^H

Yeah, no writing yesterday because I was working to fix a problem that someone else should have been following while I was away, and really isn’t my responsibility, either. So it goes. I’ll keep doing what I can to help even if I’m really frustrated.

Best friend from high school turned me on to this.

My responses to this, especially with the first few episodes…

1. I wonder if some of the neuroscience stuff might of be interest the docs at Georgetown. A lot of the research cited is involving how a child’s brain synchronizes the various elements of language to learn to read. I’m wondering how the decline of my vision is affecting my language. It’s very difficult for me to read at this point. I do listen to lots of things, but reading something is often just an exercise in frustration. (Aside — The Substack app would need to improve to suck when it comes to reading on an iPhone SE screen. I can enable zoom to help some, but it’s still frustrating. So, too, are the things I’m trying to consume as a freeloader that don’t allow you to listen to an ep unless you’re a paying subscriber. Cluestick — I might wanna read your stuff, but that doesn’t mean I’m sure I wanna pay for it. If I like it, I will, of course, but…) In some ways, this would be of more interest to me than whatever effects the various psychotropic substances would have on me.
2. The podcast would (have been?) of great interstress to my mother when she was completely cogent. (That’s where I was end of last week, and early this week. I did send the podcast to her, but I’m not sure if she’ll be able to listen to it. Kind of wondering whether digging into something she was working on when she was healthy. The Bush Derangement Syndrome afflicting one of the teachers who was completely against My Pet Goat until her kid was diagnosed with Dyslexia. I don’t know if she’ll get a chance to listen to it, but I’m wondering if something like that might spark something.

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Had other interesting discussions about current events. Even more is coming about the disaster that is the Libertarian Party.

Just turn it off, and you’ll be more content.

I still have no idea what I’m going to do when it comes to November. At this point, I think I’ll probably end up writing in someone for President. Vice President isn’t something I can really split on the Virginia ballot, but voting against the Vice President would be very high on my priority list after seeing this.

It ties back to the suspicion I’d said a few weeks ago — that there’d be people who will find some way to pin what’s going on in Haiti on the US.

Um.

But it’ll fit in with what I wrote about recently; right about everything all the time. All along.

Yes, it’s one of the podcasts I frequently consume. But the impossibility of being wrong was something that the RON PAUL crowd would eagerly proclaim about their political prognostications.

Right. About everything. All of the time.

Like Russia wasn’t going to invade Ukraine.

That Russia would win quickly.

That it’d steer people away from joining NATO.

That the Petrodollar would collapse because of BRICS, and they’d be able to make up the difference because of global demand.

Right. About everything. All of the time. RON PAUL

Similarly, there was a new story as I was languishing in a hotel room in Biloxi that gave me a lot of pause.

To hear the explanations for the “housing bubble,” it was all about either the Federal Reserve, or the big banks.

NAR agreed to a settlement of early a half-billion dollars about the things they’ve done.

That’s not the big banks. It’s not the Fed. Both the buyers’ and sellers’ agents were making a 3% commission on every house they sold.

How many of those people suffered anything for their part in creating the crisis.

I think I’ve written about how the radio where I was working in 1999 had twelve separate mortgage br0kers advertising on two AM talk stations at the same time. Most of them were arm-in-arm with a Realtor. Only a Realtor is a Realtor.

The agent gets his/her 3% for the sale. The mortgage broker gets a cut on the initial sale, a fee when it’s refinanced, then bundles them to sell off to Fannie or Freddie.

The Realtor has a fancy new car to show off properties and further perpetuate the scheme.

What do the Millenia’s do in response? Elect Obama who reinflated the housing and stock markets.

Trump, armed with still-depressed interest rates, continued the inflation.

Sally the Realtor, and Bill the mortgage broker, yeah, they had to surrender their leased vehicles, but never faced anything more in penalties.

And, while they head towards retirement, are taking tax deductions for whatever mortgage interest they’ve got left.

And they’ll do that forever.

103 days.

That’s how long until every single Boomer can start taking pre-tax withholdings without penalty.

The inline spellcheck doesn’t like “Freebird.” C’mon, Tim. You’re from Alabama. That’s not misspelled.

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Things to remember for next trip — check the dates of spring break.

That’s definitely affected hotel selection.

Laying half-awake thinking about a lot of things. I fell asleep yesterday afternoon. Big springtime thunderstorm. Nothing I really wanted to do. Let the medication I’d left behind course through my system, and sleep. What should have been a two-hour nap ended up being about six and a half. Oops.

But it was fine.

Dinner was okay. I ordered a gin Martini. He didn’t understand what it was.

Um.

Martini. Made with gin. Not vodka. Martini.

Oh!

..

You want it with Crown, not Jack?

MARTINI. GIN. NO DARK LIQUOR.

Oh. *scurries away*

.

Probably because he didn’t have a clue about what a Martini was, he didn’t ask what I’d like in it. The bartender also sent two shot glasses — one containing lime, one containing four pimento-stuffed olives. (I used the former, if that’s of any interest at all to anyone….not like anyone’s reading this, anyway…)

But back to the somewhat-incomprehensible at this point title.

