Sailor Moon Nomenclature

I'm one of those people who always has to have a proper name for everything, and if there's a distinguisher I'm always searching for ways to bring that out in speech. Ever since Sailor Moon was in my consciousness and something that I could spout facts about I had come up with a scheme to refer to her various transformations into Sailor Moon based on the brooch/item she uses. I grant it, though, they'd started calling her differently by the time Sailor Moon Super came around to the chalice use time.

Still...

 

 

She starts with this one. And with this I call her Prism Sailor Moon.

 

She moves on to this, and so I call her Crystal Sailor Moon.



When being Crystal Sailor Moon wasn't enough, she became Cosmic Sailor Moon.

Then with the Holy Chalice, they'd started calling her Super Sailor Moon. This is where the spice starts.

She loses the chalice, and by SuperS, she gains a new brooch and they still call her Super Sailor Moon, but because it's a different form of transformation - and me being anal-retentive - I have to distinguish the Super Sailor Moons. So, the Holy Chalice one is Crisis Super Sailor Moon (or even Messiah Super Sailor Moon), while the transformation with the crisis compact yields Moon Crisis Super Sailor Moon (or even more concisely Golden Super Sailor Moon [since it was Pegasus's Golden Crystal that transformed the cosmic compact into the crisis compact anyway]).

Finally, she becomes Eternal Sailor Moon, something Naoko-san had already come up with.

Not surprisingly, I'd used the words she recites to transform as guides to what I call the Sailor Moon form, and it works well enough. I don't know if anyone else actually does it, but I've always liked this system, and now looking at the renderings the DeviantArtist SayurixSama had done, I'm really now seeing some of the details on the brooches I'd never noticed before, especially the eternal brooch.

Well, enough of that. To bed, because I actually have an interview in the morning...

Fraud, I Think - Martins Yellow Foundation

You know what's more frustrating than job-hunting? Frauds.

After having written in response to a job posting, my name and all, I get this:

Dear Applicant,

Thanks for your response for our Admin Receptionist/Personal Assistant opening, we really do appreciate your willingness to work for MARTINS YELLOW FOUNDATION.

I am Mrs. Shannon Hunt, SALES/LOCATION MANAGER for MARTINS YELLOW FOUNDATION. We are seeking an individual who is motivated, a team player, energetic and reliable to work with good understanding in setting up our new locations in different locations in the United States. You will be needed to assist in setting up the new office location in your area and keep me updated with activities on needed supplies and office items.

We are establishing a new location in specific areas in the United States which you will be a part of the team upon office completion. I'll need your services 30-40 hours weekly in helping out with running errands for the orphanage home prior to our arrival for start up. We will set up a formal interview as soon as possible to sign all necessary documentations including a W2-W4 Forms.

Duties and Requirements:
*Scheduling programmer's, flights and keeping me up-to-date with them.
*Handling and monitoring some of my financial activities.
*Filing, Faxing, Creating and sending out letters, scanning documents.
*Purchases of office supplies for the new location
*Meeting and picking up clients from airports upon arrival to the states

Weekly Salary: $500

Please note that this position is not office based for now until the office is officially open in your area and the  flexibility means that there will be busier weeks than others. I would like to give you an immediate trial, so if you are interested kindly get back to me with the following information.

Full Names:
Mailing Address(apt):
City, State, Zip Code:
Cell Phone Number:
Home Number:
Personal email for correspondence:

Thanks in anticipation of your prompt response.

Yours Sincerely.

Mrs. Shannon Hunt
shan.hunt11@outlook.com
admin@martinsyellowfoundation.com
http://www.martinsyellowfoundation.com/

Now, this already looked weird, because why in the world would this be so generic after my having replied? Still, just to give it complete fairness, I started by doing an Internet search for "Martins Yellow Foundation", which gave nothing, of course.

So, I'd gone to the provided website. It was already looking dicey:

Generic-looking handsome guy at the top, marginal-at-best web designing, pixellated pictures that only result when copying it so many times... Woman wearing a tee-shirt from a completely different organization... It's just... wow!

