Wednesday, October 08, 2003

"I'll have to stick my head in the microwave now to see if it fits – %Thanks, Mordant%"

I disclaim all responsibility.

Hello to all my new readers.

Hi there. Sod off. I hate you all and I want you to suffer. If you haven't sodded off yet, here is some basic information which you'll need if you intend to make DCIATM a regular part of your online diet.

1) The sidebar is there for me, not you.

I fix it only when I can't remember a crucial URL or none of my friends has said URL on their blog. Otherwise, I ignore it.

2) This blog is here for me, not you.

I don't care if you came here looking for dead people, dead dogs, Jordan's b00bies, Goth bands, or any other damn thing. This is not toybox, a jazzmag, an excercise in journalism, or a mutual appreciation society. This is a small dark room in the cellar where I go to punch the walls and scream at people that no-one else can see. If you don't like that, fine, browser, back button, look into it.

3) I really mean it about the hate.

I'm bored.

Today all my sleep debt seemed to land on me at once; I've been doing just fine on 6 or so hours a night for a week, and then suddenly all the sleep I've missed decides to land on me at once. So I end up in bed at 4pm unable to move because afternoon naps on top of sleep debt = sleep paralysis. At least there were no monsters in the room this time. One time I had an attack of sleep paralysis and this guy with a rat's head came and stood next to my bed for ages. Stupid monsters.

Got very little writing done today. I did okay yesterday because I wrote that piece for my board, which was farily long, but today I'm nowhere near my quota. Oh, and I'm stuck with my novel again. This is bad. I wanted to have far more of that stupid novel under my belt by now. I'm going to step away from the narrative for a bit and work character sketches instead.

Made a couple of pendants; I got a load of glass pebbles and I'm making them into dangles. Running out of thongs tho'. I feel like making something for myself now. I've been planning this ring-pull chainmail vest for a while. It looks cool in my head, but I'm not sure how well it'll work in practice. I'm just going to go for it, I think.

Dug out some of my artwork and tried to take some pictures with the digital camera, but they were terrible. The image in the viewfinder bears absolutely sod all resemblance to the actual pic, so the composition is completely shagged. I may give up and use the scanner in the cybercafe that's opened up in my building.

On the plus side, some the pix I took in Inchyoney came out pretty well. I got couple of really great shots of these rockpools.
Pictures.

Okay, so I've resolved the digital camera problem by abandoning the big PC and just installing the drivers on the bloody laptop, which runneth Windows 98. Of course if I was buying the computers in this household, we would have a big yummy Mac. Macs do not throw themselves on the floor and sulk when faced with a teeny tiny digital camera.

Be that as it may, I can now make pictures of things for to go on the internet. I have a cold and barren Fotolog allll set up ready. You may mock, but you'll laugh on the other side of your faces when I'm the toast of Thumbs and Camera Straps Monthy (incorporating Big Shiny Blurry Thing Gazzette).

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

The outer shell of the duvet looks like cobwebs.

Another piece, similar in style.
The temporary files clerk damns you with a glance from her bloodshot eyes and all the LSD you took back in Goa will not save you.

A thing I wrote the other night and didn't know what to do with. If the response is good I may post this sort of thing on my board more often in future.
Be a part of the hate.

Right-- I've just created my first t-shirt with Zazzle. You can see it, and any other stuff I make, here. It is way overpriced for a naff t-shirt with some writing on, so some of you may be thinking of going out and just buying a t-shirt off the market and writing on it with a magic marker. If you do this I'll kill you with my evil magick skills. Just saying.

(Edited to say that the t-shirt no longer seems to appear in my gallery. I have no idea why, but I'm trying to fix the problem.)

Monday, October 06, 2003

Hmmmm...

Might give this a try: Zazzle.com

In the continued abscence of gainful employment, I'm casting around for alternatives with increasing franticity*. You may recall that I set up a Cafepress account awhile back, but I never got round to doing anything with it and anyway, Cafepress suck. This Zazzle thing looks a bit more promising at first glance.

The eBay thing: Well, there's a slight problem there. The PC chokes and goes base over apex every time I try to install the drivers for my digital camera. Without photos, I can do nothing.

Anyhow, I'm looking at other ways I could make money from the internet. Apart from selling writing to webzines (waiting for one or two places to get back to me as we speak), I'm mostly thinking about making stuff to sell online, but there may be other things I could do.**

*What? Yeah, that's a word. It might not have been before, but it is now.
**Apart from that.
Just to confuse matters further...

I now have a Livejournal. I'm still going to blog here, but I wanted an Lj account so's I can annoy the hell out of comment on other Ljer's journals.

There's nothing it it at the moment, but you can find it here: Leftover parfait.

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Killed for being queer?

