This Is Not A Democracy

Further to my last post, this happened on CSI, once.


God bless America.

On 10 May, I ordered Holy Roman Empire's debut album. In fact, I pre-ordered it in both the Album & EP package and the solo Limited Edition Album versions.

On 6 June, I received a package, with a packing note listing all three discs and costs for both the package deal and the limited edition - but inside there was no limited edition CD.

I sent ( this email )

Today, I got home to find they had emailed on 11th June with ( this )

Actually, no, that isn't the case. They sent me the plain CDs, and not the limited edition.

( So I said... )

They just emailed back ( with )

Seriously. WTF? I paid for this over a month ago. I sent them ( this )

...and I'm now waiting on a response. But what a fucking cheek?! I pre-ordered the Limited Edition on the day it was announced and I want it fucking fixed. I'm really, really annoyed. If I don't get a copy I'm going to find some way to report them to trading standards or something. That's really, really bad service.

Top Tory axed over Army race row

A Tory MP has been forced to quit his frontbench role after making comments on race in the Army which party leader David Cameron called "unacceptable".

Shadow homeland security spokesman Patrick Mercer said he had met "a lot" of "idle and useless" ethnic minority soldiers who used racism as a "cover".

The former officer also told the Times that being called a "black bastard" was a normal part of Army life.

But Mr Mercer later said he "deeply" regretted any "offence" he had caused.

'Way it is'

Some of the Newark MP's constituency colleagues have rallied to support him, with one saying Mr Cameron's reaction had been in "haste".

In his interview with the Times, Mr Mercer said of the black men he had known in the Army: "They prospered inside my regiment, but if you'd said to them 'Have you ever been called a nigger,' they would have said 'Yes.'

"But equally, a chap with red hair, for example, would also get a hard time - a far harder time than a black man, in fact."


When you wear that uniform, it is what goes on and it's been happening for a long, long time
Leroy Hutchinson
Former soldier

Send us your reaction

Mr Mercer added: "But that's the way it is in the Army. If someone is slow on the assault course, you'd get people shouting: 'Come on you fat bastard, come on you ginger bastard, come on you black bastard.'"

He also said: "I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless, but who used racism as cover for their misdemeanours.

"I remember one guy from St Ann's (Nottingham) who was constantly absent and who had a lot of girlfriends.

"When he came back one day I asked him why, and he would say: 'I was racially abused.' And we'd say: 'No you weren't, you were off with your girlfriends again.'"

'Regret'

After the comments were published, Mr Mercer was asked by his party to resign his frontbench position and did so.

He later told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that in his 25-year military career he had twice come across soldiers claiming racism when disciplined for poor performance.

Mr Cameron said: "The comments made by Patrick Mercer are completely unacceptable and I regret that they were made.

"We should not tolerate racism in the Army or in any walk of life."

He also said: "I was completely shocked when I read the remarks of Patrick Mercer.

Mr Cameron called racism "disgusting", saying it had "no part in any part of our society".

Army culture

Shadow trade and industry secretary Alan Duncan told BBC One's Question Time: "He [Mr Mercer] appeared to be indifferent to the fact that someone was taunted for being black.

"You cannot be indifferent to that."

But Leroy Hutchinson, a black former corporal who served with Mr Mercer for 12 years, said: "He never tolerated racism in the battalion and not a single one of his men would consider him to be racist."

He added: "In the forces... name-calling - whether you be black, white, ginger, red, brown - it is part of the establishment."

He went on: "It's not meant and it doesn't come across from an individual as a racist comment. It's just part of the culture.

"When you wear that uniform, it is what goes on and it's been happening for a long, long time."

Newark Conservative Association chairwoman Sheelagh Hamilton said she was "extremely angry" Mr Mercer's comments had been taken "out of context".

"David Cameron has behaved precipitously," she said.

"[Mr Mercer] is a wonderful member of parliament and a wonderful man and he would never have intended to be racist," she added.

Richard Alexander, a cabinet member of the Tory-run Newark and Sherwood District Council, said: "We all say things in the heat of the moment that do not read too well in print, but I understand where he's coming from."

