From Twitter 11-03-2009

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Maine

Maine, goddammit.

(And California, I'm still really pissed at you, too. Not to mention the twenty-nine other states.)

Help needed for a couple of good people stuck in Germany

I learned of this from upstart_crow:

yuki_onna and justbeast got married on 11/1 and were traveling to Russia for a honeymoon. And then a ton of shit happened which you can read about here with an update here.

A summary: Expedia, through whom they booked their flight, told them they didn't need visas to get into Russia, and were mightily wrong about that. They are now refusing to help Cat and Dmitri. So they're now stuck in Frankfurt, Germany with no money.

Here's a Facebook page detailing how you can scream at Expedia

upstart_crow adds that if you want to send a Paypal donation, send it to snowwhiteunbound@ yahoo dot com.

Edited to add: Cat has been writing a novel online, a book-within-a-book titled Fairyland, or The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship Of Her Own Making. This novel is being updated each week, and there is an opportunity for you to donate at that link. yuki_onni says she'd prefer if people donate there.

The latest chapter is up now. With tip jar.


Help Catherynne M. Valente
adoptingcat

(And I add that this would be a splendid way for you to decrease some worldsuck today.)

Edited to add: upstart_crow added: I just checked Cat's twitter feed and it seems that as of now, she and Dmitri have their visas and are going on to Russia tomorrow, as today's a holiday in Frankfurt and they can't leave for reasons I don't entirely grasp, but probably don't grasp because I'm exhausted, depressed and overworked. :)

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

OH THIS JUST TOTALLY MADE MY DAY!

Hope for the irritable:

From this report here:

Feeling grumpy 'is good for you'

An attack of the grumps can make you communicate better, it is suggested. In a bad mood? Don't worry - according to research, it's good for you.

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

'Eeyore days'

The University of New South Wales researcher says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies".

He asked volunteers to watch different films and dwell on positive or negative events in their life, designed to put them in either a good or bad mood.

Next he asked them to take part in a series of tasks, including judging the truth of urban myths and providing eyewitness accounts of events.

Those in a bad mood outperformed those who were jolly - they made fewer mistakes and were better communicators.

Professor Forgas said: "Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style".

His earlier work shows the weather has a similar impact on us - wet, dreary days sharpened memory, while bright sunny spells make people forgetful.

In fact this report made me so cheerful that--I'm probably not going to make ideal decisions now...