Release #98

So there we have it. Friends page is basically being destroyed. And we could say "it's in beta, they might not do it," but that's a lie, they don't listen when the users beg them not to change something. It's just not going to happen.

So here's the deal, from my perspective. I barely use LJ anymore, sad, but true. I'm primarily on tumblr these days. I have a dreamwidth account as well that I am currently updating on all of my posts here. I'm closing out the tab on my friends page and turning off my add-on that notifies me of new posts.

IF YOU HAVE TUMBLR OR DREAMWIDTH AND ARE NOT ALREADY FRIENDS WITH ME ON THOSE SITES, PLEASE LET ME KNOW/ADD ME!

I'm themegaloo on both.

Take care, all.

SO ON MY LAST UPDATE I had just gotten my very first super awesome LINE as a flight attendant. (Yeah, the magical schedule was in fact true!) So that was cool. And my life has been INSANE AND AWESOME ever since! Well, not always awesome, sometimes it's just insane, like when I packed for a one day trip on Thursday and didn't get to come home until yesterday while actually managing to LOSE hours, don't ask, it was ridiculous. Here are some of my highlights!

-I had a flight delayed for a swarm of bees. No, really, there was a swarm of bees just hanging out on our right wing, like, HUGE SWARM OF BEES, GUYS. They couldn't get to the plane with the fuel truck or the baggage because of it and had to call out a beekeeper, it was insane.
-I flew a flight with three passengers from Albany to LaGuardia because we'd gotten diverted there and stuck but weren't the only ones and the other crew managed to snag all the people. It was pretty entertaining talking on a PA to...three people.
-I've slept in so many hotels, so many.
-I've found that my favorite game to play while on a trip is to wait a few days and then ask the other FA (provided I haven't worked with them before) how old they think I am. Which usually just comes up because I'll say something like "masters program" or "lived in Ireland for a year" and "spent two years as a wedding consultant..." And slowly they have the moment of realization that maybe I'm not like, 20. It's really freaking funny.
-I WENT TO SDCC AND GOT TO HANG OUT WITH THIS REALLY AWESOME PERSON NAMED NIKKI AND MET MATT & KAREN & ARTHUR & MOFF AND IT WAS BASICALLY THE BEST THING EVER AND WE'RE GOING BAAAAAACK.
-DCON is in a frightfully short period of time away from now. I AM NOT READY. Well, I kinda am, but I KINDA REALLY AM NOT. We'll get there.
-ALSO planning to go to NYCC this year. Which will be 3 cons in like, 3 months. Holy. I swear I could not pull this off if I didn't have flight benefits, I mean, the airfare to SDCC alone would have BROKEN ME DEAD.
-I have this whole new mentality about things I want to go to on account of this. Like, there's an event somewhere or someplace I want to see or something I want to do....it's less "I will never be able to afford it" and more "damnit I need the days off, when is the next bid cycle??" Which is sort of awesome.
-LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT BIDDING, BECAUSE IT IS ALL THE CRAZY. I totally failed at it last month and had to bribe someone to take a trip so I could have my days for DCon. This month, I think I did way better. We'll know soon. But bidding, man, it takes a lot more effort than I thought it would. I had to look through all the possible pairings, I picked out the ones I wanted, I bid for those, then I submitted preferences for like, overnights, report times, and again, days off cause, well, DCon is pesky in spanning TWO DIFFERENT MONTHS.
-I got hopelessly addicted to all things Marvel and Avengers. I made a Peggy Carter costume because I love Cap more than should be considered healthy. I HAVE READ COMIC BOOKS. It's shocking.
-...I bought an iPad because I got tired of having to take my laptop out of my bag at TSA and you can leave a tablet in and now expect my typos to get fixed for me when I go all dyslexic with the letter order. Damn. (I'm on my trusty laptop right now)
-I made the very bad life decision to watch Teen Wolf on a whim. Guys, guys, it's like, awesome. I can't say THE BEST because, well, Firefly, Doctor Who...Kinda hard to beat, BUT IT IS UP THERE, EVEN THOUGH IT'S ON MTV, GUYS. GO WATCH IT. Yes, S1 is a little campy, but S2, just. ALL MY FEELS. STIIIILES. To watch the show is to love Stiles. And you have no idea what you're missing until you too, love Stiles.
-I use my tumblr a lot these days. Go follow me. But, yanno, tell me who you are. I'm themegaloo there too, because I like to keep shit simple.
-Ohhhh I finally broke down and rewatched/caught up on Castle, because Nathan Fillion. Who I saw at SDCC too. Who is awesome and we made cry. On the same day I met Matt & Karen & Arthur & Moff.
-I really like having an apartment. Not living with the parents is very nice.
-There is a Boy and it is Good. But it is long distance but I bid for alllll the overnights near him so it might be Better soon.
-Life is really fun. And I get to work again on Thursday. HOW WEIRD IS THAT, I GET EXCITED ABOUT WORKING. I love being a flight attendant. I would love it even more if our uniforms were like Virgin America's. But I still love it a lot.

