ROLEY

Author: Kris Roley

  • Monday, June 15th 2024

    Recently I thought I’d try writing things—jokes, mainly-as they came to me. I liked it, but it just doesn’t fit with my mindset of what I (think I) want this site to be. I am forever a work in progress. There was a time where I was convinced that being forever a work in progress was a bad thing. I think there were people around me that were frustrated that I couldn’t be set in one thing, but that’s just not me. I’m going to be 54 next week, and my GAF was all but destroyed years ago.

    It’s not me, it’s you.

    Apparently my former employer is still ‘restructuring’. I saw that some remarkable human beings I had the pleasure of working with were told that his services are no longer required. I’m sure it’s nothing more than cutting the higher paid people in order to have someone else do the same job (or twice the work!) for less money. Still, the thing that’s really bothering me about this round is that it involved call center associates. They said over and over when I dodged the first two rounds of layoffs was that they weren’t going to touch the call center floor. I guess that’s been forgotten. It was only a matter of time. The company makes cameras and printers, neither of which are widely used by consumers anymore, and they were way behind the curve on things the rest of the camera world had embraced years earlier.

    I know it’s not supposed to be personal, but when you invest a great amount of yourself and your time it’s hard to not take it personally. In my case, I’ve always felt it WAS personal. It really destroyed me for a long time to the point that I couldn’t do anything creative at all. I hope my friend can bounce back better than I did. I also hope he can make an honest go with his photography business. I’d like to direct you to his photography website, but it appears to be down. So I’ll direct you to his Facebook Page. Please have a look and if he brings back his shop site, please consider buying something from him, and by all means spread the word.

    We’d like you to decide, even though you’ve already decided.

    I honestly don’t know how this isn’t the simplest of decisions. I don’t care who the Democratic nominee is, I’m voting for that person because I am not interested in opening the Seventh Seal of the Apocalypse. Is Biden older than dirt? Of course he is. Do I care? Maybe, but that’s what the 25th Amendment is for. I’m waiting for the first Republican to say a damn thing about the 25th Amendment, but if I was a betting man, I’d bet they will stay quiet about handing the Presidency to Kamala. Funny thing, that. I bet they do return to the birtherism real quick, tho.

    That said, Biden hasn’t helped his cause. The stuttering is baked in, as far as I’m concerned. What isn’t baked in is the switching up of names, the rambling and gibberish with no real direction, and the long—LONG—pauses. Yes, Trump does it too. Breaking News: They’re both old as fuck. However, that’s the ballot. Unless there’s a real, successful draft at the DNC in Chicago (the irony!), Biden is the nominee. No draft movement has ever been successful.

    He’s Just This Guy, You Know?

    Trump is the immediate existential danger, but if I’m being honest it’s not Trump himself I’m worried about. What worries me is the Zaphod effect.

    In the classic-oh-my-god-this-is-required-reading novel The Hitchikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, the President of the Galaxy is Zaphod Beeblebrox. He brings nothing to the table. He’s a party animal and an idiot. But his antics distract the people so they’re not paying attention to the folks really doing the work. That’s Trump.

    Trump is going to Trump. We know this. They know this as well, and they’re counting on it.

    Yeah, but when is the Two Minutes of Hate?

    The RNC convention started today, and maybe I’m just old. I remember conventions being run differently. Not covered differently (although I can make that argument as well), but it seems more like a marriage of informercial and cult worship than it used to be. I’m watching C-SPAN for neutral coverage (because I am that nerd), and some minor amusements.