A lot of what I’ve been listening to/watching on my ride has been about creation of things, I guess. Works of literature. Jokes. Music.

Can anyone really play “Freebird” well?

Does anyone really need to hear it?

Maybe as evidence of your ability to do something, but I’m not seeing a lot beyond that.

There’s videos various places around the Intertubes of Brad Paisley playing “Hot For Teacher” in concert. Shows that he is a very good guitarist. Fun little factoid, but doesn’t say much about his overall talent.

I suppose the question is how to you weave the various things you do have into something that’s of interest to someone, even if that’s only you, yourself.

There are some clever people out there. Sadly, I often find myself listening to things like this. God I want to throttle that guy.

Still no gambling. Getting here so late Thursday night, and errand on Friday morning, then accidental deep nap. Oops.

Maybe the next one. But I have a stay at a hotel intervening because of the price of the casino rooms.

But more soon. Maybe.

Trying to tick off some of the buzzwords I’m hearing a lot lately.

We don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but we’re going to do it faster with less concern for design and cost. It’ll totally work.

Why am I reminded of the Raiders circa 2004?

Because that’s where my scarred brain goes. What can I do?

But things still aren’t fixed with my main work. At every turn, there’s another reason not to light things off.

The ancient nature of it all makes that less of a concern, but it’s still something that is bang-your-head-on-the-desk bothersome.

I’m getting to the point where I’m gaining enough insight to offer alternatives.

Naturally, that evokes the we’ve-been-doing-this-a-long-time. response.

You know, if you’re behaving that way with your own money, whatever. When you’re doing it with other people’s money, that’s a different story. Even more so when it’s money that’s been stolen from othersderived from taxes.

But I return to my tried-and-true suspicion — that something simple is usually the correct approach.

The simple solution will work well for a while. Then, maybe, the reasons you rejected something in the past disappear, and there’s something better to replace things.

So says the dude who’s spent a lot more time than he should trying to get Mailman2 to compile and run from pkgsrc.

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What else from the week?

State of the Union spech.

I watched. Unimpressed. Same with the response.

*wanders off to look to see if I wrote about the last really-unhinged similar speech from 2009*

Nope. Nothing.

Take-aways from Joey Bideness’s address:

• January 6^th was the worst thing ever
• Let’s pass the John Lewis voting bill that’ll make it impossible for anyone not anointed by the Party of Bull Connor to win
• Joining a union will make your life better, and fix every problem you have
• Orange Man Bad
• The economy is awesome
• Companies are greedy
• Orange Man Really Bad
• Building a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid
• The immigration bill that didn’t get drafted until a few months ago would have prevented the problems caused by the excisemen of the polices from Orange Man Gad in January 2021

Katie Britt’s response

• Joey Bideness is bad
• Laken Riley
• Teach your kids to Roll Tide

Nobody’s going to fix things, and will probably make things worse.

I just don’t want to participate with anything. With the folks from Auburn flirting with RFK Jr. again, more, that’ll eliminate him has the least-worst option for me in November.

Screw you guys, I’m goin’ home.

Autocomplete suggested that I title this “Rainy Saturday Morning.” I suspect that I wrote that sometime in the past, but I’m a little too lazy to go check. Maybe after I write.

With football gone, I’ve been paying a bit more attention to news. This week’s been a doozy.

Going kind of revers-follow order, what is going on in Moldova? Just something I stumbled across looking at “Trending” on TwitterX. (The people really incensed about dead-naming never say anything when it’s done to a website; why is that?) Romania is a NATO and EU country. Moldova is the latter, and actually looks like it’d be a good fit for the former, so that means Russia should take it. Um.

*glances over to see that WordPress is warning me about my colors being difficult to read. What? I’d be writing this in EMACS if there was a good way to do that, and only use your editor because it’s convenient. By the way, it’d be really helpful if there was a way to set to open new links in tabs so I don’t have to click on them twice. Kthxbai*

But it looks like the Moldovans have been trying to integrate themselves into a modern Europe. You know, a place that respects the human rights as enumerated by Locke.

But, like, see, my Uber drive once told me that there was this agreement between Gorbachev and Bush 41 saying after German reunification, there’d be no eastward advance of NATO. I mean, the guy who explained that there wasn’t genocide in either Cambodia or Bosnia said it happened, so it happened.

Along those lines, also tailing the Steve Baker and Catherine Herridge stories.

Whether or not you appreciate their reporting, there’s absolutely a right to report whatever. And withhold your sources.

Where you think those rights come from is entirely up to you. At one time, the enlightened world at least agreed on those rights.

Today, on the other hand, the only fundamental human right is to have a vote automatically tallied for you as being for one particular political party.

I should fill out my absentee ballot, even though it’ll make absolutely no difference where I live.

I also have been following, from a distance, the stuff going on with the cases surrounding President Trump. Especially what’s going on in Fulton County, Georgia.

The merits of the case, as with most racketeering cases, seem very weak to me. I understand that Rudy Giuliani made a name for himself using similar Federal statutes against the New York Mafia families, but were things really better in New York because a bunch of well-dressed guys ended up slicing the garlic so thin you could see through it?

