ROLEY

Author: Kris Roley

  • Friday, September 27th, 2024

    Back in the early days of blogs–at least on WordPress, anyway–one could have a widget on the sidebar that provided links to that blogger’s favorite blogs. A look at what that blogger finds interesting in the hopes that you’ll find it interesting too. That’s what passed for Social Networks back in the Web 1.0 days. I’m using Web 1.0 to identify the time before Friendster, Facebook, and the like.

    I’m noticing a shift from the Social Networks and back towards Blogs. It appears to me that there’s a segment of the online population that has realized that social networks have changed dramatically over the years. The algorithm rewards engagement good or bad, bad actors use that against us while we are served ads relevant to what we’re engaging with. I don’t know why this is hard to understand. So, I understand why I’m wanting to head back to blogs. I’m just really at the end of my tether with social media. I just don’t think it serves any purpose any more than to make people mad. It certainly doesn’t bring the eyeballs to my content. Such as it is. I know. I’m trying.

    I’m not going to delete my social media, but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be using it. My place is here, and I don’t care about the algorithm. You’ll notice that comments are turned off here. I don’t want them. WordPress is free at the dot com site, and you can get web hosting relatively cheaply. You can respond over at your place that you control. I’ll serve up what I want here.

    About that blogroll: I’m going to get rid of the Links Page over on the sidebar and figure out how to install a blogroll here. Stay Tuned on that.

  • Thursday, Sept 26th 2024

    This may be older news now, but I’ve been reading a little about what’s been called the Chase Bank Glitch. If I understand correctly, some TikTok person came up with the idea that you can deposit a check made out to cash to your account, and they credit you that money until the check processes. I don’t think that’s a glitch as much as it is check fraud, and that’s a felony. The only ‘glitch’ you’re going to see is the one where you have to explain your conviction to future employers, if you’re lucky enough to have any.

    On the creative front, I’m working out the blocking for a vlog. I think I want to document the process I’m going through, so I don’t know if it’s going to be fancy. Now that I think about it, it may not need to be. It just needs to be me.

    Watched the Kamala Harris interview on MSNBC last night. While it was refreshing to hear an interview that was conducted at a normal volume and without a lot of lunacy, it annoys me to no end that we’re this close to the election and we’re still on vision and the 30k foot view. I want nuts and bolts. That’s why I don’t like these interviews, and why I don’t like debates. Kamala, your campaign keeps talking about Project 2025 as being the playbook for Trump. Where is your playbook? Where can I read it? I think it is necessary to point out that in order for Kamala to be able to do anything, the Democrats must take the House and hold on to the Senate. Even then the corporate tax is Everest, and the Senate filibuster is already locked and loaded for that one. There’s a needle to thread here, and we’re better off believing that the Dem Agenda won’t pass, and be surprised if it does.

    I’m not taking it as read that Kamala will win, far from it. There’s no way this isn’t a squeaker. It shouldn’t be, but here we are. What I can’t do under any circumstances is vote for Trump, and let’s be clear about why: He’s not a serious person, but the people who have lashed themselves to his mast are. He’s a real life Zaphod Beeblebrox, a lunatic distraction while a radical legislature implements a radical agenda, and the judiciary declares it legal. I’m not down with that.

    As I’m writing this, Hurricane Helene is making its way towards the Big Bend area of Florida. It’s a Category 2 storm right now, but they believe it could be a 3 or 4 by the time it hits. It’s been my nature in the past to turn on the Weather Channel and watch the coverage, but it felt different this time. I stopped to ask myself what it was I was going to watch, and the answer is someone else’s destruction. Somewhere in Florida and points North, some nameless person is going to lose everything. It suddenly felt…dirty. I decided to watch Major Crimes instead. Sure, I’ve watched the entire series at least three times, but it’s comfort TV. Also, Mary McDonnell.

    Did I mention Mary McDonnell?

    Meta’s Connect event was yesterday, and while I’m not interested at the Quest headset (gaming doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest), The Orion prototype is VERY interesting. Think of the Apple VIsion Pro, but as regular glasses. This is the future I want. As of now, this is a prototype, a developer model. But the ability to put that information in a pair of Ray-Bans? Yes, please. I would like it to be customizable so that the user can get the full immersion treatment, or something minimal. A heads up display of information in one lens. Maybe we could get monocles back in fashion. I’m kidding, but as I’ve said before give me what Vegeta was wearing in Dragonball, and I’m set.