    • *First, I see Marsha Blackburn, the protokaren from Tennessee, found the time to brush that rats nest she calls a hairdo.
    • Second, it’s funny to hear the band playing Where The Streets Have No Name, but dare not speak a word of it.
    • They’re doing the nomination election at 3pm on the first day. Why the first day, and why not in Primetime? Also, it has been my experience that at some point, someone makes a motion to wrap up the nomination by acclamation. Not so in this case. Ego much?
    • Junior’s a twat. Also, Junior’s a twat.
    • Youngkin is slightly less of a twat than Junior, but the twatfulness is still strong.
    • They are really calling The Orange Mush ‘the bravest man in America.’
    • All the folks who read their speeches from a phone or a sheet of paper and STILL mangled their way through their state delegate votes totals need to have a fucking seat when it comes to Biden’s stutter or prompter use.
    • You can always count on old white dudes (including me) to have the worst rhythm in the known universe. Awkward knows no party.
    • In what must be the first documented Karen moment of the convention, Senior Karen was upset that Middle-aged Chad wanted her to stop waving her Trump placard long enough for him to get a picture of…something. Probably the house band, Slightly Spicy Mayo (I don’t know, why not?), to document their playing ‘I Want You To Want Me’ for 15 minutes.

    It’s only 4pm. This should be fun…

  • KJP’s Inner Monologue

    (What in the actual, physical and spiritual fuck is happening right now? How many times am I gonna have to answer the same fucking question about this? Jesus, Mary and Frankenberry. I mean, normally it’s just Doocy that acts like a decerebate, now I have a whole fucking room of them.

    Meanwhile, I got a boss that’s hiding under his desk and shouting the Gondor calls for aid. I bet that was the movie on the flight home? While we’re on the subject…jet lag? Really? D-Day and the G7? That was a month ago. How long does it take to get back to normal? It’s six hours, not six fucking weeks!

    I swear, I can just install a See and Say in every one of these motherfuckers that just says “Is he dropping out? Does he have dementia? Why does everything here smell like formaldehyde and regret?” Get me out of here.

    I never want to see a pint of ice cream for as long as I live.)

  • 19 Years Ago Today, We Didn’t Have To Wish.

    I turned off all the phones, I shut down all the computers, and told the world I’d plot the most violent of endings if I was interrupted during the duration of this event.

    It will never happen again, but it happened this one time, and it was…

    It was.

  • Jobs For The Recently Disbarred Crazy Uncle In Your Life

    1. Quality Control for the YKK Zipper Company

    2. Masking Fragrance Tester

    3. Cloud Tamer

    4. Landscape Whisperer

    5. Box Color Hair Model

    6. “Boxcar Rudy”

    7. Sentence Diagrammer

    8. “OhHELLNOFans”

    9. The comedy stylings of Rudy and Sidney.

    10. Example.

  • ARTICLE: Maybe We Should Start Learning Swedish

    Today’s Supreme Court decision on immunity doesn’t fill me with confidence. To look at social media today, there’s a lot of spewing on both sides about which side ‘won’.

    No one ‘won’, but I think *we* lost.

    This argument isn’t about Trump. This is about the Presidency. It doesn’t matter who that person is, but everyone you see or read is preoccupied with the short term. They’re also reading for the lowest of hanging fruit. Democrats are saying “Well, that means that Biden can (insert wet dream here)!” Over on the MAGA side they’re dragging out the ‘mug of liberal tears jokes’ again. Neither side is interested in looking beyond November of 2024 out of political convenience.

    As an example, take a look at what happened when Harry Reid nuked the 60 vote cloture rule for all judicial nominations except for the Supreme Court in 2013. In the short term it gave the Senate Democrats the ability to confirm their nominations to the bench with a simple majority. Great news for the Democrat majority, until they lose that majority.

    In 2017, Mitch McConnell—having regained the position of Majority Leader— stepped through the door that Harry Reid opened and nuked the 60 vote threshold for Supreme Court Justices. As a result, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett were confirmed relatively easily without a vote from the Democratic side. We all know the rest of that story.

    The point is that what was politically expedient for one party in the Senate in the short term worked against them in the long term. Presidential immunity will be no different. There’s nothing to stop a President from taking any action they like as long as it can be justified as an official action. That means that they will find a way to argue that everything they do is an official action, and litigating that will take longer than these Trump cases. The President—any President—is now unburdened by the threat of prosecution, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

    What will change is the group that thinks that it’s not a problem.

