Audrizzle

I usually don't post stuff that I see online that I think is funny all that often, but this is probably the funniest thing I have seen in at least the last week and a half, and other people think it's funny too. So, you might enjoy it!

Anyway, this was originally posted on twitter by domfosnz, though I don't know if he/she is the origin of the picture.

The original picture is here, on imageshack.
I decided to also host it myself in case it disappears, because seriously, this is FUNNY.

Anyway, here is a link to it because it is HUGE. Enjoy.





Also, all the notes are left by a person named "CRAIG" and they are all written caps lock Times New Roman black-on-white (though that's kind of expected) so i was thinking maybe it's a play on craigslist? Because that kind of shit is probably the "best of" craigslist type stuff. Though I haven't seen it on the official "best-of-craigslist" page yet.

I'll have to look. That stuff's pretty funny too.

Anyway, ENJOY!
PLZ RT!

So, here I am, sitting on a crummy cot in my crummy apartment feeling pretty crummy.

I was feeling even worse last week, so I went to the Fort Sanders Hospital Emergency Room to check myself into their psych ward. Well, it turns out they don't have a psych ward there, if you need to go inpatient, you have to go to Lakeshore Mental Health Institute.

I really did need to go inpatient, so despite the fact that I was calm and cooperative, they had a police officer handcuff me, escort me to the back seat of his cruiser, and drive me to Lakeshore.

Now, Lakeshore Mental Health Institute is probably one of the worst hospitals I have been to. It's a toss up with New York Methodist Hospital. At Lakeshore, they did a complete psychiatric evaluation, which they did not at NYMH. However, NYMH did offer group therapy, and you have to be at Lakeshore for at least a week before they will allow you to do anything, even take a guided walk around the halls. Lakeshore's food was absolutely terrible; NYMH's was actually pretty good. I kind of like hospital food, because it's all pre-portioned. You have just one tiny container of butter for 1 piece of white bread in a plastic baggie, you don't have to make any decisions about what to do.

One thing that really bothered me about Lakeshore was that they didn't take me as seriously as I would have liked, and told me things to more to quiet me than to provide me with the information I was requesting.

I started writing this to point out flaws I found in their system, but rather than a list it turned into a narrative. It's gotten pretty long, though, and even though I've only finished writing about the first "day", I'm going to stop for now.

---

I signed into the Fort Sanders ER at 4:00 PM last Wednesday, so when I arrived at Lakeshore at 11:30 PM, I was hungry. I asked if they could give me anything, just a sandwich or something, and they said "As soon as you get upstairs they can give you something." I inquired as to when that would be, and they said "Oh, probably in a half hour or so."

Two hours later when I actually arrived upstairs, they said they didn't know if or when they could get me something to eat, it would have to be dealt with by Security, who were downstairs.
"Well, if they're downstairs, maybe you can call them and ask them when they'd be able to do it."
"We will once you're in your room."
This bothered me, because again, it just seemed like a dishonest attempt to placate me. Downstairs, when checking in, they had refused to let me take my notebook, even plain sheets of paper or pens upstairs. I said I needed to write, and a security guard said "They can give you paper and a pencil upstairs."

Back upstairs, I flipped through the "Patient Rights & Responsibilities" brochure that was given to me in admissions. I looked up and said "Well, you're going to have to give me a pencil and something to write on so I can take notes about the patient rights that you are violating." One of the women in the room said "We can't give you a pencil, but when you're in your room we can give you a marker and some paper."

Another woman behind a high counter picked up the telephone, dialed, and after a pause said quietly, but impatiently, "Can someone bring some food up? One of the girls is talking about writing stuff down..." I smiled at this. Obviously, my remark had proven to her that I wasn't just another brain-dead/drug-addled idiot who could be ignored without consequence, and, more importantly to her, I might be able to get her into trouble. More importantly to me, her action was an admission that she hadn't been doing her job properly, though I don't know why this gave me cause for pleasure. I found it amusing that she expected security to understand the gravity of the situation simply due to the possibility of something being written down. Were the majority of the patients illiterate? I mean, true, this is Tennessee, but I haven't really found people to be less intelligent than in New York/New England. Less arrogant, maybe, but not any less intelligent.

For some reason, they had confiscated my wristwatch as contraband, so I asked if there was a clock in my room. A woman told me that if I wanted to know what time it was, I could look through the window to see clock in the room we were presently in(which was kept locked). I pointed out that the wall clock that should have been visible was laying face down on a counter, to which she replied, "Oh, it's broken right now."

