Party Like It's 2008

Don't you wish it was over? The "X"mas marketing that started just after Memorial Day, it seems, shopping till you're broke, inane company parties with people that will likely hate you just as much tomorrow as they did this afternoon, traffic jams, parking tickets, disappointed kids, stressed-out spouses, too much bad food, food poisoning, exhaustion, tree fires, pets dead from drinking the tree water which is why the tree dried out and caught fire to begin with, frozen homeless people, troops getting blown up overseas without relent, Lite radio stations pounding out an endless stream of songs you wish would just f*cking stop, celebrities buying their dogs even MORE bling for XMas, school shootings, alcoholism and suicide at all time highs . . .

Ho, ho, ho. Blech.

I Think of You Always

I think of you always, in little practical ways, in grandiose, impossible ways, in private and intimate moments that are yet to be or perhaps to exist only in my imagination.

Children sometimes love their gifts too much. They can wear them down, lose a button or a wheel or scratch off the paint, but their love for it will never pass away. Through this, they learn the value of things and that such things will one day turn to splinters or rags. As time passes, they can ascribe that experience of attrition to people rather than things and learn that a cherished person never goes lost or broken, to be relegated to a shadow of a memory. Instead, they must polish that gift, the gift of the heart and protect it for all that is real and unique in it.

Now, I think of the love you've lost, perhaps just a bit, and how I can never replace it but how I can add to it anew. I may be willing, but I doubt my own ability to succeed. I love my gifts too much, too. I want to hide them under my bed and never take them out for fear they might be broken through my lack of understanding in how they work or what they need to keep working. I am an apprentice without a mentor, meant to find my own way as one of the last lost.

I still smell you and lament that I am neither here nor there, wondering not which way to travel but instead, which map to consult. You may or you may not, but I always will.

My Ghost Is A Machine

As you might have noticed, there has been a paucity of posts here since last month. I got a new job, after months of hunting and suffering. It's a good place, even if it does feed into my need to work far too much.

Over-work is not an altogether bad thing if one likes what one does. However, I'm working 12 and 13 hour days and am not getting enough sleep, enough to eat nor am I spending any time with my kid. Further, my ex is totally, unashamedly insane, to wit:

• 301.00 Paranoid Personality Disorder

According to the DSM-IV-TR, this disorder is characterized by a pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

• Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her
• Is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates
• Is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
• Reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings in benign remarks or events
• Persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
• Perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack
• Has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.

Exclusionary conditions:

• Does not occur exclusively during the course of a mood disorder with psychotic features, schizophrenia, or another psychotic disorder.
• Is not due to the direct physiological effects of a general medical condition.

Thanks, again, Wikipedia.

So, it's been fun. But I have been catching up on bills, getting ready to get the lawyer mobilized, actually thinking about Christmas, seeing my doctor in two weeks about "medication" (heh, heh, heh!) and movin' on up.

But sitting here (at my new job), I can sense the living factory around me. The myriad machine noises and rhythms and in particular, one machine that sounds like a CD injection moulding press opening and cycling. And it makes me a little sad that my time as an industrialist has past. I miss feeling the pulse of my machines making product because I made it happen. I miss the hub-bub and insanity, the nearly-unhinged pendulum of business swinging back and forth, chopping out windfalls of profit and dearths of success in an alternating rhythm I had come to understand so well.

About this time, 23 years ago, my partner and I started with just under $100 grand in cash and built four companies from the ground up. Too bad I got scared. We would have made it, I think. Oh, well. I have the machine to remind me, to comfort me and to serve as a warning against risks taken, ignored and borne. "Do it," it grumbles.

Fees Not Simple

This is re-published from somewhere else. Normally, I wouldn't republish Creative Commons materials, but I made an exception in this case. It does reflect my opinion, though. I guess I was feeling lazy:

The overdraft fees are indeed a scam. Banks report on industry websites that they make 10 billion dollars a year from this practice. Independent surveys of bank customers show that 71% of those affected by these fees are low to low middle income persons.

Banks offer 'free checking' rather than fee based checking as offered in the past. Rather than charge a customer $12.00 a month for the account and offer a number of free transactions to a limit, then charging $0.25 per transaction, they now draw the customer by the 'free' offer.

The average new customer attracted by these offers are those who live paycheck to paycheck. They are enticed by the 'free' offer or generally a small cash credit to their account or a virtually worthless 'free gift'.

