A look back

Well, it’s the last day of the year.  I’ve had plenty of time to look back, and reflect, and… mostly I can only think of the problems I’m facing today.  The whole year has gone by too fast.  Progress is slow, and I’ve been sick lately.  Thankfully, it’s not CovID.

Cole Road Café. (Oct 30 9:52 a.m.)

Things moved faster when aunt J visited.

(Oct 29 3:00 p.m.)

Decent restaurants were involved.

Surfer. (Oct 31 2:05 p.m.)

But that visit was only because things needed to be moved out of my mother’s storage unit.  (My mother and J. are okay by the way.)

Remember to wear a mask in the pool! (Oct 29 3:42 p.m.)

It’s harder to get a grip on things when it seems like everything is decaying too quickly, and you can’t catch up.  One of my teeth is really in bad shape, so I’m definitely going to have to move faster, and work harder next year.

And then I hear we all lost Betty White.  The legend.  Just 18 days shy of 100.  It takes the wind out of your sails, at least for a moment, when you see stars fall, lose role models, and hear about your friends losing loved ones.  There have been a lot of funerals this year.  My friend in Kentucky lost two… an awful year.

Addendum: It wasn’t just deaths either.  I all but lost my mother to mental illness and/or mold-dementia earlier in the year.  She’s alive but not at all the same person she was months prior—fragile, skin and bones, and can barely function or recall events.  She may have lost her sense of taste or smell from CovID but doesn’t remember.

(Dec 18 2:55 p.m.)

This pandemic isn’t endemic yet.

Dizzy Birds Rotisserie. (Oct 21 6:34 p.m.)

But to do nothing isn’t an option.  Living in denial is not living at all.  You must exercise or you start losing function.

Normal: Organized Disorganization

Image source: lovethispic.com

May I just disagree with the above image?  Apparently, everyone’s definition of normal is different.  But to me, normal is simple but not easy to define.  Quirky is normal to me.

Do It Now!

You can’t sit around for life to happen for you, and you certainly can’t watch TV forever.  You’d be a couch potato baking in your own heat.  But apart from the obvious laziness sense of sitting around, there is the blasted waiting game in other aspects of life.

Why wait for things to happen when you can do them yourself?  There is always something to learn, and well, the brain atrophies.  So learning is actually non-optional, if you think about it.  You will get dumber sitting, watching conventional TV (as opposed to educational TV, actually useful ‘reality TV’ like MythBusters).

So what if something you were expecting doesn’t happen?

You will get dumber sticking to only what you’re used to doing, and you risk losing relationships in life doing only one thing at a time.  There has to be a comfort in moving forward but less of a comfort with what’s already there.  (Still, be grateful for the love.)

What other purpose of college is there than to add skills that would help satisfy your future?  And does it really ever stop—learning?  Isn’t your ‘grown-up’ workplace environ just another form of college?  Every new thing is a new step up, everything you learned has either helped you on your way of either what you like to do, has helped you get paid more or at least got you to realize what you don’t like.

You really can’t sit around waiting.  Nature will find its way to kick your ass.  You can either atrophy somewhere or find the place a dump, or find the electricity shut off because you didn’t pay the electric bill.  Lights out somewhere.

When you’re up and not sleeping, there is always something to do, some awareness that is calling its attention, calling you to be a productive human instead of a high-functioning primate.  Many species in the ape family sit around watching their environment; it’s not just 98% similarity in DNA to us humans, but similarities in habits too!

It’s not necessarily wrong to sit around and do nothing.  It’s just stupid.  There’s pushing yourself too far, and OCD and everything, but there is also making yourself useless.  Both ends are in a way useless to the outsider.  Finding yourself doing nothing in a day is not a balance.  Sickness warrants rest and doctor visits, but apathy is crap-athy.  Like an account balance, taking yourself out of the picture is like going into a deficit.  A spiritual financial deficit or something.  I don’t know.

