Tag: Fail

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Just about when I think California isn’t that bad…

California slaps me in the face.

I guess that’s better than my Brother punching me out and waking up in a deprogramming camp somewhere in a flyover state. Don’t laugh, I wouldn’t put it past him.

My brother is absolutely convinced that California is the worst state in the union. This is coming from a guy who has lived in New York, Washington D.C., and Minneapolis, MN. I think he looks at California as a contaminant to the rest of the United States.

I’ve lived here so long a lot of the insanity here seems “normal”. When I’m out of California for a while I find myself thinking how strange this place is.

Then there are days like Wednesday…

I had my car in for service. I had a loaner and as usual I returned the loaner with a full tank of gas (even though they gave it to me with less than 1/4 of a tank) Hey, They Loaned me a brand new car. I treat it like when a friend loans you their car. Custom was, that you return your friends car clean, and full of gas.

All was well. The issue with my car could not be reproduced so It’s a waiting game until the failure becomes a bit more obvious if it’s really a problem at all. It’s one of those things that is a weird sound. But it might be nothing at all.

Nonetheless I got two new tires and an alignment. The two old tires were showing their belts in a couple of spots. It was time! Especially since we’re coming up on winter and wet roads.

I went out to my car and opened the door.

WTF?!?!?!

Someone had been using my iPhone cables that were stored in the center console. I wouldn’t have minded except that it was obvious the person had also been playing their music through the car’s sound system. This was easy to determine because the cable was connected to the USB AUX IN (inside the console), and the entertainment system said “NO USB SOURCE”

But it didn’t stop there, both seats, Passenger and Driver’s were covered in greasy dirt.

Okay…

Time to go bring this to someone’s attention.

I tell the supervisor that we have a problem, as I’m heading into the parts department to purchase a package of leather cleaner wipes. $5 no big deal and I’ll use them next time I hit the car wash.

As I’m wiping the Driver’s seat I discover two deep gouges in the leather. Not quite cuts, but deep narrow gouges. Probably caused by a tool in someone’s back pocket or a clip of some kind attached to someone’s belt.

Now I’m seriously annoyed and I march back to the supervisor’s desk to bring this to his attention.

On the plus side, if the car hadn’t been dirty when I got it back I might not have noticed the gouges.

I was nice, but I told the dealership this kind of thing is beyond unacceptable.

They agreed!

Next time, I’m pulling all the cables out of the console. Oh, and there will be a next time because they’ve told me they will repair the damage to my seats.

I needed a drink. So I called a close friend and we went to lunch.

That was nice, and I was much happier getting back on the road. I really do like my car better than the loaners.

It’s 2:30 as I pull out of the restaurant parking lot. I make it to the 261 out of Orange County by 2:40 and the toll road is pretty clear.

I should have made it home in about 90 minutes. NOPE!

2.5 hours later I’m in the line to get off at my exit. I’ve been creeping up the hill for the past 20 minutes. And as I approach the exit, assholes start cutting in from the left. Why? Simple, because they are dicks! All the rest of us had been waiting patiently. Cutting in from the left like that is just jumping the line. These assholes know they can do it because no-one wants an accident and that’s the only way you can stop an asshole from cutting the line at an exit.

Them cutting the line like that by the way just makes the problem at the exit worse because now there’s more turbulence and more danger.

After the 10th motherfucker (This one diving directly in front of me,) I lost my shit and started laying on the horn.

For those of you living outside of California, that is supposed to be the height of rudeness when driving.

But wait it gets worse…

There’s road work near the exit. They’re putting lights in, (about fucking time!) Actually we did fine without lights since 1992 when I moved up here. There was only a stop sign. It was a 4 way stop and people OBEYED the law.

Now we’re getting lights. They’ve made one lane left turn only. The other lane is right turn only or straight through. The lights at the freeway exit are operational. The left turn lane turns into a single lane and YET, people insist on making left turns from both lanes then causing accidents when they run out of lane, and into concrete barriers.

I’ve watched an 18 wheeler make the turn illegally from the right turn only lane and damn near decapitate a motorcyclist in the process.

Again…

It’s about obeying the LAW. But apparently people in California have decided that the law applies to everyone else not them.

Kind of like the Biden clan. Or a lot of the Democrats in congress.

The thing is, 200 miles outside California, driving changes. Get past the Las Vegas strip and people even in NV are halfway decent drivers. Arizona, on the I-40 people get super courteous. Phoenix and Tucson are a lot more like California was 20 years ago. Don’t worry, they’ll both get as shitty as California traffic is because the Californians are bailing to Phoenix and Tucson.

