Month: November 2017

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Happy Turkey Day

Ok so this one is a bit late.

Happy Thanksgiving anyway. I hope that you and your family had a lovely dinner.

Happy Black Friday then!

For those of you heading out to begin your Christmas Shopping…

Walmart black friday store shoot abdccf1c9cbc2f30

May God have mercy on your soul!

I used to enjoy going to Malls on Black Friday. I’d go with friends and we’d shop the day away, it was a good time and while crowded, it was just the right amount of crowding.

Then about a decade or so ago, Black Friday shopping crossed a threshold where it simply wasn’t any fun anymore. People aren’t into the holiday spirit, they’re into finding the deals FOR THEM. No-one says Merry Christmas anymore, they say Happy Holidays or Thank you and that’s it.

Christmas decorations have become more and more “Politically Correct” and protesters of various stripes are to be seen at shopping centers. The combination has bled all the fun right out of the season.

I used to like going to malls during this season to see how each mall decorated. Their creativity or whimsy was a joy to see, and much like the old Macy’s / Gimbels rivalry, attracted people to the malls to shop and enjoy the decorations.

Now, it’s all homogenous. Everything looks the same, one mall is like another so what’s the point of making a trek to a mall that’s 20 miles away when the one that’s 5 miles away is exactly the same. It probably doesn’t help that many of the malls are owned by the same consortium. 

My point is, politics, special interests, and “Political Correctness” has taken what used to be a fun season and turned it into a hollow, insincere, boring, and in some cases tasteless, version of itself. I am less and less interested in the season and even now one day one, I look forward to it being over.

Last year, most of what little Holiday Shopping I did was done online. I tried shopping once at a mall, not on Black Friday and it was so awful with parking, crowds, and bad tempered people that I simply left the place empty handed. Spending money shouldn’t be a scrimmage line activity, it should be a pleasurable experience.

WMacys herald square black friday opening eb732ec2430ce78chen you give a gift you should be thinking about the joy it will give someone, not the nasty people you had to endure to obtain the gift.

I think that’s why so much commerce is being done onlline. It may not be about the deals, it’s about not having to interact with assholes. 

Shopping in front of my computer is a hell of a lot easier than fighting for parking. (I also don’t have to get up early, get dressed, or deal with traffic.)

Which brings me to my second point. In a season that’s supposed to be about peace on earth and good will towards men (generically meaning mankind, everyone, all homo sapiens) we’re separated by commerce and our technology instead of being happy and uniting.

I suspect this means in the future we’ll see much more bad behavior, simply because we’re all forgetting how to interact in a reasonable way with each other. 

I honestly don’t know what the solution is. If you stopped e-commerce there would surely be riots at malls across the country. However, it appears that as I’m writing this mini-riots are breaking out over children’s toys.

Post Apocalypse Christmas

I know it’s a kinda of a dystopian view but I’m calling it as I see it.

So if you’re out shopping, try to enjoy yourself. Remember that you’ve got about a month to find that perfect gift in the store, and failing that, you can sit naked in front of your computer and have that perfect gift drop shipped from China directly to the recipients door.

Try to enjoy the people you’ve chosen to be with this holiday weekend.

Remember, This season is supposed to be about kindness, and family.

Just my two cents…

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Doc says I’ll live a while longer…

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Results of my annual physical are in.

By all the usual standards, I’m alive!

Nice to know that.

I like my doctor, I hate going to the doctor. I dread the day he comes back with the result of some test or other and tells me really bad news. I have no ideal how I’ll respond to it.

Oh sure… the 7 stages and all that; but what does it really mean to me as a person? Will I embrace the reality and fight? Or will I choose to live in blissful ignorance and simply forget to wake up one day?

Burning man.jpeg

There are pluses and minuses to each course of action.

If it’s serious and you fight, you could easily find yourself living in a tight little circle running from appointment to appointment at medical facilities for the rest of your days. I hate the smell of antiseptic in the morning!

On the other hand, if you choose to live in ignorant bliss you could simply live a happy if short span. If you go that route, you have to opportunity to do all the things you might have been afraid to do. Imagine the freedom of being able to do any drugs, have any kind of crazy ass sexual escapades, jump out of planes, climb mountains, live life homeless wandering the world. 

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Suddenly, albeit perhaps briefly the world really is your oyster. What penalty could conventional law place on you? Arrest? If you’re imprisoned, they provide you free health care. If the law allows you to go you simply go back to doing what you want.

When I’m confronted with my mortality I find myself thinking like this. The concept of no boundaries appeals to me in a very fundamental way.

The idea that nothing, no matter how dangerous really matters is alluring. I suspect the very first thing I’d try is something like peyote or the drug from that tribe in South America that’s been called the “god” drug. Supposedly, this stuff allows you to take a journey to the center of your being and commune with the universe. 

