Life According to Mike

On being an Education Assistant Substitute in a Middle School.

2022-08-16T11:58:00.001-07:00

I could have called this one. How I learned what being invisible is like to the Teachers I was supposedly helping including the Special Ed Manager who barely acknowledged my existence.

When the teacher in the fourth period asked me to read a whole sentence on a test and then stopped me all without even attempting to say my name, I was visibly shocked. I pointed at myself, somewhat dumbly, to clarify that she, unlike 3 out of the other 4 teachers who actually bother to ask me my name, wanted my help.

I should note that I am wearing a name tag this whole time.

At the beginning of the day, the office staff hands me a sheet of paper, that has a schedule with times and names and no labels or explanations on it. There are no directions, room numbers or even when lunch is on it. I am then sent to Mz. Wiz's (that's the name I am giving her) classroom. I assume that I will receive instructions.

Mz. Whiz is friendly, explains nothing about what I am doing, and then sends me on my way to first period.

Teacher number 2, Mr. Hobby greets me, points to a desk, and then ignores my existence until I ask if he minds if I eat breakfast. He nods and walks into the hallway where he remains until class starts.
He never acknowledges my existence until the class is over.

We start the class with a semi-fire drill. I am given no instruction. so I just watch the procession of odd logic: here is a fire alarm that is not loud but will speak to you if you listen and then the teacher leads the students into the hallway and out of sight.

They soon return. We then go over Circles
I soon realize we are doing psychology and not math (hint no mention of Pi)
Mr. Hobby starts talking about True North by totally not accurately describing it.
I am confused. There is a power point with slides that do not reveal True North either save that it might be a meditative trance/state. (this to 6th graders)
if any of these kids have a clue, I'd be surprised.
next, we did something called "check-in" and I realized they are doing the circle (and I felt like I was back in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Mz. Wiz reappeared, looked embarrassed, or smiled at me? but then left with a student who might have been on the sheet I was given. She later returned and collected another student who I asked the math teacher about (who continued to ignore me)

Then they all sang Koombyah and started Math class (okay, no one sang Koombyah).

Math problem.

A Pet store has 25 black kittens and twenty-two white kittens. Over the weekend they sell 16 kittens. How many kittens do they have left?

Solve using the K N O W S method.
that's
K- Know what the problem is
N- What you need
O- Operation- what is your strategy
W- Work/show your problem
S- Solve the problem

No order of operations is mentioned. The teacher forgets to include work.
the answer is (25+22) -16 +31

no cares how many white or black kittens are left unsold, they move on. I feel unfulfilled.

2nd period, I am about to introduce myself to the teacher when she suggests I sit at the back.

I dutifully take my place to watch Ms. Teacher of the Year, she has a trophy on the windowsill.

She starts with a powerpoint slide in which she proudly announces the the "Fist Grades" have been posted.
I am sure someone will ask or point it out.
Then I am sure, she will say it.
No, she walks back and forth in front of the slide talking about the First Grades that we posted.

I decide to leave a note in her affirmation book point it out.

The second thing that hits me is that kids now can check on their grades at any time. I wonder how I would have done in school had I known these things. I mean high school.

I went to middle school in the dark ages with torture devices and instructors who were turned down by the Spanish Inquisition for being too cruel.

I only had 3 weeks of social studies in my school career.

These kids are learning about maps. different kinds of maps.

Ms TOYr explains weather maps. Precipitation is rain, snow, mist, (makes weird magic fingers gesture) stuff. The jetstream gets no love.

She keeps calling topographic maps as Toup-a-graphic and now I wonder if I have called them the wrong name my whole life.

Politcial maps have lots and lots of colours like green, brown, gray and orange but bland orange (we do live in TN go big brialliant orange after all)

It occurs to me road maps only look impressive in the USA since we have so many types of roads, also so, so, many roads.

She shows a strange video cartoon about lattitude and longtitude that might as well be science fiction... since there is a malfunctioning robot and a guy in the arctic looking for a place in California and the guy uses GPS to explain in (very) brief terms how latitude and longitude work. The robot is no help at all.

We do learn (I mean it is told to us) that Latitude and Longitude are imaginiary lines, and we call it longitude because the north-south sorry up and down lines are long. She never explains what makes Latitude lateral...

She does mention GPS and explains that it is Global Positioning System but not how or why it is used. She mentions that Greenich is zero but nothing about time save that Longtidude in measured in minutes and you can find anyone using the two measurements.

Pilots and Ships will be happy to know their secrets remain safe, though.

Mz. Whiz reappears to collect students and studiously ignores me. I am concerned I have offended her with my mere presence.

I figured out where my next classroom is by dumb luck. I think it's reading (there are some books in there- nothing on the walls)
Ms. Friendly is nice, she does ask me where I'd like to sit, I choose a table at the back. She ask if I will stay in the classroom while they take a bathroom break, she struggles with my name, I tell her to call me Mr. V. She does so once.

I talk to 3 students about the books they are reading. one is reading about the holocaust and the other the Magician's Nephew. I get excited.
Turns out, both of them have just started and the class basically gets interrupted by lunch and Ms. Friendly spends the whole class talking about the most convuluted mess of apps to teach a "Lit class?" (still not sure that's what it was) via 3 websites, 4 pages, links that serve no purporse but have something vaguely to do with Harry Potter (in the most boring way imagineable) and the only thing we actually see is a word puzzle that results in the phrase "My Brain is a muscle"

I hope this is not science class.

4th period. Ms. "I can't pronounce her name and No one, not even the teacher told me either" science class

We have that test where I am asked to do that one thing.

then we have the actual fire drill. No one tells me what to do. I do decide to go outside. The teachers and students go to the far side of the parking lot. I give out at the parking lot and find a pole to lean against until we go back in.

Ms. Whatsit singles out a student- asks her name and then proceeds to missay it, and mispronounce it, for the rest of the class. She's nice about it.

For the rest of the class, Ms. Whatsit shows youtube videos (with ads) describing things like scales with little to no real explanation as to why or how they work. I give up and go to check my school email and sub app.

The highlight happens when youtube autoplays something that Ms. Whatsit just barely catches in time before disaster strikes.

Rule of thumb, never use autoplay on youtube in public. Unless you are prepared. No one ever it.

I get directions to 5th period, and hike there only to be told by Ms. Alt Arts that she doesn't need me and could I go away. I ask where "away" is and end up in the "Teacher's lounge" (which is anything but a lounge) and here I sit typing this blog.

I know teachers are busy and overwhelmed but no one, and I mean no one even bother to explain what I am supposed to be doing, who I am supposed to be doing it with or why I am not following any of the instructions on the peice of paper the office gave me.

I am not sure if I should go find Ms. Next's classroom for last period since my instructions read float.

or just sit here in the workroom until someone notices my absence (which I doubt) and I just go home.

So, what does this mean?

I really have no clue, but I won't sign up to do it again. I wasted the day. I mean i will get paid something for it. I just hate ignorance and no one to talk to about it.

It's very frustrating, well it would be if I didn't feel the semi-hysterical need to laugh about the absurdity of being invisible (I am a huge guy- unlikely to be missed)

Now that I think about it, I did accidentally creep up on Mz. Whiz last week on another sub assignment and scare the bejeezers out of her.

I am a big guy but I can move like a ninja sometimes.

So, My Dog Died...

2022-02-02T23:29:00.003-08:00

So, My Dog died. Her name was Myrtle. She was a Pembroke Corgis that Mom bought from a couple who insisted on meeting us at a Walmart in Rutledge. It was obvious that we weren't being told the truth. I told Mom to get Myrtle anyway.
The couple came clean, later and admitted that Myrtle was a rescue. It was obvious from the time I got her home she had been abused. She would flinched at any sudden movement and a raised voice would send her running for cover. She had a lot of emotional issues.

We had her for about 6 years. I owned her on my own for little more than a year.

She was a beautiful dog. Damaged but in the end she loved me as much as she could. It killed me to put her down. I did it for her, I did not want to live in any more fear or pain.

I wrote this for Myrtle.

My dog has died.
I watched her slip away into sleep
released from the pains of this world
after all the tears we cried
her asleep at my bedside
how I tried to reassure her fears
over the few years
each time it stormed
our comfort conformed

Perhaps we don't really own dogs as much as we agree to share the world with them. I like to think so. Myrtle gave more to me than I feel like I gave to her. Now she's gone and I would be totally crushed if it weren't for Sophie. Sophie is also a Corgi and thank God is healthy and hardy.

Sophie is a retired breeder from Corgi Farm in Middle Tennessee. I love her and she has quickly filled the hole that Myrtle left. We spend all day together, wherever I go, she follows and I've made her several beds so she can be comfortable until we move again.

Still, the pain of losing Myrtle seems to hard to bear.
I shall sleep then, promises to keep. I hope that Myrtle will live on the wolf dream that I believe all dogs have as they all descended from wolves...

except for Chilwowas (they're just grown-up rats)
(kidding)

don't bite me.

Some Good News from 2021

2022-02-02T23:07:00.000-08:00

The latest data on AIDS (you remember, the other global pandemic) revealed there were1.5 million new HIV infections last year, a decline of 30% since 2010, and the lowest total number since 1990.
One of the four major flu viruses that circulate in humans looks like it might have gone extinct this year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Yamagata virus has not been detected since April 2020 anywhere in the world. Together with the Victoria flu virus, it used to be responsible for somewhere between 290,000 and 650,000 deaths every year.
The WHO approved a long awaited malaria vaccine, revitalizing the fight against one of humanity’s oldest foes, as well as a new polio vaccine, which was rolled out to over 80 million children in Africa. Other achievements included the introduction of a licensed Ebola vaccine and the launch of a landmark new global plan to tackle meningitis. Liberia became the first African country to introduce the typhoid conjugate vaccine, which was given to over two million children in just weeks, and a new study revealed that the HPV vaccine has reduced cases of cervical cancer in England by nearly 90% since 2008, with over 100 countries now using it as part of a global plan to eliminate the disease.
China successfully eliminated malaria this year (it used to have 30 million cases a year in the 1940s), as did El Salvador, the first country in Central America. Globally, 40 countries have now achieved this milestone. Côte d’Ivoire became the second African country to eliminate sleeping sickness, and The Gambia became the third African country to eliminate trachoma, an amazing achievement given that in the 1980s it was responsible for almost 1 in 5 of the country’s cases of blindness.
Ecologists reported that the Mississippi River is the cleanest it’s been in more than a century, with pollution down to 1% of what it was in the 1980s, while the most comprehensive survey of the Thames in 60 years found that the river, once declared biologically dead, is now “home to myriad wildlife as diverse as London itself.” The biggest river success story however, came from China, which passed a landmark environmental law protecting the Yangtze, one of the country’s two ‘mother rivers,’ banning all industrial projects, sand mining and all fishing, including in tributaries and the estuary (more than 400 million people live in the Yangtze basin).
A comprehensive plastic ban went into effect in China in January, including items like straws, utensils, nondegradable bags and postal or courier packages, and in July, the EU banned single-use plastic plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks and cotton buds. India announced a ban on a long list of single plastics effective July 2022, the Maldives kicked off the first phase of a plan to completely eliminate single plastics by 2023, and New Zealand announced that single-use plastics would be phased out by 2025, with bans on cotton buds, packaging, cutlery, straws, and fruit labels beginning next year.
In July, four women in South Africa successfully overturned a set of apartheid-era marriage laws, giving around 400,000 elderly black women equal access to matrimonial property, and Uttarakhand became the first state in India to grant women co-ownership of land, in a landmark amendment that affected 350,000 girls and women overnight.
A new report on cluster munitions revealed that more than 110,000 landmines covering 135 km² were destroyed globally last year, a new annual record, and that over a million landmines have been cleared in the last decade.
Incarceration rates in the United States fell to a 24 year low in 2019, plummeted a further 14% in 2020, to 1.81 million people, and then fell again in 2021, to 1.77 million. There are now half a million fewer people in prison in America compared to 13 years ago, and empty prisons are being repurposed into homeless shelters, educational farms, and even movie studios. These changes are due to incredible, uncelebrated activism, and largely unheralded changes in criminal laws, sentencing patterns and a decline in violent crimes.

