If you want to test your phone, or need someone to think you’re really important… Try this!

CellexplodeOkay, 

I goes without saying that the healthcare system in this country is broken, and broken badly.

It’s been this way for years and despite all the posturing and bullshit coming form the mouths of healthcare companies, insurers and our politicians nothing has been done to make it any better. Arguably, everything the government has done has made matters worse.

One of the things that you need to deal with after losing your job is health insurance.

You can go with COBRA which will drive you into the poor house if you have savings, and often will take the entirety of your unemployment benefits. So choosing between insurance, or food, light, heat, etc. most folks will choose to eat

The last time I was on COBRA, the cost was greater than my car payment, at the time I was paying for a BMW. In the case of the car I was receiving a tangible benefit. That was the car sitting in the garage.

This time around, COBRA was not only more than my car payment but it could have made 1/2 of another car payment. I declined to pay for something that had no tangible benefit where I’d still have to pay out of pocket for medications too.

So I reached out to a broker that I’d spoken with in the past and who had been able to connect me with insurance that was reasonably priced. He returned the call, but I missed him. I called him back and left a message, despite repeated messages I’ve left for him, he hasn’t called back. Can’t blame him I can’t imagine dealing with insurance all day every day.

So I thought to myself, “I surely can do some comparison shopping on the internet.”

BOY, WAS I COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WRONG!

There was a site, that said plainly enough “Compare Quotes” I thought great! They asked for minimum information and I was expecting a table of dollar ranges. You know, something that said;

Rape & Fuckyou Health Partners Inc. $500 – $900 monthly

Fuckyou & Yourmother Medical Inc. $700 – $2500 monthly

Nutkicker Health $300 – $899 monthly

I thought that would get me in the ball park and I’d choose the lesser of the evils and then begin the arduous process of actually dealing with a slimy insurance broker.

As I stated earlier…

I was Wrong!

Within seconds of my asking for a comparison quote my phone blew the fuck up!

It was 7 am, I’m having my first cup of coffee and the person on the one call I answered was on Meth! The conversation started out as a barrage of nonstop questions. Then another call, and another call and another call and …

They’re still calling nonstop a full hour after I pressed that button expecting a nice chart of my options. Thank god TMobile allows me to block annoying phone numbers.

But I know that call waiting works!

It’s my fault.

I knew that putting in my phone number was a bad idea. But being one or two sips into my morning coffee, well my decision making process is compromised. It’s almost as bad as drunk computing…

I’m declining all these calls from Whacko numbers and cities, and they’re not leaving voicemails so I’m assuming that everyone of these people is some kind of scumbag.

I think I may have discovered the telephone equivalent of SWATTING. All you have to do is give your worst enemy’s phone number out to a few Healthcare quote sites and you can render their phone completely useless. I’ll bet if you were to do this at say 9:00 at night you could interrupt someone’s sexual escapades. I know it’s interrupted my morning routine.

On the plus side, now I know better, I know my phone works, and I’ve learned how to really annoy someone. 

On the down side i still haven’t gotten my quote.

I’m thinking I’ll look up the insurance provider I was with before I went to my last job, and see if I can just get a policy  similar to what I had before. It was okay, covered the basics and not too expensive.

Hope you all have a great day.

Saints or Sinners

brett-kavanaugh-frown-ap-img.jpgKavanaugh is a sitting Supreme Court Justice!

The fact that as a 20 something he had his pants down at a party, was drunk, and a sophomore or freshman in college is absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, zero. Big Deal, So What?

That he was shoved, pushed, or whatever penis first into another drunk person at the same party regardless of their gender is also nothing.

I’d love for the same diligence applied to fucking Kavanaugh over to be applied to any or all of congress, Republicans & Democrats alike.

Let’s just see what kind of skeletons shake out of those investigations. Given the age of most of Congress, I’d be willing to bet that there are situations that by today’s standards would be full on rape. 

What 20 something doesn’t have some questionable activities? Remember Bill Clinton? OMG he smoked pot when he was 18 it was against the law and he supported a criminal element by doing it. How about Obama? Uh yeah… I thought so.

puritans.jpgWe used to call that kind of stuff “Youthful Hijinks” and the society would politely look the other way as long as no-one was in fact raped or hurt, and those activities didn’t become habitual. How many in congress today weren’t bathing and engaging in free love in the 60’s? How many of those people were burning flags and protesting the Vietnam war? How many were on the FBI watch lists for their affiliation with “Subversive” elements?

Uh huh, I’ll just bet our Congressional leaders would shit themselves if we all started scrutinizing their college pasts. 

is Kavanaugh hung?

I ask because a buddy of mine, (God rest his soul) was built for large women and small cattle. Get a drink or two in him and dare him to drop his pants and you’d get a show. He’d bet people that didn’t know him his was the biggest they’d ever seen then he’d prove it, and walk out of a party with a hundred bucks profit and that was a hundred bucks in 1980s money.