Then one ventures to the "About Us" page, where i don't even think I'm going to go into a full-on analysis of its contents.

The first entry is the president/executive director, who has a completely weird name for an Italian, "Martins Yellow", is perhaps a hermaphrodite.

One would think with credentials linking [s]himself to Oxford, [s]he'd take a little more pride in English grammar.

Then you have a media specialist whose birthdate is on the website:

A person on the website who doesn't even seem to be part of the foundation at all (and strangely, she kind of looks like someone I'd gone to high school with):

And the writer of the generic e-mail, pictured with her ghost dog:

The establishment date of the website is 2000, which means effectively that in 13 years and four people in the "About Us" section who are, apparently, Metro-Atlanta-based and have been for a while, they've not been able to establish an office here at all?

I go to the trouble of this because it's these types of probably-scams that completely disenchant people like me. These types of scams, where people who want to believe so badly they'll fall for even the most glaringly obvious of non-sequiturs, are baneful parts of human existence I wish were gone.

It's not fair for those of us who want to have hope that his/her dream job is out there and that we'll actually achieve those dreams in our lifetimes.

I want my dreams to come true, but this just sliced a little bit away.

Tiny Housing

I'd always been a person really reluctant to buy a house. It had started from when I was a child and my dad especially made be go outside to water the lawn. It was a chore I'd hated. I'd rather have washed the dishes every day than water the lawn. With that mindset, I'd always thought I'd rent forever and never have to worry about cutting lawns, expansion, or groundskeeping of any sort.

Now I'm watching this Al Jazeera America documentary on having a tiny house, building them, and everything surrounding those decisions, including living there.

I remember moving to Georgia and thinking if I were to have a house, it would be a small house. I didn't want a multi-bedroom, multi-bathroom monstrosity that people seek to own just because they "have to". I wanted a small house, just on my own. Maybe a partner, sure, but not with all the trappings. You wouldn't have this $200,000 mortgage and enormous property taxes, shocking utility bills, or having to maintain a huge house when pieces of it start falling apart after a few years.

Then they'd said one pivotal thing at the beginning of the documentary that made me kind of angry: many places have rules that make tiny houses illegal.

I mean, seriously?! Just because you don't want a 1000+ square-foot house, you have to either move out of the country or build your house on wheels?! That sounds like a racket!

This country just doesn't seem built for those who like modesty, or want to live it.

More is not always better.

I'd just want a small tract of land with a house on it.

I remember when it came time to go on my own, I'd wanted to buy a twin-sized bed. My parents kept discouraging me, eventually forcing me by guilty feelings to buy this queen-sized bed that I don't even use the majority of for sleeping.

Everyone says my one-bedroom apartment in Atlanta was the best I had, but I'd always liked my Fort Lauderdale studio apartment the best. It upset me to have to move from it.

I'd even said I'd be comfortable in one of those stereotypical Japanese city-dweller's apartments. So, a tiny house would suit me.

I feel that sharing that wish would meet discouragement, though.

"Why would you want such a small house?" Already answered.

"What about the future?" I don't see myself living ostentatiously or wanting more than that.

That's one issue, too. The documentary had brought up "what other people think". Why is that so important? So what  if you want a small house! They didn't, you do.

It doesn't matter.

Singles Awareness?

Something I see on message boards and hear every now and then is some people grousing about why guys and girls constantly complain they don't have boyfriends and girlfriends. They should be happy with being single, that it shouldn't be a great concern.

I think it's not as easy as they say.  Just now I'd seen a Georgia Power commercial featuring a father, mother, and kids. The news I watch constantly has advisories for people with families, or ways that husbands can do things for their wives or vice-versa. Gun rights activists talk about protecting your families.

Certainly, it shouldn't be an all-out focus for people. If you're single, it shouldn't be your life's focus to get a partner, but this world does remind singles there aren't many arenas for them.

"God didn't mean for us to be alone."

Should You Have a Gun?

