Red Letter Days And The Icons They Inspire (or really not, I just needed a subject line)
Brakeing today's "Torra Trys To Keep Sane And Survive Valentine's Day By Spamming Her Flist" entry into sections. First up...
Icons: Okay, I totaly blame tinheart for makeing me spend money today. ::points finger at Tin:: Tin, lovely, wonderful, careing person that she is bought a lot of us friends two months of paied LJ time, and an Icon boost of 70 extra icons. So in the last two months, I got used to the idea of being able to have 105 icons if I wanted!
You guys gotta remember, I've actualy been a member since nearly the begining (snagged the Torra username back in Feb of '03). I wasn't a paied member 'til just back in June or July or so (thanks to selynne's corruption), though. So when I first joined, you got one icon to yer name. Yah, one! Then a year or two later, they upgraded so that free users got three icons! Three! And you had to act damn thankful for them or they made you give them back. It wasn't until about the last year or two that LJ created the LJ Plus system, which gave you (OMG!) Fifteen Icons while still being free. ::mind boggles::
So when I went from Plus to Paied, I got to keep my few extras, so I had 32 slots for icons with my new account (I think? 33?). And beleive me, I worked damned hard to alawys keep at least one slot open, because there'd always come a moment when I'd wanna post and wouldn't have space for the icon I wanted to use. But it was such a change from what I was used to, I was greatful. Greatful! To LJ! Do you see how they corrupt us? Treat us like dirt and teach us to say "thank you, sir, may I have some more?"
But that's a difrent rant, and I degress...
So for Christmas, Tin gave me acess to 105 Icon Slots. And honestly, I really, truly did have the thought of "okay, I probably souldn't use them, because then I'll just want to keep them." I really did. But then I hit myself upside the head with "So, what, you're so ungreatful, you'll letting Tin's hard worked for money go to waist? Yer just gunna let her throw it away for no good reason?"
Yes, I managed to guilt myself into keeping my own Christmas gift. ::shakes head:: I managed to comprimise with myself by just not filling up them all...at least not right away. I started by just posting some stuff I have but don't use much...then I started finding ones I liked that friend had made...then I started activly hitting up Icon LJ Comms. ::hangs head in shame::
I knew it was gunna come to and end, soon, I really did, but somehow I managed to fill up 50 slots, even while holding myself back, and along came today's Databurst E-mail (sorry, too much SGA) saying it's time to re-up or shut up.
::deep sigh:: Thankfuly, since Tin got them started, I was able to get a deal on the lot. I gotta keep the full 105 slots for 12 months for $10, instead of the $25 or something that would have cost me if I'd done it when I paied for my LJ account back in June.
Happy "Little Things" (part 1): I rememberd what I forgot in yesterday's post. It wasn't much, a really little thing. I'm DLing and burning a lot of stuff to DVD right now, and I always title every ep of a show the same way : Show Title - 0x00 - Episode Title" (with the 0x00 being season number and ep number). Now since most stuff does't come titled this way (and yes, I use caps and spaces and everything), I have to re-name every file before I burn it. Yesterday I accidently discoverd that if I hit "Rename" on one file, when I'm done, instead of hitting enter and waiting for it to load and refresh before moving on to chose rename on the next file, I can just hit the tab key, and it'll automaticly go to rename the next one!
I meen, yah, this is a really little thing, but it cut the time it took me to rename an entire season of NCIS down to a quorter of what it would have taken otherwise. That was a really nice, very little thing tha made me happy.
Happy "Little Things" (part 2): Today's Happy Little Thing is that my podfic for mmmchelle's fic "Catch 19" ended up on a big rec list! It actualy has been on her rec list for nearly a month, but I was working my way though it in order, so I didn't read the end where she has the PodFics Reced 'til last night and saw my own name. ::blushes:: Awww! That's the first time I've had one of my podfics recced! Yay! (The Rec List can be found on unamaga's blog In This Post)
Curent Events/Local News: (ETA: removed the LJ cut, see why at the end) Okay, so there's a bill before the Wash State Senate today that would require people who are repetedly convicted on DUI charges to have a speical bright yellow licence plate on their cars for a Year, which clearly states that they are DUI Drivers. Personaly, I suport this bill, I really do. However, every bloody news station and opponate of this bill is compairing it to makeing wemon wear a Scarlet Letter!
