You're wrong

Pro-gun folks: No, you would have not have stopped the Aurora massacre. You would have hugged the floor sobbing, or maybe maybe taken some shots in the crowded, gas-filled movie theater with gunshots ringing out and the movie still playing, missed the shooter by about 75 feet, and hit some random bystander.

Anti-gun folks: Dude would have gotten himself an assault rifle whether it was legal or not. I'm with you, but your argument is not here.

My work here is done.

Neuroses make you fat

The other night was pretty warm.  A balmy and delightful night outside, especially for March, but in my office the heat was still on or something.  I had opted for a long-sleeved shirt, and I was feeling the heat.  So I decided I wanted something cool to drink.  Specifically, a mocha frappé from McDonald's.

Mmmm.

So I drove to McDonald's, got in the drive-thru lane, and waited.  The person in front of me (whose window apparently didn't work, so she had to open her door) was taking her sweet time, but I didn't mind.  I find I'm very patient when I'm on company time.  Eventually I overheard some exchange between her and the McEmployee about how something wasn't working.  I am 60 percent sure they were discussing the milkshake machine.

I started to worry.  Could the milkshake machine be required to make frappés?  I didn't know.  This was a concern not only because the satisfaction of my McCraving was now at risk, but because I hate being told that I cannot get what I ordered.  It makes me feel vulnerable.  Weak.  It makes me into someone who is unable to get what he wants, and must now live the shameful life of someone who everyone knows is nothing but the disappointed shell of a human being.

It also screws up the script I have carefully constructed for the occasion of this brief transaction.  I don't do well off-script.  And I'm caught so off-guard by all this that I continue to order things the can't provide.  I once tried to order a Mocha Frappé and was told that their various machines were down and the only drink they had available was iced tea.  So I asked for a vanilla milkshake.  Sorry, they can only give me iced tea.  So I asked for a Coke.

"I'M GETTING A MASTER'S DEGREE!" I wanted to squawk at the cashier, who no doubt expected to find my mommy's phone number stapled to the front of my shirt when I rolled up.

No-window lady pulled forward, and it was my turn.  Panicking, worried I could not get my frappé, I reached blindly into my bag of McDonald's ordering scripts and said, "I'd like a large number one with coke."

Mm... wait, what?

This was not what I craved.  It was not something I wanted.  Having had supper a couple hours earlier, I wasn't even hungry.

I ate it, along with a large helping of self-loathing.  Then I spent the remainder of the night trying not to throw up.

Can crime prevention be OK?

In April 2011, Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto Police Department said that women should "avoid dressing like sluts" so they do not become victims of sexual violence.  This sparked a wave of "Slutwalks" in Canada and the United States, in which protestors object to the "blame the victim" mentality and stake the claim that they should be able to dress however they want, and that society should not say sexual violence is "OK" if the victim is "asking for it."

I'm not saying they're wrong, or that there isn't a societal problem.  But let's not jump all over anyone who tries to offer people tips for how to avoid becoming the victim of a crime.

Constable Sanguinetti is not a great standard-bearer for law enforcement on this one.  He most definitely should not have used the word "slut" in his remarks.  But accusing him of "excusing rape" is sort of missing the point of what he said.  He didn't say, "If you get raped, you were asking for it."  He said something that is generally known across the board--that how you dress, walk, and generally present yourself affects your chances of becoming the victim of a crime.

If I tell people that they should keep their cars and dorm rooms locked, I'm not excusing the crimes of opportunity that might more likely occur if they don't.  If someone steals your radio, that's a crime regardless of whether your car was locked.  If someone walks into your room and pee on your floor (yes, that's a real thing), that's a pretty big deal whether or not your room was secure.  They're not treated any differently.

It would be one thing to tell a woman who had been raped that it was her fault because of how she dressed, but it's another thing entirely, in the context of offering tips on crime prevention, to suggest measures that certain ways of dressing might increase the chances of being raped.  It's up to you what to do with that.  Not unrelatedly, statistics also show that women with long hair are more likely to be raped.  Does saying that mean I'm saying women should not have long hair?  No.  It's just a fact.

We should live in a world where nobody has to fear sexual violence, regardless of how he or she is dressed.  Heck, we should live in a world where nobody has to fear property being stolen, regardless of whether he or she locks his or her car.  But until we do, let's not demonize people who are offering people advice on how to be more secure.

In which I reiterate my challenge

A year and a half ago, I challenged my reader to correctly explain the origin of my use of "In which..." for post titles.*  That challenge has gone unanswered.

I'll up the ante.  The person who correctly identifies the inspiration for those post titles will receive a real actual letter from me in which I ramble eloquently about something, as you occasionally see me do on this blog.

What?  That's all I've got.


*I spelled this "tytles" and then "titlles."  It's time for bed.

All the people who share my interests are hot women

Quick, imagine some nerdy gaming expert giving you the scoop on the next great video game.  What's he look like?

Some chubby dude with beady eyes, greasy hair, thick glasses, and a T-shirt that says something you don't get?

Them?

I keep seeing all these tech/gaming shows or clips in which some slim, long-haired, attractive young woman alternates between playing cutesy-naive and chatting about the latest nerd news, being sure to drop comments that assure us she's played the game.  And all I can do is stare incredulously, one eyebrow raised so I look like a stroke victim, thinking, this is not reality.

