Category: Rants

Posted on

I’ve been feeling Compressed

PADI 2014 Oct 12

No, not as in diving compressed, (although I could use some underwater time). Any Divers out there wanna get wet? [Thanks to PADI for the nifty photo]

My compression stems from issues in my life.

As I’ve mentioned before, I share internet with the next door neighbor. Generally this isn’t a problem,  they’re using an old Windows based machine that I suspect is rife with malware. This doesn’t really affect me, except that when that machine logs onto the network it sucks up pretty much all the available DSL bandwidth.

For the non techies… The internet gets really slow.

Most of the time, even that doesn’t bother me unless I’m streaming a movie or something. But it reminds me that I’m not alone, and someone else has the ability to affect my life through my own niceness.

Then there’s the ugly assed fence which focuses my vision on their back yard, making me to be completely unable to ignore all the kids stuff, trampoline, monkey bars, various toys scattered about, and the pile ‘o junk stuffed in the corner.

IMG 0309

This fence also makes me feel that I have no privacy because it’s a constant reminder that there are kids there, even when they’re not out screaming, squabbling, or using the trampoline to jump up above the fence to ask me what I’m doing out on my deck. I can’t look past it, god knows I’ve tried. The 7ft tall monstrosity is THERE  protecting the children from… what? The occasional wayward hiker?

Then there’s the ceiling fan in my office. You see, the neighbors apparently put up a new ceiling fan in their house, and they left the unit’s code set to default. (Lots of new ceiling fans have these nifty remotes that allow you to change the speed of the fan and / or control the light in the fan.)

The problem is that when you put one of these fans in, you really should choose a new code other than the default one. Guess how I found out the electrician that built this house hadn’t bothered to change the code?

You guessed it. The great fan war started this summer. There are three neighbors that could possibly be close enough to control my office ceiling fan. One house is under going major remodeling. Since that place is gutted, I scratched them off the list. The other neighbor isn’t likely to have made any real changes, since she’s cold all the time. Which leaves the next door neighbors!

IMG 0362

Dammit! They’re jacking my internet up, have destroyed the view, have left me feeling like I’m having to accommodate their kids, “Asked” that we hose down our back yard every day during a drought while letting our plants die because she was pregnant and her nose was too sensitive, and finally…

Because they don’t want to figure out why their new fan isn’t working quite right, I’m the one that has to get up on a ladder with a screwdriver and a spring hook, (a spring hook looks a lot like a dental tool its sharp and pointy with a slight hook at one end. Great for flipping tiny little switches.) to manhandle 70lbs of ceiling fan to change the code to something they’re not using. 

But then it continues…

Once I’ve got the fan issue fixed, I think, “hey its time for me to rearrange the office” and so I begin that process only to find that my other half has systematically occupied every single open space in both closets, the filing cabinet, and a substantial portion of the basement with… for want of a better term CRAP! 

There’s no way for me to put my stuff out of the way or reorganize my stuff because his stuff is literally everywhere.

SO after grumbling about living with the equivalent of a 13 year old packrat, LOUDLY.  I start whipping through my shit and tossing anything that isn’t nailed down and functional. 

But the whole time I’m thinking, why am I the one that’s adapting to the situation AGAIN. 

I find myself thinking, “Maybe I should just pack whatever shit from this house that I want, and that will fit in my damn car and that will be MY space. Perhaps my life will be easier if I just allow the forces in my life that are conspiring to compress me into a tight little space, win. Then everyone will be happier and I’ll finally have some peace. Maybe I should sell every vehicle I own, buy a pickup truck with a tonneau cover (I don’t like camper shells) and be a true nomad, wandering towns and highways randomly. I’ll stop in interesting places do piece work for cash then move on. Maybe I should become ’That Guy’, the stranger, the scary dude in the corner of your local bar. ”

Then again maybe all this is just another way for the universe to tell me “Its time to move on.”

Posted on

This one I couldn’t let pass, it really pisses me off. NSFW

 

5 year old rape victim dies in Herat

NewImage

I originally saw this on Breitbart but followed it back to the Afghanistan Times (the link above).

Frankly, my brain rebooted.

There are so many things going through my head I’m not sure I can cogently prioritize them all.

The doctors at the hospital covered the cause of death, describing it as choking, instead of butfucking a 5 year old child to death. The boys, (I sincerely question what is meant by “boys” in this context) have been arrested but will probably be found innocent of the rape charges.

