Category: Male

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I knew there was a reason I didn’t like the new Pride Flag

Aside from the combination of colors making me want to vomit… It kept reminding me of something, I just couldn’t place what I was being reminded of.

With the attack by Hamas on Israel, I connected the dots.

Flag of Palestine 1769629428The geometry of the new pride flag reminds me of the Hamas Palestinian flag.

It’s bad enough that if you put four of the new Pride flags together you get a swastika, or that there was someone in England who was arrested for publishing an image from someone else showing that it was true. 

I thought England had freedom of speech…

Oh RIGHT! They only have freedom of speech as long as nothing they say could ever in any way be taken offensively, by anyone in perpetuity.

In other words, our English brethren may not speak, they may only use their mouths to eat.

New pride flag 01 1569595309Hate speech laws seem to be a growing standard, people are trying to push hate speech laws even in America.

I’m amused and astounded when comedians have routines from decades ago reviewed and scrutinized by the new humorless thought police.

Then when offense is found, (as it always is,) the comedians must apologize for something that no-one 20 years ago thought was anything but funny.

By todays standards though, “It” is offensive enough that the scolds in our society try to cancel whoever said or did this offensive thing.

SwastikaprideflagI doubt seriously that any of these all too easily offended people were offended when half their genome was hanging in their daddy’s balls waiting to be jacked down a toilet! A lot of these humorless scolds should have been loads their momma’s swallowed. 

That’s just my opinion… It’s probably reflective of just how tired I’ve become of the perpetually aggrieved. The new pride flag is a symbol of the perpetually aggrieved, and in many ways the Hamas flag is the same.

The Palestinians have been pissed off about something or other for God only knows how long. They’re pissed at Israel over things like power, water, and productive farmland. I’m sure there are other political reasons but I honestly don’t remember and don’t care anymore. I suppose Israel maintains a secure border which hampers Palestinian terror attacks on school busses. That for sure, is going to piss off a bunch of terrorists!

I don’t want to get into discussing the war. I hope Israel wins. And since they’ve been accused and punished for all manner of atrocities… They might as well commit a few in their march to the sea.

I ran across this diagram that supposedly explained the variations of pride flags.

Pride Flags GuideRight off the bat I noticed a couple of historical omissions. They completely erased two of the three most common flags.

At one time, there were just three LGB Pride Flags.

Bear prideThere was the standard 6 color rainbow everyone is familiar with. There was the Bear Flag that came after the rainbow and there was the Leather flag.

The Bear flag was representative of men who, at the time didn’t feel that they needed to shave their chests, or adhere to the smooth muscle boy image that had become so popular and indeed almost necessary if you happened to be a gay man.

The Bear flag represented men who might not be the ideal weight, who might have and like having beards, who might be as hairy on their backs as they were on their chests and who weren’t ashamed of it. The Bear Flag, like the rainbow flag was counter culture, it was counter culture against the main stream gay culture of the time.

leatherpride.pngThe Leather pride flag was much the same. It represented the crowd within the LGB community that liked a bit more spice in their sex life. They too were underrepresented at the time. Dating was difficult, because they’d chat up a prospective bed partner only to find out that their “Date” for the night was only interested in vanilla missionary sex.

Don’t get me wrong, vanilla missionary sex is fine, but if you’re wanting a little more variety and all you have to choose from are missionaries you’re going to get bored pretty fast.

For years, (At least a decade) you’d see the rainbow flag everywhere in the “Gay Ghettos”. But some bars would fly the Bear Pride flag or the Leather Pride flag and those flags served to welcome folks who identified as one or the other community. Sometimes, it was just a matter of going into a bar that was flying what you were into, that particular night.

Some bars used the flag to advertise themed nights. So the same bar might on one night fly a Leather flag, then a few nights later a Bear flag. This was really convenient if you were driving down a crowded street because you knew at a glance what was up and where. It made fighting for parking easier.

It’s not unusual for there to be a bit of crossover between the bear and leather community too. But if you went to a bar flying only the Leather Pride flag, expect to be surrounded by men in leather who’d likely be willing to take you to Kinky Town for the weekend!

Likewise with the Bear Pride flag, be prepared to be mauled, cuddled, touched, and be welcome to return all the above to furry mellow cuddly strangers.

