Month: August 2020

Ten

Pretty good session with my doctor this morning.

I think I got across much of what I wanted to say.

News. Things are really breaking today, and I’ll bet that few in the corporate media are going to cover it.

To paraphrase Joe Biden, This is a big f’n deal.

Essentially, the FBI fed bad information to the Senate after Comey was fired.

Will the most-trustworthy man in media, Chuck Todd, report on it?

I won’t hold my breath

At least I know there won’t be a horse’s head in my bed in the morning.

Nada – 8/10/2002

Went to Circuit City…..bad me. Ended up buying The Godfather box set, and a Liz Phair CD.

Movement at work……the gears are turning, and the higher-ups are starting to realize that they’ve been majorly had. I’ve hinted at it before, but I’m not tactful enough to get the point across.

Lonely. bleh.

Off to work….

I bit the bullet, and chose to pay for HBO again so we could watch it on something other than our phone. It was the same price between ComcastXfinity, so Hulu got the nod.

As I pay again because logging in with my cell provider’s info doesn’t work.

But maybe my wife and I will finish The Sopranos, and eat some Italian food. I’m losing weight again after cutting some things out of my diet.

I’m okay with this.

But I’m skeptical about whether my clothes will start fitting better.

Nine

Saw what I had for my draft, and said, “nein.”

While there was something somewhat appropriate about my views on police, dating way back to before 9/11, I don’t feel like sharing it. It was my reaction to seeing a longtime, now ex, girlfriend who was driving around with hair of a very strange color, and had a “Bad Cop. No Donut.” bumper sticker.

So free-write, basically.

Update on the news from the past couple of days. The fucker who strangled the woman who accused him of rape managed to succeed in killing himself.

Bridget Phetasy sometimes talks about messing with people in Nextdoor. Nextdoor is, completely unintentionally, a collection of the worst ideas of many homeowners’ associations wrapped up in a single place.

It remains that way.

You combine age, and the religious certainty of adherence to one of the two parties, and you get a downright awful place.

Whether or not this worm should have been released from jail is less important than the fact that the Commonwealth had a responsibility to protect the victim while the criminal justice process proceeded. It didn’t do that. It doesn’t fucking matter if it happened in a place that’s a single-party colossus, the state, and its agents, didn’t do their job, and a crime victim is dead because of that.

Background right now is this, something I’d missed when I thought they’d gone behind the censorial company’s paywall. Good stuff.

Eight

And eight is great!

Or something.

The story I mentioned briefly has become national news. (Choosing the Miami Herald mainly because that was the first thing that came up when I searched on Bing News.)

I didn’t notice that I wrote much about what I was doing with the Newport News CWA.

There were other things going on in the fall of 2001, of course. I was still working in news radio while juggling a fledgling radio career.

Would I go to law school? Yeah. That was the plain.

After almost diverting on to my whole spiel about how I never really wanted to be a lawyer, but a judge, I ended up in IT.

What I was doing at the CWA was assisting the Victim-Witness program.

What happened here is definitely needs investigation.

Let the justice system work. If the punishments are insufficient, change the laws in Richmond.

You can look at the political recriminations, but those are for after all the criminal proceedings are finished.

That said, the judge who let the guy out of jail was appointed by a certain Virginia Senator, and some blowback should ensue.

But, hey, Keep Virginia Blue! Permanent Democratic plurality rule just as Harry Byrd, et. al., intended.

Other news. Looks like the grandpa in the basement with a major party’s backing might be backing away from his essential promise to pick a “black” woman as his VP candidate.

One of the things that floated across the news stream the past couple of days was that the governor of Michigan. (And writing it that way makes me think of Tecmo Super Bowl, where one of the top quarterbacks was “QB Bills,” because they couldn’t reach an agreement for some of the players or something.) But searching around a bit, yep. Michigan State. She’s not going to be VP, even though she’s, objectively, far superior to the folks who’ve been commonly put forth. But she won’t get it because she’s outside the circles of power, especially Harvard and Yale.

You man to say that you shouldn’t pay $150K for two MAs from a state school? Why do you hate young people?

I get it.

Please, please, please don’t talk about the development of a US Caste system. It, like Antifa, is a myth.

Realization – 8/8/2002

I’ve realized something…..that I’m generally unable to relax in the presence of other people. Gotta figure out a way to work through this one…..

This is still very true. I’ve tried so many things, but I’m still anxious around others.

