All the RomCom of Qi Xi

I find dolls creepy. I wish people would lj-cut them or something because, seriously, their dead eyes just staring at you creeps me right the fuck out. Add in when people dress them up and take them out as if they're actual babies? *shudders*

Speaking of LJ-cuts... I defriended a bunch of people lately for sheer insane assholeness.

I hate people who think it's a-ok to blame the victim of rape/domestic violence/etc because they stayed in the situation. Here's a hint, when someone's beating the shit out of you but it's not a choice the victim is making because they don't think they have a choice. So get the fuck off your high horse, you fucking cuntrag doucheface bitches and shut the fuck up about shit you don't know fuckall about. Until you're constantly ducking the punches and listening to a repetitive litany of your faults and how you'll never get out of there and you don't deserve any better, you don't get to talk to me or anyone about how it's their choice so they're complicit in their victimization. I repeat - you don't know fuckall about how it happens and how it feels to be stuck there. Instead, you're just a bunch of misogynistic little speshul snowflake womenhating assholes who happen to be female. And, yeah, maybe a bit of pent-up hostility there.

I also defriended a few people that decided that it's awesome to be into slash but how dare anyone want marriage equality or to have gaybashing as a hate crime. Fuckers. So you think it's hot when two guys/gals go at it but Lord Forbid if they want to be treated as equal humans, eh? And... off the flist.

What is up with the insanity and lack of empathy/sympathy/humanity lately?

Meme:

Name me a character! I will tell you:

* How I FEEEEEL about this character
* All the people I ship romantically with this character
* My non-romantic OTP for this character
* My unpopular opinion about this character
* One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.


Work is work is work.

On my third playthrough of DA2. I've romanced Anders, Fenris and now, Isabela. I'm sort of enjoying all three and would love it if the game would give the opportunity for an orgy (excluding Merrill, cause that's just creepy to me).

I'm so beyond annoyed at the lady that rolled over my 401(k) into an IRA. I was told that it was a Roth IRA, received tax paperwork and filed said tax paperwork. Now she tells me that I shouldn't have received the tax paperwork and that my IRA is not a Roth IRA. I've had to ask her, four times so far, to send me the paperwork to make this into a Roth IRA. This has been going on since April of LAST YEAR. She didn't even think of following up until October when I emailed her back that I thought it was done. She then didn't follow up until I told her that I couldn't contribute to it correctly. Stupid fucking idiotic asshole. I got snippy on the phone with her. By snippy, I mean forceful and laid out all of my concerns in a polite manner even though I wanted to curse at her. It doesn't help that her style of communication bothers me. It takes her about 5 minutes to say something that should only take 30 seconds because of all her "um", "uh" and draaaagggggging out of random words. Plus, she has this really soft, insipid voice that does nothing to inspire confidence in knowledge.

I love my town. I chose to move to Tucson for many (and varied) reasons, not the least of which was the weather. More than the weather, though, is the relaxed atmosphere, the fantastic people and the fact that Tucson skews towards the higher educated and more liberal than the rest of the state of Arizona. It's got a small town mentality in a small city. People hold doors for other people. Random strangers ask how you are and you can tell they actually care.

So when I hear Keith Olbermann say "let's make sure another Tucson doesn't happen", it breaks my heart. I'm proud of the fact that Tucson was the only county, across all age groups, to vote against the marriage definition act a few years ago. I'm proud that Tucson has a vibrant artistic community. I'm proud that Tucson has a fairly liberal attitude about immigration reform and that our Sheriff has refused to enforce SB1070 (the "show me your papers" law) and that City of Tucson Police officers were the first to file suit AGAINST SB1070.

But more than my own pride in my chosen hometown, I have to say that Keith Olbermann's special comment today resonated. We have to do something about hate-filled vitriol. We have to do something to keep others from getting shot.

Because today was horrifying. It's been an emotionally draining day filled with ups and downs. This morning, my Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot, point blank, to the head. A 9 year old girl standing next to her at the meet-and-greet event was killed by a gunshot wound to the back. Five others, most of whom are senior citizens, were also killed. There are a total of 19 victims today.