IN SHORT: Hi! I'm still alive! I'm just really, really busy!!!

I'd say I'm going to get better at posting and commenting but...I'm probably not going to. Oops. I DO STILL READ ALL THE THINGS.

So my last update was not quite a month ago, which is pretty good for me, right? I had just gotten my wings and was at home, waiting to go out on my IOE, where they sent me out with a working crew, let me tag along behind and ask questions for a few flights, and then made me do the work with one of the FAs tagging along making sure I did it right and then made me do it and my FA sat back and wrote down what I did wrong and right and made sure I could do it on my own.

Neverwracking? Oh hell yeah. Funny thing is, anything that could go wrong basically did. We had a 30 minute delay waiting for maintenance to get out there and tape up a broken tray table, we had ground-stops due to an airport being over-crowded, we had delays for other maintenance issues, and then my last two flights were CANCELED due to weather. We got out to the runway, were told there was a delay, so we waited and I brought everyone water. Then the delay got worse, so I brought out the cart and gave everyone sodas and snacks, and then it got worse again, so we went back to the gate and let everyone off. Sat on an empty airplane, got clearance, re-boarded all the passengers, and then they canceled the flight.

That was...fun. AS A RESULT I didn't get to actually finish my IOE. I went home and sat around and waited. Finally, they called me back out and I deadheaded all over Texas before meeting up with my NEW crew to work my last two flight. They went a lot smoother, and PASSED! I came home the next day, was put on a reserve schedule, figured out how all the websites work, bid for my June schedule, hung out with my roommate (who really is sweet!) and whined about not working. Crazy, right?! Still getting paid for it, JUST BORED. Today, I found out I had gotten one of the open flights that's listed on our server. SUNDAY I start my first non-training flight!! I'll be flying to NYC, to Elmira, to Burlington and Detroit. Not in that order. I have it all written down. And I go back and forth a lot. BUT I AM EXCITED. WORKING! FLYING!! JOYOUS DAY!

And then I figured out that since the bidding for June is over, they put up a preliminary schedule. And it's not a reserve schedule. So, starting in June, it looks like I'm a full-on flight attendant, if that schedule turns out to be true!

And now I'm texting my roommate from across the hall because neither of us can sleep. I'm so ready to be doing things again!

I've been relatively quiet on the SOPA/PIPA issues thus far, and I think in light of my current RAGE that needs to change. I am a constant user of the internet. The idea of not being plugged into the internet for at least (LEAST) a few hours every day is, frankly, horrifying to me. I spend a lot of time on LJ, facebook, twitter, and now tumblr. I read articles. I watch videos. I participate in fandom (from a largely lurker standpoint). I research costumes and work towards building them from store-bought pieces or the methods/materials needed to make them myself. I have google skills to make you weep. I shop online, I watch Netflix streaming both on my computer and on the TV. I purchase MP3's and ebooks. I have an iphone, I have had some sort of smartphone with internet access for the past few YEARS. I am online even when not on a computer. This...is really a pointless list. Let's just take it as read that I AM LOST WITHOUT THE INTERNET.