New Year's Resolutions are a good idea but a bad habit

2022-01-03T18:14:00.002-08:00

MAKING NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS ARE HABITUALLY BROKEN!

There, I said it.

We set goals often realistically unattainable motivated by our guilt such as:

Lose X amount of body weight by Y amount of Time (usually a month) and result is Z (failure within set time period resulting in a X(Y+Z) equation where the scale initially went down by A and now increases by B. Who ever told you that you'd never use Algebra lied.
Go to the Gym (I don't even need to tell you how the depreciation of averages versus monthly contracts and membership bills accumulate on this sum! Maths, use 'em if you got them, but I will say that I like to call this the Rush/Gold's/National Gamble. They offer you a sweet deal on your first free visit and hum through that cancellation paperwork to see if you are gullible enough to sign up (Free Money!).
Eat Healthier/Better. Cut those evil carbs. Avoid those Sugary Startches. Dodge those Fatty Fats. Give up all the goodness in Food and eat flat tasteless chicken with some yummy dried out veggies that are mostly green and SMILE while you endure such torture for you heart, kidney, liver, etc. You know how this ends in a pile of french fries and frosty cups with a Big Mac in one hand and a roll of cookie dough in the other surrounded by the detriment of your intentions.
See your family more. Even if you hate them- I mean you "love" them because everyone keeps telling you that you have to love them but you really don't like them at all.

Anyway you get the point.

So in light of this revelation. I intend to set attainable realistic goals this year.

Sorry World Peace.

My 2022 Resolutions

Maker 7. Launch my 3D printing business with the goal of paying for filament stock and eventually a 3D scanned. Making it rich with this in not in my immediate plans.
SevenTech Sales. This is my eBay business. I had hoped it would become a storefront on Facebook but that failed. Alibris as well. So, my goal is to keep it going full steam as it is what is paying my bills right now.
Get back into writing my fiction and non-fiction. This is a matter of writing discipline that I have so far lacked being able to do with my focus constantly being pulled away by other concerns.
Continue to get healthier. I just passed a milestone with my legs (I had Stasis Ulcers and leakage). I have finally healed to 90% and hopefully will hit a 100% soon.
Making better Diet choices. I have lost weight again. This time feels more real as I have eliminated much of the foods that had contributed to weight gain, not so much by quitting them as no longer desiring them. I have all but given up soft drinks and the like. My tastes are for water and sparkling water (some minor flavoring). I might drink some coffee and tea but not daily.
Continue working with the Nutrionist (I have been doing this consistently for the last 5 months). Again its not so much about quitting certain foods as it is more about balancing my diet. It helps a lot that I no longer desire the fatty, starchy, salty, sugary foods I once did. It doesn't stop me from eating a donut or candy bar but I have little desire to consume them. I have gotten past grazing snacking and I have reached a point where I have to remind myself to eat instead of impatiently waiting for the next mealtime.
Getting Exercise. Gone are the dreams of weightlifting at a Gym. I hope my Neice's Husband will give me access to his gym when I am ready to make that my next step. Covid and quarantine wiped out all the progress I had made nevermind my leg problems contributing as well. I now must develop new disciplines to get moderate exercise.
Socialize. Which still seems dangerous in this pandemic that just keeps going despite the willful ignorance of my fellow Americans. Going to work on this harder and try something like a Zoom friendship failing everything else.
Get more consistent sleep. It's important.
Learn to love my leaky old house. Home Ownership is a blast. everyone should do it!

And that's them.

I wish you all a Good Year in which you buy most of my goods and make me richer.

Merry Christmas to Everyone even if your not a Christian.

2021-12-25T05:16:00.003-08:00

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

(also make sure it is really yours, if it isn't return it to whomever you took it from, you know who you are, Someone is looking for their Christmas right now and wondering where it went, it was right there last night but now its missing)

May is be warm and bright.

(unless you are in the desert, then maybe it could manage to snow just a tad, heck a cloud right now could be a Christmas miracle)

May your gift exchange be filled with thank yous, love yous and cheerful laughter

(instead of tears of shredded paper, cries of disappointment that they didn't get the keys to the Porsche that mysterious is parked outside which actually belongs to your cousin Frank who is waiting for a convenient moment to surprise you, he's going to give you at least another hour before he rings your doorbell.)

May your Dinner be cooked to perfection and well received.

(that way even the fire department can not see you again this Christmas... like last year and they will be relieved)

But above all, remember that it is not the gifts, nor family, nor dinner that you labored for weeks and hours on end to deliver this moment of perfection.

No it was all so we could keep the message as told by Shepherds in a field some 2000+ years ago that some "Angels" told them to rejoice in the middle of the night because a kid was born that would make the world a better place and not the commercially driven mess that it did become.

I mean. Peace on Earth and Goodwill to men...

(this is why no one invites me over for Christmas Dinner anymore.)

Love you all.

Especiallymy other friends who are celebrating a more sane version of this time of year (Yuletide and Kwannza and the Seinfeld thing to you too!)

Thoughts on a Monday in November of 2021

2021-11-28T23:34:00.000-08:00

My mother is dead. I struggle with it each day.
Some days, I even managed to see a way through the present crisis to find hope that I will be okay. Others I just stay in bed most of the day.

I knew that I was going to miss/mourn her more than anyone else in my life.
I know I will miss my brother more, should I outlive him.

I dream about her less and less. They're weird, waking dreams tied into my struggles with her house, my house, the repairs & renovations that I am making. Tomorrow, I have to find someone to repair the ductwork at an affordable rate. I know I will dream about that tonight.

I have never had medical problems until now. Over the last year and a half, I have had more issues, seemingly incurable at times than ever before in my life. I cope with them but I am not afraid of the situation. I fear diabetes more than anything. The rest I can live with.

I miss working out more than anything. I know now how to work out but still can't do want I want to do. I will return to weight training one day, but I know now that core building is more important than the other stuff.

I am tempted to try online dating again. I give up on that regularly, this time it will cost me. So, I am going to wait to see if the ductwork will be affordable. If it is, I am going to gamble on it, one more time.

Ironically for someone who loves food, I find myself less interested in eating than ever before. It might be age, it might be mourning my mother, but I have largely lost my sweet tooth. I suspect it will only be a matter of time before I left sweets and treats behind. I suspect I won't miss them either.

I am hoping that I am finding my ability to write again. I have largely stopped it. I am easily distracted by other things. So I find myself writing this here late at night, early on a Monday morning.

I have lost my faith.
I don't think I believe in God in the same way anymore. I don't know if I believe or ever believed that prayer works/ed. I stopped going to church. The pandemic played its part, mom's loss of faith affected it. I went back briefly before the medical problems started to play havoc with my sleep schedule and the depression and grief took away my desire for it.
I would like to believe in God and I still am going to live a Christian life, but Church is not really that relevant anymore.

I am going to call myself an Agnostic for the first time in my life.
I just don't know anymore.
Part of me wants to believe Mom is in Heaven
Part of me wants to believe My Sister is there with her
Part of me wants Mom's wish of reunion with her parents and family to be trrue.
Part of me thinks it's a nice story, because it doesn't give me any comfort.

It's what separates me from many Christians and other similar believers.
I am Christian (or was) because it's the right way to live. I never really cared about Heaven or Heavenly reward. Now, I no longer believe that Jesus is coming back. I mean I still want to believe in it, but I just don't anymore.

Nothingness no longer scares me. I feared death for most of my life because of that nothingness, but now I'd welcome the peace it would bring.

that's it for Monday morning.

She haunts my dreams

2021-10-02T09:03:00.001-07:00

This year has been so hard on so many people. I would not complain.
That being said.

My Mother haunts my dreams.

Oddly, she is often non-vocal, merely content to wander through the dream her ghost has created in my mind leaving me to unravel the meaning of it all. By the time, I begin to unravel it all, I suddenly need to pee in the dream only to discover that the dream doesn't allow for actual peeing.

This is my body trying to wake me up. This is normally hard enough, but I sleep with a BiPap ASV so it's like waking the dead. By the time, I surface, the original dream is a distant memory and I wake with a sense of loss, confusion, and the now desperate urge to go find open water.

The dream is almost always the same.

Mom is living in a new house (It's a recurring event since the divorce).

I was seventeen, the divorce was underway. I was the last person to be told in our family unit. My mother used my brother and me against our father as a nuclear option. We all died that night, in different ways. Looking back, I hate her for what she believed that she must do, for her lack of understanding as my brother then me begged my father, who was a million miles away in South Africa from the new Condo in Knoxville, TN USA. But I also understand that Mom was facing the oblivion of being ALONE and having to raise me on her own.

She would move one more time after that, to Luttrell, to the house I now own.

In my dreams, she moves often, to yet another version of a house that is unstable or flawed. Dozens of dreams later, I find myself invited to my mother's townhouse where she now lives with her fiance who is half my age (as I find out) and what is more, my sister is now living with her new boyfriend across the hall from mom.

Both of these women are dead.

Mom died in January. the date and time is burned into my brain

My sister died in June.

Mom was 89. My sister was 73. I am 52.

Thoughts on the Turning Aways in my life and the times

2021-10-02T09:02:00.004-07:00

On the turning away, when our generation once looked away to distractions of our youths

because it was easier to occupy our coming awareness with collective fantasies

than to face the budding awareness that change was indeed possible as the winds turned again in human history

whilst I perfected my D&D skills AIDS took quietly took away two of my favorite men

their lifestyles were blamed, then the sexuality then drugs then music, and then when the was nothing else to tell but the truth my father denied who or what my uncle even had been all his life, and my religion stripped away even his own soul in favor of pleasing my mother and his own mother as well.

And Freddy?

He died with cautious dignity as I stopped turning away from the reality that denial is the single hardest thing to overcome, AIDS was real, while everyone around me was fucking to their heart's content, I did not.

Now to see it today, happening all again, I see my family and friends refusing to face a reality that endangers the weak, the elderly, and our children. It has killed so many people many of whom had no clue what they did or didn't do and yet as surely as the TV evangelists who screamed at the cameras of old that this was God's punishment to the sinful

They are replaced by Media Moguls who scream the same from the anchor desks and microphones.

Ironically, I find myself at odds with why God would put up with such idiocy that I can almost accept that He really sent those plagues upon the sinful in the good old biblical days of myth.

I mean the Egyptians had it coming.

The Pharoah was fine of course, in his golden palace.

but the average working-class guy was screwed because yet another angry, vengeful deity had a point to prove according to this guy Moses.