There are also a lot of illegals driving there too and the mix of these drivers and those who learned to drive in the United States tend to breed a lot of shitty traffic and / or a lot of accidents.

All of this is to say that by the time I manage to get home, these days, I’m really wound up. It’s also why I don’t really like leaving the mountain. Driving has become such a chore. Either you’re expecting someone to barrel into you from 1 (or more) of 3 directions. Or you’ll drop from 75 MPH to 0MPH for absolutely no reason.

Well, there is a reason, some moron ahead of you is tapping on their brakes in time with a RAP song and the uncertainty and randomness of the flashing tail lights is causing everyone to tap their breaks too because they think there’s something happening on the freeway.

All it takes is one idiot in the fast lane farting around and the whole freeway turns into a fucked up traffic jam.

Anyway, after I got home, I had time to take the pup for his walk. It was a short one because I don’t like walking him in the dark.

We have bears, mountain lions, bobcats, and coyotes. Generally, they’re all happy to avoid a human and his dog in the daytime. But at night, things change. These critters conclude they might have an advantage and things can go south from there.

I’d hate to be responsible for one of these beautiful creatures being put down, because I did something really stupid and looked like I was walking a tasty treat, or worse yet… That I was a tasty meal. Either event would result in one of these creatures being hunted and killed.

That would be tragic.

I need to schedule a spa day for the dog. I’ve got my haircut scheduled. I’d like a massage maybe I’ll schedule that in the upcoming week or so.

I’ll keep tossing stuff out of the house through the winter. The goal is to have the place in shape enough to put it on the market the first day of spring.

As I started this post. Just about when I think staying in California would be okay… The reality of California slaps me in the face. One of those realities is traffic getting consistently worse.

Another reality is $425 registration fees for a vehicle. And let’s face it, jobs are problematic. Both of my 2 oldest friends. Guys I met when I first moved to California, we started working at Toys R Us in our teens, have retired in the past year.

Why? Because they were being chronically fucked with by managers who couldn’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag.

I retired because no-one claiming they’re hiring will return a fucking phone call.

Note, none of us have reached “Retirement” age. We’re taking our Social Security early.

We’d all like to work…

But we’re apparently the wrong sex, wrong color, and the wrong age.

So we’ve all decided to take our football and go home.

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Wow! This FUCK really doesn’t give a shit…

JacksmithsilkenrobesofstateJack Smith, you know, the fuck who’s going so hard after Trump just completely lost me. The New York Post is carrying an article here

I was more or less willing to at least listen to his side of the case against Trump because that’s what a decent person does. I don’t know if Trump did bad shit, He’s been accused time and again of doing shit. But without proof I was curious about what exactly the prosecution had on Trump.

Now I don’t fucking care! Guilty or not, I feel that I’m faced once again with choosing the lesser of two evils. I’ll choose Trump in opposition to Biden and his corrupt government. I’ll do it with certain reservations but to be honest with the hope that Trump does become a dictator and cleans out the corruption in our government, Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and all the lifelong bureaucrats, With FIRING SQUADS!

I know that sounds excessive, harsh, and possibly illegal. But when the rot is as deep as it appears to be, it’s best to burn it out as quickly as possible. If there are harsh consequences and penalties for corruption, then maybe we’ve got a chance.

Jack Smith issued a search warrant to Twitter of which half is redacted, demanding Twitter disclose all Trump’s Twitter interactions. Smith didn’t limit his warrant/subpoena to only two way conversations between Trump & others. Smith wants it all.

This potentially exposes millions of people to the DOJ.

2021 message signals return trump 72916781 1 jpgTechnically, if you “Liked” or “Retweeted” a Trump Tweet you’re gonna be on the DOJs radar. 

I’ll grant you that nothing is private in a public forum like Twitter. However, This goes too damn far! What happens when… Yes, WHEN not IF, our corrupt DOJ or IRS, decides to punish everyone who interacted with a Trump Tweet?

We’ve already heard for the entire time Biden has been in the White House about the “Existential Threat” posed by the evil WHITE PEOPLE.

You know, the election questioners, the white supremacists, the Domestic Terrorists composed of parents with the temerity to ask questions of their representatives or school boards, the people who demand accountability from their representatives. Yeah those people. a.k.a. Half of the fucking country! 

