Month: April 2020

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You know, I’d like to go hang with a friend…

I’d do it too.

After all, there’s a 92% chance that a friend and I would survive Coronavirus even if  we got it. Shouldn’t we as adults be able to make that decision?

In fact I’m pretty sure that at least a couple of my friends would say, “Screw this,” and we’d sit outside have a couple of beers and laugh & talk.

After all, being adult is supposed to be about making your own choices and accepting the consequences of your actions isn’t it?

Yeah, you’d think that was true. But is it? 

We live in really strange times.

We have free speech (as long as what you say conforms to the party line.) One has only to look at the way people with dissenting opinions are shouted down. Two Bakersfield ER doctors are a recent prime example. Banned and censored by Google/Youtube but their video is still available here

We have the right to privacy, except online, (or during the lockdown. Then your neighbors may call the cops if you’re seen with someone else, even outside your home while maintaining social distancing. Some place encourage your neighbors to rat you out.) 

We have the freedom pursue happiness,  (Unless during the lockdown that happiness is alone, in a motorized boat on a lake in Michigan, fishing, or if you’re paddle boarding 80 YARDS offshore in California.) 

We have the freedom to go outside and get some exercise, during this lockdown (Unless that exercise takes the form of tossing a football in a park.) These kids found this out in New Jersey. 

I’d take the risk of Coronavirus to go hang out and have some social interaction.  What I & my friends won’t risk is authoritarian police busting and arresting us for making an adult choice accepting a certain amount of medical risk.

I can stay home in my bed for a week or two to get over a virus. My friends and I cannot afford to be arrested, and fined while we’re unemployed.

So the authoritarians win.

I can see some aspects of the lockdown for the sake of the common good. The being said, I am developing serious concerns about longer term damage to our freedoms.

With the new “normal” how much will we lose, and how much will we be willing to call acceptable losses?

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Why is everything a battle?

bangheadhere.jpegLately, it feels like I’m spending all my time either fighting or preparing to fight.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall for the past 12 months attempting to find a new job. Then just as unemployment insurance ran out we’re in lockdown.

Care to guess what that does to your job search?

Then Congress and the President say they’re extending unemployment benefits and sending a stimulus check. 

Great I think. I’ll be able to go on for a little while longer. Well, you’d think that, but I’ve not gotten a stimulus check and the Unemployment people haven’t gotten their shit together yet either.

In practical terms, this means that I’ve gotten two more battles added to my plate. One is getting the IRS website to accept my banking information which they had on file and have had for years, but their site said they didn’t have any information. 

Uhhh, wrong! You fuckers know exactly where to send the bill and exactly how to harass me at a whim. Now when it comes to you having to pay… Suddenly you can’t find my information? I call Bullshit!

On the plus side, I got them sorted out this morning.

One battle won.

Next, on to the unemployment folks. Their website is even worse than the IRS. It looks like something out of the ‘70s. In truth it probably is. Although the site says that it’s implemented the changes to allow for the extension and application for the Coronavirus relief funding when you go through their merry-go-round of links you end up at the same place that tells you you’re not eligible.

“Oh you have to use Chrome, to access the site.” 

Great so you’re telling me that I have to download a browser from the evil empire that Google has become, to allow being tracked, and hacked, and having 2 instances of googlesoftwareupdateagent running on my computer even when Chrome ISN’T running.

It’s also quite interesting that while these bits of software are running I see an uptick in network communication that is continuous.

Just what are these “Agents” doing? Why are there two instances sucking up my computer resources? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the question. I haven’t opened the code to analyze what this agent actually does, but I don’t think its what the name implies.

ReallyI have to have Chrome? Why? Could it be that your H1B1 programmers don’t know that adherence to HTML standards actually allows compatibility with multiple browsers? Or was it that they just had to use some little snippet of code that they could only get from Google? Instead of one of the myriad open source distributors

I download the wonder that is Google Chrome go back through the merry-go-round and guess what? I still can’t access the page that allows me to fill in the information to get the FEDERALLY FUNDED package. 

Gee thanks you California EDD dunderheads.

Battle number two – Lost for the moment!

Next Battle is the case of the missing check from the insurance company over the car. The check was issued and sent to the BMW Dealer. That check triggered a number of attempts on the part of the BMW dealer to reopen the insurance claim and ask for more money. WRONG! Sorry but that isn’t happening, I’ve seen to it.

Add to it that the BMW dealership underlings weren’t returning phone calls.  A strongly worded letter was sent to the one man at the dealership that runs by old world standards. I shouldn’t have had to involve him, but when all normal channels fail, you reach out to folks you know.

He responded this morning letting me know that he’d forwarded the letter to the right person over at the body shop. I’m expecting a call later in the week. It’s going to take the manager of the body shop some time to un-peel this onion. His underlings made a hell of a mess in their accounting and documentation.

Battle number three, indeterminate win/loss but it’s worth fighting because it’s over a grand that I’m owed.

Then on to battle number four.

The job search, and I’m back to banging my head against the wall.

At least it’s warm and pretty and I’m sitting on the back deck with a nice view.

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How to get written out of the will…

Real id logoMy Mom and I were chatting.

The usual pleasantries, How the family is and how things are going, you know, usual Mom stuff.

Then Mom started talking about the upcoming election and vote by mail. 

In the back of my mind I’m thinking this will probably not go well, but I go along for the ride.

Mom asks me what I think about vote by mail. Uh oh, this is going to go South really fast.

I tell her I disagree with the “All vote by mail” initiatives.

“Why?”

FL Driver License REAL ID topshot“Because I think it’s too easy for shenanigans to affect the vote.”

“Not really,” she says.

“Yes really Mom. Voters in FL couldn’t handle pushing a pin through a piece of paper several years back. Other states have been sued to force them to review, and clean up their voter registrations. Each of those invalid registrations would produce a mailed ballot to a household that shouldn’t be sent a ballot. This would potentially allow multiple votes to be counted that shouldn’t be.”RealID

“People wouldn’t do that,” She says.

“Trust me they would, Mom. Probably for no other reason than it would be funny and they’d think it’s no big deal. Mom, I’m actually in favor of requiring ID at the polling location.”

“Oh we can’t have that. There are lots of people that don’t have ID and can’t afford it,” She replies.

“Really? So how do these people write checks, do banking, cash their paychecks, get on a plane, or use a credit card, Mom? It’s a pretty low bar to produce your state issued / required identification to cast a vote. If it’s a matter of not being able to afford a state ID, then make state IDs free, and still charge for drivers licenses.”

“Some people don’t have birth certificates, Son”

“Come on Mom, I don’t have my birth certificate. I’ve never gotten a replacement copy since the fire. But I do have my driver’s license, and a little thing called my passport which every citizen is also supposed to have. So once again, if you’re a citizen you’re supposed to have some ID right? Those folks who are so old that they may not have these things are probably not in much shape to vote, not that they shouldn’t be able to, but it’s a very small subset. Unless you count the vote by seance crowd.”

“You sound just like YOUR FATHER!” [Note: They’ve been Divorced for 50 years, He’s been Dead for 28 years.]

“So you’re saying I Win????  Hello? Hello? Mom?”

“IF YOU WISH TO MAKE A CALL PLEASE HANG UP AND TRY AGAIN…”

Hmmm, I knew that wasn’t going to end well.