Because Saturday Morning

It’s a chance to sit and collect various thoughts I’ve had through the week. Or something.

If you’re reading, or just want to talk to me, please subscribe to the mailing list, and talk amongst yourselves. I’m not going to restrict discussion, unless something is completely out-of-bounds.

There’s folks who are trying to do things absent the big tech big tech cancellation. I heard about this on a podcast yesterday.

Registered. And no email. Hm. Things work more slowly. I guess the immediacy is something that people really value these days. I’m okay waiting.

Unrelated, but somewhat along the same lines, with the cancel culture, it can work in the other way. My thinking on this started seeing this in one of my newsfeeds. Companies are refusing customers left and right. I remember having mixed thoughts about what happened with Sarah Sanders at a restaurant here in Virginia.

I guess this speaks a bit towards to what Barry Goldwater’s objections to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were.

Virginia law doesn’t apply the protections of that act to private businesses.

It’s a tough thing. In 1964, there were many places where there was only a single provider for many things.

That’s not true anymore. You can choose to live your life separately. Yes, it might be difficult, but it’s really not that difficult.

Do it.

And if you own/run a business, choose your customers. Choose how you will be reimbursed, too. Crypto. Barter. Whatever Government has shown repeatedly that it’s incapable of doing much correctly. Or, as Harry Browne put it, Government Doesn’t Work. (Yes, that’s a huge PDF, but it came up in my search results, and the shopping links were all from that company with which I will not do business..)

I got distracted by an alert about the impeachment trial. They voted for witnesses. Senator Graham changed his vote at the end when it was clear that there would be witnesses. So, nothing will get done in the Senate until this comedy of errors is finished. Democracy at work!!1!

Theme Of The Week #86

Tell us about a personal challenge you overcame, and how it helped you grow

I’ve spent several days trying to figure out how to answer this one.

Perhaps I’ll expound elsewhere about the particulars of what I’ve done, but I don’t know that I’m ready to articulate it fully on my public site.

I don’t really “overcome” things. I compensate, and adjust to keep moving along.

Since so many of my adjustments are related to my various physical issues.

Given that I’ve had all of these major things going on with my body, basically since puberty, some of the things I did to deal with physical discomfort weren’t good for me.

My psychologist has kind of pointed me towards OCD, especially the “Pure O” version of OCD.

I have many obsessions, and the various things I’d developed really don’t work for others (and I started seeing my doctor when the methods I’d developed really quit working for me all at once).

I do have obsessions. Writing, for example, but I’m definitely more towards the obsessive side of OCD.

So, have I overcome it? No.

Am I better than I was, say, two years ago? Absolutely.

I’ve done all of these things, but there’s so many things that I would have liked to go and do that I now can’t. I have money to travel, buy things I would like, etc., but I really can’t enjoy them because of things that have gotten worse with the MS progression.

For example, skiing would be something that’s a near-suicidal urge.

Even things around town are tough when you can’t drive or walk well.

I don’t think I’ve overcome, but I’m certainly a lot better than I was not terribly long ago.

Super Sunday

I guess I can say that without getting sued; there’s no ads here.

Very ambivalent on the game, honestly. There’s things about each team that I like, and things about each I really don’t like.

KC Likes: Patrick Mahomes. Travis Kelce, Spagnolo Defense. KC Dislikes: F’n West Coast Offense.

Tampa likes: Arians, Brady, Antonio Brown, Gronk, Fournette, Byron Leftwich, Ryan Succop. Tampa dislikes: 34 blitz-all-the-things Defense, Brady, Antonio Brown, that it’s Tampa, Suh…

But there’s still roughly six hours before kickoff, so I’m trying to find things to do until I start watching TV.

We watched the NFL Honors last night. Not happy that Rodgers got the MVP, though not as unhappy as Collinsworth and Aikman are that he said something about a fiancée. Was nice seeing Alex Smith win the Comeback Player of the Year.

Yes, I’m rambling.

I’ve been on hold with a certain foreign retailer who might have designed the Rams’ new uniforms. 31 minutes. We ordered this stuff in September. Three pieces. One was delivered late, and the other two have never arrived. I phoned at the start of the year to see what the deal was. Oh, we’ll refund the shipping, and the charges for the items that haven’t been delivered.

No credit back on my credit card.

That’s enough for now. I’m bored. I’ll update this once I finally get through to these people.

Saturday

Again. So I do what I do.

Listening to this.

Obviously, this has been an absolutely crazy week in the world, and I don’t see things really calming down news-wise.

I will say “rest in peace” to Larry King.

Since about Thanksgiving I’ve been listening pretty attentively again to Mike O’Meara, and have a temptation today to pay for his bonus show….largely because I’m so against giving money to Patreon. I’ve been listening to Mike on and off since uh, 1989? I disagree vehemently with his political allegiances, but I do enjoy his product, and appreciate that he doesn’t do Patreon.

