God, today sucked.

It was going to be so great, too. 98 degrees, sunny - does that shout beach to you? Because it sure did to me, especially after yesterday was torrential downpour.

Unfortunately, it also shouted "beach" to literally thousands of jellyfish. Swarming all over the beach, they were. That kind of takes the fun out of going in the water, unless for you the fun is the thrill of getting stung. And Xiggy didn't really understand why my "dig a big hole" concept brings me so much joy, so I didn't really get to do that. And I stubbed my toe on the boardwalk, and took off a huge bit of skin from the tip, and it really really hurt (but didn't bleed. We must be thankful for small miracles). And a lot of stuff with my mom I'm not getting into here.

Then we went to Jenn's. Ana was a doll, as usual. She thought she had the funniest plan ever, though. She shoved me down onto her bed, tucked me in, brought me a pillow and a bear, gave me a kiss, and read me a story, all the while saying "go to sleep now" and "good night". As I was tired, I didn't mind this at all. And eventually I did get up, defied her commands to go to sleep, and played a bit with her before she had to go to bed, at which point Jenn and Xiggy and I played cards.

So, it was torn between dismally bad and really boring, and I'm truly sorry, Xigs, for dragging you out to the beach in the middle of the jellyfish parade.

Scary thought I had today....

In popular sci-fi, humans are often the driving force behind the universe. Monsters and supernatural beings that have destroyed hundreds of sentient species will realize that they're "rather attached to those strange humans". Humans will repeatedly conquer invincible foes, and triumph against insurmountable odds. Often, you see otherwise intelligent people reverting to saying "as the humans say" to express a concept instead of "as the bariaga say" or even using a term from their own culture. The Q put the Enterprise on trial for "humanity's crimes" even when many people on the ship weren't human - nobody else mattered.

In short, humans are the marysues of the universe.

Just kill me now.

Connie's belated rant of the day....

From yesterday.

We're on the VERY CROWDED bus going home, and sitting across from us are two adults with two three-year-olds. And, I realize later, an open, empty stroller sitting in the aisle.

The two adults each take a seat. The two children each take a seat. The stroller is left open. It's fucking standing room only, those kids did not pay to ride the bus, and they each get a seat? WTF? When I was that small, I sat on my mom or dad's lap, or I shared a seat with my sister, or I stood (whining all the way, sure, but I stood). And I certainly wouldn't've been given a seat of my own if I could fit into the open stroller with no kids in it!

Stupid fucking rude people.

They didn't watch their kids, either. One of them kept trying to open the window, and was playing with the emergency handle. Would've been funny if she'd actually caused a siren to go off in the bus....

A post for Jenn...

Gotta love that nursery rhyme.

Unfortunately, somebody afterwards pulled out the story about "Ring around the Rosie" being about the Plague.

And again, I say, that's just an urban legend. I haven't done any firsthand research, and I don't intend to, because every last reference I've seen has scads of information of it's own, starting with the "nope, didn't see it written until centuries after the plague was gone" bit, through the "well, the older versions are very unlike the one we're used to now, and don't mention ashes at all, many of them also don't mention falling down in any sense whatsoever" information, with various versions collected both historically and from modern oral tradition.

No evidence for the plague story whatsoever.

The only interesting thing about it is that people do insist on telling their children about the plague story. That would make for an interesting study: why do we do this to our kids? It's bad enough we sing them songs about death (rock-a-bye-baby) and eyes being gouged out (hush-a-bye, don't you cry), but we turn honest-to-god innocent nursery rhymes into epidemics. I don't get it.

500 years from now, they'll be saying that the Hokey-Pokey (with slightly changed lyrics, of course) is obviously all about autism from that "horrible epidemic", see if they don't. Or maybe they'll pick epilipsy, but that's not quite common, is it? Bit of nonsense, when it's clearly all about sex.