We all know it’s coming. Our government his slipped it’s leash. It is no longer under our control and I doubt seriously that even Trump can put that genie back in the bottle. 

The folks controlling our government are probably not even our elected officials. There is someone, or a group of someones behind the curtain who are driving us all headlong into one of several possible dystopian nightmares. 

I think most Dystopian nightmares have been at least roughly sketched out by various fiction authors. All that remains is, which one the assholes behind the curtain, drive us toward.

I’m not going to be terribly surprised to find we’re all carrying little red books in 20 years. It’s possible we’ve already been sold to China and we’ll be used like the Uyghurs in slave labor camps. Why not? China will not be questioned by the UN. The UN won’t be around long after China “wins” anyway. 

Will China even need us as slave labor?  If China owns our asses anyway then who are they going to sell their shit to?

All I can say at this point is, we absolutely need a real son of a bitch with a set of big brass balls as president.

He can grab all the women he wants by their pussy, as long as he puts an end to the corruption in our government.

Hell, I’d be happy to be President…

I REALLY ENJOYED being the specter of death in some companies I’ve worked for. There were people that richly deserved the pink slips I handed out.

I’m sure walking through the halls of government issuing warrants for arrest wouldn’t be much different.

I wonder if “Take them away,” would have as much impact as, “Off with their heads!”

Dunno, but it might be interesting to find out.

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Hmmm. Interesting, and they wonder why we don’t trust them…

REVW0406So this cold is annoying enough that I was thinking about getting some over the counter cold remedy. Then I thought about it and seemed to recall seeing something about the FDA doing a study on cold medications and discovering problems with them.

Off to the internet, Boy Wonder! CBS Reports this

Ahh, there it is:

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Tuesday against the effectiveness of the ingredient found in popular versions of Sudafed, Allegra, Dayquil, and other medications sold on pharmacy shelves.

“Modern studies, when well-conducted, are not showing any improvement in congestion with phenylephrine,” said Dr. Mark Dykewicz, an allergy specialist at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

So here’s the deal, these medications use phenylephrine. They used to use pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine worked but was taken out of the normal OTC medications because it was possible to convert it into Meth.

Phenylephrine was grandfathered into use without much in the way of testing for efficacy by the FDA. It should be noted that there are tons of drugs, and products that are grandfathered like this all the time. Some of these grandfathered products are later found to be, at best ineffective, and at worse harmful.

The cold medications appear to be simply useless if they’re not using Pseudoephedrine. But it does beg the question, how many other medically approved products are nothing more than Placebos or as it was said in the past “Snake Oil”. Placebos have their place in clinical testing, because they provide a baseline to determine if a drug under test is doing anything.

In the past, purveyors of  Snake Oil may have been tarred and feathered and run out of town, if they weren’t hung for hurting and swindling people. The FDA was created to provide a measure of safety to the public because of the prevalence of snake oil and quacks.

Yet here we are, the FDA having been complicit in cold remedies that don’t work, a.k.a. FRAUD! The cost of a box of these cold remedies is /was  $10 to $15 and were sold to millions of people. The fraud generated billions for drug manufacturers.

I’d like to have my money back! I looks like I’m due a refund from 1980 forward??? I’d have to find when Pseudoephedrine was swapped out.

On the plus side, we all got over our colds pretty much naturally! This also might explain the apparent conflicting data between the folks who swear by natural remedies versus Doctors recommending OTC remedies. It’s possible that the natural remedies actually performed better because these remedies survived and were handed down based on centuries of accumulated observational data.

The OTC cold remedies on the other hand were not thoroughly tested and no better than sugar pills.

I wonder about the collateral damage during COVID-19. Most people would have initially thought COVID was a cold, they would have gone to their ineffective OTC cold/flu medication. Their symptoms would have gotten worse until they were hospitalized. Then, they would have been given more ineffective treatments because the treatments that actually worked, (as shown time and again in other countries,) were forbidden. By… guess who, The FDA!

I guess my point is why should I or anyone trust the CDC or the FDA at this point? They’re not protecting us from medical quackery, or big Pharma selling snake oil.

Why should I trust a doctor, or a hospital?

Bottom line is this.

If a Doctor or a medical person can not explain something to you, or can’t produce test information showing the efficacy of a treatment, drug, or vaccine.

DON’T FUCKING TAKE IT!

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh. However as we keep finding more out about COVID, and the vaccines, and how it really looks like the medical establishment is covering up something truly evil. We shouldn’t give the medical profession the blind trust that we gave them in the past.

