148 thoughts on “I’M OKAY”

  3. Three crisis?

    Well, they say things come in three’s so perhaps you won’t have another crisis. [Crossed Fingers]

      1. Now You Have Done It!

        I was not going to mention THAT possibility.

        You mention it thus IT WILL HAPPEN! [Crazy Grin]

          1. So THAT’s how the house got on top of the witch! All is explained. [Retired contractor. Old silo. Explosives permit. 3 . . . 2 . . .1 . . . Liftoff!]

    1. [facepalm]

      c4c times 3: now with box-ticking AND using the right @#$%ing email address. What is WRONG with me?

      2. The aardvark is fairly certain that it’s not the green penguins, which is good if not limiting the field much.

  6. So if there’s no particular topic today, would anyone like to help me workshop a meme?

    I’m not happy with how small the text on the second button is, but otherwise it seems okay to me. Opinions?

    1. The head should be more explodey. ~:D

      Funny how nobody mentions that Trump endorsed the vaccine, but they can’t shut up about how stupid he was about everything else.

      2. But now it is being distributed by the glorious Biden Administration. This cleanses it and makes it pure.
        (Sarcasm off).

      3. Kind of like how no one mentions that “Deathsantis” has been criss-crossing his state encouraging citizens of Florida to get vaccinated?

    2. I kind of think there should be a third option. We’re pretty much in agreement that most of what Trump did as President was right. However, vaccination is a medical decision and should be left to the individuals, not the STATE. Even in the case of childhood disease vaccinations there are times and individuals for when it is contraindicated. While the risks from the COVID 19 vaccines may be less than that for Yellow Fever or Typhoid, they still are significant, with many unknowns due to the lack of any long range studies.

      2. While I agree with you about the need for freedom in medical decisions, you’re overcomplicating this. Memes need to be quick and to the point, and the point here is the hypocrisy of trying to force the Trump vaccine on people while refusing to give Trump credit for anything.

        1. Possible replacement for the second text box: “It’s Trump’s Vaccine.”

          Leave the “take it or else, peasant” for the interested student.

          By the way, I gather Trump got booed at the last big rally for telling people to take the not-Vax. I seldom do videos, so don’t know if it was a lot or a few people. I’m willing to give him a bit of a pass on it, but would like him to talk about a) the negative impacts that have shown up, and b) the Vax Nazi edicts.

          1. Trump is a fairly well-known germaphobe…. which definitely impacted his thinking IMO.

          2. >> “Possible replacement for the second text box: “It’s Trump’s Vaccine.””

            Many people won’t understand why it’s his vaccine if I don’t include some information, though. But maybe I can drop the part about fast-tracking it to save space and just mention that he endorsed it; that should be enough to make the point.

            And if we’re going to talk about what Trump SHOULD do, then he should have informed the nation about the Diamond Princess numbers and encouraged people to calm down early in 2020. He screwed up badly by buying into the notion that COVID was panic-worthy.

            1. I think to tie it together nicely, the second box should say “Trump says to take the vaccine”. That directly plays off the first box, and it doesn’t need to get into the history of Trump fast-tracking the vaccine.

      3. I’m seeing a lot of people today acting under the assumption that the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine means that companies can start mandating that their employees need to take it.

        1. That’s because they can, and now you can’t sue them for forcing you to take an “experimental” drug to stay employed. Now they can fire you, you will not get unemployment, etc. What a difference a day makes.

          1. Oh boy! It is a good thing there are so few job vacancies, eh? Thank goodness there isn’t an unemployment benefit boost ongoing!

            If a company discriminates against an illegal alien undocumented immigrant who hasn’t received the vaccine, where does the trial take place – state or federal court?
            ~

            1. Almost certainly Federal in the end, since it involves international and “Federal agency” aspects. Hawaiian judges will be on call….

    1. …apparently the mice are not actually wearing hats. I will have to make a new one sometime. >.>;

    2. no. it’s just that everything was disconnected to install granite, but we can’t get a plumber to come out and connect it, because labor shortage. So overworked husband says he’ll do it Wednesday

      1. That kind of shortage was happening as far back as 2018. The landscape contractor who did the foundations for my solar system (and it took from March to November to get that deal completed) could not get anybody to do the septic system for *his* house remodel. The plumbing contractor who normally did the excavation for septic systems was swamped overloaded.

        OTOH, at that time it was because while most contractors were fairly well staffed, the local (timber) economy was actually good after years of environazi recession. People were finally starting the round-tuit projects that were waiting on available funds to start. Today? Not so much. Not much logging, either.

