Alexandra Leaving

I don’t get really angry very often. Not at all. This is probably the first time I am ANGRY on LJ pages.

I HATE APPLE: Apple!!!!!!!!!!! I never liked the brand in the first place, for principal reasons, but now I have a reason to HATE IT PERSONALLY. I will dedicate my life to campaigning against this evil bunch. Why? The story goes like this:

1. My daughter dropped her ipod touch. She is fairly small, so the fall was quite small, BUT! The front glass smashed completely! I must say this never happened to me before! I tend to drop my phones, laptops and other devices, I am just prone to drop things. THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE. Once I dropped my mobile down a flight of stairs and it bounced all the way down. Did it smash? No - I got away with a scratch!

2. I remember something about "1-year warranty", so I go to the Apple store. THE ONLY APPLE STORE existing in West Yorkshire (Leeds/Sheffield area). There I have to stand in a queue for 1 hour ten minutes, in the store that was literally stuffed with people with broken laptops and iPhones.

3. I get told by a too-cheery sales guy (Why were you so cheery, the Apple guy? Was looking at the shop stuffed full with idiots who buy the rubbish Apple stuff for large sums of money cheer-inducing?): because the ipod is under 1 year old APPLE WILL DO ME A FAVOUR AND "replace" it for 119 pounds. IT IS MY FAULT (well, my daughter’s) that she DROPPED THIS VERY FRAGILE DEVICE. But did it come with "fragile" warning? NO IT DID NOT.

4. I feel that I was used and I do not like the feeling AT ALL.

I HATE THEM ALL. I hope Steve Jobs is turning in his grave somewhere in a special place reserved for people who cheat other people out of their money by brainwashing (please do not lecture me about respect, I am too materialistic to feel any respect after spending 119 pounds on "replacement"). I WILL NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM APPLE AGAIN AND I WILL TELL MY STORY TO EVERYONE.

5. I bought the iPod against my better judgement (my daughter has a peer pressure at school :D) , but paying 250f for something that obviously doesn't cost as much to produce I expected a better customer service. And how mistaken was i!

LJ hate
And today LJ has UPGRADED SOMETHING AGAIN and my Flexible Squares LJ layout is all weird, cutting off the images that don’t fit in the "square". I had to switch off "Disable customized comment pages for your journal" for now, and I also am getting "Content error" all the time. OK LJ. STOP BEING IDIOTS. STOP IT. LJ people - I know you are not as rich as "the father founders" of Apple, but I still do not like you. You have to stop this idiocy already.

PS: Insert selective swearing of your choice in my thoughts about Apple and LJ. This is one of those rare moments when I wish I knew how to swear.

Positive thoughts: My new Android phone
I have bought myself an Android phone! It was cheaper than the ipod "replacement" was. AND I LOVE IT. I don’t know why I haven’t done this for ages. It is like having a little computer in your pocket and it can do practically anything you want it too. I LOVE IT. It syncs with my Google account and is looooooovely.

There is a bit of excitement going on in ASOIF fandom as the first (unconfirmed!) spoilers for "A Dance with Dragons" are released. Apparently, some Amazon orders were dispatched in Germany, or something like this. If this is true.

I have read some spoilers (I sworn to not disclose where :D) , but they are , of course, unconfirmed and MIGHT NOT BE TRUE. And regardless, I will not tell them to anyone because it seems that I am such a minority in the fandom as far as spoilers are concerned. As in: I love spoilers, the rest of the world hates them.

Me? Reading Russian literature, I grew up with the idea that stories have bad endings more often than they have good ones. So I discovered by experience that for me the best way to deal with a bad ending is to know it in advance, before I get too emotionally involved. The last time I read something unspoiled was "Little mermaid" at the age of 7, and after reading the ending I said to myself "The fairytales have bad endings too, I must check the endings from now on". So I did, always reading the last pages of the book first.

When I joined the fandom and found out that not everyone reads the last pages first, I was surprised. How do you deal with the death of your favourite characters? Or with the ships that gone astray?

But all I wanted to say, really - I WILL NOT SPOIL YOU!!! HONESTLY. I will post pictures of Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and other unspoilery things. And this post is just to discuss how you feel about spoilers and why.



PS: But I went and pre-ordered my copy of the book on Amazon. What if their software has a glitch again and my copy is dispatched?

From fabulous endlessdeep, this is an interesting article: Why Have Hackers Hit Russia's Most Popular Blogging Service?

I am a practical person. Unless I am given some very tangible proof, I am not sure what to think. I think it is as likely that DOS attacks are caused either by LJ's competitors or some group of hackers somewhere who don't have anything better to do.

But! If the attacks are indeed political in nature and this is an attempt to shut down one of the free-speech platforms for Russian people, I am sort of PROUD TO BELONG TO LJ. I am going to stick around through thick and thin. I have seen many debates here on LJ, people fighting for their freedom to write porn one of the biggest of them. I am finally very happy to belong to a cause worthy of fighting for, and I don't really share "I just wish Russian political bloggers moved their blogs to somewhere else" sentiment.