In 1993, a North Carolina man, Edward Hartman, shot and killed 77-year-old Herman Smith Jr. It was, without doubt, a cowardly, sickening, detestable crime, and Hartman deserved to be punished.

However, the case was not without mitigating circumstances. Hartman grew up in an atmosphere of grinding misery and continual abuse by his disturbed and suicidal mother and her string of boyfreinds and husbands. He was so severly beaten on one occasion as a child that he was left unconscious and hospitalized. He was a victim of repeated, terrifying sexual abuse. Emotionally and physically tortured, violated by the adults he should have been able to trust-- surely these factors would have swayed any reasonable jury? Surely they could have found it in them to ask for sentence of life imprisonment instead of the death penalty?

Well, no. Because Edward Hartman was gay, and according to his prosecutor, sexual abuse is "different for homosexuals." (Yeah, you read that right. Apparently raping children is okay now so long as they're queer children. ) He made repeated references to Hartman's sexuality throughout the case, using it to erode any sympathy that the jury might have had for the defendant.

The hand-picked jury, twelve honest homophobic fuckbakes and true, swallowed the whole thing. They handed down the death penalty. Despite protests, despite appeals to the courts and to any shred of basic decency still left in the legal system, that sentence was carried out on Friday.

Leaving aside the inherent iniquity of the death penalty for a moment, you may like to reflect on whether Hartman would have been put to death had he been straight. Don't go away thinking this is an isolated incident, either; it's not.

Read more about the case in this Zmag article, if you can stand it. An Advocate report is here.

Saturday, October 04, 2003

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye..."

I've been obsessing on self-enucleation lately. Not myself, you understand, other people's self-enucleation. I get these fixations from time to time; this one was sort of owning my brain until I went and saw May, which seemed to kick it into abeyance. I hate my brain sometimes. It keeps on chucking all this sick stuff out at me, will-I-nill-I. It's a pain. Still, this isn't as bad as the "what would happen if someone stuck your head in a microwave" fixation that kept bugging me all the time I was in Cork.

Anyway, that aside, I've been distracted today. I think I've overdosed on caffine again; not hard to do, when you've got my ultra-lightweight brain chemistry. I'm wrestling with a rather confusing Celtic Cross spread, which I'll add to my public tarot log when I work out what the hell it's going on about.

Since I got back from the UK I've emailed some places about work, mostly hostels where they need English speakers. No-one's written back. Would a simple "thanks but no thanks" kill these people? Jeez. Now that my Spanish is a bit less crappy I've decided to set up as a private English tutor. I was going to go into town to buy teaching materials at the FNAC, but somehow I don't have the stomach for it. This whole non-job having is just tearing chunks out of my self-esteem. I really want to start working as a healer as soon as possible, but I don't know anything about it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, can you just put up a postcard somewhere, or do you need some kind of licence, or what? I've tried approaching some of the arty-type places in town in the hope of getting some life modelling work, but so far no luck. I don't have a lot of experience, just one term of sitting for a night class. I'm going to try the art campus here again; they had nothing at the beginning of September but maybe that'll have changed by now.

I'm writing an article on a nearby town in the hopes of getting it accepted by one of the English language papers. It's not terribly interesting. Maybe I should have picked a better subject, like the Parc Guell, but everyone writes about the Parc Guell. Yeah, I know I should've done loads of these already-- I've been trying, okay? Everything I write these days comes out either like a lab report or incomprehensible magical realism. I know I had some middle gears aroud here somewhere...

Okay, this is the part where I go to check my email and the entities have dropped something fantabulous into my lap.

*Refreshes inbox*
*Waits*

"Get four more inches on your..."

Stupid entities. No sense of narrative.

This is seriously weirding me out, actually. I have no idea why I haven't got a job yet. I've approached loads of different places in loads of different ways, I've tried dressing up smart and losing the labret, and my Spanish isn't that bad. Yet I remain jobless.

I am obviously... CURSED! Cursed, by MAGICKIANS of BADNESS!

Whodunnit?

Friday, October 03, 2003

In which the diarist attempts to use a chatbot for a purpose other than that specified.

(The chatbot in question being jabberwacky. My questions are in plain text, jabberwacky's answers are in italics.)

Will I find a job in the next month?
Yes and it will hurt.
Why will it hurt?
Why will what end?
No, not end. I said hurt.
How has no brain?
Okay, who will I meet in the next month?
Seven of Nine.
You're a useless divinatory aid.
I admit it.
I'm going to use my tarot in future.
Love you forever.

Thoth.

So I've been getting back into the tarot, using the Crowley deck. It's going pretty well. I had visions of having to re-learn the whole damn thing, but the meanings are coming back to me. I also find this deck sits well with my preferred method of reading, which is to use the textbook meaning of the cards as a jumping-off point, fleshing the reading out with the images that form in my mind. The rich, multi-layered symbolism of the Crowley deck works for me, gives the mind lots to chew on. Like parfait. Chewy parfait.