  • VIDEO: Michael J Fox and Coldplay Destroyed Me.

    Listen, this song hits me right in the feels anyway. WHY YOU DO THIS CHRIS MARTIN?

    Man.

  • Journal, April 24th, 2024

    • There are days when I wish I had more than one choice for internet in my neighborhood. Cox is the de facto monopoly here, and I have to play their game since I work from home. Lately, my connection keeps dropping several times a day. While it is a nuisance for me, it is a real problem for She Who Must Be Obeyed. She takes calls in her position, and dropping calls on the regular is Not Optimal™. Calling Cox Tech Support is a totally different level of fuckery. I have to admit that because I have worked for over 10 years at call centers that are all US based, I have to reign in my inner Chad when it comes to offshore support. Because I’ve taken calls, I try to treat people with the respect I would appreciate if I were on the phones, but when it becomes obvious that they are less interested in helping me fix my problem, and more interested in upselling me, I check out. I ended up calling my local Cox Retail store and turns out my router was the problem. OK, I drive down there and get a new router, and while I’m there, the rep says he can cut my bill by 50 bucks. He took care of that, I got the new router hooked up and updated all the devices with the new network, and we haven’t dropped since 11am this morning. It occurs to me that this happens every three years or so, and it doesn’t matter if I use their router or I use another one. Looks like it’s fixed for now.
    • There’s a new app called Bless Every Home, and according to this article from The New Republic, it maps neighborhoods and collects data on who needs a visit from your local Happy Young Christians ™. Remember, it’s the Chinese we’re supposed to be worried about with the data thing.
    • Lara the Pop Idol would like you to know that they don’t just have poll watchers, but they have folks that can physically handle the ballots. She also would like you to know that they have lawsuits in 81 states right now. Lara the Pop Idol is full of shit.
    • Can’t remember who said it, but I read someone today they said if they announced an iPad Mini Pro, it would take them less than 45 seconds to order it. That reminds me, I would LOVE an iPad Mini. Just to use as a consumption device, like books, the crossword, social scrolling, what few games I play (poker, and poker.) A new Mini is like 600 right now. I saw Mini 5’s 64 GB for 250 somewhere, and lost it. Later. Much later. I’m in create mode now, and not just the stories. I’m working on the house little by little, and that’s where the money is going right now. How much money? All of it. ALL OF IT.

    That’s it for today. Your regular (daily? Maybe not) Oreo.

  • Journal, April 23rd, 2024

    • Today was the second day of testimony in the Trump ‘Hush Money’ case, and I a now certain of three things:
      • David Pecker was called up first for a reason, and that reason is to back up what Cohen says in his testimony. It’s a ‘pre-buttal’, if you like. Cohen’s credibility will certainly be questioned, and this is meant to corroborate his testimony. Of course, IANAL and all that.
      • I will be snickering to myself every time I hear ‘Pecker’ because I am 14 years old.
      • I cannot help but hear Idris Elba as Stringer Bell in The Wire. “Is you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?” Go look it up on YT if you want the explicit version.
    • I’m a little hazy on which groups of people it’s ok to slaughter.
    • Elvis, Weed, Heavy Metal, Explicit Lyrics, Hip Hop, Video Games, and TikTok. What a nice little herd of scapegoats. There might be one difference with that last one: they might be scared of TikTok. Not because of China, that’s bullshit. Many TikTok creators actively took on the misinformation and disinformation about COVID during the lockdown. Some creators were able to get some of those people thrown off the platform and shunned in society, and some were even arrested. I remember one person who was able to get their hands on blank immunization cards and for a fee, would sign off on an immunization that was never given. The TikTok ban is about one thing, and that’s payback. When they realized they didn’t have the votes to pass it as a standalone bill, they tucked it into a so-called ‘must pass’ bill. So, we’ll see. I’m watching the Senate debate of this bill on C-Span, and there are some No votes after all. This will be interesting.
    • Looks like we might be getting new iPad/iPad Pros next month, Apple’s announced an event on 5/7. I’ve had an 11 inch iPad Pro since 2018, and it’s been a really great thing to take with me to work on writing on the go. That said, I think it’s time to accept that what I really want is a MacBook Pro. I bought the wife a 13 inch MBP in 2021, and I think it would be nice to be able to edit audio and video on the go. I’ve given up hope that Adobe will make a version of Audition or Premiere Pro for the iPad Pro, and I the iPad version of Final Cut Pro is not compatible with my machine. I think what I need is a MBP and an external hard drive to work from, so I can also edit from the iMac.