Now let's talk about what SOPA/PIPA are proposing. If you have absolutely no idea, take about fifteen minutes and watch this video. Seriously, it's a good break-down. You will come away from it with a lot more knowledge. I object to pretty much everything within these proposed bills, but I'm going to break down the why's for a minute here. Here are some of the things they're planning to do in the effort to stop internet piracy:

-Remove the offending website domain from coming up on search engines.
-Make it so typing in the URL won't bring you to the website.
-Block offending websites from receiving money from sites like PayPal.
-Make it impossible for the offending websites to sell advertisements.
-Allow ISPs to block a domain, and then have no culpability for it afterwards.

But here's the thing- what domains are they going to block? Yes, they've already taken down megaupload, but have you ever tried to just search MU to find a specific file? It's basically not possible. Or if it is, I never figured out how and I've had an account with them since 2008. If you're trying to find a particular download on a site like MU and don't already have the link, where do you turn to to find it? I have seen download links on LJ, facebook, tumblr, twitter, blogspot, wordpress, youtube...You name a user-generated content site and you can probably find where someone has put up a download link. It's not all torrents and pirate bay, these are websites we use every day for things completely not related to piracy. Now look over that list again- even if the government itself doesn't block the domain, your ISP could. I'd say just imagine it for a moment, but no, that might give you nightmares. User-generated content is what the internet is ABOUT. We make gifs and other images, we create derivative works, we share opinions, we write blog posts. If these bills pass, what, exactly, are we going to be left with?

So yes, we are up in arms. We're angry and nervous. Wikipedia and several other sites made a wonderful statement yesterday by blacking out. Awareness spread as people tried to look something up and couldn't, or saw a huge censor tag over the google homepage (etc). It was good, it was the internet standing up and making it known since the news channels haven't. (Don't understand why it hasn't been on the news? Think about who controls the channels- the same people who make movies. Yep, they're not about to tell you about all this!) And then today they take down megaupload. WITHOUT the aid of SOPA/PIPA. What does that tell you? That they can fight piracy all they like while still following due process.

And how did the internet respond? Well, an enormous DDoS attack, of course. If you haven't seen the list of what they took down today, go look. It's a bit impressive. Websites like the Department of Justice, the FBI, the MPAA, the Copyright Office- they were hit with so many pings that the servers couldn't keep up and the websites went down. I don't know if they're still down or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if at least a few of them are. I've seen several instances where Anonymous was called "the internet wrecking ball" and it's a fair title. But at the same time, it does rather feel like the first shots fired in a war without physical guns. How is the government going to respond? I haven't seen anything yet, but I feel like they're going to be forced to do SOMETHING. Will they back down or will they fight back? Has the internet just become a battleground? It's a bit scary, but at the same time-it's a bit exhilarating too. The world is changing.

AND THEN, there's a feeling of not knowing what our government is up to. ninepointfivemm pointed this one out: Supreme Court rules Congress can re-copyright public domain works. JUST READ THAT TITLE. And then go read the article. The thing with this one is that getting the USA's copyright laws in line with international copyright isn't actually a bad idea, however by making this ruling they're setting a horrible precedent for RE-COPYRIGHTING THINGS. So now are we not only faced with a huge internet crackdown on copyrighted materials without due process, but congress can move things from public domain to copyright status?

What the ever-loving flying fuck, guys. No seriously, what the fuck. The US government has three branches, this is two out of three doing stupid shit and if the bills do pass and end up on the president's desk and he DOESN'T veto them? That'll be all three, folks. And if all three branches of a government that were designed to balance each-other go nuts like this? Well, it might be time to find a way out.

SO. It's been a while since I've posted one of these. Sept 2009, actually. Over 2 years using the SAME LAYOUT, my god. Obviously, I was pretty fond of my Merlin Fanatic layout, and it was pretty cool. Cool enough that I kept MOST of the coding I painstakingly did for it on this one.