PS: The funny part is that "Even the blog of President Dmitri Medvedev, a self-styled techie, came under attacks so powerful that it was inaccessible for several hours on Wednesday. On Thursday, Medvedev ordered police to launch an investigation." HA!

PS2: LJ? Do you need any donations for purchasing any new equipment to fight the DOS attacks?

I am back but my LJ notifications are not!!!!!!!

I don't seem to be getting any email notifications! Everything seemed to be fine last time I logged in, but no notifications today!


Is there some setup thing that I have missied or is this a widespread problem?


Update: the problem was in my Google email account. I found all the notifications in the spam folder!

I got curious enough to test the new Facebook re-post feature. My findings:

I have another account, madlenmadlen, that I originally created for my friend but she never used, so I am keeping it for my daughter. She uses it from time to time to take part in polls.

What I did in Madlenmadlen:

- I set up a Facebook connection with my Facebook account
- I checked the checkbox of "automatically re-post when I comment", switching on automatic updates.

Testing of Facebook re-post with automatic updates enabled:

Case 1: Alexandral has default Custom CSS settings and madlenmadlen has not set up style=mine.

1.1 Alexandral's public post: Facebook re-post checkbox- is defaulted to "clicked" upon commenting. When the facebook checkbox is clicked, the comment madlenmadlen made is re-posted on Facebook. When the facebook checkbox is unclicked, the comment madlenmadlen made is NOT re-posted on Facebook.

1.2 Alexandral's locked post: Facebook re-post is defaulted to "unclicked" upon commenting. When selecting to click the Facebook checkbox by hand, the comment madlenmadlen made is re-posted on Facebook. When the Facebook checkbox is unclicked, the comment madlenmadlen made is NOT re-posted on Facebook.


Case 2: Alexandral has Facebook featute disabled in Custom CSS and madlenmadlen has not set up style=mine.

1.1 Alexandral's public post: Facebook re-post is defaulted to "clicked" upon commenting and hidden. The comment madlenmadlen made is re-posted on Facebook automatically.

1.2 Alexandral's locked post: Facebook re-post checkbox is defaulted to "unclicked" and hidden. The is no way to re-post the comment onto facebook.

Case 3: Alexandral has Facebook featute disabled in Custom CSS and madlenmadlen has set up style=mine.

This is the same as the Case 1

Results

- I still dislike the feature.

- But the main problem I could see with it, namely accidental automatic re-post from protected entries , does not exist. ** sigh of relief **

- Disabling the Facebook checkbox in Custom CSS (by .b-repost-item {display:none} - thank you to jenlev!) has it's pluses and minuses. If you are not too worried about your public entries, but more worried about protecting your locked entries - the feature is for you. It can be overridden by style=mine., but still , something is better than nothing.

- It could be good if LJ manned up and removed the feature altogether

- Or at lest, if they could make so that Disabling the Facebook checkbox in Custom CSS couldn't be overridden by style=mine.

Edit: it seems that LJ removed the re-post feature for locked posts. YAY!

I have just lost a comment by princess_dexter. The previous post is showing 2 comments but I can't see one.

LJ - are we finally through?? What is this madness??????

Thank you so much to everyone for your support. It helped me immensely. Let the world "outside" tell me how Internet relationships are somewhat inferior to "real" ones. I know different. ** hugs **
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My sincere apologies for overreacting.

I am back to rant about the latest Harry Potter movie which I happened to see twice in a short space of the last three weeks (it just happened this way. oh what would we not do for our children!). My apologies to anyone who liked the film, these are just my own thoughts.



Before I start ranting - I must say that am not the biggest fan of Harry Potter books , although they are definitely very decent, amusing and wholesome reading and I would definitely recommend them to my daughter. I think there are better books out there but at the same time HP is a very good series. I like some of the films, especially "Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Goblet of Fire".

BUT! The movie "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince" is a nonsensical mess. It does a huge disservice to the books. All the main arcs of the sixth book (Voldermort-related memories, Half-blood Prince mystery, etc.) were cut short and gave way to teenage romance. And even more, all the teenage romance scenes of the book (I was looking forward to some of them) have been replaced by lovey-dovey scenes of the scriptwriter's personal brewing that rival "Twilight" in their cheesiness. Why? My guess is that the film is trying to appeal to teenage audience , but does it in a strange fashion. The books are already hugely popular with teenage audience. Why did the director feel the need to change every single scene? I seriously think that the fame of "Twilight" has affected the director and scriptwriter. And as a result - good bye "Harry Potter", hello this summer's teenage supernatural romance movie.

I can rant for hours about this film, remembering it's every single shortcoming (I have watched it two times , you see). The film picks up at the end but even then , I was really looking forward to see Dumbledore swimming in a breast-stroke fashion and I didn't get it and the scene with everyone holding little lights was nausea-inducing.

My ratings: 4/10

Oh, I completely forgotten about this one – it has been two years since I joined LJ! I was reminded about it by ginger001's post (my mind works in strange ways) who joined LJ almost at the same time and who is my oldest LJ friend. I raise a glass of virtual champagne to say huge "thank you" to all you ladies and gentleman on my friends list who been kind, entertaining and fabulous all these two years!!

