Double strength Earl Grey double steeped, with extra sugar...

(12:58:33 CDT)

Double strength Earl Grey double steeped, with extra sugar...

I am currently drinking double strength Earl Grey (Stash, not my normal Twinings) that I steeped for twice the time, or more, and then spooned in double sugar. It's the world's only energy drink approved by Her Royal Majesty, you dig? And why not, I'm playing Ladyhawke while writing this post: "My heart is yearning, but Paris is burning...Paris is burning all night long, my heart is dreaming, but Paris is screaming..." After this, I'm so going to sit here and shake from the jitters while jamming out to Belle & Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress. I'm going to be, I don't know, brit-pop-alt (suppose I have to crack out the triple strength Assam/Ceylon with double milk after this).

I slept well last night. *Pause for applause* I would like to thank the Academy, big shout outs to JC and the HG, the old PN, qui es in caelis, and to my family who loves me. Hmm, if you control your family's minds, would that be "whom loves me" (questions about grammar from an evil genius)? I would also like to thank washing down Tylenol PM with red wine. Man. Other people's suicide attempts is my seven hours of summer sleep. I wonder if slicing my wrists would unlock some other normal-human power that others get for free? Jumping out of a window? By the way, here's some awesome true trivia for you: call it defenestration. That's three or four times more awesome than "out of a window". And go for the sixth story, you apparently have an even chance of surviving a five floor fall.

You can say the tea is kicking in.

This morning I woke up, and found out that the post had run a bit early and so I missed a package (which Sarah, like a dear, picked up for me on my way to work, she has earned a backrub but only if she prints out this post and shows it to me) and this started me thinking about pet peeves, again. I have a handful of pet peeves, which seems weird. Shouldn't they be like a phobia, where everyone has one real good one and a couple of minor ones? Why do we all have so many pet peeves? Would it be quicker to come up with the things that do not piss us off? Eve epteps? What are your eve epteps?

The reason it made me think about pet peeves is because this whole "package" thing bothers me. Here are my choices. UPS. Will show up on time, as long as I can be home between about 11am and 8pm. If I miss, I get to try the lottery again tomorrow. DHS and FedEx mostly just ship it to the post office, which adds at least one extra day to getting it, and if they do try and deliver it, good luck. I've caught the FedEx guy walking up to my apartment to put a note on my door without bringing the package along. USPS has the easiest compromise, in that I go down to the post office and pick it up if I miss it, but this does mean that I have to go down in a time range occupied by everyone's normal work schedule. Also, with the USPS, I get the least feedback as to where the package really is so that when it does show up, it's a surprise. There have also been, now, three or so packages that never showed up. They may all be sitting in some backroom waiting for me to claim them, or have been stolen, or something. One was a magazine that I got a replacement for. One is a movie that I am waiting for another week or so to complain about. The first was a book that led to my first real fight with an Amazon Marketplace merchant. They were trying to take the stance of "Well, we mailed it, cross our hearts and may we die, and I think you should be grateful and not blame us for it not showing up" except, well, I did blame them. That's the problem, though, we can't trust them because it might not have ever been sent and they can't trust us because I may be lying about it never showing up. And how much does it cost to get sig-conf? A couple of dollars? Most of the things I order from the Marketplace are under $10. I am not paying another $2-$3 just to confirm I got something that cost me $4.

