Mortaine’s Blog

A dishwasher.

The dishwasher in the new house looked new when we bought the house. When we had closed escrow, the wife said “Oh, and the dishwasher’s broken– the panel lights don’t come on, and I called the service center about it– it should be under warranty– but you’ll have to follow up.” And then didn’t give us the information on whom to follow up with.

Meanwhile, we discover that the dishwasher actually puts dirt onto the dishes. Like, I washed the dishes, put them in the dishwasher, ran the dishwasher, and they came out with crud and grit all over the glasses. Grrr.

So, six month after putting up with that, we finally call the homeowners insurance and get someone to come out and look at it. Pretty much everything in the dishwasher is broken, he says. He’ll send in his quote to the insurance company. They call back this week to tell us that they have decided not to fix it, and will send a check to cover a pittance on a new dishwasher.

Yesterday, we went out and bought a new dishwasher. It’s very interesting– has drawers instead of a door and trays, so we can do half a load at a time (there’s only two of us, remember), and can do one load on heavy wash for pots and pans, and another load on delicate. Nice. But freaking expensive. Note to self: Do not need to buy another dishwasher for a few years, plsthx. They are spendy!

Edit to add: I thought I put this in the original post, but I guess not. On Tuesday, the dishwasher would not turn on anymore.

Vlog Social Contract:

My side of the agreement:
I won’t be asking for any money for Hold My Beer and Watch This! Day xx posts. No tip jars, no nothing. If you want to support my vlog, buy a copy of the Book or send some money to geekcorps.org, since they’re trying to lower the barrier to connectivity in impoverished areas.

I won’t hesitate to ask for money for newsworthy footage I take when it is used commercially. I spend a lot of time on my vlog, and have no problem getting paid for it.

I reserve the right to pimp products or services if I like them.

I reserve the right to pimp products or services if they pay me to do so.

The cc license now allows derivs for non-commercial use. Individual entries may also have additional changes based on others’ content placed therein (example: “share alike” may be added when I use a share-alike song or photo.)

I will no longer use music illegally. This will likely mean less music. Oh, well.

I will be seeking replacement audio tracks for the few posts with infringing music.

I will attempt to keep posts down to under 3 minutes, and will enclose but not embed entries that are more than 10 MB in size.

My sell-out plan is to leverage the vlog into a source of leads and as a new media outlet/doc sample creation workshop. I have no qualms selling out my talent. However, this vlog space in particular will continue to contain free content.

The viewers’ side of the contract:
Don’t use my stuff for sale, and give credit to me (as either Mortaine with the URL or as Stephanie Bryant) when you use it.
If you want to use my stuff for commercial purposes, drop me a line and we can work something out.
Benrik already has permission to use my stuff for their commercial site and products. As long as they don’t sue me for using theirs.
Don’t be a jerk in comments to me, because I’ll delete them and ignore you anyway.
Tell me about cool stuff. Tell me what you like or don’t like. Be interactive. Let me know if something sucks or if something’s broken.
Hotlinking, remote loading, etc: Don’t do it. The terms of distribution of my stuff does not include rampant embedding of my content to whatever websites you want. If you want to re-post my vlog entry somewhere, don’t. Post a link instead– it contains more context if they come to my vlog, okay? It’s ok to use the permalink to go directly to a vlog entry. Mefeedia’s quote tool and certain other vlog promotion services are exempted, as I have explicitly signed up for those services.

Press:
If you are the press and want to talk to me about the vlog, I want to talk to you. Email me or post a comment and I will get in touch with you, I promise.
If you are the press and want to use my stuff in your broadcast, again, email me. That’s commercial use, and I’ll want a stringer fee for the footage, but I am happy to sell it to you.

Legal:
If I’m using something of yours illegally, contact me and I will remove it with my apologies (I will even make the apology public). If I’m using something of yours in parody, your SOL. If I’m using something of yours in the bounds of “fair use,” tough luck. If I’m using something of yours and you don’t want me to take it down but just want me to credit you, say the word and I will gladly do so.
If I have to hire a lawyer to defend my vlog, I’ll do it, but I won’t be happy about it, and I will vlog the entire experience, thereby making you look like a jackass. Try and remember which of us has the videocamera, bub. [If you're a fellow vlogger and we have a conflict I really hope we can work it out without lawyers....]

I dreamed about being held up at gunpoint at an Apple store (along with many other people) and being subsequently mortified that the guy stole my laptop, which had naughty pictures of me on it.

I woke up. I went back to sleep. I had a recurrance of the dream, again being held up at gunpoint at an Apple store. Same assailant, some short black guy, looked to be about 15 years old. Really made me mad.

When I woke up this time, something commented recently about another dream I had came to mind: “helplessness.” I identified that that was the feeling I had with both of these dreams, and why it made me so angry.

When I went to sleep again, I caught and identified the assailant in the nearby library and was sure he was about to go repeat the same stickup scenario, so I made sure the cops knew and would nab him in the act. I woke up before this one came to fruition, though.

Alladin slept in the bed again last night. Also played in the bed. Did not hog the covers, though. Good kitty.