably you are not going to agree with everything “your” party believes in. You may even only belong to “your” party because you hate the other party and what they believe in. After all, if you classify yourself as a democrat only because you think women should be able to have abortions, people should smoke marijuana, same-sex marriage should be legal, and stem cell research conducted but think these things because you want to see fetus on the menu at McDonald's, you think letting people be legally high would cause many more entertaining pile-ups on the highways, you think gay people should be able to get married to take the pressure off those straight heirs who want to be swingers, and you hope some day stem cell research will make you forever young, immortal, and immune to venereal diseases so you can have sex with other hot young-looking immortals forever that does not make you a Democrat.

The other thing about the reason I have no real feelings about politics is the fact that we have a two-party system. Having a two-party system means that unless something particularly logical with good ad campaigns comes along people will invariably manage to cancel out any progress that might be made by the “other” side. You can also tell, by looking at broad stroke election results throughout the years that when Democrats have been in power for a while they are replaced by Republicans and vice-verse. And why is this? Because people will never be happy with decisions made by politicians (it is human nature). If you are not happy with what your current government has been doing what are you going to do in the next election- vote for the party that hasn't been in power. After all, they haven't screwed up lately. (Mostly because they haven't been in power but that's besides the point.) And in four to eight years when you're sick of who you voted in before you're going to vote back in the other party. And even if you personally aren't doing this (though you probably are, unconsciously) enough of the people who possess only a short-term memory, don't have a high IQ, and are easily swayed by ad campaigns (also known as the general public) are that it hardly matters what you do.

Am I a defeatist? Absolutely not. I'm pretty happy with the world. I can vote as someone who is not a land-owning white male over the age of twenty-four. There is a low chance of getting caught for doing drugs (the non-dangerous kinds as long as you don't steal them) if I choose to do them. The odds of getting murdered in my sleep are fairly low. I read free books. There is the wonderful thing known as the internet and I continue to surprise myself by not running out of money. Would it be nice if same-sex marriage was legal? Would it be nice if people could smoke pot with no recrimination at all? Yes to both. And I'm not saying I'm against either of those things. I'm just saying that the current state of affairs is not making me unhappy.

So, for a life that is relatively stress-free if often filled with vague confusion and mild amusement I recommend you undergo the psychological equivalent of a political lobotomy and become a political sociopath like me.

This May Make No Sense

This morning I spent multiple hours writing an essay-style answer to a question half a line long. I've decided to provide this for your amusement. I've colored blue the best part though you're free to read the whole thing. If you look at that wall of text and cringe away then you've clearly gotten the visual aspect of the joke. I wrote an essay response to something less than one line long. Yeah. That's what you get when you ask me for advice with the wrong phraseology.

I would like to apologize in advance for this essay. It is not intended to be offensive or insulting. I am not attacking anyone in particular (except, perhaps, myself). Any user (or real person) who is mentioned by name has nothing to do with what I said and you shouldn't bother them. This is the longest reply I have ever written to any question on Gaia (baring those folks who once asked: "How did you turn 500g into a million gold in forty-eight days?" ). It took me a couple hours (seriously) to write. There is a TL;DR at the bottom which those of you who actually read the whole thing are free to consider a joke.


Well, I hate to pretend to be all definitive and say: "This is absolutely what you should be doing" because for one I Have Been Known To Be Wrong but also because I do not know everything there is to know about your hoards and your hoarding style or what prices you bought things at and so on and so forth and most importantly because I Cannot Predict The Future. I can only make assumptions based on past trends. Overall I make a lot of gold (even more if you count all the gold I've made for people who follow my advice) despite the fact that occasionally I am very, very wrong. Recommending Spectacular Halo as one example. That was a spectacular failure. I personally lost millions on that venture. Making assumptions based on past trends can (obviously) be a useful model for predicting the future but only if you are actually looking at the root causes of the trends and remembering that statistical analysis tenet of "CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION" (which should be barked in a mock drill sergeant voice with a chorus of other people repeating it frantically).

Macroeconomics is a terrible idea. Everything macroeconomists do is wrong. Sometimes they say things that are right but not because they know anything about the economy. Par for par (I mean this here sheerly in the the literal Latin "equal for equal" and not some crazy anglicized sports-related term of being good but not that great) some of the "best" (and more importantly most respected) financial analysts are, if you compare their predictions appropriately, significantly worse at knowing what is going on in the economy and what will be going on in the economy than if you picked randomly. That's right. Entrusting your stock-picking decisions to a random computer model (assuming here that the computer model is actually relatively random and that the algorithms are not flawed in some way that would cause it's stock-picking abilities to be biased) is a better idea in general than trusting the words of someone considered to be an expert in macroeconomics.

Consider this: A few decades ago the crime rate was rising dramatically all over the United States and people (very knowledgeable people in positions of power) predicted that the crime rate was going to skyrocket (even compared to the already elevated rates) within a few years. They predicted that the current generation of young people (the people just about to hit the peak crime-committing age window but who weren't yet there) were going to be the most violent ever seen. You know what happened within a few years? The crime rate dropped. And it didn't just drop. You could say it plummeted. Even though in that same time the population rose the crime rate decreased (as compared to how it was before not compared to the new population). And it wasn't that criminals were dying off or getting too old to commit crimes anymore. Crimes among the demographic you would assume least likely to commit them actually rose in that period. "White-collar" crimes also rose. So where was the drastic decrease in crime? Among the young generation. If you compare only crimes committed by the peak demographic and not the overall crime rate the crime rate in that period was practically in free-fall.

The explanation? There were a lot of explanations. At first they struggled to continue to instill the fear of rising crime rates. Gradually they realized crime rates were not going up and the same people predicting death and doom were now only too happy to take credit for the drop in crime (even though they had no idea why it happened) they made up a lot of reasons. Credit went to everything from police work, to education, to nutrition. Recently two books that feature this particular conundrum have come out with very interesting theories.

