Tag: NoJoMo

Yeah, I’m not going to resurrect that draft for nineteen today or tomorrow. I’m not sure what to do with it, honestly.

The more I read it, the less I like it.

Fun meeting with the HR Geeks folks on Jitsi last night. Somebody had a photo of me from probably about 2005. I don’t know who was more unimpressed, or my wife. (This would have been probably just before we met….)

I’ll do my prompt, then get back to scarred brain murmurings.

If you had unlimited funding to start your own business, what kind of business would you have? 

Again, I go back to the Office Space clip. But, no, two chicks at the same time is kinda off the table.

Do nothing.

I don’t know how long that’d last. Eventually I would probably want to do something “productive,” but would that be of use to anyone but me; would anybody buy what I make?

Random aside — I’m really enjoying this cup of Lorenzotti coffee.

But I don’t have much of anything to do right now, and I’m okay with that.

Wake up. Shower. Take pills. Drink coffee. Listen to podcasts, and write.

Will I be allowed to do that after AOC’s reconciliation? I have no idea. She, and her fellow partisans, want to take everything I’ve ever produced, then kill me if I don’t continue participating. Whatever.

I just hope the cameras are rolling.

News. I don’t know whether mu connection with non-US news sources have something to do with it, or if the pace actually is picking up.

What’s going on in Ethiopia is both troubling and confusing.

Since it’s dangeous that I get news from a variety of sources, I’ll look at Chuck Todd’s outlet.

Nothing about Ethiopia on the front page.

Nothing if you use the search tool. (I get the Wikipedia page, which is, you know, 100% credible….)

Knowing about a war going on somewhere in the world? Yeah, that’s dangerous, Chuck.

Looking through my Drafts folder, I’m seeing the one I wanted to write about yesterday, but couldn’t find.

It has some bits that are relevant. I should finish it. But not today.

How current are you on pop culture? (Memes, creepypasta, etc)

I am totally up with all of this. Or not at all.

Part of me says that’s okay. I’m old. I’m not supposed to know what the kids are doing when I don’t live with any of ’em.

I do wish they’d learn some of the things that were common when I was young, but whatever.

Microsoft Word is getting really picky lately about me putting two spaces after colons and semicolons.

This is what you learn when you learn how to type on an IBM Selectric II.

When I could see well enough to drive, on the rare occasions I drove a vehicle with an automatic transmission, I’d naturally reach for the clutch with my last foot towards the end of braking.

My wife never did learn how to drive either of my vehicles with a manual transmission. She is beginning to love my cast iron cookware, finally.

News. This is something that isn’t showing up where i normally look for news.

But, with the incoming Administration, there’s something that’s been bubbling among the hipster progressive crowd — Student Loan Forgiveness.

I was opposed to it on its original mention. I worked during college, and took care of many of my expenses. There was no room and board for me. I didn’t want to take a bunch of my parents’ money when I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with my life.

Although it’d have been long-since paid, now, they would have definitely fallen into one of the two two quartiles mentioned here.

I can see how this would be attractive to a rich Native Americanwhite Ivy League professor.

But to someone who got into a state school, and comes out with tens of thousands per year less earnings, it’s a really bad deal.

But it might suit their suburban moms.

If you forgive the debt, any part of it, that has to be counted as taxable income, at least.

But this is a problem that’s only exacerbated by government. Government has only made it less affordable. Virginia’s senior senator, Senator Nextel, was complaining on Twitter earlier today that the outgoing Administration is going to stop spending money that doesn’t exist.

I’m having trouble being too broken up about that. Let people live their lives, and they will find a way to care for themselves.

Almost two-thirds of the way through. Not a lot to say today, really. Some good exchanges with friends about various podcasts to consume.

Thinking back, I had a lot more certitude about various things back then. That kind or serves as a good bridge into today’s prompt. I somehow missed a prompt somewhere, so I had to fetch another from the stash.

