Fair Warnings

I have a friend on Facebook that used to live in Portland. He’s moved to a distant place, so FB is our contact point. This guy, yeah, I’m guarding his identity, is also a bit of a public figure. He is internationally famous in his field of work. He gets massive amounts of FB Friend requests from fans. Periodically he batch approves them and then sends out this notice so the new “friends” know what to expect. Note: some redacting perfomed.

IF YOU JUST HAD YOUR FRIEND REQUEST APPROVED, PLEASE READ THIS.

Okay, so I just approved a gazillion new friend requests, so here are some basic facts to prepare you noobs. You people who were already here can just carry on or mock me as you usually do when I post this one.

  1. Do not ask me to like your page. I will not. And I will unfriend and block you.

  2. Do not add me to groups or poke me.

  3. It is not necessary to thank me for adding you. That’s a leftover from MySpace.

  4. On a similar token, if I just now approved your friend request, it means I don’t actually know you. If you voted for Trump or admire him or his policies, kindly fuck off and unfriend me and save us a lot of grief. People might give me shit about not being open to other ideas, but if I don’t know you yet, I don’t really care about your ideas yet and if you like Trump, it’s a pretty good indication that I will strongly dislike you. I’m old enough that I’ve already heard the other side’s arguments for a long fucking time and know that I do NOT agree with them. Any family or friends from the real world get a pass. Them, I will always listen to even if I disagree with them. But for people I don’t even actually know? No. No Trump people.

And to add to this, if you are Alt Right or use the term SJW or Social Justice Warrior to describe people you disagree with, please fuck off. If you do not believe in diversity in comics, supported gamer gate doxxing or believe in doxxing in general, FUCK OFF. I want nothing to do with you.

If you think it’s cool to harass creators, fuck off. If you are happy about Star Wars actors being driven from social media because of harassment, fuck off.

  1. I also post a ton of stuff about beer because I brew beer and am heavily involved in the brewing and beer scene here in [home area].

  2. I post a ton of comics stuff, mostly my own work, often step by step or work-in-progress stuff. So, for comics folks, it shouldn’t be too bad. Just ignore the other posts if you don’t wanna read them.

  3. I love my family and post about them with kids pics and stuff. I love my distant family as well and stay in touch with them here.

  4. Do not post spoilers. I will unfriend and block you.

  5. I write rants sometimes and curse and use the word fuck. If you are easily offended, save us all some grief and go away.

  6. I will not promote your kickstarter, so don’t ask.

And: “why don’t you have a professional page, [name]?”

I don’t feel like managing yet another page. I already manage this page, the [my area] homebrew competition page and Twitter, my own Twitter and the homebrew competition website. That is enough work for me at the moment. People will have to filter stuff. Just the way it is.

Welcome. And cheers from [Here]!

Six Books YOU Can and Should Write

This summarizes a wonderful article by Anthony Madrid.

No, not a novel or a poetry collection, not a compendium of essays. Certainly not a book for publication.

The books are:

  • a book about oneself
  • a book about others
  • an anthology of favorites
  • a book about words
  • a book of lists
  • a book to burn

Mr. Madrid provides examples for each of these, The Diary of Samuel Pepys for the book about oneself. Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book is the example for a book of lists, of which Madrid states, “Again, your book of lists won’t be as good as hers. Hers is a thousand years old; her personality is exquisite and Martian.”

If you have the literacy to read this post, you have what it takes to write any or all of these books.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Want something to play but not seriously watch? The 5 Minute Crafts channel on YouTube is a delight. No dialog, not exhortations to like and share, just gobs of craft tricks, suggestions, ideas, and such shown with bubbly background music.

Mental junk food yes. Well, except there’s some genius useful thing every few minutes. So your time isn’t totally wasted away.