Sorry I've been absent for... ummm... two weeks?

In case you haven't been keeping up with the news, the fires here in Eastern Washington State have been seriously scary. Spokane, in particular, has been catching fire. The city had evacuations of around 65,000 people at one point. 900 structures burned down.

Spokane is three hours to the East of me. But there are fires to the North as well. The combination of which has filled the skies in my region with smoke...

And, as you may know, I have severe smoke allergies.

In order for my lungs to endure it, I am taking medication which tears up my stomach. So I try not to take it except when needed to be able to work. The rest of the time my eyes water, my nose runs, and my lungs... itch. And that's the worst part. Itching from the inside and not being able to do anything about it.

And so...

I hunker down at home with my air purifiers and try to do nothing so I don't have to be medicated.

Including blogging.

But then today things were a little better. No idea if it's going to stay that way for a while.

I plan on enjoying it while it lasts.

And so... digital price tags have finally arrived in my region of Redneckistan.

Needless to say, I positively hate them. Mostly because the idea of "dynamic pricing" is shit. Stores raising prices at certain times of the day or to test the maximum people will pay or whatever else shitty things are coming out of it are needlessly consumer-hostile.

But the bigger reason? THEY ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO READ!

They are dim, low-contrast, and have a weird look to small type which makes them hard to see. Given that my eyes are not the best, my only option to actually read the fucking things when they are not at direct eye-level is to take a photo with my iPhone and zoom in to read them that way...

Assuming I can get past the fucking glare. I had to take THREE PHOTOS before I could get an angle where a photo could even help...

There are some laughs to be had, however. Take for instance these tomatoes that were on sale for 00¢ off regular price...

More than a couple signs were malfunctioning, making an already hard-to-read price even harder for visually-challenged people like me. Or anybody, really...

This is at Safeway, which used to truly be my most favorite place to shop. But then they started making it so you can only get discounts if you sign up for marketing. Then they made it so that some discounts were only available if you clipped a digital coupon. Then they made it so you got points but never really know exactly how to apply them. Then they made it so you only got the best savings if you bought them on subscribe-and-save. It's just been a slow decent into madness. And half the time something goes wrong... my coupons don't register so I get charged extra. Or a discount on the shelf doesn't register at the register. Or whatever. It's all such frickin' bullshit. JUST GIVE ME THE BEST PRICE WITHOUT HAVING TO JUMP THROUGH ALL THESE STUPID FUCKING HOOPS!

And, of course, like all grocery stores now-a-days, you are chained to their stupid app. Which also never works right. I wanted some diced potatoes, but the location in the store was obscured. So I clicked on the location icon and it brings up six pages of crap to scroll through, BUT NO FUCKING LOCATION!

Does anybody who develops these apps actually test them? Or use them... AT ALL?!?

I swear, most of the time I get to the point that I never want to shop at Safeway again. But switching to another store is kinda senseless because they're all getting to be the same.

I don't mean to sound like a whiny luddite, but how the fuck did we get here?

The smoke has been clearing quite a lot, making the air quality bad instead of outright toxic. This is not expected to last, however, and the forecast says that the doom smoke will return this evening. Thought I have no clue how they actually forecast any of this. Probably something to do with wind conditions, I'd imagine.

I am attempting to enjoy the respite from constant headache, itchy lungs, watery eyes, and a running nose while I can but, in all honesty, the problem never goes away completely. It's just a matter of degrees. This morning, for example, my headache was still there... it just wasn't so bad that I felt like slamming my head into a wall.

At least not because of wildfire smoke.

There's still plenty of other reasons to slam my head into a wall.

Happy Gravity Reversal Day, everybody!

Since 40-60 million casualties are projected worldwide, I considered canceling my doctor's appointment and reading a book. But it's just my luck I'd be one of the people who actually survives this heinous gravity abnormality, and then I'd end up getting charged for a doctor's appointment that I didn't show up for. And so I hopped in the car and off I went.

The sun was looking very, very angry this morning, thanks to the wildfire smoke returning with a vengeance...

Speaking of angry, my eyeball isn't in the best shape. Some of my blood vessels in there are encased and not filled with blood like they should be (which you can see when my surgeon zoomed in on the right-hand side here...

And so I get to come back in December to have some dye injected so he can get a better picture of what's going on with the vessels in there. Sounds like fun!

The good news is that my optic nerve looks to be in great shape and the laser surgeries to contain my retina falling apart seem to have done the job...

And then... after all that fun... I went to get my 11th COVID shot! Which is to say I've had one COVID shot plus ten boosters, I suppose. My doctor suggested that somebody with my lung problems should get doped up every six months, so I follow the advice of my doctor and scientists who actually study this stuff so I don't end up on a ventilator or something equally terrible. LIKE DEAD! Though if you ask all the wacky conspiracy nuts, I'll be dying from the COVID vaccinations any minute now. Something I've been hearing since my very first vaccination years ago. And yet here I am.

And... oh... would you look at that.

Gravity didn't reverse itself after all!

Yet another thing that scientists said wouldn't happen. But we live in the stupidest timeline where people actually believe the stupid shit they read on the internet, which is why I've been seeing an escalation of idiotic crap like this...

What amazes me is that no matter how many times we hear about the end of the world or anti-science idiocy like gravity reversing or CERN ripping open a hole in space-time or whatever... people continue to believe the dumbasses who just move on to even more asinine predictions when their current prediction fails. There's people lining up to believe some of the stupidest shit imaginable for reasons I can't even begin to guess.

Maybe conspiracies are so much fun to believe that it doesn't matter if they're right or wrong?

Which would explain a lot.

Just checking in to let everybody know that I'm still alive during my 11th COVID vaccination and the 7.3-second full gravity reversal that happened yesterday! Sure I woke up with a bit of a sore arm, but I'm totally not dead. At least not yet.

OR AM I ?!?

For all you know I could totally be dead and typing this from beyond the grave.

Given that the air was new levels of toxic thanks to the wildfire smoke everywhere, I certainly feel like I'm dead...

You can just make out the nearby hills on the left-hand side there. Which is to say it's not a good day to have smoke allergies like me. I end up taking all kinds of pills and inhaler shots to keep my lungs from itching and driving me insane... and aspirin to help push through the headaches.

There ain't enough medicine on earth to take care of the watery eyes and runny nose though. Those I just have to live with.

OR DIE WITH, if you're paying attention.

Though it's entirely possible that I've been AI all this time. Which would be cool because it means the trillions of dollars spent on the crap was worthwhile for something.

I woke up in a coughing fit. At first I thought I was dying because I had my 11th COVID vaccination, but it turns out I had just spent too much time outside yesterday.

The coughing was bad enough, but it turned out I disturbed my cats, which got me death stares. They may sleep for 20 hours a day, but losing even the five minutes they were awakened before they fall asleep again is infuriating to them.

Oh well. They don't have to sleep on my bed. They choose to.

I have an industrial washer and dryer that was left by the previous owner. To save water I've been waiting until I completely run out of something before I was a load. Because the size of my appliances means I can. For example, I don't wash T-shirts until I've worn all my T-shirts. Today I just put on my last pair of clean underwear. Which means I have to wash underwear when I get home from work.

Any bets on whether or not I'll forget?