I no longer believe in that god. I no longer wish such blind punishments upon the helpless masses with the electronic diety held firmly in their hands worshipped daily as they spend almost as much time staring at their own turning aways as I did in my youth

On loss and loneliness

2021-07-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

I lost my mother, Saturday night, January 16th, 2021.
She was on morphine and a little out of it. I sat with her as she took her last conscious breaths. I told her I loved her and forgave her. I asked her to forgive me and she looked at me with a sense of sadness and told me she loved me too and that she forgave me for all I had had to put her through. She went to sleep not long afterward. She never woke up after that. She lapsed into a coma and died Sunday evening. She was 89 years old.

I had spent most of my life with her. She was my best friend and often my enemy. She was my mother, therapist, and often my employer. She left me a broken shell of everything I assumed I had been. I found new life in her passing and her home became my own. I made all the right decisions. I mourned her passing in great gasps of agony. I often cried so hard that I had to stop what I was doing, driving, and just give in to the terrible sadness. I had lived alone since then.

It feels like years now. It has been barely 5 months.

Tonight, July 12th, 2021. I tried to sleep and failed yet again. I cry now, not just for my mother but also for my sister, who followed her mother in death less than a month ago. I didn't know my sister as well as I should have but we shared a bond and a familiarity that I have not had with anyone else. this morning, 3:41am, I miss them both and listening to Pink Floyd, "The Turning Away."

I always knew that Mom's death would be the hardest thing I would ever have to deal with.

I have known pain and loss and loneliness.

What I knew before this was like a watercolor and now I am painting with oils. The watercolor is real unto itself, but it dries quickly and becomes a memory as fast. The oils take years to dry and the memory persists for a lifetime. I remember mom stopping, seemingly at random, and saying that day it had been 40 years since her mother had died. She had a memory for those details. Now I know that it was more than a memory of someone's passing, rather, it was a time to feel the pain of their loss.

My Christian friends speak of the happy reunion in heaven. My family too.
I envy their faith. I don't have it. It feels like a lie to me. It always has.

I want to believe that mom is there in the heaven that she so wanted to believe in. Friends and family are often quick to point this out to me, but they don't realize that is not the heaven I have ever believed in.

So, tonight (morning) I feel all the loss and the loneliness of not having anyone to tell this too.

If I had a wish, I would meet a woman who would take away the loss and loneliness from me, even if just for a little bit so that I could sleep. Instead, I sit here in the dark typing this instead of finding that woman in my dreams instead.

I wrote this on Facebook but it's my blog now, Dammit.

2021-04-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

Okay here is my rant.

I am so tired of finding a youtuber who I like only to discover that they want to:

A. Criticize a documentary as if it is a feature film. Meaning that they equate it with a cult because the film is about minimalism. Ignore the filmmaker entirely so they can criticize the content. be critical of the cinematography because it feeds they diatribe about the way they feel about the subject matter and totally not explore how the film is being presented to get the art across. Goodbye Drew Gooden.

B. Talk about The Wall as if it was the best film ever made in the dullest presentation ever, Try to make a case for it but really want to criticize the Nostalgia Critic who made a parody/review of it several years ago. he's mad because Nostalgia Critic didn't bow down to the Art of the Film and worship at it's incredibility. Then I find out the youtuber used to work for the same production company as the Film Critic and got fired for various reasons and apparently blames the Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) for everything.

Goodbye Folding Ideas.

C. Idiots who criticize Cinema Sins for being to critical of every movie (even though the tagline of cinema sins is every movie has sins) and go on at length why CS is a garbage critic when I am not sure CS is really being a critic as much as a tongue in cheeky bastard about movies with logic gaps and such. This guy also hates Nostalgia Critic.

Goodbye Whinny guy.

Things to note.

1. they are all guys (white guys)

2. I suspect they would not hjave any actual content without picking on their subject matter (although all of them did have some interesting videos since I did choose to subscribe to them for a reason I can no longer fathom).

3. I don't watch every video that Cinema Sins makes because I don't like when he nitpicks on my favorite movies.

and

4. Stanley Kubrick made 2001 and A Clockwork Orange. They are HIS films not the authors (which admittedly might not have been big fans) When I think of those movies, I don't think of the Author I think of Stanley Kubrick's vision. This goes for many other movies. including LOTR, Fight Club (whose Author loved it), Princess Bride, ETC.

rant over.

life with Google tech

2021-03-28T12:23:00.004-07:00

google tech support for a smoke alarm/carbon monoxide detector called the Nest Protect:

me on twitter: Google Nest Protect lifespan 1 year 4 months. wifi fails Way to go @GoogleStore for being obtuse, unhelpful and making everything about the pixel phone instead.

google: Uh-oh! We're sorry if you feel that way, Michael — let's look into this for you. Could you tell us what happened to your Nest Protect unit?

me: when I re-setup the unit it goes through the motions then fails to connect to the "nest/network/account" and drops the setup back to the beginning. I googled fixing it with no luck

google: Gotcha. Could you DM us here so we can gather more details?

Made By Google@madebygoogle

Made to be helpful. Get the latest on: Google Pixel & Pixel Buds, Nest Audio, Nest Hub, Chromecast with Google TV, Nest Thermostat & more

me: details about the nest (tech details of the device with order number)

google: Thanks for the DM and for the details, Michael — to confirm, have you already reached out to our support team before? If so, could you provide us the case number from your previous interaction?

me: no, I have not been able to, your page defaults everything to pixel phone support

google: Understood. Have you tried rebooting your devices including your Wi-Fi router? Did your Nest Protect connect successfully before to your Wi-Fi network? If so, have you made any changes prior to this?

me: so I was on AT&T u-verse dsl and I switched several times until I landed on Verizon and an Asus router. I also had google wifi which I was largely dissatisfied with since it would be great on day and then the next be telling me to moving the mesh points before changing its mind and saying everything was great. So I sold the google wifi on eBay as it no longer was needed.

I then put my google minis and nest hubs on the asus wifi and they work fine, The nest also works fine on the router, it was only today that we had a power outage and I realized that the nest protect was offline. I then went through five attempts to bring it back online including reseting it after it would not simply recoonect. no I did not reboot my router as the wifi was working for everything else.

I finally removed it from the nest thermostat app and attempted to readd it about 4 times which failed after I setup the wifi. the protect would add the wifi and then test it and then say it was adding itself to the nest network and then after 5 minutes or so fail and I would have to start again. I switched around the nest, my phone and the protects wifi access and placed them next to each other and they still did not connect via the protect.

I have also run the manual system check on the nest protect and it said everything was fine.

save when I try to connect it to the wifi/nest network.

so I conclude its FUBAR.

google: Thanks for being a few steps ahead. Are you seeing any messages when trying to connect your Nest Protect to your Wi-Fi network? If so, could you send us a screenshot of it?

me: get back to you tomorrow after i get the thing off the wall again

google: Sure thing. You can get back to us whenever you're available. Our entire conversation is recorded so we can easily pick up from where we left off — keep us posted.

next day:

Google: Thanks for the screenshot. If you have a dual band router with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, make sure they have different names so that you can correctly connect your Nest Protect to the 2.4 GHz network. Nest Protect can’t connect to a 5GHz network and may not be able to tell your networks apart.

me: yes, I know this and yes they have different names and yes, the nest and my phone are on the 2.4 ghz and it still won't connect

Google: Got it. We're sorry that you had to go through this — we also need to check your router’s firewall settings. Your firewall settings may be preventing Nest devices from connecting to the internet. You can try lowering these settings temporarily to see if your issue is resolved. Restore your firewall settings back to your preferred security level afterward. High firewall security or parental controls can block communication with Nest servers.

Let us know how it goes.

me: checked the firewall, not being blocked. I have 3 nest hubs, 6 smart bulbs and a nest thermostat, no firewall issues. Come on. either stand behind your product or don't stop wasting my time with this dodgeball game. the item is not working anymore, I regret buying the damn thing now.

Google: We understand how you feel — we didn't mean to disappoint you. Your Nest Protect requires IPv6 in order to be added to the Nest App. Could you check your router's documentation to confirm that your router supports this setting and for information on how you can enable it. Check this link for guide: https://bit.ly/3r29iNR

checked out guide (no help- had to ggogle it)

me: I have an asus rt-ac68u router and I enabled the ipv6 and the result is this

Google: Thanks for trying the provided step, Michael. Could you give these steps a go?

1. Quit and restart the Nest app.

2. Restart your phone.

3. Make sure that the assisting product is awake and it is within distance.

4. Enable airplane mode, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi

5. Enable IPv6

6. Try using a different device for adding.

my response:

here is my answer.

oh hell no.

I am not doing that because that is stupid.

IPv6 is not going to fix it and my phone is not going to fix it nor is my cell signal.

this is dumb

I am finished.

either back up your tech or get lost.

I wasn't born yesterday, the next thing you are going to ask me to do is turn off the flourescent lights and unplug the microwave.

I've done this kind of tech support.

bottom line. If all the other google devices and nest devices work and this one doesn't, it's not the router or for pete's sake my cell phone. it's the f-ing nest protect!

later on twitter:

Google tech support.

it's can't be our product

it has to be your cell phone, your router, your ISP, the weather, the electronics signature of the atmosphere.

my respect for Google as a tech company is in the toilet along with their infuriating tech support.

I used to be traumatized by Nightmares

2021-03-18T03:45:00.004-07:00

When I was a child I would wake screaming incoherently from nightmares.

Today at 51 almost 52 years of age. I woke with a wordless scream from a nightmare in which I was trying to write down the information provided to me by my mother and her two sisters before my conscious mind realized they were all dead. I was making a list of names and what happened to them as the darkness took the information from my hands reducing it to mindless gibberish and bring back childhood and repressed memory of dread of chaos.

When I was still;l young and living at a place called Shady Dell Trail in an antebellum-style house in an old neighborhood of Knoxville. Where the urban myths were that some of the houses had once belonged to slave owners who tortured and killed their slaves. I lived in a corner room where I hoarded Oreos and milk and hid from the darkness and chaos that lingered and haunted the fringes of my mind.

My worst nightmare at the time (or at least as i remember it- I wasn't a writer yet) was of chaos. A Scribble of Madness that surrounded the idea of my angry mother who would point at me and my father having to slap me awake because I would come to, incoherently screaming in sheer terror.

My mtoehr loved me and provided me with literature, music, and a love of art.

I have no memories of her holding me, nor taking care of me when I was sick or when I would wake from nightmares.

Now my mother is dead and my father has lost his mind (or- at least, a good deal of it) There is no one to tell save my brother who in my childhood was sleeping in the basement a world away from me and right now I don't understand why he was down there. Perhaps he will be able to explain it to me when he wakes up.

It's 6am. I am seeking the comfort of Oreos and Milk as I have awakened to an empty house that belonged to my mother who is now dead and cannot share the secrets of a past that might be best forgotten if I could only stop remembering it in my dreams.

notes: In the dream, I painted a picture of someone who looked like Errol Flyn but according to my mother was actually her father. my grandfather of whom I have never met. In the dream, I was painting him with black oil paint from an old 35mm film canister which I held in my right hand whilst painting with my left. I would wet the brush with my lips. This might have a connection to a childhood story of my brother once feeding me wall paint in South Africa when I was three or four.

Did that actually happen? My parents and Sister told the story a lot. Did I suffer some kjind of blood poisoning? Trauma once the adults realized that my brother had done this to me?

I painted his portrait onto the side of a brown or white paper bag. Somehow this was a Crux to the dream that would keep reality from realizing that I was changing the past or at least trying to.

it didn't work.

