Not a Wave or Tsunami, a Blue Flood.

This is a political post.  

I have some things to say. I will admit that the "flood the zone" strategy worked. I like to gather my thoughts, and my facts, but when you have six things that would normally run a full week's news cycle happen in seventy two hours, it's a little harder to coalesce these musings into the wit, charm and imaginative musings you've come to know and love.  

I haven't really been feeling it lately. 

I really had no intention of watching the election returns come in on Tuesday. I was visiting my Mom during the 2024 election and when I awoke the morning after to no text or social media messages, an immediate feeling of dread came over me that morning. After the manic energy of the last election cycle failed to translate into a win for the first black woman President, I wasn't ready to go through that again. Okay, let's be honest, I was a little "vote shy." I seriously need to get out more, I'm making up phrases here. 

In any case, my desired evening was supposed to one of reflection, quiet reading and some incessant snacking to soothe the old nerves. This pool of calm was interrupted by my cousin checking in. No, not the cousin who just stayed with me for two weeks, rearranged all my cupboards, made me through out a ton of old clothes and made me feel like my housecleaning skills are lacking (they are, I just didn't want to feel like it), it was her sister. She updated me on the Governor's race without my permission. I asked her not to jinx it. That's the actual phrase I used - jinx it. Mentally, I might be five. But thus, with the seal broken, I couldn't look away. 

The Democrats won in Kansas? Like Dorothy and Toto Kansas? Deep Red Kansas? There must be a second Kansas I was previously unaware of. Then South Carolina? I thought I was reading the Onion or some other parody site. Are you kidding me? Then I found myself flipping through social media looking for proof, or at least corroborating reports because this was starting to sound too good to be true. Did we slip into a parallel universe where chocolate is health food and you whiskey is free? No? Okay, fine, but you had to ask. Anyway, I watched North Carolina turn, and finally...Georgia cross the line into sanity. 

The country collectively voted like Cheato was on the ballot. Like it mattered. Because it did.

But this is just the first quarter of the political game. Can't take it easy now. We got a lot of game left to play. And the next step, and making sure we don't hand these historic wins and the possible gains over to Frick and Frack, who will simply squander them away trying to "get things back to normal." The people we decisively voted against being in charge still have more plans that won't serve the American people in any meaningful way. We need leaders in this next Congress to have more than a bit of bite and backbone. Who would be (metaphorically speaking) hands on them. And maybe not solely metaphorically. In either case, our current expected leadership is somewhat...lacking.  

You see, we the voting blue people do want things to be affordable again. And a bit of that aforementioned sanity to return. But we also want the people who wrecked the economy on purpose, who sent masked thugs into our streets, left us all to die by destroying our healthcare systems and treated the Constitution and the rule of law not only as optional, but as if it hasn't evolved since the 1800's to be brought to JUSTICE. We don't want revenge. Okay, a little revenge. A modicum of revenge. Definite gloating, with soup and sandwich and the BBQ revenge on the side. 

Because one of the reasons we got here is that we've never properly punished those who would destroy us. Starting with the Confederates, up to 2025. We keep letting them off the hook. That needs to stop. This time. Enough is enough. 

And the Band Played on...

This should be a political post. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. All I know if your vote didn't count ...there wouldn't be three hour long lines in Ohio. That special interest groups wouldn't have spent $30 million in Michigan. The Lindsey's sister would have used her married name, not her maiden name. And they wouldn't be trying to "less than manly tar and feather" the candidate in Texas. Your vote counts. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

We've done our best. Well, most of our best. Seriously, liberals need to stop waiting on perfection, and realize sometimes you go to go with you got, like damn. Rant over, we gave what we had when called and gave it our all. I'm staying off the news part of the internet until morning. Of course I did this with the last election and woke up to a truly soul cratering disappointment, but I'm not good with the tension. Not this tension. Tension isn't good for me right now. It just isn't. To many things moving at the same time that I can't gauge. 