Why is it that some folks want to erase parts of gay culture?

How is that inclusive?

Gay Pride Flag svgCould it be that Bears, and Leather men once again don’t fit the narrative? You know, because they are CIS gendered, happy with who they are and not super worried about marching lockstep with a community that no longer represents them?

I actually see opportunity in the new flag versus the old flag.  I’m wondering if the standard 6 color flag will come to represent the LGB community once again?

It might be nice to get back to just 3 flags, and knowing that if you went to a bar flying the old flags, you’re likely to meet people who are more like you.

Maybe the folks under the old flags would be a bit more settled, a bit more conservative, and similarly uncomfortable with the direction the, LGBTQX+… whatever the fuck else they’ve added, are heading.

I’m planning on attending Leather Pride weekend in Palm Springs, (At least one day,) I’ll be avoiding the establishments with the new gay flag. My trip out there might be very short. I’m hoping that I can find at least one oasis and sit under the old rainbow flag with a drink in my hand one last time.

More optimistically, I’m hoping that I’ll be having that drink as the first of many, under the old flags with people who think and feel the way I do.

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Wait What??? I’m so confused again!

Biden is building the border wall?

Biden

Didn’t he promise America there there’d not be one more foot of wall built after he took office?

Didn’t the Democratic Party tell us that “walls don’t work,” didn’t they call anyone supporting border walls racists and white supremacists?

So how is it that the Biden administration has reversed itself? 

Could it be that all of us who were supporting a border wall are not in fact racists or white supremacists but simply understood that we couldn’t support uncontrolled illegal immigration.

Could it be that Walls do actually work? Could it be that Biden lied in his campaign promises? 

Could all of these “Settled Facts” the Democrats have been preaching to us might actually be wrong?

Say it isn’t so!

Uh Huh…

We See you Democrats!… We see that your words are nothing more than pandering to get votes. We see your lies and deceptions.

Ayanna Pressley

I happened to catch an interview with Ayanna Pressley (who I think is an evil, evil, woman,) where she was trying to slime her way out of questions about The Biden Administration building a chunk of wall.

First she said is was some holdover from Trump Era budgeting. When she was asked why then, the construction had languished for 2 and a half years, and why it hadn’t fallen under the same cancellation order Biden signed on day one of his Presidency, Her story changed. 

The best part of the interview was that the reporter, (surprisingly from MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, or CBS, I wasn’t paying attention,) asked Representative Pressley if walls work. This was after years of “The Squad” saying that they don’t.

Grudgingly Ayanna Pressley actually admitted that walls do work. But if she could have killed the reporter killed with a look, she would have.

Then we have Hillary saying out loud and on the record in a CNN interview that she believes the MAGA republicans should be “Deprogrammed”.

Hillary ClintonThat is another way of saying being “Reprogrammed”. As in those subjected to this procedure, will come out the other side thinking just the way someone wants them to.

The Chinese, North Vietnamese, Russians, and innumerable other dictators and despots can, and probably have written books about reprogramming human subjects.

Stalin and Mao, called it a re-education camp.

In China and Russia, “Reprogramming” or “Deprogramming” had a 100% success rate. Those that didn’t take to the new programming didn’t survive.

All I can say is we dodged a bullet when Hillary lost the 2016 election.

BTW it’s interesting to note that she still claims the election was stolen from her. Yet she’s not being dismissed as a lunatic, nor is she being chastised or denigrated for her assertion that she won the Presidential election.

Stacy Abrams also is an election denier. Yet she’s on the boob tube all the damn time spouting that she won both her failed gubernatorial election bids.

Emperor PalpatineHas anybody but me noticed how truly haggard Hillary Clinton looks these days? I guess fomenting all that hate, vitriol, and evil takes a toll on you.

If she’d ended up in the Oval Office, by now she’d look like Emperor Palpatine

This is why I don’t trust the government. It’s why I especially don’t trust the Democrats.

See I look at it like this, if my other half, a guy who was forgiving beyond belief. A guy who always saw the best in everyone, and who gave even the most evil people, the benefit of the doubt…

If a person like that found enough wrong with the Democrat Party that he left them after a lifetime of association, volunteering to raise campaign funds, and his whole family being Democrats, Then there has to be something seriously wrong.

