Diary of a Dilletante

A hit and run today... a link to some terrific parody. Enjoy!

http://thesimsresource.info/ 

The good news is that Illusions of Grandeur has updated: 




The bad news is that my mom died a couple of weeks ago. She was 83, and her health had taken a significant turn for the worse in the last few months. And...we think she was pretty much ready to go; she told us of some 'visitations' by her mom and my father... and I had several dreams of her just suddenly not being here. So you've got all that 'she's not suffering anymore' stuff, but it doesn't change the fact that mom's gone, and I miss her terribly.

I wanted to share the obituary I wrote - it was published in the Albany, NY Times-Union and the Raleigh, NC News & Observer:

I am proud to announce the grand opening of Illusions of Grandeur!

We have lots of houses and art, as well as wall/floor sets - all free, of course!

LInk buttons are on the links page - feel free to link to us on your site. We'll put update pics on the home page...updates will occur probably weekly.

If you like what you see, drop us a line!


_____

Oh, and I had back surgery. Successful, but the healing process is slower than I would like. Alas!

tApologies for the long lapse in posts - I've been feeling poorly as I wait for back surgery (October 8), and have been trying to cause some butthurt around the community.

But this is LJ worthy.

Remember when Marilu got spanked by Subway for her set with their logo splashed all over it? She had to change the set. And of course I called her on it.

Well, apparently SHE doesn't remember it, because she's back with a Budweiser bar set:



http://www.sims2-studio.de/premium/imagepages/image2.htm 

I mean, one copyright infrn\ingement error, while stupid, is vaguely forgiveable. A second one? Just incredible. She's either a complete idiot, or she thinks she's untouchable now that she's with TSR. Silly twat.

Sims2Studio actually took the free items on her site OFF...in protest.

Way to endear yourself to the community, Marilu.

Delphy has just released new creator guidelines....highlights below, full post here.

 
The Short Rules:

"1. Any uploads to MTS2 that require pay content will no longer be accepted for upload!

"2. Any uploads to MTS2 that have optional pay content will no longer be accepted for upload!

"3. All content must be showcased using free content only.

"3b. Asking people for content included in pictures but not linked should be confined to PM or the Where can I find forum only.

"4. All existing downloads that require pay content to function (including recolours, hairs, etc) will be moved to an archive in 2 weeks time.

"5. For sims and lots: if you do not know where you got something, don't include it in the picture or the text! Remove it from the download or it will be rejected.

"6. With regards to the signature rules: remember that removal of links is at the absolute discretion and final decision of the admins."


The rules are expanded upon in the thread linked above.

But wait...here is THE BEST PART, from the FAQ:


"What about free items on a paysite? Can I recolour free TSR things? Can I recolour free Peggy things? Can I show them in screenshots?

"We will not allow recolours of anything that is on TSR - free or not - due to their ever changing rules. Recolouring free items that are always free from other sites is ok, but obviously we would prefer you only recolour items that are on free sites anyway."

So...yesterday afternoon I sent a letter to MOST of the paysite owners (HP will be writing to a few of them):

Quote:

Please see the linked exchange between HystericalParoxysm from Mod The Sims 2 and EA: (link to image, from my photobucket acct.) I would encourage you to make all of your custom content free for all downloaders as soon as possible, as it is becoming very clear that EA will no longer tolerate paysites. There are many ways to raise money for bandwidth costs – charging money for pixels, in violation of EA’s End User License Agreement and copyrights is NOT the way to do it. Please know that the free sims community will respond with great jubilation and financial support should you decide to go free. Consider following in the footsteps of Mdlein Designs, Retail Sims, and Sim-Placement: go free. I do not want you to close your site. I want you to honor EA’s copyrights and let your creations be free for ALL players. EA clearly wants to you to do this. Please comply, and bring harmony back to the community.

So far, the responses have been....interesting.

