(no subject)

It took me forever to finish reading The Napoleon Of Crime: The Life and Times Of Adam Worth, Master Thief, by Ben MacIntyre. It wasn't intentional; it's just the book I happened to be reading when my life became a mess for about three weeks there. Now that I'm more settled, I managed to finish it.

I picked the book up for three bucks at the Newberry Library Book Sale, choosing it (ironically, since its subject is the basis for Doyle's Moriarty) over an encylopedia of Sherlock Holmes. I think I made the right choice. This book is fascinating.

( If you want to get on quickly... )

Final Verdict: If you're into art crime, crime history, or Victorian history, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Even if you're not, I suggest you give it a shot; it's such an enjoyable, educational read, and the combination of the two seem a bit hard to come by in recent years. It's thoroughly fun.

(no subject)

This is the day that would not end, you guys. It was psychotic. I'll complain about that in a minute.

First of all: mea maxima culpa. I didn't do as much research on the news item I sent out this morning as I should have, as I normally do. I can give you all the reasons, which are multitudinous, but the essence of it is that I didn't do my due diligence and fucked up. Sorry about that, I'm human and make mistakes. If I had done the research I would have seen that Andrew Blake was involved and posted a caveat, but I still would have posted the item.

I'm not going to go into the whole Andrew Blake - Thanfiction - Victoria Bitter - etc etc etc thing here, so don't bother asking. If you're that interested in the long and sordid tale, google and the fandom_wank wiki can fill you in. I still haven't confirmed with Lyssa that this is actually the same Andrew Blake, but I believe it is and I'm going to contact her about that after this post goes up (wanted to get this info out first). I should have waited until this evening when I could do the research and moderate any issues that arose from it.

Second: I've locked that entry on LJ and my other mirrors. It's still up on Dreamwidth with comments locked, so that you can see it there if you want. I did this in part because I wanted to get all the research done, and also because some people were dancing a razor's edge between informative and wanky. You know who you are, don't do that again. To those of you who shared links and valid information, I appreciate the heads up.

Third: Here's where it gets tricky, and where you need to use your own good judgement. Lyssa has vouched to me in email that she knows Ed and Kristin and drove them and Andrew to the trail head; she has also vouched to me that the money is going directly to them, not through Andrew or any other intermediary. I don't know Lyssa personally, but I know she's had a presence on this journal for a while; she's not a total stranger, and I honestly have no reason to doubt her. You need to decide for yourselves whether a) you believe her, b) you believe the money is going to Ed and Kristin, c) you wish to donate.

The thing is, you should never give money to any cause simply because I mention it on the journal. RFM and items like it are ways to bring causes to your awareness, and usually they're vetted by me and can be reasonably trusted. Except on very rare occasions, these are not issues where I'm asking you to give -- they're issues where I'm saying you can give. You should also never give if you don't have that money to spare, of course.

The cost of being a generous, big-hearted person is that once in a while you may be taken in. That's the reality we live in, and I'm sorry it's the case. I don't know if it's the case here.

Um, I think that's the lot of it. I'm leaving comments open; normally I would trust you guys not to be wanky, but just in case: a) don't be douches; b) in this case, given past wanks involving Andrew, I think it's also wise to remind everyone that transphobia is not tolerated on this journal.

Thanks guys. Sorry about all this.

(no subject)

OR, LJ could go down for scheduled maintenance.

The first half of today was actually pretty awesome. I met up with a bunch of people also doing training with me for lunch, and it turned out I knew about half of them and had passing acquaintance with most of the rest. But right as we were going into training the whole *handwave* thing came up, and I barely had time to do minimal damage control on that. The guy next to me leaned over to my computer and said "Do you have your work programs up? How'd you manage that?" and I had to minimize the LJ window very, very quickly and say "No, I was on a public site."

Training was a disaster. Here's a tip for those of you who have to teach people how to do computer stuff: When you're demonstrating on a large screen what buttons to click or menus to drop down, do not stand in front of the screen you're demonstrating on in order to do it. WE CAN'T SEE THE DEMONSTRATION.

She was a really dreadful teacher. She kept focusing intensely and for long periods of time on the super-intuitive parts of the database, and then skimming gleefully and speedily through the really complicated parts. It was like some kind of IT-induced nightmare. And because we kept making her go back and better-explain the complicated bits, we ran over. Meanwhile I'm sitting here going Jesus Christ shit is happening on the internet, be done already!

After we got out it was just this hilarious comedy of errors, because a couple of staff members live near my stop on the Red Line and apparently I was the only one who knew how to get the bus to the local Red Line stop so we could ride home. (They took cabs this morning, I don't even know.) Anyway, there's me and my three little ducklings getting on the bus, and the guy sitting next to me turns to me after about five minutes and says, "So this bus goes to the Red Line, right?" and I said yes, I was getting off there and would let him know. And then his two buddies across the aisle asked him if he was sure, and he said "Yeah, this guy's getting off there" and the upshot was that when we finally got to the right stop, I got up and like...seven or eight people saw me get up and got up and followed me off. It was all sort of mildly messianic.

Then the red line got delayed.

But finally I am home. And tomorrow I get to go back to my nice quiet cubicle and teach myself the stuff the teacher didn't teach. In the meantime I think I need a nap.