  • TSUNAMI Part 1: Reboot Complete

    I can’t be sure about it, but it must have been around the time that the cyborg put me through the third wall that I began to wonder if I’d made some bad life choices. 

    “I think the point is not to let him do that,” the voice on the other end of my comm said sarcastically. 

    “You’re just a font of fuckin’ wisdom today,” I said. “Can you find me an exit, please?” 

    I picked myself up out of the pile of rubble.   It would have been easier to list the places that didn’t hurt.  Looking around, I didn’t see the cyborg anywhere.  “Pointer, I need to get out of here before—“ I was interrupted by a sudden need to duck as this swinging massive metal fist barely missed my head.  I needed to put as much space between this hunk of junk and me as possible.  “Hey man,” the cyborg yelled, “THIS AIN’T ME!”  

    Could have fooled me, I thought.   Every time I have to come down here to the Dregs, I get beat up, shot up, or screwed up.  You’d think I’d learn, but a job is a job and this one was going to pay.  I was just about there before my friend Chuckles showed up.  I stopped running and turned around.  Sure enough, he wasn’t chasing me.  It seemed like he was having a problem.   “I don’t know what’s happening right now,” he paused and convulsed like he was about to throw up, “but something’s wrong.”   Then, and this was the damndest thing I’ve ever seen, he just stopped.  Still as a statue, glassy-eyed and unblinking, just….stopped.  

    “Boss, I’ve got your exit lined up,” Pointer said.  

    “Yeah, I…” I was slowly edging closer to this statue in front of me, fascinated.  “Boss?” Pointer was getting nervous on the other end.  “Hey, I don’t want to rush you, but you did ask for—“ I cut him off “I know, Pointer, I know.  It’s just…this cyborg just friggin’ stopped in front of me and he’s not even blinking.”  

    “Boss, you need to get out of there. Now.” Pointer was insistent.  “He’s a piece of tech.  What do you do with a piece of tech that’s glitching?” 

    I was right up in front of the cyborg at this point, waving my hand in front of his face.  “I toss it in the garbage, and right now I’m wondering how it’s op…er…ating?”  As I moved almost nose to nose with the Cyborg, it blinked, then blinked again, and the half of his face that was still human twisted into an evil grin.  “Reboot complete.” He said.  

    “Oh, crap.”  I turned to run, but he had other ideas and tripped me up before I could get going.    I ate a face full of concrete.  He was on top of me before I could get back up.  He reared back with his large metal fist, I closed my eyes and tensed up waiting for the impact.  I heard the distinct sounds of servos shutting down, a powering off, and the full weight of this beast just fell right on top of me.  “Well,” I said.  “Did you do that?” I asked Pointer. 

    “Do what?”, he replied.  “Ok, I guess that means no.”  I dragged myself out from under Chuckles and got back to my feet.  “Every time.  Every damn time.”   I looked back down at Chuckles, who just appeared to be asleep this time.  “I think he’s just taking a nap,” I told Pointer.  “Route me out of here.” 

    ——

    A discerning person such as yourself might ask me why I keep going down to The Dregs if I keep meeting the business end of someone’s weapon of choice. My name’s Kimbal, and I’m what you would call a tracker, I find lost or stolen stuff, and nine times out of ten, that lost or stolen stuff ends up down in The Dregs, which is the badly lit underbelly of VA2, The Plex where I live.  It’s an underground pit of poverty, despair, and more human byproducts than is polite to discuss.  

    The thing is, I’m from The Dregs. At least, that’s what I was told.  I have no idea whether or not I was born the old-fashioned way or grown in a vat.  I tend to think the latter because I have no idea who or where my parents are.  So, I was a kid rat from The Dregs.  I know what it takes to survive down here because I had to.  However, you can’t take The Dregs out of the kid rat because I keep ending up down here. 