From Alice Fashion:

Quote:

well thanks, so this email isn't for me. AliceFashion is on the point 2, we accept voluntary donations, we're not a paysite.

Right. So this is free? http://www.alicefashion.com/donation_center.htm

-----

From M&M Needful Things:

Quote:

And in doing so, I (and you) enable all children under the age of 18 to have completely free access to ALL of my XXX Adult content. Please read this http://www.mandmneedfulthings.ca//Forum/viewtopic.php?t=3663 Please do not contact me about this privately again. You are more than welcome to discuss it with us on our forum.

So...paying is okay if it keeps the kiddies out? Um...interesting excuse.

-----

And more from M&M (because he couldn't let it go)

Quote:

People. We are not a PAY site. We charge a minimal charge to gain access to a portion of our site. We do not charge for product on a piece by piece basis... Basically, it is not the product we are charging for, it is the service. One of the reasons we charge for this 'service' is to keep a tighter reign on the age range of the folks able to download the adult items. I myself am not comfortable with personally allowing minors an easier time of obtaining obviously adult material. Have I mentioned that we do not make a profit on the site? Interesting, eh? Now. Certain others have told us, "There are other ways of obtaining funds to pay for your costs. You could advertise like we do." In answer to that, I have gone to those sites, and I am not comfortable having mass quantities of extreme pornographic and sex ads on my site. It just ain't gonna happen. The amount of advertising one would need on a site the size of ours in order to pay for our costs, would be more of a detriment and hinderance, than any good it would do. Finally, I do not SPAM you telling you, "quit this, because it makes you a better...whatever" SO, please kindly get it through your thick skulls and pester and annoy someone else. Don't email us again unless it is for friendly conversation or advice, on a subject other than this one. If EA has a problem with what we do, then they can contact us. YOU are neither their legal department, nor a representative of theirs. FInal thought; Think about why it bothers you so much...And then deal with it like a big person. Regards, MIKEY!!!

Hmm. Paying for a service? Right. The service of getting pay items. GAH.

I love how I'm being told to handle this like a 'big person'....um, golly. Was there even a HINT of 12ness in my email?

----

And from my dearest friend and favorite Teutonic Twat, Marilu (TSR, Sims2 Studio):

Quote:

Was DU willst, interessiert mich nicht!!!

Which, roughly translated, means 'kiss my shiny metal ass'. (It actually says something closer to "like i care what YOU want."(

I expected as much from Marilu...I've been a thorn in her side for a little while now.

-----

I think the funniest thing is that these people only want friendly conversation or advice. God forbid they entertain an ALTERNATIVE (and right) opinion! They clearly can't argue the FACTS, so they come up with other bullshit.

More as I get it.

Please check out this lovely response from EA to a very detailed question about custom content, courtesy of Hysterical Paroxysm:



Any questions?

Golly gee whilikers... everybody's talking about the Site That Must Not Be Named! Or, I should say, they're doing everything they can to avoid talking about it.

I have reports from various sources that indicate that:

- Thomas at TSR spends an extrarodinary amount of time discrediting the effect the anti-paysite movement is having on TSR.

- the German forums are so upset that they refuse to allow mention of PMBD, the booty, or even Pescado himself. 


If we're not having an impact, why are people working so hard to NOT mention us?

_________________

In related news, Nouk posted a TERRIFIC explanation of how even hair meshes aren't free of EA before they're imported into the package file (a response to a comment by Rose):

1. Whatever you import into Milkshape, has the skeleton information from the Sims 2, wich give the mesh it's animation. Even if you delete the meshfile, the skeleton (bones) remain, otherwise the hair wouldn't work in the game.

Rose did not create the game animations nor the skeleton and bone information, EA/Maxis did.

2. After that, the mesh gets exported into the .gmdc format. Also, EA/Maxis made coding, not Rose.

3. The GMDC holds the bone assigments/animation/skeleton info and the mesh shape itself. (And more, but let's give Rose the benefit of the doubt) Allready 3/4th doesn't belong to Rose!

