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.

One

Focusing on August. I’ve spent the past two days largely trying to sit through enthralling courses to earn credits to pay my fucking protection for the certification that lets me keep working.

It does make me want to give up. You spend hours upon hours watching people read fucking Power Point slides, then do virtual labs that don’t work more than half the time.

For this, I’ve paid hundreds of dollars.

Why?

There was a story on the news this morning about a deployed USAR officer who was buying a house in MDDR without ever visiting it.

My wife was completely opposed to this.

I kind of am, too, but I can understand the circumstances.

I’ve thought several times about what I might do when I finally decide to take my leave.

Back to Tidewater? But that doesn’t get me away from Governor Hoodor Blackface, and his supporters.

Somewhere else? Yeah, but where?

I’m oddly intrigued lately by the Texas Gulf Coast. I can remember when I was younger looking at maps, etc., and there was one county along the Gulf Coast that was basically one family’s ranch.

That’s kinda neat, but, my reservations were largely related to the lack of connectivity down there.

Now, however, I don’t know. Even though 5G might cause COVID-19, my attitude is kind of “whatever.” (I know, showing my Gen Xness there…) But I’m inside the swamp, now, and I really only leave when I need to go to the doctor.

The ride might be a bit longer, but my life wouldn’t be a lot different. So. Why not?

Other stuff….

Dave Rubin is taking the month of August off from news and social media.

I do have to admit that I have a tinge of jealousy with that, but I can’t ever see myself in a position where I’d be able to do with that.

Information coming in, and thoughts going out, have been part of my existence, really, my entire adult life. Financially, too, it’s never been an option.

I can’t imagine it, and I don’t know how I’d even try to do it.

March, maybe, I should try.

But do I even really want to?

No news check today. Some of my friends online dropped a link to a different news site, HNN.

One of the stories I saw yesterday was of interest. I’d seen something on Dark Tourist on Netflix where they were trying to get inside there not terribly long ago.

Cypress is a UN success story, if there ever was one….

Lookback time.

Blonde – 8/1/2001

I am. Or I’m getting there again. My hair is bleaching out. Maybe it’s going gray.

Nope. I shouldn’t get so lucky.

I had a lot more hair back then.

If I let it grow, it’d still not be gray. If there’s a natural hair color, it grows out of my head. Except gray. I figured that’d happen at some point.

But I also figured I’d be able to grow a beard by the time I was 40, too. My odd genetics don’t permit it. Let’s just say that I’m a lot more American Indian than Elizabeth Warren.

I can’t help myself sometimes.

My hair is pretty dark these days. That might be somewhat due to my pretty much constant indoor existence.

My mother found a picture recently while she was cleaning out her house of my dad, my brother, and I.

I probably would have been about five years old. Long, straight blonde hair. My little brother with very curly blonde hair.

And my dad looking very much like me as an adult.

Time to wrap it up for the day.

Thirty-one

I meant to write about this yesterday, but I forgot.

Much of what’s been on the local news lately has been about the various mask mandates to address COVID.

Yes, I wear a mask on the rare occasions i go out. Yes, I think people should do the same. But I don’t think throwing people in prison does anything to stop the spread.

From the politicians’ perspective, however, this is a win-win.

If people put on masks, you close businesses, churches, etc., and the spread stops, you can claim credit. And do it in the future for whatever is ailing society. You’re doing what’s best for people, and whatever rights you violate in the process justify it.

If your draconian orders don’t work, and there’s not 100% compliance with your direction, you can blame the noncompliance.

My view on things has been very cynical lately, and I expressed that hearing the fourth-hand talking points about how the President should be impeached again. Since a Republican was saying it, it must be true.

What will the corporate press cover? Hmmmm…

On to the news….

After 9/11, if I’d known that OBL was living in Pakistan, combined with a story like this, I’d have been behind attacking Pakistan.

Or just stay away, and let them do whatever it is that they’re doing. I’ll continue just not giving them any of my money.

It’s really not that difficult.

Nothing – 7/31/2002

Nothing has been going on, and I’m uninspired.

Finished watching the entire first season of the Sopranos, and will have nothing to do tomorrow night.

Nothing and I’m uninspired

The Intertubes are a lot more active these days. That’s both a good and a bad thing, I guess. I was watching The Sopranos largely because there wasn’t much else to do at 1:30 in the morning when I wasn’t on the air.

Thirty

I ended up just taking today off. I’ve only gone to the work computer once to check on things.

Obviously I’ve been looking at email, etc..

And trying to get through this protection racket. Essentially what I’m having to do at this point is do the exercise, then wait until the clock is nearly expired before I mark it as complete. Lamesauce.

I absolutely hate that I have to do this in order to keep working a few more years. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.

Yes, I’d like to stay at it a for a few more years. No, I don’t know if I can.

At the same time, I’m not sure what else I’d do.

Write. It’s what I do. Sometimes.

It’s about the only thing I have to spill out these thoughts bouncing about my scarred brain.

I used to speak more, especially when I was on the radio. That said, when I was 21 years old, I had problems with my diction speed.

Hell, I was nicknamed “John Wayne” by some of the folks on my high school football team. (Where there were six Sean/Shaun/Shawns. My parents wanted to give me something distinct, so they gave me the most popular boys’ name of the 1970s as a first name, and the second most-popular name as my middle name….)

I’ll admit that the nickname could have been due to my lack of running speed, too, but I’ll just say that it was probably a lot more about how slowly I spoke.

In 2005, I finally moved into a situation where I was doing on-air work beyond really just live assist for network programs.

2005 was about the time, in the wake of John Kerry’s rollicking success in the 2004 race, a bunch of the hipster progressives decided that they could probably do talk radio better than the conservatives could.

I listened. It was unspeakably awful. Beck did a bit that he was going to air an abortion. I should have known it was a complete bit when his bumper for one of the segments was Rooster by Alice In Chains, but….he ended up playing as segment of Al Franken and his giggling sidekick as the “abortion.”

Where I was living at the time, AA were on a very low-power AM stick, but the programming was just atrocious.

At the time, one of the flagship shows was “The Young Turks.”

I paid attention to it a bit, as it was marginally more entertaining than Al Franken, or Rachel Maddow.

But it was terrible.

Since Air America found its well-deserved death, the show has bounced around.

One of the podcasts I listen to had a death watch for them a few months ago. Somehow they’re still around, even after their hopes and dreams for a public execution for treason evaporated.

The entry from the archives I have is here:

7/30/05 – 7/30/2005

The talk radio business is a strange one, but it’s gotten tons stranger since Air Amerikkka showed up.

Turns out they took a “loan” from a charity funded by the City of New York. Details.

And, their flagship, WLIB-AM, now has lower ratings than before they went on the air. Of course, the folks over at the Daily Kos won’t ention that.

Please excuse the typo I see there. Chances are that I hammered that out on an ancient laptop in bed, or in a dark radio studio.

I tried to find their meltdown on Election night in 2016 as their prophet lost.

That actually was entertaining. Kennedy mentioned on her show one time that watching those was something she does to cheer herself up.

Maybe if I could have found that video, it would have improved my mood some, too.

Oh well.

TYT, and the main host, are kind of the broadcast equivalents of cockroaches.

Tucker Carlson actually found a place to live after being the resident conservative on pretty much every cable news outlet.

Things pass. My radio career. Friends. Family. Eventually me.

But not the cockroaches of the corporate press.