Why haven’t I done these things? Laws, Conventions, Rules, Expectations.  

In other words… FEAR.

Fear of consequences, punishment, loss of freedom, or simply people not liking me.

Consumer Society

It’s ironic because in a very real way I gave up absolute freedom to live in and be a part of a society that I no longer recognize. I guess I’m at that age now where I wonder; What If?

Down that road lies the potential for despair. Not bad to occasionally think about it… Very bad to dwell there.

So what’s the alternative?

Look forward. Remember that all it takes to change the future is to choose the future you want. 

That’s where I’m at. Yep I’ll live another few days, months, years, decades, whatever, but the future is as yet unwritten. Since I’m the one doing the writing I have to remember not to let the past have too much control over what I write next.

I think I’m at a place where I want to experience some of the things I’ve denied myself for no other reason than I wanted to fit in, to be accepted, liked, and thought of as doing what was expected.

I supposed I should say, “Thanks Doc, see ya next year.” maybe I will the next time I talk to him.

Until then… I’m setting a blank piece of paper and a fresh new pen on that desk in my head. I’ll start writing something new.

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Boring Day… Random thoughts about Tech Support.

Under normal circumstances I’d like a little boredom at work.

But there is too much of a good thing.

Today’s been one of those kinda days. Too much boredom, just about the time I start something I’m interested in, the phone rings and I have to reconfigure my brain to filter all the useless flotsam and jetsam that someone feels they need to tell me and boil it down to the essentials of what the problem is.

Then explain why someone doesn’t need 2 grand worth of new shit when the problem is that they need to turn on, the 2 grand of shit they already have. Some people, a lot of people, actually are absolute idiots!

It’s the Millennials who are often the worst! My god! It’s terrifying that these people are the folks that will running things in a very few years. More terrifying is that they’re reproducing!

It’s like watching Idiocracy developing in real life.

Oddly old people are usually pretty easy to deal with. At least they know what they don’t know. They follow instructions verbal and written, and aren’t prone to thrashing about flipping shit on & off at random. Also once you explain something to them, they get it, if you can explain it in terms they can wrap their heads around.

Oh don’t get me wrong, idiots and assholes exist in all the types of people that I talk to. But the Millennials are among the worst, and don’t even get me started on Canadian Millennials! WOW! Arrogance and stupidity have combined in them, creating a horribly toxic stew of smugness and elitism.

The funniest thing someone can do when calling a tech support line is threaten to take their business elsewhere.

I mean really? Do you honestly think that your threat (empty or not) is going to move any technical support person to see things your way? Tech support folks are generally shat upon by everyone! The corporation that they work for, the customers they talk to, and virtually everyone from the janitorial staff to executive management will take every opportunity to fuck with them. So yeah, take your business elsewhere, please!

Go ahead, ask to speak to my supervisor! It would be the first time in a month the fat bastard actually did anything, aside from waddling his fat ass to a meeting to tell everyone what a shitty job they’re doing. Not that he or she would know, because they’re hiding in their offices all day.

You want good service from a tech support rep? Be Nice! Have a sense of humor, don’t be a jackass and suddenly things will happen that aren’t even supposed to happen. Yeah, Tech support people know how to work the system. There’s a lot of tweaking that a TS person can do if they’re motivated because they liked you, or your attitude. Especially if that TS person can place orders directly. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not likely to give away the store, but they’re likely to help you out if you’re in a jam.

I digress, Sundays are either really good days or really bad days. There’s no middle ground. Either all the phone calls are jackasses or the phone calls are nice people who are relaxed and happy to be able to take care of business without trying to squeeze it between meetings, or on their lunch hour.

By the way, most tech support reps are lucky to get a 1/2 hour for lunch. So don’t talk to them about how difficult it is for you to talk to them on your lunch hour when they’re lucky if they got to eat their dry sandwich and take a shit in two separate places. Yeah, think about that one… Not a good idea to bitch about taking time out of your lunch hour to spend 10 minutes placing a call, when the guy you’re calling has two sick kids, a wife who’s filed for divorce, and he has to decide which of the following things he has to sacrifice on his 1/2 hour lunch break speak to attorney, eat a shitty sandwich (when he hasn’t eaten in 2 days… gave his food to his kids), or take a piss.

Guess how he’s going to react to your petty whining? Yep, he’s not going to be impressed.

Anyhow, this is the stuff I think about on a slow day.

Well that, and stuff like: When you’re dying and your life flashes before your eyes… Is that a data upload to God?

Be glad you’re not in my head all the time… It’s a very weird place.

Hope you had a great Weekend.