How To Go Insane

Today? Not so fun.

I wanted to replant a certain flowerbed for my mother. To do this, I needed a plastic liner (there's a pine tree there), dirt (it's sandy), mulch, flower bulbs and a wheelbarrow.

Step 1. Fetch old wheelbarrow. Realize old wheelbarrow, thanks to years in the rain and sometimes snow, has a massive hole in it. Rusted clean though. Sigh in frustration.

Step 2. Decide to buy a new wheelbarrow. Call mother for permission. Mother says to check credit account first.

Step 3. Go to bank. Ten minutes later, teller says she can't give the info to me because my name isn't on the account. It's on the card, but it's not on the account. Growl internally, call mother again. Mother promises to check via phone.

Step 4. Continue to local hardware store. Hardware store does not have an appropriate wheelbarrow, as wanted plastic one that would not rust like old one. Mother calls in hardware store and says that the account is all screwy but I should be able to pay for things.

Step 5. Go across street to Home Depot. See ideal wheelbarrow out front, ask for it disassembled so it would fit in car. Ask twice about the handles because they are very poorly labeled. Take wheelbarrow home.

Step 6. Realize wheelbarrow handles are wrong size. Sigh, go back to Home Depot, ask to exchange.

Step 7. Am told that their shipper does not send the the right size, so I will have to drill new holes. Ask them to drill it for me; do not think this an unreasonable request as it's not my fault their shipper sucks.

Step 8. Clerk says no, I have to do it myself, because they apparently HAVE NO POWER TOOLS OR PEOPLE CAPABLE OF OPERATING THEM. The latter honestly would not surprise me, considering that this is a store that has staff that think it's fair to sell someone a wheelbarrow and not TELL them at the time of purchase that it requires drilling extra holes.

Step 9. Get home, new handles in tow. Find drill. Realize drillhead is MINUSCULE. Hunt through dusty cardboard boxes of discarded ancient power tools in basement until find box of drill heads.

Step 10. Realize that half the heads are missing, including the one that is the right size. Check boxes in basement again, to no avail. Decide to drill a hair larger.

Step 11. Can't figure out how to get old head off. Wrestle with it for half an hour before realizing that the key is right there, attached to the power cord.

Step 12. In frustration, go play Empire Earth for an hour.

Step 13. Attach new head and begin drilling. Realize that having a table to support the handle might help about when the drill skids off with only a scratch to the wooden handle.

Step 14. Haul over clamp table, clamp in handle, begin drilling again. Smell smoke. Blow shavings away from drill head. Drill stalls. Try again. Same problem. Decide to switch to next-smaller drill head. Go to change them and burn hand on hot drill head. Swear repeatedly and go get ice.

Step 15. Father returns home. Explain what I am doing. Father says I should return the barrow and get a different one. Point out that there are no different ones that I can transport. Suggests another store. Point out that local hardware store didn't have plastic. Suggests metal. Point out rusted old one. Suggests finding another store. Point out that I need to do this before I get back to school, so I don't have enough time for that. Contemplate patricide, or at least a good throttling.

Step 16. Drill has cooled. Switch to new drill-head. Works fine, except produces lots of smoke and burning smell. Blow on it repeatedly.

Step 15. Finish drilling, carefully avoid touching drill. Attempt to put bolt in. Fail. Realize I have to redrill it with a bigger one. Give up for the evening, as alternative involves massive property damage.

Step 16: Mother and sister repeat what father said about returning it, getting different one, because I couldn't POSSIBLY have thought this through.

And that my friends, is my recipe for crazy.

Grr...

Well, this is what the guy who ran Theoi.com had to say:

Hello,

Yes I have closed down the site because of the problem with Google. It was banned from the search engine two days after I received this email from a Prof. George Maroulis in Greece:

> Dear Sir
> Your Greek Mythology webpage
> is heavily contaminated with material
> of an extremely unpleasant nature.
> You should try to cleanse it
> Sincerely
> George Maroulis

It appears that Maroulis is the chair of a Greek government committee on cultural affairs, and I am assuming this email and the subsequent Google ban is somehow connected with the recent Greek government's campaign against cultural sites which saw the forced closure of a number of websites within Greece itself in November. Although it surprises me that they would also try to target websites outside of Greece.

Anyway, Theoi.com is just a hobby site. Since its no longer enjoyable to run, I'm calling it quits.

Thanks for your interest.

Best Regards,

Aaron Atsma
Theoi.com

I wonder what the unpleasant material was. Something that reminds people that the ancient Greeks practiced pederasty and considered certain kinds of rape acceptable? Something that reminds people that the Greeks weren't always either Orthodox Christians or virtuous pagans who founded democracy?

This is why I hate government. Honestly, revisionist history sucks. Who cares if your ancestors believed their chief god had a male lover? You don't even believe in that god anymore! No one thinks you do! Get over yourselves!

