Tag: Annoyances

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As I age…

As I age I notice an accumulation of stupidity and everyone else either ignores it, or flat out doesn’t see it.

I wish I could ignore things and remain blissfully ignorant. 

Some examples:

Tail lights. I’ve recently seen at least two different cars, with all three tail lights flashing at different intervals from each other. There are warnings in movies about flashing light sequences affecting photosensitive individuals. In a movie the person is sitting in a chair. On the road, a photosensitive person might be in the driver’s seat of 2 thousand pounds of vehicle and can do considerably more damage if they react poorly or have a seizure.

F-hN5LJWgAQ59Xq.jpegI’ve noticed the irony of college protestors demanding an Israeli cease fire, but being perfectly happy to beat the living shit out of a Jew with a different opinion. Which is it? Peace or War? 

The Washington Post Censored the Cartoon at right, even though it is a perfect description of truth. WP didn’t want to offend? How does truth offend? WTF?

We literally censored people from the internet who spread “mis-information” about elections, COVID, Vaccines, etc. When Rashida Tlaib spreads mis-information on the steps of the Capital using her position in Congress to magnify her importance and therefore her voice, nobody says shit about it, until the House passes a vote to Censure her. What is said after the Censure vote is in condemnation of the Censure.  That for me is a complete WTF moment. Personally, I think Tlaib should be taken from the capital in chains and tried for Treason. Oh, for the college educated… Censure is very different from Censor. You idiots might want to open a dictionary.

Evidence suggests Joe Biden has apparently lied about his involvement with Hunter’s businesses, and the “Biden Family Business” to the tune of millions of dollars, at minimum it looks like influence pedaling. Nothing much is said or done about it. Donald Trump inflates the values of his properties a tad, gets loans from banks, pays off those loans, making everyone money and harming no-one. Yet he’s in court on fraud charges?

Warner Brothers has decided not to release a completed movie as a tax write off. Let me get this straight, if I build a house and never move into it. I just lock the doors, and never use it, rent it, or sell it. I can write off the entirety of the house on my taxes? How about nobody gets tax write-offs on completed projects until the project actually loses money. That seems a lot more logical doesn’t it? Oh and shouldn’t Warner Brothers executive be sitting in court alongside Trump for fraud? It’s a cinch that they borrowed money to produce that movie. 

The entirety of the UAW strike and its resolution. WTF? I understand wanting higher wages and benefits. But you do realize that a nicely equipped FORD costs almost as much as a top of the line BMW luxury car. A GMC Truck costs more than some models of fully equipped BMW SUVs. So tell me again UAW how you’re going to preserve your jobs building your current line, or when everyone transitions to electric vehicles with fewer parts and higher purchase prices. If I have a choice, I’m going to pick the cheaper vehicle with longer range. Toyota? Kia? Nissan, hello paging common sense, is common sense in the building? There’s no incentive to buy FORD, CHEVY, GMC or Tesla at the prices they’re currently charging. Even if you wanted to buy one of these brands, you can’t order the vehicle exactly to your specification. Go on, try to build one on their websites. You’ll find you can’t have certain engine / trim combinations. For example I found I couldn’t have a truck with nice seats, no chrome,  a V-6 engine, 4×4 transmission in a 2 door with 6 foot bed configuration. They make what I want with a 4 cylinder 2×4 transmission but swap in a V-6 4×4 and NO! You get 4 doors and a 4.5 foot bed. Sorry, that just doesn’t work, I want to carry a full sheet of drywall flat in the bed of a pickup, and be able to drive uphill. This is especially true when the prices are at $40 – $60,000 before options.

Loyalty Reward programs. This is a bit hypocritical of me because I use these programs. Not using them in protest which I should be doing, is punishing myself, not the companies. Why do we need these Loyalty cards? Why not simply sell the goods or services at the discounted a.k.a “REAL” price to everyone all the time regardless of their loyalty? Why is it that on a recent grocery store run I was able to save $45 off the bill, but only had one .50 manufacturers coupon? Is it that the grocery store inflates the price so much they can afford to discount everyone’s bill by 1/4? How about gas stations? Why not give everyone a break on the price and speed up the refueling process along the way, instead of having folks enter loyalty numbers and selecting options of payment and 50 other questions?