It’s the other details that make me positive we should have nuked the entire area, carpet bomb style. Sterilize the whole country, make it visible from space as a glowing wasteland, but I get ahead of myself.

NewImage

The hypocrisy of these people is overwhelming. At the same time a 15 year old girl can be beaten and tortured by her in-laws for refusing to become a prostitute, apparently the victims of rape are often considered criminals and immoral because they were forced to have sex prior to wedlock.

THE VICTIMS??? What about the owners of the DICKS that violated children?

While I was trying to find the article about this boy on the Afghanistan Times site, I found another article about a three year old girl being raped by an adult man. Again, it looked like he might be held responsible for murder.

Then I read in the Breitbart article that older men sometimes  take on pre-pubescent MALE lovers in some bullshit cultural thing called “bacha baazi.”

WHAT?!?!? I thought it was customary for islamic “high morality” cultures to mutilate and then kill any homosexual. In this way they prevent the sullying of their “Religion of Peace” and preserving the high moral standards we’ve all come to know and “appreciate” from the followers of Islam.  Yet, here we have a cultural institution wherein homosexual behavior is apparently acceptable as long as it’s an older man with a boy whose balls haven’t dropped.

SORRY… Putting your dick in a boy, is homosexual behavior regardless of the age of the boy or how many wives you have.

Singularitysphere1

What are we supposed to believe here, that the man didn’t realize he was fucking a boy… IN THE ASS?

What happens if the boy happens to develop a preference for male sex when he becomes an adult?

Well, we know that answer.  Presumably after enduring years of shame and humiliation, he gets caught with another man and then endures being imprisoned, mutilated, then fucked by the prison guards before he’s taken out and beheaded, stoned, or hung. 

Singularitysphere2

Were I twenty years younger I’d sign up for college, then become a physicist with but one goal in mind.

I’d find a way to create a singularity sphere like the ones in The Arrival.  Then I’d happily drop a dozen or so of those puppies all over Afghanistan.

If you don’t remember, these things were flat cool. They lift off, scan the area, then suck everything into a singularity. 

No fuss, no muss, probably nothing more than just a brief wink of X-ray radiation as the surrounding matter disappears into the singularity’s event horizon. 

Totally excellent devices for urban renewal or to dispose of a vermin problem.

Make no mistake, Religion/culture of peace and morality, MY ASS!

No more funding for these animals, Let them all wither and die in a shithole of their own making. These people seem to know nothing but curelty, hatred and violence.  Perhaps, since we have no singularities handy, could we at least drop a few big assed rocks on ‘em from orbit?

I used to apply the lesson learned when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Spare the innocent…

Now I’ve come to think that euthanasia in these shitholes might be a more merciful option. 

And to lighten things up. Here’s Andrew Klavan on political correctness.

Posted on

Been out of it for a couple of days… All I can say is DAMN!

NewImage

My ISP was having some difficulties with packet loss and their problems were affecting my ability to get email and upload to the blog.

Paraphrasing Poltergeist 

“I’mmmm BAAACCK!”

The question is what do I talk about first?

NewImage

The Bundy Ranch v the BLM?

I hate to even think about what could have happened if someone had squeezed off a shot during that standoff. That’s how really bad things happen really damn fast. I personally don’t think Mr Bundy has a leg to stand on legally. OF more concern to me is that we had an armed standoff at all. 

NewImage

When you start looking at issues surrounding the Bundy standoff. You can’t help but stumble over reports of other events where one could say that the US Government is overstepping its authority and behaving very much like a totalitarian entity.

There are currently issues over land between Texas & Missouri due to the ever changing nature of a river that had traditionally marked the boundary line between the states and ranchers in the area. The BLM is taking an interest and stands to usurp something like 90,000 acres without compensating either the states or the landholders.

NewImage

The EPA is attempting to assert control over many bodies of water, including watering ponds on farms and ranches. They are also making noises about assuming control of dry or seasonal creek and river beds.

Meanwhile The Border patrol has become a nuisance to Arizona ranchers whose property abuts the buffer zone between the US / Mexico boarder They’re doing things like cutting fences or leaving gates open without so much as a “by your leave.” 

NewImage

These supposed events are concerning because they’re in general, never picked up by the main stream media but are reported in local area papers. On an individual basis these seem like minor local issues but when you view them from the “orbit” of the internet it does start to look like a quiet conquest.

