Xero's other waste of space

So today the news of a new copyright bill HR2391 which would make it illegal to fast-forward through commercials, but permit people to skip objectionable content (this is already legal, probably added to make it sound less evil, and/or propose to dumb right-wingers in the senate aka all the senate.)

It would also of course raise the penalties for copyright violation for people just downloading stuff off the internet. Ah yes, it’s this issue again, and it’s getting worse by the day. Also announced today, the MPAA sues people who downloaded movies on the internet. Great.

What’s all this accomplishing again? Oh yeah, making the rich richer, abuse of intellectual property laws, extortion of the poor by the rich. What the hell is wrong with this country that lets a 100+ year old law get totally mutated and anal-raped by giant corporations so it benefits them and makes the public lose out?

I’ve got a new idea that’s simple enough. Don’t let companies own copyrights. Simple enough, if an artist writes a song, and wishes to be signed to a record label, the label can’t own the copyright, only the artist. On top of this it shall be illegal to make a contract binding the individual to use the copyright in any way, shape or form, so companies can’t just simulate owning it by saying “you must do what we want with it and we’ll make you money.” And there shall be punishment to any company who is trying to bribe or use any other type of manipulation to get someone to enforce their copyright in a certain way. This includes threatening to end contracts over it. Assume greed.

This will ensure that those who are using copyright’s protections against people are the actual creators of the object, not some corporate giant who had it signed over to them, and is going to use it to “protect” it’s investment even if the creator doesn’t agree with it.

It also means we know who to buy from, and who to avoid like the plague. Who’s evil and who’s good. But oh no, this proposal would take away the god-given-right of companies to be treated as individuals. Tough shit.

This is getting ridiculous. Of course you know I’d propose total elimination of copyright in favor of a system guaranteeing creator-recognition and listing works used, but not guaranteeing any type of profit, but this would get mr.right-wing’s panties in a bunch, so I won’t go there in this one.

This is just an addition onto an existing law, after all, most laws are. Radical changes never get made in this country because everyone is afraid of failure. Of course those who are really afraid of the change are those in control, those who lose, and those who don’t know. When it’s already failing, those three are one in the same.

Well after getting a bad night sleep from waking up gagging on an odd odor, due to some kind of broccoli related cooking incident, then being disturbed again two more times for other less-bothersome-but-adding-to-the-total reasons, I end up not eating my dinner until around 8:00PM.

And wouldn’t you know it my grandma was there watching TV waiting to give me the most pleasant greeting. The conversation went something like this:

Her: You finally came down.
Me: Yeah, I didn’t sleep too well last night.
Her: Well who’s fault is that?
Me: There was some sort of smell which was making it hard for me to breath and so I kept waking up.
Her: That was your grandfather cooking broccoli. You can’t hear anything from your room but you smelled that.

There was some discussion about a new wireless phone which was in the kitchen after that but for the most part that was the conversation. My grandma for some reason acted as if my reason for not sleeping well wasn’t good because I can’t hear things from my room, but this is a ridiculous concept.

You see, my room is at the end of the hallway, and the door bell is downstairs, and my sisters room separates mine from it even further. Meanwhile, her door is at the top of the stairs, closest to the door bell. So that’s one thing. Another thing is that I’ve slept through the alarm going off. Sounds don’t usually wake me up unless I go to bed wanting them to, I’m used to going to bed in a noisy environment, with computers and fans and such.

On the other hand, because my room is at the end of the hall way, and I have numerous fans in here, including my air conditioner, which I leave on even in the winter, in it’s fan mode, to move air around, which blows outside still, which I use to suck air through the one window, and have it blown out the other, cooling more effectively than simply opening the window. So if you stick your hand near the space under my door, you feel a ton of air being blown in. And it’s no small amount, it’s a big vacuum in here.

That really doesn’t matter though, because I shouldn’t have to make excuses. I’ll probably get shit anyway. Soon after she comes in to get a cup of water while I was preparing some food and she just says this out of no where in this really degrading way:

“You have it good compared to the kids on this show, their parents are deaf, the one is autistic, and the other is normal.”

I don’t see where she gets off making comments like this to me. I literally just wanted to say, “And? As if I’m supposed to care?” Those parents knew their kids would have a hard life, seeing as they were both deaf. Two people don’t just go deaf spontaneously, and seeing as they couldn’t speak at all, just make weird noises and crap, it most likely means they were deaf from birth. And I know some deaf people can speak despite never having heard a word, albeit not very well, I’m pretty sure my assumption is sound.

It’s one of those home remodel shows but they target “troubled families” or what not. Meanwhile they’re usually just lower-middle class Americans at the worst, usually with a disabled family member or deceased parent. Cry me a damn river.

I don’t really care. I absolutely hate TV shows like this. Where’s the poor starving kids with aids in Africa, getting their house remodeled, that is, if they even have a damn house. Yes there are people worse off than I, what am I supposed to do, feel sorry for them? Waste my time caring? Why should I? If I do that, who’ll waste their time caring for me? Not them, that’s for sure. So I’ll continuing caring about myself, thank you. Not as if I want those people to care about me anyway.

My grandma needs to get the fuck off her high horse and step into reality. You could say oh, you need to step into reality too, but there’s a difference. I wouldn’t ever impose my shit onto other people in such a degrading way like she does. And that’s where I get off.

So there’s a bit of an odd situation going on here, it’s hard to explain but it goes something like this:

My sister is little miss princess, she expects everyone to do things for her but uses the little things that she does actually do (such as bringing her laundry down, not actually doing her own laundry) as an excuse. The only real thing she wants is for my mom to drive her places, at her whim.