Partial reference: http://goo.gl/0x79DV

As soon as I'd heard the words "shouldn't have had a gun," I'd wanted to go desperately to Facebook and pull out another gun control debate aspect, but I think everyone's kind of gunned out. Still, I need to get this out.

As you may or may not know, I believe in controlling guns. I believe there are certain guns for certain occasions, and not everyone should have the most powerful and modern out there just because they want to.

Hearing, though, that someone who has had criminal convictions in the past, and who therefore should not have a gun, makes me wonder why people want to make it so easy to obtain one?

People seem to be most against the easy transfer of guns between family members. It just takes one relative who feels that the offending relative "isn't a criminal" and that "everyone is against him" to give that offending relative - who may be trying to falsely ingratiate himself to the family member - a gun.

Then Hell could break loose.

Why don't we have background checks again?

Wedding Hands - John King

So, John King and Dana Bash have separated.

Like many of the songs that I happen on for the first time, it's a year old when I find out, but I suppose in this case CNN has done their best to keep it quiet.

I remember back in 2008 when they were talking about it. John King got his now-defunct (and I'd predicted it would be; I mean, I really couldn't take a show called John King, USA seriously at all) show, and two CNN political "power-hitting" correspondents getting hitched? That was "newsworthy" indeed.

I was even telling my mother, saying literally, "He became a Jew for her." It seemed like it would last.

So, here I am watching Erin Burnett OutFront (that, despite my hesitation with that show's name, I didn't predict similar doom as John King, USA) and they have John King up.

Being me, I look at his wedding hand, as I do for just about every male I encounter (a very weird quirk, I know!). And I don't see a ring. So I start questioning. And researching.

And behold, the Internets say anything from separated to divorced. And it surprised me.

Then I start thinking about Dana Bash and John King separately, and think about what they must be like together.

Then I'm less surprised.

The things I think about when I look at a man's wedding hand.

"Have a Blessed Day"

One of the people I've followed for years on Twitter posted this:

“Guy @ CVS just handed me my receipt and said ‘Have a blessed day.’ It took restraint not to smile and tell him, ‘Satan and I curse you.’”

That actually had shocked me some, leading me to reply:

“It troubles me a little why such an innocuous statement would cause such a – and thankfully you kept it internal – reaction.”

And it's true: why would such a reaction be one to that statement? I can understand "blessed" can be - for lack of a better phrase - controversial to some people, but still, it's not an overtly proselytizing word. I think it surprises me even more because I know the guy to have been a worker in a number of luxury-class hotels, and so sensitivity to foreign-to-one's-own viewpoints should be the reaction, I think.

I still haven't received a response, but his internal reaction almost seethes with an underlying contempt of Christianity that I fear that the wrong day at the wrong time would have the next person to say such a thing get an earful of unnecessary and somewhat ireful comments.

Still waiting on an answer.

Seriously, #DumpStoli? WHY?!

It wasn't until I was on my Twitter feed today that I'd noticed Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) had changed his avatar to behold his latest - and might I say very misguided - crusade, one called #DmupStoli.

Searching that hashtag, I came upon his original blog posting, which explained his rationale.

And I disagree with most of it, because the nature of it is simply, at least with the Stoli part of the crusade, that all bars and people should drop it purely on that because Stoli is Russian one should drop it.

WTF? I mean, the #DumpSochi part, I can understand. Russia, having agreed to be internationally welcoming by virtue of agreeing to host another Olympics has made an implicit communication with the world that it would accept all people in the spirit of harmony and international union. Recently legalizing effective discrimination against any amount of people, GLBT members included, goes against that spirit.

Going against any number of private companies just because they come from a country which decided to enact certain legislation makes about as much sense in my eyes as Boston as a whole effectively refusing to allow Tamerlan Tsarnaev a burial within Massachusetts. That was another bit of ire at the backhanded twofaceness the United States can have.

Imagine if there were somewhere in the United States that still refused to bury someone in a specific place just because that person were, say, Jewish, Black, or Japanese? That was what happened to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and what's now happening because Stolichnaya happens to be a Russian company. Not a Russian government company. A Russian company.

