Category: General

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To-Go California, You can order your meal but you’ll never eat.

Consider this a bit of a PSA.

I stumbled across this article in The Wall Street Journal about some new regulation for fast food and dine-in restaurants no longer providing plastic utensils with your order, unless you specifically ask for them.

Gone are the days when you can blow through a Taco Bell drive through and be assured that you’ll be able to eat all your meal.

You’d think, “No worries, I’ll use my hands.”

TRUE you could, but then you’ll find that the napkins you assumed would be in the bag, AREN’T.

Not to worry though, It’s not like you’ll have hot sauce in the bag either because those too you’d have to ask for.

So, Taco Bell, and other fast food options will kinda be a no option without a checklist. I’ll attempt to help by providing my personal Ordering checklist. I’ve got it on my phone, but I’m thinking a post-it note stuck to my car dashboard might be better.

Fast Food ordering:

  1. Food
  2. Drink
  3. Condiments (Ketchup, Hot Sauce, etc.)
  4. Straw
  5. Napkins at least 5 (More depending on type of food)
  6. Necessary utensils (Spork, Knife, etc.)
  7. Pull up to window. Pay.
  8. CHECK that meal is correct and necessary Utensils, Napkins, and condiments are present.
  9. IGNORE HONKING of impatient people waiting behind you!

Yet again The State of California is working to make your life better, through unintended consequences.

Most of the time, If you’re a working stiff, perhaps hourly you’ve maybe got a 30 minute lunch. If the company you work for is exceptionally generous you might even have 45 minutes or a whole hour!

With traffic in most areas around California industrial parks, for a working stiff, it works out like this;

5 minutes to get out of the building, 5 minutes to get out of the parking lot (due to everyone else trying to leave for lunch) 10 minutes to navigate the rest of the lunch hour traffic from all the other companies in the industrial park.

5 minutes at traffic lights and turning into the nearest strip mall or gas station parking lot.

Pull into shortest line for for one of the fast food places, (Wendy’s, Mac Donalds, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Panda Express, etc) wait in line 5 to 10 minutes (By which time you’re already late if you’re on a 30 minute lunch.)

Place your order, 5 minute wait for food, then mad 10 minute dash, (You’re late at this point if you have a 45 minute lunch,) back to the industrial park.

5 minutes waiting at lights, 5 minutes to get into parking lot and find parking space, 5 minutes to get back into building. (You’re on the raggedy edge of being late at this point if you have an hour lunch.)

You get back to your desk, ready to resume work and eat your meal while you’re working…

You open your bag of cold soggy burger & fries or tacos that started out as crunchy but which are now, anything but. Voilà you discover that the whole exercise was pointless because even though you could eat without the condiments, or perhaps even the utensils, you have nothing to wipe your hands with.

Your lunch sits in the bag, not getting any fresher until finally it smells disgusting and ends up in the trash. Thereby contributing to food waste and spewing CO2 into the air, in the dash to get lunch that was also a pointless waste of energy.

So tell me again how wonderful it is that you’ve eliminated basic necessities to protect the planet? Huuuummm?

I swear to God, all of these jackass politicians should be under mandatory orders to live with their proposed laws for six months before they can put them into action.

Not ONE of the political elites in any California city has ever had to punch a clock or be screamed at by an overbearing manager over their lunch break being 2 minutes too long.

All one need do is look at the distribution of restaurants in and around industrial parks in San Diego, Irvine, Victorville, Huntington Beach, The San Fernando Valley, Ventura, or Los Angeles to see that most of the “working class” lives what I’ve described above daily. Or they bring their lunch so that they can at least have a real few minutes of rest during their lunch break.

Now, thanks to the politician brain trust, this new anti utensil or condiment law will ultimately slow the food ordering process down even further.

Not that these Politicians give a shit. After all, if the workers aren’t spending money on fast food, after skipping breakfast to get the kids off to school, it means the workers will have more money that can collected as taxes.

Obviously the low wage earner who collects $12 a week in unspent lunch money doesn’t need it now do they?

Plus, the Arch Ministers of Public Health can chalk up a “Win” because obesity will be less of a problem. Who cares if the workers are starving while they toil away to earn enough to pay their tax burden? That just means they’ll die sooner and a whole new group can be imported from wherever.

Maybe the Politicians are hoping it’ll be mostly white people!

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I have good news and bad news…

The fanfuckingtastic news is that Kyle Rittenhouse has been acquitted on all charges!

