Daily Bloggery 2009-04-21: Locomotive Breath

One of the ironies of not having a van anymore is that I am traveling more often now. Of course I now have a very good reason to travel. Most of my trips have been worry-free and generally fun. This trip, well, not so much. On the inbound bus-train-train-train run, I had travel issues of one sort or another on every single leg of the trip to Fremont and a doozy on the way home.

Bus to Light Rail: I try to board at my usual spot, and the driver is a snot. "Walk over there and wait till my break is done to board!" he snarled at me. I understand, drivers need breaks. I'd rather ride with a driver after his break than with a cranky one with an attitude problem.

Light Rail Leg 1: I get a guy behind me raving to and about his girlfriend, loudly, over a cellphone. I cannot wear the iPod earphones on LRT because I need to listen for the stop I need to get off for to catch LRT Gold to Amtrak.

Light Rail Leg 2: Guy on train wanted to sell me a bus pass for $1. Typical scammer. I get this all the time. Most people selling bus passes do not let you see the pass until they have your money, and by and large it is petty fraud. I needed another bus pass like I needed another nostril so I declined.

Amtrak: This one was a double header. Item the first is the guy who needed to borrow a power adapter to charge his cellphone. One of the reasons that Amtrack rocks is that every seat has a 120 VAC socket for charging portable electronics like cellphones and iPods. His phone has a mini-usb plug, so I lend him mine. I ask him what stop and he says San Jose. I tell him to drop it back by when the train reaches Hayward, the last stop before I get off at Fremont. I do not see him again until after Hayward, at which time I am now in need of my charger.

Item the second is of my own doing: I give Gwenny the wrong ETA for picking me up at the Fremont station . . . . Oops.

The trip home is a whole lot better thanks to chatting with Gwenny, and the iPhone app Bejeweled 2. Gwenny got he hooked on this app on Facebook -- the perfect non-demanding iPhone game. Too many iPhone games are way too demanding to play on a train, and I do not really want to whip out WarCraft 3 on the train. There's also the lack of network connectivity on Amtrak, so WoW is a non-option.

Anyway, things went smoothly for the three train trips, but while waiting for the last bus ride, this scruffy looking, excitable, strange little man starts talking to me about how his landlord's niece is trying to get him tossed into prison for "touching her" and how the cops would not believe him when he said he did not . . . how his cat ate half his Subway sandwhich yesterday . . . how the landlord's niece broke into his room and stole his lighter . . . and far more about the mechanics of meph use and prison rape than I ever wanted to know. I did not have my iPod on because I'm concerned about keeping my perception capabilities unimpaired. No transit cops in line of sight, naturally. I could not escape this clown because we were waiting for the same bus . . . once the bus got there I got on and got as far from this individual as I could. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is either a sad sack fishing for some sympathy, is enagaing in some kind of psychological projection or is actually having fantasies about the kid.

This visit had some real highlights: the walk to the local Internet cafe was nice, and the place had good brew and chow, even if the bandwidth was, shall we say, not so good. Jenni made us dinner on Sunday: beef Strogonoff with homemade noodles. SGL was in the 80-110 all weekend. There was the Naxx raid as well, with all the phat lewts (see last post).

Next trip there is Beltane weekend.

The less said, the better . . .

Xbox nailed to a tree...

Odinn and Yahweh not amused.

" . . . this is your brain on hillbilly heroin. Any questions?"

More delusions of adequacy and sheer criminality from Rush Limbaugh.

I dream of his well-fed carcass in a prison jumpsuit . . . .



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Now playing: Neil Young - Rockin' In the Free World
via FoxyTunes

Hillary Clinton: You just lost my support. PERIOD.

I simply cannot believe what HRC said the other day with respect to her candidacy and that of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

This is mind-boggling that HRC would rather praise her all-but-certain opponent while the primary process is still underway than remeber who'se fscking side she is on!

With "friends" like her, who needs enemies?

I'm also incensed that Ms. Clinton has been playing the "fear card" -- "Vote for me or the terrorists will garotte us all in our beds!" How sick and tired am I of the politics of fear? The last seven years have been a living experiment in the Tarkin Doctrine; every time I hear a politician laboring to scare me with some news that Those Dark People Are Gonna Kills Us All!!! I just set that voice to my ever-growing "/ignore list."

The President's job is not to protect me from every and all peril in the world. The job is to "Support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United Stares against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to same." I do not expect the President to ensure my personal safety or that of the "nation," if it means giving up the essence of Americanism to obtain that safety. I expect the President and Congress to see to it that the US Armed Forces are as ready as they can be for credible threats to the national security.

I am FAR more afraid of what a McBush follow-on to Shrub will do to the tattered remnants of the Constitution and Bill o' Rights than I am of screaming hordes of jihadi conjured on demand by the scaremongers to frighten me into surrendering even more of my freedom!

Gary Hart, onetime Senator and Presidential candidate, has a few words for Hillary (via Huffpo). Is her lust for power so great that she'll cripple her own party? What use is getting the nomination if she gets creamed by John W. McBush in the fall?

What next?

OK, this is more than enough!

