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Long rant, can't sleep
Oct. 21st, 2025 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fayanoraConcerning the continuing government shutdown, I am glad to see that the Democrats are finally growing a fucking spine about something for once, but at the same time I'm still pissed because where was this fucking spine when the tea party assholes started making shit difficult for Obama? We are in the fascist uprising that we are in currently because the Republicans started going well and truly insane at that time and blocked at least one of Obama's choices for Supreme Court justices. I don't remember if there were more than that, but that should have been the point at which the Democrats grew a spine and said, "No! He is getting this person for a Supreme Court justice because that is how this shit works, and if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourselves!"
Why is it, almost a year into this fascist uprising, that the Democrats are only just now growing a spine?
( Long rant under cut )
Why is it, almost a year into this fascist uprising, that the Democrats are only just now growing a spine?
( Long rant under cut )
Fuck the GOP
Oct. 21st, 2025 08:34 amfayanoraTrump's big ugly bill finally starts fucking us over. Starting November 1st of this year, if you want SNAP benefits, you'll have to work for them. Luckily, the wording and the little table provided seem to exempt people who have been officially declared disabled. (Assuming I've read it correctly.) Of course that doesn't help people who are disabled but not officially declared so yet, and of course they made it a lot harder to do much of anything regarding the Social Security Administration (earlier in the year), as if that was necessary.1
Also, it looks like elderly people who are not also disabled will have to work, unless they are pregnant. Though I have no idea what they consider elderly for SNAP.
Fuck the Republicans. Fuck Tronald Dumpsterfire. Fuck the GOP. Assholes, every fucking one of them. Big, hairy, stinky, shit-smeared, syphilis-infected assholes.
Moments before sending this, I got an email from the SSA with a headline reading "Go digital to avoid a trip to your local office during government shutdown" which made me laugh hysterically. IIRC, Elon Musk's interference with the SSA earlier in the year already shut down all the SSA offices and phone numbers, so you already had to do everything online, no government shutdown necessary. I could be misremembering the details, but I distinctly remember there being a huge to-do about it for over a month because they were saying computer-illiterate people were basically fucked because of it.
~
1 = I remember filling out the SSDI forms in 2008 or 2009, and it was so stressful that afterward I had literal tunnel vision the whole way back home, and also I had to drown out environmental sounds with my headphones at higher than usual volume. I was basically in a dissociative fugue state. And I'm a reasonably intelligent and capable person; I can't begin to imagine how much more difficult it is for people less intelligent and/or capable than me, especially people with intellectual deficiencies/disabilities.
Also, it looks like elderly people who are not also disabled will have to work, unless they are pregnant. Though I have no idea what they consider elderly for SNAP.
Fuck the Republicans. Fuck Tronald Dumpsterfire. Fuck the GOP. Assholes, every fucking one of them. Big, hairy, stinky, shit-smeared, syphilis-infected assholes.
Moments before sending this, I got an email from the SSA with a headline reading "Go digital to avoid a trip to your local office during government shutdown" which made me laugh hysterically. IIRC, Elon Musk's interference with the SSA earlier in the year already shut down all the SSA offices and phone numbers, so you already had to do everything online, no government shutdown necessary. I could be misremembering the details, but I distinctly remember there being a huge to-do about it for over a month because they were saying computer-illiterate people were basically fucked because of it.
~
1 = I remember filling out the SSDI forms in 2008 or 2009, and it was so stressful that afterward I had literal tunnel vision the whole way back home, and also I had to drown out environmental sounds with my headphones at higher than usual volume. I was basically in a dissociative fugue state. And I'm a reasonably intelligent and capable person; I can't begin to imagine how much more difficult it is for people less intelligent and/or capable than me, especially people with intellectual deficiencies/disabilities.
Thirty-nine!
Oct. 20th, 2025 11:27 pmfayanoraWent canboxing again. Didn't do very well for most of it because I didn't realize until about half an hour in that today was Monday, so all the can boxes likely got emptied earlier in the day. I think most of my finds were found just on the ground, despite it being night, with returnables in garbage containers at a second and yellow glass recycling boxes being in third (I don't know if you're supposed to put returnables in those or not, but people do anyway. Not just glass, either. In fact, some people put garbage in those which is for sure not allowed.) Meaning the actual can boxes placed fourth.
Anyway, I got 39, and now I have two full green bags of returnables, and half of a third, in the house. With the other two I turned in last week or so, I might have five bags credited to my account by the end of the month.