That's my pet peeve of the morning, and one of my big ones. I hate waiting for packages. I hate it because I cannot relax about it. Remember when you are 16, and he was supposed to call but he hasn't and so you stay up all night waiting for him to call? I'm like that. With cardboard boxes. I'll skip a shower because I am waiting for it to come, won't go on a walk or go and get food. I'll be late to things while waiting. I'll wake up early. Then, THEN, so often something goes wrong and I miss it anyhow, and it's like a murderous rage infects my soul and I want to watch the pretty red ribbons march down the street. Ok, that's hyperbole, but it does agitate me, and me agitated is like most people screaming (while me screaming, I have heard, is enough to make most people nervous, one of the downsides to being able to punch hard enough to cave in a car dashboard). And it shouldn't. Nine times on the dime all it takes is for me to make one phone call, spend a few minutes to go and pick it up, or plan a little better to be there next time. I cannot help it, though. This package thing is as bad as a phobia. I know it is crazy and a lot of times I can walk it off if I catch it in time (like my brother, and most of my family, nevermind my friends, I am racked with crazy; except that my conscious mind is able to keep my id at bay and I can vet most of my crazy when it surfaces, unless, say, I wake up and don't have time to come fully awake when the crazy triggers). I do not know where it comes from. One time, I stole some money from my mom to order something. I was afraid that she would find out. One time I missed something as a teenager because of a funderal and it ended up complicating a few things. Maybe, somehow, these two events form the subconcious basis? Maybe I was already crazy, then, but the fact that I remember both cases means something bad about me.

At least, as of this morning, that is my big pet peeve. I really do not have many, despite my claim earlier. I have fewer than normal, I reckon. Let's see. You know, nothing else is really coming to mind. I detest FUD (for those not in the know, Fucked/Fudged up Data) and the way that people are using it nowadays. I know human nature does not change, but the number of people willing to spread lies (think of all the lies you get via e-mail) seems to be up. At least more vocal. A lot of the just outright made up pseudo-facts about other country's health care, and the fact that some people actually believe the "birth conspiracy" are proof that people in "information power" are willing to tell a lie for ratings, for some minor political satisfaction, for money. Maybe because they are scared of change? But that's not a pet peeve, in that it's reasonable to detest people who spread lies and false information in order to feel superior, and it's reasonable to be really agitated with those who eat up those lies and spew them so angrily, so red faced. Why is it that the truth never inspires such passion? Why is it that the only thing we can get up in arms about is a lie? What is wrong with us?

Oh, and I hate lawsuits, but again, that's not a pet peeve, that's a respect for the way things should be. It's good, say, to be scared of guns held by mad men. That's not a phobia. Likewise, I'm not going to say that being pissed off that an apartment company in Chicago is suing a woman for making a tweet about mold in her apartment is a pet peeve, it's a gods' honest truth about how the world should not be. The thing is, they even admit that she was right, though try and hide this fact. That admit there was a leak and then try and claim that she just made up things. Why mention a leak? That's right, because the leak spawned mold and they know it, but they are trying to shotgun argument it. "She defamed us and the others had no complaint and everyone around the world heard about it and there was no mold and there was a leak and I never checked to see if there was a mold but she defamed us". What's a shotgun argument? Well, it's something like FUD. The same basic principle. You spread a wave of statements around in hope to destroy the truth. You can often tell a shotgun argument because they will include a dozen minor, and largely unsubstantiated facts, in an attempt to make you feel that they are true. Think about the 2008 election and how Obama was "muslim, anti-american, pro-terrorists, non-american, infiltartor, gay, drug abusing, untrained, inexperienced, etc" and most of those could be shot down but by the time you shot any down they had already spread to a few new people shouting out a slightly different set. It's a histogramatic argument, they are changing the frequency of "facts", the verbal equivalent to lying on a website and then getting other websites to link to your lie, with does nothing to substantiate it but does help its Google rankings. If you hear a dozen people approve of something, and only one or two disapprove, you are going to think it is probably ok. If you hear a dozen quasi-facts and pseudo-facts against an argument, and only one truth for the argument, you still feel like maybe you shouldn't trust it.

But again, that's not a pet peeve. That's just being mad for a good reason. Ok, time to fight the tea and try and calm down. Oh yeah, Belle & Sebastian are playing and my nerves are feeling better already: "If I could do just one near perfect thing, I'd be happy. They'd write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes...Things fall apart, I don't know why we bother at all, but life is good and it's always worth living at least for a while..."

Si Vales, Valeo

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