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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Tis the Season…

Here we are in December.

Decorations are starting to go up around the neighborhood.

One neighbor’s decoration is a for sale sign. I’m not surprised about that, it’s gotta be tough for a single guy living up here. The local dating pool is really thin and most of the people he’s likely to date aren’t willing to to make the trek up here with any regularity. It can be lonely.

Given what he paid for the house, and the current market, he’s likely to make a profit on the sale. I’ll be sorry to see him go because he’s a decent guy. On the other hand he’ll drive the value up on all the houses on the street, so that’s welcome.

I’ve been trying not to look at the news with any regularity. At this point even the “normal” news is like doom scrolling. I thought I’d gotten away from that when I stopped using social media. Alas, I was wrong.

I’m just not very Christmasy. I haven’t been for several years. It’s just not the same kind of fun it used to be.

Some might say it’s the commercialism, others might say it’s the fact that some shopping areas put their Christmas displays up along with their Halloween displays. So that by the time you get around to Christmas, there’s nothing special about it anymore.

When I was a kid, there were three distinct holidays and the shops changed their displays each month. My first job at Toys R Us we changed the store during those three months. We worked overtime November 1, and November 20th to make the transition. November was a good paycheck month! It was a lot of work, and we were just transitioning from Halloween to Christmas.

The change was still magical. We knew that the kids coming into the store would light up seeing Christmas trees decorated in the aisles and empty boxes in bright wrapping paper stuffed under the fake tree branches.

These days, it’s like all the magic has gone. Sure, there’s holiday music blaring in all the shopping centers. The decorations are still out, although the last time I was in a shopping center at Christmas, a lot of the decorations looked shop worn. Oddly, decorations in the several shopping centers I visited, looked alike.

I remember years ago, part of the season’s fun was going from shopping center to shopping center because each one was unique in their decorating style.

If you stopped for a moment in a mall you’d see “character” and know that someone had put real effort into creating Christmas displays that were a delight to the eye. The yearly displays also changed making each Christmas special.

I suppose all that changed when people started dwelling on being offended by the season (or for that matter anything else). It really started changing when those people began winning court cases.

Of course all of this is California specific. It’s been very rare for me to be in other states during the holidays over the past 30 years or so.

These days, the majority of the holiday shopping experience is homogeneous. One mall or shopping center is very like another.

This may be due to a several factors. One is that the malls don’t want to offend anyone. The second factor is that so many of the malls are owned by the same conglomerate so they’re buying all their decorations in bulk. Lastly, the conglomerates may think that a consistent shopping experience across their properties is better for business.

I suppose you could argue all of these factors are beneficial. But I would argue that the “sameness” diminishes the joy of the season.

There was a time when we’d say, “Lets go to XYZ mall today,” now it’s, “let go to the mall.”

I’m trying to get in the mood. I really am. I’m looking forward to the annual shopping trip with one of my best friends. It’s not so much about the shopping as it is about the comradery. I think to some extent it hearkens back to our shared heritage of ancient hunting parties.

Only this annual trip has lots of eating and drinking as part of it unlike those hunting parties where cold and wet were often the norm. Halfway through the day we’re both fairly full of good cheer! That good cheer, might offset any shortages of goods due to the supply problems this year.

A couple of friends and I would laugh ourselves stupid if we came around the corner into this shopping area.

I hope the place had a PG rating.

Hmm. Maybe I’ve found a reason to be Christmasy, I can wander the local malls for examples of holiday decorations that tried really hard, but didn’t quite work out as planned.

Have a wonderful holiday season.

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That’s it! I want to get the HELL out of California!

In addition to all of the absolute bullshit that is California…

Traffic, Lockdowns, Abridgment of rights, Water shortages, Electricity Shortages, $500 Auto Registration Fees, Incompetence of the State Government and all the state’s government offices, State waste of tax dollars. Complete lack of planning, Crime, Outrageous Property Taxes, Outrageous Gas prices .55 on every gallon of gas really? Shitty roads, Outrageous State Income Taxes, and on and on and on…

I mean, pick literally any subject and then look to California to see how to do it exactly wrong.

I hate this place and everything about it.

There was a time when the benefits outweighed the hassle. That time is long gone.

This is a losing proposition any way you cut it.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some good people here and even some good Representatives in the Legislature. The problem is there are too few people with any common sense and those numbers apparently are dwindling.

The straw that has broken this camels back is EDD.

I don’t think there’s ever been a more incompetent government entity short of perhaps the last of the Roman Empire, maybe King George III’s tax collectors or court.

First EDD screwed up their modernization of their computer systems. They contracted with, and hired a bunch more people to actually do the work. Apparently the work not only didn’t get done, but they bought a shit ton of equipment that sat in its boxes until the warranties expired. Then the equipment sat for another few years until it was literally obsolete and had to be scrapped.

They were completely unprepared for the number of unemployment claims that were being filed when the pandemic hit. How did they address this? By putting more people on the phones supposedly to answer phone calls, which of course still didn’t get answered.