I'm not saying that people who are women, or people who are attractive, or people who are both, cannot be experts on tech and gaming.  (Though I'm not prepared to admit that I believe these hostesses are.)  I am saying that I feel this is not an accurate representation of the demographic.  Am I really to believe Attack of the Show's implicit claim that the majority of the people who share my interests are women who, when not playing Mass Effect, are posing for Maxim?  Or that at least two of their contributing reporters just happen to have posed for Playboy?  (No, those are not links to Playboy.)

I get that this is an attractive illusion, but does it really ring true for the audience?  Because me, I just feel a little insulted.  If I'm going to watch a show that purports to be "TV's only source for all the stuff I care about," I think there's a reasonable expectation that the host will look more or less like me.

On the other hand, I guess G4 doesn't want to be holding up a mirror to a bunch of gamers.  Because if I see a guy that looks like me reviewing Skyrim, I'm going to be thinking, "I need to turn off the X-Box and go for a run!"

Oh, and why is G4 covering the World Naked Bike Ride?  Does their audience care about it, or do they just care about Sara Underwood in pasties?  (Yes, that is a link to pictures of Sara Underwood in pasties.)

Finally, what's with Candace Bailey yelling out to the studio audience that she's a virgin?  Is that to connect with the target demographic?  Hype up her innocent, sexualized-yet-sexless persona?  An unscripted moment of truth?  Any sociologists up in here?

(Sorry, I couldn't find a video clip of the moment I'm referencing, though I did find the eight million ChaCha questions that nerds all over America submitted asking if it's true.)

*For the record, like most of G4's audience, I know Sara Underwood and Olivia Munn were in Playboy because I saw them on TV and Googled them--as opposed to knowing they're on TV from the reverse process.)

The kind for clothes, not the small metal disc

I do not, in my moments of experiencing life, think, "I will blog about this later," which means that by the time I think "This would be cool to document photographically," "this" is a thing past.  So I am sorry, but this post is not accompanied by pictures.  I am not her or her.

(The latter is my second cousin, whom I haven't actually seen since I was like I don't know seven.  Gotta love internets.)

I have been without a washer/dryer in-house since my last year of college (and that was a one-year island in a six-year stretch of laundry rooms and lavadarías).  I have been fortunate, though, in having friends who have this equipment, and who don't point out that my detergent contribution does not balance out my use of their facilities.  Recently, those friends all moved away.

This got me seriously considering taking advantage of those washer/dryer hookups in my apartment.  Obstacle: I am poor, and twenty-five years of mommies, paid services and generous friends have left me with a firm belief that the ability to wash one's clothes is not the sort of thing that should cost six hundred dollars.

Solution: Steal the washer some friends left in the basement of their rental.  This was a process that involved using a co-worker (Mark) for his truck and said co-worker's cousin for his dolly.  Many curses and a near-decapitation later, the machine had been moved from a basement on the west side of town to a second floor on the east.  There was still no dryer (the available one was gas, and our hookup purely electric), but that is only the second-most important part of the set.

Problem: We broke the washer.  We did a lot of hauling it on its side, and we banged it around a lot, including a good six-inch drop while going down some steps.  Your phone, unless it is an iPhone, is made to survive a six-inch fall.  Washers are not.  (Consider that force is a function of mass.)  Somewhere in there we broke a stabilizer, which is the part of the washer that distinguishes it from an earthquake simulator.

Running the washer with a broken stabilizer loosed the drain hose or something, because after two loads there was suddenly water coming out from underneath during the spin cycle.  Annoying in your concrete basement; unacceptable on carpet and tile in your second-floor apartment which is owned by a water-paranoid landlord.

Now, occasionally I get all caught up in gender roles and decide I am going to fix something.  Usually this does not go well.  I pried the back off the washer, adhering to the "screw it, I'll just rip this off and worry about it later" school of thought.  Not finding anything visibly amiss, I decided to run it open to see if I could spot the leak.

I sure as heck did something wrong, because now all water input poured directly out onto the floor, and I have no idea why.  Also, I could not get it back together without liberal use of duct tape.  Also, don't plug your washer in with wet hands, because it will shock you and you will cry, and that will not help you feel like a manly Mr. Fixit.

New solution: Snag a 20-year-old washer (and a nice dryer) from my co-worker's co-worker (it's sort of like a second cousin), who is getting a new one.  I spent my Saturday moving various boxes and washer-dryers for various people to make this score, making me feel like Link trading his way to the magnifying lens in order to open the Wind Fish's Egg.

A couple replaced hoses and a minor repair involving a twisty-tie later, all is set.  Except what to do with the first washer?

Mark suggested we put it in the alley and see what happens, assuring me someone would claim it.  I was dubious as to whether this would happen, but agreed with him on the point of "we can always claim no knowledge of this and hope nobody saw us leave it."  So in the alley I abandoned my first washer, awaiting a my fine for illegal dumping.

It was gone within hours.  Hours.  Hauled away, presumedly, for scrap.

But isn't that impressive?  A box filled with washers of the other variety, sure, easy pickings.  But what took us a week of planning, two people, a dolly and a truck, someone else seems to have accomplished as an afterthought on their way home.

There is an ecosystem here in Richmond--I've known that since I noted that my recyclables were always collected long before garbage day.  Lurking out there in the alleys, unseen in the daylight, are the scrappers.  The scavenger class.  The Jawas of the Whitewater Valley.  Like piranhas on a cow, they make off with what would seem to be challenging targets.

I have a tickling desire to start a series of experiments to see what they'll take.  I'm thinking a box labeled "used hypodermic needles and scrap metal."

Apparently I am secretly not yet twenty-five

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