The Custodian's New Writeups

February 2, 2010 (log)

2010-02-02T20:58:59Z

(ob. angsty title:) You See Me Now The Vet'ran of A Brutal Psychic War

So Depression just sucks. Sucks rocks, or balls, or whatever you've got that can emphasize and flavor the quality of suck. Just not good, all 'round. I am guilty of whinging on about my depression in public, especially here at E2, so please consider this a SKIP NOW warning for those who just don't care. You shouldn't, really; this is much more about me being able to coherently tie concepts related to my depression together somewhere than about having people actually read it and god forbid respond to me.

I know it doesn't look that way ("Hey Custy, then why write it on a public daylog, you shmuck?") but it's true. Why put it here? Because for whatever reason, I'm much much less inclined to edit or wholesale delete things I have posted for potential public consumption. I nuke and edit scratch pads all the time, especially private ones with…

December 2, 2009 (log)

2009-12-02T18:14:48Z

Be still my blood pressure.

I guess I should be flattered, but I'm *not*.

Apparently someone desperate to complete NaNoWriMo has decided it will be simpler to just wholesale copy my story "The New York Magician" off Everything2.com and present the work as their own.

A user on LiveJournal.com, who is also on both tumblr.com and NaNoWriMo, has posted 61,000+ words of my work and claimed that they are hers.

I'm pursuing DMCA takedowns but honestly? That isn't enough to lower my blood pressure.

I think I need to have a couple drinks to calm down.

Apparently, according to Jet-Poop, she's stolen other Everything2.com content from other users as well. :-(

Update:

Well, okay, I feel marginally better. tumblr.com agreed with me that the content was mine, as did NaNoWriMo. Both seem to have taken quick action. LiveJournal isn't so much an issue, as what was there was links to the tumblr content, but I'm still hoping to smack down…

Purple-K (thing)

2009-11-26T07:14:30Z

Purple-K is a firefighting dry chemical. Although bicarbonate of soda had been used to fight fires for many years prior to its discovery, in the 1950s the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory discovered that switching potassium in for the sodium in bicarbonate increased its ability to quench flame by a factor of at least two.

Fire requires four components to burn, sometimes known as the 'fire tetrahedron': heat, oxygen, fuel, and a chemical chain reaction. Purple-K is one of the few that directly attacks the chemical chain reaction, efficiently interrupting said chain reaction and hence stopping combustion. It consists, in its industrial preparation, of potassium bicarbonate and sodium bicarbonate (approximately 80% and 15% by weight), mica, Fuller's Earth and silica making up the remainder.

It is one of the most effective tools in fighting flammable liquid fires. As a result, it is used heavily in chemical and petroleum refineries…

cell tower (thing)

2009-11-26T06:57:43Z

A cell tower is another name for a cell site, or cellular site. It is sometimes called a cell tower because most such sites are elevated whenever possible. Basically, it is a location where a cellular communications system base station (or, more precisely, the base station's antenna) is located. Cell towers typically contain several antennas to cover various directions.

Cell towers can be found wherever an enterprising cellular company has managed to find an elevated location with good sightlines to rent space from. One popular tactic in the United States, as cell towers went up in suburban and urban areas, was to rent space in the steeples of local churches which no longer maintained actual bells, as they usually had good sight lines in at least four directions, were relatively secure, and contained adequate power.

Shackleton's Whisky (thing)

2009-11-25T02:13:33Z

Sir Ernest Shackleton's first expedition to the Antarctic was known as the Nimrod Expedition, which set out in 1907. During this journey, he set up his expedition headquarters on McMurdo Sound, near Cape Royds, by building a hut on the shore. Due to the extreme conditions in the Antarctic, this hut has survived (with some help) to the present day. Crates of supplies and equipment have been recovered from the hut, and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust has been working to restore and preserve the site.

In 2006, members of the Trust were working to remove some ice from beneath the floorboards of the hut when they came across a happy surprise! Apparently, to keep it nice and safe, Shackleton or his men had taken two crates of McKinlay and Co. scotch whisky and placed them under the hut. They're still there, bottles apparently intact and sealed, underneath the hut.

What to do with this treasure? Well, the obvious answer - drink some of…

November 25, 2009 (log)

2009-11-25T01:30:05Z

I recently (read: earlier today) arrived at my father's house for family Thanksgiving. My father is the current custodian of many family treasures, including our bought-new 1987 Mk. 1 Toyota MR2. I didn't see it in the garage, and asked about it.

Apparently, my father didn't bother to tell me when back in July or August, it apparently threw a rod through the block.

Now, I'm already a bit suspicious. Okay, that car and engine had approximately a quarter of a million miles on them, but damn it, engines don't throw rods without something else being fairly badly wrong. I mean, I just have trouble buying metal fatigue. It was a goddamn 4AGE, for fuck's sake.

So where is the car? Dad tells me it's 'still at the garage because they're still trying to find an engine.'

What?

The 4AGE is probably one of the most numerous engines Toyota ever produced, given that it ran practically every. Single. Toyota made in the 1980s and early…