At some point the wildfires have to end, right? I just want to breath again.
There was a meme floating through Facebook this past week asking "What company or service that has closed would you bring back?" And I was like "Wow... so many." But if I was forced to pick just one, it would probably be Anthro.
This is a copany that made industrial furniture. And I bought a lot of it. Their stuff was built like a tank, looked great, and had a lot of thought behind it. My two desks at work (along with my scanner stand) is Anthro. My desk at home used to be Anthro until I used a built-in nook desk for my computer and put it into storage. But I still have Anthro shelving at home.
You've probably seen Anthro products before even if the name isn't ringing any bells... it's pretty iconic-looking...
The reason I'd like to bring Anthro back (other than they made such great stuff) is that I need some replacements for the plastic shelf brackets. They're beefy, but plastic gets brittle after 30 years and they're starting to split on me.
Right now I'm essentially canibalizing parts from various Anthro stuff to keep the pieces I'm still using operational.
I wonder if somebody out there is 3D printing the pieces I'm looking for? Seems like there's a demand for it given how many thousands upon thousands of furniture pieces that Anthro make for the decades they were running.
I have had enough of this smoke.
I guess you could say that it is looking a little better today, but the smell is still hanging in the air and the hills are still hazy. It would be nice if they could manage to get the wildfires contained... not just for my sinuses, but for all the little woodland critters that are being made homeless.
IN OTHER NEWS...
Since I can't go outside except to drive to work, I have been staying indoors huddled up next to my air purifiers and watching a lot of television. And holy crap have I got a winner. If you want to see one amazing television show, then tune into Netflix for лучше чем люди (which translates as "Better Than People," but has been retitled Better Than Us by Netflix). It takes place in the near future where robots are around to help humans... but a new kind of robot prototype escapes, and her programming is not like other robots!
This series is gorgeously realized. The tech that's integrated into people's lives all seems remarkably intuitive and real. The world that's been created is amazing... not so far from our own, but jusssst different enough to be fascinating. And the cast is incredible (the young girl who plays Sonya is so good). Seriously one of the best things I've watched in a minute. The more you watch, the more it sucks you in! I have no idea why Netflix didn't promote the heck out of this show. You can watch all sixteen episodes dubbed into English, but the original performances are so good it's better with subtitles.
You're welcome!
I am getting close to my breaking point here. I am doped up on allergy medication all day, which means I'm falling asleep all day. The irony being that the constant drainage of my sinuses makes it impossible to actually sleep.
This is Day 3 of being held hostage by increasing amounts of wildfire smoke. Except I still have to go into the office, which involves my opening the door to the smokey hellscape outside, dashing out of the house, then closing the door as quickly as I can (then hoping that the air purifiers will get rid of any smoke that crept inside).
But the cats? They don't seem to care about the smoke at all. Both of them are out in the catio several times a day. You'd think that their enhanced sense of smell would be overwhelmed, but apparently they care less about that than having a few remaining warm days outside (though it's not so warm here any more!). I worry about their tiny lungs... but they're so low to the ground that there's not much smoke there. But the smell is still fierce.
I remain hopeful that they'll be able to put out the fires very soon thanks to dwindling heat and occasional rains, but every time I look at the wildfire map the fire perimeter seems unchanged.
I'm destined to have smoke on the brain for a while longer, I guess.
This year we've been blessed with few wildfires plaguing us. And those that have been around haven't really blown into the valley all that much.
Until now.
Very early Sunday morning I woke up smelling smoke, which always provides a small amount of trauma because my mind instantly transports back to when I was in the middle of a fire and panic sets in. Once I realized that it wasn't my house on fire, but was instead smoke from one of the three fires in the mountains, I was flooded with relief. For about 5 minutes. Then I had to think about how this would affect my serious smoke allergies...
The nearby hills are completely missing here
Here is the treat that I get to endure when the smoke gets terrible...
So... not a great day to be me! Hopefully you're having a better day being you.
I think I'm dead.
Or, at the very least, dying.
So you'll have to excuse me not feeling like blogging tonight. I'm going to go to bed so I can die in peace.
EXPECT ME TO RISE FROM THE DEAD TOMORROW FOR THE LATEST APPLE EVENT! NO RESPECTABLE APPLE WHORE STAYS DEAD WHEN TIM COOK TAKES THE STAGE!
International Labour Day is a global holiday on May 1st which celebrates the contribution of workers to society and advocate for their rights. The United States, ever marching to the beat of our own drum, celebrates our Labor Day today.
I, of course, had to work.
