So what happened to YOU today?

[xen0phile]

Quote

If this is the friend-zone, I could get comfortable in it, might even decide to live here.

 

“Friendzoned again!” I shout, pumping my fist in the air. I made a new friend today. Today is a good day.

 

Edited July 9, 2016 by xen0phile

[Garage_Rubin]

She's not a new friend any more, but she's a really good one.  :-)

 

 

Cheers,

Patrick.

[xen0phile]

Sorry, I know that: I was just quoting a viral post from Tumblr.

[Garage_Rubin]

Yeah, I'd heard the phrase before, from you I think.  :-)

 

 

Cheers,

Patrick.

[Garage_Rubin]

The Pride Parade was great, but I'm tired now.  :-)  Can't be bothered to post pictures or commentary at the moment, so instead...

 

 

 

Cheers,

Patrick.

[TwiliteMinotaur]

Workin on one more Neofeud portrait.  Get yours soon, because I think I'm going to be altering my Patreon rewards regarding the portrait once I finish the game. (Can't really add more paintings to the palace walls after game is shipped! Hehe) 

 

 https://www.patreon.com/neofeud

 

Other than that, I have been trying to work as hard and fast as possible since there are only two more weeks of summer 'downtime' and things get more crazy dayjob-wise again.  I'm aiming to finish all art and programming stuff over the next couple of weeks.  Minxilla has been helping with soundtrack which is huge, and after that the next biggest mountain is getting the voice acting and then finally testing.

 

Praying to all the deities and mojo providers that there are no major SNAFUs between here and there. 

 

In addition, my Science-Tech-Engineering-Math afterschool program for low-income kiddos is moving into an actual inner-city public school which will make it easier to serve the kids.  Pretty much the entire school is 'free lunch qualifier' and about half are immigrants, so we're really going to hit the target demographic here, and hopefully get them at least marginally better prepared to enter the future filled with robotics and creative-class activity.  It's actually somewhat frightening going to some of the meetings around here.  The 'get ahead!' program charges parents an arm and a leg and just does babysitting, no homework help.  We're free for all income levels, make sure kids get homework done, and have robotics teams / programming / various STEM curricula.  The biggest complaint from the 'paid babysitting' program was, 'you guys can't be in here, because then we might not be able to charge parents hundreds of dollars just to hang out on our phones till parents come!'  They actually wanted us not to advertise, and to make it so parents have to come 'through their program', have kids filter out into ours, and then go back to the babysitters at the end of the day.

 

Thankfully my boss was not having that.

Edited July 16, 2016 by TwiliteMinotaur

[heavyboots]

Mojo for your game, Twi and that's really amazing news about the afterschool program!

 

Just got done hauling hundreds of pounds of cactus from the front yard to the back alley. The neighbor just lets everything on his fenceline grow likes weeds until I get tired of it and cut it off to save the fence from imminent destruction. Grrrrr. Now I just have like 4 hours more to do on my own damn shrubs and trees and such that aren't on the fenceline, so tomorrow is gonna be a bunch more exciting brute force and sweat.

 

Yesterday was really surreal in the afternoon. Was casually talking about an ex-employee who wanted to come back which gradually led to someone else casually mentioning that even death threats wouldn't get you fired from the place. I laughed a little, like "hahaha yeah they are pretty lax" and then she proceeded to elaborate that, no really, it was true. Apparently a different ex-coworker who had PTSD and eventually offed himself had been having anger management issues against a variety of people in the company to the point of threatening multiple times to kill multiple people. They had filed complaints against him with HR and nothing had been done. He finally had to lose it on base and be chased around by military police before the company decided they had "enough grounds" to fire him. Meanwhile, for the last couple days he was still with the company, the people who had filed grievances against him decided it was best to stay home so he wouldn't have any excuse to come in and go postal on his last day.

 

Discovering that you might have been in an active shooter situation from a coworker was so surreal and scary. Not to mention that somehow word had never filtered into our department of the situation at all, which meant that we still thought the guy was one of the nicest people in the company (which he was when his meds and such were in full effect). All in all, a very sad situation. I hadn't even realized he'd taken his own life, let alone the extent of the issues that he was dealing with.