Okay, first off, just...no! No, this is not The Scarlet Letter! I meen, okay, loosely looked at, I can see the relation of the Imagry. Someone does something wrong, and is made to publicly stand out so they can be shamed by their peers. Yes, at first glance, I can see the relation in the two themes.
But listen to me people, these two stories are not the same! Not. At. All!
The Scarlet Letter was an act of forced morality! It was the goverment and the church inflicting their views about sin upon their congrigations, and this law was only applied to wemon. The men who comited adultry got off scott free, only the wemon were forced to wear the letter and have the comunity at large tell them how they were going to hell for it.
DUI is not adultery! The Scarlet Letter was, as I said, an act of inficting moral values onto a person's actions. DUI is not a choice of moral vs immoral! DUI is a choice of "get drunk and take a cab home" or "get drunk, and try to kill people with my two ton car at high speeds"! If you get arrested on a DUI (repetedly I might add), then you are not being arrested because the cop thinks you're sinning and is trying to save your soul from hell. No, he's arresting you because you fucking got drunk and got behind the wheel, you little shit.
Yes, the purpus of the yellow plates is to make the driver feel so guilty and isolated they think twice about doing it again. No, it is not a reflection of moral values. No, they are not barred from joining comunity/church events, barred from holding jobs, kicked out of their homes, or beatten. This is NOT a scarlet letter. It's the use of Comunity Guilt to enforce the law!
::groans and rubs temples:: Okay, I've changed my mind, I'm not LJ Cutting this section. This clearly has me more pissed then I ralised, and I want it out where every flist this appears on, it appears in it's entirty. People can chose to read or not read my other two cuts. This? This one I'm forceing on you, because it's pissing me the fuck off.
I'll say it again, people, DUIs are NOT a choise of morality or moral values. If you get a DUI arrest, it's not because you've sinned, it's because you're a fucking Dumb Ass, and you got cought, and you fucking deserve all the shame and guilt you should be feeling.
I only wish to God that someone had actualy pulled over George one of the fucking countless times he drove drunk with Geoff or I in the car with him. Mabye he would have been forced to get help without putting us and the others around us at risk. I can't remember him ever getting pulled over, not once while I was in his care. He probably did, but I can garontee you, if he had been so much as ticketed for DUI while he was sharing costidy with Mom, I'd have heard about it. Hell, people six blocks over would have heard the yelling from that conversation. Maybe if George had had to pick us up from school with every other parent stairing at him and glairing at him (and hopefuly egging his car), then we might not have been placed in such danger. And neither would everyone else on the roadway with him.
I suport this bill.
ETA: Okay, it was pointed out to me that The Scarlet Letter really isn't required reading anywhere but here in the US. Basic plot summery is that a woman in colonial america gets pregnet while her husband is presumed dead at sea, and she refuses to name the father of the kid. The comunity then forces her to wear a large, scarlet colored "A" upon her chest at all times. The red A stood for Adultry, a cardnal sin at the time. She was shunned, all sorts of horrid things happend to her.
I forget how the book ends, I didn't really like it, honestly, very depressing. Looked it up on Wikipedia: Her husband isn't dead, and he pscyologialy tortures the lover until he nearly goes man. She desides to run off with her lover, her kid ends up not reconising her the one time she dares to remove her Letter of Shame and then washes off the "contamination" of her mother's kiss, and when the guy kisses her and pubicly tells off the town right before they leave, and imideatly dropps dead. She lives the rest of her live with the letter on, kid has a life of her own, and everyone dies pretty miserably. She is, however, burried next to the guy she loves, in the end, and "finds liberation" in the fact that the whole town ignores her, shuns her, and refuses to look at her, even fourty years later. Because clearly it was for her own good. ::fucking eyeroll::
And even though this was a book of fiction, much of America today think it's a historical refrence, and that this shunning and branding of adultresses was a common practice. It wasn't. I meen, they were shunned, yes, but there was no lettering and red paint involved.