Needless to say his departure from the Democrat party got my attention! In part, because he wasn’t all that political. For their shenanigans to have caught his attention, and offended him that much says a lot.

No, he didn’t go Republican he went independent. 

Finally, we lost McCarthy as Speaker of the house.

I’ve got very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I applaud holding him to his promises and agreements. You know, those promises and agreements he made to get into the speakership in the first place.

Honestly I’d like to see every member of Congress and our entire government for that matter fitted with shock collars. If the collar determined the person was lying it would hit them with 50,000 volts.

Lie to the American people 25 times and the collar kills ya!

I bet that would put a stop to a lot of the Washington D.C. Bullshit!

I digress. 

On the other hand, I don’t think the timing was particularly good to have to cycle through however many votes it’s going to take to elect a new speaker.

But I did very much enjoy Nancy Pelosi being tossed out of the secondary office that she’d occupied as Speaker of the House. I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall when she heard about that. I’ll bet she swore like a drunken sailor. Yeah, I don’t like her. I admit it!

I’m concerned that the Republicans will or already have screwed us all… again! 

I say that as someone how left the Republican Party for much the same reason as my other half left the Democrat Party. Shenanigans, and the fact that they no longer represented us or our interests and they weren’t, (in our opinions,) serving the people who had elected them.

This particular foolishness and divisiveness among the republicans may have made folks who were considering not voting Democrat this election cycle reconsider which party they’re voting for.

The Republicans have a very thin majority, they really should be using it wisely.

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So this thought hit me while I was making the bed

I caught a blip from the news that a children’s show has recently added a non-binary character.

For some reason I flashed to my childhood, watching Looney Tunes, and Hannah Barbera cartoons. Nowadays, Looney Tunes is too violent so children must be protected. GI-Joe and Transformers were sponsored by Hasbro.

Sometime in the late 70s or 80s there was parental uproar over children’s cartoons because they were sponsored by folks like General Mills and Post. The cartoons were marketing sugary cereals to children’s every Saturday Morning.

Hasbro nakedly used cartoons to market transformers and GI-Joe toys to boys. Mattel peppered The Bugs Bunny / Roadrunner Hour with Barbie, Malibu Barbie, and a ton of other toy ads.

Generally speaking the Parents, and FCC came to the conclusion that using cartoons to focus marketing to children was probably not a good thing and enacted some controls. Around the same time, Parents became aware of a growing phenomenon called Anime. Typically Anime characters have exaggerated features, particularly the female characters.

Female Anime characters tend to have exaggerated breasts, hips, and often have very caucasian features. They are also scantily clad, or depicted in skin tight outfits where their breasts are barely contained. Anime shows and movies are not for children, they’re for adults or young adults. Teen boys in particular were getting very interested in Anime. If you’re old enough you might remember Heavy Metal… Anime art is much more detailed.

A great example is Ghost in the Shell. There are some really racy images and it makes sense that Teenage boys would have been very interested. Especially prior to the internet.

At the time boys had National Geographic, the Sears Catalog, perhaps they’d sometimes find their dad’s Playboy, or Penthouse magazines and “just read the articles”. Where else was a read blooded American Boy supposed to go to see partially clothed members of the opposite sex?

Concerned parents… Actually known as prudish American women took action with Anime too. OH NOPE! My Son is not going to be a horn dog like his father!!!!

Secretly, some Fathers would rent VHS tapes and share them with their sons. Hyper-Realistic Animation is an amazing art form. I said it… I’m standing by it!

All of this flashed through my head when I heard that a kids show was including a non-binary character.

What I thought was, “I’ll bet a lot of Americans are wishing for the simplicity of just marketing Lucky Charms, Trix, GI-Joes, & Barbies right about now…”

If I were a parent now, I’d have ripped the TV out of the house. I’d have a nice monitor where we’d stream movies or plug in DVD’s and watch things as a family. Our internet would be locked down. (Except for a few dirty sites that I’d vetted for my son(s) to “discover” when they were old enough.) I’d be spending at least 2 or 3 hours a week making sure that inappropriate sites were always locked out even if they changed weekly.