4. The GMDC with the meshshape (from wich the actual mesh shape is the only thing Rose owns, NOT the animation, NOT the bones, NOT the skeleton, NOT any coding, NOT ANY GAME FILE AT ALL) is put into a meshpackage that contains:

5.- GMDC (Geomatric Data Container) = only 1/4th Rose work, 75% game file, straight from the game with the mesh shape replaced and assignments redone
- GMND (Geomatric Node) = 0% Rose work, 100% game file, straight from the game
- CRES (Resource Node) = 0% Rose work, 100% game file, straight from the game
- SHAPE = 0% Rose work, 100% game file, straight from the game

Gues what, Rose changed roughly 25% of 25% of the whole damn mesh package. 6,25% is changed by her, out of the whole damn custom meshfile.

She owns it? because she edited 6,25% of an original EA game file? Get real.


I love information that pokes holes in the soft white underbelly of the paysite thieves.

__________

And finally, kudos to Sim Placement for going 100% free!

Gah. A strange week has passed, with no real resolutions, only oddness and more fighting.

in brief:

We found four MORE paysites - what a horrible virus it is. Over at the Phorum, we've aded Simphany, Independent, Simgrrl, and Nuggo.Let the pillaging commence.

Speaking of paysites, TSR has added four new Select Artists - two from the ranks - greeksim and http://www.thesimsresource.com/artists/K@/ two from other paysites -  Helga86 and Elize@37sims. Gee, Thomas must think I don't sense a trend here...expect Helga and Elize to go FA witthin the months. Sorry, hard-working, faithful TSR creators...unless you have a well-known paysite, you will be lucky to get your promotion.

Neptune Suzy dove into the paysite debate over at S2C...Nouk in particular is holding sway with her debating skills. And of course, the issue will not be resolved...yet again. Wonder where EA is on the whole thing? The only really good thing about this particular debate is that it is happening at S2C, and it's not just random trolls - 'heavy hitters' are involved. 

Over at my site, I've gotten my first copy of a letter to a paysite and its response. I'd say it's funny....except it's sad, the lengths paysite owners will go to deflecting the truth. Maybe they learned from the Bush administration? (

And at MATY, everyone's fighting. I know Pescado's delighting in the madness...I think it's silly, and I helped spam one particularly insidious thread wtih kitties. Who doesn't love a good cat macro? Well...apparently the originators don't, because they kept going...a bit too seriously, methinks. Time to pull out the big guns...if only I knew what they were....

Gah.

Well, as I say, when all else fails, post a cat macro:

I wish I were suprised by today's news that Bush has commuted Scotter Libby's sentence.



I wish I were surprised that accountability means nothing to these guys. The same guys who insisted Paris Hilton serve her sentence are the same ones celebrating today because their buddy Scooter isn't going to jail.

I wish the Dems had enough backbone to impeach the sons of bitches.

Read more here.

_________

By the way, the Sims2 community is scarily quiet.....I expect drama to ensue any second now!

NOTE: This homily was originally delivered on Sunday, July 1, 2007, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Saratoga Springs, NY.

Freedom train. Freedom fries. Operation Enduring Freedom. Freedom is coming. The land of the free and the home of the brave. Freedom isn’t free. Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. 

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. 

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. 

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. 

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world. 

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. 

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. 

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society. 

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. 

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

Oh, and acrimonious alliteration.


Teutonic Twats: The last of the German paysite owners has become a Featured Artist at The Sims Resource - Marilu, I know you had to wait, but I bet you're happy now. 

It's sad - these women - Birgit, Sasilla, Steffor, and Marilu - have been bitches and bullies all over the German sites as well as the English ones. They call themselves Greedy Bitches, which is pretty accurate. Two of the four still have individual paysites as well as pay items at TSR; one closed her site; the fourth makes me the saddest.