You work to make sure you can afford your ambitions, and you get what you deserve in the end.  Don’t expect your future, make it. Make it proud, and excellent, and awesome.  Follow your heart and take on that project you were thinking about.  Tell your doubts to take a hike.  And take a physical hike yourself, while you’re at it; exercise can be awesome.

Just food for thought.  Not popcorn food.

Of Science, and Sh– that Sticks

I’m sure I’d get more disagreement from the political class, defending at least one of the things I’m pointing out here.  The history of evolution, and the detractors/deniers— it’s never so simple, the contentions that go on in the “discussion” of major changes to science, and how Progressives aim to shame people by changing history.  It wasn’t much the denial of natural selection, something early and easily accepted, it was some of the things that Charles Darwin alleged; Darwin pushed the envelope, trying to define the history of the human race.

It’s easy to see how people would be justifiably angry with an academia that’s typically (or to the point of being stereotypically) snobbish, belittling the subjects of the moment, when it started ‘seeing what sticks’ on humanity.  The human condition, from a sociologist’s perspective, artificial to say the least.

But it doesn’t matter how wrong Darwin was on certain things, how oversimplified his model of the cell was, the many, many gaps that remained in his theories.  Political correctness is a conservative thing, mind you; the people with the power keeping power by maintaining the same way of doctrine in education, an evil that defines ‘what will get you ahead in life’… things that inhibit, one way or another (e.g., make you a robot).

Cosmos… and inaccuracies in the program.

Compared to “Nova,” the new “Cosmos” sucks.

The Hardest Part

The hardest part is saying goodbye.

Even when there’s nothing left, when there is no reason, the living potential matters more.  You live to express.  Or maybe it’s just lower-brain survival.  Throw in the feeling of fatality, and you struggle to stand, even fight— fight or flight.  It’s a tough battle with yourself not wanting to leave.

Versus overwhelming twenty-year isolation.

I thought I could just, here and there, right some things for the sake of writing.  Just try to put this or that feeling (or general complaint) into words.  But then you either run out of words, trying to appease something or someone, or you run out of stamina— too much stress of emotional attachment to the words, whilst being uneducated… sigh to the point of not try.

Blogging… really??

Mutually Disconnected.

From confusing button icons to no desktop at all.  Fucking Windows 8.

NO use for a user.
In a world less accountable, more “accidental.”
Both simple and complicated, more nonsensical.

Coated in armor and lies.
Heads that spin.  Racked in debt.

“Once upon a time more advanced than now.”
But advanced in decay.
The artificial nightmare.
Where speech is underrated.
Through technology, connected.
…But only with each other.

Public, but really private.
With fewer reflections, and more complications.
With fewer abstractions, and more distractions.

I am awestruck— the stupidity of the culture.
No doubt, I’m jutted but stuck with it.
(Okay, so they edit “Jaywalking” to make every New Yorker look dumb.)

A culture growing.
One that, on the surface, ‘mislearns’ the basics.
And one that finds difficulty with those that have them.
“Traditional,” “old fashioned,” “old-timey,” a dinosaur.
—Of what, ten years ago?

Somehow, I’m described, living a “private life.”
Why, because I don’t make absolutely everything public?
No, it’s because I don’t have the resources to spark a conversation.

I had the email address up for some time, but… nada.
(Not counting Spam.)
So I guess email is “old-timey.”
Add another “follower” that will fade out relatively quickly.

And if not dubbed a dinosaur, then an outcast.
Where opportunism thrives.
Where misunderstandings are exploited.
(Needless to say, I don’t like Curb Your Enthusiasm.)

But in all walks of life one’s beliefs are tested.
But usually not my own…

One unable to speak here must be considered a “loner.”
(With no questions asked of the environment.)
One frustrated must then be called a “spiteful loner.”
(“What a boner.”)

Without resistance, the world can never improve on its own.
As always.
It cuts itself from reality even further.