My wife is the only person I’ve ever met with whom I feel comfortable. I don’t have to act.

*shakes head*

Listening to this might be affecting my thinking right now….

Seven

Listening to podcasts, and finding myself questioning a lot of things.

I spent time when I was younger dubbing Sharyl Attkisson‘s reports for the corporate media site where she worked. I thought she was a good reporter who was really doing interesting news.

Some of what she’s been accused of is confusing. If I took the right pill, and hadn’t followed what she’s done….

I started this entry by starting to head to my old-is-new news site to look for headlines, then I remembered seeing and retweeting this on Twitter.

To be perfectly clear — I generally think that prison sentences are too long, and parole should be happening more quickly than it does.

At the same time, this guy got out, then went and killed the woman who’d accused him.

But the priority is on defunding the police, and sending people into poor and minority neighborhoods to take people’s guns.

Also, protests don’t cause COVID-19 outbreaks. That’s the story, and don’t attribute anything to the protests.

Similarly, don’t ever reconsider stories that don’t fit the corporate media narrative about the whole story. Please ignore the stories that show the leaked bodycam video, or show that he was on Fentanyl.

But there’s an official story that was locked-in shortly after all this happened, and that’s forever true. Chuck Todd and MSNBC said so, and it’s dangerous that people don’t take the initial take, and use it as gospel forever.

Please don’t look at Nick Sandmann/Covington Catholic. The settlements might have been for little money, so it makes what the big outlets reported okay, okay?

Facts roll in as time progresses. Sometimes you don’t find out for a long time what was actually going on.

Altered State – 8/7/2000

It might be interesting to take something that would make me feel differently than I do now. Or as of late.

But, now, I’ll try and recreate the entry I did last night, but wouldn’t save because they didn’t do maintainance on the POS micro$oft database.

Okay, so, the dreams I had the other night. There were several, but the most memorable was one involving sex. Now, I don’t dream about sex very often at all. But in this dream, I was trying to get it on with someone whom I’d known in high school (Yah, I don’t know where that came from, but I’m not complaining). We were in the midst of our preparation for the real act, but members of my family kept walking into the room. She and I were quite chagrined by this, so we retreated to my flat, which was interestingly enough, upstairs in the dream.

The dream also was another interesting mix of places I’ve lived. I’m sure it was set downtown where I live now, but buildings from other places were in the neighborhood. Lots and lots of red brick. Also, there was a stark contrast in the environments indoors and outdoors. Indoors, it was hot (her skin was very salty….I can’t seem to remember ever tasting anything before in my dreams, but if it continues, great). Outside, it was cold and rainy. So figure that one out, because I’m beyond stumped. But I think the dream, on the whole, is about my desire for privacy….that my flat is my little slice of privacy where my desires are uninterrupted? Maybe?

Redacted is back in town….we’re supposed to hang out with her on Tuesday night. Yay. Been thinking about the ex lately, for what reason I don’t know. I’m so tempted to call her. But I found one of her necklaces in my room at my parents’ house. I’m wondering how I should get it back to her. I’m thinking of writing her a letter. Any suggestions?

Two things on this.

  1. Part of the reason I sought professional help was that I was having very vivid, sometimes disturbing, dreams. I think some of it might have been attributable to a medication I was taking that cause me to sleep deeply. Some of the more vivid dreams have stopped, but I still have some doozies, and have for a long time. See the entry.
  2. I have no clue who the name I redacted was. I think I know, but I’m not sure. *shrug*

Maybe I’d be better off not paying attention to pretty much anything, ever.

I can’t do that.

Six

More than a little distracted on this session tonight. I ended up working longer than I normally do, then spent a significant amount of time on the phone with a friend.

So news. Big surprise — Mike Pence thinks Justice Roberts hasn’t been good.

Why? Because he’s not a down-the-line Republican vote on the Court like most of the Democrats have been…because he’s not Alito?

Yeah. I don’t agree with that.

For what it’s worth, even some of the Democrats don’t necessarily vote as a block. Breyer is about the most-partisan. Kagan and Sotomayor have both had things that are a bit off the reservation. Her highness, The Notorious RBG, is completely out-to-lunch on some things, but there’s times when she actually does write things that make sense.

What Roberts did with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, however, is something that to most straight-line Republicans is unforgivable.

I disagree.

If you read the decision, he absolutely eviscerates the left’s longtime argument that Congress can do basically whatever it wants in the name of regulating (Interstate) commerece.