Which...is Sherlock, obviously. If you're up on the fandom and/or on tumblr, you have probably seen the whole graffiti fiasco. As a fandom->real life movement, the IDEA is pretty cool. But the execution of damaging public & private property that a lot of people have been embracing...that is NOT cool. And also not legal. Which makes it doubly not cool. Seeing the post-it's, snow writing, fliers, etc however did give me the idea. Click through to themegaloo to see my approach! Seriously, I'm damn pleased with how it's turned out, though there are a few tweaks I still want to make. Once I do that, I might offer it up for others to use as well, haven't decided yet. I sort of want to jazz up the entry boxes somehow but I haven't decided with WHAT yet. Suggestions welcome.

OH and PS- my tumblr matches, and wasn't THAT a pain and a half.

EDIT: And I completely broke it on accident trying to change an image, but it's back now. And on that note, if for some reason you see something TOTALLY NOT LOOKING LIKE A LAYOUT WITH A STONE WALL AND SHERLOCK & JOHN AND EVERYTHING....god, please tell me.

Actually, when it comes down to writing anything like a reaction I have nothing. Unless you count "OH GOD" which I think basically everyone has done. Or I can describe how in preparation I grabbed the corner of the comfy couch and a big fluffy sweater, wrapped myself in it, and basically didn't move.

And then I ate dinner and braved tumblr and finally finished writing a silly fic for aylathebunny that I said I would write back at the epic post-panel time at DCon. It is very silly. It's also on tumblr. But I don't UNDERSTAND TUMBLR THAT WELL STILL so it's also here.

( Sherlock/John, nothing too exciting, to date my only Sherlock ficlet, 740 words, Sherlock dressed as a priestCollapse )

yup. that has been my day.

I'm going to use tumblr. I'LL CATCH UP WITH THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE DAY NOW, SEE, LOOK AT ME CATCHING UP! I am here because I have the most predictable usernames ever. FOLLOW ME AND KEEP ME USING IT, GUYS. But, uh, tell me who you are if it's not immediately obvious, if you don't mind!

And be kind as I learn wtf I am doing, because I assure you I do not know yet, but I'll learn quickly!

edit: thank you, photobucket, for randomly changing the URLs of every single one of my moodtheme icons so I had to go fix it. Really, thanks a lot.

Ok, so for the past four out of five days, I have had headaches. (Yesterday was the one where I didn't.) They have started sometime between 3 and 5pm, and lasted most of each evening. The circumstances of the days were all different (hair appointment, work, trip out to Little Washington to visit a tiny british imports store, slept in and did nothing at home.)

Painkillers have had little to NO effect. So long as I am still and things are quiet, it's tolerable. If I move, tilt my head wrong, etc, throbbing pain.

I can see NO REASON for this, but it's ridiculously annoying. Any ideas out there? All I can think of is the weather has been shifting back and forth a bit, or maybe there is some sort of allergen in the air (though that wouldn't explain why this didn't happen last year when I worked in the same place, slept in the same bed, lived in the same room, ate the same basic things, etc) I thought perhaps it was my glasses, but it started today before I ever even put them on or did anything to require them. I got in the shower, that's all. Maybe sinuses? I HAVE NO IDEA. I just want them to stop :(

A few things! First off, I have been working on my Geek Knowledge lately. If I have you on FB, you probably realize this. If I have you on twitter, you MIGHT. If I harass you on aim (you know who you are!) yeah, you're almost definitely aware. (If you would like to be harassed on aim, I'm themegaloooo there, IM me and tell me who you are and we can start the painfully awkward cycle of me blurting things out at random, then going silent as I have strange issues sometimes where I don't want to be distracting, lol.)