----

I never thought I would agree with a Tory, but I'm sorry: Mercer is right. That is how it is. He's not saying racism is okay. He's saying that people in the military - as in normal life - are picked out and addressed by what makes them different. It's just an identifying feature used as an adjective.

So what?

Yeah, it's offensive, but saying, "You black bastard" to someone, which is probably something they were fairly clear on before said drill sergeant kindly informed them - and, dare I say it? Something they may even be proud of - is less offensive to me than calling someone fat. Which they also do. But do you hear the thick-set soldiers bitching? I doubt it. Personally, I'm half-Sicilian and I call myself a Wop. You can call me a Wop. Or a butch bi bitch, if you want. I don't care. You're right, I am. And I'd compliment the alliteration, as well.

Because it's not an insult, really, is it? It's a fucking observation.

People need to accept that the military, first of, is fucking hard work. They want to break you down and build you up again from scratch, because they want to put you back together stronger and more efficient. If you're too pathetic to deal with someone calling you playground names then you're too weak to be a fucking soldier, so don't run around crying 'racism' because they won't stand for your pansy bitch, womanising bullshit. They also need to accept that the military has its own rules. Your happy little PC world does not fucking exist anymore. You just signed over the next three to five years of your life - they now own you wholesale and you will do what they say. I love that about the military: political correctness is taken for the bullshit it is. Speak your mind, and that way you always know where you stand and so does everyone else.

And Mercer's not saying that all black people are lazy any more than Little Britain is saying all disabled people are manipulative frauds. He's just saying that people use racial discrimination as an excuse for poor behaviour - just as certain people from other minorities, be they racial, religious, disability-related, or lifestyle-orientated are way too quick to scream prejudice over completely innocuous things.

I don't think making that point should have cost him his job. And I do think that people who abuse their position as minorities - and bear in mind that I am a Pagan bisexual with Native American heritage who is into 'alternative' music but grew up in Chav Central, and therefore I have some idea about being a minority - should be fucking called on it. Aren't we always asking for equality? Then why should minorities get special treatment?

FOBRock Boardies kind of make me sick.

I have never known such a self-obsessed bunch of insensitive little cunts.

Some of them are fine. Some of them seem to be pleasant and intelligent - don't get me wrong, I don't mean all of them.

But tonight alone I have seen people making posts mocking Pete's supposed suicide attempt, a while back - calling one really personal aspect that I'm sure was symbolic to him at the time 'retarded'. And all this knowing the guy reads the stuff we post (and since a new inteview posted tonight, that Patrick does, too) and after seeing a post in his blog where he seems extremely unhappy, and may be talking about a friend's suicide - and as well as knowing that the things the fans say, especially in things like the Q&A can really make or break his mood. He's told us in the past how much reading the "we love you, you're a great person" posts can really make him feel better when he's down; and I tend to think he's telling it straight, because frankly he strikes me as the sort of person who needs approval, even if he tries to tell himself he doesn't.

Why the hell would you talk shit about someone you're supposed to look up to, least of all where they can read it? And the people who made the comments on that post do consider themselves fans. I just can't comprehend it. Just yesterday the same people were posting pictures of Patrick being silly, and puppies, in a thread specifically intended to bring him out of whatever funk he's got himself in - the 'Cheer Up Pete thread'. How can someone not understand that if you're already depressed, and have made an attempt on your own life in the past, people acting like you're stupid - people who are supposed to be on your side - can make you feel so much worse?

Seriously?

I attempted suicide, once. I know how low you have to be to do it and mean it (although, I should note that he's always refused to call it suicide), and I know that if the people around me called me a 'retard' and said how pathetic something that potentially meant something REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT to me was, I would be really hurt. It would make me feel pretty alone and misunderstood - which seems to be his problem half the time.


