#This infernal fucking downloadable content...

[blackwaxidol]

I have such an okay evening and then I remember I still have to finish that DLC.

[donnerpartyofone]

About 5 years ago, I bought my first laptop in many years, because I got sick of relying on my work computer, which was provided by a job that I was dying to quit anyway. I wanted to move away from Apple for various reasons, I liked the increased customization I heard PCs have, and really, all I needed was a glorified typewriter that I could also use to check email and look at stupid Tumblr. No gaming, no photo editing, no storing or streaming music or videos; I just needed a text application and an internet browser. At the megacorp where I worked, all the high powered tech douches had Lenovos, so I went out and bought the cheapest Lenovo I could find, a Yoga 2, the type of thing I imagined stingy parents sending their kids to college with. This thing has been the actual bane of my existence from the moment it entered my home. For a little while I actually lost it in my tiny apartment because I had learned to give it a wide berth, the way you instinctively avoid people who constantly whine and pick fights just for the stimulation. My entire experience with it is:

- The fan has never worked, ever. It has never made one single sound. For a few years if I so much as tried to preview a jpeg, the laptop would overheat so dangerously that I couldn’t touch it. Then one day this just stopped. The fan still doesn’t work, but it doesn’t burn so infernally anymore. I don’t know why.

- Every time I use the laptop, several times a session, the mouse just disappears. Sometimes clicking still works (if my invisible mouse is on something), sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it comes back, sometimes I have to restart the machine using the touch screen functionality.

- Often, the computer does not wake back up, even if it’s only been sleeping for a few minutes. The power button is lit up, but the screen remains black. Usually I have to force shutdown and restart it if I really need it for something. One time when I did this, I suddenly got an empty red screen with the word LOCKED in the middle of it, and nothing else.

- Any time I edit a text document, even when I save it and shut down appropriately, the next time I try to open it, I’m told that the file is “locked” and I have to do this clunky back end thing to access it.

- Sometimes when I am using any program or combination of programs, the computer suddenly starts acting like I have some other mystery thing open and active on top of all of them--everything is grayed out and I can’t access anything that I can see, that I was just using. Trying to force quit everything I might have open does not resolve the issue.

- The file manager is to be avoided entirely. Just now I downloaded a PDF whose filename started with the world “Filipino”, and it took my computer at least four minutes to see if I had anything remotely like that on my entire hard drive, with this stagnating load bar and everything; at some point I tuned out and found something else to do. Now I see that it couldn’t find it. I have about 4 text documents and 10-15 jpegs on this machine, just sitting on the desktop, and that’s the entirety of the content I have created or downloaded, ever.

- Basic things like Chrome, which I would think of as at least PC-friendly, have problems that I have never experienced before on any type of device. Sometimes I’m putting together a Tumblr post like this one, and when I click “Post”, the button is active, but nothing happens. However, if I click “Cancel” or try to close the tab, it warns me that I am going to lose my work. Often when I switch between tabs, the older tabs are either completely blank and need to be manually reloaded, or will not reload at all and just have to be closed, and then I have to go search for whatever I was just looking at in a fresh tab. Sometimes I’ll go to an old tab and find that it looks like it has loaded normally, but if I use the address bar to Google something, it just cycles forever, and usually causes the whole browser to freeze.

- The actual process of starting up the computer is like a Terrence Malick movie. At first it’s hypnotic and suspenseful, then it goes on so long without change that I have to find some other way to occupy my mind while I’m waiting for it to finish whatever it’s doing. Once the desktop finally shows up, I immediately get a spinning wheel if I try to click on anything, or just move the mouse around. This goes on for such a long time that I usually get up and do the dishes or make some food or read a book or just start fucking around on my phone, so that eventually I don’t remember what I was trying to do with the computer in the first place. When I remember later, if it was really important, I just use my husband’s computer because I don’t want to start this waiting process over again by waking up mine. In this way, the computer trained me subconsciously to just leave it alone, avoid it, and try to forget it’s there, like a watched pot that literally never boils. This is how I managed to waste the entire period during which I could have tried to get it repaired under warranty, or just get my money back.

- ...and finally, I once had to contact Lenovo’s customer service because my computer was stuck on the start menu, and there was nothing I could do to access my desktop, files, or applications. After more than an hour of conversation, I finally gave up when it became unambiguously clear to me that the agent did not know what a desktop was. We even initiated screen sharing, and they still didn’t know what the problem was from looking directly at it and clicking around. When I found myself describing what a desktop was in baby talk, the way you might try to explain it to a space alien or cave person, I just ended the conversation. Eventually the problem resolved itself, somehow, for some reason. 

