Tag: covid-19

As the World Continues to Fall Apart

When did Disney World become my personal Covid canary in the coalmine? I don’t know, but what I do know is that they have reinstituted their indoor mask requirement regardless of vaccination status.

Yippee. Why is this necessary? Because half the people in this country are fucking garbage who have no concern for their fellow citizens. That’s why. They make up 100 fake reasons for not getting vaccinated that all boil down to a simple I-don’t-wanna-be-inconvenienced. Fuck them. Fuck them in their eye and then fuck them in their other eye.*

Today is my parents’ 54th anniversary. My sister was able to take my mother in to the rehab hospital to see my father. I’m sure that helped both of their mental states. You know what else would help their mental states? Everyone getting vaccinated and stop being little spoiled fucking brats.

I wasn’t planning on writing a pissed off post about the slime living in my country. I’m just feeling angry about it all. Angry enough that I completely forgot what I was planning to write about.

Get the fucking vaccine, you fucking mental midgets.

*Thank you to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for that little nugget from their musical, The Book of Mormon. Sometimes a phrase just fits the occasion, you know?

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 78: Tone Deaf

I might have snapped… finally.

This morning as we were getting ready for work Jen made an off hand comment about the health of one of the plants in the bedroom. She said it was looking a little dead.

Given that we are still up to our necks in a pandemic, and that all signs are pointing to things getting worse again, my response was incredibly tone deaf.

Upon hearing the word “dead” a song leaped to the front of my brain and lodged itself there. Two hours later it is still insisting that I sing it to myself constantly. At the time, it insisted that I sing it out loud and I did.

A lovely little ditty from the South Park Christmas album called “Dead, Dead, Dead.”

Dead, dead, dead,
Someday we’ll be dead.
Dead, dead, dead,
Someday we’ll all be dead.

Are you effing kidding me Robert? Read the friggin’ room! And by room I mean the entire friggin’ human race!

Asshole.

Tone deaf asshole.

Get the Damn Vaccine

I mentioned my mother’s ears are blocked. That means she has the volume on the television cranked. It is literally as far away from me as it can be while both of us are still in the house and it sounds like it’s scotch taped to my head.

She’s watching the morning news. They are interviewing people who are not taking the Covid-19 vaccine because reasons. All of the reasons are false and total bullshit, but reasons.

You cannot exist in the year 2021 and be so stupid that you choose to not take this vaccine. You simply cannot be that stupid.

Take the fucking vaccine.

So Much for That

I hate it when your musical heroes say the private part out loud, you know?

I think it was around the time that the pandemic was starting, I told Jen that my musical hero, Eric Clapton, had developed some neurological issues that affected his ability to play guitar and as a result I wanted to see him live one more time while I still could. Even if that meant traveling to see him, the way we used to travel to see Rush.

Click the image and read the article. I’ll wait…..

(have you finished the article?)

Now?

Fucking douche.

Things I Forgot About

It has been 482 days since I last worked in the office. March 13, 2020 to July 8, 2021. Thanks, Covid-19 (you prick).

I just wanted to make a quick note of some of the things I’ve forgotten about over that time, and a couple of things that changed without my consent.

  1. The noise level. We work in an open concept space. There are only 6-8 people within sight right now, but there are probably four times that many desks, at least. We don’t have walls between us. It’s nice when you have a bunch of people on the same team within earshot of each other so if staff member #1 is talking about an issue, staff member #2 sitting 15-20 desks away can hear the issue and chime in to help. It’s nice, right? Today though, there are two of the four members of my group here, and three more off in the distance who work on the same application. The rest of the people are unrelated and some of them have been on conference calls all day. I forgot what that felt like. If Jen’s on a call while we’re both at home we just close the doors. Problem solved. Not so in the open concept workspace. I hear everyone’s everything whether it affects me or not.
  2. This one is simple. Locking your computer. Get up to the to the bathroom while working from home? No problem. Just do it. Get up to go to the bathroom while working in the office? Lock your computer. The first time I had to walk away from my desk I forgot. I surprised myself. I’m usually much more vigilant about such things.
  3. Diet Coke. Oh yeah. My company is awesome about the soda machines. We only pay the deposit, $0.05. It’s wonderful. Unfortunately when it comes to diet soda I am a Diet Pepsi guy and we’re a Coca~Cola shop. For every other soda I prefer the Coke product. Diet soda? The one thing I will let myself drink? Pepsi. Damn it. I forgot about that.

I’m sure there are others, but those are the stand outs. Honorable mention goes to the VPN. It was downright odd to not connect to the VPN today. I’ll probably forget when I’m at home tomorrow.

Now, a couple of things that changed while I was away.

  1. I’ve mentioned this a bunch of times before but it is such a huge thing that I feel the need to mention it again. My building is gone. Sold. History. I worked for this company for a decade before I was able to have a desk in a building that is North of the Mass Pike (pardon the super local nature of that statement, but fellow Merrimack Valley folks will know of what I speak). This morning as I drove to work I could see that building from the highway as I cruised on by. They sold our building a few months ago and I’ve been moved to another building. We have a little two building complex right off of route 128. I used to work in building #2. For a few years at least. Now I’m in building #1. At the very least it’s the next closest building to home now that the closest building has been sold.
  2. Trash cans. A few years ago one of our buildings started a pilot program where all of the little trash barrels at everyone’s desks were removed in favor of a few centrally located barrels. There was a reason for it but it wasn’t my building so I more or less forgot it happened. When I was unpacking my stuff this morning I noticed none of the desks had barrels, and there were a few centrally located barrels around the space. Aw shit. They took our buckets away. Damn it.

