And your bullshit shittiness.
Guh.
30 cars on the road this morning.
Largely irrelevant save for that one goddamn rando that decided "I'm gonna keep pace with you all the way to your workplace."
I hope you stub your toe.
...I guess that's my new thing?
Or maybe bite your tongue while you're eating lunch today.
Oh yeah, that one's worse.
I read an article on The Guardian this morning talking about the military folk deployed over in California.
“The US military exists to defend the nation from foreign threats, not to police American streets or intervene in political disputes at home,” a group of retired four-star generals and admirals and high-profile former Pentagon officials said in a statement...
Well, actually...
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
...Goes without saying that I get their intent.
But also Big Orange is a rather large domestic threat.
We got a weird "Three Laws of Robotics" thing going on here.
So.
Yesterday was mostly good.
Mostly.
I'd made a full-scale replica of a Covenant carbine for my supervisor. I think I brought it in... two weeks ago?
And she'd not taken it home, instead opting to leave it propped up in a rather precarious position.
"She really should take that home," Steve said yesterday morning.
"I agree," I told him. "I'm always worried I'm gonna take that corner a bit too tightly and knock it over and break it."
The carbine is about three or four feet long, and made up of 21 different parts that I'd glued together with epoxy.
Now, anyone that's ever worked with epoxy will tell you: you should prepare the surfaces before using the glue.
But... I'm lazy. And I knew this was for display purposes only.
What I didn't count on was its final resting place being... well, here.
And in what's another example of the simulation breaking down, something happened.
Our newest guy was talking with someone and, at some point, did something that knocked it over.
And sure as shit, it broke.
From what I could tell, he was immediately flustered about it. He spent the next twenty minutes or so trying to get it back together.
"Geez, Terrance," he said, fumbling with it, "Why'd you print it so bad? I've lost faith in your 3D printing abilities."
"Hah. Yeah. I don't make good things."
Immediately started getting stressed.
"And what's with these weird joints? Who prints female connectors on both sides?"
"Yeah... well, I didn't make the model. I just printed it..."
"What kinda glue did you use?"
"Epoxy."
"Are you sure? Because it doesn't seem like that."
More stress. Self-doubt. Self-loathing.
"Haha, yeah... I guess I should've done a better job before I actually glued it..."
He kept on fiddling with the pieces, eventually giving up and putting it in her chair.
But then other folk started in on it.
Asking questions.
Making jokes.
I was getting heated.
Agitated.
Was genuinely considering just leaving, but I still had two or three hours left in the day.
I'd initially decided that I was just gonna leave it as is. I didn't break the thing, nor did I charge money for it. It was a very rare act of kindness that I thought I'd do because I appreciated my supervisor.
But...
Despite the shit he kept on saying, I could tell he was upset about what he'd done.
So I brought in my epoxy this morning to undo the fuckup.
But man.
That whole debacle was stressful as fuck.
And it bore more than a passing similarity to the incident with one of our database folk when I'd just gotten here.
When he man-handled the fuck out of my vase mode fox and basically crushed its neck.
Except in that case, he was super apologetic.
That day I decided he was Lennie.
I also discovered a newfound dislike of mine: I don't like it when people dwell on shit.
Which, coming from the guy that dwells on shit like it was his job... well, I get the irony.
Meh.
Oh, and shocker of shockers: Trump Mobile is absolute horse shit.
I'm obviously not a big fan of Big Orange and his spawn, but even if I was completely neutral on their shit show, I know better than to think you can get anything made in America at the cost they were promising for that phone.
$499?
For a smartphone?
It's not impossible. Heck, I got a bargain bin pay-as-you-go Windows phone from the counter at a convenience store a few years ago for about $50.
But it was both low end and made in China.
And the thing is...
Americans have a crazy high sense of self-worth.
The epitome for me, I think, was an episode of Shark Tank I'd watched years ago where the pitchers advertised that the cost of their jeans would be a couple hundred dollars.
A couple hundred dollars.
...For pants.
I very vividly remember myself laughing out loud at that, since I get my pants from Kohl's for about fifteen bucks.
Hell, even the Sharks were complaining about the cost.
Telling them that they should take their manufacturing overseas.
And yeah, I realize the clothes I wear are only as cheap as they are because working conditions in Vietnam are... suboptimal.
Still, for a costume I have to wear?
Yeah, I'll take the fifteen dollar pair o' pants, thanks.
And no, a made in America smartphone isn't possible. Not for that price.
The only American-made smartphone I can think of would be the Purism Librem 5, and that thing is $1,999.
And even then, they provide the sourcing of their parts.
Interestingly, the only things made abroad are the chassis and the Wi-Fi card.
Also worth note: if you decide you can check your patriotism, you can have the non-American-made version for a much more reasonable (given its specs) price of $799.
Still: we just don't have the capability in this country to make high-tech shit from end to end. At some point, you're gonna rely on that Alibaba purchase to cross the finish line.
Shit, even making a grill scrubber in America isn't cheap.
Anyway, to bring this entry to a close...
Best friend sent me a link to a Reddit post talking about a new Japan curfew for American servicemembers: 1830.
Why?
Sexual assault.
Because of course it's sexual assault.
We just can't seem to fucking leave those people alone, and it's infuriating.
And though I was—and still am—a major advocate against group punishment...
I can also understand that it's not easy to determine who, out of a group of 55,000, is going to rape someone.
Aaaaaand looking into the event that caused it, of course it's a Marine.
Sorry, Steve, but of all the horror stories I've heard of our military in Japan, it's mostly the Marines as the perpetrators.
Oh: I decided to go ahead and take Thursday and Friday off.
Since there were a couple pretty ominous warnings about boss man's attitude when he returned.
I trust the source of the omens.
And I choose to opt out.
Good day.