I had watched a video about Terminator The Rise of the Machines which has a semi-eligible plot about how you cannot change the past...? It's a terrible movie.

Once, I was presented via Facebook with the hypothetical RESET Button MEME.

Most people commented about how they desired somekind of Reset to their lives.

I declared to all (including those who weren't on Facebook) that I would slap that button silly.

This morning, I still would.

A Eulogy for Bennie Frank.

2021-01-30T11:38:00.001-08:00

A Eulogy for Bennie Frank.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core."

For the last few years until the night, Mom left us, I would read poetry and the bible to her.

The last 2 years it was always the same 5 readings

Psalm 1, Psalm 4, Psalm 23, Philippians 1: 3-6, and Philippians 4-9.

Philippians 1:3 was the verse that the late Beecher Clapp read to Mom about a year before he preceded her through the veil.

“I thank my God for every remembrance of you.” Mom would say it with me as a prayer for her friendship with Beecher. Today and every day I thank God for the last 22 years I spent with my mother and the memories of her I will have.

Mom’s Christianity was central to her life and was never something she tucked away, she told those she deemed worthy of it but professed the rest by quiet example. She was not perfect, but her life was a testament to clean and simple living.

She had her faults- but they were not what anyone remembered about her. No, what people remember about Mom was that she always had so much to give to others. She gave a lot in her life, 2 schools, 40 years of teaching and educational programs and lastly the preservation of knowledge and memory. She, also, to the very end refused to take sole credit for any of it. She would tell you that Earl or Sue or her daughter or even me had as much to do with it as anything she had done. The truth of it was she had done much of it all already.

Mom loved that what she had started had continued without her/beyond her. This is the promise I made to her, that the Museum of Education would outlive her and hopefully all of us. I really cannot say enough of about the Museum.

What I want to share with all of you today are the words and things that mattered to my mother beyond the Museum.

One of the things that mattered most to Mom was Travel. For most of her adult life, she lived in perpetual motion. She proved then and right up until the end, was that she was going to travel the world until her feet would no longer take her there.

We all know that she journeyed to many destinations. Many of us were dragged often by our ankles through some of the 50 states of this, the United States. Unfortunately, whilst I got to go on many of these adventures mom never got me back to Alaska. I have promised her that I would drive up there one day soon. She went to all the states, most of them more than once. She carried this book, Off the Beaten Path, as if to prove that Robert Frost was always right about such things.

Mom wrote this:

The Road Less Traveled

Ala Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”

I took the road less traveled each time there was a choice

I did the unexpected- I followed my own voices.

I lived my life in a different time frame-

My cart before the horses.

I created my own obstacles- but overcame the challenging course.

My choice of the road less traveled brought a lot of pride to me

I gloried in all I achieved and basked in the glow of others’ praises of me.

But looking back to the roads that diverged in the woods

and wonder what life might have been if I’d taken the other one

If I had pursued the road my schoolmates took right through university

Unburdened by failed romance and self-inflected adversity

A lovely child- born to a 16-year-old- who had to be a demanding priority

I might have found a soulmate that would have endured as my best friend

and added children and grandchildren in the right time frame

if I hadn’t missed the bend-

I might have had a love never altering that would have flourished to the very end

It isn’t that I regret my life or am consumed with bitterness

But the road I chose brought a lot of pain to other – and not just to me

My parent’s disappointment, the loves that ended in shambles- the “things that could not be”

Children brought into a world- reaping the choices that I made-

Uncompensated by my joy and fulfillment- indebted by entanglement that had to be paid.

At 79, the hand has writ and moved on- leaving me content-

With time to ponder on those roads and things that might have been.

Time passed on and she stopped traveling, her last trip would be our journey home to South Africa for the last time. For, Mom, she would be granted a closure that few people would get.

One of her favorite films, which she would watch 3 times the last year she lived, the last of which would be from her bed, was Out of Africa. Africa and the people there, all of them, the good and the bad were her chosen people. Dennis would become the spirit of adventure that would lead her to many incredible places in my homeland.

When we came back she had me read this poem to her.

So We'll Go No More a Roving

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

At the time, I would not appreciate what all that it meant to her and now later to me. Today, I finally understand what she was trying to tell me: her sword had outworn its sheath and her soul her breast.

She would had me type this poem for her:

I’ll go no more a roving

My Roving days are past

At least I have my memories as long as memories last.

Although there is still some yearning

The wanderlust is not entirely dead

But my steps have grown to feeble

I need to be supported- I cannot surge ahead

Even my spirit has grown weary

Time itself has robbed me of the strength and zeal.

So, no more solo adventures, neither east or west

But there is a lot of contentment with memories and my well feather nest

Knowing that I never missed a chance- I grabbed every one-

the big ones and the small.

To see all of the world that God has made and marvel at it all.

It would be the perfect way to sum it up. Her days of the open road.

Sea Fever

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

(sic)...

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Mom loved all of us, although she often had a hard time showing it to more than one of us at a time. She was always ready to help any one of us albeit one hand on the money and the other upon the rod of admonishment.

One of us was almost always out of favor whilst the other would be showered with praise and love.

She, did, however, never give up on any of us or our loved ones. Some of them DID get more forgiveness than others, sometimes, Mom would be quick to judge and slow to forgive, but even our spouses, girlfriends and boyfriends would often find a surprise ally whilst the rest of us would look on in stunned silence or bitter outrage that Mom was taking their side.

Mom love books, although, to my knowledge and memory there would only be a small handful that she read more than once. Of course, she had been blessed with a photographic memory.

Hamish Macbeth would prove to be one her favorite book series along with Tolkien and his Middle Earth stories. C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia would see many returns to her bedside. In the end, her least favorite of the Chronicles would become her chosen read. The Horse and his Boy would capture that journey and companionship that Mom had wanted all her life.

As to the book she read more than any other, it would be the Bible KJV although we would read others, she always returned to it. The Truth would mean much to her until she finally felt that the Truth had changed to much and she stopped going. She had left the Truth before as she struggled with her own doubts. She would look at me and repeat her favorite worker quote from Sherman: “Search the scriptures to find out if this is true.”

Mom was a writer, this house is filled with her writing, much of it unread by most of us. I can promise that it will remain here to be read by anyone who wishes to know the life and thoughts of my Mother. Let me tell you that her reputation as a historian is well founded in her journals. There is 70 years of history in the pages of her journals and diaries. There is an autobiography that may one day be completed, never mind the unfinished books that she was always working on or rather had me working on.

Without music, I cannot continue, without the love of my family and friends I would no longer find the words to speak, without God I would lose the strength for what must come next. Living without Mom, without my best friend and lifetime advisor.

We did not see eye to eye much.

Much like Father William and his son in Elliot’s poem.

We grew stronger for our differences.

Her legacy will remain as her own words upon losing her mother.

“I knew there would be no place to go when it stormed.”

Let her home now be your home, a place to come when the world becomes to much and you need a place to go when the storms come.

Let this be our gathering place for our family from now on.

Mom wanted it to be.

I will close with one last poem and a prayer.

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Amen.

Whatever happened to Michael Writes?

2020-10-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

He learned what bleeding was

end of blog.

It could be, but I'd like to think that you came here to learn what I learned about bleeding.

I am an overweight single man of 51 years. I work for my mother these days as her Administrator of the Knox County Museum of Education. Up until I took over, I had no background or experience in managing anything bigger than a small TV studio and a private eBay business. So, it was a learning experience.

My mother's mental state has been in decline since she turned 86, I wasn't aware of it until she stopped driving. Then last year she had the rounds with High Blood Pressure and ERs and nervous doctors and it spelled certain doom for her as her activity decreased to the point that by November of 2019 she semi-officially retired from the Museum's daily operations, She was already not going in daily. Things were rocky but I managed to keep everything afloat until COVID-19 came along and ruined the world. I was under incredible stress, taking care of my mother had become full-time, and trying to work full-time as well. Then I got a couple of scratches on my left leg.

Of course, I treated it and bandaged it, but thought nothing of it until it started leaking a water-like substance. Epidermal fluid. I had something like it in October 2019 but it only lasted a few days and dried up. This did not. I went to the doctor and went on a water pill and potassium and antibiotics.

Again, I wasn't too concerned as it was only water, I could still work albeit there was a lot of leaking. Eventually, I decided to stay home, a second wound appeared on my ankle below the wounds on my shin, it was quite painful to touch and I bandaged it as well. Then on a Tuesday night in July, I was putting mom to be around 12am and had just was the wounds and bandaged them. As I was getting her water in the kitchen right after that, I felt something wet and looked down to find myself standing in a puddle of blood. The kitchen floor was covered by blood. Not sure how bad, but by the time it registered in my head it was my blood I was calling for my mother and headed towards her bathroom which is adjacent to the kitchen.

I managed to get into her bathroom which is narrow, get on her toilet and get the bandage off. Meanwhile, mom is in a panic and trying to get her Google Nest Hub to call the neighbors and, of course, Google isn't cooperating which make everything worse, I finally talk mom into the bedroom to get her phone which I had put by her bed (mine is on the charger in my bedroom)

She starts calling our neighbors.

I get the bandage off my ankle and the blood sprays out of my ankle like a leaking pipe. I stare at it in disbelief. I have NEVER bled like this in my life (and I have bled quite a bit). As I try to decide what to do the blood just continues to spray. The problem is that because I am overweight (huge belly) it becomes an obstacle to get over to reach down to my ankle.

Mom finally reaches out to next-door neighbors who say they will be right over. Gary is a retired postman and his wife Robin is a retired school teacher. Mom then calls our handyman who is a true superhero because he always comes no matter how early or how late it is. By this time it's 12:30 am

I have managed to twist on the toilet and get 2 fingers down to my ankle, but I don't know what to do, the bleeding won't stop, I have a hysterical moment where I start thinking about the Black Knight scene from Monty Python & the holy grail. "Tis but a flesh wound," I say and giggle.

Mom can't reach our handyman Ronnie and gets hysterical too.

In the middle of this, I start praying "I'm not going to die." I believe that I am going to die.

Then someone tells me to push my two fingers down into the bleeding wound, so I do and the bleeding stops. At this point, I am pouring sweat out of my head, my vision is blurred and everything is slippery, my hand cramps and the fingers slip out after awhile and the bleeding starts again.

Again, I hear a voice tell me to place my fingers back into the wound. The world slows down and the bleeding stops. I know I am going to live. I also know the voice is in my head and it is the voice of God. I might doubt it now, but right at that moment,I know it to be true.

My neighbor Gary and Robin arrive to discover that I had locked the front door, Mom can't get to the front door and end up coming in through the backdoor so the first thing they see is all the blood. I suspect they figured that I had been savagely attacked. It's at that moment we find out neither of them can deal with blood.

Gary gets my mother's cell phone and calls 911.

By the time I see them, Robin is trying to calm Mom down and Gary is standing nervously as far from the bathroom as he can without leaving the house. At that point, our friend Ronnie arrives.

I lean back and ask Gary to shine his flashlight in the bathroom on my leg. I confirm that the ankle is no longer bleeding. I am sitting in a pool of my own blood, but I am still alive.

Ronnie starts cleaning up the blood in the kitchen.

The EMTs arrive and it dawns on me, no one is wearing a mask. No one.

My neighbors take their leave at this point.

I laugh.

They look confused. I ask them what I should do.

They get a chair and help me out of the bathroom. The bleeding has stopped. I am morbidly terrified it will start bleeding again. This fear will be with me for about 23 days.

