I have Ramses filling in, but it's just not the same. 🙁

Apparently I've been getting spam from FreeCreditReport.com every six minutes or so -- and it's still coming; I've gotten messages at 9:14, 9:20, and 9:26 since taking this screencap -- since yesterday. Bloody hell.

You know something is wrong when a message about how to grow and thicken one's penis seems like a refreshing change of pace.

So, most of you know that I work -- ha, ha, ha... work -- as a freelance editor. I'm not going to talk about it at length here; I just mention it because it's part of the setup for what I do want to post! See, given that much of my work -- ha, ha, ha... work -- is done through a third-party service, I'm required to give brief critiques explaining my changes to the customer.

And I bloody hate writing these things, because they effectively consist of me saying, "I MADE YOUR WRITING BETTER," in various different ways, for an entire page or more. Yes, I make specific changes -- lots of them -- but aside from grammatical fixes there's not a lot of explanation I can supply. "I adjusted the order of your paragraphs in the interest of improving the structure of your document." I MADE YOUR WRITING BETTER. "I rearranged this sentence and removed this unnecessary clause in order to render the statement less awkward." I MADE YOUR WRITING BETTER. Sometimes my changes have to do with stuff like readability and flow -- which really have no concrete or measurable basis** -- and meter, which I think should be somewhat observed in prose even though it's really more important for poetry. I MADE YOUR WRITING BETTER. (more...)

This one's just bloody fantastico. (Have I mentioned my newfound love of that word?! Thanks for sparking that, Lady Gaga.)

Mrs. Gloria Young Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Reply-To: [email protected]
Subject: Beware Of Internet Fraud........ My Experience

Wait, stop right there. This e-mail is telling us to beware of Internet fraud! Clearly it is on the level -- I mean, why would fraudsters tell us to be wary of them? That clearly would not be conducive to their success! (more...)

So I survived my dental appointment! I'm a tiny bit disappointed about that -- I was very much looking forward to haunting all of you out there! -- but I'm glad that the appointment went rather well. Amazingly, I had no cavities, and apparently my gums are healthy as well! w00t!

I also saw a new dentist this time around (apparently the last time I saw a dentist was in August 2006). I didn't much like the last guy -- among other things, he was an unctuous sort who kept going on about my "pretty teeth" as if he wanted to fuck my mouth -- but I think I'll go to this new one again (assuming I'm still in the area whenever I decide I need another teeth cleaning). One thing I liked about her was that she didn't mention any unnecessary work. See, I have an open bite -- in front, my teeth don't meet -- so usually dentists will at least suggest fixing it, even though it's fine in a medical sense and would require them to fucking cut the part with my bottom teeth off of my jaw, suspend it, and let the bone grow back together. My teeth also aren't the whitest, so dentists will usually mention their whitening services or something. This dentist didn't say anything. (more...)