What "this" is, is that a state legislator in Mississippi has introduced a bill to forbid serving overweight people in restaurants with more than five seats.

No, this is NOT a joke! I guess since discrimination against people with dark skins is out, these assholes have to have someone to discriminate against. Or maybe this is a way to accomplish the same goal (since people of color are also very often overweight).

Overweight people are a class of people it's OK to hate. Perhaps the only one left in the US anymore. We get stares . . . we get sneers . . . we get criticism disguised as unwanted medical advice from EVERYONE, because everyone is a weight loss authority. The last thing overweight people need is shame; most of us have enough other issues with our relationshio to food as matters stand!

At least some medical people are starting to understand that strident advice / shaming people to lose weight is counterproductive.

More This 'n' That

1. American racial bigots adopt the term "Canadian" to refer to African-Americans. People from Canada not amused.

2. Speaking of race, sanity prevails in Florida Republican primary: Rudy "9/11" Ghouliani drops out, throws support to Florida primary victor Sen. McCain.

3. Sad day: my Dem candidate, John Edwards, also drops out.

Mike Huckabee Scares Me

Just. Read. This.

The Christian Hell Just Froze Over . . .

I am in complete agreement with a New York Times editorial for once.

Heard in Global Trade Channel: "LF Guild "

Presidential candidate meets WoW. Film at 11 (server time) . . . .



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Now playing: The Elders - Gonna Take a Miracle
via FoxyTunes

SotR 2007-11-20

My cough is easing a bit but it is still not quite right. My doc says it cannot be allergens from the wolves here or I'd have reacted right away. She had the nurse take a culture of my throat. My right leg has three or four very small, shallow wounds left. The drainage is minimal.

On the lighter side, at least I've found a bus within walking distance of the house that runs on Sundays. Not only that, it also connects to the bus I need for work on Saturday! This is a big help, but the last bus from work still runs too early for me to use to get home. I am beginning to feel a bit housebound on Sundays when I don't game. Not to mention that I'd really like to see Beowulf.

/checks eTran schedule . . .

Nope, no way to get to either PCJ, but it looks like I may be able to make it it to Panera Bread on Howe on Sundays. Bus 56 to Meadowview Light Rail to Marconi Arcade and Bus 87 up Howe Ave. Just like my basic wound care run every Monday.

Slight change of direction here: you remember my rant about transit the other day? I received more unwanted insight into human sexuality today from one side of a too-loud cell phone call. What is it with you people? What transpires in bed between you and your partner(s) should be between you, them and the Gods. Why in the name of Freya do you have to talk about it so loudly that no passenger lacking headphones could avoid hearing about your happy times in the sack?

Don't get me wrong: I have NOTHING against sex. Consensual sex is nothing less than sacred. Nor is the annoyance from what I overheard the result of frustration in a guy who is currently not in a relationship. I'm annoyed at the sheer inappropriateness of having this conversation in a public place.

This week's going to be a fun one . . . hell-i-day off Thursday for Turkey Day, and Wednesday I get off at 4 or so, Finally, a day where I can catch the bus home without the quarter-mile "I hope I get there in time" walk! The geekend will be bizarre with Friday and Saturday being either very busy or kind of slow.

I hate payday loans

Yesterday I proclaimed my appreciation for Sacramento RT and Elk Grove e-Tran. Today's bit of bloggery has to do with an industry that should, even in a free market, be run out of town like criminals. And, sadly, one I became all too familiar with during the first part of this decade.

Back when I was a kid, usury laws were on the books that forbade the loaning of money at massive rates of interest. People with wealth and property could always secure loans with collateral from federally regulated banks. Folks lacking these resources turned to "the bank of Guido and Luigi," the local shady operators, often a Family operation, who substituted the threat of pain or worse for more tangible resources and charged enormous rates of interest. Well, laws have changed and the collection specialists (legbreakers) are something of a thing of the past. Now anyone with a fixed address, a steady income and a startling lack of financial sense can score for themselves a "payday loan" from one of 22,000 such bloodsucker locations scattered across the fruited plain.

Payday loans are like the Dark Side of the Force in Star Wars: " . . . once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it guide your destiny . . ." "Easy" money is soooo seductive, a quick way out of a jam that carries a tremendous cost of its own. How well I know because a few years ago, my paydays were little more than covering last pay period's payday loans and re-writing new ones . . . then taking the cash, minus a couple hundred in fees, to pay the bills.

I admit it, I knew better. I could read the disclosure statements and I winced at the 300% - plus APR interest rates. I wish in retrospect I could have learned to say NO to these loans. I'm owning up to my own weakness, accepting my share of the blame. I've completely eschewed them and stayed that way for almost two years.

It seems that the industry now has a trade association. Go figure.

Brain on random...

1. Feeling like fsck thanks to a a bit of a cough and cold. Been resting; hope to feel better tomorrow.

2. New phone arrived yesterday -- Sony Ericson z310a. Pretty nice phone, really, if the damned thing would work. I managed to get it charged, registered on the AT&T network, turned on, entered some phone numbers manually (it does not sync with iSync 2.x in Mac OS X . . . needs Windows and proprietary software), and shut it down for the night, never to turn on again.

