Author: wwducat

About: Writer, Technology guy, Photographer, Possibly EX-Software QA Engineer, Worker Bee. Interests: SCUBA, Working out, Friends, New Views, New Vistas, Photography
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Wow! Just Wow.

Obviously I must have misunderstood the Democratic reconciliation message.

Governor Abbott of Texas has decided to lift all the COVID restrictions… Pundits, politicians, and Hollywood Elites are losing their minds. (Uh, last I checked neither Pundits or Hollywood’s elite had access to the same information that Governor Abbott has access to from his state health services.)

For those that may have missed the subtext… that means “Shut the hell up!”

The President described lifting the lockdowns as Neanderthal thinking.

Well Mr. President, you would know all about that, given that it appears your thought processes have devolved to a sub-neanderthal level. At least it appears Neanderthals could string two sentences together.

They were tool users, had command of fire, structurally their bodies may have supported more muscle making them stronger, and their bones were built a tad stronger than ours. Their brain size was also not too different.

It may simply have been a fluke that we survived and they didn’t. Although evidence does suggest that there was interbreeding between the species. So you might want to speak kindly of Neanderthals, after all, you never know who’s lineage you might be insulting.

They, unlike you and your staff appear to have disregarded things that didn’t definitively work. While you and Dr. Doom & Gloom Fauci on the other hand, continue to cast the bones, chant, and wave your arms around, about masks.

Next, one of your staff will be saying that we should use Oni masks to scare away the evil spirits released upon the world by China.

The next day though your administration would be scolding us for cultural appropriation and calling us all racists.

Who knows? The Oni mask might actually work, the Japanese have been dealing with China a lot longer than we have.

One of the best of the many screaming about Abbott’s decision, was Keith Olbermann. Let’s see, a washed up sportscaster who blindly Hated Trump and now has to content himself with just hating Republicans came out with this:

Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus? https://t.co/Yn2i7zT8KL

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 3, 2021

Say what?

Let me get this straight Mr. Olbermann, are you saying that because the Governor of the state of Texas does something that you disagree with, you’re in favor of denying the vaccine to ALL THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS?

NICE! Very forgiving, how very enlightened!

Last time I checked it didn’t take much more than a big mouth, and the ability to watch sports to be a sportscaster. Keith, do you have a medical degree you’ve not mentioned?

How about this? Just floating the idea here, maybe we should deny the entire state of New York access to birth control, since Governor Cuomo obviously can’t be trusted not to sexually harass women?

That would make about as much sense as what you’ve suggested.

(And don’t even get me started about Como’s nipple rings… Yeah, that’s a thing, look it up.)

Then we have the perennial favorite AOC, declaring that re-opening Texas endangers The whole country.

This endangers the entire country and beyond. We are in a pandemic. We know that COVID spread isn’t neatly contained by state borders, and explosions in COVID cases can increase the likelihood of new COVID variants to develop or spread to new places. It’s dangerous.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 2, 2021

This hyperbole is what we’ve come to expect from AOC. At this point, I think she’s being kept around for nothing but comic relief, or perhaps she’s just serving as an example of how not to be a village idiot.

“Now Johnny, if you don’t work hard and study, you’ll be just like AOC. You don’t want to be that stupid do you? Don’t you want to be at least a ditch digger and not a politician?“

AOC also demonstrated her profound stupidity this weekend by saying that NYPD sending in a robotic “dog” to assess a possible hostage situation was racist.

I tried to wrap my head around that one and found that I couldn’t.

The “Dog” costs 75K it was not armed, and couldn’t really escalate a situation in the same way that sending a human into harm’s way could have.

I found that I wasn’t willing to undergo a lobotomy to understand how she came up with racism from that one. Especially since the perpetrators had been holding two men hostage, while torturing them, and demanding money.

AOC can expect a lot more of this kind of racism going forward. Just wait, it will probably get more interesting when robots are armed, and bring a situation under control by shooting first and asking questions later.