Don't refuse something based on its proximity to something "society" seems to dislike or that someone says shouldn't be.

I say one questions separately Russia the country and Tamerlan Tsarnaev's actions as what are reprehensible, and treat Russian vodka the private, unaffiliated company product and Tamerlan Tsarnaev the human being as private, unaffiliated company products undeserving of prosecution and a human being deserving a proper burial like any human being should.

I've thus decided - not that he would give two shits because he's so high on himself and his ego that he doesn't care what a person thinks anyway - to unsubscribe to Dan Savage's podcast. His decision to discriminate against a series of products just because they happen to be of a country - and not for a country - that discriminates is as unjust and backward as the people who thought Jewish people, Black people, and Japanese people were not human beings and thus exploitable and worthy of abuse.

I say #DropDanSavage, if that's how he's going to be.

#RASP - Rant Around Several Paragraphs #2 - The Birthday Song

So, there has been much talk about he copyright on the birthday song. I'm going to leave that be, because obviously my take on it is the song is public domain and one should be able to use it freely.

No, the point of this post is the singing of the song.

So, we all know the first few lines: “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday…”

And that's where I pause.

What's the next word in the third line? Is it "dear" or the person's name? There are different opinions on this, certainly, but I'm addressing mine here on this, providing examples of course.

Let's use my name, Kristopha. Should it be October 24 and people have gathered to regale me with gifts and song, in my opinion the third line should go "Happy birthday Kristopha…"

This is because my name has three syllables, the second syllable having the emphasis and not the first or third. Should they have elected to use the shortened form of my name, Kris, the verse would go "Happy birthday, dear Kris", with the "Kris" part drawn out into two "syllables" (Kri-is), just so the post "happy birthday" element maintains three beats and the second of three beats has the emphasis.

So, what about names with emphasis on the other-than-second syllable? For this, we'll use my sister's name, Melonie.

We pronounce her name /'mε l^ ni:/, and so the third line, in my estimation, should be "Happy birthday, dear Melonie". Æsthetically, this pleases my ear, and I think others would agree.

When people in South Africa were singing the Happy Birthday song for Nelson Mandela, it seems a lot of them sang "Happy birthday, dear Madiba", which sounds wrong to me. Since the word/title Madiba has second-syllable emphasis and is a three-syllable word, the line should be "Happy birthday Madiba".

If they'd decided to use his Xhosa name, Rolihlahla, which has emphasis on the second syllable and has four syllables, I'd think it would have the dear: "Happy Birthday, dear Rolihlahla".

If it were my Nigerian cousin-in-law, whose full name is Adetunji (emphasis on the third syllable), there'd be no dear: "Happy birthday Adetunji". It sounds a bit stuffy to call him Adetunji, though, so most of us call him just Tunji (where there would be a dear).

My opinion on any name greater than four syllables is the person would usually have a shorter nickname or an abbreviated name that should fit into these cases.

All that said, I have one more gripe to grapple with: the additional stanzas beyond "How old are you now?". Traditionally in Jamaica, at least, there is a third stanza which goes, "May the Dear Lord bless you." I don't mind this stanza, and it's a nice touch to me but only if multiple people (being more than three) all continue the song through that stanza without pausing.

At my niece's first birthday party, people were pretty much ready to quit singing after the "How old are you now" stanza, but my Dad insisted on singing the Dear-Lord-bless-you stanza too. He was the only one who had continued on to singing it, and the rest of us grudgingly continued on to sing that one. It was just awkward, so my take is one should have some social maturity to gauge pauses and empathize with a group (this coming from someone - me - who is generally socially anxious and awkward anyway!).

That way you don't become the bully who commandeered a nice tradition into a sing-that-stanza-or-burn-in-Hell session.

#RASP - Rant Around Several Paragraphs #1 - Idiocy

I’m starting a new subsection I’m titling RASP, an inspiration from @mallow610’s YouTube video channel-based RISS (Rant in Sixty Seconds, with its haunting, awesome intro tune), in which I get things off my mind that otherwise would stick there until the end of time.

