Books

I really wanted the new book by the author of The Martian to be good.  I really did.

I keep hoping that it will improve.

The Line

An interesting article from Slate on whether a line exists between normal societal behavior and harassment, and if so, where.

Status

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that women have been subjugated-- not too strong a word, I think -- for the last two decades, and more, and that what I would have said was usually just teasing and harmless fun was sometimes perceived that way by the recipients, but sometimes, and maybe more often than just sometimes, perceived as a malign controlling influence that they could not combat, could not affect, just had to either live with or leave. 

I think But I'm not that way, and then I think Am I? Are they saying that every time - EVERY TIME - I've looked at a woman and thought Wow, sexy -- because thats usually the extent of my thoughts - I'm contributing to the culture that made this possible?  How could that be true?  And yet I suspect that there are people, not radical or irrational, who would say yes, that's exactly what you were doing, and you must change. 

Defenses occur to me. So, its okay for a woman to dress in a sexy way, but I'm not supposed to react to it?  Not notice, not think OMG, look at that?  Admire, compliment women I don't know -- Just wanted to mention that your outfit is really nice, quite stylish  -- this is supposed to be wrong now?  Its okay if she likes it, but not if she doesn't?

Like I said -- having a hard time with this.


 

Whether Weather

Once again the weather guys say oh noes, one to three inches of snow are coming!!!

Once again, we get less than an inch....significantly less.  Probably.  We think.

Tell me again why I believe them? 

Calling Names

Our resident French girl, coming into the kitchen after I'd made the dough for pizza, told me that I looked like a boulanger. I told her that was the nicest thing that anyone had said to me in quite some time.

Exchange

Having an exchange student living with you is pretty cool.   But we find that it helps to remember: these kids wrote their self-descriptions with an eye to sounding appealing to your average parent. They aren't lying -- well, usually -- but they perhaps aren't telling the complete truth. 

Such as when our current student said in her introductory note that she enjoyed reading and being at home with her younger brother.  Both true.  But not here.  As she put it when I asked her why she goes out so often with girls she's met here, despite leading us to believe she was more or less a homebody - That's when I am in France.  But this may be my only chance to come to the US, so I need to do as much as I possibly can - and if you're not doing something, I need to hang out with friends who are. Otherwise, I'm just wasting my time. 

Ah. 

Blocking

We get two or three calls about four days a week from some kind of spam service.  It doesn't leave a message.  Well, I thought, since it always comes up as the same number, why not block it?

How about Because Verizon doesn't think it's worth providing this service in your area?

The Phone Company.  Still demonstrating Lily Tomlin / Ernestine's sincere regard for warm, friendly, effective customer service. 

Library Fun

Nothing douses the warm feelings that libraries give me faster than finding out that for a new book that I lost (actually, don't even remember getting, but they say I did, so I'll believe them) -

• costs $35,00, new, hardcover, from Amazon,  and 
• Amazon is selling it for $20.97, but 
• the library wants to charge me the full undiscounted cost,plus
• a fee to do it.  

They must have a lousy purchasing arrangement.....

Grievances

Is it so terribly wrong that I feel that the people popping out of the woodwork with complaints about actions taken more than a decade ago have foregone their right to expect my support?  There are modifiers to that, of course -- how many times did something happen?  How serious was each event?  Did you benefit from acquiescence? 

I. know that some would say Oh, so now you're blaming the victim?.  I'm not.  I do feel, though, that some of them are looking for a free pass. I doubt they're lying, but -- why, this late? I know their answer --  Well, we couldn't speak, no one would believe us then, now the climate is right. I hear that.  But I don't entirely buy it.


And yeah, my ire is motivated when I see this latest event, with Franken, motivating Trump the Chump cawing about Oh so now Franken is exposed, you guys, lets all castigate him, while the GOP and half the known universe did and does NOTHING to castigate him -- murmurs of disapproval, thats about all I've seen -- seeing that makes it worse. 

Gaming

I just learned that it is common now to buy a game that won't let you do all of the flashy things  - launch missiles, or use specialized skills, or something -- unless you 'level up' by either playing for what I consider an insanely long time, like dozens or hundreds of hours, or by paying real money to the vendor in order to play at the advanced level.  This after you have spent real money to get the damn game.

This is like learning to play chess and finding out that the knight won't jump until you fork over some cash first. Or the queen can only go half the board length in one move.   Why would anyone do this?  Why is it normal? 

There are mobile homes...

... and then there are Mobile Homes.

Observation

If I get a communication from some organization, and the communication includes a phrase like We're excited to announce..., the odds are very good that I won't be all that thrilled, and maybe even actively pissed.

Also, the Run for Something organization is... interesting.  Even if they do have a millenials only bias.  I just added them to my list of people to whom we'll regularly donate. The Anti-Trump resistance: it is fractured and squabbling, but it lives.

Virtual..... Porn?