It’s really strange that a tattoo / body piercing shop might be a safer place than a hospital, laboratory,  or doctors office, when it comes to having needles stuck in your skin.

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Oh boy! I was a bad human.

Thank goodness Jesse doesn’t have a phone… or an opposable thumb.

I’ve had a touch of a cold, developing for the pasts few days or so. Nothing serious but it’s tiresome. I’ve been feeling drained but trying to keep regular hours.

Last night Jesse & I went to bed as usual, but I was feeling much more tired than usual.

Perhaps my tiredness has something to do with Southern California Edison choosing the end of November to do routine maintenance which required the power to be of from 9 am to 4 pm.

Uh, dumb asses it’s Winter. The daily high temps was 44°F yesterday. Heat is an issue as is the fact that this time of year the sun drops behind the mountain between 3 and 4 pm. So we’re in a deep twilight and the temperature starts falling rapidly, well before official sundown. But it didn’t matter, because Southern  California Edison didn’t get the power back on until 5:30 pm or so. But that time my house temp had dropped below 48° F.

After getting a $400 to $500 bill for natural gas last year I’ve been keeping the house in the low 60s hoping to avoid an obscene natural gas bill again, because of Biden non-economics and shitty planning on the part of the natural gas company.

Sitting on the couch shivering in 3 blankets due to the slight fever and the cold. I thought about calling Southern California Edison and asking them if this was part of some evil plan,

Last year the blizzard coupled with complete lack of planning, caused us to be ignored, essentially out of food, fuel, and snowed in, for several weeks. Older people died. The cost of natural gas was so excessive that lots of people, myself included let their homes be very cold. Older People also died due to that. Now as we enter winter Edison decides to fiddle around with “Upgrades” that should probably have been done before it got cold.

Shivering on my couch. I really wondered if this was all an elaborate plan to force the white people out of our homes up here so that Biden’s newest crop of illegals or BLM’s richer activists could be given the white people’s homes up in the mountains.  Perhaps it was the fever, but damn I feel like it’s death by a thousand cuts lately.

In fact Edison, if they had a brain between them, would do better doing upgrades in the mountains in late summer when it’s blazing hot down in the valleys. Their crews would be more comfortable and they could do other upgrade work in the valleys as fall rolled off the valleys. Their crews would be more comfortable and possibly safer.

The thing is, the workers don’t appear to be actual Edison employees. They’re contractors. So calling Edison and raising hell doesn’t matter in the least. The contractor handles the scheduling of their employees. This gives Edison the ability to wash their hands of any situations that may arise.

I didn’t make the call. I had enough presence of mind to realize I was cold, hungry, angry, and not feeling well.

Anyhow, Jesse and I went to bed about 10pm. I’d decided “fuck it” and set the temp to 68°F when the power came back on. It sets back to 64° F at 11:00, so I wasn’t going to be running up the bill too much.

I was asleep instantly. Something woke me about 11:30, then Jesse woke me around 12:30 and wanted out. He seemed like he was trying to toss his cookies. I knew he’d be a while, so I sat on the couch, then wrapped up in a blanket…

My alarm sounding in the bedroom at 6am woke me. Poor Jesse was sitting “pretty” looking at me through the sliding door. The temp was 34°F and had probably been colder. He’d been outside all night because I fell into a deep sleep.

I feel like a total shit! Because I left the poor guy outside all night and this cold is draining me.

Jesse and I are on the bed now. He’s sleeping under a blanket that I might designate as “his” in the near future. He seems to like this blanket more than any other in the house. If I’m using it, he’s typically got his paws and chin resting on it. Other blankets, he’s not interested in.

I’ve apparently been dozing off because I keep finding my computer is asleep though from my perspective I’m mid thought.

I might not get a lot done today.

I have to give Jesse his heart worm preventative today. That’s going to wait a while, he’s sound asleep and I’m going to let sleeping dogs lie.

The way I feel right now,  I might not get out of bed until noon or later. Jesse seems content with that idea.

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WOW! Apple does it again! Not in a good way!

Apple one icons logo 100857611 largeThe other half and I decided to go with the Apple One subscription back when they first started it. 

Both of us were paying for Apple Music and individual iCloud Storage. We’d purchased Apple TVs for the living and bedrooms, but Apple’s original programming wasn’t anything we were interested in at the time. 

I knew that I was going to be interested in Foundation when Apple released the first season.

When we did the math, we found we were already spending nearly the initially high 29.95 monthly fee for Apple One individually, since we could share the Apple One subscription we went for it.