 

Anyway, wandered throug the afternoon in kind of a dream trying to reprocess my perspective on events that had happened a couple-three months ago… o_O

[Noirjyre]

Augh- @TwiliteMinotaur- sounds like a pain in brain to deal with people trying to make thing difficult for people to get a simple project started-

 

My mom is in a nursing home due to her accident a while back- they keep doing stupid little things that this home is known for- Mostly due to not being properly staffed- And some of those who obviously don't give a shit about their job-

Okay, I didn't like my last job either but I did my job- and did it well-

Well, my mom's first compliant was the food- I can afford to take her a meal once a week- Most of the time she doesn't get the meal she pre-orders often two days ahead-

And it is not like the give her some thing equally as good, they have what's left and slap in on a plate often cold-

I went off, I was polite at first- I understand you have to tend and cook for a multitude of ppl- It is more lunch lady than gourmet cooking- but you don't have dressing for the salad- or any thing as simple as salt-

They ignored my polite inquires- I love it when they ignore me-

I went full T-rex/ raptor tag team on them-

My mom has actually started to get the right food- it is still of quality that would make me toss it on to the floor at times- But most of her meals are now right-

The other day my mom called me and asked me if I could bring her some bed pads-

I felt my blood boil- They claimed the couldn't find any-

I went off on the first person I could find- She had the stupidity to tell me my mom got disability every month and she could buy all she needed-

MY mom get a little over 700 a month-all but 35 of it goes to that damn home-

I asked the silly wench if she could survive on 35 buck a month-

she referred me to the nurse in charge of her hall-

I went to my mom's room, and the nurse was there getting my mom the pads she needed-

I think they are getting a clue-

I am the only person aloud to make my moms life difficult, they haven't done the time-

 

 

[db]

You really have to advocate for your people in the health care system. Your mum is lucky to have you Noir.

 

HB I'm still shaking my head over your situation. I would be pretty freaked out in your shoes.

[TwiliteMinotaur]

That's pretty nuts HB, mojos man.  Take some time if you have to / can!

 

That's a craphole Noir.  But sounds a bit similar to my situation in the sense of people wanting to not do as much of their job or cut as much as they can to people who are not in a good position to fight for it.  I really hope the basic income thing works out in Switzerland and filters out everywhere else soon.  It would really alleviate a lot of the crime / predatory 'government services' / needless suffering if people just didn't have to worry about the next meal and the next roof and the 95 Corolla blowing a radiator and not having cash even for a tow.

 

It's like the main difference in the rich areas around here is the parents in the 'nice areas' have the money and the network and simple *spare time* to go around asking the school what they're doing for their children, why their kid is flunking out, all the other unspoken luxuries of not having to scramble all the time. Same goes for the elderly, etc.  Paradoxically, the rich kids are the ones that will likely succeed no matter what they do simply because of their social circles, and connections they will make, while the ones that need advocates have parents working 3 jobs, or are in jail, or don't speak English.  

 

There are a lot of ifs and stuff to be discussed about the universal basic income (everyone gets 10 - 30 thousand a year, no strings attached) but I think just if it gets rid of this vicious, utterly wasteful 'government service' issue alone, the UBI would pay for itself.  Shit, I and some other lower-mid income dads I know WANT to work more but it is just suicide because of the welfare poverty-trap.  One single dad, if he makes a single DIME over $12,000, everything else gets taken for taxes.  So why get off the couch more than a few hours a day?  If I'm running my own small business (hoping to hire on someday) and make more than a certain amount of money I lose it all, why not just do nothing, or barely anything and collect all the free money?  The UBI would cut down the crime and waste and give people incentives to go start something, since anything you do is directly adding to your standard of living, rather than a waste of time.

 

Losers of course would be all the government / corporate / both / quasi-entities raking it in.  The cops would have less desperate meth-cooking high school chemistry teachers to throw in prison.  The prison-industrial complex would suffer.  The Drug War would suffer. The 'do nothing and collect a paycheck' paper pushers and data mongers and ass kissers would suffer.  Libertarians and socialists both will be happy -- because you're giving people control of their own lives, and increasing social welfare for all.  I would even argue it would be pro-democratic, because then voices that get crushed and stifled because they have no time nor energy to think about anything but the many jobs they have to do, and those stuck as Yes Men unable to speak out against their malicious corporations or government entities would be freed up knowing they have a *true* alternative.  A true democratic choice to leave a fucked up, destructive, or purposeless job.  Think of how many people just work at jobs because they're a slave to a mortgage or a kid's college loan or a loved one's medical bills.  How many of the shitty institutions would change overnight once all those people quit?  What if every school was funded directly by the parents who had quality time to spend with their kids rather than handing them off to uncaring 'childcare' rather than working three jobs to put food on the table?

 

Let's go Switzerland. You did that multi-purpose knife and the cuckoo clock and you still owe us for all that tax-haven shenanigans.  Vote that universal basic income shit in already.

 

(/rant)

Edited July 17, 2016 by TwiliteMinotaur

[db]

Sorry to burst ya bubble but the universal income referendum in Switzerland failed to pass.

[TwiliteMinotaur]

Yeah I heard the first vote failed. Hopefully it will come back around again!  It's gaining support all the time, it seems.  

 

[Psychophant]

Talking with some Swiss their main concern was that it would keep the young people from wanting to work. Becoming a Swiss citizen is quite difficult, so it will only apply to relatively rich people anyway, with a big safety net (free or subsidized education, free healthcare, unemployment benefits, etc.). It deliberately excludes foreigners, no matter how long they have resided in Switzerland.

