Please note that this post is public, and anyone is welcome to read and comment, including my ex-wife, Leslie. For those who are seeing this without the context of being in the “NCF Resistance” Slack group, or seeing my previous restricted posts, the gist is that I asked some questions about something Leslie was doing in the game "Ingress". She responded by “going nuclear” and posting a ton of accusations and … lies. I responded to some of her statements in the group, but was asked to keep such “drivel” out of the group - which is a good point: it doesn't belong there, though I certainly didn't "start it". So I’m responding to the rest of her messages here. I will not be posting the full conversation publicly, out of respect for the privacy of other participants, so if anything doesn’t make sense, I apologize, but you’ll just have to treat this as another of life’s mysteries.

For those of you coming here from the Slack group or other contexts who don’t already know everybody:

• I’m Ed, also known as “Roger” in the chat.
  
• Leslie is my ex-wife, also known as “Bugs”.
  
• Audrey is my partner, also known as “Snobby”. More details on my relationship with Audrey are below.

Any

blockquotes

represent Leslie’s words copied and pasted from Slack with the only alterations being clearly marked with [brackets] to clear up names.

What’s her reason for leaving today?

She was fired for pissing off a co-worker and then blamed it on me with the then husband. He hated me, I left because he didn't believe me.

Leslie claims she left me because I didn’t believe her about the reason Audrey was fired. She’s right that I don’t believe her, but that’s the only thing she’s right about.

Not-quite-aside: “He hated me.” I never hated her. I never said I hated her. I don’t believe I ever behaved as if I hated her. I didn’t believe her, I was angry at her, I was afraid of her, I want her to stop interfering in Audrey's and my lives, but I never hated her. I don’t hate her now. I just want to live my life without having to tiptoe around her, worried about her exploding in accusations or storming out of rooms. ...To spell out the point more explicitly: THIS. IS. GASLIGHTING. She has decided my thoughts and feelings, and claims to have acted on them, and no amount of explanation from me, NOT THAT I SHOULD HAVE TO, has changed her mind.

But, believe it or not, that’s not the point of this item.

The point is this:

• She announced she wanted a divorce on 9/1/2017.
  
• She moved out on 9/23/2017.
  
• She filed for divorce on 10/17/2017.
  
• Audrey's employment ended on 10/20/2017. Nearly two months after Leslie announced, nearly a month after she moved out, and three days after she filed.

Now, I can understand that memory is faulty. Dates get mixed up. People get confused. But this was probably the largest, most significant decision she has made in at least the last 5 years (if not 10, 15, or 20), and she can’t get her story straight on why she made it?

If I were in a position where I was listening to her side of this story, this kind of incontrovertible, straight-up factual distortion (if not outright lie) would really make me reconsider the accuracy and truthfulness of everything else she’s said to me about it.

( Stuff and bother )

I just wrote this up for work, but it seems like the kind of thing that might be useful to others, and that they wouldn't mind me sharing with friends, so I'm posting a copy here too. (Plus, it might be good for future reference, if you know what I mean...)

Introduction

Apparently, there are some people in this world who are are able to perform certain tasks automatically:

• Knowing what time it is.
• Remembering that they have a meeting at a given time in the future.
• Realizing when that time has arrived and actually going to that meeting.

I, personally, am incapable of doing any of these things. So, I rely on tools like Outlook and my Comm / PDA / Smartphone to do them for me. (Well, all but actually going to the meeting. I still have to do that myself, but the Comm does remind me of it.)

Unfortunately, Outlook has this annoying feature (more like a design flaw) that sets the reminder on an incoming event invitation based on the sender's preferences instead of mine, and not alerting me when they differ. So I get an invitation, happily accept it, with every intention of attending, then blithely forget to actually go, because no alert was triggered, because no reminder was on the original invitation.

("But," you ask, "can't you change the reminder settings to whatever you want when you get the invitation?" Yes, yes I can, but I don't remember that earlier. Let's add that one to the list of stuff I can't do:

• Remembering to check the reminder settings of all incoming meeting invitations.