So anyway, I gotta get a new laptop. I’d still like to stay away from Apple, although maybe it’s not as important as I thought it was before I had all these problems. I have a little more money than I used to, but I still don’t have any reason to splash out on something really serious--I still have the same very basic needs. Anybody got a line on anything that isn’t hilariously shitty?

[the-everlasting-dream]

What a year its been...

This is my one and only chance to say it but 2nd Feb marks the day I decided to fully join the Choices fandom on tumblr. My little blog is one year old! Brace yourself, this is the story of how I came to be... like an X-Men origin story but weirder, not as cool, way more tacky and severely lacking Hugh Jackman

I actually downloaded the app in January and started by playing HSS, unknowingly buying diamonds with the few that PB gives us to start with. When I quickly realised I had to BUY diamonds to keep playing I was like HELL NAH! At this point I’d never spent any real money on an app before and I wasn’t about to start now. 

That is until I started playing TRR.... 

I started playing what would become by favourite book just as a way to get diamonds for HSS because I was determined to finish that one to the end. I stuck to my guns, tapping half heartedly through the chapters, not really reading the dialogue until we got to the scene in the Beaumont mansion where we had the option to follow Drake to see what the Beaumonts were up to and I was like huh there’s more to this plot than meets the eye. So much more shit that went down behind the scenes and immediately resolved to pay closer attention to the book. 

Still wasn’t buying diamonds though. I thought Max was a hoot, Hana was a delicate flower, and Liam was sweet - the tag line for book 1 was something like ‘Will you win the prince’s hand or will you fall for another?’ and I was like Of course imma snag that prince coz he’s MUTHAEFFING THE PRINCE WEREN”T YOU PAYING ATTENTION!’ 

Still not keen on Drake though. And I was missing so much of the main storyline (and his) by not paying I was like OK FINE I’LL BUY INTO IT JUST THIS ONCE

Still living on that poor uni student life so I only bought the scenes I REALLY REALLY thought were worth it. And that was not many. It didn’t take me until the scene at the Lythikos when I realised hmm it weird we didn’t get to kiss that Drake guy, I’ve kissed Liam but not him like???? 

Anyways the Liam playthrough was getting kinda boring like mm kay you’re never around but for some reason you’re obsessed with MC (and I didn’t know it was called MC, I just called her Althea which was Liz’s OG name which never really suited her IMO) so I tried to focus more on the other parts of the story  was kinda non-plussed, like well that was fun i guess...? LIke he’s cute but he doesn’t really set me on fire.. Mkay lets try this Drake dude and see whats up with him. 

K cool so I wzs playing the game (or rather the game was playing me) focusing more on Drakey boi THEN IT HIT ME I was like damn wow theres a lot to this dude I don’t notice right away when mindlessly tapping through, like his sarcastic humour and guarded nature - I’ve always loved characters like that (I’d just finished my obsession with Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices series and he reminded me of Will for some odd reason) then we got to the Beaumont scene AGAIN and I was like GODDAMN THE ANGST IS GOOD HERE (didn’t buy the study scene so my dumbass missed out on kissing DW... AGAIN) 

I made it all the way to the finale with out that scene and when I realised I hadn’t had that first kiss, I was mad and restarted the book (we’re on restart 2 btw) and obsessively bought all the Drake diamond scenes. My fam was out of the country so I binged the whole thing in like a day or two after which I was overwhelmed with a lot of feelings and emotions that I didn’t know what to do with and I just sat there trying to process them and failing like 

THEN I WENT ON TO TUMBLR...

And I binged all of @mrswalkerwrites and @angstymarshmallow‘s drake fics but I just couldn’t take it. I STILL HAD THE FEELS AND IF I DIDN”T DO SOMETHING SOON I WAS GONNA SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST

Then I came across a theory by @chantelle-x0x who wondered like what IF Drake secretly knew how to waltz but didn’t wanna teach MC coz he was in love with her and THAT DID IT

IT WAS LIKE I WAS POSSESSED I COULD SEE THE WHOLE SCENE PLAYING OUT IN MY HEAD PERFECTLY AND I NEEDED NEEDED TO GET THIS ONTO PAPER. It was a blur writing that first piece and a race against time before the insporation ran out, I hadn’t had a strike of creativity like this since my Hobbit fanfic days and I was determined to see this through. 

