The itsy bitsy crankies went up the water spout, down came the rain and more cranky came out.

Some more small things to be cranky about:

People who tell terrible, racist/sexist/homophobic jokes, and then when you don't laugh, try to explain the joke. I understand the joke, it's just not funny. Explaining it doesn't make it funny.

When my milk goes bad before the expiration date. I am generally comfortable drinking a few days PAST the expiration date. Why is it going bad early? This is crap. I bet it was mislabeled or something. At any rate, it smells like cheese and tastes like puke.

The whole was Shakespeare really Shakespeare thing. How is this still a question. We know he was a guy. We know he wrote plays. So, why the question as to whether he wrote the plays attributed to him. And why the desire to attribute them to either Bacon or Marlowe? They were both famous authors in their own right, and Marlowe is still famous for his plays. If we have that much of a record for them, don't you think we'd know if they wrote these, or that some evidence would have appeared? I hate this theory. I think it's stupid and pointless.

The idea that women can't write good male characters and men can't write good female characters. Also stupid and pointless. Good writers write good characters.

Why hasn't anyone invented healthy fast food yet?  And PLEASE do not say Subway. Subway is the saddest freaking sandwiches on the planet, even if you do sometimes get a craving for them, you know the meat is just old enough to be shady and do you really trust the mayo? That crap isn't healthy. Low - calorie count is not the only requirement for health.

Ke$ha. I haven't heard any of her songs, but if she's so awful, maybe people should stop talking about her and then she wouldn't be famous anymore, maybe?

Naming names...

Well hello there. Yesterday's blog was rather confusing, wasn't it? I started it several times, didn't like what I wrote, and then got very sleepy, so it was basically the last thing I did before bed. Sorry about that.

Today's blog is much more focused, because this is something I have real opinions on. I read a lot of webcomics and I read a lot of blogs and I have noticed a tendency in these two groups to hand out attitude to the readers.

So I'm calling them out on this. Listen up. I realize that by providing your blog you are giving a service the readers. And that the same goes for those of you comic artists sharing your art on the web. We acknowledge and appreciate that service. But let me just lay a little factoid on the line for you. You need your readers. If you are making money? You need us. You need us to click on your ads, to buy your stuff, and for those of you paid by the click on your blogs, you need us to give you the page views.

Recently, over at Manolo for the Big Girl, the primary blogger, Plumcake declared that despite the fact that her readers liked the sales posts, she would no longer be doing them. Why? Because the clothes on most sites aren't nice enough for her. She then followed that up with a little snark on how low class some of the pieces were and snarked on her former co-blogger for doing "street level clothes which gave (Plumcake) room to put clothes that were actually tasteful and attractive (oh snap!)." Which attitude one can only hope is unrelated to the reasons that the former co-blogger is now...former.

I'm sure many of the readers, like myself, appreciated having the idea that our "street level" fashion was neither tasteful nor attractive. Other readers, however, commented that she should post whatever she wanted because they're not "paying for Manolo for the Big Girl." Which...is technically true, except how it's not. If no one read it, would "the Manolo" who heads the blogging network MftBG is part of keep paying Plumcake to write it?

Which brings us to webcomics. It is a technically true statement that readers are (typically) not paying for the privilege. However, readers buy your merchandise and click on your ads. So when you don't update for six weeks, and then post a belligerent note to the readers telling them to quit hassling you?

You suck.

Some (indeed, most) comic artists don't make their living off the strips, and...fair enough. you're not making your salary off your work, and that's a bummer. But if you ever want to? Try not actively insulting your readers.

And finally, not safe for work content. Questionable Content and Shortpacked tripped over this a few months back, Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell bumped into it last week. Ultimately, they have the right to post what they want, with or without warnings. But when they post NSFW content, people ARE going to get upset. In some cases, this generates a response of "Well then I guess you shouldn't be reading this comic (or blog) at work."

And...they're not wrong. You shouldn't be! But...you probably are. A good portion of the audience probably is. And if they want to brush it off with that response, ok. But...it's not very realistic, is it? People ARE going to read it at work and they ARE going to want a warning. I stopped reading the blogs for QC and Shortpacked as a result of their little brouhaha. I don't really feel like I'm missing anything, and I am sure they aren't missing me. I'm ok with that. But ultimately, if that attitude continued and carried on to the main pages? I'd stop reading those. And I'm sure I'm not alone. And they don't owe me anything, and there are plenty to take my place.

But...if youa re a blogger or a comic artist, a writer or a musician, take a moment to think about your work and your audience. You don't exist in a vacuum. Your audience may not be paying you per page view, but they do support you. The dismissive, snotty, I don't need you, if you don't like then leave attitude? It makes some of us very cranky.

It would be so cuddly....

Today I had a day off, so I was exposed to very few things that make me cranky, but I am experiencing some minor sewing related crankiness. I am in the process of making my first bathrobe ever (not the first one I've ever owned, but the first one I've ever made, yes) and let me just tell you. Problems galore. the fabric allowances were off. By almost three yards. That's a lot of yards, folks. The directions made no sense, and I had to call for backup on them. and I just put the binding on tonight only to find it is too short again, because of the incorrect fabric allowances. Now I have to decide whether to put in a patch at the bottom on both sides or whether to hem it shorter than I had originally intended. All because someone somewhere didn't bother to make sure the instructions were correct. This is a lot like assembling a piece of furniture and having parts left over. As far as you know, you did it correctly, but is it going to dump your TV on the floor when you turn your back because you couldn't figure out where the extra three screws went? Guess you'll just have to take your chances!