Icons: Okay, I totaly blame tinheart for makeing me spend money today. ::points finger at Tin:: Tin, lovely, wonderful, careing person that she is bought a lot of us friends two months of paied LJ time, and an Icon boost of 70 extra icons. So in the last two months, I got used to the idea of being able to have 105 icons if I wanted!
You guys gotta remember, I've actualy been a member since nearly the begining (snagged the Torra username back in Feb of '03). I wasn't a paied member 'til just back in June or July or so (thanks to selynne's corruption), though. So when I first joined, you got one icon to yer name. Yah, one! Then a year or two later, they upgraded so that free users got three icons! Three! And you had to act damn thankful for them or they made you give them back. It wasn't until about the last year or two that LJ created the LJ Plus system, which gave you (OMG!) Fifteen Icons while still being free. ::mind boggles::
So when I went from Plus to Paied, I got to keep my few extras, so I had 32 slots for icons with my new account (I think? 33?). And beleive me, I worked damned hard to alawys keep at least one slot open, because there'd always come a moment when I'd wanna post and wouldn't have space for the icon I wanted to use. But it was such a change from what I was used to, I was greatful. Greatful! To LJ! Do you see how they corrupt us? Treat us like dirt and teach us to say "thank you, sir, may I have some more?"
But that's a difrent rant, and I degress...
So for Christmas, Tin gave me acess to 105 Icon Slots. And honestly, I really, truly did have the thought of "okay, I probably souldn't use them, because then I'll just want to keep them." I really did. But then I hit myself upside the head with "So, what, you're so ungreatful, you'll letting Tin's hard worked for money go to waist? Yer just gunna let her throw it away for no good reason?"
Yes, I managed to guilt myself into keeping my own Christmas gift. ::shakes head:: I managed to comprimise with myself by just not filling up them all...at least not right away. I started by just posting some stuff I have but don't use much...then I started finding ones I liked that friend had made...then I started activly hitting up Icon LJ Comms. ::hangs head in shame::
I knew it was gunna come to and end, soon, I really did, but somehow I managed to fill up 50 slots, even while holding myself back, and along came today's Databurst E-mail (sorry, too much SGA) saying it's time to re-up or shut up.
::deep sigh:: Thankfuly, since Tin got them started, I was able to get a deal on the lot. I gotta keep the full 105 slots for 12 months for $10, instead of the $25 or something that would have cost me if I'd done it when I paied for my LJ account back in June.
Happy "Little Things" (part 1): I rememberd what I forgot in yesterday's post. It wasn't much, a really little thing. I'm DLing and burning a lot of stuff to DVD right now, and I always title every ep of a show the same way : Show Title - 0x00 - Episode Title" (with the 0x00 being season number and ep number). Now since most stuff does't come titled this way (and yes, I use caps and spaces and everything), I have to re-name every file before I burn it. Yesterday I accidently discoverd that if I hit "Rename" on one file, when I'm done, instead of hitting enter and waiting for it to load and refresh before moving on to chose rename on the next file, I can just hit the tab key, and it'll automaticly go to rename the next one!
I meen, yah, this is a really little thing, but it cut the time it took me to rename an entire season of NCIS down to a quorter of what it would have taken otherwise. That was a really nice, very little thing tha made me happy.
Happy "Little Things" (part 2): Today's Happy Little Thing is that my podfic for mmmchelle's fic "Catch 19" ended up on a big rec list! It actualy has been on her rec list for nearly a month, but I was working my way though it in order, so I didn't read the end where she has the PodFics Reced 'til last night and saw my own name. ::blushes:: Awww! That's the first time I've had one of my podfics recced! Yay! (The Rec List can be found on unamaga's blog In This Post)
Curent Events/Local News: (ETA: removed the LJ cut, see why at the end) Okay, so there's a bill before the Wash State Senate today that would require people who are repetedly convicted on DUI charges to have a speical bright yellow licence plate on their cars for a Year, which clearly states that they are DUI Drivers. Personaly, I suport this bill, I really do. However, every bloody news station and opponate of this bill is compairing it to makeing wemon wear a Scarlet Letter!