After I was done, it was 2am and I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing so I unknowingly posted it up on tumblr under the name Waltz Time and peaced tf out and passed tf out only to wake up to almost a hundred notes overnight like 

People actually LIKE my ramblings..? They are saying nice things about my brain fart.. what..? I don’t know how to process these emotions and now I have MORE emotions???? 

Then I reblogged a couple of things, made a playlist that I’m sure nobody cared about, started a mini series that I didn’t intend to get so long. But the more content I saw the more I needed, it was like a new drug, a new obsession like no other and when I saw people like @choicessa and @boneandfur writing such amazing fics I was just like WOW I wanna try to do that too

And on 2nd Feb, I posted No Turning Back and finally converted this to a choices blog and the rest is history. 

Along the way I’ve made so many wonderful friends including @chantelle-x0x who reached out to me first and was my first offical internet friend, @meeraaverywalker @walkerismychoice @tmarie82 @boneandfur @littleblossom-18 @srawesleyghuewrites @heartoffire-ice @simplyaiden-blog @likethetailofacomet @sleepwalkingelite @bobasheebaby @topsyturvy-dream (whom I got to meet in person this year!) @abbiebishops @mfackenthal @debramcg1106 @theroyalweisme @writtenbycandy @blackcatkita @angstymarshmallow @enmchoices @client-327 @lizeboredom @trr-fangirl @callmetippytumbles @speedyoperarascalparty @zaffrenotes and I’m sure I’m missing so many of you. 

I was humbled and stoked to learn that I had a fangirl when @quartzandarrow sent me a message about my The Revelation Series (which I still intend to finish... eventually) and that I had a mysterious stalker in @ooo-barff-ooo who had been silently following me since the early days when Waltz Time was all that was on my masterlist and TRUly knows my blog better than I do. 

Especially my Team Thirsty gals @quartzandarrow @drakewalkerwhipped @choicessa whom I consider internet sisters and talk to every day - I don’t know what I’d do without them. 

I’ve learned so much and grown so much as a writer and I just want to thank you all for supporting me and being my friend despite how inconsistent I am. I’ve got lots of things planned for the next year so hopefully you’ll consider checking them out ahah

If you’ve made it to the end,  I’ve wasted enough time but just

THANK YOU

love elle x

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: August 2018

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of August 2018 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Apparently not learning from their “wrong type of Jews” debacle back in April, The Times, the BBC’s Newsnight programme, the Evening Standard, several on the Labour right (most notably Louise Ellman, and I’ll get to her in a minute) and various hacks with an axe to grind such as Hadley Freeman and Marcus Dysch all decided to push their “Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic” agenda by trying to claim that Hajo Meyer, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, was anti semitic for comparing Israeli treatment of Palestinians to Nazi treatment of jews during the Holocaust at a talk in 2010 - somehow all failing to understand that, when you start smearing a Holocaust survivor (who died in 2014) for having an opinion that doesn’t kowtow the official Israeli line, it makes you look remarkably antisemitic

Special mention, though, has to go to  Louise Ellman for appearing on Newsnight and claiming claiming to be shocked and appalled to learn about Meyer’s talk (while neglecting to mention that Meyer was Jewish at any point) - only for it to rapidly come to light that she was at the talk

Forgetting he’s supposed to be some sort of lovable oaf who occasionally says some not-so-lovable things, Boris Johnson not only bypassed lovable and went for downright ignorant with his comments about Muslim women in burqas in a Telegraph column, meaning he couldn’t even explain away how he both dehumanised and criminalised them with the comparisons to letterboxes and bank robbers, but he refused to apologise for his comments and, besides, he can't be disciplined as Parliament is on recess and he’s gone on holiday so ner ner ner-ner - which of course has nothing to do with him being one of the Tories who have met with Steve Bannon to discuss how being a racist imbecile can boost their careers

The response to Johnson’s comments has also seen a whole spread of dickheadishness: bonehead messiah Tommy Robinson was quick to jump on “letterbox” as his new favourite racial slur; the coverage the BBC’s Newsnight gave the story focused solely on the letterbox comment and acted as if the one comparison them to bank robbers hadn’t been made; within the Tory party we saw Jacob Rees-Mogg come up with some absurd suggestion that Johnson was only being criticised by some within his own party because he’s a threat to Theresa May’s leadership and, besides, focusing on this story something something Labour are responsible for the Holocaust; writing for The Spectator we had Rod Liddle actually make the argument that there isn’t enough Islamophobia within the Tory party; while Rowan Atkinson defended the joke at a time when reports were saying people were trying to shove envelopes into the front of a burka while a woman was wearing it as that too is apparently oh-so funny.