The Gladwell Explanation: The Gladwell theory is something like "Yes, police work and the Broken Windows Policy (a theory that is essentially that if penalties for small crimes are routinely enforced not only will small crimes not happen but large crimes will be discouraged as well because people see that you can't even get away with breaking a window- a kind of trickle-up thing) and education and the economy and jobs all had something to do with it. They all contributed- every single one of them. But none of them can take full credit or even anything other than a tiny share of the credit. Without all of them it wouldn't have happened. You added up one and one and one and one and one but instead of equating only to five the total of those shares became greater than the individual parts could ever have been and you totaled up to one hundred." Gladwell calls this "The Tipping Point". All great turns of events do not have a single root but rather many small capillaries that individually have almost no effect but together (and only together) create something huge.

The Levitt & Dubner Explanation: Their theory is rather more radical than Gladwell's. They concede that police work and things like that may have helped but that there would have been no magical Tipping Point without something no-one else even considered. They essentially say that the Gladwell theory is taking correlation and concluding causation. The Levitt & Dubner explanation goes back to a supreme court decision made in 1973 which is referred to as Roe v. Wade. You may have heard of Roe v. Wade. This is the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. I'd like you to pause a moment and absorb that assertion. Levitt & Dubner assert that the rising crime rate (which was expected to have risen even more dramatically) went down because of a decision made on abortion two decades prior to the sudden unexpected drop. You may think that this belief is insane. After all, how do those two things correlate? Readily. Why was it that when the US was poised on the brink of what seemed to be a massive rise in crime did crime suddenly drop among the age demographic most likely to commit crime? Because the people most likely to commit crime (poor persons raised in single-parent homes who had young if not under-aged mothers) were not born. Women in tough situations without the money for children or the support of a husband or who were too young to want kids now had the option to terminate the pregnancy. If this still seems far-fetched to you I encourage you to read Freakonomics and see the very, very solid math which does not merely correlate with the crime drop that they use as their supporting argument.

They both make very logical arguments with some supporting math and also make it clear why there is no way for macroeconomics to work (short of some kind computer model of unholy complexity that once it started making predictions would ruin the whole thing anyway). There are too many variables. There are too many variables in macroeconomics for anyone to be able to claim that they understand how it works completely and how all those variables interact to produce different results.

Gaia economics are not macroeconomics. There are very few inputs involved and many things you have to worry about in the real world (PR for example) do not apply. It is a lot easier to understand what is going on using the past trends theory of predicting the future. Sometimes, however, this does not work. I think the reasons Spectacular Halos were a Spectacular Failure (as far as hoarding is concerned) are manifold. My top theory I will state last. The other explanations have to do with the fact that the item was kept in the CS for a duration exceeding the announced duration, the panic-dumping that this caused, the fact that this was a brand-new type of item, and the way that animated items were pitched as being animated for a limited time and then having to purchase recharges (as a gold sink to control inflation that they caused to begin with). The main problem though was that when I (and others) thought about the past (Angelic Halo) we were not looking at causation but merely correlation. We compared the looks of the two items and figured that a Angelic Halo remake had to be popular. In retrospect I think that this is bizarre behavior especially on my part. I think that Angelic Halo is fugly and I would never want one. If I ever won one I would either give it away straight-up or sell it and give away a lot of the resulting gold. Angelic Halo is a shade of gold that doesn't appear much in Gaia items and it's hard to use in a balanced matching avatar. The only reason the people who have them wear them (or wanted them to begin with) is as a status symbol. Spectacular Halo is not a status symbol. It was as expensive as a good EI when it came out but without the limited availability and generational snob value or visual appeal (and multitude of poses) of a good EI.

So even though it is reasonably easy (if you have a good grasp of what you're doing) to give good predictions of what will and wont do well there is a reason that THG rules state that the Mods are not there to earn your gold for you but to offer only help and a swift boot to the rear in the proper direction. And there is a reason I hate making assertions. I don't want to say that you should absolutely hoard whatever is on the third page (which I desperately need to update and I swear I will do this now that I am not out of the state, caught up with trying to do NaNoWriMo and moving to a new appartment and having to wait for internet) or that you should absolutely sell when I say to do so.

Putting predictions into coherent words and quantifying that decision is kind of absurd. Some people keep rigorous and meticulous accounts of their hoards in spreadsheets and have actual math and data they could base future predictions on. I don't do that. I wouldn't even try. When people ask my opinion on a Brand Spanking New item I tell them to ask me later. When I research items I check out the graphs in the marketplace, I might check Tek-Tek to find out the origin. I look at the poses. I think about the user sdrawkcab and about her avatar making guide and different avatar styles and how the item could be used in avatars. I check wikipedia to see if the item has any kind of pop-culture reference that may be a mitigating factor in the price (I check wikipedia because I am not all up on pop-culture or memes). I compare the item to similar items (in price, looks, type, style, artist, timliness, pixeling, quality, pose-number, and color). I trawl the GCD. I check the market obsessively. I read what people in THG and TVG have to say about the item. I think about why Gaia is releasing this item and whether they might re-release it and how they might otherwise foil the hoarding of this item. I do not write any of these things down. I let them percolate in my thoughts.