A small desk clock told me that it was 2:00 AM by the time they were ready to take me to my room. The girl who escorted me was wearing a college sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, and couldn't have been any older than 22 or 23. Rather than condescending (as the other staff members had been), this girl was actually quiet friendly. Maybe it was because unlike other patients, I was around her age. I also didn't have meth mouth. The back wall of the room had a large window, and there were twin beds with wooden frames on either side of it. Each bed had an 8-inch thick mattress covered in beige vinyl, and on top of the bed on the right were 2 thin plastic pillows next to a set of folded bedclothes and a blanket, bleach white.

"I didn't make up your bed because I didn't know which one you'd want." I wanted to laugh. I'd just been admitted into a mental institution, so I wasn't really in the state to have any kind of strong opinion on which bed to sleep in. I chose the one on the left without any deliberation or difficulty, which is incredible, considering it usually takes me over 10 minutes just to decide which toothpaste to buy.

"They said I could have paper and a marker..." I mentioned, and she replied "Oh! Sure, hang on," perky as hell. I made up the bed, and she quickly returned with a few sheets of printer paper and a pink Crayola marker. Pink.
"Here you go!"
"Thanks..."
"Do you need anything else?" Is that really a question you want to hear the answer to?
"Well, no, but I asked earlier about food..."
"Oh, someone will bring it to you when it gets here."
"Ok, thanks."
She left the room almost with an air of skipping, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her.

Something I find interesting is that even though I'm a pretty bitter, unhappy person, when I see people who seem happy it makes me feel good, rather than angry or jealous. But then I realize I'm by myself, and that I am myself, and things darken quite a bit.

I kicked off the navy blue slip-on shoes they had issued me earlier and sat on the bed, legs crossed. Amazed that the marker wasn't dry at all, I wrote for a few minutes but quit after less than half a page. My belongings were at the foot of the bed in a paper bag, and I grabbed the one non-clothing item it contained - a copy of The Fountainhead I had bought in Florida a month earlier but not yet cracked open. I decided to read but about 8 pages in I was bored and put it aside. I lay down and quickly fell asleep, despite the fluorescent lights above.

I really don't have any comments about the comfort (or discomfort) of the mattress, but this may be that I haven't consistently slept on a real bed in several years. My current mattress is inflatable.

I awoke to a quick rapping on the heavy door to my room, and someone came in and handed me a brown plastic tray with what was to be my dinner. As the person was leaving, I asked "What time is it?" From the hall, I heard the yell back "It's 3 AM."

When I opened the styrofoam container, my eyes were immediately drawn to the primary compartment: it contained big chunks of what turned out to be potatoes covered in a reddish-brown liquid dotted with ground beef and spots of grease. The first thought that came to mind when I saw this was "pre-processed diarrhea". One of the two smaller wells contained what looked like regurgitated broccoli, under a yellow-orange sauce which had the consistency of pudding (including an impressively developed skin). It was probably supposed to be cheese of some sort.
I think that in any other situation either of these foods could have been decent, even good, but here they were somehow unfathomable. Not to mention cold in places.
There was another small container with a plastic lid that contained some very feeble pear halves. These tasted okay, but their limp, degenerated softness almost made me feel even more hopeless.
To drink, they had given me two options: a carton of 2% milk, and a carton of sugar-free sweet tea. I don't drink milk, so I had some of the tea, which lived up to the title "sugar-free" more than "sweet".

Thoroughly disappointed, after finishing half of the "meal" I put the tray on the nightstand (which happened to be next to the door, across the room) and went back to sleep - lights still on.
I think I sleep with the light on for the same reason I always have a heater/fan/air conditioner turned on, it distracts me from my own isolated existence. I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of myself.

Labels: depression, mental illness, narrative, therapy, treatment

Well, today is Tuesday - or was. Now it's 1:59 AM on Wednesday.

Amazingly, I slept all day Tuesday. ALL DAY!

Everyone says "Oh, Amanda, the reason you sleep all day is because you go to bed so late! If you're going to bed at 8 AM of course you're going to sleep all day! You should go to bed earlier!"

So last night, I did. I took some melatonin and was asleep by 2:30 AM (Monday night/Tuesday morning).
I woke up Tuesday at 7:30 PM.
That's 17 hours. SEVENTEEN HOURS.
TOTALLY unnecessary.