Arizona has some issues, I freely admit it. We've got wacko concealed-carry laws, ironically passed with the idea that if any citizen can carry concealed, then these mass shootings won't happen because the citizenry can defend itself. We've got crazy immigration bills and Minutemen on the border (Minutemen who happen to like to sell drugs and murder people, too). We've got lots going on down here. I can see the warts.

Part of those warts are the hate-filled vitriol that happens on all levels and by all sorts of people. From Sarah Palin putting a target on Gabrielle Giffords to Jesse Kelly offering a fundraising opportunity complete with shooting weapons with taglines of getting rid of Gabby to the insurance adjustor who came out to look at my car and her comments that "what do a bunch of towelheads know about fixing cars", it's everywhere and it needs to stop.

And what is ironic is that those that are bemoaning how "the left" is leaping to conclusions that link hateful vitriolic nastiness to this shooter are the same people that think that the Arabic people have a hive-mind and all believe in the crazy ideologies that tell them to shoot their senators. The same people that are shouting the loudest that this guy has to be just some random fringe loony are the same people that say that all Mexicans are here to take our jobs, rape our women and kill our economy. And by "ironic", I mean double-standarded and ridiculous.

I don't think that Sarah Palin actually meant for people to pull guns and shoot people just like I don't think that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly want it to happen, either. But when you're constantly encouraging violence, you can't be surprised when violence actually happens. And if it can happen in Tucson, it can happen anywhere.

I had one crazykakes old man come in tonight to Fry's. And I lost my temper at him. And he complained to management about me.

See, the conversation started out normal. As with most of the older folks in my area, they always ask what a nice, college educated young woman like me is doing working at a grocery store. So I told this guy the same as I always tell people, I'm working to pay off a mortgage and bills but I'm starting back to school to be a lawyer. Well, oops on that part because he launches into a diatribe about how I shouldn't go into criminal law because it's all "browns and blacks" down here but do you know who makes the best lawyers? The Jews cause they're all liars and you have to be a good liar to be a good lawyer. ( moar racism and bigotry and my shitty response. Under a cut to spare you if you'd rather not be exposed to anything further. )

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that the workers have to picket their own union to get heard. SO MUCH ANNOYANCE. Also annoyance? A fucking lockout. Yanno, there are a bunch of us (including almost all of my department) that are not union, think the contract offered is fair and would really like to keep our job.

Found out today that it looks like I will "probably" be able to keep my insurance even if we get locked out so they can't deny me insurance. "Probably".

The union is now posturing and claiming that employees that show up at union offices are either "management in disguise" or sent there by management. Cause, yanno, there aren't fuckloads of us that say that we want to keep our jobs.

I'm all for unions but not this one. Not with refusing phone calls. Not with refusing emails. Not with fighting for the asshole that wrecked a forklift while ignoring the woman that needed FMLA. Not with their posturing and their "my dick is bigger than yours so I won't even consider your newest offer". And especially not with the *patpat* mentality where they're patting their members on the head and saying "we know what's best for you". You don't.

Union rep finally came into the store today (first time since the store opened about 2 years ago) and tried to lecture me on why salary caps are bad and how making employees pay for insurance was bad. Dude. So I finally did get to do the whole "schooling" thing as I pointed out what my main job offers, how it compares to here and why the union is acting like a bunch of entitled little babies. Only a little more politely :D. It skimmed right off him and he blew me off but I felt totally better about the whole situation.

Thus concludes my nablopomo post for the day :D. Tomorrow? Sesame Street :D

Fanfic rant - Why the hell would you automatically increase the rating cause it might possibly contain Teh Gheys? This is annoying and, I know that you, the fucktard authors, don't care, but dude, srsly, I'm not going to read you if you think a fic is deserving of a higher rating cause it contains a homosexual relationship.

/rant

Spent all day yesterday with my nephews. Got my ass handed to me at UNO. By a 3 year old & a 5 year old. I'm sort of failcakes at UNO, methinks.

Then we went and raced cars where we got a couple of dickhead kids kicked out for ramming us so hard that they flipped around in an accident. Dude, 3 year old in the car, mkthx. A little caution would not be remiss.

Nephews have actually been well-behaved for the most part. I'm going to try to get video of my younger nephew rocking out with the microphone from guitar hero as he sang the ABCs and started it with "are you ready to rock!?" and then proceeded to perform a death-metal version of the ABCs. It was so frelling cute. I love my Dibs.

