Tag: General

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You know, I’d like to go hang with a friend…

I’d do it too.

After all, there’s a 92% chance that a friend and I would survive Coronavirus even if  we got it. Shouldn’t we as adults be able to make that decision?

In fact I’m pretty sure that at least a couple of my friends would say, “Screw this,” and we’d sit outside have a couple of beers and laugh & talk.

After all, being adult is supposed to be about making your own choices and accepting the consequences of your actions isn’t it?

Yeah, you’d think that was true. But is it? 

We live in really strange times.

We have free speech (as long as what you say conforms to the party line.) One has only to look at the way people with dissenting opinions are shouted down. Two Bakersfield ER doctors are a recent prime example. Banned and censored by Google/Youtube but their video is still available here

We have the right to privacy, except online, (or during the lockdown. Then your neighbors may call the cops if you’re seen with someone else, even outside your home while maintaining social distancing. Some place encourage your neighbors to rat you out.) 

We have the freedom pursue happiness,  (Unless during the lockdown that happiness is alone, in a motorized boat on a lake in Michigan, fishing, or if you’re paddle boarding 80 YARDS offshore in California.) 

We have the freedom to go outside and get some exercise, during this lockdown (Unless that exercise takes the form of tossing a football in a park.) These kids found this out in New Jersey. 

I’d take the risk of Coronavirus to go hang out and have some social interaction.  What I & my friends won’t risk is authoritarian police busting and arresting us for making an adult choice accepting a certain amount of medical risk.

I can stay home in my bed for a week or two to get over a virus. My friends and I cannot afford to be arrested, and fined while we’re unemployed.

So the authoritarians win.

I can see some aspects of the lockdown for the sake of the common good. The being said, I am developing serious concerns about longer term damage to our freedoms.

With the new “normal” how much will we lose, and how much will we be willing to call acceptable losses?

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Why is everything a battle?

bangheadhere.jpegLately, it feels like I’m spending all my time either fighting or preparing to fight.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall for the past 12 months attempting to find a new job. Then just as unemployment insurance ran out we’re in lockdown.

Care to guess what that does to your job search?

Then Congress and the President say they’re extending unemployment benefits and sending a stimulus check. 

Great I think. I’ll be able to go on for a little while longer. Well, you’d think that, but I’ve not gotten a stimulus check and the Unemployment people haven’t gotten their shit together yet either.

In practical terms, this means that I’ve gotten two more battles added to my plate. One is getting the IRS website to accept my banking information which they had on file and have had for years, but their site said they didn’t have any information. 

Uhhh, wrong! You fuckers know exactly where to send the bill and exactly how to harass me at a whim. Now when it comes to you having to pay… Suddenly you can’t find my information? I call Bullshit!

On the plus side, I got them sorted out this morning.

One battle won.

Next, on to the unemployment folks. Their website is even worse than the IRS. It looks like something out of the ‘70s. In truth it probably is. Although the site says that it’s implemented the changes to allow for the extension and application for the Coronavirus relief funding when you go through their merry-go-round of links you end up at the same place that tells you you’re not eligible.

“Oh you have to use Chrome, to access the site.” 

Great so you’re telling me that I have to download a browser from the evil empire that Google has become, to allow being tracked, and hacked, and having 2 instances of googlesoftwareupdateagent running on my computer even when Chrome ISN’T running.

It’s also quite interesting that while these bits of software are running I see an uptick in network communication that is continuous.

Just what are these “Agents” doing? Why are there two instances sucking up my computer resources? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the question. I haven’t opened the code to analyze what this agent actually does, but I don’t think its what the name implies.

ReallyI have to have Chrome? Why? Could it be that your H1B1 programmers don’t know that adherence to HTML standards actually allows compatibility with multiple browsers? Or was it that they just had to use some little snippet of code that they could only get from Google? Instead of one of the myriad open source distributors

I download the wonder that is Google Chrome go back through the merry-go-round and guess what? I still can’t access the page that allows me to fill in the information to get the FEDERALLY FUNDED package. 

Gee thanks you California EDD dunderheads.

Battle number two – Lost for the moment!

Next Battle is the case of the missing check from the insurance company over the car. The check was issued and sent to the BMW Dealer. That check triggered a number of attempts on the part of the BMW dealer to reopen the insurance claim and ask for more money. WRONG! Sorry but that isn’t happening, I’ve seen to it.

Add to it that the BMW dealership underlings weren’t returning phone calls.  A strongly worded letter was sent to the one man at the dealership that runs by old world standards. I shouldn’t have had to involve him, but when all normal channels fail, you reach out to folks you know.

He responded this morning letting me know that he’d forwarded the letter to the right person over at the body shop. I’m expecting a call later in the week. It’s going to take the manager of the body shop some time to un-peel this onion. His underlings made a hell of a mess in their accounting and documentation.

Battle number three, indeterminate win/loss but it’s worth fighting because it’s over a grand that I’m owed.

Then on to battle number four.

The job search, and I’m back to banging my head against the wall.

At least it’s warm and pretty and I’m sitting on the back deck with a nice view.

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That was weird

NINWithTeeth.jpgI lost a day, I have no idea where I lost it. But when I woke up this morning, It was a day later than I thought it should be.

Did I sleep a full 24 hours?

I was reminded of NIN “Every Day is Exactly the same”

I know that I didn’t sleep 24 hours, but all my days are running into one another. I guess it’s just that there’s nowhere to go and I’m rapidly losing interest in doing anything around the house.

It’s not that I don’t have stuff to do, It’s that more often than not, when I’m in the midst of doing something I realize that I need something from a store that’s either closed or a place where I’m going to have to stand in line for 30 minutes to get into, or out of the place, possibly both. If all I need is something dumb like a bolt or screws it’s not worth the effort or annoyance. So the project dies right there. 

I’ve been trying to put things on my lists so that when I go somewhere I’m picking up all the little bits at once preferably in one store. Otherwise a mult-store run turns into a whole day affair and the herd tension of the crowds makes me very uncomfortable.

Even the outdoor carwash isn’t working properly. There’s no soap in the spritzer, and many of the wash bays are no longer functional. It’s not like you’re going to violate social distancing and the way the wind whips through the place the likely-hood of contamination is pretty darn low.

But trying to wash the car wear a mask, not have your glasses or sunglasses fog up, plus the lack of soap or working bays has taken even the simple pleasure of washing my car to the depths of despair. 

There are some things that may not be essential services, but they should be allowed to remain open for the positive psychological benefits. I may just wash the car in the front drive, California water restrictions be damned.

At least I’d be outside and doing something different.