Got to keep up with it, is the thing. Started a tarot log over on my board as an incentive to keep reading regularly. I've got to stop falling back on that hostage-to-fortune tactic, though; I look like such a dork when it doesn't work.

In other news: Sexbot. No, I don't know why it's got that paint-roller either, and yet it obviously had to have the paint-roller, what are you, stupid? My world is a brighter place tonight.

(Via nightguard.)

Thursday, October 02, 2003

Things that are currently irking me.

The PC keeps dying.
My head aches.
I feel sort of itchy. Here. Behind my navel.
I keep wanting to be taught, but I don't trust anyone to teach me.

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Holy scmoly, I think I've just had a rebirth of culture!

Yes folks, I have to confess. I have sinned. I have strayed from the way of Gothdom. I have worn manky cheap combats with (shudder) flip-flops. I have let my hair grow back. I have worn big floppy t-shirts. I have ventured out without makeup. Please! Spare me your condemnation-- I feel bad enough as it is. I have been one shade of Dylon away from vanilla.

I hereby renounce my sorry backslaaaahdin' ways. From this day hence, I will strive to regain the true path that is GOTH. A-fuckin'men!
Sooo cute!

Seriously. How adorable is this? Not to mention these.

Bless their slightly disturbing frilly fishnet ankle socks.

(Found all alone on memepool. Can I keep'em? Can I? Can I?)
Work.

Still shagged out and antsy. Going into town today to see about a TEFL course. I emailed the place asking for further details, but that was weeks ago and they still haven't bothered to write back. Does not bode well. I mean, if this is how they behave when I'm trying to give them money, how are they going to behave when they've banked the cheque?

In other news: Listen, you spooky etherial types, I really need a job. Money's getting tight. Any job, no matter how sucky, will do, tho' obviously I'd rather find work in healing or maybe divination. Help me out here.

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

A public service announcement on behalf of the Campaign For Better Goths.

Prodigy: Really fucking smart kid who can do stuff that you normally can't do unless you're an adult or at least a much older kid.

Protégé: French word, meaning someone who's being protected in some way. Like, by an influential patron who's sorting out your life or your career. Something like that.

See? Different things. Different. Thiiiiinnnngggs. Not interchangeble.

P:S.: You people are pathetic. Yeah, I'm aware that I screw up my spelling and grammar with indecent regularity, but I'm still less of a moron than you lot. I was taught to read and write by a dyslexic cook and I had no conventional schooling between the ages of 6 and 14, so If I know something then everyone ought to know it,* end of. And yet I'M telling YOU stuff? You suck.

P.P.S.: If you don't all learn how to use a bloody apostrophe properly in the next 2 weeks or so, I'm going to track you down to the ends of the earth and force-feed you a Leylandii hedge.


*Unless it involves maths because everyone sucks at that.
Creeps.

Why the hell would a complete and total stranger want to follow me all around the bloody Placa Catalunya yesterday? Why did it take so long to shake him? Why didn't I just tell him to sod off?

Now I come to think about it, I have been getting aggro from random strangers for the last couple of days. Pushing, shoving, weird body language, shouted insults... I don't get it. I guess I've been at a bit of a low ebb lately, a bit run down and headachey. Maybe people are picking up on that. Humans are animals, man, and I don't mean that in a jolly, let's-do-it-like-they-do-on-the-Discovery-Channel sort of way. It's like I have to be constantly on my guard because if the beasts outside smell weakness, they'll de-gut me. Wasting energy, wasting time... It's boring.

Getting sick of other people's bullshit, frankly. Sick of having stuff hung on me, sick of the lies that people tell themselves to make it okay for them to act like jerks. Don't want to have to watch my every move, waiting for someone to trip me up.

You know what I mean.

Anyway. Last night was cool. The new batch of students in my building decided to have a neighbourhood gathering out on the landing. They came by and rang the doorbell, and we all stood around yakking in broken English, Spanish and Italian until it started to rain. God, they're all so young! Hopefully we'll be getting together for a group meal at some point. I could do with something fresh in my life, something that isn't stale, isn't a bloody repeat.

Monday, September 29, 2003

If I ever got this crap, you guys'd tell me, right?

*Giggle*
*Snort*
*Chuckle*
*Chortle*

Bwa, hahahahahahahahaaaa!

*Rolls onto floor, clutching sides*

I just love the way that when you go to da big scawy bwack magickian's actual Lj, it's all personality tests. Evil overlord rule #1095: "I will not undermine my aura of dark and terrible menace by speculating in public as to what sort of cheese I am."

Dude. No, seriously-- dude.