Or was it because of other things?

But back to Fani, I remember being a young dude working in broadcast, glancing at a young woman DJ who’d actually talk to me.

“Don’t shit where you eat.”

Of course, I knew the rules around sexual harassment. It was kind of everywhere in military education following Tailhook.

But, even without the power dynamics, it’s generally a good idea not to even consider anyone you work with.

The perils outweigh any possible benefits.

Thinking more about what I’d written this weekend along with the problems I’m facing at work.

You need an expert to do whatever.

But that brought me back to what was perhaps my first ever certification, the Red Cross babysitter certification.

I had to have that to charge to babysit kids on post. On Carl Schurz Kaserne in Bremerhaven.

Out on a date with my girlfriend (she is forever my girlfriend, even if I did put a ring on it…), I demonstrated folding a cloth diaper.

Who needs to do that anymore?

But that was a part of the certification. So I learned it, and it stuck. That unused extra napkin meant for the ribs I’d ordered, served as a representation of a cloth diaper.

I remembered hot to fold it. And secure it.

What use is that today? Even, almost twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have increased my chances of reproducing. (Though I really nixed that by determining she and I would form Butters?)

What use was that during the Bush 41 Administration?

I’ve also learned how to set engine timing using a timing light, and change carburetor jets. What use is that in 2024?

.

You figure it out.

I really don’t like comparisons to cooking or cars (as he says with Chapped running in a background windows), but I also learned how to run a timing light, and how to gap ignitions points.

Does that make me a competent source for auto Maintenace?

Things change; get over it. Still, there’s things that stand the test of time.

Even if there was a way to buy something that cleared those, I don’t care.

Didn’t write yesterday because, as I said in my sign-off Friday, I was livid about a work situation.

First, if you schedule a meeting for 1500 on a Friday afternoon, you’re an asshole. Second, my general attitude towards meetings was very much in play. You need to publish an attendee list, take then publish minutes. If you don’t do that, you’re wasting the time of all but about the five most-active participants.

Unfortunately, I was one of those five most-active on something I hadn’t really been following all that closely.

The solution isn’t that difficult, but you have to know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.

Lots of thoughts this week about how there’s so little appreciation of things that don’t last.

Figure out what’s the problem you, and your team, are trying to solve. Solve the problem. Leave. None of the particulars about how you fixed the problem are important.

And they shouldn’t persist.

Though I was never even an adequate programmer, I’d understand that you don’t import libraries that you’re not going to use, then leave them around forever.

Oh, look! There’s a smaller library that’ll allow you to do what you were trying to do more efficiently. Nawp. Can’t use that. We use this library. There’s no other way to do it. Further, still, we don’t have the slightest clue about what we’re actually trying to do. Nope. We use this tool.

*headdesk*

Imagine refusing to use a toilet if the toilet wasn’t the manufacturer you prefer. Or if the toilet paper was different.

But that’s where things are so often in big IT.

We have to buy this expensive stuff. There is no alternative. Here’s an old document that says you have to use the expensive stuff.

To. Do. What?

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Somewhat-related, I suppose. The Marines passed their audit. The RON PAUL chorus will say about as much about that as they’ll say about the rallies in support of Ukraine yesterday.

But their foreign policy experts, who you can see if you take an Uber in Austin, said Russia was going to win quickly after they weren’t going to invade.

Um.

I still haven’t filled out my ballot so I can vote in my heavily-gerrymandered district against someone in the uniparty.

It’s really not that big of a concern, I guess.

.

Trump won South Carolina. Bigly. So another election where there’s nobody I’d even consider voting for.

Rambling. Time for coffee.

I was listening to this today.

I did post some response there, but it’s another example of something that goes to what I’ve been on for a long time.

If you don’t like me, great. Please calmly let me know, and I’ll just go somewhere else.

When I say, “you can leave,” I do take that advice, myself. If you’re firing employees for something as innocuous as refusing to be physically attracted to a member of the same biological ses, again, please just be up front with that so I can not give you any of my money.

Along the same lines, you can refuse to do business with places that do what you think are the wrong things. For an example of a place trying to do the right thing, look here. For one who didn’t, there was this.

In both circumstances, the owners should have:

1. Apologized
2. Fired the staff who caused the issue

You don’t have a right to a job. If you refuse to work, that’s fine. You quit.

Callback to the late, great Lewis Grizzard.

Kinda fits with what I’ve been listening to, today, surrounding Rachel Dolezal, as well as somewhat came out during the Fani Willis disqualification hearing.

Call me a prude; I don’t care.

There’s things about you that you should keep to yourself Nobody needs to know how you look, what your sexual proclivities are. I really don’t want to know about your personal activities.

If that makes me a prude, whatever.

If I’m lucky enough to see your normally-covered bits, or know about your sexual habits, it’s because you find me special enough to share that with me. If I accidentally catch a glimpse of something that you haven’t willingly shared with me, privately and personally, I’m not going to obsess over it.