Honestly we were only interested in the Music and iCloud storage. There was a high probability that Apple TV+ would become interesting to me. Although to date I’ve only watched Foundation and Invasion. There are some Apple produced movies that looked somewhat interesting but not enough to captivate my attention so that I sat down and spent 2 hours of my life watching them. 

I was interested in the Apple Fitness guided training. I’ve used it a few times just to get a feel for it. At first it only worked on the Apple TV so training had to take place in the Living Room or the Bedroom. Honestly, that didn’t really work. Since then Apple has expanded the functionality to iPhone and iPad so it’s a little more portable.

It’s understood that Apple is a “Woke” company. Okay, that’s fine, I’ve always known Apple was full of blue haired people with so many piercings they can’t get through a TSA metal detector. However, recently I thought I’d get more familiar with Apple Fitness and take advantage of regular workout routines during the Winter. 

Opening the Fitness+ tab on the Apple TV I was a little put off.  It wasn’t that DEI was front and center, it was.

It was that so many of the workouts appeared to be geared for way younger folks than I am. After some digging I was able to find some things geared toward older adults. I’ll try a sampling to see if Apple Fitness+ is for me.

The other half and I also liked being able to share our purchases and subscriptions to many applications.

Neither of us cared about Apple Arcade, we were adults, while I looked at some of the games, none were interesting to me and so that part of the Apple One subscription was never used.

Apple News+ is okay but neither of us were really interested in much of the magazine offerings and I literally locked out of my news feed, the extremist news organizations both left and right. The other half eventually got tired of News+ and stopped using it altogether. I know this because he needed help turning off all the News+ notifications. He generally preferred BBC and NPR until the age of COVID. Then he, like me, found  very few news organizations that passed the reliability test.

At this point I could take or leave Apple News+

All of this has come to mind because of a few things.

1) The other half is dead.
2) Apple One increased its prices from 29.95 which was already expensive to 32.95 back in spring. At the time, I wasn’t capable of making too many decisions and chose to let that go.
3) Apple sent a notice of another rate increase either Friday Night or Saturday morning, (which is kind of chicken shit,  because NONE of the executives will be in over the weekend so the folks answering the phones get to take the brunt of the complaints,) The new rate is 37.95 a month.

At this new rate, we’re starting to approach old Cable TV rates. (Yes I know the Cable TV people charge far more obscene rates these days. That’s why I don’t have Cable.) As a point of interest, that’s also why I’m looking at new places to live where I can receive local TV with a damn antenna. I don’t even care if it’s only one channel as long as it’s in English. (Where I live now, I can receive one channel but it’s in Korean? or Chinese neither of which I speak.)

I know I’m not getting $37.95 value out of the Apple One subscription. I no longer have a family. (I do have a family but they don’t live with me and have their own stuff going on. It’s a big pain in the ass or was, to merge this stuff or unmerge it, if necessary.) The merge / unmerge task is so daunting, my other half is still listed in family sharing on the account. Although in truth, I’m not ready to remove him. It seems so final and I’m not ready for that yet.

The problem is that when I look at what I”m actually using regularly, and try to break out only those items, I come up with a cost that’s about the same as Apple One. Obviously this pricing structure is to keep Apple One subscriptions. 

As an older person, I don’t want to spend any more money than I have to. Well, I never wanted to spend more money than I had to. The problem for me now is that since I”m not employed, and living on retirement, I am far less loose with my money.

I’m sure there are a lot of people in the same boat I am. We’re either retired or nearing retirement and being forced out of our jobs explicitly, or surreptitiously. (Ask one of my friends about his experiences after 25 years or more with the same company. Ageism is real. Oh, and by the way, there’s nothing you can do to fight it! The law may be on your side, but lawyers… You’re lucky to get one of them to return your call or email! Maybe the next time I reach out to an attorney, I’ll say Trump did something to me. Perhaps then I’ll be worth calling back!)

In any case, all of us in this position are re-evaluating where our money goes and trimming the fat. If only we could trim the fat of taxation that gets us very little of use in our daily lives but might just drop a nuke in our backyards…

I digress.

Apple One has become too damn expensive! So effectively older folks or poor people are completely priced out of the Apple One service. DEI my ass!

I’ll evaluate Apple One for the next month or two. Maybe it’s time to cut this shit down to only what I find useful. If we can’t come to an arrangement that works for me, then maybe it’s time for me to stop paying for Apples services entirely.