Once again, I am sure there are other things but I can’t think of them right now. We don’t have a cafeteria. Well, we do still have the cafeteria room and all, but we don’t have a catering company selling us lunch anymore. We knew that though. That’s a Covid-19 casualty that will probably come back eventually. No big deal, I want to brown bag it anyway.

I’ll probably write follow up posts as I think of more stuff to write. Suffice to say, being back in the office building is weird. Very weird.

Eye Doctor

I have an eye doctor appointment scheduled for about an hour from now. I have my insurance card at the ready, I need to stop for gas on the way, but otherwise I’m all set.

And I am freaking out. This isn’t the first time I am voluntarily letting someone get right up close to me, but in the Covid-19 world (note, I did not say post-Covid-19 world) I am just not comfortable with it yet. I don’t know if I will ever feel comfortable with it again. I hope so. I can’t handle this extra stress piled on top of all of the other extra stress. I’m tired of this. Additionally, if you allow me to quote the great Roger Murtaugh, I’m too old for this shit.

I’m hoping to get a pair of general use glasses and a pair of sitting at the computer all day working glasses. We’ll see.

Lunch Break

Lunch break on a Wednesday. We’ve been talking about the desks in our new building today. March 13, 2020 was the last day at our desks in the Waltham building. Two months ago the Waltham building was sold. Now we have desks in another building but prior to this morning none of us had gone to check it out. One guy went today and reported back that none of our stuff from Waltham has made it to the new desks yet. Uh oh. The upside is that some of us might be getting new monitors out of the deal. I had two when we left. They were both old and less than good. This could work out for me.

Wait… didn’t I write something about not talking about work?

The AC folks have come and gone. The window for their arrival was between 7:00 and 11:00. They knocked on the door at 10:50. His first question was, would you like me to wear a mask? Yes, yes I would. Thanks. It was just a routine cleaning and the AC in the wall in the bedroom clearly benefitted from it because it’s working like crazy now. It’s actually cold in here. I haven’t spent much time in the rest of the house yet so I don’t have any news from that front yet.

The tech said the wall unit in the bedroom was pretty old. Huh? It was installed three years ago. How is that old? Was it sitting on some warehouse shelf for a decade before it was installed in our house? Worse… was it used?

My father is in the hospital again. Day two. My brother is with him. The idea is to move him back into a rehab so that he can get back to a point where he can take care of himself better than he can now… which he can’t. He asked to have some of his more common aches and pains looked at while he was in there. Good idea. No real news on any front yet. Hopefully he’ll be in a new rehab quickly and he can get back to working on getting better. I am scared and worried and stressed and wracked with guilt and I am just overwhelmed with it all… and I’m not the one in the hospital bed. I can’t even begin to imagine how he feels. I hate this. I want my dad to be better again.

So Covid is over, right? The world is opened up again, right? People are still getting sick and people are still dying, but it’s all over, right? I’m thinking about things that I can do that were put on hold. Vacations would be first on that list but we have two college kids now and we are out of money. I already had a haircut, but I need another one because my hair grows faster than light. I need to get my eyes checked. Jen has done that already but see the previous sentence regarding money. I may have to ride out my old glasses for a little while longer. There is a guitar and an amplifier that I’d like to trade in. It depends on how much I can get for each item, but if I can get a used ’68 Deluxe Reverb or a used Les Paul Junior in exchange, I might. I don’t know how that will go.

Okay, time to clean up my lunch and get back to work. The hope is we will be watching episode two of Loki by 6:00pm. Four hours or so from now. Fingers crossed.

Wish my dad good luck, okay? Thanks.

I’m Tired

I am really tired tonight but we’re going to hang out in the living room for a while and watch the tube.

Is it weird that the last two programs I watched, Fear the Walking Dead and an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 whose name I didn’t catch, both ended with a nuclear warhead detonating over American soil? Is that an omen or some shit? I keep trying to figure out what the “nuclear option” is for my parents’ healthcare. Now I’m watching bombs go off in the good ol’ USA.

Coincidence?

I need to make some music. I need my band to get back together. I don’t know if it’s possible. Covid-19 done fudged everything up.

Stupid global pandemic.

Put the Damn Mask On

I just had a door to door salesman ring my doorbell without a mask on. What the fuck is wrong with people? Even if you’re vaccinated, how do you know I am? How do you know my family is? Act like a responsible fucking human who at least acknowledges other humans and put the fucking mask on your fucking face.

The Pandemic is Over, I Guess

Just went to a Hallmark store to pick up a graduation card. Probably 20 people in the store, including staff. Guess how many masks.

Go on, guess.

One.

Guess which customer was wearing it.

Me.

So Covid-19 really is over then. We must be imagining all of the daily cases then. Weird, huh?