chesneycat

I go by that name in a few places on the internet.  I know there are others - the KwontomLoop and fanfic astrokaths are me, the one on the gardening forum or the border-collie fancier and others in several other places are not. I think the gardener might also be the Australian Damien Leith fan.  But I've just come across another, moving in much more similar circles to myself.

Here.

It's the type of post I might have written, in part.  But I certainly wouldn't go as far as to publicly call for the managerial decapitation of STFC's top brass, regardless of whether I agree with the sentiment or not.  To be honest, I haven't yet made up my mind on that score (though I feel very strongly that what's happening to STP in particular right now is appalling).

All the same, I'm rather freaked out by the existence of my doppelganger, and would like to state for the record that she is not me.

On sunday, we encountered a woman driver who was indisputably full of Fail.  Jez had parked outside the co-op, a couple of feet behind a small-ish estate car.  Plenty of room for the car to be manouevred out, especially since she had another two feet of empty space in front as well.  But, as we closed the car doors, she came running up to us.  Apparently, a space that I could've squeezed out of if it was a quarter of the size was far too small for her.  Could we please drop the car back another half mile or so? She was ever so sorry, but had just popped in to the shop to buy a pint of milk, and didn't think any other road users might just happen to park behind her while she was inside.  Because it's not the busiest local shop in the world or anything...

Oh, we silently obliged, but I'm sure the look on my face told her all she needed to know.   Lady, I know parallel parking can be tricky, but if your driving skills are THAT poor, you should NOT be on the road!  Sheesh, but you're giving your sex a bad name.

Rant number two - debt. I have every sympathy for people who get themselves into debt, but a story on the news this morning pissed me off a little.  They began it by explaining how this woman had suddenly found herself 40K in the red, but oh, she DESERVED our sympathy because it wasn't spent on luxuries, but on bills and mortgage payments which had doubled, and OH WHO COULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT?!

Sorry, but no.  Since when have interest rates always remained the same?  And it's not as if we don't have the memory of rocketing rates and repossessions in the 80s (and to a lesser extent, the 90s), is it?  Seriously, what do you EXPECT is going to happen when your lovely three-year fixed rate mortgage expires, and you end up on whatever the standard rate is today?  Come ON people - it's not rocket science!  Stretching yourself for a mortgage is bad enough if you know you can't really afford it, but displaying a level of willful ignorance that'd put an ostrich to shame...?  Nope, you're getting zero sympathy from this corner.

On a less snarky note, last night I gave a talk to our local astronomy society, and it went down wonderfully.  I'm so chuffed with myself.

EDIT - when I tag my posts with either "idiot of the week" or "rant of the week", surely a snarkfest isn't unexpected?  Oh, internet, you make me weep!

A semi-anonymous reviewer has just left this review of Mary Sue's Revenge.

i spottedone but i don't kknow why? plz help me!

WTF, Barbeque? They've given me an e-mail address, but I'm not feeling hugely charitable towards them... Going back to read the chapter in question, what they've written kind of makes sense, but to be honest, if you need to ask, no, you didn't spot one of the deliberate mistakes. 

If you want answers that I've already told you I'm not going to give, you can damn well ask for them coherently or not at all.

That's all.