With government oversight, come government control. With government control, come fees, fines, and increased taxation (whether it’s called a tax or not.) This seems to be the source of the underlying embers that almost burst into flames at the Bundy ranch.

NewImage

The FDA is being reported as sticking their noses into a long standing arrangement (100+ years) between Beer Brewers and farmers regarding grain. The Beer uses the grain to make beer, then the waste material is usually given to farmers / ranchers to mix with feed stock. This arrangement takes care of the waste without requiring anything other than a farmer / ranchers willingness to haul the used grain away.

Now, the FDA is wanting to regulate this equitable arrangement in the name of public health even though there has never been an instance where the public or the animals have been harmed. Some old traditions bacme old traditions due to the test of TIME. It’s not in the best interests of Farmers or Ranchers to engage in an activity that is detrimental to their livelyhoods. So does the FDA really need to be involved? Probably not, but you can expect for their fees and inspections and whatever the hell else they’ll do to drive up the cost of a beer, and possible the cost of food too.

NewImage

The newest revelations about the IRS internal memos?

Just WHO is Lois Learner afraid of? She claims she’s in fear for her life and that’s why she doesn’t want to testify. REALLY? Can’t her employer The United States Government protect her & her family? Or is it the US Government that she’s afraid of?

The Ukraine?

Images

Does anyone really believe that Vladimir Putin is concerned in the least about what President Stompy Foot thinks? Don’t get me wrong Putin is not a nice guy but he’s doing what he things is best for his country ( Or Himself) and he’s not in the habit of asking permission. 

Potential for World War III?

There have been some writers comparing the flashpoint issues for WWI and WWII to what’s happening in the Ukraine.

I’m not sure that I completely agree with their assesment that WWIII could be in the offing but the correlations are interesting to read. I doubt Putin would move it to an all out war against NATO but hey no-one thought a strange little houspainter would end up Chancellor of Germany either.

President Obama’s trustworthy polls?

This one cracked me up. Approximately 60% of Americans believe that Obama is actively lying to them one way or another. Now that’s really gotta piss President Finger waver off.

NewImage

The President was on TV again today defending Obamacare and as usual took the opportunity to reiterate that Republicans are BAD and that their continued desire to revisit Obamacare isn’t in the public interest. Whoo Hoo 8 million people signed up. Lets see, there are approximately 313.9 Million people in the US. Does that mean a whopping 3% of the population signed up. Whoooo impressive!

I’d have been more impressed if this 8 million had ALL been previously uninsured people instead of poor schmucks that lost their insurance and had to find something on the exchanges.

I’d have been more impressed if there wasn’t a recent editorial by a lady that had called something like 92 doctors in New Jersey only to find out that her shiny new obamacare card wasn’t being accepted because the doctors didn’t want to deal with the smaller payments obamacare would provide for their services, and the increased overhead and oversight from the government.

I’d be more impressed if, instead of Pres. Stompy shaking his finger at Republicans he’d actually listen to what the vast majority of Americans are bitching about regarding having their health insurance screwed with.

I’d really be impressed if ALL of Congress, including that idiot Harry Reid had to sign up with Obamacare through the exchanges. (Hey Harry, let see if you’re smart enough to use the damn internet shall we?)

NewImage

I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore. I feel like I’ve walked through the looking glass into bizzaro world.

In short, HOLY CRAP BATMAN!

Posted on

NO! HELL NO!

NewImage

I got a call from Express Scripts yesterday.

God, I thought I was done with those fuckers!

It turns out that my new Obamacare sanctioned, lemon scented medical policy apparently has some kind of alliance or affiliation with Express Scripts.

I told the machine “NO! FUCK NO! I Hate you People” and hung up.

I do hope they were recording the user responses. I’d love to be in the room when someone hears that response. I’m equally sure that they hear it all the time, given the number of hits my other Express Scripts posts get on this blog.

NewImage

Express Scripts is not to be used, In fact, if my new Obamacare approved insurance policy forces me to deal with Express Scripts, I’ll change insurance carriers.

That is how strongly I feel about Express Scripts.

These people are scum and their service is best thought of as a really, really, bad Indian call center for drugs.

You might get the right information or drug… But odds are better that you’re going to get the wrong shit.

These are the people that sent me a cholesterol drug, which as it turned out I was allergic to and, oh by the way, was recalled because it was contaminated with ground glass.

Would they swap it? NOPE! The bitch on the phone actually said I’d have to put up with hives until I ran out of my 90 day supply.

