Spark In Darkness

So I'm resigned to switching from Firefox to Chrome, but today I noticed an Issue.

My Lj who isn't working (obviously since it's a greasemonkey thing).

LJ Who is kind of like a member notes feature. It was original designed so you could attach real names to your friends so Hotsexychipmunk69696969 would have a note by him saying "Bob Jones".

I used it to label bigots and homophobes so I knew who to avoid, which spaces to avoid (because it was crawling with people with notes) and who I need to keep away from my spaces. It was comforting to be able to see "thinks gay men have a history, culture and tradition of sexual predation on boys" or "Structural integrity of lettuce > GBLT humanity" or even just "straight person with Opinions She Will Share" or even just "slash fetishist" or "homophobe kill it with hails of armadillos"

I don't have my labels, it makes me itchy.

So I could spend an age looking around, but I'm lazy. Anyone know of a similar Chrome extension? Preferably one I could transfer the data over rather than having to rebuild my rogue's gallery of arseholes?

Judging by the emails I've been getting, I understand there has been some kind of drama llama on tumblr about fanboys losing their shit because people have been "slashing" the male Avengers characters

It would appear I am expected to roar in, sword raised and slap down their objections

What?

Seriously?

Have you come to the right place?

I've had a brief look at this hot mess (oh look a few hundred comments of "boys kissing is hawt" and the like. Fun) and the complete ignoring/dissmissing of any possibility of fetishism or legitimate criticism of slash as well as all the old standard tropes, memes, excuses and, of course, complete failure to acknowledge actual gay men exist and I don't want to go anywhere near this.

Do I think the objecting straight fanboys are homophobic? Probably. But I also think the same of the huge ream of fetishists, their supporters and their excusers. The difference is, the fanboys won't claim to be my allies or working for social justice while pulling their homophobic bullshit.

You're all homophobes, why do you think I'm going to champion either of you? And you only show this by dragging your sorry self to a gay man who is complete stranger (and clearly without any real examination of what I've written or my opinions) and expect me to run and go to bat on command for your fetish. But then, this is the respect I've come to expect.

And this is why I avoid fandom. When the choice is heternormative erasure and "gay is icky" on one side or gay fucktoys, who need to be drooled over and not heard on the other

Also? I am not going anywhere NEAR tumblr. Every time I've even cast an eye other thyat place I have seen so much collective fail it makes Livejournal look like a shining font of reason and sensitivity

So the utter icy frigidness of the house is explained by the hall/stairs/landing heater being broken.



Now we have this heater because it's efficient, cheap to run and by heating the room from which all other rooms attach it keeps the whole house warm and draft free even more effecitvely than the central heating (which has a thermostat in the ICY HEART OF BEIRA IN WHICH GLACIERS ARE BORN the living room. I'm not entirely sure why this room is impossible to heat, it may be the front and back huge windows. Either way, the central heating tries to keep that room warm and the rest of the house HAIR METLINGLY HOT).

But now efficient heater is apparently dead and winter storms are now raging up and down the stairs.


Checking the heater necessitated making some dusty mess, removing the cover and all. So out comes the vaccuum cleaner aaand... BANG

It's motor is broken, dead and, judging by the noise, exploded. And it's nearly brand new! And it's dead AGAIN.

But I didn't have time for this... I had a dinner to serve! A lucious pork joint with... wait... why is this oven tray not hot?

Actually turns out what I ACTUALLY have is a raw slab of pork and some raw veggies sitting in the tray in the stone cold oven which is... Broken.

At which point I officially give up. I am now in a fuzzy dressing gown and I'm going back to bed to sulk.

So, and to follow up on the comments from my last post, I informed Beloved that the Abacus could no longer be tolerated. It was no longer fit for purpose. I had to restart it 4 or 5 times just to make it work, half the links and menus were borked – it was giving me grey hairs every time I touched it. I use the computer far too much – for work, for blogging, for shopping, for gaming – to reasonably tolerate another 2 months with the computer in this condition. I’d actually find it easier to do without a phone - any phone – for 2 months than to do without a computer.

I actually had a huge long speech that didn’t seem to be getting anywhere (I think I have trained him to ignore eloquence because he usually loses). Eventually I resorted to grabbing him, chanting “please please please please” and not letting go until he agreed. Yes it’s not the most advanced or intelligent of debate methods but if it works I’m all for it. I also threatened not to feed him and promised various things that shall remain undisclosed.