Also, I was just thinking that I have won a lot of scholarships and awards. And I just realized that I can (legitimately) call myself an "award winning writer". I am!
Not as in "I guess I like to write some, and on a side note I happened to win an award, which happened to be for best 80's hairdo," or something, but I won an actual writing award.

I have a plaque! And I'm not talking about on my teeth, either!

Also, if you go to the website for the Webster freshman writing awards page, I am in the damn picture! So is Brian Gordon Kennelly, but unfortunately he is vignetted out. Boo! He was a great teacher (probably still is) and had more impact on my thought process anyone in post-high school education.

Here's the image, so you don't have to click on the link (I know how hard that kind of thing can be).



I gave that blazer to Sadie a couple years ago, but I still have that t-shirt. And considering that I have reduced my t-shirt ownage (ha ha, ownage) from that point in time by over 90%, that's really saying something. The t-shirt features a quote from Twin Peaks, a subject about which people often (though not often enough) have something to say.

Also, it says "Twin Peaks" on the "chestal area" (props to anyone getting that reference) so people who don't even know what Twin Peaks is can also find a reason to comment. Sigh.

Looking at that picture again (as in 5 minutes later) makes me wonder why people always wear subdued colors. I mean, not that I'm not guilty of it, but I think I only wear "quiet" attire because it isn't always easy to find clothes that are as loud as I am. I mean, not that I want to look ugly, but I'd rather stand out due to people's ... mild displeasure ... than just blend in.

Sometimes. Sometimes I don't want anyone to see me at all. I know how to be invisible, by the way, but I'm not telling any of you.

My dad had a book passed down to him by his grandfather, which had been passed to him by HIS grandfather. I think it was published in the 1850's or 1860's... had all sorts of "miracles" in it, cures for scurvy and the like.

Also, here's a subject that I wonder about:

Who was sitting there eating some ground up meat and was like "Mmm, this is good, but it would be even better if it were more "contained" some how, packed tightly together in some way... I know! Pig intestines! Just the thing!"

The other way I picture it is a person just sitting there playing around with pig intestines and thinking "Mmm, this is fun, but it would be even MORE fun to fill these with ground up meat, twist them into phallic oblongs, and eat them! What a great idea!"

I really hope it was the former.

It's probably a bad idea to look up "intestines" on youtube. I didn't try it, but after looking up "tapeworm" on youtube, I have decided to think more carefully about what I search for there.

Oh! Speaking of YouTube!

I just put up videos from when I did neurofeedback in Key West with Monica. you can see them here on youtube. Watch them all at once, one at a time, or (though I would hope this isn't your choice) none of them.
Or you can watch it here if you realllly want to. Haven't tried embedding a playlist before, but here goes...
.

Also, the movie "Neu Wave Hookers" is a pretty good movie, and worth a watch, if only for the "video" for Dirty Sanchez's "I Dig It". If I didn't think it'd get removed from youtube (along with the fact that on principle I only post my own content on my account) I'd totally upload it.

Oh my, look, some youtube newcomer did it for me! How awesome!
I'll link to it, as it's only like 80% SFW...

Also, I am OK, considering the recent 2-year anniversary of an event that was really devastating, and is always really hard to think about.

Annnyway. This is one of those middle-of-the-night aimless posts that doesn't really go anywhere, and if it HAS gone anywhere, it's reached its "destination" and definitely puttered out of gas

Labels: rambling, random, youtube

Don't want to read all this crap? Go straight to the answer by clicking here.

Not that I use this blog for a lot of computer stuff, but this is an issue I tried to solve over a year ago and wasn't able to. Finally figured out how to do it, thank god, so I figured I'd post in hopes that anyone else searching for help would find this.

Before I begin: This article has nothing to do with anatomy or romance... just cold, boring technology. So keep in mind that I use the word "clit" only in terms of filenames and commands. Sorry to disappoint you.

So I want to make a post about the whole .lit/Mac thing. If you're like me and have a Mac but also have .lit files you'd like to read, you probably hate Microsoft. Well, maybe not, but you're probably annoyed at the fact that .lit is a file that only opens on Microsoft, and converting the .lit files to a readable format on Mac isn't very easy. Even googling it still requires a bit of reading and effort... so hopefully I can help make that easier.

Now, if you're like me, you probably googled .lit mac os x open files pdf html txt rtx doc wpa read help hate f&*k Microsoft ... etc.