No. Congress has the power to tax, and not much more than that.

I agreed with Justice Kennedy’s take that the penalty was a prohibited capitation, but that’s not what the majority decision said.

Whatever.

This latest bit was regarding what Roberts did with regards to Louisiana’s restrictions on abortion.

I am opposed to abortion. I am also opposed to capital punishment. (It’s almost as if I’m a part of the Papist conspiracy or something…..)

I recognize that amending the Constitution is really the only way to get rid of either.

Consequently, I can’t get too wound up when rulings come down against whatever menial meddling has taken place to end either one.

Amend the Constitution. That’s what the amendment process is for. If you can get 2/3rds of both houses, and 3/4ths of the states to agree, it’s done.

Then you’re not despairing about what happens in a plurality of another branch of government.

(Bubuhbut we should have fiat rule of the plurality! National popular vote now! End the filibuster in the Senate! Yeah, I know I suck at arguing for things I don’ subscribe to…)

Flashback to a long, long time ago. If it was a person, it’d be able to buy beer and cigarettes now.

(But would have been able to be drafted years ago, or go to prison for life long before that…..)

Self Abuse – 8/6/1999

No, I’m not talking about carving N’Sync logos into my arm with a razor blade……

But this is an issue I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Some of these coping methods which seem so normal, can be termed as self abuse.

Let’s list some of them:

Overeating
not eating
sleeping all the time
not sleeping at all
chainsmoking
getting drunk off your ass
coffee

but there are so many…..I tend not to sleep, and live off coffee.

These normally are described as coping methods.

It has been said that happier people live longer…..maybe it’s partially due to the lower frequency of self abuse due to sadness.

Well, I’m off to refill my coffee cup…..later.

None of those was an appropriate reaction, but I didn’t know of any other way back then. I was sort of healthy, so it wasn’t as big an issue.

I should ask my PsyD next week about how I drop off on those sorts of things when I’m down. And, there, I almost beat myself up by saying that I can’t even manage to do that sort of thing correctly.

Five

Going to free-write today, but I did dig up something from the archive.

What i picked up on with the explosion in Beirut yesterday was definitely the big story.

Ended up having a bit of a conversation on Twitter about it; you can click and read….

Other stuff?

Well, typical things with work. I hate that I make mistakes sometimes. I did catch it, however, and figured out how to deal with it.

What I’m dealing with, however, is actually newish stuff to my coworkers. It used to be a case of check-things-once-and-forget-it-for-years. A bit of the Ronco method; “set it, and forget it!” No, tech doesn’t work that way. You have to be constantly vigilant about things.

Unfortunately, I’m not seeing that I wrote about it in my Shmoocon section.

One of the presentations this year or last was about how hardware with flashable firmware actually get less secure the more that you patch them. Why? Feature creep in newer revisions, and attempts to work around the applied patches.

It’s counterintuitive, sure.

But that realization has really influenced my thinking about having old shit out on the network. You apply a laundry list of things to a system to address bugs, but you end up introducing new bugs as part of the fix, and leave undiscovered, unpatched things festering.

In other words, that creaky old server you’ve had for fifteen years is probably susceptible as hell to being haxxed, and patching it actually might make it more likely to be hacked.

There’s a ton of things you can do, however, to mitigate vulnerabilities that don’t involve applying AcmeCo’s latest patch.

Even so, maybe it’s a better idea to not leave ancient shit on your network for years. Document what it does. Have the data in a transferrable format, build something new, and restore data to the new secure system.

Bubuhbut we’ll have to retrain the users!!1!

Cry me a river.

Today’s flashback is probably on-point. I don’t know what in particular set me off writing this, but I would imagine it was something similar.

We do things this way. This is the only way that we do things, so you should just work with that.

Less than two years later, not adhering to that attitude, combined with my health issues would find me in a job for which I was incredibly overqualified.

The situation sucked. But at least the guy responsible is in Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison for a while longer.

8/5/2011 – 8/5/2011

Tffftbt. I don’t like having to drag people kicking and screming into the new realities of their business. It’s frustrating. What’s more frustrating is that many of the people on my level are intentionally ignoring the new realities. They’ve been working one way for so long; that must mean that one way is the best and only way.

sigh

Maybe I can recharge this weekend. Next week is going to be hell, though I do get to go to lala land Wednesday. Unfortunately, it requires an hour inside an electromagnet.