The biggest haul of today was when I found a massive pile of glass bottles in someone's yard, just there on the grass like someone had decided to dump it all there as a "prank." I don't know how many were there, but at least a third of my total haul was that pile. It was a mix of soda pop, root beer, fancy bottled water brands, and some beer bottles. One of the water bottle ones was broken in half, so I used the grabber to move that to the side so I could get the others, then left it. I dunno who put them there, but I sure as fuck wasn't gonna touch a broken bottle to try to find somewhere to dispose of it. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Because the last two trips have yielded mostly glass bottles, and that shit is heavy, I moved some of the lighter things from the first complete bag to the second, half-full bag, then put a bunch of the new glass ones in the first bag, rather than have one entire bag full of just glass bottles. Even doing it that way, both full bags are so fucking heavy that I'm gonna have trouble getting them out when I take them in. My plan is to take one of the full bags in to New Season's Market tomorrow before the food boxes trip, and if I have enough time, come back and take the half bag full of glass bottles in to the Milwaukie recycling place and have those be counted manually so I don't have to deal with trying to deal with filling a third heavy bag all the way. Then the second bag I can take in tomorrow.
Anyway, 39 is $3.90.
Anyway, I got 39, and now I have two full green bags of returnables, and half of a third, in the house. With the other two I turned in last week or so, I might have five bags credited to my account by the end of the month.
The biggest haul of today was when I found a massive pile of glass bottles in someone's yard, just there on the grass like someone had decided to dump it all there as a "prank." I don't know how many were there, but at least a third of my total haul was that pile. It was a mix of soda pop, root beer, fancy bottled water brands, and some beer bottles. One of the water bottle ones was broken in half, so I used the grabber to move that to the side so I could get the others, then left it. I dunno who put them there, but I sure as fuck wasn't gonna touch a broken bottle to try to find somewhere to dispose of it. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Because the last two trips have yielded mostly glass bottles, and that shit is heavy, I moved some of the lighter things from the first complete bag to the second, half-full bag, then put a bunch of the new glass ones in the first bag, rather than have one entire bag full of just glass bottles. Even doing it that way, both full bags are so fucking heavy that I'm gonna have trouble getting them out when I take them in. My plan is to take one of the full bags in to New Season's Market tomorrow before the food boxes trip, and if I have enough time, come back and take the half bag full of glass bottles in to the Milwaukie recycling place and have those be counted manually so I don't have to deal with trying to deal with filling a third heavy bag all the way. Then the second bag I can take in tomorrow.
Anyway, 39 is $3.90.
Sometimes my whims take me annoying places.
Oct. 16th, 2025 11:58 pmfayanoraSo on a YouTube video by Vsauce, I was introduced to the idea of "constrained poetry." IE, poetry that has certain constraints, like "you can only use words with the letter 'o'. Use that O as much as you want, but no other vowels can be in the poem." Thus, on a whim, I took up the challenge, with the letter O. Here is what I made:
O! Do bloody bombs of old long go,
For holy blood to grossly flow!
Folk of blood, do not long swoon,
Opt to jog, to trot, to croon!
O! Croon so on yon holy chord
Shoots lofty words for world concord!
Knock on rooftops, knock on doors,
From tor tops lofty to yon low moors!
For who so wroth, so forg'd of scorn,
Chops down concord, short of sons forsworn?
~
Hope y'all enjoy it, I spent like two hours on this whim. The last sentence was the hardest, because I was trying to say something along the lines of "who could forswear peace?" and let me tell you, trying to find alternate words for could or would that only have O vowels in them was so damned frustrating. I was even looking into the etymology of the word, and archaic ways to do it, and I was sooo tempted to just use "wood" instead of "would," but I like what I did instead.
Yeah I also added the constraint of "it has to rhyme," too, which added another level of difficulty to it.
O! Do bloody bombs of old long go,
For holy blood to grossly flow!
Folk of blood, do not long swoon,
Opt to jog, to trot, to croon!
O! Croon so on yon holy chord
Shoots lofty words for world concord!
Knock on rooftops, knock on doors,
From tor tops lofty to yon low moors!
For who so wroth, so forg'd of scorn,
Chops down concord, short of sons forsworn?
~
Hope y'all enjoy it, I spent like two hours on this whim. The last sentence was the hardest, because I was trying to say something along the lines of "who could forswear peace?" and let me tell you, trying to find alternate words for could or would that only have O vowels in them was so damned frustrating. I was even looking into the etymology of the word, and archaic ways to do it, and I was sooo tempted to just use "wood" instead of "would," but I like what I did instead.
