Stacy Tabb's Blog

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It’s not an exciting story – no Hollywood-style explosions or graphic, camera-ready disfigurement – but it plays out every single day, in every single city. Veterans are injured in service, require post-discharge treatment and support, and cannot get it due to Gordian bureaucracy, nightmarish mazes of paperwork, and seemingly uninterested personnel.

(I’m being generous in designating them “seemingly uninterested” instead of “maliciously incompetent.”)

Our veteran is a man who served his country, and came away with an injury that will only continue to get worse over time. He would have been a sailor forever, but that first blown disc resulted in his medical discharge. Over the years more discs have blown, only one correctable by surgery, which he paid for that out of his own pocket.

He’s refused the mountain of drugs thrown at him by VA doctors hampered by budget, training, or simple indifference, opting instead to live with the pain and be a father and husband instead of a semi-human lump. He’s undergone years of physical therapy and pain mangement education, yet still the discs continue to bulge and the pain increases. Laser surgery is an option, but at 20K per disc, not one offered by the VA. So he endures, knowing that someday he will no longer be able to work, and that he has a family for whom he wishes to continue to provide.

With that in mind, three years ago he embarked on the process required to update his disability rating. It is currently 10%, the same rating he’d been given on discharge, over 17 years ago. Every disabled vet knows what came next: months upon months of MRIs, Xrays, and hellishly painful examinations.

 

Finally, after three long years, the updated rating came in the mail: no change.

None.

The Veteran’s Administration had bureaucracied him. He failed to include the ream of records from the intervening years of treatment and visits from discharge to claim update, therefore the injuries were deemed not service-connected.

He was given one year to appeal.

All records were collected, from both cities were treatment had occurred, despite one city “losing” the original request. This took five months.

An independent physician was paid an exorbitant sum to conduct another hellishly painful exam, review the ream of records, and write up their own opinion. This took another few weeks.

An appointment for the next month was made with a Disabled American Veterans advocate, then rescheduled by the DAV for three weeks later. Two more months gone.

Finally, with the help of the DAV representative, the appeal was submitted.

Today he discovers the DAV representative in St Petersburg has no record of the submitted appeal. Nor are they listed as having service-related power of attorney, as he had requested many months ago, which would have allowed them to use official channels to contact the VA directly to query the status of the appeal.

There are no phone numbers for the St Petersburg office, you see. But there are plenty of armed guards and a very advanced-looking security system.

So now he has two months until the appeal window closes, and he cannot contact anyone to determine what exactly is going on. The national Veteran’s Administration contact attempted stonewalling, then finally allowed they could contact someone in the Communication office, who would in turn send him an email response…in three weeks.

For those of you playing along at home, this leaves him exactly six weeks to redo his appeal, if they’ve mysteriously “lost” the original ream of records and paperwork.

He is my husband. The bravest, strongest man I’ve ever met. The way our veterans are treated is utterly disgraceful. And it absolutely must stop.

This is a phishing email:

Dear Client

Due to our recent Security Upgrade we require you to sign in your domain name, username and password and update your Control Panel to avoid unauthorized access to your online Cpanel and FTP account Log In and verify your domain for this security check. Failure to confirm your domain within 2 business days may lead to suspension of your domain if we observe any unauthorized sign in and may lead to total remove of the domain name from our system.

Cpanel Management

Looks pretty scary, doesn’t it? Well, except for the spelling issues and the random capitalizations. But hey, if spammers hadn’t been shite at school they wouldn’t be spamming for a living, ya?

You’d have to actually view the source of the email to see it’s sent from some crappy ISP in Italy:

Received: from User (173.234.157.125) by smtp201.alice.it (8.6.060.15) (authenticated as rino.tiani.1c25@alice.it)

And you’d have to pay attention to the URL it sends you to, which is an exploit uploaded under some noob’s unsecured WordPress installation:

http://xxxxxxxxxxx/wp-admin/cpanel/cP...

Here’s a couple of hints:

Legitimate folk will never ask for your login. (Unless it’s an actual helpdesk and tech support is convinced you’re doing something stupid and need to check it from their end.)
You shouldn’t click links in emails, unless they’re from people you know. And even then, if it isn’t a funny cat picture/video, just don’t.

Fucking spammers should all be hung up by their taints. Don’t be a statistic!

(searching for something today and I ran across this old thing, written who knows how long ago for who knows what internet site)

Characterized by their obnoxious honking call of “that’s Morpheus!” whenever the commercial for any Playstation Game airs, the Font Geek is incapable of actually being affected by advertising as they are more interested in the font choices involved than the actual message. The Font Geek refuses to use Times New Roman for body text, EVER, and will doggedly use Verdana or Tahoma instead, due to their lack of small pointy things. At least until it becomes easier to embed fonts in HTML, that is.