Then I try to be helpful and tell other people my conclusions. It is hard to reasonably say why I think what I think and quantify my decisions. How do I explain that I decided to hoard something because I thought people would use it a lot according to sdrawkcab (who is an expert on fashion and not hoarding) and because it has a lot of good poses (without being able to quantify "good" ) and the artist is popular and the GCD likes it and the graphs look "promising" (whatever that means)? Well, I generally don't bother. I assume my credentials to decide these things based on the fact that I have made myself a lot of gold. I suggest things while rarely giving more than a partial explanation for why I would do that. I preface a lot of things with "I personally would do" and try to point out that I'm not perfect. I also try to stress the fact that even though people like BRAIN or LDownto or Kiss In Digital have also made lots (which is a severe understatement) of gold hoarding I don't follow their advice (unless it's something I already would have agreed with) and I don't necessarily always agree with them. I often strongly disagree with them. On many issues. Sometimes I lie by omission (I point out that I lie by omission and not flat-out lie because I have this thing about lying) so that when I dispense advice it is clear-cut and well-intentioned without explanations that may cause you to think something stupid is a brilliant idea and later get angry at me because of this (if you don't think I would actually do this I can give an example). And I generally (not just even but especially in real life) assume idiocy until intelligence is proven.

I am not saying with any kind of absolutes that you should sell Cirques now. I'm also not saying that you should absolutely buy whatever is on the third page or that doing so will absolutely make you gold. The third page exists because I think these things could make you a lot of gold. They could also lose you a lot of gold (I try not to focus on this thought for obvious reasons). I haven't hoarded any new RIGs for months (or recommended anyone else to do so unless they weren't getting many and planned on turning them over far sooner than I ever would) and instead focused my energy on getting rid of my RIG hoards because I suspect (and the gods only know it's highly probable it wont happen at all) that there will be a year-end bundle of bundles that re-releases all the RIGs put out since the last one. I think this because they have done it the last two years in a row. Last year it had a huge impact on the hoardability of the Quackers RIG and saving gold to invest in the superprize would be a lot better for you than investing in a RIG you may have to wait much longer than normal to profit from. I am actually expressing an excessive amount of caution. There may be no superprize at all. It might not effect previously re-leased RIGs at all if it is released. They may only re-release select RIGs. They may have some other year-end money-making scheme cooking up. I do not know.

I personally would rather do what I have done in not buying recent RIGs and getting rid of all the ones I had in a timely manner than be stuck with them if they do put out a new Superprize. I now have a lot (though I wont say how much exactly) of gold sitting in various accounts (because I'm too paranoid to keep it in one place) and waiting for superprize. Because I would rather be disappointed that there is no superprize to invest in (or ruin my hoards) than to figure that they wont put one out this year.

I consider the worst in each situation. Superprize fails to come out after I have neglected to hoard new RIGs and gotten rid of all my old ones and I have a pile of gold sitting idly. So I have to invest in something else or wait for the next RIG.
OR
I had figured that it wouldn't come out, hoarded all the latest RIGs and was working on selling off whatever hoards happened to be ripe and didn't have a lot of pure sitting around and it does come out. I now not only have a lot of hoards that are either actively losing me gold or will remain stagnant for much longer than I wanted to keep them and almost nothing to invest in a great hoard like superprize.



TL;DR
Jace would sell Cirques (and other recent RIGs) now if he had them. Jace has actually already sold off and/or not invested in all recent RIGs already in anticipation of superprize. Jace would also point out that page three is hardly intended as a religious text.
Jace also points out that he says these things for no reason he usually bothers explaining and that you are free to disagree with him as much as you like.

Misplaced Optimism

      I like to think I'm not a pessimistic person but it might be hard to refute that when the few things I'm optimistic about are consistent failures. And yet, I continue to be optimistic about them. I suspect that's what optimism is though, a kind of acceptable insanity. Thinking that just because it didn't work the last nine times it's going to work this time. This time when I go to the company website and click on the icon for the one I work in it's going to go to our page even though it didn't work last time and hasn't worked at any point since they "fixed" the website months ago (by hiring some jerkoff quack who couldn't even manage as good a website as I made in beginning html in highschool). And yet, no one questions when I do things like this. It doesn't work and hasn't since it was "fixed" months ago and yet none of my coworkers so much as question when I try it yet again.
      The thing that I'm worst (or possible best) at being optimistic about is conversations with idiots. I might hear someone say something illogical on the bus or at work and I feel this uncontrollable urge to make the world a better place and correct them. This never, ever works. Idiots seems to be strangely proud of their lack of intelligence and resist any concept or idea not their own at every turn. They have all these so-called reasons and arguments for why their flawed view-point is the correct one and even if you painstakingly over-turn every single one of their bias statistics and "sources" they'll just say "I don't think you're right" and deny everything.
      A striking example of this optimism is a conversation I had with a woman a couple weeks ago. It was around ninety degrees out and I had just walked the twenty minutes it takes me to get to the bus depot. Maybe if it hadn't been so hot I wouldn't have had the conversation. The woman and I were both waiting to be allowed onto the air-conditioned bus when the driver disembarked and went to unload a person in a wheelchair. The woman (whose four-year-old was standing holding her hand) cursed loudly and colorfully and growled that the driver could have at least let people on out of the heat before he went and did that. It's a company safety policy to get all of the passengers off before letting anyone else on. I told her as much and she brought her kid (who said nothing during the entire exchange and seemed fine) into the argument and said that it was too hot for children to stand out in the sun while the bus driver helped some person in a wheelchair off. She spiced this sentence up with several choice adjectives you'll never hear on the radio as well. I suggested that swearing wasn't going to solve anything and she gave me a dirty look and actually said that it couldn't hurt anything. I assume she meant "provided that swearing in front of your small child and acting like the world revolves around you isn't hurting anything".
      Another wonderful person was a lady who came into the store after we had to kick out her three unattended children because her four-year-old had gotten into the adult how-to sex books. She muttered, as she walked past the desk, wondering out-loud if children were no longer allowed in stores. I suggested that if she had a problem maybe we could help her with it. She glared and stormed out of the store. I wanted to tell her that last I checked unattended children weren't allowed much of anywhere and only in part because people might steal them but I managed to resist.
      And I know that arguing with them will only frustrate me but I'm sure the next time I hear someone complaining about the people who voted in such-and-such politician I'm going to think: "No, this time I'll set them straight. If I just speak clearly and concisely they'll see the error of their ways."