THINGS I HAVE BEEN WATCHING:
 • A few weeks ago I got the sudden, inexplicable urge to watch Stargate Atlantis. This is made somewhat hilarious by the fact that I've still only watched half of SG-1 and that was 2 years ago so it's a bit hazy. But I pulled it up on netflix and just started going right on through it all, I got utterly and completely hooked. In a massive way. I completely loved it. I was very confused about what to do with myself when I finished and started going back to the beginning of SG-1 (seriously need a refresher on what the hell is going on there so I can actually FINISH THE SERIES) but ended up needing a Stargate Break. I mean, several episodes a day for weeks, while awesome, my attention-span eventually lagged. xD So I decided to...
 • Go back and work on finishing BSG. I started watching it back in March, and cannot for the life of remember what show I ended up getting side-tracked too. Actually, I think it might have been Ugly Betty from when my sister came up for her spring break and was on a kick of it and took over the TV. Long & short of it is that I never went back. SO, I finally finished S2 and have watched the first few episodes of S3. This is my conclusion so far about BSG: EVERYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG, WILL. And just when you think it is actually about to be too depressing for LIFE, something uplifting will happen and they'll play the pipes and drums and you get the warm fuzzies inside. And they do insane things like give Apollo a beer belly and the most RIDICULOUS LOOKING JOWLS EVER. I miss his abs. Seriously, those were pretty abs to look at. Someone tell me the abs of awesome come back!! (If they don't or if he dies, just don't say anything.) And so I paused after Exodus pt2 because it had one of those warm happy moments and decided, of ALL THINGS, to start re-reading...
 • The Hunger Games. Because apparently when BSG is not crushing my soul with sadness, I need something else to do the trick. This got slightly awkward as I was reading the first few chapters in the break room at work today while I was eating my lunch and because I know what happens, I was just sitting there, reading, and tearing up like a ridiculous person. And I had to go back out and be smiley and sell wedding gowns like ten minutes later. THAT WAS FUN. (not) Especially since [TMI]I ended up in cramp awful pain central right after. Pain, hot sweats, passing desire to vomit, etc. Took three ibuprofen and still ended up leaving a little early :([/TMI]. But yeah. I just finished THG again and am debating if I want to go on to reading the second two. I probably will, in the end.

As for other things: I quit smoking. Well, sort of. I quit smoking CIGARETTES and have been trying out the e-cigs. If you have not heard of them, what they are is a water-vapor based electronic cigarette. The result is DRASTICALLY fewer chemicals, no known carcinogens, no tar, no smell, no ash, no huge amounts of litter. No going outside & freezing. It's pretty cool and has made me realize JUST HOW AWFUL cigarettes actually are. Just over a week after I got it, I tried to smoke a real one and ended up hacking up a lung. That was really weird. And awful. And it's weird to think about the ash and everything going into your body in retrospect once it's no longer an everyday thing. I smoked for five years and I literally stopped buying them and stopped smoking them at all within DAYS of getting my e-cig. Everyone has been really proud of me, including myself, and I am slowly converting everyone I know. My GRANDMOTHER bought one, and I am so proud because she has lung problems already from smoking and would quit and then go back all the time once she started feeling healthier and I really hope it works out for her. :) That's my major life update, really.

The last thing I wanted to mention is that I wrote something I'm actually quite pleased with. It's funny because it was in response to a texted question of "what do you live for," and I literally texted the whole thing. I have edited it a little bit since then, but it comes down to this:

Stories. Lay your stories at my feet and I will be happy. Give me your tales dripped in history, in politics, in the supernatural, in the technology not yet conceived in our own reality. Give me the characters and their interactions, let me see them grow and change. Let strangers become friends and enemies the one constant. Show me what happens after the end; the adventures and the domestic, the conclusion and the day-to-days that follow. Tell me the same tale six ways. Let me be absorbed into another world for a time, if only in the confines of my own imagination. Lay all your stories at my feet and I will be content.

I like it.

Annnnnnnd this post is, by far, long enough.

Though WTF my paid account ran out and it left me with ZERO DOCTOR WHO ICONS. WTF.