And in a flow of good news – I have received a big thank you from the hard-to-please senior manager for the work I have done on my latest website at work. The interesting thing is that I probably only found my inner web-designer self through LJ and icon-maiking so YAY LJ! WHOO-HOO! Thank you all!

To celebrate all this let's look at some black-and white pictures of James McAvoy who is Alexandra's "next best thing after champagne", ( here. Oh, I love black-and-white pictures, especially of James McAvoy! )

And because I can't hold it any longer ( spoilery ramblings on Atonement )

PS: Rantings above are the indicator of my present brain overload at work and I apologise for them. And this is just a start because I am starting another very important and time restricted project at the moment. :D I need a good luck with it!

LJ e-mail notifications are not finding their way to my e-mail box since this morning AT ALL. A spooky thing is that we had problems with e-mails at work on Wednesday and Thursday. This seems to be sorted today, but – Is everything in the world connected??? Our e-mail guy was saying that e-mail protocol SMTP was not originally meant to become something so wide-spread and that it is pretty possible that some emails can take days to arrive.. The result? I don't like that my LJ e-mail notifications don't arrive even though I can understand that some relays can get clogged and some exchange servers can get clogged too or many other things can happen.. ** sigh **

baleanoptera gave me three interests to explore quite a while ago. I haven't forgotten!!!!!!

House plants I love house plants, outdoor plants, all sorts of plants. They are beautiful, they are enigmatic and they are alive.. When I was 11 I joined house plant club at our school and for a few years we used to work in the green house and help them with their houseplant collection. I enjoyed it so much I sometimes think that growing flowers was my calling and I missed it even though I enjoy my persent job greatly..

Oleg Menshikov, one of the biggest Russian film stars and my personal darling, can be seen in Burned by the Sun, probably the most acclaimed by the West Russian film. "Burned by the Sun" is directed by Nikita Michalkov and it has won Oscar for the Best Foreign Film in 1995 which it is absolutely worthy of. I can recommend this film to anyone! Menshikov also starred in the main role in Nikita Michalkov's Barber of Siberia which is a beautiful film but too made-for-the-West for me.

( Oleg Menshikov, charmingly boyish: )

Idris Elba What can I say apart from much squee and glee and other not-so-coherent exclamations? I better say it in pictures:



( Friday Pictures: Idris Elba and his works )

PS In unconnected: I have changed my header a little, can you let me know it is not visible?

As requested by soniag, three of my interests:

Classic films.
Like classic books it is something that is proven by time. A movie that is famous after 40 or 50 or 60 years since it's release is bound to be worthy of watching, especially considering technological advancements in the film industry. I often wonder which of present day films will stay and be popular after 20 years.. Or after 40? Some of the Oscar winners of times past are completely forgotten, but some other films that were frowned upon by critics, like "Dirty Dancing", stay. I often want a time machine to look into the future! Also I like the fact that old films are very reserved as concerning sexual and violence content. I think this made the creators to try harder, to be more inventive, but this is just my own thinking.

But of course the main reason I like old films that they don't do actors and actresses like that anymore. :D Humphrey Bogart! Cary Grant!! ** sigh ** I wonder if they all had descended from aliens, their beauty was insane! Shoulder lines, perfect profiles, CHEEKBONES! Where all the perfect men gone?? Some of my most favourite films are "Third Man", "Citizen Cane", "Wild Strawberries", "Notorious", but my absolute favourite is "Casablanca", the greatest film of all times. :D

( Casablanca: Rick and Ilsa )

Chow Yun Fat
Isn't he handsome? He has that special x-quality of simultaneous manliness and gentleness. My favourite film with Chow Yun Fat and also my unchallenged favourite among Asian films is "Crouching tiger, Hidden dragon". What a movie!! Like a piece of beautiful music, a piece of human soul itself. Chow Yon Fat was absolutely amazing in his role of noble Master Li Mu Bai …..

( Chow Yun Fat: )

Cats.
I don't remember the time when I didn't love cats of all shapes and forms and sizes. I remember as a child I used to drag stray kittens home to my mum who was firmly against having a cat in our 2-room Russian flat.. Heee! By the words of Terry Pratchet's Death – "Cats are nice!!!" I totally sign by this. They are beautiful, they are clever, they are loyal but independent. They smell nice!! I always wonder how cats manage to stay clean and never get stinky even though they never have a bath. But the main and totally essential thing is that Cats do purr. Oh, what a comforting sound that is!!!

( Ragamuffin Kitten.. AWWWWW! )

HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!! Something happened with the Fixed Squares layout recently and it breaks now in an indecent way when displaying large graphics, as in this post. Flexible Squares had problems with large graphics before, but they were nowhere as bad. Does anyone know how to fix this??????????????????????? I really like this layout but I will have to change it if this is impossible to fix. ** weeping **

PS If you would like me to choose three of your interests, please let me know!!