And move on.)
Finally, I've put together a working solution... ( Read more... )

I'm not sure how many people I'm going to get that haven't already seen it in fizzgig_bites' journal, or elsewhere, but it's kinda important, so I'm posting it anyway...

The ACLU is sponsoring an ad in the New York Times in order to illustrate public outrage over the Constitutional violations in the FISA Bill. If you want to add your name, click here.

From: http://www.flascience.org/wp/?p=416

Florida Citizens for Science has created an online petition. Please take a moment to sign it. Provided we can collect a decent number of signatures, we then plan on printing a copy and presenting it to the State Board of Education. We don’t have much time, though, so please don’t put it off!

Plus, meandering has created an LJ feed of the Florida Citizens for Science here: fl_citizen_sci.

From http://cariaso.livejournal.com/34309.html

I cannot verify the accuracy of any of this. I pass it on it hopes that it may be true.


> Dear All,
>
> Kindly forgive the brevity and the lack of
> formatting of the following email. I am now sending
> this information out as we are now receiving it. As
> many of you are now aware phone lines have been cut,
> mobile networks have been disabled, and Internet
> access has also been disabled. Information,
> therefore, is now very difficult to obtain and
> confirm. I therefore am unable to confirm any of
> that which follows, but my sources are adamant that
> this is the truth:
>
>
> Soldiers from LID #66 have turned their weapons
> against other SPDC soldiers and possibly police in
> North Okkalappa township in Rangoon and are
> defending the protesters. At present unsure how
> many soldiers involved. Some reports cite "heavy
> shooting" in the area.
>
>
> Other unconfirmed reports have stated that soldiers
> from LID #33 in Mandalay have refused orders to act
> against protesters. Some reports claim that many
> soldiers remained in their barracks. More recent
> reports now maintain that soldiers from LID #99 now
> being sent there to confront them.
>
>
> Reports of approx. 10,000+ protesters gathering
> around the Traders Hotel in Rangoon.
>
> Reports of 10,000+ protesters gathering at San Pya
> Market in Rangoon.
>
> Further reports of approx. 50,000 protestors
> gathering at the Thein Gyi Market in Rangoon.
> According to Mizzima, an unknown number of soldiers
> from Central Command and South East Command are
> presently on their way to Rangoon to reinforce SPDC
> army troops.
>
> Also according to Mizzima, an unknown number of
> aircraft have been scrambled from "Matehtilar"
> airbase - probably a reference to Meiktila in
> Mandalay Division.
>
> According to one journalist, SPDC have turned water
> cannons against crowds at Sule Pagoda. The report
> maintains that the water contained some type of
> chemical. awaiting further information.
>
>
> Please circulate this information as widely as as
> quickly as possible.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jason
> Research Director
> Human Rights Documentation Unit
> National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma

Reminded earlier today that I can create syndicated accounts on LiveJournal now, I created one for my del.icio.us bookmarks at ximinez_delic, and one for my Twitter micro-blog at ximinez_twitter.

I don't tend to crosspost (much) between them, so anyone interested is not likely to see a whole lot of redundant garbage. No, it will be mostly new and unique garbage. How cool is that?

Edit: Catch up on your friends page before adding these. The first pull off the feed was a doozy.

I wonder if there will be a nice ergonomic keyboard in today's woot off.

My keyboard suddenly died. They tend to do that when you spill half a glass of water into them.

*sigh*

Luckily, I kept the keyboard that came with my computer. Unfortunately, it's a "normal" keyboard that my big hands and bitchy wrists are having trouble with. As a bonus, most of the "extra" keys surprisingly seem to work with my out-of-the-box Ubuntu Linux installation. On the downside, the calculator button is crammed in next to the left ctrl key, and I keep hitting it by accident.

So, in all, not dead in the water, but not very happy about it either.

I hate this new-ish Alka Seltzer commercial - the one with the fake rock / concert video. There's one hook that keeps getting stuck in my head, and I'm having the damnedest time shaking it.

Happy Fucking New Year.