They bandage my ankle and leg.

I ask them if they think I should go to the ER.

They look uncomfortable and I discover that they cannot make that decision. I have to ask to be taken to the ER.

I laugh again.

They look uncomfortable.

Mom tells them I am not going to the ER.

I ask their names and thank them for coming. Ronnie gets mom into bed and I thank Ronnie for coming and help him clean up the rest of the blood meaning I watch him throw out a complete set of towels, a new set of washcloths, and my favorite slippers.

What have I learned?

I bled out of a capillary less than 10% of my blood supply.

I went into shock and only God saved me.

I probably would have bled to death, however, and if I hadn't stopped the bleeding the EMTs would have, but they weren't there at the moment of truth. They came late to that party

I learned that humans can and will spurt blood and whilst the Brits make light of it, it's a reality that I have lived through.

I have also learned that it was only the beginning of my education which I will tell you about next time.

and that is Life (and bleeding) According to Mike.

The State of the World According to Mike

2020-06-25T12:40:00.001-07:00

It's June 25, 2020.

The world as we had thought we knew it has spiraled out of control and ended for all intents and purposes. In my last blog I was concerned we would collectively forget about Covid-19 after it was over.

I was wrong. A fair number of people are already, actively trying to forget it now, in the middle of it, all the while swearing that it's over.

The world ended a few days ago, no one actually noticed it. In fact, it's been over for a while. No one cares. REM sang their verse and went downstairs to get high or drunk.

People will think I am kidding, but it's true. My own mother chides me for believing that this invisible disease is real as if all diseases aren't invisible until someone gets it and you have to watch them die. I cry for that person who, right up to the moment their father's hand goes cold, couldn't believe that face mask was necessary and that staying at home was ridiculous. Now she stands there, knowing that the disease is real, that her father's death was preventable and that the enormity of it all is so far past any single person's responsibility that it's almost laughable as she walks back to her car through the crowds of protesters and deniers running to and fro as if the disease was all the hoax that my 88-year-old mother believes it is. My mother does acknowledge that something is seriously wrong, but even her experienced mind cannot grasp the unreality of it all. Her dementia is localized in the fact that she is cut off from reality and society and even in denial she is living in isolation and quarantine thanks to me and her inability to age gracefully.

I can't hold that woman who just lost her father, except in my mind. I can't even hold anyone else, because this threat has taken away our ability to touch for the fear that all of this presents. Meanwhile, our leaders squabble over tiny amounts of money while combatting public outcry while the Grim Reaper walks the halls of ERs and Retirement Homes.

I can only pray that somewhere in all this apocalyptic madness that someone finds a cure/treatment/vaccine before the world goes to war over a popularity contest and blames it all on Obama for starting it in the first place.

It is times like these that try the Soles of my fellow men...

2020-03-22T15:37:00.001-07:00

It is the age of the Coronavirus or COVID-19.
People talk about this disease as if we will all remember it in times to come.
Bad news guys, we won't. Its probably going to last another 2 months on the news, 3 months on the web and someone will bring up that damned Gorilla and everyone will "move" on.
This the Internet and America. There's a presidential Election and the mud will be flying between Trump and Biden in no time. Sorry, Bernie, the Democratic Party is throwing you off the bus again as unelectable. Anyway, that's another blog in itself.

The fact is that Americans will move on.
It's what they do.
Ask an American about the Ebola outbreak
The few who were paying attention will tell you it is over and besides, that was 4 years ago.
The truth is its not over and there are still cases popping up in Africa.
No one cares.
No one- other than those who had it or those who lost their families, friends, and neighbors to it.
Ask an American about 9/11. Some of them will get very serious for as long as it takes to remind you that there is no comparison but Congress was willing to forget the first responder's subsequent health crisis' and almost not renew the pledges of support that they had made to those men, women, and families.
Does anyone remember the people who died in those buildings? Does anyone recall the panic and insecurity of this country as our President told the public to buy garbage bags and duct tape against the likelihood of the WMDs that would soon rain down chemical weapons upon our cities?
No, they don't.
Just like all those people who have no idea what happened in Detriot or rather to Detroit
or Flint
or Sandyhook
or Columbine
or Waco
or Katrina
or Puerto Rico
or (the list goes on)
Americans forget and they forget quickly.
Not all Americans, but many.
You can blame the media, the Internet, the Millennials, the Liberals, the Democrats, the Republicans- Hell, let's blame Obama (they will for many years to come); but, the bottom line is not whose fault it is.
No, it's our Fault, America's fault.
We allow the forgetfulness. Welcome it even.
It's how so many of us cope with things we feel we cannot control.
So, in a few months, when the scare of the Coronavirus has worn off and toilet paper returns to the shelves and the disease has become treatable/curable, people will move on-
and all of the vows that we will never recover and never forget will be forgotten and people will stop washing their hands for 30 seconds.
Hand sanitizer will stop being a commodity and face masks will disappear
leaving the victims bereft and angry. It will join the ranks of the Flu and Pneumonia and this country will not give it much more thought until it comes around again
or doesn't.
There will be another, newer disaster, a volcano, earthquake, tornado, blizzard or terrorist attack to distract us from all the promises made by our politicians and heroes.

I don't really have a positive note to end on here.
It is what it is.
Okay, Fuck that.
It should fucking matter!
We shouldn't forget any of this!
I won't.
The fact I wrote this blog means
I haven't forgotten you Flint, Michigan!
or Waco
or Katrina
or (the list goes on)!

A Funny thing happened on the Way to the Internet

2019-01-31T12:33:00.001-08:00

We all evolve. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. Occasionally, we stop long enough to realize we keep starting blogs and deleting them because we lost interest in writing them or Netflix is just more tempting to do than to attempt to write in some cohesive manner.

Netflix mostly won although, my struggles with Fallout 4 culminated in me taking a long break and playing Warcraft instead. I have a 120 leveled Death Knight with great legs.
I spend almost every night doing one or the either or both or playing some Star Wars Commander (a fairly mindless game while catching up on personal emails and business.
Work mostly consumes me.
Also developing Arthritis and Tendonitis this fall changed most of what I can get out of my life on a daily basis. You learn to live with the pain first. There are NO QUICK FIXES with that. My knees are at a constant dull throb but flare into full-blown pain on a daily basis.
Then you discover that you complain about it and suddenly you're yelling at kids to get off your lawn and hating modern music.
Yes, you are now an old man.
It sucks.
So I went back to daydreaming. I write mostly on Twitter and as a result, I mostly gave up on the blogs. I can admit now that I burnt out on blogging big time. I just would sit down and stare at the screen before going to Warcraft as a means of survival.

So where do I go from here?
I don't know. I still work part-time and take care of my mother. I have so little time that I end up so tired that I cannot write like I once did. I feel so depleted at night and feel like there's never enough time to work on my fiction. I write a fair amount of Twitter poetry each week, then share it to a Facebook page.
I am planning to reorganize my patreon and Website. So that will change.
I just realized this blog is not as interesting as the idea of it sounded as when I started it.
Anywho, I am back and will be writing more interesting blogs and maybe just maybe a youtube video
until then you know the Drill.

I've been a lousy Blogger

2018-06-04T07:09:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, I blogged. Now I work.
I used to churn out content, now I sit in front of the computer twittering, netflixing, and playing mindless games.
I was a contender.
Now I am a lousy Blogger.

The question is does anyone care?
Do I care?
The first answer is yours.
The second in mine. I do care.
But writer's block, depression and downright dread of coming up with content that's not boring like this is becoming boring.

Diety! so dull.
Anyway. Now that I have lost your attention. I will say that this will be a summer of transitions as Life According to Mike is going to the Tube and this blog will become the companion piece although I am considering moving this to Discord. Why?
I hate writing in a vacuum.
So. Look for changes.... I mean if you are still awake or here and not deleting your links.
With that being said.
This was Boring according to... nevermind.

MY FAVORITE 150 MOVIES OF ALL TIME

2018-03-15T15:07:00.001-07:00

These are not in order the top ten are but the others would take the rest of the year to sort. I am going to break down the whys in the following blogs. It's taken me 3 months to narrow down the list to 150 and that was so damn hard.

The Princess Bride
The Empire Strikes Back
12 Angry Men
Blade Runner
Strictly Ballroom
Dr. Strangelove
Tangled
Secondhand Lions
Harvey
Rashomon
The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition (the trilogy)
Princess Mononoke
The Road Warrior
Dredd
Edge of Tomorrow
Groundhog Day
The Artist
Hot Fuzz
Ghost in the Shell (anime)
Tron
Bridge to Terabithia
Tron Legacy
Cyrano de Bergerac (original)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Shawshank Redemption
To Kill a Mockingbird
Casablanca
Equilibrium
Toys
The Matrix
Mary Poppins
The Man in the Iron Mask
The Highlander
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Life of Brian
Time Bandits
Clerks
My Neighbor Totoro
Howl's Moving Castle
Laputa
Nausicaa
Fletch
V is for Vendetta
Serenity
Starman
The Abyss
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Beastly
Airplane 1 & 2
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Deadpool
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
Fight Club
Spirited Away
High Fidelity
Star Wars: A New Hope
The Seven Samurai
Interstellar
The Terminator
Ferris Bueller's Day off
Friday
Ghostbusters (original)
The Hunger Games
Something Wicked this way Comes
Aliens
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 & 2
Harry Potter Movies (all of them)
Shot in the Dark
The Pink Panther (all of the Peter Sellers ones)
Captain America
Wonder Woman
Conan the Barbarian
Stardust
Ladyhawke
Cocoon
Captain America The Winter Soldier
The Dark Knight
Gladiator
300
Akira
2001
A Fish Called Wanda
Layer Cake
Star Trek 4 the voyage home
Star Trek 2: Wrath of Kahn
The Truman Show
Toy Story Trilogy
Epic
Singing in the Rain
Camelot
Galaxy Quest
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Troy
Batman Begins
Iron Man
Legend
The Avengers (Marvel)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Willow
T2: Judgement Day
Star Wars Rogue One
Star Wars The Last Jedi
Star Wars The Force Awakens
Hildago
Inception
The Green Mile
Shrek
The Usual Suspects
Brazil
Leon: The Professional
Wasabi
Back to the Future
The Dark Knight Rises
Amelie
Some Like it Hot
Better Off Dead
Say Anything
Up
The Big Lebowski
Pirates of the Carribean Black Pearl
Dancing in the Rain
Children of a Lesser God
Star Trek (Remake)
Ghost
Office Space
Raising Arizona
Oh Brother Where Art Thou
Hamlet (Gibson)
La La Land
Brave
Witness for the Prosecution
Kick-Ass
Chocolat
Real Genius
Shaun of the Dead
Jungle Book, animated
Jungle Book live action (recent)
The Cat from Outer Space
The Three Musketeers (Disney remake)
The Musketeer
Cyrano (Gerald Depardieu )
The Incredibles
Big Hero 6
Zootopia
Super Troopers
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
True Lies
The Book of Eli

These aren't necessarily the best movies, just my favorite ones. base argument is these are the ones I would not hesitate to rewatch over and over again.

There are others that I have liked more but decided to never rewatch or own.

Thanksgiving. The day where you are lucky to still be alive

2017-11-23T17:49:00.003-08:00

Once upon a time...
I know it's historical but come on, no one really knows how or why it happened. more than 400 years of history and school plays later and no one really cares anymore.

