Tag Archives: stupid

no i.d. for you

Leave a comment | Posted by Patrick Calder on in rant

must kill someone.
jesus.
I have always thought it incredibly stupid how every building wants you to sign in unless you work or live there. There’s absolutely no security value to it.* Even if I didn’t go to the mental effort of giving a fake name, it’s not going to stop me from doing ‘bad things’.
But this one building has decided I also have to show them my ID to get in. Not just a business card, or anything. Has to be an ID. Well yes, that shows I went to some effort to prove an identity, (though not necc. my real one). But it doesn’t actually make the building any more secure. Still not gonna stop me from doing ‘bad things’. Still not gonna make it easier to find me afterwards, if I have half a brain.
But it is an invasion of my privacy. I don’t want another record out there of every place I visited on a given day.
The smarter buildings just ask you who you’re going to see, which is perfectly reasonable. Still not secure… but it roughly lets them know who to talk to if something goes bad.
The white house, last time I went, didn’t want to see my ID at all. And it’s supposedly a pretty secure building.
So I left. Got home and sent a message to the printer in the building telling them that so long as that was their landlord’s policy, that they would have to come to me if they wanted my business.
Yes it’s generally a stupid little thing. But I put up with more than enough of those… I don’t need to put up with the ones that mean something to me.
*okay… yes. if you’re dealing with morons, this might be of some benefit. When we had a prostitute working upstairs, it was amazing to watch the guys come in and be completely unable to maintain the simplest story about where they’re going and what for.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

quotes

Leave a comment | Posted by Patrick Calder on in quotes

“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

–Ray Bradbury

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist – a master – and that is what Auguste Rodin was – can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is… and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be… and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply imprisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart… no matter what the merciless hours have done to her.”

–Robert A. Heinlein

“Live forever, or die in the attempt.”

–Joseph Heller

“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.”

– Jorge Luis Borges

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

Stupid sick.

2 Replies | Posted by Patrick Calder on in health

It’s stupid. There’s nothing about being sick that isn’t ridiculous or stupid.
I get struck out of nowhere with a condition abnormal for someone in my age and fitness, and the doctor’s can find any cause. And it can’t just be a run of the mill thing. It’s got to be something that could of knocked me dead if not for … nothing in particular. A little blood clot gets stuck… somewhere. No rhyme or reason.
The doctors treat me, and yes the pain is goes away and they give me drugs to keep it that way. Drugs which affect me more strongly than my doctor has ever seen in anyone else. To the point where for three-plus weeks, I can’t stand, walk, carry, or roll over without being in extreme pain. This is all caused by the drugs meant to save my life.
(Incidentally, what moron at the drug store puts the heating pads on the bottom shelf where you have to bend to reach them? Took me 5 minutes to work up the energy and will to grab one, after giving up on a store clerk coming by.)
When my back does mostly stop hurting, it takes another week or two before I can even walk strait, because the rest of my body is recovering from the stress it was under. There’s a 104 year old woman living in my building who could have beat me in any race.
I have to pay for these drugs. And probably much much more, since Medicaid refused to help me with the hospital bills, for reasons only a lifetime bureaucrat could comprehend. So I will spend the next few years mailing the hospital some obscenely large checks. Checks which will make it unlikely that I can afford to get insurance. The lack of which is kind of what got me here in the first place.
And while I loath the thought of taking these drugs through next spring, the thought that’s already gnawing at me is “what happens after I stop the drugs?” No one knows what caused this last time.
I’m not depressed or in shock or whatnot. These aren’t even the worst thoughts I’ve had. But I’ve been trying for a while now to put them into written words. So yeah… now that’s done.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!