Steffor had always been free...she and Piggi seemed to be the two rational ones of this otherwise irrational group. But no...Steffor went too....and with it, our high opinion of her. 

We of course implore Piggi to stay free, to stay away from TSR, and to show the Teutonic Twats that staying wtihin the license agreement pays off...maybe not in euros, but in respect and approval of the community at large.

_____________________

We have not only a constitutional crisis, but a president and vice president who have broken the law. I can't do the story justice...but it starts in a hospital room, where the US Attorney General lies in intensive care following a gall bladder operation....it's a scene out of a Tom Clancy novel...read more at Randi Rhode's site.

It will make your skin crawl.

______________________

Some doctors should not practice medicine. Oh, maybe they know their craft, but they can't talk to patients. Kenneth Shapiro, at Sunnyview in Schenectady, NY, is such a doctor. He has the bedside manner of the Marquis de Sade, and I am considering an official complaint to whowever you complain to.

What happened?

The short version: I have a twisted sacrum, pelvis and spine, likely caused by complications from a very large ovarian cyst which was removed in March of this year. I didn't discover the true nature of the problem until I saw a physical therapist. After months of seeing various doctors - and them only looking at the lumbar region - I finally got to Shapiro, who told me (a) the pain is mostly in my head, (b) I wouldn't have this problem if I wasn't overweight and (c) physical therapy wouldnt work but what the hell. He made his 'head' decision AFTER seeing I am under the care of a psychiatrist and am on an antidepressant.

It took the PHYSICAL THERAPIST one session to find the pelvic/sacral shift. She's been working on that, and along with my chiropractor, we've been making limited progress.

Wednesday, I had a follow-up with Shapiro, required to keep the PT going.

Now he was TOLD about the actual problem, that it wans't the lumbar but the sacrum/pelvis, that there WAS something wrong with the alignment causing extreme pain in my hip/down my leg.

But what did he tell me yesterday?

You gotta get your head on straight. 

yeah. Oh, he went on and on about how I did this to myself, how I had in my head what the pain was, how he couldn't do anything, how the weight was an excuse, etc. 

I asked him about the REAL twists in my pelvis/sacrum. He would NOT even look at my back. He went back to "Only you can control your pain - you gotta get your head on straight."

He said, "See me in three months, don't see me, I don't care. You still have your PT, all the good that's gonna do you."

I am furious.

Now I'm not saying I SHOULDN"T lose some weight...I am not happy where I am, but I suspect he wants me to become a stick, and I am most comfortable - and incredibly fit - at a 'rubenesque' size. I am also not saying there isn't some pyschological element to this - there always is some of that when it comes to pain.

But it's all in my head?

FUCK that.

He's a demon. He has no clue how to talk to a patient.

And how a man like that has made it this far baffles me.

Every so often, I peruse my massive Favorites folder, looking for things to discard ...and I find myself spending time looking at sites I saved for one particular reason: they make me laugh.

And if they make me laugh, they'll probably  make you at least go "hmm, that was mildly amusing." Some you've likely seen before...but what the heck. Today, some of my  Favorite Web Amusements (in no particular order):

1. James Lileks. A columnist in Minneapolis/St. Paul, he's got an incredible manner reminiscent of (but less annoying than) Dave Barry...and an affection for 20th century American ephemera. His "Bleat"s are hysterical, he has podcasts and many other writings, and his finds at the Flotsam Project  - like the matchbook collection and the motel postcards - are both charming and funny. His best work - and for me, the most amusing, is at the Institute of Official Cheer. There's a ton of great stuff in there, but one of the Institute's 'departments' is absolutely my favorite display of all time and gets it's own entry....

2.....here. The Grooviest Hotel in Wisconsin. I have probably looked at this exhibit fifty times and still get the choking, stomach-in-pain, eyes-watering, can't-breathe, giggling-all-day laugh-out-loud fits that I did the first time. It's not just an homage to a long-lost hotel, it's a tribute to the wonder that was 1960s/1970s kitsche. Go. Laugh. Share. (And be sure to read EVERYTHING, including the page titles at the top of your browser. This is Lileks at his comedic best.)