So, once upon a time there was a thanksgiving to some the much confused terminology for the people who lived here in what is now called the US of A. In which a handful of them - I mean a tribe and by a tribe I mean a handful of a tribe of whatever you want to call them since we are not really sure what call themselves (the pilgrims and other europeans kind of wiped them off the planet before we could establish who they really were).
Anyway, I digress.
These guys helped out a handful of pilgrims or colonists who may have completely died off afterward anyway survive their first winter on this continent and thus indirectly establish a holiday that bear little to no resemblance to anything that had to do with it in the first place other than a general sense of ironic gratitude for survival.

This is probably the reason me and the turkeys spend most holidays like this alone on the front porch while everyone else is grateful inside.
But seriously, I won't be treating this as a national day of mourning for Turkeys or the First Nations or the millions of others who were subsequently wiped out by the avarice of a group of ignorant savages in their greed and destruction. That would be cheating.
We need a day that observes that this happened and as a country built on such evils to observe it that is separate from other holidays.
Also, Turkeys are supposed to be our national bird not our national meal.
So, let's begin again.
Once upon a time there was a holiday that marked our gratitude in the broadest sense of generalization to those who enabled our survival as individuals, families, communities, towns, cities and states and, in fact, as a nation to thank all those people and peoples who gave us the ability to thank them today.
So let us reconcile ourselves to that and stop killing turkeys and giving into repeating the sins of our forefathers and become the people who celebrate Thanksgiving for some other reason than rampant gluttony and preparation for a national day of utter greed.

amen.
from Mike who was exiled to the front porch with all the other turkeys in America.

Sex! Well- thoughts on Sex and not on my lack of it.

2017-11-22T20:39:00.000-08:00

SEX!

Well, thoughts on SEX

and not on my lack of it.

Having said that, I put forth this proposition. I am an expert on Sex.

Not because I've had it, but rather that I have thought about it.

A lot.

I am, in fact, Technically, a VIRGIN.
Technically by the American version of sex.... the college version anyway.
To put it plainly.
I have not ever placed my penis in any hole.
'nuff said.

Actually- now that I think about it I am an expert on not having sex.
I WANT SEX
just not bad enough to look for a hooker (which I can't afford anyway) or pick up "loose men or women" in bars and TINDER, add a healthy dose of fear of STDs and you can picture my life in a sad string of failures at pickup lines, online dating sites, and the multitudes of women who would never consider me as a sex partner (men too).
BUT THIS BLOG IS NOT ABOUT MY LACK OF SEX OR THE REASONS FOR IT.

It's about my point of view on Sex.
Which means it could well be completely wrong.
(i.e. go find another blog if this bugs you)
I am going to say things I will most likely regret and if my Murphy Luck holds up, I will alienate the one woman who would have loved to fuck me.... or not.

(Finally, a word to my father and mother and stepmother) when I use the word Fuck, it will be deliberate rather than just as a convenient expletive.

So SEX!

It seems to me... it appears to me? No. It seems to me that fantasy books have spelled out the difference between most men and women with magic.

In the Wheel of Time books, Robert Jordan describes the use of the one power as being different from a man to a woman.

"The One Power comes from the True Source, the driving force of creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time. Saidin, the male half of the True Source, and Saidar, the female half, work against each other, and at the same time together to provide that force...." Moiraine Damodred

"Saidar is described as a gentle, but infinitely powerful river; a force which will do what you wish it to, but requires patience to be "persuaded;" otherwise it will carry you away. A woman must submit to Saidar in order to access it, an act universally known as embracing the Power. Weaving for a female channeler consists of guiding the flow of the Power to achieve the desired end.

Saidin is described as a raging torrent, just as powerful as Saidar but tempestuous: a raw, untamed force that must be "coerced" through the strength of will or else it will overwhelm you. In contrast to Saidar, a man must make Saidin submit to him in order to access it: a process known as seizing the Power. Weaving for a male channeler involves wielding it much like a weapon and directing it to do his bidding." (taken from A Wheel of Time Wiki, http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/One_Power)

I can see sex like this.
Women recognizing that sex is a gentle but powerful force that drives the body to new levels of pleasure and ecstasy which if properly harnessed can be controlled, managed as long as a woman does not give into the temptation to be swept away with its force.
Men realize that sex is very much a wild raging torrent of lust energy that has to be coerced into a tool that brings power and pleasure like a weapon to be used on another in order to master someone for the desired results.
It's not all-inclusive or exclusive as there are women who will take on sex like a man and men who will take it submissively and subtlety.
Is this a generalization?
Yes, it is.
Then why believe it?
Because I can.
and because it's fascinating to see it played out around me in books, movies, and real life.
I have felt the force that drives me as a man to consider, HELL, to entertain such forbidden concepts as rape, control, using force on another to satisfy my urges. It's always abstract for me, I am like Walter Mitty, ever imagining what it would be like to push a woman face down across a table or desk, pulling down her pants, or up in the case of a dress or skirt, and then the panties. Imagining her face in excitement but then it's just a fantasy and like most fantasies, it peters out pretty fast
Pushing myself into her then shoving her top up to her armpits in order to explore her breasts, leaning over her back listening to her pants of excitement and fear as we thrust in rhythm to our heartbeats.
This particular fantasy is triggered by tight-fitting skirts, dresses and pants/shorts exposing a well-rounded butt. It takes about 10-15 seconds to flash through my mind before I quickly remember what it's like to be forced down on a table by some bully and the sheer terror that runs through my veins as quickly robbing me of any pleasure I would have received from that fantasy.
I feel, apologetic and sick at the same time.
I am one screwed up person, in short.
It's the kind of thing you never get over.
Or at least, I have yet to get over it. Rape fantasy lasts as long as it takes me to remember the fear.

This is not a fact. Just some thoughts.
It's all trapped inside my imagination anyway, like so many other things in my life. I can only imagine sex or live through some watered down version of it since my chances of the act, in actuality, is unlikely. Sometimes I feel that my life is like a relationship in Skyrim where whenever I find someone compatible to fall for, it takes time for her to admit her feelings for me and then just when we are about to get lucky, the screen goes to black and I wake up beside her, not being able to touch or even kiss her. Only what I have imagined stays real for me.

I fall in love with fictional characters all the time.
(this will be another blog....one day- don't worry I'll pepper the blog with Outlander pics for the Ladies and Playboy pics for the men or sports or something.
I fall in love with fictional characters from movies, tv shows, books and even poems.
I imagine the relationship with them.
I wonder what sex would be like especially if I am a character in the fiction with them.
Ironically I am more myself than I would like my imagination to picture.
for instance....
Wonder Woman strolls in to find me waiting for her. She is Amazonian (Amazing)

and then there's me.
I look at my imagined self.
I facepalm.
"Really, that's who I am in this fantasy?" I say.
Imaginary me looks back
"What were you hoping for?" He says
"Something amazing...."
"I don't see the problem." Wonder Woman says as she crosses over to kiss Imaginary Me passionately.
He gives me the thumbs up as I gawk.
"You're dreaming again aren't you?"
Kate asks me.
We're in the coffee shop. I have a stupid smile on my face.
She's pretty.
She knows it.
She is also unavailable.
This is the story of my sex life.
All the women I have ever wanted to have sex with are unavailable.
My biggest problem with sex is...
Hell if I know.

it could be one of the following.

1. The Ferris Bueller defense.

watch it from 2:45 to 3:30 for the speech.
Sex has become, in the abstract, an end all, be all for me. But thanks to Ferriss, I was forewarned of this possibility so I guard against it. Ironically, this very argument has kept me from getting laid, however, I have no crazy ass girlfriends like some of my less wise and unfortunate male friends who settled for that course.

2. I have the IRISH Curse
I blame genetics... also I am only like 1/5 Irish...
I only have a comparatively small penis.
Any guy who claims to not have compared his penis to the penthouse size charts or surreptitiously glanced from one urinal to the guy in the other to check how his dingaling stacks up is lying or incredibly well hung and thus has had us lesser dude sneaking looks and cussing to ourselves at the unfairness of the world.
I probably have an average penis but having watched way to much porn, I have been brainwashed into believing women want monster phalluses to be rammed into their bodies at high speeds. It is 100% bad internet porns fault...
that's my story anyway.
Sorry, no graphics on this.
If you must know Goto 4chan and ruin your life.

3. I'm fat (my mother mostly blames this)
Dinner conversation: "If you only lost that weight than the girls would line up."
I look at the guy who is as fat as me sitting a table over with a very attractive female wife. My mother refuses to see the contradiction....
Then the pretty friend who I used to have the hots for ("secretly") leans over and tells me confidentially that the real reason she wouldn't have sex with me is that my bodyweight would crush her. Later she introduces me to her muscle-bound boyfriend - who paradoxically weighs more than me- but it's all muscle because that makes a difference.

4. I'm too smart.
Sure intelligence is sexy, but only as long as it is a MEME and not the nerdy uber geek sitting at your workstation fixing your computer. Let's not forget the now stereotypical but charming sociopath from the real 50 shades of coincidence that all women really desire. I am very smart, quite possibly a genius of sorts but it has NEVER gotten me laid, so how smart am I really?

this one is doubly ironic, of course

So why put it here. Here are 2 really creepy romantic heroes with desperately needy women who worship these two guys share sophisticated styles in the new wave of sexy intelligence based on such rampant falsehood that it makes my IQ spin.

Inside jokes aside. These 2 stories (linked) are portrayals of intelligent men who are deeply sexual and yet are neither intelligent or sexually desirable save for the imaginations of the women and girls who ignore their glaring monstrosities finding them ideal romantic subjects.

In short, sociopaths who prey on all women through bad writing (ironically done by women)

If you happen to have missed my point read it all again or give me the stock response I usually get.

"Mike, it's not about you."

but it is.

I am too smart for most relationships because I can recognize the intrinsic flaws in myself and all my potential lovers (of which there actually hasn't been many)

It would be easier for me to believe that I just haven't me the right woman, yet.

Chances are though, I have and she just dismissed me as another asshole- because that is easier than bothering to understand what I am trying to say.

Which leads me to my next statement.

5. I am a smartass.
Which is to say I have a very dry wit and most people do not get it. There are many reasons for this but mostly I forget that people take me way too seriously way too much.

I wisecrack and people, many of them women get offended.

I am macabre and many people decide I am a monster

I am ironic and several women have come after me for being to fatalistic and "you can't joke about that."

I am honest and there are proverbial screams of horror.

I am serious and there is laughter, a bit late as I have been banned from yet another social circle where no one got the joke (family included).

Social media is the worst for this.

Apparently, you can no longer joke about sex.

also if you're a man, you aren't allowed to tell a joke about the pickle slicer to women and small children.... Okay, I can see the children not needing to hear that until they are seventeen.

6. I believe too much in fairytales.
I do, I want the fairytale romance. happily-ever-after might be overrated and cliched but it doesn't make it less true. Love can be the best thing to happen in life. It might be a sweet illusion but at the end of the day, the damsel in distress can rescue me and ride away into the sunset as long is it is for love. Hell, I will take love over sex in this case.... trick answer, love, and sex can and should be the same thing.... at least in fairytales.

