Editing is important.

I have to share these.

I will admit that I have a favorite brand of ink, now.  Yes, the Waterman's ink is alright.  It works, and the green and the turquoise are really pretty.

But I must say that Noodler's ink has become, far and away, my absolute favorite.  Not only is the ink of very good quality (and much of it is water resistant or waterproof, with a few freeze resistant varieties), but the company has a sense of history and sense of humor that is rarely found today. 

They have inks like Q-E'ternity (a blue-black that happens to nod toward the endless rounds of quantitative easing), Nikita Khrushchev red, Tiannanmen (also red, but a little darker), a collection of colors inspired by WWII (Burma Brown, Mandalay Maroon, Operation Overlord Orange, etc)...

...and the one I just ordered: Bernanke Blue.  A quick drying ink named after the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was the main face of the frenzied printing of money that was Quantitative Easing.  There's also a quick-drying Bernanke Black. 

Neither color is permanent, only water-resistant and smear resistant. 

I am SO GLAD I wasn't drinking anything...

...when I ran across this on Angel's FB page:

If I had been drinking something, I'd've likely had to replace my keyboard.  Again.

Heh.

Overheard in the living room...

So, I was fussing with the DVD player (cheap pos that barely acknowledges its remote), trying to get the stupid thing to do what I was telling it to do, and the imp nearly cracked me up.

Me: What the bloody...?

Imp: It's a bloody TV, is what it is.

Keep in mind, he'll be six in October. 

I thought I was going to choke, trying not to laugh at that.

As seen on Facebook:

International relations explained with a fly and cup of coffee...

WHEN A FLY FALLS INTO A CUP OF COFFEE

The Italian – throws the cup, breaks it and walks away in a fit of rage.

The German – carefully washes the cup, sterilizes it and makes a new cup of coffee.

The Frenchman – takes out the fly and drinks the coffee.

The Chinese - eats the fly and throws away the coffee.

The Russian - drinks the coffee with the fly, since it came with no extra charge.

The Israeli - sells the coffee to the Frenchman, sells the fly to the Chinese, sells the cup to the Italian, drinks a cup of tea and uses the extra money to invent a device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.

The Palestinian – blames the Israeli for the fly falling into his coffee, protests the act to the UN as an act of aggression, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, Frenchman, Chinese, German and Russian are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he should give his cup of tea to the Palestinian.

Heh. Some "ninjas."

Real ninjas...don't get caught.

presented without comment

Seriously?

I mean, sometimes smart people miss sarcasm.  The TSA--in any country--is not made up of smart people.  I do not understand how this guy could imagine telling the bright bulbs that make up the TSA that he had a bomb up his ass could result in anything other than what he obviously got.  I really don't understand where he found the chutzpah to say that "he never anticipated the consequences of his remarks...and by consequences, he meant such an extensive cavity search."

I understand his frustration.  I really do.  However.  

Stupid should hurt...and this time, it did. 

Not quite Frosted Lucky Charms...

I always wondered where the rabbit's feet were in that cereal...

This reminds me of something...

*snerk*  Okay, I know what it's reminding me of, now.

OMG!!! WTF????

I'm listening to a local radio station while my pixie is in the bathtub, and I hear an advertisement for a fucking midget stripper show at a local "gentleman's" club.

Now, at first, I actually thought I wasn't hearing it right, so I looked up their website.

Yup.

Midget stripper.

Right there on their main page, and in their events calendar.

Okay.  That...that's fucked up.

Aww...poor little things.

The truth hurts, don't it, when you've been told lies by all of the people you respect for all of your life.

So, when some nasty old man comes along and says that women shouldn't be in a position of leadership because their hormone shifts around their cycles negatively affect their decision making, they throw themselves on the ground to scream, pound their fists, and drum their heels.

Boo-fucking-hoo, little girls.  I am a grown woman and a mother.  I know and accept this about myself.

And you know what?

I shrug, do my best to compensate, rely more heavily on my husband's judgement, and I deal with it.

Screaming "It's not true!" won't make it not true. 

(Thanks for the story, Captain Capitalism.  I always enjoy a good belly laugh at someone else's expense.)

One of these days...

...that dog of mine is going to get her nose laid open. 

She has a new prank she likes to play on the cat.  I don't know how, but she's figured out how to walk silently across the linoleum floor in the kitchen.  And she likes to sneak up on Shadow, our black cat. 

The dog has quit knocking the cat's face into the water bowl when she gets a drink, for the most part.  No, now she sneaks up on the cat when she's standing in the middle of the kitchen with her tail in the air, indecisive about what to do next, and pokes a cold, wet dog nose right up against the exposed asshole.  Cat flings herself straight up into the air, and  vanishes.

One of these days, though, she's gonna turn around and beat the hell out of the dog.

A dilemma...

If a five year old boy cusses, but it's not in English, should he still get in trouble?