    This last little misadventure had to do with finding a guy.  That was him.  Mostly.  See, he’s not all there, almost literally.  His body and spare parts are a guy named Stamp.  But the part of him that was mad at me?  That wasn’t him.  Something happened to him, and I was hired by someone to figure out what.  As you might have guessed, I wasn’t able to get too close to him, but my little friend on the other side of this earpiece might’ve been able to pick something up IF HE WAS DOING HIS JOB.  

    “I’m working on it boss,” Pointer said.  

    “Anything yet?”  I was still picking out cinder blocks and drywall from places I didn’t know I had.  “Well, I can’t be sure,” Pointer continued, “But…”

    “But what?”

    “But it looks like Stamp was completely wiped.”

    “What does that even mean?”

    “It means that Stamp is gone, boss.  His personality was erased by something, and it came from his augmentations.” 

    “Malware?”

    “I don’t know.  I need to do some more work on this.  You might want to come in, I don’t think there’s anything more you can do tonight but get in more trouble.” 

    “Copy *that*,” I said.   As I made my way out of The Dregs on foot—word to the wise, don’t come down here with transpo and expect it to be there when you’re ready to leave—I kept returning to that moment when Stamp rebooted, for lack of a better term.  It looked to me like he rebooted, and then something caused him to shut down.  I’ve been around augments before and have never seen that happen, so I had some questions.  First, what would cause that, and that’s something for Pointer to work on.  Second, if Pointer’s suspicion is correct and it’s some kind of malware, then can it be spread?  Third, and this might be more of a problem for what passes for a police force around here, did Stamp just die in front of me?  I thought about going back to check, but frankly, that would be the one time Leo would show up.  I’d rather they come asking questions instead of me giving them an easy answer right off the bat.   Leos despise The Dregs about as much as I do, so anything quick and easy will do, whether or not it’s correct.  Besides, Leo and I have a history.  It’s complicated, but suffice it to say they are not fans of my work partly because I have occasionally interfered with their, ah, ‘investigations’, but I’m pretty sure I’ve disrupted some possible revenue streams for them.  Nothing is clean in The Dregs. 

    I mentioned I was a tracker and a finder of lost things.  Over the years I’ve become a little bit of a collector of vintage items, a topic that Pointer never lets me forget when I slide open the door to my loft.  Today, he was unusually quick about it. “You’re not stuck in this place all day,” he said, “but I hear that stupid little “Hi There” every time that door opens. I’m going to self-terminate, I swear.  Can you please, PLEASE, do something about it.”

    I opened the door to my fridge, and red and silver job with Coca-Cola on it, and pulled a bag of sugary liquid out and popped the top.  “Send to Jerry, I need him to make another batch of this soon.”  

    “Yeah, because nothing’s more important than your sugar high. Got it”. Pointer was not happy, but he rarely ever was.  I did my best to let it roll over, Pointer was my ARP, and Augmented Reality Partner.   ARPs had been around for years, but Pointer was special.  He was one of the first in a new line to receive personalities, and I don’t *think* he was supposed to be a surly little smart-ass, but he’s my surly little smart-ass.  He was never sold to the public, and I acquired him the same way I acquire most things: Persuasion, Money, and not an insignificant amount of deviousness when it’s called for.  Besides, he reminds me of a character in a book I’ve read a million times, and I like that.  “I get it, Pointer.”  I put in as much feigned annoyance in my reply as I could.  He’s fantastic when he perceives that he got under my skin.  “Myke called, she’s wondering if you could spare a brief moment of your time in between disasters to spend some uninterrupted—I’m sorry, that should read uninjured—time together?” 

    “I’m surrounded by comedians today”, I sat down on the couch and took a swig of my Neo-Coke.  “So, you’ve been working on Stamp’s little glitch?”

    “Yeah, and I found something that shouldn’t be there.”  That got my attention. “Oh really?  Talk to me.” 

    “I’m throwing to the screen,” he said, and my main screen in the living space pulsed into life. “Ok, so in a normal augment like the kind Stamp has—“

    “That’s a normal augment?” 

    “Strangely, yes.  It’s not like ordering a number 2 at the counter, but chop shops have a lot of the same tech manuals they work from. Anyway, this is what the main board looks like in a normal augment.”  The main image then slid to the left, with a new image occupying the right side of the screen.  “This is what I was able to scan from Stamp when he rebooted. It wasn’t there before.”  