Yeah I also added the constraint of "it has to rhyme," too, which added another level of difficulty to it.
Fifty-three
Oct. 16th, 2025 09:10 pmfayanoraWent can-boxing tonight. (Looking for returnables worth money.) Found fifty-three returnables, which is worth $5.30. So my third green bag from before is filled all the way, and a fourth one is half full. Already took in the first two bags a few days ago, so just these two now. Fun thing: these full green bags fit in the new cart with so much room to spare I can easily carry two of them at once. Same thing was barely doable at all with a lot of struggling, using the smaller cart that's broken now.
While I was out, I got a few things at the grocery store, too.
While I was out, I got a few things at the grocery store, too.
Wo is meine mama? Wer hat sie gesehen?
Oct. 13th, 2025 06:56 pmfayanoraThis German kids' song with a techno beat is legit a banger, and I think I actually learned something from it! Might have found a cheat code for learning a foreign language!
PS = As you can tell from the title, I just basically doubled my German vocabulary. I had to look back to the video to spell gesehen because it isn't spelled at all like how its pronounced, but that was the only one I had to look up after about a dozen repetitions of the song.
PS = As you can tell from the title, I just basically doubled my German vocabulary. I had to look back to the video to spell gesehen because it isn't spelled at all like how its pronounced, but that was the only one I had to look up after about a dozen repetitions of the song.
Woe betide my errant skills
Oct. 13th, 2025 04:37 amfayanoraSometimes I wish I was a better artist, so that I could get my visions onto the page better. I've tried drawing the Myrkalves / Nua Sidhe before, and I can never quite capture how creepy they can look in their true form. They're described in the books like... well the Nua Sidhe are basically the Gray Aliens from folklore, but that doesn't really do them justice either. Both are avian beings; Nua Sidhe are usually entirely featherless with pale skin (ranging from paper white to medium gray, generally), but the Myrkalves have downy feathers where a human would have hair, but also on their arms. Both have backwards-bending knees and feet like giant ravens, and similar hands. And while they can look quite pleasant most of the time (IMHO), I have this image in my mind of their apparently tiny mouths widening into these impossibly wide grins that go literally from one ear-hole to the other, with two rows of sharp and pointed teeth.
Avian, yes, but also not. Their biggest obvious difference from birds is their large, almond-shaped compound eyes.
In case it wasn't obvious, they are technically the same species but the two peoples hate each other, mostly. For good reason. The Nua Sidhe have a tendency to abduct people. They initially did it to the Myrkalves, to enslave them. But they also do it to humans for various reasons ranging from pranks to much more serious things like experimenting on or even killing humans.
Avian, yes, but also not. Their biggest obvious difference from birds is their large, almond-shaped compound eyes.
In case it wasn't obvious, they are technically the same species but the two peoples hate each other, mostly. For good reason. The Nua Sidhe have a tendency to abduct people. They initially did it to the Myrkalves, to enslave them. But they also do it to humans for various reasons ranging from pranks to much more serious things like experimenting on or even killing humans.
The Day Humanity Found Us
Oct. 9th, 2025 06:15 amfayanoraAbsolutely beautiful scifi animated short. "The Day Humanity Found Us." A powerful warning against letting AI do everything for us. A warning against hiding from the universe.
Why is every house I dream about super duper weird in some way?
Oct. 8th, 2025 04:49 pmfayanoraA dream I had yesterday had a very strange house in it. The house was basically internally bisected. IE, the living room and bedrooms in the front were fine, there was even a very nice basement with a large circular area for meditation or dancing. But the only way to the kitchen from inside the house was a tube that not even a greased-up infant would be able to squeeze through. To get to the kitchen, you had to exit the house, go around to the back, unlock an iron gate, climb up an iron ladder, and then you could enter the kitchen. But the door was so narrow that I have no idea how they got the appliances in and out.
I prefer the large dream houses that are like magical mansions where I can spend the whole dream exploring all the weird rooms inside them. I still remember one in particular from many years ago that had an entire professional-chef type kitchen in it that was at least three times bigger than my entire real-world apartment.
I prefer the large dream houses that are like magical mansions where I can spend the whole dream exploring all the weird rooms inside them. I still remember one in particular from many years ago that had an entire professional-chef type kitchen in it that was at least three times bigger than my entire real-world apartment.