3. Moving on to You Tube: For all you music lovers out there, please enjoy the Pachelbel Rant. It's a fantastic piece by comedian Rob Paravonian. And when you're done with that one, check out his other bits. And then his website. Rob should be a star!

4. Something Awful is just one of those sites that you have to spend time with..it's got great links, bad links, offensive links, and utterly insane links. But it's great fun. Not much more to say..it's...just...something awful.

5. An oldie but a goodie: The Flame Warriors. Ah..so many archetypes, so little internet. No wait....well, you know what I mean. And yes, there's a type for just about everyone. And yeah, we all know Innocence Abused...and The Deacon...and Jeckyl and Hyde....and the Grammarian...and Godzilla. Too bad, too, 'cause I wanna smack 'em. Who am I? Not tellin'...figure it out for yourself! 

6. Holy, Holy, Holy, Atariology is the answer! Yes, it's Atariology, the best new fake religion out there. And there have been events...talk about too much time your hands! Enjoy...and worship. Do it! WORSHIP, dammit!

7. Ze Frank is not so much funny as he is creative and brilliant. (Okay, so he's funny too...see his Communication Course and Impress Your Date videos.) He's created amazing games, tools, images. I could spend hours there - and have.

8. Albino Blacksheep's another great site with tons of funny/disturbing stuff. I first discovered this because of a short little music video called Wheeee! that got my laughing so hard I shot diet coke out my nose. And it's quoteable...which makes it even more fun! It led me to waste a day or two watching other things there...something for all ages (or maybe not....hell, if you have kids, maybe watch the stuff first?)

9. From the comic strip world comes my favorite artist, Hilary Price, whose Rhymes With Orange never ceases to amuse me. I first encountered her in the Raleigh, NC, News and Observer, and have been an avid fan since. 

Enjoy!

And share your favorite amusements with me!

Sims today:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for Sims players to dissolve the financial bands which have connected them with paysites, and to assume among the powers of the 'net, the free and equal station to which the laws of intellectual property and of copyright laws entitle them, a decent respect to the license of EA requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: All Sims Content belongs to EA.

Okay, enough of that.

But seriously...EA is being clearer and clearer about their stance against paysites (although being a coporation, things will take longer than we'd like)....more and more free site owners are taking a stand...and we are seeing the pressure manifest in ip attacks, account banning, and any number of posts, messages, and harrassment.

So...not one to run from a fight, I initiated my site, called Money Better Spent.

It's borne of my years as an activist with various groups...plus my personal belief that justice should be served publicly, and that money is a social justice issue.

So...my next step is to send a link to the site to all of the paysite owners...to let them know it's not just a raucous few in their little forums...we are serious people, seriously offended that gamers are taken advantage of by greedy people who can't read a simple license agreeement.

I expect hate mail soon.

Hee hee!

I have begun reading this critically-acclaimed tome, by Harvard pschologist Daniel Gilbert, and after an introduction and three chapters, I can say READ THIS BOOK! 

What's this book about? Hard to say exactly...here's the 'official' blurb (from the Random House site for the book):

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had presumed. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward.

Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks, and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was.

Smart, witty, accessible, and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human endeavor to envision the future, and how likely we are to enjoy it when we get there.

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had presumed. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward.

Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks, and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was.

Smart, witty, accessible, and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human endeavor to envision the future, and how likely we are to enjoy it when we get there.

