Castle Magus

Two things.

First, I got my new glasses today. They'd called a week ago Wednesday, Oct. 9, actually, saying that they were ready to be picked up, but because my phone A) didn't inform me that I had new voice mail waiting (which is "normal" for this phone, because it never alerts me when I have voicemail), and B) didn't inform me at all that I'd missed a call from the eye doctor (which is not normal for this phone, so what the fuck, asshole phone), I didn't find out about it until today, when I just randomly decided to check my voicemail after getting a spam call.

In any case, I have new glasses, for the first time since 2020. (I thought it had been longer, but apparently not.)

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Second, I early voted today. Took about 30 minutes or so. The line was wrapped all the way around the library lobby, and I thought it was going to take forever, but it moved pretty quickly. As per usual, I voted D for every race that had a D running in it (including, of course, Harris for President) and left entirely blank the several races that only had an R (or even two or three R candidates, but still no D or "other" candidates, in some cases).

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I also voted against a NC Constitutional Amendment referendum that purported to "clarify" things. Basically, whoever put this shit on the ballot wants to change the wording of a certain section.

The current wording is "Every person born in the United States and every person who has been naturalized, 18 years of age, and possessing the qualifications set out in this Article, shall be entitled to vote at any election by the people of the State, except as herein otherwise provided."

The amendment referendum on the ballot is worded like this: "Constitutional amendment to provide that only a citizen of the United States who is 18 years of age and otherwise possessing the qualifications for voting shall be entitled to vote at any election in this State."

Basically, they want to remove "every other person who has been naturalized," particularly the "naturalized" part. It doesn't actually affect who can and cannot vote, at all, mind you. Naturalized citizens can still vote, even if this passes. It just wants to change the wording to introduce unnecessary uncertainty and fear, and to perhaps persuade "naturalized citizens" to stay home and not vote, for fear of "breaking the law," even though they're still fully eligible to vote. Essentially just more extremely petty racist Republican voter suppression horseshit, in other words. *weary sigh*

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One thing that really annoyed me when I went to vote today, though, was that there was some bitch standing outside the library, "helpfully" handing out little yellow "voter guide" pamphlets... which only had the fucking Republican candidates on it. I glanced at it and handed it back to her, refraining from saying anything, but I was stewing on the inside, like so:

"Galactic Mermaid - The Mermaid Sisters"

...it's when someone sends me a goddamn "please reply" text less than five minutes after the first one, when I am already in the fucking middle of trying to reply to their previous text. Like, shitting hell.

Shit like this is why I almost never text to begin with and is part of why I despise doing it.

That and also because the touchscreen "keyboard" on my phone is rancid asshole, and the auto-"correct" "feature" has only about a 20% chance of actually correcting a typo versus 80% chance of randomly inserting an entirely different, unwanted word into whatever I was trying to type, which I then have to delete and retype anyway. (Which is probably why I'm so slow at texting, especially given that on the rare occasions I do text, I do so in complete, grammatically correct sentences, and not in incomplete sentences or fCkN tXt SpK oR w/E.)

I loathe texting less than I loathe actually talking on the phone, but only very slightly less.

Now get the fuck off my lawn. ¬_¬

"FCC received blank pages, a Windows Printer Test, and an 'indiscernible object.'"

Honestly, the most insane part about all of this is that this shit was submitted to the FCC two years ago and the FCC is apparently only just now maybe kind of possibly starting to perhaps sort of do something about it.

Under every single article I see in the Google News app on my phone that is about goddamned Kanye West, I invariably click "Fewer stories like this" and then select "Ye" under the "What do you want less of?" thing. And yet, the Google News app just keeps on showing me articles about fucking Kanye West. I do not want to see any articles, at all, ever, about Kanye West and whatever dumbfuckery he's involved in. It's enragingly asinine.

Basically, the situation has not improved in the slightest since the last time I ranted about it.

(EDIT) Just to note, this post was written using my phone this morning, when I woke up (too early, and after a shitty night's sleep), automatically checked my news app, as one does (but, perhaps, as one shouldn't), and saw more of the same bullshit that I see practically every day. I'm not even going to link to it here, because it is all so horrifically enervating and banal. (/EDIT)

Donald Trump is still, to this day, a free man, rather than in prison where he should be. Donald Trump, as of now, has been charged with very few of the myriad crimes that he has committed during his life, before, during, and after his time as *ugh*shiver*threw-up-in-my-mouth-a-bit* President of the United States of America. For the few he has been charged with in the past, his use of dubious and duplicitous tactics has, so far, successfully allowed him to continue being a free man.

Donald Trump is still a free man due in large part to the inexplicable fact that he is an egregiously successful con artist who has duped far too many dumbfuck, gullible morons into liking and supporting him.

Donald Trump is still a free man and is still, both credibly and incredibly, able to continue planning for a second run for POTUS again, due to the fact that those who are in positions to charge Trump with his crimes are, or at least seem to me to be, too fucking scared to do what needs to have already been done. Sure, I'm all about properly crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's and making sure all the ducks are in a row before making a move, but at the same time, enough is goddamned enough. Trump has been a free man for far too long already as it is. And yet, I also get that they're right to be scared. They know full well that if they do charge Trump with his many crimes, he will, again, simply try to use the same dishonest tricks to keep himself out of jail that have worked all too well in the past. They also know that even if they were actually successful at getting a conviction to stick against Trump, the far too many dumbshit idiots that Trump has successfully conned will riot and revolt in response to any attempt to lock away their goldenpyrite boy. Trump knows this, too. He's counting on it.

