Stuff & Things

"It's working BETTER after it broke" sounds exactly like something one of Elmu's companies would say.

How fucking idiotic do you have to be to put anything that lunatic has anything to do with into your BRAIN? Anyone who uses this deserves what happens to them.

With absolutely all respect, Wil, as someone with chronic and disabling conditions, I get why a paraplegic with limited to no options would let himself be a guinea pig for something like this. I'm currently doing an experimental drug trial, so I get it. (I'd personally hesitate before taking a treatment from Elon, but I have the luxury to hesitate.)

That disabled person, he does not "deserve what happens to them". He deserves safe medical help, and Elon offering this up to a disabled man before it was ready is NOT safe medical help. There should be stronger laws in place to make sure this wasn't possible.

I get being angry at Elon. I really really do. But don't call a disabled man who is desperate to just surf the internet and entertain himself a lunatic. Boredom is painful and dehumanizing and that man deserves a better quality of life. Elon is taking advantage of him. Please redirect your ire at the man offering unproven medicate equipment before it's ready.

This is me, checking my privilege and withdrawing judgment.

I'm sorry I didn't even consider that I erased disabled people. I hope I didn't hurt anyone, and I sincerely apologize if I did.

Elon Musk can still get fucked, though.

you know what really gets my goat?

el chupacabra

I’m sorry!? What?!

Whoa, chupacabra’s a millennial?

“Blimey.”

hmmm why does my uterus hurt and why do i feel kinda off. weird. surely these are not the warning symptoms of a predictable biological process that occurs on a regular schedule. anyway. im going to wear white pants today.

do they expect me to stop him somehow?

the chaos. the cuteness.

Wake up, babe, new religion just dropped

like why are people on the internet so hateful you can download shit for free and there are boobs everywhere what’s your malfunction

official boob post

"Don't use Libby because it costs libraries too much, pirate instead" is such a weird, anti-patron, anti-author take that somehow manages to also be anti-library, in my professional librarian-ass opinion.

It's well documented that pirating books negatively affects authors directly* in a way that pirating movies or TV shows doesn't affect actors or writers, so I will likely always be anti-book piracy unless there's absolutely, positively no other option (i.e. the book simply doesn't exist outside of online archives at all, or in a particular language).

Also, yeah, Libby and Hoopla licenses are really expensive, but libraries buy them SO THAT PATRONS CAN USE THEM. If you're gonna be pissed at anybody about this shitty state of affairs, be pissed at publishing companies and continue to use Libby or Hoopla at your library so we can continue to justify having it to our funding bodies.

One of the best ways to support your library having services you like is to USE THOSE SERVICES. Yes, even if they are expensive.

*Yes, this is a blog post, but it's a blog post filled with links to news articles. If you can click one link, you can click another.

Please, PLEASE use Libby. OverDrive. Hoopla. CloudLibrary. Kanopy. Flipster. Freegal. Transparent Language. Mango. Jstor. Your library would not offer it if they could not afford it, and we afford things by reporting the number of people who use that service, so if you don't use the service we can't afford it. It's a cycle. Keep it going, keep using it, and we'll keep providing because we'll be able to justify the cost to the bean counters in government.

I would like to share a story about my dad and health insurance and how it was pre-Obamacare.

My dad has diabetes. He also owned his own business (a plumbing business, no, the humor is not lost on me), so he paid for his own health insurance. His premium was over $800 per month. This was… 2008ish? I was in my very early 20s.

He broke a toe and didn’t realize it until it got infected and went septic. He was hospitalized for over two months. He lost the toe. Because his $800/month insurance was garbage, and because he wasn’t working and making money, he also lost his insurance. My mom and I couldn’t keep up with everything, and somehow that payment slipped through the cracks. (By one week, and then it was gone.)

When we realized, we tried to get the health insurance back. They said because he had a pre-existing condition he would have to pay his premium like normal, but had to wait two years to receive any benefits.

Let me restate that.

We had to pay $800/month for NOTHING, for TWO YEARS, while also paying almost double for all of his medical needs.

My dad still couldn’t work, but still had hospital bills (that were now even more insane), insulin, medication, not to mention other normal bills, and business related bills.

I helped out where I could, but we were pretty much broke. I remember feeling guilty for buying fresh apple juice at the grocery store, instead of the frozen concentrate. It was my birthday and I was splurging.

I know the only thing that saved us was Obamacare.

Everyone likes to shit on it for not being good enough, or a whole slew of other reasons. But we somehow got my dad under the super early roll out.

His premium dropped to $130/month, and he received benefits IMMEDIATELY. His medication, even the insulin, was suddenly affordable.

I remember bawling my eyes out in the bathroom at work because I could suddenly afford to actually buy gas instead of putting it on my credit card.

I AM NOT PUTTING UP WITH THIS BULLSHIT ANYMORE, FOR US OR ANYONE ELSE. We are moving in the wrong goddamn direction.

Fuck Trump and the GOP and anyone who votes red. This has to end.