ENOUGH ALREADY!

If I have to see another news article or Yahoo Answers question bitching about Barack Obama I am going to have to hunt some of these fuckers down and sodomize them with a rather large agave cactus.

1. The man was born of an American Citizen (his mother)
2. The man was born in Hawaii two years after it became a state so he was born on American Soil.
1. Born August 4, 1961 
2. Hawaii statehood August 1959
3. He was voted in by the electoral college which followed the popular vote. This means that regardless of the fact that you don't like the man, enough people did like him and so here he is.

So there you have it. The current President of the United States of America is a black man. Grow the fuck up and deal with it. If you don't like him...tough. He is in the top seat and any law that Congress passes and is sighed by the President is a law that you have to obey...period, end of discussion.

All you idjits in Leavenworth for refusing to deploy since you don't think that orders of the Commander in Chief is valid...got what the fuck you deserved.

If you don't like him, then do what every American has the right to do. Petition congress to have him removed from office BUT only IF you have REAL proof that he is unfit to be President. Offering some asshole's blog as proof (mine included) is only going to get you laughed at.

Failing that, if you are going to be 18 or over at the time of the 2012 election feel free to vote for the other person running if you think they are going to do better. I honestly don't think that ANY president is going to be able to get a fucking thing done since the two political parties are so polarized that the concept of compromise is totally fucking alien to them. It's their way or nothing. A joke that I frequently use (that I no longer find amusing) is "If the opposite of "pro" is "con", then what is the opposite of progress?"

If a certain former girlfriend of my stepson is reading this (and I'll be fucking shocked if she can read), the answer is congress.

Or failing that, pick a border any border. Leave and don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you.

He is the president, like it or lump it. Grow the fuck up.

Ok folks

Many people have told me that they are regular readers of my blog.

Could you please subscribe to it so it doesn't look so pathetic by only having two followers of it?

And yes my darling and loving wife...that means you too. I know damn well you have a gmail account so there is no excuse there sweetie.

Facebook "Causes" application

The "causes" application on Facebook really irks me.

Honestly. Does anyone REALLY think that by clicking a button is going to help the cause in any way, shape, or form? Does anyone really think that by clicking on a link to an ad-revenue-supported website is going to actually do anything?

If you want to support a cause you have to actually do something. I supported Public Broadcasting back when it actually meant something to me. I pledged and actually sent in money to help support them and the shows I liked. I've since stopped because they are going to advertising revenue and by my definition are no longer in need of my money since they're getting my money after I give it to the advertisers when I buy their product or service.

I vote in local elections for causes that I believe in. I donate my time to fund raisers (Lions Club most notably). Hell one time I got people to give me money if I was daft enough to jump into icy cold water and freeze my nards off (polar bear plunge fundraiser). There is a woman where I work that sells coffee as a fundraiser for her Basset Hound rescue organization. I don't like coffee and will never buy it...but I always slip a few bucks her way whenever she's doing it.

In short, I do more than "click a link to feel better about myself".

I think that this is a problem with the internet. It gives ways for people to participate in mental masturbation techniques by offering a way for them to think that they have "done some good" without having to do more than move a mouse and press down on a button. It gives them a false sense of accomplishment by letting them think that by clicking on a link they are changing the world.

Do they realize that all they are doing is making people look at more ad-revenue supported web pages which are created in order to try and snag an impulse buy?

"Click on this link to see how you can save the Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri-Lanka!"

So you click and maybe you see in the corner of the screen a really good deal on a walrus polisher and think "Ooh! I don't have a Walrus now, but I might and I'd better snag that sucker while the once in a lifetime deal is still good."

And by once in a lifetime I mean the third "once in a lifetime" offer this month.

So if you want to do some good, get out there and DO some good. Don't just sit there on your arses. Donate money to a charity or cause that you support (to them directly and not through a company trying to make some money...GAWD knows how much of your money actually gets to the cause...if any), donate time, vote, but do something.

Don't get sucked into the mental masturbation. You'd be better off actually putting fingers to naughty bits and fiddling with them. You're not going to do any more or less good to the cause they're trying to sucker you into...but at least you get to cum.

Moving woes

Now when we moved into the place we were living at, we thought it was a god send. It got us out of my wife's parents house (We are very grateful for them taking us in by the way) and got us into a very beautiful part of the country on a nice quiet farm with wide open spaces.

Wide open spaces that we couldn't use...but I'll get to that later.

Ok, so it sucked that we didn't have access to the internet on anything faster than tethering to my cellphone as a modem, but since I had high-speed at work and so did my wife...we were OK without it. There was one option we were looking into but we weren't in any rush to get it.

Well idyllic life soon turned sour. At the time, we were both working and so that meant that sometimes the breakfast dishes had to wait until after supper to get done. Also, we would clean up for the weekend gaming session with our friends only to have the step-children tear the place apart with dishes everywhere, popcorn bag strewn about and leaving the place in a general state of disarray. Sometimes we'd clean up on Saturday night only to have the place a mess again by Sunday noon. We'd be bone tired of cleaning and would say "Fuck it" and take a day off.