    That’s all for now. Herself would like me to take a break and pay her some attention. You now how it is.

  • Journal, April 22nd 2024

    • Did you happen to see DJT’s rant today? Unbelievable. I want you to keep in mind that this is only Day 1 of the trial. This is going to get so much more unhinged you won’t believe it, but it’s perfectly understandable once you accept the fact that the man has NPD combined with a clear mental decline. For the first time he finds himself not in control, and the lashing out is his attempt to compensate. However, he’s got no self-control, which is why he vomited his ever increasing list of grievances. Of course, he’s innocent. Everyone else is to blame.
    • Share this with your older family members or the technically challenged: Not all search results are equal, and some are downright nefarious. I was reminded of this yesterday when I read about a man who was trying to fix his printer, so he searched for [Printer] Tech Support. The top of the page were sponsored ads. He called one that tried to have him run something in the Command Prompt for Windows, and tried to charge him 750 dollars to fix everything. Of course these are scammers. Please share this.
    • Started watching Manhunt on Apple TV. If you like historical fiction, this is pretty good. Patton Oswalt is a pleasant surprise, and in Episode 3 you may find Confederacy Karen. Worth the watch.

  • Journal, April 21st, 2024

    • I’ve completed 9 episodes of The Pungoverse, which will complete what am envision will be a first season. I’ve decided that these will be vertical videos, which will require me to create visual reps of the Pungonians. I don’t think I’ll be using filters for the most part, with the exception of one character. I’m looking to start filming next weekend. I don’t have an ETA to release, but I’ve shed the guilt of having to do things on any kind of timeline. These will happen when they happen.
    • No one fucking warned me about X-Men ‘97. I love it, but you ripped my damn heart out.
    • The cyberpunk story is about two episodes in. I have no idea where it’s going. I can tell you it’s called TSUNAMI, and it’s based off an idea I had around 1999. Some elements of this story have been transferred from another story I wrote in 1988, specifically the main character’s assistant. The story is in the first person, and I hope to produce this with music and sound effects, rather than an audio book narration. It’s been a tough slog because while the basic idea has been in my head, the direction isn’t something I’ve given thought to until I started writing. I was splitting time between this and the Pungoverse until I realized that I couldn’t switch tasks like that. Now that Pungoverse is written, I will resume this after I complete and schedule the releases.
    • I’ve listened to The Tortured Poets Department three times now. I’m not a diehard Taylor fan, but I do like her later pop synth stuff. Here’s my take on the album: She has said that this is a dark chapter in her life that she’s closed with this album, so I don’t think it’s out of bounds to call this a concept album. It’s The Wall (Taylor’s Version), and of course I’m going to listen to something like that. If you’re looking for banger after banger, this isn’t it. This is a songwriter telling you her story the same way Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon told you about their lives. It’s a good album.
    • After the week that was, I feel like this would be an excellent time to repeat that if you’re forming your opinions from second hand information, you may be getting the wrong info. Never trust hearsay, sources that have a clear bias, or anything online that doesn’t have attribution that you can verify. That’s going to be very important for the remainder of this year.

    I’m going to try and get back to daily posts. No promises. And of course, here be the supermodel