Medical Costs. Same generic RX for years. Sometimes it’s $120 other times it’s $90, still other times it’s $50. I’d really like to know, how much does this shit really cost? Perhaps a better question is, “How much on average does it really cost to get medical treatment?” Maybe we should base insurance costs on the average, not how much can we get for removing a splinter in Beverly Hills.  Why can I negotiate 2/3 off on a medical bill? It’s not even negotiation. All I had to do was ask… That suggests that the actual cost of doing business is 1/3 less than advertised.

A better overall question is this;

Why do we put up with these clearly irrational things, and why are these things accepted as “Normal”?

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Sometimes I just can’t seem to win.

While I was just trying to write what I was thinking in Word, I got distracted by Word itself because I wanted to paste unformatted text into the document.

You know like when you don’t know how to spell “Uyghurs” and you grab it from an article on the web and paste it into your Word document. Only to have the rest of the word document suddenly reformat itself to match the bold underline 24 point font style of the single word you pasted.

Yeah, good job Microsoft! That makes a whole lot of sense! 

Then of course Jesse starts pitching a fit outside and now I have distractions and annoyances 3 levels deep and I’ve forgotten what the fuck I was thinking or typing which compounds the annoyance. Now we’re at 4 levels deep and this is just a Saturday morning.

But I begin to see how it is that I can’t write worth shit during the week. 

Just a normal weekday:

Flood Control grinding, digging, banging, and rumbling up and down the wash.

Jesse (Who needs attention and deserves it)

The crazy bitch screaming whatever she’s screaming.

My internal frustration at not being able to put on paper what I really mean

Fighting with software that thinks it’s being helpful but is not

Being naturally easily distracted


So I wait until evening.

Jesse (Who needs attention and deserves it)

The crazy bitch screaming whatever she’s screaming.
My internal frustration at not being able to put on paper what I really mean

Fighting with software that thinks it’s being helpful but is not

Being naturally easily distracted

My mother calling and telling me that they’re going to be home in a day or two. When I know a) she’s sitting in her recliner at her home. b) she somehow thinks that I’m in Florida when I’ve lived in California for the past 44 years, and therefore wouldn’t know or care if they were in fact out of town. c) She asks if everything is okay and I don’t want to repeat myself about my troubles. So I lie to her because I just don’t fucking want to get into it. She wouldn’t in the past, and now couldn’t help anyway.

The Crazy Bitches boyfriend, cutting and grinding metal or banging on god knows what or “Working” on an engine in the long string of vehicles he destroys by working on their engines.

I suppose that trying to write during the day is the better option.

However so much for me being able to just write something quick in Word to dash off to the County.

Grrrr

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Hopefully the time change effects will wear off!

I swear! I can’t seem to think. I’m easily distracted and every time I turn around the whole dang day is gone!

This happens to me every time there’s a time change. 

Even now, writing those two sentences took forever! It’s like my brain just stops mid thought, time passes, then my brain starts again. Were it not for changing light, or the clock on the computer display I wouldn’t realize time was passing at all.

It’s annoying, and frustrating. 

It’s not just working on the computer, I’m experiencing this no matter what I’m doing. Sorting paper, shredding, cleaning, literally everything or anything I’m doing is being affected.

So blogging might be off for a while.

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The difference between the young morons and us older morons.

Dogs…

Let me tell you a story. I’m out walking my dog on his “retracto” leash and we’re having a really good walk.

Up ahead, I see a human. The human is maybe 1/4 of a mile away, and I can see that the human is facing me due to the reflection of light on its face. I can’t tell at this distance if the human is Male or Female because they’re moving in and out of shadows cast by the trees along the trail.

Suspecting they may have a dog, and wishing to avoid my dog attempting to drag me at top speed toward the human at the very least and the potential dog, I choose another path. The new trail intersects the trail I’m on, at approximately where the human walking toward me, is at this moment.