The poor man didn’t get laid a lot because of his size, but he was good natured about it. Before you think something gross or that he was deformed is some way, he wasn’t. He looked perfectly normal, just extra large and that was soft, he got much bigger when erect. 

So before we string Kavanaugh up lets take a step back.

Let’s not frame the man’s past indiscretions by today’s freakishly puritanical standards. Let’s stop a damn minute and look at Kavanaugh’s actions through the lens of the time.

What college sophomore then or now hasn’t done some questionable things?

iu.jpegRemember streaking? Maybe you don’t it would depend on how old you are. I remember police chasing a streaker across a football field mid-game and everyone in the stands laughing their asses off. It was in good fun and whoever the streaker was he was obviously on a track & field team. The police were out matched and that was why it was so damn funny. That game had absolutely the best half time show I’ve ever seen. The brass section of the band started playing the theme from The Benny Hill show which made it even funnier!

Even if the police had caught the guy, it wouldn’t have amounted to anything more than a small fine.

I hate to think what would happen today. Probably a full on Fucking SWAT team response!

Soft uncut cock 17When did we become so humorless?

When did a man’s penis become so offensive?

Arguably the nation was founded by puritans but in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s we were breaking free of that kind of stupidity and moving toward a more well balanced view of genders. I’ve got external plumbing and women have internal plumbing and that’s just fine. There’s nothing offensive about either.

I personally have been at parties where all the participants ended up naked. Not necessarily having sex but one person dared someone else and the next thing we knew everyone was naked and just enjoying the view. There was the occasional joking push where someone’s privates ended up in someone’s face to the amusement of everyone.

Hippiesfree loveIt was nothing then, and regardless of today’s standards it should remain exactly what it was, nothing chalk it up to youthful goofing off, or silliness.

The thing the really kills me about this latest Kavanaugh accusation is that the woman in question apparently doesn’t remember the event. So if she, as the supposed “Injured” party doesn’t remember it why should any of the rest of this nation give a damn?

One thought comes to mind…

It’s that the people pushing this, have an agenda. That agenda is apparently to do anything and everything in their power to discredit the President. I’m not particularly fond of the President but enough is enough The President has been President for 3 years, isn’t it time that we just move the hell on? 

If the political parties are so upset with President Trump, then those political parties need to present the American people with some reasonable alternatives.

Stop wasting our time and money. Stop creating divisions.

Rough Night last night…

And I’m feeling it this morning.

The cold is going away, I’m starting to feel more like myself generally. I had a bit of a setback last night just because I couldn’t sleep.

I made good use of the time cleaning up hard drives and trying to consolidate data and files. But I was up until 2am peering into the digital mess that is my long term storage. It helped me not think about the way I was feeling. Hey, It’s better than drugs, and it at least accomplishes something.

The little docking station is amazing, works as advertised and I’m really liking the single cable for everything connection. I like the dual monitor functionality, I’m watching one of my favorite shows on the big monitor while using the laptop monitor to write. All just using a single cable.

I haven’t missed Windows 10 since I got the new machine. I’ll keep VMware up to date in the event that I decide I need to run another operating system on my Mac but truth to tell, I’ve got everything I need in the Mac OS. 

I can think of 1 or 2 applications that I may not be able to locate Mac equivalents for but I use those applications so rarely that it may not matter very much.

3rd cup of coffee and I’m more operational. 

But It’s one of those days where It’s really hard to maintain focus on any one thing in particular. I hate it when I’m like this. I don’t feel like I get anything done, usually though a day after or so I realize that I got some things donLIke that I wasn’t really planning on.

Like that break,I noticed my external keyboard was filthy… So I took a few minutes to clean it, then I cleaned the mouse, then I cleaned…

It’s like I just start following links in my head until I realize that I’m following the links and return to what i was doing in the first place.

So I guess it’s not a bad thing, but it makes me feel like I’m just moving randomly through the day.

Hope your Monday is going better than mine.

Off to the next random thing.

Morning in the Mountains

IMG 1022All is silent.

No cars, no people up yet. Just nature, cool and and beautiful.

This time of year, I wake up to this view. The sun just starting to peek over the mountains to the East. The desert floor still in darkness. 

It’s a perfect time of day. Not too cold to sit on the deck and enjoy the quiet. The only downside is that mosquitos are still active this time of year, another month though and they’ll be in hibernation and then it’s just the cool morning air and occasional rustling of nocturnal animals heading back to their dens for the day.

This is one of the things I missed living in the city and I realize I prefer this as a way to wake up, much more than anything else.

Even the crickets have stopped their loud… cricketing. I have no idea what you call that sound. Chirping I guess, but the past few weeks its been sounding more like constant bad brakes.

It’s Sunday morning. The hustle and bustle of the workweek begins again tomorrow. But generally speaking I won’t be hearing that. I’ll be here looking for jobs and locking down the last details of my life for this stint of unemployment.

I still haven’t figured  out where I want to get away from everything but I’m working on it. I suppose the issue is that I’d like to have a traveling companion and go somewhere different. 