    In the center of the main board, almost etched into the material and across several important connections was the word TSUNAMI.  “That doesn’t look good.” 

    “It’s not.  It’s not healthy, either.  That was what caused the eventual shutdown, and in an augment like that, it affected life support.  I’m afraid if he didn’t get immediate help—like within 5 minutes—Stamp’s physical body didn’t make it.”  

    “Damn.”  

    “Here’s the thing, though,” Pointer continued, “Stamp’s personality wasn’t wiped.  It was written over thousands of times.  Every time it rewrote, it took more resources from the augment, and it maxed out the system.  That forced the reboot, followed by what you see here.”

    “So Stamp’s personality was written over?”

    “Yes, but not wiped.  It might still be retrievable from somewhere, like where he got the augment in the first place, or if he paid for some kind of storage.  Dregs, though, so…not likely?” 

    “Right.  So, this got a lot more interesting.” I said.  I took another sip of my Neo-Coke. “I’m gonna go catch up with Myke for a minute.  Call ahead and let her know I’m coming.  And Pointer?”

    “Call Jerry, I know, I know! You and your…whatever that is.  Looks awful.” 

    “Don’t knock it, it helps me put up with you.  Back soon.” 

    The door slid open and said “Goodbye” 

    “THAT DAMN DOOR!” Pointer screamed as it slid closed behind me.   

  • Thursday, August 15th 2024

    🎵 Who Can Take A Tic Tac…🎵

    Seriously, have you ever seen a box of Tic Tacs that small? Anywhere?

    I smell Sharpie. I need to see someone not related to the campaign or the party with a box of Tic Tac that small. I suspect it’s something he had made, it’s not out of the realm of possibility he knows someone who makes props. I’m just not buying it.

    When The Project Laughs At You

    I’ve had a long term photo project I’ve wanted to do for ages. I’m not even sure it will work, but I still want to do it. I want to start in Maine in the summer and make my way down the East Coast, and take photos of life in the small coastal towns, tourist traps, and everything in between. Part two would be doing the same in Winter. I was reminded of this about a month ago when we drove to DC for a talk by Neil Gaiman that didn’t happen (if you know you know). I rented an SUV for the drive (remind me not to do that again), and I was reminded that the reason I bought an MX-5 in the first place was to travel. However, it occurs to me that I can go only so far in a weekend because of the need to—and this is a technical term—not starve. So the project can laugh at me for now, but I’ll come up with a plan of some sort. Even if it’s to go where I can in a weekend and get back in time to continue not starving.

    ME? DIY?

    Thinking about ripping everything out of the studio/office and renovating it. I have some ideas about a floating desk, and I’ve been down a rabbit hole on YT looking for how to do this. I think I can, but I lack power tools. This may be for the safety of those around me. Like the Joker said, “It’s all part of the plan”. I’ll just add that he also said “Do I look like a guy with a plan?” So…

  • Wednesday, August 14th 2024

    The New Rules

    Look at this post from Dave Winer of Scripting News. Yes, I know, it’s from this.how, it’s his index. I really like these ideas. It’s a damn shame we won’t get that from cable news, but that’s not really the job of cable news. This is what I meant yesterday when I said we deserve better. We deserve journalists who call bullshit when they see it. We need folks who understand that there cannot possibly be two sides to some things. And we need folks who aren’t afraid of losing ‘access’, whatever that means.

    I think we also need to get back to separating news from comment. Again, this is where cable news has changed the norm and blurred the lines between the two. They also turn up the sensationalism to attract the most eyeballs to watch through the ad breaks. In practical terms that matter right now, they’ve turned the Election into a a reality show. Why not, considering the candidate they can’t bear to fact check or stop covering altogether.

    We’re not an electorate, we’re a demographic. We should demand better.

  • Tuesday, August 13th 2024

    The Only British Railway You Know

    Tooling around looking for something interesting, and the NC PBS Station was showing British Scenic Railways, and the episode was about the Jacobite Line. If you’ve been paying attention for the last 25 years, you know why eleventy billion tourists show up for this train.

    It’s THAT Train.