Account disclosures. Reality - Most account disclosures #1 - DO NOT explain the 'overdraft courtesy' lending practice nor the fees associated and #2 (Most important) Are written with so much legalese that the average person cannot understand much of what is included. They are generally also written in about a 3 pt. font which almost requires a microscope to read. If the banks want to be so forthcoming and honest, and truly want their customers to understand the account policies they should write the disclosures in plain wording and readable type.

From a letter by the Public Interest Research Group to Allen Greenspan regarding obtaining bank account disclosures:

'I have been conducting consumer surveys
myself for years, and was astonished that on two different occasions my simple request for a
detailed fee brochure was rejected at a local Bank of America branch. This experience has been
repeated by many of our volunteers and interns, at other banks as well. Bank of America is not
by any means the only bank that makes it hard to obtain fee information, merely the biggest.'

Banks used to offer overdraft protection only to credit qualified account holders. Even these account holders had to apply for the service. If you did not have overdraft protection and a transaction exceeded your balance the banks would either pay it as a courtesy, charging a fee (much smaller than today's fee) or return it as NSF charging a smaller fee. The customer would then also pay the merchant a fee. In almost all cases these combined fees were LESS than a single 'courtesy overdraft' loan fee today.

Industry insiders indicate that only a few years ago, prior to Check 21, processing paper checks cost the bank an average of $3.00. The same cost for good or bad checks. With Check 21 many checks are electronically presented reducing the cost to the bank for processing.

The 'courtesy overdraft' loans are excluded under the Truth in Lending Act from prior disclosure to customers. The interest on these 'loans' if compounded annually would be in the arena of 1000%. This is more expensive than a 'payday loan'.

The banks will tell you their policy of posting debits largest to smallest is for the benefit of the consumer, to ensure the customer's rent, utilities, etc are paid prior to smaller transactions thus ensuring the 'essentials' are paid for. In reality FEW if any people pay their rent with a debit card. Most write a check for this expense, as well as for utilities.

This is simply a 'spin' of the facts as they know an account flagged with multiple transactions in a day for an account holder with a small average balance is a money making cow in the area of fee income.

Kill Me Now

The following was written at a time when I got sucked into my wife's utter insanity. As it turns out, she was lying then as she usually does. A lying liar telling lies. For sport. And because she's insane - please see the more recent entry on Paranoid Personality Disorder.

+ + + + + + + + + + +

Oh, God, it never ends. Make it stop. Please.

My wife is suing me for $15,000,000: one million bucks for each of the fifteen years she wasted with me. She did this not because she can win, but because it will stay my divorce proceedings and I will have to spend money I don't have defending the civil part. Clever and unethical, it will be dismissed, ultimately, but this tactic is worth ten grand to my attorney just to get to the point of asking the court for a dismissal.

The best I can do is counter-sue under her suit and get her to post an undertaking (a bond that's a percentage of the value of the potential award) for which she can borrow against the house, attach my future earnings, inheritance and royalties. The undertaking shows the court that the plaintiff is serious as real money, their money, is involved.

But, understand this: there is no justice in the justice system. It's all about reaching a compromise that the involved parties can feel they can live with. And anyone can sue anyone else over anything at any time. It's fun, even.

In the meantime, I must rush to file a divorce in order to avoid a stay of those proceedings pending a decision in the first case. I've offered mediation, counseling and anything else I could think of - nope: gotta f*ck me. Now, my kid can always say, "Why did you make mommie go away ? . . ." God seems to like crazy.

So, last week I was busy trying to cut ties with my friends and this week, that's assured and I didn't have to do anything about it. Why? Because all of those people will be subpoenaed to talk about how bad a person I am and even if they don't ultimately get called, they will be intimidated, cajoled and forced to consider counsel, at cost to them, naturally. Sorry, guys! Doesn't matter that it's not my fault - they're going to split. I know I would.

It never ends. All I want is the value I put into this house. That's it. On the rest, I have asserted consistently that I'm willing and ready and able to be more than fair. The response? Kaboom. Four days ago, I was really feeling ready to kill myself and now, I actually regret not doing it. This all means no money, no future, no retirement, all guaranteed. So, what's the point? Seems the monastery is no longer accepting applications . . .

Oh, For Crissake's

Listen here - technology was supposed to save time, make us rich beyond our wildest dreams and cure cancer, mend broken hearts and reduce fat asses by 1999, as I remember the promises made in Popular Mechanics in the mid-60's. Where's my flying car? Where's my meal in a pill? What the hell happened?