7. My expectations are too high
Everyone has expectations. Everyone has fantasies. Everyone who is willing to admit it anyway. Nothing goes as well as planned, but the disappointment is game-changing. How many times did I come to the brink of sex only to have the woman or girl change her mind and leave me sitting there going WTF just happened?
Still, no means no.
But an explanation would be nice.
I didn't get an honest one, ever.
I mean it.
There were explanations, but studying for a test is a lie, not having premarital sex was also a lie, I am too psychoanalytical was a dodge, and it's too big was definitely a whopper (refer to #2 if you have already forgotten)

8. I was terrified of AIDS and STDs.
I was, I guess I still am, my uncle died from complications due to AIDS when I was in my 20's. This detail singlehandedly kept me out of the bar scene my entire life. Casual sex became sex roulette with 1 in six chance of blowing my head off.... if you don't get that one, we can't be sex partners- which puts you in the vast majority of people who tolerate me these days.

9. I am sexual.
I refuse to call myself a heterosexual because Americans are very weird about the gender decision that heterosexuality has become. I am kind of bisexual trisexual or something as homosexuality does not offend me and in some case I find it arousing. I also find a host of other sexual tastes desirable but none of them would set a romantic role in my life because it is just a sexual preference or arousal... people are sexual, different strokes and all. You cannot explain homosexuality on this basis. It's cheating. People are not homosexual or heterosexual for strictly sexual reasons... they are that way for emotional, psychological, cultural reasons. I just feel like we've missed the whole point somehow by focusing on gender qualification and attraction by forcing it all into easy to define (well apparently easy to define) roles that make the whole business cut and dried and avoid that glaring fact that it is so much more of a trainwreck then a gay versus straight thing.
Once again, this doesn't win me any friends- who tell me that unless I am one way or another I am a bisexual and should shit my trap as I don't know what I am talking about.

10. I love my own characters too much.
I pretty much live half my life inside my head. I write these stories about heroes and fall in love with some many wonderful men and women (and dragons and wolves- long story) and tend to forget at times that they only exist on paper or in blogs or my books and while they all have very real relationships with me, they only exist there where I can see them until they escape to literature so that those who seek them will understand that they are so special and their stories need to be told. I am currently writing the Spartan and the Amazon's story and am very much in love with Maggie Macdonald and Diana Prince right now, it's 1945 and WWII has come to it's awful end. Mike Knight and Diana Prince are headed home to be with Maggie on her farm in the Azores. If this sounds familiar don't tell DC, I hijacked Wonder Woman for my own imagination... it might become a book one day... it probably won't but it's been a blast to imagine it all especially the part where I am in love with Diana.

11. I cannot effectively communicate with women I like
If I have to explain this then you must have skipped to this one as I have pretty much explained it by explaining everything else. I get gum footed, nervous, and frantic when I meet someone I am attracted to and usually manage to come across as a complete jerk, dork or idiot or all three. Tongue-tied as my pent up desires suddenly run rampant like a million minions in a furor.

12. You don't really care anyway
In all fairness, you probably don't, you just had sex, are getting ready for sex, going to have it later this week or you're impotent and now hate me for bringing it up. In which case, Fuck you and you're Welcome.

13. What's the point of sex anyway?
A very relevant question. SEX IS OVERRATED
especially when you aren't getting any. Would people just shut up about it anyway?!
Jeez. I would sell my soul for just one kiss, just one kiss....

it was just one kiss

So that's my take on sex.... and life and love and fish 'n chips (gotcha)
next time on Life According to Mike, we will discuss Penuckle and why it is the game that will end the world...

Internet Survival According to Mike (Repost)

2017-07-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for some facebook friends.
A followup to my Internet Security- not Lifelock post
RansomWare.
Best defense is still a good, currently paid for antivirus/internet security software package/subscription like
Norton $39 a year, Avast, AVG, others.
my last choice is always McAfee as it usually scores at the bottom
or get a Mac.
PCGamer or CNet will invariably publish a best Antivirus/Internet Security review.
or get a Mac.
I use Norton and have for almost 20 years. I have avoided most of the major and minor threats on the net over the years because of this decision.
Buy the software on Amazon. It's cheaper than from the company directly.
or get a Mac.

Thirdly
Some useful third party programs that can prevent, rescue, stop other infections/hacks.
1. MalwareBytes (free but worth its weight in gold) I use this in addition to Norton on my PC
2. CCleaner, I use this one as well on my PC as well. This one will clean your system as gently or as aggressively as anything.
3. AdBlock, Stands adblocker (for browsers) these extensions will block page ads, clean up Facebook feeds, other social media pest, even youtube ads (if you hate them enough- I turned mine off since I understand now how much youtube creators need them). More importantly, the ad blockers will save from web page redirects (which is one way to get hit with ransomware).

Fourthly.
Most importantly.
Ransomware.
There are 4 principle ways to get hit by ransomware.
1. Email. I call this lazy hacking.
you get an email that appears to be from a friend (usually means they have been compromised) alway verify email addresses. The email contains some text and a mini-url link
will look something like this
http://ow.ly/azwa30cmEaC (this a youtube shortened url link)
there are ways to determine a shortened url source but most of us don't have time to figure out the pattern. Generally speaking shortened URLs or Mini-URLs are created by a third party app/website for redirects.
The short answer is NEVER NEVER NEVER click on them.
unless your friend tells you in articulate or at least his colloquial English that he saw this and thought it was funny.
still don't click it, though.
if you are savvy, find get him to tell you the name of the video /website and Google it.
many of these pages address will drop you into the ransomware directly and unless you have a very up to date internet security software guard in place (and sometimes even if you do) you're toast.
also, never, NEVER, NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVER! open attachments that are not picture files and even then be careful anyway. there are internet security apps for your phone but even Norton's one is mostly crap. this used to be the number one infection method for viruses. So many email attachments were corrupted or just infected. I could write a book on the variety of ways this kind of disaster takes place, but I am not going to spend any more time on it.

2. embedded (hidden) links in a seemingly or innocent website. I once almost killed the church's video pc while searching an opera page for Ave Maria media and ended up clicking on a bogus link buried in their page's code. The Ad blocker stopped it
These are rare on Click Bait pages.
What is a Click Bait page?
we've all seen them. They are very common. They are the Internet Tourist Trap.
On Twitter/Facebook they will usually be something about
Diet/Beauty/Celeb Reveals/ Cats/ Dogs/etc. stories that someone will post with next to no comments.
Like a Carnie vendor luring you into his crooked water gun stall, they will have just enough info to pull you to the page (outside of twitter/facebook)
When you get there, the dead giveaway is the tons of ads
I MEAN THE TONS OF ADS.
I hate click bait sites.
They farm your clicks for ad revenue.
well, this is like a pond full of mosquitos and one very hungry piranha waiting for you to panic.
in short, skip click-bait websites, they are bad news no matter how enticing the promised reveal is- they are bad news and the reveal is almost always not worth it.

3. text messages. If you don't have a smartphone, you are safe by being a dinosaur (mostly) your extinct even if you still believe those artifacts still work.
(kidding...well only half kidding)
with today's SMS (text messages) being interactive and capable of storing data packages you can load the Ransomware without ever knowing is have it. This includes Macs and PCs that have SMS interfaces.
if you don't believe this the average ransomware is 12 kilobytes in size, while the average picture is 10 megabytes.
the short answer, never click on an sms with a link on your phone. or answer one that you don't know who it is from.

4. lastly this is a collection of methods mostly out of use.
a. someone gives you a flashdrive with it on it.
b. someone gives you a dvdr/cdr with it on it.
c. you download it from the net (always be sure you know what you are downloading)
d. When streaming video, avoid unknown websites. Safe video streaming sites are youtube (there are some bogus streamers in youtube as well), vimeo, flickster, disneymovies, netflix, amazon, ultraviolet, there's another that does high rez movies.
e. video streaming apps that promise cheap movies.
f. free apps that promise free stuff
g. my brother (he's despicable)
h. porn sites (pornhub and xhamster are safe if you need to know)
i. be choosy on accepting cookies (the website kind- sorry cookie monster, a website cookee tracks you- ad blockers put a stop to this)
j. chat apps/programs - software can be pushed to you through them
k. torrents (if you know what this is, get a vpn, if not just don't do it.)
l. free phones. they exist.
m. free games. we've all played them. just remember that most free games make money....
n. facebook games- the scourge of my existence.
o. dating websites.... also very disappointing on other levels.
p. Pizza places other than Harby's (everything else just pales by comparison) also ordering food online- all kinds of info exchanges
q. when doing money transactions online always start with a fresh tab/window and when done close it. less chance of leaving a digital trail
r. dump your cookies and cache. then burn it (delete it). Remember Empire Strikes Back. Vader could have avoided a lot of trouble if they had deleted theirs before jumping to hyperspace.
s. did I mention having Internet Security Software?
t. Inflammatory statements in social media. It can attract hackers. (reference Madonna if in doubt)
u. Facebook quizzes. 9 out of 10 want access to your Facebook profile
v. anything on Facebook that wants access to your profile
w. anything that wants permission to post on Facebook for you.
x. decaf coffee...it's a crime against nature.
y. powdered cremora, it's a crime against coffee.
and
z. don't own a computer or a cellphone and live in a dead zone. or just nuke it all from orbit.
it's the only way to be sure.

My bank is closed

2017-05-25T12:32:00.001-07:00

I am tired.
I am tired of joining causes that I want to support and believe in only to have the cause come back to me with their hand out as if the only thing I am good for is another donation.
I have given, and often, and now I have grown sick of it.
But I am not rich or well paid or even reasonably okay where money is concerned.
I have a patreon, I get about $60 a month for it. It's mostly from my family and friends that believe in me or at least wish to support me.

I support other patreons, in turn, as well. I believe in supporting them. None of them come at me with their hands out though. They're filled with gratitude for the little help I can give them and they are constantly giving back.
I want to save the wolves, stop the end of net neutrality, keep freedom of the press and free speech, save the bees, and the wild places, help consumer reports keep reporting, get some reasonable people in power and remove the unreasonable people. I want to stop hate crime, promote love, equality, protect women and the innocent, stop child abuse, defeat cancer, and the myriad of other causes.
I just don't want to have to do it in dollar amounts.
I have had to learn to ask for help and even now, knowing that I am going to have to ask for more, to ask people I personally support, to sell myself and my art to a new audience-
I am tired of every Tom, Jane and Larry showing up with a cause and then without so much as a la te dah holding out their hand for my money as if that is all I have to offer that they are interested in.

This is the sum of much of my emails. Someone wants my money.

In fact, it often seems like anyone or everyone.

It's crazy.

I am so tired, I am unsubscribing where I can, dumping the rest into spam and rejecting unknown callers.

So, in conclusion, if you want my help.

Don't start off with asking for money.

You won't get it.

The bank is closed.

and that, as I am prone to state- is life according to Mike.

Now I am 48, still out of date....

2017-05-07T09:38:00.001-07:00

Now I am 48.

People (they know who they are) ask me how it feels to be 48.
I tell them I haven't felt like I was 60 in a long time.
I get a nervous laugh, a chuckle and they shake their heads.
I don't get along with my brother.
I never did.
Even when I thought I was getting along with him, I wasn't.
Why bring this up now?
On your birthday, for Pete sakes!
Crikey.
It's obvious to me.
48 is a number like 50. I don't give it much credence.
I am 48, I don't get along with my brother, I have a weird relationship with my father, I take care of my mother (more than I ever thought I would) and my best friend is also my niece.... also my other best friend is wonderful and doesn't get much credit as to how much I truly love her.
Okay, I admit it.
That's not my point.
I don't get along with my brother because despite all my intentions to be someone else where the world is concerned I don't get along with my brother, we are alike and utterly un-alike and it makes no sense to anyone...especially me. Sometimes I say:
"This explains everything!"
Then I am forced to admit it didn't explain anything but what I wanted it to explain.
I don't know my brother.
I have tried and quit and inevitably will most likely try again, except I am getting to old for this:

So, I am 48 and too old for- well you get the point of that, now.
Moving on.
Actually, I am doing swell.
Except that I am still alone.
Working out, eating healthy stuff, living in a perpetual daydream that is so self-congratulatory and self-pleasing- the ego massaging kind that I now call it my happy place.
Hi, I am Michael Wilder.
I have three wives.
(I warned you)

I will stop there save to say I am on new meds.
I feel good most of the time.
I don't need Bob's tits anymore.

