Just a response to some things yfrontz brought up regarding the Victorian bushfires and the investigations into how it happened.

( I think that no policy will unanimously save lives because hindsight is 20/20 and people can't KNOW when they make the decision to stay or go how bad the fire will be until it's on top of them and then it's too late to leave. )

Here's an idea of how much of the state is or has been on fire, thanks to Google. The embedded map doesn't appear to be working.

As you can see that is not a small amount of ground these fires covered in such a short amount of time. Don't forget to donate whatever you can to THE RED CROSS BUSHFIRE FUND.

The kiwi and aussie cricket teams are donating all their pay from todays game to the cause which is awesome. The kiwis may "hate" us but I do love how our relationship is like a great sibling rivalry. We give each other heaps, but when we're in trouble we are always there for each other. The kiwi boys certainly didn't have to follow the aussie cricketers lead but they did. There are cricketers walking around in the crowd with donation buckets and they're also donating their shirts so they can be auctioned. We have assholes arsonists living here but it's good to know that so many people are willing to make sacrifices to help other people too.

Jesus Christ Victoria...

I have no idea what to say.

108 people...

Footage of the fire is out of this world hellish. The coverage is just gut wrenching considering two journalists got caught in it so it's personal for both news channels I normally watch. The channel nine veteran didn't make it, but the channel seven journalist's wife made it (they kept playing this gut wrenching mobile phone 'interview' with him trying to get through the road blocks to where his wife was trapped in the middle of the inferno - she'd just rung him 'screaming'...*shudders*). There were so many towns that got swamped from all angles because of those fierce hot winds making the fire jump all over the place and change directions. There was nowhere to run and no warning. I knew it would be far worse than Ash Wednesday because they didn't have access to a lot of those swamped towns and the body count was already at 50 yesterday. But 108 and still counting???

*shudders*

What a horrible task: going from car to burned out car, house to burned down house looking for bodies and trying to figure out who is missing.

I'll never forget images of those burned out pile ups. All those people whose cars got swamped on the road, whole families wiped out as they tried to outrun the fire. What a horrible way to die.

My sister's taste in men is still down somewhere in the deepest region of hell bashing its head against a flaming wall. Haven't slept at all.

So sick of this crap.

BAD NEWS

Yuh. She didn't go. She sucks. Actually they both do. There were two adults here, one of them could have watched the child while the other went. It's one thing. The last big favour I asked of my family was four years ago and surely I've earned some credit ever since the bubs were born? Even if they don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, I earned a guilt-effort at least.

I can't believe they didn't go. Actualy, I can. They don't care about literature and consider it a hobby so when I say I want a signature of a favourite author, it doesn't go into the "important" coloumn. Man, this is what I want to do, it's like meeting an idol, OF COURSE it's important to me. They just don't get it.

( Yeah. I proceed to rant for a while )


GOOD NEWS

Jason got his caricature signed so now he has Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Raymond Feist. That's not good, that's AWESOME.

I've also just started reading Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. If the TV show based on this book is as twisted, funny and just plain wrong? I will love it. It's started out well and one passage wiped out the bad mood that the No-Neil-Gaiman-Signature created.

Favourite line so far:

"There is something strange and disarming about looking at a homicide scene in the bright daylight of the Miami sun. It makes the most grotesque killings look antiseptic, staged. Like you're in a new and daring section of Disney Land. Dahmer Land. Come ride the refrigerator. Please hurl your lunch in the designated containers only."

JUST. SO. WRONG. Oh books you curve my people-frowns into a smile.

Oh and I get four days off now. WHEE.

Don't you hate it when your boss is screwing you out of entitlements but in the process of talking about it tries to make you feel guilty? That's what my boss is doing only I'm so sick of his manic mood swings and exploitative tendencies that I'm not going to meekly bow my head to his tendency to believe he can change any contract at his own whim. He's in the process of trying to convince me that I didn't work overtime this week despite the fact I just got a copy of the status change contract I signed and it explicitly states the hours I work each week. LESS than what I worked this week.

He approaches you with this soft, sincere woe-is-me voice like if I bite back I'm the unethical, unreasonable one for causing a scene. He hates scenes. He hates conflict of any kind thus he expects us to accept whatever he says with that (in)sincere caring voice. It makes me want to punch him in the nose.