And more, from Publisher's Weekly:

Not offering a self-help book, but instead mounting a scientific explanation of the limitations of the human imagination and how it steers us wrong in our search for happiness, Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, draws on psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy and behavioral economics to argue that, just as we err in remembering the past, so we err in imagining the future. "Our desire to control is so powerful, and the feeling of being in control so rewarding, that people often act as though they can control the uncontrollable," Gilbert writes, as he reveals how ill-equipped we are to properly preview the future, let alone control it. Unfortunately, he claims, neither personal experience nor cultural wisdom compensates for imagination's shortcomings. In concluding chapters, he discusses the transmission of inaccurate beliefs from one person's mind to another, providing salient examples of universal assumptions about human happiness such as the joys of money and of having children. He concludes with the provocative recommendation that, rather than imagination, we should rely on others as surrogates for our future experience. Gilbert's playful tone and use of commonplace examples render a potentially academic topic accessible and educational, even if his approach is at times overly prescriptive.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 

It's brilliant. It's already making me think about the assumptions I make in my memories, emotions, reactions. And OH, this guy can make you laugh. Someone described him as a cross between Steven Pinker and David Sedaris, and I'd have to agree...he presents sometimes extremely dense material in a way that has made me literally laugh out loud. A favorite passage, about 'nexting' - the idea that our brains aren't necessarily 'predicting' the next word/idea/event, but rather expecting patterns to continue until they don't:

At this moment, you may be consciously thinking about the sentence you just read, or about the key ring in your pocket that is jammed against your thigh, or whether the War of 1812 really deserves its own overture.

And so it goes. Into the brain, into memories and expectations and instincts, into the subjective and the objective. With a wink and a nod and a belly full of laughs.

Is this a paid advertisement for the book? I wish! No...I'm totally fascinated by how the mind/brain/consciousness works, and this is simply the one I'm reading right now.

If you like brain studies...if you like psychology...if you like to laugh and learn a little something...pick up this book.

Will write more about it if the remaining chapters hold up!

I just love when issues from one place are dealt with on another site.

As I've said before, I play The Sims 2, a remarkable simulation game with an active fan community. The community has enjoyed the game's ability to accept custom content, and probably a few hundred thousand items have been created for this game alone.

The End User License Agreement (EULA) allows for FREE exchange of the custom content; Electronic Arts' EULA explicitly PROHIBITS the selling of content.

And herein lies the problem.

At last count, there are 93 sites offering some form of content for free, from the site offering one set of about 10 items, to The Sims Resource, who currently has over 70,000 pay items.  Fortunately, there are probably over 200 free sites, so a player can get plenty of content for free. But a player could also spend hundreds of dollars obtaining pay content. 

The game and all its expansion packs costs about $225 at Amazon before shipping. The content from one site alone could cost up to $400.

And it's a violation of a legal agreement.

Yes, EA is on the case.

But now to our little German rant: the author is a paysite owner. I am an infamous pirate at the site that must not be named, whose mission is to (a) destroy paysites (or at least convince owners to go free) and (b) to provide the illegal pay content to as many players as possible for free, which is something the EULA explicitly allows.

Come to think of it, I'm not so much a pirate as a privateer.

Anyway: our little German paysite owner created a set that used the Subway logo all over the place:



Now we all know that international companies especially are pretty picky about who uses their logos, no less sells them. A member of the site that must not be named pointed this out, contacted Subway, and we sat back and watched as our little German paysite owner quickly changed the logo to the nonsensical "Foodway".



In a thread discussing this event, I called her an idiot. I suggested that she needed a clue, since not only have other paysites had to take down copyrighted material but that The Sims Resource - an illegal paysite - wouldn't even accept it because of the violations.

And so, Marilu, our little German paysite owner, wrote the comment tied to my previous entry (loosely translated by my friend Gwendolyne):

You can have this translated by one of the bitches in mustnotbenamed forum. There are enough spies over there that speak German. Only for you I do not translate this in English. About my set- yes, as you have noticed I changed the texture. And before you call me idiot, hmm. Eigene Nase fassen (That is a phrase like "Look what you are doing wrong yourself before pointing on someone else" ) You want to blacken me at subway because of the copyright and do copyrightinfingement on grand scale. Thousands of clothes you spread through the booty list violate copyrights and you incur to penalty by this publishing. So think first before you bitch around.
I write this way as you ("all") are so cowardly to barricade/hide, otherwise I could register, but you prefer to bitch behind others backs. 