How about if Mommy and Daddy lose their shit, quietly, and he's in the other room and doesn't know it?

Whistling in the dark...

...or else, deliberately lying to justify her own job by luring kids who love to read into a major that won't qualify them to do more than make coffee or run a Walmart register. 

Because, really: "Why English Majors are the Hot New Hires?"  Bullshit.  If they were, they'd be...um...I don't know...working.

What's-her-tits claims that English majors are more valuable than STEM majors who actually have the skills and knowledge to be valuable workers--unlike said English majors--without further education.  She claims that our "soft" skills, such as communication, writing, research, critical thinking, and empathy are far more valuable than skills such as being able to design and build a software system or a building or a bridge. 

Hah--no.  And if they were, veterans would be more valuable, yet. 

Here's why English majors are as worthless as they look:

1.  Communication--they would be far more capable of communicating clearly if they weren't English majors.  English majors throw phrases like "heteronormative standards of beauty" into conversation, and expect normal people to understand what they're talking about.  They take five minutes to claim they have a question, then make a statement of their world view that hints that they want to ask why reality doesn't fit. 

2.  Writing--you'd think English majors would be excellent writers.  You'd be wrong.  And it stems back to the communication issue.  My comp II students are capable of writing clearer, more organized, more focused and developed arguments and expository pieces than your standard English major, who is not trained in clear writing, but in obfuscation. 

3.  Research--no, actually, this one they're good at.  Understanding that research is a different matter, though, and English majors tend not to understand hard science, math, engineering, or technology.

4.  Critical thinking--no, they're not capable of this.  All they tend to be capable of is regurgitating far leftist talking points (focusing on Marxism or gender or queer theory), and finding ways in which their employer is an evil part of corporate culture that oppresses the masses, or women, or gays, or all at once, and getting their employers into legal trouble.  Not the types you want to hire...the only worse option would be a women's studies major, or a minority studies major.

5.  Empathy--yes, this one is good in sales.  Or in a lawyer.  It's pretty useless in an engineer, a computer programmer, or someone researching and designing new pharmaceutical treatments for things like cancer. 

I love my job.  I enjoyed every second of the homework for my bachelor's and master's degree in English.  However, my job is, and was designed to be, supplementary to my job as wife and mother.  No, really--my husband (then boyfriend) and I sat down and talked about the future at the end of my freshman year (he'd just graduated), and we discussed roles.  I'd thought, until I actually got into the class, that I could get an education degree, stop working when we had kids, then go back to work to pay for private school.  As we all know, I'm intelligent enough to lack any patience for bullshit whatsoever, and I ended up dropping the education major (while people who couldn't hack it in other majors because they were too hard dropped in). 

I spent a year after I graduated looking for a job.  I tried getting an agent or an editor so that I could write--no dice.  I tried working for a newspaper--no dice, they didn't want me.  Not even for secretary.  I worked, on and off, when I was needed, for the local science fiction and fantasy and role play games store.  That, I was actually good at: I could talk to people and find out the books they'd enjoyed, and point them toward more of the same in different authors. 

After a year, I gave up and took my GRE, and went for my Master's degree.  Odysseus and I agreed that teaching as an adjunct would work even better into childbearing and rearing. 

I couldn't have done it without the degree I have; however, I am under no illusions that other English majors have the same expectations and understanding about what their degree is worth: near-starvation wages for eleven hours a week on campus, and another twenty or so in the planning, grading, and dealing with the technical side of teaching while I'm at home.

I joke, sometimes, that if you get a Master's degree in English, you'll find a job that pays enough to buy the good Ramen. 

It's not a joke. 

Not if your average English major is the sole wage earner, not the support wage--which is normal with the bullshit that these poor girls are spoon fed, and buy into, by their radical feminist professors.

So, no: English majors aren't the hot new hires.  They're actually more worthless than your average kid straight out of high school who doesn't look for things that prove that their new employer is a sexist/capitalist pig, that they can use to get their employer in legal trouble.

Wanna laugh until you cry?

Go read this.  It never fails to leave me breathless, with tears streaming.

TinCan Assassin, you evil bastard...

He pointed me to Damn You, AutoCorrect.  I've wasted two hours on it, and now my ribs hurt.  This one, right here, is the one that really killed me.

Fuckweasel.  Instead of fuchsia.  Damn.  Just...damn. 

I'm cryin', here. 

Oh, honey, just...don't.

As I was leaving campus today, I saw a cheerful looking, chubby girl wearing a hooded scarf.  However, the scarf's hood looked...off.  For that matter, so did the ends of the scarf.

Then I realized what I was seeing: the hood?  had ears.  The ends of the scarf were paw-shaped pockets.  The whole ensemble resembled a bear.

My only thought was, "Oh, honey.  Please don't let your inner furry come out to play in public."

Um...no thanks.

Just deleted a spam comment offering to tell me how to get bigger breasts.