I’ve not checked to see what the status of this is, but that was kind of representative of why I refuse to send anything through Patreon. Ever. There’s other things that I’d like to support, Quilette, Bridgt. Sorry. I’ll buy stuff from your advertisers, but nothing directly through your give-me-money service.

But there’s ways to get around the people who are trying to stifle things.

It’s not easy, but I’m still trying to find freedom.

I dunno.

Starting The Long Weekend Early

I have satisfied the hours in my pay period, so I stopped working at 11. A lot of what I was doing, anyway, would have been disrupted by patching operations on my work PC.

Good episode of The Fifth Column (unfortunately, I can’t find a link this morning. A lot of my concerns in the past week and a half have been related to what’s happening in response to what happened at the Capitol last Wednesday.

The government cannot end The Internets. Barring something like the firewalls like the Iranians or the Norks have, it’s impossible to silence everyone.

One of the things that’s gone through my head for a long time now is, “You Can Leave.” (Yes, I did just edit that; spotted a spurious vowel…)

But where to go?

On the Internet, it doesn’t matter. You can’t stop the math and science that goes in to technology. No matter how vehemently you decry that there’s ways to get around just about everything if you can think independently.

There are other things that fall into similar categories — short of killing people, you can’t stop them.

So, what’s on tap for this weekend?

Well, HR Geeks Jitsi.

Supposedly, there’s going to be competing virtual drinking games kicking off with Jonny, and other folks swirling around the Peddling Fiction podcast.

Speaking of that, one of his webinar on chart analysis is here.

But the technology is there, and there’s no way to stop it.

But you can leave what you don’t like. So, out of the cesspool that is Facebook again.

Another Saturday

And given all that went on earlier this week, I suppose I should be thankful that things are now calm.

Listening to this.

Words are really failing me, really, but I think things could continue to stay calm.

Forgive, and move on. I understand that that’s difficult, but it’s what needs to be done.

Survey

I’m writing, because that’s what I do.

  1. Have you ever used a dating site/app?
    I started dating my wife in 2006. We got pretty serious very quickly. I’ve not looked back. There were a few I’d done before then, but I’d pretty much given up on finding anybody by the time I met her. So. 2003, maybe? I can’t imagine what dating would be like these days.
  2. If you could live anywhere other than where you live now where would it be?
    I’m not even sure at this point. Many of the things that attracted me to moving where I am now are just gone. With the COVID lockdowns, I really wonder if there’s anywhere where I could go at this point. One of the podcasters I listen to quite a bit has gone to Mexico. If you’d told me three years ago that Mexico would sound the least bit attractive, I’d have said you’re completely nuts. Same goes for Texas and Florida.
  3. Do you recycle?
    Where I can.
  4. What is the weather like right now, as you write this?
    It’s winter, but it hasn’t gotten really that cold very long yet.
  5. What was the last video you watched on YouTube?
    I think I pulled up “Spaghetti Cat (I Weep For You)” trying to make sure I had my audio devices set up correctly. But, for the most part, I go out of my way to avoid anything from Totes-Didn’t-Used-To-Do-Evil Co.. And that includes YouTube.
  6. Write a news headline about your life.
    You Thought You Knew
  7. What does the fourth text message in your phone say?
    It’s a notice from FedEx. No, it’s none of your business. (And I don’t remember what it was, anyway….)
  8. How many states have you been to?
    I don’t know, and I’m too tired to count. The only Pacific state I’ve visited is Washington, but I’ve been to many of the others.
  9. What was the last movie you saw in the theatre?
    The Big Lebowski.
  10. What was the last movie you watched at home?
    It’s December 30th; It’s A Wonderful Life
  11. Do you daydream?
    Rarely.
  12. Where was the last place you went?
    Given the lockdowns imposed by Governor Hoodor Blackface, and my own worry about catching the COVID, I think it was probably to Georgetown for my last infusion.
  13. What was the last show you watched an episode of?
    Jeopardy! Just before the webinar I watched tonight.
  14. How many other countries have you traveled to?
    See the question on the states. I think the last time I counted, it was like thirteen.
  15. Have you ever given someone a fake phone number?
    Yes. We had this mentally-lll woman who’d call the radio stations, and inquire about our commercial order. “Did someone call and tell you to play it in that order?” Normally, I’d say “no,” but after about the fifth call from her, I said, “yes,” and gave her the number to the local weather service temperature reporting. Her husband called later after she’d caled about it, and explained what was going on. I apologized, and hope she got the help she needed.
  16. What is something you are relieved about right now?
    That this year is almost over.
  17. What do you think of the Kardashians?
    I really don’t think about them unless someone else brings them up.
  18. So far today how much have you gotten done off your to-do list?
    A lot of it, but I’m on vacation, so I haven’t been doing a ton.
  19. Have you been in the hospital in the last 24 months?
    No.
  20. Spring, summer, fall or winter?
    Fall.

