I hate my metabolism. On average, when I'm sitting on my arse doing nothing, I last maybe two or three hours before I need to eat something.

I am one of those people who can eat anything and everything and not put on weight. I'm constantly told, "Oh, you're so lucky!" What the people saying that don't realise, however, is that I have to eat that amount to stop myself from feeling horribly unwell.

I have to have three large meals per day and I have to eat at least one snack in between each meal, or else I get joint aches, headaches, can't concentrate and end up sleeping twelve or fourteen hours a night because I'm so exhausted. Since glucose levels also affect the serotonin system, if I don't get enough to eat I can easily have a depressive episode and stop thinking rationally on top of all that.

The "not thinking rationally" part really does not help, because I have before ended up trapped in a cycle where I've concluded that I will feel better about myself if I lose weight, so I eat even less, so I get more depressed and more irrational and - the phrase "downward spiral" is rather apt.

The point of all this is that I have a date tomorrow, with a girl who is bubbly and weird and wholly herself and generally awesome, but who is also a model and a natural size six (UK size - US size two, I think) and doesn't understand my pain. I know from experience that she can function perfectly well for 72 hours on one meal - that one weekend I had to do the same, and I was so unwell as a result that it took me a full week to recover.

And. Um. I'm not sure there are any food places where we're going. Oops.

I am alive. I have been hiding from the internet for personal reasons. I should have known it would take RAGE to bring me back.

LJ suspends 186 accounts of sex offenders registered in New York.

RAGE.

Let's start from the top, shall we?

1) Having read through the comments and the link provided in the post, neither LJ nor the New York Attorney General's Office have provided a reason for the suspension that is more than "they're registered sex offenders".

2) Apparently, pissing on a tree in public can get you on New York's sex offender register.

3) So LJ have suspended these accounts apparently without proof either that the internet was related to the offender's offences or that their current use of LJ is questionable.

4) Soooooo... That little human right about not receiving punishment without trial? Yeah.

5) Soooooo... That little body of research demonstrating the links between social isolation and sexual reoffending? That body "little" enough to form the basis of professional work with sex offenders (like the Thames Valley Sex Offender Treatment Programme) and government-funded projects (like Circles of Support and Accountability)? Yeah. Not that a social networking site like LJ has anything to do with valid social outlets. Of course not.

If those accounts were being used by people to commit further offences, or if those accounts were the accounts of people who had already been convicted of internet-related sexual offences, fine. In that case, LJ's move is a good move.

The problem is that neither LJ nor the Attorney General's Office are saying that's the case. They're just saying they've removed the accounts of registered sex offenders. And that's not good enough.

Law enforcement agencies have a duty to protect the public. However, any actions they take in the execution of that duty must be proportionate to the crime and/or risk, and must not unduly increase the risk of reoffending. Actions must also be accountable.

These actions? Stink.

Soooooo. I have been playing quite a lot of The Last Remnant - I'm currently just about to head into the Aqueducts in Nagapur and I've done all but two of the sidequests available. I'm saving those ones for grinding purposes (Cosmos Maiden and Wisdom's Echo). Both Rush and David have randomly learnt Blackout II, skipping Blackout, without me even quite knowing how that happened. Huh.

But. EMMA. Stupid bloody Squenix and their Aeris-style whallops. (Warning: major spoilers in the video.) I am also now deeply afraid of the Conqueror. Is it wrong that I want to see Conqueror/Emma now?

It says something about the way my mind works, though, that I'm not yet at the end of the first disk and I've already daydreamed up a dystopian AU where Rush is on the Conqueror's side.

However, stupid bloody Windows Vista keeps taking exception to TLR. Among other things, it has a) randomly sped up the battle speed in the middle of one battle and now I can't get it back to normal so Rush & Co look like the Energiser Bunny on speed, b) has bluescreened TWICE while I was playing the game, and c) keeps freezing the game in the middle of fights. Sometimes it comes back, sometimes not.

It says something that in the eight-odd years that I used Windows prior to getting the new laptop with Vista, I never once had a computer bluescreen on me. Since getting Vista? Three times in a year. Twice in the last fortnight.

I think my nipple piercing is growing out. Fuuuuuuck.

Edit: ...it's the end of an era. If it's started growing out, it's going to keep growing out, and that can only lead to bad things. So I have removed my nipple piercing and I will now let it heal, rather than fight fruitlessly to keep it.

:(