I’m over the moon… Provided I can find it tonight, (Ahem)

The bad news is that since it’s Friday, and the BLM/ANTIFI fucks have had a whole week to gear up and mobilize, this weekend is probably gonna be a corker!

I’m sure that the “Peaceful Protests” will begin shortly based on some of the comments from The Main Stream Media jackasses.

Honestly, some of the comparisons so called educated talking heads are making seem designed to incite riots. (Thus far they’re hitting all the Democratic Dog Whistles) Racist, White Supremacy, unequal justice, blah blah blah.

I do wish I was watching Joy Reid as she was handed the news… I’d have loved to watch her head explode, just before having to go on air with some semblance of calm. Ohh I wonder what Rachel Maddow will sound like?

They’re even Conflating St Travon of the Hoodie with the “victims” shot in Kenosha. On that particular count, they may not be too far off. The Kenosha men were generally violent criminals and St Travon may have been too. The other similarity is they’re all dead.

The survivor of the Kenosha riots will never be able to jerk off with his left hand again, so there is some justice. I’m betting that he’ll find it harder to be a domestic abuser with only one working arm. He’s also unlikely to join the inevitable riots starting at sundown tonight.

Old one armed Gaige will forever be a cautionary example of FAFO.

There’s also been a funny thread among comments in the various reports of the verdict. Seems a lot of people as asking if Twitter & Facebook will continue to censor accounts for writing, “Kyle Rittenhouse did nothing wrong.“

There also seems to be a large number of people calling for Rittenhouse to sue the shit out of the media and even President Biden for defamation. The general consensus is to hire Attorney Lin Wood to get massive settlements for Kyle similar to the settlements in the Nick Sandmann cases.

I’m right there with those folks. Kyle should have his whole college tuition to say Harvard or Yale paid for in full from President Biden’s Personal holdings.

Sadly Kyle won’t be able to attend either of those schools because doing so would put his life in continuous danger. We all know how Woke some colleges are!

Perhaps Biden should cough up enough cash to pay for Kyle to go to to university in Europe. Including paying for Kyle’s housing, food, entertainment, and personal security.

Thinking about it… Those costs might be lower than paying for Hunter’s maintenance. Huh, go figure.

And Finally another part of what makes this a good day, is this… Anti-Rittenhouse Protestors Arrested

They were arrested outside the courthouse (At least they won’t have far to travel for their arraignments and trials!) Oh and even better, one of the persons arrested is a BLM Leader who, get this… “Crossed States Lines to protest.”

Wasn’t that one of the things that the Left and the prosecution in the Rittenhouse trial kept banging on about? Of course Kyle’s Dad lives in Kenosha. I wonder if Shaquita Lashia Cornelious has relatives in the area? Only her trial will answer that question.

Maybe this time around, BLM / ANTIFA will literally get their asses handed to them. Maybe by both the police and the super pissed off citizens of places that have been destroyed time and again by the so called, “Mostly Peaceful Protests”

I think I’m gonna make myself some popcorn and a drink and turn on the news.

Nero fiddled while Rome Burned, certainly I can sit back and watch a Live Action version of The Purge.

The New Founders of America invite you to celebrate your annual right to Purge.
The Purge: Anarchy?, the sequel to summer 2013?s sleeper hit that opened to No. 1 at the box-office, sees the return of writer/director James DeMonaco to craft the next terrifying chapter of dutiful citizens preparing for their country?s yearly 12 hours of anarchy.

I had to come back to add that the NAACP has come out strongly against the Jury’s verdict. I forgot the actual wording of their statement and haven’t found it in print… Yet.

But I have to ask this simple question.

When the hell has the NAACP ever given a single runny shit about white people killing other white people? Haven’t several of their members and the members of BLM or followers of CRT actually called for the extermination of white people in the past year?

Talk about an about face!

Does this mean that suddenly ALL LIVES MATTER?

I didn’t think so.

When I can find the NAACPs actual press release I’ll post it as an update to this post and if they were misquoted, I’ll apologize.

In other news, President Biden is apparently Angry and concerned about the verdict. Okay I could see that he’d be concerned since he damned Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist without evidence.

So he should be concerned because when the Rittenhouse attorneys file a law suit against a sitting president it should be most interesting.

BUT Biden doubled down. As a sitting President he called for peaceful protests.

Biden clarified that he meant If people protest as is their right. Those protests should be conducted peacefully.

How about instead The sitting President remind citizens that we should all abide by the verdict and respect the rule of law.

