Heh, Matt, I was pretty sure you were the Boston driving hater here when I typed that.

Karl, I'm so sorry.

Jesse, WTF. Ass 'em in the ear.

hey men I work for - when you do not include me on any of your emails about the video conference and you never even tell me that it is involving a site that is not one of our normal video sites, THEN I CANNOT SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS WHEN IT FAILS!! If my total involvement has been sending the invite, then everyone being there on time is THE END OF MY SHIT! Oh and when you call me instead of the IT help desk to make it start working and I produce the email string of you independently chatting with IT about it NEVER CC'ing me, I will state all that info in front of our collective bosses because I am not taking the blame.

Happy fucking Friday.

Jesse, WTF. Ass 'em in the ear.

I'm pretty sure I handled it fine, but UGH!

msbelle should definitely ass THEM in the ear, though.

Boston (and surrounding environs) gets a lot of shittalk about bad driving but people there drive with PURPOSE. We just get agitated if you don't have a plan too. Really, a lot agitated. And turn signals, you can't put those on until just before you turn, because it's a sign of weakness and you are GIVING YOUR WHOLE STRATEGY AWAY.

Bwahahaha! This is so true. Boston drivers will never run you over by accident.

the Michigan vagina thing...

I'm sorry, Dana but we are going to have to ask you to refrain from posting for two days. You invoked the V-word. It makes the men in the chamber feel all ooky. Stop making them feel ooky.

I read a good comment about the Michigan "vagina" thing: "vagina" is in the bill the MI legislature voted on. How can the bill be read into the record if you can't say "vagina?"

Well, you whisper it like anyone with class and good manners whispers other abhorrent words like "cancer" and "divorce".

There's one roundaout near Portsmouth, NH, that is enormous and frightening, and I've always driven it at night, which is extra scary. I can't see how a three or four laned traffic circle is safer than a traffic-lighted intersection. But I also live in NJ, and can't understand how a jug-handle with an unprotected left turn with the clearance of two car lengths is safer than a green left arrow.

I moved to NJ after living in Virginia and Tennessee, where we don't do roundabouts or jughandles, and I was *terrified* of the traffic. I didn't know how to negotiate those things, and hesitating for two seconds made the person behind me so annoyed they'd lean on their horn, which startled me and undid all the cognition I'd gotten done, and I'd arrive home in tears. Mike couldn't understand why a person who could find backroads he'd never known about despite having lived there all his life, would be upset by traffic. But I got better. Eventually I was driving in NYC all by myself, honking my horn and shouting at people like a true Jersey girl.

In the housing complex being built on the mountain behind me, there are two roundabouts, and I love them. So much easier and faster and safer than negotiating four-way stops. There's a five-lane four-way stop near me and I'm surprised every day that no one has been killed there. No one has any idea who has the right-of-way.

OK, just got home, and my package is here! And an infonotice??? WTF?

The God of Deliveries heard your plea! Make a sacrifice to Hermes, quick. He likes coins.

I promised photos of 3D Tetris - The Home Game.

aurelia, wow! That's impressive.

Does anyone here like MPREG? Do you feel it's the same psychology as the forced/alien impregnation trope where the victim is female?

No, and no. Well, I qualify the last one because the MPREG I've read has all been "ooo, I'm having your babby I'm so happy!" crap. I'm sure there's forced MPREG out there. Oh, wait, I read some last night, somebody projecting their issues onto poor Loki and his weird babies. If the writer is female and making the male character be the unwilling host of her issues, then yeah, I guess it's the same. (Do male writers ever write MPREG?) Speaking of Loki, I'll qualify my first reaction too, because I've liked some LokiPreg fic I've read, except... it's Loki. He does that all by himself. A god who can and happily does change shape and gender is just not the same as a regular all-male-all-the-time guy getting a fetus implanted somehow. That's just creepy to me. Actually, I don't like FPREG fic either. "Body horror" is a good term for it.

I think that's part of Loki's appeal in Avengers Fandom. Canonical MPREG. Well, that and Hiddleston.

Yeah. Some folks are really into it. I stumbled across a whole segment of Tumblr that's girls wailing over Loki being raped by a horse and all poor Loki's poor babies being taken away *SOB*. Yikes.

The heteronormativity of much slash never fails to amaze me. Such an investment in penetration being dominance, but from the people *I* had assumed would know that was not inherent--the people traditionally penetrated. Once it sunk in, I started feeling alienated, to be honest. It hadn't occurred to me that was such a pervasive interpretation of sex, *including* from straight women.

Just quoting this so I can say "Word."

I'm gonna stick with talking about Loki and suchlike, and stay away from the rage-making thoughts about Michigan vaginas. Seriously, I'm about to have to call a personal moratorium on anything political for a few weeks. I'm reaching insane levels of rage.

I moved to NJ after living in Virginia and Tennessee

Virginia may be starting to change its mind on roundabouts. Traffic was so bad at the intersection of Routes 50 and 15 (in Loudoun County, about 40 miles west of DC and 10 or so miles west of Dulles Airport) that the traditional intersection-with-stoplight was replaced with 4 -- yes, 4 -- roundabouts.

I navigate them every weekend on the way to the animal shelter. It's a little awkward sometimes when I have to figure out when I can merge into traffic, but it's a lot better than waiting forever and a day for the 273 cars in front of me to turn left.