    Also, when the PBS station listed all the TV stations in the NC PBS Network, I learned there is a Bat Cave, NC. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

    Just This Once, Hit Back

    The stepping aside of Joe Biden and the ascendency of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz has the empty barrels doing what they always do. Honestly, we should be insulted by these carnival barkers. You should be insulted by dirty tricks, the twisting of words, the quotes out of context. The truth is, we have allowed this. We like the ad hominem, the ‘owning’, the bomb throwing. I hope one day we will get back to a debate that’s worthy of us, but it won’t be in this election year. Frankly, it shouldn’t be. I think the Harris/Walz campaign has cracked the code on how to deal with MAGA, and it appears to be getting under Trump’s skin. We can still do that and talk policy, I think. What can’t happen is that the Dems go back to being the polite academic folks they’ve been historically. They’ll get slaughtered if that happens. There’s ~90 days to win or lose this, and with the abbreviated nature of Kamala’s campaign, they cannot afford to miss.

    An Honest Question

    I believe that the housing/real estate market is a bubble that’s going to pop, and it’s going to fuck things up. The question is when. The long term bet is that it will pop when those of us who own houses shuffle off this mortal coil, and the market will find themselves with one or two generations that can’t afford a fucking studio apartment for $1500 a month or more. A STUDIO. There may be some factors that could cause it to pop sooner, I wonder if the fed raises interest rates more than a couple times that it may hasten things? Keep your eye on this. A home in a lot of cases is the most significant portion of a families’ wealth in this day and age, and if home values drop, we’re all going to be taking a bite of the shit sandwich.

  • Monday, July 22nd, 2024

    Anything important?

    I’ve been off celebrating the wife’s birthday and our 30th anniversary, so I didn’t get in until very late on Sunday night. When we’re in the car driving for long distances (OK, you may not consider DC a long distance but I do), I generally listen to podcasts, the very fine New Wave Essentials Playlist on Apple Music, or some kind of synthwave radio station on Apple or YouTube. It wasn’t until very late that I heard the news that Joe Biden decided to step away from re-election.

    I mean, hate on the synthwave all you want, but I haven’t heard wall to wall coverage saying the same thing for 48 hours. I’ve heard Moog synthesizers saying the same thing for 24. One of those is decidedly better.

    A note about the 2023 Buick Envision, which we rented instead of me driving Jonathan Livingston SUV. Great car, though it should be said I have a VERY soft space for GM, Pontiac and Buick especially. That said, Not enough space in the back for travel, especially if there’s more than two. This is not a family vehicle. We did the grocery shopping before we left, and we were JUST able to get the weekly haul back there. The only other thing I did not like about the car was the center armrest compartment. It was split in half longways, like a split top hot-dog bun, and opened that way, so the door was still ‘in the way’. Loved everything else about this SUV. One improvement I’d make is to make the compartment underneath the climate control—where the USB and Power ports are—I’d make the bottom plate a MagSafe charger. That way, I could use CarPlay and keep the phone out of sight and mind. I should note that this was my first experience using CarPlay, and my next car must have it.

    On a related note, as I returned the Envision, there was a late model blue Dodge Challenger outside. Had I known I could have rented one of those, I’d…well, I’d probably be in a Fairfax County Jail but I would have had a shit load of fun before I got arrested.

    Coming Attractions

    One other thing that’s happening this week is my hatching day, and while I rarely care too much about it or even draw attention to it, I’ve been giving some thought about the next year of my life and what I want to accomplish. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’d like to be a bit more regular with posting here, so I will try. The next year will be based on the word “Return”. Return to writing, return to photography/videography, return to podcasting, return to content creation.

    The other thing that I have returned to is a focus on my own mental well being. I engage in way too much drama even when I’m trying to avoid it. So, we’re going to work on cutting that out. The past few months have seen a change in my…I don’t know. The core of me is different, and way more cutthroat when it comes to dealing with things and people. The good thing is that I can let a lot more just roll by me if it’s not ‘important’. It’s a matter of picking what things I want to spend my energy on. It’s also a realization that some of the things I still spend energy on is not important or not healthy and needs to stop. So, that’s another project.