My dog hasn’t noticed the human at this point, so I count myself lucky and think that we humans will pass well out of reach of each other. Potential dog entanglements will also be avoided.

Jesse and I continue on and he’s having a blast sniffing along the trail that we don’t usually take.

Rounding the last bend, guess what?

The human is still there. Yep they haven’t moved, and goodie! They have a full blooded husky about Jesse’s size and age who is off leash, and slowly approaching from the concealment of a thicket.

So now we have one dog on leash, and one off leash, Jesse wants to go sniff and do all the dog things, but I don’t know this dog. Will the dog be aggressive? Are we trespassing in territory that this dog considered his? How will Jesse react?

Oh and let’s not forget that part of this walking regimen for me is rehabilitation on my knees which have both been troublesome for 2 years. It’s only been in the last year that I’ve been able to really walk any distance without pain.

So I’m trying to hold Jesse back and the other dog is advancing. Jesse has his ears laid back but is still slowly wagging his tail. (Mixed Signals!)

Then things advance, now there is jumping and circling, I’m being dragged over uneven terrain, and trying to keep from becoming entangled in the leash. I hear growling beginning.

At this point the other human moseys on over to regain control of their dog.

“He’s just wanting to play,”

I have fire in my left knee. And I have .8 miles going uphill to get home. Truthfully going uphill is easier than going downhill.

Walking home, Jesse is very sweet he’s not rushing, or dragging me. He knows something is wrong with daddy’s knee.

He’s been checking on me since we got home. I’ve got the ice pack on my knee. I’m using it without the usual fabric cover because I don’t want to put a pair of shorts on. This way my sweat pants are taking the place of the cover. That’s the good news, the bad news is that I have nothing to keep it in place.

I digress…

All of the above brings me to the differences between my generation and this most current crop of “adults”.

We were taught to fucking think!

Let’s evaluate the situation shall we?

Had a Boomer been the Human approaching us on the main trail, they would have continued walking because they’d have accepted, for reasons known only to me, that I was trying to avoid them. They wouldn’t have taken it personally. The assumption would have been that I perhaps know my dog, and my physical condition better than they do, and that would have been fine.

A Boomer upon realizing that my dog was on a leash would have perhaps thought, “Maybe His dog is aggressive, Perhaps his dog isn’t off leash trained.” Either way another Boomer would have put their fucking dog on a leash, you know, the one they were carrying. Just to avoid any potential injury to either dog or humans.

Another Boomer would have thought, “If our dogs try to get to know each other, that guy is going to be fighting to not get tangled up.” And they’d have put their dog on the fucking leash in their hand.

Another Boomer seeing the obvious white beard on my face would have thought, “ You know, that guy looks a tad older, maybe it’s not going to be good for him to be at the heart of dog play or a dog fight.” Another Boomer would have put their dog on the leash as a simple courtesy.

But the other human approaching Jesse & I, was not a “Boomer”.

He was a young adult in his late 20s or early 30s and therefore completely bereft of the ability to think ahead, courtesy, or common sense.

I know youngsters think Courtesy and Common Sense are antiquated notions.

I would instruct all you children thusly.

Courtesy is an outgrowth of conflict avoidance.

If one is courteous then typically there is no conflict. If there is no conflict, then one or more people do not end up with broadswords sticking out of their chests. Barmaids are also happier because getting bloodstains out of rough hewn wooden floors is a real bitch of a job.

Courtesy goes further though.

Courtesy is an acknowledgment that no one can know all the factors at play in any encounter with another person.
Did that person have a fight with their spouse?
Did that person just get out of surgery?
Is that person grieving a loss?
Is the person trying to rebuild strength after an injury?
Does that other person have health insurance?
If they’re injured out in this rural area will paramedics be able to get to them?
What happens in the case of the unexpected?
Is the person prone to heart attacks?

These are just a few of the potential issues.

Being courteous allows you to avoid these and many other possibilities and allows you to absolve yourself of all responsibility for what happens next, to the person your’e being courteous to.