Who knows.

Do you feel the need to have an opinion on everything?

No. And, saying that, sometimes something you come around to understand why things were done a way that you viewed as stupid when you were first examining them.

I’m thinking, mainly, about things like design decisions I saw on IT systems/programs. Something that appeared completely insane to me in 2002 actually makes a lot of sense now. Several of those things were completely opposite of what my opinion was.

This kind of ties back to what I talked about with sharing podcasts. I sent this to someone. There’s aspects to being a human that aren’t at all explainable.

I used to not believe that at all. That certitude is, in and of itself, an opinion on everything.

Is it possible for me to figure everything out? No. Are there a lot of things that I couldn’t care less about? Absolutely.

I’m no longer ashamed to admit that there’s things I don’t know, and probably never will.

It would make me a shitty politician, or, now, reporter.

Detroit is cancelling its Thanksgiving parade.

You have a guy who probably was elected President a couple of weeks ago who ran on the idea that if only the guy he’s replacing had done something different, the world wouldn’t be having these problems.

Que?

The Belgians didn’t have the same decision-makers, but things are still really bad there.

Stupid Flanders.

I watched something on TV from Monday night. My notes were as follows:

Plaid Oxford buttoned all the way

Crew neck sweater

Jean jacket.

Not what’d work for me, but, yeah, you do whatever works for you.

What is something you want to do that you haven’t accomplished yet? 

How is this really different than the various bucket list challenges?

I used to want to live in one of the big cities, but I’m not sure I want that anymore.

New York? Yeah, I could actually go for that.

DC? Absolutely.

Now, however, no interest at all, really.

The politicians have completely killed any desire I might have had. Do I, once again, want to live in a city?

Nope.

Would I be okay living in the middle of nowhere assuming I could get okay connectivity?

Yep.

So News.

Looks like Lady G is in trouble for some of what he’s done with the election investigation.

Lindsey is pissed. This probably started around the time the Democrats filibustered Justice Gorsuch’s nomination. Then he really went off with the Kavanaugh hearings.

I don’t know whether he’s right on what he did with his call to the Georgia Secretary of State. It doesn’t look out-of-bounds, but he’s earned a permanent space on the left’s kill list. The only thing he can do, now, is come out, ala Kevin Spacey, as part of making the whole thing go away…..

I was listening to something this morning, however. If I understand correctly, Congress passed a three-year budget. What the….? But that’s why they’re doing things like talking about a forthcoming executive order cancelling student loan debt.

Jubilee for Arts Majors.

Or as something else I saw put it, welfare for rich people who went to expensive schools.

*shrug*

Today feels like it dragged on, even though I was busy.

Started writing early today because I woke up early.

Naturally this would be the day that my WaterPik quits working.

But at least something I can put on my Christmas list.

If you could have any career, what would it be? (Assume anything you choose, you are the best in the field).

I know I shouldn’t, but I’m really going to say, “I don’t know.”

I want to be in a situation where I can work as I feel up to it. My last gig came sorta close to that. I think we were expected to keep “core hours” sometimes, but a lot of the operation was more towards the West Coast; I could relax some.

That said, holidays there were one of the bigger down-sides. I would really like to ensure that I can eat Thanksgiving dinner, or watch a football game without disruption. I couldn’t necessarily do that there.

I would feel less bad about taking time off, though, knowing that there was someone around who could stamp out whatever fires might spring up.

I don’t know. I’m at a fork in the road, perhaps, professionally.

How long can I do what I’ve been doing?

I do know that I can’t do it in an office or datacenter anymore.

And that’s okay.

But there’s an option I have with my current situation that’ll pay me enough to live off of for a long time. Maybe I shouldn’t think as much about doing that as I do, but, well….

News.

I stumbled across a story about what’s going on on Armenia on Parler. The stuff going on over with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Wow. In a story I saw on another site, there was something about people setting their houses on fire to keep the invaders from taking their stuff. I think this has many of the same details.