“Just another brick in the wall,” one must be.
With all the awful expressions to keep you moving in line.
Life hands you lemons, but…

“You can’t live off lemonade!!!”

No matter, they say, “nothing to see here.”
Cover-ups…
Pieces of evidence the inept government doesn’t want you to see.

And so, less than half the public believe in things that have actually happened.

You may have heard, but never read…
Yeah…

Don’t believe what you read.

Keepin’ Movin’ Forward…in’

Must I keep blogging?

If only the “out of sight, out of mind” adage didn’t scare me enough that I remain silent… or that the content always comes out incomplete… if so much of what’s on the internet didn’t scare me… a tree falling in the woods does make a sound.

Everything matters, but you shouldn’t mind everything.  Examining everything you see when it occurs— that’s like being a spectator all your life.  Or an impoverished observer.

A year to pass next month, August, where it went from the weird awkwardness (I can’t put my finger on it— could be the homeless people?) of the Portland environment to… this.

It takes courage to put your controversial feelings up.  But to continue going?  That’s the real hard part.  And bonne chance, good courage, good luck.  It certainly takes the knowing that sites like Google, like Facebook censors and will sell your information to people you’ll never know to never move to Blogger.

You have to build a reputation (or better— already have one).  Popularity requires consistency, and you’ll get the wrong people if you could care less about the integrity of your beliefs.  Those that believe nothing believe everything.

In the general sense of this fast-paced world, you have to think on your toes and not get lost, not get ahead of yourself.  On the interwebs, you have to click and type fast enough… again, without getting ahead of yourself.

Despite my own incompatible views, you shouldn’t bottle crap up that’ll tear you to pieces.  I may remain an easy target so easy that no hater dare bothers (or that libertarians in general are seen as beyond crazy), but you have a chance, having not exhausted everything before becoming ready for the world like me.  You stand more a chance.

Speak, child.

I be distant to a degree but me don’t give up on the big picture; me don’t give a rats ass ’bout what the false things yous call me.  I may say I have no hope or faith (don’t forget “broekn”), but I have determination, less fear… and chocolate.  If only it didn’t seem like I have to bottom out.  Nothing drug-related— hopped up on emotional crap, I think.  And chocolate.  Evs.  (Sick— ‘whatever’ reduced to ‘evs’ now.)

Must I keep going?  No.  But I just do.  I could pack up and leave, easily.  But I just keep moving forward, not knowing what tomorrow will bring… or not bring because I’m an impoverished observer.  And I can’t literally move place-of-stay-wise ’cause I don’t have any money and can barely cross the street.

Novice No Voice

I can’t help it.

After zero hits here and there, I miss another whole week, miss all of the windows of opportunity to advance anywhere online.  And then I fail to carry my passwords with me.  I’d be entering the name and e-mail for a comment but for my WordPress account’s protection… no, no, I needed that password that you can hardly memorize.

But, of course, alas, an ass, and sweating in my sleep these days (it’s Summer), I did get to catch up on some TV shows.  I got into Supernatural, naturally.  So much so that the daily TNT 9-12 rerun block serves as a major replacement for the Glenn Beck radio progra— whoops, I shouldn’t have mentioned that I tune in… occasionally… and like everything else neglect my listening…ship.

It doesn’t help me revealing ‘political’ things— Pags was on this morning— about myself, after wearing away my perceived credibility.  Neither the time nor the health to back up everything said me has… though everything of serious subject matter brought up is based in fact.

So… there’s only that element of trust, it seems.  I’ve never gotten any of that hate/trolling.  But that wall of silence— certainly.  I always have silence going for me.  And that kills me.  It literally kills me.  How many months do I have left, doc?  Oh, that’s right, I have no insurance.

It’s 2013 and still, nary a voice.