So I went to her site and called her Teutonic twat. (I'd share the full text, but not surprisingly, she deleted it from her guestbook.)

Petty? Maybe. But talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

She and her friends - other paysite owners - believe their content is of superior quality and worth every penny PLUS. One of them (Sasilla) told me that she spent 14 hours a day meshing and texturing. And if that were true, the quality would be better. Sasilla's and Marilu's stuff has crashed my game, so I no longer have their content. The third, Birgit, does better work, but it is nothing special....very similar sets can be found elsewhere for free.

And so...I expect the battle to continue. 

But legality will win the day.

Count on it.

.... Bimbos like Paris Hilton would not be celebrities because of their money.

.... We'd be talking to Mexico and helping them figure out why all their citizens cross into the US.

.... There would be penalties for people who squeeze through loopholes; in other words, the spirit of the law should count too.

.... Health care would be free and accessible to all.

.... The drug wars would focus on the drugs that REALLY kill, not the ones that just make us really fanscinated wtih our hands and the crunch of tostitos.

.... Jokes about people's weight would be considered as offensive as those about race and disability.

... I would personally decide which television commercials can get on television (oh my god the latest starburst commerical HAS to go).

... Bill O'Reilly would be out of work.

... The arts would be more vaulable than sports.

.... We would be in Darfur, not Iraq.

.... Paysites for user-created gaming content would all be closed, and the profits turned over to free content suppliers to subsidize bandwidth costs.

... I'd be rich. (Okay, so that's not entirely necessary, if all the others happened!)


Yeah...those are the things that are pissing me off today. Dammit.

This was the winter of my discontent...and discomfort.

Low back pain exascerbated....an ovarian cyst the size of a grapefruit...a bunch of messed up muscles causing my sacrum to twist oddly and keep me from sitting or standing.

NOT a fun way to spend the start of the year.

On top of that...a week before the cyst was removed, I developed a severe case of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. It's an odd condition, one that could be caused by any number of things, from ear infections to head injuries to simply weakness in the ear. But it seems the only real treatment is a form of physical therapy, best administered by a professional vestibular therapist.

I saw my very own vestibular therapist yesterday...she watched me as I got dizzy and spinny and otherwise off balance, and then began treatment, which involved moving the head and body in order to move the crystals that are messing me up, and getting them to a place where they can be reabsorbed by my system.  After the first treatment is a 48-hour restriction - I can shake my head 'no' gently, but I can't nod 'yes'. I have to sit at a 45-degree angle, and even sleep this way.

Which of course is murder on my back, for while I'm getting better, I still need a prone position for much of the time to relieve the stress on my lumbar/sacrum while it heals. 

So I'm a wreck.

I COULD whine more, but instead I'll move on.

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Imagine my surprise yesterday when I turned on The Lionel Show on Air America Radio and heard him ranting against obese people. His words absolutely turned my stomach. Now I am a take-no-prisoners kind of person; I'll participate in any manner of un-pc humor. However, when it comes to situations requiring propriety and common courtesy, I will of course cease and decist. It's only right...especially when you don't know who's listening or watching....to keep discrimanatory thoughts in check. So why did this guy, supposedly a beacon of what is GOOD in the progressive moment, bitch and moan about fat people on airplanes? Why talk about the fat 'oozing into his personal space'? What ever made him think that was okay?

Is it Imus's fault?

Opie and Anthony?

Has he watched too much MadTV?

And if he made similar comments about blacks, women, gays, or some other group, he'd have a suspension, controversy, and possibly be fired. WHY is it still acceptable to discriminate based on weight?

That makes me crazy.