Now our landlady, in violation of the reasonable notice laws concerning entering a tenant's dwelling and 12-24 hours notice, would come in whenever the hell she felt like it and criticize the level of cleanliness. She made comments about the fact that while the previous tenant of our trailer was unemployed and was dating someone who possibly sold drugs and maybe paid her rent three times out of the 12 months she was there...she was preferable to us (who always paid our rent on time, if not early) since she kept a spotlessly clean trailer.

Yes, let me restate that. As a tenant who was commented upon by our landlady for having paid for November's rent in the middle of October when she was waiting on everyone else to pay the now overdue September rent...was not as desirable a tenant as the deadbeat who only paid for 3 out of the 12 months she lived there since the deadbeat was a clean freak.

It seems that our landlady defines clean as (and this is her admission of what she does in her house) someone who takes all the dishes, pots, pans, etc and washes them once a week regardless if they were used or not.

Next we have a property that we were told that we could enjoy. There was the fallow field that I asked when we moved in if I could set up an archery range. I was told yes when I got there, but that yes turned into a no since someone might get hurt. I'm sorry, but an English Longbowman would have had a hard time getting an arrow near the road much less hitting anything on it. There was a pond with a picnic area that we were told about and encouraged to use...but whenever the kids went near the pond they were turned away. So in a sense, we were trapped in the trailer and a thin strip of land and that was it.

We were also accused of being the ones who fucked things up whenever they got broken. We were accused of overworking the air conditioner when it broke down even though the point of failure was metal fatigue in an electrical contact. They had to put on a new spade terminal on the wire and zip-tie it so it wouldn't happen again from vibration. The fridge was our fault even though they pointed out the flaws of the unit and promised to replace it when we moved in. A year later it's still there. Oh and I was at fault because I let the oil tank run dry. I checked the tank and it should have been fine for another month based on the fuel in the tank. HOWEVER we weren't informed that they were using Kerosene instead of Fuel Oil. Kero burns cleaner but burns FASTER so my estimate of another month with the intent of paying for a fill in two weeks (next paycheck) was blown out of the water by the fact that I only had 13 days of fuel in the tank. And further to that problem, Snowpoclypse occurred and it took the Oil company a week to dig themselves out so they could deliver fuel.

So with all of that coupled with my need to have high-speed internet so I could remote-login to my computer at work and needing to be closer to work when I'm on call...we decided to move.

Now the fun really begins.

We paid first month, last month and security deposit. This means that when we gave notice, we have until the end of April to get out. We spent the weekend at the new place while painting and when we came back, there was no hot water. Since we were gone all weekend, we suspected that they did something to shut it off to get us out quicker. This morning...we got confirmation. Someone was there trying to fix the water heater. Being rather friendly, the person informed us that someone had manually tripped the internal breaker to the water heater. This wasn't a breaker that trips itself...but a maintenance cut off. This means that our anal-dwelling twat monkey of a landlady and/or one of her children shut off our hot water to drive us out.

As we were packing up we found patches of black mold that they just painted over, again they were in the house before we were out of there with our stuff.

I'm just glad to be out of there. Bunch of douche bags.

My use of the word "retard" in my stories.

Having a step-child who works with developmentally disabled children and is seeking a career in helping them (something I think is awesome), I wanted to clear the air about my use of the word retard and variants therein.

A person with a learning disability, a developmental condition, neurological trauma, or any of the multitude of ways that person might grow up needing assistance...to me is not a retard. Never have been, never will be. What they are going through is not their fault and every reasonable effort should be made to allow them to live out a happy and comfortable life. They have the same rights regarding Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as the rest of us.

So why do I use the word retard? Because I have to deal with educated people. People who have gone to college. College which today is very computer intensive. There are online classes, online research material, they need to type up reports and papers to get their degrees.

Yet they cannot remember more than one password. Upon telling one such man of science and learning that he cannot use a password more than once, seemed unable to think of a password that fit in our guidelines. Even if that guideline could be something as a noun (with the first letter capitalized) and a bunch of numbers, being more than 8 characters long. This could be "Fluffy1234" or "Hundai2004", or any reference that a number could be attached to. Yet this man from an ivy league school and a Mensa member seemed unable to grasp the concept and could not conjure from the depths of his psyche another proper noun to which to use as a password base.

Hence "Retard"

Or in the "Password Stupidity" story, this woman who is a nurse, for whom the job is to read the labels of various beneficial (yet at times dangerous if not administered properly) drugs. Once read, the person must then follow the instructions that the Doctor entered into the computer system. Then following those instructions, mix the drugs in an attempt to treat and/or cure an illness or injury.

Yet, this person could not follow the simple instructions given to her in taking care of her password. So...how can I trust this person if she comes near me with an IV bag and a solution of some concoction, to have followed the complex instructions of the doctor when my five steps were beyond her.

Again, Retard!

To me, a "retard" is someone who has intelligence, yet flat-out refuses to use the brains given to them. Yes we all have our "D'Oh!" moments where we do something stupid, but most of the time we remember what we did wrong and try to correct it so we don't do it again. Looking at my log book and counting the 63 times in the past year that I have had to reset this one idiot's password (a password that expires every 90 days), I come to realize that there are people who, by choice, are acting dumb.