Have you guys seen Sam Worthington's IMDB? He's in Avatar with Zoe Saldano which, yanno, awesome. But then take a look at his upcoming movies. Hello nothing new and remakes. Clash of the Titans getting remade? Really? Dude, it's a classic. Stop fucking with it. At least it has Liam Neeson, Ralph Feinnes and Mads Mikkelsen in it. All of those actors are awesome. though I lol at them naming all the Greek names except for Ares/Mars. Cause, yanno, his name is too obscure so we need to label that character as "god of war".

Then remaking 20000 Leagues Under the Sea? Srsly? Another classic. At least that looks sort of new as it's almost a prequel. Maybe. Alas, Sam Worthington is really fucking hot and, thus, I will go to see both of these.

I wrote something that actually makes me think that I should flag it as adult content in my own journal. I've always been anti-"adult content" labelling but this fic really makes me think that's a good way to go. It took me about 4-5 tries to get it written as it gave me the heebiejeebies so much. I just wish that there was a way to have a header appear outside of the flagging. Thus, probably will not flag it but, still, so tempted.

Off for another day of nephew time. I'm so excited! We're going to go to the pool.

As a follow-up to this set of letters -

Dear Law Enforcement, Radio Decency People, Radio personalities and, specifically, the management at KRXQ,

Just so I understand how this works, a white supremecist shock jock says violent things directed at politicians and he gets criminal charges but Rob and Arnie say violent things directed at transgendered/gender-questioning children, and it's just lulz? They're shock jocks and equal opportunity offenders?

Huh. I still don't get it.

In conclusion, FUCK YOU.
me

Dear Snapple, Sonic and Chipotle (now with added Nissan, AT&T, Verizona, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and McDonalds,

Thanks for being awesome. I had Chipotle at lunch today, bought some Diet Dr. Pepper at Circle K on the way back and am planning on Sonic for lunch tomorrow. I appreciate your willingness to pull your advertising from a popular radio program in light of such hate speech. It takes a lot to make such a stand in this tough market so I appreciate your willingness to do so.

<3,
me

( list of advertisers if you want to contact them - UPDATED )

As always, no need to ask permission to link to this or repost the list of advertisers for your own usage on spreading the word.

( text of my letter )

Dear Flist,

You know, we write a ton of kinks. Genderbend is all over quite a few fandoms. Can we all please take a few minutes to send a few emails to these advertisers?

I bcc'd each of them and then wrote the above letter. You are more than welcome to c/p the letter and the bcc distribution list.

Here:

procity@procitymortgage.com, info@LASIKworld.com, heidi.barker@us.mcd.com, theresa.riley@us.mcd.com, enewswire@fypower.org, info@fypower.org, trcigar@aol.com, public_relations@homedepot.com, david.m.oliver@supervalu.com, steve.j.bloomquist@supervalu.com, Dawn.fones.cv9s@statefarm.com, dbouffard@jewels.com, dale@sleeptrain.com, kschopp@purina.com, Keoni.Wagner@hawaiianair.com, pdugan@mcneilwilson.com, mediarelations@pepboys.com

Send an email and let people know that this sort of hate speech isn't allowed. Please?

<3,
me

ETA: HOMG GUYS! Bank of America just pulled their advertising! We're doing it! I'm now in tears of happiness. You guys! This is AWESOME.
( text of the Bank of America Letter I just received )

ETA2: Two things in this ETA. 1) looks like Albertson's Grocery store is not the Albertson's formerly listed as an advertiser (link). So, I'm removing them from the distribution list. ETA2.5: New Albertson's Contact information has been added to the distribution list.

Secondly - It looks like Carl's Jr/Hardee's has pulled their advertising from KXRQ. Folks. This ROCKS!

( Text of email from Carl's Jr./Hardee's )

ETA3: Verizon pulls advertising! w00t!

ETA4: Nissan and Wells Fargo are out as well. That's eight companies. Just a few more to go. And any new ones they find to replace the ones that have pulled out.

As a personal aside - keep the updates and the links coming but I'll be at work where I will have no ability to update this post. So any ETAs will come when I get back from my second job.

ETA5: McDonald's and AT&T are out Plus new contact information for Albertson's.

