ellenspictures

Category: of affairs

  • the game is rigged or other excuses. as time moves on or as the old soap opera series named it “As The World Turns”

    the game is rigged or other excuses. as time moves on or as the old soap opera series named it “As The World Turns”

    Ever wonder about why things seem to go pear-shaped on a regular basis? Or why there is so much “bothering” going on?

    You might say, “Is it me? Is it my breath?” Or something like, “Am I a shit-magnet or something?”

    Whatever the reason, I think that my list is growing about these phenomena and my response(s):

    • “Mercury is in retrograde” (a favorite for explaining why one bad thing after another keeps happening)
    • “It is that this was going to happen – we just didn’t get the memo?”
    • “Gosh, I thought I knew the game plan… I must have missed the rules!”
    • (Related to radio-silence and really screwy behavior exhibited by someone) – “hmm… another alien abduction. Hope they don’t use the probes!”
    • “La chupacabra!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra
    • “Sorry – wrong number!”
    • No, we don’t need more health insurance or automobile warranties!
    • No, Microsoft did not go out of business and we don’t need to pay you to get our data (seriously?)
    • Oh! So it’s not just me (us)! This happens to other people, too.
    • WTF? Is this happening more frequently these days, or is it me?
    • Every time you have to spend money unexpectedly: It’s a conspiracy. The rich are taking all the money. They don’t care about anyone else. They don’t care about cruelty. They just want the money. Imagine that they are well-dressed zombies that have “good behavior” in public.
    • In response to crickets, i.e., no responses from people (once you get in the room with them) – “oh, I was so busy – just slammed…” And I think, “Yeah – me, too. And I feel like slamming things because you think so little of us that you effectively ignore us. Turd.”
    • Related to being “talked down to, lectured, and ranted at: Maybe I just look like a stupid-ass. Who knows? ” ME: “Oh hello – I’m not in school today. Maybe tomorrow for the lecture?”
    • When asked a bunch of technical questions or details without being prepared that this would be discussed: “Oh! Sorry! I didn’t know that there would be a test!”
    • Related to world events: It’s a plan to condition us. Some “player” with a lot of psychological warfare experts at hand, says, “Let’s just shock the hell out of them until they are numb. At that point, do it some more! Just keep doing it. Confuse them. Fabricate both sides – just so they think that someone is investigating the situation – in the meantime, we’ll cook up something that they will not even have the energy to think about! Shock and Awe – that’s our game!”

    What happens, the repeating pattern…

    • Something breaks. No reason, it just breaks.
    • Someone acts like a complete ass-clown. You don’t know why. Experts say that it’s them, usually, not you, because EVERYONE is self-absorbed. They are not thinking about YOU.
    • The days grow shorter, the weeks grow shorter, and the event horizon nears… at least this is how it feels. There is some sort of hurry-up mechanism installed on-board that makes us aware of this.

    My 50th high-school reunion is nearing. I will not go to it. I can’t “un-see” what I would see there and I don’t want to see those things (or hear those things). It wasn’t that those were good years – they were mixed at best. If I had been wonderful friends with any of those people, I would still be having a friendship with them.

    Drama. Drama. Drama.

    It’s what’s for breakfast! It must be that someone decided we needed a tabloid world – guess it beats the tablets and scrolls – for now. Although, I am thinking that maybe we need to revive that way of documenting the world. You know the apocalypse is just around the corner…

    The end is near!

    The alternate reality where Rob played, unconstrained…
  • It’s those holidays that scare me…again

    It’s those holidays that scare me…again

    Mixed up times combine over time to yield the underlying emotions running up to the holidays each year – each and every one.

    This year, appallingly, right as we were approaching Halloween, the Christmas holiday decorations and goods began rolling out onto shelves in stores everywhere – as if there needed to be even more time to commercialize Christmas.

    I’m just saying that this does not help us get back to why we celebrate – and even more, what has happened to Christianity over the last couple of decades where now it has morphed into something that I believe that Jesus Christ would not recognize –

    Not to mention that the Ten Commandments have been twisted around to the degree that you have old ladies sitting making comments about forgiving someone who is clearly outside the lines when that person has not even asked for forgiveness let alone confessed any sins!  What has happened here?

    As we move through the Christmas holidays this year, I fully intend to focus on what this truly means, being Christian – what is the significance of the birth of Christ to us and do people really know, if you ask, what Christmas is all about…

    If Christians are not Christians any longer, then we have some work to do to explain this.  I am not at this point, but an inquirer of what has gone so horribly wrong.

    What do I want for this holiday season?  Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Humankind.  And I am serious.

  • corporatization – anything is a commodity these days – so much for STEM and the ability to understand without a cost

    corporatization – anything is a commodity these days – so much for STEM and the ability to understand without a cost

    Today, I discovered that one of our old standby weather outlets has discontinued it’s API for hobbyists and kids (which apparently, some companies have been using as their standard weather feed – that was a violation of the terms of use – which many people just click-through anyhow…) – but, actually, most of the folks are weather nuts, like me, and want to use the API to bring in information to look at weather data trends, and such because they just want to do this.

    Some are people who have these weather stations in their backyards that they purchased, to contribute to the “micro forecasting” or just have their own more reliable weather info, collected by them.

    I will mention that during Harvey, these were helpful for our local neighborhood rainfall amounts – and we used them (those that remained “UP” during that event – some didn’t).

    So the Weather Underground (cute name, huh?) is instructed to pull the plug on this API service.  They “can’t cope with the number of calls” – yeah right – it’s more that The Weather Company doesn’t want to – wants to charge money for it – parent company of The Weather Channel, et. al. – commercial circus and dramatic weather reporting as evidenced by the guy acting like the wind was extreme while people were walking normally behind him – caught on video during Florence this year.

    It’s run by IBM.  That’s right — how big can you get?  I don’t think I want to give them my credit card number.  I also don’t want them to be connected with my website because I’m using their API.  It’s the principle of the thing.

    So much for “giving back”  by making data available to people who want to use it to teach their kids how weather data works and understand their world better.

    Yeah.  So much for that.