Stupidily Easy Halloween Costumes

Business Person:
Wear some kind of suit or slacks, dress shoes, button-up shirt & tie.
Cons of this costume are that it will invariably cause people to assume you are not wearing a costume.
Pros include people assuming that you are an actual business-person and the costume pieces are easy to find and purchase.

Roman:
White (or at least plain solid-colored) sheet twisted about person in some manner, usually tied or pinned over one shoulder and at the opposite hip. Not wearing other contemporary clothing underneath is optional.
Cons of this costume are that it is very lame and no doubt inauthentic on every level.
Pros include the ability to go party at a near-by college fraternity if your original costume-party plans do not work out. Another pro is that this costume only requires one thing which you should already own.

Fairy:
One pair of cheap, sparkly fairy wings.
Cons: This costume is very easy to ruin or have stolen from you.
Pros: This costume is inexpensive and always obvious that you did make some effort, however small, to get into the costume spirit.

Shadow:
Dress all in black from head to toe. Black face-paint or mask is optional but a hat of some kind is required to cover light-colored hair. In character action such as creeping behind people and mimicking their mannerisms is a must.
Cons are that not only will most people assume you are not wearing a costume but also if you are walking around at night you have a very low visibility and people driving cars may run into you.
Pros are that this is an easy last-minute option requiring no purchases and the outfit doubles as something to wear when engaging in criminal activity such as cat burglary and convenience store hold-ups (but only if your costume includes a mask).

The Crow:
A simple Crow costume requires no more than dressing all in black and using white face paint on your whole face and black on the lips and eyes. Changes can be made to make the costume more badass and authentic. Silver duct tape can be wrapped around the torso, leather pants worn, lace-up boots used, a long black leather coat worn and a electric guitar or sword carried around as a prop. Extra points for being attractive and tragic and/or using fake blood and faking bullet-holes in clothing.
Cons are that people under the age of twenty-five will probably not remember this movie and there is a high likelihood that more than one person will mistake you for a bad Kiss impersonator.
Pros are that people who do recognize you will applaud you for your sweet costume and it isn't a complex look to pull off.

School Girl:
White blouse, plaid skirt, white stocking and patent-leather shoes are all the necessary pices for this costume. Wearing your hair in pig-tails, cropping your shirt or skirt and lewdly feigning ignorance about sex while in character are optional.
Cons are that this is a very chilly costume for those living in higher latitudes and people will try to look up your skirt.
Pros include the easy ability to get free drinks and/or get laid.

Angel:
Dress all in white/light blue and add a halo and/or small white wings. An alternative to the wings/halo is a low-cut shirt and/or tight pants or short skirt.
Cons include offending various people's religious ideology and getting into arguments about religion.
Pros are that it's really easy, cheap, and slightly less lame than being a Shadow.

Devil/Demon:
Dress in red and black and add horns and/or small bat wings and/or a pointed tail. An alternative to the horns, wings, tail is a low-cut shirt and/or tight pants or short skirt. This is also an ideal outfit for those men who believe that sporting a goatee is the height of facial fashion.
Cons include being mistaken for people who aren't you who were planning on dressing up similarly.
Pros include offending various people's religious ideology and getting into religious arguments.

King/Queen/Prince/Princess:
This costume requires only a cheap plastic or cardboard crown and a snotty attitude. You can be more authentic about the outfit with velvet and metal accessories, fake jewels and replacing snotty with regal.
Cons are that dressing up as royalty does not entitle you to anything.
Pros are that you can order your friends to entertain you or perform mock duels of honor.

Empathy for Automatic Doors

            I remember this one xkcd comic about automatic doors and feeling like the comic really resonated with me because I had always felt this way. Like I was inconveniencing the door by making it open when I didn't even actually want to come in and visit.
            I now find myself in a job where I walk by a Staples almost every time I work. After walking by on several occasions and feeling pretty bad because I kept making the door open when I didn't actually want to go inside I started trying to see how far away from the door I had to get before I was out of range. Before the door would know that I wasn't coming by for a visit and wouldn't whisk open hopefully. It turned out that if I walked just to the outer side of the inner segment of the sidewalk and I didn't have anything in the hand on the inside I could easily walk past without making the door open.
            I was pretty satisfied with walking by far enough away that I didn't make the door open. Until I saw that many times people ahead of me would needlessly cause the sliding door to whistfully trundle open, inviting them in, only to reluctantly close when the person had passed. And I still felt bad for the automatic door because even though I didn't taunt it and make it open when I wasn't going in I never actually went in. So when I started selling things online and I need bubble envelopes and packing tape I had a good excuse to go into Staples and make the automatic door feel like it had fulfilled its purpose.
            Alright automatic door-makers, I'm on to you. You made me feel sympathetic toward the door so much that I actually spent money at Staples instead of buying online. I promise I'll stop and shop when I walk by an automatic door if you make them stop sounding so sad when they operate.

Writing

Somewhat stream-of-conscious response to someone asking me about writing and creativity a month or so back.