Of course, trust the Daily Mail to come roaring to Johnson’s defence with a story about how Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath at a cemetery in Tunis where the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre were said to be buried - a story that even Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to jump on.  There’s just one tiny problem with that assertion: not a single one of the eight Black September members responsible are buried at that cemetary, which ever so slightly makes the Mail and Netanyahu look either misinformed or like they’re content to misinform the public - and since gullible idiot (and sometimes Transport Secretary) Chris Grayling later repeated the same mistake-laden falsehood, it’s clear which version is the most likely one.

Not to be outdone, Margaret Hodge decided to show that Labour MPs could also use this story to make the stupidest fucking comments when she stated there is “a fine line between being pro-Palestinian, and being anti-Semitic” while also claiming her being investigated for ranting like a swivel-eyed loon was akin to how the Nazis treated Jews - in doing so trivilising the Holocaust, blatantly using anti-Semitism as a rock to throw at people, lending some heavily Islamophobic undertones to her comments, while also shining light on the standard that Hajo Meyer can be smeared as antisemitic for his aforementioned comments, yet when Hodge makes an offensively trite comparison a week later there wasn’t a peep from any of the antisemitic witch hunters in the press who were baying for Corbyn’s blood 

A gang of Make Britain Great Again thugs (a gang which included UKIP members Elizabeth Jones, Luke Nash-Jones and Martin Costello) thought the best way to get their message across was to storm the Bookmarks bookshop in Bloomsbury and smash up the shop, threatening the staff and being oh-so-clever they filmed themselves doing it, because if you’re going to commit wanton acts of vandalism while threatening people and shouting Islamophobic abuse, the best thing you can do is make sure the public can see your faces

In the wake of the Morandi Bridge collapse, Italian Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Northern League Matteo Salvini initially said that the collapse was the fault of the EU for cutting funding to road and bridge maintenance before he spiralled off into some fuckwittery about immigrants.  And like clockwork it soon emerged that not only had the EU increased road and bridge maintenance funding, but the Five Star coalition which Salvini is part of had publicly rubbished a report by the Società Autostrade warning that the bridge had at best thirty years before it collapsed as a “fairy tale” - and they promptly thought deleting that quote from their website would make it go away, obviously forgetting that internet archives exist.

In a blatant example of punching down, Sky News hack Lewis Goodall not only attended a Jeremy Corbyn rally in Stoke to hurl barbed questions at his supporters, but when one of these supporters flubbed what they were saying he seized upon that and put it front and centre of his hit piece - even though the person in question had, after realising her flub and correcting it, requested it not be shown, and it took calls to both Sky News and Ofcom to have it removed, but by that time the damage was done and the clip was circulating the internet and she was receiving all manner of personal abuse online.  Yet it didn’t end there, as several days later The Last Leg repeated the clip in a similar sneering hit piece, and the process began all over again.

I’m sure that Yanny Bruere thought he was being very, very clever when he commissioned a blimp of Sadiq Khan to be flown over London, knowing full well that those loonie lefties would implode with indignation at the sight of it...only for Khan to approve the blimp while showing he has a sense of humour, while those on the right imploded in indignation that those on the left responded (contrary to what Paul Joseph Watson claimed) with either a shrug of the shoulders or derisive laughter that Bruere paid £60,000 while the Trump baby balloon cost a third of that, leaving those on the far right to implode with indignation to the point they were having to mock up Guardian headlines to pretend they weren't being laughed at

While there are people commending Omarosa Manigault Newman for recording White House Chief of Staff John F Kelly threatening her, let’s not forget that recording people without their knowledge or consent within the White House not only justifies her sacking as it;s against official protocol, but as a potential security issue it could land her in all manner of hot water

Having lost their title of The Antichrist of Gaming, Activision sunk a lot of thought in how they’d reclaim that infernal crown - and then it hit them, with physical copies of Spyro Reignited only containing the first Spyro game while the other two would have to be downloaded, and try and explain it away with some mealy-mouthed crap about games needing updates as if 2/3 of the games in the collection were mere updates

While their reputation as one of the good guys of the games industry means Bethesda usually get away with shitehousery, that was put to the test by the company siccing their legal firm Vorys onto somebody attempting to sell a copy of The Evil Within 2 on Amazon due to listing the copy as new due to their never having played it nor even removed it from its cellophane wrapper after purchasing it, not only blocking the listing but also threatening legal action