    Finally, the next year is going to be spent on my physical living spaces. The house, my studio, and this carcass. I haven’t done anything to improve any of the above in four years, and I’m fed up with all of it. That’s a valid use of my time and energy, and will receive a huge focus over the next year. We’ll see how well I deal with that.

  • Wednesday, July 17 2024

    Housekeeping

    A follow-up from yesterday: I’ve added a new page to the blog called LINKS, which will be updated daily(ish) with things I find interesting. You’ll note a hashtag next to the heading, which is an Anchor Tag that I’ll use to link you to the appropriate day when I share it via social. I’ve seen other folks use hashtags for the list items themselves, but I’ve found that those send you to a separate single post as well. I don’t think WP has that functionality, so I’ll just use this for the time being.

    This gets me closer to the vision I had for this blog for a long time, where I’m not using posts, but a list divided daily on a single page. I like this, and I may switch to it overall for daily use. I’ll still keep the blog, but that would be for when I need to bloviate a bit more (ok, more than usual.)

    If The Engagement Lasts More Than Four Hours

    The funny part about writing a post about the sad state of clickbait (for lack of a better term), is that when you title the post “Social Internet has ED“, I’m the schmuck that is so amused by that title I’m going to click on it. The upshot of the post is that the current state of the internet is all about the algorithm and manipulating it to your advantage. When you understand that engagement doesn’t care if you’re positive or negative, just that you engage, then you begin to understand why some people craft the posts they do. The ‘Own the libs’ crowd, for example. Boebert, Greene, Gaetz, and that ilk understand this (or their social media team), and yet we still argue with them online. It’s at the point that I don’t even screenshot them and respond anymore. I’m really beginning to wonder if rediscovering and optimizing the blog rather than contributing to social media is the answer. Social media used to drive traffic to blogs and websites, I wonder if that’s still the case. I know it still drives me nuts, that’s for sure.

  • Tuesday, July 16th 2024

    In all of history, it turns out that there is nothing like a crisis to take control of the narrative. It’s the best way to help people point fingers at someone for something they’re also guilty of. The more dire the circumstances the better. Gabby Giffords would like to have a word with us about this.

    CORRECTION

    Starting, I have a correction to make. My friend the photographer who was recently laid off has a website, but it’s different from the one I *thought* he had. I linked to his FB Page yesterday, even though I really can’t stand Facebook. Here’s his page on Pixels. Please take a look at his work and buy something. He’s a great guy and a great photographer. Thanks.

    NEW IDEAS

    Thinking of new content ideas for the blog/podcast. I’ve long had the idea to do a rewatch of Doctor Who, starting with An Unearthly Child in 1963. There certainly wouldn’t be a lack of content. Other shows I have had the itch to do is Bosch, and The Newsroom. I did give some thought to doing a review of WWE Raw and Smackdown, but that would be an impossible turnaround for me. I started watching Bond Movies starting with Dr. No, but the further I got into it, the more creeped out I got by how Connery’s Bond would not be tolerated today at all. Different time, I suppose.

    LINKS 2 3 4….

    What about a separate page here on the Site dedicated to daily links? See here for an example.

    LAYING OFF THE SHINY

    I may have reached the point where the new shiny stuff doesn’t excite me. I upgraded my phone, and as it turns out my new phone is going to be able to do the new AI stuff that Apple is going to release in the fall, but all I wanted was the damn camera. AI doesn’t grab me. Maybe it should, but I also realize that AI is coming for my job one of these days, so I can’t find the room to get that excited about it.

    Additionally, I find myself sick of consumerism, late-stage capitalism I’m supposed to think is synonymous with freedom. I don’t think the new shiny is synonymous with freedom. It’s synonymous with bankruptcy. At least, that’s what Living Color told me.

    JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR…

    ‘Freedom’ has become a word that means whatever the person or group using it wants it to mean. I invite you to go back to the opening scene of the first episode of The Newsroom for a better explanation of the use of that word. I might be a bit idealist, but I don’t think it was always so. You could say the same with ‘American’. I do not have to be a white cis Republican Evangelical to be an American. I don’t have to be a woke bisexual atheist to be one either. There is no real definition other than through the lottery of life I was blessed to be born here. The rest I get to decide because I am allowed to, and folks that would like to set our watches to 1952 don’t get to choose that for me.

  • 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…