He just wants us to do what he wants so he can make his margins and he doesn't get in trouble for needing one of his workers to do overtime and thus get paid their entitled hours. He's taking it personally that people have been quitting in droves - five in the last two weeks - not understanding why they can't stick it out and trust him. THIS IS WHY FUCKTARD. Maybe if he wasn't such mendacious asshole people would stop quitting and he wouldn't have to get people to work more than their contracted hours. How would anyone trust him on any subject when he's only looking out for himself, screwing over his workers so he makes head office more money.

ASSHOLE.

I made the 2IC back away from me on his computer chair saying 'I had nothing to do with it, I'm staying out of it' today. I was glaring and just seething as I read my contract. I can't believe that fuck lied to my face and expected me to be so stupid that I wouldn't check my contract. Unfortunately, he wasn't in today so I have to seethe over the weekend until I confront him. The fact the he lied to my face is means I'm going to fucking report his ass if he stubbornly denies he owes me anything. Not only to head office but to the ombudsman. I hate when people think I'm a walkover. Just because I'm slow to anger doesn't mean I let people screw me. It just means that when I am angry I seethe like nobodies business; I have a vindictive temper, cool to a point. Up until now I've given him the benefit of the doubt and only been upset at the company. Now I know he's their bitch and it's HIM. The doubt is gone. He better freakin' give me my money or I'll tear his head off.

My neck is currently not sitting perpendicular to my shoulders. Woke up Easter morning, went into the bathroom, looked into the mirror, heard a rather upsetting CRACK and have been twisted in pain ever since. Can't look up or down or turn my head to the left. Currently balancing heat pack on neck as bored out of mind and couldn't take staring at the ceiling any more.

I have work tomorrow and if it's like this no way am I going in, I don't care how many annoyed sighs I get from my boss or frowning looks from my mother (who will go to work unless she's unconscious and/or sent home). I have an accupuncture appointment tomorrow morning either way but I might change it to physio. I had my first appointment today and they told me they get this all the time from people sleeping funny, just a few needles and it'll be fine...then they felt the massive knot at the base of my neck which apparently isn't normally there. It did loosen up while the needles were in but it's gone back to how it was now. She lectured me that I shouldn't work for at least two days (which means I wouldn't work at all this week since I had Easter Monday off) or lift anything or bend and I need to come in tomorrow because the know was too massive for one treatment.

Sigh.

Not sure if she just wanted more money and I told her that wasn't wasn't an option and she gave me a glower. The woman was four foot tall with a soft, sweet voice and she intimidated me with her glower. I have become a noodle.

Hopefully it's better tomorrow because OUCH but I don't want to travel so far with this neck either. I have a physio place up the street that was closed for Easter. It should be open tomorrow and I'm thinking it's the better option.

Oh fuck. Oh no. What have I done?????????

A couple of days ago I snapped one of my memory sticks by accident. I bumped it while it was plugged into my notebook and it snapped right at the USB plug. Snapped clean off. For a moment I panicked, but I'd only been cleaning up my hard drive transferring old university files and my resume. There wasn't much on it that I could remember. The memory is not large so I knew they were only .doc files and I thought it was all old school and uni stuff. None of which I needed because I had a hard copy of my resume and who cares about my essays when I have hard copies of them hanging around too and when will I ever need them again, anyway?

Only today I was talking with my sister about one of my original concepts and decided to reread it and give it another reworking when what do I find? It's not on my computer. It's not on my bigger memory stick. It's not burned on any disc.

Oh fuck. What have I done?

I've lost every original work I've ever written.

( AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! )

( Cut for those sick of the sisterly woes )

Life is...life. I'm too exhausted by everything to try and be poetic about disaster at the moment. Thanks fandom for distracting me for an hour tonight. I only had enough focus to do manual crap so here's a couple of recs and icons.

Thanks for all your words the other day. I know I rant TMI sometimes on this journal and tell you guys things you'd rather not know but it's largely because I'm talking to myself as I'm using to being a bit of a brick wall for my family and friends. Thanks for being the Atlas for my life if only for five seconds, I'll try and get back to you tomorrow. :)

( A few more LV Post-Episode Recs; Episode 16 recs are finally up. )

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