 

I agree that with the current job situation and the coming manufacturing revolution either we go to a world war or we will go to an UI. Possibly after a war, if we are lucky and not too many get killed.

 

I spent last week in Italy, visiting customers (family owned companies working in most cases for luxury brand shoes) including a big party for the 40th anniversary of one of these companies. I got blessed twice, once by an archbishop and indirectly by the Pope himself, got to see the insides of a 150.000 € ambulance (donated to a local hospital) and was involved in a series of What'sapp communication with Turks while the coup was underway, and most of them (westernized international traders) believed that it was a false flag operation by Erdogan to purge the army. Niza is very close to Italy and there were several thousand Italians in the Esplanade that night, so it struck them close at home. Handling dozens of articulated trucks daily, I am aware of their ubicuity and their risk. A few years ago something like this happened accidentally, though in that case the driver deliberately crashed into a barrier to stop the brakeless truck.

 

The luxury brands are in a bit of a fix, as they are based on three legs nowadays, and they are all shaky this year. Russian oligarchs and their families, hurt by the EU sanctions and the low oil price. Arab royal families, again hit by uncertainty and the low oil prices. Chinese billionnaires, that despite the low Chinese internal demand still go strong. EU and USA are increasingly outlet driven with a high forgery level, so it is no longer a good business. Which is sensible because I know of few people to pay 1000 € for a Chanel clone of Converse shoes.

 

Now back in the real world, trying to get a B&B reservation at Skye Island, after finishing my expense account for last week.

[Garage_Rubin]

I'm on Facebook.  Had the account for a couple or three years, actually, but never did anything with it 'til now.  You can find me via other WGBers' FB friends lists, or shoot me a message here, saying where to find you there.

 

Hey, TwiMin.  :-)  Yeah, that was me just now.

 

 

Cheers,

Patrick.

[Psychophant]

I burnt my facebook account years ago, when it still was possible to do so (2007-2008). I also use mostly cash, except on the internet, obviously. and lie to the internet when I feel it can be gotten away with, such as my birthday, or country of residence.

 

The end result is that certain parts of google consider me a British expatriate (most of the time I do not spoof IP physical locations, as that can be a bother), retired and with a book fetish. Others still know a lot about me, but as I also search and buy for family and a few friends, it still gives a weird mosaic, such as an interest in Bridge (my mother), golf (my father), tea, chocolate and cosmetics (my wife), mixed with my own varied and short lived obsessions. 

[Garage_Rubin]

I'm reminded of that scene at the end of `The Conversation', where

Spoiler

someone calls Harry Caul [the protagonist, a surveillance expert] on the phone, and plays a recording of the exact same sax-playing he'd improvised just a minute before.  Just to let him know they're keeping tabs on him.

 

After conducting a thorough search of his apartment -- up to and including tearing out the walls -- without finding the bug, he finally shrugs, sits in the middle of his now-destroyed apartment, and continues playing like nothing happened.

That's my attitude.

 

It's good to be free -- and the experience has been liberating, although I'm much more discreet on FB than here [can't avoid naming names where everyone uses their real name].

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Patrick [just playing it by ear].

[xen0phile]

Really, Facebook kinda sucks: it's just a bunch of people re-sharing warmed-over memes. I don't know why I remain, some day.

[Garage_Rubin]

I've noticed some of that, and it is amusing, but not really what I came for.

 

 

Cheers,

Patrick.

[TwiliteMinotaur]

Mostly I remain on Facebook due to network lock-in and opportunity-cost effects.

 

Ideologically I say fuck Facebook, but you horsetrade strategically where you can.

[heavyboots]

I haven't really attempted to join the FB back channel since all I do there is post memes and track friends with no Twitter account. Oh and cycling clubs. For some reason, like 90% of all cycling clubs use FB to announce rides, which sucks but is impossible to avoid if you want to ride with them.

[xen0phile]

I only post the freshest content.

 

[xen0phile]

Anyway, I actually left the house today, and went out for a ferry ride with one of my old friends from college.

[TwiliteMinotaur]

Cool, that's a good thing to do man.

[Noirjyre]

I miss the ferries- hope you had a good time-

[xen0phile]

On 7/21/2016 at 10:59 PM, xen0phile said:

Anyway, I actually left the house today, and went out for a ferry ride with one of my old friends from college.

 

This is a different Old College Friend than Farm Girl. I guess I'll call, I dunno... College Boy?

 

He's totally gay, and I think he looks good, and he also knows I'm bi, but I have no idea how to, like, read people, so I'm clueless about how people proceed to "more than just friends" without being fucking awkward.

 

Another friend on Facebook suggested I explicitly email him, "let's fuck", haha. I dunno. I am horny, but, really, I think... it'd be best to act slow? I mean, for my own sake. Start with holding hands? Because going straight to throat fucking each other might be a bit overwhelming for me? Hahaha.