Eventually Beloved relented on the (usually sensible) October 20th rule so he could play magnanimous lover rather than nagged and beaten loser. So we went out together and bought a shiny.

It’s official, I could never have kids now because all my love has been invested in this computer. I have none to spare for children. *drools all over the shiny* It works! It actually works. A computer that works. *hugs it pathetically*

Of course, all weekend was spent extracting as much of the data I could from the old wreck (poor Abacus, he served me well for many a year, but alas, its time is now over. It deserves a Viking funeral). Anticipating that this was going to be a fight and not nearly as simple as plugging in my terabit external drive I set aside all weekend for it (I did put things in holding mode though so hopefully there were no disasters).

And yes, there are problems. See, Abacus had a partitioned drive. I’m not sure why, I think it came that way or Beloved did it. So it had C:/ and D:/ (roughly equal sizes) and E:/ (recovery files). Now, I had a virus not long ago that masqueraded as a windows computer fixer. When I removed it it left me with a PC that was wrecked. The desktop was invisible – never again could I save a file to it. My start menu links all failed and half my program files just didn’t work any more. After that I did a system restore to fix another problem (the fact it kept freezing and looking for boot discs on start up) and then… D:/ disappeared. Just gone. The partition is gone, the letter assigned to the DVD drive and all the data lurking on D:/? Inaccessible.

This vexes me.

So, my old tower is sat next to me, taunting me “there is still info in here you neeeeed and you can’t get it! You can’t get it!” And it knows, it knows, that I’m going to have to plug it in again some time to try and get at that partition. *curses angrily*

Of course, I’ve also got to set up everything on the new computer which is taking a while. Not helped by the fact I don’t remember one single password so I’m having to reset them all. Oh and I just had to get through a captcha that used pi – the Greek letter pi. I have no idea how to type that. Also, yes dear websites, I realise that to have a strong password you should have caps and small letters and numbers that are non-sequential. I know, however I can’t be arsed and, frankly, if some of you are hacked I really really don’t care. Now quit wittering at me and let me enter my easily-remembered password that breaks all the rules.

But back to the shiny. It is shiny! And it works! And it gave me an excuse to use a new mouse with an actual wire (I hated that wireless mouse. Hated it hated it hated it) and a keyboard that isn’t all gungy (but the buttons are recessed which is cool and quieter typing but is taking some getting used to) and I looooves it I do.

Expect me to spend a few days getting used to everything and drooling over things. Soooo shiny. And it’s quiet! It makes so much less noise, the abacus sounded like a helicopter taking off!

Oh and I have like a gazillion emails. More. Ye gods 4 days away(ish) and my inbox explodes

There are a large number of people on the internet who believe they have won lots of social justice arguments against me – especially when it comes to homophobia.

And this surprises Beloved, it does, for he has yet to outmanoeuvre me when I blame him for, well, absolutely everything I can :) (because that's loooove). He will even lament about how I will even replay past arguments in case I feel he hasn't been hailed my rightness sufficiently.

This is because tormenting Beloved is a fun sport of which I am an international gold medal holder.

So why on the net are there all these victorious arguers? Well, because I don't really argue on the net. Most of the times when someone drops prejudiced bigot shit on my screen I wince, make a note to treat that space accordingly and tread carefully should I ever go back there. Occasionally I'm invested enough in a space or person – or it's my space – to engage the fail and resist it. Sometimes it's just vile and I feel I have to comment because if I don't I feel I've endorsed or accepted what has been said. So I comment.

And there's a response, usually as bad or worse. In naïve hope I respond and try again. Usually it's pretty clear that I'm just repeating myself, giving myself a massive headache and generally achieving nothing so...

I just leave.

Read more

So Intense debate isn't everyone's cup of tea, is causing problems and making it hard to comment (I don't mind if people use LJ, but people have tried to comment on the blog and it hasn't worked).

Trying to take it off could mean losing the comments on there. I've downloaded the XML file of those comments now and I'd like to upload them to blogger which is... THEORETICALLY possible....

In theory?




And yes, my net is still playing me up

Dies a horrible horrible death. And I still haven't got round to car fixing.

Of course, everyone tells me things come in threes.

NOT THE KINDLE! Do you hear me gremlins? The kindle is OUT OF BOUNDS! Go bother Beloved, he has lots of silly techno gizmos. Look, an Ipad! Pretty Ipad! Go break that.