This fascinated me.  And not just, as they used to say about Playboy, due to the obvious reason.  This is cutting edge technology.  After all, porn sites were early leaders and adopters for streaming video, for secure payment systems, and other techological advances.  The rest is lagniappe.  Well, mostly.

Virtual Reality Gets Naughty

Generalities

There was once (don't know if it still exists) a comic strip called Foxtrot.  In one, the young son is tossing a football around with another boy, and says Go deep.  The other boy replies How can free will co-exist with predestination? The first boy mulls this over for a moment, then says Too Deep, whereupon the other boy says If Batman died, would the Joker be happy?

There are times when I think If Trump died, would I be happy? After all, he's fat, gets no exercise, is under recurring stress -- I'm not a doctor, but that certainly sounds like a recipe for a health crisis.  I have to admit, the idea of him out of the picture is pleasing.  And then I think His backup has one thing in his favor - less likely to start a war just because his feelings were hurt - and several things against him -- intensely Christian (by his definition) ergo much more bigoted, and much more skilled in getting things done by the government, so much more like to bring The Handmaids Tale to reality.  And if HE gets taken out, through impeachment or resignation (both very unlikely), why, there's Ryan, the Boy Wonder of Ripping Safety Nets to Shreds, there on the sidelines, waiting for his chance in the big chair.

Or to put it as succinctly as someone did in an article the other day - Laying aside the possibility of  him starting a war, the Democrats should hope Trump stays around a while, because he makes a much better target for political attacks.

Yeah. That one is too deep, too. 

Politics

There are times when I think "When the liberals are back in power, I hope they rip and ravage every crappy thing that the conservatives are doing,, Don't DO something good for the people, just destroy what these bastards have done. And then I think "But that would make us as bad as them".

Doesn't help that 'implementing the conservative agenda means 'destroy rights, ravage freedom, yank the country back 50 years' while 'implementing the liberal agenda means ' build schools, give rights to immigrant familes, expand access to scientific ressearch'.  Though those last things, they ARE to conservatives as sunlight is to vampires. So that's something.

But we can't go on like this.  
But we can't give up, either. 

Orville

A little early to say that The Orville has jumped the shark, but -- as the line goes -- I have a bad feeling about this Pria episode.

Check out her phone

First World Problem

Why is it so easy to do a google search for 'cheap area rugs'  and so hard to do one for 'good quality price is not a major consideration area rugs'? 

I'm not saying oh we want something knitted from the  belly fur of sheep fed only the grapes that grow on Mount Olympus, packed only by cello-playing virgins  - price does matter -- but quality is important, too.  Why does no one (that google shows me) emphasize that?

French Daughters

I have two people whom I refer to as my French daughters.

One is a woman that I have known for several years, and with whom I've communicated repeatedly, particularly when  she has been going through a stressful period, usually related to either interaction with her father or interaction with her -- I'm not sure what to call him, as he's married, and not really a 'boyfriend'.  She has used the term amoureux, and I suppose that's as good as any.  She gets a lot of pain and no satisfaction from the first, and a combination of pain and satisfaction from the second.  She wants to leave the first (but can't, due to financial and familial issues), and knows she should leave, or at least turn down the intensity, on the second -- but she finds that very hard to do.  Very hard to do.

The other daughter is a French exchange student who has been with us just about a month, and who will be with us, barring problems, until the end of May.  That started out as oh, that's nine months, its a long time, and to my surprise its already eight months left, and that doesn't feel like a very long time at all.  We get along very well with this person, and when she leaves, it will feel as if part of our family is leaving. Not looking forward to that.

I like both of them.

No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!

Today I had a laser pointed at one of my eyes.  It was a medical laser, being used in a function known as SLT, to reduce levels of pressure inside my right eye.  (Don't pout, Left Eye; your time is coming).  I learned a couple of things:

First, its really not extraordinarily helpful to have spent the prior evening leafing through the results of a Google Search on "SLT Complications laser), even if the results were that a) the process is about 40% effective,  b) complications are very few, and c) in almost every case, the complications either went away on their own or could be caused to do so.  I could not stop thinking about the one case where the doctor's office mis-set the laser, delivering more power than needed, or the case where a man had adverse results despite looking like a good candidate.  Its one thing to know there are no guarantees, its another to be face-to-glowing-green-dot with it.

Though I think my casual mentions of tri-lasers and foveal burns did get the opthamologist's attention, which, given that this is MY eye, is a good thing.

Second, I learned that just because they say the process takes about ten to twenty minutes doesn't mean you'll be out of there in 30 minutes.  Try more like 90 minutes, what with getting these eye drops, those drops, scheduling, and just sitting and waiting.  There's a reason we're called 'patients', and its not particularly thrilling.  I told him that it would have been nice to know how long the process could be expected to take, and he said that for most of his patients, they would be scared off by knowing how long they'd be there.

Third, it really does not hurt (maybe just a tiny, tiny bit),  but the apprehension can deliver a throbbing headache, which is not what you want after Mr. Goldfinger's just done a job on you.