One of the first things that comes up on google when you're searching this stuff is the the convertlit app (if you can call it an app). When I had tried this in the past, I had had no success.

Let's go over the process of when you download convertlit:
OK: So you download the clit file, and open it. It will open in Terminal, with a window giving (in my opinion, incomplete) instructions. It tells you there are three options for converting the .lit file, but the first is the only method we will be using, as the second and third options just convert a .lit file into another form of .lit file - which will still not open on a Mac, and therefore is useless to us.

Note that in the terminal window that the clit instructions opened in will not allow you to type anything else. To start working, you will need to open a new window in Terminal (command n).

Now, the direction it gives you is to type your form of the following into Terminal:

clit ebook-propietary.lit ebook-oebps\

So, if you're like me, you put in something like the following:

clit AtlasShrugged.lit AtlasShrugged\

After which, Terminal will give you the following error:

-bash: clit: command not found

Now, thanks to this forum topic I was able to figure out that this is because Terminal has no idea what clit is (no jokes, please). The reason Terminal can't find clit is because we haven't told Terminal where clit is.

I've only used Terminal a few times before, and by now I've figured out that if you're going to be dealing with files on your hard drive, you have to tell Terminal the file's path: the specific location of the file. If you give Terminal a file to work with without specifying a path, Terminal will not know what you're talking about. The base drive Terminal assumes is the Macintosh HD folder, but even if you are referencing a file in that folder, you can't just type the file name.

For example, even if I put the files I'm working with in the Macintosh HD folder, the following would not work:

clit AtlasShrugged.lit AtlasShrugged

OK, if Terminal assumes each file is in the Macintosh HD folder, and each file IS in the Macintosh HD folder, why isn't it working? You need to define the path. In this case, the since we are working in the base folder, we have to start the path for each location with a /.

So, assuming you've got the clit file, the .lit file, and the folder you want the "explosion" to happen in all located in the Macintosh HD folder, what do you do to get terminal to actually realize that?

/clit /AtlasShrugged.lit /AtlasShrugged

Now, doing that is kind of annoying if you don't feel like moving your files around constantly. So, instead of switching everything to the Macintosh HD folder, one thing you can do is to type out the LONG path of where your stuff is.
You could end up spending HOURS typing out a novel like this:

/Users/skweeds/Downloads/clit /Users/skweeds/Downloads/Transmit/Books/AtlasShrugged.lit /Users/skweeds/Documents/Books/AynRand

Now, if you're like me, you really don't want to type all that out. Also, if you're NOT like me, you probably don't have your Mac account name as "skweeds", so the copy/paste/adapt method might not really work in this situation.

There is good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance. Ok, that was a joke. Better news: It can be REALLY EASY to do, using Drag & Drop! I stopped using PCs for personal use in 2003, and I believe they had the drag-and-drop feature then, but I really don't think they've made it as useful as Mac has.

The short answer on how to use ConvertLit in Terminal

1. Download & unzip the clit app. As long as you know where it is, the location of the file doesn't matter.
2. Open a new terminal window.
You should see something like this:

Last login: Sun Mar 1 23:14:44 on ttys001
macbook:~ skweeds$

The specifics don't matter, just as long as you have a prompt available where you can type (but you don't need to type).
3. Drag and Drop these items from the Finder into the window in Terminal you have open (in this order):
I. clit file
II. whatever.lit file you want to convert
III. the Folder you want the .lit file contents to end up in.
As you drop in these items, Terminal will add their location to the command line. You don't need to press space or type anything.
4. Press return and let Terminal do its work. When it's finished, Terminal should read something like:

Exploded "/Users/skweeds/AtlasShrugged.lit" into "/Users/skweeds/AtlasShrugged/".

Voilà, you will have your ebook in readable files in the folder you chose.

When I used this method, I got .htm files of the table of contents & the actual story. I also got a few cover images, and an .opf file. I opened the opf in TextEdit and it kind of looks like an HTML source file, with links to each chapter and also images... "pocketpc" appears a couple times in the script, so I guess that's what it's for.
Anyway, everything you need will be there. So, enjoy!
I hope this saves you some time.
Note: I know there is lit2html out there, but it does not work for me. Boo!
Anyway, HAPPY READING!
You might want to check out spreeder.

Labels: .lit, apple, clit, convertlit, file, mac, microsoft, os x, technology