That to me is a retard.

I have found a kindred spirit.

http://goblinnews.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-won-trip-to-cancun-not-really.html

This person must have been carved from the wood of the same tree I was carved out of.

Password stupidity.

What is it about passwords that baffles the living hell out of people? I mean, some people when confronted with the "Your password has expired" message just shrug and change their password and move on with their lives. Others (as will be demonstrated) couldn't be any more stumped if you put them in front of a pile containing all the parts required to assemble a particle accelerator and told to have it ready by next Tuesday.

Case in point is the user Alicia Kasnowski where I work. This is not her name, this is an alias used to protect the innocent.

Midnight comes and I clock in. Five minutes later and she calls that she cannot get to the employees-only section of the company website (which contains training, news, job openings available, etc). Fine. I look up her account and I see that her password is expired. In fact it is showing me the "user must change password at next logon" message.

Ok, now since she insists that she has been using the password she hasn't forgotten it, this means that this is simple. I normally do not believe anyone who tells me that they haven't forgotten their passwords since they normally only go into the website on every blue moon (a "blue" moon being one of the rare months when there is 2 full moons falling in it). But in this case, since I'm getting the expired message I'll give benefit of the doubt and assume that the 90 days has elapsed.

So I inform her of this. "But it hasn't been 90 days!" she tells me. "Bullshit" I think to myself. I then instruct her to go to the change password page and follow my instructions which includes these 5 simple steps.

Step one, type in your user name.
Step two, type in your current password.
Step three, think of a new password following the guidelines posted below.
Step four, type it in where you see "New Password" and "Confirm Password"
Step five, click "ok"

I once got gently chided for stating that end users like this person are as dumb as a chimpanzee. I agree and retract that statement. Most Chimps would have fucking nailed this.

So the call ends and that should be the end of it right? Wrong!

User calls back and tells me that it isn't working. Ok, it isn't working...and it took you 30 minutes of banging your head against the screen to finally call me back? So I unlock the account and give a temporary password that is pre-expired thus still requiring her to pick a password easy to remember yet hard to guess.

30 minutes later and she calls again. Still not working. I ask if it's a password she's tried in the past (no) was it derived from her name which is disallowed (no) is she sure she's following the guidelines (yes).

I even check the Active Directory tool and it shows that she no longer has an expired password. This means that in one of her attempts, it took her gorram password. And then she promptly forgot it.

So I re-reset her password to the temp one and have her come down to my office so she can have a new password selected. I'm even being a real asshole about it, I'm not going to use Window's Active Directory tool do do this with, but I'm going to have her do it the correct way that she has access to. I'm going to train this end user if I have to saw off the top of her head and tattoo the instructions on her pre-frontal lobes.

She comes down and tries to open the door that has a sign on it that clearly says "This is not an entrance". Doesn't try the door that has the sign "IT Department" on it in big gold colored letters that is right NEXT to the "This is not an entrance" door AND is unlocked...but tries the wrong door and then calls me on the phone wanting to be let in.

At this point I'm thinking that she fall out of the stupid tree, hit every branch on the way down, picked herself up and dusted herself off and then had the tree fall on her.

So I let her in and she picks out her new password which is too short (not abiding with the guidelines) has part of her name (which she denied previously) and she admits to being the same one she "thought" she was using (which she denied previously). I convince her to actually read the instructions (RTFM - READ THE FUCKING MANUAL!) and select a completely new password. IT gives her the "Password has successfully been changed" message (yay!) and that should have been the end of it right?

Wrong! There is still one more zinger to go.

She pointed to the screen and told me that that was the "error message" she got before.

Yes folks. She saw the message saying that the password had indeed been changed to what she wanted it to be...AND THOUGHT IT WAS AN ERROR!

The dent in my desk is a little deeper tonight and I have a headache. Is it any wonder why?

Where's a den of half starved lions when you need them?

Ok, since I screwed up my first attempt at a bunny cake I had to run into Food Lion to get some more.

As I'm looking at the Baker's Joy and wondering if we had any at the house, I hear the lovely strains of "MuthaFucka betta move!"

Looking up and down the aisle I see a large black woman (hence the phonetic spellings above) in her Sunday best and sure enough the only other person in the aisle is me. Yup, my physical presence offends her mightily.

Mustering up a full measure of disdain and loathing for humanity, I state to her. "You know, Jesus died to absolve you of your sins. He didn't die so you could be an obnoxious twat." and I turned and headed to the checkout.

Since it was very busy, I was there in line for a while. Long enough it seems for me to be found by the pastor of her church. He expressed concern about "my" unchristian attitude.

"Excuse me sir, I'm the pastor of that woman's church (pointing to the woman). What you said was not very nice."

To which I replied. "And . . . her saying "muthafucka betta move" to me was a nice thing to say. Thank you for pointing out that little tidbit. I was confused on the subject."

I then turned and paid for my stuff and left him standing there looking for all the world like he couldn't think of something to say to me.

What is it about the major Christian Holidays that brings out the asshole in people? Really! I would like an arena filled with some half-starved lions. I know a few Christians who are just gagging to be eaten alive.