I delayed my medication refill until after my tests. Notsomuch because I want to switch meds, but I don’t want three months’ supply around if the doctor decides to switch me to something different.

So little to do, so much time.

Four

I didn’t have anything really drafted for today. I’m not sure how I missed it, but I’m going to publish something I’d not finished/published.

Just Walk Away

And I am. I’d started in on a response to a video I saw on the cesspool that is Facebook:

I’m a Libertarian. I understand that virtually none of my family is going to agree with me, regardless of whether they’re watching FNC or MSNBC. But either direction is ultimately unimportant. You touched on some of this, but missed the bigger point. Regardless of whether it’s Team Red or Team Blue, these legacy media outlets’ markets are shrinking every day; time does that to everything. It’s not dangerous that I don’t trust Chuck Todd. It’s not a problem that I don’t parrot everything Hannity says this week. Watching some other legacy corporate media outlet isn’t going to fix that. Though I’m one of the youngest Gen Xers (and, yes, my Millennial wife jabs me with the “Boomer” label), I understand that the big corporate media isn’t serving me. They’re serving that retired, graying, ever-shrinking demographic they worked so many years to build. Watching

I didn’t finish my thoughts, and I’m not going to. I don’t want to waste my time preparing a thought just for it to be shit on for some ginger college drop-out’s benefit.

Maybe that makes me a bad person; I don’t care.

I don’t remember when I wrote that. I don’t know who the “ginger college drop-out” was/is.

Thinking about it more, however, I think that that was actually from one of the times somebody on Capitol Hill was dragging Mark Z. over the coals for something, and he was basically begging for regulation that’d prevent anyone from competing with him/Facebook.

My professional help would tell me to just turn it all off.

I can’t.

News (and, now, the extensions that are social media) has been part of my life as long as I can remember.

Today’s big story is something about a massive explosion in Beirut. I got an alert from one of the cable news apps on my phone, and took a look. My response? “Holy shit!” My wife asked what was going on, so I showed her the video. “Holy shit!”

What else did i want to talk about?

Oh, yeah, Adam Corolla does a bit, Germany or Florida? (And searching for that on one of the didn’t-used-to-do-evil-search-company’s competitors yields a Udict thing tracing it to “Love Lines.”)

But, living here on the edge of “The Swamp,” my mind goes to stories of stupid local ordinances/laws, “Florida” or “MoCo?” (Montgomery County, Maryland)

They’ve not disappointed, and made the national news the past couple of days. In the fall, the public schools are reopening, but they closed the private schools.

At the same time, that sounds incredibly appropriate. Authoritarianism is neat!

But the reason the President is upset about this is because his kid goes to a private school in MoCo.

*nod*

I do envy that Dave Rubin is able to step away a month at a time. But I don’t know how I’d even consider doing it.

Maybe I’ll try a week in the fall.

Three

Ah. News that I stumbled across earlier, but figured it was kind of paying attention to lately.

And to think that AOC made me almost empathize with him. Almost.

Got into it with someone on Twitter over the weekend about this:

Some of what the members of Congress described in that brow-beating session did focus on some of the things that the big tech companies have done that are anticompetitive, and violate antitrust law.

With the bungling of the case against Microsoft around the dot com bubble, the DOJ has been incredibly reluctant to actually pull the trigger, and break things up.

Microsoft eventually did lose out in the browser wars because they made a bad product. But Internet Explorer is wheezing along to accommodate legacy third-party products that only work inside IE.

Would things have been better if Microsoft been broken up? I don’t know. Maybe.

Flashback time….

08/03/2012 – 8/3/2012

Again, I’ve been horrible about writing and reading. What else is now?

Wednesday, I was as close to quitting a job as I’ve ever been in my life. I’d struggled, and struggled to get feedback on this thing I was working on. Very little. I incorporated most of the suggestions. I turned it in Monday night. Very late Tuesday night (we’re talking after 10pm, after I’d sent her something basically finises last Friday), I finally got some response from the person who’d tasked me on it. She said it was utter shit. I was livid. I know I make mistakes. I make lots of mistakes. I also miss things; comes with having bad eyesight. But that doesn’t mean I’m late, or what I turn in is bad.

In fact, very little of what I’d done was wrong. Most of it was actually perfect (amazing as that is!). I just hadn’t done the added, unnecessary, nonsense she felt it needed.

So I added it. And got it in late Wednesday afternoon.

