"You gonna get another job?"...

[Volpone]

OK. The post I was going to make: The house I bought doesn't *need* a lot of work to get it ready to rent--Paint and put in flooring.

That's a simplification, but not by much. The problem is that painting and putting in flooring has some prerequisite steps.

A couple smokers lived in this house for over a decade. And accumulated crap. So first I had to de-crapify. Then I had to clean. As I'm cleaning, I regularly have to stop to pull nails, staples, and other things that interfere with cleaning. Also, there are a finite number of hours in a day. The Dog and Cat take up quite a few of them. So do regular chores. And the job. So there are limited hours to clean. And a lot to clean.

And, while I'm making progress on cleaning, it's slow. And the reality is that I will have to clean at least 1 more time before I can paint. And before I can paint, I need to prime with Kilz to block stains and odors. So there's a lot to do. I'm confident I'm on the right track, but there's still a lot to do.

 

[Lanzman]

I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!

 

[Volpone]

I really hoped I could make it down to the new house to clean the living room today. Today marks a month since I got the keys to the place. It would've been nice to have finished the first round of cleaning. Oh well. I cleared out a 10 yard dumpster worth of crap (and have accumulated another, smaller, load since), did essential exterior/landscape work, and scrubbed everything but the living room with a TSP/bleach/water mixture. Usually by the time I was done with the ceiling, the water was almost black (and the ceiling was still tan--a decade+ of smoking). It was shocking, the tobacco film that was on everything--windows, toilets, you name it. The kitchen walls were a really nice shade of beige--until I started washing them. then they were revealed to be white.

And it wasn't just the smoking. The grease in the kitchen is something else. I just wiped everything but the wood cabinets down with bleach and TSP and was a little upset that the cleaner apparently ruined the paint on the dishwasher. But on closer inspection there is a significant layer of grease on the dishwasher that was fogged by the cleaner. How does that much grease even GET on a dishwasher?! It isn't even close to the stove. The red stain in the bottom of the tub is going to take more than bleach and TSP. Even Comet didn't make a dent in it. Maybe CLR. I dunno. How do you let a house get to this state? Some people just live like animals.

****

And now for something completely different.

I need to talk about my part-time job a bit. It pays a lot more (and takes up a lot more time) than I hoped for. The supervisor is completely useless. No charisma, no leadership, no communication skill. His backup is actually pretty good. I don't know why he isn't in charge. He's got a sense of humor, provides direction, communicates and is generally a leader. One time I showed up and one of the other workers was running things. I was like "Huh. I guess both supervisors are off tonight." Nope. The supervisor was there. He was just off doing...whatever he does during the night and it was left to one of the rank and file workers to actually make things happen.

Speaking of doing whatever you do, there's this girl. Inch long fake eyelashes. Beadazzled COVID mask that she wears on her chin. She spends her nights wandering around the store with a cell phone in each hand doing...who knows? She hasn't been fired because the supervisor is useless. Allegedly there's nothing that can be done because there's no evidence. Bullshit. #1, Kentucky is an "at will" state. They can just say "you know what? We're letting you go" and there's nothing she can do; they don't NEED a reason. #2, There are security cameras everywhere. #3, You log into a scanner that tracks your work. I gotta believe they could check the scanner logs. But the supervisor is a non-entity, so she just does whatever.

Meanwhile, the job is maddening to me because I used to train people at UPS to do a lot of the things we do in our job and it's frustrating how badly everyone unloads the truck and builds pallets of boxes. None of it is particularly hard. But no one has ever told them how to do it. And/or they just don't care.

One guy that got hired with me, I feel bad for gossiping about him. He's a nice guy. And he works hard. But he's so goddamned stupid. Like, can't figure out how to log into the network every day. Loses his gloves. Loses his box-cutter. Can't remember where he parked at the end of the day--AT 2AM, WHEN THERE ARE LIKE, 6 CARS IN THE ENTIRE PARKING LOT. The other day he made small talk with "do not buy shoes drunk," and pointed out that the sneakers he was wearing were about 3" longer than his feet. The other day I had to stop for...god knows how long, to box up about 30 window blinds because 1) they were in the wrong spot--in spite of the scanner telling you specifically where they go and 2) he'd increased the shelf space for that SKU into the next 3 product locations--which I needed to stock. I tried to work around it but there was just so much product in the wrong spots on the shelf I had to stop and take it off.