Cleared out a few more things form my space. Communities and spaces that are long since inactive, some which should have gone with the whole “clear out the crap” fest, some places I hung around assuming they would interest me but I found myself constantly skipping past and removing from any spaces which may bring me tangentially into contact with slash or m/m spaces and threw out a few more that I realise I found not particularly helpful, fun, useful or educational in any way.

I also seem to following several spaces multiple times. Yes I am good at spamming myself.

My twitter is still being a nuisance, occasionally so is Youtube but that seems to have fixed itself (magic!) and flash seems to be giving me the run around as well. My primary concern is twitter. I'm sorry if you've tweeted me or responded to one of the few tweets I've managed to throw off (for some reason 3rd party linkage tweets have a higher success rate – but even then I generally have to try and tweet 4 or 5 times) and I haven't answered – technology is laughing at me


Still, it feels fresh to have things cleaned out and now I have the space and time to examine places that I may find more useful, fun and productive :) *rubs hands* newww toys.

Twitter being down is still annoying though

As people may have noticed for the past couple of weeks I've been trying to mess with comment moderation. Suffice it to say things have not gone according to plan. Technology, it still hates me.

In theory, while some people are on perma moderation (and you know who you are, your comments get deleted before they show their ugly ugly heads. Yes, by all means comment whining about it, I'll delete them too) most comments shouldn't be moderated. Give me a heads up if you seem to be on moderation for no reason. It's probably not intentional, more likely to be a technology fail.


I, thankfully, rarely have to resort to major comment policing (for some reason people send me nasty emails instead. One claimed it was because LJ tracked IPs which... confuses me, because doesn't email? And what would I do with an IP anyway? Is it like some old school magic? Once you couldn't let a witch know your name, now one must guard one's IP from a techno-pagan? Of course maybe people email me their bile because they know what will happen to them if they make their comments on the blog) and compared to some of my fellow bloggers I am miraculously free from the bile they have to deal with on a regular basis. Still there is crap I have no intention of allowing to defile my space.

And to the tiresome quoting of the first amendment that has landed with some regularity in my inbox: 1) you're not applying it correctly. Learn your own law before you misquote it. 2) I'm England, live in England and feel not the slightest desire to be bound by your constitution. Gods preserve me from Americans who think their laws are universal.

Now if you wish to scream “censorship” I will suggest you read my Comment Policy. The link's right there at the top of the page.. Apart from anything else, again, you're using that word incorrectly. I am not censoring you, silencing your or suppressing you. I am refusing to give you a platform. I do not OWE you a platform. If you have something to say and the big mean Sparky is not letting you say it then go to Blogger or Wordpress and make your own space. Since when do I have to be your broadcaster?


Ok, let's cover a few other things!

Email – I will get to it. All of it. EVENTUALLY. Yes I am not exactly timely at answering it, but I try. If, however you send me an LJ mail I probably won't answer it. Every now and then I look up and see “oh shit, 500 messages, I should do something about that”. So I may answer it – but maybe in 2020.

If you see something that may interest me amuse me or otherwise I may appreciate seeing – by all means send me it! My inbox is always open and I love people sending me things from sources I don't always follow. This is of the goooood :) It is appreciated and cookies will be given. I may write on it, I may not (depending on time, interest, mental strength and energy)

If you see something and decide to come to me screaming “zomg how could you not post about this?!” please feel free to eat your keyboard. I'm not a journalist, a reported, a ghost writer, author or even a professional blogger (I don't even had ads here. That's not a knock at adverts or a promise there never will be, it's noting my inability to figure them out. Technology is hard) and, frankly, none of these are obliged to write on command. I'm not a writing monkey. I have a full time job, a full time husband, charity work, a complex and involved family and an energy and time consuming mental illness(es) I do not have the time, energy, mental strength or, frankly, inclination to be on call to write on demand.

If you're coming screaming to me demanding I denounce someone, again, you can enjoy some keyboard chewing. If you've come demanding I apologise for what some complete stranger who happens to be gay has said/done then you can take your homophobic self and flounce out of here.

Ok, if you want to show me something grossly homophobic with a “can you believe this shit” slant, by all means do. I won't necessarily run over and comment because, really, seeking out homophobes in their lairs is one of the things I've crossed off my self-destruction list (it's a big list). I already dabble in more unsafe spaces than is wise.

If, however, you in general don't give a damn about gay rights but someone you REALLLY hate has said something homophobic and you think telling me will have me swarm in as some kind of grudge warrior for you – well, kindly sod off. Appropriating battles against homophobia for your gudgewank does not amuse.


Ok I think that deals with various things on my pending list. Go back to being awesome guys.