        1. How am I not surprised that YOU would know about this anime? 😛

          I had no exposure to the series other than the video I linked, and I admit I was surprised when I looked up which series the footage had come from. “Here’s an anime with a name that makes it sound like it’s for 5 year-olds, and here’s a scene of a man getting painfully electrocuted while bleeding from the eyes. We think the kids’ll love it!”

          Granted it doesn’t look nearly as gory as I make it sound, but it still feels like a marketing fail to me.

          1. Anyone who’s an anime fan of a certain age will know of this OVA series. It’s a classic from the late ’80s that was inspired by the cyberpunk genre, and movies such as Blade Runner. It was also one of the earliest series licensed for release in the US, which helped to make it more high-profile with English-speakers. Animeigo licensed it waaaaay back when they were still the only company (legally) releasing unedited anime in North America.

            It also had a sequel (actually more of a “the publishing companies had a disagreement, and one of them continued the story without the other” affair, iirc) and a prequel (both considered meh at best), a reboot partly financed by ADV (AWFUL), and a side story (not really sure how it fits in) to the reboot.

            The creator once explained that the name “Bubblegum Crisis” was meant to reference the “crisis” that you find yourself in when you blow a big bubblegum bubble, and it explodes all over your face and hair. According to him, Megatokyo in this series is right on the verge of something just as messy.

              1. Mostly posting to agree to the awesomeness of Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Although, I’ll admit I mostly became familiar with him after they added him, Tochiro, and the Arcadia as pilots and battleship in Super Robot Wars T.

              2. YES!!!!!

                Husband is introducing the kids to Gundam– blew the Baron’s mind by explaining this show was OLDER THAN DADDY– and we were rattling off different old anime, then couldn’t remember “argh, that space pirate one…”

            2. “AD Police” is the prequel, and “Bubblegum Crash” the sequel, IIRC. There were also a couple RPG books from the same publisher as the Mekton RPG.

              1. The game publisher is R. Talsorian Games. These days, they’re better known for writing the game Cyberpunk, which the recent disastrous video game is based on.

                The reboot BGC also had an AD Police series associated with it, though I don’t know much about it. Unlike the original AD Police, it was not a backstory for Leon.

            3. >> “Anyone who’s an anime fan of a certain age will know of this OVA series.”

              I’m probably old enough, but I was never that big an anime fan.

              >> “The creator once explained”

              Yeah, I know. I had such a WTF reaction to the name that I looked up the explanation myself. And no offense to the fans, but it didn’t help; it still feels like mismarketing to me.

          2. I mostly know it from husband– just hollered over “what’s the storyline…. k, what is the storyline for someone who goes bubblegum, that’s a kid thing, right?”
            Gave him a laugh.

            Japan is not the US. When the opening number has an 80s style rocker getting dressed, including multiple undies-shots, is *probably* not for kids.

            Cyberpunk, by the way. He came up with: “It’s Ghost in the Shell, but instead of the cops fighting robots, it’s pretty girls in robot suits.”

            I’d guess that the “Bubblegum” is for bubblegum rock, so more sassy than sweet.

            1. Also – on the “not for kids” thing – episodes 2 and 3 have quick topless shots of one or two of the women while they’re changing into the skin suits for their power armor.

      2. Perturbator? PERTURBATOR!? That was the Griffon custom supercar. Who came up with the name Perturbator!?

        A good, classic anime series (the reboot, on the other hand, was anything but…). Shame it wasn’t Kinuko Oomori (Priss’s VA) singing. But then again, that’s more about the song that the editor wanted to use than anything else.

          1. Ah. I think I prefer The Replicants.

            😛

            I will grant that Perturbator is better than Sekira.

    2. Don’t worry, it’s coming up!

      Admittedly, I prefer we were done with the crisis brigade, but apparently they aren’t done with us…

      It is remarkable how leaders so stupid manage to breath without assistance though.

    2. Low-quality laminate doesn’t handle water well, either. I like a nice vinyl floor.

      1. Kat the puppy is pretty much confined to the vinyl floored portions of the house, until a) she stops regarding them as puppy-loos and b) her teething stops. She’s banned from the engineered wood floor portions of the house until we know she’s had a good potty break.

        At least she’s determined not to mess in her crate, so doggy bedding only needs/gets laundering once a week.

