A Post of Posty Goodness

[active_apathy]

Today, I'm going to start with something that's rather important to me.

I am very obsessive about being clean. So, of course, filthy people irk me greatly. Personal hygiene isn't that terribly expensive or difficult, so I'm continually amazed that I'm cleaner, better-smelling and more presentable when I get out of bed than some people are when they decide to toddle out for their day. Of course, part of this may be that people who are unclean and smell bad make me physically ill.

Intense orange-y smells make it feel like my teeth are all full of orange pulp, which is another reason why I don't like orange juice and generally don't munch on citrus fruits. The other reason is that oranges make my head hurt more than usual.

Other things do it, too. Most notable are butchers' shops, McDonalds (both the place and the 'food'), some cigarette smoke and mice not kept in a clean, non-smelly environment. So, maybe it's just me and some odd side effect of my insistence upon being clean.

Oh! See the sidebar? I thought I'd see if such a system works for tangential comments. If it's irksome, tell me, and I'll see if there's some other way to make it work. I rather like the idea of being able to send random thoughts off into their own little box, so I can talk about them without losing the plot in the actual entry.

And, almost on the topic of randomness, I happened to see what called itself a "BBQ calendar" on sale in a newsagency. The title caught my notice, and I found myself formulating a little plot. I've half a mind to collect reader contributions and then make an OMGWTFBBQ calendar for next year. And possibly utilise the evil powers of cafepress or such. Thoughts?

Shopping also brought about the tragic realisation that, while I'm quite tall, I seem to be fairly well invisible to parents shoving kids about (or, for that matter, old people with trollies). It seems like those four-wheeled engines of destruction that New Parents push about are designed with homing devices that seek out the tallest folk they can find to hit. It's unpleasant, occasionally painful, and typically results in Irate Parents who decide that I obviously have no right to be walking along and merrily minding my own business.

Furthermore, on the subject of annoying people, there seems to be an odd tendency amongst menfolk as encountered in an arcade; something which I find to be no end of amusement and an occasional source of irritation. I like pinball machines; these generally go uncontested, and those interested in them seem to not mind sharing. I like some racing games. These prompt menfolk to feel somewhat threatened, and to spend money trying to win, and to feel rather shamed if they don't. I'm also fairly partial to that font of electronic crack that is Dance Dance Revolution.

Some defy these trends; occasionally, one will even talk, as though he's realised that yes, we do play games. And make geeky game references, too.

...

Red valkyrie is about to die.

This prompts rare specimens of menfolk to try to be all impressive, something that's doomed to failure from the start as far as I'm concerned. Especially when it's fairly well-known that this particular individual spent weeks practising on a dancemat at home merely to try to accumulate scandalously young fangirls, and will spend hours (and a small fortune) if anyone dares to get a high score on his precious, precious machine.

And see the sneaky left-hand sidebar? This is to test to see if one side is better than another for people, or to see if I can use both. And because I feel like it, too. Probably mostly because I feel like it, now I come to think of it. Relax, I'm not going to go to the silly extreme of CSS/HTML pullquotes.

Oh! And I bought a new pen for a fun little $AU13. It's a cheap-ish fountain pen with a selection of special little ink cartridges and an instructional booklet. Cheap, in this instance, is good - when I get to be reasonably proficient in its use (and non-phobic about breaking it), then I'll buy myself a decent one. And my writing will be all pretty-like. And it may even help me figure out how to write things with my tablet, which would be all kinds of lovely fun.

Comments

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

I like the sidebars, and random bits of information.

Menfolk tend to be threatened by tall women, period. Throw in the gaming thing and you're freakin' out their world, man.

Also, being clean is good. What brought on that subject?

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

I resent that over-generalisation.

I think tall geeky women are great.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

I apologize. If I could change it, I'd say "Insecure men tend to be threatened by tall women".

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

*grins* No real offense taken.

I am aware of the kind of men you mean, and they are pretty common. And generally idiots.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

I didn't think you were being serious, but I do wish I could go back and change comments.

So, no real... um... yeah. You know. We're cool.

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

Comment editing would be a good feature. Mostly because I tend to spot my typos in the half a second between hitting "Post Comment" and the screen blanking to load the next page.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Let me echo that sentiment.

With a bullhorn, PA system and full chorus.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Yay! They don't make a mess of your friends page, then?

I suppose there is that. The one indirectly referenced in the second sidebar is the same height as me.

There was a powerful smelly couple on the bus. At the other end of it, but even that was a bit close for my nose. Or my liking, for that matter.