I’d be looking at what sites my kids went to for their school work. I’d be paying attention and if my kids school started teaching all this woke bullshit, I’d be trying to figure out how to do homeschooling.

My children would be able to decide for themselves how their sexuality would play out. They wouldn’t be told by teachers what they were supposed to think or feel about how or with whom they wanted to express their sexuality.

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Ughhh! It figures! Crappy Nights sleep and I really need to be on the ball…

I’ve got an appointment with the accountant today to hopefully finish up the tax crap dealing with the other half and my filing.

I took advantage of the automatic extension afforded us by the disaster declaration caused by the blizzard this year. It’s a darn good thing, because the other half’s filing system and document storage leaves a lot to be desired!

But I spent the night tossing and turning and feel like absolute crap. My brain isn’t working worth a darn but this is one of those things that must get done.

IRS Logo

I had a lot of weird abstract dreams all night. But my computer is fully charged and hopefully the parts of my brain that aren’t working will be augmented by the device. Thankfully the machine fits nicely in my briefcase.

Later this week I’m going to have to pick up the snow blower, it’s in for repair and a tune up after 15 winters of hard use and being put up wet. The repair guy said it had the wrong size belt on it. I told him that was the factory original belt and he was surprised. He said that explained it, the belt was so worn and stretched that’s why the machine was smoking when you tried to use it. 

I didn’t explain any further, the snow blower was the domain of the other half and as has been established the other half was not particularly kind to machines. I’m pleased that the repair didn’t cost too much.

Apple event 1

Today is the annual Apple reveal of new iPhones and other hot desirable items to populate the Christmas wish lists of millions. I usually watch just out of habit these days.

I’ll be watching the event today because I want to see what my options are for a new iPhone. My current phone is getting long in the tooth, It’s to the point of replacing the battery or replacing the phone. My phone is 3 generations old. I’d like an improved camera, and I’d like to have USB-C connections across all my devices. I’d like the satellite SOS ability and crash detection.

All the above features are available on last years model (except the USB-C). I’m curious to see what this year’s model brings. Tim Cook will once again be Captain Obvious with his proclamation, “This is the best most advanced iPhone we’ve ever produced,” uh yeah Tim, that’s the nature of technology… Moving on!

The USB-C connection is a pretty sure bet. Other hardware & software features may be announced that have not been leaked. All of this will influence my decision, “New Phone vs. New Battery”.

I’m also hoping that Craig Federighi does most of the presentation this year. I really don’t enjoy all the “Diversity” players because they’re just not exciting.

Federighi is electric and his playfulness and enthusiasm come through, even if he’s presenting dry specs and figures. He’s a fun presenter and somehow he always makes you hold your breath when he starts a live demo.

I guess I see it because I’ve done my fair share of live demos where it was entirely possible for the thing you’re demonstrating to fail right then and there. He apparently has done his fair share of demos where everything went wrong. He telegraphs that tension and makes it fun, it’s a “We’re gonna have an adventure…” feeling.

I’ve always gotten the impression that if a live demo went to absolute shit… Craig Federighi would somehow find a way to laugh, reset, and try again without missing too many beats. Federighi could almost convince me to upgrade my phone every year. 

That being said, there have been some comments associating his rise to SVP of Apple Engineering to the decade long slip in software quality across IOS, & MacOS. I don’t know if there’s a cause / effect connection or that the level of complexity in the software has caused the problem.

Personally, I believe that the issues have been, if not injected, then exacerbated by the rise of too much automated testing and not enough human eyes on the software until after it’s released. In the back of my mind, there’s a thread that questions if some of the problems aren’t based in diversity quotas.

When you hire someone based on anything other than their ability to build a product, you’re inherently degrading the final product. That’s not racist or sexist… That is simply a mater of fact.

Another of the dirty little secrets the diversity crowd would like to keep hidden and that no body is supposed to think about.

I’m not super thrilled with the expense of a new phone, but if there are sufficient improvements from my model to this one I could be moved to spend the money. Having USB-C is almost enough for me to plunk down the cash, on its own merit.

I’d like having only ONE cable and one charger for all my devices. So long as all my devices are smart enough to limit the charge current so that they don’t damage themselves. There aren’t many things I agree with the Europeans about, but de-cluttering my wall outlets, power strips, and the knot of cabling in my briefcase is one thing I heartily agree with.