If you’re a young person who wants no responsibility…

Being courteous allows you to turn your back leave with your dog on a leash, and ignore the “Thud” you hear from behind and never look back. After all you were courteous and whatever that noise was… It’s none of your business.

See courtesy can be fun!

Just as an aside, I may have the underpinnings for courtesy all wrong, but thinking of courteous behavior this way has allowed me to implement courtesy in my daily life rather than beat or insult the living shit out of every dumbass I’ve encountered.

It’s kept me from saying things like;

“Does your whole family have the same intelligence level as you? It does? Wow, there’s a family tree that needs to be chopped down!”

“You’re a load your daddy should have jacked down the toilet, oh wait, right… your mother is a cum dump of a toilet!”

“You’re in favor of abortion? So am I… Retroactive Abortion! Here, let me put this plastic bag over your head. Now breathe deep, it will all be over soon! It’s for the planet, there, there, sleep.”

These are just a few of the things that go through my mind dealing with people. Without courtesy, imagine all the sad little snowflakes I’d have traumatized through the years.

Courtesy is a mobile safe space, it’s like a vaccine that protects us all…

 

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Hmm… NewsMax is going behind a paywall

Newsmax logo 2022 origThat’s kind of a bummer.

I enjoyed the shows, There were a couple of commentators that I especially enjoyed. Retired SEALS, and Marine pilots… Funny how that works!!!

I like and appreciate those kinds of guys in my normal life, I suppose it’s no surprise that I’d appreciate hearing guys like that report on, and express their take on the news of the day.

They are no less unbiased in their reporting than MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or CNN. But at least the way they come to their conclusions follows a logic that I can understand, whether I agree with their conclusions or not.

All of the SEALS and Marine folks I know are super pragmatic and their logic follows familiar patterns which are a very similar to the lessons I was raised around. Chief among these is that there are rules. Rules must be obeyed. Rules apply to everyone.

So when these NewsMax guys start asking, “Why is it that XYZ is treated different than ABC?” I get why they’re asking the question and see their point.

Unlike what I have going on in my head listening to Jake Tapper. My brain reboots at least 6 times an hour watching his show.

To be fair, I’m sure that Super indoctrinated Democrats like my Stepfather just sit there nodding their head hanging on every word that drops from Jake Tappers lips. Were my Stepfather to attempt to watch NewMax his head would probably explode.

I get it, and honestly, I still believe that the left and right are both needed, and should work together. Ideally, when they work together they come up with a course of action that’s generally centrist and beneficial for the largest number of people.

I don’t really like other “conservative” news feeds because they’re often a bit too conspiracy theory prone. That being said, I’m not going to pay for a NewsMax subscription.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

First and foremost is that NewsMax played a lot of commercials and I think that should have been sufficient.

Second, I don’t like a subscription model especially for the “Non-Mainstream” news sources. I believe sure as shit, there will be a data breach and the customer list will end up in the hands of someone with authoritarian tendencies.

The last thing I want to deal with is someone looking for dirt on me or my family. Just because I happen to like more conservative news reporting.

I may reconsider my position in time. Especially if I kill off Hulu which I’m not watching much anyway. Maybe I’ll just spend the same money on a different subscription. But there’s still that worry about data breaches.

I hate that I feel like I have to be paranoid.

I guess years watching BLM, ANTIFA, The January 6th commission, and now hoards of Antisemitic Pro Palestine protestors, or leftist judges stripping rights from citizens because the judge doesn’t like the citizens political views, has made me start wondering if this is the way things began in Germany prior to WWII, or Russia prior to their revolution.

I don’t think any of these groups (except the government) can hurt me. Being DOXED would be annoying, having thousands of emails blasting into my in box would be really annoying but the latter is already happening and has been for the better part of a year.

Hmm it just hit me. The Pro Palestine protests actually look a lot like the BLM/ANTIFA/ABORTION/TRANS Protests. I wonder how many people from one set of idiots also exist in the second set of idiots.

Perhaps we can get Kamala to come up with a VIN diagram to answer that question.