Oh yeah, there were hearings and excuses and in the end, after the uproar died down nothing was done. No heads rolled, and EDD went right back to its usual incompetent self.

They screwed up who was being paid during the pandemic. Turns out they paid a lot of people that perhaps weren’t eligible for benefits.

What? You mean they threw taxpayers dollars at people that shouldn’t have received benefits??? Yep… in at least the hundreds of millions of dollars range if not billions.

Now, EDD is sending out stupid emails that demand the people who received benefits prove they were eligible to receive those benefits and they’re threatening to charge 30% penalties on those benefits.

But of course the email they send you provides links to the EDD website that frankly is a hot steaming pile of shit. So even if you want to comply with their demand the odds are you can’t since the site sucks so bad.

Just connecting to their web site makes me and my computer morons. The intellect draining capacity of California’s EDD site should be harnessed and used to combat hackers and cyberterrorists the world over.

Come to think of it, the EDD site could be used as a firewall. It’s amazing at creating endless loops of login after login.

The funny parts of EDD’s demands are that they seem to think; A) The criminals who gamed the system are going to send documentation. B) That they’re going to get the money they threw away back from criminals who gamed the system.

Hey California EDD, NEWSFLASH Those people are in the wind and you’re not going to find them!

D’Oh!

But for people who had legitimate claims. We’re having to jump through hoops to clean up EDD’s fuckup.

When you talk to EDD they predictably absolve themselves of responsibility by saying the Federal Government is who is requesting this information.

That is probably true, however EDD should have all the data. They should not be asking for tax returns. After all if EDD approved a person for unemployment benefits that presumes that EDD knows who your previous employer was and verified that you were eligible for benefits in the first place. RIGHT?

It gets better, the EDD representatives are apparently unsure what exact documents you need to provide. Do you need to provide the entirety of your tax returns or just a copy of the W2 or will pages from your California Tax return suffice? They’re not sure.

“It’s the Federal Government that’s asking, it goes into a computer to determine if the document is right…“

Uh huh.

Having spent some time working for a Federal contractor, I can tell you that the Feds are pretty damn specific about what they want to see.

But wait, there’s more! EDD told a representative from a legislator’s office yesterday that they’d called me, (they did). I wasn’t available to take their call so they went to voice mail. This same person told the same legislative representative that they’d left a voice mail, (they did not). I sent screen shots proving the point to the legislators representative. So I have a little bit of a trust issue with EDD.

I have a real problem with providing EDD documents of this sensitive nature.

They’re incompetent, they’ve reported at least one data breach if I recall correctly. I’ve caught them literally lying to a California Legislator’s office.

Given their incompetence and Laissez-faire attitude about what they seem to need I’m concerned that by providing these documents in an electronic format I’m just setting myself up for identity theft.

After all what better hacking target than an organization with a proven track record of stupidity? Just imagine all the wonderful identities that will suddenly be available for the picking.

EDD appears to be auditing the citizens. EDD needs to be audited by a totally independent source. Maybe a group of accountants from Texas or Florida? Someone who’s not likely to sweep things under the carpet in the interest of not embarrassing California.

They made this mess. Why should the citizens be hassled, threatened, or further annoyed to help them clean it up?

I believe, California’s corruption and incompetence goes from the top all the way down to the local level.

I’m sick of it.

Voting is pointless because the people who’ve created this fucked up system greatly outnumber the people in this state who demand fiscal responsibility.

With that realization, I choose to work to get my ass out of here.

Even if that means divorce after 33 years and leaving the house and everything else behind. Honestly at this point I’m thinking about cutting my losses and doing anything to be free of this third world shit hole.

At least in another state I might have a shot at a job where I don’t have to worry about skin color quotas and layer upon layer of politically correct bullshit!

Fuck California!

p.s. In case you had any doubt… I’m not in a very good mood today.

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Well this will make things easier…

Ran across this on Breitbart. There’s a link to the paper in the article as well.

The upshot is that another of Biden’s nominees has some questionable theories.

Saule Omarova puts forth in the paper, what looks like a plan to make the Fed, The Bank of the people.

That would certainly make the IRS’s job easier when they have to monitor our bank accounts for all transactions over $600.

Instead of messing about with paperwork and reporting structures from 100s of banks, they’ll just be able to link their computers to the Federal Bank and bingo! Every citizens transactions will be available and taxed real time.

No more worry about filing your taxes either. The IRS would know how much you made, from what sources, and they could just take their percentage of your earnings right off the top. (Pretty much like today…)

I could see an initial run on banks if this nominee is approved. The secondary run on the banks will be if the US government put her theories into practice. There’ll be folks who move their money into offshore banks as well but not everyone has the cash to make that a viable option.

I’d be right there demanding all my money from the bank, my retirement fund, and my small pension too. Then I’d do my best to convert all of it into some kind of durable goods that could be exchanged. The barter system is looking better and better all the time.

Imagine the chaos if something like a centralized Federal Bank suddenly made all your private bank accounts illegal.

It would make your life ever so much easier. Get a ticket, don’t worry it’s automatically pulled from your one single account.