Can you really accuse a robot of being racist? Of course, killer robots as police would save the state a ton of money in trials, juries, and prison expenses. I’m fairly sure that we’d see a lot more homeless lawyers too.

The body cam footage from a robot would be priceless. Robot orders perp to stop or be fired upon. The perpetrator takes a shot at the robot, the robot blows the perps brains all over the place. Simple, dispassionate, efficient, and brings a whole new meaning to “Death by cop”.

I can imagine hostage negotiations; “Okay, let the hostages go or we’ll send the ‘bot in… ” The hostages come running out and the perps handcuff themselves. Just like RoboCop, I just hope we don’t get to the Gort version. What would happen to a city like Chicago with 100 Gorts running around? I’d imagine there would be one really bad weekend, and then Chicago might be a super nice place to live.

The courts would be hard pressed to say the robots are racist. Robots could simply hate all humans equally.

I’ve digressed.

I keep looking for this reconciliation the Democrats keep talking about, all I see is vengeance.

Democrats … You won! How about you stop beating dead horses and get to work making good on all the promises you made about how much better things will be under your benevolent, loving rule?

Orange man bad… Democrats good. Remember????

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The Job Search continues

As it has for almost 2 years now…

When I was notified that my Job was being outsourced, I started looking. Anyone with half a brain would have at that point. I was hoping to secure a position before the actual layoff, even though it meant that I’d be leaving money on the table.

“We’re going to lay you off, but if you leave before we lay you off you don’t get this bundle of money we’re going to pay you if you stay with us so we can enjoy making sure your’e really fucked.“

Corporate logic! How about you offer to pay a pro-rated amount up until the time you lay us off?

Ultimately it hasn’t mattered a bit. I’ve been looking and sending endless resumes and filling out online job applications until I’m honestly sick of it. I’m sick of being approached by strangers saying they’ve got the perfect job for me only to jump through all their hoops and then hear NOTHING!

I’m sick of calling to follow-up on positions I’ve applied for and not being able to reach the person, leaving a message, then never getting the simple courtesy of a return phone call or an email telling me what the status of the position is.

I’m sick of reaching out to recruiters that someone I know has dealt with, only to be ghosted.

There are those like my Mother who’d say, “Well it’s the COVID dear… “

No Mom, it’s not the COVID, this has been going on since well before the COVID gave everyone an excuse to be jerks.

Then there’s these websites like Glassdoor. “We’ve found a Job that we think lines up with you perfectly. Customer Service Representative for a Beauty Supply and Accessories company in Cupertino, Pay range 20,000 per year. Not Remote”

SAY WHAT?!!

You can’t live in Cupertino for 20K a year. Maybe if you lived in your car, and it was paid for and you had no bills, and didn’t need to eat.

If it was just a one off mistake fine, but this has become a constant. No where in my resume does it say that I have any idea about anything related to beauty supplies!

I’m a Software Quality Assurance / Software Test engineer. How do you get to Customer Service Representative from a 30 year resume that’s uploaded to your site, and then was redundantly filled in on your customized series of forms?

Glassdoor, you’re so out of here!

So I closed the account on that particular aggregator of jobs which hadn’t done me a lick of good anyway.

Then when I close the account which didn’t ask any questions about why I was closing the account, I get an email saying that a review of some job, [I hadn’t made any reviews in at least a year] suddenly violates their community standards.

The email rolled in within seconds of my closing the account, so it’s fairly obvious that they sent it by mistake instead of an email stating I’d closed the account. Hmmm. Perhaps Glassdoor could use my services? Just saying…

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve spent looking for a job. I no longer know how many different applications and forms I’ve filled out online. All for nothing!

I know, there are those who’d say, “Just keep trying, it’ll work out for you, you may fill out 1000 applications but you only need one to be successful.“

I used to be able to have two or three offers, in recent years that’s dwindled to offering to suck cock for just an interview.

I’m not into the Pollyanna shit anymore.

The thing that gets me is that while I’m working with all these online job applications, I’m finding bugs in them.