This reminds me of how the Greek government tried to control that movie, Alexander, because it contained homosexual overtures. ALEXANDER THE GREAT WAS PROBABLY A PEDERAST, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. Honestly. Our first president and war hero was impotent and kept slaves. But that's okay, because impotence wasn't his fault and the slaves were customary in that day. So if George Washington kept slaves, which is MUCH worse, Alexander could have had a boyfriend.

I love the Ancient Greeks, but I'm beginning to wish more of them had favored self-castration.

Update

Okay.

Here’s what I wrote on a Google discussion board about the Theoi website:

The most comprehensive online guide I have ever found to Greco-Roman mythology was the Theoi Project at theoi.com. Recently (within the past couple days) the website has disappeared and the following notice is up
instead: "Theoi.com has been banned by Google and forced to close down as a result."

This site was incredible; it had an ENORMOUS amount of information and I used it as a resource all the time. I can't imagine why it was a problem, and I really want to know why the site was banned in the first
place. I know there are criteria Google uses to ban sites that are offensive or misleading, but I was wondering why this site in particular would have been banned; it was not offensive in any way and merely provided information in an encyclopedic manner.

Please resolve this question for me... That website provided valuable information that I can't find anywhere else online, at least not in such a concise and straightforward manner. At least let me know why the site has been removed.

Thank you.

The first answer was as follows:

Most of the material still available at Wayback Machine.

At some point the author of the site introduced AdSense advertisements (as many people do). Google is quite brutal in its administration of these programs. The possibility Google banned the site for infringing Google’s AdSense rules does not apply to MSN and Yahoo. You might write to the author and ask. aatsma@yahoo.com.au

The archive works- but intermittently, and it doesn’t have all the more recent stuff. Plus, I’m scared that the archive will dump the info after a certain period. Still, really helpful.

Next answer:

> Please resolve this question for me...
Its up to the site owner to resolve.
It very dumb to take a site down like the owner has. If Google banned them, then they had a good reason to ban it.

Well, first of all, I wasn’t intending on having someone THERE fix it…just wanted them to answer the question… second, considering that 70% of internet traffic goes though Google, I can kinda understand the guy removing the site… he primarily relied on donations.
But anyway. I wrote a note to the guy who ran the site. It went as follows:

I found your email address off the archives of your website and I wanted to ask you: what happened to Theoi.com? You had such a wonderful site, I used it as a resource all the time. I understand that Google banned it, but I'm wondering why you decided to remove the website completely. Were you just not getting enough visitors after the ban?

I'm also wondering if you're planning on recreating the site, or something similar to it. It was a terrific resource, the most understandable and easily navigated site I've ever seen on mythology. I'd hate to see it disappear forever, especially after all the work that must have gone into creating and maintaining it.


I figured that was sufficiently suck-upish (yet true, I really loved that site) to warrant an answer.

Now to wait.

--------------------------

One last thing: The Brother and his girlfriend went to watch airplanes land at the airport… while sitting in a parked car… in the dark…

The Brother informed Mummy of this by phone before he left- the watching planes part, not the rest, which can be inferred. This sparked an utterly disturbing conversation, because Mummy turned to Daddy and said, “I think you need to give him The Talk again.”

Daddy: “Again? I gave it to him when he was six and I think I scarred him for life. Then I gave it to him again when he was older because I think he blocked it out- still grossed out. I think that was because I explained it in terms of tab A and slot B.”

Mummy: “Well, don’t explain it that way. I think he knows that much. Just point out the ‘ruin your life if you ruin some girl’ aspects.”

Daddy: “He knows that.”

Mummy: “I think he needs a reminder.”

Daddy: “Okay, fine. But I’m broaching the subject when you’re in the house. I’ll say, ‘Your mother wanted me to give you The Talk again,’ and all you’ll hear is ‘MUUUUUMMMMMMMMYY!!!!!!!!!’”

Poor kid. Takes a girl to watch the planes, and gets The Talk from his dad. Again. Or alternatively he’s actually necking out there, which would make the entire conversation more embarrassing for him… if that’s possible…

By the way, inquiring mothers (and too-naive-for-their-liking sisters) wish to know: Is the airport a customary go-to-make-out spot in our town? Like a Lover’s Leap?

Wasted Existence

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!

The world's greatest website for a guide to Greek and Roman mythology, the Theoi Project, was banned by Google. I don't know why. All I know is now the site is gone and I have no way to do research and the past SIX MONTHS of writing that book are gone to waste thanks to stupid Google. I can't continue the book unless I can do research!

And to make matters worse, there goes all my references for my myth paper!

I'm really trying not to cry over a lost web page. But... six months. Six months. Over 50 pages, single-spaced, in Word. All useless, since I can't finish my research. There was no other site that had that information presented the way I needed it to be. So I really think I'm going to cry now.

I was having a good day today, even. A GOOD day. And now I can't concentrate on anything because all I can think about is the fact that I wasted so much time, and if I ever want to get anything done now I need to go out and find translations of over 100 Greek and Latin texts, read them, and hopefully pick out the occasional important fact from each. And I have a test tomorrow that I can NOT study for.

I hate my life.