Given this information, I also find it disgusting that someone would post, "Pete better not be out of it at my gig tomorrow because I'm travelling five hours to get there". If you know someone is in a bad way, emotionally, what the fuck makes you feel justified in being so fucking selfish? Bands have cancelled entire fucking tours for less, and the guy is also reportedly quite sick physically at the moment, so it's lucky he's getting on stage at all. Yes, people have paid for the tickets; yes, they might be travelling a long way - but if he's giving the best he can, given the shit he's going through then people should be a bit more damn grateful for it.


I'm really ashamed to be a Boardie, when they talk like that.


I'm also ashamed that they submitted a question to a Patrick about slash - AND IT WAS ASKED BY THE BBC INTERVIEWER! - and the clearly uncomfortable response on the audio is taken by them as his being 'cool' with it. He is not fucking 'cool' with it! He sounds really awkward - especially when they specifically bring up him and Pete, his best fucking friend - but says "whatever, y'know?" as if he doesn't want to piss people off by saying otherwise.

The first rule of slash: do not tell the person you slash, you ignorant cunts. Keep your perverse interests (and I include myself in this) fucking personal or within the community you know shares them. What fucking validation do you want from them? Are Pete's jokes not enough? Everyone already regards Patrick as this shy, self-conscious little guy - and if I see another thread speculating on whether he's a virgin or not I swear I will fucking kill someone - why the hell would you want to corrupt something you regard as innocent? WHY?

ETA: Oh yes - and in the same interview they submitted - and it was asked - a question about whether Patrick really was 'made of plasticine', which was a dig from Kerrang! this week. How fucking mean is that? This is a guy everyone knows worries about the way he looks and they're fucking asking questions like that? Way to fucking go, arseholes.


And then there are the lovely little people who give out the band's personal information on the web. I know both Patrick and Pete have MySpace, thanks to a post on the forums. Both of these accounts are set to private because they obviously don't want a million fourteen year olds harrassing them. That much is pretty fucking obvious. So what do people do? They send Patrick messages through it because they know he won't add them. And they make posts every day saying, "Ooh! Pete's online!" because people hand out his personal IM screen name for everyone to add.

SERIOUSLY. GET A FUCKING CLUE.

If he wanted us to know this, he would give it to us. Let them have some fucking privacy! Just because you buy their records and have their t-shirt and once Pete smiled at you in a meet and fucking greet, does not mean you fucking own them. They are YOUNG and they are REAL FUCKING PEOPLE with real fucking problems and the last thing they fucking need are obnoxious little cunts thinking that they have a right to every aspect of their lives and not just the fucking time they give you - which, frankly is already a lot fucking more than most bands do.


I love Fall Out Boy for being so close to their fans and being so approachable, but there are times when people take a fucking mile more than they're entitled to (like the people who stole the bags of old clothes Pete's mum put out with the trash, and now walk around Chicago WEARING HIS CLOTHES).


Oh, and I'm not sure of the politics of this, but the 'friend' who posted shit about Pete in his LJ, and told all his minions - the minions he only appears to have because he's famous for being friends with the band - to repost everywhere they could, in order to make Pete look bad and as an effort to destroy fans' faith in him, is still some kind of hero to most people on the board. There have been tons of posts about, "I'm going to Chris's gig on Friday - who's going?"

Now, call me fucking crazy, but if someone did that to my favourite band - which, actually, they have - I would be after their blood, not tickets to their show. Especially when said show consists of some ligging prat reading aloud from his book of Stuff I Did In Chicago Before And After I Was Famous Because Someone I Was Really Fucking Evil About Wrote A Song Saying I Was Their Friend.

If I had met that malicious bitch from NME who slagged off Kieran's voice, even thought it was years ago, I would still smash her face in. Because I saw how much it hurt his feelings.

I can't comprehend how people would be such disloyal bastards as to support someone who tried to destroy someone they claim to care about (if all the "mrsXpeteXwentz"-style usernames are anything to go by - and that one probably exists but I don't necessarily mean that user).


Am I just too much of an idealist, because I wouldn't treat people like that? Really.




I hate fans.