Alternatively, you could follow Ian Punnett’s twitter, @deaconpunnett.  Ending his gig on Coast To Coast AM this morning due to tinnitus, he still has more a voice than this so-called person, sitting here.  On 1-5 a.m. EDT, having to sleep (go figure), I managed to catch the last ten minutes, his comments, his swearing that some of the read radio commercials over his more than a decade on the program were parodies…

Or you could start a comment war conversation over Supernatural, where Jensen Ackles, 35, is still doing his gravelly voice, with a season premiere this October 15 (CW network).  He shaved his beard, and will act as if he isn’t married.

Whatever.  Willing but incapable, I guess I’ll just go back to my hole fixing software bugs.  Not even internet access beyond here or there; it’s too easy to miss a whole week, and… well, that’s what happened.  Again.  And then I hit publish, more crap information that no one hears.  Write Like You Give a Shit.  Uhm, sorry, that’s too exhausting.  Again.

I can’t help jack… unless jack asks.  Jack asks, jackass; tomato, tommato.

What’s this guy’s problem?

Snooping “for your safety.”

Snooping “for your safety.”

Yeah, it doesn’t work.
But what would I know… knowing that the data collected is being shared with other countries.

Do you believe that government is responsible for safety?
Even the EPA is only a couple decades old.  Created under Nixon… that’s telling.

O omnipotent Big Brother.

This is that “you have nowhere to hide” scenario, where the government plays God, and the supporters buy into it believing that it is good, benign or doing its job.
Or that they have gotten swept away into status quo accepting that thing known as normalcy bias, not even recognizing most of the changes made as they happen.
On the psychological level, the normalcy bias especially works its way into how bad things are, with people wanting to forget things, and so they do.

And, man, the excuses that come with it.

• There are cameras everywhere.  But… cameras on public property isn’t really spying.
• Where were you under Bush?  (Says the person who’ll probably do next to nothing now.)
• Get used to it.  (Doing completely nothing now.)
• Just don’t do anything wrong.  But government is never benign.

And “government is never benign” is not a cynical thing to say.  Time and again, history proves that to be the case.
Corruptible people with power, plain and simple— that is most certainly not benign.  Teaching practices can improve, but man does not evolve.
When there is potential of abuse, abuse will occur.  Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Benjamin Franklin knew that the feelings of a serious moment never trump the permanent reality of consequence.

“Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve, and will receive, neither.”

Here, I found it important to use the full quote to show that those that believe in and understand true liberty (individual liberty) are not abusive.
Franklin, and many of the other founding fathers, were abolitionists, against the status quo of the time, slavery.
It would be long before the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution would be crafted and finalized, but the initial Bill of Rights were essential to establishing the United States of America to begin with.

The Fourth Amendment was created for a boundary of respect.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

At the time, it was due to British forces invading the property of American soldiers.
But like all Amendments to the Constitution, the point is timeless.

Regardless of technology, timeless.

There is a process at which these things work, and damn well have worked.
Neutral at best, government can at best help you perform a task yourself.
If you were to act as a juror, the system would only set up the structure in the practice of due process.

And there’s the key term in the right to privacy: due process.

In a free country you, as an individual, are treated innocent until proven guilty.
Abuse always lies the other way.
When you give up your right to privacy you are saying that you should be treated guilty until proven innocent.
You open the door to harassment, blackmail, extortion… and in the 1984 sci-fi scenario, full-on manipulation.

But manipulation doesn’t require sci-fi technology.  Basic sociology alone has been used.

Here’s the reason why I’ve considered New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg a “micro-fascist”.
“Going forward, nobody is going to get everything they want.  Not Democrats, not Republicans, not me.”  Yay, rationing and outright prohibition!

You gotta watch the intake of milk, while loading his coffee with cream, it goes far beyond his calls for banning salt containers (while still being a salt addict), +16 oz. sodas in restaurants (struck down by a single judge), hamburgers… baby formula, Styrofoam (Feb. State of the City Address), certain affected family attendance (Christians, clergy) at the 9/11 memorial…
…instituting a ban on food donations to homeless shelters
…adding restrictions on hospital pain meds— because ‘pain meds are addictive’ (and rationing, perhaps).
…amounting to a more than tenfold increase in marijuana possession arrests (Marijuana Arrest Crusade).