Well, I don't have any zippy way to wrap this up. Or maybe I do. I should've mowed lawn today. But I slept too late. I'd forgotten how much night work screws up your sleep schedule. I've also got a lot of desk work I should do. But I really do want to get that last room in the house cleaned and see what that does to the cigarette smell in the place. Then, like I think I said, I get to clean it all a second time. Hell, I could probably clean it for the rest of the summer and still not get it clean, but after the second cleaning, I'm hoping a coat of KILZ primer will have it ready for paint. We'll see.

 

[Volpone]

cupcakeer. Cunt. Forgot to lock out my psychotic touch pad, so my post got eaten.

OK. Life seems on track. Making more money than I expected on the side job. Also finally should be able to ditch USAA for insurance. Was supposed to rain today, so I had an excuse not to mow a lawn that desperately needed it. But it didn't. So I did. Got all but about a 6'x30' patch mowed before I ran out of gas.

After dinner I decided to run down to the house and clean the living room. I also got a call from the second at work, wondering where I was. Told him the boss told me to come in Monday. Of course the boss hadn't bothered to tell him. The boss sucks. Absolutely terrible. The second should really be the boss.

Now that all the rooms have been scrubbed with bleach and TSP it will be interesting to see if there's still a noticeable cigarette smoke smell. I bet there will be. Because there was just so much tobacco smoke buildup. Did a quick walk-through before leaving and many of the streaks left by the first cleaning are just tangibly tobacco. I'd hoped to do one of the bedrooms with Pine-Sol and vinegar to see how much more I could get up but I ran out of time.

Oh, The Dog was hunting rabbits today but didn't get any. I should support her endeavors. And rabbit murder is just part of the Circle of Life; makes the species stronger and weeds out the slow and the stupid. Also, since The Dog is in my pack, I should be on her side. But when she picks up a scent and I see a little baby bunny huddling and hoping to get missed I'm like "I'll do what I can to draw her off, but no promises." The smart, fast ones get away. The other ones get...eaten. I'll leave it at that, although it's a lovely, horrible story, watching her consume a rabbit.

Anyhow, the other day she discovered a storm sewer culvert that is big enough for her. So after a particularly good (but failed) rabbit chase, she'd come back to the culvert, crawl in to the cool wet concrete shade and lap up rainwater while resting. She did this twice on tonight's walk. She's such a clever dog.

 

[Volpone]

I work tonight. I should also do a bunch of routine chores but I really want to go back and clean one of the rooms a second time to see how it comes out.

 

[Volpone]

Well, my Facebook got hacked while I was at work. Trying to get back in now. Be pissed if I lose everything. There are some videos of Old Dog on that account that I don't have anywhere else.

 

[The Question]

^^You should probably find a way to download those so you don't lose them. I don't know how well this works, but it's worth a shot (I'm going to put some -'s in this link just in case a live link to something like this is Frowned Upon):

htt-ps://w-ww.fdown.n-et

 

[Volpone]

They make it very difficult to download videos from their site. I tried once and gave up.

So here's where we're at: I've been on Facebook since...2009 or so. Same e-mail address all that time; an address that has my actual name in it. Logged on from Oregon most of the time for about half that time; from Kentucky of late--from the same computer most of that time. Old white guy. So when, from 10:37-10:46pm, a strange computer in China sent multiple password reset requests and then "I" immediately changed my contact e-mail to a Chinese e-mail address, the geniuses at Facebook said "Sounds perfectly legit! We'll do it!"

I get home from work 3 hours later, realize what's happened, and attempt to fix it from my old e-mail address and location information and they go "This sounds awfully fishy. Send us a photo of your drivers license." I grudgingly do this and can't make it work so I even more grudgingly send them a photo of my passport. They go "We'll get in touch."