I voted early, on a quiet Tuesday, maybe two weeks ago, at the library up the street. Made sure of my selections, made sure the paper ballot reflected my picks, made sure the machine took my ballot. 

It is what it is. 

And now....now we wait. 

Probably shouldn't have clicked That

Ramblings Post #425
The internet is a dangerous place. All kinds of foolishness on here. Promises of riches for just dreaming of work. People with no idea how things fit believing their opinion is on par whose put in the 10,000 hours. Short people who listed themselves as NBA height, knowing you forgot about Muggsy. Gurus who live in their mother's basement selling the keys to life (hint: it involves a basement). And finally, viruses and intrusions of all kinds. Which brings us to here. 

I used to be good at that, that thing where you could spot a virus. I'd get a piece of email and something would just say that this item is not to be trifled with. I spot a kink in the spelling, or the color of the logo would be off or something that set of the ol' spidey senses and I'd click this is phishing button or just delete it out of habit. But since my current email is chock full of "New Position" and "Job Opportunity" amongst the "Travel Planning for 2027" and CLE classes, I guess a new something just caught me eye. Or rather didn't. 

And that kids is how they get you. 

Because I'm simultaneously doing something on my laptop, which is right beside my main when suddenly the screen on the main goes blue with the message "Don't Turn off your Computer." But the mouse is still moving. So, I turned off my computer. It didn't say updating, it just said don't turn it off. This is of course right thing to do because I notice someone tried to access one of my accounts that has two factor authentication on it. So it's not like it was a question of what was happening, it was exactly what I thought it was. 

So, I spent a good part of last night and this morning confabing with Google figuring out how to turn this fucking issue off in Services, then change file ownership (which I didn't need to do) then go into command and remove them manually. Which upon reboot didn't work. Then I did all that again, then really tried to edit my own registry which resulted in a whole system reset, which wouldn't let my machine even boot, so I to then go for a fix which did let it boot, which put me back at the beginning, again. Then I found some other stuff, how to remove them from Services entirely, found some arcane writings from a very unhelpful company and there was learning some Powershell before building an small shrine in my front yard and sacrificing a goat before I covered myself with binary paint and joined forces to shrink down with the tiny fellow in my pen to call upon the power of Poke-Pac man to defeat the forces of computer evil with a pitchfork and bug spray. Okay some of that was made up. But the goat was delicious. 

I'm going to look back on it as a challenge. Which as of right now I've conquered, at least according to the goat bones and the shape of burning sage embers. But I've also felt it prudent to set all my accounts to two factor authentication, even the dumb ones. And reset some passwords. It's a weird feeling of violation. I wonder if they read any of my half finished writing, which was NOT ready for outside eyes. It's almost a blessing that I'm broke right now, so there was little to take. Okay fine, yes, I unplugged my network cable before I went to the bathroom. And again when I made lunch. 

Sigh. It's gonna be a minute. 

Barkeep. A coffee and some toast. I need to stay frisky. And unplug my network cable.  

Bar Chatter

Bar Chatter #41
When it's not enough to make a post, but deserves to go out to the world... it's just Bar Chatter.  

I've been seeing this thing where apparently Queen Bey sold people a box for almost $1000 and it was empty. And people are mad? This sounded absurd to me, like maybe a shipping issue or a mistake of some sort. She's an empire, this was done by an intern.  

I was mistaken. 

She sold a box - for a band - to hold OTHER STUFF you bought from her. The box, designed to "house and display" your Bey vinyl collection, doesn't come with the vinyl you're supposed to display. I can't imagine the Vinyl costing more than $200 total. I seriously have no idea how many pieces of vinyl she's released, but it can't be that many. They bought the box, they don't get no discount? And the box? I've seen Ben on HGTV's Hometown build something like this for funsies. He probably wouldn't have used a faux gator skin strap, but he would have built it using wood from the tree in the backyard of your mother's house you used to sit under and dream about the future. 

Sorry tangent. 

On the positive, it is numbered. So, yeah. 

I apparently live a sheltered life, because there is no way. No way. 