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, news of Alex Jones being booted from various social media platforms was met with the usual outpourings from the “REEEEEEEdom of Speech” mob who still can’t get it into their heads that, if someone violates the ToS of that social media platform, they are within their rights to terminate that account - although it does beg the question why his accounts were terminated now and not any other time he called Sandy Hook a hoax

Rather than take the time to play Dead Cells and compose his thoughts for an IGN review, instead Filip Miucin thought he could plagiarise a review by Youtube channel Boomstick Gaming word-for-word and get away with it...only for Boomstick Gaming to post a side-by-side comparison of their reviews to prove that Miucin was just regurgitating other channels’ reviews for a quick and easy buck which led to his prompt termination by IGN - yet rather than take the hint and skulk off under the nearest rock, Miucin posted the most pathetic excuse for an apology video (which he monetised...) since Logan Paul where he never once apologised to Boomstick Gaming, he did apologise to IGN for causing them problems with having to remove numerous videos, babbled some nonsensical conspiracy theory about Kotaku journalist Jason Schreier, and then challenged the internet to find any proof that he plagiarised anyone else’s work...which swiftly revealed several other examples of Miucin plagiarisng other people’s work, examples which wouldn’t have come to light if he kept his gob shut - and it was even pointed out his apology video was plagiarised from Quinton Reviews’ How to Make an Apology Video which was posted in February 2017

Having lost a vote of No Confidence, it was a matter of time before Frank Field was deselected - but he thought that nobody noticed and instead said something something anti-semitism was the reason he was leaving the Labour party, and nobody should mention the ten foot pole nudging him over a cliff which was repeatedly nudging him in the back in the general direction of the nearest cliff

You would think that even Fox News couldn't mess up a tribute to Aretha Franklin, but they managed to do just that by rushing the package to air so fast nobody bothered to check whether it featured images anyone other than Aretha Franklin - at least until it aired, when plenty of people noticed the image of Patti LaBelle which was prominently featured

Doing a fine job of undermining the tattered husk of the “REEEEEEEdom of Speech” argument, freedom of speech enthusiast MundaneMatt was exposed for abusing Youtube’s flag system so that any video that so much as mentioned him was purged from the service, going to the level of using an app to track down videos so he could flag them without even watching them - and he didn’t even have the sense to even attempt to cover his tracks, as he used his regular account to have the videos purged and left and easy to follow trail that killed his denials dead

Is anyone in the media actually capable of making a connection between Robert Chain sending death threats to the Boston Globe and some bloke currently sitting in the White House who keeps stating that the media is the enemy of the people?  Because it's not the first time something like this has happened in 2018, and the question is how many more times this will happen

According to Tory MP Simon Hart, because Maxine Peake has been critical of government spending cuts to the NHS it is “hypocritical” of her to lend her voice to an NHS recruitment advert, because of course criticising the government for underfunding the NHS is the exact same thing as lending her voice to a campaign looking to encourage people to work for the NHS...

Manly man at the height of his manliness Raymond Reinke took it upon himself to show a bison in Yellowstone who the dominant species was by squaring up to one as it was roaming past visitors - which wasn’t even the only example of him being a dickhead in a national park, as he’d also been arrested in  Grand Teton National Park a few days earlier due to being completely shitfaced at the end of July

Just when you thought the level of political debate couldn’t get any lower, along comes daft bint Kaya Jones whose entire output consists of her posting photos of her posing in a bikini while holding plastic drinking straws to “trigger” the “libs” - a message which doesn’t appear to be getting through, given the replies she receives all seem to be made by viagra sex pests 

Here’s a suggestion for Elon Musk: when the heat that came your way for calling somebody a “pedo guy” on Twitter dies down, you make sure it stays died down.  What you don’t do is come back a few weeks later and tweet how, as the person hasn’t unleashed the lawyers on you, that means your accusation is 100% accurate - not least because that’s the sort of behaviour the people trying to shove you out the door at Tesla will seize upon

In the middle of the biggest push of his career (even though it’s been dragging down the G1 Climax like a squadron of lead zeppelins) Tama Tonga took it upon himself to jump into the crowd and garb a random fan and put them in a chokehold...which promptly saw him publicly disciplined for such dunderheadedry and (presumably) saw his potential ceiling drastically lowered

And last but by no means least is Al Capone aficionado Donald Trump, who is was apparently so traumatised by the events he saw in a documentary called Star Wars that he is now diverting the US budget towards fighting this terrible and unjust war