I can only stay up so long, so when I finally get up today, I have a "noreply" e-mail of "We didn't like your ID photo. Resubmit it." So I grudgingly resubmit--this time with my driver's license. Awhile later I get another automated "noreply" e-mail that my photo isn't acceptable. 9 minutes for Chinese hackers to steal my profile and 9 hours of trying unsuccessfully to get it back. Meanwhile, who knows what social engineering they're up to with my stolen account and friends list. And it's impossible to actually talk to a human at Facebook. You know robots are running all this.

 

[The Question]

Eh, I don't know what/if I can do about it, but maybe PM me your Facebook address and I'll see if I can "steal" your videos for you.

 

[Volpone]

We are witnessing what happens when you automate too many things. Any sane human would've been able to catch this immediately--or realize what was going on when it was called to their attention. The problem is, it is increasingly impossible to interact with a human that has any authority in this age. It impacts everything.

Little Caesar's Pizza, for fuck's sake. I won't go down the rabbithole of what Little Caesar's was like when I was younger, but they've figured out a model that has allowed them to survive to the modern age. Instead of delivering 2 made to order pizzas for the price of one, they now have a $5* "Hot & Nasty" pizza. You walk into the store with $5 and ask if they have a Hot & Nasty sausage. Worst case, they say "no, but we've got pepperoni" and you walk out with a pizza.

EXCEPT! Now we have DoorDash and Skip the Line with the App and other automated tools, so the last time I was in a Little Caesar's, there were 8-10 people running around in the kitchen and stacks and stacks of pizzas in warming ovens and a 20 minute line of angry customers with screwed up orders and the reward in waiting to get to the register was to be told they had no Hot & Nasty pizzas ready to go.

My insurance claims were nightmares because everything was automated and outsourced and when the robot would screw something up, no humans had any authority or ability to override the robots.

*I think the price has gone up to $7 or so.

 

[The Question]

I miss pizza. I don't even eat it anymore because, for the reasons you gave, it's just shit now. If you want food that isn't crammed full of soy and HFCS*, now, you make it yourself. And I don't know how to make pizza myself, so... that's it for pizza, for me.



*To be certain, you have to look at ingredients labels with an eagle eye to make sure you're not putting that shit into your body anyway... AND you have to take a leap of fucking faith when it comes to believing that the labels are even accurate and honest...

 

[Volpone]

Fuck. So much going on. And FaecesBook withdrawals to boot.

Seriously. How has Facebook made it so simple to steal an account and so impossible to get it back. Again, a human would see what was going on in an instant. But there are no humans in the system. Someone says they need a new password to a new e-mail address and posts a fake ID and Facebook gives them your account. You can never get it back because the robot the hackers have can respond to password resets faster than you can and no humans are in the loop at 1 Zuck Plaza. I refuse to just create a new account like other friends have on principle. I've been underwhelmed by Facebook for years now. Years and years. I'll deal with the withdrawal rather than create a new account. Seriously. Is anyone on MySpace? Parler? Getter? Truth Social? No? I guess logging in to any of them is pointless.

And don't get me going on Social Security. If is a scam. It was created as a scam. I just don't have time to go into it right now.

Anyhow, as I wok on the new house, I increasingly think I know what I'm doing. The smoker stank is mostly gone--and I haven't even primed with KILZ yet. The Plan was to just chuck all fixtures rather than try to clean decades of tobacco off them, but one of the ceiling fans is nice, so I cleaned it up and got it re-installed. I've got one from another reno that I didn't use, so only 2 more fan/lights and this house is set. (Apart from all the other work.)

I also need to talk about the recently deceased Unabomber, but as I get sleepier and sleepier, I realize I'll have to come back to that like Social Security.

 

[Volpone]

Oh, the other thing was... You know how, in the old days, playing "Civilization" you'd get pissed because just about the time you started getting everything running really smoothly, the Greeks or Abraham Lincoln or someone would come along and start a war? And how you'd bitch at the game for being a cheating piece of crap? Now that I'm older, I realize that's exactly the way Life is. Yesterday afternoon I was on the verge of a breakdown because I was trying to get stuff done and The Dog came over and insisted on being petted. One of the things I was trying to get done was clean the house. Sweeping is bad enough anyway, with pets. You get done with a room and see all the crap that has fallen out of the broom as you swept up the dustpan. And no matter how many times you sweep, pet hair just floats up in the air and then lands back on the floor when you think you're done. But I'd managed to sweep and vacuum; was hoping to dust too, before popping over to the other house to clean some, but instead I was petting The Dog. And as I was, I was watching clouds and clouds of springtime shedding fur fall in a blanket on the floor I'd just finished vacuuming. I was just like, "CAN I PLEASE JUST FINISH SOMETHING BEFORE HAVING TO INSTANTLY DO IT AGAIN?!"