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Well I tried…

Last night there was a lunar eclipse. This one was a super long one, only happening once in 1000 years.

In honor of the duration and rarity of the event I stayed up past my bedtime and walked out onto the deck to do what we often don’t do enough of.

I looked up.

The first time I went out, the sky was clear, with just a bit of haze and I could see the beginning of the eclipse.

Unfortunately my phone couldn’t. But this is what the beginning of the eclipse looked like and I thought I was going to be golden for the whole event.

I’d already heard from some friends “Down Below” (Yeah I live on a mountain and am elitist about it, So what!) that they were experiencing fog and cloudy conditions so they couldn’t see anything.

I smugly went back inside to warm up, secure in the knowledge that I’d be able to see the whole show. (Ahem! Mother Nature why do you hate me?)

I went back out about 30 minutes later to this.

What we have here is clear proof that A) Mother Nature hates me, and B) She has a cruel sense of humor.

If you’ll notice, this is a band of clouds, a single strip, the skies are relatively clear on either side.

The rest of the eclipse was more of the same from my vantage point. A strip of clouds that was moving in just the right direction to look like a curtain pulled across this celestial event.

Like I said Mother Nature hates my sorry ass.

There was a thinning of the clouds, and I could see the shadow covering part of the moon, the camera was even able to catch it, but much of the rest of the event was hidden.

From this picture, you can see that Mother Nature is also a bit of a tease.

That being said, I tried my best. I’m sure that Mother Nature is having a good laugh with friends this morning.

“Oh, Poseidon you should have seen the look on this one guys face when I painted over the moon with clouds! I haven’t seen a look that sad in millennia. Not since that poor tourist spent his life savings to visit Atlantis only to arrive just as it sunk. Hahahahahaha!“

Yes indeed the gods are capricious.

I hope you have a good day and pleasant weekend. I’m going to take a mid-day siesta and hope that there’s not an earthquake! (Poseidon, Hephaestus, I’m looking at you guys! No angry earth movements or accidents at the forge today please.)

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Well… I’ll be dipped!

President Biden’s inauguration speech talked about unity in America.

At the time, I was like oh yeah, sure you have never been about unity, you senile old fossil.

But here we are 9 months later and sonofabitch if the old fossil hasn’t started to deliver.

Based on Biden’s poll numbers, he has created unity among Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians.

Unity against him!

That unification also extends to Vice President Kamala Harris whose personal poll numbers are even lower.

Biden’s been able to unify opposition to handgun bans. In 2014 it was about 50/50 pro or against. Now according to a recent poll, only 19% of persons polled are in favor of banning handguns.

He’s also unified 160 Senators (and counting) against his unconstitutional vaccine mandate. That’s a surprise too.

Some 53% of a recent politico poll believe that Biden is not mentally fit for the position of President. Wow! Another win for Biden’s unification speech.

In the same poll voters were asked;

If they believed he is a strong leader (56% said “No”)

If he is trustworthy (51% said “No”)

If he is honest (51% said “No”)

If he keeps his promises (52% said “No”)

Is Energetic (60% said “No”)

Is a clear communicator (57% said “No”)

Is stable ( 48% said “No”)

Is capable of leading the country (53% said “No”)

But, but… President Biden won the election with better numbers than President Obama. How then could he have lost so much support in so short a time?

One word.

Incompetence

I have to give credit where credit is due, Former President Obama is credited with saying something like; no matter what job you give to Joe, he’s gonna fuck it up. Perhaps one of the few things I agree with Former President Obama about.

Biden could have been dumb as a post but still done a decent job, if he’d surrounded himself with smart people. But instead, he seems to have surrounded himself with people who are his mental equals. Some of the things these people say are simply astounding.

So astounding, that I’ll often go to any video presentation of their speeches or comments to hear every word in context. I always finish viewing these videos with the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I usually can’t make it through one of these videos without having my brain reboot at least twice.

On the other hand, I’ve done due diligence in making sure the printed material I read wasn’t a bunch of snippets taken out of context and strung together. ( You know the way the press would often do with another former President… Just sayin.)

More’s the pity, they have said exactly the stupidest things that were reported in print. I’m always left with a cold pit in my stomach when I remember these are the people in control of our country.

On the bright side, The Biden Administration has in fact gone a long way to unifying the country.

Again, we must give credit where credit is due.

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Triggered, First thing in the morning! Yeah!

After years of working in corporate America, there are a few things that really trigger me.