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

Nope, but I am using IE here. Dunno about on Firefox. Can't check till Wednesday. But I'm sure it's fine.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Fx should play nicely with it. *checks* And it does. Wheee!

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

The sidebars are good. Although I think the one on the right is a bit easier to read around, because it doesn't disrupt the start point of each line.

I will never understand the attraction of Dance Dance Revolution. Partly because it doesn't cater to my preferred dancing style (where are the sensors to put in the end of your hair? Why is there no sequence that runs "left, left, forward, right, furious five-minute air guitar solo"?); partly because if I want to make a fool of myself in public, there are generally better ways.

They made a new version of Gauntlet: all 3D and stuff. It looks stupid.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

*nods* I thought that might be the case, but testing is good.

There is a game for furious five-minute guitar solos. I lose at it; might be something to do with having a real guitar, though I can't really play it that well and it's out of tune at the moment.

Gauntlet Legends? Seen it. Didn't like it. Blue programmer is now 'it'.

[mrpyro.livejournal.com]

I tried to learn to play guitar once, but gave up once I realised that it would actually take effort (and I'd have to keep my fingernails short: shock-horror!). I never got beyond learning to play (very badly) the intro to Killing in the Name of by Rage Against the Machine*. My air-guitar, on the other hand, has won me prizes once or twice.

Gauntlet Legends was probably it: I wasn't really paying attention when I saw it, since it was at a party and I was more concerned with finding alcoholic beverages and drinking them. Red LJ-stalker has drunk a potion.


*writing this has just reminded me to go and look for the Celebrity Deathmatch of RATM vs the Machine.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I can play... um, some. I suck at chords, though. No rhythm for me.

I'm not much a fan of Gauntlet Legends. Gauntlet 2 is lovely, though. And Get Medieval was funny, but just like Gauntlet with prettier pictures.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

How did you manage the House of Leaves effect?

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

The what?

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

House of Leaves is a book that has random squares of text-within-text. Sometimes they're just regular text, like you have, but sometimes they're in mirror writing and sometimes they go backwards in the pages and sometimes they're just big black holes. House of Leaves is a weird book. Anyway, how'd you do it?

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Oh! right.

<div style="float: right; border-width: 3px; border-style: double; width: 120px; padding: 10px; width: 10px; text-align: justify;">sidebar text text more text and texty stuff</div>

You can tweak the styles as needed; it's the float: [side] bit that does it.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask how you did it, too. *takes notes*

It works fine on Firefox.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

It should. It works on my copy of Fx, and it's standards-compliant code. The above is because Trident and Gecko (the rendering engines in IE/Win and Mozilla, Fx and NS) don't draw things quite the same; for example, if my external stylesheet still worked, then you'd be able to see the difference between IE and Fx rendering my layout.

[leila82.livejournal.com]

The sidebars are Cool. And good for the random stuff.

I don't know why so many people have so much trouble with showering and using soap and deoderant and the like.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Whee! :)

I don't know either. It's not like it's really that hard to do.

[herekittykitty.livejournal.com]

The sidebars make me so excited in the HTML pants!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Doesn't that make them <pants />?

[one-bullet-left.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a reasonably tall girl, I understand about the menfolk feeling threatened.

Mind you, I play every inch of my height because I have four younger brothers, the oldest of whom is 6'5" and the youngest of whom will probably be even taller than that, since he's 14 and already 6'1". I'm the dominant female, dammit, and they're still my little brothers no matter how non-literal that "little" happens to be!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I have an older brother who's a bit shorter than me. In fact, of all my family that I've met, I'm the tallest.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

I happen to adore tall women... all those boys are morons, really.

And... I smell. I can't help it, side effect of my work. When you're out in the sun hauling heavy loads all day, you'll start to smell too.
I've joked with some of the other temps that "if you don't smell by the time you're done work, you haven't been working".

Doesn't matter how clean I start out, I'll reek within an hour. Alas.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Oh, I absolutely agree. Except for the one in the sidebar, that is.

There's a fairly significant difference between smelling because you've been working your arse off and smelling because you never wash. They're different smells, too - neither is particularly pleasant, but the unwashed smell is far, far worse.

[nyctanessa.livejournal.com]

I've half a mind to collect reader contributions and then make an OMGWTFBBQ calendar for next year. And possibly utilise the evil powers of cafepress or such. Thoughts?

YES.

Sidebar quote box thingies = meh.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I'd completely forgotten about that until just now. I think I may have to post about it in more depth later, and maybe have a look at the original calendar.