I wouldn't have the audacity to say seriously that I write for myself. That would be strangely egotistical of me like I was saying that other people weren't good enough for my writing. It's true, of course, that I write for myself. I like writing, it's a beautiful escape into a land that can be anything I like. I like that I can write something I would like to read. But I don't just write for myself. If I were to write only for myself my thoughts might never be recorded in any way. I spend my whole day narrating my real (and imagined) life to myself. You never get to read that stuff. Not how it is initially anyway. But some of the ideas and concepts and lines and thoughts that I have do eventually make it into some kind of record. I'll write it into a story or a poem or a rant or a post somewhere or even a roleplay. I obviously write these things down because I want them to be read. If I were the only one to appreciate them they'd be gone when I died. I write for an audience. I imagine this audience is a bit like myself in some discernible ways but that at the same time the members of the audience can also be markedly different from myself. I want them to appreciate the writing the way it is to- not want to change the format that I chose or correct my supposed grammatical errors because they know that that's part of the writing. I don't want to write for any audience though. I feel confidence I could write for the audience, the mass market. I could write an awful Vampire romance and dress it up in SAT words and fill it full of clichés and become a best seller for a few minutes. I just want to write for an audience, whoever they are.
My writing starts with a thought. Sometimes it can come on demand but at other times I could not come up with a single thought worth committing to paper. I think about things. I never stop thinking. I read and I think and I walk and I think and I write and I think and I talk to people and I think. I have some of the same thoughts that chase through my head in a logical progression again and again. I have a lot of thoughts I prefer not to think. These are my denials. It's easier not to think about things I don't want to think about if I think about other things. Unfortunately I usually run out of good things to think about so I start to make things up. I look around me and try to see things other people miss or things I'd missed before. I could sit in the same room day after day and see something new to inspire me.
Sometimes the thought is about what I'm looking at. I'll look outside and I'll see the trees and I'll see growth and life and beautiful natural things. Sometimes the thought can be much more abstract. I can be looking out into the lobby where I work and see how the different corridors come together and think of the heart of a city, physical and then metaphorical. Sometimes the thoughts in my head will run together, the lyrics of a song will get tangled up with the thread of a thought involving a new scientific theory and something entirely new will emerge.

Selling Things Online Means...

Dealing with angry stupid people.
Example: "The controller you sent me was not in the original packaging."
"I know. That's why it said "repackaged for shipping" in the condition description."

That it's okay to check your e-mail obsessively because you really could have gotten an important e-mail in the last minute informing you that someone bought something from you.

Trying not to blow a gasket when someone undercuts you by five cents or even a penny.

Having to explain to your boss at your "real" job why you go to the Post Office so often.

Being terrified about committing tax fraud if you don't report your earnings at the end of the year.

Trying to achieve a fine balance between pleasing the customer and strict return policies to keep from being ripped off by the customer.

Occasionally spending several minutes knocking my head against a wall.

Constantly looking around you for more opportunities to exploit.

Nice to Know

      It's nice to know that if you live in a city anyone can take their dog on the bus if the animal is reasonably well-behaved and they can tell the bus driver with a straight face that Mr. Piddles is a "service animal". It's also nice to know that your service animal need not be a dog. There is a certain Hanna Montana obsessed individual who often rides the bus and totes around her "therapy hamster" in a small cage. It is also nice to know that your therapy animal may not necessarily have to be real. I have never once seen her therapy hamster and suspect it might well be imaginary.
      It's nice to know that even army guys who might seem to be straight-laced can be cool enough to lament that they can't smoke pot because of piss tests.
      It's nice to know that in the middle of downtown it's pretty safe to leave your doors unlocked all night but you have to be careful if you live a little bit out of the way where your neighbors are pretty nice.
      It's nice to know that if you leave your door unlocked during the daytime mysterious strangers will open it to leave you packages so they don't get ruined by the rain when you're gone. I love coming back to my house, checking the box and thinking we have no mail and then almost killing myself on the way in because the mail man or UPS guy left a box just inside the door.
      It's nice to know that other people are also crazy and dysfunctional.
      It's nice to know these things so that in the future I can surprise people with startling trivia. I already know a lot of non-startling and largely useless trivia but now I'm adding to my repertoire things that may vaguely alarm or (hopefully) amuse the people I know. Now if I am conversing with someone and they mention always keeping their door locked I can mention something about not really doing that because then the present faeries can't open the door to leave me packages.

Angry Stupid People

      Stupid people as defined by: The fact that they are easily angered because of their own stupidity.
      An example of this kind of stupidity would be the folks who leave long, angry, ranting, poorly-worded and badly-typed negative feedback for online sellers who sent them- exactly what they paid for. These people are not angry because they got what they paid for. They're angry that they didn't realize what they were paying for. They often try to blame the seller for their oversight by saying that the listing didn't say that the product was generic or that it didn't come with the controller. This is rarely the case.
      Someone who sells online on a place like eBay or Amazon might make a little bit of money by deceiving someone once but they can make a lot more money in the long-term by being entirely honest. Which is not to say they might not hope you think you're getting the genuine article and therefore bid more for it but they don't expect you to. Therefore you can be fairly certain that if you read the product description it will say that what you're bidding on is generic or that it doesn't come in the original box or that it's scratched.
      These angry stupid people nearly always try to blame the seller because they know, deep inside, that if it's not the seller's fault then they were deceived because of their stupidity but as they are not stupid this cannot possibly be the case. Another feature of stupid people is that they generally have no idea that they might not be particularly bright.
      These people are the same people who might blame their bank if they lost their identity and someone used it to wrack up massive debt. Because obviously it wasn't their fault for falling for that phone scam. It must be the bank's fault for not adequately protecting their identity. It could not possibly be their own fault for giving out personal information over the phone as you are frequently warned not to do.
      Despite the fact that I work in a place that sells severely over-priced gift items I have yet to have the pleasure of dealing with a stupid angry person attempting to make a gift return. I have heard some fun stories. In fact we had one person who came in a couple of weeks ago and was (in his own words) "just looking for something cheap for my girlfriend". He bought her some jewelry that has never been very popular and was thusly marked down. He returned the next morning before the store opened and yelled at my manager because they weren't open yet and he wanted to return the gifts that his girlfriend hadn't liked. He literally threw the items on the floor in disgust and stalked off to one of the other stores until they opened. When he came back he said he wanted to return the items and Dianne said she wouldn't take them without a receipt. He yelled and said to get the girl he had purchased them from the night previously. Obviously it wasn't possible for Dianne to get Jenn on the phone or in the store to confirm his identity (not that she would have wanted to) and told him that if he found the receipt he could come back later.
      I really wanted to talk to this guy. I wanted to ask him how he could lose his receipt overnight and what the logic in buying his girlfriend something cheap was if she wouldn't like it for that very reason. Why not buy her something thoughtful instead? Or give her a gift card if he was so totally clueless about what would please her?
      I honestly hope that someone else like him comes into the store when I'm there and starts yelling so I can explain to them that our return policy is clearly posted in several places around the store and that we, like most other stores, will not accept returns of items without the receipt. We can't give refunds on credit card purchases unless you have the card with you. We absolutely will not accept Webkinz returns, not even for store credit unless you haven't opened or tampered with the tag even if you do have proof of sale. We do not accept returns of any adult magazines unless they are wrapped in plastic that hasn't been tampered with. We will not refund you for a book because you didn't like it. And if you cannot understand any of those concepts you shouldn't be trusted with money.
      Of course, this would have to occur when there was a K&E guy at the mall because otherwise I suspect this might incite the stupid angry person into harming me in physically violent ways. I guess it's a lot to ask for; having a security guard on hand at the same time as an angry stupid person is trying to return something without a proof of purchase but I can always hope.