Not to put too fine a point on it, a buddy sent me a book that he got as a sample. I like the author, so I said to myself, "Self, you haven't read anything except technical manuals, white papers and tutorials for two years. Isn't it about time you sat down and immersed yourself in a world of fancy and folly whilst taking your daily ablutions?" I agreed with the voice in my head, covered it with one of my daughter's left-over book socks (what was wrong with brown paper bags, anyhow?) and readied myself to be massively entertained.

In three weeks, I've read twenty-two pages. Twenty-two! Here's why:

1. My cell phone has been acting weird. I took it to t-Mobile and then graciously blew some compressed air in the SIM card connector area. That helped, but now it seems to not keep a charge for all that long. I could be in the middle of a confab, fully power-barred, et voila! - dead phone. Not good considering that the deductible on the cell phone insurance is more than the phone is worth, and I didn't drop it or have it stolen. Oh, and, of course, the warranty is expired. I've gone through more cell phones than underwear in my lifetime and I keep both very clean.

2. The big TV in my living room is starting to get pincushion-y, that is, squeezing in from the sides. Bad flyback transformer, probably, which I hate because they carry ten thousand volts of electricity through the capacitors they're attached to, so, one false move and PFFFFFT! Just in time to spend $800 on a flat screen LCD, huh. Me no likey.

3. My satellite receivers seem to lose their collective minds once a week, necessitating a call to India, where the routine is the same mind-numbing, "unplug the unit and wait sixty seconds then plug it back in" even if the problem is with the remote! Maybe I should just leave it unplugged for good.

4. My computer was massively infected with a virus and spyware. No, it's not because of the porn sites I cruise. It just happened, okay? Two weeks it took me to back up, virus check, re-install, over and over again and get this machine running . Arrrrrggggghhhh!

5. The lifetime fluorescent light bulbs I had installed all over the house to save money on, well, light bulbs and electricity, are all burning out at once, one after another. I can get them replaced by shipping them individually in "adequate" packaging back to the manufacturer for a free replacement if I include a shipping and handling charge of $4.95 per bulb. I think not.

6. Don't get me started on software malfunctions. Just don't.

7. My PDA refuses to charge. All of my passwords, contact names, important numbers for cards and such (in case I lost my wallet) were on that and are now wiped out. That's not right.

8. My car was burning gas like it had stock in Lukoil. The solution was to hook it up to an analyzer at the dealership and then, you guessed it, unhook the battery for sixty seconds . . . Now it's fine. C'mon, now: really.

9. My penis is affected severely by the Lexapro that I take, making one problem (depression) a trade-off for another (having a girlfriend.) How is that advanced pharmacology? Doctor dudes - didn't it occur to you that depressed people might get depressed over not having a functioning member? Gawd.

10. It goes on and on. There's just too much more to manage because of marginal technology. Cell calls disappear in major urban centres. E-mail make or may not be received due to spam filtering or a messed-up ISP. Jobs are yards harder to get because the software that screens your application was set up by a $12 an-hour receptionist whose main philosophy in life is Thinspiration. Credit cards are subject to strong magnetic fields - like those found in gas pumps, leaving the gas pump attendant screwing up his eyes in disgust at your perfectly good but otherwise declined card.

I was doing graphic arts back in the days when it was paste-up, meaning non-reproducing light blue lines on a big board formed your design and then you glued type and images to the board. There was some skill involved and paste-up artists abounded. But the work was right, ready for the separation camera, another specialty.

Now, we're all "enabled" through technology. We're enabled to be tracked down through our cell phones by whiny kids that want to use Dad's ATM card at the mall, by spouses that give shopping lists item-by-item over the phone to beleaguered counter-spouses at the Stop, Shop and Slave, enabled to have our identities, lost, stolen, spindled and mutilated and in general, to run down the clock on time that could otherwise be deployed to useful, fulfilling tasks.

Oops, gotta run. My cell phone is vibrating. I think it's Software Support calling me from Mumbai . . .

Mmm, Mmmm, Mmmm

Friends. I think they come in two flavours. One is the confection that tastes kinda good on a hot day, dripping with sweetness, crunchy at the core and somewhat sticky, having you wish for a clear glass of cold water to wash down the excess sucrose. The other is the sort you can rely on - a familiar flavour that rarely disappoints, not because of any extra effort or gimmicky special recipe, but because of a rich rightness that shows through on the gloomiest, rainiest night of the year. It's a taste that may be challenging and you know with the first spoonful whether your palate is a match for the challenging nuances of refreshing yummy-ness.

I think I would prefer Green Tea ice cream to Rocky Road anytime, even if it is an acquired taste.