I didn’t know it at the time but hives can be very dangerous.

However since I’m also not a masochist I simply didn’t take the drug. Then when the recall got announced on TV I called Express Scripts AGAIN and asked why the hell they hadn’t contacted me about the contamination of the drug.

Their answer… oh that’s the patients responsibility.

NewImage

No, I will not deal with them, not now and unless I have no other choice, NOT EVER!

I’m contacting my Doc, to find out what it would take for me to get off the few medications I take.

Yes, I know I could simply stop taking them, but I’d like to do this safely and am willing to change my habits enough so that I could stay healthy and off meds hopefully for a decade or so.

Of course, this could mean Obamacare is working…

As I’ve said elsewhere, there wont be any death panels. There will simply be people that don’t get the right meds, or effective treatments.

It will be totally random and take years for the Government to investigate why so many people are dying of “Illneses for which they were taking the correct meds.”

The answer will ultimately be; players like Express Scripts and their crappy record keeping, horrible shipping policies, and sloppy fulfillment of prescriptions caused the death of thousands.

Then there’ll be another decade of discussion and voting to improve laws governing big pharmaceutical distributors like Express Scripts during which thousands more will die.

NewImage

All the while players like Express Scripts will be driving real pharmacies and real pharmacists out of local neighborhoods and making a fortune doing it.

The inner city poor will be decimated first, when their neighborhood pharmacies close. Then it will spread to the suburbs.

Fight Companies like Express Scripts!

Refuse to cooperate, don’t comply. Raise hell if your HR department even mentions Express Scripts. Tell your insurer that you don’t want to have to deal with Express Scripts

If you’re already stuck with these bastards, check every single prescription. Question everything about them, make them earn their money, tie up phone lines and don’t use their website

Don’t take their word for anything about generics, or drugs they substitute without talking to you.

Make sure they have cleared every substitution with your physician. In my case Express Scripts lied repeatedly!

They’d never contacted my Doctor about any substitutions. I’m not talking just generics, I’m saying Express Scripts changed the drug they sent me entirely.

RESIST!

Save your neighborhood pharmacy. Save your life.

NewImage

Yeah, I’m passionate about it.

There’s something to be said for walking into your local pharmacy and actually talking to a real pharmacist who has records of what you’re taking and knows if you’re looking at a drug interaction.

Express Scripts couldn’t keep it straight, and I was using their automated reorder system.

That system was ALWAYS wrong! To make matters worse, the phone people aren’t pharmacists and they have no better access to information about what they’ve sent you than their web site, which as I’ve said was always wrong.

Medications are serious business. Get the wrong combination and you wake up in the hospital. If you wake up at all.

Yet no-one you speak to at Express Scripts has any accountability or training to answer questions other than accounting related stuff.

Worse yet, if you have a problem with a medication, when you call your doctor you’ll  have to read him or her the name of whatever it is you were taking because of the substitution some “Medical Board” made without actually examining or seeing you. Odds are they didn’t bother to send him or her any information about what you’re actually taking instead of what your doctor prescribed.

That of course presumes you can reach your doctor. What if you can’t? What if the drug interaction is severe? Do you wait it out, or do you go to an Emergency Room?

I like being able to talk to my local pharmacist. I like being able to ask questions and appreciate being warned of potential problems to watch out for. I like being forewarned and being told what to do If X, Y, or Z happen.

There are some things that big nameless, faceless, corporations simply shouldn’t be involved in.

Dispensing drugs is one of them.

Posted on

OH, For God Sake

DSC 1405

Late last summer the flood control folks from the county decided they were going to do us all a favor by digging out the wash that starts at the top of an 8000 ft mountain down to the desert floor.

This decision in turn subjected all of the local residents to months of ground shaking, rumbling, dust, speeding dumptrucks, damaged roads, and, in the end left us with a view that looked like a moonscape.

We weren’t pleased about what they’d done. We were over fucking joyed when the heavy equipment finally left and we were no longer in the middle of a fucking construction project. It was our Christmas present and we all sighed a deep sigh of relief.

Then in March, it rained! God forbid, it should actually rain!

What happened next was what many of us had predicted would happen. As I noted in an earlier blog any child who grew up east of the Kalifornia border and whose parents weren’t terrified of their child actually being … a child … knows what happens when you build a “Straight channel” down a slope and it rains.