The Key to Happiness is Online Shopping

      My favorite kind of retail therapy is the kind where I sit at my computer, click things, examine stuff and have it sent to my house. I enjoy the limitless selection, the low prices and my agoraphobia especially enjoys the lack of crowds. I like to look up stuff I have no intention of buying just to see what the prices are. I like to look up random things just to see if they exist. I love to speed through Amazon or Google check-out where I don't even have to put in my information. It's practically a magical experience at that point.
      I've read a few different things about what makes people happy lately. The interesting theory right now (probably best described by the Empirical Cynicist Nassim Nicholas Taleb author of The Black Swan) is that getting something nice makes you happy. Getting something nice worth as little as ten dollars one week and something of equal value the next week will make you happier than if you got something worth thirty dollars the first week and nothing the second week. Happiness does not scale up. If you get something really nice or make a lot of money all at once you're not going to be as happy as if you got small but steady rewards that, as a whole, didn't add up to as much material value as the theoretical lump sum.
      As far as work goes that means that working in the medical profession or as a salesperson is going to make you a lot happier than if you're a scientist. Helping someone by giving them a life-enhancing treatment or helping them to pick out the perfect cellular phone for their needs gives you a steady diet of small rewards. Picking M&Ms and eating them one at a time will be a lot more satisfying for your sweettooth than getting a Snickers and scarfing that down in three bites. Searching for the cure to a crippling disease year after year with no results until finally after decades of work you discover that cure and win a Humanitarian Award just wont make you as happy as being a doctor. Your brain just is not wired that way.
      But since we can't all have steadily-rewarding careers we need some other plan to be happy. Which is where I like to digress back to online shopping. The online shopping experience itself is very enjoyable. You can sit in perfect comfort in your favorite chair, totally naked, while drinking beer, eating chips and watching sitcoms. Regular shopping means you have to stand up. You have to be wearing clothes, possibly uncomfortable clothes. You cannot drink or be under the influence of anything more mind-altering than caffeine. You can't watch television when you do it. You have to go out of the house where there are other people and actually interact with them. You probably have to drive or at least walk someplace. You have to go into a store and see if they have a product in stock and examine the package scrupulously to see if it's what you actually wanted. If you want to comparison shop you have to go to multiple places and look at many different products to figure out the best deal. Most likely you will find this process exhausting and expensive no matter what you're buying.
      Going back to sitting naked at your computer. You're comfortable. It's easy to comparison shop at dozens of different places in a short period of time. It's easy to see whether other people in similar situations were happy with the product you're considering. It's easy to see whether the product is what you want and check out the specifications. It's easy to get a really good price without going anywhere. It's all very easy.
      Not to mention that ease and comfort aren't the best parts. It's often significantly less expensive to buy products online. When I check-out online I always feel very satisfied. I found what I wanted and got a good price. It makes me happy. For the next few days I get to happily anticipate when my package will come. I don't like to obsessively check the tracking on things I order so when they show up it's a surprise. Everyone loves surprises. Especially good surprises. And it's always shipped in a box of course so you get to open it up and unwrap it just like a present. To take it out of the packaging and read the instructions. And then you can tell people about it even if it is not the most exciting thing in the world. "Today my new coffee carafe came. It was exactly what I wanted."
      Ordering things, anticipating them and having them finally arrive are all good for your brain. People like to shop because it actually makes them happy. You get a nice release of dopamine in your brain. that's why some people can become addicted to shopping. But at the same time dopamine is an antidepressant. So the next time you're feeling down or you need something that you don't have to have immediately do yourself a favor and get on the computer and order it, you'll be a happier person. But remember: Don't order your groceries online and always shop in moderation!