Is it so hard to fix these problems? COME ON, WORLD. I am experiencing a snuggly flannel delay due to poor instructions and that is just not right.

Won't you be my neighbor (instead of roadkill)?

First, if you have followed me, thanks! I don't know how to work that and can't figure out exactly how much information people would then get access to, and after the whole Google Buzz thing earlier, I don't really trust them. I should have just stayed on Livejournal, where I still don't trust them, but I know what I'm doing.

Anyway, on to the regularly scheduled cranky. As I may have mentioned previously, I work on a college campus, and there is on continual problem in this place of higher education, and that is stupid people.

I refer specifically to people so stupid they don't look both ways before they cross the street, run stop signs, pull out into traffic without looking, and complain about parking when they drove to building they could SEE from their dorm. Where there was plenty of parking.

Sadly, this stupid is not confined to the students. The dean of academics once ran out in front of me and came so close to being hit (good thing I have my brakes checked regularly!) that he patted my bumper and waved. Y'all.

Mr. Rogers taught you better. I understand that this is a small campus and you expect people to watch out for you, but if you walk out from behind a black SUV at night, wearing all dark clothes and ESPECIALLY if you aren't crossing at the designated crosswalks? Someone is going to hit you. It's going to happen. When we lay on the horn, what we are saying is "look out!" so please don't give us dirty looks. Ok, fine. What we are really saying is "how did you manage to graduate high school yo moron? Are you really so freaking stupid you don't know to look before crossing the street? Did your mama drop you on your head as a child? Get out of the dang road!"

Similarly, let me address the people who feel that once they are in the road, this is the time to meander. Pause for a conversation. Eat ice cream. Wave to people on the other side of the street. Text someone. NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE CORRECT THINGS TO THINK. There are sidewalks. Walk on them, and get out of my way before I give you a love tap with my front bumper.

Also, people who are driving down the road and stop to talk to someone who is either walking or driving in the other lane. I hate you. You are bad people, you should feel bad and you should be punished by having your cars taken away. You are officially too stupid to drive. You are the grain of sand in my oyster shell (I recently discovered I'm allergic to shellfish, by the way), but instead of a pearl, you are producing beautiful cranky posts. I would like to get out of the car and punch you in the nose, but then my car would be left in the middle of the road and that would be both stupid and inconsiderate.

People who do this in parking lots especially drive me crazy. It is a PARKING LOT! FOR THE LOVE OF BUTTERNUT SQUASH, PARK, THEN TALK! It's easy. I swear. And you'll save on gas when you don't idle in the middle of the turn in lane at Wal-Mart for 15 minutes while everyone you are blocking quietly wishes for your car to catch on fire.

And finally, on an only moderately related note. Don't drive a Hummer. They're stupid, and you're not in Desert Storm.

Smell like a man, man....

And not like you went swimming in a lake full of Aqua Velva.

Do they even still make Aqua Velva?


YES! They do. Huh. Dang I'm old.

In retrospect, this smells much worse than Aqua Velva. Must be Axe. Men, Axe is disgusting. Do not believe the commercials, women do not want you to smell like Axe, because Axe smells like tequila, rubbing alchohol and that cheap knockoff perfume all MIXED with Aqua Velva. It's not good. Quit it.

Oooooh. I'm going to be SO CRANKY...in the morning. When I'm not so sleepy. Hee.

However, a brief cranky moment. Today I went to a book fair and two of the major authors did not show up. No reason is given on either author's website for their absence (although one author's facebook mentions a reason that is the subject to a rant all its own). This makes me soooooooooooooo cranky. People traveled to see you. People wanted to see you. You  clearly agreed to be a featured author and were in all the advance advertising, and you can't even be bothered to so much as share an explanation? Way to be dismissive and rude.

It's getting hot in here...

Maintenance! Today I am cranky about maintenance! Why is this blog coming in under the wire on the west coast? Because my smoke alarm started going off. There was no smoke, of course. There was a touch of steam from the kitchen, which was an entire floor away. It's been causing a little trouble. Every time I take a shower it goes off. Kind of a pain, but manageable until I could get around to calling maintenance. So what happened tonight? It started going off. I stopped it. It started going off. I stopped it. Aaaaaaaaand. Again and Again. So I called the after hours maintenance people. It took them over an hour to get here. And THEN when they came, they took the alarm down, declared that it needed replaced, took it away, and took ANOTHER hour for them to bring the new one. And before anyone posts comments about changing the battery...there are no batteries. My alarms are hardwired into the house.

AND! Another thing! I had taken the one closest to the kitchen down like a year ago cause it was so sensitive, and I mentioned it to the maintenance guy, and when he looked at it...the wires were GONE. Apparently, at some point, someone, probably also from maintenance came INTO MY HOUSE WITHOUT PERMISSION and INEXPLICABLY! removed the wires. They didn't fix the smoke alarm, no no. They just ripped the wires out, left a hole in the ceiling and .... that's it. I don't know how I missed it until this point. It hasn't been all that long, and it is so so so sooooooooooooooo creepy.

This is the downside of renting, people.