 

[The Question]

Seriously. Is anyone on MySpace? Parler? Getter? Truth Social?

Gab.

 

[Lanzman]

MeWe.

 

[Volpone]

So tired and jumpy today. I keep trying periodically to recover my Facebook account, but I suspect it is impossible. Facebook is run by robots and the hacker has a robot. I can't get my PIN entered before the hacker robot enters its PIN. At least I assume that is what's happening, because they send me a PIN and when I try to enter it I'm told it is invalid.

Meanwhile, trying to switch insurance companies and, in spite of being told twice by USAA that my home claim is closed, it is still showing in the system as open. So me and the new broker did a conference call with USAA to have them send some kind of insurance letter. Of course USAA sent a letter that did NOT confirm the claim is closed, so as of today I'm still stuck with them.

I didn't get any work done on the rental and haven't even finished all the chores that should've been done by Sunday. The Dr. Who prop board I'm a member of, our benefactor is on hard times so I agreed to chip in a bit towards this year's Web hosting. While I was looking up how to make this happen, I got an e-mail to take a satisfaction survey from a company I don't remember buying anything from so I had to go see if my credit card had been compromised. It doesn't look like it has been--although now I realize I need to figure out how to check the new card I just got to replace USAA--so I e-mailed them back, telling them about the hack and that I wasn't aware of buying anything from them. Then I got the Web Hosting thing banged out--not without a couple hiccups. So now I've got...15 minutes or so to do some bookkeeping. I hate bookkeeping so much. And I really need to screw down and get it all done. I've been doing just enough to keep things more or less on track for a few weeks now but I really need to know how much I have and where it is so I guess I should get back to it.

You're just going along like "DOOTY-DOOTY-DOO...", fat and happy, and at any moment something you have no visibility on could clobber you out of the blue and completely screw up everything you've been working on.

 

[Volpone]

OK. I'd rather talk about the Unabomber, but I've been teasing a Social Security post for ages, so we'll hit that.

Bottom line, up front: Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. In an effort to write good, I wanted a definition from Dictionary.com, but somehow, they've fucked the site up so it no longer works right. Seriously, how hard is it to give someone a definition for the search term they've entered? It's literally what the Internet was built to do. But apparently not. So I just did a DuckDuckGo search and got Wiki--which was too much to neatly quote.

So, in a nutshell, a Ponzi scheme is when you get people to give you their money now and promise in the future you'll give even more money back to them. BUT! You aren't actually doing this by investing in things that make money, you're using money from new investors to pay old investors. Lather, rinse, repeat. What could possibly go wrong, right? Everything. Because eventually you can't find enough new investors to pay the old investors and the house of cards collapses. This is why Ponzi schemes are illegal and will land you in prison.

Unless you are President FDR. In which case, it will still eventually fail, but can delay that by forcing people to buy into it and be long dead when it happens.

So. On or around 1935, FDR decided it would be cool if he took a hefty chunk of every American's paycheck to put into "Social Security." This was essentially a big mattress in Washington DC that cash was stuffed into. The promise was, if you just pay into Social Security out of every hour you work, when you retire at age 65, we'll take money from people currently working and pay it to you. And there was no subterfuge. It was very clear that Social Security collects from working people goes to retired people on the promise that, when you retire, money from working people will go to you. I mean, unless working people don't make enough money to pay the retired people, but we'll circle back to that.

Now. Understand the idea of taking your money to pay retired people instead of investing it for you to access later wasn't an accident. It was by design. If it's your money, it goes to your heirs. If it's the Government's Money and you die before you can collect...oh well, that's too bad. Interestingly enough, the life expectancy of American workers in the 1930s was a little bit less than 65. FDR died at 63 and thus would've never gotten a dime back from Social Security. That was his plan. Steal money from your paycheck on the promise that you might get some back if you somehow beat the odds and lived longer than expected. Totally crooked and evil.