Now the "fun" begins . . . Called AT&T's "customer service" people. Selected "other" from a voice menu, and got billing. "Tech support?" . Rep number 2 knew her onions. For once I decided to NOT say "I'm a tech, I know what I'm doing . . ." to someone doing tech support because I didn't want to come off sounding like an idiot if the issue was something I overlooked. After explaining my troubleshooting, the tech said "Yep, you've done everything" and transferred me to a long wait and someone with the typical accent heard from reps who live in a certain very large South Asian nation famed for total cluelessness in phone support. This rep told me I was in the wrong queue, and before I could start unloading my utter frustration onto her, was again transferred . . . to FSCKING SALES! By this time I was primed like a block of plastique and I went off, big time. I demanded to speak to a supervisor. She did what I'd do in her place and offer to help . . . which I declined after explaining why. I asked again. And, like I've done in her place, was warm transferred to another agent who, from her accent, resided in a large but sparsely populated North American nation. I calmly told my story of totally inferior service, that if I had not already put money on the books to activate the phone, I would have canceled already. At that point she said "pick a phone from the go-phone list you want." "OK, does it have to be the same phone and does it have to be the same price or less?" "No. I'm giving you a credit for a phone upgrade or accessories for your trouble." "OK, how about the Motorola RAZR v3?" The RAZR is the phone I really wanted two years ago. It has a camera, and Bluetooth. iSync 2.x and that phone do get along. In other words, my OS X Address Book and iCal will sync to the RAZR via either Bluetooth or USB without 3rd party crapware like The Pissing Stink, er, Missing Sync.

Now I'm getting a RAZR and not having to pay an upgrade price for it. This is my second Sony product that has been an extreme disappointment (the first was my Clie PDA). I'll avoid Sony anything in the future!

Not to mention that AT&T did a good job of addressing my dissatisfaction.

3. Finally, a Democratic presidential candidate who GETS IT!
And, "it" is the oath of office: " . . . support, defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . .". As far as I'm concerned, the official acts of Shrub and Dead-eye Dick certainly qualify them as the latter foe.
The more I look at Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama, the better Senator Chris Dodd looks. While Obama and Hillary draw all the attention and the money, but from what I have seen, Dodd's the real deal. At a time when Congress seems to be engaged in a game of "Let's grab our ankles and grease up for Shrub!" Dodd is LEADING!


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Listening to: Pink Floyd - On the Turning Away
via FoxyTunes

What Would Jack Bauer Do?

Justice Scalia provides an answer.

Pardon me while I backup, repartition and reinstall my psyche.

The "Gay Bomb"

And, no, this is NOT from The Onion.


Too fscking strange for words.

Greatest. Satire. Ever.

Yes, David, I wish this Onion piece was satire and not prophacy

The Ferretist Threat?

A certain former mayor goes off on a ferret owner.

Crudity = psychic pollution; Don't spare the brain bleach!

Has anyone else noticed just how more coarse and crude our culture has become the last fifteen years or so?

Item: I was at my doctor's office recently, and there was a young man sitting in the waiting room there who wore a an incredibly crude, obscene shirt. How bad? Bad enough that I do not even want to link to the design, much less look at it. Suffice it to say it depicted people engaged in sex acts and alluded to others.

Now, I'm no prude. Far from it. I consider sexuality to be sacred, something to share with one's partner(s) and with nobody else. Things like this step waaaaay over the line. I needed brain bleach to rid my psyche of the grungy residue.

Item: The very large number of chat conversations in World of Warcraft punctuated by (%$#@&,
&$#! and *%#@)*&%*)!@ (yes, folks can mask obscenities in the WoW GUI, thank the gods . . .). Fortunately, I'm playing in a wonderful guild where this kind of thing is simply.not.tolerated . . . and all I need to deal with the at-large f-bombers and other jerks is to use my old friend, "/ignore (jerk's name)" -- and stay out of the Barrens Stranglethorn Vale.

Of course, some of you might say to me: "He doth protest too much." After all, this blog is "Operation: Mindfsck." Yes, the "fsck" as I useit here is a replacement for the infamous "f-bomb" word. However, there is a deeper meaning: "fsck" is a *nix command that checks the consistiency of a computer's file system. As one does the fsck command to validate the filesystem integrity of the filesystem on a computer HD, a mindfsck validates the integrity of one's mind.

Sheer, undiluted crudity and psychic pollution: yet another reason to fight to preserve my splendid isolation.

Reasons Fox News Sucks, Number 2864

The Onion does it a LOT better, guys . . . .

OMFG . . . .

1. What is it about the month of April and mass murders at schools?

2. This is, for the moment, not about politics, or the state of our culture. Nor is it an argument pro or con about gun control, immigration or the ambient levels of violence in our culture. Let's leave the ongoing daily slaughter in the sandbox out of it, OK? This isn't even about Shrub. We can argue endlessly about it later. Please.

3. This is about sons, daughters, parents, husbands and wives tragically dead at the hands of a madman. It's about all of us being robbed of the bright potentials of the victims.