    2. Can one “stay” what one has never been?

      I submit there is no evidence that Sarah has ever been “sane” and ample proof of persistent conditions antithetical to sanity.
      ~

      2. Sane compared to who?

        Compared to a certain Wallaby, she’s sane. 😈

  13. Kinda wiped from offspring retrieval and re-delivery to big city U (which is much closer than it was forty years ago due to multiple by-passes and higher speed limits).

  16. Most people are unaware that when they call this ‘The Biden Administration’ it’s exactly equivalent to ‘The Charlie McCarthy Show’ — Edgar Bergen was ignored. This time there are a dozen ventriloquists all putting words in the dummy’s mouth. Is it any wonder none of them make sense?

    1. Earlier in the year I made the assumption that Barry was pulling Biden’s strings — except that he’s pretty lazy so… Now it looks to me like we have competing groups of ventriloquists, with some people pushing in one direction and other people in another direction and NOBODY really in charge of everything. Also I’m kind of getting the impression that Biden obstinately sticks to certain decisions and if there are competing groups on that decision he sometimes gets his way. Which is REALLY scary. My imagination is that that is how the Afghanistan @#$%^ happened.

        1. Wouldn’t “The Real Truth of Barry Soetoro” be a fascinating thing to read? Depressing, but fascinating. I’m homesick for the me of two years ago who didn’t know so much about the deep rooted corruption of the would-be elites. Sigh.

      2. That was exactly my conjecture: what if there are so many factions and would-be puppeteers that they’re canceling each other out and Biden really is calling the shots?

        Usually in the case of Things Don’t Make Sense people retreat to postulating shadowy cabals who are somehow benefiting, but here we more or less know about all the shadowy cabals and have a hard time understanding how they’re benefiting (other than “they’re all sworn agents of the CCP”, which is a little out there). Maybe nobody is benefiting because the moron really is in charge by default?

      3. Gu jar of vicious morons.

        Gu or Kodoku(Japanese version) is a magical theory. Theory goes that if you put a bunch of poisonous creatures in a container and don’t feed them, they will have a battle royale to death, the strongest will eat all of the others, and gain the poison strength of all the others.

        Fundamental quality of Biden appointees, and staff hires: They want to work for Biden, and they have the political connections to work for Biden.

        This seems to imply vicious policy goals, stupid policy goals, stupid personal ambitions, stupid magical thinking about how government happens, vicious stupidity in acting as a proxy for the various backers wanting to use Biden as a proxy, etc…

        Obama apparently hired a lot of people who he thought were less effective than he was. Braindead children who apparently struggled to remember to breath.

        Biden regime has drawn a number of people who do not want other competent people hired, for fear of competition in usurping power.

        Kam Harris, and Professor Edith Biden, PhD, seem ineffective in their mutual power struggles.

        Situation is obviously unstable, and is likely to decay into a different situation before 2024. Right now, there are a bunch of competing factions, and no one in a position to make them play nicely. Even if one or more factions had a central plan to murder us all, there is no consistent intelligent direction, so a patchwork of plans would be what is moved forward into implementation. In particular, they will move into executing plans that will never work, or plans that could work after more time, but not right away.

        Maybe Marianne Williamson or Tulsi Gabbard has a viable path to infighting her way into power, pulling together a new regime, and killing us all. Barring that, expect boggling acts of stupidity motivated by viciousness.

  18. Hey, somebody hadda do it:

    Can you believe that was 43 years ago? Before most of today’s ‘activists’ PARENTS were born?

  21. Moving is just the worst. As a family joke, we used to treat move/moving like a swear word.

    1. It’s like a bomb going off in your life. We moved 18 months ago, right after the lockdowns started, and I’ve been struggling not to get depressed lately. I figure that it’s mostly due to the news plus a moving hangover.

  22. Plumbing is where I learned profanity. It was the only time my Dad swore, outside of a rare few circumstances in driving. He could do it, but it never seemed to work the way he wanted it to the first two or three times and it always seemed to happen at 4 PM on a Sunday, and he needed parts at the store that closed at 5:30 PM and it was twenty minutes drive away…

    Sympathies to you.

    1. Dan is good at it, actually. I mean, we were talking to an agent and I was like “I’m refinishing the floors” and when he looked dubious I said “I’ve done this a lot before. Made all the mistakes. Know how to fix them. This is our sixth house.”
      And Dan is like that for electrical/plumbing. It’s just that we’re both so busy….

          1. You may be the exception that proves the rule. There is a lot of dreck out there these days striving to make Sturgeon’s Law look optimistic.