So what's the alternative? Well, apart from the obvious, letting people keep the money they worked for to do what they want with it, something as simple as a no load indexed mutual fund, tied to the Dow Jones. Instead of using your money to pay someone who's already retired, your money gets invested in the US economy. Dividends buy more shares. The money goes to you and your heirs, not the Federal Government. Meanwhile, this investment in the economy pumps up growth and American business. Everybody wins. Literally everybody. Uncle Sam doesn't get to rob you, but it is more than made up for in increased taxes because everyone is wealthier.

I feel a little bad that I never did the math, but I recently read a story about the evils of state lotteries, where the author argued that if a person had invested their money instead of buying lottery tickets, they'd have easily become a millionaire. I've never walked through the numbers myself, but that is very believable. If I'd been allowed to keep all the money that was stolen from me by "Social Security" I'd be retired by now,

 

[The Question]

Uncle Sam doesn't get to rob you, but it is more than made up for in increased taxes because everyone is wealthier.

This leads to the aphorism: Evil is stupid.

It's greedy enough to steal, but too stupid to leave its victims prosperous enough to make stealing from them pay in the long term.

 

[Volpone]

So. Ted "Unabomber" Kazinski is dead. Died in prison, age 81. Killed 3 people. Got his manifesto published before getting caught and put in jail for the rest of his life. Terrifying monster, amirite?

Killed 3 people. 3. In 20 years. About 1 every 7 years. Getting hit by lightning is pretty uncommon. But something like 22 people in the USA are randomly killed by lightning EVERY YEAR. Meanwhile, the Unabomber killed one targeted person every 7 years. Shit, I think bigfoot has a higher body count than that.

I was around when this all went down. And at the time I thought the guy was cray-cray. But I never actually read his manifesto until a few months ago.

Back in the mid '90s, the Unabomber argued that politics and academia were subverting and undermining The American Way. Crazy, right? Flash forward 30 years and the President is flying a gay flag from the White House and looking for ways to subvert the Bill of Rights. Meanwhile we have drag queen story hours for kids, 435 genders for kindergarteners, the Ministry of Truth, using tech companies (oh, and the DoJ and executive branch) to destroy your enemies. So yeah, Ted pretty much called it.

For me, the part where the Unabomber Manifesto falls apart, though is the argument that we need to revert to a preindustrial society.

But of late I've realized this isn't a voluntary thing. The enemies of the USA are working to dismantle our industrial society. When that happens, you need a working well and septic tank. You need to grow your own food. You need to know how to survive in a preindustrial society, because that's what the (D)s are actively working to create.

 

[The Question]

So. Ted "Unabomber" Kazinski is dead. Died in prison, age 81. Killed 3 people. Got his manifesto published before getting caught and put in jail for the rest of his life. Terrifying monster, amirite?

Killed 3 people. 3. In 20 years. About 1 every 7 years. Getting hit by lightning is pretty uncommon. But something like 22 people in the USA are randomly killed by lightning EVERY YEAR. Meanwhile, the Unabomber killed one targeted person every 7 years. Shit, I think bigfoot has a higher body count than that.

I was around when this all went down. And at the time I thought the guy was cray-cray. But I never actually read his manifesto until a few months ago.

Back in the mid '90s, the Unabomber argued that politics and academia were subverting and undermining The American Way. Crazy, right? Flash forward 30 years and the President is flying a gay flag from the White House and looking for ways to subvert the Bill of Rights. Meanwhile we have drag queen story hours for kids, 435 genders for kindergarteners, the Ministry of Truth, using tech companies (oh, and the DoJ and executive branch) to destroy your enemies. So yeah, Ted pretty much called it.

For me, the part where the Unabomber Manifesto falls apart, though is the argument that we need to revert to a preindustrial society.

But of late I've realized this isn't a voluntary thing. The enemies of the USA are working to dismantle our industrial society. When that happens, you need a working well and septic tank. You need to grow your own food. You need to know how to survive in a preindustrial society, because that's what the (D)s are actively working to create.

The idea we're all supposed to have internalized is that he was just some total whacko. But... he wasn't. At all.

And before anybody says it... I know, I know... lol