The Font Geek has over 1000 unzipped fonts sitting on their hard drive. They can only unzip a few at a time because the repetitious use of WinZip causes their brains to twitch and they invariably pass out, therefore it will be the latter part of this century before they are done. Perhaps then there will be an operating system in existence then that can handle more than 150 fonts at a time without slagging.

The Font Geek’s fondest wish is for a freeware program that will both organize their massive collection of fonts and install them to their chosen program, without any interruption in their workflow. The key word here is “freeware.”

The Font Geek is well known for it’s devious nature. At one time the Font Geek was heavily recruited by the CIA, but every single Font Geek agent they sent overseas never came back. Research has since determined that when Font Geeks encounter fonts in unfamiliar languages, they lose all small motor control and wander around aimlessly until struck by lorries. Sadly, many rare and beautiful Font Geeks were lost this way.

It is sad, but true, that some Font Geeks will actually turn to the streets to satisfy their uncontrollable cravings. You can see them on street corners, their gaudily painted faces reminiscent of Edwardian Script ITC or Engraver’s Roman Bold BT. This is the Font Geek at it’s most pathetic, a sorry, scrabbling version of the proud creature that once roamed the halls of Design Schools across the world. Do not heed their pitiful cries of, “please mister, I’ll do anything for some Elphinstone!” or, “come on, just one sans-serif, I’m really hurtin’ here!” for you will only contribute to the dissolution of this noble species.

Nothing can be done for the Font Geek turned Font Whore, they must want to help themselves to make the recovery. So few of them do.

If you encounter the Font Geek in the wild, approach with caution. Take special care to not be wearing articles of clothing with any visible logos and/or slogans lest you agitate the Font Geek and provoke them to attack. The attack of the Font Geek is truly terrifying, usually involving art markers and, occasionally if very unlucky, gouache. It is best to approach the Font Geek bearing some sort of offering. Chocolate is highly recommended.

Just make sure it doesn’t have any words printed on it.

 

What to do with a story that requires a ton of historical research...research that ultimately bores you so much you lose interest in writing the story?!?!

I have three things in progress right now: a Constance sequel (steampunk adventure, possibly novella length), a future of agriculture short story for a Brit mag, and a cyberdetective tale of indeterminate scope.

Can we add more hours to the day plsthx?

This is not the sort of thing I usually read (I prefer fiction), but this cover art is just gorrrrgeous:

Of course I know how to self-promote. Been doing it for years, first as one of the initial purveyors of custom designs for those newfangled things called “blogs,” and then as a visual/fiber artist.

But this is different.

I’ve written words. A story has actually emerged from my brain, been poked/prodded/edited and sent out into the world.

Perhaps I’m indulging in a wee bit of overdramatization, but that’s a big thing for me. A very personal thing. Words are important to me. I hoover them up in vast quantities, collect them like a weird old cat lady, and dispense them with great pleasure. And, apparently, stinginess. I must have a dozen half-finished ideas, stories, and nascent books. Making the time to finish them is an issue, and just being un-scared enough to let the words come out is definitely another. But those are things I’m working on. And this is a nice, big, encouraging step.

Published authors – the annoying ones – on the Twitters are fond of saying things along the (wildly paraphrased) lines of, “If you ain’t published, then you ain’t a writer.” Well, today I am a writer!

So, you post a self-admittedly “bitchy” tweet because your groceries are too heavy. Then you get all self-righteous after the amusing response tweet from the subject of your bitchiness.

The evidence:

 

There are so many things wrong here, where does one even start?

You’re carrying your shopping but it’s HURTING YOU OMG THE PAIN.

Did they force you to carry more than your skinny little ass can bear? Or did they make you use those special S&M bags, with the capsaicin-coated spikes in the handles? Or did a particularly irate bag boy chase you to your car/the bus stop with a whip?

The response from Tesco was funny and hip. You experienced immediate buttus hurtus at being so publicly – and politely – pwned, and called them “RUDE.” Rude? Just so we’re clear…your “fuck you tesco” tweet was the verbal equivalent of a lifted pinky at tea time?

Son, you have so many issues, not the least of which is your HYSTERICAL profile picture. Hint: heroin chic went out in the early 90s. I pity your mother, your significant other (if anyone is so foolish as to commit), and pretty much anyone in your immediate vicinity.

Also, if I lived in the UK, I would immediately begin shopping at Tesco.

Haven’t even finished writing it yet – much less know if it is going to be a short story, a novella, or something full length – and it already has a cover…