Another Saturday

Three days more of work, then no work until next year.

Maybe.

I, because I am who I am, will monitor things, and be there as long as there’s still mutual desire.

But I’m finished, and I really can’t bring myself to care about much of anything. I did get this from someone who’s actually been reading what I was writing.

But I’m finished with this year, really. Kind of appropriate background music.

What can I do, more, to get away from the craziness? I don’t know, and I’m not really thinking clearly.

I started to lay things out specifically, but I’m not sure there’s a real reason to do that.

Though, if everything goes well, it’ll be a late ending on Wednesday, and I can just step away.

News.

Last night, during our weekly pandemic get-together, there was a lot of discussion about what’s going on with the whole SolarWinds thing.

This was in my go-to online news feed when I’m writing.

The news source gets the conclusion wrong, I think, but I shouldn’t expect more, really. This shit is confusing, and you’ve got competing groups who don’t want to change what they do once they’ve become accustomed to operating in one way.

That goes to politics, too, I guess. The article is irresponsible, but it makes the fifty-something editor feel warm inside.

Saturday, again

I’ve been spending a lot of day so far continuing to piece together my writing bits for next month.

I also signed up for a ProtonMail account.

Seeing what’s happened over the past two weeks with tech editing make me feel very uncomfortable with what’s going on with “Big Tech” lately.

Twitter suspended the New York Post’s account for posting a story that was potentially-damaging to the Biden campaign.

Looking right now, just after 1300EDT on Saturday the 24th of October, and they’re still suspended.

So start your own Twitter. Start your own Facebook.

I don’t have the resources.

They also don’t have the resources to block everything forever.

The tagline of this site is Everything Gets Deleted Eventully.

Yes, it does. But everything can come back.

Search your own name in one of the search engines. and enter your name in quotation marks.

Bing shows me, as I’m signed-in to Office 365 with my corporate account; had to do my timecard. DDG doesn’t show me on the first page of results. The totes-didn’t-used-to-be-evil engine doesn’t show me on the front page, either.

Five years ago, that wouldn’t have been the case.

I’m listening to the clearly-Canadian Texas Senator, Ted Cruz who’s talking about this on his podcast.

But by putting things somewhere outside the control of the tech oligopoly, and the US government.

It used to be that if you searched for me, you’d find things like interviews about Slashdot’s tenth anniversary in the NYT.

But even with the mass deletions, I do refuse to be permanently-erased.

I’m probably not going to have a legacy through posterity, but somebody, somewhere, might find what I’ve created.

Whether it’s of any value to anyone is unimportant.

So I write. It’s what I do. It’s something I still can do.

Learning to Relax

I started writing this on Thursday, but got distracted. I’ve sortakinda been off work since Tuesday, and trying to figure out what to do with myself. See the title.


I’ve been trying to burn built-up leave. When you go, what, five years without any paid time off, you grow accustomed to just working all the time.

Because of a change in my company’s policies just before the lockdown, I had a ton of time built up that I needed to spend before the end of the calendar year.

A few weeks ago, I told my boss that I probably just wouldn’t be working on Fridays through the end of the year.

So, after I finished paying my protection racket to the “professional organization” that has a protection agreement with the government, and demands money from me every three years just so I can stay working.


My psychologist thinks that I should try doing my writing via a microphone. I don’t know what to do with speech-to-text stuff, and I’m not sure what to do with the resultant audio.

Do I try to record a podcast?

Nobody wants to listen to that shit.

Besides, who knows if I physically can even do it. This morning, after doing my normal things, I’m slowly calm down.

But when can I get some continuous sleep?

I don’t know. I’m not sleepy at this point, but definitely, as the kids would say, woke as fuck.

So work on the NoJoMo stuff for next month.

11/1: Intro, etc.

11/2: ???

11/3: Election Day

11/4: Election Day reactions (if we know the winner….) Other things in the week, relatives’ birthdays.

11/11: Veterans’ Day

11/26: Football, especially Thanksgiving Football. (As I write this, the games are evenly balanced among conferences; if you look at some previous years, I was complaining about the paucity of AFC teams….)

11/27: Thanksgiving

11/30: Final/wrap-up


Another thing I did this morning was clean up some Shmoocon entries I’d accidentally had under the NoJoMo tag. Oops.

I think what I did during the summer was somewhat-effective. Maybe I’ll try to incorporate that in. My first thought was to do that for every entry, but given everything that has been, and will be going on, I worry that I’ll be writing far too much.