My mom is a very tense person. A perfectionist and full of hyperactivity. These are traits she most likely picked up from her over controlling parents. She has a busy life, works a full time job, and a social life a bit too large for her to be able to handle given the current situation. The main complaint my sister has is that she’s out to much, because my sister wants her to drive her around, on her demand.

Meanwhile my grandparents think my mom is out too much as well but their only reasoning for it is that they think she should spend more time with us. Now that’s nice and all but I’m 18 and I’d been living pretty much by my self for the last year and a half, on top of the fact I’m not a kid, I don’t need my mom around all the time. They seem to be unable to get over the fact that I am not a kid, and act as if I need to be babied or something. That’s not to say I don’t want to have her around, it’s just my grandparents are being unreasonable. If my mom was around more than she already is it would probably just mean my mom is boring herself out of her mind staying home doing nothing, simply waiting for one of us to ask her for something. We’re all pretty good at self-occupying our time, I don’t really think this is an issue.

Meanwhile my sister flat out admits the only reason she wants my mom around more is to drive her around, but my grandparents still have it stuck in their head that she needs to spend more time with us, which I just don’t agree with. I don’t like when my mom is going out consistently with her dates or whatever she’s doing but only because the fact that she’s very immature in relationships, not because I’d rather be hanging out with her.

I don’t have that much against my mom, she’s going through a lot of shit right now and working her ass off trying to build up enough money to do something about our situation. Meanwhile my grandparents have a serious problem with control. And I think it’s a major part of the reason as to why my mom is always so tense and perfectionist, that’s how her parents are and they are very unreasonable.

I found a page about over-controlling parents a while back and my grandparents fit the bill pretty damn well. And I know it’s not just senility, I’m pretty sure they’ve been this way all their life.

Here’s a quick list that this page gives, which is www.controllingparents.com FYI:

“When you were growing up, your parents…
1. Overscrutinized your eating, appearance, hobbies, or social life
2. Pressured you with perfectionistic expectations or unattainable standards
3. Forbade you from questioning or disagreeing with them
4. Discouraged you from expressing anger, fear or sadness around them
5. Violated your privacy
6. Intimidated, manipulated or overpowered you
7. Discouraged your efforts to experiment and think for yourself
8. Gave you no say in household rules and responsibilities
9. Seemed unaware of the pain they caused you or others
10. Seemed unwilling to admit they were wrong”

I can tell you right off the bat they are 2 through 10. Probably 1 as well, but I wouldn’t know. I do know that my grandma basically makes a mockery of some of my mom’s childhood issues, which I’d imagine is quite embarrassing to my mom…I recently learned my grandfather wasn’t around very much when my mom was young and it was mainly my grandma. When he was around he was very controlling. Meanwhile my grandma suffers some pretty nasty mood swings from being very nice and sweet to being extremely angry, and it’s quite a bother.

For instance tonight my grandfather takes out beans and hot dogs, and then leaves to go to a social event. He says my grandma would make them, and in reality the only person around to make them would have been me, my mom, or my sister, and my sister would never do it, my mom was busy doing the laundry, and I don’t know how to cook worth crap, so my mom just asks me to pick up some food, which I did. And before I did, my mom went to check on my grandma, to ask if she wanted everything. She’s passed out on the bed like normal only to come down basically as soon as we finish eating, looking extremely grumpy and giving an attitude. No reasoning is applicable, see number 3, 6 and 10. Not good.

Meanwhile there’s a lot of talking behind peoples backs and I find a lot of the decisions that I made with my grandparents about my mom and sisters situation’s end up being very unrealistic so my opinion is always changing sides. Meanwhile my mom knows all about my grandma’s mood swings and tries to avoid her like the plague, which of course just makes my grandma go off even more. It’s not a very good situation and tends to go around in circles. While I don’t want to blame one side or the other I can say that the mood swings and anger are entirely my grandmas issue, it’s when they interact with others that it becomes part of someone else’s problem. I’m still unsure if the mood swings are caused from the insane amounts of medication she takes or not.

I’m writing this to, more than anything, once and for all hold an unbiased opinion on this situation. My sister wants things done at her demand, my grandparents want things done their way on their demand, my mom has trouble making decisions of her own, mainly because of this constant control war she’s stuck in the middle of, and me? I get a lot of heat too from this whole thing. So it does concern me.

More than anything I’m tired of my grandma’s mood swings at this point, because she basically tries to make you feel bad for something which isn’t anyone’s fault. She’ll go off saying everyone is selfish but when it’s 6:00, there’s no food being made, and everyone’s hungry, what the hell are we supposed to do, wait around for her to get out of bed? And if we don’t, then it’s all our fault. Fuck that, I’ll go pick up the food.

I’m not going to drive myself crazy just to please someones illogical expectations. And I do not want to hear bullshit for it, it is not my problem. You know all and all I guess it could be worse, but these issues are not being solved, they’re just nudged away and everyone is afraid to confront them, especially due to the fact we’re in my grandparents house, even if it is their reasoning which is flawed. Of course they will be unwilling to admit this, as I said, see number 10 on the list.

Another thing that hurts this issue is the fact my grandma loves to watch Dr.Phil and other such psychobabble on TV and every time it’s some family issue or what not it’s stretched to make it seem the solution he proposes would work with us, which is funny. The show clearly states the solutions are not for anyone, and if a family therapist examined this situation I’m sure they’d see this is not all my moms fault, which is who all this is currently being blamed on. This just feeds her ego more though, which is the real reason I’ve brought this up.

It’s so easy to blame things on other people, especially when it’s an issue you’ve had for a while, but had no one to confront it.