Protecting property is something government is supposed to do.

In this case, absent government protection, people are torching it to prevent invaders from getting it.

People value their own shit. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

And, no, you can’t have a pony. Not yours.

And people might be willing to destroy their own stuff just to prevent you from having it.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Writing early again today, as I had a doctor’s appointment over videoconference.

This Telehealth stuff is really a game-changer. The particular doctor I saw this morning can get the clinical data he needs from a sensor, and I don’t have to actually go in to an office.

Even if I lived close to his office, that’d be something like two hours of missed work time. Given than his office is probably a good 30 minutes away, now, I’d be looking at an extra two hours for travel.

I’m wondering, too, what it’s going to do to doctors’ office space requirements. How much is a practice paying just for office waiting areas?

But, because I’m in my appointment window, I can write.

If you could have any career, what would it be? (Assume anything you choose, you are the best in the field)

I think I’d want to write. I can’t see very well. I can’t be on my feet very long. I can’t speak that well anymore. I can still write, sorta.

I’ve been trying to decide how I could do something. Everybody and his brother has a podcast now. I have a blog. Yes, like all of them, it sucks. Could I do something where I take the one biggest story I see for the day, and offer a bit of my take on it? Would anyone care? Probably not.

News for today…..Moderna is all like, I’ll see your 90% effectiveness on a COVID vaccine, and raise you 4.5%.

I do need to find some more analysis of what they’ve done with these vaccines. It sounds like they’re really a departure from what had been done for years.

It’s no longer finding a similar less problematic virus, or giving dead or live viruses to build immune response.

These use RNA that build immunity without using the actual virus, or something similar.

Medical science is advancing. But, if only Donald Trump had acted sooner, we’d have less of the sort of thing we were accustomed to, and maybe they’d sort of work.

I really hope that Biden is the least powerful president we’ve had since before the Great Depression.

Something I meant to write about during yesterday’s entry….

Discussion with one of my best friends about use of the restaurant delivery apps.

Yes, the restaurant delivery services sorta fuck restaurants. 
BUT
Isn’t the restaurant agreeing to those terms by offering its food there?
They can choose to not participate if they don’t like the terms….
Yeah, it’d be better to find some way to spare the restaurant that cost, but they agreed to it. 

I’m really not sure what to think or say about it. These costs aren’t implemented by force; the restaurants agree to pay them to sell that way.

On the other side, governments are placing arbitrary limits on what these companies can charge.

If the restaurants lobbied for those caps, they’re the ones violating the nonaggression principle.

He did finally get back to me, and said that it’s kind of a one-way transaction. The delivery services set up services for a restaurant whether or not the restaurant had sought, or agreed to, the plan participation.

Then there’s little that can be done for dispute resolution, because of the credit card companies involved.

I haven’t been paying all that close attention to what the CC companies are doing. I had kind of barely kept track, after hearing what they were doing to the evil gun companies, but really wasn’t tracking all that closely.

In a society that’s practically cashless now, it disturbs me that companies can just refuse service to other companies based on whatever whim they’ve chosen.

Imagine, if you will, a situation where people convicted of crimes weren’t allowed to even have cash…..?

Halfway finished. What’s gone right, what could be better?

I don’t know. I’ve been pretty good about making sure that things get done. I’ve probably short-armed a few entries, sure, but I have written a few things about which I can be proud.

Obviously my scarred brain has been working overtime.

I worry about things that may not affect me that directly, while failing to notice other things.

The MTA on ^H was down for just over two weeks. Oops.

Not that anybody is reading or commuting here, anyway.

But I’m going to be on the downslope of the month, so there’s that.

In previous periods, I would have been very relieved that I was more than halfway through. Now, however, it’s just another thing that I need to do for….

Lockdown world. Nothing to look forward to. Things happen, but nothing memorable.

I know I’ve written about this one before, but I’m going to recycle it.