...because lj_design is run by what looks like a fourteen year old with a cup glued to his face, no common sense, and a whole plethora of redundant and frankly condescending excuses (and poor excuses for IT professionals) blundering through a significant change to the way the site most of us pay to use works, fixing bugs they found after launching it because they're too fucking thick to beta-test this stuff, and then have the fucking audacity to refuse to allow us the old-skool options - I bring my limited icon skills for your adoption:

The thing I hate most about my mother, is the way my brothers are so fucking blind to the truth about the way she was.

Cristian is such a biased little cunt. Mum has spent years telling them how fucking nasty I was to her, and they believe it. He refuses to ever see anything from my point of view, even when he's said "Yeah, she's still like that".

When we were kids, my mum and her boyfriend - who used to beat her up in front of us every weekend - asked him and Berti if they wanted him to leave, and they said yes; and then they asked if I'd told them to say it, and they said yes, and it was a total fucking lie.

My mother is the sort of malicious bitch who can wish a child stillborn to spite the parents - and mean it - and yet to Cristian she's such a brilliant fucking parent.

Would I seriously have put myself through the last five years of basically having no family for my own enjoyment? Seriously?

I wish she was dead. I really do. I wish she'd fucking do what she's been promising for years and kill herself. It'd do the world a favour.

So, I wanted to come home tonight and make a big thank you post for all the birthday wishes, and say what a great time I had, yesterday...

...but this evening has been one massive pile of fuckup and I just feel utterly miserable.

I had a crap time at Circle (not anything anyone did, just internal stuff); I think I really upset someone, but I don't know for sure and I just feel really paranoid and guilty; I feel like someone else is messing with me and if they are, I'll be really hurt; and then there's That Atlantis Rumour and it's making me so fucking miserable.

( Spoiler )

If you don't mind spoilers, and haven't seen it already - please go here and do what you can. For me.

I need to go and cry now.

Surely I can't be the only one who wants interest paid on cheques from the day they're paid in FUCKING HATES IT WHEN PEOPLE POST WIDE SHIT WITHOUT LJ CUTS AND RUIN MY LAYOUT.

For fuck's sake, people. Seriously. It can't just be me that this annoys.

Dell can FUCK OFF.

The engineering department called to give me a quote on fixing that broken hinge peg. £325.00 Can you believe that? When I explained that there was just one small piece of metal to replace, the customer service rep told me, in broken English, that they never ship those parts alone, and that they would have to replace the whole thing.

THE WHOLE TOP HALF OF MY COMPUTER! For a fucking hinge peg! At £325.00! Plus service!

I said that was ridiculous. Indian man asked if he could call back in a few minutes. He did. "My manager says, as you have only two years [almost to the day] I give you discount: £311.00 thankyouplease*."

Rosie said: "That's ridiculous. I am not paying £300.00 for a hinge peg. I'm going to complain to your head office in Texas, as they have already contacted me directly. This is appalling. Please not to be fucking with me, thankyouplease*."

And thus I shall. Fuck this shit. I can buy a laptop from PC World for £500 which has a hard drive a whole third larger than my existing one, and with 1GB memory (I'm on 512Mb). I could buy it on HP at under £14.00 per month, and yes, I'd have to pay interest, but at least it wouldn’t be a Dell machine. Fuck. That. Shit.

Bitches. They can kiss my rosy behind if they think they're conning me out of the price of a computer (check their website! They'll sell you a whole laptop for that!)

SRSLY. You cannot electrocute me with an AC adaptor I only bought six months ago, then have my monitor replaced because some crappy hinge peg was badly made and then expect me to part with that much cash WITHIN A WEEK because I WILL FUCK YOUR SHIT UP.

*cracks knuckles, plans email to Dell International Head Office*


*Okay, maybe not that last bit.

I swear to God - the next person who spoils Atlantis for me is going to be defriended.

I don't give a fuck how much you want to squee, or if you 'try not to give too much away', saying what the episode contains or who plays what role is A FUCKING SPOILER. There is absolutely no excuse for it.

Don't even think I'm kidding. An inability to use an LJ-cut shows nothing but selfish disrespect for the people on your flist, especially if you know (because they've told you before) that they hate spoilers.

Seriously. Have some fucking consideration.