And don’t forget the upcoming retroactive ban on gun magazines/clips having a capacity of more than seven bullets.  People don’t kill people, pieces of plastic to hold bullets kill people.

And how about unmanned drones in New York?
It’s scary, but what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? he responded in his weekly radio program in March.  I mean intellectually I’d have trouble making a distinction.  You can’t keep the tides from coming in.  We’re gonna have more visibility and less privacy.  I don’t see how you stop that.

(Yeah… so don’t bother standing against Fourth Amendment violations, right?)

I remember him saying something of the order of, we can’t have people thinking they can just go wherever they want, but I couldn’t get the quote…  So like a judge telling a jury to disregard their rights to things like jury nullification, I’m gonna say, disregard this paragraph.

The Current and the Next

Unmanned drones fly over farmlands without so much the consent of the farmers.

In the fight on the “War on Terror,” people have blindly sided with a conservative force that really isn’t conservative.
Full-speed ahead, the road paved I see… kind’a looks like it goes to hell.  From “good” intentions, of course.

It shows that data taken without reasonable suspicion has been used to harass citizens for quite a long time.
Not much coverage has been made that those harassed by the IRS include a ‘group’ that have been harassed throughout history: Jews.
Pro-Israel groups have been targeted by the IRS, not just groups with names containing “Patriot” or “Tea Party”… or —and this should concern you— “Constitution”.

What’s next?

How should I know?  It’s supposed to be “the most transparent administration”…
More should be disclosed on what has already happened, while other things are snuck in.
With the belief that government is good, a belief that yields the treatment of individuals guilty until proven innocent, there’s such a strategy, predicting what people are paying attention to…

Like magic, misdirection (and excuses) are what keeps crooks of politicians looking like saviors.

“But they act on behalf of your safety.”

MIA? No, I give up.

Have I been Missing in Action?

Nah, this isn’t action.  It’s still work, though.

After getting zero hours sleep for a day or two—and I mean zero, finishing all of the necessary parts of the 6502 assembler for results (semi-)professional, releasing the next version of the NES emulator, still baffled by the timing issue for that triangle sequence in the Test Cartridge…

…After finding out that Nichole Cable was already dead… watching the already-end of this country unfold as students coming out of Princeton know nothing, the history teacher a self-avowed Communist and no one cares.  …Or knowing that one of the followers expect me to put up here what would probably kick me off WordPress, given pages/people being kicked off FaceBook for dissenting— even for things so little as calling White House Liar Jay Carney names…

I saw Girls for the first time.  I mean, Hannah went from kind’a innocent to craaaazy.  And Shosh is still a virgin?  OMG!  WTF!  GGP!  NO?

Oh… Gauhd.

I wanted to just come here and say I’m through, done, going to delete this account, but…  I mean, I would definitely do it if… there was somewhere else to speak and actually be heard.  (And that’s if I’m heard here.  And I thought yesterday was June 1.)

One month, dropping the ball, reading very little, after saying… that month ago that I take my reading seriously.  I mean, seriously.

I try to catch up, but frickin’ WordPress won’t let me scroll any further.  So I can’t know much more than what I get in the limited e-mail updates.  Sorry about that— maybe do my own Carnies’ Corner so you can tell me what to read, or at least what I’ve missed? … No?

Sigh.  And so, ending this next single-page chapter in this non-life, I say I give up, but like Al Pacino, “it keeps pulling me back in.”  Or as with StuntedAdults, it’s an abusive relationship.  An exaggeration, I know, but…

Whatever.  The generation-aleph (after X, Y, Z… no— double A?) common word.  “Screw you guys, I’m going home.”  Followed by, “Don’t hurt me!”  Followed by Shimky.

Update: typed ‘Rosh’ instead of ‘Shosh.’  Can’t do things on the spot = not a blogger.