Randomality & Ranting

It's cold. It's raining. I got nothing done yesterday after work. Itchy bumps continue to appear, and in places both inconsistent for poison ivy spread and inconceivable for PI contact. (The back of a knee??) I can't see the movie I wanted to see tonight. (Can't see it Sunday either, so I'd better be able to score a ticket on Saturday!)

Feh on life.

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink:
Yesterday, a wonderful person sent me a 5-page list of fanzines, giving me first crack at her collection before it goes on ebay. Five whole pages... and not a single zine on my "must buy" list.

This isn't going to stop me from buying a few, but I just had to spread the irony.

I just don't get it:
Originally in a comment made to hildy this morning, but bringing it here for wider discussion. The people who are upset about LJ's use of the terms "friend/friended by" and particularly the people who had a hissy about yesterday's April Fools "stalks/stalked by"? I have no sympathy. Absolutely none. I think it's a whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. People who get all "she unfriended me, that means she doesn't like me anymore" need therapy by the bucketful. LJ friend relates to actual buddy-buddy friend like campaign promises relate to reality -- it's been known to happen, but it's not a guarantee of anything. (A quick look at my friends list shows roughly 50% people I know and like, and 50% LJs and feeds that amuse me from total strangers.)

Yes, LJ would probably save a lot of angst in the long run if they used the only really accurate terminology: reads/read by. "Friend" (and "trust" and "stalk") has a pretty specific connotation, true, and the issue is made worse because neither connotation nor denotation match LJ's use of the term.

But still, I'm betting that many of the people who flame and scream and petition to have the terminology changed aren't that carefully specific in the rest of their writing. You don't get to get stuffy about English until you demonstrably know the language yourself. It's no good going on a rant about how you don't want people you don't know being your "friend" because they aren't really your friend and then turn around and malaprop, constantly misspell, butcher grammar, or worse, do all of the above in l33t.

One bright spot
New Joan of Arcadia tonight! And the usual TGIF, even if it's gonna be a Hellboy-less F.

Current Book: Naked Brunch

Unpaid endorsement

I needed bandaids quick when I was in NYC, and ended up buying the only box they had in the supermarket - some new version called Bandaid Advanced Healing.

They are just the coolest things!

They're a funny shape, almost like a parmecium without the phlanges - thick in the middle, and thin at both ends. (Okay, now I have a Monty Python routine running through my head. The bandaid which I have, which is owned by me...)

They're also some wierdass gel thing - the whole bandaid, not just the pad. But dang! They stick like nobody's business, and there's enough flexbility in the gel plastic so that they're pretty comfortable - and tenacious.

I had one across the top of my foot for over a week and it didn't pull, didn't peel, and didn't come off. I've had them around my fingers (they're the perfect shape for fingers.) I pretty much forgot about the one on my foot for a while, and when I did remember, it pulled right off without leaving sticky residue behind.

Even better, the skin underneath wasn't all white and wrinkled and waterlogged; there's obviously some gas permeability to the gel, but the blister beneath was clean and healing. There's enough of the sticky gel on both sides of the sterile pad to keep the pad sealed down - you don't get that thing where the part of the bandaid you most want to keep clean keeps getting wet or dirty because stuff can get under it.

And best yet, the gel is pretty transparent. These bandaids are less obvious than any others I've owned, including the clear ones, as well as being more comfortable & sticking better.

The box I have is aggressively bilingual; I have to see if they sell these things in DC or if this is something that wandered over the Canadian border. If the latter, I'm going to be bringing back several boxes of very odd souveniers when I come back from Stratford!