So, I Need to Focus

Ramblings Post #424
I have been a gamer for forever. But I don't appreciate those PvP things that game development companies have come to adore in recent years, designed to suck you in and basically keep you dropping of a little bit of coin regularly to keep their profits up. I'm a single player game kinda guy. Sell me the game, the whole game and leave me alone. For the record, I've been feeling like the extinction of my kind of gamer has been vastly exaggerated.   

A few months ago, on a humbug, I did something that I don't normally do - I watched online as people played a game I was never going to play myself. For me the only reason to ever really do so was to watch what other people did so you could get past a particularly tricky spot or improve your own play style. I used to joke about people who JUST watched other people play. The idea that it was something in and of itself, like watching any professional sport and just for funsies, sounded weird. But as I said bored, and needed some house noise, I clicked a YouTube channel to watch someone play Project Zomboid. There are like a thousand of those.  

Note - For the record I do not like zombie games. It feels a little like the developer is cheating and instead of developing a true villain, they can just litter a good sized gaming map with hordes of things to shoot. No motivations, no evil schemes, no lair, no character building - just undead things that are always attacking. I don't play PvP either, but at least there your actual live opponent has the motivation of 'win and talk shit.' As a result zombie games feel a bit empty to me. So if it's got zombies, I pass on playing.  

I half suspect my interest in this game because of the map. I love a good map (lightly drools). For those who are unaware, the game is about a Zombies outbreak in Kentucky in the mid-80s. Not New York on Los Angles, but an isometric map view of version of Louisville, Kentucky and about seven or eight surrounding small towns. And the map is very detailed. VERY DETAILED (more drool). Veteran users set up private servers, run modified games, with modified maps and invite other players and run these huge hundred player PvP scenarios. Then they film themselves role playing survivors struggling with things like hunger, depression, illnesses and the abject terror trying to keep it together. 

The in-game map lets you make notes.

The reason for this post is that I recently, accidentally, watched the same game/match three times from three different perspectives due to the setup. In this group match, I watched one player's story of him gathering a group and build a kingdom, co-op style. A few days later another story of a group setting up a hotel, but didn't connect the two. It wasn't until I happened upon the third video of group trying to rebuild civilization that I made the connection, as they showed the same scene from the earlier two videos where the groups all briefly met - in game and in character - to discuss some issues. As a writer, it was absolutely fascinating watching three different players describe the same conversation from their own point of view. It's me with some the framing on the story I'm currently working on. 

How the map you play on looks. 

I wrote all that to say that watching people play a video game I'm never going to play I got to hear the same conversation from different angles, which I feel will help me with my writing. Wow. 

That was kinda depressing, now that I think about it. Yeah, I'ma have to get out more. 

Barkeep. The bowl of peanuts, and another cold beer. I have to think on some things.  

There was supposed to be...

Ramblings Post #422
One of the great tragedies of life is regret. In the looking back upon the road you decided to travel and imagining that another path would have been better. Or in my case, just different. I suffer no illusions that someone other than I am responsible for my circumstances. I made these choices. They weren't always good. But like everyone, I had a vision of how my life was supposed to be. And my mind, my imagination, it plays that life out for me. Not a "better" life, just different. 

PROBABLY NOT HERE. NO BACKYARD

There were supposed to be dinner parties. Yes, dinner parties, and YES, it sounds bougie. Where I would have invited over five or seven people and I would have spent hours on a Sunday cooking for them. Not during football season, of course. And we'd have drink found wines and discussed things of great importance, odd minutiae and inadvertently work through childhood trauma. There would have been light jazz or old unto ancient hip hop playing at a low volume. There would been tense moments and raucous laughter. One weekend I would have declared my house a shoe free zone and forgotten about it a few months later. After dinner, a the back patio or deck we'd have sipped whiskey, smoked cigars and engaged in despicable small talk as we watched the sky darken. Maybe a fire pit or loose lights. I wouldn't want to clean up but would have to, lest the house smell like that dinner for two days. 

I envy what might have been. I have come to envy the mundane.