In some cases it’s typos throughout the forms, in other cases it’s forms that don’t work properly on Mac or Windows. I seriously think I should be paid to do nothing but test the forms companies put out on their public facing web sites. At least then their company HR pages wouldn’t be an embarrassment.

I’d consider just going back to printed resume and good old fashioned US mail in response to Job postings. The only problem with that is hiring companies rarely post an actual address or phone number so that you could even go “Old School”.

There’s another site that’s really funny. They’ll post positions that say, located in Ontario, CA. What they really mean is Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The problem is that even on the description of the job they’ll still say Ontario, CA and it isn’t until you get to entering your information and the application won’t accept a US zip code that you realize the mistake.

Give me a good old fashioned newspaper want ad section any day. I know, you’d think, “Hey there’s an idea,” You’d be wrong. a large number of newspaper want ads simply direct you to their online resources like careerbuilder.com. Which puts you right back into a nationwide database that probably hasn’t been purged of erroneous records for a decade.

There are the other aggregator sites that post positions as “NEW” but when you follow the link back to it’s source you find that the position is already 3 months old and has been filled. The position may be “NEW” to the aggregator, but it’s really so stale you could grow penicillin on it.

There must be a better way. This online bullshit ain’t cutting it.

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Deleted Parler Today…

Update: 3/5/2021

While Parler is indeed back. Apparently they’re Hotel California. I checked the site today to answer the question, “Why haven’t I gotten an email saying your account is canceled.” The answer to that question is that my account hasn’t been cancelled.

Turns out that going through the “Delete your account” isn’t working for me. I click on the button, enter the password and … nothing. The site just loops back to the page you were on. This isn’t unusual because lots of pages on the site do that right now but even though you’re on the same page with apparently no changes having been made if you exit the page and come back in, you’ll see the changes.

Evidently, the same is not true for the “Delete my account page”

So, for the time being, I’m still on Parler. I still have the same number of followers I had but all of my messages have been deleted. Sigh…

What I really want is for the entire account to be gone. I’m trying to be completely done with social media and all that encompasses. For now, I can check out of Parler, but I can’t leave.

Looks like they’re finally back.

Good for them.

Since Parler was the last of my social media accounts, when Amazon, and the Democratic Party (make no mistake, they too were complicit) took Parler away I was suddenly without any Social media.

After the initial shock and withdrawal, I found I was fine. After a week I didn’t care anymore, Whether by hook or crook, the Democratic Party won the day. Bitching about it, or reading others bitching about it, serves no purpose.

I don’t fear being labeled a conservative anymore. If the government wants to harm you, they’ll find a way. The people in power have demonstrated the lengths to which they’ll go to remove anything or anyone they find disagreeable. They’ve amply demonstrated that no abuse of power is too much.

At this point I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the DOJ assaulted Trump’s home in Florida in full on Waco or Ruby Ridge style. That is the legacy of the 2020 election for me. While I’ve always harbored a certain mistrust of the government. Now, I don’t trust our government or electoral processes at all.

The line, “Follow the money,” is more true today than ever before.

Couple corruption with the almost unbelievable stupidity of so many Americans and well… what you get, is plainly evident.

I’m not just speaking of the stupidity of America when it comes to questioning voting results, but the stupidity of well educated Americans in basic things like knowing how or why things work, (or don’t as the case may be).

Elements of our technology might as well be magic and fairy dust for far too many people. Apparently even the use of fire is beyond some people, as is evidenced by so many people suffocating in their homes across the South during this very cold series of storms.

Fire is not new, it’s been around since we lived in caves. We decry second hand smoke, but don’t think open a window? Uhh yeah, right! There’s gonna be a ton of “Darwin Awards” come springtime. Perhaps that will ultimately be for the best.

I’ve lost interest in Washington. For that matter I’ve lost interest in COVID, politics, social justice, cancel culture, sports, entertainment, and anything else that is not directly putting cash in my pocket, gas in my car, or food on my table.

I suppose, this is the new reality of many people. We’re all just tired of the bullshit. I know, I’ve got better and more important things to do.

Social Media doesn’t rank in the top 100 for me anymore.