Typically Up for Interpretation

      My typical day starts with being woken up by a small child who is angry because the preparation time of breakfast is not instantaneous. I then get up, blindly, and grab my contacts and go into the bathroom. I go and I wash my hands, just like everyone else and then pop in my contacts. I either eat oatmeal or I get fancy and make pancakes or a breakfast sandwich for breakfast, I almost never eat cold cereal- not for breakfast, anyway. I will then often go into our other bathroom for a shower or into our living room to watch an episode of inane television from Netflix or play Wii Sports.
      At some point during my usual morning I log onto my computer and put in time checking my dozen or so e-mail accounts. I also check the social networking sites to which I belong and spend some time composing responses to various things that have occurred or been sent. This happens every day. I usually have about a dozen or more tabs open in my browser while I'm doing this because I can't usually manage to stay on one page for more than a few minutes. I find myself pressing command-t so I can check the definition of a word or to grab a url or just going to another site to briefly put off responding to some other internet situation.
      Eventually (usually later rather than sooner) I will get dressed in "real clothing" and caffeinate my brain. I will pack myself some kind of lunch. The kind of lunch will vary wildly depending on factors such as how recently we have been shopping, whether anyone has felt like cooking lately, whether I feel like cooking before going to work, what I had for breakfast and what I think I might intend to eat for supper. I'll usually fill my bottle with water and mix with a very small amount of Crystal Light just so it doesn't taste like water but isn't obvious enough that my boss will tell me we can't drink anything but water behind the counter at work.
      Just about forty-five minutes before I have to be at work I will leave my house. I'll walk down town to Pickering Square and wait briefly to get on the bus. While I'm walking I will mostly skip through various songs on my iPod and occasionally listen to some of them. I usually use this time to think busily about either writing or reading (every other time I think about these subjects it is lazily and with a lot of interruptions.) I pay eighty cents to ride the bus. The trip usually takes longer to go a shorter distance than if I was in my car but this does not bother me greatly.
      While I am riding the bus I either stow my iPod in my bag or I turn it off but leave the earphones in so that I can listen to the people on the bus who are talking. Listening to the Dull Normal having religious, political, scientific or philosophical conversations for fifteen to twenty minutes is often the best part of my day. At least in the sense that it gives me lots of funny stories to tell even if it tends to be rather painful to listen to.
      Last Thursday my day had been going very much like this. I got onto the bus and sat in my favorite seat at the front of the raised tier in the back. Just before the bus started moving I noticed that the woman sitting right in front of me in the lower section was looking at what I thought was a Biology test. It looked a lot like the standard tests we took when I was in AP Bio in high school. Since I like biology and I felt like being nosy and wondering what a middle-aged woman with gray shot through her hair was doing looking at a biology test I tried to read some of the questions. What I could make out made me very suspicious about this test booklet.
      A few minutes later she re-arranged the pages to put them in the right order and before she replaced them in their manila folder I got a good look at the cover page. It read: "Starfleet Academy Marine Corps Entrance Exam". Yes, I do mean that Starfleet Academy. From Star Trek. That one. My immediate thought upon seeing this was to start Star Trekkin' by Dr. Demento playing on my iPod but I was quickly distracted by a conversation that had just started.
      The conversation was between three people I had seen on the bus on previous occasions. One was a youngish buff african-american man. One a middle-aged scrawny italiano man who I knew from previous encounters had worked at a variety of jobs, mostly business, in a variety of places, and who had also been in the Army once upon a time. The third participant was an older lady who came into the bookstore where I work at least once every week. I usually resist calling this woman the crazy cat lady but if it came down to explaining who I was talking about to one of my co-workers that phrase always gets across who I mean.
      The conversation started when the two men were talking about the weather. There were some severe storm warnings evidently (two days later there were tornado warnings in northern Maine) and they mentioned that they both liked Maine because of how safe and normal it is up here. And then, what seemed randomly to me but probably made sense to someone who watches the news, one of the men brought up the Bishop who recently married another man in New Hampshire (please take note that I make no effort to know anything about this story other than what the men on the bus mentioned because I am of the belief that news rots your brain).
      They both seemed to think that this was an awful, terrible thing while I was affirming in my brain that this was a step in the right direction. I don't necessarily think they had anything against people who are gay but it seemed terribly wrong to them that a member of the clergy could be gay. One of them brought up the fact that according to the bible men can't be gay. The crazy cat lady said that some religions didn't think so and that they thought it was okay. He responded by saying that that was just their interpretation and that the interpretation of god, the bible, didn't say anything like that.
      It was at this point that I had to get off the bus. If I thought my face would be more attractive with the crooked bump from having had my nose broken I might have wished the lady good luck getting into Starfleet and reminded the man that god did not write the bible. People wrote the bible. And not only did people write the bible but it wasn't even written in English. So by the time most catholic or protestant practitioners got around to interpreting the bible it had already been filtered and colored by other people's perceptions. Unfortunately for the edification of the world I generally like my face the way it is.
      Thusly I said nothing and walked into work five minutes after I was supposed to be there. The bus is habitually late. It's supposed to get to the mall I work in at five minutes before the hour but this almost never happens. I clocked in. I shuffled books. I smiled at people. I read from the same script over and over. And then my boss left and I ate the lunch that I had packed after I went and got some more caffeination from one of the other stores in the mall. While I was hanging out at the desk to allow my coworker to roam the rest of the store doing her share of the book section someone asked if we carried The Cannabis Grow Bible. My first thought was that I was sure that the Cannabis Grow Bible had nothing to say about gay men. I shook my head because knowing my boss it was fairly easy to know that we didn't.
      A minute later I checked on the computer to see if we could order this book. I did this for two reasons. One, I knew my boss would be disapproving that a customer wanted one, and two, you have to have a lot of some kind of interesting quality to walk into a bookstore, totally stoned, reeking of pot, and ask if they carry the Cannabis Grow Bible. It turned out that we could order it. I looked and saw that he and his friends were looking at Adult Magazines so I told him what I had learned. He seemed excited and explained that actually he already had that book and he was looking for one by the same author on Hydroponic growing (of Marijuana).
      I did some checking on this and determined that as far as I could tell no such book existed and suggested that either it was no longer in print (which seemed strangely unlikely) or that it was by a different author and if he wanted to find out who from his friend (who apparently owned this book) I could probably find it to order for him. He seemed terribly sad and dejected that I couldn't find his book for him but thanked me anyway, bought a copy of High Times and left.
      After closing I either get home in one of two ways. I go there directly in a car with either my brother whom I share an apartment with or one of my coworkers or I go to the grocery store, walk around and buy a couple of things, call a cab to pick me up out front and then take the cab home.
I usually cook myself dinner. I then usually entertain myself on the computer for at least a few minutes. Friends of ours usually show up unannounced after the baby is asleep and then it is time for the temporary chemical alteration of our collective brains and either playing a board game (of which we have many), some Wii Golf, or watching bad Netflix television. I usually take out my contacts, brush my teeth excessively and go to sleep somewhere between sixteen and twenty hours after waking up.
      And then we start it all over again.