                1. Satisfying customer desires? Catering to their preferences? That’s crazy talk! C’mon, man, that’s no kid of business model – how do you expect to win industry acclaim and awards – the resume enhancers that help you move up to real jobs, in industries that pay big money.

                  It’s plot twists like turning Steve Rogers into a Nazi that get you invited to sit with the real machers at ComicCon.
                  ~

      2. Well, I’m good at electrical/plumbing too. But since I don’t have a fully-stocked plumber’s work van, I still plan time for a minimum of four trips to the big-box home improvement store for parts: First one to buy all the things I think I might possibly need; 2nd one to buy the thing that I never would have thought I’d need in a million years, but once I started cutting pipe turned out to be essential; 3rd trip to get the *correct size* of the thing that I went back for on the 2nd trip; 4th trip to return all of the things that I was absolutely sure I’d need, but didn’t.

        1. Sounds like every home and vehicle fix I’ve ever done. Except fixing the vacuum system on the Ford van so the A/C would blow out of the dash vents again, rather than only out of the defrost. That only took two trips, one for parts I knew I needed, a second for a little bit more line because the new route was slightly longer than I had hoped. Though trip one actually took visits to no less than four auto parts stores to find one with line in the right size in stock.

        2. Amazon sells lead solder for stainglass windows. “I solemnly swear I’ll only use this on stainglass”.

          “Don’t ever buy a roll of tin-silver solder from a big box store. It’ll sit on your shelf until one day, you’ll be tempted to use it.”

      1. Often when they have to go after a COBOL program used by a company that the guy that wrote it made sure it was so full of spaghetti logic that the company couldn’t fire him?

        1. Or a Cobol Program where the creator thought “Let’s See How Many Fancy Cobol Features I can use”. 😉

          I had to examine one like that to see how the Database calls worked.

          At first glance, my thought “This Can’t Work” even though I knew that it was working in Production.

          That programmer had (apparently) never heard of the KISS rule.

        2. Yeah, I’ve seen that nonsense plenty. It’s usually faster, cheaper, and better to dig out the requirements and rewrite. Then fire the SOB.

          1. “Requirements? We don’t have any requirements. Oh, sure, someone did fifteen years ago when this system was programmed, but all those people retired or left ages ago. We just keep it running and hope it doesn’t break. No, we don’t have any unit tests or integration tests either. Why do you ask?”

            Swear to god I’ve heard this from engineers at my company.

            1. Exceptions to special cases to departures from rule — write a few dozen of them and you too will not remember what the requirements were, especially if you never saw them.

              Feeping creaturism at its finest

              1. fifteen years ago when this system was programmed

                –
                Try 30 years; pretty sure the original programmers/engineers were dead. With a 2 year test cycle when major changes were made. Then the system it ran on died and wasn’t replaceable. Luckily we were had already written new specifications based on what the old system produced and inputs required, were in the process of working on that in new tools for new hardware. Had an alternative to the old system, at least what the managers could get the reports off of, but no way to add new data. Was able to kluge a PIA fix for the old system to run on new hardware and OS, but took a lot of baby sitting. That was the state when everything was sold out from underneath us. The company that got this mess was told by my managers and the regional managers to hire me. They said they “had enough” programmers on staff. Um. Okay. Then they called me into consult (I declined because was a few weeks into my new job, and the first thing I suggested, for free, they declined … um, okay, … ) This was NOT the system above. A lot simpler system, as far as the program itself went. It was the way things worked they weren’t understanding, program had nothing to do with it. Besides, this program was very well documented, internally AND externally. It was the only way I could remember what and why. All the program I worked on during the 6 years I was there was documented this way. I had to for sanity. They were all different not part of a whole system. It was the only way I could go back in after a year or two and make changes. My resume after this job, after 6+ years, is interesting.

                “Requirements? We don’t have any requirements. … Swear to god I’ve heard this from engineers at my company. … No, we don’t have any unit tests or integration tests either. Why do you ask?

                –
                My last job. All 3 true. We didn’t even have testers. Each programmer were their own testers, our clients were then testers, it just went into production, and if we didn’t hear back … Success. Occasionally with super major changes, there would be a “slower” rollout to clients we knew would provide feedback. But rarely. Oh the full required updates feedback would be epic. That was a good time to take vacation, if you could …

                Exceptions to special cases to departures from rule — write a few dozen of them and you too will not remember what the requirements were, especially if you never saw them.
                Feeping creaturism at its finest

                –
                Yes. Even IF you wrote the original requirements (see above and “had to for sanity”). Lord help if you came into the project to get it released and ALL you were give was code. Sure could call original contractor for help. 99% of the answers were “Oh I found that on the web and patched it in …” … well that is a lot of help … NOT!