Need to pay your ACA bill? No worries That will be taken out of your account before your mortgage. Oh, and about your mortgage… well the Federal Bank has determined that you’re not actually eligible for that mortgage, so you’ll have to move to lower cost housing.

I could see a situation where we each had only one credit card with percentage rates based on your Government loyalty score. BTW your credit line is decreased the older you are because… well your life isn’t going to be that long, and you’ll need to repay your debt before you die.

I know I’m being somewhat reactionary, but come on folks. When has our government ever not taken advantage of the citizens?

Why the heck is it that all of the administration’s nominees appear to be complete whack-jobs?

At first I could excuse it, because I thought that they were trying to get their feet under them. But now? How is it possible that nominee after nominee has some kind of weird questionable, perhaps anti American philosophy? One or two I could let pass, but now it’s starting to look like a systematic plan to screw everyone over.

The thing is, if only one or two whack-jobs were appointed we could keep an eye on them. But when so many are being exposed in the nomination process, I have to wonder how many have been installed in the halls of government without undergoing some kind of congressional approval process.

I’m not intending to suggest that there isn’t room for change or improvement in our banking systems, or in fact any other systems. I’m saying that when you talk about changing things, perhaps a lighter touch is necessary.

Update:

Since I wrote this, it appears that 5 Democratic Senators have announced they will not support Saule Omarova’s nomination for the position. That pretty much causes this Biden nominee to crash and burn.

It does beg the question of who Biden will nominate next. Given his history of nominees, I wonder if he’ll choose someone only slightly better, or will he nominate the corpse of Mao Zedong (forgetting the Mao is dead)? I guess only time will tell.

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I read a new term today that cracked me up.

The term was Covidians

As in religious practitioners.

Immediately I visualized scores of people in robes singing praises to the grand protectors.

Blessed be the Mask.
Blessed be the Harmony of Social Distancing.
Blessed be the co-mingling of the vaccine with our blood.
Blessed be the lack of heretics for what is once done is forever done. All hail the jab!

All of this being done under stained glass widow showing an angelic Dr. Fauci haloed and masked. Perhaps with crossed syringes behind him. On the right, would be the holy first shot and on the left the holy booster.

Of course, no religion would be complete without curses.

Cursed be the unvaxxed, for they shall inherit death.
Cursed be the deniers, for they are minions of the evil one, he of orange hue and wicked tongue.
Cursed be purveyors of treatments, for they seek to undo the will of the almighty COVID, without the blessings of the holy jab.
Cursed be those who will not mask, for they shall breathe naught but the unclean air and pestilence.
Cursed be the pagan ones who dance in the sunlight and bathe in the sea for they wallow in filth.

As I was picturing this insanity I realized that I was pulling some of the imagery from the movie Ultraviolet.

As movies go, it was a bit weak on the plot. The visuals were impressive and in the end, the badguy did get his just deserts. So there was a certain satisfaction in that.

Ironically, the bad guy in the movie bears a slight resemblance to St. Fauci of the Mask, only a few years younger.

I was flashing on all of this and completely forgot what the article was about.

But… It started my day with a weird bit of silliness and a smile.

I hope you have some silliness that makes you smile in the weekend ahead.

I’m thinking I’ll fire up the DVD player and see if I can dig out my copy of the movie just for the hell of it.

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In honor of Thanksgiving…

I’m watching Addam’s Family Values.

It’s a fun romp.

I may revert to the annual tradition of the Alien Movies, or perhaps the 1950 and 1960 movies about invasions or space travel.

The movie selection is confusing I know…

The tradition of watching Alien on Thanksgiving dates back many years to happy Turkey Meals, good drinks, and Black Friday shopping with one of my oldest and dearest friends. (Let me tell you… HE’S OLD!)

It wasn’t intentional, it just so happened that we’d put on a movie from the Alien franchise drink, eat chips and dip and wait for the Turkey to be ready. As the Alien Franchise expanded we simply started with Alien earlier in the day. And so a tradition was born.

This year I need a little humor.

Addams Family Values has a great scene depicting a play about the First Thanksgiving. In the scene, a pretty rich girl is pitted against Wednesday Addams. Hilarity ensues from there.

I think that we all could use a large dose irreverent humor these days.

I know I’m already looking forward to having a drink, and watching all the familiar tropes of Summer Camp, Political Correctness, rich versus poor, and inclusion being put through a blender.

What comes out is just good fun.

Especially when you consider that the Addams Family wealth eclipses all of the nouveau rich depicted in the film. Then consider that Wednesday, comes down on the side of the outcasts and leads them to a “win” in a signature Addams Family way.

I personally find the camp scene more satisfying than The scene in Logans Run where Farrah Fawcet has her face blown off by the automated surgery robot.

Don’t get me wrong, I had nothing against Farrah, she was beautiful.

But there’s just something about her getting what’s coming to her after betraying Logan that is viscerally satisfying. I suppose that satisfaction is due in part to the fact that all too often those who really deserve a bit of Karma don’t get it.

I hope you all have a great Turkey Day and take some time to just take a breath, relax and enjoy something completely escapist.