Tuesday, August 18, 2020
It's not storming the beaches at Normandy, but in-person voting in this time of COVID-19 is nothing to sneeze at
![[Not only did I get a “I VOTED” sticker, but I also got to keep the pen. Go figure.]](/2020/08/18/voted.jpg "Not only did I get a “I VOTED” sticker, but I also got to keep the pen. Go figure.")
So today was the Florida Primary Election Day. Given that my polling station is just a few blocks away fom Chez Boca, I decided to walk. Less to save fuel and more to just get out of the house for something other than food. Well, that, and to see what the protocol might be for the general election in November in these pandemic times. The walk there wasn't bad,
It was not crowded at all. There were a total of seven people at the polling station—five people staffing the station, and two voting (and I'm including myself in that count of two). It was pretty much the same as every other time I voted, with the exception of mask wearing, and keeping the pen used to mark the ballot.
I'm registered as an independent voter, so the ballot wasn't that large for me. Seven races, one supervisor of Elections, three judges, one school board district and two parks and recreation elections! I didn't even know those were a thing!
You might not want to read this post. If you read beyond the title, it's on you, not me. You have been warned. Have a nice day.
On my walk to the polling station, I saw a sign posted in someone's front yard that I found amusing enough to take a picture to post on this blog. As I resumed my walk, I began to have second thoughts on the sign—it brings up questions about the 1ST and 2ND Amendments and could be considered imflamatory in a country deeply divided along partisan lines, so I decided against posting the image.
Then I thought Why am I censoring myself? This is my blog! I can post what I want! I'm not forcing anyone to read this, and there are plenty of other pages out there one can read.
So, without further ado, the sign:
![[“You quite possibly could get shot or hurt and then try to sue resulting in a long drawn out court battle. You Will Lose. Because this sign will be ‘EXHIBIT A’” Yeah, I found it amusing. Sue me.]](/2020/08/18/sign.jpg "“You quite possibly could get shot or hurt and then try to sue resulting in a long drawn out court battle. You Will Lose. Because this sign will be “EXHIBIT A’” Yeah, I found it amusing. Sue me.")
Don't say I didn't warn you.
A clown singing Gilligan's Island to the tune of Stairway to Heaven, I did not know I needed this
There's not much else to say but, enjoy.
Oh wait, there is … he's going off the rails on a crazy train.
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Yeah, there was a reason why we couldn't sell these
The power at Chez Boca went out on Friday afternoon and didn't come back up until around noon today.
It was a painful reminder of just how addicted dependent I am on the Internet and cat videos.
So to pass the time,
I decided to go through my Dad's CD collection that remain
(that is,
those that we kept because they might be good enough to keep and not thrown away because we coudn't sell them).
On one of the CDs I listened to, I found the following text:
Tai Chi Way Regimen Music
Return To Simplicity(Warning: Due to the relaxing effect of the music, do not listen while driving, working, or participating in any kind of mechanical operation)
The Internet couldn't come back soon enough.
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Welcome to the machine
Ah, the Corporate Overlords' Managed Laptop … how would I ever waste time without you?
Last week I received an email saying the Corporate Overlords' Managed Laptop is “out of compliance” (read: I waited longer than twenty minutes to update the laptop). I followed the instructions in the email but they failed to appease the Corporate Overlords as it was still “out of compliance.” A meeting was scheduled to let the “Desktop Compliance Analyst” log into the laptop and make it “into compliance.” That failed due to the Corporate Overlords' VPN being flaky, so the meeting was rescheduled for today.
This time, the DCA had me download a 2G patch file. As I was waiting for it to download, the XXXXXXXXXXXXX Protection program updated itself and was asking me to restart the computer to finish its installation. I asked the DCA about this, and was told to just let the computer run and finish the downloading.
Twenty minutes later (and I wish I was making this up) The XXXXXXXXXXXXX Protection program interrupted the popup asking me to restart the cmpouter to inform me that it had updated itself again and to restart the computer to let it finish.
Seriously.
While this was going on, I asked the DCA about the Heisenberg Notification Center. The DCA said it was easy to reconfigure and went ahead to do it, since I don't have access to do said configuration.
“Oh,” said the DCA, “you're running a version of Windows 10 that's older than twenty minutes. No wonder I couldn't find the option I was looking for.”
“You guys set it up,” I said.
“No, I belong to the Desktop Compliance Unit. I'm not responsible for configuring machines.”
“No, ‘you guys’ being The Corporate Overlords.”
That got a slight chuckle out of the DCA.
I then asked the DCA about another issue. “I keep getting this popup—‘Program FunUtility has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working. Please close the program’ and it has a button on it labeled ‘Close the program.’ I do that, but it keeps coming back up.”
“Can you send me a screen shot?”
“Can you not take over my laptop and see it for yourself?”
“Oh, it's probably nothing. Just keep dismissing the dialog box until it stops appearing.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
How does anyone use Windows?