                I was so traumatized by all the truisms above that when I gave notice of retirement, I wrote extensive documents on the parts that I was the only one working on (we all worked on everything, but there were parts that each programmer had more, or exclusive, experience in for reasons). What. Why. Examples. It was easy, it was just an extension of the cheat stuff I was using anyway, or documents I was using because I didn’t get into that stuff much either. Put documents in shared space. Sent document in email. And sent links to original documents. Then I got called in for a consult. Oh well 4 hours for an hour work and 3 hours gossip. I had reminded them the document was there. The second time they called. Response was the same. I didn’t do the consult … haven’t been called again … well they did hire 6 programmers to replace me … so …

            2. So have I. Which is when they really bounce of the ceiling as I tell them “Why, no, I won’t sign off on your system as compliant with State laws, Federal laws, and / or various industry organization standards for accounting systems. until this is corrected. Have a nice day.”

            3. PS: I’m hearing the song about lack of testing plans right now on my current project. It’s not surprising we hear about issues with our banking and financial systems.

              1. Dirty secret time-according to some of the people I know, paying off the lawsuits and legal requirements and adding a NDA to them is cheaper than a proper testing plan outside of very bad incidents. Which are considered “rare, outside cases” to the bean counters.

                And, at the end of the day, the bean counters can make their case with numbers to the right people and that’s that.

                1. As long as I have either the documented instructions to violate legal requirements or documenting my raising the issue in proximity to my removal date to show at trial, I’m good with that. Of course, I won’t be one of the defendants; more like a witness.

                  1. On a job like that, I printed out all of my e-mails with the client. With the headers attached. And stuck them in a binder by date. It’s amazing what happens when you do that.

            4. Or, and this is my favorite, “All of our thirty+ years of data is in this legacy format. It is cheaper for us to hire a jobber programmer like you, buy replacement hardware on eBay, and pray really hard than to spend the money converting it over, getting the new system certified, and maybe having to tear that out in five years because Microsoft has closed out that version of Windows and it can’t be counted as a certified system anymore.”

              A variation of this is why the California DMV (last time I checked) is running on the same database system they had since the early 1960’s, with “merely” a Windows front-end at the counters.

              (The other reason is that every database maker in the late ’90s and early ’00s that was brought in to look at the requirements, AFAIK, recoiled in horror on the sheer scale of what was needed. Not looking at the state requirements, but doing their own research.)

              1. I don’t think I’m violating NDAs when I say that the company I work for is in process of addressing similar systems, and we haven’t run screaming yet. The state of the art has improved somewhat.

                Whether the politicians will let us fix it is a WHOLE other conversation. See Obamacare and withholding requirements for election purposes.

          2. …assuming the SOB could be fired. Or they HAD to include that spaghetti code because that the job requirement. Or the programmer was still alive and/or not sitting in a nursing home somewhere.

            1. If he’s unavailable, his enablers will do. And untangling the spaghetti is why we’re rewriting.

              The solution for a Gordian knot is radical surgery with sharp objects. 😎

  23. Heck, we know you’re okay – you’re just involved in a major move and (unlike Resident Biden and Andy Cuomo) will accept no one left behind.
    ~

  25. You know I was okay once. My girlfriend got drunk, stayed out all night, came back in the morning… married. Yeah. I told people I didn’t care, and then I f**ked five women in three days, flipped my car on an on-ramp, beat a suspect unconscious, got suspended… but I was “okay.”

    — Det. McCann (Denis Leary), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

  27. Okay, here’s the second version of the vaccine meme:

    Based on feedback I made the text for the second button more concise. What say you all now?

  28. Saw a meme on FB (post from a former colleague) that said something along the lines of “just because you think you can survive this doesn’t mean you won’t infect somebody who can’t, so get the vaccine” I pointed out that this reads as a lack of support for the vaccine and masks since if vax and masks work, then why worry about somebody else. Got back “Good point. I didn’t read it that way.” Then the meme disappeared, but not the post. I think I scored a point!

    1. I’ve tried to make this point to people I’m in contact with. I get blank stares. It’s not that the people I’m talking to are unintelligent. It’s that some important connection just refuses to be made for the necessary mental leap.

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