One of those things is Emails with the words, “Mandatory”, “Comply”, “You Must”, “Required”, and my favorite is “Compliance is Mandatory”.

You see, these words or phrases never herald good news for any employee.

The term; “Mandatory Overtime” Only occurs in corporate email in the Summer when you’re planning a vacation, or in Fall/Winter before Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s been my experience, your milage will vary.

Much like COVID’s 10 days to slow the spread there’s always a time component. Corporations always start with 30 days but all the employees know that’s complete bullshit. Whatever failures in planning that led to “Mandatory Overtime” in the first place are cumulative failures that cannot be resolved in 30 days and are much more likely to require 90 to 120 days.

But the HR department and management in general, lie in hopes of not having a bunch of people simply walk off the job.

Invariably Paid Time Off will be impacted and your employer will be looking for some kind of proof that you have a trip planned or are going in for surgery. The last company I worked for even added penalties if you were sick during Mandatory Overtime. They also had one guy drop dead at his desk because he was so terrified of losing his job, he neglected to seek medical assistance for a heart attack. Instead, he drove to work and died at his desk. Did the company relent? Hell NO! There were also miscellaneous people who went out on stress leave never to return.

If you’re a salaried employee, mandatory overtime actually reduces your hourly wage because you get no bonus or incentive to put in those hours. Usually, salaried employees don’t have enough “time in position” to benefit from stock options either. So even if the company succeeds due to salaried employees accepting their reduction in pay, there isn’t any long term benefit to them. But the executives see huge bonuses, and get plenty of accolades, even though they weren’t included in the “Mandatory Overtime” edict.

Having been in exactly the position above more times than I can count. The word “mandatory” has become a triggering word to me.

Over the years, “Comply”, “Compliance”, and “Must” have also become triggers for similar reasons.

“You must comply with the new standard”, means that you as an employee will have to set aside time to attend training. Often that time is supposed to be given to the company during some kind “lunch and learn” but the truth is you’re still working even though you’re not technically on the clock. After all, “this new training is for your benefit,” uh right…

If the training is from HR, it’s not for your benefit, it’s so the company can cover their ass.

Training of this type often includes: Sexual Harassment Training, New policies, (I assume new pronoun usage these days), Cheapening of Insurance, or Workplace Safety.

All of these sound like great things, until you read the fine print when you sign that you’ve taken the “Training”. 99% of my experience is that HR is making modifications to the terms of your employment and providing a mechanism that allows any perceived slight to be grounds for termination. Couple that with so called “Zero Tolerance Policies” and well being a white male… You’re screwed!

HR is not the employee’s friend and hasn’t been for decades.

Which leads me to my triggering this morning.

The California EDD sent an email that says in part;

“Urgent: You Must Verify Your Employment or Self-Employment for Your PUA Claim“

“Even though your Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits have ended, federal rules require you to provide documentation to prove that you were, or planned to be, self-employed or employed at some point between 01/01/2019 and 11/15/2020.”

They start the email by SHOUTING my name because apparently, the state of California doesn’t know how to use lower case.

They direct me to the State of California’s shitty website which is always a pain in the ass to log into, and is in fact, such a pain in the ass that I stopped using it, opting instead for snail mail.

Triggered though I am, I’m curious to know what the hell EDD is talking about and what kind of documentation they’re asking for, so I try to log in anyway. Don’t they already have all that documentation? It should be in their files.

The login inevitably fails and I’m locked out of the account for an hour. What’s new? EDD couldn’t program their way out of a one bit puzzle.

In this particular case it also looks like they’ve changed or updated their login page and are now showing me a security picture of a die and a comment that says 1997 Chevy.

This leads me to wonder if the login is fucked up or if someone has been playing around at stealing my account. Neither would surprise me with California EDD.

As an aside, I’ve applied to work for California EDD on several occasions since it’s obvious they could use someone testing their shitty software. They, like every single other potential employer, promptly ignored my application.

Honestly, at this point I’d be happy with a response from any potential employer that said literally, “Fuck off you piece of shit!” At least then I’d know where I stood.

While EDD was sending me money, I felt compelled to respond to their shit. Technically since they were paying me, I considered myself an employee. But now that they’re not sending me money, and I’m still unemployed…

I’m much less inclined to go out of my way to deal with them.

I’ll wait another 30 minutes and try again. If I still am unable to log into the web site I’ll have to decide to ignore them, or contact my state representative’s office. In the past the representative’s office has been the only way to make headway with the EDD.

I hate having to involve them in this bullshit but I may have no choice.