SUPERVALU INC.
Investors and Financial Media:
David Oliver, 952-828-4540
david.m.oliver@supervalu.com
or
Steve Bloomquist, 952-828-4144
steve.j.bloomquist@supervalu.com

I have edited these into the distribution list and also above with the contact information.

GLAAD has also asked That we continue to contact the station with our concerns. Let's remember to keep it polite and we'll get heard better. I'd rather they realize that intelligent people don't think this is acceptable. That it's not just a stark-raving mad (and I mean that in the pissed off sort of way) mob coming after them.

( Contact information )

BCC list for the show:

imfox@krxq.com, jgeary@entercom.com, kwong@entercom.com, dfield@entercom.com, jboyle@entercom.com, patmartin@krxq.com, jfield@entercom.com, sfisher@entercom.com, wkramer@entercom.com, nmccormack@entercom.com, bpasha@entercom.com

ETA6?: I've had a request for the text of my letter to the radio station. Below the cut is what I sent( my letter to the radio station )

From the most recent update on the GLAADblog:

The pressure seems to have caused a stir at the radio station. Today at 5:28pm EST, we received an email from the General Manager promising a phone call this Monday with a possible resolution.

Me: Amazing what losing 10 corporate sponsors will do to a radio station. Suddenly they're not so funny, huh?

Also - when I wake in the morning, I will add a list of the people that have removed their advertising from this station so we can send off thank you letters, as well. I'll also respond to comments. Right now, though, I'm knackered after working 19 hours straight. I hope you all understand. Go forth and eat burritos and Sonic and Carl's Jr/Hardees. Keep your Verizon and your AT&T cell phones.

You guys are seriously the best thing ever.

ETA6: So I've had requests for a new distribution list.

The only new emails I've been able to find are for the Albertson's people. I will update this list, as well, if anyone can track down email addresses for the two new corporate sponsors/advertisers.

david.m.oliver@supervalu.com, steve.j.bloomquist@supervalu.com, Dawn.fones.cv9s@statefarm.com, dbouffard@jewels.com, dale@sleeptrain.com, kschopp@purina.com, Keoni.Wagner@hawaiianair.com, pdugan@mcneilwilson.com, mediarelations@pepboys.com

Updated! Thanks to stitchesandlace for finding all this for me!

Also - I've had a request for a list of whom to send thank you notes to. Below is the distribution list that I've put together (will be updated should anyone new be added):

corpcsf@wellsfargo.com, heidi.barker@us.mcd.com, Debra.Lewis@VerizonWireless.com, john.britton@att.com, joseph.l.goode@bankofamerica.com, Darryll.harrison@nissan-usa.com, pr@ckr.com, astrohm@barkleyus.com, mediarelations@chipotle.com

Please note that I cannot find an email address for Snapple. They do have a Contact Us form, however.

Finally (for this ETA) - Googlecache of the sponsors. Anyone finds an email address they'd like added to the distribution lists, let me know.

Red Bull - Still no working email address for them but I do now have a fax line (thanks morgandawn
RBNA Headquarters

1740 Stewart Street
90404 Santa Monica
+1 310 393-4647
+1 310 230-2361

Why has no one told me about the brilliance of the Temeraire series? I just devoured the first book instead of going in to my main job tonight. Really well written and addictive.

I'm working mad amounts of hours to try to minimize the vacation time I need to take. Brilliant thing about being salaried now is that I can work for an hour and get paid for 8.

Terminus has me flailing. I get in about 830pm on August 5th and will be navigating the mass transit system of Chicago. I will then be staying with Feei that night and begging someone to hang out with me finding someone to go to the Wrock concert with. I know there are some of you getting in late and I have your cell phones, for the most part. I will be calling :P.

Mini-Rant - I find it complete and utter BULLSHIT that I have to pay 15 bucks to check ONE SODDING bag PER AIRLINE. Which means that I have to pay FORTY-FIVE bucks to fly TO chicago so as to have clothing to actually wear. FUCKERS. What absolute SHITHEADS.

I can't just go ahead and shove all my clothes into a backpack and carry it on because of the alcohol :(. Then again - perhaps I'll just save the booze for when feei/mijan come to visit and we can drink then and I'll shove all my clothes into a giant backpack of doom. With my laptop bag as my "personal" piece and the giant backpack, I wouldn't have to pay the excess fees.