Book that left a lasting impression. Why?

I was a bit concerned I wouldn’t get through this audiobook before I was set to write on this prompt today.

I finished listening to it yesterday.

The book? How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World.

I’d decided I wanted to read it again, for the first time since probably 1999, as Jo Jorgensen was running for President.

As I said, I voted for Dr. J. this year, despite some very deep reservations about her campaign team ran the campaign.

I handed out Harry Browne campaign literature on campus in 2000. Dr. J. had been his running mate in 1996, but had kind of fallen off the LP screen. She was off in South Carolina teaching psychology.

I had, myself, fallen away from the party after 9/11 happened in my next-to-last semester in college. I’d voted specifically against John McCain, and for George W. Bush, in Virginia’s open primary in 2000, and voted for Harry Browne in the general election.

If you live in a locality that’s been controlled by the Democrats since the Union occupiers moved out in 1876, you normally need to vote in the Democratic primary just so you can have any bit of a vote for some of the local office.

That’s kind of where I was when I lived in Norfolk. Living here in Alexandria, it’s the same sort of thing.

These localities haven’t had an elected Republican in more than a centaury. If you cared about seeing your local sheriff replaced, you had to vote in the Democratic primary.

How I Found Freedom is really not a political book, but it does describe some of the things that really flavor my politics.

Nobody rules you but you.

When I moved up here, I was actually using one of the tactics straight from that book, a book I hadn’t read in twenty years.

Get to zero, then build the life you want starting from zero. I was actually picking through some of my writings from probably 2015 until early this year, really, which was the idea of Get To Zero.

No debt. Few, if any, commitments that would keep me from being free do to what I want to do.

Dr. Jorgensen’s campaign was actually a decent re-statement of what Harry Browne ran on in 1996 and 2000. She’s been on campus, isolated from the world, and some of the things her campaign did this year really show that.

As for other things the book teaches, I wonder how much of it overcome by history. In the world of COVID-19 lockdowns, is there really anywhere where you can go to live the life you might want to live?

I don’t know.

So. News.

There’s this on what Justice Alito said about the lockdowns. I’m actually listening to this at the same time.

The chances of me getting COVID-19 are near zero. The chances of me dying from it are smaller, still.

Is there anywhere where I can still be free?

I really don’t know.

Not a lot to say, really. More recycling from things that were in the Drafts category, but I’d never posted…

I accidentally had a second prompt for my trip to Georgetown.

That happened, and I described a bit of it yetsterday.

Takeaways I didn’t cover yesterday:

With those out of the way, what else do I have to say….?

I’m trying to keep an open mind about the electoral results. This, really, could be real change in Washington. Notsomuch due to the Trump surrogates’ bigotry, but because at least it’s a completely new crowd.

Regardless of what happens, it’s not going to be an administration full of recycled Ford and Clinton folks (which is what we saw with the last two administrations). If an opportunity presented itself to get me to DC to work in the Administration, I don’t know that I’d turn it down. (Though they probably would want nothing to do with me after I didn’t vote for them…..)

I guess I wrote this coming into a recent administration transition.

I didn’t like the Trump Administration, but how much of it is going to stick, really.

I think if he just declassifies a bunch of stuff on his way out, along with pardons of some hated people from the past *cough*Snowden*cough*Flynn*cough*Assange*cough*Ulbrecht*cough*

It’s pretty incredible how much I’ve “come home,” as it were, on many things.

The entire world was lied to.

I, personally, was opposed to Iraq II until I heard Tony Blair pitch it to Parliament.

But a lot of what was given as intelligence wasn’t true.

So. News from today.

AOC wants a “truth and reconciliation” commission to deal with Trump supporters.

I guess she missed the lectures about this in school. Hell, was she even alive when Tiananmen Square?

Or is it a new House Un-American Activities Committee?

Things that don’t fit in with the artfully-crafted narrative.