Which is fine. I plan on taking a half-day off on Wednesday.
Somebody else who isn't getting a holiday today either?
Otherwise you have to assign feelings to
Look, I did it again.
When Jake used to get sick or be upset, he hid from me. Him not showing up for a meal or running to meet me when I walked in the door is how I knew something was wrong. But now? Complete opposite. When he eats a bug and feels sick or is stressed about something, he will cling to me like glue. He's so clingy that I've come dangerously close to stepping on him.
Last night I have no idea what happened... probably ate a praying mantis for no reason at all or something equally disgusting... but he was on me. On the couch. Going upstairs. Brushing my teeth. Climbing into bed. And it's not like he's on the bed with me... he's squeezed up to me as close as he possibly can be.
At first, it's incredibly sweet that he thinks of me as comfort food when he's not doing well. But around midnight when I really should be going to bed, it's not quite so sweet. I'm scared that if I fall asleep I might roll over on him and crush him, so I continued to work for another hour. Around 1:00am, I was so tired that I couldn't focus on work and started playing on the internet
The first thing I did was find a TikTok where a guy was talking about crAIyon, a site that draws whatever you can think of. And what was the first thing that came to mind? Taylor Swift eating corn on the cob!
Have you ever seen anything so terrifying? Well hold on to your hats, because next up was Ryan Reynolds on a boat wearing a bear hat!
Then came A bear at the movies eating popcorn in a newspaper hat!
And A cat in a birthday hat eating cake!
Once I got to the nightmare that was Ernest Borgnine Wearing a Dress and Sitting on a Toilet I knew that I had to stop.
AND, NO, I DON'T KNOW HOW MY BRAIN COMES UP WITH THIS STUFF!
After that I came across a TikTok which lead me to a YouTube series by comedian/actor Kyle Prue called Rabbit. For such a shallow premise, it gets shockingly deep. By the time I got to the third episode I was completely obsessed and had to finish off all five (even though Jake had already climbed to the end of the bed). If you want a time-waster that has some serious thought behind it, this is a trailer for the series...
Now, right off the bat I should inform you that when he hits the woman with the hammer, it's not what you think. This is smarter than that. And I'm telling you... if this was a television series, I would totally watch it.
And now it's running close to 2:00am so I really, really need to try and get some sleep. It's now Friday so I guess this counts as my Friday post? I sure hope so.
Traveling the world is not the only way to have a more open perspective concerning the people living on it. But it definitely helps. If there's one thing that I've taken away from my travels, it's that the vast, vast majority of people on this planet just want to live their lives in peace. They want to have a place to life. Have food to eat. Maybe pop out some kids and raise a family. But above all, they want to not have to live their lives in fear. Unfortunately fear is a highly effective tool to control people, so our lives are governed by fear.
They hate us, so you have to hate them more.
They want what we have, so you have to destroy them before they take it.
We deserve to have what they have, so we need to take it.
Our lives are more important than their lives, so they don't deserve to live.
It is an endless cycle of hatred and fear which keeps powerful people in power and people without power in line so that powerful people maintain their power.
In all honesty, I thought that the advent of the internet would severely cripple the ability of people to use fear as a motivator. "Surely once people see that there is no reason to hate other people since everybody around the globe basically wants the same thing out of life, powerful people will lose their grip on us!" I thought.
To say that this was not the case is a gross understatement.
Turns out the internet was just another tool for powerful people to control us with hate and fear. Even worse, it allows non-powerful people to have a global audience for their hate and fear.
And so it has all escallated to such obscene levels that I'm wondering if we can escape it before we destroy ourselves. It's nice to hope so... but reality says we probably won't.
Which is such a shame.
Because all that the vast, vast majority of people on this planet want is just to live their lives in peace.
When your day starts out with bad news, it kinda sets the tone for your day... probably your entire week. Here it is 11:20pm and I can definitely see how this is going to bleed into tomorrow.
Which makes me seriously questioning getting out of bed in the morning, I tell you whut. If I didn't have cats who insist on a timely breakfast, I'd probably take a pass. Because as if my Monday Morning Bad News wasn't enough, there's wildfire smoke in the air which is serious headache fodder for me.
In other news...
The attacks on my WordPress install have been unrelenting, and rather than getting hacked yet again, I installed not one... but two security packages. One for WordPress and one for everything else. It hasn't stopped the attacks, but it makes me feel better to know that they'll have a bit harder time trying to break in.
Except now it's harder for me to actually log-in to post, so I guess my life has been made worse as well (or, in the case of today, even more worse. But that seems to be how life works these days.
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