Speed Limits
The United States has speed limits, and as much as especially these stupid-asses that don’t think there are any, or there is any need for any, there are speed limits. There was this guy who – and I don’t even know how he got a driving license, but he was driving – crossed a double yellow line to pass me.

Driving 101: double yellow lines demarcate a separation of traffic lanes that go in opposite directions that standard and commercial drivers should never cross in order to pass another driver (i.e. the diagram showing "Yes" and "No").

This is different from the diagram with the solid line and the dashed line. These also separate opposite traffic lanes, but one can pass another person with caution if everything is clear on the opposite lane!
So I beeped him. This should be another rant, but the point of this one is simply that speed limits exist. On Cooledge Road between US Road 78 and US Road 29 is 40 MPH. Not 50. Not 55. Forty. One the entire stretch of GA Interstate 285 – until such a time as they decide to enact the proposed digital variable speed limit signs that will change during based on DHSMV’s volition/judgment, the top speed limit is 55 MPH and the bottom speed limit is 40 MPH. Georgia State Road 20 has had a speed limit of 45 MPH since the SPLOST-funded renovation of the Loganville-outer Loganville stretch had completed. It’s no longer 55 MPH, people. They put tax-funded signage saying 45 MPH for a reason!

You – sorry – lazy-ass, law-flouting fuckers that don’t feel there should be a speed limit, move your asses to fucking Deutschland. Get over yourselves. I drive the speed limit, y'all should too.

Patents on Genes
The only reason people seem to want to patent genes is monetary. I keep hearing that not patenting stifles innovation; bull! If you can tell me that the drug companies researching the existence of the gene – and then locating it – created the gene as well as the method to detect it, go ahead and patent it. If you have a means of modifying the gene so it doesn’t cause breast or ovarian cancer, go ahead and patent that technique. If, though, that gene in all ovarian and breast cancer sufferers is exactly the same in all of them, and you didn’t do crap to make it so, you have no right to patent it. Sure, patent to Hell the means of detecting the gene, because The Lord knows there are alternative means of detecting anything, but you have no right to patent the gene.

The only reason they want to patent the gene is because licensing it out will yield more profits that getting a Nobel or some other prize in chemistry or genetics or whatever for discovering the actual gene.

Greed will kill the bearers of these genes faster than the genes will while you all sit on your asses trying to patent something you had no hand in creating, only discovering.



That’s all.

GEICO Dough Boy Commercial - Happier than the Pillsbury Doughboy on His Way to a Baking Convention

http://youtu.be/EvFul32xKCs

This has to be one of the cutest commercials ever! No one cannot laugh during this!

Then they have the doughboy humming to the guitar/ukelele tune at the end! Precious!

Marketing Milo

My mother got back from a trip to Jamaica yesterday, and quite typically she'd brought back stuff. Among the items were eight packs of Milo, a Nestlé product I grew up having. Granted, it wasn't a frequent part of my childhood, but it's something I knew about.

So, the thought of this blog post came earlier in the week as I was looking at a can of Milo mummy had bought here in the US. Me knowing Spanish, I was comparing the English to the Spanish translation (or the Spanish to the English interpretation, whichever it is).

The Spanish translates literally as "Chocolate-Flavored Fortified Food", which is vastly different from the English. In Spanish, it makes the product to seem as if it's a meal replacement; in English, it's just something recreational to drink, a nice-to-have.

So, mummy coming back with Milo from Jamaica now, both the English and Spanish are a little more in line together, but in the islands they market it as something that can replace a meal as well, or at the very least it's something one can drink when you can't eat at the time (such as while at play).

That's interesting marketing, actually. Why would you market a product as a drink for one set of people and as a food for another? I'm certain that those who use it as a food can't be doing quite as well in all their health numbers, especially with the amount of sugar per serving. Is it a disposable income matter, that those who would use it as food have less money to spend, and so this is their quick-fix meal?

I really don't know, but marketing a beverage like that as a meal just doesn't seem right to me.