I guess she, my direct supervisor, the guy who’d held the job before my supervisor, and the mumbling, stumbling idiot reviewed it. No major gripes. But it wasn’t “adding value.”

Give me a fucking break. It’s not supposed to “add value.” It’s a fucking academic exercise; CYA.

Whatever. I’m still employed. My boss understands the situation. I’ve been responsive. I haven’t undermined the mumbling, stumbling idior (yet). Life goes on.

It will be interesting to see what happens if I win this contract, and they lose theirs……..

My wife and I were discussing the logistics of the move to DC this afternoon/evening.

I’ve decided I want the following:

  1. Moving expenses in cash, up front.
  2. 80% telecommute
  3. A 6% raise (I’d normally expect 8%, but I’m going to trade some of it for the increased telecommute).
  4. Promise of twelve months’ employment after relocation. (I have zero faith in the Congress and the President to prevent shit from turning bad in January…..whoever wins the election is unimportant, really. This die is cast.)

My wife is fully marooned in Olympicdom. sigh

This one actually speaks to the attitude I had, then, and my life’s gotten a ton better since I readopted it.

I’m not going to do something out of desperation again, and I’ve gotten greater rewards from being unmovable on my demands. If you want me, you will meet my requirements, regardless of how outrageous they may look on paper.

I’m not well, physically. I’m aging. I don’t need to bend over anymore. And I won’t.

But it speaks to some of what I’ve been going through, mentally. In other areas, I’m very risk-avers, but, professionally, I just can’t get too wound up about anything at this point.

I’ve done what I need to do, and if everything comes crashing down, whatever.

Two

I’m trying to force myself not to do any work this morning. I do have something to do late tonight, which I’ll do, but the temptations are there, certainly.

Slept hard last night, but that’s not a bad thing. When my alarm went off this morning I turned if off, with only a moment’s consideration, and went back to sleep for another hour-plus.

It’s Sunday. I can do that if I want.

Writing, on the other hand, really isn’t one of those, strangely.

Digging through the archives….

Hmmph. – 8/2/2002

RC on the last one, which spawned quite a few notes. Thing about it is…..

It doesn’t matter to me what other people do. If people want to use drugs, fine. Yeah, I smoke. I know it’s probably not the best thing in the world for me to do. I enjoy it. I also enjoy eating fatty foods and many other activities that aren’t necessarily good for me. I drink. That said, I’ve only been “drunk” umm…..once this calendar year. Rarely do I have more than one drink in a sitting.

But my point, which some people obviously missed, is that trying to control what people do for pleasure is basically impossible. (oral sex is still illegal many places……) “Just Say No” was so ingrained….and it hasn’t worked. We’ve forcefully taken billions of dollars from people to fund this “War on Drugs.” People still use drugs. And, really, the costs to society have greatly outweighed any benefits. I heard on the radio the other day that there are half a million people in prison right now just for simple drug possession. And we’ve got FBI agents snooping into bank accounts, drive-by shootings, asset forfeiture, missionary planes being shot down in Peru….

AND PEOPLE STILL USE DRUGS.

You’re never going to stop it. And so I say, put up or shut up. Either make every single mood-altering chemical illegal, or legalize it all. And if the popular choice is the former, I’ll go somewhere I’m free.

So my views really weren’t that different, even eighteen years ago.

What is more difficult today is cancellations of people for insufficient wokeness. I disagree with your goals, so I’m unable to live my life as I choose.

Got it.

For reference, “RC” here stands for “Readers’ Choice.” It was a tool used on the old OD to give attention to various people’s entries.

I’m not sure what the hell I wrote that people liked, and I’m too lazy to go back and try to figure it out.

More tomorrow. I’ve got some things to do.

Against the Patriarchy

As I’m listening to podcasts today, I was roaming around the Intertubes looking for places I could buy products advertised on the various podcasts I routinely consume.

I’ve taken a committed stance against what is perhaps the most-prominent support site for various content creators..

They exercise control over content they don’t like.

*fires up Bing News, because F the company that didn’t-used-to-be-evil*

Ah. That was tough. I’m no fan of Owen Benjamin, but they shouldn’t be withholding money from him.

And they’re having to stop.

Good.

He has a right to earn a living, even if some of his personal choices aren’t the ones I would make. Moreover, his kids shouldn’t be destitute because he believes the wrong things. Same goes for Gavin McInnes. Or even Alex Jones.