May, Be

Someone please explain to me what the shit this "disrupted a terrorist plot" thing is all about?

Okay, yes. I understand. There are apparently terrorists and they want to blow us up. Ooh. Okay. Fine. But the news reports stink of spin-doctored Newspeak bullshit. This whole "major terrorist plot has been disrupted" -- no, actually, sorry, "may have been disrupted" thing reeks of "We think they were gonna but we scared 'em off." Isn't that a good thing? It means they know what to watch out for while causing minimum detriment to the quality of life of people who just want to get on a damn plane and go somewhere! Does anyone remember July last year, when trains got blown up all over London and the BBC interrupted the coverage to air Eastenders and people's basic mood was "Fuck it, let's go down the pub"?

But no, apparently, in the last year, we've become this nation of paranoid schizophrenic arseholes in terms of our security forces. De Menezes. The whole "licenced protests only within a mile of Parliament while Parliament is in session" thing. ID cards and so forth. Now people flying in the UK can only go carrying small clear plastic bags containing the bare minimum of items - wallets, passports, feminine hygiene products and/or prescription medication as applicable, mainly - and you can't bring liquids on the plane because the plot "may have (and there's that 'may' again) revolved around liquids of some kind". My head makes "Clothes Make the Manson" parallels.

Seriously. Going on a plane, you're not going to be in the air for less than 20 minutes, and you're going to be in that plane for a lot longer than that, given the amount of time it often takes to find a fucking runway slot or available gate. That's not even counting the hour or so's wait that is recommended between baggage check and boarding times. Is it reasonable to say that people can only bring in those very basic items and be forced to rely on questionable in-flight entertainment? It's like we're expected to just either put up with it - because of course, we don't have to fly - or we can just stay home. Well, excuse me, but people on business trips are going to be hacked off about being unable to use that wasted time to get some last-minute bits done, and people like me, who fly fairly rather long distances with reasonable frequency, get put off because we stand to be stuck without any form of entertainment bar what the airlines provide for about 12 hours.

You know, I'm really not all that concerned about the 'May' here. Look, intelligence did its job and stopped a threat. Bravo for them. But seriously, aren't they kind of killing the whole "Our nation is a safe nation" image they should really want to uphold (given the whole reason for terrorism is to strike ... oh, gee, terror into the heart of a nation and/or government) by doing all of this? Why can't they say, "We stopped this, we can stop more, so go about your business secure in the knowledge that we are doing our jobs"?

Exhaustion

Well, I'm taking a night off from the Charleston RP tonight, mostly because I'm now so tired I can barely see straight. (Probably doesn't help that I'm still barely eating.) However, I can't officially say I'm taking the day off because I ran through a quick scene with Turing before lunchtime this afternoon at his behest. I like having chat client at work. Though I suppose I should just be glad that I didn't wind up in last night's scene for as long as it went on - I logged off and went to bed at somewhere approaching 4am (yeah, I know, I know, I blame Drop) and when I finally dragged myself out of bed at quarter past eight, they were still there. In fact, they were still still there when I got into the office. We go hardcore on darkdanc3r's night off from work. Hopefully there will be some decent RP stuff going on over the weekend - Turing's away celebrating his wife's birthday all weekend but it's perfectly understandable for his character (recently tortured by Technocrats) to go quiet for awhile - but the others should be around. Oh, and a chick named Mindy is tapping me for logs of last week's insanity. Apparently, she loves her some well-RPed multiple personality disorder.

Of course, there's a certain amount of Saturday devoted to designing Fort Fetish in Sims 2 in time for game on Sunday, and a desire to play with the death gnome some more, but it shall all be fit in. Particularly seeing as, as is usual, I will be skipping the Saturday morning cinema excursion. I still have to be picky about what I watch on big screen and have no desire to see The Lady in the Water in whatever format. Plus I can't feature crawling out of bed before half-twelve on the weekends so it all works out.

Other RP ... well, I frankly haven't dared check up on things in Chicago lately, but Hollow City is rapidly going just as downhill. We're finally on our way to the caern and the Shadow Lords are showing off / testing us / whatever by sending this big nasty snake-thing as our transport. The fucking stupid Arden decided to go via moon bridge, and the character who serves as my Alpha's enforcer in our brand new, very small totemless-as-yet pack decided to desert her Alpha (already aboard the snake, leading her pack by example) to travel with the Arden. Apparently, 'pack unity' means sweet fuck all and the player ... well, the player expects my character to 'understand'. Yes, my Galliard is a very nice girl. However, she's also had a very bad day, desperately wants to leave town and is under her auspice moon (and therefore prone to frenzy) and the last thing she needs is her enforcer pissing off and incidentally making the entire pack look stupid. So I haven't checked there either, and have the Fear.

And work? Work goes. My editors are stupid and I hate sending out papers for referral because they almost never provide email addresses for the referees and I have to dig for them. And I hate the news. But other than that? Life is pretty okay, considering. I'll feel a lot better once I've napped on public transport on the way home.