If I need to explain this, you probably just wandered into my life and miss most of my movie references.
(fight club, bob (meatloaf) Deadpool, movie references) or just forget it.
pretend I am cooking and this is the food network.

So, I digress.
I am 48.
A poet, future tango dancer, hopeful romancer.
Likeliest to die alone in an empty cafe in Vienna full of figurative bullet-holes.
Now, you can be lost and give me that look.

and you won't be alone. Most of my family just shrug, make a nervous laugh and check their collective cell phones while silently wishing that the "old mike" would come back and then we could talk about that time I got kicked in the teeth.
Look, I tinker, I fix stuff, all that convenient lock picking, console hacking, raider shooting stuff
just ain't for me....

and that is the first day of 48 according to Mike.

On Rats....

2016-12-02T17:55:00.001-08:00

Rats.

The bane of my modern life. They are smarter than mice, more determined and persistent.

I have been at war with two of them which invaded my mother's house about a year ago. They are too big to get caught in the mouse traps I set, outsmarted the glue traps I put down, and even eaten the bait off a few of the traps just to spite me.

I can hear them scuffling in the walls at night.

Then they got bold enough to dart through the kitchen at night... this was how I met the first rat.

Let's call him, Vince.

(apologies if your name is Vince...your parents should have called you Norbert instead...unless you like rats then it's all good).

Anyway Vince is a large

Norwegian Rat- or brown rat, or wolf rat, as some of the locals refer to him as. The picture isn't of Vince but just for reference.

My mother was the first to see Vince when he dashed across the kitchen one night, and she screamed and decided to hide in the bathroom while I looked for him. I admit that I thought my mother has seen a mouse and panicked. The second time, I didn't chuckle as hard as I did the first.

I tried a variety of mousetraps, poisons, bait stations, and nada- Vince ignored them all. Of course, he had a steady food supply from all the loose bird seed on the back porch...mom feeds the birds, squirrels, raccoons and two skunks and as it turns out the rat.

Of course, out of all these rodents...yes squirrels are very cute barky rodents and birds are rodents with wings.... my opinion as they are messy and contribute to the rat population.

I did find what I thought was a mouse dead -crammed in a cabinet on afternoon near the mop soap. Now I suspect that the "mouse" was a baby rat who ate the rat poison and choose to die in that spot, so considerate of him.

Anyway, I pursued Vince and his ilk with every bait that I could come up by word of mouth, co-op store advice and even google. None of it worked. Honey- nope, cheese- nope, bread? Meat? chocolate- hell no, bird seed? Nope, nope, nope and furthermore nope.

Finally, I conceded defeat and turned to the professionals. I looked for the pest company with the best rating and ended up with Cooke's Pest Control.

They were friendly and helpful and completely misleading of what they would actually do while totally ripping me off with contracts that delivered nothing new that I hadn't already tried.

Here's the rundown.

Me: I have a rat problem.

Them: Sure, we can come treat your house and get rid of the rats.

Me: Rats?

Them: Sure, if you have one rat, then you have at least 25 rats.

Me: Great.

Them: No worries, we guarantee we will get them all.

Me: when can you come?

Them: How's Thursday?

Me: What will they do?

Them: Treat the house for the rats, then come back every two months for a year to make sure we get them all.

Me: That sounds great.

Them: We will see you Thursday.

later (not Thursday)

Them: Hi, we were in the neighborhood and would like to stop by and do an advance inspection for the technician who is coming tomorrow.

Mom: Okay, no one told us about that.

Me: Okay, what did they say?

Mom: That they will be here in an hour.

Me: Define close by?

Mom shrugs.

later.

Them: Hi, this is Lou and I am Max, we're from Cooke's Pest Control. (the names are changed because I cannot remember they're actual ones)

Me: Let me show you where I saw the rats.

Them: we need to inspect the entire house, inside and out- if you don't mind.

Me, they came to inspect the house with micro flashlights.

Them: Well we found where your rats are holding out.

Me: Really?

Them: Yes, it's in this storage room under the house, there are definitely signs that is where their nest is. Plus there is definitely dead bodies in there.

Me: Really?

Them: I have 12 years of experience, I know the smell of a dead rat.

Me: Well actually- I mean are you sure it's not insecticide- see I sprayed down there a few years ago Them: No, we know the difference between insecticide and dead bodies and that's definitely dead body smell. We'll show you.

NOTE: they found no sign of the rats inside the house despite me showing the guy where I had seen the rats

We go to the storage room. They show me some insulation that is suspiciously hanging down from the rafters. They point at it.

Me: That's it?

Them: Yup, there's a dead rat up there.

Me: Uh-huh. I smell insecticide.

Them: No, it's a dead rat. I'd definitely stake my rep on it.

Me: Okay.

Them: Well, there is something more that you should know.

Me: Oh? What is that?

Them: You have termites.

Me: Of course, I do.

Them: This is serious.

Me: Please tell me how much more that will cost.

Them (rubbing their paws together): We will cut you a discount.

Rat removal: $631. $133 for initial treatment, and then $83 for each return visit.

Termite removal: $2355 AND they offer financing.

What a bargain!

notes: they continued to be vague about how the technician would "treat" the house for the rats, but were extremely specific about how they would rid the house of termites.

note: they showed me proof of the termites....all the damage was over 10 years old and I had used a base insecticide to kill the termites...also none of the damage was to the actual house.

I call Cooke's after they left.

Me: I need to know how this treatment is being charged.

Them: repeats what they told me earlier.

Me: When do I pay that?

Them: The tech will bring the contract out.

Me: Wait, did you say contract?

Them: Yes, you sign a contract which will be billed by the month or visit.

Me: What about that money back guarantee?

Them: Well, that's determined on an individual case by case basis.

Me: Riiiiiiigggght.

Them: Is that sarcasm?

Me: Let me speak to your supervisor.

Them: Why?

Me: Because Hell hath no fury like me getting conned (this wasn't what I actually said).

Them: Please hold.

I will now summarize the conversation with the supervisor.

1. contracts are non-negotiatable

2. They hade no knowledge of the two yutzes that showed up an hour ago with the whole termite bit. They actually acted surprised when I told them that the whole termite thing blew their con for me.

3. The technician that was coming the next day for the "treatment" would boil down to him spraying the perimeter of the house with a garden variety insecticide and putting down about 4-6 bait stations -with locks that only Cooke's would have keys for (not me- so I could never know if they actually caught anything like the truth).

4. and that was it.

I checked BBB and consumer complaints and found Cooke's to have the worst rating by the BBB and consumers. But the best rating by referral sites.

Anyway, Vince had a good laugh.

I gave up, then went back to google.

I found out a ton of basically useless info that both confirmed that Cooke's used google as well for their info and that we were basically screwed.

I then turned to our local co-op and were shown their selection of rat removal products.

Wait for it.

Bait and old fashioned rat- traps- think spring loaded mouse trap but much, much bigger. Big enough to catch chiwawas.

I went to the local hardware store bought some rat poison and threw that in the places I had seen the rats.

Apparently Vince and Shirley (sorry to all the Shirleys out there if your name is Shirley or don't like rats being arbitrarily named Shirley) had gone on vacation as I stopped hearing them.

Then I heard them again, I mean I actually heard her but thought it was Vince.

One day, while shopping for toilet paper I decided to grab some glue boards and try them.

A couple of nights later, I heard some scratching scuffling somewhere in the kitchen, it sounds like someone shuffling through our stash of used food city bags. I checked then found nothing there. The next day I heard it again, but this time it was coming from the utility closet in our former classroom (from my mother's old school), it's now like a second living room, but we still call it the classroom. Anyway, I popped open the door, and this dark gray tail disappears into the corner of the closet where my mother had stored the old rags and some storage bags. I immediately shut the door, trapping the rat in there. I then set the glue boards and cracked the door.
One trapped rat.
Now what? I thought. I will stomp him!
I am wearing house shoes (slippers) Okay, scratch that plan.
I will put him in something and drown him!
Right, because drowning rats is a common form of execution.
I then tried to pick the rat up with a picker upper

That would have worked, except that the blasted rat flipped the glue board and it stuck to the hardwood floor and the cabinet next to him. I tried and failed to extract the glue board and rat with the picker upper.

I tried the next longest and biggest tool I could find.

Bolt cutters.

This totally failed.

I finally grabbed a pair of channel locks and pried the board with rat loose and transferred the squealer to the picker upper.

Then I knew I wasn't killing the blasted thing.

So I dropped him in a sealed albeit not air tight trash can.

The next morning I checked on the little bastard and he had freed himself from the board and was scrambling around at the bottom of the trash can seeking escape.

Now what?

I loaded up the trash and took him and the trash to the dump.

Haven't seen him....err, I mean her since.

You see, once I got home I realized that the rat wasn't Vince who is brown but Shirley who is dark gray...no I don't know the actual sex of the rat, but I had my suspicions.

I admit it, I relaxed, Rat Gone.

Nope. Vince decided to pop out one afternoon and run over my foot.

So more glue boards went down and two days later, I caught Vince.

He collected a glue board outside of a hole he had been using between the bottom of my dishwasher and the kitchen cabinets.

He was mighty upset.

And then as I searched for the picker-upper he flipped the glue board and stuck it to the linoleum floor.

ARGGH!

I tried many things to extract him from the floor. Finally, I scraped him off the floor with a broom and dustpan (mostly the dust pan)

Vince joined Shirley in the dumpster at the dump.

and then a day later I smelled another rat.

A very Dead rat as it turned out.

I finally located the smell pungent under the dishwasher.

so I had to go get a drill extract the stabilizing screws and pull it out.

Major rat nest of paper towel scraps, dish towel bits. toliet paper, suet wrappers and lots of other unidentifiable stuff....also noe very dead and smelly rat.

I should have taken a picture.

I bagged it all, checked around the house and found a similar nest under the couch in the classroom- not as bad but still it was there.

I placed it in the trash and took it all to the dump the next day.

The smell stuck around despite bleaching the floor.

SO, the next time the guy at the Co-Op says rat poison doesn't leave an odor, tell him, that it does and it smells worse the BS he just told you.

To top it off, I decided to use the rest of the rat posion.

I looked under the kitchen sink where I kept it and this is what I found.

In case you missed it, the bag is empty, some rat (the smelly one) chewed his way in and ate the whole bag!

This after weeks of putting down rat poison everywhere, the blasted rat went to the source which might mean it took a hell of a lot of poison to kill it.

and then silence, a whole new day...actaully weeks.

I get a handy man to seal the rat holes and hope for the best

and then... I find a loaf of bread that's mysteriously off with a suspicious hole in the back.

Tonight, I caught another one and it's waiting it's doom in the same trash can and the trip to the dump.