The surrounding dirt fills in the bottom of the channel and dirt from the top of the slope comes tumbling down to fill in your carefully dug channel.

IMG 0014

(As a kid I lost more plastic army men in channels dug in my sandbox and back yard than I can shake a stick at. I’d love to see the archeologists face in 2000 years when they excavate my old back yard.)

However unlike the small channels dug with a garden trowel replicating the movie  “Guns of Navarone,” the channel behind our residences is deep enough and wide enough that when the material started moving, it really started moving.

Lets see, 8000 ft mountain, deep channel, nothing to hold material in place, (since they couldn’t take their excavations and concrete the barriers right to the base of the mountain because that is national forestry land), and what do you get?

A large movement of dirt, rocks, debris, and god knows what else all over cemented barriers and you still have the road (which is too low in the first place) flooded out and buried.

A child could have predicted what was going to happen. 

SheepCreekWash SlipperyElmRd LookingNorth01

All this is a rehash of what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future, provided Kalifornia doesn’t become a desert akin to the Sahara.

My gripe isn’t so much about the utter stupidity of this whole wash project itself. I’ve been pissed off for a while because absolutely nothing that the county said was going to happen, has happened (aside from the construction itself.)

My gripe is about the complete destruction of the peace & quiet.

Throughout the tail end of the summer when I should have been enjoying my back deck, I couldn’t. In the Fall when I’ve spent happy hours writing blogs, or my books watching the seasons change I was denied the simplicity of sitting on my deck in the early morning or evening watching the sun rise or set over the desert.

SheepCreekWash SlipperyElmRd LookingWest01 1

We honestly thought that our Christmas celebrations were going to be disrupted with the clanking of bulldozers and dump trucks. As a result, I barely put up any lights or decorations because I simply couldn’t stand the horrific din of being at ground zero of a construction project.

I was recently away, I was in a very small town in FL. My folks home backs up to a swampy area which at one end is truly a swamp, the other end opens onto a lake. In point of fact it would probably all be a lake had it not been for some illegal dredging in the past 50 years.

The point is, I got used to the silence. The sound of birds, the sound of rain on the roof (No, NOT TIN! Thank you very much, although Tin roofs are making a nostalgic comeback on certain upscale yuppie homes.) The sounds of frogs, and splashes of fish making a meal of an insect on the surface of the lake. It was a quiet kind of noisy, the sounds were natural, familiar, and put me at ease.

Then I come home.

DSC 0562

And what does my first week home bring me? 

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, Rumble, rumble, diesel stench, and dump tucks racing up & down the road in front of my home. Endless noise of heavy equipment starting at 7am and ending at 5:30.

Because now you see, they have to empty all the dirt and rock from the channel they created. Yep they have an ongoing POS flood control thing to maintain. Guess that’s one way to keep people working.

Unfortunately, it’s not very convenient for me. Most of the year, we have the windows open taking advantage of the nice cross breezes we’re fortunate enough to have.

Last year, because of all the noise, dust and general chaos we kept our windows closed starting in August. You don’t even want to know about the electric bill because of the air conditioning use.

Here we are again, trapped in the house the temperatures are going up and pretty soon we’re going to either have to open the windows or start running the A/C.

All of which makes me want to do nothing but get in my car and leave! Again!

DSC 0553

At 7 am this morning the beeping that woke me wasn’t in fact a malfunctioning alarm clock but was instead, a grader driving up the newly created access road next to the wash. After slamming my hand on the “Snooze” button a few times to no avail, I seriously thought about calling a realtor. 

REALLY?

I’m being driven out of my home, or mad, or both by a flood control project I didn’t ask for, to solve a problem that didn’t exist until they started mucking about in the wash in the first place, which hasn’t solved the problem.

I moved 90 miles from LA so that I could enjoy the quiet. 

If I’m going to have to put up with the noise and hustle & bustle, and never have a moments peace, I might as well be living in fucking Hollywood. It would sure make issues on the job front easier to solve!

So my faithful readers, use this as a cautionary tale and if the county you live in, decides to “Make things better, or safer… especially if they’re talking about a problem that you’ve never heard of or seen before…

TELL THEM TO FUCK THE HELL OFF!

Pull an Arthur Dent, lay down in front of the equipment. Protest, and if necessary, start yanking distributor caps of the machines in the dead of night. Believe me, no good will come of a project the county decides is best for everyone.

Excuse me I’m going to check zillow for comps on my house, maybe I can sell this place and not lose my shirt.