Donald Trump is still a free man because, at least so far, popularity has "trumped" justice (unfathomable though said popularity is, given what a massive piece of shit he is and always has been). Donald Trump is an obvious criminal who clearly should have already been in prison for years now (even before he ever had the ridiculous opportunity to run for POTUS, let alone somehow inexplicably win), and the fact that he isn't already in prison is utter fucking horseshit (and always will be utter fucking horseshit, regardless of anything else that may happen in the future).

The latest victim of this, today, was "Rock, Paper, Shotgun," with their (to paraphrase) "If you want to see the rest of this article, you need to pay for our subscription" horseshit. Somewhat vaguely disappointing... but I'm not too disappointed, because I'm not all that much worse off than I was before. The only reason I even had them in my Google News phone app in the first place was due to sheer, lazy convenience, and now that that convenience has gone away, to the curb they have been kicked. *shrug*

Find less obnoxious ways to make money.

Sending this post via my cellphone, using the phone data (as opposed to WiFi-only with mobile data turned off, like I usually have it set at).

So, apparently, according to Duke Energy, the power is out b...

And that's as far as I got in this before the power at least started trying to come back on. Anyway, to continue...

...the power is out because of fallen trees. It went out about 30-45 minutes ago or so. I thought it was about to come back on just now, as it did flicker for a few seconds, but I guess not.

Their estimate was for 2:15am... it just flickered again... but maybe they'll have it back on by the time I finish this post.

By the way, typing this... power just flickered again... on a touchscreen keypad sucks rancid, rabid canine anus, I have to say.

Aaaaaaaaannnnnndddd... nope, the power is not yet back on fully as I finish this. Lame.

(EDIT) Actually, it came back on (hopefully) for good literally the exact millisecond I hit the "post" button on this. Go figure. (/EDIT)

(EDIT 2 @ 10:55pm) Back on my PC with a proper keyboard again, thank goodness. Typing and sending the above apparently used up 6.98MB of mobile data (along with whatever other shit my phone decided to do in the background while doing it, which was probably most of that 7MB). Given that I currently have 1.88GB available via TracFone, and given that the only times I will ever use it is during scenarios like this, I'm not gonna sweat 7MB all that much at all. *nods sagely* (/EDIT 2)

Full headline here, because it won't all fit in the subject field: "Hiker lost on mountain for 24 hours ignored calls from rescuers because he didn’t recognize phone number"

Found via Scalzi on Twitter.

And as I said on there, I wouldn't even have gotten repeated calls, because I would've blocked the number with CallDetector during the first call, same as I do with any other unfamiliar number that calls my phone. Because 99.9999999999% of the time (well, actually, literally 100% of the time since I got my new phone, at least so far), such calls are spammers/scammers/other such undesirable horseshit.

And... I wouldn't have been hiking on a mountain in the first place, so there's that, too.

(EDIT) Also, it's nice to be able to block spam calls again, as that was a feature that was sorely lacking on my previous phone. It's too bad, though, that spammers/scammers/other such undesirable horseshit just call with randomized spoofed numbers these days, making the ability to block numbers all but completely useless. (/EDIT)

A post on Whatever dot Scalzi dot Com.

Personally, I loathe the telephone. I hate it when the house phone or my cellphone rings (or lights up, in the case of my cellphone, as I tend to keep it perpetually on silent/no vibrate mode these days), partly because I know that it's almost assuredly going to be some spammer/telemarketer/survey/whatever that I can safely ignore, which is the case 99.999% of the time, but partly because it might be someone I actually know, such that I would have to get up and go to the phone (or pick up my cellphone, if that's the case) and answer the phone (or call them back, more likely) and actually talk to someone. Blugh. I never look forward to getting a phone call, on those rare occasions when I am expecting one. I'm not sure what I hate more, honestly... waiting for such a call that I'm expecting or getting such a call out of the blue that I wasn't expecting. They both suck, but the unexpected ones are maybe slightly more irksome and even anxiety-inducing, because I always initially expect it to be bad news of some sort. I never look forward to making a phone call, on the extremely rare occasions that I'm forced to make a phone call, for whatever reason. It's dreadful. I've never made a "video call," but I'm pretty sure that I would hate those even more than mere voice calls. Basically, as far as I am concerned, the very concept of the telephone (smart or otherwise) can die forever.

I also hate sending/receiving texts on my phone. For me, it's email, this blog, and Twitter (until I get completely sick of Twitter and abandon it again, which may very well happen, and possibly sooner rather than later), and that's pretty much it (via my desktop PC, that is, not via phone, as I hardly ever use the smart phone I do have for anything beyond maybe playing a game on it, once every other blue moon or so). I think I prefer the blog/Twitter, at least when I'm using them merely to blast my thoughts out into the ether, without any concrete expectation of a reply.

Have I mentioned that I'm a fairly asocial person, generally speaking (and have become more so in more recent years)? Not necessarily antisocial, but definitely asocial (and there is a difference). I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that in the past on more than one occasion. ¬_¬

For the past several days, I've been getting roughly a trillion or so text messages on my cellphone about the upcoming Georgia election, referring to me by names that are not me, all of them from dumbfuck Republican groups who apparently think I'm someone who actually lives in Georgia and who gives a shit about "stopping Nancy Pelosi" or whatever asinine fuckshittery. (I'd much rather stop Bitch McConnell than Nancy Pelosi.)

On the one hand, I wish horrible, lingering, agonizing death on them all and want them to stop texting me.

On the other hand, I suppose it's a good thing that they've fucked up their cellphone number lists such that I'm intercepting texts originally meant for other people, presumably Republicans, who presumably do live in Georgia, such that those people are not seeing these texts, because every tiny little thing that can potentially prevent the election of more Republicans to Congress is a great thing, in my book. *shrug*