What’s with all the hand wringing about Twitter? OH! Right…

I admit that I’m still on the fence about Twitter personally. I did enjoy it and participated in some great discussions with people, in its early days.

Dead Twitter Bird

That being said, I’m “Meh” about it going the way of MySpace. Nobody ran in tight circles or lit their hair on fire when MySpace wound down to whatever it is now. (Is MySpace even still around?)

Celebrities, Pundits, Wags, and all kinds of other people appear to be having a melt down over Twitter “Melting Down”.

Elon Musk probably went too far with his email asking for, (or demanding) fealty to the company long work hours and whatever else he asked for. Clearly he pushed too hard too fast resulting in a lot of his staff resigning.

This makes me wonder though if he’s “souring the milk” just to get rid of self important dead weight.

It’s long been a tactic of employers to make a place a tough work environment that forces employees out the door rather than have a mass layoff. Especially with the WARN Act and all of its constraints, having a mass voluntary exodus works for Elon and the company.

Now he can hire employees to replace those that have quit, and not have to pay unemployment either. This is financially better for the company rather than have to keep those employees around for 60 days and pay them to screw him.

I’d imagine that he’s looking very hard at the H1B1 workers who remain, and considering simply not renewing their H1B1 Status. I don’t know all the ins and out of the visa system but I do know that without sponsorship the H1B1 Visa expires. At that point, the individual is supposed to return to their country of origin unless they’ve become citizens of the US.

Elon may be trailblazing in showing how H1B1 and other visas can be cancelled while limiting liability. I don’t know.

I know that there are a lot of American software engineers that can certainly do the job, who’d be willing to take on the challenge of working at Twitter. I’d guess that American software engineers would be willing to ensure freedom of speech as long as they were from outside the Silicon Valley bubble.

That so many people not involved directly with the company are commenting and wailing about the changes at Twitter is interesting to me.

Journalists specifically seem to be making a lot of noise, and I couldn’t figure that out.

I began to wonder if these journalists are realizing that they’re actually going to have to research what they say instead of relying on “Tweets” to write a story. That could explain why they’re so up in arms.

Are these people saying, “My God, I’m going to have to actually do research!

Once that realization sinks in, I’m guessing they’re going to be pretty pissed off that they’re going to have to pick up the phone and speak to someone, vet their sources, and at least partially verify their facts before running off to write a one sided hit piece on someone or some event.

Social media is hearsay not fact. It’s always been hearsay, rumor, innuendo, and in some cases complete bullshit.

When so called journalists began using platforms designed for social media and conversation as their journalistic sources we got Journalism that looked like social media, instead of fact.

Funny how that works isn’t it?

So journalists… Get to fucking work!

I’m going to be waiting for the want ads to come out to see if there’s a position for me at the new Twitter.

If I could work from home, or in an office outside California I’d work pretty damn cheap. If I have to move to San Francisco, well the job is going to have to be really “Cherry” and the pay will have to be significantly more.

That’s because I don’t see the need to live in a Studio Apartment for 5K a month, to be in a place where I have to step over shit in the streets to go to work.

I absolutely love the thought of all the rainbow colored hair social justice warrior types finding that their “playpen for pay” is being taken away. I’m half tempted to drive up to near San Francisco, take BART to Twitter headquarters and ask for a job application.

I’d fill out the application in the lobby and laugh my ass off watching the tearful goodbyes as the children left the building.

It would be very hard for me not to say to them, “Welcome to the real world, parasites!”

Ah… Rain

As most of the nation knows by now, the South West is in a bad drought.

That’s led to high temperatures and nasty wildfire conditions throughout the area.

On a more personal level, it’s led to me losing a baby tree that I sprouted from a twig. We’re under water restrictions. Our community is only allowed to water our plants twice a week. My little dogwood never had a chance.

It was a baby and needed a little more water. I tried, I dumped any partially full water bottles or glasses around the little guy in the front yard. It wasn’t enough.

My well established apple tree is feeling the pain too. By the time the watering day comes around the leaves are curling a bit. I’d break the rules and water more, but the water company “excessive water use” rates make it far too expensive.


Over the past few days, it’s been overcast and cooler. Sunday we got some real rain. Accompanied by the occasional rumble of thunder. It was wonderful and welcome.

Sunday night, early Monday morning, there was a bit of rain. The sound of rain on the roof didn’t wake me up, but the smell of rain scenting the breeze wafting through the windows did.

The dog has mixed feelings about it. On the one hand he likes the cooler temps. On the other hand he’s not thrilled about the thunder, or the water falling on him from the sky.

I find this amusing since he absolutely loves the snow.

He’s been a little subdued. Like a child on a rainy day. I’d put out finger paints for him but I think the ensuing mess would be expensive and time consuming to clean up.

On the other hand, perhaps I could have him generate some artwork for sale to pay for his kibble.


More rain is possible. I’ll be happy if it comes in gentle waves. More soaks into the ground and it means I won’t have to water the trees.

The down side is that the desert plants will go nuts requiring me to weed whack and trim them back.

Eh, I’ll take the trimming in trade for the water and cool breezes.

I just noticed there are 1600 blog posts here.

Wow, I hadn’t been paying attention.

I’ll grant you not all 1600 are worth reading. Generally they’re pretty Hit and Miss.

Sometimes I’ll hit on something that strikes a chord though.

Here’s a short story from my library

Here’s another short story

One consistent favorite is called Night Rain

Surprisingly, this post about excessive regulation has been getting a lot of hits in the past month.

Everyone’s favorite about AT&T is always near the top of the “Popular List”

My view on Busybodies has also been trending lately.

There’s a lot more here, but these are probably among the best of the bunch.

Feel free to browse. The Tag list to the right hand side of the page is up to date for the more current posts. However the Category List at the bottom of a post will lead you down the rabbit hole to older posts.

One of these days I’ll decide to convert the Category list completely over to Tags and then everything will be fully in sync.

Enjoy yourselves and take these posts with a grain of salt, or in some cases… An entire salt lick.

Be Well.