Anyway, we’ll see how all this goes. I may be ordering a new phone soon. 

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I do not like this “New Normal”

I went shopping and did some errands on Tuesday.

The Auto Club was helpful and easy to work with. This was a new one for me, I’d been going to the one in Victorville and honestly hated it. I tried one near Rancho Cucamonga and had a much better experience.

I suppose that’s why we always went “down the hill” instead of to the closer towns in the area. It was just a nicer and more civilized experience.

After the Auto Club, I dropped by what used to be a great Best Buy…

This experience was not as nice. The shelves were bare, horribly disorganized, and over all the store was dark and dingy. I was completely ignored by all associates. This was particularly clear when I asked an associate to scan something so I could know what the price was… I was told, “I gotta clean up, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” as he walked off.

Let me be clear, this was not a janitor. This guy had been helping another person literally moments before, he hadn’t even logged out of his computer terminal yet. WOW! What fantastic customer service!

If I hadn’t really needed the item, I’d have bailed. Instead I finished my shopping, picked up a couple more items then went to the cash register.

I had the lady scan the questionable item before we began the transaction. I had a backup selection if the questionable item had been too expensive. It turns out the price was acceptable, so I left the backup selection at the register. They can restock it or simply throw it on some random shelf as it appears they’d done with most of the rest of their inventory.

There were employees wandering around in masks and it was a very unpleasant shopping experience. Best Buy will probably go the way of Frys. The employees are acting just like Fry’s employees acted near the end.

Then I headed over to Ralphs. I was able to find all but two items including a ton of stuff that I hadn’t been able to find at my local Stater Brothers for months.

The aisles were neat, people polite, and they had two doors to get folks into and out of the store easily without a traffic jam. Also I wasn’t being shocked every time I touched a freezer or shelving unit. I spent less at the Ralphs than I do at the Stater Brothers. That was surprising too.

As I was driving home, I was thinking that COVID panic really screwed up a lot of things. My local grocery store is much like the Best Buy. Dark, poorly organized, and with plenty of bare shelves and more than half the staff running around with masks on. It’s like they never recovered from the COVID mentality.

Then I thought about shopping in Florida. The Best Buy in Tampa is well lit, well stocked, and the employees are helpful. The Publix grocery store is like the Ralphs I was just in. I suppose Kroger owned stores in Florida would also be to the same standard although I haven’t, to my knowledge, shopped in a Kroger owned store in Florida.

Now with the Fall season upon us, we’re hearing about COVID again. “Mask Up”, “Get Jabbed”, “Be prepared for lockdowns” Why? COVID is technically endemic. It’s like the flu. Are the “Powers that Be” just trying to squeeze another year out of COVID panic, or are they really concerned? How can we know? They’ve lied so much, and been caught in their lies often enough that I, and apparently a lot of other people don’t trust them.

Is this too part of the “New Normal”? Once trusted organizations within and outside the government sphere are to be nothing more than noise, conflicting information, and lies?

I don’t like it one little bit. The “New Normal” SUCKS!!!

I suspect that nowhere does it suck worse than California and New York. Both will be stupidly compliant with whatever suggestion the government pulls out of its collective ass.

If Sniffy Joe said that we should all wrap our heads with Saran Wrap to ward off COVID while in our homes, and that it was mandatory. You can bet your ass that California and New York would fine anyone who disobeyed. No one would wrap their heads…

Well maybe there are some incredibly stupid people who would suffocate themselves with Saran Wrap, there were people who used aquarium cleaner as a cure for COVID and nearly died. Yeah, the aquarium cleaner has ivermectin in it, but the OTHER chemicals were completely ignored by these rocket scientists! Ya need to read the whole label morons! Honestly, they should have been allowed to Darwin themselves in peace. I digress…

We know the fines would go right into the stupid pile of money California and New York “BURN” everyday providing their respective citizens such lovely services as tattletale hotlines, and drone surveillance of our homes and yards.

The “New Normal” is new to us in the United States. But it’s old hat to folks from the former Soviet Union.

I suppose that’s why I don’t like the “New Normal” it feels a bit like what I imagined living under Soviet rule would have felt like.