Ah, deregulation. You've been a shitty idea from the first. Good job on getting people to swallow your bullshit throughout all the major industries, though.

/rant

I lost a bunch of icons and I miss them terribly :(.

I signed up for hp_yule_balls and I'm OMG so excited for it. I saw about 15 people I want to write for. I did my normal listing out a huge list of things I'd love to see with the hope that I'll get a couple of them. If there are spaces left, you guys should go sign up too.

Course, I sign-up for a new fest when I'm desperately behind on two other fests. I've been concentrating so much time on work and work and work and Memories as a Teacup and work that I haven't had two ideas that didn't have a thing to do with Dean and Seamus and memories.

Speaking of which - MaaTC is winding down. There's only about 10k to go. It feels weird that I wrote that many words all in one story. I've been scribbling out Dennis's story and Parvati's story and even Lavender's story. There are 50 prompts for my 100quills claim and I've gotten through less than half of them so I'm quite certain there shall be more random stories and memories within.

Speaking of which (:D), if you'd want to prompt me for a memory, a piece of backstory between Dean and Seamus, go for it. I can't promise I'll write it but I'll do my best. After all, I've an assload of layovers and flights to get to Chicago.

I'd love to see a queerditch_pub sort of get together at Terminus. I had a blast at the informal one at Lumos. Anyone interested in a drabbling/timed prompt challenge get together at Terminus?

Today was the workday from hell.

It started with an email from the payroll company telling me that they were unwilling to do further research and that I should seek legal counsel to sue an employee to get the duplicate paid funds back from said employee. Only catch? Said employee only got the funds once, as I've been saying from the beginning. It was clearly apparent that the fucktard hadn't bothered to look at my email let alone the email attachment showing the employee's bank statement illustrating that they only got the funds once. Fucking fucktarding assholes.

Then, we have our annual audit going on right now. ( work babble )

Fandom-wise, I'm writing for fun and that is very very nice. I have a huge deamus that will eventually go along with the 100quills claim I made for Deamus but for now, I'm just tweaking for canon compliance before I start sending to beta and then posting. It's sitting at about 27000 words right now with IDK how many more to go.

rs_small_gifts is making me feel like the nose-picker in elementary school that's last to get picked for dodgeball. I thought I made relatively open requests but no one's claimed any of them. *le sad* All I want is kissing. That's it. However, I claimed something that is made of win and the only problem with it that I shall have is keeping it small. Plus the mods are made of win and have promised everyone who claims will get something so I still have something to look forward to, regardless of said nose-picker status.

UGH, speaking of nosepicking, ( brief rant about Tucson drivers ) Sorry about that, now on to the rest of the post...

thescarletwoman and I have assumed the reins at rs_prophet and we're looking to revitalize and relaunch it. If you have any current Remus/Sirius writers you think we should watch, leave a list here, please. Also, if you're interested in being an editor, email me? wook77[at]livejournal[dot]com.

Typing my email up there reminded me that my paid account is expiring soon. I'm really sad to be losing my icons and that whole LJ email thing.

Finally, a couple of recs.

Because I'm finally able to put coherent thought into it. At hpslashnotsmut, I received Observance and it's Dean/Seamus. Brilliant composition and form, unique and lovely. Add in that this mystery author's characterisations are spot-on and I'm in love. It entwines within the Deathly Hallows canon and it's seamless, really. Just little bibs and bobs of canon that I just love so much. It's extremely well done and I can't tell you that enough. There's these little idiosyncratic observances that really make the story completely full and vibrant. It had me from the first sentence, really. I wanted to know more and the author really gave me just enough to fill in the blanks ALMOST to the point of being satiated. I absolutely love a story that does that for me. I'm gobsmacked that it only has 2 comments on it. Surely more people have read it and enjoyed it.

kaalee wrote a stream-of-consciousness drabble-ish Dean/Seamus for my birthday - Deadly Perfection. We've had these conversations about how I'm a bit of a stream of consciousness author, I like giving insights into their heads and writing exactly what the characters are thinking and kaalee claims that she can't do that. Personally, I think and have thought, she's full of shit. This right here is my physical proof. It flows really nicely and gives you a fleshed out picture simply by what it implies in between the thoughts.

Go forth and heap the love by telling the creators of these (and more) works that you enjoyed them!