Okay, first off, just...no! No, this is not The Scarlet Letter! I meen, okay, loosely looked at, I can see the relation of the Imagry. Someone does something wrong, and is made to publicly stand out so they can be shamed by their peers. Yes, at first glance, I can see the relation in the two themes.
But listen to me people, these two stories are not the same! Not. At. All!
The Scarlet Letter was an act of forced morality! It was the goverment and the church inflicting their views about sin upon their congrigations, and this law was only applied to wemon. The men who comited adultry got off scott free, only the wemon were forced to wear the letter and have the comunity at large tell them how they were going to hell for it.
DUI is not adultery! The Scarlet Letter was, as I said, an act of inficting moral values onto a person's actions. DUI is not a choice of moral vs immoral! DUI is a choice of "get drunk and take a cab home" or "get drunk, and try to kill people with my two ton car at high speeds"! If you get arrested on a DUI (repetedly I might add), then you are not being arrested because the cop thinks you're sinning and is trying to save your soul from hell. No, he's arresting you because you fucking got drunk and got behind the wheel, you little shit.
Yes, the purpus of the yellow plates is to make the driver feel so guilty and isolated they think twice about doing it again. No, it is not a reflection of moral values. No, they are not barred from joining comunity/church events, barred from holding jobs, kicked out of their homes, or beatten. This is NOT a scarlet letter. It's the use of Comunity Guilt to enforce the law!
::groans and rubs temples:: Okay, I've changed my mind, I'm not LJ Cutting this section. This clearly has me more pissed then I ralised, and I want it out where every flist this appears on, it appears in it's entirty. People can chose to read or not read my other two cuts. This? This one I'm forceing on you, because it's pissing me the fuck off.
I'll say it again, people, DUIs are NOT a choise of morality or moral values. If you get a DUI arrest, it's not because you've sinned, it's because you're a fucking Dumb Ass, and you got cought, and you fucking deserve all the shame and guilt you should be feeling.
I only wish to God that someone had actualy pulled over George one of the fucking countless times he drove drunk with Geoff or I in the car with him. Mabye he would have been forced to get help without putting us and the others around us at risk. I can't remember him ever getting pulled over, not once while I was in his care. He probably did, but I can garontee you, if he had been so much as ticketed for DUI while he was sharing costidy with Mom, I'd have heard about it. Hell, people six blocks over would have heard the yelling from that conversation. Maybe if George had had to pick us up from school with every other parent stairing at him and glairing at him (and hopefuly egging his car), then we might not have been placed in such danger. And neither would everyone else on the roadway with him.
I suport this bill.
ETA: Okay, it was pointed out to me that The Scarlet Letter really isn't required reading anywhere but here in the US. Basic plot summery is that a woman in colonial america gets pregnet while her husband is presumed dead at sea, and she refuses to name the father of the kid. The comunity then forces her to wear a large, scarlet colored "A" upon her chest at all times. The red A stood for Adultry, a cardnal sin at the time. She was shunned, all sorts of horrid things happend to her.
I forget how the book ends, I didn't really like it, honestly, very depressing. Looked it up on Wikipedia: Her husband isn't dead, and he pscyologialy tortures the lover until he nearly goes man. She desides to run off with her lover, her kid ends up not reconising her the one time she dares to remove her Letter of Shame and then washes off the "contamination" of her mother's kiss, and when the guy kisses her and pubicly tells off the town right before they leave, and imideatly dropps dead. She lives the rest of her live with the letter on, kid has a life of her own, and everyone dies pretty miserably. She is, however, burried next to the guy she loves, in the end, and "finds liberation" in the fact that the whole town ignores her, shuns her, and refuses to look at her, even fourty years later. Because clearly it was for her own good. ::fucking eyeroll::
And even though this was a book of fiction, much of America today think it's a historical refrence, and that this shunning and branding of adultresses was a common practice. It wasn't. I meen, they were shunned, yes, but there was no lettering and red paint involved.