IMG 1025I definitely need to take a trip. I need to remove myself from the worries of the world for a while. I’ll have communication gear for sure, but If I don’t connect to the internet then I can write in peace without bombardment from the outside world.

I think that’s one thing that I’m learning, all the notifications “Dinging” on my phone, and computer are intrusions that I don’t need or want.

I’ll spend some time this morning tuning off all the notifications that I don’t need and trying to quiet down the noise a bit.

I hope your Sunday is a peaceful one.

In a time when privacy is of such concern…

thisisyourbrainontheinternet.jpgWhy is it that almost every single company you apply to for a job asks for you to create an account on their site?

Are we applying for jobs or are we providing information for data mining?

Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out, it’s both.

I detest having to create an “Account” just to apply for an advertised position, and I’m always concerned when a job application site asks me “Security Questions”

What’s your mother’s maiden name

Where were you born

What’s the name of your pet

What school did you attend

These bits of data, when aggregated with other bits gleaned from other sites can form a very complete picture of you as an individual.

Why do I need to create an account in the first place? The company I’m applying for hasn’t hired me, and in all likelihood we’re only going to have one time when we have contact with each other. The Odds of my returning to a particular corporate web site for anything other than prepping for an unlikely phone interview are exceedingly small. So why should I have to provide anything other than a resume and cover letter?

bigstock-210973132.jpgThere are currently something like 300 accounts stored in my web account password manager, at least 250 of those are from sites that I don’t visit or have only visited one time. Yet each one of those entries represents a corporation that has some amount of my personal information. This is information that I shared in the hopes of getting a job and it’s information that is no longer under my control.

Knowing how data can be scraped and related, and how easy it is to include similar results from other people, I’ve become concerned not only about my loss of control of that data, but also the veracity of data presented as “Me” on sites like Mylife.com, Beenverified.com, spokeo.com, and peoplefinders.com. That doesn’t even touch what Google may report.

The issue for me is, due to the proliferation of these sites, it could be a full time job just asking them to remove me from their records and verifying that they’ve done so.

I don’t particularly have anything to hide, but I am concerned that these sites could inexpensively be used to create a very convincing false identity, leading to successful identity theft. I’ve been through that once and have no desire to repeat the experience.

As a minor example of how easily data can get screwed up, I once had an argument with a lady, (who may or may not have been a very distant relative) on Ancestry.com over whether my Father was in fact my father.

According to her research, my step siblings were my Father’s original family and my half brother (we share the same father) and I didn’t exist. She had pictures of my Dad in her ancestry page but the birth dates were all incorrect for all of my step siblings. I figured “Fine” live in your own fantasy world lady, but I was there and I know who my father and mother are.

The problem was, that every-time I corrected the data for MY immediate family in my account, her data would override mine. Matters were made worse when my stepfather and mother started adding information from their ancestry page and my mom discovered her marriage to my biological father and my subsequent birth were being erased by this lady that we didn’t even know. My mother tried reasoning with this woman and got nowhere. You do not want to piss my mother off, she will rent a bulldozer and get certified as a heavy equipment operator,  just to smash your car into a pancake.

I lost interest after a while because I was beating my head against a wall. I signed off of ancestry and haven’t been back. I purchased an application that runs locally on my computer. That way I can maintain the integrity of my personal family data without having someone arbitrarily make changes.

You see, this stranger was searching for context and her locating my branch of the family was easier than finding the real branch of the family that she was connected to. So instead of doing the research, she started creating or editing data that fit her narrative.

Imagine a scenario like this in more important matters. Your job history, your credit history, your criminal history…

How would you even go about correcting it? Unless you ran a background check on yourself periodically you might not even know that you had been cross-linked with someone else. The problem there is, the longer the cross link exists the more “True” it becomes.

I explain all of the above to support my implied assertion that we are being “Programmed” to give away random bits of ourselves without much thought. The consequence of which is that our identities and security is being eroded.

SocialNetwork.jpgDo you really want your employer, your date, spouse, or your mother, to know about that rather large kinky sex toy you purchased on Dec 27 2005 at 3 PM in Los Angeles?  Or how about that time when you went to a shooting range with your boyfriend?

You may have purchased the toy as a practical joke, you may have gone to the shooting range to see what guns were all about and decided they weren’t for you, but the people looking at the sales records won’t know that, and you’ll never have the opportunity to explain because the folks looking at the data will never give you the chance.

We’re moving more and more toward a contextless world.

We see it in media coverage of political figures, Who cares if some politician dressed up in blackface AND a KKK outfit for Halloween in 1977, when they were 13 years old?

In a contextless society, that event reads as… Politician dressed in Blackface KKK robe. This insensitive leader must be removed from office immediately! It’s an outrage!

Not only do I not want to participate in that kind of society, I don’t want to hand a society the weapon to harm me.

So that’s why I’m very twitchy about websites demanding that I create an account for the simplest of things.

Call me paranoid if you wish, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.