Making Fun of Omnivores

      Well, I had wanted to write another post making fun of vegetarians but I thought that since I had already bashed on them once I should take the time to be fair and make fun of omnivores because everyone knows omnivores have it easy and no one makes fun of those idiots. A little objectivity never hurt anyone after all. I like to be an equal-opportunity jerk and poke fun at everyone, including myself. If you're a vegetarian you should enjoy this post. If you're an omnivore I hate to say it but you might enjoy this post just as much as the vegetarians.
      First of all we'll explain omnivores. I like to break down scientific words into Latin components for the sake of confusion when I begin to clarify and define things. Omne means all or everything. Vor comes from the verb meaning to eat or devour. Literally omnivore means to devour everything. Dirt, metal, vegetables, fruit, powdered bone slime, gasoline, meat, plastic, sexual organs, everything would be in the diet of an omnivore if it were translated literally. A quick Google search for "define: omnivore" will reveal that the general definition is much narrower and comes down to a person or animal that eats or can eat both meat and plants. The same quick Google search will reveal that, apparently the term was popularized by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. This, as you should immediately realize, is a load of crap. Saying that Michael Pollan popularized the term "omnivore" is like saying that Stephanie Meyers popularized the term "twilight" with her Twilight Saga.
      Omnivores do not obviously live up to their clinically-defined name. You don't eat petroleum or rocks. You're not going to devour someone's cotton shirt. But if you consider the generally-accepted definition everyone is an omnivore. Vegetarians can eat meat just because they choose not to. Someone who lived on a strict diet of chicken nuggets and french fries could not be not considered an omnivore just because they never had anything else.
      Eating is as much evolution and availability as it is a choice. Our ancestors survived because of their ability to consume many different things instead of fitting into one very small niche which might have easily been wiped away. A socially-conscious person who doesn't have a lot of money, despite wanting to help out local farmers by buying their produce is trapped into continuing to go to the big boxes to get groceries because they don't have the means so that food is not available to them. People who are vegetarians (generally) have the ability to get and consume meat but choose not to for moral or physical reasons, it doesn't mean they don't have the physical capacity to digest meat (boctoe) so they are technically omnivores.
      Now let's make fun of the omnivores. If you are a human omnivore you have almost certainly at some point in your lifetime consumed: Bugs, feces, dirt, metal, plastic, petroleum, sexual organs, fish bladders and powdered bone slime. Sounds like the recipe for some kind of terrible witch's brew, doesn't it? And how have you eaten these things? Wouldn't you know if this was in your food? Shouldn't it be listed on the ingredients?
      You've probably consumed an insect either accidentally while sleeping or awake or possibly intentionally but it's basically unavoidable not to eat one on accident. If you've ever gone to the bathroom and not washed your hands before preparing your food or ever eaten food someone else prepared for you then you have eaten feces. If you've ever eaten a vegetable that was not well washed before you ate it you have probably eaten feces then as well as dirt. If you have ever eaten any kind of meat, any number of vegetables or taken a vitamin containing iron you have eaten metal. If you have ever eaten any kind of food packaged in plastic you have eaten both plastic and petroleum at the same time. If you have ever eaten food that was fertilized by a petrochemical fertilizer or eaten an animal that ate any plants that were fertilized with a petrochemical you have eaten petroleum. If you have ever eaten a clover or broccoli or any other kind of flower you have eaten sexual organs. If you have ever had a beer or wine made with "isinglass" you have had fish bladder. If you have ever eaten jello or anything else that contains gelatin then you have eaten powdered bone slime. If you have ever had anything containing High Fructose Corn Syrup you have eaten a product that comes from a wet mill and could not exist without human production.
      If you are an omnivore of any kind and you have the capacity to think about what you put in your mouth the only reason you haven't is because you thought you knew. If you're happy eating a processed food that has several ingredients on the list that you cannot comfortably sound out or you cannot say what they are or where they come from I challenge you to look up some of those words. You might think you're safe by not eating processed foods but that's not the case. What part of the word does the coffee you drink or the lettuce you eat come from? Are you comfortable with how it got into the country or how and by whom it was grown. Are you comfortable with the conditions under which the chicken you eat lived it's life? Or would you rather clear your mind and play dumb?
      Omnivores enjoy being in the majority and feeling very much that might makes right. Everyone else is doing it so it must be okay. Being in the majority is not a good argument for anything. If the majority of a town is christian but a devout Muslim moves to town it does not give their neighbors any right to suggest they should go to a christian church just because everyone else in town does it. If you're going to eat meat, and fruit and mystery ingredients in your crackers that is fine with me as long as you have a good reason to do this other than the fact that this is what you have always done.
      Omnivores also tend to be food addicts. If you choose to willfully ignore where your food comes from or what it contains because you cannot give up a certain type of food then you would be considered a food addict. There's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian but the reasons you do it for are important. Similarly there is nothing wrong with being an omnivore if you have good reason to do so.